the bar/club at uni held its mid-semester bash and loads of people went out partying because next week is tuition-free week.
it's 12.38am, but i can hear groups of people outside talking animatedly because they are drunk or whatever.

well, while they were doing that, i was playing this game with my flatmates :)
lol, i left the game after 2 rounds. they are still playing though!

spent about 4 hours online researching and agonizing over a purchase for my research project...

the research question goes like this - How does the photographer's gaze change when the hand becomes the guiding eye for the camera?




i asked the lecturer for advice about it, and one of the things he wanted me to do was to quickly buy the equipment so i can start producing the wrist-mounted camera that i need.

so, i ended up spending 4 hours comparing different websites for products.
i needed a light-weight camera that can be mounted on the wrist, and that has a remote shutter release function.
funnily, DSLR and film camera have remote shutter release functions, but not "point and shoot" ones.
otherwise i could buy any old compact camera...

anyway, i weighed the cost-benefits of waiting weeks for the purchase, and the risk of getting a faulty product if i buy from a "grey market" seller vs spending $50+ more to buy it from a reputable online store.
then i finally bought it - $382 for the camera and remote. hope i can pick it up tomorrow morning.

but, that's not the main big purchase i made this week.
i bought air tickets to Stockholm to visit my friend next July...
they cost $1155...
i think mom and dad will be shocked when they read this. >.<

was looking for more info about Melbourne on reddit, and noticed people recommending "lentils" along side drinking pubs and art galleries.
so i wondered, is that a restaurant? why are the people there so into eating lentils? that makes no sense.

then i discovered that it was Lentils As Anything, where they serve vegetarian food. it's non-profit organisation where you pay by donation.

the founder, Shanaka Fernando, was on TED Talks, and his story was very interesting - he had a relatively privileged life, but decided to do something for humanity when he started helping the less fortunate.


he is an awesome guy for his sense of social justice, loving and trusting people, and setting up this community oriented organisation. and he's in a bit of trouble with the law. a true rebel.

 on 22 aug i woke up early and took the first bus to the city center so i could take photos for my assignment.

 then i had breakfast at The Greenhouse.
poached eggs on toast ($10.50). the seasoning on the eggs was perfect and complimented the creaminess very well.  the toast was a thick slab of sourdough. the quality of the ingredients was very important in making this simple dish stand out.
 also had a latte - it was nice and clean-tasting as well.
i like the interior decorations. they have a wood-fired oven in their kitchen - how cool.

 on 23 aug 2013, had class for Creative Image Communication. this was in the workshop room where we tore up books last week.
the lecturer had mostly put up pictures of toy bears.
for some reason there was a skeleton with a wig in the room as well.
 in class, they taught us to make our own stylus.
here's how :-
stylus work by conducting electric charges from your hand to the touch-screen.
so, to conduct the body's charge through the home-made stylus, get some scrotch-brite purple sponge, stick some wire into the sponge, and wind the rest of the wire on the outside of the frame.
apparently, that sponge works because it has some carbon fibre in it.
the point of making them was to draw ourselves on our smartphones. lol. this class is so fun.

paid AUD 219.90 a few days ago for a return flight from Perth to Melbourne.

had a 20 minute long phone call to grandma.

ate 3 bowls of rice for dinner.

and 6 Kingston cookies (the chocolate cream filling is definitely not luxurious. try "dry").

this is the first Monday in 3 weeks that i did not have a nap that ended up being a sleep marathon (10+ hours) after returning from work.

 i had a box of Betty Crocker brownie mix and decided to use it so i could bring some food over to a friend's place.
my flatmate was cooking chicken and we both needed the oven so we baked the chicken and the brownies at the same time.

but, brownies do not survive in high temperatures. the outside got completely burnt, but the inside was still soft. the worse thing is that it smoked so terribly that it might set off the smoke alarm. so i took it outside.
in my rush, the pan slipped off the plate and landed face down on the floor.
here are some pictures.

 the black thing on the white thing was the brownie. oh how we laughed.

 my flatmate was amazed at the hard shell the burnt crust had formed.

1 cm of burnt crust with "nature" encrusted brownie in the middle.
my other flatmate was like, "i rather eat it if it dropped outside then if it dropped on the kitchen floor, because of all the chemicals and shit on the floor. at least it's natural outside."
lol, that makes no sense.

they did eat some though, and so did i.
obviously i didn't bring it to my friend.

i left work at about 1.07pm and had class at 2pm.
i thought i could catch the 33 bus back after checking the timetable at the bus stop.
but somehow the 33 did not arrive, so i checked google maps and realised the timetable lied. the bus will not be coming.
so i took 72 and was 20 minutes late for class.

luckily my lecturer is a very chilled guy, i rocked up and was prepared to be all sheepish and sorry, but he stopped mid-sentence, said "that's okay" consolingly, and asked my name so he could take my attendance.
and when some girls whispering/laughing amongst themselves towards the end of the period, he was like, "is it me? something i said? oh, it's just something private? that's okay. i think this class is too long, i'm starting to drift off too, so let's end this class before we all melt down."
what a nice guy.
and he's an artist who did a lot of commercial work and arty coffee table books when he worked in Milan.
and he's doing a PhD about the physicality of books.

and i really enjoy his class.
today he got us to lovingly tear out pages of images from library books (from his previous public art project) so he can arrange them into groups on the wall. then we can turn them into collages next week.

his life-partner is an artist too and they collaborate all the time.
i want a partner who's nice, easy-going, friendly and artistic too.............

had a morning shift at the cafe today... and remembered to take photos.

 this is the exterior.
the interior.

the morning shift mainly involves making sandwiches.
then it's a bit of the lunch crowd at noon.

work is varied and there are a lot of things to prioritise and routines to remember as lady boss will get cross.

important things:
- don't keep customer waiting for their food/drinks = preparing food > clearing tables and dish-washing. also, bringing out f&b > making sandwiches
- customers don't like having empty cups on their table = clear customer's table > clear empty unless customers are waiting to sit there
- clear the tables = look out while making sandwiches every so often
- sandwiches and paninis etc need time heating up = prepare them > packing salads
- cover / wrap bread, ingredients at once if not using.
- turn off grill and toaster oven when not in use.
- one of the sandwich knives is very important - wash and replace immediately.

standard work procedures:
- panini - wear gloves, use black tongs, nuke into microwave, turn on grill, toss on.
if dine-in, prepare dine-in plate, cut in half, serve with napkin, ask if need fork and knife.
if take-away, wrap in paper, slip into skinny bag.
- croissant - turn on toaster oven, wear gloves, cut lid off, nuke bottom, lid in toaster oven, throw bottom in as well, watch lid face for brownness.
if take-away, put in big paper bag, horizontally down.
- milkshake - one scoop of ice-cream, 2 full pumps of flavor, fill up full-cream milk up to second mark, put in mixer about 30 secs.
if take-away, pour in paper cup, cover with lid and insert straw.
- milk - older milk in front of back fridge, bring to small fridge, then to display counter. replenish as needed. full cream to skinny ratio is about 5 to 2.
- lettuce - fill translucent tub below sink with cold water, add some salt, throw in the leaves, get green basket, put washed leaves in there, shake dry, put small metal bowl under it, cling-wrap, put in back fridge.
- chicken mayo - 2 spoonfuls of mayo for each packet of chicken.
- add some salt and pepper for all sandwiches and baguettes except for the continental one.
- ham and cheese sandwich - turn on grill, butter bread, grill one butter side down, put cheese, then ham (1.3), then cover with other slice butter side up.
if dine-in, prepare dine-in plate, cut in half, serve with napkin.
if take-away, put in small paper bag?

yesterday i had work at uni - held on to the walkie-talkie and held an unusually busy shift.
lecturers told me they couldn't unlock microphone cabinets, the lights went out by themselves, the ipad couldn't connect to the projector...

during in the down-time, i saw that Curtin Volunteers were holding walk-in registrations for John Curtin Weekend (JCW), so i went to sign up for the above event.
JCW is a community event spanning quite a few city and country locations where students sign up to volunteer for events over the weekend.
the one i signed up for is in the country, a place called Kulin, where we help out at a country fair/bush race.
i chose it because there are horses! and we don't have to bring any sleeping bags, we sleep in a hostel.

today, i had photography tutorial - the tutor sent us out of the classroom to take test shots with our DSLR.
i'm glad i familiarized myself with the Nikon D70 so i was able to fiddle with the manual controls with more confidence.
still not sure if i should actually buy a DSLR or just keep borrowing the one from uni.

after that was the Project Development seminar - everyone had to do an informal presentation about their research project.
i had come up with my revised project idea a few days ago - it's much safer and more interesting than my previous idea - so i just presented my draft idea and got useful feedback and advice from classmates and the tutor.

 made more bread on Sunday...
this is KAF's monkeying around bread, aka monkey bread.
easy, fool-proof and convenient for early morning breakfasts!

 get the dough ready... then roll it in sugar and cinnamon.
arranging all the little balls of dough.
 fresh out of the oven.
 mmmm i just ate the remainder of this batch today.

was looking at flights to Melbourne...
this is cheap!

hostel accommodation from about $38 per night...

places to go... St Kilda, Prahran, Fitzroy/Collingwood, Carlton...

 finally caught up with my log.

this is from last night's event - guild house had a welcome dinner for us. it was about the celebration of the different nationalities living here and they suggested that we wear our national costumes.
obviously i didn't bother (got back from a trying day at the fish shop), but there were some amazing African and Papua New Guinean costumes.

 a map for us to doodle on.
 dinner - fried rice, lamb slice, lasagna thing, potatoes, curry chicken, salad.
the fried rice was good.
sat with my Malaysian friends who had been celebrating Hari Raya. met some more nice people.
 they stuck pictures of the flags on the windows.
 after dinner was dessert. i had some veg oil cream cake.
they played games like limbo and musical chairs. family fun.

 made this on 4 aug... another attempt at King Arthur Flour's recipe for easy cinnamon bread.

instead of cinnamon chips, which i do not have, i used 1 cup of walnuts.

 the raw mix.
 took about 1 hour 10 minutes to be cooked.
end result : good.
flatmates all got a slice because they were interested when i described it to them.
for the next attempt, i will use chocolate chips :9

 i borrowed a camera from uni - it was a Nikon D80 - from 2009 i think. big heavy thing.
found the manual online and proceeded to learn how to use it.
manual mode is challenging to use ...
 the second day of work at uni. it rained the whole day. i was coordinator but luckily didn't have to coordinate much of anything. it was a chilled day.
 morning shift at the cafe. this is the street where it is located.
i spilled a soy latte - it went on the serving tray and on the table, not on the customer, phew.
the customer was nice about it. the owners were okay about it.
have to hold the glass and the saucer when serving that. troublesome.
boss gave me a soy hot chocolate at the end of the shift, said i had to try it. it was pretty yum.

had an interesting class on fri. think it totally suits me. homework was done on tumblr, projects involves making gifs, there will a session on lolcats...
 stuff on the boards.
 well, it looked interesting.
 the lecturer is nice and knowledgeable. he worked in Italy producing magazines and curating stuff.
this is one of the art magazine/book he produced - working with internet artists.
this semester, i have 2 nice and knowledgeable lecturers, 1 impressive lecturer, and 1 who will be pissed at me for not having a 'practice'. urgh.
 another page - it has a lot of cut out holes.
and another page. this one shows how an artist dressed as a ghost and was photographed in various locations.

 i'm a little behind on my daily log...

this week was hectic because school reopened.

 the job at uni - included clipboard and nokia phone. neon yellow vest not pictured.
cinnamon walnut bread courtesy of myself.
7.30am shift on monday was no joke. and the coordinator was stressed me out.
it was very tiring walking around the whole day.
 i think the uni invited these buskers to perform chill-out bossa nova music to help everyone relax on the first day of school. they were very good.
i had my first class on tues - it was the photography lecture. the lecturer is a big shot photographer!
i was suitably impressed that she took photos for Q magazine and was friends with famous musicians.
the picture of the door is from the photography office. sense of humor - check.

Sunday was Curtin's Open Day - members of the public came down check out the courses on offer at the university.
there were freebies to be had, so i went to take a look.

a big white tent for each school.
the school of humanities was giving out free balloons and there were people queuing to get some.
 chill out zone.
 the best thing - a traveling farm with a mini alpaca!
 goats, ducks, chickens...
 highlight of the whole Open Day, seeing cute animals
 feeding the little goat
 it thought my phone was edible for a second
 the white duck in the middle has an afro!
and there were people on stilts as well.

 there was a bbq organised by the folks at the hot pot party. i wasn't around for the grocery shopping or preparation because i was at work.
but they went to buy food early in the morning at a special produce market that specialised in cheap veg, fruit and fish.
and they spent the rest of the day prepping the food.
by the time i got back, it was time to eat. :P

 sashimi salmon, beef pineapple salad, ham sandwiches, candy
 all Asians, mostly of Chinese descent, having a bbq at the common room.
 grilling drumlets and wings.
 lamb.
 cider and absolut.
 pork was delicious.
grilling veg.

after this event, there was some drama, as one guy was unhappy about the accounts (they were not consolidated) and the distribution of resources.
but i think it was sorted out yesterday. glad i wasn't involved.