Merry Christmas!

Old hair in my room at home

Current hair in my room at hall

Thank goodness my auntie waves tamed down!

I think when I go back Msia during summer, I shall go back to silky straight hair. What do you think? Should I?

Daddy was in came to London from Frankfurt few weeks back to visit me :)

Sippin' hot chocolate with mint, complemented by sandwich at Costa at Camden Town

Daddy and his beer belly

So happy that he brought me Manuka honey, red bean, barli, milo etc to cure my homesickness! :D

Malaysian dinner at Sarah's hall at Linstead Hall, Imperial College London

My Singaporean ex-hallmates moved out into their own flat and we had a small gathering at Jia Le's lovely flat!

Yummy desserts! in my bowl from Chinatown lol

Chow mein and ABC soup!

Jia Le, I, Siyu and Chhavi

London has this really festive vibe even months before Christmas. Every year, a themepark is set up at Hyde Park - 'Winter Wonderland'. It's a really big themepark, not those small-scaled, plastic-made funfairs like we have in Carrefour, Kota Kemuning. And those decorations! I felt like a little girl all over again!

Went to Winter Wonderland with my coursemates :)

Candy floss with Payal

Brits call it candy floss instead of cotton candy

Isn't this breathtaking :')

With huge ass snowman with kids jumping around inside it.

Coursemates Payal and Sohaila infront of Marble Arch

In my course, well actually all other courses, we were assigned mentors who are second-years/third-years to help us through our fresher's year from anything academic to personal issues. My mentors, Radu and Prav are really nice and brilliant biochemists. They helped us alot in our tutorials, giving us tips about taking notes, lecturers and stuff.

Since it's Christmas month, Radu was awesome enough to have organised an ice-skating outing for my mentor group!

Somerset House just right beside King's College London

Radu, coursemates Julie and Lukasz

coursemates Sohaila and Sherry

By the time we're finished it was 4.30pm-ish so it's almost dark already =.=

It wasn't really cheap to ice-skate, albeit gorgeous view. I paid £9.60 for an hour session with an additional of 50 pence for bag deposit. So that's RM50.50 for an hour of ice-skating. Comparing to Pyramid, we pay below RM20 for a whole day of ice-skating lol.

But it was really fun! Since we're biochemists, I called ourselves individual amino acids and when we joined hands to help each other, I call us dipeptides/tripeptides!

One thing about studying in UK, or at least in UCL, is that the seniors put in alot of effort organising social outings. Almost every club organise clubbing sessions, lecturers expect us to get drunk and go clubbing. UCL has a weekly clubbing event held on every Monday at Piccadilly Circus ; Sports night on Wednesdays when all the sports societies gather at the UCLUnion bar to drink after their respective trainings, and everyone heads to a bar club, Roxy afterwards.

Of course I couldn't afford to party every week, but as a member of UCLU Cheerleading Society, I did attend a couple of sport's nights.

At Roxy's with Lightning.

Cecilia and Lissa

Robyn, Angela, I, Cecelia and president Chloe

And of course we had a Christmas dinner!

Cheermas dinner at Spaghetti House just by Goodge Street station

I was tremendously intrigued by the brown things with ribbons- 'crackers' on the table. Apparently we wait until everyone's at the table, everyone holds a cracker with their neighbours, and pulls them. The crackers contained a slip with quotes and jokes, paper crown and if you're lucky enough, small ornaments! The best prize was a cheese grater! Lucky! I got a wooden dice :D

The other table. We had nearly 30 people showed up! Talk about cheer spirit.

My roast Norfolk turkey, braised cabbage, pancetta, chestnuts & sage stuffing

Ellie and I

Dessert! chocolate, caramel and amaretti pot

It was a really nice dinner, I had a great time! :) Before rushing to Malaysian Night practice lol.

It was UCL Malaysian Society's annual clubbing event! Arabian themed 'A Thousand and One Nights' at The Valmont Club on Fulham Road.

These people are mental! They set the bar on fire!!

The seniors really went all out. They got a fire performer! A sexy fire performer!!

They even got a snake into the club! Had they gone nuts??

Anyone wants to replace the snake with themselves? lol

With Elaine

The dudes

Snuck into the private booths for a picture with E Yang and Philip!

'I'm Ms. Lifestyle over rich and famous' hahaha

Chem eng people

With Nazran and Anas at the Christmassy UCL Main Quad after MNight practice

Dear 2011, you've been cruel and long and dreadful for the first half of the year. You gave me terrible eyebags and stress and anti-socialness. But oh dear 2011, how amazing have you been since my last A2 paper ended on 6th June. I've been having wonderful days everyday since. In a blink of an eye, I've worked for 2 wonderful months; I've been in London for two and a half exciting months. I've never felt so much love from my friends and family.

I thank you for all the precious memories, you're the best epitome of 'hardship first, yield afterwards'. I've achieved one of my biggest goals in life this year <3

Till 2012.

A November to Remember

Merry Early Christmas!

In case you're wondering what those cute things are, they're hand-knitted bottle-cap covers! One comes with every bottle of Innocent smoothies you buy in support of AGE UK! Innocent smoothies are my absolute favourite! :) What's better than indulging in your favourite fruit smoothies, staying healthy while supporting a good cause?! UK's full of win-win situation opportunities like this :) not like Msia dont have la okeh lol

In convention to Deepavali, though everyone else here calls it Diwali, the UCL Malaysian Society organised an Indian buffet feast! The society subsidised part of the cost so each of us only had to pay £5! For a buffet!

Here's my plate omgosh first time eating so full since I came here. Though it's a vegetarian restaurant, the food was pretty satisfying!

EeLynne and I outside the restaurant- Diwana

Unfortunately it was raining that night, and freeeeezing!

Tiffany and I :)

Yummy mango ice-cream dessert! Very indulging :)

Oxford Street shopping!

Anxin and i, also with YanGen and Joey

The UCL Music Society Symphony Orchestra rehearsing at Holy Trinity Church at Sloane Street.

I performed in this church singing in the Symphony Chorus with the orchestra. We performed Haydn's Harmonimesse. The feeling of singing such a classical piece in the traditional church is just magnificent!

Long, pink limo near the church

Maggie came and watch Jia Ern and I sing!

Ki Yip, EeRen, Tiff, Xie Yin came to watch too!

with Jia Ern and Steph before performance

Hallmates Jean and Sam came too! Great support <3

Piccadilly Circus on Halloween weekend

During reading week, I visited my babe Tze Yee at Warwick. I went on a Thursday because my class finished at 12pm and I don't have classes on Friday!

Dinner at a nice bar restaurant at Coventry

My steak with scampi!

Birthday boy Jun Yi gets a picture with all the girls

The boys

Tze Yee has a hotel-like bedroom with hotel-like en suite bathroom :((

<3

Camwhoring after waking up while babe's gone to lecture lol

Babe's hall Jack Martin I. So pleasant!

In the bus to city centre!

It took me an hour and a half to arrive at Coventry but it took me 3 whole hours to get back to London after my 3D2N stay at Warwick!!

I was exhausted when i finally arrived home. Everyone was waiting for me to come back because we promised Chhavi a belated birthday dinner!

So frustrated with all the train terminations and halfway-stops and delays :((

Indian food at Masala Zone :)

My prawn thali!

Dinner with hallmates Chhavi, Thea, Kelvin and Jia Le :)

Jia Le, Chhavi and I having pizza for breakfast by the river at Camden Market!

Check out the seats

The UCL Malaysian freshers bunch had a dinner session at my hall :)

Our food! I cooked the ABC soup and herbal tea eggs :D

Proud anot??!

Waiting to dig in

Part of the dishes waiting to be washed thanks to some pampered boys lol

Alyssa, Chhavi whom I invited to have a taste of our food :D, me, EeLynne and Elaine

End of reading week:

Went to Nottingham for the annual Nottingham Malaysian Games!

The UCLU badminton team :)

Tharman, Anxin, Chee Yong, Philip and I

Yes, I was in the badminton team =.=

I only signed up less than one week before the day so i only trained once!

And I have NEVER competed badminton before!

I've always played doubles and i had to compete in singles T.T

I felt pressured to have my first competitive badminton game in the Notts games. The Notts games is a pretty big event, and the standard of badminton players there is just insane. The matches were no less exciting than the Lin Dan vs Lee Chong Wei matches we see on TV!

But everyone's been so encouraging and supportive of me joining the women's singles, probably because there wasn't anyone else eligible enough (not like I'm eligible anyway). And since I get £3 off transportation for going as a player compared to going as a 'spectator', I decided to take up this opportunity and valuable experience.

True enough, I lost my first match, barely close to being a tough game. But overall I found the experience eye-opening. I felt really honoured to be able to represent my university (or the Malaysians in my university) to compete in a highly popular sport among Malaysians.

When the MSoc sports captain gave his accrediting speech in the bus, he said my opponent praised me for being sporting. I felt really undeserving and yet flattered by the credits I was given, but I do felt that I should keep improving my skills, and try again next year :)

Picturesque scenery in the University of Nottingham

Another thing I loved about the Notts Games is there was a Malaysian Food Festival in the University of Nottingham!!

All kinds of Malaysian food were sold at reasonable price (relatively to UK prices) to satisfy the homesickness and tastebuds of Malaysian students from all around UK.

Being an all-time Assam Laksa fan, I couldnt stop myself from indulging in a bowl of the yummy Malaysian delicacy consisting of springy rice noodles, soaked in the sour, tangy and rich fish broth with fish chunks, sweet pineapple cubes, crunchy onion rings, refreshing cucumber strips and aromatic mint leaves, with a touch of lime juice.

As I describe, I can feel myself salivating already :'( In fact, I was so obsessed with Assam Laksa, I had two bowls of it and didn't bother trying any other Malaysian food sold at the festival. £5 for a bowl, so £10 for two bowls. That's RM50 for two bowls of Assam Laksa.

...

Well...I know it's bad :( But i was like '5 pounds, 10 pounds I also pay already lah for Assam Laksa!!!'

It didn't quite taste the same as what we have in Malaysia, but it was so much better than what i had at Malaysian Night at Trafalgar Square for the same price. So i was really satisfied!

Some of the stalls selling various Malaysian delicacies

Watching an action-packed basketball game. Imperial College London vs. University of Warwick!

One of the very exciting matches of badminton

Probably one of the best thing about Notts games is the opportunity to catch up with old friends :)

Jessica and I! Though she's at Imperial, which is quite near UCL =.=

Reunite with quite a number of college friends, high school friends and even a primary school friend!

Sean bringing pride to UCL by snatching Scrabble Champion gold medal with much ease.

Being an international scrabble champion, he replied that it was a pretty easy game when I asked him about the difficulty at Notts games. Way to go, Sean! :)

Till then,

if I survive winter.

x