I'm sure many of you out there gambled during the holidays, but I'm willing to bet I'm the person who lost the most. Over the course of the first three days of CNY, I've lost a total of over 103 dollars: 43 to Mahjong, and 60 to a horrific game called Tim. Yes, what can I say? I belong to a family of really really generous gamblers - we really aim to hit it big. You should see the adults play poker! At one point, my Dad lost over a thousand dollars and my Mom lost over 700 dollars.
The good news is that I managed to recover some losses. I just finished a game of Mahjong with my mom, dad, and brother, and I managed to win a total of 20 dollars. Wonderful. I was actually winning over 130 dollars at the end of the 1st round, but my family insisted on playing at least 2 rounds, which did not go well with me. I KNOW MY LIMITS. I have absolutely no stamina in long games of Mahjong (or anything for that matter) and whatever amazing luck and brilliance I had in the first round promptly vanished with the commencement of the next round. That was how I lost 43 dollars in the previous days as well. It was through sheer perseverance and grit that I managed to even hold on to any amount of winnings today. Thank god I did because if I were to lose even more money today, I would freak out and throw myself down the gutter.
I sometimes wonder if this sort of behavior is really good for our moral development, and that if we are that rich to squander such wealth away. It is not only us, adults who gamble quite heavy handedly, my younger cousins also gamble quite heavily as well. Their average winnings per round of games range from like 10 to 15, which was way more than what I played for when I was their age. And they are crazy about winning money! You should watch them fight it out for their money, its really scary. And when the younger ones lose money, they'll come asking you for a loan, which I find totally amusing and a tad bit alarming.
AND, lest some pesky friends of mine start taking attempting to take the mickey out of me, I must hereby state that I am NOT that rich. I think my family just loves gambling during CNY, because it makes the whole festival so much more festive. I probably wouldn't love CNY that much if I didn't have this annual gambling fest to look forward to.
Another note: The first week of CNY is coming to an end, which means, my break is over. By right, I am supposed to start revision for the upcoming CAs, but by left, I am not doing so. This is very very sad indeed.
Random note: Mahjong is really such a deep, fascinating game.
I'm in a very bad state right now. My mouth's full of ulcers and my right eye is acting up again. Its hard to enjoy my post Bacteriology break because come Monday, studying for pathology STARTS. Yet here I am feeling like shit. All I can do is to listen to my favourite songs to keep my mind off the fact that my eye feels like its being gnawed by ants, and to resist the urge to scratch it or even rip it out of my socket and crush it into a million fragments. I'm trying not to scratch it or even put any eye drops, because I suspect I'm allergic to eye drops - my eye swelled after I placed a few drops of the concoction on it. I have no idea how I managed to fall asleep last night, when it was like swollen and threatening to pop out of my socket. Its a miracle I didn't freak out or anything. One and a half years in medical school does imbue some level of tolerance for grossness around you, even if the matter at hand happens to be your own eye.
I hope its not an infection or anything, because one and a half years in medical school have also taught me that infections to the eye can be horribly nasty. I could end up blind or even worse, have a disseminated infection that spreads to other parts of the body. The most unfortunate thing that could happen is death. But honestly, I'm more afraid of being blind than dying. Don't ask me why. I just feel that way.
Considering the state of my health, it is easy to conclude that I am not in the best of moods right now. I apologize if I have been snappish or uninterested or just sullen when I am around people. Its just that its not possible to be happy when you have been suffering from sleepless nights due to a mis-behaving eye - you wake up all tired and frustrated that you are just not getting any quality sleep. Plus my mouth's full of ulcers - which makes it difficult to even eat or talk, let alone smile and laugh.
I can't even sing along with my favourite songs now. That seriously pisses me of, because I listen to music and sing out loud when I am angry or frustrated or stress, and right now, I am just not getting any happy vibes following through my system.
Concerning other matters: Bacteriology CA wasn't very good. I think majority of the cohort thought it was better than the virology one, but I didn't think it was much simpler or anything. I wrote rubbish and would just be happy with a pass. So stop bugging me about how easy it was already.
We had lectures after the CA, which was a real kill joy or a good distraction from it all, depending on where you stand. I think its so sad that we could just transition like that, as if the holidays didn't actually happen. But after lectures, there was a surprised outing initiated by Sara and Shihui and a few of us went to Sara's new house for an impromptu house warming. Stayed there for awhile before leaving early because it was my mom's birthday and I had dinner then.
Had a nice dinner out with the family last night, at some fancy restaurant that served delicious Cantonese cuisine. I tasted one of the best double-boiled wintermelon soups ever! I am a soup lover so I was very very happy last night. Then the whole eye swelling thing happened and made me pissed off for the rest of the night.
I was reminded of the song above when we went to Sara's house yesterday. So yeah, its been stuck in my head and that's why its there.
My mom and brother are both back from the USA! And they brought me loads of presents! On top of that, I finally got my Ipod Classic! Woo-hoo!
Went with my dad to pick them up from the airport today. My mom was actually on the same flight as Vic Zhou aka 仔仔 of F4 fame, so there was a HUGE barricade where we were waiting. I had no idea what the commotion about, and rather stupidly chose to walk through the barricade with my half eaten double mushroom swiss in hand, when (talk about bad timing!), Mr 仔仔 decided to choose that exact moment to make his grand entrance into Singapore! So there I was, like a deer caught in front of a pair of glaring headlights, frozen with shock as a mad crowd of screaming girls came stampeding in my direction. For the next few minutes or so, I was caught in the mess of human body parts, struggling to squeeze out of the crowd without losing the precious remnants of my lunch, all the while cursing Mr Zhou's (and my very own) bad timing.
It was a good thing that Mr Zhou seemed rather embarrassed at the reception he got, and decided not to stay overtly long at the arrival hall. Instead, he was efficiently whisked away by a overly excessive entourage of security guards and policemen, through the barricade to the get away car at the entrance of the arrival hall, made for his disposal. And upon his quick exit, the ravenous crowd of girls disappeared after him as well. Which was for the better because I swear, if the crowd had gathered for another minute more or so, I would have given up and just smashed my half eaten burger into the mouth of the nearest screeching woman.
Since today's the day where my mom and brother arrive home, I decided to forgo mugging today, a kind of self-proclaimed holiday if you will! So I had a whole day of meddling with my Ipod, of watching TV, eating the goodies from America, and marveling at the amount of stuff my mom bought, and snickering as my brother recounted the exasperation he faced as he tried to stop my mother from buying even more over the top stuff. Granted that she bought more than 15 shirts for me, but some of the stuff she bought were holy redundant - stuff like rugs, frames, soap holders etc. But oh well, I guess women will always be women. Made to spend money.
And to wrap off this entry, lets have a Japanese song! A first on this blog! This happens to be the 6th opening of the Bleach Anime series, an extremely nice J-rock song called 'ALONES' by AquaTimez. I love the song, but unfortunately, my Japanese is so elementary that I cannot make out a single thing that the song is saying. Anyone with the song in mp3 format, please contact me and pass it to me to put on my Ipod! Arigato-gozaimasu!
People really need work to keep them alive. I have absolutely nothing to do now, and its really driving me crazy. I had the most disgusting weekend of just staying at home, sleeping and rotting my life away, doing absolutely brainless and meaningless stuff. I can almost die due to the intense boredom of it all.
My mom and my brother flew off to the USA on Saturday. I woke up at an unearthly hour of 0500 to send them to the airport. And I was so tired that I came back and promptly slept my day away. I have no idea why I was so STUPID as to throw away the opportunity to go to the US this December. On the hindsight, it was really stupid of me not to have taken up the offer, but they are going to the West again, and I don't really want to go visit California all over again. Its in the East I'm interested about right now.
The only good thing about my mom and brother being away for the next 6 weeks is that I get the car for the next 6 weeks. It sounds cool, but in actual fact, with the holidays setting in, I don't really have much of a reason to drive around. So unless I decide to head down to school every single day in December, I'll probably end up locking myself up at home and sleeping my holidays away. Which kind of sucks don't you think?
The house feels so quiet without my mom and brother around. There's my Dad but conversations with him aren't the same. And oh my god, there's housework to do. I swear I'm going to get a domestic help when I move out!
Absolutely no studying today. Yup. No studying, absolutely nothing - zilch.
I had a great day relaxing today. I came home early, walked through the rain. I slept. Woke up. Watched TV. Went out for dinner with my parents. We went to Dempsey Hill - my idea - to find out what the fuss about that place was all about. You know the thing about Dempsey Hill? It strikes me as the kind of place Derek Shepard would bring Meredith Grey to on a date. I'm serious - its very very yuppie, very very tranquil and very very McDreamy. Nice place to go dating. *hint hint*
We had Korean BBQ - Kimchi and Pork and Chicken and lots of other strange appetizers that I couldn't really appreciate because of their intense spiciness. And then we had desert at PS Cafe which was highly recommended by Yuenmei and Yisheng. We ate two plates of chocolate-filled desert. One of them was some double chocolate cake brownie thing while the other was some dish starting with 'P' - which was basically puffs filled with vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate syrup. All in all, both dishes were just sick excuses for dumping copious amounts of chocolate syrup on plates and serving them to people. So so sinful. It made my mom decide to go to the gym tomorrow. *chuckle*
Had a pretty fun time with my parents tonight. I dunno if many people actually have fun with their parents - because I usually don't, but tonight was just strangely perfect. My dad was in an unusually exploratory mood, so he sorta accepted my suggestions of dining at Dempsey Hill quite readily. My mom just wanted to go out, so there wasn't really much need to psycho her into going. And I was just itching to go out and have a relaxing good time. So yeah, nice good quality family time. We talked about quite a lot of nonsense - or rather I talked about lots of crap and rubbish and random stuff that made absolutely no sense at all. We talked about the new house, we talked about my dad's bad habits of shoving food down his throat without appreciating the taste of the food, I ranted a lot about how people don't really listen to their doctors' advice, and my mom embarrassed us all by picking up her plate of desert halfway through the meal, and kept insisting that it was drizzling and that we should move indoors. I gotta admit - I was high on Chocolate. Its amazing really - its like being high on alcohol but so so so much better, because their isn't the nasty side effects of headaches and giddiness and the whole lot of crazy things people do due to alcohol. But anyway, it was a great night, until we realized that one of my wayward older cousins was actually in the same cafe as us. We didn't want to blow our cover by saying 'hi' to her, so the three of us sorta opted to just sit there, at our cosy corner and observe her from a distance, and lo and behold, somewhere along the line we realized that she had walked out to SMOKE. Needless to say, we were mortified because we didn't know that she had picked up the habit. My dad was PISSED. His face turned from all smiley due to chocolate overdose to pitch black storm cloud I-WILL-RIP-YOUR-GUTS-OUT fierce! Thank god my mom was there to quell his temper. But anyway, we decided to leave my cousin alone and not embarrass her in front of her bunch of friends. I think the next family gathering's going to be hell. My dad is going to round on her and I pray that she lives to see the next day.
I got home and watched Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice! This week's episodes were quite good. Erica Hahn, the new head of cardio-thoracics at Seattle Grace is so cool. She's funny in her no nonsense kind of way. I laughed out loud when she asked Derek and Mark if they were a couple. So funny. And when she crashed the Chief's gentlemen's evening - the four attendings had no choice but to play monopoly instead. Hilarious. I am still hating Izzie and George though. Thank god their attempt to have 'perfect hot sex' failed. And also, I am finding it hard to not think of Kalpana as Bailey and Serene as Callie. And why would I picture them as these two fabulous characters? Its all because of Teh Kailiang, who came up with the connections. Seriously. Thanks alot Kailiang, you just ruined two of my favourite characters for me! =/ As for Private Practice, I'm kinda irritated at the whole idea of Addison kissing Pete. So cliche. And the way they are hinting that Violet and Paeds guy are sorta getting together... so so cliche. But still Charlotte King's insomnia problem was funny! And Dell's crush on Naomi - seriously getting borderline freaky and stalker like. But the cases in Private Practice seem to have a stronger impact on the viewer - the woman with Huntington's Disease was particularly inspiring.
I know everyone's busy and stressed right now. Well, work hard people! But please take the time off and play hard as well. Remember, as future doctors, we have to take good care of our health, and remember, mental psychological health is indeed, one aspect of health as well. It is important to ensure holistic development of one's self, so as to ensure that holistic care can be given to our future patients. So yeah, work hard and play hard. Its the last weekend to the first hurdle of the M2 year, and we are going cross it - together, hand-in-hand, like some scene out of the freakin' musical called Wizard of Oz. So we'll hold hands, and skip along the Yellow brick road, singing 'We are off, we are off, to see the Wizard of Oz!' TOGETHER. Yup. Lets have a toast to that.
The weekend has so far been good for me. I forgot that yesterday was a Public Holiday, so I was really shocked to see my Dad home on Saturday, because he usually works on Saturday. But anyway, I loved the fact that it was a Public Holiday, and so in the spirit of Public Holidays, I decided to just stay at home, chill, drink tea, surf the net, read a little Harry Potter, listen to some music, blog, and of course do some studying. I'm glad I stayed at home yesterday, I had a very productive day in terms of getting notes read and done, I managed to considerably demolish the whole stack of Immuno notes that I had accumulated, so I'm very pleased with myself. I'm going to stay home today as well, and work on finishing that whole stack of Cancer notes. Woo hoo, getting work done makes me feel happy now.
We have gotten the keys to our new house! Yup, we are finally the official proud owners of no.19 Jalan Jitong. Went down yesterday for a short while to try and see which keys go where, which was quite hellish because we were given like 20 sets of different keys, without any idea which doors they locked/opened. In the end we sorta gave up, because we decided that what the heck, we were going to demolish the building anyway, so there's really no point to finding out where the individual keys went. Its going to be interesting to see how the house evolves and develops into a new house, although I think the process is going to be soooooo tiring and long. But I hope the end results are worthed it. Okay, it had better be worthed it because a large part of my inheritance is probably going into the construction cost. Haha.
I love the slow pace of this weekend. It feels like a long weekend, but it isn't. There's a vibe to it that I can't really describe. I think it feels like a chance to be in tune with yourself, especially after a crazy week. To sit down and get some work done. No more excuses, just you, yourself, focusing on the task at hand. Just doing it. Yeah, so doing it. I canceled all my plans this weekend, just to stay at home and enjoy some quiet isolation time, although there's still the family BBQ tonight. But then, I may give that a miss as well, because I'm on a roll this weekend. A good roll. And I should keep it that way. So yeah, we'll see.
My dad dropped a bombshell on me this morning - he told me that he was starting to plan for a location for my 21st birthday celebrations. I was quite taken a back and sorta blurted out that I didn't even consider having a 21st birthday celebration. He said that I should, because my brother had one, and he was fair so I should have one (I think he was just trying to make amends for something he said yesterday that got me quite pissed!) I told him its okay and I rather he gave me the capital he intended for the birthday and allowed me to spend it on some things I want - like a new Ipod, Starcraft II, a second hand car, Harry Potter props and medical equipment. I think my mom and dad both thought I was joking and just laughed it off, but seriously, I'm not! I know alot of people who had their 21st and didn't celebrate it have feedback to me, saying that they felt it was a big regret of theirs not to have done something big. But the whole idea of organising a party for myself just smells like unnecessary trouble. There'll be so many things to consider... like how many people to invite, who to invite; do I have one huge party or a series of smaller parties; food, drinks, entertainment; a location to have it (because by then I will be homeless and my new house's not going to be ready yet); do I have a theme or no theme; and clean-up, oh my god, the clean-up is going to be a mess. So no, I don't really want to have a big 21st birthday. I'll rather have a house warming instead, but that's another different matter altogether. Seriously. I shouldn't even think about my 21st birthday when so many people I know have yet to even cross the big 2-0 mark yet.
KT Tunstall is amazing! Her voice has this smokey quality to it. Smokey, but rockish. Brilliant combination. Maybe she's the reason why I'm so zen this weekend. "Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see) This is what I wanna be Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see) Why the hell it means so much to me" - 'Suddenly I See', KT Tunstall Old song, but its happy, and I feel happy!
This is going to be a very bad week. Without a doubt, life is one mad roller coaster ride. One moment you are sitting in the lecture hall thinking that life couldn't be any more boring, the next, you receive a sms from your rather distraught mother, informing you that someone in the family had passed away.
All you can think about next is the hows and whys. And then you suddenly realize that all the crap that people love to say about life being short and all? Turns out they aren't that far off the mark after all.
This is going to be a very very long, bad, depressing week. With the wake and eventual funeral, with tuition and long nights, with PBL on Wednesday, the return of boring COFM lectures, a PDCP lecture on Friday and that looming threat that is the upcoming CAs, its hard not to fall back to the temptation of being all 'dark and twisty' again.
I'm sitting in front of my laptop, eating left-over noodles from my Grandpa's birthday dinner last night. The noodles were delicious then, which is a far cry from the muck I'm eating right now... soggy, messy noodles. Sigh. Dinner was somewhat excruciating, because I ended up sitting next to my Grandpa, at a table where the average age of everyone seated there was 52. A whole night of forced smiling and keeping my mouth shut. To make matters worse, there was definite tension in the air because my dad and uncle from Australia were sitting at the same table. The last time they were at dinner together, they ended up quarreling and falling out. At least they didn't go down that road this time round, but still, they aren't speaking to each other, which is a pity because they used to get along so well. But oh well, when it comes to adults, there's lots of pride at stake, and very often no one wants to take the first step to reconciliation. And as we age and grow older, I think we find that really occurring in our daily lives too. At least that's over and done with. I don't have to be in such a situation until next year! WOO HOO!
Anyway, I came upon this song from the 881 soundtrack. And no... unlike the millions of Singaporeans who have seen the movie and gone gaga over it, I HAVE NOT seen the movie, and I don't intend to. I'm sure its nice and all, because I've seen some of Royston Tan's short films and I do think that he really is a talented director, but I'm just not into watching 881, for reasons that even I do not know of. However, I've heard some of the songs from the soundtrack, and I've got to say they are really nice. Very simple, moving songs. I love the title track 'One Half 一人一半' best... but there are many many versions of it - 伍家辉's solo version, a duet version (which he sang with YANZI! once), and another female version that I heard once on 93.3 FM.
Jiahui's version. The original I think...
The duet version, with another girl.
The duet between Jiahui and Yanzi. I love the fact that its unplugged! I think this is the best version I've heard so far (but that's because there's Stefanie in it!)
My mom is a BIG fan of 881. She keeps telling me about the jokes in Hokkien, but of course, I did't really appreciate them because 我的 Hokkien 没有很好. I think I shall buy her the OST because she loves the songs. Which should be a good surprise gift because I haven't given her a surprise gift in ages. I hope it doesn't cost much - at any rate, it should cost less than my Grey's Anatomy soundtracks so yeah, I shouldn't complain.
I like the lyrics though. Sometime along the rough lines of: you get one half, I get the other, and our friendship will not splinter; we each get equal quarters, and our friendship will last. Okay, bad translation, I apologize but my Hokkien really isn't that good! But yeah, the lyrics are very very good. Meaningful really. Any relationship you build with someone - family, friend, lover - depends on equal contribution from both parties. You share your troubles, your worries, your joy, your success with each other. No other way. *nods*
Okay, today's Earth Day! I hope you guys wore green (like I did!) to show your support for the call to prevent global warming! Anyway Live Earth is currently on, but don't think I'm gonna watch it. Too long a concert, and it'll probably bore me to sleep.
I'm gonna update about the week I had. Apart from Transformers (which was a big highlight of my week!) I did other things as well.
Monday and Tuesday was spent mainly at my Anatomy group's sleep-over at Huipei's Dad's place at Emerald Green. Its a nice little shop-house apartment thingy that her Dad's renting out, so we took the opportunity to camp there before its being occupied. We played quite alot of games, like Mahjong, Poker, Bridge and some character analysis game that Huipei brought. We also went drinking at Balcony - I must say that the anti-smoking legislation is probably one of the best things to ever happen to Singapore - pubs and bars and clubs are so smoke free now, making it all so bearable. The rest of the lot slept quite early on Monday, but Huipei, Gerard and me managed to stay up til like 5, watching 'Mind Your Language' on Gerard's laptop. It was hilarious, good old British comedy that's very very cheeky. Unfortunately, I basically died when I tried to sleep after that - it was so darn cold, I ended up going out of the room to sleep. I was pretty knocked out for the rest of the morning. I only woke up at around 11 when the rest of the guys bought McDonalds back.
After that, it was a whole afternoon of Poker, while we waited for Yusrina to arrive. I had really rotten luck that day, lost all my money! Peishan kept winning and winning, eventually, the guys named her as Martha Steward, and starting concentrating our efforts to destroy her wealth. It only worked when Gerard kicked her Coffee over the floor, and when Zhiyong came back from lunch to erm, void. After that, she started losing money due to the apparent change in Feng Shui, and Zhenwei and Matthew managed to acquire some wealth to significantly challenge her position. In the end, we managed to take away quite alot of her wealth, but Yusrina's arrival brought back some of the luck for Peishan, and she managed to stay in the game. So in the end, we decided to have a show hand round, a winner take all challenge. It was really quite exciting - all of us thought that Zhenwei managed to trounce Peishan because he had a bigger Ace or something, but then, Yus suddenly announced that she had two pairs and all of us fell into a shocked silence - Yusrina, the newcomer to the game, had just won all our money! The horror!
After that, we went to Taka for some late lunch/early dinner. Then we decided to call it a day cause all of us were really quite shagged.
On Friday night, my brother and cousin organised a supper gathering at Pasir Panjang food centre to eat at my family's favourite seafood place. There are two things that I would only do when either my brother or cousin is back - supper and sports. Last Saturday, it was to eat Bak Chor Mee at Bedok. On Friday, it was to eat assorted seafood like cockles, mussels, dogshells, barbecue stingray, barbecue squid etc. So my family, along with my other cousins and uncles and aunts, went down to Pasir Panjang and ate lots of seafood. I love the dogshells and the barbecue squid! But I think I had too much fresh bloody cockles that day - I was living in mortal fear that I would get Hepatitis or something. But it was nice chatting with my cousins over a nice meal. It was also the first time in ages that my family actually had a happy mealtime together - I guess, with the whole business of the house FINALLY settled, we can finally stop quarreling and bickering for awhile.
Today, I went bowling at Raffles Town Club, again, something initiated by my brother. I went with him to bowl with my Aunt and three of our younger cousins. One of them is in her school's bowling team, so she sorta challenged my brother to a tournament. I guess I was just there to play a supporting row - after all, my skills in sports are quite non-existent so I guess I'm there more for the leisure of it really. But bowling's fun! Its one of the few sports that I actually have an interest in and there's something therapeutic about flinging the ball at pins with the intent of knocking them all off.
One of my cousins is really very very amusing. She bowls by actually throwing the bowl onto the lane, and needless to say that the ball always enters the drain. She's so adorable really. She's the one who is quite earnest in pronouncing words, but has a weird ability in turning the words into really really strange sounding forms. For example, she pronounces 'Spongebob Squarepants' as 'SpongeBOOB Squarepants', and when my cousin (Astee) and I first heard it, we couldn't stop laughing. But she didn't know what was wrong with it, and just kept calling him 'SpongeBOOB'. I tried to tell her the difference between Spongebob and Spongeboob, but decided to not tell her what Spongeboob really entails, lest her 8 year old mind gets tainted. Its quite hard to find 8 year old as innocent as her these days, so really, lets not ruin her.
Been watching the Wimbledon championships on TV these days. The Ladies finals was just over and Venus Williams won this year's Grand Slam. It was quite an unexpected victory because I thought World No.1 Justine Henin had a chance in winning it, but she unexpectedly got kicked out of the Semis by some French upstart called Marion Bartoli, who is honestly, quite fat. And the two most beautiful tennis players - Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic (I've got to admit, she is stunning! Gerard has got high class taste!) got kicked out as well, Maria in the earlier rounds and Ana by Venus in the Semis. So it was a Venus versus Bartoli final. Not quite surprised that Venus won - she's been playing marvelously this season.
The Men's semis are now underway. I'm a Roger Federer fan, so I hope he gets into the finals and eventually wins the trophy. He is such a master class player and is such an all rounded one. He has a kind of flair, a kind of gentlemanly air to him when he plays tennis, which I think, is what tennis is all about. Tennis is such a gentlemanly, civilized game, and its really like watching a nicely produced drama. But anyway, I hope Federer (world no.1) wins his semis against Richard Gasquet, while Novak Djokovic (world no.4) defeats Rafael Nadal (world no.2). I don't like Nadal, he reminds me of a troll. No offence, but I think he is a player that tends to rely on brute strength. And I think I've become a new fan of Djokovic, who's quite an all rounded player, just that he's still quite new and inexperienced. Plus he has shown lots of grit and determination to fight his way into the semis, which was very very impressive. So really. I don't think Djokovic can defeat Nadal, but if he does, then its better for Federer, cause I think ultimately, it'll be much easier for Federer to face Djokovic then Nadal in the finals. Oh well. But tennis is a very fractional and unpredictable game. Lets just see how everything goes. I should quickly finish this entry now and rush down to follow the game!
UPDATE: The semis just ended and its going to be a Federer/Nadal Final. Djokovic had to retire and concede the semi due to injury. I think its going to be a titanic battle and I can hardly wait! I hope I'll be able to catch it though, I've got to be at my Granddad's for dinner tomorrow and I'm quite certain that they don't have SCV...
I met up with Justin Chen and my cousin, Astee on Monday night (25/06/07) for dinner at Vivocity.
Yes, you read that right. I met up with Justin Chen and my cousin, Astee. Which probably leads to the next question, which has to be - how did the 3 of us end up being on such good terms so as to end up going on outings together? Let's see. Astee is my cousin. We are actually related by blood! WOW! Astee knows Justin because they were members of the International Chemistry Olympiad team during our J2 year, and being fellow Chem-geeks, they tend to go gaga over anything related to chemistry. (These chem-geeks are weirdos!) Justin and I have been in the same school for 6 years, been in the same CCA for 6 years, so its only natural that we know each other. Besides, he owes me a great deal because I was nice enough to help him vet through his University application essays, so yeah, he OWES me, big time!
So anyway, Justin organised the outing. So we, the unlikely trio, went to Vivocity, which my dear cousin hasn't been to yet, since she has been in London for the past nine months. We went to Marche, because there was just too many things around Vivo, many of which require you to command a rather powerful paycheck to have a decent meal, and since we didn't really have a preference as to where we wanted to eat, I felt the best place to go went you aren't sure of what you want to eat is Marche. So Marche it is. I had my favourite French Crepe! Unfortunately, I ordered the wrong flavour - wanted my favourite ham and cheese crepe, the classic one, but I wasn't thinking when I told the cook that I wanted a mushroom and cheese crepe. Oh well, the mushroom crepe wasn't that bad though, but I would still have preferred it if I had my classic crepe. The best thing about dinner though was that I didn't have to pay for it, cause Justin was treating me and my cousin. I dunno what my cousin did to deserve the treat, but anyway, Justin treated me because he OWES me for helping him go through his countless Uni entrance essays, so yeah, I DESERVED the treat. Hah!
After that, we went walking around looking for a place to eat dessert. In the end, Justin, being the cheapo that he was, suggested we go to Giant to buy a tub of ice cream to share among the three of us. I was quite exasperated with that idea, because you just shouldn't go to Vivo just to eat some kind of cheapo Wall's ice cream. Unfortunately, my cousin thought that that was kinda fun too, so I was out-vetoed by the both of them. So we ended up buying some tub of chocolate ice-cream but I guess we came to a compromise and decided not to buy some cheapo brand like Wall's or Nestle (we bought Swensen's) and because we realised we didn't have spoons, we decided to 'kope' spoons from the Kopitiam there. It was quite funny, cause we went around the stores looking for spoons to steal and it was so obvious that we were up to no good. But in the end, Justin managed to steal 2 metal spoons for us to share, and we took our wares to the top floor to enjoy our dessert. (when we wanted to leave, he actually insisted we return the spoons to the Kopitiam. I was of the notion that we just throw them away, whereas Astee wanted to keep them as souvenirs. In the end, we followed Justin's advice after he started to nag non stop about the morality behind returning stolen spoons. Argh!)
We ended up basically chatting and chatting about lots of strange stuff/people/events really. Its amazing that somehow, though the three of us came from rather different backgrounds (Astee's from RGS and RJ, and though Justin and I are both from TCHS and HCJC, we were always from different classes) and are all going into very different fields/futures, the people we know are all strangely closely related. It just goes to show how limited our social circles really are, and how we are all interlinked to one another by the strangest ways possible. This is especially so if you are a student from one of the so-called top schools in S'pore, be it Secondary Schools or JCs. But yeah, so being the gossip mongrels that we all are, we ended up talking about lots of different people that we somehow, find ourselves sharing a common 'interest' in. It was quite weird really, because, yeah, I was basically gossiping with my cousin and my friend about other people. There's of course, nothing wrong with the whole gossiping with a friend part, but gossiping with your cousin!? Feels like I'm gossiping with a twin sister or something... which is the bad part about having a cousin in the same year who is just about a month younger than you. Your secrets aren't safe at all! Because if information about people from other schools can come to you, information about you can also go to people from other schools! So Astee if you are reading this, don't go spreading my secrets and quirks to other people I don't know! (And seriously, no one should know about Lord Voldemort's secrets.)
All in all, it was a strange quirky night. I had fun hanging out with this unlikely combination of companions. And to cap it off, I had a long bus ride home - perfect time for quiet contemplation.
Oh I forgot to mention that my brother is getting a car this time round. Yes. My mom specially flew down to get him a car this week. Am I jealous? *Can you smell the jealously? Hurhur!* Not really, because I haven't gotten my license yet, and I'm sure that after I get it, my parents would probably let me drive the cars back here as well. Plus, they are already sponsoring my Europe trip this coming May, so I really shouldn't complain. But still, he's getting a car. Its been something he has been begging and hinting at for quite some time now. Bet he can't wait for it.
Another thing. I just found out from my aunt yesterday that one of my distant cousins got admitted for some sort of potentially damaging illness. He was having a fever (39.6), nausea, vomiting and even nose bleeds, and apparently, he is not showing signs of the knee jerk reflex. Plus the boy's only 5 this year. Doesn't it sound familiar? When I first heard about it, a chill when down my spine because the whole loss of nervous function coupled with fever thing reminded me of Polio which we did for one of our PBL cases long long ago. Plus he's only 5... and Polio loves to strike children of that age range. But then I sorta remembered that children in S'pore are vaccinated to protect them from Polio... so I was sorta bummed. Then my aunt had to ask me for my opinion of the matter. Obviously I was VERY reluctant to share, because I don't think its nice to tell the whole extended family around the table, that the boy may have Polio. (Plus I haven't even passed my M1 pros yet, so really, I don't thing I should be sharing my views about Medicine any time soon.)
But you know how relatives are. They just keep bombarding you, so I just tried to stall for time by asking for more information, and if the doctors did any other tests. They told me that he had to do a Lumbar Puncture, and that my cousin cried and cried because it was so darn painful. (I immediately thought of my group's FRS topic...) But the test results were negative of any virus, infection or anything. Anyway, his fever has already subsided, but he is still not responsive to the knee jerk reflex. But apparently, his calcaneal reflex is still working... so it might be his L3, L4 nerves are damaged by infection or something. Or hopefully its just part of the recovery phase and he'll get it back again. I don't really know, cause I'm not a doctor or an expert in this field.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I was really quite uncomfortable with the idea that I was forced to think about the whole situation because the person involved was a relative of mine. Nevermind the fact that he was only remotely related to me. But the thought of the boy running around during Chinese New Year this year was enough to pretty much freak me out. Its quite scary when you realise that a relative of yours is having a potentially lethal or life altering disease. And its quite unfortunate that, from now on, I'm going to be the one they go to for opinions on this matter. I mean, I going to be the one telling them bad news, stuff that they don't necessarily want to hear. Which left me feeling quite certain that I might not be very welcome at future family gathering and dinner parties. Hehe.
Sidenote: MARTIN LEE'S NOTES FOR RENAL ARE KILLING ME.
My mom's off to Perth again. Her flight should have landed two hours ago, and considering the long drive to my brother's house from the airport, she's probably stepping into the house right about now.
My brother's got himself into quite a fix there. Apparently, he and his house-mates were robbed. Some guy (no doubt some hot-headed, racist, Australian, high-school teenager) smashed the window of their car when they went out for dinner, and promptly stole whatever he could find. So my brother's digital camera is missing, plus a whole lot of other things that thankfully weren't that valuable. At least he had the sense to carry his wallet and mobile with him, because my brother has a habit of leaving valuables lying around. I would know, because I'm usually the one picking the things he drop, and hiding them in anticipation of the look of horror on his face when he finds out that they have gone missing. Hurhur.
ANYWAY. Its not the first time that my brother and his house-mates have found themselves at the receiving end of some apparently racist treatment. Last year, some idiot drove past their house and threw eggs at their windows. Not once, but thrice. It definitely had something to do with race because the same vandal threw eggs at the nearby chinese takeaway and korean barbecue restaurant as well. And when I visited them last year, some guy actually rammed into the back of my brother's housemate's car, and attempted to do a hit and run with it. Thankfully, some other nice Australian stopped him from driving away, and thus, they managed to get his particulars and filed a police report.
Its quite sobering to note that racism is still so rampant in a city like Perth. Perth is one of the more cosmopolitan cities in Australia, and yet, the attitudes of some of the Australians there are still quite xenophobic. You would have thought they would have gotten used to the presence of Asians in Perth by now. I mean, Perth is practically filled with Asians: Asian students, migrants etc. Half of Perth's population is Asian, yet some of the Aussies still treat us as aliens or something.
So now that my brother has lost his digital camera, my mom insists that I give him mine. Not that it matters really, because I ended up buying a new digi-cam anyway. Bought my new IXUS-75! I'm a fan of IXUS cameras, for reasons that I'm unsure of. But anyway, I have a new digicam! Not bad really. Oh and I had to pass a couple of my books to my brother. Passed him my McMinns and Wheaters because apparently, he's taking histology and extended anatomy this semester. And he keeps complaining about it. Now he understands my pain. Hurhur. He would have taken my Moore if I hadn't stopped him and told him I needed it for my exams. But I'm sure it would be a waste of effort to pass him the book anyway: Its so thick that he would definitely be put off from reading it. So Moore's gonna stay in Singapore for the time being.
I was quite stupid actually, cause I inadvertently volunteered to help him do his paper. He was asking me for information on Diabetes Mellitus II and their exact effects on the physical body when I was obviously not in the mood to entertain him. I didn't really know where to find the information exactly. I'm sure its probably somewhere in Guyton, but I haven't really studied Endocrinology for Physio yet. But he kept asking for books and sources and stuff, and in the end, I got so fed up that I stupidly told him I'll find some online sources and pass it to him, thinking that I'll do it after my exams or something. Little did I know that the paper's due this coming wednesday. Argh. So I sorta volunteered to help my brother source for information to complete his paper. (but honestly, why can't he just go onto the net and Google or Wiki it?)
I'll be spending the next week, home alone with my Dad. Argh. Not that its a totally bad thing, its just that I might have to deal with extra responsibilities like clearing up the mess that my father tends to make when he does housework. Sigh.
Oh and Hallmark Channel cancelled their run of ER, right at the end of season 3!!!! Why? Why! Why?!
Oh, on a happier note, I bought 3 huge boxes of Post Cereal for breakfast! Seven days of Banana Nut Crunch, Honey Oat Waffles and Blueberry Muffin is enough to save me from the drudgery of study leave mornings!
"The Evil Old Sheep and The Young Innocent Animals"!
Heading to a cinema near you! =p
One of my cousins has this amusing 'serious' accent. The pesky young'uns were playing some sort of trivial quiz game, and she wanted to be the quiz master. I wasn't really allowed to play because 1. I was TOO OLD (humph!) and 2. I knew most of the answers and would have probably kicked their asses anyway. (=p) So I just sat there listening and watching them play, and dropping occasional cryptic hints to questions which they didn't have a single clue about. Kept laughing and laughing because my quizmaster cousin was obviously trying her best to be professional and to pronounce words that no primary three student would know... but she was so earnest in her role that it hurt. Nevermind that none of the other cousins playing understood most of the questions. It was just priceless to hear Kym speak. Hahahaha. =>
I've now been officially labelled as the "evil old sheep" by those pesky kids. Hahaha. Which is so true, so true.
Another day of visiting tomorrow. And I haven't gotten all the angpows I'm expected to get yet. Let the dole keep running in. Hehehe.
Happy happy happy new year to all of you! Its the year of the pig! The last year of a whole zodiac cycle! Where everything is supposed to be oinky and pink and dirty, and unfortunately for you weight-concious gals out there... FAT! So here's to a FAT and glorious and juicy new year to all of you! (So forget your diet plans! Its a given to gain weight in this year of the pig!)
Hohoho. Okay... wrong festival to do that, but its all in the spirit of goodwill. Haha. Its another year of hong baos, mandarin oranges, overnight (and very exhausting) gambling sessions, ba kwa, sore throats, awkward visits to nosey relatives, and maybe even temporary insanity! But I love it! But may have started to dislike it now. I mean, there's just so much chaos and disorder and nosey relatives that you can stand now that you are approaching 20 and starting to really live a grown up life. But still, the lunar new year will always be one of those things that you always look forward to in the year. And this year isn't any different.
There's less visiting to do this year, because of erm... recent bereavements in the whole extended family. Not that its a bad thing... I mean, there's less awkward family moments and stuff... But with less visits, comes less income! And I love getting hong bao money! It makes the whole sitting around with a forced smile worthed it! (That and the amazing gossips that you occasionally dig up! The best form of drama, really comes from your family!) But yes... I love my hong bao money, and this year, the need to get a larger share is more pressing so as to cover some of the expenses for my Europe trip in May/June.
Something very hilarious happened just now though. My dad and I were buying "Aladin" playing cards at 7-11 just now. And my dad did something hilarious. He promptly went up to the counter and asked the two malay shop-attendants if they still had "Adidas" Cards. (needless to say, the store didn't have "Adidas" cards)
My cousins (the whole noisy bunch) are currently beside me playing some game involving huge piles of coins. Its the first day of the Lunar New Year, and as always, my whole maternal family is here, at our house, gambling, eating, and basically making merriment. Its quite amusing to see they make noise over losing like 50 cent coins each round. The sound effects from them, really spendid. Oh well. But its tradition lah. Feels different if no one comes over to my house on the first day and tear it in down. Yup. Something constant in this crazy world.
Oh shit. They whole bunch of them just decided to crash my room. I've got to control the whole mad bunch of them! LEAVE MY MOORE ALONE!!!
The week's been pretty rough, and just when I thought I would have the whole weekend for mindless tv entertainment, every online-video scavenger's worst nightmare has come true. Argh.
The "Heroes" links aren't working anymore! Or rather, they aren't public anymore! Which means I couldn't continue my marathorn today! Not without requesting to be a friend of the person who posted the video anyway... (and of course, him accepting my request and sending me the episodes)... But the good news is, peekvid seems to be coming out of beta soon... and I'm hoping when it does come out of beta, I'll be able to watch "Heroes" on it as well. God damn it! It sucks when you are in the middle of something filled with suspense and mystery, and just when you thought that you can finally get some answers and stuff, you find out that you are now stuck at where you are and can't continue on with it. Oh the torture.
Just in case you were wondering though, I did request to be the owner's friend. Wrote a whole sob request, saying how it isn't shown in Asia and all, and how much I love it and need to watch it. Yes I know, sounds desperate and needy, but heh, I need my episodes of "Heroes". You can't expect me to just rely on the eps shown on cable, not when I've gone so far into the storyline, and when cable is showing eps so slowly. The anticipation and the need to get the answers to all those questions is just too much to bear. I hope he accepts my request. Or else I'm really screwed. I could seriously go all "Niki Sanders" and start ripping random people apart.
Oh yeah, another thing. I didn't go to Chinatown last night. Was supposed to go with my extended family as a sort of tradition thing, but I decided I didn't want to go in the end (No prizes for guessing what I chose to do with the time made available though) Not that I minded not going. I was never really a big fan of it, considering the fact that I hate crowds and stuffy places. All the claustrophobia and all. But of course, I got into a big fight with my mom over it, and boy, she did say some dirty things that made me extremely fired up. Threatened to not allow me to go on holiday to Europe and stuff. Which obviously served to do nothing but get me all riled up. Still am pretty mad at her. I hate it when she turns all COD on me. Like she expects to run my life for the rest of my life or something. Ah well. Just have to ignore her prissy fits and just move on. Don't really need her approval in every aspect of my life anyway.
Nothing else to add. Just waiting for my "Heroes" to be delivered.
Name: voldemort33
XY, 01/06/1987, s'porean typical geminian free-thinker moody & eccentric thinks far too much for his own good med student (be afraid. be very afraid!) demon45_6f@hotmail.com
crazy craves
music (jazz, rock and lounge) day-dreaming drawing & photography animals (sheep!) chocolate and tea! seafood, noodles and soup!
pet peeves
noisy crowds over-possessive, insecure, whiny people two-faced hypocrites housework and homework being called 'rich' rushing to do stuff crying, pesky kids
deepest darkest desires! (aka wishlist!)
to be a doctor (with a heart of gold!) a dog my own condo apartment a driving license and my own four wheel drive my own comic line someone to hug
