Cherlyn's 22nd Bday @ Blue Water Pizza

The entry is a little back dated, all thanks to the snail-paced internet connections here. I know that is no use venting my frustrations over it, but it really gets me quite worked up whenever I really have the need to use the Internet, to check my emails and Blackboard, which are quite important.

I realised that the Australians are very liberal in their dressing and fashion. The girls are not shy to wear low cut tops or super short mini skirts. And there are students who have piercings all over their face as well. Just wonder how could they tolerate the excruciating pain of being pierced all over. There is a fairly good mix of races in UoN. I see American-African, Koreans, Chinese and Japanese students. However, the vast majority of the students are Caucasians. A lot of UoN students drive to school daily, because transportation is not convenient and the buses stop operating early, say around 10-11pm. And professors look upon us, the students, as their equal instead of considering themselves superior to us. We can address them by their names, the same way we call our friends.

After CHEM 3310, I proceeded to the Science Building to look for the CHEM 3210 lab schedule. Bumped into Adam and he asked me whether I was lost. After telling him my purpose for coming to the Science Building, he offered to ask Robert, my CHEM 3210 lecturer to post up the schedule on the lab's noticeboard soon. How intiative of him! His fast speech during the lecture on Carbonyls is reminiscent of Prof Loh's CBC 113 lectures back in NTU.

Geoff handed out the tutorial on Material Balances and Units test paper during Green Engineering yesterday. Managed to do well for the Units test; scored the maximum mark which I predicted that I would get. However, Geoff expected us to get full marks because the questions were from the tutorial and the solutions were all provided. Nevertheless, I am really satisfied and hope to continue to keep up the good work. Unfortunately, I could no do a single question of the Material Balances tutorial, to add to further damage, the Material Balances Quiz is on Monday! I certainly do not want to do too badly for this quiz as I wish to accumulate as much marks as possible for the easier assessment items, so that I can have an easier time at the end of the semester.

Read through the 31 pages of my management textbook when I reached home. I started out with enthusiasm, but it slowly morphed into boredom and drowsiness as the reading progressed. Initially, I read the content very slowly, but got impatient and just simply skimmed through the last final pages. I do not know whether is it pure disinterest or prejudice towards business modules. But no matter what, it is imperative to clear this Business PE!

The highlight of the day was Cherlyn's 22nd birthday celebration at Blue Water Pizza.I couldn't help but grin that I have finally got to know someone who is older than me, albeit only by a month. The Blue Water Restaurant faces the sea where yachts and boats are present. Most of the people who came for the birthday celebration were dressed very elegantly, some even sexily. They also donned on makeup such as lipstick, blusher,eyeshadow and mascara. Needless to say, the birthday girl looked stunning that evening, in a nice dress,eyeshadow and contact lens.I felt a little odd, for I was dressed really casually in just a t-shirt and a pair a jeans. As a result, I felt a tad regretful for leaving all my pretty clothes at home and not bringing any along at all. However, Bowie suggested that I could buy some clothes during the summer sale season, which is now :)

There were at least 20 people present, all are Malaysians and almost all of them are Nutrition and Dietetics majors in UoN. Made 3 new friends there, Aili, Melissa and Eva. They are very friendly girls and really went all out to make me feel at ease by chatting and even joking with me. Melissa and Eva are staying on campus at the International House, while Aili stays quite near to Faulker Crescent. I took photos of Aili and Melissa together before dinner. Aili is a pretty girl who looks like an Eurasian, though she mentioned that no one ever thought that she is a Chinese at first sight. Melissa is a fair,chubby girl with big eyes who can hold her wine pretty well. Eva is soft spoken girl who wore really nice earrings. Exchanged numbers and msn addresses with Aili. Really hope to have her as a long term friend, for she is so amicable :)

Dinner was pretty ok, though the food took a long time to come, long waiting times for food to come seem like a culture in Newcastle! Shared calamaris,french fries,seafood pasta and 2 pizzas with Aarons,Hongjun and Huifang.Felt totally at home with the 3 girls and my friends, all the initial feelings of awkwardness and boredom had vaporized to thin air. After dinner, it was time to cut the cake. They sang birthday songs in 3 languages for Cherlyn : Cantonese, Chinese and English. Cherlyn took photos with everyone at the table. We all also got her a present and wrote our best wishes in a birthday card for her. This birthday card was personally made by Hongjun, and I must admit, he has a knack for art!

The rest of the night was spent posing for the cameras and chatting. Took a group photo with my pink camera, but it was rather blur :( Snapped a photo with Bowie too, who also looked beautiful that night. And she commented that she looked matured in the photo :P I really liked the birthday cake, for it is a cheese cake with a biscuit crust ( my favourite kind of cake). Some of the people even climbed a spiral staircase which was several storeys high to get a bird eye's view of the harbour where the restaurant is located.

Unfortunately, Huifang had bad abdominal pains that had persisted since 2 days ago. Apparently, it was so painful that she could not walk normally and had to sit down every now and then. So, we decided 2 bring her to Mater Hospital, so as to exclude the possibility of the intense pains being caused by appenditicitis. Bowie had a ruptured appendix and she had experienced severe abdominal pains too. As a result, she had to undergo an emergency operation to prevent the infection from spreading. Thanks to Aili, we managed 2 find the hospital, which was luckily, still open. I really like Aili's personality, she is very honest and forthright, yet does not offend others with her words. Mater Hospital is small compared to the hospitals in Singapore. And they have a chart of the estimated waiting time according to the extent of emergency of the various illness or injuries. Huifang's case happens to fall under the 1 hour waiting time category, for non emergency cases.

Worried that Aili and I might be too tired, Aaron decided to send us home first before going back to the hospital to wait for Huifang to finish seeing the doctor. I certainly appreciate such considerate acts from guys :) Luckily, e cause behind Huifang's abdominal pains is not too serious. She is merely suffering from a bacteria infection. If it was appendicitis, there will be large costs incurred from the hospitalization and operation fees. Hope she will get well soon after buying medicine from a chemist :) By the way, the term "chemist'' is equivalent to the term "pharmacist'' in Singapore.

On a random note, it is common for mosquito bites to leave persistent scars in Australia. Melissa told me that mosquito bite scars on her arms have been present since a year ago and that she intends to go for suntanning to make herself darker, so as to camouflage the scars. I certainly hope that Berroca, a vitamin C supplement which I take everyday will accelerate the scars disappearing process!