Sunday, October 12, 2003

 
We won!! There was a football tournament in Manchester yesterday called Piala Perantau and Nottingham emerged as the champion. 1-0 against the team from Manchester Uni who called themselves Ol' Trafford. My very first football gold medal. It came with a price though. My face was smashed during the semi final when I made an extra courageous dive and was kicked right in the face. I had a bloody face yesterday. My nose bled a lot (I don't think it's broken though) and is still swelling now. I have a cut on both my lower and upper lips so that adds 2 more swells to my face. There's a small cut under my lower lip and one of my front tooth is a bit loose. That's one helluva injury, one I never even got when I played rugby a few years back. But I was crazy enough to play again in the finals. We played at a ground which was next to Old Trafford (so I can say in Malay "Aku main kat Old Trafford"). After the prize giving ceremony, we performed our jamak Maghrib and Isya' prayers before making our way back to Nottingham.

Another good thing about the tournament is that I got to eat nasi tomato, something I have not eaten for more than 10 months. The organizer (which was Kelab UMNO) set up a small tent and sold 3 delicious dishes: nasi lemak, nasi tomato and nasi minyak. I didn't choose nasi lemak because I ate that almost everytime I went to London. I had nasi minyak just the day before the tournament during the Link Party, one of the Nottingham Malaysian Society's (NMS) activity. It's an occasion where all the first year students are suppose to meet their 'links', who are 2nd and 3rd year students assigned to help a particular fresher who is doing the same course as he/she. Something like pet bro or sis, except that we don't call it that and it's not that lame. It's more towards academic assistance. During the party, nasi minyak with ayam masak merah, acar timun and karipap were served (what else can one ask for =) ). Then we had a few party games, including a famous game between scouts, the bombing game. Sounds boring but I'm sure everyone had a hell lot of fun! So that explains why I opted for nasi tomato instead (what a long explanation).

Before that, NMS already held 2 activities. Yeah, within a month's time, we already had 3 activities. The first one being the EGM (I'm not sure what the E stands for as normally we call it A for Annual). Among the agendas were introducing the committee members, speech from the President, introducing the freshers, then electing first year representatives. Apparently, they have 2 posts which are specifically for first year students. It started with the female rep first. 5 candidates were nominated, then came the fun part. Before the voting started, the 5 nominees were asked to do 3 things to prove that they are worth the post they are about to take (as if!!). First, each of them had to say Malaysia Boleh in the most seductive way, to a guy. I can't explain how hilarious it was, you just have to see it by yourself. Then, they had to talk about the most interesting part of their body. A few came up, small eyes, small ears, smile, big ears, height. The final task was to stop 2 big footballers from fighting, and by big, I mean big! One of them is a British and the other is Singaporean. Yeap, NMS is so famous that we even have member who are non-Malaysians like British, American, Chinese, Hong Kies, etc. After that the voting started and a Malay girl named Sabrina got the post. Then it was the guys' turn. This time 6 of us were nominated and guess what, I was one of them. We had to do only 2 tasks as time was running late. The first was to perform a belly dance. My God! Even though I've been here for 10 months I never went to watch a belly dance. How the hell was I suppose to do one?? But I did anyway, just shaked my belly for less then 3 seconds and that's it! Then came the second task: we had to give a speech after winning the MISS Malaysia Award. I got my idea at the last minute before my turn. My speech went something like "Thank you everyone for supporting me, my parent, my family, my friends.. but most of all, I would like to thank my doctors, Dr Nik, Dr Wahab and Dr Chot who did my transexual transplant". The moment I uttered the word transexual, there was a thundering roar followed by a big clap. And I guess, that word did won me a number of votes and let me take up the post as the male rep. The second NMS activity was a trip to Goose Fair, the biggest fun fair in the UK. I went there as well, and won quite a few prizes which I gave away to my friends.

I'm off to Birmingham now to visit a friend, so I guess I have to stop here. By the way, there will be a Malaysian Games in Nottingham on the 25th, so I hope to see all my friends who are currently in the UK there.
posted by bYn 6:36 PM