I was so feverish to receive the gift from Diana who bought it in her hometown in Iran when she was in her long service leave in the past 6 weeks. It was hand-made embroidery on the cover that was supposed to stand for typical Iranian traditional pattern. On the side, the shape of wooden pen pinned is also special. Although it is a little padnote, its delicacy would amaze everyone as long as he/she who pretty much loves exotic or fancy stuff sees it at the first sight. I would say there is no better way than posting the pictures in my space to share with friends to express how much I like it and how grateful I am to Dia. Friend’s regard is invaluable and over any saying word, isn’t it? Take a look!

 

I am a kind of eccentric person who would feel uncomfortable even couldn’t fall sleep if some issues are not solved. Last night, I was very cranky to see the problem of connection between microphone of headset earphone and computer not be fixed up. I had tried to talk with my gal pal online while the microphone wasn't working, so I looked like a dumb only with a series mouth moving mutely as she saw me speaking. The weird thing was that mic was going well if put in the laptop. Really didn't know what happened on it.  After several unsuccessful trials by plug-in and pull-out of mic in the desktop, I gave up my stupidly stubborn behaviour. Far out! Then decide to take it to our production department and let our engineer to have a look. Luckily, I am working in a computer company which gives me heaps of conveniences in managing computer or computer parts. I could have any computer part repaired for free no matter what the brand of the computer is. Guess what? Our engineer told me I was the second person to ask him this issue actually that is the desktop’s bug that merely exists in a certain kind of model. I just coincidently bought that staff purchase. Afterwards he instructed me the path how to cope it with. Arriving home, I was too impatient to wait to try the way advised. Under the Jing’s help, it took a while to find the place to change something in computer setup so that we spoke to each other online at last. Thanks, Jing, you were absolutely champion, you did live up to your IT master degree of Sydney Uni.

 

Although it finally could be dealt with, what a shame that desktop was from the company I am working for. See! That’s the reason why I never recommended my friends to buy our computers regardless of price. :-)

 

Well, I am so excited that I finally had French dinner that I had expected for ages. I looked forward to having goose liver that is supposed famous French cuisine, unluckily goose is prohibition to be eaten in Australia, then was recommended to order veal liver and calves kidney with Entree size as the main course instead. Half dozen of snails were no doubt to be chosen as Entree as snail is also well-known dish. Besides, I tried a fish of day but forget the name. Dessert was served by CRÈME BRULEE which is a reputedly typical French dessert…...absolutely delicious! You know what? After the dinner, that kind of eating gratification really couldn’t be described, only one word----YUM!

 

BTW, the French restaurant is located in Paddington, named Vamps.

 

I am reading an internet novel borrowed from Hebe. A little bit weird for me as I never ever read it before wherever in China or Australia. Without doubt, it is about common love story, starting with adventure in the elevator...... Let me see how it is going to tell..... Sometimes, opening a book never touched would kind of refresh you up, sparkle your eyes, and churn out unexpected consequence.....Look! It happens to make me have sense of what internet book is. Meanwhile, it would be helpful to relax and kill the time. So don't refuse that new things at all, it might bring you so much fun, new ideas, or different experience.

Frankly, I would rather read Chinese books than English books if I may get in Sydney. No need to try to understand those bloody new English words and have to mug up those English words to go through the rest of the book. So far, I just digged out Qing Nian Wen Zhai as a Chinese magazine is possibly understood by me and palpably worthy being bought periodically, no other good Chinese books could be put on my bookshelves here. For a book worm, it is really devastated. Actually, there is a raft of Chinese masterpiece in some book shops at China Town, but my literature level and ability of understanding are barriers to read through them, which lead me to concentrate on some popular books instead. How humiliated I have bad Chinese! Since that, can I say I am a book worm as I limitedly read in a small range? Can I whindge how hard to find some readable books in Sydney?

 

Currently internet novel just satisfy my desire on reading.

 

 

Last weekend I set aside winter clothes and took out summer clothes as steps of summer are closing. OMG! I did not realise there is such huge number of clothes I have got, only was aware of the clothes I bought could be just piled up to a small mountain, not that high mountain.

Roughly counting, there is the list that would shock me and you:
*at least 20 pieces summer skirts  
*over 10 pieces winter skirts  
*not less 10 pieces dresses
*over 40 T-shirts
*15 suits
*5 winter jackets
*6 overcoats
*10 black pants (not including other colours)
*20 short pants(comprising of the ninth-length)
......
I have been thinking I have diverted from a suit fetish to a skirt one, but it seems I am still crave for buying not only one kind of clothes. For me, it has got a habit to go shopping periodically to update my wardrobes to try to catch up with the fashion trend. There is no girl would like to look unfashionable or obsolete. Besides, it is pretty ordinary that a girl would have retail therapy to cure depression or reduce pressure through shopping. I am not exception. Particularly, boring Australian life doesn’t want me to have clothes buying abstinence as it is supposed to be main entertainment. I had kept high frequency of buying new clothes in China, but have changed a little since I came to Australia. One reason is that I don't earn enough money to plunk down the cash for all of clothes I like. Another reason is it is hard to find my size and style in Australia. However, under the restriction of purchasing, it has no sign of the amount of clothes I have bought here is descending......then, above list occurs.

I tried to sort out some clothes I bought before arrived in Sydney, so as to prove that I am not a lavish girl but a scanty one keeping the clothes with over 5 years, yet the reality was stark out of expectation. L Okay, before moving to new home, I must clean up my wardrobes and find an appropriate niche to get rid of those I won’t put on in the future.

 

It was good news that Jessie would like to have a try as she didn’t care the old ones and absolutely believe my sight on clothes pick-up. Consequently I singled out some of clothes that were worn once and not old fashioned..... woooow! Those clothes just fit her and look better on her than on me. Thanks Jessie, helped me deal with some clothes that I had decided to trash to the recycle bin. More importantly, help me have reputation of not waste. Now I have to hope those fancy clothes in shop window won’t easily whip up my desire to buy.

有生第一次请人吃饭，琢磨了一周到底做什么，提前演习了一次，今天终于顺利完成了。可喜可贺！

 

 

特别感谢Emily、Annie和Echo的大力支持！

 

我累了，需要休息了。

Woooow! so beautiful! Monday I noticed those trees with flowers after work on the way to Olympic Park train station, it was really thrilling view that the flowers were in buds. I couldn't help stopping and enjoying for a second, unfortunately had no time to shoot a few pictures as I had to catch the train. While they turned to fully blooming yesterday, with the time closed to train departure, I still couldn’t halt for a while to take pictures. BTW, it happened to see Herman take photos. What was concurrence of fondness between us! :-) From this morning I had reminded me to leave office earlier than normal time, so as to complete this week’s wish…..done by the camera in the mobile and added those pictures into photo album. (see right)

I miss Iris very much. Who is that? She is my colleague working at Finance Department in our company and also from Beijing. These two weeks she has been on holiday in China. Since the first day I was in the company, we have known each other and got along well and already become the closest colleagues. It is lucky thing that you have a close colleague who came from the same city and has resembling characters, similar value attitude etc. At post-lunch time every working day, we love to walk around in the Olympic Park and have lovely chick chat. There is not too much benefit conflict between us as we are in different divisions, so we are free to talk about issues of jobs, gossips about some people, without pretty much worrying about that being passed to others or us being made something hard by someone who was commented. That's really our relaxing time getting out of those bloody works.

Many of Chinese here like to work in an Australian company, it is better with all colleagues not from Chinese background. I don't. I would rather to work in a multicultural company than a pure Australian company. To my experience, Australian are more arrogant to foreigners than plenty of European immigrants, Asia pacific immigrants, or African immigrants who are relatively friendly to Chinese as they are more likely to understand as a foreigner. It would be terrific if have a Chinese colleague who has a lot in common with me and don’t have direct working communication. See! I have it.

 

Definitely, job is job, personal life is personal life. It is sensible and professional to separate work and personal life. In the office, nobody would care whether you like me or not personally. No necessary to hope the relation with your colleagues is over friendship, but having sincere friendship with colleague is just like bonus in working.

 

She will be back Mon and I will be off lonely lunch time and stroll after lunch. J

My colleague told me he was exhausted but he had to go to meeting soon. I actively asked him whether he needed a cup of coffee to refresh up and I'd like to buy for him. Actually he always bought hot chocolate or snacks for me. Okay, he gave me the chance to treat back. On the way, I kept grumbling the name of coffee he required---Flat White." flat white, flat white, flat white, white flat, white flat...." when I got to the Muffin Break cafe shop, I got stuck and totally forgot which one I wanted to buy, then said to shop assistant," I don't drink coffee, and not familiar with coffee, my colleague let me buy a cuppa, but I am not sure it is flat white or white flat." the girl smiled to me and answered, "FLAT WHITE". My lord! Two words got me so embarrassed.

I can't remember which day I set up a 5-year (Dec 2003 to Dec 2008) plan for myself. At that time, there were attainable and supposedly potent plans in my mind to drive me to struggle with the rugged life in Australia. 1. to get master degree 2. to have PR (permanent residency) 3. to find a job in my major Logistics area 4. to buy a property 5. To be a mum.

 Why I built up those plans? I thought 5 year would be long enough to have them done. To start a new life in Australia, something could be likely to be required to explode your motivation and enthusiasm to some degree. I am not a naturally optimistic girl, not a much designed girl, but I need to give myself some goals to spurt. I don't pretty much care about the results but like enjoying the process of trekking, enjoying the wistful feeling for some object. I reckon I am a kind of girl who loves being swooned with something challengeable and longing for the depth of feeling of conquering. Setting targets and seeing them achieved one by one, you would feel self-content and goal-oriented. It is pretty ordinary to get in daunting pickle when you are trying your best to reach the target, but you would grow up immensely by up and down period, going through fractious mood facing difficulties, mustering your strength to get over the hitch, and resoundingly coping with that eventually. To be honest, plenty of frustration almost beat me down on the road, run-away or give-up was my last choice as I was funky in front of the trouble. Guess what? The situation suddenly turned to get better as I did not stick to those plans, so the turning point somehow came out as hopeless. So far, I basically have made my dream come truth, not having a baby but getting Australian citizen is a substitute. Should I be buoyant and elated? not yet, just like what I said, I prefer to suffering in the middle of perplexing and rough circumstance, not to holding final result in the hand.:-) Through the experiences, the most gain I have had is how to place a pivoting when the life is unbalanced.

Anyway, if you ask me what the next 5-year plans are, I would say SIMPLE LIFE. Particularly wish I would be more upbeat.

For the first time I went to vote as an Australian citizen on NSW Election Day, not feeling excited as I expected but annoyed, because I had to reschedule my plan for shopping to make it. There was a long queue when we arrived the closest voting place, no idea how long we would wait for casting a vote. Some candidates were dispatching the flyers along the road, we just collected politely. Liberal Party, Labour Party, Green, Independent…..Frankly speaking, I didn't know who they are and what they could positively devote themselves to those voters. What I concerned was to make council have my record that I turned up and I did execute my responsibility as a citizen. otherwise, I will get loathing fine. That's it. Luckily, the queue was moving fast and we were given ballot paper soon, then went to table to tick off in front of a Liberal candidate as I was more inclined to believe Liberal Party would save Australian economy than Labour Party at the moment. It only took 5-10 minutes, not very time-consuming.

 

有人请客吃Lebanese food, 去！虽然不是很感兴趣，对于不喜欢吃牛羊肉的我，总担心自己吃不饱，但还是想尝尝。又听说9月，Lebanese只有在太阳下山时才吃饭，所以更感兴趣他们是怎么吃这顿晚饭的。到饭馆后，满桌的吃食，没一个叫得出名字，只听说有个dip is made of raw meat and chilly. 我倒！试！反正死不了。什么Lebanese bread...salad....meat.....dessert....soft drink....反正我以前没吃过，今天尝个鲜， 以后不想试了。不是饭馆不好，不是味道不地道，是我不适应，呵呵！

 

如果你想试，推荐一下：http://www.alsafa.com.au/

 

周末两天总共在家没几小时，去了好几个地方，吃了几顿大餐....但无论做什么，心里总惦记一件事-----看话剧。可能是前几日在网上看到北京正流行话剧《女人》，于是有点心痒。久违的话剧，久违的回忆。记得2001年和睿睿、小马一同去首都剧场看孟京辉的《臭虫》，好像赶上公司在某宾馆开会，时间紧急，于是打车赶到，三人疯狂跑进剧场。演员们说啊，唱啊，跳啊，现在已不太记得主题，只记得音乐比较重金属，有个女演员长得不算太漂亮，个头不高，但我很喜欢，记得她的名字叫秦海璐。后来她拍电影，而且很火。最后导演、演员与观众见面会上，虽然我们坐在第一排，但还是中途退场了，因为对话剧中的内容还是懵懵懂懂。我不是很能看懂话剧的内容，但我喜欢看话剧的感觉，更喜欢现代话剧，也许能看懂得多一些，起码比看《天下第一楼》轻松些。目前睿睿和小马都是孩儿他/她妈了，不知我们三个什么时候还有机会一块看话剧。

I didn’t change my mind to visit my Filipino girlfriend Jennifer in Sutherland this morning although the strong wind and heavy rain have hit down the earth since yesterday. The time had been changed several times, I needed to make it no matter how bad weather it is. After shopping, I was lucky to right catch a train to the destination, then the arriving time was one hour earlier then scheduled, so I had to ring up on the way and let Jen get up to welcome me. Look, the owner must to listen to the visitor. J

 

How excited we were when we saw each other. Wooooow! Her new-born kid is so cute and small, and his name is Jaden that came from his mum Jennifer and dad Denny. It was my honour to see how Jen was feeding her boy. Afterwards, we chat from this subject to another, her prenatal nervousness, postnatal depression, her struggle with lack of breastfeeding, my recent dramas, our friends….. endless topics came is and out. I didn’t realise how talkative I am. Two hours had gone away as I looked at the watch, as if I didn’t stop talking, during the time Jen had Jaden keeping breastfed and changing diaper once. To be honest, being a mum looked and sounded a stress-out thing that a little scared me to be a mum. 

 

The dear young mum needed a napping and I should go home to do housework then….

 

Hi, Penny, I will post the picture after scan it. 

I am not sure whether I mentioned how seriously I dislike some of Indian. Could u allow me to grumble again if I talked before. There have been experiences made me try to keep out of Indian. One occasion, I was blown out as I teamed up with some Indian for a group assignment at uni. They were not ashamed of being late every meeting, not feeling guilty as they didn’t timely finish their part of assignment. What was the worse, they impudently found out a variety of reasons to explain and beat back the reason why they couldn't finish was we didn't cooperate with them as they advised us to have a group meeting at their place. In our point of view, it was not worthy to spend time in meeting. There was not very relevant bond between our part and theirs, why they forcibly linked together? Our fight had to be up to lecturer to handle it at the last. That was my first experience apart from hearing the disgusting stories some friends told me. In my opinion, Indian have a typical character to show off their speech ability in public although they have strong Indian accent and how right they are no matter that they are right or not. Also, they like buck-passing and shifting their responsibilities are supposed to be theirs to others.  

On the other hand, I realised that a certain kind of Indian who bully the weak and fear the strong. The tougher you are, the more they would listen to you. When I have disagreement or argument with them, I always win as long as I present strongly enough and my tone is loud enough. But today the theory was not working when I put into practice. Under my manager’s instruction, I shared a section of an Indian colleague’s job. I did my best. The job I was required had been done basically, the undone was meant to be finished by other team who have to dig out some old documents. That was his duties to follow up. Guess what? He forced me to finish the rest by using our director to be his shield. I really looked down on this kind of people who like being in the name of manager to order team worker to do something. I was irritable at once and counterattacked him with logical reason, but he kept saying blah blah…….. Holy shit!

 

I am not angry now, just want to disclose some Indian’s viceJ

This week stared from Last Saturday has meant differently for me, 30/08 was Emily's birthday, 31/08 was mine, 1/09 was my close two colleagues', today is right date I have worked in the current company for a year,.....06/09 will be 7-year anniversary for my marriage (we registered in that day. Anyway 7-year itch will come up? :-))......a series of significative dates could be rejoiced.

We had a brilliant birthday celebration at Emily's place on last Saturday. Emily's cooking skills amazed everyone turned up and especially conquered men's stomachs (unfortunately Emily already has had her lovely husband Eric). Michael jokingly asked Emily whether she only had a job just staying at home for cooking. I am jealous of her talent and admire Eric has a partner who is very good at cooking. Guess what, I looked forward to buying a property where is close to Emily's potentially inclining place she would move, then I can conveniently learn how to cook. Anyway, it was a chirpy and creaky day. We immediately fell intimidate even though there were some new friends we never met, Pang Zi (her nickname) brazenly made fun of herself without worrying about exposure of her defect, Eric sounded to unwittingly throw out some cold jokes that cracked us up.......a full table of yum meals, a fantastic cake, funny new friends, massive laugh.....

http://emilyzhaowei.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!687F01FC54AE6C28!1251.entry

As to my birthday, I did not have a particular celebration, no dinner out, no candle cake. Main reason was I still got choked up the next day by the foods Emily made and still had aftertaste of the cake that made me no more think about other cakes for a while. So we cancelled the planned dinner at Pancake restaurant as we did not have any appetite to have a big meal. Although I didn't rack up any gift and there was no surprise happened at my birthday, I had no regret at all because I tried to ice cream Gelatissimo the first time. Actually, that day I was stumbled by something more important for my future Australian life. Good lucky me!

Anyway, I wanna mention there are a group of celebrities whose Zodiac is Virgo, such as Michael Jackson, Su You Peng, Xie Ting Feng......

 

In the coming days, I am thinking how I can pamper myself taking advantage of these excuses.