who's up for roller coasters?

the adrenaline rush when u strap urself to the seat,

the increasing wild palpitation in ur chest as the train snails up slowly up the slope..... to a halt.

POUND POUND POUND

u brace urself

then

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ur internal organs feel non existent

the plunge is never ending

u feel like u'll fall off the seat anytime

when it kinda slows down a little, suddenly u're twisted sharply to ur right

and to ur left

a camera flashes (great. ugly photo >8S)

another plunge down the never ending slope of terror

up down left right twist loop de loop small plunges that make ur stomach lurch

suddenly it slows down

and its all over.

u come down with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.

GRINS.

i dont have much of an experience to make a good comparison of roller coasters. but i enjoy riding on them. :)

have so far rode on

1. Berjaya Times Square's indoor theme park's

2. Genting Highlands cyclone and another-i-4got-the-name

3. Spore Universal Studio's Mummy Train Ride (i think it has a cooler name but i 4got), Human and Cylon

and Cylon wins hands down as most thrilling, exciting and full of surprises.

its an inverted roller coaster where the seats attach to the rail on the top rather than run on tracks. so it leaves ur legs dangling from ur seat.

has i think 2 loop de loops (360 degree turns) and gas effects along the way.

its the blue 1 in this picture. the red 1 is Human which runs on tracks and has plunges so steep i didnt have the nerve to go on it another time.

those were the highlights of the universal studios trip. which burnt a hole in my pocket. but was definitely worth it!

some pictures of my trip down south right after the grueling exams. Grueling not bcz it was really stressful. but bcz it stretched over 1.5 wks. which i guess is nothing compared to the other health science students who's exam stretches over 3 whole weeks :S

paper-paper-celebration-break -- paper-celebration-break -- paper-paper-celebration :D

i guess having 3 after exam celebrations for an exam lasting just 1.5 weeks is kinda.. overrated? that probably isnt an accurate description but u get what i mean. :P

Chocolate Souffle at the Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar at the Esplanade Mall. S$16. we all shared. u'd want to cz its extremely rich -no kidding- and pretty pricey. if u're a huge chocolate fan, its worth the try. the little mug on the right is a Hug Mug, called so cz of the shape. u can cup ur hands ard it for some chocolate warmth. :P

the New York theme of Universal Studios.

Egypt

Jurassic Park. This baby Triceratops is adorable. it can even lick ur hands. or bite?

with the hot Egyptian guy and girl.

Donkey from Shrek

night view while sitting by the lake waiting for the fireworks display.

awesome fireworks display. this 1's my favourite. the 5 balls of fire were just there rotating round and round with little sparks flying out.

stayed at the Footprints Backpacker's Hostel in Little India. i highly recommend this place :P cz its clean, has a nice atmosphere and interior designing and most importantly cheap. RM30 per pax per night.

met Carmen who's studying in NTU. thx for the awesome shopping expedition in Bugis! :D none of the girls left Bugis empty handed. hehe.

and the trip cont journeying up to JB. stayed at Tune Hotels. comfortable and cheap. also recommended. :) met Christine and Zara!

and went further up to Segamat bunking in at Shalisha's place. Her mum cooks really well.

chappati for breakfast!

met up with lovely qi wen who also stays in Segamat. thx for the treat!

laughed ourselves silly playing carrom at Sha's place. above is the sequence to who managed to flick a piece into the net. we look so happy here bcz the game was getting depressing cz either our targets were never accurate, the pieces were either jumping across the board or we were scoring for our opponent :S

oops sorry for the extreme deviation from roller coasters to my post exam trip. :P was an experience of tests, horror, thrills and fun altogether.

having 2 weeks of hols back home now :D Kuching oh Kuching.

and will be heading to taiwan for elective posting for 3 wks. any1 searching for elective posting options can consider the tzu chi hospital in hualien, tw. relatively cheap as its subsidized and a hospital that has very established palliative care and traditional medicine departments.

definitely high time for me to brush up on my Mandarin. hehe.

Jack of all trades

pride stumbles us and make us fall (but when we get up, we become a better person).

nothing on its own per se determines how good someone is at his/her job. same goes to labeling ppl as having good character, being a good decision maker or just being plain kind. ppl may pride themselves for being extremely good at sth, but there's more to it than just that.

today how good u are in ur job is measured not just by the dominant skill u need to perform ur job, eg. Making correct diagnosis and planning out proper management for a patient's disease for a doctor. or Designing building structures for an architect. or coming up with scientific breakthrough through research for a scientist.

on the job, management skills and good public relations are also keys that determine success.

a doctor can be given the job of organising say, his department's annual dinner. or a sports carnival. u dont learn how to organise events in medical school curriculum. these skills are acquired through experience. projects u take up here and there before. esp if u want to get ur committee working for u, doing a good job and being happy at doing their jobs. u need to be a people person yet make sure deadlines are met, get best deals at lowest prices etc.

lots of ppl nowadays end up working on a job that's totally unrelated to what they specialised in in their degree programme. but they're happy, adapting and doing well.

a person still has to be an all rounder in the end, to be the ultimate super worker. and i thought the term all rounder was stuck to pri and sec sch days. looks like i was wrong.

which would be better? to be extremely good in sth but lack skills in many areas. or to be a jack of all trades, master of none. ev1 wishes they can be both. perhaps they can. with time. with experience.

i guess it depends on what ur goal is. bcz with diff goals, priorities differ. and no1 is entirely right or wrong in saying what they think is the best choice is or isnt the best choice. :)

speaking of Jack, Pirates of the Carribean 4 is coming soon. :D Captain Jack Sparrow!

the boy in my life

18 years have passed. childhood memories linger. it was as if it was just yesterday that my brother threw marbles at me and made me so mad at him that i cried. he still reminds me of it from time to time to poke fun at me. geez. but no doubt its pretty funny thinking of it now.

it was in primary sch days that fights ensued bcz he stole, i mean took the last piece of my share of cheesecake from the fridge and walloped it all up without telling any1. LOL. the bits of mischief he'd be up to to make me oh so mad. the times my sister and i would gang up against him (HAha) and threaten to tell mum if he played the computer while she was away if he didnt stop disturbing us. or secretly watching some cartoon on tv together when we were suppose to be doing our homework.

and it was in sec sch days that we poked fun at each other and fight over who gets to use the computer and go online. bcz i'd hog the comp to check emails and do lots of useless things and be totally kepo on ppl's friendster profiles. and he wanted to play comp games.

and it was in f6 days that i went to the same sch as him and drove him to sch together every morn and yell at him to wake up early cz i didnt wana get caught in the traffic. threatening to leave without him if he wasnt on time. muahaha. and listening to really hillarious stories he'd tell of his teachers and classmates and stuffs.

and it was when i entered university that i didnt meet him on a daily basis anymore. lol. but we'd chat endlessly whenever i got home drg the hols. the hillarious stories of teachers and friends never stopped. we stil argue about stupid things but all in good humour.

i met up with him over lunch today. we talked, shared little life stories. and i realised that as time goes by, this fella has really matured. he even qualifies as my counsellor. lol :P i'm sometimes awed by his train of thoughts. and his actions.

why am i being so nostalgic?? silly me. haha.

well. i love this brother of mine. :)

Um? :P

the heart.

its funny how the heart is linked to our emotions. i wonder who started the metaphor. and drew hearts as the heart shapes we see today. its an intriguing shape really. its symmetrical. its both pointed and curved. and its almost always red or pink.

its like a ball that can swell into the largest of emotions such as pride and anger, and it can also house deep emotions like love, faith, hope. for some reason u dun often find ppl saying 'i'm swelling with love' but with pride. the word play. heeh.

it can also contain burning desires that take you soaring sky high. and feelings that stay rooted and create turmoil, bringing your stomach along on a churning ride.

it isnt simple. bcz emotions put in the heart do not just vanquish as easily as when u want them to. they fade out gradually. and the only variation found in different hearts is the time that transition takes.

it can plaque your mind. or rather, what the mind thinks plaques the emotions in your heart.

it isnt that easy to guard one's heart. but it's worth the try.

*this is some random ramble. if it doesnt make sense, perhaps it's meant to.

i wonder why the queen of hearts was made to be the antagonist. nonetheless, she's my favourite character in Alice in Wonderland. :D

Biological Clock Slamdown

study weeks are a perfect time to finally just sit down and have all the time in the world u want and need to hit the books. seriously.

with 24 hours x 7 days in your hands, you get to choose how u wana run your schedule. u get to decide how and when u're gonna sleep/eat/study/chill, tho to an extent its not entirely free choice cz u noe the majority of time should be spent on using the brain for exam prep and not on other funner creativity enhancing intellectual totally cool worthwhile chillaxing fun things like watching The Big Bang Theory or editing photos or facebooking that are hey did i mention, fun? grins.

i've bn traditionally sticking to the traditional (my vocab is really limited right now) 12am-8am more than adequate but not too much sleeping time for the entire week until thursday where i veered off a little but just a little so no damage done.

until last night i decided to so called burn midnight oil to finish the last bits of public health lecture notes cz kiasu must finish them all in 1 day. even if it means extending the day to more than 24 hours. heeh.

whn i woke up this morning after what i thought was a more than sufficient 8 hours of sleep, i was a little groggy but thought, hey, let's start the day with a cup of coffee! that should do the trick!

3 hours later which is now, i am slightly disorientated, feeling like i need more sleep and....... thinking that last night's idea was a really bad one. and learning it the hard way that drinking coffee worsens it.

its like my eyes and mind just wont work together.

the moral of the story is not to attempt to screw ur biological clock bcz it almost always wins hands down. it forces me to wake up at 8am no matter what time i go to bed.

sobs. my morning ruined by cerebral arrhythmia.

Sedentary Excuses

ppl say our lifestyle in our 20s determine how we're going to be like in our 30s-40s.

i never really gave it a thought until some time ago.

nearly all the patients in the wards have the triad of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia. probably around 80% of them. or about 98% of patients ageing 40 and above have it.

i take a look at MY current lifestyle and i think i might just get hypertension in 10 years time. i shudder at the thought of having to pop hypertensive pills EVERYDAY for the next 50 years of my life. its like a drug addiction- just that i dont want to take it but have to.

the food i consume at the hospital cafeteria daily has the amount of salt that can readmit a hypertensive patient who just got discharged from the hospital. i refrain from taking meats like chicken, fish, beef bcz they're all, ALL mind you, either cooked in curry, deep fried, lathered with chillies or thick soy sauce (thats also spicy). so i'm down to taking veg and beancurd for protein.

so oily it shines :S

the veg unfortunately, has a serving of salt that will spontaneously erode any mouth ulcers you have and the only way to counter it is to bury it with a sizable amount of rice or drink tons of water along with it.

ok. 4get about hypertension.

now i shudder even more at the thought of being diabetic (no i'm not condemning diabetic patients. i'm empathizing). i noe dr.s counsel diabetic patients telling them they can still lead a normal life if they control their diet, be compliant to their medication which not necessarily have to be insulin injections- cz if its not severe u can just take pills. but again, its like a life sentence to lifelong medication and limited freedom. complications are bound to set in if not at 50 years old maybe 60 years old, or some time or another. its scary thinking of how ur arteries are going to slowly thicken and one day be obstructed and you'll get eye problems, nerve problems, kidney problems, etc. the number of patients with HUGE diabetic foot ulcers and gangrene and toe amputations in the wards are countless.

why do i think i might just get diabetes 1 day. or arteriosclerotic plaques so severe that i'll get a heart attack.

this i blame on myself. my very very very very sedentary lifestyle. i am appalled at my own ignorance and laziness. like seriously. i exercise like once in a blue moon. u noe the i-will-exercise-during-my-holidays syndrome where u never get to exercise anytime at all in the end.

i can blame it on terribly unhealthy food again at the cafeteria, the lack of squash courts in the college - the only sport i think i wont play so badly and even if i do, the court size is tolerable to run around picking the balls up :P.

the lake where i can jog being 500m away. is it? now that's the worst excuse ever bcz that's super near. i can blame it on my 'busy' schedule. oh no. i'm not that busy really.

its just plain ignorance. heeh.

throw in dyslipidemia due to superrrrr oily food provided by the cafeteria (again).

nah. if i constantly exercise like jog once in 3 days i'd be fine. dont keep blaming the cafeteria.

BUT...bbb...but....

sigh. fine. i'll start exercising during this coming semester break. heeeh...

Humbled in the Lord's presence

some important lessons were learnt this wkend + today. it showed me how putting God into the picture makes things different.

its pretty simple. but i'm writing it here bcz i think its sth that impacted me.

now ask yourself how you'd feel if u had spent a lot of time slaving away at sth, all nicely put into place but in the end some1 throws you last minute work or asked u to make last minute changes in a super panicky short span of time. i'd feel like killing the person and probably at some point refuse to make the changes bcz its their fault for giving it to me last minute. its none of my business and i'm not going to give in to them.

i started helping out in my church's LCD team not long ago and being there opened my eyes to behind the scene issues that the LCD team face. praise and worship leaders are very spontaneous in requesting for song lyrics bcz sometimes it depends on the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

and what the LCD person does is to make the changes in the nick of time, tries his best to accomodate to changes. he had to sort out 3 languages of translation for the songs and rearrange the words on the slides in the programme - its not powerpoint so its a bit different. and check for typos. it was ten minutes to the start of service.

the dynamics and the attitude and speed of reaction to change amazes me. no1 complains. they just try their best to adapt to change. and above all, remain calm throughout.

wow i would have panicked and have brain freeze if thrown into that situation. looks like i have a long way to go. lol.

i experienced God in my long case exam today. wow. got a patient i just talked to this morning. and the examiner was pretty forgiving. and in all that, i was really humbled. sometimes we have a tendency to be rather big headed but yeah, i was humbled today.

praise the Lord! :)