Tagged

My friend, Sakura tagged me in her blog about 3 weeks ago and here I am replying it.

1. I love to SMILE
I think so. People do say I laugh too much sometimes. It's not a crime to smile and laugh too much, is it? So, smile more and infect more people.

2. I like to think.
I do take a long time to make up my mind most of the time, especially when it concerns buying something. It's just difficult trying to take into account the price, quality, ingredients used, whether it suits your needs most or not. There are also times when I make a decision on impulse but that rarely happens.

3. I love food and cooking.
I do love food and cooking. My love for food is all the time but cooking, it depends on whether am I cooking for the sake of filling my hungry stomach or when I'm having all the time in the world to create something delicious, or to cook for friends. I do believe that food brings everybody together. Food is also one of my weak point. I don't know how many times have I been trick to going to someone's house for dinner and end up having to do work.

4.I'm clumsy and careless.
Yes. I totally agree with this. I hate it sometimes but this is how I am.

5. I'm an observer and sometimes critical.
I think I'm always too blur to notice anything. So, don't blame me for not being sensitive.

6. I don't like to jump into conclusion.
Agree. I want to see with my own eyes before believing anything. But I have a tendency to assume something. You can ask YY to tell you the story about the 2 spoons and fish which happened back in college if she still remembers it.

7. I'm healthy concious.
I think I'm not that health concious but I do try to watch my weight, the types of food which I eat, the amount of time I spend sitting at home and not exercising, etc.

8. I'm independent person.
I wished I am. I depend a lot on friends while I'm away from home and my family when I'm back. I would really want to be a steady driver so that I can go to more places on my own but still I'm too scared to drive alone. So, aim for this summer is to master my driving skills!

I don't know who to tag. Maybe anyone who has read this post. Maybe now you all have a bit more insight of how I think about myself.

Exam de-stress or should it be adding stress?

Before I start on my story about what happened after I've officially finished my exam on the 9th of June, I just couldn't resist from blogging about the food I ate in the past 2 days in Malaysia. It's not much, but it is just for the sake of making a few people who decided not to come back this summer jealous. Hehehehe.

First food I ate was noodles in fish head sup. The big bowl on the left cost only RM10 and it was enough to fill 4 person up. Cheap and nice, that's what I call a good bargain. The shop is located in Kepong which is near my house. So, anyone wants to try, I can offer to bring you there provided that I remember how to get there.

This morning's breakfast was Wan Tan Mee (1 ton of noodles, just joking. It just sounds the same). It was only eating it that I realised how much I miss it. RM 3.60.

Lunch: Chap Choi Fan (Mixed dishes with rice). It's self service where you get to choose any dishes from about 50 choices. I took 3 dishes including Ku Lou Yok - the reddish looking meat (it's pork coated with flour and fried before stirring in the tomato sauce), mushrooms (mixture of black mushroom and golden needle mushroom) and small Kai Lan (my favourite local vegetable). RM3.50.

It was accompanied by a cup of Soya Bean. RM 1.20. Dinner was always home cooked meals by my parents. Hehe. I wanted to help them out but they said don't steal the work from retired people.

After straying from the main topic for so long. It finally starts now.

Right after I finished Osce, I met up with F to go to town to get birthday presents for 2 persons who were getting old. It is always difficult trying to get Birthday gifts for people and we were practically going round and round in circles around town. I'm so happy that both of them liked the presents we chose.

After spending about 3 hours, we finally got the presents sorted. Stopped by Zara Furniture and saw a few really cute things:

Lego cutleries. Quite innovative. It does make arranging cutleries in an organised manner easy.

Another version of the cute cutleries

The shape is the typical glass where they serve Chinese tea in but they're just in different colours.

After getting the presents, the next task was to give them to the 2 person before I leave for my trip and before they go back to Malaysia. We managed to catch hold of one of them in town and F trick the other one by using Osce tips as a bait.

Met T and one of the Birthday girl, GM in town and we decided to make Sushi for dinner. At that time, I still need to start packing for my trip to Nice the next morning and start packing to move my things into storage. Hmmmm, don't ask me how I manage to do everything including making Sushi that night but all I can say was, it was really stressful!

We took about 3 hours to make the Sushi but the wait was worth it.

The sweet egg rolls were too small for filling on top of sushi, so, we decided to let it take over the role of seaweed to hold the salmon in place.

GM made some Japanese - Chinese soup fusion. Sorry, I cannot remember the name of it.

Tadaa! The sushi which we made. T was the best Sushi roller among us. She can be qualified to work at a Sushi bar.

I reached home around 12.30am that night. My flight to Nice was at 6.50am so I had to leave around 4.30am. Plus, I haven't even started packing! I guess you all have come to the conclusion that I didn't sleep that night, which is very true. Usually after exams, people usually relax and just laze around to de-stress, but for me on the other hand, I was prancing around town, made sushi, rushing to pack for my 3 day trip to Nice and for storage, move my things into storage before finally flying back to Malaysia for summer. Phew, that's a hectic lifestyle but it was all worth it.

My next entry will be about Nice and Monaco. Till then, take care.

Liverpool One and Albert Dock

Finally, after 3 weeks of hiatus due to exams and travelling, I'm back!

This is my first time blogging from Malaysia. The differences are:

• it's 6 am in the morning and surprisingly I'm awake (due to jetlag)
• it's really warm even with the fan blowing at me at full blast
• I'm finding that breathing takes a bit more effort with the heavy moisture in the air
• mosquitoes flying around and knowing that I've been bitten as my legs are itching at the moment.

Phew, life as a blogger in Malaysia is not easy.

My entry today starts from 3rd of June, the day I finished my papers for the exams. We were supposed to start worrying about Osce but at that point, everyone's reaction was, 'Osce? What Osce?'

All of us were really low on fuel and high in hungry after torturing our poor brains with EMQs for 2 hours. So, first stop was of course to refill. We had lunch at Tokyou which was a Thai-Malaysian-Japanese fusion restaurant.

From Chinese stir fried noodles to Japanese fried seaweed. They were delicious! I really liked the seaweed as I was expecting it to be soft but turned out that it was crunchy.

I ordered Salmon in Teriyaki sauce which was served on sizzling hotplate. The presentation was impressive. I could barely see through my foggy glasses. They fried the salmon first before pouring the sauce over it.

It is always nice eating with so many people as I got to taste a variety of food as they didn't mind sharing.After a really nice meal, we set off for Liverpool One. For those who are interested in dining at Tokyou, it's very near Chinatown, on the row of shops just before the arch on Berry Street.

Liverpool One

It will be officially open in September 2008 but everyone is already hyped up with its soft opening. My friend who went a few days before told me that even people from Manchester came to check it out.I really liked the place. It grouped all the shops in one place. One thing about UK, the shops, no matter how new they are will always be similar as they are chain stores. So, the only 'new' shop we have is Debenhams first outlet in Liverpool city centre. Even that was a chain store. I saw a new Apple store coming up but the shop is still in renovation.

There's a shop where you can make your own teddy and dress it up in really cute clothes and accessories. They even have shoes, glasses and Disney costumes custom made for teddy bears only. The price however, were more expensive than human infant clothes. So, unless you have extra money to spare, these teddy bears are a luxury. There's a big Goofy figure at Disney store as well.

Liverpool One made Albert Dock more accessible now as it connected Albert Dock to Church Street. (I hope I'm right on this as I'm really bad with street names and navigation)

Albert Dock

Albert dock is always so serene and beautiful. I've been here so many times with friends who came to visit as it is a not-to-be-missed tourist spot. It was always me showing people around and the last time I played the role of a tourist was 3 years back. So, this time, we decided that as true students studying in Liverpool, we have to re-enforce our knowledge of Liverpool thus we became tourists again for the visit this time around.

The Giant anchor in front of Maritime museum. There are no limit to the number of poses for photos that we can come up with.

The different shops at Albert Dock. My friends went crazy at the sweets shop. There were just too many sweets to choose from. Too bad, I'm not a big fan of sweets.

Solution to over-sleeping. Get the biggest and loudest alarm clock!

I think they do try so hard to make Crocs more appealing but unsuccessful.

The pigeons here are so lazy! Too lazy to even stand properly.

Below are just crazy photos we took at the Riveside walk.

There's always a reason why we're not doing modelling.

From Charlie Angles, shadow play to being scolded by a tall person trying to look taller. We seriously let our creativity run wild.It's not Elvis but someone else. I've forgotten who.Don't even ask me what is that thing.
I think this may be the most normal looking photo out of the rest.

We looked like this at the end of the day. At least we managed to relax and took Osce off our minds for half a day. Back to exam stress again.

Hibernation for at least 3 weeks

Escape will go into hibernation for 3 weeks.

Its owner needs the time to focus all her energy into this coming battle of life and death.

Current status:

Motivation : 6/10
Concentration : 5/10
Wishful thinking : 10/10
Level of luck : hopefully 10/10 (data collection still in process)
Probability of giving up : 5/10

Battle strategy:
If situation doesn't look good, better retreat rather than die on the battle field.
Prepare for next battle.

Things can be worse

A Letter to Dad

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed 'Dad'. With the worst premonition he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands,

'Dear Dad, it is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you, I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mum and you. I've been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice but I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercings, tattoos, her tight Motorcycle clothes and because she is so much older than I am. But it's not only the passion Dad, she's pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy, she owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want. In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better, she sure deserves it! Don't worry Dad, I'm 15, and I know how to take care of myself, someday I'm sure we'll be back to visit so you can get to know your many grandchildren.

Love, your son, Joshua

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Jason's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that's on the kitchen table. Call when it is safe for me to come home :)

When I came across this letter from a random blog, I started laughing non-stop until my sides hurt. I guess it is a really good tactic for getting away from a major mistake that you've made.

I do agree, things can be worse and remember to read the post-scripts! They are important.

Caution
Not recommended to be used on elderly parents with high risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Malaysian Manglish and culture shock

Aren't we speaking the same language? Why are you doing it that way???!!

Do you get that puzzled look when talking to people from other countries? Why is it that Malaysian accent is so easily identified? Do you get very self-conscious when speaking to the local people because your usual way of speaking contains loads of grammar and pronunciation mistakes? Do you get a shock of your life while watching your flatmate wash the dishes?

These were the things I've encountered during my stay in England since the September of 2005. Whoa, that's a long time. I haven't been back since the summer of 2006 and I'm anticipating for my flight on the 14th of June from Manchester to Kuala Lumpur.

This recent conversation which I had with my GP partner during our 3 hour lunch break came up as we were bored. He's half Malaysian but was born in the UK. I can't believe he even visits his relatives in Malaysia more than the number of times I went home over this 2.5 years.

Talking about Malaysian accent, we are really famous for ending our sentences with all sorts of different additional sounds. Our most popular and infamous one is -Lah. It is so, so, soooooo difficult to remind myself not to end each and every sentences with it when I first came over to the UK. Without the -Lah, it feels like the sentence is without a full stop left hanging in mid-air. Usually I start off the conversation fine, but as I get more and more comfortable, the -Lahs will start appearing before I could stop myself. I used to use a lot of -Bah as well when I was in Sabah last time and even both -Lah and -Bah next to each other. For example, 'Janganlah, Bah' which translates to 'Don't be like that'.

The next thing is grammar. My goodness! This is even worse than trying to get rid of the -Lah. I've never realised that my grammar was so poor until I forced myself to speak proper English with my course mates. It is really difficult. Sometimes, it's already too late when you've started with a wrong structure and then, to savage the sentence, I'll try to correct it midway and it ends up sounding really awkward. I was talking to M the other day and she told me the same thing as well. So difficult! Sometimes I wished that I'd grew up speaking perfect English and don't have to change the old habit when I'm already this old. Ok, ok, 22 isn't that old yet. Oh yes, M, what happened to our 1 hour a day English conversation session? We wanted to try to improve on our language skills but in the end, laziness and too much work overtook that priority.

I'm not sure about you, but most Malaysians which I've spoken to tend not to pronounce the Th- but instead, we pronounce it as just T- without the sound of blowing air and withdrawing the tongue after placing it between the teeth. I'm not sure if this is the correct technique of pronouncing it, but my mum has taught me this way when I was younger but I've never followed it. Please correct me if I'm wrong. There are times when I've pronounced a few English words especially those which I'm unfamiliar with using the Bahasa Baku way and that brings puzzled looks from my friends.

Don't you feel that the way we talk resembles singing at times? We have a really rich intonation while speaking as compared to the British. I think it's thanks to our multi-language skills and influence from so many cultures that we share and borrow words from other languages and dialects to enrich our vocabulary and intonation. No wonder lecturers here sound so boring. Hehehehe.

I've been brought up to greet people who are older than me by addressing them as 'Uncle' or 'Aunty' as a sign of respect. But over here, they will only call their actual relatives uncles and aunties. My GP partner told me that it was really awkward for him to just call his mother's friends uncles and aunties as he's never done that over here. Another phrase which he said was really funny to him was 'making noise'. We do hear this so very often when somebody is complaining about someone else. We mean complaining when we use this 'special phrase'. I've never realised that this phrase was never in the English dictionary.

Coming to culture. This one totally shocked me in my first month in the UK. I was chatting to my local house mate while watching her do her dishes when she announced that she was done.

She has soaked her dishes in a mixture of water and dish-washing detergent, scrubbed them with a piece of cloth to make sure nothing else was stuck on them, place them on the plate holder to drain off the water, and proceeded to use another cloth to dry them off before placing them in her cabinet.

'Aren't you going to rinse your dishes?' I asked her with a horrified face.

'No, it's done after I've dried them'

'But, there's still soap on them'

'The soap is for killing the bacteria' (I don't even know if she was telling the truth or not)

This is definitely a culture shock to me. A big one too. Since that time, I used my own plates for everything, even when she cooked for me. Never mind, don't think about how she washed her pots and frying pans. Hehehehehe.

Food, this one I still cannot accept it. Do you treat crisps a.k.a. keropok as part of your proper meal? One of the famous menu for lunch is sandwich with crisps. After finishing their lunch, my local friends always end it with either a bar of chocolate, cereal bar or just something sweet. I find it unhealthy, therefore I've never come around to trying sandwiches with crisps yet. My friends were trying to convince me that it was delicious but I still cannot accept the crisp being part of lunch. It is not only weird to me but also unhealthy.

Phew, this is a long entry. I'm sure that you all will have your own unusual or funny experiences and encounters as well. Come share it with me and we'll have a good laugh.

Super short concentration

I don't know why am I always faced by this problem. My concentration span is so short that after reading for 10 minutes, my mind will either wander elsewhere or I will start on something else.

An example of a scenario that happened 2 days ago:

I was supposed to revise for OSCE before my drop-in session the next morning. Took out the OSCE booklets, even opened the page on obstetric palpation. The next thing I did was, reached out for my medical ethics book as I remembered that I should start revising for ethics as well.

I was reading on consent for children when I remembered the question on whether the 4 medical principles are prima facie or not. That came up in 1st year. I couldn't even remember what prima facie meant. Went to surf the net for answers.

At least I found what prima facie meant. I means the principle is binding unless it conflicts with another moral principles. In other words, the 4 principles are prima facie.

After that, the EMQ question book caught my attention. Why not do a few questions. At that time, my table was piled with 3 layers of material, lowest being my OSCE stuff, followed by ethics book and now EMQ. Came across the question on menopause. Decided to read up on it.

Took out my Gynaecology book (4th layer), and then the last section on the types of gynaecological procedure caught my eye. So, I started reading about it. Finally, I remembered about menopause and turned to the page to read up on it. While reading halfway I suddenly realised it was getting late already and I still haven't started on OSCE yet, which is supposed to be my main priority for the night.

Finally, I kept all the books away and started my OSCE revision. It got boring halfway and I was reminded that I haven't brushed my teeth yet. After brushing, I felt even sleepier. So, I decided to retire to bed and maybe cram as much as possible in the morning.

Woken up by my alarm clock but I don't know if I should thank or curse the person who invented the snooze button. Pressed it a googolplex of times until my conscience got the better of my laziness.

(In case you didn't know what is 1 googolplex, it's 10^(10100) =10^{10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,} continue next line
^{000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000})
Imagine, there's not even enough space to write the zeros in 1 line! Wikipedia link on the definition here so that you know I'm not just pulling your leg.

See, I even start diverting while writing this blog entry. It's not even centred on what googolplex is.

When I finally jumped out of bed, there wasn't anymore time to revise! Ate a quick breakfast and off I went to my drop-in session. So much for trying to revise and getting distracted by so many things.

I'm always like this with everything else, even blogging. Sometimes, I wanted to add a picture into an entry and end up laughing and looking through the related albums and branch off to the unrelated ones as well.

I know I'm hopeless. It is always a miracle when I complete something therefore, miracles do happen in my life. Good reason to feel happy once a while.

P.s.
I'm sorry to cause some concerns about my previous post. I'm fine, you all don't have to worry about me at all. But thank you to those who MSN-ed me asking if I was all right. It's just that I have this thing about writing these nonsense when I get inspired by something. Plus for the last entry, I could even try acting out the emotions felt by the character and cam whore a bit followed by experimenting with Photoshop. Very soon, I want to direct my own video or something already. Hehehehe..... Wait, I'm supposed to be studying medicine and here I'm fantasizing about film making. Nooooooo......, don't let my short concentration affect my career choice as well! Wait, I did complete a poem, took photos, and even photoshop. A miracle has happened! (You all must be thinking that this person is crazy)

I hope that each of you can find something in life, no matter how small or trivial or stupid it is to be considered as your own miracle. A dose of happiness, no matter how small they are do make a difference. (One of them being that you'll be a step closer to turning into the crazy person above)

Now, to cut down from 4 layers to 3 tonight!

Grey

Probably nobody will ever noticed the mask I put on

Since when did I become so good at it?

Living life without a meaning

Tomorrow is just a continuation of my sufferings



Overflowing anger

Overflowing disappointment

Overflowing sadness

Overflowing frustrations



I struggle to keep the demons inside but they're desperately fighting to get out
How much longer can I last? How much more can this body take?
My heart screams but no one can hear it
Will it ever end?

Hope was something which I've forgotten

Have I tried breaking free?

Is it possible for a person like me?

Someone who has been abandoned a long time ago


I have given up on everything
Everything except this precious memory of you
It was that day, when I finally heard it
And set my heart to escape from all these


One day I may be able to show you a real smile

A genuine smile, neither forced nor faked

That will be the day I come running back to you

Till then, take care.

Overslept!!!!

I suddenly awaken, thinking that it was still early as my alarm didn't go off. Feeling a bit weird cause it was a bit too bright and it was as if I've slept for a long time, I reached for my alarm clock only to find that I was already half an hour late for my appointment to meet my convenor for SSM!

Why does this always happen to me at least once every SSM?????? True enough, it happened for last SSM, and the SSM before and the one before, even the first one!

I jumped right out of bed, heart racing and seriously panicked. What to do, what to do!

Even though I was really late, I still had time to have a heart to heart talk to my alarm clock for not waking me up on time. I was supposed to wake up 3 hours before the meeting, how did I manage to oversleep that much! I even set 2 alarms that morning. Goodness! I must have developed the innate behaviour of switching all alarm off while still sleeping.

Never mind. First, better contact my convenor to apologise and try to rearrange a meeting time. What if he's angry? What if he doesn't have time to meet me any more? The dateline for my essay is in 3 weeks time, I cannot afford to delay meeting him!

I quickly switched on my computer to look for his telephone number. Stupid computer, why do you take so long to start up! Finally, found his email with his details. Started dialling......Oh no.....what excuse can I give? I can't say it's because I've overslept right? What to say!

'Hello' (too late, he has already answered the phone)

'Can I speak to Dr. B please?'

'Speaking' (Alamak!!! What's my excuse, never mind, just improvise and hopefully he doesn't query too much or else he'll see through my lies)

'It's Noreen here. I'm so sorry that I got the time mixed up. I thought the meeting was at 1pm but when I double-checked the email for the venue, then I realised it was at 12pm. I'm really sorry about it....' (Please, please, please don't be angry at me)

'Will it be possible for me to meet you at 1pm?' (I crossed all my fingers and toes)

'I should be able to do that. Hold on a second, let me have a look at my schedule'

........... (The dreadful silence)

'Okay, that's fine'

'Thank you very much. I'll see you later.'


Phew......at least he still agreed to see me. Stupid Noreen for not waking up. What is this happened for my exams?????? No, I must not let this happen in future. This might be a warning sign.

I quickly printed out my essay, ate a bit of cornflakes with milk and off I went, sprinting to his office. All my plans of waking up earlier to look through my essay and mentally prepare myself to see him before the meeting went down the drain. I'm already late, now unprepared some more. How much worse can it be?

The meeting with Dr. B wasn't too bad. He made a lot of comments therefore, I will have to improve on a lot of areas of my essay. He's such a nice person, and I felt really guilty for being late. Hate myself so much.

So much for my post on the different types of alarm clocks. I can't believe that 2 alarm clocks weren't enough to wake me. Have to get a 3rd one. Let me ask someone to give me a morning call as well for the exams, just in case. If not, I'll have to prepare for the resits.

New 7 Wonders of the World

I didn't realise that there was a new list of 7 wonders of the world until M and I started wondering if Angkor Wat was one of them or not.

The list was released on the 07 - 07 - 2007 and it can be found on its official website here.

All the pictures below are taken from the official website.

The 7 Wonders:

Machu Picchu, Peru (1460 - 1470) (Sounds like Pikachu!)
Located deep in the Amazon jungle bye the Incas. Was lost once but found again in 1911.

Petra, Jordan (9 B.C. - 40 A.D.)
Located on the edge of the Arabian Desert but it is a city with many water chambers and tunnel constructions.

The Great Wall of China, China (220 B.C and 1368 - 1644A.D.)
If it can be seen from space, it must be huge! Built as a defence system against Mongolian attacks.

The Taj Mahal, Angra, India (1630 A.D.)
Built in the name of love by Shah Jahan for his beloved late wife.

The Roman Colosseum, Rome, Italy (70 - 72 A.D.)
Built during the Roman Empire for fights between prisoners and vicious animals like lions.

Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1931)
38 meters tall statue of Jesus which took 5 years to construct.

The Pyramid at Chichen Itza, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico (before 800 A.D.)
Great Mayan temple. I wonder how many steps are there to climb to the top.

My dream is to visit all of them in future.


Some other special mention to the other finalists:

Statues of Easter Island, Easter Island, Chile (10th - 16th Century)
25 meter high stone sculptures located on an island in the middle of nowhere. I was telling M that I would disappear with the island while visiting if it ever sunk below the sea like Atlantis.

The Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow, Russia (1156-1850)
So colourful! It has a complex history to it.

It was difficult taking the picture of the whole Eiffel Tower standing so close to it.The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France (1887 - 89)
It is only very beautiful at night. In the day time, the whole thing is made of steel and it's of an ugly dark brownish greenish rusty looking colour. There's a lift which you can take but cost about 8 Euro to take up up to the 2nd and 3rd levels or you can choose to walk up the stairs for free.

Neuschwanstein Castle, Schwangau, Germany (1869 - 1884)
It was speculated that Walt Disney's castle's design was inspired by this castle. It is truly a beautiful castle worth making it's way to the top 7. There were meant to be 3 castles in the area but only 2 were completed as the King went bankrupt after building this castle halfway. They repainted the 1st castle yellow which was very striking.

So, after all that browsing through, I came to the conclusion that Angkor Wat is not one of the 7 wonders. However, it made it to the finalist!

Angkor, Cambodia (12th century)
World's largest sacred temple. Too bad it's not one of the 7. I'm planning to visit this magnificent looking temple this summer. So, anybody interested? It's going to be in August. Contact me or M for more details.