Baby bought me two books today as a belated Christmas present.

Weird books, I know. But she knew I liked them and bought them for me despite their (and my) weirdness. She even tried looking up the zombie book on the net while I was away! -pats head-

Been hanging out with her nearly everyday. Today, I got her a Fred Perry shirt. =) In my totally unbiased opinion, I think she looks rather nice in it. The sales lady tried to get her to buy this bright yellow shirt instead, but it was decidedly too chirpy for my totally somber and stoic partner. The same partner who later tried to force me to study today, while playing Wii in front of me. =\ SO DISTRACTING!

We later met up with her friend and went to play some Left 4 Dead 2 at some dubious LAN shop overflowing with testosterone and overgrown boys yelling “BURN THE WITCH” at their computer screens. Overall, it was a nice day. =)

I was reminded today that exactly a year ago, we were out someplace fishing! Time passes so quickly.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Our xmas tree this year is stuffed with goodies!

Christmas dinner (sans the turkey still in the oven)

Finally got to see the stethoscope Lu bought me!

A bit blurry, but it has my name engraved on it. Hope it doesn’t fade for a while. (the camera seems more engrossed focusing on the ching ching in the corner)

Lu also bought me a bear wearing scrubs! SO CUTE

And Yuan bought me a Galileo thermometer.  Pretty isnt it?

Lots more present and lots more photos! But after I come back from Vietnam in 5 days. =D Tata everyone!

About time I did a little jig and an update.

So I’ve been back from Melbourne for about 4 days now and it’s day 3 of my student attachment with Mount Elizabeth Hospital. It’s been terrifically educational and I’ve learned heaps after my mini rotations in the Operating Theatres, Pharmacy, Ward, Stat Laboratory, and Accident & Emergency departments. It’s been very eye-opening and now I’m beginning to get a much clearer understanding of the world of private healthcare, it’s benefits, and pitfalls.

My first day in the OT was quite a shocker, with my first surgery being an open one. Thankfully, I found I have a much stronger stomach than I thought, and was much happier trying to identify the different types of tissue and structures I had only read about in anatomy texts. Suddenly, there’s a colored, 3-dimensional (and much bloodier) version to refer to in my head. I got to see plenty of laparoscopic procedures as well. Looks like keyhole surgery is getting to be the norm in the industry with its much shorter healing time and less invasive nature.

I think I’m beginning to like surgery. =D

The people in all the departments have been extremely accommodating and took the time out to show us around, tell us about what they do, and show us a little of their day-to-day operations. Most of them were surprised I already have a prior degree and that I’m already this old. Lol.

Today’s last rotation was A&E. After a few broken fingers, distal radius fractures, jabbed toes and extremely complicated urology cases, I think I’m getting to be madly in love with the unpredictable nature of emergency medicine.

The trip to Melbourne was really productive. We managed to get a car and a house, but only after much searching and over 10 different houses. The drive into Traralgon actually took much longer than we anticipated given the extreme jam going into Melbourne from the airport. The hotel itself wasn’t so bad (compared to the other places in the town) and sat in between Morwell and Traralgon, making it loads easier to shuttle between school, house inspections, and food.

Asian food in the region is slightly less than dismal. Chinese doesnt taste like chinese, and Vietnamese sure as hell didn’t taste like vietnamese. Did make quite a few new friends, both in the restaurants and at FOBS day.

FOBS day was actually quite fun. I don’t think I’ll be too much behind the rest when we start school. My only concern for now is physiology, which is actually beginning to freak me out. We all got this thick file to flip through over the holidays in time for our first exam 2 days before the first day of school.

So we got a Mitsubushi Lancer VRX in black. Gorgeous car! Don’t have a good picture of my actual car, so be content with this!

And this is my house now! =)

Had a really nice long talk with dear today. It’s been a while since we just talked, joked, smiled, and generally had fun. Reminds me there’s so much to smile about in a life full of gloom and bad news at every turn of the papers.

Speaking of gloom, someone’s a bit down and about.

Oscar had his little operation the day before yesterday and now has to wear the cone of shame for 10 days to stop him from licking and scratching the stitches. Poor lil thing. =(

He does look really cute with the cone though. Clumsy thing keeps bumping into walls, cupboards, legs… LOL

Anyway, its the long weekend now, and surprisingly, we have plenty of places to go. One of which would be the Body Works exhibition, to which I hope to be able to place more context to now that I’m partway through self-teaching anatomy.

Well, so much for waiting a couple of weeks.

Today, after my rather odd interview with KK hospital, I met up with my parents for lunch before my mom suggested we go take a look at the Netbooks again. I already more or less had my heart set on a Samsung N120 if I were to get a netbook, mostly due to it’s weight, size, matte finish, speed, and battery life. The sound system on the N120 is also pretty good for its size and range. All in all, this is pretty much what I need to pick up, chuck in my bag, and walk off to and from lectures.

This 160GB 1.66GHz 10″ little wonder set me back about $700 with an upgrade to 2G RAM and a small pile of free gifts. I think the freebies took up more space than the netbook. We have here a USB keyboard vacuum, earphones, two microstatic cloths, one Toshiba retractable mouse, and one of those ball things you attach to the bottom to help it cool down.

Since I paid for my own computer, mom bought me something as well to bring to Melbourne. This little digital photo frame. We actually got it pretty cheap since the store owners gave us a discount. The plan is to load it full of photos of me my family and friends, then display it on my desk for extra motivation to study. =)

I might be heading down to Melbourne again in early December to do a little recce work, find an apartment, and hopefully get to make a trip down to Monash to attend the FOBS (Foundation in Biomedical Science) day. It’s supposed to be one where we get to mingle with staff, faculty and students, as well as get a short tutorial on FOBS to prepare us for the test on week 2 or 3. Apparently, we need an 80% to pass, otherwise we’ll need to retake it. =\

Not looking forward to the test.

It’s Ducky in a tie! =D

Anyway, that wasn’t the main point of my post.

This is.

Yes. You’re not seeing things. It really is $1 per litre of 98 and 95 grade petrol. Most people in Singapore would know that over the last weekend, Shell launched an 8 hour long campaign island wide that slashed prices of petrol to sinfully low prices. Naturally, the cars started queuing and causing jams that littered the entire country. We originally weren’t planning to join the madness, but having had lunch at Jurong Point, we slipped into the back of the queue for the Shell station opposite the Jurong Police Station. It wasn’t so bad, really. Took us about 20 minutes to reach the front of the queue and top up a good 70 litres for the Cayenne.

Emboldened, we took the other 2 cars out (BMW and Mini) to the Shell station just outside my place. But that was when horror began.

Now, as you can see from my crudely drawn diagram, we live really near the Shell station. In fact, by turning right rather than left at the T junction, we would be able to cut at least half the queue. But, seeing how the queue is a rather sizable one, we stuck to our moral compasses and turned left towards the U-turn, joining the back of the queue.

Having been in the queue for a good 30 minutes, we finally reached the T junction. Judging by the speed at which the queue was moving, it can be assumed that no one was jumping the line at the T junction (or the cars in the front simply clogged up the T junction’s leftmost lane, making it impassable to queue jumpers. We were all up in solidarity, together squeezing out any would-be-immoral queue jumpers.

However, upon reaching the T junction, I was stuck, miserably, just behind the stop line of the traffic light. The cars in front moved a lil, making a slight gap between our car, and long’s car which was ahead of us.

AND THEN!!!!

Two assholes jumped the queue right in the slight lil gap between our cars.

This gap slowly widened to fit one car, in which they both shoved the noses of their Jaguar and Audi, blocking off both lanes for the road.

Shell had gotten Cisco police people walking around to prevent any rioting and investigate what the fuck was going on. The Audi guy gestured he was going into the Pet Store. We figured, alright then. He can’t help cutting in, since you can only turn into the pet store from that lane.

But he didn’t go into the pet store!

The lying cheat just straightened out his car as soon as he could and joined the queue to Shell.

=.=

The Jaguar didn’t even bother. Just bulldozed her way through.

So our queue was cut by the two who chose the Path of Social Gracelessness.

It was a sad moment in Singapore.

Car horns wailed in protest through the air. Fingers and words of frustration waved at the two perpetrators from all across the line. Protests fell on deaf ears. Even the Cisco police people couldn’t do anything about these people who had dissented from the social order of the Singaporean Queue.

It was all a form of cruel irony that we found out shortly after that they had run out of stock for formula 98, causing most of the cars to leave the queue after anyway. We had queued for 45 minutes, essentially for nothing.

Quite tough to see, but it’s matte black decals on a nice metallic black body. The words are cut out of the matte black strips to show the shiny surface below.

It’s going.

All of it.

I cleared out more than half of everything in my wardrobe, extracting from its dusty depths huge armfuls of clothing. Tomorrow, they’ll be off to the salvation army and/or some tailors so they can sell the material for some extra cash.

If this doesnt say “I love you more than anything so I’m tossing out all the clothes I love wearing for clothes you love me wearing”, I don’t know what does.

The dust is starting to irritate my nose.. =\

It’s only one more day till Monday, marking the start of the Monash results week. Somewhere deep in my heart, I already know the answer for me is a “no”. I wonder what fate has in store for me, twisting and spinning me round like a fluffy plaything.

Mini is home from 2 and a half weeks in car spa!

No, really. He just got a respray. This is how Mini looked like when we collected him from Mini Habitat almost 2 years ago.

Woot! Can’t believe it’s been 2 years! But now, Mini’s looking brand spanking new in the new metallic black color range! The black looks fabulous with the red and piano black interior, B&W union jack side panels, and JCW rims. GORGEOUS! We also fitted him with Mini’s new line of JCW body kits (see the new extra side skirting?)

A close up of the new body kit from the front. It juts out from the car more, makes it seem a whole lot lower, and comes with a bunch of new air vent things.

It also came with this panel on the inside of the door! SWEET!!!

All in all, we were really happy with the car. It looks great, drives great, and they even very kindly helped us change out the previously dented/scratched license plates. The guys at the workshop did an outstanding job. The Mini looks like an entirely different car today. =) Now that I’ve actually seen the car with its new paint job, I’m not so certain we should be covering it in decals. Perhaps the more prudent thing to do now is to leave it be for a couple of days, see how the current look sticks.

Today I turn 23.

I think I’ve reached the point of my life when one year seems to begin blending into the next. 23 doesn’t feel any different from 22 or 24. The implications of the number were lost on me just for today.

In all honesty, the day didn’t start out too well. I spent too much time last night watching documentaries on black holes, space time fabric and theories of relativity, resulting in my rather lackluster appearance today having woken up at 8am to have breakfast with my dad.

Yeap. For those who don’t know (i.e., new to this blog) I share the same birthday with my dad. Today he turns 56.

The day started with the usual mee sua (meant to symbolize longevity since it’s so long and stringy), photos, and I got my present from Long and the rest of the kids. =) We were supposed to head to office to join my dad for the birthday party there. But after I had showered, changed into my pretty clothes, dolled myself up, I realized I was the only one ready, and we inevitably ended up being too late, and my mom told us not to bother coming down. =\

That was a big bummer for the day. Having to spend my entire birthday indoors, watching more videos on my computer. I literally didn’t set foot beyond my front door. Spending the whole day in covers me with a thick layer of sian that was pretty difficult to shake off.

Dinner was good though, and things began to pick up there. Mama cooked a great big pot of Buddha Jumps Over The Wall. A very elaborate and really really really delicious dish choc full of expensive and delicious treats like abalone and sea cucumber. =D I had 3 bowls!

My aunt and uncle came for dinner too, bringing with them a big bottle of Moet champagne! Everyone had a glass of it. =D Yummy stuff. I’ve already begun to forget how to hold my liquor. Just a little is enough to set me off the edge. =\

This is the tower of presents papa and I got this year! Awesome isn’t it?

The big blue/green ones are papa’s, as is the little bag with bears on it. Mine are the pink baggy, the black baggy, and the two gold ones. (plus an extra big big big soft toy my parents bought for me as an after thought).

This year, we bought papa a Drobo. It’s a customizable network storage solution with 4 bays for internal hard disk slots. We bought an extra 5 TB of space to slot in and get him started, as well as a Drobo share to let him share his stuff over the wireless network at home. Cost a bomb. But it was Perfect. =)

Long and Zihui made the trip to Orchard Central to buy us this fantastic banana chocolate tart cake!

Pa and my cards!

The usual durian cake from Sheraton and the special tart cake! We usually have 2 cakes, or one big cake.

When we were in Orchard Central this year, I noticed this shop selling poker chips and remarked over excitedly how awesome they were. Everyone noticed and I ended up getting two sets of poker chips! And a texas hold em game (with tutorial). LOL!

Started out with this… But I very rapidly lost all my chips. Even when we play without real cash, I still go broke! These chips which the rest of the kids bought me have a metal center making them nice and heavy. The ones papa and mama bought for me have “monte carlo” all over them and feel like those in Crown!

Bear posing with all my presents this year! The shirt is from aunt and uncle. Big soft toy at the back. Texas Hold Em set (complete with a mat in it like a real gambling table, a deck of cards, some unnumbered chips and a ‘how to’ manual on all types of poker). Deck of invisible cards from baby. Plus one more additional book she bought me which my mom is currently half reading. =\ One set of poker chips with metal in the clear case in front. One entire briefcase of poker chips with 2 decks of cards and 5 die. One extra deck of cards from the kids that “glow in black light” and have all the picture cards looking sad and emo. Hahahahhaha.

The beginning of my gambling obsession! You saw it here first!

All in all, while I didn’t spend the day with neither friends nor significant other, spending it home with family turned out not so bad. We even ordered in some pizza and watched a weird documentary on how humans descended from aliens.

Thanks to everyone and their birthday wishes! =)

And thanks to my really sweet dear for trying your utmost to make this day special for me even though you’re so very busy. I really really really liked the card substitute. =) I love you!