Scottyland

So I'm back in Scotland now and really missing Singapore!! I didn't post in so long because of exams and papers being due and I never really had time to sit down and write anything! I went to wrote a paper, went to Cambodia and studied like hell! Now I'm relaxing back home, taking time to think and just enjoy seeing people again. Getting back into the swing of things by doing an NUS (national union of students not national university of singapore :p) debate on Friday, will try and see Claire when I am up there! Really missing people back in Singapore, it makes one feel very torn and the other side of the world just seems like a dream.

ps

its raining. it has done for days. monsoon season has started hence why I'm not going away on this lovely long weekend we has for diwali. so yeah its raining. its still 30 degrees. HOT

37 days!!

Til I fly back, which is actually slightly worrying cause that means its only a month until my exams start which is eeeeep.
Nothing much exciting has been happening recently, well I say that but fun stuff always happens in Singapore just cause its singapore and not edinburgh :)
Sent away my paper on friday after 3 hrs sleep then went to class (I know! dedication!!) I expended all my energy arguing about Afghanistan with Fraser, they must have thought the two scots were completely barking mad but dont get the ability of people in scotland to have massive disagreements but still be good friends so that was a lesson for them i think, i didnt realise it was so unique! I have pin pointed future targets for when I take over the world, we have a guy who likes to "win the hearts and minds of Iraqis" and another who believes that "democracy is the way for all free loving people in the world" - I think those are both almost direct quotes of Mr Bush Jnr which made so many people repulsed, hence why they are on my hit list, especially the one with the drawling american accent to go along with his sucky speechifying hehehehehe moo hahahah mwhaa hahahaha *breathes*

so I slept like mega early and on saturday i slept more and went out at night to watch a DVD cause there was this hallowe'en party which we'd neglected to get tickets for in our paper and essay modes. Tooo be honest didnt sound like THAT good a night, everyone was tired from all their deadlines and there were 700 students there most of whom were drunk and we had way more fun going to a friends house and watching a movie. We then went to Al Ameen at like midnight which was deeeeeeeelish! I hadn't been there before but ultra yummy and very good banter :) :)

Sunday I did lazyfied work in bed I think.

And now its thursday and I dont really know what I've been doing other than starting to do research for my emergencies and legal theory paper coming up (ok thats a lie, I've been deliberately wasting time but now I realise how short it is till this stuff happens so I'd better get back down to it after indulging in some shopping this weekend)

Other than that been trying to find ideas about what I want to do in terms of internships or work over the summer cause I guess I'd better start applying for this kind of shizzle - any ideas people?? Pretty please??

And I've been going to the gym (semi regularly) which I'm reeeeeeeeal proud of cause its finally working and I never usually have the will power to do! Its bizarre I have no idea where the sudden will power came from but I'm happy about it Alh

so ja I'm going to get some lunch with Farah after she's submitted something for her deadline at 1 - megabites or "arab" food?

take care folkies :) lots of love and salaams

xxxxxxxxxxxx

sitting in the good ole library

Yet again! Ack! Just seen the inside of this too much recently its affecting my mood and making me irritatable. I dislike things left unfinished if I know it requires completion it just bugs me and sticks at the back of my head until I hand it in on Friday.

I now have 53 pages of notes and a word count of 0 actually written, but now I'm done all my colour coding and page numbering I really have nothing to do but to put it together so wish me luck on how that goes. I got terrible marks for my modern studies and english dissertations in 6th year (so what if i was younger and less mature and paying it less attn) which kind of hangs over my head when I think about this one being even longer. I also don't want to disappoint Hallaq because he was an incredibly good professor and really inspired me and many others to do well! I have never heard anyone like him speak to me before. He said to me he would never have guessed I was only undergrad at 20 years in a class full of LLM students so I dont want to disappoint him - little does he know that it probably petrifies me more to know that! Its been some incredibly interesting research - I had originally been looking just at the similarities between the waqf and trust law of england, but I'm finding that so many areas of Shariah and the common law are the same and that even the teaching methods seems to have originated in Baghdad between the 7th and 12th century! I also seem to have discovered that I love history which I had no idea about - maybe it is just because I stood at a point where I was utterly clueless about the Middle Ages...

Me mum and dad are away to Nepal tomorrow so I hope you two have fun and stay safe and stay away from Yeti airlines!! Im looking forward to home in December and seeing everyone again - I got a lovely message from Aisling and life goes on in Edinburgh much as it ever did :) everyone seems to be realising that honors is evil much as I am out here with the amount of work that we get, but I do really appreciate the courses that I have a choice of out here!

Yesterday we went to a talk by a guy who used to be the Singapore person on the UN and now works in making sure Singapore complies with International law. What I and most others took away from that is just Singapore atypical really! Anything he couldn't answer was "the Ministry" and to be honest it wasn't really fair to ask him why Singapore felt that cost and benefit analysis in implementing human rights treaties was more important than their guiding principles. Singapore's attitude is that if they don't think they can live up to the standards of a treaty (or don't want to - its much cheaper to just kill someone and/or cane them than put them in jail for 6 months) they put a reservation in on all the articles they wont manage - which in the case of a human rights treaty is a whole lot. I would rather they were held accountable than worry about damage to their reputation politically but Singapore is all about practical measures and disliking being criticised. He praised the fact that they have a small government here and its easy to speak to each other and agree - I didnt like to point out the fact that its because they are all from the same party and there is no such thing as opposition (outwith or within the party!) so I just said it under my breath.

So now I had better start writing the body of this shizzle I guess :)

wish me luck!

Not much to update

Farah's parents invited me around to meet a Scottish convert who converted after his girlfriend died and his parents, they were proper Invernessy people so they were in love with their scottishness over mine - it was all rather upsetting for me!  Then Nurul's mum invited me around to hers to the open house which was always lovely and they stuffed me full of freshly made prata (cheeeeeeeesey) and other delightful things.  I met the Imam of Sultan Mosque and his wife there who offered to teach me Arabic so I hope that works out iA :)
Just be studying away in the library or in my room reading stupid books.  I'm finding it quite difficult to keep the momentum going to be honest hence why I'm blogging probably.  Esp since I haven't written an essay in over two years as Edinburgh tests us by exams 100%. 
Other than that I'm a star on Malay news and in the papers. Same old same old ;)
(they wanted a piece on international student celebrating Hari Raya in Singapore)
I'm looking forward to december so much right now, only really 4 more weeks of teaching, 1 week of reading and then exams to go though so time should pass quickly :)
salaams and love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Selamat Hari Raya

Or Eid Mubarak!

I hope everyone has had a good week since my last blog - its Sat now so am having a library session - starting to get friendly with my Islamic law waqf books and work on my paper.

Eid was proper fun and it meant I only had classes on Monday and Friday this week so feels like I've just had a weekend!  For Eid Yusrina's family invited me around in the morning after namaaz and they we visited her mums side of the family and her dads - everyone was most welcoming and of course I had to eat all their dishes so had 3 meals in the morning - aunties get upset if you dont try everything incl the liver and lung dishes so you have to force it down and rely on the lovely cakes and shizzle after to take away the taste!

After that the Pakistani society at NUS had a BBQ on the go in the afternoon so chilled with that lot for a bit and didnt eat much cause I physically couldnt but it was all delicious looking and i naturally had to try some of it...

Apparently some news channel wanted to interview me, ceri, badawi and zak so we met at another friends house and ate there whilst being filmed and then interviewed - so was on the news several times! I cant escape from it even over here man, but its lovely cause you dont have to watch what you say cause the reporters and stuff out here arent there to trip you are - looking forward to my article coming out - of course its in malay so I'll just enjoy the picture and get someone else to translate heehee

after that we went to meet farah's parents who were lovely people and very funny - we all really enjoyed ourselves there Alh :) they are our adopted family in Singapore! Been invited around tonight to meet a scottish convert who had been dated farah's cousin before she died a few years ago, I really have to work on my paper but its so rude to not accept invites over here - keeping it as brief as possible! And Nurul's family have invited me around to their house tomorrow afternoon.  Everyone is most welcoming in Singapore and are always looking out for me! Its so lovely and sweet! I wish I could introduce them to my parents too as they are a good laugh too. 

It was nice to have an Eid like that - it'll always be special to me - its far better than being back in Scotland cause I would have been alone again in Edinburgh so I'm so thankful I'm in singapore this year! but I'm really looking forward to Xmas now in Stranraer and having my own family around me iA.  Farah's parents really did make us all feel like it was a home away from home and a truly heartwarming family time bless them, made me miss home alot!!

Except I hadnt been feeling well all Eid with a stuff nose and head and flueyness so spent the day in bed yesterday doing a bit of work here and there but mainly watching sweeney todd and chilled with friends last night in the waffle place in PGP, so getting down to workfor the next two weeks.  I got up early this morning and registered for a course in arabic (waaaay on the other side of the island, which is never really that big anyway!) so that should also be good iA

I think thats me all caught up. I hope everyone is in good health back home and missing me tooooooooooooooons! hehehe 2 months til I home for a bit and I think I need to sort out stuff with Edin careers shizzle when I get back, but yea take care folksies, my life will be a lot more boring for the next two weeks so blogs will be unexciting too :p

salaams and love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

What a weekend !!

Last week started off really boring as I was just writing an essay that was due in today - somehow I managed to not get it finished in time for going away so after getting back last night about 1am I stayed up until half 6 writing, then slept for 3 hrs and finished it off promptly at midday when my class was starting Alh I got it done - I don't know how good or bad it is, I was in the lib making some changes and then some dude switched off my computer so I lost all the changes I had been making in the morning so it wasn't a completely ok'd version going in. Not. Amused.

But this weekend was SO worth it so I don't mind so long as I pass it i'm ok with that!

On Thursday I flew to Macau in the morning, met Daniel there who I'd never met before so we did the get to know chatting thang until the flight which I just slept through entirely - cause guess what I was up late working on that damned essay on the wednesday night as well!! Landed in Macau and met Ceri, Zak and Smail who had been travelling for a week before us and seemed to have had a lot of fun - I cant wait to see their pictures and videos from it! Macau is just basically full of casinos and european style buildings so we decided not to stay there for the night and just toured it. Went up the viewing tower and WOW the casinos were huge and many in number - they were really spectacular by night - this is bigger than LA in terms of revenue so you can imagine the insanity of it. Ceri did the world's biggest bungee jump which I would never in a million years do - I was happy to just watch but she seemed to really enjoy it! Taxi drivers are nutters over there and we had quite a few mishaps which ended in Mcdonalds and meeting each other at the ferry terminal cause we were all separated but such a laugh. I hate to say it but we kind of lived off mcdonalds (filet of fish as well - there is no halal KFC, BK, McDs, etc, etc like Singapore for alot of the holiday!!!

Got to Hong Kong about 10pm and set off to find our hostel which look uuuuuuuugly and scary and oh so ghetto from the outside but was really clean inside and the ladies who worked there were so sweet! Cosmic Guest House people - if you ever go to Hong Kong. Was in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong, which is very very close to Hong Kong island and also to the Mong Kok which had first class shopping, had a lovely promenade and easy to get to both disney land hong kong (which we totally did) and the airport!

So we eventually caught yet another McD’s before going to bed. Ceri and I didn’t sleep for ages cause our bathroom with 3 random slippers rather than 2 or 4 was very amusing given the fact the entire thing was a shower and we couldn’t really work out how to keep our clothes and towel dry whilst in there…its probably really simple but we were both so incredibly tired!

It sounds awful that we had so much fast food but a lot of Hong Kong food is pork based and there is very very few halal joints there so I felt sorry for Fadil who lives there permanently! I did manage to find a list of some of them and we checked it out – resulting in some wicked biryani and kebabs so I’m not complaining. Though the area with the most Muslim eating places was the strip club area!!! But still – good food man, good food!

On the Friday we did a lot of wandering around a sightseeing – Bank of China Tower was specatular, and just in the insanity of all sky scrapers – absolutely breath taking! Hong Kong rocked! And there were random wee parks everywhere which we took a wander around and later met up with Ceri’s friend from Hong Kong who works there in the IFC I think. Then we met up with Fadil and friends to go to this kebab place. It was good to see him, bit strange seeing him outside of Edinburgh but class as always an met some of his friends so I know they are cool and will take care of him!! After that we went up a cable car and saw out over Hong Kong late at night which was truly truly incredible. If ever in Hong Kong take a trip to Peak Tower most definitely! So that was yet another late night!!

On Saturday we took a trip to Disneyland Hong Kong – which although way smaller than Paris and definitely Orlando, we made our own fun and hung around there until late in the evening learning the lingo and having a riot J Awww I love Disney, reminded me of all my favourite movies and childhood. My first crush was blatently Aladdin…I can’t tell you how much fun we had there cause we are a random bunch of people who just like to do crazy things. I worked out that I had only known Zak and Ceri for less than a month – since Ramadhan starts, and Daniel for only a few days ( I knew smaily from classes) but its really great to have them as friends Alh :)

That night we sat on the promenade at Kowloon and looked over at Hong Kong island for hours just sitting and chatting until it started rainining! We’d missed a typhoon in Hong Kong only the day before thank God because that would have been awful!

Then on Sunday we toured and shopped Mong Kok to death – good fun, we split cause me and ceri didn’t like shopping as much as the guys (I know!) and after 2 hrs we were bored and started just having a wee walk around eventually ending up at the promenade and seeing that by day! Everything is just so kitsch and Japanese ( know!) its amusing to see…

So we were late for our flight, a mammoth gallop through the airport and found out that it was delayed so felt gutted that we’d run on full stomachs! And when I got back last night we ate together and went our ways to write essays and revise for mid terms the following day! Really fantastic weekend!

Tomorrow is the last day of Ramadhan. Its weird out here there is no build up or excitement at when is Ramadhan?? There is a public holiday on Wednesday, its settled that this is the designated day – its so Singaporean, if it was to be like anything else it would throw the spanner in the works and Singapore would be in crisis!! Despite it not being a family day over here I’ve had plenty of invites round to local people’s houses and the Pakistanis are having a BBQ at PGP where we stay and then there is apparently Bollywood movieness going on – but I’ll need to check it out after visiting all my invitations! Alhamdulillah people have been so kind over here!

Anyhoo now I shall sleep early tonight and get some work done tomorrow, maybe make one last trip to the bazaar if Ceri doesn’t find elastic tonight for our shalwar kameez for weds :) I want to go and get my hair cut tomorrow as well iA

Sooooo let me know how being back at uni is!

Salaams, and love to all my peeps reading my blog (that’s right, I’m so G)

bungle of everything

ellooo peeps its silly o'clock but i finds its much easier to concentrate at night which is weird and so unlike me cause i like my sleep!!

But thought I'd quickly blog before I jump into bed. Tis recess week now, and I get bored here by myself so like it when Farah hasn't gone home for the weekend, should just be doing work but I find it quite difficult to concentrate here or maybe its just cause I'm bored of my own company, either way its not been sooo productive a couple of days but its getting better cause I'm getting my teeth into interesting american cases on Guantanamo :) sooooo looking forward to Macau and Hong Kong - I leave Thursday so the blogs will have to wait until I get back. But looking forward to seeing Fadil studying out there, a bit of back in Edinburgh comfort about East!

Went to the most awesome restaurant eeeeever tonight - a two floor buffet. Oh man did we just eat until we couldn't move! Duck, scallops, EEL (its not that bad), steak (yum) and so the list goes on and on and on and on - I have no idea how I fit it all in all I know is that I looked like 3 months pregnant now hehehe had to walk it off back to campus, we got on the internal shuttle bus and maaaaaaaaan did he think he was in with a shot for the F1 this weekend. NUS has a lot of speed bumps. Combined with being pregnant with food it didnt aaaaaaaaalways feel too good there was alot of groaning coming from us hehehehe


hehe it doesnt look too yummy on camera phone but oaty prawns and pizza scallops and cheesey mussels....

Something even funnier than how full I still feel right now is apparently I'm tipped to be an SNP patsie :o :p
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Inside-Holyrood-I39ve-seen-the.4513529.jp
I can not tell you how insulting and funny I find it being compared to Kezia Dugdale, Craig Wilson AND MARCO (hehe) being on the other side of the world at the moment :P its rather ironic given I have rants about idiots running around on campus playing politics with each other thinking they are big shots and then unf they end up in parl a few years later treating it this a playground all over again. I think you need to have those who go and experience life and the other side of the playing field first before letting it just take over your life, maturity counts for a lot, not that I'm saying its entirely wrong to start early if your good at it and can see the grander scheme of things rather than the next political battle on newsnight. I think the fact that parties care more about each other is what causes apathy, the average joe doesn't give 2 hoots that such and such was pish on newsnight - they just want you to do whats best for them guys :p which happens to be what your paid to do.

so yeah :p but I guess I should find it as a compliment really. Alh not many people can literally just hit 20 and become a patsie :) He works in weird ways

and I'm missing peeps again, maybe I only blog when I miss people, I dunno :p I guess I always just miss people, certain things can remind me of a person and then I miss that person for a bit and then something else happens which reminds me of someone else, its just the way it is though :) but keep in touch with me and let me know what you guys are up to cause everyones starting back up at uni now or parliament is back from recess or if your starting new jobs or winning by elections, I feels sad when I don't still feel a part of your life so tell me about the boring stuff please

take care :) salaams and love from Singapore lah!

ello

Salaam, peace dudes

Me got a spare half hour before I get up properly for classes...last one before recess week. I cant believe that! I'm half way through my term and now all the big things are going to start becoming due in! Eeep! Was planning to work the first half of the week and then dart off to Hong Kong and Macau to relax for a few days - its pretty cool that I can do that. Its still weird to lie in bed and realise I'm lying in a bed on the other side of the world, and studying at such a good university- if someone had asked me this time last year if I thought this was going to happen I'd have thought they were stupid!

Ramadhan is flying past and have met alot of people and done alot since it started. There has been chinese lantern festival to mark a Chinese moon festival (too much Hello Kitty EVERYWHERE despoiling the lovely chinese gardens; Geylang Ramadhan market (where I shopped too much, it was fun :p so I have an Eid suit for this year yaay); and lots and lots of Iftari's which has been fantastic for meeting new folk! Funnily enough most of the Muslims I've meet at PGP have been Pakistani's and some random Brits and Malays here and there

but for the all fun times I'm having here I miss home life and family and friends back home, there is no way I could do this for longer than 4 months at a time, and I'm so so grateful I can come back for a month in between, I do feel sad sometimes when I miss out on the little things in peoples lives and whats happening, even though I'm doing fantastic things here and living it to the max possible

ps I cant get away from press I have to do an interview for a Malay newspaper about what I'll be doing for Eid! BBQ!!

Now because that telephone interview this post has to get cut short because I have to get ready for public int'l class (snooooze) well this one is on terrorism and torture so could have the chance of being slightly interesting

salaams and lots of love

Ramadhan Mubarak

my bad, I will start updating this more often now - I havent had time recently because Karen was over for so long and then Ramadhan started which just takes away your energy to be doing extracurricular things like blogging but you can start reading this more often now!

To start back from long time ago...

After our Islamic Law class was done we went out for some sheesha
- which was amazingly great fun and really good because it meant I met way more local students and some more Muslims around the law campus as well, and our Islamic law class really was class, and I rather miss them and our professor. I can't tell you how inspiring or engaging he was, but everyone fell in love with the subject because of him! He told me not to worry that I didn't know what to do after uni because he never knows but always seems to do what he loves and this gig is something he loves, aaah words of wisdom from the prof


and then Karen and I did a lot of noseying things in Singapore and around. Karen seemed to enjoy KL and even met a random guy from Giffnock there! Karen was advised to go to Sentosa so we went. Sentosa is a little island off Singapore which you can reach by monorail, bus or CAbLE CAR! So naturally we went for cable car even though heights are not my thing but this was fiiine, face the fear and aw that! But was suprised how easy it was


Sentosa is a very built island now that forces itself to be idyllic, with so many rides and big signs and silly colours and fonts like it tries to be disney land plus everyone goes there on a sunny day at the weekend which Alh it was that day but thankfully not a weekend.

We also had our first KFC - which really isn't that good, McDonalds is waaay better! Its weird so many lazy students have McDonalds for Iftari which is baaaaaaaaaad, I will try as much as I can not be there those days cause you need some sort of nutrition after all day fasting :p but its not really that long here - well only 2 or 3 hours shorter than back home but the heat mostly gets to you unless your in aircon all day...

So anyway after that we went to Indonesia and Tanjung Panang which is on the island of Bintan which was so Indonesian and so different to Singapore. We stayed in a hotel and splashed out of a Deluxe suite (S$33 only lol) and walked around town the first day - strange to see somewhere sooo different and to us relative poverty but everyone there was quite happy how they were living methinks, although they kept having powercuts which would turn off the aircon!

Went to the most beautiful beach either of us had ever seen on the Sunday, the water was so clear and it really was an amazing day as well. Only bad point about it was that no one would leave us alone, we thought we had left the car honking and "hey miss" behind but even at the beach so many people came up to us to take pictures with the whitey folk! V. irritating and tiring after a while because you had to pay attention to everything going on and everyone and could never fully chill out. If guys spoke to us we began to only be able to speak German :p but some nice girls who were about 11 or 12 wanted to come up and practice their English and learn more about the UK with us which we didn't mind. Plus they gave us homemade doughnuts which were yummeeeeee


and then Karen went home and is safe and sound in Scotland as of Wednesday - I kinda wished I was going back with her and I really miss having her around cause it was good fun and we got on so well! But its only 3 more months until I go back home, everyone else is doing some travelling first which is a really good idea but I also kinda just wanna get back and see people, I might make a stop over on my way back, plus I intend doing some travelling later on around here iA

And since then been fasting and working, I find I am way more productive and do more work during Ramadhan so I'm getting things out the way Alh, everyone is away to Bintan this weekend after I enjoyed it to much last weekend so not as many people are on campus. Although my neighbour Farah is around and we tend to have iftari and sehri and stuff together - she's pretty cool, Singaporeans are nuts, and met lots of other Muslims coming out the woodwork, most are Pakistani, Malay or British (well one other Brit!) and I met a guy from Khazakhstan which was soo interesting! I'm looking forward to going to the bizarres that are set up for this month in arab street and at gelang which is the Malay area so I should have plenty more to tell you iA,

and so now I will go and do some work for mondaaay, take care guys, please keep me up to date with whats been going on at home, if I dont email back for a while prod me because its usually that I've forgotten :p I'm SO rubbish I know but whatever :p

oops its been over a week

but it was a really busy week so forgive me! Busy with classes and everything else - Karen is over at the moment, well she's in Kaula Loompa at ze momento and I just got back from class (10pm) only two more Islamic classes left - I'll be gutted, its been extremely interesting and amazed me in so many ways. I got so much to recommend you read if anyone is interested in this area btw, so we're going for a wee shisha sesh the morro night after class!

Picking up the sister at the airport was as eventful as ever as in her unique way she never gave me very much info, so I just kinda hoped I was standing in the right terminal...but i got her fine eventually! The best thing we did was go on a wee hike and do a tree top walk - I basically looked down as little as possible an busied myself with the sky and trees :p but it was awesome to see monkeys in the wild - Karen has all these pictures so I'm afraid we'll be waiting until she manages to return to scotland! also did the night safari that night - worth it but it rained a bit too much for my liking, karen is loving it thought since she's been in the desert! I just feel wet and miserable, it is warmer and you do dry off but I prefer the happeee happeeee sunshine that we had this morning

Eating SO MUCH good food - its impossible to keep the weight off! I play lots of badminton and after my intensive can do more exercise cause man is it completely bonkers how good the food is - i'm bored of chinese food, mostly cant eat it anymore!

so karen comes back from Malaysia tomorrow and we need to decide where to go to this weekend as Bintan now isn't happening, i wanted bangkok but there are riots there at the moment so could be interesting! might do it anyway hehehe

emails and shizzle always welcome guys :p

salaams xx

Botanic Gardens

I quite liked the random street lamp! It felt very tropical Narnia or something

palm tree, one of those will totally fall on my head...

View of the lake after immediately walking from my Law Campus


Thing about Singapore is that its beautiful but always in the background there is some insane mix of it being a city and building works

Sitting in ze library

Salaams my dears

Sitting in the Library on a Sunday afternoon with the thunder raging outside whilst I'm snuggled up in a wrap due to the airconditioning, I am indeed meant to be reading about the UN's relevance but thought a little blog would be appropriate right now.

This last week has gone incredibly quickly, its been quite scary. In a way it is a blessing but it also shows to highlight that time really does seem to be going by faster now - I'll be 40 tomorrow :( hehehehe

Classes have been interesting - only in singapore do you not finish classes until half 9 on a friday night :p serious dedication to education out here Alh its amazing and I'm grateful to experience it - hopefully it'll mean I'l get my head down in 4th year when it really counts (oh yeah also my resit next August, how awful does that sound!)

Now a 1/3 of my way through my Intensive - Islamic Law - and its really very very interesting and inspirational. The lecturer is inspiring and quite barking mad at times, but he speaks with passion and thats why I'm so enthusiastic about my research paper. Having not yet come up with a topic of course... Its a really interesting mix of Islamic history and Usul al Fiqh, which I can not even begin to describe how fascinating it is or how amazed I am at the abilities and capacity of the peoples at that time as well as the way society operated that is so different from the State system we are used to today. Totally requires thinking outside the box!

I discovered the Botanic Gardens were literally 5 minutes walk from the door of my seminar room. Took a wee walk around there on Friday, I'm so lucky man! I seriously know it when I get this just outside my door - I don't take it for granted like we do in Edinburgh. In Edinburgh you can't sit with your back against a palm tree reading about post 9/11 constitutional theory :p its usually tax in a cold flat !!

And yesterday I went shoooopping! Ooops...I discovered Arab Street and bought quite alot for reasonable prices in comparison to the UK - spent about $250 but thats only about £90 which is quite good considering the amount I bought Alh. I can safely wash my clothes and still have stuff to wear, which reminds me I have washing hanging out to dry in a thunder storm, that doesn't make sense on so many levels but I can't be bothered moving...

Karen arrives on Wednesday and I hope to show her the madness of Chinatown and places and hopefully take a trip to Indonesia or Malaysia whilst she's here iA - maybe both! Will see what she fancies. Not been seeing enough of folk because of the late classes so I'll be really grateful when the intensive finishes and I only have a 3 day week Alh

So anyway battery is dying on laptop so need to find somewhere to charge it - photos should follow iA hope you enjoy your read of what I've been up to on the other side of ze world from you guys

gailxxx

So I havent blogged in a while...

mainly cause classes started yesterday and its been a really intense few days. Loving the classes here much better choice and more engaging than back home (I may end up as one of those students who sticks her hand up in class back home cause here you have to do it or else). Last night was just proper tired so skyped then slept.
UN was seriously interesting, it'll be slightly like EU law last year (but no stupid book), gonna have to get up to scratch with my knowledge of Zimbabwe, Kosovo, Darfur, etc cause alot of the time the class demands that you know the ins and outs and I'm like whaaaaaaaaaaaat? Emergency powers and legal theory is my favourite - its constitutional law and jurisprudence in one and you can just get such good debates going! And Islamic Law was my intensive which didnt start until 6.30pm ends at 9.30pm and is 3 nights a week for 3 weeks (ya intensive) and we didnt really get onto anything substantive and the guy was an eccentric palestinian who I think might be too intelligent to teach (think SIR PROF MCCORMACK) but we'll see on thursday - basically I need to read the syllabus by the weekend so that I can choose a research paper topic so if anyone has any ideas let me know :p
and tonight I just chilled out and met some more international people who were pretty cool, just utterly dislike that so often everything is about alcohol, how much they drank, what they did, which guys they slept with, which river they woke up in, what part of the body they broke, what it was they drank last week, 2 years ago, 5 months ago or whatever. You kinda sit back and think this is seriously all you have to talk about!? Its so meaningless and not as cool as everyone thinks it is, but everyone talks like getting wasted is the only way to be cool, and I get that its a personal choice, and I personally wont choose it, I'm not old before my time, I just have different priorities, I can still have fun and I think people enjoy my company Alhamdulillah but just minus a desire to be incoherent and embarrassing. probably offended about 80% of those reading my blog but hey thats why you love me cause I have wacky rants and am opinionated right?!

oh and Nurul's mum made me the most awesome baking again, bless her, she's keeping me well fed and has only met me once, nurul has been incredibly helpful too introducing me to some of the natives or else i'd only have international students as friends and its quite cool to get a daft mix of friends and experience people from other countries!

anyway my contacts are getting glued to my eyeballs so I should seriously sleep, I've lacked pictures recently apologies, I did take a neat one of my pineapple fried rice IN A PINEAPPLE, which was wicked....aah the simple things..

take care dude-eldeydoos

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Salaam

Blogging late means you have no idea what you did 3 days ago but I'm pretty sure that was the day we went to Little India and crashed the art school welcome tea but were then given freebies after being discovered! We tried to get our student passes but it didnt exactly work out (apparently if you read the form it told us that it was only open 8am - 2pm on weekdays so the lady was very annoyed with us!). Little India was too clean to be India but busy enough and with enough shops of gooooold. We always get tired of walking around or standing on MRTs but its really worth it! I think we've seen everything in Singapore (bar the botanical gardens) and will become really bored of it! It is a small place, it literally is just a big city. Saw the olympics opening ceremony, cheered for Team GB, and Sri Lanka and Singapore and New Zealand and marvelled at the choice of Scotland the Brave for the music that the teams all entered into the stadium to.

But Saturday was good with the National Day Parade, very cool to see the airshow and fireworks. Afterwards we stayed around and discovered a concert which we were eventually allowed into free (seriously, if you stay in the right places you dont have to pay we're discovering pretty fast)!! We had to go, we'd only see it once! And it paid off, very good evening and always very educating. I really cant get over that we live and study in somewhere like Singapore, with its skyscrapers and weather and beaches and tropicalness. At times one of us just sits back and exclaims we freakin live here guys and we all appreciate it all the more. I am so thankful for this opportunity even if it does mean I miss people I love. Alhamdulillah the space to grow, think and experience is amazing. The way of life is different, the people's attitude are different, although its still a city and a very developed one at that, the pace feels different. Or maybe its my pace that is so difference given I'm not thinking about everything going on at every turn. At home alot of my friends are going through quite horribly serious times. And I would give anything to bring you all your own space in Singapore or wherever it is you needed I would if I could. It makes you torn between thinking this is the life and always staying out the picture from harsh realities (ignorance could be bliss?) and wanting to use this time to gather momentum and maturity and utilise this.

And today I have been starting work and cleaning my room (well not really). My courses are what fascinates me which is also much better than Edinburgh where I had to do the tedious courses, but out here its only the credits that matter. I hope the materials and studies I read out here give me a fresh and difference perspective from the course work set year in year out in Edinburgh. It really does allow you to expand your thought and bring new ideas to the table.

Anyway I do rather have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Just know that my thoughts and prayers are with you guys. I hope things get better, just remember to keep your intentions right and think before you step out into the middle of the road. And I am missing you all, I would, as I said, love to just bring you out to me, and if you ever do think of a spur of the moment holiday I would be more than happy to see ya of course :p

GREAT...!!

...basically for the next week we have rain and thunderstorms, the monsoon is apparently properly hitting, I dont want to be continually wet and indoors!

Monged around to. Ate cookies and scones. Improved at pool. Ate awful dinner. Was exactly the same. Watched V for Vendetta but got sleepy. Blogged.

Thats what you do when it rains!

salaams

Wednesday wasn't very exciting

I say that because we had to hang around on campus for an international students meeting, which wasn't great but the wee chinese lady at the front was really cute and funny in that awful oh dear she's trying to be funny and quirky. Our Helen Leitch at Edinburgh is cool in that way too - whats with international office people!? I just hung around until Billy and I went to have dinner at our halls.
Muslim hall food is awful, I want to try it again tonight to see if its the same. For starts it came in a brown paper bag and I was thinking this isn't a terribly good sign - but it was basically an overly greasy fried chicken wing, some beansprouts (cold) and rice (cold). I had a look at the other stuff and it was far better even by my impression of hall standards. If its always the same I'm taking the veg option or refusing to pay for the meals here as part of my rent because it was really rank and old and basic and half arsed! But its ok - Nurul's mum made me some lovely scones, homemade jam and cookies. Absolutely delicious! I might have a scone for brunch. I eat so much out here. Check it out auntie has her own blogspot, the scones that are at the top are the ones she made me! http://www.ummisbakery.blogspot.com/
After that went to the cinema to see dark knight - how awesome is that! SO very twisted, kind of too twisted at times. When the lights went back up I forgot where I was and could so easily have been in the quay or the omni centre and I really missed home!
So today when the hungover folk wake up from the dead we'll be going to Little India hopefully with my CLEAN clothes (excitement) on!
salaams, g

Salaam

Was way tired last night so never got around to blogging but its ok because I didnt do anything interesting other than register, get xrays done, eat, play pool and sleep. Bar being followed by a malaysian guy with rubi and vicki, he was actually rather helpful and told us alot of useful info it was just random and weird. Uni is weird man, strange stuff goes on.

Today I went up to my law campus and sorted out all my subjects and had a wee nosy around. I'm taking....

United Nations Law and Practice
Islamic Law
Emergencies and Legal Theory
Comparative Constitutional Law
Public International Law

inshaAllah nothing will go wrong with that bunch now - it took a lot to get to this final 5 btw. I wish I hadn't forgotten my camera because I saw alot today! The campus is 20 minutes away by (free) bus and it very pretty. This campus is very very american stylee but the law one is far more like cambridge or oxford with its grass and quadrangles and white washed buildings. I had a little explore so I wouldn't get lost first days of classes and walk in late (and thus drop grades - how mean!). I'll take come cute little photos for you guys next time I go! There is a random dude from Glasgow uni which I proper cant wait to meet - he's also doing Islamic Law so wanna see what he's like!! It'll feel like home in my classes just slightly if I have another scottish accent. It does kinda mean I'm going to get cabin fever again this year when I dont see the lovely daylight that exists in singapore.

After that met up with Nurul and ate (again new food, sseriously there is just so much of it you cant fail but eat new stuff all the time and its all been first rate!) and shopped (books) and she took me to Mustafa Centre in Little India, which is just CRAZY! Seriously its like cash and carry/TK MAX and sells absolutely anything and everything - you name it and I will find it for you! Think I'll go back there with the uni folk and have a proper look around. Went back to Nurul's for some tea. I have missed tea so much, its just incredibly good. Met her mum and dad and was invited around for Iftar next month which is really really nice of them!

So back at the halls and writing this before I head to bed (its midnight), gotta get up nice and early for a 2pm kick off of an international students welcome tea, will remember and bring my camera for your enjoyment :p

I still get sad thinking about home and people there, I miss the politics muchly and rely on reading day old heralds (given the time difference!). Who's gonna get labour leadership dudes? Give me the inside gossip! Except now I kinda want to have them out there so they can eat and sleep and walk with me cause Singapore is truly fascinating when you sit back and just look at everything going on around you, especially today in Little India!

Don't worry mum i'm eating my fruit (bought apples and honey melons and grapes to store in my room) still not eaten the catered for food in the halls, might try it tomorrow actually. Should probably show my face to the randomers!

g'night, have a fun SIF meeting, take care and know that randomly every single one of you randomly pops into my thoughts for one reason or another most days

salaam gxx

China town and exploring Singapore city

salaam, hey hey

an awesome day wandering around China Town and checking out the markets, its incredible! I really want to go shopping there on my own one day, I'll just come back with such crap for everyone at home! But that'll totally be what my remaining dollars go on! But went out with some of the guys we met last night so at least our group is expanding slightly and everything feels a little less lonely when you have people around you. Its only when I get back to my room that everything goes flop so I kinda look forward to uni starting alot just so my evenings are kept busy too! But my feet hurt from walking cause we basically walked from china town to clarke quay which is a quaint bizarre very upper class bar and lounge area. I had the best ice cream (lavender honey!), honestly it sounds so wierd but first class!

Then went up to Fort Cannings to see around it a little and catch the sun set, as we were walking around we caught the last night of sing fest. Literally so close to the stage, we were watching it for free and everyone inside had to pay $250 so thats well jammy, quite good bands had been there travis, simple plan, panic at the disco (ok not so good) but alicia keys was finishing up sunday night!

Today we did a little tour of the places of worship, one of the Hindu Temples, a Buddhist temple and a one of the mosques so was pretty interesting to see the dramatic differences in these places of worship. Buddhists just seem to make everything gold. I didnt like that it asked for $33,000 dollars to be specially protected, etc and that all donations went to buying more stuff for the temple. Whereas the Masjid and the Hindu temple gave all money to charities.

My other awesome find of the day was $100 free local credit for my phone...It wont help phoning home at all but dont need to think about calls around these parts for quite a while now!!!

And now I seem to need to go to bed cause I gotta organise myself to get matriculated, have my student visa sorted and look at accommodation in PGP with the other international students. I prefer thinking of this as a holiday than do all this boring stuff. I need a foot massage from my sandals, someone, please? :(

another interesting day, will take the advice for a very wise old friend who told me to make sure no day was ever the same as another, thank you wise old friend.

ws gxxx

First few days

Were admittedly pretty awful cause I was all alone out here, was tired from no sleep on the plane and no food. Has started to get slightly better Alh now Vicki and Rubina are here from Edinburgh. Went a chilled out in town today and tried out the public transport. MRT (mass rapid transport or something, think monorail from the simpsons!) meant being packed like the london underground, but not that bad. Tis good to just have a wander around the centre part of Singapore city but SO HOT, I think its about 31 degrees out here, need to get used to this kind of heat. Hotel concierge thought we were mad walking to the centre, it really wasn't far but the humidty is insane! Walking out of Dubai airport wall of heat is dry and HOT, this is a totally different kind of heat, one were you sweat all the time. We've decided to just accept the sweat and go with the flow iA.

Nurul, my friend from Edinburgh uni who comes from singapore, was invaluable and very helpful taking me out to meet some people. The accommodation I'm in is pretty unfriendly, no one wants to stop and chat to the only european/western chick so I'm looking to get a transfer to the houses were all the other international students are. I guess I could stick out 4 solitary months here I guess though esp if uni starts up and I'm kept buseee. Its bizarre having freshers week next week, its so early and it'll be massively different so what I'm used to! (hope plans for scottish ones are well underway Angus). Rubi is infectiously happy and makes you just sit back, chill and think "man we're in singapore" which is pretty special and exciting in itself if you ignore the missing of people back home. I think you should just fly out to me, the weather is much better here :p faith has been amazing, I just keep trying and pushing myself when things get really poop and trust that He knows what happening and that'll it'll all work out iA

Will try and work out how to get some pictures up on this, havent taken very many yet but I should show you guys whats its like!

But i do miss you guys, please stay in contact with me, I love emails and blog comments and texts and skype telling me what your up to, even the boring "in work i did a spreadsheet" is better than not hearing from you at all :p

muchly love, salaams

gail