It's 8.30am on a Friday, my day off, and I'm wide awake. No I don't know why I'm awake at this time, though it might have something to do with unexpectedly waking up at 4.30am from a dream of roast chicken, golden oven roast potatoes with rosemary and thyme. We were going to McD for apple pie for dessert, when it started raining - and I woke up.

Another busy week, I'm behind by a post or two - coming up tonight/this weekend - on Saturday Lily & I went to see Fast Ed, and got showbags. Sunday I was working at the De Castella Run, 2k of showbags involved. With classes I went to 7/8, and for the one I missed (acc) I've seen half of it so far. Missed work aplenty, with two mid-term tests next week, and one the week after. Projects for every subject, going solo mainly. New mr it, mr little it, Austin (the name game), was told he's not much older than me, and he isn't... Oh and he's thinner than me XD, I detect hostility during our first class that I turned up to. That or I'm being mean to him for no apparent/provoked reason. Thursday I ODed on caffeine/panadol, felt very sick, and so one of the test has been moved to next week. So much work at the moment...

Today's plan is Lindt, shopping, pancakes, and more shopping. There's sales to go to. By the way, Bourjois has 20% off at Priceline again, and combined with the voucher, you can get this nail polish for free. Today's the last day, also don't forget to get free pancakes, if you're near Melb Central. Colette is having 50% off all their jewellery, if you're a member (signing up is free). Oh and Lindt is doing some promos around 10.30am, the one on Collins. 

Free Short Stack - no purchase required!



Conditions
- As in title, Melbourne Central store only.
- Print out the coupon/show the online SMS from scanning the QR code (here's the direct link to the online SMS).
- One per a person, per visit.
- Expires 31st Aug (Friday).

Notes
- Short stacks are sold for around $12, but they always have BYGOF on supermarket dockets, hence worth $6.
- They allow for multiple free Short Stacks on your table provided everyone has the coupon or the text on their phone.
- The offer is posted on the Student's Offers page but nowhere in its condition does it say you need to be a student and they have not asked for student cards. Just to be safe I'm bringing my card.

Open from 7am till late. Join me for breakfast anyone? I'll be the one with ice-cream on my short stack and a cappuccino. ;)

You know business is bad when the numbers of pictures you took during  your shift exceeds the amount of  sales made. :P On Friday I volunteered for Daffodil day, during the two hours I was there we sold two bunches of flowers and a pen. Location/time fail, we were outside a cinema during work hours on a Friday. Hopefully the people on the evening shift sold more stuff. The daffodil's were nice, but they were kinda dying, and having more of them in a crate w/o water didn't help.

After work on Sunday, which was beside a shopping center, I found a bookshop and couldn't resist buying something, and so bought three books...

Last Sunday we went to an convention (seminars and book signings really) on an unknown topic. The event was called "I Can Do It! subtitled A Weekend Retreat for Your Soul. Presented by Hay House Australia (which I now know is a publishing company, that does new thought & self-help). Before the event I checked out the details, still don't exactly understand what it's on... other than some new age stuff. 

I was shown the break room, given the uniform, and where to put my handbag. We were only needed during breaks from
Arriving slightly before 9am I met the organizer, who was lovely, and like me travel long distance for work/classes, he lives on the Blue Mountains, a place that snows. It doesn't snow in Australia, except on the mountains - or at least since I've been here. This is the second event I've worked at that was at the expo center, normally it's expos with 100+ vendor stalls in a warehouse-ish setting, but for this event it was a lecture/seminar colour blocked room, in the other part of the building. 

The event was mainly talks, so we weren't always busy. I met 3 other girls who are doing the same course, all the other volunteers were women who were interested to very interested in the new age stuff, and there was one guy. When we weren't needed we could watch the seminar, for those attending it's 345.00 for a weekend pass. I only went 1st/2nd session with Dorren Virtue, which I mainly tuned out of, sorry but I'm just not really interested in the topic of angels & co. or that there was a cure for cancer but because it profits much more to treat rather than cure people are keeping it a secret.

There were very interesting parts, namely the part where Dorren demonstrated her possibly psychic powers O.o still not quite sure if it was staged, but if it was it was amazing. No I didn't know she calls herself a psychic, and one of the other volunteers (a believer) was slightly upset about that. I feel like a witchhunter among witches, which is funny, as I have been called a witch before. It's amusing that Dorren calls non-believers muggles :P. For her demonstration she picked a random person and said some stuff not in these exact words, but you get the point. To the first woman Dorren referred to her late husband(50% chance of him being dead/not) and said he was standing beside her, to the second she said her little girl was dead, it was a quote "tragedy", and said the little girl was in heaven with the woman's mother(?). 


During lunch we helped with book signings, at each table one person opened the book (makes it a few seconds faster :P) while the other does photos. I was at the table of Neale, who from my interpretation of his book titles, talks to God. The girl I was with said he was a great guy, as he took his time with each person. I think he did, not sure, but he did take pictures with everyone who wanted a picture. The other girls said one of the more popular female authors (can't remember which) didn't do photos (she had long lines) and had 1-2 body guards. O.o Everyone was very touchy feely, as in they liked to hold hands and hug the guy, fan girl mode, without the screaming and jumping up and down. There was a very uniquely dressed guy, in sort of a colourful striped onesie with a lace overlay skirt and a lady bug backpack. A little girl who gave Neale a book, at the end when he was leaving he didn't take it with him, so I thought he had forgotten it, and attempted to give it to the girl who was walking him to his hotel (next door) but she said he purposely left it, and only accepted it to be nice. Perhaps a better idea would have to have thrown it out in his room where no one would know. 

Lunch...




Lunch dessert was something like a Raspberry Almond Shortcake, it was amazing. Didn't really get a decent picture, as the lighting in the lunch area was bad for pictures, unlike the kitchen (red background pictures), but it's in the 3x3 grid above, 2nd row 3rd column. The food was really good, for coffee they had Nespresso capsules, and there were six different types of tea. I do believe that the expo center did the catering. 


It was an interesting experience, and I don't mean that in a bad way, like when you comment the food/comment was interesting. It was different, very different. I'm not into new age stuff other than collect pretty tarot cards, though don't feel anything and go eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I also like astrology, always wanted to see a fortune teller, but I do think it's mainly a scam. The Hay House symbol looked familiar, though matched none of my book, but I did some Oracle tarot cards that were published by them.

Ebay is your friend when it comes to finding cheap jewellery, especially with those big statement necklaces that are all the fashion this/last season. My definition of statement being often big, colourful, memorable, and not something you'd wear at your law firm. Though if you're in a creative industry it might be ok. If you see a piece you like at Diva for $20, see if it's on ebay before you buy it in stores, and you could get it for a fraction of the retail price. Cut of the middle man, we all know that their suppliers are in China/HK. It'll take a month to ship, not an issue unless you're a last minute planner and need it next week. Here are some I found... prices are the lowest 'buy now' prices found on ebay as of Aug 16th 2012.   

This week was mainly spent asleep with two fully legit sick days, headaches and other aches, including major backaches and possible gum ache, as I spent more than half the week asleep I sometimes get a little confused with what's real and what's not. But what I do know that is real is that when a box of wax strips says only use for x, don't use it for y - unless you want an allergic reaction.



So this week I went to 2/8 classes, normally I go to 5/8 and attempt to watch the others online. I'm not sure what it is that prevents me from attending a full week of classes, though it might be a lack of motivation and always been tired. Help classes running all at the same time aren't helping either. In one of the two classes that I did go to we had a maths test, which I think I did ok on. That's the class I was going to defer to next year, as my calculator has died and Casio fails on communication, but it's too late, plus I don't have a legit reason - on the way to becoming anemic, but not quite there yet. At the moment I have 12hrs of lectures to watch, ranging from week 2-4. The goal today is to watch at least two, without falling asleep, by using the Pomodoro Technique, and by painting my nails during sustainable ops. As I'm working at an expo tomorrow it all has to be done today. 



Tuesday lunch I was running late and forgot to bring lunch, though I did bring dinner (late classes + 2hr one way trips) and stopped for pizza at Melbourne Central, between swapping trains. At MC (as Emily calls it) there are a couple places for pizza, the two Pazzi per la pizza's, one at the food court, another near the station next to Breadtop. And all the others are the bars/pubs upstairs, that require ID. The tandoori sounds amazing and during lunch pizza's are half price at the asian/anime bar, almost tempting enough for me to bring my passport just to buy pizza. :P Not sure if they'll accept that though. 

Back to the cheesy pizza. Pazzi makes pizza in slabs, rectangular, with each slab being cut up into 6-8 pieces, squares. $5.50 a slice. Being around brunch time not much had been sold, and I was the 2nd to buy a slice of margherita - hence the corner piece. I didn't like it. The cheese was flat and the base was hard around the edges. I prefer City Pizza on Eliz. St. Though my favourite pizza place is still Panned Pizza.




I love omlette and have it every fortnight. My favourite way to have it is to add cheese and corn into the mixture when it's half cooked, in a light rye sandwich with prawns and mayo. Before I put it in the pan I add garlic for flavour, though hate eating garlic - unless it's garlic bread.

Ebay Tip: When buying cheap china jewellery produced by the thousands, use ebay.com and compare the lowest buy now price and if you have the time follow some auctions, where half the time it goes for less than the buy now price. E.g. I won the skeleton necklace for 87c, but you can get it at the buy now price for $1.39. By the way, those eyes aren't painted on, the skull is hollow where the eyes are.




I finished the book in about 3 sittings. Anna meets her grandmother, village goes on a witch hunt and she gets dumped would be the plot in a sentence. On the witch hunt part (the climax) it's very intense, bdsm intense, but it's more of one person in a dungeon rather than a group. I liked it how she met her mother's family (mother was cut off cause she married a mortal/outwith) and the descriptions were amazing as always, but perhaps too much visual on the bdsm part. The ending was meh like the title. And I felt that her fellow village witches weren't involved to an adequate level, which was very different from the first book where they were pretty much her family. I think there was also too much magic in the 2nd book e.g. Ana can fly like Peter Pan. Looking forwards to reading the next book when it comes out Feb 2013.


A week or so ago I saw some posts about a worldwide beauty swap where beauty/fashion bloggers bought $50 of stuff and sent it to another blogger in a different country. And that lead to me thinking: why not do that with food? Customs? Weather (meltage)? But still it sounds like a great idea. I'd love Japan's crazy KitKats and Asia's milo. An endless supply for S'mores that doesn't cost a day's pay would be amazing. I found this, though it doesn't look too legit, from an ebayer's POV. Before signing up for any swap do check out the postage costs. The above costs $30 to post to the USA. Fortunately there are places in Melbourne that sell candy from home, though at a $$ price. But I have found a chain that sells it cheaper, I have still yet to find Graham Crackers, Twinkie Bars or Ding Dongs, at a decent price.

Edit:
$10 off New Falsies Maybelline Mascara Voucher at Priceline (makes it 9.25)
50% off Dove's New Purely Pampering Range at Coles (makes it 4.00)

Ingredients
1/2 cup instant unflavored oatmeal
juice from 1 whole orange
3 tablespoons plain yogurt
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons dried orange peel (spice aisle)

Method
1. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.
2. Stir until well-mixed and combined. Thick, but not too runny. You can always add extra oatmeal to thicken.
3. Spread onto your freshly washed and dried face in an even layer, avoid eye area.
4. Leave on for 15-30 minutes.
5. Rinse this mask off with warm water.

Store any leftover mask in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week. Or store in freeze for up to a month.

Week 4, projects, tests, drowning in work at the moment. 8hrs of lectures to catch up on. Maths test on Wednesday, missed my lec today I suppose dreaming about being there doesn't count, and it appears to not have been recorded. Whispering or rather announcements of the college being bankrupt, redundancies (1/3 of the business staff) don't sound so good, but I doubt that my course will be canceled because it's the only adequate course for Events in the state.

Other than doing lots of work, I spent a night reading Style Clinic (it's very good on helping you choose the perfect e.g. suit) and found two new books: A Witch in Love (Ruth Warburton) and the latest Pretty Little Liar book, Stunning. Amazingly I'm reading witch only a couple chapters at a time, I've got the ebook, my eyes go funny after a while staring at a doc/pdf. 


With two days till the code expires I ordered my new business cards, I've designed them and had them in my cart on VistaPrint, but couldn't decided between one or two sided cards. So when this offer from ArtsCow popped up on my feed it was perfect, business cards with a twist. Printed on the back of playing cards. ;) To be left in random locations.


Not sure what the quality of it will be like, considering that I made the picture - but I can say that ArtsCow quality, when you print photo products is great. In the past I've ordered a mouse mat, a couple coasters and a notepad. Though perhaps a notepad that could only be written on by a silver pen or lead pencil was not the best idea I ever had. 


Bourjois posted a $10 off voucher on their page last week, to be used at Priceline. Though their range is small (no primer) they do have some nice nail polish colours. $2 with the voucher, note that the smaller Pricelines, the ones with the medical sign when you check out their location list, don't stock Bourjois. One colour they offered was 'Bleu Model' which is their version of Tiffany Blue. Here's a better picture.

That post on one dress, 12 outfits is coming up soon. :) I've done 1/3 of it.

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