easter bunny and the chocolate fairy

end of term..finally! i think it has been pretty good term, considering..:p there were hiccups along the first few weeks, quite an intense 3 months, learned some lessons along the way, course wise and human nature and culture along the way :p

but one thing's for sure, this term ending brings me closer to the end of the course, and almost to the end of my time here in the uk...hmmm....not gonna dwell into that just yet...

for now, its spring break and easter holidays! yeay!

laughter, the best medicine :p

i got this funny email today and it totally made my day, im still grinning away and i got tummy ache from laughing too much (what can i say, im easily amused! hehe)

anyway hope you guys liked it too!

Have a WONDERFUL weekend darlings! (^_^)


PILOT vs ENGINEER

After every flight, pilots fill out a form, called a technical log which tells engineers about problems with the aircraft. The engineers correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the technical log before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some maintenance complaints submitted by pilots and the solutions recorded by maintenance engineers. By the way, the airline these came from is the only major airline that has never, ever, had an accident.

Pilot: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
Engineers: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

Pilot: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
Engineers: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

Pilot: Something loose in cockpit.
Engineers: Something tightened in cockpit.

Pilot: Dead bugs on windshield.
Engineers: Live bugs on back-order.

Pilot: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
Engineers: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

Pilot: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
Engineers: Evidence removed.

Pilot: DME volume unbelievably loud.
Engineers: DME volume set to more believable level.

Pilot: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
Engineers: That's what friction locks are for.

Pilot: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
Engineers: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

Pilot: Suspected crack in windshield.
Engineers: Suspect you're right.

Pilot: Number 3 engine missing.
Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Pilot: Aircraft handles funny.
Engineers: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

Pilot: Target radar hums.
Engineers: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

Pilot: Mouse in cockpit.
Engineers: Cat installed.

Pilot: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
Engineer : Took hammer away from midget

anything but ordinary

i was browsing through my friendster pictures tonite (procrastinating from doing work actually huhu) and found these two pictures taken years ago. the friendship ive had with these group of amazing girls have been anything but ordinary. i have always been conscious of the fact that all of them (plus one who went missing the day this picture was taken but in my mind she's always there :p) have, one way or another, contributed to the reason why i am the way i am today. and i cant remember if i have ever thanked them for always always being there for me. so i thought today would be the day that i say thank you.

my lessons learned from them..

i learned to see the funny side of life and not to take things to seriously and learned that you can laugh and cry at the same time and that the saddest time in your life can be the best time as well; from a person that is amazingly funny and so damn crazy and have one of the kindest heart ive ever known [Thanks Parv];

i learned to be more confident of the way i look, and encourages me to take the risk and go for the things (or person) that i want :) and helped me to discover my secret passion for designer shoes and handbags and learning which looks good and which doesnt :p; from a person who is generous and sweet and has an inner beauty that is as gorgeous as the outer [Thanks Nell];

i learned the value of true friendship, and know, that no matter how many times or how bad you have your disagreements, true friends always always forgives and forgets, and its really really worth it :); from a person who is beautiful and true and one of my inspiration in life :) [Thanks Han];

i learned to be little bit more nice, a little bit more patience and a little bit more humble :) from a person who is good to point of angelic, patience to the point of a saint and remarkably intelligent but down to earth :) [Thanks Olyn];

i learned to stand up for what i believe in and to stand on my own two feet and not to take any crap from anyone and follow my own believes and principles; from a person that is amazingly confident and strong and whom i respect highly [Thanks Zai];

i learned to accept people the way they are and not be judgmental or prejudice or arrogant of things or people, and learned that its simply just fear of the unknown and to be more open minded in life; from a person who lives her life to the fullest [Thanks Nolin];

i learned to take things slowly, to enjoy the simple things in life and be more calm and cool, and not get too emotional or dramatic (as i tend to get :p) and to stop and take a break during an all nighter study, to quietly appreciate the amazing view of the sunrise at dawn just after the Subuh prayers; from the coolest person i have ever known and whom wonderful artistic works i greatly admire [Thanks Loady];

the best thing is, im still learning from them and for as long as our friendship will be, the lessons will never end :)

a "janner" through and through

when i first came to plymouth, i was surprised to note that none of my classmates are british, not a single one of them! they all hail from places like China, Greece, France and Netherlands and you got the odd ones or twos from Malaysia (yrs truly :p) Panama, Peru, German and etc etc all interesting and all very very different (altho some are downright weird :p) but not a single british and i was actually expecting at least one or two..

a note on something i've been thinking about :
ive always wondered about the people who would go all the way to the other side of the world only to make friends with the people FROM their own country whom they meet there!!! like, what's the entire purpose of traveling then?? the whole point is immersed yourself in that country's culture and meet new people and learn something about their lives and their way of looking at the world, THAT is when you truly can say that you truly have traveled...altho i understand the need of the familiarity of being around someone from your own country and its great that you have them around, its also important to MIX your friends..and here in uk, you really really get to meet people from all over the world and this is really the best time to forge amazing friendships from people all over the world, imagine that, ALL over the WORLD!! The WORLD!! (i cant stressed that enough!!) so i sometimes get dissapointed when i see some people who just refused to mingle with other people and just stick to their own countrymen (or women), like whyy???

so anyway, finally i did managed to immersed my self with 2 weeks worth of brit attack during my work training and managed to pick up some part of the brit culture that i desperately wanted to experience :) first part of the culture education, the language..so below are some of the slangs that i picked up, see how many of them you know :p

gutted = not happy

cheesed off - fed up

bottle = courage

banger = sausage

avvy = afternoon

balmy = insane, crazy

blighter = and insignificant person

blinkin' heck! = an exclamation of surprise (this is one of my favs hehe)

chuffed = pleased, delighted

codswallop = nonsense

cheap as chips = extremely cheap

and more close to home, a "janner" is a person who originates from plymouth AND they dont spell it as plymouth, they spell it as "plemurf" !!

soooooo i was totally chuffed that i managed to learn some new slangs (i love to use the local slangs whenever i ave' the bottle to do so!) and despite what some people say, slangs are not a bunch of codswallop, they are a good way to bond more with the people around you :) a true janner i would never be, but at least it wouldnt be from the lack of trying!

anyone up for some bangers and mash? (^_^)

its early!

do you know that in UK, Mother's Day is on the 18th March, this year! well, as im writing this, its today actually! in msia kan its celebrated in May! tetiba kat sini March pulak!

so i actually bought my mom's mother's day card two months earlier (they definitely wont sell it in May) and keep it until i can send it back home, at the appropriate time..

why is it sooooo early here? rasa cam lain gile ishkkk

anyone know when Father's Day in UK gonna be?

practise practise practise!

"Hello, Welcome to *****! This is Nique from Handset Faults, How Can I Help?"

so okay, the above is THE line that i will be using in my new job, answering customers who calls in with problems with their handset :)

im almost at the end of my training (twas an agonizing two weeks! a total of 45 hours of training!!) and next week thursday, i will go 'live'! i had fun rehearsing the above line tho, even managed to get it into some sort of a melodious intonation (^_^) sorta like a singsong voice and a british accent to boot! :) u wanna hear it? just give me a call! im practising it everyday now, i even use it when i answer calls on my mobile phone :p currently my frends are just mildly annoyed but i think they will be positively livid if i dont stop soon :p and i even practised it to my housemates, going around the house reciting them over and over again, and i think they are now convinced that they are living with a mentally challenged person hehehe

the thing is, im better off practising the software system that they are using in the company :p i have to learn 4 new softwares! there some really cool infos like you have the list of ALL the handsets, and it will give every information about each and every phone! things like how to open the batteries, a step by step guide to using the menu, the use of the joystick, and not to mention how to mms, wap, gprs, 3g, photos msg, videos, downloads..okay imagine like having a 3d diagram of the phone in front of you and having a set simple but thorough instructions on how to use the bloody thing! it even will tell you what to do should a 'fault' occur and will run a diagnostic on it to tell u how to fix it! how cool is that!

hehe so me being technologically challenged myself, i'd just went gaga over this amazing burst of information!

i will soon be an expert at fixing handset faults (chewahh) so just lemme know if you ever got a problem with your phones, freezing screens? no signal displayed? dodgy keypads? from samsungs to nokias to motorolas..i can probably tell you how to fix it :p

black coat, white shoes, black hat, cadillac, yeah!

Song of the Day : RANCID - Time Bomb

you've been tagged!

i honestly didnt know what this means until a foray into miss aeni's blog enlightened me on what it means...so lemme get this straight, i am to unveil some weird stuff about myself.. 6 was it? so anyway, here goes..

1. i am scared of cats

i do, i mean i am, of course if i dont know you that well, i would probably say that i dont like cats, its sounds more normal (altho for the life of me i dont know why i need to prove that i am, you know, normal) but eventually you will figure out that i am scared of them cats.. kittens im allright with, i can even hold one sometimes, but they have the tendency of growing into cats, so yeah, i am uhum, scared of them..

2. i tend to buy the same books twice, or more

i have at least 2 or 3 copies of the same books, not all in my collection, but some of it, sometimes its in different covers, sometimes they are exactly the same, what happens is i tend to wander into bookshops at airports (especially since i travel a lot) and while looking for something to read, i tend to want to read the same thing i have read before, hence buying the same book twice..or three times...sometimes its just because the new cover is much nicer than the one that i have..expensive habit, i know i know..

3. i am a Ribena addict...

actually i used to be a coke addict, used to have them for breakfast and that would be enough to sustain me till dinner time sometimes ( i cant believe the amount of sugar i used to drink!) now since im in the uk, i drink Ribena, first thing in the morning and at least a couple of glasses for the rest of the day, but not the ready made kind, i only drink the ones that you make yourself, you know, mix the cordial with chilled water, so refreshing! i know, i havent fully grow up yet.

4. i arrange my clothes and books and cd/dvd collections by color, everything is color coordinated, from the darkest to the lightest.. with books, its also by size.

5. i collect socks, i think i must have at least 50 pairs of socks here in uk alone, its better than collecting shoes i think, cheaper hehehe i have in every colors you can imagine and some weird color combinations as well, i dont necessarily wear a pair together, i mix and match them up as well, nothing like a bright and cheerful pair of socks to brighten up your day :p

6. i have to read something before i go to sleep at night, anything, from books (i prefer books of course) to magazines to the back to cd cover or the manual of my digital clock to the instructions of my flu medicines....

so that's my six weird stuff, now i can tag other people (^_^)

spring break..

after mentioning about the spring break in my previous blog, i realised i havent bought my tickets to Glasgow yet, yikes! i will be there to meet the Chevening peeps before heading off to Germany and Austria for the spring break vacation....well, actually for me the holiday starts from Glasgow hehe (^_^)

anyway, was browsing stuff about Glasgow and found these gorgeous pictures of that part of the country and thus now really really really looking forward to it and have started figuring out what to pack when i shud be doing my work! double yikes!

sigh..cant wait for spring :p

when the going gets tough

ola beautiful people out there :)

first of all, thanks to mr.noriswadi for giving the winning formula for the sore throat cure! my fav is actually the apple cider honey vinegar mix but unfortunately i cant get them here so i needed help trying to find not only the best, but the fastest cure :) actually im pretty confident that the rest of the mixes that i received works as well (thanks olyn and judes!) and perhaps its the combination of all those that finally cures it come wed morning (^_^) so who knows hehe anywayyyyy, the tamarind drink works like a charm! either that and/or i was praying really really really hard :p but it works! not totally cure it, but enough that i can actually speak instead of croaking and able to project it across the lecture theatre and got some of those "sexy voice" comments hehehe

its funny how the human body works sometimes, just when u think that yr totally maxed out exhausted and yr just so ill and you feel soo blergghh and feverish and your throat feels so icky and it hurts to just even think about talking or swallowing and you just feel that u cant even move a muscle... u find that actually, when u really really have to, you can!

my first presentation was on wednesday is on DELL, our group was focusing on the direct business model, zero inventory stuff that now is a blur of information in my head :p did you know that Michael Dell started his business with just $1000 capital from the dorm room of his uni in 1984 and now 20 odds years later, he's like a multi billionaire! and the concept is mind boggling simple actually, let the customer decide what they want, and deal directly with them! i mean isnt that exactly what most of us wants anyway? so the presentation was good, my two bits worth is mainly the "how do they do it" part, and the other logistics challenges, the environmental and society and government part of the DELL, and luckily i remembered all the readings i did before i got sick and thus managed to answer all the questions in the end!

my second presentation, a mere two days later on friday, was about the port of plymouth, a 20 minutes walking distance away..the current port of plymouth is mainly for ro-ro ships and brittany ferries, for you to go to spain and france..and there was a paper from the uk transport ministry to perhaps look into developing it to into a container port instead..so that's the research was all about and it was good, i mean we actually managed to look into the city council's point of view, the people of plymouth and the society etc etc plymouth being a tourist and uni city and navy base made is almost next to impossible to develop it into any container ports of any kind, but its kind of interesting to learn more about the place you live in, helps to make you care about it more :)

so i have had a good ending to an "ill" week, im not 100% well yet, traces of cough and flu here and there and plus i have just finished my first week of work training (will write about this more in my next blog) and at least two of the most time consuming presentation is done, and now its tuesday of a brand new week, and another two more weeks, we'll be on spring break, yeay! (^_^)

help!

i have been working quite diligently for the past weeks, for this week, where i have two presentations, major presentations and quite an important coursework due as well, so that's a total of three important part of this Msc, and i was kinda ready with my part of the slides and all, and i have done most of my readings.. when i suddenly got sick.. i woke up Monday morning with a horrible sore throat and sneezing nonstop and a temperature hot enough to fry an egg on my forehead.. and by evening, i lost my voice as well, and it hurts whenever i tried...

and now its Tuesday and im still not much better than yesterday.. and so far i have tried tea+lemon, hot water+lime+honey, and the usual strepsils and sore throats medicines, but nothing seems to be working...

my first presentation is tomorrow, another on Friday and i dont know if i will be well enough to speak by then...if i didnt proceed with the presentations, my grades will definitely be affected and lower down my average that i have been working hard to maintain so far, for now i have send an email to my lecturers and now waiting for their reply, and see what they have to say....

until then, anyone has a fast cure for recovering back your voice? i have exactly 24 hours!

the greatest view

of all the places that i have been in this world; nothing could ever compare to the view that i get from this ship, this is where my life started, straight out of uni, the start of many firsts, my first time on an oil tanker, one of the biggest of its kind in fact, my first time in a shipyard, my first time on working on a deck of ship, my first time having my own room on very large crude carrier, right next to captain's cabin :p, my first time i learn about ships and the crews and understanding the irresistible lure of the sea...

maybe you have seen better views, and perhaps there are much much breathtaking places out there, but i guess because this ship means more to me than any other place in the world, this will be the greatest view i have ever seen..

the experiences, the knowledge, the friendship, this is where i have had some of the best times of my life, its almost like home..

rindu nye nak naik k1 (u_u) ......

a sweet surprise

I received this heartbreakingly adorable teddy bear in the post yesterday, courtesy of a dear dear dear friend, who insists that it is a non-valentine present, and i like to believe it is simply because he misses me so much, altho he does not want to admit it hehehehe

To my darling friend, thank you soooo much for the gift, i really really love it! and thanks for making so much effort (and the drama that you went through, macam tak biasa jer with me, sesia jer jadi my neighbour and "uncle" for six years hehe) :D i think it kinda looks like the teddy you have in your friendster :p

this comel and charming and devastatingly gorgeous teddy reminds me of you and as such, in your honour i will call him Gilbert the Second :p (remember the Gilbert the First? he has offsprings now, the blessed green soul hehe)

so to Gilbert II, welcome to the UK, i promise to take you to all the amazing places i aim to visit, where we will have amazing adventures together and you'll be a seasoned traveler with an expert knowledge of the world (well at least superior to other teddies hehe) when the time comes for us to go home (^_^)

new job!

heya peeps out there :D guess what, ive got a job! a part time job! finally after months of searching for the right kind of work, i finally found it! cant tell you where it is hehehe lets just say its somewhere i know that the "future's" gonna be "bright" (^_^)

im starting next week, which is pretty crazy timing actually since i have three presentations and a coursework due, but i think i can handle it..sides' i desperately desperately need the extra cash so yeah, i'll do watever i can to cope with my studies and work..after all its only 20 hours a week :p

so its a start to a fantastic month, yay!