Man Utd Champ19ns Parade

More football moments to follow up as I head down to Manchester for the 19^th title bus parade. Manchester City had held theirs earlier last weekend for their FA Cup win, so there is no way United is gonna let this opportunity pass after permission to parade the Double in 2008 was denied. In the morning, I missed my intended booked train as I had overslept past my alarm. Arghh! £5 ticket wasted and another £10 on-the-day ticket needed to be bought. When I reached Manchester, it was already drizzling. Looks like today’s parade is gonna be very wet. It was quite early when I arrived so I took the opportunity to scout ahead for the parade route and decide where would be the best place to stand. I took shelter under the bridge for an hour from the rain and then proceeded to stand near the main road when the time for the start of the parade drew nearer.

The rain certainly did not draw a big crowd to wait at the side of the road. It’s quite a hassle to hold the camera and the umbrella at the same time. It was only around 11am that the bus started to move from its starting point in a small crawl. As it draws nearer to where I’m standing, the crowd surrounding it began to grow larger. I managed to get clear glimpses of the Da Silva twins, Park, Nani, Berbatov, Ferdinand and Hernandez as the bus moved right in front of me. The good camera that I have enabled me to get a few good close-up shots. Instead of just standing there as the bus begin to pull away, I followed the crowd to march alongside the bus. It’s pretty much like looking at the incoming crowd and getting swept away by the incoming torrent. Because the bus is moving so slowly, I had the opportunity to circle it a few times to get various angle shots of the bus. On the other side which I did not capture initially was van der Sar, Vidic, Owen and Scholes. I saw Bebe perched in the centre beside the trophy and I’m sure many watching the parade will ask,”Why are you there, Bebe?!” Lol. One of the noisiest among the bus crew is Evra who’s like cheerleading captain who rouses the crowd below to do a couple of chants.

There were a couple of times when I was in danger of lagging behind because of the crowd blockage in front but I make several detours from time to time to keep up. The bus then went to the highway connecting the city centre with Trafford. The drizzle intensified a little but the crowd marched on. There was once when one of the MUTV video camera seemed to be pointing my direction..lol. Looks like I’m going to be on video after all! It finally came to a point where I can’t tail the bus anymore because a large crowd was already waiting in front of Old Trafford. The chasing pack with the bus was redirected to another road where we saw the team disappear into the waiting crowd in front of the stadium. Ahhh, that ends my walk in the parade. I can’t believe that I’ve walked an hour from the city centre to the stadium! Because of all the excitement, I didn’t know how far I’ve walked too.

In any case, I can’t walk back the same way so I took the standard tram back after buying some stuff at the official merchandise shop. I kinda placed my train a little too late ahead just to ensure that I don’t get caught out. Since I’m there 2 hrs early, I just sat down at the seats and dozed off. When I woke up, I left my seat and forgot that I bought a poster from the Man Utd shop. Darnnnnn, when I realised that, I went back to find it but apparently someone took it away. Gahhh, that’s 3 pounds down the drain! Despite my several minor mishaps today from missing the train to losing my poster, it’s still a memorable rainy day. Yet another milestone achieved in England itself, and it’s a feat which may never be repeated by other Malaysians – to march alongside the Red Mancunians under the rain for 19^th title parade.

Just a little reflection here, considering that I didn’t blog about the historic milestone given that the trophy ceremony fell very close to my exams. In knocking off Liverpool from their perch, United can be officially considered now as the most successful domestic English side. But cynics have noted throughout the campaign that this 19^th-title winning squad is one of the weakest that Fergie has fielded. There was discontentment to deal with from Rooney, and the general perception was that the team lacked the star power. Looking back, it’s quite amusing really to see that the other rivals ended up performing worse than this so-called lousy team..haha. In the end, this team also made it to the Champions League final, something which a certain Spaniard striker failed to do for his new Blue team. It’s not a star-studded team, but it’s certainly one which worked hard. Ultimately in the end, Fergie knew he had to inject in new talent. Teamwork is already there. Now there’s a need to reinstall individuals that can make things happen. The current team has the traditional values of an English team, hardworking and determined but it fell short of the star power requirements in elimination cup games as shown by the two defeats in the FA Cup semis and CL Final. With Paul and Edwin retired, it’ll be interesting to see who’s coming in next to Old Trafford.

Adventure in Wembley

I didn't get a ticket to enter the stadium to watch the Champions League final, but that shouldn't stop me from making a trip down to London to soak up the atmosphere in the first place. There is never a better coincidence than me being in England and the Champions League final being held in London at the same time. I don't think I'll ever live to see another coincidence like that. Since I was occupied with exams earlier, I didn’t book any early train tickets to London. Apparently the rail authorities knew that there is gonna be a Champions League final and even though I attempted to book it one week earlier, the prices are still exorbitant at around £25. With that amount, I could easily fly to Europe! Where were the £6.50 tickets that Leo had booked earlier? Arghhh..the best I could do to save cost was to get the earliest bus at £17 and then a return train ticket at 10pm at £13. If I had booked the coach earlier, it would have just been £6.50. The whole planning of transportation this time made me realise that Brits always plan their journeys in advanced – by weeks so as to save cost.

Anyways, the bus was scheduled to leave at 5.40am and I didn’t really sleep much for fear that I may get stuck in a deep slumber. I decided to make a move earlier also because I needed to get the train tickets from the Leeds rail station. Once I’ve gotten there, I went as usual to the machine to get the tickets but to my horror, the machine started demanding a reference number which I’ve never encountered before. It seems that such occurences exist if I had booked more than 1 destination. Argghh..it was a moment of panic because in 15 minutes time, the bus is leaving. The ticket office can’t do anything without the reference number and my only saving grace was the phone internet that I have which I can use to log onto Gmail to retrieve the reference. But logging on also need time, and I don’t have that. I started to smack myself at that time because I could have picked the collection point at King’s Cross Station. It was pointed out that we are not allowed to pick another collection point other than the one selected online. This would ultimately mean that my return tickets are nullified and I may have to purchase new ones. Greatttt…more money is gonna get wasted, and not only mine but also JP’s. In the end, I resolved to run off catch the bus instead and chose to bank on a slim hope that I may still be able to retrieve the tickets from KC station. I calculated that it makes no sense if one is not able to collect from the station one is leaving eventhough a different collection point is selected.

I slept for the whole bus journey and the 4hrs just went away. When I woke up, I found myself in London. I quickly made my way to the Victoria Tube station as the first priority now is to get to KC station to resolve the ticket issue. We need a way back home! Inside the Victoria tube station, there were Barca fans everywhere. It was as if the whole place just turned into a Catalan Metro. Once I’ve reached KC station, I went to the machine and punched in the reference number ( I managed to went online in the bus). And to my relief, the machine printed out the tickets! WHEW! Thank God! It was fortunate that we kept calm and did not rush to buy another bus ticket to return. With that issue firmly solved, we could now properly direct our attention to enjoy the Champions League final atmosphere in the English capital.

First up, we decided to go to Hyde Park to visit the free Champions League Festival exhibition there. Today is the last day it is gonna be up and we thought that we should definitely get going there before it closes at 5pm. This is only the 3^rd time they are holding such an exhibition and it features lots of stuff relating to the elite European football competition. The Champions League trophy will also be on display and also other museum pieces from the former players. When we reached the site, we could see that the whole area is flooded with either United or Barca fans. One of the first areas we went to explore was the ‘Champions Theatre’ where it’s something like a movie theatre which showcases prominent matches and players. Afterthat, we checked out the rest of the exhibits such as the players museum. I wanted to take a photo with the Champions League trophy but the queue is just too long. Another interesting that was going on in Hyde Park was a futsal match which was held in a “mini stadium” in the middle of the festival. It involves past stars where England XI is pitched against The rest of the World XI. Andy Cole, Sheringham, Dwight Yorke, Dennis Wise, Cafu, the de Boer twins, Darren Anderton and Jay Jay Okocha were some of the famous names that were there. The line queue to the souvenir shop was super long too but I managed to squeeze in to grab myself an official matchday scarf to commemorate the day. Once we are done exploring the festival, it was time to make our way to the venue itself – Wembley Stadium.

It wasn’t easy getting onto the trains because scores of Barca fans are being loaded inside. There were some United fans but a majority of them are Barca. I figured out that the higher amount of Barca fans in the train is due to the fact that the Spaniards are travelling from abroad while the English United fans basically just have to drive down the highway using their cars. Upon reaching the Wembley Park station, I could feel the chaotic rush surrounding the station. In the horizon as seen from the station was Wembley Stadium and the entire path leading there was just filled with tons of people. It could easily have reached more than 100k people at that place alone considering that Wembley’s capacity is at 90k. It seems that we are not the only ones without tickets who are going to linger outside the stadium just to get a feel of the atmosphere. The weather was pretty bad as it was drizzling all the way but it’s not that heavy to the extent that an umbrella was needed. I attempted to get the matchday programme on the way to the stadium but it seems that they were all sold out. I had to go right to the outside of the stadium before I spotted a booth with new batches of matchday programmes coming in. UEFA is definitely making money out of this – each programme costs £10! Ahhh, it’s an important historical document for me to archive, so I didn’t mind getting one for myself.

After feeling satisfied absorbing the atmosphere and taking some good photos in the process, we made our way back to KC station. We planned to watch it at a nearby pub near the station so that once the match ended, we can easily get onto the train since we don’t have much time between the final whistle and train departure. We didn’t really scout the place and we weren’t even sure if we could find one. Fortunately, we managed to grab a spot (one of the last areas) at a restaurant near Euston Road Premier Inn. I bought myself a pint of Pepsi and some wedges and I’m ready for the match.

To be honest, I’ve always felt United to be the underdog in this match given the composition of their squad. As such, I wasn’t surprise when Barca first took the lead through Pedro. Just like in 2009, United had started the first 10 minutes well, but somehow Barca still managed to dominate in the end. Rooney’s equaliser brought fresh hopes that United may just turn it around. But it wasn’t to be. Messi dazzled the crowd once again when he fired one from outside the box to give Barca the lead. One could said that van der Sar should have dealt with it better but I say that it’s one piece of magic from the Argentinian maestro that nobody could stop. David Villa put a definite end to any hope on United’s part to equalise when he slotted in the 3^rd. Once again, United did not have enough steam to deal with the Catalan juggernaut.

The Wembley adventure did not just end there. A rude surprise awaits us at the train station when we found out that the train to Leeds is cancelled and the next train would be the next morning. A group of folks were furious as they gather around the train office. The train company offered no definite solutions, and their suggestions required us to fork out some money and they reimburse us afterthat. I know very well that red tape will mean that reimbursement will take forever. The group of us continued to pressure the office until they relented to provide us with free taxi rides home from a designated train station. All the commotion saw us reaching Leeds Rail Station only at 2am in the morning, 2hrs after the original scheduled arrival time. Ahhhh, messy..but no complaints there though given that we were reimbursed with a free ride to the station. Overall a tiring day but still a rewarding one indeed to have been there to step onto the venue of a Champions League final.

Finishing it with a bang

It took quite an effort to muster back some morale to continue on with the remaining two papers but it had to be done. I have not touched criminology for the entire revision yet and friday after EU Law was the first time I am glancing at it. To some extent, I am not so worried about it because it has no cases for me to memorise and it's just theoretical contextual knowledge. The only issue is to ensure that I do not overprepare for it since I also need the extra time to shore up my evidence revision. Looking at the past year paper, I did some question spotting by checking the pattern. I figured out that feminist questions would definitely be out since it has appeared in every single year. Left and right realism appeared to be that too but I have to pick only one to concentrate on. At first, I was thinking of right realism but after figuring out how complicated the essay would be, I switched to left realism. In any case, I was quite assured that both will come out as it was for the past years. On the day of the exam, feminism came up as expected but I did not expect right realism to be omitted. This meant that I had actually switched focus at the most appropriate time. At the same time, it could have so easily been the other if not for divine help. I thanked God quietly at the end of the exam for guiding me in the right direction. It was a minor morale boost after the criminology exams but it's not all over yet.

The biggest challenge ahead has always been the evidence exam and I've been shoring up since Sunday for it. The lecturer for this subject had been really miserly in giving any sort of hints. Once again, it's time to spot the pattern in the past year exams. It's a dilemma actually, which is to cover everything on a wide scope and end up forgetting a big part of them or to cover specific spotted areas and remember everything but with the risk of losing big if the gamble fails. I opted to go for the bigger risk and gamble and based on my calculations, it would be burden of proof essay (because it came out for the last two years) and bad character essay (came out every year). I took confessions, hearsay and silence and insurance. Initially, I had wanted to do problem questions but after thinking awhile, I figure out that essay questions would demand less memorisation of cases. Evidence problems have a knack of attracting more than 2 topics together and that could prove to be fatal. Although this meant that I had to start from ground zero in refocusing efforts to these two questions which was not touched in the initial stages, I went ahead with it. And it did paid off in the end. The night before the evidence exam, I was at the height of nervosity. This is the last hurdle for undergraduate studies and the tension was intense. I downed 3 cups of coffee to keep myself awake. At first, I was thinking of staying up all the way until the exams are over and then take a deep slumber afterthat. But after a while, I figured out that that may be risky since I may end up falling asleep during the exam. I took a 2hr sleep and even then, the cases are still running through my head. In the morning, I continued to rinse and repeat my self-made notes. It came to a point where I can no longer put anything more into my brains because of the tension. I was feeling a little worried because I felt that the amount of cases that I have in store were not adequate. However, since I'm banking on essays, I felt that I might just pull it off. At 1 pm, it was the hour of reckoning. I flipped open the exam questions the moment it started and I did a quick scan on what's on the paper. I paid special attention to the essay questions. Pap! Burden of proof in! Pap! Bad character is in! Two spot on already - and for the third, I hope that it should be an essay either on hearsay or silence. However, it turns out that the third essay question is on cross-examination of rape victims. That was a major surprise for me because that topic has never come out as an essay question before. So, this means that I can only rely on one of the two problem questions left. To stop myself from being distracted, I dashed straight away to pour out what I know on the two essays first and hope that when it's time for the third question, at least one problem question would be doable. The two questions were good as I rampaged at least 4 pages of content. When it was time for the third question, I read through the two problems and the first one was just too confusing with all the hearsay rules. This left only one last problem and it turns out that the 2nd problem is on the easy peasy confession and silence. Everything there was just direct and I could recall back all the important cases that are needed. At the end of the whole evidence exam, I had a very very good feeling about the paper.That's the irony of it - the hardest paper turns out to be the best work that I've turned in. The exam period may have started off rocky with juris and EU but I would say that 2.1 may have a good chance of being salvaged given the better performance in the final two. I gotta really thank God for pulling me up for the remaining journey.

With the end of the evidence exam, I realised that it's the end of my 3 years in law school too. That flew past by me in a breeze without me realising. I updated about it in FB and lots of people are surprised about it too. It's a journey that started from mid-2008 and the undergraduate journey now ends in mid-2011. I hope it's all worth it in the end.

Heading towards disaster

Angry. Frustrated. Fling. Flang. Flung my last question in my EU Law exam. Didn't finish writing. Don't know what I'm writing. Gah. Could I have prevented it? Yes. Did I do anything about it. No. And I might just pay the consequence for that. I just do not know why I ended studying for an extra problem question which need not be used in the end. In short, my 6-8 hours invested in EU Competition Policy just went down the drain because I only need to rely on both Free movement of Goods and free movement of workers for the problem section. The other two essay section questions were on directives and human rights. Human rights I had skipped in mind but I could actually have done alot more to study for directives. The whole lecture room was warned before hand about directives and human rights coming out exclusively as an essay question but I have absolutely NO IDEA why I just ignored and bypassed it during revision period. WHY SO STUPID? ARGH! Directives could have been strengthened as a solid insurance..but instead I chose to put Competition Policy as the strong one instead and directives ended up as the weak one. And to think that I actually spent the extra hours grinding the morning before on Competition Policy when I should have devoted the time to directives. Too late. Fatal tactical error and a stupid one to make especially in an open-book exam. Everyone else probably knows about it except me. I hate it when there are some things that I could have prevented with ample time but I end up going to the wrong direction. What was I thinking?! The best that I could do to salvage the last question attempt was to copy out textbook explanations on the relevant portions. But even then, the essay demanded a long critique of 2 cases, I managed to pathetically finished one while the other is just a few sentence long. No conclusion.

For the first time of the year, I felt my 2.1 classification under severe threat. My jurisprudence paper on Wednesday wasn't the best of attempts too. The question on religion turns out to be easier than the one in fiction. I can only hope that she won't mark it too strict and it doesn't help that my coursework had just scrapped into 2.1 with just 2 points to spare. And now, EU is just a whole lot of mess with 100% counted not because I didn't study but because I made some wrong stupid tactical decisions. It's not looking optimistic with criminology and evidence left. I'll probably be able to squeeze thrugh for criminology but evidence by far is the most daunting task ahead. 2 down, 4 days left. 2 more to go. And it doesn't look good. I'm extremely demoralised and shattered after the EU Law paper but I recognise that I have to remain strong to at least redeem myself in the remaining two. 2.1 is still not out of reach yet but it's slowly slipping away if I screw up the next two. God give me strength!

3rd place winning entry!

Earlier this year, I submitted an entry for the Leeds Uni Global Perspective Short Story Competition where I'm supposed to write a 3000 word short story based on the culture that I've grown up in. The first prize is £50, so I thought that I might as well give it a try for some extra cash in hand. It's not easy to squeeze in between time to finish up my dissertation and attempt to tap into my creative brain for fiction writing at the same time. But somehow, I managed to obtain sufficient inspiration to put out a masterpiece after viewing one of my friend's grandparents wedding anniversary video and drawing upon my own experiences with my grandfather. I would say it's my most mature piece up to date, a culmination of styles that I've experimented on during these few years and since the commended entries that I've written for the Commonwealth Essay Competition in 2005 and 2007. I liked this latest piece of work personally, and was rather pleased with my progress in fusing a variety of writing styles into a short piece. Another inspiration that I've gotten from is Tash Aw, although I have not read any of his works yet. It kinda spark an interest in me that perhaps I can consider venturing into the untapped market of Southeast Asian literature. Afterall, there's not many English fiction writers in the Southeast Asian domain.

I had a good feeling when I submitted it but it was quite some time before I heard some news about it. In between those times, I thought that I didn't win anything afterall. However, somewhere in early April, I've received an e-mail saying that I'm a finalist for the competition and there's an invitation to a prize-giving ceremony held at Blackwell bookstore. I'm delighted when I read that but at the same time I'm wary in not having overexpectations for it. The last time I'm told that I'm finalist (for a legal writing competition in Malaysia), I received a rather inconsequential prize in the end which is not proportionate to the amount of time and effort that I put in to go to the venue. So, I arrived at the Blackwell bookshop venue just on time before the announcements start and as each of the names of the finalists are read out, there will be a short description of what the essay is about and the judges' comment. Anyways, after all of them were read out, my name wasn't called out in any of them. For a moment, I thought - Ahhh, not again! And then the announcer proceeded on with reading the ACTUAL winners and starting from 3rd prize...that's me!

Woohooo! I was jumping up and down in my mind already as I walked out to receive my cert and prize which consist of a £25 book voucher and one annual 2011 UK Writer's Handbook. I would say that I can't hide my wide grin as the announcer described the content of my work and the judges' feedback on it. According to the judges, my story although distinct in terms of cultural reference has a universal theme that permeates through it on generation gaps. I had a chat with one of the judges after the prize giving ceremony and he happens to be the chairperson of the Writer's Circle in Leeds. Well, he commented that he enjoyed reading my work and he found it to be a standard of high quality. Hahaha..of course by then my grin has grown as wide as the Cheshire cat's already. To be recognised by a fellow writer is one thing -but to be praised by somebody abroad and especially by a meticulous Brit is a double bonus..lol. In any case, it looks like the years of studying law has not eroded my creativity all these years but has enhanced it. One thing that I observed at the prize-giving ceremony is that I'm the only Chinese and Southeast Asian in the venue. It does look like I'm the only one among them who had the penchant to engage in this type of things in the uni and parachuting in some strange events in the end! I took the opportunity to gulp down some free wine offered at the reception before heading off to library, containing the little victorious cheer that I have within myself. I had planned to study at least 1hr in the library before going for cell group but it seems that I have trouble concentrating in the end because of the excitement that is swirling within me..haha!

I'm really thankful to God for this gift that he has entrusted on me. This episode has confirmed yet again of the writing potential within me and I'm very encouraged by it. Thank you thank you dear Lord! The timing couldn't be much better and it's an excellent morale boost that I need for the exam revisions.

Memorable European Night

Wembley! Wembley! We're the famous Man United and we're going to Wembley!

No personal experience at Old Trafford is complete without the attendance of a Champions League match in an European night encounter. I had stalled buying any tickets for Champions League, waiting and risking elimination with hopes that Man United will encounter a famous European opposition. Marseille was not glamourous enough while quarter-finals with Chelsea felt a little like a Premier League encounter. I was hoping that Inter Milan would go through but Schalke was the one that managed to squeeze through in the end. Although Schalke is definitely not the glamorous European opponent I had in mind, it was a good enough of a match to go for since it's already the semi-finals. I definitely won't be able to get tickets for the final since the seats are reserved only season ticket holders. So, it's now or never. Anyways, I didn't manage to get the tickets through the regular ballot so I secured mine through the ticket exchange instead.

I had planned to go there early to collect the tickets because it seems that they don't post Champions League tickets to one's address. Before I board the train, I had to print out the e-mail with the payment details so I went to uni library to do it. And once again, Murphy's law came into play. Of all days and times that the printer network could break down, it broke down when I'm trying to print out my ticket. Since it's the network, every single printer in the uni is affected. I had to miss my initially planned 3.40pm train but that's alright because mine is an off-peak ticket. The only thing is that I won't be able to get a guaranteed seat. I started phoning up some of my Malaysian friends to see if they are at home but most of them are outside in the library. Anyways, I held out and eventually the printers recovered and I managed to print the vital ticket confirmation e-mail slip by 4.30pm. I reached Manchester Piccadily station at around 6pm+ plus and took the tram to Old Trafford as usual. This time, instead of English fellas waiting for the train, there are hordes of Germans muttering Deutsch. Wow, it's impressive to see that there are some dedicated Deutsche fans who flew over for this occassion. Even in the tram, the battle had already started. A bunch of Man Utd Brits started inciting a group of middle-aged Schalke fans into a chanting war. Of course, ze Germans understand both English and Deutsch so they can start talking in Deutsch so that the Brits don't understand them. On the other hand, the Brits could just shoot back in English. The Brits were singing the Viva John Terry tune and Build a Bonfire while the Schalke fans sang their German version of it. The exchange was going on well until one Brit threw an awkward line in,"We beat you in 1945!". And then both groups became silent out of a sudden..lol.

Once I've reached Old Trafford, I immediately made my way to the ticketing office. Even with 10 counters operating at max capacity, the queue snakes out at 5 to 6 lines. Fortunately, the line clears up fast. While queueing up, there was one Schalke fan who was not given the ticket because the office expressed doubt of the verification documents that he had produced. He starts getting angry and kept insisting that he should be given the ticket and suddenly, he just bursts out saying that he is a Man Utd fan. The Brits behind the ticket counter were not amused and they just kept staring at him and said no. I had no problems with my paper verification and within minutes, I was already marching out with the ticket. The ticket design is different from the regular Man Utd ticket with the blue tinge on it.

Before I enter, I took the opportunity to go to the megastore to get myself a proper official United scarf for the game. Once that's done, I went through the ticket gates and my seat this time is on a much much lower tier stand compared to the two previous times I'm there. It's good enough for me to zoom in and take a close shot of the players. My seat is also near the away section which meant that the chants of the opposition Schalke will be quite audible. As I settled down to sit, the Que Sera Sera song was played by the stadium PA system. It's not the regular lyrics of QSS, we're going to wembley because it actually contained lyrics that are tailored specifically for tonight's match. That's what I call awesome customisation..lol. It was only nearer to kick off time that I realised that the section I am sitting at is the family section filled with lots of old age pensioners and middle-aged couples. The people around seem to be pleasant but they don't certainly look like the bunch in the Stretford End that will raise the roof. Oh well, at least I'll have to be glad that I'm not sitting around swearing hooligans..lol. Another thing which I've noticed that the people sitting around me seem to be good family friends with each other too. There was a sense of warmness that surrrounds them whenever they greet each other. I think that's some good community spirit going on there! I'm particular impressed with one middle-aged woman who accompanied her husband for the match coz she starts babbling during half time about what Anderson should be doing and what tactics Fergie should be employing..haha. Prior to the start of the match, the whole of the north section and parts of the east and west section were scheduled to form a giant scarf mosaic of three Champions League trophies - 1968, 1999 and 2008. Woahhh, I'm so excited that I get to be part of history! woohoo! I'm so definitely gonna keep that plastic sheet as souvenir. It has the name of the match and the date to commemorate the occassion.

I actually didn't expect such a goal feast. The previous two times that I'm here only ended in 1-0 victories. And I'm not hoping much with a second string team that Fergie put out which included Gibson and O Shea as captain. But I was wrong, in fact it was Mr Gibson who pulled the strings for the first goal for Valencia. From my position I could see the ball going through Neuer's legs and as it crossed the line, the whole stadium erupted into cheers. 3-0 aggregate! No way back in for Schalke now. Gibson then scored one himself afterthat and that ball actually looked unexpectedly goal-bound but it went in anyways. The best thing was our section started chanting sarcasticly "Who are ya? Who are ya? Who are ya?" hahahaha. However, Schalke popped one back immediately to make it 2-1 at half-time.

Goal line technology from my camera - Gibson's goal

For second half, the two teams changed playing sides and now I can focus my lens on Edwin van der Sar and the defenders. I'm priviledged to have Raul coming to my side to take a corner kick too. There was more attacking intent by Schalke in the 2nd half particularly with the introduction of Huntelaar but United continues to add on to their deposit. In 127 games for United, he had only scored 2 goals. In the space of 4 minutes for tonight's match, he had doubled his United career goal tally. Magnificent. Fergie is now reaping the harvest that he has sowed and his insistence in retaining Anderson all these years did pay off. Perhaps Anderson would finally be the successful Brazillian import that the United fans had hope for, other than the Da Silva twins. At the final whistle, it is 4-1 and it's United who are through to the finals! Wow..Fergie's record is impressive. In the space of 4 years, the Scot has guided Man United to 3 Champions League finals.

Overall, it was a fantastic and memorable European night. I couldn't ask for a better one. With this match, I've achieved one of my primary objectives which is to attend every single main competition match - that is the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League. The only other objective that I may not be able to fulfill is to watch United take on all top three competitors. I've only managed to watch United taking on Arsenal and Liverpool and it seems that the Chelsea game will slip under my fingers since ticket exchange listed it as sold out. I had also wanted to attend the final game vs. Blackpool because there may be a Champions party then but unfortunately, either I'm slow or dreamy, ticket exchange also ran out of tickets for that and I didn't get in through the first ballot. The only slim chance that I have to get myself in is the second ballot which I'm not very optimistic of. Oh well, looks like I've gotta watch it on TV instead then.

Anyways, back to Champions League, I guess that could be my last game in Old Trafford for the season and I hope that I can at least get the chance to attend the first few matches of the incoming season before I fly back home to Malaysia. Oh, before exiting the stadium, I also took the opportunity to grab as many plastic sheets I can so that I can distribute it to my friends in Malaysia who are Man United fans and they can get a piece of history from Old Trafford too! I was quite surprised that the queue to go back to the tram was not as long as I had expected. It was definitely way shorter than last year when I was there for the Arsenal match. I was still stuck at the tram area at 11pm last year. However this time, by 10.20pm I'm already at the Piccadily station waiting for the train back to Leeds. Ahh, this shall be one of the nights I'll remember for years to come :)

So, the Champions League final in Wembley 2011 will be Manchester United vs. Barcelona - a delicious match-up of footballing giants. Fergie and United would remember the bitter memories of losing to Barca in Rome 2009. I'm thinking of sneaking into the outskirts Wembley stadium on the 28th to soak in the atmosphere. How often are the chances that the Champions League final is in England at the same time as me? xD

Dissertation Completed!

6 months. 12700 words. Finally done. It was a nervous rush from the time I'm back on the 30th till today. What I had left to do was the introduction, conclusion and some bits of the chapter on reform. Not only that, there was also references to tidy up, a 500 word extract to work on and proof-reading to be done. By Monday night, I thought I had done everything I should in terms of the essay content but it seems that I still have lots of admin work to tidy up in terms of formatting, putting page numbers, content page and listing out the table of cases and statutes. Proof reading took me longer than expected and I had to take 1hr to read through the 12700 mammoth essay. As of this morning, I was still furiously typing away to tidy up my essay. It got me into a minor panic because it was like 4hrs to dead line and I'm still typing away. My plans to go to uni to print at the cluster at 7am went down the drains. But thankfully, I completed all tidying up by 9.30am and promptly submitted it online first. I head out to uni immediately afterthat to get my paper printed. I was crossing my fingers and was hoping that the computer clusters wouldn't be too crowded with other 3rd year students who are thrown in a massive panic. I purposely went to the Cohen cluster in the Chem department since that's the last place that a student would think of going.

The total amount of pages to be printed after all the double spacing was 66. It costed me close to 3 pounds just to print a hard copy of the dissertation to submit but it's neccessary. As I was walking to the law school to submit my dissertation, a sense of accomplishment dawned upon me. And when I handed it up at the reception desk, I felt a huge stone being lifted away. Now it's just settling exams. I was quite amused at how I managed to complete it in the end despite spending like 4 days of the crucial period to travel. This meant that if I had not chose to travel, I would have completed way earlier. But then again, knowing of my tendencies to procastinate, I might have took longer if not for the pressure bearing down on me to complete my work.

Later in the evening, there was supposed to be an International students tea party organised by the law school but it turns out that I'm the only Malaysian student there and there are a small handful of African students. The majority of the people there are actually the lecturers. How awkward. It's either my fellow countrymen are too shell-shocked from the dissertation dateline there or they are catching up on lost sleep. In the end, I just had some small conversations with the lecturers there, eat my share of free food and head home to do revision. Ahhh, I'm trying not to be overly enthusiastic on the completion of the dissertation because I can clearly feel that I'm getting too carried away in relaxing as if there are no more exams. I have to get back to ground and start turning on JPA MODE 3.0 to turbo speed already!