AHHHHH tomorrow i start my first rotation. i’m more scared than excited really, my clinical skills are rustier than the sunken titanic and i havent been doing any reading that is even remotely related to medicine. i am not a fan of medical journals, truth be told. i would much rather flick through the glossy pages of Vogue than pore over the BMJ. don’t get me wrong, i do love med, for me its not about the reading, it’s about the doing. but of course you have to know before you can do (things correctly)… so it looks like i can’t escape the reading! ooh and speaking of fashion and medicine, i came across this interview in NYmag with Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz. he’s funny.

I wanted to go out of fashion, to study medicine. I thought, you know, who needs fashion? How important is it if you wear a red dress and an orange jacket? It’s not really. But it is important for that woman, she will find a nice fur coat and it will make her happy, she will have a better day. Our job is to give you comfort, to hug you with clothes. I always tell this story a woman told me, that every time she wears Lanvin, men fall in love with her.”

i love how he says “hug you with clothes”. i never thought of it that way, but i want to be hugged with clothes. engulfed in a giant wool scarf in the harshest of winters. i guess fashion has oft been regarded as ’superficial’ but i really do think it’s more than that. and i say that because dressing better inspires my confidence and makes me feel like i am better equipped to take on the challenges of the world…. and one day i would like to wear Lanvin (and Balmain and Valentino too. a girl can dream! teehee)

anyway tomorrow will be interesting! i’m so psyched that i’m in final year!!!! but that comes with the responsibility of doing things well and teaching the 3rd years… i remember this amazing 5th year louise who used to teach me how to examine patients properly, patiently correcting my technique and giving me useful critique that i still remember to this day. i really hope i’ll be useful to patients and to my juniors (and that means i have to start reading talley and kumar all over again.) i’m am going to have to get used to the wards again but i know i will love it- interacting with patients, seeing everyday miracles and just basking in the sheer privilege of being a part of other people’s lives. yes i know i love it.

ok i shall go do work now. i have watched the entire season 1 of samantha who?, and it is so funny. i love samantha! she is so endearingly cute.

annnnd. i leave you all with this SUPER HILARIOUS KARAOKE VIDEO called TUTS MY BARREH (go figure). watch it please?? please?

i leave for melbourne in approximately 3 days, and i haven’t packed. i’m a little in denial, i don’t really want to leave sunny singers but i kind of want to? (in a slightly masochistic, force myself to get into study-mode kind of way?) everytime i am home i am inundated with lots and lots of love. i say inundated because i literally feel like i am flooded with love. my parents especially, i love them for how they go out of their way to make me feel comfortable, my friends for letting me run away for 10 months every year and still wanting to be my friend and meeting me on demand (thank you all i love you and i really really mean it), it’s been a good holiday in general! i am once again filled with so much inertia to start studying, exercising and eating properly and being miss independent again, but i somehow love the feeling of doing things on my own (yes even the laundry) and being busy. i’m hoping i’ll start my first rotation of 2009 on a good note- neurosurgery here i comeeee!!! (i foresee lots of icky neuroanatomy revision)

every year i start out feeling hopeful, and this time is no exception. only i really really want this year to be AWESOME, and i believe it will be. i am finally moving on. i can’t believe it took me this long but hey, i’m just excited to embark on new things. i can only hope that it will be as exciting as i’ve envisioned it to be!

i hope 2009 brings you lots of hope, joy and love …. if you want it you can make it happen (ok now why do i sound like a life coach?) xx

hi everyone, i hope you had a great christmas! just checking in to wish you all a happy new year as well, i am terribly sorry i have stopped sending cards. a part of me wishes that i’d bothered enough to send friends handwritten cards and yet a part of me knows that it would be impractical to do so, as so many of my dear friends are abroad (or is that another excuse for my laziness). anyway i thought i would just wish everyone here, friends and aquaintances alike! HAPPY BLESSED NEW YEAR!! i hope 2009 goes really well for you all, just as i am hoping that it will go well for me. it’s my final (FINALLY) year of med school and i really really want it to go swimmingly, and most of all i want to be inspired, challenged, enlightened and contented. i want to be a nicer kinder person and i want to always show mercy to others, and to love and be loved. (and the list goes on. like spend more time with loved ones, master the art of sewing, eat less cake, bake lots of cupcakes, stop sleeping in class, save up for that miumiu bag etc). i know i’m probably not going to get all that i want, but i’m going try my hardest anyway… and i guess my favorite outlook on life is to ‘let life take you by surprise’….. so we’ll see what comes up! also i just wanted to give thanks for all the blessings i’ve received in 2008! it was probably the longest year in my life (somehow) and i feel like ive weathered many storms, but really i am grateful for everything i have! God has been good to me as always and i really hope i can be closer to Him… i admit that i haven’t spent enough time reading His word so hopefully 2009 will see a more disciplined spritual walk! and hopefully a great breakthrough in my kids ministry, i really hope for a big big big impact to be made on those little hearts

in other news i caught up with dear shu today and boy we chatted for ages and ages, i think 3.5 hours just flew by like that but it was so nice to talk about everything under the sun! and it’s such a great feeling to be able to pour out your heart to a friend and relate to each other. i love coffee and conversations! thanks shu for the great company, i was really happy to see you again after soooo long and then it was dinner with nick, whom i had not seen for nearly a year and so it was another great catch up session, and i had a nice time laughing and reminiscing. thanks for dinner nick! i’m really glad that things are going well for you, so here’s to another wonderful year ahead!

on another note, i had a thought about relationships just today and since matters of the heart always baffle me, i googled my question and i was really surprised at what google had to offer. like try googling things like ‘can a guy and girl be platonic friends’ and you’ll get a myriad answers that are surprisingly interesting. so anyway i read a couple of articles on my question and realised that i identified with certain points in different articles offering varying viewpoints. i’m not sure what this means, it probably means that i’m still not clear on what i’m looking for, but it has certainly made me think a lot about my direction and i think i’m slowly but surely finding the answer to my question. which, is a secret. haha. anyway yay google. the WWW is indeed formidable. ok signing off now! HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONEEE

my exams are over! hoorahhh! although i say that half-heartedly, because i don’t actually feel liberated, in fact i’m rather stressed because i don’t have a good feeling about how my papers went….. but in any case i’m just relieved.

it’s been 36 long and gruelling weeks of rotations and lectures, of which 18 weeks (paeds and women’s) were absolutely fantastic(!!!!) and the other 18 weeks were…for lack of a better word, uninspiring. psych was interesting, but i don’t see myself doing that in the long term (or i may be wrong.) but in general it’s been fantastic, i really am glad for the opportunity to see and do so much, but right now i’m feeling burnt out and absolutely spent.  so i’m very very happy that this long awaited break is FINALLY here and i’m flying home REAL SOON to spend the next 1.5 months with my family and friends!!

oh and just before i was about to leave the house for my last exam i saw this:

everything will be okay

in the end.

if it’s not okay,

it’s not the end.

i really like it! simple logic makes for good comfort!

and i watched Waitress today, i’d always wanted to watch it after seeing the poster in 2007:

YES pies! omg so many pies! i remembered that i wanted to watch it and so i stopped putting it on hold and finally got down to seeing it. it’s about Jenna, a waitress who makes lots of pies with strange names, like “I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby” Pie (quiche of egg and brie cheese with a smoked ham center), “Kick In The Pants” Pie (cinnamon spice custard), “Baby Screaming It’s Head Off In The Middle Of The Night And Ruining My Life” Pie (new york style cheesecake, brandy brushed, pecans and nutmeg) oooh speaking of pecans i had a very very tasty pecan maple pie the other day, it was so good, i can still remember exactly how it tasted

anyway the movie was relatively enjoyable, it was interesting and quirky and now i can’t stop thinking of banoffee pie

help! i am driving myself crazy trying to call shanghai to enquire about electives. for one, my mandarin is pretty much non-existent. i found myself saying ni hao, then i got stuck, and promptly switched to english. and the connection was so bad, i spent 5 minutes ni hao-ing and listening to the dialtone and then gave up. called again via my cellphone and this time i finally got a decent connection going, but the woman on the other end was the operator who did not quite understand my request. she redirected me to another number but no one answered. so after 3 attempts i threw in the towel… i shall try again tomorrow. perhaps i should make a draft in chinese beforehand. my level of mandarin is just …embarassing. can someone please tell me how i can contact the person-in-charge for international exchanges in Shanghai Second Medical University (SHSMU)? i’m getting a little desperate

anyway ive started my gp/psychiatry rotation and it looks to be a pretty peachy semester ahead *fingers crossed* we saw two patients with schizophrenia in psych early this week. one presented with attempted suicide, and the other presented with mania(?). it was really interesting, listening to them recount their thoughts and feelings and experiences….. i’m beginning to like the clinical part of psych but i’m not sure if i’ll enjoy the voluminous readings. haha. anyway i walked from my house to nottinghill for lectures today (must have been about 3 kilometres or so) and it took me 30 minutes. but it was a pretty nice scenic walk and i was dressed in 5 layers to keep myself warm and toasty. the weather forecast said it was going to hail but thank God, it only drizzled a little.

oh! and something amusing happened yesterday. for some reason i thought that class started at 2pm but in actual fact it ran from 1 to 2pm. so at 2pm i waltzed in feeling pretty breezy, while the entire class looked at me in utter shock. i was completely oblivious, until nesh told me that tute was at 1pm. oh my. i wanted to laugh out loud then, but i had to regain my composure so i could apologize to the tutor. and seriously this is not the first time i’ve pulled off something along these lines. i think i have a knack for doing silly things. haha!

happy birthday to me! no one should have to spend their birthday studying and cramming on the eve on an exam. it is a shame and i would be lying if i said i wasn’t a tad disappointed…but that’s life… so i choose to accept it with grace and then i’ll have a proper celebration after the exams are over. wooo double joy!

THANK YOU for all the lovely FB wall messages, to the amazing friends who surprised me at 12midnight sharp, and also to my wonderful family… much love xox

p.s. i will reply the FB messages after my paper tomorrow! it would be impolite of me to leave all the kind messages unreplied!

finally! i made an appointment to get my wisdom teeth extracted on wednesday. it is getting too painful to bear right now. i’ve been popping copious amounts of panadol and aspirin but they’ve stopped working, i feel like my head is going to explode and i wish someone would kill me now. tomorrow i shall stock up on enough panadeine forte and neurofen to last me a lifetime. i hate teeth. dentists earn too much money from teeth.

i am trying sooo hard to grin and bear it/suck it up, but the throbbing pain takes my perseverance away. i saw this woman in dr E’s rooms last week and she had urinary incontinence and prolapse and chronic pelvic pain… and she actually thought it was common for most women to go through that….. well oh well. i reckon women put up with a lot these days.

i am sorry to sound so sore but severe pain and ‘bright and shiny’ do not go well together……. oh last week i assisted in 3 surgeries! one hysteroscopy d&c, one cone biopsy and one laparoscopy. plus! the staff at the practice actually bought me lovely almond pastries from this italian patisserie on my last day, how sweet of them! i’m going to think happy thoughts from now on so i get less bothered by the painnnn

i have this pain in my tooth and gums that persistently aches and triggers 78263424 neuronal synapses when i bite on it. it also radiates to my head, giving me a throbbing headache that impairs my ability to concentrate….so much for trying to study. i am literally going insane…!!!! the pain is just incapacitating, even though i took 5 panadols. i saw the dentist on friday and he said my wisdom teeth were impacted and required extraction…… i wish he could have yanked it out there and then, but he said i had to get x-rays first. GAH! so i have to wait till monday to get the x-ray done and golly knows when they’ll send my films back to him and then he’ll ring me up to arrange for an appointment……. hopefully it won’t take long because my exams are in less than 3 weeks! damn wisdom teeth! i always seem to get into trouble just before major exams. last year i was terribly ill for 3 weeks just a month before the end-of-year exams…. it is a horror i don’t want to relieve. sigh please please please let me have the surgery and get well ASAP i don’t care if it hurts like mad or costs me a Louis Vuitton bag (my heart is breaking) or if i have to look like a chipmunk for 3 days. (well actually i care!!! but obviously i need to pass the exams….or risk dire consequences.)

it is tres gloomy and cold (brr!) outside and i woke up (late again, as usual) feeling awful… i blame it on the oreos i wolfed down before going to bed last night. this is what i call a downer day, where you know it’s going to be a crap-awful day the moment you open your eyes… so i gave school a miss, was supposed to spend my time studying very conscientiously but as you can see i am still(!) procrastinating. i want a large poufy skirt (see picture) and some glossy patent black lace-up oxfords, and some nice brown leather boots (i really need new boots!). i think i might feel better then!

on a side note

i was just wondering… have you ever met a person whom you know is the love of your life? it doesn’t matter if you dated before and then broke up, or are still loveydovey together- what i want to know is whether you’ve ever had that feeling you get when you look back on fond memories and you just simply know….? do things like these exist only in the movies, or do they really happen to real people in a real world? anyway forgive me for the rambling soliloquy, i’m beginning to think that bad days always put me in a semi-contemplative mood. haha

+picture from lorick (the designer behind the waldorf collection in gossipgirl, which.is.back! yay!)

p.s. just caught ‘how to look good naked’ on tv! ooh it looks wikkkid!

hi i’m back from sydney! it was a blast, and the weather was magnificient! didn’t get to explore sydney because i was at the IMPACT conference mainly (it was fantastic, by the way!) but i’m definitely thinking of coming back (how could i not?) will update more in a later post because i’m swamped with work right now plus my arms are sore from canoeing