Finally... Food...

Above is what I had for dinner - ham and cheese tortelloni (which I bought) in carbonara sauce (which I made using mascarpone cheese, bacon and broccoli). Also made mushroom and asparagus soup and garlic bread. I wanted to put up a photo of the soup, but it looks like sewage in the photo.. so thought the better of it... It tasted good though.. I just need a nice soup bowl so that I can present it better. Another thing to add into my list of recipes.

Lately have been feeling discontented with everything. But tonight I realised there are still people out there who are great. Guess will just not take everything to heart and take one step back from everything. Just be happy-go-lucky.

Not fair

Our final year project titles have been allocated and I did not get what I had chosen. We each had 6 choices and I did not even get allocated to any of them. It's not fair that other people get their choices but I did not get it. Why then did they even ask us to rank our preference? It makes no sense to do that if we are going to get something that we didn't choose in the end.

Well, an upside to this is that the title I got (novel gasotransmitters) has 11 students assigned to it and half of them are friends. So I suppose doing this project won't be that boring after all if there's friends doing the same research. We can discuss about our research instead of having to do it alone.

But it is still not fair.

Daylight savings

The clocks have been turned back and the days are getting shorter each day. It's fortunate that I wake up early each day so that I can maximise the hours of daylight that I am awake (not that I can achieve more things that way, just that it's less depressing to wake up to the sunlight instead of waking up to a gloomy day).

The temperature is dropping daily as well. So up goes the hours that the heater will be on so that the house does not become a freezer.

Anyway, it's now 8 hours difference between UK and Malaysia so will have to remember to +8 instead of +7...

Fat?

I'm writing this while I'm in stuck on the train journey back to Nottingham from London. It was great spending time with my grandparents, aunts and uncle and cousin for the two weekends, whom all of which I won't see again until next year.

I find that people around me are always complaining about their weight and figure. When you ask them what their weight is, from a BMI point of view, it's a healthy weight. And I never can see if a person is already putting on weight until it is very obvious (obvious being very huge tummy and and very round face). One thing I see from a person who says that he/she is fat, is that he/she is not fat at all. I do not know where they can pinpoint any flabbiness. Granted that the stomach may bulge once in a while after eating but that's normal right?

So, all this is making me self-conscious as well. Am I growing fat as well? I have never cared about my weight or figure as I've always been blessed with a great metabolism, and was never brought up to be very weight conscious.

I suppose I need to exercise more but that's just to get healthy (apparently my BP's a bit high when I went to check at the doctor's but I think that's due to me running to avoid missing my appointment) and also to strengthen my knees which are weak. Not to control my weight which I feel is in the healthy range. I still think I need more meat on my arms - my wrists seems small to me. But overall, I think I'm perfectly fine.

One thing that struck me while I was looking at my grandfather packing a box - how similar my dad is to him physically and in behaviour. Pa! Next time when you're old, you will look just like kung kung - without hair. hehe....

Is my blog getting to be boring?

I really need to find more topics to write about so I can update my blog more frequently.

A lot of things that we have to do this year. Lots of work for the preparation for practice module which has all sorts of things jumbled into one module - clinical aspects, law and ethics - skills that we need to "survive" in our profession.

When I start preparing for our weekly workshops which deal with different topics each week, I feel that I am so inadequate in my knowledge that it is hard to write down what counselling and advice can be given to the patient in a particular scenario. It is just scary to think that when I am out there working as a pharmacist, there won't be someone guiding me everyday to avoid any major mistakes from happening. I guess I'll just have to arm myself with the necessary information to keep from doing any major harm.

Anyway, this is the 5th week of studies and time seems to be going quickly. Chosen my final semester project titles (I'm in Physiology and Pharmacology division). Now all I have to do is cruise along and make sure I keep my marks up.

Should I join Sports Centre this year? It's expensive though... What do you think?

I know I know.. I haven't been writing much. Too much reading and researching to be done.

I've reverted to my anti-social personality and shunned every dinner invitation that comes my way (well, just the ones where we eat out, I won't ever reject any home-cooked meals). Everyone keeps telling me it's the final year of university and because of that very reason, I should go out more and have fun. But I've already been a stay-at-home person and how would this year being the final year in university change anything?

I just realised I haven't blog about my new house yet. So, a quick rundown on the house and the old Hongkie couple who are our landlords for the year.

The house: Well, the layout is basically the same as the last house I stayed in, with everything flipped 180 degrees as it is now a left corner house (if you get what I mean). It's an older version of the last house as it hasn't been renovated. One thing that is good about this place is that the windows are double-glazed which makes the whole house a lot warmer, and the rent is much cheaper than last year. It was more livable after we cleaned everything.

The landlords: Friendly people when we first met them, but still very calculative and cunning. They keep saying that we complain too much, and that they are only renting us the house - which means that they do not need to supply us everything and that we are lucky the house is even furnished! What kind of people are they? Of course we expect the house to be furnished. I can go on and on about how wrong they are as landlords. When they argue a point, they will go from A to B and back to A and to B again and so on and so forth but will never come to C (the conclusion).

Another thing is, we have explicitly told them to inform us whenever they want to come into the house to do anything. And they said that we are different from other people (read: weird) as we seem to not trust them! Of course I don't trust them - I don't even know them!! But I told them in my very broke Cantonese (which eventually I just gave up and spoke in Mandarin) that we expect them to tell us because if we come back to a house where the things are moved, we would naturally think that we have been burglarised! Stupid people...

Anyway, I do not want to talk to them ever. I will be ever so glad if I do not need to see them anymore and listen to them babble about nothing. It is also hard for me to argue with them as I do not speak fluent Cantonese. That's why I leave the arguing to Puisan who has more patience in arguing talking to them (and also because she is fluent in Cantonese).

I can go on and on about the old couple but I think it's enough for one post.

Well, here's a lesson to all of you out there who are looking to rent a house now or in the future: Never, ever rent a house from Hongkies or Chinese. Rent from a white British who are more reasonable and will not disturb you for the whole tenancy.

Oh ya... the weather these days is beautiful. Not too hot.. not too cold.. Just right. Hope it stays so.

Back to reading about paediatric pharmacy. I keep getting sidetracked by other things...

Things like this just make me worry

There was a pervert standing outside my house just now.

I was washing the dishes while cooking and staring out of the window and there was this weird white guy who came up to the sidewalk (good thing it wasn't up to the house) and kind of wiggled his fingers at me. And stood there for quite some time staring into our house. So, I averted my eyes and told my friends about it, while discussing whether or not to call someone, i.e. the police. Fortunately, he left while we were in the midst of discussion.

Then, our next door neighbour came by and said, "你们有没有看到色狼?" And we said we did. And she then said that his THING was hanging out of his pants, which we didn't notice at all. We just noticed a strange guy standing there looking in and never did see his parts hanging out which is a good thing in my opinion.

I think the police should up their patrol around this area, get rid of these perverted people. Hmm.. wonder if I'm being discriminating if I say stuff like this...