Crisis Over

A temptation to celebrate wouldn't hurt after 2 grueling weeks of facts consumption and regurgitation. The entire process is rather similar in pattern - memorize everything (develop a way for it if possible, if not, there's always the cramming-everything-in seconds before question distribution). Pray the parts you invested the most time in will come out, so you can write a thesis about it; and the parts you fall asleep in class will be ignored by Prof.

Table of Crisis, finally all marked on evening of 4/28. "Useless talk report" is a summary report we have to hand up after attending a scholarly talk at school. Each student must attend at least 6 of these to graduate.
Nervousness overpowering myself, and the fact that I can't get left and right correct until recently, I did not do well in Anatomy. Wallowing in self-pity, it's about time I discover my true position in medicine. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and I should really give it another try, another time when I did not have to study Psychology last minute.

I've been running low on detergent since the previous month. This one costs RM18.90 (to those not knowing market value, it's very expensive). I've yet to try whether the RM10 difference of chemicals and fragrances can really induce life into my clothes or make the washing machine spin happier.

Crisis over, the time is still not for slowing down or taking breaks. The choir is heading to Taipei for a competition this weekend, and we are thinking of hiding ourselves with another school's name; also this weekend is the one-day health promotion campaign for our Health Communication lesson; and my French host is about to send in their confirmation, which means I will start another a lesson called 'How To Maneuver Your Way Through A Research Exchange In France With No Knowledge of French, No Background In Laboratory Work, and No Money'.

Recalling What It Used To Be

Coming back from Anatomy Hall I tried
capturing a ray of sunlight absent weeks before.
The cold, the stress, the listless jobs
tinge my fingers blue, and walking barely a trot.
Pouring through books - the Biblical core;
palpitating every inch of what's required for.
Knowing every inch of our bare torso
but what art the soul? The humanistic core.

Sensing - a fall - that reflective compensatory act
to counter shattering, and what was built before,
not knowing the force, the might, the repulsive moment
is equally dislodging, at least for the raw, unenthusiastic heart.

Comparison is a common thought -
time being the jury. To judge things that was before
and what brought forth but more
helplessness? The world is never what it was before.

Celebrating April, the mild daughter
with wild and frenzying temperature, oppressive heat,
and tropical downpour.
Comrades help not but watch
and babble stupid thoughts, indecisive, ambivalent.
We are not a common being
but what can we be, when energy and motivation
take leaves alternatively?

Equilibrium

Since time memorial there's been this theory saying anything that is imbalanced, will automatically balance itself out given the time and space - heat establishes equilibrium overtime (and that's the reason we experience oppressive weather as a result of heat generated by ruthless factories in China), market economy, human population etc. Establishing an equilibrium is a force of nature, as it is also a natural behavior of human beings - less food - work harder for more; good living standards - demoralized society etc.
Capturing and utilizing time, dubbed the primary factor in determining success of an individual, is doubtlessly another subject of equilibration. An example would be useless, you've heard it all the time - when I was small, I used to spend the entire afternoon catching thor-sat at the drain behind our house. Then I went to Chung Ling High School, and every week I have no less than 5 tuition classes. Of course, I can still watch Phua Chu Kang on TV every Thursday night, and probably The Amazing Race on Tuesdays, if I get my work done. Then I went to university. Now, with anatomy, psychology, epidemiology, and molecular cell biology, I barely have time to blog. But since Form 3, my academic performance have been quite constant - always approximately in the 10th percentile of the class. I demand myself a lot at times.
Which brings us to - demanding oneself against fulfilling expectations. I have principles in the matter of study. Under normal circumstances, I always pre-study before the lecture, and I limit myself to review at least once within one week after the lecture. Then, before the second week, I must had completed my notes on the subject and see everything through. Sounds perfect - the typical studying method of the typical Chung Ling geek. But with the present amount of time fulfilling all these, and establishing an equilibrium after all the exhausting studying is getting more difficult.
With the equilibrium theory working itself on me, in compensation of torturing my mind feeding in facts, the brain launches a re-strike - I complained, begged sympathy and attention from seniors while bullying juniors. This is sickly I know, but when you have no hobbies, no girlfriend (or boyfriend) to talk to, not a single admirable object to earn envy from, you either write this senseless post or you nag non-stop.
And I haven't reach my main point for this post yet. My senior grinningly told me this is just the beginning of a nightmare, the climax starts next semester, when you see cadavers all day and books all night. He would do the same thing over and over again - pat my shoulder, say 'learn to adapt this,' and tiredly walk away. And I would shout from behind "I wished somebody would say 'everything will be all right, you'd be fine', but I'm not so certain about it either." Looks like some scene from a 60's romance.
Good and bad things happen everyday. They almost always come in equilibrium, so, when something unlucky strikes, like getting the very last position in drawing rooms in the dorm, something good is just around the corner, just look out for it.
And Jun Yi, everything will be all right, you'd be fine at the end of the day.

Taichung In 21 Hours

Taichung, located at the direct opposite of Hualien, was our 4th National Meeting venue last weekend. Never been there before, I struggled between mid-terms one week after and the spirit of adventure for a few days before deciding duty over self - to attend the meeting. Of course, the lure of a new city is part of the factor.

Taichung train station still preserves the pre-war columns and ceilings.

Photo taken after the NM, (from left) rep. from ChungShan Medical University, ChangGeng Medical University, ChangGeng Chinese Medicine, and me. Background: main campus of China Medical University (CMU).

The brand new teaching hospital of CMU - looks more like a hotel.

Visited Taichung's premiere high school - Taichung First Boys' Senior High School.

Taichung park - patch of green and aqua in the bustling city.

Loved the park, especially when it is located right at the busiest center of town.

A view of Taichung city - third largest after Taipei and Kaohsiung. Taichung is awarded numerous times for its orderly city planning and tourism promotion activities - something Penang should learn.

Back after 21 hours - the fastest train takes 3 hours 45 mins between Taichung and Hualien.

Everything And Nothing

It's hard to set a title for posts, if your post appears to be a jumble of everything. You can't just write 'Everything' or 'Anything' because it's not appealing enough and people end up not reading and not commenting, which I guess is quite common since what I'm getting is commercial comments. 'Everything And Nothing' isn't very appealing either, but at least it's better than 'Everything' and 'Anything'.
Went for a talk today by a professor emeritus from the Taiwan School of Tourism. The title was most unappealing, and unrelated to his career - Evolution in Human Population. Sadly, the school requires us to attend at least 6 of these useless talks, so to get my 1 credit I usually have to sacrifice a 2-hour session sitting there wondering how much lifespan the LCD projector still has, and whether it's probable that it will blow during the talk.
Met a few seniors during seating. ‘Seniors' though they are, we're quite literally as familiar as brothers, and we talked well even after the speaker started murmuring. His voice was so soft it had to be amplified by two microphones. And judging by how hypnotic the conditions were, I estimated it would take me less than 10 minutes to fall asleep.
The surprise unveils soon after. He introduced a few concepts on calculation of the human population - birth rates, fertility rate etc, and how majority of countries in the world are experiencing negative population growth, meaning, the people are dying faster than they are giving birth. A huge avalanche of problems precedes this phenomena.
Firstly, most adults nowadays choose not to give birth at all (I haven't decided, so, no comments). For those who do wish to, the amount won't hit higher than 2. Back in the 40's, you'd be amazed to find the average live birth rate was 9.6 per female, meaning an average family has at least 9 children (excluding those dead before being born). Back then, at the age of 30, only 2% of women aren't married. Back to the present, 42% of them are unmarried.
The peak fertility period of an average woman is from 15 to 27 years (seems our body is still dated back to ancient Tang dynasty). If you were to marry at 30 (considered extremely early in today's society), you have had lost the period when you have the highest chance of conceiving. By 35, you get pregnant once for every four pregnancies a mother of 20 gets.
With the evolution (and delay) of childbirth, the role of the gynecologist (doctor specializing in childbirth and women's health) changes rapidly. In the 40's, when the world was experiencing a massive baby boom, they are busy scheduling births. Now t'is the era of abortion and implantation of pregnancy prevention devices. The speaker then further postulates it will slowly switches to artificial pregnancy and in-vitro implantation of fetuses in 5 years to come.
The effects? Most of our generation has siblings countable with up to 3 fingers. Our next might be mostly only-sons and -daughters. Without sibling accompaniment and support, losing social communication skills is no doubt certain. There's a hidden fear though - parents in the future will impose lots of expectations (to be specific, expectations of 4 to 5 siblings in a traditional extended family) onto one single child. The child, receiving all resources, limelight, and milk powder from the parent, will have to support the entire clan - Dad, Mum, Granddad, Grandma, another-Granddad and another-Grandma. The 5 words the only child hears is not 'we love you so much' but rather 'our future lies with you'. Tell me then, how can future generations be anyhow better than us?
The speaker showed a simple estimation then of how the future population will look like, in terms of money. An average graduate earns TWD 22000 (about RM2200) per month, in the Taipei metropolitan area (highest wage in all Taiwan). Assume a grandparent is hospitalized, and assume he / she has full medical insurance coverage. Nevertheless, requiring medical care, an in-house nurse is almost a necessity. An average Indonesian professional nurse costs TWD 2400 (RM240) per day. It takes only 10 days of hospitalization of 1 grandparent to snap up one month's salary of the fresh graduate. Of course there's always the credit card and loan sharks to ask for help.
So, are we still living towards a better future?

Being Kaypoh

Less words, more pictures.
My roommate's ex-classmate came for a visit last weekend. Me, being kaypoh, joined them in their tour around Hualien. Rainy day, so pictures are not cutting-edge, but it's a wonderful day to view the Pacific Ocean.

We started off with a visit to Jian Qing Primary School, where the Miharasi project is running. Simply put my roommate just wanted to show off how those little children liked him after spending a fraction of his winter holiday with them.

Ice cream at GuangFu. The oh-so-common vanilla and chocolate.

(From left) A junior, my roommate's ex-classmate, my roommate, my classmate. With the Ice Cream gorilla at GuangFu.

When Taiwanese tells you how backwater Hualien is, they mean these sceneries all the way to and beyond Hualien.
Then to New Zealand. Wallah. Cows at RueiSuei Dairy Farm. They look nice, but smell not.

I never got my latitudes and longitudes right. This is the mark of Tropic of Cancer - the line separating earth into Upper Northern Hemisphere and Lower Northern Hemisphere.

The Pacific Ocean and Me.

The Tai-9 Highway bordering the steep landscape and the sea. Misty last Sunday.

Another view of the ocean from Huting National Seafront. The sand is exactly those we use for mosaic floors. The patch on the ground? Cow manure.

Back home. And I hate to mention the word - study. Looks quite messy, but compare others and you'd appreciate how little possessions I have. Computer table to the right.