{Underneath the Stars.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

4:40 AM

The night of 24/03/05....

Twas was the night of the 24th March,

When we decided to dine at La Tasca

Me, Dana, Nourah, Keith

Carrie, Thomas and Tairiq too.

La Tasca's is a fabulous place,

where spanish food is gloriously served

we went there half past eight but were told

to return at nine because the place was full

So off we went to cross the road

to the Filling Station to have some drinks

thou thus had a Frozen Mudslide

whilst the rest had their smelly pints

And soon through banter and spirit filled times

the 30 minutes came to pass.

we crossed the road once again and this time

there was a nice cozy spot for us to sit and sup.

Cushion filled and candle lit

the table was just grand.

the surrounding of La Tasca's

filled with spice and spanish flair,

was a feast to eyes

as was it a feast to the soul.

Loud cha cha music was booming,

and we had to shout

but all was fine and good.

We chatted and yelled at each other as we

awaited the dawning of the food.

8 tapas, or appetizers as you may say

and 3 paellas

arrived,

And then the mad feast began.

Paellas, huge pans of glorious baked rice

stuffed to the trim with

prawns, sausages, clams, and vegetables

steaming and enticing us in.

The tapas, small and delicate

were gentle temptation and

as they flirted with our senses.

it wasn't till midnight that the feasting was done

and we were well supped and ready to leave,

The long walk back to hillhead dear

was wat lay before us.

the night was cold and the mist was thick

and the fog drew us to a pub

the estaminet it was to be

the dodgy dredgy deal.

A double baileys carrie got me

was just nice to warm the soul

a pint or two and they were all ready

and hillhead bound we strolled.

Strengthened by number

and the feast,

and of course the pint or two,

This merry band decided that it was

good to cut through the notorious park

Seaton Park in the day is beautiful and wonderful

but in the fog and dark of night,

the terrors lurk and thrive.

But it was all good, and we arrived alive

full spirited that we had conquered our fears

and happily we went to bed

utterly tired from the nights revelry....

Thursday, March 24, 2005

9:26 AM

yoz minasen~!

Celebration! Hooray! today was the last day of taught lessons and lectures for the rest of the year!

YOUKATA NE~!

For those of you still struggling with lectures....Zannen desu ne!
hehe...but we do have a SSM ( Special Studies Module) when school reopens on the 18th of April (technically 19th since 18th is a national holiday!) but that's basiclaly project work and an oral presentation...

Haha...got into the SSM that I chose : Brain Power! hehe...so probably our area of research will be something to do with brain function and what affects it...

The most exciting and interesting topic as opposed to the other drab topics that were out for the picking like ....Reproductive medicine ( yucks...) Biochemical molecules ( *gags* ).... eew...

so anyway, here's another piece of good news to all of you out there ......

*drum roll....*

If you were to collapse on the street one day and i so happened to pass by,
I should be able to perform basic life support on you guys!

Hooray! Youkata ne~!

well basically i had a practical skills session this afternoon at forresterhill,
and it was on CPR.
SO basically we were thought how to check and perform rescur breaths and chest compressions
really fun...like ER stuff.
So it was all good and it was definitely the most enjoyable and educational practical skills
course that I've had throughout the entire duration of the term.

Here are the basics :
Shout for help
Ascertain safety (@ make sure that it's safe to approach victim. he might have been elctrocuted)
Free from danger ( move to safe area, if you can move him )
Evaluate conciousness (shout at the victim)

hehe...then
Airway ( do head tilt to open up airways )
Breathing ( wait 10 sec to see if person breathes) (followed by Rescue Breaths (x2) ( you get 5 tries to get 2 breaths that will actually cause the chest to rise)
Circulation (feel for 10 sec to see if there's a pulse) (check carotid pulse) and the Compressions ( if there's no circulation...try to get heart to work again)

Between B and C if there's no breathing and pulse and no one's around to help call for help, you just go ahead and call for help yourself. and then you start the rescue breaths and compressions once you're done.

hehe...in this country is the person who collapse has no pulse and is not breathing call for an ambulance straight away because he probably has a heart attack (ventricular fibrillation) and the only thing that's going to save him is a defbrillator. (gome...dun noe whether i spelt that right)

The only 3 incidents when you dun go running for the ambulance immediately after you've checked for breathing is when the person is a victim of.... DROWNING, TRAUMA or POISONING (include alcohol and overdose on pills) for those pple once no pulse or breathing is detected immediately start compressions and rescue breaths for 1.5 minutes.

sumimasen but i can't describe how to do rescue breaths or compressions in words...
and am too lazy to try....haha...wari ne..

yeah so that was my last day of school, going out for dinner tonight yay!

See ya!

Jaa ne~!

Sunday, March 20, 2005

3:01 AM

most of you should have received that email by now...

the one on the fur trade.

If you have taken my advice and not watched it...good for you.
If you have watched it...thank you very much.

I'm not asking you to watch it..
I'm just hoping that you will do your best to help stop the illegal fur and animal trade.
I'm not calling for huge banners and posters and holding strikes and such.

All they need is a quiet word passed from one to another...
a gentle advice to not use fur, and animal parts that do not have any medicinal value at all...

All it takes is a little effort and some commitment.

Let's pray that that's what it takes for us to stand before the almighty on judgement day and to present with our hands untainted with the blood of the innocent, and our hearts unweighed with the guilt of association with the murderers who partake in such sordid acts.

It doesn't matter how we have evolved or developed,
because without compassion and love for all that we share this planet with
we are lesser than those we slaughter.

Vanity is the devil's favourite sin....
it looks like it's ours as well....

2:42 AM

Ohaiyo mina sen~!

Sumimasen ne! I did have a very nice long entry the other day but due to the
stubborness of blogspot the other day...
the most hidoi thing happened....
my nice long and beautifully composed entry was not only unpublished but deleted...

kawaisou ne...watashi wa...

okie...i will try and replay (hehe...affected by terminology from hikaru no go) that entry....

right so ....

Wednesday......16/03/05

The weather was zen zen sugoi ne!
The sun was out and it was ACTUALLY WARM!
Thus, me, dana, nourah, laura, kate and keith decided to go down to the river to read...
My goodness, I am ashamed to say that i did not noe of that slice of heaven that was just
behind my doorstep (literally i tell you!)
The river's part of the river don, which flows into the north sea (which is again literally at our doorstep...or maybe 20 minutes walk down the road)
and it was so beautiful....

Watching the trees swaying in the wind, and the sunlight dancing off the
rushing waters of the river as it flowed endlessly towards its ultimate destiny
i felt a sense of peace and calm...

zen zen kirei ne....

I had my camera with me so I was walking along the river bank taking shot after shot...
never felt such a sense and drive for artistic composition.
I took a 127 shots that day...but as i can't find a suitable website to host all of them...
kimitachi have to settle for the five that i've put up...
they might not exactly be the best but their nice....ware ne!

http://www.albumtown.com/showalbum.php?aid=21232&uuid=16170

So there we were basking in the sunlight and chatting and fooling around till the sun set
and then we started our trek back to the halls...

and that was when the drama of it all began....

nourah decided that we should attempt to just climb up this steep hill that led to the
back of the halls and since me kate and keith were equally lazy we decided that HEY why not?!
(Dana and laura had wisely retreated home to cook dinner and were unfortunately not in the fray of events that occured)

so we were trekking up that slope and then it happened...
Kate screamed and me an nourah and keith turned around to see her sink into....
PEAT @ MUCK...

Peat makes wonderful fertilizer and is good for you...that is if you are a plant or a carcass that wants for to be preserved forever!!!

They next thing we knew, me and nourah were also screaming and sinking into that muck...

So screaming and swearing we mucked up the hill and keith...that little tart! had merrily skipped ahead of us and planted himself on firm ground behind a tree and was laughing and gloating at us! well...okie...to give him some credit he did give us a hand as we struggled up....

so the outcome was.....RUINED....I tell you .... RUINED.....ZEN ZEN RUINED BOOTS

My nice, tanned leather dorthy perkins boots....DESTROYED.

the poor things are now sitting by the radiator drying...I'll have a go at them with a boot brush later today...kawaisou ne....

oh well....might have an excuse to get new boots then. hehee....

Friday....

Went to forresterhill with one of my singaporean frens peixin and

then went to the singaporean flat for dinner and to download stuff!

hehe...now i have the complete hikau no go..all 75 episodes, and i finished watching the entire thing last night....ah...it's such a nice anime. even though it's on a board game.

I felt that the ending was rather sad and maybe a little abrupt. But all in all it was a very nice show and i think i learnt quite a bit from it. educational anime...atashiwa dai ski!

and i als o have tons of movies and taiwan entertainment shows! YAY!

okie lah...so that's basically me the past week....

jaa ne!

Thursday, March 17, 2005

10:44 AM

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

10:08 AM

yoz kimitachi!

ware ne havent been writing.
but then again, wat's there to write when there's nothing to write?
so well will just blabber about what i can remember n what i can be bothered
to write....haha

right so last saturday evening i went to the singaporeans flat
at Esslemont house.
hehe...mission was to download anime and other stuff off their hard drives and laptops.
sigh....poor little desperate me... well it's all thanks to the bias school
website administration that doesn't allow the medics accounts to BT stuff
Fuck them all.

SO anyway, it was really fun because we were all joking and
chatting in hokkien and teochew
kinda like home
and they had made lovely brownies and fish porridge
so it was all good.

hehe and the stash of downloads made off them was also pretty good

now i have quite a load of anime in the form of Hikaru no Go which has the most EXQUISITE and lovely OST ( Onegai Zhu, please help me find it! Arigato ne!) and yeah it's basically about the japanese board game IGO...might sound boring, and that's what i thought too....but i
was soon swept up by the complexities and intensity of the fights on the board.

Sugoi ne!

oh and i also managed to get My hime (haven't watched yet ) season 2 of ER, and some chinese variety shows..... HOORAY!

oh well so the rest of the weekend was spent holed up in my room watching all those stuff...
hehe...excellent

well...that's all really...goin down to play badminton now!

so till next time!

Jaa ne!

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

3:43 AM

ohaiyo minasen~!

Well...quick update on what's happened in the past few days.

Monday
Had my Virgin Vie cosmetic party
it was fun and there were pple who turned up
though unfortunately they weren't of much spending power so
well...didn't manage to get a discount on the stuff that I bought
but still it was all good.

I really love these virgin vie products.
The Vit C range is a definite must try.
I got the night cream and I'm ordering another bottle plus a calamity spots lotion.
Yes! I feel guilty with all this spending BUT
A girl has got to invest in her skin what more when she's aging.
And the products are really nice and thick and the Vit C range smells absolutely
Wonderful

AARGH! I don't want to grow old!

Right....
Just came out from and hour and half video session
We were watching videos on pple who had absolutely terrible neurological diseases.
Yes! it's to tie in with the Nervous System block that we are having currently.
There was a video on a musician Clive WEaring, who has permanent retrograde amnesia
aka he can't remember anything that he experienced a moment ago.
He lives in blocks of moments, he lives in the now with no past or future.
How sad...
And that was due to a Herpes Simplex virus that spread to his brain.
I found that the most amazing thing was that, although he wasn't able to remember
something that he had just done minutes ago, he was still able to play the
most wonderful choral pieces and sing them from memory.
that's because in retrograde amnesia, although immediate memory is wiped out,
memories that he had stored from long long ago were unaffected.
I think it must have been worst for his wife. Because whenever he saw her it was as though
he had never seen her for years, even though she had just left the room and returned
moments ago.

There was this guy who suffered from parkinson's who had a pallidectomy @
drilling a whole in his skull and using electrodes to destroy a small centre in his
Globus Pallidus ( part of the basal ganglia in the brain tat's involved in motor control)
It's a high precision precision with only a single mm as it's margin of error
Out of this, you basically have a paralyzed man.
So basically the surgery was to help eradicate the spasmodic and choreaic (jerky movts)
that were being brought about by the medication he was taking for parkinson's disease.
the effects were amazing, imediately after the surgery he was able to walk
almost normally without any jerky movts. It was like a miracle. I'm sure he felt it was.

The third guy suffered from complete loss of sensory info from his periphery.
He basically lost all sense of proprioception so basically, he doesn't have a
sense of 'space' i.e he can't feel his coordinates in his environment.
This is a VERY VERY rare neurological disease.
when the video was made there were only 10 pple in the entire world who suffered from that disease and that guy was the only one who was able to walk and live on his own.
And basically since he has no feedback from his sensory receptors on his position in the environment he has to will himself with all his mental strength to sit up
and walk. So if you were to remove his vision input he would basically be rendered sort of
paralyzed as his mind can't see where his body has been placed.

They were just so amazing.
It was a truly enjoyable time...and it really got us to think and be appreciative of the
normal functions that we enjoy from day to day.
And take for granted.

Thank you God for letting us lead normal and happy lives, although we are more often than not oblivious to the great gift that we enjoy...

Monday, March 07, 2005

3:44 AM

hi just another boring bit of information that i've decided to put forth
seeing that it has been a boring few days that have just passed.
So let's just culminate with more boring news...

Well...yesterday, we had a singapore society meeting,
yes...*gasps* ....we actually had a gathering...
but in the true spirit of our society, which is
nonactive at best, and non-existent at worst...
the people who were supposed to have turned up i.e the freshmen did not turn up.
So it was basically me and this freaking asshole with bloody bombastic hair
and a fucking annoying attitude to match.
He so clearly and irritatingly reminded me about the ugly singaporean and to think
I have gone this many miles across the atlantic to escape such crap
and it's right at my doorstep.

Asshole....

So anyway, they had called us there to tell us about who was going to be in the
comittee next year.
And mr bombastic hair is going to be the secretary
and they made me Event Coordinator.
Looks like I'm going to have a very slack time, seeing that no one is interested in
doing anything in this club.
And the fact that 'Contact Singapore' has hit a budget crises and
stopped funding Singapore Societies in the UK is not exactly going to help.
Oh well, having a post in name and not deed...

Isn't that just so ideal?

Sunday, March 06, 2005

3:33 AM

boredom combined with having watched Angel santuary last night
has precipitated this random
quiz attempt....

sighz...

You are loving and strongly oppose injustice. You can be manipulative at times.

You are loving and strongly oppose injustice. You can be manipulative at times.

You are Zaphikel.Leader of the Rebellion in Heaven. He is one of the
high Archangels. He was named a
"fallen" due to his love affair with
Raziel's mother. He was blinded when his life
was saved by Adam Kadamon. He is trying to
restore Heaven to the way it was.
You are intelligent and tend not to show your true
intentions. You are loving and kind hearted and
will go out of your way to do the right thing.

Which Angel Sanctuary are you?
brought to you by

3:03 AM

not much to report
been the usual humdrum work and shit like tat

well...for what it's worth.
friday...
Played badminton from 10pm to 12 midnight.
yes we are all crazed badminton fanatics.
But it's good fun.
Keeps us fit and delirious.
And it's just what the health board recommends,
sports and exercise 3 times a week!
Hooray!
Fitness here we come!

after that we went back to the flat for tea
and then nourah dana and keith decided to go for a pint
but i was just way too knackered
so i went for a nice long shower

when i got out of the shower,
Dana and Keith were back
they decided to play cards and have tea
and I joined them.
Geez....it was to be a depressing game of cards,
because the 2 of them were in the humdrums. haha...
it's either the weather or it's that time of year.
The irony of the whole situation was that we were playing cards with
Playboy cards...
Yes...that's our kind birthday gift to keith.
It would have been more interesting if I had gotten different girls
but i kept getting the same boobies...
haha
well after a couple of rounds, we decided to retire to bed
which was a good idea in its entirety.

Saturday....
finished reading Deception Point by Dan Brown
It was interesting and good as a whole
But I still prefer
Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons
haha...
Went on to read anatomy
Pelvis and Perineum.

Still have head and Neck to go....

Mock anatomy test on monday

sigh...boring boring....

don't you feel bored?

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

7:24 AM

The community course has come to pass.
Yesterday, 200 medical students crammed into Elphinstone Hall
Desperately sticking pieces of paper and card on six foot tall boards
following that it was the peer marking phase.
It was hilarious.
Everyone coercioning with each other to get the best marks for their boards.
It's good to have friends
It's even better if you've got a stong hold on your pal's deepest and darkest secrets.
Well...all I can say is....''All's fair in love and war.''

Sigh...hope that all goes well and that we are able to pass the project and score at least above 15.
But it was a fun experience in all.
hey! how many pple can actually boast of having worked with ( rather for) Hitler?
(haha...if you guys remeber the heavyside issue...that's hitler. We were so tempted to put his name on the name card as ''Andrew 'Hitler' heavyside''. That guy was really asking for it. )
But anyway we had good fun and we got it done. and our poster was impressive enough
so we really can't ask for more. Except for a good grade. Please God.....)

Well....that was yesterday.
today we finally signed the contract for our new flat for next year.
So the verdict is that I will be living with Dana and Keith.
Nourah will be in the second flat with the rest of the noisy pple.
and they will be across us. hope that the doors are much thicker this time.
but well..we will survive.

Next up will be the fight match
where I swear I will literally BEAT the shit out of Keith if he
dares to step into the room that I want.
No way am I going to live in the smaller room.
The middle sized room has got my NAME CARVED into it!

Ah...the joys of living together in a flat are all the more accentuated by the occasional blood bath.

Wouldn't you agree?