This is embarrassing.

Police had seized 6 million worth of methamphetamine carried by 4 Japanese. All four had traveled from Malaysia via Sydney. Police and customs believed they had identified a significant methamphetamine importing operation with links to Malaysia.

How many years have we battled against dadah? I remembered the dadah campaign back in primary school...and now it has make itself onto the headlines of other country.

Yalah, makan rasuah lagi.

going crazy with monotonous secretarial job

>____< '''''''''''''''

Tons and tons of data processing.
No wonder they hired student to do it.

Gonna lose all my hair at the end of this...
Or maybe ending up in psych ward...

Maybe naruto can save me, yes, time for naruto!

Exam's over three days ago but my battery is even flatter than during exams.

Class dinner was fun because I get to see the usual hard outs loosen themselves. And inviting lecturers and deans to students' pure social class dinner is a bad idea. After a few glasses, some students even told off lecturers for setting such ridiculous 'shitty' questions. Funny thing is one of the lecturer was actually a bit tipsy and he kept saying to every students "you are such a diligent student, I'm impressed." I was sitting beside the table full of 'powerful' people and have to suppress my laughter after watching all sorts of funny drama generated under the influence of alcohol.

Anyway, after dinner, we went to Karaoke. Having the history of failing every singing sessions in royal board of piano exams, you could imagine how off tuned I was especially with mic which tends to amplify the eekiness. Apart from that, listening to friends rapping Jay Chow's songs after songs (and trying to mimic his dysarthric singing) is very fun.

Next day, Yoomi came around so we went shopping and end up buying nothing, zeepers. And you would never believe what I did. I went to 'club crawl' with friends. People often associate club with alcohol, flirting and dirty dancing. But mind you, we are a bunch of 'geeky weirdo' that don't drink and the only reason we went to town is because we want to utilise their dance floor to dance. To prove how geeky we were, we even created dance moves associated with different neurological disorders including one of our signature hemiballismus. Sure, there were other not so drunk people who looked at us as if we were a bunch of ultimate geeks. But that's the fun of it. When we got sick of one club, we jumped to another and checked out their dance floor and the music. I even managed to learn basic ceroc other than our crazy dermatomes and myotomes ataxic dance. We visited 5 clubs all together. It's real fun to hang out with friends who do not drink( so that you don't have to babysit anybody) and just dance for the joy of dancing.

Today, Steph came to visit so we did a little bit of exploration around town. Had jamming session again this afternoon which was epic. Finally found a pianist for our band---Yoomi. Gosh! She's another Michelle Yeo. Any songs. Any chords. Any modulation. Any transposition. After jamming, I went to the most 'money-in-the-bin' movies of my entire life. It's supposed to be a Halloween movie surprise. I hate Halloween. It's just another reason for people to party and get drunk. And it's evil. Anyway, the only reason I went to the movie is to accompany friends. Ticket is 16 bucks and it was such a low budget film. Only four actors in the entire film and two only appeared like less than 10 minutes.

Anyway, I saw this cool as movie thriller of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. So looking forward to that.

We have cute cells

I was doing pathology practise questions and this is one of the electron micrographs that came up:



I bet Joss is pretty slick with this now after four years of memorising those crazy cellular entities. Apparently the feedback answer is "happy mitochondria within a normal cell". How cute is that. HEHE.

Drummer boy

*Drool*

I've only I could drum like him.

*Drool*

And it doesn't hurt that he is CUTE too.



Here's my second favourite MJ's song.

testimony

I have a great testimony to share with you guys!

It is something that happened recently which really put my faith to test and from this experience I learned the power of Praise and Prayer, the ultimate weapon.

Last Friday, my dad send an email telling me that my mum has a re occurrence of breast cancer. *Tips: Never jump into conclusion until confirmed by medical report.* It was the most dreadful moment as I read through the sentence over and over again, just to make sure I had not mistaken any words. I called my mum and she told me that she felt a lump at the same spot where she had the tumor excision few years ago. She went for mammogram and was still waiting for the result. It is so not true when people said studying medicine can help reduce fear because you know better medically. In fact you felt worse because you know the odds. The literature said re occurrence after local excision without LN involvement is 15% in the next five years. 15% might seemed relatively low but when you felt a lump at exactly the same spot, the human pessimistic instinct kicks in and amplifies it to 115% to the worst case scenario. My mum was optimistic however, she said it could be a fibroadenoma and she still believes that God has healed her 4 years ago. If just so happened that I came across the blog of an old friend who has lost her mum through breast cancer a few months ago. And another friend of mine who wrote on facebook how he missed his mum after she too had die from cancer few years ago. I did a few literature search on recurrence of breast cancer and most of them indicates increased risk if patient is obese and smoking, which my mum is not. I felt anger of how unfair this is, my mum tried all she can to stay healthy and yet she fall into that 15%. (Already, I am making up my mind towards that direction). That night, I have a really long talk to God (mainly the why why why). On Sunday, He gave me three words - faith, pray and praise.

"...if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20

When Paul and Silas were imprisoned, they prayed and sang hymns. Suddenly there was an earthquake and the prison doors flew open.

I started to praise God and thank Him the healing that he already has done few years ago. Today, I received the news about the report of the mammogram. Apparently the lump is a surgical scar from previous operation. See, God is telling me to have faith even as small as a mustard seed because our God is a faithful God. =)

With everything, I'll shout forth Your glory

I believe in the Healer.
I believe in the power of prayer.
He is the God of grace.
He is the God of love.
Let hope rise and darkness tremble in the Holy ground.

Sometimes we never think of things that might tear half of your soul away until it happens. It never came across my mind until I read two of my friends' blog. It's distressing because I felt their pain. It will happen one day but I declare that it will not be soon, not even in the next 10 years. Because it is going to be a living testimony. The devil might try but my God is victorious. I will shout forth Your glory and praise You in the storm.

The Unprofessional

Guess what?!
I'm in a band! And the name of the band is *drum roll* The Unprofessional.
Ok ok, I know the name sounds lame but this is how it started...

One of my mate from class saw an advertisement about music studio to rent, $10 per session, max 5 hours. So we decided to have a jamming session. There's four of us, a lead singer, a bassist/techies, an electric guitarist and a drummer (me =DD). Apparently the 'music-studio' is a modified room in a student flat. But still we were impressed of how comprehensive the 'studio' is. They have up to 10 different type of music instruments including a grand piano, an acoustic drum set with double kick pedals, some traditional south american ( i think) woodwinds and percussion set, harmonica, and of course bass, electric guitars and amplifiers. The person in charge is either from south America or middle east.

"Hi, my name is Sxxxx (too complicated to pronounce). So you guys in a band huh?"

"Oh no, we are the unprofessionals".

"Oh, The Unprofessional huh? Cool."

I think he must have mistaken us there. But anyway, that's how the name of our band started.

We practised three songs in total. Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton, To be With You by Mr. Big and Better Man by Robbie William.

We have a bit of trouble in the beginning because we really are the unprofessionals...sounded like a mess of cymbals, distortions from elec g, and the bassist was louder than everybody else. Haha, makes me appreciate the hardwork that canai had put in as music leader. Took us a while to get in sync to each other. We even videotaped our final run through. That was funky fun.

Had a massive beef burger at a Greek restaurant for lunch today. Very pricey for a burger too. The mocha was awesome. Turns out the girl who served at the counter is Anna from Studholme. I remembered she mentioned before that she is a Greek and that the restaurant is a family owned business. This is such a small world.

Living with big cats just a stone throw away

During the spring break, I went to the zoo, AGAIN. But this time I realised something interesting...
Right behind the 'pride rock' is somebody's house and back yard! According to the zoo keeper, the lions spend more than half of their time 'sun bathing' at the pride rock while enjoying the view of somebody's backyard. Well, apparently that's not just what they could see, from where this lioness lays, she can view the city of Wellington right down to the wharf. They might even be counting humans and cars during their bored time, which is pretty much every day. Somehow it just felt wrong. Cause they should belong to the savanna, counting zebras on top of a REAL pride rock, like this...
If you were a lion, would you prefer mountains and lands stretching beyond the horizon or somebody's back yard?

Home finally

There. I've make the click. I'm going home to Malaysia. Finally. On the 3rd of December to 29 of Jan.

I thought it was a dream until a friend txted me on 2.15 to asked if I was OK early this morning. I was dozing off on my bed, not quite asleep when the sudden shaking happened. Took me 10 seconds to register that it was an earthquake. For the first 10 seconds, my foggy brain thought geez, the neighbour must be doing some 'excessive' activity. The fogginess cleared as I realised the whole house was shaking and I could actually hear deep rumbling from the background. I always wonder how an earthquake felt like. *Btw, I just felt a mini vibration as I was typing the last sentence.* It felt like when you first stepped onto a big swing, the type that can fit up to four people in most malaysian's backyard. It is very brief. Less than 10 seconds I think. When I realised it was an earthquake, I have this crazy thought that it was the second coming of Jesus. And I started to ask for God's forgiveness of my sin because I was not experiencing any rapture yet. Ok ok, I was half asleep so my thinking was a bit bizarre. Apparently the earthquake was 5.2 on the Richter scale. Not strong enough to bring down any concrete building but strong enough to wake up a heavy sleeper like me, not that I'm fully asleep at that time.

You might have seen the fuss that I've made on facebook and msn. I've been robbed (not literally) by the employee/owner of the Hosp Card and Magazine. Here's the story.

Last Monday, I went to topped up my snapper card for $50. For some ridiculous, head smashing reason, I left the card in the store and have totally forgotten about it until this morning. I searched high and low for the card and finally decided I must have dropped it somewhere. Good things about snapper, you can called them and traced it just like a credit card. Bad side, they can't do anything about it if the transaction has been made. So, having that small little hope that most people in NZ are honest and considerate, I called the snapper to check my balance. I knew the odds but still I was shocked when they told me I have only $0.90 in my card. Two transaction has been made yesterday at exactly the same store. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it has to be the shop keeper. I like to believe that they intend to return the card to me one day. There are ways if they care enough to do so, you can call the snapper and they would send an email to inform the whereabout of my card. A so called friend told me "aiya...it's just 50 dollars, if you go to max and buy a dress, it will be more than that." It's true $50 dollars is not that much nowadays. But it is not the amount that hurts me, it's the act. I have been their regular customer to top up my snapper and vodafon ever since I came to Welly. It hurts to know that instead of waiting for me to come back or call the snapper to inform me, they seize the chance to 'rob' their own customer and disguise it with the attitude of finders keepers.

I'm not sure if the outcome would be different were the shop keeper a kiwi european. I am an asian myself. But I have to say at such times, I am reluctant to trust asian shop keepers ever again.

I miss Julia. I miss playing piano and drums. I miss Halo 3. I miss my double bed. I miss Andrew (to my surprise). I miss chicken soup with ginseng.

ahhhhh

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

I SCREW UP MY CVS AND ABDO EXAM!

AND NO, I DON'T LIKE TO EXPLAIN PROSTATE CANCER AND RECTAL EXAMINATION!

conference

My impulsive behaviour lately startled me. I've decided originally that my timetable is not suitable to attend our church conference which will run for three days. And it is not cheap either, $105. But today, within 1 minute chatting with a law friend, I signed up the application for the conference and swiped my card. It is only after I got home that I realised I could only attend one third, if lucky, of the sessions. It runs the whole day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Obviously, I can't attend morning and afternoon sessions for Thursday and Friday. I've forgotten as well that I'll be at Masterton the whole day on Saturday. Oh well, I can't really de-swipe the card. Even if it is one third of the sessions, I believe God's presence worth more than anything.

Btw, I need a 24 hours on call guy subject for my OSCE practice who doesn't mind me poking around the stomach or knocking on the chest or doing boring stuff like breathing through the mouth slowly and saying 99 over and over again. Anybody keen?

End of surgical attachment

Final day of surgical run. No words or numbers could sum up how much I've learned throughout these 9 weeks. It was a bad start for me. Reading back from my blog entries at the beginning of the run, I was depressed. I hated surgeons. They are snobs. Yes, I still agree so. However, there's always a few exceptions. I had a lot of fun in theater lately. I actually skipped my clinics today to stay for the theater. Compared to 9 weeks ago, I dreaded theater because it is dead boring (nobody explain to me what's going on), I felt awkward (because everybody is busy doing SOMETHING while I just stand and watch) and I was paranoid about being the innocent bystander that received the blast from angry surgeons.

How ironic it is that I actually did more during the last day of my surgical run than all the days summed up. I still have an issue with self-confidence. It is something that I will have to cultivate over time. I'll get there one day. Eventually.

the trend of the world

Warning: This is strictly my personal opinion

American's economy is heading towards a downward spiral. It's beyond salvation now. I was reading the news on Fox about how Boston Zoo may be forced to close and euthanize 20% of the animals due to devastating budget cut. I am not an expert on economy. An economist would probably say recession is self-limiting, it comes in season and it goes with season. But in reality, America is living in debt, not billions but trillions, how long can she stays that way? The credit card company 'gives' you a month of lavish spending, but at the end of the month, you will have to pay the cost plus interest.

The glory and pride of a country comes and goes just like waves in the ocean. It started in the East (Mesopotamia), migrating to Eastern Europe (Greek, Rome, Spain, etc.), then Western Europe (France, Germany, UK, etc), then America. Who's next? If you look at the globe, Asia (esp China) is just around the corner!

Weather

I must praise Welly for her well behaviour so far. *Hint* Another plus sign for you guys to work here. Dunedin is cold as always, if not, worst this year. One would think Auckland which is all the way up north might have a better weather which is not true. A friend coming back from Auckland reported that it is no longer raining up there, it is rain-a-launch. Even wiper set to the max could not clear the screen. All that could be seen is two blurry red dots that suggest another vehicles at the front. If you felt a resistance, oops, too close, too late. Couldn't even hear the 'crash'.

Wellington is known to be windy. Sometimes. But it doesn't bother me, not like I'm gonna be blown away and ended up in the ocean. Might be difficult for girls to eat burgers outdoors with the hair getting in the way. Overall, welly is pretty blessed with the weather. *Come! Come!*

Internal alarm

This was not the first time I forgot to set my alarm from pm to am. Just 15 minutes before I was meant to be in radiology department, I jolted out of my bed as if electrocuted. I was still fast asleep but all of a sudden I heard a clear voice COMMANDING me to get up. Weird. Either that was God or God setting an internal alarm within me.

I am still catching up with the news regarding the death of MJ. Ok, I admit, I used to be a crazy fan of him. Took me a few years to grew out of idolising him. I was reading the news from CNN, BBC, Fox and NZ TV3 website. Blame it on the very isolated location of NZ. The TV3 reporter said that MJ died of heart failure. Gosh! That's a big difference, cardiac arrest and heart failure. Put it this way, if MJ had heart failure, he would probably looked like a balloon with swollen ankles. He would have to carry an oxygen tank while doing his moon walk. I pitied the physicain who cared for MJ. Never sign yourself up to become a physicain for a high profile persona. The world will never let you go until a bone was found within the egg.

Frustration

Frustration.

When things don't go the way you want.

When somebody held you up after all the effort of trying to be early.

When people ignored the urgency in your voice.

When you feel like using violence to force the message into somebody's head.

Second visit to Napier

Eat. Wii. Watch movies. Sleep. Chat all night long. That's what I called Holiday!

There's nothing better than hanging out with old friends. Even better if it is in Ulu Kapit so we have excuse to laze at home. There are so many things we can do indoor, like fishing on wii or practicing to become a pro photographer. I am suffering from pancakes withdrawal syndrome already. Miss talking to Sin Sii until late at night and listening to Canai sleep talking. The later is the most recent discovery, haha.

Went to the small chinese church with the pancakes on Sunday. Totally amazed. Canai is the pianist and Sin Sii is the cantonese/mandarin translator!!!

We have a visit from a fellow malaysian pharmacist on Sunday night, aka the owner of Canon EOS450. Now I finally understand why people are willing to spend half of their fortune on good quality camera. You don't have to be a pro to take pro pictures. We were snapping away at random stuff the whole night, from jandals to Ah Chan and back to vain self portrait pictures. Yes, I allowed myself to be vain on good camera.

Italian lunch (pasta + cheese omelete) prepared by Canai and a Taiwanese aborigine friend

The chef and the assistant

*Waiting for lunch*. Yes, girls play games while the guys cook nowadays ;P

Knock the scarecrows with the cow. Haha, lame? Tried it, it's not that easy.



Jennifer, owner of canon EOS 450

Love is in the air~~~

Take 1 with Ah Chan. Cute.

Take 2 with Ah Chan. Emo.

Last but not least, thx Ah Chan for being our model.

Time for dessert. Self saucing chocolate pudding from Sam.

Beware, the world is changing!

I was watching 60 minutes yesterday and saw an interview with a gay couple purchasing their dream babies from a baby factory in India. I used the word purchase because it is literally shopping for babies - fill up an order form online, tick the characteristics of the baby you like, send the sample of your sperm, pay the money and receive your baby in 9 months time. Altogether $40,000 for a twin babies. Donor eggs can be bought for about a $1,000. They're then fertilised in the laboratory and implanted into a surrogate who receives about $5,000. I don't know if I should applaud for the achievement of man playing God or shudder at the weirdness of how the world has become. If this is not weird enough, there are some chia ba bo su zo group of people trying to hybridise homo sapiens and chimpanzee. They have done it with Liger (cross between male lion and female tiger) that has unlimited phase of growth and can weigh up close to a tonne. Gene enhancement. No thank you! There are enough starving pedigree homo sapiens in the world, we don't need further competition. Imagine the day when earth becomes The Planet of Apes . . .

No more Andrew Jackson

Die! Human, die!

XX Next Top Model

Fail all the dumb humans! Muahaha!

no life?

I really need to stop boring you guys with stories about my school but I really can't think of anything that I have done outside school. Ok. The bottom line is I have no life. How sad is that.

Anyway, back to my boring life and boring story, I was in ED this week. Has been quite fulfilling so far. Had two major duh events while i was in ED. On Tuesday afternoon, I had 450ml of blood being drained out of me (blood donation, not bleeding!). I was oncall that night, and it was madness. Lots of MVA casualties, beds were literally stacking out the corridor. Last thing I wanted was to join the casualties at the corridor. I almost did. I fainted. But luckily only for a few nano seconds. That was when I found out I was anaemic.

Tonight in ED, just as I thought I had enough sugar to keep myself from fainting, I accidentally banged my head against the back of the chair. Great. I can't afford to have more of my precious neurons died. Besides the two hapless events, I pretty much enjoyed the learning in ED, thanks to the advice from previous students. 1) Avoid Dr. I-own-the-world like a plague. 2) Hang out with young male doctors. Now don't get me wrong. It has nothing to do with WHAT'S going through your head now. It just happen that young male doctors are more keen on teaching students. Most old mature male doctors are going through mid life crisis and female doctors generally have higher stress level.

Apart from the mandatory skills we need to pick up, i.e. ABC, history taking, communication, clinical examination, d dx, treatment, bla bla, I've seen the reality of some harsh decision we have to make in life. For example, should I buy this really expensive jacket and live on bread for the next few weeks? Nah. Nothing like that. It is like giving a CT contrast to a renal impaired patient who had a suspected leak from the AAA stent and risk having dialysis for life or save the kidney by not having the contrast and running the risk of bleeding to death from the leakage. The hardest decision is sometimes the unknown. Like going through a surgery that has a minute chance of success which might end up in ICU wired up to a dozen machine, not a dignified way of dying. Or not having the surgery and the end result is death.

sunday

I was deceived. Deceived by the stream of sunlight flooding through my window. As soon as I got on the bus in my summer shorts and hoodie, a big patch of greyness advanced through the sky. And along with it, a ghastly wellingtonian wind. Gah. I should be thankful that at least I am not in Dunedin ;p which I heard is unusually cold this year.

After church, I walked along Cuba Street, in the cold, seeking for the spicest soupy lunch. Came across Thai Express and ordered a Tom Yam Noodle Soup extra extra spicy. I was literally in tears and I suspected the receptors in my taste buds had suffered a tremendous insult. I had milo later on with two generous heaps of sugar and it tasted like plain water.

Arise is having a baptism service tonight. 77 people is going to be baptised! I am really curious how long this is going to take or are they going to have a mass baptism in a swimming pool? Anyway, I came across an article on a psych journal. Very interesting. There was a research comparing the efficacy of treating a group of patients with 'possession' like psychiatric manifestation between psychiatrists and protestant exorcists. As expected, results showed better improvement in those who were treated by protestant exorcists. But they attributed the treatment efficacy to 'awareness and sensitivity to cultural believes'. If only they knew. People are always trying to find explanation to everything.

Catching on

Ok, seems like Jon Schmidt's Love story/Viva La Vida bug has been catching on me. I am so marrying the first guy who plays this to me=P. The exact full version. *continue to dream on*

Finally submitted my eeeextended case history.

Enjoying ICU at the moment. Patients in peace, heavily sedated. Friendly consultants.

Need to get my list of precedure-to-observe signed off, URGENTLY.

• chest drain - not done
• central venous line - not done
• central arterial ine - not done
• catheterisatoin - not done
  
• abscess drainage - not done
• Wound dressing - not done
  
• AHHHH and the list goes on and on
  

Panic. Panic. Three more weeks left. Must harrass the nurses to show me how to do.

Looking forward to hols next week, woohoo!

Wacky phone

The good news is my phone had survived a drowning episode in the washing machine. The bad news is it is still suffering from a post traumatic injury and sometimes it can be a bit 'wacko'. It is as if my phone has been possessed, it will activate itself and started typing txt messages on its own accord. Sorry guys if I am a bit laggy in my txt reply. That's becaue my phone has a mind of its own and started deleting the words that I have typed in.

A wee update on how things are at the moment --- phew, life is a lot more bearable now. I am still being ignored 90% of the time, BUT, at least I don't give a shit take it too seriously. Oh well, life is not always smooth sailing. Thanks Chyi, you cheer me up. Pastor Henry Seeley from Planetshakers came to Arise last Sunday. Such an amazing speaker/worship leader he is! It is true how we often seek validation from man and forget what truly matters at the end of the day. I might be calling them 'bosses' one day, but I know The Man that I am truly serving for. Met up with the Canais in the afternoon and had Nandoos. It is just a short 2 hours but it is amazing how friends can bring a smile in the midst of hostility.

Surgeon=atomic bomb

Sux when nobody believes you. "Maybe you didn't try hard enough. Maybe you are being too passive." I'm starting to have three out of the nine DSM IV criteria for clinical depression. Five is all it takes to reach the diagnosis, oh yea, two more criteria to go. All because of this stupid surgical run. ARGGG! I will never want be a surgeon. S.N.O.B! I bet surgeons have the shortest life span among all medical professionals due to all those poisonous stress they swallowed. Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy are delusional. Wonder how they have the time to sleep around and create lots of never ending drama. Yeah right.

Never gave up

Bottom of the food chain

Hospital is so different than general practice. If GPs are angel, then surgeons are knife slashing butchers in blue scrubs. They don't talk to you unless it is absolutely life and death necessary, OR if they want you to pick up the pen from the floor OR if they need another walking shelves to carry their files. Lots of people asked me how it is like to be in a team doing ward rounds. Well, it depends on your team really, especially the first two 'heads', i.e. consultant and the senior registrar. My friend had a one on one session with her registrar and she had learned heaps. My registrar didn't even look at me when I greeted her! What a S.N.O.B! Meh! I don't expect much from consultant anyway since they are the VIP and time worth more than a million bucks to them but at least he asked me if I want anything to drink.

It is easy to spot hierarchy in the hospital during ward round. Consultant and registrar will always be at the front of the line, EMPTY HANDED and talking among themselves, occasionally they will include the house officer in their discussion. The house officer will be tailing behind them, frantically scribbling down the notes and orders. TI will be the house officer's best mate, helping him to answer the pager, occasionally helping up with the notes. Last and the least would be the fourth year student. Pretty much being ignored most of the time unless they need a hand for the files. Usually I will tag along with TI or house officer IF house officer happens to be free from paper work.

My house officer is cool in a sense that he gave me the permission to do hands on stuff if opportunity arises. BUT he never supervise me. My reg is hopeless! She regarded me as invisible even though I said hi to her. Is it really that difficult to share 5% of your knowledge to somebody who is keen to learn? Even consultants were students once before. Does it lower any of your status to talk to student? Well, it will be too late in the future to worry about the competency of your juniors when you were lying on the operating table, just because you decided not to teach your student back then how to hold a scalpel properly. ><

Day dreaming about easter hols...

I'm officially on hols now!
There are so many exciting moments to look forward to that I find reading through the micro size printing in font of me relatively unappealing and impossible to achieve. Just got the news from ahem that Michelle and baby Xander are coming with Aunty Joss (don't worry, I'll be an aunty soon). Sometimes I question my receptivity. Joss had given the first clue of 'bringing a surprise with her from Dunedin' and Canai had blurted 'Michelle can drive'. Though suspicious, I never make the connection that Michelle is the surprise from Dunedin. Duh! Anyway, I am very excited now.

It has been an interesting but tiring week. I have learned a lot BUT I have to keep my senses up all the time. The GPs I was attaching to on Tuesday were very . . . interesting. They are couples in their mid 60s. The husband is a philosopher/GP/acupuncturist/homeopathist and I was bizarre at how versatile he is. Incorporating philosophy and alternative medicine into his mainstream conventional practice. He taught me about the philosophy and theory behind chinese medicine, the points and channels and at the same time the anatomy and biochemistry of human body system. ^^ Confusing yet impressive.

His wife is a very experienced GP but I was scare stiff of her! I think she might have a little bit of hearing problem because her voice is BOOMING. There were even times I thought she was scolding the patients but it was just the nature of her BOOMING voice. Her patients did not seem to mind at all. But my heart was pounding against my rib cage so loudly that when she asked me to take the blood pressure, I could have mistaken my own heart beat to the Korotkoff sound >__<. Out of the blue, she would shove me some questions. Some of the questions are alright but there were some that I have never heard of. Like pilonidal sinus. It sounded so much like paranasal sinus that I made a fool out of myself by explaining an entire different thing.

At the end of the day, I really thanked her for being such a good teacher though my facial skin has thickened a few inches.

Woohoo! Two more days!

memories and pictures

Ok, some of you might notice I've been blogging quite often recently. I'm starting a new run (GP). There's not much on this week. So so during the second week. Hallelujah for the third week (easter holiday). Picking up the pace during the fourth week. No time to breath during the fifth week. Stress plus exam loaded for the sixth/final week.

Anyway, I've been browsing through the old pictures. I have a good laugh at those random pictures we took. Some of which I've long forgotten.

Ahem, one extra member who managed to survive three days in 777 Great King St. Rest in peace pancake junior.

Little boy being kidnapped to the Waiheke Island. Note the kidnappers at the background. Looks familiar? The Lee sisters wanted! Possible mastermind - owner of the blue Adidas backpack.

Ron: "Hmm...looks yummy."
So, little brother Ron took the first bite and he was the first to suffer...
The Long Suffering.


The Kura Kura Gang in action. Joss - have you washed your pink scarf yet?

Guess whose Sara Lee birthday cake is this? Clue: Miss Lo Lo

Why is everybody so excited? Cuz an intense competition is taking place. You don't want to know what it is about.

Siapa punya tummy?

Pregnancy is tiring. Need some rest.

Wahaha. Afro night.

Ok ok, just to be fair. I'll sacrifice my image too.

Hah. The good old days.

Wellington Zoo

It is such a lovely day today. I usually spend my Saturday in my room playing games. But today was out of the norm. I decided to move my lazy ass out of the house. I went to SPCA to fill in a volunteer application form. After that, I walked to the zoo wanting to meet the volunteer coordinator but she was out of town. So, I bought myself a ticket and spend 3 hours indulging in my dream world. I would have spend another 3 hours if it was not for the scorching sun.

Here's some of my beloved pictures:

I forgot the name for this monkey but they are really tiny and cute.

Australian pelican. Its bill can hold up to 13 liters of water.

Giraffe

Emu

This is my favourite! Isn't she a cutie? She might look big and scary but she meowed like a kitten.

Meerkat. Reminds me of Madagascar.

Two lioness lazing on The Pride Rock

A pack of hyena feeding on the head of an ox.

Wonder how baboon talks?

Final day for public health run

Yay! *Big clap*. I know this sound vain, but I am so proud of my group. Our 5 weeks group research project has officially ended. The presentation was a success and we received good feedback from the audience. One of the audience even wanted to publish our research project.

Frankly, it is hard to envisage unity in my group at the start. We were from different cliques and each clique was exclusive of the others. We never have one of those 'group bonding' dinners like the others. Still, bonding was something that came in subtlety. By the third week, the boundaries were starting to blur. As we approached the final week of the deadline, we just had to trust each other to finish their part of the work.

There was a gnawing pressure with our presentation because our audience were those from the Ministry of Health, Regional Public Health, community nurses, community elder lies, pediatricians and other *don't play play* staff members of the public health department. The part that I dreaded the most is the questioning session. Most of the audience were 'nice' to us. But we had two that were challenging. And no doubt, they were from the Ministry of Health, typical of the politicians. One of the questions they asked was "...so how would you put your recommendation into the political point of view? " (In other words, how would we convince Ministry of Health to fund our campaign.) One of the girl gave this awesome answer about how ARF is mainly the disease affecting children and that children are the most valuable asset of the country. And we had the most... DUH!!!... response back from the MOH guy, "Children don't vote." Hah, lucky we had the support from the public health people, bashing at the MOH guy. Anyway, I am glad that at least our project were actually taken into consideration by the Regional Public Health, not just one of those that were ended up on the shelves collecting dust.

technicolor

Can't believe I just spend 50 bucks on Parachute Band latest release Technicolor plus their T shirt. I'm usually very parsimonious about music CD when you can rip it easily from friend. But I love what they are doing. I can't sing well, the least I could do is to support those who can to spread the love of God. There's more rock element compare to their previous albums. I think the keyboardist is new. I'm kinda hoping for more piano rift. Anyway, he's HOT!

Here's a few pictures I took with the pancakes and the food.

Having bubble tea at Momo Tea

Dinner at KK, cheaper than rainforest Malaysian restaurant.

Holiday in Wellington

It has been a while. These few days were like holidays in Wellington with the pancakes. Wonderful moments are always short but valuable. Hanging out with the pancakes brings back all the good memories. Canai still wearing his canai clothes and sam still practicing her old habbit...sleeping when she arrived at my flat =). Not to forget all the free rides, sleep over and free food! Above all, I enjoyed talking sense plus nonsense to Sam and listening to canai's weird random encounters that will only happen to canai. We spend most of our time hunting for good food. We didn't take a lot of photo (our photographer Joss is not here). Neither do we shop (shopaholic Joss is not here). Oh, Sam bought me a nice golden belt and thanks guys (including Joss and Shaza) for my super posh paddington jacket! Love it! Discovering great restaurants is our main priority as food lovers. We've experimented with six restaurants. Here's the rating from my point of view.

Wholly Bagels 7.5/10
Abrakebabra 8/10
Momo Tea 8/10
KK 8.5/10
Seoul House 6.5/10
Cha 8/10

Ok, I have done 70% of my homework, I'm ready for you, Chyi!

Now that my 'holiday' has finished, reality seeps in and I'm back to my group research project and exams. It takes a lot for me to get stressed. But in a group with 12 dominant, high achiever kiwis can be intimidating sometimes.

missing lighthouse fellowship

I went to my first Wellington life group meeting today. It reminds me of the good old days in Dunedin. It started at 7.30 and ended up really late, just like how we lingered around for food and fellowship after cell group. It has such a huge resemblance of Lighthouse Fellowship that I was holding back my tears from extreme nostalgia. Especially when the worship leader led the songs with his guitar and a backup guitarist, reminds me so much of the awesome duo---canai and the gn. (Still the awesome duo from Lighthouse Fellowship is irreplacable.) By the way, I think I'll be attending Arise quite frequently now. Their worship team is highly charged with skills and energy. But that's not the reason I choose to go there. It is the message that captured my heart. And their genuine heart. Guess what? Parachute Band is coming to Arise on 22nd of March. How exciting!

Carnival

One thing about Wellingtonians...they sure are festive beings! There's always carnivals and festivals around Wellington. From Chinese New Year parade to Cuba Street Carnivals and now Newton Carnivals which happened to be right under my nose!

That's the street in front of my flat. Picture taken from my lounge.

People mountain people sea

A store selling candles, jewelery, and perfumes...

Interesting necklaces

This is my favourite! I have no idea about the type of music they were playing.
Nonetheless, I stood there for ages, mesmerized by the serenity of the music. Australian aboriginals? American red indians? Africans?

He is an interesting dude that I am stalking 'observing' at the moment.

1. He wear the same black shirt, pants, socks and shoes every day.
2. He talks to himself---most of the time.
3. He walks a lot, every day.
4. His favourite drink is diet coke, he always have a bottle of diet coke while he is walking, every day.

Judging from the Diet coke and the amount of walking he did everyday, I think he is quite fit. But there is something that is not quite right, I wonder what had happened to him and is there something that could be done to solve his underlying problem? Who knows, he might run for NZ marathon one day.

Anyhoo, picture of the day: The XXX Twins
Mary and Kate XXX