Emergency Getaway to St. Petersburg

Once I opened a fortune cookie on Facebook (duh - now life revolves around Facebook for no understandable reason) that said something about going somewhere in a rush and I should be prepared for it.

I think the cookie's prophecy came true today.

Today, suddenly I was told that my best buddy and I had to go to St. Petersburg TOMORROW (wow - now that's quite an emergency decision!) to accompany our university agent and his wife on their Russian sightseeing trip. Then after that, we are to bring them to Moscow and send them off at Domodedovo International Airport, then lastly make our way back home to Kursk. 

What is interesting about this emergency getaway is:

1. It is an all-expense paid trip for two - including transport, accommodation, and food!

2. It is a 6D/7N trip!

3. Both of us got the permission letters from the Dean of Foreign Affairs to skip classes without having to do replacement classes for classes that we are going to miss!

4. The travel destination is St. Petersburg - the most beautiful city in Russia!

5. A chance to go SHOPPING!

Anyway - I haven't packed my bags yet, as I have trouble with it all the time. I want to travel light, but I always ended up carrying a lot more than what I need - which I will realize only halfway in the trip. But I just plan to bring a duffle bag and a tote bag with me. I will most probably be bringing back home some shopping trophies from there, so I'd better make some room in my bags.

I do not know what to expect when I reach there, but I googled for St. Petersburg, and I got a sneak peek of what we might encounter during the trip:

Seriously, I have no idea what these buildings are all about. Later I will be there myself, and I'll take my own pictures then!

When Hunger Strikes

MY SITUATION

It is 1.32 a.m. 

I am hungry, and my stomach is growling. 

I have no drinkable water.

MY PROBLEM

I try not to eat after 7 p.m. 

Even if I wanted to cook, the stove is out of order. 

And so is the kettle.

SOLUTION

Just eat - or else risk a sleepless night. 

Make a salad out of random stuff in the fridge. 

No need to drink after eating the salad - it is moist enough.

The Desperado Salad

You will need: 

2 tomatoes

1 cucumber

1/2 green bell pepper

4 crab sticks

A sizeable amount of light mayonnaise

1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

Some oregano, marjoram, garlic granules, black pepper, and dried basil leaves

Salt and sugar to taste

Method: 

Easy. Wash all veggies. Dice. Put in bowl. Do the same with the crab sticks. Put in vinegar. Pour the mayonnaise until it coats everything nicely. Add zest with spices and salt and sugar. Enjoy.

Preparation time:

Depends on how fast you dice them raw ingredients. I took about 5 minutes to get it all done.

Mediocrity

Mediocrity. Is it really insulting? (picture courtesy of Flickr.com)

[MEDIOCRITY]

The quality of being not very good, just acceptable but not very good.

I was chatting with a friend today. We talked about random stuff. We talked about him. We talked about me. Then a little bit more about me. Then it was about me, again. He said that I was very talented. He said I was a jack-of-all-trades.

Now, I haven't heard this of word in ages.

A jack-of-all-trades all-in-one gift hamper.

The jack-of-all-trades is naturally a person who is capable of doing a wide variety of tasks, as they possess a multitude of such skills which enables them to do so.

Oh. WOW. That's great.

Suddenly it struck me that MAYBE this jack-of-all-trades is not so much of a good thing after all. PERHAPS he is CAPABLE of doing a wide variety of tasks, but not really GOOD at neither one of them?

Then I reviewed myself. I am quite sure that I am capable of carrying out a wide variety of tasks, and employ certain skills which not all might have - but I found out that I wasn't good enough in any of them.

I am an average student - never the Genius Mathematician.

I am an average musician - never the modern day Mozart.

I am an average cook - never the next Chef Gordon Ramzay.

I am an average athlete - never in a league with Roger Federer.

I am an average person - never the twin of Brad Pitt.

I live an average lifestyle - never second to Bill Gates.

I am very much an AVERAGE ACHIEVER.

So does that mean I am just MEDIOCRE?

Bummer. I never wanted to be mediocre. I've always wanted to be one of the best - at least in one field. Sports. Education. Social. Is it too much to ask? Maybe. Then I thought further:

Some people are born filthy RICH - but might look unattractive, or even slightly retarded.

Some people are born to be GENIUSES - but live a poor life and looks undesirable.

Some people are blessed with GOOD LOOKS - but unfortunately a bit slow in thinking and dirt poor.

Sometimes if they are better off, they'd have 2 out of the 3 desirable qualities.

Lucky ones get all 3.

How about those who gets average scores for all 3? Not so good, but not so bad either. A bit undecisive here. Although you don't get the high-ranked priviledges, you won't get to hit the bottom of the drain either.

So, is it okay to settle for MEDIOCRITY?

*will be continued*

What I wish for Christmas...no - I want it ASAP!

I was so relieved when it was finally the end of my insanely boring Gynae class today. My grouppies were all hyped up about the 50% discount offer on the pork meat in Billa. So me and my best bud decided to check it out - and maybe we will be having some nice steak tonight.

Unfortunately, it seems that the hot offer was so hot - that all the meat on offer was all long gone by the time we reached Billa. I guess a mob of dedicated housewives stormed the place earlier and snatched up each and every bit of meat that was there.

Oh well, since we are here in the Pushkin Mall - might as well go window shopping at all the designer shops around. Maybe we could find a good bargain or two.

When we entered Francesco Donni, I saw a really really REALLY smashing mini-duffle bag. It looks somehow like the Burberry Warwick Bag - only cheaper :)

Should I buy that bag or not?

But it costs 1790 roubles which is about RM200+.

Aargh - it is hard being a shopaholic!

Running Late for Lecture

Recently, I have the strange knack of waking up exactly A MINUTE before my alarm sets off in the morning. I woke up for a few times at 7.29 a.m. Then I would wait for the alarm to ring, only to shut it off and then most probably continue sleeping, or just lying pointlessly on the bed, daydreaming - AGAIN. Usually if I fell back asleep, I would wake up the next 15 minutes or so - thanks to my secondary backup alarm at 7.45 a.m.

BUT TODAY IT WAS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT STORY.

Woke up as usual, at 7.29 a.m. Waited for the alarm to ring. Shut it off. Laid pointlessly on the bed, daydreaming. Fell back asleep. WOKE UP AT 8.30 a.m.

And I have Gynaecology lecture at 9 a.m.

(Usually I don't go for boring morning lectures e.g. Epidemiology (useless), Paediatrics (lecture was practically non-existent since 2-3 years ago, as everyone got the lecture handouts), Dermatology (same case as Paeds.) Social Medicine (crappy) and some others...)

Gynaecology is a bit different. It is A BIT exciting compared to the aforementioned lectures - although I hate this subject. And I hate the Head of Department. She is an EVIL BITCH. Whenever her name was mentioned, it was somehow synonymous to titles such as The Witch, The Bitch, The Crazy Lady, and the list goes on and on and on...she is just plain psycho.

I got on her wrong edge once, where I was BLAMED for sleeping in her lecture (Hello, its the person beside me who was trying hard not to appear sleeping! She could just have painted fake eyes on her eyelids.) But then not long after that I was CAUGHT (my bad) "illegally photographing" her lecture slides. She shouted at me and cried foul for infringement of her copyrights to the lecture material (Hello, I knew that you copied the information from some other sources - because the slides were written in PERFECT ENGLISH. And how does your gramatically- and phonetically-challenged Russianized English match up to your allegedly "copyrighted slides"? It is not even THAT close (emphasizing the distance between my thumb and my forefinger)

Okay, so I have been a little bit emotional just now. So - where was I? Oh yeah, I woke up late at 8.30 a.m. So I did my best to take a bath, dress and groom up in 30 minutes (which I kept on thinking was personally impossible) although my best timing was 42 minutes and 34 seconds. So miraculously, I did it in about 25 minutes. HOORAY, new personal record. (thanks to the swept back hairstyle which took only minutes to complete.) So I was set to go at 8.55 a.m. As I was getting ready to go, another problem surfaced.

WHERE IS MY HOUSE KEY?!?!?!

Arrgh. Things are never there when you really need them, and when you don't exactly have much time to go treasure hunting for them. Sigh. Arrgh. Nevermind. Hope my roomies are in the room when I go back home later. Thanks to that ridiculous key-hunting event, I wasted another 5 minutes of my precious time - which I could have used to hightail my sorry late ass to lecture.

So, I hurried...

Hurried past a traffic jam across the street (luckily I have moved to a place nearby the University - so traffic jams are a thing of the past now)...

But I had to run up a few flights of stairs in the main corpus still...

And at last I reached the door of the lecture hall.

Okay. Deep breath. Regain composure. Straighten coat and scarf. Open the door...and OH NO. Is that HER  voice? The Evil Witch's voice? She is giving the lecture for today?????

NOOOOOOOOOO~~~~!!!!!

And I'm nearly 15 minutes late. Ah well, I might as well just go back home and do something else rather than to attempt suicide by trying to enter the hall when SHE is the lecturer and I am terribly late for her lecture. There goes my attendance mark - into the drain!

Well, at least I can take the slow walk back home :)

p/s: I DESPISE YOU, EVIL BITCH.