star wars!

oh i caught the movie on wed with wm, emily, andre, jon chia. quite weird cause i thought we wouldn't be able to get good seats. in fact, emily's msn nick on the night before was something like, "1st row of seats cine, 4.15pm booked liao", which really scared the daylights out of me. she was the one who was going to buy tickets mar since all the rest of us would be in hospitals.

well, she didn't buy the front row tics. but somehow i didn't get down to ask her why she said tt in her msn nick. hmm emily/wm are u reading this? can u explain/ask emily?

yeah, have u heard of this super old joke? of obiwan, yoda, anakin, chew-ba-ka, palpatine, who came in 1st in the pod race?

well to the uninitiated, anakin came in first. cause he has always been an-nah-kin.

well sorry about tt. u can stop frowning now.

i was telling andre tt joke and before i could get to the ans he scolded me saying it was such an old joke liao, and flashed the following avatar on his msn profile.



haha. so funny. can u imagine it??? avatars of medical conditions. maybe some IT-savy medical student will come up with some others like "diarrhoea, constipation, vertigo, yadayada". should be quite amusing. the guy who made these is really quite talented and has quite a keen eye for these possible Dx. haha. (disclaimer: NONE of these avatars belong to me. do drop their owner's site. haha. well, u never can be too safe.)



there are some others which got me bowling over too. i think they speak for themselves and my sort of humour. lol.



or another one tt andre/jonchia came up with and they came up to ask me, "what are the names of palpatine's siblings?" of course, the qian(4) bian(3) ans is percusstine, inspectine and ascultine. i mean, if u don't get it i won't blame u. really.

and i came across this clip too, it's the STORE WARS! quite entertaining too, worth the loading delay. :) esp love the brocoli bit. enjoy.

snip, comb(x10)... snip, comb(x10)...

it's raining v heavily now. wah... not in a long time. it's been a lazy day, just went out for lunch at the coffeeshop with my family and now i'm back. maybe i'll mug a little telly later. medicine test is on tues, and wed is surgery test.

yeah. hope i'll pass both.

realised tt time really passes real fast, so fast the end of csfc has come and we're 'officially' going into our 3rd year of medicine. in fact, come mon luke/alex will have their june holiday liao. haha. mon i also got no sch lar. but maybe (just maybe though i'm feeling v lazy) i will go back to nuh to practise a bit of Hx taking and physical examination.

and really, v soon my own holidays would be here. there'll be church camp from 6th to 10th mainly. haha, was suddenly reminded yesterday tt we'll all have to wear a japanese themed attire on the last day and i've no idea what to get. haha, or rather not made any effort to think of it cause i simply forgot about it.

this weekend has been the best i've had in a long time because of the company. yesterday i went to cut hair at pivot point (no longer the far east one tt i go). well, this was recommended by my auntie who told me tt the hair cut was very good for money!! in fact it was, cause it's only $6 for the trainee cut, and if u go 6 times the 7th time u can get either a free 1) cut and wash; 2) wash and blow; 3) hair Rx.

but the only thing was tt i didn't enjoy my haircut. at all.

wah lau, the student was actually this uncle, and when i first saw him, i actually thought tt he was not a student, telling myself tt they ran out of students or sumthing. haha. but really, who would have expected the old adage of huo(2) dao(4) lao(3) xue(2) dao(4) lao(3).

no, i didn't have somehing against him cause he was an uncle. not at all. but it was because he was cutting my hair SO SLOWLY. it took 45 mins just for him to get through the first round, following which i was just hinting to him tt he should just cut it more. shorter pls. shorter pls. shorter pls. it was just painfully slow the amt he snipped each time. well, i spent total 1hr getting my hair cut.

2ndly and more importantly, he was plowing my scalp!!!! omgomg. u know how the barber likes to use his comb to straighten the hair and lifting it to cut? uncle was really pressing so hard tt my scalp was hurting after him running his yokes on my head. and not just running the comb once through, but doing so in such a manner tt it gave me the impression he was a farmer in his previous profession.

snip, comb(x10)... snip, comb(x10)...

i was so close to telling him to stop.

but of course i didn't, when i remembered he was a trainee. and tt i was a 'trainee' too to a certain extent.

lol. now i have a vague idea of how some patients feel when we go around the wards with 'can i clerk you?' written all over our faces.

haha, the curse of traineeship... yet it's what we have to go through to become better.

to never "quitted" against all odds



i never knew my cg could be so funny. and really the saga began yesterday though the showdown was today.

it all began yesterday afternoon when ht was trying to present a Hx to me tt i took together with her, "mr ahmad quitted smoking last week..." i immediately said, "hey i think it's quit. where got quitted one???"

our small discussion was joined by winston and bernard who were in the resident room too, resting after the end of the day. of course, all us who speak QUEEN'S ENGLISH concurred tt there was, indeed, no quitted. only "quit". i mean, the past tense of "quit" is simply, "quit".

for eg. (as bernard narrated), "i quit my job last week" and definitely not "i quitted my job last week". it simply sounds wrong.

as the Hx was to be presented to prof ling the next day, ht decided to check it out online, and went on to google the disputed word. well, she did find it on some weird website. i mean, those really uncredible sites which showed tt quitted was the legitimate past tense of quit.

"there!" she said, almost with a smirk. and so she went on to describe how mr ahmad quitted smoking.

*36 hours later*

"-blahblahblah- mr ahmad quitted smoking last week..."

"nonono... u quit smoking. there's no such thing as quitted. i mean, the past tense of quit, is just... quit! it's a very common mistake. just like irregardless... it's regardless. tt one really winds me up. i mean, if u REALLY must use 'ir' u should use irrespective."

all of us were stifling our laughter cause i told u so simply didn't say it well enough.

"but i checked it out on the internet yesterday!", an indignant ht exclaimed.

"no. i think quit, simply, sounds much better." and tt put an end to the discussion, with the rest of us grinning from ear to ear.

*6 hours later in the resident's room*

"but i DID see it on the net yesterday!!!"

"maybe it's somewhere from zimbabwe. tt type not reliable one lor pls."

"yar... maybe it's something like a .zw site", i quipped.

hurhurhurhur...

well, ht actually went on to go and look on websters (which is 1000000X more credible than her .zw site) and it actually listed 'quitted' as an official word.

which really made everyone very distressed.

and can u believe it, ht actually PRINTED OUT the site, and will be showing it to prof ling tml before his tut. omgomgomg.

well, the printer actually jammed when she was printing... "maybe the printer quitted" winston chirped. omg. i was bowling over with laughter.

meanwhile kim slept away. oblivious to all the nonsense which was happening around her.

haiz. what a funny day. i'll miss my cg when we will be disbanded next week. *sigh*

laughter is best for medical students

today was a very short day. only had a head/neck surgery tutorial in the morning by prof prabhakaran who promptly chided us for not reading up enough (well, he said we didn't read up. at all). so, the day ended around 1130, with zj and me helping k carry some stuff for health screening back to science fac, followed by lunch.

we then decided we had better do some mugging, so we hopped (well not really) over to the lib to chao mug, the first time possibly in the past 5 weeks. i must say it was productive, managed to read up salivary glands and pathologies, which was really what we did a couple of hours before that.

as i was mugging i was listening to 93.3 and this dj was describing this article tt he read (narrating in chinese of course),

"recently arr, my room, ALOT of mosquitoes... so just before i left my house just now i closed my door and windows of my room and sprayed some insecticide into the room and left it. hopefully the mosquitoes will die when i get home!"

well at this point i found the situation being described to me very familiar... cause previously i was also in tt situation but infortunately sprayed insecticide for "crawling insects" in my room, making a total mess.

then, the dj went on animatedly, "budden hor recently i read in the news abt this guy in another country, one day saw alot of bugs in his room. wah. so he also closed his room windows and doors and sprayed not one, but five cans of insecticide into the room. aiyar, but then i must also say arr, he's quite stupid lar, cause he stayed in the room after that!!!!"

well, of course, this is just an accident waiting to happen. true enough, as i found out later.

"what's more stupid was tt he decided to turn on his computer and go online... so unfortunately his dian(4) xian(4) zhou(2) huo(3) and there was an EXPLOSION. WAH... the explosion was so big tt even his neighbour's house was affected! his furniture was hurled as far as 100m away! aiyoh..."

well, i was really tickled at this point in time by the utter insanity some pple subjected themselves to. and of course because i was in the lib i was stifling my laughter and looking like a total goon-doo in front of shuwei and weiliang who were sitting just opposite me on another table. oh man. but i was sitting too far away (and also too tickled) to explain myself to them.

well, i did later on when i joined them for coffee. the 20c coffee near the nuh med corridoor.

strangely, there was no mention of whatever happened to the silly man. 1 thing's for sure, he definitely did achieve his objective of killing thos pests. lol.

the coffee session itself was not w/o incident too. weiliang was the first to order and he pressed for a cup of coffee from the vending machine. out came a cup of whitish serous fluid which he promptly chucked.

shuwei and i exclaimed admidst our laughter, "wahaha. now u pay 40c for a cup of coffee." (yes i know this is childish. pls PLS don't condemn me).

but the problem was tt weiliang pressed for extra creamer and sugar at first (being the cheapo tt he is) before pressing coffee, so he naturally assumed tt it was because of what he pressed first tt a mixture of "coffee and creamer" came out.

which really proved later on not to be when he pressed for a 2nd cup of 'coffee', and out came more solution of diluted creamer and sugar.



the cups of white stuff are weiliang's creamer and sugar. HAHA. (the other pastry looking things are really durian puffs my aunt bought for us. from marriot! wow. never did indulge in such fine stuff. but it's a bit too intense for me cause the puff was like 90% durian and 10% pastry puff to hold hte durian paste.)

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

i think both shuwei and i must have looked like complete idiots laughing in the medicine corridoor. and reall, weiliang's face was supper funny.

and of course, he gave up and bought a cup of milo like i did. which really costed him 60c in the end.

it's not so much the cost, but more of a i'm-so-cheapo-i'm-going-tobuy-20c-coffee-but-i-ended-up-paying-60c type of incident tt really was so funny to me. but hey, i'm not labelling him cheapo. afterall i did it too! more like a small 'adventure'. :)

---

well i forgot, but let me put this down. i went to buy my bros new pairs of shoes each! haha. i think it has been long warrented liao lar, cause luke doesn't have a pair of decent sch shoes whilst alex's shoes are simply WORN OUT, as u can see in the photos.

went to queensway to buy, don't really think i got the best deal really, but never mind. hope they like it. well, for luke it's really his bdae present tt i 'owed' him for damn long, since jan/fab and alex's bdae is coming up on 26th may.

so i ended up buying shoes for both my brothers for their bdaes.

and of course i couldn't do it w/o a little subsidy from my parents. w/o which i would need to learn how to metabolise air/water for the rest of the month.



haha. but really, look at alex's shoe. at queensway we actually found the same model (they're actually still selling it) and just took pictures of them side by side. needless to say, u'll know instinctively which is the old shoe. but i was very amused at the stark contrast. and really, the photo has NOT been edited whatsoever.

whatever else convinced me tt he really needed the shoes, not simply wanted it.

---

tml will be a v v short day. simply cause we're only meeting my mentor at 10am. couldn't get prof ling to return page, will look for him tml morning, hopefully we can arrange a tutorial.

the li-ka-shing school of medicine

well, to some extent it sounds familiar. and apparently tt's what's happening over in hk too, the result of a HKD$1 billion donation.

at least the doctors in hk have been more vocal about the name change, even doctors have publically expressed their displeasure and disappointment over the name change.

it's funny how we don't see it in singapore. perhaps it's the culture over here tt we're more passive, accepting many things, though hard to swallow, just as though they didn't matter a single bit.

somehow i thought the outcome of the debate in hk would shed some light into the situation here in singapore. but really, who are we kidding. hk and singapore? it's just different.

switching over to the dark side

yeah i've finally switched over to using maxthon, a new freeware internet browser. haha, quite happy cause my IE has been giving me problems. LOTs of problems, like lagging when i'm typing in a window (ie blogging) and suddenly popping out this whole cascade of windows tt forces me to hold down alt-f4 for 1 minute straight just to stem the flood of newly opened, "can't find the site" windows. it's really damn irritating.

oh, pressing alt-f4 is quite an experience. u should try it now. left thumb on "alt" and left middle finger on "f4". try it now.

so anyway, hopefully maxthon proves itself. :)

catching up with stuff

yeah i think i'm finally going to blog again! the last post was last thurs, and everytime i thought i blogging it would always seem so hard to start. in fact there were many times i started writing something, but it didn't feel too right so i just closed the window and stopped the entry there w/o saving.

so anyway, not tt nothing has been happening, but on the contrary so many exciting things have been happening. must go find the photos to refresh my memory. haha.

yar... everywhere it's starwars now. on so many blogs tt i've got to actively look out for spoilers just to avoid them. haha. i'ld just roll my eyes and scroll down real fast so i wouldn't see anything! haha. currently the plan is to watch it with wm and andre on wed afternoon. hopefully it'll go through. anyway these are some photos i took last mon on dinner. andre was trying to pose as anakin. oh man, try harder! :P and tt was my light sabre crossing with his. yeah as u can see i'm from the good side. he's a pawn of the dark side with the purple sabre.



if i can rem, dinner was at ... (oh shucks i can't rem where. somewhere in paragon) but after tt andre Rx me to ice cream! wow. the new-zealand-something ice cream, 2x scoop somemore haha. erm. cannot rem the flavours i ate. haha. shows the imptance of chronicling early. it was the first time i tried tt type of ice cream and it was nice. thanks for the ice cream.

we then walked to this soba restaurant next door and gawked at the chef (well, do u call him a chef since he's technically not cooking? dunno.) making soba noodles! wow. i mean, i really really want to eat there one day, esp after i watched this episode of japan hour tt featured soba noodles... aiyoh i'm getting hungry now liao. it's a bit expensive though so prob will have to wait for some occasion before i get to eat there.



--

on wed, my family celebrated my auntie's bdae. we went to mushroom pot at orchard OG (not obstetrics and gynae. ok tt was lame). well, did u know there was this restaurant hidden up there on the top floor?? admist the winter clothes and tit-bits section. i thought the food was good. yummy! the first time i went there was a long time ago in m1 and the food has been just as good since then.

but this time we tried steamboat cause there were so many of us and it seemed like a good deal. yes it was. very filling. the mushroom salad is fantastic admist the other entrees. of course at the end of the meal we ordered the peach ice cream. well, doesn't it look like an apple?? and of course it would be hard to believe tt it was really ice cream if u didn't cut it open to eat it. alex did the honours of opening the peach. haha.



well, it's really wonderful tasting peach ice-cream with a sugar coating on the outside (coloured to resemble real peach skin) and a rocher on the inside. sumptous. v expensive as usual for such novelty items. think it was $6-8. per peach. we only had 1 to share around the table though.

--

the weekend has been slow and somehow i always found myself on bnet dotaing. oh well. the weekend has been really slow. didn't go out much though i would have like to go out more often. didn't do much studying too. finally got my hands on the surgery tutors list (thanks to jiabin who so kindly sent it to us after no one from my group appeared to have received the email from the surgery pple). i've got a mr cheah wei kiat. wonder what type of examiner would he be like... hopefully nice and kind.

a strange encounter

today was a really tiring day, very draggy cause spent our afternoon at the rehab/occ therapy dept, which was REALLY REALLY boring. all of us were almost falling asleep as we tried to act as though playing with the crutches (they asked us to try out walking and climbing stairs with crutches at a 'station' in the dept tour) was the most enjoyable thing to do, although frankly it was just a lame exercise.

after sch i left for bible study with zj. but before tt i had to go to buy a photo album. ended up in the end at orchard popular when i heard winston mention we could get nice cheap photo albums there.

then something very unique happened. whilst i was browsing, this korean-looking girl approached me.

her:"hi, can i ask you something?"
me:"yes?"
h"are you a christian?"
m"yup"
h"do you know of any good bible studies around?"
m"oh i attend my church's bible study.*well, actually this conversation was just after i decided not to go to bible study cause i felt lazy*"
h"oh ok."
m"which church are you from?"
h"oh i'm from *mumbles something tt sounds vaguely korean*"
m"oh. where's that?"
h"it's near great world city."
m"oh ok... i'm from new creation church. yar. oh it's just at suntec, somewhere around here *i point my finger in the air in no particular direction, gesturing towards an imaginary building*."
h"oh ok then. thanks. :)"

she then walked over to her friend and they walked off towards the exit.

i mean, they're not evangalising or something. in fact i really thought she was and was waiting expectantly for her to hand me a broucher/booklet or something. well she didn't.

i thought it was quite interesting. hmmm, do i have the 'christian look'? and the fact tt she asked me if i was attending bs was simply... amazing. right after i decided not to go bs and go home to sleep.

hmmm. sometimes strange things happen. but my short converstion with her set some thoughts running through my mind.

abdominals

ooo. went to observe another op today. this time it's an abdo op, which was really interesting. won't be typing everything out though cause 1) i'm feeling lazy; 2) someone else already took the liberty to scribe the events.

sch today was great, but the time after sch was better. yay. :)

my body sort of hurts today.. went to the gym yesterday night (on the spur of the moment) and ended up with really sore ant deltoids and rectus abdominis. oh well. must not waste the membership tt i paid for mar... make it worth it. :)

please let me be there for you

i heard this story some time ago, suddenly reminded of it today and i decided to blog it. also did a google on a song and found it can be heard here, going under the new jersey album (2nd one) and selecting 'i'll be there for you'

there was once this little primary school boy who fell in love with a pretty girl in his primary school. he really really loved her and for those few months she was everything to him.of course, there was all the sweet silly things like not eating for months so tt he could buy her chocolates and flowers.

the part of the story tt striked me the most was when bon jovi was coming to town and the girl wanted to go for it. her family was well-to-do and she bought her tickets immediately. the little boy couldn't save enough to buy the tickets to the concert despite all lunches tt he went hungry, nor could he convince his father to buy him a ticket to the concert.

little boy was so sad on not being able to go to the concert with pretty girl. :(

one day, he chanced upon this offer tt the newspapers were having - subscribe to the newspapers for a year and get a free ticket to the bon jovi concert! he must have thought tt it was almost god-sent! little boy pleaded with his father for days on end to subscribe to the newspapers initially to no avail, but eventually his dad relented and he got his ticket!

estatic he was. :) finally to be able to go to his first concert with the girl who meant all to him.

on the day of the concert he and pretty girl (still his crush, not his girlfriend) went excitedly and happily to the concert. but at the enterance he got stopped by the ticket counter! OMG! it turned out tt his free ticket from the newspapers was all the way BACK in the stadium, not like hers which was a more expensive ticket.

oh well. although little boy was slightly disappointed he thought it didn't matter cause they were essentially attending hte concert together. and yes, they had a splendid time singing all the songs belted out and just going wild with the crowd.

towards the end of the concert came the song, 'i'll be there for you'. tt was the high of the concert man... the boy just lost it and shouted out loud in the direction of the girl, "THIS SONG IS SO FOR YOU XXX!!!!!", bursting with passion and love for her.

she didn't hear it of course. but he knew it didn't matter.

soon the concert ended and because of the humongous crowd they didn't get to meet up and left for home seperately. tt night though they weren't sitting with each other, through the loud music and wild crowd, their hearts were still intricately connected to each other.

they both grew closer since that concert and were soon known to become an item in school and it was simply the most xing(4) fu(2) times of his life.

however as time passed and they got posted to different schools, the mundaneness of life overtook them and they lost contact with each other gradually.

well, time passed and they both grew up. one day they happened to meet each other! so exciting! they sat down and caught up with all the things in each other's life all these years. what happened during the concert all those years ago came up in their conversations and pretty girl got to know about what silly boy did during the concert and all the memories came flooding back.

then, silly boy began singing 'i'll be there for you' to her.

slowly.

*thoughts: somehow, it's the first crush/love tt is hardest to forget. memories always stem from tt first time. the first time u held hands; the first time u watched a movie; the first time u strolled in the park. the first time u gave all your heart away but never got it back. i looked through the lyrics of the song and played the mp3. but after a while i found it harder and harder to sing-along. well, i found those lyrics so so meaningful. something so close to my heart.

I guess this time you're really leaving
I heard your suitcase say goodbye
Well as my broken heart lies bleeding
You say true love its suicide
You say you've cried a thousand rivers
And now you're swimming for the shore
You left me drowning in my tears
And you won't save me anymore
I'm praying to God you'll give me one more chance girl

chorus: I'll be there for you, these five words I swear to you
When you breathe, I wanna be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
I'd steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what love can do
I'll be there for you

I know you know we've had some good times
Now they have their own hiding place
Well I can't promise you tomorrow
But I can't buy back yesterday
And baby you know my hands are dirty
But I wanted to be your Valentine
I'll be the water when you get thirsty baby
When you get drunk, I'll be the wine

I wasn't there when you were happy
And I wasn't there when you were down
Didn't mean to miss your birthday baby
I wish I'd seen you blow those candles out

sad post

i'm feeling down. but really, more and more i'm finding tt i can't wear my feelings on my sleeve here cause there're too many pple reading this blog.

come on... a place where i'll be able to say what i want irregardless of what anyone else thinks? to be candid and enjoy freedom of speech? definitely not here. the recent happenings of the a* scholar just proved it. all scholars beware!

but more so, it's cause i find my life revolves very much around a group of friends around me (many of whom probably happen to read this blog), and many things tt happen around me tt affect my feelings are intricately linked to them. yeah... it's hard to say stuff.

it's quite sad tt things will have to be tt way. but i've come to realise tt a blog is something more of a communication tool, something to keep in touch with friends, and maybe make new friends. not somewhere to "tell-it-all", nor to bitch, nor to whine. really.

though having said all that, i am feeling sad right now. :( just feel a need to express myself here, and maybe if i ever look back on my past enteries i'll rem what exactly happened. well i remember one v painful experience when i looked at my past yr's enteries and i was just demolished so maybe reading past (esp happy) entries may be a bad idea afterall.

have u ever pined so much for a sms reply u jump at the slightest beep, glancing at the screen now and then even when u really didn't hear anything...

got so afraid u missed the msg alert tone/vibration tt u'ld rather just hold the phone in your hand, tightly, than leave it on the table.

been filled with dejection with every msg u read and get increasingly disappointed and dejected with each reply u read.

think over the conversation an hour after u ended it and regret some things u said or didn't say when u tried to empathise and see from a different point of view.

oh man, i feel so sucky. i feel so damn bloody lousy. :( if u ever read this, i just wished i was more patient, more composed, more empathic. :(:(:(

it has been a tiring weekend. i shall go to sleep now. i'm sure all 93.3 needs to do is to play a soulful song now and i'm bound to cry myself to sleep.

walka-talkathon

yeah i suppose tt's essentially what most of the day was today. wahahaha. started off with meeting erle in the morning. it was quite an exercise...

well, he had this list of patients to visit, all around the hospital. so we went patient hunting, starting from ward 57 to ward 53 to ward 62 to ward 43 to ward 57 yadayada. wah lau, all i can say is tt thankfully we left our bags at ward 57 first. haha.

though we visited so many wards, we didn't see many patients. the reason being alot of patients (esp the neuro ones) were over-clerked and simply shooed us all away. aiyoh so sad. some patients were not in bed, some discharged, and others transferred to some other place...

aiyoh.

we walked so much tt i think we all lost 1 kg just tt morning. :P

yeah and as i was bathing just now i noticed my butt dimple came out liao, haha, something which only happened after running. oh well, yeah, u didn't need to know tt. but anyways.

and for the first time i clerked an inguinal hernia patient! wahahahah so exciting! 41/M/Ch presenting with a right scrotal swelling. he wasn't very comfortable with the whole grp of us examining so only bernard and myself went to examine him. even so, we didn't touch him and he demonstrated the reducing of the hernia and the cough impulse himself. well of course we gave him the instructions on where to press and when to cough yadayada.

yeah it was quite interesting observing all the textbook signs and symptoms. very typical and very textbook.

more importantly, i learnt tt such hernias can be easily embaressing for the patient and alot of tact and sensitivity is required. it's important to the patient is also only human, and his purpose in the hospital is to seek Rx. anyone letting us interview/examine is really doing us a favour.

gold, silver or black?!

believe it or not, tt's the opinion i was asked from someone who was trying to buy me a pair of slippers. and yes, not the material (how i wish), but the colour of the slippers. :)

haha.

hey thanks for the silver slippers! i feel like twice a cinderella! haha, just joking. i really really like them and will wear them as often as i can! :)

yeah so when anyway sees me with silver slippers, pls don't go exclaiming, "wah why u buy silver slippers!!!" or something like that. :) haha.

---

yesterday night was super catchup time with karen and u-jin. we had supper at newton and i can't believe all we ordered was stingray. and the 3 of us just happily chatted the whole night through and there was just so much to talk about. haha, from all the stuff tt happened in canada to past experiences on other holidays to planning holidays in the future. k's as funny as ever and the way she describes her experiences is just so damn funny. haha. never change, still the same karen. aiyar, we wanted to ask wanlin out also but then she say she bath liao don't want to come out. wahahahah. next time maybe.

just when we were about to leave (0230 maybe) the weather started turning crazy and the wind was so big... the trees were swaying like crazy and all the dead leaves were falling like in some movie liddat. wah, thankfully we finished our food liao lar! EVERYTHING started flying from the tables and everything else started flying onto the tables...

haha, but it was quite cooling and really looked like fall. super shuang(3) save for the 'occasional' twig or leaf tt got caught in our hair.

what nice weather.

on the way home though it started raining and there we realised there were 100000000 twigs and leaves on the road all the way even to novena area, which made the ride super bumby. wahahah. never see this type of thing happen before. visibility was poor too so have to drive carefully.

but it was a great supper. enjoyed myself throughly.

---

something very perculiar happened today. yeah anyway, was trying to contact our tutor to confirm a tutorial for this morning and when i couldn't get him to return a page the whole day i decided to send him an email.

then this morning i woke up at around 0920 and seems tt he wants the tut at 0930! wahahhaha. cannot lar! haha. but it's quite bad for him too cause he purposely shifted his final yr students session to tml so tt he can take us today cause in my email i said tt we would be free in the morning and afternoon till 4pm.

aiyar miscomm miscomm lar.

0930 is impossible. haha. cause when i called up my grp members alot of them were still in their sleep. HAHA. i think i was the alarm clock of so many pple today. :) and somemore some pple live far far away mar, like SEMBAWANG. which they'll take 2 hrs just to travel down.

oh yeah, and the most perculiar thing abt this whole saga is tt the tutor changed his pager no. just yesterday, which was why i couldn't contact him yesterday... by the time i called him in his office he was off liao...

just feel sorry for the inconvenience cause to my cg pple. aiyoh...

alright, abt time to go to sch liao. :) looking forward to a splendid day ahead.

i hate mosquitos

in the afternoon as i sat at my comp typing away i found myself the most unwilling victim of 10^6 mosquitoes. wah lau, they've been bothering me for damn long liao, and today was the final straw.

so i grabbed a can of insecticide, closed my room windows and doors, and started spraying away. closing the door behind me, i wore a smug grin on my face knowing victory would be mine. i even told everyone around not to open my room so tt i could kill those irritating pests.

to my horror, when i returned to the room i found my floor all oily coated with the insecticide... super sian. must have sprayed too much i thought.

then only just, my brother walked into the room laughing, kindly informing me tt i had used a insecticide for "crawling insects".

omgomgomg.

p.s. on the bright side, i did actually kill those mosquitoes. seems like crawling or not crawling, shieldtox works. :)

episode X-V: return of the queen

wah, k just flew back to singapore today, after spending the past few months on the other side of the world. wah, really is long time no see liao... haha, it's so nice to be able to talk to her and find out her travel experiences and all those funny things tt happened. like how she dropped her gucci II in florida so now cannot use liao... haiyoh. of course, amongst other things.

she's flying off again on sat to hk. omg. what an exciting life... fly here fly there...

i guess it's really a valuable experience to be able to travel abroad to study and there's simply so much to learn, so many friends to make and so many cultures to embrace and learn from. broadens the mind really. yeah, those special memories will always stay. :)

but meanwhile, hope she adapts back to the weather here... get well soon. :)

---

this was a mail i received from the nus locker pple. what a boon.

Dear Student,

Please be informed that in order to facilitate better convenience for students, we will be accepting your locker termination request via email as well as by post. However we urge you to be extra careful in providing your personal particulars.

Thank you and we value your past support.


Kaichi Spacemaster Pte Ltd

yipee! :P ms ang won the battle. thankfully i didn't send out my printed confirmation yet... too troublesome lar...

the mouse like big big rice

aiyar tt stupid jb sent me a link just now, which is sort of a clip for the lau shu ai da mi song. oh man, it's so heart wrenching... make me feel so sad... :( listening to the song on 93.3 is so different cause it's one of those irritating songs too (topping the list is the joline song). haiz, but then watch the clip liao ijust feel so sad...

i think it's often when u've lost someone tt u learn how much u've lost. taking him too much for granted... it's really painful when u've finally lost him and realise how much actually u've lost.

and by that time, it's often too late. but yet u know what a dumbass u've been and just want to do anything and everything to win him back to your side... it's almost impossible then. cause the period when he's learnt not to expect has numbed him. the cocoon of disappointment just got thicker over time when u were still taking things for granted. yet breaking off, he flies away never to return...

is it really impossible for exes to come back tog? i really think it's very very hard... cause the memories are too much to carry and the hurt is too much to bear. on hindsight, it's easy to spot times when u wern't caring enough or wern't considerate enough, and it's easy to regret these times and swearing if given another chance u'ld do it altogether differently... yeah it's easy to spiral into asking yourself why and WHY didn't u give ur 200% at that point.

yet tt's not the worst. cause i rem reading once, it's funny how it's the happy memories together tt hurt most. whilst u know tt it's impossible b/w the 2 of u, everytime u think of those memories it's amost u wish tt u never had them... thinking of them is simply too painful. tt's so true man... each time u pass by the same place, each time u do the same activity, memories all come back. memories tt are just too painful.

too painful.

sometimes all u want in life is a 2nd chance. but then it all falls into place when u realise tt life's not a game, and 2nd chances don't come knocking. but i know i would do things hell differently if i had to do it all over again.

learning to let go is really hard. really really hard, esp when u know u'll are never meant to be. living a life of disappointment and bitterness then seems comparatively easier. :(

am i beautiful?

met jb yesterday for dinner in town. haha, he's such a clown, very funny all his antics. well, we took a few photos of him in action too, like how he squatted in front of this shop in taka called everyoneisbeautiful and jb went into his self delusional self and started declaring tt he is gorgeous.



well of course we call all judge for ourselves how splendid a specimen he is. :)

oh, we met up with david and his friends at taka too though we didn't talk to him directly. haha, so we tried miming to him, being seperated by a sheet of glass as he sat in one of those fancy dining restaurants... lol.



and there was this other sight tt we saw... which was at giordano. and they were having a 30% OFF ALL BOTTOMS offer. silly boy almost approached the counter staff to ask them to help shed a few kilos off his bottom. O_o



well, this is the model for the day again who was posing with this gigantic mechnical dog. giving the dog his bag was a big mistake cause after we took the picture it was so difficult to take out the bag tt we created such a commotion in the process of doing so... so paiseh lar...

but of course the best part of the day was when we went for the osim fair at the taka square... woohoo, they have these $7k massage chairs lying around and since there were no one using them we approached a salesman and asked him to let us try the chairs... wah... fantastic, very comfortable! haha, good quality leather man... quite shiok lar and we were hogging the seats forever. jb didn't want to leave anytime soon till we realised it was getting late and had to leave... oh well.

but anyway i don't think i will buy such a chair in the near future. don't think will use often enough to justify the price man... haha. :)

sometime in life, we just need a little inspiration

wah it's raining... for the whole morning liao, and to think it was so hot earlier in the week, but rained so heavily in the past few days. well it's good tt these days i'm mostly at home.

but it's these rainy days tt make me feel gan(2) kai(3) wan(4) duan(1). and when the sky is dim and there's nothing to do at home, the atmosphere in my room seems to be like that as well. dim, quiet, melancholic.

i was browsing through my photos folder, and was just seeing who was missing in my life right now. pple who i were close to in the past, but not seeing so often now. wah lau, i really miss all u pple... haiz.

this weekend i was hoping for more sun but since fri it has been raining. waiting for the "rain pass sky sunny".

on another note, i went to mustafa yest finally to try to get some more long sleeve shirts. yeah it was a disappointment. was looking forward to finding some cheap and good buys there but really didn't see any. the super nice ones are all quite exp (same as what u'ld find in town) and the low priced ones (there's this long sleeve shirt going for $9) are really too thin...

i eventually bought 2 patterned shirts, a checkered and a striped one. yay, so the trip wasn't totally in vain then. :) probably get 2 more from g2000 or something some other day.

---

ye(3) man(2) you(2) xi(4) by joline is the worst song i've ever heard. the rapping part is almost just unpleasant, combining the vital elements of a bad tune with senseless lyrics to make a terrible song. well, it doesn't help tt 93.3 plays it almost once every 30 mins.

the wonderful eclinics

it's quite cool tt we finally figured how to enable my laptop's wireless connection... there's just this silly button on the side which was set to "off", all we had to do was to turn it to "on".

but i mean, who would have known... there wasn't some sign pointing "hey-you-switch-me-on-to-use-wireless". and because we didn't know tt, i still had an ugly lan cable attatched to my comp for the past few months.

now tt wireless connection is up it makes my laptop more of a laptop. :) haha, so now i'm no longer restrained to my table when using my comp. yay! but then since then i've realised tt my table is actually still the best place to use my comp lar, cause anywhere else i won't be used to the height adjustment and positioning. oh well. but of course, the best thing would be tt if my bro wants to dota he can bring the comp over to his room to dota. which is GOOD for my exams.

oh, i think erle lim (1 out of the 2 of our medicine tutors) is really damn nice lar... haha, during tut today he bought for us nice cookies, which was really sweet of him. yah... gave us a splendid tutorial where we really learned alot and really showed tt he cared for our studies and well being. wah... i'm really touched... he really gives alot of effort into his tutorials and anything tt he thinks is useful/impt he'll highlight and photocopy for us.

as winston said, he's one who, "expects alot, but gives u alot too". tt's so true. but at least we're learning. very willing to teach.

later on in the day (yesterday) he msged me to collect some stuff he photocopied for us from his secretary. well of course i went up to get before lunch lar, but his secretary went out for lunch, so i didn't manage to collect. later on when he he saw us waiting for our surgery tut outside surgery dept he went to his secretary to get it for us and came down specially to pass it to us leh... wah... i mean, what if we went in for tut liao? then he bu(4) shi(4) bai(2) zhou(3) yi(4) tang(4)...

and MS LIM HUITING exclaimed tt she was "falling in love with him"... so sweet hor...

anyway, i think eclinics is really very fun. there's alot of interesting stuff and great tutors tt we've met. pple like lh ling, erle lim, philip iau. yeah splendid tutors who are definitely a breath-in (ie. inspiration).

well, speaking of philip iau, i really didn't know how to pronounce his surname. i mean iau??? haha, then if call wrong liao it's super paiseh. so when i was tokking to him i just *hushhush* when i came to confirming his surname. went something like, "excuse me, is this dr philip *something-tt-sounds-like-yell*?" then of course he'll just say "yes" cause he heard a "philip" and a "dr" and knows tt his surname is a challange to pronounce.

he's this super funny surgery tutor who we met for tutorial on breast yest. yeah... oh and thanks to him we all palpated 2 breast cases. one case being much 'grosser' than the other cause there was blood discharge coming from the nipple. which really made it quite disturbing.

the other case was a typical breast ca case, and after we palpated dr iau went on to perform a radical mastectomy. it's quite gross and watch and frankly i was quite disturbed. especially the points when they cut through arteries and the blood spurted out from the patient. it's really quite gross cause the blood really spurts. one spurt almost hit the assisting surgeon's eye, and another hit the OPERATING THEATRE LIGHTS... i mean... it's tt high.

it was disturbing.

but philip iau lightened up the mood by exclaiming "tt's why they call us the department of harmorrhagic breast surgery". i couldn't help but smile.

anyway some interesting some facts he put to us. tt out of 1000 screened, 100 women have a positive mammogram, out of which only 3-4 actually have bCa. it costs $2.2 million to screen out a single case of bCa. shocking.

oh yar, something abt philip iau also is tt he's really damn comical... he was mimicking these conversations b/w would be students and examiners and the lousy ans tt they would give. wah lau, he's damn good. high entertainment value.

looking forward to a fantastic week ahead.

can't blame them

this is the email i sent to have my nus locker terminated.

hi, i would not like to renew my locker.

I, (Name) ANG XIAN'EN HOPE of MATRIC No. U033460W wish to terminate my rental for (Locker)0198 OUTSIDE MEDICAL LIBRARY at NUS. I am aware of the> terms and conditions governing the use of locker and will clear the belongings from my locker on or before 31st May 2005. I understand that Kaichi Spacemaster will issue a cheque for S$8/- being the refundable deposit for the combination padlock after 1st August 2005. I also understand that Kaichi reserves the right to withhold any refunds due to inconsistencies with system records. Please issue the cheque with the> following details:-

Payee Name: ANG XIAN'EN HOPE
Mailing Address: 15 MINBU ROAD #02-15 S(308166)
NRIC / Fin: S8428***C
Date: 04 MAY 2005

this is the reply i got...

Dear Miss Hope Ang

Please kindly send in your locker termination form by mail as we need your signiture in ink and payee details before our accounts department is able toprocess the refund. We regret any inconveniences caused.

Best Wishes and Regards, Ken Chan

---

i realised tt wee kim wee's son is bill wee, the president of singapore archery association. bill wee's name did ring a bell when i read it in the news. brings back memories of NYAA in jc.

CSFC30-at-yahoogroups.com

this week had indeed been very short. mon was labour day so was slacking at home the whole day, and fri there's no school! yay! cause our tutor can't make it on fri.

but of course these things can only mean make up lessons, which have taken away our lunch yesterday and will again tml... haha. in fact tml will be this super busy day... days starts at 800 at ward 42, 1000 with erle lim, 1130 scrubbing at OT, finally 1230 lunch, 1400 surgery again.

hopefully the day ends at 1500.

well it does help tt this week is a short and action packed week, does help to keep the mind off other things. :) effectively it's a three-day week for my group this week.

i'm glad for my cg, have made new friends (pple who i'ld previously not have a chance to talk to) and even got to know other friends better. hope everyone's enjoying their clinics as much as i am. we even set up a yahoogroups liao to better communicate with each other. haha. and of course to send the countless pdf documents tt we're 'supposed' to be reading. :)

with some twist and turn of events i somehow became my grp's rep and so had the most unfortunate task of paging/liasing with tutors. haha. ok lar actually it's not so unpleasant after all, but a bit worried about the phone bill at the end of the month. haha. k suggested tt i should use the ward phone to call, but all the nos given to me are pager nos (save erle lim) so what if i page then someone pops along to use the phone? or the person doesn't call back till 30mins later? aiyar cannot lar...

thinking of buying more long sleeve shirts. pants should be enough liao, shirts i was counting and found i could number them with 1 hand. arh. heard mustafa is cheaper, hope to go there this weekend maybe.

recently i borrowed wu(2) jian(1) dao(4) from lh, haha, prob have to return it soon. yar i know, it's quite an old show. haha, but i really didn't catch any of the 3 at all. but so far i've managed to watch I and II liao, still left with III, quite excited abt it, maybe i'll get to finish it later at night. actually i think the story is really not confusing like what i heard, and the plot is actually quite good, with a proper closure with each episode (as in got a good ending even in each sequel, very unlike LOTR where i rem vagely it dragged on for eternity before ending abruptly when frodo and sam stood on a ridge. i almost screamed then).

i'm looking forward to fri. thinking of dropping by the pool for a lazy afternoon dip, maybe i'll go for a jog too. and there are other plans tt have not been confirmed yet too.

nerdy and smart

saw this quiz on ber's blog. haha, think it was quite interesting so did it. and it turns out i'm rather nerdy.



Nerd: Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel): an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits

arh...

oh, and i found out i'm low on the idiot score too! haha. which IS good news isn't it?



---

it is a lazy day. some stuff to do incld summerising the stroke case tt i may have to present tml in tut. maybe get a bit of reading done for tut tml too.

misc stuff

went back nuh today for a makeup tut (where they teach u to put on makeup. ya rite.). anyway it was cause dr chua couldn't make it on fri afternoon so she postponed it to this morning. think it was quite and interesting patient comms session where we, as a group, made a couple of blunders which were really funny. haha. and some less sensitive things tt shouldn't be said were just happily blurted out. but tt's what it's all about, a learning process isn't it. there was this malay 16/fe/M who was 8mths pregnant. we assumed she was not married and even asked abt her "boyfriend", when she was married liao. wah lau, it's really stereotyping pple man... and i was so paiseh when she said she was married.

anyway the session was in nuh maternity ward, which made the session much more pleasant. :) yeah, cause there were babies everywhere! we interviewed this mother who was carrying her 2 day old baby in her arms. OMG. i was so distracted through the whole interview i really didn't hear much of what sasi was asking nor the ans the patient was giving. i was just staring at the baby and remarking to myself time and again how cute the baby is...

then just before we left we went in front of the sleeping area for the newly delievered infants (where they have this large glass window and u can peer in to look at the babies) and were all just gaga over the the babies. omgomg.

---

my bro's an idiot. asked him to start a game for me whilst i run an errand but he just screwed it up. what's more, he didn't bother to go find out what went wrong and why the game disappeared but he went to play his own game after that. i'm so bloody pissed.

these couple of days i'm starting to become more and more emotional. haiz. very irritable, very emotional. don't think i've snubbed anyone yet but if i do later on i hope i will be given a bit more time lar... now, tt's rubbish. but really sometimes it's hard to help it.

i just got told a shocking/disturbing piece of news by ah. oh man. i'm so confused i don't know what to do and think...

i was just thinking of what a close friend had said to me, "everyone has their own share of problems..." yar how true it is. i used to think i have a shorted list of problems, life was really quite smooth sailing for me. but yes, everyone has their own stuff to think about and to consider.

i think i'm tired. i think i should sleep.