A not totally unremarkable weekend

The weekend was not totally unremarkable.

On Saturday I went down to M1 with my dad where we queued for almost an hour before we could fill up the form allowing me to port my number over from singtel for the 3rd time. This was due to some miscommunication and red tape on the part of Singtel whereby the account holder was not allowed to apply for a new account elsewhere unless the guarantor's signature was obtained.
Conclusion: Singtel makes it difficult for you to switch operators.

On sun i visited M's church as a visitor. It was rather strange really because i don't really consider myself a christian. I did find the session interesting and it was an insight into what M and perhaps some other Christian friends do on Sundays.

Lunch was with family, and we had a mix of fried dumplings, steamed dumplings and tom yum soup at our favorite dumpling restaurant at North Bridge road.

In the evening I regretted having so much for lunch because when i was still so full then that i only managed a pitiful 2km run before I called it a day. (before you declare me a slacker I usually try to run at least 3km and in the past week I have been running 5km. but this evening my lunch threatened to come out via reverse peristalsis so I had to stop)

At night our family celebrated my sister's birthday with Longevity Noodles plus Blueberry Cheese Cake. Everyone liked the cheesecake, though I suspect that the cakeshop used blueberry jam instead of real blueberries. Ah well.

Finally, a properly organized lan outing will be held tmr, with incredibly, all the invited guests promising to turn up.

Last but not least, a message for my sister:
"Happy birthday sis! May all ur wishes come true (:"

I just read John Banville's "The Sea". It's a Man Booker Prize-winning story about loss and identity (as mentioned by the backcover). Another book about people with lives filled with sorrow and regret. As the protagonist's wife dies from cancer, he reminisces about his childhood where another tragedy took place. It was interesting comparing how he changed over the years, from a crazed young teenager to a man in his late 50s, each time seeing his loved one go.
Why is life filled with so many regrets? Perhaps life imitates art more than art imitates life.

Fortunately, real life isn't as tragic.
Some random lessons from the informal curriculum of medical school:
1. I've discovered an intolerance of "too many texts" - studying from so many sources that it's impossible where to remember where everything comes from.
2. I think I still need work on reading people's body language. Perhaps I'm the purpose why medical students have tutorials on communication.
3. I'm worried that I may forget how patients are people. And that people have emotions.
4. I think I've learnt that its never too late to ASK.

Well, it's never too late to make some new year resolutions...

After Pharmacology Pros

Finally, after weeks of hard work, the smell of fresh air! The cool summer breeze! The bright sunny sunshine! (:
Following long-cherished tradition, we lunched, watched a movie and bumped into Yatta. We even discussed, somewhat awkwardly, what we wanted to be. Whatever I said, well, was perhaps what I wanted to say at that moment. But ideas come and go, there are so many possibilities. And we are being forced to make the choice earlier.
And so the saying goes, "When the boat reaches the bridge, the path straightens." (pardon the lousy translation)
And now for some sleep.

Half dazed from CNY and mugging, here I am blindly hitting keys on the computer.
Its been a good chinese new year (so far), but a bad mugging season.
Need to squeeze in some study time and sleep in between family meals and whatnot.
I don't make any sense trying to blog within 5 minutes when my brain is half asleep already - I will update again (hopefully soon).

OT3

OT3 was a welcome break from the monotonous studying. Although I felt that perhaps more songs would have made it even better, the catchy tunes and wacky cast certainly made my day. Perhaps what made it even more memorable was that so many of my friends were cast/ ticketing/ music/ producers. From set design to music to audio effects to ticketing - I can hardly imagine the sheer amount of work that has gone into the production. For the M3s, 2 weeks before pros, no less.
My personal favorites were Sister Joseph and Melvyn who managed to inject much humour into the production. "Tiffany" and Mayank were excellent in their vocal prowesses while Dr. Black was incomparable in his role. There are too many excellent performers to list here, and the list goes on..
I wish them good!

COFM revision week

And so ends the week where I ran into random people while going for COFM/ EPH tutorials, which were undeniably very useful because they helped to put things in perspective (and of course prepare us for exams).
It's also sort of a "spacer" week because it fills up the void between CHP and mugging for pros. As a bridge to pros, it helps to build up the pace a little because every single thing the tutors are saying seem to be linked to the exams.
A certain prof mentioned, "I notice that not every one is here for the tutorial, which is going to be very useful for your exams. That is fine with me" or w.t.t.e. to pockets of laughter from the class. Actually the attendence was pretty good, with only 2 absentees (one of them went for OT3 rehearsal, the other well...)
Thank you for reading this post, which has allowed me to take a break after getting confused about occupational medicine and what not.
Finally, I can't believe they are revising the whole of COFM in 4 hours tmr.

And on to the exams...

I was sneezing away during the last CHP presentation on the knowledge attitudes and practices of the community on H1N1 which quizzed respondents on their personal hygiene and community responsibility, which meant I really couldn't pay attention properly until Prof Chia brought up "A Cautionary Tale" , commenting on the strengths of ppl's questionaires and how people shouldn't make unsubstantiated claims that their questionaires were validated. That really got my attention, and it got me wondering whether we should have found a different name for our funny video, because it brought us attention for all the wrong reasons.

Then we had a brief update on our pharmacology exams, which notified us that 30% of the marks came from T/F questions and secondly, that the remainder of the marks - a whopping 70% - would come from 6 essay questions.

But what about COFM? I looked around me, and sure enough, people were carrying an immense stack of COFM notes comprising:

1.Public Health in the Community
2.Health Promotion & Behaviour
3.Disease Prevention & Control
4.Occupational Medicine
5.Evidence‐Based Medicine:

I concluded, perhaps just in time, that it was time.
To start studying.

Shoo!