Holiday Adventures

Hello everyone! I hope you've been enjoying your holidays despite the looming TRIALS! Me and CZ were talking about trials today. Apparently some schools like Sydney Boys has already finished them last term :O I couldn't imagine doing them that early.

Anyway here are some stuff I've got up to since my last blog post:

On Friday I went to GW and SS's 17th birthday party. Here is a badly taken pic of the dress I wore:

My mum bought it for me to wear to the party and when I saw it I was thinking odd...this dress look's familiar. It's actually RH's semi-formal dress but hers was purple, my mum bought it in coral. MQ said it reminds her of a towel. Lol. At the party VB was wearing my red semi-formal dress. Haha.

Le photo my sis took of me before I left haha. I'm wearing my Vinnies necklace I blogged about a while ago ! :)

Lol I took this one of my and my sis and she's mucking around



To wrap their presents I used my polka dot paper bags and somebody saw them and said oh hey it's your signature wrapping style and I realised it is now haha. I used the same type for Jashan's bday too :)

I made a cake on Saturday after going out to eat dinner with my family at Temasek :)

I made some sort of collage haha. First make a basic vanilla cake, all the ingredients should be lying around it's just sugar, eggs, flour etc. My sis cut the cake into three bits then let it cool. We whipped up some cream and spread it, with some blackberries, raspberries & blueberries between the layers. My sis piped the chocolate letters haha. Basically you melt chocolate, put it into a plastic bag, snip off the corner and pipe it onto a piece of non-stick baking paper. Let it harden and it will be ready to use. Don't pipe too thinly and the chocolate will break into pieces when you try to pick it up.

The berries were had juice dripping and the cake didn't look that enat so I walked to the store and bought some wafers. Using scissors cut the wafers to how you like and put it all around the cake using cream as a 'glue'. I made it so the wafers at the back of the cake were higher than the ones in front.

When I was done with the wafer decoration I put it in the fridge to kind of 'set' so it no wafers would randomly fall down. Then I chose a gold ribbon from my ribbon bag and tied it around the cake and tied a bow. Done! Haha. Happy birthday GZ! I hope you got a surprise when I turned up at your house like a stalker...

Random note about wafers: You know I never understood the joke 'Why was the cookie sad? Because his mum was a wafer so long' the ENTIRE time I was growing up. I only understood it when I was buying wafers for the cake and I had an epiphany! His mum was a-WAY FOR so long. HAHA

Because I like collages and I'm proud of the final product I made a collage of what the cake turned out like

I went to the library on Monday. There were about 3 tables of people just from our school haha. It was fun :) Tendercrysbeachicken calls this studying-with-friends 'librarying'.

On Tuesday I went to Catswood LOL I mean CHATSWOOD for the first ever time in my life with CL and KT :) It's soo nice. We went to eat ramen for lunch at a place called Makanai and there was this option called VOLCANO RAMEN with a picture of 2 chillies next to it HAHA so I decided to get it and I choked on the first mouthful lol. Then KT tried some and he was choking too hahaha.

It actually wasn't THAT spicy, just the first bite of chilli makes you choke a lot haha. They had an option called SUPER VOLCANO but I didn't get it lol.

Next time I definitely want to try the Wagyu Beef Curry Udon. Yum haha :)

After that we went to get 'Froyo' (frozen yogurt) as CL calls it. It was my first time ever trying frozen yogurt. It was a self-serve place and it was really fun, there were so many flavours like Blueberry, passionfruit, strawberry, even taro (it was really nice), peach etc and our self-serve tub was so colourful after hehe. And you got to pick your own toppings! We got peach, blueberries, some syrup and something chewy called mochi. A whole tub that we shared was only $10 so it was pretty cheap too! And super yummy :)

I actually didn't like that many toppings. My favourite flavour was passionfruit :) Once KT gets to sending me the pic we took of our froyo I will show you guys hehe

Also me & CL took our dogs to the dog park!

Biscuit loves walks

It was our first time going to the dog park. She was so excited she ran around in circles for ages. We were about to leave the dog park (no other people had come round with their dogs except an old man with his labrador that he didn't let off the leash because it was too boisterous) and then this girl with a black dog walked past us in the direction of the dog park and we were like...should we follow her back to the park lol. So we did and all the dogs got to play haha. Her dog's name was Ziggy and it drooled on Biscuit lol.

She was SO tired out when we got home after that she slept for probably >3hours after

Anyay that's about it! Hope you guys are enjoying your holidays!

Love: Michelle

James Ruse Cluster!

Thank you to my newly-made friend EL for the term 'cluster' haha. Today afternoon was my very first experience of the Prefect Afternoon Tea!! It was AMAZING haha I made soo many new friends, met so many lovely people...My mouth was SOO dry despite drinking a lot because of all the smiling and talking I did hehe :)

A photo taken by FK, the theme of the cluster was 'The Hunger Games'

When we got there, (me, CZ, AM, JJ and RC)-we had caught the 772 bus and walked-we were the second earliest school. We got a strip of paint (red, yellow, blue or green) on our faces, then an envelope with important papers inside haha then we ate food and mingled until all the schools got there.

We played three games-Blob, Dodgeball and Noodle Fights. After we had a sausage sizzle then put marshmallows in the campfire they had made near their farm :) What a feast!

Then I came home and found lots of notifications on my fb HAHA you know what they say...'it ain't official til it's on facebook'.

Love: Michelle

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROGER!!

Well technically he turns 17 TOMORROW on the 6th but today was his birthday party! Thanks for the party, Rodge, it was a blast :) Reminds me of 'Grease"...Summer lovin' had me a blastttt... :D If you guys recognise that song YAY

We went to George Thornton Reserve to have a barbeque at first and the weather was not too hot today actually, quite cool yet humid at the same time (how possible? well it's Australia LOL cos right now as I'm blogging this it's thunderstorming and raining outside which is quite a change from the heat wave barely a day ago).

This is a bit of the Reserve. GZ and I took Roger's dog Chloe for a bit of a walk. She is so cute but quite fat HAHA...

Chloeeeee :D See how her tongue is all out? She KEPT panting and wouldn't stop so we thought maybe she was thirsty...

So we brought her to the tap and she drank lots but she KEPT PANTING non-stop for the whole day...She was probably tired and it was hot.

The reserve was fun! Some more pictures....

HAHA I didn't even realise when I took this that CG was doing such a funny pose :D He wasn't even aware I was snapping pics. Wow he must just naturally talk and act like that....well he is a Drama student :P The more I look the funnier it gets...It's like he's giving some fashion advice or something HAHA

A photo of all the junk food we brought to the picnic...we hardly finished much of it actually :L

Casual B-ball at the Reserve

3 loaves of bread waiting for the meat to arrive....Rodge bought these frozen hamburger patties and when we opened the pack they looked very orange and unappealing but after they had been barbeque-d they turned brown and actually tasted really nice :) Thanks to JJ for her EXPERT barbeque-ing skills :) We realised that nobody brought any sauce and sauce really makes a burger taste so much better so MP and GZ went to go buy sauce and came back with a huge bottle of juice and that was literally gone in less than 10 minutes HAHA.

Ooh before I forget: Shout-out to AS! Your salmon lace shorts today were really cute!! (I know I told you twice today already ahah but they really were :D)

The Reserve was filled with dog walks, barbeque-ing and fun talks (A standout moment was with KF: my fellow can't'-ride-a-bike-and-so-compensated-for-that-lack-of-skill-by-skateboarding-and-riding-a-scooter buddy :D)

 Seriously I had a Digimon Skateboard that was 100 times cooler than any bike. And hot pink roller blades and an awesome slver sleek scooter. Pssh. (I'm just saying this so I don't feel inadequate about not being able to ride a bike LOL)

Afterwards we all trekked to Rodge's house (I walked Chloe back) and we decided to swim and those that didn't want to or didn't bring swimmers played pool. HAHA so everyone decided to pool :P Okay I didn't make that pun up it was GZ but I stole it for this blog...

Roger's pool is AMAZING! There is a cave up the top that you climb a few rocks to get to and that thing on the side is a water slide :) There are little statue animals that look really real like a turtle and an alligator and a bird so it kinda looks like a cool display at the zoo for seals or something :))

Lots of fun: Water fights with self-confessed Pool Mafia JM, CG picking up everyone and throwing them into the pool, playing 'Akifball', so-called 'planking' onto the water which doesn't really work because the water holds you up..

After I had gotten out of the pool and changed etc I was feeling really hungry and I spotted a a piece of foil with all these rectangular pastries on it. At first I thought they were curry puffs or spring rolls or something then I but into one and I was like...Is there chocolate inside this? Turns out JC had taken a box of these:

and had covered each of the chocolates with puff pustry and baked them. It was so delicious!! It's like the healthy version of deep-frying chocolate (except baking them in pastry is still not exactly healthy...)
I was onto my 4th favourite-pastry-hybrid when i spied a half-eaten one on the corner of the foil and predictably, inside was a Turkish Delight. Seriously NO ONE likes/eats the turkish delights! Well correct me if I'm wrong about this theory, readers :D

Anyway I went home soon after that but THANKS FOR THE PARTY RC it was awesome I hope you had a fun day celebrating your special day too :D Except that your birthday is on the 6th but still I remember my 16th birthday party I held it like 2 weeks after my actual birthday because of clashing with exams/assessments so yeah it's perfectly cool to celebrate your bday on another day than your bday (ensuring it's not TOO far from your actual bday....probably 6 months later is pushing it a bit LOL)

I'm glad I ended up going, you've been one of my best friends since year 7 (going to your house today I remembered your party in Year 7 SERIOUSLY THAT WAS AWESOME) and I'm glad I didn't flake on you after all. You see, this is the story of the drama of going/not going to Rodge's:
-At first, I was going to carpool with my friend JP who lives just one street down from me (SUPER handy we can have our chem study seshs easily even once at 9 she came over and we were just both in sweats LOL then we had a quick revision for the prac test :D One time at 9pm she even came around with red velvet cupcakes randomly :D)
-Then JP couldn't go anymore so my mum said if I didn't really want to go (because BT and RH ma gurl frans weren't going I didn't feel up to it) I shouldn't go so I thought ok I won't go
-Yesterday I saw RH and BT (and HH too) at towers and after shopping for Rodge's present we decided we would go after all
-This morning I got a text from BT saying she wasn't up to it due to tiredness and I decided not to go cos i'm not that great with bus catching (also sometimes I get into anti-social apathetic-ish moods where I just want to read Horrible Histories at home and eat Mi Goreng)
-Then I got a text from GZ saying if I wanted he could catch the bus with me then I realised I CAN'T BE A FLAKE! That goes against my belief that you have to live up to the decisions you make and put effort into friendships, and whether you're up for it or not, sometimes it's not only for yourself but you have to think of other people. I couldn't let Rodge down! So I turned my attitude around and heypresto my dad said he could give me a lift to the party. WOO!

Love: Michelle

P.S. Looking forward to having a girlie day out with my older sis tomorrow :) We may be watching 'The Adventures of Tin-Tin' in the cinema then eating ice-cream from Mother Crepe. Hoping you guys all have exciting plans tomorrow too!

On the mention of my sister, a funny convo we had yesterday: [To understand fully 'Home' is the name of a club in Sydney]

Me: So I hear you're going out tomorrow night.
Rose: Yeah, I'm going clubbing.
Me: Oh where are you going?
Rose: 'Home'
Me: No where are you going clubbing?
Rose: I'm going 'Home'
Me: But I thought you said you were going out!
Rose: Yeah I am
Me: I was asking you where you're going exactly
Rose: I already said I'm going 'Home'!

Stupid conversation continues for 5 minutes until
Me: WHERE ARE YOU GOING??
Rose: A CLUB CALLED 'HOME' !

ROFL

Love: Michelle

2012

Welcome to 2012!!

I think I already learnt an important lesson in this first day of the new year (and it's only 1:34am haha): Expect the unexpected (In the wise words of B.Tan)

You see, yesterday night if you had asked me what I was doing for NYE I would have told you I would be watching the movie 'New Years Eve' and then catching a train to North Sydney with my family as we had booked two hotel rooms in Harbourside to enjoy the splendour of the fireworks.

Well.

I missed that train to North Sydney and my family were forced to leave me behind.

Instead, as I forgot my house keys, I triapsed to my aunt's house in North Parramatta (GZ-further proof that she is a superhero HAHA) where I spent the next 4 hours until midnight in virtual solitude watching the TV (as my aunt, my cousin and my uncle had all fallen asleep by 8:30 on account of the fact that they had been working all day and were really tired).
At first I was pretty disappointed (especially after my sister called and was raving about the floor to ceiling windows and how they set up chairs for everybody to sit and watch the fireworks, and how they even got wristbands to walk around the Harbourside area cos apparently it was really exclusive and how one chair was left empty for me) because I was really looking forward to it BUT the time alone really gave me time to reflect on the past year and the lessons and memories I will never forget.

And hey it was still an awesome day because I
-Got to see my dear pals BT, AG, RC and GZ briefly today and got to watch an amazing movie with BT and AG as well.

[I stole this photo from CrysBea chicken HAHA cos I couldn't be bothered to take a photo of my ticket which was H-7 btw]
-Reread Malcolm in the Middle at my aunts house (which is a hilarious series btw)
-Made my first New Years Resolution: Watch the fireworks NEXT New Years Eve, Whether with family or friends, and in a hotel room or in the ground [NOT ON TV], I shall STRIVE to achieve this HAHA I have actually never once went out on New Years with friends and only once (when I was about 5) watched the fireworks in the city with my family so I have yet to experience this 'partying' on New Years everybody talks about :)
-And call this fate or MAGIC but when it was getting closer to 12 and I was all alone, I was getting a little scared I wouldn't be able to ring in the new year with anyone because my mum told me they were still in the city but at exactly 12:00, my aunt's doorbell rang and my family was outside waiting there screaming HAPPY NEW YEAR and then my uncle and my aunt woke up and celebrated too and there were many hugs and kisses which was nice :') So I didn't spent it alone afterall :D

Also this was the first New Years I have ever gotten so many calls and text messages wishing me Happy New Year and wanting to reminisce about 2011 and telling me about their night and whatnot so thank you for everybody's wishes :D

To end this post here is a quote from 'New Years Eve': Although there are things beyond our control (such as natural disasters) we can always control our personal attitudes so this year be kinder, forgive more and LOVE more because love drives the world.

Here's to hoping 2012 will bring trials (literally as well....can't be forgetting them TESTS), triumphs, transitions, trends, tempestuous times and terrific times and everything in between.

Love: Michelle

Update: Here are some photos that my parents snapped at Harbourview yesterday and I decided to slot them into this entry as it seems fitting :)

It's summer right not in Sydney and the days are long so even when my parents and my sister got to North Sydney at 8:40 ish, the sky was still so nice and light outside :)

Some fireworks in the far-off distance

Some fireworks in the not-so-far-off-distance