Chan Weng Kit's Blogspot: Apache Pizza

Sunday, 2 July 2017

DAY 302/303/304

Jun 30, Jul 1 & 2

1) So finally, I've shifted house! From 48 Leeson St Lower, Dublin 2 - all the way to 11 Sweetmount Drive, Dundrum 14. From sharing a room at a student apartment, to living with a host family for the next half a year. It's been a completely new experience for me, packing and bringing all my stuff with me to my new home.

2) The only experience I have had prior to moving in was coming to Dundrum for buffet with my friends. So at the very least, I was familiar with the location of the LUAS station (not to mention the very reasonably priced and highly rated Global Cuisine Buffet). There is also the Dundrum Town Centre - the largest shopping centre in Ireland! Yesterday, I tried the buffet again, as it was just as good as I remembered it.

3) Today, I did some walking at the shopping centre, before having lunch at Subway (at the Food Hall). It really is a lovely walk, with lots of outlets and beautiful design layouts. After touring around the mall, I walked to Lidl, a German global discount supermarket chain (somewhat similar to the convenience stores we have back home). Everything is just so convenient around here, and all within walking distance. There's even an Apache Pizza, which opens until 5am everyday of the week! Not to mention home delivery for extra.

4) My host family has been very welcoming and accommodating of my stay so far. I'm living with Mrs. Fallon, who lives here with her two daughters. Mrs. Fallon was very interested in knowing where I came from, so I pointed to the appropriate location on the map in my room. We spent some time talking about Malaysia and Southeast Asia in general, and she recounted her stories with past tenants. Then I excused myself to unpack my belongings. Speaking of my room, it is very well furnished, with study lamp and many cabinets and dividers to organise my things.

5) I've to get used to a different schedule from the next week onwards. This is because I need to take the LUAS (Irish tram service) to RCSI everyday from now on, including the summer break as I am working there in the labs. It is really convenient, though, that the last stop for the LUAS is right in front of RCSI, hence it is nigh impossible to get off at the wrong stop haha. (Here's hoping it never happens). Anyway, that is the end of my narrative, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Thanks very much for visiting my blog, and have a nice day. Cheers!

My house is the one on the left ^^

My room

Plus all the cabinets to put my belongings

The bridge is the iconic landmark for the LUAS station

(less than 10 minutes' walk away from home)

Came back to Leeson to take the last of my belongings, and to say goodbye )':

The walkway to the main shopping centre

Having buffet lunch at Dundrum Shopping Centre

A stunning angle (imho) of the Food Hall,

located at the top floor of Dundrum Shopping Centre

Saturday, 4 March 2017

DAY 184

Mar 4

1) Today has been a very eventful day for me. So I had to wake up early to make it for the RCSI-MUN (Model United Nations) which started at 9.00am. Our motion for today was "Battling Antibiotic Resistance", and each candidate was assigned a country to represent. So Mary and I were the delegates of Canada, and there were various representatives from all over the world - including USA, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago, France etc.

2) We broke the motion up into several subtopics and discussed from there. Essentially we tried to follow the guidelines and conduct of the real United Nations. For instance, we raised our placards when intending to speak, and referred to ourselves as "this delegate" rather than using the pronoun "I". And of course, we drafted out a working paper, which was to become a resolution as a whole.

3) Fast forward a couple of hours, and we had lunch in the Atrium. This was a good time to get to know everyone better, and I made a lot of friends (mostly senior or GEM students) from various backgrounds. It was very exciting to meet so many people with this much enthusiasm for this event. After break, discussion resumed and we carried on with the submission of our final resolution, which had been amended and modified to take into consideration the other countries' suggestions/ideas.

4) Finally at late noon, we went into actual voting procedure. Our resolution had received a unanimous vote (which is very rare in MUN - most of them are just majority votes) as almost everyone agreed with the proposed solution and the method by which it would be implemented! In a usual MUN setting, the entire objective is to draft out a resolution which can get accepted or declined, depending on the number of votes we receive. In our case, you could say we were extremely successful since essentially everyone agreed with our resolution :D

5) That was the end of this year's MUN - and I cannot wait for the next one to come around. The rest of the day I have no choice but to work on my Principal Seminars, because they are drawing closer and closer as the days go by. That would be all from me today, and I hope you enjoyed reading about today's event. Thanks for reading as always, and have a great day. Cheers!