Groove Armada - Superstylin'

Haven't heard this song for a long while until this morning on BBC Radio 1.

I've regained my love for UK house music!

Beef steak!

Used striploin this time round. ($7 for 200+grams, major owwww on the pocket)

Fried the garlic and a shitload of pepper and spices in butter, and add salt to bring out the flavour. Then cooked using low, then high heat.

Tasty! Conclusion? A good cut of meat makes all the difference.

Jumpin' Jack Flash - Wednesday (edited for wrong date)

Well. To be honest, other than the incredibly nasty shituation that I had in the end of posting test (yeah, due to me not being able to communicate well in Chinese AGAIN), things went quite OK.

Wait, no. I tried to dye my hair and it turned out way too dark (the hair dye's not working properly or something) and it's barely noticeable in the shade. I'm pissed. If it doesn't fade out in a week I'm gonna try again.

Wednesday's too plain to deserve an entry!

Jumpin' Jack Flash - Ouendan

I was drowned, I was washed up and left for dead. I fell down to my feet and I saw they bled.
I frowned at the crumbs of a crust of bread. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was crowned with a spike right thru my head. But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas! But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's a Gas! Gas! Gas!

Today's the eve of the end-of-posting test, and me and many of my classmates took a self-declared day off as a study break.

For me, mainly to get my nerves together after the past few days.

And yay, I finally completed Ouendan 1 after I left it on hiatus for quite a while. (Ready Steady Go on normal is freaking frustrating)

I officially LOVE L'arc En Ciel now. Not only Ready Steady Go, but Flower and Dive to Blue. And it's embarrassing to admit it, but yeah, the bassist Tetsu looks cute.

Played more of Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan 2, and yay I haven't really lost my touch. Small pleasures, KC. Focus on small pleasures.

Almost went ballistic when mom came back and interrogated me about skipping school and all. Yikes. Kept my cool, luckily, and just hung around online and studied some.

Tomorrow's the test, dammit!

Jumpin' Jack Flash - school

I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag, I was schooled with a strap right across my back, but it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas! But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's a Gas! Gas! Gas!

School. On a Monday. And I've been feeling like utter crap lately. So it doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to figure that the day wasn't going to go my way.

Laid in bed procrastinating until it was going to be late, then panicking and hurrying to school late. Just like fucking usual.

All the little things add up. Air conditioning in the bus that doesn't work. Overenthusiastic classmates. Being picked at in class for being late. And my OTHER pair of shoes was cracking up.

Yay. Life sucks.

And the last straw broke when my shoe, uh, broke. As in, leather top, rubber sole, in separate places. Goofed around with my classmates ("Hey! Look at me limp!") but really, deep in me, I was just putting on a front, denying how crappy I felt.

Dodged a couple of cars on the way back (there was no way in hell I could attend afternoon lessons with me and shoes in this pathetic state), then noticing that I was feeling so down, I barely noticed myself in the middle of the lane obstructing a car. It felt like, it didn't matter if the car ran me down and killed me.

Even going home seemed so tough and impossible. Staring at the ground. Limping without a sole on one side. Impatient bus commuters rushing in front of me. I didn't see myself getting home successfully, but, well, I had to.

After an eternity and a half of limping back, I reached home and slumped onto my bed and snoozed off. Without opening the windows or changing out of my clothing.

And worked on getting the computer all sorted out again. Gee it's depressing. Laid in bed again, feeling like I was too exhausted to even twitch a muscle. Then feeling so bad about, I sorta punched the walls in frustration.

Actually. To be honest. Monday's sort of a blur. I guess I was just feeling so down, it's painful to remember.

Jumpin' Jack Flash - the computer

I was born in a crossfire hurricane. And I howled at my ma in the driving rain. But it's all right now, in fact it's a gas. But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's a gas, gas, gas.

And so since when did I leave this blog to stagnate? Sunday morning it seems. Lemme recall.

Oh. I was doing my homework. Case write-up 2, and I was surprisingly breezing through it.

And so, later, I went with my brother to Sim Lim to get the parts for the new computer. He wants to build up a gaming-oriented system, and I was tasked as the chief engineer of the project.

How to build up a good computer system?

Firstly, make sure you have got sufficient experience. If you can't tell the difference between a stick of RAM and a graphics card, naw, get someone else do it. Know the parts that goes into a computer really well. Know the trends (if you haven't heard of Core2Duo chips, naw, get someone else do it too).

Read up. Alot. Benchmarks, reviews, et cetra. Download the price-lists and do your sums. Weigh the cost versus the capabilities of the product. Surely you won't pay almost double just for a 10% increase in speed!

Some 'premium' products offer only a slight improvement, but don't cost that much more, and you should go for those too. For example, 2GB of 800MHz memory is only a teensy bit more expensive than 667MHz but at same clock latencies, the performance improvement is small but statistically significant.

And go for the latest tech only if it's worthwhile. I decided to go for the shiny new Intel P35 chipset as there's a performance increase in benchmarks, along with favourable subjective reviews.

As for other cases where things are less clear, I go by subjective (and biased) evidence. Reviews, word-of-mouth, previous pleasant/unpleasant experiences with any particular brand. Well, I gotta admit that I'm just a sample size of 1 and I'm totally biased, but what else can I really work with? Googling for every single review and benchmark is just infeasible.

And so it ended up as:

Mobo: Asus P5K (new gen P35 chipset, oooh lovely copper heatpipes)

CPU: Intel Core2duo E6600 (highest end reasonably priced cpu)

RAM: 2X1GB Twinmos 800MHz (that's like, the only brand that sells non-exotic 800MHz RAM, i.e. without fancy heatsinks and a fancier price premium)

HDD: Western Digital 500GB (my brother uses alot of hard disk space, so it's better to go the whole 9 yards. Almost settled on Seagate, but there were negative anecdotes on local forums on it)

Graphics: Leadtek 8800GTS 320MB (quite high end, best value for money)

DVD writer: LG H44N (a plain jane model. Since Sonys and Samsungs have disappointed me, and the LG in my notebook, and another LG H44N in the older PC is working perfectly, it's an easy choice)

Casing: Coolermaster CM5 (reputable, and SPECIAL OFFER WHOOHOO)

Power Supply:Verudium 480W (they all have similar features so, this is purely a decision based on anecdotes on tech forums)

Monitor: Samsung 19 inch Widescreen 931BW (looks great in real life, and it has a speedy response time for gaming)

Mouse: Microsoft Habu (one of the few gaming mice, and this one had more accessible buttons, which clinched the deal)

Evidence-based, economical and logical decisions! Yay!



Lugged it all home, and I was given the menial task of joining all these parts into one mean machine. The last time I had let the shop do it, I still had to open it up to connect the connectors that the shop failed to connect, in addition to connecting the old hard disk for data transfer. So. might as well do it myself.

Putting everything together was a major bitch. It involves an insurmountable number of steps, from electrostatic discharge precautions. unpacking, being handy with screwdrivers, fumbling with casings with poor documentation, having to install super-delicate and small parts that cost a few hundred bucks each. Then clearing the mess of boxes and finding space on the table.



I knew how to do everything. Never got really stuck, but it was just depressing, having so much to do at once. It's strange. I ought to be excited, fixing up a brand new computer, doing an activity that used to fascinate me. Making plans and strategies to get it up and running quick.

But why do I feel so sad and frustrated while doing all these? It's not like things aren't working - in fact, everything went so smoothly. I guess... I'm just depressed.



Booted, set everything in the BIOS. Installed Windows. And software issues galore. Somehow, the video card's so new and all, the drivers aren't too well-written. And it gave me a big headache troubleshooting just why the display was so blurry. Swapping cables from analog to digital to analog to see if it's a software or hardware or etc issue. And after a Google, I found out that it's a known issue, and there's a fix.

Not to mention, some issues with playing videos, so I had to fiddle with the video playback settings before the image is no longer blocky. NVidia doesn't program their hardware video accelerator thingie well.



Staring at the screen, getting the things to work one by one, downloading drivers, et cetra. Menial. Depressing. Some things just don;t work the way I think they do, and it's totally frustrating figuring out one thing after another.

And when I couldn't find my thumbdrive (needed to update the BIOS of the motherboard) I well near broke down. This shouldn't be happening. I wasn't very emotionally stable. Quickly gathered my wits and used the USB microSD reader from my DS flashcart, along with the microSD card from my DS instead.



Exhausting. And I called it a night, for the next day is another dreary day in school.

Mai kan cheong

I'm posting up an entry tonight!

if I don't, make me!

a preview:
assembling the new computer and how to choose the best computer parts
school frustrations
ouendan!
how to/not to deal with feeling crappy
shopping

Pirates of the Curry Bean: At World's End (hopefully?)

To be honest, I didn't really enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean 3. There's the prerequisite intricate set design and elaborate fight scenes involving archaic weapons. But you see, it feels like it's missing something.

I gotta admit, I watched the first movie The Curse of the Black Pearl but not the second, Dead Man's Chest. But when you compare the first and third movie, there's really not much of a comparison. I couldn't even dig the plot. It was lots of politicking which no one really understands and does nothing to the film but to hold the pacing of the movie hostage. (ARRGH MY BLADDER IS FULL WHEN IS THIS INANE VERBAL PILLOWFIGHT EVER GONNA END?)

After an epic 2h 48min movie, the most you'll remember are the cheeky antics of Jack Sparrow, the cruelty of Davy Jones, the occasional joke and the well-designed set which is supposed to be Singapore in the times of maritime anarchy.

I walked into the film expecting a good movie (gee, how bad can a sequel to an excellent film possibly get) and came out a tad disappointed and VERY confused. Turns out, I'm not the only one.

And possibly the worst thing about the movie is: it hints to YET another sequel. Bleagh. Save your money.

English muffin burgers

HOLY SMOKING MACKEREL! This is 500g of pure lean ground beef, thawed.



Mix in Italian herbs, paprika and pepper. And some corn flour. Add these GENEROUSLY, for it is easy to underestimate the amount needed. Compress into patties.

Cook the patties to death. I like my beef rare, but hey, you don't want to take the chance with FROZEN GROUND BEEF that's very likely to harbour DANGEROUS E. coli bacteria. Cover the frying pan and use medium heat.

Press the patties hard against the pan whenever you flip them. Trust me. Flipping burgers ISN'T EASY, even though it's the stereotypical hourly-wage, pimply-kid kinda job. Be really careful lest you want your burgers to fall into pieces.



Cut the English muffins (I used Sunshine) open, put cheese and butter on it, then cook it in a turbo broiler to a CRISP. Fry some eggs with LOTS OF BUTTER. While it's half-cooked, shape them into the shape of a patty with the spatula. When it's 3/4 cooked, remove it from the pan and onto the English muffin. You don't want the EGG overcooked.

Place the patty on top, and a slice of tomato if you wish. Then do the FINISHING MOVE and cap the burger with the top bun.

Then TAKE PHOTOS. Then SERVE.



And don't be an idiot like me and use crappy lighting for the photos.

(N.B.: 4 raw patties but 3 burgers. Where did the 4th one go? In the fridge. Mr brother's not at home so I cooked the patty and left it in the fridge for him.)

Thursday

Thursday's another day at school.

Woke up reluctantly (none of the freaky hallucinatory voices last night yay! As opposed to Tuesday night where they kept going on and on and majorly freaked me out until 3am.), ate breakfast, laid in bed wallowing in self pity before looking at the clock and realising that I was either going to be late if I hurried, or going to be TOTALLY late if I continued taking my time. Then panicking and having a hurried shower.

In other words, the usual.

And speaking of which, Wednesday was so horrible cause I was half asleep and groggy from Tuesday night's horror. Couldn;t sleep at all with those hypnagogic hallucinations torturing me whenever I started drifting towards dreamland. I barely recall any of it now.



Bussed to school. Late. Usual. School was the usual stuff, but somehow I felt less messed-up than yesterday. Was the usual chatty me at school, irritating the hell outta my classmates like usual.

Everyone assumed that afternoon tute was going to be unimportant and boring, so me, like 2/3 of the class, decided to leave early.

Off to Bugis! Plan: To get a USB charger for my MP3 player in preparation for the Hong Kong trip. The airlines wouldn't be allowing me to bring my DIY charger up the plane, for it looks like a jury-rigged bomb.

Sim Lim Square. Collected some pamphlets and stuff cause my brother's planning to build a new PC. Me, I was looking at the chargers, and sigh, they're all of dubious quality. And they cost either $19, $7 or $14. Which one?



Decided to take a look at next-door Sim Lim Tower (where they sell more DIY kinda stuff) and found a decent-looking one for $6. Bought 2 of them, as I'd probably need a spare some time. Hey, it's pretty cheap anyway.

Was talking on the phone to Ryan, and oh noes, he's not feeling too good. Wish I could do something to help! Oh well, I can't hope to have everything in my control, even if it's for the better.



Oh did I mention? Hello crocodile. I spent $80 on this freaking pair of shoes, only to have it crocodile at me in 3 different spots in less than a year. Damn you, Hush Puppies!



Ambled around Bugis Junction by myself, just window-shopping by myself. It's quite therapeutic, to be honest. Just walking around, seeing if there are any offers, looking at what are the trends now. And walked into Kinokuniya, then decided to buy my 2nd copy of Men's Health. I still am curious - what exactly makes this magazine interesting?

Well, it tickles the part of me that wants to be a lean mean hunky KC (who doesn't?) - tips on muscle building, exercises, nutrition, stuff like that. And well, some of the advice actually are true and scientific. Although it's supposedly vetted by a few medical doctors. there's still some fallacies and misinterpretations (e.g. the typical 'oh we have 1 study that says this so this must be true even when there's conflicting evidence'). The signal-to-noise ratio's pretty good, as compared to other magazines and even the Straits Times's weekly health feature Mind Your Body.

But well, why is it still more enticing than reading articles off the net and scientific journals? One thing - the pictures! But still, I'd only buy it if there's any particularly interesting feature articles.



Back home.



Speaking of a lean mean hunky KC, I dragged myself to do a short jog in the evening. Gotta keep the blood pumping, the mind refreshed, the adrenaline flowing, Well. You get the idea.

Bumped into a primary school friend while jiggling my lardy ass! How unglam! Caught up with stuff and all. He's done with both polytechnic and national service, so that's quite cool. Me? I'm done with neither of education or national service, so I feel sorta slow.



In a bad way I've been feeling particularly self conscious lately. I swear everyone's staring at the way I walk and making snide remarks. It's weird. And the way that I dress. If my shirt's too loose or tight or something. Or that my hair isn't done right. I can't even stand to say hi to my neighbours lately, weirdly.

(To those in the know, yeah I sent out that email and was reassured that the plan of action was the right one to take, though I really need that strength to follow through. Help me!)

Soon!

I'm coming up with a megalong superdetailed blog entry soon! Don't rush me!

Actually...

Mondays aren't that bad at all. And yay I slept well, none of those weird voices, none of those scary nightmares, just good (albeit short) sleep.

Mondays are tolerable. But incredibly mundane. Therefore, the word count of this post.

Yay. I'm getting the groove back in terms of school.

But but it's not fair. I wish everyone can be happy all the time.

A new slate

You would have noticed the recent paucity of entries in this blog. Now, it's an open secret that I can turn moody and bitchy at times, and last week was one of those times.

Now that the mess that is my life just got less murky and convoluted and screwed up, I guess I can finally talk about it. In a cool detached way i mean, without letting my exhaustion cloud it.

==

Clinical postings, they're the proverbial straws that keep on accumulating on the camel's back, exhausting me mentally until, well, I started reacting badly to them.

I'd like to believe that I skip lessons because I don't find them useful. But look deep enough and you'll see, that it's because, I can't muster up the effort and the drive to go for all of them and participate in them.

I start off feeling overwhelmed. Then I panic. Then I lose the ability to concentrate on school. Then I lag behind my peers. Then I feel despondent about it and think 'why bother at all'?

==

And thus my attendance for non-essential lessons falls behind, my enthusiasm falters and I feel horrible. Add that to mounting insecurity. Everyone's WAY better than me. They remember their stuff, they can answer the tutorial questions, they are able to do patient interviews in all sorts of languages proficiently, they are able to nurse an undying drive to spur themselves on. I can't.

And I feel bad about everything. And I feel even worse about myself. I can't even get the simplest of things done, and I feel horrible just thinking about reality.

So I distract myself. And there's the Internet, there's my DS. It's so much easier forcing myself to concentrate on a video game than to face the horrible thoughts in my mind.

That's pretty pathetic, isn't it?

==

So now you know.

==

One thing's been bugging me. My hypnagogic hallucinations. While these are generally accepted as normal (though uncommon), it's been bugging me. They're getting more frequent, and the voices I hear just before I plonk asleep have graduated from unintelligible speech to a droning voice that reads out totally boring stuff such as biochemistry texts.

This is freaky. No one else I know gets these. Though they're supposedly normal and all.

Gee, don't tell me that I'm going schizophrenic or something?

==

And oh, I'm going to Hong Kong with my family during my school break. For 5 days. That's ueberly cool. It was Saturday when I went with my mom to book the tour and stuff.



Went to Far East Square in Tanjong Pagar area for lunch, and there's this ueberly weird meal they sell there, where you get a bowl of brown rice with a chockful of vegetables and beancurd cubes. Then you're supposed to drown it with this bowl of radioactive-green soup which REEKS of basil. I didn't really like it, yikes.



And Macs Milkshake tastes as bad as it did in Malacca last time. Strawberry milkshake that doesn't taste or look like strawberry. And there's this weird corn taste to it. Same goes for the chocolate milkshake I had in Malacca.

==

Went shopping for clothing after that, and I got a B-list (you know, the same way radio stations categorise their songs by quality and popularity) tee and bermudas.

And halfway along the way, my freaking cut I sustained while cutting cold butter rebled. Ow. (As of right now, it looks slightly infected.)



Come to think of it, I've been so emotionally numb this week, I was literally unfazed by the blood or pain the moment the knife missed the butter and went into my skin. Continued chopping the butter, THEN looked at my finger. And I just lazily washed it and put pressure on it as though it was something that happened all the time. Took a mother of a long time for it to stop bleeding though. Guess it's pretty deep.

I guess, if I were in a better emotional state, I'd have freaked out at least a bit.

==

Sunday, and things are starting to look up. I dunno. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. But it surely helps that I know that I'm not TOTALLY alone. Those who know, will know what I mean. Heh.

My mood's still rather unstable though. So beware. I bite.

==



My new keychain for my bag! The old one was a skull, but somehow it worked its way loose or something, and it'd be so unglam leaving a skulless pin on my bag, so there.

Electromechanical Actuator

Electromechanical Actuator
I walk a step
I walk a step
And I count the numbers

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
My purpose is to obey
I feel no love or hate
Forward, right, lift, return to bay

Electromechanical Actuator
I walk a step
I walk a step
And I count the numbers

And I want to feel good
Serving something greater than me
I heave and lift without nary a mood
This is what I wanna be

Electromechanical Actuator
I walk a step

Let's think happy thoughts!

The author of the blog has been feeling like utter crap lately. (Differential diagnoses: infectious mononucleosis? adjustment disorder? major depressive episode?)

So here's some happy thoughts, in order to flood away the darkness in the author's life:

Ouendan!
I've beat Ouendan 2 the same evening I had started on it. It's fairly easy, WAY easier than the first game in normal mode, which ended up sort of a disappointment. Which game deserves to be completed in just 1 evening? Apparently 2 of my online friends, Richie included, finished it in the same evening.

The new songs aren't as catchy, perhaps except for a couple of levels. The only memorable song, oh well, was the final level. They have made use of some new, fun hit marker patterns which makes for most of the improvement in this game. Add that to the ability to skip the song intros, which makes gameplay way less frustrating for the more difficult stages where you end up restarting the level quite often.

Kishidan
Kishidan is the band that probably inspired the concept of Ouendan. It's no surprise that their hit One Night Carnival is found in the first game. Here's the video of them perfoming live. Cool stuff.

Bread and butter pudding
I made bread and butter pudding! Recipe here.

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2

School, a crappy mood, a fatigued body and....
Ouendan 2 has taken over my desire to blog in any significant detail.

I'll back with juicy gossip and sappy entertainment once I get them all sorted out!

Osu!

Monday, sicker

Woke up. Totally sick. I can't life my head from the bed without a giddying wave of pain through my head.

I feel achey, weak all over.

And I had to go to school.

I mean, it's my parents. They'd nag and blame me for everything and accuse me of being lazy and useless and that I'm wasting their money putting me through school and all.



Lay on the bed, playing Ouendan and not being able to complete levels. Yes, I feel that sick and tuned-out.

I suggested the possibility of me being too sick to go to school. And straightaway the barrage of accusations started.

This won't do.

Forced myself to dress, got ready, and stormed out of the house looking like I was going to die or something.

For the first time in years, I left for school without breakfast. It'd make me way too nauseous.

Didn't want to see anyone. Didn't want to make eye contact with anyone at all. Head hung low. Wondering why my life is this wretched. And I'm still feeling sick and woozy. And this ache in my head's swirling around and around...

So it was a major freak-out moment when I saw my classmate on the same bus. Actually it's ok, he's a nice guy and all. One of the few guys who never judges, and respects you for who you are/ what you feel/etc. Thank goodness. He might not have chose to do so, but he cheered me up.



Talked about photography and stuff while taking a photo of the dying tree.

School. Lectures. Actually it's all a blur. Slept through most of the first one.

Had to interview the patient with the rest of the group. It was sort of a mess, but hey, I did realyl well considering the headache/discomfort/fatigue/etc.

It's tiring having to act okay when I'm feeling like shit.

Felt too sick to go through the rest of the day. Went home while my classmates headed for lunch (I still feel too sick for lunch).

Conked out on the bed with the windows closed. It felt horrible.

Woke up halfway. Mom back, and she opened the windows. She didn't nag or anything, which was a FIRST. The evil part of me wants me to make her feel guilty for forcing me to go to school in this kinda state.

Slept. Awoke. Too weak to twitch a muscle. Forced myself downstairs to eat something. A ham and cheese bun. So far so good, didn't feel too nauseous, just a little bloated.

Hung around online in a half-dazed state. I still feel like my mental faculties have left me.

Dinnertime, and I forced myself to eat something. Bad idea.

Now I feel horrible and tummyachey all over again.

Sunday Sick!

Oh, actually I feel like crap. Nursing a tummyache. So don't mind me if I go rambly and all!

Morning. Refreshed! After a minor spate of insomnia, I had a good lovely 10h sleep. And woke up to good weather. And what better way to celebrate the good weather and my recently-recovered health with a bicycle ride?

Pumped the tyres, cleaned the drivetrain (it's been gunking up quite a bit lately), then off to ride!

Sunday morning is not a very good time to cycle in Old Upper Thomson road because there are hoards of people stopping their cars in the middle of the road to feed the monkeys (illegal), thus it's always a huge risk to overtake them by going into the other lane and face the risk of being squished by an oncoming car from around the bend.

Damn those monkey feeders. They make the monkeys demanding, aggressive and worse of all, they're increasing in population. They're literally mounting each other and making baby monkeys in the middle of the road.

Had to spend a part of my ride tailgating a Jaguar which was in turn tailgating a Mitsubishi with a driver who was too afraid to advance his way through the monkeys on the road.

Near-bonked out, because I wasn't totally 100% healthy yet. Found myself gasping for air in a bad way, like all the moisture got sucked outta my lungs or something.

==

Home, and it rained just after I got back. Oh noes! Flurry of activity, brother and dad and I planning where to bring my mom out for a mother's day dinner.

Hotel Intercontinental? Sounded cool. But there's a dress code. Smart casual. That means, shirt or something. Ack. Stuffed a short sleeve shirt in my bag. Damn dress codes.



Played some Elite Beat Agents at home. On Sweatin' (Hard) mode! I swear some of the levels are near damned impossible.

Off to City Hall!

==

Hanged out for the afternoon. Lunch, then just hung around the malls!

Walked into Newurbanmale just for the hell of it, and yikes, it's a shop that sells rainbow-coloured bears and Bert-and-Ernie T-shirts. EEEEK. No surprises, we walked out sorta quickly.

==

Bugis, Kinokuniya, then had to meet my family for mom's mother's day dinner!

Hotel Intercontinental. Turns out, no one follows the dress code. Bleagh. Changed into a shirt in vain.

The place's really classy and all. And the service immaculate. But with that kinda price, that's a given!



Some lime mocktail thingie!



Omigawdomigawd 2 forks and 2 knives whatdoido? Wish I knew dining etiquette or something! *cue Borat scene* The food there's actually quite disappointing to be honest - except the desserts! Should've saved myself for it!



Choc mousse cake and choc moouse are excellent. So is the cheesecake. So is the macadamia brownie. And hot chocolate cake. And everything at the dessert counter.

Oh and they have a cheese platter, and yikes, some of the cheeses taste and smell like rotting detritus or something. I'd stick with my cheddar and mozzarella and parmesan and emmental!

Tummy turned wonky and all so had to break for the toilet! Eek!

Barely could finish more food after that.

Felt totally nauseous and tummyachey after that. I swear my stomach had stalled into an ileus and died. Into the taxi, back home. Distracted myself by playing on the DS (DS is the best of distractions I've realised.) And caught Articuno in Pokemon FireRed finally! At least that's something that didn't go wrong!

In fact, I'm still feeling all bloated, groggy and down. Oh well, tomorrow's better.

==

Oh, and apparently, Ryan and I really do look quite alike.

Friday, Headache

Morning. Scramble to get my lardy ass to school. Despite the depressingly wet weather.

Feeling groggy from MAJOR lack of sleep. Had weird nightmares for the past 2 nights - vivid ones.

Wednesday night: It was in a train carriage, a NEL one to be specific, with its blue plastic seats and all. Didn't remember how come, but I got really peeved at a guy sitting opposite me. And I punched him up. In the nose. Until it bled. Felt guilty, ran away and got off the next stop, navigating an endless maze of escalators and passageways trying to get my way out of the station. Saw policemen who were tasked to capture me, and panicked. I woke up.

Heart racing. Panicky. Had to chant to myself mentally: "It isn't real. It isn't real. it isn't real!" Couldn't sleep until an hour later.

==



Thursday night: 1. witnessed a bunch of people in a large car, driving into the lake and drowning. 2. Entering English class in secondary school, having a really nasty teacher. 3. Being mocked at by classmates until I felt really horrible, and panicked. I woke up.

Heart racing. Panicky. Had to chant to myself mentally: "It isn't real. It isn't real. it isn't real!" Couldn't sleep until an hour later.

==

Morning lectures.

==

Met up with Ryan! Plan is to get a new casing for his DS. But first, lunch had to be settled.



==

I had a raging headache that was bugging me throughout the whole day. Felt sorta ill and cold and fatigued. Sinus pain. Oh noes.



And off to the game shops in Funan, where I saw YET another Xbox360 display showing a hardware problem. They aren't too reliable, are they? Took a photo, but since the surface was reflective, it was a great excuse to pose in front of it!

==



Ryan got the black hard case, which looks sorta cool but unfortunately, due to its design, doesn't really fit the DS lite if you slot in a GBA Game Pak. The white/grey one is mine, which is sadly stained, discoloured and crumpled after barely a few months.

Hard case vs compact pouch. Advantages: sleeker look, better protection, feels better, ncool semi-gloss sheen. Disadvantages: slightly costlier, doesn't fit a DS+GBA Game Pak, buttons less accessible when you're playing with the DS in the casing, heavier.



I got this really cool New Super Mario Brothers keychain thingie for $5 at Gamescore Funan, and this is the epitome of KAWAIII!!!111!!!!!-ness. It goes onto my DS Lite.

==

Picked up a copy of Men's Health. What's the biiiiig deal about it that makes Ryan and so many other people read it regularly? I'll talk about it some other day after I've done with scruntinising it.



==

On the way back, and this bunch of costumed people were screaming and cheering as some advertising campaign. Sure takes a hell lot of effort trying to look so happy all throughout.

But I wonder, what's it all about?

Travis - The Boy With No Name

It's no surprise that Travis's new album's title bears some strange resemblance to their earlier The Man Who, the 1999 album that catapulted them to fame.

A quick summary: Travis is a Scottish alternative rock band that croons out slow melodic tunes. Their 1997 album Good Feeling didn't make it into the mainstream radar, but producer Nigel Godrich (of Radiohead fame) took over the helm and Travis released The Man Who, which is undoubtedly a classic. The Invisible Band followed, with a more laid-back, dreamy slant.

Subsequently, Travis came back to life with 12 Memories, which was, in honesty, a flop. You'll remember it for the single Re-offender, which was totally atypical of Travis. And well. There weren't any other remarkable singles. Was it because Nigel Godrich wasn't on the team anymore?

==

And now Nigel Godrich's back again. The old Travis is back again, with an audible new determination and concentration.

The album starts off with 3 Times and You Lose, a track that's reminiscent of of the Travis that we'd liked in the The Man Who era.

Selfish Jean's a cheeky song that throws the album into a new, cheery mood with a sweet, honest vocal melody that lets Fran Healy's vocal prowess shine.

Closer's the single that's currently on the UK charts, doing quite well. A simple love song, while Big Chair exudes an obvious Radiohead-like quality.

Hey, you know what, I'm reviewing every song in sequential order in detail as though everyone of them are all single material. Well, it's true. Guess I'd stop gushing about every track on the album, because you just gotta hear every one of them. They all stand up on their own.

Who can possibly dislike the catchy Battleships or One Night, or even their hidden track?

They're all lovely. If you didn't already know Travis, you'd be hard pressed to determine if the many hits are part of a greatest hits compilation, or just a really really good album.

Supraspinatus tendinitis

As a medical student, I have a morbid curiosity of the various physical signs that manifest in disease, even if it happens to me. As in, moi, mich, yours truly.

Apparently on Tuesday I strained my shoulder while doing chin-ups, and had a twinge of pain which I didn't really care about. Come Wednesday, and it hurt like a mother when I woke up.

It made putting on a shirt difficult. And it's really painful when I lift my arm to the side, between the angles of 60 to 120 degrees. i.e. the painful arc that I had learnt about in my orthopaedics posting. It's sorta amusing how classic that painful arc I had was.

You know, in medical textbooks they talk about all sorts of physical signs with long names attached to it. And in reality, they're way milder than described, and sometimes hardly ever seen. But as for this painful arc, it's so classic, I can't help but to go on MSN proclaiming my finding to all my fellow classmates doing their orthopaedics now.

Diagnosis, supraspinatus tendinitis. I'd strained some tendon in my shoulder and now that the inflammatory reaction had kicked in, it hurts.

Treatment? I rummaged through the fridge, looking for the Ponstan (a NSAID, a drug that relieves pain via reducing inflammation) that I had hoarded from a few years back. Near-expiry, but yay, it still doesn't smell funky yet.

==

In other news: school's interesting. But it's one of those postings where classmates become gung-ho and become type-A personality maniacs who are more willing to push you aside and trample on you and leave you behind in a quest to feed their education. Hey dudes, don't become the very assholes you'd hate just because of your enthusiasm. Competition won't magically create more resources for us. Things gotta be shared, no?

==

I suck at school. At times I feel useless, unable to fit in because I'm too inept. And that ain't entirely untrue, because I simply don't share the kind of energy and enthusiasm as them.



I pick things up really slowly. And I suck at my non-English languages, which makes me a total moron when it comes to doing patient interviews in Chinese, and a lobotomised, post-head-trauma, sedated cretin if I even try to speak in dialects. If it's any consolation, I guess I'm still marginally better than those who are studying overseas.

==

But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas! But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's a Gas! Gas! Gas! I might be a mediocre image of mediocrity, but I have the right to be happy because of whatever makes me happy. Not because of whatever people believe that people should be happy about.

So what if I spend my life distracting myself from reality? At least I'm happy.



==

In YET other news:

Virtual Bubble Wrap

Tuesday! Happy yappy!

And I'm restless and hyperactive!

Is it the heat? The hot hot blazing blistering burning sun?

Maybe they'd call it hypomania, those psychiatrists (I'm doing my psychological medicine posting now) but hey, I feel HAPPY and that's what matters. You don't give happiness a LABEL.

Music sounds better when I'm happy. The cymbal clangs sound especially crisp and bright, the voices sounds extra poignant. I'm air-drumming to the beat.

And did I mention? I'm just happy. For no reason at all!

Sure beats being sad for no reason at all.

==

How was my day?

Morning lectures. The usual mood disorders, anxiety, pharmacology kinda lectures.

Then off to the library for some revision and ALOT of slacking on the Internet.



It's sad that the med library is moving out, and the librarians are scampering to pack everything into cartons for the move into Science library, which would be really far from the university hospital. Which would defeat much of the point of having a medical library. Sigh.

==

SH was reading this 'medical' journal - a Traditional Chinese 'Medicine' one which was a case study which, to modern medicine would consist of these 3 pretty obvious differential diagnoses.
1. GERD
2. peptic ulcer
3. gastroenteritis

The TCM quacks list:
1. qi imbalance
2. poor blood flow in the area of the spleen
3. poor mood and well being

Who would you believe? Given the abundance of scientific knowledge and resources these days, it's no excuse for even the TCM practicioners to keep their heads in the sand and ignore the incontrovertible evidence and science that modern medicine had managed to gather.

TCM, by definition, isn't evidence-based.

==

SH also found another journal where they talked about how sterile bred maggots can be used to eat up the dead, rotting tissue in bad, infected wounds. Gross. But hey, if it works it works. Personally, I'd be totally freaked out by having maggots put into my wound!

==

Afternoon tutorial on approaches to dealing with psychiatric interviewing and diagnosis formulation. Interesting and insightful. And guess what. The lazy, unmotivated, silent KC actually asked a good question in class!

==

And I'm so manic, I kept on chatting and joking about with my classmates after school, all the way from the tutorial room to Bishan MRT station.

I'm hyper. I'm happy. I'm self-confident. I'm perfect.

==



And I'm restless. So I went for an evening jog after dinner, just to calm my hyperactive, agitated mind. It works. Exercise to exhaustion is a great mood stabiliser, I realised through my personal experience.

Was SMSing Ryan and oops, he's not doing so well and I feel guilty for being so HAPPY for no reason.

Reached home, lazed in front of the computer. Caught up with the multitude of RSS feeds I subscribe to - Engadget, DS Fanboy, Slashdot, various blogs, they're all in the sidebar of my blog.

I'm happy!

Hot Hot Heat

The whole freaking island has become a sauna. It feels steamy hot all the time, be it day or night, be it indoors or outdoors.

The air-conditioners on buses and in school just aren't enough to keep the choking heat out.

It makes everyone feel like crap.

==



Sunday morning was spent jogging -and I pushed myself way too hard despite feeling sorta fatigued and unwell. Ouch. But hey, it's worth it for the azure blue skies.

packing up my room and doing up the insulation on the small window in my room (it's the size of a ship's porthole). It's the time of the year where the sun shines DIRECTLY on and through the window, making my room accumulate heat. Solution? Paste aluminium foil reinforced with laminating paper on the outside of the window pane. Then a second layer of foil and a layer of paper on the inside, just to make sure that all the light gets kept out.

Packed my room up. Which means sending clouds of dust into the air. And an inflamed and running nose for the rest of the day. A year back, I sold my blood and lent out my skin for a skin prick test for a research study on allergic rhinitis. Turned out, I'm sensitive to dust mites and about 4 different types of funguses, so that sorta explains it.

Read quite a bit of Ultimate Spiderman, which was sorta fun, but was sorta distracted along the way. Considering I was totally miffed by the bad weather, and all tired out by the morning jog. I suspect a viral infection's ravaging my immune system in addition.

==

Monday. and the weather's equally crappy. New posting at NUH Psychological Medicine. 4 weeks.



Lectures today, and while everyone else were busy copying notes. I decided to do what's only sensible and logical and take photographs of the slides instead of tiring out my poor DS-strained fingers.



And in the evening: went out with ZJ and F, 2 of my bestest pals from secondary school. Objective: re-explore Bishan central, our hang-out place for 4 years!

Things surely have changed, with the new library, Junction 8 extension, new shops all over.



But the food stays the same. Especially at S-11 where they have really tasty homemade noodles (a.k.a. 'ban mian')



And iced milk tea.

Hung around in Junction 8 after that, totally happy being with each other, crapping about everything. About how to be a hunk. About learning French. About our old teachers. About Spongebob.

About everything.

And ZJ was free enough to send the two of us back to our homes with his car. It'd be fun driving a car around, but alas, my family doesn't believe in having a car.

And sadly, once I reached home, the headache which I didn't notice much of (since I was happy with my friends outside and all) came back with a vengeance.

And that explains the terse, disjointed paragraphs in this blog entry.

Goodnight!