All entries for October 2004

Big Wool Me

I finished my Big Wool project!!

When I last time saw the Big Wool in a yarn shop in Coventry, I said it was not as good as I imagined.

But after I've received the balls, I changed my mind immediately and it is acutally very soft and smooth. And because it's 100% wool, there isn't any wired feeling in my mind, coz I just don't like anything contains viscose or nylon or acryl or polyester…anything which is unnatural.

So I followed the pattern No. 29 Doll on The Big Just Got Bigger for the scarf. The scarf originally was made of two colours yarns, but I found it becomes inflexiable on the edges where I changed colours. So I decided to use 1 colour only and it actually took me only 1 ball. I also made a mistake by misunderstanding the diameter of the pompoms. I thought the semidiameter was 10 cm but actually the diameter should be 10 cm, so I made a huge pompom and realised the mistake. Therefore, I devided this huge ball into 4 small balls and attached two to each end of the scarf, and it turned out nice!

I used 2/3 of another ball to make a hat following pattern No. 23 Vinster. I wanted to knit pattern No. 16 Ona first, but there should be some problems with the pattern and the hat became very very small…or I was doing it wrong..I don't know..

Finally I used 2/3 of another ball to make a pair of mitten. This was my first time to knit a mitten by only 2 needels. I found the instruction on internet and combined it with my own imagination. I like these mitterns so much!

: 15 Oct 2004 17:01 |  Tags: Knitting |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Nice to have friends!

下午和kai去sports centre打乒乓了。在这里那么多年了才去过sports centre几次，枉费我们有三年的sports federation。打乒乓还是挺好玩的，和kai也只能打乒乓了，因为他其他的基本都不会。除了足球，篮球，那些我又都不会，所以说男生女生是很难玩到一起。我计划下礼拜周末和女同学去打羽毛球，让kai就自己找活动吧！

晚上去了同学浩家吃饭，算是个小小的party吧。但我们中国学生真是文雅，小声说笑，可不像他们的英国的party那么吵。吃完饭，4个人一起打80分，我最起码5年没有打过了，就算是5年前我的水平也都是只有给对方抱怨的份。所以我不太喜欢打牌，感觉气氛太紧张了，脑子又累，算牌记牌的，根本就不算是在玩嘛~当然如果一直一直聊天我也觉得满无聊的...所以这里的玩具店里有很多专门在party里玩的游戏，我现在最感兴趣的cludeo，我想我可能会去ebay上买一个来玩玩。

: 10 Oct 2004 01:17 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Floating Landscape

Writing about web page http://www.citydriver.net/bbs/music/n3.mp3

在来英国的飞机上看的电影：恋之风景，在三万英尺的高空感动。
片尾曲非常好听！

好不容易走你走过的楼梯
玩你玩过的游戏
做你没做完的事
这条路我也觉得好熟悉
所以我有理由怀疑你住过这里

如果思念能随时间累积
创造另一个天地
风景一定好美丽

我的回忆在哪里
让你带我去忘记
直到我忘了爱上过你
我才拿出来温习

你的回忆在哪里
让我为你好好收集
那已经成为我唯一活下去的动力

有点可惜回到了你的过去
找不到我的影子
吻不到你的呼吸

这些人有种暧昧的痕迹
和你有过什么关系
你认不认识

恋爱的风景
过去比现在还要拥挤
我在这里你在哪里
没关系

Finally I step on the stairs you used to step on,
play the game you used to play,
finish the things you left.
This street is so familiar to me
that I have reason to doubt you were living here

If yearn can cumulate along with time
to create another world,
the landscape must be very beautiful.

Where are my memories?
You allowed me to forget.
Until I forgot I was in love with you,
I took it back to review.

Where are your memories?
Let me collect them for you.
That is the only motivation for me to live.

It's a pity to be in your past,
where I can't find my shadow,
and can't kiss your breath.

These people have vague traces with them.
What are their relationships with you?
Do you know them?
(I don't really what this segment is about.)

The floating landscape,
it used to be more crowded.
I am here. It doesn't matter
where you are.

Well..my translation pretty much sucked….anyway…that's a moving song of a moving movie…

: 09 Oct 2004 01:50 |  Tags: Movietv |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Management of the course..

我这几天一直在研究关于选课，什么时候上什么课，该去哪里上课的问题。其实很简单的事情，但我却一头雾水...虽然这些问题基本上解决了，但请允许我在这里抱怨一下吧...

1. 先说课程的安排。一门课在5天时间里上完真的是好的安排吗？

第一次看到课程介绍上说，duration: 5 days，觉得好奇怪啊...后来以为所有的英国研究生课程可能都是这么上的，但事实是似乎只有我们WMG是这样的...

我认为在这5天时间里，新的内容一小时接一小时的教给我们，第一天的内容还不一定就弄懂了，第二天又有新的内容下来了。一点消化吸收的时间都没有。这就好比把七个星期的饭都在头一个星期里一下子吃完一样...

另外这一个星期里都是从早上9点，除了午饭，就一直上课到晚上6点半，不是说人集中精神的时间最长20分钟吗？那这一天的课就算我再认真听又究竟能听进去多少？更别说是这样连着的5天了...

2. 我们的选修课是别人的必修课，可我们究竟什么时候去上课？

我们的专业只有18个人，而发给我们的课程安排上只有必修课的时间表，但是有些选修课一年上好多次，我们应该去上哪一次呢？

3. 密密麻麻的课程表...

房间的安排表是如此得密密麻麻，上面全部都是缩写，光看那缩写我怎么知道是那门课？我们又不是在这里工作了很多年的老师，对课程的名字都很熟悉，我们才刚来，只能靠猜了...比方说我一开始把ECRM当作是eCommerce的简称，但实际上应该是eCustomer Relationship Management。而直到我今天去问了才知道原来eCommerce的安排还没有写在这张安排表上，怪不得我找不到，而理所当然的把它当作eCommerce，因为我又怎么知道还有eCustomer Relationship Management这门课呢？而且从来没有人事先跟我们说明这个情况，你们觉得没什么大不了的事情，给我们学生造成了多大的迷惑呀...

这让我想起另外一件事情。去年在WBS里写的功课，我花了很长的时间，很多的精力写的文章，得到的feedback上的字却是出奇的潦草。我几乎看不出一个单词来。这让我十分气愤，在我们尊重老师的同时，（中国学生比任何地方的学生都更尊重老师）老师是否也该尊重一下我们学生呢？换句话说，我们付了那么昂贵的国际学生学费，难道不应得到一份清楚的作业feedback吗？

These days I am soaking myself in choosing optional courses, deciding which time is for us to attend the lectures, and where we should go. The problem seems to be quite simple, but unfortunately I got totally confused…Although most of the following problems have been solved, but please allow me to relieve my feeling here…

1. The arrangement of the modules. Most modules are completed in 5 days. Is this really a good arrangement?

The first time I saw the basic introduction of each module in the handbook, it said, duration: 5 days., I thought how wired is that…After that I thought, ok, maybe this is the conventional arragenment in all postgraduate courses. Actually I am wrong, because it seems WMG is the only department which has this kind of course scheduling.

In these 5 days, new things are thrown at us hour by hour. I haven't quite understood the contents of the first day's lectures, and the second day's lectures have already begun. We haven't got enough time to digest and absorb all these. It's like eat all of the food for 7 weeks just by one meal…Is this called engorgement?

In addition, the lectures start at 9:00 am everyday, and last until 6:30 pm. Isn't it true that the maximum time one can totally concentrate is 20 minutes? In spite of how serious I am during the lectures, how much things have actually gone into my mind? It's even harder to continue concentrating for a whole week..well..but of course I will try my best..

2. Our optional module is others' core module, so when should I attend these lectures?

In the schedule of my course, there are only timetable for core modules. However, several modules run more than once a year, so which one should I attend then?

3. Thickly dotted room schedule...

On that sheet of paper of room schedule, there are abbreviations for everything. Part of them are explained, but the rest are not. How the hell am I suppose to know what these abbreviations stand for? I haven't been working here for many years so that I could be very familar with the module titles. For instance, at first I thought ECRM stands for eCommerce, but in fact it stands for eCustomer Relationship Management. Until I went to the department and ask, nobody has ever told me that the schedule of eCommerce is not on that sheet of paper. So that's why I made this stupid mistake, because how am i suppose to know there is a module call eCustomer Relationship Blah Blah. Sometimes a very small thing, which you staffs think it's not worth mention, can cause a lot of trouble to us.

This reminds me of something else. When I was in WBS last year, I spent so much time and effort on a piece of essay, and finally got a feedback which had ridiculously crabbed handwritting on it. I could barely understand a word. (I mean maybe it's much easier for a native English speaking student to read those.) This made me really upset. While we respect our tutors, should tutors also show some respects to us? (I believe Chinese students are most respectful to teachers than students in any other country) In other words, after paying this amount of international student tuition fee, don't we deserve a clear feedback just with several lines of words?

: 06 Oct 2004 22:19 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sick..Sick..Sick..Sick..

Tonight after my boyfriend and I had our dinner, and he was doing the washing-up, two flatmates asked us if we can clean the cooker immediately after we have cooked our dinner. And he meant REALLY clean, coz the cooker at that time was not at all that dirty. There were just a few stains on it and those even were not caused by us cooking. I mean if we have to keep the kitchen spotless clean all the time, what are cleaners for then? And every time he thought the kitchen was not as clean as he expected, he just went straight to us (even knocked on my boyfriend's door) and blamed us for it. I didn't know we had bothered him this much and why he always believed it was our fault, just because we cook Chinese food? Sorry to be rude..but I mean how sick is that?

: 04 Oct 2004 21:01 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A really fun blog!

I would like to introduce you a really fun blog which I've been reading for some time now.

梅璽閣 (梅玺阁) 之幸福生活
http://chinese.yuleshow.org/
Recommended to Chinese people, especially Chinese girls.
This blog is about a cute little girl, named 小豆子 or little bean, and her happy family. As I can remember, little bean is 4 years old now. Her mother wrote diary for her from time to time since she was born. Her father is an IT engineer and can cook like a professional chef. This family is from Shanghai, which is also my hometown, so most of the dishes are Shanghai style. I recommend the recipes and the stories about them to everyone. Here is the address: 梅璽閣菜話. I promise you will love this girl after you've read the blog. And I promise you will love Chinese food even more after you've read the recipes.

: 04 Oct 2004 17:22 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The weekend…

I went to Coventry on Sat, just like what I often did in the past three years. The city centre was pretty much the same and there really wasn't anything new and exciting.

I checked out the yarn prices in the only yarn shop in city arcade. It also costs £6.75 for a ball of Rowan Big Wool, which is the same as in most online yarns shops. Surprisingly, the yarns are not as smooth, soft and vivid as I expected, though I am still considering buying them.

I also bought two bottles of bath soak, one coconut and one peach flavour, and one bottle of massage oil. I've never tried bath soak before and it was really fun!

: 03 Oct 2004 16:20 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

So I finally went to see the dentist today…

Follow-up to Finally made an appointment from TEss's Knitting Blog

The dentist just did some regular checks and said I don't need to do anything right now. He gave me a prescription for some antibiotics, just in case it gets swollen again. It cost £13.67 (how accurate is that!) for the examination and the medicine cost about £6. I have to complete a form and send it to NHS to get a refund, so I might do it in several days.

By the way..going to coventry city centre tomorrow…hope the yarns there are a little bit cheaper…while i don't think this will be the case…

: 01 Oct 2004 15:17 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem