New content.

If you were to write a book about your life, how would it run?

Would it show your mistakes, recurring alarmingly at the speed of sound; flashing chapters of ageless deeds, missing pages of lessons learnt?

If all you do, is accrue blunders that get glossed over in time; if all you excel at, is misappropriate memories that aren't there - what is left, at the end of it all?

Not depressed currently, I must clarify. Just thinking, really, if that can describe the sense of guilt you get when someone is depressed. And reflecting, really, on what I'd gone through this past year, and what I really should have done when I felt that way.

Help us all!

Excellent article.

Elbow.

There is something strangely moving about a rock band, from Manchester, collaborating with the orchestra of Manchester, and holding the concert simultaneously in a concert hall and a free open-air area open to the public.

Damn I wish I was there.

Finally.

Dear followers of this blog (if there still are any left), I'm sorry for the lack of posts since April, as I've grappled in turn with having to repeat the year, attend meetings with the medical school and dean, and all activities associated with failing exams. And not to mention nothing else happening in my life right now worth blogging about.

Until now.

Just now, actually. I've just noticed that the Nigerian scam has evolved to a new level. I will reproduce the whole email I've received below (I'll like to see someone claim intellectual copyright for this) -

ATTENTION: PAYMENT NOTIFICATION VIA ATM CARD.‏

From:	FBI Director Robert S.Mueller III (fbi.director@btconnect.com)

Attn: Beneficiary,


This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly Investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal Transaction with Impostors claiming to be Mr. Tito Mboweni Republic of the Reserve Bank Of South African , Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr Frank Nweke, none officials of ABSA Bank, FNB Banks, kelvin Young of HSBC, Ben of Fedex,Ibrahim Sule,Larry Christopher are impostors claiming to be the Federal Bureau Of Investigation. During our Investigation, we noticed that the reason why you have not received your payment is because you have not fulfilled your Financial Obligation given to you in respect of your Contract/Inheritance Payment.

Therefore, we have contacted the Federal Ministry Of Finance on your behalf and they have brought a solution to your problem by coordinating your payment in total USD$11,000.000.00 in an ATM CARD which you can use to withdraw money from any ATM MACHINE CENTER anywhere in the world with a maximum of $4000 to $5000 United States Dollars daily. You now have the lawful right to claim your fund in an ATM CARD.


Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in this transaction, you have to be rest assured for this is 100% risk free it is our duty to protect the American Citizens. All I want you to do is to contact the ATM CARD CENTER via email for their requirements to proceed and procure your Approval Slip on your behalf which will cost you $300.00 only and note that your Approval Slip which contains details of the agent who will process your transaction.

CONTACT INFORMATION
NAME: James Smuts
EMAIL: paymentofficer111@yahoo.cn
Telephone Numbers: +27-78-130-2165


Do contact Mr. James Smuts of the ATM CARD center with your details:

FULL NAME:
HOME ADDRESS:
TELL:
CELL:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:
BANK NAME:


So your files would be updated after which he will send the payment information's which you'll use in making payment of $300.00 via Money Gram Transfer for the procurement of your Approval Slip after which the delivery of your ATM CARD will be effected to your designated home address without any further delay. Mr. James Smuts will reply you with the secret code (8389 ATM CARD).

We advice you get back to the payment office after you have contacted the ATM SWIFT CARD CENTER and we do await your response so we can move on with our Investigation and make sure your ATM SWIFT CARD gets to you.

Thanks and hope to read from you soon.

Robert S. Mueller, III
Director Federal Bureau of Investigation


Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming to be in possession of your ATM CARD, you are hereby advised only to be in contact with Mr. James Smuts of the ATM CARD center who is the rightful person to deal with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT and forward any emails you get from impostors to this office so we could act upon and commence investigation.
Note the length to which the scammers have gone to create this hoax -
-Robert S Mueller Is the current director of the FBI.
-Fake return add or not, they've apparently gone to register an account with BT to send this
-Wry attempt at humour - Mr James Smuts.


The spelling still has to be worked on though, I must say.
And I really don't know why if they've gone to register the BT address, why they would use a .cn address for the return email. And a yahoo account at that. Tsk tsk - amateurs, eh.

Taking it all in.

So these familiar thoughts are back to plague me again - these undesirable friends my ma always warned me about - guilt, loneliness and sexual predation of raptorial ladies of dubious moral fibre.
OK not so much the latter.

But yes, I feel haunted by these vile thoughts that I can't banish from the inner recesses of this cavernous mind of mine.

It is at times like these that I notice the codwebs that have formed on the window ledge, the mess of miscellaneous notes tucked away into the corner, and the dust, accumulated in thin homogeneous layers, metamorphosed into mildly mocking faces of disapproval and spite.

I need sleep, yes.

Location, location.

I was just having this chat with LM yesterday when I remembered this block of condos in Yishun. They were, perhaps you might say, built in a prime location - 15 mins walk away from a certain Hokkien Association primary school (one of the more 'famous' ones), and right next to the MRT track. And I mean right next to it, like probably just past the legal limit for building MRT/LRT tracks next to buildings.*

Only problem - it was beside the MRT track, yes - the nearest MRT station, however, was, I estimated, a good half hour's walk away.

I still remember, when I went past it - how terribly infuriating it must be for the residents in that condo (if they didn't drive), to experience (literally**) the cliche 'so near, yet so far'.

And then obviously I thought of the program "Location, location"*** and the plummeting values of Spanish properties and how terribly malpositioned some of the properties advertised had seemed (even in the boom times).

And I recalled just recently, there was this comedy**** where the comedian mentioned how we'd treated our homes as assets, and mortgaged them to buy useless sculptures and copies of paintings to clutter up our property (on the recommendation of some 'experts') only to find that when put to the crunch, these are but liabilites to us and the Earth.

And it's all come together to me now.

I'm buying a plot of land on the moon.




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*Though it probably was the other way round, this, MRT track constructed before the brilliant idea of flats next to MRT lines was conceived.
**Yes, literally. Examples of how you shouldn't use the word.
***To clarify here, I was actually thinking of "A place in the sun". Which was more geared towards the Spanish-property buying market. But just in case you want to know about the show.
**** Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle. Tried to find the part on youtube but couldn't. Here's another part of the show though.

What I've been up to.

So I've decided to blog again. At an opportune time, as you know, for my OSCEs are coming up in three days' time and it's the time to procrastinate again. But I've lost most of my ability to write in coherent and jargon-free sentences, so I shall just post some photos of what I've been up to these few weeks.

What twelve weeks of coffee does to your teeth. (I did try to wash the cup, really). Before (after frantic scrubbing with detergent and sponge, really), just for comparison.

So I decided to cook myself a good meal today for lunch - forgot the gravy initially, then thought I might as well save some calories by not having any. And having an ice-cream for dessert instead.

So yes, from the pictures above you may have gathered, not much has really happened in the past twelve weeks at Blackburn. I may blog more about it, when I feel I've regained some powers of diction, perhaps in the next week.

The Temperature.

The temperature in the past week has been so cold, I opened the fridge on Monday morning to find that the milk and juice were frozen (I turned the bottles upside down to check) and after some violent manipulation of the plastic bottles, I just about managed to squeeze out some milk slushie onto my cereal, which after a minute of microwaving remained, sitting proudly atop the cereal, taunting me to sink my fragile teeth into them.

And even after turning down the cooling settings from 4 (out of 6) to 2 that very same morning (amidst frenzied muttering under my frosty breath), the juice was still in its slush-like state yesterday. It is, I estimate, 20% slush now, according to the powers of my estimation, which would probably fit in with the forecasted slight increase in temperature over the weekend.

It is now 3 degrees centigrade over here, and yes, temperatures regularly dipped below zero degrees the past week.

Bloody awful weather, this.