Phill's Birthday!

It's Phill's birthday, which is also Malaysia's Independence Day! He's 33 now, although I thought he was going to turn 32.... =P But no sweat, one of his karate friends thought he was only 26! So, what is age? It's only how we look that matters or is that self-consolation....heehee!

I gave Phill a birthday card in the morning and one of the things he did was to take out the birthday present from my parents, a tank model which he's going to build one day. It wasn't even yet sold in Australia when my parents took it over during their visit in July. He absolutely loves that present and kept talking about it.

After work, I gave him a really big parcel (had no idea who it was from) and told him to open it. When he did and I saw his football club emblem, I wished him happy birthday cos it was the present I had ordered for him. I had only ordered them 2 days ago so I was surprised they delivered it so quickly! They were both books, one on the history of the premiership team in 1927-1930 who won the championship 4 years in a row, and the other were on stories from fans and well-known celebrities talking about their love for Collingwood.

In the evening, together with his parents, we had a lovely meal at Magnolia Restaurant. It's the first time we were there and Phill's mum and him had steak, I had venison and his dad had chicken. Everyone loved their meal, so did i, but my venison was abit tough. Phill's steak was literally "melt in your mouth".....really yummy! I regretted not having a steak.

After dinner, we had cappuccino and latte (except Phill) and then the waitress brought out the blackforest cake I had ordered from a bakery. We proceeded home to have a slice of the cake! Yummy!

Book Club

I was interviewing a local volunteer for her involvement with the garden club and got talking about a show on the ABC Channel hosted by Jennifer Byrne, Book Club, and how one gardening guru, Peter Cundall, was featured.

Anyway, I asked her if there was any book club in Mansfield and she said yes. In fact, we have 3 book clubs - 2 met at nite and 1 met in the day (won't work for me cos I'm working). And she said one of the book clubs is linked with CAE (Centre of Adult Education). At the beginning of each year, the book club members will be given a list of books and they will tick 11 books that they will like to read (the group meets from Feb-Dec only). The lists are collated and the books which are selected most frequently will be read by the book club. The books will also be allocated to be read on a monthly basis so we don't go reading the wrong book in the wrong month.

I've always had this fantasy about being part of a book club. Almost sounds so toffy and self-important.

(with a plummy accent) "Oh, I'm with a book club. We discuss intellectual things of the day." --- pffttt! sure, amidst yummy goodies, tea, coffee and wonderful conversation too!!!

Boy from Oz

The "Boy from Oz" musical last night at the Rod Laver Arena was simply brilliant! Phill and I paid $99 each for the tickets, which were the cheapest we could get. The seats were not bad at all but angled in such a way we were seated at the sides and couldn't see the action straight on but there was a big screen so we saw the close-ups there. Hugh Jackman was great - acting, dancing and singing! The musical basically retold the life story of Peter Allen, a much loved Aussie artist, who was mentored by Judy Garland, married Liza Minnelli, divorced her, came out of the closet and finally passed away due to AIDS (apparently, that's what people said) in the early 1990s.

The songs they used were mainly those that Peter Allen composed and sang himself. It was especially touching when the ensemble and Hugh Jackman sang "I Still Call Australia Home" (theme of a Qantas ad a few years ago).

At the end of the production, which was almost 3 hours (including a 25 min break), Phill and I looked at each other and remarked that it was worth every cent we paid for. And we agreed that if we had the money, we'll love to watch it again the next day.

~~~

Before we took the coach ride at 1pm back to Mansfield, Phill and I fitted in another dim sum lunch (we had one on Friday afternoon). When we arrived, there was a long queue snaking outside the restaurant. And I enquired if we still had to queue even though we had a reservation and yes, we had to. It took us about 25 minutes before we finally got our table. And fighting for time, we ate our favorite dishes - sticky rice, century egg porridge, sweet soya beancurd soup, etc - fairly quickly and asked for the bill at 12.10pm. It took a while cos it was full house and by the time we got out, it was 12.25pm and we hurriedly went to pick up our bags and to the train station.

Time really flies when you're having fun.....I look forward to our next trip to Melbourne, which may be next year instead.

Pie

My colleague, Sian, gave me half of a really yummy chicken pie she made. She uses free range chicken which is like double/ triple the usual price of a caged chicken and the meat was so sweet and tender. It really makes a difference both to the taste and pocket..... =P

Melbourne!!!

For the first time, Phill and I took the 3 hours coach trip from Mansfield to Melbourne. It costs about 50% more to take the coach from Mansfield rather than the train from Benalla. But the thing is, we have to drive to Benalla (45 mins away) and it's not safe to park your car at the train station overnight cos you can bet your bottom dollar it's going to be (a) stolen, (b) vandalised, (c) all of the above.

And the beautiful thing is, Phill took a day off school to have a break so we can truly enjoy our weekend in Melbourne. I took that was a sweet thing for my husband to do and I was beaming from ear to ear after he told me that last week.

We've got a fairly packed weekend ahead of us. Footy game tonight and then Oz from Boy tomorrow night - Hugh Jackman - woohoo!!!

When we arrived in Melbourne, it was about 11am and we took the tram to our motel City Square Motel and managed to check in even though the official time wasn't until 2pm. The room had a certain smell, when we entered, like it hadn't been occupied in a while and when we looked out of the window, we faced another apartment building. Bleah! But it's okay, the furnishings may be old and simple but the bed looks comfy and the toilets are clean.

We spent the rest of the day shopping and mostly, buying books and looking at tank modelling shops and bought a bag of chocolate chip and macademia nut Famous Amos cookies....yum!

After a short afternoon nap, we were going to get dinner and then go to footy but the queues at all the fast food places were so loooong. I think it's cos there are 3 major events happening one one night - Boy From Oz's opening night, Melbourne Film Festival & Footy (Collingwood vs Essendon). We finally settled on Subway which was a great choice cos the queues moved really fast.

As we were walking to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), we saw this HUGE crowd of people in front of Flinders St Station.
















There was a protest by the city cab drivers asking for better work conditions and protection cos a cab driver from Pakistan was stabbed and died a few days ago. He was a student here and had been working to finance his Masters and send money back to his family. I believe the cabs need to be fitted with a guard around the driver. I hope it'll be implemented soon.















Some pics of what it looked like when the players ran onto the ground at the start of the game.

It's always nice to watch an Aussie Rules football game but what I didn't know is sometimes, it's not at all that pleasant. Because we decided only last week that we wanted to watch a footy game, we could only get tickets behind the goal square where all the Collingwood fans (Phill and I support Collingwood) are seated and where things are rowdy.

There was a group of mostly guys and one girl in their 20s who were seated behind us. First half of the game was fine although they were abit too enthusiastic to the point where the girl was kicking my chair and leaning over me when she was shouting out to the football players. However, in the second half when Collingwood was losing, she took issue with an Essendon fan and kept abusing him. And one of her guy friends kept singing a little ditty about how Essendon fans sleep with each other (tune from Adamms family), which was irritating. At the end of the match, we left quickly cos the girl looked like she was going over to the fan and start a fight.

We were sad Collingwood finally lost cos we expected them to win. They are like 4th on the ladder and Essendon is last, so logically, it should be easy. Alas, it was not. But it was a good trip out and it was safe walking back to our motel cos there was still a huge group of people around.

Nasty Call

I received a really nasty call from a person who was offended I didn't interview for an article I did regarding planning issues. He said my article was unbalanced and went on and on to abuse me and tell me where I went wrong. I tried to explain to him and offered to write another article in the coming week on his angle but he refused. This went on for a while until I finally had to tell him I wished to end the call cos he was getting more threatening and he refuted that claim too. He talked for a little while longer and at some points, I kept silent at my end cos there was nothing else left for me to say. And finally, he hung up on me.

I was a little shaken by the call and yet, also angry, that this guy saw it fit to speak to me in such a tone.

I had discussed with my editor about the article before I wrote it and it wasn't a judgement piece about who was right or wrong just that this one person had a comment. But, on reflection, could I have done the article better? I sure can and I hope this will never happen again.

Another Rejection

I received a letter from the organisation who interviewed me last week to inform me I was unsuccessful.....i was crushed cos the people were very nice in the interview and I thought it'll be a great work environment.

Interesting thing was the letter was dated 4 August, which was the date of my interview. Was I that bad that they quickly drafted the letter after my interview and sent it off?

But then again, I was just grateful for the interview experience which I thought went pretty okay. I got stumped when they asked me to cite an example when I've used my initiative. I couldn't think of one although I'm sure I have initiative. I finally cited one but am not sure if they were convinced that was the right answer for the initiative question.

Good Dream

I woke up really happy this morning cos I dreamt of my favourite singer, David Tao last night. Strange since I wasn't thinking of him that much...hahaha! The dream was of me being in a cd shop and I saw him wearing a cap and walking out of the shop and some girls whispering that it was David Tao. And I ran after him to ask for his autograph and we got talking....I'm not sure I dare to do that in real life. But it was a nice dream....

And his album will be launched tomorrow! Yipppeee!