So it’s here. The last week of another semester. Tell me, how did time catch up so fast that I could hardly be aware of the impending doom of Week 12? The week brings more meaning than just the sentimental notion of the end of a semester but also the frenzy of cramming for exams, and the terror-stricken mindset that I will fail all my subjects again. Oh yes, you have definitely heard me say this many times before. I was given a second chance but I am once again drawn back into the fray. It’s nothing new; it’s an old challenge I still have not gotten the hang of. Sigh, when will I ever, ever learn.

We were at the supermarket on Friday evening (still being locked out of the house at that time), and Lea still hasn’t given up on trying to convince me to come for dinner at her place. I’m usually not one who would turn down dinner invitations but this time I thought I’d be more rational than my usual self - each minute spent doing something else is a minute forgone that I could have used up to study. Scanning the shelves, I was distractedly deciding on which brand of milk to buy this week. “But it’s the last day of the semester! We should celebrate!”, she asserts. Wait, wait, wait a minute, has it been that a good few months have passed us by already?! This time last semester, we were stuffing ourselves silly with fluffy naans and glorious Indian curries at Funky Curry’s $9.99 buffet.

Before I know it, I was in the communal kitchen of UniLodge, pigging out on a homecooked meal of mushroom rice and Mexican-style chicken with Zi and Lea. And cheese tarts of course - us girls won’t find a meal complete unless there’s dessert too. I’m crossing my fingers that those digested tarts will give me all the energy that I need and sustain me through the next three weeks. You will see me in a couple of weeks if I manage to crawl out of this plight alive. If not, you know there’s always the Twitter updates that you can follow!

I’ve been toiling away all afternoon trying to modify margins and indentations with my more-rusty-than-ever grasp of the CSS language and it’s safe to say that I’m happy enough now to let intherain.org flaunt its new dress, though there may be a few loose threads here and there. Finally, a fresh change of layout for this blog after exactly two years. I’ve been toying around with the idea of a new layout since forever but have very unluckily fail each time because of, amongst other reasons, a tragic wipe-out of data or plain procrastination. But I’ve decided enough is enough, two years is a long time. I just can’t wait to put on a new frock on this site to coincide with its two-year mark and my birthday. Unfinished business on the graphic header was something I slapped on while working on it two weeks ago in Photoshop as a sort-of reminder to myself to finish up the new layout before the week ended (which I didn’t, obviously). In the end, I was happy with how the banner looks as it is, and the little Cellophaned note stuck. If you’re curious, click here to read the very first post on this domain.

I also turned twenty one about a week ago. I’m not too thrilled about it and I’m still not ready to shed my old skin to step out into a new one. 21 sounds so old; yet I’m reluctant to answer to that age because I feel like I haven’t seen enough nor done enough to be able to call myself a mature young adult. I mean, I still battle with insecurity (not the BGR type) and low self-esteem once in awhile. I still cry often. I still haven’t bungee-jumped. I still think the same way about life as I did back in 2002, life is still like a whoopee cushion to me; ‘a chair yanked away just as you were having a seat‘. I can remember this sentence so clearly because I had noted it down on my then blog, after coming across that very candid gem of a sentence in Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much Is True all those years back.

Seven years later, I’ve accepted the fact that I will still be falling flat on my face all the time, but it’s the bouncing back up that matters. I now know I always will, at the very least. :) I’ve also realized that birthday frivolities like presents and parties exist as a crucial distraction to the doom and gloom of aging, ahhh. Which is precisely why I will never get sick of surprise parties executed with such finesse, like how my friends burst into the apartment at midnight on my birthday very, very unexpectedly, with a cake in tow. :D

Thank you to all of you who came by for the impromptu surprise; I was totally caught off guard, in my pajamas no less! Thank you Ezra (please don’t emo that I couldn’t come to the phone!) and Ash for the midnight birthday phonecalls, and those who made long-distance calls later in the night: the boyfriend, Daley, KXheng and Arif. Thank you also to the ones who went the extra mile and got me really amazing gifts! The parents were also here for a short vacation; it was nice to acquaint them with my Melbourne lifestyle and do tourist-y things together like driving out of the city to explore and spending time in Sydney on their last few days in Aussieland.

On the night of the surprise; with the girls: Wei Lynn, Janice, Su Lynn and Waiping

With the guys and daddy on far right.

With Daniel the housemate who was the key informant and set out to execute the surprise plan as soon as he saw me coming home at about 11pm.

On the cake.

Here are some pictures from the birthday dinner that Su Lynn insist I have!

With Rich (who was here to visit Zi), Zi and Lea.

With Janice, Su and Ping.

With the rest of the guys.

Outside Palette after dinner.

More will be up on Facebook soooooon! I also believe that I have a rather embarrassing video of me being in a state of complete shock the moment I see all my friends in the apartment, hmmm? Thank you for the hand-sewn dress, Lea; can’t wait to wear it to a beach vacation! I haven’t taken off the necklace with the dainty pendant of a key and diamond hearts mom gave me, ever since I started wearing it on my birthday. My little sister gave me two tubes of flavoured lipbalm as present, just like she did last year. And OHMYGAWD, guess what else I got!

The book of love letters that I wanted!!! Thank you guys! Big smooches to Su, Ping, Kah Kit, Janice and Erica! And when I open the book I see a page with the title “Our love letters to youuu =)” along with jottings of well wishes, awww.

Left: Flowers from Matt, Hafiz and Khai! There are stalks of unbloomed lilies too, my favourite! Right: Very, very pretty (literally!) bottle of perfume from Meliza, Jan, Calvin, Ven Xhin & Kit Mun. How apt, I’ve been missing the bottles of perfume back home that were too heavy and fragile to be brought over! (I even dropped and shattered my favourite Happy Heart 100ml bottle as I was about to put it into the suitcase when I was packing last year :/)

I know the title is a little bit ironic, considering that Easter was a week ago and that the one-week Easter break from uni officially ends tonight. Yesterday actually, but I have no classes on Mondays - I’ve decided last semester that I never want to wake up to Monday blues ever again - so that gives me an extra day to bask in this pseudo-break. Which brings me to why the last week was nothing but a flurry of activities masked behind its namesake: welcome to the world of Mid-Semester Tests, the world I currently reside in.

It was only something like on Thursday that I started to pry open my books and begin to realize how much I have to catch up on, sigh. Apart from spending time at my desk with a pen in one hand and thumbing through my textbook with the other, here’s a recap on the more notable pastimes throughout the week:

• Having fish and chips at Port Melbourne after 9am Easter service at church.
• Bargain hunting with Janice, Su Lynn and Waiping at the Bardot Warehouse and DFO.
• Shopping with the girls again, in the city this time - I now have two extra pairs of shoes! Instead of relying on my ever-dependable black satin flats and Havaianas. They deserve a break.
• Pigging out on the delicious home-baked apple crumble and cookies.
• Spending $20 (ouch!) on breakfast at Flinders Lane, of which the toast was almost hard as rock.
• Losing myself in two different second-hand bookstores, one’s a random shop we stumbled into on Elizabeth St and the other’s the more popular Book Affair on Elgin.

I’ve also been meaning to put up pictures of the Sydney escapade I went on during Spring break last year. Yes, I’m aware that Spring was two seasons ago. The reason for the many failed attempts to share about the trip is, I just found out, the amount of blog-worthy pictures that I have. There’s just too many to sift through and I don’t know where to start. I finally manage to compile a montage of my first day in Sydney. Looking at the pictures made me fall in love with the city all over again, and I’m reminded of how much I’ve missed it. Sydney had the perfect spring weather - bright sun shining through the clear azure skies and cool breeze wafting pass every now and then. A mighty contrast of what Melbourne was at that time.

Two weeks is all I need, and I will be back in Sydney’s warm embrace. I can’t wait.

(Please excuse the messy borders.)

1 Chinatown; The first thing that I ate upon arrival - custard-filled puffs in a humble bakery that operates though that little window.
2 Sydney Harbour; Where the sailboats dock.
3 Sydney Harbour; At the pier.
4 Sydney Harbour
5 Paddy’s Market; Where I bought some simple scrapbooking materials for quite cheap.
6 Sydney Harbour
7 Sydney Harbour Bridge; By night.
8 The Rocks; Happy me with my glass of German beer at LowenBrau for dinner!
9 The Rocks; The schlachtplatte that we shared. A platter of absolutely delectable house specials of sausages, pork belly and chicken schnitzel.
10 The Rocks
11 The Rocks; Sinfully scrumptious Devil’s Delight at Pancakes On the Rocks for dessert!