Umbrella

Oh, and my expensive, tiny, stupid umbrella tore in the wind and rain.

Monday Blues

I didn't expect to be blogging again right away, but I have much to tell (and complain) about today.

It's been raining nonstop all day. There has only been 2 half sunny days since I arrived. Rain 7 : Sun 2.

I felt like a change and so asked Alicia, my roommate, to braid my hair for me, which she very kindly did. I love having my hair braided! It makes my scalp feel very cool and there's no messy hair to keep flipping over the shoulder. I shall keep disturbing her to braid my hair now hehheeheh

What the braid looks like from behind:

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, lectures started today.

In one of my lectures, I felt like a complete alien. There were no other Asians in the room. At all. I don't just mean Chinese. I mean Asians. But the main problem I had was understanding the lecturer; she spoke very quickly and I can't quite comprehend the accent. I catch bits of words here and there but not enough to fill in the blanks. :{ eep. Everyone else in the theater was laughing at her jokes but me.

My last class ended almost at 6pm and I had dinner on campus (Subway! the only place left open) to save time from cooking and washing up. I ate quickly and was heading towards the bus stop by 6.25pm. It's actually darker than it looks in the photos because I had them brightened up. There was hardly anyone around on campus already by then.

The Great Court at twilight (Edward comes to mind whenever that word is used now) :

I was waiting at the bus stop on campus for almost 30mins. It was getting darker and raining heavier and I was feeling more worried about missing my ride home. I had not realised that buses would be less frequent at that time of day already. Any how, I finally boarded a bus at 6.50pm. It would not take me to a bus stop as close to my apartment as I would have liked, but it was within reasonable walking distance.

Unfortunately, I was so worried that I would miss the stop that I ended up getting off the bus two stops too early. With much discomfort, and surprise when I became aware that the roads were scarcely lit with street lamps, I walked as fast as I could, clutching my umbrella and phone, trying to navigate my way with the help of Google Maps. As much as I hate using IT, it saves my life every day here.

I had to cross a big bridge about 800m away from my apartment and there was a sizable puddle. The first car drove at the edge of the puddle, the second car drove slowly through the puddle and the asshole who came next drove as close as to me as he could get, fast. #%^!!&!#?/*@!#!!! I think I stood there for a few seconds shrieking in the cold.... I almost wanted to give up there in the middle of the bridge. Since I'm blogging about it, that means I continued on home. Next week, and every week after tonight, I'll be carrying stones in my bag. It's not like I can change the time of my lecture.

Shit happens, life goes on. You stumble and you fall, you get up and continue walking. Why? I'm not too sure myself.

To end this post on a lighter note, I did some exploring in between my lectures today. A-wimoweh a-wimoweh a-wimoweh in the jungle, the mighty jungle....In a bookstore on campus, Co-op:

Wish me luck and send me love <3

I need lots of both.

First Week in Brisbane.

Just a heads up, it's going to be a super long first post.

So I've been here in Brisbane for a week already. Decided to give blogging a shot for many reasons. One of which is that it'll be easier for my family and friends who don't have Facebook, Instagram or Twitter accounts (Even if you don't have Instagram or Twitter, you can check out my posts, @jessjumbledup, because my profiles aren't private). Second reason is that I'm taking a course in Creative Writing this semester and I have also joined UQ's Writers' Club. So, this is a good place to practise. [etc (End of Thinking Capacity) reasons)

The only similarity Brunei and Brisbane has is that they both start with Br. (okay, they both also have letters i, e and n, but let's not nitpick.)

My plane took off from Brunei, transiting in Singapore for a couple of hours, at about 5.05pm, 15th Feb, Friday. At the Singapore airport, about to get into the gate for my flight to Brisbane, the security lady asked me to take off my boots to have them scanned in the x-ray machine. Really? If I had a knife or a sharp stick, it wouldn't be in my shoe; it'll be up you, lady. 

Anyway, landed safely in Brisbane airport at about 7am the next day, 16th Feb, Saturday. This is my coursemate from UBD, with whom I share the apartment.

Spent the next few days trying to settle down at our shared apartment. Bought groceries. SO expensive! About AUD40+ of groceries that last only 4 days before we have to visit the supermarket to restock. 

Eeeeeeverything in Australia is more expensive. I actually sobbed over Skype with my mum about how pricey things are here. A bit of a financial breakdown.

This is sometime during Orientation Week. On the first day of orientation, it was raining pretty hard. I only found a shop that sold umbrellas a few minutes before it stopped raining heavily. Oh well. It has been raining quite a bit, so it's not a waste.

I'm not quite used to getting around the campus yet. It is HUGE. And very beautiful. I hope I don't have a hard time finding my classes.

That's the Great Court behind me.

That's the food court behind me.

Two days ago, Friday 22nd Feb, my roommate and I had some free time so we decided to explore a bit of the city. 

We went to Queensland Museum, which I LOVED. This has to be my favourite section of the museum. Basically, here they have thousands of all sorts of animals, objects and fossils displayed behind and under glass (more pics on Facebook).

It was the highlight of my day. I think my roommate preferred the shopping we did afterwards. She's a super serious shopper. I couldn't keep up and so stood/sat outside shops with other boyfriends/husbands waiting for their partners.

While I was waiting:

To fast forward to the present:

We went into the city again today, but split up when we were there. I to my first club meeting, the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of UQ's Writers' Club at Suncoarp Piazza, and my roommate to explore more retails along Queen St.

I stumbled across the Brisbane Wheel as I was heading towards the club meeting.

I have to say that I found it much harder to mix and mingle with the locals than I had thought it would be. It's not that they're not friendly, but I think they rather spend more time with other locals. I don't quite know how to explain it. Maybe I was awkward.

Anyway, at the AGM, there was a quick Speed-dating icebreaker followed by food and drinks. VERY unfortunately, I could hardly eat for the sun was burning down on me (we sat on the grass, or stood talking).  I'm sure I'll be suffering from minor sunburn tomorrow. All the food I paid for, and all I had was one tiny cupcake and one slice of pizza! Came home hungry; what a waste. *sigh* I shall force myself next time.

After the food, there was a Scavenger's Hunt. I lost the members of my group about 30 seconds into the game. They took off running and left me behind. As I am not familiar with the area at all, I dared not to run blindly after them. But I wasn't too sad to be left behind, to be honest. There were soooo many things going around me. I started taking pictures. Haha!

The artificial beach (I sniggered to myself when I thought of the synonym for artificial, can you guess why?):

The stores! I love love love open air street markets like these!! Bought myself a cap for AUD15.

I felt a bit guilty after walking around the stalls for 10mins so I decided to retrace my steps back to the meeting place. As it turned out, no one was back yet, so I decided to wait under some shade from where I could see when the club regrouped.

They regrouped and sat around talking. I left around 4pm to head home. It's a good thing I did! Just as I was getting off the bus at my stop, it started raining buckets. There was a pool in my boots and my waist down was all wet even with my umbrella. As it turned out, the downpour only lasted about 15mins. The really unlucky bit was that I somehow managed to step on chewing gum.....with both shoes.


After my shower, I was feeling too tired to cook a big meal, so this is my Chap Goh Meh dinner :{ I wanted to wrap the omellete  but, as you can see, it was unsuccessful.

Tomorrow I attend my first lecture! Hopefully, it'll be better than today was.




If some one could help me out, I have a technical problem of uploading pictures from my phone straight to the blog. I have to do it the long way: I plug the cable into my laptop and and have to look for my pictures under different folders in my phone which is a really big hassle. On blogspot, it says to upload photos from my mobile, all I have to do is download Google+ on my phone. I already have it on my phone, but I don't see the option to upload the pictures straight to the blog.


Make comments, leave me messages on Facebook or wherever. I'd appreciate it a lot :)
Wish me luck and send me love! <3