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!

valentine's day - the day I left

woke up to the smell of valentine, feeling nervous for the first time. not because i am nervous of giving flowers to my valentine but it was due to me departing for australia that very night. for the days leading up to this long awaited day, i was all cool. but suddenly, when i woke up, i felt nervous.

this year's valentine's day will i not forget for my life. had my wish of a lunch date with this lovely lady, whom i shall not reveal her name, before i left. well, it breaks my heart to let her have a lonely lunch though. went to eat at 'the sandwich shop' at oligvy centre. not forgetting a lovely orange daisy with green ribbons for the lady. a warm melt-my-heart hug was her farewell goodbye to me as she had to rush back to office. below are the photos which she requested to be uploaded. do note that this was the first time my camera phone was being tested for its camera ability.

someone's hand itchy

smile without flash

smile with flash

her own photography skill: one

her own photography skill: two

my favourite

Packed my bags and left for terminal one. apart from my family, 04S07 classmates, ashish, hitesh and ritesh came to send me off. it was a tiring flight as i only slept for two hours. ranger picked me up and off we went back home. walked with izaeel to the bus stop to see where it is. bought a mac breakkie takeaway and went home to unpack my stuff and then take a short nap. after which i took a bus to UQ to obtain my student card and walked around the campus. the campus is humongous but beautiful. will upload photos of my campus next week. had authentic vietnamese dinner at market's place in a suburb called sunnybank. market's place consists of a group of asian eateries and grocery shops. updates to be continued...

the day i became a 'brother'

sunday the twenty-seventh of january was the chinese customary wedding for my cousin and brother, Ranger, and his wife Izaeel. they had registered their marriage on second of june last year so now is to complete the whole traditional wedding. this is the first time that a cousin of mine is getting married and so it was quite a big preparation from all in the family. i was asked to become one of the 'band of brothers' to pick up the bride at her house. the chinese tradition of picking up the bride is to have to go through a series of 'obstacles' that the 'band of sisters' have in store for us.

Band Of Brothers' Power!

Dancing Kings!

Did the Ladies got such a big 'hongbao'?

after much 'bloodshed', we won the battle into the bride's room. somewhat i feel that we got off very lightly, cannot imagine what will mine be like. after which, we proceeded back to the groom's place for the tea ceremony and boy o boy my family has a very very very long tea ceremony. beware my future wife! relatives from australia, indonesia and malaysia had come to welcome the new addition, Izaeel, into our big family. i cannot imagine when it is my turn to serve tea to the elders. i think this will turn me off to get married. but come to think of the quantity and quality of the 'hongbao' contents, i guess i will just have to make a little sacrifice.

Some photos of the brothers and sisters with the bride and groom:

dinner was at Conrad Centennial Hotel. i was given the cannot-screw-up-task of mr 'photo+montage' and luckily all went smoothly. Food was good, wine was good, the crowd look great but sigh, i did not take a photo with one of the 'sisters'.

that's all folks. will be leaving singapore for brisbane on valentine's day. terminal 1, qf52 departing at 2115hrs.