Chikungunya

Chikungunya. Another new word which i'd never heard of until today. Guess what does that mean?

A place in South America? Or another Japanese anime? Or is it a species of ciku?

Well, it is none of the above. It's another disease which is threatening hundreds of people in Sarawak at this very moment. Something is very wrong with the healthcare system in Sarawak i tell you. There's just not one time when there's no pandemic scare there. Last time there was JE, then there were coxsackie scare nearly every year, then dengue definitely at least once a year, and now there's this ciku thing. WTF. I am most definitely not happy about this now because my father, who is one of the healthiest person i can ever think of, is ill at this very moment and this is not a very happy thought indeed. I hate being so helpless over here so here i am now telling the world that something need to be done about this and hopefully someone will read this and actually DO something about it. Come on, this is not normal right? I mean, how can a place which are preparing to call itself developed (a.k.a. maju) have so many pandemics in just one year's time? WTH. So to the future doctor-doctor sekalian who will be reading this post, please bear this in mind and please please work your hardest to think up of good preventive solutions when you are working in the national healthcare system in a few years time and not just some silly ideas which will burden the people and burn the government's funds. Thank you very much in advance.

X(

First Taste of Being a Dentist

Had my very first perio lab session today and i finally get the 'feel' of how my job in the future is going to be like. And that was: SORE FINGERS and SORE NECK! Haha. Actually our session today was to practise holding and using the excavator on the mannequins. The teeth on the mannequins were painted with nail varnish and we were to remove them as they were real calculus. I thought it would be easy but boy, even holding the instrument properly was difficult. It was really awkward trying to keep the first two fingers holding the tool in a 'C' shape, the middle finger lightly on the shank, fourth finger as the fulcrum and the little finger tucked in. The same thing with the left hand which was to hold the mouth mirror. Then removing the paint was really fun at first but after a while, my fingers started to get really tired and my neck felt strained. Also we were told that if we didn't keep our posture properly, we'll end up with early retirement due to serious back pain. Waaaaa... AND I THOUGHT THAT THE JOB OF A DENTIST IS EASY! Never thought will got so many problems to look out for. Pooh.

Anyway, look what i got from Penneys today:

Bunny hot water bottle!!

Hehehe. The weather was getting really cold nowadays and living in a colder-than-normal-house makes it even worse. So we are trying every means to keep us warm while trying to save money on the bills at the same time. And a hot water bottle is one of the solutions! It is keeping me warm as i am typing this post at this very moment. Really worth the 5 euro spent. I'm thinking of getting another one which i can put under my duvet to warm it up before i go to bed. Right now the Hello Kitty one in Dun.nes.store is really tempting me. Only thing is, it's for 12 euro. Should i or should i not? Hmmmm..

$$$$$$$$!!!!

Tomorrow is a New Day

Yeah, it will be. Life for the past few weeks had been so hectic that everything in my life had been blown off-course a bit. So i had spent the past one week trying to get everything back on track i.e. my time management, my financial condition, my room, my studies, my health etc. Hopefully things will get back to what they used to be starting tomorrow and hope to settle into my old routine. Have to start doing some studying now that its only weeks till December. So praying for a great new start tomorrow. Come Holy Spirit, i need your help. Amen.

Platform 9 3/4!!

I'VE BEEN TO PLATFORM 9 3/4!!!

Platform 9 3/4. It is a crime for a Harry Potter fan to not visit it when in London. Just in case you have never of platform 9 3/4, it a platform in King's Cross where the Hogwarts Express leaves for Hogwarts. Just in case you have never heard of Hogwarts, it is the school which Harry Potter goes to. And if you really had never ever heard of Harry Potter...........well, it is just too bad then... =P

I was over in the UK over the weekend for Nottingham Game which is an annual sports event organised by the Malaysian students studying all over UK. So each year, thousands of Malaysian students will be gathered there. It was such a big event that some minister for sports came and TV3!!! Haha. I know its for UK students but five of us here in Cork decided to 'sibuk' as well. It was a rather last-minute decision but we made it anyway. Did all our bookings and plans with friends there just two weeks ago. I was really excited about the trip because i wanted to meet up with some old friends really badly.

So on Friday, we flew from Cork to Liverpool (other airports nearer to Nottingham were expensive) on Ryanair. From Liverpool, we took a coach to Nottingham. And thus begins the extremely tiring journey with three nights of barely any sleep. First, the only option left for us was a 7-hour-long coach with two hours stop in Leeds. Then, due to traffic jam out of Liverpool, the coach was delayed and we had to wait at the bus station for another hour. At last, when we arrived in Nottingham, it was already past 2 am and by the time we were ready for bed, it was already 4 am! By 9am, we were already in the campus hunting around, not for the games but for signs of people we might know. And the very first people that i met:

Julian and Mei Ling!! Both of them were my primary school classmates and Mei Ling is even my classmate until Form 5. Can't believe i actually met them here after so many yearss! Gosh, we must be really 有缘 to be able to meet in the midst of thousands of other Malaysians!! Wowww!!!

Haha. Actually we arranged to meet up in Nottingham before hand la. Well, all thanks to... Facebook. Who say Facebook is bad? It is good for keeping old friends in contact. Me and the both of them are real good examples man. =P Well, i haven't seen Julian ever since primary school until last year when i was doing medical check up at the clinic but surprisingly i can still recognise him. I wonder if any of St Anne people still remember him but he still remember mostly everyone. He even remembers TIONG HWA HUONG. Hahahaha. For Mei Ling i don't think i've met her ever since Form 5 which was like 3/4 years ago (gosh, we're getting old) but she's still the same ol' same ol'. Except that she was wearing BOOTS! Gosh, so fashionable liao lo. I've been here for a year but i'd never worn boots before. Seriously. =P

Also met up with AUDREYYY!!

This girl i haven't met since INTEC which was like a year ago. And to think that now she's here too! How time flies. FYI, she's different now oso lo. With boots. I think the one missing here in the picture is none other than our 'ah mah' Vero who's in India lo. Eh, u save money then come here la. =P

The whole Saturday was spent in the campus meeting acquantainces here and there, hanging around with old pals and stuff. And they also have a Malaysian Food Festival where there were stalls selling Malaysian food. There were cendol, nasi lemak etc. and I spent 10 pounds on the food there! Bought rojak, cucur and nasi ayam Hainan. Really greedy and i'll tell you HOW SERIOUSLY I REGRETTED THAT later in the post.

Nottingham University grounds is really really big and beautiful. It is so big that you need to get a bus to get from one place to another IN the campus. Compared to that, UCC is seriously a dwarf. Boohoo~

After Nottingham, we decided to go to London for a day since our flight on Monday back to Cork will be from Stanted Airport. Took the East Midlands train on Saturday night for only 12.50GBP.

15 minutes prior to reaching London St Pancras station, i felt a sudden pang of pain in the abdomen which i shrugged off as nothing serious. Little did i know it was the start of a whole night of torture and nightmare...... DIARRHEA. I think i'd made at least 10 visits to the toilet throughout the night till the next morning. Each time i was cursing at the food at the event and swearing that i will never ever buy food from stalls. And i seriously mean it!! Luckily the next morning Belinda whose house i was crashing at found some medicine in her house. If not, i think i would be spending my very first day in London in her toilet.

Thanks to the medicine, i was able to spend the whole Sunday touring London for the very first time in my life. The very first place that i went to was none other than King's Cross to look for Platform 9 3/4. It was a different from the movie because if i'm not mistaken, it was not the exact location that they use for shooting the movie. Still, i was happy enough for being at the very place which had been in my imagination for years ever since i picked up my very first Harry Potter book. In a way it was like a 'dream come true', no? Hehe.

After King's Cross, went with Bel to a church for service and after that, Chinatown!! It wasn't a really big place actually, only a few blocks of shops, but believe me, that is seriously enough to make anyone happy. You should see their Asian groceries stores which are all well stocked up with Asian food. Also the restaurants there are selling real Asian food, unlike the ones over here which sell 骗洋人 kind of food. If there's a Chinatown half that size here in Ireland i seriously will stop complaining once and for all. Unfortunately, there's NONE anyway so i will proceed with my complaints.


The rest of Sunday evening was spent on Oxford Street window SHOPPING!!! London is such a shopping haven - endless shops with all the big brand names. Lucky my financial condition was so bad that i was still in my 'frugal' mode. So didn't spend a pence there. Hihi.

So that was basically my first visit to London. Didn't have the time to go to the more iconic places such as the bridge, the castle and the tower. But i'll definitely go to those places during my next visit to London which is in DECEMBER!!! I will most certainly not miss the Boxing Day sale there this year.

And that was my whole weekend in UK for the Nottingham Games. What a tiring trip that was, with three sleepless nights. We went to Stansted Airport at 2.00am on Monday and we thought we could catch some sleep in the taxi on the way there. But the whole journey only took around 45 minutes and that was about the amount of sleep that we managed to get that night, plus the one hour on the flight. Reached Cork around 7.30 am and there was a lecture at 10.00am. So you can imagine how we were nodding our head off during the lectures. Still, for me it was well worth the energy and money. I am still very glad that we decided to go this year. Think i'll go again next year if everyone else is going too.

=P

Stressed Out

Somehow i was feeling really stressed out tonight. Maybe its because that the allowance for the next three months finally came in today and i need to sort everything out first i.e. clear my debts, make my budget etc. Or it might be cause by the fact that we'll be going to Nottingham tomorrow evening and i've yet to look for a connecting train/bus from Liverpool, nor have i packed. Or it's because i was trying to make plans for my three-week-long winter holiday but realised that everything is so expensive now and i can barely afford to spend all my money this winter. Orrrrr because the Dental Ball is in a week's time and i've yet to go into town to find a dress for it. Whatever the reason is, i was not feeling myself the whole night and had been a really snappy mood. So sorry dearsss if i was being mean tonight~~ Too tired to think of anything now. Heading to bed straightway~

=l

Scary~~

Living by the side of a main road wasn't so great after all. Lets not say about the noises of the car passing by or the lack of privacy as people could easily see the inside through the gigantic windows - it's easily accessible to any weirdos who happen to pass by your house or who are too bored during the long wait for the bus just opposite your house. And one just came to our house this morning!!

Just now i was in my room doing my stuff here at the study table as i heard the sound of the lid of our bins in front of the house being closed. I thought it was the people from "Bintang-Hijau"(translate that yourself) coming to collect the purple bin as they'd just rang this morning saying that they'll be here to collect it today after receiving my complaint last week. But i couldn't see the truck outside the gate so i thought that some idiot had thrown rubbish into the purple bin which was out by the kerb. So i decided to take a closer look at whoever that idiot was but was a bit surprised when i saw that it was a man who was opening the other two bins IN the house compound, and not the one outside!! Somemore his movements were kind of suspicious. Then he started to go round the house to the back of the house. I was so freaked out at that time but luckily everyone was inside and all three doors downstairs are locked. After that the man came to the front of the house again and lurked near the front for a few moments before finally going out of the gate. Last time i saw him he was still at the bus stop at the other side of the road. Hopefully he's not anywhere near here anymore. Had he hung around any longer than that i would be ringing the garda.

Seriously scary ok!! It's the second time during our one month plus here in this house that some weird person is lurking near the house. To think that it's safer at the busy road side than some secluded neighbourhood. Pah. Seriously reconsidering.

X(

Obsessive Disorder??

It's the weekend again. I know everyones happy because it's the weekend (obviously) but let me tell you something: I'M NOT!! Why?? It's because I AM FREAKING CLEANING THE FREAKING HOUSE AT THIS VERYYYY MOMENT and this is how i feel EVERY time i started cleaning. Ok i seriously don't like this. This is EXACTLY like Akasia and Castlewhite all over again. I'd been in this angry-but-don't-know-what-to-do state nearly EVERY WEEKEND for the past THREE YEARS(3) in my life - except during the summer holidays or term holidays when i'll be back in my HOME.

Ok. Let me put this straight first. It's not that i'm complaining about other people or anything. Right now i am complaining about myself because the problem now is ME. The problem is like this: Every Friday after finishing class for the week or Saturday morning, this little demon in me will start to come out. There will be voices in my head which will start to tell me that: IT IS TIME TO CLEAN THE HOUSE!! It might be because i'm feeling that we are all too busy for any cleaning during the weekdays but we still have to do it regularly. So, obviously weekend is the time to clean up! So let it be the weekend, the CLEANING-MODE in me will get automatically switched ON. All my thoughts will be focused on this: I HAVE TO CLEAN UP and it gets so serious that i will not have a peace of mind until i've done so. The dirtier the house, the worse it'll get. The worst case is that i can't really study unless the house is clean. Ok, now you might be thinking: 'so what's the problem? Just go and clean up!'. And yes, i will do so even without you telling me so but then, there's just this ONE TINY LITTLE PROBLEM: every time i DO start to clean, another thought will start to appear: I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE STAYING HERE (note that this refer to: Akasia, Castlewhite besides here), BUT WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE DOING THIS? And you'll find me ended up really disgruntled while doing all the cleaning at the same time. Don't get me wrong too. By saying this, this doesn't mean that i'm not willing to do the jobs or anything. I DO. I just do not want to do them with an angry and disgruntled mind because i'll start to think that the reason i got angry is because i'm too selfish to do anything for others and i'll ended up getting even angrier at myself and at others. Believe me this is seriously getting too distressing and bad for me mentally. So for God's sake, someone please please tell me how to solve this. I've given up trying to talk because: first, IT'LL GIVE OTHERS IMPRESSION THAT I'M A CLEAN FREAK, second, THAT I'M BOSSY, third, I HAVE NO RIGHT TO TELL OTHERS WHAT TO DO, and lastly, IT STILL ENDED UP THE SAME EVERY SINGLE TIME. Again, i believe the problem is with me and my thinking. I am not having obsessive complusive cleaning right, right??

Just to let you know, my definition of clean is no obviously visible dust, no stain, no debris. For the kitchen, the surface has to be disinfected and wiped down. No food and oily stains on tables, counters or hobs. Floor swept and mopped up. Definitely no food debris around. For toilet, it has to be cleaned (and maybe disinfected), floor mopped up as well, bath tub or shower scrubbed with no hair lying around. For the rest of the house, floor swept and mopped up and carpets vacumned. And this applies only to the cleaning up during the WEEKENDS. This is not too much, is it?? Please tell me that moping the floor once a week is normal. Please please tell me that wiping the kitchen surfaces everytime after cooking is normal. Please please tell me that all these are not too much and i'm not having a psycological problem or anything. But living through three different places with so many different people and still not finding one who thinks the same is kinda worrying. It starts to make you think that you're the one who's actually having the problem. Well, i'm not asking for 100% bacterial free or 100% dust free. As long as they're not really visually visible is good enought for me. So this cant be COD right? I mean people with compulsive cleaning are usually asking for 100% perfection and i don't.

Ok now i'm making myself dizzy thinking of these. But you know what? I kinda feel a hell lot better now that i'd finally let out all these. AFTER 3 YEARS OF HOLDING EVERYTHING IN!! So i don't care who's going to read this and what people are going to say. Still, i know i have to do something about this because this is actually affecting my studies, especially when nearing exam times.Just a second there now, could it be that this is actually another excuse for me to not to study?? Oh no.....

O.O

P.S.: Btw, i will prefer what's in this blog will always remain in this blog. =)