film is a REAL degree

Moving On

2007-08-26T21:18:00.000Z

i've been putting off my move to a new blog for obvious reasons.

i'll really miss this blog but somehow the URL is no longer a reflection of where i am in life.

it was fun while it lasted. this blog really helped me through the past 3 years and will remain a reminder of those incredible memories.

when i ever get round to finishing the last 2 'draft' posts (my trips to China and Poland/France), you'll be informed.

but until then, you can visit my new blog HERE.

Graduation seems like such a distant memory

2007-08-14T19:47:00.000Z

since getting back to Singapore, i've been busy trying to get as much done as i can. it feels like i can finally slow down this week and as i sit in front of the computer looking through photos from graduation, it feels like it was such a long time ago! i can't believe i've graduated, or even that i won't be flying back to the UK anytime in the next few months. i guess surreal is the word...

my graduation was pretty eventful - i'm really happy that my family flew in all the way for what were literally lightning visits so that they could watch me walk on stage in my gown and everything. and Josh took half the week off work to spend with me and my family :)

my ceremony was the last of the entire cohort's (the afternoon of the friday) so in a way it already felt special. however, it was made memorable by other "special" happenings... as you know, there was severe flooding in the UK in July, which was quite a crisis for the country. Warwickshire was affected by the rains (and subsequent flooding) which started the morning of my graduation. in fact, there was a bit of drama early that morning because my brother had just arrived at Heathrow and was due to get into Leamington around 10am. i received a call from him just before 8am that morning saying that he had just got onto an earlier train and was due to arrive around 9.20am. unprepared for such an early arrival, Josh and i hurried to get my stuff into bags and left Birmingham, driving towards Kenilworth (where we had to pick up my parents and move them to the other guesthouse that they were booked to stay in). while on the road, i received a call from my brother saying that lightning had hit one of the signals between Bicester North and Banbury and as a result, no trains were running between Bicester North and Birmingham (the line passes through Leamington Spa). no word on replacement bus services and i was worried that by the time they did get one up and running, my brother might not make it in time to get a shower at the guesthouse and get ready for the ceremony (we had planned to get to University around 11.30am so that i would be guaranteed extra tickets for the ceremony and wouldnt have that long a queue for photos - or have problems finding convenient parking). we started driving towards Bicester North, just in case, and if there was a replacement bus service up before we got there, we would easily be able to turn around and make our way back to Kenilworth. thankfully they managed to fix the signal and my brother got onto the next train (which got him in at 10-ish, the original time he was due to arrive) so that was a big relief. when everyone was settled into the guesthouse (my parents had to change because the one that they were staying in the 2 nights before my graduation was fully booked the night of), we made our way to the Warwick Arts Centre AND even found incredibly strategic parking i.e. a lot that was near the building so that we didnt have to walk far in the rain.

we arrived just before 11.30am. i managed to get into the early-bird queue for spare tickets (everyone only gets 2, the rest are on first-come-first-serve), got into my gown (they even fitted me and pinned everything on!) and didnt have to wait long for my studio photos (hardly a queue), which was a relief. being early meant i didnt have to rush around and feel all flustered, and i got to take lots of photos with my coursemates and other friends that were graduating that same day.
the Coventry Telegraph and Birmingham Post published the list of graduates for the day
MY NAME IN THE NEWSPAPER!
PINK! (actually, it's cerise)me with my "sponsors" :)

and my brother (yes, thank you for spending all that money on the plane ticket!)and my special someone, who's stood by all the whining and panicking near deadlines, suffered when i spent hours dissecting films or reading insanely thick books for research (we've never watched a film together as a couple in a cinema) and who was always ready to give me printer credits (or print multiple copies of long essays and readings on his printer).as we were the last group to graduate (and being merely Arts students), our degrees were conferred by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor.the amazing thing was that during my degree congregation, the University was conferring an honorary Doctor of Letters to Geoffrey Hill. HOW COOL IS THAT? after reading his poetry in class, i got to SEE him in person!

graduating also meant saying goodbye to some amazing friends i've made - especially my coursemates, who've made Warwick such an amazing experience. from attending class together to all the moments in between, especially in the Common Room where discussions ranged from the latest film we had to watch on the course to debates about Star Wars (the logic behind binoculars for robots when you can just put varying lenses into their "eyes") or David Attenborough, even the regular trips for coffee and bacon batches at Raffles Cafe.

to these people, whom i could start a random conversation to about anything:

me with Esther and Shezre - we'd talk about everything!

Rich, the tallest guy, who was so much fun to be withRosa, who is so intelligent she frightens me - she's going to be a famous diretor someday, i know it! (making very intellectual films, of course)Chaz (drummer), Alex (headmaster?), Jake (Superstar - his words), me and Rachel (teacher)Francine (UN policy maker) and Zoe (globetrotter)me with Emily (Film PR), Rachel, Emma (film-maker), Zoe, Hannah (Professor - she's freaking smart!) and FrancineBen (filmmaker/fashion icon) and Fred (i look forward to seeing him writing a regular column for a newspaper!)me with Pearce - i'll miss the intellectual conversations we'd have in the Common Room before his Cultre, Text and Identity seminar where i tell him what we discussed in mine (because he hasnt done the work) and we ramble off on an extended discussion of our own! me and Annie, 2 of the most faithful Naturalism students (once we were the only 2 at the seminar and he made us come back an hour later for the next one)
me and Lou - she never fails to make you smile/laugh!
me and Tanya - we used to update each other on our job application progress (we were applying for similar jobs)
as we were rained out, the Film & TV Class of 2007 was the first to have department photos taken indoors rather than out on the Piazza
and of course, who can forget Greg, student extraordinaire (who will one day be another Dickie Dyer, though not gay) - the rain that led to flooding made him late for not only the ceremony but also the department photo! 5 hours stuck on the motorway...and to the many others who didnt attend or whom i didnt get to take photos with...

at the end of the day, i was exhausted but also exhilerated. while i was sad to leave, i finally felt like i've achieved something and i will looking back with very fond memories of my days at Warwick. (the above proves i may not have that much brain but i'm still a graduate!) and a ceremonial toss, filled with a sense of relief and elation!
to the amazing 3 years - how i will always treasure the memories and the friends i made...

drama at the airport

2007-08-03T21:03:00.000Z

on my way to the airport in the coach yesterday/Thursday, i was a bit worried that at check-in i would be told that they would not accept the extra 2.5kg that i had (my weight allowance for check-in was 23kg but i had 25.5kg) and that i would have to throw out some stuff to get it down. so i had Johann on standby (because he lives nearest to the airport, has a car, and was very obliging to drive down and help if needed!) to come and get some stuff from me if it got down to that in the end.

upon arriving at the airport, i went to the sales desk to get my ticket re-issued. i was bumped up the the earlier flight (10mins earlier) as the flight that i had been confirmed on was full (panicked for a bit there!). once sorted i went to check-in. all was going well until i got to the desk and told the guy i had 2 bags. it was there that i was informed i could only check in one bag (a new BA policy since February 2007) because i was travelling in economy class. if i wanted to check in 2 bags, i would have to pay a flat fee of 120 pounds per extra bag, even if all the bags collectively came under the weight allowance. so i told the guy that i would try and repack my bags at the side and come back again. he said, yeah you should try that because it will be cheaper.

so i spent the next 5mins panicking (and calling Josh who stayed back in the office rather than driving home so that he could answer my calls) and trying to stuff everything from my backpack (all clothes) into my suitcase. once i expanded the suitcase there was a teensy bit more space so i was frantically trying to squeeze everything in (a mammoth task that took 20mins and a lot of sweat). in the end, success! though i couldnt fit the backpack itself into the suitcase. when i went back to the counter, i carried my bag onto the conveyor belt and the guy asked, how many bags? i said, just the one. he looked surprised and asked, what happened to the other bag? i said, i repacked it all into one bag. silence and a look of double surprise from him. and i think because i did it, he looked the other way with regard to the excess weight. phew! he even thanked me for cooperating and repacking it all into one!

next i had to find a bin to throw away my backpack (it's old and battered so i didnt mind chucking it out). bins are a scarcity in airports these days and i decided to try the covered bit box thingy near where i repacked my stuff (where you throw things into separate bins for different types of material). since my bag didnt fit into any category, i approached a cleaner who was checking the bins and asked if i could throw my bag into one of the bins. he replied, is it empty (with a look of surprise that someone wants to throw a backpack away)? i said, yeah it is. he paused for a while and said, oh ok sure. (what's with me atracting weird looks from airport staff?)

everything from there went relatively smoothly. other than the fact that it took me a good 5mins to repack my laptop bag because they make you remove your laptop to be scanned separately. every item in the bag had a specific position to accomodate everything and once the laptop was removed, it had to be systematically repacked. oh and my flight was delayed anyway since the plane came in late and we had to wait ages to get onto the runway.

on a lighter note, have you ever seen a white, middle-aged father of two practise yoga at the departure lounge while waiting for boarding? WEIRD.

Goodbye for now

2007-08-02T07:36:00.000Z

so i'm all packed and my flight's been confirmed. i feel really sad but the thought of a new phase of my life awaiting me back home is keeping me from bawling my eyes out.

i love you and i'll miss you (well, you already know that) and i have a feeling it will work out in the end.

playing with my feelings

2007-07-31T14:20:00.000Z

i was supposed to fly home today from Birmingham International via Frankfurt. i tried to check-in online last night and again this morning but there were technical problems with the page so it told me to try again later or proceed to the airport. otherwise i could get redirected to the 'Manage My Booking' page on the BA website. i decided to check that out and review my itinerary. strangely enough only my Singapore-Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Birmingham (both completed in January 2007) and my Frankfurt-Singapore journeys were displayed. so i started to panic and tried using the Qantas website to confirm my flight (since the flight number was originally a QF one) but it refused to let me because there was no option to select the departure city as 'Birmingham'. then i tried calling them and the voice-answering service said i did not need to re-confirm any Qantas flights. so i was pretty relieved but decided to double check that flight was running that day. when i keyed in the flight number it said there was no such flight leaving today. my next option was to call BA and again i encountered problems reconfirming the flight. it was when i finally got put through to an operator that i discovered why.

BA/Qantas had cancelled the Birmingham-Frankfurt flight since February.

so essentially i had a seat on the Frankfurt-Singapore leg but none to get to Frankfurt because BA/Qantas had stopped flying to Birmingham altogether.

the woman on the phone tried to get me a flight today that would allow me to connect to my Frankfurt flight and the only one that i had a reasonable chance of making was from London Heathrow at 8.30pm but meant i had only 45mins transit time. so instead she tried to get me on a direct flight from London.

i now have a confirmed seat on but means that i leave the night of 2 Aug instead and arrive in Singapore 3 Aug (in the evening). and thankfully i dont have to pay any extra charges because my flight was cancelled.

it also means i have 2 extra days in the UK. but i had psyched myself up so much for saying goodbye today it feels weird. and i think it's going to make saying goodbye worse on thursday...

but i am going to make the best of the extra time!

an end to an era

2007-07-30T23:04:00.001Z

one last night in the UK (for now).

seems so surreal. and rather depressing.

it's hard to say goodbye, even if the parting is only temporary.

and it's difficult to leave when the one you love is left behind. things might be a lot easier if i felt any differently about us.

a BBQ during the short interval between showers and downpours

2007-07-27T15:57:00.000Z

it (Wednesday) looked like it wasnt going to be a good day for a BBQ. but with some optimism (and using the BBC Weather forecast rather than the weather.com one) we decided to go ahead and buy the food and prepare it since it was the last night Paul would be around before going back to Warsaw and the 3 of us to sit down for a good meal. the skies were gracious to hold out till we had eaten our fill before it started to pour again (the pit is still out in the backyard, uncleaned and a mess of ash and rainwater - urgh!)

smiley!

serious!

water water everywhere

2007-07-23T21:02:00.000Z

havent been doing much these days because of the weather and the worry that if i did decide to go travelling around the country i might not get back in time to catch my flight back to Singapore. the flooding has been really bad - my graduation ceremony was seriously affected by it as well (which i will expound on when i do a proper post on it) because of roads (and motorways) being completely unpassable. things dont look too good, with some of my friends facing water and electricity cut-offs tonight and for the next few days where they are. the entire news bulletin on BBC1 tonight was about it and there was even a special report programme with a detailed look at the situation around the country.

Click HERE to read more.

Film is indeed a real degree

2007-07-21T18:11:00.000Z

it's all official now - i'm a graduate!

(a proper post when i am back to Singapore and get my hands on the tonne of photos my parents took on their cameras
- note the use of the plural form!)

anxious

2007-07-17T10:13:00.000Z

because in about 25 hours my parents will be here. i havent seen them in 7 months...

and also, because the weather forecast for the next few days doesnt look good. please dont rain!

moving home (part 1)

2007-07-15T08:38:00.000Z

there is a sense of finality when you pack all the stuff you are taking home into boxes and suitcases. the 3 boxes of stuff i am shipping home were collected on Friday and so now there is an empty spot in the house where they used to sit. next is packing suitcases as my family is coming next week and are graciously (not that they really have an option) taking some of my belongings home first.

last night while talking to my mom i was looking up some temp jobs/work experience i could get while i job hunt and it took quite a bit to get used to looking for a job that was more than just a summer filler. the annoying thing of working in Singapore is because i didnt study there, i dont have a foot in the door (through placements and stuff) and graduate schemes are something they havent seem to have discovered so a lot of jobs i am interested in require loads of relevant experience (several years) which i dont have (i think i've got about a year when everything is consolidated).

moving home also means no more (almost-)daily MSN conversations with family back home. even though it can sometimes be exhausting (case in point: last night i had a 4-way conversation with my parents and my brother and everyone joined at different points so i had to repeat myself a lot), it has come to add to my overseas experience. but then moving home means actual random conversations with family so i guess it is a step up...

counting the days

2007-07-09T13:25:00.000Z

every year i get this letter from the bank about the number of taxable days i spend in the country and how as a student i get exempt from tax if i fill up this form. and every time i fill it up, i go through the process of counting exactly the number of days i spend here (which is a nightmarish process because of all the travelling i do). this time i thought, hang on i might have written down the answers that i filled up last year so that i get the right number again. but after a search through my stack of bank documents and papers, i couldnt find it. so i started again. and this time i remembered to save it.

the funny thing is, filling up the form made me realise how much i travelled (around Europe) in first year compared to my second and third years.

for year from 6Apr04 to 5Apr05
21 Sept - 4 Dec
2 Jan - 12 Mar
22 Mar - 30 Mar
3 Apr - 5 Apr

= 157

for year from 6Apr05 to 5Apr06
6 Apr - 7 Jun
9 Jun - 14 Jun
18 Jun - 25 Jun
12 Sept - 5 Dec
27 Dec - 4 Feb
9 Feb - 15 Mar
17 Mar - 27 Mar
31 Mar - 5 Apr

= 254

for year from 6Apr06 to 5Apr07
6 Apr - 21 Jul
14 Sept - 11 Dec
3 Jan - 26 Mar

= 279

for year from 6Apr07 to 5Apr08
6 Apr - 4 Jun
8 Jun - 31 Jul

= 114

hmmm -
in my first year, i visited Ljubliana, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Budapest, Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, Dublin, Salzberg.
(11+4+3+5 =23)
in second year, that dropped in number: Oslo, Paris, Barcelona.
(6+3+5 = 14)
this year it was Paris, Warsaw, Krakow, Rouen, Stockholm.
(12+5 = 17)

so it means that as the years progressed, i made fewer trips but still managed to clock quite a number of days... hmmm...

Recreating a Wagamama favourite

2007-07-09T08:24:00.001Z

the last time we visited Wagamama we were seated next to a White British couple who were very ignorant about food in general - the man said (to his partner), "some people try and recreate the flavours of the food at home - that's just stupid!", which really peeved both Josh and i. in fact, i think recreating flavours at home is a brilliant idea simply because one cannot afford to dine out everyday and when you have perfected the flavours, you can have your favourite dish anytime and have more of your preferred elements of the dish.

as you know, i've moved out of Coventry and to Josh's place in Birmingham. moving is a good thing - because it makes you consolidate your belongings and instills a sense of realisation of how much stuff (read: junk) you have. this is my corner of asian groceries (1 crate, 2 covered plastic boxes, 1 postpac + extras), not to mention 2 cupboards of bottles of sauces, cans and spices. ridiculous! AND this is after 1 week of me cooking dishes with the intention of clearing some of it (especially ingredients that Josh wont use because he doesnt cook any dishes that will require them).

since i had half a bag of panko (Japanese breadcrumbs - they are a lot crispier!) and a box of Japanese curry paste (courtesy of Michael - in fact, a portion of my stash is inherited stuff from Lynn and Michael since they didnt want them and i would be able to at least use SOME), i decided to do katsu curry for lunch yesterday. katsu curry at Wagamama comes in 2 forms - chicken katsu curry and yasai katsu curry (vegetarian - with aubergine, sweet potato and butternut squash instead of chicken). since we liked both, recreating this dish at home is perfect as we can have both chicken and vegetables on one plate!

i used this box of curry paste - the recipe on the back of the box serves 12 (!!) and all i wanted was to make a curry sauce to go over my katsu so i didnt want any of the meat and vegetables that the recipe called for. instead, i tweaked it to yield enough curry sauce for 2 to 3 portions.

Japanese curry sauce
1) mince (or finely chop) 1 onion
2) heat some oil in a saucepan and sweat the onions, being careful not to brown them too much
3) add 430ml of beef stock (sorry for the strange amount - i actually added slightly more than 3/4 pint so i'm guessing it's about 430ml)
*i used 2 cubes of OXO beef stock and added water to achieve the 430ml amount
4) drop in 2 1/2 cubes of curry paste (working with any S&B Golden curry packs) and stir till it dissolves. the mixture will thicken considerably. once it bubbles, take it off the heat and serve over the katsu.

for the chicken: i used breast meat even though i am not a big fan of it as it tends to be very dry when used in cooking. thus it was/is very important to marinate the meat well before cooking so that it is moist. i cut the pieces rather thinly and using the side of the knife, pounded it so that it would be as thin as possible. as i didnt have mirin, i substituted with chinese rice wine, and also used soy sauce and black pepper, then let it sit in the fridge for about 2 hrs. (i think it was Gordon Ramsay who said that a good chef is never afraid to season? so yes, dont be afraid to lay on the salt and pepper!). for the aubergine: just slice it ring-wise (so that the skin will hold it together, rather than you ending up with very limp katsu)

simply coat in egg and roll the chicken and aubergine in panko and deep fry, draining the oil on a kitchen towel before slicing and serving. i served this with a side salad, dressed simply with olive oil, worchestershire sauce (which is more Japanese in flavour than balsamic vinegar, and it also lends richness) and black pepper.
on a side note - it feels really like home living in a neighbourhood where on the weekends you can hear every family mowing their lawns.

this, however, is what we have to contend with because the landlord couldnt be bothered to do anything to the grass after Josh and Paul contacted him about the house (story is that his previous tenants had moved out only a few days before Josh and Paul viewed the house and expressed interest) and Josh was away in Cambridge for several weeks after he moved in so the backyard has be left to reach this state.
what we ended up doing was borrowing one of those hand-held grasscutters from a friend, chopping off as much grass as possible (because we tried using the mower directly and it couldnt cope with the long grass) then mowing over (and letting the vacuum in the mower suck up the excess grass). doing 1/3 of the backyard took an hour. next it's going to be Paul's turn...

a typical day of an unemployed-and-thus-voluntarily-choosing-to-lead-the-life-of-a-housewife person

2007-07-07T13:29:00.000Z

*wake up and check emails
*make phonecalls to sort some personal stuff
*work out meals for the next few days and write out shopping list
*go to the market (read: not supermarket) to buy vegetables, eggs, meat, fish
*return home and repackage meat into meal portions (including chopping up chicken)
*cook lunch for self
*put in a load of laundry
*watch daytime TV (i.e. cooking shows, property shows)
*hang up laundry
*prepare dinner
(subnote: wonder why the oven is emitting smoke even though it worked yesterday - then work on getting the kitchen and conservatory smokefree)
*clear up kitchen and put away clean dishes
*watch evening TV
*go to bed and start the cycle all over again the next morning!

it's it funny

2007-07-04T09:01:00.000Z

that everyone is missing Warwick and whining about being bored at home?

Moving Day

2007-07-03T08:30:00.000Z

i guess moving out of Coventry was the last nail in the university coffin. it feels as if moving away from that city meant a new phase of my life has begun and it feels strange. equally strange is the fact that my student ID is no longer valid, which in true blue Murphy's Law-fashion, i didnt need till yesterday when i went to the chinese supermarket and realised i could no longer qualify for the 10% student discount. :( or to buy student standby tickets for the theatre. or even student discounted ones. urgh...

anyway, moving day (last Saturday) was void of emotional/teary goodbyes. i guess it's because we all know that somehow we will meet up soon. i guess it's because the chances of me going to Malaysia at a whim are a lot higher than me to the UK. in fact, it was a simple, "have a good journey and i'll see you soon".

that is not to say that moving day was void of drama (and heightened emotions). on the contrary, tempers flew and patience was tested (even Michael was getting edgy - he's the most sui bian person i know!). this was because of the people that were moving in to the house in September. let's start at the beginning...

someone knocks at the door at 10.30am. it's the new tenants who have come to move their stuff into the house to store over summer. note: to store, which = they are not paying full rent for summer but the landlord is allowing them to store their things there at half rent. what we were told by the landlord was that we should have a room ready for them to do so by afternoon. so i said, we were told you were coming in the afternoon so we're not ready as we are sill trying to move our stuff out. she said, oh but we were told to come at 11am. then i said, well, it's onlt 10.30, if you give us half an hour we should be able to move some stuff out so that you can start moving yours in. she then proceeds to dump all her stuff on the pavement outside, which blocks our door AND our neighbour's. at 11am, we tell her that the attic is ready (because we had to move some final boxes down) so she proceeds to move her stuff into the hallway and up to the attic. the other guy shows up a while later. then it starts to rain. the landlord comes by and asks us if we can free up another room so that they can move their stuff in so that it wont be in the rain. lynn tells him we've already made the attic available so they should be able to move their stuff in. he asks, is it possible for you to clear michael's or your room sooner? i dont think it's nice that their stuff is sitting out in the rain. lynn says, ok we'll try. but after he leaves she turns to me and rants about how it isnt fair to us that we are already inconvenienced and that we've paid rent for today so technically they should be working around our schedule, and that she doesnt get why he's being so nice to them when he was a really bad landlord to us. then i said, well, i know why...

a break here for some background info - our landlord is a big cheat! because he said he was going to do a lot of things (like clear up the backyard and re-landscape it last aug, or to send in professional cleaners last aug when we were not in the house) but he didnt. and according to lynn who was there when the new tenants came in a few weeks ago to look at the house again, he told them that he was going to again over summer and that he has been doing it regularly for us. AND the new tenants decided they wanted to re-carpet the house and buy a new sofa at their expense. WHAT?!? so of course he's nice to them! if he isnt and they change their mind, he loses out on free refurbishment!

back to the story: lynn tells me that apparently the girl (we shall call her N) told the landlord that she and i are best friends (truth: i know her from Tap because she used to come to some of the classes. know as in i-know-your-name-and-can-match-it-to-your-face-but-nothing-more-than-that, and apparently when she said that to the landlord - right in front of lynn and michael, mind you - michael turned to lynn and asked, ade's got a best friend in Tap?) and that them moving in earlier is not a problem. and she only contacted me twice about house stuff - the first was to get the landlord's number because she had lost it, and the second was to ask if they could move stuff in earlier and i had told her we were staying till 30th June so it wasnt likely they could move stuff in any earlier than then.

anyway, N and the guy stop moving their stuff and just stand in the hallway, waiting for Michael to clear his room so that they dont need to move their stuff up 2 flights of stairs. so Lynn gets really angry and decides to vacuum the living room so that she can move her stuff down and they can move it to her room (because she was waiting for her uncle to come in the afternoon and Michael was needed to get out of his room, which was impeded by their stuff in the hallway, so that he could load his car and drive to the storage place). after Lynn does that, they start moving their stuff again and after they've moved most of it, sit in Lynn's room chatting. so Michael moves their big suitcase up to Lynn's room for them (because it's blocking his way) and we have to keep telling them to move their stuff out of the way because we are trying to move out.

they leave for lunch and come back later with more boxes, then leave again and N comes back with a bicycle. she stands at the door asking if she can put her bicycle in the living room. i ask, are you sure you can store your bicycle in the house? (because i know from previous house experiences that most landlords dont allow it as it brings dirt in). she says, well the other people in the other houses do that so we can too. then i say, i guess so but not at the moment because we are trying to move some stuff out (Lynn's uncle had just arrived) and if she can wait about 10mins, she can come do so. she then proceeds to leave her bicycle right at the door so i move it away and continue helping Lynn move her stuff to her uncle's car. N comes back and tries to come in while we are moving heavy boxes out the door. Lynn gets really angry so she yells, why are you so impatient? cant you wait?! N puts her bicycle in Michael's room and leaves. and of course, in the process, she brings in lots of mud and dirt (rain = lots of dirt)...

it really frustrated me that they seemed to think they had the right to move in earlier than afternoon simply because last year when i wanted to move my stuff in (and i was paying full rent for July), i could only do so after 6pm because the previous tenants were still moving stuff out and we waited till they were almost done. also, they dont understand that we need to clean the house thoroughly in order to get our deposit money back. so after they left, i had to clean the carpets again because of all the dirt they brought in.

but on the bright side, there's retribution. simply because they stored stuff in Michael's and Lynn's rooms - the two rooms in the house that needed work done (Michael had a hole in his wall while water was leaking into Lynn's room and had gone down a wall and soaked the carpet at the base which led to the floorboards beginning to leak). since they have stuff in the rooms, the landlord cant really move it to do the work necessary. and when the landlord returned in the late afternoon, he didnt look very happy that they had stuff everywhere (because the agreement was that they could store all their stuff in one room).

oh well... as long as i get my deposit back i'll be happy.

Sports Federation Ball

2007-06-29T08:51:00.000Z

last week was an expensive week - first Final Fling on Thursday, then Sports Federation Ball on Saturday (another £46 went bye-bye). no, Tap isnt a sport, although C&M is (and Latin & Ballroom was up for an award), but we decided to make a social out of it (any excuse to dress up and drink is a good reason for a social). on the Piazza with pre-dinner drinks (courtesy of Costcutter) and lots of photo-taking
a massive Tap photo! wheeeeee!old exec - Liaison (me), Publicity & Sponsorship (Claire) and co-Presidents (Kirsty and Anna) my first first-year Tap friend made this year! (i just realised) - Hayley

at the marquee in the field between Carpark 15 and University House - we had 14 people so we should have been given 2 tables of 7. instead they gave us 2 tables of 10, which we didnt realise till we had sat down to form a table of 9 and one of 5 and we were served the starters (because we thought that maybe we were supposed to be sharing tables with some other group). so... my table had 4 bottles of wine and 10 plates of food to go through (which the next table conveniently helped us finish).
the starter - Goats' Cheese & Red Onion Tart
main course - Roast Lamb in a Port & Redcurrant sauce, served with spring vegetables and minted new potatoes
dessert - Pear & Almond Tart

old Social Secretary and old Liaison Officer with the new ones!
Helen, me and Claire (i love these ladies!) as the night progressed...
Claire's gorgeous dress (tailored from home) and Anna's self-made dress (i'm very impressed she made such a nice dress in 2 days)

the two Ians (new presidents of Latin & Ballroom and Tap respectively)
i'm going to miss everyone...

Graduand status sealed

2007-06-28T22:38:00.000Z

so today i got my results - a second upper class honours, if you must know. hail to mediocrity...

but in the big picture, i'm very pleased with some of my results. especially since i seem to have done really well in the difficult modules, AND after a talk with my personal tutor, have managed to secure the offer of a good testimonial from her (as well from as another two tutors) - which is more positive than the vibe i got from her last year during our meeting to discuss my progress.

also, i've come to the conclusion that the more work you put into making that essay perfect, the lower your grade will be. AND the worse you think your exam went, the better the results will be. there's some strange inverse relationship going on there...

Final Fling 2007

2007-06-27T02:58:00.000Z

every year the Student Union organises a big bash called 'Final Fling', where Finalists get a chance to dress up and have loads of fun (well, at least we get priority for tickets).

this year i made up my mind that i definitely had to go for it, and i was going to take Josh along with me. :) i decided to buy dinner tickets (they sold 2 types - dinner and after-dinner), which were £60 each, because i figured that if i didnt go for the dinner, it would be silly just to dress up for the after-dinner fun.

anyway, all Final Fling tickets included transportation from campus to the venue (to facilitate people drinking and not having to worry about driving back) so the evening started with us getting to campus for the coach ride. Josh had forgotten to bring cuff links from his house in Birimingham and he had come straight from work so he didnt realise it till we were about to leave my place. ingenious as we university students are, we used binder clips (for the journey to campus, where a friend had brought some cufflinks for him). on the bus
the programme booklet for the night
and a map of the site of the festivities - dinner was served in the Big Top
a very good friend, Ian McD, from Tap had spotted me before we sat down for dinner - here's a picture that not only shows the tent but also my dress!
a Big Band + groupies-ish picture
me with my coursemates Esther and Shez (darn they are tall and pretty!)
at each table they had funny stuff like balloons and bubbles (perhaps for amusement while we waited for dinner?)
Josh obligingly blowing up some balloons for me
we did some tweaking to the table decor (and popped some of those party popper things so that we could drap the streamers)
while waiting for the food to arrive...
the dinner -
i was very disappointed with my starter. as you can sort of see from the photo, the filo isnt even brown. which, of course, shows that it isnt even cooked through. and yes, i had a hard time cutting through the "nest" and when i finally managed to cut myself a slice, i could see that the layers inside had not risen. urgh.
this was a lot better than i expected - but that was because all expectations were off after the starter.
and dessert was quite good - the chocolate torte was nice and bittersweet.

the fun we had at the table taking loads of photos...Josh and Andrea were having an interesting staring competition

after dinner we headed outside for some Fairground fun! which was kind of dampened by rain, but it meant that we could use the funky ponchos they gave out at the door (wet weather contingency?)part of the Fairground - they had food stalls selling hotdogs, burgers, candyfloss and chow mein (which was disgusting by the way - bleh!)
Josh playing with his candyfloss - doesnt it look like he's barfing pink?
the Big Top where after dinner they had two bands, The Automatic and Hard-Fi, playing
the Fairground stalls - you know those where you throw balls at cans to win prizes? that sort...
they had fireworks! which were AMAZING!

the rides! i went on the one on the left (the kind where you are in a little space-car-thingy and you are swung round and round at an increasing speed up in the air) - that was insanely fast and whoa i was freaked out! Josh and i spent most of it screaming! the Waltzes - we didnt go on it cos we'd heard that it was deceptively nice because they had these huge guys walking around on the platform and spinning the little teacups faster than they were already going.
we went on the bumper cars 3 times in total! but we spent A LOT of time queueing. so naturally, we took loads of photos!
i think he looks a bit scary...
BUMPER CAR FUN! (by the way, here in the UK they call it 'Dodgems' - just like it's candyfloss, not cotton candy)
going so fast! the bumper cars were really good because when you turn the wheel, you can actually turn 360 degrees! and they dont stall!
we met a friend Owain who was slightly tipsy and i said, "come'on, i'll take a picture of you guys", then Owain decided to run up to Josh, jump and Josh had to catch him! it was really funny...
we went into the casino area but only played a few games of Blackjack - it was really boring because they only had Blackjack and Roulette even though they had advertised that there was going to be Poker (they probably decided to take that game out because it would be too long) and a total of 2 tables per game. which, if you do the math, is ridiculous! like there were several hundred (dare i say thousands?) students there and each table was jam-packed that you had to jump in when there was a free spot. plus by the time we made it to the Cocktail Bar (long queues, incredibly hot marquee), they had pretty much sold out all their liquor.

the third time we decided to queue for the bumper cars, we just managed to get onto the last ride of the night! wheeeeeee!
i saw quite a few people but it didnt occur to me to take photos with them! (how silly) but even then, there were a lot of people i knew were going to be there that i didnt end up seeing as the place was huge and there were too many people and activities going on.

oh but i had loads of fun and best of all was that i got to spend time with Josh. :)

part of the joys of moving out is cancelling phone and internet lines

2007-06-26T01:07:00.000Z

it's a mystery to me how some things work out. like when you call BT on an 0800 number (which is free from a landline) you get connected almost instantly. but when you call Tiscali on an 0845 (which is not free) you get put on hold for 15mins (before you give up) and 20mins (the second time you decide to call) before you get through to an operator.

oh and when i finally managed to terminate my internet line, i asked if i could have the final bill sent to another address and the operator said, "hang on i'll put you through to the billing department". i get onto the main menu and select 3, give the next operator all my account details, then he tells me i should have dialled 4 instead, puts me back on the menu but actually puts me on the wrong menu, where there isnt even an option 4.

pensive about being in limbo

2007-06-24T16:27:00.000Z

it's started - the last week of university EVER. and it sucks. simply because it means saying goodbye to people. and knowing that i'll never see many of them again. yet i'm not going to say that i wish i could freeze this week forever because it is a terrible feeling to be neither student nor employed. in fact, i hate it.

i hate the packing - especially because i know that i am not packing for summer and actually have to get everything from the last 3 years into boxes to freight/take on the plane home. or to get rid of furniture/stationery/food stuff.

i hate the fact that i have to throw a lot of things away because sentiment = an insane amount of stuff that i'll have to get home.

i hate the fact that i cant decide if i should be feeling happy to go home because once i get back this whole unemployment thing will sink in. (and the fact that i really mean it when people ask me what are my plans after graduation and i say i dont know)

i hate that i cant even wish that i was staying at uni because most of my really good friends would have moved on and the reason to stay at uni would be lost after a week.

i hate that i cant say "see you soon" and mean it because i really dont know when i'll back in the UK.

this whole pensive thing started last night when Ian McD and i were talking and he said that he was really sad that i was leaving and that he wished i was around for another year of Tap. and how he didnt understand how i was still unemployed when i did so much for Tap and the show (and that if he could hire me he would).

then this afternoon i said goodbye to Phoebe (possibly for a long time) at the airport.

and there was that awful sinking feeling that this week is going to be even more emotional. i've avoided saying goodbye to people because in my mind i keep telling myself i still have one last week of term.

but that week has arrived. and i really should be making the most of it.

Britain's Got Talent

2007-06-18T07:14:00.000Z

the Kombat Breakers are a dynamic group of guys from Coventry for whom breakdancing has really made a difference - they performed at Stuart Carroll's fundraiser earlier this year and i was blown away by their live performance. as i havent been watching much evening tv, i didnt realise that the semis was on last week nor did i tune in early enough in the finals to watch their performance. but from the youtube videos of the two shows (btw, i personally think that the cameramen need to brush up their dance filming skills!), i was mesmerized! a pity that they didnt win but really hope these guys get their big break.
(at Stuart's show, they even had a 4 year old boy breakdancing with them in their routine! how cool is that?!)

Postscript on my Sweden Trip

2007-06-17T20:59:00.000Z

i forgot to mention it, perhaps it was my brain trying to block out the unpleasant experience, but my flight back from Vasteras to Stansted was delayed that Friday. guess why? because there was fog in London that morning and since the first flight was delayed, it affected the rest of the flights for the day. of course that meant that i missed my bus (by 5mins!) back to Coventry but for some strange reason, the guy at the National Express counter didnt charge me for changing my ticket (even though i am quite sure i had the same type of ticket the previous time i had to change bus reservations at Luton airport and was charged 3 pounds).

and a note to the travel-weary, Costa at Stansted is an amazing place to while away an hour because the staff there are so entertaining. seriously! they are just so funny, have so much energy and just look like they are enjoying each other's company. there was this one moment when they had opened a second till and the guy serving was calling out to the people in the queue, "can i help anyone? no?". his colleague then quipped, "can anyone help us?". and as i was sitting near the collection counter, i enjoyed a first-rate side show where the guy preparing the hot drinks was flirting with every woman that he was serving (i found out he's french).

my trip to Sweden where the only meatballs i ate were cooked from frozen (by myself) and the only IKEA i saw was from the plane while descending

2007-06-17T15:05:00.000Z

when i found out that Ave was going to be in Sweden from May till July visiting her boyfriend Jussi, i decided that this was the perfect opportunity to go to Sweden because a) it's beautiful (and warm) in summer and b) i'd have someone (that speaks the language) who can take me around. there were however, several hiccups/annoying things along the way but in the end i made it and really enjoyed my time there.

first of all, i ended up paying £65+ for my plane ticket on Ryanair because i waited till my exam timetable was finalised to book my seat rather5 than booking it the week before when the price was £20-ish. then i decided to play it safe and take a 4.45am coach to Stansted Airport to get there 3hrs 45mins before my flight rather than the 6.30am one that would give me 1hr 45mins to get my ticket and through security. Unfortunately, National Express was not only on time but even early (shocking!) so i got there almost 4hrs before my flight. On the way, we passed through lots of fog (all the way from Milton Keynes to Luton Airport) and i was worried that my flight might be delayed. thankfully the skies were reasonably clearer at Stansted so things looked like they were going to go well. then when i was waiting in the lounge after security, an alarm went off and we were informed that it was a fire alarm and that we had to evacuate, following the directions of airport staff. since i was sort of near my gate, i proceeded away from the main building to my gate. we boarded on time but then the pilot came on the overhead-speaker to announce that because of the evacuation of the main building many of the passengers were missing so we had to wait until everyone could make it to the gate to board - which in the end delayed the flight by 1 1/2hrs (by the way, the alarm was set off by an electrical fire in one of the toilets! Grr...).

it was gloriously sunny and warm when i landed in Vasteras Airport (outside of the capital Stockholm), a big change from the weather in the UK. it was a short 90min bus ride to Stockholm City Terminal where Ave was waiting for me. :)

the beautiful country landscape from the bus...

let me first introduce my hosts for the visit - Jussi and Aveso guess what my first meal was in Stockholm? Dim Sum at a Chinese restaurant called... Chopsticks! haha...we had xiao long bao which Ave was having a mega craving for (as well as some fried beef kway teow - Jussi had Chicken Curry with rice). Then we headed to small bar on the way back to the apartment for some drinks (simply because gin and tonic is a great cure for the flu?).unfortunately, Jussi had to leave for a business trip on Tuesday evening (the second day of my visit) so my meeting of him was rather shortlived - also that he paid for all our dinners so he was dearly missed... :( naturally, we took lots of photos at the train station while waiting for his train to Arlanda Airport...

and because Ave was in Stockholm, i didnt need to find accomodation because i was offered Jussi sofa! (i love you guys!) Jussi's apartment is in an old building which still had a very old-school lift! how cool is that? the lift freakily reminded me of the scene in Mona Lisa (1986) where Bob Hoskins and Cathy Tyson (Simone) are attacked by Clark Peters (Anderson) and they run into the lift while Anderson runs down the stairs and appairs at every landing... EEK!

this is the coach that i crashed on - Jussi's apartment is almost completely monochromatic so the photograph is quite accurate to how the house looks. white walls, white table, white doors... his sofa is grey though, but all his cutlery and cooking pots are either white or black! we even threatened to buy him a toaster that was red with handpainted flowers but in the end Ave bought him a black-and-white table runner.while we are at it, does Ave look good in black-and-white or better in sepia? we spent most evenings in the apartment watching stuff online - a big favourite was Robot Chicken and of course, 2 girls in 1 room = doing girly things like varnishing our nails (with gold nail polish even!) the beautiful skyline from the apartment window - look at how lovely the sunset is at 10pm-ish, if i remember correctly (actually the sun doesnt even set!) and this is the sky at 2am... because of the position of the building, the sun shines in so brightly (and very hot!) at 5am every morning. yikes!the Wednesday that i was in Stockholm was the Sweden's National Day (6 June) so on the Tuesday when we were shopping, we saw a mini parade of sorts along the main streets.and that evening, from the apartment window we saw loads of hot-air balloons floating across the city.
another interesting thing about Sweden is that the end of high school is a big big thing (because most students either dont go to university immediately after they finish high school or dont go at all) so they have big celebrations where they hire trucks/convertables and drive around the city centre screaming, singing, drinking (and trying to spray pedestrians) and generally make merry. we saw loads of these trucks on Tuesday and even on Thursday there were still a few "stragglers". maybe it is the cynic in us but me and Ave were like, seriously if these kids think the end of high school is something to celebrate, wait till they start university/jobs...we spent the entire Tuesday shopping. correction: i instigated us spending the entire Tuesday shopping. we walked into a total of 4 H&Ms, though i must reiterate that these were multiple visits, and all within a 500m radius of each other. the reason being that since i made up my mind to go to Stockholm i had stopped shopping in H&M UK and was waiting to go there to buy stuff cheaper (not true i discovered!) and things that they dont export to the UK (true!). i think Jussi thinks i'm shopping-obsessed. i personally think it is a post-exam thing, sort of me acting out against my self-imposed going-out ban.

on Wednesday (i.e. National Day), after having some home-cooked pasta (with meatballs!), we set off fot Gamla stan, the old city. the front of the Operan (Opera House) along Strömgatan
Gustav Adolfs Torg

from there we crossed the waterway (via Norrbro, which runs over a small islet called Riksplan) to Gamla stan which is actually another island of its own. the Riksdagsguset (Parliament Building)
the view of the city from Riksplan - the bridge in view is Strömbronwe decided to walk through Kungliga Slottet (the Royal Palace) the intricate carvings on the ceiling of one of the arches - this is the entrance to the Royal Chapel, which faces the entrance to the Royal Treasury. the Palace from the courtyards the guards on duty at Kungliga Slottet
Storkyrkan (the Great Church, also known as Saint Nicolaus Church), the oldest church in Gamla stan the beautiful streets of the old city Stortorget - this square was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath in November 1520 where Swedish noblemen were massacred by the Danish King Christian II. the incident sparked off a revolt and civil war which led to the dissolution of Kalmar Union and the election of the King Gustav I. we decided to leave Gamla stan and head for Skansen, a huge park on another island.along the way to the subway station... according to Ave, each subway station is painted/decorated with a theme and each represents something. obviously we didnt know what they meant which led to lots of fun speculating/joking/going off on wild tangents about what the possible interpretations could be.
in the train...
obviously the best time to review photos taken...
a peek of St Jakobs Kyrka when we got out of the subway to walk to the bus stop.

after a REALLY crowded bus ride, we got to the island of Djurgården where Skansen is. Skansen is an open-air museum with reconstruction of different types of houses and farmsteads from all around Sweden, as well as several enclosures with animals indigenous to Sweden.
the town quarter
as we walked further into Skansen (and even more uphill), we passed a Herb Garden
information about the herbs grown in the garden (all in Swedish, so we were not enlightened...)all the gorgeous flowers and herbs...
me trying to take a photo of my shadow - it ended up looking like a huge blob
the allotment huts and the little patches of garden they were given (after the war)
the post office
as we got to the top of the hill to Bollnäsplace, we were attracted by the smell of donuts. naturally we appeased our senses with some fried donuts, coated with sugar and sprinkled (by Ave) with cinnamon. mmm... fresh out of the hot oil...we passed the Tingsvallen Stage where people were trying their hand at stilt-walking.
the Belfry in the distance
near the Forestry Centre
the Delsbo Farmstead
the Mora Farmstead
the kids in the Summer Pasture Farm
at the Nordic Wild Animals section - Brown bears
Seals
Elk (Reindeer and Elk look very alike! i didnt realise they were different animals and kept wondering why they were in separate enclosures)
Ave looking very glamourous...
at the Aviary, we saw a White owl
WILD BOAR! heheh... they are extremely energetic (the young ones at least)
the Finn Settlement
i love this sign!
up another hill again...Fröstrop (there's a gallery inside) and a cute little mini-car track on the outside (we saw a young girl taking the ride in a pink car) the tower at the top of the hill (Högloftet)

at the children's zoo - kids making loads of noise... QUAIL!
a chickand ducks!
and oh-so-cute kittens...
rabbit
the Brofästet Temperance Halla chapelintrigued by wooden bridges...
a milestone from 1666 (when the king decided that there should be milestones on all major roads in Sweden) - when i saw this i thought og A Level History with Slim ("a milestone in history" was his favourite catchphrase)
the Seglora Church, apparently the most popular church in Sweden for couples to get married in...
a windmill near the Skogaholm Manor
because it was National Day, the king and queen were visiting Skansen for a special celebration so they had a stage erected for the performance/ceremony. and there was a marching band with people from different districts waving flags all the way up the hill to the stage area.
we decided to leave before the evening performance began as it was too crowded and since it wasnt our country, we neednt worry about appearing unpatriotic!

Ave had told me about a pizzaria near the apartment that served amazing pizzas, one in particular which i found rather interesting that we decided to try - Valtelina. we ordered one between the two of us (and also bought a tub of strawberry and cream type of frozen yoghurt from the supermarket) and headed back to the apartment to savour the food while watching more Robot Chicken and some Monty Python.

the pizza had a tomato-based sauce, with rocket leaves and parma ham, topped with shaved parmesan cheese and finished with a squirt of lemon juice. out-of-this-world-delicious!

on Thursday we decided to hit Slussen (i.e. the Sluice) for a walk through some bohemian streets - everytime Ave said "the sluice" i kept thinking of Paul Celan's poem... :(

she had mentioned that she had tried some really good Turkish food at a small cafe so we headed for that place to get some cheap but flavoursome food - i had bulgur (grain) with aubergine, carrot and courgette cooked in a tomato sauce, chicken sauteed with peppers and a whole green pepper stuff with rice and meat, served with a side salad and a pickled chilli. mmm... as we wandered around Slussen, we saw a little park entrance at a side road which we decided to pursue - it led us to Katarina kyrka (Church of Catherine).
me at Ave's insistence that i "present" some pretty purple flowers...

we then walked up some cobbled street to the top of a hill where we saw the spectacular view of the city! down some stairs and...
we headed down to Stadsgårdsleden and walked by the piersafter realising that the direction we were walking wasnt going to take us anywhere interesting, we turned back and headed for Skeppsbron (at Gamla stan) and made a stop at a chic restaurant/bar for a cold drink at their al fresco dining area.
after refuelling, we decided to explore the island of Skeppsholmen where there appeared to be a lot of museums and points of interest.
again along the way, we had a view of St Jakobs kyrkathe Grand Hotel along Södra Blasieholmshamnen Kungliga Slottet from across the quay.

the National Museum (of Fine Art)
on Skeppsholmsbron (bridge) looking out to Ladugårdslandsviken in front of Moderna muset (Museum of Modern Art), they had interesting installations...Skeppsholmskyrkanwe sat along Södra Brobänken and looked across the Strömmenoff the end of Skeppsholmen is another islet, Kastellholmen from there we had a good view of the Gröna Lunds Tivoli and could hear rather loudly the screaming people on the rollercoasters and vertical drop rides.the stunning view of the city from the islet we ended the day with a meal at one of the cafes in the shopping centre Gallerian (we had a delicious lunch at another eatery there that Tuesday - smoked salmon drizzled with pesto, served with warm potatoes in a creamy dill and chive sauce - but silly me forgot to take a photo!). i had a mediterranean couscous salad chicken skewers and a tangy yoghurt dipwhile Ave had a creamy salmon penne with leek

and thus the end to a thoroughly sunny and relaxing trip. Stockholm is so beautiful (and the weather is perfect in June!) so i'd definitely recommend a visit!

Lots of Rain = Flooding

2007-06-16T14:43:00.000Z

it's been raining a lot the past few days. and i think the torrential nature of the rain is even comparable to stuff back home because i've heard flood warnings on the radio - and have heard of friends living in Leamington Spa whose houses have been flooded over the past few days. i thankfully dont a) live at the bottom of a hill and b) live on the basement level of a house...

the rain is now a threat to me having fun at Skool Dayz tonight. because i'd have to queue either in the rain or with an umbrella (which will undoubtedly get lost if i leave it somewhere in the Union or i will forget about if i check it in at the cloak room) AND there have been flood warnings for Stratford-upon-Avon (because the river is going to flood) and for Warwick town which means that Ivy and Isaac's visit might end up being us cooped up in the house... hmm...

while waiting for Ave to get up so we can go out and do touristy things

2007-06-06T09:48:00.000Z

we were having a conversation yesterday afternoon about how many students on exchange in Europe seem to want to conquer the entire continent in one semester. perhaps that isnt my thing but it seems a bit too rushed to try and see everything in 6 months, especially when it probably involves rushing around and not taking the time to savour life. and at the end all you have to show are photos with you standing in front of famous landmarks, and nothing else but the claim that you have 'been there, done that'.

so anyway, out of interest, i calculated how much of Europe I've seen in my 3 years here in Europe:

create your personalized map of Europe

and perhaps it is a good thing that it LOOKS like i have seen a lot of where i come from in the larger perspective of things...

create your own visited country map

off the the land of blondes, IKEA and H&M

2007-06-03T22:23:00.000Z

for a rendezvous with Ave... i love this whole i'll-meet-you-in-some-country-far-away-from-home thing...

life as a graduand

2007-05-31T23:39:00.000Z

note: graduand does not equal graduate. it's really strange but so many people have sent me congratulatory messages on graduating. but i havent! i'm just now officially a candidate for graduation!

and i want to savour this state of graduand-ness. this limbo where i am not doing work yet dont have the stigma of being unemployed to contend with. because technically, it IS ok for me to not be doing work! after july 20, i wont have this excuse. on 21 july i am officially unemployed. imagine filling in those arrival cards - Occupation: Unemployed. no longer Student.

Bah...

Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra on tour

2007-05-31T09:34:00.000Z

2 wednesdays ago (16 May), i had the pleasure of watching Jools Holland at the Warwick Arts Centre and WOW IT WAS AN AMAZING GIG! great music, great vibe, great musicians! and at the end everyone was up on their feet dancing!managed to sneak some photos even though one of the stewards was sitting right behind me! hehehe... the audience loved Jools Holland SO MUCH that he got 2 encores....

in my first few hours of freedom

2007-05-30T23:02:00.000Z

i sat in bed under a warm duvet and watched movies. ironic, isnt it? after 3 years as a film student i marked freedom with a celebratory movie marathon. i watched The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (i still cry EVERYTIME i watch it! amazing!), Carry On Camping (not that good), Carry On Up The Jungle (much better) and Shall We Dance (possibly my favourite Astaire-Rogers film).

i have a list of things i need to do but seriously, i cant be bothered at the moment. Tomorrow i'll watch The Ladykillers and maybe The Producers. wheeee!

i am a graduand!

2007-05-30T12:19:00.000Z

TODAY IS A HISTORIC DAY! it marks the end of academic life - no more essays, no more exams. EVER.

and strangely enough (though not entirely surprising), i feel a bit lost with what to do now...

the bad thing about climate change

2007-05-29T10:08:00.000Z

is that it feels like early winter now even though it is supposed to be summer. today's lowest temperature according to weather reports is 3 degrees celsius.

and now it seems that it is going to be cloudy in Stockholm next week, when only a few days ago the report was sunny.

on the bright side, i get to wear my furry red boots to exams today (and probably tomorrow) because they are nice and warm and very waterproof! in this case, it isnt a silver lining but a woolly one! hur hur hur...

today's cooking bonanza

2007-05-27T21:50:00.000Z

i was out of the house for most of the afternoon today, helping josh to pack and move a load of stuff to his new place in Birmingham so i didnt see much of Lynn since i was busy revising in my room when she left the house for church this morning, and she hadnt come back when i had left for Birmingham. thus it was a pleasant surprise to walk into the house at 5pm and smell chocolate cake. i shrieked "CAKE!" and she and Michael popped their heads out of the kitchen and she replied, "i also made curry puffs. come have one."

now these are not conventional curry puffs (because she did baked them rather than fry them, and the casing is made of puff pastry instead of dough) but they are soooooo delicious! the spicy filling is a mixture of potatoes, onions and chicken sauteed in curry powder and cumin, and a slice of boiled egg, and because it isnt fried, it tastes nice and fluffy and not saturated in oil. mmmmmmm...on to the cake - last monday she made a chocolate ganache cake which i didnt get to try even though i helped to make it because she took it to the weekly church student cell meeting (and i didnt go) and she has been promising she would make another cake for me to devour. this cake is really rich but not the sort that makes you feel like you've had enough after 2 bites.as you can see, the cake is very moist on the inside and the layers have a chewy, brownie-like texture. the ganache is also flavoured with coffee which adds another layer of flavour to the cake and breaks up the chocolate-y-ness of an otherwise overwhelming cake. today's cake is also a lot more decorative (like Lynn pointed out, it looks similar to what Marcus Wareing did for his crab and tea-smoked mackerel tarts with duck egg mayonnaise starter on the Northern Heats of the Great British Menu) because she was going to drizzle white chocolate across the top (to make a grid-like decoration) but she ended up burning the chocolate because the fire was too strong when she was melting it in a steam bath.
she must have worked herself into a baking frenzy because after i came back from the evening church service she announced that she had made peanut cookies as well but wasnt very satisfied with them because she was testing a recipe sans green bean flour so she used ASDA peanut butter instead of Skippy.
i really like them though - very crumbly (the type that melt in your mouth!) and had a nice peanut aroma that burst in your mouth. but definitely the sort you can only have about 5 before you cant have any more for an hour. i cant wait to try the Skippy ones she's making tomorrow!

isn't it great that at University level

2007-05-27T09:42:00.000Z

you can still find Sparknotes for texts you are studying AND actually find that they are intellectual enough to provide a solid foundation for revision?

bored housemates who have finished exams cook and cathartically throw out things

2007-05-26T23:12:00.000Z

ever since Lynn and Michael finished their exams 2 Fridays ago, they have been finding things to amuse themselves - Lynn went on a massive baking spree, roping in Michael to drive her to the supermarket to buy ingredients and to help her with filling pastry with pineapple jam, while Michael (for a short while) tried to create dishes from an Asian Cookbook he had brought (according to Lynn, his Seabass with Chilli and Garlic sauce was really good).Lynn's really good (first batch) of closed pineapple tarts - we tried making open ones but the lack of cookie cutters AND an incorrect dough texture meant they werent as great...and her individual-serving-sized Pear and Almond tarts.

then they both started to go on a cleaning spree (though strangely enough, only of their rooms and not of the common areas -hahaha...). now they each have a huge trash bag sitting outside their rooms (and Lynn has a box of papers sitting by the front door waiting for recycling day to be thrown out) because they've decided to start clearing out "rubbish" from their rooms - i.e. clothes that dont fit, books and papers they dont want and general what-is-this-for stuff lying around their rooms in addition to actual rubbish...

and i'm actually looking forward to joining them next week when i can start throwing out things and saying goodbye to everything...it's funny how we are doing housemate-bonding stuff now when we only have a month left as housemates...

Paranoia?

2007-05-26T11:16:00.001Z

am i being absolutely paranoid by still thinking about my exam that i did on thurs afternoon? the exam didnt go that well - i'd revised Tony Harrison, Seamus Heaney and Philip Larkin for politics and Ted Hughes, James K Baxter and Allen Curnow for religion and none of the questions came out so for 10mins at the beginning of the mammoth 3 hr paper i was panicking, trying to figure out what questions i could do with what i had revised. all in all, when i think back, i managed to cough out some decent stuff (especially since i brought in theorists Fredric Jameson and Pierre Bordieu into my last question - thank goodness I had already covered that in my Film Aesthetics revision!) but i keep having this feeling that it isnt good enough, especially since the paper turned out pretty well in terms of combinations of poets for many of my classmates.

then the other night as i was falling asleep i suddenly had an image of me writing the question numbers on the cover sheet of my exam script and i wrote 8, 13, 11 when i actually did questions 8, 17 and 11. then i started to panic that i DID write the wrong numbers and was trying to remember if i even wrote the right number at the top of my second question. and i was paranoid enough to email my tutor to ask if i can do anything about it just in case. but this bank holiday coming up on monday means he'll only get back to me on tuesday so until then...

i'm praying for a miracle. and for God's peace now since i'm feeling really flustered.

having someone who loves you

2007-05-25T11:24:00.000Z

is like having a perfect haircut every single day...

beautiful...

Revision and Finals

2007-05-23T15:28:00.000Z

a quote from Gilmore Girls:

Marty: Okay i remember something about Rome. Rome. Rome. Rooo-mans lived there. Err... Audrey Hepburn took a holiday there. It's the name of a B52 song!

Rory: Different Rome.

Marty: Okay that's it.I can't remember. College is breaking my spirit, every single day telling me things I don't know, it's making me feel stupid.

1 day to my first paper! i'm feeling jittery - can't decide whether it's because i'm nervous or just really excited about exams...

Ode to Gilmore Girls

2007-05-21T12:39:00.000Z

on saturday i watched the last 2 episodes of the series. i was utterly depressed at the end of the 90mins or so. it felt like the end of an era - because it seems as if i grew up together with Rory and i could identify so much with her experiences. it really was an amazing series with fantastic characters, funny and very witty lines, and gorgeous clothes (very chic!)
the end of the series was very tastefully done - none of that conveniently tied up endings but very true to the series and the characters.
funny how things work out but it seems again that just as i grew up with Rory, she and i will embark on the great unknown after graduation...

Public Service Announcement

2007-05-17T16:06:00.000Z

The University wishes to bring to students' attention information received from Travel Coventry, operators of the No. 12 bus service through Earsldon to the University campus.

We have been informed that from week commencing 21st May 2007 for a period of 8 weeks, the No. 12 service shall not be calling at bus stops along Earlsdon Avenue North, Hearsall Common and Tile Hill Lane (by the Village hotel) due to major road works. The diversion will be along Earsldon High Street, Beechwood Avenue, Dolomite Avenue, re-connecting with its normal route near Sainsburys.

The University has issued a full announcement on insite at the following web address:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/insite/newsandevents/notices/travel_coventry_12/

Students travelling to the University for exams should ensure that they allow sufficient extra time for their arrival as the exam sessions cannot be delayed.

URGH...

Homage to a Government

2007-05-15T15:32:00.001Z

by Philip Larkin
10 January 1969

Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.

It's hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it's been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.

Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it's a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.

i was doing revision and chanced upon this poem of Larkin's written way back in 1969 - funny how a poem written 38 years ago is still so relevant today, considering the anti-war debates in the UK and how we should "bring the soldiers home"...

a self-imposed seige

2007-05-15T12:41:00.000Z

the food situation got to a point yesterday when i had nothing left, as in nothing FRESH left, in my fridge and/or freezer. see, i have been so eager/happy/overjoyed that at every meal we (me and josh - i hardly cook for 1) finished all the food i cooked or we finished the leftovers during the next meal. but the downside of this is that i have nothing to eat during lunch/dinners alone.

so the predicament before me yesterday was what to eat for lunch AND dinner (because josh had to attend a company-paid working dinner) when i had nothing left in my fridge. and with nether garlic nor onions. thankfully i had some chorizo lying around, a bottle of sun-dried tomato antipesto and 2 chillies (1 green and 1 red) plus a bottle of chilli and garlic infused olive oil that i got from Tesco (no no, i'm not THAT decadent - i had a voucher that gave me 100 extra points when i bought the dipping oil because they were promoting some Tesco Finest products). i did a spin on the usual alio oglio by first frying some chorizo in a hot pan to release the oils (and flavour), then adding olive oil and the chopped chillis. after frying the ingredients for a minute, i added the infused oil and some chopped sun-dried tomatoes before tipping in the al dente spaghetti and seasoning with pepper. and since i was too lazy/not in possession of cash, i even repeated that for dinner rather than call for takeaway as i had originally thought to do. sigh.

and because i ABSOLUTELY needed to go to the supermarket this morning - risking a slow and painful death of starvation (because no food = no energy to go out and buy food nor cook nor dial for takeaway which isnt even viable since i'd need to go to the ATM = no food), i decided to do a trip to the library as well to get out some books on poetry that i'm revising. to compound that, i had trouble falling asleep last night (the mind was going back and forth wondering if i was being overly anxious about exams or overly confident), i worked out what i was going to cook all the way from today till saturday so that i would have a precise shopping list to whizz into Tesco on my way home from the library and be out within 15mins (given the time taken at the checkout).

not the wisest of ideas (good intentions though) because even though i had only planned to get 3 books from the library i left with 5. and at Tesco i filled one of those smaller-sized trolleys with so much food - whole chickens, 1 tray of pork belly strips, 2 trays of braising beef, 1 tray of pork mince, 1 pack of 3 mixed capsicums, 1 large pack of cheery tomatoes, 5 tomatoes, 2 lemons, 2 aubergines, 1 big bag of spinach, 1 cucumber, 1 bunch of spring onions, 4 heads of garlic, 1 head of iceberg lettuce, 1 bag of onions - that it looked as if i was shopping for an entire family! ever prepared, i had brought 2 large plastic bags and my huge backpack (already half filled with books) and JUST managed to fit all the food in. may i say i was very impressed with myself until i realised that i needed to get eggs from Iceland and would have to get an extra plastic bag anyway because there was no way the eggs would arrive home intact if i didnt.

ever notice how distances seem longer when you are carrying heavy bags? and oh-so-clever me had thrown my keys into my backpack when i left the house so it was buried at the bottom under EVERYTHING. which meant calling lynn on her mobile phone to get her to open the door.

but now, all is well and i have food for every meal until Sunday. and the emptiness of the fridge and freezer has been filled up (my housemates did a big shop approximately 3 weeks ago and have not been out to buy any fresh meat since then because they have been studying and have been slowly but surely clearing their frozen food - their fresh-food-buying will commence next week after they have finished their exams) and i will not need to go to the supermarket nor to university (except tomorrow for some dance stuff) until next week. which leaves time for me to catch up on my study schedule that i'm behind on. oh joy.

when i was at the bus stop waiting for the bus back home, a chav couple arrived at the bus stop pushing a stroller each, one with a 1-year-old girl and another with a 3-year-old boy. the mother was (i'd say) about 19 and the father looked 16. now the shocking thing isnt that but the fact that they had let their 3-year-old son HOLD A BAG OF CRISPS AND EAT FROM THE ENTIRE BAG. he was practically stuffing his face with the crisps (at 10am, mind you). first of all, if you give the kid some crisps, it's fine if it's a handful but to let him eat FROM the bag (which wasnt even a single-serving one) is really very bad parenting. next, the mom opened the kid's sippy cup and poored a bottle of Fruit Shoot (drink made from cordial = artificial sweeteners) that she had just bought into (i saw a price tag) and gave it to the dad to hold. and after a while, the child was bored of eating the bag of crisps and poured the remaining contents AND THE BAG onto the pavement. all this while, the mom was on her mobile calling her friend to find out where this other friend they were supposed to meet was and apparently the guy they were meeting had to go back afterwards for probation.

poor children...

i need to write all this down before i forget...

2007-05-14T11:41:00.000Z

i want to visit the following places in the next few months:

In the UK -
William Curley Patissier in Richmond, London. it looks DIVINE.

Blueprint Cafe in London. Being an avid fan of Great British Menu on BBC Two, i found out about Jeremy Lee and really liked what he cooked and thus am interested to try his food.

Petrus in London, opened by Gordon Ramsay and run by Marcus Wareing. Actually, any of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants will be amazing...

Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill in London, run by Richard Corrigan who won big on Great British Menu last year (for the Queen's Birthday as well as for the Christmas special).

In Singapore -
Morton's The Steakhouse Restaurant in The Oriental Hotel, Singapore, where during Happy Hour you get free steak sandwiches when you order drinks from the bar (and apparently their martinis are AMAZING)

The Fullerton Courtyard for High Tea (because I've never set foot in Fullerton Hotel before - shocking!). My mom and I used to be fanatic about High Tea Buffets and we'd go round to the various hotels to see which was best. We havent gone anywhere else since we discovered the Shangri-La one...

an excerpt from Earle Birney's Introduction to 'Twentieth Century Canadian Poetry'

2007-05-13T13:37:00.000Z

'A poem, like any other work of art, is created to be enjoyed, and the ability to enjoy it is to some extent an acquired one. We are not born with a mature appreciation of Beethoven or Shakespeare; and we can fail even to acquire it if we limit our listening to the tunes of Tin Pan Allen and our reading to nursery jingles. And yet, if we recall the joys we once got from Hickory-Dickory-Dock, we have a guide to the adult pleasure of poetry-reading. When we were young we did not need to be urged to let our imaginations work; we saw the cow jump over the moon, and we laughed, with the little dog, seeing it happen; we tasted the sounds of Humpty-Dumpty and we beat our hands tothe fun of its rhythm. Much adult poetry is still inviting us to do the same, to take a holiday from our grown up world of sober readon, making-a-living, worry, routine, mechanized entertainment and spectator-sports, and to let the colour and thythm and cadence of words, those most magical of all human inventions, unloose our imaginations to run where they will.'

apparently the world is not as we know it! GASP!

2007-05-11T22:00:00.000Z

i caught the first few minutes of Wife Swap on TV just as i was going to get back to revision and the theme was about the role of women in the home. One was really about the empowerment of women (she teaches pole-dancing in her house and says it helps women bring out their inner sexuality and help them understand what it means to be a woman) and the other believes that women have to treat their husbands/men in their life like kings and serve them/be submissive/never let them lift a finger. the second woman said that she believes that is the key to a good marriage and that is the reason why so many young couples break up because the woman expects too much from the man.

and all this time i was thinking, wait a miniute, according to the reading i just did on gender theory by Judith Butler, all this is complete rubbish because gender is a cultural construct and therefore is not absolute. neither is it linked to one's sex and therefore it is possible for man, masculine, woman and feminine to be interchangable. gender is a performance and therefore because gender is an act, the various ways in which a body shows/produces its cultural significance are performantive and thus there is no preexisting identity by which an act can be measured. which means there is no such thing as a true or false gender identity!

i think learning causes you to question everything (it is a post-modern condition!) and thus everything you grew up with inevitably gets questioned...

my conversation with my mom last night...

2007-05-10T09:23:00.000Z

Me: how is the renovation going?

Mom: the construction workers have knocked down the wall in your toilet, so now the house is very windy. will take a photograph for you. your brother says it is a safety hazard because people can now come into the house from the big hole.

Me: yea but who will actually be able to? the neighbours? (we live in a terrace house)

Mom: well, you know your brother...

Me: just tell him you'll lock the door to my room.

Mom: we can't because the construction workers laid down some plastic on the floor and now the door won't shut properly. it's ok, if anything they will come in and take the dog away. he's the only valuable thing left in the house while the renovation is going on.

any psychiatrist will have a field day with me

2007-05-10T08:13:00.000Z

i had a series of very weird dreams last night, most of which i dont remember but i'll just recall what i can...

i dreamt that i i had been sent on a task to pick up 10 rabbits (or maybe it was hamsters) and 10 babies. except that i went to a farm/laboratory/pet-shop-looking thing to pick them up. the person who was running this place was Justin Lee Collins (the guy with the wild hair from 'The Friday Night Project' who also did 'Bring Back... The A Team'). so i walked into his facility, telling him my requirements and he gave me a cardboard box which he and i then proceeded to the enclosure (which to get there, we walked through some concreted area of a farm and to the end where there was a huge fenced up area) pick out 10 rabbits and placed them in the box. then i said, ok now i just need to get the babies and then i can go on and get the rest of my chores sorted. he took another box, and we went to another place on this farm (which by now had turned into a laboratory) where he had some rooms with huge glass windows on the side that looked into the place where the babies were being kept. there were some women cuddling the babies but Justin told me that we wont have problem getting 10 babies. it looked like there were babies lying on some hay (very much like what the rabbits i had seen earlier were on). but then i realised that his box wont be able to hold all the babies (because a cardboard box OBVIOUSLY cannot carry 60 kg of babies, and also that it will be too difficult carrying a box of rabbits and a box of babies and continue running errands (not forgetting that 1 box will require 2 hands to carry). so Justin said that it wasnt a problem for him to look after my boxes for me while i ran my other errands as long as i dont forget to pick them up on the way home.

fast forward to the next section of the dream...

i was with my chinese tutor (i cant remember which one - it seems like she was a combination of my private tutor and my primary 6 teacher) and some of my secondary school friends and we had applied to go on a weekend trip to Russia. i was really looking forward to it, and so sure that i had got a place so i packed all my stuff and got ready my bags. i even packed some chinese snacks (a wheatgrass milkshake and some mochi) which i had nearly forgotten as i got into a car/bus that took us all to the airport (i ran back in to get the plastic bag). on the bus my tutor reminded us that we had to hand in a book review on the Monday and i panicked because i thought that if i went on the trip it meant that i didnt need to do the report. and i had to finish reading 'Things Fall Apart' over the weekend as well (it IS actually a book i wanted to finish reading for my exam revision). one of my friends who wasnt applying for the trip asked me if i was going to be able to finish and i smugly said, yeah i'll manage, this trip will so totally be worth it. then the bus pulled up at the airport and they made an announcement saying that applicants from the following groups had been selected for the trip and if you had applied and were part of a group that was not called, it meant you were unsuccessful. and thought i heard them say that my group had not been selected (even though there had been applicants from the group). i thought they had made a mistake and went up to collect my ticket only to be told that i hadnt been selected. one of my friends tried to console me that it was a good thing because now i could concentrate on my book review and finishing my other work while those people that got selected would have to work their asses off during and after the trip to finish it. so we walked back to the bus interchange where one of my friends ran off saying that her bus (no. 7 to Tampines) was at the bay and she needed to get on. my two other friends went to queue at the no. 14 stand and i stood around waiting with them for their bus since i didnt want to go be alone just yet. i suddenly realised that i didnt have my plastic bag of goodies anymore and that my friend in the queue had carried it for me. i remember thinking, i'm going to enjoy the snacks even if i am not on that flight! so i asked if she could hand it back to me. she opened her backpack and started taking out bits that had been in the bag ("this is yours... and i think this as well... anything else...?"). i said, i gave you the entire bag, not just bits of the stuff. then she went, "oh yeah! sorry, i forgot". so i finally got all my stuff just as her bus arrived and we said goodbye and i walked away. i found myself walking past a swimming pool where an even was going on and people were cheering in the stands. i remember hearing one of my friends' voice saying 'oh i really hope i can get into AC JC' and all i could think was, great but havent we already finish JC? and to get in/even talk about getting into JC cant be a good thing because it means we've regressed? i found myself walking alone out of the sports stadium and seeing a police car parked on my left across the road. i couldnt find a zebra crossing so decided that i couldnt get in trouble for crossing the road so i did. and just as i did, two cars came from opposite directions (on this single lane road) and came to a stop just in time. the driver of the car on my right yelled at the driver on my left saying that it was a one-way street and he had turned onto the wrong section of the road. in all this time, no one came out of the police car so i figured it was just parked there and the policement probably went to watch the swim meet. as i crossed the road, i suddenly found myself along Siglap Road because i recognised the sign of one of the dentists but the area looked strange because the roads forked instead of going straight.

then i woke up.

i spent the morning trying to figure out my dream and here is my conclusion -

the rabbits: came from the episode of 'The Apprentice' (UK) that i watched last night
the genetically-modified babies: i had seen a tralier for a TV program called 'Animal Farm' which talked about genetically-modified animals
the book review: anxieties about work/revision
the whole trip to Russia fiasco + possibly the JC thing as well: me not getting a job
the mochi: probably because the day before i had gone to the chinese store in Cannon Park and the guy in front of me at the till opened the fridge and took out a packet of some chinese pastries. and i remember thinking, oh i didnt know that that glass panel was actually a door to the fridge!
wheatgrass: i opened my bag of spinach yesterday and some had gotten a bit mushy from the water vapour and thus there was a strong chlorophyll smell in the bag - reminded me of green tea which reminded me of a conversation i had with some Brit friends about green tea and wheatgrass

still, when i told josh my dream (and also because he has heard of my other weird dreams in the past few days), he said i needed help...

in true form

2007-05-08T00:23:00.000Z

i am writing my last ever assessed essay the night before it is due.

i used to always seemed to write my essays the night before until the past few where i finished them at least a day before. and a few hours ago i was panicking that i was not even half done (oh the irony!).

the punishment for being lazy on sat and sun = me doing an all-nighter (which i thought i'd NEVER have to do again since last year).

crap.

on another note, i think the reason why people put on weight in university is because we do work last minute and therefore feel the urge to snack to keep going through the night. i just had a whiff of pepperoni (because my housemate Michael had put a pizza in the oven) and now i have the urge to have supper of leftover fried chicken. and it's not like sitting here in front of my computer is going to burn any of the calories...

busy dreams

2007-05-05T16:35:00.000Z

the other night i had a weird dream and the fact that i actually remember it attests to how weird it was (i havent had weird dreams in a reasonably long time - like since Poland so ivy, dont't start giving me weird looks again!)

i dreamt that i was on some Amazing Race thing where moon, beng and i were on a team. and i remember thinking, why the heck are we in a team of 3? that will just slow us down! (sorry moon and beng!) anyway we were doing a Detour that involved folk art (i think it was somewhere in China/Tibet) and we had to string some beads onto bracelets in the right order according to a sample. i was getting very frustrated with moon because she was taking really long to string them (i remember we had 4 to string and i was thinking, 'that's ok we will be faster than the other groups because we are a group of 3 and some of the other teams are groups of 4') and even though we had arrived at the task 2nd, we were 5th when we left. then we arrived at the next Road Block which was at some huge aquarium and the moment i saw it i screamed 'shotgun not doing it!' and i made moon and beng decide among themselves who would do it (and then i felt really bad because it ended up being moon doing it AGAIN). the Road Block ended up being having to swim with a whale in a huge aquarium.

then while moon was getting ready, my dream suddenly became a thriller story where there were some suspicious men in suits that i decided to follow out the door... after that bit i dont remember what happened...

i also remember somewhere in my dream that i had to get into a car and drive. and all the time i was concentrating on putting my foot on the clutch when i had to change gear. at the end i kept thinking to myself, 'crap! i've never driven beyond 2nd gear and now i am driving in Amazing Race? WHAT?!?' (note: that's because moon and beng cant drive so i ended up driving)

if anyone can tell me what my dream means, please enlighten me! but then again, i told lynn my dream and found out that these Amazing Race dreams arent that uncommon because she had one too (it was rather funny to hear her dream as well! haha...).

:

The Johann Collective

2007-05-03T15:34:00.000Z

this is a plug for The Johann Collective, who play amazing original music. this song is GREAT! they've got a few more songs on their website that you can listen to on the music player.

(btw johann, i really liked your most recent song that you recorded, the one about the couple who have drifted apart but are still together even though they both know that the relationship isn't going anywhere...)

i'm a hoarder

2007-05-02T09:07:00.000Z

my mom called me at 9am yesterday to ask a very important question: in a frazzled voice, she said, "can i throw away your collection of Seventeen magazines? i've already filled up 10 boxes of your stuff and we only have space for 100 boxes in the storage place. you also still have all your files and books from secondary school."

crap.

so now i feel bad - because last year when i went home in summer i was supposed to throw out stuff that i didnt want (or sell the magazines second-hand). and a few years ago i would have said i wanted to keep all this stuff for "nostalgia" but then who am i kidding? i'll never read all that again (like maths and science stuff... maybe the literature...) so it probably is time to throw them all out.

and i'm wondering if i should bother to keep my notes from university as well... maybe if i bring them back, Harris might want them since he wanted some of my literature notes last year...

being shameless is good on the wallet

2007-05-01T09:40:00.000Z

i just came back from doing something utterly shameless! and the guy was really nice about it but i'm wondering if he was shaking his head as i walked out of Topshop.

see, lynn had gone in yesterday to try on that pinafore that i bought (because she really just wanted to buy something - again i reiterate, it isnt about the shopping experience... it is about how spending money relaxes all that pent-up frustration) and found out that they were having a Buy 1 Get 1 Free on all sale items. i.e. my pinafore.

at the same time, moon sent me a message saying she wanted that exact pinafore from Topshop as well (which she had seen in Topshop Singapore but the price was more than what she was willing to pay).

so after thinking really hard how to go about getting it (kind of) free, i decided that it was no point buying something then returning it to exchange for what i had bought last week blah blah blah and just go up and be shameless and return the pinafore and repurchase it with the offer (i usually keep receipts for a month and not cut off tags until a week after in case i change my mind - esp for impulsive buys).

and i did it. this morning. i walked in, searched frantically for that last pinafore in the right size (nearly didnt find it!) and went to the counter and got it sorted.

so instead of paying £9 for my pinafore, i have now only spent £4.50. which is like paying 22.5% of the original price! wheeeeeeee....

work work work

2007-05-01T08:41:00.000Z

(this is me mid-essay last week- those are my handwritten notes just for that essay!) we have a countdown on the wall in the hallway between my room and lynn's - and we have actually been rather dilligent in our work which is amazing because the week before term started we couldnt get down to studying (which is why i went to the library to do work but now that place has become so uncondusive).
one more essay and 3 more exams and i am done with university life. which is scary. but rather nice a feeling...

a taste of summer

2007-04-30T16:44:00.000Z

i had a craving the other week for something savoury that would taste refreshing and celebrate the season. i had remembered seeing a recipe for mango salsa in one of my food magazines but since i had lent it out to a decent-food-deprived (a.k.a normal student) friend, i found a recipe on epicurious.com and decided to tweak it.

this goes great with pork (i served it with roasted pork loin steaks that i had marinaded with salt, pepper and rosemary overnight) and i would imagine, be really nice with some grilled chicken as well.

Mango Salsa

1 mango, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
bunch of coriander leaves, torn
4 pickled piquante peppers, chopped (alternative: 1/2 capsicum, chopped)
juice of 1/2 lime
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

(it is advisable to make the salsa at least 1hr ahead so that the flavours really come through)

i also made a middle-eastern-inspired aubergine (brinjal/eggplant) dish to accompany the pork and mango salsa simply by frying some chopped onion and chillies (with the seeds removed) in lots of olive oil, then adding the chopped aubergine and briefly frying it before adding salt, pepper, ground cumin and tumeric powder. it is really important to add lots of oil (i used olive oil because it IS very middle-eastern and lots of it is not unhealthy) because the aubergine will absorb quite a lot of the oil and needs it to fry through well. fry for about 10mins or so until you get most of the aubergine nicely browned/charred.

a regression of sorts?

2007-04-29T21:45:00.000Z

last week i had a bit of a 'i-need-to-go-shopping' thing going on which started when Phoebe told me that Topshop was having a mid-season Sale and that she had been doing some online shopping to de-stress. i was in the midst of tackling my intense essay and decided to look online to see what they had. as soon as i saw that they had this (below) on sale, i knew i definitely needed to go shopping. i've been wanting to buy a pair of denim overalls or a pinafore for ages (i mentioned it several times when i was in Poland with Ivy and she and Paul teamed up against me to make fun of the fact that i will look even more childish wearing one - Ivy even forbade me to window-shop for one!)
the best thing about shopping at Topshop is that, as i recently discovered, you can still get a 10% student discount even on sale items! so this pinafore was knocked down from £20 to £10 (marked sale price) to £9 (special price for ME! hahaha!)

then i walked past Diechmann (shoe shop) and at the entrance of the store, they had £3.99 shoes! you know those kind of plastic-ky sort that every girl who grew up in Singapore probably wore when they were little girls (in sparkly pink!). i had, after my quick purchase in Topshop, gone shopping in Primark (innocently for tights but was persuaded by £2.50 tops - couldnt decide if i liked the yellow or green more so bought both), so i was thinking that buying those shoes on impulse would not be the wisest decision (impulsive buys = what-were-you-thinking moments later in the year) and walked away. however, i kept thinking about the shoes the entire evening and the next day so i went back and bought them.now i am just wondering how much more childish i will look if i wore both together...

in appreciation of my dad

2007-04-27T08:34:00.000Z

my parents are renovating the house which i can imagine is a nightmare because they are actually doing a whole load of stuff (ripping out built-in wardrobes, completely gutting out toilets, re-positioning the sink and the cooker in the kitchen...) and they have been trying to sort out my room with me online. so when it comes to the question of "what colour do you want your room" (and "what about the wardrobe"/"do you want your toilet walls the same colour as well"), it is quite a headache on both sides since we are both not looking at the same colour palette (or even ANY colour palette at all) and trying to decide.

my dad has been working from home these days and i've been getting several emails from him that just make me smile. he probably is rather bored at home so he scanned in several pages of colour charts for the wardrobe (solid colours and woodgrain), zipped it into a folder and gave instructions for me to choose by telling him which page, row and column i decided on. then he did a powerpoint of photos that my mom took of the bathroom stuff when they went wholesale shopping and added arrows and text boxes with information about what is going into whose bathroom.

so much love... :)

if i was renovating my house and my children were away, i'd not bother and just decorate it to my own taste. HAHAHA...

Swamped

2007-04-26T08:34:00.000Z

this is rather annoying but for the last week, Mozilla has refused to let me use Blogger. everytime i type in www.blogger.com, an error message will appear and Mozilla will just shut down. URGH. so now i'm using Internet Explorer just for a quick post.

have been mega-ly swamped with work that it is absolutely insane. not to mention that i am down with the flu (yes, it is official... as much as i was dreading it) so for the past two nights, i've been waking up at least 5 times to blow my nose. lynn is sick too (with a bad cough) so together we form a symphony on the first floor.

my room looks terrible! i've just got piles of papers and books all over the floor, table and on my bed. i even took a picture of how my table looks because this has got to be the most hard-core essay i am writing! and i have been so focussed on work that i havent even been that bugged by how progressively dirty my kitchen is becoming.

i'm really hoping the tutors will like my essay - after all the hard work i've put in. my parents should also be really proud that i am constantly referring to the Bible and typing out Scripture passages in my essay (GREAT, isnt it! haha...). this is one of those times when i am really glad i brought my super heavy Amplified Bible to uni...

[oh and perhaps you are wondering why i am using Scripture in my essay - that's because i am writing an essay on the importance of religion and religious identity with respect to experiences of historical and political violence in the works of two Jewish writers/artists.]

i cant wait for these essays to be done and out of the way! then it will be revision all the way till 30 May when i am officially done with my academic life! i know i'm really looking forward to it now but i have a funny suspicion that once i'm done, life is going to feel strangely empty for a while...

SPAM

2007-04-17T08:13:00.000Z

I received an email entitled RE:Application for Summer Internship Programme and was wondering what Internship did I possibly apply for this year...

Many thanks for your application and interest in the 2007 Intern Scheme XX!

As you know, we received over 600 applications for the 2007 intern scheme and you did extremely well to be shortlisted for the final applications. However, we found it hard to whittle that down to the final 10 successful candidates as the calibre of candidates was so high this year.

Unfortunately on this occasion you have been un-successful in our intern process as the calibre of candidates was exceptional.

However, I would like to thank you for taking an interest in XX and taking the time out to apply to us.

Kind regards,
XX

-----Original Message-----
From: Adeline Li
Sent: 15 March 2006 02:16
To: Interns
Subject: Application for Summer Internship Programme

Thanks for the nice email but if I dont need an internship, I need a job! Which you already turned me down before. Talk about double blow!

The Unsaid

2007-04-16T10:43:00.000Z

I stood at the gate
You asked if I wanted a picture
I had wished not to come
You were aggrevating my uneasiness

He has resisted coming
I knew exactly why
But was not facing it a way of
Burying his head in the sand?
I had wondered also why
He did not want to enter the synagogue
Or the cemetary of broken tombstones
Where bodies mingled be
Was he afraid
Of the emotions that would flood?
Or was it simply him uncomfortable
With thinking about the dead?

You saw my face and knew the answer
And walked behind me in silence
We had come and we were prepared
An awkward chill went through me
I looked at the faces on the walls
And thought of the mothers' pain
Of losing their seventeen-year-old sons
Then it hit me, they were killed too
Who is left to grieve now?

My stomach churned and anger rose within me
When I saw tourists taking photographs
Posing with instruments of death,
With artifacts of torture
To them this was just another tick
On the checklist of their visit to the country
A photograph of proof
That they have stepped into this historic place
Could they not respect the dead?
Have they no understanding of
What happened there?
Are they the embodiment of
What went wrong
When people ceased to be humans
And instead became serial numbers?
If silence is an admission of defeat
How is telling any better
When the audience does not feel?

Either way we have failed.

oh glorious ice cream

2007-04-15T19:32:00.000Z

i was on epicurious.com searching for a good ragout recipe since i had the craving for a thick chunky meaty ragout to have over pasta tomorrow night (as you can tell, i usually like to plan what i eat for the next few days so that there is a> something to look forward to and b> it facilitates grocery shopping) and on the sidebar there was an advert for a Haagen-Dazs competition where people vote for their favourite idea for a new flavour. so going to the Haagen-Dazs website, i discovered the wide variety of ice cream flavours they actually have. like chocolate sorbet, anyone?

so now i have a craving for a scoop of creamy Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Strawberry shortcake... Coffee... Lychee... on the other hand, i'm also trying to figure out how to get my hand on some of these amazing flavours. who cares about diets! give me Haagen-Dazs!

www.DanSing.org.sg

2007-04-14T09:00:00.000Z

i just received an email about this new website dedicated to dance in Singapore and i must say that it does actually look pretty good. the resources section looks well-thought-through (and is very clear and helpful) and Kuik Swee Boon is going to be the expert on the 'Ask An Expert' section. i didnt even know he is dancing (principal!) with Compania Nacional de Danza now!

www.dansing.org.sg

i finished it!

2007-04-13T22:16:00.000Z

950 words in 4 hrs! which works out to be 237 words per hour...ish...

so i sat in the library for another 4-ish hrs doing research for my next essay. was reading a chapter in a book on Paul Celan's poetry and it was discussing his Jerusalem poems and i actually got all the references upon first reading the poems! like WOW! and it is SUCH A GOOD FEELING! especially since i usually dont get the poems i read in my post-1945 poetry class. since i've been to Jerusalem twice and am actually know a decent amount of the Bible and Jewish culture/history, i could visualise all the places he wrote of and the symbols he used.

and i find that his poetry really really speaks to me - even more than Plath does. perhaps it is because i can sense his anguish and understand the conflicts he has about his identity. i got all teary-eyed in the library and it was a good thing i was in a secluded corner so that i could feel sad without being embarrassed!

he is officially my new favourite poet.

10 hrs, 225 words per hour

2007-04-12T11:46:00.000Z

improvement? measely...

i can't believe this but i am too early to get into the library!

2007-04-12T08:21:00.000Z

see i was supposed to get the 8.24am bus to uni but since josh decided to drive to work instead, he offered me a lift to a bus stop nearer to uni. at 7.55am. free car ride? of course! because it meant less walking (yes i am THAT lazy). so now here i am, on campus at 8.20am, sitting in the computer lab because that is open 24hrs and really craving a coffee and starving. 10 more agonizing minutes till the cafe opens... fooooood...

i've decided i've grown old because my level of productivity when it comes to writing essays has dipped. i spent 6hrs in the library yesterday and only added 1,000 words to my wordcount. granted that i deleted a whole pile of rubbish that i had previously written, that probably takes my typing/thinking/formulating speed to 200 words per hour. what happened to the me that could write 3,000 word essays in 10 hrs? the night before it is due! 1 yr = 33% dip... scary...

but then perhaps it is because i can't type while listening to music, especially songs that i can understand the lyrics/sing along to. i put Corrinne May on and did negligable work for an hour because i was listening to the lyrics and feeling rather comforted.

Everything In Its Time
Sometimes I wonder what lies ahead
How long till my hunger is fed
They say it's hard to make it in this part of town
So many people on this merry-go-round
Some folks try astrology
Some turn to crystal balls
To find an answer,
To get through it all
I just fall on my knees and I try to pray
In the silence I can hear Him say

The river runs and the river hides
Out to the ocean and under the sky
I promise you, the answer will come
Hold on to patience and watch for the sign
Everything in its time

I often feel like I'm two steps behind
Somebody must have moved that finish line
There are a thousand reasons
Why I should give up
But I'm stubborn in the things I believe

The river runs and the river hides
Out to the ocean and under the sky
I promise you, the answer will come
Hold on to patience and watch for the sign

'cause maybe there's another plan
One I still can't see
A little surprise, like your love in my life
Funny how time changes how we see

The river runs and the river hides
Out to the ocean and under the sky
I promise you, the answer will come
Hold on to patience and watch for the sign
Everything in its time
Everything in its time

so i've decided, no music today! or at least no English songs today...

oh and a word of advice to everyone, always remember to mute your laptop before taking it into the library. especially because when Windows starts up, there is that loud bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmm-thingy... :S

Thank You for the Cross, the Mighty Cross

2007-04-08T14:26:00.000Z

Romans 8:31-39

God's Everlasting Love

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
33 Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written:
"For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."*
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

off for my guilt-ridden vacation

2007-03-26T03:05:00.000Z

because i was supposed to finish one of my essays before today but havent. :(

Coventry->London->Paris->Warsaw->Krakow->Warsaw
->Paris->Rouen->Paris->London->Coventry

back on Good Friday!

making environment-friendly choices part of one's routine

2007-03-24T21:11:00.000Z

i watched a programme a few weeks back about our grocery shopping and how environmentally friendly it is - they took 2 families and got them to swap the way they shopped for their weekly groceries. one family shopped at their nearest Sainsbury's - they drove there even though it was only a 10 min walk away - while the other family stocked up at their local shops (butchers, farmer's markets...). the programme talked a lot about food miles and how one should make the conscious effort not to buy food that is imported but to support local farmers. also, processed food (salad bowls, frozen ready-meals...) produces excess waste because of the extra packaging and how people should reuse their plastic bags rather than take new ones at the till.

i have been making an effort to be more environmentally-conscious by always taking my backpack when i go shopping and putting my purchases straight in rather than using extra plastic bags to bag them. this in addition to plenty of recycling of paper, plastic bags and glass bottles (strangely enough, they dont seem to do much plastic recycling here, unlike at home), which i have to thank my mom for making it so much of a habit for me as we've been recycling since i was in primary school.

but for me, the biggest thing i dont see as always feasible is this food miles thing. fair enough it is probably reasonably ok to do it here (though foreigners might argue against it especially when we are buying imported items like Indomie and ABC kecap manis) but how does it work in Singapore? we don't really have a domestic agricultural and livestock industry that can sustain the country - think about all those adverts of Brazilian beef and Air-Pork from Australia. and what about all the things we eat regularly without even seeing as "exotic" and "out-of-season" like strawberries, salmon sashimi, crab roe...

and if the UK is having problems with waste disposal, how come Singapore doesnt seem to have this problem despite having such small landspace and such high density of people per square mile? or are we contributing significantly to the destruction of the ozone layer because we burn our waste (in addition to the CO2 emissions from our millions of food miles)?

lazy housemates procrastinating together

2007-03-23T16:44:00.000Z

it started with lynn and i sitting at our doorways chatting with each other about how we should do a list of all our deadlines so that we will feel motivated to get going with work and studying.

then we made 3 separate list that are now stuck proudly in the hallway. one for her, one for me and one with our travel dates.

afterwhich we went to the kitchen to make chocolate pudding. and cook up some lunch. which led to us feeling even hungrier and so we a post-lunch omelette and barley with beancurd skin dessert.

we then proceeded to sit in front of the TV and watch World Skating Highlights, Daily Cooks and Countdown.

we've adjourned to our rooms to attempt some headway with essay/dissertation. but obviously it isnt going far because i'm blogging now and lynn is trying to figure out how come the ANTM she downloaded isnt working. :)

i'm beginning to wonder if my degree is real...

2007-03-22T10:08:00.000Z

Dear Miss Li

This email is being sent on behalf of the Warwick Graduates
Association by the Awards and Conferrals team in the
Academic Office. You will shortly be receiving further
information about registering for your Degree Ceremony.

--------------------------
BE PART OF SOMETHING BIG

A unique opportunity for you to be involved in a lasting
reminder of your time at Warwick

Be involved and be a part of creating YOUR yearbook

This summer the Warwick Graduates’ Association are introducing
your Yearbook as a CD-ROM.  

You will be able to submit your contact details, a brief biography
and include a photograph of yourself.  To register to be included
in the yearbook please visit http://wga.allyearbooks.co.uk/.
The yearbook is only open to those graduating this summer and you
will need our special invitation code to log in. Your invitation
code is:-

xxxxxx

You will then be able to password protect your entry and revisit it
at any time to amend, update and customise your entry.  

However, in order to obtain a copy of the CD-ROM yearbook, you must
be a subscribing member of the WGA. Join the WGA online community via
www.wgaalumni.co.uk/joingrad.html and collect your Yearbook CD-ROM
at graduation. 

The deadline for you to have submitted your details is by 12 noon
on 8th June 2007.

---------------------------------------------------
Dear WGA,

I've just logged in to submit my contact details and have discovered
that my degree is not represented. I am doing a BA in Film & Literature
but the only Film degree listed is BA Film with Television (not the
same thing). Can something be done about this? There are at least 40
of us doing this degree.

Thank you.

Regards,
Adeline Li

----------------------------------------------------
Dear Adeline
 
Thank you for your email.  I will get your course added for you
 
With regards

Mary

----------------------------------------------------
Dear Adeline
 
Your course has now been added
 
Regards
 
Mary

i'm writing this essay on the London of Ealing Studios

2007-03-21T19:16:00.000Z

and i decided to try Jose's shot-by-shot analysis (which essentially means looking at the film frame by frame - and noting all the cuts and edits) for every exterior scene of London in 'The Blue Lamp' (1950). the film starts with a car chase and plenty of voiceovers (a narrator talking over the action that you see on screen) and i spent 15 mins writing down all that happens, shot-by-shot, in the first minute and a half. which involves watching-rewinding-watching-writing-rewinding-watching-writing-rewinding... and the annoying thing is that my VCR doesn't have a 'Pause' button so whenever an intertitle comes up over the image i have to write as fast as i can whatever i can speed-remember and rewind and rewatch it so that i can continue copying it down.

in the past 2 hrs, i have completed 12 mins of the film. of an 84 min film.

i suspect that at some point i am going to abandon this shot-by-shot thing. :|

someone obviously hates his degree and wants everyone to suffer as well

2007-03-19T11:56:00.000Z

someone posted this comment in the library and Richard Perkins was nice enough to photocopy it (and his reply) and stick it up in the Film common room.

by the way, he has bad grammar (look at his lack of question marks even though he is asking a question! tsk tsk!)

You Say:
Is there any way staff can muzzle the film studies students who seem to need to laugh so much in the carrels on Floor 2. Perhaps move the TVs to the Film Studies Dept!!! The "work" of any subject that precipitates more laughter than stress is obviously not worh any respect anyway but if we must humour these people can we at least put doors on these carrels to shut them up. I prefer my first idea - if they need to watch TV then get the department to provide space for them - perhaps in a cattleshed in Westwood where they can watch comedies all day long!

We Say:
Thank you for your contribution. The Film Studies Department does provide viewing space for their students, so the people you describe are more likely to be from other departments, presumably equally worthless... :)

Noise from all the Library carrels is a problem; if in doubt, I suggest you try standing near those on Floor 5. We will be putting signs in these carrels reminding people to respect the needs of others. In Term 3 we will have stewards partolling to keep an eye on this sort of thing. In the longer run, after the Library re,odelling project over the Summer vacation, video and DVD players will not be located in zones which are designated for quiet study.

Richard Perkins
Film & Theatre Librarian

Hail and Snow

2007-03-18T17:54:00.000Z

all not what you'd expect in the middle of March. but hey this is England.

while reading a food magazine the other night...

2007-03-18T09:46:00.000Z

i chanced upon an article about cookery schools in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the writer reviewed 2 schools, one for the budget traveller and one for the high-end tourist. i was so intrigued that i went to the website of the cheaper one and am now really interested in going there... if i did a 5 day course, it will only cost me about S$220 and i'd get to learn so many cool things (like how to make thai curry paste from fresh ingredients - WOW!) and this school has been recommended by all the travel guides (which is impressive) PLUS they teach you about substituting ingredients when you can't get the exact stuff - VERY IMPORTANT!

so i started to do research on flights and accomodation and apparently, it won't be that expensive a trip so hey hey hey i might just do it when i get back to Singapore. :) something to look forward to... and the fact that by the time i get home, my house would have been fully renovated and i will have a swanky new bathroom! wheeee...

Bill Bailey is one of THE funniest comedians alive

2007-03-16T10:01:00.000Z

(the French bit translated is "Attention!! We have an injured person! It's a man called Jean-Michelle with a broken leg. Joined by a lovely girl called Giselle - she's very beautiful - he climbed up into a tree to make love to her. He adopted the the missionary position - its very popular - but he fell and broke his leg, ATTENTION!!")

The Message by Nate James

2007-03-15T23:30:00.000Z

There is something wrong with sounds today
Never really captured how I feel
And whatever happened to the sounds today
I think they are lacking something real

Like them old school jams that kinda make you wanna dance
Lose yourself in music, feels so free
It's time I take your stand and turn things round
I want you to express yourself through music and don't hide it and just sing yeah
Let's get it together
'Cause music and that freeness of thinking
Is pushing us further

Got to get up and dance got to get up and move
Got to send out my message to the people

Got to get up and dance got to get in the groove
Are you hearing my message to the people

So what's going on in life today
People looking down no,they won't say what's up, no
But we can think around and find a way
Keep on moving forward and dont give up,no
Let's go back in time back to music of my mind
With Stevie playing piano just for you

So what happened to the sounds today
I know that deep down you still love your music
And don't hide it and just sing it
Let's get it together
'Cause music and that freeness of thinking
is pushing us further

Got to get up and dance got to get up and move
Got to send out my message to the people

Got to get up and dance got to get in the groove
Are you hearïng my message to the people.

Term 2 Week 10 = Societies' Elections Week

2007-03-12T22:09:00.000Z

which is a bit of a downer because it reminds me that i'm graduating and am soon no longer going to be able to enjoy student life i.e. being part of all these performance societies.

and today i just had my final seminar for one of my modules - all we have left now are revision sessions. and as much as i complain about doing academic work, nostalgia is getting the better of me.

the last few days i've been thinking 'what if's. like what if i could re-live my university life. what would i have done differently? and what if i had gotten this and decided on that instead? yet when i think about it, i wouldnt want to re-live my 3 years here. i'd kind of feel bored. and a bit of a loser.

so for now i will just enjoy what's left of it and think of all the adventures ahead of me.

university is so passe... :)

laptop blues

2007-03-08T23:10:00.000Z

my laptop kind of died on me. i know that sounds vague, especially when i should also points out that it IS still working. but in an eerie way - sort of like me and the laptop are playing mind games with each other...

it started last saturday when i was watching Friends on my laptop before going out for Stuart's fundraiser thing (which was FANTASTIC! the old Tap Dogs performed!!) - mid-joke the laptop decided to shut down. not even a 'this programme is not responding and has to shut down' thing. it just switched itself completely off. then i switched it on again but there was no blue-screen-of-death thing so i thought, hmmm probably some one-off problem. but NOOOO... because a few minutes later, just as all the programmes were starting up, my laptop decided to go on strike again.

it starts up perfectly fine now (i'm slowly backing up files on my external hard drive) but i'm so cautious that i dont have it on for more than 15mins. lynn and josh both seem to think it overheated, especially since i was running Windows Media Player when it shut down the first time. thankfully josh has an extra laptop - which is running on Windows 98 and that his dad bought (it's old office hardware) for RM100. works perfectly fine and is keeping me from freaking out about not having a computer on my desk with internet connection.

i guess they dont make laptops like they used to...?

today a friend told me something encouraging...

2007-03-02T23:39:00.000Z

that anything that is worth something will always have some element of difficulty in achieving, otherwise it isn't really going to be worth much...

i read this article in the Warwick Boar the other day...

2007-03-01T09:17:00.000Z

and found myself laughing out loud at some of the things said - true, it does sound like a wet blanket but there are some elements of truth in what he said (esp in the light of some of the not-so-good productions passing off as amazing).

EVAN STEVENS: Why I Hate Student Drama

I was sitting in the Arts Centre a while back, nursing a medium-to-serious hangover and wishing for nothing more than an hour or so of undisturbed quiet. Suddenly I realised that there was a pain in my head. Searing, unbearable, a shrill noise was burning my eardrums like liquid fire. Had a pack of banshees descended on us? Was the building being blown up? Or could it be the cast of Copacabana, loudly and inexplicably singing, for no apparent reason other than a profound need to be the centre of attention at all times?

Indeed, it was. It simply did not cross the minds of those aspiring thespians that the rest of the world might not care to hear “Her name was Lola” repeated in a variety of keys, over and over again early on a Wednesday morning. And it is this that is the root of my grievances; what one might call the embryo from which my ‘thespo-phobia’ has grown.

It is not the shoddy, over-financed and under-talented productions. It is not the significant percentage of the world’s trees that have been destroyed to make fliers that carpet the pavement outside Costcutter. It is not even the loud and uncalled-for “shouts” at the beginning of lectures: larger than life grins declaring (or, God help us, singing) that “the best production, like, ever, is being performed this lunch time in the Chaplaincy!”

It is the sheer arrogance of these people that really gets me down. It’s the air kisses. It’s the in-depth analysis of their friends’ performances broadcast at top volume in any quiet space (the library, the computer centre). It’s the complete inability to understand that anyone else on campus might not care as much about them as they do.

But come on, one might say, they just want to stand on a stage. They just want everyone to look at them. Why on earth would anyone object to that?

Let’s take a look at why. Firstly, there are the performances themselves. I went, reluctantly, to see Copacabana. Scantily dressed girls bobbed around the stage, wobbling their exposed stomachs in time to repetitive and uninspiring show tunes. The neon signs and those illuminated steps from which the actors descended merely highlighted their failure to live up to their own hype.

Then there was Codpiece’s production of Ted Hughes’s Ovid. What got to me about this was the need to justify the whole play’s existence in terms of how sexually explicit they could be. A tip for the future: narrating a play whilst vigorously dry-humping in a bed is not edgy and mature – it is ineffective and embarrassing. We couldn’t hear a word you were saying and your sex noises were gross. The sex scenes were screaming: “This is a grown-up play about grown-up issues – take us seriously!” In reality, it would have been a whole lot easier to respect this effort if there had been a little less on-stage copulation.

And here’s another thing: what’s with this student-thesp compulsion to get semi-naked in public? In Copacabana, we had to endure the feathered bikinis. In Ovid, we were treated to a bared arse and more than an eyeful of brassier. Why, damn them, can’t they keep their clothes on? If these people cared more about theatre than they did about themselves, they’d realise that exposing themselves on stage is a little distracting from the play: a classic example of thespian egos acting as an impenetrable blockade to any enjoyment the performance.

This, I think, is the crux of the problem (and it is a problem – I’m not alone in despising the Warwick drama scene). I really don’t mind that the plays are bad. They’re generally awful, let’s be honest, but that’s ok: we’re students, not professionals. We’re still, definitively, studying – learning how these things are done. It’s ok to mumble your lines inaudibly, to speak with your back to the audience, to be unconvincing and miss your cues. Go ahead and be crap – but please, please, don’t act like you’re anything more than that. The inexplicable self-importance that comes with being in even the most insignificant of Warwick productions is embarrassing for us all.

To the thespians of Warwick, I say this: Sit down, take a break, cover your flab up like the rest of us and learn to deal with being mediocre. It’s really not so bad.

see the pdf version of the page here

Warwick Tap coolness!

2007-02-25T17:28:00.000Z

as mentioned in the previous post, we somehow got ourselves invited to perform at the official opening of the RICOH Arena in Coventry which was to be an all day event with performances, activities and events happening all around the multi-purpose venue. Sophie even got us an interview slot with BBC Coventry & Warwickshire! so there we were, waiting for our turn when Dame Kelly Holmes showed up (because she was invited as the guest-of -honour for the opening ceremony) and the broadcast team swung into action getting an interview with her.
not that we really minded... Marie walked around the media/fans to try and get a picture of her with us in the background... Anna looks like a stalker!
and then at the end of her interview we got a photograph with her! :)
our interview, or should i say 'air-time' was brief - we were expecting to be asked a lot of questions but all we got was to do some tapping into the microphone and to state who we were and what we were performing at the opening. bummer...

we weren't on our best form for our 10min-item... we screwed it up in various sections but i don't think that people really cared, well maybe they were silently laughing but i'm pretending that things were fine. we did however get to teach some volunteers some tap steps. no surprise that the volunteers were children (who were so adorable!) and it was all great fun!
at the end of it, Sophie was psyched that we should start a class for children - obviously that brainwave lasted about 10seconds before we sensibly decided that that would not really be feasible...

I'm performing at the official opening of RICOH Arena in Coventry!

2007-02-24T08:10:00.000Z

how exciting!! we're doing freestyle tapping in the E.On Lounge and have gotten ourselves an interview on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire!

I LOVE WARWICK TAP!

New Year's Eve Dinner

2007-02-23T14:06:00.000Z

Thankfully this year, Chinese New Year fell during my reading week so I was able to fully prepare for the mammoth task ahead of me. I had decided to do a mini-Reunion Dinner on the Eve - 8 course + appetiser and dessert (which = 10) in addition to doing a massive spring clean of the house (in keeping with the whole traditional thing).

The preparations for the gathering started on Friday with me doing part of the food preparations and deep cleaning the house. I cleaned the bathroom (toilet bowl, bathtub, sink, floor), kitchen (counter tops, sink, floor, hob), the living room (vacuumed, cleared the clutter off the table, cleaned table top), hallway and staircase (vacuuming), which completely tired me out but rewarded me which such satisfaction that I am happy to declare it was all worth it. :)

What I am most pleased of is the state of my stove - this is what it looked like halfway through the cleaning (more like scrubbing because of the grime that had accumulated in the last month). The white stuff on the right side is the cleaning product that I used (which I am in love with now because of how clean it made the stove even though I did have to use a third of the bottle to get everything off).

and this is what it looked like at the end of the hour...
my clean kitchen and bathroom...
and the hallway...
I had bought these lights in Bangkok in December because my mom thought that I should have some festive decorations and when I saw them in Bangkok I thought they'd be perfect and very apt for the occasion.
Friday night was spent marinading the pork for both the char siew and the roast pork so that by the time I would cook it on Saturday, it would have been seasoned for about 20 hours. I think I had bought a total of nearly 2 1/2kg of meat! mmmm... I also soaked some chinese mushrooms and scallops and braised them in a frying pan with garlic, oyster sauce, sesame oil and sugar (with the water that they were soaked in) before transferring to a slow cooker overnight.

I was so psyched up for Saturday that on Friday night I had even drawn up a plan of action for the day - like what I needed to do at what time and which dish to be done before another.

What a dork I am!

So Saturday began with me going to Coventry market to get my fresh prawns and fish (so that I would a) get fresher food, b) not put a strain on my fridge on Friday because I had quite a lot of other food stored in there and c) not have to freeze the seafood - which would have partially destroyed the texture of the food, important since I was planning to steam/quick cook them). I bought 1/2kg of tiger prawns (completely with shell and head) and a sea bass that I had the fishmonger de-scale and clean out (thank God for markets when you can get them to do all the messy work!). Then I whizzed back home to start the cooking!

I had decided to make Gula Melaka Sago as the dessert for the dinner but realised what I had (that I had brought from home a while back) was gula kelapa laut (sea coconut sugar) - thus a slight change in the menu: Gula Kelapa Laut Sago!

The recipe is really simple but it took ages to do simply because I only had a small strainer and I needed to strain the cooked sago before chilling it in the fridge.it took me an entire hour to strain a full pot (shown on the right) for a bowl (left) of sago. :(
Next I fried some prawn crackers (which were meant to be snacks/appetiser) and created a chilli dip for them with fresh red chillis, garlic, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice.
next it was time to pop the pork belly into the oven (for the roast pork) and wrap the wantons. I rested the pork belly on halved cooking onions so that the fat would drip down and the bottom of the meat would get roasted rather than fried in the oils.Halfway through wrapping wantons I put pork shoulder strips with the char siew marinade into the oven as it does not take as long to cook. I then pre-cooked the wantons in a pot of boiling water (rather than in the soup I was going to serve it in so that the flour from the skins do not destroy the stock) and prepared a simple chicken-based soup with stock, ginger, garlic and spring onions.

After that the real frenzy began where I had to juggle chopping ingredients and cooking multiple dishes - i boiled the egg noodles and stir-fried some garlic, spring onions, fishcake and beansprouts and after adding the cooked noodles, finished the dish off with some scallop sauce. While stir-frying the lotus roots with asparagus in garlic, I sliced up some lap cheong and quickly fried the pieces (to get a nice smoky flavour) before adding the eggs for an omelette. I blanched some spinach leaves to use as a base for my braised chinese mushrooms. While my sea bass was steaming (simply with oyster sauce, pepper, spring onions, ginger and sesame oil), I finished my last dish (drunken prawns).

They were all really simple dishes and turned out really well (though I was disappointed with my noodle dish). I think it was only difficult because I was cooking the entire meal on my own - which was do-able but tricky in my very small kitchen).

So the final pictorial menu (and some recipes!)

Chinese Roast PorkRub some salt and pepper on the top of a slab of pork belly (scored at the top to get a crispy skin), and salt, pepper and five spice on the bottom. Roast for approximately 1 1/2 hrs at medium heat, turning it up towards the end to crisp.

Char SiewMix marinade in zip-lock bag (so that meat will evenly coat) and place sliced up strips of pork shoulder (or neck - which my mom uses). Pop the marinated meat into the oven and glaze once in a while so that the meat does not dry up. Recipe is my mom's concoction which I have tweaked to my taste - have not quite decided if I want to post it... will think about it. :)

Stir-fried Lotus Root and Asparagus in GarlicLap Cheong Omelette
Stir-Fried Egg Noodles with Fishcake and Beansprouts, in Scallop Sauce (i cheated and used a bottle of sauce that I had brought from home)
Chinese Mushrooms Braised with Oyster Sauce on a Bed of SpinachWantons (sans soup) - filling: pork mince, water chestnuts and spring onions Steamed Sea BassDrunken PrawnsHeat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a hot pan. Add chopped ginger strips, followed by 500g fresh prawns. When the prawns begin to have some colour, add 400ml of chinese rice wine. Add salt and sugar to taste. Serve immediately once the prawns are cooked, garnishing with coriander.

Gula Kelapa Laut Sago

Soak sago (about 200g) in water for about 10mins. Boil in a pot with 5 cups of water. Once they turn transparent, strain and run under cold water to cool. Divide into moulds and chill in refridgerator. Mix 400ml of coconut milk (= 1 can) with 200ml of water, add some pandan leaves (or essence in my case), bringing it to boil but continuously stirring so that it does not curdle. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar, remove from heat and chill. Dissolve 100g of gula kelapa laut (or gula melaka) with 2 tablespoons of hot water and chill. Serve by pouring coconut milk and syrup mixture over the sago (as desired).

We decided to end dinner with some poker and while Josh and Jon went to Jon's place to get his poker table (which was very nice!), Johann, Phoebe and I sat there chatting. Till I mentioned that I had lost one of my pot covers a while back and was not sure if it had fallen behind the stove. That led to a completely geeky attempt to rescue it using a small flashlight, a mirror, a coat hanger, a pair of kitchen tongs and a broom stick. Go figure...
hehehe... :)

annoyed with the university squirrelmail

2007-02-19T13:16:00.000Z

GRR...

have been trying to top up my eating card and the email that i am supposed to receive after completing the first bit of the sign-up hasnt arrived. and i'm not talking 15mins, it's been 4 hours.

and as i refresh my email account, emails that were supposedly sent on saturday are slowing coming in (and mind you, today is monday).

i know this sounds terrible, but how am i supposed to function like this?!?

errands-and spring-cleaning day

2007-02-16T16:57:00.000Z

today has been designated as an 'errands and spring-cleaning' day because tomorrow is the eve of Chinese New Year and i am having a mini Reunion dinner at my place for 5. and also a great time to actually get the house nice and spotless because my housemates are not very fussy about cleanliness/tidiness and the house has degenerated into a rather messy and uncleaned-for-months state. in fact, i think the last time the toilet floor was cleaned was in july when i cleaned it. and the stove was cleaned last month when i spent about an hour scrubbing it (which by now, has collected grime again). and since my housemates have gone their separate ways for chinese new year, i get to clean and it will stay clean at least till sunday (or hopefully monday).

:) ahh the joy of living in a spotless house...

i've even written down a list of what needs to be done in the house and what order it will be cleaned. as well as a detailed plan of what needs to be done tomorrow to churn out my 8 course dinner (+ starters and dessert). mmmmmm...

i love organisation!

Gotta Dance!

2007-02-11T17:38:00.000Z

Wig Party with Taptastic people!

2007-02-10T20:51:00.000Z

anna decided to celebrate her 20th birthday yesterday with a wig party since her actual birthday fell on the day of Pizazz (which i personally think is really cool as well!).

i initially thought of getting a bright red wig to match my bright red boots and bright pink tights but at the costume store, the red looked hideous so i got an auburn one instead (which looked WAY FABULOUS). in the end i went for the red, black and grey look (classic with a dash of colour) with a black beret and boots, red tights and my new grey dress.
me and the birthday girl! i love her red bob!
kirsty looked sooo Pulp Fiction-ish in her platinum blonde do (which at some points made her look a bit poodle-ish... heheh...)
hayley and her black curly afro - we had a bit of twin-ness going on: hayley and ian mcd had similar ones and jodie and i had identical ones except in different colours (well, i got hers for her so...)Tap people doing some funky dance moves... and Laura W with her adorably 50s-style wig (which kind of looked like an old lady's badly dyed hairdo)after a while we got so amused with each others wigs we tried on each others' wigs!
and ian mcd looked sooo like one of the 'Dumb and Dumber' characters...
after a while, tamzyn finally came - her wig was actually called 'cheerleader wig' at the shop!
and ian g came with more hair than the required dress code... hehe...we are SO going to have another wig party just to have an excuse to wear them again! :)

good, proper snow

2007-02-08T19:53:00.000Z

the weatherman predicted snow for today - and at first i was skeptical. but then when several other weather websites said the same thing and the transport authorities started issuing warnings of delays during rush hour (and the fact that some teachers had decided to cancel lessons due to these forecasts), there was anticipation building up inside of me as i went to bed. apparently it was supposed to start snowing at 4am and i actually got up around that time (to go to the bathroom... though it didnt hurt to peek out of the window) but there was nothing. NOTHING!

at 8am, i received a text from Josh who was in London. it simply said "SNOW!". and i looked out of the window...it wasnt the usual pathetic British snow. it was a blanket of snow! :) "SNOW-ING!", i corrected.
the chavs (read: the English version of Ah Beng) that live a few doors down across the street were having a snow fight. as i sludged to the bus stop, i was so excited by the sheer amount of snow that had fallen in the early hours of the morning. the last time i saw a decent amount of snow was in Oslo and it seemed like such a nice gift from above, considering i had given up hope for a proper nice snowfall this winter, seeing as it is already February.
i must comment though that the snow in Earlsdon was a lot nicer than on campus because by the time i got to university, it had become defiled by people sludging through it (and making snowballs to throw at each other).

everyone was in a cheery mood today - met Jon outside the sports centre where he was washing some kayaks and apparently a few of them went to Kenilworth with their kayaks to use as sleds down Abbey Fields.

by the way, do you not think that snow brings out violence in people? hello! snowfight?

which brings me to the next point - snowfights. there were some students outside the Arts Centre that were throwing snowballs at each other when they decided to start attacking the buses. and you know what? the bus driver decided to join in the snow fight and went out to throw snowballs back at them. which led to a 10min-long volley. and then when he had to drive off, he told the people at the bus stop who were waiting for another bus that they should be having fun throwing snowballs as well (instead of just sitting at the bus stop waiting).

strange... but i'm just going to enjoy the snow...

a taster of Pizazz (thanks to sneaky people who took photographs during the performance even though they were not supposed to)

2007-02-07T22:27:00.000Z

*here are some photos from the show - not the official ones from the show photographers but from friends of friends who were happily snapping away in the audience... these are the nicer-looking ones (which is good enough for now) but more will definitely come when i get hold of them!*

me and ian mcd in the hallway waiting for the show to start - eyeliner buddies! (and a hint of mascara)
STAMP! (co-choreographed by ME! so pleased with how it turned out!)Latin & Ballroom's 'The Rhythm'the REALLY entertaining Beginners' Tap (old-skool cheese 'Notorious' by Duran Duran)
C&M's 4min 30sec-version of Swan LakeStuart Carroll (our ex-Tap Dog freestyle teacher) and the impressive music-less routine classic Tap by the Advanced dancers - 42nd Street was AMAZING! (also love this photo of Chris - he's a REALLY good dancer! strange how all the male dancers in Tap are either doing Maths or Engineering or Physics!)
our SENSATIONAL exec dancenew addition this year - Bellydance!Blood on the Dancefloor - Michael Jackson medley Intermediate Tap's 'Teardrop' (the theme from 'House')
a very funky Advanced Ballet to 'When The Doves Cry'StreetVibe's super cheesey choice of 'The Message' - very un-street but oh-so-cool!
a Tap version of Riverdance!THE FINALE! 'Do you thing' by Basement Jaxx ROCKS!

it's over

2007-02-05T20:46:00.000Z

the show's over and it went really really well.

except that i dont feel anything.

i was feeling really relieved and a bit sad. but in general, i just felt so tired physically that any other emotion was just an after-thought.

and even now the emotions are only welling up just a tiny bit.

that was a great last professional-stage dance show. it's sad but sooner or later it was going to happen. there will be a few more small performances in the next few months but i doubt i will get to perform anymore after University is over. (not that THAT is going to stop me from dancing!)

but it has been amazing all the way...

i've had so much fun organising and doing Pizazz. and made so many very good friends along the way. it feels so good that so many people enjoyed the show, and means a lot that even the seniors that came back were congratulatory.

that was great, people. just simply awesome.

building excitement

2007-01-31T22:47:00.000Z

i can't believe that in a few days this show is going to go on and all the hard work will come together for a fantastic show. i'm really really soooo excited. it's amazing how this feels like it is the biggest thing i have done so far. something that i have seen from the very beginnings - from the ideas to the planning and down to the rehearsals and sorting out of last minute stuff. i'm going to be soooo hyper when i meet the programmes guy on friday and see my name in print!

and to top it all off, we've only got 45 tickets for the afternoon show left to sell and 180 for the evening! which is great!

i'm sooooooo pumped up on adrenaline now! can't wait for sunday!

OoooOo i'm getting VERY excited

2007-01-30T18:03:00.000Z

if you haven't bought your tickets, GO GET THEM NOW! the show looks amazing and we've got beautiful people doing funky dances, complete with breath-taking backdrops and... PYROTECHNICS!

Warwick Arts Centre Theatre
4 February 2007 (Sunday)
£7.50 (£5) 4pm performance
£10 (£7.50) 8pm performance

you can check out the Warwick Tap website and even buy tickets from the Warwick Arts Centre online!

10 days to Pizazz!

2007-01-25T09:04:00.000Z

and then i will need to find something else to occupy my time...

Windsday

2007-01-19T08:08:00.000Z

yesterday, the library had to be evacuated because apparently the winds were blowing tiles off the roofs.
---------------------------------------------------
Weather Damage - Buildings Closed
Update (Friday 19 January)

Thorough safety checks have been carried out this morning. The Library will be open from 10am, Library road is open now, as is Café Library. The roof has been made safe, with the exception of the side facing Humanities, so the walkway between Humanities and the Library remains closed until 10am.

Owing to damage caused by today's high wind a number of buildings on campus have been closed: the Library and the Westwood Games Hall. Rootes Residences D to H Entrance has also been closed - please use alternative entrances.

Library Road has been closed because of a potential health and safety issue caused by flying debris. (However University members can still collect cars parked on Library Road).

Library & Library Road: Small parts of the Library roof are being blown off.

Rootes Residences: The entrance to D-H has a panel hanging off above the doors - please use alternative entrances.

Westwood Games Hall: Lights have fallen down inside the hall, one roof light has fallen into the hall and one roof light has disappeared.

No injuries have been caused and damage will be assessed when the wind drops.

The wind is not forecast to drop during daylight today - and the safety of the buildings will be assessed first thing tomorrow morning. Those buildings that are closed will remain so until tomorrow's safety check.

The Estates Office is arranging for repairs to be made once the wind has dropped and the full damage has been assessed.
---------------------------------------------------
and traffic was bad because of the bad weather.

and today on the news (news.bbc.co.uk):
----------------------------------------------------

UK braced for second day of gales

Reduced services are running while the clear up operation takes place

Parts of the UK are braced for more severe storms after 10 people died and thousands of homes were left without any power.

Northern England, central and southern Scotland and Northern Ireland could be hit by more gales by nightfall, the BBC Weather Centre warned.

Friday will be "a much quieter day" for the rest of Britain, but "gusty".

A clean-up of fallen trees and overturned vehicles is expected to affect some rush hour travel.

On the railways most services have returned to normal although there is some disruption.

Network Rail engineers worked through the night to clear obstructions and repair overhead power lines.

STORM DEATHS

A two-year-old boy was killed when a wall fell on him, London

An airport chief died after a branch fell on his car, Shrops

A man died when a tree fell on his car, Streatley, Berks

A lorry driver was killed when his vehicle overturned, N Yorks

A man died when a lorry blew into his car, Chester

A woman was crushed to death by a falling wall, Stockport

A man was killed when he was blown into a metal shutter, Manchester

A man died when he was hit by a tree, Cheshire

An elderly man was killed when a shed collapsed, Humberside

A man died after he was hit by a falling canopy, Lancashire

In pictures: Windy weather

In pictures: Europe's storms

Train company GNER says it expected to operate a reduced service, as work is carried out to clear debris from the tracks and fix damaged power lines.

Two trains will run every hour between London Kings Cross and Newcastle, with one going on to Edinburgh.

An hourly train shuttle service will run between Doncaster and Leeds, and in Scotland there will also be a revised timetable, connecting with First Scot Rail services.

Virgin Trains West Coast is running an emergency timetable.

Arriva Trains Wales has a line closed due to flooding between Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog.

The M20 coastbound is closed between J11 and J12 due to traffic queuing for the ports and there are similar closures on the A14 southbound into Felixstowe harbour.

A number of A-roads around the country have sections closed due to fallen trees, flooding or accidents.

Storm victims

On Thursday a two-year-old boy died when a wall fell on him in Kentish Town, London.

The managing director of Birmingham Airport, Richard Heard, 49, died after a branch fell on his car between Bridgnorth and Broseley, Shropshire, and a male passenger in a Ford Fiesta was killed when a tree fell on the car in Streatley, Berkshire.

A lorry driver died when his vehicle left the road and overturned in high winds on the A629 Skipton western bypass, in North Yorkshire.

Another man was killed when a lorry was blown onto a car on the A55 on the outskirts of Chester, Cheshire.

In Stockport, Greater Manchester, a woman in her 60s was crushed to death when a wall toppled onto her in high winds.

HAVE YOUR SAY

We can see parked cars moving in the wind and lamp posts swaying

Myra Davis, Swansea

Send us your comments

A man also died after being blown into a metal shutter at an industrial estate in the Strangeways area of Manchester.

A 60-year-old man was pronounced dead at Leighton Hospital, Crewe, after he was struck by a tree while working on a site in Byley, Middlewich.

Meanwhile, an elderly man died from injuries after a shed collapsed on him in Humberside.

A 58-year-old man from Essex also died after he was struck by a falling petrol station canopy in Lancashire.

Gusts of up to 99mph saw flights cancelled, rail speed restrictions enforced and sections of motorway shut.

Thousands of homes across the UK were left without power when the storms were at their peak, including some 100,000 people in Godalming, Surrey, and tens of thousands across the north east of England, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.

While England experienced high winds, Scotland saw its first major snowfalls of 2007, bringing road and rail disruption.

Waiting On The World To Change

2007-01-11T23:40:00.000Z

by John Mayer
-----

me and all my friends
we're all misunderstood
they say we stand for nothing and
there's no way we ever could
now we see everything that's going wrong
with the world and those who lead it
we just feel like we don't have the means
to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's hard to beat the system
when we're standing at a distance
so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
now if we had the power
to bring our neighbors home from war
they would have never missed a Christmas
no more ribbons on their door
and when you trust your television
what you get is what you got
cause when they own the information, oh
they can bend it all they want

that's why we're waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's not that we don't care,
we just know that the fight ain't fair
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

and we're still waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
one day our generation
is gonna rule the population
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

i cannot feel my legs

2007-01-11T00:52:00.000Z

i think i am mad. honestly.

i was on campus for 13 hrs today (well, yesterday by now). and none of it was actually wasted. i was actually there for things that have been scheduled into my diary.

4 hrs of screening and seminar.
6 hrs practically non-stop of dancing from 2pm to 8pm
1 hr of running around getting stuff done for Tap
2 hrs at a social where we screened the DVD of last year's show. i had to work the equipment in the screening room and lock up since i signed for the key.

got home at 11pm-ish. ate dinner at 12.30am.

and to complicate matters i had a whole load of Tap show-related emails to answer and sort out when i got home.

plus i need to get costumes and props tomorrow (or rather, today)/friday for a dance i am co-choreographing. and attend rehearsals tomorrow (today), friday, sat and sunday.

and schedule a doctor's appointment for tomorrow because i am breaking out into a weird rash/bites all over my limbs.

back in Coventry

2007-01-03T10:53:00.000Z

to a dirty/messy house.

which i, naturally, got down to cleaning before even unpacking.

now it feels good to be home to a nice clean home. with clean floors. and a grime-less stove.

:)

I will rest in Him this 2007...

2006-12-31T13:10:00.000Z

1Kings 5:2
And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying,

1Kings 5:3
Thou knowest how that David my father could not build a house to the name of the LORD his God, for the wars which were about him on every side, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet.

1Kings 5:4
But now the LORD my God hath given me rest on every side, [so that there is] neither adversary nor evil occurrent.

1Kings 5:5
And behold, I purpose to build a house to the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD spoke to David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build a house to my name.

ROAD TRIP to CHINA (well, sort of road trip...with a quick stop in Bangkok)

2006-12-20T14:46:00.000Z

will be gone from tomorrow (21 Dec) to 30 Dec - in between Shanghai and Hangzhou will be going to Huangshan. :)

new camera!

2006-12-17T01:44:00.000Z

because the old one died and cannot be resurrected anymore... oh well, it was almost 4 years old so hey, it has done me well (esp considering all the conditions i put it through like extreme cold in Oslo and extreme heat in Sentosa, as well as over stoves and piping hot food).

going to try this out in CHINA! :) wheeeeeee...

Get your tickets now to avoid disappointment!

2006-12-15T01:59:00.000Z

THE BEST DANCE SHOW OF 2007, brought to you by Warwick Tap!

This year 7 dance societies are coming together to put up a fantastic show that will get you grooving in your seat and dancing in the aisles! With amazing performances by Warwick Tap, Classical & Modern Dance, StreetVibe, Latin & Ballroom, Breakdance, Bellydance and Salsa, the show will be bigger and better than last year's RENDITION!

Check out our listing on the Warwick Arts Centre website and get your tickets ASAP!

4 February 2007
4pm & 8pm
Warwick Arts Centre Theatre
£7.50 (£5) for 4pm performance
£10 (£7.50) for 8pm performance