Terrible, terrible essay readings. I am still not able to put together a decent essay plan after reading all the prescribed readings...

To beat the heat: Big powerful fan, strategically positioned under my table for maximum air-flow!

Bacon and lettuce sandwich, with an open egg sandwich for good measure

Korean Beef Stew, kindly shared by my korean friend. Not bad, a tad too sweet, but cleaning up was the worst. Beef fat is just so difficult to rid the smell of.

Oh god 28 degrees tomorrow.

3 pressing things on my to-do list:

- HOI essay (readings/plan)

- EAP presentation

- Drama monologue memorisation

So, so annoyed by inactivity.

Band-aid + moisture + time = freaky patterns on swollen skin

BLT sandwich (Berliner ham, lettuce and tomato)

Tuna Fritters with spiral pasta. The mayo dip was a bad choice.

I never noticed that either

Days without clean bill of health: Why bother?

Cold as hell here, rainy weather to thank for that.

Went to the outdoor BBQ event earlier on. Terrible, reeks of poor singaporean planning. Ran out of food less than an hour into the event, as supposed to an "All you can eat" thing happening. The feed wasn't fantastic either, thin sausages in chunky bread, atleast it was healthy with the vegetables provided. Stood in chilly 10deg wind eating our hotdogs. Hummus and foccacia bread was great though, luckily not many people knew that.

Music was a whole other matter altogether. The band was crap, self deluded excuses for "rockstars". Audience was crap, nobody got worked up by the music. Couldn't blame them either, who would bother to rock out to crappy music in freezing weather?

Waste of 10bux.

Inscription on a plaque in front of an ornamental stone bench

Spotted this cute little baby possum near the venue though. It wasn't really me who spotted it, it was this Oz couple that was walking beside me. It's like all of a sudden they started cooing and stuff, and the guy went "Hey Mac, check this out mate!"

Little fella hiding under the gate mechanism

Saw the same critter in the open near the gate as I was going back home. It was all huddled up and shivering in a little ball. Could this be what it meant by "playing possum"?

It wouldn't budge even as I got so close to it. That's dedication!

Oh well, I hope its in a safe place now. It probably lost its mom or something.

Days without a clean bill of health: 12 days (?)

Unsure whether I'm still ill or just coughing due to the cold dry air. Still getting a bit of phlegm here and there, but it's definitely gone more or less.

Tasty Chicken burritos with capsicum and portobello mushrooms. Nom!

English lesson. Notes for fictitious essay.

This song has been playing in my head ever since I heard it on on an Oz TV advert about Victorian schools' improvement programme.

Suddenly...Bulbasaurs!

Days without a clean bill of health: 10 days.

So I'm almost there now, just the mornings' cold starts and the dry chilly nights causing me to cough small chunks of phlegm. I'm doing well.

So I was cooking yesterday, when I made this really bone-headed mistake. Spatula with hot gravy on it should go nowhere but the pan.

This was the result

This was the solution

Now normally people use running water, but that's just a waste of a resource Melbourne could make do with more of. Not having a bag of frozen peas or even ice cubes only makes the issue more tricky. Not that I prefer the frozen flesh of a fowl to soothe my burns, just that I've got to make do with what I have, eh?

The result, not the best thing in the world, but tasted pretty darned good I must say.

[P.S. The burn didn't lead to any scarring thankfully. The red mark went away in like 2 hours, or before I realised it, whichever was shorter.]

Days without a clean bill of health: 8 days.

Lazy lazy weekend, shame on me for squandering it away!

Went to the park nearby for some fresh air, while I had my takeaway lunch and read my HoI essay materials.

Nice trees overhead, providing much-needed shade

Guess what this is? (Hint: It's wide and blue, beyond the clouds)

Dinners of 2 nights: Faux chicken rice and bastardised seafood risotto. Damn does the seafood smell...seafoody.

Oh and I just realised I had this little cut on my thumb that was the cause of this niggling little pain I had there for some time. Apparently I had a small cut there while I was washing my new chef's knife I bought a week back. That's some sharpness, money well spent.

"The first wind of ascension is Forger, burning away impurity. The second wind of ascension is Reaver, slaying the unworthy. The third wind of ascension is Eliminator, clearing the path to victory. The fourth wind of ascension is Anointer, deifying the worthy. The fifth wind of ascension is Exalter, fulfilling Keld's destiny." -Keld Triumphant

Days without a clean bill of health: 6 days.

Still ill, still going. Need to get my ass studying.

Shrooms growing out of the ground near my place. They look edible.

Brightly coloured hedges blooming in Spring

Dinner: Burritos? Breaded pork cutlet with stir-fried peppers, portobello mushrooms and tomatoes.

Booyah! 97% for maths, 98% for chem, 90% for lit! This is almost good enough news to take my mind off my whooping cough, emphasis on "almost".

I'm still coughing like an old man with a bad cold, though there's less phlegm now, and it's on-and-off too, getting better as the day progresses then crashing late at night. Wonder if I'll end up like the other Richard and lose a lung to pneumonia?

And dinner, just because I can.

Uggh, worst luck ever today.

Woke up late (well on the dot of first lesson actually). First time ever to be late for anything since school began. Didn't manage to get any breakfast in the rush. So there I was, hungry and ill, (body) engine cold-starting (never a good thing), I thought it couldn't get any worse.

Second lesson. HoI tutorial. Got sent out of the class, not because I was late, not because I didn't do my homework, but because I was ill. Apparently my tutor had a lung removed after 2 separate incidents of pneumonia, and he wasn't going to take any chances. Hm, the stuff you learn each day.

No lunch for me, baby. Went for this philosophical talk conducted by my HoI tutor and this other fine gent in this exquisitely furnished common room on campus. The topic was "What counts as a good life?", and it really gave me some food for thought. The experience was enriching, even though I couldn't, and wasn't in any shape to participate in the discussion, having to sit in the "outer ring" of seats while the seats infront were scarcely occupied by the handful of people who turned up, 2 tutors and 2 other students. [Note: I was the only Asian in there. Oooh minority...] I could get used to this actually, feeding my mind, not my face.

So I gues that was a sure sign that the bad luck had run its course. Got back my math [practice] exam today. 97%! Lost 3% to stupid little mistakes, but it's all good. And I got my monologue list too. What to choose... Decisions, decisions.

So it was time to prepare dinner, when suddenly, the darkness rears its ugly head again! Okay, so I just burnt my pork chop, no biggie, the meat's still edible.

And with that I leave you with a funny shot that I took earlier this day that adequately expressed my emotions at that time:

[P.S. For those who think that I don't take enough scenery shots, here's some springtime for you.]

Shira Nui Omakase

So here's the pics of dinner at Shira Nui that I promised.

Starting with a nice tall glass of Kirin Beer. Smooth and sweet-ish.

First Course - Cod. Slightly salty and crunchy, great texture. 4/5

Might I mention that they are really generous with the condiments (pickled ginger and wasabi), and requests were always answered promptly and politely. Their wasabi has a real kick to it, unlike that weak crap that you get from cheapo sushi joints. I suspect their ginger is pickled in-house, a little more on that later, but it was real sweet and did a good job of cleansing the palate.

Second Course - Grilled Salmon. Wonderfully done, cooked but not all the way through, well seasoned. 4.5/5

Third Course - Mackerel, with some sort of seaweed veil. Fishy (as expected of Mackerel) but not too overpowering, in a taste-of-the-sea kind of good. Personally I liked it, but Zitai didn't take well to it as "fishy" wasn't his cup of tea. 3.5/5

Fourth Course - Yakiniku Beef. Oh so so so good. Well marinated beef slices were so darned tender I couldn't believe it was beef actually. Raving good. 4.5/5

Zitai and his parents didn't eat beef, so they had an alternate dish for them: Unagi flambé. Looks really good, but I think the yakiniku beef was still a better choice.

Fifth Course - Arc clam. Crunchy, slightly briny, definitely a shellfish when I ate one (forgot to take a photo before digging in). Didn't come across as great to me, probably due to the high from the last dish. 3/5

Sixth Course - Tuna Steak. Now we're talking. Another one that scored high in our books. Tuna seared on the outside and tender on the inside. Only slightly more tender than the beef, so you know how good it is. 4.5/5

Seventh Course - Japanese Pike. What can I say? They know what people like most: pyrotechnics. Another fishy one, but not as bad as the mackerel. 3.5/5

Eighth Course - Marinated King Fish. How quaint! A local fish in a sushi place! The chef mentioned that he particularly liked using king fish amongst the other local species (ie. barramundi, flake), but he mentioned that the texture of king fish has been lacklustre lately. Still, it was nicely executed. 4/5

Ninth Course - Grilled Oysters in Japanese Mayo. The supposed "highlight" of the meal, it kinda fell short despite the hype surrounding it. It was drowned in too much mayo, resulting in me tasting nothing more than just the mayo itself. I could pick out the oyster swimming amidst the mayo, but I couldn't taste it at all. Not much to say taste-wise, but texture wise it was good, soft slippery oyster that wasn't overdone. 3.5/5

Dessert: Black Sesame Crème Brûlée. By recommendation of Zitai, I got this dessert. The crème brûlée was great, burnt sugar on the top didn't taste, well, burnt. The crème within was creamy and rich with black sesame flavour. The fruit salad with ice cream that accompanied it was not too shabby either. The melon ice cream (I think) was not too sweet and the fruits were fresh. 4/5

So that concludes my dinner outing at Shira Nui. If anyone's interested in the address of this place, you can contact me, or you could just Google it like everyone else.

(P.S. I can't help but think of that old Oz bloke that was sitting beside me, having omakase too. Throughout the dinner service, he was constantly nicking small lumps of wasabi with a chopstick and eating it, as though he were taking wasabi "hits".)