The Five Types Of People You See In Year 3

• The 99%-depressive syndrome top-of-class

Zap. Zap - they've done something you need 10 seconds to do in 2. For the entire period of neurobiology, with the teacher jetting at a 10-word per second speed, they almost got everything down - even the lame jokes serving to reinforce your memory to a particularly complex pathway. They won't be satisfied by 99%. It's either 100% or nil. Now go away so that I can finish my 45th review of nervous system!

• The take-your-own-sweet-time countryside senior
  

"What's the hurry?" they ask. They don't mind spending an hour waiting for lunch, and they can stand in line for 3 hours for a concert ticket on the eve of exams. "It happens when you're with friends," they commented on your complaints that whenever you hang out with them they always take 45 minutes to decide where to eat and a further 120 minutes to actually arrive there. If this is Year 3, this is no more than a holiday in the countryside for them.

• The tea-breaker

They get up every 20 minutes. Go for a break every 30 minutes, and sleep every hour while studying. Their notes - as empty as new. Their textbooks could literally be re-sold as new without people realizing it's second-hand. And yet they don't seem to be doing too badly. You sneak into their room and ransack their bags for secret notes - no avail. Only one thing will tell you how they do this - wait till they die and dissect their brains.

• The pressure-cooked poor child
  

Under immense pressure, people can do all sort of things just to escape the steam a little. Kick the floorboards a hundred times before you sleep; wear a scarf and simulate the day when you hang yourself; stand on the table while studying; day-dreaming the day you got sworn into the White House...

• The understanding partner who'd do anything
  

Those who are lucky to have secured (ok, this word is a little controversial) a partner before this will find an emotionally-stable Mr. Nice Guy useful under many circumstances - buying lunch when exam's due in the afternoon, carrying books back to the dorm in preparation for tomorrow's exam, laundering your lab coat when you're happily partying after the exam, driving you to stock up provisions for the next exams. Anything - as long as it don't involve sitting the exams for you.

Remember That Feeling

Petronas Merdeka advertisement 2002:

When you remember that day, remember that feeling

Besides spinning around the theme of friendship, I saw elements urging again the unity of all Malaysians in face of the coming years as global economic depression is compounded by financial insecurity and global warming.
Malaysia - one nation, one destiny.

Hanging Onto Sanity

Everyday morning I am greeted by this recently-renovated entrance to TCU's Medical Simulation Center. Every evening I bid it goodbye

Every morning we're reminded of why we should invest all our life and energy this semester onto anatomy. Translation - it is hoped that with the silent mentor program and an education emphasizing the value of respecting life, we could trigger genuine love among medical professionals in caring for patients; people from the public too will have an opportunity to contribute to medical education through donating their bodies. They would aid in sowing conscientious doctors for the society.

And the directory of the hall

On occasion my classmate would become temporarily insane due to the immense pressure

And the textbook doesn't really help...

Compounded by the fact that my performance was not on par recently...

So I lost my mind too...

Taking My Own Sweet Time

We have tomorrow off, well, sort of, because we're required to attend a tutorial on using Anatomy.tv - a software the school bought for an undisclosed amount of money and nobody is using. It's basically a virtual dissection program designed for students too free to study, like me now. I'd spend time blogging instead of anatoming - since I'm already anatomizing more than 12 hours per week.

Changed the color scheme of Randomly JYSim to commemorate the winter season, the coming-and-predicted global depression, and the passing of the age of fun and innocence.

And finally, look what I found in my primary school's classmate's blog:

Taken during Standard 5, year 1999:

H'm, I'm still thinking of the prize for those who manage to point out where I am...

Trivial Nothings November

• Winter was delayed for more than a month. Last Saturday when I was having a jolly good time in Taipei it rained like the end of the world and the temperature, like the stock market, dipped more than 10 degrees during the night.
• Needless to say dozens fell sick the following day, and most of us under immense pressure and sleep cycles of owls are the prime targets. Tissue papers literally flew away by the bundles from the washrooms this morning.
• As mentioned, I had a half-day jolly good time in Taipei enjoy being a citizen of one of the world's most advanced cities (many would disagree). Bought a new shoe and got drenched by cat-and-dog rains because I wanted to see what's in season in Nautica.
• Deprived of entertainment, Prof. Ling for abdomen today literally electrocuted my classmate Liu for horrible pronunciation - splanchnic n. (Liu: spu-lanu-nik; actual: splanCHnic); cisterna chyli (Liu: chai-li; actual: kai-li). It was, of course, hilarious, given that most of the time we don't even get the word 'Carrefour' right.
• So how is Carrefour pronounced? Common mistakes: care-four, care-ful, kar-for; actual: kar-foo. Remember it's a French name.
• It's mid-term for other faculties this week. I wished we're facing our finals now. I want to end this mundane, joyless and pressure-cooker semester quickly.
• I have a sweater-buying addiction. I have at least 4 or 5 of them and I can't seem to get my eyes off sweaters whenever I'm walking across any boutique. My favourites are navy and dark red.
  
• Speaking of colors, Dad always request for me to ferry him 60 tubes of indigo watercolor whenever I go home for summer or winter. I like indigo too - it's a color between black and dark blue, with a tinge or purple and dark green. It's extremely soothing to the heart and is a feature in many of Dad's paintings.
• And I hope I'll be composing the December and January edition of Trivial Nothings very soon - that means the semester is ending and I can go home soon, yay!

p.s.: apologies for the delayed updates for Randomly JYSim. Yours truly was either running out of inspiration or too busy to even go online.