Recap of the past month and half

• Ken’s place got broken into and they took the smaller portable stuff including my Ipod and foot massager.
• Been unit/apartment hunting for 4 weeks. Didn’t like most of them and only applied for 3 places.
• We almost got lucky with one but the owner ended up having to move in.
• But we finally got a place and recently moved in over the weekend. I love the fact that we have our own place now.
• Been spending heaps on getting the essentials for the house aka white goods.
• Took my room apart (so I can fit the queen size bed) and have been slowly putting it all back together.  At the moment I just have my clothes left to hang.
• Desktop has been out of commission. Slowly will be back.
• Spent a week in classes for my job network agency. Met some nice people and learnt some new things.

So the main highlights:

• I’m graduating on 24th September! About time too!
• I’m starting work at Accenture next week! Excited!
• Cousins from the U.S.A are coming to visit me next weekend! Party time!

1st April 2010 Dinner with Ken’s mates at Pancakes on the Rocks at Northmead. Been there twice and already sick of the menu. Not much of a variety and wasn’t in the mood for sweet pancakes. Catching up with his friends for Ken’s and George’s 24th birthday and before Neil goes on his overseas holiday. I got George this cute little cheesecake from the T2 cafe. I’m going to go back soon to try their high tea. I love tea at T2.

3rd April 2010 Happy birthday to Ken! I came over in the afternoon armed with lots of groceries! Since we had been eating out a lot, I thought it would be special if I cooked him a 6 course meal for dinner! I got a small gift box and filled it up with lots and lots of yummiful chocolates and a card that had tonight’s menu. I ended up cooking and serving

• Garlic bread,
• Pizza muffins,
• Wedges,
• Chicken and corn soup,
• Chicken caesar salad,
• Creamy chicken and cabanossi fettuccine carbonara,
• Mash potatoes,
• Chocolate cake with cookie and cream ice-cream.

There was suppose to be choc-chip cookies but it was midnight by the time we had the cake and I was exhausted!

5th April 2010 My best friend went to Hunter Valley (2nd weekend in a row) and got a bit of food poisoning so she was very very sick. When she got back, she came straight over and gave me a hug because she was home sick. awww. It was a nice moment but a bit awkward because we don’t openly hug as much so it was very unexpected. She got me the wine I wanted to try - Rosemount Rose O wine and she also got me a compact mirror. <3 Jane.

8th April 2010 Had my Deloitte Group Assessment Centre. It wasn’t as daunting as I expected and I believed I did relative fine. It was basically an introduction presentation with a director and previous graduate at ITS and more about what they were looking for, and in this case a developer. Then we got started on our assessment – group discussion, individual presentation, group discussion and then written component. Afterwards we had a tea break and I got to know some of the people a bit better and found out by the HR lady that 11 of us were competing for 2 spots in ITS. Afterwards we had our mini individual interviews which I believe I did good in.  Afterwards, we got a short tour around the ITS office and then home time! 3 hours later while at Chatswood with Ken, I received a call saying I got into the final round – partner interview! So excited! But then that left me in a tight spot because Accenture hadn’t gotten back to me on my pending position. For dinner we ate at New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant, and it was pretty average food but the decro was very oriental which was what attracted me in the 1st place. However, it does seem I’m not much of a fan for chinese food.

10th April 2010 A very adventurous day! We started at the Merrylands Children’s Festival with a pork roll. Then to the Surry Hills Festival with a slurpee and chorizo burger. Ken won me a cute panda which now resides in the back seat of my car. <3 Bus it back to Town Hall and realised since we were near Myers I can finally buy Mario Badescu Silver Powder ($38). Definitely worth the buy as it is going to last me forever! The day was still relatively early so we decided to venture out to Bondi Beach. It was really nice just sitting on the grass and taking in the view of the water and the dogs around. I have never seen so many dogs in one day – it seems everyone in Surry Hills and Bondi has a dog! There was this cute on at Bondi just running around being super cute and friendly to everyone and dog it bumped into. It made me want a puppy even more. We headed to Hurricane’s Grill and Bar at 6:15PM and it was already packed! We were there around 5PM (almost empty) to see if we could book but the waitress just told us to come in any time and wait for a table since they weren’t taking any more bookings for the night. We waited for almost an hour for our table and ordered Boerewors (African beef sausage) and a rack of lamb ribs. Not very satisfying at all. The ribs came out half burnt and I didn’t like the sausage’s texture very much. Ultimately disappointed considering my friends says they have the best ribs here. Rumps and Ribs is still my favourite. Afterwards we made it just in time for fired Mars bars! Not as fantastic as I once remembered it  thought. Disappointing food day but it was great to be able to venture out like this. We haven’t done anything like this since we 1st dated two years ago.

13th April 2010 I had my partner interview with Deloitte and it went relatively well. Although, I got a call couple days later and got told I didn’t make it into the final two positions. I got lots of positive feedback but they thought I wasn’t was enthusiastic as the other two who made it. Fair enough as I wasn’t because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue my career path down web developer just yet. But I’m happy I made it this far and it just boosts my confident because I have made it through to majority of the graduate programs I have applied for. At least I have my Accenture offer.

15th April 2010 Another adventurous day in the city, this time in The Rocks area. I booked a High Tea Cruise but somehow just got a normal cafe cruise. But it didn’t matter, it was $36 pp so very cheap for a boat ride around the city. I felt like such a tourist just viewing my own city while the actual tourist were busy .. sleeping? I have no idea but the table across from us kept staring at us or sleeping. Annoyed, so we left to go on the deck. After our hour boat ride, we walked around The Rocks and shopped near Circular Quay. There is this cute little book store that sells all kinds of interesting books and I’ll definitely go back and buy some birthday gifts there. We had dinner at this random restaurant within the Nurses Walk Precinct and although it was relatively expensive, the food was really good. As the menu was limiting, we ordered a wagyu burger and butter chicken. Afterwards, we went to Guylian Belgian Chocolate Cafe and my friends were right, it was a big disappointment. The waffles were the big square style and cold and the chocolate didn’t melt into the waffles.

17th April 2010 Officially broke after this night. Spent my newstart money + more within a week! >.< Went Whitewater rafting for Nhung’s 24th and it was awesome! Lucky I got a wetsuit because I did injury my elbow and it was bleeding under the wetsuit) when the raft got flipped and I was trying to put my arm out to avoid hitting my head on rocks, and during that process I lost my shoe which a nice guy found and threw back at me. Cherie on the other hand, lost her one shoe for good. As fun as it was, it was very tiresome and I was living off 3 hours sleep as well. >.< Took it all out of me. That night, we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse at North Strathfield and once again the food was average. But it was a fun night catching up with the girl and some of the MQ uni people I used to have lunch with.

21st April 2010 Ken’s 1st official face to face interview at French Forest. Very exciting to see him all suited up for his interview It was a fair distance to travel by public transport so I have no idea how he is going to do this everyday if he gets this job because traffic is terrible so there would no way I be driving.

24th April 2010 ATO assessment at 9am to test data entry skills. Ken did his assessment while I worked on my HR law essay at a cafe across the street. Explored Penrith Westfield for a bit and it quiet small.

27th April 2010 Ken finally bought work shoes! This now hopefully ends our shopping adventure. There is so much shopping one can take especially when it is to the same place over and over for the past two months. We had lunch at Iconic cafe in Parramatta Westfields and they have the best wedges there! It crunchy on the outside but fluffy inside and still maintained it hotness throughout our 30 minute lunch.

29th April 2010 Ken needed to go get his academic transcript for his interview on Monday so we headed out to Macquarie Centre for lunch. Despite wanting to try out the korean place, I was craving eel. So we went to the Sushi train next door and it was ultimately disappointing. I think eating out so much has made all food disappointing to me. I expect too much. Anyway, the sushi were really cold even though the sushi place was packed! Lots of sashimi which I’m not a fan off and my eel was too bland with old rice. Since I was so disappointed and unsatisfied, we went to Chantilly’s Coffee Lounge and we had the New York Cheese cake and one of their unique herbal teas. Made my tummy feel a lot better

I’ve been out all the other days too but I can’t seem to remember where we went for lunch or dinner. I should really label them properly in my diary for next time.

Sahara Turkish Restaurant: I seldom go here but when I do I’m never disappointed. This time we had lunch and ordered a seafood basket and pesto chicken and it costed us $30. Good value, good service and yummy satisfying food! Next time we are going to come back and try the lunch banquet. The table near us ordered it and it was very big and had lots of variety.

Souvlatki Hut: So one day, we got hungry and decided to drive to Souvlatki Hut at Northmead as it was 10 minutes away. It was like walking into a fast food store and we got a lot of meat with our order. The pide was so nice and soft and the lamb was just right. <3

I’m so sick I can’t remember anything else right now. Oh wait, Ken won me a toy on the 1st go! YAY. Evil machines have previously ate up our money, but this time my panda has a kitty for company. Also, been seeing puppies everywhere, on the street being walked, friend’s facebook photos, walking past pet stores, even puppies being sold on the street. I really want one now. Anyway, back to bed I go after I proofread my essay.

6th Feb: Morning started off with yum cha and shopping with the birthday girl aka BFF Jane. Went to Dotti and the dress she wanted was GONE! NOOOOO! But luckily there was another dress she liked. PHEW! Rush home only to find out my rainbow cake was eaten! So had to attempt another rainbow cake. Unfortunely, it didn’t turn out as great. As I was strapped for time with dinner being less then 2 hours away, I try to cheat and layer the mixture. It turned out ok but some parts of the colour bleed into each other. Icing the cake was a big mistake. I tried to cut out the layers and wanted to put colour icing in between to make it more rainbow like. BUT the cake was fairly warm, so by the end of the night, the cake was WAY TOO SWEET as the icing has soaked thru. But it was the effort that counted at least.

- 14th Feb: Chuc mung nam moi! It’s Tet (aka vietnamese/chinese new year aka lunar new year) and we started the morning off with some offering and prays. Instead of relaxing we ended up working.

- 25th Feb: I’m so excited. After 3 weeks of interviews, I have landed myself an official offer at Accenture. Still have to read through my contract clarify some details, but I start on the 15th April. EXCITED

6th Feb 2010 Morning started off with yum cha and shopping with the birthday girl aka BFF Jane. Went to Dotti and the dress she wanted was GONE! NOOOOO! But luckily there was another dress she liked. PHEW! Rush home only to find out my rainbow cake was eaten! So had to attempt another rainbow cake. Unfortunely, it didn’t turn out as great. As I was strapped for time with dinner being less then 2 hours away, I try to cheat and layer the mixture. It turned out ok but some parts of the colour bleed into each other. Icing the cake was a big mistake. I tried to cut out the layers and wanted to put colour icing in between to make it more rainbow like. BUT the cake was fairly warm, so by the end of the night, the cake was WAY TOO SWEET as the icing has soaked thru. But it was the effort that counted at least.

12th Feb 2010 Spend the day with my boyfriend. He spoiled with me a Stitch doll, Spot doll and two fake roses to represent each year we dated. This might be a yearly thing so once I get another one I can put them in their own vase. At the moment, they are sharing a vase of a few fake roses mum and I have brought. All different strangely enough. I went non traditional and got him something he needed – an iron and a purple ironing board. Yes, non traditional. Also shouted dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I don’t usually eat at a chinese restaurant, only been maybe 5 times in my life. Now I realised why, it so damn oily! I was completely turned off even tho I ordered the duck because I didn’t know what else to order.

13th Feb 2010 Parents started off their morning going to Cabra for food. Luckily we prepared our offering food the night before, so I was able to set the table and do the prays. Kim came early this time round and it was a shock to see him. He so damn tall! 180cm+ I think and his only 16 this year. He seems a bit more confident although his posture is very bad. He such a good kid. He has a goal, to get band 5/6 for maths. I’m proud that he thinking about it and going to try although he going to need to put in a lot of effort to improve his current marks. His next goal isn’t looking so good. He wanted to do 3 unit maths to make his mum proud of him. Sweet as it is, I don’t believe it is a wise idea. I rather have his mum being proud at him for getting into university rather than doing 3 unit maths and not potentially doing so well. It may appear his going to follow into my footsteps into IT but focus more of the developer side. There still hope for this boy <3 Amanda is pretty much same old same old.

14th Feb 2010 Chuc mung nam moi! It’s Tet (aka vietnamese/chinese new year aka lunar new year) and we started the morning off with some offering and prays. Instead of relaxing we ended up working.

19th Feb 2010 Katherine (Phil’s girlfriend) organised a surprised 24th for Phil. It was so sweet of her and he organised it a month beforehand too. Party was at Mizuya where she booked a karaoke room and we can order food by a touch screen. Pretty much like Wagaya but with Karaoke. It food was nice, but much prefer Wagaya. It was a fun night, although I was really tired from early morning and rushing around all day. Also I got major blisters (9 in total) from walking to Pyrmont to Town Hall in my Bett’s heels. I think I’ll stick to my Naturalised heels next time.

25th Feb 2010 I’m so excited. After 3 weeks of interviews, I have landed myself an official offer at Accenture. Still have to read through my contract clarify some details, but I start on the 15th April. EXCITED) My start date has been push back until I complete my degree.

So in between those events I can remember I’ve been:

• Watching Valentine Day with BFF Jane
• Watching The Wolfman with Ken thanks to MX free tickets
• Lunch with BFF Greg after my 2nd Accenture interview. Exciting that I get to see my BFF Greg more often since he finishes work at 12pm and my lunch is at the same time and work is only across the street!
• Interviews Interviews Interviews .. something to fill up my time from now until my start date
• Working working working .. long hours hard labour .. thank-goodness I’m not a dressmaker and been making progress with Open-Opportune
• Cleaning cleaning cleaning … been trying to declutter. I’m getting there. my wardrobe is left and I’m half way there! Must really sort them out since I can’t find specific pieces of clothing I need/want to wear.
• My car turned 1years old! Washed and vacuumed but it just had to rain.
• Celebrated our 2 year anniversary <3
• Dinner at Longrain with my two BFFs – Greg and Jane <3 to celebrate me finally getting a proper job! wOoO! <3 you two! It was a wonderful dinner. I highly recommend if you have a money to burn. It is well worth it.
• Eating out quite a lot more, especially with my parents. I think we are going to make it a weekly thing but I don’t think my stomach can handle that.
• And Macquarie University study period has started again. I’m up-to-date thank-goodness. Well actually, since classes were today, I’m behind by one weeks worth of lectures

Well that was a long post hopefully more regular post soon …. and new layout!

Another week of job hunting. I went for another interview today at a recruitment company and the job they described to me sounds promising. *fingers cross*

I’ve been waking up early since Friday and the exhaustion finally got to me today. After the interview, I kept nodding off on the train and when I got to my car, I was too exhausted to drive so ended napping for an hour and half. Thank-goodness for my new neck pillow, I slept like a baby. But it didn’t end there, after lunch I ended napping until 6PM. *sigh There goes my sleeping pattern.

My desktop failed on me this week. Having a ol’ skool scanner, Canon doesn’t have a driver for it on Window 7. As I needed to scan and send my MQ Academic Record, I decided to install XP on my other partition. However, I (don’t know how because I’m sure I choose the right one) installed it on my main partition where my Window 7 was. So I lost everything on that drive. Luckily I have made it a habit to transfer my files over to my data hard drive every week. So I only lost come Open-Opp files (backed up on my server thank-goodness) and some movies. But my problem didn’t stop there. The XP installation was damaged (no idea why since I was scanning my records on it) and I kept trying to reinstall but it wouldn’t boot the O/S. But it is all fixed now. At the moment, I finally reinstalling everything.

Friday 29th January 2010: I dropped off the Tarago to get it serviced. I have a bad shopping habit. I have been spending too much this month, so while I was at Westpoint I ended up forcing myself to sit in a cafe reading a magazine for over an hour while I wanted for the courtesy bus. After that, I ended out to Ken’s to spend some time with him for our monthiversy. It’s almost 2 years!

Saturday 30th January 2010: Suppose to head to the beach but weather wasn’t that great so the girls ended up at the Fish Market and DFO. I had some yogurt at the Fish Market and it was sooo good. Thick yogurt mixed with fresh chunky berries and apple crumble. Sooo good. By 3PM, I was completely exhausted from so much walking. I managed to be good and only spent under $50 on food, a shirt and belt. The girls and me ended getting stuff from Dotti – I got a top in a bigger size so it looks more flow-y on me which was $49.95 to $9.95, and a gold leaf clasp waist belt that I’ve been eye-ing for a while, was $19.95 to $5.95! DFO does have its bargains. Afterwards, I ended up at Ken’s for some pork chops Surprisingly, we been eating less than we used to, which is a good thing because we are both getting a bit heavy.

Sunday 31st January 2010: As result of shopping (over exercising) I woke up with the worse back pain and my whole was soo sore. Ended up cancelling shopping with Jane (for her birthday gift) but I was already awake so I spent the day fixing my computer.

Happy Birthday Cherie Saturday + Beach here we come!

Recap
December 2nd 2009: Jess’s 24th at Maurizio’s Restaurant. Bought her chocolates and a lollipop (which Geoff broke) and Oreo mini cupcakes.

December 3rd 2009: Watched Wicked with Greg. We bought Capitol Class Package where we received a Wicked! program ($20), drink (+ cup $10), a VIP lanyard (+ access pass) and ice-cream. We also sat in awesome seats, right in the middle! I really enjoyed the story as well!

December 5th 2009: Dinner at Valley Thai and dessert at San Churro with Ken.

December 9th 2009: Teresa’s 24th Dinner at Valley Thai. I made her a chocolate cake, earrings and gave her some more chocolates.

December 11th 2009: Dinner at Candeloris with Jane to catch up. Expensive food but it was so good!

December 15th 2009: Shopping with Buie for XMAS gifts. Feet hurt. Needed to refuel after 4 hours of non-stop walking and standing. A couple more gifts to go.

Also been working (slaving) for parents lately and slowly setting up my computer and restoring (and organising) my files. *yawn I’m so tired. I wish I was in U.S.A right now .. but too poor.