Week 9: 1st half

Monday morning was very cold. The temperature was around 6°C. I can even see my breath! Yup very cold. Some people wore winter outfits. I guess Autumn is finally kicking in. We also noticed leaves turning yellow and falling off the trees. Hard to believe Summer is only finishing now. Also explains all the Summer sales everywhere.

I tried the Maggi instant noodle that was sold here. Maggi costs £1 per 5 pack. That is a few ringgits more expensive than in M'sia. It taste different though... also looks different... it's more yellow... and less tasty (I'm talking about the chicken flavour. Not curry flavour.).

Tuesday we had class as usual in the morning then went home. The fun part started at night. Around 5.30pm we went to The Bridges Shopping Center to join in on the big event called the Student Raid organized by the Student Union and some sponsors. For this night only, Students get various special discounts and offers for respective shop outlets. It really was a raid. I've never seen so many students at a mall before especially since there were no kids or older people (except the staff of course). There was a DJ (might not be the best term for him) providing the mall with appropriate young adult music (techno, electronic, etc) and at the same time there was also another DJ booth at one of the shops that IMO had slightly better music (also the same genres). At an empty space in the mall, there were also some mini games available. It was quite an experience.

Wednesday is a free day so nothing to talk about there. LOL

I've never been a regular bus user but here I need to be one. So now I'm experiencing the life of riding a bus to class and everywhere else. Knowing which buses to take and what times do the buses come. Also experiencing the sardine feeling you get in a packed bus. All of these while carrying a backpack.

A special car I've (barely) managed to snap on Monday was this Honda S2000 AP1. It was driven by a lady interestingly. Lots of roadsters and convertibles here but of course I'm more interested in the Japanese ones. Haha

And while I'm on the topic of cars, I'm really liking the Vauxhall Astra design. I've said it in my previous post but this is the car I'm mentioning about below. Not my photo, got it from google. This is the VXR model.

And then there's the Renault Clio which I also like. The rear looks better though. Again I just searched google for this photo. This particular one is the RS model.

And the one in a smaller class, the Seat Leon. Another googled photo. This is the Cupra model.

Fin.

Week 8

To explain the title of this post, basically this is week 8 in the university's schedule. Eventhough we just started our classes, it's recorded as week 8. It's just like that because the counter follows the lecturers' working period. So you can say that they were preparing since 7 weeks ago. Did I mention I'm attending the University of Sunderland?

Monday has arrived. My first class, "Project Management" to shorten the name, started at 9am. The intro was very standard like any programme intros. The class consisted of all the engineering students (Automotive, Mechanical, Electrical & Manufacturing). This might be that subject that feels like common sense but actually needs some learning. Plus we got a small homework immediately.

Then we had another class at 3pm about "Dynamics & Control". This felt like a fun class. It was only for Automotive students and surprisingly... there were so little. Probably just around 20 of us. That's the norm for AE students I guess... le sigh

Tuesday I only had 1 class at 10am. "Manufacturing" class (for short) had a very good 1st impression. We were told to run a production line for a 3 pin plug. Coincidentally I was sitting in the 1st station so gg. I was in charge of putting in all the pins. We were all timed for each of our individual station products. My average time for that was 7s. BUT most were faulty products because I didn't read the instructions properly and didn't realize there were 3 different pins instead of 2 different pins lol. Anyway, almost all of my products didn't get past station 2 though because it had difficulties (not related to my mishap mind you). In the end we only got 1 faulty product done and 1 good product done (by cheating). This class is probably for all of us engineering students but we were separated to a few groups. What I took away from this class was that the speed of production equals to the speed of the bottleneck (the slowest station).

Wednesday was a free day for most of us (not sure why) but for this week it was time for the Freshers' Fair! It was so cool. There were lots of freebies (of course it's all about the freebies). There were loads of club/society booths and also sponsor booths. There was also a DJ booth outside (very cool). I ended up joining the Formula Student club. They even displayed the previous track car that they made. One of my aims during this event was the must-have university sweater. By the time I got the opportunity, the only colour left for me was green... I'm not totally satisfied with it but I still like it nonetheless.

Thursday was time for another lecture about the final project at 2pm. Standard stuff there. I might have an idea for my project already. Just need to confirm with the lecturer that I'm not way over my head. The 2 lecturers lecturing to us engineering students really reminds me of Yogscasts Lewis & Duncan lol (most won't know who I'm talking about).

Friday we had 2 classes at 12 and 1 respectively that will should last for 3 hours straight. "Materials" class (for short) lasted the full hour and it wasn't even done yet. The intro will be continued next week. You know every time you start a new year of classes, there's always that one class that you know is the most boring one. Well this is it. "Auto Design" on the other hand might be my favourite class (if not "Dynamics & Control"). Not because the intro finished way too early, but because of the subject itself and the lecturer might be the best among all the lecturers teaching us. We'll see as time goes by.

There's not much to say about Saturday and Sunday so that's that. Except the fact that I found Hotwheels at Poundland. I bought 3. Can't help it.

Car sightings that felt significant to me this week are the Jaguar XE, VW Type 2 (Kombi), Saab 96 V4, Mazda Miata ND, Toyota Supra MkIV and Lamborghini Aventador. Some modded examples are a VW Golf MkVI on air suspension, a very ratty and low VW Beetle, sleeper Honda Civic EK9 track car, street style Toyota Supra MkIV, lightly modded Volvo C30, 2 street style Nissan Pulsar, a nicely modded Mazda Miata NA and a Mazda Miata NC (modded or a certain edition). I was able to snap a few of these so below are the pics.

I might post twice a week from now on... I'm just trying out what works best lol. Until the next post. Cheers!

Plan B

20/9

What did I do on this day... probably nothing worth noting because it was a Sunday anyway. I'm typing this on the 25th btw lol. Sooooo delayed. Which brings me to my announcement below.

Starting tomorrow (which was Monday the 21st) my blogs will be weekly. Daily blogs are sometimes too short and are kinda bothersome to do everyday. I hope then, that all my posts will have at least 1 picture in it. So, until next Sunday night!

Hatchbacks and Pickups

19/9

I'm getting more fond of hatchbacks. Particularly the Seat Leon, Renault Clio, Vauxhall Astra & Corsa. They are everywhere and I like the designs. Other hatchbacks commonly seen are the Citroen C1, Ford Focus, Ford Fiesta, Ford Ka, VW Golf, VW Polo, Seat Ibiza, Honda Civic, Nissan Micra and Fiat 500.

Coming from the Borneo side of Malaysia, I'm noticing the lack of pickups over here. Back home there are pickups everywhere! Here the pickups are rare sights. I did spot the Nissan Navara, Toyota Hilux, Mitsubishi L200 (Triton and Storm), Ford Ranger and a new one for me, VW Amarok. All of them were twin cabs (probably).

Project!

18/9

Today the engineering students had a project forum (or an intro lecture more or less). We were told about everything we needed to know about the final project that we'll be doing. It's in fact quite similar to the final project I did previously for my diploma but this is more in depth and precise about the rules and so on.

Also, we got our schedules today. Everyone has their own schedule so we should only rely on our own. But most will be the same anyway. After knowing our schedules, the rescheduling of our appointments commenced. My doctor's appointment had a clash so I needed to change that to a later time.

I'm noticing the frequency of Mazda Miata (or MX5 as some would know it by) is quite high. Quite a few NB and NC doted around town.

Before coming here, I noticed Saints Row IV was on sale on Steam. It was such a bargain so I got it. Today I downloaded and installed it. I'm ready for some ridiculous off time gameplay.

Oh yea I used up 2 of my supply of Indomie. Now there's 3 left. I haven't seen any being sold here except for Maggi (which is 1 pound for a pack of 5).

Spam

17/9

Today I requested for my doctor's appointment. We had to register ourselves at the nearest clinic or practise. It was quite near. We just walked there on foot. It wasn't what I expected though because it was kinda one of those home-shop type of building. But besides that it was legit.

In the evening, we had a visitor. Turns out she was one of the previous renters of the place I'm staying in now. She came by to ask if she had any mail. Sure enough she did have some in the big pile of mail that we had.

After she left, we decided to sort out the mail pile. Lots of junk mail, mails for previous renters and also for some reason lots of free plastic bags. There were lots of papers to recycle.

For dinner I had Subway! This is only my 3rd time buying from Subway (in my whole life) but the shop here was the most chill of the bunch. I'm still such a noob at ordering a Subway...

What to do...

16/9

Today we decided to do some house cleaning. It was suppose to be clean but surprise surprise, not really. I opted to clean up one of the cupboards in the kitchen (we're just slowly and gradually cleaning up the house). Man there were lots of expired products. Seriously some of the products dated back to early 2011.

One problem that we had though, was that we didn't know what belongs to the house owner and what belongs to the other renter that was staying on from her previous semester. The other renter will only be back here by November. We can only hope that we threw away the right things.

About the garbage, we have 2 (or 3 for some) separate garbage bins. A green bin is for everything (preferably non-recyclable garbage), a blue bin for recyclable garbage and a brown bin is for garden garbage (we don't have a garden). For our area, the garbage truck comes every Wednesday. So we need to make sure the garbage bins are outside, on the street behind the houses, ready for the garbage collectors to do their work. Quite a nice and neat process they have compared to my place in M'sia.

Ow yeah, Happy Malaysia Day! If you're happy anyway. I know some aren't.

Short Cut

15/9

Today we were supposed to complete our enrollment processes at 2pm but we went there earlier and got everything done before lunch because why not. We paid the rest of the fees, got our residence permit, finished the registrations, and we were supposed to get our student id but they were nowhere to be found. So we did what we were instructed to do and just hope that our student id will be available by Monday.

We also asked for a request letter needed to open our UK bank account. We walked to the bank just to learn that we needed to make an appointment. All of us got our appointments set on the next week which was a risk because we didn't know our schedule yet.

I forgot to mention it was raining throughout the day. It rained almost everyday since we arrived. But so far, the rain was sort of a drizzle. Rain and wind. Yeah it was cold.

Otw back to our house, I took the opportunity to snap a very familiar sight that we'll be seeing everyday from now on.

This Proton Wira is always parked on our road. Quite a nice reminder of my own car back home.

Other than that, I should also mention that we've been consuming way too much mayo while we're here. Potato salad, coleslaw, egg sandwiches, all filled with mayonnaise.

1st Day of Freshmen Week

14/9

For the 1st time, we rode the bus to the other side of Sunderland, to St. Peters. We were attending the 1st few freshmen lectures about our studies here and all that stuff.

After the morning lecture, we went to Tesco. Finally! We just went there to get our lunch (from the cafe) because we didn't have enough time to shop atm. But we did come back to shop in the evening after the rest of our lectures.

During another break time, we decided (somehow) to go to the National Glass Center. There we watched a couple of demonstrations about creating glass products. It was quite a cool (or should I say hot) experience. badumtss

At night when our schedule was done, I decided to clean up the rent house a little bit. I found lots of expired stuff in one of the drawers in the kitchen. Some dating back to early 2011. Also, in a cupboard in the dining room, there were plenty of empty files from previous student renters. I'll be taking some of that.

And here are some random pics from that day.

New Castle

13/9

Today we planned to go to New Castle. So we grouped up and went to the University metro station.

It took us about 20 minutes (I think) to reach our stop in New Castle. We walked around and ended up in a building called "intu Eldon Square". We surveyed all the prices of things and got to know more about the lifestyle here.

For dinner tonight, we opted for a buffet because why the hell not. It was damn pricey but holy shit was it great. I'm not one to take photos of food but I assure you they were soo delicious. Except for a select few... but overall I loved it! I was stuffed.