getting creative

To 'destress' at work, my boss introduced a couple of packs of plasticine for the team to get creative with. This is what they came up with. It's still going on now with new additions popping up all the time :)

You can't see it very well, but in the b/ground, someone put a real figurine down and popped a post-it next to it that has 'beat that!' written on it haha

Also, there's the bear that you can colour in and decorate...

oh yeah...

HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!

I would post a photo of the first sunset of 2011 in Perth (taken from King's Park) BUT my phone's SD card died and the photos died with it so please enjoy this random puppy picture instead

can you have too many bags in one colour?

You certainly can.

I seriously had no idea that there were so many...

My name is Rowena, and I am a shopaholic.

a glimpse of the past

I found this while spring cleaning today.

It's a random illustration that I drew when I was in primary school... I have no recollection of drawing this. But I know it was me, during my cartoonist phase.. It was the only thing in that booklet too. Weird.

I also found this...

I made this bag out of an old denim jacket when I was in High School (I think). Pretty cool huh? That's a breast pocket (which still functions as a pocket - totally rad), and the handle was what used to be the bottom bit of the jacket (the waist thingo??). You wish you had one huh?

Well it doesn't really fit my style any more, but I couldn't bear to give it to Good Sammy's so it's staying in storage... Along with my Perth Wildcats memorabilia (foam finger, inflated hand, hat, bag, autographed cap (yep, you can wipe the drool of your keyboard)) and a whole stack of other random stuff that is too good to throw away. Sentimental value man.

The clean continues.

call me the caffeinator

Coffee - the most necessary of all evils

Today I had...

Two double shot coffees

A can of red bull

and some Coke Zero

the beautiful letdown

Well let's face it, it wasn't beautiful. It stunk. Stunk like a burrito left in the sun, or a very average Mexican ref who robbed the socceroos of a chance at the World Cup. OK, Sure. Aussies didn't have a chance to begin with but the sting was totally real. Or maybe I am over-reacting because I, like most patriotic and over-hopeful Aussies, did not get enough sleep last night.

Yes. I set my alarm this morning for 2:30am, got out of my toasty, warm bed - eyes hardly able to open, plopped in front of the TV with my doona, and watched as goal after goal, the socceroos got owned by the Bratwursts (and the little Mexican Ref). It was heart-breaking. I had to stop watching after the fourth goal hit the back of the net.

But the loss, the bad reffing, the constant buzzing of those wretched horns, the poor timing of matches, the constant diving/over-reacting, and the fact that Australia doesn't seem to have a chance, will not put me off the World Cup!

I still went out today for Maccas - just to get a free World Cup cup. I still (even as I am typing this) will keep watching the Netherlands and Denmark fight it out - even though I don't even care for either country (going for Denmark cos they are the underdogs, and because Apple Danishes are nom nom)... And then Cameroon and Japan (going for Japan - because they are technically Asian and I love karage)... I will still watch and read the news about the World Cup, even though I don't follow football normally... And I will still wake up early again for the Aussies (cos they will most probably only have two more games left in the Cup!)

I have a bad case of football fever!

of pics past - the lwe

this time next week...

... I will be at the 'Top End'. Earlier this week, my work asked if anyone was interested in making a trip up north to help out the Darwin Office with some assessments and I jumped at the opportunity. I have never been to Darwin before and the thought of a mini-holiday was very appealing. I will be a spending next week there from Tuesday to Sunday. I'm pretty excited. Not just because it's a whole new place that I have never visited, but I also think it will be a really good spiritual getaway to spend some time away from Perth, do some reading, and see some of God's awesome creation (including some trademark wet season thunderstorms and lightning). And I also get to see some crocodiles! It's gonna be great!

ode to the banana

I have learned to be patient with eating bananas. If they don't snap open, it means they need some time to open up. I've had enough waxy mouth experiences to know that it is just not worth rushing the slightly green friend of mine. Once they turn yellow, they snap open so easily, and because they have been pre-packaged, there's no need to wash before eating! The ready-to-eat contents have completed their transformation from hard, waxy naffness to soft, sweet mushiness. Full of Potassium (what you need Potassium for is beyond me), they are supposedly nutritious, but undoubtedly tasty.

However, once they turn black, they pretty much open themselves up and try to make themselves more tasty by turning up the sweetness to an unappetising level. Some would call such an attempt desperate, but amazingly, they can still be used to make a really good banana cake (and they work much better than their yellow counterparts).

All in all, the banana is an awesomely-intelligently-designed fruit - once it turns yellow.

stan, the man

This year I have been following Australian Idol on the Internet - I never seem to be able to catch the episode because I am usually out, but I play catch up on the net. This year, a young man named Stan came onto the scene with a very intriguing voice, and as the show profiled him, it became very public that he was a Christian. Throughout the show, he has been wow-ing the judges and all the celebrity guests, but tonight, he did something that I thought was very brave. He sang Amazing Grace as one of his songs! It will be interesting to see what happens if he wins the competition - whether he will sell out one day, or remain a witness and testimony in the industry (I really hope it will be the latter). But the performance tonight was fantastic. I hope he wins!

white Christmas in july!

Today I took an early lunch break to fight the mighty snooze, and as I was in a shop, I heard really loud 'rain' start bashing down on the roof. When I walked out of the shop, I realised the 'rain' was actually hail - and loads of it!! The whole mall was covered in hail and from a distance it looked like snow!

What an unexpected blessing!

the perfection of culinary suspense

For the past few months I have become more and more addicted to Masterchef. And it's all going to come to an end tonight - in less than half an hour. I will confess right now that I absolutely love watching reality television and cooking shows - so when I heard about a reality television cooking show coming on to the tube, I was pretty excited.

I have to say, the show has passed all my expectations. It has made my mouth-water in every single episode, it's entertaining, it's moving, it's inspiring and it somehow makes something as plain as baking a cake into some kind of spectator sport. I remember a few weeks ago when watching the contestants make this...

It was so exciting hey. I was sitting at the edge of my seat the whole way. I sighed as they failed, rejoiced as they succeeded and felt their pain as they burnt their fingers. It was great television.

So it all ends tonight and either Julie or Poh will win. I want Julie to win because she is just so cute and I love how she breaks into a sweat every time she cooks! And I want Poh to win because she is Chinese and she made one of my favouritest foods - century egg congee - on national television!

May the best (wo)man win!

to julia with love

In response to your blog.

in less than an hour...

My folks are coming back home after 39 days of globetrotting, and leaving their young to fend for themselves. It's about time too, was starting to get sick of the friends that kept coming over for dinner...

two kinds of people...

At the anniversary dinner on Sunday night, I was reminded of a phenomenon that I have only really come to notice as I have dined out in Chinese restaurants.

There are two kinds of people - Jup-wasters, and Jup-savers.

For those who do not understand my romanised Cantonese, or who have no idea what Jup is, prepare to be enlightened.

Jup is the sauce from a dish (usually of the oriental variety, though gravy on the Sunday Roast would also be classified as Jup - to me anyways. It's white-folk's Jup... Or Gwai Loh Jup if you prefer).

Now that we have that cleared up, please let me explain. When dining out in a Chinese restaurant, one is usually provided with a bowl, chopsticks, a Chinese tea cup, and a plate. This is the bare minimum. The essentials. But there are little additions along the way as well (the more there are, the 'classier' the restaurant - if you could call a Chinese restaurant classy - kind of an oxymoron in most cases). These could include any of the following: a soup spoon, a paper sleeve for the chopsticks, a serviette, or a reusable serviette that has been folded into the shape of a fan or a swan, a sauce dish, wine glass, a paper place mat (now we're talking true classiness right there), a little thingo to rest your chopsticks on when you are not using them so the table cloth or paper place mat does not get stains on them from your chopsticks.

I digress.

So you gay-tow (pray in my Romanised canto again), you get your rice, and then you start getting some food (some 'soong' heheh my Canto is so bad I just have to laugh).

Where do you place your food?

A. On the plate
B. In the bowl (on top of the rice)
C. Eat it straight up

If you answered A., then you my dear reader, are a Jup-waster. If you answered B., then you, my like-minded and totally cool reader, are a Jup-saver. And if you answered C., you have no manners and would probably be shunned by your Asian relatives - however, if you are non-Asian, all power to you because you don't have to worry about shaming your family and losing face.

It is a simple test and I think it reveals a lot about one's character. Jup-savers are awesome. Jup-wasters are not. Period.

If you are a Jup-waster, don't be alarmed, you CAN change. Just resist the urge to waste precious Jup, and put your food in it's rightful place - on top of the rice. You will not only give your rice the precious flavour it deserves (and, let's face it, NEEDS), you can also utilise your plate for it's rightful purpose: storage for the wastage - bones, phalanx and cartilage from the chicken feet (if you're at yum cha), or shells from your crustaceans, unfried prawn cracker bits, paper sleeve from your chopsticks, patty pan from the Dan-tart, leaf from the lo-mai-gai.

Please people, be good stewards of your Jup.

so gangster

As we were at the checkout of the local Asian Food store, there were two fellas on the other checkout. One reached over and put a 1.5 L bottle of Aloe Vera juice on the checkout. Normal enough. Then the other guy replied 'Wah man, so gangster!' like he meant it. Did I miss something? Has Aloe Vera juice become a new criteria of becoming a gangster? So perplexed...

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

You can feel it in the air, you can see the preparation in the shops, boots are coming out of hiding, scarves are swishing their way back onto necks, umbrellas are peeking out of cupboards, coats are edging themselves slowly out of wardrobes, extra blankets are making their way onto beds...

Winter is coming!

A lot of people don't like Winter because it is too cold and wet, and because the lack of sunshine can be depressing. But in the gorgeous city of Perth, we are much blessed by mild Winters - not too cold, just enough wet, and still more than average sunshine - which makes it much easier to love.

This morning was 6 degrees and man was it hard to get out of my warm bed. The only thing that made it easier was knowing the sooner I could get into my warm winter clothes, the sooner I would be nice and warm again. It was pretty hard to find something to wear amongst the mostly summery clothing, and I was reminded of the need to make space in my wardrobe to re-introduce winter clothes to the daily clothing rotation.

I feel a clothes-swap coming round the corner really soon...

procrastination

I'm sitting here writing when I should be prepping for my Sunday School class. I had a strange sense of deja vu back to my student days where I used to think of the many things I could be doing that weren't what I was supposed to be doing - studying, or in today's case, Sunday School preps.

It's been like this all week. I tried to start on my preps earlier, but got distracted and forgot. Now, the night before, I sit thinking about all the things I could be doing - cleaning my room, searching for campsites, blogging, listening to a sermon, reading, working on my jigsaw, listening to music, painting my nails, installing programs into my computer, chatting on msn, practising piano, playing guitar, youtubing, sleeping...

So bad hey? It's not that I really want to do those other things, because if there wasn't something I was supposed to do, I don't think I would want to do half those things. Stupid procrastination.

my new toy

While trying to kill time before Regeneration last Friday, I wandered into Target to have a browse around. The thought came to me to have a look upstairs at the electronics section because I had been thinking (for a while) about getting a piano keyboard to try pick up a new hobby. So I did. And I saw something that caught my eye - a 61-key keyboard, complete with stand, adaptor and packed with different handy features for $29.88.

Bargain of the century.

I talked to the guy about it and made sure it wasn't too good to be true - and thank God it wasn't. Apparently it used to sell at $299, but had been reduced over and over again to the point it was so cheap and it was re-shelved as a result! He also told me it had a full guarantee.

Thank God hey?

So I've been tinkering away at the little thing and I really enjoy it. Sure, it can be quite frustrating when I stuff up, but it is quite satisfying to get things right too. Once again, like all my other phases, let's see how long this will last. At least if I give up, the initial outlay would've been less than a fancy meal at a nice restaurant huh? I can live with that :D

welcome back

My computer came back from the computer-doctor (by which I mean the son of my dad's friend) the other day and though it's got a new body (which I was told was necessary) and though some programs are missing and need to be re-installed, it's good to have it back.

It was hard not having access to my music, photos, files, and other things like my audio-bible, and having it back has brought some normality back to my life. That's kinda sad huh? It hasn't been the same without my old computer and it was nice re-acquainting myself.

The new machine is quieter than the old one, and it's faster. So I am pretty happy with that. It's the new 'body' that I don't really like. I went from my comparatively pretty, black, shmicko, doozy with a pretty green light, to a beige early nineties-esque, MS-Dos thing which has a floppy disk drive (not the thin, big, black floppy disk, but the smaller ones - pre-compact-disc) with no pretty lights. I feel like I have a technological relic on display in my room. Oh well. Vanity of vanities - computer housings are vanity.

It's good to have you back computer - beige, lightless, old-school body and all.