Sandy's diary in Manchester (July, 2001)

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

2nd July, 01 (Mon)

Crowded everywhere

Is it because it is so hot that, with no air-conditioner but heater, people need to come outdoors to take a fresh breath and fire alarm is a good excuse? Of course I'm just joking but I really have no idea of why these days there are always false fire alarms everywhere - at my hall, a supermarket, our computer centre and library.

Smiles, dolls and people in formal dressing are essential in a photo taken with a graduate attending the ceremony (money for renting a set of graduation robes and years of study with passes in the exams as well, of course). With those working for the North West Examination Board, the campus has become crowded again.

5th July, 01 (Thur)

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Is hot weather a good thing here? On the one hand, the heat is sometimes unbearable without any air-conditioning (I'm a typical spoilt HK person); on the other hand, when it's hot, it's usually accompanied by Uncle Sunny and blue sky, which are luxuries to us and which we should be glad to see, considering the fact that rainy days outnumber sunny days.

So, what can we do? Have a BBQ party? Not a bad idea but don't expect the one held by a university hall of residence at a fee of one pound. That one pound can exchange for a few slices of bread and two or three sausages (if you're lucky and quick to get them) is reasonable, but I didn't attend it and end up helping my friend eat all her cookies.

6th, 7th & 8th July, 01 (Fri - Sun)

Wimbledon 2001

Don't say that I'm lazy when I'm now summing up what happened on these three days, cos this is the time an important tennis semi-final takes. THREE DAYS??? Sandy, are you kidding? No! Thanks to Auntie Rainy, the semi-final between Tim Henman of Great Britain and Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia had to stop and resume the match time and again, until Sunday when the dream of the English tennis player being the first to enter the final of Wimbledon 2001 for 63 years was shattered by a wild card player.

The local people, who may or may not be interested in tennis games, should be familiar with the news, which TV and radio kept talking about, for fear that their spectators and audience might miss anything.

13th July, 01 (Fri)

A trip to Birmingham

'Black Friday' doesn't mean bad luck to everyone; at least this is the case for us, maybe. The 50% discount on rail tickets by Virgin Train allowed us to pay only 3.3 pounds for a day trip to Birmingham, the city with the second largest Chinese population. It's been three months since I last came out of Manchester, and I really needed a small break from my dissertation.

The city in the Midlands is different from our North West city in terms of the number of shopping centres, the people, the environment and cultural establishments. It's more prosperous, lively and cleaner. Maybe we're just so bored with Manchester that every other city is nicer. In fact, Birmingham offers few tourist attractions besides being a commercial centre.

14th July, 01 (Sat)

Goodbye to my German flatmate

As the academic year is coming to an end, more and more students are going back home. My German flatmate is one of them, after spending two months doing her dissertation here. Suddenly, a feeling of homesick came to me and I wish I could fly back home immediately. But I know that the feeling was just temporary and I'd quickly go on with my study and life.

Nicole, hope to meet you in the future!

15th July, 01 (Sun)

Two strangers in the flat

Two newcomes arrived at our flat today. But they're male, though our flat is supposed to be for females only. They're the relatives of my flatmate's friend and stay here for a week. I thought it might cause some inconvenience to us but the two strangers have been 'invisible' all the time (e.g. never did any cooking and rarely entered our bathrooms). So, everything seemed to be as normal as usual.

18th July, 01 (Wed)

'The Worse student flat in Manchester'

No other flat is a better candidate for the award of 'the worse student flat in Manchester' than ours. No heating (the weather has been colder these days - that's British summer), no telephone (incoming calls are blocked while outgoing calls are no longer available), no cleaners (for almost a month no one has come to clearn out dirty kitchen... BUT, they finally came this afternoon), no toilet paper and no light bulbs provided and no activities held by the hall's association. Today a letter is issued to every one of us taht any non-emergency calls cost 75 pounds. Didn't we pay them enough? Maybe in their opinion we didn't. To be honest, our flat is not worth what we've paid!

20th July, 01 (Fri)

A small town

We visited a small town to the east of Manchester (Ashton-under-Lyne) this afternoon. Just a ten-minute train trip. There's an open market and things seemed to be a little bit cheaper. This is no special trip but it'd have been filled with less fun without one of my friend's flatmates, who brought us laughter with her lovely characters.

25th July, 01 (Wed)

Big sale?!

We went to the megastore of Manchester United Football Club as we were told a big sale was being in progress there. But only a small number of items like those for kids were on sale and I just bought a small badge of Beckham's No.7 shirt. It's a good and sunny day anyway.

By the way, take a look at the website of Beckham's wife if you're interested (it's funny!):

http://www.victoriabeckham.mu

29th June, 01 (Sun)

When can I have holiday?

Still working on my dissertation, while two of my friends have gone travelling. I wish I could do the same, as the weather has been so good these few days and today is reported to be the hottest day of the year in the UK and the heat wave is expected to continue for a few more days.

I paid a visit to a local Chinese Church to do questionnaires for my dissertation. Though I've got back a number of responses, many of them have unclear answers. I've already spent more than two weeks conducting questionnaires and interviews and I started worrying about my dissertation when I found some of the people I know here have been writing or have almost finished the writing their dissertation, while I'm still at the stage of data collection. There have been times when I wanted to give up, wondering why I may need to pay thousand times efforts and keep myself under pressure. I may have really given up without my friends' help (e.g. Pat in lending me her tape recorder or I would have needed to carry a big one I had borrowed from the department for many miles every day) and advice. I've already thought of the acknowledgements of my dissertation, where I need to thank many people... In fact I know i may have learnt something in the whole process and I did enjoy talking with those elderly and youth.

What have I been doing this summer? How's my dissertation going? What's been going on around in Manchester? Keep an eye on the coming of soon-to-be-updated diary!!!

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

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