Leaving Cambridge, Visiting Frankfurt, and Coming Home!

Leaving Cambridge

My room when I left

Meeting Alvin at the bus station.
It was a damp, misty morning.
Even our hair was wet from the mist!

Alvin, the shadowy figure standing with our luggages.

Heathrow Airport. The tag on my luggage.
Aptly reflects how I consider two different places home now...

Waiting at the holding area in Heathrow.

Frankfurt!

At Frankfurt International Airport

The Frankfurt Underground

First glimsp of the surface

Orange Clocktower

Legoland!

Christmas Market - Toys and Candies Galore!

Hot Wine

An Abandoned Railway



Lunch! For 10 euros.

View from the top of a tall building. Can't remember the name.



A closer shot of where we emerged from. Recall Orange Clock tower?

Nice building

Art Gallery Works... Like this one... KABOOM!



Changi Airport?

Returned to Changi Airport to be greeted by Janice Yiyi and family. Went for a buffet at the National Stadium area after. Came home to find kittens in my toilet! My sister was taking care of them for a friend...

Taken me a whole week to put up these pictures.

Leaving for Malaysia today with Janice Yiyi's family. Haven't been there for a long time! Since JC!!! Really looking forward to it! Will be back in 4 days time.

Oh yeah, just realised that my blog is still in London time... Gotta change it! So irritating.

Houseparty!

Where Memories are Made...
...And Reputations Shattered for Life.

The Pilgrimage to Houghton Chapel

Kelvin and Joel - The Backseat Boys.

Jia Yao and David

Ben Taking a Picture

Arrival at Houghton Chapel


Let the Party Begin!



Supplies from Tesco!

Fine Dining

Right to Left: Jia Yao, Chun, Me!

Joel, Me. Joel's really talented! If only I could post video clips!

Kelvin, Me. Kelvin was assistant chef, did a great job!

Tim - The Chief Chef!

Yao Yu - the man of the party :P

My Group! Made up of Daniel, Me, Lisheng, EeMae, and Katie, who's not in the pic.
Regretfully, the shot's a bit blur. Hopefully I'll find a clearer pic...


Faithfulness and Gentleness doing their thing

Prepare the Firing Squad!

Take Cover!

And so Houseparty 2005 concluded with a group picture, I hope I get hold of more pictures. Would probrably be up on the CCCF Website soon.

Returned back to Cambridge feeling like I'm coming back to something welcoming and familiar, even though I've only been gone for 4 days, realised I'm beginning to feel attached to this place. Think that's the feeling I'll have on my subsequent trips back to Cambridge.

Managed a quick blog entry while I did my last minute departure preparation. Then was headed off to Germany!

Group Theory!

I think I'm beginning to grasp where group theory is coming from. Have been spending today looking through the notes. Appreciated the fact that...

A Group is a Set and a Binary Operation such that you can arrive at every element in the set with the binary operation, and the result of applying a binary operation to two elements in the set would be another element in the set.

It's like a self-sufficient universe with one law, which is the binary operation. And the elements in the set are the states of the universe, which interact according to the law to give another state in the universe.

Groups by answers.com

Then we moved on to the study of finite groups, refering to groups of finite sets. Like sets with one, two, three, ten, etc... elements.

Specifically, we moved on to the study of functions on a finite set, treating all the functions as a set with the binary operation being the composition law...

And in order for the inverse of a function to exist, it must be a bijection. Such functions are called invertible functions.

So we are dealing with a finite set of functions, acting on a finite set of objects. The set of functions being a group with respect to composition. That's where most of my confusion lies... We're dealing with so many different sets here!

So now you have a function which is a bijection of a set onto itself, basically can be seen as the reordering of the elements of the set, and as Dr Korner puts it, it's like shuffling a deck of cards. Never really understood the meaning until now... Such a bijective function is called a permutation. Cos it is a rearrangement of the elements of a set.

The set of all possible functions on a finite set forms a symmetric group. It is a group because you can arrive at a certain state, i.e. configuration of cards, by many means. The word symmetric is just a name, and hardly has any meaning, at least to me.

Then in this symmetric group , there are ideas like order of a function, and even and odd functions, something which I am just beginning to comprehend. And two permutation functions are said to be disjoint if they act on different elements in the set.

Ok, just a random blabering of my understanding of group theory at the moment. To organise my thoughts. Could serve to give people a glimpse into what I'm doing.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words.

Finally sorted out my pics... Some photos from throughout the term, and trackbacks to the respective accounts.

Yvonne's Birthday Cookout @ JiaHui's

Look of satisfection on Kenny's face - Him and HongKing jointly responsible for dinner that night, and it was good!

Kaiting and Dexter reluctantly posing for the camera.

A snippet of the room.

Royce and Yao Yu. Royce holding a piece of the apple from my backyard?

Asian Food Festival
Check out the account at: Asian Food Festival

Christopher making lime juice.

Scenes from the Lecture Theater
Check out account of: the Pringle Point

Christ Mathmos Celebrating the Pringle Point!

And commemorating Bob's last lecture.

Frost on my bike!

E-meal: Irish Stew!

Cookout with Atushi, ChoonHowe, and YaoYu; And Jazz Event at StAG
Check out the accounts at: Ta-da-a!!! My first blog!: The Week Gone By...

Yao Yu and I.
Yao Yu had fever that day... 38.5...

Atushi and Choon Howe posing with the curry chicken, egg, and veg.

And chilling out over some wine...

A clearer shot of the wine bottle :)

Alvin and I at the StAG Jazz Event
StAG

Pre-Houseparty Bible Study @ David's

David and I.

Huixin behind the chicken, veg and egg.

Huixin in Pink scouping rice, Agnes and Yao Yu sipping on the freshly brewed cryncenthemum, and Me! Taking the photo... (duh!)


Flashback: Ta-da-a!!! My first blog!: Ah... Much better....
The leftover ice-cream with chocolate and oranges I had on the last day.

There's no place like Home.

Finally arrived back home yesterday, greeted at the airport by Janice yiyi and family, and of course, not forgetting Marcus! Who has been making his presence felt on this blog.

Speaking of making presence felt, going to get down to revamping this blog soon: Add a tagbox, and link lotsa people.

Also going to add many new, important links to my webpage. Pages like HSBC, Cumsa, CCCF, Sainsburry, Nectar Card, etc...

Also trying to figure out how to download the pictures from my palm.

Other thing's I'll be getting up to: Driving! and trying to catch up with my work.

Also hope to meet up with all my friends: JC, Scouts, NS, Shian, Ian...

It feels so good to be home! This is a very needed break from Cambridge. Hopefully I'll recover from the trauma, and regain my sense of purpose and direction, and return to Cambridge with a better idea of what I want to achieve and pursue.

Shall perhaps blog about my Frankfurt visit and Cambridge experience when I upload my photos.

As for now, I feel the urgent need to hit the books soon!

Houseparty was great!
Houseparty is indeed where

Memories are made, and...
... Reputations shattered for life.

I have increminating evidence of Yao Yu doing very disturbing things.

Returned today at around 1 plus.
Bought ham sandwich for lunch.
Returned to room,
Packed up luggages,
Did laundry,
Checked email,
Went to Sains to get some biscuits for the journey back,
and pastry for dinner
Continued packing,
Making lots of cryncenthemum, cos fell sick during houseparty, for the first time in Cambridge.
Washed up place, tried resting, but couldn't fall asleep.
Started to get worried when alvin was uncontactable on his handphone. Just saw alvin online, but still unresponsive to pings.

My luggages:
I realised I have very little things to bring home.
I'm bring back
- my notes to mug,
- the tid bits I bought,
- palm and it's accessories,
- my jackets, which I would be wearing,
- an extra set of clothes to change along the way,
- and my toiletries bag.

So have squeezed everything into the big luggage and small luggage, including my backpack!

Travel documents all in my High Sierra backpack, also carrying my pouch.
Wondering whether can safekeep the hand carried luggages while we go tour Frankfurt in the day. If not I'll have to check in my small luggage.

Quite looking forward to going home.
Looking forward to revising my work, and sorting the whole of this term out.
Need a change of environment. Need proper computer. Need more comfortable bed. Need chairs with wheels.

A few things I remembered i wanted to get throughout the term:
- Portable thermometer.
- Computer
- Camera
Will have to look back at previous posts to recall.

Now waiting for the clock to strike twelve, to initiate departing sequence.
- wash up everything, pack up room and kitchen,
- Change, pack bags with last minute items,
- Empty containers of water. empty dustbin.
- Seal up room.
- Make way to bus station. Board Coach at 0130.
- Gotta find out how to get to terminal two. Hope Alvin's familiar with this. Won't be very pleasent getting lost in a big area with luggages and in the cold.
- Board plane at 0630.
- Land in Frankfurt. Don't know how it'll be like.
- Board plane at 2230 at Frankfurt.
- Last lap home!

Just jotting down the plan....

Flight Details...

Leaving for houseparty soon, in around one and a half hours time. Blogging over a bowl of cereal, as I go through all the last minute things I need to sort out, among these would be informing my family of my flight details... so here it goes for those interested to welcome me home!

Flight Details

Flight Detail: 09 Dec (Friday), Lufthansa - LH0776
From: Frankfurt International Apt, Terminal 1
To: Singapore Changi Airport, Terminal 2
Class: Economy
Status: Confirmed
Meal: Meals
Flight Time: 11 Hours and 40 Minutes
Departure Date: 09 Dec (Friday)
Departure Time: 22:35
Arrival Date: 10 Dec (Saturday)
Arrival Time: 17:15
Confirmation Nbr.: YL7Q37
Milage: 6387
Aircraft: Boeing 747

Ok, so there you go...

Intending to do one round of laundry before I leave, dont know if will have time, also gotta pack the clothes I can't wash (or have no confidence washing) here - my thermal, and jackets.

Also got to find a more sheltered place to park my bike. Perhaps I'll use my table cloth to cover it.

As for my plan, accomplished everything except wake up early and stroll round the city - couldnt wake up thanks to the late night... But cleaned up my bike, packed my room, bought M&S biscuits home, changed 75 euros, sorted out my documents, ate up ALL my food! Ate 2 portions of spghetti yesterday!!!

Now about the only food I have left is some chocolate, some biscuits, and cereal.

Ok, things to do when I return from houseparty:
Do laundry, Wash bedsheets, means I'll have to find some coins these few days...
Repack haversack, reorder travel documents...
Call Alvin, Change sim card after I meet him.

Just removing my bedsheet, and thinking of how I can make this room more comfortable next term...
I'll need a

1. Bolster,
2. Another layer of blanket,
3. A chair with wheels,
4. White lamp.

Just some random comments...

Futile attempt at an early night...

Ah, cant fall asleep! But was a good thing cos lying on my bed, I was subconciously running through everything I need to accomplish. Here's the plan for tmr.

1. Wake up early, take an early morning stroll round the city. (Hopefuly I'd be able to wake up :S)
2. Come back, Maintain Bike.
3. Pack for houseparty (using backpack)
   • Toiletries, Towel,
   • clothes,
     
   • slippers, socks...
   • Also gotta study the book of James!
     
4. Pack for journey home (using the big luggage)
   • Toiletries, Towel,
   • clothes,
     
   • slippers, socks...
5. Prepare for journey, sort out travel documents
   • Passport, Air Tickets, National Express Tickets.
     
   • Change Euros - around £50 worth.
6. Pack Room...

Have also been trying to surf the net on this lousy college com. Looking for bargains for guitars and the book "brief history of time" on ebay and amazon. When I was in Singapore, thought that it would be cheaper to buy books from amazon or ebay cos the shipping cost would be minimal, but dont know why I cant find sellers based in the UK while surfing tonight... Looking forward to having a proper computer here so that I can have better control of my online activities.

Also have been visiting my old online haunts like thestudentroom, quite nostelgic reading the old posts - it's wasn't too long ago when I was preparing to come here. And I'm now faced with planning a sequence of events which will lead me all the way home. Think when I finally reach home and lie on my bed, I'd feel like these 10 weeks was just a nice dream, a dream I'm waking up from and finding myself in my bed, then I'll look around at the physical objects around me and realise that it really happened! Going back this christmas would help me reconcile this incredible experience with my sense of reality...

My whole experience here has been incredibly surreal, it is almost like a seperate entity of my life. I came here with my luggages, filled with spanking new belongings, I've made new friends, indulged in activities, and have been though a Cambridge term, something I wasn't really prepared for before I came, and by God's grace, built up a life for myself from scratch. But none of which connects me back home - they have all been entirely new... Somehow it will feel very weird if I just carried on my current life without experiencing my life back home again... It will feel like I have some kind of vague memory of a past life that I can never get in touched with... Guess that's the feeling of home sickness...

Hm, homesickeness... Haven't felt that until now, when I have too much time on hand to start thinking... Just a remark...

Some out of place remarks...
Just talking with dexter about travelling home, told me to call this number:02073121700, and look for an agent called 'LeeChoo'. It's the London office of Emarald's Travel. They got quite a good deal on their SQ flight home. This info will come in handy next year when I travel home for christmas..

Ah. random thoughts resulting in an incoherent post, almost feels like the notes I take during lecture... Bleugh..

Ah... Much better....

So much for dinner, now on track to finishing the half tub of ice-cream... It's 78p btw, around $2.40 for 2 liters of Sainsbury Vanila ice-cream. Eating the ice-cream with the Cadbury chocolate and oranges left over from cell. Much better than the dinner I had. And yes, as you can tell from the number of entries I'm blogging in the span of a day, I am getting quite bored... also thinking as I'm blogging what I need to get done. But shan't bore you guys with the details yet.

My freezer is too small! Had to take out the beef I had to make space for my ice-cream. Left the beef in the fridge compartment for about a day now... Trying to finish the ice-cream to make way for the beef. Ordering the tiny fridge we have requires military quality logistics!

Ah, getting tired, think I'll turn in early tonight, and get up really early tmr and walk around the city, just like I did on the first day. Really like the city at dawn, unfortunately haven't had the discipline and time to enjoy it that early.

The joy of self-sufficiency and Cooking!

Blogging over a dinner of left over curry chicken and plate of rice with suspicious origin.

Opened the fridge just now to find the left over rice dried up. Checked my damp rice...Smelled quite pungent. Decided I'll do a little experiment and see if these two samples of rice would have any effect on my stomach, so dumped the whole bowl of dried up rice and some pungent damp rice into the pot and boiled them... Just consumed it with the left over curry chicken, which was better than the rice, feeling a bit disgusted at myself now...Originally thought of incorperating the damp rice into the dinner menu tomorrow, but on second thought, I think I shall just dump it (into the dustbin)... eewwww...

Back to what I had intended to blog about - self-sufficiency. It is quite a fulfilling feeling, and there's no way to feel more self sufficient than by being able to meet one's most primitive need for food! Quite happy at myself for learning how to concort a whole meal for myself, by myself - no instant canned food, no maid, and all the nutrition of a home cooked meal!

My family will be so proud of me : P

I came to Cambridge with my barang barangs, and now I'm going home with culinary skills! As Yao Yu puts it, we came here to pursue mathematics as our secondary degree, and cooking as the primary!

Just thinking, after seeing what we can do with the equipment and facilities here, the kitchens we have back home would be considered a luxury! We certainly will be much more comfortable in the kitchens we have at home!

Think I'll help out in the kitchen at our weekly family gatherings! Would be a refreshing change from always playing the computer or being too bored... But the thought of hanging around the aunties and maids for extended periods of time is making me feel quite awkward... Maybe I'll rope in the cousins too!!! Sam, if you are reading this: Muahahahaha! We've just found a new activity!

Can just picture this happening: going out after church for lunch, brainstorming over lunch what we to do for dinner; going grocery shopping for the ingredients for dinner, and carrying everything back to execute our plan! The adults can step aside, and let Generation Y take over the kitchen!

Actually, come to think of it, why don't we cook at cell back home? The easy availibility of cheap, good hawker center food??? We are always looking for affordable, fun activities. Why not cook?! Shall propose this to cell when I'm back home!

Can just hear all the adults cheering at the proposal, and Sam and Jon being a little sceptical, sheryl throwing in ideas of dishes to make, and my sister and michelle just being indifferent. Haha, so looking forward to going home...

Oh no, my stomach is churning, and i'm letting off gas smelling as pungent as the rice I just consumed :S I think I'm beginning to feel the effects of.... Blog later... nature calls :S