I had lunch at Hye-Jin’s place.

I had Chicken with a blend of Korean Spicy Sauce.

Mi-Jeong cooked with Hye-Jin looking over the stove.

It was great.

Company was good, conversation topic was good.

I had a wonderful time...and at moments like this you know you have created something special.

“jal muhk geh sseum nidah”

I organized a belated party for my friends at my kitchen.

Around 20 people turned up to make it the most memorable and enjoyable evening.

I provided the drinks and the rest promised to bring something to eat.

That is why I love it, this concept of everyone chipping in with food from all corners of the world.

I had char siew pork, greek salad, American brownies, marzipan loaf cake, chocolate cake, a birthday cake, kim chi pancake, kasamari, pork with ginger cooked in ‘old god ma’ sauce, beer chicken, plantine, sago with coconut milk, an African dish, pizza, and of course HOT POT.

I kinda regretted not being able to take pictures of the dishes.

I had Mi Jeong and Ida helped me out with the drinks. Super heavy getting it from the store back to the hostel.

I got 3 bottles each of red and white wine, 2 packs of Magners (16 cans), 4 Hobgoblins, 4 Deuchars IPA, a bottle of Whyte and Mackay whisky, 8 bottles of juice and 2 bottles of soda water.

Hye-Jin contributed a bottle of Rose wine and Linn brought Smirnoff Ice.

Allex provided the music.

Let see who made it to the list:- Thomas, Min Jie, Sze Chern, Vinicy, Stephanie, Ida, Mandy, Allex, Bo Hye, Mi Jeong, Hye Jin, Amie, Dev, Bono, Linn, Chris, Amy, Satoshi, Steven, Den, Maria, Ruth, Jess, Nick. An eclectic group of people but hit off pretty well.   

Everyone was just talking and having fun!

Networking was established, new bonds created and old ones strengthen.

Treat – Kinder Hippo from Ruth because we behaved really well!

I had my first mini micro-teaching outside of Malaysia.

My group members were Maria, Ruth, Amy and Hye-Jin.

We clicked together instantaneously and from there on it was smooth-sailing.

Our group had to carry out a small activity using corpora to teach grammar and it is really interesting.

It was great to see different nationalities carried out their concept of teaching. This is one experience which I wouldn’t trade for the world. One can see how certain people pride on being the teacher in charge, or getting the student’s feedback or handling a situation spiralling out of hand.

Corpus or corpora is mainly large body of texts (can be written or spoken) on a certain language.

Linguists use corpus to identify how human behaviour of a certain society behaves by looking at the textual discourse.

How certain words are used in sentences to convey meaning within that society or how syntax behave with certain lexis. Interesting, very interesting...might take a look at this when I return home to Malaysia.

We were video-taped and Yvonne will release once all groups are done with their micro-teaching. This is good as we are able to review our performance and look at how we can improve ourselves.

From L-R: Maria, Ruth, Hye-Jin and Amy, discussion done in the library and I learnt a new word ‘staycation’

Ruth looking all professor-like while Amy gives her idea during the discussion.

And during the micro-teaching, she really looks all professor-like with her eagle-sharp eyes. Woe betide any slackers.

Amy giving Ruth a massage. Ruth getting tired from all the heavy reading.

Amy and Hye-Jin preparing their part for the micro-teaching.

I am 27 this year.

I don’t think I will ever forget it.

I received presents from my boy, Y&D, and Mi-Jeong.

I received tons of wishes on Facebook.

I received that phone call from my favourite Estonian girl.

And the most surprising and touching moment for me was when: -

Linn, Amie, Ida, Vinicy, Bono, Dev and Angela come to wish me Happy Birthday.

They got me a fashionable coat, a purple bling bling scarf and a pair of lavender gloves.

I was and am touched.

Thank you so much guys!

The funky socks and brown gloves are from Y & D and the green tea flavoured Jasmine is from Mi Jeong.

All of you are Hot-to-go, H-O-T-T-O-G-O, avoom HOTTOGO, avoom HOTTOGO!          

I treated myself to a London trip this weekend.

There was only one reason to endure the long journey into London – to pay a visit to a loving couple, Yeen and Dom.

The journey from Edinburgh to London’s King Cross took about 4 hours and 51 minutes if I’m not mistaken whereas the journey back to Edinburgh took about 6 hours and 20 minutes.

I didn’t while my time away on the train in fact I drowned myself in Chomsky, White and corpora. I think I kinda have a grasp of Universal Grammar but still waiting for clarification from my tutor. I learned so many new phrases – Comparative Fallacy, Interlanguage Grammar (is it grammar or just rubbish) and DDL (no it’s not a type of soft drug) Data-Driven Learning.

I saw Y & D’s new garden. The plants are still growing and then there is the menace of grey squirrels and a fox which gets quite on these folks nerves. Yes, most of us Asian folks would cooed over these fuzzy adorable creatures but in fact they are quite the pest. Advised Yeen to get a tranquilizer gun. Down ‘em pests.

Yeen’s place looks fairly similar from the last time I visited her. The difference is the nouveau garden look, lovely window sill plants (one of them look like ‘kang kung’), a new sofa and a new FLAT LCD SCREEN tv. Watching programmes on FLAT LCD SCREEN is a great experience and will definitely get one when I return home. A 72” FLAT LCD screen. Save money on going to the movies.

Had Vietnamese for dinner. Met Dom at the restaurant. It was a really good restaurant looking at the queue out of the door. We were finally shown to our table after 15 – 20 minutes. I didn’t mind waiting because I got to talk to Y and D. After dinner, headed to a Live Jazz bar for music. Got great seats to immerse ourselves in great music.

The next day, Dom did a little bit of gardening and DIY series of events while us girls chatted.

Headed out to Broadway Market. It was a glorious walk along the canal.  I think it’s just great that Yeen’s place is super accessible to many different places in London. I had a huge appetite – I wolfed down a mushroom tart, a salmon wrap and half a shepherd’s pie. The Broadway Market has a trendy uppity feel to it. Designer olives and cheese (means fresh off the trees and from the cow), bags and clothing, and glorious food! The selection of cakes, tarts, pies, cookies, burgers, coffee and spices just create that zippy zing feeling. After lunch in the park, ogling at people, we headed to Lock 7, a bicycle repair shop cum sales office cum coffee bar. Had our truffles and commented on 2 different ladies wearing the same type of dress.

Headed home, rested and me did a bit of revision on UG. Caught the England match LIVE on telly. England was definitely shackled by the Kazakhs in the first half. No decent shot on goal. Barry was doing a rubbish job in midfield and Capello made the right choice of replacing him with SWP. The second half started off with the Kazakhs with that extra spring in their run, they were actually making a mess with the England’s defence still in the end England won by a flattering score line of  5 – 1. Ashley Cole was rubbish though gifting Kazakhs with their first and only goal. Then had a dose of British reality telly show – X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing.

Hunting for a good cafe in Edinburgh is difficult.

Probably the patrons of these cafes are students studying in Edinburgh.

Have to point out that there is more than one higher learning of institution in Edinburgh.

We had to move from ‘Black Coffee Medicine’ to ‘Kilimanjaro’ to ‘Susie’s Diner’.

Had coffee and lunch.

Decided to unwind after a mentally tiring day the day before.

The only down-side of this diner is the rather hard chairs/benches despite the cushions. Couldn’t enjoy the tea and coffee in a more relaz (relax and lazy) position.

The more comfy seats are those with deep and firm sofa with fluffy cushions you can hug.

We were talking about a multitude of topics from depressing financial woes, to the course we are currently studying to of course planning more coffee outings.

There were intellectual discussions on men, best place to find a cafe and places to satisfy our travelling lust.

I find these girls (as I mainly hang out with them) to be highly enjoyable people with a tinge of mysterious aura (don’t know them that well – more secrets to share) and a hilarious personality backed-up with loads of experience.   

And I think we made one person in particular to involuntarily high sneezing bouts.

You know how the saying goes, “If you are sneezing, someone is most probably talking about you.”

The girls today who had great laughs and sober moments were Jess (US), Ruth (Estonia), Maria (Greece) and I.

Crossing fingers for more of these outings.

The Elephant House anyone?

From L-R: Maria, Jess and Ruth. I am the EYE.

On a more personal note: - thanks to my boy for sending me 3 sweaters to stop me from expiring due to the cold here!

PS – I really found THIS Christmas gift useful. Great for slitting open parcels, letters, and sawing through strings. PRICELESS, for everything else there is MasterCard.

Going back to sticking my head into Methodology: Teaching Vocabulary.

Yesterday’s heavy grey foreboding evening sky.

I spend the half of today (Sunday, 5^th October 2008) out in the sun.

It was a glorious day unlike yesterday and the day before yesterday.

Met up with Jing Yi, John and Komathy for lunch.

Then had pancakes at Linn’s place. Her room looks brilliant!

Later, Dev, Vinicy, Linn and I went to Ocean Terminal.

In my head, Ocean Terminal, is a place where I can see the sea for miles with ships and other maritime stuff.

In reality, Ocean Terminal is a humongous shopping complex, about the same size as Cineleisure Damansara, connected to HMY Britannia (a decommissioned war ship refurbished into a museum).

Linn suggested catching a movie and we watched “A Righteous Kill” by De Niro and Al Pacino. Go watch it at the silver screen and spend that RM11 (this sentence should be the other way around). It’s worth it.

While waiting for the movie to start, I took pictures of the beautiful day!

We caught the bus back.

A good way to prepare myself to face tons of reading tonight.

Check out the pictures here!

Currently bubble wrapped in this feeling – ‘to be loved and in love’

Can you decipher it?

Can you believe it, I am studying here.

I myself can’t believe it at times.

Sometimes I look around class, see different nationality, hear different thoughts, listen to Native tutors and it feels so surreal.

It’s just for that one moment in time. :P

Let me just ‘story’ my academic life.

People out there might think, ‘All this girl ever do is go on trips and hangs out all the time...tsk tsk...”

I have 12 hours of lectures and workshops in a week.

4 core courses – 1 hour for each lecture and 2 hours of workshop for every lecture.

Tuesday is my mind numbing and brain draining day. Starts at 1000 and ends at 1830. At the end of the day, I come home, nuke dinner and ready to hit the bed.

My TESOL and Learner tutor is Dr Brona Murphy. She is a sophisticated Irish lass. Despite her being young (in her 30’s I am guessing), she has achieved much which prodded my slumbering motivation to reach a certain level which I can be proud of myself. On another note, she is an eye-pleaser, on a scale of 1 to 10, she is 9.5. Maybe it is her faerie background where leprechauns and four leaf clovers are magical and mysterious.

Next is my TESOL Methodology tutor, Yvonne Foley. She is an educator to the core. She practices what she preaches. Truthfully, I enjoy her preaching. She has a way of making lessons enjoyable even at the highest level of seriousness. Cherub-like and twinkling eyes, she completely engages your attention during lectures and workshop.

Onto my Curriculum tutor, Dr Rosemary Douglas. This lady with the capital ‘L’ is a faucet of knowledge with the faucet head malfunctioning. She goes ‘ba-da-bing’ and ‘ba-da-boom’ or ‘bam’ ‘bam’ ‘bam’ ’bam’ – her knowledge bowls one over. Despite her ‘Marianna’ trench like knowledge, her warmth, spontaneity and exuberance does not tell the truth about her age. Sometimes I feel her characteristics put to shame youths in our society where they go on and on about life being the pits.

I have met with Gillies Haughton, Hamish Mcllwraith, and Ruby Rennie. Haven’t spoken much to them except to Gillies. He has visited Muar before. I was dumb struck for a moment when he told me he went to Muar to carry out an observation on students' practical.

Small world, huh!

I will put their pictures up soon if I can find a suitable opportunity to take them.

Oh, I am also my tutor group's representative. My tutor is Hamish. We are 7 in a group. My responsibilities are to be the middle man of channeling my group's queries and problems to the necessary party and attending the Student-Tutor Liaison Meeting (3 times in a year). 

I have tons of books, chapters, journals and theses to read. Wish me luck and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

(Keith Urban – Got It Right This Time (The Celebration) playing in the background)

My wedding photographers recently tied the knot – Shane and Leong (together – in case some might be wondering if they are married to different people).

I recently witnessed a Scottish wedding.

I know that I will be missing 3 TESL friends' weddng.

I was hanging out with my new-found Malaysian friends when “Leona Lewis – A Moment Like This” went on air, and I remembered that special occasion. I couldn’t stop myself humming to the song.

Many people would say planning a wedding is stressful and filled with unspoken wants and needs, and I concurred with it.

The ‘feeling’ which perspective couples should be experiencing is that special moment.

The moment where he slides the wedding band onto your finger, with cat calls and whistles in the background, you know then it is official and you are letting your close friends and relatives into witnessing that picture perfect shot that you are pledging your trust, support, and love to THE partner of YOUR lifetime.

To all upcoming brides – good luck to starting that first step into the next level of your life.

To all newly-weds – good luck in your new life together.

To all new Mums and Das to be – good luck in journeying through 9 ¾ months awaiting the first sound of your new-born.

To all new parents – good luck in bringing up a new family, may you be bless with wisdom and courage to learn and unlearn.

Reminiscing and hoping.