My purpose of coming to Australia: visit relatives, look around the bakery, and have a holiday. I'm so tired now, and it's not because we've been out and about shopping or sightseeing. I've been helping at my relatives' bakery the past few early mornings. We would wake up at 2am (11pm Singapore time), go to the bakery and work till around 8am. Go home, sleep till my energetic cousins wake me up which is around 3ish-pm, then we'll last till about 10pm. Then we sleep and repeat.

It's crazy. I'm glad I experienced first-hand the life of a baker. It's definitely not a work for me. These traditional professions are usually time-consuming, but you need skill too. It's tough and hard, at least for me. But if you're super hardworking and got the drive, a love for bread would be a plus, then this is the job for you. The smell of dough/bread/wheat sickens me now. Icing cream, even worse. These caucasians have very very very sweet tooth. It was repulsive for me when I had to embellish bread with icing cream/sugar, and topped with super sweet stuffs like rainbow sugar bits, coconut shreds, cinnamon powder, and dried apricots. I am going back there again for the next 3 days. My uncle won't be at the shop because he has to lion dance for Chinese New Year celebrations. That'll just leave my aunty, alone in the bakery, hard labour. So my mum and I are going back to help. I'm cool with it because family helps each other, and because they're housing and feeding us for 2 weeks, so it's good we're lending hands. But my body is so so so tired and not used to this. My brain keeps brainwashing me with "I'm here for a holiday, not free labour!" and "I'm so tired I'm so tired I'm so tired." I'm just going to say, I'm not going to bake anything, ever, for the rest of 2009. NOT EVEN CHRISTMAS. I'll stick to cooking.

As I was saying, I'm too tired to use capital letters unless it's something like THIS.

i can't really remember much of day 1, but i think it's because i slept in. then we went out for dinner at sofia's restaurant, i was given some talk by my uncle that was probably supposed to change my mind about photography as my profession and change my mindset of an underachiever and something when i started to cry. i was just so stressed out by his tone and words and i remember being very angry at my mum for just sitting there and keeping quiet and not sticking up for me. wthttm. so the drive home my uncle was talking about singapore's education, singapore's teenagers. BEING the singaporean, i felt that he had to update his perception about singapore's teenagers and education, because from where i'm coming from, he's about half right and about 4 years behind. but i didn't say anything, no one does whenever he's onto something, from what i observed.

but my uncle's a nice person. always seeking to help. i just didn't like the way... amanda, eugene, he's a bit like edward!!!!!!  hahahahaha.

day 2 was better. we went to victoria market. all i have to say for this part is, my mum saw a lady stealing a rock melon. she just walked by, picked up a melon, put it into her bag and walked away calmly. she didn't even need to look around. we thought it was a ridiculously funny scenario. we went to westfield shopping mall foodcourt to eat dinner. it's very spacious. but the food is extremely pricey. i had char kway teow for AUS$10.90. it wasn't even nice. it was horrible, a big scam.

day 3 started early. we went to the bakery. i got some nice photojournalistic shots with my mum's camera phone because my camera died on me. i got to put the dough into the machine to morph it into different shapes, place the dough on the trays for baking, scrap the shelves free of dried dough, wash dishes, knead dough, knot dough... etc. after that, we went home and i climbed straight into bed. my mum woke me because they were going grocery shopping for steamboat. for the first time, in my life, i saw cute little ladybugs crawling about the vegetables. my nose and throat was feeling itchy and my cousin told me i was having hay fever. but now, i don't think i have it. :D pollen grains in the air of melbourne, making me itch.

day 4, today, we went to help out at the bakery, again. I looked out of the window during the ride to the shop, and thought it was a pity i don't have some knowledge of astronomy because the stars were so awesome and i am pretty sure there's some alignment thing in what i saw. at the bakery, again, i visualise the many many many possible way of dying or getting terribly injured in the bakery. it's scary. as I did the seasoning(poppy/sesame seeds) and embellishing the bread, I realised that if any FnB company hire me to make FnB, they would suffer a loss of ingredients because I'm so generous with it, or they would have more loyal customers who love them for being generous.

day 5 is coming and i'm going back to the bakery again. i have to go shower so i can sleep because we're leaving at 1am instead!!!

zzzz.

Many people's first post for the New Year would be reflections, resolutions and so on. I'll do that on my second one.

"5! 4! 3! 2! 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR SINGAPORE!", the television was on. My mum, from the kitchen, asked me, "So got any resolutions?"

"Haven't make."

"HIBERNATE!?" My mum misheard me. Yeah right, hibernate.

LOL-worthy.