Ramblings About My Life..

This Blog Is Moving

2007-04-30T03:51:00.000+02:00

Yup. Moving to a new site, although it's only halfway under construction.

Things will be slightly improved there, hopefully. But don't expect to see too many changes as I'll be stuck with finals in a week.

Anyways, the url for the new site is http://asblackasobsidian.blogspot.com

Wish me luck for the finals, with my thanks in advance, and I'll see you around.

Some Pictures

2007-02-23T12:43:00.000+01:00

Thank you for noticing the unimaginative title of this entry. It's the best I can do on short notice and while totally bereft of any chocolate.

Enjoy the pictures!

We had a housewarming party to commemorate us moving into 46 Spring Hill - but it was basically just an excuse for us to make Suresh cook some curry!

A group picture after our housewarming party - note all the empty plates on the table.

Lisa's birthday was celebrated by us going to a Chinese buffet restaurant for dinner. Not very imaginative, yes, but was it satisfying? Definitely so!

On Deepavali, we had another small party where we invited the folks from 351 Crookesmoor Road over. Suresh lent me his jippa - and now I'm thinking of buying one for myself!

"Run away!" seemed to be the battle cry of this groups of knights who were seen wandering the streets of Sheffield during the Medic's Pubcrawl. It's odd, really, because they carried the largest swords ever seen in the history of the pubcrawl.

With a few of Hiromi's coursemates in her house in Leeds. It was during this party that I ate raw fish for the first time in the UK - and I'm still alive!

After everyone gave up wondering why there wasn't any snowfall at all during Christmas, it snowed all of a sudden in February.

BUT we still had to attend lectures...

Our plans to make Hiromi's birthday celebration were derailed when she arrived early - but we improvised surprisingly well and with lots of acting (most of it was appallingly bad acting), we managed to pull it off! Many thanks to everyone who helped out!

My T50 'sister', Rex! Hers is red and mine is black, so all we got to do now is to find someone who owns a silver one, and the set will be complete!

Photographic evidence that racism does occur over here. Hahaha! I'm just joking - it's Anna giving TLC to Suresh, as usual. It seems that even he's not spared at a birthday party.

It was snowing really heavily during Hiromi's birthday party. The heavy snowfall actually caused travel disruptions all over the Midlands that day! Here's a picture of our nondescript backyard, looking a lot prettier covered in a thick layer of snow.

The snow actually made the party a lot more fun than I thought it would be - we started snowball fights with strangers out in the streets, had intense snowball fights among ourselves and we even made a snowman!

The morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year was spent eating dim sum in Zing Vaa, a Chinese Restaurant in the Moor.

Anna's actually NOT physically abusing Suresh in this picture! What a rare sight indeed. Maybe it's the dim sum?

Some of the others who joined us that morning for dim sum - from left, Ming, Lisa, Jess and Mbugua.

P.S. - As my finals are just around the corner, I might not be updating for a while.

My Black Baby...

2007-01-06T16:16:00.000+01:00

The Sony Cybershot T-50.

7.2 megapixels with CCD image stabilization, 3X optical zoom, 56MB internal memory, max ISO of 1000, 3-inch touchscreen LCD display, among many other features. And it's mine. In matte-black finish. It's officially the highest-tech gadget to grace my palms this new year, and I'm undestandably excited to get this baby out as soon as possible and take tonnes of photographs. The fact that a GPS locator device came bundled with the T-50 helps to increase the uber-tech-coolness of it all. However, only a 512MB Memory Stick Pro Duo was given together with the camera, which means that I'll have to buy either a 1GB or a 2GB Memory Stick soon... Sigh. Which means I'll be spending more $$$, and I'm still feeling a bit guilty over this purchase even though my parents gave me the go-ahead to purchase this camera. Oh well. I'll just have to save on my monthly expenditure while I'm in the UK to make up for my extra spendings then.

P.S. - Many thanks to Jit Sen and Irwin for accompanying me in Singapore while I shopped for the camera and for saving me from an otherwise dull day stoning at home. It was the most fun I had in quite a while!

P.P.S. - Congrats to Irwin for landing the job on the spot right after being interviewed - and for being the 10th worker! Now your company has to find another 190 more...

Is It The Apocryha Yet?

2006-12-23T17:52:00.000+01:00

It is only natural that it should rain in the monsoon season and that Malaysia should become more or less in that physical state we humans deem as Wet. It might also be, rather approximately, in the slightly more superflous expansion of Wet, which is Drenched. What is unnatural is for many parts of Malaysia to be in that geologically-disadvantaged (or aquatically-inclined) condition we term as Flooded. What is so unusual about this, you ask. After all, Malaysia is well-known for drainage so radical and cutting-edge in it's planning and construction that the construction of drains and runoffs precipitate floodings when there were none before - we meant it to happen, of course. Why else do you think our country has never had a water shortage before? Oh, wait. We've had water shortages before. Despite being inundated with so much annual rainfall we could probably wash Singapore clean off the map. But those water shortages were probably due to human error - namely, human error in constructing the pipes in such a manner so that the only way for the piped water to reach it's intended destination is for a rip in the space-time continuum and the spontaneous creation of a wormhole from the pipe to the target location. Or even human error as in some construction worker thinking Hey, there seems to be a metallic cylindrical thingamajig here. I wonder what happens when I put this pneumatic drill through it? So, by an odd combination of happy coincidences, the answer is yes, we do get Flooded lot.

But the real point I'm trying to get at here is this - some places that are normally just Wet or Drenched during our country's monsoon season are Flooded this year around. And the places that are usually Flooded have been upgraded in status to Submerged And Lost To Humanity this time around. Let's take Kota Tinggi, for instance. It was my dad's hometown and was particularly prone to flooding in the olden days. Back then, the floodwaters were at the most as high as knee-height - the floods would severely inconvenience people by messing up their floors and giving the townfolk a few weeks' worth of gossip but the occurence of floods stopped after the riverbanks in the town centre were shored up, reinforced with concrete and raised in height. However, the floods that hit Kota Tinggi this year had a waterline that reached the first floor of buildings, leaving Kota Tinggi inaccessible except via sampan. Looking at the pictures, it was as if a short-sighted town planner (believe me, we have no shortage of them) had gotten the map coordinates wrong and had decided to build an entire town in a mudflat at lowtide and decided to check on it again at hightide. Kota Tinggi has always struggled to bring in tourism despite the fact that they have absolutely nothing to offer, but with the advent of floods this severe, we just might have another attraction on the itinerary's must-sees of Visit Malaysia 2007 - "A Low Cost Alternative To Venice - Kota Tinggi!".

This current spate of events set me thinking. And no, it wasn't so that I could skive off reading the Physiology textbook that I brought home with me, supposedly Study, For The Purpose Of but actually Gathering Dust, In The Act Of. I've never really thought about the weather except to cuss at it when it's bloody rubbish. Even when cussing it I don't really think about it. It's just an off-the-cuff response. I do it because people often use it as a conversation topic. "Bloody awful weather, isn't it?", they'd say, and I'll just reply out of rote, "Yeah, it's absolutely rubbish." This time around, I'm actually asking myself why? before I open my mouth to cuss at the weather. This time, I'm actually thinking, could this be due to global warming? Why not? Everyone knows about global warming. In a nutshell, we're baking our planet in the very gases we emit and this in turn causes a series of unfortunate events to occur, for instance, floods, forest fires, changes in weather patterns, melting of the Artic ice and an increase in the sea level - and we blame everything on it. Cute seal pups and baby penguins dying because the ice floe they call home is now a rapidly diluting patch of fresh water in the sea, multiple species of oceanic flora and fauna dying out due to changes in the water current patterns and temperature, that humongous blizzard that buried several towns but will make for an extremely White Christmas, etc. Heck, you could even blame the increase in the local crime rate and the clogging of the kitchen sink due to it.

I've always regarded the whole global warming thing as a superbly overhyped marketing tool used by the environmentalists' lobby to sell it's cause to us. It is the perfect foil - everything is blamed on global warming since it is said to affect the whole world and since it's effects are so widespread and diffuse, you can blame just about anything on it and yet no one will be able to prove you wrong. You might not be entirely correct, but you ain't completely wrong either. And so we play the blame game. That avalanche that buried a ski village in the Alps? Blame it on a global warming-caused shift in wind currents causing an abnormally large amount of snowfall - not the drunk idiot who yodeled all night long. The rapidly declining total area of coral in the Great Barrier Reef? Blame it on global warming, which caused a change in the oceans' currents and therefore a change of water temperature - and not the tanker which ran aground right next to it. And since I've never seen seal pups or baby penguins drowning just because their iceberg has melted because they can bloody well swim, I can say that I regarded the whole outcry about global warming with a skeptical eye. That was when I noticed the reason as to why I wasn't taking it seriously. All the disasters attributed to global warming happen somewhere else or cause incidents that I think have better explanations rather than the usage of one blanket term to elucidate everything. However, when things happen in your backyard that you think is a direct effect of global warming, one tends to sit up and take notice.

The recents of the past few days has made me a believer (more or less) of the effects of global warming - but it's not just due to the flooding of several towns and cities in Malaysia that converted me. I've been reading about several extreme weather conditions that occurred in the recent years and I think I'm beginning to understand where the tree-huggers are coming from. However, I'm not encouraging anyone to believe that global warming is the cause of every natural disaster that occurs on Earth and sell your SUV and go for one of those pansy hybrid cars or try to burn down your nearest gas/coal-fired power station (which, may I remind you, is not only a criminal offence but will also be a major source of pollution). Yes, really. What I'm trying to get at is to say that we should be mindful of our actions, which will have profound consequences on th environment that we live in. Whether we like it or not, it is generally agreed that we are stuck on this lump of soil, rock, magma and water that we call Earth for at least a couple more generations to come. So until our great-great-great grandkids are able to purchase that ticket to take them to Lunar New York City or Lunar London and us humans are able to transport a representative population of every species of lifeform on this planet to a Lunar Zoo, let's just try to keep this planet habitable and refrain from killing each other while we're at it. Or else, well, let's just say that we don't really have much of a choice, do we?

Forget the iPhone, the iPod Tiny, the iPod Microscopic, the iPod NotThere or whatever uber cool products are going to be released by a certain fruit company in the coming future. In this millenium, the iApocalypse is back in vogue.

About Cooking And Sex

2006-12-01T13:05:00.000+01:00

No. Pay attention. Seriously. This post isn't about a raunchy experience on the kitchen table or the usage of certain vegetables in certain ways. What this post is actually about is the fundamental similiarities between culinary endeavours and bedroom shenanigans. Yes, really. I do not profess to be an expert in both, so if do forgive me if you spot any mistakes. Kindly drop me a message and I will hasten to ingore your worthless rambli-I mean, I will take your points into due consideration.

ONE
Both are not precise sciences, you learn by making mistakes and educated guesses.

TWO
You learn about both better by not reading about them, but by looking at pictures and videos.

THREE
You always put more effort into both when you want another person to enjoy your efforts.

FOUR
You never saw the point of both when you were a kid, but now that you're older you saw the light.

FIVE
The first time is always (or usually) disastrous.

SIX
Both are in a way vital to our continued survival on this planet.

SEVEN
Timing determines whether you cross the fine line into excellence or drop into averageness in both.

EIGHT
Injury to yourself is a very real risk in both if you're not careful.

NINE
It takes practice, practice and more practice to excel in both.

TEN
It is always fun to try new recipes - if they work out, great, but if they don't then you can always have a laugh about them afterwards.

I'M ALIVE!!!

2006-11-07T14:34:00.000+01:00

Yeah. So. I'm alive, although I probably surmised that you had gathered as much after reading the title of this post. Unless your idea of "living" goes beyond the basic physiological mechanisms of breathing and a beating heart. If so, then our discussion might cut to a long and lengthy dissertation on medicine, theological beliefs and the meaning of life - but let's just skip that part and go along with the general majority and assume that I'm alive, alright? Well, to cut a long and very annoying story long, the place where I'm currently calling home for my second year in Sheffield has no bloody Net connection. You're prolly thinking like, whaddafuk? and I must say yeah, whaddafuk since even llamas in the Tibetan highlands probably have Net access these days. Right now, I'm typing this in the Student Union's Gallery in the 20 minutes I have before I rush off to Patient Encounters halfway across Sheffield in the Northern General Hospital.

Here are some one-line updates:

I'm staying right on top of a hill so steep that I encounter rock climbers on my way home.
I have 3 other housemates, two other medics (oh the horror) and a chemical engineer (even worse).
No one is sane in the house.
3 guys and 1 girl - just 1 bathroom - outwit, outplay, outlast!
Mushrooms are growing on the kitchen wall and we have absolutely no idea why. Really.
I can cook.
Hiromi can cook a lot better than me.
No one has been sent to A and E after eating the dishes that I've cooked.
My room is the smallest room in the house.
Our basement contains roughly 85% of all the mould present on the planet.
There is enough space in my room for one cupboard, a working desk, a set of drawers and a single bed, leaving a 2-by-1 metre space for walking.
Our next-door-neighbour's garden is absolutely beautiful.
We have a dilapidated shack in our backyard that will collapse the next time it rains.
I dressed up as Sir Belvedere from Monty Python's "Holy Grail" for this year's Medics' Pubcrawl.
It is not possible to climb up a wall that has tree branches over it if you've had a pint and are carrying another in your hand without cracking your head on the branch.
Some people are complete idiots. Wow, that's new.
The second year of medical school so far has been a lot more fun than last year.
I've not played DotA for more than 3 months.
Tesco brand chocolate spread sucks.
Do not pet stray cats and sniff/lick your fingers before you've dunked your fingers in antiseptic liquid.
Avoid sudden movement when your fingers are in a puddle of milky yellow fluid inside the cavity of a cadaver.
The water pressure in our shower is so low that the showerhead trickles water instead of spraying.
Never carry out a conversation with a person who is incapable of logical thought progression.
Max's testicles are in his hair. Metaphorically.
It is a proven law of Nature that all the computers in the Student's Union will always be in use when you need to use one.
Listening to British rock repeatedly makes you like it - eventually.
There is an infinite number of train lines to Leeds.
It is not possible to spar on a sweat-slicked floor.
When in doubt - stir-fry!
When still in doubt - bake!
When irrevocably in doubt - break out the Indomee!
Strangers from Malaysia actually do know where Sheffield is - thanks, Sheffield United!

Anyway, I've got to run so this will be all for now. Goodness knows when the next update will be, as I foresee no Internet access in my place anytime soon!

P.S. - I'll be trying to get tickets for Sheffield United VS Manchester United in Bramall Lane! Wahahaha! Hopefully they've not sold out!

The Asagi And The Second Dan

2006-09-15T21:07:00.000+02:00

I'm back - after almost a month of not posting anything. To give you a brief overview of the state of affairs in my life, it should perhaps suffice to say that it has been a pretty hectic past few weeks for me. I did quite a bit of travelling when Hiromi came over to visit for a second time and this time we went on a brief tour of Kuala Lumpur in addition to a short weekend over at Cameron Highlands. To be completely honest with you, I've never explored the capital before as thoroughly as I did this time - my experience of the capital was mostly the shopping areas and my knowledge of the how-tos of getting around were limited to KTM Komuter, the LRT and the Monorail. So it was rather an eye-opener for me when I visited places located within the tourist belt that I had never been to even though I knew that they existed, by virtue of seeing them on the idiot box, textbooks, magazines, billboards, etc. Sue me for being a terrible Malaysian if you must. Anyway, we rounded up her trip by going to the Singapore Zoological Gardens - I had been there for goodness-knows how many times before, but since there wasn't many things to see in JB (I brought her to the Sultan Abu Bakar Museum, okay? So don't chew me out for being a bad Johorean!), we decided to spend a day in our little neighbour across the Tebrau Straits. After that, we spent another couple of days just staying in JB until it was time for her to leave for the UK.

After she left, things at home became a lot quieter and I soon discovered that I was bored stiff. Did I touch my textbook that I dutifully lugged all the way back to Johor Bahru from Sheffield after deluding myself that I would actually do summertime revision? The answer should be pretty obvious to you even without me needing to type anything else. I guess I'm just not the type to do summertime revision - it is technically summer all-year round over here but I guess the statement still holds true nonetheless. I'm the blueprint for laziness - ever since my primary school, secondary school and college days I've been loath to do any revision in my free time. I know it's a pretty bad habit of mine that I need to change if I am to survive the next four years in medical school, but somehow I've still managed to stay the same. And damn it, it's making me feel guilty. Perhaps I'll just assuage this guilt I'm feeling by doing a bit of work for my assignment (which is due anyway a week after term starts). Maybe later. I still have tonnes of stuff I need to do before I leave for Sheffield this coming Monday. There's still things to be bought, stuff to be packed, matters to handle and various odd-jobs around the house that I will have to see to before Monday. I can't exactly explain this, but I want to return to Sheffield now that I'm back. Sitting around idly doesn't really seem to suit me - it's making me complacent, lazy and undisciplined. I really want to begin Phase 1B ASAP - and even as I say that it feels weird because barely three months ago I was really looking forward to getting back home and do nothing. Maybe after I go back to Sheffield I'll feel like returning home. Who knows? My mind works in an unfathomable way.

There's also been a new fish in the pond recently. My uncle recently "sourced" an asagi for my family because my dad told my uncle to keep an eye out for any nice fish in the market. However, this caused quite a lot of problems. Firstly, after buying a mixture of ten juvenile showas and kohaku plus one absolutely microscopic asagi (technically, the tiny asagi was given to us free) from a fish farm in the capital during our holiday up there, we thought that our pond was already overcrowded with over a thirty fishes in it. We initially refused the offer because we didn't think that our pond could handle another fish, and a two-and-a-half feet long asagi at that! However, my dad relented after my uncle told him that our pond had too many juveniles, and that we needed a "leader" fish to make the other fishes bolder and unafraid of us. So we drove all the way up to Kota Tinggi, paid RM250, collected the new fish and brought it back in the boot of my dad's car. The result? It proved to be the best buy we made. The new asagi proved to be completely unafraid of us and now it's leading the juveniles to be hand-fed by us. Even though it isn't and probably will never be a show-quality asagi, I still think that the new fish isn't too bad because I had expected a fish of it's size and price to be sluggish and discoloured but it was surprisingly active and the colours on it's body were still alright. The lesson learnt? Trust Uncle when it comes to fishes.

On a different note, I managed to visit Yih Seong today. He was injured rather seriously recently while playing a game during the orientation for the new year in his university. To cut a long story short and to avoid distorting the facts of the event (many stories surfaced as to how Yih Seong got injured, some so removed from the actual events that it might be plausible they saw another Yih Seong in a parallel dimension in a freak tear of the time-space fabric), he dislocated his knee rather badly and had to undergo surgery to repair the damage done to his patella and his ligaments. After the operation, he was ferried back home by his parents to recuperate in JB and I took the opportunity to visit him before I leave Johor Bahru this coming Monday. While at his place, we reminisced about the good old days in English College (our ex-secondary school) and Taylor's College and talked plenty of cock. It felt pretty fun to do that after so long, just talking about everything yet nothing - it sometimes make me wish that I had accepted IMU's offer and stayed here to do my degree. However, I've made my choice and there's no looking back. Everyone has a path they must tread and I have mine, even if that means I have to be separated from my friends for a while, then so be it. No one ever walked properly looking backwards - so I'll just look forward, to what the future brings.

Here are some pictures of my family's new fish-chieftain, Teh ub3r l33t a5ag! th4t pWned j00 -- I meant the new asagi -- and something that will make clear the meaning of the second part of this entry's title!

The newest addition to our pond, getting a salt bath in our "quarantine tub" after we brought it back from Kota Tinggi. The reason for the salt bath? My uncle informed us that it had some lice after he bought it from the shop but he had removed them. However, just to be on the safe side, we drained away the water that it was in, pumped in fresh tap water and added salt (to kill any lice eggs remaining) and gave it a visual and tactile inspection before it was given the green light to be released into our pond.

Not exactly a beauty, but we weren't planning on entering it in any shows anyway. We bought it to "lead" our juvenile koi and it has been doing a great job in making the other koi in the pond much less afraid of us. Some are also unafraid of being hand-fed already! However, as it was neglected in the shop, we hope to restore a little of it's beauty by letting it live in our pond with much better conditions. After all, asagi bloodlines have always been known to produce more or less good-looking fish.

It's finally official: I now wear two golden stripes on my belt instead of one. Somehow I don't really feel worthy of it - my footwork is still shoddy, my speed just average and my techniques neither here nor there. I'd better train harder to make my standards meet or exceed those demanded of the rank indicated by my belt. No more slacking off for me, then.

Well, that's all for this post. I'll just take this opportunity to wish Yih Seong a speedy recovery and the best of luck in redeveloping his "atrophied" buttcheek. Let me know when you've recovered, I'll get a bottle of wine for you to open - without a cork-remover. Well, I guess you're the only one who will understand this last part. Anyway, to the rest: take care dudes, I'll see you guys in December.

Pictures...Finally!

2006-08-24T15:10:00.000+02:00

As promised, here are the pictures! Enjoy!

Totally unrelated to my previous post, but since they are pictures of my TKD activities during this summer, I'll just post them up anyway! I was asked by my instructor, Mr Peter Cheong, to go and "assist" in a martial arts demonstration in the Nurses' College near the General Hospital. Here's everyone who took part in the demonstration at the Dataran, warming up before going on stage! Somehow just stepping on the Dataran itself brings back fond memories of SJAM training with Patrick, Irwin, Jeremy and Leong - I wish I could remain in those days forever! Hahaha!

Team photo after the demonstration just outside the nurses' dormitory. The demonstration went alright - no major mistakes were made, the pattern and self-defense routines that I took part in proceeded without any glitches and most importantly...no one was injured! But I suppose even if someone was injured, it wouldn't be much of a problem anyway. We were watched by, what, a hundred soon-to-be nurses and at least 5 qualified nurses!

Now on to the photos taken during the belt-promotion exam! Here's a photo of everybody who took part in the grading just before the events commenced. Presumably, before everyone became mightily sweaty, bruised or bloody (or in some cases, an unfortunate combination of all three).

Two senior belts doing the "peace" sign seems to be rather out of place in an event as serious as a belt-promotion exam - but I guess we were mighty relieved to survive the grading and come out of it with most of our body parts still attached! From left - Wai Hong and myself.

Myself with three of my fellow candidates plus two guys who made the 2-hour drive down to JB from Batu Pahat to help with the grading! Many thanks for their help!

If someone could win an award for "Having The Most Beautifully Executed Side Kick", it would be Wai Hong! His side kick is, to simply put it, excellent. It's fast, powerful and looks exactly like the ones shown in textbooks or training videos! I wish I could do that...

Me and Master Tan - the guy who smacked me and Wai Hong in our heads when we were too lenient in removing the weapons from our attackers...hahaha! That's a lesson I won't forget anytime soon!

My 2nd Dan Grading!

2006-08-20T15:37:00.000+02:00

I just went for my 2nd Dan belt promotion exam (or described aptly as my instructor as a "grading" session) today. By virtue of over-napping the day before the exam, I had trouble sleeping the night before the exam and woke up extra-early at 0630 - my acute bout of insomnia was not due to nerves of any kind, for I had taken part in countless gradings and to me, this was just another one. I managed to stumble downstairs after my bath to take my breakfast, which was a slice of toast smothered in kaya for that extra sugar boost I needed today plus a cup of Milo, nectar of champions (if you have no idea what I'm talking about then obviously you can't have seen much of the idiot box). After packing my bag, I left home and drove extra-slowly to the dojang - just because I was really really early and I had always harboured a curious wish to find out how slow exactly I could drive. It is with great pleasure that I announce that I drove at 40kmph for the entire 15-minute drive to the dojang (the roads were completely devoid of vehicles so I had fun seeing how long I could keep the CRV in Gear 2)!

Upon reaching the dojang at 0800, I discovered that the gate was still locked. A quick phone call to my instructor rectified that little problem and I was soon doing some brief warm-ups in the training hall. After doing a couple of exercises to loosen muscles still half-asleep, I watched a bit of early Sunday morning TV (the kind where they show television programmes nobody really watches) and waited. And waited. And waited some more. The wait was long enough that I could feel myself cooling down, only reenter full mobility after doing some more warm-ups, then cooling down again after waiting for what seemed an eternity. It was an exercise in futility, but one that was gratifying in a way. When you can still touch your knees with your head in a 180-degree fold-over position after all this while (and aging at a rather significant rate at that), nothing feels better than to give the finger to Ageing. While using your head to touch your knees. Anyway, my halycon start to the day was soon brought to an abrupt end when I was drafted into the Labourers' Corps by my instructor to haul tiles from the ground floor up to the top floor, where the training hall was located.

After my brief stint in the Labourers' Corps, I was soon covered in a layer of sweat. This was irritating in more ways than one. Firstly, I had expended most of my kaya toast in undertaking the ardous task and I would have to survive the entire grading with nothing more than my cup of Milo. Secondly, sweating equals sweaty clothes. Evaporation equals sweaty clothes becoming dry after a while. Sweaty clothes drying equals clothes that have the distinctive smell of dried sweat. And diffusion equals the entire dojang smells it. So, I was tired and smelly before the grading had even began. However, it wasn't all bad news - I managed to make a couple of acquaintances. And since you never know who you're going to spar against in a grading, it's always a jolly good idea to have more acquaintances so that they know you aren't an arrogant bastard that they so would love to beat the living crap out of. Others call it sucking up. I call it diplomatic solutions. But seriously, it never hurt to have more friends - and I certainly don't make friends just to save myself from getting seriously bruised in sparring. Life's a lot less dull without friends, no matter what the introverts extoll of solitarity (looks cool, gives this mysterious air that freaks people out, a lot of meaningful conversations with their inner selves, etc).

Anyway, after many delays, the grading session began proper at 1000. By this time, close to 20 candidates had arrived and I was fairly surprised at the number of people taking the exam. Granted, more than two thirds were 1st Kups taking their black belt promotion exam with only 6 going for the 2nd Dan promotion exam including me, but compared with my black belt promotion exam years ago with only 5 candidates, this was pretty happening! The chief examiner for the grading was Master Tan, an 8th degree black belt - that's what I call seniority! - while the other instructors were there to be examiners or assistants. I had my patterns as my first event after the theory paper and they went pretty well, although I felt I did them a bit too fast. Well, that's what happens when I do something from memory - I do it real fast. For some reason I have always had this fear of going too slowly for fear of confusing myself. Mostly because when my mind isn't occupied with trying to recall something, it thinks, and when it thinks, my body lags behind. This is the very reason for all the "too fast" or "hurried" comments on my piano exam papers. Anyway, I managed to fire off 5 patterns in a row without a single mistake or a moments' hesitation, which is pretty good considering just 2 months ago I had nearly forgotten them all.

The event after the patterns was the combined step-sparring and self-defense exams. I am not abashed to say that my step-sparring has always been my forte, with my patterns running a real close second - but my self-defense, having been neglected for quite a while, consisted mostly of Ewok-like dancing moves in an ingenious idea to throw the balance off any attacker (who on Earth punches a cute, dancing Ewok?). So the step-sparring went alright, but the self-defense was a load of rubbish. I improvised nearly everything, especially when I had to escape from being choked while lying down and when I had both hands restrained plus someone choking me from behind (although I did a fancy jackhammer kick which brought gasps of appreciation from the watching crowd - even if I didn't manage to break free in the end). However, at the end of the section, me and my partner were punished by the chief examiner for being too lenient on our "attackers" and not taking their weapons away - I got a nice smack in the side of the head whereas he got a knee in this head when he demonstrated to the rest of the participants the correct way to make your attacker surrender his weapon. Needless to say, the other participants were extra sure to remove the weapons from their attackers when it was their turn.

After all the excitement of the step-sparring and self-defense stuff, we were given an hour's lunch break. However, those who had free-sparring as their next event didn't dare eat much for fear of being bogged down by all that nasi goreng and meehun goreng or vomiting their lunch after getting a blow in the midsection. As I was one of those unlucky few left, I just ate a handful of rice and noodles, washed down by half a cup of juice. After the hour-long break, we continued with my least favourite event, jayu matsogi or free-sparring. I've never really liked sparring, or have I really excelled in it since during training rounds I usually never have the most vital component in sparring - the urge to smack the opponent so hard he would have to find his kidney in the gutter. I have always preferred just defending and trying the occasional half-hearted kick; a style of fighting that has seen me get bruised countless times. However, today wasn't a day to hold back or control my aggressiveness - today was the day I'd actually get marks for it! So I was a little more aggressive today - and sparring was actually a rather tame affair, even in the 3-on-1 event! I'd say I gave as good as I got, and maybe even more.

The final event was power breaking. My first task was to do a knife-hand strike through 6 tiles, but after seeing Master Tan examine the tiles with a smile that said "You sure they can break this or not?", my confidence went from oraaaa! to oh...shite instantenously. As it turned out, the tiles were too freaking thick. The most anyone could manage today without seriously rearranging the anatomy of his hand and forearm was breaking 3 tiles out of the 6. And even then, they came off with cuts, scratches, bruises and swellings. I consider myself pretty lucky to break 3 without any serious mishap apart from a bit of skin coming off my arm near the elbow. The rest were normal - flying kicks, jumping kicks and stationary kicks. My turning kick brought compliments from nearly everyone - on my first try, I cracked 2 of the outermost planks but the innermost plank literally exploded. I mean, it broke into two and flew apart with a huge bang. I managed to break the remaining two with the least effort on the second try. People were commenting that it looked like kungfu. Anyway, I passed 4 out of 6 tasks in this event, enough to constitute an overall "pass" for this event, so it wasn't really that bad after all.

The grading session finally came to an end at around 1630. All the candidates were made to sit on the floor in our pre-organized rows and go up to the examiner's table when our names were called, whereupon Master Tan would let us know of the shortcomings he noticed in us during the entire exam and most importantly, if we failed or passed. When it was my turn, he told me that he noticed that my techniques during the patterns and the breakings were a little "stiff", which surprised me. After all, I always thought I did better in those events. However, after I asked myself if my techniques were good in those events, I discovered that the answer was a "no". I mean, I know all the movements and stances that I'm supposed to know. But knowing the techniques and executing them from memory just because I remember them is completely different from understanding the techniques and executing them. He gave me a piece of advice, which was not to make my body do Taekwondo techniques, but to let Taekwondo techniques flow into my body. And with that, he said "Congratulations". Even though this "Congratulations" hopefully means I've passed the grading, I have this feeling that no matter what rank I reach in Taekwondo, I'll still feel the same as the day I tied the white belt on each and every day.

P.S. - Pictures will be up soon, delays due to certain "logistics" restrictions.

Pictures From My Japan Trip

2006-08-02T07:32:00.000+02:00

There hasn't been much to blog about these days - interesting things that I feel like blogging about will probably get me arrested (what with Pak Lah cracking down on bloggers/SMSers disseminating "untruthful" information) and everything else that is bloggable in my life right now will probably put readers to sleep faster than halothane (or anaesthetic of your choice) - so I'll just post some pictures of my trip to Japan. Enjoy!

Hiromi and me in our Osaka hotel room before we left for the Gion Festival in Kyoto.

A float at the Gion Festival.

The Golden Temple in Kyoto.

Would you believe that we queued up for an hour for these?

Okonomayaki!

Picture of the Kobe skyline, taken from Kobe Tower.

Mmm...Kobe beef!

The both of us wearing yukata.

Japanese-style crab tastes rather nice!

The Hikari shinkansen (although we took the Nozomi - a newer and faster shinkansen!).

Meet the parents...

...and the relatives...

...and more relatives! Hahaha!

The view from one of the bedrooms in Hiromi's house.

Shibuya - fashion district of Japan.

Both of us in our Tokyo hotel room.

A picture of Tokyo Tower, taken from our room window.

Tokyo Disneyland!

Hiromi and me in the spinning-teacup-thingy. Childish? Yes, but satisfyingly so.

The Yokohama waterfront.

A humongous tuna I saw at the Tsukiji Fish Market.

The best sushi I ever had.

A picture of us at the famous Sensoji shrine at Asakusa.

We couldn't resist using the favourite pose of Japanese schoolgirls.

Disneysea!

I was imitating the statues behind us - but Hiromi looks like she's about to kick me! I bet Mickey never had to say "No Minnie no--UGH".

I couldn't resist harnessing Genie and making him my faithful steed. Muahaha.

That's all for now! I'll see you around!

The Revival

2006-06-26T19:13:00.000+02:00

This is The Revival of a totally unorganized and mismatched clutter of HTML code stuck together with copious amounts of spit that I shamelessly call a blog. Thank goodness for the non-tangible nature of the Net - if my blog was to be a concrete object in the real world, it would now be buried under a thick layer of dust, enforced by so many generations of cobwebs that a complete genealogical chart of cobwebs would span pages. Metaphorically speaking, of course. And while we intrepidly broach the borders of sense and venture further into the region of nonsensical blabbering, I might as well add that any attempt to approach my dust-covered blog would probably send my oversensitive immune system into overdrive and cause me to keel over from a massive asthma attack. It has been ages since my last entry, and that I attribute to my superb skills in procrastination - I have simply been too busy/too tired/living life beyond squinting at a computer screen and typing for other people's enjoyment/doing too many things at once until blogging totally slipped my mind. Pick whichever you prefer. My talent at dishing out as many excuses as you can muster questions or as fast as you can apportionate blame is flawless.

Quite a lot of things have happened since my last entry in Blogland. For one, I am actually living now that the much dreaded Phase 1A finals are over. For another, I have returned home without any fear of being strangled by my parents now that the results of the finals have been published and that I have discovered to my greatest relief that I have passed the exams. I cannot exactly put a finger on why I had this irrational fear of the Phase 1A finals and the day the results were published on the Phase 1A noticeboard. Perhaps it is the fear of facing the unknown, for I had no prior experience sitting for the papers in real life. Perhaps I felt I slacked off too much before the exams, watching everyone breeze through revision while I wallowed through my notes and books like a prehistoric quadruped in a tar pit. But whatever the reason, I was thoroughly relieved when I passed - and even more suprised when I achieved results beyond what I had hoped for. Fluke, or no fluke? That is the Question. And for Questions that I do not have clear Answers to (like the one above), I simply shrug my shoulders and focus on what I have to do next. One down, four more to go. Phase 1B, here I come!

Moving away from the glum topic of exams which, rather distressingly, I bring up unfailingly in conversations and blog entries such as this one, it's been rather hectic since my return to the homeland. Hiromi's 6-day visit, outings with family and various activities with friends have taken up most of my time, so much so that my suitcases are still unpacked and lying in corners of my room, where they are trying their utmost best to become one with my room and blend into the background. It has been a couple of weeks, but a battered matte-black suitcase is still clearly outlined by parquet flooring and wood grain, but not due to lack of effort on the suitcase's part. Boxes, plastic bags and articles of clothing of indeterminate origin have been "placed" on top of it, so much so that the suitcase is gradually losing an outline as a suitcase and looking more and more like a pile of debris with every passing day. I guess I had better clear the place before it develops it's very own ecosystem and weather pattern. There have been ominous whispers of such incidents in plastic bags filled with sweaty clothes which were left unattended for a long time in dark corners. Looks like I have some spring-cleaning on my to-do list - and it's summer! Ah, what the heck...

P.S. - I'll post some pictures in my next entry, which hopefully, will be up in a couple of days!

P.P.S. - What happened to our CAS results? Only Dr. Stark knows.

P.P.P.S. - To Leong, Eric and Irwin : We should do something like that again sometime soon! It was damn fun! Hahaha!

If You Thought That I Had Died...

2006-05-10T17:29:00.000+02:00

...you're most probably right.

Since my last communique to the world, my time has been spent wallowing in the endless quagmire of notes that characterizes the much-despised land of Revision. My progress? Glacial would not be too strong a word to describe the progression of my revision. Perhaps it is purely relative - after all, I am used to the Malaysian way of education, which consists of myself receiving notes, tossing them into some obscure corner in my room (if no suitably obscure corner exists then one can easily be manufactured with just a little bit of creativity and surreptious furniture-arranging) and devouring them just before examinations, when the motivation to study is driven 90% by Last Minute Panic and 10% Fear Of Being Garroted By Parents After Failing Exams. I am not used to making my own notes and charting out my revision "road-map" on my own seems as foreign to me as the dark side of the moon.

I really do not have any qualms about making my own notes - in fact, I find that I understand my own notes better than notes given out en masse by lecturers, assuming I bother to make any notes in the first place. However, it is the key question of how much do I really need to know? that makes me sometimes wish for Malaysian-style notes, where everything you need to know (not less, although maybe sometimes a little more) is on them. Read them, understand them and hopefully regurgitate everything that is written on them during the exams and you'll definitely pass. Of course, that automatically assumed that you managed to dig them out of Some Obscure Corner in time for revision, spade and whatnot and all. My current studying method involves reading the chapters that will be covered and hoping that some knowledge will be retained in my head - although absorption of knowledge via osmosis by resting my head on my books seems to be a rather appealing method at the moment...

I presume that by around this time, you will probably be bored listening to me rant about the endless revision that I will have to do in these remaining two weeks to my finals. Yeah, yeah. He thinks as though he's the only one having troubles. Etcetera etcetera etcetera. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I will cease whining about my revision and move on to hopefully more appealing subjects to your literary palate. First off, I attended the MASSOC Dinner and Dance at the MacDonald's St Paul Hotel, the "swankiest" hotel in Sheffield. Retrospectively, it was rather a stupid thing to do - I had no suit with me over here so I bought one just for the dinner, therefore my dinner that night cost a staggering 152 pounds (32 pounds for the dinner, 120 pounds for the suit). However, the suit will probably be reused time and again over here as there are so many formal events in a year, so the money spent on it was not exactly wasted.

The dinner was not fantastic - perhaps it is the genetic vestiges of my Chinaman ancestry talking, but I would say that paying 32 pounds for the dinner that night was almost a ripoff. The only course worthy of a mention that was served that evening was the dessert - the starter and the main course were just average, I guess. Not exactly what you'd expect from the supposedly "best" hotel in Sheffield. It may be an unfair comparison, but if MASSOC had held the dinner in Wong Ting, a Cantonese restaurant over here, everyone would have gone home filled to the brim with excellent Chinese cuisine. However, as it were, MASSOC chose style over substance. That said, I cannot fault them for their choice despite my prior comments - I would have probably done the same thing if I were in the organizing committee. I mean, a formal dinner in a Chinese restaurant? Granted, Wong Ting has a pretty high-class interior and the food is great, if not excellent, but it just doesn't sound right.

As for the performances, the sketches (I wonder if you could call it a sketch in the first place) sucked although the performances done by the bands were excellent. I think that this was the first time I had clapped in sincerity after listening to amateur bands play; they were that good. The Dance part of the MASSOC Dinner and Dance was non-existent. Perhaps my way of thinking is flawed and very likely outmoded, but when you hold a formal dinner, is it not the custom to have ballroom dancing? Or at the very least, slow-dancing to love songs? Somehow the organizing committee decided that club music would be more appropriate and blasted club music over the speakers until the speakers were mercifully fried. As a result of the speakers going on the fritz, everyone did what Malaysians do best - we stood in groups on the dance floor and talked and took pictures and talked a little more until it was time to leave.

Here are some pictures!

Hiromi and me just before leaving Halifax Hall.

From left - Wei Jin, Hiromi, myself and Ah Wong. The four of us shared a cab to go to the hotel.

They f***ing misspelt my name. What the hell... Somehow one would expect his or her friends to know one's name after eight months, but it is evident that such expectations are unrealistic. My name is still misspelt by quite a number of my friends as everyone prefers to just call me by my nickname, "Medic"! Hahaha!

Ladies in black! Clockwise, from bottom left - Noemi, Hiromi, Rex, Jessica and Lisa. Black seemed to be the dominant colour at the dinner, so much so that I overheard someone commenting how it seemed so much like a funeral...

Group photo of our table! Ladies, from left - Anna, Hiromi, Lisa, Rex and Noemi. Guys, from left - Suresh, myself and Wei Jin.

Max actually wore a tuxedo to the dinner - now that's what I call uber-formal! It was really funny to see him doing the boogie with Jessica and Lisa in the tux, but it was even funnier to capture a video of it without him noticing until it was too late!

From left - Jian, myself and Wei Jin.

Me and Wei Jin doing a budget-cool pose. Needless to say, it did not turn out perfectly well. Hahaha!

I guess this will be the extent of my entry this time. My raison d'etre for the next two weeks will be to revise and study, so no entries will likely to be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks as I erase myself off Life's metaphorical radar screens and consign myself to the dark and bitter depths of anatomy, physiology, pathology, histology and clinical medicine.

I'll see you around in about three weeks' time then. Hopefully.

Everything's Changed...

2006-04-04T03:28:00.000+02:00

The third of April, of the two thousandth and sixth year, Anto Domini. Merely another day in the countless turnings of the fragile orb we reside upon, an utterly insignificant event in the passage of Time, but a day that I will remember vividly for the rest of my life. How do I even begin to pen down my recollections of the events that happened today? Every word I write here is a lie; for the words we use to describe the deepest truths are so shallow, so unambiguous, that my writings cannot convey my thoughts with the utmost precision, the pinpoint accuracy needed to do the past twenty-four hours justice. But perhaps it should suffice to say that my life has changed. For better or worse, that, I have no inkling of. But one thing I am sure of – the onus is on me to succeed, and I feel it even more than before. I cannot let everybody down. And to accomplish that, it is time to focus on my revision.

Focus... Focus... Focus...

My Spiral Into Insanity

2006-03-22T02:53:00.000+01:00

I have been expecting something like this to happen ever since I began my five-year-long sojourn in medical school. To have the first drops of insanity irrevocably taint my soul as the silently malicious spread of irrationality threads its way into the very core of my mind. What I was not expecting, however, was the long delay in any outward manifestation of this metaphorical “cancer” in this transient shell we call the human body, a mortal cage for the immortal soul. But I have finally witnessed the alteration of my perceptions of right and wrong by utterly illogical thoughts, a stream of caustic impulses burning away my unconscious cognitive processes which finally cloister in a fetid pool with the remnants of fallen principles in the darker recesses of my mind. The darker recesses of my mind, which I would rather pretend did not exist, but an alternate dimension of thoughts that I acknowledge freely and stumble into occasionally. What other explanation could there be for my dream this afternoon of using human intestines as a skipping rope while playing with two Ewoks? Perhaps I should lay off on the afternoon siestas. Or not eat any croissants before taking a nap. Or stop thinking longingly of kuey teow kia during Gastrointestinal Dissection Practicals.

P.S. – You did not read any of this. Really.

P.P.S. – Updates (a proper entry, not the psychotic babbling that I try to pass off as an entry today) will be delayed as I am trying to get up to speed on yet another SSC.

P.P.P.S. – I am still thinking longingly of kuey teow kia.

Chronicles Of The Flying Carcinoma

2006-03-13T20:28:00.000+01:00

I've almost achieved legendary status in my Integrated Learning Activity group by doing something so insidious during our dissection section that the mere mention of it should never be allowed to taint humanity - but I'm going to write about it here anyway. For the faint-hearted, this is your final chance to click on the tiny little "X" at the top right hand corner of your computer display if you're a conformist and you use Microsoft Windows (for the "rebels" who use a Mac, the little red circle on the top right hand corner of the screen should do it) and back away from reading all about it. I will also make it very clear that I DO NOT, in any way, condone the reproduction of this event nor do I encourage the use of it as inspiration for others to pioneer a "see-who-does-the-most-digustingly-interesting-yet-morbidly-funny-thing-during-dissection" competition, "star search" or even, Heaven forbid, a reality television show.

The date on which it happened was last Tuesday, the 7th of March, 2006 Anto Domini. Like many insidious events before this, it had a pretty inoccous beginning, although the weather that day bore portents of a terrible event in the making. The skies were overcast, chilly winds were making leaves dance and a dawn drizzle gently shed its delicate tears onto the cold sidewalks. To be completely honest, I enjoy bad weather and I'm actually in a better mood the worse the weather gets - but for sake of dramatization, I'll just pretend that I saw bad omens in the weather. Dissection practicals were held that morning in the Dissecting Rooms as always, although the session was briefly interrupted by a fire alarm. We usually hear the fire alarms go off during dissection practicals since they test the fire alarms every Tuesday - so we didn't pay much heed to it at first.

However, when the fire alarms persisted, we were chivvied downstairs to the evacuation assembly area by our demonstrators. Once there, we spent around 20 minutes shivering in the cold in our lab coats and speculating whether there really was a fire or not before being allowed back into the building. It's really ironic how they test the fire alarms to ensure our safety, but doing so makes our response to the fire alarms less urgent - if a fire occured on a Tuesday morning in the Biomedical Science Building, would the five minutes we spent listening to the fire alarms ring thinking that they were just testing the alarms have cost the entire Half Class A their lives? Anyway, after getting thoroughly refreshed by our little jog down the stairs, we returned to the Dissection Room and proceeded with our work.

Since we're currently in the Gastrointestinal/Liver Module, our to-do list that day was to cut open a cadaver's abdominal region and observe (read - cut out) the abdominal viscera. I did most of the cutting that day, and it all proceeded rather smoothly until we reached the small intestines. There, we found a small and anomalous lump embedded in our cadaver's mesentery. True to Group 1's Doctrine of Dissection - if it's unknown, slice it out and we'll find out what it is, or not - I duly sliced it out and passed it around to my group members. When we showed it to our demonstrator and asked her about what it was, it turned out that it was a lymphoma - cancer in one of the lymph nodes of the mesentery. One of my group members took it and removed the layers of connective tissue covering the surface until she finally had a hard, spherical object.

We were even more puzzled about this than our initial discovery of the lump. It was so hard that even pressing a scapel onto it could only just scratch its surface but not cut it into half - we thought carcinomas were just lumps of tissue! Our demonstrator came to our rescue again, and she told us that sometimes carcinomas can become calcified, which is probably what happened to the lump that we were then passing around. When it reached me, I took it in one hand (since one of my gloves was removed after I was done dissecting in order for me to hold my pen and write) and gave it a gentle squeeze between my thumb and forefinger to see how hard it was. However, to my utmost horror, it slipped out of my fingers and shot upwards like a slippery melon seed. I could only stare in disbelief as it arced upwards, stayed suspended in midair of a couple of femtoseconds and hurtled downwards with a vengeance.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it landed on a floor - it would have been embarrassing, yes, but it wouldn't have been a thing that everyone in my group would probably remember forever. The flying carcinoma, however, landed in my group's demonstrator's HAIR. OMFG. Since I was standing behind her, she didn't know what had happened. There was a moment of dead silence when everyone in my group stared at me with their mouths agape. I was equally shocked as well and could only reach forward and removed the lump from the demonstrator's hair with trembling hands after a couple of seconds had passed and I was done staring in disbelief at what had transpired. The abrupt silence told our demonstrator that something was wrong and she turned around to see me standing stock-still, wide-eyed and staring at the lump in my hand.

Apparently she didn't realize that something terrible had happened. She looked at me, then looked at everyone (who were still deathly silent) before asking "Is something the matter?". As if a spell was lifted from the rest of my group members, they burst out in side-splitting laughter in unison. I decided to break the bad news to her since it was my fault and I told her what had happened and that it was all my fault, it was totally unintentional and I was really truly sorry. She took the news rather well - she just laughed and asked if I had removed all of it from her hair. I replied in the affirmative and took a piece of tissue paper to clean the landing zone of the carcinoma for good measure. She then assured me that it was alright and that she washed her hair everyday anyway, so it was no big deal. Amazing. If it had happened to me instead, I'd be placing my head under the nearest washbasin and spend the next hour scrubbing my hair.

We then proceeded with the rest of our dissection practical with no other major mishaps. After dissection, some members of my group looked at me and said "YC, YC..." before bursting out in laughter. Hahaha! Well, it was my fault after all, so I accept all ragging and jokes resulting from this incident with absolutely no hard feelings at all. However, they didn't take the mickey out of me as much as I had thought they would...thankfully! Anyway, I hope that this incident hasn't put off the demonstrator from having our group again for our next dissection practical - she's really good compared to our previous demonstrator and I hope she stays as our demonstrator. What have I learnt from this event? To not squeeze carcinomas with two fingers ever again - goodness knows where it's going to land the next time!

Let It Snow...

2006-03-05T17:11:00.001+01:00

So much for my expectations of a snow-blanketed Sheffield after returning back here from the sunny equatorial lands of Malaysia. Besides some heavy snowfall around Boxing Day, there hasn't been any snow here all winter - are the Gods of the weather trying to mock me?! No snow during winter?! What dastardly turn of events has befallen humanity? I have this nagging feeling that they are, and I bet that they're probably laughing somewhere in their God-world, reclining on God-couches, conversing in God-speak and laughing while pointing at me, an infestimally small and insignificant object to them on a tiny Life-bearing orb of earth, water and air suspended in the infinity of the Universe. Everyone's been saying that the past winter has been one of the mildest in ages - there has hardly been any snow and the weather has more or less been rather nice! Looks like the tag "jinx to snowfall" that has been pinned on me won't come off so easily.

However, in a truly unexpected turn of events, it snowed last Friday, on my last day of the ICE module! I was going down to dinner with my group of friends when we suddenly noticed that it was snowing outside - we didn't really give it much thought since we thought that it would just snow for a while and stop, characteristic of the type of snowfall we've seen all winter. After dinner, we noticed that it was still snowing, which is rather odd since it is unusual for it to have snowed for that long. Even stranger, still, was the fact that it was snowing even more heavily! I went out to savour the rare occasion and met Hsin Yu at the door, who was even more excited at seeing snowfall than me - so much so that her exuberance drew the attention of people who were coming out of the dining hall. Tommy joined us a few moments later and joined us in our impromptu celebration of snowfall (yes, this sounds dysfunctional...but forgive us since we rarely see snowfall).

We had a took some pictures, had a brief but intense snowball fight and generally just messed around with the all the snow lying around since there was enough snow fell to make a layer of snow on the ground. As I was stupid enough to trust Jian (a Singaporean guy doing architecture who also lives in Halifax Hall) to just throw snowballs at my legs since I was drinking from a cup, I received a snowball in my face at point-blank range. Efforts to retaliate were futile as he was already doing a 100m dash from me. After a while, the area outside the main entrance of Halifax Hall resembled a warzone with 2" spherical snow projectiles hurled indiscriminately at anyone within firing range with varying levels of accuracy - it wasn't uncommon to get hit by a snowball that was aimed at another person! We went back in after a while to celebrate Jun Xue's birthday by going on a Lord of the Rings movie marathon - we watched the entire "extended edition" trilogy in a day. I've never watched three movies in a day, much less at one go, but it was fun nonetheless! No excuses for forgetting what happened before! Hahaha!

Here are some pictures!

Hsin-Yu and myself, just outside the main entrance of Halifax Hall. She was on her phone screaming "It's snowing! Snowing!". Pretty scary. Hahaha!

Hsin-Yu and Tommy enjoying the snowfall! The snowfall was getting heavier and heavier, and by the time this picture was taken, it actually obscured some shots taken!

Hsin-Yu and myself again. As you can see, she was pretty excited about the fact that it was snowing - but I don't blame her! I guess I was pretty excited about the fact that it was snowing as well! Haha!

Tommy and myself posing for a picture in the oh-so-pretty scene of falling snowflakes.

Hsin-Yu insisted that I had a picture of myself with snowflakes all over my hair and jacket...hahaha!

From left - myself, Tommy and Su-Ann.

Jun Xue is in heaven - check out his blissful expression! Looks like this year he got particularly good "presents" - who wouldn't want to be flanked by two pretty girls?

Group picture of everyone after our barbaric snowfight. No animals (especially furry rodents such as squirrels) were harmed in the tactical maneuvers undertaken in our epic battle.

Hsin-Yu was adamant about making a snowman, but with the amount of snow that fell was just not enough to manufacture anything else besides snowballs. However, she went ahead anyway and made a chibi snowman. Looks like she's munching it.... Poor snowman.

P.S. - Finally checked my grades for the Critical Analysis SSC! I got a "Good"! Hahaha! I'm perfectly satisfied with that - my presentation skills aren't top notch anyway! Now just two more to worry about...

P.P.S. - I forgot to thank Hiromi for cooking me lunch last Monday! Thanks a lot! It's been a long while since I had a proper lunch, and it certainly made my week! Hahaha!

P.P.P.S. - The ICE module is finally over! No more commuting to Doncaster at the break of dawn each day! But it was a pretty interesting experience nonetheless - I got to visit a place I had never been to before and to meet new people and to talk to them. However, my wallet has suffered much the last week...I think it's time for some serious scrimping and saving!

YC In The Big City

2006-03-01T21:33:00.000+01:00

Attachment Week Two of the Intensive Clinical Experience module is currently underway - just two more days to go and I'm home free, only to run right into the jaws of another two SSC assignments. My first week of attachments was done in the Respiratory Function Unit (RFU) of the Royal Hallamshire, so it was basically a straightforward affair. Walk there each morning, report in, watch a few spirometries, use the pulse oximeter, watch the technicians set up the CPAP and BiPAP machines, shadow a few doctors around, walk around the rounds for a bit and then trundle back to my room. Simple and clean. In addition, the staff over at the RFU were extremely friendly and didn't ask us to stow ourselves in a filing cabinet while they did their work whereas my partners were the metaphorical Hermione and Ron (which amused me to no end), so I more or less enjoyed the experience.

So far, Week Two hasn't been quite that enjoyable. I was posted to the Doncaster Royal Infirmary (DRI) for my second week of attachments - which wasn't even in Sheffield. When I first saw my second attachment's location, the first thought that ran through my mind was "Where the hell is Doncaster?". Perfect. Just perfect. To get posted to a city I've never been to in my life, located 40 minutes away by train. Travelling there really kills. In order to make it for my report-in time of 9am, I have to wake up at 0600, catch the No. 30 bus at 0707, walk to the train station and catch the 0741 Bridlington, reaching Doncaster at 0820, walk to the city centre and take the No. 82 to the DRI, hopefully reaching there at 0845. And I don't get to eat any breakfast either since the dining hall opens at 0745 - my breakfast to date has consisted of a couple of biscuits washed down with water. Add bitterly cold and windy mornings to that and you get the ideal crap beginning to a day, akin to the ones I've been having.

My experience there has been rather sedate compared to my previous attachment. Since I'm attached to an Orthopaedic Ward and all the patients in it are post-operative or under-observation, nothing exciting happens at all. However, it gave me a really interesting insight into the life of nurses. Contrary to popular belief, their care of the patient does not terminate once they leave the bedside of the patient or even when the patient is discharged. For example, a doctor merely signs a discharge form in order to discharge a patient whereas a nurse has to ensure that a patient has adequate care after he/she is discharged and if not, arrange for Crisis Intervention Teams, social workers and district nurses to care for the patient, arrange transportation, ensure that the patient's family knows of the discharge and even procure equipment that the patient will have to use at home. Pretty intruiging stuff - I never knew that! Despite that, however, things are still generally slow in the wards I've been in - so much so that sometimes I find myself bored.

Hopefully the next two days will be more exciting - I'll be attached to the Fracture Clinic tomorrow and Ward 6 (a medical ward) the day after. Can't believe I haven't seen any surgery so far! Some of my friends have seen really cool stuff like neurosurgery and keyhole surgery, but the most interesting thing I've seen so far is my lung function test's results. In addition, all that travelling each day is taking a huge toll on my mood (and my temper as well). I leave each morning grumpy and arrive back in my room late in the evening grumpy AND tired. No surprise then, that I'm helluva moodier the last two days. Won't be surprised if my temper snaps - it'll be the first time in quite a while, and it won't be pretty. Damn. And I thought I was making progress on my temper. Seems like this isn't the case after all. I'd better work harder in cooling down my hot temper.

P.S. - I just reread this entry, and it seems extremely disjointed. Goes to show how my mind works when it's tired. This entry is then, truly, senseless ramblings about my life.

P.P.S. - The Critical Analysis SSC results are out, but I haven't been to the Medical School to check mine (they're posted on a low-tech noticeboard when we have a high-tech webportal that the Med School incessantly implores us to use). Just haven't had the time - might go tomorrow if I get off early.

Hiromi And Uta's Joint Birthday Party!

2006-02-24T15:03:00.000+01:00

Went to Hiromi and Uta's joint birthday party last Friday, which was held at Ran's place at the Endcliffe Vale Flats. The party was another party-cum-potluck dinner affair, but since I can probably cook with as much success as a pig which is trying to fly, I decided on contributing drinks instead (which, of course, cannot go wrong and hence eliminates the possibility of consigning everyone's fate to a night of hugging the toilet bowls). As usual, the food was excellent - Ran cooked some miso-soup thingy, Sunny made pajeon (a seafood omelette) and gimbap (a Korean version of sushi), Kana made mochi (Japanese rice cakes), Hiromi whipped up some Japanese curry and the others contributed cakes, chocolates and drinks. Everyone just spent the night eating, talking and eating some more - a much more subdued affair than our previous parties!

I'll just post some pictures taken that night instead of blogging incessantly about everything that happened during the party - I'm still feeling a bit too lazy to type.

The two birthday girls! From left - Hiromi and Uta. Their birthday cakes were chocolate ice-cream cakes. I personally don't care too much for cakes, but mention chocolate and ice-cream before the word cake, I'd happily devour the entire cake!

From left - Uta, Sunny, Tina and Hiromi.

When Hiromi suddenly wanted to take a photo of me and Wei Jin, I was like "Uh, no... I think I'll pa-" and before I knew it, the picture was taken. I'm impressed. I've never seen a photo that shows me as THE Blur Sotong before - I guess this is a first! Hahaha! Check out the bottom left of the picture - Kana is in her famous "Kana pose"! Now that's kawaii, Yi Yong!

Clockwise, from left - Sunny, Yuki, Ran and Hiromi. The pose adopted by Yuki kinda reminds me of the time when I was in choral speaking during secondary school. There was one part where we were supposed to be scared/petrified/pants-wetted-cowering-in-fear by the supposedly "evil monsters" (who were in the aforementioned pose) or something like that. Ah, those were the days...

Uta and Sunny posing for the camera. Oh, and half of Tina as well. Hahaha!

Hiromi and some of her friends.

Ah, so that explains the purple smoke hanging over the kitchen! Hahaha! Ran and Sunny are "smoking" biscuits shaped into a roll - but it seems that they're really enjoying it! I wonder what was used to make those biscuits...

Finally, a group photo of everyone who was at Hiromi and Uta's joint birthday party (bar Kana, since she was the one who took this photograph).

P.S. - Why the hell am I attached to the Doncaster Royal Infirmary?! It's half an hour by train from Sheffield, and I'm supposed to go there for my ICE attachments every day for four days next week? Dammit!!

Chap Goh Mei Dinner!

2006-02-18T01:11:00.000+01:00

I know this post is rather late, but better late than never, as the popular phrase goes. I won't be blogging much because the Intensive Clinical Experience is taking up most of my time for this three weeks - although I'll do my best to upload an entry whenever possible. Anyway, this entry is all pictures and a lot less words than my typical entry - I don't really have enough energy to type right now. Enjoy the pictures!

Us at Halifax Hall's reception just before going to Noodle King (a fusion-style noodle restaurant as per what its name suggests) on Ecclesall Road for our Chap Goh Mei dinner. We thought we had booked the entire restaurant since our party was 14-strong, but it turned out that we weren't quite spot-on - we only took half the restaurant!

Something Rex ordered - I have absolutely no idea what it is. Looks like a bird's nest on a bed of gravy (with the resident bird chopped up and stir-fried).

Fried noodles, ordered by Su Ann. They look quite delicious, but I'm not really a fan of "dry" noodles - I prefer mine in soup!

Hsin Yu's dish was chicken in noodle soup. It looks really delicious, I might try that the next time we go there! However, the food's there a tad bit pricey so we might not go there for quite some time - 5 pounds for a bowl of noodles seem like an exorbitant price to me!

Good ol' laksa! This might sound like a stupid question, but is there supposed to be char siew (roasted pork) in laksa? Yi Yong said that the laksa served there was quite good, but apparently it tasted more like the curry noodles we get back home than laksa. I tried it, and it did taste like laksa, albeit in a vague sort of way, but definitely not as good as what Waterworks dishes out back in JB!

What I ordered - duck with noodle soup! The serving was rather large and it was quite delicious - they gave rather generous portions of duck together with the noodles (I wasn't expecting anything less for the price I was paying). Of course, this dish can't compare with the other noodle soups I get back home, but when you're deprived of Chinese food in a foreign country, anything remotely resembling Chinese cuisine tastes good!

Yi Yong and I ordered a side-dish as well. I'm not too sure about what it was called, but I definitely know what it was. It's fried tofu, served with chopped carrots and lettuce and bucketloads of sweet chilli sauce. It was quite delicious!

A group picture before we tucked into our food! After dinner, we proceeded to Yi Yong's room where we played drinking games (using red and white wine) until just after midnight. hahaha! What a way to see off the Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year In Sheffield!

2006-02-13T01:12:00.000+01:00

I've never been so honoured in my life. To have a complete, total stranger, talking about her life to me - even though she knows it will not bring her any improvements in terms of health since I am just merely a first year medical student and therefore I can't prescribe anything to alleviate her symptoms or even just to further elucidate her condition to her. To have a stranger call me a friend, even though I've just met her three times for around two hours each time. To know that someone places so much trust in me that she doesn't even need to remind me that what was said between those four walls should remain between me, my partner and her. To have someone so explicitly define the reason for my ambition so far, and to remind me of what I have to be, hopefully, in 5 years' time. And to make me remember that each and every patient is not merely a series of numbers, nor a statistic, or even just another file in an anonymous cabinet, but an individual...a human being.

On another note, I also just had my SSC Critical Analysis presentation just last Friday. All us Phase 1A-ians were given several drug advertisements to choose from and were tasked with choosing one advertisement each to analyze in terms of the drug pharmacology, truthfulness of the claims and compliance with advertising guidelines just before the Christmas holidays. However, due to me finding a last-minute motherlode of information on my drug, my working paper was completed just a week before the deadline and my presentation was printed on acetates (many thanks to Wei Jin for lending me his printer!) two days before the presentation date. My presentation wasn't too bad - I felt I spoke a bit too fast because I was a little nervous, but I covered every point and managed to answer all the questions the tutor posed to me with confidence. All in all, my presentation was much better than what I was expecting it to be! Hahaha! What a relief!

It seems that up until this point, my entry has no relevance whatsoever with the title I've given it! Haha! Back to the fun part - my Chinese New Year in Sheffield, in pictures!

Me (in my very first samfu) and Wei Jin, posing for our first Chinese New Year picture in my room! Pardon the very messy room - the winter jacket was left there to air and the formal shirt and tie was left there after my CAS visits were done. The stripey shirt just behind us was left there to dry as I had just washed my laundry - the dryer they provide downstairs is a waste of 40p since it merely makes your laundry moist instead of dry!

Our "reunion dinner" was delayed due to some people having their exams at that time. So, immediately after their examinations, we had our reunion dinner at "No. 1 Chinese Buffet", an all-you-can-eat-for-5.85-pounds buffet restaurant! The food was excellent (for Chinese food in Sheffield, anyway) and it was the first time I actually felt stuffed to the max on Chinese food in Sheffield! On a totally unrelated note, I had my first ice-cream in Sheffield here as well!

Kawaii desu ne? Yi Yong suddenly was infected by the kawaii disease and was terribly infatuated with the kawaii poses and took to posing for pictures with them. Unfortunately, Wei Jin was also infected by the disease, evident in this picture of us taken while dining at No. 1 Chinese Buffet. It may seem inoccous in this picture, but I was plagued with Yi Yong's supposedly kawaii antics for the better part of the dinner. Ugh.

Due to our superb planning skills, we managed to roll our "reunion dinner" and the celebration for Su Ann's birthday party into one night. Here is a group picture of everyone who was present that night.

Chinese New Year spirit to the max! The only three guys who wore samfu in keeping with the Chinese New Year mood - from left, Kin, myself and Mark. The two of them had brightly coloured samfu's whereas mine was of a more somber colour (no idea if it's plum red, dark maroon or brownish red...). Anyway, I discovered after that night that I rather liked wearing a samfu - I even wore it to Gatecrasher for the Chinese New Year party after that! Dancing in samfu - interesting experience! Hahaha!

From left - Noemi, Yi Yong, Su Ann (the birthday girl), Rex and Li Ching. They hogged a small corner of the kitchen where Su Ann's birthday party and demanded Level Five security clearance to even enter their territory - so I wisely kept a good distance away and used high-powered spy cameras to clandestinely document their activities.

These dudes were much more relaxed about people entering their territory, so I hung around with them much longer. Clockwise, from left - Tommy, Mark, Hariz, Jun Xue, James and Kin. Another reason why I hung around there for much longer was because the window was there and it was the only source of fresh air to the kitchen - those guys were pretty smart to hog that place! Hahaha!

That's all for this entry, I guess. I have many other photographs of what we did during Chinese New Year, but I think it's rather unnecessary to put all of those up when a few will suffice. I'll try to get hold of the Gatecrasher photos (no promises) and see if I can upload them.

P.S. - Intensive Clinical Experience is up next, wish me luck!

SSC - History Of Medicine Results!

2006-01-28T16:20:00.000+01:00

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the grades for the SSC History of Medicine assignment us hapless Phase 1A-ians handed in before the Christmas holidays were finally released. When this was announced on Tuesday by Dr Burton, the initial reaction of the inmat - I mean, students in Medical Lecture Theatre 1 were loud (and interspersed, crude) vocalizations of dismay/excitement, tachycardia, palpitations and mild hyperventilation. When we were sufficiently calmer, Dr Burton proceeded to announce that the results would be released at the Reception of the Medical School in the afternoon. Since we had lectures until 1pm, most of us decided to collect the results immediately after our lectures were done. However, in a brilliant stroke of tactical foresight, some of us (Rex, Lisa and myself) decided to sneak there in the interludes between the mind-numbingly boring, neurone-killing sessions the Medical School calls lectures in order to avoid the inevitable horde at the Reception come 1pm.

It is said that battle plans never survive first contact, and sadly, it proved to be all too true in our case as well. Instead of finding a wonderfully-deserted Reception, we discovered that quite a fair number of like-thinking people were there as well. So much for our notions of a queueless collection of results. We duly joined the queue and waited for the results to be released. And waited. And waited some more. When someone finally had the sense to speak to the receptionist, we discovered that the results would be released at 1pm. Argh! We went back and endured another lecture - but at the end of our day's lectures, the time was only 12.30pm. Suresh, Lisa, Rex, Jessica and I decided to wait until 1pm in order to collect our results. In the meantime, we just stood near the vending machines outside the MLT01 and made lame jokes about lame jokes (sad, but true).

When 1pm finally came, we immediately dashed off to the Reception again, where it was surprisingly deserted. I had expected a throng of nervous Phase 1A-ians to be crowding around the receptionist's desk, but contrary to my expectations, no one was there! What had transpired there? Was everyone there suddenly ingested by a medical-student-eating creature? Thoughts of Dr Peters came to mind, but they were dismissed instantly. Hahaha... We then approached the receptionist's desk with great trepidation...only to be told that the results would be released at 3pm. What a great waste of time. If only Dr Burton had been specific earlier then we wouldn't have to go to all the trouble of tearing up and down the stairs in an anxiety-fuelled spate of hyperactivity. Haha! We then left the Medical School and went back to our respective Halls and spent the rest of the day gnawing at our fingernails in a state of near-nervous-breakdown.

The night would have been uneventful if Jessica didn’t send me a message after dinner announcing her results. Apparently, in a true display of Singaporean kiasu-ism (I bet Singaporeans are going to throttle me after reading this), she actually went back to the Medical School to collect her results! The thought crossed my mind as well, but the fact that I would have to throw on three layers of clothing, embark on a great journey fraught with perils such as freezing winds and the occasional pub and leave the comfortable warmth of my room put me off it. Jessica’s defense was that she couldn’t stand doing nothing knowing her results are out – I probably would have done the same thing a year or two ago…now, I’d probably say “What’s the rush? They aren’t going to go anywhere…”. I was rather relaxed about getting the results until she announced her “Good” to me over MSN – after that, they weighed much more heavily on my mind.

Our results are divided into 5 grades – Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Borderline and Unsatisfactory. The three pass grades are Excellent, Good and Satisfactory. Getting a Borderline or Unsatisfactory for Overall Competence is a Phase 1A-ian’s free ticket to an appointment with Dr Burton. I was hoping to get either Good or Satisfactory – to get an Excellent would be overtly optimistic of me considering the amount of effort I put into my SSC. The next day, I collected my results from the Reception – the receptionist took so long in searching for my Assessment Proforma that I thought my SSC was actually sent to the shredder by the evaluator since it was too crap to be considered a History of Medicine SSC. When she finally produced it, I breathed a sigh of relief that my SSC wasn’t actually reduced to thin ribbons of paper and consigned to the trash bin. And my results were – “Good”. Hahaha! I’m perfectly satisfied with that. Not the best, but my efforts didn’t warrant me getting the best grades anyway!

Well, after so long of being uncertain about my SSC’s grades, it’s one helluva relief to finally get them! One down, two to go. Wish me luck!

The Chinese New Year Is Coming!

2006-01-24T21:55:00.000+01:00

This is going to be another first for me - celebrating Chinese New Year away thousands of miles away from home. All this while, my Chinese New Years have been celebrated without fail in the idyllic little town called Kota Tinggi, surrounded by my family. Come this year, however, I will be celebrating it in a not-so-idyllic city called Sheffield, located right in the English Midlands. No more tonnes of bak kua that my family buys every time. Gone are the litres of Shandy I drown myself in each year. There's not even the slightest sign of the pineapple tarts and kuih kapit that I love so much. No more 120-decibel-karaoke by my relatives and the Chinese New Year songs blaring out perpetually from the idiot box - wait, I actually don't miss those all that much....hahaha! Worst of all is the fact that not a Mandarin orange is in sight!

Despite the fact that the absence of the usual Chinese New Year goodies has dealt a rather severe emotional blow to me (hahaha....try going a year without your favourite foodstuffs and you'll pretty much grasp my point!), the absence of my family is probably the factor that will make me feel it most come the 28th of this month. To be perfectly honest with you, I've never viewed the Chinese New Year as "family time". I've always seen it as just another holiday, albeit one spent with my relatives. I've even perceived of it as a chore of sorts since each year I usually end up lazing around, watching television and eating endlessly. It was only halfway through my flight back to the United Kingdom that the thought suddenly hit me - I wouldn't be seeing any of my relatives for at least another 6 months. How thick can I be? It took a flight halfway around the world to finally knock some sense into me!

Chinese New Year is the only time I actually get to spend with my grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins, whom I seldom see the rest of the year. Although it is definitely possible for me to visit them when I return to Malaysia for the summer vacations, not everyone will be around then. My relatives have their own lives to lead as well. My cousins will probably be away working and my uncles and aunties likely to be involved in their businesses. I've never realized the true significance of Chinese New Year - the scattered Yee family actually gathers in a single location for a couple of days! It's the only time of the year when I look around myself and can see the whole Yee family in the same dining room, eating and chatting away. It's also the only time of the year I actually get confused as to which title is used for a particular uncle or aunt - the complexity of the Mandarin titles for uncles and aunts of different degrees make it impossible for me to remember them completely!

However, inasmuch as I'm going to miss the good old times when Chinese New Year was celebrated back home, all is not lost. I've got a group of friends here as well, and we'll probably be celebrating the Chinese New Year together. The Chinese New Year will probably come and go before I even realize it - I have assignments, revision and the occasional party to fully occupy my time! My mum always used to comment that I never get homesick no matter how far away I am from home - well, Mum, you're absolutely right, this is about as close to homesickness as I get! Haha!

"Unconscious Bias" = Racism?

2006-01-17T21:19:00.000+01:00

I was half-expecting a slow start to things upon my return to Sheffield - I could never have been further off the mark in my assumption. Barely a day after I unceremoniously dumped my luggage in my room, I was asked by a friend of mine to play the role of mediator in a relationship problem of a friend of hers. This friend of mine couldn't have chosen an individual less suited to the task than me. First of all, I am unfamiliar in the role of mediating - due to my fiery temper, I usually am one of the antagonists in arguments or fights (although I am working hard to contain my temper). Secondly, the aforementioned problem is a relationship problem. My principle on this kind of things is "I shall not interfere at all" - what goes on between two individuals is beyond my caring unless I am directly implicated in it. Finally, my communication skills aren't exactly excellent - I might even precipitate another misunderstanding and make things worse!

I was in the midst of explaining the points on "Why YC Should Not Mediate This Problem" to my friend when I noticed that she was extremely keen on getting me to help. Well, since she really wanted my help, I guess I couldn't just shout NO! and run off, could I? I then duly followed her to her friend's room and received my Mission Briefing. To respect the privacy of my friend's friends, no names shall be mentioned here nor the details of what transpired at the discussion. It's enough to say that at the end of the day, the problem was more or less resolved, but I have a nagging feeling that somehow one of the involved parties didn't wholly get the message that I was trying to get across. Ah, well. That's beyond my caring. However, the core issue that was brought up in our discussion was extremely interesting to me, since I had never thought about it before. The question was, "Does unconscious bias, us unknowingly acting on our preferences as to who we prefer to mix with, count as racism?".

To illustrate this problem, let's create a fictional person (A) and situation. A has been brought up in an environment where he interacts mostly with people who are of the same race as him. That said, he does not have a problem mixing with people of other races - he views them just the same as the people of his own race and does not treat them any differently when interacting with them. A is then brought to a different environment, where the dominant population is of a different race. After a while, A discovers that while he mixes with people of different races, his closest friends are still the people of his own race. Not only that, he discovers that he spends more time with people of his own race. However, he doesn't make any effort to actively choose the people he talks to nor pick his friends based on race - he interacts with everyone just the same. But, at the end of the day, he still "clicks" better with people of his race. He is perturbed by this fact - is he unwittingly exhibiting racist characteristics?

One might argue that since he is showing a discrimination that clearly demarcates the difference between races, A is clearly a racist. However, this bias isn't consciously acted upon by A. It isn't like he purposely chose to select his closest friends based on race or interact better with people of his own race. Some might say racism is "an active discrimination of race with the view that one's own is superior to the others" - since A isn't actively discriminating, then he isn't a racist. But those in the other camp might disagree. They might argue that racism may be in an unconscious form as well - some people are conditioned since birth via cultural influences or familial influences to perceive their race as superior or better, so their bias is ingrained into them and they exhibit an unconscious bias towards races as well. Then, the circumstances surrounding the bringing up of A would clearly skew the verdict into deciding that A is a racist, since he was brought up in an environment where he was mostly exposed to people of his own race.

But then again, A doesn't see his race as "superior" or "better" than others. Those saying that A isn't a racist might continue the argument by saying that he probably mixes better with people who are of the same race as him since they have more common ground - they have the same culture, possibly the same language if not mode of speech and preferences. He has no intention of discriminating between races. But, if it happens, it is only natural since we still retain some part of primal herd instinct in us - a remnant of ages past. We identify with people who are like us. The opposition to these statements would be the phrase, even if it is natural, that doesn't make it right. Us humans are born violent, irrational and with not the tiniest hint of manners. Only by proper upbringing are we transformed into who we are - the modern Human. So the fact that the unconscious racial bias is only natural doesn't make it right. It is still essentially racism. A should actively seek to change his actions.

Bringing the focus of the argument onto a linguistic level doesn't further elucidate matters. Both sides will present varying interpretations of the word "racism" and by doing this, the argument spirals into a vicious circle where there is no true solution. Ironic, isn't it? Language was invented to help us communicate better and to allow us to clearly define our actions, but when one attempts to use definitions of words to resolve an issue, sometimes it just dissolves into a mass of circular arguments. The very flexibility of language which allows us humans linguistic creativity by variable interpretations of words also denies us the usage of language to make an absolute definition of a word. For instance, what does "racism" really mean? Is it an active process, a passive one or does it even care whether it is any of the above two choices? Unconscious, as not realized or known as existing in oneself or occurring in the absence of conscious awareness or thought?

Psychoanalysis has never really been my cup of tea. Semantics, semantics and more semantics....BORING! However, I'd be happy if any of you would like to share your views on this matter and hopefully, shed some light regarding this issue. Thank goodness I didn't decide to read Law or Psychology - it's pretty clear I don't have much aptitude in these fields!

Fire!

2005-12-11T00:47:00.000+01:00

My sleep was abruptly cut short last Thursday night - Friday morning, to be perfectly accurate. I had just tumbled into my bed at 12am, and surrendered to the blissfulness of wandering in Dreamland when I was woken up three and a half hours later by the ear-splitting cacophony of the fire alarms ringing. At first, I thought I had accidentally set my handphone's alarm to ring at the wrong time - so, my first instinct when I blearily slid out from beneath my warm and toasty duvet was to find my handphone and to smash it into a billion tiny pieces of what used to be a communication device. To perfectly convey how conscious I am after just waking up from deep sleep, I actually walked all the way to my desk, pressed a few buttons on my phone, walked back to my bed and lay down.

It was after I pulled my duvet over myself that I suddenly realized that the alarm was still ringing. And it wasn't my phone's alarm - it was the fire alarm! My mind went from groggy-just-woke-up mode to fully-awake mode in an instant. I then literally leapt out of bed, grabbed my handphone, keys, wallet and watch and pulled a jacket over myself. At that point, I heard Wei Jin knock on my door. I shouted "Yeah, I'm coming!" and charged out of my room. We then proceeded to wake Yi Yong, my next-door neighbour, by banging on his door. After he finally emerged from his room, we went off to our fire assembly point. Once outside the main building, we met Hiromi and Li Ching. The first thing Hiromi did was to comment on my sleep-tousled hair. Hahaha! Well, it's not like I have any say in how I look after I wake up!

Everyone then proceeded to the assemby point, where we stood in the frigid morning wondering what on Earth was going on. There was plenty of speculation as to what actually triggered the fire alarm - some said that it was probably a drunk student who accidentally triggered the alarms by opening the fire escape doors whereas others thought that a student (by the most bizzare circumstances) set his carpet on fire after smoking in his room. However, the general consensus was that the whole thing was probably a false alarm. Things began to look a bit serious when the Residential Tutors announced that if we tried to sneak back in via the front path, we would be fined - firemen from two fire engines had cordoned off the front part. Whispers that there really was a fire began to circulate.

Our uncertainty was put to rest when one of the Residential Tutors announced to us that there was indeed a fire, it happened in B Bay of the Tower Block and that there was nothing to worry about since the firemen had already handled it and they were just "cleaning up". We continued standing out there for quite some time after this announcement, and the cold Sheffield night began to take it's toll on some of us. Li Ching was starting to feel the cold and Wei Jin kindly gave his thick robes to her since his pyjamas were quite thick. I got to get pyjamas like that! Haha! Even though I was more prepared for the cold this time, I still felt it nevertheless. My upper body was kept warm and toasty by the thick jacket I threw on, but my toes were absolutely freezing since I forgot to put my shoes on!

Lurid details pertaining as to how exactly the fire actually began started to surface. There was talk of exploding ovens, drunk students, faulty wiring and even arson. I was rather interested to find out what exactly happened, but when we were finally allowed into the building again, the calls of my bed beckoned more strongly than my curiousity. I continued my interrupted sleep after reaching my room - but I was too tired to go for the sole morning lecture approximately five hours later. Being awoken in the middle of the night , standing outside in the freezing night and talking excitedly about everything and yet nothing is rather tiring stuff. Perfect excuse to skive a lecture. Hahaha! At least I went for the all the other lectures, right?

There were plenty of interesting stories to hear from my corridor neighbours as well as residents of B Bay of the Tower Block. One of my neighbours said that when he tried to awaken his neighbour after hearing the fire alarms blaring, his neighbour just opened the door, waved at him and went back into his room! The next day, his neighbour couldn't remember doing anything of the sort! To think that he slept through the whole thing without an inkling of what had happened! Another of my friends, who stayed just a few rooms away from the kitchen that caught fire, told me a truly amazing story. Apparently he didn't wake up immediately after the alarms rang, and by the time he got out of his room, he was greeted by smoke so thick that the entire corridor was shrouded in smoke. He was on the verge of panic when he saw a figure walk out of the smoke - it was the porter. The porter shouted "Get out!" and waved him towards the stairs, and he reckoned that the porter saved his life.

The funny thing about the fire was that there were no signs of how it actually started! When my friend visited the kitchen that was the source of all the panic the next day, he said that everything looked fine - although there was a nasty smell in the air. To disprove the theory of exploding ovens, the microwave oven in the room was perfectly okay. How then, did the fire actually begin? Pretty scary and exciting food for thought. Anyway, I just hope a fire won't break out in Halifax Hall again - goodness knows I could do with fewer disruptions to my sleep!

Prick Me, Prick You

2005-12-08T21:27:00.000+01:00

Just had my ILA Small Group Work session this afternoon. It was a close call, really, as I had to rush my work for the group discussion last night because the learning objectives that were supposed to be posted on our webportal weren't up for the better part of the week. To be absolutely honest, it isn't as if I usually finish my work early anyway - although they had a lot more ground to cover this time, so I had to burn the midnight oil last night (fortified by a few mouthfuls of leftover shiraz and a few bites of Cadbury's chocolate) until I got my work done. However, upon reaching the lonely and windswept outpost that is known to us as St Thomas' Church this afternoon, my group discovered that our group's GP was absent! How can we hold a constructive, critical and medically-orientated discussion without THE MAIN MAN?!

We were pondering what to do next (to leave or to leave surreptiously via the toilet windows) when a guy walked over to our table, sat in the seat of honour usually reserved for our favourite GP and announced that he was in charge of our group today. I instantly decided that I liked his style. He just walked over, dropped a book and a piece of paper on the table, sat down in a seat that obviously screams RESERVED! and announced that he was in charge of our table - all without even so much as an introduction. Everyone sat rooted to the spot, transfixed by wonder. Who was this newcomer, who dared to usurp the throne of our GP? He hath not yet passeth the fury that is Group 1 - the group which can spend an hour prodding everything and yet nothing - how dare he calleth himself our Tutor?

Before anyone had enough time to pluck up enough courage to ask him who the heck he was, he picked up the piece of paper he brought with him and began running through the ILA Learning Objectives at hyperspeed. We then settled into a routine of flicking through the pages of our self-prepared notes while he began rattling off stuff in a near-continuous flow of medico-jargon. How different from how our ILAs used to be. We used to run through the objectives one by one, discussing them at length, and our GP would prompt us to contribute by saying "Let's see what so-and-so has to say about the etiology of so-and-so disease" or something to that effect. This led to plenty of participation from everyone. Now, we just sat, flicked through our notes and nodded every now and then while our temporary tutor charged through the ILA learning topics.

When he was finally done (I noticed that he did quite an impressive job of summarizing everything into a concise presentation and not miss even the smallest details), we began to ask questions. Whence did thou come, and from where? Turns out that he was a surgeon-in-training who was assigned to fill in the space of our tutor for today. He was supposed to take a teaching post for 6 months as part of his training. No wonder his command of the human anatomy was absolutely spot-on. Then, he took out the sharps' bin, overturned it, and shook it while medical thingamajigs fell out of the hole in the cover. The rest of us watched with mounting excitement, akin to watching someone open a Christmas present. Ooh, cannulas. And look, more cannulas! And syringes, and bottles of liquid, and alcohol swabs, and cotton balls!

After bombarding him with a few more questions about intermittent claudication, critical leg ischaemia, bypass surgery and the anatomy of the lower limb, we were more or less satisfied that we got a guy who knew his stuff. Then, out of the blue, he suddenly asked us if we wanted to draw blood from him. We were like, whaddafuk? since it is very foolhardy to ask a couple of first years who know nuts about medicine to insert a wickedly sharp object into your arm and assume that you'll still have an arm after we were done. Someone volunteered and with our new tutor showing the way, he managed to draw out a couple of ounces of blood. Everyone was enthusiastic about drawing blood after seeing him survive the procedure. However, he only had two arms - one can only prick a person's arm so many times.

He came up with a solution - we would draw blood from each other. Wicked. After showing us the basic procedure, we then proceeded to draw blood from each other. I suppose if a person from another table looked over, they would have thought that the whole of Group 1 became IV drug abusers. Everyone was holding syringes and stabbing it into each other's arm. After that, the person who got pricked would then proceed to draw blood from the person who pricked him/her. Drawing blood is harder than it seems. Stab in at too deep and angle and you pierce through the vein completely. Stab in too shallow, and you'll be quite likely to pull the needle out when pulling the plunger of the syringe to draw blood out. Some people managed to draw blood, whereas others just gave some individuals a nasty bruise. I managed to draw a small amount before the needle slipped out.

What great fun! I think I'm starting to like syringes now - all I can think of now are thoughts of sliding the needle into the vein, not too deep an angle, watching for the "backflash", easing it inside a little, pulling the plunger backwards while holding the syringe steady, press a cotton ball on the site of insertion and gently withdraw the needle out without any lateral movement of the syringe. Argh! I'm almost, read this - almost, but not quite tempted to buy a couple and practice on myself. Hahaha!

P.S. - The Christmas mood is in the air, and I think I'm infected with the Christmas spirit for the first time in my life - I feel like nicking the Christmas tree they place near the reception and placing it my room! Haha! Tomorrow, I'm going to watch some caroling tomorrow and the Christmas lights of Sheffield! Should be great fun!

P.P.S. - Just 10 more days, and I'll be leaving on a jet plane!

My 19th Birthday!

2005-12-02T16:09:00.000+01:00

What an interesting birthday - I reached 19 years of age in completely foreign country, with a group of friends completely different from those I have back home and in a way nothing like how my birthdays used to be celebrated all these years! Since my birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, there were no plans of celebrating at all until all my lectures were over - there was a medics' social at a club called Reflex that night. Privately, I thought that I would see out my birthday in a club, drinking a pint of beer and reflecting on things to come in a relatively quiet corner of the aforesaid club. After that, I planned to curl up on my bed, listen to some nice music and read Moore and Dalley's Clinically Orientated Anatomy - sad, I know, but I didn't really have any other books to read. My idea of a good time is to listen to music that I like and drink steaming hot green tea whilst reading a nice book on my bed - yes, I sound like an old geezer...haha!

Events deviated from my ideas on how to spend my birthday roughly an hour before dinner. Tommy sent me a message via MSN asking me if I was going to a Hong Kong Society social - I had totally forgotten about it! I signed up for the HKSoc because I was subjected to psychological influences (read - insistent cajoling) from Lisa, Ben, Nessa and the rest of the HKSoc crew who were recruiting members. My feeble excuse of "B-b-but I'm not a Hong Kongese!" was discarded by them even before the sentence completely left my mouth, but it was the pictures of dim sum that did me in. Now, this is something that should be outlawed by the University. It is proven that the promises of good food invariably lures people into a society, no matter what the society is for. Heck, it could be a Society For The Sacrificing Of Virgin Squirrels, but if they promised to bring me to somewhere nice to eat one in a while, I'd join without a moment's hesistation.

After deliberating for a while on whether I should go for the HKSoc social, I finally decided that I would go. Firstly, the membership cards were ready for collection and I was rather curious as to how my picture turned out - I generally look weird in pictures! Secondly, they were providing potato crisps and drinks - must-haves for any self-respecting society's social. Thirdly, they were having games and karaoke. Whee. My favourite activities...yearrite. Having decided, I went down for dinner. At first, dinner seemed like the mundane affair it always is - take food, put food on tray, walk to cashier, sit down and begin to chomp. However, halfway through my meal, the rest of the gang (Mark, Wei Jin, Tommy, James, Jun Xue, Rexanna, Noemi, Li Ching, Brandy) suddenly shoved their desserts (chocolate cake, if I remember correctly) in front of me and began singing "Happy Birthday!". Hahaha! It was a pleasant surprise - but it was embarrassing being at the centre of attention - we were in the Hall's dining room and everybody were looking over!

After that, someone suggested that everyone should meet in my room at 11pm for a small "birthday bash". The rest agreed, and now I had an impromptu party to plan! Well, to be honest, there wasn't much planning to do, really. The rest had already bought a cake and all we needed were drinks. Since Mark, Tommy and myself were going to the HKSoc social, our plan was to buy two bottles of wine at Somerfield's after the social and head back before 11pm - I didn't feel like going to the medics' social anymore! After dinner, we then headed to the HKSoc, where I collected my membership card (true to form, my picture looks weird - but acceptable nonetheless), ate tonnes of potato crips, swigged tonnes of pop and joined in a quiz. However, while I was there, Lisa managed to persuade me to go to the medics' social for a while. I duly left the responsibilities of procuring the wine to my good mates Mark and Tommy, experts in choosing good liqour. We then left for the medics' social after meeting up with Suresh, Max and Jessica and finally reached Reflex after picking up Sohan and gang from Victoria Hall.

Once at the club, Suresh and Sohan bought me drinks since it was my birthday, despite my efforts to tell them that I'm quitting my old habits of drinking huge amounts of alcohol in one night. Hahaha... I think my liver probably won't last through my time in medical school if I keep on doing that, so now my policy on drinking is one pint per night or two or three small glasses of wine. Anyway, thanks for the drinks, guys! The music and atmosphere at the club wasn't bad - the music wasn't techno or house that all clubs love to play, but normal pop and songs from the 80's. I ended up spending around an hour there, until I had to leave in order to make it back in time for my "room party". Jessica and Lisa followed me back as well, although Suresh would be joining us later. On the way, Jessica and Lisa bought potato crisps for the party. We rushed back and reached my room 15 minutes late! Hahaha!

When we reached my room, no one was there - no big surprise, since I reached my room 15 minutes late! I went to Mark's room and he sent out the summons to the rest. And before I knew it, my room was filled with people. My room isn't the largest of rooms to begin with, and with about 15 people in it, everyone was packed like sardines! There wasn't enough seating, so many people just stood and talked. When Hsin Yu and Su-Ann came, they had the brilliant idea of smearing Mark's shaving cream liberally on my face as a birthday "present"! I'm not complaining, this beats having whipped cream on one's face or getting the crap beaten out of you in a typical Johorian 3-4! Haha! We served cake on tissue paper since we had no plates. We then ended up talking until the wee hours of the night - until someone came to complain about our noise level! Haha! Everyone left at around 1.15am, and I promptly took a bath and collapsed on my bed. What a night...hahaha!

Hsin Yu prepares to help me shave. I was very, very frightened indeed. Someone suggested that she shave off my eyebrows - luckily it never happened, or else I'd hide in my room until they regrew!

The cake and I. A chocolate overdose was imminent - I had chocolate cake for dessert and now, chocolate cake again?!

Some of the people who made my birthday truly special. Thanks everyone, those in the photo and those not captured on film (you know who you guys are)!

Many thanks to:

1. My family - thanks for all your birthday wishes!
2. Rexanna, Noemi and Ah Wong for your birthday cards!
3. Mark and Tommy for choosing the two bottles of excellent wine - you guys rock in your tastes in wine!
4. Suresh and Sohan for the beer - no wonder it's hard for me to stop drinking!
5. Jessica and Lisa for buying the crisps and coming all the way to my room from Reflex to celebrate my birthday!
6. All those who celebrated my birthday with me and made it a special day!
Last but not least...
7. My friends back in Malaysia or overseas (ex-EC, ex-TCSJ) who wished me a happy birthday!

First Snowfall

2005-11-28T15:57:00.000+01:00

For a glorious fifteen minutes today, I was 5 years old again. How should I describe it? Unadulterated wonder? Pure joy? Heartfelt bliss? Words are insufficient to describe the heights to which our human hearts can soar - everything is a lie when we speak of emotions, for the words themselves do no justice to what we truly feel. For the first time in my life, I saw snowfall. I was about to leave for my lectures when I drew my curtains aside and saw snowflakes in their gentle descent from the heavens. Needless to say, I threw on my triple layers of clothing, winter jacket, socks and shoes and hurried out of my room as quickly as I could - and out into the falling snow.

For the first time in a long while, my heart was unfettered by the chains of daily life as I stood there watching the snowflakes fall. I could have stood there, just looking up, until I either froze to death or the snowing stopped. However, I didn't want to be late for my lectures either, so I reluctantly shouldered my bag and went off to my lectures. I thought the snowfall would have stopped after my lectures, but my lectures finished early since there was a problem with the Powerpoint file - and it was snowing even more heavily outside! Walked back with my "Leader", Rexanna, after the lectures and we stopped at the Botanical Gardens along the way. It was a sight indeed - a thin layer of snow was on the grass and the autumn hue of the leaves on the trees made for a very pretty landscape!

Wanting to capture the moment, I took pictures using my shitty phone camera and regretted not bringing my camera along. The pictures came out like what you'd expect out of a 4096 colour phone - distinguishable, but incredibly grainy. However, once I reached Halifax Hall, I promptly whipped out my camera and took a few pictures of the surroundings. My parents used to joke that I was sort of a "jinx" to snowfall - it never snows whenever we go for holidays! For instance, one of our main reasons for visiting Korea a few years back was to "see snow". However, despite the winter being the coldest in 35 years (-7 degrees in daytime), it still didn't snow! Everyone in Korea was puzzled at this anomaly - but I thought I knew the reason why! Anyway, this disproves the "jinx" theory...haha!

Here are some pictures taken from Wei Jin's room's window - his room has a much better view than mine, believe me!

P.S. - Many thanks to Jit Sen for wishing me a happy birthday, even though strictly speaking, over here it still isn't my birthday yet! Haha! Thanks, man!

The Seven Thingamajigs

2005-11-27T21:45:00.000+01:00

This probably has all the makings of an epic tale - just when I thought that I had lost all my blogging impetus, a deus ex machina worthy of the machinations of Tinseltown came to my salvation. This tale began like any other B grade movie flick. I was sitting on my chair, facing my laptop, wondering what on Earth can I blog about today? when someone pounded on my door. The latch was lifted by trembling hands, the door gently eased aside, my heart racing at the thought of what nefarious creatures with plans for my demise lurked outside my door. Oh. It's just Wei Jin. Time for dinner. I promptly went back to my laptop to put it on "standby" mode as I always do when I go down for mealtimes. Before the screen shutdown, I caught a glimpse of a webpage that I was surfing - Yih Seong's blog. Aha! Now I know what to blog about!

I got tagged by Yih Seong a week or so ago - then Chye Hing tagged me as well. At that time, I was absolutely oblivious to whatever the term "tagged" meant. My only understanding of it at that time was that it had something to do with barcodes and price tags. However, after visiting a couple of blogs, it became apparent that if you were "tagged" by a fellow blogger then it became your task to write about the stuff that the person who tagged you wrote. It seems as though "tagging" is a way to coerce someone into writing what someone else wants him to - whatever happened to the freedom and autonomy of individuals? This, my dear readers, is electronic subjugation at it's worst. Well, I'm just kidding. I'm not exactly complaining, for it's entirely one's own decision whether to respond to the "tag" and it kind of makes for interesting reading! Hahaha! Anyway, it seems fun, so here goes:

7 Things You Plan To Do Before You Die
1. Make my parents proud of the fact that I'm their son.
2. Become a successful doctor.
3. Find "the one".
4. Get married, have kids and grandchildren, live to old age.
5. Live a happy and contented life.
6. Discover what it means to "have lived" - and live.
7. Unconditionally help as many people as possible.

7 Things I Could Do
1. Study more.
2. Become a more sociable person.
3. Learn to control my temper.
4. Play the piano more often.
5. Brush up my skills in tennis, squash and badminton.
6. Reach at least 4th Dan in taekwondo.
7. Mix with my relatives more often.

7 Celebrity Crushes
1. Myself (haha!)
2. Myself
3. Myself
4. Myself
5. Myself
6. Myself
7. You get the idea...

7 Often Repeated Words
1. Hmmm....
2. Really?
3. Yo!
4. Damn
5. Uhhh
6. *yawn*
7. Huh?

7 Traits I Look For In The Opposite Sex
1. A sense of humour.
2. Intelligence.
3. Patience.
4. Loyalty.
5. Witty.
6. Fun.
7. Pleasant looks (c'mon, admit this, guys).

My 7 Tags Go To
1. Lip Beng a.k.a. Fish
2. Irwin
3. Lisa
4. Eric
5. Tze Chow
6. Jeremy
7. Anyone else who wants this...

Updates

2005-11-22T20:05:00.000+01:00

I can't believe that it's already a week since I last blogged - so much for my grandiose plans to write "an entry each day"! Well, this entry will just be a general update on the events that happened in the past week, since there weren't really any outstanding events that I can really blog about. What's new, you ask. For starters, the eight weeks of Introduction to Medicine and Medical Sciences (IMMS) module is now over and the current module now is the Cardiovascular (CVR) module - medical school now begins proper! Somehow, I've been looking forward to this. The IMMS module was either mind-numbingly boring or incomprehensibly difficult, and as a result of that, I was either dozing off in lectures or staring at the slides with my mouth agape and a huge question mark hovering somewhere over my head. Some parts of IMMS were undeniably interesting, but others could have been given in bat squeaks for all they were worth.

So far, CVR seems rather interesting. It's a fact that I have not dozed off in any lecture since it's begun, testament to my earlier statement. Anatomy Practicals are still more or less the most fun thing I get to do every week. My scapel is now my best friend, and I'm already getting to know the bone forceps and bone saw better. However, my table's demonstrator doesn't seem very inclined to point us in the right direction whenever my group members (myself included) flounder in the intricacies of the human body, which happens ever so often - he'll throw us a few cryptic directions, prod some stuff and wander off. We then end up asking "What's this? Should we cut it?" every few seconds and prodding stuff continually without actually getting anywhere. It is worth noting that my group's general consensus on the anatomical bits and bobs of the human body is - if it's unknown, slice it out and we'll find out what it is, or not. Thankfully, another demonstrator will usually come to our salvation and show us what to cut and what to look out for, and everything gets done in the space of 10 minutes.

I had my first "claypot chicken rice" in Sheffield last Friday as well. Granted, it was cooked in a rice cooker, but we'll call it claypot chicken rice anyway since it was brown, contained chicken and had a crust of carbonized rice all around it. Had it in Nessa's flat's kitchen - she organized another potluck dinner party. Like before, I didn't contribute anything besides the alcohol, which I shared with Suresh - we drank the bulk of it, as usual. The food was pretty good - there was chicken curry, claypot chicken rice (albeit one cooked in a rice cooker, but hey, I'm not complaining), chips, carbonized pizza (an unfortunate accident) as well as stir-fried vegetables. After nearly everyone left and those who were remaining were talking about some stuff or the other, I sat down at the couch and dozed off. I woke up just in time to find the kitchen cleared up and when it was nearly time to leave - talk about strategic timing!

Went to the International Food Evening last Saturday as well. I went there with Ema and one of her friends. It was basically a foodfair concept with stalls set up by the societies of various countries. It was a pretty interesting experience, being able to sample different cuisine from different countries. I managed to sample some reindeer wraps, Scandidavian cinnamon buns, some Hong Kongese dessert, sushi (which was mediocre), Korean gimbap and kimchijeon, some wierd Indonesian dessert and some Malaysian kuih (for the sake of supporting MASSOC). The performances weren't half bad too - managed to see the City Mayor and the Mayoress attempt the salsa! Hahaha! However, this event was pretty harsh on my wallet - I reckon I left the place 10 pounds lighter than before I went in. But it was all in all a memorable night!

Well, I guess this will do for now - I'll try to update again as soon as possible!

SSC - Scourge Of Phase 1A-ians!

2005-11-15T23:05:00.000+01:00

My SSC is the culmination of an effort spanning eight weeks since it was assigned to us hapless Phase 1A-ians in what seemed like an eternity ago - tonnes of research, writing, referencing, reading and editing. Well, actually, it isn't. My SSC is actually the culmination of four weeks of planning, two weeks of procrastinating and slightly over a week of writing liberally interspersed with swearing, writer's block, hair-pulling, spacing out and nail-peeling. Is it any wonder why I love my SSC so? So many emotions were mixed in a metaphorical cauldron brewing a literary masterpiece that will blow the brain matter out of the examiner marking it - either the aforesaid examiner will get his mind blown due to the thought-provokingness of it or the very crappiness of it all - either way, I pity the examiner. I have a nagging suspicion that it is very more likely to be the latter option, though.

Many of you, no doubt, will be wondering what on tarnation is a SSC? Unless, of course, you happen to be a medical student at the University of Sheffield's School of Medicine. For the uninformed, I shall attempt to elucidate some of the mysteries of the unfathomable plan that is The Great SSC Project (The History of Medicine part, anyway). This programme aims to allow us to develop and nurture out interest in specific fields in medicine by allowing us to choose our own topic from a list of around two hundred titles related to the history of medicine, do research about it, write a 1500-2000 word essay and reference it in the Vancouver Referencing System - sounds pretty fun and easy, right? That's what I thought at first, and I even thought that it would be interesting since I like reading about history! I am ashamed at my naivete. I was young and impressionable. Now I know better. A lot better. SSCs can be explained in a pathological pathway - it's akin to a chronic progressive disease.

The disease SSC has a relatively inoccous starting phase in an individual - symptoms which may appear not too serious are first exhibited in the affected individual. Those include irrational enthusiasm for the library, excitement upon looking at centuries-old books and affinity for medico-jargon. Referencing Syndrome sets in after two weeks or so; and usually happens when searching for sources becomes mind-numbingly boring. It happens after the affected individual discovers that it is virtually impossible to search for journals in the library since there are hundreds of volumes there, and finding a relevant article in a relevant journal would be serendipity unequalled for all Existance. Symptoms include spending long hours at the libraries, locking up oneself in rooms for hours on end, declining invitations to parties and red eyes from staring at the computer monitor for too long.

After that, Abnormal Writing Failure usually occurs. The University is very adamant about plagiarism, or rather, its prevention. We have to be extra-careful not to write out the points in the same fashion as we read them in our articles as we have to submit a copy of our version to an online service that compares your essay with those of your coursemates and every single damned article published in medical journals or books! I can safely assert that nearly everybody's sentence-restructuring skills saw an exponential increase. Usual bouts of procrastination (I'll do it tomorrow...or maybe the day after....or the day after the day after), writer's block (argh dammit I can't bloody think of anything to write!) and the usual distractions (whee going out drinking/clubbing/partying tonight!) are seen in the unfortunate person. If the person survives these bouts, he/she then progresses to Referencingitis.

Referencingitis is characterized by the fact that the people unfortunate enough to have it are usually seen desperately rummaging in the detritus of their bags for a few pieces of paper stapled together that is titled "Referencing Skills Workbook For Medical Undergraduates". Other symptoms include spending hours reading the lecture notes about referencing, hair-pulling (usually happens after the individual discovers that the lecture notes on referencing are useless) and an unusual affinity for Dr Burton, the Phase 1A coordinator. Unlike the above two progressions for SSC, Referencingitis can be easily cured by a quick visit to Minerva, the Medical School's web portal, where the great mysteries of referencing are explained in detail in Dr Burton's SSC FAQ and the Handbook. This phase is usually short, and the individual rapidly progresses to the next in the space of a few days.

Editing Hyperproductivity Disorder is a phase where the individual realizes that he/she has written too much and needs to slash out a bazillion words in order to fit his/her essay below the given word limit, 1500-2000 words, which is pathetically miniscule! Signs observed include the entire deletion of paragraphs, the distaste of the slightest amount of digression, loud and linguistically crude vocalizations, hair-tearing and the occasional bashing of computer displays. There is no direct curative care for this, all caregivers are advised to be as far away as possible from individuals exhibiting these signs as they may be belligerent and irrational - posing undue risk to the medical caregiver. For further information on Risk, please read the delightfully interesting lectures of Medicine and Society - Risk Assessment. Warning - May Induce Stupor and Drowsiness.

Fortunately, SSC usually blows over in the space of eight weeks. This may be due to the fact that in the seventh week of the SSC or so, the brain finally registers that something is wrong and secretes Last-Minute-Panic Stimulating Hormone (LMP-SH) which generates a sudden flurry of activity in the individual leading to supression of the neural blockages contributing to Abnormal Writing Blockage and sudden clearing of the Referencing pathways. The SSC is then removed from the body by selective amnesia and everything, or nearly everything learnt about it is lost forever. The sudden disappearance of SSC in the body leads to general euphoria in the individual, usually leading to secondary characteristics such as alcohol-consumption, whistling, singing happy songs and grinning stupidly.

Despite all the medical advances nowadays, there seems to be no vaccine that is effective to prevent SSCs from manifesting themselves on medical students. Furthermore, there seems to be no cure for SSC once an individual has contracted it - the only way to rid oneself of it is to let the SSC run its course. The most effective care seems to be correct treatment and management of symptoms, which may sound a little depressing - but it's Life. Get used to it.

Disclaimer - this entry has no basis of medical knowledge whatsoever and the author is using it as an outlet to relieve post-SSC trauma. No responsibility will be assumed by the author over any actions taken based on what is written in this entry. THIS IS NOT FACT. Duh.

The Autumn Rain

2005-11-04T16:42:00.000+01:00

I walked back from the last of my lectures for today in the wind and the rain - I couldn't possibly have done something stupider than that. I should have known better. It's cold here, even more so when the wind blows. It's even colder when it rains. But the cold is elevated to a whole new dimension when it simultaneously rains and blows. Since my umbrella was thrashed by the friendly hurricane-speed winds at the Royal Hallamshire, my umbrella-bereft situation left me with more or less no other option than to stick both my hands in my pockets and to walk in the blustery wetness that personifies typical British weather. Having been here for more than a month, I thought that I was more or less used to the weather. How horribly wrong I was.

By the time I reached the warmth and shelter of my Hall, I thought my ears had already froze to the point that they were nothing more than frosty cartiliganeous pieces. I couldn't feel them at all, and for a few heart-pounding femtoseconds I thought they had decided to abandon me somewhere along Clarkehouse Road. A quick pat to the sides of my head reassured me that the aforesaid bits were exactly where they should be, greatly alleviating my worries in the process. After the quick pat to the sides of my head, I noticed that my fingers were numb - to the point that I had no sensation in my fingertips. I looked down at my hands and - voila - my hands were deathly white. Damn the wind-chill factor. I'm no great shakes at the mathematics of the weather, but I'm pretty sure it has thingamajigs and stuff like numbers and symbols and equations. And the drop in air temperature should be something like "the speed of the wind to the power of the number of raindrops per square metre per second". Oh, wait. The temperature would be in the negative thousands, then. Whatever.

Anyway, I promptly headed to the showers after dumping my bag in my room. I forgot a cardinal rule - hot water plus cold extremities equals A Thousand Years Of Pain. At least the burning sensation meant that my extremities were still more or less functional. After the shower, desperate for a few more kilojoules of heat, I tried hugging my room's heater. Normally the heaters are nominally switched on, but for some reason or the other, it was switched on at maximum heat today. I immediately jerked back my whole right arm after trying to "hug" the heater - I could have sworn I heard a sizzle. Now there's a large red patch on my arm. Lesson learnt - always, always check the temperature of the heater before attempting to hug it. What a day. I suffered from two extremes in the space of an hour. Extreme cold and extreme heat. And dinner's fish and chips. Again. Sigh.

P.S. - Posts will be much slower as I try to get up to speed on my SSC!

5 Bruises, 1 Scratch and 1 Great Day!

2005-10-30T00:31:00.000+02:00

There are around 3 circular welts on my left flank, one on my shoulder and another on the right side of my back. That is what happens when a paint pellet has it's flight abruptly stopped by a person. 350 miles per hour, 5 grammes of paint - the change in momentum is definitely sufficient to alter the superficial tissue of the human body. You don't feel much pain - it feels like someone gave you a particularly hard tweak. Perhaps its the adrenaline coursing through your veins. You can run, stumble, slide and jump without feeling exhaustion, even though your legs have lost all sensation ages ago. When you finally stop, everything crashes down on you again. The welts sting. Your legs have turned to jelly. You're suddenly out of breath. You notice scratches that you have no idea of how you obtained them. Ah, yes. Paintball is absolutely astral.

Went for paintballing organized by MASSOC (Malaysian and Singaporean Society) just this morning. MASSOC had chartered a coach to take us there, and our paintballing session was from 9am to 4pm. It was held in a vast, thickly wooded area in the outskirts of Sheffield. The whole area was cordoned off to form "maps" in which we had our matches. We played a total of 4 maps, each having 2 rounds. We were split into two groups, Red and Yellow. I was in Red. And we totally dominated Yellow. I'm serious. It was pure ownage on our part. Out of the 8 rounds, Red won 7. The only round we didn't win, we tied with Yellow. I guess our team was just much more coordinated and aggressive. Whereas Yellow would just charge at us with their guns blazing, we would just lay down suppressive fire, send small groups to flank them and shoot the living crap out of them from the sides.

My experience in paintballing began rather badly. In our first map, we were supposed to attack a "fort" in the forest. The first area was rather hilly and our plan was to assault it from two fronts. I chose to attack from the hilly side, but as our spawn point was downhill, that meant that I had to run all the way around the map, hike uphill and charge down at a fort held by 25 or so bloodthirsty and trigger-happy opponents. When the game began, I sprinted off to higher ground. Once there, I immediately took cover behind a tree and began sniping at the enemy. However, to my chagrin, the tree that I was taking cover behind was suddenly used by two other blokes. I found my self with insufficient space to hide myself - and before I knew it, my gun was hit. The paint spattered onto my mask and I thought I took a head shot. I held my gun up (signal that says "I'm F***ed") and went back to the spawn point. Once there, however, I discovered that I wasn't shot at all! And before I could rejoin the battle, Red had already captured the fort.

In the second round, Red was supposed to defend the fort this time around. I took a position in a corner of the fort, overlooked by the higher ground. I figured that most of the action would be there - and I wanted to be in the thick of it. I wasn't disappointed. Yellow kept doing suicidal charges at us. We shot them down in a hail of pellets. After a while, I ran out of pellets - I was literally doing a triple tap to every enemy I saw (one to range, one to adjust the line of fire and the final one to kill). Managed to snipe two enemies before I ran out of ammo. After my pellets ran out, I just crouched in a corner and observed the battle raging all around me. Suddenly, an enemy poked his gun through one of our unguarded firing ports and opened up on us - I was hit on my back. The perpetrator had his arm bloodied by a hail of pellets that rained down on him immediately after that. 5 seconds later, the shouts of "Game over!" by the marshals echoed through the woods. Red had won by successfully defending the fort.

In the second map, Red was supposed to defend huts for 10 minutes from the advancing Yellow in the first round. The defenders had limited lives whereas the attackers had unlimited lives - if you get shot, you just run back to the spawn point and start again. Yellow's assault advanced, slowly but steadily, their sheer numbers overwhelming us. My huts were one of the last pockets of resistance. I sniped from a window, forcing the enemy to take cover and hopefully slow them down. One by one my friends were hit, and I was the last one in the hut. I was kept busy by trying to snipe someone who wasn't completely behind cover - only to not notice Yellow had advanced to my hut. A few of them poked their barrels through an open window and unleashed a fusillade of pellets at me. Ow. A painful way to get knocked out from the round. However, Red won again by holding on onto the last hut until 10 minutes were up.

The subsequent rounds, my luck (and perhaps, to a miniscule amount, skill) had improved. I actually managed to get shot only once for the remaining rounds. Red's teamwork saved the day. Our flanking moves always caught Yellow wrong-footed. In the capture-the-flag maps, Yellow always reached the flag first (by virtue of their charging to the flag as soon as the game commences), but we would arrive soon after to gun them down and take the flag for our own. We usually surrounded them and while one side kept them busy, the others would rush and shoot them from their backs.The most memorable part was when the small group I was in was tasked to flank the enemy - only to find ourselves against their main force. Yellow had warmed up to our tactics, albeit at the very last round.

We had to move forwards in leapfrog movements while taking cover at every possible moment in order to avoid getting an unhealthy dose of attention from them. Some of us provided covering fire while the rest ran forwards, then those who went forward would take cover, provide covering fire and allow those at the back to run forward. I remember running from tree to tree, leaning out to shoot occasionally (I managed to shoot two of them while doing this!), and then crawling forwards in the hope that they couldn't see me. I remained supine behind a rock the size of a stool for nearly 3 minutes, raising myself occasionally to shoot at the enemy. When our group was close enough, we literally charged them. The enemy did an unexpected thing - they ran. We shot at their backs as they scampered away. Some got away, but the sounds of gunfire from the other side of the map meant that our other teammates were dealing with them with extreme prejudice.

Then, for some reason inexplicable to me, I just walked into the enemy's base, my finger on the trigger but with the gun in a relaxed position. We had already won the battle. I half-expected some of the opposition to be lying in ambush - but the truth was that my teammates had already shot all of them in our charge up to their base. My friend took the flag and we ran back to base. Red wins. After the final round, we de-kitted and went back by chartered coach, which dropped us off in time for dinner. I spent around 15 pounds on paint pellets, not including the game fee of 11 pounds. An incredibly expensive past-time, but I think I'll be making paintballing an annual event - it's great fun!

Summary:
Confirmed Kills - 4
Probable Kills - 3
Killed (Times) - 4
Shots Fired - 400 (yes I'm a bad shot - 400 bullets and only 4 confirmed kills?)

Lisa And Ema's Birthday Bash!

2005-10-27T20:54:00.000+02:00

Be forewarned; this entry is extremely picture-intensive. Those who know me will know how much I enjoy tormenting dial-up users with the picture-crazy entries in my blogs. To the people who whine and complain about the slow load-up times - TOUGH. Get broadband. If you already have it, think of upgrading your package. It's obviously not fast enough. Anyway. In this entry I'll let the pictures do the narrating. Believe me, there's enough to write a novel (even more, perhaps, seeing as I didn't post all the pictures I took). These pictures were taken with my trusty Cybershot P10 - I received it when my Dad brought it up to Sheffield for me, together with tonnes of other stuff. Thanks, Dad!

Yesterday, we held a "suprise" birthday party for Lisa and Ema at Ranmaru's kitchen in the Endcliffe Vale Flats. The celebrations were for Lisa's 21st birthday and Ema's 2oth birthday. The decorations seen in this picture were courtesy of Kanako, who provided the balloons and did a great job with the signs.

After Suresh stalled Lisa for almost an hour to allow us time to decorate the place and cook the food, our first guest of honour was here! We hid in the darkened kitchen and sprang our surprise on her the moment she stepped into the kitchen! She never expected it - and it shows! Success!!! We didn't get any tears of joy from her, though...hahaha!

Surprise, surprise! Guest-of-Honour Number 2 gets the same reception! Ema's reaction was even more pronounced than Lisa's! This picture is definitely my favourite! Look at her reaction when she is showered with confetti and paper streamers!

From left (top) - myself and Wei Jin. From left (bottom) - Ema, Rexanna, Lisa, Hiromi and Yoko.

The ladies of the party! From left - Hiromi, Yoko, Tina, Nessa, Lisa, Jessica, Rexanna, Sunhee, Kanako and Ema. Yuki is trying to fit himself into the picture just behind them - nice try! Haha... Should have just pushed your way through, man!

"We Want You!" To clean up after us, anyway. Myself and Sohan.

Mini-group pic! From left - Kanako, Wei Jin, myself, Hiromi and Sohan.

Medics unite! The first-year medics (and coincidentally, the only medics at the party) pose for a picture! From left - Jessica, Rexanna, Lisa, myself, Sohan and Suresh.

Mastermind of the party - Suresh. He did a great job organizing the party, but an even better job at cooking the dish he contributed - lamb rogan josh! It was extremely delicious, albeit atherosclerosis-inducing...haha!

Another of our cooks - Sohan. The spaghetti bolognaise he cooked was superb! We want seconds!

Wei Jin's head is temporarily converted into a mobile dining table for me! Hahaha! However, it also looks like I'm about to eat Wei Jin's brains fresh out of his head - very disturbing indeed!

From left - Nessa, myself, Kanako and Ben.

The two birthday girls and their birthday cake. We didn't put the number of candles to correspond with their age, though - the explanation being the reasoning that the blaze would set off the fire alarms! The cake was ultimately used for a food-fight, in which everyone had cake smeared onto their faces by the time it ended. The kitchen resembled a war-zone at that point, with cake dotting the walls and splattered all over the floor.

This is a good time to learn their names - I can't make it any clearer than that! Hahaha! Lisa and Ema (no prizes for guessing who's who) pose with their namecards that were used to decorate the kitchen. We told them to take the cards home as additional 'presents' from us!

A very nicely placed group picture! Wei Jin and Sohan have identical poses - are they practicing cheerleading or something? Haha! We should have made more space for Rexanna, though. Her disembodied head seems rather out of place!

Squirrels

2005-10-21T21:08:00.000+02:00

Squirrels hate "kuaci". I'm not kidding. The reason I can attest to the truthfulness of the first sentence is because I went squirrel-feeding a few days ago with a group of my friends (Mark, Wei Jin, James, Hsin Yu, Jun Xue, Tommy, Su-Ann and Brandy) at the Botanical Gardens. Why, ask you, do we indulge in the misperception that squirrels require human charity to obtain their daily dose of nuts when they have been happily subsisting on chestnuts, berries and leftover food from picnics for ages? Well, we weren't that deluded that we thought of ourselves as benovelent providers of yummy treats for the furry little rodents - it's just that it so happened that Mark discovered a packet of "kuaci" that he bought a couple of weeks ago were unfit for human consumption. And in line with true Malaysian doctrine - "if it's broke, donate it" - we finally decided to go and feed the squirrels with them. However, we still nevertheless managed to retain a self-righteous (albeit misplaced) feeling that we were going to give precious, life-sustaining "kuaci" to hordes of starving, furry little rodents who would welcome us with open arms - I beg your pardon, I meant paws.

It was anything but open paws when our little "rodentitarian mission" began. The squirrels were most likely lounging in their warm and comfy squirrel-holes when a bunch of misguided humans ventured out in the chilly air in the vain hope that they would be able to feed squirrels. We sighted only a few of them, as opposed to the hordes of squirrels I was secretly hoping to see. Then, we had to coax them to run up to us and take the "kuaci" from us. I mean, what the hell? If people were giving out free stuff, we would have already run up to them with nary an iota of coaxing. Most of the squirrels ran up to us when we gestured to them with the "kuaci" in our hands, but when they were about a hand's span away, they would just sniff at the "kuaci" and scamper off. A squirrel was actually more interested in my watch than the "kuaci" I was holding! In frustration, I threw some potato crisps at them - and watched one actually gobble it up with relish, much to my bewilderment. Nearly all of them ate a "kuaci" but refused to so much as sniff at another when we offered them again.

I returned from this outing with a heap of knowledge. One, squirrels are true connosieurs of nuts. Never offer them rejects that came from a budget supermarket - instead, offer them nuts from Mark's and Spencer's. Two, squirrels are modernised. Offer them potato crisps and nuts and my bet will be that they'll go after the potato crisps. Nuts are so...old-school. Anyway, three, to feed squirrels, you'll have to contact the Secretary of the Squirrel Association so that they'll allocate a feeding-time for you. They'll have to notify the squirrels that you're coming, or else all the squirrels you see are the ones kicked out of home for being pissing drunk (do squirrels actually get drunk?) or for some domestic issue. They're busy rodents, these squirrels. However, the outing was still pretty fun. As usual, Wei Jin was the official photographer and he managed to take pictures of squirrels gullible enough to eat the "kuaci" we offered to them. Here are a few:

Irrefutable photographic evidence that squirrels don't like "kuaci". Here's a picture of one particularly rude rodent showing it's rear to Su-Ann in an obvious gesture of disapproval after she offered it "kuaci".

A squirrel was actually gullible enough to take the "kuaci" from my hand! I hope nothing bad happened to it - all the others refused to take the "kuaci that I offered them.

A picture of a squirrel happily munching away at something. What that something was, I can't remember. Anyway, either this squirrel has thick fur or it is seriously obese - it almost looks like a fluffy, grey ball.

The best picture taken that day. Wei Jin somehow managed to bait a squirrel into approaching him with nothing in his hand!

"Oriental Dinner Party"

2005-10-16T20:46:00.000+02:00

15th October, 2005 AD

1136 hours
Lisa invites me to a dinner party at the Endcliffe Vale Flats. I refuse to go because everyone who is going is contributing an Asian dish - and I can't bloody well cook to save my life! She asks me to buy Oriental takeaway - but I feel that it's kind of wierd buying takeaway and bringing it to a party when everyone brought stuff that they cooked. I volunteer to be Wei Jin's trusty kitchen helper (read - slave) since he's cooking a dish to be brought there.

1530 hours
Lisa, Wei Jin and myself meet up at the Somerfield's in Broomhill. We buy our most of our ingredients there (the rest was bought at Fresh Asia, a store selling Asian foodstuffs). We then return to our respective Halls.

1630 hours
Had dinner at Halifax Hall. Got ready after dinner. Tried to get rid of my "dishevelled" look. Failed and swore never to touch hair gel ever again (unless it is an absolute emergency).

1815 hours
Went off to the Endcliffe Vale Flats with Wei Jin. Was stuck outside the door until Adi (is this how his name is spelt?) opened it for us. Went in, met Ranmaru, who was also staying at the Endcliffe Vale Flats. He was cooking curry, and boy, did it smell good! We started preparing the ingredients. Chopped up the mushrooms, chicken meat and wept over the spring onions. After we were done, we had to wait for Lisa, who had the sesame oil - we couldn't start cooking without her!

1910 hours
Lisa arrives! Hurray! Cooking of Wei Jin's "Chicken In Rice Wine" begins in earnest. We had several problems while cooking - at first, we couldn't fit all the meat and ingredients into the pan, then, we had to go around asking if anyone had sugar. Also, while cooking, Lisa's ingredients kept on spilling over to ours! We had several pieces of pepper in our frying pan that shouldn't be there! Anyway, she finishes cooking in record time and leaves us struggling at the stove.

1730 hours (thereabout)
We finally finish cooking. Wei Jin intended to contribute a dish, but he ended up contributing two separate and unique dishes as the result of the fiasco with the miniscule frying pan. He experimented with different techniques of cooking and different ingredients with the two separate portions that he cooked and ended up with two dishes, one not resembling the other at all! Haha! The more dishes the better, anyway. People start arriving with their dishes. I met some familiar faces there, such as Suresh, Tina, Kanako, Sunni and Hiromi - but I had never met the rest before.

1730 to 0000 hours
Everyone tucks in. Besides Wei Jin's two variants of "Chicken In Rice Wine", there was a minced pork dish, a vegetable thingy, omelettes with onions and curry, served with rice. All the dishes disappear in record time as they were delicious! It is a rule that every social gathering here should involve some amount of alcohol, and this dinner party was no exception. Beer and wine was served after the dishes, and although I had resolved not to drink any that night, I ended up drinking a pint of beer anyway. My "chaperone", Wei Jin, failed to prevent me from grabbing a can of beer and drinking it after I got bored of lemonade and Diet Pepsi. Hahaha... When the alcohol ran out, some people drank the Chinese rice wine instead - it's meant for cooking, for goodness' sake! Suresh comes to the rescue by volunteering to run out and buy a bottle of vodka. I didn't touch the vodka at all - I had too much experience of what would happen if I ingested hard liquor! After extensive talking, drinking and much picture-taking, we discovered that it was 12pm already - everyone cleaned up (very surprising considering that this was a party held by adolescents/new adults who are university students as well!), said their goodbyes and left.

Here are some pictures taken by Wei Jin at the party:

Group pic! I'm not going to type out everbody's names since I can't remember them...haha!

From left - Anna, Suresh and Wei Jin.

From left - a law student from Japan (yes, I forgot his name), Yuki, and myself.

A mini-group picture. Due to the lack of space in the kitchen, where this photo was taken was where we spent the most of the time. From left - myself, Wei Jin, Lisa, Anna and Suresh.

No, we're not drunk. Just fooling around with the camera.

From left - Yoko and Tina. Don't ask me why they were hugging each other!

Asia's Next Top Model photoshoot? I'm sorry, but you're in a kitchen of the Endcliffe Vale Flats. The studio's somewhere in town, methinks. Hahaha! From left - Nessa, Kanako, Tina (partly hidden) and Yoko.

From left - Wei Jin, Nessa and Adi.

Fooling around with the camera again.

From left - Tina, myself, Lisa and Yoko. Check out the beer bottles on the table - those were only representing a tiny fraction of how much that was consumed that night! The fruits on the bottom left of the table were untouched - healthy food has no place in a party. Hypothesis proven.

After the dinner, Sunni took out a scarf and draped it around her. Pretty soon, all the girls were going "Sunni, you look cute!" and "Take pictures of her!"...hahaha.. And so we did.

P.S. - Dad's coming up this weekend! Haha! Resupply time!

Tesco Outing

2005-10-14T19:46:00.000+02:00

Went out to Tesco's yesterday night to do some shopping with Mark, Wei Jin, James, Tommy and Brand. Actually this trip was already on the cards for some time, but the intermittent night rain caused many postponed trips. Imagine everyone going downstairs and meeting up at the reception and walking out just to find that it was raining! When a rainless night finally arrived, everyone was rallied for the outing to Tesco's with a speed and efficiency that surprised even myself. Who knew Malaysians could be this decisive? Hahaha... I went with the objective of purchasing a few bars of soap since my current supplies of soap consists of a bar of soap and a misshapen, miniscule and pathetic fragment of what used to be a bar of soap. However, upon reaching there, I discovered that even bars of soap were expensive! Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't RM3 for a bar of soap a bit too much? Of course, the other alternative was the house brand's soap. But it was a rather dodgy deal - the label on it said "fragrance-free pure soap". What the hell?! What if I stink? How am I going to freshen myself up? Who the hell uses frangrance-free soap? Doesn't that defeat the very purpose of bathing? For the rationale-challanged people out there, that means to make one clean as well as smell clean. You don't go and take a bath when you stink and then come out smelling the same as before!

Enough of my harangue on the irrationality of fragrance-free soap. Anyway, I ended up deciding to obtain my soap via a resupply from my Dad, who will be coming to Sheffield on the 23rd of this month. I'll have to make them last until I go back on the 18th of December. I then ended up buying beer (a 12-can carton of Stella Artois, shared by Mark, Wei Jin and Tommy) and chocolate (also shared with Wei Jin). It's surprising how "luxury" stuff like beer and chocolate is cheaper over here, but basic necessities like soap, fruits, bread and meat is so incredibly expensive! Mark bought a bottle of red (dunno if it's Cabernet Souvignon or Shiraz) whereas Tommy bought a bottle of Irish Cream! Everyone then immediately said that Tommy was their bestest best friend! Hahaha! Irish Cream is actually coffee-flavoured alcohol - very very nice! Superb when you pour a dash of it over vanilla ice-cream...mmm... Anyway, after everyone had gotten their stuff, we left and headed back to Halifax Hall. Once there, we decided to meet outside the music room and just drink beer and basically spend our time talking cock.

This is what we did...

From left - myself and James. This picture was taken at the reception desk of Halifax Hall.

We finally take a decent picture! Each and everytime Mark takes a picture with me, one of us will spoil it inadvertently or purposely! We then agreed prior to this picture not to spoil it with any stupid poses, gestures or facial expressions - and this picture turned out fine!

Look, Ma, no hands! Hahaha... Myself and Tommy, posing for a picture. For your information, only about 50% of beer was left in the can - to hold a fully-filled can with just your teeth risks the aforesaid teeth getting ripped out of their roots!

The ones who wanted to go to Tesco so much. From left, Brandy and Mark. "We should have gone later lar... Sandwiches at just 5p at their closing time! I want!!"

Group pic (minus me, I took this photograph!). From left - Brandy, Tommy, James and Mark.

Mark rehearses his audition as the "face" for Stella Artois as Wei Jin plays the piano in the background. Haha!

Our piano maestro, Wei Jin, bedazzles us with his amazing piano performances! Among the songs he played were - "I'll Be Right Here Waiting", "In The Mirror" as well a couple of Japanese anime songs.

Cheers! My can was already empty by the time this picture was taken, but what the heck, might as well pose with it so that I'm not the odd one out! Hahaha!

Stella Artois reminds me of Asahi, being mild and pleasantly smooth. When I drank it, it reminded me of the dinners that I had with my family at Yaoki, a Japanese restaurant near my house. Still remembered the time my Dad ordered Asahi...I finished mine before the main course came and he hadn't gone through half of his and his face was already red! Haha! I had to finish the other half for him! Sipping from my can, every mouthful a reminiscence, it brought back happy memories of the times spent with my family.

I suddenly realise how much I miss them.

The Night Rain...

2005-10-12T21:59:00.000+02:00

It's exactly 9pm here in Sheffield. I'm in my room, after having done a bit of background reading for tomorrow's lecture. Having nothing else to do for the night, having boiled my drinking water, finalized my timetables and arranging the stuff on my desk - I'm back to blogging. It's raining here. Not the usual pansy-ass drizzle that isn't heavy enough to warrant taking out one's umbrella but is heavy enough to make your clothes damp and your hair wet - it's actually the kind of rain we'd call 'light' back in Malaysia. I haven't seen it since I've arrived here. Whenever it rains at night, I feel strangely calm and at peace with the world. I've never found out the reason why, though. Everything just seems so...calm. The falling rain lends a feeling of reassurance to me - the whisper of falling droplets that seemingly says everything will be all right after the rain.

The temperature in my room seems to be around 15 degrees Celcius, I suppose. The heater in my room is nominally switched on at this moment. For some reason or the other, the heaters are switched on in the afternoons, and the early night until around 11pm. Then they are switched off until the next morning. I have not an iota of an idea why the heaters aren't switched on at the coldest periods - in the late nights till early morning! Perhaps they think that we close our room windows from 8pm onwards and build up the heat in our rooms by accumulating warmed air and so further heating is unnecessary in the wee hours of the night. It's not that bad, it's not exactly cold but then again, it's not exactly warm and toasty either.

Just discovered a great idea on how to ensure that my bed is all nice and warm when my bedtime comes! It's so uncomfortable crawling onto a cold bed at night - I usually wait until it becomes relatively warm before even trying to get some shuteye. Hence, after mulling over this problem for 15 minutes, I came up with an excellent idea. Since I boil water for drinking every night and transport it back to my room in a "space-cup" (a huge bottle capable of carrying a large amount of water, made of quality plastic that doesn't degrade with heat - similiar to the bottle Chow lugs around everyday whilst we were back in college), I thought, Hey, why waste the heat by letting the water cool? Why not put the bottle beneath my duvet, let the heat escaping from my bottle heat up the bed and I'll have a warm bed when I tuck in? And voila! No more crawling into a cold bed every night! Hahaha!

Before anyone suggests that a hot-water bottle would be more effective, please note that I have just the stuff in my room to work with. I do not have a hot-water bottle, and if you can spare one, please send it to me.

What A Day...

2005-10-11T20:18:00.000+02:00

For some reason, I tumbled out of bed feeling extremely pissed off today. I thought maybe I had a violent dream that I forgot about the moment I woke up - sometimes dreams that involve violence, blood and death have that effect on me. But no, these past few nights have been strangely dreamless. Dreams are what they are, a reel of subconscious possibilities, thoughts, fears and ideas of our waking time replaying in themselves in our minds unfettered by consciousness when we sleep. And my dreams visit me often, though I heed them not. Stepping up to my washbasin and peering into the mirror, what I saw was a very haggard, bleary and extremely unpleasant expression me staring back at myself. Strange. My runny nose was getting better. My sore throat's gone. How come I still feel so...wierd? I looked at my bed and the answer hit me in a flash.

My bed's mattress sucks. Really, really sucks. Sucks so much that even hard vacuum loses to it. I assume you get the point. Anyway, my mattress has a topography of its own. There's a couple of mountain ranges, a few valleys and a couple of craters. Every night, when I sleep, I have to orientate myself in the 'clear zone' that has the least amount of deviation from level surface. To do otherwise risks waking up with a funny feeling or a soreness in your posterior thoracic and lumbar regions and I suppose that was what exactly happened to me last night. Being a rather 'mobile' person in my sleep, as all of my close friends will attest to readily, I usually cover every square inch of the bed in my wanderings when I'm sleeping. Looks like my efforts to fall asleep and wake up in the same position haven't been exactly fruitful. Anyway, that's besides the point. I think I'll need another duvet of mattress protector underneath me.

Did the upper and lower digestive tract today in the Anatomy and Physiology Practical today. Extremely fun, but something wierd happened during the practical as well. While I was playing with the small intestine on the dissection table, I was suddenly forcibly reminded of the pig intestines in "bak kut teh". That would have seemed alright, if it had gone no further - but I suddenly felt hungry! What the hell?! Feeling hungry in the dissection room is incredibly out of place, and if you told me you felt hungry while handling stuff that came out of another person, I'd take a good 5 paces away from you before recommending you get psychiatric help! I must have a cannibal hidden somewhere in the darker recesses of my mind! Hahaha! However, Sohan (one of my friends, a first year med student from Sri Lanka) said that it's the phenol and formaldehyde that makes you feel like that in there - for what reason he didn't elaborate! Maybe it's because I was reminded of alcohol and so my stomach interpreted it as incoming food/fluid to digest! Ah, whatever. Doesn't really matter anyway.

Fell asleep in Medicine and Society - Critical Numbers, Data Display and Summary. The lecture was B-O-R-I-N-G. The guy in front was going on and on and on in an endless drone - people were nodding off left and right! I spent more time trying to keep my eyes open than to look at the slides. I felt so warm and toasty in my jacket....they must have forgotten to switch the air conditioning on, as I usually don't feel like that in the Lecture Theatre. After a while I gave up and fell asleep, only to wake up 10 minutes later with drool on my jacket. Ugh. Next time I'll try to smuggle some sweets into the Lecture Theatre so that I'll at least stay awake doing something.

By the way, check out this website - www.mininerva.org.uk! It's a parody of the webportal of the Medical School, created by students, for students! It's a laugh - remember to check out the timetables and the Church of Bax!

Damned Fire Drill!!

2005-10-10T19:46:00.000+02:00

Just had a fire drill last week. The Residential Tutor for the Old Block (that's where my room is located) told us at the meeting a few weeks ago that the Hall would be conducting a fire drill soon. Just so we won't be burned to a crisp whilst languishing in our rooms when the fire alarm sounds the next time a conflagration gets out of control in our Hall. I think we were pretty cool about that, although we were rather riled by the fact that she just gave us a voucher for a free drink each even though she probably had enough to give us two each. The vouchers were the only reason we were there at the meeting in the first place anyway. But the Residential Tutor for Jonas Court gave out two vouchers to each person who attended his meeting! I think perhaps she was just saving them for herself when she decides to change her blood composition to an ethanol-based fluid.

Two weeks passed with the fire alarm silent. Nary a hiccup was heard from it (unlike in Ranmoor, where people open fire doors just to set off the fire alarms as a source of amusement - they have a false alarm every week or so). Then, just a day after the night at Gatecrasher, the fire alarm went off. Just when I thought I could catch up on my sleep. Just when I was having a sore throat. Just my damned luck. The alarms went off at 6.30am and I practically shot out of my bed. I thought my alarm clock went off! Then I saw the time and I was like, bloody hell, you chose to ring NOW? I put on a jacket over my pajamas and went out of my room in my slippers. On my way out, I knocked on Wei Jin's door to ensure that he woke up (people would be checking to see if we heeded the alarm, and if we didn't, the drill would be repeated again and I wanted that as badly as I want to have a lobotomy).

When he finally appeared, we went down the stairs, and all the way out of the hall via a connecting corridor. Incidentally, there's a fire exit at the bottom of the stairs nearest to my room, but for reasons incomprehensible to me, it was padlocked. Oh yeah, I'm sure the fire will be considerate enough to not burn in the connecting corridors and let us take the long way out instead of the direct route. They should at least make this fire drill realistic and let us take the routes we would normally use in an emergency, right? I seriously don't know what went on in their minds when they locked it. Once outside, we met up with Mark and began walking to the carpark. The morning air was piercingly cold and I instantly regretted my decision to just wear a jacket over my pajamas and slippers. But some Hall residents went down in just T-shirts and shorts. Some even wore singlets. A guy even came down not wearing his shirt - what the hell?! Is their skin made of a hyperinsulating material? Mine seems to be thermally inefficient as I can freeze to death in around 30 seconds if I go out in just a T-shirt and shorts!

After that, we had to endure a half-hour talk on goodness-knows-what-I-wasn't-listening before we were allowed back into our rooms! When I got back into my room, I discovered that it was too late to continue sleeping and too early to take a bath. Hence, I spent the next half-hour hugging my room's heater trying to return some heat back into my body. By the time I went down for breakfast, I was feeling terrible. My sore throat was much worse than before and my nose suddenly had a case of identity loss and decided that it was a tap. The weather was horrendous as well and I went to my lectures feeling incredibly miserable - what a sucky start to a day. Now the sore throat is gone, thanks to the gallons of water I pour down my throat each day - but the runny nose is decidedly stubborn and refuses to abate despite the help of Clarinase and vitamin C.

Could You please make the weather here a little more sunny - all clouds and drizzle isn't helping at all! And while You're at it, could you please stop the wind for oh, say, two weeks? I can't talk properly with my nasal cavity stuffed with mucus - it's annoying as hell! And the unsightly facade and noise of me blowing continuously into my hankerchief - I'm sure You'll understand!

I hate fire drills!!!

Clubbing At Gatecrasher!

2005-10-06T20:46:00.000+02:00

Yeah. Went clubbing for the first time in my life, against my better judgement. I don't particularly like loud music with bass so strong it can literally pound one's inner ears into the brain matter. I absolutely detest staying in an atmosphere that's 80% cigarette smoke, 10% belch and the remaining 10% breathable air. I hate places so crowded one has to knock into seventeen elbows, eight backs and three backsides just to get from one place to another. I don't actually mind the alcohol, though - although these days I limit the amount of alcohol I drink in public after an unfortunate incident involving two bottles of red wine, one bottle of red wine and six paper cups full of undiluted tequila. But still, I don't believe in going to places where I have my eardrums vibrated so badly they turn into mush, have to pay three times the amount for less than half the amount of liqour I'd get at home and mix with a crowd when all I want is to sit in my room and indulge myself in a good book or a nice song.

So. Anyway. I went. Partly because all of my Hallmates were going. Partly because it was what freshers were supposed to do at the start of the university term. But mostly because I had never been into one before and was actually rather curious about what a club looked like from the inside. After purchasing the tickets for this 'social' (I have no idea why they call it 'socials' when all they do is drink, dance, drink some more, and get so pissing drunk - I hardly see any socialising being done besides the few desperate individuals trying to pick up other individuals from the opposite gender), all my Hallmates were pretty excited about the event. So much so until they even did extensive 'planning' online - which came to naught on the day itself when plans changed every 15 minutes. Haha! We are Malaysians - it's in our genes that "we shalt not stick to any plan for more than 15 minutes". Instead, we plan extensively days, or even weeks beforehand - only to improvise when the time to carry out the plans comes.

We met on Tuesday at the cafeteria, had dinner together and finalized our "plans" (a futile effort). After dinner, we met again at the reception and left together for Gatecrasher. The navigator of our party of 13 was Ah Wong again, being the only person who knows the exact whereabouts of the club. We left at 10pm after many delays (people coming down late, people going missing, people forgetting their cameras, etc etc etc), and reached the club at around half past 10pm. Went in, promptly got our free drinks and kinda stood around a table before we realized that it was kind of sad to be doing nothing in a club. Wei Jin brought me upstairs to the balcony section, where I met Suresh (a first year med student from Ipoh) and a few of his friends - I did nothing there but introduce myself and finish my drink in record time. However, on my way down, I met Lisa (another med student, from HK) as well as Tina and Kanako (students from Japan). Talked to them for a while, and then decided to head back down to find my fellow friends.

At the bar, I met up with with the whole gang again. Tommy, Jun Xue, Mark, James, Ah Wong, Su-Ann, Brandy, Chris, Winny, Wei Jin and Hsin Yu were at the little table, standing around, just drinking and looking around. Suddenly, someone suggested that we went to the dance floor and Mark, Jun Xue, James, Ah Wong and Tommy sped off. I didn't want to be left alone, so I followed them. I must have been deluding myself when I thought I might actually enjoy clubbing - but I spent most of my time shuffling around and trying to avoid knocking into other people. Tommy, Mark and Ah Wong were dancing so exuberantly I was fairly surprised at them! Even Su-Ann joined us on the dance floor! After around twenty minutes (approximately 4 songs) of pretending to be clubbing, I gave up and left the dance floor. I found a nice, relatively quiet spot ("relatively quiet" means an area outside the influence of the massive speakers and subwoofers) which was relatively unoccupied and stood there for a while trying to discover if I had any eardrums left.

Then, Marina came along (another med sudent, she's from the UK, a British-born Chinese) with a friend of hers. We chatted for a while (actually, we shouted into each other's ears since vocalization is pointless in Gatecrasher when the music is set to the maximum volume) and they passed me their vouchers for free drinks! Apparently, they don't drink and they were about to go back anyway. After they left, I headed back to the bar to get more drinks when I met Noemi, Rexanna and Yi Yong. I wanted to give them my vouchers but they didn't want it, so I got myself another drink! Wei Jin, who happened to pass by, got the other voucher from me. We stood there drinking for a while until Jun Xue came to us with bad news. Apparently one of the girls got drunk - she had never drank before and she was downing shot after shot! For privacy reasons I won't mention her name here...hahaha... We gathered everyone, left the club and hailed a taxi for the girls. The Drunk Girl (TDG) was insisting she could walk back when she was incapable of walking two steps without staggering and that there was no reason to take a cab! Everyone had to lie to her that we were all taking a cab back - and after the girls left in a cab, the rest of us walked back.

Apparently our "early" departure (it was just before 1am) riled Mark. He had nearly gotten lucky that night, but our early departure ruined his night. "Wahlau eh, I can't believe I'm so stupid to stay with my friends instead of a girl", he kept lamenting. Ahahaha.. We assured him that it was most likely for the better, you know, AIDS, STD and all that unwanted stuff that sometimes comes from a one-night stand. Surprisingly he seemed much better after those reassurances. Hahaha! After reaching Halifax Hall at nearly 2am, I immediately took a bath and collapsed onto my bed. The next morning, TDG seemed to not remember anything from the night before. If she did, it didn't show - I thought she'd at least be embarrassed to see us! Well...that was my first experience at clubbing, and it wasn't astral or anything like that. I had a sore throat the next day - probably too much shouting at Gatecrasher. If I'd learned anything from this outing, it would be that normal human vocalization is a futile task in a club and that one should never bring friends who cannot drink, or have never drank before to a club. Make sure they go through a "boot-camp" of drinking first. I've seen people getting tipsy just by eating chocolates with liquor inside them!

Ah, well. At least I can say that I've been clubbing before.

Where Are My Eardrums?

2005-10-05T19:58:00.000+02:00

Ugh. Had my eardrums literally blasted out of my head this morning. The short story is that I went clubbing at Gatecrasher One with the rest of my friends (it was a private party organized by MASSOC) and that I stood too near the speakers and the subwoofers on the dance floor. I don't really feel up to writing an entry about it since I had a rather busy day earlier today, so perhaps I'll write an entry tomorrow. See you then!

"Bak Kut Teh" Party Pictures!

2005-10-03T00:21:00.000+02:00

Since I've finally managed to procure the pictures taken during our inaugural "bak kut teh" party (for want of a better word) from Mark, I shall post them in this blog for all and sundry to see. Hahaha... The photographer was the Taiwanese student (I forgot her name...yes, my short-term memory sucks) who brought her camera to capture the momentous moment when the heavenly smell of "bak kut teh" wafted through the third floor of Jonas Court for the first time in its recorded history! Doubtless all the the other students (bar Sino-Asians) must be wondering what the smell was! However, since we essentially barred the door to the common pantry (after which there was nothing common about it), they didn't get a chance to investigate - or gate crash. Same difference, really. We didn't take many pictures, as we were either too busy talking or too busy stuffing ourselves to pose for pictures or to take pictures. Here are the pictures, enjoy!

Due to the unforseen lack of seating, everyone had to eat their food standing up. No one seemed to be interested in posing for this picture - doubtless the allure of "bak kut teh" is much stronger!

Group picture! Sitting (from left) - the Taiwanese student (argh, I still can't remember her name!), Wong KK a.k.a. "Ah Wong" (the master chef), Mark (the second chef). Standing (from left) - Yi Yong, Li Ching (is this how her name is spelt?), Noemi, Rexanna, the HK student, Sue-Ann, Brandee (no idea how her name is spelt either), myself, Jun Xue (partially hidden), Tommy and James. This picture was taken after our meal - look at the satisfied grins on everyone's faces...hahaha..

Another group pic! Giving credit to "Ah Wong" for making it a truly memorable night! We want another "bak kut teh" party!!!!

"Bak Kut Teh" In Sheffield!

2005-10-02T00:16:00.000+02:00

Believe it or not, something truly out-of-this-world happened tonight. I actually ate "bak kut teh" for my supper just 15 minutes ago! It wasn't from a Chinese takeaway nor the Hall's cafeteria - some of my friends actually cooked it from scratch! Amazing! This "bak kut teh" supper was the brainchild of Mark, who desperately wanted to eat some before the week was over - he was was hankering after it so much that we decided to just go ahead with his idea in order to get some peace! Hahaha... Well, actually, I think most of us were sick with eating the typical British fare they serve at every meal, so we were actually quite eager to get some good-old Chinese fare for a change. We sourced some of the ingredients needed from a Chinese supermarket in the city centre, whereas the rest was provided by Wong KK, a.k.a "Ah Wong". He and Mark did the bulk of the cooking, whereas Sue-Ann and myself were in charge of inviting people to our impromptu cook-in in Jonas Court's common pantry. I think we did quite a good job in getting people to come - there were 14 people crammed into Jonas Court's common pantry tonight!

The "bak kut teh" was cooked in 3 rice-cookers since we couldn't get hold of a pot large enough to hold enough of the soup for everybody. A suggestion to use the bathtub as a pot was forwarded by me, and although it generated plenty of laughter, the suggestion was finally rejected on the grounds that we wouldn't be able to find enough dry wood to start a bonfire underneath the bathtub. Rice and dessert ("tong sui", a sweet soup with longans and red beans and whatnot) were cooked in separate rice-cookers. We even had starters - microwaved chicken drumsticks! I really salute Ah Wong. He thought of everything and did everything. Instead of being just another supper, it became a full-course meal, complete with starters, a main course, dessert, fruit (strawberries) and finally drinks. The meal itself was super-fun - everyone stood around the miniscule dining table talking and eating. Personally, I prefer socialising this way - rather than standing in a bar/club with music blaring so loud you can't hear yourself think, in surroundings shrouded by cigarette smoke and under the influence of alcohol.

Except for the girls, everybody else had multiple helpings, and by the time we finally stopped eating, everyone was basically stuffed to the max. We then talked for nearly two hours non-stop in the kitchen, and I think this is the first time that all the Malaysians in Halifax Hall actually gathered together to socialise. We're usually split into two groups, and I find myself with one group one moment and with another the next since I have friends in both. Hahaha... We even had two HK students, a Chinese and a Taiwanese joining us! We had to stop our little supper by 11pm, or else we'd be transgressing the Hall's "no-noise after 11pm" policy, so everyone left after washing up (to an extent anyway). It was extremely fun - hopefully we'll do it again! Haha!

Deeply Fascinating...

2005-09-30T17:04:00.000+02:00

What a wierd day. Just as I had gotten used to the uber-packed, leg-killing and neurone-wracking days that defined the first four days of this week, I suddenly get a day that's totally relaxing. Perhaps it was the intervention of the omnipresent hand of Fate, but I suspect that it was merely just a fluke arrangement of my timetable - all my Group Practicals (the Library Practical and the Back Care Awareness Practical) took place earlier this week so I have practically half the day off! My day began at 2pm and ended at half past 3pm! Hahaha! The temptation to skip breakfast and sleep in until it was time for lectures nearly got the better of me, but somehow the lure of breakfast was so much stronger - so I woke up dutifully at 7.30am and headed down to the cafeteria for breakfast at 8.30am.

After breakfast, I headed back to my room and tried reading a few of the lecture notes. You know, I've noticed that there are two types of information in the notes - those that are mind-numbingly boring, and those that are practically incomprehensible. I feel brilliant and absolutely proud of myself when I understand what the notes are saying, but when the incomprehensible parts hit me, what goes on in my mind is some primitive panic reflex born of the fear of the unknown. Believe me, it's in all of us humans. When we see something we don't understand, we either panic and run away - or we panic and destroy it. Additionally, in these modern times, we might even panic and make a reality TV show about it. Which could be a whole lot worse, trust me. I mean, what on Earth are people thinking when they make reality TV shows about something as incomprehensible as marriage? Panic to the maximum, I guess.

Anyway, what happened this morning was that I suddenly realised how much I didn't know. So thoughts of ohmygodI'msostupid, whattheheckamIdoinginMedSchool and more ohmygodI'msostupid began their vicious cycle in my mind. At that point, I decided that I needed to hit the books. Immediately. Now, when this happens to me I usually freak out, run to the nearest bookstore and buy every book I can lay my hands on. But with cash being a major constraint, I decided on a cheaper and better alternative - the library. And I dutifully headed there, browsed through the reading list and ended up borrowing three books - one on anatomy, one on physiology and one on haematology. After that, it was time for a lecture, so I brought the books with me to class. Upon entering the lecture theatre, a few people actually gawked at the sight of me carrying three books. They must be thinking poor boy, he's already a nerd so early into Med School. Hahaha! Ah, well. It can't be helped. It just happens to me sometimes.

Today's lecture was incredibly interesting. Saw my first real patient, took my first real history and answered my first real Formative Assessment. Needless to say, my history sheet was rather blank and I did rather badly in the Formative Assessment (4/6....that just sucks). Learnt many things to do as a doctor when seeing a patient - the lecturer today was fantastic. Now I'm just waiting for dinnertime - blogging while waiting for my episode of Bleach to finish downloading (Fish, you got me addicted to this!). But while I'm at it, I think I should rearrange my books - the front page of "Anatomy - A Dissection Manual" just makes me kind of lose my appetite for meat.

The First YC Fruit Bank!

2005-09-29T22:36:00.000+02:00

Newsflash! The First YC Fruit Bank is now officially open and in business! Bearing in mind the turmoil of the financial industry, the First YC Fruit Bank aims for a modest 20% growth by the end of the next fiscal year. All modes of investments are welcome, although the preferred methods of transaction are direct debit of bananas, red apples, green apples and the occasional orange. As bananas have a significantly lower investment period, all interest in banana accounts are significantly higher when compared to the other 'currencies'. Due to consumer discernings, green apples have the highest investment period and as such will be given the lowest interest of all. Additional accounts in the form of Skittles and gummy sweets are available and will be processed at the Manager's discretion.

WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THIS CRAP?!

Hahaha... I know that everything above sounds like pure rubbish - but there's an iota of truth to be found in the above paragraph! Since we're given an allowance per meal, I usually round up my spare credit by grabbing a fruit from the fruit-basket. These fruits are then either consumed by me (if I'm not particularly satisfied with the meal) or hoarded on the space above my shelf. I then either take a fruit from the hoard to campus to be consumed between lectures or just eat them for a late-night snack. My current favourite is the banana at the moment, because I just couldn't be bothered to wash an apple before eating it - and bananas somehow bring a 'tropical' feel to an otherwise cold and dry British weather. At the time of writing, I have a banana, four red apples and a green apple languishing on my shelf! The bananas have to be consumed quickly before they turn bad, whereas the apples can be kept for a bit longer - hence the low banana count.

Anyway, I've just returned from a MASSOC (Malaysian and Singaporean Society) social at the Octagon Centre - having signed up for another social in a nightclub and paintballing as well. Tonnes of people were there, managed to meet quite a few other (alright, tonnes!) of Malaysian and Singaporeans but somehow I was too drained to do much socialising (trust me, you'll feel that way after having a full day of lectures and an ILA practical). Just introduced myself to a few people, chatted a bit and spent the rest of my time sitting with the friends from my Hall and eating chips and drinking Coke. Quite a waste of time, really. By the way, my current total spare cash is a big, fat zero after signing up for all those stuff. I might really have to start living on apples and bananas from now on.

Finally Settled In!

2005-09-28T22:23:00.000+02:00

This new post marks a departure from my usual blogging style. Instead of typing an extremely long post, I'll just make my posts short (and hopefully sweet). This is partly due to the fact that I am operating under severe time constrains and cannot dedicate the better part of two hours to typing a blog entry that hardly anyone reads. So, instead of posting huge updates weekly, I'll be trying to make daily posts - but they'll be brief enough to cover what's important and lengthened if anything interesting happens. But I have to warn you that this is still an interim format and don't go commenting hey, where the heck is your daily post that you promised? because, if you do, I'll probably ask you to read up the word "interim" in a dictionary.

So. Yes, I've arrived in Sheffield in one piece, much to the chagrin of my friends, I'm sure. Haha! The flight here was absolutely shitty. My seat was located at the emergency exit, and although I had plenty of leg room, my seat was also located near the lavatories. Try napping with people going in and out of a bathroom incessantly - and add the fact that the flushing noises are perfectly audible from where I am sitting, you'll find that it's pretty much impossible. I spent most of my time trying to sleep, and the rest trying to figure out how to remove the TV screen from underneath my seat where it was stowed. And yes, I did finally manage to remove it - only to watch Mr and Mrs Smith again. When the plane finally landed, I felt incredibly jet-lagged - a first for me!

After landing at the airport, I was brought to Sheffield via a chartered bus with the rest of the other students. The trip there was like going to Genting Highlands multiplied by 5. Very puke-inducing for those who are prone to motion-sickness, but it made me feel oh so drowsy...hahaha.. Being an adrenaline junkie, anything that tries to pass of as exciting but fails just puts me into a sleepy stupor. When I finally arrived at my hall, all I wanted to do was to throw myself onto my bed and surrender to blissful sleep. And that was exactly what I did - although my bed had no sheets, pillows, nor blankets. Bad choice. I froze throughout the night, and I finally resorted to using my winter clothing and jackets to cover myself. Not a very pleasant first night in Sheffield.

The next day, I went to register myself as a student of the University. I had to walk around half a kilometre to the campus - and I had never been there in my life before! I relied on just a map to get there, and surprisingly, I didn't get lost even once on my first day! Registered, collected my UCard, yadda yadda yadda, got my University Health Service thingy done, and I was all set to go! I spent the rest of the day going around with a new friend of mine - and she showed me around the city, the areas to shop, the Students' Union and other interesting places. Many thanks to her for being my 'tour guide' for my first day! Hahaha! After that, it was Fresher's Week stuff, which included plenty of pubbing/clubbing, but I wasn't really interested in all that, so I spent more time settling into my hall, buying my duvets and pillows and making new acquaintances! After that week, I was more or less settled into my new surroundings - thank goodness that I haven't felt any bouts of homesickness yet! Haha!

To My Friends!

2005-09-14T16:55:00.000+02:00

It’s almost time for me to leave, and I thought I’d make this entry a tribute to my friends. I certainly hope to see each and everyone of them again, but in the off chance that I don’t, at least I’ll have no regrets not being able to say how much I appreciate them (yes, even when they’re sacrificing my ‘terroroise’, 3-4ing me, annoying the hell out of me, pawning my ass to high heaven in DotA, etc etc etc). So – you guys know who you are (it’s going to be mentioned below anyway…hahaha…) – this is for you!

C H A P T E R 1 - The Ex-Apartmentmates
Yih Seong

What can I say? You were my ‘Etika buddy’ for the last two years of secondary school! If there’s one good thing that came out of the lameass “streaming” carried out by English College, this would be it. Without it, I’d have missed having a great friend! Remember our first day as Etika buddies? We were like, shit…we’re in a seriously terrible class as all of our other friends were in Cendekia or Dinamik! And then we went to kill time by playing ‘paper chess’ (in which I won all 3 games we played…haha…) and trying to avoid the “smelly kadet darat fella”, who was a walking biohazard in his own right. Then there were plenty of funny memories like me trying to converse with Cheong in Mandarin and I’d use English words in lieu of Mandarin words that I didn’t know! You used to rag me about my piss-poor command of Mandarin, and all I can say is that it’s much better now! And remember the times we used to skip classes together by saying I had St. John Ambulance stuff and you had debate practice – but going to the “den” to talk cock with the others or chilling in the ICT room! Hahaha! I think we skipped nearly a quarter of classes in Secondary Four, and I think that’s why we both suck so much in Maths! Additionally, thanks to you, you got us out of Etika by using your persuasive powers (read – charming a female Malay teacher) in Secondary Five. I swear that if we got stuck there for another year I would have gone mad! Speaking of Secondary Five, I still remember the times you got 3-4ed at recess – we would both be tucking in into our hard-bought “nasi lemak” and suddenly an angry mob would stampede into our class and beat you up! You didn’t do anything to deserve it, and I’m partly guilty for not defending you, but all I can say in defence of myself is that I very rarely took part in the barbaric beatings…haha!

Remember we used to comment how odd it was that two of the Presidents of two major societies in school sat next to each other in class? We really promoted bilateral ties between SJAM and LDDS by agreeing on our societies’ meeting times and stuff like that! Then again, most of those who were in SJAM were in LDDS anyway…hahaha… I still remember how you would try to piss me off by singing a song over and over again until it got stuck in my head! I would be trying to understand what the teacher was saying and “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes” would be replaying over and over again in a vicious loop in my head! And I think I can never forget the time I wanted to give you a scare while you were coming up the stairs but frightened Cheong instead! After secondary school, we even went to the same college and stayed in the same high-rise dumpster we call 121D. I still shudder at the thought of a ‘sub-deployment’ till this day. Then, everytime we played DotA, your primary concern was not to get last in the points. Someone has come a long way in the field of DotA, eh? Remember, our tag team beat Patrick, Jeremy and Chye Hing! Always remember that, dude! Hahaha… So to Yih Seong, ex-Etika buddy, 3-4 mannequin, ex-St John Ambulance Quartermaster, incredible debater (as well as unparalleled cock-talker) and a great buddy to boot…good luck for your future and thanks for everything! My only gripe about you would be that our Den never once resembled anything other than a hurricane-hit pigsty when you were Quartermaster! Hahaha!

Jeremy

Well…you’re the person I’ve had the longest history with! Practically knew you since we were in primary school at SRK St. Joseph! We were in the same classes in primary school, then we went to the same secondary school and finally to the same college. Too bad the chain ends there…this stalking of each other has finally come to an end! Hahaha! I still remember how hard-assed disciplined you were in primary school – you once hauled me up for neglecting my prefect duties! Haha…it was my fault really, and I suppose you had no choice since you were Assistant Head Prefect then! Times have really changed, eh? Now you’re just completely different, so happy-go-lucky to the brink of childishness! Hahaha…but I won’t say that’s a bad thing – at least you made me realize that I’m too serious and hot-tempered at times when I should just take a deep breath and extinguish my anger! Remember after we got into the SJAM competition squad together? Patrick, Irwin, Leong and I used to tease you about your girth and your lack of physical fitness – but you were so damn determined to keep up with the rest of us even though you had back problems that after a while, you could keep up with us during physical training and even more besides! Looking back, I realized that it took an incredible amount of determination to do that – something I probably never had. We also used to call you “masam” then, but I guess you’re not “masam” anymore so I’ll probably have to find a new nickname for you! Hahaha… And remember the time when we ripped you shirt to shreds in a brutal 3-4 after training once? You had to wait by the road for you mum and it seemed like you were raped! Haha!

I also remember that you were a super-efficient Treasurer for SJAM…the most efficient I had ever seen! I think it was the first time in the Division’s history that everyone paid within a week of the order to pay fees – and some who weren’t in SJAM even paid to join! Hahaha! Your records were so damn organized…there wasn’t any need to cross-check them at all! Somehow that trait didn’t show itself when we went to college together...haha! Your table was always in a mess! I wonder where ex-super-Treasurer went! Well, I shouldn’t be speaking, really. You’d be lucky to see the surface of my desk too! Haha! And then, everytime you disappeared mysteriously, everyone would be speculating whether you were at church or “church” while rehearsing our “Aikkk!” for you when you returned. Your refusal to comment made us busybodies even more curious! Hahaha! Next time if there’s anything, just spit it out and we won’t trouble you no more (although it’s not very likely to happen – we’re like that!). You’re impossible to 3-4 nowadays, because you turn into something resembling a raging bull (albeit one with a healthy touch of mad cow disease) whenever we try! You also took the longest baths of all of us Middle Earthians, so much so that one fine day, Yih Seong and I decided to…ahem…make a super-low quality porn clip of you bathing – and got splashed with water for our trouble. Haha… Try not to let that happen in IMU, what with Chow staying next door to you! Anyway, all the best to you in all your endeavours! Don’t DotA too much or else I’ll be too embarrassed to play with you pros when I get back!

Patrick

If I had to use just one word to describe you, I’d choose “loud”. But not in a bad way. Since our first SJAM competition squad days, you were the person that could make everyone laugh in any situation at all. During the training, you were “tortured” the most by Calvin, and the end results of those “tortures” were usually hilarious – like the time your shoes ended up in the fountain after Calvin was done playing rugby with them. You never did once lose your temper during those sessions, and if it were me, I’d have snapped ages ago. I think you were essentially the life of the squad. No one else would have been able to make us laugh until our sides ached, do stupid things like marching with everyone facing outwards in a circle or led us through the cases. Without you, our squads (both the Cadet and Adult teams) wouldn’t have been able to achieve what they did. Even during the harshest trainings, like running laps under a time limit, doing knuckle push-ups on asphalt roads, doing push-ups in puddles and marching in a freaking thunderstorm, somehow you managed to keep everyone’s spirits up. I may have been the President of the Division, but you led the Division. I seriously can’t imagine what life in Division One would have been without you as our Cadet Leader or the No. 1 of the two competition squads.

Even in Middle Earth, you and Yih Seong kept the apartment lively with non-stop cock-talking, jokes and wisecracks. With you and Yih Seong there, everyone could talk about everything and yet nothing for hours at an end! The apartment would be a lifeless place without the both of you in it! When we first moved in, everyone was so bored that we resorted to doing CS “movies” using your phone! After that, you guys advanced to “Sacrifice of the Terroroise”, complete with chanting barbarians and a corny voice-over! Hahaha… I can still remember how much everyone laughed when you talked about the lecturers (in particular Ms Ho), your hatred of the “skippa”, the inception of “Paiktaur” and you being a “nigga” (together with Wen Hoi and Yih Seong). And remember the time when you developed a taste for “wan tan mee”? I swear that it’s inhuman for anyone to eat “wan tan mee” almost every single day! And when you finally got sick of it, everyone had to avoid bumping into the “wan tan auntie” for fear of upsetting her with the news that her most loyal customer had deserted her for Success Team Restaurant’s “curry wan tan”. After that, you ‘discovered’ Seng’s and it became another regular eating place that some of us groan with dismay whenever you want to have lunch or dinner there (for the millionth time)! Hahaha! And then there came a time when your phone suddenly became chock-full with applications and games that everyone wanted to grab hold of your phone (in particular myself, who was incredibly addicted to “Skyforce”) to play games with it. I remember your phone’s charge lasted less than a day at peak usage! Thanks for allowing me to use your phone and set high-scores in “Skyforce” in it! Haha! Here’s wishing you good luck for your future!

Jit Sen

The apartment’s SM enthusiast! Hahaha! You were saddled with the nickname “SM freak” after the discovery of the “suspicious lines” across your back during our SJAM training and that nickname stuck after you suggested an alternative use for kaya balls. Remember “mmm, hot kaya!”? Haha! These days, the usage of that nickname to describe you seems to have died down a little, except for the rare occasions where the SM-loving demon in you rears its head in public…and everyone seizes the chance to either 3-4 you or laugh at you. Used to remember the days when you were still nicknamed “one cent” or “lemon” in primary school…those were the days! Ever since I’ve known you, you always have had the knack of being unintentionally funny! Your mannerisms and speech could make even the mundane into an impromptu joke! No wonder you are a favourite target of Yih Seong and Patrick whenever someone else besides them needs to get 3-4ed for a change! Haha… You’re also a damn creative guy…being able to concoct a hundred uses out of things such as clips, pins, lighters and clothes-pegs! You would clip a paper-clip to your ear or use stationery to build some incomprehensible structure – and end up getting 3-4ed! I remember a time when nobody wanted to leave their stuff on the dining table because you would definitely play with it! Hahaha! I also remember that you’re rather prone to breaking stuff - remember my two key chains? Hahaha! I hope that habit of yours is under control, or else, if I decide to buy everyone souvenirs, yours would be made of military-grade Kevlar…haha. If there was someone who could be described as being “nice”, “happening”, “fun” and “weird” all at once, it would be you, man! You’re the kind of person nobody would ever get mad at! Haha! Good luck for your final exams!

Ashok

All I can say is, thanks for the free thosai you gave us over the last few years, man! Celebrating Deepavali at your house almost every year was a blast! Hahaha… Alright, I’m just joking. It isn’t all about the thosai. Seriously. It’s really funny, we first became friends in primary school – and I remember I used to call you “Shock”. Everytime I walked past you, I would pretend to get an electricity shock, and you would laugh. Okay, everyone…I know everyone who’s reading this desperately wants to 3-4 me now! Haha! Well, wait in line – I think my stupid behaviour and silly actions all these years has made everyone wishing to 3-4 me to death! And then when we sat together in primary school, we raised so much havoc in class that the teacher had to separate us! No wonder teachers chose where we sat after that incident! Hahaha! In secondary school, you were the only Indian in our clique – the only Indian to be very close to the rest of us and the only Indian to be active in SJAM and LDDS! Remember the time when we were DJs at FOMAD and we cheated the audience of their money by not playing their dedications that they paid for? Haha… Furthermore, no one I know can forget the “chicken” incident! I nearly died laughing when you pointed at the pigeons chilling at the overpass near the Causeway Immigration checkpoint and said, “guys, is that chickens ar?”. Hahaha! And then you’d always be late for any appointment! When everyone gathered to go out to the cybercafe near my place at the set time of 9am, you’d arrive at 11pm! When we called you at 9am to ask you about your whereabouts, you’d reply that you just woke up! In the end, we got so fed up that if the future outings were to begin at 10am, we were to gather at 8am in order to facilitate your lateness! Haha! You’re a killer of shins in the futsal court, a phantom that scares the shit out of me and Patrick whenever you walk through the balcony door at 2am when we thought no one else was there, a translator when we go to a mamak restaurant, a great host for all our Big Night Outs, but mostly, you’re a great friend to have and I wish you all the best in anything you do!

Chye Hing

I can still remember when we were in secondary school! Every attempt to get you involved in a conversation only yielded one-word responses. Yes, no, and the occasional grunt that meant stop disturbing me and go away. Back then, you never seemed to talk to anybody – you were so incredibly quiet that even if you suddenly dropped dead during lessons, no one in class would even notice! You were the human equivalent of the Stealth Fighter, well below radar detection thresholds…hahaha! Thank goodness that after my persistent (and most likely annoying) efforts to get you to talking, you finally did after a while! One thing led to another and we ended up sharing the same apartment with the rest while studying in Taylor’s College. How best to describe you? You were quiet to the point of being painfully shy, but that’s changed now from what I heard from the rest! At least now you seem a lot more sociable from before, and that’s a welcome change – at least nobody will have to do what I did to get you to talk! Haha! You also had (and I think the word “have” is applicable) the most powerful brain among the people I’ve met. Heck, powerful to the point of being genius-like! We don’t call you God of Knowledge for nothing, eh? You never seem to not understand anything during lessons, and you seem knowledgeable from studies to games and even HTML, which is gibberish as far as I’m concerned! Besides that, you were one of the best DotA players in 121D, but that’s changed with the advent of free practice on Blueserver (*cough*YihSeong*cough*)! But I think you have other stuff you find more interesting now, right? What with your animal-like attraction to girls…they just can’t get enough of you! Hahaha! You also love to sleep! Your favourite past-time in 121D used to be sleeping, and nearly every one out of three times I walk into the room, you’d be asleep Gandalf-like, with your eyes half-open! But, like I said, you probably found more interesting stuff to do! The only possible annoying thing about you is your circular logic whenever you discuss/argue/debate an issue. Your points never make any sense and the only way to end it is to either give up in exasperation or to slam the evidence right in your face! Haha… I can vomit blood whenever I argue with you! Learn how to debate from Yih Seong, will you? But all in all you’re a great friend who values friendships, holds true to his principles (unless threatened with a 3-4) and is extremely patient! It’s been my pleasure to know you! I wish you the best of luck in everything, past and present! Remember to tell me if anything, um, interesting happens! Hahaha!

The Santi Forest Monastery

2005-08-17T16:12:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday, the 14th of August 2005 Anto Domini, I participated in an excursion organized by Metta Lodge, a Buddhist teachings centre - I had nothing better to do at home anyway and I figured an outing to somewhere new might be a welcome change from my daily routine of rotting away at home (note that the process of "rotting at home" involves over-indulgence in sleep, listening to music for hours at end, rereading books for the billionth time and, of course, a daily dosage of approximately three DotA games a day). My mum thought that it would be a pretty good chance for me to get to know my religion a little better, and somehow I have to agree with her on that. "Uninformed religiously" is perhaps an understatement when it is applied to me. I mean, yeah, I do eat vegetarian food on certain days of the month (the 1st and the 15th of the Chinese lunar calendar) and I do pray when I'm brought to a temple on certain days and festivals - but I know next to nothing when it comes to Buddhism. I can't recite the Five Precepts to save my life. I don't know the correct procedures for offering dana. I know nothing of the chants. Upon reflecting on my previous statements above, I don't even know if I should call myself a Buddhist or not. In a way, this visit was to be something akin to a crash course for me - a crash course in the way of Buddhism. Anyway, this excursion comprised of a visit to a "forest retreat" of sorts and a visit to a dragonfruit farm. The "forest retreat" is actually a monastery, home to several monks. In addition to being a monastery, it also provides lodging for people who want to find their inner peace by getting away from it all by meditating and dwelling on their religion's teachings in a tranquil environment.

The day began with everyone rallying at Metta Lodge at 8.30am. Due to several delays, my mum and I reached Metta Lodge at 8.45am, only to find out that most of the other people who were participating in the excursion were already there. There is nothing more mortifying than reaching a meeting much later than the time agreed upon and have everyone staring at you, wondering what on Earth is wrong with these people? Haven't they heard of alarm clocks? The discomfort was magnified several times when my mum indicated that we were to pay our respects to an altar with a statue of Buddha that was in the hall where everyone was gathered. My mum knew the correct way of doing it, and before I could ask her in an undertone as to the correct steps, she was already kneeling down and bowing. I didn't want to do an awkward impression of "monkey see, monkey do", so I settled for a rough cross of kneeling and palms together - fully aware that everyone in the room just received a visual cue that clearly said "Hey! He's never done this before!". To their credit, no one in the room laughed. To my great surprise, there were several people my age, in addtion to the hordes of kids and their parents - looks like my mum wasn't lying when she said that the Dhamma and meditation classes were quite popular with teenagers too. However, I didn't get to mix with them much because they tended to go around in tightly-knit groups and I didn't want to barge into the midst of their group, scaring them shitless in the process. I think I give quite a bad first impression to people, what with spiky hair, wierd clothing and a pierced ear - and what made it worse was that everone there looked so decent, wearing matching Metta Lodge shirts and looking like the typical "good kid". Not that I'm a "bad kid", mind you... Hahaha... When all the stragglers had arrived, we finally left the place. At that point, I discovered that this "excursion" was seriously big! Metta Lodge had even rented a bus to provide transport. However, I was to be the chauffeur for my mum and two other girls who somehow didn't follow the others on the bus. When the bus finally got into gear, our little convoy (about 5 to 6 cars long, plus a bus) rumbled away from Melodies' Garden and onto the Tebrau Highway.

Our destinations were located deep in the heart of Ulu Tiram, a small town halfway between Johor Bahru and Kota Tinggi - and as such, I had practically no experience navigating the town's roads because my family would only drive through the town on our journeys back to Kota Tinggi, the de facto "kampung" of the Yee family. I arrived at Ulu Tiram before the bus and since my mum said that she knew the way, we decided to head to the monastery first. We drove through miles of village roads, missed the turnoff to the monastery and made a big U-turn. After retracing our tracks, we still couldn't find it. We finally gave up, pulled over and my mum called to ask her friends for directions. The conversation went somewhat along this vein:

(speakerphone)
My mum : Hello, Carol? We've lost our way!
Laughter from my mum and sniggers from the backseat.
Carol : Where are you all? How come you couldn't find it?
At this point, I realised that describing our location would be a fruitless undertaking.
Me : We're stuck in the middle of nowhere. Why not just tell us how do we find the place?
Carol : Oh, um.... It's around 50 lamp posts away from the junction. Look for the No. 50 lamp post!
At this point my phone's battery flatlined.

Very interesting directions. 50 lamp posts away. No. 50 lamp post. Great. Did she seriously expect me to drive with one eye on the road and another fixed on the lamp posts whizzing by on the side of the road? Is it even humanly possible to count the number of lamp posts one has passed while driving on a twisting, narrow and bumpy village road? Anyway, that was exactly what I did. Surprisingly, I found the turnoff five minutes later. Oh, great Aunties Who Bestow Good Directions To The Adolescent Driver, I swear to never doubt you again! Upon reflection of the day's events, the whole area looked the same, so giving a landmark for one to look out for wouldn't have been practical - so perhaps it was better to give directions a la lamp post numbers. Anyway, it's a moot point. We reached there in the end, right?

The monastery is located right in the middle of an oil palm plantation, right at the edge of the forest. Suffice to say, the journey there was exceptionally fun! To be absolutely frank with you, the reason I went was because my mum said that the car would have to go "offroad" - something I had never done but was looking forward to in the CRV. However, it wasn't exactly "offroad" since the roads were mostly tarred, but the rough terrain, with all the undulations and potholes and sharp corners, was extremely fun to drive on! The car park of the monastery is located in the oil palm plantation itself, and after parking the car, we alighted and made our way to the monastery. The day's events began with us offering food to the monks. Their bowls were placed on the floor and everyone, holding a bowl of rice, knelt and walked on their knees in a straight line along the row of bowls. While doing this, everyone would scoop a spoonful of rice and place it into the monks' bowls. After everyone had offered food to the monks, the monks "offered" the food back to us. According to an elder present, this was because since we had offered the food to them, the food was now technically theirs and hence, they had to offer it back to us so we could eat it. After that, everyone chanted verses (whereas I did my best to do a passable chant-along) before finally tucking into the food. After lunch, everyone was brought for a tour around the monastery's grounds. We saw little huts, approximately 2 meters in width, 1 meter in height and another meter in length placed randomly in the grounds (which is actually a secondary forest). The elder, who was acting as our tour guide, explained that these huts were for people who want to seclude themselves from the outside world to avoid distractions, meditate and find their inner peace through looking inside themselves. I seriously thought that these huts were chicken coops at first! Interested, anyone? It's free of charge and bed and breakfast is provided (a meal is provided daily at the monastery) - although there's no light except for an oil lamp, no bathrooms are provided (you'll have to walk around 500m to the monastery to use the bathrooms), and you'll be surrounded by total darkness at night. After this, we went to the nearby water catchment area and back to the monastery.

The heavens opened up after this, and the whole place was subjected to a deluge of water from the skies. The organizers were worried that the the excursion might have to be cut short with the cancelling of the trip to the dragonfruit farm. However, it seemed that we had luck on our sides that day, as the downpour quickly abated soon after it started. We then set off for our next destination, the dragonfruit farm! The drive there proved to be less entertaining, however, as it was located at the edge of a delerict light industrial park. After reaching there, we were immediately given dragonfruit samples - they were of the red-fleshed variety, and soon it seemed that everyone had lipstick on and pink teeth! Hahaha... They were extremely sweet though, and the impression that I had lipstick on and that I owned a set of pink teeth were worth it! After that, they brought us to view the dragonfruit trees - did you know that the dragonfruit plant is a cactus? They plant them four in a batch, and are provided with a pole with a tyre on top to provide the creeping plants with support. The plants looked otherworldly, with no leaves and just long, fleshy stems with pink blobs on them - they looked more like some undersea creature's tentacles than plants! Even the flowers were unique! They looked like an oversized, scaly bud with white strips hanging from the tip of the bud! After touring the dragonfruit orchard, we went to view the orchids that the owner of the farm cultivated for commercial reasons. They were housed in a series of mesh-covered enclosures, and there were so many different variety of orchids - each with a different colour, petal arrangement and size. I just marvelled at the silky touch of the petals, the intricate patterns on the flowers and the delicate arrangement of the petals of the orchids while the others were busy buying orchids left and right. After that, everyone gathered at the entrance and said their goodbyes, and went their separate ways. Having our own transport, me and my mum wouldn't be following them back to Metta Lodge whereas the two girls who followed us to Ulu Tiram finally went back to their parents. It was an uneventful ride back home, and we finally reached home at around 4pm. It was a really interesting experience, and I'm glad that I didn't pass up the chance to go along on this excursion. It was a welcome change to my already-stale daily routine of eat, sleep, go online, read and DotA! Hopefully there'll be another one soon! Hahaha...

Here are some pictures!

The Santi Forest Monastery - apparently, it's origins can be traced back to the traditions of the Thai "forest monks", who dwelt in the forest while practising Buddhism. The place is really, really tranquil. I can easily see how one can find peace here.

Off we go on our tour! Seeing the number of small kids present, I was rather surprised that none of them got lost, ingested a palm oil fruit or caught a snake.

Chicken coop or a hut? You decide!

Closeup of one of the chicken coo....I mean huts. There are no furnishings inside, no running water nor electricity. A lamp is provided and a meditation path is built just outside the hut, for one to practise meditation. The function of the hut is just to shelter you from the elements, and of course, wild boars.

For the really, really hardcore - another version of the hut, only without walls. Imagine staying in that in the middle of a forest! The nights are going to be real fun!

I just couldn't resist taking this shot of the fronds of a palm tree silhoutted against the sky.

I don't know what was so interesting about the water catchment area. However, I thought that a picture of "everyone looking at nothing as though there was something there" was pretty hilarious.

This is how a dragonfruit plant looks like. A half-ripe dragonfruit can be seen on one of the stems of the plant.

Rows and rows of dragonfruit plants...

A very beautiful orchid that caught my eye. Although I generally like orchids that produce flowers that grow in bunches (or inflorences, as taught by Ms Ho), I'll make an exception for this one - look at the subtle colour tones and the delicate curls at the fringes of the lower petals!

That's all for this entry, hopefully I'll be able to remind myself to write another! Hahaha...

Ramblings #2

2005-07-28T16:02:00.000+02:00

I always wonder as to the reason why the predefined notions and accepted standards of civility often break down in cyberspace, as shown by the examples where people lash out at each other with crude language whenever a conflict of opinion occurs in an online forum, or the more experienced/veteran players of a particular game exhibiting a snobbish, arrogant and elitist air when dealing with relative newcomers and even the absolute disintegration of whatever language netizens use to communicate with each other. This is definitely a sweeping statement, of course, for there are people who are not involved in any of the aforesaid behaviours mentioned above - but then again, it is an undisputable fact that many people do act like that in cyberspace. Is it because of the lack of laws in cyberspace to define the accepted standards of behaviour of the people using it? In the real world, there are laws enforced by the authorities of every nation in order to govern the nations' individuals' behaviour in public, whereas in cyberspace, there is no clearly defined piece of legislation to control the behaviour of netizens in terms of civility. Or is it because of the protective shield of anonymity the Internet provides to the individuals who use it? Unlike the outside world where if you suddenly commit an audacious (and probably law-breaking act) like running down the neighourhood naked and everybody sees you - resulting in your fifteen minutes of fame on the 8 o'clock news (and perhaps even a day of free food and lodge in the police lock-up), the Internet provides the cover of anonymity to whoever wishes it when he/she is in cyberspace and hence, a sense of "freedom" to do whatever he/she likes, unshackled by the fetters of identity. Could it even be because unlike the real world, in the domain of cyberspace, there are no fears of reprisals from the opposite party when one is rude to another person save a barrage of words typed on-screen, which can be easily ignored or bounded off the offending person's pride? Words typed and displayed on a computer monitor definitely have less impact on a person's mind when compared to the spoken word, for the spoken word bears inflections of emotions and intents. Furthermore, the spoken word is borne on a medium that can only be ignored with much difficulty - the human voice. Don't believe me on the previous statement? Have you ever noticed that when your parents are unleashing a barrage of words on you, reprimanding you of some infraction on your part, and you doing your very best to ignore them and what they are saying to you, some time after that incident, you can still more or less get the gist of what they are saying? The ability to listen is as a natural to us humans as breathing, and the tendency of attenuating and listening to another human's voice out of the cacophony of our world is another particular trait of us humans. A human's voice is very difficult to be ignored by another human indeed.

The impersonality of the Internet as a communication medium may in some way contribute to the fact that most people are ruder in cyberspace when communicating with one another since they view each other as inorganic entities, as bits and bytes or even as a electronic representation of an individual (which to them, obviously, doesn't carry much weight when it comes to the field of communication etiquette). This bears forth another question worth asking - does the alienation of human traits by the impersonality of technology allow for lax behavioural rules? If the answer is yes, then the past millenia of evolution, cultural growth and the expansion of civilisation have been all for naught. After many ages of an evolving humanity, to which a solid and stable civilisation has been the bedrock for our technological growth, we are devolving into our past barbaric selves once more, albeit a more technologically advanced population than what we once were. For the very foundation of the growth has been us evolving from cavemen with clubs with no concept of civility (I think clubbing anyone who offended you, rightfully or not, was viewed as perfectly acceptable then) to people who understand etiquette (that means no bashing your neighbour in the head with a club just because their stereo is several decibels higher than your liking). For us to degenerate into brutes once more (even if it's just online) due to the advent of the Internet seems highly illogical. It shouldn't be happening, but it is, even right now. Even more perplexing are the examples where people tend to have a completely different personality online - and not in a good way. I know quite a few examples where in real life, a particular individual is a polite and unassuming person, but once this person logs into the Internet, you can literally watch profanities scroll across the computer monitor! Of course, some people do use profanities liberally both in real life and in cyberspace, but the real issue here is the generation of a utterly different character (personality-wise) when some individuals use the Internet! Why does it happen? Could it be because that these particular people repress their "impolite" side in real life to present a "clean" facade to the world, but once online, they release the reins and let their alter-ego run free? Is it a pyschological issue, or does the real issue lie with the Internet? I, for one, do not believe that the fault lies with the Internet. Faulting the Internet would be like damning the invention of the gun - many say that the increase in the rate of serious crimes nowadays is due to the unchecked proliferation of firearms, but actually, we should blame the criminals who are using the guns instead of the growth of the gun industry. However, a gun is really a useful device - it allows us to hunt and ensure the security of a nation if it is placed in the right hands! If the wielder of a tool accidentally cuts himself while using it, you do not blame the tool, right? We as the users of the Internet should check ourselves and exercise necessary restraints behaviour-wise so we can act online as how we should act in real life. The non-existence of clearly defined "etiquette boundaries" in cyberspace doesn't mean that we shouldn't be well-mannered online! We should not blame a medium of communication for our lapses in civility - we should instead blame ourselves, for the medium in which the communications took place is inconsequential to our behaviour. We have only ourselves to account for for our actions.

However, not everybody in the domain of cyberspace is rude or offensive. There are people who are patient and polite to you when explaining something to you (instead of "f*** it dude, what a dumbass question! are you a retard or something?") and help you willingly despite getting no benefit to themselves for doing so, and sometimes even at the expense of their own trouble! These people are the true "residents" of the Internet, for they make the Internet what it should be - a utopian, alter-community, undivided by the borders of nations, where each and every individual is equal to the other, sharing information for the benefit of all and unfettered by the issues of gender, age, race and nationality. I have had the pleasure of encountering several of these people in my long usage of the Internet, and after each and every encounter I feel gratified that in this time and age, these people still do exist despite all the moral rot creeping into humanity in our age. And every single time, I resolved to be like them, do to my part to make cyberspace a more enjoyable place to be in by merely being patient and polite in all of my online conversations. I've had people mock me for being overtly polite at times, or even question the reason for my politeness, but I believe that in life, a modicum of politeness is necessary in one's everyday life - the ability to think is not unique to us humans, as many other organisms have rudimentary intelligence, and the same goes for language, but civility is a defining feature of us humans. Without it we might as well be beasts. So please, let's be more polite to each other online. A little bit goes a long way, but the journey to make the Internet a truly utopian domain is a very very long way off. And we might as well begin now.

P.S. - Sorry for the slow update, I was researching graphics cards on the Internet (which one gives the most value for money, which one I can ask my parents to sponsor without them throttling me, which one suits my usage needs, etc etc etc) and "How To Install An AGP Graphics Card". I still have not the foggiest notion of which card to buy until now. Same goes for the installation thingy. (27/7/2005)

P.P.S. - Woohoo! I bought an ATI Radeon 9550GT (128mb DDR RAM, 128-bit, 400MHz RAMDAC clock, 250MHz chipset clock, GeCube chipset) for RM262 at the recent PC Fair! It's quite a bargain if you compare it with an equivalent graphics card, the GeForce 6200 - it's definitely value for money! Now, I'll just have to install it....if only I knew how. (29/7/2005)

Chow and Paul's Visit To JB! (Days Three and Four)

2005-07-14T16:54:00.000+02:00

It's been ages since I last blogged - so I'm very very sorry for the delay, which was actually inevitable due to my absolutely hectic schedule these past few days! Many factors contributed to the final result of the aforesaid hectic schedule, and Reason #1 is that I am currently playing the Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic II (KOTOR II, if you will...) RPG. Wahahaha... Before all of you decide to knock my head off for giving such a bad excuse to justify the much-delayed entry, let me clarify one thing first - this RPG is absolutely addictive! The storyline is great and the gameplay is rather simple compared to the Final Fantasy series, making for countless hours of fun! Much thanks to Paul who introduced this game to me and blowing away all my misconceptions about the KOTOR series RPGs - and even more thanks to him for getting me so damned addicted to the game (not in a bad way, though)! I think I shouldn't go forth on the merits of playing this game, though - I suspect that you're already yawning as you read this. Alright then, onwards to Reason #2! Reason #2 is the fact that I am supposed to participate in some taekwondo demonstration on the 14th of July and as a result of my participation, I have to go for practice approximately three times a week. Three times! Every lesson I get my muscles, joints, tendons and whatnots subjected to extreme stress and go home aching all over and before my body parts even realize that they should begin healing instead of slacking off as they are wont to, I have to go for another lesson. My mum has stopped asking me why I walk around the house in a funny manner after two weeks of this. The jokes from Dad hasn't stopped yet, though. However, my body is showing signs of getting used to the new training schedule as I feel a lot better now compared to two weeks ago - maybe I'll even walk normally soon! Hahaha... But until then, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Reason #3 is the part when I start piling blame on myself - hurray. Anyway, the third reason is short and simple. I'm Just Too Lazy To Update My Blog! Adding Reasons #1 and #2 together, and rationalizing that I wouldn't have many hours left in a day if I did everything mentioned above - and include the fact that I'm a person who requires a little "me" time, well, signs are pointing that yes, these past few days I've been slacking off when it comes to my blog. And it's true. Nowadays, I just don't feel like taking time to write an entry even when I have time to do so. I'm beginning to question the very reason for owning a blog when I have to remind myself to type entries - writing entries seem forced to me, somehow. The only reason I'm keeping with this whole thing is because this is the only available avenue for me to practice my written English. When I first created a blog, I thought that it would be a platform for me to write about my daily life, my thoughts, so on and so forth. The blog would be the diary that I never had, the place to actually write down my unaltered thoughts and feelings that never existed before. But as time passed, I realized that this blog became something more of a news report - I write about everything happening around me. No internal dialouge, no dissection of thoughts, no self-diagnosis. Nothing of what truly matters. You might perhaps add that I could have written all of those if I wanted to, but the truth is that it's not really possible. Writing about one's thoughts is rather risky, you say a lot of things in your head that sometimes aren't meant to be public knowledge, and the end result of writing whatever is in your mind is that you offend people. The farcical product of trying to be as diplomatic as possible when writing about one's life isn't what constitutes a diary (at least, it isn't to me) and it is at the times when I ponder this is when I wonder if this whole "blog" thing is just a big, stupid waste of my time. Perhaps it's time I get a private blog. Perhaps. Just perhaps.

Right, I seem to have drifted off-topic again. Back to the subject.

Day Three (22/6/2005)

On the third day of Paul and Tze Chow's mini-trip to Johor Bahru, us Johorians brought the "foreigners" to the most happening shopping centre in Johor Bahru - City Square! Well, to set the record straight, it is the only shopping centre that is happening in Johor Bahru since it is the place with the largest variety of shops. I think the previous sentences typed above makes it sound as if Johor Bahru is a really lame place to be, but of course you can't compare it to Kuala Lumpur or any other big cities. Each place has its own attraction, and I'm guessing that in Johor Bahru it must be cheap and good food. Shopping complexes aren't exactly our forte, if you get my drift. However, City Square isn't too bad - there's quite a lot of stuff to do (or buy) there! Pirated CD/DVD/VCDs? Check. Clothing? Check. Computer accessories? Check. Restaurants? Check. Cineplex? Check. MOST IMPORTANTLY - Pikachu? Check! Hahaha... In case you're scratching your head and wondering what on Earth does Pikachu have to do in determining the "happening-o-meter" readings, Pikachu is a Japanese restaurant serving extremely good ramen! In fact, it is my favourite restaurant! The portions are large but the price is rather reasonable - coupled with extremely tasty ramen, it makes for a no-brainer whenever I'm there and I'm deciding where to go for my meal! The rest of my friends such as Yih Seong, Jeremy and Chye Hing don't share my enthusiasm towards that restaurant though - I'm guessing either they don't like ramen or they balk at the fact that I must order the "piss-smelling noodles", as they call it, whenever we go there to eat. Hahaha... Well, I can't help it! The bamboo shoot slices in the Zaru Ramen makes it smell like that - but seriously speaking, it tastes really really good! You won't notice the smell at all once you start eating the noodles, and once you get used to the smell, you'll actually notice how good it smells! Anyway, we reached there around lunchtime, and once everyone had arrived, we headed to - guess where? - Pikachu for lunch! Anyway, just so you know, Pikachu actually has a real name. And it's Nippon Yatamura. But most of us just call it Pikachu since there's a humongous picture of everyone's much-beloved (or equally much-detested) anime character displayed at the restaurant's entrance! Mention "Nippon Yatamura" and you'll be greeted with a blank look and a "huh?" to boot, but mention Pikachu and everyone understands one another! However, at the restaurant, Tze Chow told me that he had eaten in a similar restaurant before. Something clicked into place in my mind and all of a sudden I recalled that there was a restaurant serving exactly the same stuff in Midvalley Megamall in Kuala Lumpur! Everything was the same - from the menu to the layout of the place - it just had a different name! Ah, well... As long as we get to eat lunch then it doesn't really matter, right? Hahaha...

After our lunch, we went to catch the movie "Batman Begins". The movie was rather okay, it provided an interesting insight on how the Dark Knight began his...um..."crusade", so to speak, against evil, tyranny, injustice and all the other bad stuff you can think of. However, like all comicbook adaptations, there were plenty of no-brainer scenes and painfully cliched lines. The explosions, butt-kicking and huge mean driving machine made up for those scenes though, and all in all it was an interesting watch. After the movie, it was almost dinner time already and a new problem befell us after we stepped out of the cinema - where do we go for dinner? We had a really tough time working out this problem (Hahaha...funny, isn't it? We're in a shopping complex with at nearly 20 restaurants and we don't know where to go for our dinner!). There were several angles to the problem - one, the price musn't be too expensive; two, the food must be good and different to what we already ate so far, and three, it musn't be too far away from the shopping complex. After much discussion, the final consensus was to heck with angle no. 2! since some places recommended were too expensive or were situated too far away and so, we went to have our dinner in the Tebrau Hawker Centre (mentioned in the entry about Day One) again. Not only did we have our dinner in the same place, nearly all of the food we ordered were repeats of Day One! But I'm not complaining since the food there is really good! This time, the ikan bakar we ordered was even better than the ikan bakar we ordered before since Yih Seong and myself chose the pieces of fish to be grilled, and the "oyster omelette" we ordered was simply delicious! Ah, the pleasures of hawker food - good, cheap, but not necessarily healthy! But who cares? Hahaha... After our sumptous dinner, when everyone was stuffed to the max, Tze Chow suddenly had the craving to play DotA! This notion was immediately seconded by a few of us and we proceeded to good old KingSurf, where much expectedly, the team with Tze Chow in it whacked the other team's collective rears to kingdom come. He really doesn't know how to go easy on us, that guy! We should gather forces to teach him a lesson one day (like having a 5-on-1 match), but I have a nagging suspicion that despite us having greater numbers on our side, he'll still beat us in DotA! Hahaha... Yeah, he's that good! After the game, everyone went their separate ways again to sleep the exertions of the entire day off - with that, ended Day Three of Paul and Tze Chow's visit to Johor Bahru!

Day Four (23/6/2005)

Day Four of Paul and Tze Chow's visit to Johor Bahru had an inoccuous beginning - never in our dreams would we have foreseen what would happen later on! The day began with a quick cybercafe outing involving Paul, Tze Chow, Jeremy, Yih Seong, Ashok and myself at KingSurf before Paul and Tze Chow caught the late evening bus back to Kuala Lumpur since we had nothing better to do in the morning anyway and DotA is always a great way to fill up unused time! Everyone, bar Ashok, gathered at my place early in the morning before heading out to the cybercafe - a reversion to the days when my place was the rally point for any cybercafe/movie/bowling outings at Leisure Mall. However, approximately ten minutes before leaving, Yih Seong "discovered" the wonders of SWAT 4 on my PC and began playing it. Everyone lost track of time as we watched Yih Seong shoot hostages and his SWAT team members - until Jeremy reminded us of our appointment at the cybercafe with Ashok and Ashok called to ask us about our whereabouts. We then made our way to the cybercafe as quickly as we could. Once there, there was no sign of Ashok. We then went into the cybercafe to book the computers first. We waited for quite some time and decided to start on a dry run of DotA while waiting for Ashok. While we were playing, Ashok called Yih Seong to tell him that he was involved in an accident! Yih Seong immediately asked if he was alright and Ashok told him that he was okay and would be joining us later. Then, not long after, Yih Seong was called by Ashok again - this time, Ashok asked us if we could go over to the clinic. We left the cybercafe immediately and went over to the clinic. Anyway, to cut a long story short, what transpired was that while crossing the road, Ashok was knocked down by a motorcycle and that there was some trouble involving the motorcyclist's friends and us - but it was all straightened out in the end. After that incident, Yih Seong brought Paul, Tze Chow and myself for a bak kut teh lunch, but it was a rather subdued affair after what had happened. After lunch, Jeremy sent Yih Seong and myself back home - and Paul and Tze Chow to his home to get ready their luggage for the trip back to Kuala Lumpur. Thank goodness Ashok only had a few lacerations and abrasions - no broken bones! He recovered rather quickly after receiving treatment at the hospital and resting at home for a few days - when Jeremy, Chuin Hau and myself visited him, his sister even said that barely two days after that incident, Ashok was already playing computer games! Hahaha... Maximum respect to you, Ashok! Well, all's well that ends well, I'd say, and I hope that this incident will never happen again to the people I know. Once is one time too much.

And thus ended Paul and Tze Chow's visit to Johor Bahru. For me, it ended when I waved goodbye to them when I got off Jeremy's car. Waving goodbye to them, I felt sadness dominate my emotions, tinged with a bit of hope in the fact that I'll get to see them again when I go to collect my results in August. I hate goodbyes - especially those to friends that I've come to treasure. Paul and Tze Chow have become extremely great friends to me, and it's been a great honour and pleasure knowing them. Well, c'est la vie... Goodbyes are part and parcel of life, but one can be happy knowing that nothing, not even partings are permanent - one may meet them again if their paths cross in the future and even beyond the circles of the world, who knows what awaits us there?

Chow and Paul's Visit To JB! (Day Two)

2005-07-04T18:07:00.000+02:00

A gloomy morning, replete with grey skies and a slight drizzle greeted us as we awoke to the second day of Paul and Tze Chow's visit to the "homeland" of the Johorians - the southern city of Johor Bahru. And before the sleep was completely rubbed from our eyes, we found ourselves making our way to Yih Seong's place, where we were supposed to meet up and head for breakfast before beginning our sojourn into Singapore. As for me, I still can't believe how on Earth I managed to drag myself away from my bed at the crack of dawn when I had only five hours of sleep the night before - perhaps the prospects of a delicious and filling breakfast is deemed more attractive than my bed by some unconscious thought process in my mind! As it were, we met at Yih Seong's house at around 8am before we headed off, with Yih Seong leading the way, to our breakfast of Kuey Teow Kia (actually, I'm not exactly sure as to the spelling of the noodles that we were supposed to eat - but this is a close enough approximation, I guess). However, when we reached there, we discovered to our dismay that the stall was closed! Spirits sank and morale flagged at the thought of no breakfast before our trip to Singapore, until Yih Seong suggested another restaurant for us to fill our stomachs, a restaurant nearby serving dim sum! Spirits raised and morale shot up to a hundred percent (maybe even more) as we made our way to the restaurant crammed like sardines in Jeremy's car. The fact that Tze Chow raised a ruckus the entire way to the restaurant is pretty much evidence of the aforesaid statement - but as I was sitting on one of his legs, perhaps he might be complaining due to the pain! Hahaha... So sorry, Tze Chow! When we reached there, we immediately ordered the food and began eating ravenously. The dim sum was rather delicious and the yellow-coloured vermicelli we ordered was rather unique, with a strong hint of lemongrass which made for a very interesting dish. In fact, we even ordered seconds! Ah, yes... Steaming hot dim sum is the perfect panacea for gloomy mornings! After our bellies were filled, we made our way back to Yih Seong's house, called a couple of cabs and made our way to the Customs and Immigration Complex in Teams Alpha and Beta, as divided by our expedition leader, Patrick. When both Teams had reached the Customs and Immigration Complex with every man accounted for, we made our way past the immigration counters and proceeded to take a bus across the Causeway to Singapore.

Upon arrival on Singapore soil, we then made our way to the immigration counters once more to have our passports stamped. While waiting, Patrick kept making Silent Scope-esque jokes by saying how everyone would get sniped if we did something drastic or if the immigration officers found something wrong with our passports.. Haha... When everyone got through fine, we regrouped at the bus stop and took a bus to Kranji MRT Station. Once there, some of us reloaded our EZ-link cards whereas the some of the others, who didn't have an EZ-link card, bought one. It being our first time there, we were slightly lost as to how to proceed to our first stop, the Singapore Zoological Gardens. We wandered around aimlessly until Patrick and Yih Seong went to enquire about the details in getting from where we were to our destination. They came back armed with the neccessary information and we weren't lost anymore! Hurray! We were just starting to get embarrassed! Hahaha... According to their information, we were supposed to take a cab (in our case, two cabs) from the taxi stand straight to the Singapore Zoological Gardens - and we did just that. However, while waiting, we had a surprise! Guess who we would meet in Singapore - it was none other than Kenneth Wong! Yih Seong recognized him straightaway, but me being a person who can't really remember people well, I took some time to recognize him. After asking each other what we were doing there (I notice that people who always meet unexpectedly just have to ask this question), we went our separate ways.The cabs arrived and we split into two teams again. On our way to the Singapore Zoo, Patrick managed to get a cab driver who was rather disgruntled with the Singaporean government. What was supposed to be a peaceful, five minute drive to our destination became a one-way political critique, with the cab driver giving a very heated speech about the things that he thinks are wrong with the Singaporean government and Patrick being our human sacrifice - he had to entertain the driver by replying at times and nodding his head and saying mmm most of the time! Hahaha... When we finally reached the Singapore Zoological Gardens, all of us exhaled a sigh of relief as we alighted from the cab. We were finally free from the "rebel taxi driver", a name I think that is particularly suited for our taxi driver! Patrick commented that he always had bad luck with taxi drivers as they seem to like him a lot - I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

We then met up with the others and proceeded to buy the tickets and after that, we made our way into the zoo! Goodness knows that it's been ages since I last visited a zoo - and the fact that we were the oldest blokes wandering around made us feel rather embarrassed! All around us, there were small kids with their parents, shrieking with joy at the prospects of seeing several bored-looking animals living out their boring lives cooped up in an artifical enclosure. The kids shrieked. The animals stared impassionately back - most probably thinking, what's the whole fuss all about, mate? Our self-consciousness lasted only until we met another group of people at roughly the same age as us - internally, all of us were heaving a sigh of relief and thinking phew, at least we're not the only teenagers here! After overcoming the initial awkwardness, Patrick and Yih Seong were designated Official Navigators whereas Paul and myself were designated Official Photographers. And so, our long day at the zoo began. At first, we were rather lost and kept going around in circles, but once our Navigators got the hang of navigating, so to speak, we were on our way! We went to almost all the animal exhibits - we managed to cover the reptiles (we were slightly awed by the sight of a humongous crocodile), went to visit the insect world (some comments about Sand King surfaced when we saw a scorpion), managed to check out our fellow primates (we aikkked when we saw a pair of monkeys dating), nearly had mud spattered on us by a giant tortoise who had nerfarious plans involving large feet and muddy ground, were spooked by a flying bird when we went into the small-mammals enclosure, laughed at a sleeping lion, symphatized with a zebra who was isolated by the rest of his peers, wondered why on Earth were the penguins shivering in their enclosure - and much more besides. We had to take several pit stops at the rest areas when covering the vast grounds of the zoo, and it was at one of this stops when Paul decided to catch forty winks by lying down on a bench - he can sleep anywhere, can he? Hahaha.. I wish I could do that!

We also managed to watch several animal shows due to the careful planning of our two navigators - the polar bears' feeding time, the lions' feeding time, the white tigers' feeding time and the pygmy hippopotamus' feeding time. The polar bears seemed uninterested in the fish that was thrown in and didn't even bother to go after a live fish that was thrown in to display their "hunter skills" - so much for learning about the great polar bear's ability to catch fish. The lions' feeding time consisted of a couple of zookeepers hurling chunks of chicken meat at the lions and the bored-looking lions chasing after the pieces of meat that tumbled from their grasp. Incredibly boring - and by that time, our stomachs were already rumbling from all that walking! The meat meant for the lions started to look pretty good at that point. Hahahaha... At least the white tigers' feeding time was far more impressive - at least they looked like the predators they were rather than just large cats running after a morsel of food thrown by their owner. They chased and jumped in mid-air to clamp their massive jaws on the meat thrown by the zookeepers, at times even splashing into the water surrounding their enclosure to obtain pieces of meat that fell into the water. In addition to that, we also managed to catch the sea-lion show, by far the most interesting show we had seen the whole day. After that, we headed to the elephant show, where we saw some elephants lift a couple of logs, roll them into a fake river, lie down and...you know, the works. What Elephants Do. By the time we had watched all the shows we deemed interesting or neccessary to watch, we proceeded to take a tram ride around the zoo - our legs just couldn't take ourselves any further! Add the fact that we didn't eat lunch and that the air was incredibly humid due to the large amount of vegetation and the dense canopy overhead, the end result was that most of us couldn't really walk straight anymore. After the tram ride, we exited the zoo and went to the next item on the itinary - Orchard Road and dinner! We returned to the Kranji MRT Station and took the MRT to Orchard Station, fourteen stops away.

Dinner was at Seoul Garden in Takashimaya Shopping Complex, a steamboat-cum-barbeque restaurant akin to the one that us Johorians patronized twice back in Johor Bahru before finally discovering that food drowning in oil is rather disgusting. However, as Yih Seong recommended it - and, most importantly, it's buffet-style! - the decision to dine there was unanimous. We paid, we entered, and we ate. A lot. The selection of food available for cooking was rather large, and we listened to our growling stomachs and cooked damn near everything in sight! Barely five minutes after settling at our table, the grills were already sizzling with slices of chicken, fish, sausages and beef! After that, what happened was a non-stop eating marathon that continued for nearly an hour - yeah, we were that hungry! For the first half-hour or so, everyone was busy eating and conversation at the tables were kept to a minimum, but after that, the table comprising of myself, Patrick and Ashok kept competing with the other table comprising of Yih Seong, Jeremy, Paul and Tze Chow in terms of creativity when it came to the grill and the steamboat. When Patrick suggested that we crack an egg into the soup in order to make it tastier, the other table followed suit - and that sparked off an inter-table rivalry with each table coming up with more and more ingenious ways to cook food, albeit not always resulting in platable food! After repeated grilling, boiling and eating, we were finally stuffed to the maximum, but that could only have meant one thing when it came to us - dessert time! Since the ice-cream was all-you-can-eat, everyone ate all that they could. Pardon the pun. We loaded up bowl after bowl of the ice-cream and the more adventurous made their very own customised ais-kacangs. Paul was overambitious and overloaded his bowl with ais-kacang and when he settled down at the table, a massive spill took place - resulting in the formation of coloured syrup puddles! We scrambled to grab tissues to soak up the mess, and thankfully, Paul's clothing didn't undergo any major changes in colour after we were done. By the time we were done eating, I could have sworn that our weights at least doubled - we did eat that much!

After dinner, we stopped by at Kinokuniya as Paul wanted to check out some books. As we waited there for Paul, we suddenly had a surprise - Eric was there as well! If this doesn't prove that it's indeed a small world, then I don't know what will! Hahaha... Of course, Eric might have been stalking us too, so that might have to be taken into account! Eric then joined our merry party as we headed from Kinokuniya to our last and final item on the itinary - buying the iPod mini and the iPod shuffle! As I had scouted Orchard Road the day before for the best places to buy an iPod mini with my family (and ended up buying my iPod mini), we already had a destination in mind and all we had to do was to get there, find out the best buys and hopefully prevent ourselves from getting suckered into buying unneccessary accessories for the iPod mini or the iPod shuffle. Surprisingly, the first shop we visited offered Paul and Tze Chow rather good prices for the iPod mini and the iPod shuffle respectively - in fact, they paid S$2 less than what I did, GST included! And without wasting time (our legs seemed to have turned to jelly already after spending the whole day in Singapore), they bought the items they wanted and left. Eric followed us until the MRT Station and then we went our separate ways - we took the MRT back to the Kranji MRT Station whereas Eric took a bus back to his hostel. Once we reached the Kranji MRT Station, we took a bus to the Woodlands Customs and Immigration Checkpoint - and repeated the process all over again. Got our passports stamped, took a bus all the way back to the Malaysian side, cleared the Malaysian Customs and Immigration Checkpoint and voila! We were back in Malaysia! After that, we took a cab back to Yih Seong's house, and everyone went back home - with that, ended a very tiring but fun Day Two of Paul and Tze Chow's visit to Johor Bahru!

Here are some of the pictures we took on Day Two :

Ahh.... There's nothing better than dim sum for breakfast on a gloomy morning! Even though we might not have gotten to eat Kuey Teow Kia for breakfast as planned, we ended up having something just as tasty, which made up for a superb beginning to our day! Here's Round One of our dim sum breakfast!

Jeremy and his favourite animal - the camel! Hahaha... Wonder why? That's because the camel is the animal that Jeremy can draw best! Actually, come to think of it, when Jeremy doesn't doodle stuff on the camels he draws - stuff like spectacles, ties and speech bubbles that say "i am yc" - the camels he draws are actually quite good! Well, better than what I can draw anyway.. Hahaha..

"Ladies and gentlemen, no need to panic - yes, we are lost again, but this is rather routine already." Just joking here - Patrick and Yih Seong, our designated Official Navigators did a very good job leading us around the zoo and planning ahead so that we could watch the animal shows and feeding times that we deemed interesting!

Taking a break at one of the rest stops. The rest stops were air-conditioned, and we were so tempted to remain in the rest stops indefinitely as the air was incredibly humid! From left - Ashok, Paul and Yih Seong. Check out the sweat on Paul's shirt!

This is a lemur, not the parodies that you see in "Madagascar". I tried summoning them with my signature "I like to move it move it" chant, but no lemurs were forthcoming until we bumped right into them. I am so disillusioned.

Ah, yes - the three stars of the elephant show. Truth be told, the elephant show was rather unimpressive compared to the elephant shows in Thailand, but it was interesting nevertheless. But going to a show just to see elephants pick up logs and roll them all over the place? Their creative director needs to go on a refresher course, methinks.

Next - Days Three and Four!

Chow and Paul's Visit To JB! (Day One)

2005-06-30T17:39:00.000+02:00

Just before the A2 final exams, all planning efforts for our supposedly last class trip came to naught as there were certain issues on certain individuals wanting to come along and different stances adopted by different factions in the class on the aforesaid matter. Furthermore, there was plenty of indecision on our part regarding the class trip - planning was hasty, details were obscure and cooperation among ourselves was nonexistent at best. The problems were most likely excerbated by the fact that I managed to piss off the person doing the bulk of the planning..hahaha... Anyway, the end result was that there wasn't a class trip. Period. However, some of us Middle Earthians came up with a brilliant plan to organize a replacement class trip of sorts - a trip for those interested all the way down south to our "homeland", Johor Bahru. Actually, we had already been toying with that particular idea for some time - Patrick and Yih Seong in particular had been extolling to all who would listen about life in Johor Bahru and that it was actually a great place to visit since it was, after all, where we ride pigs to school and use cows as cars...haha.. However, Johor Bahru isn't really a happening place as there's not many places to visit or things to do - you could say that it's much more boring in Johor Bahru when you compare it to other places like Subang or Kuala Lumpur. The only thing that might draw people down to Johor Bahru would be the local food, and of course, not forgetting the pirated stuff sold there. Johor Bahru is practically pirated VCD/DVD/CD heaven! When the idea was pushed forth, it generated quite a lot interest, especially among our clique's close friends (Paul, Tze Chow, Anne, etc). We started with having a lot of people interested in this plan, but one by one they dropped out as they were unable to come along for the trip. And in the end, the class trip involved just two non-Johorians - Paul and Tze Chow. Ah, well... Two or two hundred, it's still a class trip - in essence anyway... Hahaha...

Day One - 20/6/2005

Having slept late the night before, I woke up at noon just in time to remember that I had to pick Paul and Tze Chow up from the Larkin Bus Terminal at 3pm as Jeremy couldn't make it - he was replacing his 'P' license with a full driving license. I immediately scarfed down lunch, bathed and called Paul to confirm their arrival time - all while wrangling temporary ownership of the car from my mum. At 2.45pm sharp, I left home to pick up Yih Seong, who was coming along to greet our VIPs arriving from Subang. I reached his house a little late as I was caught up in traffic and thought that Paul and Tze Chow would already be waiting at the terminal for us as it was already way past 3pm. When I reached the bus terminal however, I had a minor misadventure. First, I overshot the entrance to the parking to the bus terminal as I thought I saw a sign that said "Motorcyle Entrance". Yih Seong told me not to sweat it as there was another entrance further on. This time, I didn't miss the entrance and went in. However, after pressing the button to receive the parking ticket, I could just hear the whirring of machinery in the parking ticket dispenser - but no ticket was forthcoming. What the hell?! I don't believe my luck! A car just went in before me and it had to run out of tickets just when it was my turn?! After repeatedly punching the button for about three minutes or so, I decided to hell with it and to go back to the first entrance. However, as I was reversing my way out of the entrance, I thought I saw a ticket - hallelujah! I promptly drove forward again - but the "ticket" turned out to be the glint of the sun on the parking ticket dispenser and the product of my imagination! Utterly embarrassed, I reversed again - only to be gestured at by a taxi driver who was coming out of the parking lot in the opposite direction! His signal meant hey boy, this entrance can use one lah! and I signalled back cannot! cannot! and drove away as quickly as I could. No doubt everybody nearby would be bemused at the sight of a CRV reversing out of a parking lot entrance and driving forward, only to repeat the procedure again before finally driving away. Anyway, I made a round and entered the first entrance that we saw earlier without any problem.

After parking the car, we made our way to the platforms when we suddenly received a call from Jeremy. Apparently, he had done replacing his old driving license with a new one and he was coming to the bus terminal as well. After receiving the call from Jeremy, Yih Seong called Paul to ask them of their whereabouts and to our dismay, they were still some distance from Johor Bahru - and they were at least thirty to fourty-five minutes away from arrival! At that point, Yih Seong decided to wait at Dunkin' Donuts for them to arrive. Jeremy joined us there not long after, and we killed time by planning the places to bring them to for their lunch and dinner (Paul and Tze Chow only had breakfast prior to the bus ride down to Johor Bahru). After a rather shorter wait than what we anticipated, we received a call from Paul who said that they had arrived at the bus terminal - and off we went to greet our VIPs from the land of Subang. At first, we couldn't really recognize Paul since he wore his sunglasses and looked much more thuggish than usual - BUT...we could recognize Tze Chow from his bright orange shoes! They seemed none the worse for the wear after a five hour bus journey, and their only complaint was that the bus driver drove way too slow - taking a serious toll on their behinds. Hahaha... After that, we drove them to lunch (and all the way, Yih Seong and yours truly were acting as tour guides and showing them the few sights JB has to offer), but somehow I forgot that a particular intersection was blocked and we ended up driving a huge circle before we finally reached our destination - AK Noodle House! This is undoubtedly the most famous noodle-serving restaurant in Johor Bahru, with even people from Singapore coming all the way just to eat the noodles - and judging from what Paul said, the noodles were good (actually, I can't really remember what he said but he said that the noodles tasted good or something to that effect)! AK Noodle House has the Sarawakian's vote! Hahaha... After their very late lunch, Jeremy drove them to Leisure Mall since Paul wanted to change his money to the Singaporean Dollar whereas I headed home to park the car since my mum needed it later on. After their financial affairs were settled, Jeremy picked me up from my place and drove everyone to his house where we awaited the arrival of the others before we headed off to dinner.

At Jeremy's place, we had nothing to do and hence, we finally resorted to watching Discovery Channel for nearly two hours. Hahaha... A very interesting "class trip", eh? After waiting for what seemed an eternity, the others finally arrived and we headed off for dinner. Dinner was at the Tebrau Hawker Centre, and we ordered ikan bakar, a sort of thick noodles in black sauce, fried rice, fried prawns and a plate of fried vegetables. When it came to ordering the drinks, everyone ordered a medium-sized glass of sugarcane juice, but Tze Chow, curious as to how large the "large" would be, asked the waitress taking our orders the question he had in mind. To this question the waitress didn't bother answering in words. In reply, she took the "large" glass and plunked it on our table for one and all to see - and yeah, it was large, all right. He seemed rather daunted by the huge glass and stuck to his order of a medium-sized glass of sugarcane juice. Surprisingly, Jeremy ordered what everyone else at the table ordered - a medium-sized glass of sugarcane juice! I thought he would have asked for a "large" and then maybe even upsize it some more since he's the only guy I know who can down an entire can of Coke in twenty - read this - twenty seconds! Maximum respect! However, he managed to finish his entire glass of sugarcane juice before the food arrived at our table, so perhaps "large" would have been just nice for him... Haha.. After dinner, we went to Leisure Mall and played at the arcade for a while before proceeding to Johor Bahru's most prolific cybercafe, "KingSurf", for a quick round of DotA before everyone went their separate ways. It seems that DotA is almost always on the itinary whenever we gather together, isn't it? It's inevitable, I guess... Hahaha..

The next day - The trip to Singapore! (next entry)

My Preciousssss....

2005-06-25T17:38:00.000+02:00

Forgive me for sounding like Gollum. Yes, I know. It sounds so corny. But the above title is an apt reflection of the words that are probably running around in my mind right now. Why, you ask? It's because, as of the 18th of June 2005 Anto Domini, yours truly is finally the proud owner of an iPod mini! Wahahaha... Again, forgive me for being over-excited. I just can't help it since I've been wanting one since...um...since Wen Ying showed her "Lene" to us. But, that time being the dark and gloomy days prior to our A2 final exams, I decided to keep my desire buried in my heart for a while. Anyway, an attempt at asking my parents to sponsor my ownership of an iPod mini before the A2 exams would probably reward me with them berating me to keep focused on the exams and my revision. And so I waited. And waited. And waited. And when the A2 exams were finally over, I finally broached the topic with my parents. Surprisingly, my parents agreed rather readily - that is, they just asked why do you need it? and how much does it cost?. Usually they would bombard me with a plethora of questions ranging from quantum physics regarding the desired item to ethical issues regarding the ownership of the item, by which I would usually just give up and wonder why on Earth did I even bother asking them in the first place. Perhaps it's a parent's trick to evade tricky questions from their pesky offsprings. I wouldn't know, but I digress. It doesn't really matter anyway - I'll find out when I'm meant to find out.

Anyway, my iPod mini is silver in colour (they didn't come in polka dots...damn!) and is named "Yong Chen". Now, before you split your sides guffawing the fact that I named my iPod mini after yours truly (or thinking that I must be lacking something in the mental capabilities department for needing something to remind me of my own name), let me explain to you why that happened. When you first register your iPod, you'll have to give it a name. And although there are various names associated to me like killa kat, slimy shitt, woohoohoo, uno catalysto, etc etc etc, I decided that those...nicknames perhaps?...are more of my gaming personas, as I only use them when I play LAN games with my friends and that naming my iPod mini after them would somehow extend my game persona into my real life. I pride myself on the fact that I separate the me when I play games from the real me. In the games I play, I have a bloodlust, a thirst to win at any cost, a burning hatred of losing and absolutely zero humility. Yup, you might say I'm something of an asshole when it comes to playing games. And that's exactly the reason why I want to have to separate "me"s - although I know there are people who would say that I'm something like that in real life too. I probably am, although I'm not too proud of it. Anyway, what better way to establish your ownership of an item by having your own name stamped on it? I may be discrimintating, but I think this is a testosterone-related behaviour...hahahaha... A Guy Thing.

You know, I've always found it funny whenever I've seen people shower so much tender loving care on an inanimate object. I've never understood the reason as to why those very people treat an object better than they do another human being. But now, I think I've finally begun to understand them. How can you not love a small, sleek and oh-so-pretty device that lets you carry your entire music collection wherever you go? But no "Oooh my baby iPod mini you'll get scratched" kind of displays of affection from me though. There's a limit on how idiotic one can act. And that was it. I'll just reserve my affection in the way of silent appreciation and gentler handling of it - my other personal belongings suffer a rough and tempestous life as I'm not the most gentle or careful person when it comes to handling my possessions, although I try my best. Naming the iPod mini after myself may not have been the best thing to do either, as I discovered approximately six hours after its purchase, for it seems to be as temperemental as its owner. The iPod mini kept displaying the "Do Not Disconnect" sign even though I had done transferring all the songs over to it, but after a brief assertation of Who's Boss, the matter was peacefully resolved (it wasn't ripped apart in anger).

The verdict? Get it if you have a large collection of songs in your computer and you travel often or do not have your computer with you where you stay. The sound quality's excellent and transferring files is as easy as pie. My only gripe with it is that you can't transfer entire folders from your computer over to your iPod mini and organize your songs as such. However, there might be a way to do exactly that, but unfortunately for me, I have not discovered it yet. I've said it before and I'll say it again - it's definitely worth every single penny you paid for it!

My preciousssss.... We mussssn't hurt Precioussss...mussst we? Yessss...

Next - Chow and Paul's trip down to JB! (I've been too lazy to upload the pictures..will get them done ASAP!)

The End Of College Life...

2005-06-15T07:49:00.000+02:00

As I'm too lazy to write in-depth about what happened during my last few days of life in Subang, I think I'll do a photolog instead. After all, aren't pictures worth a thousand words? Or maybe it's just me not able to drag myself to type after such a long sojourn from typing entries for this blog. Haha.. But don't worry, normal posts are definitely forthcoming, although they might need some time to materialise. I need to refresh my memory on the alien topics of Typing Blog Entries and Not Making Readers Sleep in order to maintain the quality of the entries on this blog. I think I probably sound like a perfectionist by saying that. But I'm not. Really. Ah, what the heck, I'm babbling. Get out of my head, Transition Elements equations!! ARGH! Interference from the residual knowledge of Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics (a little) and Physics are disrupting my cognitive processes. Double ARGH!! I'm babbling again! Anyway, back to the topic - what was it? Ah, yes. Photolog of the end of college life. Here goes:

Pre Chemistry Paper 6

A few days before Chemistry Paper 6, as I was walking home, I noticed something interesting. A monkey (one of the two monkeys that reside outside My Place Apartments) was grooming a kitten! At least, that was what I thought it was doing anyway. Patrick thought that the monkey was preparing the kitten for dinner. I'll leave it to you to choose the version of events that you prefer - but we never saw the kitten again after that. A happy ending, or a sad one? Hmm...

While walking outside college one day, we received a few free Bibles courtesy of a few guys who were trying to convert people to Christianity. These books were the subject of much interest in the apartment for all of about five minutes before they lay forgotten on the dining table. After that, Chye Hing was trying to light a lighter with them whereas I tried using them to build Trump Tower II. Hahaha...very appreciative of us, eh? Anyway, to show that the books weren't exactly wasted, here's a picture of me and Patrick reading the Bibles. Note - posed photograph.

Our humble abode for the past eighteen months. This photograph was taken when our apartment was relatively neat. Clean...let's just say that clean is a condition unattainable in this apartment. It's been just two days but I already almost miss this apartment. Almost. At least now I can lie down on the floor and sleep without worrying about waking up coated with a layer of dust.

My Place Apartments most productive cat. Ever pregnant (except when this picture was taken), this cat, nicknamed 'Garfield' due to her rather large girth, has endeared herself to some of us by following some of us up the stairs whenever we're on our way home. However, she also drew wrath from us whenever she left 'offerings' outside our apartment. An extremely friendly cat, but one word of advice - do not stroke her. If you have to stroke her, use your feet instead. Her favourite hangout place is at the dumpster area . I assume you get the point.

Post Chemistry Paper 6 (a.k.a. END OF A2 EXAMS!)

8/6/2005 (Class Outing)

After Chemistry Paper 6, everyone met at our apartment to rendesvous before going off on our class after-exams celebratory outing consisting of a movie and dinner. Our apartment has been the assembly point for many class outings as it's conveniently close to college.

Me and Tze Chow posing for the camera.

From left - Tze Chow, Chye Hing, myself and Patrick. This photograph was taken at the main atrium of One Utama's new wing. We were supposed to pose for a picture ala 'boyband' or something like that, but the message didn't really get through - the picture is proof enough...hahaha...

We watched "The Interpreter" before dinner, and the movie was pretty good for one that had so much talking and so little action. I'm not really a great fan of 'intellectual' movies, the types that focus on plot and dialouge - but this movie made a convert out of me. I think I'll be watching more of this kind of movies from now on. Here we are just outside the cinema. Anne's slippers broke, and while Patrick and Wen Ying dashed off to buy a replacement, we waited for them. After a while, Tze Chow led Paul, Chye Hing and myself to buy some "pau"s to eat. And they were really good - so good that I forgot to take a picture of the"pau" that I bought.

Bored to death while waiting for Patrick and Wen Ying, Shan kills time by killing Ashok. Not long after this picture was taken, Patrick and Wen Ying returns with a pair of slippers for Anne. Hurray! Off to dinner we go!

Dinner was at Chilli's, a Tex-Mex restaurant that Anne recommended. And as usual, Anne's recommendations were spot-on. The food was good, and the drinks were free-flow. The only bad thing about Chilli's? The drink-refilling service is a little on the slow side. All in all, a great restaurant to have a class dinner. We just sat there talking and drinking even though we had already finished eating ages ago...hahaha... I've never had this much fun this entire year. And yes, that somehow includes DotA, although I'm loath to admit it.

Jeremy doing his best babi impersonation. I'd never thought that I'd actually hear Jeremy say that he was stuffed, but somehow, by a travesty of the laws of the Universe, I did! The portions must be incredibly large to make Jeremy say that he's stuffed. And believe me, they were. But I finished mine anyway since the food was delicious!

Me and Ashok posing for the camera. Everyone says that Ashok doesn't look like Ashok, so to speak. I agree, he does look very different from how he actually looks. Hahaha...but not in a bad way, just different. Note the lady rolling her eyes at us in the background.

Wen Ying and Anne enjoying the food. It took several tries to get the picture right, and by that time, the fries they were holding we severely shortened by the time I took the picture! Even then the picture is a little blurry - I'm not a very good photographer! Haha..

12/6/2005 (Class Party)

Today's the day of the class barbeque. And coincidentally, today is also the day my parents come up to collect my personal belongings from the apartment. To me, this is the point that I finally begin to realise that my life in Subang is coming to an end. College life is over, for better or for worse - but I'll miss each and every day that I spent in Subang anyway. I know that I'll probably never spend hours talking about everything and yet nothing with my friends at the table, nor go for late night mamak sessions at Rafi or Melur, nor even go for late-night cybercafe sessions anymore. But the things that will leave the deepest impressions are the friends that I'll probably never see again when I leave Subang. I should learn to live in the present and cherish every moment with my friends - before it's too late and I'm plagued with regrets and what ifs for the rest of my life.

Tongue-in-cheek statement - Two Very Good Looking People II. Hahaha... Anne and myself, just before the class barbeque at Tze Chow's house.

The barbeque started nearly an hour late as Tze Chow was unavoidably delayed by someone. As a result, Shan, Ashok, Chye Hing, Anne and myself were stuck in Shan's car for nearly 45 minutes before Tze Chow finally arrived at this house, having lost his way along the way to his house. From left - Afree, Denise, Ian Zing and Wen Ying.

I wanted to take another picture of Jeremy eating, but when I pressed the button, Tze Chow walked by, munching on cherry tomatoes stuck on a satay stick. I ended up with a far more interesting photo than I intended. Haha..

Two lecturers came to the class barbeque as well. Ms Chan (our Chemistry lecturer), Ms Ho (our Biology lecturer) and Ms Ho's brother (no relation whatsoever to PM1) came to the class barbeque a while after it started.

Jeremy, shrouded with smoke from the barbeque pit. Tze Chow's family prepared enough food to feed a battalion - it was that much. We couldn't even finish eating everything despite everyone saying how hungry they were prior to the barbeque. Anne's potato salad and her garlic bread, Wen Ying's jelly and the unique kebab style of the barbeque deserve special mention and praise. Very delicious! Hahaha...

Attack Of The Tongs - the Wong family jewels are threatened by a rabid pair of tongs. Yih Seong seems oblivious to the impending danger to his family's bloodline...maybe it's the squid kebab sizzling on the barbeque set.

Me and Wen Ying - I think that this is the only photo I've taken with her (with exception to class photos). Hahaha.. Ah, well. There's a first for everything, right?

From left - Yih Seong, Paul, Patrick, Anne and Wen Ying. Giving their best pose for the camera! Paul seems rather bemused by the "hip-hopper-wannabe" poses adopted by Yih Seong and Patrick. I also noticed that Anne's slouching, as if she's trying to hide the fact that she's tall, as tall as Patrick.

Re-enactment of three ah bengs making the "kissing" sound preferred by ah bengs as their primary courtship call, in their preferred state of repose - squatting. Hahaha... Even though I don't really like to discriminate, this scene is undeniably funny. However, Patrick and Yih Seong chided me for spoiling the picture by "being too polite". How was I supposed to know?! Haha..

The next Shah Rukh Khans.

After we were done eating, everyone sort of cloistered around the tables and began talking. Seen here in this picture is Ms Chan, Ms Ho, Tze Chow, Ashok and Shan.

Ms Chan and me. She was the lecturer who stayed at the party for the longest. Everyone tried to find out more about her personal life - and she evaded the questions pretty easily. Patrick, our chief interrogator has failed to get the scoop for the first time in his illustrious career! She also said that our class was her worst class - I hope she didn't mean that...hahaha..

Paul looks pretty bored in this picture. I wonder why?

Unarguably the funniest picture I have of Anne! I think I'm going to develop this and whenever I feel down, I'll just look at this and I think I'll definitely burst out laughing! Hahaha.. Anne seems to be chomping down on a squid kebab prepared by our kebab-master Yih Seong. Anyway, the kebabs made by Yih Seong were delicious!

The interrogated and the interrogator.

What?! No more jelly? The jelly made by Wen Ying disappeared approximately a minute after it was set on the table. The jellies were rather unique, with yellow-green colouration and they were delicious! I think I'll learn how to make jellies during the holiday so that I can have them anytime I want! Muhahaha..

There's a reason why Chye Hing is called the Master of Sleep. You're looking at it.

The way Shan is holding that golf club, it seems that he's more likely to tee off using someone's head instead of a golf ball.

That's all for this photolog, I guess. As mentioned earlier, a proper written entry shall be up in a couple of days' time. That's all for this entry, I'll see you around! Ciao!

P.S. - The date on my camera is a day slow as I forgot to set it after receiving it from my dad, who brought it up with him to Kuala Lumpur. Hence, the date on the pictures aren't accurate.

Dead Blog...For Now

2005-05-10T12:22:00.000+02:00

Might as well get this over with and not wait until someone places me on a 'Dead Blogs' list. Yes, this is it. I'm officially declaring this blog dead. Well, dead until after the A2 exams, at least. Right now, I have to focus on my revision (which, not coincidentally, is actually way behind schedule). Anyway, to all those facing the upcoming A2 exams, I wish you the best of luck. And while I'm at it, might as well wish myself luck too. Goodness knows I damn well need all the luck I can get. Anyway, I'll see you after the A2 exams - assuming that I'm still alive then. Ciao!

A Relatively Boring Holiday...

2005-04-23T18:44:00.000+02:00

Yong Chen's "A Brief Series Of Mundane Days"
Unbelievable. Two weeks of holidays have just passed me by, just like that. I could almost swear that barely a few days ago, I had just alighted from a turbulence-hit flight-that-was-delayed-by-air-defence-maneuvers. Now, I’m packing my stuff, getting ready to head back to SS15 one last time. This holiday has been really really dull indeed, so dull that my days were smeared into a bleary time-smudge of sleeping, eating, and procrastinating on my studying. You could say that I was living the ideal babi lifestyle, and in fact, I was indeed living it! My pre-holiday plans to play tennis or squash, swim and to catch up on my studying seem to have been grounded to dust beneath the omnipresent heel of procrastination and blown away by the winds of laziness. Ah, well. C’est la vie. Well, at least my vie, anyway. It’s very characteristic of me to make grand plans for things that I want to do when I’m free and then forget about them the moment I have enough free time to carry them out. And now, viewing the final few hours of the aforesaid smudge from hindsight, I must say that my holidays have been a total waste of time. Here’s a brief summary of a typical day in my life these past two weeks:

Morning
Wakes up (approx. 10am), scarfs down breakfast, takes a bath, plays the piano for a while and immerses self in a book until lunchtime.

Afternoon
Puts down book for lunch. Resumes reading after lunch (if book has not been completely read – if book has been completely read, switches to another book). Switches on computer after reading and listens to music.

Evening
Plays computer games (mostly CounterStrike and SWAT 4). Looks out the window at around 5pm to 6pm and thinks it is too hot/it is going to rain/it is raining or some other excuse so that I won’t go down to swim/cycle/play tennis or squash. Continues playing computer games until dinner.

Night
After dinner, sits in the living room for a while, talking to parents or vaguely watches television (I’m not really into the idiot box). Retreats into room and continues reading until approximately 11pm. After that, either surfs the Net or listen to music. Stops at around 1am and switches off the computer (note – computer has been switched on since the late afternoon). Picks up another book and reads until eyes gives out at around 3am. Finally succumbs to Slumberland’s calls. Repeats the same itinerary the next day, with little or no variation.

On final count, I reread the entire Star Wars – The New Jedi Order series, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, five Dale Brown novels, the fourth and fifth Harry Potter books and two classics. I can’t believe it. I did it again. I went on a book-reading spree! And going on a book-reading spree doesn’t seem like a good idea when the A2 exams are so near I can practically taste them in the air, with each heartbeat reminding me that time is indeed getting short and each dawn reminding me that it is one day closer to THE exams. I need more self-discipline. Damn… If I was only this dedicated to my revision…

Visiting My Grandparents
On the other hand, I finally fulfilled my promise to myself that I would visit my grandparents at least once whenever I return home for the holidays. Last Sunday, I managed to visit my paternal grandma in Kota Tinggi and well, she’s still the same as ever. Good to see that she doesn’t have any more aches here and there, since she used to complain of having aches in her hands. I was beginning to worry for her health just last year, and it’s great to see that she’s alright! After all, I’m rather attached to her as it was she who took care of me when I was much younger. And just a few days ago, I visited my maternal grandparents. I drove my mum there, and after alighting from the car, I was immediately confronted by a hulk of a mutt. Now, I used to be on good terms with the previous dog that my grandparents owned, and after it passed away, I didn’t get to spend much time with the other puppy that they bought to replace their dog. Hence, you could pretty much say that, to the dog, I was fair game. Figuratively and literally. Standing on all fours, the dog’s muzzle could reach my stomach! The dog growled, and for a few moments I thought my life would reach an ignomious end as shreds of meat spattered all over the car porch of my grandparent’s house. Well…until Grandma came to the rescue, hauling the dangerously large mutt away and enabling me to scamper inside the house to safety. Once inside the house, I decided that it would be better if I befriended the dog, so to speak, and that was for two reasons. One – I will definitely be visiting this house again and the better terms I am with this dog of theirs, the less I will have to worry about being ripped apart after walking through the gates. Two – It usually doesn’t hurt being nice with animals. After establishing ‘diplomatic relations’ with the dog (done by persuading the dog to be patted by me and not chew my hand off at the first chance it gets), I faced another problem. The dog then decided that it would like to play with me. It tried to make me throw things for it to chased, and when I didn’t do it, the dog tried to jump up and knock me over. How do you say no to a dog that ignores the word and is too big to be shoved away without hurting it? I took a stick and pretended to throw it. It pretended to run, but gave me a look that said what am I, stupid? and tried to make me play with it again. Then only did I remember my grandma saying that the dog was very playful indeed. Groan… Giving up, I went back into the house and left only when I had to drive my mum and my grandparents to lunch. Even then, the dog tried to follow me to the car, but was restrained again by a word from my grandma. Pretty smart, that dog. At least it knows who’s in charge and it’s definitely not me. The rest of the lunch was rather uneventful. My grandpa asked me what I was going to study next time, and when he rattled off a few words in Mandarin, I just nodded and uhhed at random as I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. Then, at the end of lunch, my mum told me that he said that I was going to study something related to aerospace. What?! I thought he said medicine! Maybe my Mandarin needs polishing…seriously. Ah, well. At least now I don’t have to worry about getting mauled by a huge monster of a dog whenever I visit them again.

Outing With My Dear!
Yay! I managed to go out with my dear today! She came back from Bukit Jalil just yesterday, and we arranged to go out today. However, her best friend, Hui Ling joined us for the singing session in Red Box. Hahaha… Usually my dear will have to force me to sing, and as I can sing as well as I can breath underwater, I refrain from singing most of the time. And that somehow upsets her a little, as she thinks that I’ll be bored. But I’m not. Seriously. Hahaha… Anyway, I was let off the hook and wasn’t made to sing at all. Furthermore, I had free entertainment! Both of them were singing like crazy! After the singing session (tried to treat Hui Ling but she refused adamantly…saying that my dear will treat her during the next holidays as payment), me and my dear went to catch a movie at City Square. Something incredible happened at City Square as I was buying popcorn! As I walked to the line at the counters to queue up, a guy was looking at me strangely. Then, the girl he was with recognized my dear! Before I could ask her who that was, he suddenly turned to me and asked abruptly, “Do you recognize me?”. I raked my memory to piece a name to his face, but I finally gave up and asked him, “Uh, who are you?”. He then said he was William, from my Bahasa Melayu tuition class during Form 3! He looked so different from last time! And when I said that I couldn’t recognize him because of that, he said that I had changed a lot and that I looked very different now, that’s why he couldn’t recognize me at first! We ended up talking about school and the old times during tuition until it was time to go into the theater (turns out that the girl was my dear’s ex-schoolmate). Does this prove that this is a small world or what? Haha… After the movie, we headed for home and went out for dinner with my parents (Japanese food again…yum!). My dad persuaded my dear to try the raw fish in the shashimi platter, and to my surprise, she did! That’s a first for her, as she doesn’t like to eat anything uncooked, no matter how hard I try to convince her that the stuff is really really good! Well, she tried the raw octopus and some smoked fish, and she said that they weren’t bad! Good for you, dear! Hahaha…

Whew...what a long entry! Anyway, that's all for this time, I'll write again as soon as possible. Ciao!

Very Berry-teresting!

2005-04-15T08:47:00.000+02:00

Pardon the cheesy title. It was all that I could think of. If you can think of a phrase more befitting the title of this entry, please add it to the comments and I'll be sure to weigh your suggestions and perhaps even change the title to the suggested phrase. My nature-loving mum, who sometimes amazes me with the knowledge of edible plants from her childhood as a kampung girl, brought some interesting fruits back just two days ago after a visit to her friends. According to her, she had plucked the fruits from some plants growing outside her friend's house and that she had eaten them in her childhood. Somehow or the other, the part about plucking the fruits from a plant that grew outside a house in Taman Pelangi put me off the fruits a little. It's not that I have an aversion to local fruits. It's just that...well...Taman Pelangi isn't exactly known for its agriculture and who knows what might have been fertiliser, right? She insisted that they were Malaysian Raspberries. I had never heard of raspberries growing in Malaysia. She said that they were edible. I wasn't so sure. However, being the designated family guinea pig when it comes to interesting foodstuffs, it was my painful duty to sample the fruits that she had brought back.

The fruits in question were akin to elongated raspberries, deep red in colour and had tiny strands of who-knows-what poking out from the berries. Not the prettiest fruits, I might say, for they looked like a cross between a rambutan and a raspberry. Anyway, I just took one, threw it into my mouth and chewed. It wasn't much of a revelatory gastronomical experience - the fruits were a little sour, and tasted a little like strawberries. However, after sampling a few more fruits, I discovered that the fruits weren't too bad, actually. In fact, the taste was rather...interesting. And, of course, I'm still alive. Which means that these fruits are indeed edible. Hurray Mum! Now you've taught your son two kinds of fruits to eat in case he gets lost in Taman Pelangi and can't find his way to the nearest mamak stall (the other being the Indian Cherry, but that's another story)! I've taken a few photos of the fruits so that everyone can see what they look like - but don't go popping any lookalike fruits into your mouth!

Photos of the fruits - no flash.

Photos of the fruits - with flash. (note the hair-like protrusions from the fruits)

P.S. - If anyone can identify these fruits and provide me with their scientific name, I would be most grateful!

That's all for this entry! Ciao!

I'm Back!

2005-04-12T17:36:00.000+02:00

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for the long delay in adding new entries to this blog. The reason why I delayed adding new entries? I’m mortified. Mortified at myself for not beginning preparations earlier for the A2 trial exams. Mortified at myself for even thinking that I could cope with the new chapters in each and every subject without any meticulous preparation. Mortified at myself for having squandered precious time before the exams instead of revising for the exams. And finally, mortified at myself for being overconfident and allowing myself to think that these exams were to be taken lightly. As you can guess, the exams didn’t exactly go smoothly for me. I won’t make any excuses nor will I hide behind explanations as to why I found the A2 trials so difficult. I just didn’t study enough. Period. And that explains all that is needed to be explained. I could probably throw you a billion examples to illustrate how screwed-up my papers were, but I digress. In doing that, therein lies the risk of the poor reader falling asleep on the keyboard and waking up only to find that his or her unfortunate keyboard has become a receptacle for the sleep-drool of the sleeping reader. Hence, I will only briefly gloss through some of the more…interesting examples of my experiences prior to, and before papers.

First and foremost (and seriously, this is the best example!), I boiled my bloody Biuret test during the Biology practical paper. I have a very good idea of what might be running through your mind now, and most likely, it’ll be what the hell? or whaddafuk?, followed by how on Earth did this idiot forget how to do the Biuret test…it’s like, first grade! or something to that effect. Well, let this idiot answer those questions for you – I don’t bloody know! When I saw the biochemical tests to be carried out, what ran through my mind was Benedict’s test and Biuret test – boil the shit outta them! and with a mental woohoo! I went on to carry out those tests happily – with no inkling that I was making a big, big mistake. No wonder my “faithful lab partner” (yes, guys, tease me all you want) was giving me funny looks. To compound matters and to highlight the fact that yes, I am indeed an idiot, I was reading on how to carry out biochemical tests just the night before! I knew how to do it. I could have done it. But somehow, in those few fateful seconds, my reading on biochemical tests the night before failed me. To put it succinctly – I failed myself, for, how can an action fail a person? With the results looking a tad funny, my results and hence conclusion would definitely be even funnier, but somehow I suspect that Ms Ho would probably die laughing while marking my paper. Now, wouldn’t that be nice? Hahaha… And it goes without saying that I’ll be expecting very, very low marks from this paper. The only consolation I can get from this experience is that I’ll probably know how to do a Biuret test for the rest of my life. But maybe I shouldn’t speak so soon.

Secondly, there was this Chemistry practical test. The Chemistry practical paper was rather straightforward - a question on titration and a qualitative analysis question. All of us have probably done these questions over and over again until the knowledge of how to do questions like these are probably ingrained in us by now, so these questions weren’t much of a head-scratcher. The only possible problem that we might have faced during this paper could have been the ‘design experiment’ as we didn’t really have much exposure to those kind of questions. Personally, I found the paper rather straightforward, and everything seemed doable, but (you somehow knew that this ‘but’ was coming, didn’t you?) as usual, something went wrong. This time, it was my apparatus that caused all the problems. While cleaning up and rinsing the apparatus used in the experiment, I didn’t notice that the tap on my burette was rather loose since I was more concerned that no air bubbles formed in the tap instead and that the burette felt and looked alright to me. I didn’t notice anything was amiss about the burette until I carried out my second titration, when I suddenly discovered that my fingers were rather wet. To my utmost dismay, I discovered that the solution in my burette was flowing out by the side of the tap even though the tap was closed! I made a quick situation assessment, and my final conclusion was you’re screwed since you won’t have time to do everything all over again. Giving up, I took the mean of the two readings, and moved on to the next part. My worst fears were confirmed the next day when Ms Chan told me that my readings were way off the mark. Another lesson learnt – check your burette thoroughly (especially the tap!), don’t assume that since it’s an exam, all the apparatus will be in perfect order. My only source of disappointment was that I couldn’t show Ms Chan better results than my last exam since she put in effort to make sure that I knew how to do titration properly when I scored a D for my AS practical.

Thirdly, there was the Chemistry Option paper, or Paper 6. This paper is the perfect example of why last-minute revision isn’t good for your academic results. Having done the Core chapters early, I thought I could focus purely on the Option chapters when the exam was drawing close. However, I discovered that some of my knowledge of Core chapters had decided to take a hiatus indefinitely to wherever-knowledge-about-Chemistry-goes-when-it-leaves-one’s-brain a few days before the Chemistry written papers. As a result, I found myself studying Core chapters as well as the two Option chapters a few days before the papers, which wasn’t in my plan at all (assuming that I had a revision plan to start with). And although it might sound like a walk in a park when I say “two Option chapters”, believe me, the notes of the two Option chapters are thicker than the entire A2 Physics syllabus put together. Trying to cram everything from the countless Laws by someone or the other in Phase Equilibria to the bazillion equations found in Transition Elements in the space of a few days is futile. I’ve had more success trying to coax my pet tortoises to do a 100m dash. The end result? Blank. Blank. Blank. All over my Option paper. Well, I guess I made marking my paper a lot easier for Ms Chan, although she probably won’t be too thrilled at my marks.

Blame in on my laziness that I didn’t begin revising any earlier when I should have. Blame it on my lack of discipline that I still managed to go for DotA sessions when the exams were just around the corner. Blame it on me for thinking that I could finish revising everything last-minute and yet understand and remember everything. But at one point the blaming must stop, and I’ve decided that it is now. Enough moping. Time to put the past behind me, and focus on the future bearing in mind the lessons I have learned this time around. Easier said than done. But I’ll do my best anyway.

And getting my results is going to be so, so fun.

Blog On Hold

2005-03-21T13:16:00.000+01:00

Due to the upcoming A2 trials, the posting of new entries to this blog will be delayed indefinitely. Well, there won't be much to blog about anyway...hahaha... I guess it won't be much of a difference, eh? Anyway, regular posting will resume as soon as the trial exams are over.

Ciao!

Offended Somebody Today...

2005-03-15T11:10:00.000+01:00

I don't believe it! Barely twenty-four hours into my resolution for this year, I seem to have violated one of 'Dad's Rules Of Life'. Life seems intent on making a mockery of myself. But I digress. Anyway, what happened today was that someone was being rather rude and pushy about the way that aforesaid someone tried to reach a consensus about the class trip. That someone seemed not to give an iota of care about the situation of others when pushing forward an idea, and when someone in a position of so-called leadership acts in that manner, I call it piss-poor leadership. Period. From what I heard this afternoon, it was all about that somebody's way, the situation as that somebody viewed it and the final consensus that particular somebody wanted. The details of the situation are to be left out in this entry since I don't want to be accused of distorting the events of what happened in order to favour myself. I did my best to remain civil and refrained from interrupting for a while, but after listening to that particular someone's talk for a moment too long, I finally couldn't take it anymore and I gave that someone a piece of my mind. In a not-so-civil tone. I know it was wrong for me to use that tone - so I apologize. But only for that matter. I don't give a damn as to whether that particular someone reads my blog or if anybody blabs about this entry to that particular person - I'll have that 'someone' know that I'll gladly return the favour of acting the way that particular person acted as long as that particular person continues to act that way. Anyway, this matter isn't really something worth mulling over, so I'll forget it as soon as I hit the 'publish' key - and focus on more important matters.

Ramblings #1

2005-03-14T10:57:00.000+01:00

Do you ever get the feeling sometimes that life just can't be any worse? The way you greet each day dreading the onslaught of problems that are bound to be winging themselves towards you, or perhaps that seemingly magnetic attraction you possess towards people and things that have to go against your plans or even just the sick feeling in your gut when you screw things up and now you have to extricate yourself from the very mess you created. At times like this, you'd probably wish you had a 12-gauge shotgun and blow each and every problem in your life to a bazillion tiny bits. Alas, if only life was this simple - and if gun licences were easier to obtain. I'm just kidding. Really. Frankly speaking, everyone has had their fair share of stormy periods in life. What differs in each and every individual is the way in which they handle their problems. Some do it elegantly, smoothing over errors and troubles like with the ease of one smoothing over a creased bedspread. Others just stumble over theirs, causing more distress to themselves and probably making it worse in the process. Some like to handle it with help from friends, whereas others prefer to rough it out alone. As just another ordinary individual in the vastness of the populace of Earth, I too, have had my fair share of troubles to deal with. Although I would like to say otherwise, I have not dealt with all my problems in the most elegant of ways, dealing with some in the wrong way and perhaps making matters much worse than before. And, as someone wise once told me, the way an individual solves his problems shows what kind of individual he really is. Which is true, considering that you don't see a person's true self until things start going wrong since anybody can afford to be affable and polite when things are going right.

I will never claim to be a perfect person. I know this for a fact. Truth be told, I have many negative aspects to myself, facets to my personality that make me a less better person than I want to be. However, can the conclusion be drawn from my statement that it is perhaps the fault of my parents, who failed to inculcate in me all the moral values needed to make me a perfect individual? Or should the society and environment around me be blamed for exerting all the necessary influences on me to make me adopt negative values? The answer to those questions - no one is to be blamed except myself. My childhood was such that my parents taught me the importance of having all the important moral values in myself so that I would grow into a mould of what could be defined as a "good" individual and they encouraged me to instill those values in myself in every opportunity of my life. The environment and culture around me, while not exactly the most moral-friendly, was good enough so that the influence of negative values on myself was kept to a minimum. So, why then, am I still not perfect? To give a better answer to this question, we'll have to take a scenario as an example in order to convey the message. Let's imagine that you're wearing a pair of white shoes. When you first get them, the shoes are obviously clean and sparkly-white, unless you got cheated in the shoe shop. Then, when you're walking back home, you're greeted with two paths. One is a muddy road, whereas another is a clean path for you to walk on. If you choose to walk on the muddy road, then naturally, your shoes will get soiled. If you should choose to walk on the clean path instead, then the cleanliness of your shoes will be maintained. Obviously. But imagine, what if you didn't have a choice, and that the only path was a muddy path? Furthermore, sometimes people trod on your shoes too, and you can't really do anything to prevent that. After a while, your shoes, once white and clean, would be soiled.

What exactly are you trying to say? you might ask. The scenario described above portrays the shoes as our selves, and the cleanliness of the shoes our morality - the cleaner they are, the more untainted our moral values. Your morality is dictated by the choices you make in life. However, it seems that the end product is still the same - negative values still take root in oneself. I won't profess to be an expert on life, but from what I know, things in life isn't as clear cut between good and bad. The boundary between the black and white in life can be blurred, giving rise to a grey area that we sometimes have to trod. So, every individual that walks on this face of the Earth is not perfect. As am I. However, is it the perogative of every individual to act in a negative manner just because it is inevitable for imperfection to be present in a person? No. The choice as to how one acts lie within oneself, as opposed to being dictated by the values present in the individual's personality. The values merely influence the way the person acts. They do not decide how he or she acts. Period. Therefore, the negative aspects of myself are purely of my own fault. I chose to act like that. And for all my shortcomings which may have offended anyone (especially my friends) - I sincerely apologize. I know I have not been the greatest person to be a friend to, being someone who's impatient, hot-tempered, blunt in words and a slob, the many arguments I've had with them being testament to what I've said above, but I really appreciate having them as my friends and I couldn't wish on having better friends than those that I have right now.

Not too long ago, Dad gave me some very good advice on how to become a better person -

You wear pants for a reason - to be a gentleman. Apologize for offending other people even if it isn't exactly your fault. Right and wrong can be relative to an individual, so why not save time and quit blaming each other and forgive and forget instead.
Don't burn bridges - build them instead. Be polite to anyone and everyone whenever possible. People will remember you for treating them with respect.
Forgive and forget. Even if others have wronged you, you should forgive them instead of blaming them. You will find that people will find you a maganimous person and that they too, will find it much easier to forgive you compared to you heaping blame on them everytime they make a mistake.
Don't discriminate. As you should never judge a book by it's cover, you should never judge someone based on his or her religion, race or social status. Instead, judge someone based on his character and actions. Respect each and every individual and be fair in all matters.
Don't base your happiness on materials. What matters in life is the person you are and the people surrounding you. You live on money and material, not for. How much can you eat and how many cars can you drive? Earn enough to support yourself and your family, and live life based on your family's happiness.
You don't need a reason to help people. There should be nothing in you that expects returns when you help people. You should help people because it is your duty as a person to do so.
Never focus on the negative aspects of a person. Everyone has his or her faults, and if you focus only on a person's fault, you'll never find anyone likeable in life. Focus instead on the positive aspects of a person and like him or her for that, and you'll find that the people around you are great people indeed, making you treasure your friends and family even more than ever.

As of today, I'll do my best to become a better person. While I know that realistically, it is practically impossible to change myself within a day, I'll do my best nevertheless, and keep at it always. For the sake of my family, my friends, and last but not least, myself. I know it's a little late, but I guess I finally found my resolution for this year (in addition to doing well for the exams). That's all I'll be writing this time, I'll see you around. Ciao!

Sick...

2005-03-09T12:10:00.001+01:00

Felt a little unwell yesterday afternoon, so I thought that it must be another of those nasty bugs that has been going around in the apartment ever since Chye Hing got sick. With that, I decided to sleep it off and see what became of it. I awoke from what was supposed to be a refreshing nap feeling rather worse for the wear, with nausea doing its nauseous best to make me throw up but failing repeatedly and what seemed to be a tsunami churning around in my guts. I decided there and then that going for dinner was definitely out of the story. So while the others went for dinner, I spent my dinner time hugging the toilet bowl and - well, suffice to say, details are rather unnecessary at this point. I'm sure you got the idea.

A few hours into my misery, I called Mum to give her a sitrep (situation report) and I wished I didn't three minutes into the call. Dad was so worried about me that he actually suggested that I checked into the Outpatient Department of SJMC whereas Mum just continually poured tonnes of suggestions on how to what to eat, what to do and repeated "see a doctor first thing tomorrow"over and over again until my ears were ringing with those words. After assuring them that it wasn't that serious, and no, I won't drop dead in the middle of the night and that I would see a doctor first thing tomorrow if the situation still hasn't abated yet, I finally hung up. If I had known that I would make them this worried, I wouldn't have called them at all.

My dear gave me some advice on things to eat to alleviate my condition, and she recommended some medicince called "bao chi wan" or something like that in Mandarin. I made a quick trip to Kiosk to buy the medicine and some bread and jam to eat, when I met Paul near the entrance to My Place, happily taking swigs of Rootbeer from a can in his hand. The explanation? His apartment ran out of water to drink so he went out to buy a soft drink. After hearing what he said, I nearly burst into laughter - it was that funny! And that made me feel loads better. Which led me to learn my lesson of the day firsthand - laughter is the best medicine. I know, it sounds a little cheesy, but this axiom definitely is true after all, and I shall have to remember that if I ever become a doctor (fingers crossed)! After I bought the medicine, bread and the jam, I duly returned to the apartment, albeit feeling a little better. I tried to do homework, but my mind just wasn't in it, so I ended up watching television for the rest of the night (and making frequent jaunts to the toilet as well).

I remained this way for the rest of last night, and although I felt better today morning, I sill didn't feel well enough to go to classes. And no, Chye Hing...it wasn't because I was too lazy to haul my sorry ass off to college this morning. I would if I could, but the fact is, I couldn't. So don't give me any remarks about me skiving off classes for the fun of it - I sure as hell didn't! After feeling much better later in the morning, I dutifully went off to classes again. But on another note, I did manage to skip Biology today, which seemed like a good thing because our ever-lovable teacher (read - sarcastic) seems to be getting more pyschotic and deranged as the days pass. She buries the entire class under mountains of work and still manages to scold us about not being able to finish the work on time, blindfully oblivious to the fact that we do not just take Biology alone as we take other subjects too and hence, we also have work to do from those other subjects.

Hmm...I wonder why couldn't we finish your work... Perhaps it's because you gave us way TOO MUCH!

I can gripe all I want about the aforesaid teacher snowing the entire class under with her humongous workload. But it won't matter here. Not that it'll matter anywhere. But I'll still say it anyway. If she wants her plan to work (and I suspect her plan is actually a well-intentioned effort to make sure we're well prepared for the finals by making us do exercise after exercise), then she's going about it the wrong way. By giving us homework this much, she's made us adopt a couldn't-care-less attitude about the work she gives. Most of us (yes, I admit that I'm included in the "us" too), resort to just copying the answers to the work she gave when we tried and subsequently failed to finish her work on time. What she should do is to give us homework in moderation, not the avalanches she buries us under with - at least we'll know that it's humanly possible to finish it and we won't need to resort to copying. She's a good teacher, there's no doubt about that, but some of the aspects of her teaching are questionable.

Enough griping for one day, I'll see you soon! Ciao!

PMC Interview...Is So Sux!!

2005-03-02T12:42:00.000+01:00

I went for a PMC admissions interview today, and man, it totally sucked. I don't really want to go into details, but here's a brief excerpt from the dialouge between me and my interviewer :-

A Brief Excerpt Of My Interview Session:

Interviewer - So, which is your preferred university?

At this point I was confused as to which university PMC was doing twinning with.

Me - (after a briefest of pauses) Uhh, Trinity College Dublin, I guess.

The interviewer then gave me a blank look, the kind of look that says, "Huh? Whurrt?".

A brief pause entails.

Interviewer - We don't have a twinning programme with Trinity College. Our twinning programme is with the National University of Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons.

At this point, my mind was screaming, "WHAT? I've never even heard of it!! Wait...have I?". I then immediately entered into Cover Bengang mode.

Me - Yes....but...truthfully speaking, I think going to PMC would be a far more viable option for me because it would be less of a financial burden to my family.

Interviewer - Have you applied to Trinity College Dublin?

Me - Yes, I applied via the IUMC, and I'm having an interview session with them on the 17th.

Ahh...what the heck...you asked, I answered.

Interviewer - (after flipping through my certs) With your results, I think you should have no problem entering Trinity College Dublin.

Yeah, right.

Interviewer - But we'll keep a place in PMC for you.

I can't tell if this is good or bad. Does he mean "we'll keep a place for you" as in "Hey, you got a place in PMC" or "I'm going to deny you a place now but if you fail your Trinity College interview, feel free to come back and apply for PMC again"? I got pretty worried at this point.

Me - (forcing a laugh) Thank you, sir.

He then proceeds to scribble something on the paper attached to my application form. I could only see the letters "H" and "O", but maybe that was a code for 'discard this application immediately'.

Interviewer - Do you know, that the course of living in Ireland is also pretty high?

Me - Yeah, but it should be lower than that of other places such as the UK, right?

Interviewer - The price of property in Ireland nowadays...very high. It's because of the booming economy in Ireland.

Me - Uhh...okay.

And we went on in this vein for a while. When the interview ended, I didn't get to show off about my knowledge of stem cells again. Dang.

Pictures Are Up!

2005-02-28T11:38:00.000+01:00

The pictures taken by Anne during Yih Seong's birthday bash (or you could call it dinner, if you will) at Kim Gary's are up and posted at my current blog, www.xanga.com/yong_chen ! Thanks to Anne for allowing me to use her pictures! :-)

A Hectic Week....

2005-02-23T13:06:00.000+01:00

Just so you know, the entries on this blog are merely interim and are basically just for me to get a 'feel' of the system here. Since I'm no great shakes at HTML (even though I'd taken classes way back in secondary school...seems those classes are wasted...haha), these entries are for me to decide if this blog fits the criteria of the kind of blogs that I prefer - that is, low-maintainence and fuss-free!

Anyway, just came back from futsal, where the diminished PM1 team played against another class as well as Paul's 'juniors' (they're damn big sized, what the hell do they eat?) and it was a helluva tiring match. Chye Hing and I played against Paul's juniors only - and I managed to score a goal! Muhahaha... Not bad for a guy who only months before didn't know how to kick a ball! I must say, my stamina isn't exactly up to standards yet...I was nearly dying by the end of the match - just guess I'm not up to playing full-length games, one after another. Must start training soon! Thankfully, there was a cold bath as panacea for my aching body - and a blood-filled blister on the sole of my right foot. Hallelujah for running water!

Summary Of Futsal Match -
Goals scored - 1
Goals nearly scored - 1
Tries - I lost count after 6
Casualties - Nearly killed Chye Hing by colliding into him at high speeds
Personal injuries - A blood-filled blister (again?)
Cost - RM5.00 excluding RM3.00 for the three bottles of water consumed

By the way, earlier this week (or was it late last week?) I received a conditional offer from the University of Sheffield (as well as a rejection letter from the University of Newcastle...hahaha)! Surprise, surprise! I applied via UCAS just to "look-see" and frankly, I never expected to get an offer - much less invitation to interviews, but I somehow wrangled two from the University of Sheffield and the University of Liverpool. I was just trying out for the heck of it...hahaha.. I even told Dad that he shouldn't harbour any hopes of me getting a place even though I told him I gave it my all.. Anyway, this offer certainly made my week! Got to work extra hard to acheive the necessary grades to get in - musn't disappoint my parents! Currently, I'm just waiting to get the other decisions from the two other universities and the Replying to Offers letter from UCAS - so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Just in case.

Received an invitation for an interview with Penang Medical College just yesterday, and I was asleep when they called me (one of my rare afternoon siestas). Guess the lady calling was rather taken aback when she passed me the happy news and all I could manage to say was Oh, okay... I think she was expecting a little more enthusiam or happiness, but hey, I was sleeping just moments before! With my sleep interrupted, I went to the living room and received another call. My first thought was that Penang Medical College had contacted me because they had withdrawn my interview offer due to my 'lack of interest' as I sounded rather dead when they first contacted me. To my surprise, it was Anne, and she was literally bursting with happiness as she told me that she had received an invitation for an interview too! Hahaha... She wasn't very confident about her chances of getting an interview just days before - look at her now!

Congrats, Anne!

Hey World!

2005-02-22T05:51:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone! Just decided to test this site! I may move my blog from my current site at xanga over here if this site seems better than xanga! (You didn't hear me say that!) Hahaha...