What constitutes a great day...

would be celebrating your birthday overseas and enjoying an additional 16 hours from the normal 24 hours celebration that we normally have!

Despite the great distance (Singapore and UK really very far ok!), i feel the love from home and even over here with new found friends. Thanks to the advent of facebook and friendster, neighbours over here kinda figured out when my birthday is.

A few great things happened. To begin, love from home is oh so crucial and i am touched with what mum and dad did - msned me this:

Hi sleeping beauty!

We have transgerred [sic] $300 to your POSB account as our birthday present for you. Use the money wisely and have a nice birthday in UK. Love: Mum & Dad

Whether it is the money or the message, i'm not too sure but together, they have this certain impact on me. I am missing home more already. I love them so.

Amirul: Thank you so much for the lovely GMT+8 and GMT birthday song. You know i was kinda grouchy about things initially but something else in the mail made me smile after that.
50 White Tulips for this birthday girl :) That's so love. Like you, i can't wait for you to arrive in Lboro. And yes, i had a nice ending to my birthday. I probably say this too often but really, i do appreciate your effort. Never doubt my sincerity, okay? There wasn't any salmon by tea light and cake cutting ceremony this year. No surprise party either where you were sweating buckets trying hard to lie to a top notch lie detector (read: Aida). But those actions were shown in some other vivid ways last night and that is so... KA-CHOW! You get what i mean. *grin*

Jannah banana: Sometimes i wonder if you're cuckoo or cuckoo but i figured out you are cuckoo a long time back. I tried imagining you shopping for my birthday gift with that neck brace and i just couldn't go on without feeling terribly touched. Thank you, for all you've done for me so far. I know i sound formal but not everyone can handle my tantrums. You are one of a kind, woman. I'll be waiting patiently for the arrival of the surprise... along with the list of names of the people
who contributed to Aida's Birthday Fund. They'll be in my post pretty soon! *hug*

Josephine aka cackling cow: Honey, you mesmerized me with your sweet nick. I really treasure this friendship and you know i am grateful for the kind soothing words of wisdom you always have in store for me.

In case it is too small to be read, it says "HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY AIDA".
There is something you must know... I am proud to be 23 this year :)

Ivy Lam Chio Bu: Sometimes i wonder what lurks in your brain but you do bring great joy to people around you. There is not a single minute that i stop smiling or laughing in your company. Your posting cheered me up so much... you have absolutely no idea. Please, for the sake of the entire universe, stop reminding me of the night at the SILK. That was your man you're talking about. haha.

Raz terbabaz: I apologize beforehand for not being able to meet up with you in February. Good luck with job hunting and although the gift is not in my hands, i shall dream about putting on that Dior lipgloss to further accentuate this thin lips of mine into a pouty one. I might end up looking like Angelina Jolie and i promise i'll remember you when that happens. :D

Gerald Tan Ah Teck: WAH! Electronic card from you! This is the first. I was pretty much appalled by the card you picked. Your taste is slowly improving eh. I hope that in a few years time, it won't be a problem trusting you to buy me clothes from Australia. Good luck with your dream of turning Kristin Kreuk into Mrs Kristin Tan. You can do it Gerald! :)

Adrian & John: WHEEEEEEEE... I like how you put in the effort to wish me on UK time. I can be demanding sometimes but that is only because i know you guys can produce what is expected. I suggest you stop practising your Malay and leave it to the experts (Min, Ajoy & Company). Thank you for the talk, wishes and bullying. Those little things bring some warmth when it starts getting really dry and cold over here. One word of advice: Relac one corner & Minah Aida are not acceptable in the Malay language vocabulary. Those are taboos. Plus, don't attempt to teach others what chicken pox is in Malay - It is neither 'ayam pox' nor 'pox ayam'. So stop being an ayam yourself :) Totally WICKED.

Captain Yihui: I was so shocked when i got the mail. I was like "what do you mean NUS Floorball Team welcomes you"? Am i no longer in the team? (Sad face). I love, love, love your mail to me. So colourful i feel like eating those alphabets! Thank you so much for remembering. No Shisha and Arab Street celebration this year for Aida & Fiona. Don't worry. We will be back REAL soon.

Other people who messaged me like Hafiz, Myhanh, Jonk, Ajoy, Putra, Noh, Tiffy Ow, Lin Binbin, Ginny Chan, Nanat, cousin Ali, Clarence, Min Yang and Joan: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Whatmore can i say? It is absolutely nice to be remembered!

To my new found friends & fellow exchangees, words cannot express my gratitude for making the UK bit an exciting one. I adore the necklace, paper bag and most definitely, the valuable time we spent at Rupika Indian Restaurant. Thank you once again Melody, YingZhi, Yushan, Yuen Mei and Huiran. That was so much fun... I'll let the pictures do the talking now. *smiles*

The menu for the night.




I love receiving... & giving sometimes :)





Uploading pictures is really hard work.

Before i sign off on this Post-Aida day, here are some memorable quotes that came out from our girl talk last night:-

On Pyjamas party:
"We should do girl stuff... like look at magazines"

On girls-paint-nails session:
"I don't have nails. How to paint?"

On Huiran being single:
"then we all no hope already"

On morning classes:
"He is worth waking up at nine for"

On social escorts:
"but i want the extra services!"

I love the last one. I see Yushan differently now. Don't worry... Sifu will help you develop your talents and skills. :)

Till then, a final THANK YOU to everyone once again. I am very happy.

Much Aida love,
Princess of 13th March 1984.

Real exciting but sad incident in Lboro

Union Incident Response In the early hours of this morning (Sunday 11th March), at approximately 02:45, a serious incident took place following a music event which was headlined by 'Pretty Ricky' at the Students' Union. This entertainments act was externally promoted by 'Touch n Tease', who have successfully provided live entertainment for Loughborough and other university students' unions. A 21 year old student at the university, who was employed as a member of venue staff at the event, received gunshot wounds following a shooting incident and has been taken to hospital, where his condition is not believed to be life threatening. We have been in contact with the victim's family, who are with him at the hospital and who are at the centre of our thoughts and concerns. The police are in the early stages of the investigation and are trying to ascertain events leading up to the shooting. It is believed that a CS gas canister was discharged sometime during the event. Officers have spoken to a number of witnesses. However, the event was open to the public and it is believed a number of people left the campus before being spoken to by police. A 22-year-old Nottinghamshire man, who is not a student at the university, has been arrested in connection with the incident. He is currently being questioned by police. Detective Chief Inspector Phil Taylor, the officer leading the investigation, said: "It is important that we ascertain the circumstances leading up to the incident. If you were at the music event and witnessed the shooting incident or the gas canister discharge, or you have any information about who is involved, then I'd urge you to get in contact with us." Anyone with any information should contact Leicestershire Constabulary on Leicester (0116) 222 2222 or CrimeStoppers which is free and anonymous, on 0800 555 111. The Union building has been designated as an area for investigation, and until the police have performed a thorough forensic review of the crime scene, this building and the surrounding area will remain closed. This is obviously very disturbing and upsetting for everyone involved, and one which, thankfully, has never happened here before. We are proud and grateful for the outstanding way in which our staff and students managed this incident. We thank you for your concern and patience regarding this difficult situation. We hope to get the Union back to normal as soon as possible.

____________________________________________

So... there were shootings. How exciting. I thought these things happen only in the US.
But nooo.. it happened somewhere five minutes away by foot.
Okay mum. I'll stay away... sheesh.

Bye Saara & Helloooo John!

It was an eventful week last week with so many Byes & Hellos.

First up, Saara (my roomie) went back home and suddenly, it feels lonely. I've always enjoyed having a room of my own but this time, i miss her bubbly nature, the rustling of papers, her "oooh yeah" and the morning wake up call she'll often give.

Saara knows i hate chocolates but she tried her luck and got me addicted to this.

Ooh... i love the taste of berries in my mouth.

Yushan, Mei, Melody and i went to town on one of those days and snapped many photos. With Melody around, one will never be short of photos :)

That night, Saara invited us to her farewell gathering over at the Orange Tree pub in town. That was her last night and i had an enjoyable night watching her pack with the occasional complains and groanings. Everything went well though and i even tried the best fish & chips in town! (Without the fish actually)

I loveeee how the packaging looks like.

John decided to drop by for the weekend. Luckily for him, i'm pretty good with short notices ;)
I was so excited the whole day just waiting for his arrival and plotting some "surprise" birthday cake which did not turn out well in the end. We ordered pizza when John and Nika arrived. John was supposed to visit two weeks back but that poor guy had "ayam pox" (Chai, 2007). I'm glad i drove John to the edge for his visit. He dares talking about age... Ha. Who is older? :)

We went to the union for the ISA party. I loved how it wasn't as crowded as always. It also made me braver to go up to the stage to take photo. Normally, you're only up there if you want to 1) Make a fool of yourself, 2) Dance real sexily, 3) attract attention or 4) with a pole, a pole dance is possible. Some will pick all of the above. That is fatal... and wicked! *grin*

Macdonalds' Happy Meal is 1.99 pounds here. The box is enough to make me happy. It showed a picture of Winx Club. Tee hee..

I followed Nika and John to Nottingham the next day. Didn't manage to do much shopping though. BUT BUT BUT... we ate at my favourite buffet restaurant in UK: The Red Hot. The two sweet visitors treated me to lunch. I hope there'll be more in Bristol. haha.

We took a few irritating pictures at the Train Station in Lboro. For your viewing pleasure, please see below:


On the way back by bus, i saw the other side of Lboro (and England for that matter). Pristine greeneries with horses, pony, farms and even landfill are found at the outskirts of Lboro. I think it is real pretty and i hope to ride a horse soon.

It really is beautiful here. I took a picture of the tree and sky. The colours of the sky looked so pretty and carefully blended that it almost looked like the Northern lights. The camera did not capture it nice enough. It looked nicer today! Darker hues with clear distinction of the different colours. :)


Now, we come to the most disturbing part. Someone PLEASE tell me what this is used for?
Don't tell me it is used for sponge pudding. I can read. Question is... how do you use it? Bake?
(That is a serious innocent question). I'm just intrigued.

God is really great!

If there is one thing i'll remember from my trip to Edinburgh, it'll be this.
I sat on the grass and looked silently to the rainbow... awed.

A loving note from the warden...

And i don't believe this.
_________________________________________________________________

Dear Butler students,

A big thanks to most of you for cooperating with us during this morning's
fire drill.

Congratulations to C and D blocks -- with the exception of one student,
everyone got out in time.

A/B blocks did very well as well -- though there were a few more stragglers.

E/F blocks did the worst, with 11 students who did not manage to get out of
the blocks in time, and a number of students who had to be roused.

All students who did not make it out within three minutes will be informed
of the fine they will be charged -- it will be in the area of £10 per every
30 seconds they were late, with an additional £30 charged to those we had to
ask to leave.

In addition, the blocks that failed will have to repeat the drill. Any
repeat offenders will have their fines doubled.
___________________________________________________________________

I am in Block F. Great.
Yesterday's drill was at 5.40 a.m. in the morning. I heard there was one on Saturday (the day i went Edinburgh) but it wasn't a drill. Some stupid person who was drunk activated it.

I ran out at 5.40 a.m. that morning freezing wearing very thin tights. Repeat the drill eh? I won't hesitate to kill those who don't evacuate fast for the next one. I'm starting to wonder now why the warden said 'Good Job' to us when we ran back to our rooms that morning. Really misleading.

So if there'll be another drill, it'll probably be soon. I sure hope it'll be this week because i'll be roomie-less next week and i might not get up if not for Saara's sense of urgency. I don't want to pay 10 pounds for being 30 sec late. That'll be JUST GREAT.

I love flowers...

I do, i do, i do love flowers sooooooo much.
The purple flowers look like tulips.
I love and adore Tulips... I really do =)

Land of fast moving clouds :)

Edinburgh, Scotland it is.

The place is simply amazing. I am known for my lack of adjectives in describing places at times but when i say it is AMAZING, it means nothing else but amazing.

Sadly though, i didn't manage to go up to the Loch Ness lake and the Rosslyn Chapel where they filmed Da Vinci Code (a place that is supposedly holding on to the Holy Grail). It is alright though. I'll try to go over there with Fiona during the Easter break. Hopefully, it is less cold because the weather there was too cold for comfort.

We reached West End Hostel near the city at 2 a.m. (GMT). I managed to catch three hours of sleep although i did wake up at every hour because it was cold and i wasn't comfortable sleeping on the bunk bed. It creaked a lot and i find myself restricting my tossing and turning in the middle of the night. Like as if the bus ride wasn't enough to cause this aching body. Anyway, enough complaints. The room and toilet was rather clean (although the toilet was a mixed one and we had to shower fast because there aren't many shower places). There were sixteen of us in each room.



I woke up in the morning all geared up to walk all over town. We had breakfast and left the hostel at 9 a.m. First stop was the Edinburgh Castle. Rich in historical elements, we managed to tour around the whole castle. Although pretty from the outside, i was quite disappointed that the interior has been pretty much modified and heavily sanitized for tourists. Very commodified too. I was looking forward to seeing big bedrooms with the beds and other furnitures intact. What we saw was more of exhibitions as shown in the pictures below. The interior was heavily commodified and i would say that most of the exhibits were staged to suit its purpose for tourists viewing. I wasn't satisfied at the end of the visit. The entrance price was 11 pounds (yes mum, i paid S$33+ to enter castle).

"I'm going up there!" Aida said.


However, the view from the castle was exhilarating. Wind blew too strongly that i couldn't hold on to my camera that tightly. I saw a sword as long as me vertically (not horizontally ok!). Scotland is a very historical place and some of the things i learnt would be that there were many clans in the past. Over one hundred of them with names like McIntyre, Scott, McClean, etc. Scotland initially were not in good terms with England until later on. They then joined forces and people were recruited to join the army. Many people were hesitant to join the army for obvious reasons. Perhaps, there were more battles to fight in the past as compared to now. That made the Scottish army developed a system of recruiting people albeit a lil illegally. Whoever picked up the king's coins held on by the senior army officers, will automatically be in the army. This was done to replenish the number of men in preparation for any attacks. In the 1900s though, propaganda penetrated the media. I don't think they have modern media like television then. Even if they do, it probably wasn't as rampant as it is today. They put up a lot of posters 'glamourizing' the work in the military. Although there were very cute posters (in coloured drawing form), it only served to remind me that we (Singapore) was once part of Britain... a colony to be precise.


They actually republished these posters into postcards form. How not to buy? It is so nice. I got a few others where the government highlighted the crucial roles of women then. Feminists around the world will surely have a lot to say. I particularly like the one with a picture of a woman posing on the postcard with the postcard reading "Keep mum. She's not so dumb! -Careless talk costs lives". Another one would be "For a healthy, happy job, Join the Women's Land Army". Guess what the Women's Land Army was all about? Farming. So Total Defence Day.

I saw a 1742 map of the world in the castle itself. It is a lil different from the modern one... perhaps the labelling and all. But that imperial invention obviously permeated to the rest of the world and is not much different from what we have today.

Another interesting thing i saw in the castle would be the Dog's cemetery. So cute.
The small garden has been used since Queen Victoria's reign (1837 -1901) as a burial place for regimental mascots and officers' dogs. Wicked. :)

We left the castle at about 1.30 p.m. and walked in town to get our lunch before heading to the palace. We didn't enter the palace though because it was already 3 plus when we got there and the entry fee was another 9 pounds. We then decided to climb Arthur's Seed to get a good view of sunset. On the way up, we saw a real nice rainbow that plunges into the distant Scotland waters. It is not reflected in my pictures though. It really is hard to capture rainbows on cameras. No idea why. Must read up on that.

We didn't climb up to the peak but we amused ourselves silly with pictures that are not the least intelligent and are epitome of bimbotic-ness. I was wondering what that landform would be and decided that it must be basalt. Yingzhi made another guess - Clay. I am still thinking about it up to date. If you look at the Edinburgh castle, the steepness of that cliff where the castle is on illustrated a real strong type of rock and it is no different from the one at Arthur's Seed. Based on that observation, i conclude that the whole area is made from the same formation. Take a look:


See how the nature and humans interact? We use the sun to create shadowy effects to our own advantage! Oh..and see how steep the rocks are? Use Aida as scale. We're so tiny in this huge world.

That would be it i guess. I love Edinburgh. Oh.. some stuff to amuse friends in Singapore :)
I found you Amirul... all chopped up.



And the cheesy "Stairs to my heart" picture...


There there... don't die of laughter. Haha.

Oh by the way, i received my parcel on Friday. Pretty fast i must add... considering how Amirul sent it on Tuesday. I love technology. Thanks Mama & Papa... now i can live comfortably for the next one week. And lose weight too because THE running shoes are here! yippy.

Have a good March everyone! *grin*