So here's the pictures of the college I stay in =)

My round, "nuke silo" building, Scheps

The laundry room

The locks and keys in IH

Bed + study table

Sink + wardrobe

The kitchenette at every floor

Part of the gardens

The dining hall

Some of the games offered

Orientation for us 'freshers' started last saturday and will continue until this sunday. For starters we learned the Fresher's Dance, which was pretty cool. Last sunday, we had a party at night called the 'Poor Taste Party'. Earlier in the afternoon we were brought to a second hand shop to buy the worst outfits we ever saw. At the party...

Cross-dressers?

Charlie, one of the organisers and me

The organisers

Tonight we had a cocktail party as well. The difference to yesterday's party was that instead of dressing in bad clothes we had to wear semi-formal to formal clothes and there was alcohol around. Too bad though, I'm still underage and banned from drinking =(

Cocktail party

Tomorrow I'll have to go to uni for further orientation and to collect my timetable. It's a 10 minute walk from IH to MU with windy weather. COLD!

I suppose that it was a momentous moment when I left my family at the turnstile to immigration. Even though I did not know it, it was a start to a phase where I am gradually learning to live on my own.

At Monday 9.40pm the Boeing 777 code MH149 left KLIA.

Destination: Melbourne, Australia

After 8 hours and several turbulence during the flight we reached Melbourne at 9am Melbourne time, where I would spend the most of the next 3 years studying. After passing through Australian Immigration I went to collect my huge 28.8kg bag from the baggage carousel. It was rather funny, with me chasing my bag around the carousel trying to heave it out. Finally I succeeded after 5 minutes, by forcefully chucking it out of the carousel.

I had booked UniMelb's arrival services weeks ago and they met me and several other students and brought us to our destinations by bus. My destination was their first stop and so it was that I reached International House at 241 Royal Parade where I would be living in this year.

I was assigned to Scheps, a round building at the end of the grounds. Rumor has it that a student had suicided there 18 years ago. brrrr. There are many buildings in IH, such as Scheps, New Building, Clunies, Hilda Stevenson, Greycourt and Waldham. At Scheps, my room has a sink and thick fat walls. According to some of the seniors, Scheps' rooms are small, but they have sinks and thick walls to mute sounds. "Big is not better," said Christopher, third year UMelb med student. He described his previous room at Greycourt (it stinks and maggots fall from the ceiling. yucks).

The other students at IH are generally friendly. There's Charlie, the so-called short-term memory loss guy; Ted and Han the IT experts; Ruvi and Hash the Catan players; Jubi the postgrad student from India; Oliver and Shunsuke the exchange students from China and Japan and many more. Today Charlie and Lushien taught me ping pong!!

After unpacking my things on Tuesday I made my first foray into the world outside IH. I took the tram to Barkly Square, a place where we can do some shopping. Guess what was the first thing I bought since I arrived? A FAN!!! It's tiny but cheap (so what if I am a cheapo hmph!) and it gives some much-needed ventilation to my small room.

The International Students Orientation was on Thursday. After it was various talks on the different subjects we could take as breath subjects. I had earlier made a list of talks I wanted to attend, but it didnt work out. I went for the Accounting talk at 1pm in the Commerce building, and 1/2 hour later I was rushing to the Geography building 0.25km away to attend the 1.30pm Informatics talk. UMelb is a big place with many buildings and small shops scattered around.

So now I'm trying to make up my mind on what subjects to take. While the subjects I need to take as part of my accounting major is mostly set, I still need to pick 4 or 5 breath subjects from other faculties to complement my degree. And that's where the cause of my headache is. Should I take Japanese, or Math? Or maybe do Renaissance Dance? Perhaps I should take Psychology? It's very confusing @@. I am already taking Law as part of my breath to gain my accounting accredition.

Tomorrow the orientation at IH starts. It will last for a week and coincide with the orientation at UMelb. It will be alot of fun ;P

PS: Wait for the photos to come. I am pretty lazy right now.

Sakae Sushi for lunch with Jia Yi ;P

So I went back to my hometown for CNY, and that's why you never see a new blog post (that's the story I'm sticking too anyway).

It's been a tradition that we kids would gamble on CNY by playing cho tai ti and Black Jack. However, this year the stakes were too high (rm1 bet for black jack, anyone?) and there was just no fun in playing cards. So me, Helena and Aidan decided to learn MAHJONG. Despite my grandmother's nagging that only old people play mahjong, we still managed to get her to teach us.

With nothing better to do, we went back on Friday night. Then I had open house on Sunday!!! Bryan, Ji Yung, Mei Kim, Wy How, Kein Yip and Ken Hon showed up. Ack! That day my house had an overload of the Y chromosome since most of the visitors were male. We played cho tai ti and...mahjong.

While I was at the hairdresser's yesterday, Steph smsed me. We then arranged to watch CJ7. The story was quite nice and I actually shed some tears for the "pet". After that we had dinner at Ajisen Ramen and went SS all over Pyramid =)

Chicken Teriyaki Bento set

Today went skating with Wei Vern at Pyramid Ice Rink. Then some arcade, and some shopping. Didn't buy anything though. Kinda lost the shopping impulse ever since I started going out with male-dominated groups (going out rule no.1: dont shop when guys > girls in the group). Besides, no use buying any clothes when I'm limited in things I can bring over to Aussie lol.

Anyway I'm posting again 2moro, check out fo it!!! xD

A lil' something Stephy made =D

Yesterday, at Strawberry Fields in Taipan, I had my farewell.

Wei Vern had organized the whole gathering (Thx WV!). We met at 1pm. Well, actually when I came there with Steph the rest were already there. There was: WV, Steph, Susan, Mei Kim, Shu Ning, Mandy, JC, Wyhow and KY. We talked and chatted about our future plans and current news until around 3, when some of us decided that we should do something else besides sit and monopolize 4 tables at Strawberry Fields. The rest had to go back home, so me, WV, Ning, Wyhow and KY went to Summit to watch the Game Plan.

Unfortunately when we arrived there we found that the next screening of all the movies would start at 4.30 or 4.30pm. So we gave up on the cinema and was thinking about buying a DVD and watching it at WV's house. While we were discussing in front of a DVD shop, Wyhow started wandering into the arcade next door.

Since me and WV always go to the arcade whenever possible, we went in to play. Me and Ning head towards the House of the Dead game (which was expensive but good fun). Then played the taiko with KY and DDR with Wyhow. Somehow all of us developed the fever to play taiko (a japanese-style drum which you hit in tune to the music) and we played until our arms hurt. Then on to Monkey Ice for some fruit flavored ice. Met Elaine who was working there :). And that was the end of a really fun day xD. Sorry, no pictures tho.

And who could forget what today is? CNY eve! Happy Chinese New Year all!!!!