Sunday 27 February 2011

"This Is Anfield" - the sights of Liverpool

On our way back from Wales, we decided to take a little detour and stay over in Liverpool. With my friends being big fans of Liverpool FC, Anfield was definitely on the agenda. Then it was time for the docks, the pier, and the wonderful city centre. I must say that, of all the places I've seen so far, Liverpool is absolutely the best. The stunning views, the vibrant city, the active nightlife...yep, Liverpool's got it all.

Here are the pictures! 

















The Beatles! The most famous group of people who weren't footballers to ever emerge from Liverpool


Of course I had to get myself a shirt!


Saturday 19 February 2011

Boy spends Christmas with his dead mother

I came across this God-awful piece of news as I was researching for a presentation topic. A three-year old boy spent the days around Christmas next to the dead body of his mother, whom he believed to be asleep and would wake up any minute.  

Here's a snippet:

"A three-year-old boy is believed to have spent  days over Christmas sitting alone by the dead body of his ‘sleeping’ mother in the hope that she might "wake up".


At one point, his grandfather telephoned but the young child calmly told him 'mummy’s asleep’.

Work colleagues in the nearby town of Lens presumed the single mother was off ill and unable to call in. Instead an aneurysm, or weak bulge in an artery wall, had ruptured close to her brain, causing the office worker to die suddenly."



Read the whole article here.


It's absolutely heart-breaking. There seems to be no father, and no one else in the home. I just hope this poor kid has some place nice to stay, and wont have any more traumatic experiences like this ever again. 

And people ask me why I never read the news. Why on earth would I want to know something like this?


Wednesday 16 February 2011

The unforgettable beauty that is Wales

Since I'm not doing that travelogue thing, why don't I just put up some random pictures from my trips? The following are from Wales - Cardiff, Bangor, and Llanberris, which is the home of the wonderful Snowdonia National Park.


Enjoy!


Cardiff Castle














Bangor View






Snowdonia! It's breathtaking-ly gorgeous.

























Next time, Liverpool.

Sunday 13 February 2011

Sigh

I haven’t been here in a while. In fact, I have been completely off blogspot. Then why is my profile view count so much more than I can remember? It’s not like a lot of people read this :/

Anyway, I can’t afford to sink into a phase of self pity – especially since I’m already feeling so down. I applied to Microsoft UK for an 11-month placement at the end of my second year of university. It sounds like I’m reaching too far, but I actually got through to the final stage, and I was down in London for my interviews.

Man, were they horrible.

It started out quite alright – I had this group exercise which wasn’t too nerve-wrecking. But then it was on to an interview. I’d already had a telephone interview and passed that one – what more could they have to ask me? Unfortunately my assessor was just too mean. He hardly wrote down anything I said, and then made up his own questions at the end of the interview – awfully hard technical questions to which my response were just “Whaaa…?!”

Let me give you an insight to my competition. There was a guy who was doing a double degree – one from University of Oxford and one from University of Manchester. I mean to say, what!? Luckily the rest were human like me, and were just enrolled with one degree at one university.




Then I had to give a presentation, which was surprisingly not as bad as I expected. We were given a mere 30 minutes to prepare a 10-minute presentation, and there I was, sitting nervously, trying to rack my brains and think of something to say, but to my astonishment, those 10 minutes passed so quickly that I was done with the whole thing before I had time to breathe.

My final interview was horrible as well, by the end my assessor seemed to get bored and started staring at the clock, waiting for the 35 minutes to pass. What am I supposed to make of that? Beats me. Maybe they shouldn’t have three interviews per person. Yea, I blame them.

So, my chances of getting through? I would say less than 20%. Was I bad? Not at all. But I wasn’t good either.  Definitely not as good as Mr. Oxchester anyway.

Sigh.