What a Week

Yes... what a week it has been.. and it's only Wednesday.. Everywhere I turn I see another person depressed... I guess 4th year must be killing us... slowly....

Heard two shocking news this week, and yes it's only Wednesday, both of which kicked me into a train of very deep thoughts.. so to anyone who are thinking about any shocking news this week, unless if it's extremely good news, Lucy will not respond very well to that, so it is advicable to tell her next week when she has time to comes to terms what's in her head right now.

At least mummy and daddy is comign to visit me this weekend, giving me somethign to look forward to. The funny thing is, i am not even that busy, I don't even have that many things to be upset/depressed about. BUt i guess I just.. cared too much, get scared too easily...

On a lighter note, had first ever video conference today with Watties, that was quite cool, but also scary. Hehehe, my groupmates may not be geniuses when it comes to writing and stuff, but they sure know how to handle situations like that. Hopefully after x number of presentations and seminars, I'll be more like them. ^^

Foodshow Wellington 2007

Went to Wellington on Saturday to attend the Foodshow, and man that was nice~~ All sorts of nice foods, free samples, free tasting. and you know what, we were there for like the entire time, from opening to the end, within which we were bloated all the way through cause of the nice foods :P There were heaps of wine, olive oils, dips, hummus, sauces, sausages, bacons, mushrooms (which i love), spices, teas, coffees, and the list goes on and on. And knowing me, of course i bought some stuff along the way. Bought 2 bottles of syrup, vanilla and hazelnut for dad's er... very professional espressos, bought snappers which are like things you tie end of the bags with? so instead of rubber bands, you can just clip it on! seriously useful. Also bought this morrocan tomato dip thing, and roasted chick peas.. which tasted not bad at all.

We also attended three shows, a cooking one which I found quite useless coz she used quite rare ingredients, a cocktail show, seeing a guy doign all sorts of awesome tricks with the bottles, then wine tasting one, were now i actually know the difference between few basic white wines... not that.. i drink... wine of course :P And here's another thing, coz during the wine tasting session they had free samples.. and well.. since it was free i took some.. LOL feel dizzy after 2 sips :P and so i missed out on er... all the red wines, and wait for the ice wine at the end to taste :P MAN i need to work on my alcohol tolerance. Was kinda... bummed that coz i was dizzy alreayd, didn't get to try the honey wine.. which looked REAL good. oh well

And as if we didnt' had enough food, afterwards we went and had sushi train... which i think wasn't very nice at all, and was expensive, we paid lke $12 each, and we didnt' even had that much food since we were still bloated from the Foodshow. Afterwards we took a walk around Wellington town, which was nice. I think that was the first time I did that, and there were quite a few nice cafes and stuff which looks really nice. Oooo and i foudn this ice cream place.. which had home made pistachio ice cream, but but, but, alreayd blown my budget so didn't had any. Also found this real nice pearl milk tea place which sells Taiwanese cuisines as well as nice looking desserts, hm..... really want to go there one day and pig out :P

All in all, the wellington trip was excellent. It's funny when living in Auckland, goign anywhere outside of Auckland is a big mission. But here, it's like.. Wellington is only 2 hr drive.. not that bad at all :P

Anyway.. enough of me blahing on and on.... Good luck for everyone's study ^^ and i'll be back.. soon-ish

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Annoucement!!!!

I will be back in Auckland on the Saturday 23rd June 6am, and will leave on the Friday 29th June 6am. Yes i know it is a very short time, but it's the best I can do. I finish exams on 22nd Fridya 5:30 pm and will be on the bus back at 9pm. And i have to be back for my 10am morning lecture on 29th... But you know what.. i am just so happy i have somethign to look forward to now ^^ miss everyone so much~~~ I'll see you all soon!!!!

what goes around comes around

Ok.... this is kinda weird... but seeing amy doing the chemmat assingment.. kinda reminds me of our burgen bread project last year. Since I was the person who luckily got hold of the burgen guy, I was all into promoting the bread for them etc coz i kinda said i would. and i remember when er... Mr. XXX said "the bread tasted totally gross" durign our presentation, i almost wanted to chuck my pencil case at him. Anyway.. the point is, even though we tried to convince ppl the bread was like... superly good for you, all at the same time we kidna knew that the bread doesnt' taste very good.

But you know what... i am now a true burgen bread fan.!! not the rye one which we did our study on... but their multigrain is SOOOOOO nice~~ esp after it's toasted. And I know for a fact that if i hadn't done that assignment, i would never think of the brand as superly good for you, would probabily end up buyign vogel which is heaps more expensive. So i guess what i am saying, even tho we made a horribly bad promotion thing during our presentation, their company still well 'gained' from being superly nice and help us out durign our project, since now they have 1 faithful buyer. ^^

Yea... that was completely random I know....

Oh yeah... *happy* now i officially got my 3 referees for my round of job applications... wish me luck~~~ Anyone know any good place to look for foodtech job let me know ok ^^

When I realized... what' I've missed

Coming from a foodsci degree, i thought i would at least have the advantage of knowing more things regarding food chemistry etc... then.. my supervisor
"yea.. think you'll need to do an ash test"
me: "ash...test?... how do you do that"
supervisor: "oh.. you guys never did ash test up at auckland.. go and see xxx technician and he'll sort you out"

so apparently... what they do is.. they burn the samples at super high temperature until literally everythign is burnt into ash.. then they weigh it.. and that's the ash content....

is it just me or did we.. never.. learn... that....

Then at class yesterday, we were talking about estimating costs and revenues for new products and stuff.. and the lectuere started talking about pay back period, discounted cash flow, total capital etc etc.. and i was sitting there with a million quesiton marks @_____@ then later on after class, my classmate commented on how boring that lecture was, coz it was a repeat of what they did in previous years........ hm..........

39 more to go to strike gold

I guess th survey went ok. We were right on target for most of it, basically had to get a minimum of 39 surveys in each supermarket, got a bit more from new world, a bit less form countdown.. so it's all good. Really relieved that the groupmate that was quite skepticle about supermarket ended up really pleased with what we've got. Think 2 more groups are gonna get stuff from supermarket after us (copy cats!) :P

Got another session tomorrow at Pak'n Save. Hope all goes well, tomorrow will be a more difficult round because we have no tables and 2 chairs, so have to get ppl to write on clip boards.... hope it wont' put ppl off. But I hope that ppl shopping at pakn'save will be more financially tight, and will see our $50 grocery draw as worth the time.

Other than that... hm... all the lecturers are like.. super busy eh~~~ I handed in my lit review last thursday, and when i went to see my supervisor yesterday, he's like "oh yea.. i haven't had time to look at your lit review yet" ...... then then today i was suppose to have a weekly meeting wiht my quality lecturer.. and he had to go away and do something else... so yea.. at least that gives me an extra hour to muck about :D

Seriously dont' know when the heck i can go back to Auckland. exam on 22nd of June, have an assingment due end of June, and have proposal due mid July, which means i kinda want to be here early July to work on it. So thinking i might go back up before my exam.. but then is there any poitn in going up when everyone is doing their exams?!?!? slightly annoyed.. oh well.

Wish me Luck~~~

Hm.... ok... was real proud of myself today.. the girl who has phone phobias.. volenteered and managed to sort out us doing consumer survey at pak'n save on saturday.... but then... i guess i always tend to be overly optmistic about timing.... i reckon it'll take an hour for ppl to fill out 45 surveys.... i mean.... 2 or 3 ppl can fill it otu in one go.. and we do have reasonable incentives...

but then.... this guy in my group reckons it'ls gonna take ages.. and well.. we dotn' exactly have ages.. since we have to go to 3 differetn supermarkets tmr.... i dodn' tknow... it's a 9 page survey.. 14 pts... with lots of space in between... *sigh*

so well.. semi worried if it turns out that it's real hard to get our 45 surveys.. the guys will be after my blood since it was my idea.. and i basically had to a bit of convicing for guys to agree with the supermarket scheme.

So... wish me luck ppl.. hope i get 45 surveys down in 90mins. *fingers crossed*

Photoblog....finally

Hey~~~ time for a fotoblog me thinks. Sorry for superly long delay for this post, but haven't had time to breath since i came back from auckland till now... so here are a collection of fotos from auckland.

First up is my nice birthday meal from Kura. Want to thank mum and emily for making my birthday so nice. ^^

Me and mummy on my birthday ^^
The nicest sushi ever!!! spider roll from Kura
Rainbow roll... or what's left of it :P

Doesn't that makes you want to drool? yummy sashimi~~~~~
Then... my nice nice hazelnut birthday cake.. shared with Mum, Emily, Danny, and er.. apparently me with bunny ears :P

Then there's very nice dinner at observatory, our belated 2 year celebration. Since danny alreayd posted heaps of fotos on that on his blog... you can visit Danny's site or more pics.

Hehehe, aren't I lucky, the day we went just happen to be serving lobster for entree. heheh so there's my superly nice lobster

That's my cold starter, there's prawns, mussels, mushrooms, squid, oyster, sashimi, and an assortment of salads ^^
Then comes the mains, the thin in the square bowl is an scallop laksa noodles, there's baked eggplant, fish, lamp chop (which you can't really see).

Oh.. and the desserts were amazing, but since danny alreayd posted it up, i wont' be redundent and do that again. ^^

Hm... yes.. so thanks again for such a wonderful time in Auckland. ^^ i really miss you guys heaps. ^^ sorry for not posting fotos of the girls, and the tour ppl, since.. well.. i didn't take any foto of those, and would seem so weird putting fotos other ppl took on my site :P

Here are well.. less interesting fotos that i took today

Yup..... doesn't it look like i borrowed the entire library to do my 25% assignment? :P they are real boring stuff too.

Sorry for the bad quality, but well.. my fone sin't good at takign fotos at night. Hm decided I need a break from work today. So instead, i did all the chores, and... I baked an apple pie. It's really good!!!! in fact, it's alreayd all finished (thanks to my flatmates of course). I encourage everyone to go and bake apple pies!! granny smith is in season!! just buy those ready to go pastry, with a bit of sugar and apple.. and wa la~~

And that's all for now ^^ please wait another month or 2 before my next photoblog :P

Sun shining down on a rainy day

Had a really good day today. Everythign just.. went... so... well... and I was expecting a real bad day too.

Ok... start off, last night i stayed up till quite late coz i had to show my lecturer the draft of my assignment, and i wasn't very happy with what i've written. So i woke up today, a bit tired, and the weather is horrible too.

Then as i walked out, i saw this postal package, and on it I saw "from Tina", now i've been expecting to get a card from Tina, but a package? And and and.. that girl posted me the newest starburst and tim tams *sniff* so touched... really... and the fact that today was so cold just made that chocolate tasted that much better.

So i was waiting for the bus, then the rain started pouring down, but luckily i always bring an umbrella with me. The bus got here, and just as I was gonna get on the bus, I heard my name. My flatmate Shuli actually walked all the way to the bus stop to make sure i brought an umbrella. and well.. coz i had to get on the bus, didn't get a chance to give her a big hug for that.... so sweet of her.

Then then then.. at 12 had a group meeting, I actually managed to convinced my group to conduct the consumer survey in the supermarket instead of knocking on ppl's door. Because i thought it's a lot easier, plus it'll be a more representitive of the whole palmy population.. Ok.. seirously.. there's only like 4 supermarket, it's not hard to go to all 4 and cover few different time slots. But it took a bit of convincing and organisation, coz apparenlty you actually need to ask the supermarket manager for permission to do stuff like that.. hm.. never knew that. :P BUt anyway.. my mission tmr is go to pak'n save and ask to set up a stall for an hour next sat morning... wish me luck~~~

THen.. at 2pm, i had my scary meeting with my lecturer, who said "it's fine fine fine" in referring to my assingment.. which i was actually.. generally surprised, coz, well.. really dind't think the work is up to my usual standard... Tho... after digressing a bit he did tell me to look up some journals so i have more recent info on the subject... and in fact.. he was nice enough and found 2 for me :p NO PRINTING!!!

So i guess that concluded my very very nice day. Well.. not quite because once i get home, i was munching on the best chocolate biscuit and lollies in the world. ^^ Thank you girl *hugs* you really made my day!!!!

Coooofffffeee

Ok.. so this is what... week 9 of sem one... i am in uni on average 2-3 times a week, and i have bought 9 cups of coffee alreayd.. and got my free one today. hahah such a coffee freak i am

Multi tasking

Have you ever seen a person frothing milk for coffee, while entering numbers on the eftopos machine... all this while the coffee is brewing. I mean... wow~~~~

"you are really good at this, multitasking"
and what i got, was a really weird stare
Ha! i guess i am a weirdo :P

Postgrad perks

Ok... i wouldn't really say perks, but just for once finally got to login using my postgrad login name, in the postgrad computer labs. But the computers are like... so much older than the ones in library, and keyboard is so loud. HAHAHA what else do i expect right?? :P in fact, i should be smiling that i dot'n need to fight over a computer in the library, coz it is getting crowded.

ANYWAY man... work is definately piling up. I see ppl around me all finishing their literature review.. and I am sitting on.. a pathetic 5 pages.... yes i know my is like.. due a lot later than theirs.. but still.. I am really hoping to get as much done this sem as possible seeing how i am a lot busier next sem with classes. BUT the quality system assignments is so much harder than I expected, seriously.. i have like... 20 QS books sitting in my room, and everynight i was basically juggling around all 20 plus 5 more journals to do my assingment. Though I've spoken to my lecturer and he agree to let me focus on HACCP next sem, and see compre HACCP with quality systems etc etc So that shoudl come in handy. ^^

Recently just finished the book "My sister's keeper' by Jodi Picoult? it brought me back to the question of self identity. The fact is.. ever since i've come here, it's almost weird, it's as if I don't care about how well I am doing? sure i still put in the effort, and sure I still want good grades.. but its' almost as if there's a screen that divides uni work and my emotions. And the fact since no one is doing the same thign as me, it's almost hard to asseess myself in terms of progress. So it got me thinking, maybe I too can only identify myself from the reflection from other ppl, maybe I can only see myself as a relation to other ppl....

On a not so confusing side of life, spoke to someone from Fonterra again about their gfip programme, and man.. it's such a freaking hard selection process, but i know if i get it, it'll be the best stepping stone that i can get in NZ, but at the same time.. programme.. starts.. on... 1st of dec... hm... so i guess i'll just give it a go, got benefits either way right? :P