Continued (1)

It took me a while to play around with my HTC Legend, since HTC put a smaller battery in this smaller than normal touch screen phone (compared to iPhone 4 and HTC Desire HD) but nevertheless I got the apps figured out.

The moment I got the Legend it outclassed both my Nokia 2730 and 5MP Canon camera immediately. Hence the Nokia is now the host to my Lebara number to call back to Penang while the Camera sleeps peacefully in my drawer.

Then the first saturday came about and Anna (I am suppose to call her aunt but she'd rather me omit he seniority) came about. Facebook age people pretty badly, she looks way better in real life. We later got a gathering where everyone came over to celebrate the end of CNY. For the first time I got to see Lao 8 Kor and Uncle Robert Chong (Now I got 2 uncle Roberts... confusingly, so I decided to call one Celsius and the other Fahrenheit due to the first letter in their last names)Sarah was not back yet that night, ETA = 14 days. There was a very exotic Yu Sang made by Lao 8 Kor and nevertheless it tasted wonderful. I cannot recall my dinner that night now... Sry...

After a few more days of going around I finally went to Unilodge @ Melbourne... There was a ton of paperwork and payments to be made (not to mention I screwed up one of the forms when I wrote my birthday instead of the present day below my signature, and I can feel the hatred the reception lady had for me increased in amount... ~~~~) Moved into my room... It is simple and sweet I have to say, one of the closest rooms they have to the toilet... While Chris and Mum were still here we went out to eat dinner either at Lt. Burke St. or we just went to have footscray to have Vietnamese Beef Noodle ('Pho') with tendon, brisket and tribe... I have to say the fish sauce, chili, beansprout and leaves which go with the noodles is fantastic...

Chris and Mum left me at my Unilodge (oh yeah I got room 411 [wa lao still stay on 4th floor again... stay singapore also 4th floor.. wun sien one meh]) on Sunday night so I can prepare for enrolment the next day. Kanasai they said opening time 8.30am but I actually had to go to the International Student's registration to enrol, and they open at 10.30am == Stand on swanston street staying at Hungry Jack's for a whole 2 hrs before registering and contacting Mum and Chris... After being done, they said I have to come for orientation again on Friday... Sigh...

Meanwhile on Tuesday Chris called me to tell me they postponed going to Queensland to Wednesday so they hung around Melbourne CBD for that day and departed the next day. I just went around Swanston St. and took some pictures...

I can still remember there was one night Chris had to drive me n Mum to Caulfield K-Mart to get some funny stuffs for my room (table lamp, pillow, fleece blanket although I already got a blanket...)

Fashion for me has changed only a little, with the addition of a hooded jacket to fend against slightly more chilly weather which is nice compared to Malaysia's carnivorous heat.

On friday when I finally got to the orientation... we were told enrolment and timetables are done ONLINE... if we have existing exemptions we are to go see Dr. Gang Ren about it next week (This annoyed me extremely because later I found out I had to go see Joshua who told me to see Dr. Nira Jayasuriya who told me to find Dr. Saman Desilva who told me to go see the other staff who took over his position as International Student coordinator where I finally found out my exempted subjects. Very confusing ho? Felt like a pinball bumping into everything there is) But it's cool that we have to do stuff ourselves and we don't have staff to work out our enrolment and timetables, a very prevalent problem at INTI Penang... :P :P :P I met several Malaysians at enrolment like Shaegan, Iwan and Daniel...

I forgot which day it was that I was cooking Mee Goreng for my dinner (mee goreng here sucks big time although it's the same brand as back home) that a batch of 3 ladies offered me some food to add to my nutrition... I later got to know them as Kai Lin, Ming and Mei. After some chatting I found out Kai Lin is the sister of my EE senior Kai Yi who is now in Sydney... small world.

The next day I was lying in my room doing nothing and suddenly heard a familiar noise. I looked out the window and found that people were playing Mahjong downstairs... I got downstairs and later played with them for a while and also joined them for dinner as it was William's belated 35th birthday (apparently there were here for really long already)

On another day what freaked me out the most was I walked out of my room and saw a lady wearing a BLACK LAUREATE INTI T-SHIRT... (YES THE SAME ONE THAT I BROUGHT TO MELBOURNE) and I couldn't helped but be stunned and ask where she is from... INTI NILAI...

My timetables and subjects got me pretty messed up and I lost 2 days of classes already (I got an off day on wednesday so I relaxed for another day) Got to my first class for Construction Management and see like a few hundred people in my class... Later went for my Math lecture... and found out the location is a cinema... imagine INTI got class so big that they need go GSC and teach (no not using the small one for 3D movies, the big one with side couple seats) and the class was nearly filled up as well...

Marking scheme in RMIT is mostly on assignments, projects/test and finally final exam. Most subjects set finals as 50% of the total mark, with Math setting 60% as the total mark instead. I personally like the teaching style in RMIT because the teachers are fun to learn from since they crack jokes, and the relate to the current constructions and issues now in Melbourne, so their tutorials and examples are UP TO DATE...

I formed my groups for my projects and I have a 1Malaysia ideal group for Statics (me, Iwan, Shaegan, Conrad and Liang) but for other subjects I have mainly PRC students as my fellow group members.

Project for Statics: Build a bridge
Project for Constrution Management: Analyze the Eastlink project
Project for Wastewater: Make a study kit about Quenos Wastewater treatment plant

I went for an event around Flinder's street station called Lord Mayor's welcome, but till now I have no idea who the Mayor is ~~ and I met the International Student Ministry. They turned out to be a christian based group mainly catering for the social wellbeing of international students (NO I am not converting my religion, any attempt on converting me will result in violent and bloody backlash from me) They seem fun so I just joined them for the Philip Island trip since it's only 1 day, but I am unwilling to go for the Easter camp since it's half a week duration and will cost me $100, PLUS the half a week's rental I have now in Unilodge(~another $100).

The Philip Island trip took me to 4 places: Maru Koala Park (see koala and kangaroos bla bla...), Panny's Chocolate Factory (pretty amazing place), The nobbies seal rocks (this place takes the oxygen out of me as it is just so beautiful) and lastly the Penguin Parade (I M HYPER ANNOYED THAT PHOTOGRAPHY EVEN WITHOUT FLASH IS NT ALLOWED. Their reason? I have to respect the penguins. Bullocks... Rubbish... If YOU want to respect the penguins then DON'T even build the damn place in the first place, or just ask everyone to leave Philip Island and let the penguin population recover in other areas of Philip Island.) The experience was damn good though, since the Penguins come up and sleep in the vegetation for the night.

Along the trip I met Petrus, Ah Beng, Ginger, Jaevon, Poh Hui, Jeslyn and many others who, because of my poor memory, I have forgotten (sorry!) It's a good experience meeting new people and chatting on topics. Ah Beng turned out to be Bee Yee's cousin and Jaevon was Bee Yee's classmate. The world gets even smaller.

Another thing I have to talk about is my exploded phone bill. You see, my plan comes with 200MB of 3G usage and chatting on e-buddy and facebook was just alright. I screwed up because I was trying to learn a new cantonese song and kept on streaming the same MV over and over again. My bill went up to over $174.00 and that was the last straw. I walked to Burke St. to the vodafone store and requested a line, in the end I decided on a 10GB line at $39 and I opted to buy the pocket wifi since it was at half price. The line is pretty good up to now...

In Unilodge no meals are included for you. So I had to dig up my recipe book in my brain. So far I have cooked instant noodles (duh, if I dunno I am better off barbecuing myself and eat) and also some simple beef marinated with soy sauce and pepper, more high level foodies include spaghetti (took me a whole week to finish eating everything), Salmon cheese baked rice and Curry chicken cheese baked rice. I am a cheese lover nonetheless, and so is Johnny 仔... Hee Hee... Worst comes to worst I just buy a Subway footlong Pizza Sub for $7.50 and eat it for lunch & dinner. Meanwhile over here in Melbourne I chose to not eat lunch at all, since I have a cereal breakfast and also I usually snack in the afternoon... I do get hungry, but oh well I don't give a damn.