Last few hours in Loughborough

I went town this morning for the last time...took picture of every single shop that i patronised before, took picture of every single stalls in the market that i visited before, took a last glance at the stall owners...mainly treasuring every single second of my journey to and fro!

Looking at the people around me, i really gonna miss the atmosphere, the friendliness and the smiles of the old Brits, the cuteness of the Brits babies, and the natural greetings uttered by strangers to me...

I went to donate my unnecessary stuffs to the Salvation army as well...so i'm left with 1 backpack (which seems to be exploding soon) and 1 hand-carry lugagge...

A few more hours left before i board the flight to Barcelona...and I still feel reluctant to leave this place...there are many more things that i still want to do for the last time in this town, and i don't have time for it anymore!

Gosh, i hate this feeling...haiz...

Ok finally it's time to pack my laptop in...

Bye Loughborough!!!

Last few days in Loughborough...

I'm back from my Scotland & last UK trips...Thanks to the flood around UK, i had the opportunity to spend most of my time on train, enjoying my last few hours of UK rail journey...will blog more about Whitehaven, Lake District, Scotland, Bath & Salisbury...(i really have to promise myself that i'll update all my travelling entries...)

Anyway, as for now i have less than 24 hours in this town...I still remembered my last few hours in Singapore when i was quite reluctant to leave for a new place and now i'm experiencing it again...the exact same feeling of leaving the comfort zone...I really wish that i can stay here longer...

Some farewell gatherings:

Last gathering with the NUS Arts Exchangers & Singaporeans at Loughborough University

@ GENEROUS BRITONS

Last dinner with our flat mates - Junius from Hongkong & Martina from Prague @ our own kitchen

Last drinking session with Eujin & Ying @ TOBY CARVERY

And the last shot with our SEP coordinator, Henk Versteeg at his office

Finally, last shot with the Loughborough University sign

Another interesting experience: Cherry-plucking session. I can pluck cherry at the comfort of my own room, isn't it amazing? And how is it possible?

Here's a glimpse of the tree outside my room during winter, spring & summer!

When i first came here, this's how the tree looked like...

After i came back from Easter trip, i was so surprised to see it blooming with beautiful white flowers.

And the tree shocked me even more when i came back from my Bath trip...It's full of fruits and they are CHERRIES!!!

Having finished plucking all the ripe fruits from my window, we went down to search for more ripe fruits. We had been plucking cherries for the past two days after dinner...since we had no fruits in fridge!

Look at the amount of cherries that we plucked daily:

It's time to continue packing my stuffs...will blog more after i came back from my Spain & Greece trip...

Till then take care!

Unbelievable!

Below is the recent email from my Design of Machinery I: Kinematics Professor:

Hi All,

I have completed marking your exams. I am under pressure to return marks to the School Administrators. If you have any further feedback on the contribution of your group members to the CW projects, you have until noon tomorrow to let me know. Marks will be finalised tomorrow pm. For your information, the range of exam results vary between 83% and 31%.Coursework marks have a similar spread too, though lower end is slightly higher. It looks like that I will have to set a resit exam!

All the best to you all.

Memis

Just to let you know, i sat for this paper last Friday...and one week after the exam, he has finished marking the papers!!! Unbelievable!!!

And there's a resit exam? There is a second chance for failures??? Unbelievable!!!

I just hope that i wont be one of those taking the resit...*cross my fingers*

I wonder when my exam results will be out...before i leave this place? hmmm...hopefully...

I am busily choosing my Final Year Project...so confused...have no idea how to choose...the description of the projects do not really tell you whether the project is going to be manageable or not...so should i rely on luck? hmmm...there're some interesting ones that caught my eyes...maybe i should just rely on my instinct and LUCK!

* widely awake...4 more hours to my train ride to Lake District*

My 'hard' work for the past one semester

Or should i say my soft work? I did not study that hard...haha...

That's the whole pile of notes for this semester...lecture notes, tutorials, workbooks, courseworks...

Now you see it...

Now you don't...

Where did it go to?

Recycling bin!

There's no way i could carry all these notes along with me around Europe...so yah that's where their fate ended up in...but of course not wanting to miss a single thing of education that i received here, all the soft copies of the lecture notes are neatly-saved in my hard disk...and i still keep those courseworks with the lecturers' comments on them...for memory! haha...

It's over!

Today marks the end of my journey in Loughborough University...I sat for my last paper this afternoon and i had this mixed feeling: one part of me wants the whole examination to end, while the other part wishes that this whole exchange programme is not coming to an end...Even though i finished my paper one hour early (not because i could score full marks for the paper, but because i had no idea what else to crap...), i chose to stay in that examination hall...treasuring every single minute that's left...Oh no, i think i'll be more melancholic when June 28th comes...the day i gonna leave Loughborough forever!

Anyway, today's paper was crap! We spotted topics (as we were too lazy to read the whole readings)...only need to choose 3 out of 5 questions...the past exam questions are repeated, so we studied those questions by hard...dividing the job among ourselves to master each topic per person...and shared the answers...We were more than ready before the examination (even got time to watch drama, 2 hours before the paper)...The paper turned out to be much different from what had been coming out...Those questions on the topics that we covered were mixed to the topic that we did not cover at all to make up one complete question...best rite? so in the end, for almost every question, there're parts that require my crapping skill...haiz...Overall, i think i can pass this! haha...

Now that exams have come to an end...i wanna point out some exam-related phenomena which happened here but will never be observed happening again in my life...NEVER...They are all once-in-a-lifetime!

1. Lydia only started revising for exams one-week before the exam started.
2. Lydia spotted questions for the exams and did not study from cover to cover.
3. Lydia watched one to two episodes of drama daily during reading week and even a few hours before the exams.
4. Lydia went online (MSN) during examination period and even an hour before the exams.
5. Lydia left the hostel for exams 20 minutes before the exams start.
6. Lydia never brought notes to the exam hall (except for open-book exam)...never did last-minute revision before the door to exam hall opened.
7. Lydia still enjoyed enough sleep daily, both during reading week and examination period...at least 7 hours a day.
8. Lydia never drank a single drop of coffee while preparing for exams.
9. Lydia experienced minimum level of stress.
10. Lydia ate instant noodles for 4 consecutive days during examination period.

I gonna miss all these luxuries (except for the last point) when i sit for my next examinations back in NUS...oh man...hopefully i still have the momentum and the energy to survive NUS days...

So finally, it's travelling time again!!!!!!!! I dont have many days left in this tiny town...

June 15th - June 17th: Lake District
June 17th - June 21st: Scotland (Edinburgh, Loch Ness, Trossach)
June 23rd - June 25th: Bath & Salisbury (Stonehenge)
June 28th - July 3rd: Spain (Barcelona & Valencia)
July 4th - July 15th: Greece (Athens, Santorini, Crete, Rhodes)
July 15th - July 16th: stranded at Frankfurt International Airport
July 16th : fly back to Singapore
July 17th: finally reach Singapore!

Check this out!

These may look very ordinary but i find them interesting...

I found these on my examination table during Numerical Methods for Engineers paper...then i thought," These must be left by the previous person using this table for exam...maybe it's an open-book exam, and the person used these to bind the notes, and he forgot to take them back...but they are so short! Maybe it's stretchable? (so i tried to stretch it, i know that's the most stupid thing to do...but yah, i still did it and i found it unstretchable to my disappointment)" Since i find these interesting, i took them home...( pardon me, I have never seen such a short string with metal attached to both ends before...)

Later on I found out from Lester that these are actually given by the university to bind examination booklets when you have more than one booklet to be submitted!!! What a smart idea!!! These strings are recyclable, unlike the normal strings that we use to bind our scripts back in Singapore...and it's so much easier and faster using these than the normal string...Briliant rite...(I know i'm the one who's so stupid...cant even figure out what they are used for,haha...)

Talking about examinations here, for the 3-hours paper yesterday, i saw a Brit carrying a banana into the exam hall, and eating it halfway through the paper...Next to him sat another guy who gulped RedBull just before the invigilator said,"Ladies and Gentlemen, you may start now!" Halfway through the paper, i also heard the clicking sound of a coke can being opened...See how relaxing the examination here is...We should learn more from them! Don't take examination so tensely...just relax...Eat the banana and drink the coke! (haha, i wonder whether i could say the same advice back in Singapore...)

Four down...one more to go...

YAYYYYY!!! the title explains it all...All my core Mechanical engineering modules are done! Management of Human Resource will be my last paper next Wednesday...and i have 5 days to prepare for that! (Luckily i have 5 days...I have never read all the readings and lecture notes for this module...NEVER!)

Both of my last papers were manageable...this morning's paper which i was so worried of turned out to be fine...should be able to pass! haha...Anyway, after 4 exams in 5 days for me (5 exams in 5 days for Lester and 4 exams in 4 days for Yanlian & Xianhong), we decided to have a GOOD & PROPER lunch (not our own toasted bread with cheese omelette & bacon, that we had been having daily)...so we headed to Edward Herbert Building, where the main eating area is. Basically the eating area in this university is cafe-style, and not canteen-style like in Singapore...We know for sure that we have to try it ONCE and this's finally the time for it...

That's how the cafe looks like...

And check out this cool technology!

Once you order and pay for the food, you'll be given a vibrating coaster and the receipt and you can take your seat. When your food is ready, the coaster will light up and vibrate...Isnt it cool?Check out the prices as well! We simply cant afford to have this kind of lunch daily...

Xian hong's coaster has lit up and vibrated!

And here are the food that we ordered:

Xian Hong's Cheese Burger for £2.60

Yan Lian's pepperoni slab for £1.85

Lester's Char-grilled chicken for £4

And lastly my 'Fire& Ice mix and match combo' for £3.95

I can choose five ingredients, the meat and sauce, and the chef will stir-fry them...Btw it was not that nice...very oily!

Four of us enjoying our lunch...

After lunch, i went town shopping with the guyz...the term 'shopping' here means 'shopping for necessary groceries' and 'window-shopping for other unnecessary stuffs'...It has been 1 week since we went town but it was as if we never go town for such a long long time...That's what you'll feel when town is your only place of entertainment. So as usual, our destinations are HSBC (to withdraw £££), JJB (where you can get cheap sports stuffs), Primark, Peacock (where you can get cheap clothes), Topshop (to look for any SALE sign) and the supermarkets (Iceland & Sainsbury's for groceries)...and that's the end of our 'shopping session'!

Tomorrow is market day again! It's one of our last few 'market' sessions...so must really treasure it! haha...

Time to start tuning in to Crunchyroll...

Two down...three more to go...

Well, the first paper was not a sign that every exam in this university is much simpler and easier than in NUS...

My second exam was indeed a tough one...3 questions were to be chosen from 5...each question has 10 parts to be solved, and each part is related to one another...choosing which question to do already took up almost 10 minutes of the 2-hours exam duration as you'll have no idea which question will be doable until u get stucked in between the calculation...

I started with the first question and got stucked (luckily only at the beginning)...moving on to the next question, i was already panicking...The next one-and-a-half hours saw me rushing like mad...(btw it's an open-book exam)...so there i was, equipped with the summary sheets, just continued grabbing the formulaes and substituting values into them...I really had no time to think, just kept on whacking every single part, pressing the calculator at the speed of lightning...and of course, my messy handwriting came back into action in this paper...

The moment i got out of the exam hall, I heard everyone whom i know taking this Turbomachinery module complaining about how hard the paper was...and not only that, they're cursing the old man! Oh...pity that old man...he had been warning our batch that we're lagging in this module...almost every lecture, he'd sarcastically commented on how lousy we are on his module...Well, he had successfully taken revenge on us! Amidst that, i still love his module...i enjoyed revising for that and solving every single Turbomachinery problem...There was once when i was so engrossed in doing past year papers, that i just refused to put my pen down till early morning...Solving a Turbomachinery problem is like piecing a big jigsaw puzzle...one unknown after another, waiting to be solved...and the moment i started solving one unknown, i just had to complete the whole puzzle!

I have no exams today...my next paper will be tomorrow - Numerical methods for Engineers. For your info, i did not attend a single lecture on this module...haha...please dont scold me first! Only 8 students take this module (inclusive of four of us)...and we were given 4 workbooks, where we can find the lecture notes and practice questions...by simply studying the workbooks and practicing thr questions, you can master the whole course by yourself. So that's what we did! There were 5 bi-weekly tests for this course during the term...so for this module, we studied for the test the day before, did the one-hour online tests and that's it- 50% of the course was done! I have officially passed this module actually,haha...oh btw, there'll only be 2 questions to be done in one-and-a-half hour exam...

After tomorrow's paper, another hard module awaits me-Design of Machinery 1: Kinematics... for this module, i really pray hard that i can pass...haiz...

ok, back to mugging time!

One down...four more to go...

Being kiasu, we left the hall at 3.30 for 4 pm paper…Then we realized that the exam hall is only 3-minutes away from our hall…so there we were joining the rest of the exam-takers sitting on the grass waiting outside the tennis centre while doing last-minute revision.

*Beware! You’ll see me making lots of comparisons to NUS*

The door to the exam hall opened 15-minutes before the exam and I was so surprised to see how big the exam table is…It’s roughly two-and-a-half times the size of the table used in NUS exam hall!!! How beneficial that’ll be for open-book exams…especially for messy person like me,haha…

The exam hall’s damn huge, much bigger than NUS MPSH 1…The invigilators wear special vest of different colors…The chief invigilator wears green vest and the rest wear blue and red (I have no idea what’s the difference between the two). He made announcement about the exam rules from the side of the hall (and not the front).

The rules of exams are really enforced here…The invigilators went around checking the pencil cases and calculators, in search of unauthorized materials. When it was my turn to be checked, he scrutinized my pencil case and calculator and then turned to me to say that my calculator is not an approved one by the university…(I was like “WHAT?!?”) that calculator has accompanied me through the rough days of O-level exams, A-level exams, and every single exam in NUS and now in Loughborough, it’s not approved?) Luckily he mentioned that he’s going to give me an approved calculator to replace that one (thank goodness they do have spare calculators!). Then he continued checking on others’. Lester’s turn was shortly after mine as he sat diagonally behind me…he experienced the same fate as me too!!! Both our calculators were confiscated…and replaced with approved ones. (After the whole exam, we found out that Xian hong’s calculator was not approved as well!)

My first paper was manageable…Not only did I manage to finish it earlier than the stipulated time, I also managed to write my answers very neatly…I checked my answers three times…and to let you know how much time I had for the exams, I even had time to put a dot on all my ‘i’ letter (sometimes when I’m in a rush, my ‘i’ will have no dot on top) and to erase some unnecessary rough workings. Xiang Hong said," I even had time to write 'Please turn to next page for answers to part (d)' in my answer sheet!" haha...

When on earth can you have such a luxury in NUS? NEVER!

Anyway, I’m currently enjoying my instant noodle while typing this entry…My dinner is not that pathetic though, there’re 5 dumplings and 1 mushroom inside my mee…(I was so tired of studying yesterday, that I decided to make lots and lots of dumplings…which can be easily boiled with the instant noodle)

Time to start studying again…My next paper is tomorrow at 4 pm again…and it’s TURBOMACHINERY – my favourite module of the sem!

Three more hours...

to my first exam in this university...Finite Element Analysis...

And i'm so so so so EXCITED!!!

I wonder how examination here is conducted...how the exam hall is like...how the seating arrangement is like...I just cant wait to find those out!

Btw my examination hall is Dan Maskell Tennis Centre...just a few steps from my hall...

Ok enough of blabbering...back to memorizing FEA concepts!

Exchange students are mugging hard for exams...

See how hardworking we are…

This is where we studied during reading week – a very high-tech room in a newly-built building, the Keith Green Building. Entering this building, you will be welcomed by automatic doors…then take the brand new lift, which has that ‘brand new’ smell on your left to the second storey, which is the highest storey of the building…then go into the office to book a Breakout room (that’s what the room is called) when it’s available…Once you leave the student card with the officer, you’ll be given a basket of items (the key to the room, a full set of markers, a remote for the projector, and a pen-like item which is super high-tech (will describe later), and an instruction sheet on how to operate all the gadgets in the Breakout room.) The room is surrounded by glass walls and the moment you enter the room, the lights will be automatically switched on for you. There is a flat screen computer at one corner of the room, a huge conference table, and lots of very comfortable chairs. There’s a screen on the wall next to the computer set, where you can project your computer screen to…and the most amazing part is that you can move your mouse by simply touching that screen with the pen-like item (mentioned earlier)…isn’t it cool? So you can click any icons directly on the screen and it’s the same as clicking your mouse…but too bad you can’t type onto that screen with that pen,haha…

The next amazing part is the ceiling. The ceiling at the centre part of the room is made of glass, and you can open or close it by simply pressing a button next to the light switches…so you can actually see the clear blue sky directly from that room (when it’s not drizzling)…and the whole room is bathed with natural light!

Enough about the description of my ‘study room’…anyway I found out about the existence of these Breakout rooms from one of my lab-mates…not many students know about this place and this explains why the rooms are readily available at any time…They are usually booked for conference…and for people, like us, for mugging!

My productivity level increased tremendously, the moment I started studying in this room…that explains why I even bothered to walk all the way from my hall (a 20-mins walk) to that room…and these were what I did in between when I was tired of studying…

*playing with the ceiling & screen*

Being poor Asian students who are trying to save every pence for traveling, we decided not to print the past year exam papers…and this room assists us in doing past year papers! We projected the exam questions to the big screen…and by clicking a button in the remote control, we could zoom in the questions…Cool rite?

By the way, for the first time in don’t know how many years, my blood is not contaminated with a single drop of caffeine during exams period…and I still enjoy an 8-hours of sleep daily…The stress level was maximum at the beginning of the reading week when I realized that I had not done much revision yet but after a few days, it has dropped to a bearable level…

The good thing of taking the same module together is that we can share the workload and the stress as well…
Finite Element Analysis, for example…a not-so-easy-to-understand module…the first paper of the whole exams. There were 4 sets of past year papers…each one of us did one set (of different year)…and we discussed thoroughly the 4 papers together…see how productive we are!

Oh btw, have i told you that there’re repetition in the exams questions especially for that module? (a phenomenon unlikely to be encountered in NUS!)

Wanna see how some of the Brits study for exams?

I gonna do the same too while studying for my Management of Human Resource module

(* cross my fingers that the weather will turn out fine during that period*)

My first paper is just less than two days away…Am i ready for it? I think so and i hope so...