Sandy's diary in Manchester (Oct, 2001)

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

29th Sept - 12th Oct, 01

Trip to Europe

Keep an eye on the up-and-coming brand new page on travelling!

Oct 12, 01 (Fri)

Hello Manchester and my HK friend!

I was still in Europe when I got up early this morning. The trip was to finish on Saturday but I left the tour one day earlier in order to go back England to meet my primary school friend who had been travelling there on her annual leave.

With two full bags and one shopping bag, I was lucky to catch the train of Eurostar in the last minute. Though having slept for only two hours the night before, I was almost awake on the whole 3-hour train trip. When the train arrived at England, I had a feeling that I just went back to the reality. The whole Europe trip was like a dream, so enjoyable that I didn't want to come back here, where I had to face my future. After another three hours, I was back to Manchester by train. The city was the same as before. Nothing changed (of course). Crowded. But luckily we got a good weather.

I almost couldn't recognise my best primary school friend when I met her in the hotel where she and her boyfriend would be staying that night. More than a year since we last met. I got a lot to talk to her but at that minute I didn't know where to start. Our first destination was the department of my university; and the Old Trafford stadium of Manchester United was something we couldn't afford to miss as football fans. In fact where we went to was not important. It's great to meet a friend who came from afar and have a nice chat with her, though one night would never be enough. 

Oct 13, 01 (Sat)

What an exciting experience as a football fans!

Please click here to feel the atmosphere of the match!! 

Oct 14, 01 (Sun)

As a neighbouring girl

Nothing special indeed. Stayed at home all day long. Just a few phone calls to my family and friends. Maybe I was too bored? 

Oct 15, 01 (Mon)

Back to the campus

Back to school to check email. Lots of email and messages were expected. I was surprised and sad to know that the department's secretary, who had been nice to me, had left. A sad feeling was also filled inside me after my meeting with my two best friends here, one of whom was leaving the next day...

Oct 16, 01 (Tue)

Goodbye to my best friend here... I won't cry!!!

I didn't cry when I left Hong Kong a year ago. Neither did I when I saw my best friend off at the airport. In fact I rarely cried when seeing someone off. When I was small, some tears might almost burst out of my eyes. But it's not the case now. Maybe because I'm getting older and have better control of my feelings? Or, because I know that we'll meet again in future?

I had an impulse to leave here and go back to Hong Kong when my best friend left. I miss my family and friends there. And the unknown nature of my future life here also drove me to that thought. I could only tell myself that that feeling would soon fade away as time went by. Yeah, maybe. 

Oct 17, 01 (Wed)

Sad and lonely?

So I went on with my life. Checked email, surfed the net, did ICQ chatting... I felt so bored that I planned to go home earlier today after checking the mailbox at the department. I found my supervisor in his office and decided to go in to say 'hi' to him. Then I met two elderly whom I had interviewed before on the street, and the classmate of my ex-China flatmate. Two women came to ask me about my views on what's happening around the world about terrorism, and soon I found they might be trying to talk me into Christianity. 

Well, not a bad day. I got a chance to talk!

Oct 20, 01 (Sat)

'Oh, my goodness'!?

This is my previous flatmate's catch phrase. I would be reminded of her when I heard it. But since today after her departure for home, I'd have very few chance to hear it from her mouth. An interesting and nice flatmate she was. 

I had to say 'my goodness' when I got to know that Manchester United got their second home defeat. 'Oh, my goodness!'

29th Oct, 01 (Mon)

A quiet corner at the university

I'm used to going to the university's computer centre to check email. One of the bad things there is we're not allowed to do any chatting in the daytime. I guess it's because in the opinion of the university staff, chatting would make the queue for the use of the computers long. So, I have to find a seat where I can keep an eye on the movement of the patrolling staff, one of whose responsibilities is to ask people to stop online chatting, so that whenever he comes any closer to me I can close the chat box. Today I found another place where I could chat with friends on the Internet without anyone's interference. It's a small computer cluster for postgraduates in our faculty. There's usually not many people and the fact that this week is reading week makes it even quieter. So, I changed to go there for the use of computer.

Oct 31, 01 (Wed)

No celebration but 'thank you'

I had been thinking of paying a visit to a local Chinese community centre again after finishing my dissertation and I didn't take any action until this morning, to express my gratitude for their help with the data collection for my dissertation. It's nice to meet the staff there again, and in fact, they were surprised to see me again (maybe they thought I had left the UK?) and congratulated me on the accomplishment of my dissertation. 

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

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