How to carve a Hallowe'en pumpkin - Step 1: Choose a nice, round, preferably orange, pumpkin... like this one!

Step 2: Draw a hideous design... or dotted lines for the lobotomy operation

Step 3: Carefully carve out its eyes, nose, mouth, pimples, warts etc.

And voila: You have your very own cute jack-o-lantern. This one was christened Cartman!

Yesterday was one of those, 'lets go out and walk about London' Saturdays. The weather was so tempting. Blue skies, sunshine, warm weather (and by warm I mean 15 degrees). You'd be damned to stay indoors (especially after 1 week of drizzly, gloomy weather).

So, thanks to the blasted suspensions on the circle & district line, we walked from St. Pauls (which is dissapointingly being renovated, and on top of that there is an entrance fee of 6 pounds... to see a church? Why??) to Tate Modern, across the Thames. Tate is pretty depressing, situated inside a dismally lit old power station. But the art is fantastic... not my favourite (except for the surrealists and andy warhol) but very impressive.

After about 2 hours of trying to make sense of all that modern art, we headed to Covent Garden, hoping to eat at Wagamama (2 for 1!!) but ended up munching on jacket potatoes and wandering around my favourite magical square in London, before taking the bus to High Stree Kent to meet the rest at the Wagamama there (2 for 1!!).

Upon reaching home, we realised Marvin had brought a visitor - Kristina!!! My ex-room mate! Thus Kristina joined us for the highlight of the evening - Pumpkin Carving! The household upstairs got 4 pumpkins, while we got 2... one of which has been christened Cartman! After carving all the pumpkins, we lit them up with candles, turned off the lights... and soon they looked like some tourist attraction, with cameras clicking everywhere and even tripods appeared! We then decided to arrange them on the staircase, for better effect, and finally at the witching hour we took them outside for a group photo (tripods and all).

Happy Hallowe'en!!!

The latest batch of Gamuda Scholars with 3 of us old foggies... this was taken some time ago in August... I'm so behind in my photos

And Charlotte returns...

... after a month's hiatus, 3 weeks of school, 2 weeks of classes, uncountless hours of MSoc and even more uncountable hours of NO SLEEP!

Thank heavens for tomorrow's Commemoration Day holiday (who knows who or what exactly they are commemorating as long as they order us to take a break from 9am labs!).

Oh well, here's a brief update of what I've been messing around with.

(Oh alright... I kid you... I can't remember a time when I've EVER been brief!)

Chronologically...
Arrived in hot, Hot, HOT London (after effects of sweltering summer...)
Moved in to my lovely flat (christened Emperor's Gate for obvious reasons!)
Spent at least 2 days unpacking, moving about boxes, searching for missing stuff (fluffy bedroom slippers and 'pink' scarves) and cleaning house (besides house training Yi Shan)...
My laptop got stolen from my own room within 2 days of moving in. Appreciated the police coming down to my flat and dusting for fingerprints, all CSI-like, but would still appreciate the damn thief returning my laptop and ALL my CDs (sobs... my patiently accumulated Tori Amos Collection, my Jewel albums, and all my new Third Day and City on a Hill CDs... bah!)
Welcomed a MSoc Comm meeting in my house, with the promise of Krispy Kremes from Chien Liq... of which I didn't get to eat a single one... sigh...
Ran around in the cold English rain (it's like a christening... a sign that you are once again reborn into the dreary English weather) and subsequently started the infection of the Fresher's Flu!
Set up a rather gawdy booth for Fresher's fair (which attracted more than its fair share of attention... but for the right reasons!) with only half of my wits with my due to the Flu, not to mention bodily fluid which had a mind of their own, and a voice that disappeared after a bout of being overly hyper...
Started lectures in a better frame of mind (had passed on the Flu to others by then...). Love my lecturers this term (save for the balding guy teaching us Digital... who IS he? I think I lost track of his name, and what ever he was teaching, in that first lecture when I fell asleep 15 minutes into it... and YES, it was the first lecture of the term... boy do I have a wonderful track record). My Statistics lecturer has some ISSUES! Of which she proceeds to rant about in class, but it does make probability and Exponential Distributions so much more interesting when she is telling us her problems with calling customer service for her cable plan (of which she is trying to obtain their quality testing stastistics)... and you KNOW you've got a real interesting quirk teaching you Stats when she proffesses to adore Laplace! My math lecturer (Jean-Luc) on the other hand is a Canadian Hobbit! It's quite an achievement for him to reach the top of the blackboard in room 407a! And we no longer QED our proofs... instead we BYU them, which translates to Bob's Your Uncle... go figure! We've got George again for Discrete Math (and I DO NOT gush about George! I really DO NOT!) and yeah, that wasn't a slight of the eye. I have 3 Math modules this term! Really sounds like I'm in the wrong course!
Followed up Fresher's fair with Freshers Meet, and was dragged around South Kensington by 7 or 8 freshers in search of Krispy Kreme napkins, low price Sainsbury's spaghetti and a photo of the dinosaur at the Natural History Museum. We need to rethink these scavenger hunts and the effects on aging seniors next time!
Next up - Pasar Malam! 3 days standing in the bitter cold and pouring rain (drama mama...) selling sarongs, batik, henna tattoos (i'm a certified henna tattoo artist now!), beaded bracelets, teh tarik and satay... but it was fantastic fun! Worth every back breaking minute of it! I can now gurantee that a sarong shawl is all you need to stay warm in 11 degrees weather... that and an infinite amount of adrenaline!
On the side, I'm taking Literature again... and I have the most artsy and faery-like Lit lecturer. She seems almost ethreal at times, and sticks out like a green alien in Imperial (we can be such snobby scientists...). Well it's Hardy, Conrad and Wilde for the next few weeks... whoopee! I'm being forced to READ!
I am also now in the habit of taking German classes on Thursday evenings. Guten ja? Amar you'd be so at home in my German class!


I think I've had enough of typing. I'm going to go look for the boys, who are glued to their computers somewhere around the house.

It's back to the cold, the fog and the damp...

At precisely 0900 hours I will be departing from KLIA, hopefully with all my luggage AND excess luggage.

Just needed to tell you that.

Friendster is getting weirder and weirder...

These are the 10 latest popular searches on my network... why???
one night stand (This is you, Sachpal, isn't it?)
zodiac love match (Look, it doesn't matter if you love a gemini or an aquarius, there's only ONE species of men...)
teeth whitening (make your teeth look whiter - get a tan)
hip hop dance moves (oh, so they write them down and publish them online these days, huh?)
louis vuitton bags (I've a few liz claiborne ones I wouldn't mind trading in)
kissing techniques (WHO in my network has been searching this? Almost as bad as Sachpal! btw, it's all about tongue...)
new hair styles (Maybe I should take a look at this too)
depression help (And counselling goes virtual too!)
college term papers (cheating isn't going to be THAT easy)
discount laptops (might as well buy a cheap lap warmer)

I'm such a cynic today. This is not good!

Things I want to bring back to London...

1. My piano
2. My baby classical guitar (there's this song that's writing itself in my head... and I'll have to put it on hold until I can buy a cheap 30 pound Argos guitar!)
3. My assortment of pillows and cushions
4. All my clothes
5. My entire book shelf
6. My little sister
7. All my photo albums

... but I can't

I don't think I'll be touching a piano for a few months. I'm going to miss my beautiful Weinbach. And it's going to miss me...

I've learnt today...

That little niggling dreams can be weaved into reality. What if you hadn't listened to the little voice inside your head tell you that you can make a camp for 50 freshers from all over Malaysia happen? There wouldn't be a bunch of freshers gathering at Midvalley today, even before they venture over to the green (grey?) pastures of London.

That my days as a young, naive fresher are over. That suddenly it's dawned upon me that I'm a senior. That I've grown older, younger, wiser and dumber all at once.

That I miss London, I want to go back. That my time here is up. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Once you go away, coming home is never the same. Home isn't home anymore. But I've outstayed the hols, and I have to go back, even though my little sister is in tears because she doesn't want to be left at home alone.

That only in your last week of holidays do you think - "Gosh, I won't step into midvalley for another 3 months" or "This is the last plate of GOOD (unadulterated) curry laksa I'll eat in awhile"

That it's nice to have nice seniors. A good nice wholesome bunch of EEE seniors. (psst... Happy Birthday again, Andrew!). Besides learning that you can get lost in Jacob's house and it takes sometime to find out where the toilet is in the washroom when there's a choice of 4 to 5 doors!

That I want Lionel to come back to I can whine, grumble, complain and pout like the spoilt 3 year old inside of me... and so I can listen to him too...

That my haircut isn't so bad after all. Once it grows... it looks even better than the right side of a baboon!

The ISE tutor and study groups have been rearranged!!!

And for not studying as hard as I should have in 1st year, I have now been bestowed with a tutorial group I utterly despise! (Alright there isn't any real connection between the studying and the tutorial group arrangements... but I'm just trying to find an excuse to rant!)

It's a good thing tutorial groups are only once a fortnight... but to my utter horror, they've changed my study and lab group to group A! Oh woe! I'm now tearfully detached from my new found ISE buddies, and instead I get the MCPs!!! Only consolation is that Vidu is with me (how will we poor girls survive on MCP grounds?) I have to learn to make more friends, but how will I survive labs without being able to bother Kunal with questions all the time?

Mrs Dalloway is on my Literature reading list. After 4 pages I'm finding it hard to read. Don't get me wrong, it's not unreadable, I actually like Virginia Woolf's style of writing. It's just the way its starting out, its like reading into my future. A prediction of what my life could be.

It's depressing when literature begins to mock your own life. Your own turmolt and confusion. Your emotional security. Shaking your sense of unsureness. Making you question whether you made the right practical choice to stay in your little practical world and be happy.

*Later edit*

I'm on to page 10 now. Taking a deep breath and trying to detach myself from the story... although that's not the right way to read books, is it?

My aunty says when you leave a good hairdresser you should look like you need to wear a paper bag over your head for a week, and after that emerge like a beautiful butterfly. Somehow I don't think a paper bag is going to help this natural disaster. I'm not even sure if my head can fit in a paper bag. Prepare to be shocked, VERY shocked, honey! But I did as I promised. I didn't cut it too short nor shave bald. Anyway I always hate my haircut initially. Maybe I'll learn to like it in a few months time...

Busy days again...

Shopped for japanese food stuff at Jaya Jusco today, before meeting Ying, Jilly and Maggie for lunch, which took approximately 45 minutes to commence (It took me 5 minutes to think of the word 'commence'. I swear my England is getting less less powderful). Nicole picked me up from 1 Utama to go cloth shopping at Jalan Masjid India. Too many colours, designs, textures... we eventually settled for simple cloth from Kamdar. If only we knew what we were really doing, but with an unsettled script and storyline, we're pretty much like blind mice!

Lionel's on his way to Melbourne now. It's funny how the idea of him being thousands of kilometres away instead of 350 kilometres away is more unbearable. Anyway, Melbourne isn't my idea of a holiday. Not when Melbourne Uni, Monash and RMIT practically make up a mini Malaysian kampung right in the heart of Melbourne. Adelaide's not better, what with Ravi and Zack being there.

My sister spilt blueberry syrup on Dewy today. She's now banned from playing with him for a whole day. Dewy is my stuffed toy puppy, by the way.

I'm back to blogging random nonsense. Doesn't this feel like the old me?

Oh and I'm starting on Mrs. Dalloway for my Literature module. It's not really like the old me to start on homework 3 weeks before term begins!

"Oh, it seems like I can finally rest my head on something real... I love the way that feels..."
And so the blog is once again resurrected and brought to life with newly rejuvenated vigour! 2 weeks filled with so many mountains and valleys I don't know where to start my story-telling (sorry, I'm not as good a story teller as Chien Liq) nevertheless, here goes:

Friday (day before fresher's camp)Clearly, a very underestimated day. Only on the day before the camp does the projector decide not to work and I had to spend an entire afternoon getting to know Jalan Ampang and the whole of KL very well. Got back home at nearly 8pm, close to tears, tired and hungry and very short tempered. I'm sorry if i snapped at any of you lovely people who were trying to tempt me out to Murnis, but when one is sleep deprived, frustrated and at the end of their rope it's a really bad move to call their blood and swear a "stupid camp"! Anyway, happy belated birthday captain! I'm sorry for being so bitchy. But there's no better mood to be in when you haven't taken a bath at 11pm at night and 3 Imperial College undergrads (one engineer, one physician and one mathematician) can't seem to make a projector work!
Saturday (Day 1 of fresher's camp)The all too efficient uber-secretary was actually the last senior to arrive at KL Sentral, due to last minute projector testings (which didn't work!!!). Managed to stuff 40 over freshers into the bus and proceed to Tapah without much ado... besides being the only nervous senior on the bus while the rest were happily cruising in Chien Liq's car and Jia Hong's car. Day one got off to a good start, with Tao creating much laughter (mostly at his own hilarious antics) and Ili (a planted 'fresher') giving one of her best performances to date! The ice breakers didn't get many names stuck in our heads. Instead what stuck in our heads was probably the colour of Phil's boxers (Sorry, Phil! My bad!). After dinner, our night time entertainment consisting of Tao's powerpoint slide show and Chris's super duper M-nite sneak preview video was just brilliant! But learning that many of our freshers would make great circus freakshows during the Virus game was an eye opener! Aargh.. those double jointed elbows....
Sunday (Day 2 of fresher's camp)I'm sorry to rub it in but... thanks to my warm and cosy sleeping bag, I actually had a VERY comfortable night in the pavillion! If Tao hadn't woken up talking about "Sotong sotong! Dodol dodol!". Soha talked in her sleep again! Hehe! But she didn't mention Amar's name this time (can just see you wiping away those beads of sweat!)Day 2 started of bright and early with stream trotting! And yes, yours truly stupidly wore white! Why hasn't ANYONE in ODAC ever told me you shouldn't wear white when you're gonna get wet? Particularly since Odacians are extremely susceptible to RAIN?? Everything I wore during expeditions was white... so how come, it's only Malaysian IC people who have a problem with this wearing white thing? Educate me, please!The stream was very carefully trotted in my loose Nike sandals. Waterfall was refreshing! It's been so long since I felt one with nature. The singing out of tune all the way back to the campsite was fun too! The afternoon got abit draggy, although Chien Liq did a great job of keeping the freshers from falling asleep. Alumni members did not make much of a scene (thank goodness!). And, man... I really don't know what hit the freshers when we introduced 'Polar Bear' to them. You'd swear the ones in my group were literally being killed with all the screaming that was going on!BBQ and campfire was a pretty relaxed and spontaneous thing. Chien Liq again stole the limelight with his story telling. Some disturbing performances from the freshers. Nevertheless, with so many talented performers, I'm once again inspired to finish the M-nite script... with some performers in mind! Woohoo! Didn't get much sleep that night. No thanks to Tao and Chien Liq. I don't think I've recovered yet from that night of stolen sleep... but you don't get to chit chat with your batch mates like that everyday...
Monday (Day 3 of fresher's camp)Fresher's considerately let the seniors sleep in a little longer. I was surviving only on adrenaline on the last morning. Failed to keep up a lively Q&A session, nevertheless revealing angels & mortals solved that, not to mention the squash banana dance! After lunch, we sent the freshers packing on the bus with Soha, while the rest of us headed to the Tapah rest stop for some makan. At that point I suddenly felt a huge weight crash down on me, and I couldn't even keep my eyes open. I nearly concussed in Jia Hong's car on the way back if Jia Hong hadn't continuously kept up the conversation to keep me conscious. Reached home and immediately zoned out after dinner. Lionel sounded rather amused from the 3 smses he left on my phone...
After the camp, I lost track of time. Before I knew it I was on a Nice Plusliner bus travelling to Singapore with my little brother (who made me take him to Marches for lunch in return for supporting the UK Bound clubbing event by IC Singsoc). My break down under was abit of a blur. If I recall, I think I got a tour of Ang Mo Kio (although if you leave me right in the middle I still will not be able to find Lionel's apartment even after 5 days!), I spent an afternoon in NUS with Sher, Venki and Baa, and even visited Lionel's labs, went clubbing at China Black - even though I spent most of my time at the ticket counter, trying to keep Lionel entertained (no, I didn't do a very good job, soweee!), went shopping at Queensway (new shoes and a new pink bag!!! and I was this close to buying a pink pair of shoes... till Lionel convinced me otherwise!), met Mao Mao and Darren and Jing Ye for prata dinner, had tea with Charme, Joseph, Sherene and Venki at NYDC (yes, Charme... you still have everyright to punch Lionel for his mischevious sms), and a BBQ dinner with the Low family (and I mean like almost the entire Low family... I have this feeling the only person I got on really well with was Lionel's 3 year old niece...) and that pretty much sums up my much deserved holiday! Far far away from MSoc... although I have to admit I couldn't resist checking my mail and the forums.

And now I'm back again. Feeling a little silly that I didn't get to see you, due to a very silly mistake which I'll have to explain although I don't feel like explaining. Maybe it was fate. Maybe we're just never meant to meet again. Maybe its just a way of telling me I have already moved on with life and things are never going to be the same again and that's just the way it should be. Silly me.

2 weeks left. Time to start packing again. You'd think I'd be used to this... but... sigh...

The flame has been extinguished. Fatigue has hit me hard. My head is pounding, my eyelids are heavy, my limbs like lead. I even resorted to a large slice of sweet tiramisu cake in a desperate attempt at sugar high energy. But I've met my match in my own self.

I'm completely drained. It's like I've been doing sets of stair climbing and the blood is still pounding in my head except that I haven't done anything more vigorous than 30 minutes on the exer-cycle! Months of planning for a camp has led to my wishing that Monday would come sooner and I'd only have to worry about packing my bags and jumping on the bus to Singapore.

3 more weeks before I'm back in the cold dreariness and English rain. So soon? Where has time gone?

Selamat Hari Kebangsaan!

"Tanggal 31, bulan lapan, lima puluh tujuh... Merdeka, Merdeka!"

Yeah, that's one of the few patriotic songs I know, embarrassingly. I do still remember the lyrics to Setia... I think. Anyhow, I don't care what you say! I am full blooded Malaysian, no matter how many times you affiliate me with that island down south!

It's a quiet Merdeka day for KL residents this year. The celebrations have been shunted to my father's hamlet hometown - Kuantan. And I'm more than glad I'm not one of those red, white, yellow or blue clad school kids continuously waving flags and scarves while singing some badly composed patriotic song for almost an hour. Can we not come up with something more creative after 47 years of independence? Or is it part of the constitution to drag submissive school kids to the parade just to form a human flag?

As a tribute to the nation's independence, my sister and I are attempting to make a tiramisu cake today. I do not have very high expectations of it, seeing that I had to replace the mascaporne cheese with another italian cheese as my sister is quite determined to make that cake, with or without the right ingredients!

My printer is also quite determined to annoy me by printing as slowly as possible, with or without the right colours!

I can't do this!

I can't live without a routine. I wake up at 8am and think "Shouldn't I be somewhere?" and then recall that staying in bed is considered a luxury to some and maybe I should just draw that duvet back over my head. But no! I toss and turn for about 15 minutes, and then decide I've had enough of sleeping. It's time to start the day.

But what with?

My diary which has been filled with reminders and 'to do' lists is now so empty, it's almost lifeless (roughly the same condition I am in). I know I'm supposed to do stuff for MSoc, but now that I have all the time in the world, it's just too much time to handle and MSoc things become insignificant teeny tasks. Not important because I didn't pen it down in red in my diary and underlined it at least twice.

I wonder what such obsessive compulsive behaviour will do to me in my old age!

The last day of work is finally here! Popped off from work at 1pm sharp (practically ran helter skelter out of there!). A very unexciting end to an unexciting attachment. Half the office wasn't even there on my last few days of work.

Strangely enough, now that I am free, I don't really feel like doing MSoc work. Maybe its fatigue, maybe I've reached the end of my rope, maybe I just want to enjoy doing absolutely nothing for awhile.

I'm tempted to do something totally outrageous and out of this world next week. Like baking or something...

And catch up on some TV, newspapers, blogs, and finally get down to starting my Literature reading list. Every time I look at it I feel like crying. Engineers shouldn't be put through the torture of doing humanities! Oh well, Literature was still the better of all the evils (which includes stuff like History of the Roman Empire, Music and Western Civilisation, Politics and Philosophy...). It's time to get back to Hardy and Blake and Lawrence, and forget Fourier and Laplace and that stupid cat!