Shaking it off.

I am currently 3 days away from my first paper. Ditching the last few pages left to prepare for the seen paper next Monday, I read up on termination of pregnancy for my Medical law and ethics paper.

Something interesting to consider: When does pregnancy start? There are so many debates regarding this. Everyone's saying this and that. When does life actually start? I remember claiming that the Chinese thinks that life starts once the cells combine. The 9 months spent in the mother's womb is considered a year. So basically that means it is believed that life starts when the eggs are fertilised right? Then there's the issue of implantation. Conception is such a vague term and it does not seem as definite as compared to implantation. Is an embryo even considered a life or a mere growth in a woman's womb? Should it be entitled to any (human) rights at all?

Man, this hurts my brain.

I've been sleeping at 7am and waking up at 4pm up till earlier this week, with not much progress on my revision at all. Realising that it's time to shake everything off and reset my biological clock, I had less than 4 hours of sleep last Tuesday and went for a jog in the evening to prevent myself from taking a long nap. The weather was perfect but I was too tired. What's more, I was as blind as a bat, leaving my glasses in my room and refusing to hurt my eyes with contact lens.

A jog turned into a stroll.

Llanbadarn is lovely. It seemed impossible for us to walk to our Llandbadarn campus last time since it's really faraway, especially when you have 10 minutes to fly there for seminar right after a lecture. Luckily I never had any classes there. Walked my friend there for a 9am seminar last time and I almost died. It was tiring. :P Now I can even walk to Morrisons, which is even further compared to Llandbadarn. Did that once and that's that. Too lazy.

Llanbadarn

Here's me trying to blow the dandelion. Bad hair, bad skin, eye bags, cracking lips. Oh yes, the wrath of exams sucking all life away from me.

A year ago, I didn't think I could survive being away from the city. Now I love every single moment of it being here. Everything's at such a slower pace and it takes being so close to nature to realise how beautiful Mother Earth is. I've yet to write about my walk to Borth. It was AMAZING. I got to be so close to the sheep! OK fine, not exactly super close. They were scared of me.

On the way to Borth

Then there's the walk to the Pen Dinas monument when I met this lovely Welsh cob which willingly came near me and stood still when I took my time taking picture with it.

Pen Dinas

And then there's this last Tuesday.

Llanbadarn

Considering I was close to blind without my glasses, the cows staring didn't bother me as much as my friend who claimed they look like zombies already staring at us even though we were still quite a distance away from approaching them. Imagine a whole bunch of them dotted around the hills stop grazing and staring at you. It was only when I turned around after making my friend take pictures for me that I realised how freaky they looked. Haha.

OK, I think I've spent enough time here. Good morning dear Malaysians, it's 11 minutes past midnight here. ♥

Serious business.

'When does your exam start?' asked my Chinese hall mate.
"19th!"
"14th!"

"Wait, isn't it on the 19th? Commercial law first right."
"No, it's on the 14th!"
"ARE YOU SURE?"
"Yes, it's as per the draft schedule they sent out earlier. EU2 first."
"FREAKING SERIOUS."

Huge, huge mistake. Thinking my exam starts only on the 19th, I've spent much valuable time going to the town and "resting my mind" instead of getting any revision done. Aaaahhh. Pimples popping, stress level going up, every word that comes out from me is laced with thick annoyance.

Oh, it's that time of the year again. Only this time, it's no more fooling around. The final push. When you smell coffee in the air of Hall 127, you'd know it's SEE-RIOUS BIZZ-NESS.

New mummy.

Good news just keep coming.

My friend gave birth to a baby girl!!! ♥ Can't stop smiling the entire day now. Hehe.

Fighting through impossibilities!

Greatest day of my life.

I've prayed so, so hard for this day. Dreamed so much for this. I'd failed the first time and was very close to giving up this time as well. Stakes were running high and competition was stiff. Who would even bother considering me right? [Insert all other negative thoughts I had of myself which I no longer wish to bother with anymore. I deserve this and I could have not been more proud of myself than this. :)]

I was pretty down for the past few days, jittery as well, just like last year when I was waiting for offers from universities in the UK. Exams are around the corner, deadline for application to the Inns is soon and I had not got anything planned yet. I was crossing my fingers, praying and hoping for at least an answer. At least one before the exams, before May and before I leave for home. The first round application was met with a couple of rejections and this:

You have been placed on our shortlist and will be contacted in approximately 4-6 weeks if we intend to offer you a place on the course commencing September 2012.

It was the 6th week, with no replies and an additional rejection. Just as I was visualising and planning life after LLB halfheartedly, I got it. I got it.

It was this morning when I was awoken by a message from my friend. 12pm and I was still feeling a bit dizzy. I hadn't been eating well for the past few days and my head was spinning the entire day yesterday. Knowing that it's already Friday, the last day of the 6th week, I was nervous and hopeful.

With my head still resting on my pillow, I got my phone from the window sill.

I signed into my gmail. No replies.
I signed into the site where my application was sent. "Offer made."

I tapped on "Accept offer".

"Are you sure you'd like to accept the offer and reject offers from other course providers?"

With blurry eyes, I tapped on "OK" without a second thought and laid on my bed. It took me quite a while to realise what just happened that I sprung out of my bed as if I was jolted by electric shock. I dashed to my laptop and switched it on immediately. Rubbing my eyes furiously, I looked out the window wildly and hoped that I was not dreaming. Signing into the same website with my heart beating wildly, I was met with this:

Application status
Candidate accepted offer.

Yes, I've been checking the same website over and over again throughout the day to make sure it's all real and that I was not insane enough to imagine it. I thought I'd not get many opportunities to make my parents proud of me considering it's my final year already. That, added with the fact that I'd be attending my LLB graduation without my family, an important day not being able to be shared with people I care about most.

On a brighter note, I'm so, so, so grateful that I got the much coveted offer. My first choice too! :) I was so glad to see my dad's lips curving upwards when I broke the news to him. "So you got what you've wanted since a long time ago!" I'm really happy things happen unexpectedly just as I was losing faith- in me and everything else. Somewhere, someone really does believe in my capabilities despite everything! Life really has a plan for everyone and I am extremely excited for this second stage of my legal education! :)

Movie reviews and the likes.

The morning started off with traditional English breakfast at Weatherspoon's with friends. Lovely day indeed.

Really, the closer I am to home, the more I'm loving this small Welsh town. First, I was told about the story of this 68 year old lady who had been with her husband for 54 years. They met when she was 14 and him, 17. According to my friend, they're still very much in love and had been inseparable ever since they first met. So cuteeee!

Later on, being clumsy as usual, I accidentally bumped into this old lady lightly at my queue in Poundland. I apologised. If I were back home in KL, I'd probably get a dirty look for that. She looked at my purchase, smiled and told me stories of her uncle. He loved all the Winnie the Pooh books and played rugby with her husband. :)

What I got from Poundland.
This is so cute I just had to get it for my friend who loves Pooh bear. ♥

Gosh, people here are just so lovely! I have a feeling that once I get home, the city would never be the same anymore. The traffic jam, the very fast pace, the rudeness, the pollution... *sigh

On another note, I watched 'One Day' finally last night!

Love, love, love the movie! Too bad it was ruined by my friend who gave spoilers the other day. So very annoyed. Had I been kept in the dark about what was going to happen, I'd have cried watching it. I'd have enjoyed and appreciated the movie even more too. Still, the movie could have been longer. Jim Sturgess is such an eye candy! Can't wait to start reading my One Day book once exam's over. :)

I watched '500 Days of Summer' a few days ago too. Got the DVD from Matalan. :)

Tom and Summer. ♥

Awesomeeeee movie as well. I understand why my friend's so crazy over it now. Summer's fashion sense is so quirky! Tom has that adorable geeky thing going on as well. Kind of cute when things are reversed and the guy's the one falling heads over heels over the girl instead of the usual way. Great soundtracks. :)

Movies aside, I finally talked to my dad this morning! It's so funny because my dad and I were doing MY usual chilling activity i.e. listening to music and nothing but music. My dad referred to me a few songs (1, 2, 3) with some underlying encouraging messages like 'don't ever think you're useless', 'I'd hold your hand but you'd have to continue the rest of the journey yourself''. Haha. OK, dad, I'll try my best not to let you down in life! :)

I'm supposed to be studying for the rest of the day after my skype session with my dad but instead, I did this.

Not very good at this but hey, it's a start! :)

This, followed by an entire afternoon spent in town. Americano at Lilly's, hmmmmm. Got myself a lovely pair of aviator sunglasses. A matching box for it as well! ♥ Bye bye funny looking bright red Primark sunglasses. Hahaha. Cannot wait for it to turn warm, warm, warm, warm, warmmmmmmmmmmmmm so that I can go out without my bulky winter jacket! :)