Leo.Rianto@Home - My Photo Album: Nonik, Staffordshire University, England, Brooke Court, class of 95/96.

		The school of computing building of Staffordshire University where I was having a good time surfing the net, attending lectures, and bla bla to complete my first degree. (class of 96). It was said to be one of the best school of computing in England in term of industrial popularity.

		Well, this is the main campus of school of computing. They name it "Octagon". It was the best modren design building in the entire town, before the new accomodation building was built in 1997.

		The old accomodation building "Brooke Court", about 20 minutes away from the main campus. An extremely old modern building, built in 1950s, which will freeze your brain during winter with its madness wind. "Minyon Court", another accomodation building that look exactly like "Brooke Court" was just directly opposite to each other. I was staying at level 10 and was affected by those irritating cool and noisy wind. However, It was quite fun actually when I think of how we would get together to organise a Christmas party, jungle night (haha.. just joking) and study session. I was hopelessly in cooking before then, but was turned out to be an excellent one to manage and contribute some food during special events and my turn to cook (five of us in the apartment took turn to cook everyday). However, I couldnt produce the same taste in each time on the same dish. And Alice said it was my "Masterpiece" hahaha.....

		Stafford castle is just five minutes away from our apartment. It was a ruined and small mini castle. Its high location with lots of trees blocking the way up to the castle made lots of interesting bed time horror stories. Our favorite story teller, Kumar, would frequently tell us about his strange encounteres and vodoo experiences. *The castle is rather romantic at night. We went up there lots of time during heavy snow time in winter. Lots of us would slide all the way down from the top ground of the castle.*

		We would visit either Birmingham or Manchaster during most of the weekend. Many times, we would end up in London for some shows or walks around Camdem Town, Charing Cross, West End, and Convent Garden. I was with mountaineering club and got to know a PhD candidate who swore and behaved like that of a bandit. Surprisingly, he was well behaved and showed his intellectual during HCI tutorial. What a gap! Anyway, we did our rock climbing during winter at Snowdown, Wales and several other places. *Sometimes, we would rent a car during exam break and drove all the way to Loch Ness... passing through those beautiful lakes and panoramic places.* *This picture was taken with Alice at Manchaster.*

		When I first met Jocelyn. She was too hard to talk to, she spoke with a language which was totally foreign to me. During our second trip to London, she did nothing, except taking pictures and shopping. Well, after a while, we found that she was quite okay actually. No doubt she liked shopping and taking picture, There is other reason for her ignorance, it's her 286 processor! hahaha... She is rather sincere and caring after all.

		Yeah, you bet. It was our first experience with winter and snow. The entire winter season was full with either an exciting or horrifying situation. I remembered lots of us fell sick during the changing weather. The blowing winds and dropping temperature made the sickness worse. During this season, the roads became so slippery! It was quite exciting to laugh at those people who fell down again and again on the attempt to walk out from our apartment's main door, naughty me!

		We thought it would be rather expensive to travel back to England after our graduation. So, after a year of working, we decided to go on tour to China and Korea. Asian winter is drier than that of European. I could hardly breath in Beijing. There, we visited Great Wall, Great palace, Tian An Men Square, some other palaces and a skiing resort in Korea. Well, it was a ill-behave holiday if you travel with Ronnie and Alice. : -)

		Not all of us stayed in Singapore after our graduation. Quite a number of us went back to their home country such as Malaysia, Brunai or further study to US for instance. Those who stay in Singapore would meet up occasionally. Just like one of our outings, group cruising to Pulau Hantu, one of the tiny islands of Singapore, April 1997 *Back Row: Ohnmar, William, Kah Wai* *Front Row: Jocelyn, Alice, Sally and I*

		*On the way to our weekend trip to a fisherman village at Kukup, West Malaysia, March 1997.* *(William, Kah Wai, Sally, Jocelyn, Ronnie, Ming Kai, I and Alice)*

		It is indeed memorable to have gone through those time during my studies and all these years. It has not been that smooth, but I have learnt many valuable lessons and met lots of people and when I look back, I say "Thank you for being my friends and being with me all these years"!

My photo Album