hmmm... haven’t update for a while. maybe after reading my last post, you think i was having a nervous breakdown or something. the truth is, i’m just back from galway, the county on the west coast of the republic of ireland.

what can i say about galway, but beautiful. there were lush green fields everywhere, a rarity in dublin. and the cliffs of moher was breathtaking. more on that later.

the journey to galway took us about four hours by bus. we were greeted by our fellow ex-matrix, jawa. he took us to rafiq’s and aiman’s house, passing through the city centre. the city of galway is certainly not as big as dublin, but it’s developing rapidly. even as we speak the construction of public infrastructures are going under full swing. that’s why currently the roads get congested all the time but i’m sure in a few months time, it will look magnificent.

the atmosphere in galway is somehow different than in dublin. it seemed less hectic and everybody is taking it easy. maybe it’s the people, or the fields or even the cows but i felt a sense of calmness during my stay in galway.

the highlight of the trip was the tour of the burren. what’s interesting about the burren i hear you ask. well basically it’s just rocks, rocks and more rocks and some fields, but beautifully landscaped. for more information, click here. there’re also some ruins, a 6000 year old burial ground, and a lighthouse. but the icing on the cake was of course, the cliffs of moher. a description of the cliffs which i took from here :

"situated in county clare and bordering the burren area, the cliffs of moher are one of ireland's most spectacular sights. standing 230 metres above the ground at their highest point and 8km long, the cliffs boast one of the most amazing views in ireland. on a clear day, the aran islands are visible in galway bay as well as the valleys and hills of connemara"

there are many tour companies that can take you there, but the one we took, o’neachtain tours was great.

wow! what a fine trip we had, a great escape from the hustle and bustle of the city of dublin. highly recommended! (now i sound like an ebay buyer)

thanks to rafiq, aiman, zaquan and zaidan who accepted us with open arms and were the best hosts we could ever hoped for.

i will be back. there’s more to see. i want to explore the aran islands and connemara. next time maybe.

more pictures of the cliffs here.

8874762

i let you slipped away.
aahh...what a pity.
my loss is other people's gain.
you changed my life......yes you have.
i see the world differently after you came.
then you left.
you left me at the place where i returned.

i don't know where i'm heading now.
i'm still searching for the guiding light
that you took away when you left.

aahh...what a pity.
a real pity it is.

take good care of her, please.

this is what happened, is happening and is planned to happen around [are we there yet?]

we're now in our first week of spring break and understandably activities have slowed down a bit. everybody just finished their exams and gladly receive the three week holiday to relax, recuperate and maybe do some travelling. there are even some who are going to london to see some concert at the royal albert hall.

the weather is changing for the better too with maximum temperatures of 17-18 degrees. it may not seem much but believe me, we welcome it with open arms especially after dublin recorded the heaviest snowfall just a week ago.

mild temperatures + longer day time could only mean one thing. football. yeah now we have the strength to kick the ball around outdoors after a five-month hiatus. oh man, i really need to improve on my stamina, was panting furiously and started seeing stars after only five minutes of footie action.

yesterday, almost 700,000 people flock to the city centre to witness the st patrick's festival parade. there were maching bands, floats and other stuff you would see in a parade. me? i didn't go. slept until noon and watched the coverage on the six o'clock news, heh.

tomorrow, a theatre entitled "mencari jalan pulang" will be performed in the royal college of surgeons, ireland exam hall at 7 pm. it is directed by bro fahd razy of rcsi and tickets are at 2 and 5 euro. all proceeds will go to the tsunami victims in acheh. so have you got your tickets yet?

macvaysia got this from here who got it from someone else. everybody in this computer lab were looking at me in peculiar fashion after i laughed my socks off reading it. i know my english is not perfect and i suspect you could detect similar grammatical errors in my blog entries, but i'm trying to improve and this blog is a great medium for me to do so.

beautiful.

it's been almost a week since i last updated [are we there yet?]. was i busy? or was i just plain lazy? a bit of both really. the truth is, over these past couple of weeks i've been busy lazying around playing football manager 2005.

i blogged about this game before and i thought that i won't be playing it after all. but suddenly i got this offer to buy it real cheap and what do you know, a few days later, i was busy clicking away.

for those who don't know what i'm talking about. fm2005 is a football management stimulation game where, as the title suggests you got to manage your football team. you can buy players, acquire coaching staff, train players, insult other managers, set up tactics, change clubs, the possibilities are endless! what's more, you can change your interface (skinning), and load your own pictures, to add in that personal touch. it's basically is 'the sims' of football and more!

what's great (or awful) about fm2005 is, the game is virtually endless. you could just click your way from season to season. so that's why it's such a waste of time. but you couldn't help it because you're curious of what would happen next. will you win that cup? can you buy that player? will you get sacked?

fm2005 is a production of sports interactive and their previous releases were called the championship manager series. but due to a clash with the publishers, eidos, they then team up with sega. championship manager still lives with a different developer, but it's not half as good as fm2005. i have played this game since it's early days, way before the 2d match engine was introduced, when all you have to 'watch' the game were flashing texts. and believe me when i say that the game took a lot of hours from my life.

apparently, i'm not alone. yes, i'm not alone.

one purpose of this blog entry is to give some advice to the people who are 'fortunate' enough to not yet play fm2005. don't!! if you love your life and don't like to stare at the monitor for very long periods of time, don't play this game. if you already bought it, then throw it away. don't say i didn't warn you.

now if you excuse me, i just bought kaka for 37 million pounds and i have a match against birmingham and i need to pick out my team.

Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported:
A person came to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: Who among the people is most deserving my companionship (of a kind treatment from me?) He said: Your mother. He, again, said: Then who (is the next one)? He said: It is your mother (who deserves the best treatment from you). He said: Then who (is the next one)? He (the Holy Prophet) said: It is your mother. He (again) said: Then who? Thereupon he (The Prophet (peace be upon him)) said: It is your father.

Sahih Muslim : 4621


I Wish I Could Tell You Mom

I wish I could tell you, Mom
how much you mean to me....
But there are no words to say
how much I admire you...
how much I appreciate you...
how much I thank you
for everything you've done.

- Author Unknown.


"To the world you might just be one person,
but to one person you might just be the world."
~Author Unknown~

studying abroad is not as glamorous as most people would think where the image is you go to the lecture theatre wearing thick jackets passing through parks watching the squirrels and the falling brown leaves and everybody’s enjoying themselves.

in fact it’s a struggle. you’ll struggle to get up in the morning, especially when the temperature outside is minus one degrees and you are in your deep and warm bed. then there’s the sudden feeling of longing you get when you think of good old malaysia. every international student i met, be it from malaysia, canada or saudi arabia just can’t wait for the summer holidays on may when they can finally put down the books (for a while) and go back home.

one more of the battles you have to fight in this war to gain knowledge is to decide what to cook for dinner. i hear some of you laughing but this is a real challenge. i can recall during the days in matriculation college, when the stomach started growling i could just go to the café and lash out two ringgits for a good meal. eating out on a daily basis is not a good option, especially for dubliners where a just-satisfying-enough meal will cost eight euros on average. that’s about RM40.

so the best option is to cook your own meals and with chicken as the least expensive protein source, your kinda stuck with chicken. we’ve tried almost anything we could, fried chicken, grilled chicken, chicken curry, chicken kurma, tandoori, chicken soup, rendang, masak merah, masak kicap, masak lemak, you name it. what else can you do with chicken? don’t mention of tom yam. i lost count of how many times we made tom yam. we even experimented a few times, throwing in any sauces or spices we saw into the pot sometimes with impressive results, but most of the time barely edible.

no, i’m not being ungrateful. i’m just highlighting the daily challenges we have to face here. being thousand of miles away from home gives me valuable experiences and makes me very appreciative of what i have. it makes me a competent cook too.

tonight it’s my turn to cook. anybody’s up for some tom yam?

we didn’t see much snow during the winter holidays and we were informed back then that dublin is not the place to seek for snow. then to our surprise suddenly it snowed for a week (not continuously), with the heaviest on the first of march when everybody is expecting for spring to spring out. but it was not to be and temperatures remain at around one degrees until today. i lost count of how many times i heard myself or others said “sejuknya….” while shivering.

here are more pictures of the white stuff outside of my on-campus apartment.

i'm sure you're familiar of the feeling i'm having right now. it's the feeling you get for a few days after the exam. the feeling of freedom and content. the feeling that's gonna last only until the results come out.