Farewell to 2007

Imported from Facebook notes:

Hi everybody! How've you been? Hope you have all been keeping well and enjoying the Christmas break. Haven't heard from some of you in a while, and I'm sorry I've been so terrible at keeping in touch as much as I could and should have!

2007 was a pretty intense year for me. As usual, in January we had exams and assignments due, and that was pretty much it for the whole month. I went home for Chinese New Year in February to visit my grandmother who had been ill with cancer for nearly 2 years. That was quite an emotional trip for me, the first time I'd been home for CNY in the 6 years since I left Malaysia, and in hindsight I'm glad I took that trip. My grandmother passed away a week after I returned to Manchester.

From March onwards life was rather hectic. Rehearsals for the Malaysian Night performance started, and my parents came over for a couple of weeks during Easter. Had a lovely time overall, and would really recommend visiting the Peak District to anyone who enjoys being outdoors, bonding with the calm and peaceful (dare I say tame?) British countryside. Malaysian Night 2007 finally arrived at the end of April, and the performance was a satisfying success for all the months of time and effort put in, especially on that fiendish Indian dance! A big Thank You to all the hardworking, fun, and above all inspiring people I had the fortune to meet and work with during these months.

The end of April saw me take on the post of President of The People Society. It was a big committment that I was initially reluctant to accept, and involved a few sacrifices such as my volunteer job at The Bridgewater Hall, not to mention time away from studies. May/June came and went with the exams, and so soon it was the end of 2nd year, and I was back in Malaysia.

Summer was mainly taken up with interning for KPMG, on the whole a good time due to the fun and lively people in the Marketing department. Managed to squeeze in a very productive fishing trip off the coast of Kuala Rompin, Terengganu, and I caught my biggest fish ever! 6 hefty kilos of solid tenggiri. A darn good fight, and delicious afterwards, of course.

I started my final year in uni with a big bang that was Freshers' Week - organising the People Society committee, running the stall and Freshers' Party, desperately trying to recruit new members by hook or by crook. My tenure as President ended with the high that was our Zest fashion and dance performance show at the end of November. I've never had so much responsibility before in my life and it was a rather... interesting learning experience. Despite all the ups and downs that come as part of the job, being President is a decision I don't regret in the least, and part of the reason was being able to meet such creative, dynamic people who provided such incredible support and were willing to do anything for what they believed in. Thank you, guys - you know who you are.

Since then it's been assignments as usual, catching up on my (slightly) neglected studies, and a short break to Switzerland for some extreme cold and the beauty of mountain landscapes. Turned 21 too - thank you all for the birthday wishes, I will get around to answering them personally. Eventually.

In all, 2007 was a good year, one in which I learnt a lot, and lived a lot. After graduating next year, I'll probably do a mini-Euro trip with the parents, go back to Malaysia for a while, and come back Sept/Oct to take up the IGS and line the Labour government's pockets even further. I've got that one year to get a job here, fingers crossed! So, for all my friends old and new, here's to an equally fruitful 2008, and I sincerely hope that you will find joy and fulfilment in the year to come. Thank you for being here.

Best wishes and much love,

Yi-Wen x

Marzipan Babies!

Aren't these babies so absolutely adorable?! Dear ole Daddy emailed them to me, really cheered me up after today's fiasco. Aaaahhh I can't decide which one I love the best!

Definition of Marzipan
Almond paste: a sweet paste made of ground almonds and sugar, often with egg whites or yolks, used as a layer in cakes or molded into ornamental shapes. While some of the faces may look "crafted" rather than "real", every detail is amazing, and the rest looks VERY real.


Yups, I'm blogging when I should be revising =P Had Marketing: Foundations and Applications last Tuesday, which went so much better than I was expecting - I felt so unprepared! All the concepts were already there, but the details just weren't sticking in my head. Felt like a human-sieve. Today was Marketing Research, which, on the contrary, was quite screwed up even though I felt a lot better prepared than MFA. Gaah! MR MCQs are driving me nuts! Anyways, got International Business Strategy on Thursday, then International Business Environment the following Monday... and then I'm home on the 9th of June! Wahey.. can't wait. =D

CNY

Happy Chinese New Year people! (Hah I sound like I'm writing one of those People Society emails...) Had a fabulous 10 days celebrating at home, spent some lovely quality time with parents and relatives, pigged out for all I was worth... Thankfully I seemed to have brought the rain back with me, so it was a pretty wet and cooling CNY for a change.

Wrote the following semi-fictional short piece during my 6-hr-transit in Abu Dhabi airport. 'Tis killing two birds with one stone as it fits Sean's silly MPH theme of "The Young Malaysian's Identity" as well as my contribution to Jian Liang's Bristol newsletter of which he's given me free reign. PleasepleasePLEASE leave some constructive criticism if you do read it.

Coffee Arabica

The initial mystery that attends any journey is:

how did the traveller reach his starting point in the first place?

- Anonymous

Here I am again, sipping an iced coffee in the waiting lounge of an unfamiliar airport, in yet another foreign country. All around me hangs the shimmering, shallow allure of the different, the mirage wavering only when one looks past the exotic mosaics and gilt, red-wrapped Valentine cherubs to the grittiness, the sandiness underneath. The Costa coffee cost me six US dollars, my neighbour to the right is a middle-aged Caucasian man in a blue chequered shirt, but the younger men to the left in matching leather jackets and shoes, puffing away between exclamations in a melodic tongue are, like the majority of travellers here, Middle-Eastern. Across the concourse, a dark-skinned man stands shirtless in front of the Swatch shop, half-heartedly fanning away the encroaching evening heat. Abu Dhabi, I decide, is an unapologetic diamond in the rough.

If life is a journey, then it feels as though I have spent these twenty years of my life in an airport waiting lounge. The decision to undertake the journey was made long ago, but still the uncertainty resounds – why am I here? Where am I heading to? The moment I check in, I merge into the many-hued crowd, the only stamp of my identity is a passport and the sheet of fragile paper I clutch which says, Name: HUI/YIWEN MISS, Destination:… The destination has changed many times over the years, the countless airports merged into the single image of a universal waiting lounge.

Was it really the wisest decision to leave home - Malaysia, at the age of fourteen? One is always advised never to look back and harbour regrets, but I simply cannot ignore the irresistible urge to re-examine the past. The years of travelling from country to country have made it so easy to fit in everywhere and yet nowhere, so easy to run away whenever things turn sour. Every time my destination changes, I am back again in this place where all paths intersect, the ubiquitous traveller-in-transit.

Tomorrow will be the first time in six years that I will celebrate Chinese New Year with my family, at home. But can I honestly say that this is home? There is barely anything left to keep me anchored here, merely a childish sense of loyalty - or duty? - towards this country I’ve never truly experienced. A feeling of… displacement, the longing to belong somewhere, emptiness harboured within for many years.

Within hours I will be back in the sticky warmth I was born into, see the familiar-forgotten smiles through the Arrivals glass, and feel the security of my family around me. Then I’ll savour the hour-long drive from the airport when my inner world slowly unwinds on the road to rest. And when I enter the house and allow the familiar scents to crowd my senses, the trappings to pull me deeper and tighter into the place - understanding dawns. In truth, no matter where we are, home dwells within the spaces we choose to make our own.

The Caucasian man finishes his coffee and paper, and leaves. I offer to take a photograph for the three leather-clad Arabs, but in the end, they don’t understand English and the picture is never taken. Within five minutes I will have forgotten their faces, and they will be hard-pressed to recall the small Chinese girl who spoke to them in a foreign tongue in a familiar airport.

But I suppose in such chance encounters lies the magic of the waiting lounge. For in these places of bewildering humanity, I’ve discovered that perhaps life isn’t meant to be lived as a straight and narrow path towards a solitary destination, and that waiting lounges are, after all, also shelters to catch one’s breath between adventures. Besides, wasn’t it by chance that our paths intersected, so long ago, in a waiting lounge just like this one?

Home for CNY at long last

Weather: 6°C, wind North at 9 km/h, humidity 72%. Melancholic end to a beautiful, rare day of clear skies. Not that I was awake long enough to enjoy it hehe.

Soundtrack: Non allegro from Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances. Alternating between the Liverpool Phil's lush orchestral version and that fiery and lyrical piano duo of Ashkenazy and Previn. Sublime.

State of mind: wine-infused.

Outfit: oversized Esso "Save the Tiger" T-Shirt

Random thought of the day: my keyboard's sticky with fruit juice! eww...

The past few months have seen me retreat into a terribly introverted frame of mind and I realise I've completely lost the incentive to blog. Saying I'll extensively update the bloggy soon is just deceiving myself, n'est pas? So to clear the vicious cycle of procrastination, here's the key features of 2nd year in uni so far:

Study: classes have been mostly good, my choice of modules, on the whole engaging lecturers and seminar leaders. Babs and whassername from Marketing F&A highly snooze-inducing; Jonathan Swift of Consumer Behaviour the highlight of 1st term. No proper assessment until January's 2 exams and 1-and-a-half essays, which was kinda worrying, but overall they went pretty well. MLP group quite a fun bunch. 9am triples have been very taxing on ye ordinary student who does not normally emerge before 10am as a rule.

Wimslow Park has been a great place to live in. The Times did a feature on university students living in luxury accommodation and slotted in a photo of three smug young blokes relaxing in a spa complete with bubbles. Ooh yes you guessed it, our very own Momentum Leisure Health Club, conveninelty situation 20 seconds away from my front door. Had a quite a bit of excitement and stress organising my final year accommodation, but in the end I'm staying on, same room, 2 floors above.

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Am now continuing this post from my dear ole room in 795, Jalan 17/24, PJ, Malaysia! Wheeee... arrived back yesterday noon (KL time Thursday) and thoroughly enjoying the rest, company and food, but certainly not the heat. Thankfully it's rained the past couple of days, and my hair's already been trimmed so it's not terribly sweltering. Still retaining my "bak zham kai" (steamed chicken) pale skin hehe.

Been on the People Society's committee as Communications Officer since November. On the whole a fascinating experience, and because just about everybody on the communications team quit or was asked to step down, I've had full control of the whole comms and publicity works even though I'm still vaguely feeling my way around this job. We have weekly Monday meetings which usually last 2 hrs - Mon evenings are busy times writing the committee email (which I created) and the weekly members' email. So far I've helped publicise the annual Badminton Tournament and taken lots of photos of all the leng zhais competing against each other =P, and we're gearing up to the big Charity Day on 12th March.

December hols saw a fantastic trip with Emma (Stubbs) to her father's place in Gutersloher (near Dortmund), Germany. Weather was freezing, house was lovely, Christmas markets were almost as amazing as her family. Unfortunately I got stranded in London on Christmas Eve with no transport back to Manc as the flights were delayed from the terrible fog. Should really have taken up their offer to stay on until the 27th, but in the end I stay with Teng Huang on Xmas Eve night, and Mum's ex-classmate Aunty Ai Tee picked me up on Xmas morning. Managed to catch the earliest coach to Manc on the 26th - what a horrible ending to my brilliant holiday! Photos up once I clear some capacity on my hd.

Anyways this will be my first Chinese New Year in Malaysia after a 5-yr abscence. Be back in Manc 6am on Monday the 26th. Have a lovely week, everybody!

47

Hello people, I'm finally back into blogger mode after a 2 month hiatus. So let's start off with... a survey mwahahaha... More updates this wkend. Watch this space.

(Ok, so this was stolen off Phing's bloggy. I was bored!)


1. FIRST NAME?
Yi-Wen

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
yeah... this taiwanese girl whom my dad never even met. haha.. don't ask.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?
yesterday! only a couple of crocodillo tears. it was while watching this korean family breakdown when they thought their lil girl had been eaten by a giant mutant formaldehyde fish with legs.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
most of the times. when everything's nice and cursive and the letters all conform to the same size.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
luncheon meat? hehe no la.. erm.. fish ball?

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
hell yeah! i'm like, the nicest most amiable person to get along with. even with pmt.

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL?
got. private ah so no sneaky peeks.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
ya.

9. FAVORITE TV SHOW(s):
don't watch much tv. honest!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Special K Peach & Apricot! yummy stuff especially without milk. munchmunchmunch goes me during exam period.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
errr.. who does?

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
bring it on mate. 6 years of carting one block of wood my own size (the cello, duh) has built up pretty impressive biceps and triceps. no la, i'm normal for my size i guess.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
fossil fuel. it's that ben n jerry's one with little chocolate dinosaurs... awwh.

14. SHOE SIZE?
UK 3.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red, definitely.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
i'm terribly low on motivation. especially when getting my fat ass to the gym.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
mummy.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?
nah don't bother.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
barefeet, lime-green and white beach shorts. bikini pants cos i went for a swim earlier

20. LAST THING YOU ATE?
convent garden roast chicken and rosemary soup, slice of tesco finest seeded wholegrain bread mmhmm.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
classic fm. some random march.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
sky blue.

23. FAVORITE SMELL?
food when i'm hungry. a pot of cyclamen minis.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
phone? umm.. shyan i guess.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO?
goofy smile.

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
She didn't send it to me, I took it off her blog. And yes i suppose i like phing or else i wouldnt be cohabitating with her rite?

27. FAVORITE DRINK?
elderflower press.

28. FAVORITE SPORT?
swimming.

29. EYE COLOR?
Dark brown.

30. HAT SIZE?
small?

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Yes.

32. FAVORITE FOOD?
oooh lots! it varies.

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDING?
scary movies with happy endings

34. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
dark green sherbs hoodie

35. SUMMER OR WINTER?
autumn

36. HUGS OR KISSES?
a huggy kiss.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT?
apple crumble with custard. or if i'm up for something more posh then it's gotta be gaucho grill's chocolate truffle cake with that divine vanilla icecream.

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING?
Scipio by Ross Leckie, A Short History of Asia by Colin Mason, the Ramayana. apart from all those %&^%$E%* text books of course.

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
I have no mouse, and therefore no mousepad.

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV?
didn't watch tv last night. the last tv programme i watched was gordon ramsey's nightmare kitchens or whatever it was called

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
good music. that peculiar sound when you're alone at sea at night. sound of slicing cleanly through the water when you're swimming. the sound of your name when loved ones call you.

44. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
no comment

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME?
i suppose manchester does qualify as the furthest distance, doesn't it?

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT?
you tell me.

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
assunta hospital, selangor, malaysia.

On This Day

On this day... in 1678, the Temple of Athena Parthenos (more familiarly, the Parthenon) was partially destroyed during an armed conflict between Venetian and Ottoman forces. Lobbed explosives from the Ottoman side blew huge chunks of glorious Pentelic marble into flying fragment, forever destroying the elegant men, women, gods and animals that peopled the many friezes and metopes of argubaly the greatest stucture from ancient Greece's golden era.

On this day... in 1957, a musical written by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim debuted on Broadway and was nominated for Best Musical the same year. Revitalising the ages-old tale of love across social boundaries, the musical spawned a number of remakes, films documentaries, and revivals, and is still touring to this day. This musical is West Side Story.

On this day... in 1983, a potential nuclear WWIII was averted when, despite indications from his computerised early warning systems, retired Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov refused to believe that the USA had launched long-range missiles against the USSR.

On this day... in 2006, Yi-Wen Hui was finally blessed from the powers-that-be the gift of Ethernet Connection, thereby putting her in touch with the world at 2 in the morning after a sorely-felt abscence of three months. On the same day she rose at 8.30am, cooked and ate a substantial meal, and set off to Gilds Silver Service training where she learned all about food handling and how to hold large serving cutlery with small hands and how to serve potatoes and how to clear ten plates at once. Adjourning from the training centre, she spent the next two hours being intellectually enriched on contemporary industrial relations. The following two hours was spent at the opposite end of the university campus listening to an old prune about marketing foundations and applications. She grabbed an egg-and-cress malted sandwich during her mid-afternoon break, and prowled through endless dusty cartons at a book fair in a bid to find a good bargain (something one cannot live without). Half and hour passed before she emerged into the afternoon sunlight, triumphantly brandishing three management text books, one of which was core reading, and all for the very thrifty price of thirty-five pounds. From 4-6pm she absorbed a rather inspirational introduction and talk given by the vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester, as part of her Leadership in Action unit. And now, utterly exhausted by the day's activities, she is going to bed.

yoohoo just a quick note to say i'm only gonna get connected to uni broadband on the 15th ah... so just gimme ur patience a little bitty bit longer ok? akan datang: loadsa holiday photos n updates on the resits!

p.s. i'm writing this in Varsity, the pub directly below my new home-away-from home =P

Back on Wednesday from Kuching! Spent 3 nights in the city of cats and 2 nights at the Holiday Inn Damai Lagoon hotel while visiting the Sarawak Cultural Village in Damai.

Rainforest Festival ROCKS!!!

I'm brown like a monkey nut.

Hahaha got lots of pics n stories to tell, but I haven't even posted up the Fraser's Hill photos n I'm still quite busy revising for resits, practicing n editing LiYing's mini novella as well as other editing projects n my own bits of writing. So... patience ah. They'll be up soon.

Pulau Lang Tengah

Ok honeys here's another one of my mass updates! This time it's not so much a return from hibernation but rather a return from sheer laziness and procrastination hahaha... Dunno why, but I tend to cut myself off from contact with the outside world once in a while when I'm back home.

Anyways update and some pics from a little gem off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia - Pulau Lang Tengah. It is nestled in the waters of the South China Sea between the larger islands of Redang and Perhentian, and features warm clean white beaches interspersed with rugged weather-worn rocks and breathtakingly clear aquamarine lagoons with the requisite parrot fish and baby black-tipped sharks darting amongst fantastical coral formations. (Hey, one's gotta do one's bit in promoting tourism Malaysia... Truly Asia.... right?)

Having first met up with Ming and her Taylor's lawyers at Subang Parade, I found myself comfortably installed at the back of the Redang Lang Resort's coach at 12am. There were just over 20 of us on the trip, and thankfully I wasn't the only "stranger" there, so to say. The night-long journey was pretty smooth, with some of the usual guitar-strumming, spookily entertaining ghost stories and pirated dvd watching that usually accompany these post-exam trips.

Stopped by a little town at about 7am for a breakfast of nasi dagang or nasi lemak, and then it was off to the jetty and onboard for Pulau Lang Tengah. The 40minute boat ride was another nice chance to snooze, and pretty soon we were greeted by beautiful waters lapping gently at the soft white shore. Just a little slice of heaven on earth. The only other place I've visited that surpassed the quiet beauty of Lang Tengah was, of course, the Maldives.

Shared a room with Ming and Eeva. The resort was reasonably well furnished with two queen beds in each room and en suite bathrooms. Meals were inclusive of the price and quite edible (despite the gripes of Miss PickyKan =P) Also included on site: dining area mahjong tables, snooker, foosball, souvenir shop, karaoke room, tv room, tv bar, snorkelling hut, scuba hut, 24/7 make-your-own non-alcoholic drinks. Nice rite?

Plenty of snorkelling around the island and also at Redang's fish-filled Marine Park made a very happy and tanned me. If there's one thing that I could say about the side of me more inclined to nature, is that I love the sea. The sea, the sea. We're ole buddies I suppose, what with my parents being frequent divers during those courtship and early marriage years before I popped along, and the numerous beach and deep-sea fishing trips we've made over the years. Returning to the sea is like finding a resting place after years of travel and searching.

Other highlights of the trip include: burying Ming and Eeva in the warm white sand while they shrieked for all they were worth, Ming totally falling for Shah's "dog in his past life" prank on the coach, arriving at the island, sinking my toes into the clean sand, Ming & I falling asleep on a warm flat rock, sharing by the shore, listening to Diana Krall from Alex's speakers on the beach and watching the blinking lights of fishing boats at 3am, and of course the wonderfully humorous and down to earth company. Thanks dear for bringing me along.

Again, do click on the photos to see the better, larger images. Please note that these photos are taken with my trusty ole compact Sony P10, and that most of the "funny" ones are on everyone else's cameras! Constructive criticism very much welcome. =D


Beach, Sea & Sky



























































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Macro stuff















































Rocks



















































And to cap off my brief adventure on the island - a lovely moment of dusk descending on the deserted jetty, and the overnight fishing boats drifting out on the irresistable pull of the ocean.