HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

It's not often I celebrate birthdays! But today (technically yesterday... since it's already the 20th) was Boss S' 47th birthday (you can click on that link to his blog, but mind you, it's all in Japanese!). It was a quiet day, his family came in for dinner. His daughters are adorable!

HAPPY 47TH BIRTHDAY! Hope to celebrate many, many more with you!

So, in celebration, one of the chefs made tiramisu! It was delicious. Strong in liquor and a bold hint of coffee flavour (???). I don't know! I'm so bad at this!

ANDDDDDDDDDDD here's my boss posing with his tiramisu!

I didn't buy him anything as a present this year, last year we went all out and bought him absolutely EVERYTHING! Well, that left us with nothing! Never mind! I'll bring back a special souvenir from Melbourne! Can't wait, two days left!


Short post today, been busy with something but I will save that for another post!

Holidays!

Been on a break for a few days now! Had all my exams last week, hopefully I did well enough!

I had a strong need for coffee on the first day of exams, so while I was cramming my notes into my head, I bought a cup from the coffee shop next to my chosen place of study. Admittedly, the Lounge isn't the best place to cram. Everyone goes there with their friends for lunch! So there's lots of chatter and everyone tries to talk over everyone else!!

Coffee on my notes!! I don't think it helped much, but it tasted good.

And yes... I've started using Instagram. My username is Essenity. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing... currently, Instagram uploads to Facebook and Tumblr. Tumblr posts to Twitter and Twitter posts to Facebook. Confusing? Ugh.

To celebrate the end of exams... I went to work all day on Friday. Yes, that's right. Regrettably, it wasn't very busy that day. The next day however, was on a happier note. The restaurant made over $5000! I only worked lunch time and SC worked too. I have never mentioned how... I hate working with him. I've always hated it, although I grew to like him for himself. I still don't like his presentation. I'm too biased! Instead of working both shifts, I left for the gym. As usual, I had a nap in the car before I hit the gym. Afterwards, I met up with a friend of mine and we went to a yakitori restaurant called Yos Mite.

Playing Jenga at Yos Mite

Now, I'm not going to lie to you but for the longest time, I've always thought this place was called "Yas Nite". In fact, I STILL thought it was called Yas Nite even after I sat down. I made the revelation about halfway through our dinner. Sorry! However, I must say their beef tongue was absolutely a dream! Thick and flavoursome! So are their chicken knuckles and I seem to have developed a liking for chicken gizzard. This is surprising as I used to hate them until a chef at work cooked them once. It was delicious. I'm going to have to come here again with Shu.

Sunday was another semi-busy day. Not over $5000 but definitely over $4000. SC was in a terrible mood. Much too quiet and pissed me off a little. Whatever. He can go mope in his corner. Boss R came in and somehow I seem to have taken on the side job of promoting our Facebook page. (So while you're here, click on that link, like us and share it!) it's going to be my little holiday project. Of course, I hope it will be successful, but knowing me, I don't know how long I will stay motivated for.

Cherries I started munching on after work!!

So I might have condemned myself to a busy holiday, but I was rewarded when I got home with a bunch of cherries! Needless to say, I om-nom-nom'd them before I hit the sack... only waking after noon this Monday. I made a start on the Facebook project. I don't think Boss R was expecting me to be serious about it, but hey! I figured, if we're going to do this, we might as well do it right! Now I better get to bed, I have an early start tomorrow! Meeting Boss R at 10am! Hopefully, in a fully awake state...

Tell me your study habits!

It's 2am and I'm typing this instead of sleeping or studying.

There are certain places I prefer to study (if and when I choose to). None of which include the university, the library and, god forbid, my own room or anywhere else in my house.

I think I find difficulty in doing anything is because I need established places. By which I mean, these are places where certain actions can take place, and only those actions.

The university is generally a place to learn new things, the library to me is a place to sleep or find solitude due to the silence and my home is a place I go to relax. No study can happen in these three places because they aren't established in my head as viable study areas.

Strangely enough, McDonald's is one. Coincidentally, it has become my favourite place to study. The branch in Botany has the right furniture, the perfect lighting, the best ambience and to top it off, filled with relatively cheap comfort food. I find it the best place to revise, brood or daydream. At least for me.

Also, I am comfortable going there alone and sitting for hours on end, with my earphones in and closed off to the world. This past week, I've spent many of my waking hours sitting in McDonald's. So many that I probably gained 5kgs!

Back to point; it's that time of the year again when all uni students in NZ are cramming for exams. Don't give me that look, you can deny it all you want, but the immediate days leading up to an exam are the days you learn the most!

Panic has set in and I've successfully convinced myself that I'm bound to fail. This scenario unfortunately happens every semester. I go through denial first though. So why am I not studying?

I've learnt something about myself. Normally, I cannot concentrate for more than ten minutes. Under stress an panic, I find I can go for hours. But the maximum amount of time I can successfully study is approximately 4 hours. After that, everything stops and I have trouble understanding the simplest of things.

I've done more than four hours today, any more and I won't even be able to recall anyway. So I jumped into bed. Except, just before I went to bed, I couldn't figure out something I was studying and now, my brain has latched onto it and it keeps trying to figure it out. I'm sleepy, exhausted and I need to wake up early tomorrow for work!!! But I cannot sleep!

There's been at least three times when my brain gets close to figuring it out but then I lose my train of thought, thus having to start again! I've had enough! Let me sleep! Please!

The second thing I learnt about myself is that I work better with a buddy. We don't even have to be studying the same thing. We also don't even had to talk! Except having a study buddy for the same subject is pretty good too. You can share the load then swap notes.

Which is probably why studying in McDonald's works for me. I can pretend everyone is a study buddy and they are all keeping an eye on me, making sure I do my day's work.


But knowing all that, I'm curious about what unconventional study habits other people have... Please enlighten me?

Heartbreak Cupcake!

Last week was the final week of lectures for this semester. To close it with a bang, I finally went with my friend to try out these cupcakes she swore were amazing. In fact, Rachel (follow her on Twitter! @r4ch31_) loved it so much, she christened the cupcakes bought from Petal's "Heartbreak Cupcakes". Cupcakes that taste so good, it will cure heartbreak.


Expensive as it is at NZD$5 per cupcake, I cannot deny it's deliciousness!

Here's me holding up the cute box that houses the cupcake!

Annnnnd here's Rachel!

To be honest, I got overly excited because I thought the box was just too adorable.

I bought Hawkes Bay Peach.

Rachel's Tropical Mango

OMNOMNOMNOMOM! 

Yes, these pictures were taken on the road. We had about five minutes to eat them because I had to drive Rachel back to uni in time for her class! The icing was unexpectedly sweet, but it's manageable. The actual cake part also had flavouring! So even if you scrapped off the icing and only ate the cake, you could still taste the flavour it was supposed to be!

So, heartbreak cupcake is good enough to make you forget your sadness and sorrow... but for how long? Regardless, I headed off to work that evening pretty darn satisfied. OH! And They also make cakes! So you can order a whole cake to share instead of being a selfish prick and keeping the cupcake to yourself!

What I didn't expect was a quiet night at work. It was ok up until I took a dish to a customer hidden away in one of the booths in the far corners of the restaurant. I set down the dish and made the mistake of looking at the customer. 

OH. MY. GOD. Most beautiful man I've ever laid my eyes upon. Seriously, he aged like fine wine. I used to think Andy Lau was comparable to wine, but no. This guy... this guy was amazing. So good looking, I felt myself go red. His girlfriend was pretty too, but whatever. The point is, he looked like he was 50 and he still looked amazing! UGH. I couldn't stop laughing because I have never been rendered shocked speechless due to someone's good looks. I have been speechless, but not so shocked that I kept laughing all night.

Our boss got curious about my sudden descent into craziness and he went to have a look at the man. He might not have agreed on how hot this man was, but he did have to agree yes, the customer did age well. The other chef disagreed and said he's not that good looking. I brushed him off. Clearly he doesn't know what he's talking about. When the customer left, another customer who saw him came rushing up to us and gushed about how HANDSOME THAT MAN WAS. I swear, he's not human. It's can't be legal for humans to be that good looking.

Anyway, that was Friday night. I also worked yesterday. Our head chef has returned from Japan. He's so in love with his new wife, it's sickening. I am so jealous. He joked that he loves his wife first and I come in second. Thanks man, thanks. Later, our conversation turned into talking about one of his friends. I asked if his friend was good looking and he replied "SORRY! He's already married!" to which I replied "so? I can be his number two!" He didn't seem to like that because he glared at me and declared "NO! I already claimed you as number two! No one else can be number two! You can choose your number one!" I should be worried over how happy that made me. Oh dear, I missed you so much! I can't wait till his wife comes to New Zealand! He'll stop gushing about her. Or maybe he'll gush even more! But at the very least, I can gush to his wife about how he gushes to me about her.

After work, I went to McDonald's to study for an hour. When I left, I forgot my wallet there! I had no idea until after work today. I panicked for a bit but when I went back there, they returned my wallet to me! THANK YOU WHOEVER PICKED IT UP AND HANDED IT IN! You saved me a lot of trouble! I'm never too worried about losing my wallet. Most of the things inside are cards and useless receipts. Cards can be replaced, it's just a pain to do so. I hardly carry any cash because I'm too poor for that. =_= I think today I spent about 3 hours studying in McDonald's.

Must add here, during work today, we have this thing called Gyutoji. It's basically beef with egg and we serve it on this hot platter on top of a fire thing. It continues cooking once it's reached the table. I was taking it to a customer and the thing tipped over and I stupidly tried to stop it with my arm. Sadly, it just continued tipping and fell onto the floor. =( Only the plate thing had fallen but the burner part which housed the fire had only tipped over. Since I had tried stopping it with my arm, the platter had been resting against my arm for a bit, followed by the fire. I didn't notice at the time, (didn't see, didn't feel) so I didn't realise and didn't cool down the area.

During my drive home, I noticed that the part of my arm was actually STILL BURNING UNDERNEATH. OMG. Not that bad but I looked at my arm and I saw a small bubble forming slowly. So I pressed it down and for a bit, the pain stopped so I was like meh. But it continued burninggggg. When I got home, I ran it under cold water and now I'm left with a faint mark. No bubble! All fine!

That's my battle scars from Nishiki. I still have a mark on my other arm from a burn I got from my job at a cafe, way back in 2008. D=