I'll be honest, I can't remember most of the things I have bought. But I'll give it my best shot. Trying my best to remember, I think I spent something just on $500. To me, this is huge. I had never spent so much before. It used to be $200 was already a huge spending spree, but this is kind of ridiculous.
Most of the crap I bought were homewares. The booty I collected includes 12 medium sized dinner plates, a serving platter, a casserole dish plus lid (Harris Scarfe), a large serving bowl, a set of six martini glasses, a baking dish (Matchbox which is a new fav), a two tiered cake stand (Myer), a set of four tart tins (David Jones), an icing gun and a pizza stone (General Trader). It seems like quite a bit, and it kind of is. It's hard to say what made me go so nuts on homewares this year. It may be because for the first time ever, I kind of had a license to just buy all kinds of crap. However deep down, I think I'm slowly prepping myself for the day I come to move out. In fact, I was repeating that to myself. I knew that although I already may have something similar at home, to have something of my own would be extremely useful in the future.
What I didn't mention in the list above is perhaps the biggest buy of the summer though, and the fact that my brother bought it for me as a gift makes it all the more special. From House, we bought a 20cm Global chef's knife. It is so unbelievably sharp, sleek and all round sexy. It is something that I'll take care of for the rest of my life, and most likely guard it like a child.
Ok, clothing. I didn't get as many clothes as I'd have liked, but that's because I spent so much money on the homewares and clothes are so much more expensive. But what I did get was a pair of grey suit pants, a casual dress shirt (Roger David), pair of shorts (Ben Sherman) and a pair of blue/grey jeans (Tarocash). Looking back, not much at all. However it should be able to satisfy me for a month or two before I start itching again. I also bought a Fred Perry shoulder bag from BrandsExclusive. It looked nice in the photo, but as with most online purchases, I was fairly let down when I had the product in hand. Regardless though, I'm sure I can make it work.
Onto the rest of the crap I've bought. Also from BrandsExclusive, I've ordered a pair of compression shorts to match the compression top I bought back in October. I figure the shorts will actually be a lot more useful because soccer doesn't require a great deal of upper body movement and I rarely play cricket now. I also bought some swimming trunks from Rebel, for when I finally get off my ass and go swimming to try and get that six-pack. From JB Hi-Fi, bought a pair of expensive ass Sennheiser earbuds and a pack of blank CDs (not suss).
All in all, I count that as a successful shop. And although I've spent over a third of what I've earnt in the month leading up to Christmas, it doesn't sting so much. For once in my life, I'm spending money that I earnt, not what was just given to me by my parents. With that in mind, I still need to buy some things. Namely a pair of white soccer shorts, maybe some knee high socks and a couple of shirts would not go unappreciated. We'll save those for the mid-year sales, I guess.
Written by banh at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
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It's a new year! And with a new year comes new years resolutions, my favourite part of the year.
Let us begin with the vain ones. I'm big on vanity. For some people, the motivation behind losing weight is for their health. Overly fat people who can't really go anywhere rarely live fulfilled lives. I aim to lose some weight over this year. To be more specific, I aim to break the 70kg barrier. If I can finish the year in the 60s, it will be a minor miricle. However my motivation for this weight loss isn't for health purposes, pure vanity. Succeeding in this will allow me to answer a question that has bothered me for years, "Is life easier with a tight six-pack?" I believe it could be. And if it's not, I'll be sure to let you know.
Ok we've gotten that out of the way, onto some more meaningful resolutions. Of those that I might keep... There's a reason why new years resolutions don't stick, people often make wildly hopeful ones which cannot be measured and hence are not followed up. I could say I'll try to be more nice to people, be less of an douche or be friendlier to strangers. That is all well and good but come December next year, how will I decided if it was a success or a failure.
I'm not going to use that as a cop out though. The second of my new years resolutions will be to be more decisive. I have suffered in the past as a result of indecision, and I'm sure others have too. Before last year (2009), I wasn't actually aware of this flaw. It was only after things went belly up with a girl was I made aware of it.
Call it aiming low but I think two is enough. Including all the token ones, I think I'm well set for the upcoming year.
Labels: rant, resolutions
Written by banh at 9:23 AM | Comments (0)
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Another year has ended, a big year too. One of the biggest in recent memory. Quite a lot has happened and I don't really remember most of it.
First and foremost is uni. Second year we begin to specialise so while everyone went to do their biology subjects, I stuck with my maths and chem. At the beginning of the year, I was still desperately trying to stay connected with everyone (unsuccessfully) and that consumed most of my energy. As a result, I wasn't getting into uni work as much, wasn't enjoying it or really succeeding either. It was a bit of a dark period, I was feeling a little bit mopey because I felt cut off from all of them.
Eventually I wised up though and just settled into the law library. It is only now that I believe I am slowly penetrating into the circle in the law lib. I already had a solid base in all the MHS kids but slowly but surely I'm befriending the others. It's also kind of fun not doing any subjects in common with any of them so I have no idea what they are talking about when they yap on about assignments and tests. It actually makes it really easy for me to concentrate on what I have to do, because I can zone out of their conversations since I don't feel I need to correct them if someone says something wrong. I'm quite proud of that discovery.
As a result, I had never been more on top of my work in the first semester. Seriously, I was so on top of things I had nothing to study in the days leading up to my exams. It was partly because I found them a little challenging, so I had to work harder to keep up. And then because I was keeping up, I didn't need a massive catch up at the end of the year. First semester results were pleasing. There weren't any real surprises, I did as good as I expected. I felt more rewarded than anything. A really good semester's work became a very satisfying set of results.
Second semester was slightly different. I reconnected with my science peeps a bit more which meant I wasn't able to be as on top of things as I was in first semester. My attendance in this semester might have been better than in all the previous semesters, but that definitely did not mean I knew what was happening. In fact, I might have even been the most behind ever in spite of my kickass attendance. Exams results this time were slightly more surprising. I had managed to actually do better than the last semester, even though I was sure I'd do much much worse. So all in all, a successful year study wise.
How about other things apart from study? Well life has come to teach me a couple of things. Everything is so much easier without having to worry about girls. The second half of my year, I didn't have to worry if anyone liked me, if I liked anyone or any of that relationship crap. It let me enjoy my time a lot more and just try to get the most out of it.
What also helped me not worry about this crap is playing soccer every Saturday. I think the best way to describe how much this meant to me is by recounting a conversation I had with Jack Yao before the season began. He was giving me a lift home and we were talking about soccer. It came up that it was really good having something regular that you can look forward to. It's almost like building your life around something, everything else that happens is in relation to it. For me, soccer was this anchor.
Being able to see some of my best friends every week is already good enough. But then to be able to compete against strangers in sport gave me this primal pleasure that can't be obtained any other way. No matter how crappy of a week I might have been having, knowing that Saturday was coming seem to make it go down smoother. And even if we lost, going out for food afterwards was always a great laugh. It was all made better by the fact that I began the season as an emergency and ended up playing most of the games, and even starting in a handful. I transformed from a crap left back to a... apprentice centre back.
So 2009. Great year. So much good happened. Uni was highly successful. Soccer was unbelievable fun and so rewarding. I learnt important life lessons, namely worrying about girls is a serious buzz kill. I also learnt to drive, logged 120 hours and got my Ps. It is a year I'll look back on and give myself a big great pat on the back.
Well done, Banhy boy.
Labels: rant
Written by banh at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
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Tonight we went ten-pin bowling. I did a down-right awful job of it. Let's look at why.
Watching my ball travel down the lane and miss the pins time and time again, I noticed that most of the time (as a left hand bowler) the ball would start at the right and then drift across to the left and into the gutter. Being the astute anaylist, I have found a bit of causality to this effect.
I beleive I can blame it on cricket. When I'm asked to bowl a ball down a long strip, I instinctively try to get it to drift across from right to left. When I was at my bowling peak, after I stopped trying to swing the ball into the batter every bowl, I was bowling cross seam and relying on angle and the occasional bit of seam to get my wickets. Most of my deliveries would be pitching on middle and off and going further across. Every now and then I'd try to swing one back, but that was very rare. I like the type of bowling, it's high percentage.
And that is why I create such an angle when I ten-pin bowl. Now here is an interesting twist. For a laugh (and desperation), I decided to chuck one down with the right hand. By some divine intervention or Hollywood script, I managed to knock all ten pins down with one ball. Explanation? My right arm isn't wired to create the angle, so the natural delivery will be straight and unhampered by previous muscle memory. Brilliant, eh?
Some more serious posts to follow. Sad and serious, the most fun kind.
Labels: bowling, cricket, rant
Written by banh at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
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Tomorrow is Boxing Day, quite possibly the most anticipated day of my calendar. Call me shallow and materalistic, and you'd be pretty spot on. No arguments here.
Shopping is one of the great pleasures in life. Maybe not shopping, perhaps just having new crap. I love new stuff. And there is no better week for easy shopping than the Boxing Day sales. Sure, there might be bigger sales across the year, but this week they all come at once. The excitement gets the blood pumping, the adrenaline running and you end up buying stuff you wouldn't normally buy, but you do just because it's about 5% off.
Ok, so list of crap I need to get. This is more of a reminder for myself, so I have some sort of idea. Homewares first up, of course. It's a mixture of things I want and things I need, mostly the former. Top of the list if a flan pan or a tart tin, and then some tart rings. I might invest in a pizza stone too, just because I've been meaning to buy one for a while. Also on the list are some big serving platters and plates, just for when I entertain. If I am really to splurge though, I'd buy a new chef's knife. In the past couple of months, I've used awesome knives twice. Really awesome ones. Like the ones they plug on shopping channels. They're so lightweight, but they are strong too and sharp as heck. To slice through something, you don't need to put much force behind the knife, it just glides through. And good knives make the difference. I think I've done well so far with what I've got, but to get a really good quality one would cap off a brilliant year.
Moving onto clothes. I don't have a great need for new clothes, but they never go unappreciated. A couple of business shirts is high on the list. And I'd get some trousers too but I'm much too lazy to try them on. On the casual side, I could always do with a couple of tees. Some new shorts definitely need to be bought. Shoes are a question mark. I think I should buy some, but whether they are dress shoes or just casual ones remains to be seen. Also a hoodie would be good, especially if they're going real cheap.
And then the most important part of going shopping, the actually going shopping bit. Originally I didn't plan to go until the weekend was over because I'm a naturally lazy person. However listening to all the friends talk about working ridiculous hours and going real early, I figured why not. But I'll make a compromise by only going to Eastland tomorrow morning. The idea of going in the morning is important in three aspects. For one: getting in early means larger crowds so I'm more inclined to buying stuff. Number b: Theoretically it will be when the most stuff is available, and finally letter 3: I can make it home in time for the cricket. Actually the last reason is about 90% of my motivation.
Written by banh at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
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