To Ikea I Went

Today I didn't have classes and at first planned to stay at home to study for my upcoming msk exam this friday.

But in the end I decided to make a quick trip to Ikea (well as quick as I could) to get a new table lamp. Coz the old one was really irritating and impairing my ability to study :P excuses! haha but really, it was kinda dark and the bulb was sticking out of the shade so when I look straight ahead, it was too glaring. make me go @.@

Anyway, so off I went. It was good weather to me. Cloudy and windy.

I had to take the train to a suburb then take another bus to Ikea. And the murals in the train station there were really pretty. So I managed to take some photos to show you guys what I mean. (putting my camera to good use eh ^^)

Enjoy!

corridor to the other side

depicting the perth train - looks pretty real to me


interesting - her facial features are so sharp!

this is what happens when you have long hair in space! lol

giant at bridge?

omg love those fusion of colours there!

animals having recreation time, haha!

So what do you guys think? Really beautiful works of art, huh?

It's amazing how they encourage this sort of creativity here. A lot of imagination must have gone into this, these few pictures aren't really enough to show you the whole big picture!

Anyway, since I was there, decided to have lunch at Ikea. The lunch there is really delicious and cheap too (comparing to other food outside)!

And my absolute favourite there is Swedish Meatballs!

If you thought the ones at Ikea Malaysia are good, you haven't tried these yet!! Seriously, these are really to-die-for-melt-in-your-mouth meatballs!!

Chye reckoned it's because they added pork inside, thats why it's so tasty! hehe

I decided to have dessert too, but instead of the Daim cake which is as yummy as the one I had in Msia, I decided to try the chocolate mousse.

my verdict? too damn sweet even for me. I couldn't finish it, which was a pity =/

Anyway, so that was the part of my day which wasn't spent trying to force myself to concentrate on my lectures notes.

And yes, I'm very satisfied with my new table lamp now. :) Hopefully I will be able to study better!

Okay back to my notes! Wish me luck. kthxbai.

The Little Things

These are the little things that make my days here more worthwhile.

Funny, inspiring, teary, clueless

But they are all messages of love and care from my friends.

I shall hold them close to my heart. Miss you all dearly!

PS: Daylight Saving is over! Got to sleep an extra hour hehe.. And now the time is the same as malaysia too!

Entwined Hearts

Isn't this so cute?

I got this pair of hearts from IKEA sometime ago coz they were super cheap and for charity too!

They are now hanging on the handles of my walk in wardrobe. (yesh I have a walk in wardrobe, can you believe it??)

Btw, do you like how I photoshopped this photo? Looks cool, right?

I hope by looking at these hearts, they will remind me that even though we are thousands of miles apart, our hearts are always together. :)

Blushing Drinkers

Apparently people whose faces turn red when they drink alcohol may be facing more than embarrassment. The flushing may indicate an increased risk for a deadly throat cancer, researchers report.

Oh my! That is totally me! My face flushes so red even though I just had a little to drink..

You can read the whole article here.

Well I guess that gives me an excuse to drink less.. well not that I'm drinking a lot to start with, so that would be alright. :)

Anyway, just thought this will be an interesting article to share. Will blog more during the weekend.

Splinters Of The Heart

Yesterday I caught a glimpse of you. Was it really you?

You in that light purple shirt of yours that I really like. Sitting in a chair with your elbows on your knee, leaning forward trying to catch what the doctor was saying.

I turned around again, hoping against hope but... obviously you weren't there anymore.

Just an illusion. That makes my heart aches even more.

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Today we shared smiles for the second time. Even though we were strangers.

Why?

Maybe in the split seconds that our gazes cross, we realised that we have many things in common.

There was a tinge of real warmth in your smile. Unlike some other ones which I have encountered before this.

Do you think I will be like you in a few years' time?

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It's not funny.

I'm trying my best to be understanding but here you come stomping on my efforts. I know my attempts are pathetic but at least let me try.

Up and down. Up and down. Downs more than ups. The cycle goes on. I wonder.. for how long more?

Snapshot

Everybody please put your hands together and welcome this new member to my entourage!

I finally got myself a camera last weekend! yays. :)

And it's the Canon Powershot A480!!

10.0 Megapixels and 3.3 times zoom.

for a great price of AUD166! bargain right?

And I also got a 4gb memory card for AUD19 and a pouch for AUD16! So the total just comes up to just AUD201!! Absolutely loving it. ^^

And here's a rare pic of me in this blog. Testing it out in the big mirror in the toilet hehe.

Ini tak payah caption lar

So!! Nonid to keep borrowing other ppl's cameras already! paiseh lo after some time haha.. thks though, Debbi! :)

The camera is pretty user friendly actually. After some fidgeting with it, I could understand how to use most of the functions!

And watch this space for more pictures in the future... Hope it won't totally be filled with words like now haha! toodles!

If I Had One Wish

LDR is not easy.

An occasional webcam can only substitute so much.

If I had one wish, I will wish you can be here with me.

But I must stay strong.

Coz what we have is something special. And it will be all worth it in the end.

Right?

Labour Of Love: Part I

Edited again: And yet again, I have replaced and added some photos to this post. It gets better eh!

Edited: Finally managed to get photoshop in this comp. so the photos have been replaced with better ones! haha, enjoy!

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Yesh I know my blog has been devoid of photos recently, that has been due to a combo of = lack of own camera + lack of photoshop on this new comp yet + lazyness on my own part.

Anyhow, with Debbi's camera (thanks!) + smothering the perfectionist in me by allowing these photos to go on my blog without photoshop, these photos are finally able to see the daylight. Do pardon me if the lighting and what not is not perfect.

Okay I will go get my camera soon! Saw some pretty good deals. What do u guys think? Which brand is better? Canon, Olympus or Samsung? Pls lemme know!

Better stop digressing. Anyway here are the photos of some of the food that I cooked in the past 2 weeks. I need more ideas! haha..

claypot chicken rice without claypot!

haha I love shitake mushrooms so much! yummy. Recipe here.

steamed chicken and stir fried vege

one of my standard favs.

pasta with boulognaisse sauce!

hoho chicken rice! cooked from scratch! yes i'm serious

Recipe available here. and because I was having a craving for chicken rice at that time. lol

this is the pasta that I said we copied from italiannies last time.

Very simple. Just pasta mixed with raisins and apple slices and with a dressing of mayonaisse. I added sausages though

and tada~!! fish and chips!

very simple to make using my mum's recipe hehe. if you wanna know can ask me :)

Okie that's all for now. Hope you all enjoyed the photos! And gimme more ideas for cooking pls. I don't like eating the same food again and again. haha. But I always take so damn long to finish cooking. It is indeed the labour of love for me. Must..be...more..efficient!!

And guess what. It's finally friday again! I hope I will have time/energy to blog more during the weekend. Cya for now!

Lost Generation?

As a sidetrack to normal blogging and a distraction for my bmedsci frenz having exams soon, check out this video!

Really cool and strong message. :)

Had a pretty good day today for once. Hope tomorrow will proved to be a good one as well.

PS: Good luck to those having exams tomorrow! ^^

TGIF

Thank god it's friday! This week has not been an easy one, really.

For msk, we are not allocated wards or teams. And we have this workbook of 14 clinical examinations we hvta fill in. So instead, we hvta see patients in clinics (which quite sadly, we are only allowed 2 rheumato and 2 orthopaedic clinics in this 1 month max) or else hvta hunt down patients in wards that we are not attached to.

NOT my fav job in the world. Kacau-ing doctors that I'm not attached to. haha but still I did it! I paged a random dr the other day and talked to a few other drs just to find patients. Can you believe it? I'm becoming more pushy assertive like how the angmohs are. >.<

And still I find it difficult to do it on my own. Coz I'm still a bit lost when it comes to msk clinical examination! Need to find ppl to gimme feedback. And hence the search for a partner.

Anyway, I partnered with 4 different ppl before finding someone who seemed like a good match. Two were too assertive (you get my point? without me being too obvious) and one was part of a big group so didn't think it was a good idea to separate him from his group. It was only today that I found a girl that was also looking for a partner and seemed rather nice. She's from sri lanka originally so kinda reminded me of my sri lankan friends back home in imu.

The ppl here learnt examination of the knee and elbow in 3rd year but it was all rather new to me. The knee examination is pretty complicated! Lucky she was nice enough to teach me. :) I must brush up more on it.. sigh.

So far, am not really liking this msk posting. I don't think orthopaedics are my cup of tea. Lifting obese legs off the bed is a struggle for me. =/ sorry I not enough strength lar. But at least the patients are more lucid. (some are too lucid that they will talk nonstop!)

Rheumatology is not too bad tho. I'm not too bad when it comes to examining hand joints for nodes or ostephytes or whatever. But other joints? not so good. Need more practice!! And don't forget confidence. The angmohs are pretty confident even if they know nuts sometimes. They can pretty much talk their way thru anything. I must pretend to be confident since I am not! YESH!

And I feel I don't have enough time to study! Everyday it's come home from hospital, take super long time to cook (I dunno why, I'm slow I guess) then shower then sit down in front of computer and stone. Okay not stone lah but do what I need to do that day like write up stuff or whatever but then it willl be time to sleep - wei no time study eh!! :O

Must try to squeeze out some time. okay. Speaking of that, this is a pretty long post for once and I need to write out the clinical examinations we did today before I forget. Can't wait to finish that logbook!

Ciao for now! Weekend is here hurray!

Take A Break

Okay better to update my blog now or else Yannie say will abandon my blog ade T_T haha can't believe I'm updating my blog so little now.

What's the best effective way to kill a blogger's enthusiam? Clinicals years! lol.

Anyway, we went to have a late dinner at this lovely italian restaurant called Ciao Italia which gets the thumbs up from me! The carbonara is to die for, the taste is so.. genuine!! The bosses of the restaurant are italian so this is the real deal hehe.

Then we went to the casino just for fun. The guys won some money and I tried my luck at one of those machines thingamajig. I almost lost all of my 2 dollars (yes I know I bet very small but sorry lar, I tak cukup duit ade) but at the very end, I got a big win and won back my 2 dollars. I declare it a sign from the powers-to-be that they wanted me to stop playing hahaha.. :P

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MSK didn't start out very fun for the first day. Was pretty stressed out coz they bombarded us with so much stuff in a short period of time. @.@

But today's sessions were so much better. Was able to get a better handle of things. I need to chill a bit and don't put so much stress on myself.. yeah. Wish that I can have more 'me' time and study time too..

Okay that's it for now, my hair is dry already so time for me to say hi to my lovely comfy bed. And bye to you guys!

PS: Yannie, is this post satisfactory? :P up to expectations? *raises eyebrow*

PPS: I keep feeling like wanna put "Have a kit kat" after my post title lol

Messy

I do not want to get involved in this sticky affair.. It's none of my business, really.

Yet my heart asks me to help another poor soul. But good advice is always bitter, isn't it? Never easy to listen to.

And I can't bring myself to cause your whole world to come crashing down upon you. I can't be too harsh, too direct. I can only hint around the subject and give my views.

However it's only yourself that can wake yourself up from the nightmarish world that you have imprison yourself in. A world built on your own fantasy and ideals.

I wish you good luck.

Past Week

Oh noes, I really must force myself to update more. Cannot go on like this. Sei! all my readers run away ade! haha..

Anyway, it's been a busy week, as usual. Busy will be the most overused word in my blog for the next few years I think. aihs.

So, geriatrics is finally done! Can't believe 1 month just whooshed past so fast! Next up will be MSK which means I hvta get used to things again. New teams, new wards. Lucky still at the same hospital though. It's just a 15 min bus ride so it's pretty convenient.

Oh ya, I got a pretty good mark for my case report which is great! The doctor commented that I was motivated and hardworking.. which really made my day. :) I'm happy that my hard work paid off. Not in the sense of studying (coz slack quite often blek) but in the sense of on time for ward rounds and enthusiam I guess.

Must continue to keep the fire burning!!

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We finally had the imu annual gathering today. It was a bbq at Maltida Bay. Food was plentiful and we made brownies too! hehe yeah my famous fudge brownies :P

We met some of the 5th years, 6th years and interns and residents too. Too many that I'm confused about the names and who's who. lol. We probably shld have more gatherings in the future so that we can bond better yeh. *winks*

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Oh ya, we finally went to get the coffee table from Bibiana too. Thanks so much! Now we finally have a place to eat dinner haha..

And I have been dilligently cooking the past week. Trying to save some money coz spent quite a bit while settling in. And ready served food here so damn expensive! haih. But if I cook myself, so much cheaper le. I will post up the photos of some of the food I cooked ya when I get them from Debbi. Probably shld consider getting a camera soon. Saw some reasonably priced ones earlier.

So anticipate the food photos! I have been pretty creative! Online recipes are fun! keke.

PS: yesh sorry for the boring uncreative title. My brain juices are dry ade!

One Day

Last Sunday marked the full 6 weeks I've been in this new place called Perth.

People often like to ask us: "how is Perth so far?" I guess it's not too bad. Lots of ups and downs though.

But I know I'm getting there. It's just a matter of time.

One day, I will be able to view this place as home and not feel like a stranger trying to blend in. trying to find my way around. trying to camouflage myself.

I await that one day. yes.

Settling Down

Sorry for the lack of updates! Thing are going really busy at the moment. Anyway, good news! I finally got my internet a few days ago. But was too busy to blog. :P

And the fridge came on the same day too. Luckyness! So yeah, the past few days we have been trying to scourge stuff for our kitchen. Must be cheap but not too lousy quality, difficult-nya!

Anyway, later we will be cooking our first dinner here hehe. I feel we are quite lucky to be staying where we are coz we are near to the weekend market and woolsworth, so we can get everything we want without having to walk too far!

Next week will be my last week in geriatrics. I did learn quite a bit in this rotation and I think I did use my time quite fruitfully. (well I don't have a choice, do I? with sucha full timetable lol) But I really need to brush up on my clinical examinations, especially for msk and neuro where I feel I'm still lacking.

Gonna start Msk rotation after this. Hope it will be a good run with lots of opportunities to learn!

PS: A very happy birthday to Fun Fun by the way! Hope you liked the cute card I sent you :) Sad that I can't be with you to celebrate your birthday..

Halfway Into Geriatrics

Oh my look at the time. My last post was a week ago and I can't help but wonder how time flies when one is in clinicals. busy busy.

Anyway, I'm halfway into my 1 month posting of Geriatrics. I'm posted to 2 wards, mainly the orthogeriatrics ward and the delirium unit.

So far all I have seen in the former ward are falls! Old people really fall a lot and get osteoporotic fractures so easily! I think I better get my calcium intake up :P For the delirium unit, as the name suggests, we get a lot of confused elders in there, and some that are aggressive and yelling at inopportune moments. hmm.

I don't think geriatrics are my thing coz apparently I'm too softspoken for the people here (can you believe that??) and my accent confuses the oldies too as most of them are not used to hearing other slangs.

Seniors said that geriatrics is a slack rotation but not so for me. We have a pretty full timetable I must say. So I think it depends on which hospital you do your posting and how willing your team is to teach. My consultants and registrars are pretty nice :)

And the internet thing is still pending. They take 10-15 working days to process a simple application. What! Cant wait to get internet coz not only I can talk to my family and frenz easily but a lot of academic annoucements can only be checked online. so mafan.

Okay that's all for this week haha. Will give more details when I feel like it. Ta-ra!! as one old lady said to me! :P

PS: I finally got my parcel yesterday. yays! But what a pity that some stuff with sentimental value to me wasn't included because apparently the parcel exceeded the weight limit, wic is weird coz it wasn't so when we weighed it last time.. hmm. Will just hvta find another way, by hook or crook to get it sent to me :P

Popping In

Hi everybody! You all must be wondering what happened to me! gosh look! it's friday now haha.. how time flies when one is busy.

Anyway, I don't have much time to write now so just to let you all know that we just applied for internet yesterday and hope that will be set up soon :) so I'll be able to update more often.

And yeah, my first rotation is geriatrics and I'm still trying to adapt to the clinicals. So far everything is good, except that I need to brush up on my communication skills (my malaysian slang don't do so well here =/) and yeah, revision of what I learnt the past few years. Coz lots of things seemed to have flew out of my brain haha.

Alrighty, this will be a short update as promised, for once I must say. And see you guys soon. Gambate to all my frenz! ^^

A Stroke Of Luck, Finally

I am writing this to announce that we signed the agreement today! so yays I finally have a place to stay. =D Got me a bit worried back then.

Debbi and I will be moving in tmr (rush, no?) so that we can save $$, instead of paying both temporary accomdation and the new place. It is hardly ready but no worries, we will try to get it done as soon as possible. Hope we will have our new home ready by this weekend! Is that a safe estimation? lol.

So yeah, won't be updating much till we get internet set up at our place. Hope that will be asap coz everything depends on internet here! Uni announcements, bus timetables etc.

Hmm so far this week has been really fun. Procedural skills workshops are cool!

Did I say that I successfully drew blood from 2 batchmates yesterday? woah adrenaline rush haha. okie more like 1.5 times success coz my first attempt failed halfway lol. The second tube just didnt fill haha. But it's all good :)

My cannulation on the model failed though. =( Need more practice.. not easy! But I dont think I dare do on real patients le.. Injections weren't too bad, seemed ok. Tomorrow will be practicing catheterization (on models of coz, what did you think? haha) and resuscitation on thursday morning. Then there will be 2 nursing attachments and a senior first aid course that we had to do.

Quite a full week eh and we still hvta get our house ready! So much stuff to buy and all. And things to apply for @.@

And next week rotations will start.. Have absolutely no idea how to prepare for it. So just hvta take things one step at a time then!

Things seemed to be really looking up compared to last week. Hope it will only be better! ^v^

PS: I had a good chat with someone yesterday. Cleared up some misunderstandings which is good! Next time we should just discuss things yeh. :)

One Step At A Time

Wow so much has been happening the past few days that I can't help but feel overwhelmed by it all...

So it has been a week of 'preparation for clinicals' sort of classes. Debbi and I are in the same group for these 2 weeks so yeah it has been a week of mostly lectures for us. Next week will be the hands-on procedural skills like cannulation, phlebotomy etc. I should be reading up on it now but just feel a bit unmotivated to do that...yet.

So what have we been up to the whole week besides lectures?

I'm rather lazy to upload pictures somehow so pls check out Debbi's blog (she's very diligent in putting up pics there hehe) or my facebook for the pictures okie :)

Well, it has mostly been A LOT of walking for us so far this week in our endless pursuit of a house. (really starting to hate walking in this hot sun!) And yes, I think we might have managed to get a house, just tat there are some issues to settle. Will update when everything is confirmed. And once we get a house, there will be a whole host of stuff to take care of! Settling down is never easy. le sigh.

And ya on Friday night, we met up with 3 batchmates courtesy of Chye's socializing skills haha. And I realized how weird it is when most of my batchmates don't realise the sudden appearance of 5 imu ppl into their midst. lol. They are just too scattered around to notice. Wic is good! Coz it means our infiltration has succeeded hehe..

Anyway, they took us around to Northbridge which is the area of town which comes alive at night. haha thank god, I was wondering what the ppl around here do for entertainment at night! They have a mini china town here too. But I havent had the chance to try any of the restaurants yet.

They wanted to bring us to karaoke at first (which seems pretty exp at night) but most were full. So in the end, we went to this place for coffee. I ordered iced chocolate tho. Very yummy! ^^ Well, I thought it was great to get to know some other ppl from my batch. They seemed like very nice and funny ppl :)

Okie I guess that's all for now. I know I haven't been updating much but I guess I will write more regularly when I've totally settled down. Can't wait to settle into my new house! Hope everything goes smoothly.

And yes, where have all my readers gone to? *wails*

PS: We have finally managed to decipher the incredibly complicated Transperth website which is responsible for public transport in Perth. yay for us. Now, if only they will show where the bus stops are.. so that we don't need to walk around to look for them. =/

PPS: omg can't believe that today marks the 2nd week I'm here in aussie! I won't say it passed fast coz it sure as hell wasn't fast when we were walking in the burning sun looking for random houses!

PPPS: And yes, I think we will hvta take things one step at a time. Hence the title of this post. I know I can do it.. I miss you guys...

Fun In A Foreign Land

I shall stop with the grandmother stories (for eg pls refer to my last post :P) so just briefly, will ya?

Anyway, we decided to have a barbeque saturday afternoon - yes omg in the very hot summer weather, its nuts I tell you - as the aussies love their barbie so much :P [barbie is their slang for BBQ]

Although the walk to the nearest supermarket (wic is like 30 mins away) and back and then another 30 mins to King's Park where we are having our bbq was super tiring, it was fun. The park was beautiful. They have bbq pits available in the park and they run on electricity, not charcoal!

Ok must stop being long winded... *slaps self*

On sunday morning, we went to visit Scarborough Beach. It was beautiful, like those in postcards. The weather was burning hot, but once you step into the water, it was so cold.. weird. lol. Ren told us that a few weeks back there was a shark that appeared near to shore and attacked someone. And he told us this after we got out of the water! o.O Luckily, they have cars and helicopters patrolling the area for sharks. Cool eh?

That night we decided to have a 'reunion dinner' with some frenz. And guess what we ate? Pizza. lol. But it tasted pretty good though. We had red wine too, but I don't fancy much the taste. Then after circling around the town for some sort of event with random landmarks provided yet finding nothing in the end, we gave up.

In the end, we went to a fren's fren's fren's house to hang out. yeah I know, funny. It was abit like crashing ppl's party. -_- The guys gambled while we girls played mahjong. After that, they started playing drinking games. Lucky didn't kena many times so just got a bit tipsy. Eh their liquor damn strong wan leh. 40%!! Chivas and Red Label =/ haha so proud of myself that I didn't puke :P Anyway, dont think will be doing this again very soon. Aint my style. Plus *cough* must prevent alcoholic liver disease. haha..

On monday, it was Australia Day. Yes so ngam also first day of CNY. We went to watch fireworks at Swan River. Wow there were so many ppl. Imagine this, all spaces along the shore were crammed full of people. Anyway the fireworks were beautiful and lasted for around 40 mins I think.

And today! we had introduction to preparation for clinicals classes. It felt really weird joining another class. It felt like we were infiltrators trying to blend our way into the crowd. haha.. The phlebotomy lecture was not bad. We had the afternoon free and spent it frantically trying to find more possible choices of houses.

Yeah bad news. We didn't get our dream house. It was apparently taken. And they didnt even inform us even though we made sucha big effort to fill in that ridiculously long form. gah! Now feeling kinda worried abt accomodation.. They don't seem to trust students sadly. why?? Hope we can find a house and settle down soon. That gnawing worry is eating me up inside.. =(

Anyway, I guess that's all for now. The past few days have been really fun. But now classes are officially starting so I better be on my toes. Gotta read up a bit ade. So cya next time! Wish me luck with house-hunting! ^^

PS: Oh ya, almost forgot, wish all my readers a Happy Chinese New Year! although there isn't much cny spirit here..

PPS: All photos are/will be loaded up at facebook. Am too busy to put them here la haha.. so check out those okie.

PPPS: And can you believe it? I've been in Perth for more than one week! The fun days passed fast certainly, but there were days where the going got tougher, and those days seemed drawn out. I can't wait till things smooth themselves out..