Musings pt III

from the ski trip ...

1. Do condition your body before going on a ski trip. It is tiring, very tiring, especially on knees and leg muscles. and arms. and abs. Conditioning means going for exercises and not lazing in halls through London winter.

2. bring your balls to ski.

3. don't feel ashamed when groups of 7-8 kids zoom past you on a intermediate difficulty slope. and kids meaning not older than 5 years old. the crazy europeans send their kids to ski before they start to walk ...

4. do take the last ski lift up, even though it's getting dark. when you have the whole vast slopes to yourself in the evening sun, the feeling is unparalled.

5. never ever throw someone else's skis down a slope. cos it just keeps going and going ...

6. be wary of frostbite

and to you, GC ...
7. hot fart rises

you rock la, girl!

After a long, tiring but nonetheless fun ski trip, I made my way back to hall, ready to pack up for my next trip.

So I went to my room, unlocked it, and felt weird already (cos I usually single lock my room but now its double locked). nevermind, open, walk in, saw some things that didn't belong to me, then thought it was the wrong room, so I stepped out and checked the name again.

Yeah it was my room alright. So someone came into my room and left me these while I was gone...
So thats a mini xmas tree (which we should find somewhere to plant it), a box of my fav coco pops, 2 wrapped presents and a card. and a bottle of milk on the balcony to go with the cereal heh

the card....



The 1st present ... a photo frame

...and the 2nd present, decorated banana cupcakes
(theres our names, a snowflake, 'merry', 'xmas', a xmas tree, and something-I-don't-know)

so here I am, eating the cereal on a wonderful xmas morning, hoping to finish all 4 pints of milk in 2 days, thinking of you.

thank you very much.



P.S more on the ski trip when I come back from Italy

Pre-trip update

heya!

it's been a while ... I know I haven't been updating in a while, and I won't be for some time actually.
Here's my itenary for the next 3 weeks

15/12 - 24/12 : Ski Trip in France
26/12 - 28/12 : Madrid
28/12 - 31/12 : Barcelona
31/12 - 3/1 : Rome
4/1 - 5/1 : Florence
6/1 : Pisa

and then back to London!

Well, I'll be back in london for xmas day too, but its probably sleep in + laundry day. Gonna be a really loooooong holidays, and having a bit of mixed feelings going into it, but all should be good ! =)

see ya all in January, and have a great holidays and MERRY XMAS !!!

To Bath and back

Went to Bath over the weekend with Teresa, Joanne and Binghao, to meetup with JP and also to check out stonehenge too. Thanks JP, you were a great host! =)

and of course the weather was nothing short of magnificent for us. I'll let the pics do the talking...

our host for the weekend
View from the hostel

Spectacular sights from the hill top. so much space, so vast, so unrestricted. The air was unbelievably fresh =)




Mr B all kawaii-ish

I think some of these shots could be cataloged heh


We then went to stonehenge next...

sheeps !

Rocks!
More Rocks
Even more rocks! hurhur

Spent the night eating at some Indian restaurant. which was very very very spicy.... Then took a riverside walk before realising it was too cold. Still, the rushing river looks beautiful at night
Day 2!
Had brunch at Sally Lunns.
Ms Sally Lunn who stayed there 300 yrs ago. Nice bread tho.
This tree was so bent (probly by the wind!)
B had some problems climbing up, and was clinging on to me for dear life
Well, he didn't make it in the end....
Went to Roman bath (a museum), where during the Empire period the Romans conquered this town and built their public baths over the hot springs. quite an eye-opener, and putting good use to my course knowledge in Roman Empire heh


check out Binghao's and Joanne's blog for more pics heh.

Well, I must say this was an unforgettable weekend. Don't you think so?

blessed and loved

Remember, remember,
the 3rd of December.

Streatham Karting!

wow... I haven't felt the driving adrenaline rush in such a long time, and much thanks to IC motoring club I've managed to get a taste of karting right here in london ! (At quite a steep price of cos)

We went to Streatham Indoor karting track. It's this track that's about 400m long, maybe about 8 corners in all, so it was rather short, considering Permas Jaya was about 1km long. Karts were claimed to be going as fast as 40mph, though I don't think I really hit that speed esp with all the short straights.

To cut things short, we started racing at 3pm. Edwin, Melvin and me went together, for the 2 of them it's also their 1st time karting (while most of the other drivers had came to Streatham before, some even had their own helmets gloves and racing overalls!)... And how much fun it was! A total of 23 karters, so we had 23 Heats (like qualifying rounds) of 5 drivers each. 4 laps per Heat... and then the different class finals depending on your points scored on the heats round. Starting grid was kind of random for the heats, while finals were based on points scored.

So each driver had 5 heats exactly... my positions in all the 5 heats were 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 4th, and 2nd. Here's how it roughly went:
1st Heat - Started 5th, finished 3rd. Felt damn good. the feeling was back. 28:20 best timing
2nd Heat - Started 4th finished 3rd. Felt as good. Learning the track quickly. 28:11 best timing
3rd Heat - Started 3rd finished 5th. Bad spin on the opening lap... too kan cheong. A bit wasted... can't remb my timing tho
4th Heat - Started 2nd ended 4th. Can't remb what went wrong also, just didn't go as fast as usual ... time in the 28:00s
5th Heat - Started Pole! And led for 5 out of the 6 laps (weirdly they put 6 laps for the last heat) ... until the last lap, midway through at Howley's Corner, this guy Rory overtook me. Kudos to him I must say; a clean overtaking move. But quite argh at myself, was so close to getting my 1st win in the heats. Though I set a personal best 27:89 =)

Lined up for the 'C' finals, 9 karters in all ... and Edwin n Mel were in the same race as me for once! (Before that, none. What are the chances??) Started from 3rd ... was a 8 lap race ... When the lights hit green, the top 3 went past the 1st 4 corners without incident, maintaining our positions. Until we hit Casualty Hairpin, 3 karts abreast, and a lil nudge on the sides, and I came out of that hairpin in the lead! And I was telling myself, ok, I'm not gonna lose this one like the last heat, if not it's unforgiveable... managed to get myself a little breathing space of about 2 secs to the next driver... and realised it was much harder to maintain a lead than to chase a car in front of you.

But I pressed on, and when the chequered flag came out, I was 1st! Elation throughout, felt super shiok! Went back to the pits, arms all kinda shaking from tiredness... was about to get out of my kart to celebrate, when the marshall asked me to sit down and join the 'B' finals (with the other top 3 finishers) ... So I had to go a few more rounds, 8 again I believe, with the 'B' finals drivers. This time the 3 of us started from the back of the grid, and we kinda just drove around testing limits without racing much. I guess it's really tiredness from the previous race, cos there was no break in between races. Ended up 6th I think, of about 10 cars.

So that was it, 6pm already, and we headed back to school. Unfortunately I didn't get my best timing from the finals races, as they were off the screen when I went to check it out. It surely felt faster than my PB, and I think I was quite lucky that the kart for my finals was quite suited to my driving style. So. yeah. And oh yah, Melvin managed to win some prize for best crash, tho I must admit I didn't witness his 'spectacular' crash, in fact it was a relatively no-incident afternoon. which is good!

Good day overall, 3 of us came out from Streatham all smiles, all tired, but feeling extremely satisfied. Pics -->

Streatham Racing Circuit
Starting line

Edwin, Mel's hand, and me
Me and Mel
and Edwin
Quite surprised to see the Singapore flag among the other flags hanging at the start line (its the rightmost one)

Near the back end of the track... The corners are named actually. Here we see Howler Hairpin (before that was the Parabolica curve), which leads into the Casualty hairpin, where there was the most incidences. Well, fast karts, tight corners, adrenaline rush = bumps n spins3 of us after the races. Unfortunately we had no time to take photos during the races itself... literally too fast too furious!

I was 'awarding' Mel with his Best Crash award. Winnie the Pooh, hope you like it !
And me! kart no. 19 for the day

Random convo...

Well, what do I get at 1.20am in the morning. dear GD from sunny sg gives me a piece of advice!

WARNING R(A) CONTENT AHEAD

[GD] says (1:23 AM):
u dun wander in the streets late at nite
i heard my fren's relative kana rape by GUYS in asterdam

[GD] says (1:24 AM):
amsterdam...

han says (1:24 AM):
!!!

[GD] says (1:24 AM):
especially cute anf ****able with tight assssyy....u r hot target amg ANG MO
B CAREFUL!!!!
juz worried for u

han says (1:24 AM):
er
i didn't need that


[GD] says (1:26 AM):
its out of ur control
aniway...jus b careful.
i love u tts y i wanna CARE FOR U [inserts 3 lines of hearts n kisses]

han says (1:27 AM):
.....

I should be shot.

argh.

sigh.

Muse is playing at Wembley right now. yeah, now. And I didn't know of it until yesterday, which by then was already too late to get the tickets. So stupid of me... they won't be playing in UK anymore while I'm here. I missed their Reading headlining concert, and now I missed their Wembley Arena one. oh man. what's wrong with me!

And to further depress me, I just read that Justin Hawkins of The Darkness had just quit the band, due to drug addiction (ok this is old news, october actually. But I just knew, at what timing...)

So the 2 bands that I wished to catch the most here -- since Queen's not touring and Oasis I've watched them in singapore. that leaves Muse n Darkness as the best UK bands left to watch -- I won't get a chance to catch them.

Shame on you, han.

Of Skid Marks and Splashbacks

Recently, I was bemused by some conversation with a friend of mine regarding toilet etiquette . Anyways, something happened to me when I was doing a no. 2 one day. I mean, London being cold and all that, so I would think that the seat would be rather chilling (it normally is).

So, I sat down. and it was WARM.

At this moment, I wonder if I should feel
a) Contented -- well, because its warm in cold weather OR
b) Disgusted -- because someone had just, um, warmed the seat for me.

now, you tell me.

Salivate, please

quite amazing how a match that had only 2 sets could produce such an array of magnificent shots

Roger Federer vs Rafa Nadal (Tennis Masters Cup, Shanghai 2006)


P.S Roger's backhand improve a lot already huh. I mean, what's next? heh

Song of the Moment

David Bowie - Starman

Probably the Best

48 Green Bottles sitting on the floor,
48 Green Bottles sitting on the floor,
And they only cost ... 18 quid in all,
48 Green Bottles sitting there no more.

Air Guitar shirt ?!

So, in case I suffer from guitar withdrawal symptoms (actually already got quite a bit sigh), there's always this alternative. thanks to lap for bringing to my attention heh.

Read more here

Air Guitarists Rejoice: Engineers Design Wearable Instrument Shirt

Australia's scientific research agency, CSIRO has 'built' a shirt which could fulfil the fantasy of anyone who has, in the privacy of their homes, jammed along with one of rock 'n roll's great lead guitarists.
Led by engineer Dr Richard Helmer a team of researchers at CSIRO Textiles and Fibre Technology in Geelong has created a 'wearable instrument shirt' (WIS) which enables users to play an 'air guitar' simply by moving one arm to pick chords and the other to strum the imaginary instrument's strings.

Nott Games

So I went to the town of Nottingham on Saturday for Notts game. Its actually a sports event for all the singaporean students across UK, and hosted by Nottingham Uni, so all the singapore societies brought their athletes to this town for the 1 day event.

Basically, it's just some friendly competition with games like soccer, basketball, badminton, frisbee, tennis, squash, hockey etc... all fun and games. I played tennis doubles with Jinyang, and we lost in our 1st round match 2-1! (against UCL ...sigh) .... and 1 match lasted 3 games only. yes 3 games, so 1st to 2 games win. which meant the game was over in like, 10 mins. And the wind was really really strong during the game, such that all 3 servers never managed to hold serve. So when I opted to serve 1st .. haha, well you know the rest.

But all's good, cos I then took the time to check out the rest of the beautiful campus. The size is about the size of NUS but with way more flora... the gardeners have been doing a wonderful job! I'll let the pics speak for themselves

The main games field, Ultimate Frisbee!

Me playing tennis! It was so windy I had to wrap myself up, if not I would have froze.
Walking along one of the school paths

Brilliant garden!
fountain, flowers, clear skies. Sweet
Wouldn't it be nice, eh? This is the campus Lake, so peaceful aint it.


The battalion of ducks falling in

took many shots to get this one right... cool!Imagine walking into school like this heh
Soon after, we headed off to Nottingham city centre... though a bit disappointingly the town's didn't really have anything specially impressive (or maybe I went to the wrong places), so I didn't take any pics. Bought some stuff off the 1-pound shop, ate hot piping donuts (the bomb la!), and it was dark before we knew it!

And as usual with my bad weather luck, it started pouring! Jinyang, Binghao and me were caught in the rain, and we started a 'fast march' to some building to have a free dinner... haha, really brought back army memories of the platoon marches and stuff. And we mused that we had a tougher workout fast walking than the tennis game itself! We even managed to take pics on the go heh.

Jinyang

B .. with the kawaii peace sign. hurhur
Soaked when we reached the dining hall, ate a lil snack, and it was time to leave Notts already. Concussed like a pig on the bus ride back... before reaching london at abt 11pm.

Not a bad Saturday at all =)

Who says animals and electronics don't mix

Well, miss Charlotte Chew I gotta hand it to you la, managed to adopt a cat, and took this blissful looking pic of the pet sleeping on my printer. Hah.

So if your lecturer asks you why you handed in your essay late, you could probably show him/her this pic and say "The cat slept on the printer!"

It's Black / White

Black

Without going into too much details, for the past week, I felt that I've been treated rather poorly (and perhaps unfairly) by NUS. Of course, I know being an exchange student, mapping of modules across at the partner universities was never going to be easy, and I must say that for the majority of my mapping, the modules have been either an accurate mapping or at least of decent content and not something I've learnt before (which is good, contrary to what many pple think...). Well, except for 1 particular module, which is really at quite an advanced stage of learning of which I was supposed to do the fundamental learning over here. And because of precedence, I'm kind of stuck with it now, with my only alternative (taking another course) being rejected by NUS.

And after writing a mega mail at 2am here explaining my situation and presenting alternatives .... all I got was a 3-word response from sg.

I just feel that maybe NUS should be more accomodating lah, you know, being people-oriented and stuff. We're the students, the customers, no? I don't know if there's a point in learning by dead memory a topic which is too advanced for me (and the other exchange student as well) right now, but dead memory seems to be the only way to achieve a pass in the course.

In any case, press on I guess. fuggedaboutit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

White

Quite surprisingly too, is that I feel that I'm actually settling in much better than I thought I would already. In fact, I had originally thought that since I would just be over here for 10 months, I could just come light and go back light. Not bringing too much wardrobe, leaving my guitar behind, my 'airfans' speakers, tennis racket, etc.... but after 1 month here (yes it feels so long doesn't it?) I've already managed to get a tennis racket and playing quite frequently (3 diff courts in london!), bought new speakers, a comfy fishing chair, hoodies and jackets and much more shopping ahead. And my fingers are unbelievably itching to play a six-string. And I'm being offered a performance slot on Hwa Chong Nite, though that's still a bit far away to discuss about now...

And the fact that I have great friends surrounding me (you know who you are) is really a big bonus. Adds colour to my life, literally. Takes away the gloom of this city, which can really set in quite bad at times. Cold, yet not so cold, ya know?

Heh. Like Johnnie Walker puts it:

"Keep Walking"

Musings pt II

I'm taking this Control Engineering course here, taught by a (rather patriotic) Italian lecturer whos supposedly some genius (and he sure seems like one). Anyways, he wrote this in his notes Preface.

...These lecture notes are intended for a 3rd year, 20 hours course at the EEE Dept of Imperial College London. In addition, they can be partly used as material for 50 hours "Automatic Control" course at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. (The reason why similar topics are taught in such a diverse time range is, and will probably remain , a mistery (sic) to me, even after various years of experience with students and courses from both instituitions!)

Also, in NUS, we learn control engineering via the frequency approach. And this is what he said too

.... There are 2 kinds of control engineers. There are those who use the frequency approach, and then there are the control engineers. I think you all know what type I am.

And then he goes on in his routine rigourous abstract maths approach, leaving us stunned everytime. haha. But it's a fun course at least.

Big Brother UK

It's funny how, when I was in NUS, in hall I wasn't even close to being the oldest among my peers. I mean there's like my neighbour (nb) who is 2 yrs older than me, and Eu Ong and the other senior guys.

But here living in Evelyn Gardens, I meet people who are so young, I already kinda forgot what I was doing at that age! I played tennis doubles with this 18yr old greek who was giggling away like some small kid about making the opponents run, and I was having lunch with a 18yr old hk girl who lived down my corridor giving me advice about the coming winter (cos she stayed here for a few yrs already) heh.

And its also interesting that the freshers keep coming to me for advice, from anything like cooking, to alcohol, to bgr, to schoolwork. haha. Maybe being 23 yrs, I really am more experienced hurhur. (but I'm really no jiu gui ...)

In any case, hey, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not complaining, in fact I don't mind helping whenever I can ... being big brother's kinda fun still even though I've been doing that for 23 yrs heh. Well, maybe just dont keep mentioning about the age gap la. 1 times, 2 times, its alright, though it's kinda irritating when it keeps getting brought up "But you are TWENTY THREE yrs old and you should know about this and that, right?"

I understand u la, nb. sian.

Anyway, somehow, I seem to know quite a bit of whats happening around to the singaporeans around me. heh. Quite the opposite when I was in KR when I was about the last to know anything.. but here, somehow, its different. Maybe being older helps.

Oh well. Interesting times ahead, I suppose.

All That Jazz

Caught Chicago on Wed night, at a real good price of 13quid, but the seats weren't front row of cos. Well, Ashlee Simpson actually starred as Roxie Hart for the London production... and I would say her performance was just passable at best. Actually, the whole show was ok la overall, dancing was really good, but the singing could have been better. The actress who did Velma was really the show stealer for me, while Roxie and the lawyer... well let's just say I've seen better. So perhaps I was lucky never overpay for it la. Never mind, watching Producers next thurs night, which I've heard it's highly entertaining, so it should be good la.

Oh. And this is the reason why Ashlee Simpson is so unpopular in USA. I'm sure you can figure out why.


Last night, was supposed to go union bar, jio a lot of ppl le, then suddenly once it was made known it was gonna be a foam party, suddenly everyone decided not to go! Then I was like, hey man, we can always stay away from the foam if you dun wanna get wet (cos its a separate arena) etc, or we could just pop by and see how it goes and decide to barhop later or what. I mean, its a Friday night! Not that I condone a partying lifestyle or what, but theres no school the next day and at least should spend some time with friends, right? Already quite lonely in London, then cannot stay in on Fri nights what heh. Nevermind, I'll try to inculcate that into the freshers hurhur.

So Chow rang me up and I went over to his place to chill out. Turns out its just 5 mins away and it's on my way to school in any case. 4 guys shared a 20-piece KFC bucket, shiok! ended up watching Lost, but I was really the lost one as I stopped in mid season 2 after I lost interest in Lost. (4 losts in 1 statement hurhur. ) Anyways, ended up playing Texas Hold'em with a bunch of Singaporean graduates in Flat 3, fun loving group la. They even bought playing chips and card cloth, the whole package la, and its a really easy and addictive game. hah. Well, I'll still keep the Genting trip last month in mind...

Mahjong weekend!

The Fed-era goes on ...

So I've just read on the net that a certain Roger Federer has just won his 10th title of the year, the Madrid ATP Masters. Actually its kinda scary how much his one-man domination of the circuit, bar the slight irritation of Nadal, is really begin to show. Well, no need for me to heap more accolades on to him, and besides, I don't get a chance to watch any tennis on TV here (cos the TV room reception sucks la. seems like Sky TV shows soccer 12 hrs a day, so no F1, tennis etc for me)

Here's Tan Xiexing's blogpost about Roger Federer, which seems to be hugely inspired by this previous post of mine. Eh. Plagiarism is a crime ok dude? haha. btw, how did I inspire you to start blogging one ah, you gotta tell me man. take care in sg!

I think I should really grab any chance to watch any live sports event in UK/Europe, be it soccer, F1, tennis, snooker or just anything that can entertain me la.

walk this way

Why does today's walk to school seem shorter than usual?

Is it because of familiarity setting in ...

or the easy on-the-go listening of Van Morrison ...



or am I simply just walking faster?

In any case, it's a good thing and I ain't complaining =)

surprise!

Well, surprised I was! On the 21/10 night 11pm, some of the IC singaporeans came over to my room and gave me a surprise party! heh. it's been a really long while since I last had a surprise party and somemore this away from sg, even more special la.

Anyways, many thanks to Teresa, Joanne, Adeline, Binghao, Laphang, Clinton, Terence, Zhengyuan, David, Liling and her UCL friend who popped by! thanks for organising and making the trip over =)

heres some pics


kena caught out look

um a snapshot of some ppl who came by.. shld have taken a grp photo la!cutting cake ...
freshly baked by the boys ... lub lub haha
Then sunday and 22nd itself, was a ridiculously wet day! oh well kena drenched, didn't play my tennis, and basically was so gloomy. Till dinner at least, when I went out with the boys and jinyang and jo who came all e way again, twice in 24 hrs!
Italian Pizza down the road, super filling, and affordable, by London standards heh

classy eh