Walking on the streets....

As I mentioned before, this year I spend about 1 hour 30mins walking on the streets everyday.

If I would have do that in Malaysia there will only be a few consequences:
- I get a skin cancer resulting from intense sunburn
- I got robbed
- I got killed because I tried to fight with robbers.
- I got killed because some snatch thieves kill you before you try to fight.
Trivial right? Because, nobody actually does that. Even if someone does it, he dont live to tell.

So far, I encountered some incidents while walking on the streets on London. Some quite dodgy but I must say there are really interesting to share.

First you might think London is a really safe place to be in. Occasionally you still get muggers on the streets, less violence than those in Malaysia, but they would still beat you up if you rebel.

Its rare to met up with those muggers because they only appear in the night. Unlike Malaysia, everything is 24 hours like mamak, convenient stores and robbers, they all work hard for a living.

What I met on the streets are professional beggers. They dress well and they dont sit on the floor with a cup. They come up to you with interesting pick up line like:
" Hey, you look good today, can you please give me some money to get a cool hair cut just like you? "
Ok, that was just a joke, they dont say that.

But I got some lines like:

" Hey mate, I need to get a hostel tonight but I am lacking a pound, could you just please spare me a pound for the night?"

Brian paid for this. But LOL, the next day the man came to us with the same line again.

" Hey, I just got lock out my house accidently with my phones inside. Could you please spare me 50p for a phone call?"

"Hey, could you just give me 20p please? I dont need much, I just want 20p" 

So far, I have only given the 20p because that guy seems older and its a reasonable amount. I got even teenagers trying to get money from me.

Then there was this car incident.  Last Tuesday while I was walking to play futsal, a guy rolled down his window of his car...

" Excuse me, are you Japanese?"

"No, I am Malaysian."

"Oh, hi there, I am Italian. I worked for Harrods, do you know Harrods?"

"Yes...." (thinking that he would ask for directions)

"I am going back to Italy, and I am driving to Heathrow now. I got a few jacket from Giorgio Armani. I need to give them out for free because my luggage is too heavy. "

"What size do you wear?"

"Er... M "

Then a horn of a car behind him.
Suddenly, I got this "survival in Malaysia" instinct that we run from scenario like this instantly.

"Errm I am actually rushing for some events.. See ya!"

Funnily enough when I was sharing this incident in my friends birthday dinner later on that night, I found that my housemate encounter the same thing that very same day when he was on the bike. Then, one of our HK friend say he even went onto his car!

So, our conclusion for the night was, lets start our thai boxing class next wednesday!

Science and Art

All my final year friends are busy applying for their job lately....

The problem with our degree course is that it is not widely recognised or needed. Come on, who the hell knows what biomedical engineering is? If you do happen to be that one in a million, why on earth do you need to recruit us anyway, we dont make money.

Yes, we face this fact, and accept that this is what we are. When things come into your 3rd year or final year, you get really materialistic and realistic. Don't give me bullshit like "Oh, I like my course, I am so enthusiastic about learning how protein is synthesised in the cell..." bla bla ... It is now all money first! To be fair, people like us now are pups going into the wild, finally set free, we'll need to hunt for food (money).

If you think this guy here

is your daddy, fine dream on !

People like us will get hungry very soon, and our degree is not a solution. All my coursemates are therefore joining what we call the "dark side". The finance and business sector. Yay!!

That is what a biomedical engineering/engineering degree brings you:

- First, there is no fuckin' firm that want to employ people in this discipline

- If you somehow, managed to get into a research team say Imperial college for example, you will do something like making a cost free but efficient prosthetic for really poor people. (ethical!)

- Or, get a normal engineering job in Malaysia, work for whole life also cannot repay the cost of studying spent.

Finance and business sector brings you:

- More chicks 
- Alot of job opportunites from all around the world.

- High paid job

- A huge variety of majors and discipline

- At least when you go to Merrill Lynch and say, hey I do a BioEng degree, they will say ok send in your CV. Unlike when you go to Siemans, they would say, I am not sure about that, check our website....

That is why I choose to do 2 business modules this year.

The first one is entrepreneurship.

I liked it so much, because the first lecture slide of the course is this

Yes!!! straight to the point. How to turn idea into money....Woo

And I think business people think better than science people. A diagram of a business module might look like this

But a diagram for a analogue circuit and systems module look like?

The first one is so easy to understand as long as you know english. The latter, dont ask me, I dont know what the f*ck it is also.



So I tried to convert the diagram into a simpler art format with paint, and this is what I got.

Understandable ?

Come my friends, lets join the Dark Side!

What I do on a regular Thursday

 Today is Thursday.
And this is the first time I do live blogging, actually blogging instantly.

Just now, I woke up at ... look at the clock:

If I were back then last year, it would be SHIT !!! super late.

This year, its ok, chill man.

Then....
I did some push up.

Damn freaking cold !! Must warm up the body, if not you would just be shivering whole morning.
Next, its time for breakfast.

Had some cereal that I always used to have.

Today suddenly got the mood to drink some coffee, so I stole a spoon of nescafe.

Not to forget to check the refrigerator.

Of course, I need to do some business as well....

Finally, time to dress up !!

And And.... .wait for it .......

GO TO PASAR (Market) !!

The reason I checked the fridge just now is to see what to buy.

I went to the local meat store too.

WALAO Eh.... no need go school 1 ar ???


hmm... ok maybe I should start preparing to go college now.
3rd year damn nice !!

When London brought us back together

Its amazing that we as a group of friends and kaki's, from SMK Kepong Baru somehow ended up all studying in UK. Well, not all of us.... but most of us.

Last friday, London became the place for reunion, from places like Spicy to Genting to Sungkai, now London. Wow.

So it begun with an afternoon of grocery shopping, 3kg of pork and some iceberg lettuce. Then there was a herbal bak kut teh meal with some side dish of dark stew pork. The dried style by Master Ken was with dried squid, okra( ladies fingers) and dried chilli.

Posing like they cooked it.

The thick oily bak kut teh herbal soup. I put the whole rack of ribs and belly into it.

Posing while other person is cooking...


After a fatening dinner, we went for a walk around the river bank where there are the big ben and London Eye. Its routine for everybody who visit London to go, and its quite standard, I bring everyone I know there.

This is what some people will call it "the stupid clocktower". Hmm... I think its quite stupid.

This is the millennium bridge.


The next day we woke up early for a whole day of touring.
Firstly, we hit the wax museum, its my first visit there. Dont be surprised, many Londoners haven't actually been there. Its always like "Still few years to go, sure I will be there someday " attitude.

Photograph

Photographs

And even more photographs

Eh run! Not pose.


Lunch at chinatown. Again its legendary roast duck. Legendary roast duck is a must try in London, because its so much better than Malaysian roast duck.

Then we went to Covent Garden, my first time there as well during daytime.

There was this random black guy...

Who somehow came to hold U Wen and Hun Sze when they were trying to take a picture.

Uwen left eye says:"what" ; Right Eye says "the"; Mouth says: "F*ck".... Oh question mark on Hun Sze's head :"???"

Then we went into a candy shop which I forgot the name

Colourful cup cakes!

All of them had ferrero rocher shakes

Me and William had a orange chococlate and aero mint.


Then, we went to Oxford Street. As long as you are carrying double X chromosomes, its like heaven. If you accidently get a Y, oh its like hell.... Well the Y is pairing one X, so the X will help to suppress the Y by letting a bit of interest at first, but soon after, Y is so fed up, it will make the Y carrier suffer!

Simplifying you get --> Girls can stay there all year round, guys tend to lose their patience. That my friend, is Oxford Street.


That night dinner was good too, we went to a Korean restaurant.

Kimchi soup.

Hot beef soup

bibimbap

And a hotpot ends the day!

Later I got a conclusion from Ai Woon...
" Its not easy hosting! damn tiring."

羊皮卷

过着四个月长的暑假，又没人陪伴，实在很无聊。

有一天下午，我没事干，就在客厅里的书架翻了翻。无意中发现一本不知从何来的书。

我猜应该是我的表哥留下的。我这位表哥是激励我最多的人。他就是我之前到会伦敦参加毕业典礼的那位经济学毕业生。他很不简单，从小只在彭亨州一个叫做 Kuala Lipis 的小市镇长大。父母受到的最高教育也到不了中五。 可是他很努力奋斗，凭着毅力，得到了国油奖学金到了英国。如今他也在英国一间会计公司的赞助下，半工半读考取会计文凭。不但教育全免，每个月还有2千多英镑工资呢。


话说到这里，此书叫《羊皮卷》

它竟然有五百多页，原本不想看它的，可是无聊，所以还是翻开了几页。这本书是由英文翻译成中文的。
里面有一章让我阅读了以后，沉思，回想了很久。

那一章叫做 “思考的人“。
里面就说到了人是他思考所塑造成的。不管环境是怎样，始终还是思想最有影响力。作者也谈到了梦想和理想。他说人一定要有梦想，那样子他才会随着梦想进步。因为你会朝着你心中的渴望的目标努力。所谓的梦想，不是愿望更不是惰散。只有没有思想和懒惰的人认为一切都是运气，命运和机遇。

这里我想分享我已达到的梦想。 我从小没啦，中学时期的梦想是到外国深造，特别是英国。当中读书的努力也免谈了。只是勇敢做出决定的那股冲动，就改变了我的现在。为什么这样说呢？

我虽然是个独生子，可是家里并不是有钱能负担的起英国的。

“此人又来吹水咯 ！”
说真的，你看看我爸妈开的车子......

当年我刚考完了A水平，我就毫无去向，天天呆着。我妈一直鼓励我读医。想了想，读医不便宜；按了计算机，我才发觉，原来到英国留学是比在这里念医学还贵一倍。当时，我只唉叹了一声：“ 这也是许多人的梦想啊！所以说梦想吗，又有几时会实现呢？”

一直到了八月，周围的朋友都陆陆续续报名大学了，可是我一点行动都没有。爸妈都很担心。我告诉他们，我还这么年轻，不如我想休息一年，慢慢考虑。我不知道为何天下母亲都能看透儿子心，妈跟我说：“我知道你很想到英国留学，对吗 ？”

可是我都尽力申请奖学金，填了数十张表格，写了那么多推荐信，邮寄到全马各地，新加坡，我一个回复都没收到。

有一天晚上，我爸拉我出来谈话。
如果你有阅读 《富爸爸穷爸爸》那本书，我老爸正是书里所提的穷爸爸，他给了我很多启发。

“我今天到了一处询问了关于此处所提供给人民的升学贷学金....” 

“在这儿的贷学金，根本都不足够在英国3个月的开支！”

“你还没听我讲完！我遇到了一位贵人。”

o.O

“我向他解释了关于我的情形，此贵人告我叫你准备资料给他，他帮我写推荐信，看看公共服务局可不可以帮到你。”

“哦？怎么做？加上公共服务局？没希望的啦！”

“行动比没动好! 要不要动，怎样动，随你便！”

 不过，我还是花了很多时间，准备了很多文件，就好像一个人要向大老板呈交 proposal 似的到回先前所说的该处。

事情当然没有那么简单，贵人的秘书见了我们，说了许多令我失望的话，他说：“每年我们都收到很多这样的 case ，我们只是为了安慰他们帮忙推荐，又有几回成功的？”

长话缩短，我走了很多很多趟，到了贵人的办公室，见过贵人一次；又走了公共服务局数次。忙碌了一个月，我都快要放弃了。

到了月尾，妈又问了：“好了，现在实际上，你有什么打算？” ...我摇了摇头。
终于，有一天，我打给公共服务局有了一项消息。
"我们只能提供你我们的贷学金，20万”
我问道：“可不可以再给多一点？”，答案是不能！

又回到了我爸和我谈话的另一个夜晚。

“才那20万，加上你们打算让我念书的储蓄，最多也不是呆得了那两年？”

“儿子，穷富有很多定义。也许，你看到一位有钱人的儿子，现在有钱，多两年如果生意失败破产了，一切也是归零。两年不长也不短；可以改变很多事情。也许两年后你会后悔当初做出的决定，也许你会欣赏你当初的勇气。”

就这样，我战战兢兢地到了英国。一个很突然也很冲动的决定，去实现我的梦想。

第二年回来，我发觉老爸的欠债已无法还清，财产都比买的时候落了约一半的价钱。我感到很低落，有少许责怪我不因该自私，明知是不可能的，还固执的去了英国。我知道，可能回不了伦敦了，更悲惨的是，可能大学文凭都没有。

有一天，我爸叫我到贵人的办公室，他说人一定要感恩，不管成功或失败。是的，我回去那里是为了说声谢谢，顺便问候曾经帮过我的人。就在那时，我和贵人的秘书谈起了我的第一年大学生活和成绩，又刚好说到我要再到公共服务局碰碰运气，申请更多的贷学金。

他说：“你慢着，我再让你推荐一次 ”

我说到：“不，我这次的来意是纯粹问候，不是来麻烦你的。”

他回到：“不，我也是纯意要帮你的！”

是的，我的贵人如今已升级成为政府部门里，华人能攀到的数一数二的职位了。身为执政者的都得给他一些薄面。

又经过了很多奔波和忙碌......
就是这样，不知何处来的 “运气”，最终我在这第二年得到了公共服务局奖学金。

突然我又从沉思中醒了过来，好了，下一章！

....... 朋友，你有梦想吗？