when our ICEs do not meet

i'm just super sad today. super super sad. everything after sch went totally wrong.

historian in training

finally Hx taking is starting to make sense to me and there really seems to exist a proper sequential thingy to taking Hx.

and it's funny to note how both oxford and telly says the same things on "pts to include in taking a dz Hx". haha yar. makes me think there's some standard format of sorts tt REALLY exists.

i used to think it's all wayang. well not really lar. but more of quite common sense, think of what then say what lor. don't need to so fei(4) shen(2) and think, 'oh shit what's the next question to ask??'

met our other medicine tutor today, this dr ling from cardio dept. think he's quite a nice person and his tutorial today was excellent. i mean, even though the initial lecture lasted probably 90 mins it was quite interesting and informative. the way he brought us through the wards was also unhurried. like he was really REALLY intent on teaching us and not having to rush off for some major consultation. felt his commitment as a real educator.

qc, ht and i met up with txl, hyq, sj and hl for lunch today cause they had comm skills which brought them from ttsh to nuh. yay! haha quite fun tokking crap with them and both kbing to and listening to them kb about the past 2 days of eclinics. haha so funny. lunch was looong. i think 1.5hrs liddat.

after lunch met up with kim to clerk these 2 patients. 1 was 20/M/I admitted yesterday for fainting. he actually had previous head trauma couple of months ago which made us think for a while abt some nasty neuro problem. but then in the end only hypoglycaemia lar. he claimed he had a proper dinner though. other patient was this SUPER talkative 18/M/C who is studying in ITE dover. admitted for dengue. haha, the main problem was trying to get him back to relevant topics and boy was it a challange. but he's really a very nice chap.

my grp is having some trouble arranging tutorials with dr erle lim. hmmm... wonder what will happen. he's only free on tues/thurs mornings (sadly all tues/thurs mornings are taken up by medicine) but i guess we'll work something out.

not-so-elementary clinics

today was the first day of ward postings. or sort of. i think the day was TIRING. we did lumps today with a/prof lim who was really humourous... he's like a ba(1) ba(1), very smiley and talks to us in a really informal tone. very he(2) ai(3) ke(3) qing(1). so pple if u'll get a a/prof lim for surgery at nuh u know u're in for a treat.

then we did urology with a mr chua. can u believe it? they actually put "mr" and not "dr". don't know why they did tt. when i called dr chua up i called him "mr" chua. wah lau. luckily he never ask who was the guy who called him when he finally met up with us in the wards.

he showed us an interesing case where a patient had bilateral complete obstruction of the ureters. which translates to no urine (at all). so they had to insert catheters directly into both kidneys. *ouch*. in addition they catherised the patient (up the urethra), which makes for couble ouch.

for lumps we spent most of the time in the day surgery ward / OT. quite interesting the first few cases. total i think got 4 excisions. quite simple cases, and can u believe it, it got boring after a while. it's really all the same, nothing to da(4) jing(1) xiao(3) guai(4) abt. haha. no wonder the surgeons all have tt bored face when they are cutting and cnipping away...

some other groups quite exciting leh! haha, i heard someone did a per rectal examination today (on a real patient, NOT a dummy); some group got aileen wee's husband for their tutor (which is really super happening! i always thought tt aileen wee was damn zai. heard her hubby is also damn zai).

looking forward it'll be tough times ahead. cause the NUS surgery posting is quite complex, every surgery ward day u'll have 2 sessions and those 2 sessions are held by different tutors at different locations. we probably don't see the same tutors twice. which makes up to many many many many many many tutors at the end of the day. which means many^1000000 pager numbers to call.

my medicine tutor is a horror. met him today after OT and he "EXPECTS" this and tt from us. aiyoh. i think the medicine posting days will definitely be very memorable.

something nice though is tt medicine days will start at 9, and from what the tutor said abt him "not being in the country" for some times, they look to be slightly less menancing.

to take tt 1 small step

tml shall mark the 1st day when we will be goign to clinics proper. like interviewing patients and such, definitely exciting. haha, hopefully will be able to sleep well tonight.

i mean, can u imagine?? tml have to wear long sleeve shirt, business pants, tie, white coat, and we'll actually be talking to patients. REAL patients. and dealing with medicine at the 1st frontier. definitely sounds exciting and probably something to look forward to.

the surgery tutor called and told us to read up "lumps and bumps" in browse. slight problem there cause i don't have my browse yet. sucks. but i think it would be good to at least read something from telly, then when he ask at least have something to say lar. so... i think should bring a pen torch too.

today has been quite emotional upheaval, esp the time after school. sad and happy, cry and laugh. may seem weird but then really the feelings are very real. wonder what the next few months will hold...

haha, i must be mad today when i bought my headphones. well, it was not because of the chiobu salesgirl (for the record there wasn't one) but it just felt like a timely investment.

---

after reading a couple of blogs just now, i feel weird. how i wish u could be here right now. how i wish. :)

tying up loose ends

went on a couple of errands today, first to orchard in an attempt to get my triax repaired. it's crazy i tell u... they didn't have a proper fit for my watch, therefore they offered a generic strap which honestly looks quite flimsy. then somemore want to charge me $14 for it. well... i thought although it was a bit expensive, i might as well just change so i can finally use it properly, like on runs instead of gripping it in my palm through a run (which is really not feasible when u're super shagged).

then the fella saw tt my "spring bars" weren't there and wanted to charge me another $6 for it. of course i took my watch and walked out of the shop. haiyoh, $20 to repair a watch strap?? i might as well get a new one. (anyways, spring bars are these things tt hold the strap to the watch body.)

so i didn't get my watch strap repaired afterall. but at least i got it off my mind, knowing tt i'ld have to settle for it as a handheld watch. haha. tt shop (house of times) is the only 'authorised' repairer of nike timewear.

bought my bus stamp at orchard mrt. ^_^

next i went to sim lim looking for a screen protector. want to replace the one on my handphone. the one currently on it is quite dirty liao, some dust got into it... which actually makes it look quite hairy. what a disappointment cause the screen protectors they sell are customised for palm tops, and more importantly they cost $13 a piece! wahahaha. not prepared for tt so struck off another item on my list.

also got my usb-infra red port so now can beam photos to my laptop directly instead of always borrowing my brothers palm before transfering to my comp. haha. ^_^

and... i bought a receiver/mp3 player! 128mb one lar. but it's some china brand (ie. generic), quite small and portable. haha. think it should be a good buy lar i walked all around, up and down the whole sim lim asking for prices and turning on my charm with everyone of them (ah peks included) and finally found this shop which would sell me the player for $88.

so now, i've got company along the way to school liao. and back home.

school. nvm. hope for the best.

---

i've a sneaky suspicion tt my hair will kena aim by the profs. let's just hope they don't mind and the hair will grow out quick enough for me to cut. :) afterall, i'll be attending the medical corps workplan seminar on 19th may. i think it would be wiser to have black hair when walking into nee soon camp. :)

《童话》- 光良

whee, finally found the chinese lyrics to this song. and the mp3 too. wah... what a tear jerking song. listen liao also can xing suan one. actuallythis afternoon heard it on 933 liao but dont' know how to get (very sua ku hor??). just now tea axe elle taught me how to use boxup. finally. teaching me to fish rather than giving me a fish everytime. :) thanks tea axe elle!

忘了有多久
再没听到你
对我说你最爱的故事
我想了很久
我开始慌了
是不是我又做错什么
你哭着对我说
童话里都是骗人的
我不可能是你的王子
也许你不会懂
从你说爱我以后
我的天空星星都亮了

我愿变成童话里 (1)
我要变成童话里 (2)
我会变成童话里 (3)
你爱的那个天使
张开双手
变成翅膀守护你
你要相信相信
我们会像童话故事里
幸福和快乐是结局

一起写我们的结局

sat

my. room. is. clean. now should have enough space for maybe a cg to sit around. someday. maybe. :)

originally i've 2 single beds in my room, but recently rearranged the furniture, and dismantled 1 single bed. well, i have my own room so it's actually quite senseless to have 1 more bed. anyway how it got there in the 1st place is a story in itself altogether. i just love the new arrangement! much more space to move around than before.

making a list of things i have to do before school starts - 1) buy bus pass 2) collect white coat back from pam 3) get a passport sized photo 4) collect islander pass 5) repair my nike triax. haha, looks like i may be busy tml. but actually some of the items are not tt urgent lar. like islander pass/repair watch. but bus pass will be a must

wah... can't imagine when mon comes when i'll have to wake up at SIX am to go to school. haiz. somemore mon must reach school at 7.20am (yeah meddies, it's not 8.00) i'm trying to adjust my biological clock to more normal hours, haha, so maybe i'll wake up at 7 tml. :) well i still remember yesterday night when wm, moh, yy, acy and me were playing dota till a freaking 4am. wah i'm sure today when i woke up there were more pimples liao! haha.it was real fun playing with them cause we tried moh's "prosperity" theory and we totally trashed the other team! like finished the game in under 30 mins. which is quite a big deal considering a normal (proper) game takes about an hour.

a random thought: know how pple often remark on the fragility of life? it's really quite paradoxical when tt very "fragility" is due to how "closely knit" together we are, as in a piece of fabric. we're beings tt are very dependent on social interaction. it's the intimate connection b/w the 2 tt makes change in any seem substantial.

journey to the east

met up with the lt gang at ecp yesterday for cycling. haha, started off with lunch at bedok before we took txl and hyq's car down to ecp.

the weather was really feng(1) he(2) ri(4) li(4). esp along the beach with the sea breeze blowing in from the sea... yeah it felt good. there were so few clouds in the sky and we all got a very nice tan. haha, i was more like sun burnt, which i discovered later when my whole face was red.



like can u pls look at the picture, it's a completely blue sky. no clouds at all. haha. this was at some jetty when we decided to line up the bikes so and set qich's cam on timer on a fence. yay! i think it's a very framable picture. :)

we cycled to bedok jetty, which wasn't very far too. but it was super fun trying to take pictures by trying to star-jump then have the camera catch us in mid air. haha, alot of the pictures were with the most-of-us high up in mid air but some-of-us still with feet firmly planted on the ground. haha. i think we jumped at least 20 times lar... haiyoh. quite tiring. but it was even funnier looking at the familed pictures and the expressions on each of our faces on the pictures. haha.



i think we made alot of noise at the jetty. haha, which probably scared all the fish away. there were like alot of anglers fishing but we were like making all the noise in the world. think no one caught any fish for the next 2 hrs after we left or something. haha.



actually most of the time was not spent cycling. it was spent nuaing!! aiyar cannot blame cause the weather was so super hot lar... we cycled for a good cuppa teh ping, ice kachang, sugarcane juice at the food centre. yeah... so refreshing. but more mentally refreshing was the gossip at the tables! wahhahaha. wu(2) suo(3) bu(4) tan(2) lor. and it was so funny listening to all the crap tt each of us was blurting out. but poor me and huili didn't seem to be the most updated of the whole lot so alot of stuff also, "har? have meh?" or "ermm. who's tt?" or "dunno...". something like tt. u get the idea.

it was very unfortunate tt timo fell while cycling... actually what happened is quite childish in hindsight. cause huili and txl were racing for 1st place. haha, then timo suddenly creep up from behind on the grass verge speeding very fast!!! he finally out raced the girls, tried to cut back onto the road but there was a small kerb he had to mount.

*kerbiang!* timo fell off the bike and scraped both his knees... super sianz.

anyway he could still cycle, and after we brought the bike back to the shop there were these 2 1st aider from dunman high who walked past. they were super nice to offer dear timo help and nicely bandaged up his wound. haha, i mean, they didn't have to, but they did. a nice gesture on their part. :)



timo, hope hopes ur wounds heal extra extra fast! :)

after returning the bikes we went to mac to nua for another 1hr liddat. it was then when i think the unspoken consenses was tt AIRCONDITIONING is the best invention of the millenium.

haha.

i think we were plastered to our seats. chatting chatting again. quite amusing and entertaining. :) something very gross happened too, which was then this girl walked in, clad in a teal bikini... super off can. haiyoh. ALL the counter staff were practically ogling at her har... and i think she was just feeding off the attention. urgh. pity i didn't take a picture if not i'ld put it here. urgh urgh urgh. tried not to look hor, but then it's a bright coloured bottom can... from the corner of the eye also can see her walking up and down in front of the counters like looking for something or someone. but then suddenly she left. oh well tt's good.

and i realised the best way not to look is to not be concious of it instead of telling urself u're not going to look at it. which goes very well with what pastor says about law and grace. yeah. i didn't notice she was there (blocked by icsy's head) initially, though not long after a over enthusiastic person witting beside me pointed me and alvin to her. HAHA. we both writhed in our seats.

we finally peeled ourselves off the seats at macs, only to find ourselves later on at gelarae which is really 20 steps away. HAHA. what a lazy bunch of pple we are. :) at gelarae we did it again - plastering ourselves to seats. now... what else would u expect. :)

after ecp went with qich/sijin/huili/ht to ek's housewarming. haha, it wasn't really really a house warming lar cause for 1, we didn't even see his house proper. there was a buffet dinner at the swimming pool downstairs (it's a condo) so we just sat around. HAHA, had a great time tokking and catching up with classmates who i haven't seen in such a long time... and, i drank beer for the 1st time in a million years, 2 cans yesterday somemore (1 my own and the 2nd is ht after she just took 1 sip...). i can faintly rem the past time i drank beer and it was SO bitter can... i thought i'ld never ever drink it again. haha, but then aiyar ok, ek's offered me... somemore opened it for me... can't say no, so drink lor. and really it wasn't tt bad afterall.



my face was RED. and i do mean RED after the 2 cans of beer. haha. but then cannot attribute it all to the alcohol lar, cause i suspect my face is a bit sun burnt from the cycling earlier on in the day.

it was one of the most enjoyable days i had in this holidays. really. esp for the special effort tt was made today. :)

gloom

all of a sudden i'm feeling really down. haiz. i really really don't want school to start leh... haiz. i think i'll miss all my friends. those not in my cg... haiz. i'm really sad now. sigh. what a way to go and sleep, hopefully i won't have any sad dreams, those tt u wake up with a heartache and just leave u lying in bed not wanting to get up at all.

tml will be an exciting day, 1st meeting the lt pple at ecp then ek's house warming, followed by possibly joining cg after tt.

but sometimes i'm thinking maybe it's because of this tt the hangover on mon will be so bad. i'll really miss my close friends esp when i won't get to see them liao. really really sianz. the trouble is tt there won't be enough time to meet up with pple u treasure time with when the schedule is like 7.30am to 5.00pm. i just hope things will turn out well. i really do.

I'M DAMN SIANZ. if it wasn't so late now i'ld shout it out loud. but meanwhile i'll just have to keep it inside me.

---

on another note, bought my new mouse today. exactly the same design as the old one, except different brand (yeah, how can tt be. like some generic design or sumthing...) 1 thing less to drive me insane.

qiao(3)-ness

met up with ck and lihui today. haha, had such a wonderful time with them. met only in the evening though cause ck had to work. he's now holding 2 jobs, 1 an office job in the day and the other as a waiter at balaclava at suntec. wah... so ping(1) ming(4). but all because he's saving up for this back packing trip to europe this june. :) yeah, tt's the spirit, when possible earn ur way. would like to do tt too and pay for my trips myself as far as possible, try not to strain dad lor with these extra things. :)



as usual we went hello party world (haha, always go there for ktv with them one...) the place is much more smoky than kbox, even the cine 8th floor one also kena wack diao, but the snacks and drinks are much better. haha, they even serve cut fruits. but sadly it's watermelon and honey dew, both of which i don't eat, so the 2 of them gobbled it all up for me. their snacks are much better though. corn chips and crackers. not the lousy peanuts tt whenever we go kbox no one ends up eating.

the highlight of the ktv session was when we sang 搁浅. omg!!! cause in the mtv we noticed zjl wearing this black and white "niel armstrong" band. but what's MORE cause for "wah-ness" was the fact tt chuankai just collected the same band for a friend from some guy selling it on yahoo auctions! haha, so qiao! (ck's friend paid $25 for it!! haiyoh. i heard from josh tt the original price is 1 euro. catch is, it's only sold in europe)



u can imagine the shock we got when we saw the band on zjl. haha. next time when u'll go sing the 搁浅 mtv can see if can spot the wrist band. anyway i heard it's supposed to symbolise anti-racism. and something more interesting to note was tt zjl was wearing the band even before the bands were popular. haha. tt's good. shows who's leading fashion trends. :P

so immediately after we all took turns with the band trying it on for size. haha. i think my forearm is too small liao lar, so really it was fitting all the way up, and still quite loose somemore. gave up after some time though i decided it may just stay on my hand for just a while. the length of a song perhaps. haha.



lihui didn't eat dinner (because of a very very late lunch)so we decided to pop by nydc (i've a $5 voucher) for him to eat something whilst me and ck got a drink. wahhahaha, so qiao, cause we met ck's commando friends!!! i mean, 2 of his batch mates were working at the nydc outside heeren lar. so qiao. then anyway tok tok tok to them, and ck just jokingly ask for a discount. haha. so anyway we ordered 1 spaghetti (for the hungry lihui), 1 elephancino and 1 other drink. ck's friend took our orders then came back and asked, "oei, u'll want desert or not? i sui(2) bian(4) make something for u'll hor. free one." ^_^

haha, then he came back with a jedi mudster! and then he added, "later i only charge u'll for the spaghetti hor. u'll just split the cost of the spaghetti." ^_^

haha. so, who says guan(1) xi(4) don't count for anything in singapore? tt was the sweetest cup of elephancino i ever had.

later on popped by lihui's place to borrow from him his wu(2) jian(1) dao(4) vcds. had a good loooong chat with him on the way home on the bus and really enjoyed his company and appreciated his listening ear. yeah it's good to have friends like these. we were counting the no. of years we knew each other, and found it to be a shocking 15 years. haha, can u believe it. i was in the same class as him for 7 years. preparatory year plus p1-6. ck knew him since p5. funny and witty as ever. yandao as ever too. haha. these friends i know i'll have for life.

get to know me better!

saw this on andre's and plhu's blogs and tot it was interesting. well, as expected i can't fill up all the columns. decided to leave them blank than to fill up something tt doesn't really represent me.

10 random things about me
1. live 5mins walk from ttsh, 5mins car from kkwh, 45mins bus from nuh, 1,000,000 light years from cgh
2. has a 16 year old teddy bear sitting on my desk
3. store most of my $ in uob
4. like all sorts of preserved foods
5. reasonably good at handicraft
6. rather (term used judicously) forgetfully
7. saf, lsa(med) scholar who has a 12 year bond
8. 2 younger brothers
9. likes tearing tissue paper into half to save for future use
10. freaking ticklish

9 ways to win my heart
1. let me care for u
2. do sweet things now and then for me. haha.
3. time and attention
4. make an effort to know me
5. make me feel special
6/7/8/9. [actually... i'm the guy right? pple win my heart for what. anyway can't think of anything atm.]

8 things i want to do before i die
1. round the world trip (incld taiwan pre-war/pre-china)
2. $$ and enjoy the finer things in life
3. get married and have kids
4. retire and set up a farm/restaurant
5. grow old with my spouse. every stage's unique (i don't want to die young)
6. AMD

7 ways to annoy me
1. ignore me (this is no. 1 on the list)
2. ACBC or anything along those lines
3. being irrationally fearful/hesitant
4. not appreciating effort on my part
5. act as though i owe u something when i really don't
6. irresponsibility (this is no. 2)
7. telling lies, not particularly to me (esp when u make a blotched attempt to cover up by telling MORE lies)

6 things i believe in
1. god will bring me through whatever i'm facing
2. all things happen and work for good
3. god loves me and nothing will ever change tt (nothing)
4. i'm destined for success
5. time and chance
6. experiencial learning is the best form of learning

5 things i'm afraid of
1. losing pple dear to me
2. the unknown

4 of my favourite items in my room
1. this picture blu-tacked on my wall
2. my bed (definitely)
3. my pooh bear cushion
4. airconditioner (bwahahaha)

3 things i do everyday
1. drink lots of water, in the region of 5 litres
2. wash face/brush teeth/bath/breath/walk/talk
3. think abt stuff

2 things i want to do right now
1. make the holidays longer (1 more wk would be just right)
2. get a new mouse (something wrong with the left click on this and it's driving me mad)

1 person i'ld like to see right now
1. you! :)

(mercy) killing

i as reading yesterday's papers and there was this article on euthanasia. hmmm, i've always been pro-euthanasia maybe because of my belief in the quality of life and free choice.

from the article i learned tt there has already been set in place an Advanced Medical Directive (AMB) since 1996 tt allows a person to state explcitly in a 'living will' his wish to not be put on artificial life suport should the need arise if it was simply to sustain his life.

frankly, the first question tt came to my mind was where/how could i sign up for the AMD? cause i would want to do it immediately. haha, i'm sure it sounds preposterous to some and maybe u'll may think i need some counselling or something. but yeah, i think i'm of sound enough mind at the moment. :)

free choice, for 1, is one of the reasons i believe i should be given the choice to determine my own life. and if the choice (or any choice for tt matter) is made in a calm climate with the full knowledge of any other alternatives and in the full knowledge of all possssible progressions and their probabilities, i believe that the choice should be respected.

i would think tt euthanasia opponents are the ones who are not in full knowledge of the situation and they pursue after these ideals of the 'sancity of life'. but do they see how much hurt and grief, financial strain and burden it causes to the patients, their family and society? i've met >1 euthanasia opponent who's cynical and fear tt the family members may be plotting, abuse the system and murder the defenceless patient for his cash and property. well, have u considered a scenario where the family members really really love the patient.

and what would be the best course of action for them? u decide? i decide? i say leave it up to them to decide. and what's most important, give them the choice to make the decision.

grief and pain may become unbearable at times, and it's only when u've experienced it can u say tt u really know what's it all about. and my earnest plea would be to spare them from the additional suffering other than the pain of the subsequent loss of their loved one.

---

on another note, i was listening to the radio the lky was citing reasons for permitting the casino. listening listening, i smiled at what he said.

settlers II



went to settlers after darryl's persistant bugging. 2nd time in the holidays since i went there and it's as usual it was unlimited flow of peach tea and green tea and indeed we drank to our fills. i went a bit late cause i went to cut hair before that. the 1st game i played with them was called betrayal, which is what's featured in the picture here. it's insane i tell u. pple, HEED MY ADVICE and don't play it. super boring. and it takes forever for your turn to come. something like risk maybe when u have 20 players. ur turn never seems to come and it just passes too quickly.

as u can see, everyone seems very bored of the game. anyway 1 part of the game was when there suddenly was a 'betrayer' (which is why the game is called betrayal), and it turned out to be david. as in the picture below, can u see how sneaky he looks?? aiyoh. just waiting to betray us. tsk.



it was a regret tt we spent about an hour on the game (well at least it was a regret to me lar) cause we could have played so many other games... well, we did try a crazy cow number game, rather similar to the number game tt we played at linus' party. which is also german and also follows the same concept. quite fun. but the game went a bit crazy after a while and pple like wm decided tt he was going to go all out to lose the game.

after that, we played the all too familar game of jenga. very fun! i think whenever i go back to settlers i'll make this a must play. haha. well, many of us had a tough time trying to pick pieces to pull out. darryl was boasting tt he never NEVER caused a jenga tower to fall. what happened today did stop his 'winning' streak as the tower fell under his superb architectural skill.



even the tun tan also was not spared of collapsing a tower once. of course due to wm's wonderful planning and scheming to make it almost impossible for tun tan to pull any tile out. haha. good job wm! anyway tun tan adopted the techinique of "gan(2) gan(3) lai(2)!" to minimise the tower shaking whilst pulling out a candidate tile. of course, early on his theory worked well. with his swift stroke it was more often than not tt he pulled a tile out with ease, like in the picture below. can u see his hands?? his movement was too fast for the camera to capture therefore it was a blur in the picture. ingenious.



but after a while he realised tt the scheming wm had brought out the flaws in his "kuai(4) su(4) kuai(4) jue(2)" technique.



much thought had to be given before a tile could be decided on.

but it was only then tt tunku tan realised tt the results of his actions had caused his fall. literally. but it was with a smug grin tt greeted us for he knew it was but a matter of time before he would rise again and trash everyone else.



haha yar, but indeed i had alot of fun today. what's more, went to diana's party after settlers! went a bit later cause had to go home to get the car first before going down, if not it would take forever to get home from there... but think i'll blog the events another day lar. it's 0040 now... sleepy...

casino/casiyes

oh, just realised that the decision if we will be having casino(s) in s'pore in the next couple of years will be announced today. hmmm, quite interesting.

was looking at some of the arguments yesterday night and fashioned some responses to them:

• singaporeans are going to batam/genting/goldcoast/cruises yadayada EVEN if we don't have a casino here already. tt's true, but u can't say tt since car accidents still happen in spite of the precautionary barricades/signs put up we should remove all the barricades altogether; or drink driving still happens we should just lift the ban altogether. knowledge tt something undesirable still occurs doesn't empower us to make it altogether more accessible.

haha, right now i can only remember 1. desipite this i'm pro casino! haha yar. one of the most obvious things i noticed when i was touring hk was tt singapore was too orderly. regretfully orderly to add. there was no irregularity, everything was too prim and proper. not enough vibrancy. and i would think this is the reason behind the lack of creativeness. varience from the norm is often frowned upon in our education system.

"flowers are red" by harry chapin says it quite well and i think tt's the problem with singapore and singaporeans. we've been too ingrained with 'ideals' predetermined by some other person(s) and called to live this life tt they deem good.

i'm therefore not surprised at the uproar and debates upon discussions tt have emerged ever since the gahmen announced tt they were toying with the idea of allowing 'the greatest vice in the whole 21st centuary' to invade our clean pristine shores.

most certainly we would expect a casino to bring its fair share of social ills. how much would it REALLY cause would still be something to be seen, and not left to mere speculation. but almost certainly u would expect to see the occasional new paper or wan bao article featuring their latest family man who got drowned in debt because of compulsive gambling. but is tt reason enough to stop the casino from coming into singapore? of course not.

my guess is tt casinos will be coming to singapore. and i'm glad for it. but of course my guess is as good as anyone elses. haha. it's time for singaporeans to step out of their surreal clean and pretty worlds and realise tt u can't blame everything on the gahmen. simply cause they (nor anyone else) don't owe u a living. those pple sitting in coffee shops and kbing abt the gahmen have never gained any of my respect cause they just show tt they're not in ownership of their lives and everything tt happens to them is a consequence of the 'gahmen's' actions and they're not in a position to do anything to change it.

i see allowing this casino in s'pore as a step into the variant. something tt really shows the sincerity and effort on the part of the gahmen to open up singapore, not those mickey mouse changes tt we've seen in the past (eg. the beloved speakers corner). yeah. to me this is no longer a matter of a single issue but more of a whole frameshift in approach which we can expect to bring about more changes in the future.

okie, going to cut hair now. today will be an exciting day, though i'm sure it'll be a casiyes liao. but exciting day more so cause of the activities later!

new camera. but not for me.

this is the new addition the family. oh well. alex wanted a camera for very long liao cause he's in photographic society (president) in ri and somehow he managed to convince my dad to get him one. well... it was some other model previously but now it's changed to this liao. it's crazy how much the price is but never mind that now.




it's quite amazing some of the functions and the quality of the pictures is quite good. yeah, can't wait to actually get to use it myself too. :) actually, luke is also in the vj photographic society so i think both of them can use it lor.

am watching kate and leopold now on c5. what a wonderful show tt evokes thoughts. haha, going back to enjoy the show!

the Mpire

oh, this is the poster for the m&ms star wars version. it's sweetly titled the star wars Mpire. the new addition to the m&ms family is dark chocolate. mmmm, yummy. haha. apparently there's a trailer too tt's really funny. a must see spoof for star wars fans.



noticed that the orange m&m is firing lightning. suppose it's intentional. afterall, orange m&ms are the 'crispy' type.

there're SEVENTY TWO different types of packaging for the Mpire series. haha so amusing. anyway i threw away the one i had liao, no intention of collecting the wrappers. reminds me of the crazy hello kitty episode.

lester/linus' bdae

just attended their bdae party at some changi chalet. wah... so far in. it's actually somewhere near 'fairy point' chalets tt we went to last time for scouts chalet. went down with andre because he had tution had tp before tt so took bus down with him lor.

i think the chalet was a sweet one. not too many pple there, and i didn't spend too much time there too. only got there at 1830, sat down to play a card game with some other meddies who were there early and before we knew it we went for dinner and went to play this insane "twin game" which was really trivial pursuit about the twins. haha, i think there was no proper scoring too anyway so there was no real winner.

the most sweet thing tt the twins did was to sing us all (the invitees) a song - friends. haha yeah. linus was strumming the guitar whilst lester started off singing. and as i looked at the 2 of them 'performing' for us i could just imagine the 2 of them coming together as they were planning for their party and asking each other if the other would like to perform a song item for their friends.

then would come deciding the song. and it was nice of them to choose such a song. :) honestly i'm really quite touched and feel quite appreciated. the atmosphere at that moment was quite special lar.

haha, then next on was yanrong who went up and sang an ode to them both. think it was quite good, cause it was a spontaneous thing. haha.

actually i took some photos with my hdpn but realised tt they look quite creepy cause cannot see the pple's faces as it was too dark. haha, so maybe won't post them.

what an enjoyable time.

touchytouchy

what a splendid afternoon. actually i did wake up with a terrible headache this morning (think it was carried over from yesterday) and didn't bother to bath before stepping out of the house. having skipped bfast too and was super hungry did not help improve my mood too.

i was like the mr grumpy of mr grumpys.

feeling all so dirty, oily and itchy, headache and a stiff neck and a rumbling stomach. u get the idea.

but now after lunch and lounging around with aircon in my face and a good cup of iced kopi, here i am in a much much better mood.

i think i'm officially hooked onto coffee. if i don't drink coffee i've these 'withdrawal' symptoms cinluding impatience/irritability/restlessness. no thrombocytopaenia/nausea/gi disturbances/neurological sequelae yadayada. haha. a good cup of coffee a day keeps the blues away. anyway i usually only drink coffee during exam periods and post-exams i would stop all coffee drinking 100% and when the next exam comes along i'ld be just fine again.

later going to tp to meet andre to go down to linus' bdae party. it's ALL THE WAY at loyang, so there. haha. honestly i was considering not going liao lar cause don't think i can capture the family car today, which means a very long ride down. :) oh yes, we'll be taking bus 8 down later too (andre claims it takes 30mins to reach bedok, which is really quite amazing. i'm got to see this).

i'll probably go down to look around in tp too before i meet him. haven't shopped ard there in a long long time. hopefully there's a pasar malam or something at tp central.

---

on another note, i've got alot of queries asking me if the dog tt i feature on my msn profile picture is mine. haha, i wish! lt was so funny, cause when i told her the dog isn't mine byut my friend's, she asked me if she could befriend my friend. then chucked me aside. oh well. haha.

fresh look

decided to change my blog layout. haha. something cleaner and easier to read lar. and 1 more major change is tt i'm now using blogger comments liao, the reason being i'm just plain lazy to insert the enetation code (which i'll have to do EVERYTIME i change my layout).

oh did i mention the background music? thanks to andre for hosting it. yeah. he did ask me till when will i use the music.

a:"oh so when are u planning to use it till?"
h:"probably till i get the complaints."
a:"yar. it does get very irritating after a while."
h:":)"

sing a song of $16

went out to ktv with the lt gang yesterday. haha had a great time! we sang from 2pm to NINEpm. yeah. crazy right?? haha, i was so saeh when we finally got chased out of the ktv room tt i didn't really mind leaving actually. haha.

oh and we met diana and gang there too. haha, so qiao they also ktving. looks like everyone's having a good time. :)

timo's very good at singing all the old old songs! songs tt no one knows or even heard before he can croon w/o batting an eyelid. hokkien songs also no sweat man! haha, think qich recorded the hokkien song down. so amusing and fascinating.

meeting ty later for lunch at city hall, prob popping by yunnan to get text books too.

---

something very amusing happened yesterday night (or this morning lar. 2am) . i was waiting for a call in the morning so i put my phone beside my bed and set the ring tone to "ringing" (my ringing-ring tone is the happy tree friends theme song..).

so i was suddenly awaken by this caller who dialled the wrong number who wisely hung up immediately w/o saying a word. haha, what's more it's a PRIVATE number so i didn't get to say my piece to the anonymous caller.

then after i got woken up it was a loong time before i got back to sleep.

this type of thing has never happened to me, haha, how come so qiao(3) happened during the time i put my hdpn next to me on the bed??

didn't get the call i was waiting for in the end too. haha. so silly.

moo!

haha, saw this on hy's blog and remembered me trying to remember the lyrics to croon to some pple but just forgot the lyrics. yeah, these are the lyrics tt i forgot. enjoy. oh, there's even a mp3 tt comes with it if u don't know the tune. :)

I am cow, hear me moo
I weigh twice as much as you
And I look good on the barbecue
Yogurt, curd, cream cheese and butter’s
Made from liquid from my udders
I am cow, I am cow, hear me moo (moo)

I am cow, eating grass
Methane gas comes out my ass
And out my muzzle when I belch
Oh, the ozone layer is thinner
From the outcome of my dinner
I am cow, I am cow, I’ve got gas

I am cow, here I stand
Far and wide upon this land
And I am living everywhere
From b.c. to newfoundland
You can squeeze my teats by hand
I am cow, I am cow, I am cow
I am cow, I am cow, I am cow!

fe

my family bought a cordless iron recently. well, think the idea behind the device was great: leave the iron in a cradle for it to heat up following which u could use a cordless iron cause the iron would already be heated up! somewhat like a cordless phone. quite smart right?? so housewife friendly. safe and eliminates the irritating wire (a fact well known to pple who do their own ironing, eg. me)

but in fact the iron was quite useless lar. haha. cause it took too long to heat up and too fast before it cooled down... which translates to 45 mins to iron a single long sleeve shirt. totally ridiculous so much so tt we sent it back immediately for a refund.

maybe the manufacturers could think of using a continual heating mechanism. something like how cordless mouse/keyboards work tt continually transfer energy to the iron. wah, think tt'll be great.

make space for ideas

went to ikea today (1 of the things i wanted to do this holidays. see, i'm so task orientated) but didn't buy much lar. bought seat cushions, and 3 sets of bed sheets!!! then of course also a shower curtain since my last one has brownish stuff growing at the bottom liao. haha.

yeah the seat cushion is very comfortable! must comfortable-comfortable mar since i forsee looooong hours of dotaing in this position.

HAHA.

yay, i love my new bed sheets. it's actually a bit different cause now i don't have a bolster, but have 2 pillows. ikea sells a comforter case with 2 pillow cases in each pack. and i have to buy my own bed sheet too (which is white, but just the sheet only). so tonight i shall try sleeping w/o a bloster for the 1st time in a long time.

---

hmm just got a letter to ask me to apply for a new passport! FINALLY, no more tt ugly picture tt i took in pri6 oblivous to the fact tt that ugly uncombed hair would haunt me for ten years... yeah, will try to get a better picture this round. :)

haha, these are the pig counters tt i was talking about in my post. they really look like crayons right??? very nice counters and a very nice game. 

this was us (rather darryl) before we ordered food. settlers at holland v has (onlY) 42 games. haha. hand a great time. 

this is darryl's dog, toffee. it's female. haha. anyway she was so adorable i think i'll get a dog liddat when i start earning $. haha. 

pple, darryl doesn't have a can opener at home. these 2 cans were opened with nothing more than brute force plying an unusable metal contraption through the lid. NOW u know what to get him for his 21st. remember: can openerS. 

yummy pork tt was going to be part of the gravy later. look at the skillful hand tossing and turning the meat with the spatula. wah... chu(1) shen(2) ru(4) hua(4)... so much so tt due to the fast speed of tossing u can't even see the spatula properly. whose hand could it be.. of course andre lar. 

this was the GIGANTIC pile of onions i diced. the garlic is the small pile beside it. darryl was a slave driver, complaining tt i was TOO SLOW; NOT SKILLFUL ENOUGH; yadayada. not even a word of thanks. hmph. 

we bought this nice (slice of) cake from taka food square. really delicious. haha. yeah. even though it was just ONE slice, we all still digged into it. each one 1 mouth lar. it has ceral as the bottom layer and the rest of tiramisu. top quality chocolate. haha. really enjoyed it though it wasn't my cake. haha. happy 21st bro.  

this was celebrating simp's bdae. haha. ugly tongue there... :) having dinner at subway. 4 of us, simp/pig/kk/me. really enjoy myself always when with them. 

was passing through a pterol kiosk tt day and saw this! haha, so cute. see, the "jedi m&ms come in nice pastel colours. otherwise they taste like normal m&ms - i.e. fabulous. oh. they have a "dark side" m&ms too. which comes in more morbid colours like fe2+ green, black, etc. 

to go visiting

relatives are at my place now playing majong outside. yeah, haven't seen them in some time, last time was during grandma's bdae and then looooong time before tt since i saw them.

dinner's quite a challange. haha. helped in the cooking too! we have fried rice and beehoon for dinner. yeah. very nice! haha, helped to do alot of the preparation (which is the hardest part really) so can say i lau(2) ku(3) gong(1) gao(1)... :)

yeah it sure feels nice, to have holidays. ahhhhh... couple of things i'ld want to do before the end of hols include:

1. going to ikea to get stuff for my room
2. go to the dentist
3. catch up with pple who i've not seen in a loooong time
4. start running seriously, regularly again

haha, think the major-est task would be going to ikea. haha, i think my room is now quite po(4)po(4) lan(4) lan(4). just today because of relatives visiting i was packing my room.

SO DIRTY...

haha, really a heap of unfolded clothes on my other bed and yadayada. shouldn't publicise too much of my untidiness. :)

anyway, off to dinner now! haha and enjoy the fruits of my labour. :)

settlers cafe

totally enjoyed myself yesterday. met up for lunch at darryl's house where we cooked spaghetti. yummy! think it was the 1st time darryl was cooking and he was heading our project as the chief chef. haha. yummy yummy! it turned out fabulous. only regret was tt there was not enough. actually jb was commenting that he usually eats 1 WHOLE packet of spaghetti by himself and now tt 4 of us were sharing 1 packet it was inevitably not enough.

couldn't believe him at first and when the noodles were first done the pot was filled with nice noodles tt actually looked too much. but we soon found tt it was not enough. haha, maybe it's cause the noodles were too yummy.

i helped to chop onions and garlic, andre was in charge of frying the pork and stirring the sauce as it was simmering. haha so tt probably translates to him being an apprentice and me a kitchen hand.

jb came to join us, EXHAUSTED. cause he went jogging the night before, knowing tt the next morning he was going on a treetop trek with david. haha what's worse is tt they got lost along the way and poor jb was so exhausted at the end of it he really just plopped himself onto the kitchen table when he came.

anyway, i made a new friend at darryl's house. HIS DOG. how cute. haha, took a few pictures of her will post them later. oh, her name is toffee and she's very old liao. like 10 years old. but she's still very playful lar. always wagging her silly tail and showing her tongue. very adorable. i think i'll get a small dog liddat when i move into my own house. toffee also has alot of moles growing around. haha, i think i found 1 which got a long strand of hair growing out from... eeks!

oh tt toffee arr... i think she had a flu yesterday or something. was sneezing and sneezing. then with her wet nose she went to press it against my pants! i was like OMG! haha. then i could see the 'imprint' of her nose on my pants for a while, visibly showing the 2 nostrils.

haha. what a silly dog.

after lunch the 4 of us headed for settlers cafe at holland v where linus and wm joined us. wow so exciting!! never been to settlers before. found it to be quite an experience. we went for the students package which was really cheap - free flow of drinks /games form 2pm to 6pm for $6. haha, which is quite a deal lar. i think even if i got just for the drinks i can drink $6 worth. but the highlight (of course) was the games!!!

played alot of interesting games. there was some violent (but scheming) game were we were pple supposed to go around killing zombies. as darryl happened to be winning (the aim of the game is to kill 15 zombies) but because of his 'expedition' against the zombies his char was going to die. so the rest of us plotted against him to kill him off. muahaahhaa. i think he got quite upset and vocally threatened to kill us all. haha. but the game ended prematurely w/o him dying cause we got real sick of it and some pple like linus and jb felt guilty at ganging up on darryl so decided to help him.

haha why linus and jb so silly??

ohoh, then there was this pig game where the counters were really cute. haha. and the game was "complex in a simple type of way" too. and there was this card game called "bangbang!" bang bang actually sounded quite lewd if u didn't know we were playing a game. 6 men banging each other at the table, when "linus can't bang jiabin cause he's too far" and "i can bang wm cause he's just beside me". alright. u get the drift. haha. but it's a very fun game! linus even bought the game at the end of the session.

there was also this game tt required us to act out clues. something like charades where we were in 2 teams and each sent out a representative to act out the same clue and the team mates would guess the word. MrX and i got "belly-dancing" and when we started acting, MrX started doing multiple hip thrusts which lead his team mates to shout out "SEX!" right in the middle of the cafe. haha. anyway my team got belly dancing, credit due to my wonderful demonstration of the techiniques of the art.

the games were fun. but enjoyed the company more. we finished countless jugs of peach tea until the woman came and told us got no more peach tea liao... haha!!! then we asked for green tea instead. haha!!! anyway we had dinner too then i went for cg at nus whilst the others went to wm's house to continue the madness.

and i received a sms whilst we were playing game which made me happy! haha. sadly i wasn't free had cg later on... sigh.

cg was great! really enjoyed it. what's more we now have a new cgl! no more peer liao, but now it's john! (haha yar those meddies reading this, it's the noisy china-faced john! haha, luv u lots.) yay, so happy. actually i almost didn't go cg and instead joined the rest at wm's place but i'm really glad i went down instead. received alot.

the rest and the relaxing

it's funny how i seem to blog more when i'm busy and stressed, and don't seem to come here to post my feelings when i'm freer, eg. times like now. yeah, probably in the next 2 weeks don't forsee myself coming here often.

yesterday was a long deserved break. played like super alot of games of dota and really really enjoyed myself and haven't been so unstressed in such a long time. the cas really disrupted my way of living such tt i found i couldn't even remember what life was like before pros and ca3. haha i mean seriously. what was life like?? but anyway i'm glad it's all over liao and the boulder inside the heart put down liaoz.

stressed during the exam period? yes, very much. but probably not as much as some pple i see around me. i still remember the night before the microb paper when i couldn't do so many questions. both mcq and essay tt were posted up on the geocities site, and i just freaked out. started praying and praying in tongues when i was studying tt last round of microb. and really i felt so comforted. i even went to sleep at 12am and woke up at 7am! 7 full hours of sleep. heard tt some other pples slept for like 4hrs, 5hrs or 2 hrs. something liddat ones. i remember i did that too for ca3. slept for 2 hours before some paper. well, i thought the paper wasn't fantastic enough to justify sacrificing those few hours of sleep anyway.

yesterday it was raining heavily too. and i was made to wait in the rain for a whole hour after i travelled all the way 20 odd km. i had to deal with unanswered calls and unreturned sms, and was stuck in a 45 min traffic jam on the aye/cte because of the 1 hour wait tt made me hit spot on onto the peak hour jam. when i reached home i was cold, tired and hungry. yet i didn't mind cause i made someone smile. :)

---

i just sent wendy an sms to tell her i won't be serving liao. i think i'm feeling a bit tired and need a break. also i think it'll be the end of my serving in the cg too. zy will be preparing communion and kim will be sending out mails from now on. i just feel tt i want to be left alone. i'm feeling tt sometimes it's a bit work like. not really a resting and relaxing. i find tt it's getting more frequent tt i'm asking the questions, "haiz. campus again??", or "bs again? should i go or not?". i don't want to have to deal with these questions time and time again. sometimes i go to campus just for the sake of serving. cause i have an obligation to serve and can't don't go just like tt w/o any valid reason mar.

so u see, serving has already become pointless for me. i don't feel the joy and passion i had when i first started serving. instead it has become this nagging thing at the back of my head. it's something out of obligation liao not out of an overflow. it's serving in the natural and not in the supernatural.

and i think such pointless serving should stop. maybe it's time for me to just sit quietly and graze and drink.

the (biochem) paper

on my way to sch today my dad casually asked me what paper i was having today. "biochemistry" was the ans. only when i realised what i said did a wide smile (probably of haplessness) spread across my face.

anyway the paper was ok. much better than i thought it would be.

i mean, i was SO worried about the essays when i saw the past yr qns, but turns out tt today's qns weren't tt bad after all. yeah, some facts here and there tt are a bit off; some facts tt i would have included if i had another go at it (NO THANK YOU VERY MUCH).

but at least the paper was passable. thank god.

stayed back in school alone later on to study. hoped to finish ns once through but didn't do drugs in the end before i threw my hands in the air and decided to go home. i mean, i'm just not in the mood for studying now. haha.

i'm so not in the mood to do any studying... just compare the thickness of notes for microb and for neuroscience... and for neuroscience i mean just the notes for the 'questions-tt-will-come-out'. haha. it's almost cheating to walk into the exam hall already knowing the questions. then the exam becomes a test of memory and speed of writing, no longer something of ns. well, i'm only studying the questions tt may (will) come out so it's much easier to go through the notes, cf to the PLOWING through of mb notes...

i'm starting to form an opinion of mbt. haha. he's very funny really cause when the examiners were collecting the scripts today, there was this examiner who came up to me with this whole stack of coloured pictures (the sheet tt we were asked to put into the qnestion paper to submit together). mbt saw it, came over and remarked to the poor woman in a very distressed tone, "nono, there're supposed to be in the question booklet..." followed by a non-chalent "nevermind", seeming to suggest tt she couldn't do anything better.

haha. amusing really tt brought a smile to my face after tt totureous 3 hr ordeal. but poor woman.

i think tt's the thing with mbt. he's funny really. probably the MOST entertaining lecturer we have. and he's a great lecturer too. but i'm always under the impression tt he deals with us in a condescending manner. a bit of "haha, u're down there. how's the weather btw?".

so yeah. he's the type of lecturer tt i would really FEAR. the other person i can think of is the taxi driver masquerading as cofm lecturer. oh yes, cks! yar. i think he's the type of lecturer who would totally freak me out. friend-friend but somehow i always disappoint these teachers. he's the type who really makes u show what u know and don't know (at no expense of embarassing u), and often what they saying i really don't know. so it sucks.

as i was watching mbt walk away from the distraught woman with her heap of coloured pictures in hand i started thinking what bacteria would mbt be is he were one. hmmm. maybe N. gonorrhoea. painful, ulcerative, pustular lesions. don't know why tt came to mind but yeah. gonorrhoea. :)

impending doom

tried my hand at some of the past year microb qns and found i could not answer any of them. this is terrible.

the supp paper qns are comparatively easier. hmmm...

wish time could pass faster

learned tt u can't blog around the hours of 2200 to 0100. takes 5 mins to post 1 entry and blogger gets real hungry around those hours too, with an increased propensity to eat posts for supper.

i'm really really sick of studying, and the hours seem to pass ever so slowly. and somewhere in me i'm wishing tt today is wed liao... haiyoh. well, i think the thing bugging me is how to do a microb essay. i mean, alot of things cannot remember enough details to write an essay leh, though hopefully it's enough for mcqs.

haha, maybe it's something like a slow death. seeing freedom there at the end of the tunnel, so close yet so far. just hope the light's not a train.

i really wonder how life will be in 2 days time. i mean, studying has taken up so much of my life tt when it's gone (completely) in the next 3 weeks, it just leaves me to wonder what will happen and what things would i find myself to be occupied with.

anyway this week didn't go for campus. this morning the cg met too to pray for exams after 1st service. i woke up late suffice to say i didn't go.

darryl INSISTS tt there's nothing funny with this picture. i think it's hillarious. anyway thought tt the guy with the red baseball cap looks like george bush. mymy... all their million dollar poses. :)