You know how sometimes when you feel certain emotions running through your mind , you just have to record them down in the spur of the moment before they slowly subside away? That's exactly what I am going to do now, record down exactly what I am feeling at the moment, write down exactly what is going through my head right now. And then look back maybe tomorrow or a few days later and laugh back at it and think about how silly I was to have these thoughts.
Let's get straight to the point. I'm feeling stressed out right now. I am not even halfway through reading up for the PBL presentation session tomorrow. Staying up really isn't a problem for me, but waking up early is. I've got CSU (Clinical Skills Unit) session tomorrow- which begins at friggin' 8 am in the morning. I know I shouldn't be complaining - they're many ppl who have to wake up much early than me, but I am NOT a morning person. It's still ok, if I could go home in the afternoon and rest and nap. But no..... it just had to be a full day tomorrow. From CSU, to lectures, to PBL presentation in the afternoon, to latin dance class in the evening- it's a wonder if I don't drop dead tomorrow. Especially since I predict I'm gonna stay up late again tonight.
I am almost a week behind in reading up on lectures- things just keep coming my way. What with PBL presentations now 2 times per week. Then there is this CPR theory exam which we've to sit for this coming Friday. Luckily it's not tomorrow.
I end up having not more than a few hours of sleep each time- since I just simply LOVE to work in the middle of the night and the wee hours of the morning, don't ask me why - and as a result, I'm sleep deprived. And that leads to my recent mood swings. I can feel absolutely fine one minute and just feel really down and moody and upset about a trivial thing the next minute. Imagine my housemates having to tolerate that every day.
I think God was really speaking to me when this morning at church while waiting to be ushered in, I just randomly picked up a book and flipped through it. And one sentence caught my eye and stood out for me. It read ' The lack of sleep can lead to moody swings'. Whoa....it's as if the sentence was especially directed towards me.
Small things can now aggravate me. Just my housemates happily chattering to each other, finding out that two of my old friends in Cardiff are now an item - even though I never had feelings for the guy before and just treat him like a friend - receiving a quarter of the number of testimonials I sent out, etc.
Sometimes, I believe I still do suffer from low self-esteem. I always think that other girls are much prettier, smarter, more hardworking, more obedient, more deserving than me. Sometimes maybe that's the reason why guys never seem to be interested in me :p k ....k....I'm just kidding, actually I think it's more likely due to the fact that I had sort of an adversion for guys when I was younger. Now I treat them like friends too.....but...seriously I don't forsee any guy wanting to be with me. There are many other good-looking girls out there, and I can't cook. No, actually I can, but for the most part I'm lazy to :p It's a different story altogether when I cook with my housemates.
Alright, I guess I'll stop my random blurbs here and continue on with my PBL. Muacks!
Ailing
p/s: kudos to those of you who actually read through this entire blog entry!

Foundation 2

So yeah, we started our Foundation 2 course today. In many ways, I suddenly feel as if I'm already a Semester 2 student, although we aren't officially Semester 2 students yet until after the Chinese New Year break. You see, we are already starting to learn about stuff which usually Semester 2 students learn - such as General Pathology, Microbiology, Parasitology, Immunology and Pharmacology, and last but not least, we are starting Clinical Skills soon. I am most weary about Clinical Skills, but hopefully it wouldn't be so bad because this semester we are only going to be taught some basic stuff like history taking, measuring pulse, blood pressure and temperature. The main reason why we are now learning Sem 2 stuff when we are not really yet Sem 2 students is because students of the previous batches had their big End of Semester exams after Foundation 1, which would be Semester 1 for them, while we are only gonna have our big exams at the end of our Sem 2.
Today, I attended a talk on New Year Resolutions by one of the IMU lecturers. It was organized by the Christian Fellowship. The main reason I report this in my blog is because one message stood out for me - we must always look ahead and press ahead and never harp on our past mistakes or failures. Or else we will never move on.
Philippians Chapter 3 Verse 12-14 says :
'Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet ot have taken hold of it. But one thing I do : Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.'
This is something which I'm really struggling to do. For example, everytime I sit for an exam, I would always try to recall back the paper and the questions asked, and then go home to check for the answers. And moan if I discovered that I've gotten them wrong. Also, the disappointments that I went through earlier on last year and also the 2 years before, I know that I've to learn to let go. I've to learn not to live in my past, but to press ahead towards the future. Only then can I succeed. This would not be as easy as it seems, I know. But I'll make it my 7th new year resolution to add on to the first 6 which I've mentioned in my previous blog.
Yet another new year resolution that I forgot to put down yesterday - to do more regular exercise. I've been really neglecting my exercise- preferring to take a nap in the evenings instead of going jogging or doing other forms of work out. Hopefully, with lectures starting at 10:30 am for the most part this term, ( instead of 8 am previously) I would be able to squeeze in more regular exercise from now on. I don't know how well will I be able to keep to this resolution, being the lazy bum I am :p

Ok, it's confirmed. I'm gonna flop in the upcoming summative assessment next Friday. :/
I'm just simply not prepared at all for it. Somehow, just somehow, no matter how hard I try, the most I can do is catch up with daily lectures. I barely have time to go back and revise previous lectures which have been taught quite a while ago. Why oh why can't I go any faster? Sigh.
I know that most of my batchmates are already quite far into their revision, their revision is getting on well. Maybe it's because they study much faster than me. Why am I so damn slow?
I want a study leave! Now! Seriously. How are we supposed to finish studying and remember every single detail? The test being MCQ doesn't help either if I don't even have time to revise! Our Sem 2 seniors had a 2 week pure study leave for their 1st Summative Assessment. We, M206 people, need a study leave as well!!!!!!
As if the Dean, or the Head of Academic Affairs Department would read this and seriously consider this proposal/petition. Sigh.

It's a waste of time.....

to go to church.
Well, that's exactly what my Singaporean friend said just now when we went grocery shopping at Carrefour. She had earlier on finally agreed follow me and one of my housemates to church again after missing out on more than one month of church services. But now, it looks like she's not going again, simply because it's a waste of her time.
Last week, her reply when I texted her, asking her whether she was going or not was ' Should I go or not? Don't have the heart to go to church :p . I've yet to finish studying the GI tract.'
Gosh, I don't know how to reply her. Sure, there are different types of people. Some people, like David and Naomi, our semester 2 seniors, still attend church service even when they're having an assessment the following day. Others think that it's time wasted, and better spent sleeping in or studying.
Oh God, what have I done to deserve such studious coursemates? They are all like really stressing out about the upcoming assessment. If she is stressing out even though she has already studied quite a lot for the assessment, how about me? I'll be dead meat!
It's people like this that makes me even more stressed than I already am. I try to appear cool, but deep inside I'm stressing out too about the assessment. I'm seriously not prepared for it, simply because I have to catch up with our daily lectures everyday. I thought that I'm trying my best, but looks like it's simply not enough compared to the effort put in by others. If I'm stressing myself out like this right now, I can't imagine what it'll be like in the future semesters, when we'll have tons more assessments to go through, and also those big exams which we really need to pass in order to proceed on to the next semester. What about during the clinical years when we'll receive much more pressure, going for ward rounds in the hospital (sometimes for the whole day) besides studying? What about during the housemanship year when we get bullied like crazy by the senior nurses and doctors? Oh, and must I go through all this anyways? Is this what life on earth is about, suffering and trying to withstand pressure because you need to earn your living?
I seriously feel like screaming out loud. Let my housemates think I'm crazy, I don't care :P

Behavioural Sciences Week Part Deux

So the Behavioural Science Week is officially over - much to the relief of most of my coursemates ( including my housemates). I, on the contrary, wish that it didn't end that fast, simply because I find it not as demanding compared to other weeks. What we learn in Behavioural Science week is mostly to do with logic and common sense. Well, we actually still have to study for the lectures, but I notice that everyone seems to be somewhat more concerned about the hard sciences part of medicine. People still carry the Marieb book around even though it is not one of the recommended books for this 2 weeks.
People are already stressing out about the upcoming summative assessment at the end of next month even though it is only an assessment. Everywhere I go, I see people study and study, and I've to admit that at times it stresses me out too. It makes me feel like I'm one of the laziest people in my class even though I try to stay up at night.
Back to the Behavioural Science Week, my patient interview was held yesterday. As I mentioned previously, it is also being assessed and contributes 2% of our total grades. I think mine went on ok. I was rather nervous at first, and was in a disarray. However, I went in and just strutted my stuff, doing the necessary introduction ( asking for name, age, occupation, etc.) and starting up a bit of a casual chat before I proceeded on to the actual part, which was to ask the patient about his problem. (It was a male patient btw). He was suffering from knee pain. I asked all the necessary questions like how long had it been going on for, have you done anything about it, what do you think might have caused it, can you describe the pain for me, does it cause you any problems, do you have any worries, etc. I am grateful that I got Paul Jambu as the assessing lecturer. He is one of the more lenient ones in marking among the 6 Behavioural Science lecturers.
Hera Lukman on the other hand, one of my housemates got her as the assessing lecturer, and apparently she is very strict in marking. Unlike the other lecturers, she looks at whether the student is successful in building rapport with the patient, and not just whether the student has managed to ask all the necessary questions.
My groupmates, who as I mentioned earlier are all Malays, are great people. Now, I'm glad that I got put into the same group as them. Maybe it's God's way of telling me that I need to open myself up more to these people as well.
Yeah, I guess that sort of wraps up my Behavioural Sciences week report- it's back to normal again next week, and back to the daily grind of reading lecture notes AND the Marieb book and looking at everyone around me working like mad and feeling lazy and inadequate again.

Behavioural Sciences Week Part 1

So we are halfway through our intensive 2 week course on the Behavioural Sciences.
The Behavioural Science week is a refreshing change from the Biological Sciences that we are used to learning. If before, we learn about the Kreb's Cycle and various other metabolic reactions occuring in the body as well as the structure and functions of the various organs in our body, this week, we study about the behavioural aspect of medicine.
We were exposed to more psychological stuff this week, for example pain, motivation, becoming ill, reacting towards illness, ageing, the various theories of learning, personality, etc.
Dr.Hera Lukman was lecturing us today! I had been looking forward to seeing her, as I had heard quite a lot of positive things being mentioned about her from our seniors as well as batchmates who had been her PBL mentees. I always thought that I could differentiate between a British and an American accent, that is until I met her. During her introduction, she mentioned that she had a complex background, and she had been to many different countries around the world. Most recently, she had just returned from a 3 week trip to the US. She talks without fullstops, lol! But she's a great lecturer, she has this charisma about her as she teaches. When I checked for feedback from my friends, they all liked her a lot.
Also, we get to learn how to interact with our patients and how exactly to go about conducting a patient interview. We were divided into groups of 4-5 people, and horror of all horrors, I had to be randomly appointed as my group leader. And furthermore, my groupmates were all Malays, whom I never really got to know before ( ever though they are my batchmates).
We learnt exactly what type of questions to ask the patient, how to built rapport with the patient, etc. My group had our interview practice session last week. It was fun, we took turns to be the patient and the doctor. Being the group leader, I was the very first person to act as the doctor. The feedback from the factilitator about my attempt was positive, to my delight.
Next week would be the real thing, when our interview sessions with our stimulated patients would be recorded and then assessed. It's quite scary actually, for a first-timer, but with some practice, hopefully everything will be fine. Also, as a group leader, I am supposed to know how to operate the video camera, something which I have never even laid a hand on before.
To summarize, the Behavioural Science week is to make sure that we become all-rounded doctors in the future, being able to be caring and compassionate towards our patients and understanding towards their needs, instead of just being machines giving out medicine. Because there is more to medicine and being a doctor then just curing the patient.

At the end of next week, I'll update you guys with the occurings of the second half of the Behavioural Science week.

My very first attempt in.....

My very first attempt in......
Worship leading.
Yeah, that's right. ;) You haven't read it wrong.
It all started when I was in my bedroom, having just arrived back in my condo after the one week break. As you can imagine, I wasn't in my best mood then. I was 'mourning' over the end of the holidays. How I wish we had at least ONE more day of this precious break. But of course I just had to begrudgingly accept the fact that there is little I could do about it, except prepare myself for a fresh new start for the next phase of semester 1 in IMU.
I was noncholantly unpacking my luggage when Enrique Igleasieas's 'Hero' filled the airspace of my bedroom. I reached out for the culprit- my brand new Nokia 6680.
It was Joanne, the Christian Fellowship cell group leader for us Semester 1 students. (She's a semester 5 student)
'Ailing, do you know who in the cell group knows how to play the guitar? I've lost the list of people who are able to play the instrument, being the absent-minded person that I am'.
'Uhhh...I don't know' came the honest reply.
'Do you know how to play the guitar?'
'No- but I might be able to lead worship...'
'Yeah, I remember I saw from the list that a whole lot of you are willing to do worship leading'
Then suddenly she asked ' Do you want to lead worship for the Cell Group in 2 week's time? Next week Pei Shern would be leading but you can do the week after next.'
'But I do not know how to play the guitar'
'Never mind, I'll get someone to play the guitar.'
Hmmm......is this what you call 'God's calling?'
I didn't take long to contemplate, accepting the offer almost immediately. Being in control of the choice of songs that we would be singing in the next cell group meeting doesn't seem like such a bad idea at all.
During the following cell group, Joanne borrowed me her entire book of worship songs. Needless to say, I was spoilt for choice! I could recognize many songs, and I found myself uttering ' Oh, I love this song' 'Oh I love this song too' numerous times.
Finally, after some deliberation, I managed to narrow down the song choices to 3 songs 'I Could Sing of Your Love Forever' 'God Will Make A Way' and 'Above All'
I didn't even get to practice with Eunice, who was supposed to play the guitar, because she didn't have one.
^ ^ ^
Finally, the moment arrived. The Seminar Room which Joanne booked for the first time, ever since we finally acknowledged that the group was too large to be accommodated in a small PBL room, was already filled with people.
Horror of all horrors. There was NO guitar after all. We were going to be singing without any accompanying music. It's all going to be based on our voices alone. Any flaws in our singing would be exaggerated.
Silence. It was time to begin. After the opening prayer, I suddenly found all eyes focused on me I shuffled my feet and wringed my hands, unaccustomed to this type of attention on myself.
I introduced the first song ' I could sing of your love' as a very significant song for me, because it was the theme song for the very first Easter Conference I had ever attended, where I accepted Christ.
My groupmates all knew the song, much to my delight. Soon, our voices were singing in harmony to the song. It was just pure singing to the Lord, without any backgroud music whatsforever. It was the same for the second song ' God Will Make A Way'.
As I was introducing the third song ' Above All', Sarah suddenly had something to say.
'Guys, I know that it's a bit weird without any guitar accompaniment, but let's just sing our hearts out to the Lord. Because he looks into our hearts.' she pointed out.
And so the harmonious melody of 'Above All' began filling the room. Never before had I heard the song being sung so beautifully.
At the end of the day, I know that it's not how well we sang the songs, but whether our hearts and souls are really into the worship that counts. Because God looks into our hearts.