Filed under: Travelling
The activity only started in the afternoon. We went for white water rafting. Overall it was quite fun, not to mention that I was the first one to be thrown into the water. Oops. Well, our instructor also fell into water later that day. According to him, this kinda things happen, although not very often. When the water was calm, we actually had a little swim in the river. The water was nice and calm, but a bit too cold. Too bad we didn’t have our cameras with us for the obvious reason. We only had one picture on bus to the river.
After the rafting, we were pretty tired. So we had dinner in our apartment. The food was… not too good. Mainly frozen food. They were neither tasty nor healthy. Nevertheless, we were still quite happy. I like this shot. Very homely.
[ to be continued ]
P.S. I wonder whether I can finish blogging about the trip before I head back home. I have been quite tired these few days. I think my entries make the trip sound quite boring. Well, more exciting stuff coming up. Got to go and sleep now. Tomorrow I still have big plan to exercise.
Day 1 of the trip was not very remarkable. After the 7 hour plus night flight to Brisbane, all of us were quite burned out. The morning of Brisbane was quite cold, but we were still quite excited. So we were doing the jumping shot while waiting for train transfer to the domestic airport.
Yay, we reached!
After another 2 hours of domestic flight to Cairns, we finally reached our apartment there at 2pm. Luckily, the rain stopped after we washed up, so we headed to the city of Cairns to take a walk. Cairns is quite a small town on the east coast of Australia. It is famous because it is quite near to the Great Barrier Reef. The town is very quiet, and not densely populated. Our apartment was quite near the coast, so we walked along the coast towards the centre of the town. Hmmm, the park was somewhat similar to East Coast Park, but it was so much more serene. We were lucky enough to catch this fading-away rainbow on our way.
The centre of the town was about 30 min walk from our apartment. There was nothing much for us to see and the food there was insanely expensive. I shall not include any photos we took there because all of us looked extremely tired in the photos. After dinner, we walked back to our apartment after some grocery shopping. Day 1 ended quite early with all of us sleeping away at 10pm…
[ to be continued ]
Filed under: Uncategorized
Just came back from Australia last night. Exhausted… Overall, the trip was not too bad. I shall blog about it when I have all the photos in.
I passed my driving test! I can drive now! Haha!
This is what I have been telling myself the entire afternoon. I got really pissed by some admin staff from my department. It started with a key to my lab. As an undergrad, I was not supposed to have access to lab without someone to supervise me. But somehow, I was allowed to have one key. Couples of months later, one nosy prof found out about it, and I was supposed to return the key. So I did. I didn’t fancy holding that key anyway. When I returned this key to this staff, I asked her whether I needed to sign any form although I totally forgot about the 10 dollar deposit I paid. She replied that there was no need, then I happily walked off.
3 months later, thanks to my lab partner, I realized that she still owed me 10 dollars. Too lazy to just go down and take it myself, my lab partner kindly offered to help me take. Then I got a call from him this afternoon. The staff said she never recalled me returning the key to her. My lab partner called me and handed the phone to her. So I just explained what happened at that time, but she insisted that it couldn’t be the case and gave me a lot of ‘reasons’ that couldn’t have happened. I was like… She was the one taking care of the keys. If she said it was not there, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t possibly tell her that what she put it. Then she got angry, and told me that if I just wanted the money, she could pay me. Wth! What she said really pissed me off. She forgot about it doesn’t mean that never happened. She just refused to admit that she was the one being blur and got angry to make it seem like I was the one pushing for that money. Left with no choice, I told her never mind. Since she couldn’t locate that key, she could just forfeit the deposit. She just rudely cut off the call without acknowledging what I have said! And the call was made from my friend’s phone! She didn’t even have the courtesy to hand over the call back to my friend! I don’t really care who is right or who is wrong in this case. But at least I expect basic manner and respect. It doesn’t mean that she’s more senior (just a nice way of saying ‘old’) she got the right to treat me and talk to me any way she wants.
Well, sadly, she’s not the only one like this in the department. I still remember this prof who never addressed me in an email, and started it with this sentence, I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE NOT FREE TO DO WHAT YOU WANT. All I wanted to ask him was whether it was possible for me to do my attachment overseas if I could find a partner university offering me an opportunity. I guess my classmates should know who I am talking about.
Sometimes I wonder why this kind of thing is happening. Since my university claims that it is a global university that offers chances for students to do intern or study overseas, why didn’t my department even consider giving me a chance? If they are running the university like an enterprise, doesn’t it mean I should get what I want as long as I have paid?
Ok, I guess I’m drifting too far. I think I’m too tired after driving, bowling… Time to head to bed.
Today I just finished my last exam paper in NUS. So, it’s really time to say goodbyeS. Well, I shall not recap how my life has been in the past 4 years. Of course there were ups and downs, happy and sad moments, I guess what I learned is to live with them and move on with an open heart.
After the paper, the group of us went to watch Iron Man! Again, I’m not a fan of super hero movies. But I do think Iron Man is one of the best among them. Unlike other super heroes, Iron Man is Tony Stark and Tony Stark is Iron Man. But the advancement in technology kinda scared me… How can one man know every single part of a missile and the exact mass of a material in a particular part of it?! On a side note, our group, as ‘material scientists’, were somehow quite fascinated by the idea that the Iron Man suit was made of gold titanium alloy, and the discussion went on…. About materials…. Ha! This is not the first time. We always tend to use very ’scientific’ terms on something very trivial.
Hmmm… It has been a long time since I blogged anything. I think the past 2 weeks have been quite happening, but I just forgot how and why somehow. Oh, I had a haircut, this time pretty short. I think it’s not bad, but my tuition kid commented that I looked very young , i.e. bully-able in this hair style. This is how it looks….
That day Hong Lin came over to my house to stay over. Song Lin, Hong Lin and me chatted overnight. She told me a lot ’scary’ stories about teaching. Difficult as it sounds, this is what I have chosen for my career. So I think I shall just try my best, so that I won’t live with regret in the future.
I think I digressed too much. Ha! Time for my final vacation before work starts. Here is what’s going to happen:
14-22 May: Grad trip to Australia
26 May – 12 June: Home sweet home!
Not to forget that I still have driving test before I can go off for holiday. Wish me luck! Time to graduate! Hooray again!
