With the Internet, we can now backtrack all the information, updates, news that we missed out on.
I find that a curse. Unless we are constantly up to speed, we end up trying to catch up with the past.
So let those moments you have lost go and grasp the present. Don’t miss out on life in front of you for the things that have already happened.
Move forward, don’t look back.
It is fun being active on social media.
It’s fun when..
But after awhile.. it gets tiring and I don’t know how people keep it up. I know you should do it leisurely and as and it is not an obligation. However, you feel like you need to be consistent, you know.
I am the kind of person who tends to do things in bouts. When I feel like it, I will keep doing it until the desire burns out. Then, I disappear for awhile until I feel like doing it again. Maybe, I need to pace things a little and learn to be more consistent.
I am not sure how many notice my current absence from Tumblr or social media in general but I’m on an extended vacation in Melbourne and it’s been amazing.
Today is Day 23.
The past 23 days have been a blast even though I’ve spent quite many days cooped up at home while The Girlfriend and her housemates study for their exams.
The holiday started with a weekend getaway at Mornington. Beautiful house by a lake with a gorgeous view. It had a gas grill, a fireplace, a scrumptious breakfast basket and champagne.
We visited gardens, hedge mazes, a glass studio and a wildlife sanctuary. And we got ourselves unknowingly in the Mornington annual festival with lots of food and wine. We fed ourselves with copious amounts of food over the weekend and we got to feed wallabies too.
Then it was a week of running around the city, catching up on sleep and some factory outlet shopping. Checked out craft markets! Managed to catch the bi-annual Finders Keepers Market and the Rose Street Market. Bought the Girlfriend a bowtie and I got myelf a swanky tweed vest. The Melbourne Wood-Working Show was totally underwhelming though. I thought there would be more design stuff but it was mostly traditional design.
Then I spent my birthday here! Frankenweenie at the Beanbag Cinema, shopped, played with puppies and had the most amazing steak at Rare. And… The Girlfriend bought me a blank Paws! from Coarse Toys which I have been totally eyeing for yearsss. Totally AWESOME.
I have also rolled up and sleeves and cooked up a storm throughout my trip. Culinary Therapy. I made cheese fondue and steak for the housemates. Had tacos. Steak, lots of steak. Soups. So much food that we’re kinda spending the rest of this week finishing left-overs. I was meant to leave on the 7th so I made batches of soups and meat sauces for The Girlfriend to heat up. In the end, I managed to convince the parentals to let me stay for longer hence the never-ending supply of leftovers. Time for the nom-a-thon.
In terms of food adventures, The Girlfriend brought me out for mind-blowing sushi omakase. A medley of raw and lightly torched fish. Melt in the mouth teriyaki wagyu beef. The highlight of that night was the creamiest, sweetest Uni (sea urchin) that was pretty much like ice cream. Oh so delicious. And we had a lot of seafood and did I mention, ALOT OF STEAK. Oh and I finally got to eat at Pancake Palour! There is just something so comforting about fluffy pancakes drowned in maple syrup with a side of bacon and eggs. Maybe it is the excitement of having breakfast for lunch or even dinner. Well I am definitely going back for more!
To summarise, the trip has been about having a lot of seafood, steak, ice cream, craft markets, shopping, cuddles, inspiration, self-discovery, some personal projects, more cuddles and lots of love from The Girlfriend.
The Girlfriend is the most amaaazing and awesome-est person on Earth. I love her to bits.
I am going to start posting some of the photos up.. mostly from my iPhone. Suddenly, I wonder why I bothered bringing my Olympus Pen out at all.
Anyhow.. gonna be here for another 17 days.. I will try to post a little more even if it is just photos. Would probably elaborate on my trip so far along with the photos too.
It has been a brilliant long weekend, really!
Got to spend quite a bit of quality time with The Girlfriend though we are on different continents. And I managed to pack and tidy up quite a bit of my room.
Also, for once in a very long time.. I was bored. I actually really enjoyed the feeling of not having anything to do. Well.. there is much to do but unlike in my last job, I do not want to spend every waking hour working. I want to achieve some kind of work/life balance. I am not sure if this is right or I should be hustling a lot more. What I do know, though, is the fact that I am a lot happier now than I was before. I want to keep it that way as long as possible.
Just put up quite a number of posts on Tumblr as I set out to but there are quite few more things I wanted to talk about. I am probably going to try and blog a little more over the next few days.
It’s going to be a crazy two weeks ahead and I am really not looking forward to it.
Can’t wait for October and my trip to visit The Girlfriend! It’s all that is keeping me going at this point.
My new MacBook Pro came in the mail last Friday and I must say.. it is AMAZING!
I maxed out the specifications.
This baby is a monster! An update that took 10-15mins on The Girlfriend’s MacBook Pro took slightly over 2 seconds on mine. Baby said I shouldn’t say it out loud or her Mac might get upset but I think this is when I can say “My MacBook owns your MacBook!” -cheeky smirk-
In addition, I bought a 1TB portable USB3 hard disk to work off since 256GB is honestly too little. And then there is the nicely neon CS6. Can’t wait to check out the new features in Illustrator CS6!
I like my new set up.. It kinda motivates me to hustle and get the things I wanna do done. Now I need to find a way to get the software I need legitimately without spending too much money. Software is seriously too expensive nowadays. Sometimes I wish I were still a student.
If only Autodesk starts offering Educational pricing for their software, like Adobe, instead of a limited student license….
I bought a nano 8L fish tank for my work place. There is just something therapeutic about watching fish swimming around. And where I work, any form of stress relief is a good idea.
I bought 3 Indian Pea Puffers for my tank. They are feisty little things at a little over 1.5cm. They have a lot of personality and it is rather amusing interacting with them. They are like little puppies in water. I can actually just sit around watching them for hours.
Increasingly though, I think they are pretty tough to take care of despite being hardy little creatures. I have already had a casualty and am down to 2 fish. Also, I have to hand-feed them twice a day with defrosted blood worms in order not to funk up the water. The tank also requires a 50% change every week. Then there is the weekend and worrying they might not survive not being fed or the temperature in the room might get too hot. So my stress-reliever has now become a giver of stress.
Might switch to having prettier, less finicky fish instead.
Haley 18 August 2012
My dear friends Alex and Eric had a baby girl about a month back and I was invited to the baby shower on Saturday. Such a gorgeous baby she is!
It had been awhile since I met up with Alex and Eric. I am glad I could make it for the party. It was nice seeing familiar faces, to pick up from where we left off and have a great conversation. It was heart-warming to know that people remembered me even if they only met me once and possibly a couple of years back.
I guess the first impression always counts and you have to be careful with how you carry yourself. You think you won’t meet them again or they would not remember you. But you’d be surprised. I was.. but thankfully pleasantly surprised.
That said.. I hope people would forget the fact I wanted to make designing sex toys a profession (thanks of vaguely false advertising from Alex). It’s not the kind of sex toys they think.. more of the tasteful Yves Behar sort. Ah well.. that industry never fails to fascinate me though!
So I haven’t been blogging consistently lately as pointed out by The Girlfriend. Trouble is, sometimes, I really have no idea what I should be sharing here. I do not see a point reblogging everything I like on Tumblr and it is getting rather tedious just talking about my life.
I guess I would must rather experience life with someone and just talk about it verbally than to aimlessly broadcast my thoughts and experiences to the world wide web.
That said.. much more really happens in my life than I think. And I really should be recording it down somehow. I ain’t half as eloquent as my better half but I will try my best.
Since tomorrow is a public holiday, I will do some “catch-up” blogging!
