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I am just reading my about page – something which I haven’t changed in a long time now. There was this quote in Chinese, which must be given to me by Ning Ning or one of those Chinese girls back in Japan: “即使他想要将自己归于一处土地，其实也没有一个地方可以真正包含所有的他。反过来也是，他有多于一个可以回去的地方” – It roughly translates to, “Even though he wants to bound himself to a place, there is actually no place which could accept all that he is. Or another way to look at it, he has many places he can return to.” I think that really summarises me very well. I don’t really belong anywhere, I don’t really have somewhere I could really call ‘home’. I remember my grandma used to always ask me before I board my plane for the UK, “Do you not consider Hong Kong as your home? It’s strange, you grow up here, you speak the language, you have family and friends here but yet you don’t consider it home.” I think there was a big part of her which wanted me to feel at home in Hong Kong, but I knew the day I left Hong Kong for good, I couldn’t really go back. Perhaps that was the reason why she asked me to buy a house here in the UK.

It is days like this, Eid, where I feel most at lost. In the Islamic tradition, you would spend tomorrow with family. Yet, I don’t really have a family here. My brother and I live together, yet, he doesn’t see much value in festivals such as these, and he has classes 9am-5pm. To be honest, I never used to too. As I said in my previous blogpost, most Muslims see me as a convert. There aren’t much hope for people like us because most of my non-Muslim friends wouldn’t have a clue about my need to worship when I could be out playing fireworks. Most of my Muslim friends who celebrates Eid belong to a community where I do not really want to impose my presence upon. Hence, here I am, stuck between the two seas, always doing my own thing.

Tim invited me to Oxford tonight to play fireworks and to celebrate his birthday. Ednan invited me to his place tomorrow morning for Eid with his family in Aylesbury. Yet, I am having such an identity crisis lately that I don’t want to go to either. Perhaps this is the beginning of the demise for me. The more I think about it, the more I get thrown into the edge of my mind where everything becomes all dark. It is times like this where I need religion to make me sane and happy.

I am then reminded of all the things I have in my life. All the good friends, all the families scattered around the world, my brother (and his cooking), my parents in Hong Kong, my grandmother, my Quran Teacher…Then I think, man, I am so blessed sometimes I am not thankful enough. On this blessed day of Arafat, where Muslims all around the world save up their money to go on Hajj to stand on Mount Arafat where Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, gave his last sermon (or Kutbah in Arabic), I am reminded of all those who are less fortunate than me, who has lost their families in the Arab Spring, who are orphaned, blinded, disabled – and I really think I have nothing to complain about compared to them.

Steadfastness is one thing which I have to learn. Sometimes being dead center, staying at the point where the two seas meet, is one of the hardest things to do.

As I sat there in Tajweed class today, I realised some of my duas were answered. As some might know, I wanted to work/volunteer for Charity for a long time. My teacher and my fellow classmate both works/worked in Charity. My fellow classmate who is Libyan works very closely with Yusuf Islam, or better known in the western world as Cat Stevens. They are starting a new small charity, and perhaps with time, I could be involved in a few projects they do. Slowly, slowly I think I could work towards helping humanity. As a humanitarian, I am happy being able to help.

I came across something in my reading lately, “The ego is an enemy, and an enemy should never be trusted. It is in effect the worst of enemies, as the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him has said, ‘Your worst enemy is your ego which is between your flanks.’” The last 10 days I have been fasting, really trying to break my ego, but sometimes I wonder what has been broken – my ego or me?

What have I figured out? – This is a long long road. Sometimes things which you think may be good for you might end up being bad for you, and things you thought is bad for you might end up being good for you. I pray that God forgives me for all my shortcomings, for all that I know I have done wrong and those hidden from me. I hope that this will be a turning point for me to become a better human being.

I have been having a few days where I have been feeling quite unease generally. After work today, I found a dead pigeon lying there at the wheel of my car which was parked there since the morning. A flood of sadness rushed through me. Perhaps life is quite fragile just like that pigeon.

Now that we are 2 weeks into Ramadan, I suppose one thing which is glaringly obvious to me is the lack of Muslim friends I have. Nonetheless, I am exteremely blessed in this month as I have finally taken the decision to learn the Quran. On top of that, I have been given 2 big boxes of dates by my fellow Muslim friends. So much that I think how on earth will I ever finish it. Dates for those who reads any holy texts would know is a blessed fruit as most of the prophets used to have them. On my table there is a big box of majood dates from South Africa, although I was told it could potentially be from Israel and another box of Sofry dates from Medinah a total of 2kg worth of dates from supposedly the most blessed land on earth.

In terms of the fast itself, I am totally used to it. 12 days have come and gone already. Ever since 2 years ago, I have come to appreciate and like Ramadan for it’s spiritually calmness. The more religious side of me feels the connection to God Almighty, and this year especially, I feel the disconnection to this temporal worldliness. More time than not I feel at total tranquility and euphoria. Zen.

The trouble I have is the tiredness. Ever since I have been given the green light to nap, on returning home, I dose off for 2 hours easily. Then I will break my fast at home and cook something easy for dinner. Once in a while, I have company of Randy for dinner. Afterwards I would go to the mosque for the Tarawih prayers which can last for 2 hours easily. This prayer aims to complete the entire Quran in 1 month. The problem with living so far north is that the prayer doesn’t start until 10pm meaning by the time it finish I will get home at 12ish. Nowadays is better as the chapters are shorter and the prayer starts earlier. The routine starts again in the morning at around 3am when I wake up to cook something light. Sleeping again at 4.30am. Waking up again at 730am to go to work.

This made one thing clear: I need to get married soon. I find it very difficult to do this all by myself. So if anyone knows any decent pious Muslim girl who would make a good wife for me, let me know.

Leading on from the post on Shahwah, I was reading the Qu’ran (3:14-17) and it was as if God spoke to me

The life of men is tempted by love and desire for women, children, the hoarding of treasures of gold and silver, branded horses, wealth of cattle and plantations. These are the comforts for the transitory life of this world; the everlasting best comfort, however, is with Allah.[14] Say : “Shall I tell you of better things than these, with which the righteous will be rewarded by their Rabb? There will be gardens beneath which rivers flow, where they will live forever with spouses of perfect chastity and the good pleasure of Allah. Allah is watching His servants very closely.”[15] The righteous people are those who pray: “Our Rabb! We sincerely believe in You: please forgive our sins and save us from the agony of the hellfire;”[16] who are steadfast, sincere, obedient, and charitable, and who pray for forgiveness in the morning time.[17]

So yeah…back to this transitory life, aka dunya, the branded horse – how does an Audi A3 sound? I say tempting!

Do you think that you will enter Paradise without any trials while you have known the examples of those who passed away before you? They were afflicted with suffering and adversity and were so violently shaken up that even the Rasool and the believers with him cried out: “When will Allah’s help come?” Then they were comforted with the words, Be aware! Allah’s help is ever close.[214]

They ask you what they should spend in charity. Say: “Whatever you spend with a good heart, give it to parents, relatives, orphans, the helpless, and travellers in need. Whatever good you do, Allah is aware of it.[215] Fighting has been made obligatory for you, much to your dislike. It is quite possible that something which you don’t like is good for you and that something which you love is bad for you. Allah knows, and you do not.[216]

…..

Shaitãn threatens you with poverty and prompts you to commit what is indecent, while Allah promises you His forgiveness and bounties, and Allah has boundless knowledge.[268] He grants wisdom to whom He pleases; and whoever is granted wisdom is indeed given a great wealth, yet none except people of understanding learn a lesson from it.[269]

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Those who live on usury will not rise up before Allah except like those who are driven to madness by the touch of Shaitãn. That is because they claim: “Trading is no different than usury, but Allah has made trading lawful and usury unlawful. He who has received the admonition from his Rabb and has mended his way may keep his previous gains; Allah will be his judge. Those who turn back (repeat this crime), they shall be the inmates of hellfire wherein they will live forever.[275] Allah has laid His curse on usury and blessed charity to prosper. Allah does not love any ungrateful sinner.[276]

In these recent weeks, I think I have started to loose sight on a lot of things. Perhaps of all things I have lost is tawakkul – trust in God. There was this lecture by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf on the purification of the heart. For a while now I feel my heart hardening. If you share a notion that the soul resides in the heart, when the heart hardens, the soul seems to hide away. I try to remind myself of tawakkul, the metaphor where God is like the wind and I am like a leaf flying around, landing wherever I am suppose to land.

I feel myself becoming impatient, and at times, in a state of despair. Indeed, a true believer in God should never despair because ultimately a true believer can never lose in life. From the previous blog posts, you see a broken man in despair, and in many ways it shows signs of weakness. Weakness, not as we conceive it in a society-level, but weakness in terms faith.

A while back, I sent a text message to a friend – “I feel my heart again”, in which he replied, “Is this supposed to be for a lady friend?” – no, that was not what I meant! I was watching Channel 4 news where they went to Somalia to film the Somalian Olympics runner running in Mogadishu. As you may or may not know, Mogadishu is probably one of the most dangerous cities in the world. You can get shot for wearing the wrong shirt. For a long time, I felt rather emotionless, until after watching that report, I suddenly felt like I wanted to burst out in tears. It was there and then I felt my heart again. Without anyone to share that eureka moment with, I impulsively texted him “I feel my heart again”. I guess I am a rather random person by default, so it is not much of a surprise to get such texts from me.

I was just sitting here, reading some stuff on internet that I realised I have lost tawakkul. I’ve lost my patience with the situation I am in, and the inability to see my future. However, perhaps one should never despair so much to a point of no return.

For some of you, you may know I’ve been looking at getting a new car. I’ve been looking at a BMW for a while now. What was it that I said to a friend? I think I said there are only 2 things a man really wants, 1 is a girl and the other is a car, and I guess since I don’t have the former, the latter will quench some thirst. BMW is a symbol of status and power – the ultimate companion of a successful man. HA! Such thoughts have been soliciting comments such as “You sound like you have a personality disorder” from those around me. It is a bit ridiculous to think that I have no better way to spend my money than to spend it on a BMW. Ironically enough, when I got off my Yaris to go swimming, I got an email notification on my phone from Muslim Aid: “Poverty kills a child every 4 seconds”. I thought, hmm, perhaps God is trying to tell me something. Of course, I entertained that thought for a good 2 minutes and started looking out for BMWs in the car park.

Ahh, I am so ashamed of myself. Yet, I can fully justify to myself and those around me why I want a bigger car with a fast and furious engine: Because I can.

I really want to feel my heart again. There is this Hadith which says near the end of time, a man shall walk by a grave and wished he was in it. We may all laugh at Harold Camping for his outrageous predictions, but we can’t deny, the end is nigh.

Still wondering what the title means?

“In the Arabic language, the words هَوَى [Hawaa (i.e. desire)] and شَهْوَة [Shahwah (i.e. desire)] both mean ‘desire.’ But when the word هَوَى [Hawaa (i.e. desire)] is used, this means a person following their desires in affairs of عَقِيدَة ['Aqeedah (i.e. creed and belief)]. And as for شَهْوَة [Shahwah (i.e. desire)], as for this type of desire, then it is that other type of desire that every individual has inside of themselves that we ask Allaah – سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى – that he gives us the strength to control.)”

And Shahwah is a disease of the heart.

An article came my way this morning. I kind of dismissed it because it was from Wall Street Journal. Had another look, turned out to be an interesting piece. Here is a paragraph from it:

Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

~ David Foster Wallace on Life and Work in Wall Street Journal online 19/9/2008

Read more here.

Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while now; More so because I’ve been feeling the itch due to many friends potentially moving to London, persuing their dreams and some making a fortune out of it. Consquently I’ve been thinking about my own career aspirations and my future. Given the austerity measures in place and the market doing relatively badly, perhaps its time to reposition myself. I do not want to go into too much details of my work. However, today, I’m starting to feel perhaps a tinkle of job satisfaction. There was an internal posting a few months ago which I tried to applied for but my line manager rejected my request to put me forward due to my ‘inexperience’, quoting that I need to work for at least 3-5 years before I can apply for that position. A couple of weeks ago I decided that instead of letting the system define my career I will try to defy the convention and approach it my style. So I do what I do best: Pull some strings, and viola, I am now considered a semi-core member of that team. Recommendations followed by commendations. If there was one thing I’ve learnt from this experience is that in the professional world, just having the technical skills is not enough: You need the people skills to get by. If people like you, people trust you, you can go very far. Thankfully I can prove myself to be someone who can deliver.

I will do what I do, and derive the steepest learning curve whilst delivering the best result for my company. I guess that is the best I can do. As for persuit of happiness, I guess we are happy when we see our value of existence.

I can blog about so many other things, but I choose to blog about patience. I’ve been feeling restless and impatient. If I think about the concept of patience, perhaps I can overcome this impatience. I suppose many things could’ve happened today. Instead, I chose to stay behind at home, went out swimming for a bit, otherwise read the Quran since I haven’t really picked it up since Ramadan. For the whole day, I felt as if the whole world had forgotten about me. However, when I think back to it, I think it was somewhat a mercy for me to taken out of the world where I can think about things that truly matters to me. I’ve made my complaints, I’ve made my ammends. Whatever I chose to say I said from my heart.

So back to this concept of patience. It is in human nature that we want instant results. I often think about planting a seed – you plant a seed, and you wait and wait and wait and nothing never ever grows. Then one day, when you come back from work, from school whenever, you found something germinating. I will possibly go on and praise God almighty for performing a miracle, however the science-hardcore purists (*cough* I mean athiests) will slap me at the back of the head and tell me about the science behind germination. That is the crux of it all. Sometimes you just have to plant the seed and let the plant grow. You can’t hurry it up. The more you hurry it up (by over-feeding it, by over-watering it, by digging the seed from the ground), the more likely you will kill it. I guess there are a lot of wisdom behind the way the world functions. In this day and age of internet broadband where the other side of the world is just a click away, we are conditioned to become impatient. I am of no exception.

I see that this is the first time I’ve dedicated an entire post to patience but it will not be the end of it. I shall return to this topic when I have wiser words.

Its been a very strange few weeks for me. There is a concept in Islam called Qadr, and its been the thing which attracts me most to Islam - of course also the certainty that this is the truth. Its very strange - this concept of certainty. Its almost boolean - you are either certain of something or you are in doubt. Even if there was 1% doubt its still doubt. For me, time after time I feel like the doubt has been lifted and what lies beneath it is certainty.

Yes, back to this concept of Qadr. One can translate it as pre-destination. I’ve still much to learn about this concept. Its the idea that everything which happened and will happen was of divine decree. However, this must not be confused with the lack of free-will. Its the idea that all our choices in life was already known, that we would’ve made the choices we made irregardless of whether there was a plan or not. In other words, whatever we will choose has been chosen by us and its already written down. So whatever happens will happen and whatever happened could not have happened otherwise. More so I believe that I am walking down the path I know I should have walked down maybe a few years back, but yet I would never have walked down the path unless everything which happened had happen to lead me to where I am at the moment. Perhaps lost, helplessness, darkness was all part of the path I’m supposed to take.

I am definitely a man of faith. If I were to play a character in Lost, I would definitely be Locke. I cannot begin to explain to anyone what I’m going through except for the fact that I believe there must be a reason - perhaps in this life and most likely be for the life after. My friend once told me truth is something I can’t handle. Now that I’ve experienced part of the truth I totally understand why its so mind blowing. When things out of the blue happens and everything comes together so eloquantly you can’t help but allow it to confirm my philosophy of life. Its a feeling of blissfulness, feeling of total trust and a feeling that its going to be ok.

I’m standing here reading Randy’s blog. I admire him for making such a decision, and I believe that he will find what he is looking for as long as he is patient. I believe the path is laid and sometimes the hardest thing is to find the courage to walk the path.

I know I’ve been led spoon-fededly down my path, but the most daunting thing is I just don’t know where the destination is. I guess this is why they call it…Destiny.

Not that there are anything definite which anyone doesn’t know about anymore. But seeing that I don’t update this blog regularly, many people who used to visit this site no longer really visit it anymore.

Well, family is here in the UK until 26th. Well, Rakin and my parents will go to Barcelona for a few days before heading back to Liverpool whilst they continue with Madrid and Dublin. I will stay here with my grand mother.

End of the month, I’m off to South Africa. It should be a lot of fun, get to meet up with a very good friend of mine, Randy. Hopefully doing some cool things over there again after all the different Moron no Tabis.

I just paid off my car, hence the broke-ness. But as YGG did correctly point out since I am going to South Africa and that I should not have any right to complain about my financial situation. But because of this situation, I have decided not to upgrade to D90, and I have many reasons not to buy extra lens for the S.A. Trip.

I am beginning to enjoy work a lot. It gives me a sense of purpose I suppose, and because of the people around me, who are mostly from Asia (and Sri Lanka), I feel more alive at work. I think I suit the Asian working environment a lot more, and this company is absolutely perfect because it feels like Asia but its in Europe. It comes with all the perks of European company such as working environment and time, and also the perks of Asian working attitude. In short, I am glad, in fact, very glad I am working here, and even though I am taking a lot of time off this coming months, I do feel a sense that I miss work -> Which is very rare for me.

In short, I am happy with life. There are some things which can be better, i.e. the social aspect - the fact that I am no longer in London means that I am feeling the chore of going back to London every week to ’socialise’. I miss the good old times. But at the same time, I know this is my destiny, and I shall wait patiently for my destin(y)ation to reveal itself.

Huh!…I never thought the day would come that I actually would wake up, put on a shirt, working pants and a tie to go to work. Still unable to iron my own clothes, I put on what I consider half-iron shirt and headed to work. Same old londoner taking the tube and all. But instead, this time I am travelling out of London into High Wycombe. I must say that its a very nice town from what I have seen yesterday, and I really don’t mind moving out there when I come back to Sri Lanka.

 

So its kindda strange that my 3 months break where I have seen a significant increase in carbon footprint has finally come to an end. And yes, strangely enough I am quite glad that I will be entering a more routine life. I am glad that I took 3 months off. I don’t think I would ever be satisfied to go straight from finish studying to entering work. Whats more? I don’t actually think that my holiday is over…3 weeks from now I will be on the plane to Colombo. Never been there, don’t know what to expect. But I think I will like it.

 

*** 1 week later…. ***

 

Can you believe this? 1 week of working life just gone…like that. Its been a crazy week in terms of commuting. You see, my office is in High Wycombe, and I live in central London. So it takes me around 2 hours to get to work. Sometimes its faster with a bit of running. But you know what? The fact that I can still wake up every morning at 6:30am with a big smile on my face, looking forward to the 2 hour commute is remarkable. The office is very spacious with large desks for about 100+ of us in the office. Of course big bosses get their rooms with glass doors whilst we hardly get a desk for ourselves. Its very different from what I am used to. Surely, there are supervisors who share the same floor space as us, but there is an atmosphere of freedom in a motivating way, which no other jobs had given me. Perhaps is the fact that there are 6 of us starting and its quite a good group culture here.

 

I can’t wait until I get a car and be able to drive to work. In a way, I could see myself starting a life here in this little town called High Wycombe. I have experienced the big cities like London, lived in satellite cities like Atsugi and now is a nice change to a small English town on the suburbs. Perhaps its the initial excitement. Nevertheless, I am excited about learning new things, but moreover, it is the structured training which I like. Its unlike AK when I was free to do anything, and that nobody cared if I was not working or that I had too much free time. Over here, I get the right amount to keep me going. Going to talks and presentations on different departments, learning about warehouses and finance. Its the flexibility and the technical knowledge I am acquiring everyday. Now I’m learning Oracle, PL/SQL, I will be learing C# later, and before you know it, I will be an Engineer who programs.

 

I am grateful for everything that happened in Japan. I am grateful to my housemates who helped me grow as a person. I am grateful that I could take 3 months out to do what I had always wanted to do, and do it for myself. It will inevitably make me a better person and a more sucessful person in the future. I am excited and optimistic.

Noooo! All the American series I like are coming to an end. I have just watched the last episode of LOST in season 4. Its messing with my head too much I’m telling ya!!! Ahhh, I must take my hat off for the writers of this show. It has just put a whole new twist to the story. There is no way of guessing what will come next in this show. I can’t wait until the next season.

I have climbed Fuji, I have climbed the tallest mountain in South East Asia - Mount KK, cycled the whole of Route 70 in Okinawa and I have swum faster than I could swim. It was all 1 thing which got me through it all: Determination. Sometimes I wonder where my determination comes from you know? Just like tonight, after a long long day, I’m still sitting here revising. My head is hurting and I know for sure that tomorrow’s exam would probably be the toughest of my exams. I really hope that I could do it. I can’t say I did spectacular in my previous exams, but it was all I could have done. After tomorrow 4 down, 3 to go. I just need to concentrate, concentrate and concentrate, which seems to be the hardest thing for me to do right now.

Also, I am trying to find my heart - my real heart. How come I don’t feel anything for all those people who died in Myanmar this weekend?

So, here is the deal…I am having exams. Woohoo…But I am feeling waaaaayyyy too relax for someone having exams. For one, I believe that the exams are not an end in itself nor is it that big a means to something. I am just in this transition state of nothing-ness as one would say.

I am putting more eggs in the speech recogniser I am making for my final year project than I am in my exams. Yes, I am revising hard. Yes, I don’t know that Hyde Park still opens after 7pm. I am seriously stuck in this room which is around 1/2 or 2/3 the size of my roon in Japan from 10 to 10 and then from 10 to 10 when I am sleeping. This is perhaps not so healthy as one might suggest - especially given the fact that there is no natural lighting in the room - which means that I am lacking vitamin D big time. Which is good in some ways I suppose - so I won’t take too much calcium from the hard water in the London Water. However, it might stay in my kidneys :S which is a scary thought.

I am not too hyped up about exams and that was probably why I found myself unable to answer at least 30 marks of the paper. WHY IS THAT PAPER SO BLOODY HARD?? I wish they do scale it and not take the marks as it is, because I am sure I won’t score more than 60% AT MOST. Blah…then again, exams are exams and they will happen again and again in life, and perhaps its easier to brush it off and say…Whatever!

I’m trying my best…but reality seems to surreal. I am studying Japanese for tomorrow’s Japanese Orals - and I don’t even think I can answer the questions they would ask me about my speech on influence of religion if they were asked in English, let alone in Japanese. Well, a good thing is I know God is kamisama. That is one vocabulary ticked off my list :S AHHHHHH

Ok…1 down…6 to go…

Just watching the 1st episode of season 4 of UK Apprentice. It had left me in utter shock and reaffirmed my opinion that I probably would not like it in the commercial world. Of course, it is an extreme version of what a commerce world would be, but basically, I don’t like to work with people who cares only about winning and less so the people around them.

Tomorrow I will be doing a presentation to one of Walmart’s CEO (not Scott Lee) on sustainability business proposal. I don’t think that our idea is very strong, but whatever there is, it will be workable and as long as its presented well, we will have a chance of moving on to the States next month to present it to more board of directors.

Then on Saturday I am driving a van 1/2 way across the country to help Terry move from Poole to Oxford and catching a plane at night back to Hong Kong. I really hope I can survive until then.

Its been a long time since I have to have a sleepless night to finish off my work. I have not stopped for the past 2 days, and my mind seems to be on this wheel which is rolling from 10am to 11pm everyday. Sometimes I take a break, walk in the park, grab a bite. Its good in a way, because I feel that I am living a constructive life and that I have actually learnt something this year.

Makes me more certain of doing a PhD, but at the same time, I am having concerns over my lifestyle outside work. I am thinking that perhaps it would be best that I live on my own or in halls next year if I do fail to get a PhD placement in Cambridge or Reading.

But for now, I have my cup of tea, a calculator and a pen. I will begin my sleepless night of shadowing effect on mobile radio communication networks…This is student life!

As part of my resolution to go swimming everyday, I realised that nowadays I could swim with a lot more ease. I think I know the reason - and it is because I am eating beef again. I know everyone is scared about mad cow disease or killing many cows, but we are buying from the Halal butcher from Nottinghill Gate, and the beef seems to be quite good quality.

You see, I think the beef is giving me the iron to build more haemoglobin so that I could last longer swimming.

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Apart from that, I try to have dinner with Andy (my cousin) twice a week now. He seems to be enjoying London and his work, which is good. However, as much as I admire his ability to work in the commerce world, I don’t think that it is very possible for me to survive there. Today after a chat with Mu Li, I gathered that its best to stay as an engineer. I told him what Vincent is doing since he’s choosing about the same subjects as him. But the question is why is it so hard for Chinese people to do engineering in this country, and why are they so attracted to £££???
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Heard from my brother that one of my swimming coaches passed away from a heart attack at the age of 38. Its quite a shocking news. It makes me wonder why we bother troubling ourselves in many unnecessary affairs when God can take away our lives at anytime He wants - and yet, it seems so difficult to concentrate on things which matters.

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Chinese New Year coming up. Going to have hot pot next Wednesday, asked over Andy and mentioned it to a friend from lifesaving (who joined very recently) who might be coming. I heard that Hong Kong is colder than London today. But why was it so hot last year when I went back?! I had to wear short sleeves last year. What is happening to the world? I heard Jerusalem saw its first snow in a long time, and many Middle Eastern cities also suffer from cold temperatures. I wonder why!

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I have to stop procrastinating! I should just submit my PhD application soon. It does seem odd that I will be Dr K Shah in a few years (if I suceed). I wonder if it is just an excuse to keep me in an environment where time is not a real factor and that I could have a more flexible lifestyle. I heard from Jon today that Spinvox seems quite interested with the idea of PhD…but I don’t know, they still haven’t really gotten to me about anything yet. I also saw something called EngD which seems very interesting, perhaps if Spinvox were to sponser me, I could do a EngD instead of a PhD, but it will take 1 more year to complete.

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Japanese test tomorrow…Why do I suck so much??

Seriously, there is no point in catching a bus from here to Tottenham Court Road. Whilst a night bus might only take 10 minutes, in day time, there is no way of getting from one end to the other end of Oxford Street without the temptation of getting off the bus and just walk it. [...]

My Dad is on the way back to Hong Kong already…I think he’s been looking forward to go back for a while now. But he did really enjoy Europe. Thanks all for making his stay so pleasant.

Many exciting things happened today, I got woken up by a call from Accenture this morning telling me that I have an interview with them. Then afterwards, I went to a meeting with my professor only to find out that he is going to change my topic which will be in line with something his [...]

Sports is a mind wakening tool for me. Most of the time, after a hardcore training, despite how tired I feel, I feel very refreshed, and happy. I am the sort of people who needs to keep in constant contact with people around me, and I guess I prefer to hang out with people who [...]

I think mentally preparing for something is more important than you think. For me, I rarely mentally prepare myself for something, unless its for a presentation (which to be honest, I have stopped doing) - actually, maybe because I have stopped taking these things seriously, hence I stop mentally preparing for them. There is a competition [...]

Suddenly feeling the pressure from my courses as my coursework are kicking in, and mostly programming. As much hard work as it is, I must push myself to finish it because it is only with this mentality that I will be able to do better… I think its good practice for me as well…I will be [...]

I am once again frustrated by people who try to impose conflicts and unrest in my life. If there is something to say, why must one try to take sides, especially in such a close group of friends? What good does it bring to the harmony? I can see the problem, but why must one [...]

How come I am dragged into being the one to organise London Lifesaving Competition and LIMUN??

I guess a lot of people have been waiting for this post. How should I put it? Strangely familiar would be the words I will use to describe this feeling. Well, actually, today was the first day school really started for me. For the past week, I have been getting ready for work, fitting together [...]

It was great. Just…great. I was reminded of all the fun I had when I started this club. There was Sun, Anna, Michael, Richard and I. Quite an international bunch again. Funnily enough, after spending around 2 hours in a pub (only Richard drank his beloved Czech beer, the rest of us drank juice or [...]

These are the words I will use for my feeling after these couple of days in London. Everything is so…European. The gray sky, the dryness, the people. Its strange though, I kindda lost that “homey feeling” to London - the feeling that I belong. Somehow I feel like I am complaining a lot. In actual fact, [...]

I really need some rest - ever since coming back from Atsugi, I don’t think I have had enough rest. I felt such a great sense of calmness until coming back to Hong Kong, when I was told something to which he claim would cause me to have more trust. Trust is a very funny thing. [...]