Hedingham Castle, Essex

This year's Chevening Scholars welcome reception was held at the Hedingham Castle, Essex. The castle is known to be the finest in the East of England. There were 95 students from Cambridge, represented for the event. The 95 students came from all over the world and it was a good opportunity to mingle and network around. Scholars from University of Essex, Norwich and East Anglia also attended the event. So, it was a big crowd that night.

We had a short tour of the castle and were briefed of the history about the who's who in the castle previously. I could hardly remember all their names and their roles because we were suddenly bombarded with so many names. But I did remember names like William the Conqueror, Princess Matilda, King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I and etc.

These are the Japanese scholars whom I "bumped" into during the reception. They are here on a short-course study under the scholarship and would be leaving in December. Had a wonderful time chatting with them. Felt pretty guilty because I spent half of the night pow-wowing with them (in Japanese) when I should have spoken more to the other nationalities. Oh my, but it was good because when you are in a different country, chatting with a Japanese (who is also out of the country) is really a different experience. When they feel unrestricted by their countries strict customs, you get to hear all the suppressed stories from these people; about what they really feel about the country, the culture and their way of thinking. I ended up taking the centrestage in the conversation after that because they were more interested in knowing what I did in Japan and the places I went to. Apparently, they came from places like Aomori, Shizuoka, Osaka and Fukushima, all of the places that I have stepped foot on before. So, they were really interested when I told them what I did there and they recipocrated with tips on what "I should also have" done there by extending the "secrets" of these places. Aha...now I know. Could this be a precursor to Japan again??? The haunting...

Week Leading to Halloween

Halloween seems to be a big thing here even though pockets of people opposed to the idea, saying that it is an American culture. I mean, American or English, c'mon it's all in good fun! My blockmate, Ulrich (pronounced as ul-reek) from South Africa joined in the bandwagon to make the Halloween weekend a blast. He prepared himself a pumpkin costume.


Ulrich is also a runner (look at the background of his room). He runs for the college and he does like 10km in 40minutes! He's fast! Both of us signed up for the ballot for London Marathon 2007. Hope I could get it. He's reading his PhD here under the Commonwealth Scholarship, wow! Now, he wants to be a pumpkin, hahaha! I wasn't able to participate in the Halloween party which Wolfson College is known for, because I was also engaged at another function; a welcome reception at Hedingham Castle, Essex the same night.

This is Chikara Hirai from Japan Rail. He did a presentation on the company's train systems punctuality model for Cambridge students. It was done in English. Yes! Finally, I get a Japanese presentation in English! The reason I put this slide along with the Halloween section was because he presented on the same day as the Halloween weekend, and coincidentally I have already been "haunted" by all things Japanese. Everywhere I turn in Cambridge, I bump into Japanese things, lectures at times used Japan as a reference and that I have been meeting alot of Japanese almost every week. You can say I have become extra conscious of the Japanese presence since I came here, or it's really the "haunting" for a trick or treat....

Gryffindor House, Hogwarts School and Harry Potter

Dwuane, Ian, me and Eskandar from Jamaica, US and Malaysia. Noticed the shirt which I wore? One of my last year's birthday presents

All dressed up in suit and gown for the matriculation dinner. Cantab is steep in its 800-year old tradition (since 1209), where students are officially members of the university after going through the matriculation dinner. In other words, you are a member of Cantab after you matriculate...o well.

Here is the piece of dialogue between the Praelector and I on the day of my matriculation (17th Oct):

Me: Hi. Good evening Sir, am here to matriculate.

PraE: Do you have the green form*?

Me: Here it is...

PraE: Okay**Paused to read through the green form**Very well, please sign on the register list over there **finger pointed at a table**

Me: Right. Here?

PraE: Yes, sign there please.

Me: **Silent while signing the registry**

PraE: I, representing the authority of the university, now pronounce you as a member of the University of Cambridge for life...**paused a while to interject a cheeky joke**..well, unless you do something very nasty to us..**eyes winked** Now, go and do your best and achieve what you have set to come here for...

Me: Thank you Sir! **And I left the room**

*Green Form= A surrogate to the invoice confirming that you have already paid the necessary fee to the college.

Basically the collegiate system here works like this: you are a member of a college (in my case, it's Wolfson College) and the colleges are the limbs to the entire university systems. However, the colleges are independent of the university's fundings. Apparently, some colleges like Trinity (where Lee Hsien Loong came from) and Peterhouse (the oldest college in Cambridge) are so rich and financially sufficient that they could sponsor the entire student population in the their colleges for 10 years or run the university without government funding for 4 years! That sounds outrageous but like Peterhouse, it seems they have a large wine cellar in their college with huge stocks of wine dated from the 1300s. You just imagine how much one bottle would fetch in today's market! Think about a warehouse filled with it!

No more fashion faux pas

So, you can't just say that you are a Cambridge graduate without saying which college you came from. In other words, tourist souvenirs, peripherals and novelties on the shops selling "University of Cambridge" do not actually bring the correct message or any at all, to the people who later give the items to others as souvenirs. Having said that, so it's easy to differentiate who are the students here and who are not. The students here would usually wear t-shirts or sweaters like "Wolfson College-University of Cambridge" or "Trinity College-University of Cambridge" unless they are into a club or society where none is based on a particular collegiate system. Then, it would be "Rowing Club-Cambridge University" or "Cambridge University Triathlon Society" etc. Confused? Haha...try to decipher the 800-year old tradition.

The Harry Potter-style matriculation dinner. Formal halls are similar to matriculation dinners too.
Speech by the Praelector, Professor Dumbledore! Hahaha...don't take me seriously! He's Dr Brian Cox, a very friendly English gentleman.

This is the dining hall at Trinity College which I visited today with the two other Malaysians, Ching Yin and Winson. Trinity College was where Lee Hsien Loong belonged to during his days in Cantab.

Take a peep of the matriculation dinner on a short video capture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jna5_0Mzbe0

Tikki Masala

Chicken Tikki Masala with rice, egg and ABC soup

I was cooking the chicken Tikki Masala for the first time. I took the first bite to savour it and it was absolutely superb. The taste was exactly what I imagined. Then an unexpected thing happened. I was suddenly thrown back into time. Suddenly my mind was stalled and I thought about my father. Yes, my father. Maybe you may ask, what has a chicken dish got to with your father?? Beats me... and then his images came running in my head. Flashbacks of him, my brother and I when we were small overwhelmed me. Alot of times, people say that children are closer to the mother than the father and like us too, it was no exception. Fathers were always a figure of discipline and with clear boundaries drawn around them. But then, it struck me when all these flashbacks came back...

1. My dad coming back at night with a birthday cake to celebrate my 4th birthday.
2. Brought my brother and I to go walking at some rubber estates.
3. Brought our bicycles to fix at the 4.5 mile Old Klang Road bicycle shop. When my brother did well in his SRP (now called PMR), he was rewarded a new BMX. We went to the shop to buy his new bicycle.
4. Picked me up from school every evening with my mom when I was in primary school. And sometimes there was always yam with dried shrimps and cheecheongfun soya sauce tahpau-ed in the car for us to eat on our ride home just in case we were hungry.
5. Picked my brother and I up from school, once in 1986 (I could still remember I was in 2 Teratai and Cik Siti was teaching us halfway) before the school ends because my ku-poh (grandaunt) passed away. It was my first time leaving school before the school time ends.
6. Brought my brother and I to his bank and ate chicken rice at the bank's canteen and how I always wanted to add rice.
7. While waiting for my mother to attend the evening mass, he would sometimes bring us to Taman Jaya to play see-saw. Sometimes we went for sup ayam or sup kambing in Old Town. Sometimes he brought us to Jaya Supermarket for shopping and in there, I would always hold on to my father's left hand side of the corduroy jeans "handle" while my brother was always on the right.
8. Ate in Jalan Gasing's Chicken Rice in the evening after my mother came out from the evening mass on Saturday. I still remember I always ate the chicken skin and not the meat and do not mind eating the rice alone with nothing else.
9. My brother and I always had our pyjamas brought into the car whenever we go out and we change into pyjamas before reaching our house so that we could go straight to bed after reaching home.
10. Bought another Voltron and the Lion Castle when my mom and grandmother also bought another one from Hong Kong.
11. Bought a big packet of large size prawns and he, my brother and I sat in the bathroom to peel off the shells.
12. Brought my brother and I to Syabas to learn swimming. There was always a float on my arm.
13. Always sing the tune of mile after mile with super Shell, one-way ticket to the moon and other tunes that I have forgotten.
14. Wrote a cheque to Uncle Tai (the taukeh for my school bus) on a termly basis and pass it through Uncle Razak.
15. Went to Cameron Highlands with the whole family and brought my grandmother along. I could still remember my grandmother was vomitting her way up there. But then she got used to it after a few more years when the roads were better and the availability of travel-sick pills.
16. Bought bah kut teh and left it on the table during my odd hour studies for my STPM, in case I was hungry in the wee hours of the morning.
17. Bought a packet of nasi lemak on Fridays because Fridays were the day of abstinence. And the packet of nasi lemak was always filled with sambal sotong, prawns, eggs, and kangkung.
18. Fetched me to school on Saturdays for scout activities and stopped over at Jalan Gasing for wantan mee breakfast.
19. He always wanted to go all the way out to help people and treated my friends even better than how my friends' parents would treat me.
20. Caught me when I fell unconciously due to dengue fever.

The people in the world have dedicated a day for fathers and they called it a Father's Day. I always thought that fathers' day should be every day. But then, a thought without action is just as useless. Today, I experienced God's manisfestation of my father's love to me and what he means to me and I am really grateful to him for all that he has done for us. My brother and I never knew what he wanted us to be when we grew up simply because he has never pushed us in his way.

This morning, when I walked on the streets of Cambridge and saw some students with their parents because of the first batch of graduation, I saw how proud their parents were and these parents were all dressed up in suits taking pictures every where. I said to myself, "Wow, it's so wonderful to see all these parents being so happy for their children. This is probably their first time wearing such a beautiful suit until they wear them again when their children get married".

My friend asked how has Cambridge shaped me so far, I told her that it is not about the place where we study but the journey of going through Cambridge, the people's lives that we have touched and inspired and be the source of pride for those who loved us, just by entering here. She then asked how were my parents at home taking it when I am so far away suddenly. I told her, my parents could not be any happier to see their son being able to study here because they were very poor and could never have made it even to live comfortably last time, what more to continue studies and this is one way of carrying that torch for the family.

Unfinished Chicken Tikki Masala

My mind suddenly snapped back into conscious mode and I was staring blank at my chicken Tikki Masala. For the first time, I did not finish a dish that I cooked and which tasted so nice. I have to save it for tomorrow then. Then I realised my eyes were wet and red. Someone then came into the kitchen. I blew my nose. They looked at me and I said "Oh my gosh, this chicken is really spicy! I am gonna continue this tomorrow." And then I fled back into my room to write this blog....and tell everyone that I love my parents alot!

Snapshots of Life in Cambridge

Above is my trusty bicycle which I bought from a former student who happened to be my ex-uni mate. She did the same course and came with the same scholarship as I am.

The picture above is taken at Market Square, the place where you can find "apparently" cheaper stuff than the supermarkets. I have not gotten anything from this place yet because nothing interest me so far. But I may try the ostrich burger located in one of these stalls.

Another zoomed out shot of the Market Square overlooking the Great St Mary's Church. The Big Ben's clock-chime bell tune in London has the same tune as the Great St Mary's Church. The Big Ben apparently copied the tune from this church in 1859.

The demonstration was held in front of the Guildhall. As you could see in the print, it was about eradicating the poor and fair trade. This is not common here, but protests and demonstrations are allowed within the ambits of the law.

We had our first class eat-out at a curry house which serves authentic Bangladeshi curry flavours. I had the Jalfrezi fish since it was a day of abstainence from red meat.

The formal dining hall in New Hall, one of the 31 colleges of Cambridge. We had our MPhil dinner here with other CMI programme students. The picture above depicts the "smart casual" attire code, a far resemblance from the collar T and jeans approach which Malaysians would usually interpret what "smart casual" would be. New Hall is one of the 3 all-female colleges in the university and is one of the modern-looking colleges around. So, you won't get the Harry Potter looking dining hall in this one. Eventhough they have the state-of-the-art looking facilities, the college has a history as far back as 1965!

A group photo at the MPhil dinner. As you may notice, I was guilty of a fashion faux pas in this event because of my misinterpretation of "casual smart". I went there totally embarassed and am not proud of telling this in the blog actually. It was truly embarassing and you would know why I hid behind the well-dressed people when taking this picture. But it is always good to learn from mistakes. I will definitely dress up in my suit now if I see the next attire code to be "semi-formal" and a suit with gown when it's "formal".

This is Fr. Alban, the Franciscan priest who presides mass at the Fisher House. Fisher House is the Catholic Chaplaincy of the University of Cambridge. Fr Alban was a graduate from Oxon* and has a strong resemblance of Fr Aloysius Mowe when he gave his sermons.

*Oxon is the jargon for Oxford University; Cantab= Cambridge University. So, people in the UK recognise University of Cambridge as Cantab...rather than the former.