the four right chords can make me cry

Maybe the ang mohs have good reason to be surprised when they find out that my first language is English.

Check out this headline from an NUS security email:
SECURITY ALERT - CONMAN RANS AWAY WITH HANDPHONES BELONGING TO STUDENTS!

shocking. indeed.

posted by beckyboo @ 6:25 PM 0 comments

Today I had lunch at The Drum & Monkey at Dorridge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorridge
It was Jenny's birthday, and very nice to see all her friends and family gathered that way, everyone just having a good time.
Had a pub lunch of sunday roast. Think I might be able to slowly work my way through this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_cuisine. I've already had Bangers & mash, Bread & butter pudding (only in sg though), Chicken tikka masala, the Full English, Sally Lunn bun and Sunday roast. Not so keen on the jellied eels though.
Did not take pictures although I had a camera because they probably think Singaporeans are weird enough as it is. Its hard to explain to them our obession with food porn. Speaking of which, they have pictures of naked girls in their newspapers, called page 3 girls. I can't imagine that in newspapers at home, so i was pretty shocked when the person in front of me in the bus opened up the papers and there was this naked girl. The MP for Ladywood, Birmingham has been campaigning against The Sun which publishes the paper, but still accepted their funding for her party. Oh well, politics.
If they really like naked girls so much they should just go to a museum. Hmm, maybe that explains why most of the museums are free here.
I think this webpage is going to get a lot more hits than usual, considering how many times i said "naked girls".

naked girls!

posted by beckyboo @ 4:06 AM 1 comments

Becky in Bath 20th Jan 2007


Me, Kah mei & Angela outside bath abbey


Rarebit


Beef & venison on trencher


Bye Bath!


More photos here: http://flickr.com/photos/beckyinbirmingham

posted by beckyboo @ 2:23 AM 0 comments

New-sem's eve dinner at the beeches


Group photo!


Kai wai and Aya


Akiyachan, gyusang and daniel


gyusang: "mashed potato!"

posted by beckyboo @ 2:09 AM 1 comments

Becky's potato rant.

to spare my friends from actual ranting, i've decided to put this potato rant online so that you can skip it if you wish. virtural ranting!

I am sick of potatoes. My family might be surprised since I had a phase when i was crazy about baked potatoes and generally eat it whenever possible. and yeah, some of you think im the "jiak-kentang" type of person, in all senses of the word. but the food joints here serve EVERYTHING with fries (burger w fries, fish & chips, pizza w fries, doner w fries, ad nauseum) and all the meal deals come with a bag of crisps. here's a list of potato consumables available here in the uk:
1) Chips (aka fries)
2) Crisps (aka chips)
3) Baked potato (they have whole stands dedicated to the stuff)
4) Mashed potato stand alone (HUGE mound with bangers and mash)
5) Mashed potato over various baked meat dishes
6) Potato salad
7) Potato chunks in other salads
8) Potato soup
9) Potato chunks in all other soups
10) Boiled new potatoes
11) Hash browns
12) Potato nuggets (they exist, i had then for dinner today)
13) Potato waffles (no kid, i've had these too)
14) Rosti (now this i don't mind, but haven't had any yet)
15) Potato flakes
16) will find out at breakfast tomorrow

sorry for the absence, i only managed to get internet today, after 6pm. sigh, admin is kinda messy here. classes have started, im meeting more people than my brain has the capacity to remember, and its very windy. but im generally very happy and quite settled.

yup, in a nutshell, thats it.

potatoes.

posted by beckyboo @ 6:58 AM 3 comments

I don't know why, but I was hesitant about going there. I thought I would get lost, the Jewellry quarter is the furthest i've gone from the hostel. But i'm glad i went there, it was such a homely, pleasant place. A nice old white haired man in a blue sweater taught me how to make a pen nib and showed me around the museum. He laughed and said, "you were born too late!" because i told him i'd never used a pen like that before, which suddenly made me feel like ballpoint pens totally sucked. I happily sat down and tried all their pens, and the atmosphere was very much like kindergarten, brightly lit rooms with a sturdy wooden table and paper and pens and inkpots. My scrawly handwriting was very much kindergarten work too. They offered me tea/coffee and biscuits and i felt as though i had just been welcomed into a home.
Did you know that at one point, 3/4 of everything being written all over the world came from a pen nib produced in birmingham? And that Josiah Mason, who owned a really big pen factory, founded the school that eventually became the University of Birmingham? The availability of cheap, mass-produced pens helped the spread of literacy, so that was Birmingham's contribution to the world! Stuff I take for granted but now have a better appreciation of, the humble pen.
The Pen Room http://www.penroom.co.uk/
Please go and make a donation and buy stuff, it's one of those places that i want to stay alive.

Also went to go see Miss Potter today. As whimsical as a Potter book, not something for the die-hard realist. But not a bad movie. that I like Ewan McGregor might have helped.

posted by beckyboo @ 3:03 AM 3 comments

Compelling.

I passed an old second hand bookshop today, on the way to the museum. I made a mental note of it and went to check it out on the way back, you know I just had to. The place was a fire hazard; books, comics, magazines from wall to wall, stacked layers deep in shelves and cardboard boxes. Overwhelming! I didn't know where to start, and there seemed to be either a only a very loose organisation or an extremely complicated one that only the guys running the shop would understand. I looked around, tiny room crammed full of books gave way to tiny room crammed full of books. I tried valiantly to look for something worth reading but old issues of FHM, romance novels and other dubious titles lay strewn all over the shelves, like book-corpses slowly rotting away after a massive biblio-war. Working my way through the carnage, I found a book that would make a very good present, and tucked it into the crook of my arm. At the cashier, there was a box of CDs, and naturally, I could not resist. And who should I meet there but Kelly Jones, Richard Jones and Stuart Cable. And of course, I had to take them home!

Stereophonics :: Step on my old size nines

I’d like to know what we’re all about
We all have done
Am I gonna get old and laugh?
With someone
Think I’ll get me a boy and a girl
Or not either
Will I get what I want from this world…
I’m a daydreamer
Then I watch the old couple dance
Step on my old size nines and I’ll take you round

And you know what? They wrote this just after coming back from Birmingham. I love this CD.

posted by beckyboo @ 5:19 AM 2 comments

ok, photos!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beckyinbirmingham/

as a reference for myself:

27th December Wednesday
6pm: Family dinner; chilli crab!
9pm: Frantic packing!!!
12pm: Airport in the midst of rain + goodbye to dear friends & family

28th
Dubai -> Birmingham

29th
Check out uni and walk around

30th
Train to London
British museum!!! *love*

31st
Natural History Museum
Chinatown
Trafalgar Square

1st January 2007
Buckingham Palace
Westminster Abbey
New Year's Day parade in Havering!
Temple
St. Paul's
Tower of London

2nd
Zoo (a nose-bleeding 13.50 pounds per person)
Beatles walking tour

3rd
British Library *love it!*

sorry everyone, will get down to emailing properly when i settle down, i'm moving in on the 15th so give me till then at least. or email me first! then you get priority reply =)

posted by beckyboo @ 5:59 AM 4 comments