baby, i'll be home soon

i'll be home soon!!! in a month's time.
cant wait to catch up with family, friends, my baby & the FOOD!!!
OMG, tis is gonna be a long agonizing month.

see ya all soon.

yet another post without pics

you kidding me OH left jus last week? it sure feels like ages ago. work has resumed for me and i'm already heavily bombarded with work up to my neck. although some investigators are still on leave and many pple are still sluggish and it seems like actual work wont start for them until after australia day or february (which marks the end of school holidays).

believe it or not, my monitoring trips are planned till april07 already.

will be in melb next week and the week after. after which, there wont be catch up sessions with ric anymore.

anyhow, the big achievements (for the car) during OH's recent escapade are:

palm beach - ~46km (took abt 1hr 30mins one way)
cabramatta - ~40km
bankstown - ~26km
watsons bay (plus national park) - ~15km

its amazing how these are some distances the locals travel to work. i wont be able to do the same. by the time i get to work, i would be so tired and would need to find a place to catch some winks. from the look of things, i wont be travelling that sort of distances for a while. in time, everywhere will be a stone's throw away.

pics have been minimum these weeks/months or so since laziness got the better of me. incredibly jaded these days. outside work, i jus wanna chill and do nothing. besides, i feel sleepy soon after a quiet dinner and a bath, jus like now.

swissroll at the art gallery

side note: the royal botanic gardens has turned into a hideout for bats. meant to take a shortcut thru the garden to get to the city but the dangling bats changed my mind. u can hear the occasional squeaking at nite at where i stay but seeing so many in broad daylight is quite a horror. OH had a good laugh at my expense which i have yet to "punish" him. no prize for the correct/ obvious answer, we didnt make it thru the garden.

jolly good times

life cant be any better.
i'm enjoying myself big time.
eat, drink, shop, movies, sleep.
and the cycle repeats.

kinda extreme that one sets the alarm for early morning shopping?
haha, we sure did.
it was quite a thrill to see the car boot filled with shopping bags.
shopping rules!

gonna end the anniversary with a movie at the entertainment quarter & good ol' pancakes at the rocks.

*beaming*

let's jus say with OH ard, things are great.

*beaming*

killing 2 birds with 1 stone

went to do my color+perm+cut today.

tis may not be new but i tot it's an ingenious idea.
patrons get to select a movie to watch while getting their hair done.
obviously, if its a haircut, u would never finish a movie.

never notice i was there for 3 hours if not for the movies.

definitely a selling point for the salon.

now, i dont go back to the salon jus for my hairstylist (hairstylist job hop, i salon hop with her) but for a movie or two as well.

how cool is that?

last friday's cruise + premature awakening

xmas cruise last fri

we were supposed to gather at 6.45pm but pple were arriving late due to fri evening traffic. some didnt even make it back to change. they came straight from the office!!! obviously, they didnt leave at 3.

travelling on fridays down under can be a pain in the behind. my monitoring visit in melb usu stretch over 3-4 days and would often end on a fri and ken (my designated cab driver in melb) always arrange to pick me up at the hospital hours way before my flight. there was tis time when we had to take all the small roads to avoid the massive jam. and man that ride cost me 70 bucks. the detour & jams aside, taxis are generally more exp in melb. jus when u think taxis are exp in syd, melb is a hundred times worse.

*gasp* that's one whole paragraph on bad traffic.

i took jus a few shots & a video file of the fireworks (sponsored by coca cola i heard) while on the boat cos i wanted to take it all in. the harbour bridge, the opera house, the harbour, the sunset, etc. u can never get enough of the harbour bridge and opera house. though i love the historical architectural, arty farty, european styled melb, syd will always remain a special place in my heart. anyhow, there was tis outline of a coathanger on one side of the bridge for the new year fireworks we all guessed. btw, coathanger is one of many nicknames of the bridge. doubt i will make it for the new year's fireworks. dont fancy the crowds.

like i said to yeo, the best thing to come out from the cruise is not the socializing/ food/ drinks but the steering of the boat. under the captain's supervision, i steered the boat from paramatta river back to the harbour....before pyrmont bridge cos traffic was too dense there & a novice like me wont handle it. its fun and not as difficult as i tot. captain complimented that i m a fast learner and if i'll take my sailing licence. ermmm, i doubt i will. all the nautical terminology and technicality....sailing with a captain next to me is fun whilst having to take sole responsibility of the entire boat and the pple onboard is a definite no fun. boils down to one thing: no interest. at least for now.

i'm so soo sooo tired. i can jus collapse on my bed now. had sucha long day.... was in melb today. got up at a quarter to 5 to catch the flight at 6.30. speaking of tis....its so funny.

premature awakening

i slept at 7++pm last nite. set the alarm on my mobile for 4.45am tis morning. at abt 9++pm last nite, my mobile went off. i tot it was my alarm and i turned if off. next thing i did was to switch on the telly (b4 going to bathe)....for channel SBS (the chinese news is on abt the time i wake up, i.e. 6am). i found out abt tis chinese news a few days ago which i like cos thats the only dose of mandarin i hear on telly or radio. anyway, i was wondering which country's news will be on at tis time (4.45am). in the meantime, i saw that the alarm signal on my mobile was still on, meaning i havent turn it off yet. huh? so what did i press jus now? jus then, i tot i saw the time to be 9++pm. for that split second, i was confused. i cant figure out what time was it exactly. i seriously think it was 4.45am. i really dont know what was going on. jus then, my mobile rang. tis time, i knew for sure it was a phonecall & not my alarm. it was OH. i tot that was so prompt and coincidental! how did he know i had jus woke up. i tot he wanted to say some encouraging words to kickstart my day. as we spoke, OH broke into laughter. he said it was 9++pm at nite for me and 6++pm for him and he had jus got home. i didnt think i slept for only 2hrs when it sure felt like hours. that was a nice feeling cos i went back to sleep knowing i have so many more hours to go. now we know, that first rang on my mobile was actually OH calling me. i ended his call (thinking it was my alarm. *bish*). gosh, i almost went to bathe at 9++ at nite to get ready for a next day's early morning workday.

a short note before turning in for the day

its been a while i made appearances. been busy at work. did monitoring for 2 consecutive weeks. 1 week in melb and the other in syd. the one in syd was monitoring tied in with performance review & training (i gave training on my performance review. funny huh?!) with a lead cra from the amsterdam office. i like tis fella. he's not afraid to ask questions and that prompted me to do the same too. imagine listening in to our conversation. "WHY? why? Why? wHy? WHYYY??" muahaha.... but thats cool, we all learn from asking questions.

and there is always the monitoring visit report after every monitoring visit. i did 2 reports so far and have 5 more to go. *wail*

going on a harbour cruise tis fri as part of the company's xmas celebration. it'll be an early "dismissal" at 3pm to go home and get ready. then for all to "assemble" at cockle bay wharf at quarter to 7 (so "oldskool"). i wonder if i can keep my eyes open till 11pm. i have better catch some winks in the afternoon. the dress code is cocktail and no stilettos allowed. how not to wear stilettos with cocktail dresses? how abt a black halter neck dress with haviannas? tsk. what m i gonna wear? bugger.

SNOOPY

FOR 50 YEARS, cartoonist Charles Schulz gave us pictures of ourselves wrapped in a smile. One of the last strips I clipped from our Sunday paper showed Snoopy the dog sitting on top of his doghouse with a typewriter, writing about his life. He titled his story . . .

The Dog Who Never Did Anything

Snoopy remembers it this way, “You stay home now,” they said, “and be a good dog.”

So he stayed home and was a good dog.

Then he decided to be even a better dog. So he barked at everyone who went by. And he even chased the neighbor’s cats.

“What’s happened to you?” they said. “You used to be such a good dog.”

So he stopped barking and chasing cats, and everyone said, “You’re a good dog.”

The moral, as Snoopy typed it, is “Don’t do anything and you’ll be a good dog.”

As I turned the smile around in my mind, I noticed a quirk of the English language. Snoopy and God have something in common. They are related not only by alphabet (dog and god), but by what “creatures in the middle” expect of them. The idea intrigued me enough to try another version.

The God Who Never Did Anything

“You give me what I want now,” they said, “and be a good God.”

So He gave them what they wanted and He was a good God.

Then He decided to be an even better God.

He started knocking over the furniture of other gods, and He used pain to help people in ways they could not understand.

“What’s happened to You?” they said.

“You used to be such a good God.”

So He stopped knocking over the furniture of other gods, and He stopped using pain in ways that were beyond people’s ability to understand.

And everyone said, “You’re a good God.”

The moral, as angels might see it, “Stop acting like God and people will think You’re good.”

The God We Want

Many of us imagine God as we want Him to be. To our wishes we add expectation. We expect Him to encourage us when we are afraid, to comfort us when we’re hurt, to forgive us when we fail, and to give us what we think we need when we think we need it.

Yet, along the way, we keep stumbling into the awareness that the King of Heaven is more apt to come to us in His own style, time, and mystery. He is seldom as we imagine Him to be. He is more like the God who reveals Himself in the pages of His own history.

There He comes to us in the unexpected surprises of joy, in the unwanted nights of our misery, and in the solitary sounds of our own loneliness. He comes to us in the unexpected joys of Adam, in the numbed grief of Eve, in the inconsolable tears of the childless Hannah, in the murderous anger of Moses, and in the madness of a powerful Nebuchadnezzar.

But me? Until He responds, I’d rather have it my way. In the moments of my dissatisfaction, I don’t want to have to wait for what I want. I want it now. Now. I’ll pray. I’ll pay. I’ll bargain. I’ll crawl on my knees. But I want God to prove that He is good?right now.

The God Who Has Been Good

Even in our “maturity” we can be like 2- and 3-year-olds pulling at the pant leg of heaven. Our Father isn’t surprised. He knows how to raise physical, emotional, and spiritual toddlers. He knows how to run with us in our youth, and how to walk with us at 74, 84, and 94.
And for those who go further, He is still there, hearing once again our whimpers in the night, and reaching down with the affection of an adoring mother who carefully lifts her children from their crib to herself.

No, He has not always been the kind of parent we wanted Him to be. Yes, He has been good on His terms rather than on ours. He has not answered our prayers in the way we asked. Seldom has He allowed anything to play out according to our own expectations or childish demands. Yet His determination to lead us in the paths of His own choosing is what has made Him so good.

The God Who Will Be Good

The promise of tomorrow comes with the wrinkled snapshots of yesterday. Even though our memories are not as sharp as we’d like them to be, and even though the happy times are mixed with regret, our albums contain memories of a God who keeps reminding us that He is better than our expectations. He is better than our demands. He is better than anything this life has to offer.

If He allowed a relationship to be lost, He stayed with us to remind us that we weren’t made for one another as much as we were made for Him. As our bodies give way to time, they become painful reminders that we were not made for these bodies. We were made for the One who said from the top of a thundering, burning mountain?to a people huddled in the middle of a life-threatening wilderness?“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.”

This is the God who, because He is good, refuses to “stay home and do nothing.”

Father, thank You for a man named Charles Schulz who brought us elements of truth amid our smiles. Thank You for being God on Your terms rather than ours. May Your name be hallowed as we wait on You. May Your kingdom be reflected in our patience. May Your will be done in our disappointments. Please, give us this day our daily bread.-- Mart De Haan

piano stories IV at the syd conservatorium of music

what an unusual architecture for a music school!!! look jus like a palace with all the turrets. heard that it was one of the few surviving works of convict architect, Francis Greenway. it was originally constructed in 1821 as the government stables building and then became the current conservatorium of music in 1915. additions and alternations to the stable building began in 1913 which includes the addition of the verbrugghen hall, where piano stories was held. it was no modern grandeau like the esplanade - theatres on the bay but it has tis historical and humble feel to it. hope to go back in nov for schumann.

back to school

i love it most when i'm receiving therapeutic trainings (it was onco today). CT scan, MRI, grading, staging, ECOG, REGIST....love it....love it!! it couldnt be better. seriously it feels like being back in sch. though i was thinking twice if i really love sch so much since i was getting sleepy and restless after lunch and i didnt even had a heavy meal. damn the neurotransmitters.

my bestie colleague and i went ga-ga when we saw what were in the crate of fruits tis afternoon. (we have tis weekly supply of fruits in the office...i know....we're so blessed!!)

B A N A N A S!!!!

we never had bananas in the crate and even i havent had that for ages (and that means mths!). hurricane larry simply wiped out the entire plantation. maybe it wasnt all wiped out and there were very few left and that explained why they decided to sell whatever that was left at $14/kg. freaking expensive!!! i'm such a huge fan of bananas. banana smoothie (i miss making that for my family), banana bread, banana with weetbix, banana on its own. i hope bananas make a comeback soon. i cant do my bfast without them. :(

my love in melbourne said the sweetest thing to me jus now. "if i dont do that for u, who will?" yesh, absolutely right, which friend will go through the trouble getting me what deem impt to me but seems trivial to many?