Hospital group night out

Last Wednesday was a night our for my hospital group. We gathered at Mayflower Chinese restaurant for dinner and karaoke.

From stir fry squid, beef, to sweat and sour, you name it, we've ordered it. Food was delicious.

S did the opening to our karaoke session cause no one else dared to take up the challenge.

M and S sang Pretty Fly for a White Guy. It was fun. Didn't know that M could rap as well.

Everyone was so into singing Oasis's song.

Finally, I sang a song by Avril Lavigne as well. Wanted to sing Complicated but somebody insisted on Sk8ter boi.

It was a really fun night out. Don't know when will we be able to gather like this again.

My beloved hospital group. How time flies. We've been together for the past year struggling and supporting each other all the way till the finals. Will miss them badly.

After karaoke, we made our way to get more drinks and dance in town but I don't know how we ended up in one of the worst clubs ever. No wonder there were not many people there. Hahaha. Nevertheless, I almost lost my voice from shouting too much in that club. I still don't know how can people meet up in a club, I will always pick the Mamak stall any time.

The next day was the start of my trip to Venice. So hectic! I can still feel the tiredness from writing this blog. Hahaha.

Feels like home

Finally, we have our own Malaysian restaurant in Liverpool - Rasa Malaysia Boleh. It is situated near the small Kimos and Philharmonic Hall if anyone is interested in dining there. The funny story about it was, I heard about it from 2 groups of people, one naming the restaurant Malaysia Boleh and another group naming it Rasa Malaysia causing me to end up thinking that there are 2 new Malaysian restaurants in Liverpool. Hahahaha. How I wish.

This evening, the 3 of us made our way there to meet up and of course, to taste the food.

I think you can identify who is the most eager amongst us. I enjoyed my cold ice Milo drink while waiting for the food to be served. Even the setting in the restaurant has such a strong Malaysian feel to it.

Petai stirred fried with long beans and aubergines in sambal belacan sauce. Yummy! I can't believe that we can get petai here.

And even Ikan Kembung! Accompanied with spicy belacan sauce.

How can we not order Beef Rendang?

Miss home? Nah, not with the opening of this restaurant anymore. The price was reasonable as well. It came up to 10 pounds per person.

Will I return this Friday? Most probably.

Happiest day of my life

Results for finals were out at 4pm today. My friend and I had teaching at 3pm. Thinking that it would take only an hour but it lasted till 4.40pm.

That 40 minutes were the longest 40 minutes of my life. I felt my phone vibrating every few seconds after the clock strike 4pm and yet we were still stuck in this lecture on clinical trials on CML. Goodness! My legs couldn't stay still, my mind couldn't focus at all.

'You can go now', those words started our race back home. We practically ran all the way back. Finally, after all those sleepless nights, scroll down, no, it's not published under Academic Transcripts, let's try Overall year results.........pass, scroll down..... pass, scroll some more........pass.......YAY!!!!! I passed my finals!!!!!!!!!!

Now I will say yes to everything cause I'm just too happy. Called my parents even though it was already 12 midnight back home and they said they couldn't sleep cause they were waiting for my phone call. I wished that every 4th year medic could feel the same as I do but sadly that's not the case. Hoping for the best for the resits for them.

Things which I will need to blog about are Karaoke with hospital group on Wednesday night and my trip to Venice, Verona, Florence and Pisa from Thursday till Monday morning which seriously was right out a competition from Amazing Race considering all the detour and road blocks which we had to go through. I haven't fully recovered from the trip yet so, updates will be delayed.

Till then.

Post Finals Cruise Party

Finally, after a long hiatus due to finals, it's over!!!!! Now it's the waiting game for the results which will be out in less than 10 days. Scary!

I will need all the luck I can get, so, if you're generous and kind enough, please lend me all of it. I just want to get to 5th year.

Post Finals Cruise Party:

We had a post finals party along the Mersey river. We reached the terminal early to do some catching up before we boarded the boat. And yes, I dragged M, who is the only dentistry student up the boat. Who knows, someone might have a toothache?

I didn't have a nice dress to wear and had to rush down to town that afternoon to get one. Yup, got this dress which can be worn on Chinese New Year too as it is red enough.

We were given a complimentary drink as we boarded the boat.

We could enjoy the sea breeze and watch the sunset on the top deck.

I took like 4 shots in order to get everyone into the right position.

Wonder why D looked so miserable even though he's surrounded by 3 girls. Maybe not pretty enough for him.

M and I

Basically, our main activity that evening was to take as many pictures as possible.

It still seemed so surreal that the finals were over and me being on a boat with the whole bunch of 4th years.

Setting, setting........

There was a caricaturist on board too and the best thing about it was, it was f.o.c!

I had one done with M. Seriously, that doesn't look like me at all. I think I do have more hair. My friends got them done as well. I think he's better at drawing guys.

There was a dance floor and DJ on the lower deck. So, there's a variety of activity to cater for everyone. The only disadvantage of having a boat party was that nobody could go home early unless they decide to swim back to shore.

Enjoying the last moments of sunset

Finally, back to dry land. There was an after party but I was so tired that I decided to go home. Hopefully all of us will have good news to share soon!

Why I can never go on a diet

Thanks to our flat's special guest S and flatmate A, I was offered this dish called Janda Kaya at 12.30am in the morning.

Janda Kaya (Rich Widow) - I have no idea how this name came about

It is a savory 'kuih' with fillings made from potatoes, carrots and chicken, wrapped in a pancake like dough, coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried. It was delicious! For someone who doesn't eat anything after brushing my teeth, I just had to try them even at this hour of the day.

I experienced the 'Now you see it, now you don't' phenomena. The whole plate disappeared within seconds. Whatever dieting effort, going to the gym at least 3 times a week, satisfaction cause I weighed 1/2 a kilo less today went down the drain.

So, moral of the day, 'There's no point dieting if you have good flatmates and guests'. Now, let me brush my teeth for the second time tonight.

JPA scholarships

We had a meeting with Encik Adib and Kak Nazlinda, two JPA officers from London on Tuesday evening over dinner. At first I thought it was going to be a light hearted dinner, but how wrong I was.

Unevitably, the issue of allocation of JPA scholarships popped up. Like what Encik Adib said, there's so many applicants who has met the criteria, each and every single one of them are qualified to get it, but there's only 2 thousand places and from that portion, only the best 150 are sent to the UK for their undergraduate degree. But who actually deserves the scholarship most? Due to the limited number of places, there are bound to be complains and feelings of unjustice not only from the applicant, but from the parents, followed by aunts and uncles....and I added followed by the whole village.

I totally agree with Encik Adib's point of view. It is not only the academic brilliance that counts, but the emotional quotion, interpersonal skills and ability to adapt to the new environment in order for them to maximise this rare opportunity to study overseas. There is also the consideration whether they're patriotic enough to return to serve the country. Seriously, I think reporters should interview him concerning this hot debate around JPA scholarships happening back home currently. He has been looking after us scholars for many years and he knows best about the type of scholar who will be successful. He has seen how many got depressed because they can't cope, failed exams because the learning style was not suitable, got married and pregnant at the wrong time and ended up discontinuing their studies due to commitments to the new member of the family.

I did realise that a lot of people criticise, write letters to the editors of newspapers, and yet, they don't really know the true pictures. To the parents, their son/ daughter will always be the most deserving candidate for the scholarship. To the high achievers, they've definitely worked hard to get as many A1s as possible. To the lower social class, this is their one and only chance to climb up the ladder and receive higher education. It is only human nature to argue that they're the best and others less deserving.

I asked the question of what is JPA's plan for us scholars for the future, expecting a short answer but I got a really long lecture instead. It was very enlightening and directed towards medicine cause that's what I'm studying currently. Why didn't I get this lecture earlier? Saves me the trouble of speculating with my dad. We came up of all sorts like they might encourage us to specialise in fields lacking of specialists etc.

One must wonder why JPA sends scholars to almost every part of the world. Reason is our government wants scholars to learn the culture, work ethics, anything that's beneficial and bring them back with us to Malaysia after we graduate. Through these little changes, we will improve and revampt the system back home. For example, medicine in the UK is famous for its communication skills and bedside manners. This was what they want to incorporate into our Malaysia's healthcare provision. I'm sure you've heard horror stories about how patients are treated back home or even experienced it yourself. He wants us to be the future leaders, people who are able to lead the nation to continue the efforts of our forefathers in building a better Malaysia.

Focusing more on medicine cause that's what I'm concerned about, I am going to write about my own opinion and prospects for us scholars when we go back. I do understand that a lot of us are concerned about the work load and prospects of doing our speciality training. Main points of why we think about doing our housemanship in the UK are shorter working hours, lower cost of living, opportunities to specialise.

If we go back to Malaysia, we would need to do the 3 years compulsory service. For the fresh graduates, that mean 2 years of housemanship and 1 year of medical officer. It is only after that we can start applying to further do our specialist training. Coming to the topic of opportunities to specialise. We do need to compete with graduates from other universities as well. Due to the limit places, there are longer queues for popular specialties especially those where they can set up their own private practices after the end of bond, for example, cardiology, paediatrics, etc. Specialities like Public Health, epidemiology and even anaestaesia have better chances of getting into as they're not as popular. I was glad to hear that we don't need to be registered with the GMC (General Medical Council) to specialise in the UK as there is gov to gov arrangements. There are opportunities to further our studies in the US as well and oncology at Johns Hopkins University was mentioned. So, the future does sound promising to those who go back.

Concerning the long working hours, I guess it will be a blessing in disguise. I've heard consultants condemning the new system of shorter oncalls. They mentioned that the biggest learning curve was for the doctor to look after a patient from the start of the condition till they settle down. Nowadays, there's handover at 4.30pm to the doctor doing the night shift and at 8am to the next shift. The am doctor might start a drug, adverse reaction from that drug occurs during the night shift, in the end, the am doctor will never learn that the management could be improved and all responsibilities of rectifying the situation fell onto the pm doctor whom hasn't had a good grasp of the patient's initial presentation. With the new European working hours coming into force, a lot of budding surgeons will have lesser opportunity to improve their skills as only with exposure can they really master the skill.

Conclusion is, JPA isn't concerned about what we want to specialise in, as long as we have the interest in it. It is the experience, knowledge, culture and skills that we bring back that matters. Jom balik bersama-sama so that our workload will be lesser. At least if we suffer, we'll suffer together. Hehehe. Now back to revision.....

Disappointed

Have you ever encountered a situation where you're really disappointed in yourself?
Wishing that you could turn back the time and do something differently?

Knowing that without that nervousness, that uncertainty, that tiredness, that nagging feeling behind your head that you shouldn't have done that but the autopilot mode doesn't allow you to trust your instinct and still continue digging a deeper hole..... knowing that without all those, you would have sailed through that dreaded mock exam easily and even ace it!

I don't know what is worse, failing because you absolutely don't know anything or failing because you can't perform under duress but the knowledge is there.

I want to turn myself into a punching bag and kick and strangle myself a few times now.

Enough of my ranting. From today onwards, it will be the last stretch, the last chance to give it all, the last opportunity to show what I've really got.

I hate exams, I really do.