.: Journey to the Past :.

count down 3 more weeks

2010-01-09T08:14:00.002+08:00

even as we do something every single day and spend each day together, part of me also feels that the departure days is just drawing itself closer and inching towards the both of us.. it's something i dun want to talk about, but it's something that silently i cry to myself about, choking back the tears that i have in my eyes.. i just can't say it out.. maybe it's just a feeling and thought that i need to be brave for both our sakes, that at that moment in time when my heart is the most upset, that i have cried out most of my tears that nothing much is left to the actual day itself.. it's not wrong for me to cry because it would be almost a year of separation but my last worry would be let you see how much it hurts to let you go even though i dun want to.. but it's our chance at freedom, our chance to live our dreams, our chance to go beyond where we have ever went and do what we never had the chance to do.. although separate in our own ways and in opposite ends of this world exactly 12 hours apart, like what you said, we start anew. Anew means a lot to you, a lot more than what it means to me. It represents freedom, it represents independence, it represents no more responsibilities, no more having to take care of the little nitty gritty in life, no more having to shoulder everything in life. For that, i know you have to go and you need to go.
even though it breaks my heart to know that you're so far away, i love you too much to make you stay. it's only fair to you.
3 weeks and 1 more day to go. i need to just hang on n cherish this time with you. my d day would be 6 weeks to go.

as we get older, we get more complicated

2009-12-25T12:25:00.002+08:00

well since the last post, i have turned 23, i have gone for a good holiday in bangkok, i have celebrated christmas, i have received my previous 2 modules results, i have received and rejected a sponsorship, i have bought my air ticket to NZ, i have taken 2 students for 5 weeks for attachment under my supervision, i have submitted my no pay leave application and hence, in conclusion, this year is coming to an close with just 3 and 1/2 days of work left and a realisation that at this point of time next year, there would be so much changes in my life.
as we get older, i guess we get more complicated. our thoughts, our feelings and we stop being honest to each other or even ourselves. when i was in bangkok, as i squeezed his hand really tight and looked at his side profile; i knew time was really running out; i didnt know how to feel or what to say or when will i be able to see this moment again. when do i get to hold his hand so tight, look at him in this same way again? It seems like such a whirlwind and the mentioning of leaving for the UK or NZ is a happy event with us doing what we always wanted to do, but deep down inside, when i have to think of the leaving, the being apart and being able to hold on for tt period of time. I will be alone, away from everyone else who i know, left to fend for myself, left to be independent. not that it is an issue about being able to care for myself but emotionally where do i stand and whether i can. I am trying to be brave, but i think as the time draws much closer, this facade slowly breaks apart and i am fearful.
sometimes i wonder if i am really good enough, from where i stand and who i am and what i aspire to be, i am miles away from where he is and i just feel that no matter how hard i try, the disparity is greater. so many times i wish he understood n respects wat i feel, but in the end it comes to just me accepting it. I am a really lousy person to depend on because i am emotionally not as strong, neither am i a very rational person who can put everything else away and not let it affect me. how can i be there for you if i can't be as stable as you are? I wish a thousand million times that i could just pluck u away and keep u away from wat u need to do and what you feel that you need to do but i just can't and i resign to that with an answer of "wat can we do?". I wish someone would just tell me wat to do and what i can do for you because i am at my wits ends sometimes. maybe the song playing now reflects wat i think. how do i live without you? i really want to know. keeping my feelings hidden in my heart, i wish i could be a stonger person and better person for u. the feelings of being apart and fear of losing you are just so strong, more than what i can control; i wonder why do you not mind, why don't you feel this way too? part of me is happy that you can escape this whole regime and this whole set of silly responsibilities and duties but most of me just can't say goodbye in another 1 month. but for now, it's a happy face with a really strong wish and desire that time will just hold on for much a longer time.

Ca Gan Lei Di

2009-11-26T22:01:00.001+08:00

this was a song that was quite popular when i was in sec sch.. probably sec 2.. i loved this song very much cos i thought it held a lot of meaning... feels nice to have heard it again because it does remind one never to give up..

crossroads

2009-11-22T09:31:00.002+08:00

in a blink of an eye, another year has passed and the stark realisation that I am turnig 23 in 3 weeks. what have i done with my life? where have i gone so far? what am i doing and what will i be doing in the future? these are the questions i always ask myself with each passing year.
i got an email that day that talked about goals. What are goals for in our lives and that there needs to be a purpose in life to make it worth living for. For a moment i thought back and reflected: the goals in my past were so well defined and driven, I was so firm on my feet and what i wanted to achieve; now somehow it seems effy. I think as i grew older, more came into consideration. making a living, making life comfortable, having to support my parents, plans to have my own family, plans to do my masters, plans to get married, plans to keep my partner happy and live happily. all these have to strike a balance. at least i know wat goals i would like to meet and i can meet : achieve my masters and make sure i make my mark and standing known in my own field and get married between 27 to 28. Of course , getting there is another story..
I have worked and saved enough to pay off for my masters course but not exactly sufficient to be able to enjoy n study comfortably.. nonetheless, it is still a feat to me, that i have been disciplined enough to keep myself in check, somehow the sacrifices seem all so worth it.. sometimes i surprise myself a lot with what i thought i would never be able to do but be able to do. i guess it always will serve as a big reminder that there is much more out there for me to achieve and it's my time to make sure i do it well and big.
after all the administration that has been settled, i just wanted to make sure that i could have my january off next year to spend with hong ju before he leaves for the UK. basically, to cut a really long story short, i was offered a sponsorship now when i am about to leave. part of me was really angry because i applied for one so very long time ago but i was not given when my other classmates were offered and now when it comes to a point of crisis in which the hospital will not be able to cope without more physios in my speciality, i am being offered a sponsorship. the worst part was probably the really lame excuse that i applied too early especially with too little experience. I just feel that if i had already indicated my interest so early then, why wasn't i being considered first? while others had been offered sponsorships without asking, someone who asked and who is just as well qualififed isnt? Her hints are sufficient, i need not spell it out. the only comfort tt i take in is that my manager thinks tt i am just as good as the rest; i wasn't denied a scholarship because i didn't deserve one. I decided that i didnt want to take it up, but i still thanked my manager for the effort n for the thought cos i think it really meant a lot to me because i never felt that i was anything lesser than any other of my classmates to be denied this opportunity. I am not taking it mostly because i am not a last choice or resort; secondly i have had enough with the merry go rounds at work. I would miss my colleagues and really good friends at work for sure when i leave. However, i probably would take the no pay leave first, because of the whole stupid bonus thing and my january leave thing.
I guess what came out mostly from my discussion with hong ju was a really huge realisation. In our arguements about my work and about this, the one thing i really neglected was what he felt. It did break my heart when he told me that i never considered how he would feel, which was the truth. For so many times, i kept thinking about what i thought, and what i felt and what i wanted to do.. I have never thought of what he would think.. I felt bad then, cos for the so many months that we have been together, i had been so ultimately selfish in my own thoughts. sigh. maybe tt's y as we get older, there are more things to consider to make life really work out. anw i will work on it and make sure i start considering about him and his feelings more often now..
alright, it's time to head off to his place. see ya. updates soon

great eastern 10K

2009-11-08T17:31:00.002+08:00

i did the run probably about a week ago.. it was a 10km route around the city.. y first time taking part in any marathon of any sort.. i always felt that it was silly to pay to run.. but i guess the money comes partly from getting the goodie bag as well as to close off the roads for that number of hours as the thousands of people throg through the roads that most of us just simply drive through within seconds or minutes..
this was like the challenge i gave myself about a year back.. when i realised that it was high time that i needed to do something and achieve something in my life at that point of time since i have reached the one of the main goals of my life which was my ambition.. everytime i run a cardiac rehabilitation orientation, i always remind my patients of a SMART goal. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely = SMART. Something that my previous mentors in physiotherapy in the ICU taught me. I told all my patients that my final goal was to run a 10K marathon in uder 1 hour and that was by december 2010. And to reach my goal, it would need me to keep training and increasing the running distance to reach 10km. of course, when i first started on this goal - i had ran barely so little in the last 3 years when i started my course in NYP, let alone really play much netball esp since i quit the team in first year after i realised that my ultimate aim in life was driven by a different purpose and the spirit of competition for another person's dream or wishes was no longer inside of me. i lasted only a maximum of 13 mins on the treadmill and i would slowly increase the timing all the way up to 1/2 an hour to now my regular runs of 36 mins or up to 40 mins if i could afford it before work. I still did my runs 3 times a week, regardless of illness, work schedules or even homework. I often told my patients who gave me reasons that they were too tired after work or before work that if i could make the effort to sleep 1 hour less for my own health and considering that my job is physically more demanding than theirs and I have to even study at my own time, i saw no reason why they couldn't.
Not only that, when i was at my busiest and most stressful period, running gave me an opportunity to slip away from the hustle and bustle of life, those precious 36 mins that kept my mind off from my handphone, my work, my studies. it was just me and my legs and keep moving forward. It gave me a sense of accomplishment and discipline of course everytime i managed to finish my run, grab a quick shower before starting my day at 8am at work.
Hence, needless to say, the 10km run was a great experience. i finished it in 56 mins and 30seconds. probaby i could have gone faster but i didnt noe if i would burn out and it was my first run. the feeling of having so many people running with you and keeping you eyes on the target was so different from me and the treadmill. The air smelt different, the pace felt different, the foot strikign the ground felt different, the strides felt wider and the spirit felt stronger. When i crossed the finish line, i walked to the end to get refreshments. that was the irony, i didnt need any. my heart was filled with pride and with a huge sense of accomplishment - i finally did it and i reached my goal. Part of me wanted to cry (yes how silly though ) but majority of me was like " this is over and i wan to just keep doing this again and again ". it's not a challenge but a reminder of an accomplishment. That despite all that has been thrown at me in life, at the hardest, most tiring, most emotionally draining part, i did something that i wanted to do for so long.
therefore, i set myself a goal and that was to keep doing a 10K marathon every year :) it may set me a little back finanicially but it brings me forward in many other ways :) and of course keep it under an hour.

it's been so long

2009-11-05T23:31:00.003+08:00

hey..
it's been really so long since i have last updated.. a lot of things happened in between especially since the last update was that i was accepted into AUT for my studies and now i have actually finished my first semester of online course work. It's hard to summarise everything into a few sentences but i think the last 4 months have been the most challenging and probably match the amount of fatigue that i faced the last few years. I realised that working and studying is really tough and part of me feels so fustrated and tired all the time because besides having to work and juggling all other commitments, it meant having to do home work, research and what i need to do at work. I guess it comes to a realisation that after almost 1 year and 8 months at work, i am only someone trying to make a difference and hoping that i can make a difference - no longer the person who can make difference to the lives of others.. maybe there is something bigger out for me in the end? Part of me looks around me and see what have the others around me accomplished with the same time frame and in comparison, i seem to be almost no where. I am probably somewhere now in terms of academics but i know in the years to come, career path wise and financially wise, i will never reach where they are because in the first place, where i begun, it was way lower already. sigh. HJ's right - money isn't everything, but it's really something. It costs me so much to do my masters, i scrimped and saved so hard to the point that i didn't mind packing lunch to work or saving on a few cents for a bus trip by walking or even budgeting hard for events when i see my friends being able to splurge. I don't get to wear what i like to wear to work - no make up, no perfect pretty shoes, no nice clothes. yeap.. it's saves a lot of money though but i mean. haha.. sadly i think i have a soft spot for shoes and my choices of shoes are limited to that of just flat and easy to wash and clean because it just isnt functional to wear a pretty shoe and get it dirtied in the hospital. I am not against my job but i realised that in between, there is much that i have given up and i am not sure if i will gain in the end will match what i think i lost. especially financially because i think i have just made myself nothing more than a potential financial burden to my own boyfriend.
anyway i just got past my hardest 4 months; i am relieved, i am comforted and i am really hoping for the best for my results though i am not sure how well i will perform. it's my first time doing stats all by myself, having to write essays and think a lot ad contribute to a group of pple who have so much more knowledge and experience than myself. I think i really tried very hard and hard as i could. just need to keep my fingers crossed. now it's just waiting to fly over the NZ next year which i have my own reservations and my own excitements about..
I have never left home for so long and definitely this is a great chance to be independent and so much more because i wanted an overseas education. not to mention that i worked hard to pay for part of my education and it also means slogging for a long time after that to repay the rest of the masters education. going there means learning a lot of new things and being exposed to what i think my field should mean.. Part of me wants to try to live by myself but my reservations would also be hong ju. Part of the reason why i chose to leave next year is because hong ju will also be leaving for his exchange in the UK. I thought that it would be a great opportunity to start studying then because it will allow us time to focus on our studies and get past the academic stages of our lives.. of course he is going further than his degree but at least for me academically i will most probably be at my last stage already. At the same time, i felt that it was a time for the both of us to really test our relationship. absence does make the heart grow fonder.. as we reach almost the 4th year into our relationship, it is probably time that we learn to be there for each other even when we are not physically together and when it's not possible to see each other all the time.
I will admit that i failed horribly when it comes to being apart, from his family overseas trips or even my overseas training in KL for 5 weeks.. we have never been physically apart for more than 3 weeks the most.. this time it probably almost be 10 months. Needlessly, I know i will fail horribly but this time again i will need to learn to pick myself back up and be able to live on with my goals in life. that is probably something i know he wants me to be able to learn and cope with and for that, i shall really try not to fail. I am sure he will do quite well in the UK, even more so because he wanted an overseas education really badly and not to mention the amount of freedom that he gets and the experience. I believe he needs a break from a lot of things and he should get a break too..
alright. tt's a mouthful for a very overdue post :) I shall update regularly from now onwards! tt's a promise!

No boundaries

2009-06-18T20:29:00.002+08:00

Seconds, hours, so many days
You know what you want but how long can you wait
Every moment last forever
If you feel you've lost your way

What if your chances are already gone
Started believing that I could be wrong
But you give me one good reason
To fight and never walk away
Cause here I am still holding on

Every step you climb another mountain
Every breath it's harder to believe
You'll make it through the pain
Weather the hurricanes
To get to that one thing
So you think the road is going nowhere
Just when you've almost gave up on your dreams
Then take it by the hand
And show you that you can
There are no boundaries
There are no boundaries

I fought to the end to stand on the edge
What if today is as good it gets
Don't know where the future's headed
Nothing's gonna bring me down

I've jumped every bridge and I've run every line
I've risked being saved but I always knew why
I always knew why
So here I am still holding on

Every step you climb another mountain
Every breath it's harder to believe
You'll make it through the pain
Weather the hurricanes
To get to that one thing
So you think the road is going nowhere
Just when you've almost gave up on your dreams
Then take it by the hand
And show you that you can

You can go higher, you can go deeper
There are no boundaries above and beneath you
Break every rule cause there's nothing between you
and your dreams

Every step you climb another mountain
Every breath it's harder to believe

Yeah, there are no boundaries
There are no boundaries

With every step you climb another mountain
Every breath it's harder to believe
You'll make it through the pain
Whether the hurricanes
There are no boundaries
There are no boundaries

There are no boundaries

There is a reason why i put up this song right before this post.. when i heard this song, it happened to be a point of time when i was desperate and very upset - for the official TOEFL results were not sent to me yet and the application for the entry for second semester for AUT was closing on the very next day.. without the official results, it would mean that all my plans of just completing my masters by the next year would be gone.. meaning more money would need to be pumped in and more time spent over there.. not that i wont enjoy it but i know i wont be able to hang on that long both financially and emotionally. Hence, when i heard this song, i was devastated.. all that i ever dreamed and worked so very hard for was just simply going down the drain and nothing that i hoped so hard to work out was actually going as planned..I cried so very hard that night cos i thought that maybe it was just a sign that this job just isnt for me and i am just not meant to do my masters the way i have planned and hoped my life would actually go..
the very next morning when i woke up and reached work, i found in my inbox several emails from one of the lecturers and heads of physio school in AUT requesting that the admissions department admit me with my online based results as i should not be penalised on the inefficiencies of the education testing board.. I was honestly surprised and very touched that he had gone all the way to help me to gain entry this semester and making so much allowance during the discussion of my masters studies.. Indeed that very night i received my results in my snail mailbox and got the certified results out via email by tuesday night and on thursday itself, i received the letter of offer from AUT.
I cant be even more grateful to the people who made all of these happen, and i know that the only way of showing my gratitude is making sure that i ace my modules and make sure that i graduate with credible results to prove myself and to them that they have not gone through so much trouble without any returns. In short, my dreams are still going to be realised, though it requires much effort from this day onwards, but i know there wont be any boundaries stopping me from going where i want to go. so tt would be new zealand 2010 for sure :)

Every step you climb another mountain
Every breath it's harder to believe
You'll make it through the pain
Weather the hurricanes
To get to that one thing
So you think the road is going nowhere
Just when you've almost gave up on your dreams
Then take it by the hand
And show you that you can

You can go higher, you can go deeper
There are no boundaries above and beneath you
Break every rule cause there's nothing between you
and your dreams

erratic weather

2009-05-10T09:33:00.003+08:00

one moment its scorching hot with no cloud cover to shield you from the intense radiation from the sun, and then out of the blue, huge water droplets start to fall from the sky and start to drench you, providing relief from the previous day heat. this weather is really nuts i think..
oh well, nothing much has really been up.. i finished my 4 hour long toefl which was really really tedious.. i think partly cos the type of subjects that they test are not of my interest, hence, i tend to lose concentration and attention. haha.. let's hope for the best and that i do well enough for my masters.
besides that, i have to attend the tai chi for diabetes workshop on thurs and friday - at grand corpthone waterfront.. let's hope there is some free lunch or something or it will be pocket busting to try to get food in that area.. hopefully the course will be interesting too :)
Swine flu also also definitely caught the attention of many people.. the hospital itself was also in a flurry - runnning out of gowns and masks, temperature takings, sudden calls for meetings to update about the situation, masks being given out just when you enter the hospital, wondering if the person you are in contact with does have any possibility of having the virus at all.. when i went to the pharmacy to get a thermometer for my younger sister as it was complusory to have one or be issued a fine if you fail to produce a thermometer, i saw a rather amusing scene. there was this long line for the cashier and people were buying masks by the 100s. it was like a reflection of the SARS period. Hand sanitisers flew off the shelves, people were scrambling to buy masks - some people even tried to follow the hospitals by buying expensive N95 masks ( but they do not realise that you need to be mask fitted to ensure that it is the right size - in fact, i can't wear N95 because of my face shape and i wear a smaller mask which is unfortunately not splash proof and has a slightly less effective filtration rate ). I guess everyone is scared - we do not want a repeat of SARS, but honestly, more people die of the common flu compared to the swine flu each year, just that this is a new strain of virus that has emerged and fortunately, we still have the medications to combat this new strain of virus. However, wearing the special masks all the time does make it feel extremely uncomfortable, you can feel your ears ache from being pressed onto for too long, the edge of your face has pressure areas which are so painful to touch and of course, you feel super light headed and short of breath when you have carbon dioxide retention from the mask. Somehow you do feel more protected though.
especially most of the time, patients who are sudddenly critically ill have almost no diagnosis yet or the initial diagnosis is wrong and being in the hospital and coming into contact with them does put you at risk. now armed with special masks, eye shields, gloves, full gowns - though expensive and really hot but it does keep you safe when you see patients.
Alright.. i shall stop my rantings here, just hope that the alert level will successfully be lowered to yellow tomorrow especially since new cases have been reported in japan and now australia. lét's hope it stays in status quo.

You are the love of my life

2009-05-04T22:33:00.001+08:00

i think the song explains it all :)

you and me

2009-03-10T21:23:00.002+08:00

i am in the mood for a really slow song that is good to reflect upon now.. work's been really busy- i feel as if i havent got any time to catch a breath and i just come to work every single day wishing that it is friday only to realise that it is only just the beginning of the week :P

On a good note, i have been accepted to AUT for my post grad diploma and masters programme. initially i was supposed to start on my distance learning about 1 week ago, however due to the english language requirements, i would need to take the TOEFL first before i will be officially be given a place in the school and of course the masters conversion comes with strings attached - i have to get a minimum of B averages for my post graduate diploma which is of course all of my intentions to do so and even better in order to show my appreciation for the lecturers and school authorities who have been scouring over my results, resume and application form in order to decide and plan a programme specially tailored to my needs. Therefore, i will be taking my TOEFL ( which costs a whopping 250 SGD! ) in may before i start on my distance learning in september. I would be flying over next year as well for a year :) personally i can't wait cos it means a lot of personal growth and i am coming back with more new knowledge and a whole new experience :)

Other than that i think i can start to up my running programme a little bit more. i shall aim to hit 6k per session during my 3 times a week runs. i am doing fine now with 35 mins runs reaching about 5.75 km. i think having a lot of work makes me unwilling to run more because it just makes me more tired but running gives a sense of freedom n lets me break free from the fustrations that i experience at work. After all that running, i just feel so tired that i can just crash and lie in bed n just wake up to the next morning.

okies! pictures as promised :)

how to be selfless

2009-02-01T21:07:00.002+08:00

personally, i think it is tough..
though tough somehow i have to be someone who can give nothing less than everything, to care and love more than she has ever had and to be there always, yet at the same time, even though at the most lonely times, when you are sitting there alone in the entire crowd in the middle of the whole theatre with one empty seat each beside you; when you have walked the whole almost 2km to deliver a bouquet of small flowers after a day at work when you have been vomitted on trying to get to the theatre in time just before the show starts, been through a really rough day and all you seek is just that little bit of time and just that little bit of hope to be appreciated, you have to be selfless.

i'm sorry i cant and haven't been sufficiently selfless but i will try. i'm sorry that i tried my very best to be the best supporting girlfriend that i could be but i just didn't do enough. i'm sorry i got upset and i brought up my all favourite topic that i dun get enough time with you. i'm sorry i am so selfish that i just keep wishing to just be able to spend one single whole day with my own boyfriend.
i need to learn to be more selfless. i will have to be and i must be. just because i love you.. won't you teach me how? maybe it's just too long a wait to hear a thank you for being there always and so much wont be possible without your presence..

finally a 3 day break

2009-01-30T21:00:00.003+08:00

it's been a while since i was on holiday - after all, i was working on the eve of new year as well as new year's day.. so i finally got 2 and 1/2 days of time off and i took an extra 1/2 day of annual leave to complete an entire week of holidays.. hehe..
however, i think after a while i got a little bored, i spent the first day studying, the second day studying as well as going downtown for a day of shopping and finally today was truly the most boring of all, i didnt noe wat to do.. i think going to work has really made life a tad too boring once without it. i dun really know if it's good or bad but anyway i am going back to work tml then i will be attending a play that hong ju was originally producing but gave up the post when his dad passed away.. although he has officially given up the post but he still does go back often to help.. he is also emcee-ing the event so i am there to give my support :)
i just receieved an sms from one of my colleagues at work.. she was my previous teammate or rather i am still part of the team because i am in the ortho workgroup on saturdays.. she told me that she said she met some of my previous patients today at work n they wanted to pay me a visit and would like to thank me.. i guess that really really made my day :) i guess that's the thing that will push us on at work, when you are really tired and all you feel like doing is giving up because you are rushing and working so hard just to hit stats and you feel like you have done the crappiest job, someone turns around and says thank you and you did a good job - it does really make a difference.
sigh. i am happy :) okie i need to go off now.. i shall update soon again.

lucky :)

2009-01-21T21:17:00.001+08:00

Do you hear me,
I’m talking to you
Across the water across the deep blue ocean
Under the open sky, oh my, baby I’m trying

Boy I hear you in my dreams
I feel your whisper across the sea
I keep you with me in my heart
You make it easier when life gets hard

I’m lucky I’m in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Ooohh ooooh oooh oooh ooh ooh

They don’t know how long it takes
Waiting for a love like this
Every time we say goodbye
I wish we had one more kiss
I’ll wait for you I promise you, I will

I’m lucky I’m in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Lucky we’re in love every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday

And so I’m sailing through the sea
To an island where we’ll meet
You’ll hear the music fill the air
I’ll put a flower in your hair

Though the breezes through trees
Move so pretty you’re all I see
As the world keeps spinning round
You hold me right here right now

I’m lucky I’m in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
I’m lucky we’re in love every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday

Ooohh ooooh oooh oooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Ooooh ooooh oooh oooh ooh ooh ooh ooh

a meet up

2009-01-16T21:16:00.002+08:00

i think meet ups are good... i met up with hui fang yesterday since she was coming over to NUH for a HMDP programme and i would say it was more than just a catch up.. i am really glad to have a friend to listen , to evaluate and somehow draw and find the silver lining amongst all the grey clouds.. and thanks hui fang for everything.. i haven't got to pour so much of what i thought out to anyone before and to be able for you to be able to understand what is going on and what i am going through , and yet be able help me see and make a sensible judgement on what is going on at present.. i think things have so much simplified and being able to tap on the professional expertise who is looking at the really big picture for me, it has brought a greater sense of direction to head towards.. which is important to me cos i felt like i did lose my direction amongst the chaos.
sometimes, it just takes a friend to sit you down and back and to lay and draw it in front of you and make sense to you.. though i must admit these are the few rare times i am actually listening to hui fang.. haha.. especially since this is the first time i am listening to a professional point of view from her, but i realised that.. we have both grown.. grown so much since our secondary, jc and nyp days..
i noe that ever since i knew hui fang, she did change my perspective of life by leaps and bounds - her happy go lucky kind pursuit in life and also the want to pursue her own path in life did rub off me..
in conclusion, i am glad we met up! :) it's great to have caught up a really old friend who is also a colleague in my line of work.. haha i cant believe it's almost 7 years since we knew each other.. those were the days of short hair and she tutoring me in maths and we were decorating the welfare board of the class.. or my crazy days of netball and her girl guides days.. :) how time flies

and the world is changing

2009-01-12T21:55:00.002+08:00

it's 2009! so quickly and the year has passed... Scouring through the many little bits of updates from friends and family.. i realised i have lagged behind. part of me wonders why am i still standing here with my silly diploma trying to make ends meet and trying to sit to stand , sit out and walk 16 people a day? Is that my goal in life? To live life simply while others have achieved so much beyond me? Where am i now when people i know have made marks in their lives and started out on a more surefooted path than me? sigh. That's it. I can only be nothing else lesser than the best in my field. That's what i will promise myself that i will be at the end of this year. I want to be more than a simple physiotherapist, i want to be more than someone who tries to make a difference in people's lives. I want more in my life for me to feel that i have lived my while and worth. That's it. That's the drive that has gone under for the past 1 year simply because i have reached the goal that i always wanted and that is to be a physiotherapist.. This drive would be to make me the best in my field, so much that i wanna be respected for my depth of knowledge - that i can start out from almost zero and be someone.
I want to be as good as a senior before i leave for my studies. I want to come back with my masters in hand in 2011. I want to come back and be a leader in clinical work - to apply my knowledge. I want to be able to share my knowledge with those who have the same interest as me. I want to be recognised for my work. I want to be and i really want to be. I have found my drive. I have found my purpose in life. i found what i really want to be and that is the best.

christmas

2008-12-24T15:06:00.002+08:00

turning 22 and it's nearly christmas - i guess that's the latest update and oh yes! i have finally switched teams! haha. finally after 7 months of knee bending and knee straightening and making ankles more flexible, i am finally back into inpatients and doing suctioning etc :) yeah :)
it's just the time of the year when you look back and realise that time has really flown by so quickly and the end of this year ( and similarly, the start of the next year ) is impending.. and looking back, you realise that there have been so many changes in life and you have grown older and hopefully wiser..
part of me feels afraid to get old, another part of me is just excited - because being older also means being able to experience many things, more things that you have ever thought you could and that enriches your life and make it more than a simple event that has happened.
it's good to have a one and half day break although i am sad that i have to work on 31st dec and 1st jan but i guess it means more money! haha.. although i am contemplating if i wanna take 1 and 1/2 days off instead but i guess it's going to be a bit tough but i think its going to be difficult enough to try to clear my leave next year already. haha. so maybe the option of exchanging it for money will be better.. after all, they do pay 1.5X more for each pt seen? i think. or rather i hope..
while i wait for 5.30pm to come so that i can go over to my grandma's place for dinner and celebrate christmas.. i shall just stay online and really slack :)
updates soon with pictures! ( i hope )

next plane home

2008-11-30T09:29:00.002+08:00

another 3 more weeks and i will be out of outpatients and back into inpatients! yes! i am so excited to be able to go back into the inpatients site and do what i am more interested in :)
currently, i am working on my own application to AUT.. the interternal student support there hasn't been too pleasant in answering my enquiries and i guess i have to seek a local AUT agent's help to answer my questions.. hopefully i will be able to draw up a nice plan for the department so that they will provide me with a scholarship to continue my studies - after all, i dun really have any plans to leave NUH within the next few years or in any time to come at all.. but i wanna really specialise in my own area of interest not really that much for the money but because i think i have not grown enough or learnt enough to be a really good practioner? it's hard to describe what i feel because though patients do say i seem experienced and everything but i know in the seniors' eyes, we are not knowledgable enough and i dun feel knowledgeable enough to see patients sufficiently well enough. So far so good, hopefully AUT accepts me soon then probably they can start with some distance learning stuff that i can start earlier so that i wont have to work too hard or stay too long in NZ when i go over. I m excited at the thought of further studies :) after all, it is my next goal in life to be able to get my masters.
I have been reading adam khoo's self motivation book, i guess its a real motivator- not really that i never knew of the concepts that he was writing about in the book, but i think it just needs a book like this along the way to remind yourself that there are many things in life that you can achieve but you just need to stay focussed on your goal. it is a pretty interesting read and does view things as of current in a 180 degree flip point of view. The book has been left sitting at my older sister's shelf for a really long time ( since 2 years ago i think ).. dun really think anyone else in my home would be reading this book except for me now. haha.. usually for such books, i guess it's worth keeping and that occassional read once in every few years to bring back that drive and sense of passion in you to want to achieve what you have set out and to evaluate your current position and the things that are happening around you there and then and then want to improvise or change it. haha
in the meantime, i am turning 22 soon. sigh. so fast. haha.. so here comes a new phase of life, with so many new things ahead :) shall update another time..
btw, i like daniel powter's song next plane home - especially the plane at the back making the heart shape and the boat in the sky. that's really cool!

can i have this dance?

2008-11-16T00:01:00.002+08:00

i love this song :)

a month to my birthday

2008-11-12T22:07:00.003+08:00

time really does fly.. just a month away from my birthday and really how quickly do i realise that i am in another stage of life.. gone are the days when there was really school and weekends were just filled with homework, research and projects. Now i wake up to a routine of work, sleep and eat - my saturdays are spent hoping that i dun have to spend it at work and my sundays are spent hoping that i wont be on call or that i will end up burnt out ( i hope not ) when i have to work this saturday and i have a course on sunday.. during which both evenings there are events that i need to attend. sigh. maybe it is really that tough to grow old :) haha. all you look forward to is a holiday or a long weekend or simply your annual leave. oh ya in my case, i pray for rain every single time as that will cause my number of patients to dwindle. haha.
5 weeks before i switch over to the another team. most of me can't really wait and hope that the 5 weeks will fly by, another part of me wonders wat is ahead. i guess yap ai was right. i learnt a lot during my 6 months in outpatients ortho- much more than i spent the hours studying the same thing in school or the time i spent in inpatients. having to start to work inspired me; it led me to discover more about the profession, it made me see the light and how my little world that i have been taught to try to live by each working day had changed. Yes. it indeed has :) i think i see it more of being the first contact to the make the difference in inpatients, then being able to analyse and solve root causes of the problems in see in outpatients. it's just purely based on 2 different concepts; but in any case, i have grown n matured as a physiotherapist.
after this week, it would be one of my own colleague's wedding :) happy occasion of course! and i just heard the great news that one of my netball teammates just got engaged! wonderful news and really a wonderful period now simply because i realise that yes, i am in the prime of my life now. in 1 more month, i will be in a full fledged prime of my life where everything that i make a step into will make a difference in my own life.
life is beautiful :)

2 and 1/2 years on

2008-10-26T21:33:00.002+08:00

time really does fly.. so quickly and both hong ju and i have seen 2 and 1/2 years of relationship.. there has been so much that we have both been through together..
from the changes of secondary school, to that of JC, the times in JC, to him going to army, leaving for aussie to become a pilot, myself training to be a physio, he having his heart problem and subsequent op, then finally myself graduating and he entering into university and his dad's passing. i guess that really summarises our lives together in a nutshell..
It's funny how you can find the strength to love someone so much more than you ever thought you could.. I never thought myself as someone who that strong, that persistent and that unwavering for the person i love.. i guess deep down inside all of us, there is a hidden strength for the person you love and that bout of energy is able to last you through any difficulties and challenges.. it will be that that you will have to depend on in the darkest times and it brings out the true essence of you.. Honestly, at that point of time, you dun really realise it until it is brought up and told to you by someone else who has been watching you all along..
I guess being with hong ju over the last 2 over years has been an eye opener - i lived my life really differently- i experienced so much more that i ever did in my past 20 years in this short span of 2 years, i exposed myself to more things that i thought i will never dare to do or ever had to do and i really learnt so much more.. our relationship to me has been one way in terms of learning - definitely him teaching me so much more.. i noe i have changed, but it has definitely been for the better. I have never loved so much in my entire life, neither have i given so much nor sacrificed or tolerated so much for anyone else..
true enough, what hong ju said is true.. a lifetime isnt sufficient to share happiness with the one you love, but likewise, i agree with him that i found the same true happiness that i want for the rest of my life :) whether for the good or the bad in the days or years to come, i will be with you through it all.

for the one i love, you will always be my hero :)

teardrops on my guitar

2008-10-04T09:48:00.002+08:00

And another week passes so quickly.. somehow i am glad that a week zooms by so quickly.. but yet it doesn't even seem that i actually do see some patients weekly? J

sometimes i wonder that in moments of weakness, where will you actually find the courage to stand up and take the responsibilities without having to feel that you are compelled to.. At this point of time, i feel as if the pair of shoes that i am given is really too big to fill into and i am not sure if i can do it too.. part of me feels that it's just too much to take up at my age; and this part of me feels like running away and not taking up the responsibility at all.. After all, it's going to be tough to look back and realise that this point of my life, i am doing something that i should be handling only at a later stage of life and life should be lived another way that it should be instead of how it is going to be now..

However, the only things that holds me back from trying to give up and not throw into the towel is for him. If i am not going to be there for him now, there will be no one else who can and will do so for him. It must have been hard too- juggling studies, having to give tuition and then still handle all the nonsense back at home. It's unfair - it really isn't. I'm scared that i wont be able to take on the responsibilities and whether i am ready for a life like that.. and what if i do not do it well and give him more problems than help? He is left without a choice, but i have a choice..

But my choice would be to stay by him, i will still walk in these big pair of shoes and i will have to make them fit somehow in sometime to come.. after 7 years of loving you, despite all the trials and tough times that we have been through, though this is really the toughest of them all.. i will still stand by you because it's no longer a responsibility or a duty, it's just because i want to be with you for the rest of my life- whether it's for the good or the bad.. Having such a situation does make most girls feel like running away, but i dun want to run away now. it's too selfish and it will only hurt you even much more.. I will stand by you no matter what happens from this moment on and even though at this point of time, we have no idea how our future will be like and how much of what we wanted will be fulfilled, we will get by this period day by day first.. until it does come to a point when life is almost back to normal..

my heart really aches for you and i wish that i could do much more than what i am able to do now for you to relieve your responsibilities and burden. sigh.

he's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar, the only one who has got enough of me to break my heart

life goes on

2008-09-19T20:34:00.007+08:00

As of september 3th, i have been a confirmed member of the staff of NUH. yeah! pay rise.. but still as much work as ever.. i think it's better now, but i still find that i have no time to take a breather especially in the mornings when the patients keep coming every 20 minutes, it just takes forever to clear the very last scheduled patient at 11.50am and find time to get around to give everyone else attention ( in the mean time, forgetting about some patients sitting at a inconspicious corner of the gym). enough about work though. i still have to get by every week and day at work.. i will be transferring to the ICUs in december so yes! finally a rotation.. i had enough of the knees that cannot bend and the knees that cannot straighten or people keep complaining of pain.
Life's been pretty boring in other words in a way.. i guess there isnt that much to really tell the world.. maybe i will just upload the redang photos :)

So Close

2008-09-04T21:15:00.001+08:00

You're in my arms
And all the world is calm
The music playing on for only two
So close together
And when I'm with you
So close to feeling alive

A life goes by
Romantic dreams must die
So I bid mine goodbye and never knew
So close was waiting, waiting here with you
And now forever I know
All that I wanted to hold you
So close

So close to reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
Now you're beside me and look how far we've come
So far we are so close

How could I face the faceless days
If I should lose you now?
We're so close
To reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
Let's go on dreaming for we know we are
So close
So close
And still so far

the 5 stages of grief

2008-09-01T20:50:00.002+08:00

a funny description of the 5 stages of grief.. but a sad realisation that i am in stage 4 - between depression and acceptance- or maybe i am just in denial.
honestly i dunno where i am but i hope with all my heart that daddy is somewhere nice and peaceful, where he can finally rest and be happy and live the life that he always wanted to live. i miss you so much.

goodbye

2008-08-23T14:31:00.001+08:00

dear uncle,
i know that you will read this somewhere and somehow though you are no longer physically present here anymore. I never thought i would cry so hard but i did.. i cried for you, for ur family and for all those who love you.. Your last words to me was "thank you very much", even though i dun really understand why you said so, but i would have definitely said more than " it's ok it's what i should do" if i knew it was the last time i was going to see you. I wished i had another better chance to say goodbye to you uncle; for you were not only a great father to your children but also to me. Even though i am only your son's gf, you treated me like your own daughter, always so welcoming towards me and taking good care of me.
Uncle, wherever you are, rest in peace, the 4 of us will fulfil your wishes.. i will also fulfil my promise to you to that i will look after your son. I will personally nurse auntie back into health so that she will be able to see you at least one last time or with what i hope 4 more days.. I will love your family as if they are my own and i will watch out for them. i will love your son and give him the very best i can in my whole life.
You have fought a really long, painful and tiring battle over the last few weeks and i know you must have heard all our prayers from the outside of the OT. I am sure you must have done your very best too during the op, since you never gave up and was so positive throughout it all. You hung on and fought on despite all the discomfort and pain over the last 4 weeks, and it's time you truly rested and found relief and peace.
For someone who truly deserves all my respect and love for all that he has done for his family, i will honour you and you will always be remembered in all our hearts and especially mine.
I wished i had told you how much i respected you, that i think you are a really good dad who has brought up all his kids well, a wonderful dad who has planned ahead for everyone and wanted nothing less but the best for his family, a good boss who doesn't put on airs and treats everyone as equals, a good engineer who designed all the wonderful new gadgets in the house, a really admirable person with a wonderful heart, the heartiest laugh and the really big heart to accept mistakes and to love even the rest of us who aren't your children.
goodbye uncle *hugz* i wished i had the chance to call you dad because that is how much i respect and love you. In my heart, you are just as important as my parents are to me. Wherever you are, stay strong and take care of urself.. all of us will miss you.

love, melissa

that's when i love you

2008-08-03T10:08:00.002+08:00

a pretty appropriate song as it's Hong Ju's birthday today :)
happy birthday! :)

a research project to call my own

2008-07-13T10:41:00.002+08:00

It just suddenly dawned onto me that i could do a research project on my own patients and after i brought up the idea, it was accepted by the main departmental head.. unfortunately trying to do research in between all the clinical work is really going to be tiring.. i guess i will have to draw on the expertise of my own teammates to help me out this time.. especially since a lot of the work would depend on them to carry out since i have to be the primary investigator.. part of me doesn't want to do this cos of all the hassle but i guess it will do my appraisal a lot of good.. especially since i have aimed to already do one research project by the end of this year.. and it has to be done by december because i need to rotate out by december.. and i dun really want to be stuck in ortho for too long cos i wanna go out and my masters soon.. oh well. alright i shall get my lazy bum working and really working very hard so that Chee pei and i can quickly rotate out by the end of this year. haha.. we are technically only 1 week apart, so after she confirms at the end of august, i will be confirming in early september. haha. tt's y the both of us are really close in a way cos we are in the same team and we are only 1 working week apart..
anyway my boyfriend is back! n he bought expensive stuff for me again.. not that i am unhappy and i definitely appreciate the thought as i am really sure it took him so very long to choose given my extreme pickiness but 119 for a new bag is really a lot. thank you so much but then please try not to spend so much again ya? even if it's like a 10 or 20 bucks bag i will still like it and i will use it.. :) *hugz*
i will be going for my first annual leave in about 2 weeks. yeah! will be going to redang for a short holiday with lots of sun, sand, sea with all the fishes and everything.. a well deserved break after a long time :)
the photos for the studio photo shoot for my older sister's graduation and mine are out.. and my goodness.. the wonders of adobe photoshop. haha.. i look undernourished in some of the shots and my younger sister had like super thin arms out of no where! haha.. it looked quite different.. i am not complaining too much just that when pple compare the photo and how you look like as of current, the first comment would then be " how come you put on so much weight' when actually, you look the same only that the photos have been altered. haha.
Alright i should go n get changed already :)updates another time..

the chinchilla

2008-07-05T21:51:00.004+08:00

i had dinner at the singapore indoor stadium and it was indeed an eye opener for me when i reached kallang. I think i havent been there for at least half a year but half a year was sufficient time for a huge entrance to the stadium mrt station to be built. For a moment i was thinking whether i have been in singapore the entire time because i had not witness this change or knew that the station was going to come up that soon, after all, the circle line had been under construction since i was in sec 2 until now. oh well, it was truly an eye opener..
I shall leave work out of this entry as it is indeed become a staple of my life, instead, this is one the few rare weekends in which i am 'alone' as my boyfriend has gone overseas for a holiday with his family.. therefore, i am the new housekeeper.. haha.. nah my job is to feed the chinchilla, the fishes and to water the plants. honestly i dun really mind the work cos i really do like the fat little chinchilla he owns except the times when he is naughty or when he becomes disobedient. well in the first place, i dun think he is able to comprehend wat we say.. but he is 'classically conditioned' to the sound of the raisins being shaken in the container box and never fails to poke his tiny pink nose out of the cage to ask for one. i ever made the statement that i think the chinchilla's cage should have a sign that says ' will work for food'; he will do anything for food.
well, this chinchilla was really disobedient this afternoon, in fact, he had thrown out all the hay that was put into his bowl the day before and littered his entire cage full of hay. he also somehow dirtied himself and there was some of sawdust used for his potty pan on his face! haha.. a total mess when i went to check on him.
Oh well, he is really cute still..

he is really very very old.. he is about 100 years old human age by now.. but he is still pretty strong but it's really scary cos we dun really know when he is going to pass on.. there was this time when he wasn't eating or even drinking any water at all and just laid still and my bf n i carried him to the vet fearing for the worst ( actually i think i feared more than my bf i think because i know that my bf would be extremely upset if the chinchilla were to really pass on) but fortunately he only had an upset tummy and even allowed the vet to examine him without making a big fuss like the kind he usually gives me.
oh well, another 4 days before my bf comes back.. ren ren the chinchilla better stay good and healthy.. or i will panick and have to drive their family car down to the vet. both equally stressful things. haha..
alright.. shall end here today.. updates another time!

into another phase of life

2008-06-15T09:37:00.002+08:00

i think it has become a habit such that i will only blog when there are significant events that happen and i realise that there are so much thoughts going into it.. hence, the event that occured yesterday was actually one of my own netball teammate's wedding. Although she is one year older than the rest of my batch but it does bring a firm realisation to the fact that, yes, we are no longer the girls in t shirt and shorts paired with flip flops; but time has flown by so quickly that now, we don the crisp white well ironed shirts as well as formal pants paired with heels and that leather handbag and we watch with joy in our hearts as our own very friend gets married and knowing that soon after, it will be a rotation among the entire team when our turns come.
It only seems like yesterday when we were sweating it out and literally putting our entire lives on a single game and bonding as a team, but that was about 5 years ago and almost 9 years ago when we all first met. i think this is the first time i seen my entire team in heels, not decked in our slippers or the sports shoes that we usually wear. haha.
nevertheless it was a beautiful occassion, i cried lots for my friend cos i noe she will be happy with the one she loves. It was really sweet when he dedicated a song to her and the entire whole process was smooth and beautiful.. that puts an end to the whole 6 months of planning.. and honestly i can't be much happier for the both of them..
in between, coming up in august would be hong ju's sister's wedding which both of us wont be able to attend, but nevertheless we will be involved when they come back next year for the wedding dinner..
And so, it begins, the realisation that we are no longer the girls that we used to be- we are all ladies now, working professionals or working professionals to be and we are already in the next phase of our lives.
not that i am complaining - there are disadvantages and advantages to the situation, whatever it is, life goes on :) i just hope the kids part dun come that fast that's all, after all, i am still in the ' i'm still 21 kind of mood'.
Though wierd but i thought of this song, it's super old but i think it is one of the most meaningful songs i ever heard in my life.

graduation photos

2008-05-26T20:36:00.009+08:00

graduation and graduated

2008-05-25T08:53:00.002+08:00

after a 2 week hiatus, i am proud to announce that i have officially graduated from nyp as of 22nd may... graduation was a no frills affair, nothing too fancy, nothing too out of the ordinary.. it was just a process of putting on the heavy and hot gown, taking our seats in the auditorium, having to sit through speeches, wait in the long queue with the many other graduates, being ruffled over by 5 lecturers who will be pulling, tugging and straightening your gown before the 5m of walk to receive the cert from this unknown person whom u have never met in your whole life then proceeding to the as many photos as you can, rushing through lunch before having to rush back to work.. yep. to work. not that i mind working on my graduation day but yup, not having to appear for work for half a day does seem good. haha.. i mean i went back to see about 4 more patients from 3 to 6pm as a few more refused treatment. but yup, tt summed up graduation.. photos probably another time as i have not uploaded the pictures into the computer yet.. yup :)
my manager asked me how does it feel to have graduated... i replied.. nothing too different.. after all i have been already working for 3 months in NUH, graduation was just another piece of extra paper to confirm my "successful passing out of NYP' and to say tt i am definitely able to be a physiotherapist.. but i have already been treating patients on my own and holding the label of a physiotherapist.. so yup. no difference but it was really nice of the manager to buy 2 cakes from bengawan solo to celebrate all 9 new grads graduation :)oh ya, the second difference is that my highest qualification is a diploma.. haha not that big but it is bigger than my A levels now..
in the coming weeks, i will be posted to the outpatient orthopedics department.. meaning that i will still be in the same team workin with about the same kind of conditions but with patients less acute and painful.. haha.. part of me is not really looking forward to giving up inpatient types of patients but on second thoughts, the type of private class patients puts me off too..
in a way, like how thung han puts it "i thought you are giving them a service? why are they like that?".. and my answer was 'i thought so too until it did somehow end up that way." :P bleah
alright.. shall upload the photos another time.. soon i guess.. in the meantime - payday!!

so where am i now

2008-05-06T21:21:00.003+08:00

at this moment in time, when i turn and look around at the people whom i know.. part of me just wonders where am i.. as in not physically, but as a person, as someone in this world.. while most of my friends are in uni.. in a different world and in a different life of hall stuff and their exams running at different times with bidding of modules and all that different kind of lifestyle that i have experiences so far..i am slogging my life away in the hospital.. while the people closest to me do well, get scholarships, or get to escape to a far away land and come back with their degrees with honours, etc in tow, all i hold is just a tiny little diploma certificate.. i haven't travelled further than Malaysia to be "further" trained and given the opportunity to experience more.. i haven't scored a single scholarship through all my studying years.. i haven't been to countries by myself to experience a new culture, a new view and true independence. Part of me feels sad for myself in a way because i have come to an endpoint without making it significantly "big", yet i noe that this is a tiny path that i narrowed myself into.. it's not that i am disillusioned by my job or anything of that sort; but rather, i find that my path along this way had no to not much opportunities of getting it further..
of course, it is easy to say that the opportunities will come much later, there is always a chance for further studies and so on and so forth; but there is only 1 prime time of our lives..
it's at this point of time that i realised in 18 days, i will be closing a very big chapter of my life, when i officially end 15 years of education before receiving the true title of a physiotherapist.
i met one of my primary school teachers ( a teacher who knew the 3 of us girl in this family but only taught 1 - my older sister ) she had a fracture and ended up in the orthopaedic gym seeing me for rehab. she couldn't fully recognise me at first but we eventually caught up a little bit more.. her husband said that he wouldn't mind doing my job if they would want to take him in.. i replied saying that i dun think he would want to do this job because it wont be easy to help support a family.. that's when this teacher asked if i am getting anything above the number 2. i said sadly i am not. she then told me that it's ok, it will come soon..
At this juncture, it really makes me wonder if it is truly worth all that strong will through the many years to be where i am now- especially when i look around me and realise that i am no where near where i thought i would be..

may day

2008-05-01T09:36:00.002+08:00

and so quickly it is into my 9th week of work.. it's somewhat getting a bit tiring already.. but oh well, its my job so i shouldn't have much complaints.. my first focus would be getting my place confirmed at the hospital so that i can have a pay raise and also a secure job :P
it's may day... and the start of a new month.. new month does also mean a lot of other things too.. i wonder which season will it be now.. last month was the season for hip fractures.. i think it's the season for stroke because i have not been seeing much orthopedic cases.. but it's pretty unfair to judge too cos i have not been working in a full orthopedics ward.. i have been in general surgery, general medicine, orthopedics, renal, neurology, cardiac, respiratory ( i think that is almost most of the disciplines already.. i am just missing out paediatrics that's all) and i have been seeing private cases too because i am as of current a helper and not having a fixed ward to see.. n usually private cases take a longer time.. and some of them can be really mean.. as in. i really dun think any amount of money should make you feel that everyone else should submit to you and you treat people as if we are social classes below yours.. some people are really very nice and extremely enjoyable to spend time with but then, some are truly incorrigible.. like what i said, we are all, after all, still people..
alright.. enough of work.. i just realised i have about 21 days left to my own graduation.. though not very excited about it but yup.. and i have about 1 month to my own friend's wedding.. tt's fast.. time really does fly.. alright maybe i should stop blogging here and now because i dun really have much to say too :) as of current my life is really wake up, work, go home, watch tv and sleep.. haha. this is sad.. i shld try to break this pattern..

everytime we touch

2008-04-13T22:21:00.002+08:00

i just realised it has been 11 days since i last wrote.. not that i didnt want to write but i just didnt really know what to write.. after all, i was on CARE and orientation programme the whole of last week and worked my first full day on saturday; there isn't much to really tell anyone else about..
Part of me was really surprised that NUH managed to have such low satisfaction among some of the hospitals in singapore; but nonetheless i guess it was expected? after all, we are a very big hospital and you can't really compare the patient load in one smaller hospital and use the satisfaction standards of the patients whose doctors and other service professionals have a lot more time than the rest of us in the bigger hospitals. Of course, it's not a perfect reason to say why we do perform the way we do..
I guess there is a lot to do with how people (maybe its just asians and the way we think i guess? i am not really that sure too) treat service staff.. i guess somehow we forget that the people offering us a service are people too and no one deserves to be given a harsh scolding or given a black face when you are offering a service. I guess to me, a hospital is different of that from any other service locations. The difference is that when you come to a hospital, you seek a service of someone who is supposed to be proficient in their job; for that service, sometimes it takes a bit of waiting and though no one likes to wait and everyone likes to be given priority, the fact is often forgotten that the other person you are seeking the service from is another person who has feelings and everything else too. Sometimes it's truly taken for granted, and i personally feel that the attitude is really different in a healthcare setting and honestly, i do not know why too..
I agree that a service campaign would boost the hospital's staff service, but to the point i believe, it does not demean the person who has to give the service. It's hard to explain, especially since i have taken the "beating" from unhappy patients before when honestly, it is not any thing that is my fault. We have stretched our resouces very thinly and somehow, people dont see that we are doing the best that we can, which is really a very sad thing.
alright, work aside; april seems to be the month of many celebrations, which i will have 2 birthday celebrations next week and in 8 more days, the 2nd year anniversary of my relationship :)
it's hard to describe how exactly i feel for him, because there would be no words that seem enough perfect, nothing that can exactly pinpoint how much i truly do love him. After all, we both have been through a lot before we got together and i guess the journey has definitely made us cherish each other more and keep holding on while we ride through the different phases of our lives..
Whenever he opens up his heart, it never fails to touch me and i know that i have made the right choice. I am the most fortunate, the luckiest and the happiest girl in this whole wide world because of him. I know i will never find someone else who is able to love me as much as he does n do so much for me. For all that he has done for me, thank you from the bottom of my heart:)whatever it takes, i'm sure we will get through it all and always know that i will be there with you til the end

in the years to come

2008-04-02T21:57:00.004+08:00

would you ever think about these moments that we shared?
in the years to come,
are you going to think it over and
how we lived each day with no regrets..

when i listen to the song and somehow at the same time read the emails that flood my inbox daily coming from my secondary school classmates( and i mean the lower secondary school classmates) whom i have not seen, heard or even spoke to in ages.

time really flies... in a way, i just found out tt 2 of my exclassmates have already gotten married and had kids. another 1 of them is getting married this july. and somehow i am like. hahaha.. i dunno where categorise myself too.. it's just hard to believe that it just seems like yesterday when i had tt ugly hair cut and we were running about in our nurse like thick and hot uniforms trying to memorise the maths formulas, sleeping during literature classes, trying to survive through geography or like trying not to break anything when we are in the science lab. everything was still written on the transparency and computer was like going to be the in thing but not exactly the in thing? when reading macbeth was like "argh!what boil and trouble?" and having music classes was still heard of...
and CCAs made a difference.. like it was the whole world to you. when the guys were stamping their feets to commands during NPCC, when the girls were like in our cliques and when class politics were high and really nasty at times i think. i remember the time when i was the treasurer. trust me. i am really really bad at money. hahaha. sometimes i wonder how r my old teachers and i wonder if they still remember me. sometimes in the mornings, when i take the bus to work, i would see my secondary 1 and 2 science teacher having her walks outside my estate. many times i would have wanted to call out " miss lee" to her, but i'm just too afraid that it will end up being an embarassing moment, because she may not recognise me after so many years or because i wont really know what to say after tt. If i had the chance to say something to her, it would definitely be that lower secondary science was really interesting because of her and she really sparked a lot of interest in science in me.. and she was really obvious in giving out hints on what to study for the science exams. hahaha.

but anyway, let's get back to the main point about the email

the email read

"NAME:
ADDRESS:
INTERESTING FACTS: " and include in where you are studying.

haha. i was thinking.. so what interesting facts can i tell my secondary school friends after 8 years? nope i am not married yet and no kids too, not planning to get married that soon earlier, i am no longer studying, already working, is being a physiotherapist an interesting fact? not really that true either. haha. i dun really know what to write so i shall just wait to see who replies what to know what to write first.

it's amazing what 8 years can do to the people whom u thought u knew but actually, you dun really know.

i think it's hard being a good PT

2008-03-24T23:00:00.004+08:00

i think the title says it all... it's tough to be a good physio. to have to balance time limits with quality patient care. at the same time, you need to take all the nonsense from it all. sometimes it just pushes you over the edge and you will be thinking why in the world you should be hounded continously for the worst reasons on earth but come to think of it, they do have their reasons to be that unreasonable.. but like.. the only thought in my mind at some point in time was

" i spent almost 9 hours a day at work taking care of other people's family, giving them the best i can, but who will be the one to take care of me?"

After all, the one who takes care of pple all the time also need the same kind of care and concern back. It is a highly stressful job yet satisfying kind of job.. at times when i think i am about to explode, i just hold back.. i think i need to retrain my patience a lot more.. if not one day i will just end up losing my temper at patients and that will be the end of me. somehow we are no longer treated as humans when it comes to patient care. honestly sometimes people don't care that there are million other patients that you have to care for and there are pple who need the immediate attention n why you don't get the priority. All that matters is that 1) i am the patient here, 2) i'm paying for treatment and 3) i don't need to wait for the service i am paying for.
but they forget that 1) healthcare workers are human too, 2) we don't get the money you pay the hospital for, we get literally peanuts that is probably the hospital bill size of 1 single patient that stays for about 5 days in hospital in an A class ward and 3) there are opportunity costs involved when we decide who to treat first (ie: there are critical decisions we need to make on the spot n sometimes the decisions are regards to life and death) and 4th) we have a life besides taking care of patients.
i worked til 7pm today and it's really the lastest i worked til so far. It's an 8am day for me today.. yes i am tired but honestly, i love this job and there is no 1 day i can live without a page from someone abt something. At times, i wished there was more understanding for the allied health professionals still. The conclusion should be : we are humans too. haha.
alright.. anyway just some shout outs.. thanks for your notes from the previous entry.. no worries :) i am good.. as you can see i am super fiery from my experience with difficult patients today. Tomorrow is a better day.

the ultimatum

2008-03-21T16:42:00.002+08:00

and so, it just had to happen, last night when a new discovery was made.. i knew this day would come just that i wouldn't know exactly when and what would be the trigger for the mention of the lawyer's and to settle all things else.
i didn't know why i cried last night though.. it wasn't because of how one person's plight would be and differ from the other, but more because it had ended and it was going to end. i knew it had ended a long time ago but i just didnt noe when will it officially end. i guess i'm lucky that none of us had to make the difficult choice because both are just important to us. however, the fact that made me cry was because it has really truly ended. for a moment it was hard to grasp - the money issues, the unfairness, the hard times, the wierd moments and this morning when i came to and woke up, it seemed all surreal but i know from last night onwards, my life has changed.
it's hard to describe wat i feel now, in fact it's a mixture of many things and of everything. part of me feel relief, part of me feels worried, part of me feel unsecure, part of me fears for the future, part of me never wants to follow in the same path that they took ( but how were i to tell the future? ) but the truth is something that took many years to understand and to grow n mature with and strangely, i managed to tell it to hong ju without a tear being shed. i think it's the first time i shared any event with regards to this issue with someone else n not having to cry; but i think if i had talked to him last night, i would not have been able to hold back the tears. the fact was that it ended, and for me. that was the most difficult issue to tackle. Not the money issue, the house issue, or whatever it was. the rest was really secondary..
whatever it is, i gave my stand.. for once i smsed my dad and told him wat i really felt. honestly, my heart went out to my dad, from the start til now n he's at the losing end but all he cares is for the 3 of us.
the morale is simple and i swear i will never walk on the same path that they took.

when it's just too tough..

2008-03-18T22:59:00.003+08:00

when it's just too tough to swallow that overwhelming unhappiness, take a long lonely walk to cry it out. sometimes what you feel deep inside your heart wants to come out so badly, but you know that by letting it out, it hurts people who care for you the most. At the same time, it only reflects your selfishness, your inability to understand.
Soon enough when the tears have fallen, that lump of unhappines would be much easier to swallow and the rest of your world wont feel the hurt.
Sometimes, it just means hurting within your heart and protecting the rest of your world.

into the 2nd week

2008-03-09T10:07:00.002+08:00

it's the end of the 1st week and i wonder if every single new graduate who enters the working world feels the same as i do. swarmed with work, staying in late, finding out that you have committed mistakes and having to work with difficult people. the fact that it's only the first week and i am already feeling the pressures of work and it's pretty overwhelming.
maybe it can be attributed to my own character; for i am someone who tries very hard to plan and make everything perfect such that i wont make any mistake at all. and it is also in this week itself that i realised that even if i planned, or tried to plan, the planning goes haywire simply because the wards that i take over aren't the typical wards. I just realised that i have to make referrals almost everyday downstairs and i am expected to discharge many of them within the morning. sometimes i just wished the doctors just tried to walk the patients themselves. they always order to mobilise. yes, it is so darn easy to tell the physio to mobilise. wat abt trying to do that by themselves... the bulk of the work is thrown to the PT. one extremely fine example was this case that i saw yesterday. i was so pissed with the surgeon. this old lady came in for vertebral plasty, first day i was told to mobilise her in bed and yes i did. second day when i returned, i sat her out of bed. just as i was about to leave the ward to end my 1/2 day at work, the nurse came up to me and said that the doctor wanted to discharge the patient. i was like " What? how to?!" the main indication was that the patient had no pain which i agreed was a really good reason why i could move the patient out easily. But it required maximal assistance meaning that i manually carried the old lady out from the bed to the chair! i mean. how to go home?! before that the old lady was actually able to walk a little bit, but after the back pain she had to be on wheel chair and eventually became so delibated that she could not stand up. the doctor said if i didn't give caregiver training yesterday, then he will send her home with the maid and then come back as outpatient for care giver training and i was like. "YA. n how would you think the maid will be able to get the person out of bed or give assistance if i haven't trained her? the old lady wont be even able to get into her own bed at home!"
i mean the fact is that at least get her stronger first to where she was able to be like walking a little bit and for goodness sake, it was post operative day 1! meaning she had an op only the day before!" i was like.. where the hell was this surgeon trained. seriously.yes i agree that the patient should not be staying in hospital cos there is no pain but wth. she cant even walk when she used to be able to do so!
sigh. alright. week 2. let's hope i make less administrative mistakes and do more good to the patients. it's tough being a physio. really. i think i am overworked for my pay. but they say all ortho PTs feel that way when they first join. ALL. and i got the toughest load of all covering the fastest moving wards. bleah.

busy busy busy

2008-03-04T20:41:00.002+08:00

okie.. i have officially started work at NUH and it's tiring. haha. i am tired but not that tired but i wished there weren't so much to do that i feel like i am really compromising on patient care and documentation.. yep i still feel like i am writing essays after essays and after essays on pages for documentation. and somehow i dun feel like cutting from what i used to do..
i am really fortunately i got a nice supervisor who has been helping me and she is really fast. haha.. i feel like a total tortoise when i am working with her, and i really really hope to work faster. that's y when i mobolise patients, i just feel like moving them like goods and boxes. but the problem is that there is pain and always and again pain pain pain. that's like my only enemy in ortho.
sigh. i havent did my stats for today. i did like 8 yesterday for my 1st day 9 if including new cases. i hope i at least reach more than 10. sighz.
alright shall blog til here. i am pretty tired. shall do some web surfing.. haha bye! updates another time

say goodbye

2008-02-27T20:26:00.002+08:00

i realised that the hardest words to say are "goodbye".. especially to friends whom have been there throughout the times when you thought it was the lowest and you felt like giving it all up..
i don't really know how to put what i feel in words at this moment in time....when i watched the video of the pictures put together.. then i realised how much i have grown, how much we have changed (my class), how much hardship and bad times we went through together, how we stuck through our ideals and dreams and held on to them so tightly even when faced with the greatest odds.. and that's when i realised that there will be so much that i was going to miss. too much to even mention, too much to even want to try to recollect. As we get older, the tears dun really come that easily.. i cried in secondary school and that was the closest that i got to being in a really united class in secondary 3 and 4, it is my second time in my entire life that i felt that way. i truly did felt that way and it was really hard to hold back the tears especially since it is the longest road i ever embarked with any group of people in this life.
If i had the the chance to say, i love my class and i will miss all of u gals and guys. Though goodbye is the hardest word to say, but i know that someday somehow we will still meet up.. even with our different end points in the years to come, whether we are in our current profession or another; i'm sure the foundation stays :) thanks for the good times, the bad times, the friendships, the hugs, the words of encouragement, the " we are going to get there" spirit and for teaching me a lot on life, love and friendship.

a journey for 3 years

2008-02-24T11:26:00.014+08:00

i'm a physiotherapist

2008-02-21T23:46:00.007+08:00

and so it has come to an end.. i have finally reached the end of this 3 year long journey and it's time to call myself a physiotherapist and not a physiotherapy student. at this point of time, while the exterior of me is calmly sitting in front of my laptop and typing these words, the interior is bursting with joy, screaming and shouting, looking for ways to celebrate. part of me wonders what's the road ahead; the other part of me says it's finally the end and time to celebrate. but not without having these photos of memories in NYP

the day before the exams

2008-02-18T09:12:00.002+08:00

alright, i am finally getting the slightly cold feet before the exam.. part of me realises that i have done quite a lot but another part of me feels inadequate still but most of me is ready to play. haha.. what a big contrast though.. alright time to stay focussed. actually i am online to avoid having to start my work.. it doesn't help that it's MS tomorrow.. not that i dun like MS.. i dun really like the topics covered this year for MS like ergonomics. how often will i be caught measuring seat pans and heights etc unless we are engaged to do so? haha after all, i will be in the inpatient i think so, yup. alright but i still need to get through this. will start at 10 then.. i'm graduating. so i shall just let everything pass. today i will study hard and sleep enough, tomorrow i shall do my best for my exam, wednesday i shall study hard again and thursday i shall work hard for 1 hour and that will be it for the next 3 years at least. haha.

new layout

2008-02-16T15:14:00.008+08:00

after using the previous template for quite a while, i decided to change the entire layout.. opting for a new refreshing look. although pink is not exactly my favourite colour ( it's an ok colour to me ), but just thought that i needed the change from the usual types i would choose. the picture is beautiful too i got it from yahoo search for images..
just thought i would post some pictures.. just random ones. haha i think i may miss studying after all.

My FYP group

that's me presenting. my legs were shaking really badly then.. although i dun really noe why i was so nervous

this is the future additions ( from my class )of the NUH physiotherapy dept.

my class..

the entire cohort - 2008 graduates

it's almost the end. just 1 more week. haha n tt's 3 weeks to the start of work

when winter comes in summer

2008-02-15T13:04:00.002+08:00

alright.. i just finished one module.. was looking through some really old stuff.. pictures, diary entries since i was sec 2.. last time opendiary had the option of saving your entire diary entries into your computer and hence, i have an entire collection of my previous posts.. it's amazing for me to read it now and realise how much i have changed. how much anyone and everyone else is my life or have exited my life or is in a far away distant place has changed. from a tender age where are the tough times of studying and all that secondary school stuff when netball is the centre of my life and up to the day of graduation from RV, to the start of life in NJC, as i skimmed through the 3 MB plus worth of words, i realised that there don't only contain my past, but they also contain my feelings at that point of time, sometimes the date which was not significant then, becomes something of significance now.. i wonder when i said certain things, neither am i able to recall majority of the minor events that happened then but were of significance then because i bothered to blog it down. haha. time flies, we grow old and we become someone more mature, our thoughts are no longer of that.. young age. life then, everything that happened seem significant but now, i almost seldom put everything in full detail, but the memories are kept in my heart.
as usual, songs ( that are really old ) which were once popular, resurfaced and listening to them does bring back memories. i'm a girl of the future, rooted in tradition and the past, yet anticipating the challenges and dreams of what i will have in the years to come :) haha. it will be a different year for me; i'm sure of that. my first step into the working world, my first standing as a professional, my first chance of making a difference in the lifes of others :)
maybe for my secondary 4 class, this song would be a very sweet recall and memory:

n it's the final lap

2008-02-13T16:42:00.002+08:00

and i'm really losing concentration. haha.. i really really am.. couldnt really sit still to study 3 major chapters for MS. i made it though before i had to walk ard watch TV and all those.. haha. well, can't really blame me though.. i really think this semester's module is really dry.. all the boring topics.. nothing like the spine or the shoulder or joints tt u will really see.. it's TMJ which is like super rare and spinal rheumatological conditions which is quite rare too... and chronic pain management.. which i think is a bit more interesting compared to the rest and the one that i truly hate. ergonomics and work health promotion.. the calculations of lifting equations and all those. sigh. will do that later then..
at least the other examinable module, areas of specialisation is fun. amputee management, burns management and cancer management. i think i am not going to bother about the last topic of health care management.haha..
i managed to catch the last episode of grey's anatomy season 3 last night.. i missed a lot of episodes in between and this particular scene of burke's wedding vow which he practised during surgery was totally touching. i seriously cried whenever i watched it. alright i only watched it twice but i never heard something so beautiful and from the heart. imagine how it would be like if someone said that to you for your wedding vow, i think i will just cry on the spot whether i am in the crowd or the one to be married. haha. watch and enjoy.. while i surf the net for nicer stuff.. before i really do start on ergonomics...

studying hard

2008-02-11T21:04:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
alright. i finally blogged within a week ( i think ) instead of a month's hiatus.. i wonder who still reads this blog. haha.. maybe me myself and i.. after all, my life is pretty boring, always full of words and rantings, nothing truly happy and exciting about.. haha..
yes so today was my first attempt in a long long long and trust me it has been a real long time since i sat down to study. i mean don't count prac viva's kind of studying. haha.. it's not hard core studying like for the theory papers.. i finished 2 topics out of 3 for areas of specialisation.. i think i am going to leave out health care management though.. i dun really foresee myself as a manager in the future. haha.. all the people managing really wears me out. take group work for example.. look at the amount of sleep and moments of peacefulness and happiness taken away from me. haha. i am the leader type and i am the one who likes to be in control.. and managing people isnt exactly my idea. haha. i get pissed with people who don't have the same working pattern as me.. haha. besides, a leader is different from a manager. like the article that i read the other day - leaders are the ones who give people direction; managers are the ones who make use of their subodinates' strengths to move to that direction. haha. okie maybe i shld aim to become the CEO. haha kidding.
anyway.. i think the true highlight of this entire week that really lightened me up..- partly because the "theme" of the entire week is about love with valentine's day around the corner- was the movie " the notebook". I think i have not ever watched such a heart wrenching story and cried so many buckets of tears for that long.. what a simple title but the story behind the note book was simply heart breaking.. does remind me of the times back in secondary school when i wrote the " story of ann and mel" a very very very very long time ago.. haha.. maybe one day when both ann and i are super old, we can always read n reminiscince on the good old days.. but anyway, the point was that love can be the sweetest thing in life and it can truly make miracles..
i cannot imagine being read a story every single day, hoping that maybe one day the memory will jolt back for that good 5 minutes and then it's gone again. It would be worse than painful for the one who has to read that same story to me everyday and keep hoping that 5 minutes of memory will come back somehow.. and after that 5 minutes, it's back to not knowing a thing of what happened in this world. If it should ever happen to me, for that 5 minutes, i would still do the same. I would do the same for the person tt i love.
i need to get my hands on the book. definitely would be my after exams read!

The best love is the kind that awakens the soul; that makes us reach for more, that plants the fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. That's what I hope to give you forever

alright i know it's a month hiatus

2008-02-06T21:29:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
ahah alright i noe it has been a long long time since i last updated and yes i have been extremely busy with 3 projects in a week abt 3 weeks ago, then 1 exam and my final year project presentation abt 2 weeks ago, last week was 1 presentation and chionging assignments and yes i have come to the end of my schooling days but i have not graduated as yet..
i am left with the final 2 examinations before i start at NUH on 3rd march..it's like a whirlwind and like wat my seniors said at the end of it u wondered how u managed to get through all of it in the first place. When we were in the doldrums, we seriously low but each time i guess we kept telling ourselves that the end is near the end if near and soon enough it will be the last day of school and we shall bade the lab,lecture theatres and rooms good bye. then it will be on our own separated ( and mostly common )routes into the different acute hospitals. part of me wants that to happen asap, part of me just wants to lay back, sit back and watch the world go by. it's hard to explain what i feel now..
i am exhilirated by the end of school, the end of all the hard work and having to play safe with the people who can ruin your career, yet i am sad to say goodbye to the familiar surroundings, to the people who have made my career possible ( meaning the true teachers )and of course the presence of all my classmates. even though i realise that i will be seeing at least 25% of my class ( which makes up like 4 other pple ) everyday probably for the rest of my life at work.. haha until either they or myself decide to quit..
on another note, it's chinese new year eve, haha which brings all the money from the red packets, goodies, fun and playing. sadly, it's also the time to start putting my notes together to prepare for the exam. haha. this is pretty sad but like wat i said. it's near the end - just do it...
many events happened in between the last time i blogged until now.. i experienced the passing of a secondary school teacher, i met up with my best friend who returned from aussie, i talked to many people whom i have not met for a very long time including my own neighbour who lives just across the street, netballers whom i have not talked to or seen in a long time. It does succeed in making me realise that life is an ever changing experience.. things change, people change and that life is ever so fragile and of course, i am getting older. haha. which is a sad and true fact, yet at the same time, it's something worth cherishing and living to the fullest every moment :)
happy chinese new year everyone :) i will try to blog more soon. haha

pissed

2008-01-13T09:14:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
yup i noe i havent written in a long long time but honestly i have been too busy, too tired and really too pissed.. and if i do not let off my steam today i am just going to be a really really pissed person for the rest of the week. it's the last few weeks of school already for goodness sake, i mean i noe there are tons of things to do like fyp and assignment but hey, WHO DOESN'T? i am leading my own fyp group in our work already, i did majority of the report and thank god they are all coming back into the picture to help me. but you all are my classmates for nuts!
i noe that the steam can be running out already but then all you need to do is hang on for just that little period of time. is that too much to ask? just get over and do it well and then get good grades for it and you don't have to worry anymore. simple, easy and so understandable but no. not to any of you.
i honestly don't understand. the date for the first project to the presented was already set a long long long time ago yet even on the eve of the day of presentation, you all are not even prepared. on the day itself, then panick and want to change the date of te presentation; not realising that if you delay this presentation, it will mean that we have to present THREE on the same week and guess what, all of them are not done and WHY? because no one has been putting in the effort at all. dun noe, dun care. I AM PISSED. do you know y? because for someone who cares about her grades, she has been working round the clock and doing group work as individual work.
let me remind you that at least 3 days before the presentation that was supposed to happen last week, i sent out the handouts and script; i had to do all the water proofing by MYSELF. did anyone bother to say ok i help you. no. it's okie, i dun mind. i cant believe i even TYPED OUT a script for the 2 who are doing hydro. and you can't even decide who to do which part?!!!!!! and it's like the eve of the presentation and the presentation slides are not even ready?!??!?!?!?! goodness sake, at this level of education, i am sure you all will have better sense than that? i also have fyp, i also have assignments, i also have 24 hours, i also have to go to school, i also have to study. what is the difference between your 24 hours and mine? If i can do so much and have to do so much just because no one else really like wants to budge. like i have the energy to go on. well actually i had, but i am running out of stamina because of people who don't want to do their part. i borrowed the hydro book from NUS already because no one had ANY info on hydro, i did my part of choosing the exercises, then lending the book to you all to extract the information from. IF i hadn't done that, where would our project head to.
oh.. and for nuts, if you are going to be a graduating physiotherapist and you can't even think of an emergency plan when the patient has a mishap, i have nothing to say. mygoodness, look at he e plan even a primary school kid can do such nonsense. who doesn't noe you just call the ambulance? wth. i mean put more effort lah. if the patient has a fracture, go and find out the basic first aid to do? like if it's an open fracture or closed fracture, what do you do? i mean hello. you are going out to work and you dun even noe wat is the basic thing to do? i am disappointed, if you want to do such a lousy job then i have nothing to say.
the very last one. sigh. how do you draw conclusions from 1 single article that isnt that recent anymore and then think that the work is done? i had to change the poster 3 times and each time it takes a few hours to do.do you care? NO. last minute want to make changes again. asked for help for someone to help do the pamplet, anyone wanted to reply? NO. i mean like WTH. this is my project or the group project?! alright. i compromised, i put all the information in order and in the order of flow. did it help? NO. you know what, the "pamplet" comes back separated into 3 columns, with all the information in jargon and in the spelling mistakes that was already presnet in the "prepared pamplet information" document was all there. you must as well don't do, instead of making me so pissed and angry. I AM PISSED n ANGRY at you guys. next week better pass without me losing my temper. i have had enough. seriously. this is not the way for me to lose marks and if you don't care, then the marks will be mine and not a group's.

leaving for KL

2007-12-20T16:40:00.000+08:00

hey.. been so long... has been a really busy time? out of the 4 days of holiday so far, 3 days i have been in school doing projects after projects. i have 5 projects running concurrently. and i still have assignments to hand up. sigh this is so busy busy busy. i think next week i have to start on my neuro assignment at least before the school starts again and everything will be a mad rush. haha. its really madness. 65 days before we officially end school and so call graduate from nyp. n i seriously cant wait for tt..
today is more of a lazy day.. i am waitin for abt 645 to come then i will set off to KL. time to play after all the hard work. haha i need that badly. hopefully it will be a gd time walking n shopping :) hehe.. n playing :)
alright.. i better go off now... :) see ya when i come back with photos :) bye!

i'm getting older

2007-12-11T21:27:00.000+08:00

yup in like 2 and 1/2 hours? dunno y it feels wierd.. maybe all i want is for all the projects to go away and assignments to finish and for me to graduate. that would take a load off my mind. getting old. haha

so close

2007-12-10T20:05:00.000+08:00

"

You’re in my arms
And all the world is calm
The music playing on for only two
So close together
And when I’m with you
So close to feeling alive
A life goes by
Romantic dreams will stop
So I bid mine goodbye and never knew
So close was waiting, waiting here with you
And now forever I know
All that I wanted to hold you
So close
So close to reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
now you’re beside me and look how far we’ve come
So far we are so close
How could I face the faceless days
If I should lose you now?
We’re so close
To reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
Let’s go on dreaming for we know we are
So close
So close
And still so far

7 wonders

2007-11-18T11:00:00.000+08:00

on the very last day of attachments ( which means the very last day when i have to spend my time in the hospital as a free labour ), my supervisor had a rounding up session, i think this placement was different. my supervisor focussed on the very soft skills, the approach towards patients, the very hard n basic decision of " playing god", if you had that limited amount of time, who will u give the time to? why? it's the question that you can't answer, cos neither of the answers are the true correct ones, it depends on which one you choose and still be able to live up to your own conscience and tell yourself that you made the right choice. similarly, he showed su ai and myself this short video clip available at http://www.7wmovie.com .
He said that everything that he wanted to say was summarised into that single movie. i was really touched by the movie, though it was something that you would expect from such motivational sites.
suddenly, the focus wasn't on whether you knew where exactly was the broca's area or the wernicke's area or what symptoms the patients present with this lobe injured or when the ACA or an MCA infarct occurs, what you need to test and how do you test for lesions and how to correct them and how the patient walks and what is missing in each component and how you want to train it. It all just disappears but it talks about you being a person. A person, a human in this world and that while you are fretting and being pissed about something and you felt like you had the worst day of your life. We simply forget that it is already a gift by itself that we have this day and there are so many things in this life to appreciate.
i started on my reading again before school starts ( tomorrow unfortunately ) and i was reading "crisis" by robin cook. He is one of my favourite writers since secondary school until today and the reason why i like his books is because it's not about " oh no the patient is crashing! we need to save ...... stat!" but he talks about the fundamentals and principles of medicine, the people who are supposed to uphold the righteousness of practising it and the challenges against it. although the stories are based in america where the medical costs are high and at the same time, insurance companies are fighting to keep costs low, where doctors are pressured to see many patients in a certain time; yet they are in the dilemma of providing adequate patient care. most of these practices are similar to that in singapore; the same question still arises of patient care. honestly i think i will never have enough time with my patients in the future. i will no longer be able to spend 1 hour training each patient n individually be there round the clock to monitor their exercises and whether they will be doing it right. Yet as my own profession ethics, we should be giving the best to our patients. i agree that every single assessment no longer becomes a conversation, but an interview where we want to get majority of our answers out as quickly as possible, do the necessary with the patient, hope that the job is done well and then document and move off. they say that if you are in it for the money, this is not the job. it's partially true. we are not in the profession for the money, but the one who employs us are. They are looking for the numbers to treat, the costs to lower so that it will turn out to be a bumper harvest each year. medicine is one that will never run out of business; everyday someone else will be sick and they will need the treatment. yet because to keep the costs low and making sure that no one's slacking while trying to receive their bonuses or pay, statistics and the minimum no of patients to see are set up. i think it compromises patient care, but does anyone truly care? no. and the truth is that so many people need our help. though we devote our careers to changing n making differences in life, i think we need to be able to devote ourselves to a life other than our career. hence, there is a limit to what we can do.
it's a long book but one that will make you think n reflect and you agree that the perspective of medicine is changing. it's no longer about saving lives or giving someone a chance to walk again but it's about money, business and low costs.
oh well on to the next book i am reading, the empire of the sun. a little more boring that robin cook's but it's fine. still about 1/5 through the book. alright i got to go. haha.. take care! school's in!

i've got to move on

2007-11-15T22:06:00.000+08:00

hey... haha sorry i noe it's another 2 weeks since the last time i blogged. tomorrow's the last day of my clinicals, and it's also the last day of being out in the hospitals and all i have got to do now is to get through the next few months and wait to graduate. sounds simple but it's tough at the same time too. i dun really know how to explain..
i am really glad to get out of the neurology area.. no more talking to patients who cannot express themselves, no more stubborn people, no more emotionally viable people, no more having to repeat what you want the person to do a million times and then finally having to physically move the limb. no more coaxing patients 45 minutes just make them do what you want to do. and all we want is to walk the patient n assess the gait pattern. argh. sometimes these things drive you up the wall and make you feel like just using the suction cathetar to strangle yourself stat. then you start asking yourself why why why why! then after that you forgive the patient and you calm yourself down, because the only comfort that you get out of the entire session is that the patient is entitled to act that way because of the organic cause, you don't have the same problem and hence, forgive and forget; clench your fists and carry on with the rest of the day. haha. it's enriching too, but sometimes just watching the walking pattern can be really too boring for me. i dun think i can do that continously everyday ( i mean i can do tt generally but getting them to change a walking pattern is going to be tough tough tough ), especially when 5 times of giving maximal assistance for a patient to sit to stand is enough to soaked me with sweat even in an airconditioned place. but eventually when the patient does not need any more requirement for help just within a few days of training, it makes a whole big deal to you. when you see the tears in their eyes, when they never thought that they could stand, walk and you made them do it, the hugs, the appreciation for your work is tremendous, it touches you that you have changed their life forever and it reduces even the most strong hearted to tears . it's hard work but it's also the most rewarding.
well back to school in 3 days, hello to NUH in 4 months time, hello to my new name tag that will no longer bear the word " physiotherapy student" but instead " physiotherapist". good bye to the numerous times whenever i have to sign off and write" Melissa Khoo Year 3 PT student" manually, instead, i will be using a chop and it saves the time and pen ink ( it makes a big deal okie.. try writing the same thing about 7 times a day , imagine that happens for about 25 weeks, because i work 5 day work, it will be about 875 times that i wrote that and presumably i take about 10 seconds to write all of that down, that will be a total of 8750 seconds that would mean about 146 minutes and that would be like more than 2 hours and that would equal to 2 neuro patients, 2 icu patients or 4 normal ward patients. see how much time is saved with a single chop! haha ) and best of all, no more uniforms, no more blue pants and white pinafore top, it's hello to civilian clothes and bye to looking like the cleaning auntie.
alright.. gtg. see ya!

then and now

2007-10-28T20:40:00.000+08:00

and that's about 1 year ago at attachment 2B outpatient in KL sunway hospital...I'm so happy because i finished 2B attachment... that was in november to december 06...

and this is now... doing my presentation for 3C which is due in about 1 n 1/2 weeks more and it's another 13 more days of work to go before the end of all the attachments. i hope this ends soon

opps. once again another long hiatus

2007-10-23T22:51:00.000+08:00

haha.. sorry i noe i promised that i would update but apparently i am still too busy to do so.. my current status is attached to SGH neuroscience unit. honestly, i think my supervisor is very nice and he is really unlucky that my partner and i have no gift in neuroscience and neurorehabilitation and not to mention, we also not much interest in it too. analysis of the gait ( walking patterns ) of patients can be really tedious, it can come from many contributing factors and definitely something much more challenging to pick out compared to MS and CP. oh please just let me suction the patient. haha. but it's fun to learn just that it is really hard to answer his questions. they are questions on clinical judgement and call and decision making on the spot.
somehow the time in sgh is really dragging on slowly - most probably because i am tired out by the placements.. ijust wanna go to class, sit there , learn a bit here and there, have lunch, have class then go home. haha. a good routine to go back to..
job interviews are like the prime topic now for us students and of course after the TTSH interview, i had a personality test thingy and then this sat is my second interview... as for NUH, i had to go through an interview then go through an hour of theory test with mcq, short answer questions and 2 case studies. i am divided 70/30, 70 for NUH and most probably it will be NUH i will be putting down my signature and confirmation for in about 1 week's time.
maybe i got that karma in which all the emotionally sad patients will come to me, other than tt, the vomitting patients come to me. NUH once there was this auntie who refused to do any thing except hold my hand and cry because she didnt want to go for op and there wasn't anything else i could do with her.. yesterday there was a very emotional scene that made me shed tears too.. unexpectedly, i managed to walk this lady with a brain injury about 2 weeks after her admission; and her son and husband who stayed by her side all day and night for as long as i have been on attachment in the NS unit were so stunned and her son ( as in fully grown man ) started to cry. I want a son like that in the future man..... when i am sick, stay by my side, be so fully supportive and then when i surprise him, he can cry and shed tears of joy and look for the best rehabilitation opportunities.. oh well, a husband like that would be a good too! haha
and then... su ai's patient vomitted unexpectedly, n this time there was no way to contain the vomit in because for some reason ( non common sense reasons though i think ) are electronically locked and hence we cannot enter the store to get essentials like gloves that we had ran out of or even a vomit bag that could have minimised the outpour onto the floor and her clothes and then may have made me feel more secure especially when i am not wearing any protective equipment at all. while su ai had to use tissue paper to contain the vomit in her hand, i had to support the patient with maximal assistance. after the session with that patient, we were so super drained.
and for today, one of my patients cried because she was feeling upset that she was a slow learner and she was scared that we would give up on rehabilitating her because she was not showing rapid improvement. and with the language barrier, with her sudden outburst, fortunately i had a therapy assistant to help me with the translation and having to get more strategies to get her to remember what she has learnt. honestly, i think it's really okie to be slow in progress but so long as you try, i will do what i can too. slow and steady wins the race. anyway, who said that neuro rehab is about rapid gains and improvements, it is a slow and gradual process. i think it's a rewarding aspect in PT but it is also one of the most tedious. haha. and i seriously cannot pick out the abnormalities as well as i think i should be. maybe it's just that the aircon is too cold for me to think or do anything and it's making me hungry too.
haha.. okie enough for now.. i think i better pack my stuff for tml. another day. i wonder what i shall present for my inservice. maybe it should be evidence based physiotherapy management of Traumatic brain injury? or hope i will see something more fun soon. haha
okie bye!

october - the heat and rain it brings

2007-10-09T12:09:00.000+08:00

maybe it's the heat getting into me. haha i wonder who else is still reading this blog that is always so inactive.. alright i shall do my best to update as much as i can during the attachment which starts next week and it shalt be the very last of it all before i graduate and start on the real thing.
As i type this entry, i am waiting for time to pass by ( and my hair to dry, before i can pin it up properly) to leave my home for my job interview. haha.. sounds big and in fact today is really the day that i need things to work out because the interview is by NUH and it is the hospital that i really really want to be offered a place in.. i have been to the TTSh interview, i have no idea how it went and how the personality test turned out, but we will see how things go.. i have a feeling that the hospitals will only call back and offer after my next placement ( just to make sure i pass the last placement and not have to stay back and repeat another attachment ). so that makes another like 6 weeks of waiting and 5 weeks worth of hard work in the stroke unit in SGH. Part of me really already feels like slacking because it has been a onward and forward push for the past 10 weeks of working and studying and researching and exams and being on your toes all the time because your every single action is being judged and examined on. i was so hoping so hard that i will be getting a step down rehabilitation centre.. in the end, i got one of the busiest hospitals around. haha.. i hope i really last through everything though.. after the next 5 weeks and another 8 weeks of school, i can officially declare that that is the end of everything. everything that i have worked so hard for for the past 7 years ( since i wanted to do physiotherapy) until the day i graduate and i start working. And following on it will be a long road of working and studying again and i wonder where will i end up being again.
sometimes when i look back i really do wonder how things will be if i had spreaded my wings and flown to somewhere else, somewhere nice to do what i really wanted to do. have the open skies and the green green fields with their green green grass and the pretty blooming flowers. study in a place where it is not rushed, where everything is given it's due time to learn, where it seems more complete. somewhere where there are 4 seasons, where is the spring when the flowers seem ever so pretty, where there is summer, where the sun isnt blazing hot but warm, where there is winter where the light, transparent and crystal like snow flakes fall and nonetheless autumn when the yellowish, brown leaves float to the ground, covering the once green grass to form a yellow heaven, where i can kick and step on the fallen leaves and hear it crunching beneath my feet as i take each step. maybe all i need is a vacation. haha
maybe it's all too fast and too furious a period of time, maybe it's just the signs of burn out. maybe it's just the need for more open space, time and rest. maybe there is just a need to put an end to this race. haha. i seriously need a holiday. a holiday where there isnt any rushing about, but a lot to explore. a lot to play, and a time to refresh and come back and start on my new journey, a new label that i bear, a status that i will hold for life, a job i will call my own, a place where i will learn for the rest of my life and to the many lives i have dedicated my life to touch and make a difference in.
alright.. enough of rantings. haha i need to get my hair done properly.. see ya!

1 long month

2007-09-20T19:50:00.000+08:00

haha.. i just realised that it has been almost 1 month since i last blogged.. so many things have happened and of course 1 month in CGH is over and i will finish my ICU placement in another week and hopefully it puts an end to the all that travelling to simei.. it somehow changes my body clock such that i am able to wake up by myself early in the morning at 6.30 to 7 am and wonder if my alarm clock has even rung yet.. haha
it has been a fruitful experience though although it's a littl tough to learn with so many people being attached to the same supervisor.. but it is more sian when the ugly side of human nature surfaces and what you are against is the friend that you thought u would stay friends with forever and that nice person who helps you last time, in the end, you realise that some people are and can be disgustingly selfish and hopeless in low in the EQ aspect. unfortunately the same person is also a scholar and still unfortunately, the same person is concurrently ignored by the rest of us who seriously dun care and are entertaining her for the sake of doing so.
today was a day of peace and quiet and the other 3 of us in ICU had a really nice time.. although it was hectic covering about 4 to 5 in the afternoon but at least, it was easy on the ears and on the brain instead of feeling pissed and irritated all the time.. wow.. haha i think this is the first time in dunno how many weeks i am not pek cek at all during the entire day and i really enjoyed my experience in CGH. haha oh well. it's sad but what to do. n i still feel like kicking her. hahaha
alright.. back to mechanical ventilators and evidence based rehabilition. see ya diary.. update u soon!

end of exams and the start of another attachment

2007-08-25T08:26:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
haha as usual there is a long hiatus before i get down to typing some stuff into this lazy diary..
well... recent updates is that i finished my semester 1 exams... and i am going to start attachment at CGH on monday itself.. it has been pretty rushed times but it will be continued all the way until mid november period with clinical education 3B and 3C back to back and after which, it will just be a rush to the end with like 11 weeks of school left and it will exams and graduation.. haha just can't wait for that to come..
sometimes i wonder which is better, the studying life or the working life.. in the studying life, at least i have times like today and yesterday when i can go out and play without having to report to work and seeing patients all day long.. i can shop from day til night and play board games with my friends and shouting and screaming like mad.. hahaha til 10.30 before heading home for a rest... if i were working already, i probably be in the hospital working and seeing patients and trying to hit the quota required... but on the other hand, if i am working, i will be paid and i dun have to work for free like when i go for attachments.. neither do i have to scruntised and be afraid of being scolded or that i am doing the wrong thing.. neither do i have someone to report to when i am doing my work.. hmm.. haha so which is the lesser of the 2 evils... oh well.. when the time comes, it will come.. for now, i have ICU and neuro placements to go and of course 1 final exam before it ends the 3 years in nyp..
it's wierd in a way because i was told that i should start applying for the hospitals in november.. which i thought was really too early for anyone to do anything or decide to hire you... i think i am one of those few who are not getting our degree yet.. so yup... there may be a higher chance but the crappiest thing is that this semester's results wont be fantastic thanks to stupid teachers who can't teach and can't mark and they are really hopeless i think and hence all our grades will fall and when all of our grades fall, how are we going to apply for jobs. idiots. seriously.. i hate them and when i go CGH i will just thank tt particular part time teacher thanks for causing me to nearly fail my placement with your stupidity and arrogance. And when i go SGH, i will prove to the other one that i will be a better trained ICU therapist than her one day. Somehow the singhealth pple are really crap. I am only going to apply for NHG i think.. either NUH or TTSH.. why is it that the good therapists are not teaching us but the lousy ones are? Why is that the better teachers have to go.. sigh. it is seriously a waste... fortunately, i am leaving next year.

I'm pretty scared for the next 2 placements because ICU going to be a challenge ( but i love the ICU and CP.. i think it is really very very very fun ) and there is going to be stressful moments and when the patient's stats will go haywire and for a moment you really wanna call code blue.. haha. neuro is even worse, i forgot everything about neuro and all the manual work during neuro rehab is going to be a pretty tiring task and 5 weeks of that.. unfortunately i am not that gifted in doing neuro rehab.. although it is the most rewarding but it is also the most tiring and for a small sized person like me, it also means more back ache and pain.. haha hopefully i get a good place for the neuro placement.. somewhere near hopefully...
alright i better do some housework now.. to all my friends... take care.. haha i have no wish to see you all during my next placement because i am posted to ICU. haha.. so yup.. bye!

now on to 3B

2007-08-12T12:32:00.000+08:00

dear diary,
i finally finished my placement at ttsh.. passed it after a really scary time when i was being threatened that i was going to fail it because i was taught wrongly in school quite a lot of things.. but oh well, hope i did well enough to make an impression such that they will decide to employ me in the future ( which is the near future in feb.. haha ).. it was ra very fruitful placement i think, i learnt a lot and enjoyed myself throughly there such that i wouldn't mind continue working there ( with low case loads.. haha )
next placement would be cgh. sigh a long long long way there.. hopefully the people there are nice and that i dun get to meet someone whom i really dun wan to meet.. and hopefully my partner this time will be good too. it's tough to choose between people to work with.. sometimes i just wished that the allocation would hav made it easier. oh well.. nvm.. let's see how cgh icu goes :)
alright i better go! my cookies shld be ready anytime soon! i finished 2 brownie cakes which are not for me.. haha.. take care.. see ya soon..

better and back to ttsh

2007-07-24T22:19:00.000+08:00

dear diary,
now that i have fully recovered from the hives attack... it's back to ttsh for me.. and it means more saturdays burnt but overall still i get to gain ( haha ).. thanks for all the well wishes and smses when i was ill.. really do appreciate it from my friends :) it's nice to get an sms when you are sick and down from friends *hugz* to jun lin , whye kiat and my physiotherapy classmates, jasmine , cynthia and all..
well it's my 8th day in ttsh but 3rd week into it because i missed 4 days of work... it is getting better but it just doesn't really seem bright. I think i am getting the hang of it and when i do think that i do, somehow in the end, i don't really seem to get the hang of it. how do i explain? hmmm.. the patient gets better as a result of treatment, which makes me happy. but the thought process and getting the assessment right is a little tough but a little time to think in between will help. i think the stress when having to come up with the treatment technique is really a lot but then, oh well, i shall not be intimidated from now on. i shall just take my time to think and then do it. and then sometimes whatever that is learnt in school is just so different from work? what other pple believe in does not really coincide with what you believe in? i think there is some ambuguity in how some of us are taught, but technique wise, it may produce the same result just that the term is called differently? but i dunno. i think it is just too subjective and. i really dun wan to fail and i dun think i am really that bad until i should fail?
maybe they are expecting a lot, but honestly i am doing the best that i can and trying to absorb as much as i can and i think i see things much more clearly than before and i am able to give a right answer to what i think is the problem and a treatment technique that can solve the problem.. maybe i just never seen enough to know that the patient actually has that many problems, but i will learn along the way? i dunno.. i will just do what i can i guess.
tml is another day of challenge and fun. i hope it goes well and that by the time i end this placement, i am confident in the spine and that at least when i try to practise in the outpatient dept in the future i will be able to solve most of the problems that i see.. at least i think it is going the way i think it should be, just that for those who have been through it, seen it all, seen a million cases, we are slow as snails and take more time to think and do what we deem fit and hope that we do feel what we need to feel on the patient and pray that it is not a hallucination on our part. haha.
ttsh is a nice place with nice people, but i hope it's not a nice place with a high chance of failing that's all. honestly i still wanna keep my distinction in clinical education and will be working hard towards it. hope all will keep going well. currently i have 9 patients, had already discharged 2 for open date. hope the number somehow stays there so that i wont be too busy. hahaha. tt's so lazy of me.. haha.. alright better get going. see ya diary

sick n sad

2007-07-18T14:03:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
alright it says it all in the title of this entry. sick and sad. unfortunately i am not the normally " sick" sick which you would think of a cough or a cold with tissue papers in my hands, but this time it's urtricia/ hives. basically it means that my entire body system is having an inflammation and that my own T cells are attacking my own body cells and hence, i end up with red patchy itchy and ugly looking bubbles on my whole body. something like a big mosquito bite just that it is within like 3cm of the other big mosquito bites. something like chicken pox but just that it is much bigger for the dots.. n there is no exact cause that the doctor could have pin pointed it to, other than the small amount of sorethroat and cough that i presented the days before this began. oh well, i dun really want to know what is the cause of the problem. i just want it to be solved.
i have 4 days MC n honestly, it's a good and bad thing.. good cos i got more time to do my work but it is bad because all these times lost from attachment have to be made up and i dunno where to make it from... cos i want to study during my study break n not work through it. sigh. besides i can take the time to do my pediatrics assignment now..
but it is irks me to see my whole body covered in this rash, sometimes it wakes me up from my sleep, it makes me feel so warm and itchy and ugly. sigh. i got really pissed when pple kept staring at my legs and wondering what on earth happened to me. especially since i have gone back to the same GP for the fourth time in 5 days to see the same doctor. It's fustrating because nothing helps- i was in NUH A & E yesterday, they jabbed me to stop the itch and up the dosage of my medicine, this morning, the rashes on the back went away but my legs were all badly affected, then today i was at Mount E seeing the skin specialist. i could also tell that he was at a loss of what to do n he took some time to think and decide on my medication, so i got a second jab on my butt again ( which both times are actually pretty painful ) and then i had to change my medication again. sigh. please let it work this time. the second jab did help the inflammation to go down a little but.. it still looks bad but at least not that bad anymore. sigh. alright i better go shower n then start on my own work again.

end of holidays and back to work

2007-06-24T11:40:00.000+08:00

time really seems to fly by and in a blink of the eye, my 2 weeks holidays have flown by so ever quickly and back to school, prac exams, ICAs and back to work of course.. this time i am sent to TTSH for my placement in spine. sigh. i think i am really dead for spine. i can't really diagnose or treat and i dunno how to do it and i dunno if it's right because my basics arent there. i dunno if my other classmates feel the same too but oh well..
there were a lot of things that i thought about before and it was also brought up last night in my conversation with hj. we talked about our own social lives and partly how situations have changed now that he is entering uni and i am in my final year in pt. honestly, i dun really know how uni works because i haven been in one yet ( or at all ) and i dun really noe how things in terms of people-people relationship would work out there, but i guess it would be the same when i first entered poly, but i guess he is right in a way that things really are terrible because you can't find your social support yet when u dun even have a class to begin with.. at least for me, i had a class and friends whom i already knew from netball and my social network begun on the first day of school, for him, it hasn't begun and 6 weeks crash course is bad.. somehow all the psychology nonsense that i have been studyin the past 3 years have been able to fit in such that i am able to see the situation from the outside and know the process and the "internal" things that how peoples' emotions work but i dun really know how to solve it except "things will get better with time"..
i am not exactly someone who will be able to better advise him simply because i can't reach to a outside social network that easily.. not because i dun really want to but because it's just so difficult to find the time and energy and the right timing to do the catching up even though u really really want to? sometimes, it's the distance that plays a part, that causes things to fade away, something that you know but you don't want to admit to... sometimes it's just because things change and they become different and suddenly, you don't really know what to talk about and you just feel that you don't fit in. it's hard to describe and explain but i dunno. i guess i am getting the hang of it. i have changed from a really type A personality person who is time conscious and anxious all the time to a type B at times when i resign myself to fate and external events.. i guess it puts less stress on myself and gives me more air and room to breathe and find my life.
part of me is excited about the working life, because it simply means that no more late practices into the day, the time for me to learn hands on on the job and do what i want to do the most? and find the most needed time to do what i need to do and finding my friends back. i dunno but i agree that it's part of the effort to want to keep in contact and staying together as a group and going out often. maybe because i am the passive type who will wait to be asked to go out ( haha) or just tt i dunno how to go out and talk about other things. the last time we had a girls night out was at MOS.. and sometimes to find a friend who really you can relate all to and hide no secrets about, learning to trust them is not easy. there are things that you dun relate to others, there are things that you wanna tell but you can't too because it may somewhat spoil their image of you that you want to build?
when i was young, it wasn't easy holding it all on my own and bearing all the responsibility and burden, but as i got older, it only made sense that you should learn to carry these on your shoulders and not depend on others to keep you emotionally stable and happy. It was more or less a positive affect that made me want to change and take responsibility for my own thoughts, my own problems, and come up with my own solutions, own decisions to change my life and steer it in the way you want it to be. maybe that's y as one gets older, the stress also increases, simply because we refuse to share this burden that we think we can bear and take on our own.. well, that's what i think. or maybe because we will only share with the person whom we think is able to help us solve the problem, in the end, the burden is only carried around until you finally find the right person to help u solve and in the mean time, it is carried in the heart, giving urself further and additional stress.
it's a post of random thoughts generated in my head, and words that wish to be spoken from the heart. has no particular applications but just a thought about growing up and responsibility. and of course the sudden realisation that not too far from now, i may be attending many weddings to come of pple who are only 2 to 3 years older than me or maybe my own friends and the realisation that the future that was seen to be so far away, may not be actually that far away after all.

tired

2007-06-14T23:38:00.000+08:00

i am simply just tired. tired of having so much things to do, having to rush around, having to wake up early and drag myself to where-ever i need to go , tired of assignments, tired of projects, tired of group discussions, tired of practice sessions, tired of just every single thing and i reallly just wish for time to stop and then let me rest for 1 day. 1 day tt's all i ask i guess. for me to just laze in bed and not to worry anything to with anything like "FYP, AP assignment, AP group work, datelines, proposals, practice, MS, CP or Paeds" and let me wake up at like 11 or 12pm when i really get enough sleep and then let me do what i want to do which i haven got to enjoy for a long time - eat, sleep, watch tv and rest. seriously. that's all i need 1 day of all these. do i have time for tt? no. the last few days of my holidays; my so called holidays i have been rushing around, having to collate the MS notes on monday, then i have to practise on tuesday and have fyp meeting, wednesday i have practice in the morning to afternoon then again on in the evening and ihad project meeting, today was a whole day sort of rest but not rest cos we planned our friends' bdae party, not that i mind planning the party but the running around after all that running around the last few days have simply taken it's toll.
n i had enough of me doing so much on my part but others just complaining that my part is insignificant because my allocated part is worth lesser marks but it took me more effort and hours of intensive staring at the graphs to get my results and present it well, while in return the one who said i had the least work n i spent 4 hours doing on instead produced last minute work for a much heavier weightage question. i am really pissed.
there are so many things that i really really want to do. i seriously want to meet up with my friends whom i know i wont be able to meet for a long time once they start school like whye kiat, i really feel liek giving yee ann a long distance call to just talk for a while n know how she is doing, i seroiusly also want to talk to my friends from my jc class whom i haven seen n talked to in a while and really want to know how they are doing, i wanna go for the class outings but i really just have no time and no energy and i have too much work to do.
it doesn't help at times when other commitments just needs u to give in tt much as well to make the world tick. sigh. i am sick, i am tired n i miss u so much now. and i hate being a year 3. i seriously need my break n rest tml. but needless to say. i have tons of things waiting for me to do still. maybe i am just putting too much stress and needless worries on myself; i shld just dump everything to last minute, but what shld i jeopardise all that i have worked so damn hard for the last 2 years just for this sickening period of time? tt's the only reason tt i have to push on, because i know that if i dun finish all that i think i shld within this period of time, i will only be in more trouble and be even further stressed in the future. sigh
maybe it's just tt today is a bad day. i hope it is. i need sleep. i really really do. pls let my hair dry faster so tt i can quickly go to bed n sleep.

holidays finally

2007-06-08T09:12:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
sorry once again.. haha life has been too busy, extremely busy in fact such that i am unable to update.. yep i finished my lit review, handed it up already and i finished a lot of other assignments too in the meantime like pediatrics online assignments, started researching for final year project proposals, attended birthdays, did revision, study, moaned and groaned about the terri-gible timetable which has totally burnt me out this week ( and i am really glad that today is friday) but at least next 2 weeks is the holidays, well, at least what we so call, going back to sch just that we dun have classes but we have tons n tons n tons of work to do still *bleah* my agenda and to do list for the holiday is pretty long.. haha and i really need to get started right away tomorrow so that i will be sort of on schedule.
on a side note, the GSS is here but i haven much time for shopping though for obvious reasons :P though i am really looking forward to walking abt and looking for good buys or nice buys.. hehe.. but oh well, when i see the time and the energy to do so, i shall..
sigh i wish today would just pass faster because it includes the most 2 boring type of modules ( unfortunately they too are the most important in physiotherapy :P ) from 11 to 1 and then from 2 to 5 ( or rather supposedly 5 cos we end at 5.30 to 6pm most of the time). sigh i wish we could have our own lecturers back. i miss them.
alright time to bathe n get ready to go to school. bleah. bye!

so long

2007-05-16T19:34:00.000+08:00

dear diary
once again, i procrastinate in typing my entries.. simply because there isnt much time or i spent my other time sleeping ( which is serious physiological need nowadays) or doign research ( which is another really irritating and sian thing to do), in conclusion, it's sickening and tiring to be a year 3. it doesnt seem like the 5th week of sch, fortunately i am not exactly burning out yet but i feel the immense pressure and worry that will come in weeks to come.
currently i am trying to do my literature review for the final year project. i finsihed it and i honestly think it is one of my best essays written such that even i myself was so convinced that we need to do the research project. haha. it's funny cos initially i found almost no link to the project and we argued and of course, cursed and sweared at the project manager for giving us a topic with no support or logistics. after so many millions of articles that i have searched through and sieved through and i think i deserve a diploma in mouse physiology too, i come to realise that there is a good reason why i am still in physiotherapy. haha. especially looking at all the carbon chains around and having to catch the mice.. nah it isnt my cup of tea. working with humans is much better although mice is a breath of fresh air. unfortunately, my literature review has to be revised to fit into the given format that the school wants which is really lame and i dun really know how to place anything anywhere else because the essay simply doesn't flow. argh. stupid school. do they know or care how much effort and work does it take to put everything in 5 weeks plus of research into those few words? nah. i think he will just skim through it and give the grade based on his happiness with you, not your work.
and i have napfa tml. argh save me like i haven done enough napfas in my entire life.. in fact i have done 2 more than the poly kids and we are definitely fitter than all of them especially with our kind of work.. having class from 9 to 5 is already very seriously tiring. and after that they expect us to do napfa? as if there is an incentive for us to do well or do something about it... at least because now we re undergoing a 6 week exercise programme for our exercise physiology lab report, otherwise most of us would not really care at all. maybe the guys will cos they will get money by doing well in their ippt but. argh.. okie nvm i shall just do the 2.4 properly tml. the rest of them i dun really care anymore. haha. honestly you can't be really good at all items, after all not everyone is a long d runner, not everyone is born to be strong in their IPU, neither is everyone born with good flexibility. so yup. anyway it has already been proven that there are exercise genes eg if your parents are the long d type, u will also be the long d type.. strangely for me, my older sister is the sprints type, i am the long d type but the younger one. hmm i am not sure. haha
alls not that gloomy i guess. being a year 3 means a whole lot of new experiences and fun and going out there to be almost like a real graduate.. it's fun at times when u learn new things, but it's tiring at the thought of the long days and so much information crammed into a single packed day. the only comfort you get is the 9pm show in the evening which can make you laugh almost every 15 mins. haha it talks abt the differences between men and women and honestly, i think it is one of the best few types of comedy yet interative shows ever made. although lame at times but it speaks of the fundamentals of marriage, relationship and educates the viewer not only on how to maintain a good relationship with their spouse or significant other but also understand the difference between men and women. haha.
alright i think i have typed a lot... need to get back to work again. bleah. see ya next time

untitled

2007-04-22T11:31:00.000+08:00

once again a long hiatus.. sorry for the delay but there seems to be so little that i really wanted to write that i found no point in writing.. seems to be a huge difference from my much younger days when i first started blogging at the age of 14 years old.. this "fad" started when i was in secondary two, in the era of online voting on freevote.com in which we will vote for the prettiest girl in school or our favourite teachers or whose wierd or any other nonsense that we wanted to put up on the web.. now it's an occasional thought that i would put into this blog.. i am not too sure how long will this blog be able to continue as life becomes much more busy and the usage of internet is cut down from a probably daily to maybe bi or tri weekly usage..
my current ISQ = year 3 sem 1 and tomorrow is my second week at school.. it's scary at the thought of being a final year physio student. you wonder if you have studied enough to be ready to help your patients and be totally alone without being watched by your supervisor; the reality sets in that in 3 more attachments and 15 more weeks of attachment and approximately 300 days, you will be entrusted with a certificate to do what you have been training to do for the last 3 years and you are supposed to be able to do everything that you have been taught.. it's scary but it's a hopeful thought and honestly most of us want to get over and done with year 3 and grad. It has been a long long long journey that we can't wait to end, and we all started our countdown despite our last day being more than 300 days away.
first week of school was a dreadful feeling especially since the hols were a little too short.. although i welcome the idea of having classes and learning more things and practising because i can't wait to enter the ICU and learn more about the most challenging setting in the hospital and learning so much about the spine - both have definitely been a really tough learning process. The introduction to the machines that measure the different parameters of the heart and lungs was bad enough especially since lay yen had to be hospitalised and we have a new CP teacher for this sem ( i must add that i really do miss lay yen and although she is soft but she is nice and good and knowledgable in her field of expertise - after coming out of her lectures, you never fail to feel so accomplished for the day because it is simply so enriching ) which i guess i am going to have to rely on my textbooks more already. sigh. spine was just as confusing. just the neck movements alone were really messy for me and palpation made my neck extremely sore. relearning all the anatomy and biomechanics of the neck was really tiring - sometimes i just wonder if i will even make it through this year. haha. that's a really scary thought.
i went for the senior's FYP presentation yesterday and they all did a good job.. and i really meant it, it was well presented.. although they were all quite lucky that quite a few were able to do systematic reviews unlike our batch whom all have experiments to do. there would be a lot of defending on our side of the project and giving reasons why we choose to do this and why not that in our experiment. this year, my group is given an animal study on neuroplasticity of the brain, environment vs enriched environment... i think out of so many years and batches of PT students, we are the very first group to be doign animal studies which is bad in a way, because we have no previous project to fall back on, and simply because we have zero experience in animals with our subjects usually being humans. It means studyin the mice brain's functions and anatomy and physiology, biochemically and all other ways that may affect neuroplasticity and it is so different from the human. sigh. it is really confusing and plus the ethics part. but i must agree that it is an interesting project to do and the findings would be interesting, but i am not too sure if it will be able to translate to human. although mice and human have the same genetic make up, but if you knock out the brain of the mouse, the mouse is still able to walk because of a the different wiring in the brain, which is totally opposite to human, once we knock out the brain, either the same side or the opposite side would have a lesion. so yup, but anyway the project is in it's infant stages only ( or rather gestation stages would be a better description.. after all, we have 1 entire year to go before we end this project )
anyway.. the hottest topic now would be the virgina tech massacre.. interesting i did a project on this about 2 years ago back in JC for my project work.. honestly i am not too surprised that there has been another such gun massacre in the US. i dun support lax gun laws even if they are for protection, it is sad that someone has to resort to such methods to get back at other people.. my current worry is the backlash on asians in america. after all, it will somehow lead to a race issue ( no matter how much we really want to deny that it won't and we point it to other social reasons ) this would ultimately impact the asians in america..
part of me believes that the guy involved sees himself as the victim who needs to get back at his "torturers" and he has the feeling that he himself is the most pure? after all he described himself as jesus and that he is dying or died because of other people.. i geuss it is putting the blame on others instead of himself.maybe it's an unfair statement because i don't know him, but whatever it is, it is not justified that he killed so many other people to get back at them. Maybe the hype about guns and such school massacres would die down like how columbine high school did.. but for the many people who have died in the shooting, it is a pity because all these people would have become people who would help the society in the future, people who had dreams that was simply crushed in a selfish and senseless act..
maybe we are too far away to feel the impact of this shooting but it will serve as a reminder that strict gun laws are absolutely necessary and the importance of identifying "at risk" individuals.
Ok i have blogged so much in this single entry.. i guess i better hurry and revise my work again before school starts tomorrow :)

what's irritating

2007-04-02T09:45:00.000+08:00

firstly the posts that i put up dun come up all the time. and this is the second time this has happened already, thus wasting all my effort writing in this blog..
secondly, i am ultimately pissed at someone else who has her DMS a term that i coined myself - during menopause syndrome. As usual someone will be the victim and ta da yours truly is the victim last night. Honestly, if she could bring up more recent examples of what wrong i did, it would be much better instead of bringing up again n again n again in her case about my operation which happened like 3 years ago and that was honestly her ONLY case which was very flawed simply because she didn't want to bring me to the hospital in the first place; which is actually very stupid because the infection would have become worse and i would have ended up in an even worse state ( and how do i know? because if it had not been that bad, i would be placed in elective surgery instead and they would have just sent me home with more medicine to put). Her case was only based on 1 stupid n really happened so long ago thing and she expected it to follow through til now. Lame. totally lame.
sometimes i think people tend to judge what they see and think that it is the fact- which is another very lousy assumption. No wonder hong ju said that what that is heard should not be taken as the truth; he is absolutely right. I have seen enough and heard enough and really had enough. If she had a better case then fine, but she is being DMS-y and talking all sorts of nonsense, saying what my job needs more compassion and patience n tt kind of nonsense- say all these and yet she doesn't even noe what a physiotherapist do. oh yes, all i do is move the ankle a little bit , press here and there and ta da, i am a physio. You say i dun talk much about my work, wow would u like to have known that i accidentaly touched a patient's blood when i connected back the tubing during transfer? or how my uncle can desat from 90 plus to 60 plus just when i was ascultating his lungs? do you even noe what on earth that means in the first place? or what about the amount of blood i see in the ops, or open wounds? or what about when i go into operations to observe what happens and honestly it seems like human is the same as animal meat and i see how surgeons have to be that rough. n what was the first question you asked me? "you didn't throw up?" and the same comment everytime. " you should have been a lawyer" and the fact is that you don't make sense everytime. your evidence is so stupidly flawed and u refuse to say that it is.
Look - honestly, yes you fed me, yes u clothed me, yes you whatever whatever whatever. All you need to hear is " yes i am indebted to you and everything is my fault" and " yes i am your punching bag, go on n punch me and say all that you want" and all you claim is " all i want is a close knit family" when have you even seen how do the other families work? Make something worth making me staying in this place. Lame. oh yes, did i tell you? she blames me for a headache after everything cos she was crying n tt she is stressed out and something is going to happen to her heart, which actually happens without my presence. I felt like telling her " don't worry, i am trained in CPR, at least you will be alive until the paramedics are here" this has nothing to do with me and you dragged me into it, so yup don't push everything to me.
DMS - the evidence is loud and clear.

the last week

2007-03-25T11:15:00.000+08:00

part of your world

2007-03-17T10:09:00.000+08:00

[Maybe he's right]

[Maybe there is something the matter with me]

[I just don't see how a world]

[That makes such wonderful things]

[Could be bad]
Look at this stuff, isn't it neat?

Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?

Wouldn't you think I'm the girl

The girl who has everything?
Look at this trove, treasures untold

How many wonders can one cavern hold?

Looking around here, you'd think

Sure, she's got everything
I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty

I've got who's-its and what's-its galore

You want thing-a-mabobs?

I've got twenty

But who cares?

No big deal.

I want more
I wanna be where the people are

I wanna see, wanna see 'em dancin'walkin' around on those

Whaddya call 'em?

Oh, feet
Flippin' your fins, you don't get too far

Legs are required for jumpin', dancin'

Strollin' along down the

What's that word again?

Street

Up where they walk

Up where they run

Up where they stay all day in the sun

Wanderin' free, wish I could be

Part of that world
What would I give if I could live

Outta these waters?

What would I pay to spend a day

Warm on the sand?
Betcha on land they understand

Bet they don't reprimand their daughters

Bright young women, sick of swimmin'

Ready to stand
And ready to know what the people know

Ask 'em my questions and get some answers

What's a fire, and why does it

What's the word?

Burn
When's it my turn?

Wouldn't I love?

Love to explore that shore up above

Out of the sea, wish I could be

Part of that world

st lukes

2007-03-03T21:32:00.000+08:00

sorry for the hiatus... i haven't been able to log on onto my account for sometime.. somehow blogger takes a really long time for it to load and i have managed to find an alternative way in somehow and hopefully that way will continue to stay accessible to this blog.. haha
anyway, so much has happened in between.. firstly chinese new year which has reaped in bountiful harvest for me :) and of course the start of attachment again.. Clinical education 2C which i have just finished spending my first week in st luke's community hospital..
it's my first placement in a community setting and definitely a much more slower paced environment with most of the patients in there for stroke management.. some are fractures that are managed conversatively.. some are in there for wound care or for long term management because the medical needs are too much for a nursing home to be able to give care for..
as a student, it had been an opener because i never dealt with so much geriatic setting before, everyone i see is above 60.. the oldest is 100.. except for 1 total hip replacement case which is 40 plus this year and a real headache at times.. old people tend to be really really cute at times.. listening to them speak - unfortunately my dialect is extremely limited and at times i just say " hmm" "ah" " orh" " ah huh" as replies to the things that they say.. some of them walk so cutely.. most of them are really slow.. haha.. and i think i built more muscle in this placement more than the other placements.. since there is maximal assistance for some patients and having to hold the patient even though it is minimal assistance all the time.. it's fun and the people are nice.. but it's a little wierd maybe because i am used to being quizzed all the time during attachments.. but the questions posed to me now are involving me in the patient's treatment.. i am not really complaining but it's strange.. really really odd.. it took a while to adjust from the fast paced life in the acute hospitals that i was sent to before, and it can get a little boring at times but i guess i am getting used to it.. make the best of what i have from there :)
as a outsider to the place... seeing the patients there can be quite saddening at times.. some patients dun have anyone to visit them at all, some of them dun have homes to go back to.. some of them are bedbound, unable to walk and have contractures, some of them are unable to express themselves verbally.. probably they were experiencing so much pain when we had to stretch their contractures out but they were unable to tell us or express the pain they feel... one uncle that i help to put the knee gaiter on every single day to extend his contracted flexed knee was in so much pain that he put his palms together and begged us not to put the knee gaiter on for him.. my therapist is from myanmar so he is unable to understand the patient.. but i was able to.. i told the uncle that i was sorry and we are sorry but for his own good we had to do it and told him to bear with it..
sometimes i wonder if it is better if these patients were left on their own and there would be no pain experienced... ultimately it would affect their functional activities meaning unable to walk but if they are happy with the wheelchair.. then shld we aim to return the patient back to premorbid status and what we want him to do - meaning to have legs that are normal and can walk... or should we upgrade the patient to where the patient wants to be? what if the patient is unable to make a right judgement for himself? do we follow what we want to do for him or still follow his wishes? just a personal thought..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i went out to town today for a while to shop and just to spend the day out without having to be at the hospital... and i met with a pretty irritating and interesting situation while i was out..
i guess maybe due to the baby bonus that the govt has been awarding and planning to award, there are more couples becoming parents... i think i must have seen at least 5 baby prams when i was walking to suntec - which was really rare compared to last time..
i was walking in suntec already when there was this lady with her kids and a pram in front of me.. i let her walk up the escalator first and carry down the pram at the other end of the overhead bridge at suntec so that it will be easier for her.. after which i didn't overtake her so that it will be easier for her to put the baby in and bring her kids to suntec... she was walking halfway and then she suddenly stopped right to look at the baby in the pram right in the middle of the walkway that was for the direction towards the shops of suntec. if i hadn't practised my ankle and hip strategy to prevent falls and if i had a slower reaction time, i would have definitely fallen over her. There she was without a single thought that she would definitely have obstructed the human traffic flow and she was going to make herself and her baby and her kids a huge hazard. I am not saying that you can't stop to take a look at ur baby in the pram at all, but at least you should have done in much more safely and without being a hinderance to others. She could have pushed the pram to one corner that wasn't too busy and then walked in front of the pram to attend to the baby. so this was baby hazard number 1. i was pissed but i wasn't that pissed until baby hazard number 2 came up..
i was walking back to the city hall mrt station along the same overhead bridge but in the opposite direction. Again i met with a family with a pram, once again i let them go first, however this time i decided to try to overtake the family instead because i was in a hurry.. Unfortunately i could not outwalk the mum and the child, and the brother who was holding on to the toddler who were in front of me due to the number of flyer distributors that i had to wave off, the father who was also in charge of pushing the pram was also quickly chasing after his child in front of him and me. Therefore, he crashed the pram into my heel once, i ignored it the first time when he did it.. i am sure he didn't do it on purpose, but he did it a second time and i turned back and looked at him. He had no words of apology at all for hitting my heel twice, and proceeded as if nothing has happened. I think it was good that they heading for marina square instead while i walked off in the opposite direction, otherwise i would have given him a cold hard stare.. I think an apology would be good for sure. even if it had been a quick smile. I am not pissed because he was pushing a pram in a crowded area; but i am pissed with the fact that despite being a lousy pram pusher, he also has no manners to apologise over his pram pusher skills and his child is so young and he allowed the toddler to go on the escalator with the boy who is maybe 3 years older than the toddler. argh. parents nowadays. i am definitely not going to become a parent like tt and i dun understand why can't parents who are pushing their kids in the pram can't be bothered to take the child out of the pram first, hand the baby to an adult to bring up the escalator, then FOLD the pram to make it less a hazard and easier to carry around, finish with all the escalators and everything then go to a place to open the pram and then put the baby in. the baby will be safe and sound and will be happy to be able to see even more things in their environment and will feel safer than the adult trying to balance the pram on the escalator. I have seen babies going on a roller coaster ride before (you know the uphill part of the roller coaster ride) that is exactly how the poor baby feels when he is tilted back on the esclator and not only that, it is an irritating habit that poses as a hazard to many others.
maybe i shld also mention that the other day i was on the mrt back home... at outram stop, there was a seat in front of me free and i saw an old uncle walking towards it and of course, i would have rather let him have the seat.. i was moving in towards the centre of the carriage and was about to take a step sideways when there was this force that pushed me backwards. i couldn't see where the force came from and i looked down to see this boy about 6 years old that ran right from the door to the seat, pushing everyone else aside in their way in their scurry for the empty seat and ignoring the uncle who was making his way there. Lucky for them i was holding on to the hand straps so i didn't fall over. The boy was followed by his younger brother who were then making a din in the carriage. part of me wanted to go up to them and tell them off and ask them to give the seat to the old uncle. But i saw the parents nearby and i thought they would do something, but i was proven wrong. Their parents didn't care at all while their boys muscled and wrestled to kneel on the single seat to look outside. They were screaming and pushing and invading other people's space on the train, until this other guy that is somehow related to these boys came over to carry the younger one up. that stopped the drama for a while as the parents couldn't care less. The younger boy then started swinging his legs around and his crocs were hanging precariously at the edge of his foot and i think it must have been 2 inches from the face of the woman sitting down beside the older brother. the woman looked up at the man in shock, but no one bothered to do anything. No look of apology or embarassment, no word or mumble of "sorry" or to tell them to stop what they were doing. If i had my way, i would have slapped the children already. Guess what were their parents doing then. Yup.. they were still talking and not caring at single bit. a clear picture of poor parenting and children ill disciplined.
being a parent means being responsible and bringing up a child properly to be courteous to others, to be considerate to others and being a person with good values that people can smile and comment that yes you have brought a child up well.. even though you may have a handful, but it is also your duty to make sure that your kids do not pose as a danger to others and when you care for your kids, you do not make urself a nuisance or hazard..
that's what i think.. my thoughts for today... haha.. long but yup. i am disappointed with parents nowadays and i will never want to be anything near them when i have my own kids in the future.

Lorenzo's Oil

2007-02-17T10:14:00.000+08:00

i was watching this movie on HBO about 2 nights before and i was surprised. for it's title, it seemed quite stupid and silly at first, but when i read the sypnosis of the movie, it was a movie that was worth watching. not only because of the medical benefit of it, knowing that maybe one day i will be treating a child with ALD, i need to understand the disease that is very rare, but also, the way it describes and portrays the struggles that a family will face when dealing with a fatal disease, and how despite all odds, still stay strong and defy the odds to find a cure.

first, an introduction to ALD. ALD is short form for adrenoleukodystrophy. This is a progressive neuroglogical disease in which the myelin sheath that covers the nerves would be attacked and destroyed and the myelin would not be able to grow back again due to this disease. Unlike MS and ALS, there is relapse and the patient has possibility of the myelin sheath growing back again, ALD is different. In this disease, the body is unable to break down long chain fatty acids, hence leading to neurological damage.

The movie is about this boy who was dignosised with ALD at the age of about 5 or 6 i think, and his prognosis was extremely poor with only 2 years to live and the child going to become spastic, deaf, blind, dysphagic, cardiopulmonary complications (therefore requiring suctioning of his own saliva in order to prevent him from choking). it is not easy to see as a child turns from a child no different from the ordinary kids all around him into a child who has spastic gait, unable to speak, unable to see, unable to control his motor movements, having seizures and unable to eat or do things as normal anymore.

His parents refused to accept the medical condition and didn't want to give up on their only son and worked tirelessly day and night, doing research on the disease based on journals and scouring not only medical journals but also the veteranian journals and biomedical journals in an answer to their question on how to break down these long chain fatty acids. They met with so much problems, people who refused to help them, people who refused to listen to them, people who do not believe in their possible cure simply because they weren't doctors and they wanted a clinical trial before implementing it as a cure for ALD.

The movie spoke parents who refused to give up on their child, parents who had zero medical background but in the end the father was awarded an honorary medical degree for the research in ALD and for inventing the cure called " lorenzo's oil", parents who weren't afraid of trying any method to help their son live, adminstering their own mixture of oils, parents who believe in the "mind" of their son who is unable to communicate with them, parents who worked tirelessly to care for their child, suctioning away the saliva, mortogage their homes and everything just to find the cure for him.

Hence, Lorenzo is still alive today and at the age of 28, even though he is unable to speak and is blind, he is able to communicate via the blinking of his eyes and moving his fingers - already a stark improvement from what he was at the peak of his disease. To some people, moving a finger seems so easy but for people with a neurological disease. To process the information heard to the information to the cerebrum and basal ganglia then to the cerebellum to the final output at the thalamus back to the cerebrum for motor control and down to the spinal cord and then to the peripheral nerves to activate the muscle, it is a major improvement. That's why every little thing you can achieve in physiotherapy, like being able to move from being nothing at all, will be able to send any physiotherapist up to cloud 9.

He lived past his prognosis and his name made famous because of the oil that his father invented that prevented further damage and now his father has started on a project called "the myelin project" in which it researches into the regeneration of myelin, which will help lots and lots and lots of rare myelin degeneration diseases.

i guess sometimes, the best people who want to look for the cure of the disease, would be the the parents themselves, who will work tirelessly for the cause to prolong the lives of their loved ones. maybe this disease would be eradicated via gene counselling in the future, but this story remains to be a story that will always remind us that, life isn't one to be given up upon that easily. diseases have their prognosis- they always always do and i learnt so very well in my lectures that MS has a better prognosis than ALS and how fast they can die from the disease. Some of them have 5 to 10 years, some dont even have that long to live. I guess it's important to realise that these are only just guesses of how the person should live and can live, and not truely how long the person wants to live. There is always hope for the cure, a hope to prevent further damage. That's what i believe. One day when i start working or when i am on my attachment, if i ever do meet a patient who is ready to give up, i will tell him or her of this story and that no one is ready to give up on lookin for this cure for this disease that he or she is suffering.

the movie was worth the watch, worth the time and definitely worth the tears that i shed while watching the show.

i'll always love you

2007-02-10T21:28:00.000+08:00

i heard this song on the radio the other day and it's also on the soundtrack of a new cd that has been launched... actually i grew up with this song.. a really old and nice song :) meaningful too.. it those types of songs that you will get nostalgic when you listen to it once but u will get sick of it after listening to it too many times :) haha.. but yup for now it's on my window media player's list. here's the lyrics :

If I Should stay I would only be in your way

So I'll go But I know I'll think of you every step of the way

And I... Will always

Love you, oohh

Will always Love you You

My darling you Mmm-mm

Bittersweet Memories

That is all I'm taking with me

So good-bye Please don't cry

We both know I'm not what you

You need

And I...

Will always love you I...

Will always love you You, ooh

I hope life treats you kind

And I hope you have all you've dreamed of

And I wish you joy and happiness

But above all this I wish you love

And I...

Will always love you I...

Will always love you [Repeat]

I, I will always love You....

You Darling I love you

I'll always

I'll always Love You..

Oooh Ooohhh

other than tt it has been a lot of preparing for cny and helping some friends along the way and making sure they are ok... actually i can't wait for clinicals.. i am sort of getting bored already at home.. haha but i think i still have things to do.. and really quite a few things... i just finished making valentine's day present... which took really a long while to finish it.. hopefully it will turn out good :)

i went out with my sec 4 classmates to carnivore today.. n it's really carnivore.. haha so much meat and meat and even more meat and i was so full... i shld have fasted yesterday too to make my money worth it.. and for now, i hope to see no hams, no chickens, no beef, no pork sausages.. haha tt leaves me to become a vegetarian! haha.. nah.. not tt drastic but i dun wish to have any more meat for the day liao.. ate my whole day's worth of meat at lunch.. and that was my eventful day before coming home to finish all my work.. but i had a really good time with my ex classmates and enjoyed myself... catching up with them and laughing at their jokes and realise tt we have all aged. or rather we all grew older and more mature and yet, we are still the same underneath :) i love my sec 4 class. i really really do. it's the type of class that knows how to study n play and balance these 2 elements the right way, when we study, we study hard, when we play, we play hard and the class dynamics is really wonderful, everyone helps everyone, everyone can laugh at each other and poke fun at each other but it just out of fun and we will laugh it all out as a class joke :) i miss those days. i really really do.

next week there's pre clinicals coming up, hopefully the questions wont be too tough to answer.. hahah then can send back to gek han and hopefully too my clinicians will be in and be able to answer my calls to let them know that i am coming and if they need us to prepare anything.. haha.. at then at least tt can occupy my time a little bit more.. besides getting ready for cny.. hopefully this time i will get a lot of money!!! hahaha..

okie back to work.. i haven exactly finished the present yet.. see ya diary :)

end of year 2

2007-02-02T09:07:00.000+08:00

dear diary
yesterday i finished my last paper and it was really a huge rush from the start to the end.. ok initially i wasn't rushing that badly but when it came to the end when my hands were so painful and tired, i still had to rush because there were marks to really try to score and so i just bore with the ache and scribbled to the very last minute. trust me, i think after that i really needed carpal mobs for myself. haha.. anyway we also settled our final year project.
it seems so fast.. as in right after our final year 2 paper and we were all going to cheer and scream and bound in happiness, then bala talked about our final year project. last time i used to watch the seniors having to do their fyp and now it's my turn. argh. but at least my topic isnt tt bad; but i am the only one from the other class with 4 other girls.. my topic would be related to training mice to do mentally stimulating activities or training them to do a lot of exercise, then culture their brain specimens and then see which method is better to prevent dementia. cool right? but also cruel in a way but it's really interesting and i didn't mind joining tothe project. i just hope my group would have good dynamics...
in the meanwhile, it's rest and relax for 3 weeks, before going to st lukes for 3 weeks of attachment then moving on to NUH for 2 weeks and that will be the end of clinical education 2 which is worth like 16 credits. rest a while and i will officially then be a year 3. attachments attachments and even more attachments. - yeah-
i think my pc card has some problems... it nearly crashed my computer, but now i am connecting via ethernet to my modem. not a very long term solution but at least it lets me go online while i need to clear up my entire room and desk of the papers and files and stack them neatly before i do my final year and get it all messed up again.
okie.. over to doing my stuff again.. see ya diary :) thanks kiat for grey's anatomy season 2! can't wait! hahaha

sad, happy and anxious

2007-01-29T21:47:00.000+08:00

dear diary
i experienced 3 different types of feelings this weekend...
saturday i went for my ex-physiotherapy classmate's wake. it was tough in a way, i didn't know what to say or what to do, simply because as i approached the bottom of the hdb block and saw the same yellow banners that indicate that there is a funeral going on, i realised that this wasn't just an ordinary funeral anymore and the person who we are mourning for, is a friend and really a very good friend.
i couldn't hold back the tears when i held the joss stick and looked at the picture of aaron in his officer uniform in front of me. I found myself choking with the last words i wanted to say to him and i felt the tears welling up inside my eyes and i let them flow out. i didn't really care if aaron's brother was just standing beside me, or that there were people that i didn't know around but it was a let out of the emotion and learning to accept his passing. I cried even more when i saw the pictures that aaron put up on his notice board in his room and one of them had us the physiotherapy girls including me in the picture in it. It was hard in a way to look at his photo and wished that i had so much more 'hi's to him and everything, but i said my final goodbye and i said that i will miss him and i hope he is happy wherever he will be.
Sunday was a different mixture of emotions altogether, i celebrated another friend's 21st birthday :) i played mahjong ( which is definitely something note worthy since it was just 1 day before the exams but of course i had the initiative to study ;) ) and talked to my secondary 4 classmates whom i really do miss.. times back then was so simple and funny and i really want to go back to secondary school days ( minus the short hair of course )
and anxious because today i had my first paper and there was nearly a mess up because our examination venue was booked by someone else for an external lecturer to deliver the lecture, but in the end, we all got super pissed and i guess sort of frightened the lecturers who wanted to use our exam room off and the class scooted out of our exam room. i couldn't believe they were considering changing our exam venue! i mean this is an exam. didn't it spell enough importance over a lecture? after all this polytechnic is super huge; there must be one room in the entire place just to give a lecture right? nyp can be really lame at times too. the paper overall, mcq was a killer, it was so tough that i couldnt even remember the questions that i couldn't do and most of them i have never seen the information my entire life.. the essay questions were alright too except how to explain RSD which i didn't memorise but i just worked my way through and it doesnt explain it fully but at least there is part of it, but i came out and really felt like i did my best. tt's good enough for me but i hope it's good enough for bernardine *cross fingers*
1 down, 2 more to go. one on wed and one on thursday. i hope thursday comes soon! can't wait!
see ya diary!

-untitled-

2007-01-25T10:26:00.000+08:00

i wonder why do we hold wakes after a person has passed on.. my friend's wake will be on this sat and sunday..

Is it a time when we remember a person's lifetime, that we use this time for people to say goodbye, to offer a joss-stick and say prayers and hope that this person will move on to the next realm in peace? Or is it a time to recollect the happy times that u spent with this person and realise that this person has been a part of your life before as a friend, as an accquaitance, a boss or colleague? or a time to also realise that life is only that short and that you never noe when it will come to a premature end?

i am also at a loss at how much to give for the 'bai jin'.. it seems as if the amount that i would be giving would be equitable to the amount of friendship that i shared with the person. then it wouldn't be fair, because friendship is not measurable. how can the bond that you share with that person equate to 10 dollars? or 20 dollars or even 100 dollars? it doesnt mean the longer the time that u spend with the person, the more you have to give. in fact, if the person who has passed on knew you, i am sure he/she would prefer that you would not cry and be sad, and in fact, they would be proud and happy that you remembered them and you still consider him/her your friend and that you make the effort to attend the wake. I think he/she would have also rather u not give that much money at the same time, because it won't matter how much you give, but the time and the friendship that you have given in the lifetime mattered even more.

Actually i don't really know how to react to a friend's death.. it's wierd because it's the first time have to attend the wake of a friend- not a elderly family member or anyone else, but a friend who is only 2 years older than me... i thought it would be years n years away before i would need to flip through the orbituary pages and look out for familiar names and faces.. i thought it would come to the years when i am all ready to go for one wedding invitations after another, when we celebrate life and love. And it's a friend.. suddenly you realise that you will never walk past him again in this life and smile and talk about things non stop, no longer laugh at the jokes he or she makes? and you will never receive an email or a card or even see him on msn anymore. Although.. it does happen that you lose contact now and then, but at least there is a chance somehow that you will meet this lost friend somewhere along the way in life...

Maybe i will move on, maybe many of us will move on, with the memories of the person who has passed away would be left behind. we will and we have to, maybe it's our first experience with death, and a death of a friend, and probably the many more that we may have to encounter in our professional and personal lives.

back to the studying again. time to start with my work that i have put off for abt 1 hr liao.. see ya :)

fast foward time please

2007-01-22T09:45:00.000+08:00

dear diary
it's 1 week to exams. and i seriously hope that time will go faster and slower, well it sort of depends. if u mean wanting to get over and done with the papers, yes please go faster.. if you mean studying.. of course i mean slower.. but i realise that my stamina is wearing off too.. haha.. so maybe it shld go at a right pace... can't wait for my holidays to start.. the 3 weeks before clinicals start but i am not too sure when will mine start too... haha i heard that i may be going for a 6 week placement instead of 5 weeks so that it will be more even. oh well. see how.. haha
i have another 10 mins to go before i need to study again. actually i dun noe which subject to choose to study. i guess maybe i shld do BS since i haven touched it in a long long time since last week after all the main physio subjects that i have been studying..
i went to MOS with my S25 classmates on saturday... it is my first time going into a club. yes.. unfortunately it is.. because after the jc prom, i was still underaged then and i haven found the time to really go out at night.. and also dun have any of my friends asking.. ( i've been to pubs although ) since my school time are people's holidays or i will be sent on clinicals - maybe it's an excuse but the point is tt it is really my first time in a club.
the drinks was ok. i am not too good with alcohol that is too bitter for my liking. i had a vodka lime which i thought was really very good.. haha.. the music was really too loud for my liking.. i felt like my eardrums were hurting.. and my jeans was pulsating with the vibration coming from the speakers. n the lights kept shining right into my eyes which was really uncomfortable and painful at times... n my hair smelt like cigarette after i came home. i left my shampoo on for a much much longer time before washing it off.. fortunately the smell didnt stay tt long. other than tt... watching pple dance around is quite amusing. 15 bucks to sort of become exhibits and let pple stare and watch you dance, and at the same time, being surrounded by tons of people who are shaking and literally just shaking and bouncing, sweating. It's quite amusing actually to see some couples "dancing" i think it was more of like... rubbing themselves together. haha my conclusion, i don't mind the club but i would prefer a pub ;) and it would be a lot easier to chat with your friends instead of shouting across the table just to be heard. haha
okie.. i think i shld go n study already. see ya diary ;)

goodbye

2007-01-17T19:34:00.000+08:00

To a friend whom we have lost, but will never be forgotten in our hearts.

Aaron:

It seemed only like yesterday when we entered in our first year and first semester in nyp physiotherapy. Time has passed so quickly and it is almost 2 years since we have known each other.

You were always smiling, so happy, always laughing at us and making jokes and teasing us :) i would never forget your smile, your willingness to help the rest of us who were hopeless in our physics, always ready to play along with us, the familiar clinking of the metal chains that you wore on your jeans and most importantly, i will miss your friendship.

Who would ever forget how you describe how palpation should be done during our very first kinesiology practical in year 1? or how your statement during anatomy practical changed anatomy for the rest of our year 1 lives. You entered into our lives and changed it from the moment you stepped in. I was sad when you left PT but at least you were pursing an aspect of healthcare that you felt was more rewarding in the experience. Given your intelligence ( as displyed when you managed to try to understand scapulo thoracic and scapulo humeral rhythm when we were only novices in year 1), i am even more sure ( as proven as you are one of the top students in Salford University and awarded a scholarship) that you would excel in your field of podiatry.

When you left singapore for the UK to study, you sent the entire class a final sms saying it would be the last time we would be receiving a message from this handphone number and thanking us for the friendships and that you would be looking forward to working with us in the future in the rehabilitation field and that we will keep in close contact. I cried then when i got the message and i am crying now as i think about this. I wished a thousand million times that i had at least said hi a few more times, told you to take care and that we really hope to see you very very soon back in singapore and be able to work side by side with you. I wished that i had the chance to say that you are a really nice person and that i am honoured to be your friend and that i enjoyed your friendship so very much. I would have told you to hang on and that you are doing well and we all missed you back in singapore. I know that you will never chance on this blog, there isn't even a 0.0001% chance that you will get to see what i said...

I just want you to know that you will always be remembered, not only by me, but the rest of the nyp pt0502 students. Even though it has been a short few months being your classmate, but it has been a pleasure to be able to be your friend and i enjoyed your friendship. Goodbye Aaron. That's the hardest word to say, but goodbye. You will be dearly missed and always remembered in our hearts. Wherever you are, i hope you will find peace. take care my friend.

melissa

the end of year 2 sem 2

2007-01-12T00:13:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
today would mark the last day of year 2 sem 2 and yup. when i go back to school next time.. i would officially be a year 3. and i will be a final year student, going to grad in about 1 more year. tt's so fast and yet at the same time, so slow.
it's difficult to really explain how i feel - i am excited at the thought of finally empowered the skill to practise and to make a difference to many people's lives that i will meet along my career, at the same time, i doubt my personal skills and i wonder will i make the cut to be the person that i always thought i would be...
i came back with pretty good prac results for cp.. the NS results should be out by morning.. sometimes i wonder if practical will end up like how i will perform in real life situations? after all, situations differ from school to hospital.. most of the time at the hospitals, i am not panicky and i dun read the cases wrongly, but when i go to school, i panic, i can't seem to talk properly n i dun really know what on earth i am doing and i just pray that i make sense to the teacher testing me. haha. but come to think of it, if you ask me if i remember every single thing that i have studied to be tested on, i really can't remember and it needs a lot of revision.
we had a talk today by the seniors who have graduated.. talking about the rewards of physio. i admit, that everytime i feel down and low and i really feel like quitting, i just need to bring myself back to 1 point of time of why i decide to join this profession and everytime i do that, it brings me back on my feet. i dun really noe if it's too idealistic, but sometimes when i think of the very first patient that i have ever encountered with in mount e. I have never met him after so long, i am not too sure how he has been or whether he is still practising medicine; but i remembered those tears in his eyes when we were going to bid farewell to him on our last day of attachment. When he held my hand and tried to speak, yet he couldn't and i already knew that he tried. 2 weeks wont make a huge difference to a stroke patient- the progress is slow and we all know that; but the 2 weeks in mount e made me realise my purpose, my job and what i can do. gleneagles wasn't a very good posting, but my encounter was basically observation and it further pushed my interest in physiotherapy.. i always liked clinical but i didn't like watching.. haha i like doing something benficial to patients. sunway medical centre was different, i think i learnt quite a lot of wrong things to do there.. haha but it has taught me to appreciate our kind of healthcare system here, and made me realise that as a physio, there is a lot more to make sure that you know and that there is much much much more out there for me to learn. It was also my very first taste of having "ownership" of a patient- a post op patient who is out of the operating theatre and i am doing rehab for him. I watched from poor results during the first week, to being on target for the next 3 weeks there and eventually when i left, he had finished regaining back his range of motion which hadn't been very good initially. It is just a small success story for me, but it boosted my confidence a lot n especially when the patient gets the result they want, they are satisfied, i am happy too :) i am happy i did my job.. when my patient called me a first rate physiotherapist to be, i denied that, i made mistakes along my way too.. and i rather credit the patient's effort. i believe in a 2 way relationship in which the patient plays a huge part. " successful people dont do different things, they do things different" i guess the statement summaries everything.
then the seniors asked what are our plans for the next 10 years or even 5 years down the road and honestly i didn't know that. i was lost once i got into NYP, my target of studying physio was done and suddenly i didn't know what to do.. haha.. n when i thought of it.. 10 years? there was 1 thing that i was very sure of, i wanted to still be able to practice in this profession. i wanted to see myself still walking patients, doing cardiopulmonary, training patients in outpatient clinics, seeing orthopedic patients, treating stroke patients, transferring patients and rehab-ing them. It's wierd that i see myself in this way, many other would have preferred going up to the managerial posts and something more senior; but i differ.. even hj asks me why i don't want to scale the ladder and seek for something that earns more and has a better title than "senior physiotherapist" or "principal physiotherapist".. my answer was just so simple - i came to do this profession to be able to contact and help as many people that i am able to help, i want to practise until the day when i am really no longer able to practise anymore and it will be in turn for someone to practise the same skills on me. Paper work will make me lose the meaning in this profession.
it's not anything noble, it's not anything special abt me tt makes me want to do it. i am not glorifying myself or my profession, but this is a true, honest statement of an ambition that i had always wanted to fulfil from sec 2, a tender age of 13 then. And at the age of 20, i am living my dream and at the age of 21, i will be proud to graduate as a full fleged physiotherapist. It feels great to be here right here and right now.
for all my friends who have left the course for any reasons at all, i hope you all find what you truly feel is ur calling in your new found passions and feel the same satisfaction that i will feel when i graduate. It's a pity that you have studied so hard and so long to reach where we are now.. only to see our class down sizing all the time, but it's better than dragging your feet where u are..

i was also trying to find some old pictures.. and i happen to chance upon the njc kietsu cd... n i was viewing it and remember the nice times back in njc.. i smiled at the mass dance during our year 1 orientation, smiled at the days that we had in nj, and teared at the ending part when i saw all the familiar faces that i would see in school everyday.. well i guess i found out how to know if you did a good video clip.. that is when you are able to move the viewer to tears. It did and it made me realise that there are tons and tons of memories that i want to keep for my entire life :) those are wonderful, beautiful times that you will keep in your heart forever and stories that i would tell the generation after me and recollect as i grow older. This is part of my life story :) unfortunately, i somehow realised that i am growing old. i hit 20! oh my. it didnt seem tt long ago when i was like 15 or 16 n i thought 20 is a long way and now i am 20. bleah. haha time really does fly.

okie i guess i better go off and check on my dessert. yup i made a trial dessert from the women's weekly magazine. haha. it;s some christmas dessert tt needs refrigeration so yup. at like near 1am i am looking at my dessert and chekcing that it's alright. hope it goes well. update soon! :) bye!

back in singapore and 2007

2007-01-02T23:37:00.000+08:00

dear diary
sorry i haven updated in a long while.. it has been a long long while in fact.. haha
i am now back in singapore.. home sweet home of course.. where i no longer fear that much and have to be on guard at all times :) but of course coming home means it's nearer to the exam times :P and back to school..
the new year has arrived.. it's kind of tough to think that i am 21 this year. fortunately it's another like... 11 months before i reach 21.. time really flies.. haha.. tml i am having my prac exam.. then.. another prac exam but dunno when too.. then it will be the main papers and it will be holiday again and then attachment then holiday then come back to be a new year 3. that's fast and soon enough the next few times i update, i will be graduating.. haha.. okie.. can't imagine that abt 1 year ago, i was still doing my anatomy and physiology.. and waiting to be a year 2..
with a new year.. of course comes with it's resolutions :) and one of them is definitely to maintain my GPA. i wanna get a sponsorship this time. sigh. hence, the grades better stay where they are now at least to prove my worth.. the other resolution is secret ;)
to all my friends, happy new year :) wherever you all are ( whether in another part of this world reading this space, or back in singapore), i wish everyone happiness and that in this new year, may all your wishes come true :)

almost over

2006-12-18T19:54:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
in 4 more days and i will be home in sg again.. there is a lot that has been learnt, a lot of stories to tell my friends and a lot of other things to do like to study for my exams and so on..
i think the 5 weeks of malaysia is quite an experience.. it's fun going shopping during the weekends and all those.. but of course we worked very hard too.. today's presentation was alittle bad- they really arrowed me but somethings that they say i dun really agree n what we learnt is different too but oh well, i am used to it and i shall not refute too.. accept but dun say it out.. haha..
just a short update from KL and i think the next i update i shld be back in sg already.. all ready for xmas and to spend time n enjoy the sights and sounds of my own country and feeling back at home :)
merry christmas to everyone! n have a great year ahead! hehe

cold

2006-11-30T19:54:00.000+08:00

hey..
yup tt's a normal feeling tt i tend to get these few days... the hospital is cold, the rehab dept is cold, the room is cold at times.. the only time tt i really feel warm is when i walk home during the afternoons.. that's if i do walk home abt then..
it's been "so far so good mode" so far... there have been assigned patients who are really nice.. but sometimes i have no idea what the doctor dignoses cos it can be so far off from what we see :P bleah.. haha.. but what to do... oh well, most of the patients are really nice.. just now one of the knee patients tt i was in charge of was going to get discharged and clara n i met him at starbucks during lunch and he wanted to treat us to a drink which we had to refuse.. there was also this lady who wanted to buy us a drink because we were treating her son for his bad posture.. the people are nice :)
but of course this is when we hear the horror stories too.. today i had an torn ACL patient who is a student of monash.. he told us of the story of how he was almost kidnapped at night in this area which was near the hopsital .. and of course another very nice lady who i treated for a muscle strain told me about the 2 incidents of her handbag being snatched in bandar sunway... we got quite frightened of course... but of course knowing this place will not be as safe as it is back home... where i can walk along the streets and never fear that much tt i may run into trouble... a hospital rehab staff lost her hp too yesterday and a lady lost her handphone in starbucks too... fortunately nothing has happened to either of us yet.. even though we do put our bags down to go n get our drinks.. i dun expect to be totally safe too... maybe we will start to take our precautions too liao.. haha
once tml is over.. it will be the weekend again.. and another weekend n another weekend and i will be back in sg. hope all goes well during this period of time.. haha..
okies.. will update another time.. see ya diary..

a week into it

2006-11-26T20:11:00.000+08:00

that's me blogging from sunway medical centre's starbucks... yup.. i only finished 1 week of attachment and i just cant wait to go back. sigh.. i come to appreciate a whole lot of things
1. waitin for the train for 6 mins is not that bad anymore.. it can be worse
2. be thankful that the train/ bus had estimated arrival times
3. be thankful that every bus stop puts the number of the bus that goes there
4. be thankful that we have an online bus guide which u can seach the route by number
5. my country is safe and sound and i'm not afraid to walk home alone at night
6. we have things called ezlink or magnetic tickets ( in the past)
7. i dun have to worry that i might get picked pocket and i dare to hold my wallet in my hand
8. our roads are smooth with few bumps
9. singaporeans tend not to drive through puddles of water and drench pedestrains
10. our excellent health care services back home. i am no longer complaining
11. the people in my life and how much they mean to me
12. how nice the teachers can be in NYP

it can be good that i am here cos
1. the great malaysian sale is coming! clara and i have already decided on what to buy and we are all ready to start shoppin when the sale starts next week.. you should see how happy we were to see the clothes at FOS.. we wanted to buy almost the whole store down.. haha..
2. we get an extra day of holiday because it's the sultan's of selangor's bdae on 11th of december and hence, i get to stay 1 more day in singapore! yeah! haha
3. everything that we see is always divide by 2.. gardenia bread doesn't seem that expensive anymore.. it's only about 90 cents here for an entire loaf..
4. full independence and fun
5. the people here in sunway are nice... especially vimala and the service staff at starbucks who let us use the wireless for however long we want even we only had 1 cup of coffee..

it cannot be counted as a wonderful attachment cos every time i go to work, my head feels like it is going to burst any minute because there is so much to answer and chances are that we are always wrong. sometimes our theories dun really sound sound to them n they conclude that we "dont learn from the books". sometimes it pisses us off, but some patients are really nice.. but we aren't here to do what we really wanted to do - send me back to the PT clinic back in singapore anytime. i will even be willing to open the clinic every single day.. haha.
i am surprised at what i saw, i am really stunned by what i dun seem to noe.. part of me already starts to wonder if i am even suited for this job.. all the more i am out to prove to them singaporeans are not pushovers. we are not dumb, not going to run back cryin because it is so tough here. we aren't stupid either and we make sure we learn hard and bring back what we know and appreciate a lot more of what we have back at home..
yup.. i gtg liao...take care to everyone i know.. another 4 weeks and i will no longer be back. no more overseas attachment for me in that case but i strive to be better than what i am now, but definitely giving even better care than what i have experienced :)
see ya!

sunway

2006-11-21T13:42:00.000+08:00

hi diary..
i am in starbucks in sunway medical centre, KL now... i have not been able to get internet connection for a while and it's been an up and down road so far...
it's my 2nd day at work today and it's been a really slow paced kind of life here... maybe cos everyone is quite relaxed.. the hospital is considered quite high end when actually when you change it to sgd.. the VIP suite is about 200 a night? not that ex.. it is like our A class in sg? something like tt..
the supervisor is really nice.. the therapists guide us quite a bit and we were grilled on our neuroanatomy.. n really really grilled... to the point that yesterday we felt very demoralised that we didn't know enough to answer the questions and we thought we would just fail the clinicals.. really seriously.. and we weren't able to assess the patient like the way we thought we would be assessing them.. oh well.. the system here is definitely more different than sg and somethings that they learn are quite different from what we learn too...
i dun have internet connection in my hostel which is about 300m away from the hospital because of some adminstative problems.. but i guess my partner and i would be coming over to starbucks for the rest of our attachment if there is a need to communicate back home
it's worth the walking effort and carryin the laptop and battery and the camera and everything else here just to communicate back home..
to my friends.. all is well here :) no worries.. you will be able to see me on the msn soon enough :)
there are a lot of things you learn to appreciate as you leave home.. i enjoy the independence though and the ability to do anything i wan at any time i wan.. but whenever i think of you
my heart breaks and i tear.. sigh..
okie i need to go off soon.. take care everyone... update soon with pictures :)

you were there

2006-11-14T08:24:00.000+08:00

You Were There
I guess you've heard, I guess you know
In time I might have told, but I guess I'm too slow
It's overly romantic but I know that it's real
I hope you don't mind if I say what I feel
It's like I'm in somebody else's dream
This could not be happening to me
But you were there
You were everything I've never seen
You woke me up from this long and empty sleep
I was alone, I opened my eyes
And you were there

Don't be alarmed, no don't be concerned
I don't want to change things, leave them just as they were
I mean nothing's really different
It's me who feel strange
I'm always loss for words when someone mentions your name
I know that I'll get over this for sure
I'm not the type who dreams, there could be more
But you were there
You were everything I've never seen
You woke me up from this long and empty sleep
I was alone, I opened my eyes
And you were there

Can I take your smile home with me
Or the magic in your hair...
The rain had stopped
The storm had passed
Look at all the colors, now the sun's here at last
I supposed that you'll be leaving, but I want you to know
Part of you stays with me, even after you go
Like an actor playin' someone else's scene
This could not be happening to me
But you were there
You were everything I've never seen
You woke me up from this long and empty sleep
I was alone, I opened my eyes
And you were there

week 3

2006-11-04T22:59:00.000+08:00

hey diary
i haven been able to update much especially with my computer always giving me all the stupid pop ups but i am going to reformat it soon and start over with a clean slate and hopefully it will relieve my stress whilst using my laptop.. haha
anyway, it's the end of week 3 already.. the bus to KL and back to Singapore has been booked.. will be gone for 5 weeks.. part of me is very excited but the other part of me is very sad.. whye kiat put it in simple way that reinforced the initial reason why i didnt want to go.. he said that it would be so long away from my family and sisters.. then i told him i wasn't that worried about that.. i have stayed 3 weeks away from singapore before during the YEP trip.. now it's just another 2 weeks.. maybe i will miss them a little.. but the person i noe i will miss most is no other than hj. sigh..
honestly i dun think i can last that long.. í will be away in malaysia on attachment on my birthday itself too.. not that i am not used to celebrating my birthday back at home.. cos usually it will fall during the netball chalet days in secondary school and in jc, i was on OBS course in year 1 after my YEP expedition and in year 2, i was on my flight to korea.. and in my 1st year in poly.. i was studyin on that day and had school.. and only 1 person took a lot of effort to celebrate for me.. i will be coming back in between the attachment.. during 8th to 10 dec to spend the weekend back in sg, partly because i am just too lazy to get the visa to stay in malaysia for the 5 weeks ( cos singaporeans can only stay for max of 4 weeks ) and i really want to come back to see him and spend time with him..
i am excited to be able to practise my skill in another country and getting to see the difference in health care there and back here... dun mistaken.. i will be in a private hospital in KL, sunway, so it wont be that significant a drop in standards that's for sure.. it will be fun too, in a way learn to be indepedent, although i am quite scared because it will only be me and clara over there and we are both about the same size.. haha but i think it will work out fine..
i never packed such a huge bag before.. i am taking the large suitcase with me.. at first i thought i was overdoing it.. then i realised that if i had to pack a bedsheet, a small pillow and also the blanket along with me, and also throw in 2 thick textbooks, i definitely wont have enough space in the smaller luggage.. n not to forget, i have to bring the essentials for a month there.. along with my uniform, sleeping clothes and going out clothes ( when we do go shopping during the weekends! haha ), yup so i have to bring the big luggage... not really used to travelling so heavy but better be more prepared i guess...
but emotionally, i guess i am not that prepared.. maybe because there have been tons n tons of projects to do, homework and research and school, that i have been drowned in it, that i haven really got a chance to really sit down and think.. and now that he is away in sunway ( where i will be in another 2 weeks), it has been a really quiet day and i got the chance to finally realise that i am leaving in 2 weeks n i better start packing now because i know that in week 5 i will be having a prac exam, meaning that i might be busy during the next weekend preparing for it that i wont be able to pack properly.. and i have a presentation to give on week 5 too, not forgetting i have to attend to the patients in the PT clinic and still attend lessons. And... that.. i wont be seeing him for 3 weeks.. sigh.
I guess... Ann if you read this.. or Esther (Lin) too... it must have been really hard on you guys.. really very very hard.. to the rv netballers of my year... if you all do get to read this.. sorry that this year i wont be able to meet up with you guys because i will be away.. and sorry that i haven been able to play with all of u even for your tournaments and friendlies... just that.. sigh. poly and uni really does clashes all the time and as i progress into each higher level, it just gets even more busy.. i noe we have always designated my birthday as the day when we will have our reunion, but if you guys do then have fun k? maybe we will meet up someday again, maybe when li xin gets married.. haha
oh well... i think i shld go n rest and relax a bit... hopefully when the time will quickly pass by and i can see him again cos i miss him now.. see ya diary..

back to school

2006-10-21T21:42:00.000+08:00

so quickly and 7 weeks have passed by and now i am in sem 2 for year 2... sigh n in another about 4 weeks i will be leaving for malaysia for my 5 week attachment.. honestly i cant wait for it to come, and yet i dun want it to come too. it's complicated to explain but oh well nvm..
the first week of sch was really a rush.. haha monday is the worst from 8 to 6pm, tuesdays end at 5 with 3 hours of bernardine's prac class that we were really really quite tired from ( especially for the clock to finally reach 5 pm) wednesdays weren't too bad but it was quite sian to find out that behavioral science was made up of 3 modules and i have 2 projects to try to rush out by week 5 which means 2 projects in 1 month :P i hope i live through the next few weeks and be able to move on to year 3 without dying.. haha
at least cardiopulmonary is a non examinable subject... so that leaves with only MS and Neuro and also behavioral science which fortunately the exam is during term time.. so only 2 papers to sit for. i hope the semester works out. really. with 7 weeks of school and we are trying to rush the syllabus, i can only hope very much that i can absorb as fast as i can too.. haha..
i was thinking back of the holidays that just flew past.. i guess it was fruitful in a way cos i learnt and work and got money at the same time and i spent good time and enjoyed myself too and i managed to review some things before i went back to school.. it was a good holiday which i didnt slack too much, yet i wished i could slack more.. after looking at the timetable.. i think i haven slept my fill during the holidays.. haha
okie.. i guess i have to go already.. see ya diary.. hope i will find time to update more next time
:)

1 week

2006-10-11T11:24:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
just 4 more days to the start of year 2 sem 2.. honestly i am ok with it.. as in... part of me dreads it, while part of me is excited to learn more and know more.. especially with practice in the PT clinic, there has been a lot of thought process and i can see that i have a lot more to go, especially in back and neck which seems really complicated because i just finished a short presentation on the posterior, anterior slings and all the connecting muscles that seem to help with low back pain. Oh well.. it's interesting, yet i am quite sleepy. haha.. after all, i have been waking up at 6.20am almost every morning to go to work and now that i am done with my work, i am happy to be able to laze in bed and wake up late and then take my time to do the things that i seldom have time to do and think of things to do, which incluces reading the whole lot of sem1 stuff before school starts next week ( which i dun think i will be having time and energy and brain space to do -sigh-) and also to start preparing for my 5 week attachment in malaysia.
sigh, i thought it would be a long long time later thing, unfortunately, it's not, after 5 weeks of hectic school, clara and i would have to quickly pack and leave for malaysia and stay there for 5 weeks.. i'm excited at the thought of indepedence and the fun and the thrill of overseas attachment, but i am being held back by the worries for my own safety and also emotional attachments.. i guess it would be the hardest ever to be away from him; now it seems as though jurong and ang mo kio no longer seems that far.. true enough it's a 4 hr ride up or down, but i wonder how to communicate when i am quite worried that we may not have wireless in our room, hopefully there is cable so it will justify me bringing the lap top there.. but the room itself has no pillow or blanket, only the basic ammenties of the mattress along with the table. initially i thought my big black hand carry bag would be sufficient, but looks like it's not.. oh well, i rather think of it later another time, for now, i just want to spend more time with him and just let time pass by. sigh
okies... while i wait for the weather to clear up, i shall just surf the net and look around for things to do, before i head down to citilink to help ann look for something, grab a little few surprises for him and then go for the meeting in sch. busy even though it's my hols.
oh let me graduate soon! haha.. oh well, i am half way qualified.. just hang on for another 1 year plus... see ya diary

bangkok

2006-10-08T20:08:00.000+08:00

bangkok was great! haha it was fun and i had a lot of fun shopping and walking around and exploring the city :) i let the pictures do the talking instead..

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8QYuXDhm0bsK2

1 month into holidays

2006-09-22T19:43:00.000+08:00

1 month into holidays and what have i gotten done? hmm i worked a lot and i did so many things related to PT. i worked for nearly 3 weeks in gleneagles already, earned quite a bit, learnt quite a bit and been pretty overworked and tired.. packed my table that has gone all messy, made all my preparations for my thai trip which we have all planned so very hard for since 4 months ago and then, now the coup happens..
fortunately this time the coup has been endorsed by the thai king, and everything has been quite peaceful so far and hence, we are still going on with our trip.. although i was pretty worried and i tried to call air asia many many times the day after the coup happened and in the end, the air tickets can only be delayed but not cancelled, the hotel wasn't tt bad, but in the end, after evaluating everything, we are still going ahead with the trip :) so much shopping and sight seeing to do! i am going to make sure that it is going to be an interesting trip.. hee hee...
anyway... after working in gleneagles... i guess it wont be a place for me when i do grad, because i think it's too disorganised for my liking and a lot of other matters too.. it's quite an ok place but then.. nah, now that i noe how it works inside, i dun think i wanna go inside anymore.. haha... sometimes i too feel like.. a little... let me explain.. majority of the patients that i meet are very nice, very warm and friendly ( most of them are foreigners ), some simply do give me the opposite feeling and that they are really haughty and stuck up..
let me give an example.. it is a practice for gleneagles to call it's patients to remind and confirm their appointments 1 day before the actual date.. and i got scolded by this patient for calling his home and giving him a reminder, cos i woke him up at 2pm. i understand that you can be a bear when you are woken up, but it is a reminder and for nuts, i believe you can be kinder with your words. there can be so many who can be really nice and wish you a good day and thank you for the reminder and taking the time and effort to call, but it just takes 1 to spoil the image.
another one, a therapist's worst nightmare... the family who is too over protective. refuses to let the therapist do her work, insist that the family knows best, insists that it is impossible to do some things and grabs on to you and translate everything even though the patient already understands. i believe there is something called a self fufilling prophecy. if you believe that you cannot do it, n keep insisting that you should not walk cos you have no strength, you will never ever walk again in this life. some people need to be pushed, some pple need to have someone to make them have a try, that is when they realise that they actually can.. the poor therapist, the family had held on to her arms and refuses to let go and do her work. haha
i do have my share of nice patients.. from germany, amsterdam, UK, US, France, UAE, Japan.. they really are warm and nice and thank me for my help and providing them with so much assistance and really chat with me and make me feel really really good :) oh well... it's okie.. i just remember them and hopefully i will meet them again one day... haha
3 more weeks to the start of school again.. and after 8 weeks i will be heading to malaysia for my attachment already.. i think school will be a whole new different aspect now.. because i come to realise that every single info that i have learnt over the years.... have to be used in real life... n not only that. after practising quite a bit in the physio clinic.. i think i learnt a lot on the handling of real life patients with their problems.. it's fun and at the same time, it is challenging..
maybe i am cut out for such work after all :)

okie.. i have to go already i guess... see ya.. will update another time :) probably after thailand :)
see ya!

a long hiatus

2006-09-10T20:03:00.000+08:00

dear diary
i'm sorry that i haven written in a long while.. i dun really noe why i haven really written in tt long.. i guess because of the BCLS the week before and because i started work at gleneagles already last week.. hence that equates to a busy week and just as busy weeks ahead..i am just glad that PT day is over.. along with it's messiness, the things that we had to do last min, the rushing around, the arguement with the SPA council or rather it's treasurer alone abt the budget itself which was eventually a very messy thing, the interview with the deputy vice principal for the trip and yup. i hope tt's tt..
my feet are sore, my trapezius are full of knots, i am developing a LBP.. actually i think it will be better classified as thoracic region pain cos it is not really lumbar area i guess.. i am feeling down, which is really bad, many things have happened within this 1 week and i had enough.. i think there is more than enough reason for me to choose never to go back to gleneagles even if i graduate to become a full fledge physiotherapist. i have been on my feet almost all day long, called to do all sorts of things that i thought what TAs aren't really supposed to do, but oh well, if i need the money so just do it n gleneagles has not paid me yet at all. this is really a crap organisation. worst of all, now i am involved in an internal review because a patient got a blister and i was one of the staff involved. at first i did doubt whether it would be my fault, but after thinking through, i dun think it was possible that i cause anything too. oh well, i did check the skin condition and all else. like what lay yen said " if you didnt do anything, don't let anyone accuse you of doing anything"; although i think the most ideal is to blame it on the rehab dept and more easily on me, because it has only been like my 4th time at work then, but given my experience as a student and even now, with my own knowledge, it is impossible for me to go anything wrong, or i will have at least 30 people coming after me for burns to their skin. oh well, let's see how it goes tml then..
as we celebrate physiotherapy day, i come to ask myself why on earth i chose the profession.. haha geetha said the same thing too... she said that year 2 will be the time u will question yourself why you chose this profession and why you came here in the first place.. but oh well... never mind.. i dun really wish to think so much..
i know that i am feeling down, but i dunno where to really start from to talk abt.. confused a little inside.. but oh well, hopefully it sorts out soon enough..
okie i have to go already.. sorry... update another time.. hope tml's internal review goes well :)
see ya..

after exams

2006-08-28T10:06:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
exams have just ended like 3 days ago.. n it seems like i have managed to get quite a few things done so far.. i cleared up my entire mess of notes which were really jumbled up during the exam period, filed them properly, cleared the table and everything's quite neat now.. i also finished my pt day proposal today and i did bake muffins, i worked in gleneagles on saturday and i spent time with hj which i didnt get to spend much time with cos of school and exams.. there are lots more to do still i think..
i need to reformat this comp which has been irritating me with it's pop ups and wierd stuff and suddenly having a fatal error for the past 1 month.. and i need to level up soon for my maple story character which i haven played in a while.. haha.. n i need to work and earn money and learn how to cook many other dishes.. haha i am thinkin of going to the library later to borrow some books for fun..
i guess i shld just make full super use of the 7 weeks holiday :)
anyway, i just wan to say thanks to yee ann, for being there when i needed her and.. sigh *hugz* i miss u and thanks for being there :)
And for hj, -smiles- thanks for being my constant source of support through all :) it means the entire world to me and yup :)

i heard this song while watching one of the grey's anatomy episodes on youtube...
i think it's pretty sweet and nice so i will put it here..

Shania Twain:When You Kiss Me

This could be it, I think I'm in love
It's love this time
It just seems to fit, I think I'm in love
This love is mine
I can see you with me when I'm older
All my lonely night are finally over
You took the weight of the world off my
shoulders (the world just goes away)
[Chorus:]
Oh, when you kiss me
I know you miss me--
and when you're with me
The world just goes away
The way you hold me
The way you show me that you
adore me--oh, when you kiss me
Oh, yeah
You are the one, I think I'm in love
Life has begun
I can see the two of us together
I know I'm gonna be with you forever
Love couldn't be any better
Oh, when you kiss meI know you miss me--

and when you're with me

The world just goes away

The way you hold me

The way you show me that youadore me--

oh, when you kiss me

Oh, yeah
[Instrumental Solo]
I can see you with me when I'm older
All my lonely nights are finally over
You took the weight of the world off my
shoulders (the world just goes away)
[Repeat Chorus]
And when you kiss me
I know you miss me
Oh, the world just goes away
When you kiss me

okies..signing off here... need to do some checking.. bye.. update another time

study study study

2006-08-22T13:47:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
yep.. the title says it all.. i am having the semestral exams now.. down with 2 and 2 more to go.. with 1 tml and the other the day after.. and sadly these are the really to mug exams :P although i must agree that some aspect of it does more practical thinking than really mugging but then.. oh well.. i am tired of sifting through the thick thick stacks of notes! haha
physiology was fine, although til today i cant figure the area of lesion for the case study patient. everything that i tried to fit in just dun seem right. so i guess my answer was the best that i could think of and yup.. it;s fine with me
CP was okie too although i was quite frightened by the weightage of each mcq question. 2 marks each, so each question was really worth a lot.. when i saw the essay questions, there were only 2.. and i saw the extra writing answer booklet that was on the table.. then i was thinking to myself... are you sure we are going to write that much? the 4 essay questions for physiology only took 1 book... and so.. when the exam did start, i started on my essay questions at about 8.50 am. good timing since my paper had started at 8.30am, so i had more than 1 and half hrs for the essay questions.
when i finished my first question.... it was already 9.30! i was so stunned. it had taken me so long to write the first essay question, well and considering that some were worth like 10 marks and 6 marks and so many many marks, i better write as much as i can... by then i only used 2 pages of the booklet... so i moved on to the next question and guess what.. first part of question worth 4 marks ( phew not too bad) next part was worth 16 marks! and the next two were worth 8 marks each! i had no idea that the long term and short term goals were that important.. so i had to crap my way through.. come up with new ideas and hoping that i am getting the right way.. and as i wrote... i realised why they put a second booklet there, i really had used 4 more pages of the other booklet! i was quite surprised at the amount that i wrote.. i mean of course not comparing it to JC when we had to write the econs paper when it was 3 pages for each question at least or sometimes 4 or 5 pages for me with diagrams but ya.. i think i haven written so much in a long time!
so... today is the day break before the MS n neuroscience papers. sigh. not that i hate MS or NS, but sometimes i wish that it wasn't that broad, like having only lower limb problems this sem instead of combining so many things together. bleah. NS is worse.. it's like kinesiology year 2, must remember all the essential components and sometimes a bit too nonsensy i think. but oh well, so much for saying so much, but i have to study them still.. at least i had quite a bit of motivation today.. i am about to start on common orthopedic surgeries which sadly is one of the longest topics.. the rest have been completed then i guess i have to read through the exercises to prescribe and think through the different structures realted to each pain.. i really really hope spine fractures come out. it's so interestingly standard. 1. maintain clear chest 2. neuro examination daily, then once to twice a week 3. prevent dvt and pressure sores 3. do ROM exercises, cervical can do UL unilaterally without resistance LL can do resistive exercises, thoraxic must check for range do ROM within pain limits for UL, LL can do resisitive, lumbar can do PROM, progress to resisitive when fracture has stabled. 4. stretching and mobolisation of the spine.
i think i was born to be an inpatient physio. to be exact, a CP physio. i like that aspect much better than neuro. maybe cos neuro can be so dry and boring at times.. oh well, i still have to study it...
okie back to the notes... going to take a shower first and take my break at 3 pm for disney channel! hee hee
n i am going malaysia for my attachment. my mum sent me an sms at 4am this morning ( how lame she can be at times i think ) to tell me she doesnt think i shld go. i replied to give me a better reason why i shldn't go and i am not going on a holiday but for my future. if she noes better than me what my future would be like, then she can decide but as far as i noe. she is really terrible at health care aspect, just too ignorant :P i am going unless the reason even more valid that just " singapore's health care system is already the best". if you can provide me an even better chance, then i will give it up. If you can't, then i will decide for myself n i am working for my own chance.

opportunities

2006-08-19T17:22:00.000+08:00

opportunities - defined as :

A favorable or advantageous circumstance or combination of circumstances.
A favorable or suitable occasion or time.
A chance for progress or advancement

for me. it is either point 1 or point 3. i have been given the chance to go overseas to do my attachment for the MS module. although it's only malaysia and KL, but i guess this chance is really rare and it is only given to the top students.. the top 5th to 8th students from the cohort will get to go in year 2.. i was ranked 9th and given the chance because someone else gave up her place... a 5 weeks attachment in sunway medical centre.. that is what awaits me if i go..

when i got the news, the only worry that i had was 5 weeks was little long.. too long for me to be away from someone else.. i did manage to last 4 or 5 weeks the last time with him in australia.. but now our situation is different.. coming back to singapore from KL is of course not a problem... nothing else really made me worry.. of course besides the money and financial thing. although i dun believe than u would be spending 400 sgd each week in malaysia.. and considering it will be 5 day work week for us.. if there was a reason why i dun wan to go, that would be him and no other reason. but he wants me to go. my mum doesn't. let me explain the silly reason why.

1) singapore's medical advancement is better than malaysia.

yes i agree. but if she had realised pt is about human. human work. no machines does our job of suctioning, or carrying out tests, or walking patients or accessing the need to do what type of mobilisation. we may have the best care, but if you never discover how different we are from the other systems, we will never appreciate our own health care system. besides, every therapist is trained differently, we all come from different schools of thoughts. what they are allowed to do there, is so different from what we do here. it's a matter of learning. besides, if i am in singapore, i may be made to sit and stare. just like my previous attachment. total waste of time sitting and staring. if i have the chance to avoid that, of course i would. each country has their best and their worst type of care. i agree that if in the govt hospitals, i would definitely rejected the chance. but this is a private hospital that does not allow foreign doctors to practise or train there. but as a pt student i am invited and allowed to go. hm yes. so this is the only silly reason.

5 weeks is long, but it's deifnitely a chance that will never present itself again. i am sure my GPA will be dropping this sem.. i haven been performing very well in my pracs, especially the neuroscience as well as the last MS prac.. sigh. but the break away from all the nonsense that is happening is good. and the chance to be alone n live with a friend overseas and working.

should i go? yes i hope to go, i do want to go. do i deserve the chance? if i didn't want to, i wouldn't have to work so hard to do well. i think i will go in the end and pay by my own means. it's okie anyway, you never supported my profession n never bothered to have an insight in what i do. like what hj said, it's ok you can say all you want now, but in the end, i will have the last laugh.. i will do all that is within my means with all that i can to prove you wrong.. i have no worries abt leaving this home for 5 weeks, but my only concern is someone else who means the most to me, that;s my only worry

at the beginning

2006-08-06T10:44:00.000+08:00

hey.. sorry i haven written in abt 1 month.. i think... there is just so much so much to do.. with projects, homework, revision, practicals.. whole loads of things to keep doing and doing.. on a good note, this is my last week in sch, which brings an end to all the projects, all the homework and the practicals and hello to the holidays, but on the bad side, i have 4 theory papers that i haven started studying for ( studying much for rather ) because of all the pracs that are going on. sigh the first paper is in 2 weeks! i used to start studying a long time before the main papers come.. but now i am too tired, too burnt out and really too sian to start studying. but no worries, when the time comes, i will feel the pressure and start going all out. just need to get past my practicals first.. of which the results came out both good and bad. sigh. nvm shall not elaborate..
one of my coursemates left the course and officially withdrawn on friday.. in a way i am happy for my friend cos i think there isnt any point in dragging any further especially since he didnt erlike the course.. initially there was a lot of passion, but soon it had become almost to none.. but on the other hand, there is less 1 more guy friend, less 1 more person in our class... n after all, the friendship has already been built up and i have no more 1 friend to go home with in the future.. maybe it had been a tough decision on his side too? after all, we are really halfway into our course and we will officially graduate with 1 more academic year to go, in which most of it is spent in hospital.. but i realised that PT will be a profession that needs a lot of your passion and a lot of interest to pursue.. if you havent had ur heart into it, you will never be a good PT.. oh well, he better come back to show us his accounting degree in the future.. haha.. but all the best to him.. i am sad to see a good classmate go, but then i know that the future would be brighter for him somewhere else...
maybe it's hard to keep up the passion in a way, with all the monotonous studying, all the projects and tiring times and scary times when we have heart attacks while waiting for our pracs and always praying to get the easy questions.. sometimes we wonder why on earth do we do it for...
working as a TA in gleneagles ( i have no idea why on earth i really wanted to go back to help them but the pay is quite good.. 6.50 per hr but i am doing a whole lot of work even though it's 6.50 because of my knowledge as a PT student ) has brought me to realise that... sometimes the real reason why we wanted to do PT has slowly evolved to just the routine of treating patients. when they come, look at the problem and then treat. full stop, i come to realise that a person is no longer a patient when he or she comes in... but someone with like a "defect", that passes through us factory machines, that we attempt to fix.. it's a crazy thought but tt's what i think most physios feel in the end.. oh well..
okie nvm, back to my books and cardiopulmonary! at least it's my interest in PT as well as neuroscience.. okie actually i like all aspects of it, but i think i am more of an inpatient physio than outpatient type ;)
oh yes! happy birthday to my dearest bf :) haha someone's turned 20! but i am still a young 19 and 3/4 of my way to 20.. haha.. i hope ur birthday had been good :)
bye!

busy busy

2006-07-12T15:53:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
haha sorry i haven blogged in a while.. i realised it is almost 1 month since i last wrote anything.. but i have been really so busy with all the practical exams and ICAs that have been coming in week by week and officially in 1 month i should be ( i hope ) completing my year 2 sem 1 and that leaves 10 weeks worth of hospital clinicals and 7 more week of study in school before i move on to year 3. yes tt's scary.. i am going to grad so fast! and *groan* i am working during my birthday period and my birthday itself! sigh... 5 weeks in outpatient and 5 weeks in inpatient.. i hope so much that i get a good hospital this time.. no more gleneagles i hope..
oh well but i am going back to gleneagles to work as a therapy assistant.. good in a sense that i get to practise more and learn more on the job, bad cos the pay is miserly ( 4 bucks an hr is quite little for a rich private hospital ) and i am not keen on seeing my previous supervisor again :P bleah.. but if not for hj's encouragement and the idea of having more training and getting a good resume, i wont be waking up to reach work by 8 am on saturdays and work for 4 hrs and earn 16 bucks per week... i hope that i will be able to get a higher paying job during my hols.. then at least can earn a bit before i go for holiday.. and sadly i think it will be the last "seriously can play " holiday before i graduate... year 3 is going to be such a different story.. and hopefully it isnt as mad as it is now.. projects projects projects and even more projects..
i was trying quite hard to change the language of my blogger... somehow in my internet explorer it is in chinese.. and i had to look for some time before i could really dicepher and finally found the button to change the language back to english.. feels wierd when i read everything in chinese.. and further more it's the traditional chinese characters :P
i read an article abt the doctors unable to speak dialect and oh man, i really cant speak dialect very well, i mean i can understand basic.. but i cant speak it that well, okie.. i can barely speak i admit... n i dun even noe cantonese! ai yoh.... sigh sigh sigh... i think it's really very cham.. if i really work in local hospitals, hopefully i can pick it up fast :P
okie i need to go back to physiology and learning all about the eye and stuff like tt.. sigh. holidays come faster!
and another note : Happy Birthday Whye Kiat! :)

the way i do

2006-06-18T10:19:00.000+08:00

The way i do
your kiss, your smile, your mind
you're sunlight in my eyes
i miss your breath on my neck
when we whisper in the night

didn't wanna want you
didn't wanna need you so bad
didn't wanna wake up
and find that i was falling so fast
didn't wanna need you
didn't wanna need anyone
now look what you've done

now i can't go on without you
i'm naked, i cant fake it.
i'm not that strong without you
never thought i could love you the way i do.

your touch, your skin, can't believe the way you let me in
don't rush tonight, i need you like the ocean needs the tide.

didn't wanna want you
didn't wanna need you so bad
didn't wanna wake up
and find that i was falling so fast
didn't wanna need you
didn't wanna need anyone
now look what you've done

now i can't go on without you
i'm naked, i cant fake it.
i'm not that strong without you
never thought i could love you the way i do.

i always thought i would stand on my own
climb a mountain top all alone
relying, depending on no one
now look at what you've done

now i can't go on without you
i'm naked, i cant fake it.
i'm not that strong without you
never thought i could love you the way i do.

never thought i could love you
never thought i could need you
never thought i could want you
the way i do

never thought i could love you
never thought i could need you
never thought i could want you
the way i do

i love you
i need you
i want you
..the way i do

and so another week has passed by.. it has been a ... funny week i think.. i had no idea how time could pass by so quickly n today is sunday again and i am only left 1 more week of my holidays ( sigh) tt's so fast and next week i have to prepare for my practical exams..after which there is a lot of reading up to do.. catching up on the last 2 months work.. especially physiology.. wah so much so much to read.. still got project meetings.. but at least this is a holiday.. when i have at least a day to slack around at home and do nothing at all and play maple story ( yes! i am level 40 finally! haha) or do things that i seldome get to do.. and watch world cup.. haha..
yesterday i went for a bbq at his aunt's house and wah there were really a lot of people.. i didnt make enough meat balls so they were finished before the bbq started.. next time i shall make more then.. haha.. opps.. but finally the recipe worked out... i changed the sequence of putting everything in and decided to marinate the pork this time contrary to the recipe.. but i think in the end the sequence didnt really matter and i think i accidentaly put too much soy sauce to marinate the meat first and finally the meat ball is round! and i took hj's idea of frying it ( okie.. now i am willing to admit that it is his idea and also another friend of mine ) before baking it to keep the shape.. although i tried to put more meat on the outside so that we are not frying the cheese instead.. and can keep the cheese inside to melt then will taste nicer.. haha.. oh well, but i am glad that it all worked out fine :)
the bbq was fun.. i got to interact a lot more with his family.. extended family.. got to noe everyone better.. haha.. n we watched soccer together.. quite cool to get to watch in a big crowd.. then i will not be bored lying on the sofa by myself and fighting to keep my eyes open.. although i am not very fanatic abt football but i can appreciate the game and good players.. haha.. but it was a nice night last night and definitely an enjoyable time :) hehe.. ok shall make more meatballs for him next time.. he was eating so many of them tt i had to stop him..
other than tt.. life's great.. haha i think i need to go shopping one of these days just for fun because i haven shopped madly yet during the GSS to get the stuff that i need..
okie.. gtg liao.. see ya diary :)

the way i do

2006-06-04T10:03:00.000+08:00

dear diary
another week has passed once again... this week has been totally tiring and at times really unbearable too.. sigh... hmm it's not unbearable unbearable that kind but i cant explain it too in a sense...
i didnt get any speeding tickets ( phew ) and yes junlin, i am going to be much more careful on the roads nowadays, especially since the tucson doesnt feel as fast as it is going but i will definitely be watching the speed meter more often now.. haha..
tuesday was really a day of.. argh.. fustrations.. i guess i did have a bit too much of people questioning my knowledge when i really wanted to tell them to leave it be and sometimes it's good to leave things as they are and accept what is given ( although at times i think it may be wrong too ) but too much questioning can be irritating.. and i am no expert in anything so asking me everything isnt exactly a good choice too.. the hospital visit to see the stroke patient was really even more fustrating.. all of us weren't expecting what to do and what to say and what was required of us.. we only knew that we were going to see a stroke patient and it had been really messy at first and we were doing things really jumbled up and so messily.. the patient had slurred speech and could only speak chinese and cantonese. i was supposed to record everything down but i had no idea wat was being tested, what was the patient even saying, when i wanted to get things in order and asked subjective questions, the first question according to the list was about caregiver and the patient started crying. sigh. i didnt noe wat to do and it was really irritating.. it's tough enough that the rest of them had patients who spoke english and spoke without slurred speech, now this and i was really tired and i didnt noe wat was the rest doing even.. sigh, i felt that i really failed and i didnt noe wat to do with the patient at all, at a point of time, i just wanted to throw into the towel and walk away so super fustrated.. maybe i lacked the patience but i think it was easier working alone and knowing what you want to do with the patient already rather than have so many people mess up the entire procedure :P bleah. i dunno. and so much work and projects suddenly thrown on to us.. we just only managed to complete 2 projects recently and 3 more have been thrown at us again.. i wish they knew how little time to rest and practise we have..
wednesday was even worse. the stupid communications teacher said she was disappointed in us and that we didnt fulfil much of her expectations. in the first place, she shld have been listening to us when we were presenting. after which, she could have been less rude to interupt and say that we have very little time left for the presentation and do the main points, like for nuts, everything is important and if your students made the effort to do everything properly and well and want to present, then all the more shouldnt you listen? after being so rude, you tell us that you are disappointed and think that the other pt group did better and since when should you be comparing both groups and who are u to judge who put in more effort? the worst part is saying that you are disappointed in us, like you refuse to see our effort put in and say that we didnt do well.. like communications is so impt like tt n why do we even bother listening? after all, you failed so terribly in communicating with us.. argh. whatever. i hate teachers who are like that, think that they are so high and mighty and biased and nothing in them and pretend to make people like you when you yourself is so fake. bleah
i dunno, but the feeling of wondering why on earth am i doing this course for is coming back again... many people tell me that it is a good course and you will be helping so many people, but do people appreciate it in the end? i think in the end, we will be treated like dirt, maids and everything else but normal people.. we are made and forced to understand them and give in to their demands, but who will understand ours and what we hope to achieve? who will know how much we have to spend on each patient and to give a proper hoslitic treatment is so tough? people throw tantrums at you, people cry in front of you, it can be the worst day ever for you and yet you still have to smile and comfort people when you are screaming and tearing yourself apart inside... learning about how the brain works, cardiopulmonary conditions and treating them and musculoskeletal work is very fun.. or knowing that you can make a difference to people's lives is noble, but who knows how much that we have to go through in school, sometimes i think i shld have just become a doctor, because what i learn is nothing less than a doctor, my medical knowledge may be about the same, maybe lesser, i use everything else that a doctor uses, stetoscope, tendon tapper, just that i dun insert IV drips or hold a scapel in my hand to perform operations.. oh well, sometimes i think it's just a passing phase when i feel such disappointment in myself and i wonder if there is a better way out and as each day passes, i feel as if it is only a wrong decision that i made and i shld have just found my way to uni to lead a normal uni life instead of poly where i made my own life "difficult", sometimes i worry that i myself have really made the wrong decision... i dunno too. sigh.
i think i need the two weeks break. fortunately, that's coming in 5 more days. pls come faster. unfortunately, there will be more projects to do during the 2 weeks break, so what kind of break is that? none. hope this sem ends even faster.. i just can't wait. sigh
okie.. i have to go already.. see ya diary.. bye

another week

2006-05-28T15:17:00.000+08:00

dear diary..
another busy week.. as usual.. just that 1 debate has finally passed.. so down with 1 ICA, another video presentation next week which will be communications ICA, n on week 8 next next week, it will be MS and CP prac tests.. which i m ok for.. i think..
i am just worried that i will forget what to ask for CP because there are so many things to ask at a go and there is only 10 mins and ai yoh.. still have to objective assessment.. MS.. i have practised finish my taping and after which, i have transfers which i haven done with my own patient yet and walking aids which i think is more or less okie.. just need to remember wat are the angles of the arms when using the walking aids then still need to watch for the distance between crutches and using which hands to get up from the plinth and how to go up stairs and sit down... as for the tests for hip and knee i haven really started.. i think next week i will stay back in sch to do that specially then.. sigh.. hope it will all be done fast and then holidays will come! haha got 2 weeks holiday i must make sure i get enough rest n play enough n review everything.. cos when we come back it will be a mad rush and then the sems and i am in year 2 sem 2 without realising it. that's so fast. sigh just let the holidays come faster pls?!
hmmm... i watched Xmen already.. it is a nice movie i think.. hee hee.. the sweetest part is that he specially went down to the cathay to book the tickets for the show 5 days before the show.. got us good seats in the last row and in the centre too.. thank u for all the nice nice things that u have done for me..hee hee.. u noe wat i mean ;) thanks for everything really :) u r the best!
okie.. now tt GSS has started.. i only hope that i dun get fined for speeding that day ( which was precisely i didnt want to drive anyone to yishun that day.. because the cost of petrol is high) and eventually it was just too rude if you reject anyone who knows u got the car just that u dun feel like driving, so i drove.. now the cost might be higher cos i might have been caught by a mobile temporary speed cam set up at lentor ave. sigh. it's quite crap cos it will be 150 bucks n 4 or 6 demerit points.. it;s not abt the points because i have abt 1 more month to the end of my probation and so, just dun drive for tt month n i will be okie.. but it's the 150 bucks! it;s the GSS period of time n i wanna go out and shop a lot.. sigh.. so far i haven received any notice .. n i checked online for any fines for the car plate number.. but so far there is none.. but have to wait til tml to confirm that i dun have any fines at all.. because it may be because they dun work on saturdays ( which is the 3rd day from my offence date ), so the information may only be put in on monday.. so just hope hard and pray hard. and yes i dun think i will let anyone know that i have the car anymore when i drive to sch unless i am driving home.. i think i am just unlucky.. sigh..
after all, no one sticks of the 50 km/hr rule on normal roads right? unless u are a learner driver.. then i am sure u dun go up to 80 or 90 km/hr on the normal roads too... sigh it's just plain unlucky if i do get caught... sigh..
okie.. i think i rested enough.. i shld go back to MS.. sigh... see ya diary