*Cue Beethoven’s symphony no. 5*

Also, crossing fingers that my exams will end before the 18th, so that i can buy the $199 return trip tickets from Scoot and go home for about a month!!

And in other news, Winter appears to be coming.

Other than screwing with my mind everyday as to what to wear (weather’s still fluctuating nonstop between hot and cold), it’s playing havoc with my appetite too. I realise i have a love-hate relationship with food and cooking.

For the sake of procrastination, here are some of the reasons why:

The problem is, generally when i’m hungry, everything looks like it will taste good. In fact, the more unhealthy it is, the better it will taste, i know. (Who am i kidding, hungry or not, we all know unhealthy food tastes the best) So food rampaging when i am ravenous generally ends in only one way – I feel guilty because i’ve eaten tons of things i probably shouldn’t have. *sadface*

And the best part is, everytime i go to the supermarket and wander down the aisles, i cannot think of what to get at all. So i always end up with some staples – eggs, bacon, bread, breakfast bars.

It’s like everyday’s big breakfast day. >.<
There were times when i resolved that everything i buy has to be healthy – fruit, vegetables, white meat. And then i don’t know how to cook them (not the fruit, the rest), so before you know it, everything has rotted at the back of the fridge.

Not to mention that healthy eating is actually quite an expensive habit to upkeep. This certain friend who shall remain nameless eats loads of fruit and vegetables and yoghurt and oats and other equally healthy things. I had a look at the receipt once and well… not that its thaaaat expensive, but about double of what i spend?

Also, since i cook for myself, it seems too much of a hassle to put in so much effort to make a meal which would be devoured in less than 10 mins. Especially now that exams are coming, who has the time?? Those are the times when i’m like, OHHH if only i had chocolates/biscuits/insert unhealthy no need to cook food.

I have no idea how mothers (and some fathers) do it. Whenever i go grocery shopping with a list, the list is always catered to making like, 1 or 2 things i really feel like eating. And so that settles like maybe 2 days of food? And then i realise i have nothing to eat again fml.

Take for example, i recently skyped my mom to ask her how to make this egg and meat stew she always makes. So she listed out the ingredients – eggs, pork belly, cinnamon sticks, star anise, etcetc. So i go grocery shopping and find all these things. I cook enough to feed my housemates and myself for 2/3 meals and then tadah. No more. All that’s left is unused cinnamon sticks and star anise which other than cooking this particular dish, i have no idea what to use for.

*Had a sudden revelation – Ohhh no wonder people go marketing like, every other day. So never mind, i understand why i have no food now. I go to woolies like, once in 2 weeks.*

And after all these talk about food, i’m now hungry and shall go and eat the barley soup thing that i made. Apparently that’s good for the skin?? (Hence why i made it hurhur)

And i deem this entry completely useless. You are awesome if you read all the way till here!! (Boo if you just scrolled down)

See you on the other side.

Provided I don’t die/burn out/suicide.

Like when you receive work to do, but don’t know how to do it at all?

And to make things worse, the people you are working with all seem to know what they are doing.

And to make things worse, there is a 48 hour deadline. For 700 words.

And to make things even worser, half the marks….are coming from peer evaluation.

*Suddenly thinks of quitting school and becoming a housewife. Except that i have no house of my own, and im not a wife. And my parents will kill me.*

Problem was, there was an assignment due the day after the regatta. And me being me…

@ 3pm:

Still having too much fun and not studying.

At 6pm, I had a massive mindblock – just 200 words away from finishing the assignment – and so I cajoled both of them to let’s just go anyway. And since they were such free people with absolutely nothing to do then, they agreed.

Pit stop at KFC for dinner first. I always eat this at KFC – it has EVERYTHING!! And plus normally cannot finish so can keep for another meal wahaha. (the drink is not from KFC tho)

And then we headed to the regatta at the Queen’s domain.

Greeted by military aircraft whizzing by in the sky!

Mini Horse!

Wanted to take a picture with the horse but this little girl refused. to. leave.

Very old school right!!

Found this warning sign very funny for some reason.
‘eject from the ride’ – image of guy being shot out of the ride with rocket chair hurhur.

I don’t think anyone actually took this ride. it does look a little sad…

Game stalls!

Uber fun looking bouncy castle!

Can get money if you win!! Since when got such a good deal!! So we stood there to see the difficulty level…

Doesn’t look thaaat difficult yet…

And then the whole ladder flipped! Since the feet/shoes cannot curl around the ladder rung, sure will fall! So there is no way to win the $50!

Super high bouncy slide! This picture only shows the top half of the slide.

Motion simulator. So awesome looking – the ones I’ve ever tried in Singapore are only the small white box shaped ones. Or the huge one that used to be at the Discovery Centre. And this one only costed $6! Sadly between the 3 of us we only had $10 in cash, so had to forgo the ride. Uber sad.

And so we went to see the bumper cars. Very very confused by why they call it bumper cars though, cos

I could be wrong about this, but isn’t the point of bumper cars to er…bump on purpose?

To ensure that you really don’t bump into each other, accidentally or otherwise, ONE WAY ONLY!! There was even a guy standing in the middle to shout at all those playing to ‘GO TO THE LEFT!!’

One of the many funkily decorated food stalls. Sorry didn’t notice these people in front of me when i was taking the photo.

More food stalls!! Was so happy the whole time I was at the regatta, and basically behaving like I was a small kid in awe of my surroundings.

And meanwhile overhead, the fighter plane was performing super scary acrobatics(?). Like zooming all the way up above the clouds then flying down in a straight line. If I were in the plane, it would have been full of my puke by now.
And the guy with the mic at the grandstand was giving an explanation of what the fighter plane was doing. ‘Something something…3 loop turn etcetc.’ – my best explanation lol

Train tracks that are no longer being used. Apparently alot of local photographers come here to take artistic pictures. I just take pictures.

With our backs to the Derwent river.

The three of us. We had slightly more than an hour to kill before the fireworks were going to start…so we just sat at the grass steps.

And kept taking pictures till the performance started…

Makeshift stage + people starting to settle around… loads of families here picnicking!

The Derwent Bridge nearby

The performance by the Marines started!! They played a couple of oldies and some cutesy songs.

We speculated they just kinda got off their ship (parked about 100m away from shore) and came straight to perform.

Possibly coming on these little boats.

The sun started to set as the performance went on…

And the bridge lit up.

And I got progressively hungrier – KFC digested super fast – so me and Julian went to buy food! I got a Dagerwood Dog and candy floss for Catherine. Dagerwood Dog is well, flour plus hotdog. It wasn’t as nice as i hoped it would be…

But the combination of hotdog + flour + candy floss was pretty good!

Some guys and kids started dancing along to the music…
And then the band started to play the 1812 Overture

And this cannon went off a couple of times during the overture, scaring everyone. Cos everyone around me was talking and not really paying attention to the overture – it was quite somber and therefore not that interesting. But this cannon brought everyone back to paying attention, that’s for sure.

And earlier, what looked like it might be a shady deal (haha i jest, of course we knew what it was)…

Exploded into a pretty scene!!

Super pretty, and had very cool designs that i’ve never seen before!

This went on for longer than any fireworks i’ve ever seen before – which includes Singapore’s New year eve, National day celebrations – at least 20 mins!! Realised it was long cos after awhile the neck started feeling the strain.

And that was the finale to the Hobart Regatta 2012!! Super happy…until i got back to the car and remembered that there was still that 200 words undone…

If exams were to be graded according to how much I write, I will definitely get a High distinction.

Used up half of my writing pad in the last 3 days… and this was with my teensy weensy handwriting!

As much as i would like to be environmental friendly and not use any paper, unfortunately the only way things stick in my brain is if I write them out. A few times. This is just the first time. (Probably wont be writing anymore since the exam is on friday and the odds of me writing anymore is close to zero since a blister has formed on the side of my fourth finger.)

Blame all the exams!! The world is cutting down trees and making paper all because of exams!!

The cleaned-up version of my table. Before, it was strewn with papers everywhere (yes worse than what you see now) and colored pens and markers were lying all around.

You know what would make all these work super sad? If regardless of all this effort, I still fail badly. I think lecturers should start taking into account effort marks. You know all those people who study and study and study nonstop, wayyyy more than all those people who play their days away and only start studying the night before? I know people from both extremes, and it is so sad and so unfair when those who study so hard don’t do well, or worse, fail.

And then you see those people who study the night before and get super high marks and feel like slapping every single one of them. (Me, I study like a week or two before and get lousy but still can pass kind of marks so i have nothing to say.)

How can lecturers not give any marks for effort? All those people who slog and slog, night after night, trying to grasp the essence of what they are studying? Okay obviously they grasp wrongly, but still. Effort should still count what! At least must make the student feel like putting in effort is the right thing, if not they stop studying hard and become super slacker how??

Not sure why i’m ranting, probably this is my way of psycho-ing (through brainwaves) my lecturers to be more lenient in marking my exam. My dear lecturers for evidence, if you have a heart, give everyone at least 5 marks for attempting this very tedious and difficult unit!

Happy people!!

The dogs refused to sit still and hide from the wind.

Beautiful weather!!

HURHUR.

We are headed for the A10!!

To the left: mountains

To the right: the Derwent River

The scenery goes on like that for 30 mins…

Weather forecast had said rainy…HMMM.

And then we hit the farm area – they grow Hops – the main  flavoring and stability agent in beer!!

The owner contemplating the amount of money she might earn from this harvest. (No lah, I actually don’t know who she is.)

All the different grassy colours!!

And then the weather forecast started becoming accurate…

1.5 hrs later: Heading 49 km to Strathgordon

The Southwest is famed for its mountains and unpredictable weather…

Got bored and started taking macro pictures of rain.

And selcas – don’t worry, I made sure it was a straight empty road before telling Julian to smile.

And I like the ‘swooosh’ feeling outside the window!

And I’m not sure, it’s either I really suck at timing my shots or there are too many trees, but half of my photos have trees in them. Blocking the scenery I meant to take.

Okay maybe there are too many trees.

What to do when it becomes too foggy outside: Take picture of the boyfriend driving (with abovementioned ‘swooshy’ feel)

Take picture of boyfriend’s scab. Yes, sometimes i question my own sanity.

Lookout on the way. The scenery here reminds me of Lake Wanaka in New Zealand’s South Island.

The weather living up to its unpredictability reputation.

And at long last, we were here!!

View from the carpark – All mountain and clouds.

First stop: The BATHROOM

Fat and retarded photo at the end of the south east road…

View sans fat girl.

Getting closer to the beauty…

And TADAH – the view we came here for!!

Pointing in awe.

Brought many things, but a tripod was not one of them. Had to make do with the staircase railing.

And then realised our reflection would look pretty awesome too.

Smile for the camera!!

Disobeying road signs all over Tasmania.

Another angle of the gorge-ous view.

Herein begins the staircase of doom.

I was so scared, as you can tell.
And in my defence, it was super scary! The steps were the see-through kind, you can see the faraway rocks/water/metal looming ominously below, taunting you to fall and go splat.

But fear has never stopped me from taking a photo…
Julian, by this time, had hopped down past me, came back up for me to cling on to his right arm for dear life (my right hand never left the railings), and then went nimbly back up to take this photo for me.

I thought no way, i can’t be that weak. It’s just that Julian’s super fit and not scared of heights.

But I guess I was wrong, cos these 2 old men who were coming up in the opposite direction stopped at where I was clutching for dear life, smiled at me, and said ‘These steps are a killer, aren’t they?’ and proceeded to climb up faster than I could climb down another 10 steps. I fail.

Finally made it to the bottom.
Started making weird noises to enjoy the echoes ahaha.
The coolest thing was that we could actually hear what people at the other end of the dam were saying to each other in a normal voice!

Looking back at the stairs of death.

Super pretty view.
Before the Gordon dam – the 5th highest dam in Australia – was built, the water level was of course much much lower. When the dam was built, the water was er… dammed, and a lot of the little green patches you see here are actually little mountains (probably an oxymoron to put ‘little’ and ‘mountains’ together).

Another view of the steepness of the stairs. Next to it is the travelator(?) thing for the engineers to go all the way down to the bottom.
From this angle, all i saw was a wooden roller coaster seat thing which i therefore (reasonably) concluded was the mode of transport. *imagines people sliding down to their deaths.

But apparently this is the cable car-ish thing that the engineers take down.
So what that wooden thing is, i have no idea.

Has seats and life jackets too!!

All the walking must have made him delirious haha.

Left the area a hungry girl. All that climbing up and down was no joke.
For the record, I climbed up wayyyyy faster than going down.

Stopped here at this beach-which-name-i-have-forgotten for the best picnic lunch in car ever!!

There were honey fried cashew nuts…

with rice and stirfried chicken AND SHALLOTS. And because they were kept in a thermos flask, they were all still warm. 
Sometimes i think my boyfriend is too awesome.

Lunch + view. How many times in your life would you get such a great combi???
(People who work at scenic places need not reply.)

Happy and satisfied after lunch!

Rain in front upon some random hill/mountain.

But upon turning around, the sky’s still so blue and clear. Southwest, you really are weird. Beautiful, but weird.

More mountains. Julian the bushwalker was telling me about all these mountains and naming them as we went, but alas, his girlfriend has zero retention skills with regards to these. Okay maybe i do have a leeetle, which i shall demonstrate below.

I love this picture so much, such a mythical atmosphere.
We stopped here because Julian wanted to show me the entrance to the famed Federation Peak hike, which he did last year. It took 7 days. Sounded like extreme torture to me.

You would think that such a famed walk would have a grand entrance saying ‘FEDERATION PEAK WALK STARTS HERE’  or at least a mini wooden arrow pointing towards it. But nope, this is it. If I were here on my own , i would probably have completely missed this entrance and went home instead.

-ok so apparently this isn’t the entrance to federation peak per se – federation peak is like a bazillion miles away, you have to cross lakes and other mountains to get to it – okay maybe that’s why they didn’t label it ‘Federation peak walk’, but the point is: There is no entrance sign whatsoever!

Example of a mini mini mini lake – encountered within 1 minute of the entrance.
The only way through, other than just wading in (Which you really don’t want to, cos the general weather is cold/breezy, so the water would be freezing cold), is across that tree trunk.  If your balance fail, like mine, you might never make it across.

And the final picture – THIS IS WHERE WE SAW OUR FIRST WILD TASMANIAN DEVIL. AND THERE IS NO PICTURE OF IT BECAUSE I GOT LAZY BY THAT TIME AND KEPT MY CAMERA AWAY. AND THEN A WHOLE MOTORCYCLE GANG CAME UP BEHIND SO WE COULDN’T REVERSE THE CAR AND LOOK FOR THE DEVIL.

I was so sad. But it’s okay cos I will forever have the memory. And also, there are many cute tassie devil babies online.

And went home to friends who were glad to see us, and many many many boxes waiting for us to unpack.
But still, it’s home sweet home. (:

Except for the fact that i now need to move house again and start unpacking my numerous boxes for the 5th time in five years. (BOO) It should be a good year since im gonna be living with my good buddies for at least 4 years!! (:

Did some travelling yesterday and 2 weeks ago, will post them up once i get settled in!

Really busy due to Summer school being over – assignment due on Valentine’s day (One day after Hobart Regatta which i reallyyyyy want to go for )): ) and the final exam this coming friday, so this resetup-ing is gonna take awhile!!

Till then,
xoxo