Time to blog.

There is a right time for everything. There is a time to be born and a time to cry. There is a time to plant and a time to pull out plants. There is a time to sing, laugh, cry. I wrote this song and put the music to it when I was 11 when I was a student with Agape Center with the help of my mentor with the words from the bible. Till date, i still have the score with me on my table back home. Memories come flooding by when it was performed by my friends for the opening ceremony of the Agape Center.

Then there are the memories of the times while I was serving in church, whereby I would be in church almost everyday when I was 16. More recently, it's the memories of me and the kingdom. I would consider them my family. The fun times that we had and also the not-so-good times that we had. I still remember the night when everyone gathered at the airport to see me off. If not for the rush and hecticness, I guess I would have just cried. In the plane as I looked at the card that they gave me, my eyes swelled and tears rolled down my cheeks.

Now there are memories of Australia. All the wonderful people both asians and the locals and those who accepts me for who I am. God lead me to a wonderful church, Planetshakers City Church.

I got to know this local - A. He's a rather nice guy and stays just 10 minutes away from the university. I just found out that he has a pool in his house. That's so cool. Nicolaas's parents are in town for the fornight. Fazeah and me would be preparing some asian dishes for them on Monday night for dinner. I'm still not sure if I should just ask A to come though.

Till then,

Happy ANZAC Day (which was yesterday actually)!

Debut on Australia's National Community Radio

I got lost on my way to church today. My internal GPS didn't work. It might be due to the bus making so many turns. I alighted at the wrong stop. 30 minutes later, I landed myself in a train to the city. Went to South Yarra instead to walk around the shopping district.

I made my debut appearance on Australia's national community radio station, JOY 94.9fm. I kinda co-hosted with 2 others in the studio for the Probation program from 6 to 7pm. If everything turns out well, I might continue co-hosting every Sunday.

Oh well, it's end of week 6 and the start of week 7. How time flies.

Hurrah!

Floor Crawling | Pancakes

Every Thursday night's Bar night over at the Eagle Bar. Most of the time, I wouldn't be joining the rest of the people in college for the bar night. However, this week, they had a floor crawl (going from room to room on the floor). And since there was a slip of paper under my door after I arrived home on Tuesday telling me which group I was assigned to, I just agreed on participating. Our theme was on Pacific Islands. Photos of the 3rd North Floor Crawl are on Facebook. Thanks to Charlie for taking all the lovely pictures.

It was great fun seeing people do all sorts of stuffs and playing games and drinking. Of course the good me didn't drink much. Went to Eagle's Bar thereafter for a while. Heard some clubbing songs and how I wish I was back in Singapore over at Taboo. I miss Taboo and clubbing. Once again, I felt so much like dragging. Whahha...

It's Saturday and I went over to Preston Market as usual. Didn't buy much this time. Nick Chew came over to Preston Market for the first time. He bought himself a grater, a bar of chocolate, drinking cocoa powder and a can of whipped cream - to make for himself hot chocolate with whipped cream and some chocolate flakes on top. That's real nice - really enjoying life to the fullest. I can imagine holding up that cuppa of hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate flakes during winter and sipping it slowly. How lovely.

In the afternoon, we went over to Faezah's place as usual for lunch/tea/dinner. Made pancakes from scratch using plain flour, eggs, sugar and such. As we were using the electric heating pan, it took us so long to get it done. After we finally finished, it was almost dinner time. And now, I'm really sick of pancakes and I doubt I'll eat it for the next one month at least.

It's swimming with Martin tomorrow morning and then to shake the planet in the afternoon. I might be going over to JOY FM's studio in the evening as I have a friend who's volunteering there. He says that as the studio's old, everything is done manually. I'm really curious as to how it's done manually and I would really love to have a look and learn. He's actually also looking for someone to co-host with him, and perhaps I'll see if we can work something out.

Cheers to all!

Almost 2 months...

It's 2 more days before it's my 2 months in Melbourne. Life here's not as bad. In fact, it's rather good other than the loss of food in Singapore, not-so-good public transport system and the high cost of living. In fact, almost everything here is so expensive.

I've since submitted my first essay on Monday. A 1500 word essay on Plagiarism. I intend to edit it based on the comments of my lecturer and thereafter submit it to the Singapore Nursing Journal for publication thereafter.

I bought a Logitech 2.1 sound system, a portable heater, a lamp from ikea, 14" color television
as well as the antennae. All these cost me a bomb. And at the 1st week of the semester, I bought a Littmann stethoscope for A$120. It comes with a 3 year warranty and hopefully i'll be able to use it till I retire from the profession.

Looking at what lies ahead of me, I'm a little afraid of my future. I'm not sure how I'll fare for all my subjects and such. Will I even be able to pass the first semester? If I don't do well, my student visa would be terminated and I'll have to go back to Singapore. The money which my parents and I have spent would all go to waste and lotsa people would be disappointed.

I'm just trusting and putting my faith in God. Whatever the outcome be, I trust that it's His plan. If I were to stay on with CGH after my NS, I wouldn't be here in the first place. I would have learnt so much about doing business (and expending my company), hypnotherapy and working over at ESH.

It's the 2nd week that I've tried Hatha Yoga and Pilates (combo). It's rather fun and I've been stretching my whole body from head to toe. 2 months to go before I can say that I'm proficient with Yoga and Pilates.

I'm still deciding if I should attend the PlanetUni camp organized by Planetshakers from the 25th to 27th of this month, Friday to Sunday at Philip Island (the place where there're lotsa penguins). Friday's ANZAC day therefore, it's a public holiday. It costs A$155, inclusive of all meals, accommodation and transportation. Oh well, I'll just pray about it.

I'm going rock climbing tomorrow. It's a floor activity (meaning for all those staying on the same floor as me, 3rd North). Wish me luck that my pants won't tear or I won't be able to reach the top or get stuck on top and can't get down. Whahaha...

Till my next post, which I don't know when it'll be,

Cheers!


Love from the land of the Roos,

Edgar MiRaNtZ

Home Phone & New Photos

I've finally a LAN line. Below are the ways to communicate with me (or even send me surprises).

Home Telephone: +613 94795287
Handphone: +61 433353646
Postal: Glenn College, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086
Email: mirantz(at)gmail.com or ch6tan(at)students.latrobe.edu.au

Went to Williamstown and Boxhill during the week long Easter holidays.

Photos are on Facebook.

I'm not enjoying the cold here. It's been cold the whole week with a low of 9 degrees.

Still chiong-ing my 1500 word essay on Plagiarism.

Ta!

World Pillow Fight Day & Easter

It's World Pillow Fight Day today. In Melbourne, they had it over at Federation Square and I took part in it. Click on the image to see what's it like. It was fun!

Happy Easter everyone! Was Good Friday yesterday. Easter Sunday/Monday's just tomorrow/day-after and followed by a week of holidays. The university's closed till Tuesday. It's rather quiet over at college as most locals has went back leaving the internationals behind.

Still have lotsa assignments to work on and study.

Time to snooze and thereafter, get ready to shake the planet (PlanetShakers City Church) in the afternoon.

Send off @ Changi Airport T3

I just received the pictures which Joe helped to take at my send off over at Changi Airport. Joe's my other partner for Film Five. I counted and there were 18 people (2 not in picture) who came from the Kingdom aka 88 thread and in total, inclusive of my parents, relatives, friends and church mates, I had 42 people (again, the 2 weren't in the picture - Dominic Teng and Hazmi) who came to send me off. That's a real big group. To think of it, I feel so lucky and fortunate.

I've decided to signup for Vodaphone's wireless broadband special offer which will give me 5gb of data for A$39, which of course comes with a 2 year contract.

Should you want the send-off pictures, do email me and I'll send them to you.

Cheers!

Net @ home!

Yay! Finally I've internet connection at home. Home = a small room in college, in a university. It's expensive to use it though, the bandwidth costs 3 auzzie cents per megabyte of data transfer. That equals to A$30 per gigabyte (gb).

I'm rather tired today. Just finished printing all my notes for tomorrow's lecture. I'm going to sleep early tonight, most prob about 15 mins after I blog.

Take care people and Happy Birthday to me. I'm officially 23 years of age in less than 2 hours time (Australian time, on day-light saving). It's rather saddening that no one's going to celebrate it with me. The only thing that's going to comfort me is that lulu's (Marcus) going to cook dinner for me. I actually asked him out for dinner so we could dine out but he says that he's tired of outside food so he'll cook instead. That's so sweet of him.

Goodnight people!

I'm in the library using the net again. Brought my lappy to the library but it couldn't get connected to the internet. Connected with limited connectivity. Therefore, I resorted to using the pc terminal. It's late at night therefore there aren't many people here and I can use it as long as I like. hehe...

Assignments are coming in and I don't like it. Imagine writing 1000+ words on the topic of plagiarism. Gosh!

Since I'm unable to upload photos into facebook using the pc terminal, I shall do it here.

Enjoy the pictures...

No net @ home but outside the library

I still have no internet connection at home. I resorted to bringing my laptop to the outside of the library late at night at about 8.30pm when it's all dark and use the free wireless. At home, I've to pay 3 auzzie cents per megabyte of data transfer. That's expensive. Therefore, it would be good to go out to the library to use things like skype and such. And unlike in Singapore, there're no power plugs to be found therefore, I've to rely on my battery, which can only last me for about an hour or so.

It's the third week that I'm in Melbourne now and life has been quite good thus far. It's getting colder day by day. It's now 15 deg outside. I took quite a few pictures, but won't be uploading them so soon, perhaps till tomorrow or so. I'll be posting them into my facebook album so check it there.

My lecture will be at noon, so i'm practically free till then.

=)

No Net Still

I'm back in the library again.

I enrolled for my course yesterday and I'll only be getting my Statement of Account in about 3 days time. Until then, I've to live without net at home. I'm hoping that once I get my SoA, I'm able to tap into the wireless networks which I detected back home.

To get a connection back home, I'll still have to apply for it and pay $90. :(

I went over to University Mews to check out the apartments. It looks nice and I wouldn't mind shifting there. However, single bedroom units aren't available and only double units are so I'll have to make do with it and be put on the waiting list.

It's Pub-crawling tonight and I'll be going out with my neighbors (over at my building) to various pubs. They have a drinking culture here but I don't really drink - so yea...

Cheers!

Night @ campus

It's real boring at night without any internet connection. No MSN, no Trevvy, no Facebook and such. The coin-phone at my college is faulty - the coin keeps dropping out after inserting it and to use the mobile phone to call the calling card number is expensive. The only way I can chat to people back in Singapore is to walk all the way out to the "central" of the uni, about 4 minutes walk, to use the phone booths. It's under shelter but it's cold and it gets dark after 8pm. It's unsafe to travel alone in the streets of Melbourne, even it school, it gives me the creeps.

No gay life here. There's a GLB society here and I went to take a look at their unit - the Rainbow Room but it was closed. Guess perhaps it's not the start of the semester yet. I'll go join them as it'll make me feel more with my kind - the queers, i suppose.

I wanna go watch Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert but it's just too expensive.

Sigh...

For a better tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day people...

Cheers!~

MiRaNtZ in Melbourne

I'm now in my university's library using the computer terminal as thenet connection in my room's not available yet. I hope that it'll be up in about 2 weeks time or less.

My phone number is: +61 0433353646

My address is:

Edgar Mirantz Tan
Glenn College, Room 319N
La Trobe University
Bundoora
VIC 3086
Australia

Presents, parcels, letters, books, love notes, condoms, dildos, cock-rings and other items can be sent to me using the above-mentioned address. I'll be very much delighted to receive items to my mailbox/door.

Cheers!

No more work!

I regret for not updating my blog for such a long time. just feeling plain lazy to do so.

It's a Monday and I woke up only at 1pm. Slept close to 5am, that's why. I was busy uploading photos from the chalet and Taboo to facebook.

It has been a hectic week and I foresee that this coming week would be another busy week with me flying off to Melbourne this Saturday night.

I had my farewell chalet last Thursday with a BBQ dinner on Friday, checking out of the bunglow on Saturday morning. It was clubbing at Taboo at night and Dinner with Yong Sen, Daniel, Bastian, Marcus and Dan over at Chomp Chomp hawker center last night.

Please visit my facebook photo album for all the pictures which i've taken.


Cheers!

MiRaNtZ's Farewell Dinner (BBQ & Potluck)

-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-

MiRaNtZ's Farewell Chalet cum BBQ/Potluck Dinner

Date: 31st January to 2nd February 2008, Dinner on 1st February 2008 (Friday)
Dinner Time: 1900 hrs onwards
Venue: Aloha Changi, Biggin Hill Bunglow A

Diners are welcomed to contribute any food of any amount. 30+ diners would be expected. Contributions in cash are also welcomed.

No pork/lard would be served for the BBQ as we would be having muslim friends. For potluck items, please label the dishes if it contains pork or lard.

If you wish to contribute any dishes, do inform us in advance so we would be able to avoid any repeatition of food items.

Please RSVP your attendance; stayover, dinner, or both by 27th January 2008.


About Edgar Mirantz Tan

Mr. Edgar Mirantz Tan is a Nurse registered with the Singapore Nursing Board, Certified Hypnotherapist with the National Guild of Hypnotists (USA) and a Gospel Magician being a member of the Fellowship of Christian Magicians. He owns the companies Film Five Management (based in Singapore and UK) and E.M.TAN HYPNOTHERAPY. He has also partnered and worked with Changi General Hospital, Ann Siang Media, BRAVE, Trevvy.com, JM2u, Inkque and East Shore - A ParkwayHealth Hospital.

He holds a NITEC in Nursing from the Institute of Technical Education, a Diploma in Mass Communications from Oklahoma City University (USA) and will be pursuing his Bachelor of Nursing from La Trobe University (Australia) in February 2008.

Contact Information

Mirantz

Email: mirantz(at)film5.org
Phone/Text: 9MiRaNtZ (96472689)

From 27th to 29th January, please contact the under-mentioned:-

Undisclosed

Email: undisclosed(at)film5.org
Text: 94375130

-END-

Farewell chalet confirmed

I've been planning to have a chalet for my farewell for a long time now, but it hasn't been a reality until now.

27th to 29th Jan - Genting trip.
31st Jan to 2nd Feb - Farewell chalet @ Aloha Loyang.

I really have to thank Edwin, the Royal Slut for the 88 kingdom to help me with this. All my friends are invited to come. Please let me know if you're interested in coming so that I can give you more details.

Accompanied Brian to shopping today and he bought trunks, tshirt and a polo tee from SportsmenAsia.com. Cost him $105 in total. Whoa!

Anyway, time for bed. It's the One Life Experience tomorrow again and I'll be there conducting the free anonymous HIV testing for people.

Goodnight!

Happy New Year 2008

It's the time of the year again to greet and wish everyone a Blessed New Year 2008!

2008 thus far has been good and it would be an exciting year for me, I hope.

I'm staring to clear my Annual Leaves. I have 4 days more of AL's left and I'm breaking it into 8 half-days. That means that I'll only be working about 3 to 4 half days in a week.

Yawns.... It's another boring Sunday afternoon~~~~

Edgar Mirantz Tan - Technical Director

This young fellow is so busy, we're fortunate to have been able to catch up with him!

Tell us a little about yourself.

I'm a full time anesthetic nurse in the operating theatre of East Shore – A Parkway Health hospital and also a part time director of two companies - Film Five Management and E.M.Tan Hypnotherapy.

Have you had past experiences in a musical or drama production?

I was involved in the arts scene since kindergarten and I've been doing theatre, musicals and plays ever since. I also took part in The Necessary Stage's :In the Lenses of Youth" (1999) as well as ITE's “A Mid-Summer Night's Dream” (2003). I used to be in the church choir as well.

How did you get involved in this production?

Auntie Jingle approached me and I decided to make this my last production before I leave for Australia in February next year. I'll be pursuing a Bachelor in Nursing and Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy in Melbourne, Australia.

What does your role require of you?

I coordinate with the director and script writers to brainstorm on the various audio, video and lighting effects and equipment needed.

If you had the choice of playing the role of a character, who would it be and why?

The audience. The audience is always a character and I would really love to take a backseat at times. But of course when you're taking a backseat, you'll feel like being involved.

How do you prepare yourself before you go on stage?

Talk, laugh, power nap, drink lots of apple juice (it's good for the throat) and not eat. Eating before a show makes my stomach go BIG and I'll look rounder (which I already am).

*The interview ends abruptly as Edgar flags a cab to rush off for his next appointment. Come catch this flitting fellow as he handles the lighting effects for the musical!

AWS is here~~~

I've finally got my AWS aka 13th month bonus.

Now I'm longing for a short overseas trip to Malaysia, either KL, Malacca or Genting Highlands. Brian told me that there's a buy 1 night, get 1 night free for just $89. Now I'm considering who I should go with and when. Thinking of going in the second week of January and then have chalet on the last week of January.

Brian's having his band concert on the 5th of January and I'm watching Beauty World on the 4th.

As for now, it's the Christmas musical on the 23rd and 25th of December. That's enough to keep me busy. I need more time and more money to meet up with all my friends whom I've not met for a long time and really have to catch up with them before I fly off.

Merry Christmas and have a Blessed New Year ahead!

Gadgets and more...

MiRaNtZ's single again as he was dumped. His ex was liking someone so he couldn't go after someone with an attached status.

Although I'm hurt, I'll pick myself up and I'll run and soar like eagles again. Brian has really been a big big help rendering me all the support that I needed. I'll really need to thank him lots - without him, I wouldn't know how I would have coped.

Last Friday, I went over to SITEX 2007 at Singapore Expo to scout around for a new laptop after my Dell gave up on me and a digital camera. And at Singapore Expo itself, there was the John Little sale, so I went in as well. There I bought 11 sets of branded underwear which my mum was nagging the whole evening as it was rather expensive compared to other brands which I could have gotten it for almost half the price and why I needed such nice undergarments - not as if I would be going to Australia to show them off. Bought 6 pairs of socks as well.

On Saturday, I bought a new laptop for S$2798..00. It's the Asus V2S. Intel Centrino 2.2ghz, 2gb of RAM, 160gb of HD space, DVD RW with Lightscribe. The sales person was rather handsome - oh wait, he was the one I approached after looking through a few salesperson (Hmmm... Am I shopping for a lappy or a guy???)

On Sunday, I went back to SITEX and got myself a Digital Camera for $649. It's a Fujifilm S8000fd, semi-professional 8mpx camera with 18x optical zoom. However, that's from Harvey Normal, so nothing much to choose from (in terms of the salesperson as it's just touch and go). Read the review of my camera here.

Went for the AIDS Walk and I was informed by my dad (who was queuing for the camera) that it's out of stock and that I would have to collect it from the Funan Center either on Wednesday or Thursday.

I'm going to Changi Airport Terminal 3 tomorrow with Derrick. Hope I wouldn't have to stay back like I did yesterday, till 10pm. Will upload pictures of it here if we happen to take any.

Cheers and once again, Thank you Brian (if you're reading this).