i generally don't read blogs that don't belong to friends or people i know, but shu min's has been blown out of proportion. apparently, her views are representative of all teenagers who think they're elitist, but why people are making such a big deal out of it is because her father is an MP, and we all know kids of important people should behave better than the rest of us.

if you take away the unnecessary emotion and adjectives, i tend to agree with her basic premise for argument- that success comes to those who work for it. i think it would be great if once in a while daimonds fall from heaven, or we get the easy breaks which we don't truly deserve, but everybody knows that shortcuts are few and far between. if you want something, you should put in the effort; and if you can't bring yourself to, then stop whining.

i think our big problem is that we are a society which complains too much. we enjoy making a fuss out of small things, the reasons for which i can only see as: 1. we have too little drama in our lives, and 2. we like the sound of our own voice. as for me, i certainly belong to the latter group, which is why i upload my words onto this little outpost for my ego which we call a blog. nobody asks you to read it, but if you'd like to you're welcome to go ahead. you're also welcome to be offended by what i say, but remember that this is my opinion and i will not apologise if you think otherwise. go have your own say; it's not like i could care less. likewise, i think that if that derek wee guy sees fit to publicly announce and bemoan his state of affairs, then he should be prepared to take whatever comes back his way. this is the real world man, don't let your own shots fly and then expect others to treat you with kit-gloves.

but anyway, the thing that struck me most about her post wasn't the strength of her opinion, but rather, the immaturity of her writing. people are right to say that she comes off as elitist and bratty, and i'm embarrassed to have her associated with rj. her private thoughts might be shared by many a student from the so-called 'top' schools, but fewer of these are dumb enough to to make these known to the public, and even fewer can afford the frivolity of actually constructing what makes for a decent argument and then peppering it with phrases like 'get out of my uncaring elistist face' which betray the typical juvenile behind the words.

i understand that not everyone is as smart or well-off as she is, but the point is that intelligence an wealth are also relative quantities, so what's the sense in hating those who 'complement' you? if the minimum wage became $1000 per month, lots of people would be making more money, but they wouldn't necessarily be getting any richer in comparison to their peers. we can't all be geniuses and drive big cars, because what fun would there be in that? life is a competition in which you sometimes come out on top, while other times you are only a spectator to the glory of others. but i also believe that things have a way of evening themselves out, and we will all get what we deserve eventually. i don't understand why people can't just sit back and count their blessings, instead of despising those who have less.

so we are not all as insensitive and unmindful, us 'elitist' kids.

the weekend was about TV. as usual, i watched till my brains rotted out and my butt fats dilated to twice their original size. on friday, i watched TV from the time i got home and bathed till the time i went to sleep. on saturday, i caught, amongst other things, possibly the worst movie ever made - serving sara - which just about ruined it for me as far as matthew perry's funnylikeableguy thing from friends is concerned. then on sunday, when i started the day off with seventh heaven which i always never get to watch because of pilates, i knew it was going to be another good TV day.

part of the reason why i get to watch so much even though i am living in the stone ages and HAVE NO CABLE is because my sister is a pro at the VCR. that's right, we're still using one of those ancient things which actually record programmes on TAPES, which aren't even digital! despite this, they are useful when we can't be around or awake to watch our favourite shows, or when we want to watch shows on different channels at the same time, although this is mostly for her korean dramas. so even when channel 5 is showing shitty things, we always have old recordings to watch! it's amazing how old technology remains relevant.

otherwise, things have been rather blah on the whole, especially since i'm caught in the middle of a rather extended disagreement my parents are having. this is always a shitty position to be in, because whichever side you take, you are always wrong. so mostly i skulk around and try to lay low, and occasionally express support to the side that is momentarily holding the moral highground. and of course, this means that Irritance Factors at home are at an all time high, and the tension has obscured both parents from seeing that the pantry needs Restocking. i am practically living the life of a refugee in a wartorn country, and 'tis no fun i tell you.

speaking of food, i have discovered that muffins, and in particular banana muffins, are my new favourite food. this means that i have progressed from an obsession over banana cake to banana muffins, although i have no idea why i am somehow so into bananas these days. i suspect it might have something to do with having sinking stools, which btw are an indication of insufficient dietary fibre. anyway, i think i could eat muffins for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus tea and supper in between. but i can't tell for sure because i've only tried breakfast, tea and lunch so far.








Damn, I Love Google Images

oh, and as for my corn: IT'S FALLEN OFF! actually i had to peel it off layer by layer after prolonged soaking in a bowl of hot water, and the result is now a marvellous gaping hole in my foot- which of course i never considered when i tried to burn the corn off in the first place. the hole is full of bright pink baby skin plus a bit of corn residue in the middle, so it is altogether very raw and very pink and very fragile and not very aesthetically pleasant. sometimes, i think i am such an idiot.

and i can't wait to watch The Prestige with mark tomorrow! although, unfortunately i foresee it's going to be my only Fun Thing this week. but whatever, fun things first, others later. -boinggg-

TGIF! and saturday, and sunday :D

yesterday i crashed mark's anat tutorial class, where they were learning about the heart and mediastinum. surprisingly, i managed to answer most of the questions from his tutor, so everything was going well. that is, until he asked for 2 volunteers to demonstrate how to auscultate the heart. (and here you should note that auscultate is really just a fancy word for listening to the heart with a stethoscope). anyway, it turned out that mark and i were in for a big time saboh- we were both forced up in front of the class and he had to pretend to be my patient. so then the tutor started asking me questions like 'how would you know where to hear the apex beat?' and so i gave him the rib positions surface marking the heart sounds. but of course, the real problem isn't giving the rib positions, but finding them on a person, and so the next question was 'how would you know where the ribs are?'. and then, before i could say anything, the whole class chimed 'you pALpaTe him!' and burst into huge rolls of laughter. omg i was so embarrassed i wanted to die :x

and in case you're wordering, palpate just means 'to touch or feel'.

so that was my friday afternoon. at night there was mass organised by the catholic med society, and 'living rosary' before that. the living rosary was kinda weird cos everyone had to hold a tealight and pretend to be a bead of the rosary, but it was something different at least. then i did the offertory with thomas, which was the first time i ever got to do the offertory. so exciting!

and a quick corn update! good news is that the corn has finally hardened and is half-off, meaning that it's stuck to my foot only by a bit of skin at the bottom. i'm sure i can peel it off already, but as i foresee it might involve a bit of pain, i am too much of a pussy to do so. bad news is that it looks grosser than ever now, like a piece of rotting chewing gum all rolled up and yellowish. and it is on MY foot- yucks!

today, i was going to go running with aud at bishan. i had cleared my afternoon and psyched myself up for something Rejuvinating and Invigorating.

then it rained.

so, i just lay down and smiled at the raindrops as they fell to the floor. i wish i could say i decided to pack my things and head off to the gym, but instead, my heart was doing little hops of joy as i saw a perfect plan of laziness materialise before my eyes.

sigh. as far as fitness is concerned, i believe i might just have reached the point of no return. i am content to be inactive, as long as i can laze around in peace, with adequate TV and food. which means that today was a good day, because my mom washed 3 apples for me and put them in the fridge in a special bowl, and apples are my current favourite fruit in the world. haha, and butter cookies of course, but those don't need to be washed.

if i had been born a pig, i think i would have been the best pig the world has ever seen.

inspired (or should i say: distracted from work) by aud's clip of the bulgarian group, here is one which i think is pretty good:




What The F***?!

i'm sure a lot of the throws look easy but i can assure you that having a flying club land on your forehead knocks the life out of you for a few minutes. which is why i admire gymnasts so much, as i'm sure you all do now too.

personally (and this comes from someone who has LAZY as her middle name) i think it's not so much the difficulty of the moves but the class with which they're done. and i think the trick is in making it look effortless, yet not lacklustre, which is of course even harder than pretending to look cool when you're being strangled by a rope. kabaeva has never been my favourite, but her performances are unbelievably smooth. she's the one with the ribbon at around 3.02; see what i mean!

oh and aud, your bulgarian group's ending is in here somewhere towards the end. enjoy :D

after self-medicating last night, the corn seemed to grow even greater and more yellow. i started to believe that maybe it was infected or harbouring some exotic foot-eating parasite, which will eventually completely consume my foot. and that would be terrible because i need my feet to walk! so i stayed up till early this morning obsessing and worrying away, which really just agonisingly prolonged the wait for proper corn cream.

so now i have my salicylic acid, which has turned the area white and flaky and altogether it is highly grossified. i think i can feel my pulse running through the hole, but then again mark says that i might be imagining half of the things. the corn is supposed to soften as the acid breaks down the layers of hard skin, and then eventually drop off.

i await with bated breath! :x

i have two corns on my feet; one under each foot.

i hear the best cure for corns is to gradually burn them off with creams containing salicylic acid, but since i had no access to corn creams just now, i improvised by using garnier blemish remover, which i remember at one point used to work rather well on my pimples. after i peeled off the top layer of dead skin and rubbed in the pimple cream (why does this sound bad? hmm.) i realised that i couldn't walk about as the corns were under my feet. that was an unacceptable inconvenience, so i got my sister to deliver the dressings she uses on her knee grazes, but unfortunately they were all of the wrong size.

my failure at self-medication reminded me of the time mandy slashed my palm in primary school, and miss juan tried to bandage it up. except that she couldn't, because i have sweaty palms which are aggravated by situations of anxiety and trauma.

i think sweaty palms are disgusting, and so last night i dreamt that i was in an operating theatre being prepped for surgery to get rid of them. that's because yesterday during anat prac a professor pointed to the sympathetic ganglion on a dissected standing cadaver and said that's the part which you cut off to cure sweaty palms. and the cadaver was one of the freaky ones which they keep in glass containers filled with thick, clear cadaver juice, plus the ganglion was stained yellow so it looked like a sick little jandiced spider. maybe i have been traumatised for life.

and surely, freudian theory would link this to some kind of childhood emotional insecurity, which might be plausible considering nobody wants to be the kid who can't have a plaster stuck on her palm because it's too sweaty.

on thursday we had this lecturer who told us that we are all useless medical students because when he asked "who's read samuel beckett?" nobody raised their hands. he then proceeded to lecture us on how samuel beckett epitomises the core of humanity, and that doctors must not just be about books. which i found amusing because i fail to see how samuel beckett can be anybody's idea of the human spirit. also, i didn't like the lecturer's tone; you could tell he was annoyed at having to waste his time on such imbecilic creatures as us.

and here was the irony, because it's not like we had nothing better to do than sit through another one of our five daily lectures. joshua came up with this stupid medjoke of a term: "Knowledge Perfusion Rate", which is basically the geek's way of ranking how much and how fast you learn from different lecturers. this one's KPR was negative, which means that we not only learnt nothing, but also became more confused than we were at the start. birth was the death of him. haha.

despite however morose i might have sounded in my past few posts, i've actually been quite happy. school is a real monotony, but i console myself by thinking that at least i'm learning stuff which is all very relevant to my state of hypochondria.

plus, these days sad half-couples are on the rise, and i feel really thankful that uni has been kind to me. i cannot imagine surviving school without having mark around. other people can say what they like, but at the end of the day the only people who really matter are the people who will be there for you when everything else falls apart. and i suppose that includes putting up with massive amounts of little stupid things, such as yakult cravings or paranoia about getting cadaver juice on my clothes or butter cookie shopping or compulsive note copying, or all other Favourite Things which i would be too embarrassed to carry out normally in front of other people :) :)

also, i have just been led to www.frenchsole.com, where the past hour was spent ogling and fantasising. if ever i get to own one of these things, i promise i will carry a plastic bag wherever i go for the shoes, in the unfortunate event of rain or puddles, or other conditions unfavourable to the survival of the shoe.



Sole Mate

today was a Great Adventure for me as i trudged with world-weary limbs to explore a new bus route to tanglin mall. i was meeting my mom and sis there, and by the time i made it to my destination, i was suffering from sleep-deprivation and itchy eyes. but nevertheless, the successful arrival made me a happy camper. then, i trooped along to buy a few roses for my mom, and when i gave them to her i was surprised at how 5 pink stalks can cheer a sad mom up. never underestimate flower power on a woman, i say!

afterwards, the 3 of us went for a Happy Dinner at spageddies. i remember how my mom used to take us there for treats when we were little, and me and my sis would always order the spaghetti with tomato sauce from the kid's menu. then we would sit down happily and sip on our apple juice while waiting for our food, dangling our legs and sliding up and down the big green and red booths. sigh :)

anyhow, while i am a very picky food eater most of the time, one thing i almost always enjoy is italian food. and i have to say i don't understand why anybody orders anything else other than the sizzlelini at spageddies! it comes to you sizzling away in a little black pan, and if you don't smile when you see it you have got to be a moron.


Every Pasta Lovers' Dream

also, i will have to stop posting photos of food here, lest this degenerates into a food blog. how terrible, that!

lately there has been a lot of tension and uncertainty, and through the thoughts and dreams of those around me i am beginning to see a perspective which i should have long ago, but have always closed my eyes to. i am surprised at how naturally it has come to me, that suddenly i would wake up and see my priorities fall into position, each where i always knew they should be, but never truly believed so.

i guess it's true- the faults we see in others are reflections of the things which we yearn to change in ourselves. it's easy to point out the right path, but wisdom alone is not morality. so many times i know i am a hypocrite, yet i have not the strength to act otherwise. and i feel bad, but what can i do? it is too difficult, and too inconvenient.

God has a plan for every one of us, although His plan might not be what we want or expect it to be.

i lapse all too often, but every once in a while someone or something happens to remind me that everything happens for a reason, and we all have a purpose to fulfil with our lives. and when there is no justice, no success, and no consolation, what else can you believe but that?

commercialisation 1 - 0 me

as you can see, i've been forced to redo the tagboard since the previous one now demands you register each time you want to use their service. eat shit!

apart from that bit of crap, the weekend is now upon us and the weekend is good. rest and relaxation: i like. plus, i collected the replacement for my left contact lens which i flushed down the sink 3 weeks ago, and got my eyes checked. to my relief, i am not going blind. i just have dryness under my eyelids, which is probably due to my habit of refusing to blink when i wear contacts. well well, at least i have eyes to blink with- there's a boy in this month's national geographic who doesn't =
also, while editing this template, i was reminded of the time when i was a britney fanatic. to my credit, she was once a perky, toned, and hot dancer who also happened to be an accomplished gymnast. an almost-wholesome idol, until reality reminds you that everyone has a stupid gene just waiting to burst forth.


Before She Started Spewing Babies

hi girls! :)

i've been really busy lately catching up on school work and filing. recently, i've been dumping all the notes i get from school under my table mat, which leaves me space to work on top of them. unfortunately, my table mat is transparent so everytime i look at it i am reminded that i'm supposed to learn half the body in 3 months, and 'tis no joke man. when i think i've finally learnt the muscles of the lower limb, i realise i've forgotten all of the upper limb, and vice versa; life continues as such.

yesterday i was reading the papers about this girl with muscular atrophy, whose muscles have all wasted away till she cant even lift her head from the bed anymore. yet she's cheerful and candid, which reminded me of something i think i forget too often- you can create your own happiness. shit might happen on a daily basis, but that doesn't lessen the impact of the good things that happen too, and happen more. knowing that so many worse things could happen in place of what we receive, is making me begin to be grateful for the many small pieces of blessings i have.

:) + [insert your own real smiley!]

finally, i hope the haze clears fast. at least my conjunctivitis is lessening, but the bad news is that i think i have iritis which is when your iris gets inflammed and makes you see things blurry at times. otherwise, i might be going blind. oh well.

a most horrible thing happened to me when i was driving to school today: as i was leaving the sliproad into the CTE from ang mo kio ave 1, this lorry cut across from the right suddenly and STOPPED right in front of me at the side of the shoulder. omg i had to brake like mad, and even then i was like 1 inch from his tail lights. i can't believe there are such fuckers driving on our roads man. i could have died!

so, considering that shaky incident in the morning plus an accumulation of moodiness, today has been quite a shitty day. but the good news is that IT'S THE END OF THE WEEK!

also, i had this super good penang prawn mee at this penang food fair at kopitiam in raffles city. omg the soup was YUMMY! and since i'm a soup person and a prawn person, it definitely makes me a prawn soup person, haha. i think the penang version has coconut milk in the soup or something, but its definitely much thicker and flavourful than the usual hawker kinds. heehee

then, i found that plaza sing was having a mooncake fair at the atrium, and coincidentally, there was a uzumaki stall! in case you didn't know, uzumaki is japanese premium soft serve ice cream. actually i only found that out today too, and what a discovery it was :D i had the blueberry flavoured one which was great, like the perfect blend of creamy and fruity. apparently their bestsellers are the matcha green tea and wasabe flavours, but there's something about green ice cream which just puts me off.


Happy Things for a Sad Day

midweek into the first week, and i'm feeling my steam running out. apparently, the body which i have spent the past 8 months pampering is not responding well to sleeping at 2 and waking at 545 everyday, especially not without the afternoon naps it is so familiar with.

and so, healthwise, things are not so good. eating junk food has resulted in a massive nuclear explosion on my face, but pimples are the least of my problems today. i also have a huge ulcer on my lower lip which i keep biting inadvertently whenever i move my mouth, which happens to be a lot by the way. plus my lips are cracking AND i'm having an eye infection which has given me a red and swollen left eye.

besides the obvious inconvenience of having to wear shitty specs which keep slipping down my nose every 0.5 seconds, the other disadvantage of my current state is that i am in great physical pain. if pain tolerance is controlled by hormones, i think it would explain why my present pain threshold is subzero. i am experiencing an abundance of Annoyance Factors, including my 3 week old fringe which is now at the perfect length for flying into my eyes whenever i am already in an irritated mood. if next week i go to school with a chinadoll fringe, you will know why.

also, i have looked up the carcinogenic properties of my favourite foods, and here are the top foods you should avoid if you're interested in staying cancer-free:

containing Acrylamide:

1. butter crackers = MEIJI CRACKERS :( :( :(

2. wheat crackers

3. potato chips

4. french fries = macdonalds' large fries :( :(

5. baby teething biscuits

6. chocolate chip cookies = famous amos and chips ahoy :(

containing Nitrosamines:

1. Deli meats = sausages, ham, bacon, salami.

2. Preserved fish: cuttlefish, ikan bilis and other salted fish

3. Preserved fruits

4. Beer

5. Meat overcooked at high temperature

containing Aflatoxins:

1. peanuts and especially peanut butter

2. food treated by irradiation, including fruits and fruit juices!

others:

1. Alcohol

2. Caffeine

sigh. it seems like the more we progress, the more we're killing ourselves.

if you liked the henry video, congratulations, you have good taste. if not, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

also, van persie's 2nd goal against charlton was superb. he's always been one of my favourite arsenal players, but it's hard to compete against the likes of thierry henry and fredrik ljungberg, who only happen to be the world's best soccer player and world's best soccer player who models underwear (or world's best underwear model who plays soccer) respectively.

today was backtoschool day, which sucked because we had 4 lectures and 1 tutorial and the first woman who was supposed to teach us bioenergetics was positively the most boring person to ever lecture in the history of the universe. it was like being stuck in a slow movie without a remote control to fastforward yourself away.

i was so bored that i started making funny poutey faces at mark, and i have since realised that i have a special talent for puffing my cheeks out, and then sucking them in just like a goldfish.

oh and then we played this game called: what are the 4 common words in the English language that end with -dous? if you're having problems, suodnerroh, suodrazah, suodneputs and suodnemert! hope that helped, haha :D

then my grandmother told my mom about how she was line dancing when her partner said she was tired, and the next thing she knew the partner had collapsed and was turning blue in the face. and after that she died. so my mom was asking what i would have done if i was there and would i Rise To The Occasion or would i stand around trying to remember the steps of CPR while a life was being lost? i replied that i was a qualified person and got a look of skepticism in return, which i didn't like.

i'm thinking, if i fail as a doctor i will sign up for that pilates instructor course and become a pilates instructor or personal trainer, because i like watching the way muscles move on toned people. or i could also be a chef and own a restaurant which will sell the best banana cake ever because i am now a banana cake fan:





My Favourites!

so the week has been a relaxing one, a fun one, a mildly productive one. in fact i just had king prawns, beef steak, chicken kebab and bread rolls during one of my mom's best home cooked dinners ever... MmmMM :)

speaking of food, i read anthony bourdain's column on singapore food for the new york times magazine and was shocked at how a celebrity chef could wax lyrical on our hawker food. it's in today's sunday times life, and you should take a look and be eye-opened too. i never knew foreigners thought local food was that good!

oh and i have just found my new favourite youtube video:



i don't know why nobody agrees with me about henry!