Down

I'm glad to have the weekend at home... have been feeling down recently with a lot going on at the moment. It's close to six weeks since I haven't been able to shower in my own home. It has got to the point where I cannot take anymore. I just want to shout at those people responsible for my shower. I want to yell at them, be rude to them, shout profanities at them, the lot. It's been so frustrating to find out that the contractor chose to replace the broken broom that I've got instead of giving me back the money as was agreed previously. I'm definitely going to give him a good grilling. This has got to stop. I've been bullied for the past few weeks, and I've got no where to turn to already. Sometimes you just want to think that they would actually take plight on my situation, yet they seem so cruel, inconsiderate bastards. The neighbour has been asking questions on whether the shower is being fixed very so often now, that it makes me feel uncomfortable thinking that I'm no longer welcomed to shower at their place. Who wouldn't, if you see my face for the past six weeks like this.

If that's not enough, the oral exam is very close. After this week's seminar, it finally dawned upon me that I'm not so confident as I thought I was. There is still so much that I do not know, and that makes me doubtful of myself. I'm trying my best to juggle work, and being able to sit down and study. Focus is not my thing at this point in time, and the only time I'm able to get that is during the weekends. I've just gotta make sure I'm feeling fine, make sure I'm eating well, sleeping well, not to fall ill now. Grrr. I hate issues. Stay away from me.

Disney Dreams

I've been meaning to write this blog for a long time. Anne Leibovitz, a noted photographer who has taken some of the most beautiful pictures from the likes of John Lennon, Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman, joined with Disney to produce a series of famous Disney characters played by famous people. This project of hers started back last year, and so far she has built a great portfolio of some of the childhood idols, like Prince Charming, Cinderella and Snow White.

These were the first few to come out:

Beyonce as Alice; Lyle Lovett as March Hare; Oliver Platt as the Mad Hatter

Scarlett Johansson as Cinderella

David Beckham as Prince Charming

And later on the other series were these:

Rachel Weisz as Snow White

Julie Andrews as Fairy Godmother; Abigail Breslin as Fira (from Disney Fairies)

Roger Federer as King Arthur

These pictures came out this year, and so far all of them have captured the Disney magic:

Gisele Bundchen as Wendy; Mikhail Baryshnikov as Peter Pan; Tina Fey as Tinkerbell


Jessica Biel as Pocahontas

Marc Anthony as Aladdin; Jennifer Lopez as Princess Jasmine

Whoopi Goldberg as the Genie

Recently I managed to browse through the Internet, only to find this other one. Was so glad that it was once again another one of the pictures that were to be added on to the collection. It starred Michael Phelps as a merman and Julianne Moore as Ariel.

I love her work, and it's a shame these pictures are not sold commercially, otherwise I would have purchased a whole set of them. Most of all, it's difficult not being able to follow up on the latest pictures, I can't seem to see any new updates on the website it used to be in. So hopefully fingers crossed, I'll be able to get all of them once this project is complete. As for now, I'll be happy to look at them on the desktop every day.

Swap Mania

The past two weeks of work has been very eventful. Not only for me, but for other trainees in Pulse Pharmacy who decided to do a swap with each other to have a feel for a different store and see how they operate. I decided on going to Lily's store at Southland, Cheltenham which was the closest for me. Lily shall then go to the other store at Riversdale Rd in Camberwell. Wooi Lynn, who's the intern there, shall come to Mornington. Amongst the three of us, this plan went well. It went very well for Wooi Lynn and I because she was going to drive down to Frankston and live in my little home for the two weeks whilst she travels to Mornington. My experience began in Southland as somewhat awkward, and to me, the staff generally weren't that friendly. But the standout for me being there was the boss. He was a young Malaysian, and overall, he appeared as a typical Malaysian, with all his funny antics. But my time at Southland came to an end for just a week when I was told that Lily was wanted back at her store because he was away and he needed a familiar face to show the locum around. Which then left me two options:

1. I could decide to be at Riversdale Rd, which means the hassle of travelling around from Frankston to Richmond, and then another train to Camberwell. And I'll be doing this for five days, and means coming home late and having dinner late and by the time I get to bed.. well there isn't much time.
   
2. Wooi Lynn and I would just cancel the whole swap program amongst ourselves and go back to our respective stores. Which means all the careful planning of what to eat and where to go and the Pfizer talk which I had organised to have us both attend in Mornington would be all a waste.

Either choice, it was a little upsetting. However after thinking it through, it would be nothing but a plus point for me, having to experience different stores. I now have experience from two stores, not just one as planned. What even motivated me to go there was the podiatrist who works in Wooi Lynn's store. I have been meaning to see one, considering I have bad feet (which after having a consultation with Peter, the podiatrist, he says I have a fairly good walk!) and my leg's been killing me recently. So I've decided to go with option number 1. And I've not regretted that decision now. The staff, even though it's just that few, it's been great to talk to them, and in contrast to the other store, they're much more friendly. What's good is that over the past two weeks I get to see other types of people and personalities not only staff, but also the community as well (after getting yelled at by old hags over the phone and a man in the store for being dodgy *rolls eyes*). But what I liked about the two weeks is that I managed to do other things which I normally don't in Mornington - sorting claim, ordering (which has been helpful to me) and closing the store in Riversdale Rd which I have never done before. The best bit about it was my last day in Camberwell on Friday as I entered, Georgia (Wooi Lynn's preceptor) said that I was required elsewhere. It gave me a shock as I thought if I might be needed back in Mornington and I had to travel another two hours back! Turns out that I had to go to Burke Rd for a few hours as there were not enough staff in the dispensary. It sounded like a great opportunity to have a feel of what the dispensary is like as it has always been hyped up as "busy". Turns out, it really was busy! I had the liberty of meeting the pharmacist, Jo who seemed to be so, so nice. And really, I was there like a dispensing tech. I had dispensed all the time without much contact with customers as Jo had to do more of the PR stuff with her regulars. The dispensary is a plus point however, being really a small dispensary and it's below the medical centre which is upstairs, it carries a lot of stock and I suppose there is no reason for shortage. But the people kept coming God knows where from, and I was kept busy for the next two to three hours. To sum up my experience over the past two weeks, it gave me perspective. Not only perspective, it gave me some inspiration to be able to be a good pharmacist. Added on was a good discussion with Wooi Lynn over the future prospects and hers (which I shall write more later) and about Pulse Pharmacy in general.

Wooi Lynn had enjoyed her time in Frankston. Frankston being supposedly notorious for the used-to-be druggies roaming about seemed like the past. It is different, and that gave her perspective. Not only that, but her time in Mornington seemed relaxing, compared to the amount of work she had to do when she was in Riversdale Rd. The people, she described, were kinder and more willing to take the time and listen compared to the usual people where English is not their first language or people who just want to be in the chemist and out as soon as possible. Her funny and hilarious stories about working there was really what I hoped for. The dispensary has been too serious recently, and there isn't much fun to it. Having her there stirred them a little with her "tailan-ness" and hopefully brought some life into their daily mundane job. But she also realised that reality doesn't run away from a store that far away from the metropolitan area. She also enjoyed the food that we have been having over the past two weeks, which was a pleasant thing. Over the weekend, we got Hen Yick to come down and just to travel around if possible since Wooi Lynn had a car. Those road trips were as crazy as it could be, and it has been a little damper with the lousy weather. Yet we managed to cram in as much as we can with little daylight time and just dawdling about :) We got to Phillip Island after my Sunday shift at work with little time left to spend, as most of the spots were closing. This happens to be a chocolate factory which I was unaware of...

Guess the pictures described it all. Then later on we went to the Nobbies, which was once again a nice sightseeing lookout which I didn't get to see the last time I went to Phillip Island back in 2005.

NB: Hen Yick tried to be a superhero by wearing so little, only to freeze here as seen in picture

That was the gist of the weekend. We tried Arthurs Seat the day before, only to be drenched by rain and it was bad weather overall. Even as we were perched on the cliff, we could see the rain coming... and a bigger storm coming nearby =P

Could see the rain from the ocean coming over to land...

!!!!!

Overall it has been a great time. We thought we could do more with the trip, but we're just lazy and exhausted from work to be able to wake up earlier to do more things. But it was enjoyable. Hopefully I'll be able to give the same hospitality to others next time when they come. That's all for now!

Perth Trip 2

The other part of my Perth trip is to give Evelyn a surprise. I had not told her anything about my upcoming trip, and hopefully that would give her a surprise. But the difficult bit about the whole planning was so that she doesn't know and that I can "ambush" her by finding out if she's at home or not. Finally after careful planning and Boon Choo's idea of finding the place in the daytime before sunsets and you can't see a thing, we planned it on a weekend to say hello. The idea was going to be perfect... when I started calling on her mobile and casually asking her what is she doing, I was about to surprise her when I said I was going to visit a friend which I haven't seen in a long while until her intercom DID NOT work. Guess how frustrated I was. It was all perfect until this moment. So I blabbed out that I was here in Perth. Her face clearly showed that she couldn't believe that I surprised her so well. It is my personal achievement of being able to surprise someone so well too, so I felt good about it, haha. I got to see her apartment that she was going to share with her other housemates and to see her mum too, who was spending her last night with Evelyn before going back to Malaysia the next day. In total, I spent about three nights with Evelyn in Perth. We decided on sightseeing for a day, only to have it pouring cats and dogs. We first went to the Margaret River Chocolate Company, which basically makes real good chocolate...

And then to grab a bottle of wine from a good winery...

Next was going to be a visit to another winery, only to find out that it was closed. Boo hoo

Finally we thought we were not going to make any further progress, so we ended up going back and watching Get Smart. It Mr Bean was hilarious, this could probably go well in hand as "lame-funny". Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway did quite a splendid job, but overall I find these films don't really sit on my DVD shelf when it comes out. I'm eyeing for other DVDs though... then at night it was a karaoke session with her and her coursemates, Nadia and Arthur, which I haven't seen in person. The last night that we met up was for a nice dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant called Ciao Italia. It had a very nice and warm feel about it. Located just by the corner of some crossroad, it was frequented by locals and people all around, because the food is really, really good! Evelyn and I happen to be there when it was hailing and raining at the same time. It was freezing which didn't make things better as we stood outside the restaurant waiting for our table to come after about 20 minutes. But it was all worth the wait as we sat for dinner and happily talked the whole time. The waiters were very friendly, and one happily showed off his Malay to us by asking "Apa khabar?".

Overall, I was very glad that Evelyn had the time to spend going out with me despite having her lectures and her GP placements and then I came along. I really miss her, and really having a best friend doesn't make you feel lonely, especially being in Frankston alone and wishing you have someone to talk to. I know I'll be seeing her very soon, I just have to be patient.

As for my cousin, I've been so glad that she had actually sponsored a large proportion of this holiday of mine. For that I would be so grateful to her. Even now when I'm back to work, I can feel that the holiday had done me good (although my pay for the second half hasn't been what I wanted, on a tight budget now!!!), I know that I'm in for a busy time for the next few weeks as the oral exam looms ahead. I'm still worried for my aunt's health, and hopefully she'll always be as glowing as she always is. It's the little things like spending time with my nephews and cousins and the different lifestyle in Perth that draws me there. That would definitely be something to think of. We'll see. I loved this holiday. =)

Perth Trip 1

It's been almost five days since I've left Perth and back to Melbourne. Oh, and back to harsh, cruel reality. I have wanted to write out something about the trip, but I shall decide to slowly write it, to slowly recapture again the things that I did when I was there. Lets started on how this trip actually was planned. Apparently my cousin, Boon Choo, had promised me a return ticket to Perth when I was as young as twelve back during my UPSR days, provided that I scored 5 A's for the exam. Looking back, firstly I would have never remembered that, probably because by that time I already knew it was going to be something that you would say to motivate a young boy and just to make kids happy. Little did I know ten years after that promise would still be valid. And that's how I got my trip all started. So the planning started as early as April and after keeping a close eye on the cheap fares with Tiger Airways, we finally decided on some good dates in July. It took some time to work it out, especially with Khai who gave me mixed responses but he finally said it was OK. So there. Since April, I've been quite excited to go for this trip. Deep down inside, I knew this holiday would give me some form of perspective in my life, some time away from work. Also, it will be my one and only trip out Melbourne in five years (it's a milestone in my life!!), and this time I can do it by giving Miss Evelyn a big, big surprise... hehe... I'll get to it later on during the next blog.

7th of July - Finally the date arrived. I still had to go to work in the day time, but came 4.10 p.m. I packed up and left for the next bus back to Frankston. I went back, did some last minute packing and left a little message with my neighbour, Dorothy to have a look at the place while I was away. She's been awfully nice to ask me not to worry about the place while I go enjoy myself. The skies were getting dark and cloudy. Not wanting to lug an umbrella with a laptop bag and my luggage bag, I decided to walk through the rain should it fall. True to form, it did! I still remember walking through the puddles of water on the road as the rain fell hard on my head and the luggage, which we turned out to be pretty soaked. By the time I got on the train from Frankston to Southern Cross, I stepped out still damp and most of all shivering and teeth chattering away. And I was supposed to be having three layers of clothing on. Anyway the travel to Tullamarine was alright, almost not being able to find the Skybus that takes me to the airport (it has been years since I took the Skybus, been spoiled with taxi rides every year when I go back to Malaysia). Now here comes the part about budget flights. Just when I was about to reach the main terminal, I recall the bus driver announcing "for those who are taking Tiger Airways, you'll have to get off the bus here and you have to walk along the carpark area until the end where you'll see a building and you check in there". You'll be able to imagine the look on my face. I was anticipating real budget flight, but this was really going to be some budget flight. I felt like an outcast sitting on some cheapskate plane, when people on Virgin or Qantas were happily queueing in the main terminal, and my supposed Tiger Airways terminal was too plain, a little under-designed in my opinion. Although the check-in process was fairly simple, it was by then I realised that my boarding pass was none other than a piece of paper with a barcode on it. I could have easily lost it... and it was during my check-in I was told that the plane was delayed by almost an hour. I was not happy. Like Li Chia was saying the day before this, she was right about budget flights - she jinxed me! There I was waiting by the boarding gates, playing a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, ears plugged with my mp3 player, and occasionally answering a phone call. Finally I got to board the plane... an hour later. Not only that, we had to slowly make our way to the aircraft in the blistering cold winds outside, and we actually had to linger around for 10 minutes before being led on to the aircraft.

I got a window seat, and once again stupid me couldn't remember if it was the "window seat" that meant I got the outer seat... or if it was the "aisle seat". Note to self, always take "aisle seat" if want to go out easily to toilet without disrupting other people in the same row. Thankfully only one guy sitting by the aisle seat, and the centre seat's empty. This is my first time on a budget flight, and it's different with the safety precautions the air hostesses have to perform before flying. But I wasn't deciding on doing much anyway, so I thought I could sleep for the whole flight time. I was actually doing really well until an announcement on the PA said that we were about to land. By golly, it turned out to be half an hour later when we landed. I don't know if it was just the pilot that did the crappiest job in flying or he decides to be mean and nasty to us passengers who were trying to get some sleep until the lights just come back on. I was getting very annoyed when I kept looking at lights down there but I didn't seem to be touching land. Finally, I reached at 1.00 a.m., thankful that I've reached Perth. Waiting for the luggage to come out was another long wait. Finally, we got back to Boon Choo's house in Duncraig which seemed like a long drive home from the airport at about 2 a.m.. Exhausted, I just wanted to sleep. And so the holiday begins...

Boon Choo had some time off for me while I was in Perth. Kah Yen (or affectionately known as Yenny) was having school holidays, and Kah Ngee a.k.a. Ah Boy was back from UK for his summer break. Her house was huge, spacious, and I was glad that I had a guest room to myself with an attached bathroom to it, making it convenient. The chairs in the living room brought back fond memories as they used to be ours back in Malaysia years ago until my Mum decided for it to go, and somehow Boon Choo had them ever since. So now it's in Perth with them, and I sure missed sitting in them.

Note the three seater and the one-seater... oh and also the coffee table, They were once ours!

(Look at the furniture behind, it's exactly the same ones)

Anyway it was good to be out of routine, not doing anything unlike just working my butt off in the pharmacy. It was a good time to just relax and just listen to what Boon Choo talks about my niece and nephews and just their life basically. It's really fun, and what's more, it was my first time that I tried on the Nintendo Wii Fit. I tried it on, and you can sweat it out man! I was excited that there were so much to do, but I was quite ashamed as I found with this game that your weight is shown and when there's people behind to look at how much you weigh... well... I'm not that proud to show it yet. There's yoga, there's aerobics, there's hula hoop, and there is a lot of other activities to unlock. If only I had a Wii...

Overall the whole trip there is really more to spend time with family more than anything. The last time I've been there was back in December 2003, and my other relatives have grown. My nieces and nephews (which are apparently called second cousins according to the Western culture, was alerted to this by Carole at work today) have really grown into their teens basically, and certainly do not look childish at all. So I felt it is important that I take this time as bonding time if they knew who I was, and not just some dude from Malaysia who's related to them and is currently working in Melbourne. Most of all, I'm there to see my favourite aunt, Tua Ee (or known as "big aunty" as she is the eldest amongst my mum and her sisters and brother). She's aged over the years since I last saw her. It pains me sometimes that she thinks of herself as ill, and she doesn't want to travel back to Malaysia simply because her doctor said that she can't go as she had had a mild stroke a few years back. I have done my best to persuade and convince her to get another doctor's opinion, yet she refuses. What irks me is I find that the doctor doesn't seem to care about her welfare as a doctor, and the doctor seems to be earning more on her acupuncture sessions. So much for patient care. I can only hope for a change. Nonetheless, I'm glad to be seeing her again.

I've spent most of my time with my cousin, as they were the ones that were taking me out most of the time. We celebrated Kah Ngee's 18th birthday at a restaurant in Hillary, and I got to see my other cousin's family at a yum cha session during the weekend. It's good to see my other nieces and nephew which I haven't seen in a while too, 'cos they have grown so much from the last time. Shopping was minimal, as I had spent quite a bit before flying to Perth. Besides, I didn't have much to carry back with me (Note: I actually exceeded my baggage allowance when I flew to Perth by 300 grams... although I have no clue what I actually brought that was heavy). Not only that, I got to do a little bit of sightseeing, especially after having a luncheon with one of Yenny's violin friend at a house in City Beach. It was supposedly a rich men's area as well, with houses going as high as three storeys. The friend's house happen to be so, with a pool at the back, a grand piano *swoons* and just space. The best bit about it is it's facing the beach/ocean, so it's a view. I do enjoy beaches, and nothing can clear headspace like the breeze and the view of the sea.

I'll be having the second part about my trip soon... to be continued...

Kungfu Panda

When it first came out, I didn't have much second thoughts or doubts about this movie. Initially I thought it would be one of those "it's gonna be one of those animation movies - boring!", but I told myself that I should go to the movies to watch this one... maybe it will be worth going to the movies to watch it. And so I decided that I shall do it. I went down to the city the week before in hopes of being able to convince Henry to come along with me, sadly he refuses to sit through a show looking at a fat panda, in comparison to his lovable PP. Finally, I took the time to watch it in Frankston on a nice Sunday afternoon (only to get drenched by rain as I walked out of my house to head to the cinema). It was also my very first time watching a movie in Frankston, so imagine my excitement as I was walking to it. Turns out that you pay eight dollars for a movie on Sundays, and it's free seating! That's not only a good price, but apparently you can get a good seat if you're early enough to plant yourself right smack centre and you get the best view. I chose to be there at about 1.55pm for a show at 2.00pm, so you could imagine who I was up against: a bunch of kids with their mums and dads and siblings. I found a nice spot by the side too, so I wasn't deprived of the wide-screen experience. After almost a hundred minutes of the show, I have to admit that this is probably by far the best animation I've watched (Ratatouille was first, but this had to be my biggest favourite). The movie not only stayed true to its Chinese authenticity (with its Master Oogway/乌龟 and all of its splendor with it's Jade Palace etc) but something about the story line that felt fresh and different and it stood out. Jack Black who portrayed as Po, the fat panda did his thing as usual, although I would have liked the other cast to have a little more lines as they were a little too quiet in the movie (like Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Seth Rogen who probably does the least as the quiet Mantis) but the punch lines, the jokes were there for a reason. The moral of the story is a meaningful one too: in my interpretation, it's about believing in yourself to be something you want to be. Therefore, I rate this movie 9 out of 10. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and for me now, it's either I spend another time watching it in cinemas or to just sit and wait for its DVD to appear on the shelves of stores. It's a must-buy for me now! My next movie to look out for will be Wall.E. The trailer looks interesting, and I'm a big fan of Pixar productions since Cars and The Incredibles... fingers crossed it'll be amazing.

Glad that the week's over. This past week has been a hectic time at work, with beginning of the month and having massive (and I really mean M-A-S-S-I-V-E) orders and getting stuff-ups and arguments between my boss and my preceptor and getting told off... I couldn't be bothered, I'm just looking forward to my holiday. They can work it out themselves for the next two weeks. And I'm gonna start packing my luggage right now!

Hello

OK. This shall be officially my very first post in "Little Notes". *Ahem*... Hi. I'm glad to be starting off a new blog, as I have mentioned in the previous post that it was a spur of the moment and I thought I should try out something new. Blogspot/Blogger shall be my fourth home, after having Xanga, then later on Blogdrive (a little inadequate in terms of features in my opinion), then for almost two years I stayed on with Multiply which is by far the longest and the best blogging website I've had. Yet I thought maybe I should try something different, and so here I am. We'll start off talking about how I got here...

7.00am - Woke up in the morning, and within the next thirty minutes or so I got this all set up. I always had reservations in terms of having a Gmail account, especially when I have two and I don't receive that many emails anyway. But then Yahoo was on a roll with me, spamming me every single day and I got a little annoyed and tired of running through them. So I've decided I shall divert everything to my new gmail account! As the flow came alone, I thought I should have myself a blog with Blogspot... and there you go! As to the name of the blog's IP address... it took me a while, and I thought it was quite difficult to come up with one, granted that I'm not the most English-savvy fellow around. Finally, with great thanks to Eve (who works in the cafe, is Italian, and decides to give me an Italian identity), I thought of this quite well and I felt comfortable with it. It's probably not spelled correctly, but it's all for convenience and privacy sake. Imagine my blog popping up on a Google search with the name "Vincenzo". And hence the IP address. As for the rest... well... it's all just very metaphoric... "little notes"... "little ramblings"... and I didn't want to elaborate further. I aim for simplicity.

As for setting up the colours and all, this all happened in a flash. I didn't really know where I was going with the colours and the background, but I thought having a dark background would work this time. And the colours... they're not very flashy colours, but more earthy colours which suits me more. Little gloomy, but more my style =)

Anyway glad to make a mark here on my website, so do watch out when I decide to write a little something here. I'm excited!

*Pop*

Something just spurred in me to decide to have this new blog set up for the old one to be gotten rid of. Maybe I just felt it's time for something new and as a sign to move on? Perhaps. Anyway will write more when I've figured out how to really work this.