Thought I’d write a short post on how ’suay’ (unlucky) I’ve been since I got here to Eindhoven. It should make you laugh… remedy for your stressful week! (enjoy yourselves at my expense… :))

Why I think I’m particularly unlucky this SEP.

1) Accomodation screwed up when we first arrived here. Instead of having an apartment ready for us, which the housing agency said shouldn’t be a big deal, we stayed for 3 nights in different guesthouses/budget hotels.

2) Instead of having recieved my student card like the rest of the exchange students, the school conveniently made the mistake of sending my card to the wrong address. How they got that address I don’t know. To make matters worse, it seems like even my own department lost my student card. Yes. BOTH cards were lost. My arguments weren’t any good. Stupid Dutch.

3) ATM Machine did not dispense money. Hence I’m now 250 euros short. Still talking to the bank to see what can be done.

4) Lockers at the sports centre don’t seem to like me. First time, I forgot which locker I locked my stuff in. Apparently the number on the key and the number on the locker doesn’t tally! (Yes! You so have to be kidding me! Then what on earth are the numbers for?) So I had to break open on of the lockers… only to find that it wasn’t my stuff that was inside… settled the problem by putting my ear to every locker to listen for my handphone vibrating.

5) Second incident with the lockers. Didn’t realise that the locker was faulty before I put my money inside. Ended up having to go to the reception to ask for assistance. To get my money back.

6) I lost 5 euros. I thought I put it in my pocket but I must have tucked it into my shirt instead. During winter lah. Too many layers and hands too cold to realise huge mistake. Ended up with a tray of eggs costing me almost 10 euros. =(

7) Train ticket machine ate up my atm card. I was going to buy tickets for a train at 530am. Because of the incident, I had to wait till 6am for the hotlines to be in service. After calling them, they told me that their technical staff only open at 7am. After waiting, they tell me that my card cannot be returned to me. It had to be destroyed - company policy.

Can’t think of anything else at the moment. Yes. Have a good laugh at my expense. =) What matters is that you know you’re not alone. If you think you had a bad day, there’s always someone out there having a worse one.

It’s really been awhile since I last blogged. I must apologise for those of you who come by and yet see the same post day after day! Well, I thought I’d put up pics of Barca, which I went to like almost a month ago.

I almost can’t recall most of the things I did, or the names of the places I visited. I guess that’s what you get for procrastinating time and time again. Here’s just a brief encounter of my great experience in Barca!

Here’s the view from my hotel room and of my hotel room! Trust me, it was way better than what my parents got! From my balcony, I had an unobstucted view of Barca! Truly amazing! My room also had a walk in wardrobe, a long bathtub and nice white plush towels! Even my parents were jealous! They actually had the cheek to ask us to change rooms with them!

Visited many of the tourist attractions in Barca. There was the Barri Gothic, the La Sagrada Familia, the Magic Fountain of Montjuic - located at Placa Espanya, the Barcelona football stadium, Poble Espanyol (this is really a tourist trap…), the beaches… what a mouthful! I think I’ll just let the pictures do the talking for me!

Cross on top of the Barri Gothic cathedral

How it looks on the inside ; How it looks like above!

Placa Catalunya

Barcelona beach

La Sagrada Familia

the ‘new’ side… a tad bit modern though

a very ‘leng zai’ at the entrance of the cathedral

So what do you think? Splendid? Wait till you see what I had for food! There was jamon iberica, the paella, bacalao a pil pil (which is cod fish done the Spanish way), patatas fritas, tapas, all types of cheese… I really can’t recall what the others were called!

Paella at Port Vell… admit the photo is a lil dark… bad photography!

This pic came out well though… dinner at Port Vell!

Nos primera la comida! (Hope my spanish is right)

Dinner in a revolving restaurant - I can’t recall the name of the place! Near the harbour!

New found friends! Robert (Canadian), me, Julian(Bulgarian) and my bro!

I remember one night, when the 4 of us were out clubbing, we bumped into 2 chinese girls who could only speak spanish and chinese. Julian can speak Spanish pretty good, so he was ok. My bro and I could speak chinese pretty ok as well so we were ok. Robert however was left staring into space most of the time! Poor dude… he couldn’t understand a word they were saying!

Hope you enjoyed this super duper long post! I’ll post more pics of Barca again soon! I promise! Till then, stay safe and healthy! =)

Just finished watching the whole GTO series. That’s right, a whole 8 hours of Japanese Series Madness! Some of you reading this might be thinking, What?! 8 hours?! What a waste of time!

To me, I think it was time well spent.

For those of you who aren’t too sure about the series, the story basically revolves around a man Onizuka, who aspires to be a teacher. The interesting here is that he was once part of the Motorcycle 2000 gang. After being accepted into a school, he goes about to change the lives of both the students and teachers alike. For those of you who want to find out more, click here to watch it!

I said it was time well spent because I felt that it beneath the humour and his kick-ass teaching style, the series did teach alot about life. Here’s just a small list of things I can remember off-hand which I felt struck me the hardest.

In a scene where a student wanted to commit suicide, he said something along this line. Courage doesn’t come from jumping off a building. Rather, it comes from facing life and leading it despite the numerous challenges that come with it.

In another scene, he says this about life. Why let the fear of the outcome stop you from doing anything? Just because you think you might not succeed, just because others say you cannot do it or just because you’re afraid of failure doesn’t mean you should not give it a shot! Just because you fear the consequence doesn’t mean you should not give it a shot! That’s life, living and learning and discovering it!

Well, the 2 scenarios are pretty meaningful aren’t they?

Enough said. I hope you’ll get the chance to catch it. If you don’t, at least remember the 2 things you read about today!

Out!
p.s. I know I was supposed to put up my pics of Spain. Will do so in my next post!

This song has been playing in my head for a couple of days now.
Didnt really get a chance to post recently so here it is now.

“Happy birthday my friend
Here’s to all the years we’ve shared together
All the fun we’ve had
You’re such a blessing
Such a joy in my life
May the good Lord bless you
And may all your dreams come true”

Happy birthday to you.