random events

Class Outing (Sun 27 July)
The second class outing in 2 weeks was more or less a success, though I wished more people could have joined us. Thank you An Yi, David, Lee Wei, Vipul, Yuan Sau, Zi Kai as well as Michelle and Wen Yan for making the long and difficult journey down to East Coast! Especially Zi Kai, who still cycled with the class even though he had just cycled 120km down the Coast of Malaysia!
Until the East Coast is served by train (which I believe will be in 2020), I foresee that future class outings will be held at an ahem, more central location.
Planning could have been better too.. because we did not coordinate the arrivals of everyone, the ones who came earlier and who had already started renting their bikes were forced to forfeit like 45 mins of their cycling time..
But once everyone was there the outing went along pretty well.. naturally Michelle's hidden past as a accident-prone scientist, as well as ZK's and Vip's covert relationship status were once again brought into the limelight. Ahahaha.
Dinner was at Sakae Sushi, Parkway Parade, which was expensive but comfortable. On hindsight, I could have brought up other options such as Katong Laksa - much cheaper and much more famous! Oh well..
After dinner we had a 20 min all-standing discussion in which we contemplated the after-dinner options. Everyone lamented the lack of things to do at East Coast! Luckily David's recommendation of Pool garnered enough support. We ended up playing pool for at least 1.5 hours.. The girls managed to pick up a few skills too.
All in all, a pretty good class outing :)

Lunch, Rag and Tennis (Mon 28 July)
I had lunch with yunhua today. It was super convenient since she was working at the Brenner Institute. I can't help but envy her, since Cambridge is probably the top university for Medicine everywhere. It's a case of feeling the grass is greener on the other side.
Then again, its not where you study, but also how you make use of your opportunities. So I shan't make a comparison of how Cambridge is academically better or whatever (though it is) and I'll just count my blessings that here in Singapore, I'm close to friends, family and basically everyone I have known in my life. It's two greatly different experiences, and it's not fair to compare them side by side. (I think I'm doing pretty decently here in Singapore, and hopefully I shall improve in time)
It was interesting hearing all the different things they do at Cambridge, like the 80pg long essay-type notes for each physio chapter, the fact that their social activity comprises mainly drinking, and of course, the fact that they do get to dissect their cadavers. So the lunch went on rather well.
In the afternoon I crashed my OG's tennis game. I shall be eternally grateful to Pravin for giving me such an effective refresher course (: Though most of the time I was breathless picking up fallen balls, I did manage to serve out a couple of good shots!
With luck OG badminton and basketball will turn out to be fun too...

random events(I)

Ben and Jerry's Day (the week b4 21 July)
If I remember correctly this was the day Lakota/Bombini had Fish and Chips at the Glass House. (Next to Park Mall) The Fish and Chips was one of the better ones I've tasted.. I often get sick of the fish in Fish and Chips, so I suppose the fish must have been rather good since I finished an entire plate..
Following our sumptuous (and highly expensive dinner), we had Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, in which we had a wonderful time deciding what was most worth buying, and a rather difficult time (for glen) trying to figure out how much each person had to pay.

SIBF (Thurs 24 July)
After attending a hectic 5? sessions of practice the band headed down to Republic Polytechnic (in Woodlands!) to perform in the competition. From where I played the band sounded muffled and totally unlike its usual sound in the RI band room. I tried my best to play in tune but at times I really just had to stop playing just to alleviate the tuning problems. Generally it wasn't the band's or my best performance, despite my best efforts.
I think the band was placed 6th out of 7 bands, but the scores were rather close. I would think its still a commendable performance given the limited practice time...

CIP @ Jenaris Home (Sat 26 July)
To be honest I attended this cip mainly because the og was going for it, and because Charlene was organising it. It was really fun, and not much work for us volunteers, because the residents in the home were already quite independent and have settled well into their daily routines.
For me, there didn't really seem to be anything really different about the residents from normal people, despite my initial apprehensions. The residents probably enjoyed winning us at table tennis, checkers, chinese chess - in many of these pursuits, us medical students were their inferiors! But despite losing to an aged man in chinese chess 2 times in a row, I enjoyed the company of these special residents. They were special precisely because they were normal.
Ah yes, then there was the matter of 'volunteering' myself for an impromtu mass dance... Probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever done in my life. But since I seldom do such crazy things, I suppose that was fun too...

After lunch (which was prepared by the residents and which I found not-too-bad) we headed down alll thee way to Tampines.. to chill at Macdonalds! Following which I enjoyed a 30min ride on bus 10 home :)

I went to Charlene's grandma's house to try my hands at baking today. Charlene, Julia, Jonathan and Elizabeth were also there. On the agenda were two items: Chocolate marble cake and Custard Puffs aka Choux Pastry.

I was pretty blur at first but then it turned out to be a simple task of following instructions written on little pieces of paper. Those who didn't know how to bake, me included, followed the recipe perhaps too much.. like trying to get exactly 250g of flour down to the 1g.. Must have been reminiscent of chem/bio spa for the others... but for me it reminded me of the time i was fumbling with conical flasks, really scared of contaminating reagents at my lab, while trying to prepare a buffer solution for something..

But we must have been pretty good at following instructions.. coz the cakes turned out not too bad.. especially the pastry which had a really delicious topping.. think BoLuoBao! Pity that some of the pastry got stuck to the tray and had to be scrapped off.. leaving gaping holes that was the " worst nightmare" as Julia put it. But the pastry was really good enough to be eaten alone!

I shall try the chocolate cake tomorrow.. hopefully it wasn't as bad as Charlene put it..

I suppose baking isn't that bad a hobby if you have the time to bake.. and the friends to try the fruit of your efforts(:

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Whenever I suddenly experience an urge to start blogging, I always undergo a familiar routine. First would be the step of clicking on the create new post button. Then there would always be a time when I feel stuck - start reconsidering, wondering if I do have something to say. Sometimes I find that I do have things to say but I don't know how to put in words. Sometimes I'm worried the things I want to express would not reflect well on me after people have read it. And a lot of times I have nothing to say, but I still want to say something. Hopefully today is not one of the latter times.

Blogs are for expressing feelings and emotions, but a lot of times my blog does nothing but describe and list. That is deliberate. Today shall be a bit different coz I'm feeling FRUSTRATION and ANGER at myself for failing to drive properly. ARGHHH. I'm WASTING my parents money. ARGHHH. I'm still STALLING my car. ARGHHH. Basically, I have found that I've learnt NEGLIGIBLE things on my driving lesson. Coz I haven't progressed beyond driving on the roads for the last TEN lessons.

ARGHHH.

ok, I feel so much better now. Good way to destress, blogging.

Notes from medicamp (II)

Day 1 (7 July)
830 Reached pgp and collected my new greyish-green bombini T shirt which the rest of my og had bought on the day of pre camp tea. The skit had quite a few sensitive jokes but was kind of funny. I'm not sure if it was better than last years skit though.

12 Went to Charlene's house so that she could finish her cip programme. Spent the time admiring the state of her house and her japan scrapbook, in between bites of grapes and sushi, and occasionally worrying that we would be late for my station.

2 Arrived at suntec. Ate cai4 fan4 at the food court. Marcus was supposed to call once the first group left his station, but didn't manage to as he was swamped. So Charlene and I got a shock when we received calls from Harpia saying they had arrived right after we had finished lunch.
After Harpia there was a lull period before a sudden surge of people. At one time there were 4 groups finding locations at suntec at the same time. My pictures were still a bit too easy, but then that gave us a rather easy time collating the scores. Most groups found all the photos, and the difference in scores was due mainly to differences in cheer quality and overall teamwork (which I found rather hard to guage).
Although mine was the 2nd last station, Charlene and I arrived last at the chalets. Could be the fact that we spent time shopping for og shirts. and also that the public transport took so long.

Day2
I wasn't an m1 (and neither was I a station master). But i did get dragged down for a game of tug of war. Basically the team who starts first gets to choose their opponent. Then the two player put on LBVs that are tied to each other and start walking in opposite directions on soapy ground. Unfortunately when it was time for m2s to play the other team chose me as their opponent. I played against Marcus, and I fell down even before he finished a step. But suppose its more of a size thing rather than a strength thing.

The afternoon, which was supposed to be preparation for cook out, was spent playing cards and doing other random things. And the people who went buying stuff for cookout came back rather late, so there wasn't much time spent on the actual preparation. But I guess considering that its more of a "have fun" thing rather than a "we go all out to win" thing, our effort didn't look too bad. Our theme was something about mafia and I played a minor role as one of the gamblers at the table with the words BIG and SMALL inscribed on it. Although I did put my leg on the table and start shouting the moment the judges came in, I had a feeling that I wasn't that convincing...

Of course the highlight of the event was Pr (m1) who had the judges bursting out laughing. It was one performance I would remember for quite a long time, though I only got glimses of it...

to be continued...

Medicamp 2008: Medagascar! (part 1)

I am soo happy that I went for medicamp. I wish I could go again. After I had spent a large part of my holidays doing comparatively mundane things, medicamp was a breath of fresh oxygen. (not pure oxygen of course, or I would have hypoventilated and died)

What I really liked about the camp was that it enabled me to relive the sense of comraderie from last years camp. Okay, maybe medicamp is really an extended og outing. But its also one of those rare times when the og was also bonded together by a common goal of making medicamp a success. I think eveyone really played very hard and worked very hard to make the camp work out, and I'm really quite pleased with the results. I think I worked quite hard too! Playing bridge and not sleeping till 3 or 4 am each day is hard work you know. But seriously, I think I'm glad I played a tiny little role as a station ic for the amazing race. For many reasons.

Bombini

To be really honest, welcoming the m1s was not the first thing on my mind when I decided to join medicamp. What I really had in mind was an opportunity to have good fun before m2 starts. But the m1s really exceeded my expectations in terms of their enthusiasm and proactiveness. Despite my reticent character and low-key role in the camp, the m1s were still rather enthusiastic when they finally decided upon dunking me after war games. A bit too enthusiatic, no? Haha but to add to their credit, the guys did volunteer themselves very readily when I needed people to help lug water back to our chalet. Mayank really cracked me up with his jokes, Jonathan (the bigger one) entertained me with his stories of 1SIR. I reciprocated by answering their queries about m1 life in general.

The M1s, really, were the driving force behind the camp. But when their enthusiasm waned a little (such as when we waited until 12am in the morning for "another og to join us for mass dance practice" on the 2nd day..), the ogls (my fellow batchmates) had to step in to rah rah them a bit. Weilun, despite his absences, provided great comic relief as comedian cum singer of "sexy back". Sheila, despite her sore throat, managed her role as "the boss" with great dexterity. Julia, the de facto ogl ic, was the one who ensure things were running smoothly. I got to know Alfred and Daniel and Ruth a bit better when I found out all three were from band.

All in all, it was not an unenjoyable camp. Actually it was extremely enjoyable. I wish I could attend med camp every year! But as that's not actually possible, I shall always cherish the memories and hopefully create better ones as time goes by =)

Mad Pre Camp

Medicine precamp was enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. (This is first statement serves as a hook for the rest of this post, and its true in a sense). The only thing that happened according to the programme for me was the amazing race. And even that wasn't done completely to plan. For one, I didn't head straight to my station after flag off. Which was really a sensible time-killing and fun thing to do before starting the long wait for the first team to reach my station (almost 4 hours later). Luckily there were plenty of things to do at Suntec.
After visiting the food court, shopping and playing cards (don't ask)... the teams finally started arriving. They found the stations way too easy, which is why I have since upped the difficulty level A LOT. MUAHAHAHA. But I will still have to see what happens on the actual day itself because medicine students are very smart (and they know their shopping malls quite well).
The evening was quite slack, except for mass dance which is very sweat inducing. I bathed in a bathroom facing the front of the house. I think its all right to use it in the day but at night when the outside is dark and the toilet lights are switched on, the outline of the users upper body is quite apparent throught the frosted glass windows. Some cheeky guy went to knock the windows halfway through my bath. Which is probably why I havent used that toilet to bathe again since.
Glen, Eli and Julia left halfway through the mass dance. Which left me, Jon, Charlene, Christina, Ruth and Alfred to play cards. (actually ruth wasn't playing, only watching; and alfred was helping christina with bridge most of the time) We played and played and played (yes bridge is vey addictive) until everyone wanted to sleep. But christina kept insisting on playing! Which is quite ironic coz she almost fell alseep in our last game. And she slept like a log throughout the night.
While on the topic of sleep, it was very hard to enter dreamland with the climate control air conditioning, which kept insisting on blowing a big blast of cold air at us every few minutes to ensure the temperature was maintained at exactly 25C. Making my nose clog up almost completely. (I felt better when I sat up.. on hindsight I think the mucus drained into the air sinuses in my skull) Alfred left to visit the other ogs and never came back. (When I finally had a dream, it was about Alfred coming back! This dream made jonathan laugh slightly the next morning when I told him about it)
Day 2 for me didn't really follow the supposed plan much.. We only played 2 out of six station games, mainly because our og had only 4 ppl to play. One was a laoyingzhuaxiaoji type of game, which was quite exciting mainly because I had the opportunity to practice running backwards. The other was twister which I find really impossible to play after a few moves! But none of the games really stood out for me, which is why I still feel that last years medicamp games were better.
In the afternoon we skipped war games altogether.. Ahem. But that was because not many of us were available to play anyway. So we went to help out in the preparations for fright night, which I felt should be highlight of that day. Ironically we didn't come back in time after almost our entire og went to watch movies at Downtown East. (We watched Zohan.. u can bet I didn't choose the movie. It was kind of funny in an extremely crude way.)
Anyway its not our fault for missing fright night altogether also.. when we called back hq they said the ghosts were very tired already.. right?
I think fright night must have exhausted Jonathan.. which is why he fell asleep soon after attending the debrief. While he was sleeping, the rest of us were cajoled by sheila into playing sardines (which is really hide-and-seek except the ppl who spot the person hiding go into hiding with him.. until the last person in the group is left searching moarnfully for his friends)
Yeah.. 20 year olds playing hide-and-seek!
Glen proved that the most dangerous place is also the safest place by hiding back in the very same room where we started off from. Jason, unfortunately, was the last to notice his hiding place, and found us only after 30mins. I shall rmb this for a vvery long time..
We played bridge until it was almost 4. Then sheila had to leave and was nice enough to give me and jason a lift home as well. I didn't have all the keys to my house so I spent like 1.5 hours in a HK cafe eating and dozing off at the same time, until it was 6am in the morning.
It was a memorable camp, am I not wrong?