Woahh..That's it?

It's finally the last seminar for the YEAR. I can't believe this. Classes and lectures in England are literally DONE for the YEAR. That's all the lectures that I paid for and it doesn't feel value for money out of a sudden..lol. Now all that's left is just dissertation and sitting for the exams. Woahh..seriously, what just happened? It felt as if I had just arrived in England yesterday. It really didn't feel like 23 weeks of classes have gone by. Anyways, my last seminar was evidence and evidently, the lecturer wasn't giving any hints on this one. There were 5 British girls in my seminar class and all 5 of them literally attempted to grind him and tried to squeeze some form of info from him. I thought for a moment that he was a witness being scrutinised by 5 lawyers ! There was some fierce questioning in motion and I just laughed in my head watching the fiasco. They were questioning him why family law and other subjects provide some tips on what kind of questions are coming out for each topic but nothing is given for evidence. In any case, he held his ground and just gave his Irish grin, stating that his hands are tied and he's not as nice as the other lecturers! Ishhh! That's so miserly :(

After class, I went back to have a rest before heading to the last Alpha session. There was a bit of a mix-up on the location, but in the end, I found out that it was at the Chaplaincy. Somehow, our last discussion ventured from just British churches to discussion on International Christians and then to the situation in Malaysia. One of the opinions given on the attitude of local Christians is that they are not inclined to make conversations because of the constant worry of "offending people" from a different background. It seems that the difficulty in forming fellowships extend also among their own circles. Hmmm..I guess its really a cultural thing and the response I get when speaking on such matters is that the local Christians are also remorseful once they are made aware of the way the typical Brit culture has become. I also gathered that local Brits who spend the year abroad also approach people differently in general.

Later on, it was Breathe social at the bowling center where the church apparently booked 9 lanes. My group had 8 people, so it took quite some time for us to finish our games. I went to the bar with some of them and we ended up engaging on a debate with someone on the table on where do Christians who commit suicide go. Well, in my view, salvation once given cannot be revoked. Anyways, it was quite a lengthy debate and the table started going on technicalities and discussing whether there's such thing as an unpardonable sin.

I spent the rest of the night rehearsing my guitar for CG. Mhmmm..it's exactly one month to my dissertation's date due. Minus some days for the London and Paris trip at the end of April, I have less than 30 days. I'm sweating already..ahh.

Blog design revamp!

As you can see, my visitors, that this blog has an extreme makeover thanks to the very talented iBan, Madonna Awa Anak Nobel. The reason why I've not changed from the default design since the creation of this blog is because I like the simplicity and organised layout that is provided by the basic design. I'm not good at designing a new one..and I'm certainly very lazy to adjust the html of the new blogskin to fit the organisation of the widgets that I have in mind. Well, after some tweaking and editing of font values of the redesigned skin, I'm satisfied in going ahead with the changes.

*drum rolls* It's time then for some new clothes! Kudos to the iBan again, and yea, it's unfortunate that she can't swindle any moolah out of me anytime soon because of the Atlantic Ocean xD

Honestly Speaking...

Yesterday my church in Leeds hosted a presentation made by Friends International, one of the Christian ministries in Leeds that are tasked to help out with international students. I met the head of the team in Leeds, Phil, at the Christian Union Living Room picnic last year in September. Since then, I've been meeting him from time to time to discuss about my experiences and give him feedback on the overall situation that International Christians face over here. So for yesterday Phil invited me to share my thoughts in the event yesterday through interview style and he told me that around 30-40 people will attend. When I was there, it was more like 50-60 people from different churches all around Leeds! lol..anyways, initially, I wanted to launch a tirade and a rant. I had already prepared what to say, but just before I got up to speak, God prompted me to go gentle instead and to rephrase some of the materials that I have prepared. Anyways, here's the full uncensored text that I would have said if there are no time limit or barriers. I used a majority of what I had prepared, with some tweaking and softening of the tone in the end..haha.

What was it like for you when you first came to Leeds? What 2 things did you notice were most different to back home?

I was quite excited when I first arrived because I’ve never travelled out of Southeast Asia before. The furthest I have been in my life is Vietnam. England was the first European country that I had stepped my foot on. The 2 Things that I noticed most was firstly, the highly unpredictable and variety of English weather. The sky’s always gloomy, it’s cold..sometimes it gets windy..there’s snow. There is so much to prepare for and wearing the right clothing is important. In Malaysia, there’s only sunny and rainy weather because it’s a tropical country.

The second thing I noticed about the British people is that social life revolves around alcohol. You can never take the beer out of the British. There’s drinking in almost all occasions, even after church meetings and Christian Union (CU). It was quite an amusing situation for me at first, when we have one of the Christian student leaders jumping up and telling the whole congregation that we are going to the bar/pub afterwards! We don’t have that much of drinking in Malaysia, and we only drink during special occasions like wedding or celebrations. Our fellowship revolves mainly around food because the hawker stalls and restaurants in Malaysia have opening hours until past midnight. We will chat the night away.

How warm/cold did you find people in the UK in general?

I would say that the people in the UK are very polite but not warm. Most are reserved and they rarely make the first move to introduce themselves unless they feel comfortable. Privacy seems to be a very important factor here and people don’t seem to be interested in knowing new people or forging new friendships. They can see the same people week and week out, and they are ok with not striking a single conversation. In the law school, interaction between local students and international students is almost close to zero. We don’t talk during lectures and during seminars, at the very most it’s academic. There’s not even an introduction of names when we are discussing in a seminar group. Even after staying here for close to half a year, I do not know alot of the local British here on a personal level.

How warm did you find people in the Living Room? (International students gathering by the CU)

The living room is one of the first contacts that I have with Christians in Leeds. On the first week, I went for the living room picnic and that was where I met Phil too. I found I always felt that the reception in the living room is always warm because most of the people helping out in there are prepared to engage and meet with international students. I don’t see the same level of engagement for international students from local students in the CU or the church. Most of the time, it’s as if the internationals are invisible and they are usually ignored and left alone by themselves. It was very hard for me to get acquainted with the people in the CU because people in general just stick to their cliques and chat among their groups. I only had the chance to know a few more people during the weekend away. I’m very blessed to know Tim Tucker, the previous president of the CU and I will always remember him for the initiative that he took. He invited me over to his house at the border of Wales and I spent a fantastic 4 days with his family over Christmas. I got to know his family members too and we shared personal experiences with each other. Tim Tucker is one of the few British Christians who’s willing to engage with me on such a personal level. Sad to say, most of the local Christians that I know end up only as a “hi and bye” friend whenever I see them.

What could international students who are Christians bring to local churches that are predominately British?

It will make a strong statement that Christianity transcends culture to both local and international students who have yet to know God. We show that Christianity is not a Western religion because Jesus is relevant in every culture and society. The Malaysian churches and African churches are worshipping the same Jesus that the English people know about. International Christians have different perspectives in reaching out to other internationals which the locals may not be familiar with in terms of language and culture. We present the gospel in a much digestible way which the locals may not have considered.

Here’s something which I felt that is neglected in the international students ministry in England. There are lots of outreaches for international students who have not heard the gospel before but there is little support for Christian international students. You’ll be surprised to know that the population of international Christians is quite sizeable. I can name at least 20-30 international Christians that I’ve acquainted with. We are everywhere. But why are they not seen to be participating actively around in British churches or the Christian Union? As far as I know about Malaysian Christians, most of them are all huddled up in the Chinese church for a couple of reasons. Mainly because of opportunity to serve and fellowship. Firstly, the level of fellowship and bonding from the local Christians are almost non-existent. Let’s take my church as an example. Every Sunday, there’ll always be a group of at least 5-6 International Christians in the church. But no one bothered to talk to them or get to know them better. I go to the small group sessions and Christian Union, and apart from the official activities, none of the local Christians actually bothered to contact me outside of the official activities. I’ll be honest here. It is simply not good enough to ask “how are you, how’s your week, how’s your studies”...or to organise one or two international events and there’s no follow-up. What sort of friendship is that? There is no way you’re going to cultivate a proper fellowship like this. Maybe for the first few weeks, it’s alright. But there are local Christians who have known me for 6 months and all they ask whenever they see me is “how are you and how’s your week.” And then *awkward silence*.

The presumption of all international students are non-Christians or that they don’t know about Christianity at all needs to stop. Throughout these 6 months, I find that the local Christians do not treat the International Christians as equal partners in ministry and very often, international Christians end up on the sideline as mere participants. Local Christians seem to assume in their mind that they can’t handle things or know the scriptures enough. Let me tell you, some of the international Christians studying over here are leaders of their respective churches back home. They have led worship, bible studies, prayer meetings and small groups. Some of us join national Christian conferences, organised massive scale evangelical rallies and are part of the Christian union committees back home. International Christians are uprooted from their Christian circle at home when they go abroad. When an International Christian comes to England to study, he wants to see his faith level increase and his walk with God strengthened and to meet with Christians whom he can form meaningful friendships with. But without the support of the local Christians in initiating fellowship, personal sharing and opportunities to serve, he’ll be a loner. You know Christian living is community living. Without close fellowship with local Christians, where can he find the passion to serve and grow spiritually? I could have chosen the easy path and join the rest of my fellow Malaysian Christians in the Chinese Church. Fellowship is good and there are plenty of opportunities to serve. But I’m determined to be patient and stick to a British church because I want to learn a different perspective from the local Christians during my short time of a year here. Every week, I return back to my room in disappointment because of the attitudes of the local Christians that I see. I try to think the local Christians as being different from the local non-Christians, but every week I’m proven wrong.

Some of you might think, we are British and that’s the way we are. But no, we need to rise above that. We need to rise above the stereotypical notion of our cultures and start to see ourselves as common citizens of God’s kingdom. Leeds is a very special place with so many different nationalities converging in the same place. When you say you want to share lives and share the love of Christ, can you afford to ignore the hundreds of International Christians that are in this city? He/She is also your brother and sister in Christ. You are part of the same family. You don’t even need to send missionaries to different countries. That one international Christian that you touched in Leeds could end up as a renowned evangelist in his home country. Never doubt the investment that you put in an international student. But it all has to start from the bottom - with genuine and sincere friendship which I find many of the local Christians are not willing to offer to the international Christians at this moment.

After I have spoken, there was a hush of silence as I walked back to my seat. All I was thinking at that point of time was, "Dear Lord, I hope I didn't make new enemies today!" After everything had ended, Phil's wife came to me to say that lots of the British folks standing behind appreciated the honest comments that I gave. A few of the British who were sitting near me also said the same thing. Jane, one of the new committee members in the Christian Union walked up to me to say that she appreaciated my feedback and will bring up the issue to the new CU committee during meeting. The most encouraging one was a Christian from Jordan who came up to me and said "You spoke exactly what my sentiments were! It's as if I'm actually up front and speaking the exact same things as u!" She encouraged me to continue speaking on this subject to every Brit that I meet, and said that the local Christians need to have this awareness and reminder every now and then. Wow, truly amazed at God's work! I didn't expect my speech to impact that many. I'm just thankful to be given this opportunity to speak for Him. Hmmmm..I guess that my Mama's hard-earned money to put me through law education ain't wasted at all to prepare me for moments like this.

The bottomline situation is this, the international student work which has been going on around in Leeds is impressive, with many China students getting to know the Gospel and going back home to tell others about Jesus. But I often find that for the International Students who are already long-time Christian, they are in a state of limbo. Very little work is being done to help them to settle down or get rooted into the local Christian community. They have already gone beyond the basic stages which most of the China Students are undergoing like who God is and what is the Bible etc. While it is good that international Christians join these activities to help to spread the Gospel, they also need spiritual food and fellowship to grow in their own faith. But if these International Students join the predominantly British Christian Union and churches, they get the proper teaching that they need but the fellowship component is often missing because the local Brits simply do not have the desire to welcome them into their social circles. I admit that the international workers do forge close friendships with the international students that they work with, but I noticed the pattern that it's only international students who do not know the Gospel. Hence, there's this very bizarre and ironical situation where, it is better for the International student NOT to know anything about Christianity so that they can have the opportunity to interact with the British. And for International students who have already known and accepted Christ, there seems to be nothing else that the local British Christian can offer. This, I feel, needs to stop going on if we are to regard ourselves as one a one united citizen in God's kingdom. For me, I felt that I can't just stand around being silent while injustices like this go around unnoticed.

Anyways, recently, I noticed that in these past few years, I'm inclined to advocate for different concerns and pushing for reforms on different fronts. There are undercover campaigns to reduce passivenes in Christian walk, active serving in church, planting seeds in people's life who have yet to know Christ in an effective way, having a Christ-centered path in the legal fraternity and law departments and right now, international Christians integrating with local Christians. At times, I do feel stretched fighting silently on so many different fronts alone and I often wonder whether there are those around me who share the same concerns or they had just chosen to ignore it. I felt the weight on my shoulders on these so many concerns that I have but yet I find myself not being able to fully commit to the full cause because of the studying commitments that I have. I hope that one day, when all these studying and academics are all gone, I'll have all the time and resources to campaign for all these things. As for now, I'm just grateful that God has given me strength to actually speak up on these things despite all the academic stuff that are piling up on me.

Draft Gaffe

Ughhh! I wanna shoot myself for wasting my final dissertation meeting with my supervisor. Thanks to some miscalculations and bad planning, I ended submitting my draft later than expected. Somehow I couldn't formulate the words that I wanted to put inside and this caused me to take a longer time to organise my thoughts. The time slot that I picked to meet my supervisor was wedged in between my jurisprudence class and the final year students photo taking session. I had to rush to the law school building after lunch. When I met my supervisor, she said she hadn't had the time to look at it and also because it was the weekend. So she had to read on the spot instead of properly perusing over it. I gathered that she managed to read through my first draft in the previous meeting because the previous meeting fell on a Tuesday instead of Monday.

I was constantly looking at the clock, having the dilemma of whether to stay longer to grab as much guidance as possible or to end it and rush to the library before the photo-taking session is over. In any case, there was only a limited amount which my supervisor could analyse on the spot and I was already smacking myself because if she had the proper time to look through it, more could be discussed. We ended on the dot like a few minutes before the meeting time for the photoshoot and I had to make another mad dash down to the library steps. Thankfully, the photoshoot was still on because the photographer was still busy arranging people..lol. After the photoshoot, there's supposed to be Evidence lecture but the evidence lecturer apparently ended his session with just 15 minutes! Ahhhhh! If I had known better that he'll do that, I would have scheduled my dissertation meeting during that slot. Or any other time for that matter so that my supervisor could have gotten a good read of what I have written! And then I thought that I should have suggested another day to meet her once I have gotten to know she had not read it yet. Argghhhhh..Too slow and too late for such an idea! Why didn't I thought of it earlier?!..I've just wasted the last opportunity for free tips and hints. I could still e-mail my supervisor, but only questions on technicality can be asked and not about the content. Oh wellll, looks like Stan gotta continue the rest of his dissertation in the dark with his eyes blindfolded :(

Half-closed door

It's a week now and there's still no answer. The results of the Bar Course application was supposed to be out last week but for every of the Malaysians that applied Leeds as their first choice, their application still has 'processing' as the status. Well, it's not technically 'rejected' but the system did warn that 'processing' also means that no offer will be given. All the rest who picked Northumbria, UWE Bristol, Nottingham and even 2nd choice of City Law School has been given an offer. I could put any of those choices but I've decided early on that it's either Leeds or Manchester. London is a nono because it's too expensive for my finances while I don't really fancy staying in other cities. Actually I got accepted for part-time at Leeds but that was of no use because Post-Work Visa is gonna be scrapped soon. As I had said before, if I don't get any of the full-time offer at all, I would take it as God's answer for me to return back to Malaysia.

For the past week, I've been hoping that it could just be an admin fault. A part of me just wants the ball to be in my court for me to make the decision. However, I know very well that it is ultimately God's decision in where to place me rather than what I want to choose for myself. I know I'm setting myself up for a high risk of not entering into the English Bar Course when I limit myself only to two institutions. But I'm adamant to hold that if I'm paying that much to do Bar, I want to be in a place where I really want to stay instead of just entering any Bar school for the sake of it because some of it are actually not as reputable as it should be. Leeds was first in my choice because of the network of friends that I have made and I want to develop it further. Manchester was the only alternative because it was the cheapest. I would definitely have picked London if I'm rich enough but alas, I recognise that I'm not. A 'Barrister' title is delicious when it is included beside your name in the future but I'm not gonna bleed my mother financially dry to go somewhere that I do not feel strongly about.

I phoned up the Leeds centre earlier and received my answer that it's not an admin problem. It is indeed true that all the Malaysians did get rejected from the pool of Leeds for the Bar application. And I was told that if I want to try again, I would need to wait until April for the clearing and not even the first choice reasoning that I had placed in the first round could help in the application. In other words, chances are slim for clearing. And not getting a reply for Manchester also meant that an offer was also not given there. This is annoying, because I wasn't rejected outright and there's still a chance in the clearing. This meant also that the door is half-closed. Not totally. I'm effectively forced to push all my Inn applications to later if I somehow got in the future. And I can't even make plans to travel home to Malaysia for good because I have to make sure that all doors are effectively closed in the clearing period. It seems that many of these applications were not taken up during the first round, so there may be a chance to enter Manchester given that they have close to 200 over places.

Anyways, on Sunday in church, we learned about feeling bold to really narrow down our prayer requests to specific things to really see the direction that God wants to move us in. So, this made me even more determined that I made the right choice in narrowing it down as tight as possible just to discover whether it's God will for me to stay in England for another year and not whether I myself wanted to do the Bar course. So dear Lord, is my work for you in England completed? Please give me an affirmative answer. I hope You'll answer it soon in April.

In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps - Proverbs 16:9

Same Old Arsenal, Always Losing

Mission Accomplished by one of the twin terrors

Old rivalries between Fergie and Wenger are renewed but both old foxes recognised that they are battered old men too for the past two weeks. Wenger found himself kicked out of two competitions following an embarassing winning goal scored by Birmingham in the Carling Cup final and outplayed by Barca in Nou Camp. His boast of a Quadruple was silenced to a mere possible Double. On the hand, Fergie found himself outplayed by both Chelski and the Scousers at Stamford Bridge and Anfield respectively. It is clear that both needed a massive Cup boost and the loser from this knock-out round will surely be damned badly. The stakes are high. Loser goes home with a huge moral deficit to make up for. Fergie is known to have placed some of the wackiest line-ups, such as putting Fletcher as right-back, Carrick as a center-back or Evra as a left winger. But no one was prepared to see him field a total of SEVEN defenders. Brown, Smalling, Vidic and Evra in core defensive duties. Twins effect Rafael and Fabio will occupy the right and left wing. Jack-of-all-trades O Shea goes to the center with Gibson. You could say that the entire midfield is an untested combination overall.

In any case, the Gooners could not handle the makeshift midfield or the substitute striker pair of Rooney and Hernandez. It is very bizarre to see that the da Silva twins actually performed better as wingers rather than standard defenders..lol. In the 27th minute, Hernandez forced Almunia into a save and the ball spilled onto an incoming Fabio who delightedly put it into the open net. Rafael was the architect in the 2nd goal at 48th minute of the 2nd half. Hernandez was again in acres of a goal-scoring opportunity when he was robbed of the ball but fortunately another player was there to pick up the remnants again and it's Rooney this time who scores. Wayne's recovery back to the goal-scoring trail looks to be good. The Gooners couldn't find a way to overcome the score and with the final whistle, Wenger is condemned to the fact that the Gooners are kicked out of a third competition in 3 weeks. Now, all that's left is the Premier League or nothing. Incredible, from an audicious claim of Quadruple, Wenger was forced to eat his words. The mental strength of the Gooners are all in shambles now.

I believe this would be a massive boost for United in their next few matches, most notably the one against Marseille this Wednesday. I have a vested interest in this because I want to watch a Champions League match live against a massive European opponent! So, come on United! =D

Under:Stand:Up

The Christian Union meeting took a break from it's regular schedule to have an inter-faith night instead known as Under:Stand:Up which consists of students from the CU, Jewish Society and Islamic Society. No doubt the polytheistic groups are excluded since they are a minority over here, so it becomes more like a gathering of Abrahamic societies. All the sons and daughters of Abraham under one roof..lol. The main guest-of-honour of the night is the stand-up comedian Imran Yusuf and he's really really goood with his funny materials. One thing that I respect him about is that he is able to poke fun at his own heritage in a graceful way. As I made an observation, quite a number of the Muslims in Britain are Pakistanis by origin. Mhmmm..I would like to touch a little on multi-culturalism in Britain since I'm on topic about it. Recently, David Cameron, the British PM declared that multiculturalism in Britain has failed. Of course, he refers to the extremist and terrorist elements but there are some elements in the truth of that statement even in the standard British community.

As somebody coming from multi-cultural Malaysia, I find the Brit's idea of multiculturalism to be a very different form. To them, it's just migrants coming in and living in a tolerant way towards them. Little attempt is made to understand them better because they just don't find it neccessary. It is true in Malaysia that the 3 main races don't always get along so well with each other but underlying all the politicised tensions, the common average Malaysian folk actually has a decent amount of knowledge about the other races and we often infuse our cultures together to make it uniquely Malaysian. Every Malaysian is comfortable with Nasi Lemak and Mamak. We speak Malay and even adopted some Malay words into the Chinese dialects. We get to experience the festivals of different races in Malaysia too. Every Malaysian is usually accustomed to knowing more than 1 language. The Indians happily waltz into a bak kut teh stall while the Malays are perfectly alright in dining at a Halal Hainanese Kopitiam.In comparison at Britain, most of the local Caucasians know only their English culture and 1 language - English. There are minorities living among them - the Punjabis, the Pakistani Muslims and to some extent the Hong Kong Chinese. But ask the Brits about even the most simple thing about their minorities, they are almost clueless about it. The only thing they know about the Chinese is "Ni hao?" and the Indians are curries. Even among the minorities, they have little idea about each other's group. At least the two main minorities in Malaysia, the Chinese and the Indians, interact constantly and they are comfortable and do know much about each other. The new generation of Brits has little inkling about the former colonies of Britain and they don't even know that Malaysia and Singapore are former British colonies. If one loaths about racial segregration in Malaysia and how the different races actually restrict themselves only to their own circle, it's the same over in Britain. But I would say that Malaysia is better than Britain in the multicultural level because at least we have the opportunity to meet and interact with other races. We get to know about other religions and cultural practices. We are so diverse and yet we still try to learn from each other. I find the local British to be lacking in this adventurous spirit of learning about other cultures. Hence, this also contributed to the low levels of welcoming spirit by the Brits in addition of the subtle xenophobia that may be present in them.

Well, the interfaith event organised by the societies are a good first step to encourage integration and understanding. I think that it will be harder to organise something of a similar nature in Malaysia due to the sensitive nature of religion in the Peninsula. A similar idea based on inter-ethnic relations could work better for Malaysia but the inter-ethnic approach may not work as well for Britain because the ethnic communities there are not as intergrated and overlapping as the ones in Malaysia. Anyways, I'm very thankful that I'm raised up with a multi-cultural perspective attached in me in a different part of the world known as Southeast Asia xD

Kuyt and Bashed

It was another miserable away outing for United as they got their brains bashed by the Scousers at Anfield. When I saw Brown at the starting line-up, I knew we were going to have a hard time to hold the line. Brown had only played 3 games this season while Smalling is presumely still rocked by last week's performance. Vidic's absence was certainly felt as United were literally ran ragged by Suarez's silky moves. He waltzed past 4 United players to set up an easy goal for Kuyt to tap in. If Mr Vidic had been there, he would have given the Uruguay fella a nice authoritative slide tackle. The 2nd goal was one of stupidity and a giveaway. For some bizarre reason or so, Nani's header ended up directing the ball to Kuyt who promptly connected it with his head. Nobody knows what he was thinking and by this time, the United players knew that the contest is almost over. You don't go down 0-2 at Anfield and recover from that easily.

Melee is plenty and this fixture is probably more heated in more recent years because of what is at stake for United. At around the 44th minute, Carragher lunged at Nani with a horror tackle which could essentially see Nani out for quite some time. The seriousness of the injury was not apparent until after the match when pictures revealed that Nani actually had a deep gash wound which split open the flesh. While watching the match, it looked for a moment as if Nani was crying wolf again and his strange motion of getting up and falling down again looked like one of his usual diving antics. But as the medical staff rushed onto the field, Nani was clearly seen to be in real tears and I was wondering why he was sulking like a prima donna. Nani was almost on the verge of wailing as he stared back at Carragher as if he had made a career-ending tackle. Now, all that drama turned out to be quite serious in the end and I'm sure the United players were not pleased with Gerrard screaming at Nani to get up with his bleeding leg. But that was not the end of the melee, Rafael got into a bad tempered clash with Skrtel barely minutes after the restart of whistle when Nani was stretchered off the field. Red cards could have very well spammed all over the place but the referee opted to keep the players in. Well, some could have argued that Carragher should have been sent off but I reckon that still wouldn't have change the result because United was playing poorly overall.

Any chance of comeback went up in a smoke as Kuyt did what Berbatov did to them at Old Trafford - a hat-trick. The 3rd goal showed how off-duty the two center backs were and Kuyt was literally a free man to pump the ball into the back of the net. Hernandez in the dying minutes put in the consolation goal and that's about it. One would have wondered whether the situation would have been different if Berbatov's chip had not hit the post earlier.

Two defeats in a row. I felt that Fergie should have started Fletcher instead of Scholes because the old gun was not of any use during the match. They would have needed the extra physicality present in Fletcher to combat the Liverpool midfielders. United were fortunate that the Gooners did not overtake them because of the draw that the Gooners had with Sunderland. At present, it means that if the Gooners had won their extra game in hand, they would be level on points with United but United will still come out tops because of the goal difference. This makes the match at Emirates even more compelling as it could be a season decider. In any case, what's done is done and I hope United don't take long to start winning again. It's not easy when the team has the big threes in a row on consequtive weeks but it is essential that they overcome Arsenal next week to inflict psychological blows on Wenger. United really have to ensure that their season don't continue to derail badly.

CG Bonding and Guitar Debut

I've been spending some quality time with my Chinese CG for the past two days. We had a dinner at outing at Tong Palace after our Friday seassion and I can't believe we just chatted away the night till 1.3oam! We were clearly the loudest table in the restaurant especially we started discussing what medical students do during placements in hospitals. On the next day on Saturday, we gathered at Springfield for an advanced pancake day gathering and bookmark making session. The girls tried two types of pancakes, the thicker American type (which you can find in McD) and the thin British type (which is known as crepe). At the end of it, we were just bloated from the pancakes..lol. These may just be very simple gathering of dinner or making pancake but it's good fellowship time. This is perhaps something which the Brits will take some time to comprehend, which is the importance of meeting up and doing little things together outside the official allocated time.

Mhmmm..this is an overdue update and it was supposed to be included in the previous entry but somehow I forgot to. But since I'm on the subject of Chinese CG, I might as well include in here. Last Friday, I played the guitar for an entire worship session for CG! I know only the G chord family, so I made sure that I transpose all the songs to G. I gotta thank Janice for giving me the opportunity to play because I wasn't sure about it at first but nevertheless went ahead with it. I have to say the experience was great in the end and I've discovered a few new things in the process. First was that I could play C, E Minor and D in an easy way without shifting my hand position too much. Secondly was playing with the use of the Capo. And lastly was that being a drummer help alot in the rhythm strumming as I had no problems in keeping up with timing. So, the only thing I gotta work on is pressing right keys at the fret board. At the end of the session, my left wrist was literally strained from the bent position that was adopted and even prolonged hours of drumming has never strained my wrist like that! lol. Hmmm..looks like God is putting me in a new secondary musical role to play guitar given the absence of drums. I'll certainly be looking for more opportunities to serve in the guitar region if given the chance!

A miraculous return

Some of you may recall the loss of my beloved 7 year old pencil case 5 weeks ago. I've been looking at the same spot every week in a row. This same spot is the dark lost and found storeroom which stores all the things that cleaners found lying around in the conference auditorium. Every week without fail before EU lecture on Wednesday, I would pop in to rummage through the things but nothing came up so far. I did that for 3 weeks continuously but nothing was found. So I gave up on the 4th and 5th week. But yesterday was apparently the last week of EU lectures (actually it was not in the end because the lecturer couldn't finish in time and had to drag on next week too). So, in any case, I thought that yesterday would be the last time I would be at conference auditorium, so might as well try for one last time. So I opened the storeroom door as usual, with little hope placed with the same routine and bent down to start feeling some of the pencil cases on the floor. Suddenly, I felt something familiar which I recognise for years. Could it be.....

I pulled the item out and straight away I had a huge exclamation of joy. It IS my pencil case! Wooottss! Thank you Lord! Fortunately I did not fish out some Queen's pounds to buy a new pencil case yet. I did an equipment check and everything looks to be in order with no items stolen. The pencil case was once lost but now it's found. I'll definitely be more careful in the future :)

Blue-faced encounter

Chelski may be too far off to retain the title but that won't stop them in spoiling the party :(

Man Utd's bad run at Stamford Bridge continues. This fixture is a rather strange one considering that the Blues are virtually out of the title race this season. But they posed the greatest clog in United's march to the title and they have proven so. Fergie had opted to maintain the same away team that smashed Wigan 4-0 for this match and Rooney seemed to be starting a run-up of good performance by putting in a ballistic shot from outside the penalty box to put United 1-0 up in the first half. Everything looked to be in order when half-time approached with consistent pressure being applied to the Chelsea goal and Fernando ain't looking like scoring at all. And in the second half, everything just fell apart. United paid the price for sitting back even by a little. Chelski's very own energy ball David Luiz popped in an equaliser. By the time Zhirkov and Drogba came out, United's attack were almost faded away. Hernandez was outmuscled totally by Terry and Berbatov as a replacement did little to change that. Smalling, who have been performing well in all of the matches that he had started, ran out of credits in the 2nd half and commits a grave mistake by conceding a penalty. Zhirkov capitalised on his inexperience by charging at Smalling's sticking out leg and falling flat on the ground afterthat. Lampard finished the penalty and Chelsea completed a 2-1 comeback. To add a humiliating sucker punch to United, Vidic was sent off in the dying minutes, leaving United in a little center back crisis.

In any case, the away support was fantastic with their "Chelsea Rent-Boy" chants. The few thousand minority were louder than the majority Stamford Bridge fellas who were just sitting there warming the seats. Obviously many of them won't forget Fernando's association with the Scousers, so all the anti-Liverpool chants were rained on him too. Of course, the two jokers on the field are Wayne, who elbowed a Wigan player during the weekend and got away with it and Cashley Cole who shot a poor boy with his air rifle and he got away scot free too..lol.

Honestly, United didn't play too bad in this match. It could have gone either way. They had several chances which could have worked but didn't have the fire in the belly to finish it up. I can spot 2 chances where Rooney had given a diagonal pass across the goalmouth and a incoming charging player could have easily given in a tap in into an open goal. But on both occassions, the charging players did not go all out to chase the ball. Dissapointing result but the week of reckoning is not over yet. There's still Anfield coming up and the Scousers, no doubt are having some sort of erratic form under the Dalglish, could pose a similar threat. The golden question is, who's gonna be filling in the center back with Ferdinand, Vidic and potentially Evans out of the picture. Smalling will definitely have to play, and this leaves either John O Shea or Brown who are capable to take over. In any case, Andy Carroll will look forward in exploiting that soft center.

The results leaves Arsenal 4 points away with a game in hand, which potentially means a point gap in the end. And United, other than going to Anfield, still have to visit the Emirates. However, injury rocked Arsenal can also prove to be shaky where Fabregas, Van Persie and Walcott out and it remains to be seen how they will perform in their remaining sessions. The title which seemed to look like Chelsea's at first, and then to United's later, is now up for grabs again.

Fictional Law

The past week has rather been quite an uneventful period, with just classic work and work occupying my weekends and weekdays. I would say I finished up alot on the things that I have set out to do, like completing a few articles for my paid writing job, crafting out a birthday present for one of my friends and sending in a global short story competition entry which is organised by the student union. I also took some time to catch up some overdue experience farming run for one of my characters in Guild Wars. So, last weekend was one of the most relaxing and free weekends I have because I've completed lots of stuff already and I'm partially saved by the fact that my dissertation supervisor had not ring the battle calls for the 4th meeting yet. But I bet it's gonna be coming soon and I need to push myself to prepare another further 3000 words again.

The last week or so also saw me receiving my assignment marks back. I was pulling out my hair over a slight miss over the goal mouth which saw my criminology assignment falling short of 1st class by 2 marks. And I was also dissappointed in the assignment marks for jurisprudence which I had expected to get better but in the end, got less than my criminology. Well, both assignment marks are in the 2nd upper class range but I had expected better returns. It seems that after looking through my juris paper, I find it to be a little like the silly last minute goal that Arsenal self-destruct themselves in the Carling Cup Final. It started out well and superb but just couldn't hit the crux when it matters the most, and I'm lamenting the fact that I didn't spot the need to rephrase a couple of issues around to give myself a higher chance to score. But such is the nature of the Arts subjects, and jurisprudence being philosophy is the closest I have to Arts. I felt that I've presented my case which I believed was the strongest at that time of writing but the examiners didn't buy it or see it my way. In Arts, you can either be a genius on one occassion or be a fool in another. It's a random shot. One can only hope that if he's off-mark, it won't fall on the paper or marks that matters. Suddenly, my criminology marks didn't look that bad all, but a mammoth effort is gonna be needed to get my juris back on my targeted goal, especially with law and religion looming around unfavourably. I have to admit, that I get frustrated and pissed off easily whenever I don't meet the high targets and expectations that I set for myself or when things don't go the way I want.

On a brighter note, I've enjoyed a change in module for jurisprudence with the start of Law and Fiction. I've seen more of the familiar faces of Malaysians and Singaporeans joining the class instead of me sitting all alone in the class with Ang Mohs. And I foresee myself becoming good friends with this Law and Fiction module after my experience with English Lit and literary analysis. I hope I can smash as high as possible for this one to make up for the potential deficit in L&R and the assignment. And another thing to look forward to is the end of EU law lectures because this week is the last! Looks like Wednesday is gonna be a free day in the coming weeks!