And now I can breathe...

... because I've finally completed all my essays for this semester!!!! Given, I've prolly still got to go over the last essay and tweak it here and there, but on the whole, I'm officially on my holidays! *wild applause* I started work on my fourth essay at 11 pm last night and worked all the way to approximately 3 in the morning. I wanted to blog about that historic moment, but the 'Net seemed to be down the whole of last night so I couldn't go online. But here it is, 10 hours later, but it's still great news, muahahahahaha! I'm going to the computer lab after this to print out my 3rd essay (which is due at 5 pm today), and then going to campus to (1) return my library books, (2) hand in my 3rd essay at my faculty, (3) maybe take some snaps of the jacaranda at the Quad, and (4) if the student market thingy is open at Jane Foss Russell Building, browse through the stalls! So I'm off, and cheers, people! Yarooh!!!!

Friends & Food!

So it's been a very busy past few days. It's officially the start of study vacation (STUVAC) today, and everyone's cramming for exams now. IH has a rather sober air, every spare space is being taken up by scowling, short-tempered students. Or maybe the sober air is just a figment of my imagination, cos I've been doing very little work and a whole lot of play!

On Saturday, a whole bunch of us (Emila, Lisa, Sarah, Yu Ning, Su-Wen, Marian, Sherry, Neil, Andy, Jake and myself) went to some karaoke place in the city called Big Echo. It was AUD$12 per person, and I was so excited cos this was the first time I'd gone karaoke-ing! I have no idea how long we were there, 4 hours? I had lotsa fun screaming though, especially our 'finale song', Aerosmith's I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing, which is a song that I've always wanted to sing in public (I didn't even realize I'd wanted to sing this in public!) and it's gonna go down in my memory as a song choke full of good times and hysterical laughter. By the end of the karaoke session, my voice was hoarse!

Then we walked back to George Street cos there was this Vietnamese place we wanted to try out called Pho Pasteur. I first read of the place while browsing around on the 'Net for nice eateries to try out, and I think this is the only Vietnamese place listed on The Sydney Morning Herald's list of The 50 Things Every Sydney Food Lover Should Try (click on the link to check it out, Pho Pasteur is at number 28). So I managed to convince everyone to try it out, and we all trooped into the tiny place (it was really quite small, especially after we took up the whole middle portion of the shop and pushed together goodness knows how many tables to fit all 13 of us - Junya and Robert came to join us for dinner too). The place smelled a little funky and wasn't quite the cleanest on the block, but boy, was the pho fantastic! I had the special beef pho (small for AUD$10) and the texture of the pho is just something you have to try to understand! It was slippery and thinner and smoother than kway teow, and the soup tasted very similar to the gu bak mee broth back home, only this one was clear. There were juicy thin slices of beef as well, and to our delight, beef tendon! And what made it more interesting was the little plate of raw bean sprouts, basil (I think) and lemon wedges that accompanied each pho dish (you add them to your pho). I'm definitely gonna have more pho, but maybe I'll try the other Vietnamese shop next to it, which, according to Neil and Sarah, is better. Can't wait to try it out!

Then on Sunday I met up with Joo, my Korean friend who'd stayed temporarily at IH at the very beginning of the first semester. We'd previously met up for coffee at the beginning of this semester, and since we'd soon be saying our goodbyes, we thought it would be fun to meet one last time. I met her at Newtown, and we decided to have Thai for lunch, so we went to Newtown Thai II (yeah, they have like 2 branches not far from each other cos they're apparently that popular) and as usual, I had the fried rice with chicken, extra spicy, for AUD$6.50 (cheap cos of the lunch special, I'd prolly end up eating at Thai places lots after IH stops serving food). After lunch we dropped into a quaint coffee place cum hippie-vibe eatery (I think it's called Urban Bites) for smoothies. I had the one with the mash-up of berries (strawberries, blueberries and some other berry, maybe raspberry).

And today I had my very last lecture ever, and it's supposed to be STUVAC and all, but we had the Labour Day holiday about a month back and that meant we had to push everything back one week, thus explaining today's class. It was quite a sad affair, cos it's been a fantastic two semesters here at USyd, and it's always sad to say goodbye to a good thing. I even managed to take some snaps of the room we were in (it looks a lot like some boardroom, we have our classes some other place) and with some of my coursemates, and with the lecturer!

Then Yin, Hema, Maria and myself decided to celebrate the end of our lectures by having dinner at this newly-discovered Korean-run Japanese place called T&J Fresh Sushi, just opposite Malacca Straits. We all decided to order the sushi and sashimi family set (AUD$50 for 20 pieces of sushi, 14 pieces of sashimi, and 12 small rolls) and we all also had our individual sets of noodles (I had the yaki noodle, which is basically udon and chicken stir fried with some sweet sauce, AUD$10.50). The place was very small, there were only like 3 tables inside and all those poor patrons who came alone would sit at the barstool and have the chefs cook in front of them. Actually, I would like to do that one day. I'd prolly come back again once IH stops their food, but then again I might just hike it all the way to Hikaru. The chefs/owners were really nice though, they're Korean twins and they're very jolly and friendly and funny!

During the course of dinner we brought up the topic of San Churros, which is this chocolateria in Glebe, so we went there for desserts. Maria's husband Cesar came to join us, and I shared a platter of churros with Yin and Hema. It's basically fried bread sticks dusted with fine sugar, which we dipped into little bowls of dark chocolate and caramel.

It was raining real bad the whole day today though, so that meant walking around in wet jeans and squishy shoes. And one of the spokes on my trusty umbrella finally malfunctioned, which is quite heartbreaking, seeing how it's been so sturdy all this while. I'll see if I can mend it with some superglue and thread tomorrow. I'm so smart. Cheers!