Tantillus

It is strange that one day you are considered a teenager and the next, you are not, according to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun hitting the same point of when you were born however many years ago. I still get nervous driving without parental supervision, still think eating gum in class makes me a badass, still laugh till I'm gasping for air at Nickelodeon shows and I still can't cook (unless instant noodles and premix pancakes count as cooking).

So for my birthday, I had breakfast with my group at The Chalkboard Cafe. I had the breakfast tasting platter, which had a bit of everything. It all tasted really good and was worth the trek there early in the morning.

Afterwards we went shopping for a bit around the city then two hours of karaoke. It was a nice catch up with everyone after the aftermath of uni exams and assessments. Now two months of no responsibilities before flying across the Pacific Ocean with a majority of this lot. I'll try make the most of the summer break being as unattached to the air conditioning in my bedroom as possible. Which means I have to go outside and do things in the heat. Help.

Aureus

How cool would it be if you could see bokeh in real life? Like you're lying on some patch of grass, where a dog has probably chucked a dump on before, staring off into the distance and there's these light coloured dancing balls hiding in the trees. (If you can't tell, I'm obsessing over the bokeh in these photos all taken by Andy.)

So I finally hung out with Andy and Annie at Newtown after uni. We explored the main street a bit, got accosted by RSPCA recruiters ("What did I tell you about smiling at strangers?"), ate at Black Star Pastry and Guzman y Gomez, saw Janice Lee (known as 'jayesslee' on YouTube) with her husband eating at a Thai restaurant and kept walking back and forth wishing the window that separated us would disappear like for the snake at London Zoo in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

We went back to uni and chilled on the grass for a while, watching people at the quad graduate and rooting for a guy to drop his laptop on his face. It makes me wonder if that'll be me one day. Not the dropping laptop on face part (been there, done that), but the graduating part. The things I want now, and the things I want for my future are two completely different conflicting things. Yeah... Anyway, then I played in the ball pit and it was all fun and games until I saw a booger looking thing stuck on a ball and had to get out of there ASAP.

Epulo

We went to Chefs Gallery as an early Father's Day dinner. You can watch the cooks hand make the noodles and all the dishes have a modern look to it. Surprisingly, I liked everything except the dessert. I don't like sesame so the piggy buns weren't for me and the snails were weird. The ice cream was the best part.

We'll definitely be back to try everything else!

Chinta Ria

Food coma night out with the group at restaurants that make our wallets cry in mercy. We had dinner at Chinta Ria, which is a Malaysian and Chinese restaurant. A big laughing Buddha statue greeted us at the door. I found the food there really ordinary and the dishes were really small and not worth it. The highlights would be the roti and vegetarian curry, and I'm not a vegetable person so it was that good. But I would just go find a local restaurant for those dishes next time because it's not really worth going back.

For dessert, we went to Lindt Chocolat Café. We got "share" platters that I could've probably finished myself.

SO MUCH KEK. MY HEART SAYS NO, BUT MY STOMACH SAYS YES.

Volatilis

END OF SECOND YEAR SEMESTER ONE WHAT UP. It still feels like I've only just started my second year. Time flies when you've done minimal work throughout the semester and realise how screwed you are for your final exams and have to reteach yourself 13 weeks of content for more than one subject.

There are so many situations where I laugh at how Vivienne and I have contrasting personalities. Tonight she was running in and out of her room like a tornado throwing things around and asking for opinions on what she should wear while I was just sitting there experimenting with her elegant electric keyboard (with one finger going tock-tock-tock like an elderly with a computer keyboard). Then 15 minutes later, she whisked me out of her room and threw four massive bags at me to carry for her, knocking over her modem in the process and letting out a "oh SHIT", then was somehow sitting at the back of her car in a minute. Can we get a hell yeah for making it on time to the station to meet up with everyone else?

We had dinner at Din Tai Fung for Vivienne's birthday, which I don't have anything good or bad to say about it besides that it is overrated. I think it is one of those places where you go three times, at maximum, in your life.

Vivid Sydney is on again this year, but half the group wanted to go home because of the crowds. At least Elaine and I got something out of it by pretending to be a contemptuous lesbian couple on a date dodging crowds and the slow paced queue of walkers behind a family with a massive pram. How romantic, right?

I really am not bothered to study. At this rate, I’m going to win an Oscar for the best impersonation of a potato chip.

Undeviginti

I delayed my need to pee because it'd be quite sad to spend the start of my 19th birthday on the toilet. It was just as sad though that I spent it on the internet.

Yeah, that wasn't necessary to write about, was it?

I thought it was very appropriate to watch The Perks of Being a Wallflower on my birthday with Andy as it could be symbolic of me growing up and it is a pretty special book to me. I think Logan Lerman was the perfect Charlie. All I wanted to do was befriend him throughout the movie. It was strange to see Emma Watson outside the role of Hermione, but that doesn't change her acting. I also love how Ezra Miller livened up the character Patrick. He holds a few of the most memorable lines for me. I am not one to swear, but since I am 19 now and have no other words for it, I'd say that the film adaption was fucking perfect.

Celebrated Elaine and I's birthday at Nok Nok, which is a Thai restaurant, then at San Churro, where I am known to hold my record of eating seven and a half churros. I CANNOT DO IT ANYMORE. I am far too old for this. Then we sat by the harbour and talked about life. It was a nice night of catching up, stories, excessive hashtagging and diabetes.

In other news, I AM GOING TO AMERICA NEXT JANUARY. You have no idea how excited I am because I've been aching to go back there.

Finito

I've finished my exams and a whole year of uni. I have learnt so much this year about myself. Like how I become a compulsive liar around strangers when they ask, "How old are you?" and I'd immediately say I'm 17 before they can launch into their speech of saving the world by trying to get us to sign up for their causes. Most of them need you to be a legal adult so they just tell me to think about it till I'm "18". I've also learnt how to meet new people and seem slightly less like a snob due to my introverted nature. I'm getting better at introducing myself too.

Julie: Oh, have you guys met? This is Bec and this is Patrick. He's really popular.
Me: Is that how you introduce people? "He's really popular." Um, yeah, hi I'm Rebecca and I'm unpopular.
Patrick: Hi I'm Patrick and I'm going to major in physics because chicks dig physics.

I don't think I won that one. I had lunch with the physics group before meeting up with Amy to eat at Pie Tin. We're going to make it a tradition now to celebrate through food/photo adventures after whoever is the last to finish their exams.

We thought we could easily eat three slices of sweet cakes rather than get one savoury pie and two sweet cakes. We were wrong. I felt like my teeth were going to start eating itself away from the sugar overdose.

Braza Churrascaria

We had dinner at Braza Churrascaria for Sarah's birthday. It's a Brazilian restaurant full of meaty food, which caused us to chew like cows for two hours. Eating actually got tiring after a while. It was kind of like an all you can eat place, but instead of bringing your plate up to grab whatever you want from the food stations, the waiters and waitresses come up to you with food on skewers! I don't know if anything is better than not getting out of your seat and having servings after servings magically appear on your plate until you wish you really were a cow with four stomachs to take it all in.

They also had live performances with Brazilian music, dancers and drummers, which livened up the place. Afterwards we were too full to have dessert so we just played at the playground then watched the fireworks by the harbourside.

Nutrimens

The thing I like about going to uni is that it's in the city. The thing I hate about uni is that it's in the city. So conflicting. If I was a robot I'd explode from feelings within a minute of trying to be human. I guess I like being near the city because I have more options for things I can do and places to eat on the rare occasions that I finish uni early. The thing I hate about being in the city five days a week is how far it is from home. I have to get up two hours earlier than my first class (compared to high school where I just rolled out of bed looking like a prisoner of Azkaban then was at school within 5 minutes) then there's the cost of train tickets. Like paying gazillion dollars per year just to be educated isn't enough!

Today's city adventure was to Hyde Park where the night noodle markets are held. Junyssa (who is officially my impulse eating uni buddy) and I had it all planned out that we were going to stay at uni to study for two hours before heading off but we completely ditched that idea and ended up shopping at Paddy's market, eating at Town Hall then pretended to be rich by sitting at a chair, refusing to leave because we were too comfortable lying there, amongst all the designer shops at Westfield Centrepoint Tower.

As lame as it was, I think that was the highlight of my day. We looked like homeless people amongst the classy ladies with their fancy hats and elegant dresses and the business men sporting those cases that looks like it has the contents of a $500, 000 winner on that TV show, Deal or No Deal. We then realised that we were probably doing the complete opposite of getting rich by lazying around and not studying.

The food at night noodle markets wasn't that great and plus, I'm Asian so the food there were all ordinary to me and I've had much better.

The only thing I liked were the decorated tables and the guy who was performing there. Good music always lifts up the mood and makes up for the lack of good food!

Annus

I am currently at my uni's library laughing at the things people come up with on Tumblr to the point where it looks like I'm crying. (I can sense the judging eyes of my friend.) My favourite one so far - "Me when I lend a book to someone: Bend the spine and I'll bend your spine." Most accurate description of me, ever. I'm supposed to be studying for my mid sem exam during this one week "break" but you know, when does that ever really happen?

The past week has been full of nostalgia for high school. It's been a year since graduation already. It's weird. I don't fully feel like I'm a uni student so it feels like I'm stuck somewhere between the high school and uni stage refusing to believe that I'm really growing up. I went to my sister's graduation and for a few moments, I felt like I was almost back at high school watching other people graduate in the hall.

Then the day after, I finally caught up with everyone in the group again at Green Peppercorn. I felt like I had been MIA from everyone's lives and at the time it felt like forever since I've seen them but when I saw them all again for dinner, it didn't feel that long and I suddenly didn't miss them.

Then the day after that, I saw a few of the original people from the random group after nearly a year. I didn't feel the same vibe I did with them two years ago when we used to go out after school or on weekends together. There were too many other people from the grade I never got to know well and there wasn't many from the original group so I felt awkward and out of place. I guess it was fun but still a disappointment because I expected too much.

University is so depressing in comparison to high school.

Criniti

My family and I had dinner at Criniti's, which is a South Italian cuisine restaurant. It was my second time there so maybe the amusement of eating a one metre pizza wasn't there so my tasting senses were working better this time round and made me realise that it didn't actually taste that good. Honestly, I would have preferred having Pizza Hut. The pizza was too chewy and the other dishes we ordered tasted a bit too bland to me.

For once, no one blinked to ruin the family picture!

Nitrogen

N2 Extreme Gelato opened recently so I went with Amy to try the ice creams that are made in front of you using liquid nitrogen. The whole store had a laboratory theme to it, which is pretty cool.

My second semester of uni has started and it's time to put my imaginary serious hat on. Remember how Pepito from Madeline once showed his entire hat collection that he has for almost every occasion? His infamous one is the bad hat. I need a stop blogging and write study notes hat.

Somewhat interesting things this so far:

• One of my lecturers introduced herself as Dale - Flashback to over a month ago when I emailed my unit coordinator with "Hi sir" and "Thank you, sir" only to realise three emails later that Dale is actually a woman. You can imagine my shock and how much I freaked out. She never replied to my apology (I sounded so desperate and made it a million times more awkward) so I'm hoping she'll never work out who this Rebecca is.
• Received my first ever parcel from buying online at Book Depository. Everything is so much more exciting when it's all wrapped up! I've been living like I'm from the 19th century.
• Random meet up with all the Usyd people in the group for froyo. The stories we all shared ended up with us dying (or crying) from laughter - Amy: "I have a know it all in my class." Vivienne: "Yeah, me too! I don't know anyone in class!" Also Vivienne was telling us about how you can unplug magnesium out of your head and the scientific thinkers of the group just.. yeah, we just exchanged looks.
• Vivienne being upgraded: "Everyone always gives me their rubbish so it's like I'm a rubbish bag! Now you're telling me to buy things so I'm like a shopping bag!"
• Saw quite a few train commuters reading 50 Shades of Grey. I failed to impress a lady with my superior book - I Am A Cat by Natsume Sōseki. She didn't even look up! HOW COULD YOU NOT? IT'S LIFE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A CAT. A CAT.
• Nearly stacking it on the train. This happens a lot but I don't understand why Jellee is always the one there to witness it. I technically never fall, which makes me a genius in the art of not toppling over completely!
• Made an observation that sounded racist but I swear I'm not. I OFFICIALLY HAVE A BAD REPUTATION AMONGST THE FUTURE PHARMACISTS THAT WERE THERE AND IF I END UP MAJORING IN PHARMACOLOGY, NO ONE THERE WILL BUY DRUGS OFF ME. That ended up with Jellee, Jason and I laughing over things we shouldn't be laughing about. Anyone notice how good it feels to laugh when you have a blocked nose? Laughing overall, feels good.

I found out that a first year girl from my uni got a silver medal for canoeing in the Olympics. It just made me wonder, what have I achieved in life? I didn't think for long because there honestly isn't much I can reflect on my life. Not to brag or anything but this one time I had 7 hours of sleep altogether in 5 days. GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS.

Teneo

I was so excited last night knowing that one semester of uni was about to be over. I started making terrible jokes about freedom and America and I don’t know what. I’m just so happy it’s finally over. It was one of the worst weeks ever. I contracted influenza a day before my first exam causing me to physically be unable to walk without wanting to throw up from muscle and joint pains. My fever got worse and that led to a chain of bad luck events, which would take forever to list all my other symptoms. Overall, I was left in a bad mood all week.

All I got out of this semester is which area of uni has good and bad wifi connection. Priorities.

I got ID-ed for the first time ever when I had end of exams dinner with half the group. I probably got more excited than I should have over it though.

REPPIN' GEN Y WHERE PHOTOS OF FOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PEOPLE.

Beatus

As corny as this will sound, I honestly do think I have the best group of friends I could ever have and I don’t want any other. It’s the first time in a while that all eleven of us have been together. I have not laughed so much in such a long time till it hurt to breathe.

Highlights of the night:

• Earning my respect through eating seven and a half churros because I was forced to finish it while everyone died.
• Vivienne trying to drink two cups at a time and ended up spilling it on herself. She tried to cover it up by classily dabbing her lips.
• Jenna and her “life changing” stack by nearly falling into the harbour, but managed to save her free drink.
• Desiree’s little speech calling for group hugs and having a sentimental harbour side moment.
• Vivienne teaching me to run like a lady - Flick your hair and gracefully turn your head in the process.
• Elaine asking Vivienne if she’s ever seen her “peenor.”
• Jocelyn losing balance on the train and ended up half falling and half sitting on a stranger.

Macchiato

After four stressing weeks stressing over not stressing enough, all the HSC exams are officially over. Thirteen years of schooling all over. Four months ahead without school. A whole lifetime ahead for me to figure out my life and what I want to do with it. I honestly don't know how to feel about this.

For Sarah and Jordano's 18th, we went to the city to eat at this Italian restaurant called Macchiato. We went in a group of 50 or something and we pretty much took up half the restaurant. And for once, everyone in the group turned up! The food portions were so bloody huge. Do Italians usually eat this much? Just the entrée was already filling enough and the main course could honestly feed my whole family of six.

While forcing ourselves to finish everything, Stephanie was pretending to pick up guys who walked pass the restaurant through the window. WOO WINDOW SHOPPING ANYONE?

APART FROM MY PUN, I think the quote of the day would be this:
Stephanie: Compliment me.
Vivienne: Your brain age is smarter than your age.
Stephanie: What? That's not a compliment!
Vivienne: You're smarter than you look.

If I ever need to hear nice things about myself and in need of ego boosting, I know who to turn to.

Afterwards we all split up into groups and went our separate ways. Amy, Anne, Desiree, Elaine, Fiona, Jellee and I went to the Chinatown's night markets then we went Darling Harbour for romantic lesbian walks. The closest I got to romantic was holding one side of the plastic bag filled with our uneaten dinner in take away containers with Fiona holding the other side. We're indirectly holding hands.

How eventful and memorable was it that we spent 11/11/11 11:11 at the station waiting for our train?

Discipulus

My handwriting is a monster now because I haven't picked up a pen in so long and my brain has turned into mush. It could even be used as a cheap substitute for mashed potato and gravy now. And all I've lived off are sour cokes and chocolate freckles.

I’m spending my "break" living in the sunniest corner of my room and in libraries like every other good Year 12 student does during this time of year. It gets sort of intimidating how everyone looks so dead exhausted and has their nose in textbooks as if inhaling the thing can get them any smarter, which is why I prefer to hang out in the kids’ section where all the cool kids are. Being where all the high school students are just makes me panic that maybe I’m not doing enough because they all look so smart and studious. The little kids make me feel smart and productive while they say to each other things like “You’re Cambodian, why are you wearing an Australian t-shirt?” as what Fiona overheard.

By the way, I went to Pancakes on The Rocks for dinner with my family then we went to Tumbalong Park to see the new water playground. Let's just say that they should have a "CAUTION: RUBBER GROUND IS SLIPPERY WHEN SANDY" sign.

Infinitus

This needs to be documented because it was the first time I did something adult-like: I WORE HEELS TO THE CITY.

Desiree drove Amy, Elaine Lim and I to the city to eat for Elaine Tran's birthday. Half the time I was paranoid in the car but how can I not be with Desiree screaming things out like, "OMG THE ROAD IS SO BUMPY." "WE SHOULD'VE WENT ON THE M5." "SHIT I CAN'T SEE. THE LIGHT IS IN MY EYES." "THE MIRRORS ARE REFLECTING LIGHT." "I'M TOO SCARED TO SWITCH LANES." That went on for most of the ride with the occasional, "Ohhh, the road's so smooth," and I almost expected her to start purring. We arrived there earlier than everyone else so we just sat outside McDonald's since that Japanese restaurant, Wagaya, was right across it.

We ordered food from this touch screen because waiters are so last century. I don't know what I ate half the time (maybe it's better that way), but everything was so nice!

We went karaoke afterwards and let's just say that I've seen enough hip thrusting for a while. How are my ears still working after being exposed to a hundred and fifty decibels?