Oxford

The trip to Oxford was not bad.

Oxford is quite different from Sheffield in respect of the design of the city. The city dates back to the medieval times. Bicycle is the main transport in the city and also a healthy mixture of races. The colleges in Oxford are spread around the city but most of them are closed to the public and has huge tall walls with spikes on top and security guards guarding the entrances. However, tours are conducted for a small payment. Another thing is there are plenty of shops selling jumpers and t-shirts with the name University of Oxford printed on them. Anyone could just buy them and show it to their friends and claim that they were from Oxford Uni.

Since the city is famous for it’s historical sites, our main attractions were the historical buildings. Our first destination was Bodleian Library, which carries over 5.7 million books (almost a copy of every book published in Britain) and no one has ever been permitted to check one out. We were looking forward to see the library but unfortunately, the library was closed due to some unknown reason.

Sadly, most of the historical sites we visited were not interesting. Carfax Tower and Covered Market were the uninteresting sites. The former is just a clock tower with little architectural significant and the latter, which is just few steps away from Carfax Tower, is just a normal market and doesn?t have anything interesting.

The only thing that caught my attention for a while was a small notice written in Japanese stating “Nihon go hanashimasu” which literally means “Converse in Japanese”. It was pasted on a shop owned by a Japanese looking lady. Probably it’s a advert for hiring people who could speak Japanese.

The only interesting place we visited was Christ Church College. It?s the film site for Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland and Shadowlands.

The dining hall scene in Harry Potter was shot in the amazingly huge Dining Hall built in 1529. It also has many connections with Lewis Carroll?s book, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland. The dining hall and the people around him inspired many of his ideas. (Apparently, Alice is the daughter of the Dean (during Lewis?s days in Christ Church) and Alice’s cat Dinah inspired the Cheshire-Cat). The hall has a magnificent ceiling, of ‘hammerbeam’ construction. The portraits of many famous members of Christ Church can be seen on the wall, including a few of the thirteen Prime Ministers educated in the college.
We took couple of photos before heading to the Cathedral. Apparently, it is the smallest cathedral in the country.

While I was loitering around the staircase that leads to the dining hall, I spotted a small carving on the wall. It went something like ‘L.P.C 1864’.

By the time we finished touring Christ Church, it was dark and raining heavily. We had to cancel our visit to the museum due to insufficient time and ended up in Starbucks. We spent our remaining time in Starbucks before heading for our 3 hours journey back to Sheffield.

11:30PM

9 – 5 classes sux. exam timetable is out!

I’m visiting Oxford tomorrow morning with the Malaysian and Singaporean Society.

Our drafted examination timetable is out. My first paper starts on the 25th of January followed by 30th January and ends on the 4th of February.
I’m glad my exam is starting late this year. Since I’ll be back in Malaysia for 3 weeks during December, I doubt I’ll be studying much. I’ll will be back in Sheffield on the 15th of September thus that leaves me 10 extra days to study. Can’t wait till exams end!
10:00PM

Muay thai and Jill Dando

Happy Birthday to Wai Keong and Kadet Yeap Soon Yean!

Muay Thai training again. I find that my stamina increased dramatically. I no longer feel like puking or fainting after a heavy exercise.

It’s Darren’s (our instructor) last day today and Christian will be teaching us next week. Darren suggested that, since it’s his last day, he’ll give us a farewell gift. He’d let us kick him and it’s 2 hard kicks each. About 20 of us, stood in a line and took turns to kick the side of his body but obviously, protected with a pad.

He shook our hands and said “See you on the other side” before he left.
11:35PMI watched Crime Stopper on television last night. It’s monthly show run by the police and also presented by police themselves. The title speaks for itself. It shows the details of unsolved crimes and pleads the public to help the police to identify the alleged wrongdoer. For example, it will show a reconstruction of an incident to illustrate it. The actors and actresses will dress exactly like the wrongdoer as given description by victims. Furthermore, huge rewards are usually offered to those who gave information that lead to the arrest of the wrongdoer. Sometimes the reward could amount to £10000.

Wen Dee told me that Jill Dando, a well-known presenter, used to host that show. She was so famous that she attracted a stalker and one tragic day, she was shot on the head in front of her house and died. Her colleagues took over her place and used Crime Stopper to get the public’s information about the killer. Subsequently, the stalker was caught, thanks to Crime Stopper.

The Dando Trial – BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2001/dando_trial/
11:50PM

2nd batch of stamps arrived

The antique stamps I bought from eBay arrived today. The seller, Neil seems to be a very nice person. He inserted a small note with a caricature of a cat saying “Smile at everyone today” and he wrote, “Hope you like them, Neil. The stamps are inside the cardboard, it may look crude but I find it the lightest and strongest way of keeping the stamps flat!! Thank you for buying NEIL’s stamps. I hope we can deal again in the near future. I will post feedback”. Hey, that put a smile in my face.

I spent 4 hours in the library trying to study. However, it wasn’t productive at all, I wasted half of my time daydreaming. Man, I wish my Law subjects are much more interesting. I?m not complaining that law sucked but it really needs a tuning. My lecturers should just write their notes in a simpler form. Sometimes I would take a long time trying to figure out what a sentence is trying to say.
10:30PM

Stamps arrived!

The Fire fighters strike is beginning to get on my nerves. Because of their bloody strike, the library has to close much earlier.

The fire fighters union is still adamant on getting a 40 percent pay rise and rejected the government’s offer of 16 percent pay rise. The army has to takeover the fire fighter’s duty with their ill equipped ‘Green Goddess’ truck. All of a sudden, the number of pranks calls roses dramatically. I guess irresponsible people wanted to see how the ‘Green Goddess’ looks like.

So far the press has been heavily monitoring effects of the strike. Few deaths were recorded during the strike but were dismissed as unavoidable or in simpler terms, the victim would die even though professional fire fighters were present.

Despite the stern protest, it was shown in the press that UK firefighters’ basic wage is well paid than their European counterparts. However, the sum varies when it comes to overtime and allowance. Allowance and overtime does not exist in UK but it exists in Europe (*ie night shifts, weekend allowance). However, the union argued that the cost of living in UK much higher, especially in London.
8:00PM

Alan Teo’s Birthday

I went to Alan Teo’s house to celebrate his birthday. As usual, there was plenty of booze. Alan was already drunk by the time I reached his place. Everyone seems to be forcing him to drink everything in sight.

Surprisingly, JuLeun was there. It’s been weeks since I saw him. We chatted and caught up with each other. He told me that he went to Amsterdam again but this time with his girlfriend. Both of them were smoking weed all night long.

Ju Leun told me that Carl and Alex were no longer studying in Nottingham Uni. Carl is back in Malaysia working after dropping out from Nottingham Uni. It’s the second time he dropped out from Law school. Alex on the other hand is back in Germany. He dropped out from Nottingham too, smart guy but no idea why he dropped out.
There weren’t many people in Alan’s house but it was sure noisy. They were forcing Alan and Allen to drink the whole night and in the end, Alan and Allen tried escaping the torturous mob by running away from the house. Unfortunately, they were caught and the mob barricaded the house to prevent Alan and Allen from escaping.
4:20PM

racist drunken

What is Muay Thai?
This is Muay Thai!
MuayThai-RightCrossKnockout.avi
MuayThai-backkick.avi
MuayThai-SpinElbowKnockout.avi
Muaythai-ouch.mpeg <- MUST SEE!
4:45AM James Bond: Die Another Die was good. Frederick and I liked it but Frank and Chuo Ming didn’t like it. Frank even said that it was the worst Bond movie he ever watched.

While we were waiting for a taxi at the taxi stand, there was this drunkard lining up alone in front of us. We paid no attention to him and started chatting in Cantonese. Suddenly, he looked at us and said, “Speak English, it is rude not to speak English, This is England”. Frederick and I were pretty shocked by the racist remark and we kept quiet for a while, thinking that we might be actually rude. However, the fat and bald drunkard kept on talking and gave couple of racist remarks. Frederick and I got really pissed and stared at him. It went on for a minute until Fredrick lost his cool and said ‘fuck off, okay?” and lightly pushed him away. He turned and looked at me, I gave him a fiery stare. He turned his back towards me and said, “This is England”. By then I was already furious, I said “so? Why? Not happy?” He didn’t answer me.

We were waiting for the right moment to whack him as soon as he starts hitting one of us. I tried to provoke him by speaking in Cantonese again but he was ignoring us by then. Fortunately, it was the last of him. He never said a word or even look at us anymore. I guess he must have chickened out. Our angry Asian vibes definitely shut him up.
4:00AM

Muay thai classes hurting my shinss

Ouch, my shins hurt from Muay Thai training today. We had to do a lot of blocking exercise in order to improve blocking with our shin by lifting our leg to our waist and also kick each other’s shin in order to strengthen it. At the beginning, Darren (our instructor) made us lift our leg to block the left side for 60 times. That’s okay. Then after that, we had to lift the same leg to block the right side for 70 times. I could barely lift my leg by then. 130 lifts are fucking tiresome but according to Darren, when he started training, his instructor made him do 1000 lifts. He wasn’t allowed to go home until he finishes it.
I had to partner this guy who is twice my size. Imagine the momentum that hits my shin every time he kicks.
– 11:40PM