6:51 PM
It was a long flight on A380. Sat on the upper deck. Everything’s pretty much the same actually, other than the addition of a pretty well –lit spiral stairway at the back.
Upon arrival, I had to leave the rest of the group for Tonbridge. They went off in a bus for Stevenage. Together. Lucky people. I was received by this really friendly carribean-mixed-english guy, Paul. We got on very well and he shared with me a lot of stuff regarding UK. It turned out that he’s a Kent policeman! Tonbridge Taxi is his part time job. Heh. So I was in really good hands- I had a policeman for a chauffeur! How good can things get? He’s really cute and amiable. He kept showing me his GPS thingy.. asking me if Singapore has got such intelligent devices. Anyway he said it was essential that he used the GPS, as the GSK – Tonbridge site where we’re gg and I’m supposed to stay for the first 2 wks, was extremely isolated and located amongst the village AND farms. Wow. Imagine my reaction.. I never knew that UK had farms. So close to London somemore. Oh btw, Paul thought that I was MALAY. His exact words, “you’re definitely 100% not Chinese.. are you malay?”………….
Finally reached the GSK site at around 820am. The route to get to this place is really a maze. Imagine a pharma plant right smack in the middle of erm.. Lim Chu Kang farm (not even tuas mind u). So along the way, u’ll start smelling animals and seeing a lot of dung on the road. How authentic. Oh.. quite a few woolly sheeps along the way as well. And I thought that my relationship with sheep ended in New Zealand..
The staff here is really friendly! The reception tried Extremely hard to pronounce my name – to no avail of coz. It sounded suspiciously like “Sing- u”. So they all decided to call me Linzy. Lin Z.Y = Linzy. Oh well, sounds decent enough so I shan’t complain. And my name in all the company emails and documents suddenly became Zhiyu 2 Lin. Amazing huh. Coz EVERYONE has to have a middle initial, which I obviously dun, thus they put the 2 in for me. Oh yay. My name just keeps evolving.
And yeh, my supervisor, Mark and Frank, wanted to let me go rest and sleep the rest of the day off today. But it was only 8.20am!!! and I’m alone in the middle of this desolate sheep town. So where am I supposed to go??! So I very earnestly declared tt I’m not suffering from jetlag and asked to tag along with Mark for the morning… which was obviously a huge mistake. Mark is the HEAD of all the engineers in the plant. So naturally, all the meetings that he attended were really impt and for big shots kind. Anyway, since I was supposed to follow him, I ended up in this really torturous FAEM meeting.. sth like HAZOP but a lot worse. For one, I realized that ALL the stuff we learnt in sch was utter crap that did not apply to the REAL world. (lousy NTU education) And to make it even worse, the English accent is really strong!! ALL of them speak like characters from Harry Potter. *faintz* I have to summon all my attention and effort juz to concentrate on deciphering what they’re discussing.. Bah. It’s as if they’re speaking alien language. Of coz, I suppose the feeling’s very much mutual.. sigh. Maybe I must start talking like them before we can understand each other eh. Oh.. and they greet each other by “ Heya Mate!” ..so when I said “Hello” everyone looked so stunned for a moment. Sigh. Oh well oh well. I dun really know what’s English anymore. I should start learning Harry Potter language.
The Tonbridge site is really small. So small that everybody seems to know everybody. And I hate it that I stick out like a sore thumb! I’m like a dark shadow drifting amongst the erm.. clouds..so everyone kind of know me.. but guess wat.. they all look the same to me! And it doesn’t help that they all have common English names. (like duh). Simon (s), Paul (s), John (s), Johnathon (s), Alan (s), Ian(s).. and blah blah blah.. u get the drift. Why dun they haf more unique and different names?? Like mine la. Zhiyu 2 Lin. So unique (not to mention weird). Go where find. Only one in the entire puny Tonbridge plant.
Ooh.. and 90% of those working at the plant are married and have kids!! I hold absolutely no grudge against these old happy ppl of coz. But hello.. how to communicate AND haf some social life here if 90% of them are like.. past middle age!!! Faintz. It so doesn’t help that I’m stuck all alone here in Tonbridge. Though this temporary GSK house is free.. I would rather pay the EXPENSIVE rent and move out of here into some form of civilization in Tunbridge Wells soon. Here there’s no internet, nobody after dark other than sheep and dung for company. I’ll forget how to talk to normal people in normal English soon. I’m like seriously bored to tears!! Bah.
the GSK house..
my bedroom
One good thing though.. I tried out the route to the MRT station juz now.. soooooooo glad to find that it’s walkable. Like.. 25mins walk along this footpath (note.. when I say path, it reli means path. It’s NOT a road), that is embedded amongst oh-so-lush greenery.. decorated with glorious animal dung ALL over the narrow path. WOW. Alrite, to be fair, the path is walkable. Really not so bad.. but I can foresee that when it rains.. this lovely dung-covered path will turn into a mud pool. Oh yay. I’ll need to invest in PCK boots.
Went to Tonbridge town centre (via the “lovely” footpath) to explore in the afternoon. Mark decided that my blank expression during the FAEM meeting was due to jet lag, and told me to go back to GSK house to rest. (btw, this GSK house is really directly next to plant site) So now I’m staying in “LIM Chu Kang”. Yup, anyway, Tonbridge town centre wasn’t so bad. The clothes are cheap, the food is cheap, especially the chocolates!! Woohoo.. glorious chocolates!! So many different kinds somemore! Really had to remind myself that I’m not as rich as I would like to think I am. But I still bought a few bars of coz. Heh. Lonely ppl deserve to eat happy food. “lonely, I’m so lonely.. I have nobody.. I’m all alone!!” how apt.
Yeh tt about sums up the day. Think next wk I’ll be slacking at work as well. How un-exciting. Coz my supervisor’s wife is about to give birth. So he won’t be around. Meaning there’ll be nobody around to give me something to pretend to be busy with. =(
Going to Tunbridge Wells tmr to view my potential more permanent house. Hope tt it’s pleasant enough and more lively than here. Else I’m so gg to rot….
~gone in a moment.. 
