CFCS Corrupted, Chung Very Happy

6pm, campus, raining heavily. Just finished workin out at gym. Coolin down with air-cond at library (and hopin the sweat evaporates b4 the smell starts). Stuck at library with Chung, cant leave cuz super heavy pour outside. Decided to bloggo.

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STUPID POWERPOINT CORRUPTED

I just spent 45 minutes yesterday creatin a beautiful powerpoint for my CFCS presentation tmrw, when after saving, i cant open it again. Sum stupid error abt "unable to access ur file..." and "cant recognize..." Now have to redo everything again... @#$%*!!!

Before dat can open once or twice, i even copied my CFCS partner's slides into mine, but after taking it down to CR1, den got infected by damned "Microsoft Powerpoint.exe" virus when copying seminar slides just now, den cleaned it out with antivirus, den onli cannot reopen powerpoint. I suspect the bloody virus corrupts the last powerpoint dat u modified. Sigh, happened with my blood pressure slides for the juniorHSD meet in October 06. A few seminars oso my batchmates kena dis error.

Yah, this specific virus (and a certain "Surat Untuk Edelin.txt" virus) is runnin wild in the campus computers, Kaspersky and AVG are barely keepin them at bay, with the constant reinfections by a hundred infected pendrives being plugged in an out each day. Makes u think how hard is it to contain an actual viral outbreak where the unsuspecting carrier goes home and spreads the sickness to his family, whom in turn disseminate to their friends etc.

Lesson: get another pendrive (where ur slides arent on) when pluggin into the CR1 computer, which has no internet and thus does not update its virus definitions.

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CHUNG ON CLOUD 9

Chung is having a "lovesick syndrome" (not locked-in syndrome, but similar to such a comatose like state) now. He can barely sit still. Very strange sitting with him now, not his usual self anymore. The answer = he's with a girl now!

Ah, i cant remember the last time i had a crush on any girl. When the hormones are rushin thru ur blood and everyday u go to ur workplace, school, meetings and even band practices so eager to just want to glimpse her, or even just say hello. Waahh...dat time on cloud 9, whole week kenot concentrate on study, just terngah-ngah sit there at library thinkin abt her, waiting for weekends to come, or waiting to get back to school.

As the years pass, and after a few..well, let's call it when u realise u "tak ngam" with her, or u push the friendship too far until it crosses the border into sumthin deeper and suddenly she wants out quick and gives u the cold shoulder...u tend to become mellow, more matured and less excited about all these boy-girl stuff. U become pessimistic, expect less and more cautious.

I believe every guy (or girl for dat matter) should be able to enjoy themselves alone, b4 attempting to start a relationship. Be independant, learn to seek love from other sources. To find love in only one person puts a strain on ur partner (and if both of u only just cling to each other, u'd probably isolate both urselves from the world, as we can see with many examplary couples around us everyday, hor...).

Also find a mature partner, sumone who has been thru a few relationships previously so dat they have the experience. A girl who has learnt to be independant, and of course, must be low maintainence.

Peer pressure always pushes us to find a partner. It can be worrying seeing ur friends pair up (and previous "targets" u were slowly building momentum with suddenly pair up with sumone else) and finding urself still single. It gets VERY TIRING to hear and answer the same damned question, "Johan, when ru going to get urself a girl?"

I think its best not to rush it. Shop around a bit, get to know a few girls and find out how girls think and act. Learn from them, how to treat em nicely, what ticks them off, wat is "dat time of the month" etc. In the process, u will get to know urself, what ur likes are, what are ur strengths and weaknesses if u were to start a relationship.

I read sumwhere dat everyone is this world has a soulmate out there. A special person dat u will meet one day. Someone who "ngam" with u, chemistry will flow, and things will just fall into place. If u want to tie Buddhism to it, den everyone has accumulated karma in the past that will play out in the present as u slowly and inevitably link up with girl dat u will meet, and even marry. So, sit back and dun rush, enjoy life, survive housemanship, and den find a girl.

As for Chung, well, i think he's met a girl who's "ngam" with him. I tink they've both stepped gone past friendship, into the realm of...roses and clouds. Dem lucky hor, dat means me left still single. Sabar sabar...

My warmest wishes and gud luck from the 2 of the 3 jibai musketteers (dat sounds like a gud name 4 us huh?). Take it slow bro, treat her well, and well...can Jing and I be ur best menz? Jing give the speech, I pass u de ring :o)

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7pm. Rain stopped edi, wet and cool outside now. Nice post-rain weather for a walk home. Today rest from sam kao chatt, dem oily le the food, can pour out at least 50mL of oil from my container everytime after eat finish. Gonna stop by on the way at the cake shop to get dinner, buy a few buns, high in refined sugar. Diabetes, here i come!

Saving the Environment: Plastic Bags

Chung dem funny, he open his mouth dis morning and joked that he'll teach a staff nurse how to sing "gong xi gong xi ni", now he's at the hospital auditorium being forced to teach the whole hospital staff, kekek...

Saw an article in Cleo (Jan 2008) today about plastic bags and Cleo is sellin their own green bag. Some interestin (and depressin) facts about the (so-called) good ol' plastic bags:

With the number of malls mushrooming up in Msia, the number of plastic bags are also goin up. If every visitor to 1 Utama carried 2 plastic bags out, can u imagine the total amount of plastic bags carried out in 1 day, and there are like, a million people walkin in and out of 1U a day...

• 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are thrown away in a day = more than 1 million plastic bags in 1 minute.
• Plastic bags are only used on the average of a measly 12 minutes before thrown away.
• Worldwide, only 1% of total plastic bags are reused.
• The average family collects up to 60 plastic bags in just 4 trips to the grocery store (imagine the average family visiting the local Tesco).
• Plastic bags do not biodegrade, but photo-degrade, apparently this means that a plastic bag will break down into smaller and more toxic bits, which enter the soil and waters, poisoning crops and fresh water supplies.
• When burnt in incinerators, plastic bags release dioxins (dem poisonous fumes), toxins and carcinogens into the air, which we breathe in.
• Major cause of severe floodings in Bangladesh in 1988 and 1998 = plastic bags floating in sewer and drain systems.
• Plastic bags are made from ethylene, which is extracted from petroleum. So the less plastic bags we use, the less petroleum is used, translating to lower oil prices (its now US$100 per barrel of oil).

I still remember the time I gave the 1 hour talk on saving the environment to Fei Yang members (my band in SGM). I outlined 10 simple steps that the ground-level, everyday person can do for his or her part in being environmentally-friendly:

1. Save water (flush less water, use a spray-head for the garden hose, recycle rain water for watering indoor plants etc.)
2. Use less plastic bags, or renounce em completely and get a "green bag" (Giant now produces the brown-colored ones, better than the ugly green ones), especially if u visit a hypermarket every week for ur weekly supplies.
3. Cut down petrol use (take the LRT, use the train, dont speed more than 4000 rpm, i heard after this rate, petrol use goes up exponentially, walk to school or work).
4. Use less electricity (turn off when not using, dont leave on standby, air-cond at 24 celcius for our climate is the optimum temperature, wash clothes on full load, not just half load, buy those curly energy-saving bulbs that are expensive but save lots on the electric bill and are a lot brighter).
5. Eat less meat (meat industry releases alot of greenhouse gasses, mostly from the farts of animals, the gases are more potent than the usual carbon dioxide).
6. Cut down styrofoam use, thats the tah pau packages we use to pack our chap fanz. Why not use the famed stacked tin-containers, also known to us as the beloved char kehh? If u tah pau every day for, let's say, dinner, u could save on 7 styrofoams a week (dats a lot of styrofoam saved).
7. Plant a tree (as we know, trees suck in the bad carbon dioxide which makes up our greenhouse gases, can be a banana tree, or papaya tree where u just throw the seeds into one spot, u get free fruits, or go steal a sugarcane trunk and plant it outside, presto, u get a sweet snack, or just call the local MBPJ and get ur free tree planted outside ur house for shade to park ur car).
8. Use less paper (go paperless with all ur textbooks as ebooks and ur notes on ur laptop, reuse rough paper, write small etc.)
9. Get creative on the ways u can be environmental-friendly (like the treatment for hypertension being individualised, everybody has a unique way they can contribute to saving the environment, sit down one quiet day and think of the ways that u can make a difference).
10. Can't remember rite now...

Really, if we dun want to be fried one day in the near future, or have everything under water after the ice caps have all melted, we'd better do our part in stopping global warming. Anyways, it leaves a warm fuzzy feeling that we're doin sumthin good :o)

Quantum Physics, Killed in Fam Med OSCE, Mozart's Quintet

ETHICAL QUESTIONS THAT KILL

Today had Family Medicine clinical exam. 2 station, 5 minutes each. First station dem easy wan, just examine diabetic foot, dunno wat happen to me, screwed up that station big time, Dr. Y had to keep prompting me at each step, dunno if panic or wat.

Next station lagi killer, surprise ethical question. Pt was a 45 year-old man who works as a kindergarten bus driver, came in wif sputum super-positive (read: +++) for AFB, confimed tuberculosis edi. After I finish explainin to patient his results, mana tau suddenly he hit me with ethical question:

"Erm..so doctor, u no nid to tell my boss ya?" Confidentiality problem here. Must navigate the dangerous water of ethics slowly, sure got caveat wan (caveat is a question that if u answer wrongly, ur marks auto reduced to 30% ie. immediate fail, dis is for fatal mistakes u may commit in ur medical practices).

"No sir, but if ur boss asks me, I will have to ask ur permission first, but I have to report to the government as this is a notifiable disease."

"Aiyoyo, but my boss wont noe la? My partner last week kena fired, cuz he oso got TB." TB dem infectious wan, dats why need to report to government.

I asked if he was married, since I scared he spread to his wife or children.

"I got 5 children. No nid tell my wife wan ya, I take medicine no more infectious right?"

Aiyo, dilemma le. We send u to hospital to get treated la.

"Aikz, den doctor, I no work dat time, how la, my income so small, I have to support 5 children."

Den we ask ur boss for paid leave la.

"Den u have to give him a medical report, wont he know I got TB?"

Waaaaah, wan2 kill me, kill me when im REALLY a doctor dat time, not while im trying to pass my exam so i can BE a doctor.

Dat station quite bad, few people din make it. Crossing my fingers really hard that i passed.

QUEER PHYSICS FOR QUEER PEOPLE

Last Saturday I gave a short lecture on ichinen (state of mind) and how it can affect the environment (esho funi: oneness of life and the environment). I tried (my very best) to simplify the concept by linking basic quantum physics to it. However, I think I made it even more confusing. Quantum physics at its basic level was anything but basic. I was rewarded with a crowd of confused faces.

Later that nite during our recital practice, I made a small joke to Siew Ching about esho funi and she gave me a really blank stare (as per all my other jokes). I asked her whether she had heard of the term esho funi, and she gave a straight "No." Ahh...sums up my whole lecture...

Quantum physics is a very interesting field that one can use to explain the Universe and what makes it tick. Quantum physics is basically where scientists have explored deep into the structure of the atom and found even smaller particles, and at the tiniest-winniest level, they found that particles are highly unstable, constantly changing in nature (thus explaining how light can be a wave this week, but a particle next week) and constantly interacting with each other.

These changes can be summarized into one simple sentence: small actions in this world can have big implications. The way u treat a friend will affect his or her life. The way u use plastic bags will impact the trend of global warming, no matter how big or small. When we realise that we have the potential to affect our environment with whatever actions we take, we can make efforts to take positive actions.

RECITAL COMPETITION

Last Sunday was the recital competition for 2008. We played Mozart's "Wind Quintet: Allegro". My group included me, Siew Ching, Mei Kei, See Hooi and Chun Wei. We had practiced hard for the last few months, comin on Sundays and either comin early on Saturdays or stayin back. Struggled hard to train sum of em who had problems with rhythms and notes, quite a fast (and killer) piece. We were quite in pieces ourselves as we headed for the stagethat afternoon during the novice category. Halfway through the song, sum one miscued an entry, resulting in two of us being 2 bars faster than the other 3. So we ended the phrase twice, made it sound like those polyphonic pieces during the baroque (or was it classical) era.

Much to our pleasant surprise, we won 3rd place for the novice category, and the only Fei Yang group to get a place in the novice category (the other 2 places were taken by the what Mr. Lee calls the cute little girls from the Recorder Band). Me and the rest were laughing our heads off. Oh well, even if we din play well, i think our effort showed through all the bad notes, and that be considered as sincerity.

A New Year, A New Start, A New Blog

6pm. Its rainin heavily outside. Just got back from Sban to celebrate Awal Muharam tmrw.

Now doin Family Medicine in sem8. Have to drive up and down from Sban to Amp and PD for clinic session since KS is packed with the sem6s' doin their Family Med posting. Waste dem alot of time in the car. Oso tok alot of kok in the car, kekek.

Mornin wuz at PD. Klinik dere faces the sea, dem beautiful view, can see huge ships mooring at the extended dock, got perahu cruisin by, waves splashing lazily against rocks, waah...next time i do family med posting as MO must find klinik next to the beach. Rushed to Amp at 12pm to do medical audit project. Rainin heavily. Ate at a kampung-ish Malay roadside food stall. Jing and I got splashed with brown road puddle when a huge lorry thundered by us. Like a huge tsunami wave, couldnt do anything but stand there with mouth open as wave crashed down on and covered us with a huge load of Salmonella sp. Audit din start off well, lotsa problems encountered, revised whole audit on the spot and managed to complete 40% of my part of the auditing b4 klinik closed for the day. Shud have planned 2gether with gp members earlier. Chung learnt alot of new words 2day, i tink Adi learnt a new (Cantonese) word too. Mostly swear-words. We learnt that tsunami was a huge onani, and punani was a small onani. Whatever dat meant.

Not learnin fast enuf, onli 2-3 pts a day, previous gp managed to see 4-5 pts a day. Lecturers talk to much le, sumtimes not efficient. Every 30mins onli i jot down 1 sentence in my notes, whereas with Dr.Y, we have to do shorthand and process like mad what he just said in our minds. Usually normal class i fill up 1/4 a page. With Dr.Y, I can fill up 2 pages packed with words and diagrams in one class. So unfortunate that most lecturers cant be like Dr.Y.

Now no longer staying back at library. Find it easier to concentrate at home, can come home and shower, den nap, den wake up fresh and study. Best to target study for onli certain time period, let say 1 or 2 hours, and focus like crazy, rather than give urself 4-5 hours. U tend to waste the time inefficiently. If use Time carefully, can set aside time to enjoy...like kill monsters in Diablo and wipe out kingdoms in WarCraft, yeah! Currently Level 26 Barbarian at Act 3 edi, dem funny to watch Christabel try playing Diablo, keep on screaming everytime monster appear.

Semi-finals for band recital competition dis Sat. They wan2 select top 2 best ensembles from each category and compete with other music bands. Playin Wind Quintet and American Patrol in 2 ensembles. Worried about Wind Quintet which im in charge of, got player cannot get rhythm right, oso not sure if juniors can express and blend in together nicely. Classical piece always dem hard to express (since I dun enjoy classical piecec myself), no room for color or foot-tappin. Dats in jazz. American Patrol we first time played last Sat, ahaa...

Rain has stopped. Go for dinner now. Happy New Year to a brave 2008! Sem9 finalz in August, gambate C2/06!