breakfast lovin'

it's ANZAC day today (a PH), the weekend feels so much longer. :)

the weekend breakfast special continues from saturday. had hot choc, hashbrown, scramble eggs, garlic bread, nutella with banana, and peanut butter with banana for brunch (what a feast!). and you so gotta try oven-baked nutella with banana! recipe from mich dear who kop-ed it from some babysitter show? haha.

imagine now, you bite into that soft bed of thick toast, a generous spread of the world's favourite hazelnut spread, and with the caramelised banana melting in your mouth. what are you waiting for? go bake it for breakfast! :)











we prepared our very first home-made western food last saturday. had oven-baked red wine garlic and onion chicken with steamed brocolli, baked wedges and sweet potato mash. to top it off, mic dear prepared one of her best dish - the green and healthy salad. yummy-licious!













the is a photo taken outside of Old Raffles Place, the restaurant i was talking about in my previous post? heee. the only decent photo i've taken that night. Sonie's dying on me really. i can feel, her time's almost up. if i were to buy a new camera, Sony's definitely out of my consideration set.










it was raining over the weekend, and kinda turned cold as well. but i like it. love sunny days, love rainy nights, love autumn in melbourne.

snapped this photo on my way home from church yesterday. how long have you not seen a rainbow? and what is rainbow-lifex.blogspot.com without a rainbow? (hahaha)














/looks out of window as i type

it's sucha beautiful sunny day today, and i have to slog my ass off the biggest and most complicated management assignment i've had so far.

well no complains, i'd rather do this 5000 words report and struggle with supply chain issues of Ford than finance anytime.

the little red dot

to continue from where i left in my previous post, had Japanese quiz 2 last friday after the presentation and i prolly might just fail it again. it was horrendous! extremely terrible dictation, could not catch most of it.

had the usuals tutorial presentations this week and a mid-sem test yesterday. went out for singapore food after the test and the place's called Old Raffles Place! haaa one of the rare authentic singapore restaurants you'll find in melbourne. the food's really alright, you would probably not even pay $2.50 for their chicken rice but its really one of the best in melbourne already.

chatted abit with the boss at the cash register and he was like so unpro singapore. he was a singaporean but migrated to melbourne for some good 20 years. he was telling us PAP = pay and pay and so many more altered acronyms that was really funny haha. i cant remember off my mind now.

afterwhich it really struck off the patriotic feelings in our hearts. like we were saying singapore ain't that bad right. at least it is freed from all natural disasters, has the lowest crime rates in the world, is safe, blah blah blah. only one factor which put all our hands down during the discussion on pros of singapore. can you guess it already? it starts with W. w_ _ _ _ _ _. let's play hangman. haha.

and val dear was so cute she went to dish out this article on the web that explains why singapore is the world's greatest city. haaa. and from there i came to this website/article that states 40 Singapore foods we can't live without. i was thinking 40? do we have that many? and then i was like, yeaaaa! really! see it for yourself.

1) chicken rice
2) char kway teow
3) wonton mee
4) carrot cake (chai tow kuay)
5) chilli crab
6) bak kut teh
7) sambal stingray
8) fried hokkien mee
9) rojak
10) bak kwa
11) economy rice
12) kway chap
13) oyster omelette
14) katong laksa
15) fish soup bee hoon
16) yong tau foo
17) bak chor mee
18) peranakan kueh
19) bak chang (rice dumpling)
20) kaya toast
21) BBQ chicken wings
22) chin chow grass jelly
23) teh tarik
24) satay
25) ayam penyet (i duno what this is though)
26) ngoh hiang
27) nasi lemak
28) mee siam
29) indian mee goreng
30) popiah
31) roti prata
32) murtabak (this totally remind me of the RK house video hahaha)
33) otah
34) fish head curry
35) nasi padang
36) briyani
37) curry puff
38) goreng pisang
39) ice kachang
40) chendol

how long have you not had these food? well then what are you waiting for? its rated 40 singapore food we can't live without! haaa.

power distance

it was a hell of two weeks since after Easter, and i only managed to breathe properly tonight. haha. well well well, what can i say, fantastic weather everyday! its sunny, cool, breezy and niceee. even with all the work, i feel good everyday! no stress, no frustration, no anger, just RELAX. :)

had my very first presentation in uni last thursday (i knoww right, yes it's my first official presentation not counting tutorial presentations, don't be surprise) on a service firm that we have to audit for our Service Relationship Marketing (SRM) assignment. i dun want to go into details about our pre-presentation work but all i can say is it wasnt at all that smooth sailing. but yea! thank God all was well in the end! :) no need for formal wear because quote Browyn our tutor, 'Australia is a relax country, so no need to wear formal, just appropriate' :)

/sidetracking in process
i never notice this until i was back for holidays and i think it was renee? whoever, we were talking about school and she was like Prof. ___ said blah blah, i was like Prof. ___? she said it was her tutor and i was like, you call your tutor Prof. ___ or Doc. ___ (whichever the degree is)? was very surprised by the title one have to add in addressing their tutors or lecturers.

i was telling her we address our tutors or lecturers by their first name, like POONAM (this OB tutor from India, a very nice lady, and renee cannot stop laughing at her name i duno why haha), BROWYN (my current SRM tutor who cannot control not to share her experience at a jazz club today after a group's presentation on a Gay Club) and Augstin (my Supply Chain Management tutor who was telling us about his marathon last friday, on how he had to abseil down this really steep slope and have people rolling down the slope beside him as he went down, haha).

the differences in culture sneak up to you in such subtle ways you often don't take conscious notices of them. but as they appear every here and there, thought it would be nice and interesting to share.

if you are in Marketing, Management, or have studied culture before, guess that dimension of culture difference (the one about titles) is Power Distance, and unfortunately Singapore is ranked the highest power distance country in the world! it means the degree to which a group values equality in relationships, and a high power distance country means people expect and accept that power is distributed unequally in their society, based on status, age, wealth, education and so on.

and right there in front of our eyes, a living example of how Singapore has a higher power distance than Australia (because if you see everyone as equal, why would you care about his status whether he's a professor, doctor or even toilet cleaner?). haha. we've not only accepted the inequality in relationships, we've also taken it so deep that we must address every teacher Mr. so-and-so (last name) or Doctor Kua for example (is sick.. haha kelsey), so much so that if we don't include their title, it's like a form of disrespect to them (which essentially is just their education status isnt it?).

it isnt disrespect, really. just culture differences. so its fine to call mr lam, boon seng yea? hahaha.


well that was one long sidetrack. so this post has to be continued tmr for the benefits of your eyes. ;)

laughing bomb

hmmmm, im drinking freshly squeezed apple, orange and pear juice. *slurps super awesome, i can open my own juice heaven stall already lah. haha. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acS4o5XbByY

wanted to post this video here but cause of some unknown reason i cant download it into my lappie, hence you are seeing only the link here. do click on it or cnp into your internet explorer!

anyways THIS.VIDEO.IS.SUPER.HILARIOUS. i've already showed my mum and she too cannot stop laughing. its about an auntie driving a lexus trying to park a car. apparently her skills aint that good so she took super long and unknowly caused a jam behind. the person who took this video sounded super frustrated and his commentary is totally the laughing bomb! HAAAA.

the new maid is causing quite abit of uproar in the house btw. just realise the way she washes our clothes and table cloth. oh wait, washes? should be rinse mildly only.

okayy, back to the annoying PM assignment. :(