Foxes in the backyard

Saw two foxes in the back yard of my sis-in-law's house in Greenwich. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen them myself. Here are these healthy looking foxes in one of the busiest cities in the World.






The female fox actually looked straight into my eyes and didn't look scared at all.

They did some naughty stuff as well.

And finally they went away

More Snow in Coventry 2010

me more pictures:

Our leaning snowman


In our backyard


WBS teaching centre, University of Warwick


At Jubilee Crescent, Radford

Dilip is my name

I have always wondered about the meaning of my name. I knew that Dilip was an ancestor of Rama, the Hindu God. I also knew that my grandfather had named me after the Indian movie star Dilip Kumar. I guess he was a fan. However, I just found out that it means "Protector", which sounds quite good.

Adam was the name I choose for myself. He was the very first guy, according to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Mutum is my family name and I am sure it has some meaning though I have no idea.

Do you know the meaning of your name?

Birthday party in London

Just some pics....

J

Two birthdays in London

My daughter turned 6 last week but we were busy with a training session and we decided to have it this weekend instead. She was joined by her mother - my amazing wife, who celebrates her birthday today.

Happy Birthday darling.

Here's looking forward to many, many, many more happy returns of this day, celebrating together. .

We had a small (only us) but fabulous party at our sis-in-law's place in London and we had two lovely cakes from Maison Blanc. They were really delicious (will put up the pics later).

In the auto car wash for the first time

We were getting a bit bored stuck at home and decided to go out for lunch at the city centre today. After a heavy meal at Nando's we were on our way back when my wife noticed that our son was dozing off and asked me to drive around a bit so that he could go to sleep as he usually does. However, after several minutes he was still awake and we decided to get our car washed.

It's been ages since I had it washed and it was filthy looking. We drove to the Tesco car wash at the Arena park. Their cheapest rate is only £1.99 but I decided to go for the £6 package with wax and stuff.

After we got into the wash, we were pleasantly surprised when the car was sprayed with blue and pink foam.




See the look on my son's face.


Both anxious and excited at the same time. Not surprising after all it was his first time in a car wash.



To be honest, it was my first time as well. My wife was shocked when I told her that I have never gone into a car wash. I have personally avoided car washes all this time because I have heard so many horror stories of machines scratching the cars.

In the end, realised that I was scared for nothing and the car is now sparking clean. It's faster and more importantly, much cheaper than my usual car wash.

Will definitely be going back again.

Not a bed of roses all the time

A lot of people reading my blog seems to think we are having a lot of fun here in the UK. In fact, several people back in Malaysia seem to think that doing a PhD in the UK is a big long vacation and we are all having fun here.

I guess it's kind of easy to get that impression looking at the big second hand Mercedes Benz car the students bring back, all the happy photographs posted on Facebook and blogs - of going to Paris, Rome and La Rochelle.

Despite the fact that I blog and twitter constantly, I am actually quite private. I prefer to keep some things to myself. Apart from my wife, I guess no body will ever know the problems we went through and the tears we cried.

Doing a PhD is not easy. We knew that but we still decided to go ahead and enroll for the PhD programmes here at the University of Warwick - both of us, with small kids. My son was just 3 months old when we moved here to the UK. Furthermore I took a huge gamble, resigned from my comfy job and decided to pay for my studies on my own. I didn't know how but we just went ahead. As they say, when there's a will, there is a way.



With God's blessings I received a scholarship for my first year at the Warwick Business School. That was the honeymoon period and the first year passed without any problems. Then the second year came and we found out that I would have to pay for the 2nd year of my studies on my own. Right now the fees is £10,900 for overseas full time students. That does not include other living expenses - food, petrol, insurance, etc.

That was hard - I had to take up several jobs. At one time I was actually working at 4 different places and doing different things including developing web sites and teaching at the University of Warwick. We even had to dig into the little savings we had back in Malaysia. And I had to study, do research and write papers at the same time. That was really hard.

Recently I was informed that I got the studentships for the next year. Praise be to God. I realise that most of our problems were related to money. However, there are other things as well that money can't solve.

I am sure we are not the only ones with a problem. Probably, many others doing a PhD here have it worse. I know of several PhD students whose relationships broke down, spouses passing away, having miscarriages and even mental breakdowns. I sometimes wonder how some of the Malaysian doctoral students managed to get on.

We are nearing the end now but still have a long way to go. We have survived and we will continue to fight as I am sure others have. We are really happy when our older colleagues finally pass out and we learn that they passed their viva without any or minor corrections. Gives some kind of hope to us still trying to find our way through the literature and various theories.

When we were totally stressed out, we took time out, going on family vacations - to rejuvenate our batteries. I guess that kept up sane. We also supported each other and pushed each other when we had to. All the time trying to be optimistic and smile. Having religion does help and though I have always been spiritual, I am more so now. I don't want to get into arguments with Atheists but I know God exists even though I can't explain how.

I am going off on a tangent here and I don't want to put people off from doing a PhD. Just want to say that it's definitely not a bed of roses but it's not something impossible.

First Commentator
Chics

A day at the park

This was taken a while ago when my father-in-law visited us. It was really windy that day and even though it was sunny, it got a bit chilly.

It is at the Memorial Park on Kenilworth Rd, Coventry, CV3 6PT.




The eagle dance?






not easy jumping carrying a kid who weighs 16Kg.



The pictures came out quite well, especially the jump shots even though they were taken using my compact Kodak C913.

First Commentator
Yazid Idrus

Moving next door maybe

After being left unoccupied for several months, the house next door was finally bought by one of our neighbours. Apparently he got a great deal as the previous owner was desperate to get rid of it. The new owner set to work almost immediately. With his team of builders and a skip in front of the house. The first few days was pure torture with the drilling, knocking and dust hanging in the air. We even had to complain to them to keep it down.

Fortunately they seem to be nearing the end of their renovation work. I was curious and went to see what they have done so far and I was amazed at the quality of work. Plus the fact that they achieved all of it in such a short time.

Even though it's the same size as our house, the rooms look bigger and really great. Not only that, they have removed the jungle of an eyesore which was their backyard with a new paved patio. They are also paving up the front of their house and created a driveway. This is bad news for us as this means loss of our extra parking space. I had wanted one for our house as well but our landlord had refused.

Our new neighbour want to put it up for rent and I was pleasantly surprised when he enquired whether we would be interested to move in. Of course I didn't promise anything but the prospect of bigger rooms, brand new fitted kitchen and nice bathrooms and of course a driveway in front is really, really attractive. I guess the deciding factor would be the question of monthly rentals. I am not sure how much they want for the house but if it's not a big jump from what we are paying now, we might actually move in next door.

First Commentator
D

Does Google control my life?

I couldn't resist the title.

A couple of minutes ago, I had a panic attack as I couldn't open Google mail on my browser. The reason is that it's nearly 2 am and I am going through a draft of a book chapter I am writing with my supervisor. I am really sleepy and I am meeting her at 11am tomorrow, and I really needed to go through the reviewer's feedback to see whether I have covered all the points.

I had a similar problem yesterday and even though the problem was solved after restarting my computer, which may indicate that the problem is with my computer rather than with Google. However, it made me wonder whether I am being too dependent on Google.

I use my Google mail account to read my university mail, moderate my comments and also to read Twitter updates and Tweet (using Twitter Gadget). It's also linked to my Paypal, Amazon and eBay accounts. I also use the Google calender to manage my appointments which is shared and syncronised with my wife's. There are a few documents shared with friends via Google documents.

Besides that, I have most of my blogs hosted with Blogger (which is also owned by Google). And I am guessing that I am not the only one.

I shudder to think what would happen if Google were to shut down even for a day - there might be utter chaos in the World.

Trip to London Zoo

This was my second trip to the London Zoo. The first time was in 1982 on a school trip, along with my parents and sisters. That was around 26 years ago.

This was my son's first trip to a zoo and for his cousin, Noah as well.





The zoo's just 1.8 miles away from my sister-in-laws house and driving there took only a couple of minutes. We made the mistake of not buying the tickets at the car park and had to stand in a massive queue. Fortunately they opened up few other counters and we were in soon.






High five

I realise the Zoo is run by the Zoological Society of London, a charitable organisation but the tickets were really costly (£ 15.50 for adults and £12.50 for children above 3). Most of the animals were inside because of the cold and We didn't get to see the lions or the tapirs amongst others. I felt like we didn't get our moneys worth.




The pink girl





Any way the kids enjoyed the trip. The highlight of the trip were the Gorillas who put on a show. However, my son liked the aquarium the most. He was fascinated with the colourful fishes.



Here's the address:
ZSL London Zoo
Regent's Park
London NW1 4RY
ENGLAND

Snowfall in Coventry 09 - more pics

Some more pics of snow in Coventry. This winter is said to be the worst in 18 years. Fortunately, it seems to be getting better as we had good sunshine the whole day.


Building a snowman. Now that we have enough snow, I finally mastered the art of rolling a big snow ball.


With my two darlings. The snow clothing we bought for a ski trip that didn't happen finally came in handy


Snow on my car


Our front door


The street in front of our house


Foot steps on the snow

Narrow escape in Australia for my sister

Was watching with horror the deadly bush fires that swept over parts of southern Australia and praying because my sister who lives in Melbourne was on a weekend break with her family at Chateau Yering, a winery east of Melbourne in the Yarra Valley in Victoria.

They didn't even realise the danger they had been until they saw the devastation on the way back. My brother-in-law was telling me that they smelt the smoke and had heard the fire engines but didn't think much about it as bush fires are quite common during this time of the year.

I guess they are a bit shaken but they are glad that the staff didn't tell them or they might have panicked.

Just check out the picture below and you can see how close it had been for them.


That's the place they were staying.

Read the article in The Age

Thank God they are safe.

Snowfall in Coventry Feb 09

Went to London yesterday to see my nephew Noah who just arrived on Saturday. A really cute fellow and it was amazing he was willing to let me hold him. He got on fabulously with my daughter as well. However, he became cranky later in the after noon - jet lag I guess.



While we were there it started snowing - a bit at first and then later in the evening, became a blizzard. I was quite worried and decided to drive back before it got worse. I was so worried, I didn't even get chance to say bye to Noah. It was terrible in London but as soon as we hit the M40, the weather suddenly cleared and it was Ok the rest of the way home.



Woke up this morning to find everything white. It was not that bad and I sent the kids to school. I think I made a good decision to come back instead of staying back in London yesterday because we would have been stuck there today. Apparently they had nearly a feet of snow there yesterday.

Happy New Year 2009

Can't believe it but time passes so fast. It seems just like yesterday, we cheered the new year 2008 in.

Wishing all visitors to my blog a wonderful New Year.

A short post from my sister-in-law's appartment in London.

Driving in London

Last Sunday, we drove down to London to meet up with my sister-in-law who just moved to the UK. My brother-in-law had arrived a few days earlier. I hate driving in London and my sister-in-law was staying in an apartment right in the heart of the city - in Bayswater (near the Malaysian Hall). Fortunately I didn't have to pay the congestion charge as it was a Sunday. Moreover metered spaces and single yellow lines were free for parking.

I don't know what I would have done without my TomTom. A Sat-nav is a must have gadget for anyone who drives in the UK. However, I realised that I need to update to the latest map as it kept telling me to go into one way streets - the wrong way and into roads that didn't exist any more. It also tells me that the fastest route to our house is via the M6 whereas I prefer to take the M40 - which is even faster. It took me more than half an hour just to get out of the city on the way back. Sometimes technology can drive you crazy.

Going back to London again this week and I have to pay the congestion charges. Fortunately a friend has allowed us to park our car in front of her house for free otherwise I would have had to spend a huge amount for the parking.

Thrice to Ikea in 2 weeks

I am sure we are the customers that retailers dream about - I mean we went to the Ikea store in Coventry three times in 2 weeks. Not that we have a lot of money to spend but the kids were restless at home and it's freezing cold to go roaming anywhere else. So thinking about a warm place where the kids can play supervised for free, with affordable yet good warm food and maybe grab some bargains at the same time - well the Ikea Coventry store is the only place which ticks yes to all the points above.

Anyway, we were there yesterday - again, to buy the Sultan Sova mattress for our daughter and a new shower curtain. So we left our daughter at Smaland. It's on the third floor near the checkouts. We then went up to the 4th floor where the customer returns are located to return a cup. We had bought it the last time we had been there and later on discovered that it had a chip when we reached home. I didn't think they would but they gave us a refund.

We had gone there to buy the mattress and curtain but along the way some candles went into the trolley, as did a few slippers which were on sale for only 10p a pair, some gift wrappers (49p), a set of glass tumblers, a cup and some items from the bargain corner.

I finally found the 'UK at home' book as I was browsing around for bargains near the checkouts. The book costs £19 but I got it for free thanks to a coupon I had received sometime back and I got a further £10 discount (another coupon) as well.

Took out my daughter from Smaland and we had an early dinner together at the restaurant.

It was a nice day out.

High achiever wife

Last night I bundled up the kids and picked up my wife from Pool Meadow bus station in Coventry City Centre. She was coming back from a conference in London. This was her first ever since she started her PhD two years ago and I was delighted when I learnt that she received a "Promising paper" award at the conference. It's such a big deal because some of the top marketing gurus from all around the World were at the conference as well.

I am really happy for her and am wondering whether I can achieve something like that in the near future as well. Unlike me, my wife is a perfectionist. She refused to go to a conference until she was sure it was near perfect and she's still not happy with it. I am more of a relaxed last minute person and during my first year, presented my half baked paper at a doctoral conference. We are like Yin and Yang. However, I think we both need to come to a balance - with myself taking it more seriously and she - relaxing a bit.

Do any of you have a high achieving partner?

Daughter turns 5

My daughter turned 5 yesterday.

I am a big girl now"

She wanted to wear her Halloween costume and of course you can't refuse the birthday girl.





Attacking the cake


Quick grab it while Baba's not looking.


Yummy