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Last day of uni (Black Star Pastry + Grill'd)

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Last Friday was our last day back at uni, it was kinda sad but more exciting at the same time! We had made plans to celebrate afterwards at Newtown.  I've seen so many people raving about the Strawberry Watermelon cake at Black Star Pastry so that's we decided to settle for dessert. We finished uni at 4, got a little speech from our lovely coordinator, took a year group photo and set off on the walk to Newtown. It was kind of early for dinner so we decided to have dessert first. We got to Black Star Pastry at 5:01 and were devastated to see it had already closed! We were late by a minute (they close at 5). Despite our efforts of knocking on the door, the staff inside did not open up to apologize. But while looking at the door we realised there was another pop-up store at Town Hall. We had to decide whether we would chase it or leave it, and we chose to do the former, for obvious reasons! We desperately wanted that cake! We went to Town Hall and took a while to f...
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Oriented October

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Happy Halloween everyone! I was super late last month , so I wanted to redeem myself by getting my post out on time this month. This month has been a huge learning curve for me. It has been super busy and crazy, as usual. I spent most of it doing statistics, but the good news is I am starting to get the hang of it. I feel more comfortable doing the analyses now, and I have started keeping good notes of what I am doing so I can go back when needed. Besides statistics, I conducted a few focus groups with another friend and attended an UCL behaviour change workshop, both of which have been very helpful. There was also a sad happening this month which left me feeling down for a couple of days, but I am reluctant to write about here at this stage. I am trying not to think about it for now because I know I should be focusing on the positive things. Other than that, it has been a pretty good mix of quantitative and qualitative work. In other news, I went to Parramatta Lanes and made ...
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The beginning :)

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Hello there, As you can tell from the title, I like to partake in shenanigans so thought I'd make a blog and document it. I actually thought about doing this for ages. But I wasn't sure how and when do I begin? Or if I should write even? My 'big' plan was to launch this blog in January this year but it got delayed by quite a bit as you can see we are in June and I'm still writing my intro here! I did make an account earlier though, but I never got around to writing because I was busy with training placement and it took so much out of my time, it didn't really leave time for anything else. (For anyone that's not familiar with what being in placement involves- it's basically like full time work but you don't get paid anything. You may be armed with a whole lot of experience but it leaves you exhausted and broke) :( Now getting to the proper intro - I'm a 22 year old student dietitian living in Sydney. I've always wanted to blog but n...
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El-Phoenician Restaurant

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My homie just got back to Sydney so we caught up for dinner! We haven't had middle eastern food together so we decided to go with Lebanese cuisine. It was pretty light because we went on a weeknight. As usual, we took a very long time to decide what we wanted to eat. The staff kept rushing us asking if we had made up our mind. We did not like this one bit because we always take our time to order, and we felt it was unnecessary to pressure us into ordering because the restaurant was almost empty!   Eggplant dip was the best; it was smooth, soft and creamy. It was my favourite. I could literally eat this every meal; eggplants are one of my favourite vegetables (yes, I have too many favs when it comes to veggies!) Hummus and Lamb was an average dish. It didn't really stand out to me; I didn't hate it, nor did I love it. It turned out to be our least eaten dish from the night, and it's one dish we wish we didn't order. Mixed platter was pretty good, seasoned wel...
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Five things I love about being a dietitian

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I've been thinking about writing this for a while now but thought I'd leave it for something special like Dietitian's Day (which is today) And here we go :) 1.    You are legally allowed to spend more time thinking about food.  The normal, acceptable amount for a person is 10% (according to experts), with exceptions for people if their profession involves dealing with food. If you're thinking more or less than this, your dietary habits may not be considered so normal. But as dietitians, you're allowed to obsess about food, and it's totally okay! ;) 2.    You always have something to strike up a conversation. Have you ever been in an awkward situation where you’re trying to carry out a conversion, but not sure what topic to pick? It can be a struggle when you’re connecting with new people. Talking about food is a good starting point because it's something we all eat; each and every one of us has something to share about food (likes/dislike...
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Juggling June

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I spent all of this month writing up my paper. I focused on writing my discussion for the first two weeks. Soon after I started writing, I realised, there were other small things I needed to finalise as well, like how I wanted my tables to look, supplementary information, etc. Getting everything together and trying to tie up loose ends has been harder than I imagined, but having some experience with systematic review write up (from last year) was sort of helpful. I was also trying to juggle a few other things on the side (more about this later).  Overall, it was a super intense month for me, but things are looking better now because I can almost see the finish line! The good news is that I've managed to meet the deadline I had set for myself, so I'm happy (for now). In other news, I was doing 'Junk Free June' this month which is an initiative run by Cancer Council Queensland that encourages people to give up a junk food for the entire month. I picked my to...
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Amazing April

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I'm behind with the blogging again, finding it so hard to keep up with how fast the time is flying! April was a pretty good month for me, I had my birthday and graduation this month so I got spoilt with lots of presents and food! In terms of work, I'm progressing at a moderate pace. I reckon I could be faster if I didn't have so many meetings to attend. I've joined a committee recently so there are additional meetings/events and few extra jobs to do. So I really need to make sure I'm productive with the time I have. With my systematic review, I have finished extracting all the papers. I'm up to doing quality assessments now. We did Cochrane which I was already familiar with from last year. But there's also a new one called GRADE. From what I've heard, it's a complex tool to use so I think I'll need to allow myself some time to learn this. The other thing I learnt this month was NVivo. I did an short online course on this software. It's usef...
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Khaybar Restaurant

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Two of my friends recommended this place, it was my first time trying Afghan cuisine so I was quite excited. I was told they have really nice eggplant and meat dishes. There weren't many people as we went on a weeknight but I have heard that they are really busy and often hard to get a table. We started with their famous eggplant dip. The 'Buranee-Badenjan' came with large naan bread. The dip was rich in flavour but it was just too oily. I did not expect there would be this much floating oil. The bread tasted quite nice with the dip but it was hard to tear and manage. We would've liked if it had been cut in smaller pieces. Buranee-Badenjan as an entree ($6.90) For mains, two of us ordered the 'Qaboli Pallaw' (one chicken and one lamb shank). The chicken was soft and cooked well. The rice was topped with carrots, raisins and pistachios. I enjoyed the combination of sweet and savoury in this dish. Qaboli Pallaw Chicken ($14.95)  Buranee-B...
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Joyful June

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I had one of the most adventurous months, ever. As some of you would already know, I was away for most of June. I flew to Canada to present my first ever oral at an international conference. I had been to an international conference in Melbourne last year; however, it didn’t quite feel as international for me (flying there from Sydney). But I knew this conference was going to be an entirely different experience. One of the biggest challenges I faced before leaving was having to pack for a range of weather conditions and ticking off the tasks I urgently needed to finish before I left. As usual, I ended up leaving my packing until the very last day (this always happens). It felt a little strange to be leaving home for almost three weeks which is a long time for me because I rarely go anywhere without family. Nonetheless, I was also super excited for the adventure that awaited on the other side of the world. The International Society of Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) c...
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International Congress of Behavioural Medicine | Melbourne

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My flight faced major delays due to severe thunderstorms in Sydney. We had to wait for over two hours, most of which were on the plane so it was incredibly exhausting. Thankfully, the weather in Melbourne was much better. It was pretty cold and windy, it felt nice to get out of the scorching heat :) Leaving behind a stormy Sydney After reuniting with the bestie, we went out for dinner to a local Malaysian restaurant close to our home. Sweet and sour prawns with rice  Nasi Lemak Pineapple fried rice and seafood stir-fry I had one whole day to myself before the conference began on Wednesday, and we wanted to make the most out of this.  Oh, hello there, new friend! We had breakfast at Myuna Farm which was a few mins from our house. I loved their veggie focacia.  Brekkie at Myuna Farm  Veggie focacia ($9) Sweet treats at Myuna Farm Next stop was archery, my bestie has been an archer for sometime now, and we ...
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