we arrived back at uni at about 10am yesterday, so i went to class.
had missed 2 hours of it, but really glad i attended the rest of it because the tutor thought my name was something else and had not marked my assignment!

she said she was missing part of my assignment and will talk to me later. then she talked about how people don't read the deliverable requirements as she was handing out the grades.
after she was done, she said she was missing my written report and i was like, i put both in a folder under my English name and student number.
and she was like, "oh! i thought that might be it!" ............... this whole time she didn't realise that was me because she was only looking at my Chinese name. .................. wtf


anyway, the trip was really good because the 3 girls i travelled with were amazing. the leader J and R went on all sorts of volunteer/mission trips and were very experienced and nice. B was an awesome and funny storyteller, as was J. B and R went through very difficult things in their lives, so it was eye-opening to hear their stories.
it was better for bonding as we had open-minds and hearts towards volunteering, as opposed to R's previous group of fitness instructors were not comfortable about the experience.

we changed accommodation nightly - there were villages for miners, and a house, all really comfortable and sponsored by mining companies. the food was buffet style at the mess halls of the mining offices, so i totally stuffed myself.

the town has no one to open the youth center, so the kids only get to use the facilities when the volunteers go over every fortnight.
there was one very sweet girl, Lakeisha, who volunteered herself to help me and asked me to play air hockey with her. i'm sad that i didn't see her on the second day.

the food in Leonora is super expensive - a pet bottle of coke is $4.50. the prices there were about 20% higher than in Perth, so eating healthy is a challenge.

what we did:
1.5 hour drive to Leonora from airport town.
played dominoes with 2 nice old permanent residents of the hospital.
opened the youth center and supervised them playing basketball, snooker, air hockey.
had a girls' night where we played them the "Sisterhood of Travelling Pants" and provided make-up and nail polish. there were problems with the teenagers who were very insulting and banged on the locked doors after they didn't want to stay.
took some pictures at the restored abandoned town of Gwalia.
did weeding, feed kangaroos, played with dogs and puppies at a wild kangaroo sanctuary owned by a very kind couple.
opened the youth center, cooked pancakes for kids to eat, supervised them playing again.

the pictures are in the official camera, so i will put up photos after the debrief.

tomorrow i'm going to a town called Leonora because i signed up with the uni volunteer group to go help out with the remote community there (hospital, youth and kangaroo refuge). 

it's 833 km from Perth (roughly the distance from Singapore to Jakarta) and the population is about 400!

flying there in the afternoon and arriving back Monday morning.

---

after talking to flatmates, realised that Singapore is not 28 km long from East to West, which was what i have been telling people! /facepalm

it's 49 km long EW and 25 km long NS.
population is about 5.3 million.

we have no minimum wage!
a Business graduate (accountancy) will start with S$2700~ a month.
minimum age to work is 16 years old.

we have a "non-modified universal healthcare system where the government ensures affordability of healthcare within the public health system, largely through a system of compulsory savings, subsidies and price controls."

CPF can be used to pay for housing, investments, children's education...
upon death, the nominated beneficiaries will receive the CPF money.
CPF still seriously confuses me.

a new 3-room HDB flat costs about S$300,000.
a new Honda Civic costs about S$160,000 with COE.

i really liked my lunch today -
rice, chicken breast, ricotta & spinach with pecorino cheese stir-through sauce;
cold peas and corn in peri-peri powder and sesame oil

recipe:
heat pan on high
cut chicken into even slices
add oil
add chicken
stir-fry until chicken looks 70% white
remove from heat
dump cooked rice and 3 tbs of ricotta stir-through sauce into pan
change heat to low
mix, throw chicken back in, stir-fry until sauce is fragrant for some time

the chicken was very tender and the spicy cold salad had a nice kick.
wish i had kimchi ramen though!

today:

went to the beach.
specifically, i went to Mettam's Pool. it's currently ranked #10 out of 75 attractions in Perth on TripAdvisor. yes, i am using it to get inspiration on what to do here.

so i woke up before 9am, grabbed my swim suit and took the bus+train+bus down.
i must say, this side of the beach is sweet. i ran around excitedly for a while.

 it was a cool sunny day.
sharp rocks galore.
 crashing waves.
that rock has many birds on it.

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yesterday:

went to the Fremantle Arts Centre.
here are pictures from the Peter Dailey exhibition called "Apparition: The Syndicate II".
he's examining what it means to be human.

 castle innards
 grasshopper and the man
 chicken on head
 ghostly figures


next is Michael Bullock's exhibition - "The Trail of Time: The Sandalwood Project".
WA exports a lot of sandalwood. i did not know that.
 shadows
 burning incense

then i took a walk to find cake in Fremantle, but didn't find any.
 the cloud ripples at FAC
 green collection
nice house

frying rice in bacon fat, with egg and garlic. will add chili next time.

i got a bad case of emo when i called my grandma today.
it was good that i managed to have a longer conversation with her today over the phone.
i should stick to less-heavy stuff as topics because that seems to make it easier for her to chat in a more relaxed manner.
i threw in a "i love you" at the end. /proud.
lol, i think she heard me because there was an awkward pause.
can't forgot how she said that to me in a conversation a few weeks ago, and how i couldn't say it back.

oh yes, and i cut my hair today - same bob, just shorter.
not sure if i want to make it very short...

 more backlog for my 2012 trip.
oh yes, we went to the Louvre.
it may be super packed with tourists, but it was frigging awesome (duh).
the guides i read in preparation for the visit had said to plan your trip because you won't be able to see everything in a week, much less a day.
and it's true. that Museum is filled to the brim with beautiful things.

 the Louvre started as a fortress built in 1190. holy sheez!
here is the exterior leading to the carriage entrance with the high arch ceilings.
the adverts are for the restored "The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne".
 we got the Museum Pass so we entered the museum via the very much shorter queue at the Pyramid.
 very crowded because we arrived at noon. as you can see, it's true about the Chinese tourists.
 there are certain pieces that everyone wants to see.
here is one of them - Venus de Milo.

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last night my flatmates (SB and G) took me out to Northbridge for a sampling of the nightlife.

 G's old school mate was performing at The Bird, it's an intimate live house with a good atmosphere (slightly hipster). his band was called Dead Owls.
i didn't know what to expect, but yeah! live indie music!
 this was the 3 piece band called Sincerely, Grizzly, which was the opening act.
they have some good beats when they do a tempo change. couldn't make sense of the vocal melody.
and the drummer busted a hole in the bass drum.
 we hung out in the al fresco area - it's a charming mish-mash of old bricks, tin roofs with chimmeys, different fencing, trees and random seating areas.
 this is the 2 piece Dead Owls - just a drummer and guitarist/vocalist.
but so amazing. their rhythm was tight and their music was rocking!
i believe their genre is called "indie rock".

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 backlog for 2012 trip - day 4.

fun times at Parc Asterix - the Asterix theme park! better than Disneyland, i dare say!
we had to take the train to a station where we could get on the special bus to take us to the theme park. cousin and i pretended to be journalists interviewing each other during the bus journey.

 excitement!
the theme park is organized into 6 different areas recognizable by the architecture and decor. this is the first village we passed through and in the distance is Asterix sitting on a mountain.
 this is a cute sign for "cool drinks".
 Roman guards! we have crossed into the Roman Empire.
 that's a Colosseum. lots of kids on school excursions.

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the backlog of photos from 2012's trip, part 3.

 i took morning walks around the Le Marais neighbourhood. love the graffiti. love the neighbourhood.
 we took the Batobus tour of the Seine - it's a boat bus that stops at the landmarks of Paris.
made my cousin pose as the Statue of Liberty when the Eiffel Tower was in the background. lol
 the tower. and a carousel.
it was drizzling.
my cousin did a 007 pose in front of the horse statue at Pont d'Iena. auntie V was amused.
would have liked to go to the Champ de Mars side actually.
 we walked up to the Trocadero.

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reading a collection of essays about Art and Artists, titled Nothing If Not Critical by Robert Hughes.
he's a highly respected writer - his knowledge is vast and his essays are fun to read.

one of the essays was about Sir Joshua Reynolds, a portrait painter.
everyone who was anyone in the 1700s posed for him.

anyway, i thought this part was quite funny.

"When Reynolds depicted high literary tragedy, as in his scene from Dante Count Hugolino and His Children in the Dungeon, he produced bathos.
The count, realizing that he must eat his offspring or starve, wears the peevish look of one who would have preferred fettuccine." 

this is the painting he was talking about:

lol - cannot unsee the fettuccine.


but anyway, Reynolds' portraits were really nice.
like this one.

at 3D design workshop, we get to make stuff for our class projects with wood, metal, acrylic and foam.

the product usually doesn't turn out like how i want.
but they say the design development process is more important, which is comforting.

i like thinking of designs throughout the week, jotting them down in the visual diary, and then adapting the idea to the limitations set by the workshop (material, equipment, technique, feasibility).
and the technician guys are great because they will help make your ideas into reality as long as you draw it out and explain it to them properly.

 i made that last week.
for scale, would be good to make many more circle-thingys and line them up.

and this, yesterday.
cooked thick slabs of acrylic in an oven to bend them over various pipes.
lol, it looks weird but i think i can develop this a lot more.


on another note, Chuck Palahniuk doing an AMA on reddit!
he is hilarious. and i really liked reading Fight Club. :)

the 18 year old guy i made friends with during the Pinnacles road trip messaged me about wanting to hang out today.so we watched comedies in my room.
i had my strong reservations about having any guy in my room, but he's a funny Australian who calls me an old lady because he couldn't believe that i was over 24. so i thought that was okay.

anyway, he was in my bed (i was on the chair), wrapping himself in my blanket and being gross with his toe-nails. he prodded my chair, then poked me, and starting messing around with my pillow, so i fought back.
nothing inappropriate, i assure you.
concluded the night at 10+pm with Psy's music video for Gangnam Style and a cheese sandwich. lol.

anyway, it was strange because i'm not sure what's going on (asked about having girlfriends and he said he wasn't looking for any).

and also, i had a briefing earlier today on how to work with youth for my volunteer trip next week. they are very strict about getting legal checks and not allowing us to take photos of minors (people under 18), for the safety of their organization and the children.

 day 2 in Kalgoorlie.

 left hostel at 9am to walk to the Super Pit, which was the hill site of rich gold deposits, dug out into a pit that can be seen from space, to extract all the gold. and they're still digging.
took some detours, but we reached only at 11.14am!
it was a very long walk.

 this was part of the detour. we walked up the historic main street of the town called Boulder.
 Boulder was very prosperous during the peak of the gold mining period in the 1900s.
most of the nice buildings are dated from that time.
that's the town hall, i think.
but now it's mostly deserted.
 we found the one shop of interest in the strip - a sweet shop! :D
 imported candies.

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photos from 13 april - we went to Kalgoorlie.

train leaves at 7.10am on Saturday. there is no public transport available to get us to the train. >O
luckily flatmate asked flatmate to drive us there, who kindly agreed. :)

 train ride was comfortable. onboard entertainment! i watched "Finding Nemo". :)
Australia is vast.
 after 7 hours, we reached Kalgoorlie.
 white and blues.
 a mining town with a transient population - people in the mining industry fly in and out.
country roads.

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last week, our tutor assigned us to create a piece of art, only using material bought with five dollars.
we couldn't use materials we already have, so if we want to use a pen and paper, the cost of both have to be included in the five dollar limit.

this week, he gave us 2 minutes to pitch the artwork to the class, after which we had a silent auction where we would place change equivalent to five dollars on the ones we liked.

here are some of the pieces.

 clay model based on Japanese architecture and student's memory of architecture granddad telling him to build upwards ("the sky is the limit").
others commented that it's like a Shaun Tan style, the moulded surface is like the interior of a cave, the block is like a collision of different elements.

student collected first teabag she used in Australia as it reminds her of the tea-culture of her country and her separation from her family. the skull is influenced by seeing tattoos here and the (Mexican?) idea of honoring the dead.
others comments that it was a good idea to use personal lost and separation as a pitch tool.

the other artworks:
- bottle of Coke, a Crunchie, change and supermarket receipt - literal use of money and possibility to exchange it back for cash
- $1 steak, $2 salad, yoga classes (assumption that he will get $5 from everyone to pay for it) for a picture of good health and enlightenment (shown through him)
- 5 paper cutouts, Chinese style (tutor commented that the character for "double happiness" looked like 2 robots joined together in gay marriage, lol)
- a tin box and a necklace made from $0.60 material and handmade knots, Chinese style
- 3 ballpens and 2 bananas, with writing on it - "This is not a banana" and "Intellectual property has a life span like of banana"
- contracting child labour ($1.50) to make 2 sheets of fancy paper ($3.50) into 2 wedding dress cutouts
- half a bottle of $8 wine, shared with neighbour as both relax and chat about their genius ideas which they never do - "genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration"

mine was the aerogramme i bought from Australia Post, with not-completely-cut-out words (by penknife) saying, "hi dad, happy birthday, love____".
my pitch was of my dad's actual birthday a few days ago, the things i don't express, and the memory of writing family letter before going to Australia.
tutor said it was sad but he really liked the personalization of a mass produced thing, and commented on the artwork of the stamp not having anything to do with Australia.

i won the bid for the "picture of good health and enlightenment" because the student was very entertaining in telling us his pitch.

i went to Kalgoorlie with flatmate over the weekend and will post about that later.
it was a seven hour train ride to get there!
and there should NOT be less buses with shorter operating hours on weekends! 
but that's for another post.

we arrived back home almost at 11pm on Sunday night (yesterday).
and i had a presentation for my 8am class today.

there were six of us, i was third. really glad i wrote a script and prepared for it.
i didn't feel that nervous, didn't make many weird movements, so i think i can understand how people learn to adapt to these things.
it was weird to experience my mind in two states - one like a floating observer, evaluating/experiencing how my other consciousness was going off-script to explain stuff.

it felt good when classmates gave me unsolicited feedback - as long as it's positive feedback, haha.
they liked some of the articles i looked it.
it means that they paid attention and some of the stuff i chose was interesting.

and it was also interesting to learn about a classmate's life.
i was surprised about the great difference in the pain and stress she felt before, during and after the birth (no post-natal depression after the country hospital birth), directly related of the standard minimal level of care and attention at the urban hospital, versus the high level of service received at the country hospital.


also hope that friend WC in hospital now will have a good recovery... i'm glad Singaporean hospitals generally have high service standards.

was supposed to present today but again, was postponed to next week.

one student's work was super impressive. seriously amazing stuff.
before he presented, the tutor already said that he had the highest marks, and by the time he got to his slides about design development, i was totally depressed and captivated at the same time.
professional presentation of images, depth of thought, effort in developing the ideas, application of a wide range of inspirations, technical design skills, mixing and matching images...

was annoyed with myself because i didn't try to develop my ideas at a higher level and didn't/couldn't make use of the design examples given in class.

after he was done, the tutor was telling him how she and the main tutor were so excited by his work,  how he was beyond the second year level and he should look into academics...

anyway, i will transform my overwhelming feelings of 'not-good-enough' into motivation for doing some work. after the post is published.

 yesterday i went to another talk on how to write a thesis.
they made us have a group discussion, so this person : - opinionated, loud voice with a 'rolly' tone like she has marbles in her mouth, big unicorn sticker on her laptop, attended the all same the talks as me - and i were in the same group.
anyway, she's very smarty-pants. everyone else had cool concepts they were developing except me... :(
whatever, i'm going to develop into an awesome research topic.

 this is the 3-d tattoo another member of the group showed me. cool.

 there was an art fair in the open space. meh. people selling stuff and some arts and crafts.

 lady played the accordion so it sounded like we were in France.

in the evening, flatmate asked if i wanted to go to this pyjama pub crawl thing.
social butterfly flatmate really enjoys such events.
i wanted to do my report but was also swayed by curiosity and her enthusiasm.

went to the first part, which was the meet-up at the uni pub, before they board a bus to the club in the city. i backed out because i got scared.

Australians know how to party.
People at Curtin really know how to party.
the Commerce Club organized this event and they are a club known for partying.

flatmate quickly started talking to random strangers, her forte, and i witnessed the power of the Commerce Club. out-going and attractive people talking, drinking, kissing and hugging while in crazy costumes.

there was a prize for best-dressed.
these three wore robes and matching pink booties.
some others went skimpy - lacy underwear as their pyjama bottom.
there was a girl with big curlers in her hair. lol

 many guys wore onesies. above are tigger and a giraffe. there were also penguins, unicorns and lions.
some also wore satin pyjamas, and looked from they came from the Victorian era.

and finally this is a blurry picture of the party bus - it's black outside with blue, red, green flashing lights inside.

flatmate got back in one piece and said that it was really fun at the main club - she hung out with cool people that she just met and danced to classic 2000s pop.
/amazed.