Look who is breaking their promise LOL

Well, someone said that they would be more active in writing blog posts but obviously someone lied LOL. Now that I''m back in here typing my heart away, obviously means that I have something to say.. well not really to be honest, just kinda came here to type, senselessly... Typing without limitations is definitely fun.

I recently just finished reading Yee Pei's wordpress (equivalent of her blog) and I seriously admire her for having the determination to update her blog often. Plus, with pictures. I used to do that long time ago, but uploading pictures and positioning them was a bit of a pain as time went by few years ago, so I think I just gave that part of blogging up. Instead, most of the pictures are either on Facebook, Instagram, or my trusty hard drive. Sometimes, I do reconsider putting my photos back on blogger but laziness just takes over. Plus, my chapter in Dublin has come to an end, so my life back here is boring and basically a routine. So, technically there really isn't much to photograph about. I'm tired enough living this life, no way I would document this dull everyday life. Also, something that I noticed from her word press is her words are powerful enough to touch every reader, well at least she gets to me. I read back at mine and sure it does bring back memories which is great and all, but it doesn't really touch the readers (if anyone is even reading any of this shiz).  There goes a much better blogger.

One thing that triggered me to write this blog post was the part where she met up with Brandon over the summer and there was a short introduction about how they met (it was in Prague through me) and they never stopped talking through whatsapp from that day onwards. That got me thinking, I never actually have a friend that I continuously talked to for the past few years. Maybe my gf yes but not like friends. Sure people say that I am sociable and I have loads of friends yes, but do I truly have like a super best friend or just someone that I constantly talk to? I honestly don't think so. My social circle just restarts every time a milestone in life is achieved. I move around so much that I don't even contact the old friends, only from time to time, but there just isn't any like constant communication going on. I mean it is nice to have a lot of friends and being able to mix in with almost everyone, but it sure is nice to have a group of friends that you grow up with since young and that you are really close to that person. If only I had that someone :( I definitely have met a lot of great friends throughout my life that helped me in my life and I'm really grateful, but for some reason they tend to come and go alot.. It might be me, I don't know. Yeah, but it feels good to bring them together hue hue hue.

In other news, nothing much has happened really. Same old same old going to hospitals and going to class. I just finished my ophthalmology and ENT rotation and that was pretty fun. It was nice to be able to focus on a system alone, although I got like really lazy halfway through, I'm still enjoying this part of it. Abigail and I are doing fine as well, although we have a bit of trouble trying to arrange a time to meet up during December. We both don't have much time for the December breaks and I also wanna make time to travel with my family. In June my family wanted to go travel but I wasn't free as I booked those dates to go to Singapore instead so this time I feel obliged to let them decide first. So there's that, will be updated. Also, I was supposed to go to Lenggong for a MyOHUN camp but suddenly PMC had no more transports available to bring us there, so there was a problem lel. They literally just told me now and airplane tickets cost a bomb now, so I guess I will be spending my Awal Muharam weekend in Penang then :/ Haven't went home for a couple of months now, just need to wait for a while more then.. Loads of presentations have passed and luckily I just have to focus on getting my mood to study back now haha! I think thats about it for now, although my family and I did went to Hatyai for my birthday, I think I will write another one for that :/

Love you peeps and thank you for continuing to read!

August has dawned upon us.

I know i know, updating a blog seems to be quite a task nowadays. Since someone is pushing me to update I might as well do hehe... Its already August and I'm officially a 4th year medical student. Got the results for the exams that I took at the end of the 3rd year, and I have to say they were pretty decent actually haha! Nothing too bad and like out of the ordinary. Knew I wouldn't score so well for Medicine anyway pshh..

Since 4th year started, I've realized like a distinct difference between the me now and the me last sem. I tend to do more reading then I would have done, although I have to admit it is still lacking. There are alot of basic stuff that I was supposed to know, but somehow I just can't seem to remember them, only bits and pieces of everything. So, will definitely have to work harder at that point. Housemate updates! Well Mun Hon is studying really hard now due to the 2 week rotations of Medicine. Its like everytime he is back, his head will be in the books HAHA! Well, lets not forget him reading bout the Bible as well, so more and more reading. I am definitely not as hardcore as that, DOTA is still going on in my life especially now that TI season is here. Contemplating on buying the Rubick arcana if he wins, cause you know, if i buy means I wanna play more, which I am not sure if I have the time for... But we will see.. Denzel and David are in the ENT and Ophthalmology rotation now so that's like super easy for them anyway. So yeah, everyone in this house has gone abit serious on studies. I dunno, I might be the last one to be serious HAHA..

Abigail wise, she made a surprise visit to Penang with her mum and Abielle for a good 2 days. It was definitely a short visit and I wish she could have stayed longer but unfortunately it wasn't exactly possible. The 2 weeks we spent together was heavenly definitely. Met each others parents... Then I really got to thinking, this is going to go on for another 5-6 years at least. Everything in the future is so uncertain its quite hard to promise anything at this point. I wanna keep this going as long as possible but sometimes it just seems really hard. I don't really show that part cause I prefer to be the stronger one but too much thinking hurts the soul sometimes. Owh well, I guess I'm happy I have good friends to help me along the way :p. To say I'm lonely here, nah definitely not, but definitely not that happy I guess... Feels like sometimes I'm lacking someone to truly talk to like face to face. Abigail is only a skype call away I know, but sometimes it just feels different. Hmm, I dunno lel. Thinking too much again. Anyway, hope everything can still go on strong as ever. December will definitely be the next challenge :/

Jason and I are getting closer now thanks to us both being in Badminton Club's committee! Its been a blast so far in that club cause at least I can promise myself to be active for at least once a week lel. The sweating feels are definitely amazing. The RCSI bunch are always fun to hang out with sometimes. I just can't wait till Brendon, Kisho and Andrew come back for real. LIKE PLEASE FASTER LA AND DON'T YOU GUYS DARE NOT COME BACK.

I guess thats all for now, I can't think of anything else more to update :P Till next time, love you guys :)

Month of realization

May is coming to an end and I am officially a 4th year student now. We had 2 final written exam papers and an OSCE to close out this amazing 3rd year. Looking back at these 4 months, I am quite happy with what I achieved although I could have done way better. Lets focus on academics first before we explore other parts of my life.

Academics have been a constant roller coaster for me. Everything I think I know enough, out comes more things to further bamboozle me. Surgery rotation was fairly straight forward for me. The signs are there, diagnose based on history and signs, straightforward. Pain here, should be this this this., pain there with this characteristics, lessen the chance of some ddx. It was a really tiring rotation for me though, 5 BSTs each week. Plus, the first rotation was when everyone at home was still hyped to leave the house at 6.30am to avoid the 'jam' at Jalan Gottlieb.which I soon find out its not that bad and you just add like a good 5 minutes to your trip lol. Plus, all this can be skipped if you go through Jalan Burma there. Owh well, you learn things anyway. I got a OK result (personal standards) of 60 for Surgery long case which I was happy with. After all that business, it was really weird going to family medicine which comprises of almost nothing.. You really don't need to do alot of stuff. There is just a house visit, and reading about cases you see in the GP or KK. This light workload infected me as I began to slack and really do nothing much. I just kinda slacked off alot. Did well for the case review with Dr.Chean and I really have to thank her as she was so nice!!! However, I did screw up on my video taking assessment. I didn't get to close the session as 5 minutes just passed by like that, plus the patient's (actress) speech speed did not help at all lol. After that, it was back to clerking in wards and aiming for them 10 cases for Medicine. I realized I lost abit of my history taking skills and examination skills. So I tried taking it seriously. That only lasted for a week. I burned out. I honestly did. There were loads of factors to that, but that's another story. Basically, I kinda lost touch with studies, tried but just had no mood, had really really frequent mood swings, plus was starting to feel abit anti-social. I just didn't wanna talk to anyone, just wanna think by myself, which is exactly what I will do when I get home for this month. I really need to orientate myself before the next semester to prevent another meltdown. In the end, I didn't score as well as I thought I would in the long case examination - 55. Alex and Rachel did cheer me up a bit. I mean the result was average. Basically, you met everything, but no exceeds. I guess I would have been fine with the result if I didn't stay with absolute geniuses. One of them scored 70 and another got 75. I was really unhappy that day. I clerked, presented with confidence, only to find out the diagnosis was based on a single sign that I did not pick up hence, the diagnosis was way off. Although, since I'm here at this topic, would like to thank Prof.Yeow as well, cause without her I wouldn't have learned so much, just you know, sad it had to happen during a long case examination. Final examinations were fine for surgery but terrible for medicine. By that time, I was yearning for it to be over already that I couldn't really focus. Slept for the first third of the exam and then realize I only know half the paper LOL. Yeah, but that final paper was only 5 marks for the final year anyway, so I didn't really care about it that much. It just shows how much I still need to know. Basically, I could have worked harder for this semester and I know that, but more will be explained on the next few segments.

Next, and probably the most important, psychologically. This aspect was where I realized the most things while I was having my burnout. Firstly, I'm pretty sure everyone notices this. I am quite an emotional person. My emotions can run free and are easily influenced by everyone around me. If I don't like someone, I show it, and I bet that person can feel it. It's like the most obvious thing in the world lol. So yeah, during this past month, I realized I get way too worked up on how people around me act. I get influenced way too easily. I realized that I need to stop sulking or complaining about how people act. I need to accept people for who they are, and not sulk about them. Even if I were to sulk, its better to tell them up front about it then keep everything in me. Although I know sometimes its a lost cause, so there really isn't any point in telling them. I know I'm not the easiest person to be friends with as well due to my constant mood swings and sometimes-overly-harsh-comments. Let's not forget my ego which I'm still still learning to keep check off lol. This is exactly why I say I still need to work on my social skills. I can hurt people with my words very easily without knowing it. So, still learning hehe. Also, the rise of depression cases are kinda taking a toll on me i guess. I myself have no problem with depression, but its more of the friends around me. Everyone seems to be getting hit quite hard. 2 things I've noticed about it is the incidence on women are like way way up there compared to guys, and family plays a big role in depression. For the women stat, I really don't know why but thats just the way it is, at least that's whats happening around me. Family wise, I just kinda think some people weren't meant to have a family. A family's upbringing sets the children for life. Is it the asian attitude? Is it the hard way of showing love that screws it up? I don't know. I tried talking to some of my friends and I am so grateful that they opened up to me, but they are on the verge of giving up trying to feel better. Counselling only works to a certain extent, being in medical school taught me that meds don't exactly help, and the support that they dearly need is hard to come by. Everyone is too busy with their own lives that no one stops to notice these small little cries for help. I don't blame them, we scroll through our own FB page and sometimes we dismiss all these as "attention-seekers". What if these attentions are worth giving compared to some influencers on instagram or the Internet. I'm not saying we should pay every attention we have on all these small statuses and what the internet influencers are doing are wrong, but it doesn't help to stop and talk from time to time. Just give some time for them, it won't hurt. Although, you have to be careful of it as well. I had a few moments of downness from empathizing too much with my friends. You just feel helpless like there really isn't much you can do. I would just do as much as I can as a friend, cheer them up when they need it, and leave the rest to themselves and the professionals. It just angers and surprises me that this issue is still getting so little attention. No one cares, they all say. This "depression is just a phase thing" is a thinking within the Asian community that really needs to change, like it is annoying for me. I just hope someone picks this up and it inspires anyone reading this to look out for your friends around you. I just hope to raise a lil bit of awareness around the world!

Owh, and for my relationship status, yes everything is still going well with me and Abigail! We don't skype as often as everyone thinks maybe cause the timing is really just not right, but we text each other everyday and you know, all is well! We love each other and we will see each other really soon! Love you if you are reading this Abby!! (Less than 3, (coding issues hard to put the real thing lol)

So, I shall end this post with some hope that my next semester will be much more smoother and everything can go my way xD Will wanna come home more often cause you know home is amazing and yeah, till next time peeps :)

Reviving dead blog.. Long process

Hey there peeps. I know. Its been a good half a year since my last post and even that was a very very vague post. SO hours after Abby just announced that my blog was dead, here I am trying to revive this. This is partially due to my recent shower thoughts. I thought back about my primary school self on how I dreamed of keeping this blog till I am an adult so that I can just read back about what happened in my life. I know as med school went on I just got more and more inactive on this blog. I don't know, the fire that was once in me to drive me to pour everything out on this digital blog has declined massively. Probably cause life isn't as easy to pen down as it was 7 years back.

Anyway, quick update on life! Abigail and I have passed the 2 year mark. Yeah life won't be easy for the next few years but I am very convinced that we can break through for the next few years. As we know, there is no definite for our relationship in the future, since our paths don't converge unless we want them to. Sacrifices and compromises will be made, we will just have to work everything out. Don't worry, will try my best to get this going as far as it will. Hopefully till the end hehe xD. Also, doing the last rotation of Res 1 which is medicine! So far, 2 of my housemates have scored really well for this rotation and it kinda gives this unspoken pressure. I dunno, I kinda expect myself to do well if they do well, but I know I definitely have not worked as hard as they have (although they keep saying they don't study which is utter bs) I just come home so tired everyday that I am actually considering 7pm coffees. Will try them next week and will see how it goes haha! Hopefully I am tired enough to just like kaput at night.

Penang has been really different than Ireland. Like no joke. Things are much more intensive here, them tutorials, the useless MPU classes, the tough lectures where the slides don't really give the whole story. Owh and the never ending reminder from the lecturers that we are supposed to be well equipped with all the anatomy, pathology and all, All I can think of at this point was just like shit. I dunno anything! HAHA! The more time I spend in Penang the more I feel like the past 2.5 years was more like a holiday than anything. Sure some knowledge was gained but did they stick, or the 15 hour flight back burned all of them as plane fuel LOL. I dunno hopefully everything would be better? I definitely am working harder now that I am back partially cause like the reality hits you. The patients have expectations, the lecturers have expectations, the RCSI peeps have expectations. WOOHOO SO MUCH EXPECTATIONS TO FULFILL.ALL AROUND. I hope I can do as well as the others, but definitely I have a mountain to climb.

I think thats it for now, nothing much to add. Housemates are great, been some minor problems here and there but its all good. Everything is still amazing haha! Will update more when I can think of more things to write here, but for now I think this is about it. Definitely feels good to be back here :) If only abigail was back here with me, if only she was malaysian... HAHA!! That would make so many things much much much easier xD Alright see you peeps, love you to whoever is still reading this :)