Spent the weekend in Birmingham and went to the BBC GoodFood show at the NEC with Fol. There was the whole wine, beer and spirits tasting thing going on as well. BUT.. there were free samples all sorts of finger food. I loved the free chocolate samples :-D I filled up just by taking tiny bits and pieces from one stall to another. Fol and I saw Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and sat through Ainsley Harriott's show. NYAH. I KNOW HOW TO MAKE A FLUFFY SUFFLE NOW! lol.

It was a really relaxing weekend for me, it's been a while since I had time alone (if you can call it that) just for myself. Yeshu, I've had selfish thoughts lately but you can't blame me because I'm the kind of person who loves and cherishes her alone time :-P I finished the book I was reading (We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver), it took me a long two weeks to finish. It's a good book, it depressed me in some sense and I heard from someone that it's based on a true story.. but I'll have to look into that.

Fol took me out for dinner at this Chinese buffet restaurant called Wokmania when I arrived. It's been ages since I had chinese food, so it was interesting to see what it's like in a country where rice isn't their stable food. He and I talked a lot about our ideas of an ideal restaurant and how we'd make it work if we were to open one in Brunei. I don't think he and I have ever eaten out this much since we arrived in UK, but we ended up having on Friday night at Lazeez signature at Mailbox. The lamb shank was delicious.. and we ended up eating there again for lunch today except this time we tried the leg of lamb (not much difference is there? But seriously, there is). We decided on Italian for lunch at Caffe Uno, but that place took forever to serve my salmon carbonara. I think it was about an hour until they finally sent it to us, and that only happened after Fol asked them where my lunch was. tsk!

took photos of ducks... 8-)

There was this protest going on at the Wharf, so you could see all these boats filling up and the idea was to block the Wharf so other boats can't pass through. Pretty silly if you ask me. They were protesting over the water budget cuts and kept honking their honks (lol). It was really loud. And it didn't clear up until after lunch. You could see people going "stop budget cuts!" over and over.

I couldn't get a seat on the way back from Birmingham to Nuneaton, so I ended up sitting on my luggage and scribbling my coursework answers there.. until this old guy got up and offeredme his seat because he was getting off. Once I sat down, I realised the guy next to me was studying was well.. he had all his medicine book theory out and was scribbling away while the girl across me was blabbing away on her phone about "guess what I'm thinking about".. blegh. Every bloody train I got on over the weekend was 5 minutes delayed and UK is getting so so so cold.

Nyer. Babe bought me a new scarf today :-) It goes well with my KM coat. hee I'm planning to buy a pair of Timberland boots I saw in London so I'm waiting for allowance to come in. It's gonna cost £140 a pair. Fuh. I know it's a lot but they are seriously honestly nice boots. I promise. And they're gonna go well with my skinny jeans o:-)

so tomorrow's weather promises rain. i cant bloody wait.

autumn term is OVER in three weeks!!!!!!!

xxxxxxx

I tend to blog once every two weeks when I find the time. I know this, but it's only because I'm busy with whatever the hell it is I do here. It's 730am, I feel empty.

I've got two classes to attend and then one commitee meeting, one coursework group meeting, and I've a coursework to submit. Then, when I get home, I need to get started on my other coursework which is due in next Thursday.

I've got two extra lectures to attend next week because of cancellations over the past few weeks, and then I need to start printing out past year papers and start scribbling on them.

I know that exams are about two months away at the most, but I'm already thinking about it. I really want to do well this year just to prove that I'm not some bimbo who only knows to have fun. I find it annoying how some people still can't believe that I'm in university level. Getting a rep for partying a lot (when I didn't) doesn't help.

I don't really remember what my life was like, the things I do here are usually based on my own decisions. Sometimes I feel like I'm torturing myself. I let the same thing happen every week, but I can't control it. How can you torture someone you care so much about? I don't know how much anyone knows, but I think you can see just by looking.

I miss life with you.

Things are so different here. I reminisce too much. I don't like letting go. I keep things inside of me for as long as possible and hope that one day I can bury it far enough in my heart. Burn or blow up, whichever comes first. I can't let go. I don't want to let go.

nyah.
-yas

In the last post, I said that the Bruneians were making a Brunei Loughborough society. So, guess who got elected as president? :-) I wasn't really there when they announced who got what because I was on the other side of the room at another meeting with the Malaysia Soc. In case some people don't know why I'm there, I'm the treasurer for that society. lol. So I made my speech, threw in a few things about me being netball captain, green house rep and all that. I meant them. So right now, we're under process of waiting for approval from the Students Union.

We're sending two Loughborough football teams to compete in the Brunei Student Union (BSU) games in December, that should be a blast. They might have netball as well, but December's such a cold month.. I wouldn't mind playing provided we're indoors, but either way.. I think I'd still like to play hehe :-)

in London with fol

oh god, I can't believe I spent the weekend in London and I didn't buy anything! The whole weekend felt rushed, my housemates and I were only suppose to stay until Saturday night but we ended up postponing it to early Sunday morning insead. Masnur, fol and I had dinner at PingPong in Bayswater with some friends, I was craving dimsum in Loughborough and kept raving about the place and I managed to convince Mas to go teehehe :-D Walked down Bond Street but I didn't go in to any shops there :-( Nyah. fol even convinced me that LV wouldn't let me in because I had ripped jeans. That's a lie right? $-(

I'm having a hard time managing my finances. Sometimes I wonder where all my money goes.. I think I've spent more this term than any of the past terms combined. Most of my allowance next month is going to my rent and since I've already bought a ticket to Milan (OMG IM GOING TO MILAN), I guess I'd have to really budget this month and next. In other words, just try and not shop very much (lol, ya riiigghht) when I'm there. Then I have to start saving up for the rent payment in March. I wish the goverment would sponsor rent ontop of the allowance they give us. But yeah, that's just living on the cream of luxuries. I've a nice house right now and I'm not planning to move out next year. I'm gonna park my bum here and hope that summer rent isn't going to kill me.

Bruneians on the left, Malaysians on the right and Mustanir in front! Oops, I'm in the wrong area o:-)

The Malaysian Nottingham Games were fantastic, the Malaysia soc sent down teams for netball, football, scrabble and badminton. I played netball and refereed some games, we came third/fourth over all, tres awesome. :-) Mus took a couple of nice shots of me. heeehe. I miss playing in Brunei though but I can't wait til BruNott games, that ought to be something to look forward to for next year :-) I'll be playing for DangGanazzz v5. YAYNESS!

In-class tests are finally over for me :-) They started on Friday and only finished today. I think I did pretty okay but I'm determined to do well this January. I'm hoping for a new camera if I get at least three 1:1's out of my six modules.. but we'll see. I haven't really discussed this with my mum. nyer.

Im in uni with my coursework group, feeling really sick. Our project is due in 4 weeks.. Lol not that we're getting anywhere right now. Topic atm is wat 2 put in our questionaire. Im exhausted..

The bruneians r making a society this afternoon. Ive been nominated to be the prez, but votes will be counted later so wish me luck. I'm having a hard time just trying to keep my eyes open lol

Yas xx

Im on the train now with hao, fol, syer and shu vun on the way back to loughborough.

We competed in the Malaysian Nottingham games today. It was great. Won 3 lost 1. We got into the quarterfinals and we won against notts2 but lost against the warwick 1 team. But heck, it was fun B-). Okay, will update later.

Love,
Yasmin xx

I'm just discovering the things on my new 3 network phone. I found out it can publish photos to blog (duurr..), and so if you see random oversized photos, that's just me sending photos while I'm out.. and I'll try to resize them as soon as I remember and have the time to sit down and type.

The temperature is dropping everyday and I still haven't gotten round to wearing a winter coat, it's still hoodies and sweatshirts for me. Cashmere and sweaters can wait. Most of the people I hang around with don't bother very much with what's in and out, they're just basically wearing what they're most comfortable with, be it shorts and a t-shirt or just jeans topped off with a Loughborough uni hoodie.

The other girls, say the ones from my course.. or whatever Asian chick that you see around here walk with their LV bags, Gucci sunglasses, oh I don't know.. CD boots? and perfect make up. It drives me up a wall because I promised myself that I wouldn't be like that, but oh god..how I would kill to be like that. But that would mean waking up in the morning, making sure my skin doesn't break out, putting on a 'pretty' face.. I dunno. That doesn't sound very much like me. When I really think about it, the only time I wear make up is when I know I've got time to dress up (which is like a rare occasion on school days) or I've got something going on, you know, that sort of thing. So why bother when you know no one's going to look at you anyway? When you get right down to it, the only people who really look at you are the girls, because we (me, anyway) compare ourselves to each other. I'm in uni sitting down at a table then some girl passes by and I'd look. I would probably end up making a face, it's usually just because of jealousy.. nyarr "love the dress. hate her" syndrome :-P

When I first came to uni, all I wore were basic t-shirts and jeans. I'm starting to notice that I'm begining to care about how I look when I step out of the house, how I wish I didn't have such panda eyes, how I wish my face would clear up. Oh god. No matter how many different kinds of products I use, how much effort I put in to help my skin clear up.. it's soooo not happening. :-( Nyar. I miss my facials back home.

Then there's the fact that I have to budget my money. I have to manage my money properly to make sure I'll survive the month. I try to anyway. I keep telling myself that I don't really need that jacket, that top, that skirt.. pft. You only live once, why not indulge yourself into the sucking world of fashion? Not that any of the shirts I pick look anything like what you might be thinking. It's just tops, the occasional everyday typical top you can throw over any type of jeans, skirts, leggings. That sort of thing.

I went to the Halloween Ball with some of the boys last week, I had a blast even though every now and then the thoughts of class tests, coursework etc. kept popping in but I managed to shrug that off and didn't come back until late. I even dragged myself to wake up the next day to get to a 9am tutorial.

I think I've mentioned somewhere (probably not) that I've joined the Loughborough photosoc. We have meets every Thursday evening and last night was uhmm.. a learning exprience? I learnt how to take photos at night. LOL. Yah, and I now know how to change my shutter speed, play with the ISO thingie (no idea what it stands for, but it has something to do with grainy bits in photos..), etc etc. But as Mustanir and I did last week, we came, we sat down, giggled, played with the camera a bit and left as soon as they said they were going to go walk around uni to take some night photos. I was sooo not in the mood to walk in the frigging cold, so we ran off, jumped into the car and went home before setting off again with my housemates to play netball. :-) The boys came along as well, and they still have a lot to learn about the game..but at least we're doing something together.

I wonder what's going on for the Brunei Soc that's suppose to happen in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to that :-)

10pm and I've got an early day tomorrow, playing for the Malaysia Nottingham games.

night.

love,
yasmin.
xxxx

What a state the kitchen is in lol.