Sydney Airport, Dec 2006

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!

Every half-yearly, I check Krispy Kreme’s website to see if they are opening stores near me. NEAR me, as in maybe an hour away. Well, in June 2008, it will be better than near. Krispy Kreme is comming to Leeds.

Original glazed…come to mommy!!!!

However, seeing that bacon’s off to the Big City today and will only be home around 9, we’ll probably make do with traditional chinese takeaway later tonight. Hopefully he will bring me some Krispy Kreme to make up for it. …yumm.I wonder whether they have a thanksgiving edition made out of pumpkin. I believe they did, but that was in my other life.

In other news, the dream is over for England. Outrageously they have not qualified for the Euro 2008, and neither have any of the other countries that makes up Great Britian. As bacon was in one of his stiff upper lip business dinners in the Big City yesterday, I got smses every 5 minutes asking for update, thus ruining my Ugly Betty night – the one where Posh is featured and Betty gets the sack. I actually had to bear watching England basically shooting themselves in the foot by playing outrageously shit – good thing is Steve McLaren their shit manager is now sacked and I don’t need to pen Euro 2008 in my diary next year.

Yesterday was rather exciting for some working in the Leeds city centre. Around lunch time, we were actually not allowed to leave our office, and all we could see from the windows were that the roads were cordorned off empty of pedestrians and vehicles. As there is an overhead bridge right next to where I work, I initially thought that someone had jumped off the bridge; there are bouquets of dried dead flowers by the sides of the bridge presumably for previous victims. This quarantine lasted a good couple of hours.Apparently around 10.40am, an unattended package was found in the Merrion Centre, which is a shopping centre that I walk past everyday on my way to work. A robot was sent in for a ‘controlled explosion’ – and I think the result was this was a false alarm

Do you remember the time before 9-11, where unattended packages were disposed off instead of blown off? This reminds me of Manila, the hotbed of explosions and bomb scares, where armed guards check your bags when you leave or enter any shops, even a 7-11 had armed guards. And as bacon was living literally opposite Glorietta (where a bomb, incidentally, went off a few weeks ago), this was becoming quite concerning. I remmeber the second week he was there, and around 8pm (he was still at work) his friends from the UK and me in KL started ringing him asking if he was ok. A bomb had just gone off in a bus not a mile from where his hotel was. And apparently news like this are not groundbreaking enough for everyone to stop working and head home. He did not even realized it had happened, and actually went to the window and hey presto, he could actually see the remainder of the bus , smoke and all. That was how close it was.

People get used to things happening around them, and over time, fear turns into complacency. I, for one, live about 2-3 miles away from the infamous area in Leeds where most of the London bombers were born and bred, and their family and friends still lives here. I go pass it everyday on my way to work. On my first trip to Leeds, I actually requested bacon that we do NOT go past that area – this was two weeks after the London bombings. Now, not only it does no bother me, I actually find that area fascinating for its blend of middle eastern, polish & asian groceries and takeaways. People always say its shit around here and its dangerous bla bla bla, but honestly, it never bothered me after my first couple of months here.

Does routine really breeds complacency, or does it actually cancels out irrational fear ?

What percentage of ethnic minorities live in london?
A: 49%,making up to 29% of total population of Greater London

What sports is played in the FA Cup?
A: Doh. Football

What exams does 16 year olds take
A: GCSE, equivalent to O Levels,or SPM

What is the speed limit on normal roads?
A: 30 miles p/hr

Where is the Met Police’s headquarters?
A: Scotland Yard

PHEW. At last.

I got to the test centre at 9.30am for a 10am test. Early enough isn’t it? You would think that from 9.30am they would start registering people in for the test, making sure your name’s correct ect….

10.05am: Assign seats
10.30am: Request for payment. Facilitator went from one person to another.You gotta go to another building if you want to pay by debit or credit card.No change available as well.
10.45am: Mini lecture on Do’s and Don’t of test
11.00am: Register everyone on the main PC,one by one, checking passport for details
11.20am: Facilitator types in password in PC for your practice question. One pc at a time, checking passport for details
11.30am: Facilitator types in password in PC for real exam. One PC at a time, checking passport for details.
11.35am: I finished my test
11.37am: Got results.

You’d think that since they’ve been doing this for more than a year their process would be more streamlined and less bureaucratic!!! OMG! Test itself only took a few minutes, and what’s more, my initial PC had porn and ringtone adverts everytime I clicked on an answer! I had to switch PC, and the new PC was lagging so much it took at least 10 seconds for it to recognize that you’ve clicked on an answer.

At least its over now…so all I have to worry about is my £1,000 to pay for the piece of paper to stick to my passport announcing that I can stay and work here forever. Woo!

1) My tax code have not been sorted out yet even though this is my THIRD month with the new company; resulting in a much lower end of month paycheck from the 30% *gulp* that I have been taxed. It’s outrageous bureaucracy I tell you.

2) Tomorrow’s team day out is forecasted to be fun, fun, fun, with the weather forecast at 5-0 degrees celcius and an outlook of FOG

3) I had not been studying for my test as I am supposed to. Uh-oh

4) It is official. No amount of resusication will revive my poor Nikon. I am actually really depressed over its death, my loyal blogging tool.

5) To top it up, I fell down the damned stairs yesterday, resulting in a bruised bum and aches in muscles I did not even know existed. I just hope I had not sprained my back again

However, I have actually bought tickets for my trip in February! At last! At £500 per person, this is not a bad price, really. So I’m really chuffed. Should be getting in around midnight on 3rd Feb and leaving again at midnight of 23rd Feb. Now, all I need to do when I get back to msia is to buy bacon a sun lounger so he can bring it everywhere with him to suntan. Can you imagine bacon with his top off, sun tanning on my front lawn? Or laid on his sun lounger, among the wild chickens in my grandmother’s village? Hehehe..funnee! Fortunately, my grandmother has now moved to an apartment block with a pool, so it wouldnt look so weird. With a pool that the residents swim in fully clothed..yeah, that sort of pool.

I feel the need to apologize for the lack of updates here. And of course, lack of pictures

reason 1:
We had now officially said goodbye to my trusty Nikon S3, who had been with me precisely 2 years in October. I bought it just before moving to the UK,my Canon kaput-ed sometime in September 2005. Heck, this was the first trip that the Nikon went on.Not very long shelf life isn’t it? My Canon lasted around two years as well, and both cameras, I think, suffer from cracked lenses. digital cameras not really made to last eh?

Nikon has been to the beaches of Tioman, the sea (literally) in Bondi, the sunny Ibiza…..always strong and steady even when I happily dropped it in sea water.And now it has died. My love to snapping photos seemed to have died with it literally. I have been abandoning my new Canon the past few weeks/months because I am really quite upset with the death of Nikon,all food pictures have been snapped with my Cybershot off the Sony Ericsson.

I don’t know, I might try to revive it again one last time. I don’t know how. I guess remove batteries,SD card, charge, reboot? Sigh. This is about as pathetic as someone stealing my purse or cutting my my little pinkie. I still stupidly bring it in my handbag everyday,and it’s so pathetic when I turn it on that nothing shows on the viewer.How did I get so attached to a CAMERA?????

reason 2:
I have been literally hibernating at home with temps dipping to a few degrees with the wind factor. I really really hate this…been persuading bacon to move to more temperate climates (HONG KONG!!!) with no avail. With any luck we might move to an even colder climate. BLEAH. And of course, dayfarkinglight saving is not helping; it gets dark at 4pm.

It also does not add to my cheer that this comming thursday some smart alec at work had decided that the whole department should go away for a team day out..in an ADVENTURE COURSE. We will be doing arrows and bows, clay piegon shooting and propelling down some rock or something. At bone-chilling 1 celcius weather. AAARGH! And we leave at 7.30am as well….why can’t we do this in summer when it’s nice to be out!?

reason 3:
I have, of course, been trying to study. hah. with not much luck. So I would need to cross my fingers for this saturday.There is a whole chapter about working in the UK ect, so that one is quite easy as I spent such a long time job hunting.