Reason why I haven't been blogging:

Life's dull.

Sunday, in pictures

5am: Was in a half-asleep dazed when AS messaged me on the phone to tell me he was insomniac. To quote: "Damn, i never knew insomnia could be spread thru msn conversations.." and "U arsehole, i'm not at all surprised that u r still awake.. Next time keep ur diseases to urself haha". Cracked me up!

Managed to fall aslep again, and woke at 7.50am.


Coffee and newspapers.

Decided to just slack at home today. Weather ain't too good anyway.



Surfing the net, playing around with my phone and getting videos on it with the assistance of todaealas on MSN! He recommends SUPER convertor.

After whiling away my morning, time for lunch!



And an apple.



Speaking of apples, Death Note anime. It's not too good, whatever's covered in the manga and movie are just repeated, and it's sorta pretentious and Light's characterisation is rather weak and artificial.



Watched Prison Break Season 2 episode 1 too. Not too good. I didn't like it. Without the prison, prison break isn't half as fun!

Helped out with painting the home again. Yay only the balconies and half a living room left!



Arms and hands are all splotched!



Readers' Digest. I wonder why my dad still subscribes to it, cause it's so expensive and the articles are getting crappier by the year. More of those silly sob-stories, lame jokes in the joke sections and the health articles aren't too enlightening either. Really miss those real-life action adventure articles from 5 years ago and before.



And oh well, I had better touch my textbook later tonight. Sigh! Monday's looming again.

Hard to admit it but

Today's a good day! Woke up feeling much more refreshed than usual. Having a super tiring 15 hour school day previously probably tired me out just enough to have a good sleep.

Gotta thank my friend QY for listening to all the weird crap I talked about throughout the school day too! I think it reallyreally helps for me when I have someone to talk to.

There's so many kinds of unhappiness - despondent, angry, numb, worried, et cetra. But there's only kind of happy - happiness itself. So I guess there's not much to talk about it!

Thus ends this entry, but hopefully the happiness doesn't end here. Yay!

Oh.

I haven't blogged in a while! Neil and Kevin's bugging me on the cbox to blog a new entry. So here goes.

Honestly I don't know where to start. Have been mulling over it for a while. Do I start off on my craptastically crappy Tuesday? Or on the STOMP Foodie Outing yesterday? Or school today?

==

I think I'll start with the cat. The pudgy cat that I see very often in Bishan Park with really thick fur.

Just before the Foodie Outing, I took the chance when it stopped raining for a while, to get a quick run in Bishan Park. Saw that cat towards the end of my route.

That cat has a fur coat of white and black patches, and when I was a kid I used to call them 'cow cats'. I have this thing for cats so I stopped and did the typical rules of engagement of cats:

1. Inch closer and make sure it isn't scared
2. Keep eye contact, but only intermittently
3. Get close enough to stroke it, then stroke it on its back and on the top of its head
4. If it turns around and walks between your legs while rubbing its fur against you, you've made a new friend!

Haven't had a cat befriend me that way for a really long time! Maybe because it's cause I don't wear my spectacles when I go for a run, and I looks less intimidating that way. Yet another reason for me to want to switch to contact lenses - the cats love it.

It feels really great to have a cat follow you and stuff! It's times like this when I feel like I'm not alone on this Earth, at least the cats do notice me and want me around! Even if the human beings don't!

Rushed on to have a shower and got ready to go for that Foodie Outing!

"I'm going out tonight
I've got my hair just right
I'm always looking good
For the spotlight" - Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV

==

Foodie Outing. Already know most of them so could mix in quite alright. Nice meeting those I haven't seen before previously! That includes Ryan and Kevin!

There's this thing about me. I can't seem to talk to people I meet for the first time well! It's like, I don't know what to say, how to say it, etc. So I always make crappy first impressions. Man this sucks. Feeling damn guilty about not talking much to Ryan! And it's like, the rest of the people there weren't helping my making me feel all awkward because some, uh, furry animal, wanted to see whether him and I look alike! Obviously I don't. Me ugly.

Strangely, by the second time I meet a same person, it's perfectly alright! Still need time to get used to social occasions again. It's like, I've been so deprived of social situations for the past few years, I need time to know the right things to say and stuff.

Social situations are such. Some people tend to use the same topics over and over again, but me, I'm still trying to find my style. It's easier to just rattle off the same stories and stuff all the time, but it's not very fun to me.

OK back to topic. Venue was Botak Jones Ang Mo Kio, which is hidden in a secluded corner of Ang Mo Kio, both Mr Black lived in and around AMK since young, but didn't know of that area before. The food's great. at $13 for a 200g steak, it's a steal.

Oh and Mr Black and Kevin got us drinks! And Kate got the Cheeeeeeese Fries for everyone too! I gotta repay the favour man!

Some of us went on to this bar in Upper Thomson to just chill out. Don't recall much of what was happenning, but it was alot of joking around and stuff! Finally left at almost 1am when they were about to close. Then reluctantly shared a cab back home, since I watched my last bus zoom by just minutes before I could walk to the bus stop. Dang!

Was feeling quite hyper still, so in addition to my sleeping problem, only got to sleep after 2.30am. Was desperate enough to use my brand-new textbook to try to get myself to sleep!

I'd blog about today some other time. Too much for one day already!

Monday

Monday of a new posting at school. What can be worse. Woke up with great trepidation. Part of me wanted to believe that if I didn't get out of bed, Monday didn't have to begin. But oh well, it's so not true, so with a great I reluctantly got out of bed.

Breakfast, and got ready for school. Running madly around house looking for all those stationery and stuff I had left haphazardly around during the 1-week break. Was going to be late dammit!

Got on the bus with a sleep-deprived stupor and drifted in out of consciousless while the engine droned on.

Reached NUS 5 minutes late. Luckily the lecture hadn't begun. Lectures.

Break after lectures. Was just musing with my classmates how I'm bored and how about watching a movie? Surprise suprise and HC, J and KW are already planning to watch Death Note! But they already booked tickets, so had to book separately and hope to get seats that are close enough! SH joined in too.

But alas, the seats were for another screen! Well, since I really wanted to watch I decided to just take them...

Lectures.

Oh and since the NUH Blood Donation Centre was asking for blood, SH and I went during lunchtime!

It's like this. First you gotta fill up a questionnaire to confirm that you're not at risk of HIV/Hepatitis B/STD/etc infection, then it's a declaration that says you'll be locked up and jailed if you lie.

Then they take your blood pressure, haemoglobin count of your blood (i.e. how 'thick' your blood is - done via a pinprick) and weight. Saw the scale and nearly fainted. Gee I'm _that_ overweight?

Then they make you lie on this couch thingie, and they swab your vein site really cleanly then they inject a little anaesthetic and put in the needle. The actually blood donation's pretty fast - before you know it it's done!

Then they give you a cup of milo and some biscuits. And you sit in the waiting area for 10 minutes or so. No giddiness, no lethargy.

More lectures.

Home. Dinner, shower, slack. For a short while. So went online and crapped around STOMP forums and stuff. Oh and bozo posted a thread on VRZone linking to the Stalking gonococcus thread on STOMP. Yikes!

Was bored out of my mind after a while so decided to take the bus out to Orchard early. The bus was depressingly quiet and empty.

Borders. Took a look at the latest fiction, none of which looked familiar to me since I'm so out of touch! Saw Graeme Obree's autobiography. He's this bicyclist who's not only a great writer, but has a really creative and intelligent mind. He built all sorts of weirdly-shaped bicycles that were more efficient than what was being sold, then raced them himself and won. But the cycling regulatory bodies weren't too happy, and banned his contraptions. He had his bouts of self doubt and even tried to top himself twice, but managed to pull through, fortunately.

Tempted to buy the book, but it's almost $40.

Journey to the East! Walked all the way to Plaza Singapura cause I'm too damn cheap to pay the bus fare! When I was younger I used to take rather long walks across Orchard to City Hall, since there's so may places to stop by along the way. Trying to catch that feel again, but the crowds were just too huge.

Reached Plaza Singapura just while the shops were closing. So just sat outside and watched all the happy couples, the lovely couples, all the lucky lucky people who're walking around Orchard feeling invincible together.

And one by one the mates arrived! And guess what I managed to change the tickets to the same hall as the other 3 friends'! And just opposite the walkway. What's even better was that there was some sort of orangey dirt on the seats we got, so I asked the staff there what could be done and they decided to put the 2 of us right behind the 3 friends! Yay! I'm really appreciative of that.

==

DEATH NOTE - Death Note's a great movie. Although advertised as a horror flick, it actually is more of a psychological thriller than anything.

We got Light, an aspiring lawyer who learns of the injustice of the world and how the law isn't always powerful enough to solve them. On one particularly bad night, he finds a black book with DEATH NOTE emblazoned on it, with instructions inside it which read:

* The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
* This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
* If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject's name, it will happen.
* If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
* After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds. (ripped from Wikipedia)

Amused, Light writes the name of a criminal that was mentioned on the news and in the next day's newspaper, he realises that that exact criminal had died of a heart attack.

Light then sees the powers he is suddenly entrusted with.

We have L, a mysterious superdetective who works under a cover. The police had noticed the recent spate of mysterious criminal deaths and thus engaged L to find out the truth.

It becomes a cat-and-mouse game, with Light and L trying to outwit each other. Light and L slowly realise they aren't too different afterall.

I'll spare the details. Any more and I'll be spoilering it for you! But note that this is just the first of 2 movies in the series, so don't expect a hasty ending to this movie.

As for criticisms from me and my mates who watched the movie together:
Androgynous actors. Well. Jap film. What can ya do. The Japs love them Bishounen (pretty boys). But hey, Light's hairstyle is really cool and I want that.

Naomi Misora's (FBI lady's) motivations. What are they actually? She seemed more like a madwoman on a rampage.

The artificial, cartoon-like Ryuuk (the CGI-animated God of Death) doesn't go down well with many audiences, but I just think it's a nice tribute to the manga series!

Also, Light's slow descent from honourable justice to evil isn't explored much, which is quite a pity.

And, while L is the one shown biting his nails all the time, the extreme close-ups of Light's hands show actual bitten nails. What this implies isn't too clear. Maybe it's some sort of imagery to show the similarity between L and Light?

And, RHCP's Dani California totally stuck out like a sore thumb during the end credits. Bleagh. Use a Japanese song instead!

But all in all. Grade: A

==

After the movie, SH had to leave, so the 4 of us walked to the Kopitiam in City Hall area and just talked up to 4am! And HC and KW really devoured alot of Hello Kitty marshmallows:



Yeah it was nice catching up with stuff and all, but heh I'm sort of the odd one out - when they talk about Ayumi or Wang Lee-Hom I just had to do the smile-and-nod-thing since I'm like totally ignorant of all those enbtertainment gossip stuff.

Oh and we spent a great deal of time trying to figure out whether the 2 tall skimpily-dressed people were females or transvestites!

We already agreed to watch Death Note 2 together next time so that's great!

About Sunday

OK here I am at home after a rather long day and I'm going out soon to watch Death Note yay!

Actually it was like, I was really bored in one of the breaks during lecture and suggested watching a movie. And this classmate of mine said that he's already watching Death Note tonight, so yep, I jumped on the opportunity.

OK back to Sunday. Sunday was crap cause I was feeling real down about life, the universe and everything. Last day of the 1-week break, and I was really sleep deprived after the chronic insomnia, and in short, I woke up feeling totally crappy and teary-eyed. Was thinking about how my social life was in shambles, and how badly I was coping with school.

Messaged a couple of friends on the phone to try to find someone to go out with and just hang about, but they were busy. Then I felt even more down. I dunno, it's like when I was younger, I could just turn to anyone in school and they'll be nice and cool about it, but now I hardly got anyone to talk to.

Watched the last 4 episodes of Elfen Lied. Quite a tragic ending really. But that's to be expected from a story that spares no characters from the evil invisible tentacles of the Diclonus.

Every time I finish a series or a game or whatever, I feel this tinge of emptiness in me, like there's one less thing to look forward to, and that I know I'd miss this series or something in the future. I wonder if anyone feels that way?

Anyway, there's so much violence and gore and nudity, you little kids please don't watch!

And then it was sad all over again, as I just didn't know how to cheer myself up. Put up a brave facade and not let parents know I'm going crazy! Had to do that. Pretend everything's OK, then help out with painting the house again.

So I went to STOMP forums, which was a good idea, because all the cheerfulness and joy of the place was an excellent distraction. Since I have no real-life people I can talk to this really comes as an excellent alternative for me! There's the people I met from the previous outings, and there's the people I've never met before but it feels almost like a real friendship. It's a friendship close enough for me to be willing to share photos of myself online! (Trust me I'm quite shy about my own photos.) Thanks Ferret, kor69, Ryan, twinkle-toes, mourinhoisKING, Neil, finite_samaritan, Victor, sprgenius and everyone else!

Yeah, felt alot better after that. Things got better when I finally had a quite OK sleep that night. Not as good as last time, but definitely than the previous days of tossing and turning!

Thus concludes the story of the Sunday. The story of Monday coming up in future!

Flashback July 2006

Mid-July, 2006

Another day of running around like headless chickens, being the newbie students we were in our first big posting in the hospitals. And so we scoured the list of new admissions and decided for each of us to talk to one of those patients on the list, learning about how diseases manifest in patients.

I went downstairs to meet the patient. She was this lady in her 50s, English-speaking. Whew. I converse alot better when the patient speaks English, because my Chinese is poor and my knowledge of dialects is pathetic at best.

It was easy to find out from her that she had some nonspecific pain that was maybe suggestive of a gallbladder infection.

Then, the two of us, patient and student, 'connected'.

==

I mean, it's like most of the time we just go around interviewing patients on their symptoms, their medical history, the medications they take and stuff. But sometimes, there's this very human aspect that shines. It becomes a conversation.

Sometimes, I talk to the patient with trying to understand let's say appendicitis in mind. But what happens is, the conversation veers into something totally different, when the structure of patient interviewing gets thrown out of the window and both parties gladly be themselves and share their own honest ideas.

Examples being:
Singapore Idol 2 and whether Hady deserves to win.
How evil pharmaceutical companies profit off the poor.
How to make money.
Motorbiking, accidents and fate.

I dunno why but I'm smiling as I write this. Those patients that 'connected', I remember them vividly. Sometimes they remember me too, I can tell. It's so sweet, so human. And somehow, it seems like it happens to me more often than my groupmates. I've asked. I wonder.

==

Back to the patient who I had 'connected' with. She confided in me that she had been doctor-hopping to feed her dependency on benzodiazepine sleeping pills, midazolam/Dormicum to be specific. Well then, it's normally not a student's responsibility to give advice - and sometimes it's dangerous because we'd be giving unqualified advice - but then I expressed my concern that she was doing that to herself.

She continued to say that she had found life pretty meaningless for the past 50 plus years and was doubtful if living had been worth it.

Right then the alarm bells started to clang, because I didn't know what to say. What was I going to say? That I found life meaningless so far too? That I myself was terrified of living for 50 years only to find out that I can't find any meaning after all those decades?

I only managed to mutter something about family and all, because that's what we pick up early in clincal attachments - talk about the patient's family and usually they'll have sweet memories to reminisce about. And she says her children have grown up, so it's a bit lonely and boring at home. The typical empty-nest scenario I assume?

Wormed my way through by promising to forward her concerns about her own benzodiazepine dependency to the doctors there. It felt uncomfortable. It chilled me how it was possible that I'd end up like her, 50 plus years old and still finding life meaningless.

Approached the MO in the patient's team - the MO being one of the more junior doctors - those who would listen to what students have to say. Was told that it was out of General Surgery's scope to do anything in the current admission, but that she could mention it in her outpatient visits in future for a referral.

I didn't dare to go back to the patient to tell her that. I didn't dare to look at her, because she reminded me of myself, and possibly what I would become in future.

==

Yeah I just had to get this off my chest. It's not a thing that I can really talk about in real-life. Knowing my classmates they'd just either say I'm 1. over-reacting, 2. crazy or they'd just shrug and pretend they didn't listen. Alot of my classmates just shrug and change the topic when they listen about tough issues like this. People seldom want to get their hands dirty.

Back in July I didn't have any sleeping problems - or even see myself having any. Now I have and I can see that ending up dependent on benzodiazepines may actually happen in the end. Now I'm even more freaked out. Those antihistamine tablets the doc prescribed me? They have almost run out, and they don't really work anymore.