Tag Archives: cousin

Tap On My Window, Knock On My Door

[She Will Be Loved – Maroon 5]

Day 4 – your siblings (or closest relative)

Well, as bad as I feel about this because both Julia and Lisa are great cousins, but I haven’t seen any of them for a small part of a decade. So, I suppose this goes to…

Dear Fa,

I think I might skip all the “you’re an idiot who wears shorts that are too short” jokes and actually get to the nice gooey bits.

I am grateful for you, firstly. Not only did you give me motivation to try harder last year with the 2 subjects that I shared with you, if anything, just to beat you – I still failed miserably but still – but you didn’t fail to be on my side consistently for every problem that I went to you for, even after all the jokes I made of you.

And I’m glad that you come to me for support and a whinge because it made me feel useful – even though I really shouldn’t agree to keep booking you into hotels…that’s just irresponsible.

Finally, I know this sounds cheesy, but I can foresee a great future for you. I don’t know what you’ll do, exactly, but I know you, and you’re going to work your ass off and beat the crap out of your competition no matter what, so I have no worries that you won’t be able to “make the cut”. I just hope we don’t end up saying this in the context of…street corner work.

Please keep me young and sane. I’m starting to turn into a traditionalist old fart.

Love,

Your BIG cousin who was BIGGER until around 6 years old you fat-ass.

I had Oral…Exam

You’re right, Dom, that joke never gets old.

Yes! Yes! I have done and dusted my Chinese oral…exam forever and ever and ever! Never again would I have to describe myself in 20 seconds or less, or recite the 3 points of my detailed studies.

The sad part is, while doing my detailed studies, I’d said that I had 4 main points. I had to backpedal quickly and say 3.

To be short, the oral…exam was semi-epic-fail. The general conversation was good, despite my two male examiners (MALE! BOTH OF THEM! Female ones smile more) starting me off with “how did you get here?” and I just sat there desperately trying to remember how to say “train” in Chinese, I was that nervous.

The det. stud. was a bit worse. I really forgot a lot of my info half way through and started stuttering (I guess that problem would resurface sooner or later when I’m nervous) so I had to make stuff up. The downside of getting male examiners and me doing a rather masculine topic is that they actually had a general understanding of my topic, and knew when I was bullshitting (as opposed to when I had females for mock exam, and they thought I was very well researched. Baha). In fact the younger male examiner had the expression of “bullshit bullshit” on his face in the last 3 minutes.

I just hope they give me marks for repair strategies and ability to maintain conversation, and not mark me down for contents. Haha.

Fa had dyed her hair brown! I haven’t seen her like that in a while, and I just felt it would be great injustice not to suggest that she keep that hair color forever. Hey Fa, I really think that brown suits you more and makes you look more elegant than orange/blonde. She also wore a “conservative” outfit, namely jeans and a baggy jumper (which she borrowed off her mom. I doubted it was hers anyway).

I’ve never really been nervous much before, I’ve been excited and nervous yet but not just nervous. I actually felt myself shaking a bit waiting outside the classroom, and Lyd- who was with me tried to calm me down by telling me my hair looked good.

It worked.

Well, it was all said, and done, and dusted, and blown away, and I did a little dance afterwards. Now, onto Methods and Legal! Then it will be 3 weeks until my English exam.

1 down, 6 to go!

Alex.

Pilin’ boxes at the door, tryin’a block it

I can’t believe I actually forgot to update today. So this is a rather late entry for today.

Well, I was right yesterday, we stayed home today. I went online but of course no one was really on because, come on, it’s Boxing Day, everyone’s gone shopping.

I’m going out tomorrow, though, because mom still has to return a pair of shoes she bought. Well not so much return as exchange…because the clerk gave her two right feet. I don’t know. It’s just one of those crazy stupid things that are done by the same kind of people.

Hopefully tomorrow we will go to a good Yum Cha place for lunch. I haven’t had Yum Cha for a while, even though I have had my fair share of dumplings recently. We made a huge batch of them, ate them for nearly 2 weeks, and besides that Carmaine and Bee had wanted to go to a Chinese restaurant on the last day. So. Lots of dumplings.

I remember going to Knox’s (or was it Chadstone?) Myers on Boxing Day 2004. It was boring and we only managed to buy a toy bear, Patrick. I think that day was rather overshadowed in my memory by the fact that we had that tsunami in Indonesia and whatnot, and my friend was holidaying there at the time.

I also remember, it must’ve been 2001, because summer of 2002 I went back to China, or was it 2000? Anyway, I remember in the summer of 00/01, my cousin’s family from Canberra came over, and we went to the city on Boxing Day (now, back then, city was like, an awesome place you go to every once in a while for a treat. Unlike now. For school. And for general living.) and a few shops were closed but we went to Crown and we must’ve walked down Southbank (I didn’t know at the time, it was all a blur to me, basically in my head, Flinders St station was next door to Crown and Exhibition Centre). I was on the tram, and my cousin Julia (different Julia to the one I usually mention who is from my school, of course) was trying to explain what Boxing Day was, but I don’t think she knew it either. Seriously, what the hell is Boxing Day?

Speaking of Julia, I remember on the train back that day (now, it had to have been 2001, because that year we went to Melbourne Zoo. Why the hell do I sound like an old grandma recollecting childhood memories?) it was one of the old ones, I think they all were the old ones back then, and the driver for some reason kept on sounding the horn so Julia and I sang along to that. Okay we were numbskulls. I was also 10. Back then we lived near the Glen, so it was a walk from dinner on Kings Way. We went to Rock Kung (I remember for the following reason) and Julia and I took home the refresher hand towels. We pretended that the air was poisonous and we had to cover our mouths with the hand towels, and we made a racket walking home screaming to each other “NO YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR MOUTH COVERED!”

See? Good memories. I think the last time that Julia came over was just before I started MacRob, so summer of ’05. I haven’t seen her since then. I kind of wish they’d come over again (‘cos like hell I’m going to Canberra. If they met us halfway at Sydney maybe) but apparently mom and Julia’s dad, mom’s brother, are having some kind of misunderstanding that Frank, Julia’s dad, doesn’t know about. I mean, it’s stupid because our house is actually rather large now (the last time they came over Julia and I slept on the study floor. While we still don’t exactly have enough beds, we have more bloody room). But I guess it’s all for the best. I mean, what is the kind of person I am now, if family comes over they’d just complain about my hair in my eyes, or the way I talk, or whatever.

Well this turned out to be a long blog.

Hey, a small bit of info about me you might not have known: I love stuffed animals. Soft fur, huggable, either small enough so I can make it a puppet in my hand (small) or large enough to bear hug. I don’t want any hard limbs, I want the really soft kind, with an open and cute face. I have 3 teddy bears (as well as a tiger, a rattlesnake, a dog, a Tassie devil, a Toyota penguin, a very large duck and of course the dog that Viv gave me this year. All of the abovementioned animals are named after their specie, ie Tiger, Snake, Dog, Taz, Toyota, Duck, and I called the new dog Andrew…guess why. And the bears are Patrick, Ranger – being a ranger bear – and Bear).

Wasn’t that edge-of-your-seat-interesting?

Hey, whoever comments, tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.

De Fluffe, Out.