Weekend of beautiful weather - LUBE & Cambridge

I was jio-ed to two different activities (incidentally by the same person) over the final weekend of November. Committing to these meant studying only the nights before for two tests on the following mon and tues, but by then I'd alr had one of my most enjoyable weekends since coming to London. Therefore, special thanks to Denise and also the UMC style of just go only - no regrets man!

I really like this picture hahaha.

Quite aptly, the first event was the LUBE (London University Bouldering Event) round on Saturday, 29th November. [Skip down to Cambridge if you've got no interest in a climbing waffle :)]

There were last minute calls for 2 girls to join ICMC's teams, which was how I ended up half-pulled-half-jumping in. I'd never have considered joining alone coz (cui-ness aside) it's a lot less fun and more scary. And I rmb being genuinely excited - this comp join for free and for fun, so no pressure (or so I thought xD).

[Before the comp itself, there was this obstacle called London's Transport System to get past. I swear, Singaporeans have ALMOST NOTHING to complain about regarding public transport. We have it DAMN good alr please, but sadly we've been spoiled by our own high standards. And don't get me started on cost - a single tube journey within zone 1 in peak period costs more than getting from Pasir Ris to Boon Lay station and back. So anyway I've forgotten the details, but there were disruptions to train lines (planned/unplanned I forgot) that made route planning so difficult we spent an hour trying to figure it out. It got to the point where I felt like some divine power was trying to prevent us from getting to our destination.]

About a third of the total boulder area.

Early that morning we found ourselves at the White Spider climbing centre - an ulu but awesome looking place. The comp had a foreign format - carnival style, 25 routes, flash-10pts, 2nd attempt top-7pts, 3rd attempt top-4pts, following attempts no points, self-scored (no route judges). K la, I got 50 points meaning the routes I could top I flashed, and others I couldn't top within 3 tries and just stopped attempting after that. Good: really forces you to flash and attempt wisely. Bad: no points after 3 attempts = no point trying again. Downer... there were quite a few routes that I knew I could do (after some 10 more tries...).

So yea, I didn't know what to expect, but even then, I felt like I didn't do fantastically well. Hahaha nvm, it was still enjoyable, plus we got to play in the cave after the comp! That kind of huge cave is rare, and it was damn fun to heel hook all along this super long roof route. But by then I was tired and sloppy and kept coming off D: In the end, fingers and wrists were sore and I was aching mildly the next day => proof of effort and price of experience? :) Really glad I went for it, it was meaningful. And the skies were so awesome after we left the gym.

[Bonus mention: I thought I'd be the only one with the Bouldermania 2013 shirt in London. Hoho, the moment we stepped out of the changing room, standing right there was another guy wearing the exact same shirt. An awkward, shocked second later, a "Nice shirt." was exchanged and I went away.]

Sunday, 30th November saw me up early again, this time off to King's Cross station. Where this sticks out of a wall:

Hahaha maybe it was the early morning or the lack of crowds and despite the magic of my childhood, all it looked like was a sad trolley half stuck out of wall...

The hearsay was true: Cambridge is like a prettier Oxford. I don't belong to the level where I have friends to visit in Cambridge so I was just there for the place haha. The day was spent like that: wander around (it's not big), go to the town centre, the bridges and into any college open to visitors. Also got to go watch a trampoline competition, which (though small) was interesting since I'd never seen it live before.

The first college we walked into - first impression set the bar v high.

Back to the place. It's so nice... Really peaceful atmosphere, perfect for... studying and strolling around to destress after that. The weather was once again awesome - sun was out for most of the day and it wasn't v cold. Cambridge is like one of those places that has a walk-into-a-painting kind of feel, and I think the pictures do a better descriptive job than I can with words.

Soap.

Imagine this in the spring/summer!

When I think about it, most of my traveling involves walking and more walking around places. And that turns out to be one of the best parts of student travel. Sometimes tiring, but only on foot do you get the most immersive experience. Every turn and corner can bring smth unexpectedly worth exploring. Rather than looking at a picture, you feel part of the picture. Smth like that.

Of course, the other best part of student travel is going around with friends. There is this well-known fact that not everyone can travel with everyone, and even close friends may not be exempt from that "rule". But I think I've been mostly spared from that thus far. So I count myself extremely lucky really, to have friends whose company I enjoy, and the added bonus of going around all these beautiful places with them. [Hopefully they like traveling with me too xD]

Dun think I've ever seen ducks so orderly.

I like how the purple bits showed up after autocorrect.

Those two sunny days really lifted my mood. And for the record, those two tests were easy and I scored well :)

Venting some steam

If I were my younger self and less in control of my temper I'd be raising my voice at someone. But no, I shall use this space to voice my petty problems instead. Get rid of some bad energy so I can channel the rest into completing my tut due tmr.

So today I flashed my first 2 yellow problems (V2-4). Instead of "yay! I did a yellow!", my head immediately went "easy route that's why I can complete". I was doing ok colour-wise but still felt off and went back with a slight ache.

Then, I was told that fish curry would've to be postponed :(

THEN, the bus broke down. In SG, the driver issues a ticket for a free transfer. The driver was then walking round the bus checking for smth, and 2 more buses had alr arrived. So I followed everyone else and tapped into the next bus.

That itch of irritation was turning into smth else by then. When I saw my card value and realised I'd paid the fare again I let out a small f.

But nvm, small things. Just that (not just based on this alone), I can see v little reason to complain about SG's transport system now.

Brighton - Sunset and Pebbles

The weekend following Oxford saw me heading down South to Brighton - a coastal place known for being pretty in summer. I'd had my reservations because of what ppl were saying, but it turned out that it's not so bad in the autumn after all.

Cheap train tickets (£10.40) meant leaving early and returning late. Hence, I was up before light and on my way to South Ken station at 6:45am. When it's that early on a Saturday morning, you get a really different view of the station underpass compared to normal.

Felt like a zombie RPG.

Brighton itself was at first a rather sleepy place, but that's our fault for going too early. Shops don't open till 10 plus and so we hobo-ed around till then, taking some time to stroll in a loop around the neighbourhood and even go into a playground for some childhood fun. [This playground really reminded me of the one at Pasir Ris Park. The one I used to play in, with the spiderweb (a much smaller version here) and the wooden shaky bridge, which are both long gone now.] 

10am. Shop opening time! And we were right in saying that here, 10am open really means "set up shop at 10am", not "prepare to receive customers by 10am". But differences aside, at least the shops were finally open, and first up, Open Market, where I found myself being extremely tempted by quite a few finger foods. [Having bfast early also means getting hungry early.] Bought some cheap flavoured cheese in the end, while D left with a bag of 10 pork pastries (which we all got to pinch ^^).

Trombone squash that got tired trying to climb out and simply ended up hanging there.

It was raining on and off throughout the day, but it was heaviest when we were walking through Brighton's North Laine (I think), so we took shelter in a small shop with a turnstile entrance. Only it wasn't a small shop - turn a corner and the shop actually spread across a few lots, and even had a second level. Talk about a deceiving front, but we happily browsed all round the second-hand everything-also-have shop until the cloud went away.

Good for browsing without objective.

When the skies finally cleared, we headed to seafront where we ended up spending the rest of the day (or should I say daylight). In the UK, the sea is a rare sight unless you live in a coastal town, so this was a treat:

After we were done behaving like tourists, all it took was a short stroll for us to arrive at Brighton Pier. For description purposes, it's like a giant jetty loaded with many recurring fish n chips and waffle/crepe stalls, and oh, an amusement park right at the end. I think we were dying of hunger by then, so we simply walked up to a random fish n chips stall and ordered. Three of us were happy with our scampi/cod n chips, but poor D's adventurous mindset left him with a rather pathetic meal. None of us knew what a saveloy was (in defense, it does sound like a species of fish), but he ordered one anyway, without chips. Turns out that a saveloy is a single, thin, slightly-long sausage.

With lunch done (after much donation of chips), we took a walk around the amusement park and it brought to memory the Escape theme park. [I'd only ever been there once when I was 7, weird since I lived so near... But it closed before I was old enough to drive the karts on my own - which I'd been wanting to do since my only visit there :(]

Fast forward a little and we were ducking for cover again in a fishing museum. It's a good thing that the heaviest rain comes in spurts here, and we were out on the beach again in no time. The beach is pebbly! Having never been on a pebble beach before, the sensation of walking on the beach was a bit strange. At least the shoes didn't get any granular intruders. Ah, and being on a beach where everyone was in jackets and long pants was weird too. Disregarding that, there were many nice photos to be taken coz the sky was such an amazing blue! We all were commenting on how the colours look better in the photos than in real life hahaha.

Trudging along on the pebbles got a bit tiring, so we retreated to the pavement and continued walking parallel to the sea. Some 30 mins later we arrived at the colourful houses (actually I think they're more like storerooms for equipment) that C had been looking for. They were cute. And I think no two houses were the same colour.

Despite being only about 4pm at that time, the sun was due to set soon, and the crepuscular rays were about to show. [We'd had quite a nerdy discussion on that thanks to D.] It was quite a nice end to the day, with four of us squeezed onto a bench facing the sea, watching the sun get engulfed by the clouds. There were no break in the clouds for the anticrepuscular rays to be visible, so we headed back the way we came from, for dinner (so cheap and filling compared to London!) and the train back.

Bonus: camera's night vision makes everything look like its blazing.

Bonus: 4-flavoured pizza (which was too big for me to finish), and dessert for just £7.50!

Oxford

[I've left this post so late that I've alr gone to Cambridge. Think this still deserves a post for itself haha.]

Oxford wasn't boring, but it wasn't all that exciting either.

Return tix were cheap so we got up early on a Sunday morning to go to a place well-known across the world as home of some of the smartest minds around. [ICL beat Oxford to 2nd this year though ^^] Slept almost all the way there.

We came into Oxford before 10am, and some of my first and best impressions of the place was formed by these:

Like spray paint against the sky.

Brings to mind elmo.

There's beauty in the simple things - not always, but stopping to look is sometimes rewarding.

First up, the Bodleain Library - or in a more commercial sense, the Harry Potter Library. I was gonna have to take their word for it since the library was closed to visitors :( Same for the Great Hall in Christ Church. So the second impression I got was that we spent a lot of time visiting the outside of places. I can't rmb if these places were used as filming locations or whether the sets were modeled after them, but it would've been nice if we got to go in.

The outside of the library.

Some more wandering and we arrived at a covered market where we had lunch, and here I learnt that it's cheaper to dabao than to eat in. Apparently you pay for a space to eat your food. Works for me haha.

Another part of our plan was to rent bicycles and cycle to {insert forgotten place here} about 2.5 hours outside of Oxford and back. There were plenty of barriers to this plan. Firstly, the cycle shops here are no ECP rental giants. The one we visited had only 3 cycles for rent. Secondly, sunset was getting earlier and even at that time, 5 hours cycle meant returning in darkness. So we scrapped the plan :(

Instead, we spent the rest of the day wandering (some more) around Oxford on foot. Good company helped dull the mundane-ness, found myself laughing at quite a few random things [I can't rmb what exactly anymore, I just rmb laughing] because someone started and set the whole group off. Would've spent more time in the Oxford Musuem of Natural History, but simply flitted around the aisles. There's always the London one which I haven't been to anyway. Brought to mind the internship days, where the 3 of us could spend hours in museum exhibitions coz we literally read through everything.

Ended up walking through a park and deeper into a trail area. Wasn't expecting this sort of outdoor stuff in Oxford, but outdoor stuff is usually pretty :)

That... pretty much rounds up the Oxford experience. It's a small, quiet place - much like a prettier Derby I feel.

Retrospect: Half year

It feels like I've been away for a long time.

It's strange. Part of me is inclined to say damn fast 6 months pass alr, but the other part feels like I've been around forever, and there's still a long way to go. I rmb the days in RR where every Fri we'd be going "it's Friday alr/again??" and in no time we were wrapping up our internship, and preparing to move to London. I haven't gotten that feeling since.

Maybe it's smth to do with studying (which I don't enjoy hahaha). Not to say I haven't been enjoying myself - weekends are spent out exploring and I can climb with awesome ppl again. But weekends always pass wayyy too fast, and weekdays... Dunno la, maybe it's coz of the current period where there are lab reports to do and tests to study for. And I'm tired.

Or it could be that I'm finally starting to miss home?

Not bad alr la actually, it took 6 months for the novelty of living in another country to die down. And technology only makes clearer all the things I'm missing out by being away. [Like I got to watch a Skyped live-feed of my cousin's wedding dinner and see all the nice food my sis was blatantly eating in front of the screen.] It's an invaluable experience to be living overseas and all, but in my current state of mind, 7-8 months to go before I go home seems a v long time. I think I need a holiday haha, so happy that there's just 3 more weeks till the end of term!

I'm glad I started keeping a blog. Now I think back (and read my old posts), a lot has happened over the past half year. In Derby: we, the lost sheep had to find our way quickly, and the beginnings were difficult and frustrating. There were painful lessons and uncomfortable times, but I think the balance still tips towards an immensely positive experience. The work was at times v challenging, but we were always surrounded by warm and helpful ppl. We also had our trusty little Kalos (which had to be patched up after a bit of misfortune by my hands xD) which took us to beautiful places all over the UK. In London: all the stories were true - it's so much more exciting than Derby (and more ex). I've made many new friends since coming here. There's always smth to do [whether or not I have the energy is a different story haha], when I'm not learning how to study again.

When doing things like aerodynamics, need to clear brain space, so details tend to fade, but thankfully I have stories of those halcyon days (lol) stored for leisurely perusal. Some of my personal favourites (from before London): Housing Problems, Story of the Lost Sheep #1, Peak District – Of Majestic Views and Sheep, Belgium 2014, Happening days.

Haha, but I haven't been as eager to blog as back then - should get the habit back. For now in brief, this weekend was particularly happening. Sunday I visited Cambridge which was really pretty, and so I've now visited both famous university towns. Saturday I went for my first boulder comp overseas - not entirely happy with my results but it was an experience (mild ache for my efforts hahaha). On both these days, the weather was the best I could've ever asked for. I'm not sure if it's officially winter yet - the warm sunlight and amazingly blue skies made it hard to tell.

Happy 6th months in the UK to myself, J and D, the REP RR bunch! How time has flown since we left our sunny island on the 1st of June, and how we've grown since then.

Unexpected amazing view from Tolworth station (29/11)

Away from London

8/11 - Oxford
15/11 - Brighton
30/11 - Cambridge
6/12 - Birmingham
13-14/12 - Oslo
21/12-2/1 - Spain + Portugal

Not bad, not bad.

Alcohol woes

So I got drunk for the first time (Kevin you're not the only one).

[Evidently, I'm more compelled to talk about this than those Oxford/Brighton day trips hahaha.]

What happened was that I saw no point in trying to do work after coming back from Brighton at 11+pm on Saturday, and the Beit ppl were having a movie/drinking session, so I decided to join in. I've always wanted to try other kinds of alcohol (apart from beer/cider), and why not since it's cheaper here.

Oh what an experience. Three glasses of vodka+pepsi/fruit juice in and I wasn't feeling anything, so I asked for a fourth helping. No warning sia - I leaned back and felt the bubbles rise sickeningly, eyeing the pile of plastic bags on the table. Somewhere around the part where the 那些年 song started playing, I asked for a bag and promptly proceeded to puke in it. Some of it got onto the floor, but my experienced drinking mates cleaned it up efficiently and effectively. [I was also sober enough to help by then.]

Learning points:

• Don't drink too fast. That's how I usually take my water/milk/hot choc and now I know it's dangerous to treat alcohol the same way.
• I'm not the noisy kind - would've prob drifted off to sleep if I'd closed my eyes.
• Puking = immediate sobriety. I'm guessing the next morning would've had been a lot worse if I'd forced the drink to stay down. Dun need say climb la, get off bed also cannot.
• Rather than feeling enjoyable effects, I get physically affected in a horrible way (even though I was completely fine mentally). Like that drink for whaaaatttt?

When I told my parents about it they laughed -.- It wasn't an off-putting kind of experience, more like the see-la-now-you-know kind. Maybe I'll drink like this again (sans the puking), but I still like beer - can just whack.

The night ended for me at around 2.30am, where I had to fight to stay awake as I brushed my teeth. And then at 7am I was up again and off to climb.

Lessons from Climbing

Today's session left me with quite a few thoughts, so I thought I'd share.

There is a technique in climbing known as the drop-knee. It involves "twisting" the leg so that the knee points downwards after a foot placement and does wonders in stabilisation, prior to making the next move. I have been taught this technique and have used it before. Yet, I don't know how to use it. What this means is that I have been taught a method which can possibly be used as a solution, but I make use of it only when someone has hinted or shown me the answer. In other words, I don't know how to apply what I've learnt.

Two particular routes (or problems) I was attempting proved this. In both cases, I read the problem and planned the moves in my head, until I came to a particular sequence that, no matter how I imagined, seemed impossible to do. I knew I would be too short to do whatever I'd thought of, and I was right - kept falling at those points. Then, I happened to watch other girls climb the same problems, and in both of my "impossible" situations, they employed a drop-knee and completed the routes flawlessly. My thoughts spelled out at that point would have gone smth like "Oh WOW, nice move. Dammit I should've known." It's like the drop-knee wasn't in my library of solutions, so even though I was physically able to do it and complete the problem in the end, I couldn't have planned it out in the first place. Thinking back, I've used it countless times, but I realise it's because ppl specifically said that it needed to be used or because I've seen the beta.

This brought to light a huge flaw in my way of learning and depth of understanding. Engineering and climbing how different? There is a problem and you read it and decide what method of solution to apply, and more often than I should be comfortable with, I come back after discussions thinking "I should've thought of that." Application requires understanding and practice (without looking at the solutions) helps. Obviously an area I have to buck up on in both school and climbing.

Lesson #1 - Even though I can do smth, it's only when I can identify where and how to apply it that I've truly mastered it.

Today I made a new friend in the climbing gym. A and myself were trying the drop-knee problem again and again and she was attempting the same problem. Inevitably, we started giving each other pointers on footwork and body positioning. (She was the one who first did the drop-knee on that problem.) Eventually, we all managed to complete the route, but more important was the conversation that developed throughout all those tries. It started from the mutual intention to progress further on the route, then to the climbing background/how often do you climb, and by the end of the day, we were chatting like long-time friends as we walked to the bus stop together. Best thing was, we only exchanged names at that time.

That's smth I love about this sport, everyone and anyone can want to help each other. And that's great, because it's difficult to spot mistakes and alternatives when you're on the wall - it's a better view from the outside than when you're staring intensely at the next hold. Competitors or random strangers can become friends. Different school, different team, different nationality and all - hardly matters.

Lesson #2 - There is a common goal. If we don't have to or choose to compete, we can all get further together.

[I think applicability is limited in the rat race though.]

Lesson #3 - It can be really easy to make friends if we all know how to start communicating.

Speaking about competing, I think I will join the first comp available when I get back [heck whatever lessons I have on that Friday]. I need to start on a training plan though, right now I've just about gained back enough ability to enjoy climbing again. And I intend to simply enjoy for a while longer xD

But really, I'm glad that I've been improving. The boulder routes have been changed once since I started climbing at Westway, and this new set is awesome. So far, every time I visit I've been able to do some routes that I wasn't able to do the previous times - a sure sign of improvement! It's unlike a few weeks back, where every time I came I was unable to do any more than I'd previously done.

I think I still prefer to climb with others. [The only time I climbed in Derby I climbed alone and it was totally depressing, both in terms of my performance and the atmosphere.] Aside from the help and encouragement, and live demo, I can tag my performance to those of others. Someone whose standard I should match, someone whose skill level I should aim to reach in the near future, and someone whose rapid improvement I can be inspired from. But it's not a matter of competing against them. It's not about "losing" every time other ppl do better than me, but realising how I can use their examples and learn to do as well as them. There's like a continual competition with myself, always wanting to be better than I used to be.

Lesson #4 - External influences govern improvement to significant extents, but without my own drive, there will be no improvement at all.

K la, enlightened. Time to sleep.

Climbing Outdoors in the UK - ICMC Freshers Trip 2014

(Fri - Sun, 24th - 26th Oct)

If you've seen my bloody hand on FB/instagram, here's the reason. I spent the last weekend scrambling up and over grit stone in the Peak District with ICMC. I kinda jumped at the chance to climb natural rock again, and it was nth short of fun (though painful)! [Grit stone is what it sounds like - gritty, like super coarse sandpaper, and hence the subsequent damage. It's different from the limestone (I think?) in Batu/Krabi. Those weren't that rough but I haven't forgotten their sharp edges.]

Sun before we hardly saw it again

But superficial injury fortunately wasn't the main highlight of my experience, which was nth like any previous climbing trips I've been on. The weather was crazy. Mildly wet + cold + super windy = not v comfortable conditions for doing any sort of outdoor activity, but I guess that's part of the package - you climb outdoors in the cold, wet and windy, or not at all. I piled on layers to climb and my harness (sized for t-shirt and tights) had to be adjusted almost to the max. My feet didn't hurt when I wore my climbing shoes too! Then I tried to wiggle my toes and realised they had fallen asleep in the cold.

The climbs

The first boulder with some easy routes

On Sat we went to an area called Stanage, more specifically, The Plantation. First time bouldering outdoors! Although I spent half the day bouldering, and the other half hiding from the wind. We picked some easy routes for starters and managed to complete them (and take some photos on top of the boulder hahaha) and I felt quite warm and ready to climb some more. Then the weather decided to be nasty and deal us strong winds with intermittent rain. The cold makes it v difficult to start climbing coz the fingers get all numb and raw, but climbing is the only way to keep warm enough to continue. I have concluded that our low level of activity this day was coz bouldering meant we were always close to the ground. Higher chance of sitting and resting and in the end feeling too cold to get back on the rocks. But I still blame the weather :/

Completed my first ever natural boulder problem!

Not the same with high walling. You're kept on the move finding routes to do and when you're belaying/tied in you're committed to climb. Which was why I found the next day much more fruitful.

The first route I seconded (inside the cavity)

A senior told us that top-roping is frowned upon in the UK. Sometimes it's coz top-roping is a "safer option" that makes routes a lot less intimidating, and hence accessible to more people. The more people go on the rocks, the more it wears down. But mostly it's coz top-roping is seen as cheating, like not true completion of a route. Here, sport or trad climbing is the way to go.

If you look carefully, you can see 2 ropes

I spent the second day seconding [ha] in Burbage North. In some ways, it was top-roping except with the extra element of cleaning (taking off) trad gear the first climber placed for protection. Mostly, trad climbers do routes easier than what they can do indoors coz of the inherent danger. The routes I did were simple (in trad grade mostly V diff), but I still struggled coz of a few reasons: (1) The weather (2) most of the climbs were cracks which I haven't experienced much of i.e. spent a lot of time experimenting and feeling around (3) I sometimes quite chicken, so I spent a lot of time testing before committing. And I was on top-rope!

Nevertheless, it was a good day of inching up the rock, squeezing my hands/arms/whole body into cracks and whaling/belly-flopping over the top. Did a total of four routes that day, which doesn't sound a lot. But I was grouped with 2 seniors and on each route all of us would climb to the top before coiling the rope and walking down an easier path, which took time. Trad climbers use 2 "half" ropes in leading up, and they set up a top-rope system when they get to the top so two people get to second up after them. [Sounds pretty garbled, but I did my best to summarise haha.] I also learnt to lead belay with two ropes - there are differences to normal lead belaying.

All cracks. There is an extra rope here from a previous climb btw.

This was also the day I got most of my scrapes and cuts and bloody fingers. I spent a lot of time feeling inside cracks for purchase and pretty much sanded my fingers and knuckles down without realising it. When you're climbing you're psyched and don't feel the pain, and then get a shock at the top. I got my first bloody flapper here, and it wasn't a small amount of blood >.< I was reluctant to wipe it off on my clothes and I didn't want to leave bloodstains on the rope. So I tried to wipe it off on a rock before asking for a passing senior for tape. My hands are pretty sore now to be honest.

The worst is under the tape. Semi-healed as of 28/10

Everything else
We were packed into 3 mini-buses along with sooo much equipment to get to the peaks and stayed in a village hall while we were there, a short drive away from the crags. There was heating which was awesome and mats to put our sleeping bags on, but no showers (not needed anyway coz it was too cold to perspire).

Packed with mats. Warm up in the mini-bus climbing over stuff.

Hole in the wall for food.

 I don't think I slept properly at all those 2 nights. 2 cans of beer didn't help one bit.

Food was great! The seniors got up early (earlier than 6.30am) to make bfast on both days for everyone - effort (Y). Also got to try ICMC chilli, and help making it (there is a special ingredient)! Cooking for 45 ppl is crazy, but an efficient supply chain always helps. The uncooked food (almost all sains basic xD) came in piles and we literally spent a few hours chopping and cooking. I wasn't hungry anymore by the time I got to eat, but it was fun to help out :) Unfortunately, I didn't get to take part in the sock game (an ICMC tradition where 2 ppl try to pull each other's sock off while suspended from the ceiling in their harnesses) :( Idea for UMC to consider so I can play? Hahaha.

Ever seen this much garlic at once?

ICMC chilli! No, it's not the chilli we know, but it was nice :)

So ended my first outdoor climbing experience in the UK. The weather made such a huge impact and I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. I think it's still more comfortable to climb in the tropics, drenched in sweat over numb fingers and toes any day! Maybe if the wind just calmed down for a moment, it would have been really pleasant weather. But still, it was great fun :) Let's see if I have the time to join any more outdoor trips before I leave.

The peaks are brown now. It's definitely colder.

Onslaught of Events

Random mish-mash summary of what I've been up to/what has happened since coming to London on the night of 30th Sept 2014.

The "more of us" finally arrived and it was great catching up again. We may all have been from different cliques in SG but this group seems to have "upgraded" a notch in closeness (or at least that's what I feel at the moment). Now that sch has started, we have been separated into our different fields, but in the first 1.5 weeks we were this herd of lost sheep roaming around the place, going for events together and choosing not to go for others, also together.

And for the first time, I have known utter irresponsibility. I guess it wouldn't have been the first time, but when I give my trust, it takes multiple disappointments before I cannot forgive again. So yes, there is an unpleasant person in question, and this person has failed to do many things, including giving basic respect to others. One should treat others like one wants to be treated, so basically, and sadly, this person deserves no respect from anyone at all.

I've started climbing again!!! Properly!!! So I've joined Imperial College Mountaineering Club (ICMC) and the plan is to climb 2-3 times a week for as long as I can. Made friends with some SG people, and this will be my climbing family until I go back to UMC. [I think we tend to gravitate towards ppl from our own country. 90% of my new friends are like from SG.] After 4 months of nearly-no climbing in Derby, I've regressed a lot. In my first two sessions I spent a lot of time on the mat coz I couldn't do much with my unconditioned fingers and unseasoned feet. And it was really quite painful. But coming back is still faster than learning from scratch i.e. noticeable improvement which is always nice. I should get a training plan from somewhere if I still want to compete next year, although the fingerboards are placed damn high up (~2m). And there's always cake on Wed sessions, baked by the club seniors :P

Went for my hall boat party on the night of 12th Sept. Was quite a cool event, with everyone dressed in formal. Winter coat activated for the first time as well, as it rained the whole night (from when we left hall till we were walking back) and it was quite cold. There was a short respite during the boat journey that allowed us to go to the upper deck and watch the riverside lights of London go past. Most of the SG group (Singaporeans really tend to clump together hahaha) are not party/drinking people, so we spent the night having our own brand of fun i.e. guessing-games. I think anyone else would've thought we were the most boring bunch ever, but whatever, I was quite happy doing whatever I was doing ^^.

I recently finished reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, one of my favourite authors. It is a children's book, but I recommend it to anyone of any age, because it's really not v difficult to enjoy a story about adventures in the course of growing up (in a graveyard). The episodic nature of the book also makes it great for those who don't read regularly, like I read it on my phone whenever I'm bored or alone.

Still meaning to write a post on the post-internship road trip. But that's still quite a few days in the making.

Other random news includes multiple shopping trips for groceries/necessities, mingling with freshers (some of them 3 years younger than me), and going for free food, and more free food. J and I crashed a mass BBQ meant for another hall (they didn't check and there was so much food anyway). Students are attracted to free food like bees to honey. Droves and droves of bees which know how to queue. I've always associated queuing with SG, but like many things, the queues seem so much bigger here. Lastly, I seem to have become semi-used to the British keyboard and sometimes find myself trying to key in a double quotation mark on my laptop using the @ key.

The Internship

This is soooo overdue, what with the moving into hall, the walking all over London, and the late nights listening to others party = where got time to blog. But before I talk about our road trip and moving to London and everything else, I still gotta talk about The Internship.

I have been very fortunate to land the internship with RR. It's a well-known company (even if many people still associate it with the cars), but I think I’ve gained so much more than just a significant name to put in my resume from my time in Derby. So many things - where to start? I’m gonna kope the template from Carina’s blog and use it here, so go over and read her experiences as well!

Socializing 

Learning more about them
"I think you did incredibly well in a very strange environment"

Being a foreigner (not a tourist) was a whole new experience for me. In the beginning, getting used to their culture meant realizing the differences in behaviours and actions, and then emulating them. Sometimes, it's simple e.g. the British don't leave their teaspoons in their coffee/tea mugs and during a meeting, I quickly saw that my kopitiam style was the odd one out. Other differences run deeper, and it is important sometimes to conform. One good e.g. is that they take recycling (as part of Health, Safety & Environment) V SERIOUSLY, and a telling-off from the cleaner is one of the milder consequences of non-conformance.

There is no need to become a fake ang moh (for Asians), but learning their culture is a must, and it's interesting too! I had fun asking and learning stuff from my supervisor. Sometimes it feels (from the amount of things I don't know), like I'm five again, and asking all those random questions out of curiosity. These are conversation topics to avoid awkward silence anyway, and I really wanted to know how come pubs could run out of food by "dinner" at 6pm. "Dinner" doesn't always refer to the evening meal here btw, just take note. Many names of things and places are not pronounced phonetically either, like we learnt in school (go look up how Greenwich is pronounced - it's not what you think!!!), so listening helps!

Making friends

There’s a stark difference in work culture as compared to SG that makes this possible. Most of the time back home, you don’t feel the same approachability with superiors even if they’re kind to you. There's always a sort of divide even between colleagues of the same level. Just an e.g., I'm not too sure I'd feel comfortable playing badminton with any direct superior in SG. Things are more chill here (relative to what we're used to), which is good for making friends! Even though it's mostly the young people in the office that we hung out with outside of work, doing what young people do, we do interact with older colleagues as well. And now even though we've left, there will always be this magic thing called FB.

Getting involved in peoples’ lives

Sounds like learning to become a kaypo, but I don’t mean it that way. I’ve posted some snippets on what we’ve been up to outside of work before, and (besides the weekend trips) most of these have been because of invitations and initiations by colleagues. Or sometimes by us actually. The point is, when you're an intern in a foreign country, you should NOT get caught up in work alone, and simply aim to be intern of the year or smth. Working hard will earn you recognition, but the best experiences come from personal interactions with the people there, your supervisors and colleagues.

I've been rapper dancing, tried church bell-ringing, and seen apple trees for the first time (along with many many other plants you won't find in sunny Singapore). This is so much more than I could've learnt from a desk and this all comes because others have let us into their lives, and in the process made our lives colourful.

Telling them more about us
I love it when conversations about culture are two-way streets, coz it's always awesome when someone is interested in learning more about the tiny island I call home. 

[They may not like salted-egg yolk or durian sweets (kinda expected lol), but being game enough to try (multiple times just to be sure) is good enough!]

Work

Google - My Best Friend

Couldn't do without Google, esp since I had to learn Excel VBA from scratch i.e. office internet down = cannot do work. My work included creating a sort of interface in Excel and obviously, there was the need to make sure people use it correctly. This means think of a solution, Google and copy code from help forums and hope it works. About 80% of the time it didn’t, which was damn irritating. But eventually, I went from not knowing how to read whatever I was copying to writing bits of my own code. Achievement unlocked!

In other, less hectic times, Google maps was useful for planning weekend trips ;) 

Freedom

I got plenty of this at work as far as I was concerned, and not (not always at least) because my sup was too busy to care about me. It's nice to not have to have someone check on you at every set interval or have to constantly report your progress, esp when progress is erratic. It takes a lot of pressure off and it's great to know that I'm trusted to deliver, which motivates me to keep up my standards. Win-win situation right? Which leads me to my next point. 

Tidbits for the future
Little thoughts and experiences don't count for much officially, but I rmb those well. Having met many different situations and interacted with people from all over the place due to my super-broad scope, I have seen quite a lot of things for an intern. I have seen positions which I can see my future self in, or see myself totally avoiding. I have seen behaviours to emulate, and also to abstain from. I have been thrown faaaaar outside my comfort zone, but could always come back to my team for guidance, a team I was comfortable with, and which most importantly, treated me as one of them.

I think when I graduate, all these experiences will come back and count in how I treat people (interns included haha) and also the path I choose. The culture in SG is different from here, and the bosses back home work differently, so not everything I've experienced will apply. I think in relative sense, working in SG will always feel more restricted and rigid, simply because Asians are like that. Whatever the case, these are memories to be treasured.

Level up!
What happens when your supervisor goes away on two weeks of holiday (extremely common here) and you have to cover some of his duties? And this happens over a crucial period and involves many stakeholders. AND you're still kind of wet behind the ears, still in need of guidance. Steel yourself and move forward.

 
I rmb remarking to J smth like "I really hope I survive the next two weeks". Turns out I didn't just survive, but went on to have some of the most enjoyable and fruitful days in my term. I'm timid by nature and, I'm not sure if this is obvious, but it's smth I have to consciously counter. In those two weeks esp, I had to 敢敢来 a lot, so that I could support rather than burden my team. Struggle is a good thing (in occasional doses) because that's one of the fastest ways to learn. In the end, I think I'm simply not so scared anymore. Which is why if I had any level up experience, it's this. :)

Life

Speaking a language that we know no one else in the office understands

Yes, Mandarin. Nice to embrace our roots in a foreign place by openly commenting on random stuff happening around us. It’s kinda like talking behind someone’s back in front of them but we weren’t being rude, I promise! xD Just little comments on what others are having for lunch that kind, for our own entertainment purposes hahaha. It's lucky that we came here where everyone speaks English and we didn't have to grapple with our problems in another language (at the beginning siao liao). And I wouldn't have known before this, but it's tiring to keep speaking proper English with a suppressed SG accent. [According to a new ang moh friend I made, Singaporeans speak in a way that "curves in weird places", which is totally true hahaha!] So among the three of us, we always had a lovely time speaking the language(s) we're used to.

Out exploring!
Frankly, there's not much to do in Derby. [Funny thing is many people tell me this, but some do get defensive when I say so. Guess we're all like that, try saying SG is boring in front of me xD] An hour's driving radius encompasses many beautiful places to visit and hence, our car was put to really good use ^^. I haven't blogged about all of these trips (either due to laziness or anti-climatic experiences), but I think you've got a gist of what we've been up to! I can never get enough of the UK countryside, and I suck at long inclined walks, but the views are ALWAYS more than worth it.

We were at the top of Mam Tor saying that our photos are starting to look repetitive. Always the same rolling greenery with the same overcast sky as a backdrop. I'm no pro photographer. I have no way of making the photos look like what I actually see, let alone capture what I actually feel. It's always just me in the same purple windbreaker. Here, my descriptive abilities fail me, and all I can say is that it's always different.

Those 15 weeks have been a blast. To my school mates, never pass up a chance to intern overseas, I think I've proven my point here. Thank you RR for having us! See you Derby, and all the places we've been, I won't be forgetting anytime soon. And thank you as well, if you've read this post till the end :)