Apparently today's the first day of Autumn! Sydney greeted this day appropriately I thought - grey, cloudy sky and showers throughout the day.
I woke up on this day with a sore throat and painful muscles all over and so decided it would be a good idea to work from home. Just after I sent out an email to my manager to say that I'd be working from home, I realised that I had forgotten to bring my battery/charger home so would only be able to work for a maximum of 2 hours....hehe ooops. Oh wells, I could just take the afternoon off and relax before I start the first day of uni later at night! ;)
Then I decided to bake a cake. I've been wanting to bake something called a 'crack pie' for a long time! No, it doesn't contain crack or any type of drugs, but it was so-called by David Chang and Christina Tosi (chefs of Momofuku in NYC) because it is highly addictive! In NYC, this cake sells at $44 a pie! I found the recipe on
LA Times over the weekend and managed to buy all the ingredients required, so what better time to bake it than this Monday afternoon?!
There are 3 components to this cake and so it was definitely time consuming. I had to make some cookies first, then break those cookies into crumbs to make the pie base. Then there is the filling of the pie as well. It took me just over 2 hours to complete my pie in between watching Oprah (today was on failing marriages due to financial stress...as usual - communication is the key!).
My pie actually looked very pretty - prettier than the ones I see online ;) I went to my room to grab my camera and as I as about to take a picture of the beautiful gooey caramel-y cake, the battery died right then and there. So I got another camera and believe it or not, it died in the same fashion as the previous. And then I realised I left my charger in Taiwan over the December holiday too so re-charge is not an option... Although disappointed, the thought of eating the cake soon made up for it!
According to the recipe, I am supposed to chill the cake in the fridge for an hour before consuming. So into the fridge it went! Because we went grocery shopping yesterday, the fridge is as full as it can be. The only area with space is the top of the fridge with all the cans and bottles- probably not the most stable place anything. But I made sure that there were enough evenly spaced cans to support my pie. Yeah, you know where this is going right?! An hour later, I was rushing to prepare a quick dinner (because I had to leave home at 4pm in order to get to class on time) and when I opened my fridge door for the 2nd time, the whole pie came flying out (in what seems like slow motion)...it did graceful turn and then
thump...face down! It took my brain a good 5 sec to register what had happened, and that the million little pieces of crumbs on the ground are what I had spent hours making in the morning. Why did I put the pie on the top shelf of the fridge?!?!?! Who is stupid enough to do that?! I couldn't believe something I had waited so long to taste is now a gooey mess on my kitchen floor. I took out a spoon, sat on the kitchen floor, and began to eat off the floor. I know, I AM disgusting but at that time I was too heartbroken to care (btw, just the top layer of course..hehe). I was saddened even more when I remembered that I couldn't even take a photo of the cake on the ground!
After I cleaned up, I was already running late for uni. On the way to the station, it started to pour heavily and I had forgotten my umbrella! I was almost completely drenched...Oh well, almost at the station anyways! Just then, I heard the train coming so I ran as fast as I could. At the ticket gate place, I looked into my bag frantically looking for my ticket - then it occured to me that I had left my weekly ticket in another bag at home. So I decided to buy a return ticket for today because I couldn't bother going home to get it. Waited for ages in line, and when it finally go to my turn, the station guy told me that they don't accept credit cards for ticket under $25...I had no money at all except a credit card because I had left my wallet at work since last Friday. I wasn't going to spend $25 on my ticket to uni, so I had no choice but to go home. Arghh. Already late - I was going to meeting Ying near Hyde Park to go to class together. After I grabbed my ticket and umbrella from home (it stopped raining as soon as I got my umbrella) I made my way to station again - heard the oncoming train and again ran towards the station. I missed my train by 2 seconds! Had to wait for another 10 minutes for the next train. At that moment, I think my flu worsened and I was starting to develop a fever!
Finally the train arrived. I sat down and felt jigging the first day of class already. At the next station, this guy with the worst ever B.O decided to sit next to me. It made my headache worse and I had to swallow a few panadols to calm myself down (not that panadol is a stabilizer or anything). He got off at the same station as me and I felt like he was following me because I could smell him long after I got off the train.
So I had to buy a bus pass to get to UNSW. I found a newsagent at Central station and thankfully they accept credit cards! However, after I swiped my credit card - the receipt sheet which I am supposed to sign didn't come out of the machine. The sales person banged that little black box on the top, from the side - thinking it'd fix the issue. I wasn't surprised by then because I knew whatever could go wrong...would go wrong! After what seems like a long time, they reversed the amount on my card and found another black machine which works to continue with the transaction. Yay...went smoothly this time!
I then successfully got on to a bus which took me to UNSW. By then it was way past 5pm (which is when the class starts) and was raining cats and dogs again. I had asked Ying to meet me in class instead and also asked her to send me the venue of the class. I got to the Red Centre (felt all nostalgic there because I had spent a lot of time in the Red Centre during my undergrad years). Found the room number that Ying sent me....the class has already started and the room was so dark that I could only see shadows of students. I saw an empty seat on the first row and sat there - the lecturer saw me coming in late and was so nice as she came and gave me a pile of course outline and papers etc. I looked at the words on the top of the pile.."Cardiovascular Diabetology"... Ummmmmmmm. I thought I had enrolled in Intro to Probability and Stochastic Processes. Maybe these postgrad courses are really advanced I thought. Or these are future projects/assignments.
I looked around and couldn't see Ying. But it was so dark anyways so I figured she must be behind me somewhere. As the lecture progressed, I was getting more and more confused. The lecturer talked of Clinical Trials and lots of biological terms. I flipped through the notes again and realised I was sitting in the wrong class. I didn't want to leave just like that because I was sitting right in front of the lecturer and she was so nice and all. How discouraging would it be for her if I just left in the middle of her talk?! I continued sitting there...until I gathered enough courage to make a run for the exit of the room!
Outside the class, I called Ying. WHERE ARE YOU!?!? She said she was in a faculty member's office trying to find the room as well (the room number she was given was wrong). I eventually met up with her and the girl who was helping her had to leave as it was way past her working hours. So we proceeded to find another office within the building to find a faculty member to help. We found this post grad girl in her office and she allowed us to use my computer to find the room. There were no information whatsoever on the faculty websites. So because there are 5 levels in the Red Centre building, we went level to level, searching through every single room. Most of them were empty. We then went through other surrounding buildings...Old Main Building, Robert Webster etc etc. By then I was wet - not sure if it was rain or me sweating, and feeling like I was running a marathon. We were at least 1 hr late for class already at that stage. Went back to Red Centre, found this nice postgrad person who said he's been working at the maths faculty for over 8 years and was pretty sure the room printed on the outline is the one that we've searched for (which is empty). He let us use his machine again and tried to help. We sat in his office for a while trying to figure out what to do. He then got more help from his colleagues and so we were all getting pretty confused at that stage. A
By then I had giving up going to class. But we thought we'd give it one last try. I saw this other office with someone inside and asked that dude for help. He pointed me to the office of the faculty head. Now, the faculty head was also very confused. Someone suggested to him that he call the lecturer of our course on her mobile phone. He was reluctant but eventually he had to. To my amazement, she picked up the phone and they chatted for a while. Then he hanged up and said "She decided to move the class to start next week! You would've known if you had checked the BlackBoard".
Long story short, BlackBoard is a new site used in UNSW for lecturers to post updates about their courses (I didn't know this site existed until today!). I had no access to that site because I wasn't enrolled properly (although when I emailed the course administrator last week, she assured me that I was properly enrolled).
So yeah, I had no idea that lecturers can just postpone week 1 to start on 'week 2'. Since when do things like that happen?! Also found out there is a midsession exam in 3 weeks time and also an assignment due by then as well...eeeek.
Made my way back home to Chatswood after what felt like a wasted journey to afar and went to dinner with Ying. A hot soup must be called for after a day like this. As I started to warm up at the restaurant and watched the rain splatter on the pavement, I began to chuckle at my 'misfortune' throughout the day...it feels surreal as if I am playing a role in a movie (probably because I was feverish too). It had been an eventful day to say the least...My patience was tested for sure - a roll in the eye when someone in front of me was talking so slowly, a groan when I missed my train, or a thought like "you don't know what I've been through today to be talking to me like this"... I may have gotten more ill than this morning and may have wasted some effort in my cake making and class finding - but I am sitting here, sheltered and warm at the end of the day (or on the first day of Autumn)- slurping on my hot soup while chatting with a friend. While I don't know whether tomorrow or the day after would be like today (I hope not!) I know that I am far more blessed than I deserve, that's what I know for sure.
