The day my supervisor and I went shopping

Today, last week, I went shopping with my supervisor. Weird, I know. It went like this..

One sunny afternoon as I was just stepping into the office after skivving off somewhere (actually, just stepped out to meet one of the reps from the students union to discuss on the freshers fayre), office mate informed that my boss was looking for me. He (boss) normally does knock on my door once in awhile when he has this brilliant idea and wanted me to try it out. We just had our meeting a few days back..and I haven't done much on it. Not wanting to be scolded for not following his trails of thoughts, if he does touch on the subject if I see him straight away, I got down to skimming the notes of our last meeting. 'Skimming' is the operative word here. Done that, I quickly took my notepad and rushed down to his office.

"You wanted to talk to me?"

"How is your work?", he said.

"Yeah..i'm working on the programming"

Then he started to explain again the stuff that we have gone through. And there I was thinking (not really listening)..he is so nice to me here...I am blessed with this supervisor. After a while, I was just about to say, "Yes, I'll get on with it" and wanted to go when he said..

"The second thing I wanted to talk to you about is..Do you have a driving licence?"

Apparently, he just bought a car and the tank was almost empty. He just had 15 driving lessons and hence he can't drive it to the petrol pump himself. He needs a favour and I told him no problem at all. So, I am to meet him at his house on Saturday at 10am.

Saturday came, I was late ..for 3 minutes. Greeted by the wife and asked me to come in to see the babyyyyyy..Coeeeee. Baby just woke up..cute and she has an English name..more appropriate i guess. After saying goodbye to the wife, I jumped into the car.

Now this car is weird. I can't even turn the keys to start the ignition..It is one 'tight' car. Furthermore, it has this safety card where you need to insert it at the same time as you put the key in the ignition. Either I am too used to the Japanese and Malaysian cars that I can't seem to turn on the ignition or maybe it is just one dodgy car. After reading some stuff on the web, I know now that Citroen is one quirky manufacturer.... security package, fitted to all models, is its ignition key. As well as acting as the remote control for the vehicle's central locking for the doors, hatch and fuel filler, it incorporates a computer chip that provides a series of rolling codes, where a new code is used to unlock the doors, etc., each time it is used. This key also contains an electronic transponder that, when placed into the lock, matches an encrypted code with the vehicle's computer, enabling the fuel and ignition systems..... Anyway, we managed, finally, to get the car started. We ended up, him starting the car and me driving.

After filling up the petrol, and get my pants splashed with it..don't ask me how. We went to one of the nearby to get his shoppping. I have already done my shopping just the day before, so off I went to the clothes department and left him to do his shopping. After browsing and trying out and browsing and trying out again (whilst talking to my mom on the mobile), I finally bought a long skirt -white-background with splashes of colourful flowers (which reminds me: you've bought it- wear it!!)

At the entrance, he was already there - waiting for me ..heh heh. I guess men are more effficient when it comes to shop. He was suprised to see me dangling one tiny plastic bag. I guess, he thought that I would buy loads to shop. Sorry, but I am not going to show you one of my 'bad' habits, shopping i mean.

We then drove back to his house. He did invite me in for lunch. Naturally I declined. I had to, I saw him buy lots of 'things' that I can't possibly eat.

Next door neighbour

The neighbour next door came and say hello. He has been here, in the department, before the term started. We normally just say the perfunctory hi-s and hello-s or smile when we meet at the corridor. But today..he came and introduced himself. Not sure where he originates from, but from the name, he is certainly not British (I am sure he is not Russian either like the neighbour down the other door, whom I still apply the theory of perfunctory conduct with). Coincidentally, H is doing biology. Mathematical biology that is. And when he knew i was doing something in that area. He was asking me this and that and ...I was grappling ok.. Boy, he sure knows his stuff. Which reminds me, maybe I need to brush up on mine la.

Our demented pipe

9 Sept 04, 19:49

Discovered that the waterhole pipe behind the loo showed signs of leaking. The tenant was the one who found out about it. We wanted to fix the problem ourselves rather than do the other dreaded thing..that is to call Mrs.D the landlady. Mrs. D is nice and all but one can't help feeling, when talking to her on the telephone that you are facing the school headmistress or something. She talks in the most thespian of manner even though by the sound of her name, i think that she's polish. She lives in London and has NEVER visited us since we last moved in about a year ago. That suits us extremely well.

About 9 months ago, we did call her about a 'house-crisis'..it was the ceiling. Well, the ceiling was kinda not at its proper place.. it was 'on the floor' rather than 'up there'- in short it collapsed, a huge square piece of the ceiling, and it was not a pretty sight. It started out as a water-stain on the ceiling- then crack - then the whole thing collapsed. The collapsed ceiling was the one directly underneath the bathroom upstairs. We figured that it must started from a leaking pipe or something. The plumbers (two of them came seperately - from difft companies) couldnt figure out the source of the leak. We knew that it was water that cause it because we can see from the hole in the ceiling that there is a sponge, heavy with water, held up by a layer of plastic sheet. After analysing and grasping the 'technical phrases' used by the plumber when he assessed the damaged, we braved ourselves to call Mrs.D. But first, we put our heads together to compose a perfect telephone script..with a starting salutation of

'Hello Mrs.D'..'How are you?'

A script designed to report a distressing condition yet ensuring that the listener will be at ease. Alhamdulillah she was allright with that. But she didnt even come to check the new ceiling. All she wanted to know, was how much. The cheaper the better. But we dare not take any risk this time. This time, she just might come and see the condition of the problem herself. And with the state of the house at this moment, I prefer she stayed away.

The fact is, the house has had its days. I am being rather paranoid about these things but I can't help it. It is really difficult to find a house in this small English town, with the university not helping much on the accomodation even when you're a foreign student.
Anyway, back to the pipe story. The pipe does not gushes off water like the one in the picture up there. It just drips off water once in a while. We decided to just use a sealant to seal off the leakage. So, we bought a bottle of sealant from town. We squeezed it with all our might, we did, but the glue just wouldnt come out from the tip. When we bought it we thought that it was just like the glue that you used for pasting paper and stuff. We thought..this looks easy..squeeze the bottle and glue comes out. But the bottle is not the squeezable kind, nooo..we found out after 5 mins of squeezing action that we need to push the hole at the bottom of the bottle. Then after a fruitless 20 mins, we only realized that unless you have won the olympic for pushing a glue hole bottle you might just see any semblance of glue. That is when after reading the instruction again...... third paragraph, first line it says..

"Use a standard sealant gun".

Off I went yet once again to town to get the 'gun'. Have no idea how the gun looks like and found that it looks like this... Took it home, after much struggling to figure out how in the world does this gun is supposed to work, I managed to get a decent dollop of glue from the tip at last. Phewwww... But if I was asked how is the pipe?

..It is still leaking.

What he thinks of me

He sent me an email asking me to come over at 'any stage' to sign a progress report. It was an internal review that he has written about me. He said,

"You can take it away, read it and sign"
"Or you can sit here and read it" (showing me the 'slouched' chair that I usually sit on during any meeting.

"Err... can I make a photocopy of it?"
"Yes"

And I rushed down to the photocopier room to read the review (while jumping up and down..gladly no one was around). This is how I get excited..ok!.. A review from your supervisor is something truly sacred. All year long you have been having thoughts inside your head like..what if he thinks this of me ..or that of me..and this piece of paper can sort of make the picture a bit clearer. Reading the review, Alhamdulillah, has made me a degree motivated.

Test

Aug04008
Originally uploaded by n.a.

A gift from city of shenzen, China

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Food festival in town

We arrived late, nearly noon. Got a parking space in town and headed down to the white-washed marquee area which was already buzzing with people. Most of the visitors were busy sampling food rather than buying them, well not all, but we were definitely one of them cheeky ones. This food festival is a place for farmers to showcase their wares to the public. It was quite interesting. We had a taste of crackers with home-made jams, crackers with chutney (apparently, the English got hooked to this Indian delicacy some time back), then some deliciously looking fudge (it was reeeallly rich, i dun think I like it much). There was one stall which was selling vegetable root crisp, i.e crisp made from thinly sliced sweet potato, beetroot etc. It was sold in very small packs, no bigger than the palm of your hand but with a price that would make the aunties who sell crisps like these in the 'pasar malam' in Malaysia laugh their 'tudung' off. One of the stalls was even selling a garlic peeler for £17+ pounds....daylight robbery if you were to ask me! The participating stores were not that many but nevertheless the weather was lovely. At 10 to one we had to hurry back to the car when we realized that we hadn't pay for the parking ticket.

Kitchen dream

I dreamt that our kitchen is tidy, white and shiny. No clutter on the cabinet top. Everthing tucked away in compartments. A perfect dream.

Wedding off

It's over. A joy shortlived. Mum sent text messages to all 4 of us girls that the other party has called the wedding off. Reason being irreconcillable differences. What breaks my heart is that the people who are saddened the most are mom and dad. Everthing happened for a reason and only Allah knows best. I'm still going back though.

A prayer

Some days there are trying times when you wish that you are not two continents and seas apart from the parents. And that you know at this moment they might need you there for support physically and mentally. And all you can do is pray that they will ride this storm in the smoothest of ride.