so I am back....

For a second semester. Was difficult to leave again after I had got so used to life and work and being active back home. Its impossible to feel so passionately and angry at the goings on in Gaza and be completely unable to do anything in Singapore. It is such a closed society and people genuinely dont care about it, you couldn't find any country more reliant on US than Singapore or more disgusted by dissidence or a differing opinion from its own that Singapore. The most being done is Masjids are collecting for the humanitarian needs of Gaza. Thats really about it.

Last night was difficult when I arrived because I was so drained from sleep, and then after I woke up once this morning I couldn't get back to sleep at all! Only time I got tired was when it hit 1am back home and i was like daaaaamn I'm supposed to have at least 6 hrs now but sadly I had to get up.

But it was nice, I went over to Nuruls to pick up my stuff and it was wonderful to speak to and see her :) I have missed her company as we get along great Alh so I am looking forward to 4th year in Edinburgh with her again. She seems to have enjoyed Cairo (more towards the end) and was in great shock about the fact that is was meant to be a Muslim country and gets more harassment from men there than anywhere else. Why is that? Why do Muslim countries have some of the most disgusting men? Surely that makes very very little sense. I think it has got something to do with the role of women in their society and also obviously Western influences, or maybe repression, but a strong woman is the backbone of their husband, behind all great men are great women, tis very very true. Anyway got slightly sidetracked...

then helped farah move in, had lunch with some friends which was lovely and came upstairs to finish unpacking. TOO MY HORROR i found cockroaches in my bags that had been at nuruls :( so i smacked one with my slipper and the other has disappeared, I sincerely hope out my room iA but i've turned it inside out and not found anything so I hope that is the end of it but I'm rather scared of going to sleep tonight! vile ugly things :(

then i had dinner with folk which was also nice to be back chilling with them :) and farahs mum phoned so had a wee chat with her and will go see her soon iA, her mum is in hospital now and she has invited me up to visit which was lovely because she makes me feel part of her family! Lovely woman msA. So now I'm just checking out language courses and other such things. I want a bit more meaning out here so both Nurul and Saf have said to me that there is tutoring needed done at some Madrassahs so I might pop along on saturday and find out more about it iA

anyway time time for bed, I dont really have classes tomorrow I'm just tired, and I had a read of some of the work bins for my classes on thurs and it sounded like quite a lot so I'd better get started on class participation points!

Take care one and all
xx

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