$$$

we received our cheque from JPA for our Visa refund today!! we were so excited that we straight away went to bank it in at RBS. then we came home to 'chill' a while after test. actually i came home to nurse my broken heart over FMT1 by watching the comedy ' 10 things i hate bout you'. quite entertaining i think. i like julia stiles more and more.

anyway, after the movie, i saw ka keat's email bout collecting the letters tomorrow, so i started fillling in the form... only to REALISE... that... THEY ACTUALLY NEED OUR CHEQUE NUMBER!! OMG! which we had already happily cashed in earlier. gosh!

we went through a frenzy of getting ka keat's extension, msn-ing with him bout the problem, until kak lin was almost involved... good thing yi hui suddenly realised that the accompanying letter actually has the cheque number and date too! the things we do to ourselves. freaks me out sometimes. haha..

depressed...

i really have to change my exams in scotland from being SCREWED to being super or successful or something. gah..

and who's fault is it? all mine. i didn't read enough, didn't allocate enough time, didn't memorise all the small important details, didn't memorise the formulas carefully enough, got all my facts muddled, didn't do the CALs, didn't read the past years properly... i think i left my brain and self-discipline back in malaysia.

i couldn't even remember what MRSA stands for!! OMG! i can't believe myself sometimes. well, i did think it sounded suspicious at first glance. that's why i should trust my first instincts. sigh..

it was bad enough that i didn't manage to finish studying enough for the FMT1 test, it was bad enough that so many questions were repeated from the past years and i didn't pay attention to them the previous night, it's even worst when all this is topped with my own CARELESSNESS. sigh again.

wake up lydia!! this is your last wake up call...

african choir ~

i had a rare chance to see for myself an african choir in action today. it's totally... wow... i mean, i knew africans can sing very well, but what i saw was not their fantastic vocals, but rather, their passion, their joy. they really sway without any inhibition. i love their music and the way they harmonise too. we really can learn a lot from all cultures.=]

how i've been passing time ~

Wooden roses - can be found in amsterdam, but i found this on sauchiehall street. cheap sale, 10 roses for 1 pound. it was by accident that i have it now, but no regrets ~ ^^

fiona's superb frying skills, my superb cutting skills, yi lyn's superb arranging skills...

Sensation chips!! half price now at Tesco (0.74p)! really creating a sensation. hope there won't be a commotion when i finally weigh myself sometime in the near future.;p

4 full layers of assorted butter cookies for 1 pound at poundland, some with chocolate chips, some topped with sugar... fragrant, buttery, fattening. oh dear...

salmon from fish place is cheap - 2 kilos for 2.20pounds. the problem is... there's just this many times you can bake it with teriyaki sauce. so... a brief search online revealed this simple and interesting recipe - lemon salmon! season salmon with salt, pepper, rosemary, butter, lemon and black pepper (some modification contributed by our creativity).

Other interesting stuff i'd like to try:

BimBimBangBang (recipe of V Co) - cook rice. boil vege and season with sesame oil. cook your chicken/fish your favourite style. fry a bulls eye with half-cooked yolk. put all these on your rice, together with the korean chilli sauce called... ermm... ko ju jang?? mix all together and eat!

Cola Chicken (recipe of Angeline) - pour in half a bottle of coke, put in chicken wings, boil until dry. voila! make sure it doesn't go up in smoke though.;p

Edinburgh trip ~

On 19th july, 6 of us decided to take a trip to edinburgh. it was a tough choice between edinburgh castle and loch lomond's highland games. but then, a quick search on the internet for loch lomond's highland games reminded me too much about our 'hari sukan'. rosslyn chapel came into mind and edinburgh won hands down.

we had to set out very early, since we had to go to both edinburgh castle and rosslyn chapel. the entrance fee to the castle is 12 pounds!! so of course we must at least wait till the canon goes boom at 1pm before leaving for rosslyn. in the end, we didn't get to see it go boom anyway. haha..

off we went at 7.20am. i had to wake up at 5.30am to bathe, then we were busy packing our sandwiches for our picnic lunch. traveling sure is tiring...

at Queen's street train station. kononnya... guards here are forbidden to take pictures for people, so we had to sacrifice one of our own. good thing kelvin went with us, coz we almost went to the central station instead. god knows where we'll end up then.

love this picture! the window makes me feel like i'm whizzing through a time tunnel. where time stands still.

four of us sat together, leaving ample opportunity for hormones to be transferred to poor animals. sorry... inside joke.;p

the old part of edinburgh has very nice buildings and plenty of statues. it's like, i can see one statue every few feet.

our very first group photo. outside the writer's building.

a simple lamp post. a good site for cam-whoring.

never say you can't.

what can i say? guys are just more creative i suppose.

another group photo in the prison

we spent most of our time cam-whoring in the prison - poisoning each other...

gambling...

cool in black - in a marine prison cell

stained glass...

the castle's small chapel

this is where someone awaited his death i think. but oh well... lets take another group photo.

some 'soldiers' teaching us how they fought the french. the guy on the left was very funny. but when we wanted to take photos with them, they suddenly looked so serious. didn't even smile. looked like the guard in mr. bean.

knights in shining armour?? vco looks so slim. ;p

last group photo before leaving edinburgh castle. gosh... how many group photos have we taken? this is the most i have taken in any trip, thanks to the guys' creativity.

there's actually a sword shop! outside the castle...

After the castle, we spent so much time!!! trying to find the bus stop for the lothian bus 15 to go to rosslyn chapel. we walked around town.... checking each bus stop. until finally!! finally!! we found the bus stop for bus 15. then after another long wait, the bus finally came, only to tell us that we were waiting on the wrong side of the road. gah!

finally... we reached rosslyn chapel. entrance fee was 6pounds for students. no photography was allowed in the chapel though. same as in most of the places in edinburgh castle. hmm... maybe that explains why most of our photos were all in the prison.

after visiting the chapel, we walked over to the rosslyn castle ruins. here, vco bade farewell to his camera case. we didn't even know it fell down to the moat, coz he was so selamba when it happened.

where there's a will... there's a way

we sat the double decker bus back to edinburgh town, where we walked around in search of food. at every road i crossed, i saw a statue on my left, and a pizza hut on my right. gosh... i thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. i supposed edinburgh just loves statues and pizza hut.

we ate at mussel inn ~

bread was free-flowing, iced water was free. 4 of us shared 2 half kilos of mussels: left - moroccan sauce, right - shallot sauce. nice wei! in the end, each of us just paid 2.75 pounds for a very nice and filling meal.

edinburgh castle from afar

we walked until the sun went down and lights switched on. the night scenery was beautiful. however, the people got more rowdy. it's quite scary actually, even though we had two guys with us. i don't ever want to be out when people start drinking.

so that's the end of our edinburgh trip. we came back exhausted with sore feet, but it was worth it. one day alone is so tiring, i can't imagine what 9 days in italy will do to me.

If only i had doraemon's door...

nasi lemak!!!

Due to excessive yearning for spicy Malaysian hot curry... we decided to cook ourselved nasi lemak after our horrible PP3 class test 1.

the test was so horrible!! when there were only 15 minutes left, i already knew that i wouldn't have enough time. heck, i just finished counselling my 3rd prescription. that last 15 minutes, all i could do was scribble incorrigibly to fill up the paper. labels? forget it. POM Register? maybe next time. all i could think of was to line up so that i could finish dispensing it. couldn't even fill in my POM Register in the line. Anne Boyter went around collecting our pens. sigh...

but i digress... so.. anyway, after the test (we already knew we would all fail, just curious to see how negative the marks can be. haha.. ) we walked to the fish place. gosh... i saw those poor rabbits hanging there. and the stench when we walked into the shop! ewww!! but the fish is cheap though. 2.20 pounds for 2 kilos of frozen salmon!! tesco is selling like 2 chunks for 2 pounds.

after that.. we walked all the way to chung ying to get our chinese raw materials. lots of nice things there, but it's not as big as see woo though. anyways, i have already overspent, seeing all the nice food there. sigh again. but the whole point is the nice food we get to eat! finally! haha..

preparation while waiting for the curry to cook

Curry chicken with potatoes!!

Finally.. can get to eat some spicy food. haha.. this is our nasi lemak. the curry was hot! yay! the drumstick tender, the rice so fragrant, and the ikan bilis was simply crispy! the cucumber was nice too! really the best meal i've ever eaten since coming to scotland.;p except for mark&spencer's cheese cake. Lol!

Cafe india with JPA

We had a meeting with the JPA official yesterday. i was quite surprised to find that the official was so open-minded, friendly, modern, and funny. i really like her a lot. =]

the royal infirmiry? taken while waiting for the others to arrive at the meeting hall. quite nice to experience 'malaysian time' again after being used to being punctual here. ;p you can see the streaks of dirt running down the glass.

after the briefing, we went to cafe india - recommended by jinn wern

starter was papadam with different types of sauces, an assorted plate with indian balls/popiah/yam triangles/chicken breast

the main course was naan with different types of curries: thai green curry, masalah meat balls, and mutton curry. gosh... the mutton curry was nice!

desert!

without realising it, we've been coursemates since 2003! that's like 5 years dy.

the meal was nice, but not that worth the money. i heard it's 20pounds per person just for that. no doubt it's buffet, but then again, there's just this much your stomach can fit. 20 pounds can be put into much better use. want really nice and cheap indian food? Look for it in malaysia. haha..

our apartment in glasgow

first and foremost... shower on the left, toilet on the right

clockwise from top: our kitchen, dining area shared with shu yin's house, our shared living room @ store room @ dryer

clockwise from top: bed, study table, sweeping your eyes from study table to the right

lack of hooks and clothing-lines for hanging laundry calls for inovation

scrumtious scotland!

fried rice, plus some left-over tikka masala from fiona and yi lyn, some raw lettuce, and very disgusting tortilloni. don't ever buy tortilloni from aldi. really sucks. i miss tesco's tortilloni so much!! yet i have two boxes of aldi ones to finish first. sigh.. to eat aldi's tortilloni, we actually had to fry it in black pepper before it was edible. gosh..

Marks and spencer new york cheese cake - nice! everyone should try! makes me so addicted. haha.. 2.99pounds. hope it faster got promotion again, so that we got excuse to buy somemore. ;p

mashed potatoes with black pepper sauce.

baked cod fish, vege, and butter rice with raisins!

with our 1 month of experience in adapting to the cooking world here in scotland, we have now developed identities unique to ourselves:

Fiona the marinater
Karen the fryer
Yi lyn the potato peeler
Me the deboner

now we sound like some machines. Lol!

when the night gets late...

i haven't been able to find any mood to study recently. maybe it's the nice weather. maybe it's the thrill of being in a new place - still in holiday mood. maybe i'm just tired. mornings, i'm like a slug. that's why gotta bathe before i can function. the water here is cold man. the heater sucks, in the sense that to get to the hot water, you have to turn the icy cold water full blast first. brrr... when the night goes along, i will slowly come to life. i guess it's accurate to say that i'm a night person. haha.. but then, even though i'm feeling dead tired, i can't bear to sleep. hmm.. strange person i am.

today is monday night. i stumbled onto this website accidentally, through mei wen's blog. here, i can find any song i want and make it into a playlist. hence, i can finally get my blog to sing again. i didn't realise how extensive the music base was until i typed in the song 'always' by whim. what came out was hillsong! wow. never expected that. good music.. puts me in the studying mood. haha.. looking out of the window.. i can see tiny lights twinkling at a distance. the view is beautiful. and aldi looks perpertually open.

i think i can finally read a book without feeling restless after 5 minutes. =]

mount stuart - isle of bute, scotland

on 28th June 2008 we joined jim wilson's trip for international students to Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute. all in it cost 20pounds, including train, ferry and bus fares to and fro, not forgetting the entrance fees to the grounds and the house. the trip there was quite hectic though, as we had to continually run to catch the next mode of transportation. once we reached there, it was fun though.

me and fiona on the train

me and jacinta

we had many laughs on the way, investigating the origins of goats from sheeps, marvelling at the nice houses and trees. i think the people around us must have thought we were nuts.;p

on the ferry's back part. the front part's wind was so strong it made me believe for the first time that the wind can actually blow you away. don't even need an umbrella, unlike mary poppins. it was so cold that when i opened my mouth to speak, it was like i was drinking ice cold water.. brr..

with leng and yin yin

my god-cousin ^^

finally, we reached the place. we still had to walk some distance from the visitor's lodge though. however, the scenery, as usual, was beautiful.

there were funny-shaped trees

not to mention the road to the enchanted forest

Finally!! the house!! there was no pictures allowed to be taken, so i just got these online. i think it's coz they wanted to make money selling the pictures as postcards.

the marble chapel - the whole area was built from white marble and god knows how many types of marble. on top, there was some kind of special glass that made red light stream in when the sun was out, flooding the front of the chapel. personally, i think that's a bit freaky. anyway, we didn't get to see it that day, since it was raining.

the marble hall - again, it's all made from marble. the pillars had flower carvings of wood. the place was used as a hospital during the world war - forgot which one. it's so beautiful that the patients opened their eyes and thought that they were already in heaven. on top of this centre area, there's stained glass and prisms which turn sunlight streaming in into rainbows. again, we didn't get to see it due to the rain. this is really a pity.

Dining room - it was really lovely. i liked it because they adorned the tables with white orkids. gosh, this is the first time i realized that i also like white orkids. haha..

drawing room - do you know that they actually hang shields on the ceiling? just look up. i wonder whether they actually fell on anyone's head before. and they have the most expensive painting, or most queer - made from egg, among other material.

one of the family's room - do you see the door on the left? it leads on to some garden. what really caught my eye is the glass panels on the right and left of the wall. they are made of stained glass, with cyrstal-like figures playing 4 musical instruments, e.g. harp. around that is blue and red light streaming through. pity i don't have a picture to show you.

after the tour of the house, we went around the gardens.

had our picnic in wee garden too! drank ginger beer (totally alcohol-free), just like in enid blyton stories. haha.. food was abundant and scrumptious. my latest favourite - egg sandwich! simply yet delicious. make sure you put thick thick layers of egg though! ;p

the sky was blue

the grounds wide

me leng and yin with the mansion behind us

jump jump jump! oops, didn't we just eat??

the adventurous group who dared to venture to the sea. not forgetting the camera girl. little did we know what was yet to come...

taking a rest before heading to the calvary lake. adeline tricked me into putting my legs up. ;p

we crawled through fallen trees, went under wet dripping bridges, through iron gates, forged our own paths through shrubs, leaped over giant puddles, pushed the thoughts of snakes or any other ferocious animals out of mind - we were actually thinking bout it, but dare not voice out for the sake of others. haha.. actually, there was no turning back! with calvary lake in mind, and a map which had previously been used to alas some guy's butt (we all know who. haha..), we forged on!!

okay, we were lost. but who cares?! the hills are alive...~~

k la, we still needed to hurry and find a way back. if not the bus will leave without us. so don't hiaw hiaw take pictures oredy!!

we did get to meet some new friends

and foes??

on the way back to the bus, i saw this dog sitting so obediently without it's master. reminds me of that story i once read about.. bout this hole in the ground with lots and lots of money, guarded by three big dogs which would sit on the carpet and let you extort them all. you must bring the correct carpet though. anyone know what's the name of the story? it's driving me nuts to recall it. so if you know do let me know.=]

whilst waiting for our ferry, we went to the rothesay castle. it's very small, but it still has a moat. i like this animal though. is it a goose or swan? not duck i think.

seriously, i can't remember where this was taken. haha.. central station? latest update by leng - it's on the ferry la.. haha.. forgetful me.;p


it was a very nice trip. i feel like i was in one of the enid blyton stories, of course this is not england. but still. my only regret was that i couldn't find a sheep to take picture with. nevermind.. our time will come. you can run but you can't hide. your fleece is too thick. =]