List of Events

I'll just summarise the few events that happened this month.

First, it was the Guy Fawkes Night on the 5th of November. There was a display of fireworks which lasted for probably 20 minutes. Guy Fawkes is the guy who attempted to blow up the House of Parliament in London centuries ago, but his attempt failed. It is this failed attempt that we're celebrating now. I was wondering why there isn't any lighting of bonfire here in Glasgow. Somehow, that night ended up more like an event in conjunction with the bidding of Glasgow as the host of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Yes, they won the bid! Congrats Glasgow!!! But I won't be here to witness that. Bah, that's 7 years from now.

I can't upload the video of the fireworks onto Youtube because the file is too large. Ah!

I do enjoy watching fireworks and the number of fireworks this month was like... Uncountable. There was fireworks after the Scotland/Italy football match, although Italy won the game. And of course, there was this switching on of the X'mas lights in Glasgow. Unfortunately, entry was by tickets only, although they were free, I did not have any. I missed the fireworks display but did finally I did walk there that night to catch a glimpse of the lights. Nothing particularly great compared to what I've seen before but the company was good and as long as there's lights, I get fascinated. Haha it's little things like this that makes me happy! Like a small kid.

I'll continue with the trip to Isle of Skye first...

Day 1

It's surprising that it didn't rain that day. It's even more surprising that the weather was far from gloomy and cloudy. The sun shone so brightly that the loch was like a mirror, showing reflection of the mountains. Don't get caught by the impression that sunny day means less cold because the temperature on that day fell to below 0 degrees celcius.

Loch Lomond. This pic (and the one above) was actually taken on the way while I was on the bus. I'm a person who loves sceneries. Unfortunately, I'm not a good photographer, so the actual breathtaking view cannot be shown. :(

Taken at Glen Coe. Glen means valley in Gaelic, the 1st language at the highlands of Scotland. The spot where movies like Braveheart and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was partly filmed. Haha, I know where Hagrid's house was built!!

Eilean Donan Castle by night! Not exactly night, it was only about 5pm. It's dark, cold,
windy... I can't even see because the wind was blowing into my (already) dry eyes.

Day 1 was actually spent travelling up north to the Isle (which means island). After a long long journey of 6 hours, we finally arrived at our hostel in Kyleakin at approx 6pm. We had many stops in between.... It's a regulation here that the bus driver has to get a 45 min break. And there were a number of stops for us to take PICTURES! Jim, the guy who brought us there, also call the stops "Cigarette stops". Shows how common is smoking. He even brought a corkscrew for us to open alcohol bottles! After dinner, it was the pub session and we got back to our rooms at about midnight, maybe???

Sudahlah we have to wake up early in the morning the next day, kena kacau somemore. We changed into our pyjamas as it was bedtime, and this french guy knocked on our door asking us to join them to party. We apologised because we were definitely not going to party in pyjamas, duh!!

Every half an hour or so, they come banging at our doors. Literally banging on it okay and shouting god knows what in french. Wth. The only thing we understood (because that was the only phrase in english) was "Do you understand?" What the heck do we understand? They continued BANGING and SHOUTING till about half past 2. I desperately need the toilet, so I waited till they left.... And when I opened my door, and I saw another door in front of me! Could I be hallucinating, I thought. I pushed it down and looked at the corridor, which was messed up with toilet rolls!

This bunch of guys are wild when they are drunk! I'm speechless.

The corridor outside our rooms. The actually tied the toilet rolls onto our door knobs.

And this is the stolen door which was placed directly outside our room. It has been moved to the side before this picture was taken. Nobody knows where they got the door from, not even the hostel staff.

They even recorded a video of the whole being-crazy night. I guess they had loads of fun creating the scene.

I'll stop here now. Will continue when I have the time! Xoxo

Draft of Introduction handed up!!

Time for another update! A quick update here before I will do a more lengthy one this weekend about what I've been up to recently... Of course, photos too!! Trip to Isle of Skye, Xmas lights in Glasgow, the outdoor ice-skating at George Square...


So, well, I'm surviving here.


1.Surviving the weather...Glasgow's weather is still currently bearable. Bearable, I only meant the temperature. Daylight can be hardly seen (due to my odd sleeping hours as I wake up at 2pm at times and the sun sets about 4pm). I sigh "I miss the sun" on days where I don't see it. I hate the rainy weather as well. I was speaking to a friend on MSN and told him that I'm going for a short walk one day, and he asked if it's raining AGAIN. I guess it has been raining for all the days he was here. If the rain isn't enough, it is accompanied by really strong winds which makes umbrellas totally useless. They just get blown into the shape of "U".

Q: How many girls does it takes to prevent an umbrella from turning into the "U" shape??
A: As far as I know, 2 of us did not manage to do it.

*Talking about weather makes me wonder if I will be seeing snow anytime soon*


2.Surviving my cough and the weekly get-worse occassions where I will cough terribly. God knows why am I not getting any better. Blame the weather, that's the only thing I can think of right now.


3.Surviving the occassional lost of voice (which brings MSN Messenger more important as a communication tool even between my flatmates and me).


4.Surviving the *so many* late clubbing and chit-chatting nights. :) Bedtime doesn't come before 3 or 4am if there isn't classes the following day. Even if there is, I don't seem to be going to bed any much earlier either.


5.Surviving the amount of alcohol I've been consuming recently. Not enough to do any damage to my liver YET.


6.Survive being emo for the past 2 weeks. Being emo is annoying the hell out of me and I'm glad I got over it now. I've been less talkative lately. Being happy = back to talkative self.



I've been such a bummer lately. Being bummer's a relaxing thing to do if you have nothing in mind. But it's not if your mind is cramped with all the freaking nonsense.


I came across a singer named Leona Lewis. Her album, Spirit, is released this month. A winner of another talent show, The X Factor, last year. For a 22 year old girl, she can be considered to have achieved a success. Think Simon Cowell... The fussy one. That's her manager!


Bleeding Love, the 1st single in Spirit, is playing now on this page.

Happy Birthday Daddy

Daddy,
you may not be the most sporting dad in the world,
you may not have spend alot of time with us,
you punish me when I do wrong (althought sometimes I feel that I did right =) ).

But I know that,
this family is the centre of your life
You tried to be everthing for us... a father, a role model, a teacher and a friend.
I know I haven't been the child I should,
that I make you worry about me all the time.
Underneath all my irresponsible actions,
there is love, respect and admiration.
How lucky am I to have such a good father like you,
How grateful am I to have such a sacrifice from you,

I'm so far away now that I miss you so much,
and I know you do too.
I am sorry I am not able to celebrate this special day with you,
but my heart wishes you a really happy birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

Flat Party

They (I mean the ang mohs) have it so frequently, specifically every week. As if they have lots of free time. They really know how to enjoy life to the fullest. I envy them because I do want to enjoy too...

Well, day by day, time passes so quickly that I haven't actually done any real studying. All I can think of right now is partying. I know it's affecting my studies quite harshly. So the only way to balance both partying and studying is by spending my non-party time with my books.

It is now that I feel like a university student. Being in IMU did not give me any sense of being in university at all. How pitiful it is that I only get this in my final year, damn it sounds really late. Imagine that, my final year. How I wish I get more university years. People say the best time of your life is you schooling/university life. I so totally agree with that statement. I feel old now.
:(
Seriously old.

Coming back to the flat party, what happens when you mix with people who party too much??

You organise a flat party yourself! =)

I do admit this idea came from both me and Rinoa. Who else can be as crazy as us? Well, it's good in a sense that we make the house livelier. It seems that we are already starting to influence Esther into being one crazy person. H12 ROCKS!!! I love my flatmates, hugs!!

Trying to make it abit Malaysian, we cooked rice, fried mix vegatables and five spice powder chicken and a dessert (white fungus and longan). The ang mohs find the dessert weird because the white fungus seem to be funny to them. When they chew on it... It's like.. err... I don't know! I should have made something else for dessert. In the end, we even forgotten to bring out the crisps *opss*. Thanks to Liran, Carlo, Emilio and Andrea for cooking pasta at OUR flat! Haha I wonder how convenient is that compared to cooking at their place downstairs. I think it's because it's difficult to carry cooked food up. Anyway, it was fun having you guys cooking at our place. Learning that Italians actually sprinkle salt onto their palms before pouring it into the pot/pan. Or is it just ONLY Emilio who does that, I wonder.

There were loads of alcohol. In fact, that was the only drinks around. NO WE HAVEN'T TURN INTO ALCOHOLICS!

Italians unite. They are kind of the 1st bunch of people I know. Kinda weird how we actually met. haha. We randomly went into their flat party one day. It's so funny, I remember how you guys actually FORCED us to go clubbing with you. We're so short and you guys are so tall. Your voices were so loud that I actually felt intimidated. But now, it's ok, you're all nice people.

One Vietnamese stuck with a bunch of Italians. Francesco: Good that you told them about asian culture haha. Don't touch them, don't touch them!!! LOL. I know they make a joke out of it.

Multi-nationality. Vietnamese, Italian, Morroccoan (is that how you say it?) and of course Malaysian

The 3 right behind me are French. Emilio you look like a joker lah. When can I see the serious Emilio??

Of course we did not leave out our best buddy, Desmond.


Nice picture Rinoa. Andreas, Simon, Benoit and Rinoa.

Girl friends

The girls with Desmond, Christian and Carson

*edited: After scrolling, I saw that this is the only picture of Yaniv I posted up here.*

Wah, this picture lagi multinationality. Malaysian, French, German, Vietnamese and Chinese from China. Opss sorry I don't know what to call a person from China. The guy on the right is actually damn leng chai in real life. Haha.

Nice meeting you guys. Sad that your other housemates couldn't make it. Thanks for taking care of us as well during Friday's clubbing.

See how crazy Emilio can be



And finally, a group photo. NICE ONE.

Later that night, we clubbed at Bamboo. Don't ever go to that place!! It's because I didn't like it at all. Lousy environment.

Crazy jumping attempts were NOT easy. After multiple shots like this...

And this...

Why am I always on the ground? I don't even know if I've already jumped up (yes/no?) or I've already landed.

We finally got a shot of us up in the air! Weeee...!!! It wasn't just 2 shots. There were more.

I know I look like a very happy small kid who bugged her parents and finally got to the playground.

Autumn at Glasgow Green

Tempted by Yan Nee's photos taken at Glasgow Green, we made use of our day off (in actual fact, private study time) to be camwhorers ourselves at the park.

Like how a blind leads another blind, we walked til the end of High Street. We did not get lost (if we really got lost, damn malu wei bcuz it's so easy to get there). It was where the BBC Proms was held recently. I missed that event. I even missed the one at the KLCC Park last year.

*Disrupting myself: I shouldn't be blogging bcuz I have tons of work to be done. So many cases to prepare for tomorrow's workshop. I'm not even half done. But, I need to put photos up!!*

I thought Glasgow Green is just an ordinary park (it does look like one) but as I was tidying my room for inspection, I spotted this leaflet about it on my shelf. No joke, it's the oldest park in Glasgow and it has been there since the 15th Century.




McLennan Arch

Yellow ground.

Botak tree.

A mixture between green and yellow. Wonders of autumn.

River Clyde at the background. The most famous river in Glasgow.

Of course, our main intentions were to get snapshots of the falling, yellow leaves before the trees turn "bald". Surprisingly, beneath the yellow fallen leaves, the grass was still green! Like this below...

What do you think of those scrawny trees?

Nelson's Monument

They say I look fierce. But I like this picture!

We're the new Charlies Angels. Watch out!

Doulton Fountain. Desmond kor kor (ahem, almost typed out uncle but he'll strangle me if I ever do that): Aren't you happy to be surrounded by so many 'leng luis'??? Haha.

Presenting to you the People's Palace. Nothing extraordinary in there.

In the People's Palace. See I told you... Don't believe me laaa

There are lots more but I shall not bore you guys by showing off more pics of us (or maybe me?) being narcissistic. Well, you can see that I'm trying to suppress myself by posting pics of myself individually to a minimal number.

Speaking of inspection, we spent our weekend cleaning our flats for the 2nd inspection. How can guys' flat passed and ours didn't? *Knock knock* The most housework I've ever done in my life! I can't stand doing things the ordinary way, so this is what I did... For example, I plugged out the microwave and turn it the other way round so I could clean the top! I wrapped a butter knife with the table cloth to clean the narrow grooves on the rubber of the fridge's door. We're done after hours and hours. And we made a swimming pool while defrosting the freezer (which was filled with inches of 'snow'). *Whenever I'm feeling bored, I'll run to the freezer, grab some 'snow' and weeee... I play with them!* It's tiring but kind of fun though. Laughing at all those difficult chores, some of which we think are impossible to be done because we left it stained for such a long time.

Super busy week ahead. Pening kepala thinking of the number of things I have to do.

*Knocking of to bed now.... *

Il barbiere di Siviglia

Immediately after settling the hacking problem of mine, we went for our first opera at the Theatre Royal.

Definitely enjoyed it because the music and the singing was so damn good. Presented by the Scottish Opera, it was sung in Italian with English subtitles.

For those who enjoy operas or those who would like to give it a try, there are 2 more performances on the 30th of Oct and 1st of Nov. They are actually offering 10 pounds tickets for those under the age of 26. It's really worth it bcuz the original price of the ticket you're getting is about 40 pounds. Of course, this isn't any advertisement. Just an opinion of mine as I was really stunned by it.

Synopsis...

Almaviva is a Count who fell in love with Rosina. To ensure that she loves him and not for his wealth, he disguises as a poor man. Dr. Bartolo, Rosina's guardian secretly plans to marry her as well. Therefore, the Count turns to Figaro, the town barber (also his ex-servant)to plot the meeting between the lovebirds. In the end, both of them got married.

That's it.

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I made black glutinous rice with sago dessert today. My 1st "tong sui" I made since I got here. It was really easy because the directions were clearly printed on the packet. There was even coconut powder in the packet so that I do not need to buy a tin of coconut milk/powder separately.

Well, the truth is I'm not a kitchen kind of person and I do not know how to make anything. Therefore, I need to buy pre-packed stuff because it comes with all the ingredients I need and the instructions. I hope my bf doesn't mind bcuz at least I do try to learn.

But, sadly to say, every single time would be a 'tak jadi' case. Sigh.

It goes the same for cakes that I bake at home. I buy the prepacked flour added with sugar and flavour. Thus, the only thing I need to do is add butter, beat, and pour it into the baking tray. As simple as that. And they have a variety of premix stuff at this particular shop near my house. (Not here obviously, in Kota Kemuning).

Frankly, I'm not a fan of black glutinous rice back home. I rather choose to order longan, honeydew and sago, gingko, white fungus or any other dessert. Never red/green bean soup or black glutinous rice.

I know, I'm just plain lazy because this "tong sui" can also double up giving me carbs and making my stomach full so that I do no need to cook for a meal or two. Haha...

WTH... I got hacked

Argh, had a stressful day bcuz my MSN got hacked into. Fine, I admit it's partly my fault. I can't believe I was THAT silly and STUPID. Well, this is the story. My cousin's account has already been hacked into and I didn't know about it. So, when that person used her account to message me, I didn't suspect anything wrong about it (although I felt that it wasn't her chatting with me). He/she sent me a file and I asked what was it bcuz I'm afraid that it could be a virus. I got a replied "Virus no don't worry".

I actually opened that file (a HTML document). Wait, nothing wrong with opening that file YET bcuz there wasn't any virus. This page with the MSN logo on it asked me for my username and password. Here's the stupid thing I did, I KEYED IN MY PASSWORD! Clicked Enter, then I saw this "Your password has been given to ...*I don't remember that fella's exact email add*." It was only then I realised I'm doomed. I regret not jotting down the address.

Of course I immediately tried to change my password but I ignored that the secret question has been changed to some language unknown to me so that he could reset a new password. So there was the chain of me logging in, him logging in bla bla bla on my MSN Messenger. He even forced me to give my new password after that by using my cousin's account again. Suspecting that I missed out the secret question, I tried logging into MSN page again to change it. BUT I COULDN'T ANYMORE. I scolded the fella "you fucker". I was mad ok??

Thank god I'm actually using a non-Hotmail address as my Windows Live ID so I could reset the password again later. Currently, I own my password.

It's no use hacking me bcuz all you fucking idiot get is my Messenger. So fuck off!

And I better show my gratitude and appreciation to Desmond who helped me with it. Seriously, thanks alot to you for it. I don't know if you actually do read the words in my blog or just open the page and blindly scroll down.

Tak puas la me... I want to scold that person 'kao kao'. Why I said I should have taken down the email add is because I want to send a mail cursing him with all the words I can think of. I don't care if he reads it bcuz I only need to let my anger go.

Sleeping beauty

Briefly,

Prologue
Princess Aurora is born. The christening of the baby princess is celebrated by guests all over the kingdom. There were 6 fairy godmothers and they were happy to give their blessings on the lovely child. Then, there comes Fairy Carabosse (one evil fairy) who cast a spell on the princess so that she will prick her finger on her 16th birthday and die. Thankfully, Lilac Fairy (one of the fairy godmothers) pronounces that the princess will not die but will only sleep for 100 years and be awakened by the kiss of true love.

Act 1
The princess became a beautiful lady and at the birthday ball, 4 princes were there. However, she did not choose any of them. A mysterious old woman arrived and offered the princess a bouquet of flowers with a poisoned needle. She pricks of it and falls asleep.

Act 2
That's 100 years later. Lilac fairy shows Prince Florimund a vision of this sleeping princess. A love at 1st sight! He went to the palace and kisses her, and the princess wakes up.

Act 3
The wedding day. Special guests arrive for the wedding too. Some are fairytale characters including Puss in Boots and White Cat, Bluebird and Florine, and Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.


THE END.


Why haven't I heard of Bluebird and Florine before?? I thought I grew up in the era when all these fairytale characters were super popular. I grow up reading these story books while I was a kid. Seems like all these tales were from the same author, the guy who also wrote Cinderella.

Alright, synopsis done. Photos now...

We went hunting for the posters to snap photos with it.

Outside Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. *I can't help with the blurness of this picture bcuz I had to increase the ISO. My camera produces lower quality pics with higher ISO*

Xin Hui and myself

Jelly Babies

I tried these soft jelly sweets at RAG's meeting the other day. They're nice. So I bought a box while shopping for groceries. A huge box of 600grams. According to the nutrition information given on the box, each tiny sweet contains 4.5g of sugar. There are definitely hundreds of them in there. I don't want to imagine how much sugar I'm consuming now.

I hear baby jellies from the box asking me to let them out. So, I did! Wait and see what these naughty jellies are up to.

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Jelly babies were so happy that I let them out to camwhore. Each of them has names. L-R: Boofuls, Brilliant, Bubbles, Big Heart & last but not least, Bumper. Oh no, there's another colour called Baby Bonny but I didn't realise that there are 6 flavours until now. P/S: That's not an image of a ghost on my lappie back there. I was on ZARA's website.

Dominoes jelly babies.

Jelly babies marching in a single file line.

Bumper was so jealous seeing the rest of his friends kissing. Ah, it's my fault. If I realised Baby Bonny earlier, Bumper could have a kissing partner too. I'm sorry Bumper. I'll let you kiss Baby Bonny tomorrow okies?

I'm currently munching on these 5 little baby jellies while typing this.