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.”

A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband.
Suddenly her husband burst into the kitchen. “Careful …
CAREFUL!! Put in some more butter!! Oh my Gosh!! You’re cooking
too many at once. TOO MANY!!
Turn them!! TURN THEM NOW!! We need more butter. Oh my Gosh!!
WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER?! They’re going to STICK!!
Careful…
CAREFUL!! I said be CAREFUL!! You NEVER listen to me when you’re
cooking! Never!! Turn them! HURRY UP!! Are you CRAZY? Have you lost
your mind? Don’t forget to salt them. You know you always
forget to salt them. Use the salt. USE THE SALT! THE SALT!!”

The husband calmly replied, “I just wanted to show you what it
feels like when I’m driving”.

What an early end for last year’s champions. I’m sure they will be kicking themselves for not even getting through the quarter finals. What a day it has been…

Time to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Darn…England fought so hard to defend themselves even when they were down to 10 men. What a pity they didn’t pull through in the end. Well, it can’t be helped. As the commentator said before the shootout, England has never won a penalty shootout before…though I was secretly hoping this would be their first.

Anyway, time to gear up for the next match…

Will it be Brazil or France that would end up in the semi-finals? I can’t quite decide who to support as I like both teams. It will definitely be an interesting match…

May the best team win!

;)

World cup fever is back…slightly delayed for me, as I had to wait til after the Paediatric end-of-posting to catch up on it. Couldn’t afford to follow it from the very beginning as I was totally exhausted with the posting. Anyway, glad to say, it is OVER, and now it’s time to study football. Muahahaha…