6 reasons to keep a diary http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2289919.stm
I was sick of our garden last night. It’s full of weed, not maintained, dirty and filthy and therefore I decided to clean it up today. I bought a pair of gloves for a pound, went to the garden and started pulling weeds. Charles and Alex joined me later. Wen Dee wanted to join but the earthworms that started crawling out from the ground grossed her out.
Cleaning the garden isn’t an easy job. We had to brave through the thorny weed and disgusting insects. While cleaning, our neighbour popped by from his wall. He introduced himself as Dr. Right. We borrowed a clipper from him.
We were totally unprepared for the job. All we had was just a pair of glove, a penknife and a kitchen knife for 3 of us. Each of us had to take turns to exchange tools.
I stumbled upon a stack of wild blueberries (maybe it’s not), I popped few of them into my mouth. mmmm, sweet.
We stopped late in the evening. However, we still have another quarter to clean, guess we’ll continue it tomorrow.
–4:01PMHello again
I went home and took my diskette back to the faculty’s computer lab.
Our house owner dropped by 16 Watson rd today. He fixed the fire alarm and inspected some of the faults in the house. I had a short chat with him. He said that this house is expensive to maintain. They bought it for a quarter of a million pounds and it’s about 120 years old! I asked him what happened to the previous owner. He said, ‘oh don’t know, probably buried in the basement” mmm, that explains the spooky feelings I had this couple of days. hehe
30 September 2002 Sunday
Cooked breakfast this morning. I made myself a ham and egg sandwich.
Frederick and I went out the whole day together. I initially planned to follow Frederick’s car to our Fifth court in the Uni to register but we ended up in the city shopping. I bought myself a duvet (I was freezing last night, all I had was just a thin blanket), groceries and a present for my mum (her birthday is on the 10 of October). Frederick on the other hand spent a fortune today. He got himself a new pair of glasses, a new television and a second hand table.
Frederick wanted to renew his road tax before we register at the Uni. We drove all the way there and waited for an hour for the whole process to be done. At the beginning, we had trouble parking the car. It’s not like back in Malaysia, we cant park anywhere we like. Policemen here are bloody efficient. We saw two muscular policemen on bicycles patrolling the place for illegal parking.
After that, we headed to the Uni to pay our fees. Fifth Court is one of Sheffield Uni’s oldest buildings. It was built in the early 1800s and its designs are impressive. The main building is covered with plants sticking on the wall. The best part of it is that, every season, the leaves will change colours. In autumn, we’ll get a brownish design, in winter, it’s totally blank and in spring, the flowers bloom all over the wall.
Next destination is the city. Parking wasn’t a problem. Fred parked in a parking area. However, it’s not cheap, it costs us 60p an hour (we were in the city for 5 hours, 4 x 60p = 3 pounds!!) We ate lunch in McDonalds. The funny thing about McDonalds here is that they charge you for the ketchup but barbeque and chilli sauce are free. There is a small desk with a level for you to pull to squeeze out the BBQ and chilli sauce.
28 September 2002 Saturday
Melody and I had dim sum early in the morning. I fetched her back about 2am last night and I slept about 3am. I was supposed to wake up at 7am so that we could go for early dim sum but I ended up waking up at 8am.
After dim sum, we went back to our place and slept till 1:30pm. I felt that there’s something wrong. I checked flight details and I got all my timing wrong. I thought I was supposed to leave at 11pm from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore but it was the other way round. I will be leaving Singapore at 11pm and my flight to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur is at 8pm. For the past week, I’ve been telling my parents and friends that I’m leaving at 11pm. I didn’t realise it until later in the afternoon on the day of my flight! I ended up leaving home 2 hours before departure.
Dad didn’t send me off from the departure gate. He dropped Melody and mum at the entrance and gave me a handshake wishing me goodbye.
My luggages were overweight by few kilograms. I’ve been removing loads and loads of stuff from my bags but it was still overweight. By the end of the day, I couldn’t be bothered removing anything else more. My friends told me that they charge rm113 for each extra kg (students are given 30kgs, I think mine is about 33kg). Fortunately, the lady who weighed my luggages waived the charge. She said, “Your luggages are overweight, but I understand you’re a student, therefore I wont charge you anything.”
Melody cried again when I was about to leave. Mum was steady this time. I gave her a hug before leaving. sad..
I met up with Frederick and Han Choong in Changi Airport, Singapore. We had to transit in Mumbai (formally known as Bombay) for an hour. As we arrived, we were greeted with an amazingly huge airport. It also has a huge fire station on it. Even a middle aged Caucasian man sitting next to was pretty fascinated with it. Our first impression was Mumbai’s airport must be in a state of the art design.
Mumbai’s international airport is a disgrace. Never in my life I’ve seen such an airport like this. Even though it looked huge from the plane, it’s very small. As we got out from the plane, a mustachio Indian guard stood behind a huge fan greeted us. The place doesn’t seem to be fully air-conditioned. I walked to the waiting area, sat down and soon I caught the attention of an elderly Indian family. They kept on looking at me, probably because they have never seen a Chinese before.
The airport lobby looks like a huge corridor with shops on one side and the entrance gates on the other side. There wasn’t any thing special about the place, everything seems to be newly built. There were only one duty free shop and 2 small cafés. The queue into the gates were amazingly long probably due to the fact that one gate consists of 4 to 5 gates.
I’ve been trying to collect Coca Cola tin cans from every country I’ve visited. Feeling dreadfully thirsty, I headed to a small café, took a can of Diet coke and asked whether could I pay in British pound. The waiter replied yes in surety but it cost me a outrageous 2 pounds.
The amazing thing about the airport is smoking is allowed everywhere. Frederick and Han Choong, wasted no time, smoked few cigarettes before heading for the gates.
We decided to have a drink at the café I bought my Cola. Frederick ordered a Pepsi, I ordered a cup Masala tea while Han Choong ordered glass of ice lemon tea. The Masala tea tasted horrible. It tasted like curry (Masala is a spice to make curry)!!! Han Choong’s drink was also horrible. We ended up drinking Frederick’s Pepsi. Fortunately, the manager offered to change my Masala tea with a cup of English tea.
Initially, the manager requested us to pay with British pounds but Han Choong was smart, he handed the manager a piece of 5 Singapore dollar. The cost of our drinks was already more than 5 US dollar. My Masala tea already cost me 1.50 US dollar. The manager grabbed the money without hesitation or enquiry. We took our luggage and head straight to our gate. Surprisingly, Kok Hoong, a well built (he was in the Singaporean army serving as a weapon specialist) Singaporean, I knew from Sheffield was there. We used to stay in the same hall and now he’s going back to Sheffield to finish his engineering degree. We barely chatted. All of us were standing and stoning for few minutes. Suddenly, the manager of the café approached us. He said that the money we gave him wasn’t enough to cover the bill. He requested another 5 Singaporean dollar. I took out Ringgit Malaysia 5 (Malaysia riggit’s currency is much lower t
han Singapore’s) and gave it to him. The manager paused for a while and examined the note and left as soon as he says ‘thank you’. Both of these notes were green and the size of it was almost the same. I guess the manager was confused. That’s what you get for charging me 2 pounds for a can of diet coke!
The security was amazingly tight. Luggages are required to be x-rayed and then followed by a body search and if you’re unlucky, the custom officers will search your bag. The body search was divided into 2 sections namely the male and the female section. The female section is covered with curtains but the male one was openly done.
The journey to Manchester took us 9 hours. I was totally nervous with my cigarettes smuggling plan. I even asked my friends to go through the customs first and then only call me to inform me of the situation. However, I got my luggage early and decided to go through the custom. There were about 6 custom officers standing outside the green lane door but none of them were checking anything, all they did was chatting with each other. I stuffed my cigarettes into my backpack and walked straight into the green lane, by passing the custom officers and there I am, outside the arrival gate, with 10 cartons of cigarettes on my hand whispering, “I am rich!” to myself.
I don’t really like my new room in Sheffield. It’s located in the basement and therefore it’s bloody cold. My room was in a total mess when I arrived. Everybody left their stuff in my room and we don’t have a vacuum cleaner in the house yet. I had to clean the place up for few hours. Furthermore, my room has only a bed, a table and a chair. The wardrobe hasn’t arrived yet. I had to store all my clothes in the luggage bag.
Our place doesn’t have internet connection yet. It will take us a while to register one. sigh
– 3:26PMHello people
Sorry for the late update. My new house doesnt have Internet connection yet. I had to go online in my faculty’s computer lab.
I typed out the blog for the past few days on my laptop and transferred it on a diskette. Unfortunately, i forgot to bring it out with me. fuck man!!
Classes start today. My first class was Intellectual property Law. It’s amazingly interesting. I thought it will be a boring class. Our lecturer is an English woman with a heavy English accent. She is so full of expression. There was once she was talking about Barbie doll. She took the doll, played with it and talked about it. And there was once she played a music cassette to demonstrate something, she danced through the music. I’m going to love Intellectual propety law!
I was thinking of dropping one of my subjects and replace it with Japanese language. I heard they’re the level of the Japanese language is very low. However, it seems that it’s not easy to take that subject. Some of my friends were rejected from taking that subject. Someone told me that the bloody department forbids Asians to take Japanese because they’re afraid that Asians might already know Japanese.
I just found out that i have only 100 pounds left in the bank. I thought i had plenty of money in the bank before i left Sheffield. Damn, i forgot that my bank paid 800 pounds for my accommodation. I just mailed dad requesting for some extra pocket money. Hopefully he’ll bank in enough money for me to travel around. hehe I just love travelling.
– 11:15AM