The Colourful House of Life

Beautiful is how relationship blooms here. And appreciated too.

Malaysians are more Malaysian here than in Malaysia. That’s one cool expression. I just met new people, and how amazed I am to see the pace of bonding was as quick as time went by. By the time we were saying goodbye, we already exchange three hugs, cheeks brushing. Hurm…, that doesn’t sound right. Right after that, invitations to each other places exchanged.

What’s great being here is we are excited to see other people that are obviously in common with us. All those things about wanting to be friends with the white guys, all those are pretty much crap, depending on how you settled down when you arrived. I started to love other Malaysians, because I know how much we understand each other. Given that we speak the same language, of course. Way easier to express your feeling in your own mother tongue.

*Sigh* I am apparently a very bad English speaker. At least not as good as I imagined - flowing out of my mouth as if I am the creator of English language.

Back to the topic, if you study abroad, you meet a really big bunch of new people, which a fraction of them may be among the most important people in your life i.e. your wife, good friends that actually in the same frequency as yours (both may be the same…). Even now I am smiling, thinking about people I met during my first three months in UK. A variety of them. Like all the colours in the world.

Uh, that kind of make me miss my colours from my past. Past…. What a sad word that is.

I forget almost everything in my past. They just went by like the trains of London tube. If only I can jumped on the track, and chase them back. But the new train will catch me faster (fact: trains serving London underground can be as frequent as every two minutes).

Anyway, that’s reality of life. As those colours fade away, we just need to wait for new ones to come. And welcome to colourful UK.

Differentiated by factors

Do people change, or we just didn’t see it before?

Time reveals people. And surrounding too, perhaps. I used to know some people, but they just seemed different now. So many ambitions and dreams dreamt together, but those were just forgotten, insignificant. Wasted. Shame. I miss the idea of the previous them.

But changes can be good. People I thought of low are higher than I imagined they can be. Being here does make a difference. Where you see who’s who, and who’s not. It would have been wonderful if all the differences were good. But there’s no perfection. At the times the north is warming up, the south just go gloomy.

Ah, maybe I myself change, but unnoticed.

London Soloist

Took National Express coach to London, which stopped by at Winchester and Heathrow.

Suhaimi Suib, after leaving airport, I could literally see planes quite anywhere. Planes were lining up to land at Heathrow. Every a minute or so, when the bus was moving outwards the airport, a plane was about to land. I had to guess maybe it was ONE or TWO minutes between every plane. I even saw three planes in a view; two approaching airport in a line, and one just took off somewhere further away.

Arriving at Victoria, queuing to top-up my Oyster was painfully long. Then off to Regent's Park to go to RIBA, Royal Institute of British Architects. A failure, because I didn't find what I wanted.

Then off to Central London Mosque through Regent's Park. Pigeons and swans and geese are EVERYWHERE. Feeding them looks fun, so I kind of wanted to share my pastry. It ended up they took it all. i split the pastry to half and started breaking the crumbs off. Birds started coming, and then four or five pigeons and incoming flew onto my arms, pecking the bread, and a LOT LOT more surrounded me. No more sharing. But it was fun I supposed... (Wow, pigeonS on my arms!)

To the mosque. One of the rare mosques that looks like a typical mosque in Malaysia. With big domes, and big etc. There was a small bazaar, I guess. People were selling stuffs. And there is a cafe where I had lunch. Too much.

Then off to London Bridge, from where I walked to Tower Bridge, cross it towards Tower of London, awed by the castle, and checked out the ice rink next to it, and bought some souvenirs.

Afterwards, continued walking westward along the River Thames, quite uncertain, to find the Millennium Bridge. Found it after 20 minutes, maybe. Walked across it and mission accomplished. Dull indeed. Now, what?

Wandered the streets of London to find a tube station. Looked for any sign. Found one, and off to visit some friends at Finsbury Park.

Back from failed visit at Finsbury Park, while in the tube, with an hour to kill, I stopped at Green Park (one more station to Victoria) to visit Buckingham Palace. Spur of the moment, really. The train lady announcer said, "Stop-here-for-Buckingham-Palace." So I did.

Walked, through the dark Green Park, found the palace, snap some pics, and guessed my way to Victoria Coach Station. Found it with help from signs and a kind family of tourists, although maybe not through the shortest way, but who cares. I made it, and back to Southampton, which on the bus the woman who sat beside me kept landing her head on my shoulder when she's asleep.

Curiousity

I was wondering, and I thought about "The Road Not Taken."

What will it be if I went to Durham University instead of this one? I can enjoy the castles? The countryside? I will see no cruise ships? No bustling town centre? Not much Malaysian people? Better course?

I can guess, but I'll never know.

And I come upon unto a crossroad. Another question of which road to take.

Oh what the hell! I'll just say what I want. They are not going to read this crap anyway.

I'm thinking about moving into University residence hall next university year. Or shouldn't I? It was said to be more expensive, but I'm putting that aside. I just want to know. Will I be as lonely as this time?

*Update*

Home sweet home.

Of Notts, Bath, and almost Portsmouth

Last Saturday was Notts Games. I left Southampton at 2 am with other two friends by a car, and reached Notts at around 5. Tried not to sleep, but failed miserably at 4 am. Right after Subuh, I couldn’t care less and slept.

And man, it was an amazing day. I met as much old friends as I could. Some guys from Langkawi, and even a girl from primary school that I had not met for eight years, and of course KMS friends. I couldn’t be happier. No I could, because I didn’t meet a few others that I expected too. They were too busy with the games.

The university was amazing. Very vast, with a huge lake, and uncountable parks and fields. Comparing Southampton and Notts is like KMS and KYUEM. In term of size of course.

And the food was brilliant. Nak mengangis Nampak semua Malaysian food!!!

I spent quite an hour or so with the guys from KMS, and had a lot of fun with Haziq’s flashy new DSLR. Cis! And then some of us took off to town centre. It was a pretty typical British town. Anyway, guys from Manchester and Liverpool got to go, so after hugs and kisses they left, and we went back to the university.

Closing ceremony, and then almost everyone left. Sotonians went back by bus, while some others stayed back for the night. Me included. Had dinner at a house, and went to another to spend the night at. Fell asleep as soon as possible.

The next morning, after breakfast and some talks, a friend and I joined a car towards Bath. Amazing town, beautiful and classical. Had lunch in the middle of big field, which quite didn’t make any sense because it was cold and windy. Later that night, at 9 something, we took off on a train towards Southampton, only to fell asleep and woke up only two stations away from Portsmouth.

Yup, we missed Southampton. Uh huh… after some deliberating, we decided to call some friends from Portsmouth, and begged to stay at theirs for the night. We arrived at Portsmouth, and they were ready with a car to send us back to Southampton. God bless all this good people I have as friends.

15 minutes, and we reached my place at Southampton. Bye bye, they left, and I thankfully slept. I love that weekend.

A New Chapter

I left my Malaysian IC at home in Alor Setar. And I was at KL already. You maybe can imagine the tantrum my parents threw at me. I knew something was not right. But in the end, after too many calls, and too many scolding, it was not used anyway. What a waste of time and energy.

I was on my way to KLIA to go to Southampton.

It was quite a glorious night. All this time to the airport, all I did was to send people off, and saw them went down the escalator, and check into the immigration point. Now it’s my time. Yeah, it was a sad moment too, but I got over it as soon as it can be. It was also trouble there. I missed to include my syrup cordial and hair oil. Wasted too. I was quite surprised and pleased too to see quite a number of people were sending me off; my parents, and three aunts, and an uncle with his three children, and a cousin and his wife and his son. I love them.

And then met some seniors who were on the same flight as us. We talked and stuffs. Then it was time with friends. Pictures. Family. Back to friends. Who knew a departing student has so many responsibility. The usual stuffs happened, we got down, bla bla bla, and we waited to board the plane. We took off, ate the marvelous supper, look through the window, movies, slept, breakfast, looked down at London, landed, met some seniors again, and finally!

Hello Southampton. Reached the destination with a minibus. A very cheerful senior drove it. It was the beginning.

My future house, in Southampton, UK.

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I had a WordPress blog just for a try. I think it's rather complicated. So I deleted it. Maybe I'll redo it when I figure things out.

What the....???

Ok.... 19 haribulan? Rather ridiculous.

Tarikh MARA nak hantar pelajar KMS ke UK. Harap-harap tak jadi macam ni, tapi bergantung kepada universiti masing-masing, atau pun sekurang-kurangnya, budak Soton pergi sekali lepas raya.

NAK RAYA DULU!!!!!

Akhirnya

Setelah lama menunggu, ternanti-nanti, terfikir-fikir, akhirnya tahu juga.

Kami dibenarkan melanjutkan pelajaran ke UK, atas berkat usaha keras rakan-rakan, setelah usaha dari pihak kolej, yang amat saya hargai, tidak berjaya. Oleh kerana berita ini sampai agak lewat, maka kelam-kabutlah dunia 27 orang yang murah rezeki ni. Kena buat bank draft, kena ambil afidavit dari Bangunan MARA, kena pergi MABECS, dan kena pergi Wisma MCA buat visa. Semuanya perlu siap hari Isnin.

Tak apalah, asalkan tak ada masalah, dan semua sampai ke destinasi masing-masing tepat pada masanya... Southampton, here I come!