exam horror...

i just finished a 3 hour echange thermique exam. guess how many questions there were? only 2!! for 3 hrs i was expecting at least 4 questions.. to my horror, the second question worth 14 marks out of a total of 20 was VACHEMENT difficile. i finished the 1st question in 45 mins and i had the remaining time for qn 2 but i was going nowhere... in the end it was up to my imagination to write sth out on the paper in the hope of sympathy marks.. really horrifying.. i would not be that surprised if i fail this paper.. one more to go tomorrow and i am on a jet plane.

the last one week in france...

Almost everyone who did their SEP in Grenoble last semester has left for Singapore on Friday. Somehow it felt really weird to be among the remaining few here. Since then, I had lost motivation to study. Everyday, I spent at least 2 hours watching a French movie on my laptop. The rest of the time I would be doing ‘miscellaneous random’ stuff. My head has been clouded with many issues and my heart has been filled with mixed sentiments. My poor head had to deal with the upcoming exams and also some problems with the module mapping of Design2 in NUS. A certain prof did not seem to want to approve my module although he had already done so in the past. At the same time, I had been thinking about how sad I will possibly be when I quit this place (that’s why I have been taking a short walk around the campus since the weather has been really perfect this weekend) …and also reflecting on what I have achieved here in the past 5 months…what went right and what went wrong…etc etc etc. Just many random thoughts and emotions that really hampered my study.

Anyway, on Saturday, I decided to invite Carlos for dinner since I thought I would not have chance to meet up with him during exams anymore. Later on, after some discussion, we decided that I would be the one going to his place for dinner since there were 2 more friends living in the same residence as him.

That evening I learnt something new about my friend. If you read on very carefully, you will definitely know what I mean. In the end, there were 5 of us on the dinner table: Simon, Jeremy, me, Carlos and Arnold. Arnold prepared salad for entrée, Carlos prepared a Brazilian dessert, Jeremy brought some ice cream, Simon brought his Germany “lemonade beer” while I cooked pasta in Provençale sauce. The dinner started pretty late at about 9pm and it dragged on till about 11 plus. The conversation was light, albeit peppered with some awkward silences, especially on my part due to some obvious love-birds on the table.

right to left: Simon, me, Carlos and his other half.

Even after we exchanged “Au Revoir”, I was still in a little state of shock by the discovery. I have always seen “others” and heard about this issue, but I have never had a friend who is directly involved. And honestly speaking, I have never shown any tolerance for these people. Yesterday’s dinner was a real eye-opener for me and I guess I really have to learn to show more respect to them. I suppose it’s not exactly their fault to have a different preference. After all, friends are still friends and friendship has got very little to do with one’s lifestyle.

with Jeremy in the photo...

Du coup, merci Simon, Jeremy et Carlos pour de bons souvenirs! C’était un grand plaisir de vous connaître...

At the moment I just can’t wait to get back to hall... raring to play volleyball…

random update

it's been quite a while since i last wrote anything here. i guess it's not that hard to guess the reasons. i have been studying pretty hard in anticipation of next week's exams. how much is enough to pass? can somebody tell me?

view from my window when it snowed last saturday

revision has been made harder by the fact that reading week does not exist over here. lessons continue all the way until the week before the exams, which was just yesterday. so revision is like playing stacko tetris game. while u clear some blocks, more are piled on top of them. and i am also slowly losing steam in studying, especially since i know i should be savouring my one last week in France.

anyway, i had Auto Sequentiel TP (lab) on the last 2 Wednesdays. finally, or i would say luckily, i had really nice group mates. they were very patient in explaining to me and tried to include me in the work although i could not contribute much. when i told them i would go back to singapore next week so i wouldn't be able to do the report, they told me not to worry as they would put down my name and ensure i have a good "note" (result in french). i guess it all boiled down to my old belief that luck does play a part in someone's experience overseas. or perhaps, it is just that i am more familiar to the system, i speak the language slightly better and most importantly, i do not give them a blur look when we were talking. haha. whatever the reasons are, my classmates are becoming nicer to the "stagiares étrangers" in general. but, oh well, time has run out.

went for farewell dinner with guillaume and francisco at a vietnamese restaurant yesterday. had good chat & good laugh for the evening, finally away from my books. they were nice enough to foot the bill for the 3 singaporeans who were there. well, in return, we would be treating them to "char keow teoy" when they come to singapore, starting with guillaume who will be coming this june.

"gay guillaume" =D

with guillaume & francisco

in the vietnamese restaurant @ St Bruno

ok...time to get back to books!!

exams are coming

now that my exams are around the corner, i am starting to dread the possibility that i might just fail some of my modules. honestly, i have never worried for exams so much before. this is something nobody back in Singapore can symphatise with. the responses that i had when i tried to tell my friends how difficult it is here was disbelieving tone. "really meh" and "sure or not?" are two common responses. "but s/u only what" is even more common. i hate the feeling that i might not be able to pass to use my s/u.

nobody can understand until they experience this first hand.

01 Jan 08 - The Theatre of Dreams

Today was the day when one of my greatest dreams came true. Ironically, I was not as excited as I should be, perhaps due to the fact that this was not my first European football experience.

We slept in till about 10 am today as we only came back at about 1am yesterday. Since we had quite a bit of time before the match, we decided to just take a walk to the stadium. One hour later, we were right in front of the Theatre of Dreams, home to Manchester United, the team I have been supporting since my childhood days. Unlike Italy and Spain, there were not many makeshift souvenir booths along the way. At the most there were only people hanging around selling matchday badges, trumpets or matchday programs.

inside & outside of the megastore

The first thing when we reached there was to enter the Megastore. Oh boy, the store was huge and it would really do a great damage to the wallet without proper self-control. I was tempted by almost everything in the shop. Originally, I wanted to buy a sweater, but at 40 pounds, I thought it was a bit too extravagant. I was more into decorating my room in hall for next semester; hence, I purchased a scarf which I could use now and hang later on my soft board. Beside that, I also spoilt myself with a giant poster as well as a matchday pin. Not forgetting a few souvenirs for my fellow Man Utd supporters back in hall.

the painted walls of the megastore

After grabbing a quick lunch, we made our grand entrance into Old Trafford. I was a little disappointed with our seats at first which were in the first row of lower tier, just behind the goal. At first I was hoping that the English are not so obedient and we could just sit randomly in the sector. However, once we were in, we were ushered to our seats and we knew that our hope to sit slightly further up was dashed.

This disappointment was soon dismissed though as I could see almost every player very clearly, including the likes of Christiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez. Too bad, I did not get to see Rooney and Giggs in action as both were still sick on the match day.

a printscreen from a video from an online source. i could spot my red hanging scarf!! i was on TV!!!!

Furthermore, the only goal of the match took place on the side of the stadium I was sitting at. This meant that I would have probably been on TV if the replays had shown reverse angle. =D The goal itself was a beauty; a combination of the speed of Tevez and the trickery of Ronaldo. Ronaldo received an overhead pass from Tevez, and Ronaldo cunningly backheeled it towards the on-running Tevez which slotted the ball home in the most comfortable fashion.

watch the highlights of the match here!!

aren't you jealous of me? =D

L-R: Evra crossing; Christiano Ronaldo

L-R: Vidic & Ferdinand

Ronaldo's footwork

United's setpiece

I thought the atmosphere in the stadium was superb, contrary to the reports and claims that the fans were too quiet. In fact, most of the fans were singing and cheering almost throughout the match. Anyway, my idea of a superb match is not exactly just about scolding vulgarities and jeering at the opponent’s fans.

how can anyone claim this is "muted"?

Man Utd did not play its best today, but it was enough to seize full 3 points despite the late scare from Birmingham. In fact, in the last 10 minutes of the game, my heart was pounding really hard, in the worst anticipation that Birmingham would equalize. Luckily, this never happened and I could walk out of Old Trafford smiling, knowing that my dream has been duly fulfilled.

3 European football experiences in total. La Liga in Nou Camp, Serie A in San Siro Milan, and now Premier League in Old Trafford. What more can I ask for? What a way to end my European vacation.

We had a Chinese buffet dinner in the evening. I returned to the hostel with a heavy heart, knowing that it was the end of my long European vacation. Now it is time that I return to Grenoble to concentrate on passing my exams.

Before long, it would be Hello Singapore!

31 Dec 07 - Manchester

I woke up early today at 7:30 am as I had a breakfast rendez-vous with Michael at 8:30 in Victoria Coach Station before my bus took me to Manchester at 10:30. He just came back yesterday from his holiday in Austria so we could not meet up earlier.

When he still did not turn up at 9am, I knew that he had probably overslept so I dropped him a msg. 15 minutes later, I received a reply “Shit, will be there soon”. It took another 20 minutes before he finally arrived at the coach station. It was nice seeing an old buddy again after 4 long years. The last time I saw Michael was in JC1 when he came back to visit Singapore (he had left after O Levels). Obviously 40 minutes whizzed past really fast and without realizing, I had to leave for Manchester. It was nonetheless fun catching up and I was really appreciative of his efforts to wake up early to find me, especially since he only reached his house from the airport at 3am. Thanks buddy!

old buddy

I met up with Jeremy in Manchester who was previously touring Scotland. In fact, there was nothing much to do in Manchester in terms of sight-seeing. Quite a boring city in general. Jeremy who was hungry as usual wanted to have some food so we headed to Moon Under Water restaurant to have some light snacks and beer. Oh man, throughout the trip I haven’t drunk beer until I met him. He would turn me into an alcoholic really soon. Haha.

random photos in Manchester

After the quick meal, we went back to our hostel. Earlier on we received our Old Trafford tickets and we were furious to learn that our seats have been downgraded without prior notice. We had paid 119 pounds for a longside seat, but we got a seat behind the goal which was the cheapest ticket originally priced at only 25 pounds. This is a warning to anyone thinking of purchasing a match ticket from Top Ticket Shop online. Think twice. When we purchased the tickets, an email was sent to us mentioning that the tickets have been purchased. No matter what the reason was, it would only be a basic courtesy to inform the customers that they had been downgraded. It was still not acceptable even if it was written in the terms and conditions that they reserved the rights to downgrade the customers. It was as if they were ready for the “scam”. And another stupid point in the terms and conditions was that the refund for the difference in price between the original and downgraded ticket can only be used for the next purchase at the shop. Ridiculous clause.

After Jeremy sent a complaint email, we set out again at about 9:30 pm to have a proper dinner. We wanted to eat KFC quite badly but the nearest and only outlet we knew was closed. After further walking, we found a KFC replica called “Allen’s Fried Chicken”. Apparently, Allen was a friend of Colonel Sanders as reflected on the box containing our chickens. This Allen fried chicken, supposedly, could only be found in Manchester as well.

We walked around after dinner in search of a place for New Year’s countdown. The more I walked, the more I was convinced that I was under-dressed to go into any clubs. Most men were at least on long-sleeved shirts and the girls were dressed to the minimum. Many were donning skimpy dresses and they were sizzling hot. I wondered how they survived the temperature with such an outfit though.

In the end we settled for Yates, apparently one of the more well-known pubs/restaurants (during daytime) and also a competitor of Weatherspoon. I never knew of the existence of these two pubs until Jeremy told me about them. So, another glass of beer till the countdown while soaking in the loud music. Doing this once in a while could be an enjoyable affair, but I doubt that this would ever be one of my favourite pastimes though.

Happy New Year to everyone.

in Yates for New Year's countdown

atmosphere in Yates