Eat Your Own Fruit

Read to the end! There's something really good to think about !

OK so where do I start from ...  when I got here it was really hot, and sunny, it was almost as if the hot summer weather followed me from Malta to Guildford. But now, merely two weeks later, here I am in my room, cosying up by the heater, with a warm mug of coffee. The sun hasn't shone properly in probably more than a week now, and whenever one is to look outside, the bright colours that we usually see in Malta, aren't anywhere to be seen. Instead, a greyish hue is in the air. Don't get me wrong, I am genuinely loving it! - not in the McDonald's kind of way, but you get what I mean. It's nice to have something different for once. Temperatures outside have already gone down to nearly 10°C, and it doesn't look like its going to get warmer any time soon. I was quite fascinated when I read on Wikipedia that the average amount of sunshine in England is of around 1130 hours every year. Apart from that, its always overcast. -- Dammit! I started writing this post on Wednesday and I wasn't finished ... and you guessed it ... yesterday and this morning have been realllyyyyyyyy sunny days! Oh well, nothing to complain about, at least some colour is back in the air.

But so far its been great. Fresher's Week, London, and then back to Uni where shit just got real. So far its been already four assignments, a tutorial and the title for my thesis, and one can just assume that so much more work is coming my way - sarcasm alert - let the good times roll! But even though it looks like its going to be a tough year, at least the courses are really interesting and I guess the sense of achievement when I'll - hopefully will manage ... shhh ... *fingers-crossed* - finish the course would be immense. 

But now that it's been nearly three weeks, I feel settled down, and I cannot imagine myself not being here. Of course I cannot deny that I miss Malta and all of my friends and family, but so far, living in England had been good. I met most of my class mates and we've quickly become good friends, hanging out and going to the pub. And the same thing I can say for most of my flatmates. I guess it just takes a certain amount of time to just settle in and get used to the routine of the place. Same I can say for my flat mates. This week we had a pizza night between us and it was quite a nice time hanging out with everyone and getting to know each other.

But what really hit me this week, was a story from a book which I got as a present before I left Malta. The short story was titled "Eat Your Own Fruit". And I decided to write it down for you, so that maybe everyone else can get something from it too.

A disciple once complained, 

     "You tell us stories but you never reveal their meaning to us." 

Said the master, 

     "How would you like it if someone offered you fruit and masticated it before giving it to you?"

That's it! And since I read this story I couldn't stop thinking about it. The book just stops there, and moves on to another short story, And it's left up to the reader to question himself the meaning of these short stories and try to understand how they apply to him in real life.  And in the same way the book decided to stop abruptly, so am I, 'cos now, I got yet another lecture - what fun!

Take care guys and gals!

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

P.S.: For the "tune of the week" I cannot resist not to post this amazing cover of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" by Foxes. Her voice is so hauntingly beautiful ! And the fact that it was performed for a Doctor Who episode makes it even more cool.

The Stag, The World and I

It's quite a long blog post, but I haven't posted anything in a while so this is to make up for it. I hope it doesn't bore you to death ... and if it does .. oh well, it's not a problem I have to deal with ... 

17:37 ... Its been a very busy week. I finally made it to my new university, the University of Surrey.
It's located in Guildford, a very old and picturesque little town of not more than a 100,000 people, located in the South East of England. And so far I've loved it ! I moved into my new apartment on Sunday morning, and quite understandably, I'm still settling in and figuring out what's what and who's who. Thank goodness I have a friend who I knew beforehand, and she was already staying here for her Ph.D, and she's been extremely helpful in showing my around the place and introducing me to some really cool people. By the way, the photo on the right shows the view from my front door ... look carefully at the picture guys and gals ... I hope you're jealous. 

The university is amazing. Its full of greenery and friendly people ... but most importantly it is full of opportunities. I was impressed when in one of the introductory sessions we were told how the department I'm going to be a part of (Electronic Department within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences) has four major research centres, these covering the topics of Space; Advanced Technologies; Vision, Speech and Signal Processing and also Communications, which employ hundreds of academics, researchers and Ph.D students, and together they make a turnover of more than £60 million every year. So far I already made a few friends but it's now that I'm realising how different doing a postgraduate degree is when compared to going on to Erasmus. I have to stop for a second here and link you this really good track by Boys Noize simply called Yeah. It's cool, at least by my standards.

I also have a new favourite animal. Well I don't think I had a choice over the matter. Its the Stag. The logo of the University is a majestic stag holding a comically large key with its front hoof. What's it planning to do with the key ... I have no idea. I'm not sure if the University's logo is a stag because it is located on Stag Hill, or the hill was named so because the University logo is a Stag,but I guess it doesn't really matter in the end. I was quite sad at first that the Kokka days are over, and I am definitely going to miss all the fun I had at all of the events that are held at the University of Malta (I think I'm going to miss Students' Fest mostly). However, once I met Steve the Stag, I couldn't resist warming up to this new animal (shown on the left). I've checked and yes, they have got the Surrey Stage Crew over here, a student society which I'm definitely going to join and hopefully pass on the traditions of stage crew in Malta to the ones here. So far I've been to a comedy night, which I have to admit I both was going to die of laughter and also got quite drunk after having a substantial number of beers with shots of whiskey in them. Well, I guess some things never change.

23:17 ...  I'm still going on writing this post cos I have to admit that I took a break from writing and went out for a couple of pints with some friends.

Over here in Guildford everything looks to be fine and dandy, however all over the world, all tons if shit is happening. Because of my moving I had a very limited amount of time to read any articles from the usual news agencies and stuff. However, today I make it a point to do so and took a look at what's going on around the world. And so here's a really short summary of what I figured out is going on and my opinions about them in short.

• Hong Kong is full of pro-democracy protesters which do not want any involvement by the Beijing central government in their elections ... which, by the way, I fully support. The protesters are mostly students, which I have to admit, I really admire what they are doing for their home town in the name of democracy.
• The IS/ISIS/ISIL insurgency in Syria and Iraq is being bombed left, right and centre by the US-led coalition made up of nearly a fourth of all of the countries of the world ... good! Even though it took the Western powers long enough to decide to do it, its still better late then never ... and hopefully Turkey will soon join the fight, and the western powers will increase their involvement, against them too. So lets hope that we'll soon see the end of their ideologically ridiculous regime. I wish to see Russia and the US agree for once and aid each other in crushing the insurgency. 
• Ukraine's president, Poroshenko, is implementing reformative steps to ensure that his country applied for EU membership by 2020 ... which is quite soon in my opinion. Hopefully, the truce he managed to agree upon with the rebels in Luhansk and Donetsk three weeks ago, after he promised them further autonomy, will hold and peace will eventually return to the region. Good luck to them and I genuinely hope they do make it into the EU, for their own sake.
• Ebola is finally being managed in a more efficient manner in the West African countries whoich have been hardly hit by it. Hopefully they manage to find both a cure and a vaccine for it in the recent future and also identify the best possible process to identify the illness and treat the patients without infecting anyone else, especially the nurses and doctors. 

00:27 ... and I'm still writing stuff after I stopped again for a couple of Skype calls with my parents and some friends of mine back in Malta. After the sad things I mentioned in the previous paragraph, here's a picture of a puppy to lighten up your mood again.

Actually there is a lot more stuff going on around the planet which I really wish I could discuss. I really wish I have the time to discuss more even about the stuff that I mentioned above, however, if such a discussion were to arise, then I think the blog post would be too much to read. Before I leave I want to link you another really good track by Bangkok Impact. I have to admit that the name is a bit weird. It's in German and it's Junge Dame und Freundliche Telefon Stimme which translates to Young Lady and the Friendly Telephone Voice. I never really understood what the song is about but I genuinely like it. Its one of my favourite tracks and I'm actually listening to it right now ... 

Anyway ... to para-phrase Looney Tunes cartoons ... That's all folks. See ya next time!