Its gonna be June tomorrow

tomorrow will be june and if i was in the philippines it would only mean one thing: school. but now that im here in sydney, its the other way around. my first semester finishes by the second week of June, and by that time i'll be spending a month long of doing nothing.

but anyway, i dont want to talk about that. it gonna be june tomorrow, and i was like, man, i have to blog about my May trips. so here goes...

a week before my family left, we hit Canberra and Blue Mountains.

Canberra. oh canberra. what can i say about canberra? well, its really really small. i dont want to say its boring, cause Questacon was amazinggggg! but, it was somewhat sad. or like if i were to move there by myself, id be sad. anyway, we went to the parliament house (old and new), war memorial-- that took us the whole afternoon, mint factory where my brother made his own coin, black mountain where we went to this kinda like their sydney tower but more dangerous cause it didnt have a glass wall to protect you, and questacon, the funniest and most magical place in Canberra.

well, as for the blue mountains-- i didnt go. i was too tired and too lazy. so i pretended to be sick (which i kinda was) and stayed home to watch a movie in the city. hahahaha so when my dad found out about it, he bought me a key chain that said "Drama Queen." hahahahaha i deserved that key chain.



anyway, i dont want to describe the place or the experience, cause its one of those things that you have to go to to be able to really understand what im talking about, but i do have visuals to share to you. so enjoy! : )


more pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.224400917571799.65210.100000056774910

Cold is Gold

Where have I been?

Well, i've been out and about ever since my family arrived last May 9. yup! ALL of them... Papa (with his security), Mama, Ate, Kuya... and Lola... and Marla... and Kuya Mik. we're all cramped up in one house, which i think is pretty amazing. haha

anyway, last weekend we, all the cousins, decided to go to gold coast for some cousin-downtime-bonding. and because we were merely relying on our own money, we decided to be as cheap-ass as we could. so we reserved the cheapest tickets and the cheapest room available = backpackers accommodation, meaning $39 dollars a night/ person.

let me tell you about being cheap when it comes to travelling, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAID FOR. so dont expect anything glamorous or expensive, because you wont get anything from that.

first of all, we missed our flight. okay, thats not because we bought cheap tickets, but because some psycho guy threatened to bomb the harbour bridge and so he ended up closing the bridge and made a 30-minute drive to 2 hours. we were late, but we had the chance to rebook it during traffic. so no worries. but we almost missed our re-booked flights... as in we were literally running inside the airport to reach our flight.

so as we got to gold coast, we rode a taxi and met the friendliest driver ever (Thanks Manong Chris!), reached our hostel and got our keys. and as we opened the door... we all had this nasty face. WHY? because the room REALLY SMELLED LIKE FEET. seriously, smell your feet now and just imagine it being 10times stronger than yours and its the scent of a room. THATS OUR ROOM. we couldnt complain. it was cheap. the only good part of it was that we had our own beds. but yeah, lesson learned. no more cheap-ass hostels. id rather pay twice as much.

the only scary part of the story was that we had to sleep there for 3 nights, and we all ended up being okay with it. i mean, yeah, we totally bought a deodorizer and sprayed it EVERYWHERE, EVERYDAY. but everytime we would leave and come back, we would smell the gross scent, but when we're already in the room, we wouldnt even smell the feet anymore. OMG. now that i think about it, that waas super gross.

anyway, enough about the room. for 4 days that we were there, we ended up going to a theme park and rode all the scary rides, fed some kangaroos, ate subway sandwiches all the time, walked around the city and bought stuff, went to the Ripley's museum, did that slingshot ride and screamed our lungs out (a video to prove it), tried to go to the beach and sunbathe (but we couldn't cause it was too cold and windy), played putahan, and just enjoyed ourselves even if.

so, if you guys plan to go to gold coast, dont go at this time. i mean if you want to experience the wild and crazy and hot kind of gold coast, this wouldnt be the time, but then again, if youre with good company, it doesnt really matter.

Palladian Cup 2011- solo drama

when i got back from New Zealand, it was pretty much a hell for me. why? well, because i had this wonderful week long that i didnt want to get out from... and cause i knew that i had a paper due on wednesday and the palladian cup on thursday.

I dont want to blog about my New Zealand trip just cause the pictures can describe the whole experience. so if you do want to see what I did in NZ just check out the links below:

day 1: christchurch
day 2-3: milford sound
day 4: glenorchy
all the days in queenstown
bungee experience
skydiving experience


So let's go back to Sydney.

Yesterday, I represented the House for the Palladian Cup. the Palladian Cup is an inter-college (dorm) competition with different categories, and it happens throughout the semester. yesterday was the solo drama category, and I was one of the representatives for our house.

I chose the character Ursula from the Little Mermaid, and can i just tell you that out of all the presentations,  i was actually the odd man out. the rest of the contestants did so well (but i did too), but yeah, hell, SOLO DRAMA nga talaga. hahahaha BUT, i dont care. i did my best, had an amazong costume-- did those tentacles by myself, looked butt ugly and creepy. so yeah, all good.

anyway, i didnt win, and the winners deserved it. one guy even composed his own thing, and it was amazing, i thought he would win it (he was second).

and of course, i wouldnt deprive you from not seeing what my presentation. blogging wouldnt suffice it, right? hahaha so enjoy my once-a-year-i-will-never-do-this-again act. : ) enjoy it while it last and while im still open for panlalait. : ) hahaha

ohhhhh! and yes, that's my hair... ALL OF IT.

here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=219542578057633&comments

WEEK of Unforgettable Memories

This week, I call it as my pre-easter break. HA!

I was pretty lucky that my last week before the break had no assignments due while most of the people here in my dorm had their sleepless nights for essays to finish, group works to finalize, and exams to pass or fail.


i started my monday night/ tuesday early morning to surprise Sy, one of my good friends here in the house, because it was her birthday. she didnt know anything until we actually screamed, SURPRISE!!!!!!! ellen and kjersti even sang there norwegian happy birthday song (and its not the happy birthday tune with norwegian language in it, okay) and we all wore red lipstick and kissed her face. it was pretty awesome and funny.

tuesday night, went out with Joanna and her unimates friends to play some trivia night at the Rose Hotel. we lost, but we weren't last. it was pretty hard knowing that we were all international students, girls, and late for the game, so yeah, sports questions failed us, any australian questions failed us, and music questions were too... australian to, so yeah. scoring a 62 over a 100 was good enough.

wednesday was reading day, BUT i got a package. so that was good.

thursday night was the VetSoc Cruise party. i brought my friend Dilshan with me, together with the girls (Annette, Yuka, Sy, Ellen, Kjersti, and Laura). half of us were so excited because it was our very first cruise party. yeah, we were in a bigass boat drinking and partying. i finally saw the opera house (after 2.5 months here) and went under the harbour bridge, and just really, the view was amazing. I even saw the skyscrapers all lit, it was BEAUTIFUL!

and at the end of it all, we ate tons of pizza, drank 4 glasses of wine, my friend Dilshan and Laura hooked up, Kjersti met this random guy, Sy got drunk, Yuka almost lost her shoes, Annette made out with Kjersti, Ellen made out with Laura, saw a random guy only wearing a SOCK on his penis, and I... well, I was AMAZED. SERIOUSLY. haha

Friday, woke up really early to go the Easter show with Mish, Tom and her family.

I wanted to ride the crazy, stomach churning, rides that they had, but it was too expensive. But, i did however, see a lot of those country stuff that i would usually see in ESPN. like those log competitions... YEAH i did! one team had an 11-second delay and still won the challenge. it was so fast!

then i also saw those cake decorations thing... they were good. one actually looked like REAL flowers. there was also that creepy baby cake and that cool pho- bowled noodle cake. i also saw a frowning porcelain baby doll and a dool with a gender.

The easter show was great because you can do and see so much. Mish said it was a cross between country festival and an amusement park. it was a good way of describing it. i ate tons of free food from the food area. saw a lot of different artworks from wood crafts to oil painting. There were also animal farms from chickens to horses, but i only saw the horses and the dogs, cause i'll just die if i inhale those fleece. there was also a tent for women's fashion, which i failed to enter because i was running out of time. But yeah, its worth going to.

Oh! and the most amazing part of this day was i got to eat fairy floss (cotton candy) and bought the most amazing hat ever!

more pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.216005561744668.59148.100000056774910

and the best part of this day was, I got back just in time to tryout for the Palladian Cup: Solo Drama, and i got in! i will be representing my house for the inter-dorm competition-- solo drama. i will be doing Ursula from the Little Mermaid. more about that later...

and today, Saturday, guess where i'm going?

answer: NEW ZEALAND! off the to the land of the hobbits and bungee jumpingggggggggAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

Dreams Do Come True

i woke up this morning and did my usual stuff, but today it was different.

i got an email from the One Young World Summit, a summit that i applied to last January and completely thought that i did not get accepted. but today, they sent an email to me CONFIRMING that i am one of the delegates for this summit.

IM SO HAPPY!

did i tell you that the summit will be in Zurich, Switzerland? YEAH! its gonna be in Zurich, Switzerland.

now, i just need the the money. hmph. time to beg. : )

One EMERGENCY Morning

And yet once again i find my self waking up in an unfamiliar way. i hate having to have so much allergies. it really really sucks.

at around 3:00 am, i found myself waking up cause i had to go to the bathroom. i really didnt notice anything cause for the past week now, my allergies started to show, so it was quite normal that i felt itchy. but when i was about to wash my hands, i found myself looking at a stranger.

a fat-lipped, bloated-face woman was looking at me. and i was like, WTH? THIS IS WEIRD AND SCARY!

to give you an imaginary picture of it, you know the movie of Will Smith, Hitch? that scene where he was cooking and he ate something and all fo a sudden his face got al screwed? well, that was how i looked like too, but just really worse that it was all over my body, neck, thighs, and face.


so i tried to calm down, hoped that it wouldnt get worse, and after about an hour of putting ice, i gave up and called the senior resident to help me out. (Thank you Daniel for helping me out) at this time, i felt like it was going to spread inside my mouth, and in which case could be very dangerous cause it could constrict my breathing.

anyway, i was also pretty lucky that one of the residents was awake to go with me, Shayn, you are an awesome person! thank you for being with a stranger rather than doing your assignment. hahaha

so we took a cab going to the emergency room, did some paper work, and finally got into this drabby white gown and waited for the nurses to hook me up some strong medication. she did the normal things and of course, she had to take my blood. she couldnt find a vein and tried it twice until she finally gave up and made the doctor do it. (Thank goodness!)

this is how it happened:

nurse: i cant find a vein

me: well, cause it shy

nurse: no, really i cant find one... oh here it is. [starts putting the needle inside, stops, and realizes she cant find and started moving the needle] wow! you really have tough skin.

me: [in my mind i was saying: taena babae, pagito talaga di mo pa tanggaling susuntukin na kita]

nurse: im so sorry, i just couldnt find one, maybe we should try the other arm.

and so she did.

me: [pointed a vein that she can poke] how about this one?

nurse: [checks it out and inserts the needle] im so sorry mate, you really have tough skin and your vein keeps on moving [starts moving the needle in and out]

me: that's cause im asian! [in my mind, pota! masakit ha. pwede tanggalin mo na? taenaaaaaaaaa!]


its a good thing she gave up after the second one cause if she failed thrice i wouldve really said something mean. the doctor came and she did it in one go.

so yeah, after about 4 hours of tests and steroid injections, they made me go home. left the hospital when the sun was up. and now, every lump of rash is gone. thank you very much!

What did you do tonight?

 it was a great ladies week for me.  

my friends and i (people in the house) decided that we should all pick a night wehre we could all dress up and look pretty and have dinner somewhere that's no where near cafeteria food. so we went out last wednesday, we went to this place called Rubyos-- it was a very pretty place to dine in, the kind where our parents take us for special occasions. and so we sat, even tried to pretend that one of my friend's was celebrating her birthday just so we could have a free birthday cake or something, but no matter how hard we try to exaggerate our conversation about her birthday, the waitress seems to be deaf. hahaha

anyway, it was all good. we had a great night, had some cocktails, delicious food, and a very expensive dinner. but it was all worth it. every penny of it! hahaha the funny thing was we ended up having dessert at Coldrock for some donut ice cream (YUM!) and two of my friends were still hungry so they bought a pizza on our way home. 

then of course we thought, why end the night so early if we could extend it? we drank some more at the house. GOOD TIMES! : )

then thursday, spent the day watching red ridinghood with my cousin and her best friend. man that movie was sooo bad. "I could eat you up!" like really, swear, a children's book to that? gosh. plus the fact that i spilled my drink in the cinema. 

BUT, no worries.

after watching the movie we decided to go to Newtown for dinner and reach the happy hour for some drinks. the good thing about this was that i found MY drinking place. you know how you feel at home in a certain restaurant or a bar, well, this is THE place for me. felt like i was in college again... IC's bar. : ) GOOD TIMES! hahaha 

after drinking a very strong mango daquiri, we ate indian food for dinner. it was actually really good. it was, in fact, the first time that i had indian food. seriously. i dont know why though, since we usually eat spicy stuff... but then again, the Philippines is known for having different kinds of cuisines, but not really indian, more like persian. diba?

after all this, im starting to miss... to miss... filipino food. adaobo, bulalo, tapa, longanisa, tuyo.. TAHO! ugh. i miss home food. period.