I did it AGAIN!!

I drove again today as well as yesterday night. Last night, I was going to stay at my couz's house in Strath and therefore got the opportunity to drive again. But this time it's in the middle of the night!! Ok... maybe it wasn't middle of the night but it was pitch dark outside =__= it shouldn't be a problem right? Except one thing. I was turning right from a small street and upon turning right (which in this case is also called accelerating) my headlight suddenly caught a glimpse of a grey furry animal lying at where I would hit it if I continue my path! So then I swerve even more to the right over the line and then regain the wheel balance again after I'm satisfied that we passed that moment and continue driving like it never happened. Luckily enough there wasn't any car on the opposite direction. BUT IT WAS SCARY!! It just so happen we have no idea what the animal was, it was neither reacting nor moving to the light nor the sound of the engine. So we are able to assume that it was already dead before I turned onto that street =__= such a waste of life. I feel sorry for the cat or whatever living furry creature it was. It was a scary encounter that I do not want to happen.

But all in all that wasn't really something that will make me discard the idea of driving. I tend to feel remorseful after all the mistakes that I did whilst driving and then completely forget about them the next day and start the lesson anew. So this morning I was picking up my couz (this is a completely different couz and I got another couz, who is the owner of the car, next to me) and dropping him off to Bunnings in Ashfield. There wasn't a great deal of mistakes on the road but a couple of arguments mainly between me and my couz (owner) about the rules end of driving, well... I really can't consider it argument per se, it's more proving who is right and who is wrong =__= but I did keep my eyes on the road though so no worries. But I still find parking difficult because I've been practicing on quiet roads a few times and then when it comes to the real world I really suck... Even though I put the front of the car in first I still can't manage to straighten the car =__= and so my couz need to hold the steering wheel for most of the parking =__= but then after that because the bit with the L on the front of the car was missing because it was raining and the L is actually paper so it blew away (or maybe it was heavily soaked with water so it dropped) my couz drove us back home ^--^ hehe so nice to finally get to ride in the car as a passenger instead of the driver. Come to think of it it has been a while since I ride in a car as a passenger because I've been getting lessons throughout the weekends.

But it was all good. We have to see what happen next there are probably a lot of mishaps waiting to happen when I'm driving around. O well~

OMG >..<

OMG! I drove on Parra Rd YESTERDAY!! Luckily it wasn't that crowded and busy so I guess I was lucky. I was just dropping off my couz to his work yesterday arvo don't worry my other couz (who already has full license) rode beside me so it was all good... But I was scared!! I've been driving in between Burwood and Strath and am still making mistakes and now I was supposed to drive on the main road!! +__+ Luckily I didn't make major mistakes but I did almost get heart attacks from inconsiderate drivers who just won't accept an L me driving around small streets really slowly =__= But at least we made it out alive ^--^ hahahaha

I WANT TO DRIVE!! I WANT MY OWN CAR!! But I can't... =__= o well at the moment I'm just gonna ride in my couz's car... haha but I realised that I don't really pay too much attention to the road that much and I just ride on bad roadworks and my couz complain at how in a short time the wheel allignment need to be readjusted just because of me hahahaha ^--^

I guess it's not really a laughing matter but I laugh neways... hehe so fun... driving...

uhuh... I got too much time on my hand don't I?!? If you noticed I posted this thing so late at night but I still succumb to my dumbness and decided to draw more =__= I really need to get some sleep but I insist myself to not...

This was supposedly a drawing for Priya's character. But I realised that it's just a tad bit too cold. Tell you the truth I was just drawing it without any conciousness on the character I'm supposed to do +__+ but I suppose it turned out ok... if you can't click it here's some cropping that I've made...

The next one is 'supposedly' Noush's character... somehow... I'll try to make a better one =__= I'm just retarded doing this in the middle of the night... I guess when an idea strike you just HAVE to do it... have you ever been in that situation...?

hmm... once again I think you can't really click on the pic so I'll give you cropped up sections...

Okies that's all from me... if you want the pic... just tell me i'll give it to ya... even the real one... truthfully I actually made the drawings on the back of two used printer paper... and I can't be bothered to transfer and redraw everything into the hardpressed paper... it's depressing... alrighty I'm outie now... +__+

Come to think of it these drawings do look kinda a bit better than the previous ones that I posted (that is the ones that got no relation whatsoever to the characters that I have been working on) but then again I am not a pro so I guess all I can do is praise myself indefinitely... how pathetic... +__+

mmm... not so sure on what the name of the characters are but one is supposedly 'laughing assassin' which in the end feels more like just 'assassin' and then there's 'a person who can bring chaos into your world' so I guess we shall title the latter 'chaos' check your mails again if you want to know more ^^;

hmmm... today I don't feel like bloggin' but in the end I feel everytime I check my blog and being confronted with the same goddamn thing over and over again irritates me. So I guess I'm just putting this short brief rambling about my world.

So far either everything has gone according to plan or I'm just lucky I'm just glad that I got a pretty good timetable. Even though most of my lects are actually the morning ones I kinda glad that I have no more afternoon lects coz last time it just makes me lazier than ever. This time around most of my class actually finish early in the afternoons and I got a day off on Thu so it's all good ^--^.

Moving on to what projects I have for this semester. All of them sounds straightforward and even at odds interesting but in the end I find it very frustrating just to finish them. One of them is photographing signs to make a set of 6 postcards, which is fine but in the end you would get annoyed too if you've taken and printed hundreds of photos just to be said that 70% of those photos are considered 'unusable' by your tutor +__+. The next thing in the agenda is the comic strip that we have to make. It sounds straightforward but in the end I find it really frustrating because some of the ideas just either don't click in or doesn't make sense or even worse, brilliant but don't fit into 6 frames (btw we only can use a combination of 6 frames for this project). As for other projects lets just pretend they don't exist. Although I find Illustration class pretty interesting but somehow I'm really not motivated to do the projects. Don't ask why. I just don't.

Last item on the list would be the indefinite driving lessons I've been getting off my cousin. It's amazing how quickly you go from motivated to lazy. I was very VERY interested when my couz offered to give me driving lessons when I first came back here, but lately either I procrastinate a lot and thus become even lazier or I've just lost interest in the idea of driving around getting nervous and cramping my right foot. Either way these days I have been off driving lessons but don't worry I'll probably regain my interest after a couple of days ^--^. No need to worry.

Alrighty that's all from me and I'll shut up now.

hi all hi all

i've been wanting to create all those characters representing us for quite some time and i've been thinking a lot about it (maybe... you tell me) but this one is a preview on kimmie's character. i thought it must be a bit more gothic and more death-like but i don't think this would be the final outcome of the character. it looks a bit too complicated and it's kinda hard to draw in small frames etc. but as a concept character i think it's heading somewhere.



if you haven't notice the left hand (that is seeing it from 'us' perspective) it is not attached and it's severed and there are a lot of corpse looking marks all over the place and the boots are actually sewn onto the skin of the legs as well the torso is severed and hanging in mid air and you can see that the bones are sticking out as well... haha if you are actually just reading this bit it actually sounds quite gross...

alright that's all from me i got a day off today. YAY! but unfortunately i have 9am lect 2mrw (=__=) and also my other uni friends are actually fortunate enough to have 4 days off!! that is thu, fri as well as the weekend! (lucky bastards =__=)

ps. for some reason i can't seem to make the picture show it's actual size when you click on it

pps. if you want the full resolution or fully detailed pic tell me so i can give it to ya it's not that huge but apparently you can't click it in blogger (shucks~!)

Just for today I was bored and I have a sudden need to draw something. And fyi I know you don't believe me Marina but I am working on those 'cartoonic' superheroes it's just a bit hard to imagine what'll they look like so it took A VERY LONG TIME (or maybe this is just my lame excuse) ^--^". But as for a sneak peek at what --maybe-- going to be the final drawing this is my 'character'. What was it again? I think it was erm... actually I can't remember... ^--^"

So here it is



And please excuse it's rather smudginess and amateurish outcome coz this is actually (after a few numerous practice) my first 'good' drawing using the dip pens. So if it appears rather 'shitty' gomenasai ... =__=

So until then I bid you farewell...

First day BAK TO UNI~ YAY! Really not looking forward to it. Still jetlagged. And I was late. Lets leave it at that. Happy going-back-to-uni everybody~! (this still includes the number of people still on holidays ^--^)

OHAYOO!

Finally I arrived back in Sydney nice and sound... Although there was a bit of a scare when the weather started to turn a bit harsh and it was a few minutes of bumpy ride... It was shaking quite badly though I'm ok with it... hehe

Because I usually am a lazy ass I usually arrived with the latest group to get a seat. This time it seems I was actually the last one to get to the ticket counter on time. So the only thing to pray for when you are in this situation is hopefully you get a good enough seat so you won't be stuck in between two old men (and fyi, I've been there, done that and trust me it wasn't a pretty sight) And because I 'insisted' nah that's not it. I was just plain lucky. So I got an aisle seat. The only problem, it's on the very last row. And it's actually a single centre row where there are no side rows. So I guess it should be alright. The only problem I noticed during the flight is that to my right is actually a storage locker and during the entire flight I was again and yet again being faced with the stewards's butts! YEAH! BUTTS! Because they apparently store the trays etc in that locker so I kept having to look disgusted at the full-frontal view! It was SO close I will certainly swear if they let out a bit of gas! So it was occasional full-moon for the whole flight. And the bit that sucked about this seat is that I can't steal a glance at the window because it's blocked by the locker. But otherwise having this seat is pretty good when you have no one besides you. When the plane was in taxi mode for a while I thought I might have a good seat since there was no one there besides me (so I can have the three seats all to myself and I can sleep lying on those three seats) but luck certainly wasn't on my side at that time. 5 minutes before departure the seat next to the other aisle was taken by someone. But I guess having an empty middle seat ain't that bad.

So it was all nice full sailing through and through except for the slight bad weather. Oo and a nice little fact that I never noticed before I can actually bring 40 kg of stuff if I ask for it. And I did! And it was soo damn good coz I brought a lot of stuff and food!

Yes. Talking about food. The last couple of weeks my mom speed up the cooking process for the Indo food that I love the most! First there was Hainan Chicken which was splendid! See the thing is with the rice it's not just plain white rice it's actually a rice that was cooked and marinated. They have all this ingredients put in the rice such as lemongrass, coconut milk and other spices and then my mom cook it in a huge wok until the coconut milk disappeared. And then what happen is that the rice is actually only half cooked so my mom has to steam the rice before you eat it. And the chicken is just steamed chicked but the thing that I love the most is the thing that goes with it, fried garlic and ginger. See what you do is you chop all the ginger and garlic and then you fry it with a lot of oil. When it's all brown and smells delicious you turn off the flame but don't throw away the oil coz it's what keeps the garlic and ginger crunchy. And my mom also made the chilli for it too. It's actually chillies and garlic boiled together and then after it boiled you throw the water away and grind the chillies and garlic until it mashed into a paste and after that you put in a lot of salt and mix it together and then you put some vinegar in a jar and then you put the chilli paste into that jar and mix it together. YUMMY! It was SUPER delicious~!

And then there's Lemper. It's a sort of cake to me but it's a savoury one. See what it is is actually sticky rice with a filling. The filling is chicken. So I helped with making this one too. I used to love it but I had too much already that this time I'm only eating a little. So what happens is that it's almost the same procedure as the Hainan Rice except this time you're using sticky rice. But the chicken this time is different. You steam the chicken until it's fully cooked and then you bone it. You strip all the meat away but you have to peel it until it's very thin and only strings of chicken meats. And then you cut it perpendicular to the strings of meat until it's little pieces of strings of meat... ... I know it sounds very complicated when it's not supposed to. I guess I'm just not very talented in describing something, I tend to stroll off for a bit of walk before I get to the point. So what happen after is my mom cook the strips of chicken in coconut milk and other spices etc etc and then afterwards it's when the rolling begins! What you do after, preferably straight after the sticky rice are done, is prepare all the plastics, spoons and your skill to make the cake. The sticky rice is a bit oily and sticky it is much better if you do this with plastic because that way your hands won't stick to the rice plus the rice can be very hot so it prevents your hands from getting burned (although it will feel hot afterwards at least your hands won't be burned completely) You put a thin layer of sticky rice on the plastic and then you put a heaped teaspoon of the chicken in the center of the sticky rice layer and then you shape the sticky rice to look like a long ball. And afterwards you cover the long side of the rice cake with pandan leaf and then you cover the whole piece with a piece banana leaf (of course they were already cut before hand to suit the size of the rice cake) and then you sticky tape or staple the ends of the banana leaf. And there you go~!

OK, next food on the menu is DESSERT~! ICE CENDOL~! If you have been to Indo you most likely have tasted this even though you don't know the name. It has small pieces of long green jellies inside and they put a huge spoonful of palm sugar and also another layer of coconut milk. IT IS D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S~! It is one signature dish that you can't go past. I'm not sure whether this dessert is actually Indo or not coz they have it in Malaysia too. So I guess it must be typical of South East Asian countries. But for those of you who don't know, the green of the jellies are not usually artificial green colours (unless if you're buying it off food stalls in the streets they most likely do that, to save on costs that is) it's actually a type of plant that they have grind until it looks like a green paste. And what my mom did is actually mix this one type of flour (which I have no idea what it's called) and then mix it with water and the green paste to make that lushious green colour that is just so tempting to the eyes, and then you mix all the green paste to the flour until the green paste and the flour mix perfectly and then you add a lot of water and add jelly powders (of course the jelly powder has to be the Indo ones because I noticed over here the jelly is not as bouncy and hard) and then you cook the liquid until the mixed ingredients boil and turn into a liquidy-jelly-like substance. Before it can cool down you have to prepare the thing that makes the jelly long and small. Ok I really can't describe this part coz it's just get a bit confusing from here on. What my mom did is put the jelly stuff onto this device and then let it drip onto a large bowl of icy water so it'll harden quickly and maintain its form. And voila~ Ice Cendol is ready to serve. The palm sugar and coconut milk is easy to do so no need to describe it ^--^

'Twas all the food that I can think of. It was all good~ very good~!
I ABSOLUTELY HEART INDO FOOD ^--^ !!!

So for the moment being I guess I will be forced to wait until the end of this year to taste all those delicacies once more, twice more!, A LOT MORE~! Hehe. Okies then I better go all this talk about food is making me hungry.

Dadah~

i heart indo food~!

I never realised this until now I much I LOVE absolutely ADORE Indo food! They're definitely exquisite...

Yesterday me mum made Sayur Asem (with the help of me of course it's more getting in the way of than 'helping') I help with the blender and that's mostly it... I know it's pathetic really... but anyway now I sorta know what the ingredients are. Most of the ingredients are traditional of tropical part of Asia (I think) and apart of lemongrass I have no idea how to convert the vegetables into English :P Sayur Asem is like a vegetable soup with the only difference is that you don't just put the vegetables into one pot and then cook 'em up there's also this paste that you have to make from the lemongrass etc to add that spiciness and wonderful taste. But no Sayur Asem is complete without the salted fish. There are different kinds of salted fish around here when you go to the market but the ones that I particularly like and especially good combined with Sayur Asem is kuro. It's one type of salted fish and don't get me wrong these fish are very strong in both flavour and smell and the saltiness of the fish meat is so salty if you just eat it on its own. And then we also made the chilli to go with the soup. OMG just writing about it is already making my tastebuds tingle ^--^

Then at night, after two sessions both lunch and dinner of Sayur Asem (and I'm still not tired of it!!) my dad brought home durians after work! DURIANS!!! OMG~~! I LOVE DURIANS! You cannot come between me and the durians. It is the one fruit that I love the most but unfortunately you can't eat a lot of it or you'll get a headache and don't get this wrong but I've been there, done that so a warning to all of you durian lovers don't eat one whole durian! Durian is such an interesting fruit with its spiky skin and really foul smell... Don't get me wrong but to me the smell of the durians are like the smell of a juicy steak that makes your mouth tingles. But I guess for a first-timer it is very difficult to taste this tropical delicacy. One time I saw this food show that shows a man travelling throughout Asia to find strange culinary delights. He was going through Malaysia at the end of his tour and tried to eat the durians but can't he popped a whole meat of the durian (the meat covers the outside of the seeds of the durians these are the part that you can eat but the inside of the durian is like few different rows of those seeds and meats so basically it's not really that huge it just sound huge, btw you won't understand what I'm saying unless you actually HAVE seen a durian) and spit it out again. Afterwards he said that he cannot swallow the thing because out of all those strange things that he had eaten throughout his journey he cannot eat this one thing. And he also said that it taste like foul smelling rotten onion!! The light of him! But I guess we've been having it since we were kids so we enjoy the taste very much and can't get over it. I was soo happy that my dad brought home those durians but don't get me wrong choosing a delicious durian is something that is hard to do even though my dad's a pro when it comes to choosing one of these fruits it's still hard to find that very delicious ones over a pile (unless they are already from a great flock) so the last night's durians weren't that great but it's close to it. I've tasted better. Hehehe ^--^

*sigh my mom said that she was gonna make Chicken Rice (hainan chicken) but I guess she's in no mood to do so. There's still a lot of food that I need to taste before I leave Indo and I definitely have to have 'em all before I go back to Oz or I'll regret it for the rest of the year (coz even though I go to an Indo restaurant it will NEVER be as good as my mom's cooking or even the cooking of the nearby street stalls)

Until my culinary curiosity is fulfilled I will not be satisfied! But till then~

Bye ^^

come see, come all...

So it's only one more day left till the fresh new clothes are taken off the wardrobe and quilted our skins, I know it sounds corny but~ o well. See we as a family have the old tradition and beliefs when it comes to Chinese New Year (that's most probably what influence me to believe that the new year does not start until we past CNY)

So here are the preparations that we've been getting our hands onto this past couple of days. Me and my mom have been folding the papers that are going to be burnt on the day. The papers represent money and they usually have a gold emboss in the center with a picture of the three Wise Men or some other Chinese related pictures eg. a lotus. These 'money' are usually burnt on some occasions like the CNY or during a funeral or when you are commemorating a person's death. It is believed that these money will be sent to heaven to be given the loved ones that are already gone. But you can just not fold the paper money if you want to but CNY is a special occasion so we've been folding like crazy! The shape that we usually fold it onto is those old chinese gold money thingy it's kinda hard to describe it's mostly like a boat looking money. But this year just because I'm bored, got nothing to do, and trying to do differently I decided to do a lotus. (At the moment coz the system sucked I can't show the pictures so I'll just show it next time) We made (I was helped by my mom but I was the one arranging the paper so it become a lotus ^--^ hehe) 3 full lotus and a flower. It's strange if you don't see the picture but I'll show it next time.

We also have this tradition where we usually put a table of offerings on the front of our home. It is a table full of food ranging from cakes to a whole chicken, a slice of roast pork, fish etc as offerings to the gods. And on the day of CNY we pray with 3 incenses each for our health and future well-beings. It's good coz at the end of the day we can cook the meats and eat the cakes ^--^ and they say that if you eat the food for offerings it will bring you luck too but I believe they just do that so the food won't go to waste hehehe ^--^

The night before CNY we also clean up, change bedcovers and wear new PJs as the tradition goes it is a start of a new year thus everything needs to be new to allow good luck or something or rather (maybe that was just my version of why we have to change into everything new) and it's also said that everything you wear needs to be new too but we don't go as far as changing the eating utensils etc that's just a waste. And the clothes that we wear is usually red. But we can't be bothered, as long as it's new it GREAT! hehehe ^--^

But the greatest thing about CNY is the FEAST! My mom cooks mean food! We traditionally have this food that we only eat once a year coz they are delicacies considered as luxurious food so we only eat them on CNY. But we don't normally have a feast with the whole relatives we just do it on our own terms, so it's more of a family dinner than a feast really. But the amount of food that my mom cooks seems to suggest there is going to be a feast (usually) hehehe ^--^ and anyway my brother eats a lot so I guess it won't go to waste.

And as you all know the tradition also extends to the red envelope. Yup, the most exciting thing about CNY is definitely the red envelope filled with MONEY! ^--^ On the day (which is tomorrow) of CNY we usually go around to our relatives' places, which are usually the oldest relatives which in my case is my Grandma's house where the relatives from my dad's side usually hang out and meet and then we usually visits other relatives too.

And then at the end of the day we just hang around at home. We usually don't have a lot to do during the day so we sometimes just hang out at relatives' places and then that's all that we really do. So... that's all about the Chinese New Year that we as a family do. So if I don't get a chance to say this I'll say it now, HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR, GONG XI FA CAI, may all your wishes come true!

Bai bai ^--^