Clutch of Inspirations.

September 27, 2009

upset @ 3:14 PM

Getting sick on the first week I stepped foot on a foreign unfamiliar land isn't exactly what I wish for. Nevertheless, things certainly don't always go according to my wish list, that's why they say life has its ups and downs.

Actually I have no one else but myself to blame on for my annoying fever. Reason 1 was walking in the rain during the ChemEng Scavenger Hunt for us freshers. (Dad was like, ''You see? You seee?? Surely fever one like that!'' when I told mummy and him about it.) I didn't dare reveal reason no.2 - eating a LOT of biscuits. Sigh. Maybe I shall blame Marks and Spencers for producing so much effing wonderful biscuits which sis' parents bought for her...and ended up in my tummy. The milk chocolate digestives is my love!! Though sis finds them a tad tooo sweet. I guess all those time in Miri when I seldom eat biscuits cause dad says they're heaty just makes my cravings even worse.

i wish i would not get sick eating biscuits =(

So here I am, sulking and pouting alone in my room all day long, doing nothing but sleep, drink, swallow my vitamins, chloroguard, spirulina and haemoberry, pee, boil water for a million times and online. But low and behold, the Internet is down, which is why my flatmates turn to the tv in our common room instead. How pathetic can things get!

Anyway, I think I'm being a bit homesick. In the sense that I keep thinking, how nice if I'm at home where mummy will come check on me when I fall ill, bringing a cup of water and touching my forehead to see if the fever has gone down; whilst dad will slice apples, oranges, kiwis, bananas etc for me. Speaking of which, I miss all those fruits immensely. =( I know I can find them here, but, you know..$. Thinking from another aspect, perhaps I'll start buying them all the same, cause fruits are healthy and I heart fruits! Sis, faster come back with my plums..Supposed to go shopping with everyone today but retreated as the chill out there might worsen my stupid fever.

***

Lectures/school will officially start on Monday in 2 days time. I hope fever has bid me goodbye by then, better even tomorrow so that I can go to church for mass. This week was all about introduction and stuff. Our School of CEAS director, Dr Arthur Garforth, is an amiable, humorous person with good voice projection. He should meet my dad - both insist on not using handphones XD But Dr Arthur is more extreme than dad, cause he doesn't even use MSN or Facebook or any of these things, the reason being he doesn't wanna waste time on them when he can spend the time with us instead! So, he's the only staff in the university without a phone and he's proud of it. (I think. =)

We met with our personal tutors - 6 of us share 1. Mine is Professor Robin Smith and he sure looks experienced and intellectual. He has been living in Manchester for 25 years, seeing it as his home. The other 5 tutees in my group are all from London except for one who's from Malaysia as well - Wai Lam who did foundation here last year.

There is also this PASS programme which stands for Peer Assistance Study Scheme where we are divided into groups of 10+ led by 2 seniors. I stupidly joined the wrong group to be confused why my name isn't in that group's list x.x Very lame reason I don't wanna disclose. Anyways, my real seniors are Andrew and Stephen, 2 quite quiet guys. My fellow peers appear to be all locals except an Iranian girl and an Irish guy. Point is, all of them have strong accents which makes me go blank at what they are saying sometimes. And I wonder why the girls don't seem to like me, as in I get the feeling they don't want to talk to me. Maybe I think too much, maybe it really is racism. Looh Zhen convinced me it was the later, since she and Sarah dealt with the same problem =/ Thus an afternoon which I was very quiet as we did things like squeezing 7 of us into a telephone booth, running into the fountains at St. Ann’s Square when the water stops shooting up for that few seconds, taking pics with a bus driver and a police and so on. Each task gains the team points, that’s how the game runs...I don’t understand why it is called scavenger hunt. I find Looh Zhen’s team mates uber funny – one of the task is to look for a weird thing, and the thing they got was…a durian in Chinatown! Some people just have to show how narrow their mindset is.

I don't find it weird btw. I find it tasty! =D

0 muffins for me

September 23, 2009

my room comes forth @ 8:54 PM

Here comes my room in Manchester! Nice place but I am gonna move out next year. The skyhigh accommodation fee is way off my dad's budget, okay, don't make ourselves sound so pitiful, err, it's not economical, yeah. But sigh, no one seems to have the intention of renting an outside house! They are more like, we wanna move to Weston Hall next year. T.T

ALright. Tell me if this place is worth £102 per week after discount for paying full. x.x No, it's not a catered hall.

That's where I come in from - the space on the right. See the white towel hanging there? That would be the bathroom door.

I know my bedsheet is so plain and unattractive and totally makes my room look so not cosy. Sis has the pinkest and 'purplest' room. Anyway, I can go snuggle into your thick duvet anytime right?

I have the best luck to get the room with the narrowest shelf. Some rooms even have 2 shelves! =( Sighh..and I also got the room that has a spoilt bedside lamp, broken safe lock, vanished bathroom door hook..no worries, everything's fixed now after I filed the reports, so yay!

Probably where I'll be stuck at for most of the time in the next 9 months.

I bought this for mummy at The Lowry Shopping Mall! Is it nice?? =)

Oranges from sis sitting on the windowsill.

View from the window. In case you're wondering, yes, I'm on the ground floor, though it's called Level 2.

Today's programme was all about Lab. We were divided into 3 groups according to our surnames alphabetically. So sis and I were in Group B together, along with 5 other Malaysians. 2 of them we just met on the way to Renold's today - Matthew and Jack whose name I heard as Sheikh XD. They stay at Weston Hall too! Finally some ChemEng Malaysians in Weston other than us two! :D

In the attempt of obtaining the static water pressure.

I admit I was somewhat lost in the lab. All those equipments make me feel dumb cause I have no idea how they operate, panicking as we carried out the experiments. Just got to study really hard like what sis' dad said - he was emphasizing on study serious, have a balance life and stay safe. Besides, our uni seems to publish the rankings of the students for examinations. That'll be a good push for us to remind ourselves we're here to obtain a good degree but owwh, so scary. Please lead my way in whatever I do, Lord.

1 muffins for me

my 1st glimpse of Manchester City @ 1:19 AM

I have a lot of fresh strawberries :D

Before I start, I apologize for something I am pissed about as well. As you see in my strawberries pic, there's a black line on the right. It just appears when I use my phone camera, sigh. =( So please bear with it...until I get back to Miri and have it fixed. That's next year.

***

I managed to get sis to follow me to mass on Sunday at the Chaplaincy just opposite our Student Union. Since Dad was making a move to Nottingham already, he drove and dropped us there, but we were still a bit late x.x 2 minutes after we entered, I became sure sis won't be willing to come with me there again the coming week. Our mass procession must have seemed really unfamiliar and weird to her. I'm glad it is similar to Mater Dei back in Miri though. Just some minor differences like how they use 'trespass' instead of 'sin' in The Lord's Prayer, but that should be the original one I guess.

Just sitting next to it is this chivalric piece of architecture - the Holy Name Church, probably built back some hundreds years ago. Jane absolutely loves this stone church to every bit, apparently the old churches in NZ are wooden ones, most of them.

Attracted by the stirring music coming from inside, we entered the church to be impressed by the magnificent interior structure. It's a wonderful place to come quietly and pray or simply do some reflections in front of God.

Looking to the right after you enter.

It amazes me how the chiselers have such patience to produce these delicate carvings.

There's a torchlight procession along Oxford Road, prayer throught the night and exhibition this coming Sunday - about St Therese of Lisieux. I kinda felt like volunteering for being a helper that night but walking to and fro the church at night alone ain't a wise decision. My place is minimum 15 mins on foot away if I walk fast! Besides, classes starting next day after that so..hmm.

The three of us - Sarah, sis and I went walking up and down Oxford Road trying to kill time. That's the main entrance to the Old Quadrangle where Whitworth Hall is located.

We decided to pop in the museum which actually belongs to our university.

The two still taking pics. Felt like snatching away their camera/phone. My miserable 2MP cam.

If you look closely at the petite flowers you shriek ''So pwetty!!" in UK, they are the same flowers we have by the roadside back in Miri. In fact it's called "美里花" (Miri flower). Lol. But okay, we don't have such a nice array of colours to mix together.

The main doors to the museum. 1st second I looked I thought, yay, no one, we can have the museum to ourselves. 2nd second I realized it was closed.

Charles Darwin Extravaganza.

me and Sarah!

Using the timer in Sarah's cam. No one around to help take XD

The only thing we can see from the window is this Giant Spider Crab. Hello there.

Our University Place. Where we got free hot steaming coffee and tea after seeing people walking out with the cups. Luckily I didn't get coffee which sis and Sarah got cause it was very bitter. Sarah practically emptied several satchets of sugar and sweetener into hers :D And sis? A bee seemed to fell in love with her coffee and kept circling and getting close to her. You should have seen how she looked like twisting and running to avoid the bee..Sarah and I were laughing like what. Wished I had videoed it XD Bleehh..sorry sis! That's for exchanging my tea for your coffee and made me drank it stupidly when I was busy talking to Benny's mum.

***

Skipping over the guilty breakfast at McDonald's. And skip the campus tour as well which Looh Zhen joined together..cause I didn't took a single pic =.=

We went for city tour in the afternoon at 3pm after walking at my fastest pace. I seriously thought we were going to miss the bus! Luckily there were just 3 seats left in the double decker - fits the 3 of us nicely, but separated. I sat next to a black guy. I don't know whether he doesn't like me or my voice was really that tiny but he didn't even glanced at me when I attempted twice to strike up a convo.

The town house or something located in City Central Area.

Homey little tavern.

This is the City Hall, Greater Manchester.

Passing through part of Piccaddily which I always thought is in London. Never knew there's another one here in Manchester. No Piccadilly Gardens here anyway.

Our tour guide didn't say what building this is so I guess it's of no significance. By the way, the way she speaks and explains the history of the buildings and also Manchester totally reminds me of the Listening test in IELTS.

The only place we were let down from the bus is Salford Quays. Salford is a sister city of Manchester, just a short drive away from the city centre itself. The place gave me a good first impression upon reaching. I like this river which acts as a border between Manchester and Salford. I was joking to Sarah she could swim in it. Turns out it really was used for swimming in the triathlon held here annually. T.T

Sis and I on the bridge leading to the War Imperial Museum, an oddly-shaped building.

Beside River Irwell where we met a Cambodian whose name is a bit alike sis'.

Nice glass windows.

Fabulous weather that day!

The Lowry Art Gallery and Theatre.

Bridge to W.I.M from afar. Red devils coming out from there.

Conducting in front of the Lowry Shopping Mall, sis?

That's our bus on the right. So funny how we were confused which is ours, cause there were 4 totally same buses. We asked the bus drivers gathered at one point which is the bus leaving at 4.20p.m. and they were like, dazzled too. So we continued with which bus driver is Ben? Lols. Forgot the name..They belted out laughing, even worse when Sarah asked ''Or Benny?"

In the end we just hopped on the bus we saw the others hopping on XD The driver's name, we discovered at the end of the tour, was Barry! (thanks sis =P)

Random shot whilst the bus was jammed on the road. Why sooo jammed?? You'll know if you are a...

...football fan! There was the match between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford! So darn excited as we approached Old Trafford, I was so hoping we get to go down and explore the place XD Maybe bumping into Owens or Rooney or Park Ji Sung. *snaps out of it*

Gigantic posters.

Craze of the Red Devils frenzy.

Old Trafford logo.

Poor Manchester City who lost 3-4 to MUFC. Never mind, you guys have a nice stadium.

I'm being honest, reallY! This stadium was used for the Commonwealth Games in 2002!

And this, is the Velodrome where 9 Olympic gold medallists in cycling trained!

A more modern building in Manchester.

The City Council undergoing some renovation(?).

I like those boxes protruding out!

Another glimpse of the City Hall as we made a second round there before ending the tour.

***

Weston Hall was offering free pizza for dinner that night! So darn happpie~I got Pepperoni and Chicken Pizza while sis got Vegetarian and Chicken XD how I wish they organize free pizza events every night. hmm.

1 muffins for me