Saturday, June 26, 2010

1 sem down, 9 to go.

So there it goes, sem 1 of MBBS over and done with, and possibly THE only time I could really just chill and not be worked out with anything in general, and take things easy.

Of course, I'm expecting things to change drastically come 2nd sem onwards, and into future years when any time of rest or relaxation can be counted as a luxury. Meaning 3 weeks of lazing and sleeping enough to make up for 4 months loss of sleep to come.

Well as for my PCL (patient centered learning) group, as with any early starts, started off a lil awkward in the beginning, people from various backgrounds, and even countries (had a Thai boy, a Mauritius and a..."Canadian" who's Malaysian-ised lol). But fast forward 13 weeks (or earlier perhaps) and you get one of THE most (if not undisputed) wacky and outrageous bunch of meddie students you could ever find in history.

We've got...
1) A "war" between "Korea" (a K-pop and K-drama lover in the group) and Mauritius
2) The Thai multitalented entertainer.
3) The versatile musician + fellow gamer.
4) A 'patient'
5) A squeaky constitutively activated loudspeaker who tries desperately and without success to deny her current relationship.
6) Poppy poppy. Competes with aforementioned loudspeaker for being...the loudspeaker. And our little mummy =)
7) A princess. Who is also known as Liliput. For some reason. Haz kickazz piano skillzz.
8) 2 hip gals who can dance to the beat, injecting style into the presumably boring Medical degree. Not to mention they could be models IF they wanted to.
9) The quiet petite girl in whom belies a giant's strength. (just kidding on the last part =P)
10) The random guy. Who says random things. At random times. Quite randomly obvious. And hilarious. =D
11) A woman strong in the Lord =)



12) And of course. How can all these be appreciated without observers? Thats where I fit in. LOL.




Words can't convey the meaning of those 13 weeks spent with these people. Really dispelled the notion that MBBS is all nerds and books. Shows that theres a larger-than-life entity beneath all the books and the nerding. hehe.



I'll upload a pic another time. Or just hit through my Facebook profile and just scan through the various pics others have uploaded.


I'll cherish those moments spent, and look forward to chilling out with you guys again every once in a while, even though we're in different groups in the years to come.

Cheers!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Stepping Up.

Its beeeeeennnnnn aaaa loooooonnnnnngggggggg whiiiiiiiillllleeeeeeee

I just couldn't bear to open my blogpage again...for good reasons excuses which I shall keep to myself, making it an even better excuse...

And many things have happened no doubt. I only remembered to hit on the blog again after so long, when Ann Ee told me to update my blog, to which I reflexly replied "oh you read it ah?" lol. Never thought people would open my blog, or whats left of it. But its time to talk again, as briefly as possible (but it won't be), on what transpired over the past 3 months or so.

I'll call this post...

Stepping up.

A highly condensed life story for the past..uh. 6 months?

Now its no secret (or it was?) that I was a "sleeping" Christian for a good part of my teen life, degenerating to a point when I was no different than the average crowd, I'll admit, and had a lot of underlying problems coming along with it. Despite this, God had still provided for me and delivered me through the times I needed it most, such as PMR, SPM and even AUSMAT, when I thought I'd be just a normal dude who would just get through it, do well enough, and get to some half-decent course in some decent uni. But more than that, the Lord blessed my Biology exam in a way that up till now I could never understand, elevating it to getting 91 in the final written exam, scaled to 100 after evaluating internal assessment and performance compared with others in the cohort, getting the Special Cert. of Distinction and Special Subject/Course Award in Bio, which I received in Perth back in February. That was indeed a joyous moment for me, as I was definitely one lacking in confidence (my bio lecturer would attest to that, and has tried to buck me up and I thank her immensely for being a blessing to her students) and am known to be a horribly slow learner (and still am, lol). Just to show how much God has blessed me in spite of my "low point" in life.

Now, some of you know I nearly got into Pharmacy either in Perth/Adelaide. But as wayy before my dad insisted I applied for Medicine, so I applied only Monash, partly cos' I was lazy to repeatedly travel to different parts of the world (exaggerating here) for interviews and what not. And in the end I got offered Medicine. My first response? The ever infamous 'Why Lord'? We all know Medicine is a killer from the get-go. The study workload is obscene. The expectations gargantuan. And the burden of responsibility insurmountable by most, as its lives we're handling. Pharmacy in comparison still gave me time to myself, and sufficient cash to get by. I didn't get it. But I knew that at the moment that offer came, its like God telling me "Step up to it, boy". And step up I had to, even if it meant "sacrificing my youth" (I'm about to see how true that is, eventually).

So up I went mid-late February. Later joined by my JB gang consisting of Sin Nah, Eric, Weng, Vysh. Orientation and transition camp was a great time of knowing my to-be PCL members in Group J - which I'll talk about another time. One fine day Eric just asked me to attend Acts Church 10th Anniversary on 28th Feb, which I tagged along with Weng. And that day wasn't that...impactful for me at that time yet anyway, as one - we came late. and two - I was still in the "sleeping" mode. The food was the draw at that time (admittedly, hehehe), BUT one perhaps unnoticeable but great blessing was the Acts 10 Umbrella door gift, which up till now has actually bailed me out many times - Praise the Lord for such a simple yet helpful item. But later, I had this feeling that just prompted me to go to Acts. And I did the following Sunday. Nowww I don't remember details but I enjoyed it, and kept coming back again and again.

And at one particular service by Pastor Kenneth (which again, I don't remember. Terrible memory T.T) I just felt a tugging by God, telling me to come back to the right path, as I've been gone away long enough. Which brings about again the story of the Prodigal Son, long gone, wasted his life away, but comes back broken and the Father accepted him again lovingly. Right hand shot up and then on, the fight to rededicate my life back to the way Christ wanted it, has begun. As always, stepping up ain't easy, having being on "hiatus" for what seems like many years, degenerating to near nothingness. But with the help of the few good people and friends in Acts who supported and encouraged me, like Charles, Shaun Kang, Lucas, Michelle, Alvin, Ann-Marie (sorry if I didn't mention your name, but I appreciate it nonetheless!) and so on, its been less difficult.

But its still difficult. Workload is immense. Still lagging behind. But I try to put in the quiet times and devotion any time I can. Still, the one thing that has made life so much better to live, is that I only need believe that Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are always with me. No matter what. That knowledge and believe and faith in it alone was all it needed to take me out of a generally solemn depressive state to a more accepting and optimistic outlook of life. No doubt stumbles and hits come their way, but with this renewed purpose and strength, the Lord will take me by the hand and up to my feet again.

As for the colourful words from previous posts and previous phase of life? Lets just say I've put those days behind me. The "big time colourful words" ( you know what I mean) are shelved for the most part. Smaller ones still need some work around it. But with God's grace and providence, it too will fade.

Stepping up to it has been hard, and some times what we do might not make sense, but I feel that its for better things to come.

I'll stop here for now. Gotta study now @.@

God bless!