the Great Britain 2008

Today, 28.07.09

2009-07-29T05:59:00.001+08:00

We did TLC in chemistry today and some recrystallising work. I thought nothing could happen again after yesterday's epic desiccator accident, but apparently I was wrong and my days are destined to be filled with chemistry-related adventures.

I didn't panic today, which had obvious benefits. I had really nice conclusive TLC results with no contamination and I did the desiccator again and got it right this time.

When I had to do a recrystallisation which was really strange because it wouldn't crystallise. Even Dr Hinks was puzzled. But thankfully I was able to apply what I had learnt that morning and I used TLC to check if the crystals were in the solvent at all. Apparently they were because the TLC results showed a huge conc of the compound in solution.

So evidently NOT panicking in the lab works. And as a huge bonus I was able to apply what I had learnt before to solve new problems, which is probably the whole point of our studies. That was meaningful. Meanwhile my solution sits on my lab bench at the chemistry faculty slowly evaporating.

Today, 27.07.2009

2009-07-28T06:10:00.009+08:00

For electrical engineering and computing students, we visited the high voltage laboratory and were divided into pairs to do our own ion drives, which could fly on their own when electricity was applied. We also managed to get a close look at the library and computer facilities. The sports that we played at the end of the day was absolutely the highlight of the day. Afterwards, we cooked our dinner and celebrated the 18th birthday for one of our groupmate, Yingxiang.

Here is a chemistry joke:
Q. A bear walked into a river and disintegrated. Why?
A. It was a polar bear.

I had to tell you the joke first because what follows is a tale of woe and failure. Get your hankies/tissues now and save the rush later. I was in the chemistry programme and we had to purify an organic compound using recrystallisation. At the last stage of the experiment we had to use an apparatus called a desiccator to dry out the crystals. A vacuum is created in a chamber where the crystals are placed and there's a tap at the top to let air in. But you're supposed to open the tap slowly- I forgot to open the tap and when Dr Hinks pointed it out I panicked and opened the tap full blast and blew my crystals all over the place. I think only 1/3 of the crystals survived, the rest of the crystals I'd spent the last few hours purifying ended up all over the desiccator.

I was very traumatised after the lab accident. Moral of the story: NEVER PANIC IN THE LAB.

2008-11-20T15:15:00.000+08:00

Ha you are wrong. I still know when there are new postings. =)

pictures

2008-11-20T09:26:00.004+08:00

guess i am the only user and viewer of the blog now. However, I shall post something new; otherwise the blog will be dead.

a picture of jellicoe taken from google earth

Finally, your irresponsible IC on the last day :)

2008-09-02T13:51:00.003+08:00

Haha sorry for the delay of the posts we should put on after we go back to Singapore. I bet SOMEONE has forgotten about it, haha, but since I shall continue to see him every chemistry lecture, I could think of better ways to tease him face to face:)
It is hard to believe that more than one month has passed since we started our journey to UK. I could still feel the sense of joy when we arrived at Heathrow Airport--it just seemed to happen yesterday. On the last day of the trip, since I was one of the "early birds", I had time to explore Heathrow Airport. Though we all carried huge luggages, Yi Ting, Tao Tao and me managed to take the cool shutter train to Terminal Five, the newest terminal. It was very spacious and it looked quite different from other older terminals, but I would say it is only reaching the standard of Changi Airport :) Since there were many shops like my all-time-favourite Mark&Spencer, we did some last-minute shopping. I had heavy cold so I could not really taste anything, but I could still feel the cream in the delicious milk :) Like the seniors predicted in Cambridge, I miss UK's milk and diary products dearly.
The weeks after we safely arrived home seem to fly by, however I could still feel the impact of UK trip on my daily life. I tend to search for gloves and goggles whenevr I enter the chemistry lab, and I feel quite disappointed that I am only handling low concerntration HCl instead of doing ultra water-sensitive Aldol reaction in dry ice (-78 degrees). I yearn for my own kitchen when I have to put up with hostel's food, as I truly enjoyed the time we had in our little kitchen in Jellicoe, as Pan Tao, Peijun, Yi Ting and me take turns to boil water, cut cabbage, make spegetti and steam egg. Yesterday I went for chemistry Olympiad training, and surprisingly it was on NMR, the experiment technique we dealt with almost every single day. I remember how confused we were when Dr Ganesan introduced us to the complicated graphs on the first day--it just didn't make much sense to us, all the peaks and numbers. As I listened to the teacher carefully I finally began to appreciate the technique and learn to interpret the information there, but how simple the diagrammes in the most difficult chem o questions look when they are compared to that generated by our products?
Our lives will continue after the UK trip. Promos, tests, projects--we are almost drowned inside the hectic life here. However I will always appreciate the sunny days we had in Southampton, United Kingdom. The days when we learned and had plenty of fun. The days when we reached out to our dreams of being scientists, and enjoyed every second of it.
Fangzhou 09S03M

'Nade in Jellicoe

2008-08-21T23:06:00.003+08:00

Random Photoshopped Pics

2008-08-16T14:00:00.003+08:00

Picture taken at London

Picture taken at Winchester. Two of us took this photo.

end of the trip

2008-08-11T18:14:00.005+08:00

i was waiting for the ICs of the last day (that refers to Fangzhou and TK) to update the blog. Apparently these two people have forgotten what they should do. But anyway, they have done a great job on the last day from southampton to london heathrow, taking care of two batches of people and keeping counting... thank you and well done, FZ and TK.

So that would mean the post will be written by me again. We have a coherent introduction and conclusion, you see, though the ending of such a grand story is really not comparable to the real content.

anyway, here it goes

friday 08/08/08

kin chun has more or less rounded up what has happened. Just to complete the picture, we also had a farewell party at 10 pm (london time). Mr.chong and Ms.Tang wrote a song for everyone who participated the trip. the lyrics are very well written. I personally liked the last verse: if life hands you lemon go and make lemonade. this is so true.

after singing the songs together (guitarist: Mr.Chong), we revealed the identity of every angel. sorry we did not explicitly introduced the game, but we started an angel and mortal game in the midst of the trip. Actually, I guessed most of the people here were smart enough to guess who their angels are (except for a few like me). Revealling the truth is really exciting, as always. I was almost chocked by water when my angel spoke out who he is...I hope everyone has tried to know your mortal through the trip and keep on encouraging each other in the future. Then, the purpose of this game is fulfilled.

there was also a small award ceremony. we acknowledged xin er and lemuel as the most responsible IC.(a round applause) the most punctual people are Pan tao and Pei Jun who are always the first (a tie, actually)at the assembling point. there are also some freaks who were over-active in class like me and TK. all the people got a lovely RJC bookmark.

If I'm not wrong, the present to Mr.Chong was a stack of poker cards with everyone's message. the level 3 girls also passed a small soft toy to Ms. Tang. For Mr.nicole, we all wrote him a thank you card.

Not to forget that everyone also received a present- a photo of 25 of us in front of stonehenge. the picture is posted by ms Tang already. Somehow a few of us look a bit different. an shing's face, for example, looks stretched by a factor of 1.5 parallel to the Y-axis.

that was the grand finale of the trip. after that, most of us proceed to pack our luggage. Dillion is said to finish packing within 10 minutes. there was a big sigh in my heart- time flies so fast that i felt it was just yesterday when I unpacked my stuff...

a few of us also had a small scale party. we played some card games and wathed videos. watching sunrise for the last time. trying to keep awake in the last few hours in UK.

Saturday 09/08/08 from southampton to heathrow

first batch people aka early birds got up early in the morning, had their breakfast, checked out, boarded on the bus to heathrow airport and arrived at 11 am.

second batch people cleaned up the mess left by the first batch people aka early birds, returned utensils, had their breakfast, checked out, boarded on the bus to heathrow airport, waited in the rain for more than 1 hour, almost frozen because the bus broke down on the way, took 4 cabs and arrived at 3pm.

after first batch people aka early birds killed their time in the airport in many ways that i'm not able to describe here, we finally met up as the big group and checked in.

Then we shopped at krispy kreme. In total i think we bought a few hundreds of doughnuts.

Amazingly the flight was really short this time, parially because there was a tilt wind blowing in the direction of the flight, but mostly because all of us were reluctant to reach singapore so soon.

nothing interesting happended on the plane....as far as I know. joy slept through the flight. she was only awake when she was eating.

we reached changi airport an hour earlier. but we spent a lot of time taking pictures and saying goodbye to the friends...

Then we walked out the arrival hall, passing by the depature gate which we left from on 20 July. parents were waiting outside the arrival hall, excited. I think we all have a lot of stories to tell. the friends we made, the UK we have seen, the things we have learnt.

And that marks the end of the our common memory of UK.

the good thing is, all of us will meet each other again in school. the bad thing is, that will again remind us everything about UK which makes us nostalgic...

coming back to singapore means loads and loads of working waiting for us...there will be spas, PW, CCA and promos. Good times were short, but we have to face the reality and get down to all the school work. we are truly back home, back from the golden 3 weeks in UK. as we chose to participate in the trip, the consequences are also chosen and I think all of us will get back to the track soon.

However, I hope none of you will ever forget the life in UK. do remember to say hi to the familiar faces during lectures or in the corridor. we shall cherish the invaluable experience in UK. Hope you guys will come back to the blog some time. As what i have said in the first thread, there are a lot of common memories here. hope there are also spaces in your heart for the very best time in UK.

all the best, friends.

dx^2

Educational Visit to the University of Southampton

2008-08-11T01:51:00.000+08:00

Wrapping Up

2008-08-09T08:55:00.002+08:00

Today is the second last day that we will be in the UK, and generally most people are quite sad to leave this place. Ms Tang and Mr Chong composed the lyrics for a song specially for us, and it really summarises our time here in Southampton. I believe that everyone loved the place and will have fond memories for years to come.

Anyway, there were two other highlights for today. Firstly, 08/08/08 is the day of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Mr Nicole kindly helped us set up the television to view the Olympics from BBC. I think all 23 of us watched the ceremony, and I'm confident to say that everyone found it very grand and magnificent.

The other highlight of the day is the musical, Flash Dance, that we watched. Not everyone watched it, but I think it was a good experience. Personally, I loved the musical throughout, perhaps due to my musical background. Most others enjoyed it too, and it was worth the time and money.

I think that everyone should have packed their luggage already, so I hope everyone would have a smooth journey tomorrow!

'Nade in Jellicoe

2008-08-09T00:32:00.001+08:00

(Sung to the tune of “Guan Huai Fang Shi”)

The time has come for us to part
You’ve found a place inside our hearts
In Southampton’s Jellicoe
Where friendships began to grow

All the places we have been
Stonehenge, Salisbury we have seen
Fish and chips we’ve had our fill
And Sally Lunn left a hefty bill

We have traveled on the train and tube and bus across the land
To Bath and Cambridge and to London where we saw Big Ben
We are always desperately rushing
But we’ve never missed a thing
Kudos to all the I/Cs who are masters in counting

Eight-thirty we leave for school
No MSN that’s the rule
Making radios and robots
Every night you write reports

Not forgetting Chemistry
All day long doing TLC
NMR, mass spec. you’ve seen
Making new compounds you are keen

Twenty-two days in Southampton
You’ve learned life skills to survive
We hope the things you’ve gained are more than your photo archive
Do look back at all the memories
And the friendships that you’ve made
Remember if life hands you lemons go make lemonade

With love,
Mr Chong & Ms Tang

Educational Visit to the University of Southampton
20 July – 10 August 2008

2008-08-09T00:00:00.000+08:00

Draft Pg 1

Draft Pg2

Luxurious Dinner

2008-08-08T07:34:00.002+08:00

What was special about today was that we finally got to see the luxury dinner, which had been the greatest secret for the past few days. We had dinner in a relatively expensive restaurant, TGI Friday's, with Mr Nicole and all the other chemistry tutors. The restaurant was well decorated and the food looked delicious on the menu. However, the price was a bit scary for us at the beginning. However, when we found out that we were given 12 pounds to spend, everyone felt so relieved that we could order the food we really wanted to eat.

To eat nice food really requires you to be patient. We waited for over an hour to get our food. During the waiting time, we played all the games we could think of and enjoyed ourselves a lot. (Actually we also made a lot of noise there.) Some people were playing the Code game(the 终极密码？Is this its name?), while the group sitting with Liang Xu(who is very lame)played all the random games until everyone was bored. Then the dinner finally came!!!

Though the food was quite nice, some of us could not forget about the money conversion problem. Quote from Tzer Han, "siao ah, the price here is 7 times of that in Malaysia! We have the exact same restaurant there and the prices are exactly the same, but one is in Ringgit and one is in pounds." Then I started to calculate in my mind how much it would cost for me to have my dinner and found that wow, that’s really a luxurious and expensive dinner.

After dinner, we had our usual rush to the bus stop. I think that by now, everyone is finally quite familiar with the public transport system in Southampton. The most fun part also started. People started to tell ghost stories on the way back. It was forty past ten at that time so it was quite dark and was a very good atmosphere to scare people. Screams came from different parts of the group occasionally. On the bus, Liang Xu started to tell more such stories. In order to be scarier, he even started to describe the settings of the stories in Chinese(which he is more fluent in)! Poor Joy screamed a few times because of that. An Shing even said that he would think about whether he is going to take a shower tonight or not.

Anyway, three weeks is really a short time. We are leaving this Saturday. Back in Singapore, we will have to face the stress of schoolwork again(yes, including PW) and try to catch up as much as we can. Hope everyone can cope with that. But on a more exciting note, the 2008 Beijing Olympics will open tomorrow. Yeah, let’s watch the Olympics!!

- Written by Pan Tao and (heavily) edited by Kin Chun

Farewell Dinner@Friday's

2008-08-07T08:33:00.000+08:00

2008-08-07T07:43:00.002+08:00

Tuesday, 5 August 2008

We met the cutest robot ever: iRobot's vacuum cleaner. Even though it's supposed to suck, we loved it anyway and ended up getting to know it for the rest of the day.

The vacuum cleaning portion has been removed, leaving the gaping rectangular hole on top which you can see. This was where we stuffed the dry cells that powered each machine.

We were introduced to another small adorable gadget, the ASUS Eee PC which helped us manipulate the playful little vacuum cleaner.

Using software beyond my comprehension, we tracked coloured balls as they whizzed around the scope of the computer's camera and located their centres of gravity. Using such sensory input and stuff, we could potentially program the vacuum cleaner to chase balls of a certain hue.

Day 17 pics

2008-08-06T08:04:00.002+08:00

Day 16 pics

2008-08-05T05:41:00.002+08:00

Day 15 pics (part 2)

2008-08-05T04:29:00.002+08:00

What is it like to be an IC?

2008-08-04T21:14:00.003+08:00

sorry for the late update. Still quite sleepy now

we (cherie and liang xu) were the ICs for week 2 thursday and friday. as you all know, we went to london on thursday and as ICs, we needed to make sure that everyone knew what to do at all times. this was not as easy as it sounded.

i think the most difficult part for me as an IC is the counting. i don't know why i always counted number of people wrongly and i had count again and again. i was relieved when doing the last counting and knew everyone was around.

initially we developed a ROLLCALL system to aid the counting. but it turned out to be not working well as it was hard to get all 23 people to start rollcalling!!!

of course, ICs have more obligations than just counting such as planning itinerary and updating the group of what is going on next. i think cherie was doing a great job as she always knew what to do and could get everybody's attention easily. she really showed strong leadership skills and that was what i needed to learn for my self.

Note: the small small blue figure is Cherie

i am so sleepy now that i need to go for a small nap now. so lets end here and wish all the ICs good luck. and to Cherie and myself: Good Job!!! No one is Missing...!

Day 15 pic (part 1)

2008-08-04T08:02:00.002+08:00

Don't zoom in! lol...

2008-08-04 Day trip to Winchester!

2008-08-04T00:52:00.000+08:00

10 things we learnt as ICs

2008-08-03T10:03:00.002+08:00

10 things we (Bryan, Jeremy, and Zhibin) learnt as ICs

Co-ordination is important to execute plans
Thorough planning is essential for things to go smoothly (including small details like how to meet after an activity)
It is important to take a pro-active role (like giving instructions) when needed
Make yourself heard
Communication is important, so we should ensure that there is a good way of communicating among ourselves
Communication among us (the ICs) and between us and the rest are equally important
Ensure that everyone knows what they have to do
Always check that everyone is present (especially in crowded and unfamaliar places like London)
Don't isolate anyone
Enjoy yourself!!

Day 14 pics

2008-08-03T08:20:00.002+08:00

Day 13 pics

2008-08-02T07:59:00.001+08:00

This time 18 (including me) were online at 11 plus...

Day 12 pics

2008-08-01T07:33:00.004+08:00

Though we had fun, the students really worked very hard in this trip. On top of the tutorials and assignments, they had to write reports for every experiment. At 1130 pm, almost all of them are still online typing their reports...

TUESDAY WEDENESDAY AND THURSDAY!!!! !!!! !1111!!!!

2008-08-01T07:27:00.003+08:00

HELLO EVERYBODY THIS IS JEREMY AND BRYAN HEEERRREEEEE we are here to give you a LIVE UPDATE on THIngS THAT happeENED THIS THREEe days!!

Fig 0: Liveupdate

TUESDAY:

WE DID C PROGramming. NEWMOONBOY SAys: its quite FUN!!! (: except for lemuel!

we learnt how to program a calculator and fibonacci numbers... 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 blah blah blah and we also learnt many many many many many other ways of programming the same sequence (fibonacci sequence) to make it as fast as er.... a FASTENER!!! we could use the while loop, recursive function (joy: you are talking greek!), an many many others!

we went to play squash after that and the squash courts witnessed an epic battle between the current reigning squash champions NGSHUCHIN and HUYIJIE aka formofthedragon! it was a close match with many nerve-wracking and HAIR-raising moments. The ceiling was almost brought down due to the high energy levels as well as a constant barrage of squash balls.

WEDNesday:

we did more C programming and tested the TEXAS INSTRUMENTS board, another form of the software radio we were doinga few days back. It was very mind-boggling, and and and it reminded us of our GCs which happen to be collecting dust due to our negligence of work. At night, we tested our software radio at Glen Eyre and we erected a fishing pole in the middle of the carpark to connect our aerial. We heard some Spanish which sounded like Cantonese (According to Mr Chong). We also heard some alien speaking MARTIAN language. They seemed to be looking for their lost spaceship.

Fig 1.1 A spaceship

Fig 1.2: Martians. Choose the one u like!

THURSDAY!!!

we visited london in the magic school bus today! it looked somethinkg like...

Fig 2.001 (4sf) - the magic school bus

London was nice. london was beautiful. london had many super nice cars such as maseratis, ferraris, porsches, bentleys, lamborghini (sp?), land rovers, scooters, and even segways!

Fig 3.14159 (pi) (segway)

Fig 1,000,000,000 pounds: a lamborghini - an inferior good in London

Which one do u vote for! please comment: the high tech segway which is soooo cool or the lamborghinini which gives one an inferiority complex in london? make your choice.......... its now or neverrrr

we went to trafalgar square after getting off our MASERATI magic school bus.. after transferring to that lamborghini ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ taxi. it was a real blast with gryphons and lions - it kind of resembled a zoo!

Fig 2: Shuchin coming face to face with the magestic lions at tra~~vulgar~~falgar square

we then went to the tower of london and we came face t face with the darkest of our fears. Quote cherie: "there are ghosts haunting the towers and bloodstained walls and even thieves who steal ur bags. its a pain, really" quote tony/liangxu: "i am in love with the scavenger's daughter" (disclaimer: the scavanger's daughter is one skimpy piece of equipment)

Fig 10: the scavenger's daughter

Fig 7: oops..the real scavenger's daughter

Fig 9: The rack

the figure above is the rack.

One gruesome aspect of being stretched too far on the rack is the loud popping noises made by snapping cartilage, ligaments or bones. Eventually, if the application of the rack is continued, the victim's limbs are ripped right off. One powerful method for putting pressure upon a prisoner was to merely force him to view someone else being subjected to the rack. A person stretched on the rack presented a spectacle of the body in pain.

(wikipedia)

it is mildy similar to Charlie and the Chocolate factory:

I don't know, but young men are extremely springy. They stretch like mad... Ah! Let's go put him in the taffy puller! ~ Willy Wonka's enthusiastic idea for restoring Mike Teavee back to normal. Mr Teavee: Taffy puller!? Wonka: Hey, that was my idea!

(quote from willy wonka)

NEWMOONBOY NOW OFFICIALLY TAKES OVERRRRR:

Ok, A-hem. We also visited TOWER BRIDGE!!

We didnt have much time on the tower bridge though, because we spent too much time in the tower of london. Anyhow, tower bridge was quite majestic. Anyone would have expected tower bridge to be made just out of old, black bricks but nope, it looked more like a children's playground when you're on the bride itself, because its light blue structures made it look very colourful.

From the tower bridge, we could see London bridge too!! but it wasnt falling down like we hear about all the time. And actually it didnt look all that impressive and since we were running out of time and had enough time only to visit 1 bridge, we only went on tower bridge.

And what's even more interesting is that... we actually saw someone collapse on tower bridge. But it was across the road so we didnt really know what was going on. But it caused quite a commotion anyway. That reminds us that the civil servants in england are so busy compared to in singapore. I dont think any day has passed so far without us seeing ambulances, police cars or fire engines zooming past. But just that this time, we didnt see the ambulance, but saw the victim instead. It's like all the victims are in london, and the ambulances are all in soton.

But too bad we didnt get any pictures of the collapsed man, because it would've looked very rude. But anyway, london was very interesting. Everywhere we looked, there was something interesting, like ancient buildings, or a collapsed man. So we're all looking forward to visiting london again on saturday. But on saturdayyyy... we're going SHOPPING!!

GAME OVER!!! FINISH!!! BYEBYE HOPE U enJOY:D:D:D(chua)ed the post!

Day 11 pics

2008-07-31T06:15:00.003+08:00

Note: These 'sky' photos have been photoshopped. We can't really see sunset from here.

belated update on monday

2008-07-30T18:48:00.004+08:00

monday was another ordinary day in university of southampton. there was a bit of monday blues...everyone seems to be tired and sleepy for some unknown reasons.

As the IC of the day, I have to say sorry because this post is really really late...anyway, monday was about advanced soldering practicals and more theories on AM and FM radio.

Soldering might be fun if this is the first time to try, yet it can become very challenging (sometimes frustrating as well) when the electric components become smaller and integrated circuits are involved. Probably the most exciting part today is the SMT (surface mount technology) capacitors. The SMT we are dealing with are 805which has surface area less than 50 mm^2. However, those SMT in the handphones, PDAs and other electronic devices are probably one quarter of this size...thank goodness machinery facturing is employed in soldering...though hand soldering is required when constructing prototype.

Amazingly the theory behind AM and FM radio coincides with our recent physics lecture on ocillation...anyway, waves transmitting radio signals are in simple harmonic oscillation. These theories, though far beyond A-level physics, are still pertinent to what we know and what we can apply.

Tuesday will be c programming...much more to look forward to

Day 10 pics

2008-07-30T07:53:00.002+08:00

visit to southampton city centre

2008-07-30T04:22:00.004+08:00

Day 9 pics

2008-07-29T06:23:00.002+08:00

Don't be deceived if Lyn Lyn tells you she can't cook. Her fried rice is superb.

Mr Denis Nicole conducting the theory session before the hands-on.

Students working in groups of 5.

The almost final product. Testing will be done on Wed evening.

Sunday--A visit to Southampton Central~~

2008-07-29T05:05:00.002+08:00

Yesterday was really an relaxing day for all of us as we met at 9:45 and could sleep late!Actually I woke up at 7am as I promised my friends that I would get online chatting with them. After a freshing breakfast, everybody slowly strolled down the stairs.(Sadly, our group is always on time and has to wait for others~~)

We took a bus and arrived at the Southampton Civic Centre at 11am. The weather was really nice.Actually after arriving it was free and easy and we split into several groups.

For our group, we went to West Quay and Maritime Museum.We were just amazed that even guys could shop as well(haha)! West Quay is really a place worth for shopping, can you image that one branded T-shirt only costs you 5 pounds? Or can be believe that one pair of Adidas Sports shoes only cost 15 pounds? By the way, it was Liang Xu who found this shop that had 75% price off haha. Each of us bought a lot of stuff in West Quay. Nevertheless,we also had a big hole in our pocket!!

It is really worth to visit the Maritime Museum. We had a glimp of how Titanic was built and constructed. We are just amzed by the ship models inside the museum. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures inside.

After that, we went to the seaside. However, the sea water was quite dirty and we only spent a few minutes there.

Overall, yesterday was a nice day for all of us and I am sure that everybody did spend money on buying gifts haha~~~

School of Chemistry

2008-07-29T02:50:00.001+08:00

Day 8 pics

2008-07-28T02:54:00.002+08:00

RJC@Bath

2008-07-28T02:23:00.001+08:00

Saturday, 26/7 -- Visit to Bath

2008-07-27T09:38:00.004+08:00

Today, we were required to wake up nice and early in order to ensure that we got to Highfield Interchange in time to catch a bus to Southampton City Central, to in turn catch a train to Bath. Unfortunately, my corridormates (I'm Samuel) woke up a little bit (actually a lot) on the late side again, and thus we had to wolf down our breakfast at superhuman speeds. In spite of this, the travel to Bath generally went quite nicely, and we got to view what the English countryside was actually like as the train we were in sped northwards towards Bath.

When we got to Bath, we were instinctively guided towards the Sally Lunn Restaurant, the oldest house in Bath. It offered both magnificient architecture and absolutely delicious food (((: In fact, the sandwiches, buns and tea were so good, this was incontrovertibly the best meal I have had since stepping into the United Kingdom. I am very sure that Cherie, Bryan, Kin Chun, Mr Chong and Ms Tang will agree as well. x)

Moving on, we visited the famous and single defining attraction of Bath, the Roman Baths. It boasted intricate and unique Gerogian architecture that belonged to the era of yesteryear. Therefore, it was certainly an eye-opening experience, as we also got to learn more about the history of the Baths through the handy audio guides we were provided with for the selfguided tour around the Roman Baths.

Subsequently, we were allocated lots of free time for shopping, and thus the group split up and many splinters of the group proceeded to wander off into centre of town to see what else Bath has to offer. Unfortunately, (and I am sure that many can vouch for this too) Bath does not have many good deals to offer... as the shops sell products that are way out of our budget. Nevertheless, it was a fun and interesting shopping experience as we covered every inch of the shopping district in search of potentialy good deals.

The group met back at the train station at 6pm, before taking a train back to Southampton. It had been an eventful day, and I am sure that we would all be looking forward to the tour of the Southampton City Centre tomorrow too! :D

Day 7 pics

2008-07-27T09:24:00.003+08:00

Sally Lunn is the oldest house in Bath and is the home of the original Bath bun - an authentic regional speciality now known over the world.

Breakfast with Mr Darcy @ Jane Austen Centre.

To the RJC tutors.. UK trip in a nutshell..

2008-07-27T07:22:00.004+08:00

Hihi.. I understand that some of you tutors fr Singapore have been popping by to have a look at what's going on here.. and finally I have time to write about life here..so will jus give a brief (ok, maybe not that brief a summary...)

Its a nice balance of work and play.. a typical day starts at about 7.30am where we make breakfast and pack lunches in groups of 4-6 people. We set off for school at 8.30am by foot and arrive at the respective departments by 9am. The 3 chem students (Teow Kwang 3P; Tao Tao 3K and Fang Zhou 3M) and myself are attached to Ganesan's lab where they do Organic synthesis.. and analysis. They are really really enthusiastic and grabbing every learning opportunity. It is hard for them as they are working with post grad's on their projects when they don't really know much about O Chem. The post grads, Lauren, Alex, Anna and Wendy are really hospitable and patient with the students, trying to explain as many things as possible.. at times they get stressed out cos our students ask so many questions, which is actually great. They have been introduced to Clayden and numerous reaction mechanisms and of course analytical techniques, eg. TLC, HPLC etc..

Dr Ganesan has also been really kind with his time. Last week he actually stayed back to give us some theory lessons on their projects and spectroscopy until 7pm! They were really confused by NMR.. but managed to roughly figure out what usually takes 4 lectures in an hour.. so that was quite impressive as well. Looks like we have our next olypiad students in the making. The other 20 students go to the Electronics and Computer Science department and work on interesting projects every alternate day:) Mr Denis Nicole has been doing so much for the students. We feel really grateful to him for his time and efforts to make this a good stay for us. Francis has been photoshopping amazing postcards to document our activities.. scroll down to have a look!

At about 3 plus to 4 pm Francis and I conduct Physics and Chemistry lessons for the students. So far I've done Kinetics tutorial + Kinetics Quiz.. next week we will do a little more kinetics and I can start on Chem Equilibria Tutorial. (Thanks to Jeannie agreeing to having the Chem Eq Lecture's online and Jerome, Wendy and Jaimee@Edutech I've saved precious tutorial time!)

The more energetic pp go for some exercise after lessons and by about 7pm its time to cook and eat dinner (even the boys have been making very impressive dishes! Altho I think we are running out of ideas of what to cook. Some group had frozen pizza today I heard.. ) at 9.20 pm we brief the I/Cs for the next day, followed by debrief/ briefing of the whole grp by the I/Cs at 9.30 pm and we debrief the ICs of the day at 10 plus pm. We are trying to make use of this opportunity to let the students lead the group, a pair at a time for 2 days each time. Hopefully they learn something useful even though it can be a little tempting to just be authoritarian about things :P

Can see the students are getting tired cos the poor dears have to hand in reflections and experiment reports almost every night. Contrary to what you teachers may believe, they are also busy doing their GP, Maths, PW and Bio... so be kind to them when they get back..

We go out to play on Thursday and the weekends. Last Thursday we went to Stonehenge & Salisbury, while today we went to Bath and tmrw we will be exploring Southampton.

Next week we will be looking forward to London and Cambridge in between many hours of work...

And of course we are missing school, home, colleagues, classmates, various different "sisters", "mums", good friends... so do take care and see you soon!

Love, Lyn

Day 6 of 21

2008-07-27T06:21:00.002+08:00

An excellent start to the day – because we met at 8:30 AM and could sleep in late. (well, some of us, anyway.) Lemuel was fortunate enough to be awoken at 8:30 AM and his breakfast was half a packet of biscuits that he grabbed from the pantry on the way out. (but he was kind enough to share them with us scavengers anyway. what a guy. :)

The Physics students had a brief 'come to Southampton Uni to study' advertisement. After that, Professor Nicole began the lesson proper with the basic theory of radios and how they work

Prof. Nicole: do you take radios as a subject in the A-levels?
us: uhm no...

apparently radios is a subject here. :\ anyway, we received a watered-down version of first year Electronics notes, basically about, well, how radios work. FUNFACT: The AM/FM on your radio? That stands for Amplitude Modification and Frequency Modulation. Learn something new every day.

after that, we were given a circuit diagram of a model radio. to give you a rough idea of how it looks like, it's sort of a cross between this and this. (neither is very accurate though). we were also taught to solder, which basically means melting iron using a solder (like a penknife but with a tip heatable to 300+ deg C), then letting it cool, hardening the melted iron. in this way two pieces of iron (tips of two wires, the metal parts at the bottom of a circuit board) can be joined.

basically it's just a way of holding an electric circuit in place.

we experimented with a solder on some helpless wires until we felt comfortable, then pretty much spent the rest of our lab session fixing the radio together. just two things:

1. melted iron generates a HORRIBLE amount of fumes. Even with a fan to suck away most of the fumes, pretty much all of us inhaled about two years' worth of throat cancer.
2. Kin Chun can solder a 'joint' in 2 seconds. i'm not kidding. kowtow _____orz___

after that we had a chemistry tutorial - or supposed to, anyway - apparently the chem students were held up. (not sure what they did) so we pretty much had an ad hoc physics lesson without notes. um, yeah.

the day ended with free time, (plus sports, dinner, card games, sleep, all the usual stuff...we're going to Bath tomorrow - our first self-organized visit. everyone's already excited, and the I/Cs (yours truly) are nervous. it'll be quite a day tomorrow.

Some advice from Yijie and Samuel to our 2 new I/Cs (:

2008-07-27T06:06:00.003+08:00

Dear friends,

As we all know, Xiaoxi and Peijun will be ours I/Cs for the next two days, namely Sunday and Monday. Therefore, here are some words of advice that we are offering to the both of them as we wish them the best of luck in the jurisdiction of their duties for the succeeding two days.

Firstly, do remember to give allowance time for every activity or meeting you organise. It is important to recognize that our group of students are both highly motivated and enthusiastic, and thus giving everyone that little bit of buffer time for meetings can help contribute to a fun and stress-free environment, without us being continuously looking anxiously at our watches.

Secondly, it is an imperative that you capture everyone's attention by ensuring that you get the entire group to congregate before addressing them. In this way, everyone will be cognizant of what is going on at all times, and this will be extremely helpful in ensuring a successful activity. One effective way to go about this would be appealing to the de facto leader of the group such that he/she can help you to grab everyone's attention very quickly.

Thirdly, it is paramount that you have a good idea of the planned activities that are about to take place under your charge, so as to ensure that everything is within your control at all times.

Fourthly, you should always be flexible and open to changes and modifications to the originally planned course of action, because it is inevitable that all plans are subject to change. What you can control is your ability to respond to changes in a positive manner.

Lastly, you should research more about the area you will be visiting, so that you are in a better position to drum up interest among us about the location we will be visiting. An interested and excited group is extremely helpful in ensuring a memorable trip or activity.

Oh yes, and of course, one more thing. This will definitely come in handy... Do come up with five more pieces of advice for your succeeding I/Cs so that you can be prepared when Mr Chong and Ms Tang ask you for more advice in the very near future.. (((:

regards,
Yijie and Samuel.

Day 6 pics

2008-07-26T07:23:00.001+08:00

Day 5 pics

2008-07-25T07:29:00.002+08:00

The first 2 pics are taken by Ms Tang. She's pro.

2008-07-25T04:12:00.000+08:00

Today has been a fruitful day for all of us. We started the morning with a little game so that we could know each other better. As I like to call it, it’s the ‘Toilet Roll Game’.

‘Imagine that you are going for a 3 days 2 nights camp. Take as many tissue papers as you deem fit.’ This was the instruction given as the toilet roll was passed around. Some took the 4 to 5 pieces while others took as many as 14 pieces. Well, it would be alright if they were really for a camp. But of course, as anyone would have guessed, they are not for a camp. So, it turns out there for every single piece of tissue paper you took, you have to tell the group one fact about yourself. And the whole game was rather hilarious, especially when you see people with ten plus pieces of tissue papers thinking hard to come out with something.

After a good laugh, we headed towards our usual classroom for our lesson. Mr. Dennis told us the plan for the day: we have a science experiment to do and an engineering project to embark on. The science experiment involves the verification of an equation which governs the behavior ion drifts while the engineering project involves the design of a giant lifter. 9 of us decided to do the experiment while the rest attempt the project. We got into discussion immediately. The science teams seemed to be done in a few moments but the engineering team spent quite some time discussing the dimension and various considerations of building the giant lifter.

We got into the high voltage lab at about half an hour later and started on our respective projects. While the science experiment seemed easy at first, the science team soon realized that it is not that straightforward. We were puzzled with some strange observation. Thankfully, we have got Mr. David to guide us along, pointing us towards the right direction on how to approach the experiment at hand. We made a few modifications to the original plan and the set up eventually worked.

The engineering team had a tougher job, I would say. To make sure that everyone can work separately on individual parts of the project and later come together…

(Tzer Han seems to have decided to end his part of the post abruptly to mug Math, so I will continue from here abruptly too)

I wouldn’t agree that we had a tougher job. Like Mr. Chong said, the science team got mentally challenged (Mr. Chong is a master of pun) while we were physically challenged. From what I heard the science team was posed with difficult questions while we met with problems in construction, so both teams had a fair share of headaches.

So anyway, we (i.e. the engineering team) spent slightly over half an hour planning the dimensions for our big lifter. I don’t suppose you want to know the technical details about this (otherwise, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biefeld%E2%80%93Brown_effect) so I choose not to bore you with it, but the lifter is basically a structure that is supposed to levitate when connected in the right way due to ion drift which generates a thrust which lifts the structure. After the planning, we started on the construction of the big lifter. It was great working together as a team of 11 people and we were really productive initially because everyone had something to do. But then it came to the gluing part when the glue just refused to set in properly, so we had to wait and wait and glue and glue because there were so many small parts in the big lifter. And many of us ended up with super glue on our fingers so we tried to peel it off. Then Yi Jie said something funny because he breathed in some glue fumes which caused him to tear. He said “I wonder how glue sniffers do it” HAHA oops I’m digressing. ANYWAY, we constructed from about 10am to 1pm and then 1pm to 3pm and finally completed the whole thing. Then it was time for the “moment of truth” where our lifter was brought into the high voltage laboratory for testing. Everyone whipped out their cameras and crowded around the cage eager as beavers to watch the little beauty fly. And with just 16kV and 1.1mA, the lifter managed to lift itself off the table and fly like a gryphon (?) so we all cheered and clapped and pat each others’ backs. Then we posed with the lifter and took a few photos and then left.

By the way I want also to tell you that the high voltage laboratory is very cool. Everything is kept behind these cage structures and to unlock it you need to use a key. And to operate the voltage thing you also need the same key, which means that you cannot open the gate and on the voltage thing at the same time which means that the user is protected. Ingenious. Tsk.

So that is really what we did for the whole day, just building and testing stuff. It was a good test of perseverance because we encountered many difficulties (mainly because the glue refused to cooperate) and had to resolve them. We worked well as a team I would say, and it was a good experience for many of us.

And I shall continue on to today while you are all sleeping (5am right now). Today is a play day which means we do not have to do any engineering what-so-ever (I define this myself). We went to Stonehenge and Salisbury and it was fun though tiring. Stonehenge was more of a photo-taking trip because we could not stop taking photos once we saw the famous stones. It was an hour coach ride from the university and when we arrived we saw some sheep so we started taking photos. Then we got tickets and went in to see the stones. Mr. Nicole enlightened us about the history and geography of the stones and I thought it was quite interesting (again, you may read it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge). So then we just keep taking photos then we went to the gift shop and then ice cream shop. Then we left for Salisbury.

Salisbury is a nice quaint town with pretty little houses and shops and a monumental cathedral, a.k.a. Salisbury Cathedral. But before visiting the cathedral we stopped for lunch. Most of us ended up at STOBY’S, fish bar and restaurant. Everything there is battered, greasy, and served with chips so the servings had extremely generous content of oil so we were all bloated after eating. Then we proceeded for the cathedral. When we stepped in, we were …

Speechless (because of the sight and also because we were so full we did not want to talk)

…

We were awestruck by the magnificence of the 123m-tall spire and captivated by the intricate details of the walls and windows. I know you know that we all know that I am exaggerating, but just believe that it was a good sight. (see more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_cathedral) so we continued taking pictures. A guide took us around for about 2 hours and the number of people following his guide dwindled to a pathetic 2 at the end. The guide ended with a trip to the chapter house where 1 of the 4 remaining Magna Carta is stored. Nevertheless, we learnt quite a lot from this trip.

So where did the dwindlers go you may ask. They were shopping in Salisbury. Salisbury is a nice shopping place with many things to buy. There is also this shop with like 1 pound concept thing so got cheap stuff. Then we left Salisbury at 5pm and stopped for Chinese take-away. The we walked back to the hostel which took at least 40min.

It is 10+pm here already so I very tired. So good night people, or should I say good morning! Rise and shine for a brand new day at school!

Glen Eyre

2008-07-25T03:52:00.000+08:00

A little more about our hall..

Chemistry Lab Work

2008-07-24T07:00:00.002+08:00

The three of us (Fangzhou, Teow Kwang aka TK, Tao Tao) had the chance to do some experiments in the chemistry lab during the past two days. We were led by some post-graduate students from the School of Chemistry. Basically we have learnt some basics about organic synthesis, how it works and what it can apply to. The three of us are not doing exactly the same thing because we are led by different students, who have different research fields. For me, my mentor has taught me about the Suzuki reaction, which is an organic reaction of a boronic acid with a halide catalysed by a palladium complex. The experiment I'm currently working on was the reaction she did last year. The product is supposed to be a biologically active drug which can be used to treat cancer.

Before we were allowed to enter the laboratory, we were given a booklet on safety instructions and told to read it thoroughly. Some examples of safety precautions are: wear goggles at all times when you are inside the lab; gloves worn in the lab cannot be worn outside the lab; you must do a risk assessment before every experiment that you do, etc. Although this sounds like common sense, sometimes people do forget about them. This is especially true for the rule on the gloves, which I accidentally broke today...

Some new instruments and skills that we have come across with are TLC (thin layer chromatography), rotavapor (rotary evaporation) and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance). During these two days, I have learnt that organic chemistry is not as easy as it seems to be. It is certainly not pure memorising work, as someone has put it. It takes time and hard work to figure out the reaction mechanisms and to really synthesise the product. I really look forward to trying out more instruments and doing more complex reactions.

Day 4 pics

2008-07-24T04:38:00.006+08:00

Just one reason to keep your windows closed..

2008-07-24T04:08:00.002+08:00

2008-07-24T03:26:00.001+08:00

Ice-breakers thought up by I/Cs Tzer Han and Yi Ting

On the way to the post grad's place for lunch!

Back in the Chem Lab industriously drawing molecules..

Day 3 pics

2008-07-23T07:02:00.003+08:00

The food you see in the fridge are our food supply for the rest of this week for 5 of us. Each group will take care of their own food including preparing for lunch and dinner.

The houses you see behind are meant for the poorer people (according to Denis Nicole)

High-Voltage Laboratory

2008-07-23T06:52:00.002+08:00

Today was the day when we started on the hands-on projects and it has been quite a fun day. The lecture about the ion drives (which can be used to create thrust for space rockets) was really comprehensible despite the fact that the real ion drives are very complicated. Then we went to the high voltage lab.Sounds very Chim? it IS chim...now i still don't get how they can generate voltage as high as 1 megavolt! It's amazing! Back to our business---The High-voltage phenomena we saw today were really cool and the ladder thingy really allowed us to actually see the ionized air heated up while conducting electricity. Also we witnessed the 10,000 volts plus voltage passing through the poor little pickle, causing it to burn with a yellow flame due to the presence of sodium ions. It was really cool, seriously.

Next we made our own ion drives. It was not a very complicated one, just a single layer triangular lifter. By the way, the wood we used today was really soft and tender. I was very glad that the lifter our group made did float in the air (the up-thrust is provided by the ions propelling air particles downwards)! That was really fulfilling experience.

Tomorrow the 20 of us will be making a giant (not so huge but much bigger than the one we made today) lifter together. It must be fun and I am looking forward to it. Just hope that I won’t get too much super glue on my fingers.

Day 3!

2008-07-23T06:10:00.002+08:00

Today we started with some icebreakers. It was quite ironic that we didn’t do it earlier but only in the 3^rd Day, but we still have many more days ahead of us to know each other more! We played some short and interesting games and at least we know one another’s names by now.

After that we went on to the start of our programme, it was quite interesting listening to all the lectures and surprisingly most of us managed to understand the concept of iondrive. I am surprised that the lectures managed to make something so hard to understand for us and turn it into something so simple through simple physics concepts.

Following which, we were finally brought to the Physics lab! It was nothing like the RJC lab, they have loads of equipment down there. It was quite cool with the experiments that they have done! And there were sparks everywhere. We even got to see plasma with our own eyes!!

After the tour, we were then split up to our own groups and we are supposed to make our own rocket prototype! It was quite frustrating at first when we couldn’t paste the structure well with super glue, but when we saw our rockets fly it was all worth it! Hope there are more less frustratings sessions in the future!

We then had Gravitation tutorial with Mr. Chong, usual A Level stuff. After that, it was free time. It was quite nice going to the sports centre after a long week of no exercising! Some of us played basketball, some of us went gym, while others went swimming!

Overall, today marks the start of our programme. Looking forward to bonding with one another and enjoying ourselves and learning Physics in the process! We miss all the people in Singapore!

Day 3!

2008-07-23T06:10:00.001+08:00

Day 3!

2008-07-23T04:05:00.006+08:00

The high voltage laboratory

2008-07-23T03:07:00.007+08:00

Today we got to do the hands-on experiment in the high voltage lab. The lab is really big and full of machines. When you step inside ,you may just feel that you are in a scientific fiction movie. We were also being reminded by Mr Denis and other professors again and again that we should not touch anything inside the lab.
What we did today is simple lifter. Basically it is a triangle made of fine wood,aluminium foil,thin wire and of course super glue which can float in the air when applied with high voltage current.
Our group finishe quite early,so ours was the first one to be tested. At first it did not work very well as it would always topple over. However, after some adjustment, it actually could fly quite high. Though it was still not balanced in the air, we felt quite satisfied about its performance. And then we started to work on the big two-layer one. The other group was also working on the one. Hope we can manage to finish it together tomorrow.
But one thing makes me really upset. The report!! Just think about it, you have to write one report for every experiment!!! Ok, maybe i should think positively, it is a good exercise. Just like what Mr Chong said, it is preparing you for the uni.
Just some video of the testing.

Our first try.

We are almost there.

2008-07-22T07:35:00.003+08:00

21st July

Today was perhaps what we should call the day of introductions. We were shown around many places, and we managed to get our own cards to use the library and to get access to the sports hall! (ie rent soccer ball and play soccer) =D also the head of the school of electronics came down to talk to us! It was really interesting to hear what he had to say, and he really made us very enthusiastic about this trip. Now we are already looking forward to the lectures! :)

Next we got to shop =D we went to the ASDA supermarket (famous for slashing its prices) and bought lots and lots of stuff there. Most groups bought around 90 pounds of food! (translated into nearly 270 sing dollars per group, i do not want to know how many groups there are :( ) but i guess it was the cheapest option we had in UK, the cost of living here is so high. :( But i guess 1 thing i learnt is that we always have to keep to timing to make sure people are not happy. Like Bus number 1 today, when the bus was late i guess many of us were not too happy, and it did not really leave a very nice impression. i suppose we should all learn from this and start to act with a greater sense of urgency!

and next Mr Chong brought a group of us to play soccer :) supposed to be very fun, but the person at the sports hall told us they were closing and we could not play soccer :( but it was a nice jog there so nvm :) haha tmr we shall enjoy the pleasures of the beautiful game! and at least we took back 2 positives

1. We know where the soccer court was

2. We know that there are at least 11 people who will be loyal to soccer and play :) so we do not have to play "passing the ball among 3 people".

At the de-briefing, Mr Chong and Ms Tang gave us some valuable advice - do not open ur windows when not needed =P it was quite funny what had happened today! :D Dillon is really quite accurate =D and also we were told that tmr mr chong was going through gravitation tutorial! (everyone foaming and chionging tutorial) :(

sorry for the lack of photos k i couldn't find my camera... i'll try to find again tomorrow and then edit this post! :) goodnight everyone! sweet dreams... i bet most of you are alr aslp :)

Cheers,

An Shing

Day 2.. more pics!

2008-07-22T06:29:00.003+08:00

'

Just one reason to keep your windows closed..

Day 2 pics

2008-07-22T04:03:00.002+08:00

We have reached Southampton!

2008-07-21T07:02:00.006+08:00

After 1 hour of flight delay at SG due to tow-bar stucked in the plane's nosewheel and 10 mins delay due to heavy traffic before landing at Heathrow, we finally landed at approximately 430 pm (UK time). By the time we got our luggages, it was already 530 pm. It became an adventure for the 12 of us who had to finish our fish-n-chips / sandwiches in 5 mins so that we can make it to the coach in time.

A/P Denis Nicole was already waiting for us when we reached the bus terminal at the University of Southampton. Much to our surprise and satisfaction, the hall is relatively new and facilities are more than adequate.

Day Zero: a day on SQ308

2008-07-21T05:36:00.002+08:00

ok...as the moderator of the blog, let me start off the first update of the trip.

630 am Singapore - we gathered at Singapore Changi Airport. We took some time strolling in the airport and had some light breakfast in the foodcourt. Parents and some of the school teachers were accompanying us, too. My classmates from 6U, charmine, xiao fei, and si kai, came to see the 8 6U people off. Much to our surprise, they prepared a bottle of sweets with all our names and photos written on it. the amount of sweets is just right for us to take one everyday. when all the sweets are finished, it is also the day for home...this is really sweet. (thank you, san jie mei!). before boarding the plane, there was photo taking session...yup, once in a while, we got the sense of being surrounded by flashlight and cameras like a celebrity...

in general, we were simply excited and anticipating a lot of the trip ahead...

930am- we boarded on the plane, but it was delayed for 1 hour at changi airport...

1030am onwards - sleeping (in a very unglam way...)between meals, eating between sleep, watching movies, chichating, gazing at the cloud, taking pictures, playing cards, playing random video game on the small 'TV' on the seat back(guys....sigh), walking around, mingling with each other, going to toilets. and not to forget, mugging! (i will not point out who he/she was, but the person was doing maths tutorial...) did I miss out anything?

something funny to talk about here... when xin er was on the way to the toilet, she was questioned by a passenger: are you going to the beijing olympics?
xin er's response:(a bit shocked and comfused)why?
the passenger: eh...you are in the 'team raffles' shirt, right? what country is Raffles?
xin er's response:(........lll) raffles is actually my college, we are on a school trip to UK.....

actually the passenger is observant enough but ignorant....look at our team raffles polo T, there's basketball, fencing, floorball, canoeing and archery.....olympic games, hehe..

1045pm(singapore's time)- we finally finished the 12 hours flight that covered 11000km from singapore to london( the route was actually a straight line). again, salute to stamford raffles who made his way to singapore in 1800s....how courageous and patient must he be to go through all these.....

530 pm(london time- checking out, collecting luggage, breathing some fresh air in london (the weather is cool!), calling/smsing parents we are happy and safe in london, having a very rushed and expensive meal at the airport. we managed to arrive at the bus station before the bus to southampton reached.

800pm(london time)- arriving at university of southampton(the campus is beautiful and serene), checking into respective rooms. we have to say a lot of thanks to the staff at university of soton...they prepared frige, pizza, cereals, fruits, milk, jam, bread, all kinds of cookery, utensils, plates, and even tea bag....so breakfast for tomorrow is more or less settled...

we all got individual rooms, with enough space and a cleanly made bed...(it really looks like a hotel room). most common area like kithchen and toilets are very clean. access to hot water at all times. two bathrooms at least per level. guys at level 1 and 2, girls at 2 and 3.

1030pm(london time)- everyone arrived and cheked in. freetime...we had a briefing at level 1 loundge. get ready for tomorrow...yes. much to look forward to..we could explore the campus and the guys are planing for soccer games..

the weather here is a bit cold. but all rooms have heater....

i noticed you all have taken some pictures....so upload them now!

2nd Thread???

2008-07-12T19:17:00.002+08:00

so u all very excited about the trip? at least i am...this is my first time going to a european country and also my first time to pon 3 WEEKS of lessons...isnt it excitin' enough alread.

anyway, feel regret to remind u all of the pw thingy---EOM and WRITTEN REPORT(my first copy is due early august...). but im SURE wel be having fun in UK!

ai...still a bit sad that we CANT go FRANCE...so nice but cannot go, so sui.....

The First Thread

2008-07-11T23:14:00.002+08:00

Congratulations for the setting up for our official blog for the southampton trip 2008!

As the first thread for this blog, I shall make some official declaration.

The purpose to set up the blog is to update the school and the parents about our life during the 3-week stay in southampton. Everyone will be contributing to the blog posts as I have the account open to everyone in the trip including the two teachers IC.

I do expect the blog to be a vibrant and enriched one...though it may only function for 3 weeks...However, as the moderator of the blog, I will try my best to maintian the blog. Also, I do hope that we will form some sort of bonding during the trip and proudly address ourselves as the soton trip group...everyone is welcomed to visit our blog again after the trip. This blog is going to hold a lot of shared memory.

For now, all the best for the trip in less than 10 days time.

2008-08-04 Day trip to Winchester!

2005-08-11T14:51:00.000+08:00