5 posts tagged “plymouth”
I had a conversation with my friends just now and we were talking about how old man in Plymouth dresses smartly even when they go to ASDA. It was rather fascinating, compared to the youngsters who are inclined towards up-to-date and sometimes gothic culture. Then I recalled reading one of the books about the history of Plymouth when I went to town last time.
Imagine Plymouth before the World War. It was filled with hype, with Englishman dressing up to go out and ladies celebrating the arrival of the marines. Devonport used to be a posh town, and people would gather around the hoe to celebrate the King Edwards' birthday. The Lido was filled with people of all ages, and everyone was happy. That came from the old Plymouth, before it was bombarded by the Germans in the World War 2, due to its strategic location and its role as one of the biggest naval base in the UK.
Now almost everything is vanished -the business, the people, the hype. Devonport is now known as a dangerous place to hang out. But the remnants of its hay day can still be seen. Demolished church was abanded in the middle of the roundabout. People are coming down to Plymouth from different backgrounds. Some of them were accepted, some of them were not. Plymouth remained stagnant after the World War and not until recently, it underwent massive changes. New buildings erected, roads rebuild, and transport system was revamped. There were also a number of festivals being held here - Jazz Festival, Fireworks competition and the biggest event of the year, Plymouth Summer Festival. Thousands of people gather to participate in the events. Trying to revive the glory of its past.
And now Plymouth is facing another challenge -trying to accept the fact that it is culturally diverse and everyone should be included in the society. This issue is now at the hands of the young people, who are going to determine's Plymouth's next direction as it sets sail across the ocean of uncertainty.
"It must have felt lonely. I can feel it. Heh. We seem to have connection with each other."
Chit-chattering, while staring at the sky.
"Well, there goes the last one."
"Let's wait for a while. Maybe there's another one."
"But you see there? Everyone's leaving. I guess that was the last one."
Silence.
Pointing at a small boat cruising in front of a ferry. "Now, now look at that. Isn't it like you."
"They must have watched it from the boat! How lucky they are!"
With a sigh, "It would be nice if we can come here at night again. Together with others."
Plymouth. My current refuge. Maybe this would be the last summer event I watch this year. But it's just nice when they are people around. When there are people around.
God bless.
27th of March was the last day of my school visit. Teaching in English school has been much different than in Malaysia. I have experienced lots of difficulties trying to understand their culture, yet at the same time I began to like it very much. Like people said, experience is always the best teacher. The students here are very friendly, though they are very critical at times and very expressive. I'm gonna miss them a lot.
As a token of our appreciation, we did some stuff for the children. What I did was a bookmark by scanning a few of my paintings and stick them onto watercolour papers. I also did some language translation sheet just in case they want to learn Bahasa Melayu (in which I think they don't) Meanwhile, my friend worked on the colourful envelopes and pencils. We put everything together inside the envelope. It took us a whole night to do that. I also made a story book, Jentayu, which is based on one of the Malaysian legends. Well, I don't know if they could understand the story. Hopefully they do. I did that as I saw them doing the same storybook project for a few weeks.
While we were working on those stuff, we also tried to cook some Malaysian food for the kids. My friend fried some 'keropok', something like fish crackers. Meanwhile, I made some 'Begedil', one of the traditional Malaysian
We even did a little presentation on Malaysia. Talk to them a little bit about the history of Malaysia, the cities, the jungle, the spiders, races, food, flowers and the festivals. They were surprised to hear that we had so many festivals that we had so many holidays.
I'm hoping that one of the students would someday come to Malaysia and embrace its beauty. It has a lot of things that Britain does not offer. Since then I've started to love my country even more.
13th of March had been such a wonderful memory to me. Well, we had just started our school visit for about 2 weeks, and on that historical day, the school that I went was organising a book week event, whereby on that day you would have to dress up to become one of the characters of your favourite story book. I was told about it a day prior, thus I only had one night to make up for my costume. At the same time, we were going to have our International Night on the same date. So I had to kill both birds with one stone.
I thought of buying some clothes from the charity shop, but I just couldn't make it in time. Shop closes very early and I reached home very late. However, in just a few hours I managed to come up with a badge using only a paper and a watercolour. With a proper clip, I clipped the badge on my blazer. And I matched the blazer with my red necktie and my red scarf. Now I'm Harry Potter -Well one of his friends is much more appropriate I suppose, since that I don't have his glasses. The next day when I went to school, I was lucky not to dress exacttl like Potter, because the class already had one. So I just continued bragging about becoming Harry's friend.
The nice thing about it was that we had a costume parade later on and I had to join the teachers walking around the hall. It was such a great experience. Later, I had to show the class about the Spiderman book that I was reading. I told them about its content, and we enjoyed discussing about the book. The girls started to feel like people were starting to talk about Mr Spidey and they didn't like it. It was because they hadn't watched it.
Once I reached home, I quickly practiced with my friends for the last time for tonight's performance. And lucky me, I got my shoes from ebay on that evening. We were scolded for being late in the Cafe, however in my opinion we were just in time for the performance. These were our two performances on that night:
Mahakarya Cinta
Begitu Berat Melangkah
Melihat Kau Bersamanya
Adakah Aku Yang Salah
Atau Hanya Helah Saja
Ku Masih Mencintai Diri Kamu
Bila Kau Menjauh
Ku Rindu
Kau Bagaikan Udara
Yang Membantu Aku Untuk Terus Hidup Di Atas Dunia
Tanpa Mu Ku Lemah
Pasti Aku Tak Berdaya
Kerna Kau Maha Karya Cinta …
Biarpun Kau Tidak Mahu
Menerima Kasih Daku
Ku Kan Setia Bersama Mu
Sehingga Ke Akhir Waktu
Ku Masih Menyayangi Diri Kamu
Bila Kau Berlalu
Ku Rindu ..
Kau Bagaikan Udara
Yang Membantu Aku Untuk Terus Hidup Diatas Dunia
Tanpa Mu Ku Lemah
Pasti Aku Tak Berdaya
Kerna Kau Maha Karya Cinta
Kau Takkan Dapat Aku Lupakan
Kerna Kaulah Punca Cinta Kita
Mengajar Aku Erti Bahagia
Kembalilah ..
Terimalah Pesan Daku
Yang Akan Terus Menunggu …
Empty Decorations
I wake in the dark
With showers of life
Moments of emptiness around
Floating away
No other hope
Reality brings me
Into the ground
What can I do
What can I say
I need a place to hide away
Just for a while, just for a smile
Just for a life I used to know
The perfect song were filled with
Words of love and not with anger
What if they go
What if they leave me far behind
'Cause I don't wanna be alone.. (uh oh)
Living life for on my own (uh oh)
I don't want to live my life in isolation
Filled with empty decorations
'Cause I want to be with people that I know
Who would do the things I do (uh oh)
Making all my dreams come true (uh oh)
I don't recognize the shadows at my door
Though I've seen them all before
Because the only thing I really want..
Is to be with you....
Thus, in conclusion, it was tiring... but I enjoyed every minute of that day.
It's been quite some time since I last updated my blog. After all the trials and tribulations, I'm finally in United Kingdom! There's just so many things to do here that I forget to update my blog.
The journey took me around 13 hours from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Heathrow. From Heathrow, we took a journey by bus to Plymouth. It took another 5 hours to reach my college, the University College Plymouth of St Mark and St John. It's a small college, but is bigger compared to my institute back in Malaysia. I settled in a village house with my previous dorm mates.
The weather is kind of cold here, but I guess London is much colder. Since that Plymouth is located in the southern tip of UK, we experienced more coldness of the wind than the coldness of the temperature.
After settling down we were introduced to the college and several places in Plymouth, including Tavistock and Dartmoor.
Hope that I can keep updating my blog here since that the connection is hundred times faster than back home. I just love the UK!
