This is really sad. It seems like I have only been able to blog on average thesedays about once a week. And even when I do its like I have nothing much to say but crapping on about the same thing everytime. Sigh. Another week in GP land. Sitting in on the doctor's consultation with patients, seeing a couple here and there on my own before presenting it to the doctor (which is still rather daunting for me at this stage - especially when you simply dunno what questions to ask! Not good at this stage for a final year student!). Don't get to do any procedures at all cos it's almost like a metropolitan practice and its close to the big hospitals anyway. Plus they'll have to pay heaps more insurance if they wanna do it. But I'm happy. Think I'm still getting a decent exposure to GP type of cases. Just finished 3 GP tasks this week and got yet another one due in 2 weeks time. A GP long case. Siannzzz....

Isn't it amazing how many weirdos and low-lives you can meet when you are biking home at 130am on a Friday night? I have had idiots who honk at me when they drive past, idiots who push me off the walkway as I ride past them, and idiots who look like they are going to jump on me. Gosh. Makes life interesting doesn't it?

Going to work is really good for my self-esteem. It makes me feel good about myself. It makes me not feel like a parasitic leech who's completely dependent on my parents for money. It feels good to think about all the money that I'm making and how unhindered I would be in spending it. It feels good to know that I'm helping out (however small the effect) my parents. And I can afford to live more luxurious now. Don't have to do targeted shopping when I go for my groceries. Like the 2L bottle of big M chocolate milk sitting in my fridge now. Hmmm... best thing ever. It doesn't feel too bad now when I eat out. I can eat out everyday now if I want. Hahahahaha (tone of evil laugh)!!!! 

School has started and its has been a great 1st week in GP land. I am also currently operating with a sleep debt of about 8 hours and whole body myalgia. Stopping work for 5 days and then starting again is a bad idea - lack of acclimatization = feeling really really tired right now. I will elaborate more on my GP experiences sometime this weekend. Hopefully, since I will be working Sat night and Sunday as well. Highly likely that I will just end up feeling real tired again. 

I can't believe its Thursday already. That means I have to work tonight and school shall start in another 3 days time. That also means the movie "I, Robot" is in cinemas! I have also just attended the semester 12 introductory talk by our clinical dean this morning. It was held at 9am and for the FIRST time in the past 3 weeks, I woke up at 8am! Gosh, so this is what mornings are like... Can't seem to remember them anymore. Anyway, the point that I wanna make about that talk is that it's really more like a stress session for me! Just listening to the list and list of task we have to accomplish makes me feel so demoralised. Which shouldn't be the case, since I almost have my job guaranteed back in Singapore - I only need to pass my final exams. But I am such a slack ass that the thought of having to work like a intern in order to prepare us for internship in 6 months time really gets me down. Why can't I just not work? Damn! I forgot - Singapore doesn't have the dole for unemployed people. 

Should I go catch the movie? The preview looks good and I'm such a sucker for anything sci-fi related. There's a show at 510pm which is just perfect. I wonder if I can get the seats though. I could also watch it after work but I think I may just stink up the entire cinema. But watching it before work is so sian knowing that you have to go work after that. It's ridiculous that I can be so po-po-ma-ma about something so trivial. OMG

Oh, and I found another excellent webcomic this week: Sam and Fuzzy. The humour is top rate. You have gotta check it out.

I have been so busy and tired for the past couple of days that I haven't been updating my blog as often as I like. I've realised that personally, even though I may have quite a few things to talk about, I actually need some time to sit down and organise my thoughts otherwise I will just be talking rubbish. And time to sit and down and think was a luxury I don't have for the past few days. Perhaps I should look towards simplifying my blogging process. Its currently way too manual.

Ok, now that the pace of my life has slowed down somewhat, I feel the urge to blog again. I have the following things to get off my chest:

1. I have truly been working my ass off over last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. I guess I overestimated myself when I thought I could handle working through 3 nights in a row. Even worse I was actually supposed to work last Sunday as well! But I called in sick (ie "hospital duty") coz I think if I work that shift I would have died. Saturday night was HELL. The restaurant was so busy that the barrage of crockery, utensils, heavy-duty steel woks, pans, etc, was endless! As I stood in front of the sink trying to debulk the remaining food chunks off the plates before I put them into the dishwashing machine, it was like fighting a losing battle. The waiters/waitresses just keep coming in with yet MORE plates. The same goes for the chefs and their cooking wares. I was OVERWHELMED. It was like crazy. The plates stacked so high and far that I felt like all hope is gone. To make matters worse, the gloves that I was wearing had holes and I could feel my skin coming off at the junction of the nails and skin. OUCH! And the woks. The heavy frying woks with the super-glued charred remains that had me scrubbing so hard and yet still refuses to come off. 

In the end, I was saved by my other partner kitchen steward who swapped places with me so that I become the one who's in charge of putting the washed plates back on the shelves. Thank you so much Flor! You are my saviour! I think through this experience, I really respect all those people who do shitty jobs like this one. It's simply amazing how they can do this everyday and I can't even do 3 nights in a row. How shameful. 

Another point in retrospect is that I may have been too OCD with the dishes. Flor herself pointed out to me that there's NO need to scrub those woks and pans so clean. But I just can't help it! Out damn spot! 

2. Completed Gran Turismo 3 Beginner's League. That leaves me with the amateur, professional, rally and endurance races to conquer. I have gotten my International B licence as well, which is really something to get excited about, since it would allow me to participate in lots of previously forbidden races with larger cash prizes and more powerful cars to be won! Playing this game has really increased my knowledge about racing cars and car tuning, handling, etc etc. In the past, I could never figure out what was all the big deal and fascination with big cars, modified ah beng cars, etc but I think I do now. The thrill is getting to me. Vroom vroom!

3. Catching up with a old friend whom I had sort of not kept in contact with for the past 2 years. Completely out of the blue, I received a phone call from her a few days ago. It turns out that she still has one of my box of stuff at her place. This is going back 2 years ago when she helped me to store my stuff because I was going back to Singapore for 1 year of AMS research! 

"Oh, I was just cleaning out my cupboard when I realised that this box isn't mine!"  

Errr, I can't imagine how dirty your place is if you only clean once every 2 years. But nonetheless, catching up with all the hot gozz is great fun. And some people just never change. Including me apparently. 

3. Skiing accident. Just yesterday, a friend of mine told me that her friend had a skiing accident which left him with damage to his C5 vertebrate and is currently in RMH's ICU. It's really a most tragic event that someone so young is most likely now going to be a quadriplegic from now on. I really do hope for the best outcome for him despite the odds. Although I do not know this person, but this accident has got me thinking on so many areas. I think the most sad thing about this is when you try to empathise with the victim. Just thinking about how on this very day you are a fully-functioning healthy adult with your whole life ahead of you and after this accident you are completely paralysed. It is so sudden and unexpected. You are just going about enjoying yourself and it just happens. I find it so hard to come to terms with it even from a empathising point-of-view, so you can imagine how the patient is feeling. 

I have also wonder how I would react if this person is someone close to me. I'm not sure what the answer is but I suspect it will be quite a tear-free reaction. I sound like a cold-blooded animal don't I? I wonder if this has got to do with my own personality or can I shift the blame to my medical education that has managed to objectify everything in my eyes. Even for the above mentioned skiing accident, amidst all the sadness, at the back of my mind, I know that such mishaps happen probably by the handful or more everyday all over the world. This is me looking at things epidemiologically. I'm afraid of myself turning into this emotion-devoid monster insidiously over time. And I'm even more afraid of something this dreadful happening to someone I know. 

4. Emails from MBBS-seekers. Over the last week, perhaps due to the publication of my website in the papers, I have received a couple of emails from people seeking advice about undertaking a MBBS degree. I do my best in each case to reply them but personally it's really ironic how someone in my position of apathy regarding medicine can be dishing out advice to these enthusiastic young people. Hahah!

5. Lastly, this is my last week of my holidays. To put things in perspective, its probably gonna be my second last decent holidays of my life, the last one being post-final exams holidays.   

Recently I have made a new discovery: A whole wide world of medical blogs exists out there on the internet! I guess I never did look for it in the past but having stumbled upon it the past few days ago, it has really opened up a whole new dimension of cyberspace for me! Simply fascinating, the amount of medical blogs out there. Makes you feel so overwhelmed! You don't know where to start! Finding these blogs is like realising for myself that I am not alone. Makes me feel like part of something bigger than myself. This is excellent! 

I have also resumed my old job working as a dish-washing dude at a Japanese restaurant. Although thinking about the extra income is sure to put a smile on my face, the actual work itself sucks! So sian to even have to think about it. Sigh. But it really should be good for me. Financially and physically - good exercise! And I should include the yummy sushi too! Hahah.

I have quite a number of thoughts running in my head for the past couple of days. Allow me to jot them down now to stop them from running amok in my brain all the time, especially during the time before I fall asleep. 

Firstly, regarding my 5 second claim to "fame" in a printed article about my webcomic Medical Mediocrity last Sunday. I didn't expect myself to keep obsessing over this matter. Initially I just thought that yeah, it's no big deal. But another part of my brain just refuses to let it go and just keep replaying it, almost like the home alone movie. Statistically, my website hits rate has doubled (which sounds a lot better than saying it increased from 5 hits a day to 10 a day) and even just looking at those figures makes me feel so happy. I have also received an email from some dude in the US asking me to join a medical blog site and another email from this doctor offering to host my comic at this medical site or something. Then comes the grandiose delusions of sometime in the future where I can become even more successful with my comic and do it full-time for real! Now that's having a dream come true man!

I am such a sucker for fame and flattery. At this rate I think my head is going to burst from ego over-inflation! But at least I guess the good thing about all these is that it spurs me into action. I have actually wrote the script for the next few strips in advance, which is really rare. 

Secondly: today I went to watch Spiderman 2, with Hogan and Tien. It's been what? 5 months since I stepped into a cinema? I was reminded of the exhilarating feeling of having your visual and audio senses assaulted to the max, all in the context of a superhero fighting evil characters. So good man! This must be the peak in my mood graph for now. Unfortunately, one ugly dent on this happy memory was the row of idiots sitting behind us during the show who simply refuses to stop making smart aleck comments and noises. But hey, don't get angry John. Relax. Remember your CBT techniques? Float pass, do not fight. 

Meanwhile, I have stumbled upon another medical webcomic Scut Monkey. The author is an anaesthetic registrar or something in NYC. Boy, that feeling of seeing someone else like yourself doing the same thing makes you feel so... validated? I wonder how many more of such medical webcomics are out there? Are we the pioneers of a new branch of comic? How exciting!!!

I also went to Big W to shop around. Had a look at some Dragonball Z games on Game Boy Advance (end up downloading the game, haha), transformers toys which I was very very tempted to buy, and bought a pair of sneakers for $17 to replace the current one I have, which is wearing so thin I can feel the texture of the ground. Oh, and I got my job back! Will be starting this Sunday night. Woo Hoo!

OUCH. My bum hurts. Correction; my whole body is aching. That's the consequence of having fallen like once every 5 metres on the snow slopes. But nonetheless, it's GREAT fun! If only I am more fit and stronger then I would have enjoyed myself every more coz I think I had only started to get the hang of snowboarding when I have completely exhausted my muscles! Now I kinda regret why I only chose to go skiing in my final year here. But still, this is a great experience!

Now just allow me to recuperate for the next couple of days.

I think the novelty effect of the holidays is starting to wear thin. It's funny how a couple of days ago I felt so enthusiastic about the holidays and having so many activities to occupy my time with and now I am feeling like I don't wanna do anything at all! It's almost like the symptom of anhedonia in depressed patients, where there is a lack of interest in activities which would have previously brought enjoyment to the person. Maybe I just need more variety. Maybe I'm cooped up inside my house for too long. But that's not my fault! The weather's been so awful lately - dark skies, rain, and freezing cold! 

This morning I broke yet another of my own record. I woke at 3pm! Been doing a little of scripting for my comic. Ok, I think I'm going to get my first meal of the day now. I don't suppose you can call it breakfast right? Hope the weather at Mount Buller will be good tomorrow, cos I'm going snowboarding! Yeh! Just a day-trip. It seems pretty ridiculous that despite having been here for 6.5 years now, I haven't gone skiing right? Oh well, it's never too late! Thought I better go now if not I'll probably never get to do it again.  

I'm so sorry for not updating MM this week. I have been totally occupied by post-exams activities, some of which include Gran Turismo 3, outings with friends, watching movies, reading comics, and just oodles and oodles of pure unadulterated free time for me to rot and stone! Pure heavenly blissful luxury! I will definitely update soon, if not this coming week. Oh, oh, and MM has been featured on the Sunday Times today! Hahaha.. I can't believe it man. My 5 seconds of fame! If you wanna see it, click here. In the meantime, for the rest of my holidays, I'll be doing this:

In search for the inner truth. Yeah, whatever. 

Finally. Semi-finally actually. Gotten over my written paper this morning. After 6 days of excruciatingly painful forced studying, it is finally over. The light at the end of the tunnel, whatever. Can't believe how cold it is at the exam hall today either. Freaking freezing my fingers off! Yes, there were heaters but like Hogan said, they looked more like red lights than heaters. And guess what? The one PBL that I didn't have time to revise (postnatal depression), it came out! So stunned man. But still have to crapped on. Boy I really hate that feeling everytime I finish a paper. So much uncertainty, so much unknown. Not to mention so much bullshit. OSCE exam this coming Tuesday and that is it. 

And I updated MM. So I have only stopped for 1 week. Boy, I'm so proud of myself.    

I can't believe I am here online making another entry on my blog when I have a major exam tomorrow. I can't believe I spent 2 hours doing up a FAQ page and therefore have to make this entry to announce this latest addition to my site. Yeah, check out the new FAQ section.   

Another 2 more days to the written paper exam on this coming Friday. I think I'm starting to panic. But I guess this will eventually wear off too as I approach doomsday. But for now, I can really feel the feeling of impending doom, just like how you tell patients when you give them adenosine for their arrhythmia. Not enough time. Not enough energy and concentration power on my part to sustain long periods of studying. That lousy feeling of not remembering stuff which you read just 5 minutes ago. Ahhhhhh!!!!!!! 

There was a petty incident that happened yesterday. I feel so left out. So betrayed. Abandoned. Makes you re-evaluate your own meaning of true friendship and other crap like being there for one another. But like I said, it's really petty so I'm ok now. Hah-ha.  

My dearest dearest Huiyu, I wish you a happy 23rd birthday. I'm sorry that your birthday's gift is going to be delayed but I promise you it will be worth waiting for. I've already got it all planned out. Will start work on it when my exams are over. In the meantime, hope you like the roses! 

I can't imagine I'm celebrating your birthday for the 3rd time already :) 

Finally, semester 11 has drawn to a close and I have about 5 days till my first written paper on Friday. And then a OSCE on the following Tuesday and it will all be over. I am starting revision on RAPP topics. Will do rural next and then psych, since it should be still fresh in my mind being the most recent rotation. 

Didn't update MM this week and I think possibly not for next week as well. So sorry about that. Been busy with lots of other things - like playing LOTR - ROTK game on PS2, reading comics (what? you thought I was going to say busy with mugging ah?)

This is how I am feeling. Enough said.  

I have been most incredibly bored and lack of motivation for this entire week so far. It's probably gonna be like this for the weekend too. Sigh. I think it's something to do with the upcoming exams. Sigh. Why am I so easily affected by it? Why can't I just "pull up my socks" and work hard and then things will be a piece of cake? Why I am so freaking lazy?!!! Ah well, I guess by now I should have realised that that's just the way I am. So accept it John Chua. Come next week and I have got my 2 assessments to worry about. One being an observed interview of a psychiatric patient and another a presentation of a case. Argh, I hate this!!!

I had also wanted to make more blogging entries but due to my avolitive state of mind I have failed to do so. Instead, what I find myself doing was just plowing through the web reading other people's blogs just to kill time and perhaps to "connect" with another human being?  

Today I have been touched by a most unexpected act of kindness. More like gift of kindness, haha. For some unfathomable reason, my mind has been preoccupied with getting a speedometer for my bike recently. And just when I was thinking of going to drop by the shops in the city this evening after our tutorials, Jason dropped the gadget right into my helmet as we were unlocking our bikes. I... I didn't know what to say. He did. He said its my advance birthday present. Note: My birthday's in December. Date check: It's JUNE!!! Thank you Jason :) I think I'll go for a ride this weekend, heh.

I donated blood today at the uni. It's my 4th time now I think. Once back home in Singapore. Today's donation was rather unpleasant. I think the nurse stuff up with the venepuncture. OUCH! But still, it was bearable I suppose. 470ml milked out of my veins over 13 minutes! Realised that I could increase the blood flow rate by contracting my forearm and hand muscles. Cool. 

On the usual freaking out note - I have completely failed to do any study at all after school everyday this week. Have just been feeling foolishly complacent. 2.5 weeks till exams.

It seems like I have so many things that I have and want to do but I just don't have the energy to do them. It's 10.25pm and I'm sitting in front of my desk feeling so drowsy already. Maybe it was the full dinner that I had. Or maybe it's because the things that I have to do are boring textbook reading and revisions and the things that I want to do... well, I can't muster up enough energy to do them. My eyelids are so heavy. 

Had to do some chasing up today with people who stuff up and created all this extra work for me. Got informed by the clinical school that they have yet to receive my elective assessment form. WTF? Consequentially I had to call Singapore to ask them diplomatically to sort this matter out. 

I reverted back to using palm desktop instead of microsoft outlook. That way I can synch my contacts as well. And today is probably the best Monday I have ever had. Today I felt like I have learned so much. Had tutes in the morning, clerked a patient, presented the case and discussion with the Prof. Oh, I feel so smart man. Haha. Mini ego boost. 

An official entry to mark the end of yet another weekend. I have enjoyed myself thoroughly, spending most of my time playing Starcraft, reconfiguring my PDA, house chores, cooking, everything but studying! I did have plans for revision but they did not happen. I dropped by the city to get some groceries and stuff. I'm not sure if it's just me but it just seems like there are so many more people there thesedays compared to years ago when I first came to Melbourne. So many pedestrians, cars, traffic, it makes my head spin! But at least it's not as bad as back home. 

I bought a thermo flask for 10 bucks and it's a great way to keep warm this coming winter. Never realised sips of hot chinese tea can be so comforting. Hmmm...  Oh, and I have got some ideas brewing in my head, just simply out of sheer boredom as usual. It's good. They will keep my right brain happy while my left reluctantly commences another week of psychiatry. Gotta find a long case soon. Its due in another 3 weeks time. Sianz....

Finally, my new (and improved?) website is up and running. Basically the needs for a complete overhaul of my website are as listed: (1) getting so bored of the old design, (2) the creation process gets me high and kills boredom simultaneously, (3) separation of my comic and blog allows me to post blogging updates more frequently [for the benefit of someone in particular of course], and (4) included are expansion sections for me to experiment with other stuff other than MM. 

The changes I have made are basically to simplify my layout, to provide easier navigation around the site, to provide readers to feedback on each individual comic strip or blog entry, and placement of the voting button on every comic strip page to "encourage" voting and hence boost my comic strip's readership! 

This is so dilemmic. I really want more people to read my comic (call it self glorification, egoistical, whatever - I only want some appreciation that's all) but at the same time I'm afraid of the views some people may have towards it. Is it because I'm afraid to get criticisms? Is it because I kinda feel ashamed of my lousy artwork? Maybe. I'll let things be for now. There are a couple of people whom I know are reading MM on a regular basis and I'm pretty pleased with that already. So there. 

Sorry for the 2 week halt in MM comic updates. I had been rather busy with school and trying to make the most of the last 2 weeks of Huiyu's stay here in Melbourne. But now, I'm back to my loner life with plenty of time on my hands and yeah, MM is back! Expect lots of blog entries too! 

So many more things I wanna say but I think I shall keep my first entry short. Plenty of time to do my ranting in the future.

Watch this page grow longer as I make more and more entries in this web diary of mine! Yeh!