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where should i start.
so swansea...
ive been living in swansea (or in welsh abertawe), a coastal tourist town and the second biggest city in wales for the past two months now. as much as i would like to be fully acclimatised to the 'ways' (the organic feel in hippiespeak) of the town and apart from my weekly forays to the local friendly grocer - tesco extra; my excursions out have been limited to the few social occasions and when sara comes round to visit. lucky for me, this weekend sara took her time off to visit me, and i took the opportunity to see the city and share the experience with her.
im currently writing from my place on alexandra road, 150 metres from the main train station in swansea (high street station) and the street's address is home to a university, a museum and my place which was the main police station but refurbished to a modern en-suite accomodation when they moved accross the street. as i knew the conventional route from llys glas (the name of my building) to the beach, i told sara we would take the 'scenic route' there, via uplands, which was said to be a 'lovely walk' uphill.
towards the end of our 30 minutes journey to the beach, sara started to suspect something was amiss, which i duly explained to her my 'intuitive sense of direction' and explained to her in the most rationale and intelligent way possible. the verbatim was as follows, 'we went up the hill, so we must get back down to get to the beach'. which to me meant we had to go downhill back to the normal sealevel to get there. suffice to say, minutes later we found our way when we saw the beach from the hill and the camera came out to capture the moments.
here are some of the pictures taken on saturday (6th December 2008) with sara's camera and some other pictures before that date.
llys glas, my place of residence
swansea 2 - cardiff 2, 30th november 2008 at the liberty stadium with the coursemates
my preparation - riot geat for the welsh derby
the beach! our footprints on the swansea beach
pebble beach of swansea (without the golf... and bigger pebbles)
sara vs nature
sara's violent again.
contemplation
so thats it for now, ill try to update whenever i can. see u guys later!
yours,
jeremy.
jeremy spent his first few hours in dublin playing football in trinity college dublin's turf when his sense of journalism kicked. in this latest edition, jeremy gives u his accounts on life as a broke student visiting dublin. this article was written on a saturday night and continued the next morning. what a bum...
how money is this shit. im in good ol' dublin at the mo living it up, here for a weekend bender with the mates!
not exactly. the heater is barely working and im cocooned on the sofa, jeffrey (the brother) is out for oktoberfest with his friends. i had the option of going with the expense of breaking my bank, i decided not to and just let the jeffrey have a little space.
so the reason for being here would be to collect my stuff at my sister and brother's place. the travel? 12 hours from cardiff to fishguard, fishguard to rosslare, rosslare to dublin; via bus to ferry then a bus again. in that bus, i have lost count the times i woke up to readjust myself into a more comfortable position in my already small seat. merh... cant complain, afterall i did choose to stuff my face throughout the summer with mamak food and the likes.
upon arrival and trading niceties with brother dearest in his flat in dublin, he could not help but ask, "is that smell your feet?" jeez. fat and smelly now eh.
im glad the girlfriend was there all the way (from cardiff to dublin) and it was she, who managed to keep la rage at bay. prior to the trip on friday, during a meet up with old friends in cardiff, they asked sara, 'why a bus? why not a plane?!' well for one basically its cheaper. but how much cheaper... well not much.
the amount of extra luggages that i could bring back is definitely better than a plane, and change of scenery and the sense of adventure that comes with doesnt hurt aswell. so far- football, tv, dinner meal paid for by the brother... not too bad for 30 euros for 2 days! okay folks, everyone is about to head off now for lunch. it is kei's (sister's boyfriend) birthday and there on the horizon is a free meal in a dimsum place. heh heh.
with this my final meal before i head back to wales, i conclude my reportage on living broke in dublin.
jeremy.
im picking up writing again after a long hiatus to vent about my current situation. read on, read on.
see, i recently moved to swansea for education purposes and it is here where i met an old friend from my cardiff days. lets refer to him as X for the purpose of the rant. unfortunately for him, when he arrived he did not have a place to stay; so the right thing would be to offer him my room till he finds a place.
chronologically speaking, X would fall in the 'old' friends category. but the truth hides a completely different picture. one with sinister winds and stormy clouds and a wooden house perched on the jagged cliff facing the sea; and at the corner of this picture, a solitary lemming marches up ready to take a deathly leap into the sea. intense.
?????
okay! so in our cardiff days, we basically hung out in different circles. i recall speaking to a chinese national in mandarin and as a passing remark i mentioned that i am chinese (malaysian). X standing at the corner, followed this statement by muttering aloud in chinese, "he speaks chinese, but is he chinese?"
fastforward this to the present, we are all here new to the city and the course, i thought i might aswell wipe the slate clean and offer to help the guy out.
big mistake.
so there we are in the kitchen playing some chess, and X was fondling a pawn stroking it left and right. me not wanting a repeat of such foreplay, i told him to conform with the basic chess etiquettes and move whichever piece that he touches in the next move. he reluctantly agreed and briefly mentioned that back in his competition days, "touch one and move another" is a legal move.
yar okay.
so he played an aggressive game, in which up to the middle game, he had the upper hand by taking my knights, a bishop and couple of pawns. with a series of counterattacks by the blacks, voila, i won this friendly match (combination of the rook and the queen).
now my old friend moves from the table and went straight to the window for a fag. i obviously praised him as he played a good game, and went on to give my shebby singh post match thoughts of the game. i mentioned that he lost focus when he tried to finish me off fast and upon finishing that sentence, X said seethingly,
"jeremy, you're too serious when you play games. kenneth, kien lun and i agree that you take things too seriously, in football, risk et cetera et cetera."
"if you want to succeed in this world, you cannot behave this way"
my god what a sore loser. talk liddat... my father isit? the cheek to say all of that when he is staying at my place! X went on to justify the loss by saying in competitions, participants are only given fifteen minutes to finish the game and because i did not adhere to the competition rules, he lost focus!
come on. this is a social gamela brudder. did u see a timer with a buzzer next to us?
anyway, in most games of risk, minor arguments are bound to crop up; and in football, the player has to be both physical in shielding and getting the ball. heck, when one wants to do well in something, some seriousness is needed! what kind of argument is this?! this fatboy has definitely lost his proverbial marbles. or maybe, he hasnt played any to bother.
with the way he was behaving i most definitely want to kick his snoring face out of the room last night. but i suppose i will never learn, and X was quick (and smart) enough to leave the place this morning before it gets even more heated.
jeremy.
p.s:- as for X's "he speaks chinese, but is he really chinese" comment, i would like to say X has probably one of the thickest brit accent amongst the malaysians in the UK. whitewash much?
