Wayne's World

The iconic photo that will stay in the minds of many United fans for years to come

It's a Manchester showdown which I had considered to attend, but declined to do so in the end because I was thinking of saving the money for a bigger Champions League match that is coming. (that is provided United did come out victorious against Marseille..lol) In any case, United faces the strongest City side in the recent decade. Even Dennis Law said its back to the history books when City challenged United for supremacy at the top. City at this point are 3rd while United are at the top and they would definitely be doing itself and the other rivals by clogging Man Utd's charge to the title. Fergie did made a bold decision to leave out Berbatov in favour of a solo Rooney upfront.

From the start, City were determined to make a statement against United. Just inside the 3 minutes mark, David Silva threatened to put City up and he was just inches away from doing so because van der Sar was clearly beaten. The two halves of Manchester continued slogging hard until the 40th minute when Nani did a brilliant run to go on a quick 1 v 1 with the goalie after a superb pass by Giggsy. United entered halftime as the leading side and that was a major psychological boost. However, City sent in Dzeko as a substitute when it was clear that traitor Tevez was doing no good and in the 64th minute, he orchestrated some weird equalizing goal. It was down to luck rather than skill. But nobody would have expected the momentous occassion in the 77th minute featuring Wayne as the main star. Fergie had earlier opted to leave Rooney on the field despite him looking rather like another lacklustre figure on the field and the old Scotsman faith in his striker paid off. In the 77th minute, Nani drifted a ball into the box and Rooney responded by executing a perfect bicycle kick to settle the derby. It was described as the best goal of his career by Rooney and indeed, to execute such an audacious bicycle kick in pressure and during derby is nothing short of a genius footwork. As the old saying goes, form is temporary, class is permanent. For all the trouble that Wayne has gotten himself into earlier in the season, he is slowly winning the Old Trafford faithful back. Even Mancini conceded defeat, because this was a score settled by a moment of brilliance and nothing much could have been done about it.

This win would put United in a prime position to reclaim back the title. City thought they could exploit Smalling and United's dissapointment at a record broken at Wolves but they are severely wrong about that. City at 3rd place is quite far off at 8 points and a game in hand for United. Chelsea were just thrown off orbit with a string of crappy results and they sit dangerously for the first time in many years of losing out in the prospect of qualifying for the Champions League. The amazing thing about this United team is that they played really so crappy and yet by some funny circumstances, their rivals were even more nonsensical than them. Hence, the strange top position that United find themselves occupying since December.

CU Events Week

It has been a productive week for the Christian Union in the Uni. For the past week, we had events week and had established a free marquee cafe opposite the library. In the afternoons, there are different talks by different speakers on some challenging Christian topics and the public is also invited to ask questions. It reminds me alot of Christian Awareness Week back at Inti 2 years ago. I took the opportunity to help out whenever I can after class by serving drinks, making soup and giving out flyers. There are also programmes in the evening which I attended- Celidh on Monday, movie screening on Tuesday and Alpha Course on Thursday night. Breathe* no longer runs on Thursday anymore as the whole team's effort will be redirected to join up with the CU and other churches for Alpha Course. My table became a really awkward place for a moment because we ended up having 7 Christians and 1 non-Christian. Alpha Course is really basic information on Christianity and of course, if one is a Christian for a considerable amount of time - it would be more of a refresher course rather than anything new. But then I realise afterthat the Alpha course is also a good way to have some starting information on what to tell people about God because there are many times where I don't know what basic ground I should start on. The interesting about Alpha Course is that it looks alot like a chill out session rather than an event organised by a Christian organisation. There's some soft jazz music going on and there's no prayer or any worship session and this should encourage people to ask questions that they don't normally ask. Not only that, there's a free small dinner and lots of mini babybel cheese! This is my first time having it and it's a very unusual cheese snack in the sense that it's a miniature version of a real cheese encased in wax. I was definitely drunk on cheese on Thursday night as I kept munching on them away. I popped by at the Living Room for a moment, something which I had not attended for a very long time because of the clashing of timing with Breathe*. Anyways, the events week run until Friday but I took time off to join up with some of my classmates for a potluck gathering at one of their house. That sums up my week in general..lol.

Chinese New Year Abroad

It's my first time having Chinese New year outside of Southeast Asia and indeed, it's a very strange experience with no CNY songs being played at shopping centers and no red decorations everywhere. It was business as usual at England. Classes go on and there's work to be completed. And I had my dissertation draft to rush which I had to finish before my meeting with my supervisor yesterday. Anyways, Miss Sucy, one of my law lecturers from Inti came over to Leeds for a visit last week and it was nice of the Uni to arrange some food and a room for us old students to chat with her. That was on a Wednesday evening and it was a time where there was supposed to be a reunion dinner but for some of us, it was a dinner with our motherly lecturer at Picture House. On Thursday night, I went for the last Breathe session of the term before they break off to combine with the CU for Alpha course starting from next week. Afterthat, I popped by for a short visit at Tim and Serena's flat at concept place. On Friday night, the Chinese Church CG had a Chinese New Year potluck gathering, so there's at least one occassion to cheer about in my very first quiet festive period. I also went for the MASSoc dinner at one of the Chinese restaurants on Saturday night, so I had a go at one proto-version of a reunion dinner..lol. The duck was one of the highlights of the dishes and I'm certainly missing roasted pork! I certainly missed the Kluang adventure that I had with some of the ICF folks last year. I would say the general atmosphere for myself for this CNY is more like Chinese Culture Appreciation Week because of the lack of visitation that we do every year. Well, that's life in ang moh land. Gotta make do with that! xD

The Scottish Border

Another round of thesis rushing, another period of time to have a break. This seems to be a never-ending source of revolution. And once again, I managed to squeeze some time to update on what had happened recently. Anyways, last week, I went to the Breathe* weekend away at the Scottish border. The accomodation was perfectly good with excellent heating compared to the other two that I have went. Teaching was also fantastic but I was slightly dissapointed on the fellowship side because I'm quite surprised that some of the Brits at this camp were much more clique'ish that those in the Christian Union. To be honest, I've actually expected the integration process in the church student group to be better than CU but it didn't happened that way. The good thing is that I was not the only Asian student this time in a Brit Camp as I'm joined by a diverse range of other Chinese - Qing Wei my Malaysian law classmate, Leo from Singapore (who knows Mr Mao and Rachel), Cameryn from Canada, Xinzhe from China and Shin Roo from Taiwan. But looking at the pattern of interaction, the Asian bunch were mostly left alone to interact by ourselves except for some occassions when the pastors sat near us to have a chat. In my case, I knew Jonny and Pete from CU, so I conversed with them most of the time. It gets really tiring to have to take initiative all the time with the Brit Christians and I just felt that not many other international Christians have the patience to hang around. I think it's gonna be a massive mammoth effort to bring awareness to the Brits to embrace and welcome their fellow brothers/sisters from other parts of the world.

In any case, I did bring some postives from the camp. I've enjoyed the natural landscape of the Scottish highland and although it's freezing cold outside, it was worth the walk to see gigantic fir trees and frozen lakes. The other one was much more innate, where I kinda felt that I should get more involved in serving in the international students scene. I find the church's upcoming vision of sharing life in Leeds to be a good one but I felt that there are many international Christians in the city who don't feel a sense of unity and community with the Christians in the host country. More has to be done on the follow-up and a genuine desire to share lives. There are only a small number of dedicated Brits who are willing to work with International students and the majority of them are still very much unwilling to step out. This place is filled with so much of potential, with people from all four corners of the world congregrating in one place. For all you know, that one person may be touched by the Gospel and will be inspired to carry the passion and chain of reaction back to their homelands - if only the hosts are willing to step out from their comfort zone. Oh well, I hope that God will use me in various means to raise awareness of these to those around me.

Farewell Pencil Case :(

I shall write an obituary for my lost pencil case which has served me faithfully for 7 years. I still can't believe that I could be so careless to leave that in Conference Auditorium 2 after my trial exam! Why didn't I check my bag before I leave the area? I only realised my missing pencil case at 10pm on Wednesday when I was searching for a pen to jot down some cases. That's way after classes have ended. So I checked the auditorium scheduled and apparently there's only 1 class after mine and some long stretch of open day event, possibly for the public. I went to class early the next morning to check CA2 before the first class commences at 9am. It's not there! I was thinking that the cleaners might have passed it to the security guard so I asked the security guard and he pointed me to search in this cupboard filled with left belongings but my pencil case is not among them. So I went back after class, and searched my room once again just in case I might have misplaced it. Not present at all. The last option was to ask the security office today and they too gave a negative reply. I don't have anything particularly valuable inside because I so happened to take out my regular G2 pen and two functioning highlighters outside before it went missing. But the most dear item was the one attached to the pencil case, which is a wooden carved keychain with my name on it and it's similarly 7 years old. I do not know where I can get it again.

I'm really hoping that someone wold return it instead of keeping it because there's nothing worth to keep inside a pencil case filled with loads of used highlighters unless the person who took it is Stanley or knows somebody by the name of Stanley. Ahhhh..I will try from time to time to look at the cupboard again but it seems to be quite futile. Looks like the buck stops here as my pencil case meets its demise in England :(

Liberty Building

The Liberty Building

The first week term of semester goes underway and the first class up is my first jurisprudence elective which is law and religion. I picked that option since I thought that with some knowledge on the syariah law and also info on separation of church and state, it would be an interesting topic. But I forgot that it may also come with a heap load of cases to memorise and apply. On the night before, I realised in horror that I had just made one of my juris exam questions into a case-based problem. It's as though as I didn't have enough of burden with the cases in evidence and EU Law! A part of me was just wondering what in the world made me chose that option in November when I could just get away with Liberal Theories of Justice. When I looked through the exam questions of liberal theories, it's literally a freestyle question compared to law and religion which required me to do some substantial heavy reading. Argghhhh..I just shot myself in the foot even before exam begins. And when I attended class in the morning, I only saw 1 other Malaysian. It looks like Stan has yet again ended up in an isolated choice which only ang mohs would pick and no Malaysian would consider. Too late to turn back, just gotta make do with what I have.

I had my first look of the new law school building when I went there for my first EU seminar of the semester. It's a very impressive structure with a catchy name (Liberty Building) and I would say a worthy home for law students after being holed up in the old grizzly Victorian cottages at Lyddon Row. The engineers have their own building. The medics have their own building (and multi storeyed too with lifts!). The Business School building is a refurbished modern center. Law students in Leeds have to be contented instead with a cramped undergraduate room and musty old Victorian smell for years. It's like Arsenal shifting form Highbury to the Emirates. I'm indeed fortunate to come at the right time. One of the first noticeable change is we have a super enlarged undergrduate room with glass walls. The reception area looks very welcoming and the roof is also glass panelled to allow natural sunlight to come in. All of my lectures are still all over the place, so the only classes that I have in the Liberty building is on every Tuesday, which is either my EU Law seminar or Criminology Seminar. Oh well, at least better than nothing..haha. Meanwhile, enjoy a few snippets of photo that I've taken from the Liberty Building on my first visit there.

The entrance: Check out the revolving doors..lol

Decoration at the reception

Interior main hallway

Salty Saltaire

View from the river

I had a half-day trip with Kington, Van and Wai Yi to a small village called Saltaire. My first thoughts when I reached there is that it reminded me of some random small Perak town that you would stop over for a short meal along the highway. Although it's peaceful and seem to be kid-friendly place, I can imagine myself dying of boredom there as a resident. Apparently that village is founded by the wealthy Salt family and they run a textile industry during the olden days. (It has nothing to do with cooking salt..lol) The large textile mill stood looming over the small village and it has since being converted into an art gallery, bookshop and various other shops after some refurbishment following years of abandonment. Saltaire is listed under as one of the Unesco Heritage Site and that explains the crazy long periods that we took to find decently priced food in the village. There's less than 5 eateries available in the village that is fit for lunch consumption. We wanted to go to the riverside pub at first but the fish and chips there are priced at an astounding 10 quid! We finally settled for an underground Victorian tea house and I literally had veggies stuffed up my mouth with my turkey ham sandwich which had more veggie than meat. We went to explore the mill after our meal. It was around 5pm when we decided that we have explored all we wanted at Saltaire and we went back to Leeds to have dinner.

The textile mill