Lecture starting next week!

Lecture's gonna start next week!

Sigh...

It's finally the end of my 3 month holiday...

Now have to study hard and sleep early. The grading for UK is different from M'sia. The lecturer said that if you were an all-time A student, don't expect yourself to be an all-time A student in medical school because only an exceptionally intelligent student will get an A. 'Expect to get all C's' he said, 'but not to worry, as Cs means you are an average student.'

We always think that getting A's is the best. But then again, if it's not in our ability to get A's no matter how hard we try, why force ourselves to do something that we cannot?

sigh...(to someone)I know honours is important to get. I promise to try my best to get into the honours' list. But if I can't get in...don't get disappointed, ok? Hope you can trust me in that.(Look, have I ever failed you in getting good grades?) I've to juggle between my part-time work and lectures plus assessment and assignment and God...and it's not easy.

Oh...I've made hmm...8 friends so far. 7 M'sians ( Norain, Hidayu, Faizal, Sing Yee, Jasmin, Kaajal and Nara(?))and one S'porean (Man Hon). I think that's all of my Asians friends. Don't think there are anyone from SEA.

Just finished calling to apply for my NI number.

It cost 2.2 pounds!!!!

wahman..so expensive...the call lasted for 13.07 minutes..meaning about 17 pence per minute?

But anyway, I'm glad that I managed to set my appointment for the NI interview.

yay...now am waiting for my certified house contract to arrive by post then I shall settle my bank account and pay my tuition fees.

song

My friend shared this song with me and I find it quite nice. He said when his friends listen to the song, they cried.

Enjoy!


PS: esp those who are leaving or already left their hometown to further their studies, they may find this song relating to them.

my room

my room:

Stephanie's table

my table

where we put our jackets and windbreakers

the bookshelf and Lynda's table

hey hey hey...finally I'm back after so long of MIA (coz everybody's been bugging me to update)

Just a lil' updates from me:

1. I've already started work as a cleaner. Found the work deadly mundane and monotonous. Everyday I've to wake up at 5.30 and walk 5-8 minutes in the cold to work. Now I understand why Steph dreads going to work everyday. It's not because it's tiring, but because we have to wake up early. Stupid work stole our precious sleep.

2. Today was the first day of my 1.5-week-long introductory programme. I nearly slept off halfway coz it was tooooo boring. One of the lecturer told us that once we study medicine, 'our lives will never be the same again'. She went on to say that if one day we see a guy limping in town, we will begin to wonder what causes him to limp. And that's what make doctors different. Made friends with a few M'sians. During the second-half of the lecture I sat near the Malay girl and she introduced me to all her M'sia friends.But during the light buffet, I didn't see them. Dunno where they went to.

3. Weather is getting cold here, especially when the wind blows at me. Tried jogging yesterday morning. Was ok. But I feel kinda weird jogging when everyone else is going to uni.

4. I'm starting to get used to the life here. Still haven't got used to the weather and the pound though. I still have to scutinize the English coins before I pay anything.

5. Met almost all of the housemates already - Melvin, Mei Shun, Tze Way and Yung Kit (just came back a few days ago). Serene is not back yet. Stephanie still hasn't changed much (character-wise), still likes to bully Janice and now stephanie has joined force with Lynda to bully me too :P, but I think she's more generous now (she let me eat her Ben & Jerry's ice-cream!Yummy!)

hmmm...I don't think there's anymore thing to add. Phew... *wipes off sweat*now I can go MIA for another week..hehe.

road to UK

14.5 hours of flying....

That's what I've to endure to fly to UK.

But I've finally made it!

I've arrived UK! *cheers*

There was some complications when I checked-in. My bag was overweight by 6kg! The woman so 'ngiao ji' one...din want to let us through. She 硬硬insisted on us repacking our bag. So I'd to 'throw' away some stuff in my bag. I remembering throwing aways my two jeans, my stethoscope, some medicine, the Praise and Worship book...other than that, can't remember already. In the end, my bag weighed 31.1 kg and somehow the woman let us through. THAT was only the check-in bag. I also encountered some problems in my hand-luggage.

My hand luggage was really overweight. Altogether my hand luggage (backpack containing laptop and suitcase)weighed 20+kg and the weight allowed was only 7kg. The woman was like, 'no, no, no..you can't bring all these in.' Sigh...have to repack my hand luggage also. So we took out some things in the suitcase and managed to stuff my backpack into it.

That woman was 'clever' enough to make sure that we didn't play cheat with the hand luggage. She wrote on my air ticket, 'please check hand carry' which scared me half dead.

The boarding gate opened quite early, and as I showed them my ticket, the guy saw the ps on it. He told a lady and the lady looked at me, saw that I'm carrying a handbag and pulling a suitcase, she said, 'should be ok,' and let me through. Phew...there wasn't any weighing machine there to weigh my bag.

The plane took off to Dubai and arrived there at 3.50am (local time, they are 4 hours behind M'sia). The next plane to Manchester was at 7.50am so Lynda and I jsut walked around the building. We didn't manage to walk out the building coz we couldn't find the way out. Lols.
Plane to Manchester was at 7.50am but the plane only took off at 8.30am.

Some pic I took in Dubai:






The entertainment in Emirates was quite good, lots of movies to watch. Food still ok. The plane not as crampy as Brunei Airlines and doesn't vibrate as much as BA. But I hate sleeping in plane. So uncomfortable. I only slept 4 hours altogether throughout the journey from KL to Manchester.

when we finally arrived at Manchester airport, it was 12.25pm (local time), exactly the time stated in my plane ticket. Messaged my dad to tell them that I arrived. Then Lynda and I went to find the train station. Quite easy to find, just follow the signs. We saw a family, who I believe from M'sia also going to the train. We bought the ticket and off we go...to Leeds.

The train is pretty nice. There's even a socket for you to charge your handphone. no wonder the train ticket so expensive la. 16 pounds just for one trip to Leeds. The train left at 2.24pm and arrived Leeds at 3.50pm, 1 hour 15 min altogether. Almost exactly the time the ticketman said when I asked him how long the train took to Leeds.

Oh..nearly forgot to blog about my luggage. It's sooo heavy. Fortunately Manchester train station allow us to bring our trolleys to the train but pity it's not inside the train. Just carrying the luggage into the train is enough to break my back. When we got off at Leeds station, we have to pulled the luggage along...so tired man.

Stephanie was already waiting at Leeds station when we were there. Could see the happy and excited expression on her face. Janice coming to join her what...of course she excited la. Fortunately we used the taxi but we stopped halfway coz there was a traffic jam there and I think steph purposely wanted to torture us so that we carry until our hand break..if not ar...the skin on my palm surely peel off.

Wanted to type last night but I was utterly exhausted. Oh...Steph's cooking is fantastic! She can really cook man...just one year of staying alone and her chicken porridge is yummy! Better learn some cooking skills from her! So here I am now..typing this message.I still can't swallow the fact that I will be staying here for the next 5 years. Blandford Grove will be my home for 5 years. I guess it takes time for me to adapt.

Thurday was the most tiring day I've ever had. I walked from Dang Wangi to Leeds Office in Raja Chulan. Then after that, I walked again from Raja Chulan to Hang Tuah where I boarded the train back home.

I was dead tired when I reached home. Too tired to cook, I 'da bao' food from the uncle outside vista B. After finding nothing to watch on tv, I just slumped onto my mattress and fell asleep at 8 sth. Fortunately I set my alarm clock earlier, so I managed to wake up on time to make my visa.

I slept like a log the whole night and I only woke up when my alarm clock rang. It was like closing my eyes for a second then opening them up to find myself already slept through 10 hours of sleep. Anyways I woke up at 6 am and at 6.30am I was ready to leave the house to board the train to Ampang Park to make my visa.

I arrived MCA at around 7.40am. I thought I was the earliest. Lo and behold, there were 3 people ahead of me! At 8 sth we were ushered into a room to wait and see the agent one by one. The agent looked through our stuff and gave comments whether our documents need amendments or not. One guy was unlucky because his photo was taken behind a blue background and his offer letter was printed out from the internet.

I thought I had everything ready but mana tahu, the agent told me that I'd to photostate the already photostated copy(but certified true copy) of fixed deposits. Damn..I'd to wait from 8.20 to 8.50am for the photostating man to come photostate my stuff. And those people are blood suckers! Damn them! They charged me 30 cents per paper! Soooo expensive. 6 times the usual amount.

Anyway, after finish photostating, went upstairs to see another agent. This time I handed him all my stuff....FINALLY...I got all my visa done! phew...

Last Thursday I was in KL.

I couldn't believe that I was in KL. I couldn't imagine myself having to depend on my legs to walk and trains to travel around. No more Honda where I can drive right to the door-step.

I went to college first to get my results. Then I decided to use PUTRA LRT to Dang Wangi to Leeds Regional office to get my offer letter. Wrong move man ( I wonder how Lynda managed to walk that loooong journey to Leeds Office). Especially with me lugging my luggage along.

I remembered wrongly that the last time my sis and I went to Leeds office, we actually used the monorail and not PUTRA to Raja Chulan. I only remember walking through some old buildings then finally to Menara Weld ( I guess we walked wrongly last time).

So at Dang Wangi, I walked to Bukit Nanas train station. Then I asked a passer-by how to get to Raja Chulan and she said use the monorail there. 'Hah...' I thought, so I asked whether can walk or not, she looked at me with bewilderment (emphasis on that word), then she looked at my luggage and then at me, 'You want to walk there ah?' Just looking at her expression and I know that it's quite impossible to walk to Raja Chulan. Anyways, I still decided to walk there.

I walked for what seemed like eternity and I finally reached Raja Chulan station! Lucky there was a city map on the way to Raja Chulan so I agak-agak know where Menara Weld (leeds office) is. But as I walked down the whole stretch of Raja Chulan, I was getting worried. I was afraid that I might be at the wrong end of the road and Menara Weld is situated at the end of the road. If I 'gosang balik' surely will eat off lots of time and I might not make it to the office in time. SOme more, I asked an Indian lady there where Menara Weld is and she said dunno. Wah...scare me half dead.

But luckily I asked a security guard there and he told me that I just have to walk straight down the road some more and will see Menara Weld. Thank God! Can't imagine how relieved I was when I'd finally made it to Menara Weld! BTW, I din know Menara weld is just opposite Menara MPL, the place where I had my Aberdeen interview. No wonder Menara Weld name sounds so familiar.

While in KL I'd the opportunity to read the book 'rich kid smart kid' (same author as 'Rich dad poor dad') which has almost similar content as Rich dad poor dad.

I would say that book gave me many insights about people.

There are 3 people in general:

1. The Poor
2. The Middle-class
3. and The Rich

The poor are people needing money, always seeking for financial help from the government.

The middle-class are people having stable jobs and are termed "passive investors". They only invest in low-risk funds such as mutual funds.

The rich are investors and entrepreneurs .

People from the olden days used to think, 'go to school, get good grades and get a good job'. A good job gives them a good sense of job security and stable income but what they didn't know is that even a high-paying job DOESN'T make you rich.

Robert kiyosaki (author of that book) went on to say that 'The poor and middle class work hard for their money. The rich have their money work hard for them.' (good point to ponder on)

And he said that to become rich, one has to think how many people he/she can serve. For eg in his case, the author initially gave classes to teach people to become rich. But then after thinking of how limited the number of people he could serve, he came out with the best-selling book - 'rich dad poor dad'. Now he could serve more people!

Besides, one has to be risk-taking and change the perception he/she used to have. Many people always have the fear that he/she might lose all the money in a business. But if we do not learn from past failures, we would not improve.

A few things I learned from the book:

1. Getting good grades in school doesn't make you rich in the end. The banker doesn't ask you for your report card. But instead, he asks you for your FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
2. Everyone is smart. But too bad the current education system only recognises people who are verbal-linguistic geniuses.
3. When we see something which is too expensive, we should say 'how can I afford it?' instead of 'I can't afford it'. Because as we say 'how can I afford it' will make us think of ways to buy it and therefore exercises our brain to be financially active. But 'I can't afford it' puts our brain at the stop.
4. Don't work for money but have money work for us.
   

I truly recommend people to read 'rich dad poor dad'. I finished reading 'rich kid smart kid' but only read halfway through 'rich dad poor dad' coz I was too lazy to stay in Borders for too long to read. Wanted to buy but...

HOW CAN I AFFORD IT?