mio primo

i failed my first ever test in UQ, which i kinda expected. mixed feelings though. it was tough, so tough that seventy-five percent failed. i am glad that it was just only ten percent of the full assessment and i had only just failed (got four.five). this is the first time that i wished it was a written paper and not mcq questions. this is because i would have been able to use the famous 'only-made-in-singapore' education method of vomitting out all the consolidation and elimination journal entries that were in my head, then i would have at least get marks from the workings. i will take this as a reality-check and start working my ass off for the mid semester paper on tenth of january. its not daniel to just pass the paper, at least a credit for this course.

oops, but im going to melbourne during the christmas-new year period.

"WAKE UP YOUR IDEAS, DANIEL!"

estate scuola

hello, not too long ago, i had just finished my examinations. and now before i know it, i am continuing my road to a degree with summer semester. this is so sudden, i feel that i have not recuperate and recharge myself from the last semester. but this is what i chose so i have to stick with it. boy o boy, summer semester is really truly intensive. i've got two lectures + two tutorials of macroeconomics and three lectures + three tutorials of accounting per week. in contrast, it is just one lecture + one tutorial per week for each course, i.e. subject, during normal semester. hectic.

yueying has gone back to singapore. other mates too. think gonna miss the feeling of her sitting beside me while im behind the wheels, having brunches in new farm and shopping in dfos.

going back to study now. have a mcq accounting test at noon tomorrow. this accounting course is seriously tough. ciao.

ben fatto!

i think i have reaped the rewards of my study strategy. despite skipping almost forty hours of nothing-goes-into-your-head computer-based management information system lectures plus tutorials, and working on friday and saturday nights, i am elated that i have done well and achieved my target for this semester.

dean commended: "well done, mate!"

conducente

while i was on the last bus home from city, there was a pleasant sight and sound whenever the bus stops. "thank you!" with a wave. every single passenger who alighted thanked the bus driver for driving them to their destination/home safely to their bus stop. i must say this is a scene which occurs regularly here. we should never take it for granted that because this is their job and we pay for the service provided that we do not have to thank them. driving for hours with the responsibility of providing safety to each and every passenger on board is no joke. a little thank you gesture would definitely end their day on a high note.

"thank you mr bus driver and good night..."

triste

i was waiting for you the whole day and night, but you didnt come

tempesta

these photos showed what occured since sunday. thunderstorms have been battering queensland, creating havoc mainly in south-east queensland where brisbane is situated. wind gusts of about ninety-five kilometres per hour were recorded, causing roofs to fly, power cable lines to fall and trees were uprooted. hundereds of thousands of homes and businesses had no electricity for a couple of days. hundereds of millimetres of rain poured within hours causing localised flooding in a few suburbs and landslides. the inner city bypass, i.e. like a tunnel, was inaccessible because it was flooded with eleven million litres of water. river banks and creeks were flooded too and two person have died thus far. apparently, one had died because he was so excited about the storm that he went down near the river to take some photos when suddenly the water just swept in and gone, he was, with the water. reports of hailstones as large as cricket balls and rockmelons were reported falling from the heavens above.

on a personal note, i am fortunate that this was not occuring at the suburb that i am residing. however i think it would be quite an exciting post-exam activity (because i have been stuck at home watching dvds from videoezy) if this had occured at where i am living. i did managed to have a brief stint of being in the eye of the storm cell yesterday evening. lightning flashes were some of the brightest ive seen, thunder roars were some of the loudest ive heard and wind gusts of great speeds were gusting so fast that the trees and bushes out of my window were swaying as thought they will be uprooted anytime. however it left as fast as it came. after which the heavens treated me to a picturesque symphony which i will call it "god's rhapsody". it was a non-stop twenty minutes of flashes of lightning dancing somewhere up north of where i was. pardon me for the low resolution video.

there may be another storm predicted for this evening but the one which everyone is not looking forward to, except me, is the severe thunderstorm occuring tomorrow late afternoon and evening. it is expected to cause more damage and delay rescue and repair efforts that has already been stretched to the limit since sunday. lets just wait and see...if the roof over my head is going to fly off...

come to think of it, is this a prelude of more wild weather to come in the near future due to climate change and global warming? the photos are similar to what i saw in the movie "category six: days of destruction" and "category seven: days of destruction". you should rent it from videoezy.

work time, bye!

mio vita

i have just finished my examinations for the year, woohoo! i think i tried my best, but i dont think i am able to achieve my gpa target for this semester and build on the unexpected good results which i had achieved last semester. it comes to a point that you have done more than enough for it but the results arent what you had meant it to be. lets see what happens on twenty-sixth this month.

now that summer break has begin, it means ive got about three months (till end of february next year) to do plenty of stuff since i am not going back singapore. wont be going to sydney to meet puspowidjono since he is going back to indonesia. crossing my fingers and hoping to do some trips around queensland with friends, maybe byron bay, moreton bay, uq's gatton and ipswich campuses, sunshine coast, gold coast, so photos should be showing up soon. suddenly theres so much excitement in what i can do.

these are the stuffs which i will probably be doing. firstly, i will be doing summer courses in the hope of accelerating my studies so that i am able to graduate a semester earlier. its going to be a challenge as i am going to apply to work casual at supermarket. earn as much cash as possible. however this will happen only if there is vacancy. on top of this, i will still be working at don's place. thinking of taking the ielts test as the companies here uses this test as an assessment of an international student's english proficiency. honestly, i am clueless why singapore students are also required to do it. also, i will be signing up for italian language class!

hmmm why aint french's bon jour, german's guten-tag, spanish's hola but but but italian's pasta, i mean, ciao? thats because i am going to do a semester-long exchange in milan next year! yeap it is milan, the fashion capital of the world. so why is it milan? why did i choose to do an exchange in a country that is not renowned for its education? milan was my choice because i am fond of the italian culture, language, food and maybe the italian hotties. watching jamie oliver's italian escape series and david rocco's cooking shows made me so wanna go to italy, so this could be one of the factor why i chose italy. i chose a european country so that i can travel around europe during the weekends. moreover, the euro was and is still lower than pounds in terms of currency exchange with the singapore dollars when i was filling up the application. also, i didnt want to go to an english-speaking country like england or united states for exchange as i would like to experience living in a non-english speaking country and be lost-in-translations. this is why i am like going to slog my ass off and work and earn as much cash as i can so that i can enjoy and not restrict spending on travelling around europe. however, this exchange is not entirely confirm as there could be problems with my course approvals or any last minute events. but i am determined to do it. i am also thinking of doing an exchange at berkeley in california after milan, pending cash flows. i would love to:

throw a coin into the trevi fountain and be assured of a return to rome

visit the roman colossuem - a wonder of the world

ride down the grand canal on a gondola in venice

make trip to st peter's basillica, vatican city

and since i am at the vatican city, i could check if the pope's loafers are from prada

and

hopefully,

with plenty of charm

bring back with me an italian babe

or two!

primavera

when winter came...

and left...

...wouldn't it be nice to have such beautiful gardens...

...from toowoomba's carnival of flowers prize gardens...absolutely magnificent...

tardato update...

dearest all (maybe only to my only reader ms pang), a big apology for not updating for a very very long time. it is not an excuse. it seemed i have not updated since the start of my holidays.

holidays. this holiday was not very adventurous for me at all, probably due to it being such a short one and time has really just flown by. my holidays were spent mainly shopping in brisbane and harbourtown in gold coast with my neighbour, elaine. managed to buy 2 country road polo t-shirts for only thirty dollars. i also went up to eumundi to its famous market. eunumdi is a small little town and the wednesdays and saturdays-only market has hundred of stalls. thousands of ppl throng there weekly. i like it. mornings are spent trying the various different breakfast cafes in brisbane and there's only three places which i deemed worth going. they are alberto's shot espresso bar in west end, cirque in new farm and italian la famiglia cafe at sanders street (will definitely bring you there, if you come). my weekends were fully occupied with work at don's place and i am glad that i worked as i have sufficient cash to buy a return ticket back to singapore, not that i want to go back.

weather. first time experiencing winter. hmmm it was not as cold as i had expected. had a week in both july and early august where temperatures were at a low of three to five degrees at night. that was probably the coldest it got to. other places in queensland were freezing cold where snow was reported. down south in canberra and melbourne, temperatures were at max ten degrees or lower. i am glad that i am in queensland where theres sunshine (hence the sunshine state) becoz at least if you are under the sun, you will not feel that cold when theres wind. think i have acclimatise to the cool temperatures. when temperatures suddenly rise to around twenty-three degrees on some days, i will feel warm. wonder whats going to happen when i return to singapore. well, winter is ending and very much looking forward to spring when first of september arrives as it means i can go out and exercise again. just hope that there are no signs of laziness.

ekka. went to my first ekka with izaeel, her dad and her sister, cynthia. it was a week-long carnival where there is a public holiday so that queenslanders can bring their family to enjoy. it has various activities and entertainments, ranging from crazy amusement rides to animal shows (horse riding competition, cow milking show, sheep dog competititons) to different variety of fresh produce and meat talks. the most important thing are the showbags which people here are crazy about.

went horse-riding with izaeel's dad and cynthia in mount tamborine. always wanted to do this and i must say it was quite fun. it was a guided tour around the state forest. after which we went up to the town area of the mountain where we had delicious pies for lunch. a very relaxing getaway from the hustling and bustling city life for the weekend.

uni. second semester began about a month ago. doing financial accounting, financial management, microeconomics and management information system. so far so good, have been a very obedient boy doing consistent work. however, i totally hate information system. still got to scrap through it and hope i will do exceptionally well for the other three subjects to make up for my predicted low grades in information system. o yes, quite pleased with my first semester grades, considering the fact i did not manage to complete my paper. i need to start practising to complete questions in exam time mode so that i can try to get into the dean's list. work hard boy...

olympics. i have been watching a lot of the olympics since theres stephanie rice and natalie coughlin in the pool. phew... however, the best moment of this olympic will not be michael phelps achieving eight gold medals or usain bolt's world record breaking run, but german weightlifter matthias steiner's gold medal win for his beloved wife who died in a car crash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-4JnDn7bls

another moving moment of the olympic spirit: derek redmond's fallen-and-injured-but-determined-to-finish run in barcelona:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zi0_LjHHN4&feature=related

esame finito...vacanza...

ciao, first semester examinations have just ended on thursday and boy o boy i better do well, if not my hopes of transferring to commerce is finito. papers were getting more difficult after every one. its over so just hope for the best and fear for the worst.

have not planned what am i gonna do for this uno mese vacanza. might be going to sydney to find signore alvin puspowidjono. might be going to the theme parks down gold coast. might be going up north to eumundi market. might be going on a road trip to stanthorpe or up north to sunshine coast. might be going to superbee factory, strawberry fields or some in-season fruit farms.

going to work at don's place. going to learn to roll sushi successfully to be able to open a small sushi business. going to cook lunches and dinners. going to start learning my italian.

till next time...

avventura

during my time in Australia, apart from uni life, i would like to:

1) go up on a hot-air balloon to see the beautiful sunrise
2) boating trip in Great Barrier Reef to snorkel and learn to dive to see life underwater
3) head to Western Australia to harvest abalone
4) soak and experience in Sydney's Mardi-gras festival
5) snow-ski in the snow-capped mountains in New South Wales and Victoria
6) go down to New Zealand to trek in one of the world's most scenic national parks (to whom it may concern: remember to work very hard to earn the money to come, i'm waiting...)
7) personally harvest fruits and buy it from the farmers to sell it in weekend markets
8) learn to surf
9) grow fruits and vegetables in Ranger's garden

anyone interested?

si! esame finito!

mid-semester examinations and assignments are finally over, at last i can take a break for a day or two before hitting back to books books books. it has been a while since i last blog and boy o boy i have so much to say.

first, an update on my studies. just finished my accounting paper today and it was quite ok except for time-management problems. guess i need to work a lot faster and accurately. still awaiting for my management assignment to be returned back, quite scared to see the results that i have gotten for this because it is an essay, cannot really write well. as for my law quizzes, pretty satisfied with my results till date. lastly for my marketing exam, did not expect to fare this well as the paper was very tricky. since the easter break till now, i have not focussed much on the lectures and tutorials as i was concentrating on my mid-sem examinations and assignments, so it is time to start catching up on all and pushed all the way for the final examination in june.

tuesday was the day i turned ventuno but did not celebrate as i had the accounting examination to prepare. nothing special but would like to sincerely thank all who had wished me and the one special person who tried to wish me but failed. i was thinking of going to a strip club to celebrate...

Ranger's parents, aunty cynthia and grandma are here to visit and cook for the three of us for a month. they said that i had put on some weight which i beg to differ. but since i have been here, i have been eating quite a lot, larger portions and also late-night suppers. the fast-food here is yummy, so in love with kfc's wicked wings and my favourite mcdonald's burgers and fries. single cheeseburgers to triple cheeseburgers and quarter-pounder burgers to double quarter-pounder burgers. end it with my favourite coca-cola or vanilla and chocolate milkshakes. before i end, pizzas here are so cheap, a large pizza costs just six bucks. however, these fast-foods are just my snack meals on the way home from UQ or late-night suppers. my breakfasts, lunches and dinners are proper meals from a traditional aussie breakfast of cereals or breakfast bars or eggs on toasts with a cup of cappuccino or latte to packed lunches of sandwiches or last night's dinner leftovers to delicious home-cooked dinner or wagyu beef steaks.

fortunately, we have a great chef friend, Don, whom Izaeel and i worked part-time for. he cooks yummy malaysian and singapore cuisines and makes good sushi, which makes me do not miss home at all. thumbs up for nasi lemak, satay, mee goreng, nasi goreng, char siew and crispy noodles. he takes care of us so well, always making food and giving fruits for us to eat and bring home. i am thinking of working for him during my winter and summer breaks so that i can learn from him. since working for Don and watching Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmare, i have thought of a couple of small food ventures. however, it will be difficult doing it alone and juggling my studies simultaneously. but i am thinking of trying maybe next year or the year after.

before i end, o yes, i experienced storm on monday. it was quite exciting and it is not rain droplets but hails raining down. quite dangerous if you do not have an umbrella with you and it is painful to be hit by one. the hails can break the windscreens of vehicles on the road. however, the storm came and left quite fast and out came the sun again. after which, i saw a spectacular rainbow from my room's window. beautiful...

mio scaduto palo

buona sera! its been almost one month since i last updated. and its been a month and a half since i have packed my bags to settle here. i'm into autumn now and the nights are getting colder, especially tonight.

tutorials have been not too bad. i must say that the time in tutorials are precious as i only get one session of fifty minutes per week for each subject except for accounting where there are two sessions. majority of my tutorial mates are locals. the international mates come from papua new guinea, china, hong kong, malaysia and new caledonia. it was tough in the beginning to understand their accent and because some of them their first language wasn't english so sometimes you have to put the words together and try to understand what they are saying. o yes, all my tutors are females and only one was local. two were asians and one was a brazilian who was a former lawyer. so you can see that not only there was an international mix of students but also tutors!

finally i have been concentrating in lectures. it was tough going back to lectures and to concentrate for two hours each time after two years of not attending one. it is difficult to absorb and take down important information with the lecturers speaking quite fast. imagine jotting down something the lecturer just said and also trying to listen to something which is different at the same time. but thanks to my mobile phone, i can record my lectures down and playback anytime.

i have been cooping at home the whole easter break to complete my one thousand four hundred word management assignment. it is going to be twenty percent of my final grading. first essay in two years and it is a major one. till date, i have completed it, just some editting and referencing left before i can hand it up. hope to fare reasonably well since my whole easter week was spent doing it. however, somehow i feel that it may be out of point, as usual. managed to catch step up two: the streets for only five seventy, so cheap. dance moves were awesome, especially the 'heartbeat' dance.

in two weeks' time, i got two mid-semester examinations - marketing (forty percent) and accoutning (twenty-five percent). i have not started revising for it yet since i have been struggling to complete my essay. will try to start tomorrow. its important to do well and get as much as you can from all these small percentages so that it will not be so stressful when the final examination comes.

the cold night is making me sleepy so till next time, buona notte!

venerdi manifestazione

yesterday was quite an eventful day for me. however it was at the expense of me having to complete three chapters of textbook reading and three tutorials today and tomorrow. so i shall make this a pretty short write-up.

woke up early morning not to prepare for lectures or tutorials but to accompany my ex secondary schoolmate, yue ying, for her horse riding test session at Wattle Creek Riding School at Kays Road. it was a thirty minutes bus ride on bus three-eight-one from the city. Wattle Creek is situated in the midst of a residential area at the foot of a mountain so imagine waking up to the neighs of the horses instead of the sound of roosters. rides cost sixty for half an hour but it will be cheaper if one is learning in groups of four. well i am still undecided if i would like to learn horse riding due to the price.

even a horse needs regular dental checkup

Wattle Creek Riding School

getting ready for a ride

a horse pee

in the evening, Ranger, Izaeel and I attended the Russell Peters & Friends comedy performance at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibtion Centre after we had a vietnamese dinner at West End. It was a very hilarious performance, laughing non-stop throughout. His funny friends were Ahmed Ahmed and Jo Koy. you should youtube them and check out their jokes.

Izaeel & Ranger

that's it for today folks, need to study now. tutorials will start next week so hope to see lotsa babes in my tutorial classes.

lezione settimana

lectures have officially started this week and i have just attended all my lectures for the week. thus tomorrow and friday will be free as tutorials wil begin on monday. law and marketing lectures seemed interesting while accounting and management lectures are quite sleepy, think it is because of the way the lecturers explain the concepts and theories. the lecturers have really good stamina as they can speak continuously non-stop and that makes it quite difficult to multi-task of jotting down important points, absorbing it and listening at the same time. well, this is something that i have to learn and adapt fast though.

lots of food outlets in school. majority are situated in the UQ Union area where there are bookshop, bakery, pizza place, juice bar, coffee joint, food court which is called the Main Refectory, noodle shop, sushi bar (the aussies love sushi!), bank, travel agency, pharmacy, hair salon, music shop, optical and dental services and a bar called the Red Room. the Main Refectory sells pastas, kebabs, burgers, pies, drinks, snacks (fries and other fried food), sandwiches etc. the sandwiches are self-made and one can add as much ingredients into it as the price goes by the weight of the sandwich. food are priced from about four dollars onwards and an average meal, inclusive of a drink, will make you seven dollars poorer. therefore you will see many students bring packed lunch to school with the chinese nationalites bringing their fried rice and the rest such as the aussies, blondes, brunettes and myself bringing sandwiches or pasta. we can heat up our food courtesy of four microwave ovens that were donated eons ago. quite a surprise to see microwave ovens though.

queuing up for a free can of red bull. a can cost three seventy in Main Refectory

the 'red bull' girls

'red bull' car that runs on red bull

microwave ovens

UQ duck family

UQ duck family

aint the ducks adorable? i was going for lecture and saw duck family near the lake. as i was walking to the UQ Lake Station bus stop, the ducks were still around. took a couple of photos of them. in real life, you do not get to see nine ducklings following their lovely duck parents. what a beauty! it made my day!

weather has been pretty good with cool air and sunshine. completed my first run of five km today since i became an 'aussie'. the run was good with downslopes in the beginning to warm-up and then ending off with tough upslope of about forty-five degrees for a distance of about four hundred metres.

so sorry but have not taken much photos of UQ's buildings and landscape. will do it soon for you.

UQ's O-Week 2008

g'day mates! time passed by so fast that it has already been a week since i left singapore. pretty much settled down into the aussie lifestyle.

this week was o-week, orientation week, for the international students who came from all over the world to study and make friends in UQ. some statistics on where we, the international students, came from: leading the chart is china, second is united states, third will be malaysia and singapore lies fourth on the list with one hundred and ninety six. we also have representatives from afghanistan, argentina, kuwait, russia, african nations, germany, finland, norway, united kingdom, trinidad & tobago, japan, korea, cambodia, etc. too many countries to list out but there are about two thousand of us, undergrads and postgrads. i think it is going to be exciting yet challenging to go out and take the initiative to say "hi, i'm daniel and i'm from singapore. how about you?". don't you think so?

o-week is all about attending the various talks by the university's admin office, the student services department, the faculty and also talks on study skills such as plagiarism, note-taking, referencing, etc. i find the study-skills talks informative as i am not taught much on note-taking and referencing in singapore. come to think of it, i think it is going to be an uphill task to study four different courses for one semester when i have not touched any books for the past two years. o yes, during o-week, there were also free thirst quenching drinks given out too. weather has been pretty hot the last couple of days with temperatures rising to a high of thirty-six degree celsius today. there was also 'market day' where the various clubs and societies set-up booths and pull new students into their club or society. first time seeing the campus being so crowded, especially in the Great Court.

i must admit i have not made any friends during this o-week. it is quite difficult as you are unsure who will be your lecture and tutorial mates. moreover i do not live in any of the uni's hostels. so it is quite sad and lonely to walk from one building to another a-l-o-n-e and seeing different groups of students chatting away. luckily for me, i have a trio of secondary school mates who are also studying in the same campus with me, though studying different degrees. o well, lets just hope that i will make more international friends when lessons officially start on monday.

yesterday was the first time i walked around the city and i did it alone. took a bus down and the journey was about fifteen minutes. initially, i was lost but managed to get my bearings after i circled the place. the shopping belt is along queen street. compare to singapore, the shopping scene here is not as big. however, i think it is good enough for me since i do not shop much unless there are great sales, like those in their factory outlets. below are photos of the Brisbane Museum and Conrad Treasury Casino which i passed by:

Brisbane Museum

Conrad Treasury Casino

have been living the life of a pig lately, eating and sleeping a lot with no exercise except for my daily hundred push-ups. o well, my ankle has not fully recovered, still giving me pains. asked ranger to drive me around the estate to scout for running routes and hoping to do one hilly five km route which seems to be a never ending bending road.

my apologies but i will post photos of UQ soon, so do keep a lookout. see ya!

g'day mate!

g'day mate!

on saturday, opened a bank account with commonwealth. the interest rates are quite high. thus, i am considering converting all my singapore dollars to australian dollars and do a term deposit for four months and get some extra cash of about seven hundred just in time for second semester. or maybe one of you would like to lend me the money so that i can earn the interest from the bank. come to think of it, the interest rates in singapore are pathetic, almost negligible.

dinner was at this area called rosalie. had fish and chips from 'the fish lovers'. they have a very good way of reserving tables for customers. maybe ms sandy would like to try this method for her dad's restaurant.

as you can see, what they did was to use thick paper as the 'table cloth', then write the customer's name, number of people and the reservation time. thus in this way, the customers will just have to come and search for their table. i think this is quite a good concept. however, other customers must have the integrity of not 'stealing' the table.

sunday morning went to ikea in the suburb of logan to get a study table. had a cheap two dollars breakkie which consists of scrambled eggs, sausage, hash brown and bacon. you do not get such breakkie for that price in singapore. after which we headed back home to prepare for a cosy barberque lunch with ranger's mates.

shall now talk about the place that i am living in. i am living in a two-room apartment in the suburb of upper mount gravatt. this is the address which you can dhl, fedex or mail to me: unit 15, 8 mascar street, upper mount gravatt, queensland 4122, australia. the place that i am residing is quite hilly thus i think it is good for me to do my runs and trainings. a short five minutes walk away is 'garden city shopping centre' where i can get everything i want. this is where i take buses to UQ or city. journey time is a fast fifteen-minute ride as the buses travel on busways. busways are roads specially constructed solely for buses. hence traffic is smooth and fast. below are photos of my journey back home:

before i forgotten, do take note of my aussie mobile @ +61421759083. till next time, ciao!