faraway in the country

i just came back from faaar away in the countryside.

i was over at aimee's for the weekend.

her family's really kind. they're very nice people.

im really tired now cause it takes about 2 hours to get there from home.

aimee picked me up from pekanham which is the end of train line and she drove us even further to nar nar goon where she stays. it's really far out. she stays at maryknoll actually. i shant describe what her place is like. im too tired. and i feel rather disoriented now.

maybe it's because i was out in the country for 2 days without really expecting it to be so "country", maybe it's because i was in a fairly different culture for 2 days (dont get me wrong, i really loved it), or maybe it's just because aimee and i got up really early today, hoping to catch the sunrise. anyway, her place is really homey and cosy. very english. she took me round applejack in the evening with her dog bonnie. her dog's adorable, she's a happy fat dog. we saw horses! and aimee taught me how to feed them :D

here, she told me how asians love taking pictures. hmm.. i know one who doesn't. haha. maybe in general, asian teenagers take more pictures than western teens. i dunno. i've never really noticed.

rosie (aimee's 13yr old sister) had her birthday party yesterday. this picture was taken in the bungalow, a small function room type place (with tv and couches and all) behind their house. she had a disco ball and a proper sound system (like the type we have at ocf) and strobe lights and spot lights and nice party food :D this picture was before the dancing and stuff started. oh aims and i didn't join them. haha.

aimee mrs matthews and i made a joint effort in cooking green curry with chicken and aubergine. is that how you spell it? haha.. i think english people call it aubergine. aussies call 'em eggplants. singaporeans call them.... i can't remember what i called them before i got here. mummy taught me to call them brinjal as a kid (now how do you spell that?). but i had forgotten that over the years and never really had to identify an eggplant so i didn't bother finding out. a few of my friends called it in chinese. i can't remember what the chinese name is now.

mrs matthews was really keen on teaching me to cook. she's the sweetest, really! hahaha.. she got aimee to scan and print a few recipes for me and showed me how to cut an onion. hahaha.. and and and she showed me how to make white sauce. and i inherited a collection of herbs/spices!! :D she's amazing.

ok so anyway, dinner was really special. we had rice and one dish - curry chicken and eggplant. it was really good. we had wine after. :) i think the best part of dinner was when we held hands to say grace. aimee's dad said grace. they're a tight family and i think they're really caring and giving.

this morning, the two of us woke up and took a short drive to cannibal hill. we climbed up to the summit in hope of seeing the sun rise, but it didn't quite wait for us. the view's great eh?

aimee drove me, rosie and josie (rosie's friend) to church today. her dad was home building something at the back and her mum was already in church. barnaby (aim's brother) went straight to the church next door from his friend's place (that's why he wasn't home on saturday). it was the smallest church i've ever been to. it looked like just about 30 people i think? just at that service alone of course. mm.. it's a nice little anglican church. today was also the first time i saw people drink wine from the same cup at holy communion. i dipped my bread though. it's nice in a small church because everyone knows everyone else. :D
ok gwen's here yay :D

run

after the previous post, i took a quick shower and left the house for a run down the yarra river (first time this year). i took two whole hours to get there and back! that was about 8km i think. maybe slightly more. dong and i used to take about 55 minutes last year. :(

ok but i stopped for about 40 minutes to do QT. and maybe i took longer cause i ran slightly more than we used to, plus, the route i take from college square is slightly longer than that from palmerston.

i just heated up chicken that dong cooked for his cell group last night. YUMMM! i figured i should show off a bit for him. eh heh this probably is the best meal i've had since i got back. or one of the best luh cause cafe sweetheart makes a good competitor. the picture i took's not the best i admit, because i only thought of taking a picture after i was halfway thru it.

aaaahhahahaha! okaay.. it looks a bit disgusting. but yes it was pretty good. he got the recipe off a magazine i was flipping through while we were waiting for our pizza to be done at mark's place.

off to do some work now.

it looks different everyday

the sky looks different every morning! today, it looked like a rainbow because the colours became really evenly spread. i was uploading that picture when out of the corner of my eye i spotted some odd shaped things in the sky!! i was soo excited i tell you! i'll upload the other pictures now.

see the two dots on the left of the picture? my mind immediately went "*gasp! HOT AIR BALLOONS!!!"

and look! at the same time there was a low rumbling noise - it was coming from the spark on the upper right hand corner. that was a helicopter checking to see if melbourne city is happy and sound! :Dman.. look at how the sky looks! i can't tell if this picture's focus is on the sky or the hotair balloon. probably means it's not a very good picture, but look at the sky! it's magnificent! i want to be on a hot air balloon and see that kinda sky too!!and just when i thought there were only two romantic couples on hotair balloons, many more started floating up! :D they're absoloutely amazing. i think there are about 7 or 8 of them in the sky now. some have floated too high/close for me to see from my window.

today, when i was watching the sun rise, i thought of ratana. how when i first met her, we watched the sun rise together from the back of the orphanage. she probably thought that was nothing, but i, then 13, just insisted that the sunrise in cambodia is prettier than the sunrise in singapore so i just HAD to watch the sky turn colour there. then i thought of khemra. the second time i watched the sunrise in cambodia was 2 years later with him up on the watertank. khemra, ren, daniel and i had not slept the whole night because it was our last night there. i miss them. here i am thinking - "im in uni now, living on my own, paying my own bills (with mummy's money), trying to cook my own meals.. and khemra is older than me. what would he be doing? he's not a kid in the orphanage anymore"

all this just makes me want to go back. aimee and i were having lunch together yesterday and she told me about how cynical she's becoming of the whole "go help for a week or two" thing because the effects don't last very long, and going there may hurt the kids even more than help them because they will have to say goodbye and be sad. i reckon going on short-term trips like that can still be good for them though.

i suppose at the end of the day, we ought to have genuine care for people. sounds so mother theresa. doesn't sound the least bit easy at all. but the world probably needs more people like that.

the thing about love

weddings are the sweetest celebrations to attend. dong attended one over the weekend, and i would be attending pastor tim's if only the run for the kids dong and i signed up for wasn't that same morning. marriage. that was the cup from which C and her husband took their first holy communion together as a married couple. :)

these are bottles of bubbles. dong took this picture knowing i like bright colours, or colours in general. heh later on he realised i like it not only because it's colourful, but also because they are ac colours! hahaha. :D

see.. she looks so happy right? i was thinking of what it means to love someone last night. and what it means to marry him/her. i figured that if i were to love my husband the best i can, i'll have to learn to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength first. easy? nooo.. so maybe that's why im not getting married any time soon. hahaha.. well yeah, and if my husband loves God very much, he'll know how to love me too. he'll know how to love me for who i am, for who God created me to be.

on a side note, i woke up for a little while really early this morning hoping to catch the sunrise again. and i did. the sky was extremely pretty this morning. the colours are just so romantic. it's sooo preeeetyyy!! God made this place beautiful. but i can't say we take care of His creation very well. this picture just makes me think of how big and magnificent and full of love God is.
dong and i went for our twice weekly run at princes park today and for the first time managed to cover 6 km. lol we havent run this long a distance in a long looong time.

God is love :D ahaha random picture we took earlier on today.

a year later im back again

Joshua 24:15
"but if serving the Lord seems undesireable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. Bus as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
where can you run to escape from yourself
where you gonna go
where you gonna go
salvation is here.

drink drink drink it up

roland. i gotta say he's got dimples i wish i have.

anyway, yetty and i were talking about pubs and stuff today. or rather, he was telling and i was listening. drinking's so ingrained in the culture here. first thing you hear of when you go for orientation is "sign up for commerce camp! it's lots of fun - booze boooze and more booooze!". i didn't quite feel the pressure to go to clubs or pubs last year. but this year, with so many more local friends, it's like i can't avoid drinking as easily. it's yetty's birthday on thursday and he's gona chill out at a pub, but like.. im not going even though i'd like to celebrate his 19th with him too, buuuut. yeah. so. im using "im not 18 yet" as an excuse, or reason. reason. yeah. but hey i turn 18 in may, how long more can i hide with this eh.

yesterday this guy invited a few of us over to his place on saturday for a swedish party (more drinking). i didn't quite know how to react cuz i hardly knew him. i think the difficult thing about this is that if you go out with a new friend and his mates and no mutual friends, it's kinda... daunting don't you think? i think the first few times would be. it's like a mini culture shock.

and it's not that im against drinking or bear a grudge against people who drink. drinking's fine. i think what im afraid of is more of the type of interaction that goes on in those environments. the pub that we were at on mandy's 21st was really nice. i liked that a lot. and wala walla. i like that a lot too. i like live music and the whole ambience. i like going with people who love me :) jolene and lishan wanted to check out this pub near jo's place. haha i'd like to go with them someday too :D eh heh heh. drinking's fine (but i dont like the taste of beer though. maybe a mocktail :D a girl drink!) but getting drunk's... urrgh. not good.

seven, sunrise

i woke up at 0700 yesterday without any alarm ringing in my ears. that was already a good start. when dong didn't pick up the first time i rang him i didn't try waking him up because i wanted to catch the sunrise, which i did! i did my QT as the sky turned from blue to pink and as the street lights went out one by one.. awww so preettyyyyy!! :D creator and creation

i made breakfast for myself and prepared lunch (since aimee and hannah always pack lunch on mondays). i fried an egg, melted the cheeseandchives spread it on the wholemeal sesame bread i got from bakers delight and added slices of tomatoes :D ahaha it looked quite nice and colourful too! i sliced a banana and popped it in my lunchbox with the sandwich. yuum.

i managed to do some revision before school too. so it was a really productive morning.

i got up at 8 today. the sun rose without me :( but it's still a beautiful morning nontheless :) did QT again and a bit of revision. just a little bit. because i got distracted and went down to look for gwennie.

anyway, here are some pics from last week.

that's yetty and varun when were were doing work at the frank tate.haha yetty just got spects and i think they look quite nice on him. i think non-asian guys look nice with glasses. i've got a gazillion classes with yetty. he's from melbourne but he's got ethiopian backgroud and varun's from india and he's done an attachment at smu before. man i've got pretty cool friends. :D

dinner at grilled with gwen and mark before catching watchmen. which i think was not bad. mark's from new york and he's not a surfer although he looks like one with his ponytail board shorts necklace and flip flops. the two of them were cracking me up.

ok gotta go get ready for school.

ps: i made green bean soup yesterday. SUCCESSFULLY. unlike mummy who had to get daddy to salvage it :D yay elisa CAN cook! im cooking with gwen tonight.

he knows everything

i came outta my micro econs tutorial annoyed.
there's this boy in class.
he knows everything.
im serious.
everything.
it's a good thing.
but he just had to answer every single question the tutor asked.
i think his hand shot up every five minutes and he talked just as much as the tutor did.
ok maybe not. i think that's kinda the way things go around here.
you're in the outback elisa.
there are only two types of people, as helen used to say-
the quick
and the dead.
there's no blaming him. we'd all rather be quick than be dead.
he just understood it quicker than the rest of us did.
good for him
:)

sweet longing

amanda just sent me pictures from hoe yong's wedding which I MISSSSED :((( she made a powerpoint for me and part of me felt like crying when i was looking at the slides. so sweeeet! and touching. aw..

haha hoeyong's still the same old hoeyong.
:)

it must be really nice to be married to someone who loves and serves God, and whom you can love and serve with.

seek ye first the kingdom.

melbourne without school work

the past weekend has got to be one of the more happening weekends i've had. maybe happening is not quite the word. pleasant i should say. because it's the first weekend after the start of school, there wasn't much work to do (i didn't do anything at all).

i had to get up super early in the morning at 9am on saturday to go running (or more like SLOW jogging) with oj, vern, ee jen, sticky and josh. yes. i got all the names down this time. it was not a bad run. the last time i went running was 6 or 7 months ago.

dong and i headed to cafe sweethearts for brunch after that. heh we almost got lost on the way there although we've been there together once before - a long long time ago. the food was absolutely scrumptious! the mushrooms just made me wish there was a real willy wonka who can make me some mushroom flavoured gum. ok i think i just made the mushrooms sound quite gross, but man! check out what we had for brunch!

banana and pecan pancakes with their infamous eggs (scrambled) and smoked salmon and YUMMY MUSHROOMS on the side.
that's him forming a barricade (without realising it) with his little tea set. so ocd.

i also popped by su ling's for a bit because she was having a garage sale which i remembered wrongly as starting at 3 instead of 1. i kinda feel bad for not getting anything, but i wasn't quite in the mood for buying stuff (unless it's food).

later in the evening, i met chu phu and his two friends (billy,ian). we were supposed to meet jolene and lishan BUT they were all over the place and we decided that it was too troublesome to meet up. SO, i had dinner with the 3 guys before we all headed down to the moomba water festival to check out the carnival stalls AND watch the fireworks.

the atmosphere down by the yarra river where the festival was was fantastic! i took my time as i walked and the three guys tagged along. haha.. i people watched a lot. but i don't think that necessarily makes me a good people-watcher. i guess i was more of taking in the energy. too bad i couldn't get photos because i didn't bring my camera (because i was afraid it might get stolen - how silly). we walked through the carnival and checked out all the different fun fair games. chups tried to win this big stuff toy for me at this water shooting game BUT he couldn't. haha and im not complaining because i am not a soft-toys person. yeah.

the fireworks were amazing! well.. ok actually, i reckon the fireworks at the national day parade rehearsal i was at in primary 5 is still much grander and prettier. but imagine this - the 4 of us were just 4 international students in the wonderfully diverse gathering of people some of whom were fellow international students, others of whom were victorians. families, couples, cliques of friends, father and daughter hand in hand... i loved it. well. anyway. i couldn't stop smiling as i watched the fireworks because they were really really pretty. i would say not many things would beat sitting on a little slop by the river, watching bright colourful sparkles get shot up into the night sky from little floating platforms on the river.

:D

i went again on sunday night but with dong, after a really satisfying dinner at vinabar that satisfied my craving for really good diced beef on red rice. yum.

i had lunchw ith aimee again today. we went to our garden eh heh heh (sounds so exciting right. it does to me. dont judge me.). hannah couldn't make it cause she skipped school to go out with her family! it's a public holiday but not a uni holiday see. aimee and i shared a curry (with rice) and she made me a bun with cream cheese and smoked salmon :D yay! so nice of her really.

dong and i went running at princes park today after checking out the poster sale at the union house. i couldn't even complete 4 km. tell me HOW! how how how. how to run for the kids next month?? 4km's just half of what we used to do leh! i feel quite bad about it. i don't know if i've got enough motivation to push myself for more than that. we might have to keep running at princes park instead of go down to the yarra river. RAHHHHH! noooooooo....

end of week one

i can't remember what i'd wanted to blog about. there was SOMETHING!!








nope. can't remember. gwen's coming over to get pimple cream now.
i gotta wake up early to go jog at carlton gardens with oj and ee jen and vern and josh and i dont know who else.

on swimming

gwen wanted to go swimming
me: im shy la. im conscious of my body
gwen: ya but you'll be in the water so nobody will see.. except the people in the water.
me: ya which is like everybody.

i just ate a dozen sugar coated biscuits. tell me how. gwen says my body is preparing itself for the baby. IF i do have a baby. which im not because i feel my period coming. plus, if i do get a baby, i'd be a virgin mother. ok back to "work". im in the seminar room with gwen and we're both trying to read school-related stuff.

gwen: it's easier for girls to lok hot because they can put make up and do their hair but if guys are born with a not nice face then that's it.
------------
me:if my mum is very very ill he'll (my husband) wil have to go back with me
gwen: if she's sort of a bit ill?
me: i might just go back (i was gonna say i'll go back for a short time but gwen cut in)
gwen:like if she cough.. (i thought she was gonna say cough out blood) from time to time?

day 1 at school

my first day at school didn't quite feel like school. from 7 plus in the morning till 10 plus i kept drifting in and out of sleep till i finally decided that i should get out of bed and get ready for school. so i quickly got outta the house and popped by ototo sushi, which is now called makodo or mokadi or mokada or something.. yeah so that was my pre-lecture lunch.

i went to law school for my "Food for a Healthy Planet" lecture which turned out to be pretty introductory/overviewish. i kinda can't wait for it to start cause this university breadth subject is about health of people and health of planet - both of which i take a fair bit of interest in :)
so i was in the lecture theatre for an hour, sitting beside this really pretty blonde and tanned 2nd sem girl who deferred 2sem because she'd gone touring in europe with her boyfriend. these aussies really know how to enjoy likfe and take things easy. i love it. she's always wanted to come to melbourne uni and she's here now, plus, she wants to do law as a post-grad degree. pretty cool i think. so anyway, i was done with my first day of school in an hour:D


after that, i met hannah and aimee at the union house. we'd planned to go grab a drink from castros, but it happened to be their lunch break between classes so i was the only one who got a drink (since i had already had my lunch). they both had packed lunches so we took our food/drink out to our garden (which was intruded by little groups of mostly aussies). aimee found a small shaded spot and we had our lunch on the grass. people don't usualy talk about what their friends have for lunch, but im gonna talk about what aims and hannah had cause it's really australian to have packed lunches in lunch boxes. too cute. aimee had corn which she later mixed with canned tuna. and she had a banana with that. and lots of water. hannah had a bagel with cheese and lettuce i think. she had giant grapes. haha.. i don't know how they managed to fill their stomachs with just that, but i might just try soemthing like that too. mummy's already telling me to pack healthy sangas to school. ANYWAY, we joined the christian union circle after we were done eating because aimee recognised people form there and she made us move to join them there, which is not a bad thing, really. haha.. the CU students that were there were all biomed/med students though, and they were mostly locals. i was a bit more quiet there, cause i think i prefer listening and looking when im among a lot of anglos and let aimee do all the talking. haha she's really funny.

i had sushi for dinner too. christine came over to make sushi with me :D check it out!

YUMMY!! haha ok, maybe not the best sushis in the world, but i think they're pretty good for first-time sushi makers like me. we were supposed to make these on friday before OCF, but then tine wasn't feeling up to it. when we took the rice outta the fridge today it was rock hard we decided to fry it to make it soft again. turned out okae:D we had a lot of left over ingredients which dong later came to clean up eh heh.

okae and here are the pictures from saturday.

zelia's place. the kitchen/dining area taken from her bedroom/study area.

study area with crazy jolene and hot abs.

abs, shan and jo. clayton looks consideraly different from melbourne city eh?

xox