The Muse's Haunt

2008-05-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone again!
Short post before I return to my books! Which I badly need to do!

Yes....whilst on my supposed study break I have made a very premature discovery of the Korean group Shinhwa. Lol!

Yup they are literally legends in Korea. Good looks, good songs and great entertainers!

Yup so if anyone wants their music or some of their albums go to 4shared.com and search for it!

Attached is my current favourite song and MV of theirs - Brand New!

P/s: They sang 'once in a lifetime' for those of your who've heard of this rather famous song!

If I have time, I'll probably do a review on them on Les Ukuleles!

Cheerioz pple!

2008-05-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

I love LMC!!! ( For more info! http://www.jpopasia.com/profiles/1646/lmc.html )
haha this comes from just listening to one of their songs which was used as an opening in Kaitekyoushi Reborn! an anime that I have been following for some time.

Yes...it's j rock! hahaha no! I 've not lost my marbles though i'm quite close to I suppose.
And it's too early for a midlife crises.

But The song 88 as seen in the video below somehow has a very captivating effect on me.
I think it's partly to do with the lyrics and the fact that they have managed to symbiotically fuse pure classic J Rock with a beautifully poignant string background.

Excellent song!

Anyone has a collection of their songs please leave a message on my tagboard or email me! Arigato Gozaimasu!

p/s they also have interesting MVs!

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

2008-05-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Medical school is weird.
It's just like a normal school I suppose. But the characters in it are different.

Instead of a principal you have a dean and his various vice deans. But just like in school, the vice deans take on demonic roles whilst the dean plays the benovolent, school loving geriatrician.

Instead of teachers and headmasters....you have a weird variety of doctors of all levels of grades. Some which you've never even heard of, FTSA, FY1, FY2, ST, STR....yes, all thanks to the NHS and its miasmic career filing system you get a variety of training options, I see it just as multiple longwinded ways in which u use up your life time and life source to reach the miasmic goal of becoming a consultant. And yes, there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the golden word of your 5 years of medical school : CONSULTANT.

The consultant is your headmaster. He/She orders his 'lackeys' ( the above mentioned variety of acronyms ) around and basically their word is the law. Nobody dares question the consultant because in this day and age where recommendations and paucity of jobs are ripe, you need every bit of help you can get to make your way through the medical hierarchy.

The consultants 'swaggers' around ( well some of them actually do swagger ) sees his/her patient in a flash and makes making a life changing decision seem so easy and apparent.
'' So what will we do with Mr. X and his ....''
'' It will have to come off, there's nothing we can do to save the leg. '' continues walking down the corridor for the theatre suite '' Oh and ask Joe the registrar to come along, I've yet to see him do an amputation yet''

Consultants do one of three things to medical students...
1) Awe and inspire
2) Strike mind numbing and stupidity inducing fear
3) Confuse the already beduffled medical student

Yes....my friends. Life as a medical student is not easy. You have teachers with whom you will need to work with in the next few years. If their old and about to retire then good for you. If not, chug down the diazepam, antidepressants and Irn Bru and make your way to the wards and do your damn well best to make a good impression. If not, you're screwed. Unless you decide to move to another deanery after graduation for your training. But u still need those bloody recommendations.

Consultants in category (1) are true gems. You try too seek them out with each rotation. Usually they are so good that the word gets round from your peers before you even start the block and you know who to look out for and latch onto for a good teaching experience. These rarities are true encapsulation of what each and every wanna be med student blabs on and on about during their interview. They truly want to help and care for pple. They just exude warmth and kindness, not only to their patients but the poor med student as well. They understand our fears and insecurities and understand what a bewildering time we are experiencing being the scum of the scum on the medical ladder and they do their best to nurture and impart their invaluable knowledge. To these wonderful pple, a big thank you to you. If the cynical beasts from category (2) don't traumatise me too much in my final year I hope to be like you one day!

Group (2) are just legendary. There's one in every speciality if your lucky. If not, the whole lot of them are just sickos. I don't understand these pple. They seem to exist just to make your life a living hell when they've clearly had a run of the mill and they know how difficult it is at the start. I basically feelt hat some of them are just either plainly INSECURE so as to desire and execute the need to torture those below them just to ascertain their position in the ranks. Or, they are just sadistic, narcissistic pple who take plain pleasure in ripping the poor junior doc's clerking, shouting at them and just traumatising and harrassing the stricken medical student. Do not be fooled pple when they say that they are 'doing it for your own good and simulating what reality is'' What the hell is good about traumatising a person, undermining them and destroying every last shred of dignity and confidence they have when they are starting on the job? And if they call this reality, they need to seek a psych consult.

The last group of bona fides are just......well......weird. Eccentric is a better word I suppose. But they just seem to have no effect on you at all. Some try to hard, some don't care at all, and some are just....odd. Well, there was always a fine line between the genius and the mad man eh?

Well, so you have it folks! Just felt like having a little discourse whilst breaking from my infinitely slow revision.......

2008-04-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

These are the lyrics from KOKIA's new album - The Voice.
Wonderful singer. Every word pulls at the heart strings. She is one of the few singers that holds justice to the title The Voice.

KOKIA- Nani mo kamo ga hoshi ni natte ( Everything turns into a start )

hatred, conflict, suffering, even if we hurt each other
Ifwe look at the same sky after we were born again,
It will probably be only a blink of a bright moment
Where, instead of people being sacrified, justice that goes on with happiness
Alone, a life on a single person, if that life belonged to the one you love
Please imagine, as though it's your own pain
Everything turns into a star and passed on to the future
Everyone is someone's one day only

Justified events, that adults had sought reasons and let them pass
Though i was there, looking, the moment i turned a blind eye, i went down

Please imagine, as though it's your own pain
To regret every time you lose something, and shed tears for my short comings
The tears shed, as many as the number of stars, trying not waste them
Only an emptiness cuts the sky, and tears my heart
When everything turns into a star, would it all be forgotten?

Please look at the person beside you
Coincidence that you cannot simply call them a stranger
It's too far into the time to smile back anymore
I don't need love that seeks something in return
Please imagine, as though it's your own pain
Everything turns into a star and passed on to the future
Everyone is someone's one and only

KOKIA - Everlasting

Every moment I can feel you.
Wish You feel the same way.
If I show my secret garden you can touch to eternity.
It fill me in with scent rose.
everlastig memory.
Glow my life, you give me a heart to love.
What I feel please stay forever.

Someday I know it may fade away
Still we ask for forever.
find our sign in this music.
everlastig memory.
only my love, truly given eternal life.
what I hold, keep breathing forever.

Love, where to come.
Love, ever lasting.
The world is Saturated with light of love.

Glow my life, you give me a heart to love.
What I feel please stay forever.
only my love, truly given eternal life.
what I hold, keep breathing forever.

Someday I know it may fade away
Still we ask for forever.

Kokia lyrics

I will be doing a review of this album on The Ukulele Ensemble. Please visit this great page.

2008-04-12T02:56:00.000-07:00

This is a photo I took of the sakura trees blooming on the Old Aberdeen Campus.
Amazing isn't it.
A whole different continent and era away and Sakura trees still bloom as beautifully as they would against the quiet backdrop of a village in Japan in the Edo period.

Seems like I'm romancing and being poetic today.

Today is a day of reflection I suppose ( or perhaps as a vain attempt to put of revising my neurology stuff...sighz...I feel a tension headache coming on just thinking of that.)

These days I sit at home since the need to go to Cornhill ( the local mental hospital) for my psych rotation has been obliterated after I've fulfilled my obligatory tasks for this block.

The weather has been pensive.
With snow, wind, thunderstorms and good old rain.

Yes...Spring was supposed to be here since the beginning of March but the temperatures are still dancing around 6-10 degrees celsius and the weather is just as unpredictable as ever. A definite testament to honouring the fickleness of the Scottish weather. Just like a broad on a Saturday night at the hottest clubs in New York.

These days I'm confounded by the stuff people tell me.
It's unbelieveable. Some of it disgusts me. And yet some of it still manages to incite some form of interest in my being.

Me and my flatmate were discussing boyfriends and relationships the other day.
She says people find it weird if you tell them that you've never had a boyfriend before and you're in your twenties.

I say it's only the regular joe or Jill that roams the streets of Singapore that would say something like that.

Not being pretentious or a snob for saying this but: yes, my dear flatmate is a true blue singaporean. Though she's been here four years just like I have, it seems that old habits die hard.
Oh well, forgiveable I suppose since wats the point to Singapore and it's charms if it doesn't brainwash you eh?

The point is, I don't see what a bf does for you.
Sure if the guy's really sweet and supportive and respectful and all that, maybe that would be great because it could possible be a symbiotic relationship.
But if you just want to have some 'eye candy' ( trust me most are either gay or freaking narcissistic) to drape yourself on then I don't see the point to it all.

It takes time, effort and a whole lot of investment to make a relationship work.
But I suppose, if there's a future in it then I say, show all your cards and call your banker to start investing.

But if it doesn't look good and not up to your BASIC standards ( ok, so I have been criticised for having high standards..but still...aim high and the parabolic pull of gravity brings it down to reality) then I don't see why you should just settle for any Tom, Dick or Harry. ( awful names by the way :P)

And so I posed this question to my dear flatmate, '' Fair enough if it's a good looking person who's never been in a relationship that gets the quizzical looks but if it were a below average looking person, everyone will just give sympathetic smiles and nod knowingly. Is this not just a case of double standards then?''

And she was like '' But some not so good looking pple have got bfs! And their Bfs aren't so bad looking at all.''

Well....I have nothing else to say because the point of the conversation has obviously changed from what I thought would be a potentially stimulating conversation to another mundane run of the mill 'ah lian' chat on '' Look! I got boyfren you got or not?''

It's like telling me, '' I've got the latest minolta, have you seen it yet?'' Piss off.

The presence of a beau has throughout the centuries been a sort of status quo in society.
Particularly women. And NO, I'm not into bra burning or bracelet smashing or even that pro women's right. Because I believe that you need to generate the movement within yourself instead of depending on some movement. And yes, I'm very much heterosexual for those of you wondering.

As you can see from the above, these days you have to cover your bases and clarify your own position (and even sexuality) before you can make such statements.

Maybe I'm just very much a career minded, overly competitive person. But I find no fault in that. yes, I would like to settle down some day. But I prefer to take it at my own pace.
Right now, I'm enjoying myself. And I'm doing as I please. I appreciate my lack of desperation and I absolutely loathe people telling me shit about settling down and telling me green tinged tales on how they envy their friends having beaus and all. If they've got so much time to sit and complain to me about wanting something, they might as well get off their lazy bums and go get it.
That's wat I would do if I ever reach that stage.

When the Sakura petals dance and twirl, fall is near....

and whence thou bloom and stir.....

perhaps....spring is near

2008-02-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

On Saturday the 9th of February I was on top of the world.
Literally.

Went down to Edinburgh with my secondary school friend Louisa with the plan to scale to the very heights of Arthur's seat.

Arthur's seat is a hill.....or so they say.
Climbing to its peak means you get to see a fantastic aerial view of Edinburgh, the sea, and the highlands from afar.

I've always had an afinity for nature and specatacular views...so if it means me risking my life to get that one particular shot that captures that essence of the moment and the beauty of the scenery before me....I'll do it.

said like a budding photographer eh....

But yes....you noe the old speel.....photos are special in that they freeze that time, space and moment so that hopefully, when we next see it, we may be brought back to that time, that moment that feeling that we had when we were there living, breathing and living that moment.

Memories are important. Memories that we keep in our heart and minds may be the ones that we treasure the most. But in this day and age where stress and unhappiness surrounds us, perhaps being able to relive that one moment in time, if not for ourselves, but for those around us may be in itself our chance for salvation, the balm for the wound, the key to moving on.

SO on that note....please enjoy the special selection i've put up for you my dear friends....

With the Sun and God as my guide

On top of the world...

2008-02-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

Hello! hello!
The new year is here! In all actuality, 2 new years have come!
Happy new year to one and all! and
Happy Chinese New year to all my yellow skinned compatriots!

2008.
It's my year. Not just because it's the year of the ingenious and mysterious rat.
but because I have to own it.

Yes....I have to OWN this year!

For those of you who don't get it. That means that I have to grasp this year firmly by the reins.
And achieve what I've set out to do.
Because, yes my friends, it's a crucial year.

This is the year where I have to cram 4 years worth of 'medical stuff' into my neuron filled collection bag happily residing in my skull and hopefully be able to magically pull bits of information out of it when I sit for my theory finals in june.

Yes.......despite all the self encouragment and determination I'm trying to muster....
I'm still have a few personal demons to fight.

Yes yes....they might be shared demons amongst us all.

Commonly known as : LAZINESS, PROCRASTINATION, OVER CONFIDENCE, STUPIDITY, and DAYDREAMING.......

Hell, everything around me seems more appealing than opening my textbooks or flipping through my folders of notes.

Oh well.....I have to be firm. I have to be strong. I probably will end up having to smash my laptop.

Oh well.....since this is an update after a very VERY loooooong time.....I'll juz put up some photos of my recent happenings in the past month.....

A picture speaks a thousand words......because it captures that special moment where your soul comes into light and your heart speaks what you could never eloquently put into words.

My 3 bestest classmates and medic friends

My special people on my birthday

The Birthday Spread

Accomplices in crime!
My flatmate's back!

Paella!

First snow of 2008...

CNY steamboat

Louisa in Scotland!
Dinner at Yangtze!

Toilet Shot!

Hope you enjoyed that visually stunning running commentary!

Have a great Year ahead!

2007-11-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

Just been reviewing my past bloggings.
A lot has happened in these past 4 years.
I've changed.
I've stayed the same.
I don't know. Perhaps only pple will be able to tell me that instead of pages of writing.

But then again, I beg to differ.
Sometimes it's only you who knows your true self.

Once you enter university.
Everyone starts talking about the future.

Graduation. Marriage. Jobs. Houses. Cars. The likes.

Suddenly life becomes reality.
It's no longer just about scoring A's in exams, or coming in top in your class.

It's about survival.

it's about surviving each year and making it to the next.
it's about making a name for yourself and keeping it.
It's about becoming a better someone. And maybe even a complete someone else.

I think that amidst all this talk of change and survival it's important to strive to be able to let ourselves as individuals survive the impending change that we plan to put ourselves through.

If we cannot be comfortable with ourselves, we cannot be comforatble with others or make others feel comfortable with us.

If we cannot find happiness within our being, then will we be fit to show others happiness?

If we don't respect ourselves, how are able to respect others around us?

When it comes to relationships should we not be asking ourselves why we go into a relationship?

Is it love? Is it for convenience sake? Is it to fill the loneliness in our souls? Or is it to fill the prying eyes of our peers?

I am surrounded by desperation.

I empathise and respect the desperation I see in my patient's eyes, because it is through them that you will be able to see the strength of the desire to survive.

But I curse and look upon with disdain at the desperation of those who yearn for binding relationship with another just so that they can feel whole and desired.

It is disrespectful. It is revolting.

It is insulting to the strength that the human spirit can call upon in times of loneliness and futility. To run to another for assurance and affirmation when you can find these within yourself is distasteful.

Perhaps in a years time I will look back upon this and wonder why this was written.
But for now.... I rest my case.

2007-11-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

Harukanaru Toki no Nakade Hachiyosho......
I love the japanese poems at the end of each episode.....

'' Like water running down the tall mountain, even in secret, we must continue our love.
Though my yearning may be the end of me''

'' The moon that crosses the sky tonight
cleans everything in its path,
so that even if the clouds endeavour to conceal it,
it's light will shine on''

''Even in the night people may be led astray by firelight,
And without a care for consequences,
fall into a love that flutters more wildly than the fireflies.''

''I wonder if she has forsaken me and left because of my appearance?
A woman's love is the only thing that never does what one expects"

"I prayed I wouldn't fall in love
As I cleansed my hands at the sacred fountain.
Alas, judging from my state now,
God must not be listening.''

''If exchanging my life meant that I could be with you,
Dying would be so easy''

''Even in this life, if it goes as ones heart desires.
why should parting be so sorrowful?''

'' My love is without direction and without end,
who knows where it may take me.
Only this can I say for sure,
All I wish for is to be with you.''

2007-11-16T10:42:00.000-08:00

Today I saw a person die.
It was unexpected.
It was chaotic.
It was uncannily exciting.

Ward round in the morning.
Just approaching the bed and the person goes into cardiac arrest.

This was nothing like ER at all.
This was real life.

This was about efficiency, coordination, calmness and execution.
No time for emotion.
No time for uncertainty.
it's do or die.
Literally.

And above all.
it's about knowing when to stop.
And realise that there's nothing more that you can do.

2007-11-12T16:16:00.001-08:00

If heaven could be seen from whence we cameth from....
I believe it to be best seen from the beach at Nairn.....

When there's nothing to be seen but the beauty of God's creation before you....
When there's nothing to hear but the whispers from the endless depths
When there's nothing to smell but the salty wind.....
When there's nothing to feel but the gentle caress of wind and rain....

That's when you're really aware of yourself ....
as a being unlike any other..................
just for that one special moment..............
you know who you are

You know what you want of life

.......of love....
......of your aspirations......
.......of what you are capable of............

And then just like that.....
.............the magic is gone........
...............................and you are once again....
.........one of them...............

2007-11-06T15:05:00.000-08:00

yoz everyone!
i'm terribly stressed now. But As always the horrible horrible and terribly self disgusting habit of procrastinating and getting distracted is getting to me.

I've got my mocks in 4 weeks time and I'm doin this.
I hate myself. I despise myself.....I give up....Do you not know how frustrating it is to combat with yourself?

it's an endless and fruitless battle when you know your enemy too well.
Talk about being too close for comfort.

Oh well....since i'm here I might as well just chat about for awhile.

just started my general surgery block and already feeling the brunt of it. Having to be in at 8am every single cold wintry morning for surgical INTERACTIVE tutorials is NOT fun at all....it's draining and it stinks if you have to be in for the rest of the day.

Currently on the nephrology ward. Man......could anything be more mundane!!!!
At least there were clinics to attend today.
Monday was an infuriating day when we spent 2h on a ward round and the freaking consultant didn't even speak or teach us anything.....what a shithead....
obviosuly someone has forgotten the oath he took to ''look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers and to teach them this art if they shall wish to learn it without fee or stipulation.......I will impart knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine but to none others.''

The only thing this guy imparted was how to stare and ignore the presence of the disciples.
what a dick head.

And I have to go for another ward round tml..............Man! i'm hitching a ride with the other team!

righto, gtg now, goin to finish revising my nephrology bits and start on GI!

This stinks coz GI and nephro are the two topics that I'm ABSOLUTELY SHITE AT!

Cheers!

Here's some photos anyway just to beautify my blog! ( And to explain my absences )

1st night in Prague! Start of the journey! Chinese Food!

From the tower beyond...

As I was by the river one evening...

Raigmore hospital in Inverness

Ahoy mateys! We'r e off to see the dolphins in Moray firth

The Mighty Loch Ness

Inverness when night falls

Aiyoh......Yakuza de yasu!

Sister Medics

Chef ET's new creation: Sio Bak ( Crispy pork belly ) noodles!

Flatmates!

absolut champbulls chicks!

On the dancefloor!

Do you see Borat peeking out of the window?

The Girls hair curling night in!

Thank you for the memories!

2007-09-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

Hello one and all after such a long seance from my beloved blog.
Haha was away backpacking in Prague, Vienna and Paris during my 2 week summer holiday in july after my GP block and then was packed off to Inverness for my 10 week stint at Raigmore hospital doing my Orthopaedics, Rheumatology, A&E blocks for the first 5 weeks followed by the mix and match block with haematology, oncology, palliative medicine, genetics and endocrine blocks in the last 5 weeks.

I'm into my last week at inverness.
It's been great.
I leave with no regrets but lotsa fond memories.

I've seen the beauty and majesty of the highlands. I've experienced the mystery and power of Loch Ness.

I've received kindness, good teaching and lots of clinical experience from the hospital. So I leave with knowledge and confidence.

I've loved assisting in surgery. I've refound and confirmed my love and interest in orthopaedics.
And hopefully now I have more direction in my goals and aims.
Don't believe anyone who says they want to specialise in something if they haven't experienced it for themselves. Because that's bullshit! You never know for sure till you've had some experience in the field. Be it just 2 weeks, it's still kinda directive.

Things in the textbooks and lecture notes now make more sense as I see them being put into practise.

Practical skills like venepunctures, suturing, venflon insertions have been an interesting experience with each attempt. And hopefully I have become more confident though perhaps not perfectly proficiently perfect in them.

I've met new pple. I've made new frens. I've seen the true strength of the human spirit within the walls of the hospice and hospital. And I've appreciated every moment of it.

But now I have to bid farewell to Raigmore and inverness for now and return to aberdeen.

I will miss it.

But this is just so long for now...

2007-07-05T04:45:00.000-07:00

走一个人走
走的累了心却碎了
爱一个人爱
爱的哭了哭的倦了
路上行人在穿梭
伤了心的人究竟有几个
耳旁的恋人都在唱歌
可我的爱到底剩下什么
没有你的日子
我真的好孤单
所有的心碎全与我相伴
没有你的城市我真的好茫然
所有的快乐都与我无关
没有你的日子我真的好孤单
思念的痛还在心里纠缠
没有你的城市我真的好迷乱
爱与不爱都已经太晚
回头太难

2007-06-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

Today has been a tiring, exciting and truly eye-opening day for me.
Second day into my second week of general practice, first rotation for 4th year and i've seen my fair share of the destituition of the human race.

I was on house calls with Dr. G Davidson the whole day. Very nice young guy. Rather bonnie as well. Nice car too. Really very quick on his feet and very capable of getting things done pronto. Very open and willing to teach and answer any questions posed.

So in the morning we had a list of 6 housecalls. Just the regular stuff such as chest infections, viral gastroenteritis, infected eczemas, the usual stuff. Then midway through one of the chesty coughs we get a call for an urgent housevisit for a man threatening suicide.

And the day started to get that much more interesting.

You know how it's like on drama serials with pple screaming that they're goin to jump off buildings or slit their wrists or OD and you think they're just being hysterical? Well, today for the first time I realised how true those portrayals are.

The guy was chroniclaly depressed and throughout the entire time we were there he came on telling Dr. D that the best thing to do with him was to just let him die, and then he started to get really agitated and whilst we were discussing wat best to do with him he started screaming in his room that he wanted us to pass him a razor so that he could slit his wrist.

And yes, I'm not proud to admit this but when I heard him screaming for a razor and attempting to get out of his bed to find a razor I actually instinctively moved closer to Dr. D.
But hey the guy was dead drunk and he was busy howling and screaming like a psychopath and had basically been cursing his previous doctor just seconds ago.

But it's truly hats off to Dr. D. I applaud you man. Really loved that no nonsense way you handled both the guy and the situation and fantastic management plan in the end.

yup, so driving around the entire aberdeen today. Got my fair view of the different property available around town and the appalling council and sheltered housing around town.

I suppose what i truly appreciate about house visit is that you get to see a glimpse of the patient's life when they're not dressed in their sunday best, and all cheery and made up in your surgery. But when you get to see them in their nighties or t-shirts in their dilapidated homes and the deprivation they have to live with each day, it just gives that added depth of reality that you will never get by just seeing them in the surgery.

You also see the desperation that exists in them. And somehow it's a double edged sword effect on you. On one hand, their plight makes you sympathetic but on the other hand it makes you just that bit more weary and cynical because you see so many pple with similar stories that you just can't spread your sympathy that thinly. And when that happens you start to resent.

You start ot resent society for being so harsh and for not being able to provide and support these pple.

You start to resent your patients for being right buggers forever searching for attention and sympathy.

You start to resent yourself for feeling that way and for becoming such a cold and cynical being that you once swore you would never be.

I asked Dr. D as we were driving back to the surgery for our lunch break.

" People often say that you become more cynical as you progress in your career. Is that true?''

He was honestly taken aback by my question. But he took it like a pro.

At first he gave a technical and illustrated example. And that was a fair enough answer to me.

However, after lunch as we were heading out again he suddenly said this to me.

'' You know, as you see more patients and experience more, you get that more realistic, firmer in your actions and harder in your feelings. So yes, in response to your question, you do get more cynical as you progress in your career."

I'm truly beginning to appreciate this GP rotation. I now realise how wrong i've been about the importance of general practitioners. They are truly unsung heroes. My respect goes out to all GPs, especially those at LMP. Thank you so much for taking me under your wing.

2007-06-10T17:01:00.001-07:00

The greatest distance divides us
Not because you are oblivious to my love when I stand in front of you.

But because we love each other
Knowing fate witll forever keep us apart.

2007-05-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

Yes! It's attack of the blogthings again!
The curse of the afternoon nap and the nothing to do for awhile has led to this plague of nonsensical STUFF!

ENJOY!

Your Beauty Element is Water

Feminine and dreamy, your beauty style is classic and very vintage.
But you never look out of style! You have a way of making classic looks modern again.

What's Your Beauty Element?

You Are 40% Cynical

Generally you give people the benefit of the doubt. But there are exceptions.
You buy into many of the things that mainstream society believes, but you're not anybody's fool.

How Cynical Are You?

I think i should have a higher score on this!

You Should Rule Saturn

Saturn is a mysterious planet that can rarely be seen with the naked eye.

You are perfect to rule Saturn because like its rings, you don't always follow the rules of nature.
And like Saturn, to really be able to understand you, someone delve beyond your appearance.

You are not an easy person to befriend. However, once you enter a friendship, you'll be a friend for life.
You think slowly but deeply. You only gain great understanding after a situation has past.

What Planet Should You Rule?

You Are a Centaur

In general, you are a very cautious and reserved person.
However, you are also warm hearted, and you enjoy helping others in practical ways.
You are a great teacher, and you are really good at helping people get their lives in order.
You are very intuitive, and you go with your gut. You make good decisions easily.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

Your Love Quote

Love makes the wildest spirit tame, and the tamest spirit wild.

What Love Quote Suits You?

Your Element Is Air

You dislike conflict, and you've been able to rise above the angst of the world.
And when things don't go your way, you know they'll blow over quickly.

Easygoing, you tend to find joy from the simple things in life.
You roll with the punches, and as a result, your life is light and cheerful.

You find it easy to adapt to most situations, and you're an open person.
With you, what you see is what you get... and people love that!

What's Your Element?

Your Birth Month is January

You are a natural leader who is able to stand up when no one else can.

Strong and powerful, you tend to overshadow those around you.

Your soul reflects: deep love, fascination with life, and a distinctive persona

Your gemstone: Garnet

Your flower: Snowdrop

Your colors: Black, dark red, and dark blue

What Does Your Birth Month Mean?

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Your Love Number is 6

Who you fall in love with is all about who you trust.
Loyalty is important to you, and you want the most faithful of lovers.
In return, you never let your heart or eyes wander.
Open and honest, your relationships tend to be free of secrets.

What Is Your Love Number?

2007-05-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

YO everyone!
quick update before i return to my 3000 word ethics essay that has to be written in one week...
I'm goin to cry....and then pull my hair out....and attempt to do myself in my jumping out of the window from my ground floor flat.

yes BTW my topic is entitled '' Is the diagnosis of down's syndrome and adequate reason to terminate a pregnancy?'' So anyone who wants to say something about this or have any examples....please let me know...I will be eternally grateful.

Yup so anyways last night held dinner for the 10 new malaysians that joined out year. yup University of Aberdeen med school accepts 10 malaysians every year into 4th year.

yup so here are some photos! Enjoy!!!!

The FooD
( Fried rice, Curry chicken and beef stew in the background and vegetable curry by yours truly)

8 lovely ladies
1,2,3....can u count to 10?

Gentlemen take your stand

( Shuai ges in blue and green...:) )

From the beginning...

(From top left: Deacon, Tony, Me, Vivian)

Friends

We will soon be breaking up for rotations....
Some of us will depart to inverness, whilst others will remain for the time being....
It's goin to be hard not seeing you guys everyday....

V, T, D....take care and God bless ya all! Thanks for being there and for making Aberdeen that extra special...Love ya all!

2007-04-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

Life is too short to not say the things that you really wish to say....
Life is too short to be worried about being laughed at by saying what you wish to say....
Life is just too short to keep on thinking about past unhappiness

Life is just too short.......

You know....serendipidity and fate are powerful wielders in this circle of life
But I profess that they are nothing but pawns in God's ultimate plan for each and every one of us.

I don't know but maybe spring has arrived on this old hen a bit too late...or it could just be
a case of mania acting up.....

But all I can say is ....every one screws up. Everyone sins. Everyone hurts someone else. Even the one's they are close to. Even the ones the love and like.

I know. Because I've done the above. And believe me it just doesn't feel right. It doesnt feel good. And you know it. It's that raw ache that gnaws through your heart into your soul.

But then after a while, the pain goes. Numbed by the continuous multitude of stimulations with each sin we cast.

But I believe from what i've experienced that our ever loving Father in heaven is always watching over us and keeping us safe in his protection. And as our ever forgiving lord, he will grant us peace and forgiveness and a second chance to make things right and repent.

To all of you out there....regardless of whether you believe in God or not, this is my Easter message to you:

When you're presented with this precious chance to repent and start anew with someone dear, with yourself or with someone new, seize it, cherish it, make full use of it. Love as you've never loved before. Experience each day for the uniqueness tat it holds. Appreciate yourself for who you are and what you know you will become. Cherish those around you for you never know when's the last chance you'll get to do so. Do not be afraid to make a fool out of yourself for something you believe in and are willing to fight for as often it is the fools who know no different.

Happy Easter every one and God Bless us all!

2007-02-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

This is HOT off the press!

Just returned from the public ceilidh (kay-lee) at the music hall!
Awesome!!!!

This would be my fourth ceilidh since i've been to aberdeen and man do i have a great time every time. yup...and it was to celebrate my friend's Dana's 29th birthday...which happens to fall on valentines day.....hahaha! It's great for single frens like me!

For those of you still in the dark, ceilidh is the traditional scottish dance. Lotsa traditional dances like strip the willow (my ultimate fave!), the dashing seargeant, boston 2 step...and the oxo dance. yes mates, OXO...(the stuff i use to make beef stew with) hahaah....read on to find out more about this delicious dance.

Great ceilidh band playing as well. Glaswegian lead through and through...aye nae bothered 'bout dae accent mate we jus triein to hafe a goood time now.... ( you just can't type it....it has all those little confusing innuendos and lilts)

haha....now the OXO dance is a new one. Never danced this in the past. Basically you have 5 couples and after the first 16 beats of stomp stomp stomp and all that, the top two and bottom two couples join hands to form a circle whilst the middle two couple form a star with their hands...so if you're good at picturing this you get an OXO....smashing!

but man...did they make us dance, twirl, stomp, run, squat everything. yeah...and of course some twists and sprains along the way but it was ALL GOOD!

I actually love ceilidh dancing. It's fun, it's informal, it's all about getting to know pple, even if it's just for that fleeting second when you are in each others arms....it's great!

oh yeah...and i do think that public ceilidh are more fun than uni ceilidhs. Why?

1) You get to meet new pple

2) it's more challenging and risky because you squeeze 500 pple into a music hall with a dance floor about 2/3 of a basketball court

3) You can make a fool out of yourself and nobody cares because we're all there to have a good time

4) It's better looking crowd out there folks! The bonnie, handsome strapping lads prancing away in their outrageously short kilts and open chested tops. And you've hit the potluck when the one you've set your eyes on dances with you. hahaha!

I don't care wat the critics say..I don't care what other societies and cultures say.....I certainly want to beat sense into the fools who say that it's sissy for guys to wear skirts.

First...their not skirts...their kilts....manly skirts.

Second....it's the most formal outfit you get over here, and when complete with blazer, vest, knee high socks and leather shoes as well as ther skeeindoo ( pouch thingy that hangs from the waist) it is the most sophisticated and highly flattering outfit a guy can have on...even better than a tux. Seriously.

Third...They actually look more manly when their decked out in a kilt.

You have to see it to believe it. honest.

haha....so all in all....it was a great night. ALthough i regretted wearing a skirt because the walk home was terrible with the freaking aberdonian wind blowing through town. But hey! it's all part of the experience!!!

Cheers!

2007-01-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

HI everyone! An actual post now!

First week of paeds, and today we were sent off to take a history from our young charges.
Me and my two other mates apparently got Hell boy....

Yes..hell boy....admitted on monday with a 3 day history of sore ears, head, throat the works
well...he is a cute 3 yr old to be honest but man....they must have surely done quite a bit of stuff to him for him to have developed such earth shattering defences. Literally....'

Methods of defence:

1) Seeing any one that's strange and threatening ( i.e doctors, nurses and medical students ( preety right about the last group)) provokes a reflex action to cover his eyes with the back of his arm to block out the existence of the threat....wishful thinkin kid!

2) Bawling, blood curdling screams and torrential tear pour if you choose to ignore the initial sign and continue to approach him and actually (gasp!) attempt to do something to him

3) Barrier of thomas the engine, plastic horse and bed along with army of plushies to distance oneself from the threat.

Man....kids these days.....

Yup....so we experienced all three of those when we entered the room and it got so bad that our consultant told us to stay behind the barrier....approx 2 feet away from the kid and get onto our knees to take his history.....ON OUR KNEES! ON THE FLOOR! CRANING OUR NECKS TO TALK TO THIS WEE ONE~!!!!

oh the shame....the embarrassment....the germs.....

haha....WELL....it was an interesting experience all in all. Kinda like a crash course in child psychology. Snack women = good, Doctors = unknown pandora box, shld i or shld i not be nice,
Nurses= pure evil, Medical students= well....I might as well just make them look more of the fools that they are!

sigh....it's gonna be a long attachment....

Cheerio!

2007-01-20T02:24:00.001-08:00

Happy 2007 to everyone! Though it does seem kinda late to wish everyone bet then again...better late than never. hehehe!

Well...just aged another year in the past week....those of you who braved the stresses of the exam week and the cld tearing winds of Aberdeen to come celebrate with me and my flaming christmas pudding cake which chose to melt the candles end up. I love you guys! Thanks for making it my day!

To those of you who remembered me from wherever you are in the world to send me E-cards, MSN messages, emails, text messages.....I love you so much too! You really made my day with all your heart felt wishes....yes....i took ur age gracefully jibes into account too....I am a fine wine...I age with style and sophistication~! =p

Righto....now this fine wine has to sit at a desk and ferment over some psychiatry notes.....

ARGh!!!! Exams! exams.....in 1 month and a bit! SObz................

2007-01-20T02:24:00.000-08:00

2006-11-29T03:57:00.000-08:00

I just have to write about this stuff.
This is after all a blog owned by a medical student.

you know, medics are just such weird people. Really really weird. Well at least the classical sorts.
The most sadistically grusome and life endangering conditions just seem to be the best way to get that all time high probably 2nd to some crack overdose.

Why do I say this...well read on to find out more about the most exciting events in my life this past week.

On monday we were in the vasucular surgery ward. Must say it was some awesome teaching we had there. In fact probably one of the most interesting teaching since our surgical rotation started. Why? because there were really some awesome cases to see.

1st was this 65 year old guy who developed shingles just before his second fempop bypass. Ok...so I've never seen shingles before, but this whole unilateral, dermatomal thing was just fascinating to me.

But the real prize of the day was this guy with this massive 7cm abdominal aorta aneurysm. IT was so huge that u could actually see it pulsating whilst standing at the end end of the bed. And when u just lightly place ur hand on his epigastrium u can just feel that monster heaving under ur palm, in fact it was powerful u could actually see ur hand pulsating together with it. Ok jokes aside, it's a bloody life threatening emergency, because if that baby ruptures, well.....probably not much can be done if he bleeds out. But he had a fascinating 6month history from detection of the aneurysm by his GP who told him it was '' Nothing to worry about'' till he complained of abdominal pains a couple of days ago. Thankfully he was sent to hospital and amazingly he was still considered to be in a stable condition and just required urgent surgery which was to be carried out on monday. Ok, since we are all part of a team....in defence for the GP, the aneurysm was probably less than 5.5cm, (operatable size where risk of rupture exceeds risks of the surgery) so he probably thought otherwise.

the only thing that's comparable to this aneurysm case would be the guy in general surgery who came in with an incarcerated hernia. MAssive painful thing in his groin. The real fun of it was that we were able to talk to him as he came in for preop for emergency surgery. haha....we are sadistic creatures.

oh yah and gossip time.
Apparently one of the consultant vascular surgeons who's been our tutor for the past two weeks i s married to the Princess of Malta. And frankly speaking looking at this slight little man, u would never guess. He goes around, tie eschew, cotton trousers and well worn leather boots but frankly speaking he is a very very good teacher. Knows how to include both ethics, knowledge and inspiration all in oneduring his lectures. He deserves to be royal consort.

2006-11-19T02:31:00.000-08:00

In the past 48 hours I have been to 2 girlie nights in.
One on Friday night and the other just last night.
One at Noura's one at mines.

One filled with bimbos. The other with geeks and an alcoholic.

Guess which one I enjoyed more?

Wat can I say...at the end of the day I'm a geek. I'd actually appreciate that title more than that of a bimbos. Not to say that I find geeks attractive or anything. At least their less tiring to talk to.

Why? Because at least the stuff they talk about is more realistic, has to a certain extent some factual backing and the crazy stuff they talk about is actually quite entertaining. As compared to the whole lot of nonsensical, ridiculous " Oh and u noe this guy...oh u've slept with him before haven't u? Yeah....he just lacks.....what's the word.... coordination. he's bad. I actually laughed at his face whilst we were doing it. * girlish laugher all around*"

Seriously..... Keep ur sordid past to yourself. No one wants to know. And these bimbos had brains that appeared to be clogged with nothing but well...the typical bimbo stuff. Shoes, handbags, clubs, guys, penises, presents the whole lot. ARGH!!!

Thankfully they were playing DVDs that night and I was actually having a happy time watching these CHICK FLICKS until they started to talk about the sexual intonations in Aladdin whilst we were watching it. " And look at that he absolutely looked down at her chest." "Look at his smile, he just got some." " OMG, she's giving him her apple."

Yup...by the end of it I felt that this classic disney film had just been turned into some orgasmic bonanza. Geeeeeez........

Well, to be fair I suppose a Girl's night in is supposed to be all that idle chit chat and pizza and ice cream and all, but nah....once a term is bad enough for me.

I just believe that stupidity is a very dangerous illness that can spread and devour brain cells at the rate of the black death.

The girl's night in I had last night was to a certain extent more intersting. There was still bitching about boys and weirdos and a whole lot of scottish patriotism goin on.

there was a particularly interesting bitch slapping session on americans. That was interesting.
Some facts I drew from that.

1> Americans are dumb
2> Americans still think that we have a problem with the vikings just like they have a problem with african americans.
3> American are stupid
4> They think that scotland is some place in England. ( ye bastards!)
5>......I think u know what's goin to come into this space.

Yah....so that was quite fun. And it was kinda fascinatin to see such wee lassies have such pride for ol' scotland. Impressive.

In this famous edict on Freedom by some scottish diplomat...

" For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive,
Never will we on any condition be
brought under English rule.

It is in truth not for glory,
nor riches, nor honours that we
are fighting, but for Freedom.

For that alone,which no honest man
gives up but with life itself. "

Cheers!

2006-11-11T16:18:00.000-08:00

Finally managed to escape the grey confines of the Granite City today!
Whoohoo!
Went hill walking at Glen Muick which is near the quaint picturesque town of Ballater which frens from the chinese church in aberdeen.

So our entourage met outside the church at 9 am on Saturday morning. A total of around 12 people in 4 cars. the morning was a bit of a shock to begin with as it was absolutely pouring when I met vivian and anthony at the Tesco outside my home. Thank goodness the rain didn't keep up though the severely cold weather did. But it was all good, at least the excessive warm clothing we draped on was put to good use and we didn't look like fools wearing them.

Ready, steady? Go!

So we set off at around 9.30 and reached Glen Muick at 11.30 after a very nice scenic drive through Aberdeen shire and several little isolated villages. Really harry potterish. There was even a broken down old train on some old tracks. Rural scotland is a true treasure in itself.

It wasn't exactly a steep hike on the first route we took. Basically, went around mid hill level and strolled along, making our way up the way and then down the way towards the spectacular Loch Muick. A truly geographical trip as we say tributaries, erosional horseshoe lakes, and mini waterfalls along the way. Subarashi! Although we're truly into autumn and through to scottish nature it did hail at certain bits of the way and there were gales at 29 knots throughout the trip, the hills and fields were still a bonnie shade of green and gold.

Trek towards the heavens ...

Where the river flows...

Mount fuji has taken up residence on Royal Deeside

Loch Muick

Yup so we had a lovely 2 hour trek around the glen and Loch, battling the gale force winds and bone numbing chill but we didn't seem to bear a grudge being surrounded by such natural beauty. It felt good just walking and breathing in the cold but refreshing highland air and forgetting the 'sad turmoils of the world' as Queen Victoria would have said. Looking at the snow capped hills and feel the spray from the Loch against ur face is enough to make u feel at one with nature.

After we made it to base point we had a fantastic picnic out in the cold. Amazing experience! If it weren't for the cha ye dan and chicken drumsticks still hot in their pots kindly donated by Kit and Theresa, our guides for today, we would probably have our fingers frozen off their stems by the frostbite. Of course there was also the usual spread of sandwiches, hot drinks, fruits, chocolates and crisps. It's just great when chinese hold some cook out, we basically prepare a whole lot of food of a huge variety and so no one needs to feel paiseh of eating too much! Whoohoo!

After lunch some of us had to return to Aberdeen because of previous engagements, but the rest of us decided to take a trek up the hills instead as the sun was setting. Really spectacular. If u thought Glen Muick was beautiful as it is in the day, as the sun sets on this eden, the Loch sprays, and mountain mists give it an even more ethreal feel. U feel just that much closer to heaven. Halfway up it started to hail and rain and since it was getting really dark, we decided to head down again. I'm just so thankful that the weather held up all the time we were there during the day. Thank you God.

Slice of heaven in the Scottish highlands

Well, just before heading back to Aberdeen, we stopped by the Old Railway Station in Ballater which was converted to a museum to show tourists of times gone by when Queen Victoria used to make annual trips to Balmoral Castle just up the way and to Glen Muick to relax and basically do what we did today. Maybe with more fanfare and style I suppose. haha!

And so that was an educational end to our wonderful trip and we made our way back to Aberdeen. Relaxed but maybe not too ready to face the grind and toil of the week to come. Not especially since we now know of a little paradise tucked away just around the corner.

2006-10-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

Happy halloween everyone!

Well just a quick update seeing that time has gone back and hour and that even though I have a milliion more relevant and pressing things to do I have decided to waste this one hour.

Well...lets seeeee......

Goin into second week of reproductive medicine. Last four weeks of teaching before we break for 4 weeks for SSM project. whoohoo!
Wat can I say... i suppose it doesn't matter how old u get when it comes to talking about periods, condoms, birth control, sex and reproductive organs....guys....GROW UP! It's actually quite funny when we were doing the tutorial and demonstrations on birth control. We were in groups and it was kinda funny to see the guys huddle together in their own little clicks, whispering and pointing and cringing whilst we were talking about condoms and IUDs. But they sure were interested in the morning after pill well....at least until they heard that it cost about 25 pounds per pill....haha...think twice guys and gals!

Finished my very pleasant and interesting 6 weeks at the oncology and haematology wards. Had an OSCE at the end of it all. Not too bad managed to make a very good improvement in my score compared to the infection unit one. Which strives to prove my point that there was definitely some sort of weird and purposeful student demoralisation goin on at that ward seeing that my score this time round was actually higher than the highest score in our group during our rotation at that ward. Sandy mchenzie......we know u love eating medical students for breakfast!

Went for my ex flatmate Kate's 21st birthday on Saturday. Went as the wicked witch of the west. Those of u who received the link to my webshots collection go take a look at the final outcome. Wasn't too bad I must say but all the fuss and dressing up and make up and the fact that I actually wasted time doing all that has started to make me worry. I WILL NOT BECOME A BIMBO! But yah it's kinda fun to do this especially during halloween. Yeah...but the weirdest, most distressing outcome of this night out was the fact that I have now officially LOST MY VOICE. Literally....it comes out in a harsh whisper. And no...it's not laryngitis and I don't have a tender throat. I think I must have strained my voice a bit too hard trying to go over the pounding music at the Priory though we were only there for abt half and hour before deciding that the crowd was literally suffocating us.

Man....this is going to be interesting explaining to my consultant tml during wards why I can't answer any questions and taking a history may be a bit difficult.

yup...next rotation is the surgical rotation. Will be goin through general, cardiothoracic, vascular, urology surgery...apparently I heard there's a lot of tutorials and teaching going on as well as suturing courses.... hopefully it will actually be fun.

well that's it then....cheerio~!

2006-10-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day for community course!

HOORAY!

And it was a really nice ending to it.
Today we got to shadow members of the primary health service.
So as for everything in medicine, who we got to shadow, was based on a first come first serve basis.
so I was up at 7 am in the morning, and managed to get there by 8.05, just in time to be attached to Dr. Ritchie and shadow his morning clinic ( or as they say here, morning surgery )

Yup, it was a really interesting time indeed. The doc was an interesting character. Not too wishy washy, but still showed the right amount of empathy and concern for his patient. Quite capable at handling sudden crisises rather professionally and with the right amt of sympathy. And he's a funny guy too and takes the teaching of his students seriously and doesn't treat them like stupid fools. lotsa plus points on that!

It was a good end to 2.5 years of community course, the next time we will meet again will be at the presentation of our stupid community course papers. Of which I am really irritated and frustrated about now, and frankly speaking want to hang myself by being so itchy backside and selecting such an ambiguous and analytical topic. But then again...almost all the topics in for group A is the same so I can't really complain....but I want to complain against group B which has got the most straight forward topics! WTF!!!! BIAS!!! the letter A does not mean that we are by any means better....shitheads!

yup...but on a happy note, went shopping at Debenhams today and lo and behold it was Blue Cross Sales! Dun ask me what it is , but it's one of the many well appreciated sales that Aberdeen has! hooray!

Managed to get a dress and camisole top from John Rocha ( dun noe who this is ) for a grand total of 19.50 pounds ($60) since they were going for 70% discounts. It was a very nice surprise because I thought I was going to pay a total of 28 pounds going by the discount tags on the clothes but apparently there was a further 70% discount on the discounted prices so it was great! And they're really nice pieces so it was added bonus! Whoo hoo!!!

haha....ok lah...that's hte end of my post commemorating the end of community course!

2006-10-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Just a little update....
apparently nobody's interested when I post my philosophical crap...sobz!

Anyways...just a little anecdote told by vicker's the consultant in charge of our teaching on monday's at the oncology ward.

"When you are testing the patient's visual acuity by asking them to read something to you,
please make sure that you know what you're asking them to read.

Many a times I have seen medical students just grabbing any form of magazine or reading material which is at hand and getting their patients to read it.

It's all fine till you hear a 66 year little old lady read out loud " I like rough sex." "

Touche~!

2006-10-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

The Oath

By Hippocrates

Written 400 B.C.E

Translated by Francis Adams

I SWEAR by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!

Today I finally realised the beauty and power of this piece of work.
It has given extra depth and realisation of the privilege and responsibility that I have signed up for.

I'm just glad that i've become the wiser at the midway mark of this journey.

Otherwise i would have been reciting this literature without any comprehension of what it stood for at the end of medical school and be none the wiser.

All thanks to a lecture on medical jurisdiction during our forensic medicine block done by a small man with a huge ego.

2006-09-23T03:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had one of the most invigorating and interesting lectures I've had in a very long time.

And it's truly rare for a 9 am lecture.

Yes, the lecturer was a self professed small man but with a terribly loud voice.
Dr. J Grieve, Forensic pathologist. The person who is goin to give us 10 lectures on Forensic Medicine.

Yes and for the ''sheer amount'' of forensic medicine that will come out in our conglomerative exam in abt a year or so - all of 3-4 questions - the way this guy lectures makes me want to actually pull myself out of bed at 7.30 in the morning to be on time for his lectures at 9. And yes...some how all 10 of them are at 9am.

In his words " No apologies for not having any handouts, No apologies for not having the lectures on the internet". Attitude I like that.

Very clean cut and professional way of handling things. I like. First thing he did with us was housekeeping matters: Be here by 9am because if he can make it on time, he doesn't see why we can't. Attendence is taken. Sit in the front rows because his stature makes it tiring for him to raise his neck at an angle to catch those of us at the back. Don't do anything to incur the wrath of the legendary 'Grieve's bad temper'. Believe me, I wouldn't want to have to incur that wrath. I still treasure my ability to hear the wind, eavesdrop and listen to gossip and the occasional heart sounds and bronchial breathing .

So basically yesterday he lectured us on the importance of identification of the dead, living body and people who have conveniently lost memory of their own identity. you know the works. Then he went on to tell us how scums of the earth made use of major disasters eg. tsunami, 911, train crashes to fake death and claim insurance policies.

" Ladies and gentlemen, the destituition of humanity that we see today is not because of any religion or ethnic group, it's because of people like these..."

Not verbatim that quote but the gist of it.

Destituition of humanity.....

what a lyrical way to describe our daily existence.

If only 9am lectures could be like this.

2006-09-21T05:06:00.000-07:00

Okay update on my first night out since I've been back in aberdeen!

haha...I actually went OUT on a SCHOOL NIGHT! I'm such a rebel.

Well, so basically, the Flat 90 girls ( remember 1st year, Flat 90 Burnett house? YUp...that's when all the craziness began) and honourary memebers Keith and Angela decided to meet up and go out for drinks.

So we were at Ma' Cameron's to start with and after a bottle of red wine and banter , we headed to the Old School house where I had the most foul tasting drink ever. Independence Ale. Absolutely disgusting. Had to wash it down with some salt and vinegar crisps. Eew....AWFUL.

So after that we headed to Archies where I finally got my long awaited cocktail...though it was so laden with Red bull and peach juice that it the drink so DAMN sweet, Man....and somehow what I thought would be a glass turned out to come in a pitcher. But anyways...the alohol dependent streak was rearing its head so I split the pitcher with Angela.

And so whilst we were talking about how many kids we would want, and what we would call them ( and Yes, Keith was in on all this and still wants to have 13 children. all named Laura regardless of sex....poor lass) and the Irish and their potatos, Keith suddenly pointed to the walkway outside the pub and went '' Look! NAKED GUY lost a bet!''

Yup, so whilst we were all trying to get our alcohol affected gaze directed at our target, the guy managed to make it to the streets, so I am happy to report that all I got a glimpse of was his naked, skinny white ass...

Never lose a bet on a night out. Especially not a cold windy aberdonian night.

It's freshers week!
Watch out for the FLashers!

Cheers!

2006-09-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

Which Dragon Sept is Right For You?

You have a touch of the thrill-seeker to you, enjoy a challenge, have a greater than normal need to acquire things, and are stubborn. You would do well with the Green Dragon Sept.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

2006-09-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Beginning of the 2nd week of term.
first day of wards today.

Because of a splendid and absolutely random change in class numbers, the surgical rotation that I was all geered up for has now become a a 6 week stint at Anchor unit ( wards 16/17 ). Yes...in normal terms, this is a general medicine ward with concentration on haematology and oncology.

Strange to introduce yourself as " hello, my name is ___, I'm a third year medical student" I would like to add, " no different from the second year version still just as clueless, but better at faking it."
Strange too that we are not required to wear white coats now. Not too sure if that's just the policy for this ward. That's great for the phenomenally hot weather we have now. But then again....it's kinda disconcerting now that you can't escape into the comforts of your white coat or cover up for your inepititude and stupidness with the flash of white that tells the whole world that you are one of the hospital's fools. Oh well....welcome to the real world.

Well...for starters still very rusty from the summer hols.
Managed to ascultate heart sounds, find apex beats and detect a murmur but when it came to diagnosing which type of murmur, I fell short. DARN! For everyone out there, a decrescendo, crescendo murmur where the heart sounds are rather faint and a slow rising carotid pulse are characteristic of the murmur of aortic stenosis.

Oh well....
that's basically all I have to say for now.

The lull of lectures for mental health are not too bad. Basically all about talking, and emotional n psychological blah blah.... and I used to think it was more on psychoanalysis....
what a let down.

Ta!

2006-09-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow school starts once again.
3rd year....
the shortest year....
6 mths to the start of the 4th and final stretch of my medical career as a medical student.

Summer just flew by....
2.5 months gone in the blink of an eye.
To be honest, i'm apprehensive of whether I can fit back into the hectic schedule as a medical student once again.

Lectures, rotations, group work, studying, socializing....sighz....and pple think students have it easy.

It hasn't really hit me the point about me missing the lab and its crazy lunatics.
I suppose with the whirlwind of events that happened in the last 2 weeks, what with having to take photos of my samples, and piece together a legitimate report for submission to my boss, and the late nights trying to get everything done. Not to mention the final 44 wells of samples that I had to stain and mount in 3 days...., I haven't really gotten round to missing my lab. I suppose, this feeling is further dulled by the promise that I will be back in december.

I suppose I will get round to missing the lab routines, the new friends I've made and mentors I've found, when the whole works of school begins once again. there are just certain things ingrained in your system that may take time and some booze to clear out of ur system.

i hope that I will be able to see everyone again when I return in december.
I know that some are making plans to leave for higher ground or to return home, but I hope to be able to see them once again.

Oh well....maybe it's just me being whimsical, and hatin the thought of having to revert back to study mode. Maybe, in a few weeks, or maybe even days, I will be so caught up in work that I would have forgotten about them or maybe if I haven't forgotten them, I will be too tired to want to communicate with anyone out with the textbooks. kumar and clark, we will be best frens once again!

God, please grant me the peace of mind to concentrate on my work, and do well in my studies, and grant me the grace to still be human amidst all these hustle and bustle and constant nuturing to be detatched and devoid of emotion.

2006-08-26T03:38:00.000-07:00

Okie okie.....decided to get out of semi retirement and fulfill the desires of my disgruntled readers who are wondering where the Muse has gone to....

Gone no where...just having a hurried race of collecting enough samples and processing my results and having my eyesight utterly screwed looking at slides and taking photos....man....I'm so not cut out to be a scientist.

Alright but as I promised Zhu I would write something regarding the dinner on wednesday and the drinking party on Friday.

Well so on Wednesday, me my parents my best fren Meg and a good majority of the personel from my Lab and their families and some strangers from other labs went to Orchard Cafe for Dinner. Okie....it was on Dutch for all but still we sat at the same table and had a good time.

yup so the food was good, got the old folks to sit at the same place whilst the younger folks sat at a different table. Righto so who attended....Ma lao shi and his wife and daughter, Dr He and his wife and daughter, Dr. Jiang and his son, Zhang Si, Jian Xin, Wang jing and Lee Guang.

The oldies table: next to my dad is ma lao shi and his wife, next to my mum, Dr. Jiang's son and Dr. He

The 'young' ones : Jianxin ( black T), Dr. Jiang (balding) Dr. He's daughter and his wife, Dr Jiang's son again, Zhang Si (striped shirt), Lee guang, Wang jing, Megha, Me.

All in all it was a good dinner, much food and talk flowed. So it really wasn't too bad. haha...the oldies got along and youngsters...well pretty much like that.

so nothing much to say about the dinner on to the friday drinking party that we had.

so that was attended by me, zhang si, jian xin and Dr. He,
Me and shwn chin prepared some singaporean dishes for Dr he's wife and his daughter to try since it was the last weekend that they were in singapore.

so after after shwn chin had left the drinks started to flow more easily...
didn't help that i was having a bad day, and so the drink provided much reprise...
was ok after the two coronas and the scotch whiskey,
but then they decided to bring out the hard stuff...zhong guo fen jiu...
wah say....it was like drinking ethanol. I can down vodka and whiskey but this is the shit man!

Needless to say, i was in very bad shape and the final gulp of fen jiu, brought my beautiful durian cake, and half of my dinner back up into my bowl.

After that, it was a process of very difficult recuperation. If left alone I would be able to have recuperated real fast....but...that Dr. He kept on blabbering on about me being a ' paper tiger ' and calling us heroes...for the record he was already wasted by the start of the 2nd round of whiskey.

sighz.....hahaha...
but all in all it was a good night...bunch of good frens drinking their troubles away...
whoohoo!

2006-07-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

Thought u could escape the blog things?

you were WRONG!

Your Vampire Name Is...

High Priestess of the Night

What's" Your Vampire Name?

Your EQ is 140

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick!51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese.71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely.91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that.111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt.131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin.150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

What's" Your EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient)?

You Are An INTJ

The Scientist
You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems.Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized.You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others.Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you.
You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer.

What's" Your Personality Type?

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are quite expressive and thoughtful. You see the world in a way that others are blind to.
You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds.
You believe that people see you as larger than life and important. While this is true, they also think you're a bit full of yourself.
Your near future is still unknown, and a little scary. You'll get through wild times - and you'll textually enjoy it.
For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

You Have Your Sarcastic Moments

While you're not sarcastic at all times, you definitely have a cynical edge.In your opinion, not all people are annoying. Some are dead!And although you do have your genuine moments, you can't help getting your zingers in.Some people might be a little hurt by your sarcasm, but it's more likely they think you're hilarious.

How Sarcastic Are You?

Your Rising Sign is Scorpio

You're so intense and passionate - you're on fire!You want to be an angel or a devil... you can't decide which.
No wonder you seem moody and even a little dangerious.You've got some major mystery going on, so work it!
Your personality is the strongest of all signs, making you hard to deal with.While you're ruthless to your enemies, you're loyal to your one true love.

What's" Your Rising Sign?

Your Life Path Number is 4

Your purpose in life is to build your vision.
You are practical and responsible. You work hard, knowing that there are no shortcuts in life.You work for a better life for yourself and those you love, but you are not an idealist.Trustworthy and honest, you also demonstrate great courage. People can count on you.
In love, you are a loyal and committed partner. You are the ideal spouse.
You don't give up easily, and sometimes you can be too stubborn and unwilling to change.You also can be too conservative at times. You sometime miss out on good opportunities.Also remember that not everyone can work as hard as you, as disappointing as that is!

What Is Your Life Path Number?

People Envy Your Generosity

You're a giving soul, and you'd do almost anything for those you love. And they'd do anything for you!People may envy how giving you are, but more than anything, they envy those you open your heart to.

What Do People Envy About You?

You Are An Elm Tree

You are easygoing and a pleasure to be around.Good looking, you have a pleasant shape and tasteful clothes.You demand little in others, but you tend not to forgive their mistakes.Dominant, you like to lead and enjoy making decisions for others.Overall, you are cheerful, honest, noble, generous, and funny.

What's" Your Celtic Horoscope?

You Are Sunset

Even though you still may be young, you already feel like you've accomplished a lot in life.And you feel free to pave your own path now, and you're not even sure where it will take you.Maybe you'll pursue higher education in a subject you enjoy - or travel the world for a few years.Either way, you approach life with a relaxed, open attitude. And that will take you far!

What Time Of Day Are You?

You Are Best Described By...

From the Lake, No. 1by Georgia O'Keeffe

What Famous Work of Art Are You?

Your Aura is Green

You're very driven, competitive, and even a bit jealous.However, you seek out balance in your life - and you usually achieve it!
The purpose of your life: inspiring others to be better
Famous greens include: Tony Robbins, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart
Careers for you to try: Guru, CEO, Talk Show Host

What Color Is Your Aura?

2006-07-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

Today was such a funny day.
TTSH and NNI were holding a nationwide exercise on the plans of action the nation will employ in the event of a flu outbreak in singapore.

SO ...in addition to temperature scanners and the like, all staff in NNI including research personnel were requried to don on 'industrial duty' strength face mask from 11am to 3pm today.

alright, so a normal surgical face mask is unbearable enough, just imagine having this bloody mask that fits in a dead fit with a devil of a mechanism to put it on. It was really funny to watch Phd student Zhang shi and Dr. He running around the lab trying to get someone to help them put it on.

And today, finally confirmed my suspicion that Ma lao shi is really mad.
and hilariously funny in his stoic ways. and speech.
As the second in command for this lab, he is the exact opposite of soft spoken, but professional and executive like Dr. Tang our boss, i.e Dr. Ma is LOUD, CRAZY and INFORMAL. But they are both equally very smart.

Here's my evidence for this analysis:
1. At 2pm, one hour to the end of our tenure with the masks, lao Ma comes into the lab and asks if he can get a bigger mask because his mask is just too uncomfortable and he can't bare to wear it any longer.
then at half past two, he has this exchange with shwn chin, our big sister lab tech, the queen of the lab (i.e NOBODY there's go against her. Her word is the rule). This exchange was carried out in madarin but i'll do a translation.
Ma lao shi = MDL vs shwn chin (SC)

MDL: Su ching! I'll pass u my mask at 3pm. Do you want it?''
SC: (eyes him supiciously and looms nearer to MDL who's hunched over his microscope) WHY would I want it?''
MDL: ( not looking away from his slides) Well, if u join two masks together you can use them as .... (pauses and seems to consider the consequences of his actions) ... (turns away from the microscope and .... PLACES HIS MASK OVER HIS CHEST ! ) and starts laughing to himself, me and yongcheng who are washing specimens at the bench start to giggle hysterically.
SC: ............................................ ( picks up a plastic slide holder and starts hitting MDL in the arm )
MDL: (still laughing and not sorry for his actions) what?! In this time of economic instability one must save and recycle whenever they can. I'm helping u to save money!''
SC: ( slams slide holder down and yells ) YOu OLD pervert! how can u say such things to girls!''
MDL : '' eeeeeeeeerrrrrrr...... ( still giggling sheepishly and turns back to his microscope)

2. MDL vs ET ( SC supporting role)
I'm helping him mount his specimens on slides whilst he consecutively checks them to see if the tracer has been injected into the right spot.
So i'm mounting the last two slices and he comes over with the previous slide.
MDL:'' Put the slide in the buffer and let the piece glide to the right spot!''
ET:'' I know I know. ( N.B this is the last slice that is to be fitted in the furthest corner of the slide. and for the record if u soak the rest of the slide into the buffer all ur previously mounted slices will float back into the pot.)
MDL:'' Put it in the buffer its easier to do it that way''
ET: ......................(starting to feel that familiar twitch in the temporal region)
MDL: ( fingers approaching my brush and slide....)
ET:'' .... MA LAO SHI BU YAO ZAI CHAO WO! ( MDL stop disturbing me! )
MDL:'' ( hand quickly withdraws ....starts sniggering to himself) Suching you see."
SC" Good job Esther, if u don't tell him off he will take advantage of us.''
MDL'' (in mock serious tone) Just you wait Esther...one day..I will.."
ET:'' what?! you wanna fight? ok lah, we'll see who wins"
SC:'' Esther, now do you realise what a tiny heart Ma Laoshi has?''
MDL:'' (still in bravado) yah...I'm like that''
ET: ( Finishes the last piece and thrusts it violently into his hands) here take it and blot away the excess buffer yourself."
MDL: ( takes the slide begrudgingly and mumbles ) Esther ah, ni geng wo ji zhu.... ( Just you wait Esther...)
SC:'' Orrrrrhhhh....you're dead esther, you've entered Ma lao shi black books!''
ET:'' ..... i DON'T care"
We laugh and MDL goes away with slide in tow giggling to himself.
This also proves once again to me that MDL just enjoys distrubing people whilst their doing work.

Ok.....I so what's the verdict? To add more proof to my case that this guy is really an eccentric. We're talking about this truly smart guy, postdoctoral fellow and doctor and here he is spouting nonsense.

Ok, but to give him credit, he really is a nice guy who helps out when people request for his help and he doesn't put on airs and lets us kid around with him and make fun of him. And he is a good teacher. He is patient most of the time and explains stuff till he thinks u understand. Though that is usually about 5 minutes after you've already grasped the concept.

I guess that's one of the differences between research and clinical medicine.
In clinical medicine there just seems to be too much emphasis on hierarchy and formality. Everyone has to worship the ground upon which the consultants and surgeons walk upon. Informality and jokin with your superior is almost unheard of, just in case a slip of tongue may cost u that all important promotion.

I'm actually beginning to like this research medicine business. Though I don't know if all this is just because I was fortunate to be guided to such a great lab.
Thank you God.

Right....I just have to end with this bloody hilarious exchange that occurred at the end of the day when the entire ''family'' was back in the 6th floor lab.

As Zhang Si (ZS) ,our resident PhD student, enters the lab after spending the entire day in the animal room just to escape wearing the mask. yong cheng tells him the whole '' let's join 2 masks into a bra'' business. then SC tells us this rather interesting exchange she had with her frens over lunch.
( again this is a translation which kindd kills the edge but it's funny as it is )

Gender ratio in the lab : 2 F : 4 M ( on average )

SC : '' Stop laughing about that joke from this afternoon. Let me tell you something that me and the girls were discussing during the lunch. We figured that in the event of a real flu epidemic and emergency where there is a shortage of mask, the one thing that we may have to do is USE OUR BRAS AS MASKS"

(Entire lab erupts into hysterics )
SC: STOP LAUGHIN! This is true! When the epidemic breaks out there will be a shortage of masks."
MDL:'' Oh no then we are in trouble! This lab has too few girls and too many guys."
ZS: " Su ching! Does that mean we have to line up in front of you?"
(hysterics)
SC:'' STOP LAUGHING! THis is a fact!"
ZS:'' (sobers up a bit) " yah we know. So can we order some stock from you?"
(Hysterics)
SC:'' ZS! Why don't you just go bye some for yourself"
ZS:'' Yah I would like to do that but I think the sales girl at the lingerie section will think I'm weird when I pick up a bra and place it over my mouth to try for size."
( More hysterics. By this time I have to remove my gloves and cover my mouth to stop myself from laughin myself to death )
MDL (comes over to tell me the slide selection) " Esther don't listen to wat we're talking about."
ET:'' MA lao shi....you're voice is SO LOUD I think the whole level heard you."
MDL ( laughs and skips to the lab door and shuts it ) " LEt's close this door so that other people will not hear our professions of love for each other."

hahaha...omoshirou ne, kono kazoku...

professions of love indeed....

Level 6 Lab 1 Epilepsy research Lab. You guys ROCK! In your own eccentric ways....

2006-07-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

Just finished doing the three mice that was allocated to me for tracer studies.
turns out they will be my last C57 mice....shit....I want to blame the lao ban.
becasue he is of the same nature as me i.e he's a ji xing kinda person i.e ''easily excitable''
and for the fact that he demans results kinda fast, he assumed that come hell or high water
i would not be able to hit a single thing in the 2 months that I'm here.
And clearly yesterdays results showed that lady luck has indeed shone down on me and
given me at least one favourable result.

anyways...yes today we decided to go for the 4.2mm lateral coordinates.
man....it was a matter of great anxiety.
First mouse I did had a bloody bleed out whilst I was injectin in the tracer.
which was a damn frightening time....
thankfully it had revived and was running around when I last saw it.

haiyah...just damn frustrated at my speed of doing things.
today ma lao tou told me once again " If u want to be a doctor not only must u be quick thinking but ur movts must be fast."
this is coming from a guy who does procedures fast but whos other actions are very slow.

ARGH......
somebody save me!!!!

2006-07-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

YEAH! REsults are out!
SO glad that I managed to actually inject tracer into the brain this time round.

Compared to last weeks dismal results with only a scratch made on the surface of the brain today has been a great achievement to me

Although my mentor jokingly said that it might just have been luck but still he said that sample had passed and I could use it. SO .... hip hip hurray!

For the record I injected my tracer into the endopiriform cortex which is just adjacent to my target of the piriform cortex.

but all good.... gained some confidence.
But this lao tou had to go spoil it with the beginners luck business and said that he feared that i might have gotten my central bregma landmark wrong which resulted in this off injection. Because according to the stereotaxic coordinates which are already very very lateral I should have hit the piriform cortex with the original coordinates.
so know we've calculated another +0.2mm to the lateral coordinates which is at a point that's seriously endanger of hitting completely out of the brain physically.
and he said it would be my call if i wanted to inject my three mice tomorrow using these new coordinates.

ok...unlike what u guys may be thinking of a mass production of mice in research labs, we are currently facing rather dismal numbers and as the attached student, my project basically gets funded with charity donations of mice. basically I get by each week with what mice i can get. which is truly a sad sad thing. but oh well as long as i can get as much experience as possible and can bring my project as far as it can i don't mind. OH WOE IS ME@!!!!!

yup, so basically after one hours worth of pondering and looking for articles that could confirm whether it would be a foolish venture to use those coordinates I had to swallow my pride and elation and find Ma laoshi and ask if he would be free tomorrow morning to come check if i am getting my mid points correct.

Oh woe is me.....well at least he's kind enough to volunteer his time.
haha...might attribut that to the fact that I basically threw a fit yesterday in the lab when these bloody poly students were busy yakking away in the lab and then this ma lao tou had to come and disturb me with idle chatter whilst i was busy trying to concentrate on cutting my precious samples in the cryostat, one such irritating encounter of which resulted in me ripping one sample in half which basically set off my fuse. Needless to say I kicked back my chair attempting to save the shredded piece and in the process telling the rest of the lab to not talk to me whilst i was doing that. hahaha....
Thank goodness it was the sample that wasn't injected with anything.

Wish me luck in tomorrows procedures!

Cheers!

2006-07-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

beginning of a new week once again.
This week I get to process my results.
my goodness.....so unnerving.....hope i get some positive results so that I can proceed.

well lets talk about interesting things that occured this apprently boring day.

today I had to start with the first step of the protocol for processing tracer resutls.
so first agenda of the day was to perfuse my two mice, retrieve their brains and after putting them in sucrose solution wait overnight till i can proceed to cut and wash and put primary antibody on my specimen tml.

so basically i was done within the first two hours of the morning.

After lunch, fell asleep at my desk after reading the world news. yeah...i wonder why.
woke up and was steeling myself for another 4h of readin papers and stuff when ma lao tou walked past my desk and I suppose did the foul mistake of checking on my progress.
And i told him that I was bored.
And so he invited me to go down to the 2nd floor to look at slides with the confocal laser microscope.

It's really a cool device that costs about the same as my entire medical education.
complete with its own suspension table, laser machine and stuff.
The only things that u can choose to operate manually are focusing and placing the slide on the stage and the rest is controlled via a software on a computer.
so basically u can view ur brain slices with fluorescent light which allows u to view the cells labelled with tracer in green or red light.
Then using the laser, u can cut these 40 micrometre slices into even thinner slices so that u can make a 3D composite.
so cells that overlap show a positive connection between them which u determine with positive antigen antibody reaction.

yup so that was the interesting part of my day.

The next interesting thing was a matter of coincidence.
this morning I thought i was going to be late, so on reaching Novena I was running towards NNI.
Then I noticed that hurrying along side me was Dr. Tang, the lao ban and Principle investigator of our lab. He apparently didn't see me and I figured that I'm safe since i'm goin to be just as late as he is.
well so anyway we reached the lift lobby and then he saw me we said good morning and started to discuss my project. so all in all it was good. for the record I was only 5 minutes late.

Right so coincidences aside....I was headed back home this evening and guess who was
at the lift lobby on the 6th floor now?
Lao ban again.
haha....we were laughin about this complete coincidence.

Yup so all in all it was a day of coincidences and big expensive machines.

cheers!

2006-07-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

End of the week at last.
Been hectic hectic hectic.

Having a mentor means that u have to help him carry out his experiments and process his results. That is for the one week that u are waiting for your own mice to have survived the one week before u can perfuse them to get results.
They often do this under the pretense that helping them do all these will help improve your skills.
well yeah that's kinda true but having to mount slides is just a REAL pain in the ass.

yeah so 5 mice perfused this week, 5 brains frozen and cut, 10 wells for DAB staining...10 bloody slides to mount.

MY GOD!

yup and today i had to assist in observing 12 day old mice as they were induced into status epilepticus.
yup it's cruel but seeing those buggers stopping their epileptic dance way before the right amount of time needed to generate some form of neuronal damage to their brain is also damn frustrating.
It gets even worse when they play dead. MAN! There u are running around tryin to get someone to be there when they actually die to perfuse them. Because fine, I know how to perfuse mice now, but at the sizes that they are at at 12 days, which is basically about about half the length of your index finger, trying to poke a needle into their hearts for transpericardial perfusion is a MAJOR feat. Basically one false move and there goes everything.

Yup so whilst your running around and can't find anyone, u run back to the lab steeling urself to do the unthinkable and then u see the stupid blighter jerkily crawling around the box. This all adds up to u wanting to stimulate it even more so that it gets one hell of a massive fit.

Touche~!

right so that's basically me for this week.
next week i will perfuse the 2 mice that i injected with tracer this week and hopefully this time there will be some positive results.

PLEASE~! PLEASE GOD PLEASE~!

2006-07-11T06:26:00.000-07:00

haha....haven't heard from me for some time ne?
haha...into the third week of my internship.
more or less getting a hold of the ropes.

first weeks results were off the spot.
remeasurements done on monday. man, the piriform cortex is a damn pain in the ass to inject tracer into.

somehow my mentor has also picked up the chase and become more interested in my
existence and my project.
ok ok
to be perfectly honest the guy is great. Though kinda childish. Hey! who cracks peanuts at people's ears whilst they're trying to mount fragile 40 micrometre brain slices onto the slides in an attempt to break their concentration and watch them flounder?!

But he's funny in his monotonous way and can be patient and encouragin in his teachings.
though scarce on the compliments it just makes his praises more
believeable and satisfying.

haha...other good news.
The two mice i did using the new coordinates on monday are still alive today.
my drill holes are getting more accurate and and nice and round.
i haven't broken a probe before injecting the tracer this week. though i did break one after i had removed it from the mouse brain.

did 5 perfusions today. 5 brains removed. not too bad. 3 out of 5 received the lao ma thumbs up.

all in all....i'm beginning to get more guidance and getting more confident and hopefully i will progress.

GUMBATTE ET!!!!!

2006-07-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

YEsterday marked the end of the first week of trials.
Really invigorating week. For those of you following this series you should noe why.
If not. Shame on you. GO READ!

So on friday, I injected tracer into my final mouse for the week.
It managed to survive the 2 hour long surgery. ( yes! I managed to cut down an hour on my time! )
Hopefully it will survive the weekend. I must say that this time round I was more confident and I actually managed to control and steady my hand as I was drilling the burr hole and it was more accurate than thursday mouse. Well have to wait a weak to perfuse and retrieve their brains to check and see. Please let them survive the week.

And yes! Lo and behold the mouse that I did on thursday survived the critical 24 h!
I was so overjoyed to see her scampering about and eating when I went down to the lab.
And miracles abound the right sided weakness was gone too!

Right so friday afternoon after lunch I was taught the next protocol on how to mount slices of mouse brain onto slides. This happens after we have perfused the mouse and retrieved its brain and slice it into coronal slices.

Right so my sempai sat me down at the 6th floor lab with a small trough of buffer and a row of little wells filled with sliced brain. and the idea is to fix these slices onto slides.

And basically it's like arranging an MRI scan on a slide. You've got to get the right slices in ascending order of size and consecutive order with reference to the hippocampus. So you empty all your slices into the buffer solution and slide your slide into it and using a very fine art brush you select the pieces that you wanna place in order and gently manouvere them onto the slide. It's a truly delicate job because any rough movt results in the shredding of valuable results.
But my goodness it really sends u into cross eyed lunacy. Half way into my fourth slide I was feeling truly nauseous.

Haha thankfully it was a friday so we were let off at 5pm! whoohoo!

This evening, 1 july, went for dinner at my brother's in laws place.
It was a nice enough evening and they were a friendly and funny elderly couple.
The food wasn't all that good. Actually it kinda sucked. But the soup was nice. And the desert was good too.

Well, the two of them are doctors. The father's a diagnostic consultant with a great love of art and their entire home is filled with his paintings and some of his purchases. He does impressionistic style paintings on sceneries and scenes that he witnessed on his travels around the world which are really extensive and impressive. Some of them are really striking whilst others are....well let's just say 'special'.

Yah for those of you wondering wat a diagnostic consultant watch '' House''. He's citation is that of Dr. House. A doctor who solves cases which no one else can solve. aka...he's a freaking sharp and smart guy.

But he was really funny too so that was good. And upon steppin into their front yard I realised the whole saying about medicine being a fraternity. Somehow it doesn't matter at which level of the medical echelon to becoming a doc, you are somehow part of this association where pure strangers just hover around you and are so personal with you just because you are part of this morbid society. From the gate they were like '' Oh you've brought your sister this time.'' And then all of a sudden there was a flurry of activity around me. ARGH!

and no sooner had I stepped into the house and the mum was like showing me around the house their backyard and pool. And then inside they started asking the usual questions on what I would like to specialise in and life in UK. And the best part was that on the ride to their place, my brother had specifically stated that we were not to talk about work. Kudos to you asshole.

And the dad was showing me his pictures and giving me a running commentary about his travels. which was really quite interesting. Learnt quite a bit about different art styles and techniques.

Yup so that's basically my friday and saturday.

I need to SLEEP!

2006-06-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

TOday was take two on the trials of rat neurosurgery. Done solo w no help requested despite desperately needing it.

These days, the rest of the staff at the animal lab research are depositing their unwanted charges in my hands so that I can practise the protocol for injecting tracers. Just for the record everyone at the lab has been very nice thus far. They've been encouraging and helpful and willing to teach and accomodate. And their really fun too. Of all the labs on the 6th floor of NNI, I've noticed that Lab1 is the noisiest where laughter and shouting can be heard whenever you walk past it. the other labs are just so classic lab like...... DEAD.

Well...not to say the least. it wasn't all good. my first mouse died under anaesthesia.
Thankfully my second one didn't and manage to survive the 3 hour long surgery. Although it was kinda coming round whilst I was trying to suture the scalp wound. Let me tell you for anyone who's tried suturing will noe it's difficult for starters but just imagine yourself suturing a 2cm long wound with 3 clamps in the way using suture needles that are used in humans. Though I must admit that it's very good practice for suturing.

And drilling a burr hole is just SO DAMN FRUSTRATING.
I practically spent one hour trying to get the right spot to drill my hole, and actually drill through the skull. It's a combination of strainng through a microscope and lowering ur probe to get the right spot to drill and exposing that bit of skull which is forever too off to the left and covered my soft tissue which u somehow have to move out of the way to drill.

And shaky hands + reverberating drill = not getting the right spot = not accurate injection = failure of experiment = one innocent life lost.

Yup...so it was failed experiment in terms of accuracy but it was good in terms of practice and confidence building.

And the best part of it all was that my little patient was up and about when i went down to feed mice at 5 pm. 4 h after completing the surgery. Though with considerable weekness on the right contralateral to where I had injected the tracer which is probably an indication that I most probably destroyed some cortical fibres on the way in or went to far. REally hope that it survives the night. Though I must admit it suffered quite a bit of subarachnoid haemorrhage.

Fingers crossed. Prayer to God.

And may my first patient from yesterday's soul rest in peace.

And special thanks to Zhu for that very uplifting and supportive blog entry. Really gave me that extra boost! Cheers!

2006-06-28T04:02:00.000-07:00

Today was a tiring, stressful, depressing, self degrading and interesting day.

Today I did neurosurgery or more like attempted to do it with the help of a disgruntled but more or less patient mentor who did the important difficult bits for me.

Yes before you get ur knickers in a bunch, it was on mice. or more like mouse.

Today was my first lesson under my mentor Dr. Ma Dong Liang on how to inject tracers into specific areas of the brain. Man...I thought it was goin to be all computer controlled and stuff but when he brought me down to the animal research area I was like.... NO SHIT! we have to do this MANUALLY?!!!COld sweat...

So...Ma Lao shi ( that's how everyone at the lab calls him except for the 'lao ban' who is the principle investigator at the lab ) brought me down to the lab in the morning and showed me the procedures and steps on how to inject tracers. Basically it consists of locating and noting certain coordinates on the skull and then using a handheld drill drill a burr hole into that area of the skull and insert a probe through that hole.

SO we breaked for lunch and then he told me to come back in the afternoon to do the other mouse by myself.

basically it's not as easy as monkey see monkey do.

went back after lunch, anaesthesized my mouse and started to attempt to clamp the mouse onto the sterostactic board (i.e the stage ) and lo and behold I COULDN! SO I had to call my mentor up in his lab and basically went '' Ma lao shi, bu xing ah!! WO lian tou dou bu leng jia zhu! '' ( translation : Dr. Ma, it's imposible! I can't even clamp the head! ). And so the poor fellow said he would come down.

And so began a terrible nerve wrecking 2 hours as he went through everything again this time with me handling most of the stuff. At times I could feel his frustration. At times I could feel my own frustration. At the end of it all I had arrived at a rather definite conclusion: 1. I will probably never branch into surgery because under stress or pressure I develop truly shaky hands. 2. I'm seriously doubting my ability to complete this project.

But I must say Dr. Ma is a rather nice guy. Sure enough he can be a really scary when he criticises you and raises his voice, but in general I think he can be considered nice to have sacrificed and entire day of his precious research time as oppose to the initially allocated time of half a day to coach me.

haha...and towards the end of it he decided that this whole stint would be a matter of exchanging tutelage. in his words '' ok. I will teach you how to do this research. and you teach me English.''
I was like.... ... '' I don't think I can accept this responsibility''

I'm afraid Dr. Ma you've received the short end of the stick. The way I see it it might only be a one way flow. Fair enough, today i've helped him with hopefully accurate translations of 2 words.

YAh...and I couldn believe it that he was serious about this whole English thingy, when he chastised me when I started to talk to him in mandarin '' I thought I told u to speak english to me '' ................. WAtakushi wa...ima wa...hontoni ... damadesu....

Yup, after that I had to feed 5 cages of the mice that we induced yesterday to find that one had died. And I left it in a biohazard bag on the floor. untied. NObody told me that it had to be tied and placed in a -20 degrees fridge. tomorrow I will have to run down there and pray that it's not a rotten mess.

Dear God, please let the mouse who was so unfortunate to be my first try at injectin a tracer live. I would be very grateful for that. Please god please...the poor thing does not desrve to die for my ineptitude.

good bye....

2006-06-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the 26th of June, was truly a day to remember.
It was the first day that I reported to the Epilepsy Research Labs at the National Neuroscience Institute just behind TTSH ( Tan Tock Seng Hospital )

Managed to find my way and was soon happily bundled off to HR to do idemnity documentation and other red tape legislations. yes...my mentor had so generously agreed to take me on but forgot about the other administrative stuff. haha.

Well...so after running here there and everywhere with the help of a very friendly sempai to get
lockers, Labcoat and trying to windle an security access card on the sidelines to no avail finally went back to the lab where I was assigned a project. Yes....my own project. which apparently I have to do everything by myself. And by everything I mean, all investigations and that means I have to learn all the protocols for the different methods of experimentation. So in view of my rather short stay with them abt 2 mths and the fact that I now have to write my own paper, it has been deemed that within this first week I will have to achiever what pple take at least a month to master and that is I have to learn how to pilocarpine induce status epilepticus in mice, perfuse them ( i.e fix their organs with formaldehyde), retrieve their brains, cut their brains into coronal sections and fix them on slides and learn how to read the slides. And I also have to learn how to physical inject tracers in a specific point in the piriform cortex, which from what I've read in their past publications involves the mastering of stereotactically injecting the tracer into a live mouse, encompassing drilling a minute burr hole into the skull of the critter whlst it's still alive.

OMG.....I'm so SCREWED.

First off....I had no idea I was goin to be assigned my own project and that I had to complete it within my stint. I thought I was just going to assist in one of the investigators projects. Needless to say my newly assigned mentor is in a high state of doubt at this point in time.

Secondly, I thought that la dida it's basic neuroanatomy and neurophysiology which i think i'm kinda fluent in. Yes it is but of a TOTAL new subspecies.... yes ladies and gentlemen, I spent the first 4 hours in the morning before lunch trying to cram in RAT neuroanatomy and embryogenesis with the help of a book that's about twice the thickness of a 7th edition Kumar and Clark ( medical bible ) and a dog eared manual with pictorial representations of coronal and longitudinal sections of Rat brain.

AFter lunch, sempai brought me down to meet my new best frens ( sorry B1 and B2 u guys will have to take a back seat). Man the smell that first met me when we went to the animal research labs was nauseating on first whiff. Didn' really help tat it was located next to the mortuary i suppose.

haha but i think that was the start of my really exciting day. within 3 hr I had learnt how to stimulate status epilepticus in pilocarpine induced mice, how to catch mice by the tail ( though I still don't know how to grab them by the ears because they scare the shit out of me when they wriggle abt ) , and to put this in a short and rather delicate way I made up for the lack of anatomy dissection teaching in 1st year using a mouse model. And to wrap things up I also practiced brain retrieval. I must say that almost nothing in animal research goes to waste. Especially when theirs a CLUELESS student attachee to ur lab.
Wow... after this I feel so confident in doing open chest surgery.

well...that's my exciting day. tune in for more misadventures!

2006-06-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

The story of phase 2m is finally over

It was a long and tiring flight home.

Plagued with prayer and fatigue.

Got off the plane at Changi. Went straight to the nearest free internet access spot and checked the results for my final degree exams.

RELIEF!

PRAISE and Thank God.

This story ends and a new one begins come september.

Stay tuned in the tragedy of the now 3rd year Medical student.

Thanks to everyone who has supported and stood by me all this while.

Hontoni arigato gozaimasu!

2006-06-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching 'Sad Movie'
forwarded courtesy of Zhu.

The title says it all.
The americans may have their sad movies, the japs there's as well, the English have their 'Love actually' but up till now I think no one beats the Korean at their game of writing romantic love tragedies.

If someone as apthethic as me can be brought to weep a tear, it's definitely a good movie.

The only other movie that has moved me so would be ' Ima ai ni Ikku' @ Be with you

Finished watching Hur Jun, the epic korean drama series about this legendary korean doctor, who wrote this collection of medical journals that are considered one of the epic publications of oriental medicine. and needless to say it goes through all the difficulties he faced throughout his life and his miraculous saves. haha....yes yes...kinda similar storyline to Dae Jaeng Gum @jewel in the palace.

Korean romantic tragedies and korean historical dramas are great. They just have the knack of putting in the place of the characters at the time of their death and somehow with their more normal looking actors and actresses complete with pimples and scars on their faces makes it more believeable than the more fashionable american films of the day with airbrushed features, and where even the poor girl off the street has got a set of porcelein chompers.

well to round this off this is a translation I got off the MV for Lee Seon whee's '' In Yeon'' (Destiny). Not too sure about the stanzaing though. It's the song that currently blasting on continuous play on my player. It's the MV for the movie '' the king and the clown'' another korean movie that i'm anxiously waitng to watch. Starrin a very beautiful Lee Jun Ki. Just google for his pics, you'll see why.

In Yeon

I promise you when this moment is over
On the day I will be able to see you again

I will throw everything away,
to stand by you and protect the path
you have left to walk

They call this destiny, we can't deny it
Can such a beautiful day as this
Come again in my life?
You're a gift on this tiring road of life

I'll always let this love shine,
polishing it so it doesn't rust

Our encounter was short like we were drunk,
but it opened the locks to the gates and took its place

We couldn't cherish it,
but i don't regret it because
nothing is forever

They call it destiny,
we can't deny it
Can such a beautiful day as this
Come again in my life?

There are many things
I want to say,
but you probably already know them.

Far off on the day that we meet,
Don't let go again.

The love that we could not have
in this life,
The destiny that could not be
in this life,

Far off on the day that we meet,
don't let go again.

Such beautiful verses. As my dad says, the koreans are just great at poetic prose.
Just reading this melancholic ballad brings a twinge to the old ticker.

I only hope that the translation is right.
Even so....it makes for good reminescent reading.

2006-06-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

Time passes ....
time flows ...
time waits for no one .....

Time reveals ...
time heals....
time softens....
time ceases for the lost....

Lying on my back
watching the clouds drift aimlessly across the azure sky
bathed in sunlight
cooled by whispers of wind

time flies
time halts
time for tears
time grows fears

Nights of whispered sighs
Days of plastered smiles
Afternoons of banter
Mornings to treasure

The cries of children in the distance
the chatter of friends beside you
whispers of the past behind you
murmurs of the future from far beyond

this has been my day in the park.

2006-06-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

At last!
....freedom!

The exams are finally over....
Time to rest recuperate and just degenerate to absolute vegetable status.
HOORAY!!!!!

this year hasn't been an academic great!
I'll be glad to just pass it and make it to third year....and then the struggle and fight starts again.
man....

Argh.....

.............................( dinner break and then off to watch X-men 3 with vivian)......................................

Just returned from X-men 3

I found it really interesting and exciting to be honest.
haha...all the super powers the weird powers...and obviously...
haha.....the very obvious ageing of the actors....that i must say is super interesting.

Jean Grey: looked not too bad in X-men and the in XM2, OMG, she looked really old....not too sure if they changed actresses there or was it just a matter of well...the tick tick tick of the endless march of time. yeah....that was just so striking, and then she 'died' and it was like....wow...that's nice. early retirement.

and then she reappeared in 3 and to be honest it was only in the get up as the phoenix ( fixed dilated pupils, facelift plastered greenish veinous appearance that that she actually looked more hollywood runway material.

Scott 'cyclops' : lets just say he's not hugh jackman and the rundown, unshaven, 'i'm grieving over my old looking GF' look just doesn't work... thank goodness his misery was put out early in the show.

But my goodness, there really were some 'tasty' new tidbits. hehehe....
particular mention would be the guy with the feathery appendages.
forgot his name....but with his blonde hair and toned body...yeah he could probably pass off as a slightly oversized but more appealing cherub.

haha...
don't know if there's going to be an X-men 4. seeing as they've killed off more or less the big 3 in that show. and seeing as it's called '' the last stand''. maybe the next one will be called '' The final fall'' and then it will be a hit and XM5 will be '' resurrection'' and XM6 wll be ''A new beginning".

you get my drift?

Well...I don't care....so long as they make X-men movies, I'll go watch them for sure.
some say it's a cheap thrill..
but i say..."yeah it may be a cheap thrill but it's exciting, interesting and come on, who hasn't thought of having super powers once in their dreary life?"

Cheers!

2006-06-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

the lord is great
the lord is good
the lord makes all things including broadband good in his time

Minasan~!
yes....my home broadband is back
And i'm back in business
though I must say the speeds that i'm so used to ( 500kb/s) on the university servers
make this come back rather disappointing

But i'm so glad to be out there and with the world once again!
Life is perfect

I will survive!

Thank you god!

And now i will return to diabetes and its management!

ARGH!
EXAMS!!!!

Ta!

2006-05-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

Today was the final misery of wards.
Mind you, it hasn't been a totally bad experience altogether.
There's been good teaching, fun and laughter and obviously the nerve wrecking traumatising bits.
but all in all i would have to say that the infection unit is a great ward.
If u want teaching in real time and with hypertensive action...
drop by the infection unit. ..... said the spider to the fly.

I am sitting here typing this, after coming back from the pub, at 1.30pm in the afternoon,
with currently circulating double rum and lemonade.
I am not completely sobre.
But i think i will survive the following 2 lectures.
As well as a shopping trip to morrisons.

I'm so proud of myself.

Today we had the much awaited OSCE. (i.e the ward test that tests if u can examine patients without killing or breaking something and to see if u can think on ur feet)
it was four stations.
And by luck or grace or just for the sake of getting it over and done with
I started off my first examination with FB doing respiratory examination of an old nurse with breathlessness.
Didn't go too well because i didn't manage to complete the whole drill
well...none of us could.
FB is constantly drilling into us to do an end of bed before going on to the specific systemic examination, so we were all happily examining for clubbing and such before proceding to the back,
percussing and ascultating half way down the back and then hearing Prof laing ringing his ice cream bell down the hallway signalling a change....and then FB will give u a sadistic smile and ask u to give a diagnosis...
which none of us managed to give...

The rest of the stations were not too bad.
Abdominal examination, History taking, Examining a young man's hands.
Not too bad.

But still...could have been much better i suppose.
So after it all we adjourned to the westburn, just round the corner from the hospital
for pints and rum ( only me) and began ruminating of horrific scandals of our school days.
Seriously, Uk schools are just so full of scandals.
Teachers sleeping with students.
Teachers pretending to have cancer to get extended leaves.
Teachers having students up against the wall by the neck...
All good fun...

And now I have to go for lectures!

tata!

2006-05-18T04:41:00.000-07:00

Today was another session with FB.
Man....
wat can I say......
today was no redeeming grace.

BEfore I get on with my rant, will everyone please go here
and sign the petition regarding the sorry fate of international medical students and doctors in the UK wat with the current new and stupid immigration laws that have been put in place. A true reflection of lack of intelligence on the british parliament. Oh wait.....that's not new news.

Yeah.,....so today was like, took history and presented to FB.

luckily i wasn't presenting this week, which was good.

but then he decided to do russian roulette and made everyone else who was listening in on the presentations to ask questions.

and then some DAMN FOOL! ( I believe it was Kristian) asked when did our patient ( who's an alcoholic) started drinking and then since we hadn't asked that, we were stumped.
And he decided to ask how long we thought she had been drinking.
SO I was like '' well...a rather long time. say 15....? ''
And then I did the STUPIDEST mistake of saying that was evident from her Hep C status!!!!
STUPID MEEEEE!!!!! forgot last terms work about hep c being blood transmitted.
well...needless to say, got needled abt that...
and then he kept on asking me why i thought she had a long history of drinking....
and I was like ... ''' FOOL!!!!! can't someone just say somethin off the top of their head?''
and then he went '' are u saying this because epidemiological studies show that pple with drinking problems usu have long history of drinking?''
Me ''' Well....I don't know what epidemiological studies say.....''
FB '' Right. Epidemiological studies do show blah blah blah.....so...you were right for the Wrong Reasons....''

TAME YAROU!

Well....but to be honest, dun feel so bad today...because i managed to get a diagnosis right on hearing just the summary of one of the case presentations.

hehehehe.....

Right lower lobe pneumonia...

FB'' blah blah blah....u were quick on the draw with that diagnosis of Right lower lobe pneumonia, that would have been my differential diagnosis.''

FINE FB!!!!!
Take all the limelight!

I'm so glad this will all be over by next week....

Once again... please sign the petition at http://www.medschoolsonline.co.uk/index.php?pageid=149

2006-05-11T05:06:00.001-07:00

I have just had the most traumatic experience of my entire second year...
well at least until next thursday.

Today we had terror Machenzie for our tutor at wards...
The fucking bastard.

He brought us to see a patient as I was the unlikely first one into the room he went
'' mumblem....examination.''
and I was like...wat?
and so I went ''Sorry?''
He gave me a condescending smile and went on to ask if anyone else wanted to do the examination.

back in the day room, he asked me '' Why did u not want to do the examination?''
Me: '' I didn't hear your question and didn't know u wanted me to do the examination.''
Fat bastard (FB from now on) :'' Well, u could have just aske me to repeat the question.''

me...WTF!!! look at above on the ''SORRY?!'' bit

and after that it was just terrible...
I got a case of the nerves....and when i get a case of the nerves, nothing short of tranquilizers will get me to get my marbles into the right order.

he asked me questions, and whenever he asked me one I just froze up and gave him watever reply i could concoct....which was terrible...because bein the unsupportive and unsettling tutor that he was he basically picked me to bits.

FUCKER!

And then he asked me to present the case that we saw this morning...and it was terible...
because we didn't have good 'stock' this morning.
Our lady was on a nebulizer wheezing her way through a asthma attack and couldn't remember anything. Along with a racing heart and incredible respiratory rate of 30.
SO needless to say we had to tease out a rather disjunct history and needless to say a rather disorganized presentation.

Well....to be fair I wasn't really the only one.
Kristian who's left handed and prefers to write in a quranic style (left to right) because the binder spine doesn't get in the way was crticized for writing in that way and told to ''get use writing in the western style'' oh and he was also made to '' use A4 paper next time, because that's the size clerking sheets are in the hospital''

Graeme got told that his differential diagnosis was '' NOT plausible'' and he should phrase it in a ''less confident manner because anything else could be possible for that case''

FUCKING BASTARD!

Lesson learnt: Never enter the patients room first during group teaching

If ur consultant looks at u and mumbles something just say
'' Yes DR. FB, jump you say? From where and how far?''

Fucking PRICK!

2006-05-11T05:06:00.000-07:00

2006-05-09T05:50:00.000-07:00

today was a rather nice community course session.
Since the weather was so nice...yes even by my standards it wasn't too hot...
our tutor decided to hold the tutorial in the garden just behind the practice.

Sweet....

though the topic on epidemiological studies was so sleep inducing....we were soon
lulled in with the songs of the birds and the buzz of the bees.

during the mid session break...
andy and alistair decided it would be a good idea to run across the street to the sweet shop
to get everyone ice lollies....
unfortunately, consumerism had struck the quaint shop,
and it was now only selling expensive one pound fifty ice cream...
shit heads....

ah...
summer is really here..
time to get out the shades and the sun block....

the shades are a must...
really great way to snooze behind them as u sit out in the garden listening to ur tutor
preach about incidence and prevalence statistics...

cheers!

2006-05-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

Watched Ms Saigon on tuesday.

Man...for all the hype it's got...it was disappointing.

FIrst off....
Kim ( lead actress)
man...she was short and fat. and the guy was so good looking, it just didn't look real.
I know i'm being shallow, but still....hey hollowood and broadway have made standards pretty high u know.
And her singing.....my goodness....it was SO overly dramatic that it made u feel queasy.
It wasn't natural, it was forced and at times she just wore her voice so thin it could cut glass.

and the amount of sucking face throughout the entire thing...
GIVE ME A BREAK!!!
all that saliva transfusion is affecting the damn singing!! ( which as i have mentioned..sucks as it is)

And the ending....MAN!!!!!!
the second act was so short so abrupt ...it was like...BANG!
.........................................applause....everyone starts coming out and I'm like....u mean that's it?!!
............ NANI!!!!!!!!!!

yeah...but the guy who played the Engineer...he was good. Funny, svelte and just a natural.

ahh....every cloud must have it's silver lining....

oh well...that's all i have to say.....

MS saigon....is a miss.

2006-04-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

The heat has reached the point where i can wear bermudas and a T-shirt and flats
and walk all the way to the library to type this.

Alright!!!!

Well...today I have to rant about something...
i think something which i've ranted about some time ago....
but like most thingst that plague me...it's a recurrent prob....
just like a festering bed sore....

righto....
so we all know by now tat D, my good fren and flat mate has been dating T right?!!
are we all on board with this right now?
well...and we all know that he is 7 years younger than she is right?
Well, the age ain't really all that matters coz somehow their in the same decade.

So the thing is, the last 6mths, these 2 have been waxing and waning in terms of their relationship
he doesn't keep up with his promises to her, never on time (we all noe that, we once placed bets with poker plaque on how late he would be one board games night ), and basically he places his mates above her.
she hates it when he does the above, hates his frens ( and they hate him too ), hates the fact that she's always the one having to explain stuff to him...blh blah blah...

And then....who gets to hear about all this?
ME ME ME!!!!!
Basically it's the same story over and over again...
I've hear it all....

" I want to break up with him, but I love him."

WHOLE FAT LOAD OF BOLLOCKS!!!

Alright....so I can't exactly say that to her, cause i don't want our relationship to be
under stress for some loser of a guy...

but here's wat I exactly want to say...

Look here, this is the way I see it.....

A) you're much older than he is... it's WEIRD! okie...so they say that age is no barrier...
BUT IT's STRANGE.....he lacks the emotional and intellectual maturity. He's dropped out of UNi. u work longer hours then he does....WHERE the fuck is this headed?
He's never going to be able to support u or a family!

B) He says he doesn't want to get married. Period. You want to get married and have kids.
DO I even need to explain this conflict of interest? WHY WASTE TIME?!!!

C) You love him... seriously for u guys out there who know me...i don't believe in this love nonsense. I think pple can fall in like but love? Nah...too many other factors polluting the whole idea. Is it just lust, vanity that u managed to score a young, above average looking guy, or just that you're insecure and u don't know if this is going to be the last time you'll ever find someone that u ''love''? Or...to put it in most degradative sense of the whole thing.....
Is it just MATERNAL / SISTERLY love? ( Age gap u see...)

D) Most pressing problem: The guy is a nice guy ( i can vouch that) but he clearly doesn't ''love'' you as much as u him. He puts his mates before you. Time and time again. And you're not used to it coz in previous relationships u have always been the sole proprietor of ur BF attention. He doesn't stand up to his frens when they call u a bitch.
Wat a fucking loser is that? And you're another one, have u looked in the mirror recently?
you're older than he is...with his looks he can probably score a younger girl... and he's too youn to think about being tied down to anyone. At this age, your mates are more important than your girlfriend.

E) You deserve someone better who can give u the attention that u crave and who's probably mature enough to want to think of the future, and has a more respectable future as well.

there's lots more i could say....but i'm just so pissed thinking of the whole
RIDICULOUSNESS of the entire business....along with the fact that the FUCKING BUNCH OF ANGMOHS at the next table are making a WHOLE FUCKING LOT Of NOISE!
FUCKING LOSERS !

yeah....
last ridiculous comment " I think he needs to lose me before he realise his problems"

Honey, i don't think he even cares if he loses u. The way i see it, you're the last obstacle between freedom and a more buxom mate. He's a selfish mutt who's more interested with his conveniece than he is with you. And if you're gonna pine after someone like that, that makes u as equal a sorry loser as he is.... IT'S SO FUCKING STUPID! STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!!!!

aah.......
that's better....never keep things inside...it's bad for u....

Well...so there u have it....
I HATE talking about relationship problems because somehow they are always so STUPID BAKA, YU CHUN, DUMB, RIDICULOUS AND BORING!!!!!
Somehow it's like when pple get into a relationship, they throw away a hemisphere of cortical matter and share one hemishiphere between the both.
And it doesn't end there, the longer they stay together their brains undergo further deterioration. It's should be given the medical term " Alzheimer's de amore "

Just go do an R&J u STUPID STUPID ANG MOHS and STUPID STUPID LOVERS!

2006-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Man....there should be a term SCHIZOPHRENIC WEATHER.
last night the bloody wind was howling so loud i had to shut my window completely.
and it was raiing so bloody hard i could hear the droplets slapping against my window.

And now....
It's so fucking hot, bright and sunny
and very windy too....
MAKE UP UR MIND!!!!

I hate this sunny weather. I really do.
It's stiffling, it's dry, it makes me feel really really tired.

well....few things that have happened so far this week.
Had a guide dog in for community course at the GP, man...the freaking dog is so uncanny it can even guide it's mistress to the right bus stop to take the right bus
( mind u...buses here don't stop at every stop along the route....freaky.)

New japanese and Korean STALL opened in Aberdeen market.
Authentic Korean chap doing the cooking and the sushi.
Very nice Jab chae noodles...

yeah....that's about all...
things coming down to a stalemate with just studying and watchin cantonese drama serials.

BORING...............

Cheers!

2006-04-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Well...end of another week again.

Friday's ward was great.
Met a heroin addict... nice lady too. sigh...i think that society shouldn't discriminate against them
some of them just don't do drugs because they like the highs or the kicks or their just bums.
SOme take it to block the pain and forget their sorrow...
Don't u guys get it?

And we had a new consultant as tutor too.
I think he's more down to earth that thursday tutor.
He made us stand in the corridor and do a 'kit check'
Those of us who had our stethescopes dangling from our necks got it promptly removed and coiled up and stuffed into our pockets personally by him ( yes, i was one of them...well...i was never able to stuff my in my pocket and i never dared to coil it up as well as he could )
then he did a spot check for tendon hammers,
and since only only one of us had it, he ended the tutorial with a stern warning that next friday he wanted to see us in '' Full KIT" with stethescope, pen torch and tendon hammer and that he would be doing a spot check. cool...
yup, then he brought us to see this old lady,
and then led us through end of bed examination and then got us to do some examinations for him
he got me to do this totally new superficial tendon reflex tests (which we had never been taught)
The hoffman and somehting else i forgot...
man....... he was there guiding me to do it...and it was UNNERVING...
he's a nice quite guy, but it's the quite powerful sorta feeling that u get from him.
do there i was desperately flicking the lady's 3rd finger distal phalanx ( tip of middle finger) trying to get her freaking thumb to flex,
and he was positioning my fingers, telling me to flick slowly, showing me how to do it again...
and when i finally go the boody reflex he said " you'll never be good at sal...dol" ( it's this board game where u flick counterrs into pockets in the corner)
oh well...guess i'll have ot keep my day job then.

well...that's all that i have to say.

ha! in library using hotspot now...
man...talk about coincidence...
all 3 of us here at this table are using IBM of I think the same T or R series....

CHeers!

2006-04-20T04:52:00.000-07:00

Just got back from wards.
First day at Infection Unit.

Ok...come on...wat comes to mind when u see those two words...
to be absolutely honest and naive i have to say I thought ....
Big massive spreads of necrosing flesh, air putrid with the smell of gangrenous infection,
massive boils, amputated legs, MRSA secluded patients, TB ....u get my drift.

But today when i stepped through the purple double doors it was really kinda quiet.

everything was slow, hallways were dark...nothing fascinating really.

Then off we went to clerk patients.
Clerked my very first HIV patient. really nice woman, had HIV for the past 10 years.
In hosptial for another of her frequent pnuemonias...( I think she has kaposi sarcoma to be honest, seemed to have the classical signs)

And then next there was the discussion with our consultant.
MAn.....
of all my clinical rotations I have never felt this intimidation and anxiety...
this guy asks questions and LOTS of them....
And he doesn't just direct his questions to the general mass...he shifts his entire body mass, places his foot directed at you and asks u full eye contact, his burning question.
And it's not only one simple question.
From ur weak pathetic attempt at an answer, he picks the weakest link and springs another question from it....and another and another......Argh......
As Graeme rightly exclaimed '' I DON'T WANT to do medicine!!!''
(of course when the tutor was answering a bleep)

THings that he expects u to do:

One hour for clerking : 20 minutes history taking, 20 minutes examination, 20 minutes writing up.

( That's BOLLOCKS i tell u! more like 45minutes listening to random long tale, 20 minutes examination, 20 minutes figuring out wat the hell u just scrawled for the past hour...)

Write up clerking nicely. Dun be goin around with messy slips filled with rubbish scrawls ( I thought we were granted that right?! guess not here.... )
always have a SUMMARY at the end of ur presentation. just 2 lines summin everything up.....

( read first bullet point and tell me how's that possible...'' 50 year old male, with a serious shit load of problems.'' )

Man....
I must gumbatte and survive the next 3 weeks!
Thankfully that tutor will be away next week....hopefully the registrar that takes over will cut us some slack....hmm.....time to look for some black mail....

Cheers!

2006-04-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad that the hotspot is up and running now.
Me and alistairjust finished putting together a 6 slide presenation on our patient visit victim Mr. J.P.
To be honest, it wasn't all clear cut....
thinking of wat to squeeze into 6 slides from an extensive history is not an easy task.
how to phrase stuff, select stuff and all...
and man....can anyone get more pedantic about borders....???

yup, so anyways, tomorrow we start a new clinicl rotation...
along with my streak of mishaps i am now goin to be at the infection unit for the next 5 weeks..
Ain't that lovely?

MRSA, Bacteraemia, Chest infections...welcome to my humble abode.
And of all this it has to be this year, after i've had a terrible bought of chest infection, and 4 consecutive runs of the flu ... ( yes i had the flu from september to around february when the chest infection occured....)
For the record i have to say that the chest infection came about when I was at the geriatrics wards...no surprise there, eh?

now running a spyware scan....looks like I have 552 infections at 90% scan progress...
man....it's a wonder my comp is still working.

righto...off i go...

Cheers!

2006-04-17T03:53:00.000-07:00

First day back in school
At 9am.
Woke up at 7.30am, had shower, made it to bus stop by 8.10. Practically waved goodbye to passing bus. Stupid move. Didn't realise that today is EAster MOnday and the buses are running on their IRREGULAR sunday timetables.
Waited till 8.30am till the next bus came.
By God's good grace managed to catch the no.12 to the hospital and was still early by 10 minutes.
Sweeet...

just finished an introductory lecture to nervous system, and a lecture on STroke.
not bad, managed to highlight my notes and take notes at the same time.
cool.

received learning guides and timetable.
Man....2 self directed learning packages!!!
And the other 2 systems for the term are : ENDOCRINE and RENAL system....
My two most hated...(well actually they come after gastroenterology)

Oh well....
life is just this one big weighing scale.

Off to work on my lectures....vow not to fall back in lectures....
................especially since i dun have internet at home now............... SObz.....

Oh..
watched Charlie n the Chocolate Factory last night on DVD.
REally interesting. Liked the sets, the costumes the milions of oompa loompas.
Liked DEpp...once again beautiful JOhny has proven how damn versatile he is...
Holloywood...u just have no appreciation of true talent when u see one...

Cheers!

2006-04-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

STill no internet at home...
i think my laptop is finally dead....

Can't access hotspot in uni library because they just redid the connections over easter weekend...

sittin in uni library typing this... on library comp...

somebody PLEASE KILL ME NOW....

Well...as i have been telling everyone who has been sending me their condolences..
'' This is a good thing. I am now able to concentrate on my studies. Which is rather good as my exams are up and coming in the next month and a half. It is a blessing in disguise.''

WHo am i kidding....yes it's a good thing...
yes...i'm still able to play music and watch my DVDs... ( Thank you God for this grace)
but somehow...when i look at my laptop sitting on my desk belting out ballad after ballad...
it doesn't seem to be alive....

it just doesn't come across as alive without the little white BT boxes in it's corner.
it's not alive without the incessant tritone of somebody signing into MSN...
.......it's definitely not alive if i can't just jump in and download my lectures off the net....

oh sobz..................

Past quibbles that i couldn't blog when they were fresh in my mind because of my current circumstances.... oh well...stale coffee aint too bad...

On the first day i was back, I came back to my flat, and Dana and Angela were there. We sat and chatted in the living room, and i told them flat out that i felt great just listening to them talk in their languid english and scottish accents and not have to deal with the jarring loud canadian harsh talk which i must say was one of the most irritating aspects of my trip.
Sleeping in my nice soft bed. With my nice soft pillows. with my nice trustworthy electric blanket. Just so nice...
And it was great when dana said '' I'm glad your back''
It was nice to be back. I was not forgotten. That was good.

one sure fire way that tells me i'm back in aberdeen.... The damn squeals, clicks, cawing, squeaks of BIRDS at 4am in the morning....don't u just love nature?

WEll...that's more or less wat i can remeber... term starts tomorrow again.

It begins with a bang with the '' Nervous System''.

I'm actually kinda looking forward to this system. I like neurology. It's interesting, though it's shit hard to study for with all the finicky nerves and their bloody innervations, but if i'm willing to stick it through...that shows how much i'm able to sacrifice for this system...

and well..yeah it does explain some of my more neurotic quirks and diminishing sanity so...

GO NEURO!!!

till the next installment......

2006-04-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

Just read zhu's heartrending account...

This song fits with the mood and the internetless despair that i'm in now...

farewell
作詞: Tomiko Van
作曲: Joey Carbone
遠ざかる　あなたの声が
震える私の心を
壊してゆく　傷つけてゆく
歪んだ　二人の距離が
in my heart
そっと手を差し出して
hold me tight
抱きしめてほしいの
* don't say good-bye
ひとりの夜
don't say good-bye
戻せない時間
don't say good-bye
このまま夜が明けないなら
永遠に眠りたい
浮かばれぬ　想いはやがて
泡のように　消えてゆくの
運命なら　どうか覚めないで
夢だけ　見させてほしい
in my heart
そっと瞳を閉じて
hold me tight
温もりを伝えて
don't say good-bye
ひとりの夜
don't say good-bye
涙も枯れ果て
don't say good-bye
あなたを思い出になんて
できないから
* repeat

toozakaru anata no koe ga
furueru watashi no kokoro wo
kowashite yuku kizutsukete yuku
yuganda futari no kyori ga
in my heart
sotto te wo sashidashite
hold me tight
dakishimete hoshii no
* don't say good-bye (x2)
hitori no yoru
don't say good-bye (x2)
modosenai jikan
don't say good-bye (x2)
kono mama yo ga akenai nara
永遠(towa) ni nemuritai
ukabarenu omoi wa yagate
awa no you ni kiete yuku no
unmei nara douka samenaide
yume dake misasete hoshii
in my heart
sotto hitomi wo tojite
hold me tight
nukumori wo tsutaete
don't say good-bye (x2)
hitori no yoru
don't say good-bye (x2)
namida mo karehate
don't say good-bye (x2)
anata wo omoide ni nante
dekinai kara

2006-04-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Man.....this is REAL SHIT!!!!

Back from paradise and into the ultimate hell....
CAN'T ACCESS INTERNET FROM HOME!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!

Just spent half an hour on the phone with the internet providers
and they basically brought me through all the different avenues etc which might be the probably cause of the problem but to no avail....

DO YOU NOT SENSE MY FRUSTRATION????!!!!!

Can't download anything....
Can't MSN....
Can't check mail.....
Can't check lectures....

So...
if i don't appear online so often these days....
you know why....

If I don't blog so often...
you know why...

Oh lord....please don't let this be happening.....

2006-04-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

This will probably be my last entry from toronto for this trip.
kanashi ne......

bye bye good food, bye bye cheap shoes, bye bye niagara falls,
bye bye CN towers, bye bye toronto islands, bye bye lake ontario..............
bye bye asian legend, bye bye shi zi tou, bye bye pork bone soup............

Au revoir zhu.
tian xia you wu bu san zi yan xi ( hope i got this right..my hanyu pinyin is SHITE)

Till we meet again!
Next time in bonnie ol' scotland......

Thanks for all the memories!

2006-04-09T06:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it was off to the culminating, must see attraction of all trips to toronto.
Yes...we were off to see niagara falls ( and yes...I still have difficulty pronouncing the damn word).

SO it was up at 7am and down to St. George station for the pick up at 8am. ( and yes...it was a saturday morning)
at 8.05 this big black van pulls up on the curb, and we were looking at each other wondering '' man...is this right?"
Out springs, this small, crew cut brunette, complete with eyebrow piercing, and soon we were on this mafia look alike van to pick up 2 other victims and then to our objective of the falls.

It's about an hour and twenty minutes drive to niagara, and for about half the trip the guide, jojo was giving us a running commentary about the history of niagara, the falls, the origins of 'Tacky Town' ( local garish touristy district 15 minutes from the falls) and the darwin award winning escapades of some lunatics who stuffed themselves in oversized barrels and sent themselves along down the 57m stretch of the thundering falls. Kinda interesting. But...then again...having been up at 7 am after about 5 hours of sleep the night before, u just wish that " for the love of god...enough already" ( doesn't help that she has the classic loud, whiny canadian/american drawl...jarring i tell ya...jarring) But she was a great guide. Value for money too at $45 for the entire day's agenda. ( cheapest niagara tour that I could find )

At the falls, we were just blown away. Literally, mentally, physically. There are actually 3 falls in all that can be seen. 2 of them, the American falls and the Bridal (bride's ?) veil fall ( it's this tiny strip next to the american falls) belong to the americans, the canadians have the Horseshoe falls. and the canadians have the better view of the falls. The americans just get a back view of the falls and Goat island.

Niagara means thunder water in one of its more apt native american translations. And when u get there, u get it. The thundering force of this natural wonder just blows u away, the best way to experience it with all 5 senses is to go through the tunnels, right behind the falls in "Journey behind the falls". There u get up close and personal to this giant. Even walking along the boulevard next to the falls gets u bathed in this ethreal mist . u are literally in the essence of the falls. Remember to look up at the trees whilst u walk along side the falls, they glisten silver in the sunlight with mini stellactites draped from their boughs and branches. It's like walking in narnia when the snow queen is in rule. Oh ... and it's freaking cold too. Hey...ice crystals on trees when the sun is out...r u kidding me?

The american view:
Backview of the falls and the churning rapids that lead to it

Thundering water.....you get my drift?

On a clear day u can see this mist all the way up in CN towers in Toronto

Niagara falls...the experience of a life time..........

Well, after niagara falls, we headed off to niagara on the lake, which is bascially this little village based near lake ontario and near the origins of the falls. quaint little town. old buildings dating to the post 1812 era. ( pre-1812 buildings were razed to the ground by spoil sport americans when they were about to lose this british settlement back to the british in the 1812 war. it ended in a peace treaty, the british got back their town and began to rebuild again) Fronting this little town is lake ontario. So there we were up on the hills at the park, eating out packed lunch of beef sandwiches with chips and coleslaw topped with nice rich gravy that went cold within 10 seconds of opening the packagin. Need i reiterate...it was COLD. yup so we were basically prancing around, moving from table to bench to table again trying to search for a warmer spot where we could have lunch and enjoy the view of the lake. It was like a neurotic indian food dance, flapping white packages in hand and complains of the cold filling the air.

After niagara falls, it was the final stop at the magnotta wine distillery. Hey...countless free wine sampling, really cheap quality wine...no wonder some consider this the best part of the trip ever. Magnotta makes some of the nicest ice wine which is apparently a speciality of canada. It's this special wine where the grapes it's made from are left on the vines deep into winter and are only harvested when the temperatures are averaging -8 degrees celsius. In such cold dry weathers, the grapes would have shrunken and the juice within them frozen all leading to super concentrated grape juice that is made into the sweetest wine i've ever tasted. In the markets a bottle of it goes for about $65 but at the distillery, the cheapest is $30 and the most expensive $55. Factory outlet prices rock. The more expensive ice wines are apparently the ones made from red grapes because their skins are much thinner and often break before they can be harvested.

well...so basically that was my exciting day.

hehehe...dinner was also a nice experience. Went to this korean place where u basically cook ur own meal in a huge silver pan. Good stuff good stuff.... and we also had a pot of pork bone soup which was something like a more bony replica of shi zi tou. hehehe....

What a great day.................

2006-04-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today a fluke expedition turned out to be a great venture.
Went down to the Eastern beaches today as the weather was so crap i couldn carry out the original plan of goin to the offshore islands.

Yup, so basically since i've done more or less wat's available to be done this season in Toronto, I had to spend about half an hour online trying to find some place to go instead of letting the day go to waste. the avid traveller just hates that.

So it was off to the beach, on this cold, dreadful day.

It was a chance expedition turned great. Standing there as the flurry of snow belted down upon me and the wind whipped my hair mercilessly, I felt a strange sense of calm and peace watchin the waves of Lake Ontario break upon the rocky coast. Watching the storm clouds gather and unfurl whilst seeking the rare strobes of sunlight piercing this white entourage was just mesmerising.

That's the best i can do to put u in that spot at that point in time...

2006-04-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

hi guys!
yes yes...i'm back to those fancy dancy blog templates again...
oh well,
old habits die hard...
and it's a pretty skin too...

So..BEAR WITH IT!

At least the fonts huge.....

Cheers!

2006-04-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Photo sharing time....
just had a long long day...got lost in the forest trail in High park ( Extensive park with an interconnecting maze of trails for the avid nature lover and walking enthusiast), had to walk a highway to get to the nearest subway.

Visited Casa Loma, toronto's one and only castle. Man....got the spooks trecking through the maze of tunnels and attics and lofts.

Visited St. Lawrence market in old town toronto, had a very spectacular cookies and cream cheesecake, hazelnut biscotti and a walnut baklova fresh from the oven. Oh yeah...that's the only way to serve it....

Visited St James's Cathedral which was in the vicinity. Nice quaint cathedral, ornate and beautiful interiors with commendable stained glass windows.

And since I was in the shopping district, paid a visit to a couple of shops, ended up with a pair of comfy slipper shoes for $5 and a pair of Airwalk (dunno wat brand this is but it's comfy and on sale) for $23 and a pair of jeans for $9.90 from Sears at Eaton Centre ( this ginormous shoppin mall with tons of boutiques and retail shops. previously got a nine west bag which was on sale at the boutique for $35 )

SOMEBODY STOP ME!!!!

Well....as promised, photos from the first five days of my trip....

.........................................................................................................................................................................

........................ Picassa SUCKS!!!!!

If you can still be bothered, please click here.

Jaa ne~!

2006-04-01T20:45:00.000-08:00

Today was a day that will go down in history.

Not all because me and Zhu visited a David Milne Water Colours exhibition as well as a Frank Gehry Architecture exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. ( They were both great by the way. Though I must say I was more fascinated and impressed with Frank Gehry's work. He's the architect who brought architectural wonders such as the Guganheim Museum in New York City and the Disney Concert Hall in whereever. Very fascinating. For an old guy his brain is sure tick ticking away damn well).

The miracle of the day took place over lunch.

We went down to Asian Legend, this chinese restaurant in chinatown which is just round the corner from the art gallery, for a lunch break after having viewed the David Milne collection. We were there to accomplish the mission of having shi zi tou (@ lion's head @ GIANT MEATBALLS)

So being the gluttons and poor estimators that we are we decided to order, one shi zi tou, a combo set each ( consists of one bowl of rice, one bowl of soup, one main dish and one cold drink) and siew mai ( 6 pieces).

The race began at a relatively easy and relaxed pace with soup and drink arriving first. Then came the main dishes for the combo lunch. Mind you, we're not talking miniscule portions here, we're talking actual main dish sizes, so it's no joke finishing that off. so we started eating that which was really nice and delicious (hey, ur talkin to someone who hasn't had an authentic chinese meal for the mast 6 months or so ) Then the waiter advanced towards as with this large black claypot complete with its own little bunsen burner thingy and placed it in the center of our already overflowing table for 2.

This was the legendary shi zi tou.
We opened it gingerly and there stewing merrily and mocking us with their brown braised skins were 3 humongous meatballs. I mean it. I've had shi zi tou before and I've never seen ones as huge as these. They were the size of a 12 year old's fist. We closed the cover and stared at each other and the still festering combo lunch remains in front of us.
Before we had time to plan a strategy, the waiter came with our ratten box of siew mai....
Man...it was like the day of reckoning.

Don't get me wrong. It was all good stuff. Nice, excellently cooked and tasted great. It's just the sheer amount of food on the table. Pple were walking past our table staring at our avalanche of food and the two of us. And definitely at the mysterious black pot in the center of all the mayhem.

yup, so we went all out!
First to clear the finishin line for the combo lunch was Zhu, impressively finishing 3 quarters of her chi ding (diced chicken in spicy sauce) and began hacking away at her alloted ball of meat. I was tailing behind on my shredded pork with garlic and chili, trying to juggle my resources between siew mai, pork, and meat ball. After a while, I was done with my pork, and that was when zhu decided to throw in the white flag on her alloted siew mai. So I had the additional burden of completing another 2 siew mai in addition to the three i had just squeezed through my long suffering gullet.

Man...but those shi zi tou were fantastic. Very nice gravy to go with it. Not too fattty and not too oily, nice and succulent and not dry. It was als fun drenching them in gravy as we had 5 minute time out breaks in between.

Well...all that I have to say is that....the fact that i'm sitting here typin this is that my gullet didn't perforate, my stomach didn't burst and that my intestine are more or less still working after having to put up with the assault they were under this afternooon.

WElll...that's my exciting 4th day here...
I'm off now.
U guys could have heard more from me but Zhu has just put on gibberish to play on the comp. Yes...need I spell it clearer ? Garnet crow...............
Arrrgh..................I can feel the creativity being sucked dry by the senseless noise that is pervading the room.....

Somebody save me.....
I'd rather wolf down 2 bowls of shi zi tou....

oyasumi~!

2006-03-30T15:51:00.000-08:00

YOz everyone!

Second day in toronto, the sightseeing begins in earnest.

Crashed an immunology lecture with Zhu from 10-12 noon. My goodness, they get their notes printed out for them, at one slide per page. Is that generous or what.
unfortunately, despite the two hours alloted, the lecturer went ultra fast. It was inevitable that zhu was left behind in the dust.
HAHAAAHa...

After that, got a lecture on how to take a subway down town so that I could visit CN towers.
It's basically this big pointy tower which is like the world's tallest building and free standing structure. Paid 24 dollars to get up to the dome at the top, not too bad, the weather was great, and to be honest, HOT at an average of 15 degree celsius, and the skies clear so had a pretty good view of the entire city as well as the off shore islands, very nice.

Then went a floor lower to the glass floor level, which is basically this glass floored area where u can walk on whilst looking down at hard concrete thousands of feet below at ur feet. Scary stuff I tell u. It took me a good ten minutes of staring, and taking photos before I ventured onto it. I took a video of myself ( or rather my feet ) doing the whole walkway. So proud of myself.

After CN tower, decided to just wonder around the district.
Visited this Antique collector's museum. Rather interesting consisted of little stalls from various antique dealers with lotsa queers pieces of antiques of different genres. Got myself this gold seahorse with a mother of pearl body and an Ivorex by Authur Osbourne " Anne Hathaway's cottage". Rather interesting piece i must say.

After that went around 2 shopping concourses the Metro Path and Simcoe place. Managed to find myself a pair of leather turquoise mocs for $10 when they originally cost $45.

Went back after that and after writing a couple of postcards, decided to take a walk down to korean town which is just down the street. Filled with lotsa odds and ends shops, japanese, korean and the likes kinda restaurants and eateries. Walked around for a while and snooped around a couple of shops before acting feet led me back.

Wat a busy busy day indeed.......

Nightz...

2006-03-25T16:56:00.000-08:00

Hear ye! Hear ye!
Come 6 am this day, smoking in public places including, PUBS, shopping centres and offices will be BANNED. Yes! with a capital B.

I'm so proud of ye fair scotland, to finally be able to stand up to the masses,
and one of your not so fair pples' favourite past times (aside from the pints and deep fried mars bars ) and finally say that u will not tolerate, u will not stand, u will not bear to see another innocent die of lung cancer due to passive means.

Eat that u southies!

yes...
i'm just back from our local, the bobbin.
4 double rum and lemonades and a lemonade and double schwapps later,
i've lost an hour of my life.
yes, my frens, time has gone forward by an hour when the clock struck 12.
i've watched dana, who, for the record, has stopped smoking for 3 years,
lit up one last time on this memorable night.
the last night when smoking in public places will not get u fined 50 pounds. (jail terms are applicable to persistent offenders)
I shamefully admit that despite my postition as a absolute detestor of smoking, & as a member of the medical field, helped light up 3 of the 4 fags she had.

I'm a pyromaniac. seems that it comes above my responsibility and my duties. sighz...

It was a truly heart rendering scene, as we walked out of the pub,
and she gave away the remaining pack to a bunch of NEDs ( Non Educated Delinquents) outside the bobbin.

Cheers~!

2006-03-24T05:45:00.000-08:00

It's the LAST DAY OF TERM!

yup, Easter begins at 4pm this afternoon.
Alright..... will be gearing up for my trip! Zhu the descent begins now!!!
(P/s: already got the loot i told u about )

Anyways, today was the last day of our clinical skills rotation.
Sobz...this is the last ward session where we can wear casual gear. For next term it's formal wear and white coats every thursday and friday morning....sianz...

well, today it was a revision on the neurological examination, and we
had volunteer patients (old pple who volunteer their time so that we can examine them )
yup, and it was at my first patient that I realised a fact of life that has been unrevealed to me
up to this point in time:

One of the most back breaking tasks u'll ever do in ur life,

literally,

is to lift a relaxed leg with one hand, and attempt to ilicit a

knee jerk reflex.

Why?

Well, the legs are apparently the heaviest part of ur anatomy according to our tutor.

Most importantly, you're dealing with old folks, pple who have had the time and experience to build up an impressive stock of padding and insulation,

so to be perfectly honest, it's no fun job bending over the patient, suporting the whole leg with NO help from the patient ( so u can actually get a reflex).

the worst part is when the tutor comes along, whilst ur practising, and stops u and makes u do it over and over again because ur technique is not right, ur not using wrist action ...blah blah blah...

And..............

ALL this time ( abt ten minutes in addition to the previous 5 minutes u spent attemptin) you're holding the bloody leg up! For yourself and ur tutor.

Touche~!

Yup, I'm goin to spend tonight nursing my sprained back and wrist.

Jaa ne ~!

2006-03-24T00:51:00.000-08:00

man....i'm unbelieveable.
LAst night, I discovered that i could actually do work through any amount of noise.
or at least till that level.

Well, was feeling rather bored last night,
and not really up to doing proper studying @ having 5 textbooks in front of u and sifting through each and everyone of them to gather appropriate information to support the lecture notes.
So I decided to write up my lecture notes @ transferring notes joted down during lecture onto the actual slides.

So I sat in the living room, with dana and noura, and started to do that.
And whilst i was writing stuff on fractures and osteoporosis, I was in fact also actively participating in conversations on how guys are smelly, gossip, floozies (sluts) etc etc.

It was amazing. Then lynn and Tom came by and they discovered this website that has collections of videos on really old cartoons , like gummy bears and he man etc.
And soon there was a racous party goin on in my room opposite the living room.
The fools were busy singing and bopping to the bloody cartoon theme songs.
Rather interesting too i must say.

And through it all i persevered and finished wat i wanted to do.

Peace out!

2006-03-21T04:53:00.000-08:00

Sitting in the attic of the GP surgery,

listening to an hour long diatribe on health screening, health promotion, and disease prevention,

I witnessed the most poignant scene through the window just opposite my seat.

It was a fine morning, sun was out, quite stongly too, wind was blowing ever so gently,

and as I watched, the wind started to pick up speed, and the trees began to change their dance from a waltz to a rondo,

And then the heavens broke down, and sheets of white tear drops fell gently...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me introduce u to this magnificent work called " The Scottish spring"

2006-03-18T05:27:00.000-08:00

WHoohoo!

Yesterday was a SUPER fun ST. PAtrick's Day!
Day of the Irish and Guiness...everyone please remember 17th March!!!

Well, anyways...contrary to wat u might be thinking, I was not out on a liver crippling pub crawl last night.

For the majority of the night I was at a ceilidh at a church.
Yes...haha. A church.

It was fun. It was my second ceilidh ever since i've been here (recall Joy's birthday party last december when she held a ceilidh and i attended)

Less casualities this time. Although I must say that Tom who took the first dance with me
suffered a concussed jaw and badly stomped toes. ( reminder, the skull is a very dangerous weapon)

*evil laughter*

but i must say i've gotten more sure of the steps this time, managed to waltz thru most of them without incident. There were a couple of new dances, such as the St.Bernard's Waltz and the Flying Scotsman.

But then again...the most fun i had was with STRIP the WILLOW! though i must say that due to the limited space in the church hall it wasn't that great.

And yes...the calibre of guys there that night weren't too great. Only spotted one good looker.
hahaha...

yup so after that, me, Dana and Tom headed to MacCameron's to meet Anna (Dana's fren) for a drink. It was after all St. Pat's nite. It was packed full with pple. And some of them had the big fluffy leprechaun's hat with cariacatures of guiness pints. Kawai ne.....darn, wish I could have one of those.

Well, so after a drink ( yes only one.. I had a triple whisky cola. upon returning from the bar, Dana told me that was a supposedly illegal drink which they were not supposed to serve and the barmaid gave her a double and a single and told her to mix it together into a cup. hahaha....well, that's wat u get when u go out with a binger ) we headed back.

Wat a nice night, great workout at the ceilidh and a nice cold drink. Excellent!

Cheers!

2006-03-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

Another interesting thing introduced by Gen.

http://www.handwritingwizard.com

For a graphologist, the spacing on the page reflects the writer's attitude toward their own world and relationship to things in his or her own space. If the inputted data was correct Esther has no white space or margins on a typical sheet of paper. Esther fills up every last inch on the top, right, left, and bottom. Hmmm. If this is true, then Esther has a very aggressive personality toward others and quite frankly lacks a bit of respect for the space and property of other people. I would be surprised if Esther just comes into someone's home and helps herself to a drink in the refrigerator. This can be both an obnoxious personality trait and it can be assertive and effective in getting what you want. There isn't much fear of getting in trouble here, Esther finds plenty of reasons to break the rules and get in trouble. (Okay, perhaps when she was younger, not anymore?) Basically, people with no margins are a handful.

Esther has a healthy imagination and displays a fair amount of trust. She lets new people into her circle of friends. She uses her imagination to understand new ideas, things, and people.
Esther is a practical person whose goals are planned, practical, and down to earth. This is typical of people with normal healthy self-esteem. She needs to visualize the end of a project before she starts. she finds joy in anticipation and planning. Notice that I said she plans everything she is going to do, that doesn't necessarily mean things go as planned. Esther basically feels good about herself. She has a positive self-esteem which contributes to her success. She feels she has the ability to achieve anything she sets her mind to. However, she sets her goals using practicality-- not too "out of reach". She has enough self-confidence to leave a bad situation, yet, she will not take great risks, as they relate to her goals. A good esteem is one key to a happy life. Although there is room for improvement in the confidence catagery, her self-perception is better than average.

In reference to Esther's mental abilities, she has a very investigating and creating mind. She investigates projects rapidly because she is curious about many things. She gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but she soon must slow down and look at all the angles. She probably gets too many things going at once. When Esther slows down, then she becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, she must slow down to do it. She then decides what projects she has time to finish. Thus she finishes at a slower pace than when she started the project. She has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. Her mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. She can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. Esther can then switch into her low gear. When she is in the slower mode, she can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. She is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.

Esther will be candid and direct when expressing her opinion. She will tell them what she thinks if they ask for it, whether they like it or not. So, if they don't really want her opinion, don't ask for it!

Esther will demand respect and will expect others to treat her with honor and dignity. Esther believes in her ideas and will expect other people to also respect them. She has a lot of pride.

Esther is moderately outgoing. Her emotions are stirred by sympathy and heart rendering stories. In fact, she can be kind, friendly, affectionate and considerate of others. She has the ability to put herself into the other person's shoes. Esther will be somewhat moody, with highs and lows. Sometimes she will be happy, the next day she might be sad. She has the unique ability to get along equally well with what psychology calls introverts and extroverts. This is because she is in between. Psychology calls Esther an ambivert. She understands the needs of both types. Although they get along, she will not tolerate anyone that is too "far out." She doesn't sway too far one way or the other. When convincing her to buy a product or an idea, a heart rendering story could mean a great deal to her. She puts herself in the same situation as the person in the story, yet she will not buy anything that seems overly impractical or illogical. Esther is an expressive person. She outwardly shows her emotions. She may even show traces of tears when hearing a sad story. Esther is a "middle-of-the-roader," politically as well as logically. She weighs both sides of an issue, sits on the fence, and then will decide when she finally has to. She basically doesn't relate to any far out ideas and usually won't go to the extreme on any issue.

People that write their letters in an average height and average size are moderate in their ability to interact socially. According to the data input, Esther doesn't write too large or too small, indicating a balanced ability to be social and interact with others.

2006-03-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

Today we learnt a most intimate art form
a sure fire way for u to sneak a quick kiss from an unsuspecting handsome ( or beautiful) patient
..... if one every walks through your door.... ( well, u can dream can't u?!)

" Good morning, my name is ________, a 2nd year medical student. Is it alright if I check your the back of your eyes?"

" Yes."

"This examination requires me to get my head/face very close to you. Are you alright with that?"

" Yes, sure go ahead"

Yup, ladies and gentlemen, here's introducin u to Fundoscopy.
Which is basically looking at the back of your eyes to check ur optic disc, microcirculation, fovea and watever else u can see out of the pinpoint light source.

Basically u take this opthalmalscope, and advance towards ur patients face with the thing stuck to your eye. Literally. You start at say 20-30cm away checking red reflection and then u start coming closer and closer and closer to the person eyes till, following procedure, the fingers wrapped around ur scope touch ur patients cheek, or lips. and then at this distance of around one inch from the persons face u start describing to ur prof what u can see at the back of this person's eye optic disc, blood vessels, interfaces etc.

Man...it's really fascinating what u can see,
I never thought u could actually see such things. I thought it was all part of a fabricated tale.

hey! we were told of this one guy during his OSCE ( examination on clinical skills), was constantly shining his scope at the forehead of his patient and described to the most bewildered prof, that the patient had a normal retina.........

Well...hehe....must admit that I wasn't too good at this,
and everyone was trying to look at my eyes, because the tutor said they were a challenge what with the astigmatism and all.
So I scored, a whole bunch of girls, some dorky guys, but 2 good looking guys!
Thank goodness no one had garlic or snot or anything on their face....

One of the good lookers got to be my guinea pig as my tutor brought me through the whole procedure and put me through a OSCE scenario. Score!

haha...thanks John for putting up with it, hope ur not blind after having me iradiate ur eyeballs with light for so long and sorry about messing ur hair up! (we're supposed to put our other hand on the top fo the persons head to steady them....@ make sure they don't escape the torture of the blinding light)

hehe....thinking of getting my own opthalmascope now...
what a fun piece of equipment.
And the tutor says u only improve with increased practice, so i suppose that's good reason enough.....

....and of course, like most things....it has it's perks.

Cheers!

2006-03-09T01:23:00.000-08:00

I'm suffering from dementia...
I am sittin here in the comp. lab in the social space at 9.30am in the morning....
WHY?

Well, I have clinical skills...
which i thought started at 9am...but guess wat they start at 10am....

So basically, i just lost half an hours extra sleep, after having had only 6 hours of sleep (was watching Munich with flatmates last night) and i have nothing better to do than this for the next half hour.

well, lets talk about the 2006 SSM (Student Selected Module ) Project Presentations that occured yesterday...

And yes...atashi sama sat through all 32 15 minute presentations from 9.30 in the morning till 4.30 in the afternoon. YEs... I am so supportive of my fellow coursemates...

Not really...

My group's presentation was at 3.30 in the afternoon, so just decided to come in at 9.30 (for fear of attendance taking, which never occurred..which is shit ) and stay and watch how everyone else performed.

well i must say that there were some really interestng ones, and some pple really showed their secret talents such as cross dressing ( BIg biker Tony turned Kate Moss for coccaine vaccinations), Thick irish accent Dave sporting Thick, authentic German accent as Prof. VAn Gunter in i can't remember which project.

But to be honest, I'd say that it was really a case of saving the best for last. Not because i'm biased or anything but I think that that the groups under immunology and infection which were presenting from 3-4.30pm had the most interesting presentations.
I listened to everyone of them without falling asleep, even those after my presntation. Every single group had a novel way of presentation from court trial cases ( MDR-TB (multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis): INTERNATIONAL CULPRIT ! That's my group! WHoohoo! ) to blue peter (some country programme apparently) and BBC broadcasts.

But then again...I think,in my personal honest opinion...
MDR-TB rocks!!!
Such beautiful and handsome actors and actresses!
Such stunning and powerful execution!
Definite academy award receiver!

And the best actress award goes to...........................

........... (drum roll).............

Esther as the malevolent judge in the MDR-TB trial.....

Me: Oh,I can't believe this. The other nominees were so fantastic in their roles ... *coughs*....not. .........

oh well....have to traack down the hill to clinical skills centre now!

Jaa ne~!

2006-03-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

What Your Face Says

At first glance, people see you as driven and ambitious.
Overall, your true self is reserved and logical.
With friends, you seem dramatic, lively, and quick to react.
In love, you seem mysterious and interesting.
In stressful situations, you seem sad and helpless.

What Do People Think Of Your Face?

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy

In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh.You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum.
Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Your Values Profile

Loyalty:
You value loyalty a fair amount.You're loyal to your friends... to a point.But if they cross you, you will reconsider your loyalties.Staying true to others is important to you, but you also stay true to yourself.
Honesty:
You don't really value honesty.You do value getting your way, no matter what.And if a little lying is required to do that, no problem.A few white lies never hurt anyone (at least, that's what you tell yourself!)
Generosity:
You don't really value generosity.Your needs always come first, no matter what.And you'll possibly help someone else out...But only if it helps you in return.
Humility:
You value humility highly.You have the self-confidence to be happy with who you are.And you don't need to seek praise to make yourself feel better.You're very modest, and you're keep the drama factor low.
Tolerance:
You value tolerance a fair amount.You are open to new cultures, beliefs, and ideas.You have very few prejudices that you're aware of.And while you are tolerant, you do stand true to what you believe.

The Five Factor Values Test

You Are Lightning

Beautiful yet dangerousPeople will stop and watch you when you appearEven though you're capable of random violence
You are best known for: your power
Your dominant state: performing

What Type of Weather Are You?

You Are 40% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well.In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

Your Inner Blood Type is Type A

You seem cool and collected, though a bit shy.You are highly driven and a perfectionist, but that's a side you keep to yourself.Creative and artistic, you are a very unique person who doesn't quite fit in.People accept you more than you realize, seeing you as trustworthy and loyal.
You are most compatible with: A and AB
Famous Type A's: Britney Spears and Hilter

What's" Your Inner Blood Type?

Your Hair Should Be Orange

Expressive, deep, and one of a kind.You pull off "weird" well - hardly anyone notices.

What's" Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

2006-03-06T01:40:00.000-08:00

The one day that i wake up early in fear that the stupid roads will be clogged with snow
and that I will be late , is the one day where the roads are clear and the no.40 takes 15 minutes to reach forresterhill...

And now i'm stuck here for another 20 minutes before the rest of my group turns up to rehearse the damn presentation for our SSM project on wednesday....

This is SHIT!

On the other hand, the boys ( Tom and Keith) were over last night,
and since I was bored, I started to dare them to drink different concoctions of vodka mixes
Hey! I was generous enough to share my precious 45% smirnoff with them!

Yup so this was basically, what we came up with:

1. 2 shots of vodka and a quart of thick frigg chocolate milkshake.

2. 2 shots of vodka+a shot of that milkshake+2 marshmellows.

3. A shot consisting of vodka and milk

4. A shot consisting of vodka + milk + tabesco sauce

hehehe....disgusting shit i tell you. I didn't drink any of them, but the smell was toxic enough...

But the boys downed them dutifully, though I must admit the after effects were rather amusing.
Apparently the marshmellow one (2) was the worst cause the marshie absorbed the vodka and milkshake and stuck to the back of their throats....major gag reflex stimulation...

Well, apparently, the Bbasement (the great cocktail place I went for my birthday bash ) is giving away 100 pounds for a new cocktail idea....

I'M EXPECTING A THIRD OF THAT PRIZE MONEY DUMMIES!!!

cheERs!

2006-03-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

Hey guys visit www.123numerology.com !

Get a free mini numerology report and free tutorials....

All quite interesting...though couldn't really agree with everything! But it's free! and there's nothing else to do anyways.... YAY!

Esther, your Life Path of 4 ...

You are a trustworthy, practical and down to earth individual who places ethics above materialism and greed. You are a humanist at heart, and your life path focus is usually related to manifesting the greater philosophical ideals into practical reality. For this reason your expectations of yourself and others are unusually high.

You are a doer, more than a talker and nothing annoys you more than an individual that does not follow through on what he or she says he is going to do. You don't suffer fools gladly and have no problem swiftly eliminating people who you consider being a liability from your life. You especially have no tolerance for silly, neurotic or shallow people.

One of the problems of being a four is that you expect others to be of demanding of themselves as you are of yourself. It is painful for you to realize that others simply don't have the same perseverance, dedication and devotion to improving the world that you do. Many 4's are also extremists, tending to be very right wing or very left wing in their thinking.

Your incredible stamina, perseverance and will power allow you to accomplish ten times the amount of work that anyone else can in one day. Others often realize this about 4 and take advantage of your almost superhuman qualities. Your organization and planning skills are exemplary and for that reason you are a fantastic strategist, administrator, project manager. You are a perfect example of how "slow and steady wins the race."

Often your tenacity and strong will is perceived as stubbornness. Fours often don't make good leaders as others see them as too autocratic and demanding. Of all of the numbers, you are most prone to such disorders as obsessive compulsive disorder and being addicted to perfection. The plus side of this is that many of you own dream homes that are spic and span from top to bottom. You are also an excellent landscaper and interior decorator.

You are enraged by any type of social injustice and can be quite outspoken about politics, religion or ethics. Although your intentions are good, it is also one of your life challenges to learn to be tolerant of other's beliefs and opinions.

As the number 4 is associated with the earth element and the four elements you a re the most grounded of all of the numbers. This makes you an excellent parent and provider. You usually marry early in life and because of your conscientiousness about money are quite wealthy by the end of your days. You also love animals and will probably enjoy the company of many pets during your lifetime.

2006-03-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

Snow Blizzard right outside my window!
WHOOHOO!

yes....nothing better to do on a sunday afternoon...
will make a cup of hot chocholate with marshmellows and sit in front of my window staring
It's really quite intriguing....

As are the following quizzes from quiz galaxy as introduced from xin hui's blog!

Cheers!

Take'>http://www.quizgalaxy.com/quiz.php?id=41">Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

The Picto-Personality Test

You are a person who is incredibly tranquil and values peace above all else.

When alone, you let it all hang out and ignore every social convention.

You are romantic, and when you are with your partner you like to woo them with your imagination.

In the future you will be happy and live richly.

Take'>http://www.quizgalaxy.com/quiz.php?id=71">Take this Test at QuizGalaxy.com

2006-03-02T12:28:00.000-08:00

Today my patient cried on me....
man....

and no....I did not make him cry.

Poor Mr A.R

Damn! British rail!
49.5 years of exellent service driving ur stinky trains which messed up his bowels and led to faecal incontinence and all u gave him was a stinking watch and a microwave.

You bastards!

You stinkos!

May your rail lines rust in agony!!!!

2006-03-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

whoohoo!
Going to continue snowing over the weekend.

today after a hard days work working over the damn SSM,
finally managed to go home and PLAY in the SNOW!!!!

had a brief snow fight with the Dana, Noura, Laura and Grant...
the snow fall is excellent!
nice thick fluffy snow!
COOL!

yup, and after the buggers left for the Bobbin,
me and angela decided to build a snowman...
well, so see, there're some road works goin on now on the road just outside our flat
so there's this huge digging tractor that has been diggin up the road
so when the snow came, work stopped basically of the snow in.

so...we decided that the most befitting place for our masterpiece should be on one of the wheels of the tractor.
hehehe....

yup, so after half and hours hard work, rolling huge balls of snow
and sourcing for eyes, and nose and arms,
hey presto!
we had..... GENERAL CHARLIE...
Lost the fingers of his right hand in the war, but still standing strong in the cold blistering snow drift.

He's the best snowman of all!

All Salute General Charlie!

2006-02-28T15:54:00.000-08:00

It's snowing again....
how beautiful....

I wish time could freeze in this one pristine moment...
where all is still
and all that is heard is the
soft hush of angel wings
whispering amongst the falling blessings from heaven...........

2006-02-25T06:18:00.000-08:00

Currently on my second rotation .... at DOME @ WOODEND HOSPITAL

Woodend hospital is a truly interesting place....
as one irritating coursemate said " It's like disneyland without mickey mouse"

Well from that I suppose you could make an intelligent guess that this hospital deals mainly in geriatrics, neuropsychology and neurology and everything else that goes with care for the elderly.

we've been introduced to the MSQ ( Mental Status Quiz ) I think,
which is a short series of ten questions where u humiliate both yourself and the person your questioning.
I've taken to telling the patients " If it's alright with you, may I ask you some ROUTINE questions"
and then I start asking them whether they know where they are, when the were born, and the most interesting questions of all....'' Who's the previous prime minister? (JOhn Major) and Who's the current prime minister?"

So far, the above two celebrities have been referred to as the Good Guy and the Bad Guy...respectively. No commento.
And yes, one little old lady said at the end of my clerking, " I knew what u were doing in the beginning my dear, you were asking me about my political views weren't u? But I nae (didn't) fell fer it" (Dun you just love the scottish tongue?)
watashiwa said .... " Aye mam, you got me there"

Yup, basically it's to see whether their orientated and whether their all there, and to see whether what we've just spent the past hour collecting is a big fat concoction of dementia, alzheimers or psychosis. Oh joy.,,

but it really is very interesting, these past two weeks I've heard the most intriguing and fascinating cases such as woman who spent 3 days in hospital talking to someone by her bed who wasn't really there and she suddenly cleared up on day 4 and little invisible person disappeared, man who slammed his head into a low wall on a sleding accident and believes he is 47 though he is really 53, really nice old lady who went on about her nervous coughs when her actual presenting complaint was pseudogout of the knee ( I loved this little old lady, she really was the sweetest)..... so on so forth.

I've learnt quite alot and through countless questions beginning with the slightly mocking " So Dr. Tan ( me frantically glances and badge, very sure that i had skewed it out of sight of tutor) tell me what other investigations would u be doing for this old gentleman with painless jaundice?" ( for all the med students out there, painless, post hepatic jaundice...differential diagnosis is head of pancreas cancer, impinging on common bile duct. prognosis, around 6 mths even with chemo and radiotherapy)

this whole Dr. business is disarming. It sends all of us nitwits into a freaking state of confusion. It puts added pressure. Please call us by our first names. It relieves some of the weight of responsibility. But of course there will be some shit heads who smile and bask at this whole Dr. business and at the same time give the most ridiculous, stupid, imbecilic answers.

For ur viewing pleasure .... 50yr old man, presents with jaundice and swollen legs
Tutor: " So Dr. M.., what is the most clinically worrying sign this gentleman is presenting with?"

"Dr. M.." ( smiling a confident smile) " His swollen legs."

yes yes, some may argue, swollen legs, right congestice heart failure and all that but! HE's FREAKING JAUnDICed? Does that not ring alarm bells of liver probs, or possible splenic hyperactivity? They are more worrying acute problems if u ask me.

yup...so , don't have high expectations of this graduating batch.

but then again, I have to once again applaud and extend gratitude to our most patient co-stars. The patients.

Thank u for putting up with a whole group of medics stabbing u in the carotids to get a pulse to figure out which is the first and second heart sound as they " molest" u trying to feel ur apex beat, but of course it's not in ur stomach or epigastric region, but that's where we fools will constantly prod u.

Thank you for not beating the living daylights out of us whilst we continuously ask u the same stupid question over and over again.

and Thank you Mrs S, for your words of teachings and ur kind words of acceptance and gratitude for this failing profession. yes, the medical profession has evolved into a more caring and concerned one. It's really sad for Mrs S, cause her MSC ( a more advanced mental test) has put her in high likelihood of alzheimers. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!! Do not lose yourself!!!!

I'll always remember wat u told me when we shook hands at the end of our wee chat
Mrs S " You've got lovely cold hands."
me... " erm......."
Mrs S " Do you have a warm heart?"
me... " Well, I do hope i have a warm heart" ( me more concerned with physioogical implications)
Mrs S " I'm sure u do. as they say " Warm hands cold heart. Cold hands warm heart" "
me... " thank you so much."

2006-02-14T04:23:00.000-08:00

You Are an Old Soul

You are an experienced soul who appreciates tradition.Mellow and wise, you like to be with others but also to be alone.Down to earth, you are sensible and impatient.A creature of habit, it takes you a while to warm up to new people.
You hate injustice, and you're very protective of family and friendsA bit demanding, you expect proper behavior from others.Extremely independent you don't mind living or being alone.But when you find love, you tend to want marriage right away.
Souls you are most compatible with: Warrior Soul and Visionary Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

You Were a Swan

You are a spiritual soul who sees into the future.
You are also good at interpreting dreams - those of yourself and others.

What Animal Were You In a Past Life?

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:

You have low extroversion.
You are quiet and reserved in most social situations.
A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you.
You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people.

Conscientiousness:

You have high conscientiousness.
Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life.
Most things in your life are organized and planned well.
But you borderline on being a total perfectionist.

Agreeableness:

You have low agreeableness.
Your self interest comes first, and others come later, if at all.
In general, you feel that people are not to be trusted.
And you're skeptical that anyone else really feels differently.

Neuroticism:

You have medium neuroticism.
You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic.
Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy.
Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of.

Openness to experience:

Your openness to new experiences is high.
In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas.
You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits.
A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

The Five Factor Personality Test

You Are The Empress

You represent the ideal female figure: beauty and nurturing.
You bring security and harmony to many.
At times, you are also a very sensual person.
You are characterized by love, pleasure, and desire.

Your fortune:

You need to take some time to think about the role of commitment in your life.
It's possible you need to commit more to others, or deal with how others have treated you.
It is very important for you to support your friends and family right now, difficult as it may be.
You may need to look at your relationship with your mother, or your relationships as a mother.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Your Hidden Talent

Your natural talent is interpersonal relations and dealing with people.
You communicate well and are able to bring disparate groups together.
Your calming presence helps everything go more smoothly.
People crave your praise and complements.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

You Have a Choleric Temperament

You are a person of great enthusiasm - easily excited by many things.
Unsatisfied by the ordinary, you are reaching for an epic, extraordinary life.
You want the best. The best life. The best love. The best reputation.

You posses a sharp and keen intellect. Your mind is your primary weapon.
Strong willed, nothing can keep you down. Your energy can break down any wall.
You're an instantly passionate person - and this passion gives you an intoxicating power over others.

At your worst, you are a narcissist. Full of yourself and even proud of your faults.
Stubborn and opinionated, you know what you think is right. End of discussion.
A bit of a misanthrope, you often see others as weak, ignorant, and inferior.

What Temperment Are You?

2006-02-09T12:47:00.000-08:00

It is finally OVER!!!
Hooray! two months of fussing, worrying, stress ended today at half past 11 in the morning!

LIFE BEGINS AGAIN!!!!

yup, just an update...

Tuesday's paper, on the 7th of Feb,
The MEQ (Modified ESsay Question) part was ok, it was doable thanks to the numerous, CPC and problem solving sessions that we had. ( CPC, is when we go through post mortem cases, complete with post mortem video....yummy. )

It was also doable thanks to the tips dropped by mcclay and devereux....cheers man! or should i say men )

after our lunch break of 2 hours, we went back for the 2nd part of the paper which was the EMQ bit ( extended multiple choice questions apparently) yeah....and it was like.....
NANI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah...everyone walked out of it with a, WTF look, even the smartest, nerdiest few.
yeah, the run down is that they gave questions, on topics and subjects that were NOT even covered in lectures, or from lectures that were missed and NOT RESCHEDULED.
So in short, it was a failed exam paper, because it failed to test us on the stuff that we were actually taught and was more like a test of our guessing skills....

oh well....at least everyone felt the same way, so hopefully the curve ( yes they do draw curves this year) will help me pass.

Funny thing that happened : I was so anxious and rushing here and there in the morning, that I put my polo T on front to back, only realised this when i was sitting in the hall and was about to take off my sweater, needless to say, it stayed on for the rest of the 1st paper.

Yup, the second paper on the 9th, Thurs

it was good, the questions were just right....and the only bad thing about it was that EVERYOne felt it was good.....

This is bad, because that means that if u get ONE MISTAKE, u fall a grade...
oh shit...I know I have a couple of mistakes already....

Anyways.....I'm going to watch ER...(hopefully)

HELLO WORLD!
ET-SAMA IS BACK!!!!!

2006-02-04T01:55:00.000-08:00

Esther, your true color is Black!

Your color is black. The color of night. Serene and mysterious, black conjures up images of elegant evening gowns, dashing tuxedos, and gleaming limousines. Traditionally a symbol of success, black also represents power and an uncompromising demand for perfection. Not surprisingly, you tend to set challenging goals for yourself and do whatever it takes to achieve them — your strength of character is second to none. This unfaltering determination, along with your natural elegance, impresses people. But keep in mind that your personality might be intimidating to some. Try to temper your demanding side with a little softness — trust us, it won't kill you. Overall, though, black is the color of professionalism and achievement, which means it's clearly the color for you.

2006-02-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's either this or management of COPD!

Japanese Proverbs...................

"Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back an ass"

“Life without endeavor is like entering a jewel-mine and coming out with empty hands”

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” - Albert Pine

“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live.” - Mortimer Adler

and of course, how can we forget....the best philosopher of all eternity....

“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”

~Voltaire~

Touche my man, touche ....

2006-02-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

In line with ''the things that we shouldn't really be doing when we have an exam 6 days away...''
Here's

" The ULTIMATE Pad Thai"

By: Chef extraordinare ET-sama

yup...tonight we have succulent pad thai noodles from 'instant pad thai' from Matthew's the local favourite chinese food shop.

Prepare, the spices and oil which comes in neat little packets with precise proportions in the aforesaid delicacy.

Next start the water boiling, and add ur greens!

Now, for a little extra something, let's do our own side dishes!

why dun we have stirfried diced turkey with spring onions and a dash of soy for a refreshing twist throw in a couple of cherry tomatoes.

Next the main dish, salmon marinated in lemon and a dash of dark sauce with a whole lot of other SECRET ingredients into this mesmerising, tangy flavoured marinade.
Leaved, diced or sliced salmon to soak in this tasty bath for about an hour...

then let the sizzle and dazzle begin....

Yummy.....

such nutrition is ABSOLUTELY necessary for the starving mind....
especially when it's STARVING FROM FACTS and FIGURES!

Bon Apetit~!

2006-01-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

Today has been a good day...
not great because of the stress but it was good...
right whilst waiting for my chili to simmer to perfection ( kidney beans and tomatoes with garlic...wow...i;m really eating healthy )

anyway.... here's my day....the last day of lectures ( we have one last wards tml) before we break for......STUDY WEEK and then ...................... EXAMS!!!!

Right so this morning after our final lecture on pleural disease we had wards.
It was history taking this morning, and we are currently based at orthopaedics...
which I have to state for the record does the BEST tutorials so far...competent, interesting and funny registrar ( irish bloke ...it's in their blood )

yup, so off me and my partner went off to clerk Mrs H.H
H.H , 85y, Female, been in hospital for 3 weeks
broke her right neck of femur on a trivial fall ( sorry can't go into details )
yup...so she's a really sweet old lady, but kinda deaf, and we thought she was all hale and hearty
though just maybe a bit lacking on the memory side, so we didn't get much out of her
and we were just about to leave to reconvene to present our cases, when lo an behold
the curtains are drawn and in comes this huge bloke of a consultant

Well, he comes in and says " Well, a rather interesting case we have here , eh"
and we were like, '''er....yeah" ( but come on we were thinking....old woman, broken NOF fracture, dime a dozen in this ministry of funny walks)

and then we just presented our patient to him,
and he was like " looks like she hasn't been telling u much, eh "
and we were " yeah, she can't remember wat drugs she's been taking"

And then, he proceeded to give us our OWN PRIVATE TUTORIAL on pathological fractures, how to diagnose them, common problems with bed rest,
drug treatment, and the mechanism on how bisphosphonates work, even down to little mini osteoclastic movements. yup and he talked about her condition ( myeloma if anyone's wondering) and epidemiology and stuff.

It was great! (yes, medical student hunger for such personal attention and additional teaching, it's in our blood)
And he was so nice about it, and encouraging, and patient.
Yup, turns out later he was a consultant haematologist not a surgeon as we thought.
haha...our registrar refered to him as Denis the menace with his big physique and shock of curly red hair.

Thanks for the tutorial Dr. H. W! Saved us for the presentation!

I have to share this with you guys .....
" What do they say about orthopaedic surgeons?"
" As strong as an OX and JUST about twice as smart."

Told, during one of our clinical lectures by an orthopaedic surgeon who apparently did the queen mother's ( or was it the queen's) hip replacement.

haha...ortho surgeons are just so funny....informal, non-aloof pple, who make wards fun!
Cheers to them!

Right so after wards, we had lunch and then a Pharmacology problem solving session
with Dr. D and Dr. Mc Clay ( yup Mr How many ways can u kill ur patient). And these 2 were like a tag team....slaggin each other off, playing off each other, smart remarks and being game to havin the piss taken out of them by us. they were great!

It was good, learnt alot, had fun, didn't get the roving microphone (...phew)
even got to hear an authentic BOVINE cough....courtesy of one of my colleagues
haha...it was so sudden that even Dr. D, the consultant respiratory physician was thrown offguard... hahahaa......

you know,
to all you doctors and surgeons who take the time off to come lecture us, and take us on wards
and do your utmost best to make it a fun and enriching experience,
where we get to learn invaluable stuff from experiences, and not having our dignity torn and our confidence shredded to pieces whenever we give really STUPID answers, by your magnanimity in saying things like " well, yes........SEVERE liver cirrhosis might be a cause of haemoptysis ( coughing up blood ) .... BUT.....in this case of an elderly gentleman with increasing breathlessness and pleuritc pain....that is an answer I wouldn't be putting down on my exam sheet."

Sweet.....
No wonder they emphasis so much on that STUPID COMMUNICATION SKILLS COURSE...

Righto....can smell my chilli coming through the kitchen door....

Cheers!

2006-01-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

it's been an interesting, traumatic and stressful week thus far....and a great one too...

...... better put, it's been a schizophrenic week...

Interesting and traumatic....
Had the video recording session for the STUPID medical interviewing and communication skills course....
Man....I just DO NOT FILM WELL...
I looked as though I was about to beat the shit out of the patient.
And I was fidgety,
and ....man......

THIS SUCKS!

Well...yeah I suppose I got the questions right but....STILLL....I LOOKED WEIRD!!!!

And guess wat....we get to film again next year, this time for a full consultation....

Oh JOy.....

( For the record, I would like to state that I DO NOT behave as neurotically when I'm interviewing and clerking patients on the ward....that's because THEY ARE REAL!!! not some fake ass actor.... )

Stressful.....

Exams in about 1.5 weeks time....
Still struggling to go through everything the first time....

Does this not SPELL IT CLEARLY TO YOU.....?

Great......

GOING TO TORONTO THIS EASTER TO VISIT ZHU!!!!

YIPPEEE!

Tickets booked, liasons made, parental consent finally gotten!

ALRIGHT!!!

Now....all I need to do is pass these exams.....

Menu for tonight's dinner....

grilled chicken and turkey burger with stirfried pasta in garlic sauce

and a side of potato wedges

Desert : American cheesecake muller's corner ( a type of yoghurt )

cheers!

2006-01-20T06:56:00.000-08:00

tagged by zhu...

8 Aspects of my ideal partner...

1) Respects me

2) Understands me

3) Intersting and has a sense of humour ( if i wanted to talk to a block of wood, I'd go hug a tree)

4) Intelligent and Witty

5) Must be equally clever or comfortably smarter than me
( dun wanna keep having to explain things all the time, and face it, who wants to go out with a total retard?! Comfortably smarter? I don't want a prick, snob or shithead... so just tat tinge bit smarter will be fine )

6) Has a respectable decently well paid job ( or if undergraduate, predictable aforesaid good future)

7) Loyal, trustworthy and honest ( they come as a definite trio! )

8) Presentable looking ( hey! I'm not even asking for good looking, just presentable looking to society and parents! )

well...it's a realistic world we live in, but nobody said that dreaming is illegal...

I won't eveen bother to tag anyone, because unlike zhu i have horrible frens (except for xinhui) who didn't even respond to the previous tagging game....

2006-01-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

Just completed my first day after my B-day as an adult!
WHOOPEE.....!

Actually I don't feel that much different but still....oh NO!!!! ....
I see a crease....oh NOOOOOO!
A wrinkle.....

I'm AGING!!!

yup anyway, just a quick after dinner entry.

Yesterday, we went to the bobbin (our local pub) for dinner and drinks to celebrate.
hehe...yes...second celebration you should say...
haha...but no it wasn't as havoc as the previous one...

I had a spicy chicken burger with all the trappings of onion rings and chips.
yup....the traditional meal you have as u progress the scottish way towards obesity and
coronary heart disease...but oh well....u only live once.

and yes...if u were wondering....I had only ONE drink
my usual : triple vodka with lemonade.

Anyways...yup...it was a nice enough night with close frens
me, noura, dana, thomas, and keith... ( yes, we are back on friend status terms with keithy....hehe...our comradeship went rough just before the christmas hols when he, thomas and peter STOLE...the last quarter of my bottle of vodka when they came over for board games night....but that's another story. Moral of the story: Do NOT touch my vodka without my permission..otherwise....Dana will come down hard on you because what kinda of world would it be if your OWn vodka can't be safe in your own home....it's a matter of PRINCIPLE...

Cheers mate...

yup...so we were chatting and having fun, then we decided to play the little quiz machines that they have in the bobbin.
u put 5op in and then u choose to play one of the many quiz games they have available such as ClUEDO, monopoly, hangman, bulls eye, Who wants to be a millionaire etc.
And for each game there's a jackpot of say 10 or 20 pounds, or u get some cash if u reach a certain level....

Yup...so messed around spent quite a few 50ps and then decided tat we were much better at CLUEDO...so after losing for quite a bit,
we finally hit jackpot!
10 whole pounds!!!!
( yes...and it's a profit! We won back our capital and a bit! WHOOHOO!!)

yup...and since it was my birthday, I had 10 happy pounds stuffed into my hands!

Thanks guys! YOu're the best!
Love ya guys! ( and it's not because of the pocket money~! :P )

Yup, so after that we headed back to noura's flat, which is just opposite me and dana's and watched ER.....
it's a new season apparently...so i'm not going to say much abt it...
though the ending of that episode really made me see red and became a topic of controversial debate....

anyways....then we decided to watch a ......i'm ashamed to say this..... a Chick Flick...
yup, the poor lads who sat through it....haha.... DON'T SAY U DIDN'T ENJOY IT!!!
yup....those two had their eyes glued to the screen, seeing 3 lanky, svelte lassies prance
to and fro across the screen....
and singing " your penis is too big to fit in ...... ( go read ur anatomy!) "
Keith even came out of it singing " How do i live without you..."
Scary ain't it how these things affect u...

BTW, the film was called '' The Sweetest Thing"
any takers?

Well....it was a night of mindless fun!
And it was great!

and now....

I'm 21
I'm growing older
but I don't think wiser....

I have important exemption exams coming up in 3 weeks time...
And I'm still not in it heart and soul....

Oh well....Happy Birthday to ME!!!

2006-01-15T04:10:00.000-08:00

Well... duing the last 10 minutes of my morning break I'm going to fill in this entry...

Friday was such a funny day....
It was such a hilarious day, that i don't REALLY feel the least bit guilty that I didn study one bit...

Yup, so 1st first funny incident:
during wards in the morning, we were at A&E awaiting our tutorial on
"Revision of lower limb examination"
yup so we were waiting around, well wat do u expect? It's A&E. There are pple bleeding out there having fingers smashed by gas barrels, having heart attacks, who cares about the gangly bunch of 2nd years who will probably be looking after similar sorta pple 3 years down the road?

Anyway, yeah...so our tutor turned up 15 minutes before the class was about to end and flung a gown ( yes, one of those indecent tie stringy things tat aim at protecting ur modesty in the leastest bit) at Graeme who was the unfortunate guy sitting closest to the door.
"What's your name?"
"Graeme"
"There's a changing room just down the hall, go change"

hehehehe......

yup, so off goes young graeme, and returns after 20 minutes in the new getup of the season:
Hospital gown put on the wrong way round (@ the slit that's supposed at the back was running all the way down his front)
thankfully, the brains that put him in medical school made him put a belt around his waist to save the rampant spread of conjunctivitis that would have definitely spread in our group if he hadn't.

Tutor arrives, (yes by this time, we are already running into the walkin time that we are alloted to get from wards to lecture theatre) and tells graeme what we told him when he first entered
"you've got it the wrong way round son, but there's no time for u to change, go up to the front"

and then......

As grame made his short walk of shame to the front, the tutor PINCHED HIS TOOSH!!!!

heheheehehehehhheehee.....poor graeme.

And then he was made to lie on the floor, and since it was lower limb examination, his gown was lifted all the way up to expose his prime steak (not...)
and as we were going through the Look, FEEL, phase of examination, it was kinda evident to me that the tutor was obviously treating graeme like a admission of hip fracture garden's 4 (just a grading system)

yes...he was tender in stroking, and feeling and palpatin...

oh well....

hehe......not gonna pass any judgement here.

Right so the day went on, went home after 4 lectures on upper and lower respiratory tract infection which really made me want to cry and call it quits.

So went home, went round to watch some friends at noura's and then had dinner.
At 8, me, dana, and noura set off for Laura's.
We were visitng her that night since, she was always coming over to ours.
Haha...it was kinda long walk, but thankfully the wind had mercifully let up.

Laura has got a nice quaint flat near bedford road.
and she's got LOTSA cute toys and playthings in her flat.
Well...I must say that the toy I really enjoyed was this Tigger (winnie the pooh's neurotic tiger fren...ring any bells?)

Yup, it's not just any old tigger, it CAN ACTUALLY TUMBLE AND DO SOMERSAULTS!!!
yup, press it's nose and it starts to sing and tumble around and talk nonsense, sometimes it even falls asleep mid tumble.
And it's just so funny, man...if i had one of those i would be entertained for hours....yah i noe that's kinda pathetic but it's cute and stupid!!

yeah...and sometimes, it never stops, which earns its place in the rubbish basket, where it continues to neurotically (attempt to) tumble and say it's taunting phrases of " (*tigger laugh*) u thought i was finished didn you? Well...here we go again"

yup, then they brought out this bottle of mexican tequila.
(N.B I'm off alcohol for the month after wat happened on my birthday bash...hepatic recovery!)
and i'm talking authentic mexican tequila....with BIG FAT WORM swirling around at the base of the bottle.

......GROSS

But Noura, just started downing it...all 3 quarters of a 700ml bottle of TEQUILA.
(even I don't touch that foul stuff...unleess i'm feeling adventurous)
needleess to say, she came to the end and the worm slipped into her cup...
but by then she was all drunk but somehow managed to come up with the explanation of her being vegetarian and not being able to eat the worm because it was meat....

Honey... the worms been in there was ages...it's insides have been dissolved into the TEQUILA that u just downed and the thing that's in your cup is just an EMPTY HUSK FILLED WITH TEQUILA.

BAkaaaaaa..............

yeah...but then keith who was with us ( and is the first person i noe who has screwed his liver at 19 but that's another story) picked up the glass and ATE (@ CHEWED, MUNCHED, SWALLOWED) the FAT, SUCCULENT, WHITE WORM.....

yup, so after tat whole incident, we had another FUN task on getting noura who was dead drunk back home.
yup...so according to her principles we had to walk home...
yup, so we walked.
At least we walked...She skipped, ran and stumbled in a ZIG ZAG FASHION all the way back and then she decided to run into a cul de sac filled with pot holes...
and yes...after me an keith had pulled her off an iron gate she was attempting to climb, she slipped and twisted her ankle when she tripped out of a pot hole.

yup...so she was piggybacked by thomas, air lifted by the two boys back home.

.....Biiiiitchhh......

yup....so put her to bed with this MASSIVELY swollen ankle.

After the whole drama, dana and tom went to bed whilst me and keith stayed up yakking
over the hot pot of tea that i had made but no one cared to drink....Fuckrs...

yeah...keith is such a stupid boy.
he was telling me all about his love exploits and more often then not failed exploits.
haha...along with a detailed account of what happened last year, when kate and noura wrote all over his body when he was drunk.
yup...dun noe if u guys remember the story of the irish lad who got locked out of his own room and was found by the porters dancing up and down his flat corridor with his boxers on his head and everything else pretty much in the buff with writing all over his body including a big inscription of '' I love little boys"

Ring any bells?

yeah...so yak yak yak....4am I got bored, went for a shower and went to bed.

That was the end of my FUnnY day.....ehheheheeh

Jaa....