ahhh i had a pretty good weekend. i'm always quite worried about weekends cos it means WORK WORK WORK and the possibilty of homesickness. but anyway.

sat afternoon i went for lunch with my dad's old professor who is now based in cambridge and is an anatomy demonstrator! haha the last time i met him and his wife was like 6 years ago when i was an exceedingly dorky 13 year old and we went tobaganning (is that how you spell it) in their gigantic backyard in wales. but now they've moved here. they are just the loveliest people really. i mean you would feel scared going for lunch with 2 old people you hardly know right? but they are genuinely interested in finding out about how i'm managing, what i'm doing, how i like it here etc etc. even though it was just a simple ham cheese salad soup type of lunch it just felt so homely. awwww i really felt quite homesick when i left (about 2 hours later. can you believe i managed to talk to them for 2hours with no awkward pauses! i must be getting friendlier) cos they made me feel like family. and they kept offering to take me up to oxford with them cos their son lives there. so yayyyyy no horrible 3hour bus rides. did loads of work in the evening. i think i understand quite a bit of anatomy now. BUT. i can't remember any of it so i don't think it's all that great.

sunday had lunch with our director of studies. we went to his house in haslingfield which is just outside cambridge. so cool our supervisors like drove us there. i sat in theo's car! and can you believe it, yesterday marked a month i've been here. which also means i hadn't sat in a car for a month. we were discussing how when you live in cambridge, it's very easy to isolate yourself from the world and completely forget about everything else. besides anatomy. hahha but lunch was really really good. our dos' wife cooked everything and made fantabulous pudding! there were like 4 different types of cake that were all so unbelievably yummy. homecooked food!! ahhhhhhhhh......

then charlotte and i had to rush over to the boat house for rowing. we learnt how to feather our blades which must be the best thing ever cos i didn't squash any of my fingers yesterday. and i love the sound the feathered blades make when they hit the water. oh but i'm developing blisters. then did a practice on the ergs for tuesday night's queens' ergs! i must be getting a bit fitter cos i seem to be able to manage 500m a lot better. my timing was 2min11sec which i am quite pleased with because the last i did it, it was like 2min25sec i think. heh but i'm one of the weaker ones in my boat. which really is ok. because i don't want to leave cam looking like a man.

all the nus ppl must be mugging hard right? my dad told me nus medicine was like 9th in the world right? phwoarrrrr nus power! heh but cam came in first. so.

finally! a new phone! so chio!!!!!!! :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

happy birthday shuching!

yesterday night went for formal hall which wasn't spectacular. ugh my dessert got pennied. then went for the a&e bop which was really quite fun. i wore my lab coat. quite boring. i wish i had scrubs. after that walked to gardies for supper. omg my knees were freezing!! and the food quite sucked. ended up talking til 4 in the morning. and i still somehow managed to wake up at 9. damn it. oh mannn i really have to do some work now. i'm super behind everyone. easily the dumbest medic at queens'.

last night's photos

i am officially the second boat bow! like omg i made the second team!!!!

mondayyyyy had a shit 9-4 day. i'm always tired over here i don't know why. hmmm and i can't remember exciting things that happened on monday.

tuesday was prepared for a SOLID 9-4 day again. but then this inexperienced (but in my opinion, amazing) builder cut through some power cable so our biochem lab had no power supply. HAHA. so we didn't have to go back in the afternoon to finish our experiments. and the day ended at 2!! at 5 went for circuits in the fitzpat. omg i am SO unfit. like how did we manage to do 40 men's push ups at training? i did like 30 women's and i was dying. and burpees! oh god i hate burpees! and squat jumps. and shuttle runs. and PLANK! but i will be fit and hot after consistent circuits. haha. i've given up on yoga already. what a load of bull.

yesterday was quite rubbishy. skipped a lecture and finished my HOM essay! yesss! but i think it might be completely wrong. oh gosh the other night i dreamt i got my anatomy essay back and it was graded 3/100. and there were 3 solitary red ticks on my 5 page essay. i hope that doesn't actually materialise. then studied the hand very hard! noddy is missing a pisiform.

today nothing exciting except went for erg training in the afternoon. borrowed emma's bike which is so much more manageable. but cycling in cambridge is quite dangerous i think. erg training was quite killer. you know it's those rowing machines in the gym?? right so we did like 5 min warm up, then proper warm ups for 10 min. then a 500m sprint (oh gawdddd. my butt muscles! and my fingers were starting to cramp up). then 10 min cool down. ohhhhh i'm so weak :( but bow is not the power position so i guess that's ok. man it was a good workout. except i perspired so much i had butt patches on my sweatpants. note to self: do not wear those for erg comp. how horrid. then rushed back and went for supervision. no brownies today. and alex thought it was at half five so i was there in the room, just me and the supervisor, for like 40min. which sounds scary but was actually very productive. i think he now knows the limit of my brain ability. ben's cooking dinner tonight. should i bathe before or after dinner??? yayyy later tonight can talk to my sister. who's mugging hard for her final paper tmr. lucky arse.

bird: haha "making tea" makes me sound about 60 years old right!
saraho: there's no primark here!
skoa: haha my life not half as exciting as LET's!!!
jm: i'm coming back 4/5 dec i think. actually quite soon if you think about it!

and all you other noobs who read can you please tag. i knowwwww you read this.

i was chatting with ymw a few days ago and she said that she was "making tea". and then mak just told me that she's "doing the laundry".

somehow i dont think i'll ever say things like that. too sheltered and dependent and boring in the hazy little island of singapore.

hmmm. i cant seem to find the words to describe how i'm feeling right now.

but anyway, i used to like this song by the calling alot.

Things Don't Always Turn Out That Way

Well he can't sleep at night
And he can't do what's right
It was all because she came into his life
Tt's a deep obsession, taking up his time

She's all that he wants, she's all that he needs
She's everything he just won't believe
Take away his doubt, turn him inside out
Then she can see what he's been dying to say
But things don't always turn out that way

And he must confess
All the impure thoughts of his beautiful temptress
Although he keeps it all bottled up inside
Although he keeps it all safe within his mind, oh yeah

So wipe that smile off your face
Before it gets too late
There's only so much time
For you to make up your mind

oh i had such a super duper uber fantastic weekend!

arrived in oxford about 1-ish and my sister came to the bus station to meet me.... haha netball was only starting at 2 so we decided to bum around for a bit. she took me to shakeaway which must be the coolest shop ever. a gigantic milkshake shop! the flavours all sound really yummy. i spent ages drooling over the list and finally settled on strawberry cheesecake that was really really really amazingggg! my sister had some mint chocolate thing that was nice but couldn't rival my strawberry cheesecake :D then went to buy ben's cookies cos the covered market is supposed to be closed on sunday. mmmm i bought one peanut butter, one oatmeal raisin (must be favourite cookie flavour) and one double and nut. mmmmmmmmmmmmm yummy yummy.

then we trekked back to her house. it's the big medic house cos there are 12 of them living together. quickly changed and reached the netball place 40mins late. oops. but the oxford team was non-existent and the cam team was just warming up so that was alright :) haha guess what! i ended up playing centre! ME! possibly the most unfit person alive. surprisingly enough it wasn't as tiring as i imagined. but i did get a good cardiac workout! of course we thrashed oxford. i think it was 18-0. but they insisted they got one goal in. so ok lor. thennnn... walked over to uni parks to watch guys football and possibly participate in frisbee. the weather was sooo nice i was walking around in my t shirt and shorts! i didn't play frisbee in the end cos i realised i wasn't much good. and the oxford people seemed a bit violent. i would like to keep my teeth thank you very much.

dinner with my sister and her friend which turned out really well :D :D heh heh heh. i ordered chicken kurma which was completely crap but at least the company was good! oh and this curry place is quite cool. at the end of the meal the (only) waiter will push out a cart and offer a small glass of port "on the house". picked up a tub of green&black's [i think that's what the brand was...] dark chocolate ice cream. went to her friend's house and each ate a third of the tub (felt quite ill after that x_x) while watching top of the pops and strictly come dancing. HAHA british tv. went back to her house and was greeted with FRESH apple crumble with ice cream. phwoarrrrr divine! but i was still feeling ill from too much rich ice cream. her housemates are damn funny! ayee i was really quite jealous that my sister has such cool friends. why am i not cool as her!?

next day abandoned kevin because i realised i hardly spent any time with JUST my sister. dim sum lunch that was pretty good. the century egg congee was so yummy :) the truth is that i don't miss chinese food all that much. but when i do get to eat it i'm very happy :D anyway we just talked and talked and talked. i love how we manage to pick up right where we left off easily. and how we can talk about anything. did a bit of shopping at primark (this fashion of uk) hahhaa picked up another milkshake (toblerone flavour!!) and decided to give krispy kremes a miss since i was feeling quite ill.

bus ride back was 3 miserble hours long. i started to feel really homesick on the bus. first time since the start of the freshers week, i take it as an achievement! yeah but ohhhhh i miss my sister already :( and so much work to do this week! i think i will have to miss the freak-show talk. darn it.

yay i'm going to sleep now. i <3 sleep.

omg yet another week has passed. as cheesy as it sounds TIME REALLY FLIES over here. i don't know why.

where did i leave off last time??
ermsssss sunday night we had the LEGENDARY medics curry which wasn't all that fun. people were all pennying (if you drop a penny into someone's wine glass they have to down it) each other and getting plain drunk. because i am uncool i was only pennied once. haha a lot of stupid games like
"everybody put a shoe on your head!"
"everybody touch the ceiling!"
"everybody get under the table!"

2 guys had this under the table race it was madddd. then there was some race (i forget what it's called) where each side of the table would down wine relay style. crazy right. basically the waiters at this restaurant have permanent scowls. you would too if (possibly) every night you have bits of flying naan, loud drunk students, red wine all over the table cloth etc etc. you get the idea.

then went to soul tree for funkyard which was really quite shitty. damn hot inside and it wasn't fun at all.

mondayyy had a good dissection! i'm really starting to love it cos i learn so much there. ayeee but the smell! it makes my tummy rumble.. i keep thinking about food when peeling away fascia. disturbing right? can't remember what i did the rest of the day.

tues wed.... can't quite remember either. finished 2 essays! yayyyy. the queens' library is really very good to work in. better than my room. when i sit in my room right, i just eat non stop. and i really mean it. i go through so much food in a day it scares me a bit. i usually have 2 breakfasts everyday. and the rest of the day i just sit at my table with a bag of crisps or a pack of biscuits in my left hand while highlighting stuff with my right hand. (btw bird you will be pleased to know that i don't use the blue highlighter anymore. haha but only because my supervisor gave all of us yellow highlighters) but i weighed myself in the bathroom and i'm still 52 so that's alright.

yesterday i think i felt quite depressed. overwhelmed by work. i'm really just barely keeping up it's terrible. and everyone here is so fricking clever! i know it's cambridge, they're supposed to be. but still. it's scaryyyyyyyy. but had dokett party in the evening and ended up chatting for a long time with random people. sometimes i surprise myself by being friendly.

today woke up at 6 for rowing! x_x but it was pretty good. felt quite psyched after that. i borrowed ben's bike to get to the boat house and it's so high! i was so damn scared i would fall and crack my head on the pavement. i don't want to die 3 weeks into term! then then then.... had a pretty good dissection again today. i quite like my dissection table mates (bettter not say too soon though :S). haha strangely enough i like ending off the week with dissection because then i feel quite accomplished. and i go back feeling hungry so i look forward to my ginger snaps or chocolate digestives or donuts or whatever. ooh and i got my uber cool rowing splash top. it looks damn weifeng! BUT. 45quid so i really hope i get good use out of it. haha it's a bit poser but i like it :D i want to go for the 80s bop tonight! but i think a quiet night in will be good. we're gonna watch closer! jude law!! haha tmr going to oxford for oxbridge games. yayyy i'm so excited to see my sister again! and i get to be the first one in my family to meet someone special. yayyyyyyyy!!!! :D

kaipink is number 1 cam whore.

so we went for oktoberfest last friday! and i realized. that i didnt take any pictures of FOOD..!! but the food was not bad. sausages!!! (ymw the sausages there beat the rj chinese food stall uncle's ones hands down!)

i've been listening to quite alot of snow patrol. and their songs are good.

Run

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up...

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

yayyy i've finally got my imitation keds from topshop! 15pounds sounds really cheap doesn't it. but actually when you convert it.... haha never mind. they were cheap. and they look so cute!

this week has been pretty alright.... nothing much happening. a lot of trying-to-study-but-not-succeeding. lectures are boring. had 2 good supervisions on mostly a level stuff that i quite aced. yayyy.... then had a really shit anatomy supervision in which i was clearly the dumbest of the group. i just tried stuffing my mouth full of rock cake so i would have an excuse not to answer questions. moral of the story: mug your ass off! having scared myself shitless, i studied really hard for the next day's dissection and it totally paid off! it was really so fantastic i learnt so much in just 2 hours. haha towards the end of the session i just kept thinking, "this was so great. i'm so happy. who am i gonna gush about the brachioradialis to??" so this morning i just sat at my table fitting noddy's ulnar radius and humerus together. the catz perv must be quite weirded out. haha the human arm is SO COOL! geeky i know.

on the social front (oh god i have a social front), had people over in my tiny room two nights in a row just talking about random things. no work done of course. also finally got into spoons (the bouncers are completely anal and don't accept student id). but that's cos they don't check when you're there at dinner time. matriculation dinner on thursday which wasn't great cos i was sitting opposite the dean :S i realised i really don't like wine. red wine is just too seap. last night went to watch 'closer'. i've never seen the film so can't compare. the play was really good though. and as with pretty persuasion, i'm just shocked there are such screwed up people around. had cookout with jasho today. haha quite fun. we ended up playing around with her plastic skeleton. less disrespectful than playing with noddy. and sainsbury's donuts rock! 10 for less than a pound. please if i come back to singapore really fat will all my friends say so to my face.

ok i can show you all some photos now.
ben me wv before the pj pub crawl. bird can you see the toe socks? haha my dressing gown is nice and polka dotty. actually quite worth it cos i can wear it when i run downstairs in my shorts to pee in the morning.this one with my family! pen and louise (our aunt) in front. then james nikki camilla (mum) chris (dad) adam me and hemma. ayeee only adam did a stupid face with me. haha basically i was wearing my rj uniform with black tights. hmmm the other photos have really poor resolution so that's all you get to see now!

too many words not enough photos

Heya doods!

I’ve been so incredibly busy. Which is why this update has come so late.

Freshers week has been pretty good, haha more fun than orientation at rjc! :D so the week:

Arrived early on Friday morning and met my sister in cambridge. Nothing much exciting except seeing my new room. It’s really not bad! Haha it’s tiny compared to the other rooms but it’s cheap. And I hardly get to meet freshers but the people on my staircase are really nice so that’s alright! My window faces some guy’s at catz. Pity he’s not hot :( the road outside is fondly known as piss alley cos all the drunks come by so I sometimes get woken up (if I’m not still awake) by singing at 3am.

Saturday afternoon I had tea with my college family. Second year parents and 5 fresher siblings. I reckon I was quite miserable (I can’t really remember now) during that because I had absolutely nothing to say. Then we had formal dinner with the family which had some kick ass dessert. Also had a good chat with 2 of my ‘brothers’ about monty python, anime and Asians. After that we had a party with our tutors. Haha I was quite amused how the tutors were openly encouraging the consumption of alcohol. Hmm. But yeah got to meet the other medics and I had a good first impression. Decided to skip jazz and cocktails after that to go back to my room and talk to my sister. I remember feeling really miserable that day because I was pretty convinced I wouldn’t be able to fit in and be screwed for the next 6 years of my life.

Sunday afternoon we had a pub lunch and short tour of cambride with our college family. I was DEFINITELY miserable during that because I had nothing to say and I was pretty sure my family hated me. (I’m so optimistic I KNOW) later that day my sister left and I, of course, bawled my eyes out. It was so comforting knowing that I could go back to my room and bitch about anything to my sister :( oh well. Then went for rowing squash where I signed up for tubbing (a crude form of rowing) with the blonde alex. Met ben there and wahhhhhh I’m just so grateful there was another Singaporean at queens’. International squash after dinner was pretty good. Asian kids unite man! Haha but yeah met the other Malaysians and it was so great knowing they were all here.

Monday meeting with our DOS (director of studies) which was a bit intimidating but I was also quite psyched. Signed up for supervision slots and collected our skeletons. I called mine NODDY but I still haven’t really looked at or talked to him. Haha I think someone named theirs Raphael (turtle power), hannah called hers Jerusalem, blonde alex called his bub (I hear he’s been drinking alcohol out of bub’s head -_-). Subject contact meeting after lunch was overwhelming. “well for anatomy this book is pretty good. And this one is useful for essays. This one is perfect for last minute revision. This one is really good if you forget dissections. Don’t forget your atlas as well…….” Omg. How many fricking books do we need? Just have to check them out in the library. Anyway that night we had…. Speed MATING 0_0 haha I went for the first half and found it rubbish. They made us international students stand (ok lar they didn’t just pick on us) cos there weren’t any seats left. Apparently the second half got pretty er. raunchy so good thing I wasn’t there :) after that….. I think we all went over to alex’s room. And then…. OH I remember! We went to visit Kelly and saraho at christs. Had a good chat about how hard it is to get along with angmohs. Haha bitching session.

Tuesday morning matriculation! Got to wear my cool 30pound gown. Bastard guy in front of me completely ignored me but at least the guy behind me was nice enough. I’m one of the last 10 from our year so I got to sit in the front for the photo. Then we had to queue up to shake the president’s hand. We had to wait sooooooooo long just because we happened to have a W surname :( then went for uni societies fair! Signed up for a lot of shit like anime club, some drama club, korfball, Frisbee, yoga, softball, canoeing, lacrosse and I can’t remember what else. I reckon the only ones I will seriously consider would be softball, yoga and rowing. But softball people still haven’t emailed us anything. Hmph. Later when everyone was off at soul tree (yet another club), audry and hk took us out for dinner at jinling noodle house which is a completely shit Chinese restaurant near queens’. Haha but company was good enough. then wandered through a few random colleges. i know it’s horrible for international students to always stick together but sometimes you just can’t help it and at least you know you have a group of really really good friends to hang out with :D

Wednesday I had…….. lectures and stuff I think? Haha I somehow can’t remember what I did. But did realize the dynamics in our medic group. Shall not elaborate yet. But well out of the 12 of us at least I definitely get along with Hannah and the blonde and black alex. Afternoon went shopping for pyjamas with ben for our uber cool queens’ pyjama pub crawl! Finally got a dressing gown from marks and spencer (the Giordano of uk) which was fricking 25pounds! Cheapest I could find. But I figured I would get good use out of it. So that night the 4 of us (me wv alex ben) headed for the pub crawl! Haha we were so worried everyone would be dressed nicely while we looked crap in pjs but omg people here are really sporting. The outfits! Hilarious! Haha we had a good time wandering from place to place in pjs (bird I wore your toe socks with flip flops they were such a hit with everyone!) took turns buying drinks for each other and we got quite drunk. But really so funnnn!

Thursday we had…… I can’t remember lectures in the morning I suppose. Ohhh! I went tubbing with blonde alex. It was super duper fun after that I was really keen on rowing. Afternoon had my first supervision with the fantastic Welch. He served us brownies (heavenly!) and tea. i didn’t have any time to read through the stuff before that so I think he thought I was really really dumb. But he’s a cool old man. Went for the queens’ ski trip chat at night and i really quite want to go. But it’s 300pounds plus plus so I don’t think I should dry out my funding. Bar quiz after that. What a laugh! Haha this guy in my group got so frustrated cos he couldn’t solve the dingbats it was soooo funny. Also talked to this really sweet girl who somehow thought I was a second year. ?? haha yayy more friends. We were supposed to be in our family groups but I was already sitting with random people before that started so I just stayed with the random people. My family was a bit ‘annoyed’ I suppose. Haha they called their group “where is yingmei”. That’s when I realized they didn’t hate me and that I wasn’t non-existent to them :D ten points to me!

Friday lectures and dissection! I’m so thankful for dissection cos it was so coolllllll! Made me feel excited about doing medicine again. That night we had dinner with our families. It went so much better than I expected. Loads of alcohol and everyone is friendly. Ke3 shi4 ta1 men2 zhu3 de dong1 xi1 hen3 gross. Haha somehow managed to tun1 xia4 qu4. yikes even before the bop (college club event) started I already had 2 glasses of wine and 2 shots. And I probably had the leastalcohol though. After dinner we all went for NAUGHTY! Which was a back to school bop. Mr hodge wouldn’t be pleased with my outfit but I didn’t include the badge. so. Haha funnnnn! Music here is so cheesy but that’s the fun thing about it!

Yesterday somehow managed to wake up early to play netball. Cam is gonna get thrashed. I hate netball. Doesn’t everyone remember my brutal battle scars from sec 4? But oh wells. Then rushed back for brunch and got ready for matriculation photo cos our one taken on Tuesday got screwed up -_- then then then…. Mm cumsa event which was horrible. No food! But met a few people there. Went for dinner at ugly duckling which is the good but prob the most expensive place ever! 10pounds for rice!!! I don’t think we’re going there again.

This morning did rowing in a boat of 8. omg so cool! I’m rowing at Cambridge! It doesn’t get any better. Aye but I don’t think I’ll last long cos I’m very weak compared to everyone else. Poor Chinese girl. Ok that’s enough. I’m supposed to be studying now.

mid autumn festival!

i'll let the pictures do the talking. am in major need of SLEEP. not exactly a great idea to play touch rug after only 2 hrs of sleep AND in the psi 130 haze but it was all good.

goodnight!

back to school!

not that we're not in school. but you know, BACK to secondary/jc days. so that was rapangseh on monday. fun stuff, we should do this more often. even better if we do it as a CLASS!

i foresee stressful days ahead. good luck to me!