Friday, December 30, 2005

On Holiday...

So this week I pretty much hung out and studied. The first two days I managed to read chapters 1 & 2 plus the preface for required reading for uni. On Wednesday I met up with jimmyswift, aka andrew, a friend who i have been chatting with since April but have never met. He turned out to be a pretty decent guy, and neither of us were looking for anything romantic - common point of conversation was that it was hard to find friends at this age - it turned out just fine. On the same day I saw Narnia (excellent movie!) with Kat & Rob and had dinner with relatives, or rather family friends who are related (Rizal side) to - talk about small worlds in Manila colliding in Sydney. We exchanged family goss and talked about how well Alphonse, who went to uni for a year with all of us was doing in Italy doing his masters in theology.

On Thursday I went ice skating with Sacha, Rose and her friend Carla. After about ten minutes we got pretty bored and decided to go shopping. The summer sales are on. I got myself an electric fan (yaaay!) and a pair of shoes for 50 bucks. I thought that was a good thing since I haven't gotten any since my winter boots. Must make list of things that I need to buy (like a pair of flats, blush, mom's makeup, new moisturizer with SPF, a haircut...) and do it now that things are actually affordable!

Funny moment. Carla saw two cute little blonde boys at the ice skating rink and she turned to Rose and said, “Look you’ll have kids like that someday!”

Rose: I don’t think so! (Rose has a thing for Africans and thus will most likely marry one)
Carla turns to Sacha, “Maybe you will!”
Sacha: I don’t think so! (Sacha has a thing for Indian men…)
Finally she turns to me
Me: Sorry, I ain’t white!

Disclaimer: I know that there is a possibility there will someday be a white man in my life but for the purposes of your own skin color then there you go.

Yesterday Rose and I went to Manly because she needed a swimsuit. Rose is dating this nice South African guy named Simpuwe and they were going away for New Year’s. We decided to meet in Strathfield and drive over there. Now to get there you either have to go through the city and cross the spit bridge or you can go the long way. Which is what we ended up doing because Rose drove the wrong way for a bit and got us up north to Chatswood. So we ended up crossing through 2 national parks, the entire north shore and the north beaches.(I love Narrabeen. I must be rich enough to live there someday.)

We ran through Manly in 2 hours and I ended up with a new bikini and 2 board shorts. Everything was on sale except for my 2nd pair of long boardies, which cost as much as the bikini. In fairness I didn’t buy anything I didn’t need – my boobs are bigger (hahahah) thus the justification for the new suit and I really don’t own boardies – but damn those board shorts were so expensive. I should have charged them so that I could just pay them next pay day but I guess cash is okay.

That night I met up with my Uncle who is visiting for the holidays from Manila and his family, who live in Dee Why. They got a hotel room at the Marriott to watch the fireworks for New Year. I wore my nice new heels and ended up walking from Myer near town hall to Circular Quay. Thanks a lot! Mum sent stuff including a dust pan with a proper handle (YAY!). I went home to pick up stuff to sleepover. Andrew (cousin) came so he got to see my house. We got back, had a huuuuge dinner at the pancake place and took a walk around circular quay. The city was dead except for the Opera Bar which was so packed. The Opera House is really nice and relaxing at night.

I had a hard time sleeping that night with 3 different snorers with different rhythms (Hello, Maui are you there?) keeping me awake. I managed to sleep when they stopped at 240 am. At 4 they started up again so I got up, got dressed, got in a cab and went home!

Tonight we are off for our New Year’s celebration… but first. Its time to go to work!

Monday, December 26, 2005

Christmas Down Under

Christmas, or Chrissie as its called here, given the propensity for shortening everything, is a bit low key in this part of the world. It seems like New Year's is a much bigger deal. There aren't as many lights or colorful decorations as they would in Manila and there isn't as much commercialisation as in the States. It's bright and hot (we hit 38 degrees the other day) and its really for the kids. Being very multicultural Sydney everyone has their own traditions, most involving spending time with various members of family on the day.

Christmas Eve I opted out of the family dinner (at 60 bucks a pop at an Austrian restaurant!) and decided to accept a friend's invitation to join them for Noche Buena, the traditional philo feast. I had another family dinner the next day anyway, plus I was craving philo food and just the culture, really. My family here is somewhat Aussiefied, having been here for thirty years.

I went to mass first with Sacha at the cathedral, as the choir was singing and she wanted to see them too. It was a lovely experience, they were very good and it was all traditional in the old cathedral with big spires and high ceilings and a whole lot of people - a lot of people only go on Christmas. I think she enjoyed the experience. After church we were too early to leave for Noche Buena so we wandered around for a bit and I had a coffee at Gloria Jeans while she had hot chocolate and a lemon tart.

At around ten we got tickets for Hornsby where my friend's family lives. I met my friend Kat at uni in one of my IT classes. She is pinoy but has been here since she was eleven. She lives in campbelltown, with her husband, Rob (who has the most hilarious descriptions of filipino food, having been here almost since birth) and their adorable little boy Caleb. Her parents live outside Hornsby, on the north shore line way way past Epping where I used to live, in a suburb called Westleigh (I think). Rey, one of my former puputs (team mates) from work was joining us as well and he was coming from Chatswood. Rey recently arrived here from Manila and his family would be joining him in January. He left Chatswood a bit too early and was in Hornsby in record time. I think he must have waited for us for at least 45 minutes.

Sacha and I spent most of the train ride going over all the suburbs that started with "Ws" that we passed. Like Waitara and Waroonga. The last three suburbs before Hornsby all start with W. When we got there Kat was still on her way from Campbelltown which is South West so she asked her dad to pick us up. He took us on a tour of all the houses that had fancy Christmas lights, which included one with a giant santa and another with outlined reindeer and sleds. He appeared to be fascinated by Sacha's PhD and later it turned out he had studied physics himself, some thirty (?) odd years ago as an undergraduate degree.

We got to her house and in true philo tradition got fed right away. I attacked the ham and roast beef. Rey was full and didn't have much. Sacha got her first taste of halo-halo, some bits of which she didnt like very much and leche flan which she loved. I gorged myself on pandesal, having not had any since February. Kat arrived and I got to play with Caleb her little boy while Rob and Sacha exchanged their observations on philo food and he continously denied his fondness for Halo-halo despite eating almost the entire thing.

After dinner we went to their den where there was a Christmas tree surrounded by a sea of presents. It took about an hour to open them all. Kat's dad was very funny as he called out everyone's names complete with side comments. The kids (Caleb and his cousin Macky, both under the age of 2) got the biggest gifts. Kat got me linen paper - a throwback to my move (see entry below) when I lamented at the fact that Aussies do not know what it is. Sacha noticed a piano in the corner and started playing once the gift giving was over, impressing everyone and getting a new legion of fans, including Caleb who seemed to love the sound of piano music.

At around three we made the move to go. Since there are no trains after a certain time we would have to take the night bus (familiar from my epping days). The one from Hornsby left every hour so we decided to take the one from Paramatta while Rey would get a ride from Kat's aunty who lived next to Chatswood (in West Pymble, wherever that is). Rob's parents drove us, pinoy style complete with one illegal turn, to Para where we missed the bus by just a few seconds and ended down a one way street. The next stop was Strathfield so we went there and waited. More buses pass through Strathfield so we got one after about 15-20 minutes. They were so nice they waited till we got on the bus before they left. We got home around 430ish.

Christmas Day I woke up around tenish. Sacha went to spend the day with Amal & her family and ended up in Manly. I watched Charmed on DVD, tried to finish Layer Cake but decided I wanted a happy movie and saw Dear Frankie which turned out to be happy and sad at the same time. I left at about 7 to travel to Epping, and the bus took so long I decided to start walking to Central (some 20-30 minute walk depending on mood and speed) and as is usually the case, the bus passed me by a few seconds later. Thankfully another one arrived just as I got to the next bus stop. I got to Epping at 830 and most of the people were done eating. My cousin Rochelle cooked this lovely pork with apple stuffing with crunchy skin, bow tie pasta with bacon bits & sundried tomato and this wonderful potato salad. Of course I took leftovers home.

Having missed the traditional family gift-giving I got all my presents from them that day. I kind of cheated this year and split some gifts with my cousin Miel. Everyone else got pretty decent things, I think. I also finally got Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, from Miel who called two days before (talk about last minute shopping) asking, what do you want, what do you want! She actually offered to pay for the 60 buck dinner but I declined, having already made plans. I spent the whole night chatting and making chismis with my aunties which was fun. Sometimes I miss family gatherings but sometimes I really can't make them - the last one there were no trains. As in no trains at all. You had to take a bus and it was an extra thirty minutes so I opted to pass.

My aunties very nicely took me home, because Rochelle, who lives closer is phobic and refuses to drive over the bridge. Sean, Rochelle's partner took his parents home so he couldn't drive her. He's supposed to teach me how to drive and has struck a new deal with me concerning U2 tickets which I'm protesting because we're sold out and he should have told me earlier, damn it! Anyway, the aunties checked out my house, put a stamp of approval (plus "you need to fix your room") and reminded me that I promised to host a dinner party once the house was set up. Which would end up involving me cooking for, oh I don't know, probably fifteen people! Will figure that out once our dining table is set up.

Today, Boxing Day, Sacha & I vegged completely and then met up with Rochelle to see Just Like Heaven, which was a nice movie. Also saw the trailer for this movie called "Goal" which has this cute guy who is from this barrio in LA who ends up playing for Newcastle United (Duke, you have gotta go check the trailer on imdb. I was so excited). I did some reading for my Human Rights class at uni, which starts in January. The goal is to finish four chapters by the end of the week, which I really really must do as this class only goes for a month and there's a paper immediately due a week after we start. We ended the day by watching "The Cup" a movie by this Bhutanese Monk about a bunch of Tibetan Monks who were really into the World Cup. I didn't see the whole of it as I was busy blogging and chatting as well, but what I saw of it was nice and funny. He also has another movie, which I read about in Premiere magazine a long time ago. Apparently he is pretty much the Bhutanese film industry, because its just a fledgling one and they don't make much films - In fact I think they don't at all - and this is one of two that he's made and put them on the map. Am looking forward to seeing his other film.

Tomorrow its back to the grind for me - more reading to do, as having limited work shifts I worked for a bit this morning (and got sent home due to limited call volume) and then will again on New Year's Eve till 7 - and yeah, more of Charmed as I have just begun to rent season 4, having decided I needed to see fun things after all those indie flicks.

New Year's Eve we plan to hang out by the harbour bridge to see the fireworks, then maybe check out a club or hang at the hotel room my Uncle has rented. Or something. I am so glad I'm not working on New Year's.

Then...oh yeah. It'll be my birthday soon. :P I almost forgot that bit.

Me in front of town hall after church. Wonderful lights. Merry Christmas from Down Under. Posted by Picasa

Me & Caleb, Kat's son enjoying dinner. Isn't he cute? Posted by Picasa

Oh Christmas Tree! Oh Christmas Tree! There were so many presents around them...I got linen paper wraps and Sacha & Rey got chocolates. This picture is after all the gift giving so you can imagine how much more was around the tree Posted by Picasa

Kat & Me surrounded by wrapping paper during the gift giving. Posted by Picasa

Sacha playing the piano at Kat's house. It was very old and very out of tune. Everyone was impressed though.  Posted by Picasa

Caleb staring at Sacha playing the piano with his granma. He really seemed to like music and was very attentive. Posted by Picasa

Friday, December 23, 2005

Just a Quick Note

...to say Merry Christmas to everyone and have a Happy New Year!

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Furniture madness and other things

I am so frustrated with the status of my room! Everything else in the house has gone accordingly except for that. There have been so many disasters. First the aparador (Cabinet) wouldn't get fixed and Handle had to come over. Then I bought a queen sized bed frame on the premise that Lisa would be able to give me the queen sized mattress from old housemate. Then that had to be returned so we went to Ikea yesterday to return it and grab a double bed frame.

Then last night, first the top of the headboard (which is strictly just ornamental anyway) would not drill in, there were no holes for the nails on any part of the board - plus it was already finished wood and we couldn't get the holes in. Then the metal plank/apparatus/whatever that goes in the centre of the bed vertically will not go. Its beed "folded" in such a way that you have to pull out its ends from the centre piece. And it will not go so the plank will not stretch fully to reach either side of the bed. We have all tried it.

Napipikon na ko dahil parang kahit anong gawin ko wala naman akong mapala. And anyone who knows me can tell that when I start speaking my native language I am really really pissed off because its a much better language to get angry in. Punyeta. Lahat ng mga tao dito ayos na lahat ang mga kuwarto. Its been three weeks and Im still fucking sleeping on the floor. Ano ba!!!

I went to the office Christmas party last friday and got pissed. Not super pissed , just pretty tipsy. I got home okay, obviously. It was really fun. Pictures to follow.

Am meeting Mr. Tony for lunch today and am going to get flowers as part of Christmas gift which is 3 native baskets from my aunty that imports philo furniture. Have work at 4. Have finally had the starbucks gingerbread latte which tasted like crap. Have this feeling they didn't rinse out some cup making utensil correctly because it tasted like gingerbread mixed with peppermint crap.

This week am doing MX Tues, Thurs and Fri! Also working MTW for Ticketek. Was supposed to do MX on Wed as well but I turned it down so that I could go for kickboxing, which is our last session before the break.

Saturday is the family Christmas celebration, and am hoping that we finish early enough for me to go to Midnight Mass (with carols) at St. Mary's as I want to spend most of Christmas morning in bed (all i want for Christmas is a fixed room with a working bed).

In the meantime, must get stuff ready to go go go!

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Please read me.

Hi.

I'd appreciate it if people that found this blog through a series of links ask first before they link me up. If I know you, then I'll most likely be okay with that but if I don't or if you think we've met and I don't remember (which is also a great possibility especially given my former work) please don't just link me but ask first.

Thank you.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Moving Day

Note: We Moved on the weekend of December 3. I was going to add the next week and then this week, since we're still setting up - though everyone has a room fixed up but me through no fault of my own - more on that later but I realised if I waited to find the time for that it would never happen. And so, here is an account of our moving weekend.

Cast of Characters

Sacha – erstwhile partner in crime, capoierista, physicist, overall genius and general moving organiser. She who called the removalists (moving company), the apartment, had the electricitiy and internet transferred over, checked with the real estate, etc. etc.

Lisa
– my super athletic super strong new housemate who impressed the movers with her agility. Also a championship olympic mountain biker and a barista. Capable of carrying large objects on her own and although I would love to say leap buildings in a single bound, I don’t think its possible.

Andrea – my temporary leichhardt housemate who got roped into moving by virtue of the fact that she’s staying in Kartini’s room for a few weeks. In another life, an aspiring journalist who works for the wakely foundation.

Kartini – the absentee housemate who is temporarily in Indonesia for her annual Christmas visit/nose operation. Packed up everything in the house that she could before she left and left everyone with instructions stuck to their door. Owner of most of the furniture.

Scott – kartini’s boyfriend who came by to help, stayed the whole day and ended up carrying furniture despite having gotten home at 5am on the same day

Matt & Ed – the movers who ended up staying almost 7 hours instead of the previously agreed 3 despite having slept only 2 hours the night before.

Me – the other housemate, who surprised self by being able to carry things without hurting self (we’ll leave that to the next day, when unpacking), generally organised person who thought of dinner and channeled her inner domestic helper by cleaning the bathroom immediately after arrival in new home…

The Moment I Wake Up…I Say a Little Prayer for You.

Saturday morning I woke up and went to work. The day before Lisa and I had moved some stuff including her bikes to the new house. This was the first time Lisa had seen it and so far she was impressed by the courtyard and the potential of the place. We dumped everything in the living room. We also got some stuff from my place in Leichhardt and had lunch at the Mezzapica, my corner café where I said bye to the friendly barista dudes that run the place.

Our new house is a two story structure at the corner of Arundel and Ross in Glebe. If you cross our street you get to Paramatta Road, the major thoroughfare that heads Northwest and if you cross that you get to my university right away. It’s a good location but unless you can live with cars speeding by, its not the place for you. Fortunately thanks to my adventures in Cebu sharing with 7 girls in a 3 bedroom apartment in a building right on the city’s major thoroughfare I can sleep through everything – except snoring, but that’s another story.

There are 4 bedrooms and one bathroom on the top floor. Since the house is shaped more like a rectangle and is long rather than wide, the bedrooms are irregularly shaped. Mine is at the front of the house and is somewhat trapizoidal except its stretched lengthwise. The ground floor has a living room, a front parlor, a kitchen, a side hallway and a courtyard which everyone fell in love with when we first came. There are two patches of plants - I say patches because literally they are in the corners of one side of the courtyard – and a lot of space to leave out chairs. We are planning to fix this up and possibly hold dinner parties, which would be great.

Sacha had called the movers and arranged for them to be at my house in Leichhardt at 230pm. She would then meet me there and we would head over to King Street, where I had been staying for the week while my house was abandoned with no furniture. I got a call from my old housemates saying that they were at the house cleaning so I headed over to Leichhardt early, around 1ish to help out and organise the stuff. Ended up having to have the keys copied as I couldn’t find my keys – the King St apartment was in such a mess that Im sure I’ll find it in some box somewhere. They took the keys because the realtor wanted them back by the afternoon so Sacha and I had to get into the house via the back door when we got back from our gelati snack.

It turns out the movers had a 3 hour window to arrive but we didn’t find this out till we found their number and gave them a call. Matt, the mover called Sacha at 230 to tell her they’d be there at 330 but they didn’t get to us until 4. Fortunately my stuff was easy to pack since I didn’t have so much so we were on our way to Sacha’s at around 5. The movers were very friendly and helpful. We helped them out a bit by carrying stuff. My housemates also left some stuff outside the house that was supposed to have been picked up but was left behind for anyone to get.

Sacha: So can we ride in the truck with you
Matt: Well, we can only fit three people in the cab, but there’s a bit of a back space there so (turning to me) we can put a blanket on the back and you can sort of lie there, its up to you.
Me: I guess I’m taking the bus!!!

So while Sacha rode in the giant truck I took the ever absent 370 which meant I had to wait for at least 15 minutes to get a ride. When I got there they had locked one elevator – Sacha got the key from the building administrator – for our exclusive use to move. We also pretty much kept using the 2nd as we had to keep going up and down. In the meantime Scott & Andrea had gone to the house to drop off some stuff for the first round of “things that can be moved in the car”. The strategy was like this. We kept taking stuff out of the house and we left it in the hallway. Sacha & Dominic (her canadian french polish friend who helped out for a few hours, also a physicist) put them in the elevator, took them down and helped the movers take them out to the truck, which was parked in a side street that was three buildings away.

This took quite a while because we had to carry down boxes and loads of furniture, like 2 couches and a couple of beds. I took Sacha’s bed apart myself and found the longest nails I had ever seen in my life, as long as my middle finger (Go IKEA!). Andrea dismantled Kartini’s bed and we had to wait for the movers to dismantle Lisa’s, which was a four poster monstrosity that she inherited from a former occupant. It had an antique looking ornate headboard and both bed posts reached almost to the ceiling. It was huge and heavy and could only be taken out of the building via the fire exit down seven floors. Rick, the original owner of the bed was going to pick it up in a few weeks but in the meantime we would have to move it as there was no way to keep it in the apartment.

Lisa arrived from work around 6 and by then Andrea and Scott had loaded up the car for another go. I remembered that it as time for dinner so I went out and grabbed them fish and chips while I got Sacha and me Japanese food. By then Lisa had made another run to the house (“you should see the living room, they just dumped everything in it!”) and when she got back we had just finished dinner. Andrea and Scott left and I went with Lisa in search of a smoothie and we arrived at Boost juices exactly a minute after they closed!!! (evil!) We ended up with these wonderful Lassis from a North Indian restaurant instead. I had mango and she had rose they were nice rich and creamy and dare I say healthy?

By around 8 or 9 we were on our last legs. All that was left was moving the stuff from the elevator to the truck and then taking the white goods – fridge, washing machine and Sacha’s giant IKEA wardrobe from the apartment downstairs, which the movers would do with their special equipment. Andrea left for the house early for a prior commitment, and the rest of us decided to move as much as we could from the house to the truck. We made an attempt to get one of the bed frames down the fire escape but then decided to wait for the movers. That damn thing was heavy as hell.

Lisa and I moved various bits of random furniture like chairs and tvs – Lisa carried both tvs by herself both times totally impressing the movers who later told Sacha that they couldn’t believe she did it herself (Lisa is about five feet tall) .

Me: Lisa, I’ll take that chair. You can take that tv.
Lisa: I already took the other tv. Does everyone think Im superman?
Me: But the other tv was bigger than this one.
Lisa: Was it? Oh okay. (Picks up giant tv and runs out the door)

Now to get to the truck we pass 2 restaurants (Urban bites, which is an open air café and Thai Land which is a thai sit down on the floor restaurant with clear glass windows all around) and an apartment building. By the time we got to carrying the queen size mattress, not an easy feat since we’re both pretty short, the people in Thai Land had stopped eating to watch us. When we got to the first bed frame, which Sacha, Lisa and a very helpful chinese guy had managed to get down the fire escape, the people at Urban Bites were enjoying the show. The movers got the rest of the stuff down and Scott helped us carry the last of the stuff.

When we got to the house it was a mess. How the movers managed to get Sacha’s giant wardrobe up our narrow stairs is beyond me. We left the giant bedframes in the hallway next to the stairs and pretty much started organising what we could. The entire removal service, which I feel was well worth it because there was no way we could have rented a truck and done all that ourselves cost about six hundred bucks. Which meant that by the end of the weekend we were all pretty much momentarily broke, given the other expenses.

The first thing I did was fanatically clean the bathroom because I believed that everyone deserved a good shower in a nice clean bathroom. Then we started moving some of our things upstairs. The movers had already put in the mattresses so pretty much everyone slept on a mattress that night. We brought up all our bedposts and slats, some boxes and a few miscellaneous furniture along with suitcases. I think we got to bed around one, after hanging around a bit on the living room on whatever available surface we could find – which wasn’t much.

The bathroom turned out to have this kind of glass covering the window that wasn’t see through but was enough for you to see someone’s shilouette which was why when Lisa and I first arrived we could see the outline of Andrea in the light. In the end we taped up good old Bob – my sarong from puerto galera with the king of ganja himself – over the window just to serve as a block until we got a shower curtain, which by the way we still don’t have 5 days later.

My Inner Domestic Helper


I think it would please my mother to know that despite her constant nagging and my apparent inattention I have learnt quite a few domestic things, one of which is to always clean things such as shelves and drawers before you put stuff in them, to use lining to protect the cutlery and generally keep things clean. My room may not be the oasis in the middle of chaos but I am rather fanatical about certain things such as dishes, glasses and the bathroom.

Which is why I decided on Sunday to attack the kitchen. Sacha and Lisa left early to clean the other apartment and because the Leichhardt house was already clean it was my turn to tidy up the new house. Andrea gave herself a much needed break and went off to the beach at manly, later coming back with a patch of red on her back on the space where her tankini ended and her bottoms began where she forgot to put suntan lotion.

I spent 7 hours cleaning the kitchen. I discovered that we had 6 packs of the same kind of flour. A bazillion spoons, forks and knives from the time sacha bought utensils thinking there was none in the house, three different packs of cinammon spice, 2 basils, 2 oreganos and a lot of exotic Indian spices (Kartini is of Indian descent) that I could never identify. There was also at least one of each kind of rice. White Long Grain. White Medium Grain. White Short Grain. Brown Medium Grain. You get the drift.

My frustration was that I didn’t see the point in having multiple things of the same kind also we didn’t have enough space. I had also stepped out to buy lining paper – even butcher’ s paper would have done – but every store I went to said they didn’t have anything like that. The guy at Kmart even said, I know what you mean but we don’t have it. I have lined our shelves with flowered wrapping paper and the wooden counters with red cellophane paper. It being Christmas, that was the only color available at Go Lo.

I also fanatically loaded up the dishwasher and it took 3 rounds before it managed to wash everything, not counting all the plastic tupperware type things that are still on the dish rack due to lack of space. I also cut my right pointer finger on an eating knife while I tried to remove it from the plastic it was in consequently resulting in a whole lotta blood.

I am proud to say that when I was done the kitchen looked pretty nice and neat. And impressive too. Andrea was so amazed when she got home given that it was all fixed up sans the bazillion boxes that formerly covered the floor.

We had dinner on Glebe Point Road, which is the closest major restaurant road where I had this yummy chorizo pasta thing and took take out dessert at Home café (horrible food, excellent dessert) before crashing at home.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Snippets

Its been a while since my last entry that disappeared thanks to the sensitive flick of a touchpad button. Nakakatamad na siyang isulat ulit so here is a summary: last weekend it was raining really hard. I helped Handle, Mike & Miki move. They had a truck each (1 for the couple) and it felt like an assembly line moving things into the car. I actually had fun. In the end Miki dropped me off in the car at Sacha's house where I am staying this week due to the fact that all the furniture in the house is gone. I miss the doggies.

So far I've been sleeping on the sofa bed which is pretty comfy. Some nights I sleep straight, but some nights I just wiggle around and try to find a perfect position. In the mornings I automatically wake up in time for an 845 shift, thanks to work and wait for everyone to leave and go back to sleep, if I dont really have to get up.

Last Monday I saw my first ep of grey's anatomy and was completely hooked. Thank God its on normal tv or else I'd be upset. We're not getting cable for this house because no one really watches tv (true!). Went to kbox on tuesday and was so sloppy. I need someone to spar with. Thankfully, Lisa my new housemate who is a junior world champion mountain biker and has been to the olympics (and she's only 22!) is setting up exercise stuff in the house and we're going to train together because its funner when there's someone with you. Obviously we wont be in the same training levels, but its more motivating to have a training partner. Granted I wont be working out as much as her - she trains most of the day.

Work has been giving very few shifts of late, as we are in low season. I am trying to find a supplementary job and I will be calling the hospitality group my friend from work recommended tomorrow. We are also moving some things tomorrow as well.

Sacha and I signed the lease yesterday and were given a shitload of keys, including the older type ones that look like they belong in Coraline or a fantasy/historical novel. Or at the very least a classic like Jane Eyre or something by Jane Austen.

Yesterday I had Yum Cha with my groupmates from Cross Cultural Management. We had lots of fun chatting until we had to go. I was there from 1200 till 3 just nibbling on Yum Cha and having tea. Yum Cha is basically chinese food - dimsum, dumplings and other tidbits. People go around in carts, and you stop the cart with the food you like (usually 4 pcs to a plate) and they put it on your table and mark the card that you have in the end you pay for what you've chosen. I had my first siomai since february. Yaaay!

Afterwards my tummy was slighly unhappy which I think was because of the tea which may or may not have had caffeine. Either that or it was just too much egg tart.

Today I went to meet my friend Kat for lunch. She is pinoy like me and has been here since she was ten. She brought her husband and their baby who is one and cute as a button. He smiles a lot. We went to this place in pyrmont called Oscar's where you can have baby back ribs for 13 bucks, which is cheap especially if they're about at least 3/4ths the size of a closed laptop. After that we had dessert at Jean Michel's patisserie where they had amazing chocolate tarts. I bought a ganache (for me) and a brownie and a lemon tart for my housemates. They brought me home in their car, which was great because five seconds within arrival my tummy said, no no no and i threw up all the babyback ribs in the toilet.

I suppose having real milk everyday for breakfast with my cereal may not be the best thing. I also decided not to buy a whole box of cereal since I am only staying here a week so I got one of those 6 pack things with different flavors for kids like cocoa puffs or something.

My housemates have left - Sacha to capoiera, Lisa to work and Andrea to the event their office is having tonight - and its 9 now and I still havent made dinner. I know I will end up with soup and will cook lunch for tomorrow.

It doesnt really feel like Christmas here. There arent any lights except in the major locations like the Rocks and Darling Harbour or Circular Quay. Otherwise its shop windows and that's it. Parang hindi talaga pasko. I mean, I'd forget it was Christmas if it werent for the family dinner scheduled on the 24th. Its not that Im all cynical and stuff (although I slightly am) and I do have a lot of things to be thankful for but the atmosphere just isn't conducive to remembering. Its like there's nothing going on. Jojo was right, its kind of corny. Oh well, we're going to get a Christmas tree for our house, hopefully.

Must go cook now... :)