2007...

2007 has been one of the most happening years of my life to date. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's a 007 year, coupled with me always trying to emulate James Bond. (Thus the convertible and leather jacket)

Listing in terms of priority the top milestones of the year:


1. Getting into Med School - I am living my dream. Not sure how many people are lucky enough to do that. I'm very thankful for having been given this opportunity, and will never take it for granted. It's been a long and arduous road getting here, but the road ahead is even longer and tougher. All the same, I'm game.


2. Appreciating Family and Friends - I haven't been without family and friends for more than 1 month, and this being away was quite a trying time. Absence makes the heart fonder...


3. Appreciating Singapore - For all this shortfalls, Singapore is still home. I just had to find this out for myself by juxtaposing home with another place. I have been complaining about so many things about this place just like many others, but when it comes down to it, home is where the heart is.


4. Living abroad - How I prepared myself for this was to imagine the worst possible scenario in any case. With such expectations, one cannot possibly be disappointed. It wasn't easy, but I got through it without too many scratches. Different people, culture, place. Being "2nd class" isn't really a nice feeling, but I came out better through it.


5. Surviving 1st year Med - Honest to God, I haven't put in that much effort before into anything I have gone through. I can still recall how I was having thoughts about giving up, when I was studying through the night and I could feel my temples pulsating.... I asked myself is this all worth it? What if I got a stroke? But thankfully I was the wiser and knew that the pulsating temple would not lead to that. I survived. The worst should be over, I think.






6. Fitting in - I always wondered how it would be like in "angmo-land". Well, I'm glad to say it's really great. Made quite a few close friends there, albeit a lot of them being Asians.


7. Getting my first convertible - Another small dream of mine, to drive down the beach topless (the car, not me). I was contemplating about the MX-5 at first, but decided on the 206cc cos it had a hard top, and this was when Transformers was a hit. heh... it also looked futuristic and could potentially fit 4 people (they need to be on the small side tho).


8. Learning to Cook - I have always wanted to learn how to cook... but I guess necessity is the mother of all invention, and with Mom's cooking around, there wasn't necessity present. In any case, there's still lots of room for improvement. So far on the JKYL menu there's pasta, curry, tom yum soup, fried rice, and meat/vege dishes. Shall aim to expand my repertoire in 2008. Suggestions welcomed.


9. Semi-professional Wedding co-ordinator/emcee - Since I was back, I attended 7 weddings, of which I was best-man 3x and emcee 2x. My friends say I should provide professional wedding co-ordinator/planner/emcee services.... maybe next time as a sideline... heh.

Can't really think of a 10th to round things up, so I'll just leave this as it is.

Here's wishing everyone a special 2008. May you realize your dreams.

XW & Goon's wedding day

We could see the evil in the gatekeepers' eyes, the smirks on their wicked faces. The prey, Goon.









And they subjected him and his brothers to this kinda torture. There was more but it's just too gruesome to show....







So much so that even Sky was exhausted, and Joe terrified.










He tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
He had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter...









For those who have gotten a ride in the Skymobil before, you should be able to empathize with me in this picture.




Flowers arranged, tables set.
Don't they make a lovely silhouette?
This day I'm sure they'll never forget.
Presenting Goon & XW, the newly weds!






Go Goon!

Team iDA

In my last job before going to Australia, I was with iDA, and was involved in the soccer team. Here is a pic taken before one of our matches.

And no the guy behind isn't the kacang puteh man, he's our captain =)

Team Number: 8
Position: Left-back/left-mid
Record when I'm playing P6 W1 D1 L4.

Fun times.

My wall in the hall...

This is the wall outside my room in Raffles Hall when I was in year 3.
It was block 3A, and that's where the Bomberman Gang resided.

Got Milk? / iMac / Shakesspeare in love / Nestea / Sesame Street / A|X / Coke / Austin Powers / McDonald's

Can't really see the rest...

Wonder what happened to Mr B1.... hmmmm

Goodbye Yr1, Hello Yr2

(NGP = Non-graded Pass)

5 more weeks of freedom...

jPod unravelled

Top down, music up, cruising along Surfers Paradise.


I miss jPod.

3x3

conquered.... now for the 4x4.

Stevie NG (Angie) wedding / Melaka road trip

Tis the season to get married... tra-la-la-la-la-la.... you get the drift.
This is the 2nd wedding for me in M'sia, the first being Phaik's (who is now 7 months pregnant.. congrats!) wedding in KL, in 05.

Road trip with 2 of my best buddies, Jo & Sky. There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's the Malaysian Ringgit.

Jo compiled a CD for the road trip... and admittedly it wasn't the best collection of songs. Song No.1 - Chage & Aska's Say Yes. Enough said? Sky kept hitting the "Next" button.

Melaka Executive Summary
1. In a word: Kampung-in-transition.
2. City traffic: 1.2km/j
3. Main attraction: Jonker Street
4. No.1 Myth: Chicken Rice Balls are damn good la!
5. Fashion: too much attention to detail
6. Shopping: couldn't get there. See no 2.
7. Best food on the trip: Jonker street chendol. (had 2)
8. Girls: can't complain... hor Sky? hor?
9. Road culture: think most of the cars' indicators are spoilt... a bit like Sg but even more so
10.Car culture: check out the sticker on the side of the cars man... think its part of the part of the deal when they buy the car... "Eh bang, sticker percuma la..."






Wedding Day/Dinner
- Best man... again. They say 3 strikes and you're out.
- Sisters: .... well at least none of them were pregnant, like one of my previous experiences.
- Photographer was quite kay-en-en. Kept shoving me away during the gate-crashing to get a better shot.
- No Ang Pow box... all the singaporeans blur.
- Free seating. Don't try this, it's very messy.
- Karaoke!!!! Good idea to bring ear plugs just in case.
- Resident host-cum-karaoke-singer
- Drinks self-service. 1 bottle of mineral water, 1 bottle of 7-up, and 1 bucket of ice. Dozo...
- Start late end early! 8.30-10.30pm. chop chop.

Congratulations Steve and Angie. May you have many many happy years ahead.

Tonn....

@Joe's tonning (stay up overnight)
been awhile since i did this. think that was in JC.
Had a preview of lots of HD movies on Rod's HDTV.

Go reds! YNWA.

back...

back in sg...
back online...
back in the game...
back to the gang...
back to 222...
back where i belong...
back =)

Quirky quirks from the land down under #00008

Angmo kid in a pram crying.
Mom pushing the pram ignores.

Kid: "Mommy, I'm crying... waaah..."
Mom: *ignores*

*Repeat above*

Vampire Cup

It's on, a race to see which med school will win the coveted Vampire Cup.

Did my share today.... it's a much better experience than the first time, when I almost lost consciousness and the nurse had to elevate my legs and lay my head down to get the blood back into the head, in 1994. This time I topped up my fluids from the day before. Also had a good meal before the actual event.

500mls drawn, from about 6 liters.

It's not scary at all.
I encourage everyone to give it a go.
(>45kg, 16-70 years old)

Give the gift of life.

Sunny Coast - Mooloolaba

During the hunt for jPod in Sunshine Coast, I stopped over at a couple of places to have a look around. One of them was Mooloolaba.

All together now... Moo-Loo-La-Ba.

There's no view from the Loo by the way... just from on top of it.

Buggy surf rescue. Cute.


































"Mooloolaba Surf Lifesaving Club Inc. Founded 1922"








One of the many fancy accommodations available there.






















And of course, the sun, sand and sea.

Wanna come here hol? =)

Quoteable quotes #2

"The heart...moves of itself and does not stop unless for ever."
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

jPod: again...

jPod: 11082007

Highlight of med school so far...

We received our exam results last week, and yesterday, the school organized a feedback and Q&A session for us. Let's just say I definitely have room for improvement.

The session focused on where we did well, and where we faltered, and some statistics on how the cohort did as a whole.

Then they went on to talk about diagrams and drawings, and how we don't use enough of them. They proceeded to talk about one question where we had to draw a foetus and some of the relevant fluids, and then they flashed out some of our answers. They wanted to show us some extreme examples, and the point was that however bad the drawing, as long as it made sense, it was a good one.

When the first drawing went up on the screen, I recognized it straight away. It was mine. =)

And the crowd went "Awwwww.....". It was smiling. So was I.

In other examples there were stick figures, and some even looked like aliens.

Yay.

SensAsians

Just came back from some trivia competition at the nearby local pub organized for our school by some of the students. We were supposed to have 8 people on the team but 4 of them bailed out, and I was kinda not too keen on it. But a couple of the guys were so pumped up about it so I just went along.

Didn't have a good feeling about it... anyway...

So there were 4 of us. 4 chinese guys. 1 chess player, 1 pharmacist, 1 dodgy engineer guy, and me. We were a little late, so we had to be at an obscure corner of the room. Then we needed to come up with a name. So I coined the name 'SensAsians'. Ha.

That was probably the highlight of the night for us, cos we did really badly in the trivia. A lot of the questions were Aussie stuff. I think we could have scored the lowest overall... shh...

After it was finished, we quickly faded into the background and left.

Kinda what I imagined how night would turn out.

Quoteable quotes

"Learning, particularly under stress, is facilitated by nicotine."
Rang et al, Pharmacology

SG trippin part 1 of 7

One semester down, 7 more to go. To say that it flew past would be a lie, to say it crawled wouldn't do justice. I probably overcame the most difficult time of my life to date. *Self-5* And, I also probably enjoyed my time back home more than ever.

Exams didn't go as swimmingly as hoped. Before I started this I resolved to do well. No numbers, just do well. By my standards. I felt that I could have done better, but not by a lot. This semester was more of getting used to life away from home alone, getting used to interacting with people of another culture, and to get the ergonomics of knowledge acquisition down pat. I think I achieved those objectives.

This semester should be a lot better. All settled, have a bunch of great friends in and out of school, and my brain is all greased up for another 20+ weeks of work.

It's been a very short and very sweet trip back to the heartland (never thought I would ever use that word). 11 days, family, many friends, bomberman, people of the land, new landmarks and familiar ones, my trusty Blackmobil OPC Sunny (all 600+kms travelled), and just too much food. Just have to work it off. Gym membership maybe.

- Singlsh everywhere
- $3 meals
- <$2 transport
- Perspiration
- High frequency of buses/trains
- Sim Lim Sq
- Wireless@SG
- Traffic jams, impatient drivers
- Overcrowded shopping malls
- Kopi-O

And now back to the drawing board. Quite excited about this semester as we get to go to hospitals and start seeing real patients, the greatest teachers around. I have never ever believed in textbook learning, but I guess its better to have some grounding before you're seen prancing around the hospital with a stethoscope around your neck.

Be back soon...

Of Bengs and Lians

Ah Beng. Ah Lain.

"Blah blah blah...."

*Scene - tutorial*
*class mate A reading stuff from the computer (as we do in every tutorial)*

Classmate A: "and then we have lots of other information..... blah blah blah..."
Classmate B: "Bob Loblaw!"
Me: "Hahaha..."
Rest of class: *silence*
Classmate C: "what?"
Me: "Arrested Development"
Classmate C: *shrug*
Me and Classmate B: *high-five*



People should watch Arrested Development.

If anything, it improves your quality of life by a couple of notches.

Durian

We always have food during tutorials, and we take turns to bring it every time. Today was my turn, and I thought I would try to let my classmates and tutor try some durian. So the day before, I went over to Woolworth's to get one. Kept seeing it when I did my grocery shopping last time, but never wanted to get it as my craving wasn't that bad, and it was quite dear. about $4+ per kg (with skin). My durian costs me almost $12.

So, I bought 1 durian and brought it to school without the skin. Wanted to show them the whole fruit, but i figured that it would be just too messy. Didn't see a need to impress anyone with my durian handling skills (or the lack of it).

I brought the stuff into our classroom during the break. It was sealed in an air-tight container so the smell didn't get out, until I opened it to let some of them have a whiff. And their reaction was priceless.... disgust epitomized. After that I sealed the container back. Some of the students went out of the classroom during the break, and when they came back, one of them remarked "Did someone fart?". =)

So we decided to have the durian after class..... and when the time came, I opened the container, 1/2 of the class just ran out. (Muhahah... more for myself). My tutor was the most sporting of all, as she consumed 1 WHOLE SEED. The few left just nibbled at it....

So much for trying to share the joy... but I guess it's not something for everyone's taste buds.

My housemate Chris eats the stuff... so I'll share it with him.

Incidentally, the foul smell that is reeked by durians is partly due to this (and not the BO from the guy in the picture below):

Thiol, one of the organosulfur compounds that may be responsible for the characteristic odour of durian (Thanks wiki).




Will have to have 1 session when I go back. 16 days more.

(All pics courtesy from wikipedia. It's my fav site now... helping me through school. gonna make a donation when (if) I graduate)