what i did instead of studying

Such a beautiful Saturday.. perfect for being stuck at your study table with mountains of books and lecture notes, mugging like your life depended on it.

Me? I was catching rabbits.

Really. Yeah =P. Never said i was a typical med student, did i?

Haha seriously.. actually i was on my way to Carrefour for some groceries shopping when i saw 2 rabbits jumping by the roadside (near the Komanwel Park). "Cute", i thought. "Funny", i thought next. "Irresponsible", came to my mind last. Yeah, there shouldn't be rabbits by the roadside.

Further up the road i saw a box with rabbit food inside. Doesn't take more to recognise it. Someone decided to abandon the rabbits there =/. Sigh.

Thought i might want to rear them. Or find someone who would like to rear them. Instead of them invading the Komanwel Park and start proliferating faster than a squamous cell carcinoma of the lung (lol. sorry can't help it. was studying that last ma). Or stain the road with their blood and guts =S.

There were 3 of them actually.. but i only managed to catch 2 of them and kept them inside a box. Probably will go back there tomorrow for the third one.

Just a few hours after i brought them home, and they've already shat a tonne. Ugh. And when their 'home' is overflowing with shit, they decided to jump out of the box and shat all over my backyard too. I'm this close to treating my friends to rabbit stew for dinner. But i'm a nice person.. =P (no rabbit stew for you)

i call the left one Dirty. i call the right one Shitty.

Meanwhile i was caring for Merv's (aka Mario) turtles too. They were his birthday present couple of months ago. After almost a week of observing them, i can finally map out their everyday routine without error.

Wake up. Eat. Shit. Eat. Shit. Eat. Shit. Eat Shit. Sleep.

tutu and hippo. i dunno which is who tho.

Yawn. I need to study now. Post one last pic which i find so extremely cute. Hehe. I was washing the turtle's home and had to put them into a bowl temporarily. Then i saw this.

"i don't want to be turtle stew! get me out of here!"

Bet you never knew turtles were this smart, doncha?

ps - rabbits shat again. sigh. rabbit foot for luck, anyone? buy two free one?

ok i'm bored

Apparently i looked like Hidetoshi Nakata!

Err.. ok.. i don't see the similarities at all -.-"

Get back to studying ppl! EoS in less than 2 weeks! Gahhhh!!

ps - merry christmas to everyone!

From the Pau Snowman by Yih Seong & Chia Huan

a morbid post

Just got back from our rotations in KKB yesterday. We didn't do much, just clerked patients and learned physical examination. Yet.. i learned so much.

How behind every patient there's a long story to tell.

A lady with fever. She was diagnosed with dengue earlier but she has pretty much recovered fully by the time we clerk her. Halfway thru, i saw her kids peeping into the ward from outside. No doubt why she's so cheerful that day =)

A guy complaining of abdominal pains. He came into the outpatient department and we chatted with him because we did GI this sem. Apparently he's been bearing with the pain for 3 whole years, and it's because the pain has gotten worse recently that he came to see the doctor. He talked bout his work, his living with his parents, his family. He lost his work because of technological advancements and became a rubber tapper. He couldn't work with the pain these days so he's staying with his parents, who keeps nagging him. He has to take care of two children all by himself because his wife passed away 2 years ago from breast cancer. And i can clearly see the pain he's experiencing isn't the pain in the abdomen. The tears in his eyes isn't due to that persistent abdominal pain. It's how life has been treating him so unfairly.

A man who had been coughing for the last half year. Working in the printing industry. He had seen 3 doctors before being admitted. The first auscultated him and said it was just cough and gave him cough medicine and antibiotics. The second asked a few questions and prescribed him cough medicine again straight away, without doing any examination. It's only the third that heard something on auscultation and advised him to have an X-ray scan, which ultimately lead to the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. He was in the isolation ward, and he told us bout how prison-like he's feeling. And then the other patients in the isolation ward he met.

One was an old man with TB as well, who passed away during lunchtime. He was asking the old man to eat after seeing the old man keeping quiet and not touching his food. 20 minutes later, he's just gone. The second was another patient who came into the isolation ward and didn't even survive 12 hours. He didn't get a chance to talk to him.

And all the while he talked bout the 2 patients, he pointed to their beds. Reflexively, i turned to look at where he pointed and saw the empty beds. The beds had been neatly made, with the blanket covering them. And i wonder for how many patients, those beds had been their last lying place.

A young man, just a year older than us. Lying on the autopsy table. He killed himself by drinking some poison. His mom smelled something when he came home and asked whether he's ok. He dismissed his mom and went up to his room. One last cry for mom and he collapsed. He never made it to the hospital.

But most of all.. i learned how fragile life really is, and how so many of us never realised it until it's too late.

Recently i found out two friends of friends passed away. I don't really know them of course, but still.. i can't help but feel the tinge. I looked up their friendster profiles. Their faces i'd never see in real life. Their personality i'd never get to know. Their stories i'd never hear.

I read the stuff they wrote about themselves. The testimonials their friends wrote for them. The things they like, the dreams they had, the path they walked.

If only there's another way i can get to know them more.

I thought bout how many people die each day. How each death affects more than one person. I thought bout how if you looked at each stranger's face that passes you by everyday, you might not see one of them anymore the next morning.

And you will never get to hear their life stories first hand.

You know..

.. that you're in BIG trouble when you have a lil more than 4 weeks to study a whole year of lectures.

So GI paper was over last Friday. Checking back my answers during the 'feedback' (more like answer-giving session), i can't be more sure of it.

I seriously need some divine intervention to score an A in EOS3.

Or i could study much much HARDER. But hey, it's human nature to want the easy way out =P. Too bad the 'easiest' way out now is to study like mad. More like the ONLY way out. What fun life we have.

Guess i better buck up lots.

Anyway.. just had a series of birthday the past few weeks.. so here goes. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to NG WEI LIANG, CHUI HAN, WINNIE, CHEE MEI, PAUL KONG and CHIA HUAN! It's been great fun having you guys as 'family' .. made the 1.5 years in uni so memorable =). Hope all of your wishes come true!

Lastly to everyone, study hard and good luck for EoS.. we WILL survive. =)

ps on a sadder note.. juz heard our friend Rubin Tan (from EC) passed away on Tuesday due to problems during kidney transplant. Not so sure bout the details tho. May not really know him, but still i hope he finds peace in wherever he is now. *sobs*.