Goodbye to the Roes

Farewell dinner for the Roes

It's coming. Everyone's saying goodbye to each other and I just hate it. I hate saying goodbyes. But it must come somehow, someday. As far as I know, four of my classmates have already left Cambridge and yesterday I cooked Chris and Melissa a Malaysian Hainanese Chicken Rice (farewell) dinner before their turn to leave (on Thursday).

Hainanese Chicken Rice; de-boned to make it easier for the Mat Sallehs to eat (Mat Salleh = Caucasian; a term I have already thought the Roes)

Then again, I am equally excited because both of them have decided to visit Malaysia in September, when I am back. Yay! If everything goes as plan, Owen too would be coming and it'd be really great to see them in Malaysia as I get to show them around KL and other parts of Malaysia!

I must attest I have taken alot of things for granted living in Malaysia. It's easy if you only need to tell the way to travel by bus from KL to Penang, but what about travelling from KL to say, Pulau Tioman? It's quite different living in the country and travelling there as a tourist. There were many things I didn't know their significance too. Every Malaysian is familiar with the Petronas Twin Towers and the Sultan Abdul Samad building, but it's a different thing altogether if you were asked, "Why did the British architect who designed the Sultan Abdul Samad Building ended up with an Islamic design when it was done in the neo-colonial period?" I have not (yet) been asked that question yet but these are the type of questions (inspired by The Star recently) that would make me google to find the answers.

High Standard of English in Cambridge

Yesterday's papers reported about the weak grasp of English from the undergrads in Imperial College. One of the tutors highlighted some of the blunders:

"...occcurs, ocour, occurence, occuring, occured and occures - all used in essays that were checked before being handed in."

"..herd instead of heard, fourth instead of forth, been instead of bean,"

"and many of the writers were 'hopeless at punctuation'. "

I thought to myself, "No, I won't make that kinda mistake."

Feeling confident was one thing but being pointed out that I was over-confident was another.

This is what happened...

I took my dissertation to be proofread by one of the English tutors in my College, Dr S, since I had some time to kill while waiting for my supervisor to come back from his long vacation. Besides, it will only benefit me by getting a second opinion for my report.

Dr S wrote me an email yesterday and told she has received my printed draft and may take some time to proofread the whole report. She added that it was a smooth read overall. (I can't believe she finished reading 15,000 words within two hours!!! That's amazing!)

This afternoon, I received half the report fully marked by Dr S. I was really impressed by her speed of marking. She probably thought I needed it done quickly. But whatever it is, I am sure she did not do it in haste just by looking at the level of marking on the papers! Each page of the A4 that the report was printed on were scribbled with corrections and suggestions. It turned out like an art actually. Hahaha!

"Don't be nice, Dr S. Be very strict in your marking and tell me if it's bad. I want to learn and improve."

Initially I felt horrible upon learning that my English was awful. My swollen confidence has obviously burst this time! But I was nevertheless satisfied and in fact, very happy to know the weaknesses and errors that have passed me for ages. Dr S managed to point them out today and I am so thankful for that. None on spelling errors, but many on punctuations, sentence structuring and articulation.

I pondered a while after reading the marked report, "My God...the standard of English in Cambridge is so high!" The almost impeccable IELTS score last year must have only qualified me to the kindergartens if Dr S's standards applied. Now I wish I have another year in Cambridge to "graduate" to Dr S's level of English, then I'd be more confident writing for next year's National Essay competition.

You must be kidding, Mr Potter!

One part of the latest Harry Potter (order of the phoenix) movie tickled me crazy. If anyone of you have seen the movie...

At the beginning of the show, Harry was mugged at a park. In a fit of anger, he took out his wand and threatened one of the muggers. Dark clouds formed and the sky turned dark at an instance.

The mugger looked up the sky in fear and said, "What have you done?!"

Harry said, "I don't know! I didn't do anything!"

I laughed out loud (in my heart). I thought Harry should say, "What?! Are you mad?! That's how our weather had been for ages!"

Hahaha....and this photo I took at the Wilberforce Sports Ground in Cambridge last November came to mind....**isn't that similar to the one shown in the movie?**

Impulsive Demeanour

The weather yesterday was perfect. The papers wrote that UK is at its emptiest on the 2nd Saturday of August. But there were no plans for activities from my end. I thought it would be a waste if I just sat in my room and did nothing.

I left for London on impulse without thinking what I wanted to do there. It was afternoon and half the day was gone. But I didn't care even though I had to fork out 12 quid for the day ticket. I just wanted out of my room.

I reached London's King's Cross station and didn't know where to go. But it was exciting. That means I didn't have to rush for anything! So I took a bus to "no-where". Then I pressed the button to stop on instinct. I was in Camden Town! I walked around and up to Kentish Town. I continued walking and then I reached Parliament Hill near or at the Highgate Village, the upper class section of London. It was a great place to hang out. People were just enjoying the sun and there were lots of family activities. I read a book at the park bench. The sun was scorching and I had to apply suntan lotion. I never thought I would ever use such a thing in this country. But it's great to smell those stuff on the skin. It reminded lots when I used it at the beaches and triathlons in Malaysia.

I received a call from Winson on my walking tour to nowhere.

"Hey where are you?" he asked

"Erm, am in London!", I answered proudly as if I won a prize for that.

"London?! You must be kidding. I spoke to you a while ago and thought you wanted to join me in (Cambridge) town for coffee."

"Aw, too late. I'm already here. Do you want to come to London instead? What's your plan for the rest of the day?"

"No. I am not going to London. But I'd be going for a Shakespeare play in the evening with some friends. Are you interested? It's 10 quid."

"Sure! I'd love to! " I answered on impulse (again).

"Can you make it back by 6.45pm?"

"Sure. See you there!"

Suddenly I was locked in an itinerary. So I had to time my pace accordingly and check the timetable for the next train back to Cambridge. I wandered in Camden Town and bought some really cheap groceries at the 99p Store for the next hour or so before I decided to go home.

I reached Cambridge at 5.30pm, took a shower, grabbed a quick bite, checked the emails and left for the Shakespeare play at the Trinity Hall park. I went home after the play and watched another movie.

I have not taken in so much stuff in one day for a loooonnnnggggg time. It was certainly my shortest turnaround time in London and probably the ugliest side of me doing things on impulse for this one time. But it felt really nice.

Summer delight

I received a call last two weeks at 5am on my Malaysian mobile. Still in a daze, I answered the call. It was a lady who spoke to me in Malay.

*Translated*
"Hi Mr Yap, recently you submitted an essay for a National Essay Competition?"

I paused, trying to recall what on earth was this lady talking about at such an ungodly hour! O what the heck, I just answered, "Er, yea. Anything?" I thought it was the essay assignment for the Cornwall project. Maybe the department's online submission screwed up and some Malaysians got hold of the essay and liked my Disneyland Project idea. Now that I am awake, I realised how ridiculous my mind works when I am half awake. **Warning for all you prank callers**

"Okay Mr Yap, I would like you to attend for our prize presentation ceremony at this place and at this time..Would you come?", she continued.

"Erm, yea, yea..of course. By the way, what have I won? Erm, essay?", then I remembered I submitted an essay a month ago. I could hardly recall what I wrote in the 3000-word essay. I could only remember I did it in 8 hours! I wasn't serious about it but merely submitting it for the sake of submitting it. After all, Irene called all the way from Malaysia and coaxed me into it and dropped me email reminders at almost every hour a day before the submission deadline. Just write anything, "any $#!T" that you usually put in your blog and it would make up 3000 words. Oh right, that was really inspiring to get me started!

"So, what have I won? What placing?"
"Sorry sir, I am not allowed to divulge more information. You will know on that day. Would you come?"
"You see, I am currently not in Malaysia. I can send a proxy if you don't mind"
"Sure, just give me the person's name and email address"
I gave Irene's name since she was the one who told me about the competition. Obviously there's a fair share of success from her part.
"No chance of telling me what position I won?"
"Sorry sir, I can't. But I can only tell that I was given the instructions to invite the top three finishers. I can't tell more."

Lots of suspense for the past two weeks. But the goal to finish my dissertation was an effective antidote.

Today Irene called.

"Guess what. You are number one!"

Praise be to God!