Evenings are a good time to get some photography done. Seeing that sunset is about 4pm at the moment, it was fairly easy to go out to get some nice shots. This is possibly the nicest shot that I got yesterday. The weather was quite cold, but it was worth it. You can see St John's College's chapel tower peaking out on the left, and King's College's chapel trailing on the right. All these, under a shapely crescent moon is all very nice, of course.
I just got back from a formal at Downing College. Our elegant hostess, managed to secure us 3 tickets. She had originally decided not to go, so there were 4 tickets. But at the last minute, she realised that she needs to bring us in. And so, one of us had to drop out at the last minute. It was a rather messy muck-up.
Anyway, it was a decent formal. For about £8, it is fairly standard fair. There is nothing especially good or bad about the formal. The only interesting thing happened when the Master got up in the middle of dinner to ask everyone to keep the volume down. Unlike Malaysia, nobody seemed to care and there wasn't any difference in the volume after his polite request. Otherwise, it is a fairly standard formal for under a tenner.
They tried to create a fake Magdalene atmosphere by turning off most of the lights except the centre chandelier. Seriously, if the college wanted to fake it, they should have just turned off all the lights. They only did that at the end, I guess as a sign to the students to leave.
The company was good though. There was the usual rubbish talk. And we gravitated to some politics partway, before gyrating back to rubbish talk. It's nice to be able to talk rubbish for a while. I don't really like small talk, but I like rubbish talk. It's more personal and fun.
Okay, so, I'm only down to Newnham, Trinity Hall and Christ now. I've got Newnham schedule for next week's Christmas formal. I can get a Christ formal any time. Now, I desperately need to look for someone from Trinity Hall to bring me in. Unfortunately, I don't really know anybody there.
Wow, Wolfson must have felt like there was an Asian invasion today. XianJie organised a truly massive Wolfson formal made up of mainly Singaporeans and Malaysians. There were so many of us that we virtually took up 1/3 of the hall.
I walked to Wolfson from my room. It took me 40 minutes to get there as I didn't want to risk going to the back gate, as it is usually locked. So, I went round the long way, down Barton Road. The formal was okay. I thought that the veal was a little too salty and the wine was a little too sour. The post-dinner drinks were quite good, though.
Anyway, at one point during the formal, the topic of Singapore vs Malaysia came up. As usual, I defended our country as I felt that we had relatively more freedom in Malaysia than in Singapore. I'm speaking from the point of personal freedoms and doing things in life. Generally speaking, there is more room to manouvre and more flexibility in life, in Malaysia than in Singapore. At worst, we can always settle things in Malaysia.
I agree that Singapore probably has a better system and infrastructure in place, than we do in Malaysia. That's the reason why so many Malaysians flock to Singapore to work and to earn a living. On the other hand, Singaporeans often come to Malaysia to spend their money. I'm not talking about buying cheap groceries or pumping cheaper petrol. I'm talking about doing things in Malaysia that they just cannot do in Singapore.
This is the trade-off for having an efficient and good system in place. It is something very easy to explain and understand. However, I rarely get the chance to explain it to most Singaporeans as they naturally shut me off. This is simply due to my lack of tact, in explaining things. But that's just me. So, here goes:
Hehe, we had a cookout at Queens' today. Food can always make me happy. Unfortunately, everyone ended up bringing mostly chicken. Nobody brought any vegetables. This is so typical. Anyway, the food was quite good and one person even brought char kuay teow and it was really quite good!!!
For dessert, I tried a random concoction of red-bean paste with Bacardi! Nobody else tried it but it was really quite interesting. I'm quite open to experimentation with food.
Anyway, after dinner, we just sat around in a circle talking all sorts of crap. Then, someone asked me about Michelle, and I ended up telling my ghost story of Michelle, and the White Queen. This led to another ghost story and before we knew it, we spent more than an hour talking about ghosts. This is like so typical Malaysian random crap chit chat lar. So nice.
The photo is an odd tinge of orange because we turned off all the lights except for a lone incandescent bulb glowing in the corner. When you want to tell ghost stories, you really need to create the right mood.
I'd finally managed to go gliding yesterday. I have signed up for gliding sessions so many times and missed just as many. Sometimes, I missed the gliding sessions due to bad weather and once, because I missed the bus out. So, I was quite happy to be able to go out in the wonderful morning weather, yesterday.
The airfield is located about 15 miles outside of Cambridge. It is the home of the Cambridge Gliding Club. It used to serve as an airfield during WWII and has been left in it's original configuration since then. I sometimes find it interesting that there are so many physical remnants of the war in and around Cambridge. I have yet to visit the American cemetery here and I should do it before I leave, and compare it with the one in Manila.
It took us about 30 minutes to drive out to the airfield. Once there, we were asked to sign legal disclaimers and shown a short introductory video. The video had it's fair share of comedy value and at the end, it literally told us that we didn't have to watch it at all to enjoy our flight. But I enjoyed the video. It told us how to put on our parachute, but at the height that we were going to fly yesterday, I doubted that it would've done any good if we had to bail out. It also explained some basic flight mechanics, which was interesting.
Then, it was time for our flight. We were launched by winch yesterday. It is cheaper than being towed up into the air by a plane. The glider was attached to a winch by a cable of about a mile long. Then, the winch pulls us and we're launched much like a kite, straight up. The acceleration isn't very high though. All I did was lie back and let the instructor handle the take-off. We tried to find a pocket of thermals in order to rise further, but we were unable to. I was allowed to take control of the glider mid-way. It surprised me how sensitive the glider actually was, to the slightest variation on the stick. After a little piloting and taking a few photos, we landed back on the ground. My flight lasted for about 7 minutes or so.
Personally, I enjoyed gliding a lot. So, I asked them how much it would cost to buy a glider. I was shocked to find out that a brand new one costs about £60,000. This is most certainly not a sport for the poor. It is exhilarating and fun, but even the short flight yesterday cost me £18. It was all worth it though. If I had discovered this last year, I would likely join the club and fly regularly. But, I doubt that I'll have the time and inclination to do so now.
Anyway, the surreal photograph was something I took while up in the air. It is a photo of a typical British countryside. I touched it up with some HDR software. So, it looks a little surreal. I really need to learn how to do proper HDR photography.
As a rule, whatever I do, some people will like me, some people will not and others will be indifferent. However, I've been doing a little of self reflection recently. This has been triggered by certain events in my life and I thought that I should reflect on it.
Some friends have been telling me that I come across as cocky. So, I thought that I'd do a quick survey and ask people what they thought. I asked the question on MSN and got quite a few answers. The results are quite telling. Yes, most people do think that I'm a cocky person. I asked myself, how did this actually come to be. So, I asked for elaboration from some people.
A close friend of mine told me that it isn't entirely dependent on me and my actions. It also depends on the other person. Nobody likes to feel inferior and I tend to make other people feel inferior. If the other person comes from a position of confidence, they will not feel inferior and probably won't find me cocky. I guess that this is generally true. As an observation, the younger people are more likely to find me cocky than the older people. So, I guess, this is possibly one reason why many of my friends here have the impression that I'm cocky. Of course, the way that I carry myself doesn't help matters much.
In general, many of my friends told me that I should tone down a bit and take it down a notch. I guess that this is fair enough. Except that I don't really know how. I guess I'll need to figure out this bit myself. Maybe, I'll start by talking less. That's probably a good place to start.
PS: Another thing that some friends have commented is that I'm cute (for various reasons). Now, that's just weird.
After the chat that I had with Teresa Kok, yesterday evening, I started thinking about some of the things that she said and I would like to share some thoughts on it. Even the people from Khazanah agreed with this. We were all in agreement that the biggest problem in Malaysia is the communal mentality.
This is one bit that I do not understand about the opposition. I consider the fact that there must be at least a few bright people working for them, someone must've come up with this realisation by now. Maybe they haven't, maybe they have but are unable to do anything about it. Either way, I thought that I should put it down in my blog.
I got the sense that one common frustration that our opposition suffers is the tight control that the state has on media. They are unable to get their stories out and that in itself means death in the world of electoral politics. Another frustration that they have is that the other side does not play fair as it uses money and power to work the election. All this can be likened to playing cards at a table where the dealer holds on to all the aces.
So, for as long as the opposition continues to play the same game, they will never be capable of winning. In this case, the only way to beat the house is to change the game. This is where I see our opposition failing. They are engaged in the same game as the ruling coalition and are therefore, doomed to lose, time and time again. The opposition cannot possibly win, when the deck is so stacked against them.
They need to change the game. DAP needs to lose it's image as a Chinese opposition party. Instead of depending on PAS and PKR to take the Malay votes, DAP should itself go down and try to take the Malay votes away from UMNO. The same goes for PAS and PKR. All the opposition parties should stop branding themselves as communal parties and stand up for some real issues. We are still stuck in the pre-Merdeka mentality, after 50 years. Things have got to change. Granted, this is a risky strategy, as it may result in the opposition losing it's traditional communal voters, but then, that's just a risk that they need to take.
Now, if the opposition decided to present themselves as a truly Malaysian party, that doesn't cut itself across communal lines, they can at last call themselves a true alternative to the ruling coalition. Then, everyone will have something exciting to talk about in the local kopitiam and warong. The people will truly have something different to discuss and look at. The viral marketing that results, will be worth more than anything the BN can buy with their media. People will truly have something to look forward to, and not just to more of the same old stuff.
There are so many common issues that cut across racial lines in Malaysia. Let's deal with the issue of education. Instead of fighting for mother tongue education, why not fight for standards of education. Personally, I don't really care what language science is taught in as long as the scientific principles are taught correctly. Using an example from the extremely democratic world of technology, it doesn't really matter if a browser is written in C, Java, Pascal or whatever, it will work as long as it follows the HTTP standard.
Maybe I'm naive, but this is what I think.
I walk past this sign on my way to the department in the mornings. On one sunny day, I decided to take a photograph (isn't it quite good!) of the sign. This sign should be posted ALL over Cambridge, and not just at Parkside. Michaelmas Term is the time when lots of noob cyclists break all the cycle rules in force. The most common error is turning the one-way streets in the city centre into four-way streets.
Oh yes, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but I'm walking more these days. The reason that I'm doing this is because my ole bike is falling apart. It's lasted me 3 good years and is dying soon. So, as not to kill it pre-maturely, I'm only cycling when I need to. Although it's about a 30 minute walk to the department, it's okay as the weather isn't wet yet. When it rains/snows, I'll cycle to work.
Heh, woke up at 4 something today, and couldn't go back to sleep. Since it's 6am now, I won't bother to go back to sleep. I'll just blog about things a bit more, and get more things off my chest. Help me work through the issues. Blogs are like having the world as your psychiatrist!
This was to be expected anyway. It's just all part of the process. I'll also possibly be moody for a bit, while I work through things. I pity my students. They're going to get the many "how could you be so dumb" stares from me for a while. Good thing is that I won't be having any supervisions this week. I'll also not be marking any IDP reports until later. So, the only people who'll suffer my glare are the 1AC++ students. Too bad, peeps!
At times like this, it's good to have friends. One friend said that she just didn't know how to appreciate me. [Maybe I should come with a glossy booklet extolling my various virtues and quirks.] Another friend offered to buy me dinner to cheer me up but make sure it's cheap. [Maybe this is a good way of getting free meals.] One other friend offered to listen to me if I needed someone to talk to. [But this friend of mine has enough problems as well.] Anyway, it's great to have friends. Them not necessarily easy to find.
Also, I let her know that I had blogged about it. At one point, she was regularly reading my blog but I guess that she isn't, now. So, I just thought that it was right that she found out about it from me rather than some random third person. I made it clear that it's for me to rant, and get things off my chest. Hopefully there won't be very many!
PS: I'm not moping. I'm just working through the issues openly. This is a GoodThing(tm). Of course, some of my friends were interested to know who "she" is. I gave them my cheeky grin. :P
Okay, no more complaints about women sux. No more emotional roller-coaster. My apologies to my friends who had to hear me rant for months. The situation has been resolved. So, I thought that this would be a good time to blog about it.
There's this person here that I am really attracted to. So, naturally, I started to show interest and was hoping that our friendship would blossom into something more. At first, the signs seemed promising. She even gave me gifts (v'day, b'day...) and such. So, I stepped up to the plate. I started asking her out more and we ended up doing spending more time together. That's when things started getting really weird. The signs that I got were so confusing. So, it was a very distressing summer for me.
Then, I started to feel our friendship getting affected. That's when I started to really worry. I value the friendship, and I didn't want our nice long chats to turn into a minute long hi-bye relationship. So, I decided to just handle the situation, the way that I handle all situations. Head-on! So, I asked her out for a meal, to talk. Thankfully, she responded and we arranged to meet.
But then, fate threw a wrench in the works. Maybe it was a sign. I wasn't very specific where we were supposed to meet. I ended up waiting at NEXT in Grafton, and she ended up waiting at the one in the city. And then, we swapped places with me going to the city and her going to the Grafton. So, my first attempt at handling it, didn't work out. Then, she rescheduled and I have just returned from dinner with her.
Haha, keeping you all in suspense for so long. We're going to continue to be friends. That's that then. I didn't bother to ask why there were all the conflicting signs, as I didn't feel that it was any useful besides serving to shatter my self confidence, which I don't need. According to a friend, women are very good at giving out mating signals even though they may not mean it. If she wants to tell me why, I guess that she will do so, without me having to bother to ask.
Well, she did tell me that she got a very clear signal from me that I was going after her. She says, that it's sometimes a little difficult to tell with some people (I'm not really sure if that was a compliment). Well, the one thing that I think that she could've handled better was to tell me how she felt earlier, since she already knew that I was interested in her. I'm a big boy, I should be able to take rejection.
Well, at least I'm honest with myself. I expressed my feelings, and I got a rejection (a fairly short one - no beating round the bush, which was good). It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped it could have, but at least, we'll stay friends. These things cannot be forced anyway. And fate has a lot to do with it!
PS: Don't bother asking me who she is! Don't bother guessing even! The only reply that you will get out of me is a cheeky smile.
To the people who were wondering if I had really bought my nephew a Robosapien, here's photographic evidence. Here's a photo of my 6 year old nephew posing with his new toy. He is capable of playing with the basics, though I didn't teach him how to programme the thing. Hopefully, he'll be able to figure that out himself.
I did not have steady Internet access because I was staying over at my sister's place. My sister had recently moved into a new house and my parents had moved in with her. So, it didn't make sense for me to stay alone in my parents house. I merely returned there every few days to check my emails and download some stuff.
I didn't like the fact that my bosses kept emailing me. In the first week of my "vacation", I replied their emails. However, I decided to leave them totally alone in the second week. So, I stopped them bugging me for a while. I still haven't told them that I'm back yet. Hopefully, this'll buy me an extra few days for me to settle down.
I've moved into a new room (belonging to Queens). I'm currently living in a very strategic location in town. It's located right opposite Grafton (quite literally across the road). So, it's very convenient for me to just buy stuff. They've not finished installing the new kitchens yet. So, I won't be able to do much cooking for at least another week. Living here, I believe that I'll be cooking a lot as it would not be convenient for me to go to college for meals.
Sigh, I've still got to move stuff back from my lab. I think I'll call for a cab and get the cab to transport my stuff over to my new place. I got a 6 seater cab to transport my stuff from Magdalene storage to my new place. It's just too far for me to cycle from my lab to my room, with all the stuff that I've stored there. It would make so much more sense to just call a cab. See, I've not quite fully settled in yet.
Hehe, these are photos of my latest family members, my niece and nephew. They are extremely cute! Oh, in case anyone was wondering what I've been up to, I'm currently on "vacation" and won't be updating my blog as often as I do not have regular access to broadband. I cannot access properly access these fancy AJAX sites on dialup. So, bear with me for now and I'll have a flurry of blogs after I get back.
My nephew likes to go "nng nng" and my niece likes to go "uum uum". I was told that my nephew doesn't normally like strangers but he took a liking to me immediately. He is also very demanding. As a result, I end up carrying and playing with him a lot. My niece normally takes to strangers easily, but I'm still having problems getting her to like me. Maybe it's because I've tickled her a little too much. Hehe.
And yes, I bought my other nephew a Robosapien. It was humungous and took up half of my luggage space. Another half was taken up by toys for these two babies. My clothes went into any available gaps between the toys. Good thing it wasn't damaged on the flight. Yes, I had a rather eventful flight.
Anyway, that's all for now. I plan to sleep off most of next week.
I got invited to the ARM barbeque today, by a friend of mine, Xueni. This seems to be an annual summer barbeque organised by the company for it's employees. There were plenty of families and kids at this event. I ended up having both my lunch and dinner at the event.
There was plenty of food to eat. There were both meat and vegetarian grills. Being the carnivore that I am, I attacked the meat grill with much gusto. They had burgers, lamb, chicken, pork and sausages. The pork that they had were pieces of pork marinated in charsiew sauce and grilled over the fire. So, tasted quite good.
Then, there was also the salad bar, which was filled with the standard fare that you find in any salad bar. I had some pasta, potatoes and lettuce to go with my meats. Then, we have the desserts table, which had all kinds of pastry and ice cream. They kept changing the pastry so one could end up having nothing but desserts if they wanted to.
Of course, the event would not be complete without games to play with. There were the standard dodgems (that's what people here call bumper cars). There was also a human table football, bouncy castle, slides and lots of other stuff. As you can imagine, the kids had a field day and were all over the place. Oh yes, there was even an entertainer hired to keep the kids happy, and a face painter who painted all kinds of nice patterns on the kids faces.
All in all, it was plenty of fun. The weather was nice and sunny too!
Another year, another graduation. We're having our main season of graduations, this weekend. This is the main graduation period for the undergraduates who have earned their BAs. The main graduation period for grad students will be next month.
Three years passes really fast. It wasn't so long ago that they were all blur freshers, who did not know anything. Now, they're blur graduates, who do not know anything. Well, at least there's an improvement.
It's nice to see some people starting out in the real world, and others are continuing their studies. Some are just blur and will bum around for a few months before figuring out what to do with their lives.
I wasn't particularly close to many in this batch as I'm closer to the batch graduating next year. So, I guess that it's also about time for me to finish up and leave, as all my close friends here are leaving too.
To my graduating friends: felicitation, adieu, bon chance et au revoir.
*** photo of Rachel, Ash and Grace. I have a nice one of them jumping in the air, but I think that this picture captures their feelings better. ***
I think that this is a little premature, but I'm not complaining. The lion dance troupe has given the finishing students, a graduating gift. This year, they had a calendar made with pictures of the members in it.
This is so cool. The lion dance troupe are the best group of people that I've had the pleasure of working with. It's the best-est student society that I've ever been part of. The people are fun and friendly. I like the picture for March 2008. It is a picture of our AGM in March this year.
I look forward to doing a little bit more drumming next year. With Katie and XiYen gone, while Gordon is busy with his job, I'm the only person left with the knowledge and experience on all the instruments. So, I guess that I'll have to pass on the knowledge as soon as possible, next year.
I'm looking forward to Chinese New Year already. That's when we have the most number of bookings, from all over. We are really quite good. Although we don't do many stunts, we try to make the lions as interesting and cute as possible.
PS. I'm not graduating this year, I'm planning to finish in the coming Michaelmas or latest by Lent. So, the earliest that I could graduate would be in July next year. Keeping my fingers crossed!
So, this is what British people do over summer. They organise all kinds of fairs in open greens. For the last few days, the news has been filled with the largest British fair, Glastonbury Festival. This evening, Ray brought me along to visit our own Cambridge Midsummer Fun Fair.
Midsummer Fair has been visiting Cambridge's Midsummer Common for over 800 years making it the country's oldest travelling fun fair. As well as being one of the oldest, it is also the largest, with all the rides associated with the traditional fun fair and the very best in white-knuckle rides for 2007.So, I went along to take a few photos. Unfortunately, tonight wasn't very busy. There were plenty of rides and food but hardly any people around. I guess that with most of the students gone, the town has lost a large portion of it's populace. Some of the stalls refused to allow us to take any photos. I guess that they must have something to hide. Otherwise, there really isn't any reason to do so.
Today, we had a performance at Darwin College, for their June Event. We hadn't had much practice for this performance. But we did quite okay anyway, as we have become quite good at improvising.
We had 3 performances for this event. We started off by entertaining the guests in the queue. The queue for people getting in, was on Silver Street. We walked down the queue and back again. We had to perform on the road and some cars had drive around to avoid us. At one point, a police car actually slowed down and looked at us. I thought that they would shoo us off. But, they were just curious and continued on their way. I doubt that they'd want to spoil the evening for the crowd by locking us up.
Then, we had a second act, which we screwed up a lot. However, I doubt that many people noticed. It was difficult to get the signals right as the drum was located on the first floor while the two lions performed on the ground. So, most of the time, both sides were waiting for each other. The male lion was unable to do stunts either as the grass was too slippery and wet. They managed to do some rolls to make up for it. I was involved in this act as we didn't have enough cymbalists. So, I didn't take any photos.
Finally, we had the third act, which turned out fine (most of it did anyway). The only problem was at the end, when the lion had problems while unfurling the scroll. So, the ending was lamer than it should have been. I managed to get a few good photos though! We had moved the drum down onto the ground for this act.
This is the only MayBall/Event performance that we have this year. We have another performance on Sunday, for a charity event. I will be doing the drumming for that performance. So, there will be no photos. We've not had much practice for that performance either. Hopefully, there won't be any major screw ups. Unlike this Darwin Event, we will not be paid for the charity event. So, I guess it's okay to screw up a bit.
More pics here:
Food, furniture and femmes. That was the 3 main things that I took away from Stockholm. I've already blogged about food and furniture below. Now, it's time to talk about the blonds.
Yes, it's true. Everyone here is blond. Almost everyone anyway. The Swedes come in all shades of blond, from the auburn-ish shade to platinum blonds. Almost every 4 of 5 people are blond. Blond hair is supposed to be a recessive trait. I was told by my medic friends that this means that they'll be ultimately bred out.
The blonds here come in all shapes and sizes. From the tall slim blond to the short flabby blond, both male and female. But Rob and I concluded that most people here do not have a problem with their weight, unlike in the UK where they are soon to make it illegal for parents to feed their children too much food. It must be all the fish in the Swedish diet. So, let's just say that the first couple of days was fairly interesting.
After 3 days there, I kind of got tired of the blonds. It gets a little boring after a while when everywhere you look, you see a blond. This makes me wonder if they're all real blonds or did they dye their hair blond. If you are 1 of 5 who isn't born blond, it would make you the odd one out in school. So, some people may just fake it to fit in. But I also saw a lot of them who had dyed black hair, which is too black to be real. So, maybe the locals are getting tired of being blond themselves and trying to look exoctic, with their pale skin, coloured eyes and black hair.
So, this ends my three blogs on Stockholm, Sweden. If you like tall lanky blonds, ergonomic stylish furniture or salty tasty food, Sweden is the place to be.
PS. More pics here:
