PhotoHunt: Red

I just joined PhotoHunt! Guess i can find a new topic to blog about every week now.. haha



Took this photo in Edinburgh Royal Botanics Garden. Matches my red jacket!



The red tree outside my house. But it's sadly looking bare now..

er..

nothing to write la... someone gimme a topic to blog on..

i wanna go home.....

A little bit of Pi.

Taken from BBC News, Day in Pictures.

Cool rite... The mathematical constant pi.. spirals of the numbers at Mathematikum museum in Giessen, Germany

Big bowls.. and theromodynamics

Here's my lunch.. a big bowl of salad!! ahhaha











On another note.... here's introducing thermodynamics...

If it is an exothermic reaction, increasing temperature would decrease the rate of reaction.
If an endothermic reaction, increasing temperature would increase the rate of reaction and any decrease in temperature would decrease rate of reaction..

ok.. i think i got the basics right. Now for real life application, i.e. applying it to me.

As temperature decreases (that is the weather here), there would be a decrease in activity. Physically, movement would be restricted as the molecules would move slower. Brain cells would show a decreased activity as well.

(I think that's not related to the basics that i explained but it's a start)

So, rate of reaction... Thoughts cannot be formed properly as neurotransmitters cannot be released due to a slower rate of reaction (somehow). Reaction time takes longer when being dished out with lectures and assignments.

Thus, when rate of reaction decreases, procrastination increase, thus as procrastination is directly proportional to homesickness, homesickness increases as well.


haha.. ok.. all that is nonsense... thanks for reading tho. :D

Another food post: Baked Orange Chicken!

Baked Orange Chicken

Green Bean Soup for Dessert (which is not done yet)

Above is my first attempt at making Baked Orange Chicken! ahhaa... And below is the recipe...

First, do your best "Jamie Oliver" on the chicken (excluding the lemon juice that is). Put orange slices under the skin of the chicken (and some more orange around it, don't hesitate to add more). Cut up celery, carrots, potatoes and onions and sprinkle over them (see how colourful it is). For added colour, you can probably add some capsicums as well or broccoli (good addition for your 5 a day). Add salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 175-200 degrees C. And stick the whole thing into the oven and wait.. er... half an hour to 45 mins (i think)..

And there you have it... Baked Orange Chicken!

Btw... i got the recipe by googling it again... The wonders of Google!

Applied Mathematics

Pui San's theory:

Homesickness = k[workload/(friends*food intake)]

where k = the weather constant depending on the season.

(Wong PS, 2007) <-- so i don't get sued for plagiarism

My theory:

Homesickness = k[(inactivity*workload)/(contact time*food intake)]

k = weather constant

Slightly similar to PS's equation but with inactivity factored in. Contact time is the time that is spent with friends and family. Decreased contact time with friends and family would increase homesickness.

Homesickness is also directly proportional to procrastination (see previous post).

Procrastinating again....

Main Entry: pro·cras·ti·nate
Pronunciation: \prə-ˈkras-tə-ˌnāt, prō-\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): pro·cras·ti·nat·ed; pro·cras·ti·nat·ing
Etymology: Latin procrastinatus, past participle of procrastinare, from pro- forward + crastinus of tomorrow, from cras tomorrow
Date: 1588
transitive verb : to put off intentionally and habitually
intransitive verb : to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done

Taken from Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

What am i going to do with myself??

Banana Bread and Butter Pudding

I just baked! haha.. Banana Bread and Butter Pudding. Wanted to take a picture of it but my camera ran out of battery and i couldn't wait for it to charge. It's very simple actually.

First, beat one egg and some milk together. Add sugar. Butter both sides of bread (i used 4 slices) and soak it in the egg/milk/sugar mixture. Then put it on a greased oven-proof thing. After covering with one layer, cut some bananas and put it as a layer on top of the bread. Add a bit of raisins in there as well. Cover again with soaked bread. Then pour the remaining mixture over it.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Put it into the oven and bake for around 45 mins. Serve hot.. or cold if u prefer. Would have been nicer if i had cream....

Ok.. it's not a very good recipe to follow as i don't know the exact amount of ingredients that i use. If u want to make it as well, google it up! That's what i did!

Stressed??!!!

Why is it that we don't have more time to complete all the work that we've been given? Think i'm going to go nuts one day and start screaming and pulling out my hair..

On a happier note.. or not.. I got my offer letter for my summer placement next year.. in CORNWALL!! Whatever possessed me to apply there of all places! Now what am i supposed to do if Dhiv doesn't get Cornwall or some other place in Cornwall and we can't be together? I really don't want to go alone... Oh dear.... and i only have 10 days to consider....

Ok.. back to work...

Snow!!

My first glimpse of snow!! but it's dark and raining.. so was quite hard to see it snowing. Cold outside..

It's snowing, snowing, snowing...

1 pound is a lot

I was in Beeston just now and after buying stuff from Sainsbury, was walking down to the bus stop to take a bus back. At the bus stop, there was a trolley and i asked my friend to see if there is any coin there. There was! I said i'm going to push it back and my friends said go, and they will wait there for me. They were joking but they never thought i would take it seriously.. So i began pushing the trolley back to Sainsbury to get that 1 pound coin out. Then had to run back to catch the bus! haha... so today's bus trip only cost 40p... The things we do for money.. haha..

Thinking of making banana bread and butter pudding... Google'd the recipe already..

Depressed?

I wonder how people can live here in UK? The weather is just so depressing. I don't think i can stay here for long term. I don't think i even want to do my pre-registration year here. I might, in the end, sell myself antidepressants.

Now that my friend's going to move away.. who am i going to find to talk to? (Rely on you now la Pui San!) I need to get my act together and start doing my work seriously and not think about these things... It's making me even more depressed than before.

0.5 hours of sunlight????

I was just looking at today's forecast and apparently, the sunniest it has been today (in Nottingham Watnall area) is in Nottingham (city i think) at only 0.5 hours!!! The absence of sunlight is really messing with me. My eczema keeps flaring up and i think i've grown fairer! I don't want to grow fairer....

I wanted to take some photos of the lake in Uni with the different coloured trees (red, green, yellow) but before i could do so, the leaves all dropped off.. so all the trees are half bare and ugly now... guess i only get my photo next year.

MSS Games

Malaysian and Singaporean Society Games! Sounds like fun.... NOT!

We volunteered to help out in the games (I have no idea why i went for it, when i'm not even a member of the society) and were stationed at the netball court.

We had to wake up early (6.30am, but Pui San as usual woke up later!! ahhaha) and get ready to leave by 7.15 to walk to the Sport Centre (SC), which is about half an hour's walk. In the end, we walked out at 7.20 and off we went in the cold. Braving storm and wind (I'm just exaggerating), we trudge on to the Uni. On the way to the SC through, we met a bus from University of Southampton, and they were lost. So, we just said we will direct them to the SC and hopped on their bus (even though I only know how to walk there and don't know the way by road). So I directed them and we got to some dead ends, but in the end we reached our destination. A bit embarassing when we said we would direct them but got them lost instead.. haha..

So we are now waiting to be briefed in the small hall of the SC. And what a briefing it was. We were handed a pack containing information on what we were supposed to bring and some more unimportant stuff, and told that the captain of the Notts team will brief us on what to do. So we just had to proceed to the netball court.

The captain wasn't too happy to hear that we didn't know anything and we didn't know the rules of the game and that respective teams had to provide a referee for other games that are running simultaneously. Ha... none of the other unis (Univ of Southampton, Univ Manchester, Univ Leeds, London School of Economics and Imperial College) even knew that they had to provide an umpire. So, we had to run around, trying to get the teams to be ready for their turn and also find, not one but TWO umpires from different uni. Oh what fun it was to stay out in the cold cold weather, running around trying to organise everything. Imagine how angry the four of us were. I was also shouting at the President, scolding her saying she didn't plan things properly.. hahah...

In an effort to be "flexible", we finally just ask Notts to provide any number of umpires who are available when they are not playing. haha.. imagine.. two Notts umpire at any single game. Don't know if it created a lot of biasness. Who cares?

It got better after the preliminaries, where we moved indoors for the semifinals and finals. At least we got away from the cold and we didn't have to run around looking for referees. But it was just so tiring. All that just for free lunch and dinner? That's what greed gets me into. There's another games coming up.. The big Nottingham Malaysian Games, and... you guessed it... I volunteered for it. Hopefully it will be more organised... But if they still don't send me an email or brief us properly, think i will just not turn up.

One good thing about today.. the food was quite good.. better than the ones provided by the Nottingham Malaysian Society. hahah....

Just saw the weather forecast... temperature for tomorrow night will be -1 degrees C. Goody goody...

SPM in 2 more days! Good Luck Sarah! ahhaa..

Ramblings

I've been complained about! That my blog entry is not more than 2 lines... haha.. so i shall try to think of something to write about.

Hmm.. think i should give an update about how everything is going in class. We are always asked for feedback on how we are settling in, how we are getting along with our classmates and how UK campus compares to Malaysian Campus. We even had an open forum today to discuss about these issues (but i didn't attend). Well, here's some of my thoughts on what's it like to be here.

Just can't stop wondering: are we getting too much attention from them? What makes us special? Us coming in year 3 isn't it the same as those starting in year 1? The only difference is that we are joining a group of people who already done 2 years together, and we know nobody except ourselves. I think we are more well off than malaysians (or any other nationality) who came into the course in year 1 and if they came alone, would know not a single soul. We, who came as a group, at least have someone to talk to and hang on to when we are depressed or missing home. Someone who you know will stand by you.

I guess it is better that we came as a group. That our group was small enough for us to get to know each other (maybe not so well for some). Here, the class is just big. Not everybody knows everybody in the class (you'll be lucky if someone knows you're in their class, let alone know your name). The lecturers don't know who is in the class as well. I think that's a sad thing here. Back in Malaysia we used to just knock on lecturers' door and pop in to say hi. Here, you need to make an appointment before you can see the lecturer.

Classmates! Hmm... met some nice ones.. and you get the occassional rotten ones as well. If you're lucky, you'll work with people who are just brilliant! People who are compatible with you and work so efficiently that we always finish faster than anyone else. Then you get some who do their work, and just totally ignore whatever you tell them. It just depends on your luck!

And, as usual, the weather isn't helping matters much. It gets dark at 5pm, by which time you don't feel like doing anything else besides eat dinner, shower then sleep! Really should schedule time to study!

Ok.. that's all for now. (Long enough, Wong Pui San?) haha..

Recipes

Can someone give me new recipes to cook? I'm bored with all the stuff that we usually eat...

Shopping Spree!

Fron now on, i shall just stay at home.. away from temptation...