What The F*CK?!

Just Another Meme

2007-12-02T06:42:00.000+05:30

Listening to: Rule the World, Take That; Because of You, Ne-Yo; How Do I Say?, Usher; Supernatural, Wild Orchid; One Night, The Corrs; Dirty Diana, Michael Jackson; King of Sorrow, Sade; 咖啡 Ka Fei, Jacky Cheung Hok Yau 張學友; Just One Breath, Dévics; It's Too Late, Genai; Nobody Knows, Tony Rich Project; Jet Lag, Joss Stone; Isabella, Search; 紅豆 (红豆) Hong Dou, Faye Wong 王菲; When I Need You, Celine Dion; 情誡 Cheng Kai, Faye Wong 王菲; Heaven Knows, Melinda Doolittle; Baby-baby-baby, TLC; Island in the Sun, Weezer; Love for Sale, Simply Red

For some reason, the miss with the misplaced sushi in her fruit basket decided that it would be great fun to tag a person who hasn't blogged in little under a year with a meme.

:p

__________________________________________________

The Rules

Link to your tagger and post these rules.
List eight random facts about yourself.
Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.

1. I'm finally getting baptised in the Roman Catholic Church this coming Easter.
If you've known me since Secondary School, you will also have known that I've been working towards this for a very, very, very long time; and through the Grace of the Lord above, this Easter I will receive my First Communion!

2. I think I'm addicted to Facebook.

Let me demonstrate (it would help if you have some psychology / psychiatry background; or you could just read about the CAGE Questionnaire for alcohol abuse):

Have you ever felt you needed to Cut down on your time on Facebook?Hmm... considering that I could be reading up on electrocardiogrammes at night or completing my ridiculous procedure logbook... ya, I think I could spend less time on that confounded social networking webpage...
Have people Annoyed you by criticising the time you've spent on Facebook? No... but I do get shy when people comment about it on my Wall...
Have you ever felt Guilty about spending time on Facebook? Yes! All the time! Medical students aren't supposed to do anything other than study and spend time in the hospital wards, you know...
Have you ever felt you needed to check your Facebook account first thing in the morning (Eye-opener) to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover? Yes! Yes! Yes! Just before I go to class - I brush my TV looking at my reflection in my glossy monitor screen!

So, what do you think? Do I have a problem? :-D

3. I'm REALLY not a confrontational person by nature.
I know, there was a time, not so long ago (and the Primary and High School people will agree), that I was the last person you'd want to piss off - the repercussions were close to the unthinkable. When they wrote that line about Hell (having) no fury like a woman scorn, they were obviously expecting my coming into being.
But I guess in preparation for my Baptism, I've been attending Mass and my Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) classes rather regularly, as well as reading and reflecting on my Bible very regularly. And I sincerely and honestly feel, that the moment you start reading God's Word, you start your journey on the path of change. By no means am I perfect, but I am working towards it.
I'm learning to forgive.
I'm learning not to judge, but to understand the circumstances that surround each person's actions. I'm learning not to cast the first stone.
More importantly, I'm learning to walk away more often from fights these days. It's enough to have just one fool in a fight. And so much bloodshed could have been avoided in the world if people would just learn how to walk away. I mean, no where in the New Testament were the Israelites encouraged to rise against the Roman Empire, were they?

4. I love instant noodles.
I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every single day, if not for the fact that I'm quite afraid of waking up bald one day; or even worse, ending up on a surgeon's operating table to relieve the acute intestinal obstruction brought about by all the wax from the noodles accumulated in my gastrointestinal tract. It may be an urban legend, but considering that I actually know what can go wrong in our country's operating theatres, I'll give it a pass.
But I honestly believe that instant noodles are Asia's best contribution to mankind.

5. I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States.

Never believe that just because you're not American, you don't have to be bothered about the country's leadership. You don't have the right to vote, yes, but it doesn't mean that you can't go around influencing all your friends who can. :)
Because what the self-proclaimed superpower does, is everybody's concern.
Look what happened during this administration!

6. My favourite perfume is still Obsession by Calvin Klein.
The scent has got to be at least a decade old, but I still use it, and I still restock when I run out of it.
Anyone can pull off flowers, and even more people can pull off oranges and lemons;
but very few people can pull off a scent as musky and heady as this, and not knock out an entire room in the process.

7. I'm still a cat lover, although I own a dog.
In fact, one of the reasons why I love Vico so much is because she's an atypical dog.
She doesn't need to spend every waking moment beside you, wagging her tail, tripping all over your footsteps; though she does get a tad bored when I leave her at home for extended periods of time, and she takes it out on my garden.
She gives me my space, and I give her hers.
I could never, and still can't understand the constant need for attention that most other dogs require.

8. I want to marry the man that I'm with right now.
Though we may not have the most exciting of relationships, we're pretty boring together, watching television, taking long walks in shopping malls, stuff like that;
but we have one goal and one focus in mind.
God.
And with that common focus, everything else we have will fall into place.

__________________________________________________

I'm done.

And I'm tagging:
Ajua
April
The Brat
Jerry
Pedro
Sandee
Shiau Lee
Vincent the Great

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Goong 궁

2007-03-25T17:03:00.000+05:30

From the soundtrack to Goong 궁: "앵무새", 하울 Howl; "Perhaps Love ♡ (사랑인가요)", 하울 Howl & J; "내가 선택한 길이야!"; "두번째 달", 2nd Moon; "당신은…나는 바보입니다 (Acoustic)", Stay; "궁 (Piano)"; "꽃잎이 내린다"; "Crystal Flower"; "궁"; "A Dancing Teddy"; "닿지 못한 마음"

I DID IT!
I FINALLY DID IT!

I finished ALL 24 episodes of Goong 궁 a.k.a. Princess Hours in ONE sitting!
(@.@")

I just HAD to do it!
It was getting unhealthy!
I started to refuse all invitations that would keep me away from a television at 2030 hrs!

It's still playing weekdays at 2030 hrs on 8tv!

I don't normally watch Korean dramas, though.
My first dip into the pool was with unnecessarily melodramatic 겨울연가 Winter Sonata and cruelly tragic 가을동화 Autumn in My Heart.
Convinced that all Korean scripwriters were a bunch of sadists and that the South Korean actresses all suffer from incurable chronic cases of epiphora, I swore off all of them.

And even though both the matriachs in my family were sucked into the Korean wave, I held my ground unwaveringly.
At last count my Mother and grandmother own at least five copies of 대장금 Jewel in the Palace - a series which I still refuse to watch despite my Mother's shameless pimping of the show - between them!

But exceptions had to be made for Goong 궁:
Daphne and I were bored silly in the house during our 2 week long study break;
and the timing was such that we could schedule our dinner (and later, our lives) around the tv!

What began as a curious interest slowly transformed into a monstruous obsession.
Everyday, punctually, at 2030 hrs, we (or Daphne at least - I'd stroll into the living room at 2100, forcing her to recount the previous 1/2 hour during the advertisements) would find ourselves planted solid in front of the idiot box, worshipping every flickering moment of the show.

We followed faithfully, the transformation of 신채경 Shin Chae Kyeong into an annoyingly uncouth troublemaker, into a semi-graceful princess, pathetically love-sick for her ice-cold prince, 이신 Lee Shin.
We boo-ed the glassy ballerina, 민효린 Min Hyo Rin, as she plotted and schemed to win Shin back into her devious heart.
And we drooled over 김정훈 Kim Jeong Hoon, who plays the outcasted prince 이율 Lee Yool, and cheered him on in his (initial - before he turned into a whiny crying brat) efforts to snatch Chae Kyeong from Shin.
(Although, from episode 15 onwards, I started paying more attention to the very hot model that plays Shin, 주지훈 Joo Ji Hoon. *drool*)

Now, excuse me if I wipe the saliva off Zeta...

...see what I mean?

Rule of Twelve

2007-03-20T06:16:00.000+05:30

It takes 12 hours from the time of death for full rigor mortis to set it.
Coincidentally, in Buddhism, it takes 12 hours for the human soul to leave the body completely.

My Grandmother passed away last Thursday,
God rest her soul.

Why I FINALLY paid RM 459 for THE pair of jeans

2007-03-10T22:45:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)", John Legend; "Where Did My Baby Go", John Legend; "Ordinary People", John Legend; "Used to Love U", John Legend; "I've Been Waiting on You", Miri Ben-Ari feat. Consequence & John Legend; "Another Again", John Legend; "She Don't Have to Know", John Legend; "Stay With You", John Legend; "I Can Change", John Legend feat. Snoop Dogg; "So High", John Legend
I worship the musical genius that is John Legend.
Not since Maxwell has the genre of R&B heard music that is as smooth and mellow as his.
(The Comrade may argue by bringing up Usher - but we all know how I feel about him now, don't we?)

If I were to have to name just one grouse (among twenty others that I can name at the drop of a hat) about the retail industry in Malaysia, it would be this:

Shop assistants are quick to dismiss customers that are not decked to the nines as poor people;
and therefore, not worthy of their attention.

And as my idea of retail therapy involves throwing on a Tare Panda baby-T; a pair of yoga pants; and RM 3.99 Japanese slippers; while carrying my wallet, handphone and car keys in an unglamorous McDonald's / KFC plastic bag; I am a frequent sufferer of this grave malady inflicting our shop assistants nationwide.

Take for example, when I was contemplating on whether an RM 459 pair of Levi's Lady Style Jeans were worth getting my head unceremoniously snapped off by my mother.

I'd been eyeing at the jeans for the past six months already, ever since I'd tried them on in the Levi's Flagship Store in Orchard Road:
the perfect shade of blue;
capable of making my typically Chinese non-existant arse look like Madhuri Dixit's (ok, maybe a lil' exaggeration there);
and crystallised with Swarovski, damn it!

If only it didn't cost RM 459. :(

And when they finally reached Malaysian shores (a good four months later), I found myself trying them on in the Dataran Pahlawan and Mahkota Parade outlets every week or so.
Most of these visits were impromptu trips to the mall: usually after an exam (and considering that we sat for six of them in the course of that two weeks...);
so as usual, I wasn't dressed to kill.

In Mahkota Parade, the shop assistants would stop mid-chatter, size me up, figure that I couldn't possibly afford any of the clothes on sale, and huddle back over the counter to resume their gossip extravaganza.
I'd be left perusing the denim wares on my own;
and when I walked over to the counter to ask for my size, the shop assistants would delegate the task among one another, finally deciding on one scapegoat, before half-heartedly trudging over to do the duty. There was even one occasion where I had to search for my size on my own.
Needless to say, when I finally left the shop empty handed, they weren't the least bit happy - and they made no attempt to hide their disappointment: you know that glare shop assistants give you when you don't buy anything from their shop?
Shame... shame they have brought to the House of Levi's.

On the other hand, in Dataran Pahlawan right across the street, the treatment I received was worlds apart.
Irregardless of how I appeared that day, I was waited upon and treated like a customer the moment I entered those doors.
I was given different options of jeans to try on: different styles, different sizes, and different colours;
as well as comments on how each different pair of jeans complemented or accentuated different parts of my body waist below.
Even the store manager joined in the fun, giving me brief history lessons about Levis Strauss & Co. on each visit.
And for each time that I walked out empty handed, I was still ushered out with the warmest of smiles and faces.
I didn't care what was said behind my back; the whole idea of the service and retail industry is to put up a good front.

And when I finally got those pair of jeans two days before Chinese New Year, I purchased them from Dataran Pahlawan.

It makes me recall a scene from the movie Pretty Woman:
when Julia Roberts' character was handed a thick wad full of cold hard cash from Richard Gere to buy a nice dress,
only to be chased out from an upscale Beverly Hills boutique because they didn't think she was classy enough.

Sure, I'm not loaded.
I can't afford to shop from any brand that has models walking on a runway.

I don't buy items of clothing often; ever since I returned from Manipal, I can count the number of clothes I've bought on two hands.

But I'm not your typical bargain shopper either.
I won't wait until the Great Malaysian Sale begins to rumage through bins of apparel priced at 50% off.
Frankly, I couldn't be bothered; not because I'm a snob, but because they've run out of my size by then.

And also because I know what looks good on me / what makes me look good; and I won't hesitate to buy it if the price is reasonable.
I've been known to spend RM 145 on a pinstriped skirt that hugged the curves of my tush ever-so-suggestively;
or close to RM 400 for a richly embroidered maroon lehengga for my last Annual Night in Manipal.
The only thing that keeps me from finally forking out the cash or signing the bill, is that smug bubblegum-chewing salesgirl behind the counter that thinks I'm not good enough to buy / wear their clothes.

You can't have a rich Datin or tai tai walk into your shop and sweep everything off the shelves.
You depend on regular girls like me to make sure that clothes keep moving off your racks and not into your bargain bins.

Maggie's lobster is NOT your dinner!

2007-03-03T20:57:00.000+05:30

I bought a blue lobster on an impulse today.

I bought a blue lobster and a neon blue dwarf gaurami (as his tank mate) on an impulse today.

So say hello to Set

Ooo... lights... pretty...

and Amon-Ra.

I am NOT your dinner, damnit!
A ferocious eater with a voracious appetite.

In case you're wondering, I can't complete the family tree because:
my Sentra has been christened Osiris;
my modem is Anubis;
and I just helped name The Captain's imaginary Persian Isis.

On another note, I think Atlas is having an epileptic fit.
He experiences episodes where he goes rolling around the tank (like a dog when you ask him to roll over, but Atlas does it 50 times in succession), knocking into anything and anyone in his way.
And then he stops, swims around off balanced for a minute or so, and then goes about his normal self around the aquarium.
I've tried Googling for a possible cause, but I can't find anything.

Oh... American Idols for the girls is starting! I need to study for Monday's paper!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Something Fishy

2007-03-01T16:32:00.000+05:30

Humming to: Cosy in the Rocket, Psapp; My Immortal (Acoustic), Evanescence; Good Enough, Evanescence; Miles to Go (Before I Sleep), Celine Dion; Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of, U2; For the Love of You, Jordan Hill; Walkin' on the Sun, Smash Mouth; (Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away, Andy Gibb; Don't Cha, Pussycat Dolls; Jupiter, Jewel; WINGS, Utada Hikaru 宇多田ヒカル; Unforgettable, Nat King Cole; 一拍两散 Yat Pak Leung San, Joey Yung Cho Yee 容祖兒; A Love That Will Last, Reneé Olstead; Too Much, S.H.E.; Besame Mucho, Laura Fygi; Come on Closer, Jem; Androgyny; Garbage; 歡樂今宵 Fun Lok Kum Siew, Leo Ku Kui Kei 古巨基; Fly Away, Michael Jackson; The Way I Am, Ingrid Michaelson; If I Fell, The Beatles; Illegal; Shakira feat. Carlos Santana; Grease, Frankie Valli

I am bored;
so I will blog.
I will blog about my fish. :p

Tartarus

Named after the deepest of Ancient Greecian Hell, where the most sinister are condemned, this 30-gallon tank houses 10 goldfish and 1 Otocinclus sp. catfish.

This is Hades, the Black Moor of Tartarus.

When they first moved in, he was bullying everyone into order: chasing them away, nipping at their tails - I almost returned him to the shop.
He's much better now, though. Minds his own business.

Due to his budging eyes, he can't really see floating food pellets properly, and in the beginning, he used to go hungry because by the time he knew where to go to look for the food, it would be gobbled up by the Nefarious Gang of Five!
I solved the problem with sinking food pellets. :)

This is Demeter.

She's a Pearlscale goldie with very unique colouring:
one half of her body has a red-coloured head - very normal, no?;
but the other half... the other half is completely snow white. That, coupled with jet black eyes with the red fundal glow visible at certain angles, makes her a sight to behold. :)

I initially had a very feng shui set up in Tartarus: 8 gold goldies + 1 black goldie.
And then I saw Demeter. She looked so pretty, I just had to get her!

And here is Persephone.

An Oranda with a sub-goldfish level of intelligence.
She used to swim into the air pump to hide whenever I turned the lights on, getting herself stuck there. She's not afraid of the lights anymore.

Some of the members of the Nefarious Gang of Five.

There's really nothing nefarious about them - they're really lovable Fantails, actually. I just needed to keep up with the whole deepest depths of hell thingy.
When I stick my had in to scrub the house clean, they actuallt come up to my fingers and attempt to nibble on them. :p

Globus pallidus (R) and Globus hystericus (L)

Bubbly Pearlscale goldies.
Thanks to their disproportioned body build (balloon bodies with tiny fins), they look like they're wobbling more than swimming!

And the last (and newest) inhabitant of the tank: Cerberus!

An Otocinclus sp. catfish, he's a real scardy catfish!
He's supposed to be helping me eat up the algae in the tank, but he ends up hiding behind the air pump half the time!

I had a Chinese Algae Eater before this; but he enjoyed sucking my goldies' mucous coat more than the algae in the tank.
Globus hystericus lost some scales thanks to him!
He's now in Kwong Yan's koi pond, getting harassed by the bigger Plecos! Haha!

Mnemosyne

The experimental tank community tank.
It was initially set up to house 10 male guppies - only 2 are left. :p

It's currently over crowded with a school of cardinal, neon, albino, black tetras, and stupid harlequin rasboras; two male guppies that are at constant loggerheads with one another; two corys; one lonely glass catfish; one scardy-otocinclus-cat; four flourescent fish whose names I never found out; and two glass shrimp...

The sole survivors: Zeus (foreground) and Gaia (background)!
(For the record, Guppies are not very hardy fish - don't try cycling a tank with them first.)

Neon tetras & a cardinal tetra caught in between a school of harlequin rasboras.

Pregnant Neon Tetra? No?

An Albino Tetra in the foreground with a very lazy Atlas in the background.

Atlas, the albino Cory Catfish lazing around.

In the foreground is Minos, the Glass Catfish.
He's not that visible because he's transparent. *duh*
I made the mistake of only buying one - they are apparently school fish of 6 or more... *oops*
In the background is Hercules, another Cory Catfish.
He's the more hardworking of the two catfish - always scavenging around for food. Or maybe it's because he's always hungry. :p

One of four fish in Mnemosyne.
I never found out what they were called. :p
But they're very pretty under bright lights!

Louis, the Glass Shrimp.
There's another smaller one called Pierre, but I couldn't find him when I took the picture.
While Louis trots around the aquarium like he owns the place, Pierre's more fond of hiding among the plants.
I guess that's wise of him considering that these shrimps are actually sold as food for bigger fish!
(I thought they looked pretty, so I want to see if I can keep them as pets.)

That's all, I think.

I'm thinking of keeping a lobster and a crab as well... but I'll have to find place for them first...

It's back to the books!

Nargaret Alexandria Yoong

Have I no shame? Have You no shame? And have We All no shame?

2007-02-24T21:11:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Like I Never Loved You At All" Take That; "Patience" Take That; "Beautiful World" Take That; "Wooden Boat" Take That; "Butterfly" Take That; "Shine" Take That
Now, would you believe that: the state of the music that's being made these days is such that I actually find Take That's latest album, Beautiful World, good!
Which is saying a lot considering that I never cared much for their music at the height of their fame!

KEPERCAYAAN KEPADA TUHAN (translated: BELIEF IN GOD).
That's the first of the five principles in my country's Rukun Negara.
I was seven-years-old when I first recited that Pledge (which I can still recite it to this day), and one of my first questions to the teachers in my Primary School was: Why do we need to believe in God?;
for which the reply was always: Because believing in God stops us from doing bad things.

And so, at the age of seven, I sincerely, vehemently, and honestly believed that if you believed in the Almighty, and if you believed in His divine Love, Justice, and Power, that you would be a good person, and that you would be free from sin.

But I was seven.
And at that age, I also believed that I would be happily married to my first crush by the age of twenty-three - and we all know how that turned out.

And so I grew up.
And I learnt that we all sin; that we're a lot of sinners, us humans.
That somewhere, hidden in the deeper recesses of that double helical strand in our nuclei, is a gene that codes for it - sandwiched in between the ones that code for hedonism, hypocrisy, laziness, and procrastination.

And it's not just the thieves, rapists, murderers, and terrorists that sin.
It's also the desperate student that cheats for a much needed pass in his paper;
the drama queen that will not stop complaining about how it's unfair that the priviledged reap from the labours of the under priviledged, without stopping to think that she belongs to the former as well;
the hypocrite that points a finger at those around him without realising that four are pointing right back at him;
the devoted boyfriend or husband that screws anything and everything in a skirt behind your back;
or the loyal friend that stabs you in the back when you least expected it.

We bribe, we cheat, we lie, and we manipulate others to get our way;
we hunger for more, craving what our neighbour has and forgetting that which has been blessed upon us;
we are selfish to the core;
what once belonged to us will always belong to us, and we will stop at nothing, pulling out every devious trick in our hats, to keep it in our grasps;
when we do succeed, it is I who worked hard and I who deserved it;
but when we falter, it is God who is at fault for not answering our prayers.

And every night, (for those of us who do) we bow our heads in prayer to speak to the Lord.
Every week, we visit our Churches, our Mosques, our Temples, and our Gudwaras to be in communion with God;
to confess our sins and to beg for His forgiveness;
and to ask for His grace and His blessings for the week that is to come.
We put on a farce - show the world that we are a pious lot, and hopefully they won't see the soot that is as black as night enveloping within us.

Just because we ask Him to forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us, we seem to have taken it as our right to err, to hurt, and to destroy, because we know we've already secured our ticket to Heaven.

Most Catholics have it easy; every year for Lent, they go vegetarian - and pesco vegetarian for that matter!
And me? Considering I am a vegetarian the other 325-or-so days of the year, the start of the Lenten season usually has me cracking my head as to what I could possibly give up: something meaningful enough to be called a sacrifice, but whose absence will not have me tethering at an edge, wishfully counting the days to Easter Sunday!

新年快乐

2007-02-19T15:35:00.000+05:30

Salutations, everyone!

What The F*CK?! has undergone a major face lift and is back on roll!

*whee*

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2006-09-21T22:23:00.000+05:30

Bye Bye

I cannot begin to understand why you did what you did.
And I cannot begin to understand how much you were going through before you did what you did.

But I think I can understand what was racing through your mind when you did what you thought you had to do.
I can still feel the fear, the hopelessness, and the desperation in mine.

We all have our reasons - however silly they may seem to everyone else.
We all have our justifications - however unreasonable others may find it to be.

Why didn't you tell somebody?
Why didn't you stop, pause, and think for a moment about all the people you were going to leave behind - about how it wasn't worth it, whatever the reason?
Why didn't somebody find you?

this thing i am feeling surreal if someone had called you
if somebody had told you that you weren't alone if i had succeeded would you still be around here with us today?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!
~ Sympathy, Paul Laurence Dunbar

2006-09-14T12:07:00.000+05:30

Zhang Ziyi Visual Fest!
for me only-lar

Humming to: "Wasted on You", Jordan Hill

I am on holiday.
I am bored.
:(

But fear not - the television + DVD player comes to the rescue!
*whee*

It's been a very fruitful day so far - three movies starring the very beautiful and very elegant Zhang Ziyi:

- 2046;

- Jasmine Flower ????; and

- Memoirs of a Geisha.

And if that is not enough, I intend to feast my eyes on The Banquet ?? as well.

Now, if only I could decide as to whether I want to watch it in Malaysia or in Singapore...

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2006-09-12T15:28:00.000+05:30

I have been wronged...

Humming to: "Wasted on You", Jordan Hill

I have always thought of myself to be a very good judge of character - but I guess there are instances where one can go wrong.

I have always thought of myself to be a good judge of the friends I put my trust in - but I guess there are ocassions where I'm not really at my best.

I have always thought of myself to be a good judge of the people I fall in love with - but I guess where matters of the heart are concerned, we can never be too sure.

The question everyone has asked me since: Why did you do it?
I was just so tired.
It has been a year: a year of lies, a year of double lives, a year of getting hurt, a year of being taken advantage of, and a year of getting abused.
I was just so tired, and I saw only one way out.

You, of all people, should have understood why I did it
- but not only did you not understand,
not only did you run faster than your feet could provide you with flight,
but you made a mockery of it.

You who were supposed to be one of the closest and dearest to me,
you who were supposed to have understood every nuance of my character and my being,
you who were supposed to, who promised, who swore under everything you could possibly swear over, to stand beside me, through thick or through thin.

Frankly, I find this betrayal digusting,
frankly, I find your heartlessness disturbing.

You broke my spirits - but only for the last time.

You will probably never read this.
But I will.
And I will read it to remind myself everyday of the emotional prison I broke free from.

...but I will hold my peace; because really, that is the decent thing to do.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2006-09-05T11:59:00.000+05:30

Of Ears, Eyes, Noses, and Throats... oh... and Medicine in the Community...
Halfway through the confounded Sessionals - 2 more papers left to fail *erm* I meant sit for!

Humming to: "Feel Good Inc.", Gorillaz; "Right Where You Are", Jesse McCartney; "At Night I Pray", Wild Orchid; "Poison", Bardot; "Breathless", Corinne Bailey Rae; "Me Against the Music", Britney Spears feat. Madonna; "Fool Again", Westlife; "Stars Are Blind", Paris Hilton; "Say You'll Be There", Spice Girls; "Night of a Thousand Songs", Jimmy Nail; "Words Get In the Way", Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine; "Tearin' Up My Heart", 'N Sync

I've been rather preoccupied with frivolous pop for the past week or so.
I think my age is catching up to me - I've reached that point in life where I'm reminiscing about the music back in my days (which wasn't that long ago, ok, I'm only 23) and balking over the pseudo-rap-pseudo-r&b-pseudo-dance that is infesting our air waves these days. (Think Ashanti... Think Rihanna... Think Black Eyed Peas - Fergie, I loved you so much more when you were Stacy Ann Ferguson! *ouch* *ouch* ouch* my ears!)
Which is rather ironic because back when bubble gum pop was in I never cared much for it anyway; my favourite radio station was, and still is (when I bother to tune in to the radio) Light & Easy.

Speaking of which, I've been rather hooked on Jesse McCartney's new single, "Right Where You Are".
But I must say, I find the description put up on the "About" section of his webpage is rather *erm* hilarious(?): his devoted fans, who scream for him in frenzied pitches reminiscent of the mania caused by another McCartney in The Beatles. *erm* See how-lar in a few years time. At the risk of sounding mean, but it's like how they tried comparing Britney Spears to Madonna...

Anyway, the lil' alarm in my head says it's 1530 hours and I still have yet to start studying for my Medicine Paper tomorrow.

So, toodles!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

I wanted to tell you about Castor and Pollux today, but I guess it'll have to wait another day or so.
And this post didn't even end up being about my Sessionals! *yay* (I'd like all memory of this very very bad experience blocked out of my head, actually...)

2006-08-29T20:17:00.000+05:30

Tanah tumpahnya darahku
Today's post is part of a series of Merdeka Day dedications on my blog.
Considering my four-month-long hiatus, it almost did not materialise;
but thanks to the chidings of a sunshiney megalomaniacal friend of mine (who also brought you last year's BM Merdeka Project), I have taken the past 2 hours out of my studying (Sessional Exams are on Saturday!) to write this.

Humming to: "Enter Sandman", Metallica; "The End is the Beginning is the End"; Smashing Pumpkins; "1979", The Smashing Pumpkins; "Ilhamku", Man Bai; "Sing", The Carpenters; "Maneater", Nelly Furtado; "Crazy Girls", Bethany Joy Lenz; "Speed of Sound", Coldplay; "Your Body is a Wonderland", John Mayer; "The Prettiest Thing", Norah Jones

My closest girl friends (and best friends) from Secondary School are a Chinese, a Malay, and another Chinese.
When Ajua started wearing a tudung a couple of years ago, then, and only then, did the fact that she was a Malay strike me.

When I went to UNIMAS and joined the army, I was one of only five Chinese Junior cadets in a squad of 170+.
In a house of 10 girls, it was only predictable that I would be the only Chinese among them - but I never felt more welcome.
I'm a vegetarian, you see. And it is hard enough being a vegetarian in UNIMAS, it's even harder being one in the army.
But every time the girls cooked their fried rice and vegetables, they'd make sure that a portion was scooped out for me before they added the belacan, ikan bilis, or meat in.
Jerry had given me a lil' pig soft toy to accompany in Sarawak - my room mate, Farisa, didn't take offense, and found it rather cute in fact.
Every morning when they performed their Subuh prayers, they would take care as not to wake me up; I in turn made sure that I left an area on our floor clean for them to pray before I went to sleep.
Of course we had our differences - but those were part and parcel of 10 girls living in the same home, sharing 3 toilets among them.
I was nick named Ah Moi, but it was always as a term of endearment, rather than a derogatory label.

In Manipal (and here in Melaka), my best friends are a Chinese and a Punjabi.
On several ocassions, I'd like to wring Jagdeep's neck - but that really is because he's being a pain, as usual, and not for any racial reasons.
He's a great comfort during the times that I feel I would be better off married as a rich tai tai than a mentally-tormented medical student.
Our conversations are uninhibited - there is nothing that we cannot debate about; and more often than not, we are taken aback as to how similiar we are - we're very alike, and where we aren't, I'd like to think that we compliment one another very well - Dhanya always says that if we weren't from different races, she'd find out if we were seperated at birth.

When I needed a godmother for my RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) here in St. Peter's Church, a Portuguese family stepped in.

I once saw myself spending the rest of my life with an Indian.
I saw the white picket fences, the cloudless vanilla skies, the whole nine yards.
It's a pity that at any given time, there was always a significant body of water between us.

Coincidently, the three greatest loves of my life have not been Chinese.
And if it weren't for the people around us, constantly reminding us, I wouldn't have realised it, nor would I have found anything wrong with it.

Anyway, before I digress, the point of today's Happy Malaysia Story is that ONLY in Malaysia would any of the above be possible.
(OK-lar, maybe in Singapore too.)
That instead of drawing guns against each other, we are building personal relationships among and with one another of different races and religions.

And that truly, in my opinion, is the reason why we are celebrating 49 years of being a nation tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Malaysia.
And may we have many more to come.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong
Merdeka 2003
Merdeka 2004
Merdeka 2005 here and here

BRIEF UPDATE
I am currently trying to slog my way through my VI Semester Sessionals which start on Saturday.
I am also trying to come to terms with the fact that 6 months later, I don't feel any smarter or any better a doctor than I did back in Manipal.
Yay to me!

2006-08-29T18:48:00.000+05:30

2006-04-30T07:06:00.000+05:30

"What if, just this once, life comes down on the side of the dirty mistresses?"

Humming to: "Let Me Let Go", Faith Hill; "All Blues", John Coltrane feat. John Coltrane; "Summertime", Miles Davis; "Like a Star", Corinne Bailey Rae; "Put Your Records On", Corinne Bailey Rae; "Butterfly", Corinne Bailey Rae; "Alone Again (Naturally)", Gilbert O' Sullivan; "For Your Babies", Simply Red; "Stars", Simply Red; "Lately", Stevie Wonder; "I Wish You Love", Nat King Cole; "Quando, Quando, Quando", Michael Bublé feat. Nelly Furtado; "Santa Maria de la Mer", Mireille Mathieu; "Hopelessly Devoted to You", Olivia Newton-John

"I've heard that it's possible to grow up, I've just never met anyone who's actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don't go our way. We whisper secrets with our best friend in the dark. We look for comfort where we can find it. And we hope against all logic, against all experience, like children, we never give up hope."
~ from the episode Yesterday, "Grey's Anatomy" (Season 2)

*woo hoo*
I finished my End Postings on Friday and am therefore done with Surgery postings for this semester!

The End Postings weren't much to shout about: one case presentation; two Anatomy drawings; and 30-odd multiple choices, fill-in-the-blanks, etc.

I got a very co-operative and very jolly old lady with a boil for my case.
I don't think I failed that one; but could have gone better, though.

She had a rather complicated history - three different and unrelated complaints, multiple hospital transfers, an above-knee amputation and an eye anucleation for diabetes mellitus complications, and an infected operation (for the boil) wound - and I only had 45 minutes for history and examination!

And just when I thought that my End Posting couldn't f*ck up anymore, I lift the gauze covering her wound only to find blood oozing out of it torrentially.
And as I panic, thinking that I've removed her dressing prematurely and f*cked up her wound healing process, the houseman waltzes in to tell me, "Oh, jangan risau. Luka dia memang macam itu. Nanti panggil sister tukar dressing, ya?" (translation: "Oh, don't worry. That's normal for her wound. Just ask the nurse to change the dressing later.")
*gah*

*woo hoo*
I'm back in PJ for the (comparatively) looooong weekend!
(And no, I was a good little girl this time - I didn't miss the bus. ^_^)

I only wish that I could have the strength and courage to stop loving you. You're like an addiction that I keep feeding; an addiction that I'm dependant on psychologically - that I rely on to keep my day going; and like all addictions, it comes with its own withdrawal symptoms; like all addictions, it's unhealthy - a straight road right into hell. But I can't stop loving you. I've tried, but I just can't. And I don't know how long I'm going to go round and round before I wake up and smell the coffee that is reality - the reality that I would be undoubtedly, undeniably, unrefutedly better off loving you if only a little less.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Guess mine is not the first heart broken,
My eyes are not the first to cry
I'm not the first to know,
There's just no gettin' over you

I'm just a fool who's willing
To sit around and wait for you
But baby can't you see,
There's nothin' else for me to do
I'm hopelessly devoted to you

My head is saying "fool, forget him",
My heart is saying "don't let go"
Hold on to the end,
That's what I intend to do
I'm hopelessly devoted to you

But now there's nowhere to hide,
Since you pushed my love aside
I'm not in my head,
Hopelessly devoted to you

2006-04-16T08:33:00.000+05:30

Rejoice, for He is Risen!

Humming to: "Like a Star", Corinne Bailey Rae

Happy Easter, everybunny!

**********

Just like a star across my sky,
Just like an angel off the page,
You have appeared to my life,
Feel like I'll never be the same,
Just like a song in my heart,
Just like oil on my hands,
Oh.. I do love you,

You've got this look i can't describe,
You make me feel like I'm alive,
When everything else is a fade,
Without a doubt you're on my side,
Heaven has been away too long,
Can't find the words to write this song,
Your love,

I have come to understand,
The way it is,
It's not a secret anymore,
'cause we've been through that before,
From tonight I know that you're the only one,
I've been confused and in the dark,
Now I understand,

I wonder why it is,
I don't argue like this,
With anyone but you,
I wonder why it is,
I wont let my guard down,
For anyone but you
We do it all the time,
Blowing out my mind,

Just like a star across my sky,
Just like an angel off the page,
You have appeared to my life,
Feel like I'll never be the same,
Just like a song in my heart,
Just like oil on my hands

**********

Maggie came down for the weekend on Good Friday - with disastrous results.

#1.
She missed her 1830 bus home because:
a. she was late leaving the college;
b. she decided that with only half-an-hour left, she could grab a quick dinner;
c. the roads on Melaka were packed with cars like sardines in a tin can.

#2.
Considering that there were about three or four religious festivals going on that weekend and Saturday was a public holiday in Melaka as well, all the buses back to KL thereafter were also as packed as tin cans full of tuna.

And so, the Self-Proclaimed Supreme Leader, Rubbish, and Maggie got into her 13-year-old Proton Wira and drove all the way back.
(Rubbish did the driving, not Maggie.)

And what a holiday it has been.

Thanks to the seven Anatomical and Histological drawings of the:
- ~~cross-section of skin and subcutaneous tissue~~;
- salivary glands;
- thyroid;
- breast and its lymphatic drainage;
- abdomen;
- inguinal region;
- scrotum;
- venous system of the lower limbs;
that Maggie has yet to complete, this holiday has been really fun.
Ah yes, I started my VI Semester with the Motherload of postings, the Big Bang called Surgery.
It's really not that diffucult, and it's a lot of common sense and application of your Basic Sciences.
So, unless you're a lazy procrastinator (like moi) and you've basically spent your first two years in medical school sleeping through your classes of Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pathology, Pharmacology, Microbiology, and Forensic Medicine, you shouldn't need to break a sweat. If not, you're basically very f*cked and you should start buckling up or digging your 6x6x6 feet hole in the cold, hard ground.

Toodles.

My Anatomy Atlas (for which I only swear by Netter's) calls.

Bah!
Humbug!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2006-03-25T18:04:00.000+05:30

Stranded in Campus - Without a Car :(
Reporting to you live from a cyber cafe across the confoundingly busy main road; I refuse to apply for the Internet now and waste the earlier 20+ days of the month - so till then, I will be very disjointed from the world around me.

Konbanwa, minasan.

I was finally forced to drag my lazy arse all the way down to Melaka to start my final two-and-a-half years of medical training;
I arrived on Thursday.

My hostel room will be lovely - once I'm done sorting out all the junk that I decided to haul over.
(My Mummy's Vios was filled to the brim - the only empty spaces that existed existed because we either had to sit on them or look through them to drive. o_O)

I'm conveniently located within a stone's throw from all the acedemic and survival essentials:
--> vegetarian food is easily available in the cafeteria downstairs and I have the option of ordering in when my taste buds get bored;
--> the morning buses to the hospital come (almost) up to my doorstep - I have the luxury of waking up only at 0700 hrs;
--> the lecture halls and the library (like I'm ever going to step foot in it!) are right in front of my hostel block.
(I'm also automatically a member of the College's spanking brand new Sports Complex - but that's not really necessary for academics or survival, is it?)

I am however, inconveniently located from the essentials of a healthy female social life - shopping malls for instant. :(

Anyway, I guess it's toodles for now - the boys behind me are unabashedly leering down my shoulder and spying on the contents displayed on my monitor.
Ruffians. *gah*

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2006-03-12T21:51:00.000+05:30

Growing Pain

One of the disadvantages (and advantages) of leaving home (for a multitude of reasons: studying, working, entering a lifetime of suffering... I'll leave it up to you to figure out what the last one was) is leaving your siblings behind.

**********

If you're an eldest child: finally, you're no longer held responsible for the actions of your younger sibling(s); you're no longer the biscuit mould whose image all the other biscuits after you have to be made in.
If you're a youngest child: finally you can begin salsa-ing through life, instead of threading cautiously in the faint imprints of another's footsteps.
If you're a middle child: finally you're noticed.

Left to your own devices, the freedom is a welcomed, refreshing change - initially.

But slowly, the single-dome eats at you, and you long for the day where you can return home to the comradie that you shared with them;
and when that day arrives, you just can't wait to get right back out of the house.

**********

If your siblings were already grown and formed when you left them, your next meeting won't be packed with many surprises.
But, if you left them at a period where they were developing (physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually), your homecoming will be as dull as Dataran Merdeka on National Day.

**********

You've grown so much since I first left home.

You're a much bigger person than you once were.

Your feet are planted a lot more firmer on the ground, and you've finally found direction in life.

You've found so much peace in God, peace that I've never managed to find till today, and you've walked so far with Him too - and I am truly envious at you for that.

Though one might say that good institutions need good students to work with to achieve maximum potential, I think that statement is rubbish. Even Einstein was able to put something as complex as the theory of relativity in layman's term. My perspective is, if you really, truly understand a concept, explaining it to a person, with an adequate level of maturity, is not a difficult task.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

I got to say it and it's hard for me,
You got me cryin' like I thought I would never be.
Love is believin' but you let me down;
How can I love you when you ain't around ?
And I,

Get to the morning and you never call.
Love should be everything or not at all.
And it don't matter what ever you do;
I made a life out of lovin' you.

Only to find any dream that I follow is dying.
I'm cryin' in the rain.
I could be searchin' my world for a love everlasting,
Feeling no pain, when will we meet again?

Why do you have to be a heartbreaker ?
Is it a lesson that I never knew ?
Gotta get out of the spell that I'm under,
My love for you.

Why do you have to be a heartbreaker,
When I was bein' what you want me to be ?
Suddenly everything I ever wanted has passed me by,
This world may end, not you and I.

My love is stronger than the universe.
My soul is cryin' for you,
And that can not be reversed.
You made the rules and you could not see;
You made a life out of hurtin' me.

Out of my mind, I am held by the power of you love.
Tell me when do we try, or should we say goodbye ?

2006-03-12T09:37:00.000+05:30

Jesus, Take the Wheel

Humming to: "Jesus, Take the Wheel", Carrie Underwood

She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati
On a snow white Christmas Eve
Going home to see her Mama and her Daddy with the baby in the backseat
Fifty miles to go and she was running low on faith and gasoline
It been a long hard year
She had a lot on her mind and she didn't pay attention
She was going way to fast
Before she knew it she was spinning on a thin black sheet of glass
She saw both their lives flash before her eyes
She didn't even have time to cry
She was so scared
She threw her hands up in the air

It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder
And the car came to a stop
She cried when she saw that baby in the backseat sleeping like a rock
And for the first time in a long time
She bowed her head to pray
She said I'm sorry for the way
I've been living my life
I know I've got to change
So from now on tonight

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this all my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on

Margaret Alexandria Yoong
this heart was never yours to take this heart was never yours to break

2006-03-09T14:41:00.000+05:30

I was fifty-f*cking-kilogrammes overweight...
...mail me for the details.
Just know that by the grace of the good Lord, I wasn't asked to pay for all 50 kg of it.
However, do know that this 50 kg of extra weight was AFTER I'd cargo-ed 400+ kg home... AND I had to leave Henry the Hippo behind! >.<

UPDATE #1: I will be very, very bored from now till my term starts on March 23rd. (Yes, it's only 2 weeks of holiday.)

UPDATE #2: I will however, be occupied from March 14 till March 19 as jet set off to a tiny island off the Mainland of China.

UPDATE #3: I just found out that The Comrade has returned. For those of us who still remember how good she once was, she can only get better.

...I had always known for a long time that the single most rewarding thing about doing what I do is seeing and experiencing young love. Love that is only awarded to youth; pure and innocent, free of sexual desire, impossible to explain, confidence boosting, honest to goodness, glow inducing love. The type of love in which joy overflows in multitudes. The kind of love that is legendary -- only happens once and only once, if you are so blessed. It's that kind of love that I see and feel through my residents. The beauty about my job is that they are willing to share this love with me; that and the eventual heartbreak. But through their lives, I get to understand exactly what love does to people and what I see lacking in myself.

My life now lacks poetry, which I have replaced with many questionable decisions. So today I can see that I am no longer young, and no longer in love.

UPDATE #4: HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY, ANU-BABU!!!!!

UPDATE #5: Please vote for the other half of the Dynamic Duo.

She's as close to perfection as obssessively compulsively neurotic treasurers get.

UPDATE #6: I want a PINK Littman stethoscope. Any ideas?

Ever since I started the Great Indian Chapter of my Life, coming home for the holidays has always been a bittersweet experience for me.
It's probably because I know that whatever state I settle into here in Malaysia is never permanent - that in another month's time, I will be back in Manipal to resume my regular, normal life; the life that I have been accustomed to for the past five months.

I'm back again for the holidays; but this time, I have no state of normal-cy to set back to, no regularity to fall back onto;
because the next two-and-a-half years of my life are as blank as the unwritten pages of my new journal. Yes, I do keep an incriminating written record of my life; good tabloid fodder - I suggest you try to get your hands on it.

I know not about how my lifeless routine in Melaka is going to be like;
I know not about the (nefariously) colossal workload that is about to bury me;
I know not about the future status of my relationships in Manipal;
I know not about how I am going to make my way around the city Yayness! Maggie just changed her "P" [READ: Probational; READ: never drove a car before other than for the purpose of passing her driving test];
I know not about how I am going to find vegetarian (ah yes, Maggie is your favourite vegetarian, remember?) food within a reasonable distance from campus;
f*ck, I don't even know how big my hostel room is going to be - let alone what it's going to look like!

As you can see, I'm not a very big fan of dynamic states.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong
i miss you the way the curves of your body fit exquisitely into mine the way you'd collapse onto me, as we merge into a sweating, twisted, satisfied heap i only wish i'd savoured the moments more

2006-03-05T15:04:00.000+05:30

The Day Epsilon Decided to Die on Me

*boo hoo*

Woe is me: two days before I leave this country for good, and my trusty Acer TravelMate decides to die on me. o_O
(It's a conspiracy, I tell you...)

Its hard disc has decided to join all the others in the Big Hard Disc Graveyard in the sky - it'll probably make friends with the one that used to reside in Jags' Dell - resulting in:

a. No computer to blog or watch movies with for the rest of today and tomorrow - and I just bought "Family - Ties of Blood" (the reviews are disastrous - but I'm a sucker for Big B and violence) and "Black", and rented "Kill Bill Vol. 1" & "Kill Bill Vol. 2"!
By the way, anybody that's interested in watching either "Sarkar", "Family - Ties of Blood", "Black", "Sangam", "Devdas" (the version with the oh-so-very-handsome Shah Rukh Khan), "Rang De Basanti", or "Chameli" for the first or the umpteenth time anytime from March 8 till March 20, kindly get in touch with me. Don't worry - English subtitles available - I didn't pick up Hindi in my two-and-a-half years here. ^_^;

b. A wasted internet connection in my room = a wasted Rs. 500;

c. One quarter of my mp3 collection vanishing *poof* into the inaccessible and inescapable abyss of un-backed-up computer data *bongs head very hard on the keyboard* - and I'd just typed in all the lyrics and translations for all my Teresa Teng songs last night!

f*ck
f*ck
f*ck
f*ckity
f*ck
f*ck

*sigh*

Thank goodness I'm leaving the country on Wednesday.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong
living in her own parallel universe

2006-03-04T23:59:00.000+05:30

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ~~CHENG YEE~~ EVIL PAU!!!!!

(Delayed entry - the original post AND all the edited pictures vanished into thin air when Epsilon died on me. AND if that wasn't enough technological bad luck, as I was retyping the post in the Sify cybercafe in Premier Park, the generator decided to fail its premises and the whole building plunged into darkness - taking the entire post along with it... *grr*)

It's been awhile since I last used Adobe Photoshop; now I remember why I switched to ACDSee - it's less complicated. :p

~~Cheng Yee~~ ~~Short Tee~~ The Evil Pau celebrated her 23rd(hahaha... old liao) Birthday yesterday.
~~Cheng Yee~~ ~~Short Tee~~ The Evil Pau celebrated her FIRST (and last) birthday here in Manipal yesterday.
She's always been very smug about the fact that unlike the rest of us, she's been able to celebrate her last two birthdays in the comfort of Malaysian soil. Take that!

~~Cheng Yee's~~ The Evil Pau's Amul chocolate ice-cream cake.
It's sinfully delicious (the chocolate shavings all around it are sumptious!) - AND it's vegetarian too!
*ooo* Where were you during these past two-and-a-half years?!

After trudging under the hot Udupi sun to get her a bottle of champagne,
this is the thanks Kwong Yan gets...

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:
Gluttony personified.

~~Cheng Yee~~ The Evil Pau looking rather pleased with her Birthday Alcohol.
NOTE: ~~Cheng Yee~~ The Evil Pau purposedly opened the cork in such a way that it would ricochet off the air-conditioner unit above me and whack me hard on the vertex of my head. *ouch*

And here's the ~~Birthday Girl~~ Evil Pau chugging through her bottle of champagne.
It was actually empty BTW...

Chun Fung caught drinking through the champagne bottle - I like the effect.
Makes the act look so... wrong...

The boys, un-Elegantly Wasted, after downing down the champagne.
They really didn't have much to drink - Kwong Yan probably had a maximum of two glasses...

I actually rather like this picture... ^_^

Toodles!
I'm off for dinner with ~~Cheng Yee~~ the Evil Pau!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong
a small squeeze on the shoulder and everything fell apart and everything ended

2006-03-03T07:12:00.000+05:30

Textbooks - Check; Notebooks - Check; Clothes - Check; etc...

Humming to: "??????? mui tien ngoi nei to yat seh", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "?? lian xi", Andy Lau Tuck Wah ??? (???); "More Than This"; Charlie Hunter Quartet feat. Norah Jones; "Leaving on a Jet Plane"; Chantal Kreviazuk; "Can't Fight The Moonlight", Lee Ann Rimes; "????? zhui shao hai you ni", Sandy Lam Yik Lin ???; "Honey", Mariah Carey; "I Wish You Love", Lisa Ono; "Just the Way You Are", Billy Joel; "????? zai jian ying huo chong", Faye Wong ??; "Better Man", Robbie Williams; "Bad Girl", Madonna; "This Kiss", Faith Hill; "When You Really Love Someone", Alicia Keys; "Gentle on My Mind", Frank Sinatra; "??? ai xiang sui", Emil Zhou Hua Jian ???; "Adagio in C minor", Yanni; "Samba Para Bean", Coleman Hawkins; "Drops of Jupiter", Train; "Walk Away", Christina Aguilera; "???? gong zhuan zhi zhuan", Wang Lee Hom ???; "Can't Smile Without You", The Carpenters

Yes, darlings, I'm back in the Blog-o-sfera.

It was a particularly long hiatus.
My original intention was to blog down all the events taking place in my last six months here in Manipal for posterity - so that when I'm old and grey, and the only hints that I never always was this ancient are in the jerky images of the blurred out photographs of my mind, I will be able to savour what it was like to be young again.
But I was busy. Very busy. Naturally.

Yes, darlings, I have missed every single one of you - and it touches me that some of you have missed me too.
A special shout-out for Kuhan who has been bugging me periodically for updates on life in Manipal. I know that reliving your 1st & 2nd year in this town through my blog is really what you've been missing. :p
And truth be told, I do hope some of my Juniors start blogging as well - because I'm f*cking gonna miss this place and all the people that come along with it. :(

Goodbye, no use leading with our chins, this is where our story ends,
Never lovers ever friends.
Goodbye, let our hearts call it a day, but before you walk away,
I sincerely want to say.

I wish you bluebirds in the spring, to give your heart a song to
sing,
And then a kiss, but more than this, I wish you love.
And in July a lemonade to cool you in some leafy glade,
I wish you health, and more than wealth, I wish you love.

My breaking heart and I agree that you and I could never be,
So with my best, my very best, I set you free.
I wish you shelter from the storm, a cozy fire to keep you warm,
But, most of all, when snowflakes fall, I wish you love.

I can still execute my grand masterplan of recording down my antics and vices in the next few days, though.

I woke up this morning realising that Manipal is half empty by now: all the Junior Batches have already left (17th Batch left as early as a month ago), and three-quarters of the Senior-most Batch (13th Batch, my Batch) left Manipal for good last night - they're probably stretching out beside the bus, unloading their luggages from the luggage compartment on M.G. (Mahatma Ghandi) Road in Bangalore as I type this out right now.
So there won't be many bedheads to annoy at breakfast, friends to have lunch with, kaki hantus to yam cha with, and dear ones to enjoy dinner with.

The initial idea was for my Mummy to occupy that huge void for the next few days when she lands in Mangalore airport today - but in typical Indian fashion, her flight from New Dehli to Mumbai has been delayed by two hours, making her miss her connecting flight to Mangalore, stranding her in that city of fabulous shopping.
It doesn't seem like she'll be catching that flight to Mangalore anytime soon (or anytime today for that matter) - thanks to that one f*ck up in New Dehli, every single alternative airline is fully booked.

And so, I will be very free, and very bored, for today at least.
And to prevent the devil from making work for my idle hands, I think I'll busy them by tapping on my keyboard.

It's not that I didn't want to tell you what was the name of the song, it's that you wouldn't know the song even if I did - I know one language that you don't, remember?

??

????????
??????????
????????
????????????

????????
??????????
?????????????
???????????

?????????????
????????
??????????
????????????

????????????
????????
???????????
????????????????

?????????
?????????
?????????
???????? ??

Lian Xi
Because I still cannot, for the love of paneer butter masala, get my blogspot blog to publish in Chinese!

Ru guo liu xia duo yi miao zhong
Ke yi jian shao ming tian xiang ni de tong
Wo hui yuan yi fang xia suo you
Jiao huan ren he yi si si ke neng de zhan you

Xing fu zhi shen yi bei sha lou
Yan zheng zheng kan zhe yi mu mu tian mi
Bu hui zai you yuan lai ping fan wu qi de yong you
Dao xian zai jing xiang shi wu zhu de she qiu

Wo yi kai shi lian xi Kai shi man man zhao ji
Zhao ji zhe shi jie mei you ni
Yi jing he yan lei shuo hao bu ku qi
Dan dao shu ji shi de ai gai zen me ji xu

Wo tian tian lian xi Tian tian dou hui shou xi
Zai mei you ni de cheng shi li
Shi zhe shan chu mei ge liang ren shi jie li
Na xie ceng jing gong tong yong you de yi qie mei hao he hui yi

Ai shi yi wan gong qing de sen lin
Mi le lu de que shi wo he ni
Bu shi shuo hao yi qi chuang chu qu
Zen neng sheng wo yi ren hui qu Hui qu

Practice
For all the bananas, moi included, and non-English speaking Earthlings out there.

If only one more second remained
It would lessen tomorrow's pain of missing you
I'd be willing to let go of everything
In exchange for the existance of any little bit of possibliity

Only a cup of dripping sand is left of happiness
Eyes wide open, watching each act of sweetness
I'll never have that original commonplace possession again
Until now, it seemed like an helpless extravagant demand

I've already begun to practice, begun to slowly worry
Worry that this world doesn't have you
I've already told my tears not to cry any longer
But how should a love that is ending continue?

I practice daily, becoming familiar daily
With this city that doesn't have you
Trying to delete everything in this "two person world"
All the beauty and memories we once mutually possessed

Love is a 10,000 hectare forest
But you and I have lost our way
Didn't we agree to force our way out together?
How can I be the only one left to return, to return?

(Lyrics from Ting Dong)

House #1 in Acharya Compound is empty and cold once again;
I can no longer dial 31485 to grab a hold of you for a long chat;
104, Bhavani Lodge is no longer occupied by you anymore;
And very soon, the walls of 494, Indira Block will be bare - just like how it once was in the beginning.

Everything here in Manipal looks like it's gone a full circle.

Have a look at the Big Dipper once more - you won't be able to see it back in Malaysia.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

when all the dust has settled and all the memories have begun stacking themselves in the attics of our mind will you still only remember the shitty things that have happened or will you remember that we once had something beautiful here in Manipal? something beautiful something fleeting something only barely tangible but something beautiful, nonetheless

2005-12-13T07:08:00.000+05:30

December 10, 2005 :: MMMC (Manipal) Annual Night 2005

Humming to: "Summertime", Oscar Peterson; "Don't Say You Love Me", M2M; "Life Uncommon", Jewel; "Can't Buy Me Love", The Beatles; "A Little Fall of Rain", Lea Salonga & Michael Ball; "Automatic", Utada Hikaru ??? ???; "?? Qing Shu", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "At Last", Celine Dion; "Those Sweet Words", Norah Jones; "So Danço Samba", Antonio Carlos Jobim

The event finally came and ended.
And thanks to it, Batch 13 has Monday and Tuesday off this week.
Monday (12/12) was a day off for the entire College - it's assumed tradition for us to get this day off; so much so that when the University Registrar did not make this announcement on stage that night, we all went ahead and took the day off anyway!
Tuesday (13/12 - today) is a day off for Batch 13 exclusively because we're the champions for the Cultural Competitions; and the champion gets a day of holiday of their choice. ^_^

But Maggie, the hopeless work-o-holic, is now feeling a lil' uneasy sitting around her bum all day...
...I just finished my Paediatrics End Postings and my next round of postings are a 1 1/2 week of introductory lectures on Surgery and Obstetrics and Gynaecology; and most of my extra-curricular activities revolved around Student Council or Annual Night anyway...
...and is therefore getting an early start to her Christmas shopping and card-writing!
*yayness*
--> Boys and girls, if you want Christmas cards from India for the last time, please mail me your snail mail addresses (and contact numbers) pronto. When Omicron died, he took all my contacts away with him.

Anyway, back to Annual Night...

This year's Annual Night was an outdoor event, thanks to the untimely renovation of Chaitya Hall.
What would posses a hotel to renovate its only banquet hall during the end of the year!

It being an outdoors event posed a big headache for moi:
For the first time in 2 years, I thought I'd be able to have enough time to dress up, put my hair up, do my make up, yadda-yadda-the-whole-female-nine-yards; because the backdrop was up and ready by 1325 hrs - a record considering the last year saw me leaving Chaitya Hall at 1630 hrs (only to have to rush back to the hotel at 1730 hrs for the event).
But it being in the great outdoors, and the fact that the hotel is at the edge of some pseudo-cliff overlooking into the valleys yonder, there was wind, a lot of it;
and by 1530 hrs, I had to run back to the hotel to help tack and sew everything back on, leaving only at 1630 hrs (AGAIN!). *boo hoo*
And considering that I also had to arrange music for the dining part of the event, I only got about to getting ready at 1730 hrs;
making me late for the event;
making Jagdeep call me up at 1815 hrs to tell me that all the VIPs were waiting for me to start the event.
o_O

Anyway, where were we before I meandered off the track?

Other than that, this year's Annual Night was probably like most other Annual Nights before: speeches, prizes, student performances, lecturer's performance, makan (food!).
Now, who says I don't have good summarisation skills? ;)

Now, some photos from the event:

FINALLY, I get on stage for the right reasons: for my Distinction in Forensic Medicine.
*whee*
Not bad, considering the events that led up to the University Exams and the Forensic Medicine Viva Voce...

The outgoing Batch posing for its last ever Annual Night in Manipal.
Forgive the less-than-enthusiastic-lack-lustre smiles;
there were like some 20+ cameras clicking at once?

Here's the very proud Mummy with her lil' Frankenstein (the backdrop-lar). ^_^
I think I surpassed even my own expectations this year. ;)

Tall-lee and Short Tee
The pun would have been amazing if I was actually surname-d Lee...
My girlfriend for the past 2+ years here in Manipal - much of my sanity (and insanity) is owed to her.

Maggie and Kwong Yan
My best-est best friend here in Manipal.

Mags & Jags :: partners in crime

The undisputed star of the Night's event.

Debater and crapper extraordinaire;
our Batch's sole student who managed to bag all four Distictions;
the Student Council President;
the College's Gold Medallist;
Supreme Leader (self-declared) of Manipal;
yadda, yadda, yadda...

People like this must smack very hard on the turban wan, hor?

Not only because he's such a bloody perfect all-rounder (academically and physical-body-shape-wise :p);
but because he always bullies me!

OK, enough for one night.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-12-11T23:56:00.000+05:30

Better Together

Humming to: "Better Together", Jack Johnson

***************

There is no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
And no song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a shoebox of photographs with sepia tone loving

Love is the answer
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Why are we here and where do we go
And how come it's so hard
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing
It's always better when we're together

Mmm, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments just might find a way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone when the morning light sings
Or brings new things for tomorrow night you see
That they'll be gone too, too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression I was somewhere in between
With only two, just me and you, not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be, we'll sit beneath the mango tree now

Yeah, it's always better when we're together
Mmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together (mmm)

I believe in memories, they look so, so pretty when I sleep
And when I wake up, you look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together

~ Jack Johnson

***************

i miss you so much that it actually hurts really, i do

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-12-02T00:46:00.000+05:30

I told myself that I wouldn't cry...

Humming to: "Let Me Blow Ya Mind", Eve feat. Gwen Stefani; "Night Fever", The Bee Gees; "??? Wu Jian Dao", Andy Lau Tuck Wah ??? (???) & Tony Leung Chiu Wai ???; "The Look of Love", Dusty Springfield; "Naked", Celine Dion; "White Flag", Dido; "Fame", Irene Cara; "For Your Babies", Simply Red; "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)", Whitney Houston; "????? Zai Jian Ying Huo Chong", Faye Wong ??; "You Have Been Loved", George Michael; "Ho Sum Fun Sau", Candy Lo

***************

i told myself that i wouldn't cry but i did more than once this wasn't supposed to hurt me this wasn't supposed to test me this wasn't supposed to drain me this wasn't supposed to mess me but it has more than once and i'm tried and i'm tired

***************

There's much to update on about the past month or so.

I've got a stack of reports that I need to finish in another 4 hours or so,
so I'll keep it short, sweet, and simple,
and I'll confine it to my academic misadventures for today, ok?

Though it's actually my extra curricular activities you'd probably be more interested in... ;-)

***************

The last hiatus went on longer than I expected it to.
It's not that I haven't been writing;
but I haven't seen the need to publish.

When the innermost workings of your mind have been derailed into a chaotic tangled mess,
nothing makes sense;
and when nothing makes sense
there's no point in pouring the garble back out into the world.

***************

1. Done with Medicine postings

And boy, do I miss them. :(

Needless to say, I screwed up my End Posting Exams again - but that's another issue altogether;
and we'll try to graze over the bad stuff tonight.

2. Started Paediatrics postings

And am very convinced that I will not come near that specialty , even within the radius of a mile long pole, after my graduation.

I don't hate children - don't get me wrong.

I just don't like handling crying kids... o_O"

Paediatrics postings means that every morning at 0915 hrs, I take a 20 minute bus ride to a town called Udupi.
Upon reaching the hospital, I either:
--> take a case (in a group of six) in the Paediatrics Ward for the 1100 hrs presentation (this usually ends in tears - on both my and the kid's part); or
--> terrorise day(s)-old infants in the Post Natal Ward with my incompetant reflex-eliciting skills or their mothers with my broken Kannada / Hindi and miserable history-taking skills; or
--> harrass paying patients in their Special Ward comfortable single rooms with requests to disturb their rest and slumber - but it's usually these patients that can actually speak English; or
--> scare the kinds in the Out Patient Department into staying put while I take their weight and height or con them into staying still long enough so that the nurse can stick a needle into their outer thigh, behind, or shoulder (^_^).

Then, at 1200 hrs or 1230 hrs, I take another bus back to Manipal for lunch and a lil' gossip with Kwong Yan.
(BTW, Xiao Huang [literally = Small Yellow], the Acharya Compound dog, has given birth to six puppies last night! They're adorable!)

At 1400 hrs, I take a bumpy 45 minute bus ride to a small town called Karkala.
We pretty much do the same things there as we do in Udupi, except that we learn within the context of a rural setting.

We had a 3-year-old boy pass away from meningitis on Tuesday morning.
And what really broke my heart was that he could have probably been saved if the parents could afford earlier treatment in Manipal.

End postings are next week - most probably the day before the College Annual Night. o_O"

3. Psychiatry End Posting Results finally out

Didn't fail it - yayness (!) - but didn't do too well either.

But then again, we're only expecting to pass, aren't we?

***************

my heart is weary and my soul is tired you said that you'd be beside me you said that all i had to do was call well i have answer it, damnit

***************

You mean something to me, damnit!

***************

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-11-08T05:57:00.000+05:30

It's been a long time, Baby
No pictures;
no links to explain the useless medical jargon I'm prone to using.
Enjoy. :)

Humming to:"Breathe Again"; Toni Braxton; "Eight Days a Week", The Beatles; "Jika (If" [M: not to be confused with Bread's], Melly Goeslaw & Ari Lasso; "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "With A Little Help", The Beatles; "??? wo yuan yi (I'm Willing)", Faye Wong ??; "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", Nancy Sinatra; "Bad Girl", Madonna; "I Can't Make You Love Me", George Michael; "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman", Celine Dion

It has been a long time, hasn't it?
^_^

There was a point of time in my life - not too long ago, but then again, not very recently either - that writing defined me.
There wasn't an emotion that I couldn't expound upon;
nor an opinion that I could keep to myself;
and my fingers and my trusty Artline 220 spouted copious amounts of poetry at the slightest provocation or stir of emotions - albeit bad poetry, but still poetry nonetheless. :p

Then we come to this point of time in my life.
Where the prose has become a chore;
and the verses have come to a complete standstill;
and the voice that used to sing in my head has reduced itself to a silent whisper.

Here are some of the highlights from my life since the last entry. :p
(My blog now feels like some Greatest Hits compilation album...)

#1. I screwed my Psychiatry End Posting Exams up.

And nobody screws Psychiatry End Postings up!
*sob*
*boo hoo*
*wail*

#2. I went to Kochin, Kerala during the longest holiday that all of us here in Manipal will ever have for the remainder of the academic year.

It was our good luck that Deepavali fell on October 31 and Rajyotsava Day fell on November 1.
It was even better luck that our ever efficient Class Representative was able to get us the Saturday off from our ever gracious Dean.
I do believe that it is for miscellanous reasons like this that our Batch will never allow Jagdeep to resign - not like he's contemplating it either.

Kochin was *erm* relaxing...

#3. I came back to Manipal and started my Medicine postings.

I now have my ill-defined gluteal muscles tossed, bumped, and trashed around on a 30-minute bus ride four times a day (two and fro, once in the morning and afternoon) to get to the T. M. A. Pai Hospital in Udupi for my postings.

And yes, we're as bumbling and as incompetant as (or Lord forbid, even worse than) the interns portrayed on "Scrubs".

So bumbling and incompetant, that there isn't a day where our Batch isn't screwed over for our dismal performance in clerking and examining the patient.
It doesn't help that a majority of us don't know Kannada or Hindi. *pout*

#4. I was royally screwed over during my presentation of a Bell's palsy case on the second day.

But like he used to say in the army, What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

A mistake was made.
I'll just have to learn not to make anymore in the days and years to come.

At least, I'm pretty sure I'll be 25% more sure on how to examine all twelve cranial nerves in the future. :p

#5. Jagdeep found my blog and managed to spot a mistake in this post.

He was finally smart enough to use Google.

It was 4 am in the freakin' morning, Jags, and I'd just finished scrubbing and dusting every inch of my room.
Considering the circumstances, I think it's understandable that I confuse my hamstrings with my soleus and gastrocnemius muscles.
I'm NOT changing it!
*grr*

#7. Omicron II has literally pook gai (Cantonese, sil vous plait).

You see ar...
...I was walking...
...and my right ankle, you know the one I royally screwed a few months back, the one with virtually no proprioceptive senses...
...my right ankle ar, it tripped over a pothole...
...and my handphone fell...
...landed a metre away...
...rolled down the slight slope...
...before being knocked to the side by the edge of the wheel of a bus.

So, you see ar...
...the display sudah broken liao...
...and I need to fix it for half of the phone's current market price.
*boo hoo*

Sibeh unlucky or what?

Toodles!
Classes in half an hour.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

In case nobody noticed, I also put up a delayed post on this year's Mooncake Festival celebrations.

2005-10-18T07:08:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "And I Love Her", The Beatles; "Black or White", Michael Jackson; "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You", Glen Medeiros; "Crazy for You", Madonna; "Forbidden Love", Madonna; "Misty", Frank Sinatra; "Smooth Operator", Sade

It's Been a Week - So Far So Good

Updates have been sporadic, I know.

But when you have a schedule as predictably erratic as a patient whose lower intestinal tract is colonised with Vibrio cholerae (i.e. diarrhoea-lar), you don't have much time for updates.

And even if the ocassional bouts of free time come along - as often as a newborn child gives its parents a rest from all the crying and wailing for milk - you're either:

so thankful that you've got nothing to do and am therefore contented sitting down doing absolutely nothing;
or too busy trying to complete work that's spilled over from no-fun-time;

that there really isn't time to update as well either.
*phew*

So, where was I?

Oh ya oh...

...it's been a week since I started my Psychiatric posting...

My postings include:
- sitting in for some occupational therapy sessions for mentally retarded patients;
- sitting in for some clinical psychology counselling sessions;
- sitting in for some psychiatry consultations;
- following a psychiatrist on his / her rounds in the ward;
in the morning.

It's supposed to be from 0930 hrs - 1230 hrs;
but when I see the person on duty working endlessly since 0900 hrs sans food or water, unperturbed from the never-ending stream of patients outside his / her door, I tend to feel a lil' bad from wanting to leave sharp at 1230 hrs and always end up staying till 1315 or so.

The patient interviews are usually conducted in Kannada (or Hindi, or some other Indian dialect) andthe gist of is translated into English for us afterwards.

Back to the schedule, we return from our lunch break at 1330 hrs for our Psychiatry theory classes in the afternoons.

So far as I've heard, Psychiatry postings are the only postings that you're (sorta) forgiven for not having an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject - that's probably perhaps we've hardly had any exposure to Psychiatry prior to the postings.

...and I'm even more convinced than ever that everyone is mentally ill in some way or another.

Not as in schizophrenia or bipolar affective disorder per se,
but rather, depression or some sort of personality disorder or another.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

I'll be posting up some highlights of the past week or so sporadically as I find the time to:
- the extra 10 minutes I spent locked up in the Psychiatric ward;
~~- Batch 13's Mooncake Festival celebrations;~~
- Batch 17's Chinese Orientation;
- this year's Vijaya Dashami puja;
- the five hour long Student Council AGM.

Toodles!

2005-10-10T06:10:00.000+05:30

Humming to:"Rou Ma Qing Ge", Andy Lau Tuck Wah ??? (???); "Wo Xiang Ni", Andy Lau Tuck Wah ??? (???); "?? Xuan Mu (Carousel)", Faye Wong ??

Maggie's off to the Psychiatric Ward today!

No... there is nothing wrong with me...
...though one could also argue that I am suffering from a grave and irreversible type of psychosis. :p

Maggie's finally done with her two weeks of introductory lectures
and will finally be released to the unfortunate and unsuspecting masses from today onwards!

Come to think of it...
...they are rather unfortunate...
...considering that everything that I've learnt over these past two years is in a catastrophic mess randomly stuffed into the (many) empty spaces in my brain...
*sheepish smile*

Okay, darlings, I'd love to stay and chat heaps longer, but I have one week's worth of reports that must be completed within the next hour.

So, toodles!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-10-07T17:58:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Guilty", Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb; "In Your Eyes", Kylie Minogue; "Drops of Jupiter", Train; "??? Bai Hu Li", Wang Lee Hom ???

The Diametre of the Male Urethra

Yesterday, a friend of mine, let's call her Auntie Torticollis, made a remark so enlightening that it had everyone who heard it (at dinner and after through the mutual gossip network) reeling around in peels of laughter.

So you see ah, we're having dinner at Planet Cafe (the closest thing Manipal has to a fast food joint) after the Inter College Girls' Basketball Finals (MMMC* vs. KMC**)...

Which, by the way, our girls didn't manage to win.
But considering that:
(1) our team was formed hardly over a month ago (disadvantages of a twinning programmw - everyone leaves every half a year) and that we were playing with a team that has been trained since entah bila;
(2) the average height of the Chinese / Malay girl is about 30 cm shorter than the height of the average Indian;
I think a 24-19 score was excellent. :p

...when suddenly, amidst the cacophony of rubbish that we were muttering amongst one another, the evergreen topic of the size of the male member was brought up.

And it was in the middle of this misplaced orchestration that Auntie Torticollis remarked that the male urethra is as wide as a Malaysian 10 sen coin (measuring to roughly 1.5 cm in diametre).

I promise you: we didn't learn that in our anatomy classes.

On another note, Jagdeep and I have been re-elected as class representatives again this term, making us the President and Vice President - respectively of - the Student Council.
Jags was a clear favourite from the start.
I just got elected because I'm the only on that can make him shut up. :p

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

*Melaka-Manipal Medical College
** Kasturba Medical College

2005-10-03T03:29:00.000+05:30

(Delayed entry - fell asleep before I could publish it. ;)

Humming to: "I Whistle a Happy Tune", Gertrude Lawrence; "Take a Bow", Madonna; "Could I Have This Kiss Forever" (Metro Mix); Whitney Houston & Enrique Iglesias; "Fearless", Bryan Adams; "Real Love", The Beatles; "Michelle", The Beatles; "????? Zi Ai Mo Sheng Ren (Only Love Strangers)", Faye Wong ??; "Your Woman", Whitehouse; "I Know What Love Is", Celine Dion; "I Live My Life For You", Firehouse; "Speed Demon", Michael Jackson; "You'll Never Fins Another Love Like Mine", Michael Bublé

Another Meme

It's almost 0400 hrs here.
I've finally managed to clean my room, bathroom, one week's worth of laundry, and not forgetting myself. :p

I have class tomorrow morning at 0800 hrs;
but until my hair dries, I can't go to bed yet.

So, until then, here's a lil' meme from Sugy to occupy the both of us.

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. Margaret (my real name is gaining popularity now that I've left Sri Aman and its lazy inhabitants :p)
2. Maggie (popularised by lazy Amanians - to the point that new acquaintances thought it was actually my name)
3. Maggs (generally used by Ying alone - her ex-Taylors classmates used to think I was a guy named Max based on our phone conversations)

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1. mèítñêrìúm
2. måggìé
3. ? xiong

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. My arms - they're well toned; neither emanciated nor flabby
2. My height - not too tall, not too short either)
3. My hair - naturally soft, naturally wavy, and naturally just the right colour (though I wish it'd stop falling out)

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. My oily T-zone
2. My unfemininely muscular calves (it's not my fault that my hamstrings are well developed)
3. My unfemininely hairy legs

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. Heights
2. Free falling
3. Silence

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. Money
2. My mobile phone
3. Jerry's iPod
soon to become:
1. stethoscope
2. pen light
3. Jerry's iPod

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS:
1. Madonna
2. Celine Dion
3. Faye Wong

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. Tweety bird nighty
2. Miscellenous lingerie
3. Tired, worn out look

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS:
1. Take a Bow, Madonna
2. Real Love, The Beatles
3. ?? (Lian Xi) [Practice], Andy Lau Tuck Wah ???

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
1. For my partner to be one of my closest friends, if not my best friend
2. Unwavering loyalty to moi, and moi alone
3. Honesty: and I'm not only talking about lying - the honesty must be such that we can be our real selves with one another

2 TRUTHS 1 LIE (in no particular order - happy weeding that lie out):
1. I know how to use and shoot a rifle
2. I think Britney Spears is the best thing that has ever happened to music
3. One of my feet is visibly larger than the other

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE PREFERRED SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1. Genuinely friendly guys; not the ones that chat you up just to get into your pants, nor the ones that mingle around trying to show everyone how good they are exposing their hollow cranial vaults in the process
2. Ability to keep up with me in a conversation - or Lord forbid, out talk me!
3. Above average intelligence - I'm highly allergic to male bimbos; to the point of developing anaphylactic shocks

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1. Reading
2. Bopping to non teeny bopper tunes
3. General lazing and bumming around - 'tis much joy you find from doing absolutely nothing

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. Sleep
2. Not have to go for my 0800 hrs lecture - yes, laziness knows no bounds
3. Have my Mummy beside me so I bitch to her about that person :p

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING/YOU'VE CONSIDERED:
1. Orthopaedic surgeon specialising in sports injuries :p
2. Medical doctor in the Malaysian Army
3. Making money out of what I do best: talking

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. Jaisalmer + Great Thar Desert, India - I truly believe that you have not travelled if you've not been to either India or China at least once in your life; the experience is overwhelming and unlike anything else in the world
2. Florence, Italy
3. Barcelona, Spain

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. See God
2. Make my 1st million
3. Seen at least five places on every continent; except Antartica, one enough

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY:
1. My hairy legs
2. The way I buy things (not the things that I buy)
3. The way I enjoy cussing and swearing in every other sentence

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A GIRL:
1. My long hair
2. I cry at movies
3. I love hoarding clothes, shoes, accessories, etc...

THREE MALE CELEB CRUSHES:
1. Viggo Mortensen - yes, I hated the other "Lord of the Rings" star; that sorry excuse for a male... yes, I detest pretty boys... I believe the good Lord gave men testosterone a reason... if not, I might as well be dating a girl, and at least she'd be easier to understand
2. Moses Chan Ho
3. Shah Rukh Khan

THREE PEOPLE THAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW:
1. Vincent - because he never does these things
2. Jilly - because she hasn't written in a long time
3. Ajua - because I'm looking for an excuse to pimp her

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

It's now approximately 1900 hrs on October 4, 2005.
I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm off to a basketball game.
Toodles!

2005-09-30T08:32:00.000+05:30

Elegantly Wasted and Back
...actually, I was back in Manipal for the past one week, you know...
...but my room was so messy (and I didn't have the time to clean it up properly) that there wasn't any space for me to set Epsilon up. :p

And if you're wondering why I'm such a lazy messy person, let me share a lil' something I got from September 2005's British Medical Journal:

I was once told that many people with messy desks are actually very tidy. This apparent paradox arises from the fact that they prefer to live with the mess if they haven't time to do a thorough job tidying up. They feel uncomfortable just putting papers into piles, so they put off the job until there is time to file everything in its proper place.
~ In praise of half doing a job, Jill Graham

That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, room is still a mess (read excuse above)
and my first Community Medicine lecture is in an hour
so till I have more time to expound in great detail, the following summary of the past two weeks shall suffice:
I'm typing this standing up, you know - see how much I love you guys!

- Flew off to New Dehli on the 16th: flight was great, the service of the ground staff of a certain airline however, was less than commendable;

- I went on a seven-day tour of the Great Indian Golden Triangle: Dehli-Jaipur-Agra (stopped by at Fatehpur Sikri);

- My memory card was corrupted (?!) in Agra; therefore effectively wiping out all but 20+ odd shots of the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort;

- My Indian Airlines flight from Mumbai to Mangalore was cancelled due to the turbulent weather in the metropolis but the Indian Airlines staff did such a lovely job taking care of us that we didn't have much to complain about;

- With a lil' help from Cheng Yee and Sin Yew, I will have not one, not two, but five salwar khameez (i.e. Punjabi suite) richly decorated with Kashmiri embroidary;

- Started my Third Year on Monday with some introductory classes in Medicine and Paediatrics - am even more convinced that I don't want to specialise in either and that I still don't want children.

That's all, I think.

Toodles.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-09-28T00:00:00.000+05:30

(Delayed entry)

Humming to: "Don't Let the Sun Come Down on Me (Live)", George Michael & Elton John; "Carnival Town", Norah Jones; "Springtime for Hitler", Original Broadway Cast of 'The Producers'; "Valentine", Jim Brickman feat. Martina McBride; "Impossible", Christina Aguilera feat. Alicia Keys; "Fearless", Bryan Adams; "Ada Apa Dengan Cinta", Melly Goeslaw & Eric

When the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, that's amore!

The Batch 13 Chinese celebrated the Mid-Autumn (a.k.a. Mooncake a.k.a. Lantern a.k.a. tang lung) Festival today.

Rather similiar to last year's celebrations:
Except that this year, we had the luxury of a lot more mooncakes to stuff ourselves silly with,
(what seemed like) a never ending supply of Chinese tea to drink ourselves silly with,
and two noisy battery-operated musical lanterns thanks to moi.
(Hey, Cheng Yee wanted one!)
starting with a mini feast in Topper's Compound (their reign has ended - but hey, the name still stands);
followed by a lantern-bearing mini mob making its way around campus;
ending with the mob congregating in front of the Central Library. :p

Some highlights from the night...

Toodles!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-09-15T11:10:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Everybody Hurts", REM; "Californication", Red Hot Chili Peppers; "Under the Bridge", Red Hot Chili Peppers; "Elegantly Wasted", INXS; "I Don't Want to Be", Gavin DeGraw; "And I Love Her", The Beatles; "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", The Beatles; "Yellow Submarine", The Beatles; "Michelle", The Beatles; "Free As a Bird"; The Beatles; "Real Love", The Beatles; "Mrs. Robinson", The Beatles

Elegantly Wasted :: Muscle aches, messy room, unpacked bags

Muscle Aches

Today marks my sixth, and last physiotherapy session at the hospital.

Public Service Health Message:
Rehabilitation exercises are very, very, very important after a ligamental injury in any of your limbs.
Recovery from just the pain isn't sufficient.
It is equally as important to make sure that your ligament heals to its (almost) original strength, the muscles are strong enough to support the joint, and your balance and proprioception are regained, to prevent any recurring injuries.

My legs ache - like I've been running a marathon for six days straight.

The past week has been spent:
- balancing with my eyes open and close;
- standing tippy-toed on one leg;
- climbing up and down stairs;
- bouncing up and down on one foot on a trampoline;
- balancing myself on a rocky-board while bouncing a ball back and forth the wall;
- walking on a treadmill;
- among various other exercises.
Doesn't seem like much, I know - unless of course you've sprained each ankle joint of yours at least twice AND you've not used your right leg in over two months, therefore forcing all the muscles in the leg to undergo gradual atrophy.

*ouch*
Even bending my knees hurt, damnit!

Messy Room

My room in Malaysia has been in a perpetual mess ever since I was 14 years-old.

While I am an overbearing Monica Geller in India,
I'm about as neat as a 20-something bachelor living amongst four or five other equally clueless 20-something bachelors in a filthy pest-infested bachelor pad.

Unpacked Bags

For somebody leaving for India tomorrow, my bags are rather *erm* empty.

Ah, thank goodness for my excellent packing skills that have been developed and fine-tuned after 22 years of procrastination of the highest order.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-09-11T22:13:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Real Love", John Lennon; "Real Love (Demo)", John Lennon; "Imagine", John Lennon; "Imagine (Demo)", John Lennon; "No More Lonely Nights", Wings; "Silly Love Songs", Wings; "Vanilla Sky", Paul McCartney; "Say, Say, Say", Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson; "Ebony & Ivory", Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder; "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band (Live 8)", Paul McCartney & U2; "I Wanna Love You Forever", Jessica Simpson; "Where You Are", Jessica Simpson & Nick Lachey; "Irresistable", Jessica Simpson; "Take My Breath Away", Jessica Simpson; "Angels", Jessica Simpson

Jerry came...
...and left, without his ipod. ;p
*sheesh*
You make it sound like that's the only reason why I'm glad he came back...

Explains my hiatus now, doesn't it?
Now, be very honest...
...how many of you out there wished that I had actually stopped blogging for good, eh?

Which reminds me, ar...
...my blog theme is peach, not pink in colour...
...and I've been writing this way for the past, well-I-don't-know, two years or so...
...so, the answer, I guess, is no, I'm not trying to copy her style.

Anyway
the past three days have been
simply
AMAZING.
One hell of a ride, I must say.

A week ago, a good friend of mine asked me if I was insecure in my relationship with Jerry.

What makes you think so?
Well, you're practically parading the fact that the two of you love each other all over your blog!
Doesn't that scream insecurity somewhere?

Maybe I am insecure.
But when you've seen your boyfriend a grand total of 5 out of 365 days (and I don't even mean a full 5), what do you expect?
(And don't even get me started on the last year.)

Distance is a really tricky constant to add into a volatile relationship equation;
it can make even the most perfect relationships screw up.

I'm sure somewhere along the way, we've all known of at least one relationship that's ended because it wasn't working out through the distance:
maybe it was a family,
it could have been a friend,
perhaps one of our own, perhaps?
The ever frustratingly heart wrenching case of the right person at the wrong time?
The one that could have been The One, if only we didn't live so far away from one another.

Long distance relationships suck.
They really, really, really do.

And it takes nerves of steel and a great deal of mental and emotional tenacity to pull it through.

It's like running a loooooooooong marathon...
...when everyone else around you is running a 100 m sprint.
And when they've all got their medals with their big flashy front page coverages,
you're still running
and running
and running
and running
and running
and running
.
.
.

But you shouldn't give up.
Not if you believe that the one you're holding on to is The One.

Have I ever thought that I could be doing both of us a favour by giving either one the chance to fall in love with someone else;
someone else who'd be around us
to hold our hand
to cuddle up to
to go for a movie with
to take those long walks in the park with
to wait for us at home
to cook for us
to take care of us when we're sick?
Yes.

And it turned out, that wasn't what I wanted.

Do I ever get tired?
Yes.

But hey, I think it'll be worth the wait.

The Chinese have a saying that (roughly translated) goes:
You can't tell today, what will happen tomorrow.

Jerry and I have a long way more to go to happily ever after,
and it would be great if we made it till the very end
together.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-09-07T21:04:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "qing shu", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "yat fo bat bien sum", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "nei si ngo kam sang wai yat chuen kei", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "Penny Lane", The Beatles; "Eleanor Rigby", The Beatles, "Lady Madonna", The Beatles; "True Blue", Madonna; "Hello Dolly", Louis Armstrong; "Hello Dolly", Barbra Armstrong

Maggie's First Rehab

I've been in denial for the past three months.

I kept saying that that I didn't need help.

I refused to admit that there was a problem.

I believed that this was all a phase;
a phase that I could get by and through on my own.

But today, the truth was out:
that I do need some serious and intensive help,
and that I need that help immediately,

if I want to be up and running before I fly off to New Dehli next week.

So, I paid a visit to the Physiotherapy Department this afternoon.

What?!
What rehab did you think I was talking about?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-09-06T19:25:00.000+05:30

Had my first mamak session this holiday with some of the Rakan Muda Team Malaysia 2002 alumni: Daniels Lim & Foong, Hajah, and Asha.

Mamak in, like everything else, in Bangsar, is expensive, no?

BTW, did you know that there's a Precious Thots in Bangsar Village?
How very lovely.
^_^

He called.

Caught me off guard, surprised;
I wasn't expecting it.

He called.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-09-06T11:06:00.000+05:30

My first (sucky) attempt at writing a book review.
You have been forewarned.

Humming to: "Have You Ever Been In Love", Celine Dion; "Ten Days", Celine Dion; "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", Celine Dion; "Prayer", Celine Dion; "I Surrender", Celine Dion; "At Last", Celine Dion; "Super Love", Celine Dion

For the past three days (or so), my pre-bedtime ritual has been occupied with

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie.

Susie Salmon, an awkward fourteen-year-old girl, living in the suburbs of 1970s America is brutally raped, murdered, and dismembered by a neighbour on her way home from school.

Barely coming to terms with her adolescence on earth,
Susie now overlooks the world she left unwillingly from her gazebo in her perfect heaven;
narrating the events leading to her death,
the disturbing details of the crime,
and the emotional turmoil that plagues those close to her following it.

With each turn of the page, the reader realises:
this is as much, a story of life after death,
the family coming to terms with the news of her death,
facing the reality of an elusive murderer, his scattered trail of clues, and the local police force ramming into a dead end;
as it is a story of death after life,
living her dreams through those that she has left behind,
yearning for just one more kiss from the boy who loved her.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-09-04T12:30:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Nei Si Ngo Kum Sang Wai Yat Chuen Kei", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "Mui Tien Ngoi Nei To Yat Seh", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "Lei Hoi Yi Hou", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "Ji Xiong Yat Sang Gun Nei Jou", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "Qing Shu", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "Zuo You Wei Nan", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau & Ronald Cheng; "Jia Yi Bing Ding", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau, Andy Hui Chi Onn & Chen Chung Chu; "Ming Ming Bai Bai Wo De Xin"; Jacky Cheung Hok Yau & Sally Yeh; "Ni Zui Zhen Gui", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau & Gao Hui Jun; "Please Be Careful With My Heart", Regine Velasquez & Jacky Cheung Hok Yau; "Catch You, Catch Me", Gumi; "Groovy!", Koumi Hirose; "Sobakasu", Judy & Mary; "COLORS", Utada Hikaru; "kettobase!", Utada Hikaru

Little Terrors

I went shopping yesterday for a new pair of shoes!
They're actually ugly-as-f*ck black boots (I'm a girl, remember? Though I still love wearing my army boots every once in awhile...) that lace up till all the way above my ankles;
but my orthopaedic surgeon says that I need to wear for the next two months or so until my anterior talofibular ligament undergoes full fibrosis;
to provide support for my right ankle joint while I walk.
*phew*

Anyway, after an unsuccessful session in MidValley Megamall last Tuesday, my Mummy and I decided that we'd give the shoe-shopping a try nearer to home at One Utama.
Now, this is what I find rather amusing - that I couldn't find shoes in MidValley Megamall but in One Utama...

Now, the one thing worse than wandering aimlessly around a huge shopping mall without a clue about where you're going to (Hey, I wasn't in Malaysia when they decided to double the size of that place and rearrange some of the shops around, ok!),
is wandering aimlessly around a huge shopping mall without any clue of where you're meandering off to,
while you're on crutches,
with an annoying kid on a pair of those annoying roller shoes banging into you in an attempt to topple you over every once in awhile.

After the fourth (or maybe fith or sixth) time of it happening,
malicious thoughts about sticking one of my crutches out - just far enough to trip him over, but close enough to make it look like it was an un-malicious accident on my part - to reward that kid with his first compound fracture of either the tibia or the fibula, started popping and dancing around my head.

It would be very quick, and very gratifying.
The kid was speeding towards me once again, and I could see the scene playing inside my head.
He would dash over,
I would extend my crutches out a lil',
he would trip over,
fall over,
and the pain would hit him like a tidal wave on a calm beach,
but it would stay, until the doctors get him so drugged on pethidine that he won't even remember why he was put in a cast in the first place,
and the ghost of it will haunt him every time he even thinks of looking at those blasted roller shoes.

He was coming over,
accelerating,
faster and faster,

and then

suddenly

I saw an image of that poor kid on the floor,
squeeling in pain,
or even worse, unconcious,
probably suffering from a concussion from his head hitting the floor with a loud thud.

And then I drew back.

And the kid once again stopped short of knocking me over like the lone bowling pin on the alley.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

----------

I'm rather disturbed, emotionally, today.

I've just finished reading all the news that I could gather on the Internet about Hurricane Katrina.

I've just found out about the passing of a friend of a friend.
Although I didn't know him, the news is hitting me;
and is, as fip puts it, a wake-up call for us;
which comes a day after I was telling Jerry about how uncomfortable I am with him drinking.

To that friend: I cannot tell you that I understand what you're going through,
but please hang in there.

My prayers go out to all of you.

----------

2005-09-02T23:24:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'", Nancy Sinatra; "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'", Jessica Simpson (this version is bad... >.<); "Power of the Dream", Celine Dion (this, and Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time", are my all-time-favourite Olympic Games' themes); "That's the Way It Is", Celine Dion; "For the Love of You", Candy Dulfer; "Let It Flow", Grover Washington; "Lovely Day", Wilbert Longmire; "Revival", Martin Girault; "Time After Time", Miles Davis; "Tourist in Paradise", The Rippingtons; "Where the Wind Blows Free", Bob James (I swear... finding any semblance of jazz among my brother's mp3 collection is freaking me out)

Quick, ask me what I've been doing since I got back...

I've been doing...

...

...

...

...

...absolutely nothing.

Unless of course, you count sitting on my gluteus maximus (yes, that's what one of your butt muscles is called) on the sofa in front of the tele while watching a soap or a sitcom as something.

To date, at the time of publishing this, I have officially finished (in order of completion):
(a) 24 episodes of "Healing Hands 3" (Hong Kong's answer to "ER", "Chicago Hope", etc...) - Bowie Lam Bo-Yi is such a darling (!), and Moses Chan Ho is such a squeeze *squeels*;
(b) 12 episodes of "Scrubs (Season 4)";
(c) 4 episodes of "CSI :: Las Vegas (Season 2)" - I can actually understand what on earth they're talking about now (!), shit, I'm such a nerd (!);
(d) 2 episodes of "Scrubs (Season 3)"; and
(e) 1 episode of "Scrubs (Season 1)" - don't ask me why I'm jumping from season to season, my brother's in charge of what episode plays.

OK... I haven't been that lazy...
...I've also been occupying my time wrapping up all the novels in my bookshelf.
And trust me when I say that it's a lot of work.

20 or so books later, while I was halfway through my (dismally incomplete) P.G. Wodehouse collection, I decided however, that I had had enough of sitting on my fanny all day...
...and decided...
...that I should take a walk...
...form the sofa...
...to the computer to blog!
(Great progress, eh?)

By the way, thanks to my dear friend Vincent, I was made aware of a more rude and more vulgar meanign of the word "fanny".
fanny noun
buttocks: the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on; "he deserves a good kick in the butt"; "are you going to sit on your fanny and do nothing?"
female genitalia: external female sex organs; "in England `fanny' is vulgar slang for female genitals"
*sigh*
So, if you cocked an eyebrow up while reading one of the lines above - now, you know that you've got an irredeemably yellow mind.
*sigh*

Got to go...
...my tele calls...
...plus, I have a date with a gastroenterologist tomorrow at 0930 hrs to review my G.E.R.D...
...after which, my Chinese orthopaedic doc calls.

Toodles!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-31T17:09:00.000+05:30

Saya memohon maaf terlebih dahulu jikalau karangan saya pada hari ini mengandungi terlampau banyak kesilapan tatabahasa dan juga ejaan.
Sudah hampir dua tahun saya tidak mengguna kemahiran penulisanku dalam bahasa ini - makulumlah, dah karat sikit, bah. ^_^

Berjoget kepada: "Asmaradana", Tiara Jacquelina; "Bagaikan Sakti", M. Nasir & Siti Nurhaliza; "Dua Insan", M. Nasir & Siti Nurhaliza; "Purnama Merindu", Siti Nurhaliza; "Bukan Cinta Biasa", Siti Nurhaliza; "Aku Cinta Padamu", Siti Nurhaliza; "Percayalah", Siti Nurhaliza; "Seindah Biasa", Siti Nurhaliza; "Mencintaimu Selamanya", Siti Nurhaliza

Cintaku pada negaraku Malaysia bukanlah cinta yang biasa...

Sudah hampir dua tahun aku menetap di luar negara untuk mengejar cita-citaku di menara gading.
Di dalm jangka masa yang sama, aku juga telah berpeluang melawat sekurang-kurangnya sebuah negara di dalam setiap benua dunia kita.

Aku tidak dapat menafi bahawa pengalaman yang telah ku perolehi dalam pengajianku di India, dan juga dalam pengembaraanku di rantauan asing, telah banyak membuka mataku kepada ketidaksempurnaan negara ini: tandas awam kita terlampau kotor (dan terlalu busuk); pemandu kita (terutamanya pemandu motosikal di bandar Kuala Lumpur) memandu bagaikan mengejar maut; amalan rasuah masih berleluasa di kalangan rakyat; dll...

Akan tetapi saya tidak akan berkata bahawa negara kita langsung tidak mempunyai apa-apa kebaikan selain daripada semua keburukan ini yang asyik diungkit oleh pengkritik asing kita, dan juga (malangnya) anak-anak derhaka Malaysia.

Izinkanlah aku bertanya, negara manakah yang mampu menampung lebih kurang sepuluh (ataupun lebih) kaum berlainan yang hidup berintegrasi dalam keadaan yang bertolak ansur dan berhomoni?
Kita telah lama menerima perbezaan budaya antara satu sama lain - malah, kita juga telah memeluk perbezaan adat resam ini dengan minda dan tangan yang terbuka!
Memang, ketidakpuasaan masih wujud di kalangan kaum-kaum tersendiri, tetapi hidup seharian kita masih penuh dengan toleransi antara satu sama lain.

Sememangnya negaraku tidak sempurna.
Tetapi, seperti seorang anak yang menerima hakikat bahawa,
walaupun ibu bapanya tidak sempurna,
mereka masihlah ibu bapanya yang telah lama melindungi dan membesarkannya;
dan oleh sebab itu,
kepada negara inilah taat dan setiaku diikrarkan,
dan kepada negara inilah, cintaku dicurahkan.

Malaysia berumur genap 48 tahun (42 tahun, jikalau anda mengambil kira penyertaan Sabah dan Sarawak pada 16 haribulan September, tahun 1963) pada hari ini.

Selamat Harijadi, Malaysia!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-30T21:29:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "?? Lian Xi (Practice)", Andy Lau Tuck Wah ???; "Mas Que Nada", Tamba Trio; "Day Tripper", The Beatles; "Someone Like You", Van Morisson; "Vivo Sonhando (The Dreamer)", Astrud Gilberto & Antonio Carlos Gilberto; "Valentine's Radio", Faye Wong ??; "Butterfly", Mariah Carey; "Like a Virgin", Madonna

Giving face.

That's what we call it in Chinese.

In Malay, I think they have a similiar concept as well.
It's called bagi muka.

I am not aware if the Indians or the English-speaking world has an equivalent to it.
Do tell me if I've missed it out.

Anyway, back to giving face.

I remember once, when I was too little to understand the complexities of the politics that drive our world, I was dragged off my rather inadequate tush and asked to dress up for a wedding that we were invited to.
Wondering what was so important about this event, hosted by somebody that I didn't even know, that it had the audacity to take me away from my quiet lil' retreat into Brontë's world of Catherine and Heathcliff, my Mummy merely remarked:
"The entire family has been invited for it. To not go would not be giving face to the host and his family."

My first, but certainly not my last lesson into the importance of giving face.

A friend of mine once dated a guy that I didn't like.
And it was no secret to him, or to any of our mutual friends, or to his for that matter, that I didn't like him.
(I guess I'm just a bitch that way.)

But, I never once made it difficult for my friend.
Or so I believe - you will tell me and forgive your grouchy ole' friend if I have, won't you? *blink blink*

Of course I was no saint.
The fact that everyone knew that I wasn't very fond of him is testament to that.

But I never disparaged or belittle him.
And I never made him feel unwelcome when he went out with us (which actually hardly ever happened).
When I found out something about him that I knew would upset her, rather than pouncing on the matter and rubbing in the salt with glee, I deliberated for months on whether I should inform her; which I finally did, not because I wanted to, but another good friend of ours insisted.
Hell, when troubled times came, rather than telling her to ditch him, I told her that it would all work out for the best in the end.

Now, again I repeat, I didn't really like him.
But I never once did anything about it because:

(1) He was my friend's boyfriend. Therefore, he should be given face. Just like the girlfriend of a guy friend of mine is my ah so, so is the boyfriend of a gal friend of mine.
(I don't mean that he's literally my ah so, ok?)

(2) His girlfriend is my friend. To not give him face would be to not give her face. And to not give her face would mean serious disrespect.

(3) Giving face aside, I knew that if I gave him a hard time about it, it would invariably be giving her a hard time; and as a real friend, that would be the last thing I'd want to do.

Simple concept, no?

So,
I don't understand why you won't follow it.
I don't understant why you would still want to give me such a hard time about it because it invariably gives him a hard time.

Give face a bit, can or not?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-30T20:55:00.000+05:30

I write this today because:

a. my written Bahasa Melayu, after two years of disuse, sounds and looks like that of a pre-schooling toddler; therefore, if I attempted this post tomorrow, it wouldn't come out sounding like how I'd want it to;

b. I might forget to write this tomorrow-lar. ^_^"

The country which I call home turns 48 tomorrow.
And I have the honour of being back home to celebrate it with her.

You see ar...
...Patriotic Maggie wasn't always so patriotic throughout her life.

As a child, I was pretty clueless about the meaning of Merdeka.
It made a rather cool holiday though, that came in rather handy - especially if I hadn't finished any of my overdued Maths homework.

As a teenager, I was too busy being angry about the injustices of life and the unfairness of my life in Malaysia AND all of her innumerable overflowing flaws, that I didn't feel like being happy for any of the country's birthdays.

Of course, lots has changed about my outlook on life in this country since then;
and I am much more tolerant about her fundamental imperfections.
I know she isn't perfect.
I know that she's far from it.
And I know that there will probably not be any major or radical changes happening in my lifetime.

But it's my country, damn it.
And it will be another lifetime before I ever call any other country home.

And so, I joined the army back in UNIMAS two years ago.
And it was on August 31, 2002, while I was a Junior Cadet in the Pasukan Latihan Pegawai Simpanan (Reserve Officer Training Unit) UNIMAS, that I celebrated my most meaningful Hari Merdeka.

----------

I?ve never had so much fun during a Merdeka celebration.
Or perhaps, this was the first actual Merdeka celebration that I?ve participated in.

There?s something different about celebrating your country?s 46th birthday in full loreng
(camouflage) with 150 other cadets.
It sends a surge of patriotism down your spine, enveloping you in a way that you?ve never felt before.
For the first time, it really does matter that Malaysia has attained Independence for 46 years.
What were once mere stories about the hardships that our forefathers suffered pre-Independence and the struggles they went through to attain it are suddenly pieces of wisdom that seem so real and so close to your heart.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that for the first time, you can actually understand the fear that resided in their hearts.
The fear that a land so free (that we take its freedom for granted) will one day be snatched from right under our noses again.

And why do we understand that fear?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that if it is robbed from us again this time, we?ll be the ones in the front lines fighting back for it.

----------

I wasn't home last year.
The erratic timing of my Second Block Exams coupled with the unfortunate flight schedule back from Bangalore only meant that on August 31, 2004, I was sitting in a bus; drowsy, but unable to sleep thanks to the winding serpentine roads from Manipal to Bangalore and my stubborn-ness to ingest a small dose of promethazine.

Not much fun, eh?

This year's celebrations for me doesn't seem to ring up too high on the fun-o-meter either.
Thanks to my weary ligament, I'm confined to celebrations that don't require any walking or standing.
*yay*

But I love my country.
And it just feels so good being able to be home when she turns 48 tomorrow.

Selamat Hari Merdeka, Malaysia.

Thank you for opening your doors to me, everytime this prodigal daughter decides to return home.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-29T17:56:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "La Prospettiva Di Me", Laura Pausini; "Vivimi", Laura Pausini; "Resta in Ascolto", Laura Pausini; "Il Tuo Nome in Maiuscolo", Laura Pausini; "Benedetta Passione", Laura Pausini; "Come Se Non Fosse Stato Mai Amore", Laura Pausini; "Cosi' Importante", Laura Pausini; "Parlami", Laura Pausini; "Dove l'Aria E' Polvere", Laura Pausini

Praise the Lord...
...for I have passed my second year Unis.
Amen.

Have absolutely no idea what the exact results are except that I've passed all my papers with a Distinction for Forensic Medicine.

I actually qualified for a Distinction viva voce in Pharmacology and Forensics Medicine...
...but after the fiasco I caused during the Pharmacology viva...

Tell me, what's the use of Beclofen (Maggie: a skeletal muscle relaxant)?
*erm* *looks hopefully at the examiner with her squinty brown eyes*
To relax the skeletal muscles?
*all five examiners burst into peels and reels of laughter*

...besides, considering that I almost failed that confounded paper in the first two Blocks, I'm actually rather surprised that I actually got called for a Distinction viva!

Still don't know how badly I cocked up the Pathology paper to not have qualified for the Distinction viva.

And I wouldn't have been able to qualify for the Microbiology Distinction viva voce in the first place thanks to my Internal Assessment marks missing the minimum for qualification by one stupid mark.

I PASSED!!!!!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-28T17:45:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Girl From Ipanema", Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto; "Girl From Ipanema", Frank Sinatra; "At Last", Etta James

B-O-R-E-D

Can you read it?

Have I made myself clear enough?

I'M F*CKING BORED DOWN HERE!!!!!!!!!!

In fact, I'm so bored, I was reading through the anatomy of the lower limb this afternoon!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-27T14:23:00.000+05:30

*boo hoo*
I left Epsilon back in Manipal under the care of our resident notebook baby sitter, Kwong Yan.
So, I'm now making do with my brother's gamer computer.
(But good news is, the family has finally switched to Streamyx! *yayness*
So I'm killing his hard disk space with songs from The Beatles now - Faye Wong next!)

WARNING: Long doesn't even begin to describe the length of today's post.

Humming to: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", The Beatles; "Michelle", The Beatles, "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", The Beatles; "At Last", Etta James (this is my brother's - he has developed good taste, praise God!); "Strawberry Fields Forever", The Beatles; "Yesterday", The Beatles; "Ticket", The Beatles; "Get Back (...Naked)", The Beatles; "Love Me Do", The Beatles; "Hey Jude", The Beatles; "Help!", The Beatles; "Can't Buy Me Love", The Beatles; "Penny Lane", The Beatles; "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band", The Beatles; "With A Little Help From My Friends", The Beatles; "Lady Madonna", The Beatles

It feels so good to be home...

Yes darlings, I am home.
Home in Malaysia at long last.
Home in the only country I've ever called home in my 22 years of life.

**********

The journey home (lasting approximately 2 days: Manipal --> Bangalore --> KLIA) started with a major cock up.

The travel agent sold us tickets on a non-existant bus.
Not some sort of ghost bus... rather... that particular bus was cancelled about a week ago... and the travel agent conveniently forgot to inform the people he sold the tickets to about it...
*grr* Exactly.

So, you can imagine the look of horror of the si tempang (the cripple) and her travelling companion when ten minutes before departure time, we were told that we didn't have a seat on any of the buses.
And all the buses were full.

o_O" Exactly.

Anyway, our chee pek tour agent managed to scavenge a seat for us at the very last minute.
Literally. The bus was moving when we jumped on. (More like hobbled and hopped on in the tempang's case.)

And then we realised why we got a seat.

The bus was non air-conditioned.
Not that I was particularly worried about the air-conditioning; in the Great Indian Winter, a bus charging recklessly at 100+ kmph with the windows down will cool the the air inside more efficiently than any machine man could ever make.
No, darlings... the problem with a non A/C bus is that:
a) the suspension in these babies is effectively zero - and considering that we were given seats in the last row of the bus, every nuance of that monster was amplified a million times over
(for a rough idea of how bad it was: my travelling companion took a total of 8 mg of Valium @ diazepam - and he still couldn't sleep);
b) the crowd tends to be comprised of mostly strangers, and because of the price difference between the tickets (A/C buses cost 100% more), you run a risk of a rowdier crowd.

Speaking of price differences, the same chee pek is only offering us a Rs. 100 refund for his f*ck up.
Like... Hello, the price difference is almost Rs. 250, ok?!

So anyway, eleven (near) sleepless hours later, we reached Bangalore.

But, thank God we actually managed to arrive in Bangalore in the first place.
And praise the Lord that we arrived there in one piece.

The airport experience was a much more pleasant one - because I was tempang.

Hallelujah, the plane touched down in KLIA with all of us inside it alive.

**********

My Mummy and I, being the ultra super efficient females that we were, decided that I should go and see an orthopaedic doctor the moment I reached PJ.
No shit.
I was in the doctor's office at 0830 hrs.

IT'S GOING TO TAKE MY COCKED UP LIGAMENT ANOTHER TWO MONTHS (MINIMUM) TO HEAL!!!!!

AND ANOTHER (MINIMUM) SIX MONTHS TO REGAIN PROPRIOCEPTION IN THAT JOINT!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!

#1. It's not the first time my anterior talofibular ligament decided to gice way - this would actually be the thrid or fourth time liao.
#2. I didn't let it heal properly by re-spraining it every now and then.
#3. I have some soft tissue inflammation as well.

*sob*

BTW, the orthopaedic surgeon I saw...
...she (yes, the doctor's a she) rawks!

**********

OK.

Tired liao.

Bye bye.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-24T08:46:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "????? Yat Fo Bat Bien Sum", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "??????? Mui Tien Ngoi Nei To Yat Seh", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???

F*ck... I can't open my eyes properly...

...it's so badly swollen that the only light that manages to pass through my pupil and fall onto the retinas on my elongated eyeballs are passing through slits about 0.5 cm (or maybe less) wide.

And did I mention anything about having to sit for my Forensics viva voce today?

I love my boy, really.
But sometimes he does shit like this that makes me wanna just punch his balls out.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-23T20:49:00.000+05:30

My boyfriend's a cocked-up-full-of-himself-arse who makes me cry the night before my Forensics Viva!
And every other single exam I've sat for, for that f*cking matter!

It's bad enough that I have enough that I have to worry about how I'm going to study for tomorrow's grilling without having to hear him tell me about how our relationship should be more of a two-way-traffic and on how I'm being difficult!

And to add to all that, I now have to worry about how the swelling in my eyes is going to subside before tomorrow!

You know what?
If you don't like it, you can just f*ck off!
Because I sure as hell am not going to change!

I have enough on my hands without you adding to it.

F*ck you.
F*ck all of you.

I'm going to bed now.
It's 9.30 p.m. and I've got a f*cking headache which is splitting my skull open right now.

I should be studying.

F*ck you.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-22T18:36:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "????????? Nei Si Ngo Kum Sang Wai Yat Chuen Kei", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "??????? Jee Xiong Yat Sang Gaan Nei Jau", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???

One more paper...

One more paper, sitting on the wall;
A Pharmac practical paper, sitting on the wall;
And after 1130 hrs tomorrow;
I'll have no more papers left to sit for anymore!

*whee*

Oh
the joy
the anticipation!

*whee*

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-21T21:17:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Kaze no Jidai", Fujii Fumiya ?? ???; "Forget Me Not", Celine Dion; "The Zephyr Song", Red Hot Chilli Peppers; "Cry", Faith Hill; "Ain't That a Kick In the Head", Robbie Williams; "Seamisai", Laura Pausini; "Don't Know Why", Norah Jones; "????? Yat Fo Bat Bien Sum", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???

"Hope you have a sweet day!"

It's at times like today that I am positively sure that there is still some good left in this f*cked up world we live in.

I was walking (limping more like it - but my battered ego refuses to admit the temporary inadequacies of my right leg) down the four flights of stairs that seperate my floor from the ground floor this morning, while silently grumbling aloud at my misfortune of having landed myself a room on the second floor, when a random girl came up to me and offered her help.
I politely declined, and she proceeded on her way back to her room.
Quite a normal everyday occurrence with me ever since I tore that c*cked up ligament of mine.

But what was out of the blue today, was that the girl actually doubled back, smiled at me, said,
"I bought some extra sweets just now. Here, have one. Hope you have a sweet day!",
proceeded to open my bag to stuff the sweets in,
and then left.

I don't know her name.
But I promise you, I'll never forget that face.

**********

On another note...

A week before my University exams (I think it was the day when I re-sprained my whacked up ligament), I got a knock on my door at around 1.00 in the morning.
Thinking that it was one of those random spot checks they conduct to make sure that the hostel inmates are in the room and not out gallivanting at night, I started muttering strings of curses under my breath.
1. Because I think it's ridiculous that at twenty-two, I'm not allowed to decide where I should spend the night; and
2. Because at 1 f*cking a.m., I should be allowed to sleep, and not be subjected to waking up, bumping into the random objects in my room, and opening the door to sign a book to prove that I was in my room. (They've once come banging on my door at 0145 hrs, demanding that I open the door for them - that was retaliated with a rather pissed off Maggie screaming at them like a banshee.)

Anway, so I went to the door, opened it, and saw a hostel ah ka (worker) with a rather awkward sling around her neck.

She'd wanted to know if I had an extra bandage to borrow her.
(Yes, I am rather infamous in my hostel; or rather, my injured ligament is.)
Replying that I hadn't any extra, she then asked how much a new one would cost her.
Looking at the price tag on the packaging, I told her roughly Rs. 200 and was about to close the door again when I caught a forelorn look on her face.

I then proceeded to ask her what was wrong and was given a very sad tale of how she can't visit the Orthopaedics Department for she won't be able to afford a cast.
She couldn't even pay for a bandage.

And so, in the spur of the instant, I gave her the last Rs. 200 in my wallet, closed the door, and proceeded back to what I had orginally been doing.

The next day, it suddenly struck me.
sh*t
What if I've been conned?
All my friends seemed to have thought so.

Worse still, if I'd been conned, it now opens the path for more cons to come; because now they know I'm gullible.

So, anyway, fast forward almost two weeks later, I see this rather familiar face walking down the corridors of the hostel,
and behold - she's bandaged up her hand!
*huge sigh of relief*

(I meet her again a few days later, and she goes all out of her way to help me with my laundry bag using her good hand, much to my embarrasment.)

**********

Margaret Akexandria Yoong

2005-08-21T06:01:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Desafinado", Antonio Carlos Jobim; "In His Touch", Celine Dion; "Livin' la Vida Loca", Ricky Martin; "Cosmic Girl", Jamiroquai

Pathology Practical Exams in 2 more hours...
...yes, I'm having my first Practical paper on a Sunday.
And you know, I honestly, totally forgot that it was a Sunday today until someone brought it up. The days of the week seem to merge with one another these days.
No, I'm not complaining.
I got an extra day off for India's Independance Day, remember? Jai Hind!
Yup, that's really the way it works in here.
For a University that recognises only eight public holidays a year, we've got a very tight schedule to keep up with; so if we get a day off here, it's got to be made up for somewhere else.

Anyway, as you can see from the change of countdown tickers above, my mind has really begun the slow but sure transition from studying mode (as if-lar I did any studying to begin with) to holiday mode. ^_^
And considering that I'm not expecting to be called for any Distinction Viva Voces, and neither am I hoping for a Borderline Viva Voce, the transition is taking place at an exponential rate.

Toodles.

I still need to at least open my books to pass, no?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Yes guys, I'm fine.
Really.

The reason why I'm not posting a certain acid rant is not because I'm afraid of the repercussions it'll have on me; but rather, the repercussions it'll have on the people around me whom I love, very much.
And while I'm not one to bow to the pressures of the World Wide Web, I do believe that once the posts in my blog start hurting the people I love, that's where I should draw the line.

Thanks again, guys.
But I'm fine.
Really.

2005-08-19T20:58:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "So Emotional", Christina Aguilera; "Love Is Here to Stay", Rod Stewart

I wanted to post something really acid up...

...Ying said Go ahead...

...Jerry said If it makes you happy...

...but in the end, I decided that I'd let it slide.

Lucky you.
Lucky all of you.

At least one of us is showing some maturity about the matter at hand.

*blah*

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-19T17:17:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "???? (The Phantom Lover)", Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing ???; "?? Cui Mian (Hypnotize)", Faye Wong ??; "I'm a Slave for You", Britney Spears; "I'll Make Love to You", Boyz II Men

THEORY PAPERS OVER!!!!!

And thank goodness for that too...
...by the time the Microbiology paper was over, I'd only so <--> much stamina left for the Forensics paper.
Needless to say, not much studying was done.
To understand the lack of enthusiasm on my part: that this is our THIRD exam in the last THREE months; with the previous two Block Exams lasting slightly under two weeks each.

-----

On another note, somebody now has twenty-nine pictures of who has to be one of the sexiest British men to have graced the silver screen...

Boo to you if you don't think this is sexy.
You're probably some weird Orlando Bloom fan then.
*bleh*

Tak kenal siapa dia? (Don't know who he is?)

Well, you're really not to be blamed.
The "Harry Potter" movies really didn't make him look very good after all. *sigh*

Anybody want to send me picture number thirty?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Still tak kenal?
Oh well then, meet Alan Rickman...
...the man who flawlessly brought Professor Severus Snape to life.

2005-08-14T16:51:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Back to You", Bryan Adams; "Summer of '69 (unplugged)", Bryan Adams; "The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You (unplugged)", Bryan Adams; "When You're Gone", Bryan Adams feat. Melanie C; "Fearless", Bryan Adams; "No Such Thing", John Mayer; "Your Body Is a Wonderland", John Mayer; "Why Georgia", John Mayer; "Unwell", Matchbox 20; "Hang", Matchbox 20 (Oh... the days when Rob Thomas was still a man... WHY?!); "The Zephyr Song", Red Hot Chilli Peppers; "Can't Stop", Red Hot Chilli Peppers; "Drops of Jupiter", Train; "The Reason", Hoobastank; "She Will Be Loved", Maroon 5; "Love of My Life", Santana & Dave Matthews; "My Immortal", Evanescence; "Politik", Coldplay; "The Scientist", Coldplay; "Clocks", Coldplay; "Spark", Tori Amos

Vincent's Nuts
Can be read: Vincent is nuts or Vincent punya nuts.
Interpretation's all yours.

Anyone who has been following Vincent's blog long enough will know about his news making final year project.

Now, since I was nice enough to explain to him about the mechanism of action of sildenafil citrate (Viagra-lar)...
...he replied by telling me about how his nut crusher works - complete with technical drawings sumore!
Typical of the engineering ~~student~~ graduate, it's not a very wordy explanation. Again, edited for clarity. And also I didn't want to show you guys what we were bitching about! :p

~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ask her (Sugy) how a capasitor works
?? says: How does a diod work?
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: diode
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: diod is malay
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: dunno
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ask her la
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: she will know one
?? says: OK... I ask you...
?? says: How does a robot work?
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ok yah
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: thats electronic stuffs too
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: and programming stuffs
?? says: Yours leh?
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: i deal with mechanical stuffs
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: (actually i know one la....but self study oso)
?? says: OK...
?? says: ...how does a palm oil extractor work? :p
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ah
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: u know those machines in the pasar malam where they use to squeeze out sugar cane juice?
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: same thing
?? says: Not interesting wan your explanation... :(
?? says: ...mine so long and hard some more...
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: wait not yet finish
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: mine got drawing one
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: engineeering stuffs must have drawing

The nut cracker.

~Víñ¢êñT~ says: so u rotate the rollers according to the arrow directions

Cracking the nut.

~Víñ¢êñT~ says: and the whole nut will go tru
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: breaking up the husk
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: and removing the kernal
?? says: (That REALLY looks lewd...)
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: (its meant to...u wanted it to be interesting)
?? says: Oh... OK. 8-D
?? says: I'M POSTING THIS UP!
?? says: COMPLETE WITH DRAWINGS!
?? says: Oi... your lukisan memang lambat...
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: and then...since most of the oil is stored in the husk, as u crush it...the oil gets extracted too...like this :

Extracting the oil.

~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ok done
?? says: I'd hate to meet the owner of those nuts...
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: i cant begin to tell u how many 'nuts' jokes we made about that thing
?? says: It's fully automatic?
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: well it was designed for some kampung in ghana where they dont have electricity
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: so its powered by a bike
?? says: I'M POSTING THIS UP!
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ok post it la

So how?
Whose explanation better?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-14T16:03:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Young Boy", Paul McCartney; "Heaven on a Sunday", Paul McCartney; "Vanilla Sky", Paul McCartney; "Ebony & Ivory", Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder; "The Girl Is Mine", Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson; "Silly Love Songs", Wings; "Imagine", John Lennon
Yes, I was always a bigger McCartney fan - though I really fancy Starr and his pin-up boy looks.

Sildenafil citrate

I was bored.

So I put up a picture of the infamous little blue diamond pill on my MSN Messenger profile.

Needless to say, I got a lot of questions that night.

But the best of the lot...
...was when Sugy asked me to explain to her how it works...
...and when Vincent asked me to repeat it all over again.

And so, I present yesterday's inspiring and enlightening chat session with Vincent.
Edited for clarity. And forgive any mistakes I might have made in the explanation. They didn't exactly teach us about the physiology of penile erection and neither were we thought about sildenafil in Pharmcology classes; so it was pretty much a self interest study...

?? says: Oh... I was teaching Sugy how a penis stays erect.
?? says: And explaining to her how sildenafil causes erection.
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: oh good good
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: humour me
?? says: OK... like this...
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ok go on
?? says: ...the male penis is just one big spongy-like thing (no muscle - dunno what's the ig deal about a tubular sponge)...
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: hmm....weird...some dude told me that it was a big muscle
?? says: (No... it's actually an erectile tissue. Not a muscle. A spongy highly vascularised erectile tissue.)
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: aah ok
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: and then?
?? says: ...and it becomes errect due to the vessels in it being engorged (filled) with blood.
?? says: (See, what happens is that the guy gets excited...
?? says: [BTW... copying word for word from Sugy... lazy to type again...]
?? says: ...down there...
?? says: ...there's an increased blood flow to his lan area...
?? says: ...and the vessels are such that when the arteries in the dick are filled...
?? says: ...they compress the veins..
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: ok ok
?? says: ...therefore keeping the blood in the arteries and maintaining the erection.
?? says: (Simple - dunno why they make such a big fuss about it.
Don't ask me how it becomes all flat again... that shouldn't be a problem, though prolonged erection is a side effect of Viagra... forgot... cuz I learnt all this from self studying... didn't teach us in class.)
?? says: So anyway... I think you can guess that the arteries bursting with blood are very important for the the willy to respect the "Negaraku", no?
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: yes........bloody dicks are important...knew that already
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: hehehe
?? says: Now...
?? says: ...in a a totally unprofessional, unmedical nutshell...
?? says: ...what sildenafil (Viagra) does is that it inhibits this enzyme called phospodiesterase isoenzyme 5 (I think-lar)...
? ? says: ...so that it doesn't break down this nucleoside thingy [basically the stuffs that build our nuclear material] in our body called cGMP (cyclic guanosine mono phosphate)...
?? says: ...so that its levels will increase in the body...
?? says: ...and when its levels do...
?? says: ...tah da!
[Maggie afternote: Though you should be aware that not all guys give a ! some give a / others might give a ( or a ) and occasionally, you get a \ but never a - unless his ED has a neurological cause {see below}]
?? says: You have an erection that's sustained for 3 hours, if I'm not wrong.
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: mahai
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: 3 ours...
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: if he has to pee
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: die la
~Víñ¢êñT~ says: wont sit down wan ar?
?? says: Oh... sorry...
?? says: ...what I mean is that...
?? says: ...after he takes it...
?? says: ...he has the ability to have an erection within three hours.
?? says: He has to be really horny, though...
?? says: ...if he just takes it for fucks, and there's no ravishing sexy naked women dancing in front of him...
?? says: ...there's no effect.
?? says: He'll at most have a lil' low blood pressure.
?? says:
But mind you, it only works if the guy's penis still has a nerve supply...
? ? says: ...if he's got ED (erectile dysfunction - the dudes find it very ego-bashing to call it impotence) because the nerve supply to his penis is damaged, sildenafil won't help.
?? says: I think...
?? says: ...I think that's the mechanism of action.

So how?
I was correct or not?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

P.S.
We were talking about Viagra, BTW.
In case you didn't know.

2005-08-14T14:35:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Alright", Supergrass; "Ticket to Ride", The Beatles; "Help!", The Beatles; "Yesterday", The Beatles; "Day Tripper", The Beatles; "Yellow Submarine", The Beatles; "Eleanor Rigby", The Beatles; "Tomorrow Never Knows", The Beatles; "Penny Lane", The Beatles; "Strawberry Fields Forever [Home Demo]", The Beatles; "All You Need Is Love", The Beatles; "Lady Madonna", The Beatles<; "Hey Jude", The Beatles; "Get Back", The Beatles; "The Ballad of John and Yoko", The Beatles; "Come Together", The Beatles; "Let It Be", The Beatles "Michelle", The Beatles; "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", The Beatles; "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"; The Beatles; "With a Little Help from My Friends", The Beatles; "A Day In the Life", The Beatles; "The Long and Winding Heart", The Beatles

Mee kerang, loceng aku...
...dan monyet hari Ahad.
Any Kumbang-kumbang fan worth his / her garam will will know where the hell those lyrics come from - I've really messed the lyrics up, I know... but hey, Kwong Yan got it - on the first try!

I know I said I'd only be back on the 18th after my Forensic Medicine paper - but that's because I had forgotten all about the extra day of rest in between my last (Pharmacology) paper and my upcoming (Microbiology) paper!

(And if you haven't already figured out - it means that I have TWO days of holiday before my next paper!)

*yay*

(Did I say holiday, Mummy? No... I meant study break... )

And why, might you ask, are we having this extra study break?

Because...

...it's India's Birthday tomorrow!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY INDIA!
*whee*

Anyway...
...just a brief update on how I've been so far...

...i feel...

...so...

...f*cked.

----------

Discuss malignant melanomas under the following headings: - Four types of malignant melanomas.
The f*ck what?!
OK... I knew this one... but still?!
It's superficial spreading, lentigo maligna, acral mucosal lentiginous, and nodular malignant... in case you were wondering...

Write briefly on the following: - Protamine sulphate.
*erm*
Fish sperms anyone?
In case you were curious... it's not that I've developed a species for underwater sex. Protamine sulphate is an antidote for heparin (some clotting drug-lar, too lazy to look for a link for you) overdose obtained from the sperms of fish.

----------

My brains have never felt so violently screwed in a very long time...
...not since the last Unis, anyway.

(I see a trend here: Unis + Maggie not studying --> Royal screwing for her cerebrum )

Toodles!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

P.S.

#1. Two totally unrelated posts coming up after this.

#2. Did you know that it's even more expensive for me to fly from New Dehli to Mangalore than it is for me to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Bangalore?

2005-08-10T10:42:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "??????? Mui Tien Ngoi Nei To Yat Seh", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???

Tomorrow is the day of reckoning...
...divine intervention, please?

...I bid all of you adieu till my Theory papers end on the 18th...

...don't miss me too much...

...and wish me luck while I attempt to cram a year's worth of Pathology into my brains today.
F*CK - I knew I should have started studying earlier.

Oh, don't forget...
PRAY FOR MAGGIE! PLEASE!
PRAY THAT SHE PASSES ALL HER PAPERS...
...a Distinction for Pathology and Forensics would be nice too...
...BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY - I MUST PASS ALL FOUR PAPERS (and stay clear from the borderline viva)!

f*ck
f*ckity
f*ck
f*ck

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

P.S.
Dunno if it's whether I did too much walking on Saturday, but my entire right ankle joint feels swollen and bruised.
I hope I haven't re-injured it again.
f*ck
f*ckity
f*ck
f*ck

2005-08-08T16:24:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Strawberry Fields Forever", The Beatles; "??????? Mui Tien Ngoi Nei To Yat Seh", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "Queen of My Heart", Westlife; "Fame", Irene Cara; "Sweet Child O' Mine", Guns N' Roses; "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", Michael Jackson & Siedah Garett; "I Need Love", Laura Pausini; "Lucky", Britney Spears; "?? dong xi", Anita Mui ???; "Someone Like You", Van Morisson; "Slow Jam", Usher & Monica

Jerry and Maggie go for a ride...
...in her pink car!
(I don't actually have a pink car, but I'd like to own one some day - if I'm rich enough to afford a car that I won't dare drive out for fear of public ridicule.)

One thing I'd like to do when I come home in September (once my ligament finally heals) is to practice my driving...
...more specifically, practice my driving on a manual car sans power steering.

I haven't had much experience driving; having only obtained my license a year ago and flying back to India the very next day after.
Which will be a problem when I continue the remainder of my degree in Melaka next March...
*God, please let me pass*
...because my college is situated in the middle of nowhere...
...because public transportation in Melaka can be a bitch...
...because (although I had no problems with it in the army and have no problems with it now) walking around everywhere under the hot sun can become a bitch when everyone is driving.

And although I know that I can take the easy way out by driving an automatic - but I don't want to.
(Yes, I'm one of those stubborn purists that believe that you don't really know how to drive a car until you learn how to control a manual car properly - and I don't just mean the duration of the exam...
...you should see the stuff my Mummy can do in a manual car... :p)

So, anyway...
...back to today's Jerry-illustrated story...

I'll probably wanna try driving Jerry around town...

...which will be really fun...
...wherever we go...
...because the boy will be perfectly content...
...as long as he gets to be with me...

...and then the time for me to send him home will arrive...

...which he won't be very happy about...

It's actually supposed to read: don't [sic] leave me (missing) all alone. Just drop me of [sic] at home and i'll [sic] be fine
but Jerry wasn't exactly in a possession of a clear head yesterday.
(Real reason below...
...but his worrying about the bitch affecting so close to my Unis contributed to it as well.)

And I'll probably be so distracted from that cute puppy dog face he'll be putting to get me to prolong the day's date a lil' longer...
...that I'll probably not be paying much attention to the road...

*bang*
*uh-oh*

Maybe I should just limit my practicing to an empty carpark?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Oh ya... the reason why Jerry was drawing funny...

Which is surprising...
...because Jerry can actually hold his drink well...
...until I made him stop...
...which he has...
...hasn't he?

2005-08-07T09:27:00.000+05:30

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
My first, and final warning.

I understand a joke when I see one - but yours is really in bad taste.
(There's this really disparaging Chinese saying I'd like to bring out here... but basic manners is preventing me from doing so.)

There are levels that I don't want to stoop to in order to get you to shut the fuck up.
But I promise you - if you step on my tail long enough, you'll get the full force of the bitch that's been laying patiently dormant within me all this while.
And it won't be pretty: for all of us - but for you especially.
But I will resort to it. Seeing that I don't get any respect from you guys to begin with, I shouldn't accord any respect back in that direction.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Another Chinese saying: "When you draw a picture, you don't need to draw the intestines out as well,"
that goes hand in hand with a Malay saying: "Siapa yang termakan cili, dia yang terasa pedasnya."

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-06T23:03:00.000+05:30

testing

???????!

did it work?

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-06T22:22:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Diary", Alicia Keys feat. Tony! Toni! Toné!; "If I Ain't Got You", Alicia Keys; "When You Really Love Someone", Alicia Keys; "Nobody Not Really (Interlude)", Alicia Keys; "How Come You Don't Call Me", Alicia Keys; "A Woman's Worth", Alicia Keys; "Fallin'", Alicia Keys; "You Mean The World to Me", Toni Braxton; "Breathe Again", Toni Braxton

Jerry's Geography Lessons
Jerry will make guest appearances as a guest illustrator on my blog from today onwards...
...courtesy of the Handwriting picture in MSN Messenger v7.0...
...(colouring added in by Maggie ocassionally...
...*gee* I feel like a Mummy putting up her child's pictures on the refridgerator. ^_^

*aduh* Who taught his class Geography-lar?
Since when was Peninsular Malaysia as big as the subcontinent of India?!
*abish*

**********

But to be fair... his temporary lapse in Geography memory could be due to the fact that he's really excited over the fact that I'm coming home in August. :p

Insta-change. *whee*
My Baby's miserable without me... :(

Yup...
...you heard me right...
...due to my f*cked up ligament, I am going home after my University Exams.

So much for my Great Indian Backpacking Adventure.

I'll still be travelling up North, though.
Due to my last minute travel plans, the latest date I can get a plane back to Bangalore is a week before I start classes in September.
So, instead of rotting away in Manipal for a week, my Mummy, my Granny, and I will be doing some touring up North.

But like I said...
...so much for my Great Indian Backpacking Adventure.

**********

Jerry loves Maggie.
^_^
(On viewing, it actually looks like it reads: "Jery WTF*CK?! Maggie", no? :p
My bad.
Unis coming. Lazy to re-edit. :p)

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-04T10:47:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "In Your Eyes", Yanni; "Brain", Hiromi Uehara ?????; "Desert Moon", Hiromi Uehara ?????; "Joy", Hiromi Uehara ?????
(Hiromi Uehara ????? is a fantastic [fusion] jazz pianist that all of you have to try out.)

This one's for my Baby...
My longest relationship till date - and one that I'd like to keep indefinitely. ;)

The only problem with our relationship so far (discounting the racial differences and all the other stuff that comes with inter-racial relationships) is, and has always been, the distance.

Initially, it was the Tebrau Straits seperating between Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore.
Then it grew a lil' further with the South China Sea dividing between Sarawak and the rest of the world.
And for the last two years, it's just been getting bigger with the addition of the Indian Ocean between India and South East Asia.
*bah*

And trust me when I say this...
...the distance can really be a bitch sometimes.

It sort of reduces the two of us to insignificant lil' specs of dust trying to find our way together on the face of this big, big, big planet...
...and makes us rather miserable about it.

We've missed birthdays - we've not celebrated our birthdays together since 2000.
We've missed anniversaries - I honestly don't believe any of our anniversaries were celebrated together.
We've missed all those important lil's events and milestones in each other's lives: exams, results, weddings, trips, etc...
We're usually the loners among coupled friends who can't seem to get enough of each other - *bah humbug*.
And the last time we managed to cuddle together in front of the tele was well... ages ago.

You can say that we've basically lived very seperate lives apart from one other.
(F*CK - we spent more time together as best friends in high school!)

But it works.
And we're still as crazy for each other today as we were three years ago.
And there isn't a moment that we don't spend wishing the other was right beside us, with us.

j'taime, mon amour.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-04T10:01:00.000+05:30

(Due to the nature of today's post [Chinese characters and my f*cked up Blogspot encoding], you might want to view this entry in my Blogsome page. Yes, I've been toying around the idea of switching to Wordpress for a while now - an idea that materialise once I start learning CSS properly; because apparently the Blogspot page looks more me.)

Humming to: "???? lei hoi yi hou", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "????? ai de jiu shi ni", Wang Lee Hom ???; "???? jie bu liao ni", Wang Lee Hom ???; "??? bai hu li", Wang Lee Hom ???; "???? bu yau hai pa", Wang Lee Hom ???; "??????? ai ni deng yi ai ze zhi", Wang Lee Hom ???; "???? gong zhuan zhi zhuan"; Wang Lee Hom ???
(Did I ever mention that I used to have this thing for Mr. Alexander Wang back in 2000-2003? Honestly, the guy's obviously talented, has a Master's from Berklee in "Jazz Piano & Composition", and is *gush* so cute *gush*! Then he started to sing like that abomination Jay Chou... *aduh* Yes, I happen to not like Jay Chou - there are only certain levels that I will stoop to.)

This entry's for Kwong Yan...
...and also because I like to share with the other bananas out there.
(Kwong Yan is not a banana - he's about as ah beng as ah beng can get. :p)

As I have mentioned before, the Chinese in me has recently acquired a taste for Chinese songs.

Now, I don't find it frustrating that I don't really understand what they're singing about.
(Mucho improvement, considering that in the beginning, I was utterly clueless as to what they were singing about.)
I listen to Laura Pausini, Astrud Gilberto, and Utada Hikaru, no?

No... what I find frustrating is that when I like a song very much, and I decide that I want to sing to it...
...I search for the lyrics...
...and all I get are (what looks like to me) a jumble of Chinese characters that (to me) make no sense whatsoever!

*grumble*

So, it was with great excitement that I chanced upon this Firefox extension - Hanzibar.
A neat lil' extension that adds a lil' toolbar to the top of my browser and gives me the pinyin and meaning of any Chinese character that I point at.

Handy... but still not good enough when you're trying to sing an entire song.
*pout*

Then... then... I chanced upon this website, which gave a download for this program: DimSum Chinese Tools.

Originally intended for ang mohs who are learning Chinese, it is a God sent for bananas like me...
...because it ads pinyin to every single Chinese character I put into it!

Example:

**********

?gong1 ?zhuan3 ?zi4 ?zhuan3
?qu1?WAERMO
?ci2? ?yao2 ?qian1

? ?wo3 ?rao4 ?zhu4 ?ni3 ?da3 ?zhuan3? ?yi1 ?quan1 ?yi1 ?quan1 ?gong1 ?zhuan3
?zai4 ?ren2 ?yu3 ?ren2 ?de ?yin2?he2? ?ai4 ?rang4 ?wo3 ?bu4 ?jian4 ?duan4
?wo3 ?yin1?wei2 ?ni3 ?er2 ?zhuan3? ?yi1 ?quan1 ?yi1 ?quan1 ?zi4 ?zhuan3
OH BABY? ?wo3?de ?shi4?jie4 ?ming2 ?an4? ?yin1?wei2 ?si1?nian4 ?shi3 ?ran2

? ?sui1?ran2 ?zhe4?yang4 ?xing2?rong2 ?you3 ?yi1?dian3 ?jian3?dan1 ?su2 ?tao4
?wo3 ?xiang3? ?wo3 ?shuo1 ?ni3 ?shi4 ?wo3?de ?tai4?yang2
?dan4?shi4 ?ni3 ?dui4 ?wo3 ?lai2?shuo1 ?zhen1 ?de ?you3 ?ru2?ci3 ?da4 ?de ?ying3?xiang3
?xin1?qing2 ?you3 ?hei1?ye4 ?bai2?tian1 ?zhi1 ?cha1

? ?ai4 ?shi4 ?zhe4?me ?zi4?ran2? ?yan2 ?shen1 ?chu1 ?feng1?fu4 ?gan3?xiang3
?wo3 ?xiang4 ?di4?qiu2 ?yi2?yang4? ?ni3 ?zai4 ?wo3 ?xin1?si ?zhong1?yang1

?zhong4 ?chang4??,?,?,?

?tian1?chang2?di4?jiu3 ?shi4 ?shen2?hua4? ?wo3 ?zhi1?dao
?dan4 ?que4 ?tian1?zhen1 ?pan4?wang4? ?wo3 ?sha3 ?ma3

?zhong4 ?chang4??,?

**********

MUAGAGAGAGAGAGA!

I can now torture my Batch mates with my horrible Chinese singing now!

Anyone know of a program that can give me Cantonese pronounciation? :p

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-03T11:52:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "You Make Me Wanna... (Extended Version)", Usher; "Slow Jam", Usher & Monica; "My Boo", Usher & Alicia Keys; "Emotions", Destiny's Child; "Full Moon", Brandy

KUHAN, IF YOU'RE READING THIS...

...MY UNIS ARE A LITTLE OVER 8 DAYS AWAY...

...I'm feeling really, really, really, REALLY f*cked...

...BUT I'M F*CKING NOT ENJOYING IT!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-08-02T12:56:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "???? loi loi wui wui", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "????????? nei si ngo kum sang wai yat chuen kei", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "??????? jee xiong yat sang gun nei jaou", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "????? yat fo bat bien sum", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "??????? mui tien ngoi nei tou yat seh", Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???

Shout out to everyone in UNIMAS...
...and everyone scattered around.

The Airtel line has been a prick for the past month or so;
it's been bouncing all the messages I send back home to Malaysia back to me - with the exception of the messages to my Mummy. (We wonder why...)

So, when I got bored of two hours of the chemothrapy of neoplastic diseases - the antimetabolites can be a real b*tch - I decided to start calling all of my friends from Sarawak!

I started off with Puan Rofina (old habits die hard: I will always call her Puan, just like he will always be known as Sir - various attempts to address him by his actual name or various other nicknames have always failed).
She's fine and dandy - as always.
(One of our best cadets - no joke.)
Still surviving in her new job in KL.
Miss her. As always.

Proceeded on to the celabai Wai Ching - she who never replies my messages. :p
She's busy with her Projek Tahun Akhir...
...busy bullying the new batch of PALAPES UNIMAS Juniors - obviously enjoying herself as a Senior...
...counting down her days to her Pertauliahan and her Convocation.
Miss her. As usual.

Next was Miao Miao.
She's also busy with her Projek Tahun Akhir...
...and I can now reply her in broken and disjointed Mandarin (our conversations used to be a rather chicken-and-duck experience with her talking in Mandarin and me replying in broken Cantonese)...
...and she's alos counting down her days to her Convocation.
Miss her. Obviously.

After many failures, finally grabbed hold of my sanity.
He's back from his one year exchange stint in South Korea...
...reserved a present for me (yay! am not yet forgotten)...
...and he was on duty as a medic during the Juniors' Minggu Suai Kenal 2000 hrs roll call.
Miss him. Really.

Miss him as well.
He's missing. As usual.

**********

Which brings me to the PALAPES UNIMAS' Juniors' Minggu Suai Kenal (READ: good, old school army style ragging)...
...oh, what I'd give to be there right now. :p

You're still at the roll call?
It won't end till 12 am - you should know that.

Of course I remember. :)
As vividly as if it happened just yesterday. :)

Oh well, at least Wai Ching's still keeping her end of the bargain by giving the Juniors double the torture - one half of it on my behalf. :p

**********

By now, you'd probably have noticed my button fetish.
(<-- see left)
I'm still scouring around the net in my free time looking for good sites to link them too. (But my Book Rack and Wishlist are already linked. :p)

**********

Unis in 9 more days.
Prayers and miracles are very welcomed.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-31T19:41:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "ho sum fun sau", Candy Lo; "Cry Me a River", Justin Timberlake; "Slow Jam", Usher & Monica; "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart", Britney Spears

ELEVEN more days to the 2nd Year University Exams...

...i have a mountain of work left untouched...
...what the f*ck was i doing for the past two weeks or so?

...and the days following will be a race against time...
...oh dear Lord, don't let me fail...
...please...
(...i really don't think i could stay an extra six months here...)

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Might have re-sprained my leg trying to break a fall in the toilet yesterday.
sh*t

2005-07-29T22:40:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Baby, Come to Me", Laura Fygi & William So Wing Hung; "Vanilla Sky", Paul McCartney; "This Used to Be My Playground", Madonna

Good poetry - obviously not mine.

I came across good poetry here.

And this particular one struck a chord with my heart:

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way simply because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

~ Pablo Neruda (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

As did this poem:

Go not to the temple to put flowers upon the feet of God,
First fill your own house with the fragrance of Love.
Go not to the temple to light candles before the altar of God,
First remove the darkness of sin from your heart.
Go not to the temple to bow down your head in prayer,
First learn to bow in humility before your fellowmen.
Go not to the temple to pray on bended knees,
First bend down to lift someone who is down trodden.
Go not to the temple to ask for forgiveness for your sins,
First forgive from your heart those who have sinned against you.

~Rabindranath Tagore

And I close today's blogging session with another poem by Pablo Neruda:

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

~Pablo Neruda

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-29T20:55:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Foolish Games", Jewel; "Don't Give Up On Us", David Soul; "Mira e", Kiroro; "siamo noi", Laura Pausini; "Right Here Waiting", Richard Marx; "Don't Tell Me", Madonna; "Moon River", Audrey Hepburn; "Keep It Gsy", Original Broadway Cast of "The Producers"; "Thriller", Michael Jackson; "Rhythm of My Heart", Rod Stewart

A day in the life of a very bored medical student attempting to study for her University Exams...

Image-heavy post.

**********

The lil' black adventurer

I've reached it!
The Valley Between the Phone and the Calender - I knew it wasn't just another myth!

*woah*
Easy does it... I wouldn't like to test the strength of my webbing here...

The peak!
*wow*
The world looks so small from here...
*dizzy*
I might be acrophobic after all...

***********

It's Bubbles!

maggie tried to study
but maggie was sleepy

so maggie had some coffee

All that coffee for me?!

but maggie still couldn't study
because she was too busy daydreaming
(must be the huge pizza that she ate for lunch)

Someday my prince will come...

then she got hungry
(again - she's getting fat)
and had a craving for strawberries

*yum*

bubbles is lucky
because in manipal they're not in season
so maggie'll just have to wait till she gets to ooty

***********

Ooo... there goes my bandwidth...
...I think all images will stick to my moblog from now onwards.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-27T11:01:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Be the Man", Celine Dion; "A Different Corner", George Michael; "New York, New York", Liza Minelli; "A Little Fall of Rain", Lea Salonga & Michael Ball; "la mia risposta, Laura Pausini; "Love Will Find a Way", Christina Aguilera; "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", Aerosmith; "?? cheng kai", Faye Wong ??; "All My Only Dreams", The Wonders (Tom Hanks' fictional band from "That Thing You Do!"); "I'm Not In Love", 10cc; "Tobira wo Akate", ANZA

I woke up this morning...
...close to tears.

(Note: All my incoherant mumbling has been edited.)
"Hello, girl ar.
You still sleeping izit?
Sorry, sorry, sorry... go back to sleep-lar.
I just called you to tell you not to worry about your exam.
Don't get so stressed up over it, ok?
If you can do it, then do it.
If you cannot, then nevermind.
Bye bye.
I love you."

**********

I don't think my Mummy has ever been disappointed with me - education-wise.
Save my STPM fiasco which is another story altogether, and very entirely, exclusively, my own fault.
But then again, it's rather hard to be disappointed when you don't expect much from them
"You can at least pass, right?"
whereas they expect nothing less than the moon for themselves
"Of course I can pass!"
"Then why are you so worried?"
o_O

Yes, I was very masochistic in my studying preferences.
I wanted the straight 4 "A"s during the UPSR (Government exam we sit for at the end of primary school) to prove to all my primary school teachers that I wasn't just another messed-up kid;
I wanted the straight 7 "A"s during the PMR (another Government exam we sit for when we're 15 @ Form Three - sort of like Secondary Three the "N" Levels equivalent, I think) and I was the one who took my Mummy to the big commercialised tuition centre near where Sugy & Sachpal lives and asked that she sign me up for a 1 month crash course there;
I wanted to take the pure Sciences - Additional Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics - AND Principals of Accounting AND English Literature for my SPM (you guessed it, another Government exam at the end of our secondary school years - the "O" Levels equivalent) and again, it was I who went around searching for all my tuition teachers and insisting to my Mummy that this sad, sorry, miserable existance was how I wanted to live.
(As you can see, my Mummy was never a big fan of tuition...)

Ah yes, ever the over-achiever wannabe, I wanted to be Secretary of the Girl Guides, International Understanding Director of the Interact Club, a B.R.A.T., Editor-in-Chief of the school magazine, further my piano-playing education up till Diploma level (much to the dismay of my Mummy's purse strings - how spoilt I was then, and still am :p), be a Youth Trade Ambassador for Rakan Muda Team Malaysia, be a member of the Student Council...
...yes, very masochistic...
...I wanted to be a doctor...

**********

Ah yes, it was I who at the tender age of nine, told my Mummy that I had to be a doctor and nothing else.

Now, while my Mummy admits that it would be nice to have a doctor in the family (she doesn't mind her head swelling every now and then when she tells friends that her daughter is studying medicine :p), she wasn't exactly gung-ho and thrilled over the prospect either.

"Girl ar do you know that doctors can get HIV if they accidentally cut themselves or prick themselves while treating HIV-positive patients, ar? So dangerous!"

"Girl ar, I just saw Dr. X today. He just finished a very long surgery, so tired, hasn't had his breakfast or lunch yet, no time to get dinner so I helped him ta pau (take away). So stressful."

"Girl ar, Dr. Y so unhappy as a houseman-lar. The hours so long and he gets bullied. And he's so far away from his family and girlfriend. So poor thing."

"Girl ar, do you know that the first people to die from SARS were the doctors ar? And they were just doing their jobs!"

You get the picture...
...but the clincher was always this...

"Girl ar, medicine very expensive. If we send you overseas, we need at least three-quarters of a million. I don't have the money."

And so I promised her...
I promised that I'd do the STPM (the sadistic local version of the "A" Levels - you have no idea how it feels like studying for one and a half years with full knowledge that you may never get what you want even if you secured the results, all because of the unfair disadvantage you were born in);
I promised that I'd ace the cursed exam so that I'd be able to enter medical school with the all the pride and dignity that I could muster.
And I failed - because somewhere along the way I lost track of what I wanted to do, what I promised to do; somewhere along the way, the oppression and looming hopelessness got to me.

And that was the only time I think that I disappointed my Mummy.
Not because I stopped being her over-achieving (well, at least where she was concerned) daughter;
but because I stopped trying my best.

**********

I got into medical school anyway.

I will never forget how my Mummy took me to every single private medical college in Malaysia with my results, trying to get a place for me.

And I will never forget, how when I told my Mummy that I was going to enroll for a Law degree in one of the local private colleges, she looked straight at me, point blank and said:
"OK, if that's what you want. But I thought you wanted to do medicine all this while. What's wrong now? If they don't want your STPM results, you can always resit for "A" Levels or CPU or SAM - I'm sure you can manage because you've learnt the subjects before and your English is quite good wert."

**********

She's never expected me to move mountains.

She's never understood (and still doesn't understand) the whole fuss behind getting a Distinction.
"Why? Is it very important? If it's very stressful, then don't worry about it. The more you worry, the more hair you drop."
o_O

When I broke down the night before my Anatomy University Exam because I'd only finished two chapters so far - "Heart" and "Upper Limb":
"What happens if you fail?"
"I get held back for six months."
"Oh... then nevermind-lor, in that six months you study your Anatomy properly-lor and you can get your Distinction then."
o_O

But then again, you cannot blame her;
she's seen with her very eyes, a HSE Further Mathematics and Physics Distinction student, ASEAN scholar, and two-time ACCA world-record holder waste away
so she knows that in the real world, there are more important things than the marks you score or the accolades that you recieve.
(We sound like sour grapes, eh?)

She only asks that when she tells her friends that her daughter is Dr. Margaret Yoong, they say that they know me because
I'm a good, knowledgable doctor;
I treat my patients equally, irrespective of who they are;
I am humble;
and that I have a conscience.

**********

And so, I write today's entry not to gloat about how well I've done, or to gloat about how fortunate I am to have my Mummy (ok, maybe)...

...but to remind myself,
when my medical education currently feels like a paper chase to do better than the people around me...

...that my Mummy and my Uncles sacrificed whatever little extra that they had to spare to put me through medical school so that I would become a good doctor.

And I musn't forget that.
Ever.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-26T14:11:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Fourth of July", Mariah Carey; "Heaven on a Sunday", Paul McCartney; "What's Simple is True", Jewel; "Keep It Gay", "The Producers" Original Broadway Cast; "Coffee & TV", Blur; "Spark", Tori Amos

F*CK!
I have a good excuse. :p

Tried out the FACEANALYZER twice, with varying results:

Didn't like the part about me having average honor...

...even worse now.
And for Pete's sake, I'm only 14% Chinese?!

Well, at least one thing's for certain,
I
am very intelligent
am very ambitious
will probably earn about $ 50,000 - $ 100,000 in the future
am definitely not gay
will probably never cheat on Jerry (I think he almost choked on his saliva there)
am not very polite.

F*CK!
I told you I had good excuse.

Well, beats looking like a priest.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-24T14:26:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "hong dou", Faye Wong ??; "sheung wan ??", Faye Wong ??; "cui mian ??", Faye Wong ??; "cheng kai ??", Faye Wong ??; "To Love ??", Faye Wong ??; "liu xing" Faye Wong ??; "qi zi ??", Faye Wong ??

Supremo 2005 :: Le Nuit Pictures

The event is FINALLY over.
I can FINALLY get about to studying... yeah, right... :p

Here are some pictures to keep you happy while I attempt to catch up on nine days of study-less days.

Detail of the cheongsam
(yes, I do have a penchant for them)
that I wore.
My tailor does good shit.
He charges good shit as well. :-/

A picture of me getting ready, courtesy of the Evil Pau (READ: Cheng Yee).
Incidentally, none of us realised that I hadn't put any lipstick on till I was in front of the doors of Valley View Hotel...

Maggie & Jagdeep - partners in crime. :p
Perhaps one of the only pictures in which I didn't end up looking like a ghost.
I blame the fact that I was sitting directly under the light.
No, my make-up skills
- or at least where the art of selecting the right shade of foundations and powder
as well as the art of not over doing it ar concerned -
are impeccable.

Maggie & Dhanya
See what I meant about ghostly white?

Daniel...
...as promised. :p

I brought along a doggie bag as well...
...to ta pau (pack) the extras...

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Ya, I basically looked like this the entire night.

MY Eiffel Tower.
Enough said.

Ciao!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-23T15:51:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "March of the Siamese Children", from "The King & I: Original Broadway Cast Recording"

Didn't get much studying done today...

Just finished painting my nails for the third time;
something always seems to happen to spoil my vision of perfectly manicured nails.

For the first time - out of four events, two Annual Nights and one Supremo - I've been able to spend the morning and afternoon before the afternoon like how most girls attending the event would: lazing around and trying to look pretty (except for the fifteen minutes I spent wrapping the box for tonight's lucky draw... :p).
My twisted ankle is both a blessing and a confounded curse.

With half an hour more to spare before I am expected to arrive at Chaitya Hall (well, I'm still part of the Student Council so I still need to be early, no...), I now need to make a quick dash for my make up kit...

Now I know why the rest of the student population (outside the Council) actually enjoys going for these things!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Hey, you!
You brought all this upon yourself.
You wanted to do a million and one extra things that we didn't even agree on in the first place!
And now, you have the nerve, the cheek, and the audacity to turn around and accuse us of not pulling enough weight?!

*hmph*
At least my Eiffel Tower looks nicer - and I spent three bloody hours on that just for you to bitch about it being too small!
It's not my fault that you didn't have the nerve to give me proper instructions yourself!
You'd think that with great size comes great courage... apparently, I was wrong.

2005-07-21T08:34:00.000+05:30

SLAVEDRIVERS!!!!!

My Unis are twenty-one days away and instead of spending my time studying, I'm made to cut up letters for the SUPREMO 2005 backdrop!

Which is actually not too bad a job...

...fine, letters I don't mind...

...BUT TO MAKE ME CUT OUT A REPLICA OF THE EIFFEL TOWER?!
Oi! It's not exactly the easiest thing to draw and cut out, OK?!
Just make it first - if it's really ugly, then we won't use it.
Oi! If I actually decide to make it, of course it won't be ugly!

MY EXAMS ARE IN TWENTY-F*CKING-ONE DAYS!!!!!
SLAVEDRIVERS!!!!!

And I don't even get me started on how I'm expected to hobble all the way to Chaitya Hall for the event this Saturday!

F*CK!!!!!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-20T22:46:00.000+05:30

Humming to: ...the voice in my head that's telling me to study...

Fourth Block Examination results are out!

Thank God... I didn't do as badly as I had expected - and I managed to get my 80+ % for Pathology! *whee*

But I'm still trying to find a way to get 1 more mark for my Pharmacology paper to bring my Internal Assesment marks up to 22.5...
*shuffle*
*shuffle*
*shuffle*
JUST ONE MORE MARK!!!!!

And as expected, I didn't come close to scoring 90 % for Microbiology.

I know you're all confused about all the Block Exams and University Exams and the scoring system in my University - will try to explain it to you in the future when I have time.

Back to studying...

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-20T10:19:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "I'm Real (Remix)", J. Lo feat. Ja Rule; "Le cose che vivi", Laura Pausini; "You Were Meant for Me", Jewel

For future reference: "Le nuit" is pronounced as "Leh noo-wee" and not "Ley noy-t" or "Ley noy" or some other equally horrendous rendition.

If you must suggest a foreign word as theme, it would help to research on its pronounciation beforehand.

And even if you didn't (for it is only human to err), don't argue with me when I attempt to correct it to avoid us from looking rather silly on the day of the event, welcoming everyone to "Ley noy-t".

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-19T17:38:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Aku Cinta Padamu", Siti Nurhaliza; "gou le mei you", Nicholas Tse Ting Fung ???; "Falsas Esperanza", Christina Aguilera; "??????? jee xiong yat sang gun nei jau" Jacky Cheung Hok Yau ???; "???? yue guang ai ren", Coco Lee ?? feat. Yo-Yo Ma; "Todo amor mi eres tu (I Just Can't Stop Loving You)", Michael Jackson feat. Siedah Garret; "Rainy Days and Mondays", The Carpenters; "Feelin' the Same Way", Norah Jones; "Desafinado", Antonio Carlos Jobim; "pulayu baalu", Utada Hikaru ??? ???; "????? zai jian ying huo chong", Faye Wong ??; "Alone Again (Naturally)", Vonda Shepard; "chook fook", Sally Yeh ???; "Water Runs Dry", Boyz II Men

Harry Potter and the Insy Weensy Spider

Unfortunately, that's not the title of the seventh installment of the series.

But I did manage to take a picture of this spider that was crawling around my room:
I usually have a problem with spiders, but this one was HUGE.

Here's spidey trying to get into the Baskin & Robbins ice cream container.
Little does he know, the glutton (i.e. moi) devoured it all!

Here he is again, trying to swing off my watch strap.

FINALLY got my copy of the sixth book (I live in, as fip puts it, Wasteland - what did you expect?!) - a name mentioned so many times these days, everyone, fan and non-fan alike, knows it by heart now.
Say it with me...

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"!

Feel better now?

And I finished it in 7 hours (2 hours longer than it took me to finish the last one).

Now, I will do you the favour of warning you that there may be spoilers ahead (I don't know for sure, depends on the flow of my thoughts as I type this; not like it will matter to the fanatics - most of them have already bought the book and finished reading it by now);
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which is what more that what some people could have the decency to do;
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I'd already known that someone was going to die before I even saw my copy;
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.
and because the good Lord blessed me with good deduction skills - I read the entire book waiting for page 556 to happen.
*bah*
*poo-ey*

I'm not as big a Harry Potter fan today as I was when I read the first book back in 2000.
Reminding me, I have a horrible track record of reading books just before an exam as I've mentioned before.
I read the first four books a week before my SPM Examinations!
The fifth book was read in the middle of a shooting range... :p)
And now the sixth book before my University Exams... *tsk tsk* Yes, Mummy, I'm studying!

My personal favourite being the third installment: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", followed very closely by the fourth.
The fifth was a huge let down for me - like falling off a cliff straight into a plunging ravine.
I think my brother has sworn off the series because of that book...

The sixth?
Well... it was an enjoyable read.
Her discriptions are as vivid as usual; sentences taunting my imagination without needing me to strain my rusty command of the language - I never believed that anyone could master that art so flawlessly after Dahl.

But... for reasons that I'm still trying to grasp... it held none of that obsessive commanding attraction that drew me to the series in the first place.
I actually managed to sneak in an hour of Forensics after the the first Quidditch match.

Call it a plot that's been rehashed too many times...
...call it the wearing off of a novelty (for me)...
...call it a mind that's gone old and jaded...
...call it, to paraphrase Tolkein's words, like butter spread over too much bread.

At parts, this particular book reminded me a lot of that one Sweet Valley High book I read while killing time in my friend's room.
A likes B, B likes A, A and B too stubborn and proud to admit it, A & B go out with different people, finally (as if we didn't see it coming) A & B realise their true love for each other; or
C likes D, D acts like a total prat and ignores C because she's too young, C grows up and turn out (surprise, surprise) to be one hot mama, D realises C is his one true love, but (surprise again), C is now together with E, bla bla bla, no prizes for guessing they finally end up together, no prizes also for deducing that in the true Harry Potter spirit, C & D must split for her own sake.
But to be fair, I've only read one SVH book - so maybe I'm being too judgemental about the fluffy romance comparisons.
Alright, it reminds me of one of my TVB soap operas.

And of course, there was that part about her killing him off...
(But THE TEENAGE ROMANCE FLUFF, not the death in page 556 was, to me, the most unforgivable sin of Madame Rowling in this book. Yeah, I was never a big Mills & Boons or Barbara Cartland or Jackie Collins fan. How did you guess?)

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

Too short a review, I must say...
...but I've spent far too much time online already.
:p

2005-07-17T20:09:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Theme to 'At the Treshold of an Era'", Gallen Lo Ka Leung; "My Guy", Mary Wells; "SAKURA DUROPSU", Utada Hikaru ??? ???; "Why Georgia:, John Mayer; "nei si ngo dik lui yan; Andy Lau Tuck Wah ???; "Mack the Knife", Bobby Darin

Waterlogged and taken out...

Barely a week after it was set, my cast was removed today.

Apparently, my fool proof methods of bathing were not so fool proof after all; resulting in a substantial amount of water collecting around my feet - the cause of all my misery and pain.
I still maintain that it is a result of all the humidity from the incessant torrential rains - no fault of mine whatsoever!

Some rather icky pictures below...

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...don't say I didn't give you warning...

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...you can still scroll back up....

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TA-DA!

One would wonder why I'm looking so happy considering that I just got a straight line burn onto the skin of my leg...
...ya, don't believe all that crap about how taking off a cast is supposed to be painless.
A total piece of bull, I tell you.

Looks like the skin of an elephant, if you ask me.
BTW, in case you're wondering, I don't have a mole on the plantar aspect of my feet.
That's just a scar from my battle with the f*cker of an ant.

The doctor can't put another cast back on till the swelling on my leg has receded and the sores from the cast (and trust me when I say that fibreglass is hard - it supports your entire weight, damn it) biting into skin have healed.
So, till Thursday, I'll have to put this on...

Not exactly the prettiest of things to wear on your leg, huh?

...coupled with walking with the aid of crutches.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-17T11:35:00.000+05:30

Humming to:"Waterfalls", TLC; "Breathe Again", Toni Braxton; "Bigger Than My Body", John Meyer

I'm bored.

I need to study for the confounded University Exams in 25 more days.
Something which I seem to to be rather reluctant to do.

Unfortunately, since I seem to have landed myself in a rather inconvenient cast, my activities seem to be confined within the parametres of the four walls of my room.

So I decided to be a nice lil' maggie and update!
Delayed entries found:
here;
here;
here;
here;
here; and
here.

*shh*
Now don't disturb me till I'm done with "The Zahir".

Bought my copy for Rs. 110 only! *nyek*

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-16T23:57:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Home", Michael Bublé; "Penny Lane", The Beatles; "You Can't Hurry Love", Dixie Chicks; "Hands", Jewel; "Get In the Groove", Madonna; "Foolish Games", Jewel; "Moon River", Audrey Hepburn; "You Are Not Alone", Michael Jackson; "??? Wu Jian Dao", Andy Lau Tuck Wah ??? & Tony Leung Chiu Wai ???; "Thriller", Michael Jackson; "Love WIll Find a Way", Christina Aguilera; "As Time Goes By", Lisa Ono

By popular demand...

...because I'm quite tired of reliving the incident everytime asks me the dreaded question:

How did it happen?

Note to self: The heel of my right leg hurts like mad. Could be due to all the excessive walking I've been doing for the past tw days: - buying my plastic chair the day before; and - going for the Supremo 2005 meeting yesterday; *boos to certain less than sensitive members* *yays to everyone else* without crutches. *boos to certain people who refused to give her crutches* Must make it a point to rest today. Must also make it a point to get it checked if it pain does not recede in a day or two - wouldn't want to have a potentially infected abrasion there.

Now, where do I begin?

It was a bright sunny Tuesday morning on July 12, 2005.
Bright and sunny that is, until it was time for me to leave for my Practical Exams...
...the rain in Manipal seems to have a predilection for pouring only when it's time for me to go out.

Now, usually, going to the Multi Purpose Laboratory is a very direct and straightforward task.

Exhibit A: How I usually go to the Multi Purpose Lab.

However, thanks to the building of the food court next door to ICHS, they've nicely blocked off the entire pathway leading to the building.

Exhibit B: Entire stretch of pathway blocked.

Therefore, to get to the Multi Purpose Lab that day, I had two choices:
(1) Take the long way AROUND KMC Greens; or
(2) Cut across the field.

Now, considering that:
(a) I'm as lazy as lazy can get; and
(b) Walking around the Greens adds an extra 7 minutes to my journey;
I decided to cut across the field.
No problems there - done it heaps of times.

Then I reached the short brick wall (it's actually the edge of a flight of stairs that lead all the way up for us to sit on - stadium style).
Again, because going around the flight of stairs would require extra time, I decided to jump.
No problems there - done it heaps of times.

What I didn't anticipate this time, however, was that the rain had made the surface of the bricks and the ground wet and muddy.

Exhibit B: The fall.

And so I jumped...
...landing on plantar flexed (think tip-toe)feet ...
...which were further inverted thanks to the slippery mud.
*ouch*
Really.

Resulting in a tear in my talofibular ligament!
*whee*

Question answered.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-15T11:12:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Desafinado", George Michael & Astrud Gilberto; "Buena Sera", Michael Bublé; "Home", Michael Bublé; "Feeling Good", Michael Bublé; "Save the Last Dance for Me", Michael Bublé; "Song for You", Michael Bublé (I prefer the version by "The Carpenters" - but maybe I'm used to it. :p); "Sway", Michael Bublé

Trying to bathe...

With the addition of the new accessory on my leg, bath time is now nothing short of an adventure!

I can't get the cast wet.

I can't get the padding underneath the cast wet.

So how the hell do I take bath?!

Simple...
...I wrap the entire leg up in plastic bags!

I knew there had to be a reason why I was haggling with the pizza boy for a plastic bag...

..."Boots"! Get it?
*applause for lame joke (pun intended both times)*

Need to go buy a plastic chair to put my leg up on...

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-14T19:33:00.000+05:30

(Delayed entry)

Humming to: "Too Much", Spice Girls; "Even the Nights Are Better", Air Supply; "Embrasse La (French version of 'Kiss the Girl')", Henri Salvador (from the OST "La petite sirène [French version of 'The Little Mermaid']"); "Garota de Ipanema (The Girl From Ipanema) (Live)", Joao Gilberto & Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto; "ta bu ai wo, Karen Mok ???; "xu yuan", Gigi Leung Wing Kei ??? & Leo Ku Kui Kei ???

Maggie jumped...

...and landed herself right into a cast!
*whee*

Taken at the Trauma Centre of Kasturba Medical Centre:

Waiting for my fibreglass cast to set...

Apparently, I tore the talofibular ligament of my right ankle joint - thanks to a forced inversion of my plantar flexed foot (you'll have to read my next post to understand exactly what this means... :p).

Apparently, the tear is serious enough to warrant a cast set from the base of my toes till slightly below my patellar ligament to immobilise my entire ankle joint.

Apparently, it has to be immobilised for three weeks.

*pout*

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-14T06:03:00.000+05:30

(Delayed entry)

Humming to: "Only the Lonely", Elvis Presley; "I Still Believe", Mariah Carey; "Pero Me Acuerdo de Ti", Christina Aguilera; "Mi dispiace", Laura Pausini

The sprained ankle...

In response to minishort's call:
(Not a pretty sight - I'm warning you!)

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TADA!

If you look closely enough, you'll see that my right leg is swollen...
...though, it's not a stark a difference as is expected because my feet are usually oedematous anyway.
Yes, we've ruled out right congestive heart failure...

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-14T02:32:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "I Wish You Love", Lisa Ono; "True Love", Fujii Fumiya ?? ???; "Be the Man", Celine Dion; "mo huan ji jie", Gigi Leung Wing Kei ???; "Praying for Time", George Michael; "chap kuk", Sammi Cheng Sau Man ???; "Ray of Light", Madonna; "Love of My Life", Santana & Dave Matthews

Last paper for the Block tomorrow!
*whoopee*
On a more killjoy note, it only means that the University Exams are creeping in - slowly but surely.

It's 0300 hrs a.k.a 3.00 a.m. in the freakin' morning.
I just woke up.
Set my alarm to wake up at 0400 hrs, but apparently the Fourth Blocks have really screwed up my pineal gland's activities more than I thought it would.
(After I was done with Third Blocks, my body clock was tuned to wake up every morning at 0500 hrs sharp - till today.)

Supposed to finally get started on my Pharmacology Journal - sixteen questions (hand written, mind you - reminds you of the good ole
days, eh...) due in approximately 6 more hours.
Yes, I wasn't kidding when I told you about what a hopeless procrastinator I am.

Taking a short break to numb my ankle with a bag of ice - sprained my ankle joint on Tuesday morning before the Pathology Practical Exams.
And considering that we're evaluated via OSCE, you can pretty much gather that I had a lot of fun limping from one station to another. Thank goodness the stations in our Multipurpose Lab are next to each other; but I hear that I've got a good 2 metres in between them in the Clinical Skills Lab for Pharmacology later. *prays she doesn't get CPR as a question*

Typing at a rather awkward position considering my right leg is the afflicted limb and Epsilon is on my right.

Alright, my 20 minutes are up.
Anyone know how many days I need to freeze off the blood vessels near my lateral maleolus?
I'm guessing three days from my last encounter with the orthapaedic surgeon (and judging from my history, it's a biannual event - at the luckiest), but I could be wrong.
Will probably start alternating between heat and ice treatment tomorrow.

goodbye, no use leading with our chins
this is where our story ends
never lovers, ever friends
goodbye, let our hearts call it a day
but before you walk away
i sincerely want to say

i wish you bluebirds in the spring
to give your heart a song to sing
and then a kiss, but more than this
i wish you love

and in july a lemonade
to cool you in some leafy glade
i wish you health
but more than wealth
i wish you love

i wish you shelter from the storm
a cozy fire to keep you warm
but most of all when snowflakes fall
i wish you love

my breaking heart and i agree
that you and i could never be
so with my best
my very best
i set you free

~ lyrics from "i wish you love"
(english lyrics by albert a. beach
french lyrics and music by charles l. trenet)

Margaret Alexandria Yoong
Yes, Mummy, I'm going to study liao...

2005-07-13T18:21:00.000+05:30

(Delayed entry)

Humming to: "Let It Be", The Beatles; "Let It Be (naked version)", The Beatles; "My Funny Valentine", André Previn feat. Dinah Shore; "I Miss You", Darren Hayes; "I Finally Found Someone", Barbra Streisand & Bryan Adams; "lo ma ka kei", Leo Ku Kui Kei ???; "Tell Me How You Feel", Joy Enriquez; "Deep Water", Jewel; "Know It In the Heart (Theme for 'Seven Sisters')", Gallen Lo Ka Leung; "Stranger in Moscow", Michael Jackson; "A Little Fall of Rain", 1995 Les Miserablés Dreamcast; "A Woman's Worth", Alicia Keys

Mrs. Yoong's recipe to healthy living...

There's more where that came from...

...I have enough instant noodles to last me at least a month without leaving the room.

OK... OK...
I'm really not being very fair to my Mummy for misrepresenting the truth.

She also sent me these:

...five boxes of cream crackers...

...six boxes of muesli bars...

...five big packets of Korean seaweed...

...two packets of seaweed crackers (?)...

...one big packet of Milo...

...one big packet of Nestum...

...one big bottle of Ginkgo biloba (I know! I've been spelling it wrong all this while too!) tablets - in a futile attempt to improve my memory...

...one big bottle of Equisetum arvense a.k.a. horsetail pills - to prevent this (see below) from ever happening again...

...my plumber pulled this out of my drain when I complained about it being clogged up...
...that's the amount of hair I've shed in two years...
...F*CK!...

...but she forgets that she already sent me over ten packets of junk food to counteract its effects...

...one bottle of Korean ginseng that she and my Uncles must have spent a tiny fortune on during their last trip to South Korea.

She was supposed to have sent a host of other chocolate-y goodies: i.e. Oreos, Chips Ahoy!, Maltesers, M&Ms, etc. but thanks to the unbelievable restrictions imposed by my ridiculous G.I.T. condition, had to cut out most of them. :(
She did send me two of the M&Ms packets though...
And careful as she was not to let me have too much chocolate, she sent me an entire bag of Nescafe instant coffee mix! *abish*
So now, coffee is bad for G.E.R.D. patients, but caffeine isn't. :p

All of it came in boxes like this:

I will leave it to your guess on how much the combined weight of the parcel was...

And contained, other than food, this:

A total of seventy-two (72) pairs of disposable underwear!
Apparently, my Mummy gazed into the window of her Sentra last month and could foresee my unfortunate leg injury and decided to spare me the lingerie laundry for two months :p...
...they're actually for my Great Indian Tour in September. ^_^

Oh what fun it was unpacking all this and stuffing it into my already crammed up room the day before my Pharmacology Practical Exams!

Margaret Alexandria Yoong

2005-07-11T21:28:00.000+05:30

Humming to: "Like a Virgin", Madonna; "Love Don't Live Here Anymore", Madonna; "Material Girl", Madonna; "Get Into the Groove", Madonna; "Justify My Love", Madonna; "Erotica", Madonna; "Forbidden Love", Madonna; "Gone", Madonna
What?! DON'T TELL ME YOU DIDN'T KNOW I THAT WORSHIP THE GROUND MADONNA SINGS ON?!!!!!

Hey you...
...yeah, you...
...if you actually still drop by this place once in a while...

I've received (to date) seven corrupted SMSes from you.

I don't know if this means that:
- my Indian telco has gone haywire - again; or
- you're spamming my message box. :p

I don't know if the messages are:
- the second half of the message you sent me a day ago that I never got in full; or
- an actual proper new message from you.
If it's the second, mail me.
I'll reply.

If it's the first, then you're welcome to go back to ignoring me.

That's all for tonight, folks.
I've got loads of ~~studying~~ ~~journal~~ ~~studying~~ journal to complete by ~~tonight~~ ~~tomorrow morning~~ tonight.

Margaret Alexandria Yoong