Showing posts with label intellectual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intellectual. Show all posts

Sunday, May 10

miss madam

And she was one of those tropical blends
Soft to the touch and hard as steel rods.
She mixed the good and bad winds naturally,
Easily, affectionately.
And all who passed refreshed themselves
On the rays of her presence.
Her word-glue maintained the lives interwoven
And her good cheer like warm liquid to the ear.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

meanwhile, i've just been reminded by circumstances recently that having an opinion is better than not having an opinion. and it has been a slow trickle of blogs of late. perhaps it's because it's been a slow trickle of me of late. am i becoming less and is something (someone) else becoming more? i suppose getting the right looming personality looming would be of utmost importance. or maybe it is just because i have just chosen to keep my opinions and expressions and musings bottled up inside where noone will find because noone holds the key. my limited (but growing) knowledge of myself whispers that it is the latter. cryptic cryptogenic cryptosporidium cryptorchidism.



"To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light."





















she did

Monday, March 9

the jelly express

Royal jelly. hmmm. All female bees result from genetically identical larvae, but only those that feed on royal jelly become fertile and end up queen bees.

I wonder if humans had the equivalent elixir or 'royal jelly'. arguably, i do understand how some people might be prone to believe how some prescribed medications taken without a prescription may aid intelligence and performance. Surveys have shown that a significant fraction of students from top universities such as Oxford and Cambridge use drugs such as Ritalin and Modafinil to aid attention and concentration.
Well, i can't decide what my opinion on the matter is. Coffee / caffeine pills / red bull / paracetamol, etc etc have been manipulated and similarly partaken in order to improve study and prolong waking hours. Arguably, with newer drugs, the long term side effects are dubious. Furthermore, academic performance becomes something less meritocratic and more based on 'who's got the most money/ friends with connections'.

But then, having just emerged from the protracted blurry haze that is studying for medical finals, i have just experienced the constant upward struggle that most students nowadays have to contend with: getting connections to get hold of the most number of past papers, knowing people who know doctors who set the exam, spending money to buy the latest Littman stethoscope, paying for medical courses, etc etc... especially promoted by the fact that more than 50% of our paper were recycled questions...

Anyhow, before i further maul my foot further by this continuous stabbing, i suppose most of life is based on such an unfair selection. Nepotism in the workplace, in the selection of political leaders, etc etc... But educational institutions should not be the place where such unfair play takes place and where such behaviour should be clamped down upon. Just as there should be 'markets with morals' (ohhh-ohhh, spot the Gordon fan!!), educational institutes with mottos such as 'The way, the truth, the life' (Glasgow) and Dominus Illuminatio Mea (
"The Lord is my Light") (Oxford) should more so be institutes where such unfairness is discouraged.

Wednesday, October 1

the news today: cigarettes, suicide and mental health

smoking news
so with the new anti-smoking images in place, people who smoke are now forced to come face to face with the consequences of their habit.

i wonder if the people who had allowed this to happen were presented with the same picture of the future would still have gone ahead with it...

"The Bishop of Derby, the Rt Rev Dr Alastair Redfern, added: "I'm horrified by the actions of these people

"I hope they feel deeply ashamed. Here was a very troubled person crying out for help. What he needed was attention, not abuse."

Mike Shewan, chief executive of Derbyshire Mental Health Services NHS Trust, said: "We can't condemn this sort of behaviour strongly enough. No-one knows what was going on in his head, but encouraging him to jump is so wrong."

- taken from the telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3108987/Suicide-teenager-urged-to-jump-by-baying-crowd.html)

obvious conclusions aside, i wonder how it had come to this. what had led to this avoidable tragedy from taking place in a society like ours. goading a man to take his own life... geez. it's like battle royale, except with less hassle and less blood on one's hands...
or is this just one of the few instances in the media when man's depravity did actually make it to headlines?
not great news to be witnessed at a time such as this, i expect.


but i think the thing that troubled me the most was hearing this account of a friend of 17 year old Shaun Dykes:

(paraphrased) "Shaun just did what he had to do, he had to leave behind his studies, his life and move on to a better place."

he "did what he had to do"... mmmmmm.... suicide as something we have to do... ...


just a little bit worrying, no?

Thursday, July 17

work moderately, play moderately.

keeping it real, but at the same time without being heavy-handed. oh the obtrusiveness of these other-classes.... the sign of these times that we are in, despite trying to conglomerate the two, we whizzed past the shop of east meets east. but then when and where do we fall? in between the trenches? the trenches or would they be deemed as the middle-ground. the... permissive hybrids?

but who is that with the quizzical brow and the golden locks? would there be a more archetypal prototype, despite the political-correctness of the audience, we balked in a totally scottish manner and poured foolishness over our reputations. the minutes lasted for hours but all in good stead.


meanwhile, this is london :

also, cherries are the best fruits... the iniquity of english cooks has been replaced by the ingenuity of the mixing pot that is londonium. thank goodness for the French, Italians and Japanese...

Tuesday, May 6

into the ether

so why is it that the _______ are always leaving? coming and going, flitting and flirting, waxing and waning, how moon-like... corticosteroid excess, i do hope not. complex psychoanalytical issues regarding my fears and inner desires aside, it is possibly because the element of their character that drives them to be such peripatetics is what ___ in the first place.
but is this world moving toward one where relatonships are built on fast-chats on skype, bittey-images on web cameras, messages left while we were offline and electronic roses? are man's social interactions going electronic?
mebbe that's the real reason why Britian just can't be bothered with their neighbours anymore... it's rather sad, i reckon. especially when sitting on the tube for an hour entails an hour of silence, head buried in book, or ipod securedly fastened in ear canals... when we are brushing shoulders with a fellow travelling camarade headed in the same direction. nay, we would rather return to our box-apartments, connect to the internet and search for online dating agencies .... where one can be whoever they want to be, say whatever they want to say, reveal as much as they are comfortable with and never have to prove or justify any of their self-proclaimed strengths or watered-down weaknesses... sometimes until it is too late.

Monday, March 10

credence


O love that will not let me go.. Who's the lucky guy? Lucky? I don't know... The weather this week is going to be horrid. There's something very sobering about going into a big supermarket... I seldom, if not never, ever watch the news or read the newspapers. They are very full of themselves, aren't they? I love you very much. I hope you are watching... Well, it sounds crap so I think you should just stay out and get a drinkk.... makes us forgetful of truth. Surrounded by sceptics. You just need to have an aim in life. None of your beeswax. Your story just keeps getting better and better... There will be no new revelation until you go there. Mei Ling, I know you...

It's uncanny how people can surprise you. It's so beguiling of life to be so much scarier and sublime than fiction. Beguiling, but also surreal... Beguilingly surreal: sin is always more insidious than humans imagine, true love forces us to muster up more so much more courage and strength than we naturally possess and grown men still fight battles that bring them to their knees. yes, life... ... is more unbelievable than fantasy.

Sunday, November 25

monochrome

a weekend of chats. such is life, which gets in the way, which leaves emotions unstirred and words unspoken. of late, i'm coming to realise it isn't so much what is said between individuals that unite us more than what is unsaid...

but i guess that notion leaves the risk entailed with the assumption of an unchecked sentiment: that of disappointment.
When will we ever be perfect? Not in this life, of incomplete rainbows, but in the next...



"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." - 1 Cor 13:12.

but in the meantime (nora), it will always be grey, never black and white...

Monday, November 19

C is CC.

"We need to recognise the inconsistency between how late-modernism capitalism defines human beings and how christian faith defines us. Because of the covertness of this formation, Christians are often not alert to what they are becoming... the disciplinary mechanisms of Disney, MTV, and the Gap are so insidious and covert, we don't recognize the way in which their message - and their vision of the human telos - is shaping our own identity...

"But the church must also do a third thing: enact countermeasures, counterdisciplines that will form us into the kinds of people that God calls us to be. Too often we imagine the goal of Christian discipleship is to train us to think the right way, to believe the right things. But the ultimate goal of sanctification and discipleship is to shape us into a certain kind of person: one who is like Jesus, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), loving God and neighbour, caring for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger (Jer 22:3, James 1:27).... According to Scriptures, knowing the truth is only instrumental to ultimately doing the truth (Jer 22:6)."

- James K.A.Smith. Who's afraid of Post-modernism? Baker Academic. Michigan. 2006

Tuesday, October 30

bats ears

update:
whilst having my nostrils examined for nasal septum deviation and having my cartilage ring and earshape carefully scrutinised today, i was made to feel like a little girl again!!

meanwhile:
i think my surgery attachment started to take a dip when i left general surgery. orthopaedics was the culprit. power tools on osteoporotic femurs just didn't do it for me. especially when the surgeon's drilling away into the medullary canal with bone marrow spilling out the head of the femur, out of the patient's proximal thigh... nope, orthopaedics is DEFINITELY not for me...

anyway, it be 3 more days til carol's back in glasgow..
these last 10 weeks of peripheral postings has totally gotten to me. missing glasgow and being forced into a position of incessant nerding does have its palpable effects on an already socially-challenged medical student in the gloomy british island... but i guess 'downtimes' like these does press one to realise more certainly that God does have His plan for all of us.. and that He does care more about our character than our comfort. Paradoxically (yet so very typical of Him), He is the source of all our comfort.

today's revelation:
human beings are created with the innermost desire to know truth. without knowing truth, our souls will not be still!

God's promises... God's promises...

meanwhile, i promise myself to have a refuelling of social life once i'm back in glasgow.. i must, i must, i must! dear friends, be warned.

Sunday, September 23

great reads

to eat the humble pie of meeting someone whose achievements are beyond the grasps of your repertoire is rather tasty, especially when done over hot chinese food. however, i dare venture by saying that had i the time and energy not taken up by trivial trifles that seem to intrude at the opportune moments, those endeavours would be similar to what i would have chosen to pursue.
but well, it's been a year and with the benefits of retrospection, has it been fruitful? has carol been all that she was destined for (and more) or have i just been letting inefficiency run its course through the mundanities of the onslaught that is life?

i'm not too sure.. in this last year, a friend has gotten married (yesterday, to be fair to myself), some have started their jobs as junior doctors, some have climbed mountains, others have climbed more than 2, some have their names in journals, others have picked up and mastered an instrument, one has produced a cd and has formed a professional band, etc etc.. the list goes on.

are my efforts resulting in fruition or am i just drawing back too soon? hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Saturday, August 18

the mind's fruits


"There are always guys who hold on to the nostalgia of old devices that can't be bought with money." - Batou (SAC)

With the present state of things there is a certain push towards my recently-unvisited love with psychoanalysis and neurology. Memories and the effects they have with their related structures - the hippocampus : one of the oldest, also the most susceptible to ischaemic insult. Perhaps there is a reason why we are not meant to hold on to the past. Maybe its absence protects us? Maybe the past impedes our future, impedes our progress.

All of Christian life is an upward progression... Saying 'no' to the things of our old days, our old ways... for we are never born with the fruit of the Spirit. But we possess these things in increasing order.

The human brain is supplemented in areas in which are practised, pertinent and relevant to our daily living. So why dwell in and develop habits of the past when we are called forward?

_ _ _ _ _ _
We already possess the power...

Monday, May 7

nerd love


soo. i have decided to take a break and present some findings from the nerd world applicable to the real world...

There is no such thing as the perfect textbook
there is no such thing as the perfect textbook. i mean, personally, Janeway(see above) is the man for me, but Janeway tends to have information on the same subject everywhere (eg. information on T cell receptors (TCR) can be found on pages 116-117, 128, 193 and 149-154.), his diagrams have the utter worst colour combinations (primary colours don't go) and he is a bit outdated.. (who doesn't know that there are 3 different types of Tregs and that Tr1 and Th3 are kinda obsolete?).


Similarly, there is no such thing as the perfect relationship, perfect person or perfect friend. But, like Janeway, there are just somethings in your life, that if you remove, it'd be analogous to cutting your right arm off. My Janeway is smothered in pencil marks, hi-lights, coffee / green tea stains and has earned the dog-ears of a well-read textbook. I know Janeway for all his inadequacies and strengths (which far outweigh the former), and if i one day woke up to see him gone, i'd be devastated.

There is such a thing as the perfect book
However, there is also such a thing as the perfect book. My bible, like janeway, has been with me forever and i've laboured into its pages for years and years. One thing different is that the bible, unlike other texts, is ALIVE. i mean it. While i am never faithful to any one book at a time (like a TCR, i am promiscuous) and tend to have 4 books at a go at the same time (hey, what can i say? I have many different needs), I find that the bible is the only one that has life-giving properties. Don't ask me to explain this in any other way, but it's supernatural. And the fact that it is written over a period of about 4000 years by multiple authors and that they all agree on the same thing is just utterly mind-blowing.

We need to go deeper
On the surface, Janeway looks incredibly daunting and reading one bit on its own can be totally taken out of context. However, persistence and perseverance has paved the way to understanding... Similarly, Romans 15:13 - we will only have joy if we know Him and we will only know him if we study about Him...

In conclusion, i'd just like to say that nerds can still have a life outside of their books... and the delving into specifics can open a world of knowledge that is broadly universal. %)

Sunday, December 31

FREEEEEeeedooommmmmmmM

it's no wonder...


and these are a few of my favourite things (that i have been indulging in of late):

  • burying my nose in books
  • watching a significant no of films (11 films in 14 days)
  • going for walks on the beach and stuff
  • travelling to northern shores
  • trimming ferrets
  • playing poker (and winning rather ruthlessly... *evil laughter of a wud-be-rich girl*)
  • blinding cows
  • burying myself in my sea of thoughts

watching a significant no of films :
has been a very thought-provoking experience for me. it's the brilliant geniousity of geniuses i allow myself to be taken in by, rather than subscribing to the hackneyed contrivings of the mediocre.. so yes, mr. e, i am quite happy sitting in my palace of elitists, intellectuals and lofty attainments... worry u not about the length of my hair, for i am in no need of rescue. i shall prove u wrong cos i so lurve a challenge.... (as if u didn't already know that ;P)....

reading... for i oft wander in wonder at wonderment of wonder.

right.. enough of this grandiose garrulousity and prodigious verbosity, i hear u cry, o wearied reader...

photos of my trip up north to the crazy country of the nooks and crannies, neeps and tatties...



the simpson's farm
losing a dog in a shelter home full of old people was a very memorable experience! (running in and out of rooms full of wizened, elderly people on their tripods and armchairs, calling 'kirsty, kirsty!')

scotland is beautiful

at the heart of winter
my kind of beautiful place


venturing into... hell's luuuuummmppp... ooooooooooo

Friday, December 15

strictly come dancing

























ceilidh, ceilidh, ceilidh!

it's alll about the chat, really.... nothing is complete without the banter.. i know i say this tOOOoo much, and i know if u google my blog, the word 'banter' probably appears more than 500 times, but i just cannot emphasize how great the craic has been of late...


this can be attributed to the following reasons...

  • HOLIDAYS ARE HERE!!!!
  • carol loves dancing
  • proper, sweaty, scottish ceilidh (there have been many of late...) and a good ol game of knights, horses and cavaliers.
  • immunology students kick ass!!! (big time)
  • carol's rnb club rules. (both meanings)

mmmm... carol loves a man who can dance.

the side effects of having great craic...
  • coming home smelling of weed (don't worry mom, didn't touch the stuff!)
  • coming home at 330 am in the morning absolutely shattered and having to be up in 4 hours
  • coming home at 2am the next night even more shattered
  • having to do the same tonight
  • seeing drunk medics immersed in debauchery
  • having to look after drunk friends with lowered *ahem* inhibitions


























the joys of immunology.




























the joys of the celts

mad mad mads's

meanwhile, conversation topics have been of a seriously diverse scope of late... 5 hours today at mads's was EPIC.... carol loves like-minded people... who not necessarily have to share the same morality or perspectives on things, but who has a mind which thinks in the same way as mine....

carol loves intellectual fodder... mmmmmm.....