Home Sweet Home 2009

3.5 weeks has almost passed. 3.5 weeks of holidays back home. Why is it that good times always fly by the fastest? It has been a fruitful trip back home. I managed to catch up with lots of people and a lot more of 1-on-1 times with most friends. I also managed to meet up with lots of poeple who I missed out on meeting when I came back last year (even thouhg I was back for a longer time last year). It was also really nice ot meet up with the E6 people at Tat & Annie's wedding as well as meeting relatives at the other wedding. It was nice meeting up with the Astar people (who have almost all left Astar). It wasa nice reminiscing bout life in Swiss with the E6 gang. Its been so long since I has this feeling that I belong to a group of friends who we share so much mischievous adventure with. It makes me feel like staying on in Singapore. And having been abroad for so many years and flying out of Singapore so many times, this seems to be the only time that I feel so reluctant to leave. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I say to people 'I will see you next year'. It makes me sad to leave all this behind to go back to gloomy UK to finish my PhD. It gives me this urge to return home after I finish. It makes me think that it is not such a bad idea. It might be a spur of the moment thought, but time will tell. For now, I will enjoy my last few days back home, before I embark on the last part and the toughest part of my PhD.

Stressed.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Been really stressed lately. My list of things to do never seem to end. Everything seems to be a top priority at the moment. Every new working day seems to add new things to the list of top priority. And no, it doesn't mean the old number 1s are being pushed down. It just means more number 1s. So much for prioritising the list. Thereforem it's getting really stressful at work. I wished I was going back next week and not next month.

Had a really crappy past 2 weeks too. I guess that doesn't help matters. This is when I don't think all this hard work is worth it, even for that Dr. title in front of my name. Nor that funky gown and hat you get at the ceremony (if I make it that far that is). This when I think, why do I even bother doing a Phd? Why do I put myself through all this pain and torture? Is there really light at the end of the tunnel?

But then, I do still excited when I get results that I wanted. I still feel the excitement especially when it works the 1st time. I think that's what happens when you get to the point where nothing ever works after repeating it 10 times, and you never expect anything else is ever gonna work. That's when even the simplest of experiment that works give you this thrill. That's when I go; this is why I do science! This is my passion. This is my motivation for doing science (even if the good day happens in about once every 2 months). This is what keeps me going. Till I hit the brick wall again.....

Friends

It's been a long while since I last blogged. I'm just too ill-disciplined to keep up. Or rather just too lazy.
I've just booked my air tickets home few weeks back. A part of me is rather looking forward to it. Seems like a long time since I caught up with friends back home (and msn doesn't count). Another part of me knows that the turn of the year would signifiy the 'official' point of my PhD. The point where I panic. When I realised that I haven't got enough results to write up and that I've only got 1.5 yrs left to go.
Lately, I've started to miss my friends back home as well. It occurred to me that regardless of how big my circle of friends may be, the ones who I'm closest to and know me best are still the ones I grew up with. The ones who worry that about me while I'm abroad, the same ones who have been there for me and listen to my ramblings about life abroad. Its when I need someone to talk to and analyse certain situations that it dawns on me how very much alone life can be abroad. And this is where I'm glad the technologies like msn and FB which makes the world a whole lot smaller. Though I much prefer to pick up the phone or to catch up with them to whinge about my life. Or just a quick coffee which would of course turn into hours of gossips.
I'm missing too the friends who make me see the reality of life. Who pull me back to the ground when I'm sometimes swept away with the flow. Who knows me too well and would list the facts and make me face up to the questions that I sometimes refuse to see.
For all these friends, I'm glad that you have come into my life and stayed in it and make an impact in y life. It just makes my day to know you back home sometimes still miss me and am looking forward to me going home as well. It makes me ponder somedays if I have the courage to uproot my life back home and settle abroad for the rest of my life. I guess thats a decision for another day. Like the saying goes, we will take one step at a time.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It has finally snowed in Notts. Ok probably the whole of UK. My first snow experience in the UK. When I first looked out my window at 3pm, I just saw white fluff floating around and didn’t realized it was actually really snowing. I just assumed there were just light fluffy snow aka flurries. And next when I looked out at 6.30pm, there were some snow covering certain parts of the road outside my house and also of course the cars (mine included). Another first I encountered on the same day, a blackout. The whole street experienced a blackout at about 11pm or so and probably lasted 30mins or so. When the lights went out, me and my hsemate peeped out the window in the front room trying to decide if it was just us who tripped the circuit. That’s where I realized it had been snowing really hard. Wow. The whole street was white and the cars were buried with snow. Cool… it looked so pretty. Power failure also made us realized how much of our technology rely on electricity. No lights, no TV, no internet even. Gosh .. we were actually thinking that if the power failure last too long we would have to resort to eating the ice-cream in the freezer out in the street. Haha.. to prevent it from melting of course. Or we could just bury it in the snow. Might work too. Anyway we decided the only game we could probably play with just the 2 of us would be battleship. So while we were drawing our grids and plotting our respective battleship plan, the electricity came back. I have to say its pretty efficient for being in the UK.
So, thru the nite the snow continued and the prettiest sight greeted me in the morning. Trees covered in snow. Cars and roads covered in snow. Hse and walkway covered in snow. So were driveways. And it was still snowing hard. Cool! When I got out of the hse, I couldn’t resist taking a pic of my street and of course my poor car. The good thing about snow? It doesn’t ice up the car and the wipers can just push the snow off the windscreen and we are off. The bad thing? Its really challenging to drive on snow. Till you get to the main streets when its salted and therefore snow-free. It definitely was a cool cool experience. So safely got to uni, park the car (couldn’t tell if I took just one lot or more as the white lines were cover with white snow). But hey, who’s gonna blame me. Walk the short distance to the building in the snow and pretty much stayed indoors admiring the snow fall and the pretty site it made while worrying that we might get snowed in and stuck in the building. I rather get snowed in at home of course. Its really amusing to see the undergrads attempt to have a snowfight with the few cm of snow we had. And when all else fail, they gather their ammunition from the windscreens of the cars parked nearby. Oh good on them, clearing the snow from our car. We did have a good laugh from the view we had on the 3rd level looking down at them. And of course some who couldn’t resist and took their hp to take a pic of themselves with snow. Ah.. what and exciting day…. So enjoy the pretty pics….

How my roof looks at 6.30pm.

The street where I live.

Still at 6.30pm.

It's still 6.30pm.

Now its 12.30am. Just past midnight and the Battleship contest is over and the power has since returned.

A close-up view of snow at 12.30am.

Footsteps in the snow. Just about enough snow for footprints to show. Footprints beling to my neighbour. I prefer to keep warm indoors.

Snow at 12.30am.

The same view but about 9 hours later at 9am. After 1 nite of snowfall. It looks so much prettier in the light.

My snow-covered car.

My car in the street. The empty void was a car which drove out of the driveway.

Hiding from the cold inside my car. See the snow?

The snow-covered street where I live. It looks really really pretty doesn't it?

The start of my street with the main road in the background. Its all white I know.

My new toy

Hey guys

Some pics of my new toy (ok not that new now, been 2 weeks since I got it) that you have been hassling me for. I've gotten myself and yr 2000 Toyota Yaris. So Toyottie now has a sister. In case anyone is still blur, the car is in the UK....I think there is more pics of the car I posted on facebook.

Driver side of the interior.

Sunroof included in this rainy country. Talk about irony.

A rather small boot.

Little Miss Naughty thats supposed to refresh the air in the car. But doesn't seem like its doing the job anymore. Lousy. But at least it looks cute.

My atlas. YW decided I needed this after TomTom (Sat Nav) didn't do a very good job when one of the motorway it wanted us to take was closed and we just got hopelessly lost. Technologies. Not that dependable afterall. Boohoo...

'Food'ful Weekend

Heyo! Back to blog. Have been out of action last couple of weeks. Busy at work (getting out of lab only after 7 each day) and been going to parties and hanging out at friend's place on weekends. Am hardly home. Thats my excuse for not updating my blog.

Anyway just thought I should post some pics of my life here. First up. Pictures of food that me n YW tried cooking on Sat. Recipes came from this foodblog. Overall, the food pretty much taste what we have back in Sg (which is good, cos YW hasn't gone home in more than 2 yrs and missing Sg food), except that we probably had enough food to feed 10 pple. Seem more like we were having a party. But all that food was just for the 2 of us. Pictures dun reflect the full quantity of food. And also missing are pictures of manago pudding (got too full n tired towards the ending of the meal to bother taking pic) which didn't solidify fully but still tasted good. Also no pic of my bubble milk tea (pearl not sweet). Next time I try to remember.

I'll add pics of my walk to uni and some pic of my uni and city centre next time. And also more food. I really do try to have a life here :)

Meanwhile, enjoy the pics and Xuan knock yourself out with the pics and drool all you want.... Muhahah ....All in all I think it was quite a successful attempt. Would be trying more food then.

A table full of recipes and mess that we created.

Thats the mess in the kitchen that we also created.

Oyster omelette with really spicy homemade chilli.

Close-up view of the oyster omelette. Looks like the real thing?

Siew mai before it has been cooked. Ok looks really fat and big. But here. Its the UK here. Ang moh chinese food is always bigger in size.

Thats the siew mai after its cooked. We managed only to steam and finish 7.

Next up. Carrot cake. This is just the carrot cake before its fried.

Fried carrot cake. The black style.

Chinese red bean pancake.

The red bean paste we made just for the pancake. Therefore we had a BIG bowl of red bean soup and LOADS of red bean paste. I think we went overboard there.

Update after the 1st month in Nottingham

It has definitely been a busy, busy last week. Both at work and after. Well at work, my pc is finally here after one month. Also been busy learning new techniques as well as troubleshooting for some expt.
I’ve gone to YW hse to have dinner on Mon and to kinda celebrate Ian P birthday. Thursday after a super long day at work, we headed to Emilio’s place for dinner. Loads and loads of food there. And great food at that. And Friday, we took after a day off to go boating in the lake at uni. (Yes, big uni we have). It was what IC calls a lab fieldtrip. It’s not the whole lab outing but just a outing for pple who works for my boss. Well, boss suggested it. Boss also brought lots of snacks and alcohol for the outing. We boated (YW definitely did a good job there) then hung out on the grass for ice-cream and snacks. Headed to town for drinks and dinner (to celebrate Em’s birthday). Was really fun, it seemed more like a gathering after work than to celebrate Em’s birthday.
Had to go back to the lab for a couple of hours on Sat though. Everyone can’t believe it. Barely a month has gone by and I’m back on weekends. Well on the way home from uni, some random stranger tried to chat me up. Can you believe? Was in uni itself. He asked if I knew it was ok to park in uni on Sats. I told him I’m not sure cos I’m new here too. Then he started talking to me and said he was going to the same place as me. I think hes crazy, it’s a 25min walk away from where he parked and you can get free parking near where we were going too. Anyway, I was kinda afraid that he was going to try something and the good thing is the way to that place was on a main road with loads of pple walking on it. Lucky I was also not planning on going home straight, he will probably walk me home too, saying its on the way. Anyway, we go to our destination and he asked if I wanted to meet up again (is that a indirect was of asking for my no? Actually I still can’t remember my UK no, but I can still remember my Aus no). OMG! I told him well, we might see one another again. Gosh … Ok so that’s a little gossip from my end. Other than that, life goes on. Wakie, lab, work, eat, talk, work, home, eat, sleep. And the circle goes on.