So, i've had one TOTALLY slack week. Changi was having an audit, so "combined teaching" lectures started at 11 everyday. And most of the time they were just nonsense, like random neck presentations and a hell lot of lumps and bumps. Plus there was the cardio tut where the consultant got pissed with us and i fell asleep, although perhaps not in that order.

Now i have a huge backlog of reading to do, like maybe 5 million chapters of talley and browse. Thankfully i only bought 2 books, so i have less to read and don't have to worry about wasting my money on unused books. Haha =x Oh well, weeks 1 and 2 only come, like, once every 7 weeks! They deserve laziness like nothing else!

I also watched the new harold + kumar movie. There are a few priceless jokes, lots of political incorrectness and vaginas and a penis. Probably no big deal since we see "genitalia" (as edwin later put it) on a daily basis, but this was different as we don't usually see them in un-diseased, huge proportions. And also, I wasn't quite prepared for it. Since when did M18 ratings allow for full frontal and lesbian foreplay?? But whatever. I guess I need to Grow Up and Act Mature About These Things.

Oh yes, and I went shopping today! By myself! It was quite fun, and liberating, AND I fell in love with this Agnes B bag. It was like a grey tote (big enough to fit an A4 file!) and had black leather handles. Sadly though, it was like $400+++, so we had to part ways. Perhaps I will see one on ebay soon though. Hmm!

Happy labour day week y'all!

I might as well, since I posted the Sarah Silverman and MadTV Umbrella vids:

Hi again!

This has been probably THE busiest and most tiring week i've had for like a long, long time. So I apologize if the writing is more random than usual. If that is possible, I mean.

Firstly, one of my bestest friends returned from sheep country, UK, and when we first met up 2 weeks ago it was over a surprise class dinner. That's right, I actually managed to orchestrate A SURPRISE CLASS DINNER! And people actually turned up too! Who knew I was capable of such wonders?? Anyway, my fave walker (although soon to be dethroned by the Brothers & Sisters clan, which incidentally returns THIS SUNDAY, whoohoo) seemed much the same, even with her spanking new accessory, ie The Scottish Boyfriend. It was great catching up and bonding over some good old retail therapy, and of course our Shokudo dinner on Wednesday with the dala lala. Good friends are hard to come by, and I will certainly miss the walker now that she's halfway across the world. Sigh ;(

In other news, our luxurious 1.5 week post m2 break ended on monday, with the beginning of this curious thing called a Clinical Skills Foundation Course. Initially the whole hospital thing with its geriatric wards and marathon speedwalking ward rounds was a bit of a shock, and I was totally blur about everything. This was especially so at 730 am in the morning, which is the time we have to REPORT DAILY for ward rounds. How sucky is that??? I mean, when was the last time you had to turn up at 730 for anything??? What is this anyway, flag raising??? That's like so primary school!

Then, there was the language barrier, which is kinda a huge problem, especially when like my first totally Chinese patient found my spoken Chinese to be so ridiculously shit that she gave up and started conversing in MALAY to my groupmate. 'Twas not good. I don't even know how to say simple stuff like 'i'm a medical student' and 'thank you for your time' and hence I suspect that my vocab has shrunk to like 50 words, although this might still be a rather optimistic estimate. I definitely need to do something about this, and the fact that I don't speak a single word of dialect. I may even be forced to resort to watching some of my sister's taiwan dramas! Desperate times require desperate measures, so I guess we shall have to see if I indeed must sink to such new depths. I thought gossip girl was bad enough aldready! Who knows what a whole new universe of TV shows will do to my airy brain, hurhurr.

There were also many gruesome moments, including the one where our urology tutor made us practice performing rectal exams on a sedated 70-something year old man. I was so not one of the volunteers for palpating the prostate gland in 'quick sweeping movements of the finger.' And I am definitely not looking forward to the day when I simply cannot avoid such hands-on experience. Or should I say hands-in. The bad punning continues!

Also, I have discovered that browsing through pages of Browse's (haha, and another one =x) surgical textbook is the perfect way to kill your appetite. If you ever wanna go on a diet or have an eating disorder or something, this seems like the perfect thing. Surgeons are sick people. Patients are sick people too. I never want to become elderly!

On a brighter side though, today things actually picked up. We had to go back to nus for this communication skills workshop, and one of our tutors was this uber cool american gynae who made us role play history taking. I think we learnt more from 1 hour of her than from 1 entire week at CGH. Oh and we had our tut in the OG wards, and there was this little baby in the nursery. She was so tiny that she almost fit into the palm of the hand, and could be lifted just like that! INCREDIBLY cute! I guess it's the little things like this which make all the rest more bearable, and suddenly worth the while.

So that was basically my week. Tiring, but interesting, and definitely WAY more fun than mugging shitloads of bloody bacteria. Sadly, the mugging is piling up though and I have quite a bit of reading to do over the weekend. I also need to find out how to work my stethoscope, as it appears to be a much more complex instrument than one would imagine.

But none of this before some quality TV watching though :D Have a great weekend y'all!

Finally!

I got rather sick of the old layout, and i hope you guys like this new one too :) I resized the main column so it should be more reader friendly, and not to mention better for posting youtube vids :D

Oh and btw the title is a mini tribute to One Republic. I will be posting at a new address too, which will pretty much follow the title of the blog. If you want to know why the title includes 'is', it's because 'theairibreathe' was already occupied at blogspot. Duh!

Ask me for the new link if you know me personally, and want to continue reading my crap.

Laters!

While m3 should officially be starting in about 10 days time, and m2 has certainly been one helluva long freaking year, I somehow feel like maybe I'm not quite ready to make the transition. It sounds silly, but I feel like I'm in limbo somewhere. And quite likely this is not just a hypothetical situation either. There is a high chance of vivas or supps for me, and hence a disarming uncertainty about the future.

It helps that my parents don't really bug me about results, and my mom told me she rather I sleep healthily than stress over my exams. I'm not 100% convinced that she means this, but I suppose it's a nice gesture. Parents should give their kids leeway to screw up big time every once in a while you know. Although, I have a feeling I used up my getoutofjailfree card that once when I got almost straight Fs in j1. So we shall see. At least I still have the sympathy vote on account of being sick and on antibiotics throughout last week and even during the papers. But still. It is no excuse for my lacklustre and somewhat cavalier attitude towards much of the year.

Really, I would like nothing more than to just scrape by and be able to say FUCK MICROB once and for all. I'm not even asking for a good grade or anything, although that would be a nice token in exchange for just about all the life I no longer have. The worst nightmare would be having to repeat 15 exams and 8 months of m2. The bloody bacteria and fungi and viruses just grow whatever fucking way they like, and cause whatever fuck they like, and you just have to know that no matter how many times you skimmed through your notes, you will just never be able to remember which one of them causes congenital intracerebral periventricular calcifications, or even what the hell that is. Once you accept that, you're well on your way to smoking through your essays and making up all sorts of adverse effects with flair and persuasion.

So anyway I'm clearly at a loss as to how I'm going to spend my long and luxurious week and a half of SPRING BREAK, WOOHOO. I feel like i need to do some cardio, and maybe get a tan. But then again what's the point if I'm going to be skulking around in a cheap labcoat for like the next 3 years. Fake tanner is so much easier (and totally NONorangey) after all. I did have a serious intention of completing some instructor course, and hence actually doing something useful with my life, but then I started thinking of all the better ways to spend 2 weekends and 600 bucks. I guess I am doomed to a lifestyle of junk food and sloth, but I have come to appreciate that laziness is truly a glorious feeling.

Oh, and I'm working on a new layout. I'll be moving to a new space as soon as I can think of a suitably noncheesy address that is befitting of a soon-to-be fully constitutional mature adult. Don't hold your breaths though.

A few more days till the viva lists are out, and then the shit will hit the fan. Till then, I am most definitely going to be slacking the hell off. 'Night!

So hi guys. Yesterday was at long last the day of final damnation, and it came in the form of Toxoplasmosis and IgE hypersensitivity MEQs. And of course aminoglycosides and gentamicin had to come out too, together with a bunch of side effects which I didn't actually know existed. Which reminds me, Mark told me about this bumper sticker which is oddly appropriate, and it reads:

Fuck I Never Actually Learnt Shit.

Aye aye to that.