Sorry that this is a little behind schedule. Even though I’m jobless on holidays and supposed to be super-free, I was busy with some family issues last week, thus the delay. Anyway, here goes my first attempt at taking up the MMR Bloground Challenge…

Adeline Wong, Bernard, DocFiles, Hooligan, Letti and Sbanboy are among those who blogged about Easter. Ain shares photos from the Indie for Glory gig at Little Havana held recently. CH Lee’s hair grows back.

Coolclare blogs about the 1st and 2nd day of the “Kursus Induksi” she attended at Kundasang. It has been a CME-filled week as Cytusm and Jimbo attended a ID conference in Georgetown while Fibrate went for a a less-than-regal dinner cum talk at Gulai House. Meanwhile, Vagus has gone to AACE 2007 in Seattle to scale the heights of endocrinology.

It also has been a travel-filled week as Ket Sang goes on a trip to Cornwall and Dr. Eay-Lalle recovers from a trip to Gap, Smangkok, Chilling. Raymond takes part in the Kapas-Marang Swimathon after postponing his root canal therapy while Saw Ling is all smiles after returning from Budapest and Prague. To the envy of some people, Tw was having fun watching the F1 race at Sepang.

On a more serious note, Cindy tells about her friend’s bad experience with a rude, sarcastic and insensitive doctor. eColi questions the need for the arbitrary 30-minute resuscitation before pronouncing someone is dead. Darren reflects on his 4 months of medical posting while Jinkhang starts his medical posting.

Is it possible to choke on a piece of “pisang goreng”? Ask a patient of Docyana’s. Doc talks about brand loyalty while Spinosum gets RM 5 off his next pizza. Tru-Asian introduces his cast of paintbrushes.

Imagine if an “apocalypse” of the blog world occurs… what would the last message be on your blog? Bernard and Yenjai shares what their last post would be.

Last but not least, learn how to make a condom case for your phone or PDA at DocFiles.

After 5 freaking long years, on the 20th of March, 155 of us were liberated from the Medical School Syndrome (MSS). That morning, we all gathered in the hall, anxiously awaiting the announcement from the Dean. As he couldn’t make it, the Assistant Dean took over and read out the names of all those who have passed the final MBBS, one by one. We clapped from the first name all the way to the last, and there was this air of relief and joy filling the hall. Nevertheless, some were crying not just in joy, but in sorrow for those who did not make it.

These 5 years would be what I describe as the most trying times in my life, and I had hoped that everyone would make it through together. A math teacher once said to me, in an exam, there will always be students who get full marks and students who fail (based on the normal distribution). If no one scores or no one fails, then the exam is skewed. I guess it’s part and parcel of life, nevertheless in the midst of our happiness, the pain of knowing that these handful of friends will have to stay back and relive the stress and horror of the exams once again, sent us into a turmoil of emotions.

I quote Cyanide who wrote this elsewhere…

“At the same time, our hearts ached for those few friends who didn’t make it. See, this is life in reality. I knew I’d be devastated even if one of us failed to leave with us. But I didn’t expect the feeling to be so intense. I guess it touches everyone’s hearts and leaves a mark. The saddest of all is that there is nothing we can do or say to help ease the pain. Anyhow, I’d like to see this as a special challenge that God has set aside for the bravest and strongest of all. As always, God will never put unto our shoulders a burden too heavy for us to carry. For my dear friends who are to walk this difficult journey ahead, I pray that God will also grant you the courage, strength and patience to reach the finishing line. I believe you will come out of this better than any of us.”

That night, we were all invited to the alumni dinner with our professors and lecturers. For the first time, we got to see a different side of them and some of the intimidation and fear of them fled. They are no doubt our teachers and source of inspiration, however they are also only human, like us. It was really fun to see our Dean and Head of Orthopaedic Department singing songs as well as our professors and lecturers dancing on stage. Awards were announced and tribute was given to our 2 top students of the year, Dr. Lee Zhi Shan and Dr. Lim Li Han. Congratulations to them both, as well as the 15 students in the Dean’s List and the other winners of the other various awards.

The following day, we had the “swearing in” ceremony, where we took the Hippocratic Oath, and were also presented with our temporary certificates. Parents were invited and we had the ceremony at the Dental Faculty’s Hall, as they had a bigger hall to accommodate everyone.

I really didn’t expect you to come. It was a really brave thing to do. Thank you…

Everything felt so surreal and sometimes, I just can’t believe it’s actually all over. No more classes, no more typing of case summaries, no more “covering wards”… Hmmm, come to think of it, there will still be more of this when we start working but what the heck, at least for the next few months or so, we are spared from it.

We do not know what the future holds, but we will definitely enjoy this break to the fullest. Thank you to everyone who has kept me in prayer, supporting me emotionally and believing that I could do it, when often I felt I could not. Thank you for everything.

Praise be to God!

It’s been one day after our final MBBS exams have officially ended. Viva list will be out on Monday and the results will be announced on Tuesday, that is if all goes well. I would say that I’m half relieved that the exam is over, however I will only be really relieved on Tuesday if I pass. I sincerely pray and hope that my whole batch will make it through. The last 5 weeks was a real torture. Palpitations, sweating, sleepless nights, loss of appetite, generalized anxiety disorders…no wonder they only gave us 2 weeks of study leave (excluding Chinese New Year holidays). More time for revision would be nice as it is definitely not possible to revise 5 years of studies in just 2 weeks, however any longer than that would have precipitated heart failure in the faint-hearted (like yours trully) due to palpitation and sympathetic overdrive…

Anyway, it is now time to sit back, relax, wait and hope for the best…

Finally, tomorrow will be the last official day of class for us. It will start with our end-of-posting exam at 9 am, CPC at 3 pm and a extra haemato class after the CPC. I can’t believe it’s been 5 years. 5 years is as long as going through Form 1 to Form 5 and that felt pretty long to me. However, this time round, it feels really fast. I can still remember the very first days of university life, stepping into the medical faculty and perpetually regretting my decision to take up this course. Nevertheless, the end of the beginning is near…after 3 weeks of study leave and 2 weeks of exams, if all goes well, we will leave this place for good unless we end up working here in the future, or doing some post-grad thingy.

Anyway, just felt kinda nostalgic, melancholic and apprehensive of the future…

This year, we both forgot de Factorz’s birthday. I guess we were both too caught up with the stress of final year. Posting after posting, exam after exam, case summary after case summary…I’m sure you get the idea.

August 21st 2003. Come to think of it, it’s been 3 years since we joined forces. This blog was started as a place for us to rant our frustration, share our thoughts with others (we didn’t have many readers but then again..), as well as to simply express ourselves. Being constantly weighed down by the stress of medical school, this was what kept us sane. It was our space to speak our minds.

Time flew by, and many life-changing-events down the road, we decided that perhaps it is time to move on. Hey, it’s not like we had a fight or anything, we are still the best of friends and will always be. It’s just that, we no longer feel like blogging anymore. Here at least. We might still blog in the future, who knows? But for now, as we approach the last few months of medical school (hopefully), it’s time to close this chapter…and perhaps focus on our studies? Haha.

We would hereby like to thank all our readers, past, present and future, for your support, comments, and for making our blogging experience a memorable one. To those who hate us, thank you as well…

Anyway, to quote Winston Churchill…

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

I started playing the guitar in Form 1. The first tune I played on the guitar was “Mary had a little lamb” and the first song I learnt was an old Christian song that went “King of Kings, and Lord of Lord’s Glory, Hallelujah…” There was only 2 chords throughout the entire song, which were Am and E. Since then, I was hooked.

My friend gave me his old guitar, on which I faithfully practiced on during my freetime, and soon, I had managed to learn the basic chords. To actually succeed in playing the F bar chord properly, I practiced for months. I begged my mum to send me to guitar lessons, but she refused as she preferred me to focus on playing the piano (which I wasn’t very interested in at that time). Anyway, I decided that I had no choice but to self-learn.

Many books and online tabs later, I finally had the chance to take lessons on how to play the acoustic guitar and electric guitar during my two years in Form 6. My teacher sifu was really one heck of a player, and I did and always will admire his playing skills. If it was not for having to further my studies in KL, I would have loved to learn more from him. He introduced me to many wonderfu guitar songs by Joe Satriani, Vinnie Moore, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Van Halen, Led Zepplin, Dream Theatre etc.

Sad to say, once in medical school, I did not have much time to pursue this hobby of mine due to logistics (shared hostel room and lack of equipments), time (tons of crap to study) and stamina (perpetual sleepiness due to the medical school syndrome). Now that I’m in final year, I have even less time in my hands (perhaps it’s due to poor time management) to indulge in such activities that whenever I have any free time, I would just feel like collapsing into a deep coma to run away from the forever growing pile of backlog work and studies.

Nevertheless, my love for the guitar was rekindled recently, when a friend of mine led me to discover a video of some guy playing a rocked up version of Canon in D, recorded via a videocam or something. It’s been so long since I’ve been really hooked on a song, and now, this Canon Rock tune has been burnt into my head and seems to be playing internally round the clock. On top of that, CN- is also addicted to the song, and plays it repeatedly on her stereo EVERYDAY. As the wall separating our rooms is paper thin, I would end up listening to the song whenever she does.

All the more reason why I just had to find the tabs for the song. After shrinking the font to a printable size, the tabs were 14 pages long. I would like to dream that I will be able to play the song someday, but as for now, one very glaring fact that’s thrown right into my face is that my fingers are damn rusty and I am so out of practice. Sigh. I wish I could borrow Doraemon’s Time Stopping Cloth and put medical school on hold for awhile so that I can learn up the song…

To those who are interested, go to YouTube and type Canon Rock, JerryC or Funtwo and watch the videos.

Just another funny Ah Beng Ah Lian story that arrived in my inbox…

Ah Lian called big brother Ah Beng over the telephone.
Lian: “Ah Beng kor, I can’t get my new jig saw puzzle fixed, mah-chiam all the edges cannot fix together, lah.”

Ah Beng examines the puzzle and says, “Si ghee na, si bay gong, put back the corn flakes into the box, lah.”

Once again, the freshies have enrolled and its the return of the ragging orientation week(S). This time, we are the SUPER SENIORS, a stupid name nevertheless but still a mark that I’ve survived 4 freaking years of medical school life. The freshies this year are blur as usual, as after 2 weeks of unofficial orientation, they have not figured out what should and should not be said, what needs to be known and what needs to be done, in summary, how to be streetwise in this sadistic “game” of survivor.

4 years back, the whole thing was probably many times worse than it is now, but the threshold of the current freshies is terribly low. They no longer have to look down and recognize the seniors by the colour of their slippers, the shape of their feet, and the hair on their shins. No more being screamed at the volume of 100 dB or having to do ultra-humiliating things. Only scoldings for not remembering the list of their own state senior’s names and having to find out 10 things about this senior or another.

I am not for one, pro-orientation but neither am I totally anti-orientation. I mean, I do remember the horrible time I had, and I definitely do not wish the same fate upon these poor freshies. However, when a junior looks so forlorn and when asked what is the worst thing that happened to them during the orientation and the answer is “having to find out details about the super-seniors”, I really feel like fainting. If you can’t remember the names of 10 seniors who come from your state, how are you going to remember the 100 different bacterias, viruses and parasites? If you hate having to find out details about this person and that person, what about having to look up information for the problem-based learning classes?

Yes, finding out 10 things about S.Senior X and 10 things about S.Senior Y may seem rather silly, but why don’t you fellas thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to do things worse than that. 4 years back, we would so gladly accept that sort of assignments as it was considered chicken feet, compared to the vast variety of horrible stuff one could be subjected to. One freshie looked at me in horror when I asked him to find out all the capitals of the states in Malaysia, as when he did not know where I was from, I mentioned that I was from the capital of Kedah, and he had totally no idea what was the capital of Kedah. Did he not learn geography? Was I being unreasonable? I think not…

Anyway, another thing that bugged me about this year’s new intake is that a large sum of them have a terrible command of English. They are unable to sustain a decent conversation in English and keep wanting to switch to Mandarin. One girl looked blankly at me when I asked her how many siblings she had. After repeating my question 3 times, I realised that she did not understand what “siblings” meant. So I asked her, “you ada berapa adik-beradik?” She looked wide-eyed at me and answered, “Empat.” WTH.

Another girl claimed to be a fan of classical music. Out of curiosity, I asked who her favourite composer was. She hesitated for a long time, and finally said, “Senior, what is composer?” I said “It’s the person who made the song.” She said, “I don’t cares the lyrics or who sing the song, as long as the sound is nice, I will listen.” Since when does classical music have lyrics to it?

Seriously. I rest my case.

Well, one week flew by. We were waiting in anticipation for this short break, however it seems that the break is now over. Just with a blink of an eyelid, precious time of doing “nothing” has passed. Then again, if there was too much time to slack, we will sink into deeper denial and not want to continue threading through the “hell” of final year. Ah well, not as though we have much of a choice anyway.

Next up is the minor postings, and it seems that the insane student had a swell of a time. So I really hope that it will be somewhat more refreshing and relaxing compared to the stressful and miserable Paediatric posting.

Looking forward to the France vs Italy finals tomorrow night, or rather morning. I hope France wins!!

Saw this at a friend’s blog. Thought it was rather funny…

A man walks into a restaurant with a full-grown ostrich behind him. The waitress asks for their orders. The man says, “A hamburger, fries and a coke,” and turns to the ostrich, “What’s yours?”

The man sighs, pauses, and answers, “My second wish was for a tall chick with a big ass and long legs who agrees with everything I say.”