the music listening station!!

well in case you haven't noticed, there's not just ONE, but FIVE pieces of music on the right hand side of this blog.

only thing missing is the lyrics to all five, however.

but anyway, you can control what you want to listen by clicking on the "play" button on the windows media player thingy there...

yeah, the pieces do change from time to time, and there might be more... i just can't get the windows media player to playback 5 songs though.. if you know can you please tell me? thanks!

ok, sit back and enjoy the music! (and fill in the chatterbox too!)

busy day

whoa, today was a busy day. during last sem, this would have been normal.

0900-1200: Dosage form design prac - emulsions part II. finished at 1030, hung around with constance etc. haha she, jason and the gang forgot to sign out after the prac.

1200-1345: tutorial for samurai, geisha and yongqiang at AS6/0209. with constance and yeelian.

1345-1400: met nuanxin, she passed me the remaining YEP forms in a brief instant.

1400-1500: ate lunch and slacked away at arts canteen, made our way back to science. with cons. seems like i can't get enough of her. lol

1500-1600: one hour computer lab with prof Eli Chan. one word: boring. i sat in the front row and was evidently closing my eyes in front of him, yet his monotonous voice keep rattling on. well... alvin was saying in an earlier class a whole row of fellas fell asleep yet he didn't care. whatever.

1600-1700: slack with alvin in sci canteen, trying to stay awake.

1700-1830: ppac meeting.

1830-1900: dinner with xiuting, xinyi and kelvin lai.

more reports on the week:
thu: lunch with head of department, pharmacy, prof chan sui yong, at fratellos.
fri: meeting with head of department, pharmacy, prof chan sui yong, about giving the green light for something regarding pharmacy camp.
barbecue at pgp organised by bingxun.
sat: emed elections. haven't really organised my thoughts.
sun: free day for consolidation.. NOPE! go to sentosa with rag dancers.
mon: pharmacostatistics test... (?)

***

some unrelated information...

at about 0600 today i was reading this stack of readings for samurai, geisha and yakuza while giving up on my malfunctioned printer and i chanced upon this streak of information:

(told to a U.S. marine unit) "every Jap has been told that it is his duty to die for the Emperor. it is your duty to see that he does."

then i thought of this game called Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. single player. rarely have games about WW2 been about Japan as the antagonist, it's always about killing German brownshirts, SS, officers, snipers, panzer tanks, shepards.

there was this level, tarawa atoll (last stage) where the US (the player) has captured a strategic stronghold, and the Japs were mounting a last attack. so you stood behind this GPMG and your task was to shoot the Japs who were charging at your positions. with bayonets and samurai swords. only.

of course it would be easy to kill 'em all, but such a scene made me think about the suicidal nature of these soldiers. and the nature of the US marines gunning them down. now it is a game, but imagine how brutal it was back in '45...

ok. slight distraction. get back to work.. haha..

how to make an emulsion

think emulsions (mixture of 2 immiscible liquids) are hard to make? well think again!! haha

1) measure out the ingredients for primary emulsion, i.e. oil:water:gum in the ratio 4:2:1 if it is fixed oil, or otherwise

2) measure out other ingredients such as nice flavoured peppermint water, strawberry water, avocardo water, etc, syrup; pour nicely in cool and stylish glass measuring cylinders.

3) take a porcelain mortar and pestle (must be the big big porcelain type!!) kiss it gently.

4) wash the porcelain mortar and pestle througholy and wipe it dry, as if you were selling it as a brand new one.

5) you can put the gum (powdered acacia) inside the mortar. gently pound it with the pestle to remove lumps, like a sledgehammer. make sure everything is ground to dust (literally)

6) say your prayers, oh my god i hope this works.

7) cross yourself

8) crack your knuckles

9) inhale, exhale

10) with bated breath, seize the container which contains the oil

11) and pour it into the mortar

12) and at a speed of about 4-5 rps (revolutions per seconds around the mortar), with the pestle, triturate (grind and mix) the contents like, someone owned you money. continue for about 5 seconds.

13) hesitate, then grab the container which contains the water phase

14) and pour it over the mortar and pestle such that the water nourishes the contents

15) and MIX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! speed: 4-5 rps.

if you mix hard and fast enough you will see the oil (golden yellow) + gum (light brown) + water (colourless) turn into a white milky viscous substance that resembles something like milk/yogurt. it is very sticky and makes a "pip-piak" sound. haha....

lol after last week's and this week's prac, we have all become masters of the emulsion... my suppositories still suck though haha

of bad words and foul mouths

quite shocked to hear that one of my female friends approached me and said, hey, you changed a lot.

before sem2, i was a optimistic, a person who was always-ready to help, and i seldom complain...

then after focc, i morphed into this impatient, insensitive, saying things without caring about how people feel, vulgar-mouthed and rude, full of complains person.

and, many people have noticed the same things too. alarm bells start to pop up.

well........................

impatient? maybe. well time isn't really on my side. perhaps the idea of getting things done asap is very rude. well. i may be moving too fast, well speed is relative ba. perhaps the thing she meant was i tend to "want things done and i want it now."
maybe. but if i let it drag, when will it get finished?

anyway whats wrong with being impatient?

insensitive. i dun really have a radar that can tune to the other 6 billion people in the world, or at least the community around me. even if i have, it is giving me mixed signals all the time. people are always so subjective, each with their own ideals: how do i know what they want?

saying things without caring about how people feel: see above point. sometimes we have different ways of how things can be carried out, and i feel that if i'm not saying this, i might as well save the brain cells, and don't think so much, before the next onslaught of brain cells. if i think of something, i might as well say it.

vulgarities: well guys all say vulgarities. we probably have a ranking system for vulgarities, after the army experiences. well i personally think if u dun utter a word of vulgarities after the army then you probably need some f-therapy as what leonard suggests. (like what we tried to do to kangwei. haha)

dunno why girls dun like vulgarities. and i have the (mis)fortune to find myself in a female-dominated course, where vulgarities are a no0OOOOOOOO!!! no0OOOOOOOOOOO!!!

we're all suckers

tuesday. one lecture, one break, two lectures.

finished at 4pm. came home (with jevin) to sleep. i dunno why i was really tired.

woke up for the "Talk by Health Minister" at UCC, 7pm. Dress wear: formal. partly why i went back to change - i had army sandals on...

ok, from the start not everyone was very interested... perhaps the medicine students who wanted to hear something. i could see left right up down center everyone dozing off. trying to count the number of pharm students dozing off. lol. there were some medicine students who were seated in full view of the Minister, dozing off as well.

i wonder who the hell organised this, and what's the purpose.

it was to the q&a part that was most interesting.

after 3 questions posed by medicine students (well who said this wasn't a medicine-dominated affair?) the dean of medicine who was seated to the minister said, "can we have some people from pharmacy, dentistry, nursing?" just as another medicine dude was planning to shoot his mouth off. well. wrong choice.

yt rose to the occasion and posed the question that all pharmacists have been asking, something about giving the dispensing rights to pharmacists. to that, we all cheered.

the minister said something like "all people who can dispense should be able to dispense" or something to that effect, i.e. you don't need exclusively pharmacists to do dispensing. which is the system used in Singapore now. (in the top 5 countries ranked in order of medical development or what they give dispensing rights to pharmacists).

fair enough, well i think the pharmacist don't need dispensing rights, everything need not come through the pharmacist. more efficient. like that time in phil when i had to see the doctor, THEN get the medicine from a drugstore. horrible procedure. but if it comes through the pharmacist, then there is additional benefit that the drugs supplied to the patient are suitable. after all, that's what pharmacists' are for, right? or are they just to dispense like a dispensary medic?

the point here is that, currently, any ah-kow-ah-neow can dispense drugs, be it the university gal or the aunty who's working at a clinic. and GP clinics are the most frequently visited of all medical facilities. firstly, why do you require people with 4 years of pharmacy knowledge to do the same job? secondly, whos the regulator of these dispensors? the GP? the GP is inside his clinic room 1, examining his patient, doing counselling, writing case notes, and thinking of what time to go home. does he still wanna entertain questions from the receptionist, an untrained personnel, who might encounter problems with dispensing?

the thing is, we're asking, if we can have a share of the pie, if we can have the right to dispense and even prescribe, we can save more time, more doctors' time. so that they can attend to more patients. the thing about making the drugs cheaper i think is that we can recommend cheaper versions of the drug (or generic versions) to patients who might request for them - this prevents the doctors from deliberately overcharging. and finally we can act as a check against those guys who deliberately prescribe Subutex (although the law has solved this problem) to drug addicts and related cases. Will the GP care about whether the patient takes the drug properly?

THEN, he said something about "doctors are smarter than pharmacists, because they know how to attract customers" or some shit, implying that many more people go to doctors instead of a pharmacy (he specifically mentioned Guardian), because the doctors can sell them the drug more conveinently and on the spot rather than having to go to a pharmacy. like in phil. well. true. same problem - who mans those pharmacies?

this statement, be it in jest or meant to be analogous, is simply not becoming of a minister, who leads something. Someone of his stature should know better to shoot his mouth off like that. and it is a wrong statement - firstly there is no standard of which to measure "smartness" or intelligence - how smart or capable a doctor / pharmacist is depends on different things. and hence, it is unfair to make any comparison, if at all. the only thing that can measure "smartness" is A-level results, of course for that doctors have better results in general. But where can that definitely get you?

and this statement clearly drew a big divide among the pharmacy students and medical students seated. when we delivered our question, we clapped; when the minister gave his reply, the medicine students cheered back in return.

well~ nothing to say about this, but the main aim of the whole "medical team" system is that whether you are a doctor / dentist, pharmacist, nurse, therapist, counsellor, even down to the hospital cleaner - you will work together to ensure the well-being of the patient. we are all part of a team, and we need each other to deliver the full benefit of our treatment. i believe in that, and i still do now.

but now, the situation, and the system, makes it seem that everyone is there only for their own personal interests... i guess the minister is right when he says he's a sucker to have stayed in the MOH. probably we're all suckers to have chosen this path as well.

slack life

Wednesday. One morning of prac (dosage form design I), then nothing left. Wanna sing but no one wanted, it was cancelled in the end.

Thursday. One lecture. Very boring, the lecturer was definitely wasting our time. What could have been posted in ivle (and he did it later) was turned into a monotonous 2-hour lecture explaining the questions for tutorial 2. and he did about 10 problems out of 25 only.

Spent some time in the med lib pouring over BPC 1973 and PC 1979 (11th Ed), trying to figure out monographs for the pharm law practicals. The first floor was quite quiet. maybe the action all takes place in the second floor behind those dividers. Didn't see leo and his gang.

Friday. Two lectures until lunchtime and break off. No boring pharm law lecture. I'm ponning the meeting for eml, i think it's a waste of time, meeting to discuss about what we're gonna do on saturday for the "first lesson". When i planned the details.

Still haven't prepared anything for emed interview yet. Received distressing news from shannon that nusps is gonna be an all-female team. girl power (well prob she thinks if jenxi loses the pres position). asked me to join something. but i want emed - the voluntary wing cos that's probably the only thing i've set sights on... other than ppac which i have some interest cos they organise pharmacy camp..

too bad nusps elections are earlier than emed interviews, so i'd have to wait out the elections. no ps positions.

i hope i get the pres position. if not, well it might be a blessing in disguise, i have more time to concentrate on work. and i can continue to volunteer like year 1. heard sarah (current pres) is conducting the interviews herself. well i dunno, i'm not very close to her, "if the game is to be played that way". i'll just give it my best shot and give kiki my best regards. dun mind if she wins either.

what a slack life.. three afternoons in a row doing nothing... probably this is the only chance i can do this without stress in this sem (the next chance will be when tutorials are over, but then exams are coming).

i shall say the word "boring" once again, before i say continuous words of "tired".

depressed... again

sigh. what's wrong with me today?

sometimes you dont have this urge to smile back when others smile at you, and you just want to be locked in your own world, listening to your own songs, doing your own work.

probably its a way of myself atoning for the mistakes i made within myself. the wrong decisions, the regret... sometimes it's just too painful to look up,

to see others,

to reply

just feel dead.

i dunno.

i think sometimes i'm a fool with so many strings connected to my limbs, for people to manipulate in whatever way they want.

---
went for dispensing lab again. difficulty increased. very oily. made emulsifying ointment, one emulsion, and calamine cream.

it was a mess... i really hate those people who are running around. goddammit. there was one time i weighed my poison (betamethasone valerate) and i put it beside the weighing pan preparing to transfer it somewhere where whoosh! someone just ran past and sent the beta powder flying all over the place. tmd.

and when you are strapped for time, that's the last thing you wanna happen to you.

it did not help when you have 3 TAs and ms tan beside my table observing every illegal move that you make during the preparation. very stressed.

i think i will fail this practical. well everyone thinks so. but in the end, only i will fail... my work is truly shitty.

sigh. will we, because of survival, kill each other? is that a human instinct?

Post-rag performance

went to sch on sunday morning, 0900, after having a pretty busy day on saturday trying to work steps out...

practiced a while.. we changed the steps a little due to this accident this flyer from Law had.. she fell while practicing stunts from a height of 3 persons (about 2-3m), impact caused her heart to stop beating for 1 min...

yup since then the admin (nussu) banned stunts ("advised against it") and hence we had to change our steps.. choreographed on sat by jw and we had only one rehearsal.

so we went to ps. had lunch there with heavy makeup and full costumes in a bunch at long john silvers. felt quite weird. lol had a quick lunch before we rushed up to ground level to perform.

first performance wasn't too bad, but because of the changes we made to the positions and all i had to run backstage in about 4 bars of 8 to get to the other side. wasn't easy as backstage composed of narrow paths and lots of cheerleader girls ready to go for the finale item. barely made it there on time...

hanged around and mingled with nuanxin, winnie, winnie's boyfriend, waiseng, edwin and mayi who came to watch the performance.

also saw dentistry and SoC's performance. dentistry's was cute, i think that's how i describe it.. i loved the robots. they had a theme very similar to sheares' rag - the sleeping girl who dreams of
all kinds of stuff from robots to cavemen to cowboys and tin soldiers. but they had so much more people than us..

SoC (School of computing) was much more fantastic. Illustrating the Battle of Good vs Evil (one of those tales again...) it was about man being initially swayed by the leader of the devils than the leader of the angels step in and try to pull him to the good side, then the "pulling" intensifies and they drag in their followers and then a fight ensues, after which only the two leaders survive, fight it out for a final showdown. then the angel strikes the devil down, but then the man in the middle sympathises with the devil, despite repeated attempts by the angel to drag him away, he still clings on to the dying devil, so the angel made the choice and strikes him down as well.

It showed the dual faces of man towards good and evil, and the two small angel-devil figures that pop up occasionally in our thoughts... and man is drawn in between the battle, but the forces of good does not tolerate this sympathy... very touching... i would almost have cried. the music probably helped.

and the thing was, they performed in the afternoon hot sun, all actors barefoot on the scorching marble floor of PS. when some of the angels and devils died they had to lie with skin on the hot floor. omg. *clapclapclap*. as a judgement to how hot it was, the moment i put my palms on the floor (as required during my performance) i immediately had to withdraw it.

well.. it was fun. after that we had one more round of performances at 3, then broke at 4. the main party (wanchee, xinyi, xiuting, yen fang, wingyee, kaixin, 2 x kelvins, ivan and me) went to cuppage to play pool, then went to rice table to eat. sang many songs along the way. ha.

I split my pants!!!

thursday. boring. had lecture from 8am-10am and that was it... my slackest day...

waited for the rest in sci canteen to give me their cca record forms, then went to look-see the opening of PS room. it's a nice room with compactors, a radio, some small tables and a nice meeting table with comfy seats. cushions galore. hopefully it'll be one of my resting places other than CH's room.

pearl and shan were quite ecstatic about the opening of the room!

then went to yih to get 7 cca record cards and had lunch with bx and ch. felt quite dizzy, came home and slept.

awoke, then prepared to go for post- rag dance practice. we're given 3 days to refine our act again for the general public at Plaza Singapura this Sunday.

tried some stunts, i revisited the "flip" that we did during chingay on jielin (successful on the first attempt!) and jingwen got to fly in a rare chance. lol.

halfway through my pants tore! omg. it happened when i was preparing to be the base for Sean who wanted to be the flyer and the pants (trackpants) which i was wearing was draped awkwardly resulting in unneeded tension around the groin area. lol...

then along the way they were discussing about joining the PS exco.. i'm considering emed. shall i rise up to the calling? all of the seniors agreed that emed is indeed a very fulfilling sub-com to join. sigh. another decision to make. it would mean a dip in my studies... again... then again, if i don't join now, i'll never get such a nice chance to join again..

hmm huang yun the previous project director of emed suggested that i have some sort of a vision of what to do, even before voting starts. hmm.. 2 major projects and 2 minor projects.. i'm thinking of probably org an overseas trip as what jingwen suggested, continuing the brown-baggin effort, maybe can collaborate with some other volunteer group like lion's befrienders... etc etc... getting ideas from nvac, rotaract club and csc ba.. that i will need the help of people like nuanxin (nvac), yiliang (nvac), ruixiang (rotaract club P), xinyi, edwin, mayi, benny (csc)...

hmm... opporturnities abound... lets make the most of it.. =)

Welcome!

Spent the whole of today (well actually a few hours only) creating this speck on the WWW.

Well i think i should give the blog a bit of a revamp, something like a CNY clearup, since, well, it's the new work year and things are gonna get more difficult and so on...

Subjects (in chronological order of exam date)

GEK2022 - Samurai, Geisha, Yongqiang in self or other
PR2102 - Pharmacy Law
EC1301 - Principles of Econs
PR2101 - Dosage Form Design
PR2103 - Pharmacostatistics.

Hmm... lets talk about the first 2 days of school. I spent the third day of school doing this, when there were no lessons.

Two words: quite shack. First day was Prof Bernard's day where everyone (well, about six of us guys and Candice) turned up in formal wear. well... bingxun really looked like Prof. B. with his blue shirt, black blazer (RJC windbreaker), gelled hair and pen-pointer!!!

for me, i looked like a medicine freshie with a white shirt, black pants, haversack. turned up in sports shoes cos i left my leather ones in the PS room, had to beg pearlyn to open it to restore my honour.

4 hours break in choon han's room, decided that BSP1005 wasn't our cuppa tea and switched to EC1301, and then watched choon han execute the finesse of DOTA. as usual.

lab. first lab. ill-prepared. made ointment and pessaries (yes, for vaginal use only). very oily.
shacked out. my pessaries look like those 10c jellies in assorted colours. too much bubbles.

next day: pr2101 project.. sighz..

decided to be more hardworking and went to the pr2102 lab to look up the PC. they dun print for us no more.

gek2022 was interesting, some fresh air. japanese studies. awakened the samurai in me..

pharm law was.. more projects. we studied the law, lor.

tired after a mere 2 days in school. and i dun feel any refreshed after a whole day of slacking.

sigh.





So many questions, so many answers
Two years later you're still in my mind