It's been quite a while since I've had a lazy afternoon as I did today, where I got to laze in bed reading the papers, magazines and book(s). And I guess if you'd ask me the one thing that'd struck me while I was reading was this article in The Guardian's G2 (it's pretty much like Life! in ST):

Loved and lost

G2 columnist Dina Rabinovitch, who died yesterday aged 44, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. As the cancer progressed - and she underwent increasingly experimental treatment - she wrote with honesty, courage and humour about the good times and the bad. Here, in extracts from her columns, we chart her journey from the shock of that first day to the final thoughts she shared about her adored family

click here for the rest of the article.

I think when most of us are placed in a similar situation as Rabinovitch was, we might not have the courage as she had to write about what she went through, and I'd guess that the children might have been affected the most...

And on a somewhat related topic on the loss of life, the world's oldest animal was apparently killed on Monday as well. It was a clam dredged off the seabed off Iceland... The Clam Article

OMG, I'm so glad this day is over. My day started at 5.30am this morning, when i got up for coxing, and only ended at 6.30pm. Had coxing (6-8.30am), lectures (9-11am), supervisions (11-12noon, 4-5pm), a RACE which we won! (12.45-3.10pm), an experiment marking session (3.30-4pm), jap language class (5-6.30pm). In other words, that was about a total of 1 hour's worth of time in between where I was actually supposed to be "free". Am so totally knackered now. :(

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Day trip to Barnack Hills & Holes + Peterborough Cathedral

Over the weekend (on Sunday rather), we (a group of 4 of us) made an escape from Cambridge. The weather unfortunately wasn't at its best, but at least it wasn't raining down on us.

Our first stop was Barnack Hills & Holes, which is apparently one of the hidden gems of the country side. It's a limestone landscape, with gentle rolling hills (like the picture below):
It's kinda nice just to be rambling along the paths and just observing the wilderness. Not that we saw a lot of wildlife though - we saw a pheasant, sheep (all over the place), bramble bushes, some flowers, bees, and that's about it. We did have a picnic though, and I was the only person who ate the "poison" apple, which I plucked from the tree... ;p

After that, we proceeded to Peterborough to see the cathedral, which was a bit of a hit & run operation, because 1. the car attendant was in the car park, so we didn't want to exceed the 30-minute ticket we paid for and 2. because zihan had to go back for a supervision.

Peterborough Cathedral was otherwise truly grand, in my opinion. The high vaulted ceiling, with fairly elaborate decorations

Looking back to the entrance of the church from the altar.

That pretty much concluded our day trip though, but not before a customary trip to KFC for some finger lickin' goodness... ;p

Labels: Cambridge, Travel

-irasshaimase!-I've just finished watched Ouran High School Host Club (the anime)! While I thought the first few episodes were pretty random, it actually grows on you and the story gets better as well! It's filled with so many comical moments that it makes a really good anime to sit down to dinner with. :)


That said, it's time to look for another anime to start on.... hmm.. what shall it be?

Labels: Anime

Cambridge terms (for me) seem to be characterised by this constant fatigue. You're meant to be doing something at every minute of every week of every month. Your timetables are packed with lectures, supervisions, practicals, meetings, trainings, interspersed with a million emails. Time flashes before your very eyes, so much so I had a shock when I realised this is week 3 of term already. Unbelievable. :(

Anyhow, the last two days have been somewhat crazy for me. Yesterday was Oxbridge Games 2007, held in Cambridge. Not v exciting - I played just Frisbee, which is somewhat of a "walkover" 'cos Oxford were too scared to send players down (muahaha), so we had a mixed game instead. It was somewhat fun to have fresh faces from Oxford joining the game and more fun since it wasn't QUITE as competitive... ;p

Also coxed a race for the X-Press veteran ladies yesterday for the Cambridge Autumn Head. We came in first in our category (Women's Vet C)! Well, mainly because there was only one boat in our category.. haha.. Although we did kinda beat a few other younger crews.

Sunday, 21 Oct 07
Today was an even more tiring day. Cos I offered my room for Jung Hans (from Oxford) to stayover for the night, I walked him to the tour of Cambridge this morning at 10am, walked around Cambridge for a bit, then cycled down to the Cambridge Apple Day, rushed back to college to get changed, went off for this Grantchester Meadow Run, cycled by a damn long way, had lunch, then went the boathouse to coach an outing and then came back to my room, absolutely drained and knackered. boohoo.

I think I almost did a mini-triathlon today, less the swimming. I imagine I covered 25km on the bike (at least) and 6km of running.

Cambridge Apple Day (photos)
This is the 2nd Apple Day I've been to this year. I thought the one in Cambridge was bigger and better. (cos there were more stuff to look at, although Audley End House was pretty awesome as well ;p) The weather was so nice and warm today and I got to take some lovely shots (click on the photo link above to get to the photo-album!

Apple Sampling Station! yummy, juicy, delicious, crunchy apples!

Playing around with my macro lens, I found this bunch of pretty purply flowers!

And this thistle plant/bush/scrub/whatever... Although I kinda think it looks more like a toilet brush...

CUH&H Grantchester Meadow Race
Recently, I've found more motivation to run, with Keng Rui as a running buddy. And we decided to enter ourselves in this race organised by the CUH&H, which stands for Cambridge University Hare & Hounds club - a cross-country running club in short. ;p Given that we had been pretty physically worn out by the frisbee session the day before as well as a very long cycle to the start point, which took us to Grantchester and back (many thanks to the (lack of) instructions on the website), we weren't really expecting much. I guess my aim was to NOT make it into the top 10 (from the bottom of course... *grinz*).

We actually came in with pretty decent times for this race, 24:30 for myself for a 6km (approx) run and 24:32 for keng rui. This gives a 2.4km-split time of 9:48, which we thought was real solid actually... Although, I should put this in perspective, with reference to the rest of the runners. We came in 54 and 55 out of 70 runners. The first guy came in with a time of 17:51 (!!!!!) - that's a time of 7:08 for 2.4km. WTF! We're like totally pwned man... (go google pwn). But who cares... =X

Off the start line. Because of our very extended "warm-up" cycle down, we arrived spectacularly late, just before the ladies got flagged off, and ended up at the back of the pack off the start...

I love this shot man... For some reason I looked kinda shocked... wtf! (this was at the end of the first lap - we had to do 2 laps)

Racing to the finish. Keng Rui managed to close the distance down by quite a bit towards the end, and that's me running away from him. *must not let KR catch up* haha...

Labels: Apple, Apple Day, Cambridge, Running

I've not really noticed how quickly the last few days have gone by actually.... I'd just zoned in and stayed with the tiny kenny-sphere and time passes by real quick when I do that, for some reason. ;p

Daddy-long legs
A daddy-long leg got lost in my room the other day! And gave me the opportunity to make use of my macro lens.

To be exact, this is actually a crane fly. I thought it was quite interesting, cos on close examination (with kenny on all fours), it's amazing the amount of detail you can make out - such as the halteres on its back (i'm impressed i actually remember stuff from my first year Evolution & Behaviour lectures... ;p)

Yes, those lollipop-looking stuff are halteres.

Terry Pratchett Book Signing!
After queueing for about 3.5 hours in Borders, Darryl and I finally got Terry Pratchett's latest book "Making Money" signed by none other than Terry Pratchett himself. (duhz, who else right..) Of course, we both thought it was quite amusing that the book signing is for "Making Money".... (geddit? ;p) Poor Terry must have been exhausted by the end of the day, cos the book-signing started at 1pm, was supposed to last till 2pm, and we arrived at Borders at 12.50pm and only got our books signed at 4.20pm. So yes, he did actually have to work for his money...

Darryl's 10-second of fame with Terry Pratchett.

And my turn! (*blames Darryl for not focusing properly... haha*)

CUMSA Amazing Race

On Saturday (13 Oct), there was also this event called the Amazing Race organised by CUMSA. To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it, having organised and facilitated countless "Amazing Races" in Singapore myself... (yes, i might have beeen one of those people you see running around Sentosa or the CBD area with a bunch of sweaty teenagers) And this one was actually quite simple lah. We had to go to various locations, perform a task, which we have to obtain photographic evidence of.....

Outside Trinity College. We were supposed to take a picture with "The TREE", which if you didn't know, is supposed to be some (possibly distant) relative of the apple tree, which smacked Isaac Newton on the head (not the tree, the apple), and voila! Gravity was born...

This was supposed to be looking excited, while waiting for the bus to Heathrow, having not gone home in a year. You can tell how HAPPY i was... ;p

It's been a while since I've done stupid things like this:

so yes, this pretty much concludes the highlights of the past week. I need to get started on academic work apparently, cos I'm fairly behind at the moment.. Hmmz.

Labels: Cambridge

just watched High School Musical on DVD (original ok... not download one... ;p) Anyway, this is another one of those movies which I will not normally watch, cos like very paiseh to walk into the cinema to watch it.. haha... but I had to watch it cos when I was in Singapore this summer (jul/aug 07) and I was doing this primary school camp. During the campfire, we played some song, and then all the kids started singing along! And I was quite stunned, cos I'd like to think that i'm fairly up to date with the music industry *cough* *cough* haha... So we asked the kids, and found out that the song was from High School Musical... (and mind you, these were like 11-year olds...) Anyhow, i thought, wah, how can kenny be ulu-ated, and so that's the story behind why I watched it. (very long story to justify hor...?)

The movie certainly didn't disappoint me, and I would probably say it exceeded my expectations. =X It's another of those movie with no real story lines, but the choreography and music is soooo superb! my two favourite-est songs are the basketball dance one and the finale dance sequence. It's damn catchy and makes you just jive along to the rhythm! I don't mind watching again, so if you want to watch, come to my room some day before i return the DVD to my friend... haha... :)

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term's been quite busy thus far otherwise. I'm pretty much stuck in the labs the whole day every day for the next 2 weeks, although it will be fairly relaxed after that... and I'm tired already... :(

Labels: High School Musical, Movies

Wah, i've finally gotten hold of Corrinne May's new album "Beautiful Seed" (well, technically the album is sitting somewhere on my CD-rack in Singapore though...). But gee, it just confirms how much I love her songs, especially the lyrics, which are so beautifully crafted...

Corrinne May - On the Side of Me

I'm not the easiest person to love
I'm often the one who lets things go unresolved

Yet you choose to be
on the side of me
on the side of me
Yet you choose to be on the side of me
on the side of me

I'm not too proud of some things
I've done in my life
The skeletons in my closet
Are too big for me to hide

Yet you choose to be
on the side of me
on the side of me
Blessed Charity
You're on the side of me
on the side of me

Everyone needs a friend to hold
when it's cold outside
and there's no place to go
Everyone needs a friend to hold
all alone I cried
there was no place to go
I remember when nobody cared
but you

I'm not the easiest person to love
But you, you've opened your heart to show me what I'm worth

'Cause you choose to be
on the side of me
on the side of me
What a mystery
You're on the side of me
on the side of me

Everyone needs a friend to hold
when it's cold outside
and there's no place to go
Everyone needs a friend to hold
all alone I cried
there was no place to go

I remember when nobody cared
Nobody cared
But you...

Yeah you choose to be
on the side of me
on the side of me

[actually, i also mentioned Corrinne May in two other posts - this one and that one. haha]

I'm just soaking up the music in my room on a lazy Sunday morning.... ;p although this peace and serenity won't last for long 'cos I'll have to rush off to some Fresher's Squash thingy in a little while... boohoo...

Labels: Cambridge

Apparently, the Royal Mail has gone on a 48-hour postal strike.

A two-day postal strike has begun despite last-minute talks between the Communication Workers Union and the management of Royal Mail.

Employees are protesting over pay, pensions and modernisation.

A second stoppage is scheduled for next Monday and it is expected service will not return to normal until the middle of next week.

Source: BBC News

I thought it was quite amusing cos they even have this "Q&A" page, on whether or not the postal strike will affect you.

Of course, this is such a pity, because I sent a postcard to ALL of you, but then it got stuck in the postal strike.... *grinz* and if you eventually don't receive anything even after the strike, it probably got lost while they went on strike.. tsk tsk... ;p

Labels: News

I was just uploading my photos from the road trip we did in Ireland to Facebook and I realised how much fun I had and how much I'm missing it already. Though I was initially dreading it quite a bit, it didn't turn out to be quite a bore as I thought it might turn out.

I guess I'll start narrating from the time we left the cottage, which was on 22 Sep 07.

22 Sep 07 - Goodbye Louisburgh!

Having loaded up the car to pretty much what was a VERY FULL vehicle, we left our cottage, which we had spent 6 weeks in, and the tiny village of Louisburgh. It was somewhat sad to think that I/we might never come back to Louisburgh again, not for quite a long time at least.

After dropping Vicky off at Shannon airport, Christina, Lydia and I set off for our road trip! Our first stop was Ailwee Caves, which is set amidst the dramatic landscape of the Burrens - which is miles after miles of limestone exposure. I've never seen such rocky landscapes before!

I thought the Ailwee Caves were a bit of a rip-off. We paid some EUR 9 to be brought around the caves, where we only stopped at 6 "stations", and it wasn't all that spectacular anyway. In fact, i think we found the gift shop and farm produce shop more exciting! haha... the gift shop was exciting because it sold lots of rocks (!!!) and the lady at the fudge shop gave us an extra piece of fudge!

Christina was quite excited when we stopped at the coast for a "fudge break". ;p

We sat by the coast, enjoying the crashing of waves against the rocky shores. It was nice 'cos we could be upclose to the waves without getting splashed.

As can be seen in this picture, the waves were pretty spectacular - there was afterall nothing separating us from the Atlantic Ocean... :)

PS: We also hammered away at this pretty calcite vein, although it was technically a protected site... oops!

We then made a couple more stops along the coast before finally reaching the Cliffs of Moher, which is touted one of the most visited sites in (the Republic of) Ireland. The clouds had started rolling in unfortunately, but the cliffs were still fairly magnificent....

The Cliffs of Moher..

To be honest, I can't remember where I took this shot, although Christina looks pretty happy in this picture. Then again, Christina always looks happy.

We then drove to Gort, where we were to spend the night at the Gallery Cafe Hostel, which i must say was a really nice and cosy hostel, though there were some quirky characters as well.

Like there was this girl in our room, who was just lying in bed the whole time (for about 3 hours, from the time we arrived and had dinner), with her eyes open and just listening to the radio - not even saying high when we arrived.

Then in the morning, there were this spanish girl, who was wearing a red spaghetti top with like a red thong, who was walking around the hostel to the toilet and while she was taking a shower, another spanish girl goes into the same toilet (it's a single toilet with shower attached. imagine a hotel type toilet, but much smaller.. ;p), and when the 2nd girl comes out, a spanish guy knocks and goes in. I found it quite amusing standing outside the toilet and watching this happen... (i was waiting to wash up...)
The Gallery Cafe Hostel

Labels: Geology, Ireland, Travel

Just before you go "wtf has Kenny gone", i've returned! Got back to Cambridge, safe and sound, on Saturday after what has been a pretty long journey. I shall write about my last leg of Ireland trip, as well as where I've been since I got back to the UK really soon. (although if you want a brief summary, i went to gort/derry/dublin/london/wisbech)

It's been REALLY frantic since I got back, unpacking, as well as clearing the backlog of work that's been piling up since I left the cottage. *frownz*

Anyhow, it's been kinda scary to suddenly be in a big city now, not that Cambridge is big anyway, but having just been in a tiny, laid back Irish VILLAGE for six weeks, this is a bit like country pumpkin visits the city. Suddenly, there're people and cars everywhere! But I kinda managed to escape to Audley End on Sunday (which in my head seems like ages ago, but was only yesterday - it's just that i've done so much since i've got back, time seems to slow down. Relativity you might say. ;p)

Went to Audley End House because it was APPLE DAY! And just to enlighten you, it's apple season now, and an apple day kinda "celebrates" all things apple related. (and yes, i'm talking about the fruit apple. A for A-P-P-L-E). If you've got an unknown breed of apple, you can bring it down where experts will identify it for you, there are apple juice stalls, apple stalls, cider (which is made from apples btw), and more....

Apples hanging in the organic garden of Audley End House

Of course I got more than I bargained for, because I'm also an "English Heritage" member, I got to visit the house as well, which was quite a typical old English household - very Jane Austen!

One of the water bodies surrounding the house

The greenhouse/vinery where there a grapevines climbing all over the walls.

View of Audley End House from the gardens - very thankful for the lovely weather we had...

Labels: Apple, Travel