I Can See My House!

I guess almost everyone who has used Internet long enough would have known the existence of Google Earth, and its sister project, Google Maps.

Basically, these two are the whole-earth satellite images that are free for public access. Last year, I enthusiastically tried it out in my Melbourne apartment and "visited" a few places such as Melbourne, University of Cambridge, University of Surabaya, University of Michigan and most important of all, my home.

For the first few maps, the map resolution (the clearness of the fine details) are superb - I can see every single car and house clearly. But for my home in Alor Star, I was utterly disappointed. Despite my very best effort, all I saw was a fine water line which I recognized as Sungai Kedah, and a glob of indiscrete houses which I barely recognized as "housing areas". And I couldn't even estimate where my house was, not to mention to pinpoint where it is.

I gave it up since then, and I thought probably Alor Star just wasn't a city important enough to feature a high-resolution map.

Today, however, Michelle amazed me with her post about her hometown. I thought, eih, Michelle came from Kuching right, how come she can see so many high-resolution pictures one? To quench my curiosity, I decided to have a look on the Google Map, to see what's happening to Kuching map and Alor Star map.

I couldn't contain my excitement when I saw it. I could see it - *my house and *my school! Yes, it is shown with amazing details, and for the first time I realized that the roof of my house is U-shaped! *Yee Pin, I can see your house too! *Winson! The biggest surprise - the *St. John Garden in my school!! I have yet to find other's house like Xuan Ni's yet, KL is too complicated for to search... :P

Haha, thanks Google Maps, you made my day!

*Note: In the links, the said structure is in the middle of the map.

Post-Exam Rambling 2

I was absorbed with other stuff, and this topic is kinda stale now with the exam result coming out yesterday. However, to finish my record, I will just finish my purposeless rambling. :)

Note: This is merely a record for the uninspiring albeit memory-stimulating exams I had. If you have the least of interest in my studies, perhaps you shall stop at this point for the time being, and consider some other blogs, news or online articles. :) My blogroll and linkroll on the left might interest you.



8 June 2006 - CRL Paper 1
After all the shell shock for the paper 2 on Monday, the paper 1 came surprisingly as an easier paper for me.

CRL paper 2 is a 3-hour paper, where we have 3 PBL-based questions and 9 short answer questions. In the PBL we are given a scenario, say a patient who present in the emergency department with shortness of breath and blue lips. We are then asked clinically relevant questions such as history questions to ask the patient, clinical tests that we should perform, possible mechanisms underlying the signs and symptoms etc. On the other hand, for the short answer questions, we are allocated approximately 10 minutes each for a written response to a question, e.g. "Describe the organs and enzymes involved in the conversion of Vitamin D to its active form."

Overall, I think that this paper is answerable. For the short answer questions, for most parts I feel that I have been a bit lucky in my last-minute preparation. I can still remember how I was studying lung defense before I went to bed the day before, and there I was elated at the sight of a lung defense question. However, there are some questions which was doomed anyhow... Like the Vitamin D question I mentioned above, there was simply no way I could have memorised the enzyme involved in the conversion. Even if I were given 3-week Swot Vacation, I would still have flunked in that question.

Also, the university kind of regained our respect by setting fresh questions rather than copying the past-year questions. Last semester, I can still remember how I was happy but upset at the same time, when I saw 5 out of 6 questions coming from the past years. That was when I I nicknamed PBL as Past-year Based Learning and sent my complaint to the department (without a written reply, anyway). But this year, I am happy because they department is finally set to actually test the stuff up our sleeves. I may get a lower mark, but at least this is fair and square.


13 June 2006 - CRL Practical Exam
Having one of the most benign names among our papers, this paper is so much more malignant than its innocuous look.

Well, as the name goes, this paper is indeed testing us about the practicals. There are 48 multiple-choice questions in total, and 4 questions would be attributed to a particular practical that we had done in the past. The subjects of the practicals include histology, anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and physics.

In the past, practical exam was kinda a killer subject for me. There are questions which appear out of no where, and sometimes you look at the questions and wonder - "What?! Did they ever explain this in the practical at all?" Eerrm, well, perhaps it just shows how much attention when we were given the post-practical explanation everytime. But you just can't blame me, who don't empathize the agony of going through an indecipherable rambling after a long practical session on a Friday afternoon? :D

However, this time around, the practical exam is alright. Most of the questions are answerable, and for this exam I feel that there are less "I-have-no-idea-at-all" questions, which is good. When everything was over, I remember I heaved a huge sigh of relief... Although I still didn't figure out what in the world those histology slides were showing. :P


Result:
The result was out yesterday morning. I was lucky to have scored H1 in both subjects (CRL and HP). I thank everyone who has given me academic and emotional support throughout the semester, my family, my housemate and most importantly, my special one. You won't realize how much strength I derived from you. I give you my heartfelt thanks.

Tag (not so) Fun...

I know this blog is getting boring, even the red dot is a bit of stale joke after 2 minutes. =P Then I remembered, I haven't replied to Jiun Wuu's tag, and therefore here it is, the tag fun version 3!



4 jobs I would stink at:
1. Promoter (I can't imagine people come asking me what textile this or that shirt is made of)
2. Waiter (You have to see how clumsy I am)
3. Home Delivery (Haha, I would be sacked in no time, for my good procrastination skill)
4. Highway Toll Cashier (Arrgh, I can't stand being enclosed in a 3-square-foot cubicle for the whole day, with an additional stake of some molestor's hand... :P)

4 nicknames I'm making up for myself:
1. Mek Mek (Primary school I think... n. Chinese "goat")
2. You Char Goi (Primary school... n. Hokkien "Paired dumpling", homophone of "you")
3. Can't think of any more... (haha, got but is private and confidential...)

4 movies I can watch over&over:
1. The Matrix (Very philosophical and visually appealing)
2. The Green Mile (Actually just watched it 9 hours ago, but it's so touching I think I will come back to it in the future)
3. A Beautiful Mind (I like to watch this kind of profound movie... Depressing yet uplifting at the same time)
4. The Sound of Music (It's so nice!!)

4 things I love to do on weekends:
1. Sleep
2. Pak Tor.. :P
3. Surf online, participate in forum.
4. Listen to songs!

4 alcoholic baverages I enjoy from time to time:
1. No, I seldom drink. I get rashes all over my body.. :(

4 fantastic destination I would like to go before I pass out:
1. Chile
2. Hawaii
3. Paris
4. New York City

4 celebrities I would go on a Big Date with:
1. Eer, due to the sensitive nature of this question, can I skip it? :P

4 objects I could not live without:
1. Computer
2. Digital camera (not as much as computer, but recently rekindled interest)
3. My PDA
4. Mozilla Firefox!!

4 gadgets I do not have which I would quite like to have:
1. Car
2. Digital SLR Camera
3. A surround speaker system in a sound-proof room!
4. iPod would be good, but not necessary.

4 wannable friends tagged:
Not now... Scared already!

Conclusion: Aiks, I realized that I am such a geek, almost everything I mentioned in each category has got something to do with computer and technology... :P

Hahahahaha!!

One of the best, stupidest prank I have ever seen! :D

Great Goal from World Cup

Argentina won against Serbia yesterday 6 - 0. Shown above is the second goal by Cambiasso - one of the best team work I have ever seen! :) I am an England fan, but to be honest they are just a class above what we have seen from England team so far...

Post-Exam Rambling

Just realized one thing I haven't mentioned here - my exams are over!! :D As I said earlier, this exam was kinda shocking when we had our first paper.. I know it wouldn't concern most people, but I would just jot down some notes for record.

Note: This is merely a record for the uninspiring albeit memory-stimulating exams I had. If you have the least of interest in my studies, perhaps you shall stop at this point for the time being, and consider some other blogs, news or online articles. :) My blogroll and linkroll on the left might interest you.



5 June 2006 - CRL Paper 2
If I were to sum this paper with one word, it would be a "nightmare".

In this paper, basically we are given 100 multiple-choice questions in a duration of 2 hours. Well, some might think that MCQ is nothing, but I can assure you, it is something. In fact, at the end of the paper, most of us came out of the exam hall feeling dazed all over. We could had had a fever for having overworked our tiny brains, regurgitating more facts than it would like to hold.

The fact is, the multiple choice questions are not at all easy to answer. There are some questions which rely entirely on good memories, which unfortunately isn't my forte. It's not that I can't memorise at all, I used to memorise stuff too (duh..) when I was in primary school, with quite some "accomplished" skill. The thing is just that, as I grew to be more fond of concepts than details, I always have this kind of reluctance to rote memorise things which are simply meant to be memorised. It's like, who would have thought that phrenic nerve supplies the centre part of diaphragm and mediastinal pleura, instead of centre part and peripheral part of diaphragm, if not because of memory? (I got this question right by luck, anyway...)

Apart from the memory works, the conceptual questions aren't close to a breeze. Given that we have approximately 72 seconds for each question, it is not hard to appreciate the fact that we have less than ample time to analyze each question carefully and thoughtfully, let alone recheck the answers when we are done. By the way, those questions are not exactly tricky, but they are just hard to answer... There are some vague uncertainties where lecture notes (which I rely solely upon) are insufficient, and will only be obvious to people who have garnered clinical experience.

Just an example... Everyone knows it off the top of their heads that "an FER > 80 indicates restrictive lung disease, normal people's FER is around 80, while FER < 80 indicates obstructive lung disease". But there is this question which gives us an FER of 75 - how can one know for sure, whether this indicates "slight" obstructive lung disease, or a normal lung?! I would like to think that if you haven't read enough Kumar and Clark or worked for some time in a hospital, you wouldn't have much idea.

To sum it up, the MCQ paper is hard, really hard. I would be lucky to be able to score even 70 out of 100. But I will never know, anyway, because it is a closed paper and we will not be able to know our exact scores for this component.


6 June 2006 - ICM OSCE Interview
I guess anyone who knows me well enough would know that ICM interview is one of my most feared subjects in medicine.

Introduction to Clinical Medicine, or ICM for short, is a beginner's crash course to becoming a doctor. It actually endeavours to teach us to be a good communicator... Haha, well, I can't see much point - if you are not empathic, you won't turn into an empathic person by just reading the marking scheme which allocates a mark or two for being empathic. But I guess this kind of "empathic is important" preaching has to be done anyway, lest there will be more and more mean doctors.

Besides learning to be a good communicator, ICM's main point is to teach us what doctors do and why they do what they do (I know I am rambling incoherently know, but it's 2am now so paiseh larr.. :P). During our biweekly ICM lessons, we learn to inspect patient's hearts and lungs, circulation system etc, in addition to interviewing our patients about a medical condition (which in our semester is focused on heart and lung problems).

Alright, back to the ICM OSCE interview.. Basically in this day 2 of the exam, we had an interview with a simulated patient (a fancy word which means the same as actor / actress) for 9 minutes, and we are marked based on our performance in that short duration. In this 9 minutes, we are supposed to know our patients' every slightest detail - from how often he / she has the chest pain to how she is going with his / her family members. Miss one detail? Points deducted!

* Browser hanged, 3 precious paragraphs lost.. Grrhh... :P

Basically, I was saying that ICM is prone to subjectivity and bias since it depends on so many external factors. Good acting skill is of utmost importance, in addition to the basic communication skill. Luck is crucial. Besides, empathy should be feigned with finesse, and checklist approach employed under the disguise of non-checklist questioning style. Talking about checklist approach, I still don't get it today - we have been told since day-1 that "checklist approach should not be used", but how many of us actually got through the interview without having a mental checklist of all the keypoints we ought to find out from the patient?

Anyway, after all the apprehension and nerves, the actual ICM interview turned out to be alright. I would not say I performed very well, since there are so many weaknesses I could nitpick now in retrospection. However, with regard to my actual communication skill, I must say that I have done my best, and I shall leave it to the examiner to judge how much I deserved.


7 June 2006 - HP3 Exam
HP3 is supposed to be fascinating, if not because of some rotten eggs. Well, talk about the exams first, I will leave the rotten eggs to another blog post.

Health Practice is supposed to be an intellectually stimulating subject, since it enlightens us about the way population health policy operates - the principle is like: if you dedicate your time in saving one patient at a time, the most you can do is to save one patient's life. However, if you spend effort in promoting public health, say, about quitting smoking, you can actually save more people's lives with less cost. That, is the principle of public health we were learning all along.

In this semester, we had some sorts of lectures about epidemiology (which was dodgy) which is supposed to be about learning how statistics is employed in medical context, e.g. risks, prognosis, diagnosis etc. We also learnt to read academic papers from journals, and to "appraise" (which is a fancy word for "evaluate") the papers.

Eerm, I shall stop giving summaries and remarks about all our courses, if not I will not end my article at all... :P I am getting sleepy now, and it's time to get some sleep... Just a final note, for the HP exam, it's alright actually, not as hard as I had imagined beforehand. Apart from a few inevitable (yet lame) memorisation questions, most of the questions are answerable.


(... to be continued)

Tag Fun (Again?!)

Thanks to See Hua, I have to do this tagging thing again, and this task is even more difficult than the last one, owing to its abstract nature.. :P

Okay, before I continue, I shall proclaim that I will not tag others this time, since I don't want another boomerang. This tagging thing gets quite sick and un-entertaining after some time.

Here goes: 10 things that make happy everyday...

1. Being able to live with people whom I treasure and who treasure me.
2. Waking up to realize that I am still living and doing something meaningful.
3. Realizing that there are people who think of me at this very moment.
4. Knowing there are so many exciting things out there, for me to discover.
5. Talk to friends, really good friends.
6. Learning new things, both online and from books!
7. Knowing that there will always be justice one day.
8. Listening to music and singing along.
9. Being free yet occupied.
10. Eat.


I am pretty happy huh? :D