Killed my vibrant yellow umbrella!!

Stupid wind and rain!

Sadface!

RIP my brightness!

I’ve never been good with family outings… In fact, quite the opposite. And the more relatives present, the worse it is for me. All that’s ever spoken of is comparing each other one way or another, or general gossip about this and that. For example:

• Did your son get into a selective school?
• How did they go in the HSC?
• Did you get into uni?
• When are you going to get married?
• Are you planning to have kids?
• You know such and such? Her kid is doing medicine and is buying them a new house. How lucky!

Really?

Anyway, had one of these sessions tonight while dining at a restaurant to celebrate the first month arrival of my new cousin… and honestly, it was one of the most boring family sessions I’ve ever had.

We were the first to get seated, so of course we got seated together as a family. Everyone started to arrive, and somehow, I had to be the one to move from my parents,where everyone stayed put. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make this about me because it isn’t, but how was that fair (and we got there first)?

And secondly, I was seated next to a my aunt’s friends (who I didn’t know, doesn’t appear to speak English, and don’t have much in common with… oh and did I mention they were very fast with getting all the good food? Not that I had any appetite to eat at any rate), the kids (me = not good with kids… plus, they each had their own consoles and was tapping the night away), my aunt’s husband (who doesn’t usually speak to anyone, let alone to me. You don’t even know he’s there half the time!)… and my aunt (who was looking after her baby and her toddler).

In a nutshell, I was seated next to people who are eithe under 15, or over 35 year olds.

B-O-R-I-N-G?

So, I sat by myself the whole time, messaging Mr AG and Ag buddy, bored to tears. The worst part was, everyone can SEE how BORED I was (including my 10 year old cousin, who apparently “felt sorry for [you]“)!

Near the end, the cake came out, and guess what? I was kicked out of my seat because they wanted to take photos over where I was sitting. What the?

Anyway, I finally survived the boring-est event of the decade, got home, and just got depressed.

It’s pretty safe to say that I won’t be going to any other ones in the near future.

Spare me the pain.

/end rant.

It shouldn’t have been like this! Thinking about it makes my blood boil!!!

Mr AG and I had a relatively okay day (apart from the busybodies on the Ferris wheel) up until being seated for dinner. We went to Din Tai Fung, a restaurant we were very satisfied with the first time we went.

So, what happened?

Din Tai Fung is usually very busy, so when we arrived there, we had to wait for a table. The lady gave us the option to have our own table, or to share. Getting our own table would’ve been double the time, so we opt for sharing.

Never again!!!

Mr AG and I got seated next to a man and a woman. The lady seemed alright, but the man was seriously a super loudmouthed busybody… That man spoke about everyone and everything all through dinner, in CHINESE! Mr AG couldn’t understand, and I was left to hear all the things… It shouldn’t have, but that man really made my blood boil!

Some examples of what he was saying about me/us:

There she is, taking pictures of all the food.

They order so much food *rolls eyes* We order the least amount *blah blah blah*.

And what he was saying about everyone else:

Wow, look at those two, they’re having 2 soft drinks each.

They eat so much. Look at all they’ve ordered.

*Pretending to be posh, after a waitstaff covered his jacket with a protective bag* Whoever can make me happy will get my liking.

I mean, what the hell? What’s it to him?

Okay, this may sound a little hypocritical, because arguably, what’s it to me that he’s saying all these things… But I was there to enjoy my dinner, not listen to this loudmouth! It was seriously distracting, and irritating!

I was that close to losing it… actually, I did, I slammed something down, and “whispered” something to Mr AG in a not-so-subtle manner. I regretted it immediately after, because I think my response have given him the satisfaction of knowing that he sent me in a bout of fury.

But once again, I couldn’t help but let it get the better of me!

So, without criticising the restaurant at all in any way (because the waitstaff were impeccable), I possibly had the worst dinner out tonight! I lost my appetite completely, ate the minimal, and just wanted to be out of there. ASAP! I even cancelled my sorbet (which they were only so happy to comply) I was really looking forward to!

Anyway, here are some snaps of my uneventful dinner. I didn’t even have a good taste of the food to even comment on it (in case I don’t give it justice).

Lychee mint juice

Pork dumpling

Prawn pork shao mai

Vegetable pork jiaoze

Vegetarian jiaoze

Cha jiang noodles

(Ok, I know for a fact that I did not like this one! It was very bland…)

Hot sour soup

Phew, rant’s over… that made me feel better!

Anyway, after tonight’s experience, Mr AG and I decided not to go out to restaurants for a while… But I don’t know how long that’d last…

Din Tai Fung
644 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone: (02) 9264 6010

Map:

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This is going to be a bit of a “first world problems” post, but being sick and miserable and cold got me thinking about some of the things that annoyed me for a past few days to a week (A.K.A. I just want to sulk about it somewhere). It seems like an awful lot in a short amount of time, but I swear some of these are pre-existing!

So here goes, the top 10 things that annoy me while I was sick:

10. Wearing too much = fluff ball syndrome!

I tend to wear a lot of clothes (see point 09)… this is both uncomfortable and impractical (physically and aesthetically).

How impractical?

Firstly, if it’s always rainy, then the clothes are slower to dry after laundering, and hence I have less and less to wear (and don’t get me started on wet sneakers; takes forever to dry!).

Secondly, it gets really hard to move in such amount of clothes… I feel and look like a fluff ball!

09. Not being able to warm up!

I’m basally cold and just can’t regulate my temperature that well… Being cautious, I always pack on a lot of clothes, and would still be cold!

Sometimes, I overestimate how cold it’d be, I’d be lugging all my extra jackets around in my arm, and it becomes a hassle.

And sometimes, it gets so unpredictable that I just bring half my closet and an umbrella, just in case. And half the time, I don’t really need all that stuff!

08. Itchy skin from clothing too tight and/or being too warm.

After I took off my compression top, both my biceps and parts of my obliques were itching so much I got a bit naughty and scratched a lot little.

07. Not a wintery post as such, but… Gloves are bad for my mani!

I love wearing polishes… but being in the lab means that I can’t keep it on for more than 2 days because the gloves ruin my polish!!

One weekend, I had a 3 hour wait period for my experiment, I went and got a mani… Came back to finish off my experiment, and found that the glove had already ruined it! Upset was an understatement.

Anyway, gloves = no good for nail polishes. Especially latex (nitrile is a little better).

Also, Miss YP, another nail polish enthusiast who works in a lab, noted that polish gets ruined even more rapidly after raking the -80°C freezer.

06. Again, not really a wintery post… But in it goes. Not being able to keep longer nails.

Apparently, my nails are too long and/or sharp around the edges that my nails actually pierce through both latex and nitrile gloves, and even when I double glove… and I double glove to avoid this! So it comes down to my potential health, or my nails, and sadly, my nails takes the sacrifice.

05. Dry skin, especially my hands and shin skin.

My hands are parched all year ’round. This is because when working in the lab, we have to glove up and wash our hands the whole day… Applying moisturiser doesn’t help all that much, as I have to wash it off fairly frequently…

The dry hands are even worse in the winter. It is partially because I love using hot water, and partially the cold air outside that contributes to this.

04. Dry lips.

Usually, I have dry lips as in “my skin is ripping and I bleed” dry lips. I think being sick gave me this other dry lip symptom; it’s dry pretty much 24 hours  of the day, but nothing is ripping/peeling/bleeding, only the lips are very tight (wonder if that’s how a botox would feel like)… and lip gloss just doesn’t cut it. Hopefully it’ll go away soon.

On another note, when I do get “I’m peeling, help me” dry lips, my lip gloss is always ruined by the strong gust of wind that sends strands of my hair into the sticky mix, making a mess of both my gloss and my hair.

03. That dry cough.

I’ve been having a dry cough… and although both a dry cough and chesty cough both cause tightness in the chest, I much prefer a chesty cough; at least I don’t sound like I’m faking it, and it somewhat tickles my throat less.

But! I have a dry cough, and it’s completely not satisfying every time I let out that cough!

02. Having a blocked nose…

Because of this, I couldn’t sleep properly last night…

So having a blocked nose meant that I had to breathe with my mouth opened while I tried to fall asleep… and because my mouth has been dry for a few days now, I kept making these scratchy noises… So the whole night, I kept waking myself up from sudden bursts of my “snore” sounds every time I came close to falling asleep… Sigh!

01. Loss of taste and scent (and apparently, being able to smell is a big part of tasting), even in the absence of a blocked nose.

Everything I eat tastes insipid… I know there’s flavour in there somewhere, but my pre-existing knowledge of taste and what I was tasting just did not click, and left my dangling, dissatisfied!

And also, my sense of smell is gone temporarily.

Dubbed “the canary” because I could smell the smokes of a bushfire in the Blue Mountains all the way from my lab (in UNSW) when nobody else did (they thought I had an overactive imagination)… It was only an hour later when my colleague checked updates that confirmed what I’d originally thought I smelt; fire smoke.

Anyway… Yesterday, a lady came into our lab from the corridors, expressing her concern for smells of smoke from a fire… Upon investigation, it turned out it was someone’s lunch that had been microwaved for a tad too long…

The whole time, I did not smell a thing!

So yeah, not only is it unfortunate not being able to taste anything, it can also be potentially dangerous. Okay, a little melodramatic and obscure here (hehe).

So, I finally took my first step out of the house in 4 days… Out into the terrible Sydney weather, wearing my compression gear and many many layers topped off with my long ASOS coat… Just to go to uni. I’m still sick, but figured I’m well enough today to go; it was just unfortunate that the weather decided to be unhappy! >_<

On my way to the train station, I noticed that I’ve been starting to view the streets a little differently… every give way sign, stop sign, bus stop sign has the potential for practicing pole moves… Sounds a little absurd in retrospect, but still I wonder if it’d be a good idea for a quick fix rather than buying an x-pole…

Halfway through my muse, I remembered that I had totally forgotten a box of tissues for my relentless nose… It was too late to head back so I kept walking to the station only to find my train delayed (not enough to head back home).

And when I got to Central and have already waited around 15 minutes for a bus, the bus guard person that was standing there (whatever they were doing, really) kindly informed us that the last bus directly to uni was at 11:05 (apparently uni holidays = bus drivers on holidays)… So I went to another stop and waited for that bus. Aside from being cold while waiting what seemed like forever for the bus, it actually didn’t take long at all to get to uni!

And thus conclude the story of my commute this morning!

Anyway, I finally made a decision as to what the new Mental Murmurs outlook should look like, and I’m really excited to have made the switch (I was getting so bored of the old look)! It’s not completely done, and I’m working on it with (a lot of) Mr AG’s help (thank you!)… so yeah, hopefully I’ll be happy with it soon!

Got up feeling slightly better than yesterday, and gave my girls a call to plan our date (last minute plannings)… The weather looked nasty, and since I was sick and Miss NM had something on in China Town this morning, we all decided that it was probably best to postpone our date to next Sunday, after my pole class at 2 PM.

And whilst I really do want to see them, I was grateful we cancelled, as further on the day, all I felt was lethargy, run-down, and generally worse off than yesterday.

So, I spent the rest of the day in layers and layers of clothes and my fluffy socks, and ate and catnapped and ate and bludged… meaning that this whole weekend, I have not stepped out of the house a single bit.

I’ve been feeling a little run down lately, and it really showed today… so it’s official, I’m a sick kittycat =(

Had a day in today… did my nails, blew my nose, watched some drama, blew my nose, talked to grandpa when he visited, blew my nose,  shopped online… talked to FR on the phone for 2 h while blowing my nose….

Then watched some youtube videos, and my parents came back with super yummy hot chippies and charcoal chicken… popped open a new box of tissues and continued blowing my nose.

Argh! I feel so crook! =(

Hope I get well enough for tomorrow’s date with the girls! >_<

So my fringe had been bothering me lately… it is overgrown, and a bit of a pain when it gets into my eyes/face, etc. Looks ok, but I was quite desperate for a shorter fringe.

Went to two places on Thursday… Fully booked. And not having an opportunity made me want to walk into any okay-looking salon for a side fringe cut… I mean, how bad can it be, right? And plus, this is only temporary for when I feel the need for a proper cut.

So I popped into a salon in Burwood yesterday for a quick one before going to the Sydney Royal Easter show… K** *** *****, asked for the price ($10) and decided to go for it.

Before I knew it, the ‘hairdresser’ had completely RUINED my fringe!

No shape or style, uneven, and just horrible. It wasn’t even a side fringe.

And so I asked why it looked so strange with a bit poking out, and so very unlike a side fringe. And she gave me the stupidest excuse I’ve ever heard: “because it is so short”.

Firstly, who said this short? Secondly, I stated “SIDE FRINGE”, which part of SIDE FRINGE did you not understand, lady?

So I said just to make it a little more even (not a big ask, right?), to which she cut some random strand EVEN SHORTER. It was horrible to begin with, now it is seriously HORRIBLE!!!

I mean, LOOK AT THIS THING!

Gruntled, I paid my $10 and walked out, and the owner (or something) told me the generic “it looks cute”.

Yeah, cute for a 5 year old with an uneven haircut?

Not happy, and I have never felt this self conscious for a long time now, which isn’t good! I felt many people stare, and not in a good way.

I mean, WHAT IS THIS PIECE OF CR*P?

Even mum said it looks hideous! So upset!

Lesson learnt: I should have waited.

To all of you who are wondering, no, I haven’t died yet. But almost.

Stress… Long hours of painful studying, assignmenting, researching, revising… Lack of sleep… Look what uni’s doing to me!! I’m sick again…

That’s right, second time in one month (last time was about 3 weeks ago)!

NOOOoooOO!!

Funnily/coincidentally enough, a friend of mine whom I haven’t seen for a while caught something a week before me last time and got it again last week! He suspects a second bug, but I’m not too sure. But whatever it is, please go awaaaaay!!

Anyway… To cheer myself up, I decided and insisted on a haircut today (I was browsing for a lot of alternative/indie/emo/punk/gothic hairstyle last night). Not feeling up for more violation, AG drove me to Strathfield and looked for a hairdressing place called “Zio” (opposite plaza), recommended from my friend Daph.

I walked into the place, and a man came and sat me down. Krystal, the Korean hairstylist that was going to cut my hair, came and asked me which style I wanted. So I explained it to her:

• Straight and short fringe
• Longer front bits
• Short and very layered back (similar to the last haircut)

She motioned me to the seat and started washing my hair and unlike the last lady, she didn’t rip my hair out!! So I decided to enjoy it, and she was really good/gentle!

After that, she asked if I trusted her and hearing my reply, got started on the cutting. We made small talk, and learned that she started out in Korea and has been a hairdresser for 10 years.

Some while later, she finished. And I looked at the new me.

Hilarious!!
Different!!
Non-alternative (as I had planned the night before)

But I really liked it, and Krystal looked please with herself. So I went to pay for her services: $35 – waaaaay cheaper than the one at Market City (yes, the violation one)! The man who originally served me appropriately added, “Next time, the messy hair look will be charged $45, because this is the first time, it’s $35″ and promptly handed me a loyalty card. Cool, didn’t know any hairdressing place have this system.

Feeling pleased, different and refreshed, I headed home. When dad saw me, he (sorta) flipped! And when mum saw me, the first thing she said was “Ohhh! My Korean daughter” …How did she know? O_o It seriously didn’t look like it to me… But I don’t know.

A long long time without any update, and I’m sorry it had to be a bad one.

So where should I start?

It’s about 8am on the Easter public holiday Monday, and I’ve just woken from the most horrid sleep, if I had any at all. The thing is, I think I caught something recently because I was more susceptible (stress from uni and everything),  showing symptoms of a cold/flu yesterday morning. Resting is the key, so I slept most the day away yesterday, even when I had stacks of uni stuff to do (stress tress stress panic!!!)…

Last night at about 3am when I knew I was still awake, I had a throat that bugged me endlessly and one more throat lozenge left… Thinking I’d be able to catch some sleep, I had the final lozenge and dozed off… for 10 minutes. So… more sore throat and fragmented sleep with tossing and turning and weird disjointed dreams… and I ended up like this today (zombie!!).

So not cool!

This semester started a fortnight ago, lasts for 12 weeks excluding holiday breaks (used to be 14 weeks, but they putting 14 weeks of content into the 12 = content overload!) and we were meant to be having our Easter break and mid-session break (yeah, after 2 weeks into it)… Except for one of my subjects, I have to come into lab while everyone was on “mid-session break”, Tuesday to Friday, 9am to 6pm..

So all up, I had 4 days off (Friday to Monday)… Got nothing done as planned (assignments/etc), and feeling worse than ever (because the symptoms have gotten worse), completely unprepared (not up) for the hectic 8 hour lab work starting tomorrow.

So yeah, great timing really.

Ah. *sigh*

I hope you all a merrier Easter than mine.
Surely it must be…?