Day 115 - T-Rex hates chaturanga, Hoppípolla and Planet Earth, dancing in the rain and a steaming bowl of pasta

Man, what a day. Work has been incredibly busy and stressful for the past few weeks and today was no exception. It was 9 degrees when I left home this morning... and there was so much rain!

After spending most of today huddling in my scarf and gloves (both outdoors and indoors), and being very confused while trying to sort out calculations that even boggled our supplier and vendor, I had a great yoga session where the instructor really pushed us. Repeatedly having to hold chaturanga dandasana (aka one-sided push up in slow motion) for a few breaths was no fun (she even heckled, "Everyone's favourite pose!" as the class grunted) but I think I needed the extra exercise.

Oh and here's a yoga funny I came across:

Source: Yoga Dork

Post-yoga, I was warm, calm, relaxed and in a state of zen as Sigur Rós' Hoppípolla started playing on my iPod. I started to mentally watch this video in my head...


...and as the scenes flashed through my mind, I couldn't help but smile and think how amazing this little blue dot of a planet we lived on was.

I grabbed a green tea latte on my way home (it was too cold for frozen yoghurt) and laughed as rain started to drizzle down on me. It was a strange night - the streets were wet and deserted, and with so many roads closed off due to roadworks I found myself dancing in the middle of the street in the rain... just because I could!

Once I got home, I tucked into a big steaming bowl of spaghetti bolognese. Ahhh comfort food on a cold night.

Day 114 - Chewbacca likes McDonald's and Fred gets to DJ at Creamfields Melbourne

1. Everybody likes McDonald's. Even Chewy!



2. A month ago, Fred mentioned he was submitting an entry into a remixing competition. He explained that there were 3 stages to the competition: 


• Stage 1 - Remix submissions for each state are shortlisted  
• Stage 2 - Public voting commences on the shortlisted tracks 
• Stage 3 - The top 3 voted tracks for each state go on for a final round of judging where the winner will DJ their own set at the Creamfields festival in their state!

Fred had recently gone full time with producing his music and was psyched about the competition - there was a mad glisten in his eye as he talked about how incredible the exposure would be. We cheered him on and asked him to let us know if he got to Stage 2 as we'd do our best to help with votes.

A couple of weeks later, we received a notification in Facebook - Fred's track had gone through Stage 1 and was now at Stage 2! We were ecstatic for him and quickly put in our votes. As far as public voting typically goes, it was more of a popularity contest than anything so we helped to spread the word in hopes that our friends would help cast their votes too. At that point, Fred's track was hundreds of votes ahead of the rest. I had a listen to a couple of other shortlisted tracks, and to me, Fred's was a clear winner - trance music isn't my forte, but his sounded solid, had a great beat behind it, and most importantly had depth and emotion that I could feel. I was confident his track would stay at the top.

I had forgotten to check back on how the voting was progressing, but was under the assumption that Fred would be leading. During the last hour before voting ended, I checked the voting page and my jaw dropped when I saw that his track had dropped to 4th place... but it was just 2 votes behind 3rd place! I frantically clicked 'Vote' and saw the votes increase steadily as Fred and his friends tried to garner as many last minute votes as they could.

This video sums up those last few manic minutes of voting:
I can't help but laugh at Fred's expression and the amount of brolove in that room.

Fred was in 3rd place and on his way to the final round!!

3 days later....


FRED WON!! What an amazing feat! I'm overjoyed for him and incredibly proud, what a fantastic way to break into his career!

Day 113 - Lawrence Leung's Beginning Middle End and Easter chocolates

It was my first time catching one of Lawrence Leung's shows at the Comedy Festival, despite referring to him as "the hairy beardy Asian guy" for years.

This year's show was Beginning Middle End. Lawrence took us on a humorous journey of stories including his housemate finding disturbing erotic fan fiction on a heavy metal music website starring himself and Toadfish from Neighbours (here's Part 1 and Part 2 of the fan fiction) and fictional Lawrence falls pregnant to Toadfish (he even shows an actual enactment of the fan fiction, filmed with Toadfish!), dispelling the apparent sexiness and allure of Colin Firth by successfully demonstrating that he is a pervert/stalker ("Would you like to come and fish in my trout stream?") who likes to stand next to fireplaces/windows, and even stories of unknowingly eating whale in Japan and proceeding to vomit all over the boss of a girl he fancied... all done with the aid of a charming PowerPoint presentation. And he even had a half-time recap slide when a latecomer arrived! His mastery in story-telling, quirky charm, constant smileyness and self-depreciating humour had me fixated and laughing along to his every word. I'd love to see him again next year!

After the show, I picked up my (belated) Easter chocolates from Joanne.

Nice way to end the weekend!

Day 112 - Things I love doing on Saturdays

I love weekends. They make me so happy!

On Saturdays I love to...

...have breakfast, brunch and lunch all at the same time around 2:30pm.


...crack "The Bermuda Triangle likes nice racks" jokes.


...oooh and ahhh as I wander amongst row after row of stalls selling adorable crafty goodies at the Finders Keepers Market (I wish this event was on every Saturday in Melbourne instead of once a year though).









...shriek with joy and clap wildly when I discover that my books have arrived (thanks Bretty).

...play a fun game called "stuff on my cat" with Snowflake (because cats + stuff = awesome).


...laugh at Snowflake because she can be really adorable when she's pretending to play the flute and when she's playing dead.

Day 111 - Lululemon's blush quartz and entrance area is complete

1. Pretty blush pink shades never cease to put a smile on my face every time I come across them.



2. I'm proud to announce that Stages 9 and 10 of Project Home are now complete! 

Michael and I turned this madness...


...into organised serenity.


Snowflake's already found herself a new hangout spot!

Day 110 - The most astounding fact about the universe and interesting dinner conversations

Contemplating the universe and reflecting on life have made me smile today.

In light of yesterday's post where I mentioned #2 Remembering how lucky we are to be here right now from 1000 Awesome Things, Brett shared with me this incredible video of astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's response when he was asked, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the universe?"

It moved me to tears.


Interestingly enough, over dinner with Brett, Keng, Graeme, Elma and Robert, a whole range of topics were covered in conversation including:

• The universe (and the video above) and our self-awareness of each of us being part of the universe
• An app called APODViewer which presents NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day
• Hubble
• Religion
• The art vs science of medicine
• Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
• Tree of Life
• Tivoli, Rome
• Freud
• Keats
• Consciousness when anaesthetised 
• Richard Dawkins
• Stephen Hawking
• Broken babies
• Different parenting methods
• Do iPads stunt child development?
• Krug Vintage 1998 
• Gotye

...and then more. All while getting drunk on 5 bottles of fine wine.

Being able to witness Elma and Robert, who are a couple of supposedly 80-something year olds, question, challenge, explore and indulge in their curiosity was an inspiring sight.

I expected to feel weighed down afterwards - we were delving in some seriously intense topics for most of the night after all - yet I felt refreshed, uplifted and optimistic. Must've been the fine wine's doing!

Day 109 - I think Darren Criss from Glee really loves Hanson, levitating llama, poor kitten left for zombies, the happiest coat lining, Snowflake is fat and Neil Pasricha reminding us to remember how lucky we are to be here right now

1. I brushed my teeth smiling while watching this this morning! But I'm still a little uncertain, do you think he likes Hanson?!



2. Oh my gosh isn't this the funniest thing?!?!?!? Thanks for the early morning chuckle Soon Yang!

Source: Icanhascheezburger


3. And the afternoon chuckle Jon!



4. This is the happiest coat lining in the world.



5. Michael: "Your cat's so fat. She's been climbing onto my lap a lot for a nap and she usually slides off while she's asleep because she's so fat. One time she was sleeping on my lap and she started sliding off, but then she startled herself and... (mad laughter) woke up just as she was falling off and fully sank her claws into my thighs to hang on and pull herself up. It was really painful! Man, she's so fat." 
   
   Exactly at that moment, Snowflake jumps onto the table where we were sitting, flops herself down while clumsily knocking a paper bag off the table, proceeds to roll onto her back sticking all four legs in the air, then blinks at us.  


6. Loved loved LOVED Neil Pasricha's post for today, # 2- Remembering how lucky we are to be here right now on his blog 1000 Awesome Things. I remind myself from time to time of this very humbling, spine-chilling sensation when you look at yourself, at everyone and everything that's surrounding you whether it's your family, your friends, your job, your environment, the food you eat, the roads you walk on, the buildings you go past everyday..... and you marvel at how everything came together, how everything just somehow fell into place so that you and all these things would be here, exactly as how you are and they are now. And how freakin' incredible is that?! Of course, Neil articulates it leaps and bounds better than I can. 

Never forget that you are so lucky to be here right now, doing whatever it is you are doing.