Blackpool Baby!

+picture courtesy of oggy+

And, last weekend some of my mates from London came up to Manchester for some sight seeing. Obviously the three of them couldnt all fit into my tiny, cosy room so we crashed at my sister's place. how convenient to have a sister here! :P

So we took the train to Blackpool today. Note to self: Do not go to a theme park in winter! We were really jumpy and all excited at first but by the end of the day (probably just even halfway through) we were shivering in our boots! haha, personally, my lips were so numb by the end of the day, I bet that if somebody tried snogging me, I wouldnt even have felt it ! Buttt, we still had fun eventhough most of the rides were closed and the town looked deserted!

+picture courtesy of oggy+

+picture courtesy of oggy+

+picture courtesy of oggy+

+picture courtesy of oggy+

+picture courtesy of oggy+

Will be back in summer! Definitely! :)

Oh, I nearly forgot Raya.

Being so far away from home, I have been totally oblivious of the happenings in Malaysia.
Take for instance, practically everyone I know who's in Uni are on their semester breaks , while I'm slugging over anatomy and dissecting gunk. People are happily celebrating EidulAdha festively while I'm chairing a case of xerostomia in PBL. Not to mention my bestfriend having a meltdown back home, while I'm hear screaming my lungs out on roller coasters in Blackpool!!

But.. all's well. Its my new life now. Like it or not, I'm gonna have to make peace with it arent I ?
Back to raya anyways, so yeah. I had an hour of class and I got home really quick to skype everyone back in Malaysia. Anddddd.. I just missed everyone even more! hahaha. They were telling me about all the delicious dishes they had, meanwhile I was stuffing my face with Kellog's cereal. boohoo!



Salam Aidiladha dari Manchester! :')

p/s: Angah rindu korang ok!

Busy, busy, busy.

Oh, my last post was just a little over a week ago wasn't it? Not that long but amazingly a lot has happened and every time, I keep saying to myself, "oh this is soooo going up on my blog." but unfortunately I haven't had time to just sit down and type. Well, it's a sunny Sunday afternoon (for now). The weather here is very unpredictable. It could look like the world was smiling one minute, but then it'll be absolutely pouring! andddd I've learnt my lesson and have got myself an umbrella. heh, now all I need are some Wellington boots to avoid getting trench feet! Another thing I'm gonna add to my to-buy list is some nice warm gloves. Winter is creeping in and it gets really cold, sometimes near to 5 degrees!

First story up! The much-awaited, top of the table clash between Manchester Uni and MMU Chesire! and what a game we had. I personally dint get much playing time cause it was such a tight game, the coach couldn't afford to rotate his players much and most of the time he played the first five. We were very pumped up and hyped before he game. The atmosphere was awesome. We were playing away and the home team had brought along as many supporters they could find. We, on the other hand only had the football lads on our side of the bleachers. MMU came out of the gates quick, took us by surprise and attacked on all four fronts. We were down by ten points for the first 2minutes!! but we were never out of it and I think that that was the largest lead they had. Even so, we were still staring at their backsides the whole game through.
So it was the last five minutes of the game. We were trailing by six. The coach called time out. Gives us a big ' who wants it more! ' pep-talk and woah... just like in the movies! We won 64-60! An epic battle I shall say!

Aha, enough of the ESPN commentary now, for something totally random! :)
So Friday night, I got back to my room after dinner, and there was a new comment on one of my posts. Take a look here before reading any further pls. Done? Wellllll, normally, I would probably just dismiss this as some crazy person buttt, I dunno what came over me this time.. I kinda wanted to know who this anonymous reader was. Sooooo... I went! ( DO NOT try this at home boys and girls :p ) Yeah, yeah I know it sounds totally insane but I was THAT curious.. not to mention bored! So I got to the bar, and briefly looked around for someone wearing a baseball cap. When I couldnt see anyone, I felt totally stupid for coming and I turned to leave. Just as I was about to exit the doors, I hear a *cough andddd...... ( Funnily enough, I thought I was going to be swept off my feet by a handsome prince charming ) it was PETER . PETER, my sister's Polish friend. hahaha what a disappointment (?) I've never actually spoken to him ever, and apparently he reads my blog once in a while. He bought me a drink and we played pool, which I have absolutely no talent for, mind you, and yeahhh.. that was it basically. I'm glad it wasnt a psychopath or some creepy stalker. Thank God. It was my first and will be my last. I promise.

And I spent the Saturday with Pauline, my French teammate. Went for a basketball game in the evening, and went wandering around town at night just to see the Christmas lights in Manchester !

I call her Popo ;)

See, I told you how eventful my week has been ! :)

Dentistry is my new boyfriend.

I cant believe I'm staying in on a Saturday night doing HOMEWORK ! haha, nerd-alert! No, yeah. I felt so left behind on course-work that I decided to stay in for a change. Managed a substantial amount , but I havent caught up on any reading yet. MUST GET TO DOING THAT ! heh.

Its been raining for the past 5 days or so here in Manchester. Yeah, sounds depressing aint it. I was having tea at Pauline's house the other day, (she's my french teammate btw) and we were going through some of her pictures holidaying in Paris. She shows me a picture of her lying on the grass, with her friend trying to make out the shapes of the clouds and she points out to me,

Pauline: see here, (gestures to lappy screen) blue sky. Paris. Here, (gestures outside) grey sky, Manchester.
Peja: Feeling you sista. I miss KL.

Thing is about the rain in Manchester is that it doesnt rain cats and dogs. It just drizzles, THE WHOLE FRICKIN' DAY! Note to self : Invest in an umbrella. I've been power-walking in the drizzle to and from class and one of these days, I might just get unlucky and fall sick! Not to mention my socks too. I have to change socks everytime I go out now cause it just soaks through. At this rate, I might have break a new world record for the most socks worn in a day!

Bedtime now! Ciao~

Remember, remember, the 5th of November.

Yesterday was Guy Fawkes night. Apparently, its a much celebrated occasion here in the UK. I cant fathom why basically. So the story goes, this person, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament while it was still in session with the presence of the King inside the building. And the whole celebration is to commemorate the King's escape from assassination by lighting bonfires and chucking 'symbolic figures' of Guy Fawkes into the fire. This is usually followed by a firework display. And due to the shitty-ness of the whole situation yesterday, I was only restricted to LISTENING to the firework displays. I had lectures and clinics the whole day 11-5, and still had shit loads of PBL work to do for Friday. Talk about crappy eh.

On the bright side however, Manchester Uni won the basketball match against LIVERPOOL! haha, thrashed them well good, we did! At least thats one thing I can brag about over the Scousers. Even without some of our key players, they had no chance against us! :D And so far, we've played every team (either home or away once) and we've won every single game. Next up, our biggest rivals, Manchester Metropolitan . Thats coming up in next week's game. Its gonna be big that is, cause they've won all of their games too and only the first team will make it to the playoffs. I'm hoping I'll be among the 10 picked for that game *fingers crossed*!

Oh , I've acheived another milestone this week. Officially bought something off ebay. Andddd, it arrived it the post yesterday! Look, look, lookie what I got for just 8 pounds! In bloody good condition too! :D

However, since the polaroids have been discontinued, I'm predicting I'm gonna have some trouble getting hold of polaroid film. They cost way way wayyyy more expensive than the actual camera now! :( hmmmm .

The post-Notts effect.

Back from Notts! :)

This weekend, I finally went out of Manchester since raya, to attend the Nott Games. Was looking forward to it all week. Not cause I was participating in anything but just to meet people, and cuci mata ;) I dint expect there to be THAT many Malaysians in the UK. It was great fun, dint get time to see much of the city though as we spent the whole day in the Nottingham campus and it was already dark around half past 5. I think the thing I enjoyed most about the trip was the FOOD ! haha. There was a food festival, and of course I just went cock-eyed looking at all the stalls selling mouth watering Malaysian food! I know its only been a month, but YOU try having chicken donner kebab and fish and chips every other day, and then tell me how it feels!

Believe it or not, I've only JUST synchronized the time on all my watches to British time. All this while, I've been telling the time, by subtracting 8 hours from the Malaysian time. I've just felt that it was the only thing that connects me to back home. But... I've finally taken a step forward, and moved on! uuyehh! :) *Malaysia's always gonna have a place in my heart*

Sooooo, I've got a lot of work to catch up on and I'm gonna sign off for now,
Lotsa love,

Even if the sky is falling down.

Aha! After publishing the last post, I got some rather concerned texts, instant messages, and also comments asking whether I was ok. I was utterly touched. I then contemplated on deleting the post. It seemed a lot of ppl were reading it and I was, to be honest, a little bit embarrassed. But, I thought, I'm gonna want to look back on this someday and tell a story of how I got over it. And to everyone who has showed concern and support, THANK YOU . It meant the world to still know there were people out there who cared. I now know the power of just simple words like, 'Hang in there', 'be strong', and 'Take care'. :')
I am okay now. or I will be !

Soooo.. *change of topic*

Yeah, I'm sure everyone's heard by now. Man United lost to the Scousers (Liverpool). And no, the latter were NOT the better team that day. They just had luck on their side. And thats football for ya.We'll just see who'll be having the last laugh on the last day of the season yeah? :) I watched the match in The Grovel, which was the house pub for Whitworth park, where I stay. Fyi, here in the UK, if you want to have a tv, you've got to get a licence, which costs around £142.50. Absurd right? Anyways, I wore my newly-bought away kit to the match, and as me and my friends left The Grovel, some random guy on the street shouts,

"Oi! You lot might as well burn 'em jerseys there! better off!"
what we do,
*zips up jackets*
:S

One day you wake up, and you've lost everything.

Sorry for the rather unplanned hiatus. I've been a lil bit depressed. Yeah. I had my first breakdown.

After the first home game, that I was surprisingly an unexpectedly picked for, it just cracked. I dont know why. I just felt really bad after the game cause I felt completely and utterly useless! I dint know where the ball was gonna be, I was running around on offense like a chicken with my head cut off, was screamed at by the coach for walking *served me right*, and my teammate told me to f**k off ! yeah. You heard the last part alright. Some of the girls came over to me after the game, gave me a pat on the back and a well done. Told me not to take to take it personally cause it was just in the heat of the moment. Nad, who came all the way from Leeds to support ME, not Leeds, ironically we were up against Leeds for the match, gave me her usual uplifting pep talk and stuff.

But you know the feeling of when you're really feeling like shit, and NOTHING anyone says can make you feel better about yourself. You'll just be finding points to contradict whatever the other person is saying and in the end, you'll just feel worse.

Then came the waterworks. I held it in for as long as I could. I waited till Nad was safely on the bus back to Leeds. Got home, and it came. I just realized how lonely I am here. I have friends, but not the types you can talk to like proper. They're the ones you just ask how their weekend was and whether they were going out to get drunk that night or something . I tell you, I reread the same script over and over again everyday for the past month. Talk about smalltalk. haihh. Then, there's my flatmate, and I know what you'll all prob be thinking, ' ala biasa la tu, orang putih, kan lain dari kita ' butttttt, believe it or not, its not the locals giving me shit. Its the MALAYSIAN. She just DOES NOT want to be friends with me. Its like we got off on the wrong foot straight from the beginning. And I have TRIED making amends and yet she just refuses to befriend me . SCREW YOUUUUUUUUU!! T.T

I miss Malaysian food, I miss mamaks and I miss hanging out at mamaks. I'm starting to feel distant from my friends back home due to the time difference probably. Whenever I'm online, all of them would prob be in bed by then and whenever they're up, I would prob have class or training or some other shit I have to be doing. AHHH.

Dah laaa. Its so depressing even talking about it. I've had a lot of good things going on for me in the past and present. Hey, so I can call myself a lucky girl . But you're always gonna have your low points in life right . So I'm just gonna count my blessings !

Dear Allah, please give me strength to proceed for it is only you I seek it from. Amin.

Never say you cant.

I JUST MADE THE UNI BASKETBALL TEAMMMMM!!!!

hahah sorry I just got overexcited then. haha. and yeah. I made it onto the team. Even without guaranteed playing time, I'm just really proud of myself for doing it. I got a shoulder to my face which I thought had knocked all my front teeth out, I was playing through muscle cramps towards the end of training, I dint bring my water bottle along with me, and all of it was worth it !

On another note however, I'm reallllyyyy bummed cause opnline tickets to the BSB concert at the Manchester Arena is currently sold out. and believe it or not, the concert is only in November!! :(
I'll try calling tomorrow to see whether they still have any on sale. *fingers crossed*. If not, the Jonas Brothers are alright arent they? HAHAHA tix for their concerts are still available :P

A quickie.

Since I have PBL tomoro at 9, I'll just post up a quickie of my room ok :)

Thats the view from my window. Note that its very rare that we see a sky as clear as this. Its usually very grey. hehe.

My newly decorated room :D *beams*

Look how tidy my closet is :D *beams again*

Gotta get going now. I'll talk to ya soon yeah?

Finally, a breather.

A week ++ into my stay in Manchester, and I finally get time to myself to write this post peacefully, without having to skip breakfast to get to induction lectures, and without having me write a post halfway before looking at the clock and deciding '' ooh I'll just finish this later. I havent got time! '' Freshers week was so intense for the dentistry students, I was glad it was over! Not only were there parties every single frickin' night, but we also had to get up early for lectures at 9! But, the seniors did say that it would be the hardest week all year. *yeays*.

I bet all of you are waiting for a summary of how my week went yeah?
I was busy sorting out my registration and stuff, attending introductory lectures, and getting basic living needs. My room is a little small, but its cosy enough. It comes with a nice view overlooking some greenery. I would have liked to post a picture up, but the deco isnt finished yet. I've still got some stuff to get, so I wont put it up till then yeah? just be patient with me :)

Onto food, I havent got round to doing any yet. I've just been crashing at my sister's pad for dinner EVERYDAY. hehe. During freshers week, I never spent any money for lunch. Thats because they were giving out free Dominoes pizza to EVERYONE! and did I mention it was totally FREE?! hahahaha. I was tempted to ask for a large pepperoni slice, but, I refrained and opted for the original tomato and cheese instead! dont worry. I havent forgotten ;) Generally, getting halal food is as easy as ABC here. They have the Curry Mile which is a stretch of pakistani and mediterranean food. No malay restaurants sadly to say . pobre. I MISS MALAYSIAN FOOD!!!

As for the people here, well... the majority of the general public are very polite. A notable difference when compared to Msia and, no slur on Msians whatsoever, but we could take a leaf or two out of their book. I saw a poster up in a bus saying something like, " good manners, it doesnt kill you '', when you come up to a counter to be served, " Hiya! how are you today " , and the most impressive thing I've seen was in London, when we were going down some some steps to get to the tube, there was a wee ol' lady in front of me struggling with a trolley bag probably larger than herself, and next to her, a local couple who were holding hands, in heavy conversation. So this guy, muscular in built, ;) just looks over his shoulder and asks the ol' lady, " are you alright with that? ". That just got me like WOAH! Couldnt get that in Msia could ya?! On the other hand, they arent as friendly as I would have thought either. Take for instance in my class of about 75, 3/4 of them are locals, and I tell you, its not as easy making friends with them! Unless you go clubbing, drink and get really drunk with them, they dont warm up to you as much. And seeing as I do neither, it has been a wee bit difficult for me to get friends here. THATS WHY I MISS YOU LOT BACK IN MSIA!!!

Aha, OLD TRAFFORD! :)
Guess what, I havent been yet! heee. I'm sorry to disappoint you fiqss, hehe but I just couldnt find time to go yet! But, thinking about it, I've got five years to do that ! hehehe. Since I'm living in the city, the majority of fotty fans around here are City supporters. Noisy lot they are! haha, but insult them and you'll get a beating of a lifetime. It'll be like insulting their religion or something ! fo real !

As for my first raya away from family, it was alright I suppose. We took a bus to London and lost our way, getting to the high commision's house. So practically, we spent nearly the whole day, either on the tube on in the bus. Talk about a crappy raya eh? There were lots of open houses in Manchester too. And everytime we got to one, we were the most jakun ppl you could ever imagine. Plates full with satay, nasi impit, rendang, and there was even nasi lemak!macam tak pernah makan sepuluh tahun!

So I think that just about rounds off my week. I'm gonna sit with a pack of doritos and watch gossip girl season threeee! :)

I hope its still not too late to wish anyone
SELAMAT HARI RAYAAAA! Maaf Zahir dan Batin :)


Loves,
From Whitworth Park,
Manchester
xx