I baked cupcakes!

Its Kate’s 21st so we decided to give her 3 handmade cupcakes and I baked cupcakes from scratch without knowing how to bake at all! So we took the vanilla cupcakes recipe online and started on the baking session. And the cupcakes turned out quite nice considering that this is my first time baking without pre-mixes! yeah accomplishment! Ian then came over to help on the decor using Nutella. Well, so ‘helpful’.

Anyway, kate isnt around so we left them outside the room for her. Chloe, her other housemate, gave her a card too!

Its 0 degC now. Why isnt it snowing?

Shopping!

As sinful as shopping does, I counted that ive bought 13 tops, 1 shorts and 1 hoodie solely for myself so far. And that’s only tops not including shawls, accessories, tops for my bro, shoes, boots, accessories, lingerie, bags, gifts, magnets. chocolates and necessities. After throwing half of these into my big luggage, they took up 1/4 of the space! Gosh. I might need to throw away lotsa stuffs before i come back but it seems like i have too many to keep too!

H&M is one of my favorites retail shop too. It makes me feel as good as shopping online at blogshops. They have lotsa ribbony clothes which i think im falling in love with it. And im really hoping to find this black ribbon dress that cost around 60SGD in London H&M since there is no size for me in here. Or maybe i should reconsider since it is a bare back dress? But it is really nice! OMG. Picture of black dress in the following zilian picture.

I spent quite some time in the dressing room. Dont blame me. I haven been doing this for very long so tadah.. [I know my face is getting rounder. Gosh.] But I love the black dress! Tell me how to wear it then.

Then I went around searching for accessories for GGG! Only the gold bracelet is mine and one silver bracelet for Huili and Im thinking of getting the same pearl necklace for Irene. You want? I love the ribbon! I got the pearl collection for Rui Si after much consideration since ive gotten other stuffs for the other girls. But it will be weird if all the girls are wearing the same thing. And for Minna, I have still yet to find a functional item for your size!

Im still not done with shopping gifts for people and for myself. Maybe i should get some dresses and a pair of heels here for coming CNY since there are more variety in UK. hmm. Should I? Well, depends on my luggage space then.

Btw, Cherylnn said Leeds snowed today but not my area. And im slowly getting used to the cold weather here so i will probably get heat stroke when i return. Im still surviving with only my blast jacket at 1 degC. But i feel very uneasy and movements restricted with winter clothing though.

Zoomz

This definitely is not my car but you see how the driver tries to tape the wing mirror and it still dropped off. And the thing is, cars here parked very close to each other, like a few cm apart with one side of the car on the path itself.

Introducing the next most exciting Japanese episode apart from those many others Ive watched. Im attracted to- BLOODY MONDAY. Excitement comes when the storyline twist and turn every now and then. It is really unanticipated so it keeps you wanting to know and stay on the screen! This lead looks like ‘Light’ in Death note. Is he the same person? Im just too lazy to google and check. Anyway, he is showing a sad and yet cannot expressed frustrated expression. He don’t normally look like this in the show. And the exciting part always comes when he uses his laptop to escape danger from terrorists or to seek help from the surveillance and police systems by hacking into the respective systems. See how fast he types and how i dont understand all the java scripts on the screen. But its damn nice. MUST WATCH!

Next, there are a lot interesting things up on http://mylifeisaverage.com/ such that there is a post that tells you to type http://googlegooglegooglegoogle.com/ and four google search engines will show up in one window. Then you can try typing in one of the search engines and four more pops up and so on. TRY IT!

Grr…

Today is the worse of the worse of the worse of the worse day i ever have here!

#@$%$#%^&%^*#@$#^$#%^&%^@$%$#%^&

[Just feel like taking a knife to stab into my brain to stop thinking so much.]

I woke up feeling so giddy like im lack of blood or something and my head is still heavy now. Am i running a fever? How to check?

My mind is suddenly recalling so many of my past and all the things I had done.

I strongly believe im right for screaming back at teachers or discipline mistress for accusing or suspecting me on things that I had never done in front of everybody. I believed that i did the right thing to run away from the police because I had never done anything wrong. I also believed i did the right thing to walk into the principal office to pour my sorrows so that the biatches can be punished. Well, girl’s tears work miracles! And all these happened like so long ago. Am i getting my retribution like now? I will never let it happen. Never.

Another biatch today asked me to meet her but to wait for 10 minutes after i arrived so I stood outside the room like an idiot for 11 minutes and decided to leave. Well, you are the one who asked me to meet you so dont meet other students and hold any group discussions! Thats the problem with skipping lesson to eat my lunch. See what i mean by compulsory lessons and taking attendance? I will never compromise my stomach for lesson that is not graded and not in my timetable. Never.

[Why am i thinking so much?! Grr...]

German Christmas Market in Leeds

We are not traveling for the rest of November because of the need to rush assignments and work. German Christmas market is opened since last Friday and we finally went down. Its small though and according to Ian, this place looks exactly the same as Oktoberfest. We had a German sausage bun for dinner. There is also this high speed Carousel. My head feels dizzy just by looking at the spinning.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=317339&id=517605626&saved#/album.php?aid=346576&id=517605626&ref=mf

Indulgence + random stuffs

I read my blog stats. Seems like everyone is googling dolphins to arrive on one of my posts. I decided to remove that picture but it seems that people are still being diverted here probably due to high rate of people visiting that post.

Anyway, the rest of November will be a boring month for me. No other events are going to happen. Its week 8 of school. Another 3-1/2 more weeks to mark the end of school term which then i can start my travel to spain, germany, austria and the rest of uk. Im still waiting for the price of air tickets to drop so my booking of tickets are like half here and there. That also means that I must do my bidding while im traveling and i only have 10days to study for exams. Well good luck collen.

Recently im hooked up in movies and sleeping. I slept another 12 hours and Im amazed at my variety of dreams that ranges from killing, revenge to my desired happy endings! Probably watching too many detectives, police, action and horror movies these days cos I watched almost 3-4movies a day! Nevertheless, im still able to complete some of my readings and tutorials. Cool uh? My room is like my cage. I need to get out soon to stock more food in my room since they are running out! Im gonna be a fat girl when im back at the rate of munching food and sitting down on the chair immediately after every meal till i go to bed.

Anyone still remember the existence of Friendster? It has been ages ever since i last logged in. I almost forgot my password. I decided to log on because this particulary girl came to my mind. I wanted to see how she was doing but I could not find her on facebook. She is a really fortunate girl after a series of traumas. She is married last year at the age of 21. Im really glad for her and at the same time, admire her courage. She really lived up to be a strong women. It was a simple ROM at a condo but I believe she is happy. Her wedding ring:-

After much consideration for Kate Spade bags, I decided not to get any. I was very tempted by LongChamp after looking at Steph’s blog. So now, im considering between 2 bags:- Either the long handle navy bag or the short handle bag with 3 badges. I saw someone carrying the 3badges bag and it doesnt look as weird as I thought and I was immediately attracted to that design. Also, I saw a white ballet shoe tote bag but it will get dirty easily. I read Steph’s eiffel tower bag too. Really wonder how it looks like. But mummy says buy the long handle and Irene says buy the 3 badges so the end conclusion is:-

And randomly I found this gold LongChamp wallet. Its so cool! But I will NOT get it cos not worth the price. Its nice though.

Now waiting for them to tell me which wallet more worth to get for myself:-

Nottingham Games

Its a fulfilling trip. Im glad that I made up my mind to head down to nottingham early in the morning.Its my first time standing in the cold and waiting for the sun to rise because everyone else is late.

Then we had a jam due to an accident where some lorry crashed into some other cars and blocked up all 3 lanes so they had to close the expressway and divert all other vehicles out of the expressway. We were almost late and the driver had to take another route. By the way after we came back from the games, the driver told us that the news reported four were killed in that accident. Gosh.

University of Nottingham is huge and there is a lake where there are ducks! Basically, I only see Singaporeans and Malaysians around the campus today since it is a Singapore game held in Nottingham. This is also the very first time im seeing so many Singaporeans overseas because each uni in UK had sent a few representatives to participate in the sports and games. Leeds is too small to form a team so we ended up playing mahjong and poker.

Anyway, we went around the campus (only the areas near west entrance) to take pictures!

This is only about 1/3 of the Singaporeans there.

The mahjong, poker, bridge and chess room.

The multipurpose sports hall where practically all sports are held here.

The Singsoc people.

Ian came in 2nd for his Poker competition.

And I was very surprised to meet 2 JJCians there! Henry (my fellow shadow mate who is holding MOH scholarship to study for 3 years in Southampton) and Khew Fai  (Bingren’s friend from S29 who is holding SAF scholarship to study 4 years in Imperial London). They dont look like them right? They approached me and said I dont look like the JC Collen so they wanted to double confirm. LOL. Do I really change a lot? And Henry is going to travel around 5 countries in Europe including Germany in Dec so we might be able to travel together since he had some SMU friends too (SMU = exchange students?)! Finally found some friends to travel together! Khew Fai is actually going skiing trip with Ian. OMG. Singapore is so small.

I also saw Kelly Ang look alike! Gosh. The picture dont really look very alike but the real person is from the way she walk, dress, talk, behave and the flower on her hair! oh my, I look damn shag cos I practically had not enough sleep in order to catch the early morning coach.

We headed to a Thai Restaurant in Beston! Finally after so long, we had some asian food and its quite reasonable! 5pounds! I thought it would cost more actually. I randomly took a picture of the figurine because the elephant kept staring at me beside my seat and I dont dare to move it in case there is some spell or curse cast. I know im thinking too much but its better to play safe.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4023261&id=701849017#/album.php?aid=344100&id=517605626&ref=mf

Bored.

Im so bored. Woke up after 11 hours of sleep because i have practically nothing to do and at the rate and amount im sleeping here, I doubt i can adjust quickly back in Singapore.

The weather is turning cold though it haven started snowing but it is always raining! This makes everything worse. I dont feel like leaving my room anymore. I even dragged myself to dance on a raining night. The wind is just too strong that my umbrella does not want to obey, just like the image below. I had to walk in the rain then. But i simply love to dance- partly to sweat and keep my limbs and muscles ‘active’ so that I dont forget how to.

It is the Nottingham games tml. I had mahjong competition but the thought of meeting early in the morning at 715am just makes me feel like dropping out of the game. I dont even think i have the energy to keep myself alert so early in the morning. Maybe I will lose and drop out at the very first round. Then thats so waste of time and money. But again, I haven been playing mahjong for so long so its time to recap. Well, recapping everything during a competition. Doubt anyone will help.

I am super active in Facebook ever since I came here for exchange. Sometimes, I really want to agree with Nah that Facebook hurts relationships. It is addictive but at the same time, harmful. It can be something that one put on the status all the way to the link posted and comment given to others. One can even try to protray that he/she is happy when the person is not. That is so fake. I just cant stand it. Recently, the new outlook of facebook updates everyone with basically everything and whatever posted can actually be seen on the news feed. Rumors and suspicions all started. I hate it.

Lincoln Day Trip

I basically slacked the whole of today despite the need to study for one more test, one more mcq and one more tutorial for this week. Anyway, i had finally uploaded some pictures to my Dublin post because i was lazy the previous time.

Its another weekend so last Saturday we went Lincoln, a day trip organised by the student union, with Daisy from Hong Kong Mainland joining us. Weather is turning cold so i finally took out my winter jacket! Every other town or city in UK is small so we only had 2 attractions to visit- the Lincoln castle and the Cathedral where the ‘Da Vinci Code’ was filmed. And, we ended up shopping! This is how bad we can be! Shopping again! At least i bought krystal’s present already. Yeah! Now hunting presents for other girls~

Inside the Lincoln castle. Doing Jump shot alone. =.=’

Doesnt it look a bit like Great Wall though it is obviously not long enough?

Nice weather for the trip!

The Cathedral where ‘Da Vinci Code’ is filmed.

Inside the cathedral. I love this picture because i edited it a bit and it turned out to be pretty!

On another note, ive bought 6 tubs of Ben & Jerry and im consuming the 5th tub already! Gosh. Favourite- Half baked! (with everything you want inside! Choco chips, brownie, cookie dough, chocolate..yum!)

http://www.facebook.com/siahlaypeng?ref=profile#/album.php?aid=340847&id=517605626

Material Lab – Freestyle – Bonfire!

I made my own stirrup using a mild steel rod during material lab! Im still gladly happy even though we are not allowed to bring it back. But its so practical and hands-on. At least i see how each steel, anchors, spacers, wedges, aggregates, etc look like. And at least i mixed my own concrete! There are a lot of interesting stuffs you can mix with concrete too! Im just so amazed since i dont even do it in SDE. Everything back there is done by the technician and we use eye power. Here, everything is taught and everyone is supposed to fiddle with it. So we got to wear the coat, gloves, safety boots, goggles and ear plugs. Im scared initially because it requires quite some strength and im so unfamiliar with all the procedures but I have friendly and nice group mates to help me. I just do not like the fact that the coat is so freaking long and the technician even ‘mocked’ at me but helped me with the folding up of my sleeves. haha so nice.

Then as usual, i went for street dance class. The last part of the session ended with freestyle workshop where everyone is expected to take turn to dance in the center. And well said, we have to put in our own choreography and we went 3 rounds.

And the night ended with BONFIRE! It is Guy Fawkes Night, an annual celebration on the evening of 5 November. It marks the downfall of the Gunpowder plot of 5 November 1605, in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to destroy the Houses of Parliament in London, UK.

When we reached Hyde park, there were already many people crowding around. We decided to leave the accommodation only when we heard many fireworks. [One can actually buy the fireworks to light them if you want.] We waited with the crowd for the fire to light up and people started counting in unison for the firework display which lasted for HALF AN HOUR! I held my camera till my hands were numb due to the cold. The whole UK is light up and current weather situation checked from Google turned out to be ‘SMOKE‘. haha.

Pictures credit to Cheryl because her DSLR can take truer pictures unlike mine, which all came out dark and black. I had videos too but they dont seem to be able to be played through my laptop! That explains why I dont have Bonfire pictures loaded to facebook.