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nostalgic
11:10 pm
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i look at the photoframe joanne passed to me and think, did i really go to imu? (yup, it's staring right back at me. it's nicely situated beside my laptop. my bedside table has too much crap) those times in malaysia seemed so far away and distant, it's unbelievable.

i miss those times where i can free talk crap and don't think about it too much even when i stumble over my words (i remember a great deal of times where i kept pronouncing the word wrongly)
emo period la. must be the upcoming winter blues.

they say leeds has a record of reaching -10 C during winter. whoopie?
brain dead
8:39 pm
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i feel horribly brain dead.
maybe it's the piling assignments, the never ending list of to-dos, the despair at the realization of how much i've forgotten since eos 5, the envy i have for those who have started clinical training, the stupid time difference, etc

ugh. my brain is too messy. i need to reorganize and prioritized.
take for example this week's to-dos:
1. i have pbl (here it's called case studies) research to do. then i have to meet up with the others on monday and prepare a powerpoint to be presented on Wednesday. then have to write a short report about the whole case
2. Meeting with SSC (ethics module) supervisor some time soon to start discussing with him about my giant project which comprises of writing a 3000 word report and a grand presentation. not to mention that i have to take a train then a bus just to meet my supervisor who works in another hospital out of town. luckily there's another m'sian guy with the same topic
3. Revise anatomy and do the anatomy workbook properly
4. Finish up tutorial work about IBD
5. Choosing another SSC topic and submit preference by this weekend
6. Call up accommodation to confirm payment and cancel direct debit
7. Do laundry

Not to mention the lectures. they are so boring, you can't help but become blank. Maybe it's because I've learnt it before or maybe because the guy is way too monotonous. Or perhaps I'm not used to his accent. It sounds like the lecturer is mumbling half the time. Or it could be I'm just zoning out that's why i couldn't catch a single word sometimes. Ugh... if this goes on, there won't be a point in attending lectures.

haiz

also quite sad that i can't communicate with a lot of people on the other side of the world. each time i'm free it'll be 3am there. Each time they are free, I have lectures to attend and stuff to settle.
:(

the cherry on the top is that i'm posted out to another town for bedside teaching which is tomorrow. ughhhh. have to get up at 6.45am every friday now.
homesick
6:26 pm
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is my subconscious homesick?

i had a dream that i was dreaming about flying to UK. confusing?
what i meant was, i dreamt that me coming to UK was a dream. It was super weird. I was back in M'sia and was thinking "hey, aren't I supposed to be in UK?" then some people (honestly cannot remember who) told me "nooo.. you're in M'sia". then i remember saying "it was so real! i remember the cold steel of the railing i touched when i was walking to the Edinburgh castle" after that i flashback to a real memory of me touching the steel (coincidentally, while i touching the railing, I was thinking if it was all a dream cause it was only my 2nd day in UK and being super jet lagged, I was like in a constant dream mode) then I immediately woke up. lol

amazing how dreams form.
Malacca
9:38 pm
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Whoa. long overdued post. But all that matters is that i do it right?
hahaha
Anyway, we finally went on our makan trip to Malacca.
1st activity of the day was Angeline's kidnapping
Her verdict on being thrown into the boot of a car is: hot and stuffy plus bumpy. or something like that.
Then it was a 1 hr ride down to Seremban in 2 cars to visit what i now call..... the pink party house.

Toilet to heaven
Joanne's room

I was like a jakun trying to take photos all the way. hahahahaa. Then after a hilarious toilet trip for all in the house (everyone wanted to go toilet so had to keep switching on the water supply) and an argument of chicken balls vs laksa, we continued down to malacca (chicken balls won btw)

Bebola ayam shop.
5 bola for me
Steamed chicken. yummmmmmm
Eventhough I'm somewhat of a Malacca girl (my father used to come back to Malacca once every 3 months. Now at least it has dwindled to trice a year) I've only tried the rice balls 3 times in my entire life. Once, goodness knows when, 2nd time when I was 18 or so and 3rd time now. The 3rd time was definitely the best of all but I still won't be like those people who drive all the way from KL just to eat chicken rice balls. Like what the heck. I don't mind driving to Penang to eat their asam laksa. But not to Malacca to eat rice balls. lol

Since this was a makan trip, we proceeded to Jonker 88 (which is super nearby my father's friend's shop. lol) to makan dessert:
Mango ice kacang.
Baba Chendol
Mine was the mango ice kacang. Verdict: Pretty yummy. They are a bit stingy on the mango tho. After eating the top layer, it becomes regular ice kacang. hahahhaa. I'll miss this in UK :(


Feeling super full... malacca doesn't really offer much to do. So we just walked around Pahlawan Merdeka mall (i'm tembaking the name, lol. can't remember the name right now)
Joanne's photoshoot. lol. too bad la i don't know how to instruct her on posing
Caught red handed- kelakuan tidak senonoh tidak khalayak umum. (omg. my bahasa. i still remember. lol)

Then it was A'Famosa. The famous fort with no roof and half it's walls gone. But it's a really good place to have a photoshoot. Dramatic lighting, interesting backdrop and lots of props to play with. 


Sam was pretty excited to hv his photo taken but too bad he didn't stick to the person holding the camera. lalalala.
But we did eventually take some group photos with the canon. the poor canon... kena abused by us. there were plenty of passerbys looking at us too. hahahha

Finally, our tummies were empty and ready to be filled again. We left to eat satay celup at Capitol. A specialty satay only found in Malacca (altho i think i saw one shop selling satay celup in Subang?)
Was pretty excited. I passed by this shop so many times before and always see long lines of people waiting outside. That day was the day i finally stepped into their restaurant.
The food was ok ok. It was definitely something different but I still prefer the old style satay- kajang satay. This satay is something like steamboat with kacang sauce. But the waitresses were rude. bad service.
As far as I know, capitol satay was supposed to be some family ran business. When we went, everything was ran by their employees. Being employees, obviously they didn't care much about customer service. When asked to bring cucumbers, they just dump the plate on the table. Then just because they think we asked too many times, they wanted to charge us for it. Obviously it's unfair to charge for something that is meant to be free. Haiz.
It really spoiled our mood when the waitresses was so rude. With our mood slightly dampened, we made our way to Jonker Street for last minute shopping (got my dodol for my brother) and we headed back

Though there were bumps towards the end of our trip, I really didn't regret going. Being in a foreign country, these are the memories i'll think back fondly of.
It kind of sad to think that most of us are so busy it's suddenly hard to keep in touch. Soon, our lives will diverge more and more, would there be any possibility of us being like how we used to? 
i misss
9:16 pm
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i miss friends that i can camwhore with

most of my photos are scenery photos. or either me camwhoring alone. life is sad right now.
spam myself.
12:37 am
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WARNING: LONG LONG POST AHEAD. lol. i wrote this on Words without any internet on the first day of my arrival in Edin. read if you're bored. i'm too lazy to edit. photos will be up much later. probably when i'm in Leeds. here goes:





Hello from the uk

Currently residing in my brother’s friend’s house in Edinburgh. Everything in Edinburgh looks so monotonous. The houses, shops all look the same- old English style houses you see in the movies. Everything is pretty much brown apart from the signboards of various shops.

About my flight, I’ll start with the Airasia one to Stansted. It’s actually not bad at all. I mean, if you can get tickets rm1000 cheaper than the normal commercial ones, it’s really worth it. Ok, back to the day’s events: I was woken up by my mom at about 5.30am. It’s like... the crack of dawn. But throughout the night I really couldn’t sleep well too. I was worried that I may leave stuff behind, then suddenly my room became too hot (was suffering from a frontal headache. Those that talked to me on msn would know. Lol) so I thought I was getting sick, the my brother made a lot of noise trying to bathe at 4am. I think I was partly too anxious and excited to sleep anyway. But the morning passed very fast. Stuffing small items into my handbag at the last moments, then my father was busying himself by taking photos (lucky he did too. I don’t think i have my photos of my own house. Ahahahhaa. Why take photos when you’ve been living there for the past 20 years right? But I’ll probably treasure these photos) Soon, it was 6.30am and I really had to go.
Reached LCCT probably at 7.10am. IT WAS SO CROWDED! The screwed up part about Airasia is only because you have to go through the LCCT. Everything look so disorganized. The line to Stansted was really long. But luckily they opened 4 counters to process everything (note to anyone: checking in online is the way to go. There is a baggage drop counter which is super fast) Waited for nearly an hour in the line and was finally given my boarding ticket (which looks like some supermarket receipt with a sticker on top. Ahahhahaha) My luggage was 21.2 kg but the guy at the counter just overlooked it. Thank you anonymous airasia dude at counter 2.

Hugs and a few photos later, I had to go through the security checkpoint, duty free areas then the boarding hall. When we boarded the plane for the 12 hour flight, it’s quite funny to note that I noticed 2 english dudes talking to each other in the hall. It’s obvious that they just met in the airport and they were talking quite loudly with one dude having plenty of tattoos. Weirdly, the tattoo dude sat on the same row as me. Later, the other guy sat 1 seat away from me by coincidence too (airasia botched up the seating. They gave him a seat that was already allocated to someone else) Darn it, if airasia didn’t botch it up, i would have the entire middle row to myself. Grrrrrr..... which is also weird cause the plane was pretty full apart from my row. Ahahahhahaha.

My handluggage weighed in at 10-12kgs. LOL. Thank god they don’t weigh the handluggages. And airasia was pretty lax with the 1 handluggage ruling. I brought my small handbag, my 11kg monstrosity, and another bag containing my winter coat. I also underestimated how high the overhead compartments were. Each time I had to lift up 11 kg above my head, my mind will be going “please let me be Hercules, gimme Herculean strength. Pls don’t let 11kg slide and smack me right in the face”. Amazingly my arms held up and i did get it into the compartment, albeit with a bit of struggling.

 I still feel pretty awkward striking up a conversation with the English dude so I didn’t. Haiz... should have had the courage to. Can improve my PR skills. So i diverted my attention to my book and mp3 player. It was sooo boring. Thank god they served their first meal 3 hours into the flight. I got briyani rice. The container was pretty small (think OHCM size) and they gave us a 350ml mineral water too. The rice was actually not bad at all. They dumped in spices, etc so it was really fragrant. Then they started selling their e-player (a handheld device which contained your usual inflight entertainment). Before the flight, I thought I can tahan the boredom and save my rm30. Really cannot (at the same time, I browsed through their movie selection they had 2 movies I wanted to watch: Iron man 2 + Prince of persia) So I entertained myself with their player for the next 4 hours.  The other movies that were there was Future X-cops (some HK movie. I watched the first 10 minutes and decided it was too dumb even if I was bored. It featured some idiot terrorists with bat wings, cockroach hands, ant face, mouse tail (ok.. i wasn’t really paying attention. But cockroach hands is true) ); The Proposal (watched. Yawn); The Last Song (Downloaded) and The Spy Next Door (watched this at the end of the flight. Some typical kiddo movie featuring Jackie Chan). Then they had random episodes of tv serials inside (some episode from season 3 of Greys Anatomy, random episodes of Scrubs, 2 and a half man, Castle, Ugly Betty. Weird. I wonder how they choose which episodes to put in). 2nd meal came 3 hours before we landed. I got served with their Nasi Lemak. OK.. now the thing is everyone says the nasi lemak is quite good. To me, I prefer the briyani. Perhaps they toned down the nasi lemak since it’s an international flight cause the sambal tasted like tomato sauce. But still decent. At least it wasn’t tasteless.
About their seats: able to recline... probable 20 degrees. A neck pillow is really helpful here. Then the aisle were quite tiny. Anybody running past will definitely brush your hand or leg. No hope of going to the toilets when the flight attendants are serving the food cause the whole cart will be occupying the aisle. When we were landing... i noticed  you could actually adjust your headrest up and down T_T. Total sleeping time on the plane: 1 hr 30 minutes. I attributed it to the fact that the sun was constantly shining (morning flight mah), the kids running around, the annoying little girl behind me who keeps banging on her tray and the absence of neck pillow.

 Another funny incident: Towards the end of the flight, when I was watching a movie through the eplayer I have a tiny audience behind me watching also. lol. The grandmas will be more discreet, standing behind my field of vision while the kids are braver. They stand beside me. Hahahhaa. Then more kids came when i was trying to play some dumb caveman game. They all crowded beside me trying to see what I was playing.One kid asked me if i liked the game. Ahahahhaa. I said “it’s alright” Then some kid with an English accent said “this is rubbish” and ran along the aisle. The others soon follow. Little snob. I know you have your PSP but too bad you didn’t charge the batteries :P So BOO to you. Anyway, must thank him for leading the kids away.

So finally landed in Stansted at 3.35pm (10.35pm malaysian time). We were actually early by 30 minutes.  Pulling the damn handluggage out of the compartment was also an amazing feat. Luckily i didn’t swing it around and hit anybody in the face. Their glasses would have flown across the cabin if my luggage hit them in the face. After that, we had to get onto the train to head to the terminal. There, I really feel like a midget. Big sized coated fellas were all crowding around me. Really intimidating.  Then lugging around all my stuff with my 21kg luggage is no joke. I think my humerus would have just popped out of their sockets if i kept pulling my luggage with the 11kg handluggage on top. Gave in and rented one trolley (you have to insert 1 or 2 pound coin to use their trolleys. Something like shopping trolleys at Carrefour. Get some coins if you’re coming to stansted with a lot of luggage)  Stansted airport is like another LCCT except smaller. Lol. The terminal is basically one big rectangle shaped building. I thought I had to go to another floor to get to the departure hall. Turns out i just needed to keep heading right.  And they don’t have any wireless there. Sad. So I spent another 4 hours exploring, struggling with luggages, and reading my book. Finally came the time to check in (this time I was smarter. I checked in online with easyjet cause you can check in online with them 60 days before your flight. Crazy!!) So i just had to drop off my luggage. Muahahaha... the officer commented that I looked better with my shorter hair then long hair (cause my passport photo was taken before i chopped off my hair) Said thanks but should have retorted that everyone looks pretty ugly in their passport photos (true right?). My luggage was also cleared (i think it was below 20kg there cause i took out 900 grams of powder (curry powder and some instant stuff la) and stuff into my handluggage. Lol. My handluggage must be 12kg)
This part i was really scared cause I heard so much about how strict they were with handluggages. The check in officer also said that i must put in my handbag into the handluggage since they only allowed 1. I just wore the coat so no problems with the other bag. Thank god my handluggage is some magical doraemon’s pocket. My handbag could go in!!! It weighs 13 kg now. Ahahhahahaha) During boarding I saw some other ppl carrying much larger handluggages then me, so wat the heck la. As expected, i really struggled with lifting the handluggage into the compartment. Luckily there wasn’t much people boarding at that moment so I could take my time. The luggage hit me on the face though. Had to adjust my glasses later. L ) Easyjet is free seating, so you get to choose your seat if you’re early. I’m kiasu so i got to pick my seat- window seat :D. It’s pretty cool to watch the plane take off and land. It’s amazing to realize how far we’ve come since the Wright brothers. Then you can see the city lights from the sky. Cities are like molten lava with streams of gold flowing away from it, glimmering and shining gold. Super pretty but my camera couldn’t capture the scene (the windows are quite dirty. Ugh) I kept trying to figure out which was leeds. I think Manchester was the one which looks like a giant sea of gold. Super big city.

Finally arrived at Edinburgh at 10.10pm (5.10am m’sian time) Was waiting for my big luggage when my brother surprised me. WAT THE HECK? Their security is so laxed that visitors from outside can visit the baggage reclaim area. If Malaysia..... everyone’s luggage on the carousel would have gone missing. Everyone from outside just come in and take. First thing he said when he saw me “Why you cut your hair like boy?” LOL. That was how long I’ve never met my brother.  But I was super relieved to see a familiar face. Travelling whole day like a mute person isn’t fun. I know I know... should open up to strangers more to make friends. We travelled to his friend’s place in the city. Had pizza and talked a bit before I finally decided to die on the bed at 12am. Means i’ve been awake the whole day apart from 1.5 hr of sleep in the plane. + probably slept only 2 hrs the night before. Hooray to youthfulness. Woke up this morning at 7am. I foresee sleepiness in the evening when the time in m’sia is 12am. 




shall update
4:36 am
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will update soon soon soon.

it'll be a long post. ^_^