Foiza moved house on Fri. So Anri, myself, Mark and Roger helped her shift and Anri and myself spent the night at her new place. Which is a really nice and cosy place. And really close to where I stay, just across the road from my apartment. We broke fast at the nearby food area, then went back to her place. We watched tv and a movie and then we got bored so we started taking photos of ourselves in our pyjamas. It was a riot. Check these pictures out.

Anri, trying to imitate a flower. Bizarre.



Me, doing a yoga tree pose.



Foiza's bedroom. Very big, bright and airy.



Then we started playing with each other's hair and this is what we came up with. I had the most voluminous hair amongst the three of us.



See? I have Marge Simpson's hair. Tall...



And we woke up at 4am for our morning food and it was very...noisy. At 4 am. We had pratas, and chicken curry and eggs..and I had Baskin Robbins. At 4am.



Chirpy huh? For 4am..



Then on Sunday, we decided to go to Mirabooka to get halal meat cos we invited a few people over to celebrate Aidilfitri with us. So we left the house at 930am, grabbed the bus, reached Mirabooka at about 11am and realised that the place was closed! I was so pissed cos I had to wake up early and cos Perth buses function only every hourly, we had to wait an hour at Mirabooka before the next bus came. So yes, there we were at this ghetto, a lot of scary looking people, cars driving past and guys sticking their heads out and hooting at us...I swear, we were scared shit. But didn't stop us from taking phtographs. :)








2 more days to Hari Raya. Thank God I have Muslim friends here who celebrate Aidilfitri with me. So this is the plan for Hari Raya. Anri's going to cook rendang, Foiza's going to cook chicken briyani and I'm going to cook sambal goreng and sayur lodeh. Which I have never cooked before so I'm hoping it will turn out right. And today, the girls came over my place and we baked cornflakes and chocolate chip cookies. We invited a few of our closest friends over to celebrate Hari Raya with us. But I have no kebaya this year cos I forgot to bring it with me from Singapore..So I'm stuck to wearing my long skirt..Oh well..at least it's new. So yeah...it's not as dreary as I had expected it to be.

But I still miss the hustle and bustle of Hari Raya. back home. The baking with my sisters and niece and nephew, the breaking fast together, the kueh-mueh when you break fast, the dressing up and wearing new kebayas on Hari Raya itself, the takbir, visiting family...The only thing which I don't miss? The spring cleaning cos my mom is crazy when it comes to Hari Raya cleaning. We have to scrub the switch sockets with Jif. And scrub the windows. And kitchen tiles. And the cuboards. And change the lining of the cuboards. Crazniess. Thank God my house is small. My sis must be cursing at the amount of cleaning she's stuck with.

I'll upload photos of Hari Raya later in the week. In the meantime, I just want to say Selamat Hari Raya to everyone back home and here and wherever else, and maaf zahir dan batin. :)

It was so cold last weekend. Saturday wasn't too bad. I spent the evening with Rushika. We had dinner out at Nandos, then watched two movies at my place: Take the Lead with Antonio Banderas (Love him, so bloody sexy) and then Meet the Parents with Ben Stiller (Hilarious).

On Sunday, we went to a garage sale on Selby Street and I got myself a pair of shoes for $4 and a bag for $5. On our way back, it started pouring and it was so damn cold cos of the wind. I swear...I wanted to die of cold and was so hungry. But I couldn't eat cos I was fasting so I just slept from 2pm-5pm, right after I got home. 3 hrs of afternoon nap. Crazy. At night, Anri and I went to break our fast outside and again, weather was insanely cold. We found out the next day that it went down to 1 degree. Coldest September day ever recorded in Perth. No wonder my teeth and all were chattering while we waited for the bus home.

Anyway, I got started on my 2nd paper this week. I'm halfway through, thank God for that. And I've been having this recurring headache for the past week. It only comes in the morning, this splitting headache. I hope it gets better cos it's making me slightly...unwell..Not like sick, sick. But like not 100%. I hate it.

Anyway, these are pictures taken on that 1 degree night. Hence explaining the snow caps just before we left Anri's house on Sunday. But it doesn't explain the stupid looking actions and shades and all..We are very rubbish, as you can tell. And we are pretending to be mafias. Hahahahaha....It's really stupid looking.

Yes, pink snow cap and white shades are not very mafia-like.



Neither do the pink sweater and pink pyjama pants.



We are beyond lame, I swear.



And this is Adistor's baby, Latitia. She is so damn cute..



Me and Latitia, waiting to go into the garage sale.



And these set of pictures were taken whilst at Nando's on Sat evening. I know, I know.. I take photos everywhere.



Rushika in her polka dotted dress. Cute.



At my place, just before the movie started.



It's a few more days before Hari Raya. I don't know whether to be happy or sad. Happy cos I can start eating again. Sad cos this Ramadhan has made me closer to the girls and we've had a lot of fun iftar-ing together, and it's ending. Whatever it is, Selamat Hari Raya everyone!

I had a fairly good week. The last weekend was a bitch cos I was majorly pms-ing and I did nothing substantial. But the rest of the week was pretty good. I managed to get a decent amount of work done. I did my presentation in class with the girls and it turned out really well. We are given 30 mins to do our seminar presentation, and all of the other groups in previous weeks took more than the stipulated time, which of course pisses my professor off, cos it eats into his teaching time. So Foiza, Anri and I made sure we practiced before hand and kept it to 30 mins. How did we practice? We'll go out and shop, then come back home and practice once. Then we'll watch some stupid show on tv, then stop and practice. Or we'll meet and break our fast, then we'll practice. Very fun. And we had a blast during the presentation. People were full of opinions when we asked questions, they were intrigued by what we had to say and we managed to cap it at 30 mins. Even our professor was impressed. :)

So what did we do after the presentation? We cam whored. Hahaha. We broke our fast at a Vietnamese restaurant, then went back to Anri's and took a whole load of rubbish pictures. Some of which are too embarrassing to put up so I am only showing the semi normal ones.

The first and very few normal shots of us. Post presentation pictures. :)

Then the ridiculous photo taking started.

We are pretending to be scary. Think it's working pretty well.

We are now pretending to be sad. Hahaha..Look at Foiza's face. She looks like she has a spoon in her mouth. And yes, we are all professionals: Me the teacher, Foiza the engineer/ broadcast journalist/ manager in the ministry, Anri the psychologist/ uni lecturer. Hahaha..who would have thought?

Now, we are pretending to be dancers. Yes, yes. I know..We are really free. I don't have time to do shit like this back home so I'm dg it now. And everyone who knows me knows I'm a child at heart. :)

And a self shot of me.

It was so much fun. And earlier in the week, after a few hours in the library, we decided to walk down the river and take photos. It's so ironic. We live just across from the river but we have never taken pictures there. Which is stupid cos the Swan River is just stunning. So here you are..More pictures of us...

This is the greenery just before we reach the river.

Me, pretending to be 'oh-so-casual', with the wind blown look. I was actually so stressed out that day cos of my major paper.

Anri and me. SHE IS THE BIGGEST CAM WHORE IN THE WORLD! We had to take multiple shots before she was happy with the shot!

Foiza and me. She's a sweetheart. So beautiful n understated.

My 2 closest friends in Perth. Love them to bits. And they are so beautiful aren't they?

Walking back home.

And it's spring now so it's really nice and cool and flowery.. These photos were snapped just outside my place. And aside from the roses, the rest are just wild flowers growing randomly on the ground. Very beautiful.

White Roses just outside the compounds of my apartment. Smells really nice too.

The so-called weeds on the ground.

So yes. It was a good week. I did a lot of work, but I had a lot of fun too. :) And I'm breathing a bit more easily now cos I am on target for all my assignments. :)

Taken from http://choosetomoveblog.com/vernita/2007/04/handling_stress.php

I just realised how much work I have to do. I spent the first week of fasting cooped at home and churning my first half of my thesis. So after reading 34 articles, and organising the points from the articles, I finally came up with almost 5000 words. Very painful process cos I'm a bit rusty. I spent almost everyday (from Mon to Fri) locked in my room writing. I've already sent it to my supervisor and so far he likes what he sees. I just have to meet up with him tomorrow cos he wants me to make some minor amendments.

So what else have I got on my plate? The other portion of the thesis which is another 5000-words which means more readings and I have to conduct my field interviews, which I hate cos it's so technical. I also have a presentation to prepare, I'm presenting next Thursday, worth 30% of my whole grade for one of my units, a 4000 word paper for my Educational Leadership unit and a 5000 word paper for my research unit. So to say that I am a little stressed is putting it mildly. Thank God it's Ramadhan so I spend most of my days vegetating in my room doing my work. I intend to finish preparing for my presentation by this weekend and start reading and churning out at least another 1500 words for my thesis. Then I'll be able to breathe properly. Pray hard that I'll do it. If not, I'm going to be a very stressed out person.

But it hasn't been all work and no play. I have been spending my evenings with my girlfriends, Anri and Foiza. We'll cook dishes each, and congregate at Anri's house just before we break our fast. It's a lot of fun. All of us are good cooks (at least I like to think I'm decent when it comes to cooking), so we have a really big spread for iftar. And we'll break our fast together, chat as we eat, then pray together, then we'll spend the rest of the evening watching shallow shows like Australian Idol or we rent and watch dvds and eat junk like sticky date pudding, or butterscotch pudding, or fruit ice, or fruit cake, or soy crisps, urgh..the amount of junk we eat is unbelievable. So anyway, we have watched Man on Fire, which stars Denzel Washington who is so yum, and it's a really good movie as well. And we also watched In her shoes, starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. Ok movie, but the shoes in the movie..to die for.

I got to get back to my work if I want to finish what I'm supposed to finish. Hope my Muslim friends are having a good Ramadhan.