Return to London

Dear friends,

I will be returning to London this Saturday, 24 September on the 9am flight from KLIA, scheduled to arrive 3.10pm London time at Heathrow.

I came home to Malaysia on the 25th of May, and it has been a great 4 months in Batu Pahat and the various other locations I have been in during this summer. This is due mainly to my family, which whom I have had an absolutely wonderful time, and also to my erstwhile hometown friends who have unceasingly organised various awesome activities such as futsal, "la teh" and simple chat sessions.

I particularly thank Ben for very kindly hosting Selva, Sze Yong and myself during our trip to Sydney in June, which turned out very well indeed. I hope the spirit of friendship will continue to hold us, the Batu Pahat High School batch of 2001, together although we have now spread our wings to various parts of the world.

I shall be returning to London with mixed feelings ... glad to resume a life of purposeful (I hope) work and complete independence (until I get a gf) once more, but also a tinge of sadness at leaving behind much that is familiar to me and dear to my heart at home. However, the call of duty cannot be refused and having pledged myself to do my best on this course, it is now necessary to keep my side of the bargain.

When I reach London I shall be aiming to settle down as soon as possible into the following new address:

At this time of heightened security, this address has been removed. Kindly drop me a line on MSN if you need it for any reason.

I have also changed my phone number to an 02 pay-as-you-go one, and the new number will shortly be made available to those on my MSN contact list, among others. Therefore please do not try to reach me on my old Orange line until further notice, which will come after I ascertain whether or not the old line is still operational in the first place.

May I here record my deepest appreciation of two friends and colleagues who have helped me tremendously in my pre-flight preparations; my senior Wyn Nee, who helped me contact the Landale House warden who initially proved quite inaccessible by phone from Malaysia, and Alvin Yap, who helped me obtain the 02 simcard on his previous trip to the UK, thereby enabling me to request redelivery of my goods-in-storage one week earlier than previously thought possible. Thank you, Wynnee and Alvin. I will not forget the help you provided me.

I also appreciate those from college who have kept in touch throughout the holidays -Kenny, Iris, Imran @ Black, Jia Yi, Payatt, Grace, Azmir, the MSoc committee, Linda, Sin Yi and many more who have held out the gift of friendship. May our friendship continue to remain strong during the years to come.

As for the ordinary and extraordinary risks of daily life in a city as bustling as London I would only say, firstly, that life and death are in the hands of the Creator and it is neither healthy nor practical to be concerned with matters over which I have absolutely no control. Secondly I only hope that the increased security over the London transport network will not be of too much hassle to daily commuters such as myself, especially when I have to move loads of luggage on the Underground! =)

That will be all for now. As it is unlikely that I will be able to have a fixed Internet connection in the first one month or so, I will probably not update this site for a while. May I request that attempts to reach me be done through my e-mail, w.tay@ucl.ac.uk or kingulnar2000@hotmail.com for the time being.

Thank you for reading, and best of luck to you all.