Piggeries

I just got back form an awesome 5 day placement at a piggery near Corryong, VIC.

It was a fantastic experience. We got to do lots of different activities and learnt alot about the system. We even helped assist some sows and pulled out some piglets! They were sooo cute and adorable.
We also helped vaccinate them and move pigs around to different sheds. Doing rounds to make sure all piglets were healthy and treated for any problems they have. We did post mortem on some dead piggies to see what happened to them....

The whole experience felt more like a holiday than a placement! They even took us to the local Corryong cinema. It was very cute and 'high class' the chairs reclined, and we were served gourmet food with a bottle of wine. Yummy!

We then had a short tour around town before heading back home.

On the last day it rained which made working abit better as it was cooler. Better for the pigs as well so they don't over heat....

Our last dinner there was fantastic, we had fresh oysters with this amazing sauce that was made from grapefruits. Mind you i don't really like oysters but that might just convert me =0

We then had some glasses of wine and just chatted with the lovely family.

And of course i got to mention Cocoa, she is the most spoilt chocolate lab I've ever seen. But anybody who saw her would end up spoiling her!

I really miss staying up there in corryong, it definitely is a very nice town!

Birthday Dinner @ Lowenbrau

So finally i can celebrate my bday after the midterm. We went to Lowenbrau and had great food, it was sooo filling, we couldn't finish ours. I will post up some pics later...if i remember....

The actual dinner wasn't that eventful, i was worried ppl weren't having fun! we even paid the bill by now....then it all started....first they got the guys from Lowenbrau to sing happy birthday to me, so everybody in the restaurant knew who i was and some random ppl on the next table over shouted "sing a song!' - That was scary, but i didn't (phew).

They had a few entertainment numbers during this time, and they get customers to go up and perform....
As the Lowenbrau ppl already knew my name, i was an easy target!
They picked me out and a bunch of other girls to play "Edelweiss" on cow bells....and made us do a silly chicken dance....

After that, i thought i was through the "on stage" thing, but i was wrong, they got me to go do this beer drinking competition...with 2 other girls...but anyhow, everybody wins a prize and i guess we all got free beer!

But I must admit, it was actually quite fun~ I did dread it, but when it happened, it was quite fun especially the cow bells~

Thanks everybody who came!!!

Cooking class~

Yesterday was my last day of school before my exams. I had a midterm in the morning which i think went quite well.

That afternoon, I went with my sister to our friend's dance studio to help out as it just opened. It's a very nice dance studio and theres free classes all week~ how exciting!
Afterwards, we walked down to Sydney Fish Market School where we had our coking class "What to cook and how to cook it'.

It was a great class, at the start, we were given a demonstration by the Jane Hornby of the 3 dishes we were going to make: Prawn & Mushroom Laksa, Steamed Salmon with Garlic, Ginger, greens & Rice, and Sticky Toffee Pudding.
Jane Hornby flew down from London just the day before!

The demonstrations took an hr where it was like a lecture room.

We were then taken to the kitchen where we grouped up into 5ppl per bench.

 So my sister and I met some new ppl and worked together to make our 3 dishes. I was in charge of the sticky toffee pudding with this Scottish lady. The recipe was actually quite simple, we just needed to get it in the oven asap as it took awhile to bake. My sister worked with another lady to prepare the salmon and bok choy on a dish so that we can steam it, and the last person worked on the laksa.
As we got our dishes to cooking, we helped the last person with the laksa as there were more steps to do.

Here are our finished products!

Laksa

Steamed Salmon

Sticky Toffee Pudding - may not look so nice, but it was definitely delicious!

We then set up our table in the dining room, and brought the food out to enjoy what we made with a glass of wine.
It was very good (not to brag or anything)! We then had a lovely dinner, chatting and having a great time.
At the end, the gave us all a goodies bag that included a can of coconut milk, sea salt flakes, chicken stock and a small recipe book for using the ingredients form the brand 'Ayam' and a cooler bag.
We also received Jane Hornby's new cookbook with lots and lots of recipes.
We tried to take a picture with her, but i only had my phone camera and the lighting was so dim, that you couldn't even see me.....=/

Anyhow, it was one great cooking class~ and definitely worth the money with all the goodies=)

LOVED it~

Me, Jane, Janet

It's My Birthday!!!

I am finally up to date with my blogs!
phew...THis is big time procrastination...but hey, its my birthday!

So today wasn't too eventful...woke up for school, finsihed school around lunch time, went to the law library to check my email about my group assignment, but then no computers were free...it was very packed, i then went up stairs to microwave my lunch...but of course, the microwave was broken, so i gave up and went to Fisher Library, and decided to sit outside and eat my chicken and potatoes with rice cold....then it started drizzling a little and big gusts of wind made it quite impossible to eat outside...such a GREAT day...=/

so i went into Fisher library and decided to spend my birthday there and study....at the same time hide and eat my cold lunch...BUT my study was very productive there and i stayed till 5pm.

I then walked home and thought that i would treat myself to some Nandos for my birthday dinner=)
I then watched Gossip Girl as i ate my birthday dinner by myself...
Then later that evening, Amy comes and says theres something i want to show u..i was like huh? ok..so i followed her down the stairs, and i was totally clueless until i reached downstairs and it was alll dark!!
I knew something was up then...and ther eit was all my roomies and my sis with a yummy blueberry cheesecake and a nice Happy birthday song for MEEE=)
I feel so loved =D
it was awesome, that definitely made my dayyy~
Then i received the most awesome gift ever! I got this awesome salad container with its own ice pack to keep the salad fresh and it also has a dressing dispenser thingy. So now i can have fresh salads for lunch at school!!! YAY~
=)=)=)
Ok i think thats enough procrastination for one day, i have a midterm on the last day of school...weird huh?

24th Oct - Workkk

Today at work, lots of things happened even though we were not busy with appointments. First there were 4 boarding cats where one was breathing funny and sneezing, one who had lots of medications to give. One was soo shy that she was hiding under the blanket but she would peer from underneath now and then. She was a cutie! THe alst boarding kitty was one psycho cat....He was on Neo-Mercazole and Clomicalm....but what i've heard form the vet, the day before the cat tried to shred them to pieces as they were trying to give his meds! So they just left the meds in a small bowl of food, not sure if he ended up eating it...so without having his Neo-Mercazole, the cat is even more psycho (hyperT) and also didn't take his clomicalm either, which of course equal crazy psycho cat....after i fed him ( he didn't try to kill me then, only when i tried to get close to him, he would hiss at me), he would sit in his box his face slightly covered but he would stare at you the whole time you were there! I was just preparing food for the other kitties and he would be silently watch from his box....quite creepy actually...

And last but not least there was a cat that was in hospital care, they suspect her to have HCM but is still uncertain, she is on fluids and also phosphobind...but apart from that just monitoring and preventing her from getting pulmonary oedema...but what was weird was that she didn't have a heart murmur, her heart sounds was very clear and normal...

Mind you, this cat already has kidney problems as well! But i'm not sure what they will do for this kitty, maybe i'll check back next time i'm at work.

During work, I also received an interesting phone call...the person said that they were a client of ours and they wanted to ask for our opinion on something..so I was like sure...then they said that somehow they found a chicken in their litterbox and what they should do with it. They were wondering if they could bring the chicken in to us...But of course we couldnt do that, we have nobody staying at the clinic. All I could tell them was to call RSPCA and see what options they have! How odd. Who could've put a chicken there? Where could it have come from?

Brunch on Oct 23rd 2010

So I've been quite busy with school that i didn't have enough time to catch up on my blogs!!!

So the past saturday, we went to Hyde Park Barracks Cafe for $25 brunch for the good food festival. It was fantastic, the cafe itself was located in the courtyard of the barracks.
It was a very sunny, hot and humid day. We sat down and the waitress came to introduce our 3 course brunch.
The menu consisted of:
1. Homemade granola, vanilla yoghurt & poached fruit
2. Eggs three ways : Egg, chorizo & roast tomato tart
                               Feta, spinach & mushroom omelette with ciabatta bread
                               Ham Eggs benedict, on english muffin with hollandaise
3. Raspberry waffles,with white chocolate sauce, vanilla gelato & berries

We also opted to have a glass of mimosa so it costed $30 instead. But it was worth it!

The waitress brought our drinks and as she laid the 3rd drink down, an unfortunate event occurred! She spilled the other drinks. But it was no big deal, nobody got wet. They promptly cleaned up the mimosas and brought us new ones =)
Apart form that it was a fabulous brunch and we were very pleased with the food, the eggs were great, and the raspberry waffles were delicious!
Heres some pictures as proof!

Homemade granola, vanilla yoghurt & poached fruit

Eggs three ways: Egg, chorizo & roast tomato tart, feta and spinach omelette, Eggs benedict

Raspberry waffles,with white chocolate sauce, vanilla gelato & berries

All gone!!!!

Palm Oil and Orangutans?

Last night, I went to a talk about how the palm oil industry affects many wildlife species, in particular the orangutans. I did not know that in order to have a palm oil plantation, they had to set fire to forests, so that there is space for there palm oil plants!!
SO these orangutans lose their homes and have no where to go. The organisation BOS (Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation) came to give us a talk about how they rescue these orangutans and raise them so that they will be fit for release in the future. Their first planned release is next year. I hope it works out. It can be quite difficult as the orangutans are being taken care of by humans, they are training them to learn how to climb trees and what foods they should eat and not eat, and eventually human contact will be diminished so that when they are released they won't try to come in contact with humans. However, another issue is that there is still belief that certain body parts of the animal are useful in medicinal preparations, so there are still poachers/hunters that will kill these animals, and usually there will be orphaned orangutans without their moms. In these incidences, people will actually sell these baby orangutans in the pet trade!! But its illegal to keep them as pets.....

So alot of things need to be done to try and protect these animals. It will take a very long time for this program to be successful. Other animals such as the Sumatran Tigers are also being pushed to extinction due to the palm oil products.

It seems like such a big project and feel that what one person could really do. But during the talk the presenter did mention that what we individuals can do is that we have the right to choose food products that won't push them to extinction. We can read the food labels to ensure there is no palm oil in them. But this is proven to be quite difficult as food companies are not obligated to list palm oil under the ingredients.

This talks always gets me thinking, but I never know how I could help...=/
At least this time I can send this postcard thing which is a petition about how we can choose food products that won't push Tigers to extinction! I'm not sure if it'll really work. But I hope so!

Today: Sunny, second last week of school and counting down=)

Night Noodle Market Festival

Yesterday, I had my midterm on Small Animal Medicine and it was actually better than I thought. I felt relieved after the midterm, and since i had only half day of classes, I decided to go to the movies with my sister. We watched Despicable me in 3D and it was a great movie. I love the minions~ So cute, so funny!

Afterwards, we went to Hyde Park where theres a Night noodle market festival. But we didnt end up eating any noodles!
We all shared our dishes and we had pork dumplings, salt & pepper calamari, roti & dhal (lentil curry), chicken and prawn skewers and also chicken red curry rice. It was all fun and relaxing till it started to drizzle. So we moved our table under the trees. Everybody was thinking the same thing so eventually under the trees was the place to be!
So we tolerated it for a while and then i get a phone call. Its from the pig placement people! so we sat there with some umbrellas open, I didn't bring one so i was on the phone and we got good news that we got our last placement that we needed!!! But it is like 9.5 hrs drive away... we'll probably take the train there instead.
Anyhow, we finished all our dishes until it really started to pour, so we left and went to a place called the Chocolate room for some dessert. I had a mint iced chocolate, and my sister had a orange & cinnamon iced chocolate. My friends also ordered tiramisu iced chocolate and rocher nut chocshake. They were very delicious!

Crows.....evil?

Today as i was on my way to work, 2 crows caught my eye. I wasn't sure exactly what they were doing, I assume they were searching for food, but 1 was on the car side mirror and the other on the front of a car. One was pecking at the mirror and the other trying to get under the hoof to pull something out...Not sure if there were some insects underneath or what, but it looked more like they were trying to vandalise the car! It reminded of of Alfred Hitchcocks famous movie "Birds"....they sure can be evil...

Anyhow, apart from that, i've been studying for another midterm on Wed....but its multiple choice so at least it doesn't require too much writing as my hand hasn't fully recovered yet....

Procrastination paid off?

So yesterday I had my midterm which I crammed for 3 days since I wasn't able to do much studying during my beef placement. Which I think it went well, as it only covered a very small aspect of what we really had to study! I kept thinking that they will probably ask about dogs and cats as it seemed more common but insteadt they asked a question on COWS instead...I really didn't expect that, but we did that sort of question in last semester so even if i didn't study, I could've answered those questions...it felt like a waste of time cramming!

But i guess its good on the long run as I have started studying for my finals =P

That night we had an awesome night out with some vet classmates and had great japanese food in Wagaya to celebrate our friend's birthday. It felt like it was already the end of exams =O

Procrastination

This is my first posting! I decided to blog about the adventures I have during my veterinary science degree in Australia.
I am currently in 3rd yr and alot of interesting things have happened.

I recently came back from my beef placement  in Willow Tree, NSW, which i had a great time! 
We departed Sydney on a Sunday afternoon to try and get there around 8ish as it took just over 4 hours to get there. Once we were off at around 4pm, Kelly realised she forgot her contacts solution so we decided to go to the mall and quickly buy some. But then we couldnt find a parking spot and we started to panic that we would arrive late, so Kelly was thinking that I should drive in circles in the parking lot....mind you I do not have a driver's licence! I have just recently been having driving lessons =O.
Then eventually we thought of me running out to get the solution while Kelly drives around the parking lot! After that panic attack, we finally are off to our placement in Willow Tree. The trip was non eventful till we were getting close to the farm. By this time, the roads were pitch black as there are no street lamps. We got a little lost since we weren't sure where we should turn to reach the farm. So i called the farm and they gave us instructions but the reception wasn't all that great so before i could get the full instructions, the phone kept cutting off!
Eventually we arrived our destination and the owner was very welcoming and even made us pizza for dinner before we went to bed for the night.


On the first day a cow squashed my hand while i was trying to vaccinate her in the crush. But lucky enough i broke no bones and got a bruise and swollen hand with a broken vaccination gun. The farmer was very nice and him and his wife took good care of me and Kelly. We had good food and wine and it felt more like a vacation. He even taught me how to drive a manual Ute when I don't even have a drivers licence yet!
Herding the cattle was quite fun in itself using a quad bike to herd them as well as their trusty kelpies (Chips and Chico) that helped herd them alot quicker.

We pretty much did the same stuff day after day for 4 days : vaccinate the cows and calves, ear tagging, ear marking and castrating the calves, moving them to fresh pastures. We were suppose to work there for 5 days, but we pretty much did everything we needed to do in 4 days so on the 5th day we didn't do much. The farmer showed us this antique wool presser which was made of wood and had to be used manually! It was very tiring and took alot of time to press 1 bale of wool!

We then decided to take a walk in the pastures to see some cross bred sheep which were called ' Dorbers' or something like that, they had a black face and white body. We tried to corner them and we found that they had the cutest lambs with them, so we caught one which was lagging behind the herd and took some pictures with it. Later on, we decided that we had enough and put down the poor little lamb. But to our horror, the lamb started to follow me! Oh no, she thinks i'm her mother...crap. So we spent probably another half hr to an hr chasing after the mob of sheep trying to get them to take the poor little lamb with them....once i got close to a sheep with her lamb, i put the lamb down and quickly ran away as fast as i could so the lamb couldnt follow me, and we got the sheep to move towards the lamb and it was happily ever after. *Phew*

Now I am back in Sydney, for the long weekend to study for a midterm i have on tues and coping with my sore hand. I am obviously procrastinating at the moment. But who doesn't!