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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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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 have been wanting t
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Black Star Pastry (Strawberry Watermelon Cake)

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Some of you might know about the desperate attempt I made last year for the Strawberry Watermelon Cake (see previous post at  Black Star Pastry ).  Yesterday I had the privilege of tasting this cake at a party. I got super excited as I’ve been wanting to try this for almost a year now. I was so tempted to just skip the mains but I patiently waited for dessert time and made sure I left space for the cake :P In the meantime, I went to take a close look at the cake (could not resist, for obvious reasons) and I was amazed at how magical it looked. It was constructed beautifully starting with a layer of almond  dacquoise followed by cream, then a slice of watermelon with cream,   almond  dacquoise and cream again. Finally, it was topped with strawberries, pistachios and dried rose petals. It was a quite a delicious cake but unfortunately, it did not meet the expectations I had. I liked certain elements, such as the lightness of the cream layers, fresh watermelon and the
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(Un) Organised October

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This month has gone by way too quick! (Okay, I know I said that last month too but this month went even quicker) It started off with me madly writing my results, then doing discussion. Discussion took me about a week :/ I was rushing to finish my draft because I had to send it to my supervisor and leave enough time for feedback. I allowed myself two weeks time (which I thought was too much, at the time!) But I was so glad I did this later because it can take a couple of days to get feedback as supervisors are too busy to read it in one go. Anyway, now let me move onto the other fun things I did. Starting off with the most important highlight of the month: I WENT TO CENTRAL PERK!!!! I was so bogged down with writing, I almost didn't realise it was finishing and made it in the last weekday after handing in my draft. I had to wait for about an hour but I would say the wait was worth it because I'm such a 'friends' obsessed freak. Getting my butt on that cou
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Dynamic Duo December

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It's that time of the year, December has always been a month that has me feeling nostalgic. Maybe because I'm away from a very special girl who means more than life to me.  It's her birthday today so thought I'd go down memory lane and write a thing or two about her.  We met at school in 2007 but we were aware of each other's existence before this :P I distinctly remember the first couple of months because she was so kind to me and she would always compliment. She became one of the sweetest girl I knew.  We pretty much clicked from there on. Someone in our group even named us 'dynamic duo'. We got closest in year 11/12 because we had the same subject combination which meant we were together literally all day. I've heard people say, excessive company of someone leads to conflict and I've experienced this with other people I've known over the years, but we have never had any serious fights. We've held some small grudges wher
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Marvellous May

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This was probably my best month this year because I had my first ever conference/ mini holiday. But it didn't start off that great, I had to learn how to use a software called Stata for statistical analysis. I struggled a lot in the beginning because I had no idea how to set up the data or what code to use. (Stata has a command interface). It took me a really long time to figure out what I needed to do. I went through a long process of trial and error and seeking help when I got stuck.  The first part of the analysis didn't take as long but the rest of it took me longer than I expected. I had set myself a deadline to finish it before I leave for the conference (but failed). However, the good news is, it finally worked in the end! I felt super accomplished after getting all my outputs. I think I'm slowly learning to be persistent! I thought I would be ready to write up after this but turns out, I still have to do another quality and tool validity assessme
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Jittery January

Hope everyone is having a good year so far? I cannot believe the first month is over already! Unfortunately I don't have any food pictures to share this month because I haven't cooked much at all. Even when I did, it was something that I had no time to take a photo of. My mind is preoccupied with something else, and it has been really difficult to get things done. To be honest, this month has been a hell of a month for me. It was stressful, exciting, crazy, painful  depressing...(the list goes on). There were times when I was very close to giving up. I don't think I have felt the range of emotions I experienced this month in any other time in my life. I can't really explain how overwhelming it was, without bringing in the context (will reveal soon).  
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Daddy's birthday 2015 | Buttery fruit cake

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Happy birthday daddy! This perfectly describes how he continues to inspire me! And he always is!  In the past, I always used to purchase cakes because I did not trust my baking skills enough to be able to pull off a fancy cake for a special occasion. But this year, I've been a bit of an experimental baker so I thought I'd give it a go.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. Initially, he said plain cake again (probably because he did not want to trouble me during my final days of thesis writing). After I pressed further, he gave me buttery fruit cake as an answer.  I was happy with this because I had never baked one so it'd be fun to do one. I started my recipe hunt. Most traditional recipes use alcohol but because I don't drink, I had to look harder to find one that didn't so I could eat it too :D Eventually I found this. I've followed this recipe pretty closely with some little changes.  Normally I would not use
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Kensington Street, Chippendale (Lower Mekong + Koi Dessert Bar)

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We explored a very special secret place this weekend. I say 'secret' because it is relatively new and it's not easy to find unless you know about it as it's tucked away right next to Central Park. I recently heard about this place from a friend and coincidentally, one of my other friend's planned our group dinner there. It is the cutest lane ever, full of modern Asian vibes. We dined at a Vietnamese restaurant called Lower Mekong. Their food is seriously amazing. All of their dishes sounded so good on the menu, we had trouble deciding what to eat. Vietnamese Noodle salad ($14) Vietnamese pancakes (bottom) I ordered the Vietnamese noodle salad and I absolutely loved it! There aren't many restaurants where you get a good veggie serve in a meal and this is where dish was an exception. It was wholesome and satisfying. It is the kind of light meal you'd eat at home. I also tried the spring rolls for entree and enjoyed it. My friend's
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