R℮5øЙαЍ©℮ øF ℓ1F℮: 2009

*Sea view @ Lakes Entrance

It has been 2 weeks since I came back from Melbourne. Within this 2 weeks, I have tried my best to adapt to this not-so-new environment. However, the feeling is still there. The similar feeling that I had when I was in Melbourne for the first few weeks. Things were not that good at first in Melbourne because of this sudden transition of living environment. Despite having friends around, I was still very homesick at that moment. Thinking back, it was kinda funny. As time goes by, I started to somehow bonded myself to this house called Bettina.

*This is it, the Bettina's House =).

*... and these are my housemates..

*Featuring the President of Bettina, Mr. Bing.

*The Secretary of Defense, Mr. Alex

*Bettina's PR Manager, Mr. Jason

*Financial Controller aka Ah Gong, Mr. Alan and his beloved...

*... Ms. Vivien... now undergoing bettinafication.

*My second roommate as well as Bettina Activities Director, Mr YC

*... and MUA =)

In other words, I get used to it. Not just used to it, I began to fell in love with this place without knowing about it. The quilt that used to be my greatest accompany during winter night time, the pure white table and black chair which I spent most of my time with, the more-than-enough spacious shared wardrobe and not forgetting as well, the mini waterfall in my room's toilet, where I used to like it so much to spend my time sitting underneath the shower hose with the warm water hitting on my back. Frankly speaking, I wasn't comfortable with taking shower in that toilet initially, mainly because the shower hose is attached onto the wall, which I can't used it to wash my *ahem* after I did my BIG business. Left with no choice, I need to put my washing-habit away and resort to the traditional way aka toilet rolls -__-". Not joking but the truth is that I really don't use it back in Malaysia.

*My Comfort Zone.

Done with my room, and the next place in 29 Bettina that I missed the most will be our dining table. This place is very happening and fulled with lot of memories with it, dinner, lame jokes, movie session, party and of course, the intensive study revision when the exam is around the corner... We used to camp in the dining room with notes and laptops all around the dining table like some company staff table rushing on their projects... Some of us even took our bed out and overnight at the living room. During exam time, proper dinner seems to be not that 'trendy' and packets of instant noodles can be seen every where in the kitchen XD. Well, this is Uni-Life after all =).

*All my housemates are great chefs, one of them even consider of selling rice.

*The Bettinans and Min Yi during his farewell @ Dockland.

*Sok was supposed to be cropped out and put Alan's face on it XD.

Talking about dinner, there is one place which I really enjoyed having dinner in. Despite being in engineering, the girls in this house are able to make wonders out from their kitchen. Any nice asian dishes, you named it, they cook it =). And every time if we were to have dinner at their place, the whole dining table will be fulled with pots and pots of delicious food till even YC will complain "I full already la", which is totally opposite from the YC in Bettina.

*The 5 surnames 'family'

*1909's style...

*100 years later =).

*See, the food are so nice till everyone wanted to poss with it even though it is finished.

*Not only I fell in love with having dinner over at Morton, someone don't even want to leave.

Talking about these girls in this house, I only get to know them well during the second semester and I was kinda surprised that the friendship turned out to be quite good throughout this period. Before this, I only know them by their name and hardly even talk to them although I had same lectures with some of them during second year in Sunway Campus. For one of them, I do not even dare to talk to her because she has this cool looking face whenever I saw her around the campus. But things changes after one of the dinner in their house, and only then I realize that I really love it so much to gather around in their house with them and my housemates, having dinner together.

*The cute aunty, Hilary =).

*The Morton Walking Wikipedia, Eleen.

*Little Girl, Shir Ley.

*T500 and a soon 500D, Yi Mei.

*... and the Evelyn/Morton Monkey King, Max.

Besides dinner, one of the most common event that we had like almost every month is the birthday surprise/not-so-surprise parties. Here is few ways of how we celebrate birthdays:

1. A badly-planned surprise party where everyone, including the birthday boy/girl knows very well the entire plan and he/she just need to put up an Oscar-Winning-Surprise-Face to sort of like appreciate the organizer's hardship.

2. Free flow of alcohols and clubbing-like-environment, where most likely the birthday boy will went drunk and perform unbelievable yet funny action with lots of hilarious 'speech', good enough to entertain each and every guest till they can even forget about the birthday cake.

*No worry, I am not an alcoholic.

*Seok Whey's Birthday.

*Chong Woi's Birthday.

*Kha Liang's Birthday... and many more group photos.

Well, the 2nd point I just mentioned above are the kind of celebration that was 'practiced' by this bunch of well known The 8-Batangs, from Dorothea Mackellar. This bunch of Mechatronics and E&CS rojak gang has an enormously huge pantry where the foods inside are more than enough for my entire 9 months of stay in Australia (provided their expiry dates are more than 9 months). Back to the topic, YES... Each and every time I attended to their birthday parties, the alcohols are always there and the most amazing thing is that, their alcohols supply is unlimited. As a not-so-pro drinker, I always used to hide at one corner in the house and hopefully this bunch of people did not realize my existence. Otherwise, I would have been with one of them, telling jokes without filtering. Anyway, the people in this house never disappoint anyone of us when comes to throwing birthday parties, and as well as the unforgetable After eXam Party.

*The Bettina & Dorothea Mackellar guys @ Dandenong Mt.

*The not-complete 8-Batangs.

*With the Mr. Sao Pei, Karmun Lai...

*... Sand King, Si Keat...

*... Mr. Kevin Phuah...

*... and the one of a kind lan yeng, Chong Woi.

*... and of coz, many more which I don have their personal photos.. paiseh ah..

*sigh* Time really flies. It was like I just went to LCCT yesterday night and TADA, I am back at KLIA. And next year will be my final year. To be honest, I wish I could stay forever in 3rd year in Melbourne. I am really not ready for the Final Year Project and stuff later. Haiz... I have this thinking before that working life are much better compared to study life. Well, this third year makes me realize that study life is indeed the most enjoying period of one's life.

*Things are being appreciated more when they only appear for a few seconds.

*Great moments are always short...

*... and only pictures are left to commemorate it.

It is during this time, we only need to worry about getting good grades, or you can even choose not to be bothered by it. After all, it is just a 2 digit numbers with alphabets on the side.

*The Great Old Warman Group.

It is during this time, friends can gather around quite often for dinners and parties despite of the overflowing assignments and project.

*When comes to gathering like birthday parties, we can only rely on public transport if we were to have it outside...

*... or choose to have it at home.

It is during this time, you will have breaks in between semester where you can hire a car and go traveling with friends. And of course, it is only during this time that all the friends are so close together.

*Don't know why but I like this picture a lot. So natural.

*The last City Hang out.

I wonder how will everything turns out to be after next year?

*Will I be going back to that place again?

*... To the place where the only thing left was memories...

Anyway, my third year in Melbourne was indeed an unforgettable experience and I really did enjoy myself very much over there for the past 9 months. Not only I get to stay with a whole bunch interesting housemates, I get to study in a totally different environment as well. Last but not least, friendships were born and the bond are strengthened, especially during the last trip in Melbourne aka the Bettina-Morton-Dorothea Mackellar-Florence 5 Days 3 Nights Trip where we went to Ballarat, Grampians and Lakes Entrance. I might not know how everything will be for next year, next 2 years or next decade, but at least I know that...