reasons to celebrate

it's exams time for most of the iium Kuantan people.

the final professional exams is just around the corner. the library is bustling with study groups and those with their noses in the books. 3rd years and 4ths years will have their end block exams in 2 weeks time. all the other courses pun exam jugak.

since kak asma' and kak jan will be leaving us soon, we had to find reasons to make the final sessions most memorable. makcik's birthday was a great oppurtunity for a celebration. we wanted to play masak2. with asma' as head chef, we made chicken and leek pie with apple crumble for dessert. sangat sedap sekali. alhamdulillah kak nur and kak farah and their kids could come too.

4 new wonderful additions to our colourful family.
one more person is due to join us in 3 months time inshaAllah.

the absolutely delicious apple crumble and chiken and leek pie

the custard was made by tuan puteri Aishah

the whole rowdy group.
sian makcik kene pakse pakai baju cantik untuk bergambar, hehe

makcik: jadi ke gambar tu?
me and the head chef: jadi... jadi...

hmmm... nak masak ape lagi ye after this???

a short, defensive entry on AAC

dear "ME" (rase macam addressing myself je... btw 'me' is such a self-obsessed pseudonym :P )

i liked the AAC novel because it is very interesting. the story is believable altho nearing fairy-tale like (no one's that baik). the writing is nice and the plot is captivating. from his writing style, the author macam org yg ikut sistem tarbiah.

i guess many people who liked the book looked forward to see the movie. the story line held true to most of the important events of the book but it also added some scenes to add some flavouring and nice spices to it like

• the parts where fahri and maria were alone together
  
• and punyelah aisyah tutup litup in the first place tp after that bukak tudung to make the home scene more real. i don't think aisyah suka jerit2 dlm novel. they made her character a bit different than i imagined it.
  
• and nurul pulak bile frust fahri kahwin, threw off her tudung in a fit of rage (huh?).

in conclusion, if i'd watched the movie only without reading the book, the story might be okay. but since i've read it, i think the book is much more islamic. so, read the book :)

an evening at the beach

there's so much going on in the picture that u wonder what actually is going on? hehe

the background view is awesome

mouthwatering egg sandwiches and sausages

last saturday, my friends and i went for an evening picnic at pantai sepat. we were joined by a family of goats and a few cats. we had a lovely time.

new additions to my collection

these postcards are not arranged in chronological order of receiving them.

from kak yung
from sibah

from wa

from ayah

p.s. it takes about 12 days for a postcard from indonesia to sampai kuantan. and about 6 months if its from south africa (says my roommate)

detailed progress reports of a much, much younger me

i found this in ayah's filing cabinet at home. i don't think he'll miss it if i take it hehe.

what i like so much about it is how detailed the reports are and how extensive they assess each students. u can actually see how far u've progresed.

in my primary and secondary school they only had "baik", "seorang yang berpotensi", or "pencapaian yang memuaskan" and the likes.

going back in time

tetibe je rase nostalgic and like putting up these photos.

ayah and his girls :)

i can't imagine what we were doing out there in the snow

orang lain sume in summer clothes tapi kitorang je bertutup litup :)

i've been tembam and bulat dari kecik... nothing much has changed now :p

dermatology

The simple rule in dermatology is: “If it’s dry, wet it and if it’s wet, dry it.”

It’s my 5^th day of dermatology. It’s more of a clinic-based posting with the warded patients amounting only up to single digits.

So far, it has been rather interesting. Everyone has some form of skin problem whether it disturbs their lives or not. plus, I never knew that blackheads (open comedones) or whiteheads (closed comedones) were considered as mild acne... hmm.

Among the common problems that present to the clinic are eczema and psoriasis. A lot of patients also come for cryotherapy for their viral warts.

One interesting skin infection is tinea imbricata which is found only among the orang Asli community in south east asia (u can’t really find out much about it from the internet cause they don’t have it in the western world). The causative organism is Trychophan concentricum, a dermatophyte that causes concentric lesions on the skin. The lesion look like printed patterns on the skin (macam corak yang cantik). During my public health posting in Pekan, I saw one Orang Asli lady with such a pattern on her back and arms and was suspicious of it not being normal. Only later did I know of this infection. Since the condition is rather common among this community, someone who hasn’t got the infection is considered different, hehe.

unique tinea imbricata markings (not the average patterns of a ringworm)

According to our dermatologist, Dr Anis, who btw is one of the kindest persons in the world, most of the medication were discovered after the 1950's. before that, the medical world did a great job at describing the diseases. some diseases have self-explanatory names, only that they're in latin.

alopecia areata just means a bald patch and prurigo nodularis means itchy nodules.

they actually didn't know much about the disease so they gave it a name that the patients didn't understand. hehe.

......................................................................................................................................................................

alhamdulillah the radilogy test is over. there were images which were very obvious like miliary TB and those that i couldn't really make out i.e ? ascending urogram (i cant even remember what they looked like). we were given 5 minutes each for 10 questions. baru je dpt figure out the lesion, dah kene move on to the next question. whatever it is, life goes on.

on the 3rd day of dermato, we had a mass test which involved the whole class. Dr Anis included the very, very common pictures which are the important ones that we have to know. there were a few tricky ones i.e most of us mistook tinea capitis (ringworm infection of the scalp usually in children) for alopecia areata (autoimmune bald patch of adults)...hehe

no more tests until our final exams in april, yay!

pre-radiology test

i really can't wait for the radiology test tomorrow.

no, it's not because i like it. on the contrary, i can't wait to finish this 2 week posting.

more later after the test, inshaAllah.

AAC the movie

i watched the movie Ayat Ayat Cinta yesterday.

tak sempat nak comment now. will try to do so the next time am online.

an exciting weekend

it has been a terribly exciting weekend.

i arrived in skudai around 2am (had to endure a few minutes of lecture on "why did u balik so lewat malam?"). then slept kejap. and then at 8.15am went to cast my vote at sek keb sri skudai with mak. mak had to go to sek men sri skudai. nasib within walking distance je. i was very excited and nervous sebab 1st time vote. but, pagi2 tak ramai orang and it was such a simple process. it was over and done with just in a few minutes. the suasana wasn't that much exciting because there were mostly the dark blue posters around.

then, we went back home and packed some stuff and proceeded to kuala lumpur. ayah had to vote in wangsa maju. there were so many cars on the road. macam raye je. the suasana in kl and selangor were so different. there were colourful posters everywhere. and people were not afraid to show their support for the non-ruling party.

we arrived around 3pm at the taman permata voting centre. while, ayah went to vote, me, mak and hammad walked about and prayed kejap. when ayah was done, as we were walking towards the car, he recognized his oldtime friend from his uk-days in one of the houses and we singgah kejap. lame lah derang bercerita macam2 cerita sensasi.

then, we went to kakyung's hous in shah alam and at night we went to kakyung's in laws' house in PJ. we ate satay while watching the polling results on TV. as we were guests, takkan nak excited lebih2 so tengok movie kat astro. results kat tv lembap yg amat and biased. walaupun dah dapat unofficial results awal, we were still reserved until it came out on TV coz anything could happen.

it was such an exhilirating night. everyone was in front of the tv watching the results. kakyung takde astro so we had to do away with the conventional malay channels. but it was soo exciting coz nearly the whole family was around (kak ngah je takde). sume org stayed up sampai dah tak larat. sian ayah coz he had to drive the next day.

on sunday morning, we went to kak ngah's house in serdang to pick her up and bring her back to skudai. after filling up our stomachs with roti canai, we set off for home coz i needed to catch my 6pm bus back to kuantan. sian ayah had to rush becoz of me tp dah terbeli tiket awal2, what to do.

even though i had barely 8 hours at home, i had quality time with my family. anyways, home is where the heart is and the heart is always with the family :)

radiology pulak

ok, i'm done with anaesthesia. it was interesting while it lasted because the lecturers were nice. one was quite strict but you know he had good intentions.

so, today's my 4th day of radiology.

so far, my group has been scolded practically every day. there's always something we did wrong. there's a small poster on the wall with the words: a mistake does not become an error unless you refuse to learn from it. i'm not sure whether it's a reminder for the students of the lecturers. both kot.

1st day:
there was a briefing and intro to the radiology department. we were told the do's and dont's and on what days each specific examintaion was done. then we had a pre-test to see how much radiology and anatomy we knew. i don't think i did very well on that one. then we had a tuto with Dr A. there is a hot seat in her tuto's. we take turns to sit on that seat. everyone gets a brain freeze when they sit on the hot seat and knows the correct answer when they sit in the other chairs. geramnye.

2nd day:
it started out badly. i made the mistake of reading wrongly the examinations to be done today. I got the dates mixed up. habes dr B membebel tak sudah in a high pitch and stern voice ("macam mane nak jadi houseman nih??"). then we had a tutorial with her. senyum je lah sebab banyak sgt tak dpt jawab. which triggerered another round of lectures (they were so not academic lectures). "tu lah u all nih, u don't have enough 'garang' lecturers. that's y u r all so manja"

3rd day:
there was no scheduled tutorial. plain radiograph dah tengok. the mammography tak start lagi so we went to the MRI room. there was one kid who was planned for MRI of the foot under general anaesthesia. all 6 of my group agathered around to see the anaesthetist intubate the patient. then dr B came and asked us why we were all there and not divided into smaller groups to observe some other procedure. so my partner and i went to observe the mammogram when one colleage said that dr A wanted to see us. rupe2nya she wanted to scold us about not dividing ourself in the first place and then jsut as soon as we came, we had to go back to where we came from. hmmm, terima je lah. in the evening, my partner and i went to the CT scan room. Dr Mubarak was there. he taught us how to read the scan and tested our anatomy. he is soo kind. i want to follow him je lepas nih. he's the silver lining of radiology.

4th day:
we went to the MRI room. tak faham sgt MRI nih. after about 1 hr of tengok2 je, dr Mubarak called us to meet him and he taught us a few things about the MRI. then we had a tuto with Dr A. again, basic anatomy kantoi!

geleng kepala n senyum je la for these 2 weeks.

tomorrow balik umah. yay!