i’m so yay~ i managed to get a job i applied to on my own and did the interview and everything! i dont quite mind that they’re only paying me 15 dollars an hour, they said that it’ll probably go up after a few weeks of training but its more that, its a long term job opportunity for at least a year so that’ll be good – something solid to put down on my resume! The people seem really nice there and i cant wait to start working with them =] my boss seems a little bit finicky but i hope i can get stuff done to the standard he wants them to be done >.<

Will update when things are more set!

Great for free money (15 bucks for 20 mins of my time? Sure!) but if they’re psych projects try not to let it screw your head over. i did one today and finished the whole project under the illusion that it was for something else and when the true intent of the project was revealed i went “No wonder all those questions were so weird”. but meh, feelings of being lied to passed quickly when i reminded myself it was the quickest and easiest 15 bucks i’ve ever earned.

@noob: you should consider doing this shit, they pay good monies =D (plus you could just go for the money and screw up all their results by giving random answers)

my brother just came back from his two year service! he took like an hour to get out from the air port though cuz [no airline will be mentioned] lost his baggage =.= never going to use that airline again. but that aside, i’m really crap at merging at over 50Km/h. oh well, i guess i’ll get better at it.

As promised, part two with my properly formed truffles:

They aren’t perfect balls of chocolate goodness but i like to think that they are somewhat rustic XD i chose to use icing sugar to dust the truffles with because as previously mentioned, the truffles are a tad too bitter. to make the truffles i had refrigerated them over night and made the truffles with a melon baller and some glad wrap to help with the rolling so my hands didnt get too dirty. The melon baller is useful for ensuring all the truffles are of even size – other than that, if you like getting your hands dirty go for it and just mould the truffles with your (clean) hands.
Last thing to note: if you use your hands alot the truffles may start to melt a bit so i suggest you pop them back into the fridge for a few mins to set again before you dust them with icing sugar (or coca powder)

This being one day before my last exam i decided to do what i do best at times when the need to study and stress is high. I make something. This time i found a recipe from the Sunday paper to make milk chocolate earl grey truffles. Me not being a fan of milk chocolate, I’ve changed the recipe to a dark chocolate earl grey truffle recipe. I’ve never made truffles before either so here’s hoping everything turns out well in part 2.

This is part 1 because i need to let the ganache sit for a day to solidify slightly more so i can make the truffles.

Ingredients used:

I didn’t even have to cook up anything, it was mostly just heat, mix and emulsify to make the ganache. I did however, run into some problems regarding the ganache. After mixing it was far too oily and i believe it had separated! not knowing what else to do i just drained the oil out and let it sit – hoping that as it cooled the emulsification would come back. but… after while it was clear that it wasn’t going to do what i wanted it to do unless i did something. cue rescue from the world wide web – i took on two pieces of advice, one: add more cold cream, two: cool half of the ganache, and mix the warmer half in.
In the original suggestion it said to warm half the ganache up, i chose not to do that for fear of the emulsification falling apart even more so i just cooled half of it and mixed the uncooled, unheated half back into the cooled ganache. After mixing a bit more it stopped being so oily and slick!

Uncooled ganache. Notice how oily and slick it looks – it has also a very soft texture. I could stick a finger right into that ganache without any resistance and it came out clean because of all the oil which has separated.

The half which went into the ice bath to cool down – it still looks oily and sticky but less so.

After awhile and lots of stirring its getting less oily looking and more firm in texture, at this time I’ve already added in the uncooled portion of the ganache too.

Here’s a video i made to show how firm the ganache should be and what kind of texture it should have:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJO6LcIeVBM

The ganache has come out a little more bitter than i like and I’m afraid that i might’ve burnt the chocolate a little bit when i was blending it – the blender got really hot so i hope that didn’t ruin my chocolate. The Earl grey has given it a deeper flavour too so that has contributed to the bitterness – not to mention i used almost a whole block of dark chocolate! bleh. learnt my lesson – don’t use too much dark chocolate or you’ll end up with bitter truffles. I might use icing sugar to sweeten it. Next time I’ll use a liquor to flavour the truffles =]

just another week and i shall be on my way to finishing all my exams! by next sunday i will be totally and utterly free! its so close i can feel it T_T
Then the glory of four weeks of freedom!

First semester sure went fast! its week 12 now and next week will be the last formal uni week for me before stuvac starts @__@! hopefully not every semester will go by this quickly or i’ll be finding myself in need of a job and out of uni before i can blink! Things are speeding up and the need for solid study is really hitting hard now, its a completely different feeling to the HSC though. Its not like i’m tired of studying any more – well ok actually i am but the difference is that i’m willing to put in the work as opposed to a general refusal to study. might have something to do with the fact that things are getting to the dicey part of sem. Not enough time to stop and think, just gotta keep going T_T but mid-year break is so close! i can see the end! *sigh*

last words: Uni is surprisingly less stressful than the HSC. and i’ve forgotten why i opened my browser for now =.= blah.

We celebrated a friend’s 18th belated birthday today over at max brenner – chocolate death ensued shortly after =D i had something called  a ‘Dark sensual dome’ and my friend had a ‘Chocolate Souffle’ see below for pictures! we also had hot chocolate and it was so good *dies*

Chocolate Souffle

Dark sensual dome

got a random pick up while waiting for my friends in the afternoon, quite funny really. the guy and his friends were trying to get my attention for awhile but i didnt notice or hear (assuming they were waving to someone else and ear phones in ear so i didnt hear anything). nice guy, cute, ironic that i’m getting pick ups now that i’m unavilable haha such is life *sigh*

Also, i went to watch “How to train your dragon” awhile back with a friend – its super cute! it would have been awesome to watch in 3D but we, being poor students couldnt afford the 3D screening so we opted for the 2D one =[ at any rate, if you’re going to watch it, go watch it in 3D! (if you can afford it haha)

it was such a pleasant surprise for me to receive a letter i wrote to myself a year ago. i had just logged onto my email account at the library to waste some time when i found i got a new email from the past me! reading it i realised how much i had changed but at the same time i realised that i loved myself more than i thought i did. the interesting things you learn from a heart felt letter to yourself!

if you’re wondering how i managed to send an email a year after writing it to myself, it was simple. i just used futureme.org – you write an email to yourself, set the date you want it sent and press ’send’! the servers will store it until such time in the future when it is set to be sent. just last year i wrote myself some emails to be sent in a few years time. one email to be sent 2 years into the future and the other 3 years into the future. hopefully when i read those emails in the future i’ll be struck by the same sense of joy and surprise that got me today ^_^ at the very least, futureme.org serves its purpose well enough as a procastination method for the present and a little surprise into the future.

Went to the zoo once again. not for fun, no but for a practical we had to do in our own time =.= its like year 12 all over again, only this time it wasnt that much fun and it cost about 50% more. and since we went on a weekend the zoo was pretty crowded and with student concession at 30 bucks that did not help a whole lot >.< at least my weekly ticket allowed me to take the ferry there without making me spend another arm and leg.

i still need to finish up some questions in my prac manual but other than that, i’ve done all my practical work for BIOS! that went pretty fast. i’m freaking out a little bit now, my exams are in two months and they’re final exams O_O gah! so much to study =[ speaking of study, i also have to do up some notes and revise them for tuesday’s quiz >=[