Mum's Birthday | Valentines

There's always something special about having your birthday on a widely celebrated date. Whether it's the hype of celebrating two events, or the moment of realisation when people make the connection after you tell them when your bday is. Judging by the title of this post, you probably know already that my mum is born on Valentines day a good half a decade ago. Due to that, J and I had a bit of trouble trying to juggle between mum's bday + vday. It worked out well in the end, and we had a great day.

In the morning, I made my mum a surprise breakfast of pancakes and tea. She was out when I woke up, so by the time she came back they were cold :( But she was very thankful and happy about that.

Wahoooo!!! This is the first valentines day J and I celebrated together. We were unofficially dating last year, so we decided not to do anything exclusive. Instead, we had yumcha with a bunch of friends from church instead! This was worth the wait :D Throughout this year, our commitment to each other has grown as our relationship has deepened = vday more meaningful to celebrate! J isn't a very secretive guy, he won't lie to conceal facts for the sake of making things a surprise. I like that. I guessed straight away what he would get me and where he got them. I even got an approximate price. The only thing I didn't know was how many roses there were. At least that was a surprise! The roses were BEAUTIFUL - dark red and luscious. They were arranged simply, but that created a very sophisticated and classy look - nothing too over the top (I've seen people put fake diamonds in their roses...). He also wrote me a lovely card :) 

J has a soft spot for anything 8 bit, cartoonish or iconic. I tried to incorporate that into my gifts (as you can tell by the photo). The cup is of a little Jeffy talking on the phone. The phone cord loops to form a big Jeffy and continues around the cup. I have a matching one (that I haven't made yet). 

We decided to have lunch in the southside - we are chill people. For some reason, the topic of hotpot came up and we were like "let's just eat hotpot!" And so we did. We went to this new place called Top Hotpot for a $20 lunch buffet/all you can eat! It's like yumcha - they give you a piece of paper with all the foods listed, to which the fattie proceeds to tick the items of their choice. Everything was quite delicious, although the cleanliness of the place wasn't top notch. 

After lunch we went to ikea to find a cheap vase to put the roses in. I quite like this one. It's tall, sleek and transparent :D Throughout the day, we (namely I) went a bit polaroid happy.

We had a lovely dinner (curry, fish, deep fried pork chop, asian veges, rice) and present-opening time after that. There's no candle because my mum bought the cake to be a valentines day present for my brother and I. My mum was so happy to receive a cake stand from me (I know she's been wanting one for a long time now) and a phone case from my brother (my dad got her a new phone). All in all, a good day. 

But wait... there's more! I organised a birthday party for my mum. We set it for the day after vday because we figured her friends would want to be with their hubbies on the day. There was no theme to the party, but since my mum likes pink, there were pink invitations, pink decorations and a pink cake. The ladies had hk style bbq in our backyard and from what I heard from inside (loud laughing/giggling), I think it's safe to say they had a great time. My mum was so excited and happy, which is what I aimed to achieve :) Here are some snaps: 

 

I made a pink ombre cake for mum. Jeff was a great assistant - he smoothed out the cake when I couldn't do it :) We make a good team.

Decorations and presents - our mad setup

 

The cake didn't turn out the way I had planned, but nothing major went wrong and people liked it, so eh :) Everybody was so tired by the end of the day, but well worth it. I had so much fun planning and enjoying the party.

Frozen in the Australian Heat

A while ago I told myself that movies were a waste of my money, and that renting from civic video was a much better option - namely because of the price difference. I had always come out of movies thinking to myself, "that was not worth $13" or "I wish I had just had the patience to wait for it to come out on dvd so I could've just rented it instead". There came a point where I could not take this horrible feeling of regret any longer. I was not going to watch another movie in the cinemas. Little did I know, that Frozen would be an exception to this. 

Let me explain myself. When I first heard of Frozen, next to nobody had. I watched the trailer on YouTube, it looked alright - wasn't that keen. Just another movie that tries to copy Tangled. After its release when more and more people started watching it, I heard pretty good things about it. People posted the songs on their Facebook, and YouTubers started doing covers of the songs - not bad. A few people asked if I would watch it with them, but I told them I wouldn't (due to my informal oath). I was determined to persist with this one. Under no circumstances, for no movie would I pay a bucketload of money to watch. Until Borthi asked me to... I kind of said yes because (let me explain, I'm innocent here!!!!) this would be my last opportunity to see her before she leaves to Townsville. She really wanted to watch it, and I guess I did too. So, I gave in and crumbled. Right at the last minute. :( We managed to get $5.50 tickets, which is pretty good (inclusive of free parking). 

Here we are, sitting in anticipation.

**** SPOILER ALERT****

Some memorable scenes of the movie!

Yes - I cried. The plot was okay, but I loved the music. That's as much reviewing I'll do. We did quite a bit of walking to the CBD and back, but we took a polaroid on the way. I'll miss this girl :)

At small group that night, we played three rounds of MAFIA! I was policeman in the first two rounds and mafia in the last round. It was so fun! First time, mafia won (I think) because no-one suspected Charlene as mafia because she was so quiet and innocent! I did my best and killed off Kwany the mafia before I died. Second round, similar jist. People were getting the hang of the game, so at the end it was left to a few of us still standing. I suspected Wells to be the last mafia, but I wasn't sure whether to listen to him or to Charles. I was the police, so in my sleep I checked if it was Wells. It was. We voted him out/I killed him (can't remember). WOOOOO!!! 

Last round was the most fun! Alex, Charles and I were mafia this round. I tried my best to remain my vocal self and placed my civilian façade on as best as possible. I acted clueless as to who the mafia were, verbally ruling out possibilities and voicing out my speculations. Charles and I had no idea Alex was mafia because at the beginning Kwany was waving his arms around so we thought it was him. We actively and unintentionally voted him out to be killed. This turned out to work in our favour. People didn't suspect us because we didn't hesitate to vote Alex out. No-one had any major accusations against Charles and I during the whole game. I guess we acted well. Everybody believed me when I said I was innocent because I said the same thing in the previous games and I ended up to be the police. I guess consistency works. Charles did a great job at communication. We were sitting directly across from each other, which made things easier I suppose. He would use the dolphin soft toy to point to people and do particular actions unique to different members of the group. In a previous game, I had suspected Melody of being the mafia because she was stroking her hair as if nervous. In this game, Charles stroked his hair so as to indicate for me to choose her to kill. He also pretended to read a book (I don't know how nobody saw that). I didn't get that one at the start, but I figured it was Kwany, since he's a teacher. Anyways, job well done. I can't believe we won. Ace of hearts and Ace of clubs man. gg

I was going to bring a mango turd tart with toasted coconut crust to small group, but turned out it needed to be refrigerated overnight. Oh well. Here is the completed version. 

Maturity, not maternity!

Not this time, google. A while ago, I was thinking about maturity. What makes a person mature? Is it the way their body has developed (as defined by google), their depth and breadth of thought, their intelligence? On one of our road trips, I asked J if he considered me mature for my age (in a general sense). To my disappointment, he said no. I proceeded to question his evaluation. What was the basis of his judgement? He said it was because I am sheltered by my parents, which influences how I act and view the world. It means that I don't have to feel the pressure of needing to earn enough money to survive, buy a car, or pay HECS. I still work, but I've never felt like I needed to work a lot to keep myself going. It's true. It's true, the earlier you are exposed to lyf3, the earlier you start to mature. Also, because of my quiet personality, I'm not as inclined as others are to meeting new people and socialising. Being able to get along with others and immersing oneself into social situations exposes a person to circumstances which allow them to practice social skills such as reading emotions, social queues, greetings, knowing what to say at the right times, knowing when to stay silent, learning how to pair gestures with speech, being able to talk to different people of different ages etc.etc. Social skills can take you pretty far.

I asked my deep friend chibi about what he thinks. He came up with a pretty fine list of what he thinks makes a person mature.

1. Control over their own emotions 
2. Consideration for others - placing others' interests above your own and not being afraid of being disadvantaged for the sake of helping others 
3. Able to give attention/time to people outside their significant other (related to point 2)
4. Financially responsible, understands that money comes from hard work and doesn't go about wasting it
5. Can acknowledge their weaknesses and displays intention/discipline to remedy/improve themselves

Pretty good, pretty good. J added that being able to care for yourself (chores, getting groceries.. or as OTs would call it, instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), cooking nutritious meals, looking after your body) is also a big one. He also said to be entrusted the care/safety of others is probably even more important. Another thing - being trustworthy and genuine is also a good one. I think doing things in moderation is also important - not underdoing or overdoing things and knowing when it's time to stop. There's probably more, but I'm eating dinner and I cbb writing more because there's nothing significant I want to say. 

M-dragon outzzz

What's different in 2014?

Reflecting (OTs are very good at this) back on last year, I would say that I've done things, learnt things, and experienced things I haven't before. I'm not the same person I was two years ago (dw I'm the same person, I just know how to deal with things better than before... and I still like chocolate). 2013 was a good year, but to step it up a notch, I've been contemplating what I will change this year.

1. Note-taking at uni. Since I started, I've been constantly changing the way I do this. From writing on plain paper in teeny tiny writing, to writing in A5 notepads, A4 notepads, taking notes on the lecture slides, taking notes by hand on lined paper during the lecture, typing during the lecture, summarising my notes in word documents, printing out lecture notes and writing on it during lectures, the list is endless! I've been thinking about in some detail (an understatement) and the decision for this year is to print out lecture notes, take notes on that during the lecture and summarising everything on a word document. I will then store it all in a big binder folder. In the past, I've always used display folders which has proven to be inconvenient. The reason why I want to use a binder folder is so that you can slot in loose worksheets/booklets and not have to remove everything and shift it to fit something in. Everything will be in one place = stress free. I don't know why I didn't come up with this earlier. In my defence, I needed to try everything out before I could formulate the perfect way to do things. It only took me two years! 

2. Commitments. I've thought about this long and hard, and I've reached a consensus. This year, I will be committing myself to FX (meetings once a month | one year duration), small group (every week | forever), IT/powerpoint (once a month | at least this year --> until I decide to stop), music team (once a fortnight | at least this year --> until I decide to stop), Bible Study Fellowship (once a week | 7 years), Sunday School (once a week | at least this year --> until I decide to stop). There will be a lot on my plate, with uni/placement/work/relationships on top of that, but to be honest, this is the year to go hard. I've heard from various sources that third year of OT is most relaxed you're going to get. It's now or never. I need to stop being a chicken and step up and face it like a man! I need to trust God with all my heart, for He is my strength. 

3. Work. Due to my uni timetable, I'm not able to free up one day to work at Mackenzie anymore. No more $28/hr :( Oh well. In first semester I will continue to work at the hospital, but when I move to second semester, the job will be handed over to YY (who is currently in need of a job) because I'll be on full time placement. This will continue until mid 2015 when I will be able to take up that job again (end of placement). In the mean time, I'll start searching for some sort of carer job for me to work on Saturdays once a week. I'll be poor, but that's life. 

4. Dating. Jeffy will be starting a full time job in March. This means that he will only be free on Sundays and nights. We'll be out a couple nights a week due to our commitments, so we will see each other much less frequently. Upon reflection, I realised how blessed we already are. God gave us last year + these 2 months of summer holidays to see each other a lot. We had a pretty good chance to get to know each other from back to front and to develop our relationship. Now that we are more stable, we are more prepared to spend less time with each other and treasure the moments we have together. It'll be a big adjustment - currently we see each other every day. We'll take it as it goes though! 

5. Relationships. Investing more quality time into friendships and family. Being around more and caring more. Dating took a lot of time and energy from me last year, so I hope that I can be a better friend, daughter and sister this year. 

6. Pursuing Interests. These holidays I've come to realise that I've ditched/sidelined my hobbies! Reading, drawing and music have been things I've grown up with man! I haven't had any photoshop-like software since high school because I've been too frugal to spend ~$200 on CS6. But I think now's the time to go for it. I've been holding out for too long. I need to reignite my artistic side again!

7. Getting Organised. My aim is to keep my workspace and room tidy. I won't be a really bad hoarder and keep every parking ticket and tags from the clothes I buy. I'll keep my clothes IN my wardrobe and wash the bathroom every week. I'll also keep myself updated with study. 

Konnichiwa Food Day

It was a total coincidence that J and I had Japanese for the two main meals of the day. We went to Ku-O for lunch after visiting a cake equipment shop to stock up on some essentials. On the menu was teriyaki don and fishcake, cuttlefish and tofu fish oden. I was so bummed that they didn't serve skewers until 3:30pm. The oden was not worth our money - next time no Ku-O for lunch. I'm keen for the drinks and dessert though! One day, when I'm loaded. 

Dinner with J and his mum was a spontaneous thing - Auntie Alice suggested Ren. Traditionally, I'm not a fan of this place, simply because the food doesn't speak to me on the menu. There are abstract items named in Japanese which are not explained. In the end, we let J do the ordering. He asked for agedashi tofu, karaage chicken, aburi salmon, aburi eel and spider roll. I preferred this combination a lot more than a huge main meal. It was a lot of food - very filling. They didn't do the karaage chicken as well as Ann Bar Gyoza, but their aburi salmon was delicious. We had an enjoyable meal, and I was glad to be able to catch up with Auntie Alice as well. 

One thing's for sure: I won't be having Japanese food in a while now!

Ambitious Baking

Borthi and I set out to make a checkered cake inspired by one of those cake blogs. It turned out that the cake was light and crumbly, so it would've been hard to form checkers. Instead, we made a layered cake featuring 100,000s :D

Buttercream filling between cakes

We didn't have a cake leveler, so this is how it turned out!

Visiting the chooks to collect a few eggs for the royal icing.

Very proud of our creation!

When we first cut the cake, the layers weren't very distinct, but after I put it in the fridge, it turned out perfect! Next time, that's what I'll do! All in all, a good morning of baking with Borthi. :) I'll drink a whole bottle of water now to balance out the glucose.