On leave!

I did it! I took leave and did not leave the country. Roll your eyes now please.

Instead,  I spent about 8 hours doing spring cleaning. I cleaned the ceiling fans, the dining room lights,  then wiped down the window grilles, cleaned all the surfaces including filthy dirt laden wires and cables. Looked for often missed places like the top of the doors and light switches. Air con man came to service and clean the air con units then I took a break for lunch at my Mum's house. Came back and went through the book cases, desks and computers. Then vacuumed the floor and the sofa,  followed by mopping the entire area. Went on to clean both toilets and sprayed the back yard. In between all these I rinsed the flowers and rearranged them.

:O what an incredible amount of cleaning! And I'm still not done. Tomorrow I shall clean the windows and clear out the kitchen. I also need to pack my cupboard and throw out unwanted clothes. I got rid of a couple of bags of stuff today, hopefully more tomorrow. Need less gunk in my life. The feeling for being in a clean place is awesome. Though I'm sure this will all come to naught within 1 week. Why our air so dusty?!

In these 8 hours of alone time,  I had many thoughts about life, family, work and medicine. Funny how now that I put pen to paper my mind is a blank. All I can think of now is CNY is in a week and I have no packed my angbaos! Wow taking leave to do spring cleaning and packing angbao, seriously #growingup :S

Husbandless

The hubs is going to leave on a work trip tonight while I stay home to study :( No better way than to spend our last moments together...doing face masque O:

Bodyshop Green Tea face masque

Stirring up dust

Just spent the last hour tuning my violin instead of being at Prof L's revision lecture. URTI has gotten the better of me, so decided to stay home to do something therapeutic and recuperate for the upcoming festive season. My fingers hurt like crazy now I don't know how I'm going to play for church tomorrow.

Anyway I went for my pre-employment health check up at the designated clinic in Paragon. Besides the prime location there was nothing very prime about it. Looked like any old cramped neighbourhood clinic. The attending doctor dressed like a gypsy. The cursory abdominal examination was very ticklish. Makes me really amazed at how our patients stand all that pressing!

In Order of Merit

Toby's Estate

(8 Rodyk Street, #01-03/04)

Jones the Grocer

(333A Orchard Road, #04-21/23 Mandarin Gallery)

Smitten Coffee and Tea Bar

(60 Robertson Quay, #01-11 The Quayside)

Forty Hands

(Blk 78 Yong Siak Street, #01-12)

Yawnz.

My blog is terribly boring. Here is a random photo to cheer everyone up!

NNI Electives, April 2011

Help?

17th Nov - Children's Camp meeting
19 Nov - Anaesthesia end-of-posting-test, Dinner with friends
20 Nov - Core bible study, Attend friend's wedding
21 Nov - Church clinic
25 Nov - Ethics Exam
27 Nov - Cardiology Review Course
28 Nov - Children's Camp meeting
1 Dec - Brother's wedding part 2
3 Dec - Opthalmology end-of-posting-test, ?Playhouse rehearal
4 Dec - Brother's wedding part 3
5 Dec - Children's Camp facilitator's training
9 - 12 Dec - Children's Camp
17 Dec - ENT end-of-posting test
30 Dec - 1 Jan - Youth Committee Retreat
10 and 11 Jan - Pathology Professional Exams
23 Jan - God's Big Picture talk

Breathe.

YAWNS

Oh, what a wonderful week. (: Guess it's back to school tomorrow!

Source: Techgurls

書法

Spent a morning with June 師傅 learning 書法 (The Law of Writing) in the comfort of her very own (art)house. No joke man! I took like 3 hours to learn how to write my name in 楷書, and it still looked really noobish and I cheated multiple times (by touching up and coloring any jagged edges haha!) June had a whole bunch of really useful books that teach you the exact direction of the stroke and all the attention that you have to pay to the minute details at the end of each stroke! But nothing beats having someone teach you stroke by stroke! The best part was actually learning something about Chinese poetry and how my surename 陳 typically refers to the 陳舊的陳, which connotates "old". June also took me on a guided tour on her art area and all the awesome pieces that she's completed. Really cool!

By the end of the session, I felt a slight back ache (because you must sit straight and have your arm suspended in mid air with the 毛筆 perpendicular to the 宣紙 otherwise it shows up very quickly as crooked words). It was pretty fun though! In between the writing, there is absolute silence, just us and the 毛筆, oh so poetic! ;) Thanks June! I think I'll have to learn like for 421903821 years to write as nicely as you. :p

This was what June was doing when I arrived. Super nice writing and poetry! (: Recognize the poem? We had to memorize it like in primary school or something. 鹿狼毛筆 and the cheaterbug 墨水 that comes in a bottle instead of the kind you pound around in the black plate. Practice practice.

My final work! Can pass la hor :p According to June 師傅, the character "心" is one of the hardest words to write. I thought my last "恩" was pretty good haha

I think if I reeeaallllyyy had a lot of time, I'd be happy to pick this up! It's pretty calming and zen-like, and really trains your dilligence and patience. Also ups your level of 墨水 haha

First pass

Today Prof was talking about using HRT patches to minimize first pass effect...then I thought of Shanhaiguan's 天下第一关 (First Pass under Heaven)! So random. Miss being on holiday.

Chipotle is pronounced as Chee-Poht-Lay

I find that I am emotionally conflicted about making complaints.

On one hand, I am so annoyed that people are not doing their jobs properly, being inefficient and wasting resources. So I send in a complaint letter, worded professionally with overlays of sarcasm and frustration. But then- I get a reply, a sorry. Then my heart melts and I feel so bad about complaining. People are just trying to make a living, aren't they?

O&G is drawing to a close. After 2 weeks, I conclude that KKH is a medical student graveyard. Wearing the Medical Student tags just makes you invisible to doctors, nurses, sonographers. I find it peculiar how people go to so much effort to ignore you. I mean, doesn't it actually feel very awkward to have complete silence when there are 2 people in the room, or have someone stare at you in great hope that you might speak to/teach him/her. Is it that hard to say, I'm sorry but the clinic is rather busy today, I'll try to teach you when I can. Worse still, doctors who have all the time in the world but refuse to talk to you. No patients? Well, there are always iPhone games to pass time, time to surf Facebook, just no time to teach the medical student.

But but, I must not generalize. We've met very awesome people like Dr Timothy Lim and Dr Khoo who shower us with fun tutorials and chipotle fries. Through this posting, I've resolved to become a good clinical tutor. I used to really dislike juniors (hmm actually I still do), and find it very difficult to see myself as someone qualified to teach. But I realize that having good tutors, good role models make all that difference. It motivates you and gives you something to look forward to. It's not all that difficult to be nice! You don't have to be super intelligent and have all the answers, just a smile in the corridor or a hello in the clinic would suffice, really.

Time for a Yakult!

Voyeurism

Hulin Hanlong and I were having dinner together during one of our calls and we were just discussing how students stalk their tutors all the time on facebook. When they got married, who they're married to, how many children they have, where they went on their last holiday etc etc. So I commented that when I become a tutor in future I will be like super fierce so that they will not think of stalking me, since students generally stalk nice/good looking/friendly tutors, but Hulin quickly dismissed it and said students will stalk you regardless, as long as they can remember your name. Han Long also advised that when we pass out as housemen we'll need to secure all our online identities in light of potential confidentiality issues (Facebook, blog etc). Just the other day I was stalking Dr JO and his soon-to-be wife and their holidays pictures and giving live commentary to Dhap who was doing a night call with him haha. Nothing wrong with that I guess, just that its quite creepy to have someone know so much about you without you knowing at all!

Random thoughts!

Fruity

(via daniellekiemel)

I miss my hair!

Totally cannot remember how to ask the hairdresser to cut my fringe like that without giving me dreadful bangs. I wonder when I will ever have hair like that again ):

why do i have lame friends

Each player of this game starts off by giving 6 weird things about themselves. People who get tagged need to write in a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state the rules clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names.

1) I refuse to eat pineapples (unless they are on pizzas) and strawberries. Pineapples because once when i was young it bit my tongue and I couldn't sleep the entire night. Phobia since then. Strawberries just don't taste nice.

2) I have played stage roles as Prince Charming at least 4 times. Oh yes, and as a homosexual (Antonio, in Merchant of Venice) once too. THAT was fun. ;)

3) I was expelled as a prefect in Secondary 3 because i forgot to return the tape recorder. (seriously) I had to write a report about the tape recorder.

4) In kindergarten, I bit my female friend. I remember how she looks like. Her name was Krystal. well she bit me back.

5) I invent words and make up their meanings. hums.

6) If I had one wish, I would wish for a coffee machine. Why? Other things are too troublesome.

i tag hons, esther, joy, kimberle, david and ching.