Proper update for this week
Yet another week is over. My 6th week in Nottingham, UK is officially beginning in less than 2 hours. According to Kah Wan, who is counting the number of days I have left before I return to Singapore, I have 50 more days to go.
Thursday (25 Oct):
My first Contract tutorial was quite a funny one! I only realised, 15 minutes before my tutorial began, that my tutor is actually the lecturer who first started lecturing the first major topic for Contract law. And I liked him as my lecturer. He really is a funny, old man, full of sarcasm and dry, English humour and wit. He calls us by our sirnames. So I'm "Chua" to him. And before lesson proper, he gave us slips of paper that had the words "C18 (our respective sirnames)" written on it. He then made us take "prison mug shots" by holding the piece of paper in front of us while he used his digital camera to take a photo of us with the slip of paper. I've now pinned up that piece of paper on my cork board in my room. Anyway, I presented a Singaporean keychain-souvenir to him at the end of our tutorial session and he seemed quite amused with it. He also told me that his son works in Singapore!
There are 6 other people in my tutorial group and they will be my tutorial mates for my other 2 subjects too. Besides tutorials, we are part of the same seminar group. So, I hope I will get to know them much better in time to come. So far, of the 2 girls and 4 guys who are in my group, the 2 British girls seem rather nice/friendly. Oh God, let them be sincerely nice to me.
And let us have proper 2-way conversations.
Friday (26 Oct):
Oh dear, I've forgotten what I did on Friday! All I remember is that on Friday night, the Singaporean group I hang out with (about 12 of us in total I think) had a dessert party at Janice's block. We were too big a group to squeeze into her room, so we sat ourselves down in the ironing room a few doors down. At this very pleasant dessert party, we had apple strudel, apple crumble, cookies and cream ice-cream, triple chocolate ice-cream, strawberry trifle and chocolate eclairs (hopefully I didn't miss out anything). Besides the food, there was apple juice, lemonade, beer and apple cidar. I stuck to the apple juice. Had a few sips of apple cidar.
Photos below (Oh, the bowl of "lump" in one of the photos is actually the apple strudel. Janice tried heating it up in her microwave but it came out looking like that. No worries though, it was edible. And delicious. And I haven't had any case of food poisoning or diarhoea after eating it) :
Saturday (27 Oct):
I spent the day out with Tzen, going into city to get a coat for her and just do a little shopping therapy. We got back at about 3pm and I did my laundry. I washed my duvet cover and pillow cover. Then I changed my duvet and pillow covers to the second set I have. Now, I have to get used to seeing my bed looking different the moment I enter the room. I remember, yesterday after dinner, I came in, saw my bed covers and at the first moment, thought I had entered the wrong room!
Sunday (28 Oct):
Tried talking to the 19-year-olds who were at Uncle KK's house over skype when I woke up. Missed Jolene because she had gone home, but got to catch a glimpse of Uncle KK, Guoxiang, Sam Ho, Joanne and Kah Wan. We kept losing connection, probably because the connection was very bad. So in the end, I didn't get to talk to them properly. However, the most depressing thing Joanne told me over MSN this morning was that my face look PUFFED UP. Oh my gosh that's not simply putting on weight, that means I've put on LOADS of weight! And they tell me that at the start of my day...
But don't worry. I wasn't severely affected by their comment. I will not sue them for tort of mental injury (heh heh). I can't anyway, the House of Lords will probably chuck out my claim.
Went to Grace Church in the morning thinking that I'd pretty much settled on attending this church, but came away feeling all dissatisfied and uncomfortable. I will not be settling in that church. The visiting will continue for at least, and hopefully at most, another week.
I finally got to skype with my parents in the evening. It was good talking to them. Honestly, just talking to them and complaining to them about my noisy neighbours, the (seemingly, I hope) insincere and cold British, frustrating unproductive-church-visiting and my Understanding Law seminar leader (from hell) got me feeling a bit teary at times. Like, I felt like crying due to the frustration I was feeling. Especially about the church part.
I just realised though that this week, I've received emails and texts from a few people and they tell me how brave I am for leaving my home, coming to stay in such a faraway place... and I feel better about myself. Things are not so bad. I'm surviving here. I'm actually enjoying myself here most of the time. So I'm doing even better than surviving. I can be proud of myself for living relatively well in Nottingham this past 5 weeks.
And I know that I do not have any regrets for coming to Nottingham to study.
Thursday (25 Oct):
My first Contract tutorial was quite a funny one! I only realised, 15 minutes before my tutorial began, that my tutor is actually the lecturer who first started lecturing the first major topic for Contract law. And I liked him as my lecturer. He really is a funny, old man, full of sarcasm and dry, English humour and wit. He calls us by our sirnames. So I'm "Chua" to him. And before lesson proper, he gave us slips of paper that had the words "C18 (our respective sirnames)" written on it. He then made us take "prison mug shots" by holding the piece of paper in front of us while he used his digital camera to take a photo of us with the slip of paper. I've now pinned up that piece of paper on my cork board in my room. Anyway, I presented a Singaporean keychain-souvenir to him at the end of our tutorial session and he seemed quite amused with it. He also told me that his son works in Singapore!
There are 6 other people in my tutorial group and they will be my tutorial mates for my other 2 subjects too. Besides tutorials, we are part of the same seminar group. So, I hope I will get to know them much better in time to come. So far, of the 2 girls and 4 guys who are in my group, the 2 British girls seem rather nice/friendly. Oh God, let them be sincerely nice to me.
And let us have proper 2-way conversations.
Friday (26 Oct):
Oh dear, I've forgotten what I did on Friday! All I remember is that on Friday night, the Singaporean group I hang out with (about 12 of us in total I think) had a dessert party at Janice's block. We were too big a group to squeeze into her room, so we sat ourselves down in the ironing room a few doors down. At this very pleasant dessert party, we had apple strudel, apple crumble, cookies and cream ice-cream, triple chocolate ice-cream, strawberry trifle and chocolate eclairs (hopefully I didn't miss out anything). Besides the food, there was apple juice, lemonade, beer and apple cidar. I stuck to the apple juice. Had a few sips of apple cidar.
Photos below (Oh, the bowl of "lump" in one of the photos is actually the apple strudel. Janice tried heating it up in her microwave but it came out looking like that. No worries though, it was edible. And delicious. And I haven't had any case of food poisoning or diarhoea after eating it) :
Saturday (27 Oct):
I spent the day out with Tzen, going into city to get a coat for her and just do a little shopping therapy. We got back at about 3pm and I did my laundry. I washed my duvet cover and pillow cover. Then I changed my duvet and pillow covers to the second set I have. Now, I have to get used to seeing my bed looking different the moment I enter the room. I remember, yesterday after dinner, I came in, saw my bed covers and at the first moment, thought I had entered the wrong room!
Sunday (28 Oct):
Tried talking to the 19-year-olds who were at Uncle KK's house over skype when I woke up. Missed Jolene because she had gone home, but got to catch a glimpse of Uncle KK, Guoxiang, Sam Ho, Joanne and Kah Wan. We kept losing connection, probably because the connection was very bad. So in the end, I didn't get to talk to them properly. However, the most depressing thing Joanne told me over MSN this morning was that my face look PUFFED UP. Oh my gosh that's not simply putting on weight, that means I've put on LOADS of weight! And they tell me that at the start of my day...
But don't worry. I wasn't severely affected by their comment. I will not sue them for tort of mental injury (heh heh). I can't anyway, the House of Lords will probably chuck out my claim.
Went to Grace Church in the morning thinking that I'd pretty much settled on attending this church, but came away feeling all dissatisfied and uncomfortable. I will not be settling in that church. The visiting will continue for at least, and hopefully at most, another week.
I finally got to skype with my parents in the evening. It was good talking to them. Honestly, just talking to them and complaining to them about my noisy neighbours, the (seemingly, I hope) insincere and cold British, frustrating unproductive-church-visiting and my Understanding Law seminar leader (from hell) got me feeling a bit teary at times. Like, I felt like crying due to the frustration I was feeling. Especially about the church part.
I just realised though that this week, I've received emails and texts from a few people and they tell me how brave I am for leaving my home, coming to stay in such a faraway place... and I feel better about myself. Things are not so bad. I'm surviving here. I'm actually enjoying myself here most of the time. So I'm doing even better than surviving. I can be proud of myself for living relatively well in Nottingham this past 5 weeks.
And I know that I do not have any regrets for coming to Nottingham to study.
Comments