Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you! Miss you heaps. :)

Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror

Gotta make a change
For once in my life
It's gonna feel real good
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right

As I turned up the collar on
A favorite winter coat
This wind is blowin' my mind
I see the kids in the street
With not enough to eat
Who am I to be blind
Pretending not to see their needs

A summer's disregard
A broken bottle top
And a one man's soul
They follow each other
On the wind ya' know
'Cause they got nowhere to go
That's why I want you to know

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change, yey
Na na na, na na na, na na na na oh ho

I've been a victim of
A selfish kinda love
It's time that I realize
There are some with no home
Not a nickel to loan
Could it be really pretending that they're not alone

A willow deeply scarred
Somebody's broken heart
And a washed out dream
(Washed out dream)
They follow the pattern of the wind ya' see
'Cause they got no place to be
That's why I'm starting with me

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
(Man in the mirror, oh yeah)
I'm asking him to change his ways, yeah
(Change)
No message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make the change
You gotta get it right, while you got the time
'Cause when you close your heart
(You can't close your, your mind)
Then you close your mind

(That man, that man, that man)
(That man, that man, that man)
(With the man in the mirror, oh yeah)
(That man you know, that man you know)
(That man you know, that man you know)
I'm asking him to change his ways
(Change)
No message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself then make that change

(Na na na, na na na, na na na na)
Ooh
Oh yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
(Na na na, na na na, na na na na)

Oh no
Oh no, I'm gonna make a change
It's gonna feel real good
Sure mon
(Change)
Just lift yourself
You know, you got to stop it yourself
(Yeah)
Oh
Make that change
(I gotta make that change today, oh)
(Man in the mirror)
You got to, you got to not let yourself, brother oh
Yeah
You know that
(Make that change)
(I gotta make that make me then make)
You got, you got to move
Sure mon, sure mon
You got to
(Stand up, stand up, stand up)
Make that change
Stand up and lift yourself, now
(Man in the mirror)
Make that change
(Gonna make that change, sure mon)
(Man in the mirror)
You know it, you know it, you know it, you know
(Change)
Make that change

RIP Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson died.

I am not really a huge fan of his but at various points of my life I have been touched by his music and inspired by his performance. Who amongst us have never been touched by some of the works like "we are the world", "heal the world", "man in the mirror", "strangers in moscow" or "you are not alone"? Who amongst us have never been electrified by or danced to "beat it", "black or white" or "remember the time" or "thriller"?

I know I have - and for that I mourn the loss. Yes he has his eccentricities and sins, but let's leave it for another day, or for someone above if it is there.

A Medical Student's Apology

We wander around the ward corridor
Chirping, chattering, cheering, conniving
Stealthily we peeked at you
And we thought you would be interesting.

You are awake, you are not sleeping.
You don't have any pain, you are not eating.
You are not demented, and you have got no one visiting.
You look okay, in fact you look welcoming.

We come to you, and start to greet you
The greeting is always the same
Official, boring, and impersonal
And we always go like this

"Hi Mr. Smith my name is Yang,
I am a fifth year medical student.
Do you mind if I spend a few minutes with you,
to talk about your recent condition?"

You agreed to that because you are nice,
But deep inside you let out a grunt.
"Those students again"
"How many of them are out there lurking?!"

"What brought you to the hospital?"
"An ambulance, obviously"
"Tell me more about the pain"
"It hurts, doc"

Minutes dragged on to hours
Hours dragged on to days.
Your stay in the teaching hospital,
Is punctuated by endless visits by annoying students.

At times you see us on the corridor,
Laughing, sniggering, jeering and bantering.
And you probably wonder,
whether we realise we should be a bit more proper.

At times you accidentally hear us say,
"Mr. Smith is an interesting case, go do a long case on him"
And you probably wonder,
whether we realise you are not here for our exam rehearsal.

So an apology this is
For all the patients we have hurt,
For patients we saw as a long case or a short case,
And for patients who are not good for any type of case.

We don't mean to annoy you,
Although at times we probably do.
We don't mean to use you,
Although in reality we probably do.

We empathise what you are going through,
At the very least, we used to.
But after toiling for a year or two,
Even the warmest heart probably turn a bit cool.

My dear patients, we wish we really could
Be a bit less rude and do a bit more good
We are really sorry what we subject you to,
Hopefully, just hopefully, we will all pull through.


Image Credit: Lupus Comedy

福

福 (pinyin fú) - happiness, good fortune, blessing

Happy Chinese New Year!

祝愿大家新年进步，身体健康，万事顺利

再抄星云大师的一句：　生耕致富！

Dear Zhulian

Who are you? Why are you so arrogant to assume my trust for you? And why are you showing your unfounded appreciation throughout the highway from KL to Alor Setar? Someone said you did that for some FREAKING 43 times - are you mad or just being redundantly redundant?

If I'm not mistaken, you have been in this thank you business for years. I saw you last year. And the year before. And the year before before. Why are you still here? Go away. Or get a better billboard designer. Get your downline to do it if you are too busy.

Please.

Merry Christmas!

Wish you a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Father's Day

The giant figure of few words. Without whom we are all but eggs. I wish you a happy father's day and happy every day.

Image Credit: Flickr - I am thy father's spirit...

Please Donate to China Earthquake Relief Funds

There aren't many things that could bring me to the verge of tears. But everyday as I read about the tragic news trickling out of the China, I can't help but to become emotional. The heartrending and the heartwarming stories never fail to send chills down my spine.

I felt remorseful that I didn't donate earlier for the earthquake relief funds; though I did in the end. To people who haven't done your part - think of how much you spent for your last meal in your local restaurant, or a snack you had yesterday. And how much you could have donated to help the thousands of people who lost their lives and homes.

Please donate. You can help. You need to help.

p/s: I am relieved that AMS is over.

Mother's Day

For my mum and all mums in the world. All of you are so lovely. :)

CNY Greeting

Wishing you a healthy and prosperous year ahead! :) 祝你新年进步！

Don't Jail Doctors!

You are a legitimate doctor. You are nice to your patients and charge them minimal fees for the treatment. You have eight kids to feed. You are financially down and out. You are one of the GPs having hard time to make ends meet, despite the popular misconception that "all doctors are rich and glamorous".

In an occasion you decided to sell off your clinic, and hence you did not register the clinic under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998. You broke the law. You got caught, and you were sentenced to a 120,000-ringgit fine. You can't pay for that heft sum, so you were sentenced to a three-month prison sentence.

A doctor: At 2 pm today,I was at Kajang Prison to visit an old comrade in arms, Dr.Basmullah Yusuf who has been sentenced to 3 months prison for unable to pay the RM120,000 fine imposed onto him for failing to register his clinic under the new Private Health Act.Dr.Basmullah is a caring dr who charges minimum fees for his services especially when serving his poor pts.With the paltry fees that he gets and having to fend 8 children of his own the good man now has to pay a hefty price.Words cannot describe my feelings when I saw him dressed in his prison clothes trying to put on a brave front for the sake of his tearful wife and children.A good kind hearted dr is now being treated like a common criminal.After seeing the case first hand and on the advice of a lawyer in order to get him out he has to pay the absurd fine and appeal later.

Why the lack of negotiation? Why the heavy-handed action on a technical fault, when the doctor is a legitimate doctor who provides grass-roots medical care without pursuing monetary rewards?

He should tell MOH that he was the doctor who appeared to run the clinic, yet it was not him, but looked liked him.

Read more:
The 1st clinic doctor convicted under the PHFSA
The 1st clinic doctor convicted under the PHFSA (II)
Don't Jail Doctors Blog Campaign

An Untimely Demise (2)

From this blog post:

...the top deck was swaying left and right as the driver was going really fast. Some passengers at the bottom deck saw the driver smsing a lot and driving really fast in the heavy rain. After awhile the passengers felt something amiss and saw the bus driver STAND UP suddenly(while the bus was moving!) and split seconds later, the passengers screamed really loudly and the bus spun three times, hit the divider and careened to the opposite highway where an oncoming MPV crashed into the back of the bus. Nian Ning and Mohd Zailani were sitting at the back row.

Please post this on your blog now to help:

Chung Lern and Nian Ning’s families would like all families and friends of the victims, dead or alive, in the Slim River Bus Crash to come forward and join them in taking action against the bus company. Stand up to seek justice for these three innocent individuals, who were all so young and full of life.

If you have a blog, please call out to ANYONE who knows someone who survived or did not survive the crash to come forward to join the Lee family.

Make a huge difference, make a huge fuss.

For now, you may contact Lee Chung Lern at chunglern [at] gmail.com or preferably on his handphone at 012-6670368.

An Untimely Demise

She's very much like you and I. She was young, intelligent, all-rounded and vibrant. She was a ReCom member. She was doing first year medicine in University of New South Wales under JPA. She wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon.

She wrote a blog. She loved cooking and photography. She was anticipating to see her boyfriend in KL on the fateful bus.

I may not know her, but I feel for the loss. I am sure you do too. My condolences to the family and friends of Nian Ning, the 21-year-old girl who had her dream curtailed in an untimely demise. Let us mourn for the loss of this girl, and make sure that such a tragedy never happens again. Let's make the Ministry of Transport curb the increasing number of bus accidents. Some accidents are never meant to happen in the first place.

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him. [Voltaire]

Image Source: Nian Ning's blog

二十二岁的感言

[Click play button for the music]

几天前璇倪为我搞了一个惊喜生日会，吹生日蛋糕前人家叫我说生日感言。我愣在那儿，不懂该说什么好，只会说谢谢、谢谢，谢谢大家今晚来这里为我庆祝生日。说完了大家也就忙着吃东西了，也不懂是不是每个人都听到。

其实我何尝没有感想呢？ 有谁生日只是吃喝玩乐；一点回顾、检讨、展望都没有呢？

我不是一个交际广阔的人，平日没多少喧哗亮丽的生活。我所谓的社交，也只是偶尔和三五好友玩玩、吃吃、看看。 我不像许多人随便走在路上都会遇到好几个好朋友，或是每天都有不同的朋友出去玩乐。有时也会羡慕那些知交满天下的人，看起来生活特别有趣的。可是平淡的生活，也有淡淡的甘甜味，忙碌之中能和身边的人一起走过在异乡的日子，我默默感恩。朋友们平日的互相体谅、迁就和提点，我深深感谢。这平静的生日，我不奢望物质上的礼物；一声问候，知道大家都好，那就是最好的礼物。

一年三百六十五天里，生日也不过是又一个平凡的一天。如果我们换个角度想，生日其实是母亲多年前临产艰辛的时刻，而这一天，自然是感恩的日子。我不时常和家人通话，通常也只是通过妈妈知道家里的近况。大家还是一样咬紧牙根过日子，而我也知道哥哥和姐姐们一天比一天忙碌。看到网上放了几张家里新铺的草地，还有那新建好的厨房，感觉上离家也近了一些。不在家的日子，生活上下为自己打算，日子其实还不算辛苦，只是和家里的舒适差得多了。我要感谢家人对我的关怀，这些年来没有你们也不会有今天的我。如果生日有个愿望可以实现，我希望家人都开开心心，健健康康。这愿望听来老套，但我相信这些都是最重要的事情。

璇倪，这是我们第三次一起庆祝我的生日了。你对我说我们总是没机会一起迎接生日的凌晨，有些遗憾。你也总是为了生日要为我制造惊喜、选礼物，费尽心思去筹划，让你在生日前的日子都过得好像有压力似的。我每次告诉你我不要什么特别礼物，那都是真心话。我们没做过什么轰轰烈烈的大事，但是对我来说，每一天能够牵着你的手，看你享受我买的巧克力的模样，那就是我最大的幸福，也就是我最大的礼物。你为我做过的每一件事，我会在每一天以一颗真心来回报。每一年的生日，有你，有我，那多好。

不知不觉中，我已经二十二岁了。 :)

The Festival Season

Yay I finally have some time to blog amongst all the frenzies! I think the last few days must have been some of the busiest days for me in a long while. It's the first time I am overseas during Christmas day, and for the first time in my life I am actually doing something during Christmas. For the past 21 years, Christmas had always been "yet another holiday" as I don't celebrate the event. However, the Christmas season in Melbourne is entirely different.

The festival season blasted off on Sunday. After having some good table-tennis time in College Square, I dropped by Xuan Ni's house to pay a visit. Surprise, surprise, surprise, when I opened the door, I was greeted by faces I wouldn't have expected in Xuan Ni's house. There cheerfully chatting and playing in the house were my friends who teamed up with her to give me a surprise for my upcoming birthday. :D Everyone cooked and brought tons of delicious foods and deserts; a few of them even came all the way from outer suburbs! Thanks to everyone who made it to the surprise party! Haha I don't think I can describe how delighted and flattered I felt on that night. So a big hug and thank you to you guys! :) And to the person who planned the surprise party: Muaks! <3 <3 <) (photos later)

The Christmas Eve on Monday started with myself and a few others doing some scouting in the city shopping precincts. On the Boxing Day (26 Dec) every year, there is always a huge clearance sale in almost every single fashion and electronic shops in Melbourne. Everyone goes crazy on this day, and for some outlets, there are even people waiting outside the entrance in the early morning just so that they could grab all the best deals before the others. So, yeah, on Christmas Eve, we were doing some last-minute scouting to look up worthwhile stocks to be bought on Boxing Day. Unfortunately for us it turned out not as fun as we thought, as we couldn't really find much good and cheap stuff.

At night we went out to Ivanhoe, one of the suburbs in Melbourne to see the Christmas lights. Since the 1950s, many of the houses at one of the boulevards have been showcasing their Christmas decorations. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the residents made concerted effort in decorating their houses with scintillating lights, santas and reindeers. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously in Ivanhoe while seeing the effort and money put into this showcase. I didn't take any picture on the night, but there is a photo gallery in The Age website with some of the most impressive displays.

As it neared the midnight, we rushed all the way back to the city to catch the actions. We went to the St. Paul's Cathedral which is one of the most stupendous churches in Melbourne, located right across the road from Flinders Street Train Station. There was a midnight mass going on, so we dropped in and listened to a couple of carols. The carols were sung by the thousand-strong mass attendants under the grand Gothic architecture. With the accompaniment of the organ, "Joy to the World" sounded so mesmerizing.

At 20 minutes to midnight, we shuffled our way out of the cathedral embarrassingly and made our way to the Federation Square which is just right across the road. (Image credit: Federation Square website) There we watched a special acrobatic show where two acrobats kind of put up a show synchronized with some computer-graphic animations on a huge projector screen. It was pretty interesting in the first few minutes, but as the show dragged on for almost half an hour, the novelty wore off and we got rather bored by the repetitive actions on the screen. The show was behind the schedule, so when it came to the count-down chapter at 12.20am, the crowd was already rather unenthusiastic. We capped off the night with a supper in the King of Kings Restaurant in Russell Street, which was absolutely mouth-watering.

Christmas Day turned out to be a food day for me, as all we did was to attend a Christmas lunch with a few friends and a Christmas dinner with another group of friends. The Christmas lunch was a cozy meeting between Audrey, Su Min, Xuan Ni and I in Audrey's house in East Burwood. Four of us are in the same unit in the hospital for our research projects. Audrey's family were so nice that they prepared a whole meal for all of us while we just sat there and did nothing. :P Su Min also brought her mango pudding which was better than the one people have in restaurant, and it raised the question of why she is studying medicine. We chit-chatted with Audrey's parents for a few hours, and it's so interesting to see how Audrey grew confused as we talked about places in Malaysia and Malaysia's "internal workings" (Audrey's parents are from Malaysia but she's born in Australia).

In the evening, we rushed to another Christmas dinner hosted by Omiiga. Acherly very boring don't want to write about this. Hah it turned out to be a lot of fun! Among the highlights of the night were the Christmas Pic-tionary game (in which I drew "Christmas Carol" and was guessed right in 20 seconds) and Santa-Clause dress-up competition. Hah Eng Kiat and Yong Chin lived up to the image of Santa Clause so well that they could almost pass themselves off as the real thing. :) No photo again, unfortunately. :( When you are surrounded by so many delicacies, photograph has to be delegated to a lower priority. :P

Today was the much-awaited Boxing Day, but unfortunately I wasn't in much mood to shop for clothes and stuff. While the others happily swept through all the shops' hottest deals, I only got myself a pair of sport shoes. Anyway it was rather eye-opening to witness the rare scene of shoppers literally clogging the street happily parade all their Myer, Nike, Adidas, Target, JB Hi-Fi plastic bags. (Image Credit: The Age) While today must be the big-day for all the retail therapists; I guess those shoppers can only claim the second place as the happiest people today. It's not too hard to guess the first place eh?

Anyway, I made it home after a few hours of shop-crawling, and here I am typing a faithful "report" of what happened to me in the last few days. I know it's boring and long, because I am dozing off myself liao. For those who fell asleep reading this grandmother tale, now you should blame yourself for not realising earlier the reason I write more opinion pieces than narratives. :)

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Takziah to Heng Liang, Cheok Quen and Raymond

Heng Liang told me that their house in Sydney got broken into while they are having dinner outside. He and his housemates (Cheok Quen and Raymond) lost their laptops, cameras, money, and passport.

How despicable and hideous.

[Post truncated]

Donate to Wikipedia!

Wikipedia has just started its annual fundraising campaign, and I just donated a little bit to help the cause.

If you use Wikipedia and find it useful, help it grow and flourish by supporting it financially. Wikimedia (the organization behind Wikipedia) is a non-profit charitable organisation, and its operation is fully dependent on donation. If I could only donate my money to one cause online, I would choose Wikipedia. Look at what the donors have to say about Wikipedia here.

Donate to support one of the greatest websites in the world!

A Golden Jubilee

Post moved to my other blog.

A Dedication

Congratulations Owl! This is my gift for you, the ultimate blend of you two. :P

I would like to congratulate another person too, but since that guy wants to keep it very, very secret, I would just dedicate it telepathically. You know who you are. ;)

I wish you guys a "happy ever after". :)