Small entry before I go upstairs and... sleep/talk~ ^^''

Didn't want to be too confident before I got my results, but now that the results have all been released, I can safely say that... L will be graduating from Usyd! =D This last semester has really been quite a learning process. My last semester being in the same class as good friends like JC and doing essays (and panicking) together with TT, and quite a lot of things happened, like, my first time walking into a quiz without actually knowing there was a quiz on (my gosh, that was a shock, yet surprisingly the results were better than one that I actually studied for... why??? o O) and... gained some confidence in my own academic achievement I guess...

Small story back into L's past:
Being the youngest with an elder brother and sister, one might think that I must be spoilt silly, with both my siblings looking after me and all. Those who are the youngest will understand: siblings set the standard- the bar, for it is in everyone's nature to compare and rival, and for me, both my siblings are smart. They do really well academically and of course, my parents are proud of them. Me? Well... haha, my parents understand that I'm not good academically (though my dad likes to think otherwise and say I'm smart but lazy... partial truth there, but... let's just say, my brother can churn out a philosophy essay worth a HD in one night... me, it'll take a few weeks. That's the difference) and they say I'm more creative, musical, etc etc. Just to make me feel better ^^ My sister is good in the way she deals with people, my brother is eccentric but an amazing writer and editor. We're all different and good in separate areas.

Last semester, all the subjects I took required writing. Essay writing. I had no exams, only essay after essay. When it comes to writing, of course, I would think of how good a writer my brother is, how he scored HD in his philosophy classes and journalism subjects, how he could do his take-home exams in a matter of hours and get those great marks.

What leads to one's downfall?

Lack of confidence.

Sure, I couldn't do my essays in a few hours (gosh, I cannot imagine the marks I would have gotten if I did that- most likely I won't even pass my subjects) but tried anyway. It's not like I had a choice really ^^'' had absolutely no confidence I could get anything above a pass for my essays.... and I was right. I failed my first essay (ouch, why am I admitting this on a public blog??) and it was a Japanese one. Double ouch. Thank goodness I handed in my second essay before I got my first one back, because I would have lost all incentive to write anymore and given up if I did. Second essay- philosophy. Was fairly certain I was going to get a crappy mark. TT would know- I was whinging the whole way to collect it. Had no confidence, but he did in me and we had this bet going about my results.

He won. I like to think it's because he ALWAYS wins in bets, or that it was a good day for the marker and he was in a good mood when he was reading my essay.

It got better from that point, and yay, to cut a long story short, my other essays came back with better marks than an F or a pass. End of long story.

Moral: Have confidence in what you do. Oh, and support others too, because you never know when you'll need support yourself.

Realised how important and how relieving it is when there is someone there for you.

Small entry became a long one.. hm... I shall stop being so emo now.

Graduating! Mixed feelings there, but I'll be back in uni next year! (Hopefully...)

It was my parents' birthday back a few days ago, and we got them two really nice cakes, both from 85 degrees (I know, it's expensive there, but hey, once [or twice] every year!)

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This was Dad's. It was strawberry mousse inside with a sponge roll.

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This was Mum's. It was tough bringing this one on the train and I was so scared it'd die or get deformed because the train was really hot. Fortunately, it arrived home ok... only to be...

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... cut open at the back of the head.

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I was going to cut right between the eyes, but my family was shouting murder and yelling for me to stop, so, here's a slice of the back of its head ^^ No, I'm not sadistic, really.

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TT and I actually baked mum a cake, but I stupidly forgot to take it home with me =( It was nice, though there was one major error in the making of it. Recipe as follows:

Sponge Cake Ingredients:
3 Eggs
60 gm Sugar
75 gm Plain Flour (sifted)**
60 gm Melted Butter/Corn oil

Sponge Cake Method:
(1) Preheat oven to 160° C. Grease and line a deep 7" round baking tin.
(2) Whisk eggs and sugar at maximum speed for 5 minutes until ribbon stage.
(3) Fold in sifted flour.
(4) Fold in warm melted butter or corn oil, until batter is shiny.
(5) Pour into baking tin and bake for about 30 minutes.
(6) Turn cake out from baking tin onto wire rack to cool. Cut the cake into 3 layers. (I did two layers)

The one major error was that we followed the recipe, despite it looking wrong. Why? Because there's no way this cake can rise. It doesn't have any raising agent in it, like, self-raising flour, or bi-carb soda, or baking powder (yes, they are different stuff, those two). So, I think rather than plain flour, the author really meant self-raising, because the cake did not rise and became dense and quite hard. Still an edible cake though, just not spongy.

Durian Mousse Filling Ingredients:
250 gm Durian Flesh, blended
150 gm Fresh Milk (I use full cream UHT)
125 gm Non-Dairy Whipping Cream, whipped
20 gm Gelatine
5 tbsp Water

Durian Mousse Method:
I disregarded the method the site had, and just did it the simple way-
1) Whip cream till stiff and add durian flesh. Whip all together.
2) Tried to desolve the gelatine (we used powder form) in water, didn't work, so added the whole clump of gelatine (plus water) into the milk and put that to the boil while stirring. Not all the gelatine dissolved, but enough did, and we just poured the mixture through a filter to get rid of clumpy gelatine bits.
3) Wait for that to cool before pouring the whole lot of cream/durian in and whipping it for a minute or so.

Assembling it is easy: cut the sponge cake in half (diameter) and spread half the durian cream mixture on the bottom layer. Cover it with the second layer and top it with the remaining cream.
Refrigerate.

For original recipe, go here. The only thing is, use self raising flour for the cake part. Or add baking powder.

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Tasted pretty good though. The durian mousse was so nice, and the gelatine made it set really nicely too. =) Those who hate durian... hm... I'm pretty sure you can replace durian pulp with... say... strawberry... or mango... or passionfruit pulp... =| Never tried it, don't know, but I'm almost certain mango will work.

Project #2! We worked hard that day!

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This~ apple pie! This was actually made by TT, cos I was being adhd and cleaning up instead of helping... ^^'' Can't be bothered posting the recipe here, just go on google and search up "wikihow apple pie" and it should be the first link. Or just click here.

I made my family one just yesterday, and since my sister's back from Singapore, we had 5 people in the family. It was gone before dinner, and I made it at around 1pm (when I woke up... at around 11 ^^'') Big success? Thanks TT for the recipe =) It was really nice and received compliments from everyone (including dad, which is extremely extremely rare, because he's such a good chef, and everyone compared to him is like, pfft)

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Tada~

There's still a whole bag of really bad apples here. My dad thought they were cheap and got them from the fruit barn, but they were... not really edible. Time to make another apple pie? ... Might leave it for a day, think everyone might get sick of it ^^''

Ok, I'm done. Been actually itching to type a blog entry up since last night, but had to sleep to wake up for work at 6:30 today. Gosh, it was insanely cold this morning, and absolutely dangerous on the road. My sister drove in this:

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Can you see anything?

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Can you?? The fog was super thick and we crawled our way to Pennant Hills.

While my sister's here, we did a whole lot of stuff together, like going to Olympic park to barbecue sausages and bacon (love bacon!) and going for a second round buffet to Shangri La for my parents' birthday, as well as yum cha at Canterbury League Club (that place is awesome! Looks really nice and has really good food too!) We took heaps of photos and sister made this:

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Scrapbook pages? ^^'' Blurry, for a reason =P Anyway, just showing off my sister's artistic talents =D

Next week... looks like my hectic work schedule is back =( It'll be hard to get back to the "fanatic worker" mode after this relaxing week. Monday... don't come... ><

(Change of layout because my old layout doesn't work anymore. Stole this one really quickly from blogskin website and it looks quite bad actually on a wide screen, but oh well...)

Holidays! So much has happened these holidays, I can't even remember everything anymore. My sister came back from Singapore with her boyfriend, and we went to so many places as a family. My parents' birthday on the 4th and 8th July, the celebrations and the dates with TT =P

Shall start from the beginning, or what I can remember of it I guess.

Have not been working like a fanatic anymore (Franklins is going over their budget, which means even though they are dreadfully understaffed, they canNOT call me in to work! =D AND I took Tues-Fri off this week as well, so, relax relax relax~ =D

Been meeting TT very frequently and one of the first places we went to (since the last post) was Twisted Noodle, a place we pass by quite often along China Town, but never actually visited. Think it was Taiwanese cuisine? Their drinks come in really cute mug cups:

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... like this.

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TT ordered a radish and beef noodles, which wasn't hot at all. He was smart.

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I ordered a medium chilli, no sour noodle, and it killed. The thing with this noodle restaurant is that you can choose your own hot-ness level and sour-ness level. Medium was pretty hot. I exchanged with TT after maybe two chopsticks-full. There were two girls next to us who ordered high level of spiciness... D=

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The hot one came with fried drunken chicken (interesting taste) and deformed taco-san-weiner~

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My sister came back from Singapore and brought with her... kueh lapis! The many layered cake. It was really really nice.... I think it's all gone now ._. I'm pretty sure you can buy them here as well, in those asian supermarkets, but pretty expensive.

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Ah, this tea. CanNOT find it anywhere. It was given to my parents by my friend's mum, and she got it from China. One of the most fragrant tea I've ever had, it's wonderful. Too bad, we're nearly out of it =(

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Goldish snack when we went to towers. Haven't actually been to Castle Towers in months and a lot of things have changed. Didn't spend too much time there though, so even though I know a Rebel Sports opened there (where SM bought his outrageously overpriced badminton racket), I didn't see it. Where was it ._.

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1.13kg of reese peanut butter cups- mini, anyone? =D

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This was from ages ages ago. I don't even remember the date anymore ^^'' All I remember was that it was raining, and we went into that abandoned place where there's a Japanese restaurant called Azuma. Their cakes looked really really good, so we bought one- a raspberry one. It tastes as good as it looks =D

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More old photos- we went to Wagaya one night and had this.

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and this...

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and this~

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It's a scampie monster!

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~ and this....

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Ah. Not this. This was at ZhuMaMa. Pig's ears and sticky rice roll. =D

We did a whole lot of stuff the past week, yesterday and today too, but since I haven't bothered uploading the photos, it's saved for another post, this will do for now. Happy birthday, Mum~ and dad 4 days ago =D

Feeling a little sick, but loved =) haha

I was going to check the oz lotto thing, but then I can't seem to connect. There must be heaps of people trying to access it at the moment, so I'll wait a couple of hours for it to die down first. Hm. Shall blog in the meantime.

Going back to last week, Friday. It was a night off and finally, uni is over for everyone~ at least for this semester. Night off means... eating! =D There's the usual night markets on Friday nights at China Town, where there's food ranging from tofu fa, coconuts, dragon beard candy and chocolate coated strawberries, to curry fishball, dim sum, and "wolf meat". TT and I decided to eat at TT House instead for evening tea before wandering the streets. It was a pretty cold night, but we ended up at ten ren and having....

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Shaved ice! =D Triple coloured.

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It had mango, strawberries, kiwi syrup and some kind of jelly. Really nice~

Took a short trip to Hyde Park at around 10.. and saw this little monster:

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XD Rawr~! A possum! It wasn't even scared of us, we got about 10cm distance away from it, and it wasn't even running up the tree.

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Cutest is when it's up on its hind legs with its front paws half bent in front of it. Too bad it kept turning when I tried to take a photo of it from the front.

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Saturday... work... Sunday... work... Monday... work... Was catching my brother's flu and having that really annoying sore throat that itches.

(Ah, TT just called.... stocktake's finished ._. and said we won't win the 90 million lotto.... I know that much! Hmph, trying to ruin my fun... Just to clarify though, today is the very first time I ever went and got a lottery ticket. I've never never gotten one before, because it's such a waste of money with the odds you're up against, but then this is just a one-off fun thing, and of course, we got the really cheap one, haha. Really. I'm not a gambler ^^~)

I digress. Anyway, yea, I was feeling quite out of it, and work on Monday was just terrible... but then since when was work ever not terrible? Arrived to find out that HM was "sick" again, which means, great, we're understaffed. I seriously had customers telling me to tell management to put more staff between 5-6, because people get off work at that time and it's ridiculous just having two counters open. I agree. Why don't they take it up to head office instead of telling me ; ; Highlight was seriously the sweetest thing that anyone has ever done for me. TT came all the way from Rosebay to Pennant Hills, just to hand me a bag with medication and a bottle of Lucozade, together with another bag containing dinner: onigiri and inari sushi... just for that two minutes of seeing me... he brought all that, taking close to 2 hours to get there and another 2 hours to get back... seriously felt so touched. I guess that pulled me through those dreadful hours of work. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Was feeling bored today when I got home. No one else was home for some reason and I decided to watch Yakitate Japan again. It's a good anime- I forgot a lot of it, so it was good rewatching/skipping through it. Then... still bored, I tried to bake something really simple. And it was really simple- took about 5 minutes to make, and 15 minutes to bake. Simple butter cookies! =D I know, made butter cookies before, but these were different.

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They were supposed to melt in your mouth, but I don't think that really happened. Maybe I didn't cream the icing sugar and butter enough... so there wasn't enough air inside? I don't know.... recipe is really simple though:

Ingredients :
75g butter
25g icing sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
70g plain flour
20g corn flour

Method :
1. Cream butter and icing sugar well.
2. Add in vanilla essence, mix well and add a pinch of salt.
3. Mix in plain flour and corn flour.
4. Using a piping bag and a tip, pipe out the cookie into desired shape on parchment paper. If the batter is too stiff for piping, add in a little milk at a time to a more manageable batter.
5. Top with cherries or a chocolate chip.
6. Bake at 160 degrees for 15 mins till lightly brown.
7. Keep in airtight container.

Yields : 30 pcs

Recipe directly copied from here

The shape didn't really hold for me, I think I might have added a little too much milk. But it was still good... I think. My mum thinks that too =) she's been stealing off the tray. As for the "yield 30 pcs" thing, it yielded more like 12 for me, haha. Still, considering how it's so simple and quick to make, it won't be hard to churn out another batch. Slight problem: I'm out of flour....

And I still can't access the lotto site. Hm.

Finished reading (though I have to admit it took me forever to finish it) the Eisenhorn omnibus. Despite what many would think, it's not exactly a trilogy for *cough* geeks, because I'm certainly not one, and it was quite enjoyable to read actually. Sure, there's blood and gore, it's sci-fi, and it's linked to warhammer 40k (mind you, I do not play it, nor do I own any pieces, and I really do not go to games workshop... I walked in once and oh my gosh... anyway!!), but just treat it as a normal sci-fi novel like Neuromancer, and it's actually really good.

No, I'm not trying to reassure myself that I'm perfectly non-geeky in any sense, the point is, the book is good, and people should read it. Written in first person's pov makes the story feel kinda personal... and being a reader, there's nothing you can do to stop the protagonist's spiral from justice of the Inquisition into the dark abyss of heresy. The ending, tragic tragic ending, was, to put it bluntly, dodgy. There are so many million ways it could have ended better, but no, it was bad, it was a disappointment. You could tell, the author just wanted to get rid of everyone. But the book itself was really well-written.

Since taking the Japanese fantasy course at uni, I must say it has kind of ruined fantasy for me. Now, whenever I read something fantastical, or watch a movie (such as the Spanish "Pan's Labyrinth" as mentioned back two posts before), I think of the hesitation, the selves, the "I" and "Not-I", the ego, superego, the uncanny etc etc, rather than simply enjoying it as simply "fantasy". In my head, there's always the analytic speaking and interpreting fantasy in a deeper meaning than intended. Then I think: hey, this would have been a good related material for an essay. That's when you stop and realise what studying's done to you. Not that my interest in fantasy has really dropped in any way, but it's just sad. People just shouldn't study things they enjoy- things that are meant to be enjoyed aren't for studying.