putting on my power suit? not quite..

my note-to-self

pediatrician or plastic surgeon?

had a talk with dr john cassey after the pediatric grand rounds today. small world ~ he was my nugget supervisor last year and a year later, i meet him again in the hospital circles. he looked different today although it's prolly just my failing memory. i did after all meet the man just once. im surprised he even remembers me, even with my reminding him about the nugget thing.

so i did that and asked him how to get into his specialty. he's a pediatric surgeon you see..
now that i have a clearer picture of what paths can be trodden, i'm at a dilemma although this really is a tad early to be presenting myself with such a quandry.

there are basically two paths i can choose:
1) pediatrics ~ be a pediatrician. finito. mebbe express an area of interest in reconstructive surgery...
2) plastic surgery ~ train up, specialize in pediatric reconstructive surgery.

Path 1 is the long and winding path.
Path 2 is the straight and narrow.

Path 1 lets me do what i generally love, but not really love.
Path 2 lets me do what i really love and allows for the capacity to wander over to pediatrics throughout the course of my training.

Path 2 seems to be the better deal ~ short, gives me the freedom to wander all over pediatrics
Path 1 seems to be tugging at my heart. i can't bear the thought of not being a pediatrician even though i know path 2 will get me somewhere close in the end.

decisions decisions. thank goodness they don't need to be made today.

never full

me: argh, you never listen do you?
brain: what do you mean? it's not my fault!! blame the hand.. the hand!!
hand: hey, stop pushing the blame on me. it's that 2nd finger. i couldn't stop it from clicking
2nd finger: eh, if you hadn't placed me atop that mouse button, amy wouldn't have seen that website. it's not my fault i was on top of the button.
me: well nobody told you to move when you were on the button.
2nd finger: nah-uh. brain did.. i couldn't help it, i swear!

rrriggghttt...

have i scared away enough of you?

for those of you brave enough to stay and read on, the offending website was this taiwanese food group on flickr. i mean offending in a good way.. if that's possible. i'm glad i live alone in this little apt of mine. it'd be awfully embarrasing to have someone walk in and see all that drool... *sigh* i'm a glutton, yes i know. i also know that some of you'll agree with me that one can't help but salivate for some hometown local dishes =)

get ready for some food porn... in powerpoint handout order from left to right, top to bottom: ba-zhang (rice dumplings), your typical stall of "lo ba" and other things broiled, chong yo bing (shallot pancakes.. salty, not sweet!), shuay-jiao (meat dumplings), yeee-ah/tang yuan (glutinous rice balls in sweet soup) and oodles of instant noodles @ the local 7-11 store. i couldn't find pictures of the yummy ba-wan that i got L hooked on when she was in taiwan earlier this year... nor were there any pictures of bubble tea that would do it justice but ah well.







i've always laughed at the menus from chinese restaurants, but after trying to describe what some of these dishes are, i can now empathize with the people who came up with those hilarious menus in the first place. things somehow sound odd, funny or plain unappetizing when it gets translated to english. they also end up having names that sound like run-on sentences when a simple couple of chinese characters would've done the trick.

outta all the stuff i miss, i think it'd be the ba-zhang.. but then there's the carrot cake, the da-bing, the lun-piao kao (spring rolls) and and ... argh. i wish it was summer already so i can go back and chow down. so i can maybe swing by singapore and congratulate E in person for her recent engagement with a hug and a catchup session. so i can get away from here. so that i can see my cousins. so that i can deal with "the bold and the beautiful" plotlines that make up life back there. so that i can enjoy the first few days and seethe with frustration when i hafta be with my parents 24/7 for the next few weeks of the break. so that i can say to myself "i can't wait to be back in newcastle" ....hmm. mebbe it's not such a good thing to wish for after all, to want summer to come now.

peas! peas! ... lol, i'm still not over that.

i think i might've hit my head too hard, too often lately ~ i apologize for this loony that seems to have taken over for the time being!

peas on earth

corny corny.. i know, i know. arggghhhh! veggie overdose!! you scream? *grins* this doodle.. i doodled it on a notepad, took a digicam and wanted to color it in but the photo didn't come out so i had to redo everything using circles and an icky mouse. wish i had a tablet =(

anyway, it was inspired by a comment or two involving peas, namely carlos' "visualized whirled peas" comment and joyceline's "peas on earth" comment =)

my caption for this doodle? "we may have peas but shit'll still happen" you can blame everything from the way my faculty works to society in general for making me cynical heh.

hope the weekend's full of peas everyone!

trippie linkie winkies

i wish i could pretend to be cool and say that i found the following links myself, but i couldn't steal the credit from the blog of cool over at cool hunting. that's where i first stumbled across the power strip liberator and the city kitty. mebbe i'm too easily impressed, but i thought both were great ideas. the lightbulb kinda lighted and then fizzled out as i had one of those "why didn't i think of that?!" moments.

and then i saw the spell caster, a must try for fontaholics and flickr fans alike. speaking of flickr, have you ever tried making a post-it note mosaic? by then, cool hunting had earned it's place in my list of bloglines subscriptions and was part of my blogstrolling rituals *yay* been meaning to share these links for a while but never really got around to them and it just sorta accumulated.. here's the last one that i found fun. Airtreks. (it's a flash page, so for those of you whose browsers run away screaming from such pages... you've be warned!) my only gripe is that i can't see the flights/airlines without submitting it for a quote for a travel agent to process. i don't wanna reaaally do that when i've just randomly selected a syd-singapore-taiwan-japan-korea-hk-london-edinburgh-iceland-new york-toronto-chicago-san fransisco-los angeles-hawaii-syd route! at least it told me the price ~ 'twas much cheaper than i was expecting at around either $2k or $4k.. i don't quite remember.

speaking of trips ~ i think i might actually make it to singapore this year! the plan last year was to snitch a quick weekend getaway to singapore whilst in taiwan but that never really happened. too many relatives, too many spur of the moment plans. that's what i've always hated about my vacations back home as i grew older. it didn't matter much right up to about 4th or 5th grade because i was usually left at grandma's house to play with my cousins while the adults did their thing. i started being dragged along to "what the grown-ups did" right up 'til... well now. argh. i hated the spontaneity of it because the places we went to weren't exciting in the first place. the office.. whee! the bank... whee! it was almost akin to harry potter @ the dursleys' except i wasn't physically locked in my room. (speaking of harry potter: lotsa luck shoving all the little kiddies out of your way A! i'm waiting for the kid count and news that you got a copy of the latest harry potter book when you come back!) i would come back from the vacation laden with the latest pens/stationary/gadgets i managed to trawl during my break, but would still come back kinda empty emotionally. it was just one huge month-long shopping trip in a way, interspersed with "spending time with [insert name of random relative]" or going out to massive tiring boring dinners comprising of at least 5 courses. i haven't been back a lot these past few years but the last few trips have been more autonomous, even if it's just from cousins and the rest of the family. i'm currently working on having some autonomy from my parents ~ having minimal ability to read chinese (think pre-school level), being a girl in a more or less foreign country with overprotective saftey-paranoid parents who expect me to be independent, but treat me like a 4 year old... well, it doesn't really tip things in my favor now, does it? since my parents have just moved into a new place there and seem to be settling there for good, i might actually get to feel at home and not at a house this time. hopefully, they'll feel more comfy and stable and ease up with the invisible leash.

haven't really decided on exact dates for the coming winter/summer break but it's ok. i've got plenty of time to work out flight plans. should i do syd-sg-tw-syd or syd-tw-sg-syd or syd-sg-tw-sg-syd ...bleah. a lot of airlines have cut out the sg-khh route so i can't get a direct flight back home anymore >.<

*mulls away whilst drawing the fetal circulation* =)

temporary liberation

there's a little light peeping through the awful storm clouds of late and that's a good sign eh? that horrible meeting with the dean of the school was about attendance. 'twas nice of them to not tell me what it was about and let the suspense nearly kill me for the week. "we support our students" my foot. on the opposite side of the spectrum are all the rest of the people i call friends and family.

to A, with her very sound advice and just realizing that she's sitting there helping me play devils' advocate in a way to preempt certain questions and situations i might've faced ~ i'm very touched at the gesture =) to L, who got more mad than me at the ridiculousness of some of the faculty policies and actions, who squealed more loudly than me when i broke the news of passing ~ thank you for surprising me with so much care and concern =) to E, with his constant intermittent msgs of "how?" ...to N & A for the emails of concern and support. to YJ & F, for the goofy attempts to cheer me up, to P, T, F, A & C for their little notes of encouragement and support on the bloggie.. and just for taking the time to visit in the first place! gawd, i feel like i'm writing some sorta acceptance speech for the oscars or something.. "and to the producers, i couldn't have done this without you. and to my parents, i wouldn't be here without you. and my lovely dog, for his constant support... and the lady from across the street..." really though, despite the aggravations that've manifested themselves as grimaces and stares of death in the past week or so, i really do appreciate what my parents have done. they've stood steadfastly tall in a very brave attempt to remain my pillars of support through thick and thin, even if they secretly think that there's no hope for me. even then, they sit there believing in a miracle just so i won't suffer too much. although it may be rather stifling in large doses, drowning me in too much tlc, it's really sweet and i couldn't ask for more from them =)

i really just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's kept me in their prayers in one form or another. i'm sorry for causing unnecessary worry for those that did, and for those that didn't, i'm glad you didn't worry =) you have no idea how much it meant to me, and how much it kept me sane through these past couple of weeks.

basically, my 3rd year results are out. i passed =) now waiting for 4th year results but in the meantime, i'm thoroughly enjoying this pediatric rotation. it doesn't hurt that this is what i would like to be in the future, but it's also a very refreshing change from general medicine just because everything is new and i'm learning it for the first time.

right now, i'm taking a little break until tomorrow and gonna be painting the town red tonite *wheee*

fuzzily pink

after being away for a week or so, with the first day of my pediatrics rotation looming ahead tomorrow starting at 8.30am and my grades still in a limbo, i feel the way that fuzzy pink blob looks.

that fuzzy pink blob btw, had itself a photoshoot, courtesy of the 2mpx camera embedded in the sony ericsson k750i on macro mode. not too bad a photo quality, i must confess. i was expecting worse. i've got more pix but comp's not happy with them at the moment so they'll all be uploaded later on, prolly straight onto flickr rather than individually introduced here.

as far as how the past week has gone... well there's so much to say! i don't really know where to start. everything's in a muddle, swirling around in my head. things have mostly been on the happy side for a change and that roller coaster my emotions have been hitching a ride on lately seems to have rolled to a quiet chugga-chugga instead.

in a nutshell, the developing world conference was aweinspirantastic! met plenty of new people and did that networking thing, found plenty of keepers in terms of friends, stuffed ourselves with yummy food throughout the conference, heard from very inspirational speakers ~ some were fellow med students, others were doctors working with médicins sans frontières. at the end of it all, i not only took away some invaluable snippets and anecdotes that may be useful in the future, but as a group, we've decided to set up a national body to network all the individual international health groups of each university. think of it as an amsa focused on international health. at universities such as ours without such a group, we're hopefully gonna set one up. would be a waste of time and conference resources ~ would be a shame really, not to.

and then there were the issues! so many injustices, so much to do, so little time, such a great feeling of powerlessness. besides feeling inspired, i was rather frustrated at the end of the conference. felt helpless, felt useless, made me want that bloody piece of paper signed by the dean saying that i've graduated even more than before. all these random, disturbing facts, pictures, faces and stories...every 22 minutes, another child uncovers a landmine and gets hurt. there are communities who rely on food drops every day to survive ~ what happens when the airport is shut down for the day because of a visiting dignitary? what about those people whose village has not only been hit by the dec '04 tsunami, but have to also muster the strength to rebuild after an earthquake, and then a volcanic eruption a few months later? out of the 13 women in labor in the obs ward, 5 were in the middle of delivering their babies when the tsunami hit the hospital. pictures of a random hand on the hospital grounds, a bloated body hanging off the jagged 2nd floor landing wrapped with muddy palm leaves, flattened land up to 8km inland, dead cows, muddy water lines more than a foot high marking the walls of the remaining buildings.. i didn't mean to remember these particular images. they were some of the ones that just stuck as we listened to speaker after speaker, seminar after seminar throughout the conference. makes for some good food for thought.

ok, so that wasn't such a tiny nutshell. i was never good at paraphrasing...
as far as my grades go... the situation isn't as bleak as it seemed last week. i think that besides trying to settle into pediatrics mode, i will be taking up as many religions as i can this week and pray/bow/kowtow to as many gods as i can that things continue to look sunshiny-hopeful.

the verdict of a nerdette

well.. there's nothing really to do except to clean my room so that it's spic'n'span to greet my parents with when they come up here later next week. decided to gush about the new phone in the meantime. it was shipped off from sg friday morning and by noon on monday, it was at the office waiting for me to pick it up. *jaw drops* talk about efficiency! needless to say, it made my day. i paid a hundred aussie bucks less than the advertized prices here, shipping costs inclusive and i got it in my grubby little hands three days before another model hit aussie shores. official launch was today over here. the guy at telstra's never even heard of it when i went to ask last week. it's nice to be able to play the "i need to have the latest gadget on the market in my region" game for once but seriously, this one's a keeper so i splurged with this investment.

it's still growing on me. i still miss my old phone and i'm almost embarrased to have it in the same field of vision as the new phone. i feel like i'm making it feel bad by letting it see a newer counterpart. things have feelings too, y'know! just ask those guys from toy story!

this is my first photoshoot of any phone i've owned. shhh, don't let my old phone see this. i don't wanna make him feel worse ~ planning to get him fixed tho so i can retrieve data and numbers stored in there. nothing was stored on the sim card and i've learnt my lesson lol. backed up everything to sim AND computer now.

anyway, here it is, complete with a running commentary. feel free to imagine whatever tone of narration you wish, be it alvin the chipmunk or darth vader.


well, let's start with some positives. it reeks of new! still haven't taken the plastic protective sheet off yet so you might see a transparent tab peeking from the edge of the screen in some of the pics. being an adamant nokia user, i was kinda worried that the switch to sony ericsson would be a rough transition. it wasn't that hard to get used to, unlike most of the motorola phones where the call and hang up buttons are in opposite positions than those on nokias.


it lies at four triangular paper clips long and bout 2 wide. starting from the top of the phone ~ power-on/off button's at the top, a petite little circular button. easy to push, not so easy to accidentally push. yay! there's also the infrared receiver (and bluetooth too, i'm assuming) at the top of the phone. moving a tad down, there's a media button on the left side and volume buttons (+/-) that double as the camera's zoom control on the right side of the phone. facing you would be the huge screen in the middle of these two buttons. huge screen gets two thumbs and a toe up from me. it's bright, u can adjust the brightness level and you don't need to be at certain angles to read it.


right below the screen are a row of 3 multi-purpose buttons, then a row containing a "back" button, a joystick (which is relatively comfy) and a "cancel" button. then comes the keypad under all that. all of it's illuminated by white backlight. my only gripe about the keypad would be the number "2" ~ it's smaller than all the others due the joystick. with my pudgy fingers, i'm always cautious to not push the joystick upwards when i'm reaching for the "2" button. OOooo... and it also takes a bit of time to learn how to send text msgs again with spaces between words. the nokias have the spacebar button as "0" while the sony ericsson has it as the "pound" button at the bottom right corner of the keypad, so i'm still getting used it. i end up needing to squish my thumb so it can reach into that corner where sun doesn't shine just to use the spacebar, it'd be much easier if i was left-handed...


below all that is the port where you connect "QuickShare" (whatever that may be. i'm assuming it's some form of plug and play) and also plug your recharging cord. you also have a little slot for your memory stick duo, sealed by a tight rubber flap. flip the phone over and you get a 2.0 megapixel camera at your disposal. all you gotta do is open the lens cover to start snapping away ~ very convinient. that was one bonus with the overall design, that lens cover. i'm a klutz when it comes to keeping things in mint condition! the second little bit i squealed over was the led light at the top of the camera side that acts as a flash for your camera and doubles as a flashlight. you even have the option of having it automatically turn off after a minute or blink out an SOS message =)

in terms of "software" and interface, the k750i's got the standard menu represented by icons that magnify (or "do that zoom thing" according to flickr organizer) when you select it with the joystick. it usually loads with a hairsplit-second delay ~ a tad slower than my old nokia but definitely much faster than some of the motorolas when they need a reboot. setting up the phone was a cinch.. it's practically dummy-proof when the first thing you see after turning the phone on and oogling at the pretty startup sequence would be a demo tour of the phone. that includes telling you about the buttons on the phone and gets you to set date, time and ringtone.

the camera's just as dummy-proof to use.. you open the lens cover, the screen automatically becomes your viewfinder and there are various camera settings you can choose. things like effects (off, b&w, negative, sepia, solarize), white balance, picture quality and size, self-timer, turn on macro/night mode and light and a whole slew of other settings. i like =)


my only other complaint (and main factor in reluctance to pull that plastic protective sheet off) would be that it's a fingerprint magnet! the first row of buttons under the screen constantly have my prints on them... you can blame me for oily fingers but i blame the buttons for being lipophilic! if the buttons are like that, i can't imagine how fast the screen itself will get dirty. bleah. there's a whole buncha other aspects of the phone that i haven't mentioned, but hey! i'm still trying to break it in. not literally of course. that was the whole reason i got this phone in the first place. things like the media player, video recorder, all the games and picture/video editors, calendar, alarm, speakerphone, voice dialling, bluetooth, etc.... my fingers are cramping from all the typing and writing i've been doing so if you're reaaally interested, you can go to the sony site and read the phone stats for yourself =) verdict so far? i'm getting to like the phone more and more every day *beams* i've already started to customize it... at this rate, i'll be loving it by the end of the week!

it's all done

finito. *sigh* the last paper was this morning. by 11.30am, i was in the foyer of the Great Hall laughing deliriously. not with happiness mind you. rather, it was with incredulous "omg i can't believe i'm done. shit!"ness that i concluded my round of exams.

i was much happier with my 4th year exams. blissfully unaware of mistakes, but happier nonetheless. the OSCAs yesterday meant for 3rd year was a nightmare. we had a wet specimen of a leg, we had a picture of the medial aspect of the foot, we had bones to pick both for the exam and with the exam, we got biochem results to analyze, inflammatory granulomatous langheran giant cells to diagram, ecgs to interpret, lung function tests to pour over... three whole hours of pure torture. 10 stations, 3 marks each. that didn't mean that each station had 3 questions, 1 mark each... oh no! it meant that each station had 3 questions for one mark each with anywhere from 2 - 4 parts per question ~ one! one mark!

anything after that would seem better i suppose. i don't know what to make of this last mcq paper we had. random stuff thrown in from everywhere but the notes and books i've studied. welcome to my world ~ that seems to be the norm. *sigh*

all that can be done now is maybe take up a new religion or two.. or five.. and pray and hope that i'll pass something this time around. will be leaving for sydney for the amsa developing world conference on friday and staying on in sydney til the end of next week. the 'rents are flying in for their annual visit over here and really, it's a crappy time. they'll be here when my results come out. that's the last thing i want, to log onto the university webby, drench myself with nervous sweat waiting for the results to load and have my parents waiting back at the room to scrutinize my reaction. or worse.. to have them peering over my shoulder as the page loads.

no posts for a while.. i'll either be busy getting ready to do pediatrics/obs/gyn or packing up my stuff for taiwan. crossing fingers it won't be the latter.

muted

a collection of random musings really. some are directed at certain people, others are just plain random. sorry if i scare anyone, i just really needed to vent. i had my icq and msn lists open. i couldn't click on anyone in particular, not because i didn't feel comfortable but because i felt it unfair to unload my troubles onto an unsuspecting friend. so here it is instead, set loose on nobody and everybody.

remember how you laughed when i said i don't go through pms? you were right to laugh, i think i do now. maybe it's just a culmination of everything that's been happening since the end of last year. maybe the dam i've built is starting to crack only now.

i really want you to be happy. seeing you miserable makes me miserable, yet i don't like prying. if there's something you feel like sharing, i'll let you share it when you feel the time's right. in the meantime, i hope you know that i'm here. i wish we could do our mini get-away again... to be free of academic shadows and roam the streets of sydney with a gleam in our eyes, to shop, to marvel, to sail with the dolphins, to gush over random guys, to be absolutely ditzy and feel free ~

you surprised me with your reaction when you found out about the monster. i thought it was kinda sweet back then. how things have changed.. you ask me why. i'll tell you why. i wish i could tell you this in person. you've become the very monster you vowed to bash up all those years ago. no, you're much worse. the monster became but a faded nightmare. you, on the other hand, became my living nightmare. happy now?

i'm tired, i really am. i want to believe that things will end well. it's hard enough trying to do that for myself, yet i can't help but try to keep believing that things will end well for you too. i know you didn't ask for me to, i know you say you know better than to play this self-delusional game but it doesn't stop me from worrying about both our futures. it's depressing to hear you give up now... i miss that fighting spirit of yours.

friggin template's bugging the hell out of me. so is msn not working. it's averaging about 1 out of 20 msgs getting through. net fart, he calls it. glass ceiling, it feels like. guess you could say i lean towards the perfectionist. with how things are at the moment, i feel like just abandoning the whole thing and start anew. the problem is, i don't know if i have the energy to start again. everything is about starting over. i've pulled up my roots every time i leave a country. i've had to ditch my pride when i no longer met my own expectations. i've even lowered my expectations. i'm jealous of the girl i once was. i can't see the person i now am. as for the person i will be... i used to have a clear picture. there's nothing but smog i see instead.

so many people who care =) i love hearing about your adventures, i love hearing you gush about your latest crush. i love making you smile, i love your little quirks. i love the way we click, i love the shared laughs. thank you, sincerely.. thank you. i don't want sympathy. i just want basic courtesy and respect. i just want people who matter to me to be happy. that'll do the trick =)

i dont need help, i really don't. it's easy to say i might be suffering from depression but that's not it. i haven't been depressed for the past 2 weeks or more, i haven't lost interest in things. i don't suffer from weight loss or insomnia. i've never felt worthless, but i question why i'm here sometimes. i don't have a suicide plan, but i've contemplated various ways to die before.. especially before exams, especially during study groups. i have problems with thought form more than content ~ i'm prone to flight of ideas and word salads. i've also got skeletons in my closet that i want to throw away, but i never seem to have the courage to open the closet door. i don't quite feel like atlas per se, just the atlas that holds up my world.