At The Studio

Didnt really sleep last night.. went to bed (on the floor actually, Pet's on the bed) at 6.30am this morning, suppossed to wake up at 8.30 but ended up waking up at 9.50am thanks to the construction guy next door bashing up the window of my neighbour. Would be really pissed at him if its any other day but today I really have to wake up to present my work for the crit, and there's actually hardly any. Most of the times I am of the few who did the work the very last minute, but this time I find myself in the majority of last-minute.com guys in my studio. I think up till yesterday afternoon nearly half of my classmates didnt have any idea what are they presenting today, and worked it all through last night. Some of us walked into the studio like zombies today, knackered. There's a few individual work, group work, assignments and essays running at the same time this week and we really don't have time to do it - well not all of it at the same time. I hope I could present the work today, get it done or else I have to do it on Friday obstucting my efforts for the other courseworks. I'm tired.

Malas + Letih

Haih. Baru balik keje kol 4 pagi. Karang kelas lak kol 9 sampai 4 petang . Letih.

What Did I Say?

N868AVA - Its inner power yet to be unleashed

Hummm...as I said yesterday, got the new car today. A second car overnight, how interesting is that? Not exacly new, but new to me and relatively new to the one I had before (well, I still HAVE it now, but not for long). Its a 1996 Rover 214 Si, with 72,000 mileage and I got it for £500. I think its a good deal. A really good deal indeed. Nothing's wrong with the car apart from it needs replacement of its temperature sensor and some tweaking with the lower-level blower (heating, fan). The blower works fine at 3 and 4 level settings, but the lower settings at 1 or 2 it just didn't work. Its not a biggie considering how good the car looks, the interior, the better-sounding stereo, the engine with its low mileage despite the age, the power steering (I haven't got it in my last car), central locking with remote (yeaaaahhhhh), sunroof, 5 doors (the old one has 3 doors) and the fact that I got if for only £500. I could deal with it. The handling's really good (yeah its got power steering), the clutches fine and soft, and its got a 1.4 litre petrol engine (petrol's cheaper here than others - NOT relative to Malaysia) which is an optimum engine size for me right now - not too much power and certainly not less. Went to the car wash straightaway after eating lunch and came back home. Well, I don't think I could say more about the car because I just got it less than 4 hours ago, so we'll see how good this one is.

Comment on the picture : Thats Dug in the car, right after a car wash. As you can see that's my favourite spot for pictures, when and where else can I get a shining and clean car than after a good wash? Anybody had an itch in their head saying "where did I see this car before?" You are certainly right. It about the same model as Wahab's but his is maroon and this one is bright red. Oh and he's got a 2.0 diesel engine as opposed to my 1.4 petrol one. And I AM persuaded to buy this car because of his. I admit that.

Goodbye, You Served Me Well

L256HUD - in its prime

Well, went to the garage today to find out that the car's gotta be scrapped. Quick. The head gasket's blown, leaving the engine oil mixed up with the cooling water from the radiator. Thats why the temperature gone up so high, well over the red line. Basically to repair it costs around £400 with no certainty that it'll be fixed by then. The mechanic told me its advisible to swap the entire engine, which new used engine costs around £220 and hearing it I thought "yeah I could live with that". Not before he told me the total price with other parts and labour costs which brings the total to around £600. Well, to be frank I think its not worth the hassle and I'm better off buying a new one instead. Doing some serious car hunting now and there's a few that caught my eye, and there's a big fat chance of me getting a new car before next week. And now its Saturday night.

In general I think the car has served me well for nearly one and a half since I bought it on 21 April 2004. To be exact my life's changed with the car's presence. Haha as you can tell I'm getting cheesy at this moment, but its my first car and i think I'm entitled to be all emotional about it. Before I owned the car, I used to have to wait for the friggin unreliable Number 4 bus in the coldness of winter, the only service that passed by my home in my first year. Its so unreliable I have to wait on average around one and a half hours before the bus showed up and sometimes it even came smiling with the "No Service" sign on its forehead. Couldn't stand it anymore by April, I bought the car in Chippenham and drove it on the motorway straight to Cardiff - not even stopping by in Bristol although its on the way.

Spent some money on the car maintaining it, changed the tyres (£100), alternator (£200), clutch and water pump (£400) and usual minor car-maintaining procedures. But the inevitable has happened and the car is dying on me now. Although its not new when I got it, I bought it with with my own hard-earned money, its my first car and I loved it, it gets me to places but I guess its time for me to move on. I'll have to let it go. Ecehhhhhhh...

Long Time No See (updated)

Been quite some time since the last entry. Life's dull lately without anything interesting in it. Last weekend we went to Cardiff for Piala Putra - a football match which is held there this year.

We ( Me Dug and Pet) supposedly went to the game just to see people there, not to watch the game and then go to Brigend which is a factory outlet shopping centre 20 minutes from Cardiff. Supposedly its only a day trip (yeahhh like it always do - hehe). Ended up staying in Cardiff for the nite and went to Brigend the next day. Lenoq cooked his Tomyam Campur that nite which I craved since I tasted it last year. Pet missed the tomyam because he had to go back to Bristol to work that nite, but he managed to come back the next day on Sunday to go shopping with us. Didn't buy anything there but Dug and Pet bought good bargain stuffs like £5 Nike shoes.

This coming weekend I'm trying to stay at home and do some uni work. Been accumulating those and now I just found out that I have to submit 3 assignments and essays, on top of a studio design project by the 15th December which is just 2 weeks away from now. Might not see new entries by then. We'll see.

Update on Friday night (pagi buta) : did stay at home, didnt go to work, ended up sleeping as early as 9pm, woke up at 12 midnight and watched movies and Desperate Housewives the whole nite - couldnt say there's progress on my uni works' part. Its 5.53am now. Ouh - and gotta wake up early tomorrow. Gotta go repair my car - the heating's not working and the temp going up through the roof. Maybe about time.

November Snow

Thought this would worth an entry. Been up since 3.30am this morning, feeling nice and warm inside my room without noticing its snowing outside! Had a peek through the curtain this morning after taking a bath, checking the weather to prepare myself for an early class (yes people I'm going to class this morning), only to realise its whites all over the place. Probably not as thick as you might hope, but hell its November and its already snowing! The first year when I came here it snowed about 3 times, the first in early January. I think its twice on the second year and now? The first snow in November! Whooaaa hows this winter gonna be..difficult to say. Just really glad i bought the car one and a half years back. My saviour.

Story of My Life

Starts somewhere along here..those early days 5 years ago =)

Full Time Worker, Part Time Student?

Wondering what am I doing now in UK..am I actually a full time employee or a student? Can't really tell the difference now although as stated in my visa I'm a student but I've missed some classes (SOME?) but been going to work nearly every nite of the week - not weekends wohoooo! Even been called money grabber by my collegues - the nightcrews at B&Q because I stayed at work up to 7 in the morning when I'm supposed to work only until 3. My room's a mess, can't really find time to clean it up and fortunately my illegal roommates are cleaning up my laundries. Thats the good thing about it. Thanks Pet and Izman.

Missed all classes this week (its Wednesday now!) and a group meeting as well. Have to be at work again tonite until 3 and I got a class at 8.30 tomorrow morning. How bad is it? Sigh.

For those many people who asked is it me who's on the coconut tree on the background picture, yes, thats me, my dad took the picture when I'm about 10 or 11 years old climbing the coconut tree in Pantai Merdeka, Kedah when we're on a camping trip called Kem Bina Semangat - something like OBS for teachers-to-be (my dad's a lecturer in Maktab Perguruan Sultan Abdul Halim, Sungai Petani). Missed those days canoeing in the sea, mountain climbing, jungle trekking n abseilling with my dad. Think i'll join him for another trip before I'm getting married in August (for those of you who still doesn't know hehe - I'm taken.)

Oh and another good thing - Dug is cooking Nasi Padprik downstairs =)

A Weekend Well Spent

Crazy gurls. Can you guess who they are? hahahah! Showed them the face once and they all wanna do it! This is a result of spending too much time with each other. KMYS style.

Sorry for the long wait for an update. Too many people asked me to update the site but I just don't have time to do it. Been busy lately - life was hectic with the work, classes, overtimes n busy weekends. Sheesshh.

Ouh. Back to the picture. We ( Me dug n syira) went to Birmingham over the weekend to attend Salini's (opps few clues there for the pic - sorry gurls) open house on Saturday. It just a good one hour drive from Bristol, without the tyre blowing up on me again of course. Arrived there about 2.30 with empty and singing stomaches, happily welcomed seeing Salini open the front door. The menu was Nasi Hujan Panas, some chicken, nasi himpit and the most memorable, the Laksa Terengganu style.

At about 5-ish we went to Bullring - sort af like Birmingham's Mid Valley Megamall to shop. Loved that place coz if there's something u can't find in Bristol, you can find it there. Bought a black Gap jumper coz we (me n dug) got a 30% discount there because we are B&Q workers. Don't bother asking us to pay for your Gap stuffs now though coz its only valid last weekend. Apparently there's this thing about architects who wore black clothes, and only black whatever it is - the suit the shirt the t-shirt the jumper the jacket. No whites. All my lecturers wore black clothes everyday, and I guess those things are getting into me now. Sort of like there's funerals everyday. Sigh.

Went back to Salini's place with Azie and Moon (ops another clue hahaha) at about 8-ish and had another go for the foods. Can't get them everyday can we? Then we went to Reza n Arep's place at aboout 9.30pm because we figured out that we can't come to their open house the next day, so we thougt we'll lepak at their house an then go back to Bristol that night. Turns up we played poker, chotaiti, dancing mat and had some pizza (yeah yeah its stressful and make u hungry when u lost BIG TIME in poker) until about 3.30am so I drove the five of us - me duggie azie moon and syira - to Coventry which is just 20 minutes away from Birm and slept there in Azie's place. Ouh when we're still in Bristol I assured both Dug and Syira that I'm 70% sure that we'll go back to Bristol that night, but I myself kinda hoped that we stay and in the end yeahhhh we really did. The next day (Sunday) we went to Nando's at about 2pm and then shoot back to Bristol and arrived at about 6.30pm. The journey was smooth albeit foggy and when we arrived in Bristol it turns really bad to the point that you cant even see a car 10 metres in front of you. I wonder how this winter gonna be. Scary.

At 7.30 im already on my way to Bristol Uni's Malay Cultural Society Eid Celebration Dinner. Arrived late and all the roti jala had already finished. Bad luck then but we managed to get some nasi himpit (again!) kuah kacang and lontong. At 10pm I went to work, and came back home at 4am to update this blog. Expect a long wait for the next entry when my life get a bit more interesting again or else its still the same thing with the busy life all over again. Ciao.

The First Frost

Well, we had our first frost this morning in Bristol. Getting out from work at B&Q at 4am this morning and I realized there was frost on my car. Pet and Yan yelled "oh yeah it snowed!" but I explained to them that its not, and the forthcoming months will be really cold but there will be hardly any snow around here. It have been a good couple of months in Bristol without the coldness of winter, but now here it comes showing its teeth. Give it another few weeks and we'll be all freezing, shivering and trembling numbly all day long. And the forecast says it might be the coldest winter in quite a few years, too.

Oh yeah. Well, about the Nottingham Malaysian Games. I guess on each blog you browse through this week will have an entry mentioning it, huh? Maybe i should too then.

For starters, my car's tyre blown on the way there that morning, haha. Like I always do I was cruising at 90mph (about 150kmh) on the motorway and suddenly I felt the car wasn't stable. It was swivelling left and right, and then 5 seconds later 'boom!' the tyre blown and I tried to control the car and then stopped. Dug was cool but from the backmirror I saw Pimad's face who was sleeping in the backseat doing the impression of "Oih...apa yang sedang berlaku?". At first i thought it was just a usual lame-o flat tyre, but when I got out of the car and saw the tyre, this is really a proper meletup! the outer layer of rubber was not there anymore and the steel wire thread was showing. The 'explosion' damaged the bumper and the bodywork a bit while the new hub cap i bought a few weeks back lost. Grrr. Well. maybe i should just go outside and take picture of the tyre to prove that i was not exaggerating. doo do doooooo...

Will you believe me now?. Well i thought while I'm at it, i might as well took a picture of the frost on my car. Back to where I was. I changed the tyre while Pimad, although half awake when I was trying to stop the car saw the hub cap rolling alongside us, and went out to look for it and found it lying on the side of the motorway. Lucky me. I'd hate it to see my car's wheel hub showing when a lot of rich malaysians who come to Notts Games drove Mercs and Bimmers. Arrived safely in Notts at nearly noon and then bla bla bla the usual Nottingham Games stuffs. But I felt that it has hilang seri a bit, mainly might be because not so many people I know was there. The seniors are mostly gone back to malaysia, and just a few friends from my batch turned up compared to the years before. Haih, habih la aku lepas nih mati kering di bumi uk nih takde member2. These are a few pictures from the event, i need sleep now coz its 6.36am now and i've got classes this morning. maybe i should have slept earlier. ugghhh. i miss my girl.

Raya Weekend in London

Straight after I came back from Venice me and Duggie drove to London to have a raya feeling weekend - at least some. The flight from Venice touched down in Bristol at 6.20pm, took 40 minutes plus waiting dug to arrive back home. By 8.50pm we were already on the M4 motorway driving towards London. Took only one and a half hours to reach london at 150kmh in my precious car - well its my first whatever its condition is - then took an hour more to reach Smoque's house. A bit unwelcomed there cause we dont tell them we're coming, haha. But well, the "London Hotel" served us well in the past and so does it this time - thanks Smoque, Haniz, Ihab, Fizul Mui and others in the house. One thing that made me want to go to London so much is Yusaimi Amir - which appeared to be moving out of his exile that he's been on the past year. No word of him for the whole year then there he is - wanting to meet us in London in the raya weekend. So there we are in Turnpike Lane again.

The next day we went for the Malaysian Students Department open house in Bayswater. Met so many friends there I stayed from 2.30 to 6pm although the management kept on asking all the people who finished eating to clear the hall to make way for the people waiting outside. The food was nice - rendang and all - but I wasnt there for the food. I was there to meet people.

After the hall we went to Nando's to join Kiau and had some dinner there. Nando's in UK wasn't all that good compared to Malaysian Nando's - well, what is? heheh. Dug wanted to see Awanis and Asa at their house later cause he couldnt make it to their wedding in August, so me Dug and Mona went to their studio house in Gloucester Road and stayed there until about 9. Then we went to Mona's place, just to see how it was. Caught the last train heading back to Smoque's place at 12.04, and arrived back in Bristol at 3.30am after a long, sleepy and speedy drive. Phew. What a week.

Hari Raya in Venice

Humm...just been back to this lovely little room of mine. Feeling tranquil now after such a hectic week. Since Monday I've been away in Venice for my class fieldtrip and then straight to London for a little bit of Hari Raya feeling to compensate my sadness of celebrating hari raya in Venice with the pigeons in St. Mark's Piazza. Alone.

Well, to be frank I might not feel THAT sad though. Looking at the pics it looked like I actually enjoying my time there. At the time I'm supposed to do some drawings but im not in the mood to do any. Well, who want to work on a Hari Raya afternoon after all? Might as well have some good time with the pigeons, and i did. Sat for about two hours ther feeding the birds. I've been there two years ago on a trip to Italy with Lenoq, loved the square so much i've been waiting to go back there for a while and there's the chance; my architectural class field trip to Venice.

My classmates rubbing the boob of Juliet in Verona. Apparently it brings good luck to rub her sculpture's boobs, but i guess its just an excuse for the tourists to grab it since they were there, huh?

Moving On

Erm...the next post, may i say? hehe...been busy customizing the template since i first created the blog. Not really good yet...the texts on the posts are quite troublesome to read because of the background image. still trying to fix that. really glad i signed for those computing classes back in college learning Turbo Pascal, an ancient programming language from the seventies. from there at least i understood some basic principles of programming (html in this case) or else i will never get the hang of what the heck am i supposed to do with these holka polka programming language. well, not much to say yet, would try to figure out much more. this is getting exciting! (forgetting that i need to present my work for Design Studio C next Friday although there are none to begin with yet ) ouh...for whoever that doesn't know me, im reading architecture in Bristol, UK in the third of my seven year course - long way to go. phewwww

The First Post

Well..the first post of what i thought was silly the last few years. like dug said "ape nak buat beb, telan balik ludah sendiri la." Dont even know what should i do with this blog, or if i even gonna continue writing in it or its just one of those silly stuffs i do early mornings when i dont sleep. its actually 9.15 am now, waiting for my eyes to fell tired although i didnt sleep the whole nite. sort of a bad habit i had, sleeping late through the nite since school. fixed the selimut to the curtain, so dark i couldnt tell the time but still cant sleep. its really a bad habit, innit? messaged shu but i guess she was out. bosan dok umah la tuh. well, i'll try this blog just for kicks..lets see what its about people were so fanatical about it. might even get the hang of it after a while, u know? theheheheh =)

well shu..i know u will read this blog sooner of later, so i'll tribute this first post to you =)