Lost In Translation

Just for the sake of spicing up my pointless life right now (oh, besides being enslaved by uni, that is), I've decided to declare the following week the 90's Week.
That's right, folks. It's time to reminiscent on the past decade where most of us Gen-Y'ers hit puberty at. A time of chaotic fashion and alternate ideas of coolness. An age of rebellion and anger. A life of rising remote controls and mobile technology.

Where some stars rose to the peak, nay, zenith of the era, and yet to fall so disgracefully no later.

Where music was ruled by the Top40 and little boybands sprouted like parasite mushrooms.

God, have mercy on us all...

Where teenagers were just discovering the wonders of hairgel and noticing how it could make their hair stand like those in animes. Others on the other hand, believed that centre-parting was the work of Picasso.

Refer to picture above

Where pointless, plotless, explosive movies ruled the summer blockbusters, cliched romance sweep girls off their feet over and again, and the blessed teen-genre movies was birthed into the world.

And so the list goes on. Unless you happen to be below the age of 7 (which if you are... who are you? and what are you doing here?!), you'd know what I'm talking about.
So for this week, I've decided to live out that life again. My car cd-player is now packed with the Barenaked Ladies, old Jarsofclay albums, and United Live (note the difference.. United LIVE, not United). My wardrobe on the other hand... well that's a hard one so I'll skip that. My hairstyle? Erm... that can be degrading in uni, so I'll skip that as well.

So in short, I'm only listening to old music for this week. Unless you've got better ideas. Which I doubt you would.

Oh, the good times...

Then maybe I could take a breather.
Just for a short while. A day maybe. I bet that would be enough.

Because as for now, I have:-
43 pages of readings about Malaysia to be done by Tuesday's Bus. & Eco in South East Asia tute,
250 more words to make up for an assignment of the same subject due the same day,
240 more words to write up for another assignment for Organizational Behaviour to be done by tomorrow,
3 tute questions for Intermediate Financial Accounting (which I have yet to even take a peek at) to be handed in by tomorrow afternoon, and
6 weeks' worth of revision to be done for Cost Management mid sem exam on Thursday morning.

So it's either I kamikaze my way through the week, feeling better once it's over with and dread when the results of all this come to haunt me after my Easter break, or please in some way, God, freeze time now (without me included) so I can take a breather before I start contemplating on suicide.
Okay. So I wasn't serious on that bit on suicide. Nevertheless, it conveys my frustration clearly enough, I hope.

Gosh, I feel so crappy.

Woohoo!
After such an excruciating week of assignment/homework deadlines and a midsem on top of that, boy am I relieved that the Easter break is finally here! Sure it's only one week and within that span of time, I've still got some homework and studying that I need to catch up with. But just before all that begins, I thought it'd be a great idea to take some timeout and catch a breath.

So today, I decided to take Esther out on a daytrip to...

That's right, folks! Geelong!

I've only been there once but that was just when I was passing it by on my way home from Brisbane about 2 years ago. Didn't know much about the town except that I heard they had an award-winning (don't ask me how) waterfront. So with that and that alone as an incentive, we headed south.

The day didn't start off too nice at all with rain all over Melbourne. The drive there itself wasn't all too pleasant as well. Strong winds, dark clouds, and the occassional rain randomly took turns in knocking us out for the first half hour. But upon arriving at Geelong, the sun finally decided to take a peek and the clouds scattered away.
Talk about perfect timing.

Now, it's my first time (officially) visiting Geelong, and the only times I've even heard its name mentioned is when the news is on and they're talking about footy or how sad it is a few of my uni friends have to travel everyday from there (that's about an hour's++ worth of a train ride). So forgive me please if for some poorly assorted reason that my impression of it wasn't all that much at all. In fact, I didn't think much of it at all. For some reason I knew it was a city (just smaller than Melbourne), I knew it had a great beach, I knew it wasn't all farms and sheep, and yet, all I could really think of when I hear Geelong is this tiny little place with poor facilities. Kinda like what we West Malaysians would think of Borneo even though we've never been there... except in that case, we'd be right.

What we saw when we got there, of course, wasn't whoop-whoop at all. In fact, I'll have to say that Geelong has got to be one of the most scenic towns in Victoria I've ever been to. The beach alone (simply because that's where we spent most the day at) was simply breathtaking!

The water crystal clear. The air as fresh as crisp and fresh as it could be. And the esplanade... *Phew!
And the thing was... the place wasn't old-fashioned at all! Just walking along the esplanade reminds me of Port Melbourne altogether! In fact, even better! There are less skyscrapers, the streets not as congested, and the landscaping/layout of the entire area was brilliant! They've even got these quirky looking wooden-carved statues lined up all across the beach.

The place was fascinating! It was like Docklands all over, except that it wasn't dead! Oh, and the jetty! It wasn't congested at all like Williamstown. The scenery was amazing with little boats docked around the area, coupled by boat-like restaurants which light up the beach bright, making it such a great place to wine and dine.

I seriously envy the people who live in the apartments next to the bay. Not only do they get such an awesome view everyday or be surrounded by the various facilities and activities to do, but the apartments themselves look awesome!! MAN, they look like 5-star resorts! If only I were a millionaire, I'd know where to buy myself a retirement villa right away.
But nevertheless, the beach was not just the only fascinating spot in Geelong. Right before we headed to the beach, we actually dropped by an old warehouse which sold antiques. It had the quirkiest and widest range of antiques and old novelties. From toys from the 50's to comic books to furniture to household appliances to musical instruments... the list goes on. The place was huge, like an indoor Vicmart (quite literally without exaggerating).

iris, you'll love the place!

Esther and I almost couldn't leave the place as we could have spent the entire day there itself.
But as the day drew to an end, it was time to head back home to Melbourne, where all of a sudden, after the quieter yet beautiful town of Geelong, it felt like Sydney instead.
Sigh.
Oh well. Now I wish the break was longer...

It can't be explained properly. No. Not in words. It has been tried. It only leaves people confused and weirded out by your sudden enthusiasm.
So all I can say is that you do nothing but roll, roll, and continue rolling till you become bigger and bigger and a whole lot bigger. Then you roll on some more. And that is a lot of fun.

Oh. And I love katamari.

It is roughly around 2:40p.m right now on a gloomy Saturday afternoon. The weather tool I have on my browser says that it's 13 degrees outside and it is expected to stay this way for quite the remainder of the day. And here I am snugly tucked under my blankey with a cup of hot chocolate with Diana Krall playing softly in the background of my living room.

Yea right.

I'm in the law library. I have three assignments due in two weeks, two of them being group ones and here I am doing one of them. Well, at least I'm trying to. My group leader said to meet at around two-ish but she's not here yet. Which isn't something I'm really complaining about right now. It's fine, really. Because once she's here, there's not gonna be much time for rest at all.

She's ambitious. Which isn't really that bad at all at this point of time. But I think a little unrealistic too, sometimes. We've both got other assignments due in two weeks which is why she wants us to finish ours today. Funny. I guess I failed to mention that our work involves a 3000 word analysis on an Organizational Behaviour study and all we've done is read the study itself.

That's right. Not much notes. Not much direction. But all's hopefully done by tonight.
She is ambitious.

But like I said, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I guess with such goals, and hopefully coupled determination as well, it'd be good to get this one out of the way so we could both focus on the remainder. But nevertheless, a little unrealistic. Oh well. You never know.

Oh, okay. She's just rang me. She's on a tram and is close by. Should get off now, I guess. It's going to be one heck of a busy week. Not to mention the week after. Oh, and on top of those three assignments, I've got a class presentation on the labour conditions in South East Asia in another subject as well.

Swell!

I know it may be the World Cup season.
But clear your calendars and make way for time, folks.
I'm coming home!

Due to my not knowing when my exams are going to be yet, I've only got about 25 days to spend back home. Arriving on the 26th of June and I'm heading back here again on the 20th of July.
Hopefully within that short period of time, I'm able to catch up with as many people as possible. Sure, the World Cup is against me. Everyone would wanna be home at night watching football. In the daytime, everyone would be asleep. But I'm sure we can accommodate somehow. Like... football over mamak? I dunno.
Oh well. When the time comes, we'll see.
But till then, remember the dates.
I'm coming home.