Back in Singapore

got to drive the first day i came back. but dad's car is really old and i wasnt used to it at all. gve my parents a few shocks here and there. but well it was not bad. clutching was good. just tt my turns were a bit too fast.

fell sick with allergic rhinitis, loads of runnings in the nose, starting to have a bit of a cough. boo

and i got a relative with a brain tumour, gg to see her tmr. hope she gets well soon.

hope this will be a good holiday. maybe gg to taiwan in the christmas period =)

talk about procrastination. exams tmr. and well time passes by through nonsensical browsing

Lightning:


Inhaling Hexafluoride




Don't Judge too quickly


Guinness: tipping point


Battle of the sexes


stop the bullet

the end is near

so 3rd yr med is ending soon. 1 more week of visiting patients. and OSCEs is on 21st, the written paper on the 24th.

so we reflect the year, in our log book. seeing how much or little we have done. and how people are scrambling about to get their log books signed off by the indispensable 5th yr.

studying has not been half as well as i hoped. and i am real scared now. thank god i got good practice along the year and a good gf who teaches me so much, that i think i will survive.

Dad just sent me many strings of chinese well wishes in rows of 4s again =) parents are at Cameron highlands! and i have never been before! lol

i havent really lived up to my own expectations, but i will work hard from now. i hope i keep this promise =)

Currently i got a few frustrations:

1. i am not studying well
2. housing for next year is complicated
3. i am not gg to get to see many beloved friends next year
   

btw, WEP and WPA securities for wifi are now crackable boo. the race between black and white never ends does it.

An Excel music video

now this is cool stuff. creating a music video from using an excel spread sheet. =)



download it here

i read it from here

k back to studying.

excited!

i joined a gym membership today! it's $1 for 30 days it's Genesis Fitness club, just like 5 to 10 min walk from my place. cool lah =) no swimming pool though.

and tmr i am gg to see a trainer to assess my fitness level. hope i didnt run myself down too much today.

tired. but need to study

interestingbut may be slightly disgusting to some: HIV talk

not many people are aware of how the risk compares with different styles of intercourse so here goes (for my fellow colleagues):

The relative risk for HIV transmission varies from 100 for receptive anal sex, 20 for receptive vaginal sex, 13 for insertive anal sex, 10 for insertive vaginal sex, to 2 for receptive fellatio vs 1 for insertive fellatio.

HIV transmission by oral sex between men has been reported.
HIV transmission is reduced by approximately 80% with condom use.

the point about transmission by oral sex has been underestimated by many. Especially many teens in the US think that oral sex is safe, but actually still carries a risk. A colleague of mine got to interview a patient with HIV who was male. He had oral sex with his parter and got HIV from his partner because he had dental work done and had a cut in his mouth.

interesting disease this is, and the therapy takes a long time for me to understand and remember.

Viruses

Wah i have spent >10 hours on Amy Khoo's laptop already and i am still pek chek (irritated). I cannot fully remove this clever and powerful virus that is really irritating.

it infects exe files, and infects every program you open. then it inactivates the background protection by the antivirus. And it attacks a crucial file in windows: rundll32.exe. so i try to remove the virus from this file and the computer shutsdown. so basically i cant remove the virus totally as it always shuts down. and when it boots up, all the files are re-infected again. lol


here are some medical analogies for computer viruses.
Amy's lappy was immunocompromised (she did not have an antivirus) and there was huge propagation before she noticed it (multiple exe files corrupted). The virus was also a immunosuppressant like HIV (it disabled the antivirus i installed), and vaccination proves a challenge (the antivirus is not working as well as it should).

and well i havent got any studying done today thanx to this virus.

Macs have viruses, but well the probability of getting one is soooo small. maybe i will get a mac. Nah just kidding.

i should try this some day. (probabably when i have my own little kid) ;p

A video by a photographer i admire a lot: Phitar. amazing flickr pool of pictures. And always lovely travel photos.

Lalalalaser weapons!

Laser: light amplified by stimulate emission of radiation

Boeing has been testing some hardcore nasty ass Laser weapons. capable of shooting down missiles in the air and even offensive onto the ground.

i read before too there is a ground mounted one that can destroy multiple incoming missiles. there was a hot video which i cant find now.

well the era of laser weapons is entering. cool =)

Cool video about shooting sports =)

video credits to Vincent Laforet

the many many many cameras and $$$$ of equipment!!!
meanwhile, photos are up =) go look. had a great week with Kel's and Andrew's birthday party

had a fantabulous self declared holiday with the darling. check out the few photos =)
we played CS. yes yes counterstrike lol. we miss it ;p

Internet explorer "porn mode"

one of the funniest things ever, a privacy mode in new internet explorer to conceal your 'movements'

credits to Gizmodo

this week in my life

So today i went for the Anatomy quiz with my teammates Becky and Melissa (the 4th year meddie=)) it was fun, but well we didnt do very well and we attributed that to calculation error. the topic was thorax and our score was worse than some participants who didnt study. so well w didnt win. it was a $500 book boucher flown away lol. well we may joint the next quiz: head and neck.

and at last i started on my CAT assignment. we have to appraise a journal article that would eb able to answer questions arising from a clinical scenario. the arduous journey to complete the assignment (which some may argue takes only a few hours) is still on for me. but well at least i got to play with an opthalmoscope again thanks to my baby.

and this week something triggered a lot of thought. it's about burning paper for the deceased.
there are many who say that burning paper whether houses or paper 'hell money' is part of buddhism. i can safely say i do not think so, it may be a part of taosim, but it isnt part of true taoism too. it probably is art of what some call 多神教 yup translated to many god religion, where most of the time in the religion is spent worshipping numerous gods.

offerings to gods have been part of worship by many religions, it is a form or respect and also expression of fear. Whether it is the sacrifice of the numerous lambs in the bible, or the sacrificial processions in the muslim mosques or burnt incense for buddhism and taosim, it is still for worship. But the problem is when people get too involved in worship and forget about the teachings of the various religions. the christian teaching of love, the buddhist teaching of enlightnment, the teachings of taoism of The Way, and we get too caught up in the lowest level of religion, just worshipping alone.

then the burning of offerings gets extended to the burning for the deceased. it used to be incense to show respect for the deceased, that they are not forgotten. then came the square paper with a gold centre bordered by a red square, that was fanned out in a fashionable way and tossed one at a time into the burning inferno. Then came the belief that burning 'hell money' and houses and cars and what nots are for the deceased to 'live comfortably' in the afterlife.

well we can start thinking about the production of the paper stuff. they do have exquisite designs, mercedes cars and huge mansions. and the detail put into the 'hell money'. so somehow this stuff that we print and onstruct when burnt ends up in the afterlife. but well the mercedes car does not have a steering wheel or the boot space, the mansions have no bulbs or fridge or car porch or toilets, the hell money probably can be photocopied. so it really doesnt make sense to me the EXCLUSIVITY of the objects burnt and the fact that that bunch of paper used to make a house costs thousands of $$$. should get my architect friend to go into this business. my point is that why do you have to buy it from this swindling businessmen?

next is of course the process of burning, in what way does the burning of the offerings end up in the afterlife? mm wouldnt the house or cars be too small? and what makes you think there is ability to bring these material stuff over to the afterlife if there is one?

okay enough said. ranting ranting. and just to remind, these are my point of view, everyone is entitled to state their believes ;p and apologies to all those out there buying real houses and real cars from the money they earn from selling these paper ones ;p

Why men cheat?

i am not an expert nor a well read person on this subject, but this are just my thoughts and opinion
This may explain why cheating happens, but this doesnt mean that i think it's right. It is wrong, wrong, wrong, period.
well the things i have to say are from my perspectives of social norms, and of course you are entitled to have differing concepts of what is normal. leave a comment =)

what is cheating? traditionally: it's having sexual relations with people other than your partner. it has been extended to wider ground especially in asian conservative culture to just doing anything that seems to express your liking for another person through physical and emotional means.

So why?
males of all creatures that run around are born to instinctively spread his seed to get as many offsprings as possible for procreation, while females were born to stick to one companion and take care of the offspring. this is of course an overgeneralisation, there are birds that have only 1 partner ever and do not ever find other partners when their female partner dies like the love birds.
A friend did remind me, after all we are humans not animals, so we should have some control over such unscrupulous behaviour, and be able to fight such instinct of promiscuity, and i agree!
My darling reminds me that females release one egg once a month while guys release 70 million sperm each time they ejaculate. So much for monogamy.

another reason why is that guys say that they get bored of their current relationship and the thrill of chasing another girl makes his life more intersting. well there is no denying that the chase can be more elaborate and fulfilling than the relationship itself. However, there is a commitment to make in relationships and going around chasing other skirts should not be for those who intend to keep their partners. ;p

then there is seduction, if the root of the problem is not with the guy, it has to be the vixen aint it? constant exposure to seduction and also lack of negative feelings towards the vixen will only lead to trouble in a short time, (like a stone of benevolence being attrited slowly) unless he is willing to stick to his current partner no matter what. Well usually vixens are more attractive, though they offer less stability and security, but well guys are always a bit thick headed when it comes to choosing sometimes.

then there are those that slowly and gradually inch closer to liking. it's a friend that you know, then you realise you got many things in common, then without a clear transition the intense liking happens, and you get shocked when you suddenly realise you start wanting to use the L word. The scariest reason in my opinion, it creeps on you slowly.

Well and to end this post. for those who have cheated and those who intend to cheat, think twice about how much you love your so called other half, because if you loved her enough, you wouldnt have cheated, and it is not really worth wasting time if there has been no love.

All you want to and ever need to know about glomerulonephritis

DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)66583-X

it's an article in Lancet 2005

=)

So smilies have started to make it on my blog titles!

studied well with the gf the past weekend and also got to cook ku lou yok (not a very good attempt though). Had a huge dinner with Becky's granduncles and their friends and i am really glad got to meet them, such successful people.

having MCRs (mini case reports(my mini exam)) tomorrow and i think i should be fine, but my tuttor just grilled 2 of my groupmates and i like his style: asking questions till you cannot answer them to assess your level of knowledge.

Apologies the photos are coming on slowly. it is a good thing: means i am actually studying ;p

it's getting quite cold here, but well at least they are getting some water for their drying dams.

so good luck to me tomorrow for MCRs, and hope my gastro/Renal/Urology rotation works out well =)

Happy Birthday!

First: Happy 23rd Birthday to John Lee Wei Chern. 2 Aug =) had a good call.

Then: Happy 21st Birthday to Bambie Lee. 3 Aug Thanks for everything =) photos will be up soon.

and something interesting to calculate distances in the world: Google Map Distance Calculator

Aparently, or as a matter of fact, i am 6059Km from Home while i sleep every night =)

Guilt

i have been awfully lazy. we think to ourselves of great excuses of why we have a reason to slack when we actually do not. the reasons include:

1. we have done so much already and deserve some rest (having a 6 day week, had a full day of ENT lectures)
2. we need to rest so that we can work harder later
3. we need to be at our best (after a rest) to study or work hard
4. .....

and then after when we slack we feel the guilt. or at least i do, because the reasons are not substantial enough to cover the lack of work i have accomplished. And then fear and guilt enters the scene.

• fear that we will not become capable enough for the future. especially for a few of us who will have lives at stake in our jobs
• fear that we will not be able to compete in a dog eat dog world
• guilt that time gone is never going to come back
• guilt that you have not lived up to the expectations of the many people suppporting you all the way

life is about pushing on, even when you are weary, resting only when you really need to.
concentrate on 1 thing at a time. it's the key to success: that's what many successful people said, including dad. this is especially so for people like me who totally cant multitask.

Place i want to go!

Originally uploaded by 米死米(MSM)

Varadero.

not taken by me but a friend online.

LOOK AT THE BLUE SKIES! OMG

yummy and if can bring gf to shoot somthing like tt WOW! =)
credits to 米死米(MSM)

the cold world Starts again after her birthday

after 4 weeks of fun and play. it's now time to face the cold reality of a sick dying world in cold cold Melbourne.

Got sick in the last week with the GF, and now getting better. though at the moment have got a headache that i refuse to medicate.

made a hazelnut parfait for the GF's birthday. it's like a hazelnut ice cream of sorts and took me 3 hours.

here's the recipe:

Yes! i took the picture. and i made that!

Honey and hazelnut parfait with chocolate sauce
Fantasy and inspiration, in the setting, at table, in the food
Ingredients for 12 portions:
For the chocolate sauce:

• unsweetened cocoa 8 g
• flour 4 g
• sugar 40 g
• milk 100 g
• Chopped baking chocolate 30g

For the Italian meringue:

• sugar 200 g
• egg white 100 g
• water 80 g

For the parfait:

• egg yolks 2
• sugar 50 g
• milk 165 g
• flour 8 g
• butter 5 g
• isinglass 4 g
• dairy cream 165 g
• Piedmont hazelnuts 80 g

Piedmont hazelnuts 20 g
honey 50 g
sugar 100 g
Start the chocolate sauce by mixing the ingredients cold, except for the baking chocolate. Heat over a low flame and bring to boiling. Remove from the burner and add the chopped baking chocolate; stir well until it dissolves. Cool and set aside.

Make the Italian meringue by boiling the sugar with water, bringing the mixture to 120° C. Beat the egg whites until stiff; add the sugar syrup and amalgamate the mixture until it cools.

For the parfait, soak the isinglass in a little cold water. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, the flour and the melted butter. Combine mixture with the boiling milk; mix well and remove from the heat when it reaches boiling. At this point squeeze the water from the isinglass and add along with the cream.

Toast the hazelnuts in the oven for a few minutes; allow to cool. Chop 80 g of hazelnuts, pass through a sieve and add to the base of the parfait, together with the cold meringue. Pour mixture into single-portion moulds and put in the freezer for at least 6-8 hours.

Cook the sugar with the honey at 156° C and caramelise the remaining 20 g of toasted hazelnuts. With the rest of the sugar, form skeins of candy floss using the tines of a fork.

Turn out the parfaits on a plate and decorate with the chocolate sauce, the caramelised hazelnuts and the candy floss.

from:

<http://www.thi-hotels.com/hotels/golden-palace/restaurant/chef-recipes/honey-and-hazelnut-parfait-with-chocolate-sauce.html>

i modified a bit: used gelatin instead of isinglass, and added choc to the parfait to make it more brown.

better go to sleep soon before the headache gets worse

Back in Melbourne

So sad that i didnt get to meet so many people, even though it was a great break. Spending time with parents and the GF and of course a few bonus friends ehre and there.

Gentlemen start your engines, for the up coming semester. i got so much i havent done that i was supposed to do! Gambate!