Frogs!

My aussie employers have got a brand new store in the furniture catchment area of Dandenong South, a good 30+km away from my current place. That's like Jurong to Bedok!!! ** Our actual signage wasn't quite up yet.

Here're some peektures of the store-in-motion and some loovely pics of a colleague's kids, Oscar and Allie, they're both massively adorable. And Oscar's born on the same day as I am - we connected straight away. Even though all we said to each other were - Choo Choo and Ball Ball. :)

Wandering Planet?

My mind tells me I should change the title of this blog to Domesticated Boy. Not quite the wandering planet of late. Ah well, they're all just words aren't they?

Check out the traditional Chinese brews I bought. As we speak, am boiling barley to cool down the system. Currently afflicted with a double bonus - wisdom tooth action and an infected throat.

Food glorious food and the temporary drum kit

The household went slightly mad with tacos for dinner :) My usually vegetarian housemates also went nuts with a slice of Kangaroo roast.



And my attempt at vegetarian-ish dinner. Whilst cooking I had to let go some minced pork though into the Moroccan Chickpea Mix. Need my meat.



Above's the loan kit a church friend kindly loaned to me to bang on until I get my own. Finally. A kit to practise on.

Not quite moomba-ed

That's my sister Melissa who's visiting from KL above (yes I meant it both ways). It's been great having her around!

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Monday was Labour Day, and is traditionally celebrated with the massive Moomba Festival. I recall having a fab time there a couple of years back, but this year's scorching heat @ 37 didn't make for a great time at the carnival. So we ended up doing everything else after the 40 minute drive to town.



On the way to Moomba, we got so hungry for Vietnamese Pho we forgot Windsor's vegetarian requirements. So he spent the lunch hour staring at Basil, Taugeh at al.



The famous Hook-Turn signs in the city. Been a long while since I needed to do one, staying relatively far from the city.



Only way to beat the heat? Stay close to the malls and load up on ice cream.



And then we played pool with too many balls and Mel going nuts with the camera :P. Yeap, not much pictures of the Moomba Festival at all. Coz there simply wasn't much to do there in that heat.

Getting Botanical

We've been quite keen on subsistence farming over at our residence. Ron started with a couple of plants and I've caught on. Here's our little ensemble of edible plants.


Fresh bounty from Bunnings. Chives, lettuce and a flower for the sweet.


Lettuce into the ground.


Ron's Basil ensemble.


More of Ron's ensemble, including thyme and Trevor the cactus.


And lastly, the flower.

New semester

The new semester has arrived. Within a blink of an eye, two weeks pass.

My subjects this sem require heavy duty reading, not one of my hobbies. Especially when it's reading not relating to religion or popular science. Had a massive presentation this week on Issues in International Communications, yes it's just week 2. Worth 20%. How intense!

Here're what they are about -

Issues in International Communications -
This unit explores key issues arising from the rapid change in the international communications environment by examining the cultural, political and social impacts of transformations in communications technologies - from text-based media to the borderless reaches of satellite and the internet. Students will examine e-governance; the impact of cable and satellite television; the use of the internet as a space for dissent during conflicts; computer hacking and cyber-crime, the internationalisation of news coverage and dissemination of information during times of global and local crisis, with particular reference to reporting terrorism and the 'embedded' journalism of war-time.

Communications, Convergence and Public Policy -
The unit analyses the convergence of narrative film, television program and web page on the Internet. Implications of this process are considered for knowledge construction, online communities and public spheres, as well as for use of the internet and communication policy philosophy, particularly but not exclusively in Australia, Malysia and Singapore. Through discussing internationally published research, media theory is demonstrated to have a wide range of applications across internet user and consumer studies, electronic journalism and policy and public relations practice.

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In other news, more of my work on the local papers. This one's on a community paper called the Diamond Valley Leader.

Smile

Here's me working on my laptop in the backyard saying hello.