tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37481932011-04-21T12:22:10.583-07:00blahblahbliddyblahthe nonsense-talking of amanda. many many nonsense to be read.mandonoreply@blogger.comBlogger6801100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-49662281639692771472008-04-28T04:38:00.000-07:002008-04-28T04:50:10.745-07:00oh. my. word.for the past couple of months i have been checking out josh grobany news to find out if there was the slightest chance that i could get a massive loan from my friendly neighbourhood ah long to go and see him in concert. despite my willingness to have my house decorated with pigs heads and to have the letters "OMPM" painted on my door, i couldn't find a josh groban concert coming nearmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-31976301271900422762008-04-23T07:12:00.000-07:002008-04-23T07:14:14.252-07:00a poem i found while reading about syphilis :Isaac Asimov wrote in Limericks, under "Luetic Lament,":There was a young man of Back BayWho thought syphilis just went away.And thought that a chancreWas merely a cankerAcquired in lascivious play.Now first he got acne vulgaris,The kind that is rampant in ParisIt covered his skinFrom forehead to shinAnd now people ask where his hair is.With symptoms mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-57628917095861111612008-03-27T04:48:00.000-07:002008-03-27T17:12:50.300-07:00most people who know me know that i love musical theatre. i love it like lynn loves food, like liana loves dogs, and almost half as much as MM lee loves singapore. strangely, it wasn't watching a show onstage that made me fall in love with musical theatre. the first show i ever watched onstage was The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre in london when i was 14. it was a really mind-blowing show, not mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-62230939019042500632008-03-11T05:51:00.000-07:002008-03-11T06:22:44.914-07:00this week we started our paeds posting, and my face is cramping from making faces at adorable little kids with defective hearts. they may be blue and their praecordiums may be bulgy and hyperdynamic, but they are cute with a capital C. the clinic is so cold that all of us are turning blue, so between us with our blue fingers and the kids with their blue lips we are like a roomful of smurfs.i am mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-69478714102848434692008-03-05T18:06:00.000-08:002008-03-05T20:40:14.987-08:00i realised i have not written in a long long time. i have not written in so long that blogger has forgotten me, and wayne has blogged before me. possibly even the terrorist has been caught before i blogged, but we will of course not know this until 6 days later.speaking of catching the terrorist who absconded from the toilet, i have been doing my civic duty and staring at all short men with limpsmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-79667628379140591202008-01-31T04:59:00.000-08:002008-01-31T07:21:16.552-08:00finally, after a month of being locked in loving embrace with a textbook, pacing around the living room feverishly reciting things to yourself and having your neighbours bolt their windows against you, the neighbourhood schizophrenic, and also having your old friend mr pimple take up residence upon your face, bringing his entire extended family along with him : patho is over. we are free. we are mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-560873114950223592008-01-03T04:20:00.000-08:002008-01-04T17:14:26.141-08:00ooooooooooh i just went to watch opening night of Operation Theatre : Just Great! last night and oh my lord the cast just blew me away. the singing, the dancing, the acting, the sets and props are all gorgeous! we've got such an amazing main cast! and the supporting cast totally won my heart with their hilarious one-liners. the cast and crew of the musical have been slaving away for months to mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-56996109141762226172007-12-30T17:43:00.000-08:002007-12-30T18:52:57.502-08:00i have not blogged for more than 2 months, but i have a good excuse because two months ago, i was abducted by little aliens (they were little, but there were lots of them which is why they were able to abduct me) who sucked me up into a giant aluminium spacecraft and methodically deleted the english language from my brain and replaced it with krcyzzkxish, the complicated alien dialect which they mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-38928838126383191782007-10-28T04:01:00.000-07:002007-10-28T07:57:45.422-07:00around this time of year, i am overwhelmed with absolute joy that i am part of a batch of people who will give up their holidays to craft an entire village out of masking tape and newspaper, hand-stitch fantastic outfits til 3 in the morning, dance around stage like happy neantherdals and entranced empty coconuts, shake a shaman staff hung with 4 dangling gonads, go through endless soundclips of mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-51159579087565420552007-10-23T05:25:00.000-07:002007-10-23T06:13:46.790-07:00i haven't been writing for awhile, because between writing the OT2 script, the playhouse script and 2 paeds writeups, there has been altogether too much writing and i am running out of words.it's finally holidays now, after a long 8 weeks of playing with germy little kids. i learnt a bunch of things during paeds, one of which is to beware the little kids. they are cute, but they also have the mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-38258514364748999162007-09-15T08:30:00.000-07:002007-09-15T09:01:07.547-07:00so much time has passed since my last post! so many things have happened since our annual marikita day! we've just finished 4 weeks of paeds, and we have let cute babies drool half their body water content on us, we have let bratty kids shmush their bratty bodies on us and steal our toys from our little treasure chests, and we have watched 9 month old babies attempt to eat everything around them.mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-6939456982634419532007-08-10T05:48:00.000-07:002007-08-10T08:04:36.883-07:00ian's parents very kindly invited me to watch the national day parade with them! i elegantly accepted their invitation by shrieking "marikitaaaa!" and jumping up and down. thank you auntie and uncle!i have lived 21 years in this country without once going to the national day parade! i have performed in the preshow of one ndp with my friend, the tinsel-strung hula hoop, but after we performed for mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-37336561968323185972007-08-06T08:45:00.000-07:002007-08-06T08:58:08.759-07:00there are those times that you feel like you have bitten off more than you can chew. when so many people knowingly or unknowingly say things that tear you down, that make you feel like all the time, effort, thought and emotion that you have poured into something is as significant as a soggy piece of chewed gum lying sad and abandoned on the floor of an mrt train. these are the things that slowly mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-40825489889822769222007-08-01T07:59:00.000-07:002007-08-03T17:32:32.650-07:00it is the season for birthdays.today is carol's birthday! happy birthday, awesome birthday girl! i have said what i wanted to say in your card, but anyway, i love you carol! i hope you enjoyed your small surprise - sorry the donuts weren't hot though. (me and wayne attempted to hide in the corners of our dark teaching room at 7.45am this morning and give carol an early morning birthday scare, butmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-17771134005250265362007-07-23T02:51:00.000-07:002007-07-23T03:12:11.676-07:00today was the first day of our eye posting, and we got to have some fun with our friendly optometrist! he let us play with his 3D eye games, and we got to put on his red and green matrix spectacles to determine which of us is the most squinty. ben and jiawei have disgustingly good eyesight. i have concluded that they are not human. they are aliens with perfect retinas, just waiting to paint our mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-26094876170084224352007-07-09T05:43:00.000-07:002007-07-09T06:52:36.633-07:00Congratulations to all new graduates of the class of 2007! On thursday, all the people with 2 brand new letters in front of their names got to wear big graduation gowns, put on a black hat, and kiss yongloolin medical school goodbye in style! it was great watching all of them stride triumphantly onstage to receive their scrolls from the dean. after seeing all of them stuff entire textbooks into mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-25144595952868820122007-06-29T23:03:00.000-07:002007-06-29T23:38:41.693-07:00the first week of school has gone by, and all of us are having holiday withdrawals. i am missing waking up to a big hot bowl of pho, or a 50c street cart baguette stuffed with ham and salami and pate and pork floss, with tangy mayo and sweet pickles. vietnam was one of the best holidays i've ever been on, perhaps because the people are friendly, the street are always bustling and alive, prices mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-52585606117876550362007-06-17T03:27:00.000-07:002007-06-17T17:17:38.279-07:00it is now day 4 of our vietnam adventure, and up until yesterday we have not experienced the famous vietnam summer monsoon weather. it has been sunny and clear skies all day long! except yesterday, after we returned utterly spent and ho-chi-minh'ed out from our city tour to rest did these really ominous-looking black clouds rush over the city and swirl around in the sky. it was like a scene from mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-69116959820758701742007-06-13T05:58:00.000-07:002007-06-13T08:12:33.615-07:00i have so far succeeded in packing my holiday full of movies, food, and quality lounging! actually not so much lounging as sitting bolt upright on my swivel chair digging my nails into the seat in terror while watching heroes. i heart hiro!also, me and el have been putting our heads together (with the result that we both have nasty bruises on our foreheads) to come up with the operation theatre 2mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-66032051416006352082007-05-28T18:19:00.000-07:002007-05-28T19:21:55.602-07:00my ortho clinical exam is over! during the exam, i saw a unipolar hip replacement for the very first time. the examiner said "what is this?" and triumphantly whipped a hip replacement from out of his pocket like a magician producing a furry little bunny from his hat. i took it from him and was appalled to find that it weighed as much as two big toes from the foot of an indian elephant. apparentlymandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-22369329579215993972007-05-24T08:24:00.000-07:002007-05-24T09:18:23.506-07:00it has been weeks and weeks of endeavouring to acquire half the strength of a bull, of watching hours of our young lives tick past in hospital wards, watching our beards grow while waiting for tutorials to start, of trying to figure out whether the mcmurray knee test is supposed to end up with the examination subject resembling a pretzel. finally, today, i got a much-needed break!thanks to ian mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-55956980598326616502007-04-25T05:44:00.000-07:002007-04-27T20:49:40.722-07:00we have been doing orthopaedics for a little over 2 weeks now, and it is exhausting! people keep saying that it's an easy posting, but i'm so tired out at the end of each day that it's like a little flock of tsetse flies has settled down and built a little tsetse fly village in my room. our illustrious prof gave us a quotable quote about orthopaedics :"orthopaedics is very easy. you just need a mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-32075515108025382432007-04-02T08:06:00.000-07:002007-04-02T08:17:13.797-07:00 you know that you're becoming a little too nerdy when your stuffed dollies start resembling gram negative bacilli bacteria magnified to a million times their actual size.meet my cuddly new friend from giantmicrobes.com, Shigella dysenteriae! he doesn't mind if you call him Shiggy for short. when preceded by the word "yo", it makes him feel very much like a rap star. Shiggy wants nothing more mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-49075343325159725902007-04-01T08:32:00.000-07:002007-04-01T08:59:27.112-07:00it has once again been a disgustingly long time since my last post.we've been at the polyclinic for a week now, and aside from the perpetual need to discover the patient's ideas, concerns and expectations about his fungus-riddled toenail or his madly-running nose, it has been pretty fun! in the 3 weeks of family medicine posting, caro has become a world-expert on dizziness and has given us a mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-41106089431051549172007-02-26T08:07:00.000-08:002007-03-16T19:35:36.648-07:00i have not been posting for awhile because my fingers were crippled writing copious amounts of notes to prepare for pharmaco exams, and i have not yet learned how to type with the point of my nose.but anyway this exam season, i realised that while studying in school, one learns a great deal of things. many of these things have absolutely nothing to do with what medicine cures a horrible festeringmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1170035658690911792007-01-28T17:22:00.001-08:002007-01-28T18:22:37.693-08:00it's official! the monkey banner and the beloved bunches of bananas are no more. my very kind photo host, boomspeed, decided to make all of us paying customers from the first of january without telling us. and so unless i sign up as a paying customer, they have locked the bewildered and gibbering monkey and his fruits safely in their vault of pictures. i could have easily saved the pictures mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1169362981304548582007-01-20T22:31:00.000-08:002007-01-20T23:03:01.383-08:00it has recently come to my attention that my beautiful monkey banner and my gorgeous array of assorted bunches of bananas has upped and left my blog. in their place instead are little red crosses. this could mean either one of two things : a) i will have to rename my blog, instead calling it "embrace the little red crosses" but this unfortunately does not have the same ring to it. this is becausemandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1167838019151681862007-01-03T05:23:00.000-08:002007-01-03T07:32:14.986-08:00happy new year everybody! school's started again, and amid the scramble to get things printed and the battle against the lead weights attached to each eyelid, it was so nice to see everyone again. plus, tons of holiday presents! gummyworms from gummylynn from new zealand, a chinese box and pirate bear dolly from zhong from china, purple hot chocolate (oh i have been waiting all my life to drink mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1167272712222019792006-12-27T18:00:00.000-08:002006-12-27T18:29:55.560-08:00ahh Christmas, the traditional season of watching Home Alone, engaging in sticky brawls with rolls of scotch tape and wrapping paper, and stuffing your face. i've always thought of christmas as a time when turkeys scuttle under haystacks for cover and pigs tremble at the thought of being caught, skinned and stuck full of cloves to make a tasty main course. with the introduction of the turducken (mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1166453586037141422006-12-18T05:00:00.000-08:002006-12-21T18:50:41.063-08:00The mother of all battles descended upon us. There was good. There was evil. There were even giant lizards. And most importantly, there was a healthy dose of tie-chewing.And that is how i turned 21.And now i will cut out the dramatics and say a huge, ginormous, humungous, THANK YOU to all my friends and relatives who helped me fulfil my life's dream : turning 21 while dressed as a street mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1163036525048519772006-11-08T17:35:00.000-08:002006-11-08T17:42:05.166-08:00 Mary the ferocious, permanently trapped in PMS, man-hating seacow! pirates crash, ship trashed, waves splash, if sarong drop then weesoon flash. fearsome feminist mermaids! lynn looking ferocious. and hungry. possibly thinking of how to make a shameer sandwich. photo montage to everybody's favourite sea monster! "garghh garghh garghh i've got balloon arms!" mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1163034723476885702006-11-08T17:10:00.000-08:002006-11-08T17:12:03.480-08:00 everyone making themselves pretty the stars of the show : denise's pet puppies! yarharr! (say the rowdy pirates) the sound team and the Puss in OcToPuss mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1163034589185732812006-11-08T16:16:00.000-08:002006-11-08T17:19:21.623-08:00The definitive picture of Playhouse '06 : "Yeahh! We grabbed playhouse by the balls! (or by the inflatable boobies!)"after spending days walking around on a Playhouse high, i finally settle down to write about the hands-down, best experience of my year. the year that we finally won best props, best costumes, and best overall play! but more than all the cute little egg cup trophies, the best thingmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1162120443199175732006-10-29T02:53:00.000-08:002006-10-29T03:14:03.220-08:00when you start psychomed posting, you start to see crazy people everywhere.today as i was peacefully making my way home, i had a traumatic encounter with a madman. i was driving down one of my neighbourhood streets, almost home. the left lane was completely clogged up with parallel-parked cars, so only the right lane was available. a sidewalk lay to the right of the road. halfway down the street,mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1162038689120772312006-10-28T05:30:00.000-07:002006-10-28T05:31:29.123-07:00we just had our first week in psychomed, and it has been one hell of an action-packed experience. on day one of our hospital posting, there was already a high-speed patient chase down the corridor, two therapists and a whole herd of students thundering towards the fleeing patient as if said patient was a 90% storewide sale at Topshop. if you hadn't caught the first bit where the patient started mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1161526613590820612006-10-22T06:31:00.000-07:002006-10-22T07:22:48.783-07:00My Tua Ee and Cousin Kim came to visit from america a bunch of weeks ago, and we did all kinds of fun stuff before they finally returned to the land of Krispy Kreme and Philly cheese steaks! i wanted to write about it sooner, but i was busily trying to fool examiners into thinking i knew lots about medicine. but now let me introduce to you my cool cousin Kim! "Hi! My name is Kim. I'm from mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1160498603345801702006-10-10T09:27:00.000-07:002006-10-14T17:14:31.866-07:00and so, armed with shovel and a well-muscled arm with which to dig my own grave, i marched bravely into the medicine end of posting tests. it is through medicine end of posting tests that you discover the things that you would not ever want to say to an examiner.examiner : do you think this symptom is related to his thyroid problem?petrified pissing-in-pants student : possibly not. examiner : mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1157768098117546222006-09-08T18:03:00.000-07:002006-09-08T19:14:58.243-07:00as you have realised, i have not been writing anything here for as long as a blue whale takes to gestate a pair of blue whale twin fetuses. this is not entirely due to the fact that i am slowly succumbing to what some people call "study". back in surgery, there wasn't much need to do any of that because when anyone asked you "so what do you think this patient has?" you would only need to answer "mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1156684259293618942006-08-27T05:30:00.000-07:002006-08-27T06:10:59.316-07:00Our time in AH has finally come to a close. Like caroline says, we can't believe we were moaning and groaning initially about how the hospital was too small, the patients were too few, the toilets were too hard to find, and the canteen food was too lousy. Now that we've spent 8 weeks here, we don't want to leave. The hospital being small just means that it's easier to locate another fellow mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1154846625948141812006-08-05T23:09:00.000-07:002006-08-06T08:10:53.393-07:00i have not written anything for a month! this is because i have been busy with many things, like debating the merits of taking a one hour train ride back home versus a one-and-a-half hour bus ride versus jacking someone's car and driving myself home. i have also been busy meeting carol, liana and the little drummer boy in the hallway and watching them do their patented stupid dance, meeting lynn mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1151829957235771122006-07-02T01:07:00.000-07:002006-07-16T08:59:36.853-07:00the first 3 weeks of school have gone by, and everybody is walking around like white-coated, bloodthirsty zombies who want to drain the blood clean from your veins. which is not too much of an exaggeration, given my abysmal plug-setting skills. i still can't plug a leaky nostril, much less a teensy vein hidden beneath great blankets of loose skin. i've been at AH for surgery these past few weeks.mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1151244661489910352006-06-25T05:55:00.000-07:002006-06-25T07:11:01.593-07:00yesterday i tagged along with ian and family to watch Mandala, a charity concert put up by the people of Mission Angkor. their mission : to buy an anesthesia machine for the Angkor Hospital for Children, so that sweet and innocent little children of Cambodia can get their hearts repaired properly. because waking up in the middle of open-heart surgery to a masked man poking around in your chest ismandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1150724614351895482006-06-19T06:39:00.000-07:002006-06-19T06:43:34.363-07:00last week, me and ian decided to assume the alternate identities of just-off-the-boat chinese immigrant girl, and head-vobbling astounded indian tourist from Mumbai, and walk around our little leafy island to see it with fresh eyes. instead of walking around orchard road, battling the combined perils of teenage flag-seller, lightning-handed flyer distributer, and yellow-undergarmented street mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1150683625472320642006-06-18T19:20:00.000-07:002006-06-18T19:20:25.516-07:00Flight of the Conchords - Business TimeI now present to you New Zealand's fourth most popular comedy folk-parody duo, Flight of the Conchords! They are probably New Zealand's second most popular comedy folk-parody duo whose members include one regular singing funny guy, and one singing funny ex-hobbit. It is true, one of them was in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, and he was originally mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1149932673289499862006-06-10T02:42:00.000-07:002006-06-10T02:44:33.296-07:00so one day, one of us pulled the little chain attached to a little lightbulb above our heads and said "heydiddly-doodles, why don't we take a stroll to that treetop walk thing that was on the news a while back? it ought to be a mighty relaxing day. i mean, old people were doing it. on the news! and we'd get to see monkeys!" and so, totally neglecting the fact that we get to see monkeys every day mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1149932487151615742006-06-10T02:39:00.000-07:002006-06-10T02:41:27.160-07:00 i was also able to observe the cruel mistreatment of wildlife. i present to you exhibit A : golden monkey caged in his own environment, unable to run wild and free and pick the lice off the gleaming backs of his fellow simians. on the concrete path leading to the Singapore Island Country Club, we had one last encounter with wildlife, a beautiful farewell gesture from the great forests of mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1149823302874397622006-06-08T20:17:00.000-07:002006-06-08T20:22:33.053-07:00i'm still in the process of putting up a photobucket gallery of austria. with my amazing dedication and intense focus, i can safely say they will probably be finished by the time all the albino tigers in the mandai zoo learn how to do complex algebra. so in the meantime, while those big white man-eating kittycats learn how to cross-multiply, here are some collages to keep your eyes busy. mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1149737748306478842006-06-07T19:39:00.000-07:002006-06-07T20:35:48.316-07:00luohan had her birthday chalet last weekend, and spent the day being happily boggled by the hordes of people who turned up to celebrate her twentyfirsting! there was sun and sand and sea and food and luohan's dad telling everyone to whoohoo in honour of luohan (and sam yang bonding with papa luohan in the whoohooing process), and in chek's case, there were many many bapoks. luohan was looking muymandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1149734278308142172006-06-07T19:22:00.000-07:002006-06-09T18:34:36.426-07:00lots of photowhoring opportunities have recently come up, one of which is thanks to Randal Low (not Randall Tan the tcs5 actor who is 30+ but still looks like he's in poly) the 21 year Old Eligible Bachelor, who celebrated the neverending aging process at the Acacia restaurant in Bishan Park with good friends who desired nothing more for randal than a bright and prosperous future, everlasting mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1149086039542627592006-05-31T06:54:00.000-07:002006-05-31T21:13:46.363-07:00our very first clinical tests are over! luckily i got to talk to two lovely patients during the test who were, thankfully, not too sick and could talk in complete sentences and tell me to pull up a chair. and so we were able to have a meaningful, lifechanging conversation about where he felt pain and whether the pain ran all over his body or just decided to set up shop in the vicinity of his mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1147502664870206372006-05-12T23:10:00.000-07:002006-05-12T23:44:24.933-07:00yesterday i had a hedonistic day of rest, relaxation, and really good company! i met the judo girls for lunch at the Marina Square Breeks, where they specially import their waiters from societies who have long-honoured traditions of waiting until diners stomachs digest themselves before taking orders, and where you only refill the empty water glasses of half the table, leaving the other half to mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1147405228805780742006-05-11T20:07:00.000-07:002006-05-11T20:42:18.893-07:00the last two weeks have been excitingly exhausting! we're still little baby student doctors toddling around hospitals, but are starting to shed our "nooper-than-noop" status and are moving towards using Huggies Pull-ups instead of poo-stained pampers! hurray for metaphorical toilet training! everyone has something amazing to say regarding the strength and fortitude of the patients they've had themandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1145900151330209872006-04-24T10:00:00.000-07:002006-04-28T23:48:44.076-07:00i am back from austria, where there are apparently no kangaroos, where nuns run fast and wild and free, where mozart's golden balls litter the streets and cascade from shop windows, and mozart turns in his uncharted grave at the fact that in spite of all the royalties due to him from them sticking his face on every single smidgen of souvenir tat in salzburg, he still can't get a decent burial mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1144841278226164042006-04-12T03:46:00.000-07:002006-04-12T04:31:49.283-07:00i am leaving for vienna! tonight! my mom and i are going to have 9 days worth of absolute confusion by german terms ending with "hoff" and "bahn" and "strasse". we are going to dance with elation in cobblestoned streets around piles of horse poo-poo fresh from the arses of horses drawing viennese fiacres (this may sound like a naughty word, but it's not), we are going to climb up a bunch of mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1144724619263620532006-04-10T18:46:00.000-07:002006-04-10T20:37:36.913-07:00on the 8th of april, fresh from having our brains char-broiled and frizzled upon the flaming coals of the m2 final exams, many of us gathered to witness and celebrate a very special occasion. together, with wisps of smoke issuing from our ears and rumbles resounding from anticipatory bellies, we swooped down upon restaurant Ember at Hotel 1929 to make big whoopee at the fact that our darling nat mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1144207263681114442006-04-04T20:10:00.000-07:002006-04-04T20:33:37.020-07:00after three CAs containing 6+2+5 tests designed to crush the spirits of young vivacious college students like pesky kitchen cockroaches, weeks spent in the library feeling our skin crack from the lack of humidity, and two final exams which numbed writing hands and bladders and the legs crossed because of the numbed bladders :we are free.free as a bird.free as a polythene-bagged happy meal mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1142987205164124792006-03-21T16:14:00.000-08:002006-03-21T17:05:32.616-08:00things have been all head-swallowed-by-big-scary-textbook lately here in the yong loo lin house of education. everyone is studying, or getting dressed up in big girl and big boy clothes and trying to figure out the goings-on inside a patient's torso, or striding bravely to various hospitals armed with a tendon tapper to take some big scary exams.i realised that ever since med school started, i mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1142174178991399642006-03-12T05:37:00.000-08:002006-03-12T06:38:16.866-08:00for the past few days, i have seen the brains of two hundred and thirty students twisted into wondrous shapes, and their faces shift through a glorious array of colours through a gamut of exam papers. it is almost like we are a class of human rubix cubes just waiting to undergo large amounts of torsion from palm-rubbing, evil-villain-chuckling faculty members. it is a painful state for any mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1141436876691720752006-03-03T17:13:00.000-08:002006-03-03T17:52:23.460-08:00can you think of any reasonfor a painful exam season?could it be to test how much we learn from lessons?it may sound slightly controversialbut it may be quite commercial :exhibit A : the rise in sales of Nescafe and chicken essencewe sit in quiet fixation,of the notes from the dictationsessions that some would loosely call a lecture.all day long we library dwellers,once rosy girls and strapping mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1139834148153579492006-02-13T03:56:00.000-08:002006-02-13T04:35:48.166-08:00recently even more people turned 21! congratulations to huiyi and ghim on their entries into adulthood! entries into adulthood are fun, because they give friends a chance to meet up to celebrate the birth of some nice people. ghim organized a class gathering at cafe cartel, and huiyi had a chalet at aloha loyang, and it was one of the most fun times i've had in awhile playing the "dying at 99" mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1139015836016271762006-02-03T16:59:00.000-08:002006-02-06T08:11:20.130-08:00thus endeth chinese new year, the season of celebration of the existence of the mandarin orange, the plastic two dollar note, and little relatives who insist on jumping on you as if you were a cheap bouncy castle. this year was filled with fun house visitations and a whole load of gatherings with friends! first to hsienmin's house which contains a tiny innocent affectionate floppy eared boy mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1138417844729728382006-01-27T18:54:00.000-08:002006-01-27T19:21:59.763-08:00big juicy mandarin oranges are being pelted left right and centre! fake firecrackers are trying their darndest to make as many electronic bang bang noises as possible while keeping to singaporean safety regulations! pigs, chickens and cows are fleeing to the furthest corners of the farm while their fellows are being dragged by their hind legs to the abbatoir to be turned into delicious boxes of mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1137568498690303972006-01-17T22:21:00.000-08:002006-01-17T23:14:58.720-08:00on friday, i was punk'd! it was a bright, sunny, calm day. ships were sailing serenely in the ocean. birds were peacefully doing poo-poos on parked cars. the bak chor mee uncle at jln tua kong was commanding people to wait half an hour for a lunchtime bowl of mee pok, as is his usual custom. things were all normal.a week before, zhongyang had invited us all to warm his newly-acquired aircon PGP mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1136864553497738652006-01-09T19:07:00.000-08:002006-01-09T20:18:33.730-08:00stick a fork in them, the exams are done! as if to make up for adding stress to the christmas season, and tempting us to strangle ourselves with strings of coloured lights and pierce our wrists with especially pointy sprigs of holly, the microB department decided to take the level of sadism of their paper down a notch. passing has now become a strange new possibility. carol is back from michigan mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1135734108905671812005-12-27T17:09:00.000-08:002005-12-27T18:06:20.056-08:00this christmas was one of the best christmases i've ever had! there was love. there was joy. there was peace. there was happiness. there was dunking of self in large heated pool. and there were good friends and family and a ton of good food cooked by the gourmet chefs Mamalam and Riya! before christmas denise had a party with good food and good company and all of us had to do a show-and-tell. mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1135304318324745092005-12-22T17:51:00.000-08:002005-12-24T00:08:23.686-08:00'tis the season of aging. the season when one notices that you no longer have the multipurpose "but i'm still a teenager!" excuse to do silly things, that you have started to imagine yourself with the wrinkles of a seventy year old, that despite all this growing up nonsense the mercury level on your maturity thermometer doesn't seem to have budged at all. but all that noticing aside, i am now 20.mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1134568694527734762005-12-14T05:23:00.000-08:002005-12-17T06:51:53.826-08:00this week was yet another week filled with suspicion that i indeed have chronic fatigue syndrome or a seven foot long worm curled up cozily within my ample stomach sucking my veins dry like one would a pina colada. three days into the week and i was already feeling as tired as a ninety-eight year old grandmother with eroded kneecaps hiking up mount kinabalu with a sumo-wrestler strapped to her mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1134218259616605162005-12-10T04:03:00.000-08:002005-12-11T05:18:28.923-08:00it is that time of year where geologists dance the jingle bell rock, santa claus turns on his GPS to find the most cost-efficient way to get to santa claus lane, loansharks threaten to have your chestnuts roasting over an open fire instead of breaking both your thumbs, and i make jaded remarks about christmas. but not this year. i have decided to turn over a new leaf regarding all commercial mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1133548421171692252005-12-02T09:51:00.000-08:002005-12-02T17:04:40.070-08:00boring theatregeek entry alert. read only if you're the sort of person who enjoys listening to people babbling about their various obsessions, like the exhilaration of watching their fingernails grow, or training racing snails. just got back from watching Rent with mister grumpy owl at the kallang theatre. the show was a bit of a let down, partly because i hadn't bothered to read the libretto mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1132972607404924632005-11-25T18:23:00.000-08:002005-11-25T19:23:08.973-08:00The exams are over! we are filled with an ear-prickling, nose-tickling sensation of intense joy and anticipation of studying for the next exam in the neverending chain of papers designed to twist your brain around painfully like a squishy grey rubix cube. after the exams on friday, we took off to the wild and wonderful holiday destination of Chia Soon Kelong, located at 1 South China Sea! the mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1131857800249351362005-11-12T20:45:00.000-08:002005-11-14T03:26:29.740-08:00i was reading the foodblogs, as i am wont to do because i enjoy simple pleasures in life such as having a thin trail of drool make its way down the corner of your mouth and onto your keyboard. i was reading the very good foodblog of one who admits that his spouse is blessed with a great deal of insulation, who was writing about something called Wagyu steak, otherwise known as Kobe beef, which is mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1131195689357640662005-11-05T04:25:00.000-08:002005-11-05T05:26:43.856-08:00we just had our immunology and microB papers yesterday morning. yesterday morning was the day i was mentally violated by five sheets of paper and an OAS form. the only thing i knew about the Nipah virus was that it sounds like a hokkien curse word and you get it from hanging out all day with pigs. but the day righted itself after that with a frenzied spate of productive shopping with one of my mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1130593651956599432005-10-29T05:50:00.000-07:002005-10-29T06:47:31.970-07:00it's been a while since i last posted owing to the need to learn about the twitching pulsating grey squishy walnut which most of us claim to be thinking with, so i thought i'd better post something about playhouse! by the powers of the m2s who ignored CAs entirely and put sweat, blood, and vast amounts of masking tape, hairspray and saliva into playhouse '05, we won :1) best script 2) best mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1129439927991413442005-10-15T22:07:00.000-07:002005-10-15T23:13:39.756-07:00the 10th of october will now forevermore be known as The Day We Threw Zhongyang Into The Singapore River.shawn loh had jumped in last month to give dannyboy a present for his birthday, which is the obvious thing to do for a good friend on his birthday. i think on my next birthday, i would like all my friends to dive into the singapore river and perform an impromptu water ballet. almost as good asmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1128701378886629492005-10-07T08:15:00.000-07:002005-10-07T18:18:31.560-07:00katie holmes is pregnant. katie holmes, the good catholic girl from toledo ohio, who once pledged to stay a virgin til marriage, is pregnant with tom cruise's spawn. it seems like a coincidence, but celebrities who resemble britney spears are forever birthing forth children out of wedlock. it seems a bit odd that tom cruise's first biological child is currently being carried by a girl who is mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1128253477635608012005-10-02T04:19:00.000-07:002005-10-02T05:12:45.786-07:00i've been watching House M.D., which is a new kickass show about a team of doctors who solve weird and wonderful cases (which inevitably seem to involve evil parasites chewing on somebody's brain) in an impossibly posh hospital. i guess you only deserve to work in a posh hospital if you have good parasitic diagnostic abilities. this is like the nth show revolving around doctors and hospitals (a mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1127233350003138062005-09-20T08:51:00.000-07:002005-09-20T10:14:05.276-07:00i haven't been posting for a week because i was busy observing the sheer beauty of how the mooncake festival brings people together. the soong people were united against the mongolian hordes by hiding secret messages in tasty snacks. somehow in chinese history even while rebelling against barbaric invaders, the chinese manage to incorporate a tasty snack into the mix. likewise, in present day mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1126416702894552742005-09-10T22:12:00.000-07:002005-09-11T04:30:51.796-07:00it is now the mid-autumn festival, my favourite chinese celebration of the year! sure, everyone likes chinese new year, except the people who have to pawn the gold fillings they received as dowry so they can line the pockets of little kids who inevitably waste the money buying flags of the world erasers to throw at their friends, or to make the longest eraser shaving the world has ever seen. but mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1126161658927545782005-09-07T23:40:00.000-07:002005-09-07T23:40:58.933-07:00charles, me and ruxin ready to roll at east coast; party in the park with mc, hweech and the NUSSO; m2s showing support for our super stringers; me and kiru, (onstage sisters miranda and matilda)! mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1126161357171768442005-09-07T23:35:00.000-07:002005-09-07T23:35:57.176-07:00happy birthdays : lynn with our balloonmobile, me and carol and singing spongebob, carol and cake after m2 august babies' celebrations, the photowhores under the impression that their faces are small enough to smoosh into one screen mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1126160073986855182005-09-07T22:46:00.000-07:002005-09-08T00:09:06.003-07:00lately for some strange reason (possibly residual viral activity stealing my inner chi) i have been walking around on what nat calls screensaver mode. i think it's my body's unconscious effort to conserve energy during the day for the vigorous intellectual gymnastics i must perform in my dreams. so i would like to put out a public request that if you see a girl walking around bumping into mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1125420092934460252005-08-30T08:23:00.000-07:002005-08-31T10:28:08.083-07:00the weekend has been exhausting! on friday, our dean prof wong and his wife graciously opened his house to the cast and crew of Operation Theatre and served us a mountain of food! he hired girls to make kueh pie ti for us, converted his bird bath into a gigantic cooler, and let us mess around with his piano, and his pool and ping pong tables. his house is ginormous and very beautifully and mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1124800820560425412005-08-23T05:11:00.000-07:002005-08-23T05:40:20.566-07:00school has been enormously busy! and yet i have learnt almost nothing. ahh the benefits a modern college education hold for the attention deficit. i remember last year we ended nearly every day at noontime and hung around in the canteen for hours deciding what to do with the rest of our day, where we regularly came to the verdict of sleep, if tired, and study, if guilty. this year, i don't know mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1124115798998409812005-08-15T07:01:00.000-07:002005-08-15T07:23:19.003-07:00i lost my wallet today! and two hours of running around like a headless chicken, making phone calls, harassing toilet aunties and security uncles, and making a large variety of "aargh" noises, the security uncle called me to say that my wallet had been found again! praise God! oh sweet wallet. you came back to me! you're like lassie! unfortunately it was found on top of a fire hosereel completelymandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1123675694452329602005-08-10T04:40:00.000-07:002005-08-10T05:08:14.460-07:00from the beginning of time, various people have been coming up to me and asking why i look so sad. it never occurred to me that my default expression looked sad, because normally inside i am overwhelmed by sensations of euphoric bliss! so all the people whose fingers have been poised to dial the suicide hotline, i am ferpectly fine. i know i look pensive and have my brows knit in an expression ofmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1123435949293952702005-08-07T10:32:00.000-07:002005-08-07T10:32:29.296-07:00the yum cha maidens at dim sum dollies, me and hossan leong in his big pimpin' outfit, lynn and hossan leong, lynn me and the fabulous tua paos of the dim sum dollies! we almost got our heads skewered/experienced unexpected tracheostomies while bending over the dollies' sharp headgear to take the picture. mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1123435753125717432005-08-07T10:29:00.000-07:002005-08-07T10:29:13.126-07:00me and carol eating a mango smooshie, healthy foods at rag and flag (denise is the most tasty cabbage the world has ever known), french kissing, amanda and evil amanda mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1123348978242513952005-08-06T09:38:00.000-07:002005-08-08T07:04:26.006-07:00before the long and winding thank you post, i will give you all a few days to run out and buy tissues and for now i will just answer the three inane things about self quiz from natTHREE NAMES YOU GO BY:1. Amanda (to people who aren't lazy enough to spit out three lousy syllables)2. Manny (courtesy of wayne yap never give up)3. Mandy (to family. or Mangy, to my hakka grandmother who refuses to mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1123153472971640762005-08-04T04:03:00.000-07:002005-08-04T04:07:14.286-07:00Operation Theatre photos are up! have a lookie!mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1123006961071288432005-08-03T07:31:00.000-07:002005-08-02T22:23:23.033-07:00the curtains are down, the music has been turned down, the lights are turned off, the makeup has been wiped away or cried off, the costumes are hung up and put away, the props have been converted into large piles of plank and sawdust. the audience has filed out of the theatre waving big yellow booklets, and the scary mop-wielding cleaner auntie has chased us out of the dressing rooms never to mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1123000507847749312005-08-02T09:35:00.000-07:002005-08-02T09:35:07.853-07:00me, ian and howen the music man to whom we owe an eternal debt for Forgotten Love, ruxin mary me denise and serena taking glamour shots in the girls' dressing room, me and ivan the amazing encik hitam (and irrelevant half eaten banana), me and darling lynn our resident big sister, outside Jubilee Hall, me and jean having pillow talk, shangyeeyee jean and me at menotti's eating breakfast, me and mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1122999871348334912005-08-02T09:24:00.000-07:002005-08-02T09:24:31.393-07:00judo girls on saturday matinee, the fashion disasters and charles, shahrier and me at Tamaris makeup school, nat jean and denise, me and mala the amazing goddess of costuming, ian and ivan locked in loving embrace, zhongyang wanny liana lynn isaac and pertybert on closing night, me and chenseong the man, and cheok with me feeling the chingchong love! mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1122607150499958862005-07-28T19:54:00.000-07:002005-07-28T20:19:10.506-07:00opening night is tonight. i am alternating between wanting to curl up in a foetal position on the floor and rock back and forth, and wanting to break into glorious song and dance because we are finally going to be performing our little hearts out to a paying audience! i guess i should probably save the glorious song and dance for tonight, so i have scheduled a session of rocking just before lunchmandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1122485507481184962005-07-27T09:57:00.000-07:002005-07-27T17:50:24.503-07:00we moved into jubilee hall on sunday, and i officially became the happiest little girl in the world! when i got there i was charging into the theatre and leaping up onto the well-tread floorboards and scrambling to be the first one to see the dressing rooms complete with lighted mirrors. jubilee hall is miles and miles above ulu pandan community centre theatre. if anyone didn't know what a mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1122311008320670602005-07-25T08:43:00.000-07:002005-07-25T10:03:28.376-07:00i am tired so here is a bunch of pictures to take up space.on friday after rehearsal cheok and ian decided that we should all go and drink humungous margaritas at Cafe Iguana! nachos and guacamole and drinking games and huge cocktail glasses that make you feel like a midget makes a good start to the weekend! xingning has flown back to the land where people eat their breakfast cereal in a bowlful mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1121794336805692722005-07-19T09:49:00.000-07:002005-07-19T10:32:16.810-07:00today i watched sin city! whoohoo! i have ascended to new levels of depravity and debauchery and i am now one step closer to shoveling cocaine up my nose and marrying a pirate from the high seas of kowloon. after the uncle who was too tired to care if i was 21 or not let us into the cinema, i ran to the bathroom and did my own private dance of celebration and victory. and then i ran out just in mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1121134635866197652005-07-11T18:50:00.000-07:002005-07-12T01:35:53.996-07:00yesterday i awoke to the shock and horror that there was only one screening of Batman Begins per day for virtually every cinema in the country. i leapt into action and manhandled my mom into the car and drove us both to tampines mall where we commenced Operation Eat Lots of Steak and Beer Battered Fish and Chips and Sit Around in Movie Theatre Watching Seizure Inducing Images Flash Before Our mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1120995529465768072005-07-10T04:14:00.000-07:002005-07-10T07:48:28.813-07:00i just got a new hitcounter so that i can be a nosey busybody about where most of my hits are coming from. and i just have to say : wahbiangeh. i am very honoured that so many of you are wasting your time reading my nonsense. my nonsense thanks you most kindly from the bottom of its heart, and hopes that you never become psychologically scarred from this experience. today i went to my first mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1120670656216101362005-07-06T09:15:00.000-07:002005-07-06T10:24:16.273-07:00i finally know what terrorists feel like. if you too would like to experience the thrill and excitement of being a member of Al-Jazeerah, go down to the Swissotel at Raffles City and assume a suspicious expression and walk slowly. i was there with carol and xian for lunch on monday and we were walking around the perimeter of raffles city peering into dead ends hoping to find the Thos SB Raffles (mandonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748193.post-1120156225946357012005-06-30T11:15:00.000-07:002005-07-03T08:12:38.283-07:00i joined the two michelles and diana for bike riding at east coast, and we had to go on a day when all the triathletes were busy practising for their Big Day of Masochistic Physical Activity. me and michelle foo were pedalling happily along the bike track leaving a trail of saliva behind us while thinking about the duck rice and pig knuckles and oyster omelette we were about to have for lunch, mandonoreply@blogger.com