Tonight, we went to this really awesome corner in Port Melbourne for a mini celebration. It looked really nice, old and rustic on the outside, but clearly modern with its lit headboards (or whatever u call that thing that goes over the entrances of places bearing the name of the place) and elaborate looking cctv devices.

I thought the entrance was a tad narrow though. And what made it harder to enter was the 2 bouncers guarding it. But they were very friendly for bouncers, and very gentlemanly as well. Anyway, a few steps in, pass the lounge area, we met with the waitress who took us to our seats.

The dining area could probably only seat abt 40 people max? But it wasn't too crowded tonight so they gave us bigger cushion seats. I thought the waiting staff were all very friendly, and not the extremely makes-you-uncomfortable kind of friendly, but the just nice, I-wanna-make-sure-everything's-great-for-u kinda friendly. And not just saying it, but actually meaning it.

So we started off picking our drinks for the evening. Ys had the shiraz the waiter recommended and I took a chance with their strawberry mojito. Shiraz was good, strawberry mojito was quite a disappointment, but I wasn't gonna make a fuss over it. Probably not drink it as much or smth, but one of the waitresses, who came over to pour us more water, asked if the mojito was good so I just gave my honest opinion and said it wasn't really and she got it corrected for me! :) And she was happy to do it, u can tell. Ace for service!

Anyway, for mains we ordered their steak special and maple glazed stacked pumpkin, and a side of green onion mesh to share. We waited quite awhile, and there were some diners, who came after us, who got their food before we did. But whatever unhappiness faded the moment our food arrived and we had our first bite. I had the pumpkin mainly (we were suppose to share, but yea..), and it was so so good! It was, like I said, maple glazed pumpkin chunks mixed with pumpkin mash and bits of corn, topped with spinach, tomato then a lightly grilled layer of feta cheese. Rocket greens and pine nuts on the side (was actually stacked on top of everything). Inner realm (haha, I cannot find more appropriate words) of the plate was lined with this chocolate looking sauce, but it wasn't chocolate. It was actually a little sour. Anyway, it was really awesome pumpkin! So far, we haven't gone wrong ordering pumpkin at restaurants. Last time we went to Rockpool, the pumpkin there was fantastic too. The steak Ys had was also great! I thought it was better than the one at Rockpool, and 5 times cheaper. Mayb I just don't know how to appreciate aged, strangely marinated beef, but I thought the steak here was much better.

After our mains, we order their Death by Chocolate brownie with cream and raspberry coulis for dessert. And I cannot say this more, but it was so good too! Firstly, the presentation was absolutely adorable! I managed to sneak a picture of it. Oh by the way, I thought it was quite a pity that I forgot my camera and far worse when I saw how pretty the food all looked (that's why I don't have pictures for this post), but inbetween our main and dessert, I imagined how it must look if I fished out my camera and constantly snapped away. A BIT not very cool ya. Practically juvenile. Anyway, picture of Death by Chocolate!

Not very stunning, taken with my phone, but Haha! Dead Dessert! Anyway, Brownie was moist, chocolate sauce in little espresso cup was warm, cream was cool, and the raspberry coulis, omg, the raspberry coulis, was heavenly. It balanced the creaminess and the chocolate out very nicely. I wld have licked the plate if I weren't in public. Heh heh heh! :P

The band at the lounge area was quite good as well. They were quite country, not my first pick for genre, but they were very nice to listen to especially since I haven't been going out to watch live bands in AGES (or just going out for that matter). Sigh. But yes, tonight was a good night. Highlight of the month, possibly even in the last 2. Since I've been trapped in the hell of peak period for what seems to be like forever, and I don't exactly receive an abundance of invitations to join the party . . . (haha)

2 more to go. 2 more to go.

Ys just let me watch this video on youtube. I wonder when the Singaporean media will desist from playing up bimbotic representations of Singaporean women. Have we become such capitalists, unreasonably devoted givers of entertainment, slaves for pop culture, that we've forgotten the importance of representation in media? I believe that not all the girls in that video have hollow skulls, but why is it that they're constantly being portrayed that way? Sigh. Makes me sad.

Anyway, I'm almost outta gas at this point in the semester. :( Been feeling mildly under the weather for more than a week now, probably closer to 2, but I have to persevere. 3 more major ones to drop before it's all over, 1 of them being on Monday. Usually, I get quite frantic less 5 days to deadline, but I'm surprisingly lighthearted. In fact, so lighthearted that I've barely touched the prerequisite readings for the essay. Sigh. It's on photography, and I should be eager to bury my head in them, but it's so hard to just stare at your computer screen and read. Read like there's no tmr. Sigh. This incessant flow of work is just so tiresome.

On another note, after submitting my essay on Tuesday morning, I decided I should reward myself with a jaunt around Valley Girl and a walk in the park since the weather was just perfect that day. So I showered, got dressed, and headed out, albeit without sleep the whole night through, but happy as a button to step outta the house and do smth if not enjoy the sunlight. After dropping by uni and my planned trip to Valley Girl, I came back home to drag the log out of bed and to the park. Wasn't gonna allow him to sleep his day away when it was just awesome outside.

So to the park we went! I call it Exhibition Park because it's along Exhibition, but apparently, it's called Carlton Gardens. Hmmm, well, what it's called doesn't matter.

I love the place. It's got this massive fountain slightly deeper into the park that's untouched by shade, so when the water comes on and reflects the sun rays it looks absolutely magical! :) We were just wondering why the pool beneath it had reddish water. Guessing it was oxide. Oh and Ys feels shudder-ish when he sees that Victorian looking building beside the fountain  cos that's where he sits for his papers. Poor boy. So we settled along the banks of the nearby pond.

Being out and about in the sun made me feel a lot better. My signus went away, I felt happier, wide-eyed. But, HUGESIGH, I'm back to being stuck in my little claustrophobic room again, for the next I don't knw how long. If I'm not here, u'll find me in the radio dungeons in uni editing my life into a radio drama. Speaking of which, this radio drama's my brainchild so I'm gonna be working pretty hard on it.

Cannot wait to finish. But for now, omg, it's 5am, and I'm still at my first set of readings!

Dinner at a French restaurant a couple of weeks back. Was rather disappointed, but he was really sweet to have arranged it. And yes, I'm a huge ass sucker for big red succulent roses.

I really have no business being awake at this hour much less blogging. But I need to fulfill the intense needs of the slacker in me. I'm 600 words into my 2.5k word essay, and I'm barely into bringing my point across. I'm massively longwinded, I know. I actually decided to retire abt an hour ago, and mayb surf a bit of web, abt 15 minutes or so, before slipping into bed. But nooo, I had to start browsing pictures. Tidying some virtual folders. I'm trying to slack as much as I possibly can before I get so sleepy I concuss on my laptop, cos I know tmr's gonna see none of that. None of me luxuriously spending time on unproductive things. Like now, typing tautologously. The same thing, over and over again in different ways. See!

I have a feeling I may have only made sense to myself there.

Anyway, I cannot express how excited I am abt submitting all my assignments. No more pressuring myself on doing well. Just an abundance of play.

There's the stand-up I HAVE to go for, Dolly Diamond at The Butterfly Club. Michael Jackson's This Is It, movie premiere. Time Traveler's Wife, opening on the 5th of Nov. Shoppingggg! So many other things. Need to refer to travel guide.

This feeling, that which I'm expressing, or rather, incapable of, is a feeling that is now unfamiliar, after a prolonged duration of conscious elusion, but is leaking back into that hollow muscular organ... what's it called again?

I'm extremely ambivalent towards it, and so will my actions in steering where it will all eventually lead. Maybe I'm more incongruous than I thought.

For a first time in the longest time, I fear. And this fear, it's pernicious and impossible to ignore. Far worse, I doubt it's curable.

With great feeling, comes great risk. And unfortunately for me, with great risk, comes great fear. And this fear might just reverse the whole process. They say you will find a reason to never have to fear again, but what do they know. Possibility is probable, however impossible its probability may seem.

I'm having one of the worst sore throats I've ever had in my entire 21 years and however many months and days. It doesn't bug if I don't swallow or try any fancy deep breath taking, but besides that, it feels like my tonsil got replaced by a huge metal coppery tasting ball, and it's making it difficult for anything to go pass it. Like anaphylactic, yes, but at least that goes away with a pill and some rest. I've been feeling like a copper ball for the last 2 days.

I cannot fall sick I cannot fall sick I cannot fall sick.

I have 8 deadlines in the next month. I cannot fall sick. If it takes an injection or constant popping of meds, I'll do it. As long as I do not fall sick.

Anyway, for the purpose of work, I dragged Dine along with me to an Arts studio tucked in a quiet little corner of Albert Park to watch one of the installments of Velvet Cabaret and Comedy Nights, which was part of the Fringe Festival. It's quite sad that no more than about 10 ppl turned up because it was really quite a nifty setup and the acts were all really good. Some of them were rather, esoteric and I wouldn't for a moment pretend to understand or try and decipher their meaning, but I enjoyed their effort in the manner I could. By giving them my full attention and make every attempt in trying to SQUIRREL ... to, erm, what was I saying again?

Ok, not very funny. I'm still not over Dug from Up. He animationanimalsifies love.

We took some pictures. Too lazy and ill and tired to dig for them through my folders. It requires so much, clicking. I think I use lesser muscles to roll over into my bed. NOW.

2 things I absolutely abhor abt my academic life.

1) When I tell ppl I go to RMIT. For ur very kind information, I was offered positions in all 3 Unis here in Melbourne. Meaning RMIT, Monash & Uni Melb. If u, with some warped perception, think that I entered RMIT because it was my only choice, u're bloody WRONG. Instead of chosing to write essays and sit for exams for the rest of my uni life, I chose a course that would give me a good mix of everything. A uni that would prep me well for my entering into the work force in the related industry. Plus, there's a very strict criteria to enter RMIT Communication and Design courses and they have a ballpark average of thousands of applicants each year, and only a couple of hundreds get picked. So try getting accepted into RMIT Comms in Melbourne and try being a consistent HD student before you give me that cringed up look and sound mildly disgusted when u hear RMIT!!

2) When my friends comment that I'm only doing so well now because I've taken all the modules in Poly before. Excuse me, do u know how different it is here compared to Poly? Besides, the only unit that's pretty much the same as what I took in Poly is Radio and I don't take 4 units of Radio ya.

Sigh. Right. All off my chest now.

Caption: I swear I'm study.

Life is good. For now. Mayb becos I just had a really awesome coffee session with Cheryl. I don't know why we don't meet up often, but I really think we should.

So I found out via an ex-colleague's tweet that Neil Gaiman's going to Singapore for the writer's festival on the 31st Oct and 1st Nov, but I'm not gonna b around then. Yes, I'm cussing under my breath. But thank God for good people, my ex-colleague offered to help me get a book signed if he's gonna go. :) May not be as awesome as being there personally, breathing the same air Neil Gaiman's breathing, but it's better than nth. And awesome to know that I have good friends who share the same interest. :)

5 more weeks until I'm done with this semester. Time really flies. It's like, I looked down to check my outfit and the semester just whisked by in a speedy gust of wind. So many things to do everyday, but it feels like I'm not doing anything significant any day. And now, I gotta head out to Kairos to facilitate Dine's hair cut. :D Hopefully will get some readings done when we head to the library after.