The Meeting in a Church

Two hour before, I came to church for a meeting. It’s my first time went there so it was very fresh to me. There were about 20 people in the room, and we greeted each other at the beginning. I couldn’t be familiar with English names, so I forgot most of their names in a while. Very disappointing!

We started at a pray and then sang a song which was very smooth but beautiful and made me more calm down. Then there followed a game-paste a name on a piece of paper on the head and guessed who it was. I knew little about the person who was a prophet, so I failed it, but that was very wonderful because it made us more familiar. An elder did 10 up-and-down-excises for us to get a sugar, he might do more than 70 for others, many thanks. A high-tone singer sang a lovely song to end the meeting. I felt much more relaxed after that, even though I felt no bad in the meeting. Compare with the meeting in China, it was more wonderful and interesting here. I can understand that why there are so many people enjoying the church now.

My mobile – a nightmare to me

In the early April, I began to indulge in online shopping. Large amount of money I spent in calls, I decided to book a monthly payment mobile phone. I went to e2save from Mutualpoints so that I could save some money. It was very convenient to shop online in the UK if you had a debit card, I easily got the mobile phone after one week and it direct debit 2 weeks later. I like this shopping style very much. The network is T-mobile and I had 500 minutes allowance at any time and could cross different network, but the problem began.

I dialled 08700419519, a number which was free to mobile phone free time. But in fact, it wasn’t. It costs me more than 30 pounds extra in one month, and when I received the phone bill, I was shocked that I should pay more than 79 pounds for the month’s cost. I contacted to the T-mobile phone service 2 days ago but hadn’t gotten any reply. If it will not reply before 16th May, I will cancel it, that’s not fair to me.

Be Dull in English Class

Be more positive than others in learning English in the beginning of the class, I became much more dull later because all the students in the classroom were coming from my motherland and we spoke Chinese in the classroom, very boring and useless classes and t; The teacher looked a little worried about us too. I couldn’t bare learning English in that way, I wanted to learn it by myself except speaking.

I felt that I didn’t have any progress in speaking in the classroom, but more unconfident in speaking. My pronunciation is bad all the time even though I had stayed here for some period. I needed to practise more….

Today’s Diary
This morning, I went with a lady to help with her mobile phone which had no picture in the screen. What she knew was that it came from 3G Company, but didn’t know where it could be repaired, little information she provided, fortunately we got a service phone number and she asked a good English speaker to ring it. The staff from the company will come to her house to pick it up, in three working days and return it in 3 days too.

Moving to New Flat

5 weeks after I got the job, I decided to move out the house due to a fight in a night. It was about 1pm. I was disturbed by a strong door-hitting and loud shouting beside my bedroom. I couldn’t fall asleep again but heard that the chef who worked in the restaurant was shouting and abusing to the boss while the boss did so too. It sounded a little funny they abused each other and didn’t care about what the other one said. The door was shocking more frequently and loudly that all residents living in the house might be disturbed. From their abusing words, I learnt that the boss wanted to ire him without an acceptable excuse so that the chef became very angry and illustrated what he had done for the restaurant. A terrible night! I gave up the job in the restaurant!

2 weeks later, I moved into a new flat and shared a room with a classmate. He was over 200 pounds that the room seemed a little crowded. The flat belonged to a Hong Kong person who has a restaurant nearby. Each of us just paid about 130 pounds for the rental and bill, very cheep. Even though little furniture was in the bedroom, the kitchen and bathroom are very clean and nice due to new decoration. They were also a couple living in the other bedroom, very friend. A good accommodation!

Be Happy with Customers

In fact, I’d like to work there, not for money, but for the opportunity to practise English and contact with people. The customers were very friend even though I did not perfect. I smiled to all the customers I serviced and was eager to chat with them; meanwhile, they seemed to be know more information about me too. As a result, some of them stayed the tips on the desks, but the boss took away them, terrible and stingy boss! At a lunch time, 4 customers in a table saw the boss took the tips, and told me, I didn’t know why the boss took them away as I told them, luckily the customers gave me 3 pounds tips, this time, I put them in my pocket.After that, when I saw there were tips on the table, I took away some of them, and stayed others to the boss. In fact, that was my money which I got from my good service, I couldn’t image why the other waiter not took the tips, may be the boss told him, bad relationship, and bad management.

For more than one month, I worked there, and met many people every time I was there. I found people including young guys were very friend and that made me really like Scotland and people living here. Unlike young people in my hometown who always fight and shouted to each other, the young guy here was more care about other people’s feeling, so they were friend even though they were fashionable. The most exiting happened every day was that there were many young ladies or girls coming in the restaurant, and I felt very happy when I saw them, the most regret thing was that I was not greeting them in western pattern – embracing each other. :)

The first job in Edinburgh

3 weeks after I came to Edinburgh, I moved to a new flat which I got on the internet. It belonged to an boss of a Chinese Restaurant. The boss looked friendly but the flat was dirty and narrow, the kitchen was no more than 5 square meters I thought, in order to save money, I left the £80 per week university accommodation to £190 per month as it was. Fortunately, the bedroom was clean when I moved in. In the aisle to my bedroom, the air was a bit smelly and the light was very dull, the kitchen was not noly narrow, but also oily; it seemed not to be clean for a long time, terrible. Although the bedroom was clean, and the heater was near it, it was very noisy when some one opened the heater.

One week later, I began to be a waiter in her restaurant. The boss looked like the climate here, changed quickly, and a little rude to me, my god, I had told her I was just a beginner and knew little about the program. She blamed that I didn't know how to take the dishes out and when to ignite a fire. Shit, why didn't she teach me that but blame me, didn't know how to be a boss, stupid. Gradually, I found there were many problems in this restaurant, the relationship between the boss and the other waiter was terrible, and the staff there was divided into different groups, they often blame each other when some dishes were wrong. How bad the management it was. I was tired to face the boss, a stingy boss.

When I did well in the next day, the boss told me I did well and the customers looked like me very much, it was as I thought so. But why she gave me just a little money for my first two-week job, she didn’t know how to be a boss as other waiter said. No much money could she made, I thought

Learning the Book of Mormon

-10/05/06-
Church, Mormon Study

Today, I went to learn the bible in the church of Jesus Christ at 6:20 pm. There were two elders, 2 learners including me. Because I was a new member and knew little about Jesus, they taught me how to pray and make sense on what the god looked like. One elder paint out some people, the Jesus, the prophet and us, more interesting than the English language course, and then told me that Jesus was perfect person with the blood in his body, he knew everything and could understood every language we spoke, fantastic! We share about the feeling on the Jesus, and I asked the god a question that why they were still so many poor people and so many unfair things happened around us. This question looked a bit difficult and hard to answer, but the elders will tell me their answer on Sunday – they will contact to the god and find the answer, sounds amazing! At the end, they gave me an English version on the book of Mormon, that was good, the sentences in it was like poems, I like to read them.

The First Week Staying in Edinburgh

No friend, no person I was familiar, I encounter many problems inevitably. Everything here was much more expensive that one kilogram rice nearly cost me over 1.5 pounds. Those days, I ate simple cooked rice with peanuts in order to save my money.

These days, I was awake at 3 o'clock, and couldn't fall asleep again, I knew my body was still in Beijing Time. The day time here was too short during this period and the outside-activity time I could control was no more than 4 hours I think. I spend most of my time on food and practising speaking. In the night, I went to the City Centre for leisure. There were some leisure facilities, skating, gamble, imitated flying and racing, high-sky diving etc. It was really funny that many people seemed to enjoy them very much. If I had enough money one day, I will join them too. One of them was gamble-machine which contained thousands of 10-pence coins. At that time, I really wanted to play it, but I couldn't, because of little rules I knew and little money I could control, if I lose the game, my money would be going.

I liked people, little I met in my flat. It seemed that the population was really too little here, I went out for a walk but not too many people I could met were in the street. I tried my best to be familiar to the surroundings, and tried to contact with people, little English I could master at that time, poor people, but felt challenging. I went to buy a sim card and phone card due to several pounds said goodbye to me immediately when I inserted them into BT phone, so terrible!

I spent about 2 hours walking around the district every day, and found that most old people were very friend, we greeted each other to say ‘hello’, they looked very well. The girls here were more beautiful than seen in the screen, may be because their skins were very white, and looked like a toy. hoho

From London to Edinburgh

-27/12/05- 5pm London time
Went down from the aircraft into the Main Hall, I felt no amazed; the buildings were modern as those were common in all international airports in the world. Gradually, more and more people with different skins and profiles turned out, but still could see many eastern people. I used some simple English to talk with the customs who checked my details, fortunately, he just asked me some simple questions which were easily understood, but I didn’t remember to give him my health certification I got in China, so he let me go to Health Control to examine. “It doesn’t matter” I thought, “That is a good way to practise English too.” After entered the room of Health Control, I found I was wrong immediately that I couldn’t understand the dialogue between the examiner and the applicant. It sounded more difficult and professional.

It paid me attention that there were many people with different ethnics, Indian (possible), African people, Arabian etc, we were also with different face profiles, looked like an international meeting. One more exciting case was that the girls here looked very nice, wonderful! Showing my Health Certification and some documents given by the former customs, I passed the port and formally enter into the land of UK, felt really tired, but should still find the entrance to catch the fly to Edinburgh. In civil, I had heard that the policemen here are very honest, so without any delaying, I asked the policeman in the street outside the hall, and he told me the way, but I couldn’t understand, all right, he showed me the way, cheers.

It was a little cold outside when I felt a little sleepy, but there were still some people with bedspreads staying in the corner of streets. No money to live in an accommodation? Incredible!

After 8 minutes, I reached to Terminal 1, but didn’t know how I could get the right fly. It was hard to think what I did at that time-I ask the assistants again and again, finally, caught what they meant, at that time, I really wanted to speak fluent English. Waiting over 1 hour, it was time to get off; I passed the luggage-check and boarded to plane, felt exhausted when I sat in my seat. I tried my best to see the London night-landscape, oh, I couldn’t stand folding my eyes to have a sleep, and not wake up until 30 minutes later when my ears were hurt by the noise which made me felt I would be deaf at that time.

Nightmare was going, a little better after getting off the fly, about 24 hours travelling, my god, so terrible. An older got me to the accommodation and told me some information about school and the UK, horrible, I needed rest. I didn’t feel relaxed till 1 am on 28th Dec after said goodbye to the older, I felt really relaxed because no person was in the flat so I could do everything I wanted to. But nothing I wanted except a cup of water, and then sleeping….

Leaving the Hometown to the UK

-27/12/05- It was a silent morning; I got up early to check my luggage which I had prepared for around one month (since I got the UK visa). Without any feeling of affection, I took in a taxi with my father who wanted to take me to Shanghai Pudong Airport from Fuzhou because my luggage was much more than 30 kilograms, over the standard weight made in the Civil Air Rules.

That’s the 2nd time I took plane, 9 years after first. I nearly forgot what was like in the plane, so I paid much attention on it: a little narrow both the seats and lane, beautiful hostesses-one of them was the most nice I had seen, they were honest and friend so I felt very well at that time. When the plane took off, I felt the plane was shocked moderately, my god, a little terrible. It could be easily identify different layers when the plane was rising up. In some period, it was flying between different layers that were really amazing, but I didn’t feel safe at that time. After about one hour, I got to Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai, it was not as big as I thought, just a little bigger than Changle Airport in my hometown, and the facilities looked a little older, may be not update for some period after its international business moved to Pudong.

Thanks to the internet, I easily found the bus route to Pudong and paid 60 RMB for two tickets. It’s around 9 o’clock, and there were some traffic on the way even though the road had 4 lanes, terrible. Shanghai looked still silent at that moment.

Pudong Airport was not as luxurious as someone else said. But it looks not very excellent and warm although the government paid billions dollars on it. Nothing to do at that time, just chatted with my father, saw the busy passengers from worldwide. We concluded that the Yangren-foreigners were not much tall but fat. Time flied, I said farewell to my father and boarded to Virgin Airline plane. Woo, much more compatriots than I evaluated, I sat the seat in the back of plane, no passengers beside me, felt a little lonely.

Poor listening in English, I only caught some words from the captain’s introduction. Fortunately, they provide Chinese service. After 20 minutes departing, the hostess gave me some snacks, poor English communicating, I misunderstood her willing and refused it, but got it later, fantastic, felt more relaxed.

It was a long travel I got I felt tired after I took some photos from the plane, the scene outside looks the same all the time—white lands, but was fresh to me. Felt lonely and watched the video- Little Britain, a Britain family comedy I think, very interesting. The hostesses in the plane were older than the former one I took, but more familiar, liked house ladies. After 12 hours later, the plane reached to London at about 5 o’clock London time. From the window, I was shocked that it was really a lamp-sea city. I couldn’t see the edge. The first feeling, vast and busy, and seemed not have skyscrapers in this city, the capital of the UK.