Adorably huggably cuddleable!

WALL-E is just too cute!!! Saw it at the cinema with Jaq and Mich, and I even got really teary towards the end. ahem.

So what if it's a love story between robots and robots aren't supposed to have feelings? It's just a movie. A very cute and lovable one. Definitely one of my favourite animation movies ever, behind Monsters Inc., of course. =)


Which is why I'm itching to get my hands on the official merchandise, more specifically the Wall-E 12" plush!!! I love how in the product description, it was written as "super cute" and "adorably cuddleable", haha! But gosh, $120 for one plush toy plus shipping from the US (it's not even found here yet!).. and I'm tight on budget at the moment as had just spent over $500 on my new camera which is arriving VERY soon! Details and review later in the week hopefully =D

Looking forward to gourmet pancakes at Capers tomorrow for lunch with Chyi!

We made it!

WOOOOO. Nice sunny weather. Yes Chyi: weather's too nice to be stuck indoors.

I feel sooooo accomplished and relieved! *big grin*

It's all very last minute again, haha! Had only 2 hours of sleep this morning, having slept at 5am ish after swapping my management business plan with Ron & vice versa to proofread, then print it off (colour printing some more, ok). Then managed to close my eyes when the birds had started chirping outside and some people (e.g. valerie for morning jogs) are already awake. Woke up at 7.30am to go hand in the assignment, then lectures from 10 to 12. Stayed back at bioc comp lab to work on other half of micr assignment before handing it in at 2pm-ish and went back home for a very much needed 2 hour nap.

Just a few weeks more to go! Well, AFTER the dreaded final exams. Looking forward to the 4th of November. =) The only things standing in between me and freedom are now 3 more reports, 1 presentation, and 4 final exams!

Having a dilemma now in deciding papers to do next year. I'll need a minimum of 120 points (the more the better obviously).

APPS499 (work placement & report) - 6 points
MICR490 (research project- thesis!) - 48 points
MICR461, 462, 463, 464 (pick 3?) - each 18 points
1 more 18 point paper, either one more MICR or I was thinking a Biochem paper so it won't be all microbiology. and also, I'll get 24 hour access to the bioc computer lab too if taking any bioc papers!!! (free UNLIMITED printing too, wink wink).

How to decide how to decide
How to decide how to decide
How to decide how to decide

25% oral exams in micr463 and 464. Aiyerrrrrrr.
So many presentations too. So scary if have to present to other post grads/lecturers with big brains.

Anyway, I'm glad I made it through the day of horror. Thanks guys for the encouragements/offer to help hehe. Thanks Ron for the comfort of knowing I'm not the only one in this, haha!

P.S. Will, glad to know that my blog post about Sam McMahon the scammer managed to warn you about potentially being scammed by him. Ah, the power of google.

P.P.S. I'm having a serious reaction (aka. hayfever) towards pollens again this time of the year. Sigh, I do love spring but having to breathe through my mouth for the next 3 months is torture. Taking anti-histamines now, might use nasal spray soon to relief the symptoms. The advantage of having so many pharmacy friends. hehehhee

A day at the Shag Point

It TRULY is called the Shag Point! *how dodgy*

Today is a day of randomness. Got a call at around 2 to go paua fishing with the pancakes. Being the lightbulb that I am (and finding excuses to NOT do my assignments), I said yes. How forgetful was I to not bring along my jacket.

awww..
Sam: he's mine!
Alex: paua!!!

postcard photo

the sign

jump! (not off the cliff)

so serene the beach. see the prints on the sand? wonder who/what animal left those

my wallpaper

the eyes: what r u looking at?

seals!

this is what happens when u leave me alone in the car with my camera

me: hmm what shall i have for dinner?

love is in the air.. lalala~

colours

shapes

there is more sheep than people in NZ.

marine life. so much variety

How cold it was! BRRRRR.

Ah, it's nice getting away from the city, even if for a short while and we didn't manage to catch any paua. I'm waaaaaaayyy over my management business plan word limit of 3000 and I'm not even done writing yet, sigh lots of trimming and proofreading to do. Micro lab book/assignment is due on Monday too- having 2 major assignments due on the same day (MONDAY somemore) sure is interesting.

WALL-E on Tuesday with my lovely girls!!! =) Looking forward to that.

P.S. My 21st was so full of surprises! Thanks so much guys for taking the time, effort, and $$$ in making this a memorable one!!! Photos will be up as soon as I can get my hands on them, haha.

Anticipation

It's 4am. I'm wide awake, having just drank a cup of super strong cappuccino at 1am.

This week should be the happiest week for me, and I know that you all are planning something to surprise me (you didn't have to, but thanks!), but I still can't help stressing out over the 2 assignments due this Friday.

So little time!

It's not the 16th yet, but I'd already received 2 presents.

Anyway. Went to the pharmacy/physio ball last night. It wasn't like what I had expected, though I did expect less from it. That sentence didn't make much sense, does it? Oh well. We did take quite a few photos though. One thing I disliked most about the "ball" was that it wasn't like a proper ball at all: disco music, crackers and dips for food (not forgetting domino's pizza when they ran out of food), just juice (!!), and err the "fire performance" which could have burnt the whole place down.

Since there were no proper food left by the time we got there, we decided to go find food. So typical. Turns out that only 1 chinese restaurant is still open at that time of the night- Tai Ping restaurant near the Warehouse. PLEASE DO NOT GO THERE, OR EVEN ATTEMPT TO ORDER SOMETHING FROM THAT PLACE. Unless you want to get charged $1 per person for Chinese tea. Or get scolded by the tauke nio for not ordering more dishes.

Not-so-nice-things aside, today's weather was LOVELY, wasn't it? The perfect temperature- around 20 degrees. We wore our lighthouse tees to take photos at church- which was at the art gallery today. Odd location, but the Hutton theatre was used for the make up sale thingy over the weekend.

I bought my bed today!!! Can't remember the brand, but it's good enough. Single- which is what I need since my room would be smaller next year. Not sure how to fit the L-shape table, my tons of boxes, and Waszowski into the room. Better small/cozy than big/cold. Thanks guys for helping hire the trailer, sorting out transportation, moving the bed+base etc.

Ok. Back to my lab report. I think the caffeine is starting to wear off.

Can't think of a title. Why do we need titles anyway?

Imagine having to do the work of 4 people. Now imagine that work being worth 30% internals of a major paper in potentially deciding what research project/class of honours you'll get next year.

I know it's not fair: even more so when I'm the only girl in the group who gets to do 80++% of the research/write-up. Only 1 of them bothered to help, though I (with the help of the pancakes) still had to rewrite his part of the report as there were so many spelling errors and most of it makes no sense at all. Mumble jumble. The weird older guy asked if he could help in anything, but I said no, knowing that he'll only make things worse by helping. I didn't include his work in the final report, and when he found out, he said he'd spent 4 hours doing those research and had also lost his pendrive at the library. The last guy couldn't care less; didn't do anything to help with presentation AND report, and left Dunedin today as his grandmother was sick or something.

AND after all that, I was accused (by the old weird guy) by being a lecturer's pet. Well, he sort of hinted aka said it in a very sarcastic way, "it seems like Dr Simmonds like you more, aye? So it's best that you hand in the report. I feel that you like him...bla bla". I controlled myself from slapping him across his face this morning. GOSH: just because I agreed with the lecturer that a face-to-face meeting is better than having a meeting in Micronet (which is just common sense, really!), he thinks that I'm on the lecturer's side.

-_____-'''. I spent (insert countless number here) sleepless nights coming up with the research topic, finding journal articles, writing drafts, presenting topic to lecturer, preparing presentation, telling each of them what to say during presentation, doing most of the presentation slides, doing 90% of the report, handing it in 7 minutes before 5pm on Friday, stressed about this so much that I cried yesterday. Not even one of the 3 guys bothered asking me how the progress was before it was due at 5pm.

If it wasn't for Alex and Sam, I wouldn't have made it on time. Thanks again guys. So many last minute issues cropped up- the printer at biochem computer lab wasn't working which meant no free printing eeeks. So had to top up my account and spend money printing 38 pages worth of work. Then there was a slight problem with the numbering of pages which I dread: all those page breaks confuse me. Thank goodness got those sorted out and didn't have to manually write it. Didn't have time to bind it, just stapled it in a rush, then ran to the micro building 8th floor to hand in the report.

Now the question is: should I report this to the lecturer? I can tell him that no one else is doing their part, but not sure if anything can be done. After all, he did mention that everyone in the group gets equal marks. Other groups face the same problem too I heard. Oh well, if they are lodging a complaint, I will.

After 5pm, I felt sooooooooooooooooo utterly relieved.

After that a series of random events followed:

• We had dinner at Unicol, then decided to go for some shopping in town.
• Shortened my *new* Esprit watch straps (given by the parents for my 21st)
• Decided to catch a movie at hoyts (maybe).
• Decided NOT to catch a movie at hoyts after all.
• Went to Ron's place (just above hoyts) for a visit. So tidy ur room!
• Went to Countdown for some grocery shopping.
• Decided to cook beef noodles (niu rou mien, yum yum) at home.
• Canai the cook made the noodles. Yum.
• Decided to watch the movie "Wanted".
• They just left at close to 2.30am just now.

So yeah, story of my life (at least on every Friday- assignments due day). So glad that micro case study is done and over with =) though there's still 3 more assignments and 1 presentation to "settle" BEFORE can start studying for final exams.

Anyway. A photo of how the Genome Institute of Singapore looks like =)
It's located in the building "Genome"- one of the left. So cool right I love how the skybridges link together the different buildings in the biopolis. Can't wait to get there!

GENOME is the green one. Ron'll be working at Centros (yellow).

the BIOPOLIS!

Not sure which building is this; the point is that it looks cool. ;P

All photos from source.
More very very nice photos of the biopolis can be found here at flickr, especially this one.

Ron & I still need accommodation for Singapore. So lazy to browse those property websites now. Worst case scenario: we'll camp by the roadside, haha!