Is Tagging that... errr... fun?

Once upon a time I was tagged, and I tagged someone to keep the game going. I wasn't particularly keen about this game actually.. Just playing along for the sake of fun, haha... But then, as the saying goes, what goes around comes around. So today here I am, hit by the boomerang that flies back on my face. Well, here it goes for those who love me so much... *shameless grins*

How To Tag :
- State who tagged you.
- List who you want your Santa Claus to be (the bearer of the gift).
- State the gift you wish to get
- Then invite a few friends to join the tag, and inform them by dropping a comment in their blog

Tagged by: Day-dreamer

My Santa: Who else except her? :D

Gift for me: An everlasting bliss and love with my loved ones, through thick and thin, in all trials and tribulations.

Who's next: (hate to do this!)
1. Ren Jie (the exams are over now, I guess? :D)
2. Seok Kheng (since you are free for the holidays... )
3. Zhe Jin (to add something non-sentimental to all your sentimental posts!)
4. Wee Loon (haha, someone's in KL too busy horr? :P)

Here we go!! An early Christmas greeting to everyone!

Puppies

Our 9-year-old family dog "An An" recently gave birth to her third batch of puppies... Haha, promiscuous as she is, we could learn some biologies in the process.

Hukum Mendel, anyone?

Motherly love (an illusion actually, An An neglects her puppy most of the time)

Human can't do this. Wonder how we are endowed with less breasts than dogs? (No malice intended, just a pure curiosity)

Doomed - Cinema in Alor Star

It's been ages since I last blogged, and the reason can't be simpler - I am having holidays! Haha, so sorry for the excuses... at one time, when exams were impending, I would say that I was too busy for studies; and with the 3 months holidays now, I claim that I am in too much holiday mood to write anything.. :P

Today was just like another ordinary day, except for the unique experience I had in Cineplex Alor Star. Well, Cineplex was the only surviving cinema in the 50-km radius of Alor Star city. Located high up in the City Plaza, it consists of two small showing rooms (too small to be called halls) and a little ticket booth which could only accommodate two person's volume.

This is the first time I complain about the Cineplex. It's not that I have never watched a movie in that cinema and got shocked by its long-standing condition. I remember I last watched a movie there in 2002, and I actually enjoyed it because there were so few audiences inside and I could put my legs on the front seat's backrest.. :P

Okay, let's talk about today. We (Yee Pin, Wei Yin, Winson & I) were half an hour away from the showing time (6 pm) when we reached the booth. Nobody's inside. Zero, zilch, nil. Okay now nobody's selling ticket for 6 o'clock, they must have run out of ticket. Bad luck then, we decided to wait for 9 o'clock's showing while having lunch dinner at the time being.

The dinner in the foodcourt nearby wasn't exactly first-class, but it was enough to whet our appetite (especially Yee Pin's). After the meal, we went back to the ticket booth - hooray, it was open!! The ticket cost 8 ringgit each, and there was no student price.. Haha, okay, you are operating a small cinema, I could understand the cost involved for such a small-scale business. Let you earn some pennies for this time... :P

We hurried into the cinema for the fear of losing out good seats, and we were grinning as we went inside - there is simply no chance for losing out seats!! Among the 15 X 20 seats available in the cinema, only slightly more than 20 seats were occupied! Hahaha... okay, so much popularity for the blockbuster we are watching, The Chronicles of Narnia. It's something good then, since we could have a clear and unobstructed vision in front of us. Hated those cinemas in which people in the front row are kissing each other, whispering on mobile phone or going to toilet every 10 minutes.

Next, the movie started in another 5 minutes' time. Haha, another good point: no 15-minute advertisements which are meant to "entertain" us (Read: TGV & GSC). Oh goodness... the movie started with such a horror!! Well, I don't mean the plot, but the picture quality on the pitiful screen was simply awful, to the point of me starting to think I was watching a show from the seventies... The display is fuzzy, the colours are dull, the edge is dim, and to my disgust, there are film grains throughout the show... Well, since the pictures aren't good, I hope that I could get at least some consolation from the sound effect. Haha, good dear, I was doubting my ears when I heard the spinning projector wheel's sound emanating from the speaker... Aiks... It persisted throughout the movie, so much an annoyance :( Could everything get worse? Haha.. sure it could! Half way through the movie, some noise burst out from the projector room, and it sounded as if two drunken guys were having a fight upstairs.. they yelled and shouted as if they were in the world of their own. Yuckk... Come on, don't you know we paid the money for Narnia, not for "A Night with Carlsberg"?

The horror ended after 2 hours, to my utmost relief. Well, the relief I had in the toilet afterwards wasn't nice too, due to the deplorable toilet condition, but I digressed. I am not exaggerating to say that I would have preferred watching a DVD to such an experience in the cinema. Cinema was meant to be entertaining, the moving pictures are meant to be captivating, the sounds are meant to be immersive, the environment are meant to be conducive. I am sorry to say, the cinema operator failed to provide us the entertainment we asked for. The movie wasn't as good as I expected, partly because I don't enjoy fairy tale as much as others do; but mostly, I think, due to the deplorable condition of the cinema. Alor Star cinemas are kinda doomed... Sigh.

p.s. To be fair, I couldn't see how the cinema operator could have made it better. They could upgrade the projector, renovate the cinema etc; but with the ubiquitous DVD in the market, people would rather watch their 3-in-1 DVDs in comfort at home, than to watch a movie on the 5th floor of a not-so-happening shopping complex. I even doubt that they could fork out the money for renovation while they are still struggling with their rental fees...

The Other Side

From...


to



p.s. Winson, don't spoil it. :D
p.p.s. It's not as complicated as it might seem. Just refer to the post title. :D

14 Jan 2008: Answer revealed here.

Finally!

Yes, finally I am going home!!

Haha, there I was writing a post in my message board saying that I have no time to update my blog anymore, a thought dawned upon me that I shouldn't abandon this blog just like this. (Read: irresponsible and undetermined) I can still remember how erratic I am when it comes to blogging - not blogging for a full month, then one post per day for the next month. :P It's no wonder that the number of readers I have is dwindling.

To begin with, my exams ended on 15 November, but on that day, the reason I felt happy was not because of the redeemed freedom. I had a fantastic celebration for something else on that day, and you know, the end of exams just doesn't compare with the joy of this. I kinda regretted over the day because I didn't make much preparation for that particular day, but the event turned out wonderful. I know that the better is always in store in the future, so I will just work hard for the next time.

**grin**

Damn it, if anyone has been online for the last few weeks, they would have seen my nick called "X days to Nasi Lemak". I have been craving for Nasi Lemak since last month, when I stumbled upon the wikipedia article about Nasi Lemak. Sigh, the worst thing about reading that article is not the description, it is the pictures that is so alluring. Tell me, how can one resist looking at this picture when you are away in Melbourne? And if this is not bad enough, what about, another sorethroat attack before going back?!!

Sigh. Now that the packing is finished, I am here writing the blog post in this corner for the last time - where I sat for endless of online conversations and routine reading. Where I write almost every single post of this blog since I came to Melbourne. The feeling is kinda mixed.. on one hand I am so eager to go home and enjoy my three-month holidays; on the other hand I feel so reluctant to leave here. The apartment, the people, the friends... I want to go home, yet I don't want to leave...

Things have changed, I would say, but I am running out of time to tell the stories now... I will keep everyone updated when I am back, and I look forward to visiting friends like Winson, Yee Pin, Swee Sing etc after months of separation. And this is only one of the many plans I have for this wonderful holidays.

Au revoir, Melbourne! I shall be back soon. See you later.

Gosh. I Am Not as Guyish As I Thought

Exam is almost over, tomorrow I am going to write the last 3 pieces of essay in this year... The past week has been rather gruelling for me, all the fault of not doing proper revision in the past 3 months. :P

In my boring schedule of HP revision, I stumbled upon this interesting blogthings - "How Boyish or Girlish Are You". Throughout years, rumours abound that I am not as guyish as a guy should be, as partly acknowledged by my close one in her teasing and acqueisceing acquiescence. While I shall remain totally defiant of this false accusation, I decided to have an honest go at this simple test to show my masculinity.

Oh yea, so I saw the questions, and it's quite simple and straightforward. It seemed to me that some of the questions are common to both genders, not attributable to a particular sex. Eerm, so *pick pick pick*, and out.

And I have got this result:

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

Heck, see, I am 50% masculine!

p/s: The above rambling is just some signs of a syndrome called HP frustration. It is going to resolve in 28 more hours, and yes, this post is not interesting at all. So blame me not if you felt that you could have spent your time more meaningfully, like reading 50 things you could do in the exam. Have fun!

Nokia Secret Code

In the Internet, there is a circulating forwarded email claiming that pressing *3370# on your Nokia mobile phone will activate your so-called spare battery which will give you 50% extra battery life.

Being the usual "inquisitive" guy, I decided to give it a try. So I pressed, *, 3, 3, 7, 0, #...

"Change active speech codec?"

What the heck?? Since when a battery is called "active speech codec"? Well, there are only two options there, "OK" and "Back".

Being the usual "inquisitive" guy again, I decided to press on OK. 一不做,二不休 marr... DONG! Off goes the light, and the whole mobile phone restarts and the same screen reappears. Nahh, no change in my battery bars also, it's still at its original position, no "increase in battery life" as claimed by the e-mail.

So I decided that this is a hoax, just like those claiming that you can elongate some part of your body with some daily exercise. Some googling on this issue proved my guess: This code indeed does *something*, but it doesn't give you some magical power boost. In fact, the activated "speech codec" mode actually consumes more power of your little battery!

At the end of my daily dawdling, a lesson is learnt: Never trust anything in the Internet so easily. If not, your some parts may suffer. :D

The Best Time to Fall Sick

... is definitely not 9 days before the final exam.

Aarrgghh!! Joanne, must be due to your "damning", I am sick! It all started on Friday night... Less than 12 hours after my kind tagging of 7 people in my previous post, I started feeling something wrong in me. I went to the not-so-interesting Mamak Night with Xuan Ni, Ka Lip, Chong Chyn, Mag, Tim, and Ka Lip. Upon reaching home at 11 pm, my body has finally given up its war with the virus - I am feeling cold all over.

Shit shit shit, kena high fever!! I can assure you that this is not the best thing you could ask for when you have only 9 days left to cover 10 weeks of stuff for your exam. I almost started panicking when I started feeling unwell. But luckily, thanks to the best care in the world and the best porridge I have had in Melbourne, I am feeling much better now. Dear, you are really the best... I know it must have been really exhausting to take care of this little boy, and you know, I am really touched by your efforts. I promise that I will take care of myself better and be healthier, so that you don't have to worry too much about me. (Writing this blog is exempted, okay? :P)

By the way, sikui, the daylight saving time is on again. That means, effective 30 October 2005, I am robbed of one hour study time again, due to the time-zone adjustment from GMT +10 to GMT +11. In other words, now I am 3 hours ahead of Malaysian time zone, just like how it was like when I first came to Melbourne. Hmm...

Before I leave, I would just share something I have been reading for the past hour. The latest THES 2005 Ranking of World’s Top 200 Universities was just announced recently, and I don't know whether to feel good or bad about it. The University of Malaya, the university which was once my dream institution has slipped from 89th place to 169th place, and USM is now no more seen in the top 200 list. On the other hand, the University of Melbourne is placed at 19th place in overall ranking, and is rated at the 10th for Biomedicine universities worldwide. Yes, I am damn proud with my university now, as now I know that the course I am in is top-notch in the world, giving me more confidence about the course despite all the sleep-inducing lectures I have throughout the year. It also give me some kind of impetus to strive harder for my coming exam, you know, hey, if you could do well in the 10th place university in the world, you must be quite good also right? :P

But Malaysia... I feel sad for you. I really hope that we can all wake up from the protectionist policy, blaming the west as "anti-Malaysia" or "jealous towards our rapid development" whenever people say that we are not as good as we have chosen to believe. Reading the two articles I linked above made me rethink of our position right now. If we don't do something and the country is again resting on its laurel, I fear for our future generation.

I Was Tagged!

On 16 September 2005, Michelle passed the burning baton to me and I thought, well, let's wait for a while, it doesn't take all that long to write this thing. Arrhh... Time really flies, it has been a month since I first got the saman, and now I think maybe I should actually reply to the tag. So here we go, and beware, your turn is coming soon!

Seven Things I Plan to Do Before I Die

1. Master a musical instrument.
2. Save 1000 people from dying.
3. Establish a harmonius family which I will yearn to return after work everyday.
4. Master a computer programming language and write a popular freeware.
5. Understand the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
6. Do a reseach on medical field and give a significant contribution.
7. Become fit.

Seven Things I Can Do

1. Walk outside Melbourne General Cemetary at midnight. Pretty often. :D (Can't believe I am so proud with it!)
2. Finish a pack of Smith's Chip in one go.
3. Stay in front of computer screen for 10 hours.
4. Pretend that I am confident while I am not.
5. Be confused about who should get the 20 cents refund when Yong Chin and I return from Queen Victoria Market.
6. Spread Firefox to my friends like an evangelist.
7. Produce 3 litres of saliva everyday.

Seven Celebrity Crushes
Not really. I listen to good songs by any artist, I admire their talents, but I don't have a crush on them.

Seven Current/Recent Books
Wait... Does it mean books outside the course and books outside my daily reading? If not, I will have to list down the books on the booksheleves in Brownless Library. :(

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie(My all time favourite).
2. Kane and Abel, by Jeffry Archer (the first story book I managed to finish reading in my whole life, courtesy of "anonymous".).
3. Children's Illustrated Bible
4. Medical Physiology, by Guyton and Hall (oh no... I seriously don't have a life)
5. Human Anatomy Atlas, by Frank Netter
6. I better don't write anymore... am blushing already...

Seven Favourite Food

1. My mum's Indonesian BBQ Chicken!!
2. Jawa Mee by either my mum or by a particular stall in Simpang Kuala
3. Capitan curry chicken
4. CHAR KOEY TEOW!
5. Sultana sweet chicken
6. Nasi lemak
7. Everything at home...

Seven Random Facts About Me

1. 7 is always my lucky number. Hint: siblings, address, birthday etc.
2. Some people think that I look like a Japanese.
3. I have never celebrated my birthday in school
4. I wet my bed until around 10 year old.
5. I experience sleep paralysis pretty often.
6. I dance to the music tune at home
7. I am an agnostic Buddhist.

Seven People I Want to Tag

1. Winson
2. Yee Pin
3. Boon Phiaw
4. Li Enn
5. Heng Liang
6. Eric Fu
7. Joanne

Huhh... that's it! That's all for today, and there are 9 days left to the exam... :P

The Joy of Blogging

A blog can be anonymous or well-known. It can be world-famous, it can also be unknown to others, only to be discovered by chance.

If I were to evaluate my own blog, I would have to rate it closer to being "unknown", considering the number of readers I have in here. I have been blogging for 2 years to let my friends know of how I am doing, and what I have been up to recently. Other than that, I don't expect the blog to be read by any passerby. After all, I am neither prolific or interesting when it comes to writing. The last post alone took me one and a half hour, if you are interested in just how slow I write my articles.

Having said so, when I receive an email like this, I can't help but to feel gleeful, or rather, an undescribable satisfaction deep inside.

From: XXX
To: changyang1230@yahoo.com
Subject: I weigh more on carpet too!
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:48:48 -0500

Thanks for your report on why we weigh more on carpet. I will sleep better knowing I weigh less that 140 pounds.
XXX
Chicago, IL USA

p/s: The name and the email address are removed for privacy consideration.

Apparently, she was writing to me regarding the article I wrote earlier.

Surprise, surprise, surprise. When you do something and receives a reply which was never in your expectation, you derive the genuine joy of having done something useful. Maybe this is what we call, the joy of blogging.

Spring Is Here!

Before I start typing anything, I would just say it out loud:

Life is wonderful, for a wonderful person and a wonderful feeling. A right person can change what it feels like when you wake up in the morning, what it feels like when you go to the bed, and what it feels like when you take in every breath in the spring. When things have made its way into your heart and soul, you can't help but to accept it and celebrate it. Everything has changed, but I am sure it will only be better in every moment. Today, I finally realised what people actually mean when they say they are looking forward to tomorrow. Because I can feel it.

Some of you might be confused with what I have written above, but it's alright, you will know it. I am sorry but I would prefer not to talk about my private life in a public blog, so talk to me if you are interested in knowing more. :D

Let me get started. If you have been reading the chatterbox on the left, you would have known that many things have happened. My exams were over, and my family were here for a tour in Sydney and Melbourne (photos). I must say that those have been the most enjoyable moments I have spent since I came to Melbourne. Together, we left our footsteps and memories throughout Melbourne - the hustling city, the campus of my university, the not-very-interesting Tulip farm, the little cottage in the lavender farm, the countless pristine parks, the Penguin Parade in Phillip Island, the picturesque Great Ocean Road etc. Melbourne has become so loveable with the company of my family. In particular, the experience of driving along Great Ocean Road will be forever entrenched in my memory. For me, the sensation of driving on a scenic path is so thrilling, I even told my friends that I would apply for the job of driving a tourist bus on Great Ocean Road if there is a vacancy. Huh, stupid I...

The holidays finally came to an end when my family left for home, and I have to return to the boring daily routine again. Studying, going online, fidgeting around, cooking, taking naps, going to bed etc. The only not-so-usual thing that has happened is the IMSS Gala Dinner. Haha, it was more successful than I imagined, and I was glad that I contributed a little bit by designing the poster which they pasted in the medical building. The night was a bit chaotic at times, as the consequence of the limited spaces we have and the overwhelming attendance of the students. But all in all, I am very glad that we managed to pull off a successful night despite all the difficulties in the early stage.

With the end of IMSS event, I finally have no more excuse not to concentrate on my studies. We will have 5 papers which I have to take between 7 to 15 November, which means there are only 22 more days for me to cover 14 weeks' lecture notes. Never mind... I will take the challenges in strides, let's see how it goes. :D You know, with the internet connection down (due to some unknown errors of my modem and network card), I feel that I have plentiful of time to do more important stuff in daily life. Hehe...

That's all for this post. I will try to update this blog when I can find some free time, but it's going to be a little bit hard. Because you know, spring is here, and I can hear the birds chirping already!! Ciao.

Gynaecomastia

I know some people will start grumbling when they see this title, "This Chang Yang is talking about nerdy stuff in some alien language again!" Well, don't worry, it's nothing so nerdy or alien, so please read on...

So, What the heck is gynaecomastia? According to the Online medical dictionary, gynaecomastia can be defined as:

gynaecomastia

An excessive development of the male mammary glands, even to the functional state.

Temporary enlargement of the breasts is not unusual or abnormal in boys during adolescence or during recovery from malnutrition. Gynaecomastia may be abnormal as, for example, in Klinefelter's syndrome.

Origin: Gr. Mastos = breast, gynh = a woman or female.

Gynaecomastia is a rather familiar medical term for me. Not because I have just come across this term in this morning's PBL, but it's because it's the first sophisticated medical term I learnt in my life. To be exact, I knew that about 5 years ago..

It was my sisters who first taught me this term. You know what, they said I have got gynaecomastia... Eerm, you see, I don't drink alcohol (to be precise, I haven't had alcohol when I was 14), so it can't be alcohol-related gynaecomastia. Dunngg... I am so stigmatised. Why lar say me got breast when I only have a little protusion on my chest? I wasn't even obese that time, although I have been a little bit chubby all the while. Therefore, I will take it as the normal enlargement of breasts during adolescence, and no teasing please. Again, I should emphasize that it's not that large. LOL..

Anyway, a mild gynaecomastia isn't all that bad for my body image... I remember when I was in form 2, sometimes I have to be take off shirts during physical education class, for basketball or football, for the purpose of identifying two different teams. There was once, I was taking off my shirt at the bench beside the basketball court when a friend of mine approached me to my surprise:

Chang Yang, since when you have you got chest muscle?

So, the next time your little son, nephew or cousin have got a "little breast", tell them don't be shy, they have just got a gynaecomastia! They will be glad that they learnt a new medical term in their vocabulary! Haha.

Small talk: My family was here last Thursday and they are now in Sydney for a self-organized tour. Things have been easy going recently and I enjoyed the med ball. I am still stuck with my studies while most other courses in the university have already started their two-week holidays. Eerm... Right now I am looking forward to my family to come back this Wednesday so that we can have great fun together. As for the activities that I left out in this blog, I will fill in the blanks when I am free to do so. To Jason and Yee Pin, wish you enjoy your new lives in UK! Ciao.

Best Language

English language is one of the funniest language I have ever learnt. Oh yeah, it's not like I have learnt a lot (I only know Chinese, Malay and English language), but when I compare these languages, I find a lot more peculiarities and unpredictable variations in English language. It's not something bad though, it serves better as a source of amusement.

This is one of the best examples I stumbled upon in Slashdot.

A linguistics professor is giving a lecture. He explains that in English, prescriptive grammar dictates that a double negative creates a positive, for instance "I ain't got no money" would parse as "I have money." He then goes on to explain that in many languages, a double negative creates a more emphatic negative, for instance, in Russian "U menya nyet nichyevo" (literally, "By me is not had nothing") uses two negative phrases to create a stronger negative. Furthermore, the prof explains, in most languages, using two positives will create a more emphatic positive, or at the very least, will not change the meaning of a phrase, for instance "Yes, I have bananas" is fundamentally the same as "I have bananas." However, the proffessor concludes, in no language does a double positive create a negative.

A student, in the back of the class, muttering under his breath, was heard to utter "Yeah, right."

Enjoy! Good night...

Welcome to Melbourne!!

Exams = over!!
Poster = almost over!!

And my parents and two sisters are going to arrive in 7 hours!

Life has been rather stressful but nevertheless wonderful. I managed to survive the mid-semester test, and surprisingly I performed not bad in it. Poster was half done, and I am more than excited to meet my family soon.

I will be rather busy for the next few days, as I have mentioned in the previous post, I am going to a fabulous Med Ball and I have to do some catch up in everything - studies, friends, works, maths and this blog.

So see ya around! I will be back.

Exam Hiatus

With the utmost regret, I shall hereby announce that I will stop my blogging activity from today until September 13, which is the date of my Mid-semester exam. It has just dawned upon me that I have 7 weeks' lectures to cover in one week. Oh gosh, did I miss the speed-reading course the other day?

Anyway, whilst the torture of doing revision will end with the exam, September 13 doesn't imply the end of everything. After the exam I will have to design poster for the IMSS Gala Dinner; on the 15th my parents will arrive, and I have to prepare for a Med Ball on the 16th as well.

So, a short farewell to all my friends and readers of this blog. I shall check the message boards from time to time, and if time permits, I may even post something short and sweet. Good bye then!

On the Shoulder of Giants

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton, 1676

I have long been appealed by Newton's flair of creating quotable quotes despite his actual reputation of being vengeful and arrogant. In his letter to his arch rival Robert Hooke, he penned down the abovementioned sentence. Newton presumably intended it as a sarcastic remark to tease Robert Hooke's relatively short stature, but it has been so cleverly disguised as a note of humility. This sentence, without the actual historical context, is such a perfect example of humiliation in which a scientist acknowledges his success as being built on previous works.

Today, I am reminded of this post because of a science article I read in Slashdot. Well, the article in itself is nothing so particular, but I was particularly attracted by the footnote at the bottom of the webpage. It's a revision of Newton's quote, as follows.

If I have not seen so far it is because I stood in giant's footsteps.

I have to give a loud applause for the person who came up with this line. Fantastic indeed! The spirit of science, contrary to popular belief, is not to believe in what is taught by the teacher totally. Rather, it's the spirit of sceptism, inquisition and asking question, that have made us where we are today. If not because of Galileo's sceptism of Aristotlic teaching (e.g. heavy object falls faster than light objects), he wouldn't have discovered that free fall speed is the same regardless of its mass.

Well, enough for science today. I just can't help but to show my admiration for that quote. :D

Assignment Over, Exam Comes

First and foremost, I dedicate this message to the owner and the waiters of Bismi restaurant in Brunswick:

One day you will have to learn that there’s always a reason behind people saying “customer is always right”. I am totally disappointed with your lackadaisical attitude, seriously. And not to mention the price of my rice and my roti tissue honey. The severity of your service attitude, if ranked in a scale of 1 to 10, is 9.9.

Okay, that’s the ranting part of my post. Sorry ya, I normally choose not to rant in this public space so as not to spoil people’s appetite, but this particular restaurant really irked me pretty seriously when I had to fork out 12.75 dollars for their appalling attitude and exorbitantly expensive rice and roti. Hehe, so sorry for the personal complaint.

Back to my assignment. Yeah yeah, it’s finally over! After one week of sleepless nights, I have officially finished my assignment when I printed the 2717-word article at 4:03am on Friday. Well, it is not as hard as you might have thought from my description, I wouldn’t do justice to this interesting write-up if you were made to think about it as a tedious assignment. Some people took only 3 days to finish it, but it took me one week of 4-o-clock work. That’s included with my constant slacking and online activies, of course. It’s like that larr, assignment is never the cup of tea for a professional slacker like me. While I was halfway throught the assignment on Tuesday, I could stop halfway to try out the Opera 8.02 for almost half a day. So how productive can I be? Haha...

So, we have finished assignment, and we went for the post-ass dinner in Bismi. No more mentioning it, thank you. Anyway, on your visit to my blog, you might have observed that ticking on the left of this page is the countdown clock to my family visit in Melbourne. They will come to Melbourne to find visit me on 15 September, and that is 2 days after my mid semester exam. I have been waiting eagerly for their visit, as I miss them so much! However, there is this shadow of mid-semester exam looming large behind me, so I have to brave through this two weeks with more revision. 7 week of lectures culminating in 25 MCQ, it’s not an easy task.

Well, that’s all for today. I know it has been nothing but just my daily chronicle and senseless complaints, but this is indeed what I intended to post. If you have read this far, I seriously think that you have wasted your time.. :P haha.. But really thank you for those who have supported my work and my study. I will post about other stuff when I have the writer’s inspiration. See ya!

p/s: Oh ya, forgot to mention this. YB Lim Kit Siang has started his blog a few days ago, and it’s rather interesting. In a few days time, he has garnered hundreds of comments in his posts, such a popularity of blog! You have my bow in admiration. Hope that you have your voice be heard in both political arena and the blogosphere: the land of freedom.

August 31

Now at 2100 words and I am only 4 paragraphs short of completion of my HP assignment. Just a short post dedicated to this particular date.

August 31 means a lot to my country, to me, and to many people around the world...

• This year, is my first Merdeka day overseas. Stuck with assignment, and many coursemates are back to exam mode. Saw many online MSN contacts who are overseas, they all bear “Merdeka Day” on their screennames. I don’t really know why we don’t even feel like watching the National day parade on the TV, but we celebrate National Day in the cyberspace by unspoken words. Maybe that’s what we call the oversea-student dilemma, the search for identity in a land of strangers...
  
  
• Last year, I was in Shah Alam, trapped in the grim city, doing nothing in the hostel. For some reasons, I was down. Very down.
  
  
• Two years ago, I was in Shah Alam, guess so.. Remember I joined a MARA Merdeka Celebration, where Dato Seri Mahathir, the then Prime Minister gave a speech. We watched fireworks, and we were in awe. Beautiful, still fresh in my memory. Besides, Swee Sing and Meow Joo left for Korea on the National day. I remember when Swee Sing last came to my room, we were playing Michael and Victor’s “Friends” (光良品冠-朋友）.
  
  
• Three years ago, I went to a celebration in Alor Star, together with Winson, Yee Pin and Jason (don’t remember if there was anyone else). We said that it was probably the last time we could spend time celebrating Merdeka together. It really was, at least, until today.
  
  
• Four years ago, I was on a St. John Ambulance uniform, serving my duty as the event first-aider. I thought I looked smart, but looking back my pictures at that time, I was actually quite chubby.
  
  
• Eight years ago, the radio broadcaster said that Princess Diana died in an accident in Paris. I told my mum, “Haha, how come people can create rumours like that?”
  
  
• Forty eight years ago, Federation of Malaya was born. “Merdeka” reverberated through the heaven, lifting elated spirits.
  

In every year, August 31 never fails to capture my memory and freeze it in the passage of time. Different time, different place, different people, different people.

Happy Independence Day, fellow Malaysians. Let it not be a routine holiday to display our flags and to revere our Agong on the TV. Let it be a day of reflection, of our own, and of our country.

So that we will march on.

p/s: And today is the last day of Winter. Welcome, spring!

PBL Story

I am half way through my HP assignment now, or to be exact, I have written 1100 words for my 2500-word essay. Still not free, but just feel like sharing something that happened in my PBL class this morning.

We had a simulated case where a 27-year-old woman was having constant diarrhoea for two months. Being nice doctors, we were supposed to cater to her physical well-being as well as psychological well-being. So our tutor facilicated our discussion about the woman’s mental state by asking, “So, how does the woman feel after having two months of diarrhoea?”

And a genius Rob replied,

Shitty...

HP Nightmare

You may or may not have noticed that I have been blogging less frequently in recent days. PBL apart, I have been troubled by my procrastination talent again–I haven’t started my HP essay assignment writing, and it’s going to be due on next Friday! Well, I do realise what a wonderful worker I am... Just hope that my future employers-to-be are not going to check my blog and find out this article as a self testimony about my laziness.

And I have ranted way too much, at the same time. Time to go back to my reading and writing, and very probably I won’t be writing anything here until next friday. Wish me luck in my assignment!

p/s: The HP assignment is a continuous prose writing which consist of no more than 2500 words. We have been told about the assignment early in this semester but hardworking as Chang Yang, I have not been doing anything for the past 6 weeks and now I finally face the music. We had 4 questions to choose from, and those questions concern ethical and medical issues that we have learnt in the previous lectures. The question I chose is as follows:

What is social stigma? And why is an awareness of it so important in medical practice?

Any comments? :D

For Those Who Think Blogging is a Waste of Time...

I used to think that blogging is a waste of time. Two years ago, I reckoned that blogs exist for teenagers with angst or attention-seeker to get the attention they crave for. Or it provides a platform for something as serious as independent journalism like Jeff Ooi’s blog, where he lives up to the motto of “thinking allowed, thinking aloud”, exposing the flaws of the policy setters, highlighting world news and bringing salient points to the attention of the general public. They have got their own reasons to blog, and I agreed.

But should everyone blog too? Yea yea yea, I know you are going to say, “It’s a very personal choice”; but the question here is, does everyone have a reason to blog?

I started out this blog due to kiasuism , following the trend without a clear idea of what I was going to do with the weblog. As such, this blog has since been neglected for the next one and a half year until I finally rediscovered it and redeveloped it into the state it is today.

Since I first started the blog, the blogosphere has evolved quite a lot... You can subscribe to blogs so that you receive instant notification about each update (subscribe to mine), and everyone can create their own blogs effortlessly with blogspot, MSN space and so on. Things have changed, and so does the purpose of blogging.

Today, most people who are acquainted with the Internet either have their own blog, or are planning to have one. My friends use their blogs to tell their stories and to share their feelings. I remember when I bid farewell to Alvin in KLIA in February, we promised each other that we would always post in blog to keep each other updated. He has since updated his blog less frequently than he watches anime and goes to the city with his friends, which I perfectly understand as part of his personality and interest. Some friends like Zhe Jin, on the other hand, shared nice poems and lyrics which struck a chord in her. Some friends like Jing Yi preferred to write in chinese language while friends like Eric Fu and Michelle Chong write in good English. Some talked about their life in a secondary school while some write good account about university life in Wellington and Singapore. Some bloggers update their blog rather frequently, while some only update their blog once in a few weeks. A few blogs started rather long ago, while some friends like Jasmine Yow started as recent as a few weeks ago.

But behind all these blogger’s words and pictures, there are purposes for blogging. You can see blogging as rather time-consuming; but then again, people do spend time telling their story at one time or another, online or offline. Blogging has become more and more popular, and the only way we are going to live with it is to read it, write it and reflect it along with the author. And perhaps, we shall one day learn that, aptly put in Jasmine‘s words,

...we all need a place to express our feelings and thoughts.

(Yow, 2005)

Random Question

I wanted to talk about my interesting hospital tutorial today but I don’t think I can afford the time. I need to sleep as soon as I finish with this.

So, just a random question that I stumbled upon in a comment in Slashdot:

When you are using a computer, have you ever looked at your watch / wall clock or even asked your friend for time? In other words, you turn to other sources of time-telling and forget the lower right corner of the desktop completely? If yes, how frequent is that?

It shows something. Over-exposure sometimes means zero exposure.

Off to dreams.

Fresh stuff today: Google Desktop Search 2.0, Google Talk, and some interesting knowledge about gastrointestinal signs and symptoms.

Lecturers and lectures

What makes a lecturer good and what makes a lecturer bad? What are the criteria we should use if we were to rate a lecturer?

Whether the lecturer...

1. Makes us sleep?
2. Drones on and on with monotonous accent?
3. Explain the fact like the textbook?
4. Gets thunderous applause after a lecture?
5. Get a lot of questions down the stage after the lecture?
6. Looks vivacious?
7. Makes us interested in reading more about the stuff?
8. Makes us understand the points?
9. Knows what he / she wants us to understand, at all?
10. Prepare good lecture notes?

Well, from the way medicine course is run, we have to learn cross-discipline in the same semester. So there will be cases like we learn physiology in this week but cram in anatomy in the other week. In that context, we are all priviledged to be taught by a lot of famous professors, doctors, researchers in the University of Melbourne. But the thing is, is famous equal to good? Is it that people at the pinnacle of the research career would certainly make a good lecturer?

I doubt so. There was a saying that the more smart or knowledgeable one is, the worse one tends to perform when it comes to explaining and teaching. Well, it’s a rather generalized claim, but I shall say that in some people I have met it’s rather true. I am not sure whether it’s because a smart person can’t explain things in a way so that not-so-smart people like us can understand... I hypothesized that when you are very knowledgeable, that means you must be a rather good learner and therefore you don’t know what it takes to make sense in not-as-smart people.

Always quite true, you know... many teachers/lecturers etc, when it comes to very hard questions they can answer any question in the world you could throw to them; but explain stuff they cannot. Errmm.

Well, to me, lecture hours mean struggling hours. I hate the feeling of not knowing stuff when a person is telling things that I am supposed to learn, and I am there hardly grappling any idea presented on the screen.

Note: Just for the record, I am highly motivated by the anatomy lecture I had today. It’s about the posterior abdominal wall and its related musles like psoas major, psoas minor, illiacus, quadratus lumborum, erector spinae and lattisimus dorsum. Just how good is she? Hmm... imagine having a silent lecture hall for the full hour, making me understand and remembering an anatomy lecture without the need to revise at home, and getting an applaud from the students for every single lecture. She is absolutely fantastic. The other lectures, like the physiology lecture by Professor Trefor Morgan today are also rather clear and concise, but by comparison he just appeared less lively and his monotonous voice can drive the most alert people to their slumberland. :D

Happy Birthday, Tailou!

Yong Chin: No, I didn’t wear a spotlight on my head!

Tomorrow marks the 20th birthday of tailou (a.k.a. Yong Chin–my roommate), so we gathered and had dinner together in my small cosy apartment... Well, it’s the very first time people are here for dinner, and we did purposely make it for the special moments of his birthday. All of us cooked the best dishes ourselves and then had a simple yet meaningful dinner together. Nice, like a family, although not a real one...

The highlight among all the “ambrosia” we had for the night is definitely the chocolate cake proudly made by Freda. It is definitely one of the best cakes we have eaten in a very long time... Simply lovely!

That’s all for today... tired, and still have some assignments to do. Happy Birthday to you again, tailou! Wish you many happy returns, and surely I will be there through your ups and downs.

They Didn't Tell Me This When I Entered Medicine...

Prick...

... and suck. 5 times, anyone?

2 Year Blogging Anniversary

Today, the 19th of August is the second anniversary of My Little Moments!

Some people may ask, "What? I thought you have just started recently..." Well, technically, I have only been blogging actively for 8 months, but My Little Moments has existed for a much longer time rather obscurely. I registered a blogger account in August 19, 2003 when I was back in Shah Alam out of the curiosity and kiasuim... you know, when the whole world was talking about "blog", I just could not resist jumping on the bandwagon too.

In 2003 and 2004, I was rather busy with the academic life in Shah Alam, and I did not have the access to the Internet in my hostel. So I had almost forgotten the existence of my blog during the long gap. When I finished my AUSMAT course, I sprang to life in cyberspace again, and since then, I have been chronicling my life faithfully in this little corner of mine. As time slips by, I have been posting from Alor Star, Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne; I have been recording my Birthday, Chinese New Year ^{[1,2,3,4,5,6]}, and anniversary in Melbourne; I talked about topics ranging from photography, mathematics, learning skills, jokes ^[1,2,3], to meaningful articles, ReCom posts, comment in other famous blog, and seeing cadavers. The most important of all, I shared all my little moments, be it forlorn, elated or bland.

To put it in numbers, for the past two years, I have written 113 posts (111 of which posted in the last 8 months) which have received 309 comments. Today, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to everyone. Whether you have just dropped by, whether you have left your comment, whether you found my blog interesting or not, you are the ones who make this blog possible. Your footprints here mean a lot to me, because it's you who make up my little moments!

I hope to see you in many days to come. Happy birthday, My Little Moments...

Toilet Graffiti

An average human tends to waste quite a lot of time inside the toilet cubicle, doing virtually nothing apart from eliminating wastes. Well, some may have some books in the toilet, and many adults admit to reading newspaper in the toilet every morning. But then, normally in public toilets, you don’t have much reading materials at hand... Some may suggest spending time by fiddle with mobile phones, but then there is a risk of dropping it inadvertently. Not worth it...

Well, there are reading materials in public toilets. I often find myself amused by the grafittis in the cubicle walls, written by previous visitors who unleashed their creativity in the conducive environment. While a lot of the grafittis are political satire and pornography pictures, some are purely entertaining.

Just this morning, I was using the toilet inside Brownless Biomedical Library when I stumbled upon an interesting one. Not a long one, it was just a few words.. At first, I noticed this “instruction” on my left...



Well, being the usual obedient guy, I followed the instruction to find this on the right cubicle wall.



I was fooled. :(

世界上最遥远的距离

作者:张小娴等

世界上最遥远的距离
不是；生与死
而是；我就站在你面前；你却不知道我爱你

世界上最遥远的距离
不是；我就站在你面前；你却不知道我爱你
而是；明明知道彼此相爱；却不能在一起

世界上最遥远的距离
不是；明明知道彼此相爱；却不能在一起
而是；明明无法挡抗这股想念；却还得故意装作丝毫没有把你放在心上

世界上最遥远的距离
不是；明明无法抵挡这股想念；却还得故意装作丝毫没有把你放在心上
而是；用自己冷漠的心；对爱你的人掘了一条无法跨越的沟渠

I remember the first paragraph very well... For some reasons, it kind of strikes a chord in me at times.

Sign and Symptoms

Signs are something that can be seen, observed or listened by a doctor examining the patient, while symptoms are activities or feelings that are reported by a patient. Signs can be found out through physical examination (colour, shape, tenderness, reflex etc), while with symptoms it has to be drawn out from the patient either actively or through listening actively to the patient.

If a gastrointestinal problem is present with the patient, some of the possible symptoms might include:

• pain
• vomit
• diarrhoea
• constipation
• distention (bloating)
• anorexia (lack of appetite)

In most gastrointestional problems, pain is one of the most indicative symptoms and hence elaboration of pain is very much sought after in a medical history taking. In doing so, a doctor has to be careful in obtaining a full medical history, and characteristics that a doctor should look for are varied, as follows:

1. Site of the symptom
   ... and also whether the pain stays on the same place or migrate
   
   
2. Onset date / time
   ... when did it start? Any similar experience before this?
   
   
3. Time course and frequency
   ... how long has it been, how frequent is the pain etc
   
   
4. Severity
   ... by comparison with common types of painful sensation or by the scale of 10
   
   
5. Quality / character
   ... whether it’s sharp, dull, colicky, burning, positional etc
   
   
6. Aggravating / relieving factor
   ... what might worsen or relieve the pain
   
   
7. Associated features
   ... is there any vomiting, nausea, weight loss etc?

Sounds interesting? That’s about one quarter of what I was taught in ICM today.

Who Would You Choose?

Unwilling to leave my blog empty today, I decided to post a story that I have always wanted to share... I read this thought-provoking story from emails and websites, and it’s been one of my all-time favourites since I first read it. I googled for it and copied from one of the sources. The story is about children playing on railway tracks... Let’s get started:

A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused.

Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.

The train came, and you were just beside the track interchange. You could make the train change its course to the disused track and thus save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather just let the train go its way?

Okay, let’s say you are there, and you have no time to think over the decision. What would you do, in that split second?

Let’s move on when you have made the decision.

What is your decision?

Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess.

Exactly, I thought the same way initially because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was a rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally.

But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he would have to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was.

This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday.

In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority is, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority is.

The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track would be sidelined if the train was diverted.

And in the case that he should be sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The friend who forwarded me the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that the track was still in use and that they should have run away if they heard the train’s sirens.

If the train was diverted to the disused track, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track!

Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to that track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake!

And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

“Remember that what’s right isn’t always popular... and what’s popular isn’t always right.”

So, now, who would you choose?

The first time I answered the question, I decided to choose to save more children, and hence I would divert the course of the train.

After reading the explanation, I thought that I have done the wrong thing, so I told myself, I would rescue those who deserved to live. But then again, who gave us the power to decide who to live and who not to?

And now being instilled with medical values, when it comes to human lives, we always aim for saving more regardless of their background, motivation of life or even criminal background. You can’t refuse to save a dying person even if he or she is a nefarious murderer or a rapist.

What should I choose, then?

Mount Buller Pictures Uploaded

Just a short notice to inform you guys that I have already uploaded the pictures taken in Mount Buller... It was fun!!! Snowballs, tobagan, chairlifts, snow wars... I am certainly going there again!

Should A Tree Be Known By Its Fruit or Its Root?

A few weeks ago I put the abovementioned question as my MSN screenname, to the puzzlement of many online contacts. To begin with, I saw Shze Wei’s acronym one day and I thought that was interesting...

Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit

(Goh, 2005)

So I was wondering... eih, why is the rationale like that? Is the tree’s worth manifested by its fruit alone, and do we always overlook all the other parts that constitute what we know as a tree? The trunk, the root, the branches, and even the twigs?

In all the seriousness, I really don’t understand. So in a while, I came up with this question.

Should A Tree Be Known By Its Fruit or Its Root?

(Yew, 2005)

Now here’s the relevance of the question. I kind of related it to how a person judges another person, having been intrigued by the way of human judgment as time goes by. I have never tried to claim that I am mature, just and level-headed, because I know I am not. I have always been involved in some ridiculous banterings in which I was arguing for arguing’s sake. In many instances, I have lost my cool and I even resorted to sarcasm and personal attack in order to vent my anger. But among all these immature sides of mine, I have always reckoned myself to be rather forgiving when it comes to being offended by others, be it intentionally or unintentionally. To be specific, I am pretty sure that I have never been angry to a person simply because of an action without an intention.

But to my disappointment, it seems that some people simply don’t care... I don’t know why, but getting angry at somebody is always the easiest way out when somebody else irritates them. As a simple test, let’s say somebody who’s supposed to attend a personal meeting with you, turned out half an hour late, and appear to be happy without a hint of remorse on his face.

What will be your first reaction to him? Or rather, what would be the first emotion that catches you?

For many people, as I have observed, the first emotion would be–no other than anger, sometimes disappointment or even resentment. Yes, he has not been living up to his or her words, so logically, he is indeed culpable and deserves getting a straight face from us. Or at least, that is what we thought.

But have we given a chance for him to explain? Have we found out the reason before we let the anger unleash, occupy us and probably contribute to yet another prejudice?

No, most of the time we don’t. For we always judge from the impression and the action, just like how we often recognize a tree by its fruit rather than its root. Probably he is late because he helped a victim in an accident, who knows? I know this is kind of cliche, but let’s just suppose it’s indeed the case, and mull over it.

Let’s see how many times we have been angry to our friends when things are done unintentionally or even with a good intention. I think we may lose count, because we don’t even care about the intention. In actual fact, we simply get angry like a knee-jerk reflex. But by any means, it does happen all the time. Just like how we feel that we are misunderstood by others at times, that’s exactly what we are always doing to others too–judge someone before he can defend himself.

So, may I ask again, should a tree be known by its fruit or its root? I have always believed that, in any case, the nutrient of the fruit always comes from the root. So when the fruit irritates us, let’s count to five, and think of the root. It may help.

Blog Minor Change

Today I spent some time on changing some of the blog’s styles. Among the changes are the line height, the quotation background and the header of my blogroll. Should go back to my studies now...

History

A long long time ago, we studied Sejarah in Malaysia, and this was what they taught us in the textbook:

Dalam Bahasa EnglishInggeris (gosh, my Malay language is so rusty already!), History berasal dari “his story” iaitu “cerita dia”.

Translation: In English, history is coined from the word his story.

And today, after reading a comment in Slashdot, I can’t help but to doubt Malaysia textbook author’s credibility... They didn’t even check the origin of the word before making the claim!! Here are the original comment from Slashdot and another etymology note from Dictionary.com.

Slashdot

Somebody should have told you, plus maybe Michael Jackson, a long time ago that the origin of the English word “history” isn’t “his” + “story”. It’s the ancient Greek word “histor”, which meant “learned man.”

If I see some another Women’s Studies major write something like “herstory” again, I swear I’m going to shoot something.

Dictionary.com/history

[Middle English histoire, from Old French, from Latin historia, from Greek histori, from historein, to inquire, from histr, learned man. See weid- in Indo-European Roots.]

So these are what we are taught in the first chapter in Form 4 1. All the claims in the other chapters, anyone?

English

Today I finally realised how badly I need to improve my English...

I was supposed to get a dietary history from a patient, when I asked the question of the year:

Do you cook yourself?

(Yew, 2005)

And all I got was a puzzled look. So paisehh...

I Fell Sick

Yesterday night I went out with a few friends to eat Gelati (Italian Ice Cream)... Well, it isn't the best thing to do in the winter, but I went for the outing anyway.

It didn't feel normal as I walked along the streets in about 5 degree celcius. To be exact, I was feeling very tired, which was totally abnormal since yesterday was Monday. I tried to reassure myself that it was just some psychological effect and it would go away when I wake up today for school.

I woke up at 8.20 when Eng Kiat called me on handphone. Darn it, I overslept again. And guess what... I was still as tired as a dog after 7 hours sleep. I went for lectures nonetheless, but the tiredness just wouldn't go away. There are only two lectures today, but all the biochemistry and metabolism thing was perfect for haunting me and making me even more mentally exhausted.

Tell me what sickness that is, fatigue without a fever or the smell of acetone? Biopsychosocial factors, anyone?

[Forward] In Case of Emergency

In case of emergency : ICE

Paramedics will turn to a victim’s cell phone for clues to that person’s identity. You can make their job much easier with a simple idea that they are trying to get everyone to adopt: ICE.

ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. If you add an entry in the contacts list in your cell phone under ICE, with the name and phone no. of the person that the emergency services should call on your behalf, you can save them a lot of time and have your loved ones contacted quickly. It only takes a few moments of your time to do.

Paramedics know what ICE means and they look for it immediately. ICE your cell phone NOW!

Please pass this one along

Thought: It’s true, let’s add the number of our close contact to our handphone under the entry of ICE.

See you in Cambridge, Bro!

It came as a great surprise today–Yee Pin got straight A in A-levels and is guaranteed for the admission to Cambridge for law studies!! Well, for those who don’t know Yee Pin, he’s my “bro” (non-biological one though), otherwise known as “Tan Sri Tan” in my chatterbox, and since years ago he has been my best confidant for almost every single topic in this world!

You know, I was simply on the top of the world when I got his message! Just ask Xuan Ni, Gracie or Chong Chyn who were with me at that time. Haha, they must have thought I got some kind of love message when I read the message from Yee Pin. :D

Well, here goes my personal message:

Bro, wish you all the best in your studies... I have never dreamt of us getting that far apart in two different continents of the Earth, and now, the 5 minutes walk separation we have expected is amplified to 15 hours’ flight. However, distance notwithstanding, deep within I still believe in our common desire to be the best in our life, the passion we have always been sharing since we have become close to each other. I know you are going to become a conscientious lawyer in the future; and here I am, dedicated to giving the best to my career too. Do your best, always remember to beat yourself, not the others!

I believe it’s going to be hard when you hit your studies (actually I couldn’t imagine how law students manage their studies at all!), but then, before I end, let’s recite our familiar verses of Mencius... I believe it will always help.

天将降大任于斯人也，
必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，饿其体肤，空乏其身，
行拂乱其所为，所以动心忍性，增益其所不能

孟子（《孟子·告子下》）

Let’s keep it in mind!

p/s: Just got another news... Jason who’s my childhood friend has got a pretty good result too!! (not sure whether he would be happy to reveal his result here though, so I shall not disclose it) He’s going to Nottingham to study law although he’s still appealing for Warwick. You know what Chin Yaw, I am not sure if you are satisfied with your result (I know you have very high demand of yourself, so you might not be happy with your result yet), but once you get enrolled in the Law course, I am confident that you will do very well because you have got your unbeaten passion for it. So I know you are one step closer to your grand dream, and seriously I think we shall meet up somewhere in Downing Street to discuss your future property location.. :D

Good luck mates. With you guy’s enrolment, it’s pretty much the end of the secondary studies for every single person in our batch. We are all university students now!

Computer & Cockroach

What feature do two of them share in common?

They both starts with C!! (haha, I know it’s lame but just spare your three seconds to laugh a bit, give face a bit can or not?)

No larr, the answer is.. (drum roll + tan tan tan tan) both of them can be found in SCRC in the medical building!

The story goes like this. This afternoon I had 45 minutes break before the 4 hour body thermoregulation practical class. Out of boredom and since I have already eaten my lunch, I went to the SCRC alone to browse the net and check my emails.

At first everything went well in SCRC, and I found myself more and more in love with the iMac after getting the hang of it. It’s simply so elegant and intuitively designed! Well, I know most people would have rebutted me that “Hey, it’s not as user-friendly as Windows!”... But heck, how many years have we been using Windows, and now you are comparing it with an operating system which existence you didn’t even know about! And for all I care, a Martian would have found Earth a harsh environment, it’s all because it is too used to the Martian environment. So back to iMac, use it, and after a little bit of trial and error you would almost like it as much as I do.

Oh ya, should have continued with the story about the two C’s. Errm, on the iMac, I noticed that the stupid IE is no where to be seen anymore, and to my greater delight now all iMac in SCRC is armored with Firefox! Yea yea yea!!! Go Firefox! (Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Mozilla Foundation a.k.a. Mozilla Corporation, whatever promotion I am doing for Firefox earns me zero cents in Melbourne)

Yeah, what an irony isn’t it? Most people in our computer labs would use Internet Explorer to surf the Internet, in total ignorance with the fact that Internet Explorer for Mac was last updated in 2003 (that means it’s badly outdated, unsafe and can’t view new pages like Gmail correctly) and also that Mac OS comes preinstalled with much better Safari! Hmm... Actually this proves nothing else than the success of M$ of brainwashing the most Internet population with the fallacy that Internet = Internet Explorer. ~~Sigh~~

Well, let’s get back to the two C’s, again. So I was mesmerized by the full power of Firefox, in the realm of elegant Mac OS. It really feels so different you know, the preference box, the drop down menu, it just feels so much a class above that of Windows’. Probably I will stay more in the computer lab next time...

Hmm. When time is almost up and I was about to log off, I saw a cockroach crawling on the floor about 6 feets away. Gosh, this is the first cockroach I saw since I came to Melbourne, and well, no surprise here, it looks just the same like the ones I always saw back in Malaysia. No acclimatization or sweat gland hypertrophy here. Oops, I got confused with my PBL... :P

So that’s it, the end of my story about the computer and the cockroach! If you felt that this is an anticlimax and I have been talking more about Firefox & iMac rather than the cockroach, you are absolutely correct. Muahahahahahhahaah...

In fact, the main purpose I am writing this is to promote Firefox and iMac. Not cockroaches. Dinner time!!

Google For Hackers

Have you ever thought what version of Google that hackers use?

Here it is. If you could understand everything, then you are a venerable geek!

Sales on The Borders

The Borders is giving 20% off for almost all products in the shop! That’s quite a lot, especially for the bargain price books which were already as cheap as 10 dollars before the sales. After school, I went to Safeway to buy some chicken wings and on the way back, I decided to drop by the Borders (which is located in the same shopping complex) to browse around the shelves.

Kiamsiap as usual, I went straight to the bargain section to look for interesting books. Most of the books there are on the subject of crafts, home decoration, cooking, tarot cards which are not really my piece of cake. Then a few books in the corner caught my attention: books about sciences, history, geography, religion. They are all priced at 10 dollars, remember, and if I buy them today, I might save two dollars each, I thought. After much struggling with my inner kiamsiap evil, I finally to give myself a reprieve from my money-saving lifestyle. At the end, I picked up 3.. ya, not one or two, but three books altogether. They are:

1. World Mythology
2. The Handy History Answer Book
3. Children’s Illustrated Bible

Haha... don’t ask me the reason of my sudden interest. I have always wanted to learn more about these topics but somehow I have never kept my interest alive. Well, not to say that my interest has reborn, but somehow my unknown renewed vigour is still burning... :D Let’s see how I fare. I think they will be kept on my bookshelves to collect dust, sharing the same fate with the Lord of the Rings that I bought a few months ago.. Haha..

Time for PBL research!

ICM - We Weigh More On a Carpet!

Today I had the first ICM session of the second semester in the Medical Building. It all started well and fine, and my group members consisted of 4 post-graduate students and 5 under-graduate students.

Since we are doing NDM this semester, our ICM naturally focuses on making nutritional assessment this time. For the first on-campus tutorial, we began with taking history of diets, activity level and anthropometric measurement (which is just another jargon meaning as simple as “measurement of the human body”).

The first two sessions were the similar routine, again we are familiarised with the basic interview strategies: open question first, focused question next and closed questions eventually. For example, what should we ask at the beginning? Well, basically the way we take dietary history was to have a record of what they call “24 hour recall”, so someone suggested that we might start off with “what did you eat for breakfast yesterday?” Our tutor Dr. Luke Dunne replied that it doesn’t make a good question. The reason? By asking what the patient ate for breakfast, we are already making an assumption that the patient did eat breakfast, which is not necessarily true. So instead of this opening statement, he suggested that we ask something which is wider in scope, e.g. “Can you tell me about what you ate yesterday?”

The first one and a half hour was basically about interviewing technique, so it was without any thrill or frill. Then we learnt the routine hand-wash technique, and it was not unfamiliar to me since I have learnt a bit when I was in St. John back in secondary school. However, I had to wash my hands for the second time before it was indeed germ-free under the examination of UV light. The first time there were quite a lot of remnant of germs which showed up like a sore thumb as florescent spots on my palm and the back of palms.

Then came the exciting part, the peer-to-peer measurement! Well, not too exciting, we are not going to measure anything “special”, just the height, weight, waist circumference and the hip circumference. My weight at the time being is 67.5 kg (down from 70kg a few months ago) and I am 1.75 metre tall–making my BMI 22.0 which is in the normal range. My waist-hip ratio (a ratio used to determine central obesity) is 0.8 which is again in the healthy range of male. Hey, I even qualified for the healthy range of female!! Muahahaha...

When we finally finished the ICM lesson, there came a heavy blow from my friend Xuan Ni–someone in their group told her that the reading of the bathroom scale is actually less than our actual weight! Oh gosh, that means I am actually more than 67.5 kg! Impossible!! I went straight back home and spent much time on research and discussion, and all I was thinking is.. how could that be? See, from the perspective of physics, the reading of a bathroom scale actually reflects the normal force of the scale to counteract our weight (which is caused by the gravitation force on our weight). So no matter what surface the scale is standing on, the scale would always need to exert a similar force to support me, or else I would have sunken to the floor!

Huhh.. after a little bit of Googling, I found some evidence that we indeed get different reading on different surface, but something that keep me relatively relieved is–we actually weigh more on a carpet! A lot of pages mentioned it, but I couldn’t really find the actual reason from the pages. Howstuffworks does have a page about the mechanism of the bathroom scale, but again there is no explanation to my pertinent issue.

There I was, searching and filtering one article after another... and there I was, a scientific studies and explanation about the issue in New Scientist! I couldn’t be more joyous than it, they proved that I actually weigh less than 67.5 kg now!! For a brief explanation, see the diagram below, sourced from the abovementioned article.

If the article and the picture is not enough, some eat-full-nothing-to-do scientist even did a thorough study on this phenomenon, and the pdf file of the research can be found here.

At the end, I can sleep well tonight. Good bye!

华语水准退步啦……

写了前一个文章，我顿然发现自己的语文水准好潜水艇了，糟糕！

在这里可以说没什么机会写中文，即使有机会说也只是日常对话而已。而我呢，每次打电话回家也是用福建话来谈…… 哎，没退步也难哦！

这视窗内建的中文输入也蛮好笑的，我每一次打退步，他总是显示“腿部”，气死人了。我想我以后偶尔也应该用中文写博，否则有一天我的半桶水英文表达能力甚至还比中文好时，那可就惨了。

再见！

何谓对错，为何对错？

曾否想过我们每一个所做所为的目的？我们都做对了吗？又错过一些什么吗？什么是对，什么是错？对和错的衡量尺在哪？

当自己认为对的事情，和别人认为对的事情产生了冲突的时候，叫人应何去何从？是啊，从小到大总是听人说：我们不是为了别人而活啊，别人怎么说我们都不应左右我们的想法。但如果这冲突造成了友谊的裂痕，那我还算做对了事吗？是啊，我还是认为没错呀，但是当那不同的衡量尺判断了我的时候，我的对已成为了别人的错，而那伤口也只能任它撕裂…… 我能怎样？难道为自己认为没错的事情道歉？

我绝对赞成别人说的宽以待人、严以待己；但我也认为宽容是相互融让、沟通。人只要有独立思想的一天就会有意见不和的局面- 但容纳别人的不同想法，却是我们都必须学习的待人处世之道…… 宽容异己，说来容易做来难，有多少人能真正包容他的朋友呢？

我时常提醒自己应该接受每个人都不同的事实，但当一件又一件小事在我生活经历触及我时，我才知道我还还有好多需要学习。举几个例子吧，当我告诉我的朋友火狐狸比IE好时， 有些人会直接反驳我说火狐狸有什么好，还说他们绝对不会摒弃IE。哈哈，当然我不是因此而生气，但我发现我的确蛮不舒服的！

也许，我那培养出来的宽容，还没占据我内心的最深处吧…… 我会尽力的。

Two Campers and A Bear

Storytelling time! Normally I don't publish two posts in a single day, but the message of the story is so thought-provoking that I can't resist sharing with everyone:

In a forest, two campers hear a grizzly bear coming. One starts putting on his running shoes. The other says, "What are you doing? You can't outrun a bear!" The reply: "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you."

I have grown up to believe in the spirit of altruism, holding firm that I would be the best not by disadvantaging other people but by own merit. Throughout the years, I have always despised "top scorers" who refuse to help weaker students because of either the fear of being outperformed or just being plain impatient and lazy. There are a lot of selfish people out there, and many of them did reinforce their position by not helping the weaker ones. And let's not forget how Microsoft and any other major industrial players gain their market share by shackling other softwares' functionality. But still, I believed or rather, I convinced myself that I won't win by being selfish, in my entire life.

But... if I were the camper, wouldn't I run too? I would, certainly, and just like what he did, I would run as fast as I could - to run for my life - to outrun the other camper.

Trying to justify the bad thought that it's just a basic reflex in face of dangers, I couldn't help but to think further: What if the other camper is my beloved one? What should I do? Why should I do what I did?

What would you do, then?

p/s: I googled for it and found a lot of discussions and reflections on the story. Here's an interesting fruits of thought about the same story.

We are the IMSS!

Finally, a post I have wanted to put up for so so so long.

If any of you have looked at some of my posts and asked, "what is the IMSS?", the answer is here! The IMSS stands for the International Medical Students' Society, of The University of Melbourne of course.

At the beginning of the last semester, sometimes I see some of my friends heading off to some mysterious place during the oddest times, like during lunch - a time when I always find myself, Eng Kiat and Jian Wey in the Union House enjoying a plate of rice with honey chicken, roast pork, and stirfried chicken vege - and when I ask them where they are headed off to, they reply: "Oh we're going to the IMSS meeting, wanna come?"

I had no idea what the IMSS was back then, but then they organised their first major event, the IMSS City Tour, the pictures of which Jian Wey has already posted up.

And then a few weeks after that, they asked us, us being Jian Wey and I, whether we wanted to join the IMSS or not. And after much give-and-take, we decided to give it a go. And they gave us the roles, IT Officers. Haha, one of the easier jobs I must say, compared to some of the other roles. And it sounds quite cool too, I reckoned.

We held our 2nd major event, the IMSS Champagne and Pancake Lunch and that was great fun, albeit being only 2 weeks before our final exam for the semester. I've also posted the pictures for this up. and here is the poster for our event, which WE designed. WE = Jian Wey and I. If you remember, that was also one of the bleak moments I have been through, being served cold shoulder by one of my good friends for unknown reason.

So what does being in the IMSS involve? Well, it involves commitment towards the cause and the society. It takes sacrifice. Mostly it takes 1 or 2 hours of your time once every fortnight sitting in a meeting in some secluded room in the basement of medical building, where people won't discover Jian Wey's nefarious mime to everything Jing said. Haha sorry, just joking.

And what do we actually do? (Help people lah...what else?) Our role is to assist international students settle into their lives as medical students in Melbourne. Or something to that effect. I've heard some more inspiring words coming our from Jing's mouth before but I can't for the life of me remember her exact words. When I do get hold of our official motto or role I will post it up.

Okay, if you have made it this far and you haven't realized that I have been copying Jian Wey's post shamelessly, then you either have terminal stage STML or you don't know who's Jian Wey. Well, Jian Wey is a very interesting person, he claimed that dumb dumb duck is the cutest animal in the biosphere and that crushedguava tastes nicer than Rojak Campur. I would hesitate at the thought of giving out his blog's URL here, lest you will not read my boring blog anymore... But for the more savvier of you, you must have visited his blog before and must have your own share of laughter. Hint: The link to his blog is tucked away in a corner of my blog.

Oh yeah, before I move on, let's have a drumroll and give a standing ovation to those who deserve it:

The IMSS Committee

President: Jing
The Vice President: Jessica
Secretary: Jerica
Treasurer: Wanchen
Academic Officers: Ka Lip and Kathryn
Social Secretaries: Cathy and Jane
Sponsorship Officers: Clara and Jingyi
Publications Officers: Henry and Sue Faye
Us IT Officers: Chang Yang and Jian Wey

[and a few new committees, sorry will add it in when I get the names]

So now we are back in action after being dormant for almost two months. Cool as always, we IT officers are back to our routine mission again: set up a website for IMSS. Well, I must thank a few of the managers in the medical office, namely Mary Angelico, Catherine Wills, and in particular, Joanne Sullivan for their warm assistance. Well, to be frank we have gone no where yet, no website, no blog, no photo album... You know, it's hard to find free website marr..and then we also don't like those ad-ful sites, so what to do? Have to go beg the university and also Student Union. But then, the university said they don't provide website hosting and then we didn't hear anything from Student Union.

Having faced the harsh truth, we decided to try our own way: set up a blog in BlogSpot! Hehe.. it's as easy as 1-2-3, as blogger always says, but right now it's still in its infancy. Do pay a visit here, and don't spam the message board please. :D I would have been more pleased if we could get a paid hosting site and have some site like http://www.imss-mu.com, but then it's a faraway dream. As Jing always says, we are still a young society, we are a sub-committee of MSS and we are poor financially. ~~Sigh~~ (Thought of embezzling some online storage space if we could get a hosting site... haha)

Okay, blog is one thing in progress, and now we have another important mission. After the "tremendous" success of our previous poster, we decided to design another amazing poster for the Karaoke Night. So today I spent a few hours in Ormond College designing a draft for the poster. Well, for me, it turned out to be a tad less professional, and we reckoned that it's because we don't have logos down there. Err.. what to do? We don't have sponsors this time marr, so mar have nothing to put lohh.. At the time being we are still considering whether to put our faces on the poster, and Jian Wey insisted that it will surely be given a green light in our biweekly meeting next time, wuahaha... (another prawn behind the stone, hehe...)

So this is basically how IMSS works, with great fun and great activities. Well, did I mention the hidden agendas? Haha... Have I succeeded in making IMSS sound like some sort of terrorist organization?