Cambridge visit

Today, I popped in Cambridge town centre while I was around there for a business purpose. I saw a crowd of shoppers, among them some are Chinese students and those with eastern-European accents. I am sharing some photos.



A dog with a body warmer accompanying his owner, who is a street entertainer


Christmas decoration inside Grand Arcade shopping building


An angel flying. I love it.


A pink laptop at John Lewis electronic section. Young girls might like it. Not for women over 30, I suppose :)


Again, a red laptop for who? For me I like bamboo laptop. It's absolutely green. Those laptops have been introduced in Britain lately.




You may check some of today's Cambridge photos here.

CV and Résumé

After a conversation with a friend of mine from Singapore, a former British colonial piece of land in south east Asia peninsula, I learnt that they use the word Resume', instead of CV. Well, as we all know Resume' is an American English and Curriculum vitae is British English. But none of them are originally from America or Britain. Curriculum vitae is Latin meaning "course of life" and résumé is French meaning "summary".

Basically, dictionaries describe that CV is equal to Resumé. But according to my friend who arrived in Singapore lately and was applying for a job, it was advised that the short account of education, previous experience and jobs should be written in the way of Resume, not in the way of CV. That statement made me a bit confused. So I did a quick research. I found out the relevant information on wiki as below.

A résumé more often has a free-form organizational style and is used for seeking employment in the private sector, whereas a curriculum vitae has a more standardized look and format for the purpose of seeking positions in academic or educational institutions. Another difference is that a résumé tends to be more descriptive and tailored for a specific purpose or target audience, whereas a curriculum vitae tends to be organized in a way that presents data about one's self in a compact fashion, with a clear chronology. For example, a résumé may begin with a statement about a personal goal, followed by a list of most significant accomplishments or characteristics in order of significance, while a curriculum vitae often includes complete and unembellished lists of data such as educational institutions attended, degrees received, positions held, professional affiliations, publications authored, etc. A résumé may or may not be represented by the person as a complete history of themselves without omission, whereas a curriculum vitae usually implies that there are no omissions, and in particular, no temporal gaps.

According to that information, it is slightly different in CV and résumé in terms of presentations.

Moreover, the required facts in a CV would differ from one industry to another, one country to another. In some countries, putting photo together with CV is preferable. In some places, personal details are mandatory. But when I apply the job in England, I don't need to include my date of birth, gender and ethnicity in my CV. They can't take such facts into account in the consideration process for a post. The short listing panel can not discriminate against the race, age and sex. It's against the law. But the human resource department will keep those facts confidentially.

Quantum of Solace at O2

Basically I am not a 007 fan although gangsters films are in my collection. But I watched James Bond movies as an entertainment. Quantum of Solace has been on cinema for few weeks. Last time, I checked at Leicester square Odeon, all tickets had been sold out for the whole day. It was Saturday fortnight ago I think.
Yesterday I went to nearby O2 dome which is an entertainment complex, in which The Vue cinema forms part of it. Not too many people in the cinema. So no seat number required on the ticket. We could sit where ever we wanted. I bought my ticket from the machine. No need to enter PIN. I enjoyed movie while having popcorn with coca cola. (No pepsi available what I prefer). This 007 film is just average to me, but entertaining. At least I can talk about its good and bad things with my colleagues at work.


It was previously called Millennium dome located in south east London. Now it is O2 dome.


Aerial view


I took this picture last year.


The VUE


Area map



Ticket machine

A Rail Trip

I have never been beyond Bournemouth in south east England before. Yesterday, I went to Dorchester by train as I had an appointment. It was 6 hours trip in total from my work place in west Yorkshire. I bought a return ticket online for £115 in advance which was a standard one. After collecting the ticket at the station, I was waiting for 16:30 train. Well I left work a bit early. I saw many secondary students putting on different ancient costumes, waiting to go back to nearby towns. I overheard that they participated in a show " Romeo and Juliet " at their school. From Yorkshire to London, I took the National Express train line which has got power source for laptop and wifi access. I arrived the King Cross station at about 19:20, from where I took the tube to Waterloo. Too much crowded in Waterloo as usual. I quickly bought my supper which were a baguette and a cup of black Kenco. And then I took South West train to Dorset. My destination was DCH, Dorset County Hospital. It was mid night when I got to my over-night accommodation provided by hospital.


My route


My Kenco. Fortunately, no person next to me.


A gentle man working while travelling


I was also revising Jason's Driver 2


On south west train


Hospital guide


Parking tariff at DCH

The Internet, the greatest time waster?

Apparently, I have been addicted to the internet as I visit websites without any particular reason once I come back from my work, spending over 5-6 hours a day. My laptop has been on 24/7. I never switch off my device as I hate Vista taking sometime when it is struggling with loading and shutting down. Having to live without internet access at home for about a couple of weeks meant I had got too much time to read books and to go out with real friends. It happened last month when I switched to a new service provider and I had to wait for sometime. Being offline has made me realized how much time I wasted on the internet.

I think about what I normally do online. First, I open Fire Fox, its homepage is Google. I click News. I scan if any interesting news. At that point, Twitterfox from right bottom corner shows up new tweets. I read the headings quickly. With the aid of Twitterfeed, we can know which blogger has posted new item. I click the link and open the blog pages. Well, It is a bit hard for me to read a long Burmese post with too much oriental philosophy. Just my weak point. They are good. So I close it and jump to another blogs. I would leave some comments if I want to do so. (My fav blogs are on Bravenet.com)

After blog surfing business finished, I would quickly visit some Burmese news media like Hittaing, Kitpyaing and Rebound 88. Basically they post bad news of Burma. Disappointing. Oh yes! you may say there is no good news in Burma. I have no idea at all. For instance, news of many thousands of Burmese living and settling in Singapore is good news, isn't it? But they might claim Burma has been a victim of brain drain. Ok can you say a brain trained inside Burma can be a good brain at all? Doesn't it need any further upgrade? Is there any world class higher education centre in Burma? What class of Brain can be built by those universities. Be realistic. If you have achieved a quality brain, you can help your people anytime you want whenever you live.

Ok, let's move on. While surfing from one place to another, my contacts from Yahoo, gtalk, MSN and VZO might say hi, hiya, hullo, @, ~, #, ^ and so on. I would reply and enjoy chatting from a few minutes to over night :) , making me too much tired in the next morning. I am weak.

At the same time, I would be busy with checking new posts and photos and leaving rubbish comments on facebook where I have got nearly 100 friends, all of them I never meet in actual word. How stupid I am.

Moreover, I have been running some community and academic websites. I don't earn any penny for them. But I am a hobbyist. So I enjoy updating things and changing templates. As I am crazy in photography despite having only a basic idea how to take a picture, I would be busy with editing and uploading photos I take whenever I go.

Someone said long ago(maybe a famous author) hobby is one's weak point. I would say many hobbies, many weak points. I am sure I need to cut down my time wasting on the internet. I work average 57 hours a week. When I calculate, I sleep about 40 hours a week and I surf the webs about 50 hours a week. That means it is only 21 hours left for other things, like cooking, showering, reading and going out.

Of course, I essentially need to use the internet for some purposes such as holiday package, shopping, booking tickets and on-line course. But I just leant that I have been wandering on the net without destination. The majority of knowledge obtained from those websites is not directly useful for my life and career. I believe I desperately need a detox for this internet addiction.

Do I need Google G1 phone?

Technology is advancing quickly. At the same time, Google's power is rising among the internet users, now starts to invade the field of mobile phone. In the UK, iPhone was introduced a few years previously and it is available on O2 net work. Now T mobile has launched G1 Google phone. For me, receiving a couple of calls a day is my way of mobile phone usage. Of course, I would take photos some time for my blog. Not more than that. To surf the webs, the internet access is everywhere at work. At home, I have got a cable. When I drive, I use Tom Tom. No mobile phone integrated Sat Nav needed for the time being. For pda, I have got HP iPAQ.

Maybe, I would consider iPhone if it comes with a better build-in camera resolution. Do I need all in one device? Maybe, later, not now. The same thing for Google phone. For the time being, I don't need it for the time being.


on my way to London

Any way , here is a review about G1 Google phone on Times online.

My first impression when the G1 was released was that it was not going to be a iPhone killer, and further use of the first ever “Google phone” confirmed my suspicions. Still, it is clearly a smartphone in the same class as Apple’s iconic product. Despite a few niggles, it is quite impressive.

The main difference between the G1 and its competitors is the slide-out qwerty keyboard. This is a useful addition for anyone frustrated with tapping an unresponsive pane of glass. The keyboard buttons are quite small, though, so fast typing is not really possible. But it is more like using a BlackBerry than an iPhone.

Another useful addition is the “trackball”. You can use the touchscreen to scroll through webpages and click on icons, as with other similar devices, but every once in a while the links are two small for a big fat thumb to select easily. Faced with this problem on the iPhone, you can zoom in and out using the clever “pinch” motion on the touchscreen, but the G1’s zoom is much less cool and clunkier to use. The trackball is a neat way around that problem: when the touchscreen becomes frustrating, you can use the trackball instead. As with any device, the more you use it, the easier it becomes to navigate through web pages and documents.
Full article::

My supper today

Just sharing. This is my supper. I didn't want to buy any food after coming back from work this evening. So I grilled gammon what I bought 1 week ago. I fried vegetables. I had got 2 cans of lager. Later I found out Baguette that I made this morning. I intended to eat it at lunch time. But a pharmaceutical company provided free lunch at meeting. So no chance to tough it.



This morning, inside the shuttle bus.

I live in a hospital accommodation. I work at another hospital which is 5 miles away. 2 hospitals are in a same NHS trust and half an hourly shuttle bus running. Here, parking place is difficult. Moreover, they discourage to use own cars because of traffic problem and air pollution. So we use this bus to commute even though we all have our own cars. Nice. Comfortable.


2 drivers chatting. They all are nice. I took this pic while sitting in the bus.



This is not our usual bus. For some reason, the hospital buses in a shortage or broke down this morning. so they rented this bus for today. In the evening, I saw our regular bus.

Long Island

Rebecca taught me how to make Long Island cocktail. I'm just sharing. It's fantastic. Both girls and boys can have it. Ingredients are :

• 1 part Tequila
• 1 part gin
• 1 part whiskey
• 1 part white rum
• 1 part vodka
• 1 oz sugar syrup
• Coca-Cola
• Orange juice or lime juice

Combine and mix all ingredients in a collins glass and serve. You need ice cubes as well :)

Enjoy!

Various brands of Tequila

Some more drinks are here.

Long Island Iced Tea
Mountain Breeze
Adios Motherfucker
Fat Frog
Grateful Dead
Tokyo Tea
Red Death
Baltimore Zoo
Walk Me Down (Sweet Jesus)
Adios Motherfucker #3
Hurricane
Red Devil
Key West Cooler
Texas Tea
Blue Motorcycle
Vesper
Irish Trash Can
Blue MotherFucker #2
Long Beach Cocktail
Long Beach Iced Tea
Call a Cab
Long Island Tea
Tokyo Ice Tea
Cornwall-Nash
Cape Cod Islander

Black Opal
Swimming Pool
Boston Ice Tea
Georgia Peach Iced Tea
Fucked on the Floor
Raspberry Long Island Ice Tea
Green Demon
Greek Sex On The Beach
Flying Kangaroo
Hurricane Sunrise
Brass Monkey
Kansas City Ice Water
Dale's Long Island Iced Tea
Absolut Stress
Electric Long Island Iced Tea
Midori Illusion
Adios Mother
Coco Loco
Blue Long Island
Double Omega
El Bastardo
Laser Beam
Yellow Bird
Grateful Dead #2
.50 Caliber

Counsellor or Consul?

Basically, I rarely need to use my Myanmar passport as it is not so useful apart from visiting Burma. For ID purpose, I use my UK driving license. When I go to Europe and the States, I use my British passport. Myanmar passport is a pain. The holder will face a difficulty from obtaining a visa to travelling across the world. (an example)

Yesterday, we were talking about immigration matters with a friend of mine, leading to check my Myanmar passport again. At that point, I noticed that on the passport renewal page, stamp showed this passport is hereby renewed to be valid until xx.xx.xxxx.

signed by
Wai Lwin Than
Counsellor
Myanmar Embassy, London


My Myanmar passport renewal page

Counsellor? Not consul? I was wondering how a counsellor relates with a matter of passport renewal, instead of giving an advice to his own people living in Britain. I was a bit confused with that English usage. So I did check with dictionaries.

• Longman dictionary:

counsellor: someone whose job is to help and support people with problems

• Oxford dictionary

counsellor:
1. a person who has been trained to advise people with problems, especailly personal peroblems
2. (AmE, Iris E) a lawyer
3. (AmE) a person who is in charge of young people at a summer camp

• The free online dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com/counsellor )

coun·sel·or also coun·sel·lor (kouns-lr, -slr)
n.
1. A person who gives counsel; an adviser.
2. An attorney, especially a trial lawyer.
3. A person who supervises young people at a summer camp.

When I checked my first time visa issued by British embassy, Yangon, the official's post was Pro-consul.

So I did search word "consul" in dictionaries. Here is the result.

• Longman dictionary

consul: a government official who is sent to live in a foreign city in order to help people from his or her own country who are living or staying there.

• Oxford distionary

consul: (N)a government official who is the representative of his or her country in a foreign city: the British consul in Miami

consular: (Adj) consular officials

• Online free dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com/consul)

con·sul (knsl)
n. Abbr. Con. or Cons.
1. An official appointed by a government to reside in a foreign country and represent his or her government's commercial interests and assist its citizens there. See Usage Note at council.
2. Either of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, elected for a term of one year.
3. Any of the three chief magistrates of the French Republic from 1799 to 1804.



My Myanmar and British passport. legal to keep both in the UK.

After all, I was not clear about the role of Burmese embassy official. He is an advisor for Burmese people living in Britain, according to his title on the stamp. Moreover, he was able to authorise to renew a Myanmar passport, according to what he had done on my passport. It's interesting isn't it. If he has been doing those 2 jobs, what would be the role of Myanmar consul in London. Is there any Myanmar consul in Britain? I am sure, last time, U Nay Win was the Myanmar ambassador for the UK. During ambassador Dr Kyaw Win's era, he had to take responsibility of 2 embassies, Britain and Canada.

By the way, Myanmar embassy in London's Green Park is not bad and their service is straight forward while I have been hearing a noise from Myanmar embassies from Japan and Singapore .

My holiday, Harrods soup, Dabenham shirts and Suhsi bar

You may know this week I am on holidays, that means free from seeing dying people. I am in London. Nice weather outside just before chilly and gloomy winter coming, so I went out with my friend yesterday late afternoon. Our destination was uncertain until we were on Jubilee line.

Later we decided to go to Harrods where we had so called "the best soup in London", costing us £16.20 total. It reminds me 21st street rice porridge from Yangon China town. Interestingly, the taste was more or less the same.


Chicken soup £8.20

The Harrods looks like a museum for me, rather than a super store, crowded with European tourists who were taking photos and doing window shopping. Basically many items are for super rich people, despite a full range of consumer products available, ranging from vegetables, perfumes, designer's clothes to electronics and furnitures. I also saw the Harrods financial service.


Harrods at Knight bridge, London


A shoulder bag with price tag £1750



Dodi and Diana memorial on the lower ground floor (You may be aware that Harrods' owner's son Dodi was a lover of Diana. They are killed in fatal car crash in France. It's a tragedy)


Some vegetables available in Harrods. Ma Mi will like it.

From there, we took the tube to the Bond street, going to Dabenham store, the place where I normally buy Thomas Nash shirts. Nice ones with reasonable price. A few year back, I found out that that brand is good for me. Other brands I buy are Maine and Redherring. Fortunately, from blue cross, size 16 Thomas Nash shirts were for only £5 . Their original price was £22. £30 Redherring was only £10. I just took the opportunity.

After that, we walked along the busy Oxford street where we felt hungry. So we popped into a sushi bar at off Oxford street . Sushi pots were on conveyor belt. We also ordered a bottle of Chardonnay. Bill showed £44 at the end. My friend expressed that I was thinking again and again to buy a shirt, chasing a final discount, but for food, I spend too much with ease. I have no idea. It just happens.


Moving Sushi