New Land, New Place #2

(Continued from previous post)

Flight (Dubai – London)
On this flight I had also booked an aisle seat. But the seat was actually reserved for handicap / emergency seat or whatever they call it which means my seat could be changed if absolutely needed. So this is the root of the problem. The flight, EK001 was absolutely full. When I got to my seat, the middle seat was empty and the last seat was occupied by a disabled man. Not fully disabled, but he had to use some sort of crutches to walk. Ok fine, still no problem. Then came a lady who insisted that the man was sitting on her seat. The man said a steward directed him to this seat when he showed his air ticket. He took out the ticket stub and actually his seat was the one directly behind, which was occupied by a mother next to her child, and the aisle seat for their row was occupied by a man. The original seating position is such that the mother and her young (about 3-4 yr old?) daughter was sitting in the middle seat of my row and the middle seat of the row behind. Obviously they didn’t book online, and so they were in that predicament. The lady didn’t want to give up her seat, and the disabled man had to have a corner or aisle seat, so after some jumble jumble fumble whatever, I ended up at the back row in the middle. I suppose thats fine seeing the circumstances. The worrying part was that the men on both sides of me were coughing. And I was feeling a little sick and sleepy from my illness AND not being able to eat any meat for the past few days. And I couldn’t easily get up to go to the toilet in case I needed it. Well I hadn’t been eating much so I guess it was okay. And it was. I just needed to go to the toilet once, no “emergency calls” so everything was fine. Just that it was really boring flight. I think I managed to doze off for a while , just 2 hours at most. I just watched a couple of movies and played a couple of games then finally the plane landed and we all got off. And I’ll have to endure this journey again soon.

Heathrow Airport
A dingy, run-down place. Well, for Terminal 3, at least. Customs check went smoothly without a hiccup. But my baggage trolley had a squeaky wheel, so I just dumped it aside and managed to locate another one upstairs.  The Arrivals hall was really small and so there was nothing much to do. After all, I had a 30kg luggage with me , a laptop bag and a rucksack. Since the email briefing about the pick-up stated that I only had to be there at about 3 or 4pm I didn’t bother looking for the uni reps as I only expected them to be there later. I can’t remember the exact order, but what I did was first – buy a sim card from the vending machine. I didn’t notice the O2 sim pack and took Vodafone instead. grrr…O2 should get a better marketing team perhaps?.. paid 10 pounds and found out that it was just for the sim pack alone. Whoops. But i HAD to get it there and then because I had to call Anand who was coming over to meet me at the airport and chit chat. I was feeling hungry. But still not used to buying stuff by the pound. So I just got two bottles of mineral water at W.H. Smith which I needed badly, and also went back there to reload my sim card after finding out that it had no credit. Then I realised that I had not saved Anand’s UK number, it was online because I assumed that a place like Heathrow would have free wifi like Dubai. But I couldn’t get a signal. So I paid 1 pound for 6 minutes of internet. (or was it 10 minutes, I can’t remember). Wasted a few minutes getting used to the layout of the British keyboard. Got the phone number, then surfed facebook and sent out some emails for a while before my time ran out. Then I just hanged around .. after a while I noticed some UWE people and went up to “register myself”. Mina was already there with them. I just chatted for a while with the UWE reps. Then came Kaisa, from Finland. Still hanged around until finally Anand called me. He was having lunch with our friend Joaquim in the city, and rushed down as soon as possible. He arrived in Terminal 3 at the exact moment I was getting acquainted with Kaisa and Mina. So unfortunately I had to cut our interesting conversation short, and went for a drink with Anand. I didn’t want to risk eating, so I just got a cup of black coffee.  We had a long catch up session lah, basically. And halfway through I went to the washroom and while washing hands burnt my hand when hot water came spewing out of the tap, something I didn’t know about. culture shock.

Then when it was nearly 5 we went back to the pickup area coz we thought it was nearly time. But the coach/bus hadn’t arrived, it was stuck in the jam. And Mina and Kaisa went out to get a drink together. We then met Rene, a German student. So anyway Anand was kind enough to hang around and continue waiting with me. Finally the pickup arrived and we left at like, 7.30-ish. Oh and before that I bought an egg sandwich for my dinner because I wasn’t sure where I could get dinner on a late friday night in Bristol, especially since it wasn’t term time yet and everything would probably be closed. It was a wise move, as we only arrived in UWE close to 10.30 and by the time I entered my house, showered and changed it was 11.30 ! … Rene and Kaisa are in the same house, just opposite mine. No. 15, while I’m in No.11.  I unpacked halfway then went to sleep. It was only a short sleep of about 4 hours. Probably the effects of jet lag, and no duvet and no pillow and only a tropical weather sleeping bag. My house heating system was off for the summer. ==”

To be continued

New Land, New Place.

Pre-flight
I was sick before the flight to UK. Missed out on saying goodbye to many people due to my illness. Because of the then impending trip I had to get rid of the impeding illness. So I spent a WHOLE DAY at the hospital doing various tests and checkups. I already did my medical checkup much earlier okay..

Another thing I didn’t get to do was to upgrade my laptop’s RAM and buy an external HDD. So I am here in UK with zero files on my laptop and it still crashes every few days when I over-use the RAM.

Airport
Uncle Barry, Auntie Helena and William arrived first at the airport to send me off. They brought some really good mooncakes but unfortunately I was still feeling some sickness and didn’t wanna risk getting sick on the flight. So I just took a few whiffs of the aroma of mooncake and then ceased to set my sight on it anymore. They also had McDonalds for “supper” which I of course couldn’t join them. There are a few photos taken but I they’re in Mum’s camera.

Then the BB gang came. LT, TT, Kok Yau and Hoe Kit. Great to see them there. I think this year alone they have been sending off tons of BB people already. Anyway, after a short chat and farewell with them I entered the gate. While waiting for the aerotrain I called up a few friends to say goodbye. Sorry to Chow Chun Yang as I didn’t manage to pick up your call before leaving. Thanks for trying to call me, I appreciate that!

Flight (KL-Dubai)
For convenience I booked the aisle seat nearest to the toilet (in case I needed to throw up halfway thru the flight). Upon entering, I straight away looked for the motion sickness bag since I was not feeling well. Unfortunately, since my seat is the front row, there ain’t any magazine rack. But at least there’s a toilet just in front so no problem. The 6 hour flight was good. I changed all my flight meals to “Bland Meal” which despite its name, was not too bad. Upon arrival in Dubai, the queue to the connecting flight was really long so I took out my laptop and surfed the net while waiting. After going through the security check, I just walked around the shopping area for a while then took my medicine and just rested. At the waiting area for the Dubai-London flight, there were quite a lot of British nationals (from my observation) and a few (i presume) Malaysians who looked like students too. One of them kept staring at me and he looked really familiar too. Probably saw me at MSLS. There was also this girl travelling alone whom I later found out was also attending the same university as me – Mina Kim. Btw she speaks impeccable English! But at that time I didn’t know … anyway I just sat alone for the next half hour waiting for the flight. Was feeling abit too sick to actually take out a book and read.

Flight (Dubai-London)

aiyah malas mau taip la, saya pasti kamu juga malas mau baca – banyak perkataan tapi gambarnya tiada pula..  will continue in next post!

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default. JK Rowling during a speech in Harvard

Outing with the gang

Last Tuesday we had a mini-reunion. Me, Akram, Cheah, Leong and Richard. At The Gardens. More were supposed to come but all couldn’t make it somehow, due to classes, exams and last minute excuses. LOL.

So anyway the agenda for the day was just eating and talking. We ate at Din Tai Fung, then at the staff food court, then at Big Apple donuts. And spent the whole afternoon talking lah, basically. A fun day, must do it again in the near future.

3rd KL CLR 2009 (Company Leaders’ Retreat)

I just came back from Frasers’ Hill 3 days ago. Went up there to join my old BB company, 3rd KL for their Company Leaders’ Retreat which was held from Sat-Mon. Basically its a time of 3 F’s – fun, fellowship and future planning.

In my (own personal) opinion, this retreat seemed rather last minute. That is why about 1 or 2 months before the retreat, I suggested a pre-retreat meeting. I am not sure whether this meeting was carried out or not, and if it was, I am not sure if the people who attended managed to realise the significance of such a meeting. Thus, as a result I feel only two out of three of the objectives of this retreat had been fully achieved – fun and fellowship. Of course, there was some good times of reflection and insight into life as a leader but then again, I do not think this is what the retreat is for. However, it was still a great retreat overall, and hopefully the company still manages fine for the following term.

For me, the high point of the retreat would be the sharing of Mr. Kok Yeng Voon, an Old Boy of 3rd KL. He shared a lot about the history of 3rd KL. There is one particular part (which is not appropriate to share here, as it involves the “dark era” of 3rd KL’s story) which I have only vaguely heard of before, during one of our previous CLR’s, and this time Mr. Kok enlightened us on it. I have a much clearer picture now as to what happened during that tragic period but many exact details still remain a mystery, as the facts and figures do not tally. However, it is not Mr. Kok’s fault as he was just telling it from memory and no proper reference. The storyline is correct but it’s just the finer details that still elude us. Mr. Kok also mentioned about how there was once a Company Log Book where every single BB activity, date, time and attendees would be painstakingly recorded by the duty NCO at that time. This is a good tradition which should be re-introduced.

I also spoke up about the need to re-introduce the usage of bugle calls in the company, a suggestion which was supported unanimously by the officers and NCOs.

One issue I forgot to speak up about is the standardization of brevet terms due to the mis-usage of a number of them in our weekly meetings. In a nutshell,

Company Sergeant Major (CSM) (or Sergeant Major) = NCO Council Chairman
Orderly Sergeant = NCO On Duty for that day
NIC = NCO In Charge
OIC = Officer In Charge
2IC = 2nd in Command – the assistant to the NIC or OIC
etc. etc (I forgot the rest I wanted to say)

A Reminder

“The BB is not about getting the highest badges, or many badges, or even any badges. Its about making use of what you learn in the BB and apply it to your life. Badges are merely symbols, it’ll lead you nowhere, but character will.”

The above reminder is to myself, BB members, officers, warrant-officers and staff-sergeants (from any company). As our founder once said, “Put the Boy first”.  At times, I myself need to be reminded about this too. And so do certain people I know….. =P

Last 4 “official” BB meetings in Malaysia. 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th July (Enrolment Parade – not re-enrolling this year) .. but I’ll be back.  Sure & Stedfast.

Remember the reminder at the top of this post.

Darryn

Call me ungrateful, but …

.. somehow I feel my results are not what I deserved. To look on the bright side, I thought I was gonna fail Trust but I got a really good result for it. For tort, well, I got a fair result. For Land, I didn’t get what I wanted due to my own mistake so no one to blame. But Evidence marks was like, sheesh… Spent so much time studying and understanding and memorizing it. I suppose overall its a balanced result. I’m thankful for my Trust exceeding expectations yet spiteful that my evidence marks were such crappy marks. Overall, I passed. And thats whats most important. I could’ve made it to Cardiff i think…but no regrets for not applying.

Update

Okay, I still haven’t secured an internship nor a job.. for the past few weeks I have been “enjoying” life. Oh wait, I did work for 3 days – outstation job in P.D. as one of the camp facilitators for Sekolah Sri Sempurna’s Leadership Camp (under Pathways Academy) .. Um, and I also discovered that I can’t speak BM fluently while addressing a crowd / group of people..

In a way, I think now is still not the right time to get a job coz of the upcoming MBS Alumni AGM where as a Committee Member I have a number of things to organize and prepare for AGM so I ain’t exactly in the right frame of mind to work in peace. Btw, Michelle Lau is so lucky to get an internship in a law firm! .. http://anew-paradise.blogspot.com (free advertising haha). Well, I will try to personally go round the KL law firms on Monday (tomorrow) to see if any internship placements available.

In terms of BB, yesterday’s parade wasn’t that good probably because of non-preparation. According to the calendar I received from Lt. TT, yesterday’s Junior Section awards program was supposed to be quarterly exam or something like that. So I didn’t prepare anything then suddenly yesterday he asked me to do an awards class instead. So it was kinda last minute. And there were lots of changes in the programme even up to the time Senior Band Practice had started already. Anyhow, can follow the scout motto lah, “Be Prepared” so I wasn’t really caught “unaware” but still, it would have been more efficient had I known about it earlier. Anyway, nothing to grumble about, since I am the jr sec. 2IC I should have some backup plan and not depend totally on TT all the time … Another “bad” news is that my glengarry badge broke and went missing. I couldn’t find it, will have to buy a new one.. which is kinda bad because I only have 3 more BB meetings before enrolment (not enrolling for the following term) and it’s wasting money lah to buy an (expensive) badge just for 3 more BB parades.  Btw, Lt. Tim Rogers our friend from BB Australia visited us yesterday. He just came back from a working stint at BB Thailand and Cambodia.

And it was Dad’s birthday yesterday so we went to the “dragon-something-i-forgot-the-full-name” restaurant in MVM with ma-ma.

For the rest of my free time I am now studying what is regarded as the English speaking world’s 2nd bestseller and also the 4th bestseller of the 20th century. Yup, that book is “Scouting for Boys” the manual for youths which was written by the Scout’s founder. After reading the first part of the book I realise that Scouting isn’t only for “scouts” .. it’s actually a way of life and instruction for good living and serving the country. One of the reasons that spurred me to read this book is firstly its’ connection and its place in the history of the Boys’ Brigade. Secondly, I noticed the scouts, past and present, of the 10th Kuala Lumpur Air Scout Group of Methodist Boys’ School KL are an ever-loyal dedicated bunch of people who are always ready to serve rather than be served. The scouts that I know are people whom I can look up to and learn from, such as Hoy Hoong, Min Chee, Yoke Meng, Jonson, Kwai Choong etc etc (sorry if I forgot to mention any names here) and of course, Hsien Loong (my batch) .. Well basically to cut things short, I am studying Scouting for Boys to know more about what Scouting and the Scouts Movement is all about. Perhaps can incorporate some aspects and good philosophies into BB life too. After all, the book itself stated that it can be incorporated into BB programmes.

Anyway, this a pretty long update already. Till the next one.

Since exam over,

On Friday after my last paper ended, I quickly jumped into my Renault and headed for Times Square (TS), the place  I usually hang out after every major exam since TS was opened in 2003. Unfortunately, the stretch outside Davidson School was super jammed up, due to ending of school session. So I made a split-second decision to park at MBS-OBA and go to TS on foot. The journey took longer than expected as I am so NOT used to walking there ever since I graduated from MBS. Then I received a call from Wilson saying he was buying some jeans and invited me to have lunch with him. He was at Sg.Wang so I walked there from TS. But we were not familiar with the place so we decided to just grab a quick bite at KFC. Then he went to look at some t-shirts. I met Ariffin, my ex-schoolmate who was working at Sg. Wang and also Khar Keong my ex-classmate who was shopping with some of his uni friends. Then we went back to TS for a while and decided to go home early to escape the jam.

The whole of Saturday I slept. Seriously.

And on Sunday I went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon helped mum to clean up her office .. Actually, didn’t do much as I was still rather sleepy and lethargic… Darn those exams!

“Peperiksaan Tamat!”

Peperiksaan Y2 telah tamat pada hari Jumaat lalu. Ini sepatutnya hal yang gembira tetapi entah kenapa saya asyik mengeluh di rumah dan mengacau adik saya dengan keluhan setiap hari (betul tak?) Mari kita lihat apahal sebenarnya.

Sebenarnya, prestasi saya pada kali ini kurang memuaskan. Mengapa? Kerana tersilap strategi memilih dan menjawab soalan, dan perancangan masa yang kurang rapi telah menyebabkan saya “ketandusan” masa semasa soalan ke-empat dalam ujian Tort dan kesilapan tersebut telah diulangi dalam ujian Trust tetapi lebih parah lagi kerana dalam ujian Trust, saya asyik memikirkan masa yang semakin suntuk sehingga tertulis nama kes yang tersilap. Yang paling teruk sekali, bagi ujian Land saya telah pun pasti apakah topik soalan esei yang akan diberikan. Namun demikian, saya telah gagal menghafal topik yang sepatutnya kerana saya sangka bahagian topik yang akan keluar ialah bahagian yang lebih kompleks seperti dalam Mock Exam. Oleh itu, bila kertas soalan sebenar diedarkan dan dibaca saya berasa sungguh kesal sehingga menjejaskan kecerdasan saya dalam menjawab soalan-soalan lain. Akhirnya saya harap masih boleh lulus semua matapelajaran supaya dapat melanjutkan pelajaran ke Yr3.

Seperti kawan-kawan saya tahu, saya suka membuat sesuatu dengan tujuan mencapai tahap tertinggi. Contohnya di BB saya telah berjuang habis-habisan untuk mencapai Founder’s Badge, di sekolah segala aktiviti yang saya ketuai telah dirancang dengan teliti contohnya sambutan bulan patriotik, penubuhan lembaga pengawas arkib dan perhiasan khemah untuk Hari Sukan. Di kolej pula, semasa persembahan Contract Law saya telah memastikan pasukan diselaraskan dengan sempurna, informasi dibentangkan dengan baik dan ada “visual aids” ditambah dengan sedikit humor. Namun saya tetap gagal merancang exam ini dengan cukup baik dan diharap pada tahun seterusnya saya tidak lagi “hangat hangat tahi ayam”. Sebaliknya, saya perlu genggam bara api biar sampai jadi arang jika ingin berjaya. Oleh itu sekarang fokus saya adalah untuk memperbaiki perancangan masa dan juga memastikan pada tahun akademik seterusnya, membentuk strategi yang baik untuk menghadapi “peperangan”. Sekian.