Tuesday, January 06, 2004

Review of 2003

The new year has begun. It seems to be a time to reflect back things and events that happened in the year before.

In the year 2003, I was in UK until August, hence I guess most of my experiences will relate back there.

- Celebrated the new year of 2003 by walking all over Newcastle with mates. This includes Fenham and Heaton gang. Walk up from Fenham to City Centre till Quayside. Then drop by at Charles's place then to Byker finally through Heaton park and back to my house. There was a huge party going on at Quayside.

- First Semester exams and assignment due dates. It was pretty exhausting and occassionally felt under pressure. I think I was influenced by my mates for that. I'm not one who suffers under pressure especially academic works.

- First time in my life, I see snow. Snow is like sand. Had a snow ball fight. Build my first snowman. The snowman wore my scarf. I cut the carrot for the snowman's nose.

- Got involved in NCCF. Newcastle Christian Chinese Fellowship. A christian fellowship for students at St James Church. Attended the fellowship for quite a number of times. Get to know many people. Mostly are Hong Kong and Malaysian citizens.

- Need to work on my final year project. Been taking pictures of University using my webcam aka digital camera to be used for the texture for my 3D model. It was difficult to position my desired degree and alignment. People walking around also distracted me and caused me to wait longer in the cold.

- Get to know my housemates more. Been hanging out with Sing to Huxters Pub for our disappointing Liverpool vs ?? matches every week. Been whacking warcraft3 with Reagan, Ken, Charles, Sing, Liu Jian, Benson and Lee Gor. Been experimenting with cooking with Ken. Learnt guitar from Daniel To. Had some Basketball (both indoor and outdoor) games with uni mates. Not to forget some football matches with Gwei Lou (adult, children, teens). Damn, they are good. I know I suck but they are way better than Asians. A young kid about the age of 6 told me Shearer (Shee-rer) sucks. He prefers Jenas. It was hillarious.

- Talking about football. I attended my first ever English Premiership League match which is Liverpool vs Newcastle. Newcastle won by 1 - 0 from a freekick. Newcastle fans were intense.

- Went to NEEC. A christian camp. Got to know some fellow liverpudlians. Got to comprehend and imitate their scouse accent. Saw some fine BBCs (British Born Chinese).

- Went to Scotland. Short but definitely fun trip. Exciting trip right from the start of the first few hours due to poor planning and some mishaps. We were very worried around 6:30 AM of not having bus service. Then we need to run all the way to the train station coz we might miss the train. Fortunately, a taxi passed by us and we took its service. Successfully reached Edinburgh station but we miss our next train to Aberdeen becoz we were chatting in Burger King and enjoying our breakfast. We bought new tickets from Edinburgh Station but missed our second train trip to Aberdeen. My friends went to buy playing cards. We missed the train for waiting for them. Finally, we successfully reached Aberdeen but renting a car was no trivial stuff and it's costly. Took bus instead to Inverness. Had some cool time in Inverness, Fort Williams, Lochness and Nairn. Our adventurous trip in our rented Mazda Mpv was a blast. It seems our sixth sense works like a map when we are in Scotland. Learnt ancient scottish language for numbers. It supposed to be from the vikings. Unh, Ga, Thresz, Kie, Quik, Shiak, Shiork, Orchk, Nuoin, Jiez.

- Graduation ceremony. My mom and my mom's sister and my 2 cousins came to visit and attend the ceremony. Wearing the robe makes me feel heavy. The atmosphere was lively
and the mood of friends and families are gleeful. Got lots of congratulations from friends and their families for my First Class Honours.

- Went to Europe Tour. Tour guide Woulter and driver Francesco. Woulter was given the name "Ting Sin Pun". Muahahahaha. Learnt a couple of phrases in Italian and French but couldn't really remember them now. For Italian, i still know "Gra cie" = thanks. "Bon Journo" = Morning / Hello, "Pollo" = chicken, "Ta ba chi" = shops which sells cigarettes and subway tickets, "Spagna" = famous place in Rome for shopping, "Fredo" = hot, "Kaldo" = cold, "Agua" = water, "Si" = Italian. For french, "Mierci Boucoup" = Thanks very much, "Le Poulle" = chicken, "Le Poisson" = fish, "Bon Jour" = Hello, "Unh Pahleh Ongele" = Do you speak english?, "Wit" = yes. For German, "Dangke" = Thanks. Well let's ignore spelling, I only remember the pronounciation for it.

- Notes for Europe Tour. Finally I saw the notorious Amsterdam "Hung Tang Khui". I was pretty surprised when it is really red. The atmosphere was really vice. I learnt that Italy is hot. Man it's really hot. I also learnt that Italians don't speak english. Italians drive smart cars and all of their bikes has windshield. Their petrol station is cute. Just by the road side. Paris is lovely. The architecture, buildings, museum and city impressed me. Switzerland is a fine place. It's beautiful. It's expensive though. Germany, hmmm boring place!. kakakaka.

- Started my full time job in a medium-to-large-sized company in Technology Park Malaysia as a Software Engineer. Social life at the end of 2003 deteriorate greatly. Things were just not the same when I left here in 2002.

- Lost my uncle "Tai Kiew". He died in a car wreck. It was sad.

- Celebrated countdown to New Year at Times Square. Spectacular fireworks. But I hate the crowd. Full of "lalajai" and "lalamui". The crowd is very young. Proceeded to Bar Med in Sri Hartamas. Boozed the nite out.

** will need to update this post when I found some notes which I written back then.