Thursday, September 29

i see dead people

i see dead people.... three days a week, from 10-12 in the mornings... yup yup... still trying to get used to being greeted by a cadaver every morning from tuesdays to thursdays...

been squirted with 'juice' twice already since tuesday... 'juice' is my euphemism for the fluid contained in the meat of the cadavers that very often splashes out upon dissection.. eeyucks. *shudders* we were just discussing this that day and this is the order of bodily fluids i'd prefer to get splashed on me:

first on the list!! - 1. urine! it's clean.. really. compared to what the rest are like..

2. vomitus - pre-gastric over post-gastric.

3. blood - come on, girls are used to this...

4. faecal material - normal stools over watery diarrhoeal sorts.

5. fats from live bodies

6. 'juices' from cadavers

7. fats from cadavers

the anatomists taking us are pretty darned cool as well.. one of them looks like captain weetos and the other one looks like the short prince from shrek.. heh... weetos (not his real name) is totally eccentric! asking us to watch 'pride and prejudice' so we can observe keira knightly's cervical region : "ohhh! what a gorgeous long neck - oh! her sternomastoids!"



school's been pretty alright. easy-going lectures, roughly 1-2 hours a day of reading - easy peasy..

weather in glasgow's getting from good to bad... honestly, it could be sooo much worse... my flatmate isn't back from malaysia yet.. so that means i'm on all on my own!!!! which means i'll have more time to actually finish reading the books that i've started on!! haha.. that count currently stands at 4... "zorro" by isabel allende, "daring to draw near" by john white, "extravagant worship" by darlene zschech and The Bible, by God...

God is good, all the time! *wide grin*

Tuesday, September 27

SIN in style -GLA in black, green and white


queensway kid
drinks in singapore!
out with the girls
at the esplanade









and then we went from this


to this ...

and the party continued on!!!!!

glasgow city



spot the celtic fans

Monday, September 26

glasgow, you dark horse

can't wait for tuesday, when i'll get wireless access in the uni and i can finally post all my photos from glasgow and singapore!

i've had soooo much fun in singapore with aaron and the fun just rolled over to glasgow when we got back... but my pancake started work in bloomberg london today!!! woo hoo!!

yeah, totally rekindled my love for glasgow as well...

things we got up to:

1. dinner with the pans.
2. watched a celtic match at celtic park! celtic beat inverness 2-1!!! wooo hoo! c'mon hoops!
3. dined at 78 st. vincent street. which served the best food i've ever tasted in glasgow!!
4. a city tour in black and white!

things heard from the audience at the celtic game:

c'mon hoops!
c'mon celtic!
the referee is a bloody wanker!!!
the coach who made that guy a professional player is a bloody.....
fucking wanker!
bloody fucking wanker!


yuppers.. so now i'm more in love with glasgow and more in love with pancake than ever before!!!!!!!! hahahahaha...

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.
.

school starts tomorrow with head and neck anatomy with kenneth and weiyao.. kenneth's getting funnier and funnier by the months... is gonna be a very interesting next 5 weeks... went jogging this morning with kenneth, alfred, khammy and sarah along a scenic route. was by a river with ducks and swans in it, and it was overlooking the rooftops of glasgow.. a picturesque grey sight... was gorgeous..

anyway, gonna head off now for some fun and games at a friend's place!

photos up soon!



Thursday, September 22

glasgow

i love my babeee!

summer has come and gone... and i'm back to the dreaded city of the lassez-faire-styled monotony that is glasgow.. *pout*

well, it's not all that bad... at least aaron's still around.. but only till sunday when he starts his job down in london... but in the meantime, it's gonna be me getting used to life in glasgow again..

Friday, September 9

my new love...


The mahogony, back, sides and
neck provide rich, warm lows
and great resonance. A Fishman
Sonicore pickup and SST
preamp accurately amplify the
guitar's natural sound when
plugged in. A spruce top,
rosewood fretboard, pearl dot
inlays, on board tuners and
die-cast chrome tuners...

ooooooooooooo... don't you just wanna cry when you see check this work of art out??? wait til you play her...

aaron's coming soon!! woo hoo.. does carol have enough love for 2?!?!?!?!?!?!

.

.

.

.

stay tuned... (haha.. geddit? tune? tune the guitar??)

Sunday, September 4




photos as promised!!




hainan food.hainan vegetables.thebestpeachi'veevereaten.hainanese chicken.


a well.the beach my grandfather took off from.lunch.a window. village women.




see food?.the villagers checking out some old photos. the village. the village school.
haikou airport

eat before noon

hainanese chicken!

the cutest puppy, not for consumption.

yin and yang

dao

miss china

Friday, September 2

wo shi zhong guo ren

ahhh... the wonders of china... where could i start??? somehow english seems to fail me right now.. so let's switch languages!! wo3 zai4 hai3 nan2 dao3 xiang3 shou4 le4 shen1 huo2 zhong1 de4 xiao2 zhuan3 lie4 dian3. ping2 shi2 bu4 zhong4 shi4 zhong1 guo2 ren2 de4 wo3 zhe4 ci4 da4 kai1 le4 yan3 jie4.... zhe4 shi4 yi4 xie1 wo3 zai4 zhong1 guo2 zuo4 dao4 de4 guan1 jian1 dong1 xi1:

1. jiang3 hua2 yu3

2. he1 cha2

3. chi1 chai4

4. kan4 qing1 qi4

5. jie1 chu4 dao4 fo2 jiao4 he2 dao4 jiao4 de4 wen2 hua4

6. qu4 le4 mu3 qing1 de4 jia1 xiang1

7. shai4 hei1 pi2 fu1

8. chi1 ming2 fu4 qi2 shi2 de4 hai3 nan2 ji1

yup... was a real eye opener for me... drank lots of tea and realised the mysterious wonders of chinese medicine. caught a cold from over-working in singapore before flying off for hainan and it was worsened with the really little sleep that we got from the first few days of the group-touring cos we had 630am starts and our days ended around midnight... so yeah. was quite miserable and irritable for the first few days... then we went round to this cha2 guan3 and had some of this
苦丁茶 (Ku ding cha (Foliun Ilicis Latifoliae)) .. xian1 ku3 hou4 yan2.... our tour guide (who really liked me btw...) said that it'll really help my cold and asked them to brew it a little stronger. and it's miraculously cured my runny nose and i felt soo much better from just 2 cups of it!!! i was soo much better the next day! this is a trademark tea of hainan dao. it grows on trees that reach between 20-30m high, and can only be found in 2 places in china : the sichuan province and hainan dao. it used to be used as a medicine and everyone should find out more about it by clicking on it!!

so yes. other than finding out the holistic goodness of tcm, i also visited my mom's village in wen chang village. it was amaazing. the village people were all so nice and friendly and their skins were so dark and rough from farming and working. they prepared a marvellous lunch for us as well, together with the famous wenchang ji. yes.. famous hainanese chicken. yeah. also visited the place where my grandfather took off for singapore from. my great grandfather was the captain of a chinese junk that took people to singapore.. it was quite an experience.. to be standing on the spot where, almost a century ago, my ancestors made their epic journey to singapore... all the struggles our forefathers went through to bring us to where we are today.. i've never truly felt the weight of that famous chinese line till now.

i was also reading a commentary on the chinese communist party (ccp) during the trip and it's made me, unprecedentedly, understand the strife of the chinese under communist rule. also, i've just discovered that china has more than 5000 years of history!!! that's even before roman civilisation!!!!!!! (ok, you may make fun of me cos i'm slow...) and and and... i've become a zhen1 zhu1 expert!! i can now tell you all there is to know about pearls and how to distinguish a real from a fake! did you guys know that empress cixi was the woman who owned the most no. of pearls in the history of mankind??? she may even be the woman who ate the most no. of pearls as well!!! yesh. and i'm on my way there to beat her record cos i acquired 2 more pairs of pearl earrings, a pearl bracelet and a pearl pendant!!!!!! thankew daddy! heee...

oh OH... and i finally threw away my white slippers.. i'm sure all of you who know me well would be well-aqcquianted with my white slippers.. i wear them like 80% of the time... it was about time to say goodbye to flip-flop-dress-downingness-and-associated-laziness.. although they've been with me to beaches in australia, thailand as well as china... not to mention east coast park of course!! yesh. i left them behind and bought a pair of heels from china! they're very chinese and remind of me a chinese woman - fair, elegant, reticent and slim. i'm calling her china. (yes, i name my shoes) pictures will be up in due time!!!!

what else did i get up to? oh yes... gen1 qing1 qi4 men2 liao2 tian1. yups.. some of my mom's distant relatives in hainan work as pe teachers in the schools there. and their kids are absolutely brilliant. were shown round lots around hainan dao... buildings in china are... in 2 apt words : long2 zhong4. they've got so much space in hainan that they can build the biggest and most magnificient structures and roads. and the chinese do love their greenery and gardens and water.

so all in all, i'm a convert. wo men dou shi zhong guo ren. hahaha.. we have got so much to learn from chinese history, medicine, culture and their way of life... 3 pots of ku ding cha this morning and now i'm off to san4 san4 bu4. heh...

Friday, August 26

my family

This Friday, my father is in icu for two month my father was in ICU because he smoke very much and the smoke called Gudang garam. My father was lonely in the hospital.
That's why my father always smoke everyday my father can smoke one day two times another day 2 times.
My father love to smoke very much. When he was in hospital he don't love to eat but he love to drink apple juice.

-Aziz, (not his real name)8 years old, when asked to write about his family.

why men do this to their children, i have no idea. honestly, negative energy is just passed on from person to person, can't anyone see that? a boss yells at a man, the man goes home and hits his son, his son goes to school and picks on his classmates, his classmates get depressed and do badly in class...it's a simple fact of life.
i wonder if negative energy were visible, how many of us would be tainted with its mark? how many of us who have played a part in protracting its works?
it's a real world we live in, yes... but that's why God is here - He makes life so much simpler...
but still, it saddens me when sometimes children suffer the brunt of pent-up anger... children - on whose small shoulders the rest of humanity depend upon.

Wednesday, August 24

i love aaron pan

charlie and the chocolate factory was aammmmmmmmmmmaaazzzzzzzzzzzziing!!! despite that overhang, straight yellow teeth, weird hair, pale complexion and high-pitched "WOW"'S, my dear johnny, you still oooozed the sex appeal... and someone tell me where i can get me one of em oompa-loompa's... they're amazing... but then, why do i need another minion when i have my pancake? heeeeeeee... anyways, check it out at the official site! definitely a must-watch, cos it's never too late to be a kid again! next conquest : jungle book! who has the dvd, lend it to me please!!! my mom has it on LD (hell, she may even have 2 copies) but she's kept it sooo well that she can't even find it now... mothers eh? maybe it's got to do with the whole hunter-gatherer theory of men and women.. are all women closet kleptomaniacs? discuss...

meanwhile, i'm missing my pancake... :(



can't remember what this place was called.. but i just remember it being a friggin' sunny day in london. so sunny i was tanning my toes while my pancake was getting a drink. don't we look so good together?? and all the people said, "awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww" i can't wait till you get your ass down here come september the 9th!!! yipppeeeeeeeeeeeee! we'll paint the town RED.


relief teaching today was, for the first time, at boon lay gardens primary school. pri 2 kids! they're the cutest! there was this malay girl who was sooo pretty, with the most biggest black eyes and the coolest hair! her parents sell nasi-something at the nearby hawker center. she didn't have enough money for reccess, but she was hungry, so i bought her a packet of milo and let her drink it in class. aren't i a cool teacher? anyway, the first thing she did when i entered the classroom was give me this card with the words "to my greatest teacher" on it.

me: why did you give me this?
malay girl: it's for you.
me: (confused) but why?
malay girl: i bought a lot for teacher's day.

hahaha. a very endearing case of when it's the thought that counts! she's officially my favourite student of allll! at the end of the day, she was even quite sad when i told her i might not be taking her class the next day and and and! she even threatened her classmate who said he didn't like me. standing up for me??!!! my heroin!!

and then there was this cute wee chinese-malay girl who was plumb and with newly-acquired adult 2 front teeth who was so bent on going to the water cooler... she made me smile at her persistence.


chinese-malay girl: teacher, can i go to the water cooler please?
me: (pointing to her blue water bottle that was 25% full)but your water bottle still has water in it! no! sit down!
1 minute later, she returns with an empty water bottle and a wet mouth...
chinese-malay girl: ok, i finish aredi! can i go to the water cooler now please?

seriously take my hats off to teachers.... never experienced the feeling of loving and hating the same kids, and wanting to scold and laugh at them at the same time... hahaha.. kids.

anyways, it's official! the girlies and i are going to hk this december!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just recalled that we've been to sarawak together on that geography trip and it was sooooooooo fun! well, hongkong will be 10 times that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but hong kong excitement will have to wait, cos i'll be to hainan dao this weekend with my fummylee! i'll be leaving on the 27th and back on the 1st! but i'll still be contactible on my mobile. haha. half expecting to see female kleptomaniacs ruling over their husbands, lots of kampung chicken chased by village boys, lots of sandy shores and palm trees and all the time in the world to reeeeellllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaxxxx....




Monday, August 22

as i walked out one evening.



in gotham penthouse. along clarke quay.me.jin.may.denyse.kunies.


it's been such an eventful week... so many people to see, so much conversation made, so many things said, so much joy shared and yet so little of it retained in the mind's memory... how much of all we're experiencing in the fleeting moment do we truly retain? i wonder if we'll have the memory of our eternities in heaven? (see poem)

God is so good, You've driven me to tears so many times this week, and this is just the beginning. Sometimes i just want to stop and worship you for an eternity, for a forever, to stand in your awesome presence and to forget myself, to let You be me... God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good. Amen!

Been watching lots of foreign films these past few days, thanks to william's generous loan of what must have been more than 23, 351, 231, 724 dvds... when i go to china this weekend, i'm gonna get me my own collection! 80c i piece, i heard! foreign films are ace. a breath of fresh air amidst the usual hackneyed hollywood productions that we usually get. this foreign film frenzy has also led to the discovery of yet another film that is ranked as one of 'carol's favourite films of all time'... *standing ovation* also watched 'napola' in the cinema, which was one heck of a good film... hail foreign films!

went for sarah's american lit class on thursday, and it was soo very interesting! ooh, i love literature.. after which i started on a bit of medicine revision in the nus med library! i absolutely looove that library. it's got like EVERYTHING.... how very unlike the glasgow med library where there's such a limited range of medical books, where you can't get titles such as 'vertigo' or 'eye movements in sleep', but you can find like 20 copies of the 5th edition of kumar and clark... plus it's got this old rustic charm to it, which is soo very conducive for studying! (ok, so i'm a nerd, but i'm sure you already knew that...)

also managed to have 'semi-lunch' with jin jin and tony for a wee while! hee. jin jin, if you're reading this, you guys look really compatible, i just realised! ;)

also went for the nus sports bash, aka 'spash' at gotham penthouse to support chia!! woo hoo.. took tons of photos as usual! heh. but honestly, clubbing is sooo not my thing anymore...or maybe it's just cos the music sucked soo bad. think i'm getting to be quite a fuddy-duddy.. crap.. where's all that energy gone?

what else have i been up to? oh yes, hsbc treetop walk with mommy and daddy! which was something out of the ordinary. took about 2 hours to trek there and back and got caught in the tropical rain the in the tropical rain forest on the way back. arghs. bet you guys didn't know that singapore's home to the largest ant species.. those things are like 1.5-2cm long... only managed to see one of those little buggers..and i managed to hold back the urge to step on it. and the first monkey we saw was the one strolling on the zinc roof of the ranger's station..ironic eh?

played tennis again with lester and cj on saturday! yay!!! i lurrrvvveee tennis! was absolutely knackered after that cos it was right after the 2 hour trek.. and i'm all ache-y now.

and then on sunday, it was church, church and then dinner at ivanna's place with the goh family, minus ivanna + sarah! yay!!!

going out for charlie and the chocolate factory with jun later, but not before dinner with the girlies (minus priscilla)!!


dear dear johnny, it's been too too long...
meanwhile, i shall leave you with this poem that captures some of my thoughts on time...which to me, is such an elusive thing. it exists and yet it is immutable, amoral, forever forward and yet perfectly constant...we live by it and are ruled by it, in a way. i dunno... i guess in heaven with God, we will all be standing outside time, since we'll be there for an eternity and since God exists in more than 4 dimensions...
but in the meanwhile, man-to-man, this is all we have:

As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
“Love has no ending.

“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

“I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

“The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.”

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
“O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

“In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

“In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

“Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.

“O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.

“The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

“Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

“O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

“O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.”

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

Tuesday, August 16

lucy in the sky with diamonds

from rahul's blog, dated july 8:

'...carol and william, the original ‘other guests’ were notable absentees, considering that the point of meeting up today was to go over to carol’s place to check out the medical paraphernalia there. mind you this is no ordinary medical stuff she has.this is what she told us last summer: apparently some acquaintance of her gave her one of those skeletons that doctors have in their offices (or at least, like how they do in the movies) and it was a real skeleton, made from the bones of a real dead person. now this is already very dodgy - a stranger giving you a real skeleton for free. however, carol did not see anything to be amiss and claimed the skeleton, which (till today) resides unassembled, in a box. oddly, the acquaintance told her not to sell it for anything less than 300 dollars. it’s all so very strange. anyway, the box is under her study table at home, something which william, raphael and i are absolutely unable to understand how she can continue to disregard. it’s like having someone buried in your living room, really.'

so, the much awaited meeting took place today at my place... william, raphael and rahul arrived in the blistering hot afternoon sun (they probably only had enough guts to do it in broad daylight).. after watching 'the man who cried' on dvd... (which was abyssmal, although for johnny depp, it was worth it...)we headed downstairs to my computer room to dig lucy up...

they were still really skeptical about the whole 'acquaintance' motive so they googled my friend's name!!! googled, can u imagine that? and even googled for a photo of him! they're such clowns...so when we found him to be the author of several medical journal papers ( m's a doctor), i was mighty pleased! we've not been in contact for quite a while, even though we're both in the uk.. but judging from the amount of research he's been churning out, m seems to be doing well....
so our attention was once again turned back to lucy in the box (gift-wrapped for easy custom clearance, m had said...)so after feeling, fondling, mocking and phographing dear ol lucy, they assembled her on my floor and started fooling around with her. hahah.. as for me, i was just plain amused they could be so tickled by a skeleton:

william : and this is the humerus!
rahul : stop trying to be funny la, william!
.
.
rahul : man.. lucy you have serious dental problems.
.
.
william : so shall we say a little prayer for lucy?
rahul : yes... dear lucy, may you rest in peace..
me : ces...
.
.
(while assembling lucy)
rahul : oh yes, i have to take a photo of this.
william : wait, have some ribs...
rahul : what, you think tony roma's ah?
.
.
(on the patella:)
rahul : look raphael, a bone in the shape of play-doh.
.
.

skull+william. skull+rahul.a la hamlet. a la hamlet 2. photographing. photographing again.raphael the caveman.rahul+skull+raphael latching skull. lucy assembled.

ahh, these boys...won't be seeing rahul and raphael for quite a while.. so i guess today was some form of a goodbye as well.

rj wouldn't have been the same without these guys... not the same at all...

Monday, August 15

the sleazy sink in coco latte

me and rahul!

sarah.me.kuan pin trying to touch me...

at coco latte for rahul's sendoff
i'm terribly sorry for the timing error sarah, but not for the wink!!

pleasures

not more than 2 weeks after the massive bruise on my knee had completely vanished, i suffered another contusion on my elbow last night.. sigh.. while trying to wrestle lester into his condo pool, sarah pulled a muscle while i got shoved against his concrete wall (the kind with tiny spokes sticking out)... damn you lester, i will bring you into that pool one day if i have to drag you in with me...

but other than that, tennis last night was really fun! and i dunch care! i wanna play sommore! so, pool-grudge aside, lester, you're the best and you're great and you should ask me along for tennis when you're going to play again!!!

i'm burning.. or at least i feel like i am, but i don't seem to have a temperature. plus i'm constantly getting up early in the mornings cos it's too hot in my bed, even though the air conditioning's set to 22 deg... i think i somehow flicked on the 'ultra-high-metabolic-rate' switch at the back of my head. plus i'm developing quite an appetite..hmmmm... hey pancake, doesn't this sound uncannily familiar? i say, chocolate cakes.. beware...

i love these long holidays, but at the same time, it feels like medicine is slowly seeping out of my brain as well.. i think by the time term starts again, all my medicine knowledge would have dissipated and i would need another 2 months to get it all back in. unless of course i start reading ganong, which i brought back with me.. oooo...but that's too arduous. i think i'll stick to bumming... plus the fact that any semblance of mugging reminds me too much of glasgow and i must say, the experience is still a little too raw for me...

Friday, August 12

'the black haired girl #3'

shiny black panther: okay. this is how it goes.... recently, there has been a yellow monster in the middle of AFland who hordes the little AF factories and prevents manufactured clothes from getting to the needy masses...

lbhg: what kind of clothes does AF have?

shiny black panther whips out a black pda with a luminous lcd screen. pressing a few buttons (with claws, not stylus - no opposable thumbs), he flashes the screen to lbhg.

shiny black panther: this is what we're talking about:

the lbhg stares in awe and esteem. for 5 seconds, she seems lost in her own fantasy world...

regaining her composure, she looks the shiny black panther square in his eyes and says:

lbhg : just tell me what i have to do.

shiny black panther : not you girl, but we....



the next day, the dynamic duo approach the yellow monster's dwelling... as they encroach on the yellow den, a thick miasma overcomes them and a low guttural roar is heard...



lbhg: are you sure we can do this???

shiny black panther: you can count on me...

as they creep forward stealthily, the yellow monster comes into view.





lbhg: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the lbhg's shrieks alert the yellow monster,


but shiny black panther wastes no time in subdueing the yellow monster in one powerful swipe!

once again, peace was restored to AFland and the lbhg was one step closer to her destiny...

~*~*~*~*~* to be continued...