Cute

Best lecturer award...

... goes to Ian Towle!! wins hands down. he's...

- cute
- has a sexy voice
- plus.. OMG!! he's so nice!! i'll remember him forever for what he did in the class test today.

gosh.. hope i didn't get anything major wrong. i managed to finish on time since i didn't have to refer to the prescriber for every prescription. but that just worries me even more. but i can't line up to smile at the prescriber just to take away my worries right? i have already realised that i forgot to put the reference number on my label!! argh!! it was a private prescription. what's more, it was my last, and i still had so much time. i was like scrutinising it for mistakes, but couldn't see any. so i went to dispense it. gosh.. hope there's no more mistakes... especially MAJOR ones!

$$$

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. =]