funkylady

Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts

Whoever said that I'm bad at multitasking should be shot in the head. I'm replying to a member from Peru while learning sentence construction using past and present participles in Spanish while listening to Mogwai and blogging! Kick a//!

Decided to work from home today. As usual the weather is gloomy that's why I backed out on the supposed walk along the coast of Craster. Such a pity cos I haven't been there and it'd be nice to be somewhere else away from my room. And my Reebok exercise bike. S and I decided we'd spend the day tomorrow eating crisps, wine and curry.

Although June is still months away, colleagues persuaded me to watch Romeo and Juliet at Theatre Royal and Zakir Hussain and coughed up quid for these "cultural pursuits" I reckon that's more worthwhile than doing CSI Miami marathon.

Oh and one more thing, I've signed up for the Drop the Debt fast and been avoiding telly and alcohol (or did I say carbonated drinks), well whatever, I can live without Coke/vodka so that's easy. But I think I'm cheating on the no telly bit since I'm watching shows over the net? There's always some fine print somewhere you know.

Estamos riendo sobre la traducción de la Avenue Q's "For Now," pero solo por ahora, pero solo por ahora, por ahora tenemos pelo, por ahora tenemos George Bush.. may be entirely wrong

Eso es todo por ahora. Soy excitado para decir a mi familia estoy aprendiendo español. Hasta luego!

I'm not supposed to be doing this. Blogging. I'm supposed to do my spinning for at least half an hour or a quarter, read my OU books, or practice for my ECDL. The only thing I was able to do since I got home was had dinner, which consists of leftover tagliatelle from yesterday and my housemate's baked spinach in filo pastry also from yesterday. And of course a couple or more of gaufrettes (wafer to laypeople).
I got so much distracted and pissed off by the ECDL (European Computing Driving Licence) cd which won't run using Desktop Anywhere. Okay I'm talking French but I'm too lazy to explain all these things which I bother myself with. Though I manage to send a silly email to the IT people, I think I average 2 or 3 a month. Make them work their a\\es.
I have to say I'm improving on my Spanish. I'm now able to communicate with our Spanish-speaking members (who are probably LatAm!) and they seem to be happy that they don't have to rely on faulty Spanish to English translation websites because now someone can talk to them in their language (sorta). Now I can decipher when babelfish is playing stupid. It actually translated Tumbes (a place in Peru) as 'you stumble down' wtf?
Eso es todo. Have to work on the thousand-pound course :)

Quick blog as always. Title is totally unrelated with the post, just want to post the link to my travel photos in webshot. Some shots of Hexham and Bath trip, more soon.

http://tinyurl.com/5gcx9m

Spring is coming but it's still cold. It's brighter and you can see lots of sun during the day but don't get fooled, it's 3C outside today :(

Ciao!

Just posted some photos in my long-forgotten webshots account. From our day trips to Hadrian's Wall and St. Nicholas cathedral just around the corner from where I work.
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/561693224bLoWtd?vhost=good-times


It's getting colder and colder here not to mention the frequent drizzles and howling wind. When I got home last night, I noticed that the cover of our electrical box had gone off and my housemate clearly have no intention of fixing it, bloody Gr. Ela malaka, if you're reading this :)

We're leaving early today (it's just 4pm but it looks like 6 already I barely see the sun). Have I mentioned there's a high rate of suicide in some European countries as the lack or deprivation from light causes depression? Although there's a study from the British Journal of Psychiatry that suicide rates tend to go up during hot weather, and by hot they mean 18C.

Ciao!

-I fell from the stairs last Monday and broke the heel of my boots.

-I got in the wrong train last Tuesday because my colleague and I were so angry over some unethical practices.

-I got my pc installed only yesterday after a month of persistent email exchange.

-Survived the 4 degrees temperature yesterday. I wonder if I'd survive winter, this is just autumn.

-Loving Sainsbury's cooked Indian meals: I've tried lamb rogan josh, chicken jafrezi, and chicken korma, and they're all great. Hail to ready to eat meals!

-I'm hoping to get a new laptop by end of November, a lovely Dell XPSM1330 :)

-Need to force myself to go to the gym and sign up!!

It's official, just now, Glasgow is hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games beating Abuja, Nigeria.

Just how exciting Glasgow is? You can check my previous posts :)

Cheers!

I opened my browser and saw this really cool ad from Firefox.


They're looking for 'agents' to put up 3.5-feet firefox stickers in prominent places, but you gotta have a plan, if chosen you get an Apple Macbook as grand prize. I might try putting it up at the Angel of the North statue but I'm afraid that would result in me being booted out of this wonderful, highly-developed and migrant-friendly nation who have done so much for the world.

The Angel of the North at Gateshead. Photo taken from http://www.ukswebsite.co.uk


Another fox-y update, I made the quickest purchase I've ever done in my whole life last Monday. Less than ten minutes including the PIN punching and receipt-waiting. What did I buy?
Puma Complete Trailfox image from zappos.com

This. The Puma Complete Trailfox women performance running shoes that I've been wanting so long that I can't believe I had to fly thousands of miles from home just to get my hands on. I am so walking the 12-mile length of Hadrian's Wall on Sunday, wish me luck!

It's 9 degrees today according to the news. I decided to went back to the house and change into a warmer jacket when I felt the unforgiving coldness as I stepped out of my centrally heated flat. Good decision. Here's a view of where I live atop the Metro station and some pics taken during our Saturday outing to Ikea.

Longbenton Metro Station

Ikea Gateshead

I lost my bag at Ikea. I just realised it when we were on our way back to the City centre. We went back and looked for it at the bus stop and asked the customer service staff if somebody has returned it, unfortunately somebody decided to take it home and use my hangers, candles and rugs as well as my Swedish chocolates and chips. We just decided to buy the same things again plus some extra so as not to feel disheartened over the whole thing.


Asa-chan

Losing a whole shopping bag was not too bad because I got to spend the day with Asa-chan. She's very sweet and decided I am her one-e-chan and held my hand the whole time. She would sit beside me instead of her mom and dad and I was trying to teach her how to count in English. All she managed to do was imitate my fingers as I count. I've got to learn how to count in Japanese! We hit it off really well, must be the matching clothes we wore that day :)



I went to the Millennium Bridge yesterday and joined the 140 or so students, a professor, and a smattering of activists for the STAND UP and SPEAK OUT against poverty event here in Newcastle. I know the number is quite dismal compared to the organised event in the Philippines but Britain and its citisens has a reputation of being quite apathetic about poverty in developing nations. Still, it was an achievement and it was hard work for the students who organised it. Majority came from the University of Newcastle. I met a retired professor and we'll have coffee some time to chat about his advocacy for the University to make an official commitment to the Make Poverty History campaign.

The view from the bridge was exhilarating and it was very cold and windy I thought it would tilt. It does tilt (so cool!) to make way for the passage of huge ships, it's an architectural feat. Being new to the city, I did lots of consultations with colleagues and checked out Google maps just to be sure I won't get lost, and I didn't.



The Millennium Bridge

I got home around 6 or 7 last night and was quite undecided what to eat. I'm running out of food stock and there's no Metro between Benton and Shiremoor, Northumberland Park is sandwiched in between and it's where I'm supposed to go grocery shopping as it has a big Sainsbury's very close to the station. I ended up sauteeing mushrooms, onions and bell pepper in butter and put a dash of salt and pepper. It was the best!! And I'm not saying that because I cooked it but it's really good. I'll try to cook it again when my colleagues come over for dinner some time and let them be the judge. I ate it with re-heated chicken adobo and fresh greens with caesar dressing. Finished off with vanilla ice cream. Bliss.

I got lost today going to the office. I turned right instead of the opposite and went around in circle for 15 minutes. This is nothing compared to yesterday though. I thought I badly need hangers and a trash bin and ended up buying grocery, a pillow and no hangers which I had to carry to the nearest Metro 10 minutes away. At the house, I forgot the security code and the alarm went off for about 5 minutes. I was half-expecting the police to come in but eventually got the numbers right. I learn something new everyday. Great.
It's drizzling this morning and surprisingly it's not too cold. I'm totally loving peppermint tea which I bought for 39p for 20 bags yesterday. Lots of frozen food which I thought was dodgy but ended up buying ham, no choice. Lots of things get out of stock easily because of the number of students buying stuff everyday. Will post pictures soon. Ciao.

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