illusions

do you believe in fortune-telling?

2006-05-30T10:57:00.000+08:00

when my sis was 1 yr old and i was not yet born, my daddy mummy and jiejie went to this fortune-teller to have their fortunes told.. and yesterday, i got to see their reports. because it was in handwritten chinese, i couldn't read half of it and couldn't understand the other. but i must say it was pretty scary.
it's scary when he gets something right, cos that means he might be for real and everything else is going to happen. and it's scary when he predicts something anyway, cos then yu have to worry "is it really going to happen? what if it does? what if it doesn't?" and then yu don't know how to act in the present to make it happen or not.. scary right? so i'm never going to have my fortune told.. cos while i'm not sure it's impossible that the future is decided, i'm pretty sure if it is decided, no amount of amulet-buying can alter its course.. so then if you're going to go about life the same way whether or not you've had your fortune told, then what's the point of getting it told? so i guess i'm sticking to fortune cookies for now..
on a lighter note though, i now know when jie's getting married! haha :)

did yu miss me?

2006-05-26T01:38:00.000+08:00

me florrie fiona joan candy

i'll be back in s'pore in no time!!
just finished packing my luggage.
my flight's tomorrow- 26th may
i'll be staying till 1st july.
i start school 3rd july- WWWWWHHHYYYYYY!!!!!

p/s never u/l-ed any pics before, so i decided to show yu the gals in my tutorial group in med 3.. kinda bummed we won't be in the same tutorial group next yr!

25th of May

2006-05-25T16:20:00.000+08:00

i've been busy the past few days, partly cos daddy's here and partly cos ssm presentation's today! it went exactly as we wanted.. good poster presentation but not good enough to put us in the top 4, which means we don't have to do the powerpoint presentation! muahhaha..

anyway today is a very important day cos it's daddy's birthday!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!
i still haven't decided where we should have dinner but after falling sick and having to swallow the chinese medicine he brews i'm pretty sure it'll taste better than his brew.. keke..

oh i ordered a cake yesterday but it's quite a me cake but it's a bit of him too.. i mean, it's chocolate, but it's a bitter chocolate cake (obviously the chocolate part is me and the bitter part is him.. harharhar) and i bought trick candles., the kind that don't go out.. i just like them cos they sparkle a little, actually.. i'm a sucker for fireworks and such.. i think someone whould invent candles that intermittently give off mini fireworks.. heh..

pyromania- noun. An uncontrollable impulse to start fires.
i think daddy suffers as above.. or at least, he has an uncontrollable impulse to play with birthday candles after they've been blown out and after he's eaten a slice of cake.

musicals.. lalala..

2006-05-07T00:32:00.000+08:00

it's so hot i need to bathe at least twice a day to be able to tolerate my own skin, so my recent inactivity must be forgiven.. well, there's that.. and then there's the recent re-addiction to anime that was triggered off by watching fruits basket.. late, i know, but there's been some pretty good animes coming out recently too.. like " the melancholy of haruha suzumiya".. ok i sound like a geek so that's all on the subject..
note to all: mother's day is coming!! mummy might be reading this so more on the subject some other time.. keke..
today i went to watch a concert with ollie and judy, haven't seen them since exams.. had dinner at ifc (dan ryan's baby back ribs are still better, but far behind that jap fusion restaurant in sydney still).. and then we walked over to hk city hall to watch "broadway hits in concert" which featured anne runolfsson (soprano), andrea mcardle(mezzo soprano- the original Annie) and michael maguire (baritone) accompanied by the hk philharmonic orchestra.. it was wonderful! i was absolutely spellbound.. it was just a performance of broadway songs from different musicals.. there were familiar and unfamiliar songs, but they were ALL good..
for example the first song thy sung was "be our guest" from beauty and the beast which was really fun, and there was "on the street where you live" from my fair lady which i loved from the movie already, plus i have a weakness for baritones, and it was really well-done..
there were classics like "think of me" and "music of the night" from phantom of the opera which were really well done.. esp. the ending of "think of me".. i could seriously feel the resonance in my eardrums.. and "music of the night" is my fave piece from POTO, esp. the beginning lines.. they also did "all i ask of you", which i'm sure is many people's fave..
there were also funky songs.. "le jazz hot" from victor/victoria, "all that jazz" from chicago, thoroughly modern millie's "thoroughly modern millie", and mamma mia+ dancing queen from mamma mia.. this was really one of the best renditions of dancing queen i've heard.. oh also "new york, new york" at encore which the brass section must have loved.. keke..
"cabaret" from cabaret had funny lyrics.."But when I saw her laid out like a Queen/She was the happiest...corpse...I'd ever seen.." -keke- "but incomparable to "the impossible dream" from Man of LaMancha.. i'd never even heard the song before.. after some googling i have made up my mind to get hold of the movie..
the ending piece was this medley of 3 andrew lloyd webber love songs.. the baritone's part was "love changes everything".. i've heard this song a gazillion times but never paid attention to the lyrics.. but it's really a song that makes you love love huh? :)
anyhow, it was a great concert.. and even though i didn't sleep at all last night, i'm on such a buzz from the concert it's 2am here and i'm still not sleepy! haha.. though i think i'm going to regret it tomorrow..

dorian gray

2006-04-22T10:52:00.000+08:00

the day before i went back to the uni to give out questionnaires to non-medical students for this group project that i'm working on. it's been such a long time since i've done something like that.. i think the last time was in j2 selling our book for charity.. can't exactly remember.. anyway i've forgotten how tiring and depressing it can get trying to get passer-bys to pay attention to yu and suffering all that rejection.. the day before wasn't so bad already but it sure brought back some terrible memories.. haha..
however, the experience did make me form a new theory.. the ones most likely to pay attention to yu and actually take the time to fill in questionnaires are guys and pretty girls.. seriously, considering ours was a random sample and there are actually more girls than guys in our uni now, the fact that about 90% of the questionnaires we collected back were from guys just totally proves the point.. and the other 10% were almost all pretty girls.. ok, i don't mean pretty as in gorgeous-features-pretty, but in a neat and knows-how-to-take-care-of-herself pretty.. hair in place, good or at least non-greasy skin, shoes that match their bags, clothes that fit just right etc... yu get the picture..
the WORST of all are the ugly ones who think they're pretty.. with colorful makeup, outlandish clothes that may say fashion, but definitely do not say style.. they either ignore you totally without even a smile or some gesture to decline or they take the questionnaire and after they come out of their class they act as if nothing happened and stare you right in the face like they have nothing to be sorry about.. ugh.
so i am now a firm believer in the 相由心生 idea.. i used to think that it was just something superficial pple used an excuse for their behaviour.. so a big sorry to the previously wronged.. of course that's not to say there aren't those who do use it as a lame excuse.. AND i think this applies more and more as yu grow older.. pleasant people glow as time passes.. and it's that glow that makes them pretty..

brokeback

2006-04-13T19:45:00.000+08:00

I wish I knew how to quit you. -jack twist

a strange encounter

2006-04-13T17:05:00.000+08:00

today while i was walking on the streets i met 2 cons! well i think they're actually a team, but they were stupid enough to stop me twice.. and that's not the only sign of stupidity they displayed.. what happened was this:
while i was walking along the street this indian fellow came up to me and said "excuse me, miss." This being tsim sha tsui and he being indian i naturally thought he was a tourist needing directions, so kind little me stopped to hear what he had to say.
him: yu are a very lucky girl (gesturing at his forehead i guess to indicate some sign he could read) then some crap i couldn't make out cos of his accent.. and 3 good things will happen to you next month, in may..
this is where i said thank you and walked off.. see don't you think he was realy stupid.. if yu tell me i'm lucky and good things will happen to me you're just making me happy.. shouldn't most cons tell yu some terrible disaster is going to strike and the only way to avoid it is to produce some cash to buy an amulet or something along that line..
anyway the funny thing is 2 min later this other indian come up to me and says"excuse me." now purely for my own amusement i stop to listen to what he has to say. so he goes " you are a very lucky girl.." and it's so funny that i just laugh befre he can continue and tell him" so i've heard" and walk off.. haha.. :)
so i think i've survived my first ever encounter with real-live cons, albeit pretty silly ones.. :)

holiday high

2006-04-11T11:43:00.000+08:00

haven't blogged for so long i should jus shut this down but even that's too troublesome.. haha
exams are over and by some miracle i've passed!! seriously thought i was going to fail osces, but it appears my dermatomes were not soo totally off.. or maybe that really was a small bowel enema.. who cares?! haha.. this means i can go back to s'pore in june!! woohoo! can't wait!!! hahaha..
anyhow i've spent the past 9 days in sydney and auckland with jiejie.. and it was wonderful!! i was happy 24/7.. in auckland we stayed with aunty shirley and had tons of time to catch up with angela! i love that everything is still the same.. revisited my childhood holidays.. even bobo is exactly the same! heh..
we finally visited yeye and mama's graves.. i'm really glad we got to do that..
and angela took leave off work to take us shopping.. my favourite hobby.. :) and on our last night she took us to watch dirty dancing, the musical, which absolutely rocked!!
and in sydney we stayed in swissotel which clever daddy booked.. it appears he know his daughters very well.. cos it's smack in the middle of the biggest and best shops in sydney.. seriously..
and we met our cousins ranui and camille whom i've never met before.. actually legend has it i saw them when i was really really tiny but i don't remember, so this counts as a first to me.. and they're really wonderfully nice! haha.. i must have good genes.. keke..
and we spent a day in manly, which is now officially on my must-see list.. i haven't been to the beach for years, and the beach there is perfect.. makes me wanna become a beach bum..
we ate like kings these 9 days too.. kings with a sweet tooth at that too.. that's the best part about visiting relatives.. plus food is amazingly fresh and good in nz and australia.. the coffee, the salads, the seafood.. yum! and their cakes are double the size of those in hk.. hurhur..
anyway 9 days of food and fun is too much to cram into one blog, plus i'm a lazy bum, so no more sharing happy holiday memories and making you all jealous.. jiejie'll probably diligently put up pics and describe to perfection what a fantastic time we had anyway..

medical bloopers

2006-03-10T22:51:00.000+08:00

Examination reveals a well-developed male lying in bed with his family in no distress.
She has no rigors or chills but her husband says she was very hot in bed last night.
The patient states there is a burning pain in his penis which goes to his feet.
On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it had completely disappeared.
The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1983.
Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing.
The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
The patient has no past history of suicides.
Patient has chest pains if she lies on her left side for over a year.
By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped, and he was feeling much better.
The patient is a 79-year-old widow who no longer lives with her husband.
The patient refused an autopsy.

2006-03-10T06:34:00.000+08:00

Short, terse, unfriendly,
Yet sometimes quite emotive;
I am the Haiku.

cookie monster

2006-02-24T11:21:00.000+08:00

haven't blogged in ages.. lazy lazy..
below is my short fling with healthy eating:
call it slow reaction time, but i just caught on the whole organic health food craze these past few days.. went out and bought fresh organic food and stocked my fridge with vegies and fruits and resolved to cut odwn on chocolates etc etc.. all in the hope of being healthier, living longer, having more energy and all that jazz.. few days into my new way of eating and i felt like crap.. seriously.. sore throat and runny nose and all the works.. turns out i'm the cookie monster.. or at least we share some genes.. cos breaking my new "healthy" lifestyle turned out to be the cure..
at least now i know huh..
one man's meat is truly another man's poison

virginia woolf strikes again

2006-01-26T20:12:00.000+08:00

happy chinese new year! while this year's cny is going to be angpow-less for me, i received two bottles of cny goodies last night, so i'm good for now.. so to all singletons and underaged folk out there, go bankrupt the married and the old already! muahahaha.. (:
at dance last night ah sir asked me to join his saturday class.. which must mean i can't be that horrible to teach at least.. power to me! keke..
ok, this is supposed to be a happy post cos i just read jie's blog and sompared to her, mine makes me feel like virginia-freaking-woolf (but without all that literary talent), but i just have to say, all that debauchery (cuisine-wise, of course) in shanghaihas left me with several toothaches all at one go, well, that and the fact that i haven't been to see a dentist in more that 5 years.. haha.. the thing is though, pple are supposed to eat less when they get toothaches, but i just end up eating more.. something strange in my brain has been triggered that require me to continually stuff food in my face while my teeth are killing me.. OUCH!!!
anyhow, debauchery is the word of the week.. i just head it in the movie "war and peace", in which i must say audrey hepburn's dresses look AMAZING!.. and the word sounds exactly like what it means.. mm.. so wickedly gloriously evil sounding..

my weekend trip

2006-01-23T12:04:00.000+08:00

just got back from shanghai! went there for the weekend.. it turns out that i somehow forgot to tell almost everyone that i was going, so much so that when i called home to tell my parents i got back to hk safely last night, my sister hadn't known i had goine to , or was even planning to go to shanghai.. keke..
the trip was a blast though.. i think it was my first weekend trip ever, so well.. plus i didn't need to think about lodging and finding my way around co sangela was there! hehe.. :)
anyway it was fun to just hang out and eat and shop.. the good thing about shanghai is that everything is so cheap so yu don't need to worry about stuff being too expensive! like we went xintiandi for dinner, which is shanghai's posh expat hangout with all the pubs and good restaurants and stuff.. and we tried this restaurant called lunas, which was recommended by shanghai tatler, and it was really good, but also not as expensive as i feared.. one thing though, i can't stand having pple smoking in the restaurants! ugh..
and xiangyang market is still open! it's crazy how different the prices they quote and the price yu can bargain it down to are.. i mean, yu can go down to 1/5th their price and they're still willing to sell! it got a bit ludicrous, actually.. but it was great fun!
the thing is, this trip got me thinking about taking a job that requires traveling.. every adult says it's a bad idea and i'll get tired of traveling and etc etc, but still, i love airports, i love finding my way around a new city, i love seeing a different way of life, i love packing and unpacking my stuff, i love learning that i have to fight for a taxi, learning whether or not to jaywalk, learning what time pple normally have their meals and which are the good eating places.. and i love that home feels more like home after i've been away.

kinda post-exams

2006-01-15T08:42:00.000+08:00

phew! phew-phew-phew! finished 2 exams yesterday.. have a test tomorrow too but not so important..
anyhow, i got my hair cut yesterday!! happy happy! haven't cut my hair in ages, but i think that's what long hair does to yu.. yu keep putting it off cos anyway yu can just tie it up and forget about it.. and it seems a terrible waste of moolah to trim your hair, like, one inch.. looks the same to me anyway..
going to shanghai next weekend! so excited! just checked the weather reports.. it's COLD!! scared, but crazy excited to be traveling!! haha.. :o)

the cold

2006-01-09T00:08:00.000+08:00

super duper frigging cold,, too cold to wake up.. to cold to think.. to cold to type.. to cold to bathe..
and definitely too cold to study.. hence naturally, exactly what i have to do.. study for my exams on sat.. super unprepared for.. and the weather is definitely not helping.. it's so cold my witing speed has become a crawl.. i am actually staring at my hand as it slowly moves and i can't will it to move any faster.. not made for the cold..
anyhow, just checked the weather report and it says it's going to turn warm after tomorrow!! yay!! was hysterically happy when i read it.. haha.. feeling nostalgia for singapore's "showers over several areas in the late afternoon" weather reports..
and as it is pre-exam times, i have, again, picked up an absolutely pointless addiction.. this time it's sudoku! super addictive..
www.websudoku.com
sigh.. when will i ever learn? (:

movie of the week

2005-12-31T21:50:00.000+08:00

went to watch perhaps love with mummy today cos daddy and jie watched it in s'pore together too.. heh.. one or two good songs, but i can't really say what the movie was about, because i was too distracted by takeshi kaneshiro's face.. it's frigging perfect, so everytime he appears i forget to follow the storyline.. haha.. ok la, exaggerating slightly but then again, the plot was kind of arty so i didn't really understand all that hoo-ha emotion.. i mean if someone makes you make each other happy then yu stay together and if yu're unhappy then yu don't.. why would 2 pple who love each other and not be together.. and if being wih someone doesn't make you happy why would you love them still? weird.. plus it's impossible to love someone for 10 years.. that's from 20 to 30.. it's a long long time.. if anyone said they're in love for that long i would think they were in love with being in love rather than anything else.. but the acting was brilliant though.. all three leads were pretty convincing..
and i intoduced mummy to best berry frozen yoghurt, which is something that tastes like yoghurt but looks like mcdonald's ice cream and topped with fruits! yum-yum! we had one after the movie and after dinner she wanted another!! yay!!! i love it when pple like stuff i recommend.. haha.. :)

2005-12-29T12:31:00.000+08:00

bought and read harry potter and the halfblood prince yesterday!
i totally couldn't put it down and read until 3 plus at night..
and a bit slow, but dumbledore died! don't want! refuse to believe it's true.. how can dumbledore die? it's forbidden! illegal! that's like gandalf dying in lord of the rings! so sad.. ridiculous as it may be, i hoping he gets resurrected, even if it makes the plot absurd..
and who's R.A.B? i can't wait one year to find out the answer! right now i feel like kidnapping jk rowling just to find out how it ends.. haha.. (:

x'mas trip

2005-12-28T10:14:00.000+08:00

-hohoho- i'm back from taipei! it was really fun! love traveling and staying in hotels and family trips!
taipei turned out alot less city-ish than i expected though.. for the city with the tallest building in the world, it's pretty low-rise.. and their walkways are sprawling by hk standards.. they have crowds too.. but specialised pockets of them, not the generalised population-control kind of crowds ala mongkok..
due to our indifference towards history and most things cultural, we spent most of our time eating and shopping.. hurhur..
my fave things in taipei:
1. da chang bao xiao chang (big sausage wrap little sausage)
my favourite local snack! it's a sausage (the chinese, atherosclerosis-inducing kind) wrapped in glutinous rice, with spicy sauce and other stuff yu can choose to put in.. ours had vege, salted vege (cai po) and meat floss.. YUMYUM!
2. 7-11
taiwan has lots and lots of things in their 7-11! like drinks-wise, they have like thirty different kinds of coffees, and lots of other types of drinks.. and they sell more ready-made food.. and they even sell daily doses of health supplements..
and there's this pharmacy that i think is linked to it that also sells lots of weird and wonderful things.. like 20 different kind of bath salts and 30 different face masks with all these ingredients that sound really really good for your skin.. heheh..
3. the green man in the traffic light
actually i just thought it was ok-cute only, but then i realised that the green man actually starts out walking slowly and then picks up his pace when time is running out! so cute!

but of course my favourite part of the trip is being with mummy daddy jiejie and angela!!

jealous & competitive & petulant & cynical

2005-12-21T11:00:00.000+08:00

it's not that i don't want to be a good person, it's that i'm not.

so if you think that i don't open up to you or show you my true self, you should be so lucky

rack your brains dear..

2005-12-20T23:04:00.000+08:00

here's a puzzle i had lots of fun figuring out! consider it a x'mas gift from me to you! -hohoho-
i choose a no. from 10 to 99.
i tell person A the sum of the two digits (e.g. if the number is 74, then the sum of the 2 digits is 7+4=11)
I tell person B the number of factors the digit has (e.g. for 15, the factors are 1, 3, 5, 15, so it has 4 factors)
Person A says " I don't know what the number is"
Person B says "I know you don't know what the number is, but I also don't know what the number is."
Person A says "Oh. Then I know what the number is."
Person B says "Oh. Then I too know what the number is."
What's the number?
because medicine and memorising have absolutely rotted my brain these past few years, i spent 1 hour in the bathtub just trying to figure it out..
luckily my brain has not completely atrophied..
i'll leave you to mull over the answer.. (:
merry christmas!

potty about potter

2005-12-19T12:56:00.000+08:00

i loved goblet of fire.. ok a bit late but it just came out in hk.. admittedly the plot was terribly disjointed, and i like the first dumbledore much more, and hermione's ballroom scene was blah, but in my opinion i felt the director got the point of the harry potter movies.. they're not about the plot or character development, it's about bringing to life all these fantastically whimsical and grandiose scenes to life, which i think mike newell did try his very best to do.. i mean, who cares about the plot? i already know what's going to happen anyway.. what i want to see is the world cup, and the durmstrang ship, and the mermaids and the dragons.. and all the laughter and tears that the friends share.. so i guess this new instalment managed to pander to my tastes.. hurhur.. tho i think they should just make the movie 4 hours long.. and have an interval in between for toilet break.. i'd definitely sit through all 4 hours.. vcds have trained me to be able to follow a storyline for an entire day.. (:

20y/F

2005-12-15T20:55:00.000+08:00

i hate it when you act like such guys in front of me..
i don't want to hear about your porn collections, i don't want to know when a pretty girl walks into the room, i don't want to know which girl is the butt of this week's jokes and i esp. don't want your disgusting jokes explained to me..
i might not be girly,but that doesn't make me one of the guys..

newsflash

2005-12-15T18:02:00.000+08:00

and today's news update:
"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong... given Saddam's history and the lessons of september 11, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision.. Saddam was a threat and the American people, and the world is better off because he is no longer in power." - bush
i can't decide if he's so brilliant his thought process is beyond my comprehension, or ifthe most powerful man in the world is really just a dumbass..
how can you make a right decision based on wrong information? i mean, it wasn't even an uninformed choice.. it was a blatantly mis-informed choice.. it's like sentencing a man to death because you believed he killed someone.. and then learning he wasn't the murderer.. but insisting it was the right decision to put him to death anyway.. like, huh?
and bringing up sept 11 is a damn cheap ploy.. how can anyone seriously believe the lesson the US should learn from sept 11 is to attack attack other countries without provocation? quite the contrary, i should think.. and bullshit about saddam being a threat.. the whole point of learning he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction is that the assumption that he was a threat was wrong..
it really is super scary when stupid people try to think..

fave buy of the day

2005-12-15T00:50:00.000+08:00

and the award goes to.. drumroll.. my foam head cushion for the bathtub! it's really comfy and it made me stay in the bathtub for one hour! well, that and the bath salts.. they're supposed to be from this famous hot spring in japan and they make it into bath salts and sell it.. so happifying..
my feet are killing me.. why isn't it possible for a shoe to have heels and yet be as comfortable as a sneaker? the qing dynasty pple were pretty clever, putting the heel in the middle of the shoe so it makes you taller anyway but it feels like a flattie.. at least i'm guessing it feels like a flattie..
watched the news tonight with mummy.. and the two main important events that happened in the world today are: 1. the reporters at the protest scenes at the wto meeting in hk are wearing helmets and goggles; and 2. koizumi borrowed a pen from wen jiabao.. what an exciting day huh.. (:
conversation while traveling back to pwh from peripheral hospitals invariably end up pretty hilaious.. ;p

chihuahuas are sissy dogs

2005-12-14T00:29:00.000+08:00

haha.. super happy cos tomorrow i can go shopping for stuff for taiwan.. you know, all the little stuff you need before going on holidays, like little bottles for toiletries etc.. it makes the idea of going on holiday so much more real.. and anyway i now have a new obsession.. shopping at city super for household stuff.. i used to think the little japanese inventions were really stupid.. but now i think they're very cute and really quite practical, actually.. the most fascinating must be the toiletries section.. in the combs section alone there are combs for curly hair, combs for straight hair, combs to help guys spike their hair, combs for when your hair is wet, combs for blowdrying your hair with, combs only for your scalp, combs with positive ion charges that prevent flyaway strands, and even combs that give your hair uv protection.. you can spend hours just marveling at the array of weird and wonderful stuff.. which is exactly how i plan on spending my time tomorrow after school.. in fact, i think when i grow up i shall spend all my money buying stuff like that.. i've calculated.. as long as i have a decent job, and don't ever have children (because they're really expensive and ultimately a liability) i should be able to buy most everything i want.. oh yah, and i don't need a car also cos i don't like to drive anyway.. if i go back to singapore it'll be even better cos taxis are so cheap so whenever i'm feeling lazy it won't cost too much to travel also.. plus food in s'pore is so cheap! hmm.. seems so inviting.. :)
today at the hospital one of the wards was emptied out especially for the WTO meeting here.. in case the protests turn violent, i guess.. but today i caught a glimpse of the protests on tv (i was clerking cases in the ward so i couldn't really stop to watch), but i think i saw some korean protesters swimming in the water with red life jackets on.. how that is supposed to nudge world leaders into repenting their actions i have no clue.. i think they looked alot less threatening in the sea than on land.. in fact when i first saw them on tv it reminded me of that charity rubber ducky race in s'pore.. the red ducks.. haha.. maybe they were trying to up the cute factor.. anyhow i hope nothing goes awry cos if it does you can bet the papers will be full of non-important people complaining and it's really very irritating sometimes..

hip hip hurray

2005-12-12T19:53:00.000+08:00

haha finally, halfway into my university education, something good has happened academically.. it's so trivial and unworthy of mention that it's too embarassing to spell out, but it means quite alot to me because in the past two and a half years i've been ripped of my holier-than-thou pedestal and my self-esteem's been ripped into microscopically tiny shreds..
hopefully this won't be the last time i blog something like this! and hopefully the next time it'll be something actually worth mentioning.. wish me luck! (:

on nun-hood

2005-12-12T19:37:00.000+08:00

needing friendship and love and companionship is suppposed to come naturally.. and it's supposed to be a huge part of life right..
books and tv and everyone talks about all kinds of trouble in social-land.. how terrible and desperate and lonely etc etc it makes you feel.. the ups and downs, the negatives and positives..
no one ever talks about what to do when you're at zero.. and not in a neutral sense.. but in a this-range-of-emotions-doesn't-exist-in-my-universe kind of zero.. what if you're incapable of feeling lonely or of falling in love.. not just in a guy-girl sense but in a people kind of way.. is that normal or time-to-see-a-shrink-weird.. but it's not a problem like depression.. it's just nothing-ness.. it's only seems like a problem cos it's not how everybody else is..
if only i could stand being a vegetarian then i could go be a nun.. i think i'm actually very gifted in that sense.. cos i won't have to go through the pain they apparently go through to cut off all worldly ties or whatever.. advance to level two immediately..
but are they allowed to eat desserts? i just saw some nuns buying LV recently so there's a chance chocolates are on the menu.. that would lessen the agony of meatless meals..

NANA

2005-12-02T13:50:00.000+08:00

have yu watched nana?! it's amazing! i love the nana-nana friendship.. plus i think punk nana is damn cool! i normally am not a fan of goth/punk/anything hardcore in general, but nana is really super shuai4.. she's the shuai-er than the guys in the movie.. i'm really glad cos normally when yu like a book or comic the movie normally disappoints.. altho the guys in the movie aren't half as cute as the ones in the comic, the soundtrack more than makes up for that.. love "glamorous sky"..
finally got around to reading 1421(the year china discovered the world), and it's a surprisingly good read.. when i read it i can imagine how excited the author must have been, uncovering such an history-book-changing discovery.. and i think zheng he discovering the world is really one of those things that just takes your breath away.. it ranks along with the taj mahal and the pyramids of egypt.. great projects are achingly beautiful that can only be created in an environment of absolute rule and built on the suffering of millions.. if i had been around during that era i would have considered them useless excesses of the rich and corrupt, but now that kind of senseless sacrifice gives them a sheen of tragic beauty.. there's just something so enigmatic about what would make a man become so devoutly loyal to a dynasty that overthrew his people and made him a eunuch so much so that he literally went to the ends of the earth for it.. and it wasn't just zheng he.. so many of the men in charge of these great vessels were Mongols castrated as young boys..
and the senseless isolation of china from the rest of the world.. to denounce her own achievements.. i know there is no point in it, but yu cannot help but wonder "what if"..
anyhow.. i must say, leonardo da vinci's biography and 1421 in a row is much too much gravitas for me.. whaat i really need now is some trashy chick lit..
mummy's still stuck at home but she's finally settled into a routine much like that of a baby, with afternoon naps and all the works.. hehe.. plus we're confirmed going taipei for xmas, so that's really lifted my mood! yippee.. night-market-with-200-over-food-stalls, here i come! muahahaha..

work and play

2005-11-29T15:04:00.000+08:00

it seems while i was cooped up at home mugging my youth away, stuff to play kept piling up..
so now that exams are finally over (at least until jan), i'm playing overtime just to keep up.. all the unread comics and magazines, the unwatched tv, new restaurants to try out, movies that are soon going to stop showing in theatres.. so much so that even after exams i still can't get my beauty sleep.. grrr.. but i'm super relieved exams are over.. now even going to wards is soo much more enjoyable cos i don't have the nagging thought of exams at the back of my head..

trouble sleeping

2005-11-25T00:49:00.000+08:00

for the past few days i've been woken up by my dreams a couple of times every night.. i don't really remember them, but i remember why i wake up.. like today.. where in my dream i was helping with an event, and then my brain started to think about my schedule and i realised it was impossible that i was helping out cos i wasn't free for that period of time.. and all that cranial activity woke me up.. ugh.. can yu imagine how irritating it is to wake up cos your dreams don't fit into reality.. and it keeps happening.. like i dream about someone and i realise that that person shouldn't be free at this time or shouldn't be in this place.. i gu so i am now officially having nightmares of logic now huh..

but anyway, i've found a cure for insomnia, not that it's one of my bigger problems, seeing as how sleeping is my one of my hobbies, just behind eating, but anyhow.. the solution is to study your worst subject right before bedtime.. like if history is the bane of your life then bring you history textbook to bed and yu'll conk out in no time.. seriously.. pathology can out me to bed anytime, any place.. which is not good cos my exam on saturday is chock full of pathology i don't get.. `bleep` can't wait for it to be over though!! :)

murals and memories

2005-11-23T12:57:00.000+08:00

haha fish and co. opened in hk.. and near my house too, to top it off.. muahahaha.. actually wasn't that crazy about it in s'pore (except for the glass house one), but i'm really looking forward to the yellow raisin rice now.. another piece of home.. heh.. :)
i'm in a new hospital this week for surgery, and it appears i am really not fated to study urology, because just like the last attachment, my week of urology is right before an exam.. not like i'm complaining, cos it does mean i'm free to concentrate on the other surgery teams when they come around..
anyway this new hospital is even further than the rest, but daddy like it when he went to check out the transport routes the last time cos it's on a hill.. which means i have no choice but to take the minibus up, but it also means that from some buildings while you're waiting for the lift yu can admire the sea.. plus today when i took the stairs in one of the buildings, i found this beautiful mural, or rather, series of murals.. the scenery changes every level, but in a subtle kinda way, which is cool and rather pretty.. like one level's blue sky and clouds and it slowly morphs in to lolling hills the next level.. and the work's not bad.. in fact i was going down from the 7th to the 4th floor, but i went down all the way to the ground floor just so that i could check out the paintings.. there's this one, on the 7th floor that's the fiery colourscape of sunsets that totally reminds me of tha classroom we used to prep for debates in in rj.. so1b, i think?! where there's a sunset and foliage.. so, stupid thing to make my day, but it kinda did..

decisions decisions

2005-11-20T20:15:00.000+08:00

ok i've done something terrible.. my mum bought the dvd for the 1st season of lost, and i know i'm like, 2 decades behind or something, but i got hooked!! less than a week before my exam! but it isn't really my fault, cos it's so scary and exciting and adrenaline-pumping!! it's like jurassic park that goes on and on! and i really want to know what that scary monster thingy is! not tom mention the weird guy wearing a suit on a balmy albeit freaky tropical island who's always peeking at the hero doctor.. why do baddies always wear bowler hats? it's bad enough they have twisted personalities do they have to have bad taste in clothes too? anyway so now 'm torn between the finding out what the monster is and mugging the gastrointestinal tract.. how can yu blame me huh... ;p
and i also can't decide what to do post-exam.. i feel kinda obligated to go out with my friends cos i didn't go out with them the last time but i don't want to leave mummy, and ok, i admit it, lost, at home.. and they want to go ice-skating which is fun, but the rnk is so crowded on saturdays and it's expensive.. plus the weather's cold now so it ice-skating doesn't have thr thrill of being cooling.. hmm.. what a dilemma.. can yu really be obligated to go out with friends?

bleeaahh.

2005-11-18T23:47:00.000+08:00

the worst thing about feeling like something's not right is knowing that nothing's wrong. i mean, everything's normal, nothing disastrous has happened and there isn;t anything concrete yu can do about it.. it's just this nagging feeling that strikes yu and then snowballs into full-blown "what am i doing with my life?" generalised wrong-ness with life.. i need something to be wrong, preferably something specific, so i can make a list of things to do to solve it.. or maybe i know what's wrong but it's just too big a problem and i don't have the guts, the strength or the endurance to deal with it, i don't know..
sometimes running away or just sulking about something is so easy.. like how the family x'mas trip might be cancelled.. i know i should be clarifying if it has to be canceled so that i can make other plans, but i don't want it to be cancelled, so i just ignore the problem there and everytime it's brought up i sulk and refuse to talk about it.. sometimes i seriously can't stand myself, what am i, like, five? ugh..
compared to mummy i'm a shitty coward, seriously.. i mean, she fell down in china but she doesn't see a doctor until she comes back to hk, which is like 2 days later, and on x-ray she has a compound fracture of her fifth tarsal bone in her right foot as well as a fracture over her lateral malleolus.. ok getting too medical here, but the point is she was walking around after an injury like that and she didn't even want others to support me.. me, i can't even handle losing my wallet without support.. i cannot even fathom what i would be like if i got injured like that.. probably fly the entire family over to comfort me.. hurhur..

2005-11-09T22:23:00.000+08:00

if this blog was a garden it'd be so overgrown with weeds the weeds wou;d actually start to look pretty.. but yu see, it's not that i have nothing to say, it's that this blog is extremely heavily censored and that leaves me with really little to work with..
i have made a startling discovery.. i think my ball and socket joints all don't fit very well.. when i rotate either of my hips or shoulders i can feel crepitations like something moving in and out.. but i've never dislocated any of these joints.. i've done a month of orthopaedics in the wards but no prof has ever broached the subject of noisy but asymptomatic joints.. i mean, the only test for shoulder instability i can do on myself is the apprehension test but what do i have to be apprehensive about if i've never dislocated my shoulder?
i just hope it's not degenerative.

something stupid

2005-10-17T10:44:00.000+08:00

on thurs i went to go see the new debate team, and it was kinda sad.. only ada from our old team was left.. and for the first time it hit me that our team was really over.. i know, slow considering that that was in my med 1 year, but last yr i felt anytime i want to see the team again all i had to do was pop down for one of their meetings and there'd be a few familiar faces at least, doing the same stupid things we did..
and during the meeting the vibe i got from some of the new members reminded me of myself when i just started.. aloof and there to just debate.. spacing out during all the talk about teamwork and friendships.. and i feel sorry for them.. i mean, although it took me really long to warm up to my teammates, in the time that i did we created wonderful memories.. and i learnt that it's when yu do foolish things and spend time in an apparently unconstructive way putting in tons of hard work knowing that there'll never be a reward that yu can begin to really have fun..
and then on sat went out with judy and because we were waiting for some shop to open we ended up at jumping gym, which is a kind of game arcade, but not the ah beng ah lian kind of scary people game arcade but the kiddy kind with all the hit-and-don't-let-the-monkey-get-the-coconut kind of silly game arcade, and we had LOTS and LOTS of fun!! and all eearned for our efforts was a tube of rowntree's gummies.. haha..
so the lesson for the day is.. put aside all your cost-benefit analyses and
DO SOMETHING STUPID
so the motto of th

inertia

2005-10-13T01:42:00.000+08:00

uh oh. just had an exam on saturday, so naturally i disappeared from the face of the earth before it to do alot of last minute mugging and waste alot of time in the can't-go-out-cos-i'd-feel-guilty-but-not-doing-any-studying-at-home-anyway mode.. anyhow after that i was so determined to catch up on beauty sleep and watch ALOT ALOT of tv that i have now screwed up my biological clock and my attitude towards clinicals.. i now am most awake at 2 am in the morning.. and i have to seriously drag myself to the hospital.. having no one in the house to adjust my weird hours doesn't help either.. bleh.. so need to get out of this rut..

chocoholic

2005-09-07T20:48:00.000+08:00

i realise i have a seriously serious chocolate addiction! and it's gotten more serious since i started clinicals.
at 7-11 today, i bought 2 chocolate bars, chocolate milk, and a chocolate muffin.
i should really try to kick the habit, but i suspect i'd go into real cold turkey, as in the chills and shivering.. or at least, i'd become super grumpy and irritable, and not looking forward to that either.
today went to outpatient clinic, and although i still can't stand seeing doctors treat their patients flippantly, i'm beginning to understand it from their point of view as well. i mean, the workload, the no. of things to think about, the lack of sleep etc etc really puts yu in a mood that would snap at anybody anytime.. and after seeing so many sick pple all the time, yu actually get immune to pple being sick.. i mean, it's not yet been 2 months of clinicals and i no longer am afraid of talking to pple who are going to die.
anyway yesterday i scrubbed in for surgery! it was actually my 2nd time, but it was the 1st time i got to hold instruments.. yu get to see the op really up close and personal.. it shouldn't be weird, but the thing that really struck me was that the patient ( i was going to type body but that didn't seem right) is warm. isn't that a weird thing to find weird? but i really really didn't expect the patient to be warm. the 2nd thing that struck me is tat the pec major is really pretty.. again, weird, but seriously, cadavers can't compare.. it was just really really pretty..

2005-08-30T22:58:00.000+08:00

started surgery at united christian hospital today.
must work hard.
GANBADE!

singing in the rain!

2005-08-21T14:48:00.000+08:00

it keeps raining.. and raining.. and raining.. it's been raining for like, a week.. the old man must be comatose.. the rain's been keeping me cooped up at home, and i only go out if i absolutely have to.. ie school, or groceries..
but despite the rain and the being cooped up, or maybe because of it.. it's actually been a pretty good week.. alot of 'me' time, not too many dunno-how-to-answer questions in school etc.. picked up anew hobby, if yu can call it that.. using the sauna! i wonder if there's a adverb (is it adverb?) for it.. sauna-ing.. hmm.. it's really relaxing!! but it makes me super-super hungry! that added with my odd ice-cream/ chocolate milk cravings everytime it rains and the general lack of exercise because of the rain iss not that great a combi.. heh..
anyway today was maid day! grocery shopping, laundry, mopping the floor, cleaning the kitchen and the toilets, packing my cupboards, throwing stuff out.. wow! sense of achievement.. haha.. now if only it would stop raining so i can wash the sheets as well.. hmph..

happy birthday to me!

2005-08-15T00:17:00.000+08:00

i'm 20! i'm 20! the big 2-0! i've survived 2 decades!
i've had my ups and downs, tho not as much as most people cos i've been pretty sheltered.. esp. in the past 2 years.. i remember spending my 18th birthday in orientation camp.. and when i look back i think i've really, really matured.. there's still room for improvement, of course, but hopefully by my 21st i'll have become a better person still..
when i look back i've had my regrets.. someone once said it's stupid to have regrets but i think that's not true.. everyone has to have regrets.. if i said i had no regrets it would be denial.. but from now on i will always become better because of them..
sigh.. but medicine is really heartless.. i have school from 830 to 7 on my birthday! why?!? when in fact i should be having summer hols.. boohoo.. luckily there's time to go for lunch with judy n ollie in between! and dinner with uncle sam and aunty siok! i'll be as stuffed as a christmas turkey by the end of it! hehe.. :)

my karma

2005-08-10T19:49:00.000+08:00

yesterday and today, at least, i've been a good person.. well, at least i've fulfilled my good deeds quota (which is actually one a day haha)..
good deed #1: yesterday as i was walking t o the train station someone in front of me dropped their phone and i picked it up and gave it back! yay!
good deed #2: someone was lost in the hospital today and i brought her all the way to the place that she wanted to go.
yup, that's it.. looks pathetic now that i put it down but it's not everyday i get a chance to do a good deed.. but i'm trying to balance my karma out right now cos all the troubling patients that i do in wards nowadays must be terrible for my karma.. esp since i have nothing to offer them in return.. like today vanessa and i made a patient cry by taking a history.. but i totally understand.. actually i think patients who can happily recount their history to us are amazing for being able to handle their illness so positively.. thank you! it makes such a difference seeing a friendly smile in the ward.. :)

my elective teaching

2005-08-09T18:29:00.000+08:00

today the morning lesson was elective teaching, and we had to be down at central 9am in the morning.. but the trip down was really pleasant! :) took the ferry, altho tt meant i had to walk more than other routes, the star ferry is my favourite form of public transport.. plus the people-watchability around tsim sha tsui and central is much better..
anyway the private clinic we went to for elective teaching wsa gorgeous.. it's actually a clinic cum sports performance centre.. the office is humongous, and it's in the building right next to landmark (location! location!) and the huge windows try their best to do it justice by looking out to lan kwai fong.. the equipment is super up-to-date, with pilates machines and treadmills and my fave gym machine the elliptical machine.. but i love the mri best, because it's an open mri which is soo patient-friendly! the pictures up on the wall are fantastic too.. it's mainly patients (ex and current, i think) doing what they do best, be it swimming, running etc etc.. (actually i think there was a poster of turandot but considering how turnadot as written by puccini is unbelievably sad, i'll pretend i didn't see it la) and i dr tong's office the photos he had up were awesome too.. personal but in line with the whole sporty theme.. i think personal touches make a doctor seem more human.. like this other office ( i don't know which surgeon's office that was) also had novels and cds.. i mean, as a patient i'd rather see my doctor as a human..
a few of us ( not me thankfully) tried out some of their assessments too.. like this board which sense your feet and looks at the biomechanics of your gait, and a treadmill which tests oxygen saturation and a bike test that which tests lower body anaerobic power.. that one was the tiring one..
after that we went fest walk for lunch cos it was on the way, and it was really fun to go out of the hospital for lunch.. felt like an office person eating in a shopping centre for ,unch.. heheh..

fireworks

2005-08-07T15:24:00.000+08:00

yesterday i woke up late f or school! it was horrible, cos class was supposed to start at 11am, so i thought i had plenty of time.. when daddy woke me up it was exactly eleven! AAHH!! and it was tutorial with prof and all.. so i had to rush down without washing my face.. took a cab and reached the tutorial room a little under 1130! yay! quite an achievement, i think..
anyway that night daddy and i went to tsim sha tsui for dinner.. went to hang heung.. which is kinda like crystal jade kitchen.. restaurant pretending to be a dai pai dong.. and it was pretty good actually..
we watched the eight o'clock lights display thingy from avenue of stars, and cos it's shopping festival now there were fireworks! i absolutely adore fireworks! *0* -YAY- i've always wanted to be able to light my own fireworks.. but in s'pore n hk not allowed to sell :(
then today we went to look at property at happy valley.. i love property hunting.. just for a while i can dream up a whole different life.. imagine myself staying somewhere else.. like we saw an apartment right next to a 7-11.. can just imagine myself going down at night to get emergency supplies.. heh..
then when we came home we did something naughty.. haha.. at the lift lobby we rushed into the lift and closed the door before the pple behind us could catch up.. ;p i know it seems wicked but at tt moment it was super funny.. muahaha..

my enjoyable day!

2005-08-02T22:34:00.000+08:00

daddy's here! so it's good food again! muahaha!
today was officially the first day of my orthopaedic attachment.. we were supposed to just spend the morning on self-study, watching videos and practising our physical examination skills on each other, but angela, vanessa n i went early to school and spent the whole morning following the trauma team on their grand ward round, and i'm super glad i decided to do that! although it made me feel stupid and waay behind, it was really enlightening..
before the rounds started we met some really really nice med 5s.. i seriously doubt i'd ever be that nice a senior la.. and the doctors in the trauma team were also really nice! maybe it's just that for the first time i felt someone so senior was in the same boat.. :) cos when the prof asked us some questions thay would be frantically hinting the answers at us behind his back.. hehe! slightly un-pro but soo heartwarming! :o)
our original plan was to spend the afternoon catching up on what we missed in the morning, but after lunch we were so decided we called it an early day.. hopefully i'll slowly build up enough stamina to actually last the day!

where my weekend went..

2005-07-25T12:28:00.000+08:00

hmm.. mummy left on saturday.. sent her off at the airport.. then spent the following weekend doing nothing!! oh no!
that morning i was at the immigration office to extend my student visa, and i must say, as a going-to-be-honest-citizen-who-will-pay-taxes, i despise government bureaucracy. it's not like i met anyone really rude, but it's just that the whole thing takes so bloody long! and it's not just immigration.. everything to do w government offices.. they open for such short hours and it takes a few hours of queueing just to be at the counter for 5 min! why!?! it wasn't even crowded..
and nowadays they've come up with a new plan to hide the fact it's such a long wait.. yu have to queue to get your form, then queue to get your queue ticket, to queue to hand in your form! urgh.
anyway mummy has left me instructions to watch the nine o'clock show mon to fri and to report the plot back to her every night.. so if anyone catches me gushing abt it (it's a cheesy slapstick gu3 zhuang1 show), i'm not that much of a tv junkie, i'm just being filial.. haha.. :)
but mummy's really cute.. everytime she comes hk she manages to get hooked on the 8pm-11pm drama serial slots.. without fail.. so cute right? hehe..
then sunday i was supposed to go out for a gathering with the guangdong trip pple, but i had cramps and that was making me feel a bit down, so i just staye at home, predictably in front of my com, surfing and reading comics and watching animes.. haha..
for all the fellow manga junkies out there, try this site:
comic.kukudm.com
free comics! rather good scan quality also.. but in chinese, so sorry all yu yellow bananas out there! :) muahaha.. see la, never listen in chinese class! serves yu right.. heheh..
my fave right now is prince of tennis, which is really ridiculous but funny at the same time!
and i quite like bleach too.. hurhur..
but today is monday and i've just had a 4 hr practical in which everyone knew more than me, so byebye.. it is time to panic and hit the books.. and the cycle continues.. :)

been busy!!

2005-07-21T23:54:00.000+08:00

school starts at 830 and ends super late everyday nowadays, so am super tired.
the year hasn't really started full swing yet, but i'll just be reckless and say, i'm enjoying this year alot more! it's a bit like going back to jc or sec. school! no more pre-clinical purist book mugging.. yay! but it's pressurising cos there's soo much to learn too! bedside learning is so tiring right now i only have stamina to concentrate for about one and a half cases.. but it is 100 times more interesting than pre-clinicals! i esp. love cases where there is past medical history to reflect upon..
and for our lectures, while the excruciatingly painful haematologies and pharmacos continue, in the evenings about 2 or 3 times a week we have forensic lectures!! the lectures are peppered with the most horrifying pictures i can safely say i have ever seen in my life! hangings and stabbings and decomposed bodies and bodies being eaten by maggots and bodies eaten by fish and suffocations and suicides.. not to mention bodies rolled over by vehicles!! AAAHHHH!! and a scarily nonchalant lecturer who smiles indulgently at the scariest photos and starts describing them in detail! AND scary classmates who all seem to find it very intriguing and fascinating and not a bit unusual at all.. i mean, today there were pictures in which the torso had been rolled over by a truck, and this one where the leg had been rolled over by a car so the entire thing was red and the skin couldn't be seen at all.. not to mention this case where the head had been so many huge lacerations in it the flesh was all sticking out in strips! and after the lecture in the ladies someone commented that today's lecture was "rather disappointingly lacking in scary pictures." Hello?!?!
anyway despite all the whining about being busy, i've taken up manga reading again!
i seriously think mangas are a really interesting genre of.. hmm.. art? writing? maybe both la.. i mean, it has its own distinctive fast-paced storytelling style, and there are even distinct differences between different countries' comics, both in the art and the storytelling.. everyone thinks the mangas are childish or the stories are too fantastic, but to me it's like a roller-coaster ride! they keep coming up against bigger obstacles and the plot climaxes before they evolve to overcome them! haha! but then again, i've read the entire dragonball series, so maybe i just have a high tolerance level for the fantastic.. :)
BUT! mangas have made me think.. and i realise i've never had a real passion in my life.. for most pple it's the CCAs yu join in school.. but CCAs have always been just something compulsory for me to do.. i mean, if everything i've done in my life was not compulsory or forced upon me some way or other, i don't think i'd ever want to do any of it.. not that i particularly mind, there's just nothing i love.
so i've resolved to find something i'm really really interested in and pursue it with the kind of fervour that everyone around me seems to be able to muster for that special passion in their life.. even geeks, i realise, are passionate enough about doing well in their studies to spend hours poring over their textbooks.. some part of them must like studying right?
well i want to feel what it's like to want to do well in something so bad yu can push yourself to practise hard everyday.. i guess that's what a hobby is.. something yu spend time and effort on just because yu like it..
so by the time i finish year 3, i want to have found my hobby!

running away

2005-07-12T16:29:00.000+08:00

i'm the kind of person that runs away from reality.
what's going to happen when reality catches up with me?

other than that though, sucks to be back in school with long days that start so early, but had tons of fun last week cos the sunties were in town!

gss

2005-06-30T23:04:00.000+08:00

i'm back from europe! the trip was some parts what i expected it to be, some parts outrageously different from what i expected, and many parts in between.. it was fun and eye-opening, weird and wonderful, life-changing and comfortable.. it's changed some things for me, but that's just me and a blow-by-blow account would just bore everyone to bits..
anyway i am back in the land of 3 letter abbreviations aka hsh (home sweet home)- singapore!
and the buzzword, or rather buzz-abbreviation, for now is GSS: great singapore sale!! three cheers! i've been buying so much it's crazy! i mean, every single day i hit orchard road and snap up all the goodies! it's like the 12 days of christmas except i'm buying all the gifts for me! (: and i love tt the mango sale is such a staple of gss; so dependable for really great buys!
anyway, i haven't just been shopping.. there's also the very underrated gastronomical delights of s'pore to catch up on.. from the delicious hawker food (poh piahs! mee siam! laksa! kuey chap! roti prata!char kway teow!) to the better-known ones (hainanese chicken rice! chilli crabs!) to the restaurants that i practically grew up in (baker's inn! nydc! coffee club! fish and co.!) s'pore is really not the place to try dieting..
of course i'm also meeting up with friends, spending time with family.. i mean, i enjoyed meeting so many new pple this summer hols, but nothing beats pple i love and trust, pple i'm comfortable with, pple i've grown up with so much so their always having a part in my life can be taken for granted, even though i'm a lazybum who never sms-es, emails, or just generally manages to keep in contact with pple for more than a month..
i wonder, will there ever com a time when s'pore will no longer feel like home?

the holiday without internet

2005-06-08T10:06:00.000+08:00

now let me see.. when was the last time i blogged? should be after the jiangnan-shanghai trip, flew back to s'pore, plus/minus flying back to hk..
ok, so a quick update: hk-> guangdong->hk-> s'pore
my dad went back to hk with me, but on different flights.. on that day though, it was raining really badly in hk and they actually closed the airport down an hour before i landed.. my poor daddy who was trying out valuair was left flying about dark stormy clouds with occasional lightning for an hour or so wothout any explanation whatsoever from the pilot.. talk about terriflying huh.. but apart from tt, valuair got a pretty good review..
after hk was a 6-day roataract trip to a pri school in a really, really poor village.. honestly, it was appalling.. we arrived there a day late cos it was raining so badly the roads were unusable.. looking out of my window it was like watching the news on the telly.. raging brown murky waters flooding over crops and such.. super surreal!
the kids in the primary school were really cute.. eager to learn, polite, disciplined, and really quite clever.. at least, cleverer than i was at tt age, i think.. but very stuck.. actually the entire village gave me a feeling of being stuck in a time warp.. like they didn't belong to this era and they couldn't move out of the village cos they wouldn't belong.. no money to got o uni, all the wrong skills for surviving this age..
my fave kids were these 2 little boys who were only 3 or 4.. they had no one to look after them so they spent all their time running around the village doing their own thing.. really really cute.. terrible naughty, but that's how little boys should be, i think.. and they're really noisy too.. in mandarin they go on and on too, but in hakka, their mother tongue, they're unstoppable!! but no one understands them except themselves, which is so adorable!!
but the living conditions there, ugh.. we had to bathe using cold water in pails.. and i'm not even sure the water was that clean.. the toilets stank like hell too.. this guy had to shit with a frog for company.. sitting there right beside him!! gross huh! but teaching the kids was really fun, cos their enthusiasm's incredibly infectious! we did some pretty adventurous stuff too, like we went to this tourist spot called wu2 zhi3 shi2 (five finger rock) and there were some really interesting sites like a cpring which is supposed to make yu clever and the slit between the mountains called mo2 du4 feng2 (rub stomack slit) which is this super narrow long path between 2 gigantous rocks that we have to walk though sideways.. the hardest part was going up the "middle finger" which is a really treacherous climb.. we also went to 2 waterfalls.. the last one we had to cross padi fields and wade a river and trek through bamboos and stuff to get there, but i thought it was super cool! it was right out of a martial arts movie! a long waterfall falling onto a huge rock and into a circular 'pond' surrounded almost entirely by a high, vertical wall of rock.. perfect place for heros to lian4 gong1! hehe..
all in all, the trip was so revealing every day was like a week for me.. the last day was a bus ride all the way back, but i fell soo sick on tt day i caused everyone alot of trouble.. cos we had to worry if i could get past customs.. i was really burning up. so when we got back two of my friends brought me to the a&e dept in pwh, but where this terrible triage nurse classified me as semi-urgent before even listening to my full history.. and cos there was nowhere else nearby opened till that time, it was really really busy there, and i wou;d have had to wait till 4 am to see the doctor..
luckily, aunty siok cam and brought me to hk hosp and sanitoriuma t happy valley, where i got to see a doctor really quickyl, and got admitted into hospital for the night.. the nurses there were really pretty and very nice but the nurse who put in my iv drip poked 4 holes in me! and she attempted getting into my veins at least twice in every hole.. not the pleasantest of experiences, i admit!
changed my flight to later in the afternoon and got discharged at my insistence the day after, just in time to get back to simgapore, which is where i am now, until tmr, when i'll be going europs for 3 weeks of sister bonding and backpacking!!
maybe after tt i'll finally get some rest this hols!
p/s i know this reads like an itinerary but it's the best summary i can do!!

jetlagged

2005-05-28T00:11:00.000+08:00

back from a super-duper fun trip in china! visited so many interesting places, like on every trip, but somehow describing them seems like an incredibly boring blog. in fact, i don't think i remember all the places.. most are a blur of sightseeing and photo-taking, and many have been upped by shopping in shanghai (not cos the shopping's good, but cos shopping's good!) what i really enjoyed (what always makes or breaks trips for me) were the pple! we travelled the only way my family knows how.. we gathered enough pple to form our own tour group and we booked out one tour.. this time it was eleven of us, six aunties and five of us cousins! and we had a tour guide (followed us from singapore), a tour leader (from china following us all around), a tour guide (local in every city we went to) and a bus driver with us everywhere we went!! talk about being spoiled..
anyway it was really fun being able to hang out with my cousins esp.! i think one of the luckiest things in the world is to be born into a family yu like.. i mean, i love the fact that i know my couzs! and that i actually like them, so family dinners and weddings and stuff are events i look forward to.. and my aunties are a real riot.. they are SO funny!! i'd love to put down some of their mishaps and jokes, but mostly everything happened in teochew and my teochew is not up to the task of translating, so yu'll just have to take my word for it..
that aside, GP has taught me to present both sides of the argument, so i must say, i hate china toilets! cliched but absolutely true! and i don't like PRCs either. i mean, don't get me wrong, i love the country and i love my culture, but the people! they are the opposite of aussies and new zealanders, who i think are the nicest pple on the earth still.. they spit everywhere, have no concept of flushing the toilet, smell, serve you with the blackest face they can muster, talk too loud, walk right past when we're taking photos, stare inappropriately, have no qualms about lying or cheating you of a dollar, and trust me, the list goes on and on and on.. i mean, my mum scolded someone for cutting a queue and that woman had the nerve to scold her back! talk bout shameless!
hopefully all this will improve by beijing 2008, cos i honestly think chinese actually have the cultural environment to be really nice, so i'm blaming the crude and rude on the cultural revolution and hope the spoilt brats of the one-child policy morph some manners and make my future trips to china perfect! :)

mugging comics

2005-05-15T20:26:00.000+08:00

my after exam plans were supposed to be healthy- going out, sleeping at regular hours etc.. instead i'm so un-recovered from exams i slept at 5 am last night.. spend all day mugging comics and other forms of "entertainment".. it's not the fact that they're comics (which is a bit loser-geek by itself), but the fact that i'm mugging them.. have i really become such a medical student i can no longer do anything leisurely? maybe it's just hangover from exams, but it's killing my eyesight for now.. and i think i officially have no more movies to watch, at least from the past decade or so..
so much for my bright-eyed, flushed-cheeks healthy after-exam glow huh.

end of exams!

2005-05-14T14:27:00.000+08:00

finally the exams are over!! plus-plus! osces are out and i passed!! muahaha.. so assuming i passed all my exams, my summer hols schedule is as such:
16th may: fly back to s'pore
18th may: do the tourist thing around jiang su region
26th may: fly back to s'pore
27th may: fly back to hk
1st june: fly to guangzhou for rotaract trip
6th june: back in hk again!
7th june: back to s'pore. AGAIN!
9th june: europe backpack!
26th june: back to s'pore
3rd july: back to hk
4th july: start med 3!!
god i'm getting tired just writing it all out, imagine actually doing it all!! can't wait!

over and over

2005-04-25T10:06:00.000+08:00

i must be really stupid. either that or i suffer from anterograde amnesia (well, it looks like some stuff is getting in at least) Every week i resolve to start studying really hard. then weekend rolls around and i go into my own bubble of winding down and just chilling. then i come to school and on the train invariable run into some other classmates who start comparing notes about how much they've studied and i go into major panic attack. i mean, seeing as how there are 52 weeks in a year and i've been studying as long as i can remember shouldn't i have learnt my lesson yet?
needless to say, today is monday and as of last week, the lesson has not been learnt yet. bleep.

the old woman

2005-04-16T18:11:00.000+08:00

yu know yu're boring when it's been, lke, 3 weeks since yu blogged and nothing of interest has happened in that loong span of time. i mean, i am seriously an old woman. and not in a good way. in a grumpy, mean old hag kinda way. i am so old i no longer take risks. actually, i never took risks, but whatev. thing is, i want to. i want an exciting life filled with high highs and low lows, but i'm just too smart for to make mistakes. it's a reflex action for me to not do anything that could go wrong.
but exams are too uncomfortable close for me to start worrying about philosophical atuff like tt. right?

poison in my veins

2005-04-01T11:43:00.000+08:00

honestly. my moods scare me.
find me someone to scream at. i've gone so long pretending to be ok with all the bullshit pple throw my way because that's what nice pple do i think i'm going to explode. people needing or wanting something from yu, pple not keeping their word, pretending to be enjoying each other's company, pple with their problems, pple oblivious to yours..
taking crap is from pple is like DDT tt accumulates in yur body and poisons yu. and the part i hate most is tt i've lost the guts to retaliate. it's supposed to be called growing up, learning restraint, better EQ, acting responsibly.. but to me it's just cowardice. and for tt, i hate myself most.

weather report over from hk

2005-03-12T21:25:00.000+08:00

the weather right now's turned cold again.. woke up this morning late but it was dark outside still.. so the guilt factor kinda wasn't tt high.. there's a mist in hk now so the tip of the buildings are cloaked in it.. it's pretty in a way..
woke up late and had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do today.. so went out to have breakfast at delifrance.. waffles and sausage and cappuccino for breakfast.. talk about indulgence!
it's scary sometimes when i think about it.. i think if i had no compulsory activities like school i'd be a hermit.. i mean, there's no school fri and i feel cut off from the entire world by saturday already.. freaky!!

tv n such

2005-03-03T13:00:00.000+08:00

ahh i am now officially in a tv daze.. tt's what happens when yu watch too much movies and drama serials that yu lose touch with what's really happening around yu.. i've marathon-watched enough vcds to last most pple a month at least!
but i like it! if yu're going to be a tv addict do it properly ya?
especially now tt i've discovered the short korean drama. unlike winter sonata and all the other 40 episodes long weepies, the short korean drama is less than 20 episodes, funny, non-soppy, and reminiscent of jap drama serials from my sec school years! where fashion plays a large role and pple can ridiculously wear branded clothes all day and change outfits each and every occasion they get.. and more attention is put into getting every frame picture perfect than trying to make yu cry yourself blind.. who cares if it's stupid and does nothing to help the plot? it's eye-candy and anyway crying scenes and stupid i-love-yu-but-we-can't-be-together-cos yu-are-my-brother-or-whatever scenes bore me to death anyway.. so to all those korean craze pple i've mocked, i apologise.. if yu can't beat them, join them!
that is, until i find a way to get hold of jap drama serials.. muahahaha

independent woman

2005-02-28T12:33:00.000+08:00

i'm pretty proud of myself! today mummy's flying off and i'm not sad. ok, i'm sad, but not in the depressed, spoilt-brat way i always used to be when mummy or daddy leave.
yesterday was super stone-in-front-of-tv day.. 2 dvds plus full house and america's next top model on tv.. talk abt tv junkie!!
not to mention yesterday my OGGI mag came out.. it's my fave mag in the whole world! not only does it not have pages and pages of repetitive ads, the syling's fab too.. i'm such a mag addict! they make me interested in stuff.. i think i would like shopping alot less if not for mags!

idiots

2005-02-27T16:00:00.000+08:00

last time when daddy said stuff about how friends can, if not betray, at least disappoint you, i used to think he was being cynical, but now i know he was just cushioning me for the fall when it finally comes.
and i was just dumbed down by all the stupid shit the world throws at you saying how modern life has made pple distant and how we should all reach out and learn to trust others.. that's just bull. people cannot be depended upon, and to trust something that cannot be trusted is just plain stupid.
the worst thing with friends is that you can't blame them.. when they disappoint you you are supposed to be magnaminous and forgive them without even being angry.. maybe i'm just narrow-minded but of course i'm pissed.. when yu say yu're going to do something and i plan for it, i give up other things so that nothing clashes with it, and i look forward to spending time with you, and in the end you say you can't make it, it hurts, and in my opinion it bloody well should.
forget all my previous dreams and goals for the future. now all i want is to grow a shell as tough as daddy's and not give a damn about anyone else and be self-sufficiently happy.
so if yu meet me in the future and i've become cold and hard and mean, congratulate me. i'm better off that way.

just give me a min!

2005-02-24T11:16:00.000+08:00

head and neck mcq's finally over.. now just get spot test over.. still too early to worry abt journal critique.. and then i can finally start catching up on my lessons so i can understand what's going on in class.. everything is a mess.. blaming all the nice tv shows on now that make my nights entirely unproductive.. and the weather's not helping either.. why can't it just stay hot.. or even cold.. anything's better than cold one day and hot the other..

-YYYAAAWWWWNNNN-

2005-02-18T09:37:00.000+08:00

what really is the point of waking up super-early for lectures when you end up falling asleep in them anyway?
kinda disoriented right now.. always happens to me cos i always choose to come back to hk as late as possible.. i mean, i miss a day of school, land here about 11pm, go home to bills and all that need to be cleared asap, have to catch up on projects, and am expected to go straight back to school, all this while preparing for head and neck looming a week away.. plus i'm a terrible organiser.. i can't keep so much stuff in my head!
must go home for nap later.. but i have crappy stuff to do in school.. like all my college final year project shit..
ugh. just kill me now.

a tale of two cities

2005-02-16T19:44:00.000+08:00

ok ok, skiving off doing my ssm project to write this (well, this seemed more constructive than playing zuma, at least)..
the past few days in s'pore have been soo wonderful.. going med lib at nus to study.. talking to late at night with friends.. partying.. pretending to be in nus med.. CNY visiting and dinners with relatives, catching up with all my cousins.. third-wheeling on valentines's day.. it's been happifying, to say the least..
so naturally, last day there was absolutely miserable.. did my whole crying and worrying about where i should go in the future routine again.. i mean, i'm tired w myself for it already, so imagine what it must be like for everyone around me..
the only funny part about it was when i was about to board and calling daddy from the free-local-calls phone and sobbing.. let's just say that daddy is king of lousy-at-comforting.. actually, i think he may have just done a columbus and discovered a whole new realm of lousy comforting.. he's so bad he's good.. i mean, i was really upset, but it was really funny at the same time..
like, i was upset about leaving s'pore, so..
daddy: what's so great about s'pore?
me: erm.. i'll miss my friends..
daddy: aiyah, friends can betray you.. (then the logic behind why friends might be bad for you)..
me: i'll miss family also..
daddy: mummy and i can fly la..
me: then jie leh? i'll miss her what..
daddy: jie already got boyfriend.. she has no time for you anyway..
(extension of this logic about how everyone will get married and i'll be alone when I grow up)
by here i pretty much give up on trying to garner a sympathy vote from daddy.. it's much too painful.. and daddy sounds happy is in his element anyway, so we move to..
[rousing conclusion about how people who leave their homes are always richer]
this is a feature of daddy-lectures.. everything always becomes a general law by which the universe must abide.. if yu don't believe me, next time yu see my daddy ask about the chinese and the mandarin oranges.. it's a new CNY addition..
but anyhow, now i realise that happiness and sadness aren't opposites.. they're complimentary.. it yu can feel really happy then yu can feel really sad.. like i would never have appreciated s'pore so much if i hadn't left.. and i've really learnt alot from this period.. like opening up to people.. and seeing other people in a more 3d way.. instead of just sticking labels all over them.. and i love my family more.. i see past their faults.. or the few times they irritate me..
so to anyone i ever told to not go overseas. i take it back.. it will make you a better person.

excuses excuses

2005-02-16T18:12:00.000+08:00

i know i haven't blogged in ages, but i always had an excuse for being lazy..
like these few days i've been in s'pore.. come back late! and CNY!! super tiring! and now i have exams in a week!! so ya, tt's all from this procastinator.. :)

i live for holidays!

2005-01-25T13:35:00.000+08:00

daddy's left.. poof..
i realise my days are divided into pockets of time nowadays.. when mummy's here.. when daddy's here.. when i'll be alone.. when i go back to s'pore.. when i have HOLS!!!!
pray for me something exciting comes up for my summer hols this year! :)

blogs n such

2005-01-24T17:47:00.000+08:00

been catching up on everyone's blogs and i think it's funny.. everyone goes through the most amazing ups and downs.. honestly.. how can a low point be so bad when you know the next entry cd be a happy one.. and it's funny how everyone faces the same problems st some point in time.. everyone's just struggling with life.. the good, the bad, the ugly.. argh i dunno.. just seem so ant-y la.. except pple get so philosophical about it.. talk abt deep..

haha.. and this is so out of point, but my estate has the cutest kids.. like this little boy i saw downstairs.. who was riding this pink tricycle.. very barbie (i'm hoping for him tt's his sister's) who was pretending to be super macho and making this vroom vroom sound on his bike.. hurhur..

try this game!
http://www.popcap.com/gamepopup.php?theGame=zuma
it's super addictive.. i played it until my eyes teared cos i didn't want to blink them.. hehe.. :)

what did i do these few days?

2005-01-23T10:50:00.000+08:00

hmm.. am going to try a new blogging style.. the "this is the list of things i did today" style.. hurhur..
i have such a terribly leaky memory i can't even remember whn i last blogged.. imagine me n my anat! argh..
thursday
anyway, so let me start from thursday, when mum n dad made the switch. mummy left in the morning and daddy came at night.. and it's terrible cos i dint go pick him from the airport tho i could have made it. but he said i didn't need to and i really wanted to watch the 930 show.. it's very very funny! haha.. :)
but in school tt day, i had an ssm meeting in the morning.. ssm is soo time-consuming this term!! i thought it'd just be a bunch of papers to critique, but we have to meet our profs and present and QnA sessions and all.. *sigh* but lunch went with judy n jocelyn (ollie n tony joined us later) at mac's! for a calorie-loaded but happifying lunch.. hiakz.. there's a new fries in town!! twister fries! which is actually just mac's stealing A&W's curly fries, which is terrible for them but wonderful for me.. heh.. and tony had TWO bloody burgers! i hate guys and their metabolic rate.. it's not like they use it wisely.. hrmph..
then had lessons (let's just skip those few hours) and came back and did whatever i do at home ( i have absolutely no idea where the time goes.. honestly..) until daddy came home about 10 plus.. and after resting like 5 mins started doing his inspection like he was from all the govt ministries rolled into one. health, environment, education etc etc.. really, i think the govt'd save alot of money if they hireed him.. he can honestly walk into a room and immediately spot what's not working.. which doesn't sit well with lazy me.. but he's always estatically happy to be in hk, which helps.. kinda.. and after years of training (i mean, this is where i learnt to debate.. in school, tt's just secondary training..) i am an expert at making up reasons (always reasons, never excuses) for everything i do.. why didn't you bring in the clothes? why haven't you done your laundry? why are yu not using the new handphone? why haven't you bought a heater? etc etc etc ETC ETC..

friday
then friday came.. lectures in the morning followed by assembly with this youth-oriented pastor or reverend (some religiously high-ranking person) teaching us how to lead a fulfilling life, which basically went "money won't make you happy. you must have love." for an hour.. kinda tuned out cos he was using his daddy as a negative example which made every noble thing he said sound like bullshit anyway. i don't know about god and all, but i know if yu can't even respect the person who made you (well, half of you anyway), not to mention brought you up, irregardless of whether you like the way he did it, yu're not worth listening to. and i mean, he was saying stuff like his daddy taught him you must weigh the profit of doing something before you do it. i mean, if his daddy didn't love him do yu think he'd tell him to protect himself like tt? no-brainer.
ok, so after the preacher preached wnt for lunch w ollie jocelyn n tony.. tony's a stereotype.. you know the kind of guy who's damn smart but for some unfathomable reason likes to act immature? that can never give a straight answer to a serious question.. and HAS to use every single opportunity to make fun of yu.. RI gep la, basically.. we were waiting for judy to finish her looong assembly so tt we could go karaoke.. well, ollie and i were, at least... jocelyn was going to meet her twin little sister (aren't twins just so cute!) so after tt judy ollie and i went k-ing until we we killed our vocal cords ( we stayed an hour longer than the paid-for 3 hours! :) haha!cheapskate me) and then i went down for dinner with daddy, auntie siok and uncle kc, sam yi ma, agnes and philip's parents at pak lok.. which is this teochew restaurant with crazy good cold crab and this dessert called tang cu mian which is, literally, crispy noodles (mian) and you can put either sugar (tang) or vinegar (cu) on it.. yum!
saturday
morning of sat daddy and i spent at home finding out that i can play mp3s on my new hp! then we went down to hk island to meet auntie siok and uncle kc for yumcha at zen (again, crazy good food!) then auntie siok daddy and i met fanny (one of auntie siok's army of property agents) to look at properties around west hk island.. all so small!! the largest are the 700 square feet kind.. but those are mostly used for renting out small rooms.. as in they overhaul the place and make like 100 square feet cubicles with a toilet in each and then rent it out for around 2k (sing 440) each! and pple live in these pigeonholes! ouch huh.. how ever can hk complain abt china's human rights record? we saw like 10 properties ( felt more like a hundred).. all too small and too expensive for my taste..
after tt we went to buy a larger memory card for my phone.. then we went to computer city.. which is like the sim lim of hk.. but much more crowded and mind-boggling.. only to find we bought the memory card for 50 bucks more.. anywaywe bought printer cartridges for my beautiful all-in-one epson stylus CX5300 printer!
after tt we had dinner at this place.. kinda like a high-class cha can ting.. where daddy relentlessly stuffed veges down my throat.. i dunno why but everytime daddy's around i gain weight like crazy.. i think it's a evolutionary survivor instinct.. like my body realizes with daddy around i won't be getting my food without a struggle so it panics and goes into storage mode in prparation for the day daddy decides i shall only be allowed to eat twigs and bark.. which, trust me, is exactly where he's headed (now i'm still allowed fruits).. haha..

ok.. this is now longer than the report i originally switched on the computer to do.. oops..

2005-01-19T18:03:00.000+08:00

i know i blog sporadically, but it can't be helped.. my life's just so boring it's unbloggable.. esp when mon to weds are chock full of head and neck anat.. except of course for the occasional change- neuroanat. ouch huh. and by chock full i mean 830 to 530.. crazy right.. i might as well be in ns instead of uni la.. i mean, uni's supposed to be waking up at 11am.. hmph..

the blues

2005-01-18T12:55:00.000+08:00

argh.. am feeling so sian nowadays.. the long class hours and un-exciting pure mugging.. plus the weather and the overeating has made me sad.. in a lethargic, sian kinda way.. bleh..
am soo looking forward to my CNY hols.. hurhur..

brr.. it's cold in here..

2005-01-13T11:08:00.000+08:00

god the temp has plummeted.. well supposedly it only went down a few degrees, but it sure doesn't feel that way.. plus the constant drizzle of what must be refridgerator-cold water, and it's now officially become numb-ey cold.. despite having slept 9 hrs last night (shocking huh) i still feel sleepy.. it's the weather lulling me to sleep see..
have scary hernia fa later.. i know it doesn'tmake sense to be scared.. actually, it makes perfect sense to be scared..
reasons why hernia fa is scary:
1. i'm not sure i can do it right
2. it's in canto
3. it's a real person.. somehow i feel like i'm stealing an education.
hmm.. never mind, how bad can it be right? everyone has to do it anyway..
wish me luck!

fooled.

2005-01-11T21:17:00.000+08:00

the education system has made me quite an expert exam taker. i mean, i've taken afair no. of exams in my life. there are the terrible, i've-never-learnt-this exams. then there are the marathon write-until-your-hand-cramps-and-falls-off ones. not to mention the make-or-break-your-entire-life exams.
but today, i took the best anti-cheating exam i've ever taken.
you see, we were supposed to take the exam in our lecture theatre, which has barely enough space to house the entire faculty so there's no way they can put distance between us. basically, it's heaven for people planning to cheat cos you can see everyone's papers.. add to that the fact that we were taking an mcq paper where you shade large black on the answer sheet, and i mean EVERYONE. i mean, you can see three rows down even.
what we didn't expect was for the examiners to come up with a brilliantly simple anti-cheating system. they set three papers, with exactly the same questions but in mixed-up order.
and they planned it rather thoughtfully. you see, 3 papers is the bare min no. of papers needed so that no one can look at your neighbours' answers, so it makes sense (cos too many versions of the paper means more trouble for them.) they printed the version of our paper (A, B or C) at the corner of every page in miniscule italicised font, which means if you can't copy the person below you cos you don't know which paper they have (i mean, italicised, letters become harder to read.) a simple but clever plan that allows for the paper to be fair and standardised, but hard to cheat on.
then, the twist on the twist.
(you should have seen this coming. if this was all i wouldn't even bother blogging this.)
they followed the method to the letter, reminding all of us to remember to put down which version of the paper we were using on our answer sheet and all. so of course we fell for it hook line and sinker and all dutifully did our own papers from memory (and guesswork).
only after the entire paper was over and we subjected ourselves to the "what did you put for this-and-this question" torture all students do after exams did it (painfully slowly) dawn on us that we all did questions in EXACTLY THE SAME SEQUENCE. duped through and through. i mean, i had a DEAN'S LISTER sitting next to me and because i was so completely fooled i didn't even venture to sneak a peek at her answers. in fact, the thought DIDN'T EVEN CROSS MY MIND. how thoroughly duped is that! and the faculty doesn't even have to sort our papers into three piles.
i am though, rather impressed by their cleverness. only in an extremely grudging way, of course.

exam!

2005-01-11T12:33:00.000+08:00

ok, the positive attitude i had at the start of school has faded. either tt, or the coming exam (today!) has masked it. somehow i feel detached from everything i'm doing.
maybe it's inertia.
can't wait for exam to be over though!!! then i can properly listen in lessons and all.
i will draw pretty diagrams of head and neck after exam! i promise!

FISH!

2005-01-07T12:53:00.000+08:00

ARGH. am super stressed. can't wait for tues to be over. i think it's ungodly and inhumane to have an exam in the first month of the term. esp since i only got a 10-day break. cruel. i'm so not in the swing of things, the studying and waking up early and stuff feels so foreign.
but i'm having quite a good time, surprisingly. everything has worked out smoothly this week and tt's a real relief, somehow.. :)

swamped

2005-01-04T19:54:00.000+08:00

the amount of work ahead of me this semester has just dawned on me. the 2nd day of school and i'm swamped with stuff i must stuff into my can't-take-it-anymore brain. not to mention i have an exam less than a week away.
HelP!

the world's not big enough

2005-01-03T11:04:00.000+08:00

there is a profound sense of loss when you lose a friend. and i don't even know how it happens, and how i know, but you can practically see it, that gaping chasm between the two of you that no amount of effort in catching up and 'acting normal' can do.
sometimes, i look back and see all the people i've met but missed the opportunity to grow close to, and i hate myself for not making the effort.
but who can blame me? there are 6 billion people on this planet. i mean, is there really enough place for all of us? i think the world was built for villages, of interdependent groups of people, not crazy cities.. we were all meant to be someone in our little circles.. the butcher, the math teacher, the milkman.. cities drown everyone in them.. i mean, there are no more grocery store owners, there are 2000 people working for the supermarket chain.. faceless, dispensible and unimportant..

back to canto-land it is.

2005-01-03T10:42:00.000+08:00

it's time to go back. as wonderfully happy as this holiday was, all good things come to an end. maybe it's bad to miss somewhere so much.. it makes is so much more difficult to move on to new pastures. honestly, even i can't stand myself.. like, what's all this mooning over the past? just get over it and move on la, dopehead.. but easier said than done. ugh.

i love my life

2004-12-28T22:18:00.000+08:00

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!'
YIPPPEEEEE!!!!
tt's basically how i'm feeling nowadays.. eating and celebrating hols like NOBODY'S BUSINESS.. i LOVE being swamped with celebrations and meet-ups and of course, being surrounded by wonderful wonderful friends.. what can i say, life is good! :) i mean, this is the first time since the end of my terrible terrible exams (let's just say pHAE climaxed the horrid exams) i've had time to sit down and blog!

how i discovered time is relative

2004-12-16T18:50:00.000+08:00

ONE MORE WEEK!!
one more excruxiatingly drawn-out, stressful, exam-filled, unbearably cruel week!
but ONE MORE WEEK!!

ssm's over!

2004-12-14T13:14:00.000+08:00

time is dragging its feet right now.. i mean, i go back in less than 10 days time, but it feels like FOREVER!! not like i'm getting any studying done now anyway.. just bring the exams forward la.. ugh..
today was ssm and ah wai presented for our group.. he's actually quite a joker.. and funny in a deadpan kinda way.. somehow when i work with pple at close range i like tham better.. when yu just know pple in a hi-bye kinda way it's so much easier to not like them.. like " ooh tt girl's a bitch" or "god, he's so wannabe!".. but when yu get to know someone by more than just labels it's easier to see things their way.

grumpy sneezy lazy etc etc.

2004-12-11T23:00:00.000+08:00

i think if it wasn't for my very sheltered and pleasant childhood i would be in counselling right now.. sometimes my mood swings are so extreme and out of control they scare even me.. and not in a linear pendulum kinda way but a multi-directional kinda way.. like sad, disappointed, happy, excited, nervous, pensive and here and there..
but most of the time i'm happy, which i guess is a good thing.. :)

A Little Street Where Old Friends Meet

2004-12-07T13:06:00.000+08:00

A Little Street Where Old Friends Meet
It's just a little streetWhere old friends meet,I'd love to wander back Someday.
To you, it may be old,And sort of tumbled down,But it means a lot to folks In my hometown.
Although I'm rich or poor,I still feel sureI'm welcome as the flowers in May.
It's just a little streetWhere old friends meet,And treat you in the same old way.

my little street's orchard road.. and i'll be on it soon!! hello taka! hello lido!! hello paragon!! wait for me, mango sale! are yu still there, orchard underpass man? i miss yu, baker's inn dessert! yu too, coffee bean ice-blended!

but most importantly, i'll be able to meet my friends and create new memories on my street! compile yur bitchy gossip babes!! we'll take long lazy lunches and marathon shop the hours away!!

my mixed-up brain

2004-12-06T10:25:00.000+08:00

ok this is what happens when yu try to stuff info in yur overstuffed brain until if it had a goose live in int it'll produce the finest foie gras ever.. yu get weird dreams (not to mention yu can't blog in understandable sentences..)
ok last night i had this totally intense dream.. which had a bit of its plot from jin zhi yu yie, but set in this totally future-not-future era.. like the chanel no. 5 ad where it's somewhere near and far.. with this angelina jolie-like female lead and the male lead's the guy in the FF movie.. yu know, finfal fantasy: the spirits within.. talk abt confused.. and it was dark.. with the kinda baz luhrmann quality he gives his scenes to express conflict.. alot of snip-snip and dark dark dark (as in literally.. the background colour) but the emotional scenes very slow and melancholic.. very full of undercurrents.. tragic, but beautifully so.. kinda like what wong kar wai could do if his stories had a plot.. actually, come to think of it.. it was one of the best films i ever watched.. haha.. :)
i remember bits of the plot but am not going to put it down cos it wasn't tt great a plot (kinda normal hollywood bs) but shot beautifully..
but reflective of how jumbled up everything is in my head..

2004-12-05T05:57:00.000+08:00

yay! haha.. just bought the body shop cranberry shimmery body lotion! heh.. love the cranberry scent.. but t only comes out in x'mas.. but the real reason i bought it is cos it shimmers!! haha.. i feel like one of those birds yu see on national geographic which like glittery things cos they want to build a nest.. blue bowers? or do those like blue things? hmm..
haha i wonder if everyone has a bird personality.. hmm..
daddy- one of those birds of prey.. eagles or falcons or the like.. the very scary kind.. with the really sharp eyes (yu know, from ten miles away, "you scratched the car!".. haha).. tt's a nice bird.. very awe-inspiring..
mummy- mummy'll be a very mummy bird.. what's a mummy bird? maybe a kiwi.. yu know, cos it has to carry an egg 1/3 of its body weight.. and it's so cute and un-evil.. a bit ong goi (blur-blur) so kinda lousy at protecting itself.. but soo lovable! haha..
jie- this one's easy, jie'll be a pink flamingo.. skinny like dunnowhat and dance-y (why do i think flamingoes dance? are they supposed to? seems an awful waste of energy..)
this cd go on forever.. see, nat's a cockatoo (luxury!), kerk's a kea (typhoon on twos!), rae's an owl (the cock-head listening look!).. ahh.. cannot name anymore birds! lousy bird-knowledge.. haha..

my love-hate relationship

2004-12-03T10:16:00.000+08:00

i used to hate my alarm clock. it woke me up every morning, and because of its incessant harsh ringing -no, ringing's too kind a word; BREEEEENG-ing- i had to drag myself out of bed very unwillingly for the past few years (yes, with a start i realize that's how long i've had it). then, a few days ago it spoiled. the hands refused to move and i cleverly fixed it the only way i knew how- i shook it really hard and banged it around believing that was actually helpful. call it the ignorance of youth. and then, it KEPT ON RINGING. so i took the battery out and was left alarm clock-less.
the past few night i have gone to bed with my itsy-bitsy handphone tt makes little noises and hence believes it can call itself an alarm clock. and i have not had a good night's sleep yet. i keep waking up in between because i'm afraid i'll oversleep. and i have come to mourn the loss of my alarm clock.
and lil ole philosophical me has learnt from the demise of my alarm clock that as much as we hate the alarm clocks of the world, the naggy mums, the pessimistic know-it-alls, the this-is-for-your-good teachers, the doomsday's-coming! newspeople etc, they're very much necessary too.
and now i have to go buy a new alarm clock.

lit in sec school

2004-11-29T21:37:00.000+08:00

“I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible, thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death.”-Scarlet ibis

brings back memories, this quote.

somehow i always choose to do things i don't love. out of all 3 humanities, the one i loved most was lit, and it was the only topic i didn't take in sec 3.
then there was jc, when i did all the terrible math and sciences (3! the horror!) instead of humanities (my fave!) and econs.
then, needless to say, there's medicine now.
i swear i will do the things i love from now on. career-wise or whatever.
after all, yu get a hundred years if yu're lucky.

shall we dance

2004-11-25T00:32:00.000+08:00

shall we dance is actually quite interesting.. it's supposed to be pure hollywood fluff, but it's quite simple and real.. the characters aren't out of the ordinary.. they do out of the ordinary things, but never extraordinary things.. i like the simplicity.. not very hollywood, but tt's what a script like this needs.. not brilliantly wonderful.. but richard gere being able to look that good at this age is enough gaping i need in one movie already.. haha..

can't wait for bridget jones 2 to come out though!!

tele-holic

2004-11-23T12:33:00.000+08:00

signs i am a tv addict*:
1. i watched 6 episodes of WAB and 1 episode of alisa last night.
2. upcoming exams are disregard-able in the face of pointless tv-ing.
3. i watch [gai dai fun hei] (trust me, absolute crap) rather religiously.
4. i can regurgitate an entire ad from subconscious memories.
5. i watch both david letterman and oprah.

* dvds and vcds are also loosely defined as watching tv.

seriously.. do yu still need more evidence.. just ask anyone who knows me..
do i really have such terrible self-control? or, like everything else, can i blame it on genes and upbringing? heh.

saying bye-bye

2004-11-22T13:15:00.000+08:00

i'm ok with living by myself now, but saying goodbye still sucks.

a weekend of playing and now, it's back to the books. grr.

self-discovery #2659

2004-11-20T18:05:00.000+08:00

my dilemma:
when i'm alone, i get lonely.
but make me spend more than a few days living with ANYONE, and i find them irritating.

and now i know why.
i realise i'm so averse to anyone telling me what to do that when someone tells me to do something, i will physically flinch like it's painful. and that's when that someone is a person whose authority i accept (like my parents.)
if tt person NAGS, or if it's someone i don't look up to, forget me ever doing it.
and if it's someone i don't LIKE, if it wasn't for milleniums of civilisation that have allowed me to evolve restraint, i would have slapped him/ her/ it.

oh no!

2004-11-16T22:03:00.000+08:00

daddy's coming on thursday!!
the house is in a bloody mess and i'm too lazy to clean it up!!
uh oh!

beautiful things

2004-11-15T15:41:00.000+08:00

today the weather was brilliant.. and when i was walking back to lessons i saw the mountains behind my uni.. and i got the happy-touched feeling tt beauty brings.. i love beautiful things!
am pon-ing lessons later.. it's a good day for renting an arty film.. :)

bel-air!

2004-11-14T23:43:00.000+08:00

went with aunty siok and uncle kc to the uber-posh bel-air, which is this super ex condo.. well it's not built yet but it's being built.. and there was the sale of apartments by 'drawing lots'.. don't really understand how it works but it was definitely NOT lot-drawing.. i mean half the apartments were sold under the table la.. the property agents practically killed each other! heh.. but the excitement, the thrill.. it was palpable in the air.. talk about adrenaline rush! this might be something unique to hk.. :)
but the place itself was SO playground of the rich and famous.. i mean, it has like 10 clubhouses or something.. and one of them, the fine arts club, has salvador dali paintings and the works! not to mention concerts by li yundi and all.. and the other clubs offer services from yachts to in-house celeb chefs to celeb hairstylists to private jets AND private helicopters to take you to the airport! tt's wat i call dirty rich.. i mean, the "lot-drawing"was itself the kind of free flow of champagne, free GOOD food, live music, dancers, fashion show.. the works la.. AND the party goes on until LATE at night.. like 4-5 the next morning.. so cool..
now i can't wait to earn my own money.. :) i mean, i'm not posh until tt level but after something like tt i can understand how cool it'll be to spend your own money.. like treat yourself to a massage or even just buy stuff with your own money! but must be my own.. it's different when it's your own money.. it's guilt-free splurging!!!! muahahaha!!
but before that, YEARS of slogging through med school and internship.. sigh..

muahahaha

2004-11-10T13:04:00.000+08:00

YES! after the dismal pgin results where i bottom-10-ed the class (as in the 142 pple class!) i have risen from the ashes! in really drama-mama speak, that is.. i mean, i've above-mean-ed, but not spectacularly or shit. but, still better than nothing! yay! happy! must work hard next time round.. see if i can improve!
wish me luck!

hkipdc.. quite a mouthful huh

2004-11-08T14:17:00.000+08:00

i know i haven't updated in awhile.. but i've been wonderfully busy with debate.. HKIPDC and all.. HKIPDC's the competition my uni organised.. the informal kind.. i never really understood the draw of something like tt.. i think cos i've never done something purely for the love of it.. it's alwyas been resumes or because i feel like i have to.. but for the first time i actually like the schmoozing.. and i love the pple in the team.. they're nice, which is a really rare quality in pple when yu grow up.. the only slightly sad part of it is that i realise how much i've lost touch with so many of them.. i just suck at this maintaining friendships thing.. i'm a natural recluse.. :(
but now tt hkipdc's over, i must must go back to catching up on my studies.. haematology and homeostasis and respiration, here i come!!

all grown up..

2004-11-04T08:12:00.000+08:00

i just realised how little i blog things that make me happy.. always just the things that make me sad..
but actually when i think very hard about it, growing up hasn't made me a much sadder person.. i mean, the world is no longer the greens and blues and pinks and golds that it used to be.. it's like when yu're young the world is a bollywood movie.. and now it's mellowed into a .. erm.. french movie.. where life and the emotions it evokes are way out of your control and everything has that tinge of bittersweet.. it's less bright but everything is so much clearer..
like last night went karaoke with judy and ollie and even in the moment i realised how happy and lucky i was.. to be able to go out with close friends, have the time of my life, love the home i'm going back to, and have days filled with activity but not bursting at the seams..
that's life.. yu lose the ability to enjoy an entire sickeningly-sweet gobstopper but yu learn to appreciate the bitterness of a tiramisu.. :)

another idiot thing to fill my 1000-page book-of-idiot-things-i-did

2004-11-03T15:44:00.000+08:00

last night when i was talking to daddy he asked if i had anything on tonight. i said i was training the debate team but implied it was pon-nable. he got me tix for a concert tonight but i backed out on him this morning.
i am now totally awash in guilt for making him go through all that trouble. i don't even know why i implied such a thing. i knew yesterday tt i'd already promised the debate pple.
does this make me an impulsive, crazy liar?

the socially awkward one

2004-11-02T12:28:00.000+08:00

i have just realised that i must be a very unproductive person, because i can't even fit in all the basic neccessities of life into my schedule. i mean, at the very least, a person should be expected to be able to clean up after themselves right? but between laundry and mopping, dishes and taking out the trash, i can't find enough time to do my work! ok, if i didn't watch tv i probably could but if i didn't watch tv then i'd probably break down in a month! can anybody really achieve that perfectly balanced life where yu can get 8 hrs of sleep, properly file all your homework, revise all your lectures, do all that horrendous housework, exercise and you know, lead that healthy happy life we're all supposed to live?

was kinda blue at jap yesterday cos i suddenly got one of my think-too-much-spells. i thought about it and kinda decided i'm lousy at making friends.. i've always suscribed to the belief that friendships are all fated.. k , i really don't like the word fate but there's no other replacement for yuan, is there?.. i mean, i understand that there's the langage barrier, and that's what i tell myself, but somehow there's ths nagging fear that that's just a really pathetic excuse.. and the worst thing about social situations is that the harder yu try, the more aawkward they get.. oh god.. i think i'm turning into a nerd ( not in the study-alot-sense but in the socially-awkward-sense).

and this has no connection whatsoever, but ALIAS is brilliant! i mean, the story unfolds and the WHAM! BAM! a twist! and then.. a twist wihtin a twist! argh! and jennifer garner's absolutely fantastic at silk-and-steel acting!

boo

2004-11-01T10:19:00.000+08:00

mummy's gone! she left EARLY this morning.. and her horrible daughter couldn't stay awake for long enough (abt 3 sec) to say goodbye properly.. how terrible huh. :(
anyway yest was rather fulfilling.. it was briefing day for debate comp and met with some old teammates and alot of fresh meat.. hehe.. they're not bad, really.. but i think i absolutely killed my throat pretending to be a god and dispensing advice like some bighead.. :)
then it was clara's birthday party.. they're really really hospitable but honestly can't think of a more awkward position to be in though..
HAPPY HALLOWWEEEN~~~~

weirdo

2004-10-28T11:54:00.000+08:00

tmr's showdown! in the form of pmus SA. it nags me tt the results for pgin are not out yet.. WHY?? did i marginally fail and they're considering adjusting the results cos they don't want to see my face another more year? did i fail so badly they want to discuss kicking me out? AAAHHH!! bring on the valium!!
this is soo weird, but in a way, i'm looking forward to tmr.. either i'm actually just looking forward to the after exam shopping blowout and don't know it yet, or in some weird, psychotic (not to mention med-mugger) kinda way, i'm actually looking forward to the test.. is my life really so devoid of adrenaline rushes i have to look forward to a test? yuck. yucketty-yicketty-yuck.

health vs happiness

2004-10-26T12:55:00.000+08:00

i don't want to do any more work. EVER. i wish i could watch tv all day long. and shop.. and sleep late.. eat unhealthy food.. why is it that everything i like to do is unhealthy.. i mean, my favourite meals of the day are brunch, tea and supper.. which are the ones we're not supposed to have.. argh.. whoever said happy is healthy.. :(
ALIAS!!! last night vaughn's wife shot someone!! yay!! i want her to be evil.. hehe..

adopt a baby

2004-10-25T11:32:00.000+08:00

was watching about schmidt last night and i decided the best way to make your life have any meaning is to adopt a baby in a 3rd world country. for a little money every month yu can change someone's life.
i mean, no matter how yu talk yourself out of meaninglessness it creeps up on yu.
and the hardest type of depression to fight is the type that doesnt have a reason to be there. the kind of nagging feeling tt yu're not doing enough but yu dunno what else yu can do. ARGH!
shopping does help, though. :)