A Comparison

Whether I’m making new friends or chatting with my friends back home, I always get asked the same question: which is better, Nottingham or Malaysia? I never did have a proper answer to this; how on earth you compare two completely different places? Then my parents asked me the same question, and for them, a shrug doesn’t just answer it. Now that I’ve been here for almost two months, I should know the answer to this right? So I came up with a list of all the differences that just stand out, starting from the university itself to other aspects of living.

Malaysia:

Nothing beats Malaysian prices. I am shocked at how much I pay in the UK, and I will never ever again complain about prices when I get back. Cafeteria food isn’t more than a pound (after conversion) and you can get some amazing clothes for about 10-15 pounds. But in Nottingham, each (decent) meal costs about 4 pounds, and even the ugliest possible outfit costs about 30 pounds.

In Malaysia, you can be sure of one thing – great food. I miss chilly chicken! No offense to the English people, but I hate British food. For someone who’s been brought up with a cuisine where each dish contains a zillion different spices, British food is awfully bland. Even their idea of ‘spice’ and ‘chilly’ is bland for me. Thank God for Indian takeaways.

Timings – you can have meals anytime you want. You don’t have to wait for a certain time. You want rice at 10 am? You got it. You want a meal at 1 in the morning? Not a problem. It’s so much more easygoing.

I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the Malaysian sun. I’m one of those people who prefer being cold over being hot any day, but there is such a thing as too cold. I miss wearing shorts and spaghetti-strap tops, I miss not bothering to wear three layers of clothing every time you want to step out to get some water or take out the trash.

Nottingham:

A much bigger campus – I think five to six times the size of the campus back at Malaysia. And that’s just the main campus, there are two more campuses. It’s so big that unless you’re the type who loves a good workout or have plenty of time to spare, you need a bus to get from one end to the other. Apart from your classmates and neighbors, you don’t see anyone twice in the same week. Not only that, but it’s so green and architecture of the buildings is so beautiful. You get the feeling of being in a real fancy and luxurious place.

Lecturers here are much better. What’s so different is that they all love to teach. In fact, I absolutely adore my signal processing lecturer – he loves his subject so much! Today his face practically lit up when he was talking about the theory of filters, which has got to be one of the driest subjects ever. As opposed to my lecturer for electrical engineering last year in Malaysia, who wished he wasn’t given the job at all.

Technological advancement – this might be rather geeky, but I love the system here for coursework submission. The stapler and the date stamp are all automatic, with sensors to recognize the paper. No extra person being employed just to tear off a receipt and stamp you submission sheet.

The location of the campus is great; it’s a 10 minute bus ride to get to the City, where there are streets and streets of amazing shops and brands, and where almost all the restaurants, pubs, and clubs of Nottingham are located.

Perhaps because of such a location, the social life is far better here. There are so many events organized that you actually end up missing some amazing ones because you just had someplace else to be. There are bars even on campus, where everyone goes after 6 pm.

Shopping is great here; it’s a shopper’s paradise. Lovely designs, lovely colors, the fashion here is amazing. The prices, not so much, but that hasn’t stopped me from already buying new dresses and a couple of pairs of boots.

Public transport here is great, you can get anywhere you want fairly easily, and there’s no bargaining at all, so you know that you aren’t overpaying. Not to mention discount cards for bus travel and comfortable buses (with wooden flooring!), yep, it’s a pleasure to take public transport.

Student accommodation here is so lovely. It’s fresh, clean and new-looking. Not just my hall, but all the halls of residence.  Students also get a lot of recognition here, from temporary jobs to discounts at almost every single store.

That’s a pretty exhaustive list!

First Impressions of England

Its been two weeks since I even visited my blog. I knew when I began this, that over time it’ll be hard to keep this up, but I had no idea that I would even be able to get some time to peep in. But that’s just how hectic its has been.

So I’m in England finally, it’s great to actually be here instead of just waiting and waiting for it to happen all summer. So I thought I’ll use my blog as a travelogue, and write about the places I visit and the impressions I had of them. To start off, here are my thoughts of England on my very first day.  

My first impression? COLD. I step out of Heathrow and this blast of icy air greets me, instantly making me rack my brains to remember where I’d kept a spare sweater. In most countries, airports and airplanes are generally colder than the outside surrounding temperature. Let me tell you, that’s not the case in England. My teeth begin to chatter at once, and everyone around me exclaims in their own language pretty much what I just described.  

My second impression? GREEN. The drive from London to Nottingham took just over two hours, but I didn’t see anything on the way except huge green grasslands, tall and grown green trees, green bushes, and green plants of all shapes and sizes. There was absolutely no other view. No buildings, no people, nothing. The only living creatures I saw apart from the ones in cars on the road with us were cows and bulls grazing calmly on the grasslands at either side of us.

My third impression? LUXURIOUS. Once the scenery got boring (which was within about three minutes of our travel if I’m not mistaken), I began to check out other vehicles on the motorway. And MAN! All I saw were Audis. I’m not even kidding a little bit. All kinds of Audis littered the motorway, from old, paint-peeling silver Ausid to new, shiny black ones with windows rolled down and music on full blast. Plenty of Mercs zoomed past us as well; Audis and Mercs made up most of the traffic, with a small percentage of Toyotas, which were taxis. I saw one Honda, and maybe one Ford. That’s it.

Shame.

But I love it here. And I can’t wait to start exploring. And, in the future, get myself a brand new Audi. 

PART II: It's The Weekend!

We’ve seen what’s good about the first four days of the week. What about the weekend?

I decided to include Friday in Part II because although most of the world thinks of Saturday and Sunday as the Weekend, some parts of the world, like the Middle East, recognize Friday and Saturday as the Weekend.

Fridays:

Good day to…Give up smoking. The first few days are when your willpower is at its strongest. There is no work stress on weekends, and you aren’t always yearning for that cigarette. And once you can conquer the first few days, you don’t need cigs, ever.

Bad day to…Make an important decision. According to body clock experts, we are extremely sleep deprived by the end of the week and are therefore less able to think clearly. Your decisions are most likely to be inefficient and ineffective, and could, for this reason have drastic consequences.

Saturdays:

Good day to…Have a baby. Now I know that people don’t have babies every Saturday, nor can you plan to have one on this particular day. While Tuesday is one of the more popular days to have a baby, Saturdays are the best if you want your kid to grow up successful. And which parent wouldn’t want that?

Bad day to…Drink too much. The occasional (regular for some!) alcohol binge almost always occurs on Saturday nights. Consequently, unsurprisingly, this is the day you are most likely to suffer from alcohol poisoning. There is an increase of more than 67% of admissions to hospitals on Saturdays due to alcohol abuse, as compared to the daily average.

Sundays:

Good day to…Send emails. Analyses has shown that ‘open’ and ‘click’ rates for emails sent on Sundays were highest, with over 30% of recipients opening and viewing their emails on this day. It’s also a great day to go shopping – a recent survey showed that the availability of a wide range of goods was at its highest of 98% on Sundays.

Bad day to…Cook a meal. I bet most of us thought that Sundays are ideal for cooking, as there’s not much else to do. Well, think again. Approximately 20% of the population believes that cooking an elaborate meal on a Sunday is more stressful than visiting the dentist. Now who would’ve thought of that!

So what do you think? Is there something special you’d like to do on a certain day? 

PART I: "It's Monday, Let's Go On A Diet!" What A Bad Idea.

When we think about the days of the week, it’s purely for counting purposes. We never stop to consider their significance – is there something more to them than just an idea of how much time has passed? Did you know there are some days better than others to do certain things?

Statistics play a vital role in whatever we decide to do. We decide to go on a certain type of diet because it is 95% effective, or we decide to take a job that gives us 20% more satisfaction. The numbers are significant. People who have studied these statistics have put two and two together, and found a relationship between the decisions we take and the days of the week.  It sounds bizarre, because we never really give a thought to these things. But it’s definitely interesting to note – after all, aren’t statistics the way to go about it?

Part I has the first four days of the week, and Part 2 will round off the week with the remaining days.

Mondays:

Good day to…Buy shares. It’s known as the Monday Effect at the stock markets. Share prices on Monday continue to move in the same direction that they do on Friday, making it easier to predict price changes.

Bad day to…Start a diet. 33% of those who have started with a dieting regime on a Monday have given up by Tuesday afternoon, according to a Yahoo poll. Also, the tension of returning to the workplace and the devouring of alcohol during the weekends means that you are 20% more likely to die of a heart attack on a Monday.

Tuesdays:

Good day to…Get important errands done. Our rationally thinking ‘left’ brain dominated early on in the week, making it better for routine and mundane jobs. It’s also a good day to update your Facebook page or your blog – the most number of hits are recorded on a Tuesday. Guess I’m a day late.

Bad day to…Have sex. Apparently, people hardly ever have sex on a Tuesday. Why, I guess we’ll never know.

Wednesdays:

Good day to…Go on a date. More than 40% of singles on a dating website reckon that Wednesday is the ideal day for a first date. The reason for this? Thursday. If the date goes well, you have some breathing time, but don’t have to wait too long for your second date on a Friday.

Bad day to…Be cheerful. Forget Monday blues, we are apparently most gloomy on a Wednesday. Analyses of internet blogs and writings have shown that people are their unhappiest right in the middle of the week.

Thursdays:

Good day to…Have sex. Steroids which stimulate sexual hormones peak on a Thursday, which is considered the middle of the seven-day cycle. It is also best first thing in the morning, when levels of testosterone in men and estrogen in women are five times higher than any other time of the day.

Bad day to…Go to hospital. According to a study, you are likely to stay in the hospital up to 24 hours longer than you would if you were admitted on a Sunday.  Patients admitted on a Thursday stay at the hospital for an average of 6.3 days, compared with 5.3 on a Sunday.

So there you go, that’s Part I. What do you think?

This Is What A Blog's About.

I sat down today to write something new, but, as usual, my mind became completely blank. So to get started, I started browsing blogs, and came across an article that contained blogging tips. However, it wasn’t the article that caught my interest; it was the debate that was going on in the comments section.

What are blogs for? Some people advice that a blog post must always be informative, so that the reader will go away with a new thought or idea in his mind. But isn’t that what newspapers are for? Others suggest that whatever you write about, make sure that you don’t rant about it. Nothing kills a good blog post like a rant, because guess what, people aren’t interested in your problems, and negativity in general. A blog should be useful and helpful to other people, or else it is nothing but a waste of space.

But I beg to differ.

What’s wrong with an angry outburst here and there? Besides, ranting isn’t always necessarily angry – it’s sometimes just a feeling of disappointment, rejection or frustration when things don’t go a certain way. People can definitely relate to that. A good personal rant can make for an excellent read by those who are feeling the same way, but do not have the outlet (or the balls) to express their true feelings. A child might suppress his emotions in front of his parents, but let it all out on a blog. Other children reading that blog will sympathize, and this child will feel better knowing that he’s not the only one on this planet who is being screwed over. Same goes for anyone who’s been in a similarly maddening position – a frustrated employee, a discouraged student, a rejected singer.

Rants (if written the right way) can also be quite humorous, so where’s the negativity there? Sure, it might be a problem that’s being described, but with a satirical spin on it, which can make for quite an enjoyable read.

Lastly, saying that people aren’t interested in negativity is like saying George Bush is extremely intelligent and did not deserve to have a shoe thrown at him ( I watched the video of this for the umpteenth time this afternoon, you can check it out here). Misery loves company, remember? There are a gazillion people in the world who would like nothing better than to read something depressing, either because they a) love telling other people what to do, b) are good at giving advice, or c) feel slightly satisfied that there are other people out there having a life worse than their own.

So why not give them some satisfaction?