this is a coconut shell, and i am it's frog

why is it

2009-12-26T16:58:00.004+08:00

that only at this time of year do we actually contemplate what significant events there have been in our lives? why can't we take daily stock of wuzgoingon, reassess, progress, and move on?

i blame it on the media.

publisizing new years like it's a big deal. it really is just another day. if we didn't have calenders, would we stop and pause to think about the past 365 days at all? now that's a thought.

well hello to all you wonderful ppl who still do read my ramblings. please leave a comment so i know that i'm not yabbing away to the cyberspace walls. not that i'm counting.

but i succumb to the media and it's cries of yearly self-evaluating, self effacement. it truly has been an interesting year. well and truly so. and changes in my psyche and view of life that i'm not sure is for the better. should i then try to reverse it? as i said in a previous post, still deciding whether to be selfish and momentarily gratified or selfless and pwned. does happiness = pleasure?

books i've read this year -
picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde
alice in wonderland, lewis carroll
skin - short stories by roald dahl
kitchen confidential, anthony bourdain

i can't for the life of me remember if i read anything else prior to coming over here. i think there was one by paolo coelho and maybe harry potter a couple of times again, but that's it.

now those above few paragraphs have been so self-indulgent i'm feeling a little nauseas. but if a personal blog isn't self-indulgent, then what is? onward with more nausea then!

ahem, as i was saying, it was quite an eventful/interesting year, specially in the other gender department. while friends are getting married (sarah, joanna, anna) and some are in new long term relationships (tim - as far as i know) i remain chronically single. ppl say i'm too picky. i say if i can't find someone that completely sweeps me off my feet, why bother being with someone just for the sake of it? pffft. i'm not gonna commit to someone who bores me just because people think it's the right time. i hate getting comfortable.
everyone i meet who seems interesting and worth pursuing at the moment will invariably have one thing which throws an oil-rig sized spanner in the works. too old, too crazy, too malay (not that i'm racist - i just can't stand the thought of being called weijin bin wong), too attached, too much past pain, too square, too afraid.

but gratz to all the new engagements - chai ling and kevin, and er, a few more which i'm not sure i'm allowed to mention yet.

my house is in a mess. i do wanna do it up nice and all, but i'm thinking - what's the point if i'm only gonna be here for a short while? granted, 2 years is actually quite long and it may be more than that but i have problems with commitment. furniture is commitment. it was traumatizing enough trying to commit to a 2-year phone plan (i settled for the more expensive 1 year plan).

i'm sensing a theme here.
me and my heart, we got issues.

oh hey whoopedoo

2009-09-15T01:48:00.003+08:00

yet another injury!

i'm beginning to wonder if i have some weird genetic connective tissue disease or something. seriously. marfan or ehler's danlos.

so i was happily indulging my inner golden retriever by chasing after a frisbee. who knew kk fields had random potholes in them. running at speed (the ladies don't call me lightning fast jin for nothing. wait.), my right foot got stuck in one of these random holes and as i tried to lift off at speed, my body wanted to move forward but my foot couldn't.

crrrrrrruuppk

"oh crap how am i gonna stand in the OT now we have 11 cases for op tomorrow"
it was like the sound you hear when you bite into cartilege. like in chickens. or beef.
i hit the ground. i think i yelled. i know i was clutching my leg. when i finally picked up the guts to look at my foot, it was at an unnatural 90 degree angle to my calf.

resume yelling.
or grimacing. i'm not sure. all i know was that it was bloody painful. thank God that tiffany, a colleague of mine, had decided to join us for the first time that day. thank God X2 that she was working in the A&E. thank God X3 that she was buddy buddy with the orthopod on call. so she made some calls, and by the time they managed to stabilize my foot with a random board, lift me into someone's pickup truck and ship me to the hospital, they were all waiting for me. macam vip. this must be what it feels like to be a top flight football player. except they probably have stronger ankles.

so anyway. midazolam is a wonderful drug. i seriously recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it. i saw the orthopod and grimaced, "morphine. quick."
he smiled and said, "naw, dormicum and pethidine"
"ok sounds good"
"doktor doktor, cucuk sikit ya doktor"
"ok ya doktor cucuk ya"
"sakit sikit ya doktor mau cucuk ya"
"CEPAT CUCUK SAJA LAR"
"nurse bagi dormicum dengan pethidine sekarang"

the next 15 mins were a blur. might have been longer. i really don't know. apparently i was high. i apologize to everyone there if i said anything inappropriate.
i vaguely recall another crrrrukppt as he reduced the dislocation.
"subtalar" he said to tiffany, who was busy filling in the xray forms.
vaguely recall being rolled into the xray room.
"doktor doktor kaki boleh lurus tak?"
"blerhbmmmmmmbmmb"
"ok habis sekarang kaki boleh bengkok tak?"
"mmbbmbmmumummbm"

vaguely recall waking up and seeing my foot in a cast, knee down, and tiffany applying pressure.
"this is what housemen do, stabilize the POP" she giggled.
"mmbmbm"

next thing i know i was being rolled out into another friend's pickup.
"what's going on now?" i think i managed.
long story short, they drove back to the field so that tiffany could drive my car back to my house. bought me some food and stuff after a brief search for an open pharmacy (crutches).
kwi sing (another colleague) showed up, bearing baileys & love basics of surgery, "to keep yourself occupied".

er thanks, i guess.

i remember taking a shower, and cursing my luck.

then all was gone again.

midazolam truly is a wonderful drug.

i remember once, in canada, a little old 75 year old lady had come in with a broken wrist. she was all prim and proper, british tea and crumpets kind. very polite, almost apologetic for troubling us with her broken wrist. we gave her midazolam before reducing the fracture. within 3 mins she was holding my hand and saying THE MOST INAPPROPRIATE things. i shall not say more save that she thought i was good looking ho ho ho. don't hate me cause i'm beautiful.

so yeah anyway add another one to the list. i've been injury free for the longest time so i guess when it rains it pours. it sucks even more that i'm working now and actually spend long hours on my feet. see, i don't mind injuring my hands cause you can still get around and do stuff. but injuring your legs, now that sucks, cause you're a bloody invalid. i hate being on the other side of the fence. remind me not to belittle a patient's pain.

at least i've developed a new skill.

driving with my left foot.

one passion

2009-08-24T20:16:00.003+08:00

the one i could never have
the one i could always have

one passion, one love, one lust,
one emotion, one decision, to last.

perhaps.

in the quiet of the mountain breeze
there blows a whisper of forgotten pain
in the tick, in the tock,
in the prose of a man's scribblings

too much pain
too much hurt
too much anger
too much loss

is the space between here and there
then and now
the wicked lies and cruel deceptions
the heartless slights and cold cold glances

the space between the smiles and joy
the laughter and rain
the warmth and silent contentment -

one passion

it's been so long

2009-07-06T05:17:00.004+08:00

that i don't know how to start anymore. so much has happened that this can no longer be called a web log. more like... a web once in a while publication. a web oiawp.

a boiawp. welcome to the world's first boiawp(tm).

but as it is, it's 5am, july the 6th, 2009, i cannot sleep, there's no one i can talk to at this time, i couldn't be bothered to read, therefore my one recluse is this - writing.

i used to write a lot.
scripts, dramas, poems, articles, etc. people used to find it interesting that i wrote a lot. i revelled in the fact that they underestimated me, and that i trumped their misconceptions. ego trip, yo.

back when i started this blog, i started with but one charter - to entertain.
there were so many blogs out there that were self-indulgent-woe-is-me-/wrists that i, in my eternal desire to stand out, swore i wouldn't descend to.
then those foodie look-at-me-i'm-a-connousieur blogs started popping out. meH. such pretentious know it alls, i thought. who the hell cares about what you think about random hawker stall #34547??
then there are those that are genuine journals, "i woke up this morning and had coffee instead of tea" things that, for all intents and purposes, should never be on the internet. i mean, come on, who cares? then again, there are many things that should never be on the internet. but such thoroughly boring personal details should be kept, well, personal. good for you that you keep such detailed records of your day, but do you really want the world to know at what time you had a bowel movement?

fart.

i think slartibartfast is a brilliant name.

so then, to entertain! i thought. if not the public in general, then my friends will suffice. so i started off with that in mind.

if it was about friends, to humour.
if it was opinion, to be profound.
if it was discussion, to try and see both sides of the issue.
it it was football, to be transparent.
it it was emotional, to cut deeply.
if it was intellectual, to be, well, intellectual.

but entertainment became tiresome. the m103 blogosphere, which i joined way back, had died a long, slow, drawn-out death. one that was inevitable in retrospect, as most of us got on to more important things in life (work, marriage, babies, taxes), but one that i mourn nonetheless. it WAS really funny. it became less funny as more and more of us dropped off, and an insult at one end would land no response on the other. it brought us all, far away as we were, close. but it is dead.

i realize now that we can no longer distinguish ourselves as m103. the overiding indentity we've had as a collective has gone the same way as the blogosphere. we are now islands. we can no longer rely on each other for an identity. we only have ourselves. such sad sobering thoughts. we are, growing up. we are forever bound as classmates, but the pride with which we uttered the words "m103" is now as distant as our IMU triumphs. therefore the mention of names, and the out-of-the-way-effort to make references to friends halfway across the world officially ends here.

why do i reminisce so?
maybe cause it's been a year since i graduated and i still haven't started a remotely dr-y job. i believe that i am the sole exception in this. whoopedoo.
therefore, the only memories of medicine i have are based in medschool.
which is why i reminisce so.

so i will entertain no more. if i inadvertedly entertain, then good, but entertainment will not be the sole aim of this corner of cyberspace anymore.

i need a job.

roger federer is 27, has won 15 grand slams, earned usd48million, and will probably be remembered as the greatest ever men's single's tennis player. ever.
i am 25. two years to catch up. go go go.

since entertainment is no longer the goal, i will embark on a quick summary of my last few months. be prepared for a self-indulgent-woe-is-me paragraph.

1) spent 7 months working a research job i hated
2) passed FINALLY the usmle part 1
3) broken hearts
4) had my heart broken, which lead to -
5) a chronic fear of commitment
6) decided that becoming more selfish might lead to more happiness
7) decided that being more selfish might result in less people liking me
8) haven't decided whether i care more about less people liking me, or being selfishly happy
9) had a hospital admission for asthma (ah, ye olde devile)
10) made contact with someone who calls herself "SHIT FROM BACK IN THE DAY"

i could go on but the above has been so painful to read, even to me, that i shudder to think what it would do to my legions of followers. induce seizures in some, no doubt. march, jackson, march. benzos are great at terminating seizures.

steroids are wonderful things.
the TCA cycle is the rate-limiting step to life.
i still have no idea what zero order kinetics are.

well the mosques are sounding the call to prayer. sleep has yet to tempt me.

man that was a strong latte.

enter witty title

2008-11-14T20:29:00.004+08:00

so yeah, i've said it many times before, but the m103 blogosphere is well and truly dead. the eternal optimist in me refuses to abandon this endeavour just yet, but who knows how long my resolve will last. i know i can be persistant but one can only take so many slaps to the face.

maybe it's cause most of us are finally working? past that transitional phase (which took longer than all our other peers) of studying post-adulthood, pre-work. past the age when fads and trends were the thing to do. maybe this blogging thing will go the way of the tamagochi. or those ridiculous roller-shoes, and ankle break away from a lawsuit. or baggy t-shirts, nike sneakers (you know the ones i'm talking about) and platform shoes. not forgetting nausea-inducing boybands (quit playing games with my heart... *my heart* before you tear us apart... *my heart* i should have known from the start!) and that lemon tree song.

a paFLASHn

see if you get that. hoho.

so what is there to entertain with, if there's no one to entertain? how about this random sms i received a few days ago - "i'm lihar (MNK maid agency), interested apply cambodian maid? 0% runaway, hardworking. promotion fee rm4500. pls log in contact 03-92816666/0172833266 (lihar)"

i'm assuming since it's spam text msgs, they won't mind the extra publicity and a few random internet callers.

but cambodian maid. 0% runaway don't mess. all for the low low price of rm4500!

in other news, my nephew joshua has broken the 5kg barrier. that's right, he's at least as heavy as a good-sized sack of rice now. apparently he chuckles when you tickle his tummy. can anyone say pilsbury doughboy? i have to admit i'm tempted to toss the fella up in the air everytime i see him, but i fear that my frisbee catching skills don't extend to what is, for now, essentially, a lump of eating, pooping, crying, multiplying cells.

which brings me to frisbee. and cells. so i'm the newly-minted league director of the brand-new Malaysian Ultimate league, *enter shameless publicity* www.malaysiaultimate.com stop laughing amy. yes, you. stop.
and cells. by all that is beneficial and enhances the human race, growing cells is bloody boring work. i mean seriously. the highlight of my day is when i take my work-time dump. 'ats right, i take dumps on paid time. the govie is paying me to take dumps. how many of you can say that? nothing gives me greater satisfaction than knowing that i'm still being paid while disgorging the contents of my bowel, with oft-spectacular acoustic results. the other day three of my petri dishes grew colonies of bacteria. i wondered why. i swear i wash my hands.

but in all seriousness, if taking a dump is the highlight of my day, you can imagine how sh*tty a job it is (pun fully intended).

oh and hello tim. special mention here since you're the only one who's made a comment on my chatterbox for the last 10 years or so. yes you can stay at my house, and yes you can sleep next to me if you want. i do miss your low-pitched droning snores and slightly musky body odour.

what did the blind man say when he walked past the fish market?
"why hello ladies..."
HAHA

there was something else funny that i wanted to write but i forgot. the ravages of age on the memory. i think i just had a senior moment. it's a friday night and i'm at home. i AM getting old. maybe i need a girlfriend. or a dog. not sure which is higher maintenance HOHOHO aih i guess that's why i'm single!

enough rambling.

roar.

YES

2008-10-20T00:58:00.002+08:00

you're at the right url.

i've been wanting to update the look of this corner of webspace i can call my own for a while now, but haven't found the time. so now i have. and now it is done. it is updated. times change, situations change, people grow, soil gets eroded, alaskan governers claim it's all about job creation.

i figured i'd ditch my pre-graduation abhorent green thing and go for a more mature, sophisticated, clean look. since that's what i am now. mature, sophisticated, and clean.

*mmmpphhhk*

anyway i wanted the "about blog" bit to be at the top of the side bar but my non-existant html skills refuse to allow me too. so there. the benefit of links to your pages are on the top of my list then. i love my friends.

and i still have yet to come up with a snazzy catchphrase to what this blog is about.

Californian dreams

2008-10-12T15:56:00.003+08:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything. Accompanied by increasing responsibilities - wurk wurk - a passable social life, the USMLE – yes, THAT monkey on my back – parts 1 AND 2 – I’m currently typing this in LA – wow that’s a lot of –‘s – structured thought is over rated anyway – and just the all-around natural deaths of the IMU blogosphere, which, I admit, is one of the reasons why I started writing in the first place (gasp more interruptions in thought flow can anyone say hypomania?) is also my old-age induced loss of self-promoting, self-indulging libido.

Wak wak wak

The desire to be funny and to entertain is as limp as the desire to… er yeah.
Dying buds.

Enough complaining.

I rode my uncle’s bike to Huntington Beach the other day, with full intentions of finding a cozy beach side café, ordering some good ol’ Californian orange juice, and study my brains out for usmle step 2 cs.

my l33t helmet

It was a pleasant enough ride, 45 minutes long, but by the half-hour mark, my butt was hurting like the dickens. Dickens that hurt a lot. Sparing the graphic details, I basically could not sit. On anything. Short of a cooling yet warm sitz bath. So it was with great relief that I saw the ocean after 45 minutes. It was beautiful. Breathtaking. Stretches of fine golden sand as far as the eye could see. Clear blue waters churned by loud, crashing surf. Volleyball nets and beach umbrellas dotted the sand like so much after-rain-fungi growth. Quaint little cafés spaced the beach.

One problem.

The place was deserted. Not a single surfer chick in sight. Visions of Jessica Alba in blue crush evaporated like spittle on the hot Californian sidewalk. Poof, and not the tight pink shirt-ruffles-and-brown-ball-hugging-leather-pants-wearing kind.

No surfer chicks I can deal with. Empty beaches I can tolerate. *poof poof*
But even the cafés were not open. Every single one. Disillusioned and in an aching-derriere-and-californian-sun-dehydration-induced delirium, I cycled aimlessly down the beach, hoping to find a stall, a hot dog stand, a juice vendor, a homeless bum willing to share a scavenged burger, anything.

Nothing.

*poof poof poof*

Thirst overcoming me, hallucinations beginning to taunt me, I explored the only option left to me. I drank water from a toilet bowl.

NO LAR.

That diarrhea-defying, amoebiasis-avoiding feat remains the sole possession of one Dr Chacko. Penang mari.

I found a water fountain, drank a few thirsty gulps, clenched my aching butt cheeks, got back on the bicycle, and headed back to my uncle’s house.

for some odd reason there's a power plant right next to the beach. the simpsons theme song started playing in my mind. i swear i saw a fish with 3 eyes.

20 hungry, torturous minutes later I found a sandwich bar (Cindy’s sandwiches). I ate probably the best-tasting roast beef sandwich I have ever had. Amidst the gay waiter’s whines –

GW - the phone’s ringing, Cindy. Can I answer it? No? why not? Lemme answer itttttttttttttt lemme lemme lemmeeeeeeeeeeeee awwwww you never let me do anything
Cindy - “go wash your hands”
Me - LOL

– I mulled over the day’s adventure.

You know those dumb blonds you see in teen movies? They really ARE like that. I stopped at a traffic light with a couple of blond, giant sun-glassed girls with pink bicycles, one even had a Chihuahua in her front basket. I frigging kid you not. Both had ridiculously short skirts on (even if they weren’t cycling, can you say chao kong?), obnoxiously loud, and their dialogue went something like this –
“so I was like, drunk right, and she wanted to like, punch me out, right, so Jaime grabbed me and like, pulled her back and I was like, Jaime this isn’t your business cause Jaime can’t fight right, cause Jaime’s, like, pregnant right”
“no way! Jaime’s pregnant? With that dude’s baby?”
“yeah”
“is she gonna keep it?”
“like, she’s got no choice, right”
“why not?”
“she’s had, like, 4 abortions already, if she has another one she, like, won’t be able to have babies ever”
“no way!”

The light turned green and I cycled off, butt still dickening away (that sounded wrong) but face smirking away. Movies do tell the truth every now and then. Makes you wonder. Maybe rich heirs who dress up like giant bats really do exist.

Why so serious?

hello world

2008-09-25T00:44:00.004+08:00

i'm a quarter century old.

wow.

uhm.

yeah.

that's it, that's all i got.

mmhmmm. no poignant self reflective post. no "oh my goodness i'm so deep and philosophical contemplating the meaning of the past 25 years". no "i'm so old yet i don't feel old i don't wanna get old bwaaaaaaaaaa"

just.

that.

i'm 25.

wow.

to everyone who sent me a wish of wellness, happiness, and health, i thank you from the heart of my bottoms.

thank you so much guys!!

and to the rest who chose not to go the fb route, you know who you are, thank you too, 25 times over, and many happy returns, 25 times too!

*bows*

i am humbled.

hello.

2008-08-25T23:21:00.004+08:00

ah pa once sms-ed me, the day before my final exam in canada - "you are ready for this. God will never bring you to what He hasn't prepared you for"

___________

sucked into the facebook void i see, to the point of posting such raw emotions on your facebook page. i've always believed in never airing your dirty laundry in public but somehow feel that this is the best way to do this. for some odd reason. maybe it's the narcissistic "look i'm helping" feeling that this would bring. maybe it's the same reason that i posted a tribute to mom here - letting the whole world know i care (even though she proly didn't read it), and would be there at the drop of a pin should it ever drop. or maybe it's cause a reply-fb-note, in it's 250-odd-word limit, would not convey what i want to convey.

man my head hurts. CO2 incubators smell funny.

a rare word of encouragement from a brother who's always loved to jump on your inadequacies (if i spelt that right). so appreciate this.

every mother i've seen goes through what you go through. the short period of 6 weeks of obstetrics and 3 months of paediatrics - preceded by 2 weeks of child psychiatry, where mothers curse the world and preteens slit their wrists - has convinced me that every mother who says that "childbearing was the most beautiful thing ever" is lying. i cannot comprehend how they can say that when a mere 20 mins ago they were cursing to bloody murder, every orifice leaking it's respective bodily fluid (and solid), and a 3kg biological parasite is pulled from your overly-sensitive uglies to become a 20-year-long socioeconomic parasite (or, in some cases, 25 years. kof kof)

friggin' delusional.

just like in business - where for every successful first-million-by-twenty story you hear, there are only about 10 million first-bankruptcy-by-thirty, for every happy, easy going, simple baby, there are 10 million moms who want nothing more than to throw their babies far, far away - and return to those halcyon pre-baby days.

those happy moms are proly all smoking up and too bimbotic to see the reality of the situation anyway. and have 4 indon maids to do the midnight feeding and diaper changing, husbands who sleep around, families that do not support them, and friends that run when times are bad. she of the gucci sunglasses, peroxide blond hair, and the baby accessory.

it's funny how i draw my life's lessons from my studies, since i spend most of my time trying NOT to study. but every time an exam comes round i find me cursing myself again, why why why did i choose medicine? not just regular cursing mind you, but thorough screaming running in the halls cursing. every time i regret my decision to enter this field. every time i consider quitting, especially when i fail (which happens with alarming consistency). every time i enter the hall, i find myself desperately unprepared. hopelessly under-equipped. disturbingly inadequate.

so i stuff the doubts out of my mind cause that's the only way to retain my sanity, think of the beach, and open the paper. i have two letters after my name now. somehow.

what you will accomplish with Joshua will never be recognized in the way my struggles with a stack of questions will, but will ultimately mean so so much more. you will be pushed further, worked harder, cry more, sleep less (ok maybe not sleep less), and be more emotionally torn apart then i ever will be - such is the curse and the convuloted blessing of every RESPONSIBLE mother.

and why?
cause the beach at the end, untangible, never definable, always invisible; is also one that is far more beautiful than any artist can paint, any writer describe, or any imagination conjure.

ok i've used up my adjective-per-day quota.

i just know that one day, eyes glazed over, you will wax lyrical about that Joshua-induced beach. and i will remember women screaming bloody murder, every orifice ejecting it's respective bodily fluid (and solid); and i will think that you're lying - friggin' delusional.

__________

ah pa once sms-ed me, the day before my final exam in canada - "you are ready for this. God will never bring you to what He hasn't prepared you for"

btw that manga big-eyed looking sad in the snow picture is way too cutesy for you.

every now and then,

2008-07-13T21:14:00.003+08:00

i get the urge to write. More often than not these urges are not driven by any one thing, no compelling though, no deeply emotional stirrings, no poignant reflections of life. i used to wonder where these urges come from. I've figured it out, go Canada!

i just like to listen to myself talk.
Or read my own words. My hidden narcissism has come to the fore. Woe is me. I guess it's always been there, this narcissism, but Canada has thought that there's no point in being humble. Just put it out there, and whoever likes you for it you should keep as friends.

maybe there's a poignant life reflection after all.

The m103 blogosphere (who the hell came up with that term anyway??) is deader than my medical student life. No, i am not gonna cease talking about how weird it feels to be a graduate anytime soon. The people at the lab i'm working at now - oh yeah i'm doing stem cell research at HUKM in the mean time, just call me foetus killer - insist on calling me "Dr. Wong". I keep telling them to call me wei jin but they still call me Dr Wong. I told my dad this, stating this very interesting observation and he said, without even looking up from his newspaper, "they just forgot your name lar."

*turns page noisily*

I love my dad.

Carrie you should blog more. Cause i miss your inanity and the loose associations. And no matter how hard i try, how i cannot follow your flight of ideas. "eh look a dog! i wonder why dogs have 4 legs. you know what i like about legs? you can walk on them! YES WALK. cause if no legs then have to take wheelchair. and then wheelchair sure kena langgar when crossing roads. eh you know ah crossing roads in kl is so hard. not like kluang. i wanna eat roti bakar. i hate aucklandddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd. am i fat? eh cat! you know what i like about cats? etc etc"

hypomaniaaaaaaaa

it's like being hit by a train at full speed. a kluang train, just like the ones at kluang station.

i remember that when i first started this blog, i promised myself that i'd use it to entertain. don't write about myself and my "oh my goodness i'm so philosophical and deep" revelations of life. Those blogs disgust me. fail. owell.

i hope i don't fail usmle.

pray for me.

that'll do, pig, that'll do

2008-06-25T14:05:00.004+08:00

This blog was started a good 2 years ago, as a means for whoever wanted to keep track of how I am to do so. Those 2 years are gone. A lot has changed, yet everything's still the same. wah so cliched. I feel like my blog needs a facelift to suit the new open horizons that I am now faced with. But dunno how. Wait ah...

It's chinaman in Canada no more. More like jobless MD in Malaysia now. One thing I've realised, my command of english has gone down the proverbial drain. I used to be able to pull witty neologisms from my buttcrack but now I struggle to find a different way to describe anything.

It's been fun. 2 years of clinical training thought me a lot of things, about my profession and about myself. I developed a methodical way of thinking that I never thought I was capable off. What's the problem, what other problems could it be, how are we going to solve it, what other obstacles might be in the way. At the same time I discovered that I could just as easily get lost in my work in a manner I used to despise in my father. It's no longer "studying", it's "reading". I have, perish the though, become what I used to think, was "boring". I work. I cook. I read. I sleep. I wake up. I work. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Who woulda thunk it?

Not me, that's for sure.

Randomness, having no plans, making it up as I go used to be the order of the day.

And travel! Travel is like a mirror to your soul. You really get to see who you are. Your comfortable pre-conceptions on the person that you think you are, smashed against the 747's windscreen travelling at 800km/h.

Plus, carrying 5 different types of currency on you fills you with this odd sense of self-importance. Only important people carry more than one type of currency at any one time, and I'm not talking souveniours. I saw myself as a citizen of the world, yet all the while realising more and more how much a paikiah Malaysian I was. You know those movie scenes which are taken from the ground up, looking at the protagonist, blue sunny sky in the background, the dude looking pensively nonchalant into the sky, ray-bans and suit on, inspirationally upbeat soundtrack playing, while the camera circles him?

yeah.

Anyway. A new period in my life beckons. No longer a student, finally a grad! It's taken at least 3 years longer than my peers but here I am, circling camera and all.

I'm home.

At least until the next big adventure. Zurich? New York? Singapore? who the hell knows? who the crap cares?

It's always good to come home. Things are always interesting. This time, they got even more interesting. How interesting?

This interesting.

wa-cha!

World, meet Joshua Eng Han Ruong.

Good to be home, indeed.

So many drafts, so little time

2008-05-24T12:37:00.006+08:00

I have too many drafts sitting in my blogging edit posts folder. I wrote one halfway when Man Utd won the EPL - footie ramble IX - a moving dissertation of the state of modern football and the living legend that is Ryan Giggs.

Another piece on the emotional roller coaster that was the UCL final. Leave it to Man Utd to leave it to literally, the last kick to win the thing (and almost losing it about 4 times before that). Why do they always have to be so drama during UCL finals? Don't they know some of their fans got weak hearts? If what had happened in the final was seen in a movie, we'd call it a weak plot.

I have another half-chewed post on the concerns in the Malaysian political scene right now, tanah tumpahnya darahku. That was highligted by the very simple, yet touching music video that cm posted on to lb.blogspot. It was a piece pleading the need for unity, harmony, how we all bleed red and how all our bones are white anyway. It was a stirring call for us, the youth and future of our country, to stand up and be counted and to do something - anything - that would make a difference, that would make a better place for our children and our nephews and nieces, rather than sit on our bums and take the "it cannot change warn lah" attitude. Well nothing ever gets done with that attitude anyway.

But today!

May 23rd, 2008

Today takes precedence over footie rambles and political pleas, over emotional roller-coasters and the future. This post is about the present.

In reciting this oath, we graduates declare allegiance to an ancient, honourable, and durable tradition, the survival of which is important for the welfare of the sick and of society

At this time of being admitted as a member of the medical profession, I solemnly swear by that which I hold most sacred, that I shall consecrate my life to the service of humanity; That I shall maintain by all the means in my power, the honour and the noble traditions of the medical profession; That I shall ever remember with gratitude my teachers in medicine; That I shall constantly strive to add to my knowledge and skills, and be ever willing to assist others to the same end; That I will use my knowledge to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgement, and will abstain from practices that would bring harm to my patients; That I shall not undertake to perform tasks beyong my ability and competence; And that in the practice of my profession, I shall preserve inviolate the confidences of my patients.

These promises I make solemnly, freely, and upon my honour.

A day that marks the culmination of 19 years of education. 19! woah!

This day forth, I am no longer a student. I've been a student, well, forever. But from this day forth, I no longer fill in the "profession" box on important documents as "student".

I fill it in as Doctor.

bumbum pom tumtum tadumtadum

2008-05-18T09:30:00.004+08:00

oh wait ten more years of residency. sigh.

but for now...

yeeeeeeeah they was.....
Dancin' and singin' and movin' to the groovin'
And just when it hit me somebody turned around and shouted
Play that funky music white boyyyyyy
Play that funky music righttttttt
Play that funky music white boyyyyy
Lay down that boogie and play that funky music till you dieee

bumbum pom tumtum tadumtadum
bumbum pom tumtum tadumtadum

uh

oh yeah

uh huh

oh yeah

I couldn't decide whether to post this post on lb.blogspot or here, but since tim has already dedicated a post to me and my MD, i'll put this here. So nice to have friends like him.

up next - another politically-charged post, this time on a slightly more serious note. Whether or not it appears here or on lb.blogspot is anyone's guess! Gasp the suspense.

Yes I have a lot of free time now.
Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful.

Being much more mature and wiser,

2008-05-06T02:55:00.009+08:00

it is inevitable that I would one day be interested in politics. Also, being in north america means that I am indelibly pulled down into the discussion of US politics. Hilary or Obama or McCain?

i have found a way, that bridges my mature-wiser-politcal-mind and my still juvenile gaming tendencies, that helps me decide on which side of whose fence i want to sit.

personally, I think Hilary looks scariest with a gun. Whoever said that chicks with guns are sexy has never seen the Clinton's better half tote one. kinda like saying that female body builders are sexy. *shudder* and who the hell is Romney anyway?

Footie rambles VIII

2008-04-30T05:22:00.005+08:00

gasp

gasp

gasp

9 years. 9 years since that ever-memorable night at the nou camp. How oddly fitting that on the next trip to the UEFA champion's league finals, we have to go through Barcelona to get there.

And how oddly fitting that the man who propels us there is Paul Scholes (he scores goals; the ginger-headed ninja, pocket dynamite, etc etc), the same guy who was suspended for that final in 1999. My all-time favourite footballer. Scholesy!! Still retaining the ability to smack the ball from 30 yards out with more venom than a black mamba.

Still oddly fitting that the finals are two days before the culmination of almost 20 years of education, and I receive a piece of paper that says Wei Jin Wong, MD.

I remember literally yelling and tearing the house down as Solkjaer tapped in that winning goal back in 1999. What a goal. What a moment. I remember the shivers down my spine as Peter Schemeichel lifted the trophy, confetti blowing in the background, and when Roy Keane and Scholes lifted it in their grey suits. I became a believer in the never-say-die attitude then.

The flight of the birds and the fish entrails portends another memorable night.

I feel a familiar tingle building again.

Moscow, May 21st, 2008.

I believe.

*picture ripped from www.soccernet.com*

Tanzanian Diaries IV

2008-04-17T11:06:00.003+08:00

Though technically I'm back in Canada (and have been so for about 2 weeks now), I still feel like writing about the dark continent. Sitting in the cab, windows down, dust in my eyes, on the way to the airport got me thinking about quite a few things.

I'll miss Africa. Yes bad things happened, yes it was annoying how everyone sees you as a source of income, yes for a lot of it I was alone, yes there was a lot of frustration at the standards of care and appalling practices yet yet yet... I can definitely say that I'll be back here sometime in the future. Maybe not in 5 years, maybe not in 10 years, but definitely sometime in the future. When I can actually do something for this people.

Which begs the question - who says the Africans actually asked for our help in the first place? When did someone decide that this highly resourceful people need our help and that we should condescend to extend our gracious hand of support? There is so much to be learnt from these people, in the simple joy of the everyday, in the contentment of a full belly and a full house, in the bright smiles and bright eyes of children playing on a fallen mango tree (real jungle gym don't mess). And - this one is for the all le doctors in the room, CONGRATS DR RAJ, DR TAN and DR FFKHAMTAIWONG - in somehow being able to perform an ORIF of the forearm with rusty tools, running a TIVA of ketamine and diazapam withOUT intubation... and the patient surviving. It boggles the mind.

Maybe it's time to give Africa back to the Africans.

Maybe it's the heat that muddled my thoughts. Maybe the humidity karat-ed my gears a bit. Maybe it's here, that sometime in the distant past, for the first time in known history, a bipedal creature first thought, "I wonder what happens if..." and then realised - he was thinking.

Maybe I should get some sleep.

Goodbye Africa, I shall see you again.

Tanzanian Diaries III - under the african sun

2008-03-21T21:46:00.011+08:00

I once heard someone say “don’t bother explaining yourself. Those who like you don’t need it and those who don’t won’t believe it anyway”. While I totally agree, I have a somewhat pathological need to be understood sometimes.

There were so many reasons why I chose to ignore the warning in my head. I might be over reacting. I’ve heard that people here are really helpful, maybe they are. I might have been reading too much into things. I didn’t want to offend.

After coming under a lot of criticism for the mugging, all I wanna say is this – until you’ve traveled half of what I have, then judge me. Until you have the guts to step into Africa alone, then judge me. Until you’ve stepped into completely foreign cultures, not knowing who and what and how to expect, and how to react, then judge me.

On a less self-defensive note, Ifakara is awesome. Not a paved road for the last 4 hours of the journey, and so much bush medicine that for a full day I was really shaken up at the lack of care the patients were receiving. I suppose for a hospital with very limited resources, a 35% mortality rate is acceptable.

Under the African sun, indeed.

Tanzanian Diaries II

2008-03-03T01:25:00.005+08:00

20 feb 08

Given that Tanzanian cyber cafes are notoriously slow, it’s no surprise then that pirating a line is even slower and less reliable. Oh well. For all of 2 seconds I had internet in my room. Sometimes it’s longer than 2 seconds and then I get really excited and pop the bubbly.

In my efforts to re coup the aforementioned monetary loss, I decided to skimp on food. Yeah it’s that bad. Wei Jin is skimping on food gasp. The end is nigh. So for lunch I thought I’d be smart and bought the largest freaking bunch of bananas I have ever bought in my life for the low low price of 3500 tsh.

Short segue. Ever since I was afflicted with asthma as a kid, my mom has tried me on countless Chinese herbal remedies to get rid of it. Every time some sinseh told her of a new cure she would get very enthusiastic and subject us with said remedy (often times useless). Truth be told, I hated every single attempt to remedy it, because they never worked and more so because they involved putting something that tasted downright foul into my mouth.

I could get on fine with my asthma, why couldn’t she? Anyway now that I’m older I’ve begun to understand her point of view – seeing her son struggle for breath and turn blue must not have been a very pleasant sight. ‘Specially when that same son had to be admitted to the hospital at least once a year for said breathing difficulties.

Back to the point – herbal remedies – I have, in my time, tasted an inordinate number of blehgrk tasting concoctions, things no sane man would ever think of putting into his mouth. Among the more memorable being snake’s bile, crocodile soup, something that involved guinea pigs and/or hamsters/other small rodent, seahorse soup, and countless hordes of despicable roots and herbs that taste downright disgusting. I remember one of the brews being so foul I vomited right back into it after the first few gulps, while my friends looked on, wide-eyed.

I mean, come on, which bored demented senile old chinaman first thought “if I cut open snake… oooh green stuff! Hmm when I cough got green stuff come out… means if I eat snake green stuff my cough green stuff no more!”

In my later years, when the asthma had cleared up (I put it down to good ol’ exercise) and I had become a healthy daring swashbuckling risk taking bracing young lad, I set out to try and taste as many things as I possibly could in this world. Food-wise, that is. I don’t go around licking walls and rocks just for fun. That’s called pica. Pica! Pica! No, not of the yellow electrifying cartoon genre, it’s a symptom of mineral deficiency and sometimes schizophrenia. Crazy both ways.

Ahem.

Before I segue off the segue – in my quest to put as many different foods (as defined by its respective cultures) down my gullet as I humanly could (not all at the same time), I’ve tried everything from fried gecko to buffalo to tarantula. Not forgetting the locusts, termites, cockroaches and many other nameless creepy crawlies some culture or other has defined as “food”.

Also, being Chinese, no part of an animal is spared. Except the hoofs and horns. Cause that might make chewing a little tricky.

The point of this seemingly pointless ramble?

Among all the weird and wonderful things that my tongue has experienced, few have come close, in terms of pure nastiness, as 4 hujambo-tembo-tic bananas in a row.

It

Was

Disgusting

Why? Because it deceived like no other food has. If something tastes gross (eg snake’s bile), it’s usually gross from the get go to the end. There’s nothing pleasurable about snake’s bile and vinegar. You prepare yourself for the grossness, you experience the nausea, you hold it in, choke it back with a litre of water, curse your mom, and then go along with your day. It doesn’t pretend to be sweet. It doesn’t pretend to be tasty. The only neurotransmitter it releases is the adrenaline coursing through your veins as the cold sweat breaks out while you attempt to not puke (edit - endorphins make you feel good, adrenaline is a catecholamine which mediates the flight-or-fight response, both are neurotransmitters. thank you psychoK. and incidentally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!)

It’s nauseating, but it’s honest. It’s nasty and it knows it. And you know it.

The same way you know that that hairy spider’s leg is going to be nasty. Or that bug that’s the size of your thumb and still squirming is going to be nasty.

No duplicity about it.

BUT these bananas though... They’s tricksy. They’s lies to us. They’s promises us to take care of us but theys liessssssss

They start of promisingly sweet and mild-mannered but by the time I got to the 3^rd one, they were getting bland and mushy. I was still hungry so I tried for a fourth and my dear was it gross. That weird coating in your mouth that you always get with bananas multiplied 4 times. A funky after taste in the back of my mouth that can only be described as organophosphate-ish . It’s no longer softly-textured, it’s about the consistency of a bowl of mashed brains and oatmeal. It’s no longer oddly (yet satisfyingly) firm, it begins to resemble a long yellow turd. It’s no longer golden yellow, it’s the colour of your puke after you puke everything else out and the dredges of your gastric contents are being evacuated.

Uergh.

You know you’re either very bored or very artistic when you spend two pages devoted to how a bunch of bananas supposedly tricked you. I think all artists are bored anyway.

In any case, I learnt my lesson and never had 4 of those things in a row ever again. The only problem was I also forgot I was in Tanzania, where fruit goes bad quickly as opposed to Canada where you can leave bananas out for a week. In three quick days, a thin furry film started to grow on the leftover bananas that I was doing my rapid best to finish without grossing myself out again.

Fail.

So three of the bunch went into the garbage, having turned a garbage-water brown colour and having grown a furry white coat.

Next up – what’s up with the blue toilet paper anyway?

And – the African beach is absolutely breath taking. I’ve been to many beaches before, and this definitely ranks in my top 3.

*hujambo tembo - Swahili for “hello elephant what’s your problem?”

Tanzanian Diaries I

2008-02-20T01:51:00.003+08:00

So I don't have internet at the place I'm staying. I've consigned myself to writing on my laptop, and cutting and pasting stuff here. The more palatable public stuff, that is.

*dramatic voice*
the following is a record of my first 2 days in Tanzania.

16 feb 08

Here we go now, on the road again. Woootz. Well. More like on the wings again. No I’m not drinking red bull (cause it gives you wiiiiiinggsss) but I’m sitting in JFK for the second time in 2 months waiting for another flight. I love traveling. Call me the globetrotter. The zenzational azian globetrotting trotter. I like pig trotters in vinegar. I also like pie.

Mmm pie.

Whoever first thought of sticking food in a pastry and sticking it in an oven was a friggin’ genius. Genius I tell you!

So the cradle of humanity awaits. Paradoxically the last great unexplored frontier on earth. Where humanity takes a step back in silent respect of the elements and elephants. Where civilization is rare and technology rarer.

This should be very interesting.

------

18 feb 08
11pm

Interesting indeed. It’s day 2 and I just got mugged. Yeah. Mugged.

It was after work and I had come home to rest before going out for food. On the way out, as so often happens, a random Tanzanian man came up to me and started talking. The usual questions – how are you? Where are you from? Where are you going?

So me, being friendly and all, told him I was good, from Malaysia, and looking for authentic Tanzanian food. “oh good Tanzanian food! I bring you.”

I warily agreed, telling myself that should we go somewhere dark or had no people that I would turn back.

While walking there, a good 20 mins - 30 mins walk, he told me he was a musician, had a bar where he was performing tonight and I should go. I was suspicious but we stayed in well lit places where there were a lot of people. We had food, which wasn’t great but it was ok. When he told me it was 7000 shillings, asking me to give him money so that he could pay the bill, I became even more suspicious because Tanzanian street food rarely exceeds 5000 shillings. He had ordered a pepsi and made no offer to pay for it. When I pointed that out he insisted that he would pay me back.

He had also asked for 1000 shillings to buy the “food voucher”. I said that he had to pay me back and again he insisted that he would.

After the meal he re-iterated the fact that he had a bar and that I should go see him play. I declined, cause I was getting a little afraid. Then he said, “ok never mind, I take you back to your hotel.” I said I’d rather take a taxi but then he said he’s also a taxi driver and that he’ll take me back, only 2000 shillings.

I was undecided and wary, but he had seemed harmless though my gut was saying that I should run. Big mistake. Big big mistake. The moment I got into his car, two other guys jumped in with me into the back seat.

Sigh.

They drove and I said “stop the car, I want to get out”
“no changing your mind”
“I can change my mind if I want too”
A pause
“let me tell you who we are. We are mafia mojoa. We are bad people”
I was cursing my stupidity. Stupid stupid stupid wei jin
“we need 3000 euros. If you don’t give it to us you are going to be in big trouble”
“I don’t have 3000 euros. I’ll give you all I have if you let me down here”
The one on the left proceeded to harass me, searching my pockets and my back pack.
“what is this? What is this? What is inside here?”
I pulled out my wallet that he was tapping with his right hand, and gave him all the notes I had in there – about 70,000 shillings (about 70usd). He found my phone (goodbye helomoto) and my camera (not even mine, borrowed from Ernie), and insisted on giving him more.

I showed him my books, my stethoscope.
“we don’t want that. We want money. Show me your money. I saw your cards. You have credit card?”
“no I don’t” honestly, I don’t.
If only he knew that the tie that was in my bag and first aid for usmle step 1 cost more than what he had already taken.
“we are poor people” said the one on my right
“I’m poor too!”
“do you think I am a musician?”
“not anymore”
“we are not good people. We are bad people. What was that card”
“this is a bank card with 10 usd on it left”
“you lie. We are going to take you to the bank and you are going to take out 800 euros”
“I’ve told you, it only has 10 usd left on it”
“you lie. How are you going to live here”
“my friend is coming at the end of the week with my money. The money you just took is supposed to last me until then”
“you lie.”
“no, it’s the truth. I’m being honest with you. I have no money left”
“if you give us more money you will be ok, if you don’t you will be in big big trouble”
I wasn’t as scared as I was cursing how stupid I was. But I was getting really afraid the farther we drove.
I showed him my wallet again, empty. Showed him the front compartment where I keep my daily usage cash and avoided showing him the back one which had more cash – usd, Canadian dollars, RM and the few pounds I keep for sentimental value. Not much, but some.

Thank goodness the car was dark and he didn’t see the extra cash.

“please let me out. I’ve given you all I have.”
Short pause.
“we put you here”
I had no idea where I was. It was dark, quiet, and hardly a soul around.
Then came the kicker. And this part I still have a hard time believe happened.
He said, “here I give you money to take taxi back to hotel”

…

Some robber. Thank God for little mercies, I suppose…
He gave me 3000 shillings, enough for a 15-minute taxi ride.
“if you make trouble for us we make big trouble for you”
I got out, turned my back and never looked back. They drove off. It only occurred to me later that I should have tried to remember the license plate. I was pissed scared at the time and all I could think off was to get as far away as possible. But from what I’ve heard of Tanzanian police, it would have been useless anyway.

I hurried off, keeping my head down and walking as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I came upon a bunch of taxi men who started calling out to me. I had no idea where I was. I had no choice. So I offered one of them the 3000 shillings to take me back to morogoro road.

I was thinking that my luck couldn’t be so bad to be robbed twice in one day. Again, thank God that this taxi guy was an honest one. He took me back to the hostel, and I paid him the 3000 shillings that the mugger oddly gave back to me.

As I was climbing the stairs back at the hostel, I bumped into Karolina, a Norwegian girl that I had met on my first day here.

“hi Karolina”
She was on the phone, so she waved. I needed to talk to someone.
“is Kjersti here?”. Pronounced “shash-ti”, she was another Norwegian girl that I had met with Karolina.
“in the room, go in and say hi”

I went in and said hi to Kjersti. Apparently they had both had a bad bout of traveler’s diarrhea and had spent the whole day in bed with oral rehydration salts.
“Bad day for all of us then eh”
I told her my story.

-----

After talking to her, I went to the reception attempting to place a collect call home. No matter how old you are, sometimes you are still just ahboy and call home when bad things happen. The phone couldn’t place international calls, and the receptionist didn’t know what an “operator” was. So I went back to Karolina and Kjersti’s room, knocked, and asked if I could borrow their phone to send an sms home. I had forgotten that it was 3am back in Malaysia, and my dad wasn’t the kind to keep his phone on all night.

I ended up calling home. My dad picked up. I asked him to check his phone for an sms. He called back. I told him what happened.
“calm down” he said.
Funny, I wasn’t panicking at all. At least that made me laugh.

He gave me the classic father spool that I expected to hear, but at that time, very much needed to hear.

Sigh.

So my second day wasn’t a very fun one. Relieved of my friend’s camera, my phone (plus sim card) and about 70usd. There was nothing valuable on the phone and I highly doubt they would track down the people who’s numbers are on it. I hope Ernie had saved all his photos to his pc. Plus, at least they didn’t harm me, though I still think it’s really odd (but nice of them in a perverse sort of way) that they left me cash to get a taxi back.

Whoever heard of nice robbers?

homeless

2008-02-03T06:44:00.003+08:00

Yeah I'm homeless. How? Long story short, I wasn't gonna be in Hali for a bunch of months this year so I gave up my lease and am currently crashing random friend's couches. And sometimes beds, when they're not home. Sometimes even when they're home.

anyway.

How is everyone doing? I shall answer some comments posted on my chatterbox here cause I can.

tim, the headquarters wouldn't be where I get viagra (as if I need it pfft). The factory would be. I understand your need to insult people but at least try to get your facts right first. *flares nostrils in disdain*

cm, I know I know. sigh. But I was there once as a kid and if things work the way it should, I'll have 10 years to go see it whenever I want. As I crashed yours, so shall you be welcome to crash my couch/living room floor.

kim-z. where are you now? working boh? dr Lim it seems lol.

ahjie. Just cause you marry young doesn't mean I have too. crazy ah. I have to make money first ok. Pay for ma and pa's international cruises. You can view my facebook page anytime. You just gotta figure it out. Which means you won't see it anytime soon hohohoh

seryoung, haha how have you been. how did you even find this blog? victor wooten was amazing.

so that's all. I shall now procede to narcissitically expound on my current life developments.

Africa (tanzania to be precise) calls me in 8 hours. 3 weeks in Dar es Salaam at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, doing internal medicine and ER. Then 3 weeks in a rural community clinic in Ifakara. Where elephant stompings and crocodile bites are everyday facts of life. OK that was a bit off colour but whatever. I'm becoming too politically correct. curse you canada.

speaking of canada, I'll be leaving in May. May 23rd convocation - the big day! DR WONG IS COMING TO TOWN WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO

Good bye new york, hello halifax.

2008-01-02T07:31:00.002+08:00

Sigh.

what an absolutely amazing city. As I’ve said before, I really liked manc, I really really liked London but I’m absofreakinlutely in love with new york. Bloody amazing. The buildings, the culture, the food, the places to see, things to hear.

I was here for a month and still haven’t fully explored manhattan. Compare that to Halifax where I walked the entire town in 2 days. Sigh.

JFK
The met
Central park
Madison square garden
Radio city music hall
Times square
The Rockefeller centre
Chinatown
Little italy
The UN building
Trump world tower, trump hotel, trump tower
Broadway. Gasp. Broadway.
The blue note
Lotus
The empire state building
The Chrysler building
Nbc
Pfizer world headquarters
Ground zero
Macy’s, century 21 and Bloomingdales
Gordon ramsey at the London
Little korea

Familiar? Seen I am legend? hehe random egyptian arch from the Metropolitan museum of art. Will Smith was fishing under this in the movie. The pond doesn't actually have any fish. Just a bunch of pennies ppl throw in for luck (?) More proof that you can't trust anything you see on tv.

And the list goes on and on. I haven’t even included the places that I DIDN’T visit. Like the museum of natural history or the statue of friggin’ liberty. No time, no time!!

I love it how you can walk down the street and hear 5 or 6 different languages – none of them English. The new york accent rocks too. It speaks of frankness, rough and tumble, big city savvy, and that you shouldn’t mess with me.

I love it how every block has 4 absolute essentials – a bank, a little grocery store, a starbucks and a nail salon.

I took a piss in the trump tower just so I could say I’ve pissed in Donald trump’s building and he paid for the water that flushed away my excreta. Don’t mess.

Was also at the blue note, the jazz capital of the world. Chic Corea, Victor Wooten and Dave Weckl played. gasp gasp. That's like Kaka, Messi and Ronaldo timbang-ing a football for one a half hours. Lined up for a freakin' hour to get in! But so completely totally absolutely worth it. At the end of the show my cheeks (on the face) were hurting and I was wondering why when I realised - my jaw was hanging open for almost the entire show. Never ever heard music like that before. wah. lao. eh.

Chic Corea!! The man himself desending the stage. I was within pissing distance of greatness.

VICTOR WOOOOOOOOOOTENNNNNNNNNNNNNN forgive the grainy photo, kamera talipon diambil. my hands were shaking. standing. next. to. immortality.

New Yoooorrrkkkkkkkkkkkk

Unfortunately I’m back in boring ol’ Halifax and its one street. It’s really difficult coming back to this backwater after Manchester, London and new york. Night and friggin’ day (in case you’re wondering, Halifax is night). The goodnews is that I’m rid of the freaking nutjob roommate. After I left new york, she sent me an 16kb email telling me the things that are wrong with my life and how I should change them. Wth. I told her to go get a life and leave me alone. Then she sent back not one, not two, but THREE long emails about how I’m an impudent little child that’s gonna fail at life, get fired from my job, never get married and live a solitary lifestyle. Excuse me but last time I checked you were the 38 yr old unemployed babysitter who sits home all day, not me.

I thank carrie for helping me laugh at her and restrain the urge to write back and point out certain er inaccuracies in her schizophrenia-inspired emails.

And chua soi lek pulled a clinton LOL. Minus the “I didn’t think oral sex was considered sex” statement. Some days I still think of that statement and chuckle to myself. Oral SEX not being SEX. Anyway, who says m’sian politics is boring??

Hello 2008!

May your year be full of promise (fulfilled ones), bright skies (not too hot), green grass (no bugs) and new relationships (no crazy ones).

A good chunk of the little batch that almost couldn't but could will be graduating in the middle of the year. Hard to believe that 5 years have almost gone by since those first few tentative steps into the foyer of an overgrown pink marshmallow. Those same tentative steps that have now become the confident strut of almost-doctors. The first of many letters after our names beckon, my friends. There remain but only a few more hurdles to be leaped, and in the eternal words of a boy I once shared a bathroom with, the longkang is about to be crossed.

Let us step over that longkang with confidence and pride, that the ppl who had no faith in us soon will have their collective feet in their collective mouths (hopefully the feet and the mouths don't belong to the same person). More importantly, we're no longer spending our parents cash.

M103 marches on, watch out world.

I mean uh, be prepared to be saved, world!

2007-12-23T05:50:00.000+08:00

Boredom is directly proportionate to the number of blog posts/month. fershizzlemahchizzle.

I can't even think of something remotely interesting to write. Besides the fact the HNR is talking less nowadays, I think she's finally beginning to get the hint with the constant ignoring that I do. She asked me to do her laundry today though. wth. The other day she insisted that I was addicted to my computer and gave me a long lecture on how this is so bad, I don't have a social life, this are the sins of the generation, and to top it all off, said that I'll never be successful in managing a relationship and marriage. And she went on and on for a good half hour. I exaggerate not.

wth I almost kicked her. Just because I find YOU annoying and don't want to talk to you...

The worst part? you know how ppl fake-laugh to make something they said less serious? yeah she does that. Close to bashing her face in.

I'm getting violent thoughts. Help. Good thing that I'm out of here sooner rather than later. Don't get me wrong, I love NYC but this crazy... thing...

So she's a 38 year old unemployed baby sitter. She spent all day at home the other day, and when I came home from work she said "I think my neighbour is *finger moves in clockwise motion over temple* I think she's on disability *snigger* cause I heard her moving in and out all day today". Right. Look in the mirror. She sat at home all day spying on her neighbour and thinks that the neighbour is crazy? wooooahhhhh the sheer stupidity of her statement blew me away. Stunned incredulity is the only way I can describe what I felt.

She also said this the other day "you know, you shouldn't just sleep under the comforter. There are sheets you should sleep under cause the comforter is only washed every now and then." I thought, ok, fair enough, then belatedly, this other thought hit me - the only way a person would know if I'm sleeping under the sheets or under the comforter is if that person watches me very closely while I sleep...

whatthewhatthewhatthewhatthe
I'm scared. Very scared. If I don't make it back to Halifax, I love you all.
*looks over shoulder*

In other news, fat Jon was in town. And he's even fatter. gasp. We went to Gordon Ramsey's two michelin star restaurant here in NYC, and believe me... I've never ever had a meal like that before. Every bite was more orgasmic than an orgasm, we were constantly left speechless with the food. Like fireworks, like a baroque painting, like explosions, rainbows, sunshine, Gisele Bundchen, all in your mouth at the same time. As one of his friends said "eat already chao khan!"

Chao khan indeed.

Speaking of Gisele Bundchen, the victoria's secret fashion show was on the other day. gasp. These women ah. Put them in a guni sack and tie it with rafia and they'd still look good. Not just good, but unrealistically good. What kind of freak combination of genetics would you need to look like that? Unreal.
The spice girls also made an appearance. They sang the same old song, did the same old dance moves and more or less looked the same except that the dance moves were wooden (obviously those bones are a lot creakier and older) the wrinkles were obvious and the tight-fitting clothes didn't do any flattery to the pounds the years have mounted on them. I mean, the pre-pubescent fans that they drove mad are 10 years older, (hopefully) more mature and looking for jobs now. Who in the world would be interested in music that went out of fashion 10 years ago? With no attempt to change or update the songs, or the dance moves. Sang by close to middle age, chubbier, wrinklier women. shrug.
Lots of ppl apparently cause last I heard their concert was sold out.

The world is a funny place indeed.

Nutjob roommates, unattractive, uninovative spice girls still being attractive and orgasmic food.

A funny funny place indeed.

bla bla bla snore snore. I wonder how the lot in KL are doing?

Oh merry Christmas everyone!

the HNR

2007-12-10T11:04:00.000+08:00

So.

NYC. Week one. That's right, ze big apple. It looks just like the movies. And the people are just as nasty. But! *frank sinatra in background* I really really really wouldn't mind practicing here at all. Definitely better than kampung Halifax. Once a big city boy, always a big city boy.

I really liked Manc. I really, really, really liked London. But I'm friggin' in love with NYC. And that's being said with not knowing anyone. Kinda says something. We'll see if I feel the same by the time I leave.

In the mean time though let me mention the HNR - harmless nutjob roommate. I found her on the craigslist, and as hers was the cheapest place on offer, I took it up. It was only for a month, and the place looked clean. She sounded perfectly sane and normal in our correspondence. Little did I know...

Here are two excerpts from the emails she's been sending to me while at work. Yes, while at work.

"Best secret to save money on overpriced deoderant (b/c it all has the same active ingredient) is to buy 1 lemon every 2wks, cut it in 1/2 and wipe under your arms- this kills any odor and most of the time I am dry or if I sweat, it's minor and ok b/c it's healthy drainage for toxins but with no odor. "

"If you get tired, drink 6oz of water at work - that should feed your brain cells and wake you up a bit. I also have sippy thermoses that you can store juice in rather than spending $2 every time your thirsty. 48oz-64oz of juice is $4.69 so it makes economical sense to buy juice and transfer into thermos for work. If you mix juice with water, you not only protect your teeth from too much natural sugar, the juice lasts a long time. I buy 2 48oz juices per month and dilute with reverse osmosis water (distilled water which is the most safest on earth). keep food in your coat pockets and nipple throughout the day.

Nipple throughout the day, it seems. She starts most conversations with "i read it on the internet..." Yes, cause everything on the internet is true and can be trusted. She spends long hours telling me to eat this type of bread and drink this type of water and cook with this type of oil to prolong life expectancy. She spent 30 mins telling me how Jesus didn't die on the cross (he just pretended *shrug the nails through the hands and spear in the side kinda convinces me*), is actually French, had 4 kids and spent 10 years of his childhood in India.

And the worst part? I was standing in the bathroom door really needing to excrete, and she didn't get the hint and just continued talking. How do you politely close the door to take a dump while someone is looking at you and talking and talking and talking?

Quite the nutjob, but I have yet to find decapitated goats heads lying around. Or seen her berkangkang over the bread. So overall harmless. I think. I hope. For now. *looks over shoulder*

It's only for a month with the HNR, I tell myself. Again and again. And again. And then again.

This would be the first and last time I find another roommate on the craigslist.

But NYC!! gasp gasp.

Goodbye Manc

2007-12-06T10:08:00.000+08:00

2100, GMT +0 1st december, Nottingham. Steamboat with ah keen and hary, among others. Jokes too vulgar for publication made. Lots of talk about mushrooms.

0100, 2nd December, Manchester, packing at the royal

0115, yvinne calls and says bye bye.

0200, the royal, Jaycen wants last dota game. Temptation knocks, but my resilient discipline resists. rawr.

0330, the royal, lose to cm at pro evo soccer. Twice.

0500, the royal, beat cm at NBA 2k8, once.

0530, the royal, last minute packing. Cab arriving in 30 mins. Stuff still in dryer. Typical, typical. Frantic folding commences.

0557, the royal, ray mumbles goodbye. Shout goodbye at lena. Grunt heard in response. Image of my dad flashes through my mind.

0600, random taxi cab, cm emotional. Wj numb. Spitting rain completes Korean drama-like farewell.

0615, random taxi cab, talk about travelling to random taxi man. I have no idea what he’s saying half the time, though I know he’s speaking English. Surrealistic feeling dominates as I watch the dark mancunian scenery, lit by Christmas lights. The silence envelopes me. Like a big black... something... eating me.

0630, Manchester airport, terminal 1. no flight listed on the tv screen. Dontpanicdontpanicdontpanicdontpanic.

0645, Manchester airport, terminal 2, flight found. Breathes again.

0800, Manchester airport, food2go café, discovers Manchester tarts. On my last day. How ironic.

0900, LX0391, somewhere over paris. Feels the need to curse, smoke, and hate life.

1045, Zurich airport. By far the nicest airport I’ve ever been in. Just aesthetically pleasing. Straight simple lines, lots of glass, wide open spaces. Beautiful simplicity. These swiss people.

1300, LX 0014, somewhere over the atlantic. Gets irritated at big german man constantly elbowing me.

1600, GMT -5, JFK airport, new york. Snow covers most of manhattan. The big black something shows it's head again. I'm scared.

REPUBLIC OF MANCUNIA

2007-11-16T07:08:00.000+08:00

*cue soft heavenly choruses*

*heavenly choruses getting louder*

*HEAVENLY CHORUSES CRESCENDO!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLARDEE LOUD HEAVENLY CHORUSES!!!!*

muslims have mecca. I have old trafford. The pilgrimage is complete. And trust me, it was a very real emotional experience. Religious, in fact. The first view of those big bold red letters brought a single tear of mancunian joy to my eye. Climbing the stairs up to the seats, hearing the crowd in the background and player's names being called out... The first view of the pitch... pristine... the roar of the crowd as the kick-off was sounded like the sound of a jetplane taking off... speechless. Beautifully speechless. If it weren't for the seats I'd be on my knees, arms raised in prostrate joy. The banners that proclaimed REPUBLIC OF MANCUNIA. Just beautiful. Just pure beauty.

*sniff*

oh.

I'm in manchester by the way. Now I can tick another off my list of things to do before I die. The list shall be made public when I've ticked everything off of it.

I must admit, it was really surreal seeing this lot again after 2 whole years. Everyone's changed, yet everyone's still somehow the same. Cm's head is even bigger (never knew it was possible!!) yet he retains his procrastinating kiddishness. Charlene puts on the most elegant of brit accents when ordering food, then turns round and curses in the most pai kiah kuantan cantonese. etc etc bla bla bla. Being surrounded by this lot, I regress into the slacker I once was. I recognize myself a little more now... as opposed to the responsible 3rd year medical student I was in Hali... staying long hours and working hard. woah. working hard. that phrase feels blissfully alien right now.

in other news,

Call me Doctor Wong.

YES

IT IS FINISHED.

well not quite, but all my medschool exams are done.

I say to you, Dalhousie Medical School, veni, vedi, vici.

It seemed as if the day would never come. My resit? Written and passed. WRITTEN AND PASSED. The depths of depression to which it plunged me? Plumbed and conquered. PLUMBED AND CONQUERED.

The culmination of 5 years of stress, failure and re-sits came, when the results of my resit were released. It was pwned like Cristiano Ronaldo vs Scunthorpe United, by a whole standard deviation. In 5 years of medical school, that was a first. I guess fear of repeating is indeed a much better motivator than fear of failure. Cause I'm so used to failure. Not necessarily a good thing. hmm.

Anyway.

I look forward now, with bright hope and the wind in my hair, to even tougher exams and even longer hours and even more responsibility that will push this weak slacker psyche to it's very limited limits.

but for now!

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

lydiatouchingme

2007-10-22T08:13:00.000+08:00

So my long-lost cousin lydia "tagged" me. meh. as i've said before, i'm not a big fan of internet fads. chain mails, tags, those "99 questions about me!" questionaires things or whatever. who the crap is honestly interested in what colour socks you were wearing while answering the questions? i mean. seriously. get a life. no one cares. such extremely nauseating narcissism.

but since she's my cousin must respect lar. family ok. make exception. still way too lazy to answer all those questions though. so to not ignore her (not nice ler, family wor), but still not bothering to answer her gajiillion questions, i've decided to post a picture of her and i, in homage of her tag.

hello lydia! this is your tag.

nah.

Here they are!!

2007-10-09T02:12:00.000+08:00

picked carefully from the gazillions of photos from the very eventful past month, let the pictures tell the thousands of words. More on me facebook. I'm too lazy to upload all.

Luna's private lounge. Just for us woot. Pretty right? never knew it existed.

One flaming lambo to say goodbye to 23...

... and one towering flaming lambo to say hello to 24!!!

Birthday "cake"!. The after effects of 2 flaming lambos on a chinaman's skin colour. woah! can you feel the heat?

Yuppie friends, sara, wayne, albert, nadia, rach, jo and naz.
Thanks Jo for driving me home! Apparently I was talking nonsense.

On to the wedding!

jengjengjenggg
erhm my sister's name is Mei Fern, btw.

I really like this photo. Had no idea that it was taken.

ah ma + ah pa

The groom + best man, bringing sexy back. yea!

here comes the brideeeee

The bride arriveth! and bridesmaids united. Little shannae is so cute I feel like taking her home and turning her into a stuffed toy. Kar Ling my sister's best friend on the left, and evelyn whom my sister and I used to baby sit when she was Shannae's height. She's all tall and curvy now. yes, I BABY SIT.

best man "alright boy, last chance for you to run away. you sure you wanna go through with this?"
groom "dowry paid already, cannot run now, if not cannot collect ang pow."
We changed to chinese kung fu suits. It was the groom's idea to do the whole chinese outfit thing. Waiting for the bride, the groom in red and gold and the best man in a weird meconium-stained thing.

Iain the ring-bearer. Just a little bit taller than frodo. geddit? geddit? wahaha I crack myself up. To the less witty, frodo is a ring bearer too. duh.

the walk... towards the rest of her life

Never underestimate the power of two words. More specifically, "i do".
Uncle Wong the church elder reading their vows.

Families, unite!!

the garden at cyberview lodge, where we had cocktails before the wedding dinner.

ah poh, yum cha

gasp protect me from the evil biting champagne bottle!!

i have no idea who these people are that we're yam-seng-ing with

My sister's posse. erhm I hope I get this right... suat sian, rosa, karling at the top, mei fern, siew ching, min lee seated.

best man, groom, bride, maid of honour

awww... *sniffle*

That's all folks! Now wipe up those tears. well. some of the best from the 10 billion that were taken.

24!!! + akak sudah kahwin!!!

2007-10-04T00:34:00.001+08:00

So I've been really busy, what with the masses of people to meet up with, the lousy IJN posting, the birthday, and the sister's wedding.

So I'm really really tired but I promised myself that I'd post these two photos up at least to keep alive this tiny portion of dead cyberspace.

24!!!
My birthday "candle" hohoho

ah zhe kit fan chor!!
No matter how old you are, no matter what age of life, some things just never change. Like a brother and sister making stupid faces.

More photos soon! because I'm a narcissist. eh it was a very eventful trip back home. Consider this a teaser.

lima lagi jam

2007-09-19T07:38:00.000+08:00

That's right. LIMA LAGI JAM.

These words are being typed at a random free-internet booth in Hong Kong international airport. I originally wanted to shoot off a few last words from Halifax before I packed up my pc but me being the consumate procrastinator ran out of time and had to pack my pc and run before I missed my flight out of Halifax.

That would be no good.

Sit in the 17-hour flight until backside grow mold I swear it. Green green colour. Thank goodness the plane stopped to refuel in Anchorage, Alaska, apparently "the crossroad for the world's wildlife" as a sign so proudly proclaimed right at that boom thing to get off the plane. shrug.

SO anyway to all of you reading and who are in Malaysia, I'll be expecting to see you soon! Uh I've lost all my contacts so uh yeah... we'll get round to that somehow. Can warnnnn.

Enam lagi hari

2007-09-13T11:49:00.000+08:00

Prepare the way.

bumbumBUMMMMM

I don't know what you heard about me
But a b**** can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a mother f***ing P-I-M-P

*bounce bounce*

oouuuu yeeeahhhhhhh

china wine?

2007-08-19T08:11:00.000+08:00

What does this bootylicious music video

and this whole wheat granola-esque family photo

have in common?

any takers?

well.

They're the same person.

Yeah, that belly-baring, rump-shaking, arm-flailing, self-titled "geisha" used to be this, and this.

So one of the Malaysians here saw the music video on tv and was telling us about this china wine person, quite the entertaining, from singapore summore. Ho Yeow Sun was her name apparently. Something in me clicked. Like, from my distant past (relatively speaking since distance is all relative and my past can't be very distant since i'm not even a quarter century old, but when you're young [chronologically, as opposed to what you feel cause my goodness I feel old] even the very recent seems a distant past, hence, me saying that in my relatively distant past).

After much consternation and hmm-ing and hoo-ing, I realised where I heard that name before. MY MOM OWNS THE CHURCH WORSHIP CD THAT SHE PRODUCED. Yes I remember aunty Wong coming up to me in my distant past (enter relativity distant past rant) and enthusiastically showing me this CD of worship songs produced by a church in singapore, and written by that church's pastor, and I remember myself being quite impressed with the quality. Ho Yeow Sun.

Ms Geisha used to be (or maybe still is) the beloved pastor of the City Harvest Church in singapore, the largest and fastest growing church in Singapore.

Let's take a moment to consider the implications here.

How do you go from pastoring one of the fastest growing churches in the world to booty shakin' with friggin' wycliff jean??? (no insult to him)
I'm filled with a morbid sort of fascination.
I wonder what her still-pastoring husband is thinking. Seeing his wife bump and grind with random black men on MTV. Cause if you surf over to the CHC website, his face is still there but hers is nowhere to be found (at least not by me).
I really really REALLY want to know what's going on in her mind. She's come under fire from some of the more fundamentalist sections of Christianity, and in other articles has denied ever being a pastor, but all I really want to know is what's ticking in that tocker? Did someone feed the hamster on the wheel anabolic steroids and crack? And run the wheels off the gears?

It's even more dramatic than the silicon-fueled Dawn Yang transformation.
It's like me turning down durian cendol gasp gasp hyperventilate.

I'm a little confused here.

A little blown away.

and

unsure of what to think.

The world is a funny place.

Blogger's block

2007-08-09T09:11:00.000+08:00

So. It's been about 3 weeks since the last post, and I must admit, I never thought this would happen but I've got blogger's block. Or blogger's burnout. The great spirits of the blogosphere have left me to fend for myself, blind, alone and dark.

So I've decided to bore you lot (and myself) with one of those today-i-wanted-2-potatoes-but-only had-1-so-i-went-to-the-store-and-then-wanted-candy-but-then-i-only-had-enough-money-for-1 potato-and-not-for-1-potato-and-candy sotheniblablablabla kinda blogs.

I've been playing ultimate frisbee. Like, a lot of frisbee. I never knew that that floating plastic disc could be a competitive sport but apparently there are as many tactics and configurations as football or basketball. And it's played here with the intensity of an FA cup final. Blood and mud flying all over.

And let me say one thing - it's not as easy as it looks. Catching that (*^% piece of plastic is not easy. And throwing it is even more difficult.

Anyway so that's how I've been passing most of my time while not in the wards. Freaking boring right. Lectureboys.blogspot is dead as well.

Forbid it that we have become boring my friends.

Forbid it, indeed.

ps-oh and Esther? I'm touching down on the 19th at noon. SAVE SOME DURIAN FOR MEEEE

quotable quotes and stuff

2007-07-22T09:16:00.001+08:00

from Hali, oh haliiiiiii

"It's amazing what people will you let do to them just because you wear an oversized white shirt over your clothes and a rubber hose around your neck"
-random doc

"Remember, children aren't little adults. Paediatricians are"
-Dr B, lecture on childhood trauma management

"Broken? Fix. Not broken? Don't fix"
-another random doc on "approach to orthopaedics".

"There's nothing much else to do except study and f**k"
-Dr J, preparing for the royal college exams

"Excuse me, but we're trying to learn something here"
-Dr. C, interrupted while lecturing on inflammatory bowel disease. He didn't notice that the whole class was sleeping.

"whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
-me

anyway.

photos. because I can.

medschool ball 2006, and one of my dates for the night. Mullan the destroyer.

post-surgery house party. Amin, Erin and Chris.

oh oh got story. hoho. So we were all pretty high already when we noticed that the host had probably the biggest bath tub in the world in his toilet. Can fit like 10 people. ok I exaggerate. Anyway -

We climbed in and started taking stupid photos. There was space for a lot more. See I only exaggerate by a little. Then then some random girl who we don't even know walks into the toilet and announces "OK PEOPLE I NEED TO PEE".
So we ok lar start stumbling drunkedly out of the bath tub when she, big smile on her face, just pulls her pants down, pulls her leopard-print underwear down, plonks her butt on the toilet and just PEES IN FRONT OF ALL OF US.
So we all just stare, it's like watching a whale barf right, it's gross but you just can't stop watching. She finishes, wipes herself up, pulls up her leopard-print underwear and pants and walks out, all the while with a big smile on her face.

We later find out that her name is Lindsay. That's her leaving the bathroom. If you look closely in the mirror can just make out the bunch of us still in the bathtub, stunned absolutely silent. That was the most action I've ever had in Hali. Chris was probably thinking the same thing as me.

She had that smile on the whole time.

It was bloody awesome.

I've said it many times, and I'll keep on saying it. Orang putih really got no shame!

Anyway -
CJ and Beau the cowboy

Maria and Jenn

garrrr

2 more months till I go back to the land of durians, cendol and coconuts. All in the same dish. gasp. Can almost smell ah Seng kai fan.

mou tak sek gong tung wah

2007-06-19T22:50:00.000+08:00

Eulogy.

I remember back before I hit my teens
that house that was always swelteringly hot
and every new year, you'd greet us with that big smile
as we ran around your knees like the carefree kids we were
you tried to speak english with us
Because your useless grandkids mou tak sek gong tung wah

Goodbye, gong gong, Rest in peace.

I remember in my teens
when we were "grown up"
the house that was still swelteringly hot
how I hated going down that narrow road every new year
and sit there stewing trying to win money off my cousins
and you tried to speak english with us
cause we mou tak sek gong tung wah

Goodbye, gong gong, Rest in peace.

I remember when my teens were up
That time is now
and the ravages that age has on mentation were taking hold
we still had the new year dinners
still that narrow road, still swelteringly hot house
how we sat around but ran no more
how the silence between you and us grew
cause you tried to speak english no more
and we mou tak sek gong tung wah

Goodbye, gong gong, Rest in peace.

I may never have truly known you
We may never have shared more than a few sentences
We may never have said more than
"gong gong, gong hei fatt choy"
"kuai ler, kuai"
but
I do know that the values that my mother has tried to pass down to me
of integrity, honesty, hard work, trust, sharing, responsibility, duty and family
she obtained from you, and hopefully, I, her

Therefore
though physically you have left
you will never truly leave us
for your legacy
no matter how typically traditionally cold chinese
will never, ever leave us
and the memories we have of you
and the lessons that we realize only now
no matter how superficial and posthumous
will always be ones we treasure.
We will make you proud.

Goodbye, gong gong, Rest in peace.

For we are part of you
and you
part of us

Goodbye, gong gong, Rest in peace.

So as the bells ring, calling you away
shuck of your mortal coil
As the angels sing, guiding you in
hear them whisper your name
As the boatman rows, bearing you home
take your neverending rest, see the eternal sunset
May the sun always shine upon your face
May the wind always be upon your back
and may the wings of destiny
carry you into the heavens, to dance with the stars.
Forever.

Goodbye, gong gong, Rest in peace.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see

Through many dangers, toils and snares
We have already come
'Twas Grace that brought us safe thus far
And Grace will lead us home

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Then when we've first begun

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see

Goodbye, gong gong.

Rest in Peace.

And my only regret of knowing you
is that I can't write this in Cantonese
because
ngo mou tak sek gong tung wah

exam break 4

2007-06-18T10:58:00.000+08:00

It's that time of the year again

exams in a week. whoopedeehoohaa. Surgery and A&E this time

And exactly like clockwork, along with the last-minute cramming, workload-induced cold sweat and empty promises to study earlier the next time, comes the self-doubt, the pondering, the wondering anew, the perennially unanswered question, the eternal conundrum -

WHY THE HELL AM I DOING MEDICINE

My slacker heart is too feeble for this~!!@#%!@^
aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
*runs in circles*

Angel

2007-06-06T07:57:00.000+08:00

I've spent the past 3 weeks on the colorectal service. Yeah, butts and guts all day long. Days are measured by RPH (rectals per hour).
Good day <1 rph < Bad day

What already is a pretty dirty service is made worse by the nightmare of a classmate I have to work with. She's the only angmoh I haven't been able to get along with. Father's a bigshot in the hospital. Go figure.

Trying to make me look bad doesn't even begin to describe it. Imagine you're sitting there minding your own business and in front of all the residents and nurses she says "Wei Jin, don't you have any work to do?"

...

And that's after she's sat at the nurse's station for 30 mins bragging about the wonderful trip she had to Cuba. I'm so thankful to be done with that service. Not that the rectals bothered me, kinda get used ze shiaza flying all over after a while. But trying to work with someone who constantly undercuts, gives the evil eye every chance she gets, stabs in the back (and front) and tries to make me look bad was just positively hellish. I thought I got into medicine to avoid all this politicking. What the hell did I do to you man. Not my fault I'm smarter and answer questions quicker and in a more concise manner.

Goes to show that no matter how good you look on the outside (she's actually quite sweet looking when she isn't giving me the evil eye), it means nuts if the inside's rotten.

BUT

I saw an angel today.
She didn't have white skin, or long blond hair, or blue eyes
She wore no white dress, wasn't 6 feet tall and slim
She didn't carry a harp, had no wings, no halo
There was no benevolent half smile on her face

I saw an angel today.
She was black, short wiry hair highlighted with grey, eyes hidden by the tackiest of sunglasses
Her face streaked with wrinkles
She was about 50kg overweight, ambled more than walked
the very opposite of graceful
Old poorly matched clothes whose bright colours had long faded after too many washes
She pushed a wheelchair with an older, grey-er haired lady

And as she waddled her way into the elevator, with the brightest and most welcoming of smiles on her face
She looks at my sullen face and asks, in a voice so full of warmth and joy, a voice that too many people need, and not enough hear,
"And how are YOU doing today??"
My downcast face split a smile, the ugliest of experiences could not suppress,
"not too bad," I manage
"oh, look at 'im now, 'e's got a smile on 'is face!"

She laughs
I laugh
and leave the elevator with an oddly irrepressible bounce in my step

Angels,
they brighten our day
lift us up when we're at our lowest
put a smile on the saddest of faces
encourage us to keep fighting, keep striving, keep working
Angels walk among us, indeed,
and I saw one today

wow what sorry poetry. exams coming lar k. And I just had to write comparing the white spawn from hell I had to work with and the random black lady who made a particularly horrible day seem very bearable.

Angels walk among us, indeed,
and I saw one today.

muzzers day

2007-05-15T10:23:00.000+08:00

*ring ring*
"hi ma! happy mother's day!"
"har? who is this? halo? halo?"
*stunned silence*
"who else has a guy's voice and calls you ma???!!!"
"oh. Wei Jin is it?"
"who else???"
"oh oh uh thank you"
"..."

BEH TAHAN
Some of you may know that I call my mom a bimbo. Now you know why. As far as I know she only has one son. 'tis a sad thing when a mother doesn't recognize her own son's voice.

I mean come on lar.
wfgrthxx

though I exasperate you, and you, me
you keep me fed
though you can never see my point of view, nor I, yours
you keep a roof over my head
though you can never get it that when it's day where you're at, it's night here
you call, and I still pick up the phone at 3am
though your advice has always (ALWAYS) got me into more trouble
you've thought me to uphold trust and integrity and honesty
though I feel I've outgrown, outthought, outsized, outmatured, outwitted
there will never be another woman that I'll cross the world for,
other than you

I doubt she will ever read this, and even if she does, probably won't understand half of what I've written. And I feel safe writing all these honest thoughts cause I know she won't read this anyway.

lol

Happy mother's day mom.

titleless

2007-04-17T09:35:00.000+08:00

Yes the title reads "title-less". NOT "titi-less", which I know some of you would have read first time.

To all who have supported, encouraged, listened, made me laugh, made me smile, made me forget, sat by me, stood by me.

You guys rock.

Specifically -
Carrie. You bring laughter into the darkest of places. Where would I be without you? Groping around for a torchlight, indelibly.

Lavi. Your bimbotic fascination with swimmers and menstruation never cease to amuse me.
theycallmecruel @ oilfriedghost.blogspot.com
yesterday freaking stress. 2 patients arrested in the OR, then another 2 on the floor
lavi
har? how to arrest in the OR. the police came in?
theycallmecruel @ oilfriedghost.blogspot.com
...
CARDIAC ARREST LAR
This woman will be a doctor in 2 years time.

Jenn. I think I have problems? You put things into perspective for me. I don't know where you find the strength to listen to me given the crap that you're going through as well. Shared pain baybeh.

I do think that no one phrases compliments as insults as well as I do. Cut me a bit of slack k.

SO a string of very yong sui things have been happening too.

The day before our psych + family medicine exams, my housemate and I ordered pizza. The dominoe's is only across the street and in Halifax they charge for delivery. Bodoh right. My turn to pick up the pizza (yes we do this a lot). It was like so bloody windy that night that small children were being tossed about like confetti.

In the midst of avoiding the confetti-like small children I was walking back clutching our 16 dollar pizza when a particularly strong gust of wind blew.
The pizza flew out of the box.
Yeah seriously.
Flying pizza.
Like ufo wei.
A very tasty, 16-dollar ufo.
I had a hand on the top of the box, one on the bottom, and the wind blew in through one side flap and the pizza out the other side flap.

*piak*

Dinner, meet road. Road, this is dinner. Oh and dinner? That's car's tyre coming.

*squelch of car driving over my dinner*

That sound was so profoundly painful I cannot describe it. I remained so stunned I walked upstairs with an empty pizza box. Such deep deep pain. Piercing flesh and marrow.

I slept hungry that night.

OK lar got more yongsui stuff but the above story is too painful for me to go on. I still mourn that uneaten pizza. Gone to where all bad pizzas go.

Plus this entry is already inordinately long.

zzz

Footie rambles VII

2007-04-12T10:03:00.000+08:00

A picture says a thousand words, they say.

Indeed.

How truly fitting that this is my 7th footie ramble, marked by a truly majestic 7.
"I don't fancy english football much" "I want to leave a legacy" - Francesco Totti, 4-4-2007
"LOL @ Totti" - Wong Wei Jin, 10-4-2007

Don't get me wrong, Totti's a great footballer. But STILL.

On another note, I raised the class average for an exam for the first time since A-levels. hohoho.

moving on...

2007-04-04T07:44:00.000+08:00

Time to move on in life.

Cardiac surgery rocks. Though rounds start at 530am (!!!) and I'm in the OR till 7pm, I have to say I can really see myself doing this for the rest of my life. A 14-hour day feels shorter than the 5-hour days on psych. Go figure.

Rounds are a lot quicker too. Whilst on psych we'll take 1 hour per patient, talking about how he's gonna go home, where he's gonna go, if the police should be notified, how's he's gonna get money, does he have social supports, yadda yadda yadda, and were so long and drawn out that I often times had to intentionally zone out and think of my happy place (Damai beach.... ahhhhh) for the sake of my sanity, rounds in cardiac sound typically like this

"72 year old man 4 days post CABG feels fine no chest pain SOB fever chills rigor cough appetite improving ambulating well vitals 36-7 82 135/40 92% ora labs 135 4.5 5.5 72 blood count 12 64 200 currently on metoprolol aspririn lactulose furosemide rosuvastatin metformin ceftriaxone morphine physical exam S1 S2 no additional heart sounds no murmurs air entry equal bilaterally no crackles wheezes rubs incision clean dry healing chest tubes draining 50cc's daily"
(recited within 30 seconds or one breath, whichever comes first)

"ok finish off the ceftriaxone then turf him next patient let's go"

There's something oddly peaceful about watching a man's heart beat 6 inches from your face.

Anyway.

Photos! Been ages since I posted any. Too lazy lar.

Dalhousie's Christmas dinner. I won a lucky draw for the first time in my life. It was a mug.
Seated are Karen, Ian, Caryn, Rick (EeLynn's china mari toyboy), EeLynn and me. Standing over us is SinLing. Only Caryn is from my class.

View from my room for a few weeks straight.

CNY dinner @ apt 607 ie my house ie where the party's at. We tar-paued stuff from a far away chinese restaurant. Quite authetic the stuff. Only the charsiew tasted a bit funny.
Side story - Thanks to the Brissie ppl for the CNY webcaming! Was good too see you lot healthy and fat hohoho. I could almost smell hn's charsiew.

Karen passed out after 2 beers. She managed to smile for a photo though. Ultimate camwhore man I tell you pass out already still can pose.

Eugenia was cold.

House party recently after the psych + family medicine exams. Studying pysch makes you pass random phallic shaped fruits to each other. That's Jenn. She doesn't look it but she's 6 foot 1.

Matt, Morgan - non medical friends of friends picking a fight with Kelsey. Bad idea. Kelsey's the most decorated female taekwondo exponent in the whole of Canada. Me, laughing at the image of what Kelsey could do to these 2 jokers if she wanted.
"So, a black belt's really long and a yellow belt's kinda short..." Kelsey, when asked to explain about taekwondo grading and what the belts mean. Does that make a white belt really really short then?

United colours of Halifax. Can send to Benetton make poster.
Reza - resident rowan atkinson look alike, random erthematous malaysian, Bob Best - who loves dota! I felt as if I was reunited with a long lost friend when I found out.

k k that's all I have for now. More at a later date.

This song goes out to you

2007-03-27T06:55:00.000+08:00

Not all the words apply. But most of it does.
P!nk wrote this song when she woke up next to the dead body of her friend who had OD'ed. I now sing with her for the promises that were broken. It ends on a hopeful note. A note which I do not share.

I shed tears for the first time in a decade today.
Unlike yours, which flows so freely and so cheaply, mine mean something.

"I took your words and I believed, in everything you said to me"

sarahtouchingme

2007-03-09T05:55:00.000+08:00

Technically, she "tagged" me. ahum. Whatever that means. I always wonder at these internet fads, and how quickly they spread. Especially those "REPOST THIS WITHIN 12 HOURS OR YOU WILL NEVER FIND YOUR TRUE LOVE" or "REPOST THIS IN 8 HOURS OR YOU WILL DIE" chain mail crap.

Or how about all that spam mail one gets? Viagra, Cialis, anyone? Enlarge your penis by three inches? All herbal, results guaranteed! Fake watches? I tell you, the che chiong kai ppl have gone technological. Don't mess with chinese businessmen. Cut throat wan ah.

The amazing frequency one sees these obviously false chain mails is disturbing. Could there really be THAT many stupid people in this world? Do people actually buy all-herbal pil laki-laki berjuang bersama awek 5 kali semalam online? Or that many people pathologically afraid of not finding love or of dieing? Either way, we live in trouble times, my friends. I choose to think that I'm enlightened above the noise-making masses. ouhmm.

So in most cases I'd dismiss Sarah's touching me with a roll of my eyes, a shrug, and maybe a long sigh. But since I can never pass up the oppurtunity to talk about myself, I'm jumping onto the internet chain-wagon (for once). Whether I tag someone else and give them the chance to rant about themselves remains to be seen. hoho.

anyway.

1. The fingers on my left hand are about 1cm longer than the fingers on my right.
I could take a picture, but you might say it's photoshopped. Actually I just don't have a camera. But no matter how I line them up, the left hand fingers are always longer. If I line up the tips of my fingers, the bottom of my left palm is noticably lower than the right. Take my word for it. I'll happily demonstrate my deformities if ever anyone wants. I put it down to playing guitar during my adolescent years.

2. My right forearm > left forearm, left calf > right calf.
Yes more bodily asymmetry. Again, I'm happy to demonstrate. I put those down to sports... tennis, shooting the basketball with my right and jumping mainly with my left. Jumping with the left is normal motion for a right-handed lay up, which is about all I can do with any degree of confidence.

3. I will give almost anything to date P!nk.
Always thought she was ok ok only until I saw her live at Wembley concert. If there's such thing as love at second sight, this was it. Wah she can sing man. Love that "I don't care what you think" attitude. Some call it arrogance. Some call it ignorance. Some call it confidence. *shrug* Watch this. Freaking emo. Freaking good also.

4. I piss people off with amazing regularity.
'nuff said.
Yet I want everyone to like me.
Not exactly "weird", but anyway.

5. I used to have OCPD.
When I was younger the colour pencils had to be lined up in exactly the same order as it originally came in. The lego constructs had to have perfect shape and colour symmetry. 3cm +2cm long block to reflect a 5cm long block on the other side just wouldn't cut it. Had to hug my pillow the exact amount of times and in the exact order before I was comfortable enough to go to school. Had to brush my teeth with the exact same number of strokes, in the exact same order everytime. Could only use red mechanical pencils.
The list goes on.

6. Somnambulism is fun.
Nothing like mom hearing noises at 2 am, waking dad up, and both of them gingerly poking their heads out of the bedroom (dad armed with a big stick), to see a 3-foot-tall imp-like creature jumping from couch to couch to chair, then running downstairs and opening and closing the fridge, re-arranging the kitchen, then back up to the room of their son. Once they got over their initial shock and went into their son's room, all they see is their son sleeping soundly. In another time and age, they would have sent for a priest to exorcise the bad spirits away. Thank goodness I was born in the 21st century, and all I got was a remark made by mom a few years later (after they visited the peadiatrician who reassured them it was normal).
"Do you know you used to sleep walk?"

So I'm not THAT weird. Which is good.
I think.

Since I liked talking about myself so much, I shall give someone else the oppurtunity to do so! whoopedoo.
Since so many of the IMU m103 ppl have already been tagged, I tag -

My wacky long lost cousin Lydia.
Timothy Law, whom we all love and hate.
Psycho Karen, the very very weird and brilliant U2-loving Glasgownian who measures her days in CPH (cokes per hour). The higher, the better the day.
Ah Fei, who's blog gets update once a century.
The big sister, who's blog gets updated once a millenia.

Psych + family medicine exam in 2 weeks!

one day

2007-02-07T11:04:00.000+08:00

A 9 year old kid with middle ear infection.

A 45 year old man with viral upper respiratory tract infection

An 87 year old, twice widowed lady, fighting depression and anxiety attacks, after realising she no longer has kids to care for.

A 20 year old guy smelling so stongly of weed I got a free high, wondering why he's feeling "on edge" lately. Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with that stuff you're smoking?

35 year old man worried he might lose his job cause of an industrial accident. A circular saw went through 4 of 5 fingers on his right hand.

A 56 year old man so obese he's breathing heavily after the 10 steps from the waiting room to the examining room. "There's nothing wrong with my weight" he proclaims. "I drink about a case of beer a week, but it's not a problem" he continues.
I glance at his cholesterol profile. Take his blood pressure. 2 previous heart attacks, his chart says. He'll be lucky if he lives till 60.

16 year old girl, wanting to start birth control pills. "uhm..." is about all I manage before running for my staff doc.

37, 55, 23, 62 year old men, 18, 22, 45 year old women, viral URTI

17 year old girl, breaking down and crying in the office cause she just... can't... stop... hitting... coke... "I hate myself," she mumbles exasperatedly, before hiding her tear-streaked eyes in her hands. I fidget nervously.

2 year old girl, groin rash. Mom says - "I tried scrubbing her with one of those metal dishwashing things you know, to get the rash out". I try to hide my wide-eyed horror. I fail.

92 year old woman, "why am I feeling so lousy these days?" Could it be due to the fact that when you were a teenager, horses were still the main mode of transport?
"I know something's wrong with me, doctor. I don't want to die yet". I know what's wrong with you. It's called old age. She insists that I search through her 3-inch-thick chart full of specialist consults again for something wrong. All her tests describe abnormalities, but all end with the phrase "appropriate for age".
I sigh, roll my eyes, and start flipping.
"ohyeah, she's a bitch," the doctor I'm working with says after I emerge from the ordeal.

52 year old woman, unexplained anemia. aiyo, what am I missing? I hope to goodness it's nothing major.

67 year old man, oropharyngeal cancer, post-op follow-up. The surgeons broke his jaw in two, cut open half his face, removed half his tongue and all the cervical lymph nodes on his right, then fashioned him a new tongue from skin grafted from his forearm. The only sign of his 12-hour, face-splitting surgery is a thin scar that runs down the middle of his lower lip to his neck, across the clavicle, and up to the angle of his ear.
How bloody cool is THAT.
"I'm lucky," he says, as he winks at me.

23 year old lady, PAP smear + periodic breast exam. I run again.

85 year old man, "my old bones ache!!"

32 year old lady, going through a divorce, losing her home, her job and her kids. "I just need something for sleep." I hesitate.
"Prescribe only enough zopiclone for 14 days," the staff doc whispers after I ask him what I should do.
Even if she takes all at once, her liver should take the hit and the emergency docs will have time to react.

17 year old girl, wanting weight loss options. Her skin hangs on her bones like ragged old clothes, and her bones jut out unnaturally. She weighs 30 kilos. "I'm fat," she insists adamantly.

23 year old male, medical student, pretentious as ever. Sleep deprivation.

Add another entry

2007-01-30T10:05:00.000+08:00

to the seemingly never-ending, ever growing list of weijin's debilitating injured body parts.

So far the count looks like this, from toe up -
sprained pinky toe, both feet
sprained both ankles more times than I've cared to remember. It's not even funny anymore
pulled lateral collateral ligament, left knee
pulled anterior cruciate ligament, left knee
herniation of nucleus pulposus, somewhere along the lumbar spine
pulled erector spinae
fractured scaphoid, right wrist
dislocated pinky PIP (rather famously), left hand
sprained every single finger on both hands, again, more times than I've cared to remember

and now,

fractured radial head, left elbow.

SIGH

All these injuries have 2 things in common
1) they all put me out of basketball for up to a month at least (save the sprained fingers)
2) they all occured while playing basketball

I'm not even that good at basketball

GARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

How did it happen, you might ask.
It happened while playing ball for the medical team here in Dal, I'll say. I went up for a shot, I'll continue, and I'll dramatically demonstrate that at the highest point of my jump, the guy who was marking me rushed me and took me down like he was playing american football. I don't recall ever hitting the ground so hard. Ever. And I've taken my fair share of hits and hard falls.
An audible gasp went up from the small crowd present.
Appeals for a flagrant foul were made. By HIS team mates.

The adrenaline masked the pain for a bit. An hour later, I knew something was really wrong when trying to shower. Couldn't lift my left arm without yelping from the pain shooting up and down the arm.

Walked the familiar walk to the hospital, a path taken so many times before, though my first time as a patient. Some of my classmates were on call. The shock on their faces said it all. They made sure I was tended to quickly. So nice these orang putih.

The X-ray confirmed it. Positive sail sign. 6 weeks in a cast.

First I fail my internal medicine paper, throwing my year-end elective plans into the garbage.
Now this.
What bloody next.

why oh why woe is meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Luck

2007-01-18T07:57:00.000+08:00

is for the unprepared, I quoted.

And I ranked myself among the highest, for it was there I rightfully belonged. The procrastinator's prayer availed me naught.
Cruel truth. So I continued the m103, or rather, my tradition of explosive failure. And I am royally pissed at myself for it.

I had trouble motivating myself for the exam. Did not study properly till 2 days before. The exam had a new overseer.

I can't even think up proper excuses anymore.

I am pissed with myself because after overcoming so much nonsense in the past 3 years, I fall at the first real hurdle Dalhousie had to offer. After clawing myself up from the weight of my failed summatives, I stumble yet again in the first test of any worth since sem 5.
Maybe I just don't have the will power to become a doctor.

The shame.

What happens to me now I do not know. A meeting with the dean beckons.

How the hell am I going to tell my parents that I failed

yet

again.

Incidently, it's -30 degrees outside. And I guess the decision whether or not to get TBC has been made for me. Have a happy fun Azerothian adventure.

So

2007-01-06T13:50:00.000+08:00

It's 2007.

*cue noisemakers*

whoopedoo.

Well I've begun my family medicine rotation, and frankly, the pace is waaaaaaaay slower than internal medicine was. For the uninitiated, the main difference is that in internal, I spent my time on the wards and in family, it's basically a "klinik Wong dan rakan pokok gembira sekalian" sort of thing.

Except that they don't exclusively deal with sore throat and fever and MC selling while forcing you to buy vitamin C, panadol and needless broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Time for uncle WeiJin to regale you with his latest witty medical anecdotes!

I've mentioned on many previous occasions that Canadians are shameless. Another example cropped up today while I was in the EKG clinic.
There I was, just pulling EKG leads off yet another obese caucasian, when a new requisition was handed to me for yet another EKG. I recognized the name. She was a classmate of mine (and still is, however, due to rules of the english language, reference to her has to be made in the past tense given that this vignette occured in the past, and not to be confused with her being a classmate of mine in the past which was the present and the present the future at that time, though in the future, she will be a classmate of mine in the past but since that future is not present, therefore presently, she remains a very present classmate. Though we refer to her in the past).
Apparently she was having palpitations recently and decided she needed an EKG. Fair enough. For privacy purposes she shall henceforth be known as !@#$.

An EKG requires the patient to expose the entire chest, and the examiner has to move a woman's breast out of the way to achieve an appropriate reading.

Therefore clinic policy is that if you know the patient, you don't do the procedure. For obvious reasons. So just as I was about to hand off the requisition to one of my colleagues, I heard someone call my name.
"Wei Jin!"
"Oh hi !@#$!"
"Are you on your family medicine rotation?"
"yeah, just helping out in the EKG clinic today"
"cool! do you want to give me my EKG? I don't mind"
"uh..."
I look nervously around for Shirley, the head tech. She's an old-school headmistress type stickler for rules and I expected her to lay down her well-rehearsed "clinic policy says that..." speech.
I catch Shirley's eye and she looks at me over the top of her half-moon spectacles, shrugs and says, very sternly, "If she doesn't mind, go do the EKG"
I open my mouth to protest but Shirley points firmly to the EKG room. It's a familiar gesture that no one in the office argues with. She da boss, and she know it. Word.

This was a classmate of mine who has, on occasion, given me rides back from class.
It was by far THE MOST AWKWARDESTSEST EKG I have ever performed. So awkward that merely "most awkward" and even grammatically hellish "most awkwardest" isn't enough. 70 year old ladies with furniture syndrome I can handle (that's when the chest reaches the drawers). This, though...

Most awkwardestsest indeed.

How do you keep a poker face, focus on your classmate's chest, move her breast around to apply EKG leads while her nipples are perkily pointing at you like daffodils in summer sunshine; and she's joking and laughing about class and exams like we're having a cup of coffee?
A cup of coffee fully clothed, that is. As in, we're fully clothed. Not the cup of coffee. Cups and coffee don't need clothes. Cause coffee stains are difficult to wash off.

...

oh nevermind.

But what expression do you express? Do you laugh along with her while dotting silicone gel on her left breast? Comment on the weather and daffodils in summer sunshine while counting her intercostal spaces? How hard do you prod for said intercostals? How far away from the parasternal border should you go? Do you smile to diffuse the weird awkwardnessess of the situation? Or do you not smile for fear of looking like a perv?

And was I standing next to the heater? Cause my face felt really warm...

Friggin' no shame right these orang putih.

Later that day I spent 20 minutes burning warts off a guy's foot with liquid nitrogen. It was strangely satisfying.
pphhffffssshhtttttttttt

Who knew?

2006-12-26T12:38:00.000+08:00

You took my hand
You showed me how
You promised me you'd be around
ah huh that's right

I took your words
And I believed
In everything you said to me
yeah huh that's right

If someone said three years from now
You'd be long gone
I'd stand up and punch them out
Cause they're all wrong
I know better
Cause you said forever
And ever
Who knew

Remember when we were such fools
And so convinced and just too cool
oh no no no

I wish I could touch you again
I wish I could still call you a friend
I'd give anything

When someone said count your blessings now
'Fore they're long gone
I guess I just didn't know how
I was all wrong
But they knew better
Still you said forever
And ever
Who Knew

I'll keep you locked in my head
Until we meet again
Until we until we meet again
And I won't forget you my friend
What happened

If someone said three years from now
You'd be long gone
I'd stand up and punch them out
Cause they're all wrong and
That last kiss I'll cherish
Until we meet again
And time makes it harder
I wish I could remember
But I keep your memory
You visit me in my sleep
My darlin' who knew

My darlin' my darlin' who knew
My darlin' I miss you
My darlin' who knew

Who knew

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

2006-12-20T05:50:00.000+08:00

exactly 6 months to the day since I left that wondrously wonderful wonderland of cendol and durian.
In the same dish. Hanya di Malaysia!

*deep sigh*

I'd sell my kidney (read - only one) for TTDI Restoran OK's curry mee right now. One lung lobe for nasi lemak kambing at Kinrara! and uh uh uh half my liver for Malacca chicken ball rice. Add the durian cendol and you can have my spleen too. Spphhleeeeennn

*deeper sigh*

10 more random fun facts about life in the Maritimes

1. A person from Halifax = Haligonian, not Halifaxian as I originally thought.

2. Apparently this is the warmest December ever. It's -5 degrees daytime temperature today. ANd yes I'll keep whining about the weather BECAUSE I LIKE LAR PAN.

3. Halifax has it's own genre of music, called Atlantic music. It's a prodigal crossbreed of country, 80's rock and traditional celtic music (think riverdance). If there's a ridiculous-sounding mangling of notes and rhythms in your head right now, you're probably imagining it right, and yes, it really DOES sound that bad.

4. Lobster is so plentiful it's like chapati. You know it's getting a bit ridiculous when you see McLobster, Subway Lobster sandwich and KFC Lobster and coleslaw surprise.

5. There are approximately 20 Malaysians studying in the whole of Atlantic Canada. We had a potluck. For some odd reason there wasn't a single Malaysian dish at the table. Nasi pun tada.

6. There are male nurses in Halifax. Not just one or two. Many many. The gay ones are accepted into the nursing community. The female nurses bake cookies for them and stroke their hair while complementing their nails. The straight ones are pushed around, insulted and made to look dumb by the rest. *shrug* A pitiful dynamic which shall not be expounded upon here.

7. Old white ppl smell funny.

8. Halifax is so boring that a law legalising Sunday shopping made headline news. Yes, shopping centres opening on Sundays were ILLEGAL. No freaking joke. What made it even more ridiculous was the opposition to the law front-paging newspapers for a week. A "tense" legal battle took place. Haligonians really have nothing better to do than protest idiotically trivial things like this. The inanity of it all preplexes me, drives me to mind-numbing speechlessness.

9. A lady once wrote in to the newspaper complaining about joggers. Why? Cause their footfalls on the sidewalk outside her house were too heavy and made too much noise it seems. And she ended her complaint with this statement "I laugh at you people everytime you bother my peace because I know that, in 10 years, you'll have to have both knees replaced from the punishment you're giving them now". Bladdy freaking dumb right. Dunno whether to laugh or smash my head into the wall.

10. uh...
You know it's boring when I can only think of 9 fun facts. I mean, come on, people take the time to organize their trash into 3 seperate bins while complaining about how Sunday shopping shouldn't be allowed and that ppl are jogging too loudly outside their houses. Orang putih really got too much time on their hands. Hanya di America Utara!

*deeperrer sigh*

Enough whining. It's tiring.
Video reminding me of home. Worth watching twice. Malaysia boleh man hohoho

"This is Raj"
WAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Luck

2006-12-16T08:35:00.000+08:00

is for the unprepared.

Of which I rank the highest.

The procratinator's prayer (best performed kneeling and sweating nervously) -
May my rapid fire skills serve me well tomorrow, as they have done so in the past 16 years
May educated guesses and brainwaves fill my sleep-deprived, caffiene-buzzed mind
May LFTs, LETs, PFTs, ABGs, EKGs, EEGs, CBCs, lytes, BUN, Cr, U/S, CXRs, AXRs, CTs, MRIs, U/A C+S, and various other investigations make sense to me
May my meager knowledge scrape me through
May the crap I studied 30 mins before the exam come out
May the questions be easy
May adrenaline prime my brain
May I WAKE UP in time for the exam!!!

and above and beyond all else,
May I look good enough so that if I fail, at least I fail in style

exam break 3

2006-12-12T14:59:00.000+08:00

You Are Cookie Monster

Misunderstood as a primal monster, you're a true hedonist with a huge sweet tooth.

You are usually feeling: Hungry. Cookies are preferred, but you'll eat anything if cookies aren't around.

You are famous for: Your slightly crazy eyes and usual way of speaking

How you live your life: In the moment. "Me want COOKIE!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

sigh

2006-12-03T12:25:00.000+08:00

On a less sigh-inducing note, please click here.

hoho

added a few links, including my long lost cousin.
No, seriously, she is.

Ferenc Puskas, 1927-2006

2006-11-18T17:24:00.000+08:00

A moment, if you please, to hear out my ramblings.

The Galloping Major, the Captain of the Magical Magyars, the other half of one of the greatest strike partnership there ever was.

Though we were born way after he retired, those that do know football do know that he was one of the greatest of all times. Grainy as 1950s TV replays are, it took nothing away from his amazing ball control and sheer elegance on the pitch.

"Look at that little fat chap. We'll murder this lot," a British player was once quoted as saying in reference to Puskas before playing Hungary. Little and fat he was, but he was also the one that did the murdering. Hungary whacked England 6-3 in that match, then killed England 7-1 when England visited Hungary. The Puskas-led Hungary of that year was the first foreign team ever to beat England in Wembley.

Pneumonia was what he gave his mortality too, though having already been confined to Budapest hospital for the past 6 years with Alzheimer's Disease and at 79 years old, it probably was a good a time as any to go.

His scoring record, though, will forever be immortalized in the annals of sports statistics. In a truly remarkable career, Puskas scored 83 goals in 84 matches for Hungary, as well as 512 in 528 matches for Real Madrid, all of which culminated to 3 Champion's League titles (European cup in those days) and 5 Primera Liga titles. Scary.

Sadly enough, he never won the World Cup. Having whipped South Korea 9-0, and Brazil 4-2 in the first few rounds of the 1954 edition, Puskas was injured in a match against West Germany. Hungary still progressed to the finals (again against West Germany) but lost 3-2, Puskas scoring one goal but hobbling gingerly around the pitch for most of the 2nd half.

A nation, and a sport, mourn.

Another hour passes by,

2006-11-05T08:25:00.000+08:00

Starring at the clock, just willing the long hand to tick by faster. It gets dark early nowadays. Very disorientating.

It's a slow night on call. Sick of studying.
I'm just sitting here thinking of something interesting to type.

I fail.

sigh.

So I feel that I've lost my sense of humour. Lost my wit. I feel phenotypically female amidst the emo-ness.

*pauses*

*looks down*

ok, still there.

I thought that I've got over my weekly weekend restlessness due to lack of nightlife but the moment my housemate put on some DMX and we split some beers, I found that I was sorely mistaken.

Ghetto heaven where fore art thou?
Whither thine hallowed grounds forsake me,
Whither leagues and oceans depart us,
Dj goldfish, perchance that we meet again!
thy primal beats ne'er, nay, ne'er I forget.

Man I'm boring. And this is one self-indulgent post.

Added a few links to make it look less self-indulgent.

On an even less self-indulgent note, I've been refraining from publisizing this bit of news, but since the date's been set, the knee bent, the words said and response given, the ring bought, the grandparents notified, the committee + best man chosen, the planning begun, the dowry paid, and pretty much everything else set in stone, I'm gonna finally publicly announce it -

MY SISTER'S GETTING MARRIED

YES THAT'S RIGHT, SHE REALLY IS

CONGRATULATIONS ENG CHUN MUN AND WONG MEI FERN

*confetti* *streamers* *rice* *mash potatoes*

We thought it would never happen BUT IT DID.
*grandma dancing in circles*
*grandpa clapping excitedly*
*bruno barking*
(Wong/Leong family joke)

*simulated conversation between pohpoh, tai ku ma and sei ku ma*
PP "ah mei mei kit kan fan lor!!!!!!"
SKM "har? ping kor ah mei mei?"
PP "neeee.... ah wan ko kor tai lui ar!!!"
TKM "ohhhhhh... ah wan ko kor tai lui? wah... leng chai mou?"
*insert cantonese word for shrug here*
PP "eh PONG!! bei chien fai tit"

I'm going to have a real life macha!
Welcome to the family mr Eng! Goodbye from the family ms Wong!
I hope I spelt his name right.

THE bimanual

2006-10-27T07:55:00.000+08:00

Yes, THE bimanual exam. The only thing more uncomfortable for a woman besides giving birth, a mammogram or a speculum exam.

For the uninitiated, it involves one hand over a woman's lower belly and 2 fingers from the other hand uhm, well, inside her belly. Use your imagination. And it involves the fingers inside the belly making broad sweeps left and right to locate the ovaries and the boundaries of the uterus. Again, use your imagination.

So standing at the side of the examining table, introduced myself, explained the exam, gloves and lube on, I was about to begin the exam when the dr said;

"Make sure your tongue doesn't touch the clitoris"

My partner for the exam, a cowboy (literally, no, really, he is) named Beau Blois, grows a huge ear-to-ear grin.
The patient looks up, shock all over her face, as though we just told her she had 2 hours to live.
The Dr flushes up quicker than a chinaman on alcohol *ahem ahem*
I was stopped deader in my tracks than when I saw a dangling dingle during the DRE I performed some time earlier.

"well that was a Freudian slip..." she recovers.

She had meant to say thumb. An honest mistake, but still, I discovered a whole new level of awkwardness that I never knew could possibly have existed.

Footie rambles VI

2006-10-23T08:14:00.000+08:00

2-0

Though achieving football saturation here is amazingly difficult, and watching games isn't as fun without a hot sweaty mamak man named saleh handing you bacteria-infested food and overpriced drinks while friends complain about player's performances; there is still enough left in me to say but a somewhat diminshed

HOHOHO

It's very different without the bunch of guys yelling at the TV (as if the players could hear us) or yelling our lungs off when Man Utd scores, but I'll take what I can get.

The moment that made me jump. I love the way Riise is waving to an unknown friend in the stands.

Paul Scholes has long been my favourite player of all time, and even at his 500th game for United, the qualities he showed ten years ago don't appear diminshed in one bit. While ex-captain and limelight-lover Beckham has been relagated to the Real Madrid bench and off the national team altogether (a dumb move imo), Scholes continues to be an automatic first choice for any team in the world, even to the point where England boss Steve McLaren tried asking him back to the England team. Twice.

For those who don't know, Scholes retired from the England team a few years ago cause he wanted to spend more time with his family. It's so sweet it's diabetic. The man hates the limelight so much yet continues to grab it with his performances. One to be admired, indeed.

The other member of the current 500-games club, putting in another amazing display. Age may have taken the wings out of his boots but seems to have replaced it with impeccable timing and passing that takes the breath away. His touch remains sublime, but if it he had one flaw, it was the final pass that always let him down. Not anymore. Truly imperious. A "footballing brain" the pundits like to call it. Whatever it is, the two golden oldies of Man Utd possess it in abundance, and are displaying it for all to see.

Glory may yet come to Old Trafford again this season.

On a less ego blowing note, did anyone watch Arsenal take apart Reading? I've never been a fan but passing and plays like that have got to be admired.

Stroke unit tomorrow ~ Delirious, demented, salivating old ppl crapping themselves, here I come!

excuse the nooby photoshopping but

2006-10-18T10:09:00.000+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRADDA FROM ANADA MADDA!!!!!!!!!!

to the brother from another mother; basket you're old wei.

dr danny WONG soon tak boleh percaya~!
I pity all those patients out there... make sure they don't find any pictures of the last birthday you had in KL, where you were puking black ooze onto my toilet floor and me and cm had to strip you down to your spongebob squarepants boxers and spray you with cold water WOAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

then your mom called on the phone and I HAD TO ANSWER HER
"hi, is danny there?"
"uh... no aunty, he's uh... resting..."
"can I speak to danny please"
"I think he's sleeping already aunty" *grimace*
*kitc groans in the background oOOiiIIIIiiIIiIi my head weiiii...*
"ok, is he coming home tonight?"
*more groaning. wweEEEiIIiIiieiei snort snort*
"uh, I don't think so aunty, he'll go home tomorrow, he's sleeping already"
"ok make sure you let him know I called"
"yes aunty"

not forgetting cracking eddy's windshield LOLZ

tolong jangan memalukan nama terharum WONG lagi, anda sudah tua dan sepatutnya berkelakuan lebih matang.

*mMph*
*tries to keep straight face*

I could

2006-10-08T08:43:00.000+08:00

write about performing vaginal inspections,
complaining about the difficulty of visualising a cervix and the most uncomfortable exam a woman probably has to undergo - the bimanual exam.

ponder the significance of life,
after having seen a man die on my first day on call, his daughter not even wanting to claim his physical remains; and having a friend's granddad pass away as well on my shift. Opening a chart and seeing the letters "DNAR" and trying to explain it to her is not easy. Not easy indeed. The clinical whispered mutterings among the staff to increase the morphine dose past the "safe" levels, because the "safe" dose isn't doing anything for his pain anymore. The removing of the oxygen mask that sustains him because he does not like the feel of a strap around his face, though doing it ensures his passing.

blog about the long days and even longer nights,
running around chasing charts, looking dumb in front of consultants, mixing up doses and medications (good thing the consultant has to cosign everything), reviewing patient... after patient... after patient... after patient... after patient... after patient...

rhyme about that penultimate quest,
LOVE,
for many, nay, more than many, of my brethren and uh... sisthren across the seas lack, wonder about, mourn this emotion.
Though seperated by hours and miles, the wonders of modern technology bridge these distances.
And though I isolate, I feel the dearth of positive energy in the face of looming cynicism.
Where have all the cowboys of our youth gone too
Where have all the flowers of our spring time withered too
Where have all the rainbows and sunshine of young infatuation faded too
only to be replaced
violently replaced
thoroughly replaced
We are getting old, friends.

Indeed.

emo emo emo emoememoemoemoe

BUT
since it's thanksgiving, I will stop moaning and be thankful,

for having the basics, a roof, 4 walls, a shirt on my back (and pants on my bum), water and food
for a family that's somewhat stable
for a cultural background that stretches into the thousands of years

for sight; that I might appreciate beauty and art
for sound; the full wonders of which I am yet to understand or quantify, I doubt I ever will
for touch; that I might know this world
for smell and taste; that I might know asam laksa, seremban ngau lam fun and durian cendol
for prose, through the weaving of which we connect

for the ability to have fun
for random laughter
for the chance to be educated, and the knowledge of my forebearers
for mental clarity (though some might argue here) and physical health

and probably most importantly,
for the many, many, many people who have coloured my life, past, present, and future; and the technology that allows me to stay in touch with them.
I would have no one to complain about my culture too
critisize bad art or good music with
enjoy senseless jokes over indomee goreng and limau ais
while yelling "GOOAAAAALLLLLLLLL"
or stress out over studies with
if it weren't for you guys.

emo!

LOL = laugh out loud

2006-10-01T14:21:00.000+08:00

Isabel = a very well mannered, quiet, well put together Canadian Chinese I met here at church.

theycallmecruel = random Malaysian bypasser caught in the line of fire of a woman's wrath. He hopes that Isabel will never find his blog, or the following might be directed at him next time (!)

- Isabel - says:
my computer got infected
- Isabel - says:
and someone cracked into my computer
- Isabel - says:
and monitoring me right now
- Isabel - says:
yah
- Isabel - says:
i m ing about yu
- Isabel - says:
bastard
- Isabel - says:
who sits in front of r stupid monitor 4/7
- Isabel - says:
and stares at the screen and get the pleasure from making other people's computers die
theycallmecruel says:
??
- Isabel - says:
that r ass get so frigging big
- Isabel - says:
not wei jing
theycallmecruel says:
lol?
- Isabel - says:
i am saying this person who hacked into my computer
- Isabel - says:
and he fucking uses my msn
theycallmecruel says:
i feel your pain
- Isabel - says:
excuse me
theycallmecruel says:
but chill lar
theycallmecruel says:
hehe
- Isabel - says:
humMerfreak
- Isabel - says:
wha the fa9r7w3u09374183@#*)(# is that sutpid name got
- Isabel - says:
it's the most ridiculous name i've ever known
- Isabel - says:
its good that know are a freak rself
- Isabel - says:
(not wei jing, i am not ing to )
- Isabel - says:
and now
- Isabel - says:
my bf, will tell me to install some shits to crack
theycallmecruel says:
i've never seen you talk so much
theycallmecruel says:
btw my name is spelled jin
theycallmecruel says:
not jing
theycallmecruel says:
haha
- Isabel - says:
o sry
theycallmecruel says:
no worries
- Isabel - says:
yah i a lot
- Isabel - says:
stupid hUmmer freak
theycallmecruel says:
chilling lar sista
- Isabel - says:
got nothing to do at home
- Isabel - says:
just sit in front of r frigging large monitor
theycallmecruel says:
you know he's probably laughing at you being so angry
- Isabel - says:
i bet it's old and just did whole bunch of stuff to it to make it look high tech
- Isabel - says:
cheap
- Isabel - says:
so cheap
- Isabel - says:
i know are laughing
- Isabel - says:
but um...
- Isabel - says:
buddy, it's thursday night
- Isabel - says:
get drunk
- Isabel - says:
get laid
- Isabel - says:
tks tsk tsk
- Isabel - says:
right...
theycallmecruel says:
??
- Isabel - says:
yu are toooo fat that can't
- Isabel - says:
can't even go out
- Isabel - says:
and if go out
theycallmecruel says:
wth
- Isabel - says:
people jump at the sight of
theycallmecruel says:
i'll assume this isn't you, isabel
theycallmecruel says:
cause it sure doesn't sound liek you
- Isabel - says:
and when can't find r keys to r house that share with r mama and papa
- Isabel - says:
find it in r nd stomach layer
- Isabel - says:
and by the way
- Isabel - says:
also found the chocolate left over had last monday in r 4th layer of r stomach
- Isabel - says:
and when shit
- Isabel - says:
created katrina in the states
theycallmecruel says:
lol?
- Isabel - says:
stupid fart
- Isabel - says:
started to wear glasses since were born
theycallmecruel says:
uhm
- Isabel - says:
so probably cannot find any glasses that fit r eyes
theycallmecruel says:
ok you go on now isabel
theycallmecruel says:
i'll take a shower first
- Isabel - says:
so the only glasses can find are the bear bottoms
- Isabel - says:

- Isabel - says:
later i am gonna install this shit and crack the hell outa this boy
- Isabel - says:
hUmmer freak
theycallmecruel says:
haha
theycallmecruel says:
do it now lar
- Isabel - says:
and my bf is also in computer science
- Isabel - says:
and i will tell him to crack the hell out of too
- Isabel - says:
and trust me
- Isabel - says:
he can do WAY better than what have done on my computer
- Isabel - says:
cuz he actually gets a degree for cracking ppl
theycallmecruel says:
btw the word is hacking
theycallmecruel says:
not cracking
theycallmecruel says:
hahahaha
- Isabel - says:
o right
- Isabel - says:
hack
- Isabel - says:
crack is to attack
- Isabel - says:
reboot now
theycallmecruel says:
haha
theycallmecruel says:
gogo
theycallmecruel says:
i shower first

Seriously, it was like seeing the pope get drunk and hit on random women. ok that's an exaggeration but you get the idea. This woman hardly even talks to me normally. Suddenly kena unload upon like this. Her rantings were just too entertaining to not share. Evil, uncaringly finding joy in other people's misery on my part? Most probably. But oh well.

LOL

16 hours

2006-09-26T11:48:00.000+08:00

on call so far.

And counting.

12 more to go.

gogo weijin malaysia boleh

wheeeeeeeeeeee

friggin msn

2006-09-20T03:29:00.000+08:00

has decided to screw me over for some reason. There's something up with my old contact list, everyone appears offline all the time since the new update.

So if you consider my friendship worthy of keeping, if you think of me and reminisce happily over many humorous and thought-provoking discussions, if you miss my acidly witty comebacks, if you just want another person on your over-sized, grossly-engorged i'm-insecure-so-i-need-to-think-that-i-have-lots-of-friends list, do add me to your msn list with my new hotmail address - weijinwong@hotmail.com

That's right, no more door that don't open urk. I loved that email addy.

If you abuse this email , I will abuse you. Be sure of that.

City of blinding lights

2006-09-04T07:36:00.000+08:00

The more you see the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then than I do now

Neon heart day-glow eyes
A city lit by fireflies
They're advertising in the skies
For people like us

And I miss you when you're not around
I'm getting ready to leave the ground

Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights

Don't look before you laugh
Look ugly in a photograph
Flash bulbs purple irises
The camera can't see

I've seen you walk unafraid
I've seen you in the clothes you made
Can you see the beauty inside of me?
What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?

And I miss you when you're not around
I'm getting ready to leave the ground

Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights

Time...time...time...time...time
Won't leave me as I am
But time won't take the boy out of this man

Oh you look so beautiful tonight
Oh you look so beautiful tonight
Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights

The more you know the less you feel
Some pray, for others steal
Blessings are not just for the ones who kneel... luckily

72% msian!

2006-09-04T05:20:00.000+08:00

Congratulations Wong Wei Jin, you are 38% not Malaysian.

That means you're as Malaysian as...

Michelle Yeoh!

How Un-Malaysian Are You?

DRE

2006-08-20T07:21:00.000+08:00

Aight. DRE. That's digital rectal exam.

Stuck my finger up another man's behind for the first time. That's not saying that I've stuck it up a woman's behind, or stuck it up my own behind, for that matter. Sometimes I wonder why I still bother explaining myself.

I remember saying some time ago that Canadians are shameless. Well I've come to the conclusion that they're not really shameless, just willing to do a lot of things that asians are not willing to do. A lack of inhibitions, some would say. Eh. Isn't that what shameless means? uh this tangent has potential to go in directions boring and monotonous so I'll stop here.

Anyway.

He wasn't even a real patient. Well it was a real man, but it wasn't as if it was in a clinical setting and he needed a DRE done to check his prostate or whatever. He was a perfectly healthy man who volunteered to have a potential doctor stick his\her finger up his rectum. Emphasis on the word potential. Not future, not soon-to-be, potential. There was no guarantee that any of us would finish 4th year unscathed and unscarred, yet he was still there, sacrificing the comfort of an unviolated rectum to a potential doctor.

I can hear my father say "for 40k a year that potential better be fulfilled."

So he drops his pants, after the usual preamble, I'm a 3rd year medical student bla bla bla. And as he shimmys and shifts to gets himself comfortable on the exam table, I swear, the one-eyed snake swings it's head around and stares at me. Like, cock stares me (forgive the pun).

*One startled step back*
What do you do when someone stares at you? You stare back, right? Normal human reaction.

So I stare back.

And at this point I feel very uncomfortable and severely inadequate.

*clears throat*

Sensing my fear, the snake turns away, but not before hissing at me and baring it's fangs. It knows who's in control of that exam room, and it sure as freaking hell wasn't me. Caryn, my partner for the day, has never seen a real-life penis before. No, seriously, she hasn't. She's visibly disturbed, pupils dilated, pearls of sweat forming on her forehead; the snake hisses at her. Her hands are shaking as she picks it up, we're supposed to take a look at it and prod it in certain places eh.

I almost burst out laughing cause seriously, if her hands were shaking just a little bit more, she coulda given him a very alert and very happy snake. Call me perverted call me whatever, but if you were there you'd thought the same thing fer sure. So anyway. THE big moment came.

"Mr. X, could you please lie on your left side as close to the table as you can, pull both legs up to your chest, and relax?"

*snap* *slakp*

(gloves being pulled on)

"I'm now applying some lubricant to my fingers, what I need you to do is to bear down, and then relax when I tell you to ok? You might feel like passing a bowel movement but that's normal and you won't. You might also feel like passing urine when I feel for your prostate but again, you won't"

You have no idea how amazingly difficult it is to say those words with a straight face.

Sooooo lubrication on, left hand on patient's hip (supposed to be comforting *shrug*), spread apart butt cheeks, and MY PATIENT DIDN'T CLEAN HIMSELF UP AFTER HIS LAST JOB. There it was, hanging innocently there, at about 7 o'clock, dangling and staring at me. Literally. A piece of shit. Then it hit me. How do I report what I see? Cause you have to report everything you see to the doctor examining you right?

"Uhm, I'm looking for any signs of frank bleeding that might indicate haemorrhoids, which there are none, and any scars and discolourations of the area around the anus, which there are none. I do see though, a significant brown mass at the 7 o'clock region of the anus which could be a uh.. uhm.. a... uh... urh... "

*very very uncomfortable and awkward silence here*

"PROceding to the digital exam...."

Place finger on the anal opening, apply some pressure, feel it relax and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiideeeeeeeeee in. ok ok, posterior wall, left lateral, right lateral, go in deeeeeper, anterior wall, and hey hello there prostate. Ok retract sloooowly....

*wet popping mulchy sound*

And at this point I have to yell to myself "SUPPRESS GAG REFLEX YOU CAN DO IT" cause the smell was anally BAD, my gloved index finger was covered in his refuse, and I'm supposed to look at it and decipher what I see. Forced myself to stare at my finger and hastilly report, no blood no etc bla bla bla, when all I really want to do is get that @#$^!$# glove off my hand and scrub my finger with some bleach and maybe acid.

Hastilly shucked that glove off, tossed it. Shudders. Shakes head.

Washed my hands like 3 times.
And I haven't even mentioned the inguinal hernia exam. THAT one requires some pictoral demonstrations of how plain and simply WRONG it looks.

For some reason I don't feel like cooking tonight...

youtube, sanity preserver

2006-08-15T11:49:00.000+08:00

No comments from me on this. THE MAN speaks for his freaking hilarious self. Little big vulgar but who cares! A side of mr. Williams we don't often see, he often plays such goody goody roles eh. You thought he was funny before? Ya ain't seen no'ing yit, son.

Yes canada is that boring that all I do is sit at home and search for videos. oh, shut up and stop laughing at me lar. Just watch it.

While we're on the topic...

2006-08-08T11:00:00.000+08:00

Since we're on the topic of homosexuality, check this video out. It's none-too-serious, in fact, downright nonsensical. The scene with the slide and the little girl is just PLAIN WRONG. He should wear more identity-concealing stuff besides the sunglasses though. I wonder what would have gone through his mom's mind if she saw this. That poor lady... *shakes head* Somethings a mom should never ever see.

hoho.

Saw the hips? Lavi woulda been put to shame, but tim in his imcc best could out-pose him methinks.

And since I'm posting up videos, check this one out as well. This one I dedicate to all those hardcore WoW players (tim + CR + all those other ppl I've met in the wonderful world of Azeroth haha) and sincerely hope this will never happen to you, nor has this ever crossed your mind.

WARNING : DISGUSTING HILARIOUS CONTENT.

PWNED doesn't begin to describe it. Pathetically pwned? Still doesn't begin to describe it lolz

I wonder if he ever goes out in public anymore...

Words fail me.

2006-08-04T02:55:00.000+08:00

I WANT ASAM LAKSA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gay pride week

2006-07-25T10:10:00.000+08:00

Yeah. It's the gay pride week here in halifax. While most places have gay pride parades for a day or a gay pride weekend, here in halifax, they have a friggin' week of proud gay ppl.

urkz.

Well the parade was on last saturday, and I must say that some of the sights were decidedly disturbing. In my opinion, a parade that celebrates your sexual orientation does not give you the right to dress (or undress) the way some of these people in the parade did. Enlightened society and all that considered, some things are still just plain wrong no matter how "enlightened" you claim to be.

Call me homophobic, but i think even the most homo-phillic person would have cringed when they saw the 100-kilo man on a harley davidson wearing nothing but a black leather vest and a leather thong. Oh, and a helmet and sunglasses. You need more than that to hide your identity, boyo. Or when they saw the skinny white guy (?) wearing a pale pink bra, red skirt, red fishnets, black boots and waving a scarf around. Throw in his (?) dishevelled-looking hair and drunken ecstatic expression, and he'd pass as the bad receiving end of a college practical joke.

And call me homophobic and closed minded, but a drag queen looks disgusting no matter how much make up he/she puts on, and no matter how real her tacky wig looks. It's not like they try to look like women, like the thai ahquas (who are really pretty btw), it's as if they want everyone to know that they're men dressed in ugly women's clothing and ugly women's make up. I mean, how much bright blue eyeshadow do you want on?? Enough to suffocate a straight homophobic man with, apparently. And that's not even considering the 3-inch thick layer of blusher and lipstick and cheesy bright yellow wig yet. Think mimi from the drewcarey show. And not just one or two. Dozens of them. *shudder*

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against homosexuality (aside from the fact that I don't think it's natural at all), but somethings are just... yuck. Ok lemme correct that. I have nothing against homosexuals, but I think that homosexuality wasn't in the big biological plan of nature, that's all.

As I was walking home that day, I passed the area where the parade ended. I could hear a woman giving a speech. I didn't catch everything, but it was your typical "we've got to stand together, we have a right to be heard" etc etc. But what really caught my ear was this

"We should not have to fear the public, in fact, the public, the government, should be afraid of US! That's right, they have to be afraid of US!"

*people cheering*

And some other stuff that sounded disturbingly militant. hmm.

On a more serious and less appearance critisizing note, I feel that these people have become so embroiled in obtaining their so-called "rights" that they, in turn, become close-minded in a sense; immediately shutting down anyone who expresses a sexual opinion that is different to theirs. Immediately branding them as old-fashioned and stuck in the dark ages and of being a close-minded homophobe who should have his brain checked, for such opinions could not possibly exist in this "enlightened" age.

They refuse to listen to any opinion but their own, and violently persecute and vilify those poor joes who have the guts to stand up and say that homosexuality is wrong. That's right, I said it. In Canada today, saying that homosexuality is wrong is like yelling "witchcraft rawks" back during the salem witch hunt. They WILL burn you... Not on a stake (cause it's illegal, right?), but trust me, you'll never be able to walk out in public ever again without a paper bag over your head.

The influence that this mindset holds on society is compellingly powerful. The pressure to appear as "tolerant" and "forward-thinking" has given rise to an almost genocidal decreditation by the media and the younger generation of those who would oppose the gay movement. It's scary. Not in the sense that a scary movie might be scary, but in the way that a dark cloud hovering on the horizon might be scary. An ominous sign of things to come, indeed.

*rubs chin thoughtfully*

And Nadia? I'll never be gay. lolz.

Rheumatology

2006-07-22T00:52:00.000+08:00

Rheumatology. What an amazingly boring speciality. I've been stuck in it for a good three weeks now, and though I started out with the most bubbly enthusiasm, it seems that the bubbles have all popped and the murky bathwater's showing through right now.

Day 1.
Arrived, wait for it... wait for it... EARLY. oh my dear what has happened to me. For the whole of week one I was at the clinic on time, if not early, and stayed even when I didn't have to. yep me<----geek. I was the model student. The personification of feigned academic enthusiasm. At the end of day one, I could see myself, white coat, stethoscope, tendon hammer in hand, 5 years down the road, being viewed as the perennial sober no-nonsense, RESPECT ME, fun-is-for-teenagers doctor. And I loved it. Loved every single moment at clinic. Loved the puzzles of reaching a diagnosis. Loved the sight of patient's gratitude as their conditions improved. I told myself, "I AM going to be a doctor". I couldn't wait for more to learn, I was thirsty for knowledge, for mental stimulation, to hit my books when I got back home.
The weight of realisation that soon, I will wield the power of life and death in my hands, had begun to sink in. Wong Wei Jin, MD.

Day 21.
I've skived over a clinic and 2 teaching sessions.

urkz

... and while I was passing by...

2006-07-08T14:15:00.000+08:00

Check this out. While I was just passing by Esther's blog, look what I found! Do you see it? do yah do yah? Well if you don't, let me make it a little clearer for you...

It says, "NOVA SCOTIA, ONE OF THE TOP 12 VACATION SPOTS" CNN money magazine.

Yeah, if your idea of a vacation is total and abject boredom...

All thanks to Esther, however unintentional, for trying to make Nova Scotia seem like an interesting place. The complete randomness of the advertisement appearing on someone else's blog who has completely nothing to do with Canada, much less Nova Scotia, is just so absurdly ridiculous. Talk about out of the blue. It's the kind of weirdly bizzaro coincidence that'll make smart men believe in total darwinian evolution. I dunno. I find a certain eccentric humour in the situation. Maybe Canada IS driving me off me rocker. Oh, and don't bother with what she's writing about. It's just more boring, self-indulgent stuff. Like this blog, only from a girl's mouth. *shudder*

HAW HAW

*These webpages have been reproduced with the full knowledge and verbal consent of the owner, just in case any of you wanna be a nag about it. Plus she's actually really interesting. cough cough*

i have a famous friend!

2006-07-01T02:47:00.000+08:00

Yeah, since life here is so boring, I've gotta leech off the fun and fame that my friends are having. So surf on over to see the future miss malaysia world 2006, congratulate her and make sure you wish her a very happy birthday! yeah, she's not that young it's actually all plastics. The wonders of modern medicine indeed...

Congratz and happy birthday sim vr! Don't do anything I wouldn't do, ok, since I'm such an example of exemplary citizenship.

btw sem 5? 2ez.

hoho.

Footie rambles V

2006-06-23T09:04:00.000+08:00

So the World Cup is here. wootz. And so far, Argentina have played with a harmony and symphony that resembles a world-class ochestra, England have dissapointed, Germany have shocked with their brand new style of adventurous football, and Brazil have, rather flatly, played some effective stuff but nowhere near the class we have come to expect of them.

Focusing on individual players that we all expected to light up the world's biggest stage, and, as expected, they have so far failed to deliver. England's much-praised midfield quartet, hailed as the best in the world for a good century, has failed to click and produce the kind of football that they do on a weekly basis for their clubs. Captain Beckham has constantly been overshadowed by other players, and the only one remotely close to impressing is the much-improved Joe Cole.

The Brazilian front four, also hailed as the most impressive strikeforce of recent times, has been overshadowed by discussions of Ronaldo's weight and desire. Though if you ask me, if he plays everyday like he did against Japan today, who cares if he's fat? Many also said that Ronaldinho was set to make this his World Cup. As following the trend of big names unimpressing, he hasn't really stamped his mark. Yet. We can only hope for more.

Spain, Portugal and Holland, the perennial underachievers of world football, have impressed. Glory may yet beckon.

Did anyone catch the Mexican referee in one of the earlier games? I forget his name. Anyway, his hair was slicked back with so much oil that it coulda fueled a third-world country for a good week.

It's been pretty fun watching the World Cup here, at every match the pub is filled with supporters of the country that's playing. The Italy match was puncutated with some pretty amusing sounding italian curses, and they actually do do the Russell Peters "you want to eat?" hand gesture thing. The Brazilian supporters have been awesome. They bring drums and stuff to the pub... and samba during halftime. Cool stuff eh. By far the most vociferous supporters.

Having got all that off my chest, here are some photos of life in Halifax. It's all from one of my batchmate's camera, so there aren't many photos with me in them. Ah well. I'm not in a very witty mood today anyway.

This is us on a 2-hour boat cruise that was organized by our class to celebrate their end of year exams. The chinese dude is me. The chinese duddete is Caryn, from whom all my photos come. I can't for the life of me remember the names of the white ppl... but they're all our classmates come September. They bought me drinks. They're nice.

This is Kelsie. She I CAN remember cause she very graciously cooked for us one weekend. Yeah white ppl can be quite friendly. She's also one of the last ppl you should ever mess with cause she's a 4-dan karate exponent. She'd whoop me up fer sure.

Me, Prashant, Ernie, DR G, Kenlin, Caryn and Eugenia. That's us. The 6 m'sian jakuns in Halifax. That's Dr. Gita Sinha, a very nice person. She lectures anatomy, and also happens to be a pretty good cook. An Indian dinner she cooked for us. I ate till them jeans don't fit no more. Her name says "Dr. G Sinha" on the register. So we call her Dr G. Don't mess. She could be mistaken for a ghetto New Yorkian rapper with that sorta name. East coast, y'all.

Me cooking on one of our first few days. Notice the tumpang glamour malaccan in the background. That's Eugenia. She laughs at all our jokes but I have a suspicious feeling she doesn't really get them. Notice classic bimbo pose.

The view from my room. Nice eh. Lotsa people sunbathe in that field, whenever they get the chance. In the background is a super market, hardware store, bank, wendy's and some other stuff. Convenience is the word.

Oh and today at a paediatrics session, we were examining a 24-hour-old baby. The moment I touched him to remove his bedclothes (doctor's orders), he promptly faced me and projectile-puked some whitish-yellow crap the 2 feet or so between his mouth and my shirt.
"waaa.... ullrrrup..." *splot* *gurgle*
Apparently he just had a feed, and mom didn't completely finish burping the little critter. Go figure. Of all the days to forget my lab coat.

What a boring post. Owell. Got more pics and stuff but will post that up another time. Sleep beckons zzz.

Aboot?

2006-06-15T10:55:00.000+08:00

So it's been a while since I've entered anything onto this blog. It's not because I'm getting bored of my own life, it's just that I've been so freaking tired everyday that I barely have the energy to come up with humorous anecdotes on my life.

That said, the wonderful magical world of Azeroth has been taking up a fair amount of my time too. Some days the connection is so jumpy that I can't play (like today), other days, it's so blazingly fast that it brings tears of joy to my eyes.

10 fun facts about Canada, and Dal med school.

1. Nova Scotia is 27% clinically obese, not counting those who are mild to severly overweight. The total percentage of the population who is overweight is slightly >50%. Stress. SO to those of you who have been asking "any chun chicks?", the answer is an amazingly dissapointing NO.

2. Holding a cadaver's kidneys/spleen/lung/heart fills me with a strange sense of comfort and peace.

3. Total population of Halifax (the town I'm in) is round about 336,000. Yeah, that's like, the total population of taman tun or something man. Or subang. Or the amount of cockroaches at a normal one-shoplot mamak. Not the super mamaks like murni. Roaches there got cities with LRTs and stuff.

4. There are lots of beggars "down town". Down town here refers to ONE street, ie, Spring Garden road, that is shorter than the road on which I stay back home, ie, Lorong Burhanuddin Helmi 6. On an average day I pass 10 beggars. Never woulda thunk it that there are poor white ppl eh? For some reason I assumed that all white ppl are well to do. They're not the grubby looking ss2 pasar malam kind though... they actually look pretty decent. I saw a fat beggar once. How does that work??

5. There is a guy named Osama in my batch. wootz.

6. The average age of my class is 25. I'm young again!!

7. My class has 100 ppl. Of that hundred, there are 7, yes, 7 MARRIED COUPLES. Meaning that 14% of my class is married, and 3 of those couples HAVE KIDS. And it's not a 2+1 wedding, if you get what I mean, these are perfectly calculated, planned marriages and pregnancies. Imagine a kid asking "where's daddy?" "oh, daddy's gotta go to school..."

8. A further 70% of the batch is attached either to someone in the batch, or outside it. wftrgxzz
Out of that 70 students, 8 couples are getting married this summer. o_O"

9. "About" is really pronounced "aboot", and a house is a hoose, going out is going oot, hours is oo-wers. So you could go oot of your hoose for aboot an oower.

10. "Hot" = 17 celcius
"very hot" = 21 celcius
"Cold" = -15 celcius
"very cold" = no such thing

One week, and then some…

2006-06-01T07:04:00.000+08:00

One week. Wow. About one freaking week since I left the warm balmy temperatures of Kuala Lumpur. It seems like a lifetime away, cause everything is shockingly new. Friends are new, the majority race around me is new, new room, new phone, new style of dressing, new weather, etc etc etc…

Speaking of new friends, I must say that I never knew these bunch of people that are now my batchmates and with whom I am spending most of my time, ever ever existed. Except for Prashant. One, one, one familiar face. One reference back to good ‘ol 32 degrees centigrade. Am I homesick? Not quite yet. A steady influx of Chinese food has made sure of that. I can cook don’t mess with me eh. But I think I’m kinda in the same boat that tim is. At least in my case, the familiar face doesn’t call me a ******* ******* in the middle of the ward. Not yet, at least… *shrug*

Class has started, and I must say, these Canadians take their education seriously. Seriously seriously. We had a peds session this morn and they actually brought in real kids, like, year old kids for us to examine. I was momentarilly stunned when I walked into the Clinic rooms and saw it crawling with small little bawling toddlers. We interviewed the mom, and examined the kids. Don't mess.

I have begun again my journey to become a world-changing, life-saving, disease-curing , totem-bearing, wand-wielding medicine man. The feeling is surreal. Having bummed for so long it feels kinda weird to actually get that engine going again. Huh? What's that? I never had that engine to begin with you say? Yeah you're most probably right but I passed sem 5 didn't I?

/slap

Go suck something non-vulgar, you nay-sayers. One day you shall read of me in the papers (for doing something good, mind you) and then you can bask in my reflected glory while saying to your kids, "I used to know that guy!" and they'll admire their daddies and mommies for being somewhat associated 30 years ago to a guy who's now popular and well-liked by the masses.

And what you should mess with less is the sheer shamelessness of Canadians. How shameless? Well put it this way. We're gonna have simulated patients who will let us, yes I said LET US perform VEs and AEs and colonoscopies on them. Hernia's for amateurs man. No blushing here. I hear that they can still talk to you with a straight face after the session. To those of you who don't understand the above acronyms and long words, it's for the better, truuusstttt meeeee.

Sighz. It’s boring here. Like, mind-numbingly boring. Like, knock your head against the wall boring. Well I'm posting these words from my new place in Quinpool, though not in my place per say. I'm in my friend's place cause I got no power at mine. Can you believe that? No power, and what's worse, no bed. Yeah you read that right. NO BED. Cause the person I was supposed to buy it from suddenly turns round and says, "oh by the way, it's only available on the 5th of June yeah..." So I slept the past few nights on a bed sheet spread out on my cold, empty floor... yes, pity me please I am pathetic.

Arghz.

Well the power's supposed to come on friday *crosses fingers* I hope they're more efficient than back in warm balmy ol' KL and really get it done by friday. Then at least the magical world of Azeroth can relieve me of my pathological boredom.

Oh, and they have surprise OSCEs here for fun. wftgrzzz

Snickers here are 50 cents a bar. Hoho.

THESE WORDS ARE BEING TYPED IN CANADA

2006-05-20T21:30:00.000+08:00

huhu. These first few words are typed from Canada. dun play play. I'm panicking a bit now though cause I for some reason stupidly misplaced all my contact info with the seniors here... so I'm stuck here in an overpriced internet cafe (6 canadian/hour. vomit blood) looking for some way to contact me seniors. Any help anyone? please? please please please?

So anyway, I'm staying in the international house now and the stuff there is really spartan. My jacket is doubling up as my pillow, my towel as my blanket at this point. Because I misplaced everything I can't contact the rest and see what their arrangements are arghz!

Having said that, since I'm paying freaking 6 bucks to use the internet here, I'm gonna use the full hour to the max.

THERE ARE WHITE PEOPLE HERE. You know, we always see them on tv, in the movies etc, but it never really hits you that white people are well, white, and blond hair really is, well, blond, until you find yourself literally surrounded by them. I got a few funny stares this morning from white people, as if they've never seen a chinese person ever before. hmmmz indeed.

Halifax is a nice place. Very cute. But by freaking george, I think Ipoh has higher buildings. And more buildings too. It's a very uh... picteresque place, if that's how you spell it. The sun's out, but it's still about 14 celcius. Pretty cold yeah. But nice cause I can walk everywhere without sweating buckets like in KL. And that's good cause I HAVE to walk everywhere, not that I WANT too.

I think I'm jet lagging though. Brain's feeling muggy... or maybe that's just the bagel I had settling in. In any case, my hour's almost up so er yeah. Gotta run before they charge me another 3.50 for an extra half hour. Speaking about jet laggin though I watched transamerica and match point on the long flight from Hong Kong to Toronto. Both shows left me with sour-tasting bile in my mouth that had completely nothing to do with the food poisoning that I had. Oh did I mention I had food poisoning? The entire KL-HK flight was spent in the loo puking and diarrhoea-ing. macha bad bad shape macha. Good thing I found a Watson's in HK that sold Imodium and some other antiemetic drug. Would not have been a good thing to spend the entire HK-Toronto flight in the toilet eh, especially since I did not get an aisle seat. Imagine jumping over the poor person next to you every 10 mins to run to the loo. Not a good thing at all.

And I curse the day of the 19th of May. Not because that's the day I left good ol' Malaysia, but cause it's the day a certain bitter someone was born, just to bring cynicism and wet-blanket dullness into our lives. Screw you, you bitter man, by big fat ugly white men, till you rice-water-stool to death. urkaz.

Time to explore Halifax.

wfgrrttzzz

The toilet door

2006-05-10T10:50:00.000+08:00

9 days, me hearties. I wanted to add another entry to the "I'm not gonna be missing/I will be missing" series but here's a story that's just too good to not be told. Now I heard this second-hand, not from the poor person involved itself, so some details might be fuzzy/overly exaggerated/just plain made up. Call it artistic license. I do not, in fact, have permission from the involved parties to publicise this but who cares eh. *shrug* If he insists, I will delete this post. huhu.

Last weekend, the residents of a certain unit in Vista Komanwel C went to their respective hometowns. All except one.

Ah Seng.
*jeng jeng jeng*
(Names have been modified, though not by much, to protect the identites of those involved, as if I care but just in case)

Now for some reason the residents of that certain unit in Vista Komanwel C don't like taking baths in the bathroom in the hallway, they all like to bathe in the master bedroom. Well, not the bedroom itself, but the toilet IN the master room.

*enter dramatic music, low creepy scary voice*
Little did innocent Ah Seng know,

There is something wrong with the toilet door...

So there he was, tra la la la la, having a shower, ok he's done, towels up and reaches for the doorknob. He turns it. The door doesn't open. One eyebrow gets raised. He turns it again. The door still doesn't open. Another eyebrow gets raised. Beginnning to panic, he starts to rattle the door knob in hopes that it will miraculously open the door. It doesn't. A few more eyebrows rise. Heart rate increases. BP starts to rise. Jingling and jangling the door knob, it still doesn't want to budge, resolutely imprisoning poor Ah Seng in his warm, damp shower cell. Ah Seng has left his phone in his room, a mere few metres away yet impossible to reach due to the wooden barrier.

After a period of time (and here the details get fuzzier and more mysterious), about half an hour, Ah Seng resorts to the only option he has left;

He begins to yell. No, not some feral guttural random shouts, He yells for help.

"HELPPPPPPPP!!! HEEEEELLLLPPPPPPPPP!!!"

Silence.

"HEEEELLLLPPPPPPPP!!! HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!"

After a while (again, the period of time is uncertain, though one must assume it was a while), a response!

"WHERE ARE YOUUUUU??"
"I'M ON THE **** FLOOR!!!!!! WHERE ARE YOUUUUU??"
"I'M ON THE **** FLOOR!!!!!! WHAT SEEEEMMSSS TO BE THE PRROOBBBLLLEEEMMM??"
"I'M STUCK IN MY TOILET!!!!"
"......."

At this point a small crowd has gathered outside Ah Seng's unit, such is his yelling. For some reason no one thinks of helping him. He continues his high-decibel conversation with his unknown, soon-to-be saviour.

"ISN'T ANYONE AT HOMMEEEE???"
"NOOOOO!!! CAN YOU CALL THIS NUMBER??? IT'S MY GIRLFRIENDDDDDDD"
"OKAY!!! WHAT'S THE NUMBER???"
"***-*******!!!!!!"

Ah Sa, Ah Seng's girlfriend suddenly receives a call while milling about her own business. She doesn't recognize the number in the caller id.

"Hello...?"
"Hi, is this Ah Sa?"
"Yes...."
"Do you know a guy named Ah Seng?"
"Yes...."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
"Yes...."
Now at this point she must be thinking that either something really bad happened to him or he did something really bad and someone's looking for her to pour HCL on her face.
"OK, your boyfriend's stuck in his toilet"
"....."

Ah Sa rushes down to his unit, only to remember that she doesn't have the keys to his place. A locksmith is summoned. It is sometime past midnight. A locksmith arrives, and ponders the pretty large crowd of curious (chinese say pat) onlookers. He tries to pick the lock but fails. He resorts to hammering and banging away at the lock. The crowd outside grows, wondering what the crap is all that noise about. A small festival-like atmosphere begins. People chanting. Incense is burned. Women wail and thump their chests, such is their desire that the noise stops so that they can go back to sleep.

All this time, Ah Seng is sitting in his towel on the toilet bowl in the toilet of a master bedroom of a certain unit in Vista Komanwel C. Beginning to sweat due to the damp heat, he thinks, "aiyah. Bathe again lar"

And so he does, all the while hearing louds clanks and bangs as the locksmith continues to try and open the door.

After a while more, the locksmith succeeds in positively destroying the lock, sending it to where all good locks go. The crowd cheers. Old men take down the apartment number, tomorrow can go buy 4-D, 2 big, 2 small. Ah Sa jumps into the damp hands of Ah Seng. The unknown saviour is given a hand shake and profuse thanks.

And all is well.

A few days later, when the other residents have returned, Ah Ann gets stuck in the toilet...

11 days... and counting

2006-05-08T12:39:00.000+08:00

Well. Almost a full year has passed since I almost had a nervous breakdown preparing for that oh-so-cursed form of memory evaluation aka sem 5 finals. Almost a full year.

Man I've been a bum.

And now it's 11 days till I leave for the cold fabled land known as nova scotia and freeze my sorry little yellow chinese buttocks off while trying, striving, to become one who saves lives and collects obscenely copious amounts of money for it. Man that sentence had a whole lot of adjectives.

There have been too many words, too little actions, too much unfulfilled potential but at least, at least, at least I can say one thing about this year that has almost gone by.

I had fun. hoho.

In this last year though there were many things I thought I'd miss that I actually didn't, and many things that I thought I wouldn't miss but did.

I don't miss, but thought I will, B14-7 the temporal building inane nonsensical arguements with cm 3 corridors sri petaling pasar malam ahkeen singing the same david tao song for the 100th time in a row 4am instant noodles napping in IMU lecture halls (man those chairs were comfortable!) skipping lectures to go for dota dota after pbl dota after csu dota after clinic visit dota after hospital visit dota after lunch dota before dinner dota after dinner dota before supper dota after supper walking home after dota after supper lavinia's, carrie's, chingling's bimbotic remarks the sour pork knuckle in the food court near carrefour carrefour itself

my com my com my com

2006-04-29T18:26:00.000+08:00

It has been a long time coming, ladies and gentlemen. But it has finally arrived. I type now from soft new keyboard er... keys. The words flow easily, I wax poetic. hoho.

This is my first blog entry from my NEW COMPUTER. I feel like a little boy given a new toy.

I got a shuttle. No, not the kinds that fly in space delivering huge orbiting satellites that spy on our daily lives. It's kinda like a cross between a desktop and a laptop. Once I figure out how to work my webcam I'll take a photo. But that will take a while. I still am a tech fossil.

It's er... about a quarter the size of a desktop, without built in monitor and keyboard. The price also therefore, sits in between desktops and laptops. Kinda like the middle child of computers. I hope it doesn't face middle child syndrome and the identity crises that come with it.

Time to play with my shuttle! eh wait that doesn't sound right...

A few things to get off my chest... and USMLE and I the sequel

2006-04-28T21:28:00.000+08:00

Has anyone read the what Pas Rantau Panjang MP Abdul Fatah Harun said the other day? Oh my dear and they wonder why westerners laugh at us sometimes. The most absolutely ridiculous statement issued from this man's mouth.

He said:
"Most of these divorced women go to parties and are gatal. It is quite obvious why they ended up divorced or why their husbands left them. They are gatal"

"We must analyse if divorces are due to the men or the women. Divorced women are easily spotted at functions through their gatal behaviour.

"It is as if they do not regret that they have been divorced. Women who are widowed do not behave in a flirtatious manner. They are sad and quiet"

Adjectives fail me. How can anyone, much less a representitive of the rakyat make such an idiotically insensitive male chauvinistic remark? If I had any control of this country (and it's probably a very good thing that I don't. Very.) I'd sack him on the spot. Wasn't this country built on tolerance, understanding and knowing when to hold our tongues? Anyone with such a narrow minded, self righteous, condescending view of himself should not be in any position of authority. We need leaders that we can respect, not ones who make utter fools of themselves, projecting an extremely backward view of the country to those on the outside.

The matter is further complicated by the global world-view at this point that is so warily suspicious (and rightly so, if you ask me) of Muslim countries. Statements such as these serve only to cement the image of us that they have in their heads. Images of big-bearded, white-robed, bomb-making men claiming on the one hand that God is great and merciful and killing his fellow man with the other. Images of women-beating, one-tracked idiotic PIGS for lack of a better word.

Naturally, women's aid groups and the women's branch of the government reacted violently. And very much rightly so. Remove this joker from the government, PLEASE.
Read more here. Take the time. It's worth the read, if for nothing more than to see how childish some men can be. Sighz.

Now that that's off my chest... Grace's blog is back! Link is up on my sidebar. Story's hers to tell. hOho.

And the ECFMG have FINALLY got back to me. I think they musta read the rant on my blog, cause the letter arrived a few days after I wrote that entry. What they basically said was,
"The ECFMG handles applications from medical students/graduates from outside of North America. Since you are currently enrolled and have a place in Dalhousie University, Canada, we cannot process your application. Please write to the so-and-so board at so-and-so address to apply from Canada"

Well I suppose it was my mistake that I failed to mention that I was a good 6 months away from starting in Dalhousie at the time of my application... but anywayz. I shall be sitting for it in the near future, methinks, and this time, I'll remember to write to the right examination board. I hope.

Footie rambles IV

2006-04-25T12:40:00.000+08:00

seems that all I can write about nowadays are rants and raves about the lack of good fortune (and money) in my life. The only thing I can write about besides the unfairness of the day to day grind are the vagaries and controversies of the beautiful game, football.

Football. Ah! What a game. 22 grown men chasing an air-filled piece of leather, trying to stick it into a 8 yard wide, 8-foot high net, only to pick it out again and try all over again. And breaking each other's legs on freshly-mown grass the whole time. 'Zis be-yoo-ti-fuol!

My latest rant focuses yet again on a certain messrs. Mounrinho and Wenger. Rename them Moaning-rinho and Whiner, please.

Chelsea were roundly beaten by Liverpool, 2 brilliant goals to 1. I've never had much love for Liverpool (which true-blooded Man Utd fan does?) but I was rooting for them the whole match through, such is the ire that moaning-rinho has provoked. Arrogant in victory, bitterly sore in defeat, the self-proclaimed "special one" has quickly become English football's most disgusting character.

His appearance at a post-match conference (which is required of all EPL managers) after losing a match is a rare sight indeed, such is the small, immature manner in which he handles defeat. When asked the obvious question "will Liverpool challenge Chelsea for the Premiership title next season?" he said a simple, dismissive "'In the Premiership they have no chance. Over 40 matches no chance. Maybe they will surprise me and they can do it."

WAH.

Then he went further and said, "Did the best team win today? I don't think so. In the last 30 minutes we deserved extra time. In the first half nobody was better. They had a good start to the second half but then we dominated the game. I cannot wish them luck in the final. Middlesbrough and West Ham will be there and I must respect them."

WAH WAH.

Instead of acknowledging the fact that Liverpool scored two pretty good goals, he blamed the referee for giving away the free kick that led to the first goal. Hello, moaning-rinho, your players routinely use their hands to score goals. I don't hear you blaming refs for not making those calls.

WAH WAH WAH.

And Arsenal drew to Tottenham, 1-1. The pivotal moment was when two Arsenal players RAN into each other and lost the ball. Such an amateurish mistake right? A Tottenham player obtains possession and runs to the sideline with the ball, wondering whether to put it out of play so that the Arsenal players can get treated. The referee takes a look at the Arsenal players, they look a bit dazed but ok, and so logically waves play on. Michael Carrick, the Tottenham player who got the ball, passes it to Edgar Davids, who crosses for Robbie Keane, who scores.

Arsene Whiner explodes. Like, literally. The best part is this. He bellows, french accented, at the post-match conference, "Their bench claim they didn't see the incident on their first goal, but I say they are liars". This, coming from the man who repeatedly, repeatedly, over and over and over again will say "I did not see the incident" if one of his players gets a red card or scores a controversial goal. Selective myopia indeed.

He claimed that "Until this moment, we have had fair play in English football, but not any more," mere minutes after refusing to shake hands with his opposing manager, Martin Jol. So since fair play is dead you don't even afford your opponent the courtesy of shaking hands, mr. Arsene Whiner?

I've seen greater maturity in defeat from 6-year kids playing catching. Grow up, you two. It's sickening to hear them rant like the entire world owes them favours. Like everyone's supposed to bow down and get out of their way while they achieve what, in their mind, is rightfully theirs. What complete, absolute, utter nonsense. My only regret is that no one significant in the football world will read this.

ARGH

2006-04-24T21:16:00.000+08:00

I GOT SAMAN-ED 3 TIMES IN 4 DAYS

ARRGHHHHHHHH

*vomit blood*

So to the government that rules this hot stuffy country that I live in, here's my 300 bucks.

SIGH

USMLE and I

2006-04-19T10:34:00.000+08:00

This is the story of the USMLE and I. For the uninitiated, the USMLE is probably one of the toughest medical exams there is, if not the toughest. That's United States Medical Licensing Exam.

So it came as no surprise that when I, laziness personified, boldly told everyone that I was going to sit for it (and pwn it for fun nonetheless), that I was confronted with endless ridicule about my inability to score anything worthwhile on the exam. In fact, there was a pool put together predicting how low I would score. I am grateful to those who expressed faith in me and bought a pass, in gambling terms. To those of you who predicted failure on my part, die slow endless deaths many times over and over again. May worms and maggots grow fat on your flesh, and may they defaecate all over your ravaged rotting bodies. So there. Hmph.

Being the stubborn ass that I am, I resolutely went ahead and applied for it, the ridicule of my so-called friends ringing in my ears. When someone tells me not to do something, the more I would wanna do that something just to spite that person, irregardless of how embarrased I might be later. Not a good trait to have, trust me. Male ego FTW. What a headache it was eh, driving back and forth from IMU to get papers verified, trying to decifer the instructions and conditions for application, getting bank drafts etc etc etc it almost drove me mad.

SO finally after sending off the forms and what not to the states via courier, I sat back and waited for the ECFMG to reply. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. And then some more. Many moons passed and many maggots were hatched, ate, defaecated, metamorphosed, mated, had great-grandchildren and died. All from the rotting bodies of aforementioned persons. Screw American efficiency, it's now midway through April and I still haven't heard so much as a mid-diastolic murmur from them.

SO I wrote to them, basically saying "hello, I'm a chinaman from Malaysia, I want to pay you lots of money for an exam I don't really need so that I can stress myself out unnecessarily and be the laughing stock of all my friends, why don't you reply and take my money? Is my money not good enough for you?? wai? wai? waiiiiiii??"

No reply. No surprise.

I wrote again, this time saying "hi, I'm that chinaman from Malaysia, and since you don't want my money I'm telling the credit card company to cancel the debit, so there hmph. I'm going to Canada to study instead just to spite you cause Canada rocks and America will one day be ruled by Chinaman just like me whose money you refused. Plus Americans suck donkey snouts."

So in a nutshell, contrary to what I've been telling everyone and much to the dissapointment of those who put together that pool of money,

I'M NO LONGER SITTING FOR THE USMLE

In hindsight, though, it's probably a good thing that the ECFMG didn't reply. It would most definitely make me unable to enjoy my last month here, irregardless of the fact that I've already been bumming for a good year. And the best part is, it's not my fault!!

Oh, added a few links. Decided to broaden my cyberspace horizons, so to speak.

... and then some

2006-04-16T21:31:00.000+08:00

My speakers have disappeared. To where, I do not know. My hours spent in front of my PC are now silently spooky. Jaco and Pat no longer accompany my midnight ramblings. Add the recent cold weather into the mix, you've got the beginnings of a horror movie here. Picture this

A cold wind is blowing, an average-good-looking-guy hunched over his computer, a mug of hot drink in his hands, covered by a blanket. He types feverishly as he tries to keep up with his work. The wind gets stronger. Suddenly his shutters fly open, accompanied by a sudden shriek that is the wind, branches scrape against his window. He looks up, thinks it's just the weather, and goes back to his work. Suddenly a dark shadow looms above him...

*Cue theme from psycho*

Well my uncle from Brisbane came down. whoopedee. I remember staying in his house when we visited them, and his wife tormenting me with squeals of "so cuuuuuteeeeee!!!!" and lots of cheek-pinching and hair ruffling. Just thinking about it brings shivers down my spine. *shudder* I was 8, k? I was cute then. But still. The anguish... The torture... *curls into fetal position, rocks back and forth, sucks thumb*

No child should have to go through that experience. The stereotypical scary aunt IS REAL.
IT'S NOT A MYTH, PEOPLE.
Good thing she wasn't the big-bosomed, bad-breathed, bad-haired type. I would have been permanently mentally scared if she were...

So yes, they're back, and their two daughters who used to bug the cows out of me are all grown up. They're ok now, less squeaky, less irritating, though I can't remember which one was the one I dropped when she was little. Probably the less bright one... So anyways, there was this big dinner where the whole of the Leong side of the family came back together, and oh my dear it was pure torture.
Stretched-on-the-racks kind of torture.
Cold-water-dripping-on-forehead kind of torture.

It's not that the food was bad. Nor the wine (which was ok ok only). It's not that my aunt morphed into a big-bosomed, bad-breathed, bad-haired type and tried to suffocate me between her assets. She was, in fact, as slim as I could recall. It wasn't that the place was dodgy, the lighting bad, or the company boring. It was the plain fact that my half-tipsy uncles and aunt THOUGHT THAT THEY COULD SING.

Let me get one thing straight. I consider myself marginally musical. I don't have perfect pitch, it's taken me 6 years of piano training and 10 years of guitar to be able to only begin to guess what chord it is I'm hearing. I still have trouble differentiating a myxolidian from a phrygian, a diminished from a sustained, but you get my drift. And that small drop of musical ability in my blood comes in no way whatsoever from my mother's side. My mom's sense of pitch is about as good as a drunken wild donkey high on speed in heat running away from hunters. And that's insulting the donkey and the speed. Her brothers and sister fare very very very slightly better.

My aunt (not the one who traumatized me) was belting out Whitney Houston and Unchanged Melody and stuff like that at the absolute top of her lungs, probably hitting a note by accident every now and then, screeching, nails-on-blackboard, waking up the dead kind of stuff. And that's when she's sober. She wasn't on this occasion, nor were my uncles who still had the sense to know that they weren't great singers and thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, kept the decibels low. But they were still amazingly off pitch. I never knew anyone could be so tone deaf. Take the worse from Malaysian Idol auditions and imagine something worse. They were worse than whatever it is you're imagining now. It's painful, I know, don't tax yourself that much eh. Just for you to get a sense of where I'm coming from.

It got to the point where my grandmother, good ol' poh-poh, was sticking her fingers in her ears.

To make matters worse, my tone deaf and tone dumb aunt started dancing in the middle of the room. And my mom joined her. In the most absurd manner possible. Pirouettes and circus clown style poses. Then they both pulled my cousins out to join them. I was a quivering jellied mass of shame... They only had a glass of wine each... The only saving grace was that it was a private room, so no one (save the waiters) saw anything. Thank freaking goodness. Thank absolutely freaking goodness.

The entire spectacle was caught on camera though. I would post the video if not for the fact that their blood runs in my veins... and a cold finger of fear touches me when I think about watching it again. One day when I have kids I'll show it to them and teach them about the dangers of alcohol.

Speaking of alcohol...

Footie rambles II, and then some

2006-04-13T15:13:00.000+08:00

Manchester United 2 - o Arsenal. What a glorious game. Not just for the fact that we beat our arch-nemesis again, but also for the sheer openness and fluidity of the game. It was, without a doubt, one of the best games I've watched this season, maybe even of all time. Flowing, attacking football accompanied by incisive through balls, cheeky little one-touch passing and plenty of tension in front of goal was the order of the day.

The moment that sealed the day. I was at Safiz's in Hartamas with TJ and my yuppie friends, and when this happened, my goodness the mamak just exploded. Little korean brother making all us asian ppl proud. Watered down, unhygienic, diarrhoea-inducing drinks aside, the day was perfect. Absolutely perfect... Nothing rivals the high that you get when watching football with friends. Nozing, indeed.

Screw Chelsea. Those exponents of effective, yet amazingly boring football. Joga bonito, my brothers! I thought it was in the bag when West Ham went 1-0 up and Chelsea one man down, but kudos to them, Drogba bullied the entire West Ham back four into submission, Crespo ran circles around them, and Chelsea went 4-1 up. Oh well. Perfect days can only get so perfect. Such is life.

Incidently, a poll on soccernet.com shows that out of a select sample group of football fans (bout 64000 ppl),
16% love Chelsea,
30% don't care about them,
and 54% hate them
ROFLMAAMHAMAALAEEO.
That's rollingonthefloorlaughingmyassandmyheadandmyarmsandlegsandeverythingelseoff.

HAHA.

By the way, if you've got the time, surf on over here and check out the joga bonito adds. Too many for me to post on my blog, but take your time, let them load, they're worth the watch trust me. Personal favs are Rooney's and Ronaldinho's. Freaking amazing stuff. And Cantona is more than worth checking out with his Pavaroti-esque beard and his pretty lame attempt at acting dramatic. These French. They think just cause they're French, they can do anything.

Did anyone catch Thierry Henry's expression after he took the free kick just after coming on as a sub? He had a free kick in a dangerous position for us, coulda made it 1-1 and changed the entire game. As fate would have it, he missed it, and all he did instead of hanging his head in his hands or show any sign of regret was to give the most nonchalant expression, smile wryly, arch one eyebrow, and walk off. And the French wonder why the rest of the world think they're arrogant. It was like, "ey am too gooed four dis game... dis ees beneath mee... ey em french, ey em better than eeveri-won. en garde!"

More rambles. Anyone remember FC United? The breakaway football club that was formed in protest to Malcom Glazer's take over of Man Utd? Well in their first full season in the North West Counties Second Division, they've earned promotion to the First division. Pretty amazing inspiring stuff. Plus, they've played to crowds that are probably 40 times as large as one would expect for this level. To get a full picture of where they stand,

Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea etc etc are in the Premiership
Then comes the 1st Division
then 2nd Division
then 3rd Division
4th Division
Non-professional League
probably 3 or 4 more divisions here
1st north west county division
2nd north west county division <---- That's where FC united stands.
nothing else here.

Basically as low as they can get, but that's where every new club starts. About 300 league positions below Chelsea right now. Make us proud, FC united!!

Lotsa rambles indeed. Now for the "and then some". This is turning into a pretty long post, so I'll keep the "and then some" for another day. Tired wfrgtzzzz

Oh wait. Happy belated birthday Yap Su-Ann. Well I was waiting for the photo to get to me, hence the lateness of the post.
So cute right. Makes feel warm and fuzzy all over. Thanks for the free food Su-Ann. May you be less of a pain to your friends in the years to come. o_O

Happy belated birthday also to Raymond Choy, the reason why I have a few basketball medals,
to fat Jon, the reason why I have a ringing in my ears every now and then,
and to Uncle Ho Mun, the reason why I started drinking.

Speaking of which, at the Leong family reunion the other day, sights too embarrasing for me to describe took place. I shall attempt to do so anyway, at the expense of my mom's credibility and my own personal pride, for her blood runs in my veins. NOOOOOOO. I will do so in the "and then some" to come. Suspense right? Right right right?

...

2006-04-07T03:54:00.000+08:00

My parents went for a company dinner right? So as the door gift, they get this cute little paper basket with some egg-shaped chocolates inside, right? Each one is brightly wrapped in colourful metalic-foil paper, green red yellow blue etc, sizes ranging from slightly bigger than a 5-cent coin to slightly smaller than a 50-cent one.

So as I open the fridge in the middle of the night like I do so extremely frequently, I spot the little white basket and the cute little miniature easter egg chocolates. And as I greedily reach for the basket to sate my unsatiable hunger, I find, to my total shock, horror and amusement, the words

"wwj, you may have ONE if you want"

scribbled untidily on the top of the little white basket. I kid you not. The "one" really was in bold. I recognize my mom's handwriting. She actually took the effort to ward me off her chocolates.

I was like, "..."

And I complain that they don't know me.

Pasta and dental hygiene.

2006-04-04T20:39:00.000+08:00

I've been having some really surreal conversations lately.

So I was at Giant Supermarket the other day, buying stuff to cook. Yes I cook nowadays. I am domesticated. What is this world coming too?? Soon I'll be cleaning my room without anyone yelling at me to do so. And later, I'll actually arrange the shoes on the rack. NOOOOOOOOO

ahem.

So back to Giant. I had a can of tomato soup in my oh-so-metro green shopping basket along with some cheese and bacon. And this totally random aunty behind me tapped me on the elbow and asked, in Cantonese;

"Can you just eat it like that?" (indicating tomato soup)
"Can can, but I'm not doing that," I said, after taking a step back and recovering from the shock of being addresed so directly.
"Oh so what are you doing with it?"
I was tempted to say I was a famous artist and I've been commissioned by the government to build a sculpture entirely out of used soup cans to reflect modern-day over-commercialization and the loss of our national identity, but I didn't know how to say that in Cantonese.

"I'm putting the cheese and bacon inside and..."

*at this point her aunty shopping kaki friend butted in*

"This brand not so nice warn. man-man tei only"
"Yes, but I'm not eating it just like that so it's ok"
"Oh so how are you cooking it?" said the conversation-initializing aunty, determined to find out why a bracing young lad such as myself was holding a can of tomato soup in a green metrosexual shopping basket, when he should be out flirting with bracing young lasses and making sexist jokes with other bracing young lads.

I decided that the truth would be best. Besides, I can't lie convincingly in Cantonese. And I was still off-balance from the aunty's persistence.
"I'm making pasta"

*they stare at me blankly. I mime frying chow mein in hopes that they understand that it's a type of noodle.*

"PAS-TAH-AH"

Then it's my turn to pay and I quickly scurry away avoiding the second aunty's disapproving stare. It seems she doesn't approve of using man-man tei only tomato soup to make pas-tah-ah, if she even knows what that is.

And it hit me. Like a professional wrestler off the corner ropes. Like a 32-wheel truck hauling a solid block of concrete. Like I was standing between a blue whale and it's plankton.

I WAS TALKING ABOUT COOKING RECIPES WITH A COUPLE OF AH-SOWS.

What is happening to me??? I mourned the passing of my manly veneer as I stir-fried (with a shrit on this time) the bacon and made references to the cookbook I was using. A single tear breaking the testosterone-induced sheen (aka acne) slid from my eye and plunged daringly into the saucepan, and as I saw that I thought, "oh well, better not add so much salt. Not healthy..."

Another day I was doing the dishes with my dad. All of a sudden he asks me;
"Boy do you take care of your teeth?"
?
"uh. What do you mean?"
"I mean do you take care of your teeth. Do you floss or not?"
"er. Yeah..."
"Cause it's important you know. I had gingivitis when I was younger, and only after I started flossing and brushing regularly it went away"
"er. ok, pa..."

I WAS TALKING ABOUT PERSONAL DENTAL HYGIENE WITH MY DAD.

Ok so you're going "what's so weird or surreal about that?" But take a moment to consider, he usually doesn't even bother to acknowledge that I exist, only grunting occasionally from behind his newpaper when I ask for money. It was an extremely surreal conversation cause it's not as if we were at the dentist or I had fish breath or something you know? If we were, or I did, then it would be ok, expected even, but we weren't, and I don't, so it was just plain w-e-i-r-d. I DON'T have fish breath ok. Stop saying I probably don't notice it. I doN'T. Have fish breath that is, not not notice that I do have it.

Plus it was completely out of the blue. If you want to talk to someone but don't know what to say, you go "nice weather eh" or "how was your day?" or something. NOT "eh do you brush your teeth?"
Imagine being on a hot date. It's getting uncomfortable cause you're running out of things to say to her. She's looking bored. You've tried family, food, philosophy and she still looks like she's wasting her time. You're not exactly going to go, "so... brushed your teeth lately?" now ARE YOU???

I left the kitchen feeling very very confused. Like, "wha...?"

Talk about throwing me off balance.

999, 1000!!!

2006-03-31T15:02:00.000+08:00

and...

wow wj. You really rock. 'tis truly be a momentous occasion. Brain's too muggy right now to write anything wittyly funny. Wittyly. Is there even such a word?? wfxgrzzz.

'gratz to cm and ray and the rest for having a brush with a Gary Neville, that annoying stalwart right-back of Man Utd. I hope you feel edified by breathing the pulmonary wastes that exudes from his blessed nostrils. Those lungs are more efficient, mind you, so there'll be a higher carbon dioxide content. That light headedness you feel might not be edifying-ness but just plain lack of oxygen. dang I wish I was in Manchester...

Speaking of football, click here to see the most nooby, most pwned goalkeeper in the history of football. Fer sure. Seriously. If I was that goalkeeper I'd retire from football on the spot due to sheer embarrasment. And if I didn't, the fans would probably have my head. You can almost see the cogwheels of his brain go into panic overdrive mode, and hear him cursing in German.

"sHaisZA!!!"

I can only sympathise with the poor joe. Wait for it to load, it's worth it, and forgive the German ya.

It's back!!

2006-03-25T18:49:00.001+08:00

It's back!!! What is? The proton saga, dear people. Yes, good ol' WCR 8671 is back. Sudah kembali. Fan chor. Sorry, no tamil here, my muhibah spirit not that strong. So to all my inachis and tambis and anes and machas out there, forgive me, indian-style. Which means either a feast involving half the world or a co-ordinated dance and song with a quarter of the world as backup dancers in a wide open field with a tree in the middle for the two main character to prance around.

I've always wondered where they find these beautiful open fields. They ALWAYS have just ONE tree planted right in the middle. ALWAYS. Do all indian movies use the same open field? Did all the hindu film producers get together one day and say, "ok" (remember to insert indian accent here. Or translate to tamil) "we'll put our money together and buy a hill. Then we'll plant just ONE palm tree in the middle. No no, just one, and it MUST be a palm tree." Forget the fact that palm trees don't usually grow on wide open fields, it MUST be a palm tree. Hm. That monologue sounded a LOT funnier in my head. Just think Russell Peters ok? Yes, I can hear you laughing now...

My tamil vocabulary consists of all of ONE word (For some reason all the "ones" in this post are in bold).
"Sapede!" which means, "eat!".
Big surprise huh? hahaha. Oh, and "ingaporinge," which, to this day, I am not sure whether it's a proper tamil word or it's just a phrase I used whenever I was making fun of my indian friends. Cause it sounds like what a random indian guy would say to another random indian guy.
"DEY! ingaporinge?!"
"Sapede!"
See? Sounds like a full conversation right there.

Back to the silver proton saga that's been pockmarked with rust stains from last century and has random bits of plastic falling off. Just today, the rain guard on the passenger's side flew off while I was driving for no apparent reason. It just flew off! But as a whole it's in one piece now (well it was in one piece before this, just a severely dented one piece). For those of you who have no idea to what it is I'm referring too, scroll down to the blog titled "oops". Full explanation there, with appropriate action sequences and macabre reflections on life.

So er yes. It's back, rickety, squeaky, bumpy as ever, but it's back and it's moving. In a straight line. As long as I keep hold on the steering wheel. Now I have a sense of closure over the entire incident.

Peace washes over me. Without any hindi music or backup dancers.

Black people can run

2006-03-22T17:26:00.000+08:00

Black people can run. No, really, they can. And I mean really run. Like, really really really run. I've always wondered why that by just being black, it meant that you can either run or sing the bejeezes out of anyone else. Or play basketball, but that's another matter.

Back to running.

I was watching the women's 3000m steeplechase final in the Commonwealth games. Is that how you spell Commonwealth? Well since I've spelt it that way, that's the way it is now. And guess what? A black woman from Uganda won. Big surprise, woo hoo. Rewind a little bit.
There was about 1km left in the run, there was this sole Aussie woman who was keeping pace with her, with the rest of the chasing pack a good 50m behind already. Being in Melbourne, the crowd was going wild.

"AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI! OI! OI!"
Ever heard that cheer? Freaking irritating. Sorry my friends down under, it just is! Speaking of down under, how does it feel to be constantly referred to as "being down under"? I mean, don't people usually use that term to mean being sick or feeling bad? And doesn't mean usually mean that you're not a nice person? English is funny. So does being in OZ naturally mean you'll develop a mean mood or fall sick constantly? Looking at Tim, I'd say the former is true. Owright enough about da engrand.

But yeah, the crowd was going wild as the Aussie runner kept pace with ms Ugandian. Effort and strain and concentration was etched all over her face. The Ugandian looked like she couldn't be bothered. Suddenly, in the last 500m, the Ugandian just went into overdrive. As if she just decided to stop giving the Aussie any hope, as if she decided to stop fooling around with the runner and her home crowd support. She was like a car on NOS. She finished a good 50-60 metres ahead of the Aussie. And what does she do once she's won?

She gets on her knees, says a prayer, and does another few laps.
?????
Didn't she just run 3 kilometres? Wahlaoeh. All the runners who came in after her either doubled over, sat down or collapsed to the ground, chest heaving, faces painted with the sorrow of defeat and the distress of keeping up with a black woman. And then they see this Ugandian running a few more laps just for fun. Probably to mock them as well. If I were one of those runners, I'd quit right there and then. Explains why I'll never be there.

While we're on the topic of Ugandians, I heard this joke once.

Idi Amin (cruel dictator of Uganda at the time) was having a conference with his generals.
"I am going to declare that from this day forth, Uganda will be known as Uganda Idi. Any protests?"
This being a dictatorship, the generals broke forth into applause and congratulated Idi Amin on his brilliant idea, saying that he deserved it anyway. All except one.
"What's your problem?" Idi Amin said, indicating the one general that wasn't sucking up to him.
"Well..." he began, "The people of Cyprus are known as Cypriots..."

geddit geddit? HAHAHA I laughed my jaws loose and my buccinators cramped when I did. To not spoil it for you, I'll leave you to figure that one out yerselves. hoHO.

Oh, and Carrie? I hate you. Bugger.

Torn~

2006-03-20T18:40:00.000+08:00

Torn indeed. Kudos to Tim for digging up obscure videos like these. I see Perth isn't exactly the most exciting place in the world.

If idle hands are the devil's workshop, then Tim's manufactured a whole horde of underworldly fiends who probably look somewhat like this, led by a balrog or two and backup-ed by hellish, giant angry-looking-skull mounted on the front, decaying-human-head- flinging-catapults, waiting to be unleashed onto a certain female acquaintance of his.

Ahem. I digress. So, yes, torn. Enjoy~!

Funny, yes? Laughed my head off.

Mimes full of expression aside, I learnt something new today.

NEVER STIR FRY FOOD WITHOUT A SHIRT ON.

Trust me. Never ever ever do it. You could have timed every single squeal of pain that came from my kitchen today to each pop/crackle coming from the frying pan.

I tell you, my harrison's sulcus-ed chest will never look nor feel the same, scarred and violated as it has been by many happy impish splashing droplets of hot oil. wargh.

Oh and Carrie? I hate you you bugger.

My blog the spam blog.

2006-03-16T16:55:00.000+08:00

It's a wee bit small, but click on the image and read the text in the yellow box.

WHAT THE CRAP???

This page confronted me as I was trying to blog yesterday.

For all you lazy buggers who don't want to wait for the picture to load, here's what it says.

"This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-protection robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but will be able to save them as drafts. Save your post as a draft or click here to for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked".

So apparently my blog looks like a spam blog. That's such an insult to my creative literary genius don't you think. A spam blog?? I mean, haven't you all been entertained? Don't my writings inspire moments of poignancy, make you reflect about life and the wonders of the universe, trigger outbursts of laughter and tickle your ribs, the soles of your feet and occasionally the underarm axillary regions? If it hasn't I have failed miserably, and have got an immensely oversized out of porpotion view of my own writing. Which I don't think I do.

Indeed.

Well after some slight trepidation on my part, a few drops of cold sweat and a hastily-sent response to Blogger.com, I got this in my email this morning.

*deep sigh of relief*

Eh they were threatening to delete my blog k.
Oh well, it's back anyway, right back here to entertain you!

bleh.

wxfrtgzzz

2006-03-10T22:44:00.000+08:00

I could not believe my eyes when I saw it. My jaw hung loose at the mandibular joints. My brain fried a few synapses. I was bug-eyed, pupils fully dilated, an expression of complete incredulity smeared all over my face like so much peanut butter. Ok, I'm jumping the gun a bit. Lemme rewind to add some context to these four random sentences that would otherwise make completely no sense.

I took my granddad to the hospital. Nothing serious, nothing serious, he just had some weird thing growing on his left index finger. The orthopedic christened it a benign giant cell tumour of the synovial sheath. It makes little sense to me, and I'm supposed to be studying. hmmm...

SO anyway, after setting an appointment for the benign giant cell tumour of the synovial sheath to be removed, I asked my granddad to wait by the hospital entrance as I, as all good grandsons do, went and brought the car right to his feet. So tum te tum de dum, as I drove the car to where I had asked him to wait, the incidences described in the first four sentences took place.

My granddad, all 80-odd years old, was chatting up some white-haired, tired-looking, pyjama-wearing, probably as old as him if not older, auntie!! Probably someone's grandmom, who's grandson, like me, had asked her to wait while he dutifully brought the car round.

Yes, the patriach of the family, the oldest living Wong male this side of the universe was FLIRTING. And as my granddad got into the car, he turned back to the old lady he was talking to and jovially waved to her. She waved back. I drove off, in a half-shock, half-blur, totally speechless state, barely conscious enough to shift the gears and balance the clutch.

OH MY DEAR GOODNESS WHAT THE HEAVEN EARTH AND HELL????

It was the most, and I mean THE most surreal sight I have ever seen in my short 22-going-on-23 year old life. Though I doubt I will ever see something more odd or surreal, should I ever live till I become the patriach and oldest living male of the Wong family this side of the universe (which is a scary thought by the way *shudder*). It was just... weeeiiirrrrdddddd...

Yeye (that's cantonese for father's father you uneducated uncouth monolingual barbarian aka American wahahahhaa chilling lah brudderrr...) got some skilllzz!! With a Z. Spelt that way. I've got to get down to work, a freaking lot I gotta live up to~!!!

wxfrtgzzz!!!!!

24 Psychotic years of life

2006-03-07T03:12:00.000+08:00

No, not mine. Psycho K, that good, albiet few-screws-lose, caffiene junkie friend of mine, is 24!!! She's also known by other people as Karen. But I think psycho K suits her better. What else can you name a person who mixes coffee powder with coke, then reacts to your obvious look of shocking disgust with the most earnest, innocent, wide-eyed "what, it's nice what..." ??
I mean besides insane, demented, crazy, mentally ill etc etc, that is. Psycho K just has a ring to it that Demented K or Mentally Ill K doesn't have.

*confetti and streamers and honkers*

Everyone, surf on over to IAMPSYCHO.com and wish her a very happy, very crazy, very psychotic birthday.

So to that constant source of wisdom, intolerable wit, pre-exam examinations and mind-boggling conversations about life, the universe, and everything from old english to poisonous green yellow-banded somalian tree-frogs;

May the sun always shine upon your face,
May the wind always be upon your back,
and may the wings of destiny carry you into the heavens to dance with the stars.

Uhm she's all the way in Glasgow, so I've got no pics to share, but there are plenty on her blog. If you can't get into iampsycho.com, you can try cokehead.com.

Happy Birthday Karen Louis!!!

oh how my parents love me.

2006-03-03T20:27:00.000+08:00

Yah right.

"Boy (yes my dad calls me boy) come here. I wanna talk to you"
"yah pa?"

*long boring conversation about finances and flight and accomodation arrangements commence*

"How long is your flight to Canada?"
"uhm... website said about 30 hours"
"30 hours?"
"yah pa, 30 hours"
"hm... don't come back lah k"
"huh? what do you mean"
"I mean don't come back until after you're done"
*speechless*
"what...? Then what about the long summer holidays and all that?"
"No point for you to come back. Just stay there for the whole 2 years. Don't waste time and money coming back. Go work in a hospital in the states or something."
"Then what about after I graduate? Do I come back then?"
"hmmm... that one see how lah. We decide then"
"..."

If speechlessness could be expressed in words (then it can't be called speechless, now can it?) I would express it in giant font-72 caps, bold-ed and italic-ed.

Oh how they love me. I think my dad sees me as a long term investment for his retirement, cunning finacial planner that he is.

I think something like this goes on in his accounting-minded head.

[pay for son to do medicine + pay for usmle] - money - flight ticket back home during holidays = force him to work in hospitals overseas

work in overseas hospitals x son's innate social skills = connections with overseas surgeons.

connections with overseas surgeons = ease of surgery posting + [son's desperation to earn money x son's inability to afford more than one meal a week]2 = graduate as surgeon faster

graduate as surgeon faster = higher pay + son's filial piety = better retirement for me (QED)

(Remember to apply the BODMAS rule)

At this point he throws his head back in evil maniacal laughter and lightning bolts flash in the background accompanied by eerie organ music.

Sarah has a blog!

2006-03-02T00:50:00.000+08:00

Some free advertisement for Sarah Sim.

Surf on over to bananasarah.blogspot.com to read about her perfect-pitched, mata-memukau life.
Check out her pic man. It's like... "loooOOoooKkk into my eeEEyyyYYeEEeSSssss..."

Too bad she's as html nooby as me and therefore has the same template. urk.

Footie rambles

2006-02-28T05:59:00.000+08:00

"Can Messi be suspended for acting? Barcelona is a very cultural city. You know all about theatre. You have theatres of high quality" - Jose Mourinho accusing Lionel Messi of play acting to get Asier del Horno sent off.

My goodness, wot a laugh. That Mourinho dude's really got his extremely oversized head up in the clouds. Have you ever seen a worse loser? He sounds like an angry little kid who just broke his favourite toy and is accusing someone else of doing it. Don't get me wrong, I think Chelsea are playing some really er... effective football at the moment thanks to Mourinho, but the guy's just plain irritating sometimes.

In my opinion though del Horno deserved to be sent off. He had already sank his studs into Messi's thigh a few minutes earlier, an offence that should have produced a yellow card, but escaped with nothing. He was getting turned inside out by Messi's dribbling brilliance and was constantly cutting down the Argentinian with ugly, badly timed tackles. A red card is all he deserved.

Everyone's a critic.

So Manchester United wins the Carling cup. 4-0, nonetheless.

Wayne Rooney, that wunderkid, scores his second against Wigan. John O'Shea does a jig in the background as two Wigan players look dejected.

The traditional wasting of perfectly good champagne!!

I've supported them since before Cantona, but to see the former champions of Europe reduced to chasing a single, and shall we say, less important trophy is a distinct downturn from the glories of 1999. We should be playing against the likes of Barcelona and Juventus, not competing with Wigan Athletic (all due respect to them) for a tournament that we used to field 17-year-olds in. Even the trophy looks small and insignificant. Ever seen the Champion's League trophy? You could hide a two-year-old kid in it. The size of a trophy seems to be directly corelated to the glory of the tournament .

How times have changed. I used to laugh at my Chelsea-supporting friends whenever they lost in the league, way back in highschool. Good thing I've lost contact with them, or they'd be gloating my eyes out at the recent rouble-funded Stamford Bridge success.

I do so hope that these two will catalyse a new generation of red devil success. Oh, the shirts say "for you smudge" in reference to winning this trophy for Alan Smith, who had incured a nightmare of an injury the week before. Such team spirit.

Makes me wonder. Remember Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the baby-faced assasin? The poor guy who scored the winner against Bayern Munich in that epic 1999 Champions League final (sealing his place in Man U folklore) has been injured for two years plus with a long-standing knee injury. Why can't we win the Champions League or Premiership for him? That's probably what was going on in his head as everyone pulled on the t-shirts at the end of the match, and could explain his somewhat bemused/dejected look as he ambled around the pitch, thinking "vinner noe for meg dum..." which is Norwegian for "win something for me ler pan..."

Another emo post

2006-02-21T17:55:00.000+08:00

Posts don't get more emo than the previous one, what with the comtemplating life and death and all that nonsense, but since I'm in the emo-post groove, might as well bug all you faithful oilfriedghost.blogspot visitors with yet another emo, though not as emo as the last, but emo enough, post.

That two and a half years in IMU was fun. Yeah, I did lotsa stupid things, rubbed some people the wrong way, but hey, all's well that ends well eh. Break it all down though, it was fun. A lot of it. How fun?

The first ever birthday celebrated at IMU. I think. Man I miss cinta ria!

After nouvo's one night. Crud I miss carrefour mamak. Where ais kosong was free, and a bill of rm4.10 always became rm4.

This photo is just wrong. Thank goodness I'm not in it. The things that happen when you're stuck on an island for too long.

Check out Su-Ann's expression. Priceless.

Our 1st IMU cup foosball team, plus photo whores. They won silver. The next year Pok Chien and I joined, and we won gold. huhu.

One of our many nights in Zouk. When we used to have to beg for transport there.

hoHO. Can't see it here, but I remember the words "koko help me" written somewhere on her.

This pic is a classic, and just too good to not be included. Ahhhhh orientation...

The infamous sports bra. sigh. What was I thinking???

IMU cup glory. Too many glory pics, can't post them all up. Heh.

That cake says "Happy birthday horny-ann!!"

Carrie, that pondering lass, pondering her ice cream at Zk and squeaky's 21st. William, perusing pondering Carrie.

Hn's 21st. LBs + WJ

And of course, the culmination of that two and a half years. B+ baybeh!!

Our last dinner as one big group. Yes there were people missing but lobsterman is only so big.

We are convocated. So close to being doctors, I can almost smell the hospital bleach.

That's how fun.

So so so many more photos. So many more memories. So many more friends that will drift into the grey murky bog-mists of distant memory. Into the dark, hushed shadowy corners of whispered thought. Into that silent grave of human limitation known as the past. So many more personalities that have coloured and touched and thought me, yet I will probably not see them again for as long as I live. This is a tribute to you all, pictured or otherwise.

There are so many more pictures I would like to post up, such as the tennis team and our smurf-like shirts, all the wonderful IMU Ball pictures, the progression from basketball whipping-boys to champions, the many more birthday and clubbing night photos but there are just way too many. I'm afraid blogger.com might delete my account for flooding. haha. Maybe next time. k k emo overload. A man can only express himself too much.

I'm nowhere near as good as cm at editing videos and inserting emo music (in fact, I have no idea how too), so it's all old school cut and paste stuff here.

Cheers, M103. We rawked.

oops.

2006-02-18T03:46:00.000+08:00

I had an accident early this morning around 4 am. No not the bed staining type. Haven't had those for a while. This was a little more solid. Very much so actually.

Was driving home from mamak in subang eh. One of the corners is a bit of a blind corner. Not seeing any lights or car, I just drove on without stopping.

WHAM

Keith was in the front passenger seat and he elbowed me hard in the ribs, such was the force of the impact. A white evo VII was staring down at me from the left windscreen. Literally kissing my car. Neither of us had seen him right up until when his bumper was attached to my door. His rm4000 lights weren't even on. But then again, I came out of the junction without stopping. My bad. My very bad.

He was about 19 years old. Orangy-brown hair. Kinda like a leaf in autumn. About half a head shorter than me. He leapt out of his car screaming bloody murder. Not at me actually. Just at the sky and road and buildings and scurrying cockroaches in general. He screamed and screamed some more for about 5 minutes before he realised I was standing next to him trying to settle him down.

"MY INTERCOOLER!!! MY LIGHTS!!! MY BUMPER!!! MY BONNET!!! etc etc etc"

In another ten minutes, he had called about 20 friends to the scene. What for, I shall never know. To intimidate me? I doubt it. Drama queen, most def. For the record (and all the guys will ask the question anyway) his was quite a souped up evo VII. Turbo and all that stuff. Mine was a 1992 proton saga, bordering on the edge of road-worthiness.

It was the worst accident I've ever been involved in. My entire front passenger door couldn't open. Even the glove compartment was banged up. The rim on my front left tire was cracked. I couldn't steer the car properly so there was probably some other damage I can't recognize. Brushing aside the obvious complications and hassle and driving around for the report and all that boring nonsense, the incident kinda really brought home a couple of things to me.

If mr evo VII had been going any faster, Keith might have had much more than a bruised lower chest wall.
It only took a second's lapse of concentration on my part. That's all. Just a second.
I never knew my dad could look so angry. He's a pretty calm guy most of the time but he's got this really intense flame in his eyes when he's angry. He'd wilt grass just by staring at it. Must be to make up for the loss of skeleton-warrior summoning ability (inside joke).

Life has never seemed so fragile to me.

Sure, I've done some minor ward rounds and seen people die, but the fragility of life never really hits home till something bad happens to someone you actually know. And I'm not talking about a friend's cousin's mother's twin's brother-in-law's granduncle twice removed kinda thing. Someone you interact with on a fairly regular basis.

You know those old drunk driving adds? The one where the guy insists that he's ok to drive, ends up in an accident, and only he survives? As he lies in his hospital bed, a myriad of tubes stuck into him with the prerequisite hospital ICU beeping in the background, he says "john... john... I killed my brother..." and then the scene fades to black with the words "jangan minum dan pandu" in big bold white letters, followed by company endorsement logos.

That coulda been me in that scene. Except that I wouldn't be saying john, but Keith. And I don't have a brother so I can't say a killed my brother eh. But you get the picture. I couldn't focus at all today. Could just stare at my books and absorb nothing.

Imagining trying to explain what happened to Grace should anything more had happened to Keith. She'd kill me. But I'd kill myself first if anything I did caused a friend to die. So she'd have to strangle me first before I hang myself. erhm getting a bit too macabre.

Before you call the shrink and the anti depressants down on me though, I'm ok eh. Just a bit on the brooding side today. Close (ok maybe not so close but close enough) shaves do that to you. But the fact that I can write about it says more about my mental health than anything I can say to convince you I'm ok eh.

Oh, and about the resolution of payment and all that, he's claiming from his insurance and I from mine. Gotta pay me dad the compound fine back though.

Incidently, I seem to be pissing people off quite a bit these past few days. Pissed off a good good friend the other day, and today, my dad. I hope that this isn't the beginning of a trend...

Valentine's day

2006-02-15T14:44:00.000+08:00

di·ar·rhe·a also di·ar·rhoe·a - Excessive and frequent evacuation of watery feces, usually indicating gastrointestinal distress or disorder.

Have you ever had a nasi lemak so freaking spicy it burned your gums? Yah man no joke. Diarrhoea like anything this morning. Or as we like to say here, lao sai!

Having had Valentine's plans been reduced from Luna Bar with big bunch of friends to La Bodega with small bunch of friends to Coffee Bean with even smaller bunch of friends to dota with a bunch of guys, I suppose a nasi lemak that burned your gums and gave you diarrhoea kinda makes an uneventful night somewhat eventful. And I am grateful to that nasi lemak for making it so.

Luna Bar offered me a table for 1.6k RM. *knees buckle* Crazy. Even if I had that much money to spend, I wouldn't spend it on a girl. Hmmm. Must be why I'm still single.

aNyWAys... Comments on my love life (or lack of it) will be unceremoniously deleted.

So dota it was with a bunch of guys... Comments on my sexuality will be as unceremoniously deleted as comments on my non-existant love life. I'm straight as a straight pvc pipe k. Haven't you heard that misery loves company?

So came that nasi lemak. woah, what a nasi lemak. My gums burned for about 10 minutes after it was gone. And not just burned mind you, positively sizzled. I could feel the borders between my molars and my gums just melting away. My tongue was on fire. I had to stuff ice into my cheeks to help with the stinging.

Undoubtedly a cheap conspiracy by the mamak guy to get us to buy more drinks. But I stubbornly refused. The institution's got nothing on me, nothing! My burning gums bear the scars of rebellion. Dead cheek mucosa epithelial cells, martyrs for the cause.

mamak man thinks to himself *eh ini orang tada mau minum kah?*
"oi Salleh, kasi itu nasi lemak pedas sikit! ini budak tada mau minum lah!"

*This is a re-enactment. Names have been changed to protect the participant's identities* Why Salleh? Cause if I was a mamak man, I'd be called Salleh.

I remember once when my dear ex-housemate Chia Ming tarpau-ed some mee goreng for me.
"boss, mee goreng tambah tambah pedas yah!"
"tambah tambah pedas?" *indian head wobble thing*
"yah boss, tambah tambah pedas!"
*mamak man (probably Salleh) turns around with big smile on face, clapping his hands with glee*

Every bite of that mee goreng had at least one cili padi in it. Tambah tambah pedas indeed. I lou-sai-ed exactly 4 hours later. Almost missed the beginning of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory cause of it eh.

Happy Valentine's day! Though it means nothing to me. 'nuff said.

100 hits old!

2006-02-14T13:55:00.000+08:00

Oilfriedghost.blogspot.com has hit 100 hits! In the 5 days since I figured out how to add a counter, no less.

'gratz wj. You must be really funny. One day I shall be more popular than Kenny Sia.

*pat on the back*

I've a feeling visits to my blog are gonna start falling from now on.

Of chicken ball rice and durian cendol

2006-02-12T23:19:00.000+08:00

"We were jamming all the way"
She was talking about being stuck in a traffic jam.

"Yaler, all for those stupid bicyclists"
Bicyclists?

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to my sister. It's difficult to believe that she graduated with a degree in English Literature. Obviously ye ol' english don't be caring much for modern day english. Bicyclists? Indeed.

We were in Malacca. Bandar bersejarah itself. Curse the sejarah-ness of Malacca, for it became one of the stops for the Tour de Langkawi. So all the roads into town were blocked, as were all the highways leading to it. At one point, we sat in the car for a full hour and a half not moving an inch because the main road was blocked. Idiotic m'sian police didn't bother blocking the road that led up to the main road, causing everyone to turn into the small road and jamming it up tighter than a singaporean's pockets when offered free stuff.

There were easily tens of thousands of cars just idling on the roads of Malacca that day. I don't believe that not one of them had something urgent to do. But apparently none of them did.

My sister wanted to check out a campsite for the church's youth camp. She had bribed me with a free lunch if I went with her. Me being the pig that I am couldn't resist. I mean, free chicken ball rice and durian cendol? Who in his right mind will give up such gastronomical pleasures? And free, no less!

Alas, I was to be denied those most famous of all Malaccan foods. After aimlessly driving around the outskirts of Malacca town trying to get into it, we gave up, turned around and headed back to KL. My sister never got to check out the camp site. I never got my food. It was, putting it lightly, a complete, total and utter *enter appropriate synonym and curse here* waste of a perfectly good saturday morning.

I grabbed my sister's head and proceeded to shake it violently. Like a rattle. Hoping that some passerby would notice my borderline psychosis and placate me with chicken ball rice and durian cendol. Or that somehow, chicken ball rice and durian cendol would miraculously drop out of her ears. Or from the sky. Or pop up from the road. Or somewhere, anywhere!!

No such luck. Sigh.

We reached KL a very irritated brother and sister. What proceeded to happen next is too violent to be reported. I escaped with minor bruising. She, with 50 bucks less in her wallet. The joys of being a little brother.

this is a coconut shell, and i am it's frog

why is it

oh hey whoopedoo

one passion

it's been so long

*enter witty title*

YES

Californian dreams

hello world

hello.

every now and then,

that'll do, pig, that'll do

So many drafts, so little time

bumbum pom tumtum tadumtadum

Being much more mature and wiser,

Footie rambles VIII

Tanzanian Diaries IV

Tanzanian Diaries III - under the african sun

Tanzanian Diaries II

Tanzanian Diaries I

homeless

Good bye new york, hello halifax.

the HNR

Goodbye Manc

REPUBLIC OF MANCUNIA

lydiatouchingme

Here they are!!

24!!! + akak sudah kahwin!!!

lima lagi jam

Enam lagi hari

china wine?

Blogger's block

quotable quotes and stuff

mou tak sek gong tung wah

exam break 4

Angel

muzzers day

titleless

Footie rambles VII

moving on...

This song goes out to you

sarahtouchingme

one day

Add another entry

Luck

So

Who knew?

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Luck

exam break 3

sigh

Ferenc Puskas, 1927-2006

Another hour passes by,

THE bimanual

Footie rambles VI

excuse the nooby photoshopping but

I could

LOL = laugh out loud

16 hours

friggin msn

City of blinding lights

72% msian!

DRE

youtube, sanity preserver

While we're on the topic...

gay pride week

Rheumatology

... and while I was passing by...

i have a famous friend!

Footie rambles V

Aboot?

One week, and then some…

THESE WORDS ARE BEING TYPED IN CANADA

The toilet door

11 days... and counting

my com my com my com

A few things to get off my chest... and USMLE and I the sequel

Footie rambles IV

ARGH

USMLE and I

enter witty title