Reasons to Love
Tom Yam Fried Rice
Homely Bedside Table
The Warwick Arts Centre Against a Deep Blue Sky
And the Treetops Glisten...
Snowfall on Tocil
And This is Where We Stand
Back from the dead!
So here I am after my only lesson on Wednesdays, after watching gorgeous snowfall last evening, by a window overlooking a patch of white like icing on the grass.
It’s been a great week and things are not only on a roll, but on a steady gravity-defying upward roll! Better and busier days await me – I’ve just been made Set Designer for Malaysian Night 2009, which is going to be held at the Belgrade Theatre on February the 7th. Exciting, indeed, but the question is whether I am up to it or not! I don’t suppose I was that sure of what I was getting myself into when I ran to be in the set design team. But it’s alright, it’ll be a challenge and it’ll be a whole new thing for me so I’ll just have fun milking my creative juices! Also I have an audition to perform for Malaysian Night tonight (singing, obviously) in about an hour, so hopefully that goes well for me…haven’t done solo in ages and it’d be nice to experiment; I’ve only got 3 more years to go an off to adulthood I go!
Although I must say a black spot on my white fabric of happiness is the fact that Natwest is so SLUGGISH, they’ve reissued my atm PIN number because they first one didn’t reach me, but neither seems to be coming to me. It’s really quite annoying because I keep having to borrow cash from people when I run out.
Also my flatmates think I’m an amazing cook 
Thanks but I swear it’s because…Malaysian food is just generally the best hahahaha. Okay okay sorry about that.
Right that’s all for now…I’m going to head off to Pi’s room to get him to listen to me sing because I’m nervous.
<3!
How to be ‘Spontaneous’
Take a bus on the wrong side of the road.
That’s what Sarah, Natalia and I did today when we innocently hopped onto bus 12 to take a nice short bus ride to Coventry for a bit of shopping.
Mind you, unlike the others, I’ve actually been to Coventry a number of times on the same bus.
We went through a really pretty town (which was Kenilworth, we realised later), and wondered for a long time where we were. I unsuspectingly said “Hmm the bus must be taking a different route! I’ve never seen this town!” I’ve often seen “via Kenilworth” flashing on the digital display of the bus so I STILL didn’t think anything was wrong (apparently the fact that buses run in two different directions didn’t occur to us at all).
Hmm. The bus chugged on.
After that we left Kenilworth and passed through some countryside roads, so we thought we were on the right track again.
And the bus chugged on.
A while later we arrived at some nice residential roads with interestingly-trimmed bushes. Sarah commented “These are really pretty houses! I thought everyone’s always saying how dull and grey Coventry is.”
“Ooh they’re like mini mansions.”
Hmm.
And the bus STILL chugged on.
After a while…
Natalia exclaimed “That’s where my friend lives!! This is Leamington Spa!!”
“Shit let’s get down now!”
“Ohmygod are you serious!”
And when we got down we couldn’t stop laughing. SO much for a day of shopping at the ‘city’!
Not such a bad thing I guess…at least we spent the day walking about a really, really quaint town, ate lunch at Subway and even got to shop a bit…though it was close to closing time haha.
Sarah and I Posing In Front of the Sign that Says Leamington!
Random picture of nice skies, taken on campus:
Clouds On a Sunny Autumn Day
Little Things That Make Me Laugh
Alex Hits the Tables
Somebody should prescribe this for bad days..
Pretty Things and Other Stories
Things are slowly getting on a roll, although of course the occasional bump is inevitable! Seminars have started – Organisational Behaviour seminar was very interesting. My first OB sem was probably the only class I ever sat in with my eyes and years wide open and with my mouth itching to say something. Yeah, the subject matter is cool, but it wasn’t the only thing- we have a good mix of degrees (accounting and finance, computer science, psychology etc.) as well as students in various years of study, so even in our first lesson there was a good range of perspectives and insight, especially from the third-years. Topics like the Milgram experiment and the Holocaust cropped up, and I have to say that it was really a very very different angle from the OB lesson I had in NTU.
Choir isn’t going all too well for now because practices are on Thursdays from 5 to 7, and I have lectures from 1-5, so by the time I reach the Music Centre I’m so tired out that it’s really hard to concentrate and sing properly. In fact I practically slump in my chair upon reaching the practice room. Hopefully it’ll all get better once I’m used to it… I must be optimistic!
On a lighter note, I’m not THAT bad at cooking…this is my sweet sour chicken! Looks pretty sweet huh. The sauce was too dilute because I didn’t have any corn starch to add into it but it’ll do.
However I must confess I’m still terrible at managing my finances…somehow I still don’t seem to be coming to terms with the sad fact that small things add up to a huge bill so I’m still happily spending on ‘little things’ then go OHMYGOD when I open my wallet at the end of the week… I feel quite ashamed of myself really. But at least I’m really happy with the warm clothing that I bought <3 YES! 
Mostly though I’ve been busy running errands and making the occasional bus trips to Coventry and around. Leaves are yellowing fast, falling fast, and I love how nowadays, everywhere I walk I hear a lovely damp crunch underfoot. It’s getting colder and windier, and the campus just looks absolutely gorgeous amidst all the rustling and light drizzles. I love running in the cold, blowing warmth onto my hands when I go indoors; I love stuffing my hands into my pockets, I love stepping into my boots knowing they will keep me warm, I love feeling the wind in my face and feeling my nose go numb. I love coming into my room feeling like an icicle which just stepped into the sun! I love looking at the golden tree outside my window, and watching the sky go dark, then looking at my watch, and seeing it’s only 6.30pm.
Last week I left the lovely unpolluted cold of Warwick for a weekend down in London with dear Alex, where it’s warm and sooty in the day, cold and musty at night, but so charming all the same. I actually intended to do all the touristy things (so I could take pictures with places I saw four years ago in a better outfit, with better glasses and better hair ) but we ended up on a loooooong walk through Hyde park (met Suwan there!), then a short stop at Oxford Street, by when we were so tired that we only really looked at Dorothy Perkins (where I bought my dead beaver-lookalike coat) and Primark (where we nearly got stampeded, if not by people then by the clothes being flung around like nobody’s business) before taking the tube back.
Sunday was completely tube-free but consisted of 5? 6? hours of striding about in heeled boots so by the time I came back to Alex’s place to pack and go my feet felt like jelly. We went to Liverpool Street’s flea market, took a bus down to Chancery Lane, walked a big square just so we could walk through Chancery Lane, walked to LSE, walked to Trafalgar Square, walked to Chinatown, then walked back to Passfield Hall.
Speaking of jelly I’m so going to try and make my mom’s jelly cheesecake soon. Then shall invite everyone to try it, whee hee. It’s gonna have to be a huge cake then….maybe in batches. Hmm.
Some of my favourites: [PICTURE SPAM ALERT!]
Day 1 – All Hyde Park
Us Under a Tree
Lone Duck Sailing Away
Silhouetted Against the Sun
Rustling Gold and Green
Suwan and I in a Jump Shot
Swooping Across Marble Arch
Day 2
Liverpool Street
Coleslaw at Gourmet Burger (Good stuff!)
Knock-knock! At Chancery Lane
The Classic London Phone Booth
Random Pretty Pub (on the way to LSE)
St. Martin in the Fields - near Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
And some random stuff:
Look What I Have on My Wall!
If your picture/letter/note isn’t up there when you KNOW it should be, it’s because I didn’t manage to get them printed in time…wait till I go back in December!
And See What My Flatmates Do
They played baseball with my 25p Wilkinson’s kitchen spatula and a balloon… undergraduates, we are. Indeed! Hahaha.
Little Update
Busy, busy, busy times! I’m doing this with my eyes half-closed so I thought the best way to update is to start by telling you guys what I’ve been buying, in no particular order, off the top of my head:
1. A baby pink Warwick sweatshirt which cost me a frickin’ 20 pounds.
Baby pink!
2. Lilac quilt cover to match my pillow case, tee hee.
Pretty in Purple
3. A plaid miniskirt…and purple leggings (don’t ask)
(okay I’ll explain. Newlook is having discounts for students)
Not this miniskirt, another one I'm saving for later
Choir rehearsal was very good - we did fascinating vocal exercises, even stranger than Toh’s, though I’m not one to talk because this is technically the second proper choir that I’ve ever joined (church choir aside)..We seem to have an interesting repertoire as well. We’re doing Song for Athene, Bohemian Rhapsody and Duel of the Fates for our free concert tomorrow, and sad to say, I’m hardly prepared! Oh dear.
It was inspiring and very novel, however, singing in an entirely new choir where I’m one of the only 3 Asians in the choir, and the only Malaysian/Singaporean. The other two are Japanese, and it’s not much easier talking to them compared to the rest of the Brits.
Also I realise how some locals (no offence to anyone) seem to think that all Chinese-looking people can’t speak English. It’s so obvious how surprised some people look when I approach them, open my mouth and speak in perfect English. I can’t blame anyone for this, I guess, I’d be equally taken aback if a non-Chinese came up to me and spoke in perfect Mandarin (Not that I would know what perfect Mandarin is, of course, hehe). I suppose it’s only time that all of us start accepting that the world is a lot more globalised than we think! I’m glad I’m getting along fine with my flatmates – a sure sign that it would be too presumptuous to assume that coming from different countries necessarily implies completely different wavelengths. The biggest barrier is probably the accent, because I guess that’s what people tend to judge with.
However I am quite pleasantly surprised myself that I got used to the accents so fast, because initially I had a bit of a rough time listening to and understanding different accents – apparently the accents of people from the Liverpool area are quite hard to understand, according to someone, is this true? – but now it’s all hunky dory, and I can catch everything I hear. Now the only thing left to do is to distinguish between the different places in UK. But I don’t suppose that is easy, because from what I read on the imdb forums, many locals cant pinpoint the origin of the accents themselves. Earl, my flatmate, tried the Cockney accent on Vanessa and me today but apparently we don’t hear any difference haha.
Lessons proper have yet to start, so I can’t say much about that- except that we had our first presentation today! The very short project was primarily tailored to help us ‘discover our teamwork styles’, and not so much of an academic purpose, so well obviously it wasn’t very well done in terms of research and analysis haha. But that’s fine, because I’d say it went pretty well for a first presentation with hardly any preparation hehe.
Oh, and I tried clubbing! No, i shouldn’t say that. It should be I tried to ‘embrace the clubbing atmosphere’, because somehow ‘clubbing’ seems to imply many consecutive entries, and it seems to imply an enthusiasm which i definitely do NOT feel about ‘clubbing’.
And I have to say, ‘clubbing’ is absolutely boring and such a pointless thing to do. How is dancing, whether or not while intoxicated, to rubbish ‘douche douche douche’ music fun? Sure, the music isn’t rubbish to some people, but even those who think that club music is rubbish claim to enjoy clubbing. Also the music is ridiculously loud. If I wanted to drink, I’d rather have nights in with reliable friends, on cushions, talking, and if we wanted to dance and rock about we’d switch on our own stereo and play music that is actually agreeable with our tastes, eardrums and our heart rates.
It’s a collective pretense, I tell you. Everyone says they like it so everyone else must say they like it too, or be at risk of looking stupid and dorky.
Well, at the risk of looking stupid and dorky, because I really don’t give a crap, here it is: Clubbing is rubbish!!!
With the Malaysian girls
But I know if a bunch of good friends decide to go together I won’t say no, unless it’s like 10 pounds or something. Because I have to admit it’s funny watching drunk people’s antics.
Unless drunk people start to try and grind, which is what Germany (this guy we know…) tried to do with me, but I steadfastly refused to turn around. Please, save it for some other girl who’s willing enough to throw herself all over you.
Rubbish.
Haha okay so that’s enough of a summary of my little adventures over the past few days.
Oh, today was a very good dinner because we met a bunch of Malaysians who were celebrating Hari Raya and treated us to kuih Raya (Ramadhan cakes for those of you who don’t know) and awesome cucur ikan bilis (which is a sort of Malaysian food, made of fried dough with anchovies. Good stuff).
And I discovered, I am a HORRIBLE cook. Hehe.
That’s all. Good night!
