24th Oct 2007 - Cold Start

I had a cold start to my day this morning. It wasn’t because I had a late night or that the weather was negative 1 or 2 degrees Celsius through the night. It was because the boilers and heaters for the water and room respectively weren’t functioning. Gosh, there was no way I could shower in the cold water when the temperature was around 2 degrees Celsius in the morning. Think I would get hypothermia… I’m wondering how can some British girls wear so little at night, which is much colder than during the day, when they go out to a bar or club. It’s crazy… perhaps they have thicker skin than us Asians? My British friend in my course always pokes fun at me, saying it isn’t cold though I always lament to him that the weather’s cold. So I came up with a good rebuttal line “I’m from the equator, where there’re coconut trees!” Haha, anyway the weather is going to get colder, so I’d better get a pair of gloves and my winter coat before I become a snowman on the streets.

This morning, as I walked towards school, despite feeling very cold since it’s just a tiny weenie bit above zero degrees Celsius, I noticed that the grass patches had a slight whitish glaze over them. It was quite nice actually, though it means that winter is just around the corner. I made a mental note to myself that the first thing that I’m going to do when I return to my room was to take a nice hot and long bath. I was gambling on the fact that the heaters/boilers would be repaired by then, anyhow the technicians are pretty efficient from my experience because this was the second time it happened. However, the first instance this happened, they took a much shorter time to rectify the problem. It looked like my gamble paid off, as I could feel “warmth” being radiated from the heaters when I reached my room. But, I didn’t take a hot shower immediately. Something much more urgent required my complete attention. I had to “bake” a cake in the toilet! Imagine walking for 20 minutes or so out in the cold, mind you, it’s upslope all the way, and trying to curb/control your tummy. It’s not funny, haha I was in a distressed state! I’m sure most of you people never had the urge to clear your bowels with the very cold weather making your situation much direr.

Talking about toilets, this reminds me of something. My British friend once said to me “you’re proud to be Americanized right?” I was in a blurred state when he said that as I had no clue as to what prompted him to make that remark. Then he carried on saying that I always want to drink Starbucks and I use the phrase “I have to go to the washroom”. I found out that British people just say they need to go to the toilet and they use bog as well, though this term is a very crude word for toilet. I once told my friend that the banks in UK are quite “anal” about details and she burst out laughing, saying they don’t use that over here in UK.

Anyway, I think I’m settling into life here over in the UK. It’s not as fast paced as Singapore, a laid back kind of feeling, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing except for when you need something done quickly and because of the way the system works, it really drives you nuts. Well, going to study now, hope everything’s going fine for you guys…