Solitude

Hiya! Sorry for the lack of update. It’s been three days since I pulled my head out of the game that I’m playing that consumed most of my time (Final Fantasy VII) and I realised that there’s nobody around. Everybody’s back home or had gone somewhere. It’s not bad or anything, just… less merry.

Sigh… oh well. Better make good use of the holiday nevertheless. I actually planned to do some advanced studying, wonder where that had gone to. Anyway, in a few days, some friends of mine are going to visit so I’m looking forward to that, even though why on earth do they want to visit Cambridge in winter I have no clue.

p/s If you're sharp you can notice the connection between the picture and something else on the page =)

Yaz.

Americans get quizzed

Some random stuffs I found on Facebook which lead me to this clip. A few are pretty hilarious.

"How many world wars have there been?"
"Three."

Ha ha ha.

Yaz.

The holiday guilt

Have you ever worked really hard for a long period of time that when you’re having a holiday, you feel guilty for spending it by doing absolutely nothing that’s beneficial? Well, I kinda started Final Fantasy VII and I guessed I got hooked and now I can’t stop playing. The game is so addictive! I still have some holiday homework and I feel bad that I’m putting them off for the moment. Sigh…

I found the TV room a few days ago and it’s totally empty now that students are gone. The same can be said about the gym as well. I also have the kitchen and the fridge in my floor all to myself so I can put whatever stuffs I want in it and cook whatever I like. It feels great! Guess I’m a bit reluctant to travel around now that things are really getting comfy here.

In other news, apparently the great river mystery was linked to the case of a missing person in Cambridge not long ago. The river was drained for some building inspection work and the police took the opportunity to search for the body in the river and they found it. Apparently the poor soul had a heart attack when he fell into the icy cold water. Gosh!

Maybe I shouldn’t have brought that up =(

Yaz.

What's the score?

A picture in an article I read about. It's a signboard advertising the upcoming Oxbridge rugby match. Kinda cool, if you think about it. They also have signboards on the number of Poet Laureates, Prime Ministers and heads on postage stamps.

Yaz.

The river mystery

Two days ago I realised the river Cam became noticeably shallower than usual.


But strangely today, it became normal again. Hmmm... what's going on, exactly? Government conspiracy? Secret experiment being done upriver that uses the water? Or have I been watching too many Torchwood episodes?


Yaz.

An irksome exaggeration

I went to breakfast this morning and what ho – the hall is full of interview candidates again. Sat amongst them since I’m interested in hearing what they thought about this interview process and Cambridge in general. I was about to open my mouth and say something when this student came, sat with us and started talking.

I listened for a few minutes when I was like, “What the heck?!” The guy was giving a really skewed description of Trinity! He said that the porters in the college treated girls differently than guys because they are prettier. He also said that college formals are divided into two parts: the one when the fellows are there and the one when they aren’t, in which the formals will turn into a raucous party. I was thinking, “Oh. My. God!” and had to refrain myself from blurting out that NO – the porters don’t have a predisposition towards girls; NO – formal halls aren’t always being out-of-control and disorderly and we definitely DO NOT have to report to our tutors for being rowdy and wild in formals every time because that DOESN’T HAPPEN OFTEN! What is he telling these people??

So when the guy was gone, I talked to one of the candidates, “Hey, whatever he said, just take it with a pinch of salt because it’s not necessarily true.”

He replied, “I know. I met the porters before and they’re really nice.”

How I love people with common sense.

Yaz.

It’s that time of the year

So I went to breakfast this morning, looking forward to another day full of movies, games and Torchwood when I realized that there are so many faces that I haven’t seen before. I don’t think people are that motivated to go to an 8:15 a.m. breakfast on a holiday. Plus, they all dressed smartly and looking kinda lost. That’s when I realised: it’s that time of the year again. When new prospects came to Cambridge filled with anticipation and not a little nervousness. The Cambridge interviews had now begun…

I still remembered my very own Cambridge interview… having a test that I couldn’t finish… filled with pride for being able to remember the density of air to three significant figures… one of the few times in my life that I can feel the gears in my mind turning as I struggled to understand the concept of unit cell, which, I might add, is not in the IB syllabus and is only being taught in the first year of university. Not something I’d like to repeat but it’s one of those things that made you feel pleased because it turned out well.

One of my juniors from AC came today for the interview. She had to do the dreaded Thinking Skills Assessment test. Ha ha, if I was asked a bit earlier I might have given them some tips on choosing the types of interview. Oh well.

I chatted with some interview candidates during dinner. I think I scared them a bit with my description of the interview. Oops.

There was a sketch in the Brit National evening in AC that I remembered about Oxbridge interviews. It goes a bit like this:

Interviewer: So, you came here to be interviewed.

Candidate (nervous): Err, yes.

Interviewer (holding out his hand): There’s a heavy brick in my hand. Pick it up.

The candidate picked up the empty air on the interviewer’s hand and pretended that it was really heavy.

Candidate: Urggh, urghh…

Interviewer: Feel the brick. Can you feel the texture? It’s really heavy, isn’t it? Good. Now, throw it out the window.

The candidate swung his hand backward and threw the imaginary brick towards the direction of the window.

Interviewer: Impressive. Though the next time, you might want to open the window first.

Yaz.

Freedom of religion?

Somebody in Cambridge sent me this link via e-mail today. Have a go and read it first.

Personally, my initial reaction is, “What a twat!” Then, when I calmed down a bit, I guess my comment would be “He’s a rather ignorant person, isn’t he?”

I’m referring to the writer of the column mentioned in the article, Prager.

Since Mr Volokh has presented his arguments more informatively and eloquently than I can ever manage, I guess there isn’t much else I can say. Just want to add my two-cent worth. I think being born in a supposedly multicultural country makes people think they’re all embracing diversity and all that jazz, but the reality is people might be more ignorant then they think they are. He implied that it doesn’t matter what you think and believe, when elected to congress, then uphold the bible. Seems like a contradiction to the supposedly multiculturalism, don’t you think? It doesn’t matter that the person will feel somewhat forced to adhere to another religion’s holy ceremony. It doesn’t matter that the person will probably not take the oath seriously because, hey, you don’t believe in the bible, so the oath is void, right? In fact, the oath doesn’t matter at all, what matters is that you swear on the bible and then just do your job as a congressman. Is that what he’s implying?

I think this is coming from the mouth of a person who really has no inkling of the significance of religion to somebody else. This is not tolerating other religion/culture. This is “Hey, as long as it doesn’t bother me, then who cares” kind of attitude. But if it does disturb your blissful apathy, then you’ll say “Nope, we’re not having any of that!” If this is the paradigm of an average joe, then we have a long way to go for multicultural understanding.

I also agree with the article in that the person doesn’t have to take an oath on the Qur’an, just do an affirmation on the name of God or something. That’ll do.

As an aside, in Cambridge, when you graduate, they’ll present you your degree in the name of the holy trinity. However, you can tell them beforehand and they’ll just say ‘in the name of God’ or something of that effect, and you don’t have to bow before them. I know, Cambridge is cool that way.

Yaz.

Mmmm…food!

I think I’m being hooked with sushi.

I had my first taste of sushi during the chemical engineering dinner. They looked really nice and when I tried them they tasted nice as well. Of course, at that moment I also didn’t know how wasabi looks like and when a friend challenged me to eat a lump of it, I didn’t suspect the worse. Hey, we Malaysians eat chilli paste for breakfast, right? So I put a small bead of it into my mouth and I can immediately felt it going to my head. Good thing it’s not that big a lump or I might grab the first glass of water or wine within my reach and dunk it all up.

Live and learn, heh heh.

I’m proud to say that that’s also the first time I tried eating with a chopstick and I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Yay!

The whole thing reminded me of this MadTV’s average asian clip I once saw on youtube. Pretty funny stuff.

So anyway, I had a craving today so I went and bought two sushi sets from Sainsbury’s. They’re yummy.

I also made my special chocolate-covered strawberries today for the Malaysian weekly cook-out. Don’t they look tantalizing? Can’t wait to eat them all.

Until then, have fun whatever you’re eating!!

Yaz.