The UFC Game

Another celebration upon completing my studies happened on the last weekend. I was surprised by a call from a friend, telling me that she got two tickets to the UFC. The UFC, people. UFC!!!

I was completely stunned by the surprise as she told me it was floor seat tickets so we're going to have a good sight of the ring. I can hardly describe how happy I was. I insisted on paying her my ticket of course but she refused to take it. It was an early graduation gift, so she said.  God knows how she found the tickets in the very last minute and it was on reasonable price, according to her. Probably on Gumtree or something. (It reminds me to preach her to never trust Gumtree.) 

So we went to Etihad Stadium on Sunday for the game. Despite that UFC is not quite a big sport in Oz, unlike football, rugby, cricket or horse racing, there were thousands of people came to watch the game. Again, Melbourne has proved that it helds the best sport events. 

We got there early and grabbed a breakfast. The door opened at 10 am and not long after the first match started. There were several men matches before the main began. Some of the athletes were Australian, fighting against (mostly) USA athletes. So we both rooted for the Australians. Well, the Australian athletes received the loudest cheer from the supporters of course. 

About two and a half hours later, the two female matches began. The first match was between Joanna Jedrzejczyk (Champ) vs Valerie Letourneau. It ended with Joanna keeping the strawweight belt by defeating the challenger, Valerie. Although she lost, Valerie did put up a good fight before she got knocked out in round 4, receiving a loud cheer from the audience for her good game in the end. 

A surprisingly different result turned out for the main match between Ronda Rousey (Champ) vs Holly Holm however. Being a big deal in the USA and being the champion, Rousey was the favourite in the match and everyone, including my friend (who is apparently a HUGE fan of her) was rooting for her. It was unfortunate that she got knocked out on the second round by the challenger and the bantamweight belt was taken away from her. 

I have to admit that I thought I would not enjoy watching this kind of game. Being a mix of kickboxing and martial art, UFC is a rough game to watch. But turned out I did enjoy it so much and I was super excited watching them fighting! Now I'm thinking about joining a kickboxing class. (Hmm, should I?)

It was definitely one of the lifetime experiences for me. Not to mention that I'm part of the history for witnessing Rousey got beaten up for the first time on her 13th match. I heartedly feel sorry for my friend, though. I don't think she has recovered from Rousey's loss . . . Nevertheless, I thanked her for taking me to the game. It was one of the happiest days of my life! 

Until next post. 

The Finsih Line

I finally finished all my exams yesterday. Yay!!! That's it. That's the end of my education. The two year of studying (read: procrastinating), continuous torture and countless of all-nighter have now come to an end. It saddens me at some point because I know I'm going to miss uni life, but at the same time I can now breathe now that I don't have to worry about tuition, or assignment due and quizzes and group works and presentations.

Thinking about what I've gone through to finish my Masters, god, I'm wondering now how did I do it? One important lesson that I learned from completing my degree: is that no matter how hard it was, how bumpy the road could be, I eventually got through it all with the sense of willingness to go an extra mile, determination and hard work. I made mistakes, I have had my fair share of disappointment and frustration, and there were never-ending obstacles along the way in my studies, yet I arrived at the finish line eventually. Surely, I have obtained knowledge and skills from the degree that would be useful in the workforce. But this one lesson, is what will make me go through life.

I'm awaiting the exam results, which I'm sure I'll pass, and the graduation is in December. Fingers crossed that everything goes smooth Mum and Vincent will be here to attend the graduation ceremony.

Upon me crossing the finish line, indeed a celebration came afterwards. I went to grab some early dinner with a friend then we went to see a movie. We vacillated between Bridge of Spies or The Last Witch Hunter. Tom Hanks won because it was the earliest show. It was real good, you should watch it. We went back to her place after the movie and she popped open a bottle of riesling with Clare Valley marked on it (my favourite). Her housemate is away interstate so we had the house for ourselves. I turned on Spotify and played Milky Chance to help us relax.

Enjoying the wine and the music, we started talking. We talked about life; the past and the future. We shared stories - good and bad, happy and sad. We shared the mistakes we made in the past and how we learned from it, did we or did we not learn from it. We conversed over our plans; her being a nurse in aged care, wanting to pursue a better career, and me juggling with visa and looking for jobs. We imagined what our own future would be like. In the end, we raised the glass and made a toast to life, whatever it turns out to be.

I thank her for such a great night. It was indeed the perfect way to celebrate my last day of uni.

The next day, which is today actually, I had a get-together dinner with my friends. One of them, Momo, has also finished her studies and is going back home for good. But she will be back here for the graduation. It was such a good night that I get to meet my friends and catch up with them after so long. It's sad that she has to leave Melbourne but all the while I'm happy for her for completing her undergraduate studies. I wish her all the best. And for sure I'm going to miss her and hanging out at her apartment with the others. She's kind enough for letting me crash on her couch. 

This may not be the end of my journey, and starting tomorrow I will have to start putting the plans together and make them happen. But for tonight, I let myself to celebrate my achievement.

Oh, and from now on, I can "Netflix and Chill", baby!

Until next post.

Quiet Sunday Night

In the past couple of weeks work has been quite hectic and tiring. We've experienced shortage on staff as people gradually fell sick. Thanks to Spring's hayfever strike. I have worked long hours to cover the abandoned shifts. So here I am, already in bed since 9.30 o'clock, having a lazy Sunday night, listening to Norah Jones's Feels Like Home album while chatting with Vincent and exchanging text messages with a friend.

I wonder if this makes me old, though. The fact is, I am feeling old. Some of my lesbian friends are out in a party tonight while I'm already in my bed. I was invited to a Halloween party on Friday and Saturday but I politely declined due to work commitment, and by today I'm completely worn out. Hence, I stayed home today. I studied a bit for Friday's exam, though. Did some practice on past exam questions. I took a nap afterward and ate some leftover food I brought from work while watching Netflix. 

That sums up my long weekend. But I'm grateful nonetheless to be having some time to rest up and lazying around. I may feel old, but boy, this is just how I am. I'd prefer a quiet day by myself, sometimes with a companion or two, playing cosy music and just winding down to a loud, crowded party. 

How's your weekend going? Hope any of you out there had a good weekend. 

Until next post. 

How I Survived My First Year

Yesterday I received an email form a uni staff on behalf of Student Experience team sort of thing, offering me a participation on telling my story of how I survived my first year as a Masters student. My story would then featured on a new app being developed for Masters students starting in 2016. It appeared to be a recommendation given from one of my lecturers to ask for my participation. I happened to build a connection with this lecturer and we had a bit of a talk about my study experience and life as an international student in Melbourne. I was, of course, excited to receive such a recommendation and an offer and therefore I immediately agreed to participate. However, in order to participate I must answer this following questionnaire.

I have been racking my brain trying to get my story out but I have yet come up with anything so far. As a lone survivor, I understand that I have to make my story encouraging for the new students. The problem is, how do I make a good story of many disappointing group works, countless of all-nigther combined with heaps of RedBull to successfully navigating the classes and assessments in the course that I'm a part of? And my final tip/thought is something sounded like a grumble of international students only hang out with peers from the same background and miss the opportunity to improve their English. Surely, these new students didn't pay tens of thousand of Australian dollar to being told off by me.

Well, hopefully I come up with something sooner than later. In the meantime, I'm going to bed and get my beauty sleep.

Until next post

Nearly There

Hey, it's nearly a month since my last post. It's Spring already in here, by the way. The weather is somewhat changing frequently everyday but I've managed to survive so far, although I fell sick a few times too many within a couple of months.

In regards to my studies, as I've told you that this is my last semester in uni so I've been busy as usual. In fact, I've just completed my last assignment tonight. I'm a few clicks away from submitting it and a proofread and that's it, I'm done! Now I need to only focus on the exams.

We're in SWOT vac at the moment, which is one week before final exams period. I have lots of revision to do considering I didn't do it since Week 1. It means I'm going to squeeze down the 12 weeks of material into one week of revision. And that is for each subject of two that are going to be examined. (Shikes!)

I have to be honest that due to the heaps of assignment load, I completely neglected one subject, that is Auditing and Assurance Services. This is the least favourable subject for me. It's not that I dislike the subject, but the assessment grades weren't up to my standard due to the lack of coordination in group work (more reason to hate group assignment). Considering this situation, I am therefore going to need all the power in me to beat this up.

In overall, I've been doing great this semester with the other two subjects. It means I still have high hopes for High Distinction in those two subjects. Fingers crossed that I'm going to nail it.

Until next post.