Winter, we're almost there.

Hi All!

Yes people, its getting cold here, really cold. My current protection isnt enough for the strong artic winds. Its been snowing in London, and they are in minus celcius quite often. We havent gone to that extent but i believe that is not far away...

London

Slept late this morning, and then woke up early for class, and i was actually at my best Gan, cheery character wise whole day, which hasnt been possible for me since getting here, god knows why.
And i finally have gotten total focus in lectures, 5 hours of classes today, and it has been my most attentive one. I just hope this keeps going. Now waiting for my home studying to get to full 100 %, the best i could.

London 2

Due to the late sleep and hyperness whole day, and also the Cold outdoors, im really tired, cant study tonight. Might be hitting the bed early and look forward to waking up early tomorrow to study. Lets pray that i wake up early.


Sides that, i feel quite relieved after saying two long overdue sorries to some back at home. I just managed to apologise for certain things. Feeling better. :)




I have class tmrw, alot, starting early, finishing late, with practical inbetween too! :) time to test my focus again. Thanks for all the encouragement i got thus far guys, appreciate it.

Sigining off,
Gan.

PS: latest excursion, Guiness Store House, Dublin, Ireland- on how beer is made. Ireland is where Guiness originates from. (was quite cool! pictures would be up real soon...)


RCSI Anatomy Related photos(off the net):

Student Entrance

Staff Entrance

No i didnt take this pic, its a picture off the net. it supposed to be Terry's Farewell.
I'm not sure who terry is, i think a old anatomy lecturer.
Anyway, this is a picture of our Anatomy Lab. Cadavers are not in sight, thats why i agreed to myself to put this up. (we have respect to them, Greatly)

One Life, One Love, Enjoy Every Bit of it.

8 Hours- Making Home seem further than it is.

A small update, as daylight saving ended at the start of this month, we (in ireland) are now 8 hours behind Malaysia. No longer 7.
It just makes communicating with home even harder... :(

Its a Friday night, and im yet to decide plans for tonight. Guess it would be just study.. havent decided. Maybe, watch a movie.. not too sure yet.

Had my 2nd PMCSA RCSI meetin earlier in the day.

And my friends are getting skype accounts now!! YEAY!!!!!! :D
Thats awesome guys! Cant wait to talk to you all!!

To the right is Mercer Library - RCSI
Its just behind where i stay

The Reception for Milin and Mercer

The Security door to my room and a few others. Almost all residence know the pin though.

Latest salmon... :)

One Life, One Love, Enjoy Every Bit of it.

Online MCQ, The First, The Fun.

okay, just a little update, i finished my online MCQ test today. I got 100%!! oh, 'wow' you say? its 10/10. i did it in 24 seconds. Now, 'WOW' you say?? lol. Did the test along with a few friends, we discussed, and so on, but we made it. :) The questions eventually we realised, are the same, just that the As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Es were toggled around. it was weird allright. One of the funniest id say.
We started doing the first set of questions together, we discussed, we got at each others throats at times, but eventually, we all came up with the answers. Each of us had to do one set, we all used the same laptops, gathered all our notes along side us, all ready to search and shout out the answers.

The place i stay at...

So the second set, was abit more easier, cos quite a number were repeated questions. The third was Even more repeated questions as we had done them already. After each set we did, we copied and pasted the questions onto Words, and then we selected the correct answer after discussing properly and calling up a few smart friends. As we were quite certain that these questions would be repeated on the next attempt. So we did 9 attempts, and all the 9 of us got 100%. The first two ppl got 8/10 and 9/10, but then in an hour they made their second attempts on the set, and got 10/10 as the questions were all repeats. :)



We all studied part by parts, module by modules, equally divided.
Thanks guys, for working together. Anyway, now we got to study everyting still for our finals in January... :(

It was a funny test allright. ;)

Below: Latest Pictures,

Saturday Evening, outside my window.

Alysons drawing, From left, Alyson, Rachel(note the shortened length), Gan (note the extra length), and jasmine

Carbonara...

Nabil, Doing his thing, at the drums... (when we went to wathc 007 QOS)

Eddie's Rocket, Milk Shake. Awesome!

Secretary General of Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, MoHE's visit to RCSI
Meet and Greet The students session.

The cute arrow from melissa that rescued Rachel and the Lost UCD / TCD students..

The table was feather weight, but check out the drama from Rachel (girl at the right)

The Trolley we used while waiting for the food to arrive.

As the event was finishing, the committee and volunteers. ;)

During the event... Poor boys didnt know wat to do...

see what med school does to their students... the effects of One Year in RCSI. They're second med students.

During the event, my friends, and what they were doing...

Thats alyson, the one with the book.

Secretary General of MoHE Malaysia- Full House. wow...cool eh? :) our first event.

One Life, One Love, Enjoy Every Bit of it.

How All Lectures Should Be Conducted

Hi Everyone, in this post I'd like to share with you all how the lectures here in RCSI are conducted. Bare with me, this will not be a bore.

Okay, first things first, we have our lectures in a Theater called O'Flannagen, which is the biggest theatre we have in RCSI, it can accommodate up to 350 people if I'm not mistaken (well, a lot of people la...)


Our Lecturers vary, from really young ones, to really old ones, to old ones living the life of young ones. Yes, the third part of the sentence may seem weird, but trust me. I'm right.

We have a Lecturer called Dr. Harold Browne, hes 86 as of Today. (yes, its his birthday, so i shall dedicate most of this post to him.) Hes very old, but trust me, his lectures are Never Boring. Never. Even in Anatomy Practicals, he comes up with the nice funny phrases which has now been made Quotes by the students. He is a very sporting man, he thinks hes still in his teens, and treats us all like adults. And strongly beliefs that dirty jokes help the students remember very well. yes, you got me right again, dirty jokes. :)



My first encounter with him and his jokes were in my very first anatomy practical class. He was my prosector (demonstrator). I quote him, "At the Femoral Triangle, Albert lies on the outside(lateral) and next to Victoria, preventing from being hit by a baseball bat-the bad Femur. At the Hunter's Canal, Albert gets On Top of Victoria. After the Adductor Hiatus (an opening on the muscle), Albert lies on the inside (medial) to Victoria."
Albert is the Artery, and Victoria is the Vein. Medical students will know exactly what I'm talking about here... ;) I hope you guys do too. :)

On the same day, he told us on what sartorious meant. (sartorious is a muscle on your thigh (front/anterior). for an 85 year old man, he actually sat down with knees bent, on the stairs, explained the Tailor concept (sartorious means tailor), with hand actions on how the tailor works, and then he got back up. He must be very fit id say.

The next highlight among his funny statements is this:

Like Moses led the Jews to the promise land,
The gubernaculum led the testis to the promise land;
the scrotum
lecture: Nutrition and Energy 21 (NE21).-

I couldn't have asked for a better way to remember what gubernaculum meant... and the descend of the testis from embryonic stage.
I shall leave that statement there, because i think it says it all.

He has his own facebook group to him!! full of his quotes:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2218506818

He even has a Lecture Theatre named after him i believe.

Besides him, other lectures are also funny and mostly not a bore, some have a nice accent id say, some with a certain charm in teaching, and some pretty female lecturers too :) Almost all of them know how to conduct a lecture with taking into account the students way of thinking, just that some of the lecturers are boring, but well, i shall look on the brighter side, the bulk of them are all cool and awesome! :)

This is how lectures should be conducted. Fun.

A few boring details on our lectures would be:
1. classes are supposed to be 50 minutes each, but we have them mostly for an hour.
2. We have back to back classes
3. We have Anatomy Lab Practicals twice a week, and Cardsigining exams Once in every fortnight.
4. We learn a modular system, i.e, we don't learn just physiology or pharmacology as individual subjects, but as combined ones. Our subjects for this semester are such as Neruomuscular-NM, Nutrition and Energy-NE, Haemopoeitic and Immune system-HIS, Health and Behavorial Science-HBS.
5. Anatomy is part of NM, and NE.
6. We have online tutorials as well on Histology and Radiography. Which we will be tested on with an exam along with other subjects.
7. We have classes that start at 8 and also that start at 12, but mostly 9.
8. Classes finish at 4 or 5pm
9. No food and drinks allowed into the theatre (but nobody cares)
10. Lecture slides we print out from our online web portal.
11. our time table for each week is different.
12. Lecturers rotate for each chapter of each subject. We don't have fixed lecturers.
13. we can email our lecturers to ask questions, and we would get fast replies.
14. We use online videos in classes to learn things easily.
15. We study, study and study once we get home.

End.

Other quotes of Dr. Browne:
"Pampiniform plexus.... it would make a lovely name for a horse." (name of a vein) "I always like to say that Politicians are very jejunal, full of emptiness" (jejunal, part of the small bowel)


One Life, One Love, Enjoy Every Bit of it.

Exams and Elections

Its a Tuesday night, i have my card signing this coming Friday on the Abdomen, and what am i doing? i hear you say "you should be studying...!" but unfortunately friends, at the moment, i am not studying. i was playing some simple online game on cartoon network. Dont ask how did i end up there.
I just didn't know what to do... just ended up playing it. it gets your mind off things i should say.

Sides the cardsigining, i have another exam this weekend. it will compromise of EVERYTHING we have studied to date. Yes, All subjects, all Modules!!! and guess wat! the exam consists of 10 questions only, yes guys, 10, you read me right. and they are all MCQs! lol. how weird is that? it carries very few percentage, just like the cardsigning, but well we have to study for it. Thats how things here in RC work, little marks, alot of exams, still making you study. ;)
Its an online test, id have 3 attempts at it over the weekend. I can discuss or refer to book as i can do it from home also! But there is a very strict time limit i heard. so, still have to study for that too. In short, alot of studing is to be done... ALOT!
after the weekend, id be taking a well deserved day off i guess, im going crazy! brains getting lazy...

Just now in the evening, i had my Hand-Over meeting with the seniors and the new committee of PMCSA-RCSI. Yes people, i stood for elections for the Events Coordinator post, and i won. well lets not say won, but instead i got the post. This is because i didn't run against anyone. Nevertheless i had to prepare my personal statement and also my speech to address the members during the AGM. i believe i pulled through the speech, was kinda shaken as i had a nice long speech written for 2 mins, and 30 mins before show time, we (candidates) we're told that our speech should be within 1 to 1.5 mins. so i cut half of it out at last minute. a crowd of 80 would have turned up i say. It was held in our main lecture theater, O' Flannagan Theater.

I wish i competed against someone, but what can i do about it... still, nevertheless dont assume it was a walk over for me, i had to get a majority of people saying a 'yes' to me. Yes friends, for the posts that didn't have battles, the voters must choose a Yes or No. Oh, i forgot to mention, the voting was to be done Online on our RCSI webpage by PMCSA members over the weekend. our personal statements were uploaded for the members to download and read.

I got an astonishing 91% of voters saying a yes to me. Feel very at home with the other new committee members, all are a bunch of cool funny people who know how to get things done at the same time.

As Events Coordinator, i supposed to be in charge and overlook all the events. I wanted to get the first event under me, instead of giving it to other people to lead the project. But unfortunately, i cant do so. The first event is the arrival of the Secretary General of Malaysian Higher Education this Thursday night(two more days), who'd be coming to RCSI and give a speech to the whole Malaysian students here in Dublin. I would be more than delighted to be responsible for it, but i have my cardsigning this Friday, i.e. in less than 12 hours from the Event. Thankfully, i have dear Rachel to be the project manager for this, working alongside our president to get this event done. As i am Events, i offered myself to assist Rachel in any possible way to the committee and her, I really wanted to take charge of this... but sigh, circumstances are such. Thanks Rachel, and Mehul- for being soo understanding. :)

Anyway, id get my duty as events coord done started before that. I am the project manager for the PMC Farewell, which is a very big Event in college i was told, held for the second time only, involving many societies and all students. Fine Dining concept, all formal with music and performances. Boy oh boy, i cant wait to get started on it. My first meeting would be tomorrow with the other societies and i'll be attending that with Arthur, the Vice Chairperson. This is a joint event by a few societies such as the Hamilton Society (which organize events) and also the Student Union of RCSI itself.
The budget is pretty high, that then shows how big of an event this is going to be. :)
-cant wait-

Okay then, i'd like to congratulate those who won the elections, to manage a population of 200++ members...


President Mehul Kumar Narendra Kumar

Vice President Arthur Lau Chin Heang

Secretary Evelyn Aun Su-yin

Tresurer Edvyn Andy Wongso

IT Officer Kevinder Singh

PR Officer Carl Jesudas Samuel

Sports Coordinator Melissa Johari Chan

First Year Rep Rachel Nge Sing Wei

Second Year Rep Kingsley Kuan Koon Ong


Congrats guys! looking forward to working alongside with you all! :)

Friends, I am sorry as i am unable to have pictures of the election At the moment. will try get hold of them and then post it up. i was too nervous for my speech that i couldn't take pictures with my phone. ;)

Okay, i think next i'm going to go have a shower or something and hopefully hit the books, or at least the bed. Tmrw i have only one Clinical Competencies class for an hour... sides that its all studying, for Friday's cardsigining. Thursday, i don't think so i have a class. or at worst i think only one class. so i hope i'm more than prepared for Friday and also the MCQs over the weekend.

Till my next, Hope Alls good back at Malaysia.
Friends, get skype and add me... miss ya'll!

Gan...

Friday Night - Part Two (the Non-study)

Okay, it was a Friday night, my friends just finished their card-signings, so they wanted to go out, not for dinner or anything, but instead just for a walk around Dublin's heart - Dublin 1 and 2.

St.Stephens Green, very near to where i stay.

So we did, we supposed to meet at 9pm at my room, but malaysians being malaysians, managed to gather at 9.30pm. So we left, on foot, to Temple Bar (an area famous for its nightlife in Dublin), just walked the whole area for quite some time. Here we saw and awesome local new kinda music dudes. They were a band of 3, one with a violin, one with a drum/box kinda thing (weird thing) and he was sitting on it and playing it at the same time! and also another dude with another stringed instrument. They were awesome!!!! I tell you, i loved their music like nuts! they sold their CDs for 10 Euros, i was soo tempted to buy it, But i had to control there... Control... After watching 4 songs of theirs, we left, to continue our temple bar walk. Walk, walk and walk we did...

What temple bar is at night...

And then went to Dublin 1, by crossing river Liffey (the river splits Dublin 1 and Dublin 2. I stay in Dublin 2). We wanted to find a cinema, we roughly had its name in mind, but we were not at all sure where it was. All we knew it was in Dublin 1 and a rough location of it in mind. And i must say, our sense of direction and orientation was awesome, (and Ken's eyesight too) that we immediately found the Cinema. Got the show timings, the price list and then headed home. Planned to catch Quantum of Solace tmrw night (saturday) 8.10.

Wonderful Dublin in the Evenings...

We passed by a hall which was having some Irish Punk Rock Concert, Ambassadors. Then down O' Connells Street (the main street in dublin), passing the Spire (a needle like structure, very tall, significant to the irish for their woolen item export). Along the way, we saw another cinema, we just popped by to do our research there. Then, concluded the First cinema was the better option. As we exited it, we saw this arcade.

O' Connells Street

We wanted to just have a look in it, they had huge pick-up-with-robots-games, where you use this buttons to control this robot to pick up the thing you want. They had Ipods in the boxes too!!! and huge Barney's, dogs, Cool Watches!! Each one had its own box. Then, there was this Scuderia Ferrari racing cars. 4 Cars, each car can accomodate 2 people, and the video was soo damn smooth, and nice graphics. They had a ceiling high poster just for this too!!
All we could do was compare it to Genting...sigh. lol.
Then they said they were closing shop, so they asked us to head into another door, there is where we saw the real thing going on! it was a place full of Gambling!! it looked so illegal-ish. We got sick of that place, and soo wanted to leave, but the thing was, we couldnt find an Exit. We made 3 full rounds, and couldnt find anything saying a Proper Exit. All exits looked closed or runned down. With each round, Rachel looked more like she was gonna puke. ;) It was that discomforting for some.
Anyway, i never really imagined this happening, as in i never imagined asking someone "excuse me, how do we Get Out of Here please??!?!" lol, but we did. With innocent primary school kids faces on, we asked, In hope of getting an answer, so we did, but the exit was kinda creepy, loads of guys smoking there, and we actually needed to press a bell to get out, and there was also this half drunk guard sitting there. It looked like we were exiting an illegal drug warehouse - that bad it was.

Then we decided to head back to temple bar for a short walk just to see how things were, on a friday night, then headed to McDonalds on Graftons Street (the street with the most live performances, the most happening street All Day and Week Long) which is near to home. Went there, had a nice chat with friends, wanted to get Twisty Fries, but they didnt have it anymore... :(

On the way back, came across this shop, so i took a picture of it.

To those who dont know what this picture is about, go back to two posts before this.

Then headed home, and now, blogging bout my 2nd part of a friday night in Dublin.

Yes, now that is what med life here should be summed up as, we Study hard, and then "try" to Party hard.



Below are pictures, of the things ive done lately, also in random order, just took it off my phone.

While queing up to make our Garda(visa) cards, at 6 AM! out in the cold, Freezing Cold! sitting at the road side!

A senior (jeffrey's) birthday... that'd be Wan Lin (a senior too)

Thats Kevin, working on 3 Laptops, wow, hes cool hah!? He was doing "his Thing"- Fixing our computers at Mercer.

Thats Alvin singing during Jeff's B'day

The Salmon we made, Soya sauce, butter and sugar, mayo and cheese, and Hot Sauce

The time we pranked JG telling him that i was Gay and i liked him, Things almost got outta control man! Little did i realise all of us were actually that good of an actors.

With Yvvone, on her B'day night at McDons

Scene 1- Start
Venue: O'Flannagan LT
Occasion: HBS class,
Time: 2.20pm

Scene 2-End
Venue: O'Flannagan LT
Occasion: HBS class,
Time: 2.30pm

Nabil knocking on a girls room door.... talking like a girl in that process

I wonder what she just did. Kiss a guy? maybe so. :P

Irish Dinner, On Deepavali. Irish Lamb Shanks

Alvin stocking up for the winter...

Yvvones B'day late night short outting...McDons, Grafton St.

Butlers Chocolate Cafe, great coffee...

Yvvones B'day letter...

Once again, late night studying session...

Too bored, ken and i disturbed our neighbour, no not by knocking on the door, but on skype.

Weird things we'd try...

During Garda queue (wait in the cold to freze us to death before actually giving us the card). In pic, two good friends, Evelyn and Rachel.

Me and Aly, i needed flash, it was that early in the morning of Garda (visa)

in short, Milo for 4+ Euros for 500g ...

Late hours with books...

Another dinner....


Halloween, October 31st Pictures... :

Yeah guys, thanks for hanging on till the end, that sums up alot of things i guess, couldnt blog on most of them. Well, pictures do say a million words people say...i hope it did. i dont have the time to write on all of them. :(

Okay then, till my next post. :) cheers.
Have a great weekend.