The Mad Student: April 2008

What boredom does to me

So i spent my evening hunched over 3 chicken drumsticks, armed with forceps and needles, honing my suturing technique. Man was it challenging, mainly because chicken skin isn't meant to be sutured and also because my foreceps were the dodgy plastic sort which didn't hold too well.

Pig's trotter's next! (Why do I suspect suturing pig's trotters would be way healthier than eating them?)

Movie Review: Awake

What do you do when you have been immobilized, lying on the cold hard surgical table, waiting to be spliced open for a heart transplant, and suddenly realize that you can still feel pain? He forced himself to focus on his beautiful newly-wed wife; her smiles, their happy moments. The pain becomes bearable.

What would you do then if the most horrific physical pain then becomes matched with the most unimaginable emotional pain? He discovered his surgeon was in cahoots with his wife to kill him for his money.

What would you do if the surgeon told you your 22 year old son, heir to a multi-billion dollar commercial behemoth, had rejected his new heart? She killed herself, so that he may live.

Countless reviews have whinged about the effort put in to keep awake while watching Awake (pun intended). But let us be fair. If you watched the movie expecting some fireworks-worthy romance between Alba and Christensen, you might be let down. Yet, against the backdrop of countless new releases revolving around boy-girl love, I didn't mind that one bit. This movie reminded me that the most powerful love need not always be that between husband and wife, or a girl and her man. But that a mother's love for her son could be just as unconditional and self-sacrificing, if not more.

Rating: 9/10

Easter @ Adelaide 2008

The housemates plus Mel and I packed ourselves into Kel's new Honda Jazz (also known as 'Baby") and drove 750km Northwest to Adelaide last Friday. It was my first time on a 8.5 hr car ride and I surprised myself by not developing DVT (deep vein thrombosis).

We arrived at 11pm Adelaide time and checked into Glenelg Hostel where I discovered another reason why people spend their lives chasing after rectangular pieces of plastic with numbers printed on them - holidaying on a budget sounds hip and happening, but pretty much uncomfortable. For AUD25 a night, we slept in a room with 6 beds, 2 of which were occupied by male strangers. And there were 2 power points in the whole room. 2 POWERPOINTS! Did I mention there were 6 of us? Which meant 6 mobiles and 5 cameras to charge, not to mention the fact that hair-dryers aint battery operated yet. If anything, I was reminded of how fortunate I am for life God had me born into. He He could have had me spend my life dodging bullets, or scavenging for food as a gamin. But He didn't. Instead I worry about putting on weight, that occasional zit and whether I should study Neurology or watch a movie.

Its funny how we were reminded of His love for us, 2000 years after giving us His son.

Day 2

Visited Chinatown, which consisted of 1 short street. I was impressed that there were a few food courts there with a decent variety. Melbourne needs a few too!

I chanced upon CameraHouse and picked up a Sony Cybershot DSC-H3 there. It has since come to be known as 'Ashley'. Despite its small frame, this beauty packs quite a punch:

• 10x optical zoom (useful for spying on people/animals)
• 2.5" LCD screen
• Max shutter speed of 2000msec and aperture of 9.0

All this and more for AUD399. (It was AUD569 just 2 weeks ago)

Then we checked out the big big market:

Had an awesome lunch of Fish & Chips @ Fish out of water:

But we were greedy, so after lunch we...

Unfortunately, those were too small, so we found...

(Yea yea, we know who is the greediest now)

Evening was spent at Semaphore Beach where we watched the awesome sunset in the not-so-awesome cold.

Don't understand why some people act as though they've never seen the sunset before =p

Checked out a 70's-styled chic joint called Spatz which was about 5 mins from the city. Kel and I agreed that it looked way more whore-house than chic-joint, with red, blue and green lamps. The food was expensive and reeked with mediocrity. Yet the joint was packed. Says a lot about the nightlife scene in Adelaide.

Their dessert looked good though

Day 3

Drove for 1.5hrs to Barossa Wine Valley, one of the main attractions of South Australia, where we spent the day tasting wine, touring wine yards and of course, cam-whoring.