Sandy's diary in Manchester (Jan, 2001)

Just click on any of the following underlined dates and you can get to know what's going on with me that day.

3rd Jan, 01 (Wed)

Reopening of the Uni. Library

What's special about the reopening of the university library? Of course we neither needed any form of anniversary celebration nor invited special guests to hold a knife for the cutting of the ribbon when it reopened. But for me it's an important occasion cos I had been bored with my study and assignment for long, esp. during the days when the library closed, where I could get access to the internet in its computer clusters and borrow some references for my essay, rather than sitting all day long in my room, reading all the stuff day in and day out...

15th Jan, 01 (Mon)

My XXth Birthday!

What do you usually do on your birthday? Have a great party, eating a birthday cake and listening to your friends' great voice singing "Happy birthday to..."? Or just (forced to) lead your life in the way as you usually do without any celebration? I was in the latter case this year.

What'd you expect to receive as you're moaning about the fact that you're getting one year older? Money? Jewellery? Dolls? Hello Kitty? Cards? As simple as a short message or phone call? I got not many things but some short messages, phone calls and email cards from some of my friends. THANKS to those who still remember my birthday. YOU are all so SWEET!!! (esp. the one who gave me the notebook and a nice burbury hand towel!)

Books were my only companions today!

18th Jan, 01 (Thur)

My first exam

It's the day I had been looking forward to. Not because I had prepared for the exam well. It's just that I had been being with those textbooks for so long that I couldn't wait to finish my hell life asap! I was not nervous until the last minute when I got into the exam room. I should be okay with my performance, hopefully. Still five more days to go before the end of a one-month "imprisonment".

24th Jan, 01 (Wed)

Chinese New Year & the end of my exams!

It came finally. It's a sunny day - a good sign? Hopefully it'd be. Time went by like a flash and I felt totally relieved when I left the exam venue. I couldn't wait to give my dad & mom a phone call, saying "Happy Chinese New Year" (and "Kung Hey Fat Choi" as well, though I know that I can't get red pocket money from them) to them on the first day of the Chinese New Year. I also called a friend of mine who would be having her birthday the next day.

Some celebration activities like lion dancing should take place on such special day, right? But nothing special turned out. My celebration was watching Tom Hanks' newly released movie "Castaway". It's okay and my favourite character in the movie was Wilson - a humanized volleyball!

By the way, thanks to those who gave me encouragement during the exam period!

25th Jan, 01 (Thur)

Trip to York

York has been highly recommended by the people around me. It is regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the UK and its buildings are totally different from those in Manchester.

With such a great expectation and a relaxed mood, we set off in the early morning and took one-and half-an-hour train to get to this historic place. It's a sunny day, though quite chilly as well. I was just like someone who had never been to other places before, looking out of the train windows at the roadside view.

Perhaps the greater expectation you have, the more disappointed you will feel when the things doesn't turn out what you expect it to be. The city is beautiful and is really of a different style from Manchester but it's not like places that you want to travel again or something that you'd say, "Oh, it's unbelievable!" No such feeling.

We just got to know the city by getting around the city centre only, such as York Minster and Castle Museum. Shopping is one of the most popular past times among girls and we are no exception. Having no idea of where to go, we went to the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet, which was just a twenty-minute bus trip. But again it's disappointing. It took us less than two hours to go through all the shops there.

Anyway, it's a nice trip.

27th Jan, 01 (Sat)

Trip to Chester

Chester is a kind of lovely self-contained village town, which caters for needs of different kinds of people. It's a good place to travel if you want to find something different from the crowded cities like London. It's an ideal place to take photos. The buildings of a special style and the Cathedral can already take you a film of snapshots.

It's also a shoppers' paradise. Its city centre is filled with a wide range of small shops, situated in special black-and-white buildings and you'd find no difficulty getting what you want. The McArthurGlen Designer Outlet at Chesire Oaks is much bigger than the one at York and you can find a much wider variety of retail shops and buy things at a surprisingly low price.

I like Chester more than York.

29th Jan, 00 (Mon)

the start of the 2nd Semester

What was the start of the new semester like? Classes and classes. But just sit-ins. Assignments, group projects, tutorials (oh no!). Theories after one another. Crowds, cars, buses, noises, laughter, whispers. Me? Hungry, exhausted, bored, confused. Any difference from that of the first semester? Yup, at least I wouldn't get lost on the campus.

29th - 1st Feb, 00

Crazy week!

Sitting in on different classes can be exhausting. In order to find out more about the courses, I went to different classes these days. It's not walking around the campus that made you tired (though it is in some cases). It's listening to many lectures and being given lots of things at one time, that can exhaust you, mentally. In fact, the more choices available to me, the more difficult I find it to choose and the more confused I am.

So, these days I could get to sleep in a short time when lying on my bed after a long day!

This page was last updated on Thursday, 16 October 2003.

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