I've moved!

After almost 3 years of being with blogspot, I'm moving.

My brother set up a website for me, so now I've got a new site called:

www.lauranelim.com

yes i know. how cool is that!!?? :D :D

Blogspot has been very kind to me, apart from the annoying disappearances of pictures and posts once a while. I've gotten used to how everything works and I really do like the layout here... But it's time for me to go...
Goodbye blogspot!

Always Read the Manual

I've finally figured out why my baking always gets burnt on top before it's completely cooked through.
Duh... wrong oven setting. =.= I guess I always knew this at the back of my head but can't figure out why it's wrong. I mean, I only have 3 settings on my oven. The first one is without fan, the other one is with fan, and the third one... I don't know what it is so I never used it. So i've always used the second setting.

Today I decided to try the third one...
OMG I almost set off the smoke detector alarm again! My unit went all smokey... :S

So I immediately turned off my oven, opened my door and window and started fanning like a stupid idiot (I'm SO glad there's nobody out on the corridor at that time) Then dashed off to look for a manual. Couldn't find one. Luckily for technology nowadays, everything is online. So I found the manual online.

Guess what?

The third setting was the correct setting (yea, you probably thought otherwise :P). The second one I've been using all this while is like.. super double heat grill whatever thing which makes the top a lot hotter. =.=
so WHY did the oven go all smokey!??

I think it's just because I've never used the third setting before which is something like 'circular heating' which i believe means heat all round?
And the smokey smell today wasn't a burnt food smell.. it was worse :S
The manual asks to "Operate the oven for about 30 minutes at maximum temperature to burn off all traces of grease which might otherwise create unpleasant smells when cooking."
Maybe the circular heating thing heats up places in the oven I've never tried before....
That could explain the nasty smells and smokiness... right????

So the question now is....
How do I make sure this setting is usable next time without setting off the alarm??

What!?

I just discovered my cousin has gone to Ireland for studies. He's been there for 3 months.

And I had NO CLUE.


Just shows how much I know about what's going on in my extended family...

(I wanted to say 'and how crap I am at keeping in touch', but that's a two-way thing. It's not entirely my fault...)

I wonder what else has happened that I don't know about. And me missing CNY this year wouldn't help.

retail therapy

Why is it so difficult to understand that one can enjoy doing things alone? When someone found out I was going somewhere alone, their response was- "So sad?"
Then other friends who are busy and are not able to accompany you that day then 'feels bad' about it.
Well... not everyone needs accompaniment for everything they do. Sometimes it's nice to be by yourself. It's nice to not have a schedule to stick to, nice to stay somewhere as long as you want, not worrying about others being bored, tired, or frustrated. The only thing that's stopping you then, is time- when the shops close :P

So I went shopping at Harbourtown today. I had planned to leave earlier but I forgot that the time I looked at on the bus schedule was for the bus stop at Grenfell, not in front of my apartment, so being the genius I am, I missed my bus. It took a while for the next bus to come...

Shopping was fun. No one wants to hear about shopping so I'll skip that bit.

There were 2 busses at the bus stop that I could have caught to go home. I had always thought J1 took a shorter time to get back to the city than 132. (apparently so did a couple of chiense girls cuz i heard them talking behind me). For a reason I cannot figure out however, I hopped on to 132 instead of J1. I was actually Hungry at that time and getting back to the city asap would have been my main goal. But i didn't get on to J1...
So 132 pulled out of the bus stop and started going through... the housing area. I took J1 from the city to harbourtown and it doesn't go through a housing area.
After a while though, I saw the beach! Oh pretty pretty beach... Then I was glad I took 132. Just for that short glimpse of the beach.... and the housing area reminded me of home because for some reason there were a number of double storey houses and it just reminded me of home. So there I was enjoying the beach and thinking of home while all the time my stomach was grumpily rumbling away...
Then when we arrived at the city, my bus passed a J1! Then a few seconds later the J1 passed us again. Then we passed it again! Then I lost sight of J1 (well itw as behind...) and I don't know wha thappened to it after that... so maybe 132 Isn't much slower after all. (or that's the second J1 bus!? can't be...)

By the way, for those of you who have seen them...
You know those giant yellow billboards with the big black words saying "Want Longer Lasting SEX???" Well... they now say: "Want Longer Lasting CENSORED?"

What!???

C. Got a stupid C.
for that lit review on Zanamivir i did ages ago for microbio. I spent so much time on it and got a Credit. =.=

Well at least it helped me remember things for a couple of points for the exam...


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WTH. I've got "Woolworths the fresh food people" song stuck in my head!! o.O

WOo hoO!

I survived! (and i'm now enjoying a late morning/afternoon with a mug of vanilla latte and biscuits :P)
3 nights, 23 hours of work. :) I came home last night with feet so painfully tired i cannot begin to explain.
OK maybe it doesn't sound like such a big achievement, but well... I thought it was. >< we don't get to sit at work. and not only that, we hardly ever stand still as well. Whenever it gets quiet we have to do some other things like condiment preps. (And well maybe with all the weight I've put on over the past few months, its more difficult than it should be ...!?? Bah. im just crapping there. But i did put on weight :( :( :( Yep... not one, not two, but THREE sad faces!)

Oh and guess what? Last night I was also asked to go out to the front counter! I've only done it a couple of times so far. Both times was when there was hardly any customers, and for about 15 mins... (well with so little customers, I ended up doing more cleaning of the front counter than actual customer service...) So last night was like.. my debut! muahahaha. (so dramatic... =.=) The good thing about doing it for the first time at a time like 12-3:30am is that the majority of your customers are drunk, which means some don't really care what you do as long as they get food, and I have an excuse to take ages to process an order because sometimes it's impossible to understand their babblings. And they take forever to decide what they want. And they change their minds a gazillion times (which is actually a distadvantage because then i have to correct things over and over and people in the burger room would have started making something then realise it's not right and start over. they probably hate me last night...) Oh, people are also quite talkative when drunk. whether thats a good or bad thing you decide yourself. I actually had quite a lot of fun. but my favourite customers were still the older people who came in completely sober and orders something very ordinary. :) the thing about last night though... was because it's so busy, most of the time I just had to take the order and not worry about actually getting their food because a couple of people (the managers) where giving out all the food and we just kept on taking orders. It's quite different being inside the burger room. Definitely more tiring and stressful but fun.

ok so obviously no one cares about what happens at my workplace and this has turned out to be another pointless long rambling post. But my computer is still sick and it'll take ages for pictures to be uploaded.

Hey at least i'm still updating even after exams. (how ironic does that sound?? :S)

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Loads of people headed back to Malaysia today... Hope they all have a good flight, and enjoy themselves back in Malaysia Truly Asia, and enjoy all the good hawker/mamak food, and be careful with their belongings, and drive safely since I believe lots of them havent been driving for a long time now.

XOXO

what have i been up to?

DAMN MY COMPUTER AND THE INTERNET! A PERFECTLY GOOD LONG POST DISAPPEARED!!! AAARRGHH! #$%^&*^%$#@!

So. Here I am re-writing the post. I'm so pissed off!! WTH.

After my last long and boring update... I got up to Saturday.

Saturday night: The plan was to go clubbing at Red Square with K and SM. Night started off at C's place with a couple of drinks. Headed to Red Square and after meeting up with K and SM, bumped into Y and Q! So ended up spending the night with them as well. Headed home at a rather early hour (in terms of clubbing nights...) at 2:30am. Damn those high heels... They're such a night ruiner.

Sunday: Started off quite late, managed to try a new recipe which i posted previously, then attempted to clear the houes a little bit before YL came that night to stay. Spent many hours online as well. Totally wasted day.

Monday: Spent the day at Glenelg, finally walking around looking at the shops and explored the other end of the beach. Glenelg is such a tiny little beach. It's enclosed... by this thing I forgot the name of (after 2 years of Geo Higher and even writing my extended essay based on the beach, i forgot what those things are called. =.=) Came home feeling rather tired, so I think I didnt do anything that night...

Tuesday: Met up with M, a friend I made while playing for Cabaret. We both learnt that no one understands the excitement, satisfaction and sense of accomplishment of playinf for a musical unless you're actually in it. It was nice to speak to someone who is still as excited about it as I am right now. :) She graduated from UWC a year before me and I haven't seen her since then. Now she's already done with Uni!! We're so bad at keeping in touch...
Later that night K came over for sing-songing and guitaring and yakking... It's nice to find someone who knows the same songs and enjoys singing along to my lousy guitaring... Glad to have found her earlier than when I found Andetheriel back in Spore...
C came over for a while bringing us her yummy bread pudding :)

Wednesday: Spent the day at D's house with C. D has the most adorable dog, who has a rather unfortunate problem of- Excited Peeing Disorder. ok. I made up that term (duh...) but it seriously needs to calm down and hold in that pee!
Later that night we planned to have dinner at Zapatas (a mexican place, as we really wanted nachos...) Y was so kind to drive us up north adelaide but when we got there- it was full. We never thought of making a reservation. I mean, the last time we went there, we managed to get a seat... So we ended up in Fellini, where i finally managed to try their pizza which is supposed to be really good, and it was. :) apart from the chilli thing which was waaay too salty, but their pizza crust was good anyway...
Then Y and C came over and we played a few rounds of Cluedo. I managed to once again lose every round we played due to my lack of detective skills... (or maybe i just never got the Conservatory card... ;P)

Thursday: Finally managed to bake the Brownies I've been wanting to bake since the day I saw the recipe online! Then later went to work.

And that's it!
I can't believe i re-typed everything. =.= of course it varied a lot. I felt like my first version was better (although either way for you readers, it would be just as boring...)
So here it is. Another boring post from a boring blogger...
Sorry no pictures. I wish I could post some too... But my computer is kind of sick at the moment. Attempting to post pictures would just kill it. Maybe one day when it's feeling better I will. Apparently K's computer started off like mine, and now it's in a coma... (or dead??!) So I think I better not push mine too hard...

The next couple of days would be short days for me involving me waking up on time for lunch, followed by dinner only a matter of hours after lunch as i have work starting from 6pm and ending late at night.... I'm quite glad I have extended shifts this week though (plus today's extra). My bank account is dry... As dry as the desert in central Australia.
And this is December. Three Family Birthdays, Christmas and in general- The Holidays.
I need those shifts.

Goodnight.