I went to Cottlesloe Beach with my friends last Saturday. The weather has been crazy. For a while, it was starting to get cooler, then after a week of cool weather, it became very hot for the next 2 weeks. So we decided to go to the beach and make full use of the sunny weather to go for a dip in the water. We brought our picnic mats, towels, sunscreen, chips, water, sunnies and a story book for me and went to take the bus to the beach.

Cottlesloe Beach is a gorgeous beach. Clear blue skies, with crystal clear water. Water was freezing though but the minute I got into the water it felt so good.

Cottlesloe Beach





Rama, me and another friend I made, Fatima, from Canada. She's doing her PhD in Human Movement or something like that. She's really cool and funny.



Me after my pathetic 30 mins dip in the water. It was freezing and the waves were massive.





That's Anri from Indonesia next to me. She's my course mate.



And after the beach, we went to Nandos for dinner. Nandos has the best chicken in the world. Eaten with the spicy peri-peri sauce, it rocks. Majorly. Was exhausted when I reached home.

And on Sunday, Anri, Fatima, Foiza and myself went over to Anri's place at 930 pm and we watched Monster-In-Law and Anri made pop corn and green tea for us. Very nice. The only bad thing was I had to walk back on my own in the middle of the night, about 11pm. Pretty scary cos this place has very few street lights. So it can get a little dangerous. Anri actually got chased by a crazy man once on this street. And it was only 9pm then.

I have my first seminar presentation this Wed. That is 30% of the grade. I'm so nervous about it. I've prepared but the topic's really difficult (devolution) and I'm supposed to critique an article on devolution, and lead the clas in discussion for about 20 mins. I hope I do alright. And one more presentation next Tuesday on leadership. So it's going to be a stressful week and a half or so.

On another note altogether, I actually didn't expect to get any gifts for my bday since I'm here and all my friends are back home. But I actually received gifts from people back home!

A card from Anjuli, two books from Dev (You can heal your life by Louise L Hay and A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Housseini), a bear with the sweetest card from Diana and a Bobbi Brown make up kit (blusher, eye shadow and two colours of lip gloss) from Maya. I have the best friends in the world.



The palette in the Bobbi Brown kit. Love it Maya!



Once I get through to next Tuesday, I'll be fine. I'm stressing out right now...

Ok, I know I haven't blogged for a while. Been busy with school and stuff. But cos today is a public holiday (Easter Monday), I'm going to upload all the pictures which I had taken over the past 2 weeks or so.

I've made a few friends over my course of stay here. And I've been to a few places. So far, I've uplaoded pictures of Freemantle, Subiaco and Wembley. 2 Fridays ago, my friends from India brought me and Mark to the city, where we had Indian food by the river. The restaurant is a non profit organisation so we could eat all we want and decide how much we wanted to pay. Food was alright, scenery was stunning.

From L to R: Me, William from HK, Mark, my house mate and Rama from India.





And that's the scenery from where we were eating. That's Chinmay from India, next to Mark. All of them are doing their Masters in Infectious Diseases.




And yes, I turned 28 on 16th March. It was a pretty simple affair. Mark was such a darling. He organised a mini party for me and we invited some of our friends over to our place for a pot luck dinner. I cooked fried bee hoon, Chinmay made curry, Mark bought Turkish bread, Rushika brought chicken wings and Anjuli brought ice cream. It was really nice just hanging out and having friends over and talking.


My place: Me, Rushika from Sri Lanka (doing her Masters in Law, but a practicing lawyer in Sri Lanka), Chinmay and Mark.




The whole group. Behind me is Anjuli, from England. She's a sweetheart. Speaks with this lilting English accent. Love her to bits. She's doing her Masters in Law.




And Mark was so sweet cos he bought me a chcolate mud cake. And cos we are students on a budget, we bought strawberries and poked them on the cake ourselves. Hahahaha.



And he also bought a caramel cake for Anjuli. :) And we also did the whole strawberries poking thing.




The 2 bday girls. Anjuli's gorgeous, isn't she?





The whole group.



The on Easter Sunday, I got invited to an Easter Lunch at one of my course mate's place at Cockburn. Which is freaking far from civilisation. Cos the transport system in Perth is bullshit. The buses come every one hour, so if u miss one, u r screwed. And thatw as ecaxtly what happened. In Perth, they have a bus timetable so you can roughly estimate when the buses would come. And cos Cockburn was damn far, we had to take a bus from my place to the city, where we had to take a train to Cockburn, then we missed the bus which goes to her place. So we had to wait for 40 mins for the next bus. And we took pictures. :)

These are my course mates: Me, Grace from Kenya and Mark.





And the one at the end is Foeza from Pakistan.Both Grace and Foeza are doing their Masters in Education with me.





And that's my friend,Valentina (on my right) and her husband, Brendan who invited us to their place. Valentina's from Spore and also doing her Masters in Education. She married an Aussie. Lecturer at Edith Cowan Uni here and ...sidelines as a ballroom instructur. Damn ncie guy. Quite hot too for someone who's 41.



Yes, yes, more photos cos we had to wait half an hour for the bus. Urgh...



So I've been making some friends and and doing alright here. Been talking on the phone to some of my friends: Talked to Diana for almost an hour last week, Vidhu on Thursday (He was so happy cos he got such a fantastic performance bonus. But of course. Who was his mentor? Oh, ME! Hahahaha. But he deserves it. Works like a dog). And I talked to Maya yesterday for about an hour. Love you guys. Miss you.

Just a final picture. This is the view when I do my runs in the evenings. Breathtaking and very calming. :)

School has finally started. And it is fun. I've enrolled for 4 modules this semester but dropped one today cos when I went for the lesson, I almost died. First and foremost, everyone in the class was above 40. And they were all assessment specialists which meant that they were properly equipped for the module, which was an assessment and measurement module. And I was the only international student there. And then I sat down, opened the lecture readings and got a massive heart attack. They were filled with numbers. And figures. And algebraic equations. And graphs. I was like...'Oh my God...What have I got myself into?' I wanted to run out of the room cos you are talking about a person who hasnt done Maths since O levels, and sucks majorly in Maths. Urgh..I hate numbers. But I couldn't run out in time cos the lecturer started talking and I was stuck. And I swear, for 2 solid hours (they didn't give us a break in between) I tried to comprehend what they were babbling about and I couldn't. At all. So the minute the lecture ended, I went straight to the course coodinator and dropped it. What a relief.

So aside from that traumatic module, my other modules are really good. My professors are superb. We are on a 1st name basis with them. The classes are really small and intimate (about an average of 8-10 in a class) and there's a lot of discussion involved. And it's quite a slack time table cos I go to school 3 times a week (Tues, Wed and Fri) from 4-6 pm. A lot of time spent on our own doing readings and stuff like that. And I met some really nice people in the modules that I'm taking. Really smart people. We are forming study groups and things like that. I like it. It's been a while since I was involved in anything intellectual.

Perth is cold right now. After the treacherous hot weather, it's a cool 24 degrees in the day, and about 15 degrees during the nights.

Hope everyone is dg great back home. Miss all of you...

I went to Freemantle last weekend. I remembered Freemantle when I came to Perth in 2003. They had the best melt-in- your mouth fish and chips there. It's actually a harbour, and there's a shopping belt there, with a flea market, and many fish and chips restaurant (the seafood is all fresh cos they are freshly caught from the sea) and the scenery there is beautiful. Many seagulls though, and you all know how much hatred I have for birds.

And Freemantle hasn't changed all these years. I went to the same fish and chips place (Cicerello's), had the same seafood tray of battered cod fish, calamari, prawns, crab sticks, chips and a piece of battered baramundi. Then we went to walk down the harbour where the sights were just gorgeous. Went to the flea market and bought a $1.50 skirt and a $5 kimono top. And ended the day having gelato cos the weather was unberably hot.

The park which we had to walk through to get to Cicerellos. I love the pine trees.



The all famous fish n chips place.



The view as we ate.



Just at the side of the restaurant. This was the Freemantle beach.





I've had a pretty slack week. Did nothing much cos school only starts next week. I went for my karate class (I decided on karate instead of aikido) on Mon and Wed, and it was really good. Am enjoying it. Good work out. My arms, my legs and my butt's aching like crazy. There's a hot French guy there. Hazel green eyes...Gorgeousness.. Hahaha..

Went for a postgrad students association meeting on Thursday evening. That was pretty fun. Met a few nice fellow postgrads, and got invited to a house party on Good Friday. I have never been to a house party before so will be interesting to see how that works out. And I jogged by the Swan River again on Sun and actually did my yoga on the grass patch facing the river. It was so..thereaupeutic..I enjoyed it..Very calming.

School starts next week. So am looking forward to using my brains. :)