Symplicity Me

Picking a Specialty

2012-02-05T12:54:00.002-04:00

"What do you want to specialise in?"

A question posed by many...from the stranger on the street to the supervising consultant. As a medical student, everyone wants to know where our interests lie.

At this point in our lives as a medical student, the answer to that question is going to be either clear and stated or, as is the case of the majority, "I'm still not sure but I'm considering -X-, -Y- and -Z-." Many individuals in my class are well aware of my interest in pursuing 'alternative medicine'. But in an environment where alternative practices are considered phony, I choose not to tell most people what I really intend to do with my preferred practice and, so, my medical student answer to the big specialty question falls with the majority's.

I just completed my elective at home in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care, chosen because of all the clerkships I've completed, it was the only one that could capture my attention the past year. It also had the advantage of exposing me to many things that I would encounter during my final year without imposing a great demand of my time during my elective period. Turns out that my choice in doing it was a good one! So good in fact, that if I were to continue in conventional medicine, it would be in this specialty. Interesting, too, because it's got a lot of focus on the use of drugs but I prefer the ICU setting where the drugs are really just emergency short-term drugs. If there's anything I can appreciate in allopathic medicine, it is the appropriate use of drugs and their short-term effects that help save lives in emergency situations. The long-term use of many drugs, I don't really like.

So, my new reply has been formulated by the impression of my time in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care:

"I'm really interested in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care."

I wouldn't really be doing it but it's no lie that my interest is in it.

What I want to study: Naturopathic Medicine.
What I intend to do: Integrative Medicine...a practice binding 'conventional' with 'alternative'.

If I got a buck for every time I've been asked the specialty question, I'd probably be able to purchase a Music Factory, Spring Edition 2012 ticket...with a couple dollars to spare...for AnimeKon? =)

Choose what grasps your heart and mind most. That way, you can enjoy it.

Destructive Fun. Drink Responsibly.

2012-01-28T22:56:00.003-04:00

Whoever said that fun had to be a destructive past-time?

What's worse than watching on as the people you love destroy their bodies slowly but surely being unable to stop them from what they deem to be fun? Well, I'm sure there are some things that are worse. I guarantee you though, when you try to warn them but they refuse to listen, all you can feel is heartbroken.

The result of a long night of 'fun': feeling groggy and tired with headaches, nausea and vomiting. That's the definition of 'feel-good' isn't it? Wrong. That's the definition of your body's rejection to your night time activity. And if you're not listening to me, you sure aren't going to be listening to your body either.

Now, I never once suggested stopping altogether. A little self-control would make me happy.

Alcohol abuse is a major problem within our society and yet it isn't viewed in such a way because it's considered the social 'norm'. People aren't often fazed by the effects of chronic alcohol consumption or even binge drinking because they have no idea just how badly it affects their body. Sure, it may appear as if some people escape the repercussions but you don't really know the inner workings of another's body, do you?

The excuse of "I hardly drink so there's no harm in getting drunk" is no excuse at all. Because when people think alcohol abuse, they only ever seem to think 'cirrhosis' but did you know that cirrhosis is irreversible and is the last thing that happens before your liver eventually gives out? Did you know that you may not even get to the point of cirrhosis if you manage to die of alcohol poisoning first?

Alcohol poisoning is a medical emergency. If you miss the symptoms, the result could be death. And binge drinking is the main cause of it.

A good pamphlet on Alcohol Poisoning. Click photo to enlarge.

I'm not hiding my concern about this newfound lifestyle some of my dearest friends have developed. I may come off as the party-pooper, the boring one, the one who's trying to stop all their fun. I know many others share a similar concern with a friend or loved one...be it alcohol, drugs, tobacco or any other substance.

Never hesitate to voice your concerns.

And if you find yourself to be guilty of a lack of control with your liquor, be considerate of your friends. They're concerned for your life.

Don't let your youth be an excuse for you to die young. Drink Responsibly.

Doctors Make Mistakes

2012-01-26T18:53:00.000-04:00

Here's an amazing speech made by Brian Goldman, a doctor, on the fact that doctors make mistakes and how it should not be a shameful thing to admit.

We're all human. We're not robots, we'll all make mistakes at some point. Heck, even technology itself can make errors.

Doctors are always placed on this high pedestal, being regarded as the ones who know all there is to know about healing people. They don't. They'll never know all there is to know because there's just. too. much. There's a reason why there are specialties and subspecialties in medicine. No single person could know everything. Yet society throws expectations at doctors: you've gotta be perfect at what you do.

Knowing it all still won't make an imperfect being, perfect. Why toss out an unmeetable expectation towards people? By doing so, these individuals are then unable to deal with their mistakes in a healthy manner, accept them and move forward. It becomes near impossible to admit mistakes.

Unfortunately, the world has become such that a doctor's mistake, be it large or small, is rewarded with a lawsuit. Oh boy.

I understand the considerable value of human life. Doctors do all they can to help. They do what they can with the power they have. But doctors are not gods. Or demi-gods.

Doctors are humans. Just like you, and your brother/sister, and your best friend, and the waitress at your favourite food place, and the homeless man in the city. Doctors are imperfect beings striving for perfection. In the same way you work your hardest to do what you do as perfectly as possible, doctors are no different. So then, why treat them as if they're something they're not?

If I could just wiggle my nose and heal someone, I would. Alas! I am but a mere human working with just my hands, my mind and man-made inventions.

Forgive me if I am unable to be the perfect being you expect.

Enter The Dragon

2012-01-22T12:00:00.015-04:00

新年快乐! (Simplified Chinese)

新年快樂! (Traditional Chinese)

Last January, the year of the Tiger shuffled out with a bang before giving the year of the Rabbit, the more peaceful of the zodiac signs, a fairly rough start. Today, the Rabbit peacefully allows the entrance of the respected Dragon. And now, we start a new year. What does the year of the Dragon have in store for us, I wonder? I'm looking forward to it!

On a side note, I get fairly nervous every time we Skype my family in Hong Kong for the usual lunar new year greetings. My Cantonese is beyond terrible!

Meanwhile, here's a super fun video I saw the other day...veering a little away from tradition but entertaining nonetheless. Party Rock Anthem has shaken up the cosmos.

New Eating Habits

2012-01-21T11:39:00.004-04:00

I mentioned before that I started up a new eating habit a few months ago...last August, actually. So I've been at it for awhile now and it's doing me a lot of good in terms of surviving the midday without any breaks, should such a thing happen as it often does at the hospital. Once upon a time I used to be at the point of starvation sometimes because I wouldn't get the time to eat some food until later on in the afternoon.

My diet used to consist of a protein shake in the morning and taking my daily supplements @ 7 AM...sometimes 6:15 AM. That would keep me full until about 10-11:30 AM and then I'd start to get hungry. That's a bit of a problem when you're on ward rounds or in clinic until, say 12:30-1:30 PM because the concentration starts to waver until it's gone entirely.

Some yummy food an Aunt of mine cooked up a few months ago =)

Starting August, while I was on one of my lighter rotations, Family Medicine, I decided to try something a little different. There's a girl in my class who would eat food for breakfast (a full meal), followed by a large apple for lunch and then some cereal or something a bit breakfasty for dinner. Yeah, she had a very backwards way of eating but it worked for her. I got tired of getting so hungry in the middle of the day and recalled that whenever I went to New York, I would be stuffed full of dim sum and other such wonderful foods for breakfast and would make it through the day without getting hungry until dinner sometimes! Breakfast would be at about 10 AM though, so that contributed to the delayed need for food.

Using this as my basis, I decided I'd start eating what was supposed to be my lunch for breakfast (along with my daily supplements as well). And it works like a charm! The starvation, virtually gone...hunger pangs occasionally strike me after 12 depending on how heavy the meal was but it's certainly an improvement on the 10 AM hunger pangs. Around midday, or a little after, or whenever I do get the chance, I have myself a nice healthy snack...be it fruit or a cereal bar. Of course, throughout the day, I drink water, replenishing my hydration and keeping the hunger away as well (it works!). This is usually followed up by dinner...another full meal, usually sometime within the range of 5:30-6:30 PM. And that's it!

The whole new diet routine seems to be working out quite well for me over the past months and I have few complaints about it. Hopefully it'll carry me through my final year of medical school and my 12-month internship. The routine is often slightly altered on days off though. And recently, I've been thinking about how many calories I'm consuming during my days because I've noticed that I feel a little more tired for no particular reason. For that reason, I downloaded this wonderful app for my iPad 2 called MyFitnessPal.

MyFitnessPal is actually quite handy...it gave me an idea of how many calories is ideal for my consumption per day according to my age, sex, working lifestyle (super active, sedentary and everything in between), etc...mine is about 1700. I only just downloaded it the other night but I've been under the number so far. Hmm. Gotta fix that up. It's actually a pretty neat app. I like how it works...it gives you food searches, with a fairly large database, so you can have an estimated calorie intake according to your meals. And if you can't find the food or snack in the database, you can add it manually or just simply input the calories if you know the number already. It pretty much acts as a food journal as well. You never really notice just how much or how little you're eating until you make a note of it somewhere.

Here's my calorie count for the past two days (since downloading the app). When you complete your log for the day, it gives you an estimate of how much you would weight if you were to use x-amount of calories every day. Pretty cool.

The app is available for iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices. Or, you can check out their website if you've got none of them.

So I'll make use of it a little more and see where I can adjust so that I'm getting my daily requirements and not tiring myself out and slowing down my body functions...that would be a bit on the counterproductive side of things!

Medical School Was Not Meant To Be Easy

2012-01-17T20:59:00.006-04:00

Here I am...rapidly coming towards the end of my penultimate year of medical school and, you know what? I couldn't feel any less prepared for my final year. I'm sure I've said this before but being in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit this rotation has made me realise this even more. Don't get me wrong. I'm loving my time in SICU and I'm learning so much but I'm also learning just how much I can't remember! And what I do remember, I have much difficulty bringing across verbally. That information would flow ever so smoothly on any writing surface. Gosh.

But graduating from medical school was never meant to be a simple feat to accomplish. Here are some reasons (in no particular order) why:

Overcoming your own drawbacks.

I've had two major personality clashes with this career path: shyness and quietness. Over the past three years, I've been able to conquer the dominating shyness but, as I've never been much of a talker, putting my thoughts across verbally has always been a bit difficult and still poses a problem...a rather large one at that. I've got only one more year to get past that hurdle.

The sheer volume of information.

There are so many aspects of medicine that need to be covered before graduation and these are found within each system of the body. Of course, there's a reason why there are so many clinical specialties in the field. Not a single person can know ALL there is to know in medicine, however, as students, we're expected to know about...90% of ALL there is to know. Actually, I've been told that in this career, you're peak knowledge is in the months before the final FINAL examination...you know, the one that either ends with you becoming Dr. _____ or not.

Learning a new language.

Medicine is a language all by itself. Just the other day one of my closest friends who's studying law said to me, "Do you guys speak and write in code like they do on E.R.?" It sounds like the silliest question since, to me, it's normal everyday language but it's easy (at this point) to forget that it was a language I was trained into. My vocabulary has drastically been expanded, including all sorts of new and exotic words like ipsilateral, phaeochromocytoma and craniopharyngioma down to all sorts of abbreviations. There are words that make you stumble over your own tongue and then there are words like "bleb". Yes, that's actually a medical term. A bleb is exactly what it sounds like. A bleb. Learning medicine is a lot like learning Latin...after all, many terms are based off of Latin words.

Developing an entirely new lifestyle.

Straight up: lots more studying than ever before (cramming is hardly helpful in the long run...and medicine is about having the knowledge for the long run), eating less, sleeping less. Once upon a time, I was a crammer. In a way, I still am. I've been trying to get rid of that terrible habit...but lifelong habits are difficult to just wean off of. But I don't really have a choice. The typical life of a medical student includes very little sleep...admittedly, I refuse to accept this unless I'm on call and so far sleeping 7 hours a night has done me absolutely no harm over the past 4 years. Eating habits don't really change a whole lot until clinical years when your eating times become wonky because ward rounds or clinic go from 9 AM to 2 PM without a lunch break, followed by many other activities which may leave you hungry until you get "lunch" at 5 PM. I've developed a new eating habit to prevent afternoon starvation and it's doing my stomach great justice.

Taking responsibility for lives.

As a student in clinical years, you begin to take responsibility for patients becoming integrated as part of the medical team (albeit the lowest life-form existing on the team, but you're on the team nevertheless). The team's patients are our patients and we're expected to bear responsibility for everything we do and say to our patients.

The vicious circle of learning A.K.A. embarrassment.

"Come to the hospital every day expecting to be embarrassment and embrace it." ~ Kind words from a consultant in Anaesthesiology. Embrace the embarrassment. The learning curve as a medical student is much like a loop, moreso than a curve. You learn something, spew it out confidently and get shot down like it's hunting season. Every now and then, you get a little positive encouragement. Confidence is something that's vital in medical school but not something you can feel on a continuous spectrum. Wouldn't want you getting over-confident and cocky before you even get the big degree, would we?

Losing friends.

If you're friends are true friends, you won't lose them...you'll just spend a lot less time with them and they'll understand and accept that. And if they can't, they just...drift away over time. Even if you can't hang out often, keeping in contact is usually enough to keep a good friendship intact. I feel blessed to still have my secondary school friends with me in my life (I've known some of them for 10 years!) and I've become even closer to one or two of them despite the distance/lack of time. Be sure to keep your true non-med friends! They help you retain your sanity through the stress and hectic lifestyle of the medical career. And of course, you're gonna make new friends throughout your medical career (which starts the moment you enter medical school).

Having less "me" time.

A lot of things are sacrificed in the name of good grades and graduation. Many things you once liked to do eventually get pushed aside. Hobbies and interests are reduced to the bare minimum, if not discarded altogether. Gym time? It's there if you make the time but you won't want to be hanging out in there quite as often. Those TV shows you love watching? Don't expect to catch them on television. Admittedly, I've given myself quite a lot of 'me' time over the past 4 years but with this final year coming, those necessary sacrifices will have to be made. So far, I've already reduced my anime/manga intake drastically. In the very near future, I'm going to have to cut it out almost entirely. Once the ongoing manga series I'm reading are complete, that'll be the end of my manga-reading years. Anime...might still have a chance. Primetime TV? Gonna have to cut down on the number of shows and watch what I miss online when I get a chance (during a lunch break or something maybe?). Oh, and say bye bye to Facebook!

I'll admit that I'm a bit of a hypocrite...I crammed my way through most of medical school but after a certain point, cramming fails you and in the long-term, you look like an idiot because you don't remember anything. I managed to keep up a proper study routine for one semester and it turned out to be the best semester I've had in terms of grades: all A's. Unfortunately, that trend never continued.

I'm planning to make those sacrifices I mentioned by the time my 5th year rolls around, not suddenly of course, because that wouldn't end successfully. As for my new eating regimen...well, I can go through that another time.

If you're not in medicine, you may be thinking that the points I've made apply to you as well. Naturally, they aren't unique to medicine but the experiences themselves are what make medicine as difficult as it is...and they're also what make medicine as wonderful as it is.

The Music Factory 2011 Video

2012-01-14T15:03:00.000-04:00

Remember when I made a quick post about The Music Factory last year?

It truly was one of the best nights of the year. Now the guys at Introspect Recordings have added to the fond memories, making a video out of it and I thought I'd share it with you all.

Am I in there? See if you can spot me! ;)

Save that date! Because it's when we'll be out having a blast at the next Music Factory event! "Spring Edition 2012"

Intensive Care

2012-01-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

Remember last year when I applied to Hong Kong for my elective in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care? It wasn't long before I received an email from them asking me to change or extend my dates since they clash with the wonderful Lunar New Year holidays which I successfully managed to do. But then it wasn't until 2 months and 2 consecutive emails later did I finally get a response about my application processing. They decided that they were full and would not take me. I went through all kinds of trouble and got my Dean's permission and everything for...THAT?!

Needless to say, I was not amused.

Well, the time period for my elective has finally arrived. And, I'm certainly not in Hong Kong. In fact, I'm at home in Barbados doing the elective in the same said specialty. My first week in is nearly through but I must say I've had a fine time so far. Quite happy that I chose to do it again. I've actually spent a lot more time in intensive care (the past three days) with only one day in the operating theatre and I like it there.

Looks nothing like this in Barbados :)

I'm learning so much because I see more diverse cases that I can really read into and come back to apply my knowledge the next day. In anaesthesia, not so much...unless we're talking about the medications used in anaesthesia. Spending time in the surgical intensive care unit exposes me to much much more that I can actually apply later on. I've got good working times as well, ending my days at a timely 4 pm, mostly. It's true that more action happens at night, as everything typically worsens when night comes along, but I don't plan to do any calls this rotation so I'll make do with what I learn during the day. Yup.

It feels so strange to be the only student in a specialty rounding with the team but everyone's quite nice and approachable so I'm surviving. My colleagues in medical school all think I'm a complete weirdo to have chosen to do this as my specialty but some can appreciate the value of what can be learnt in the ICU. I'm enjoying it so far though! So, all in all, I haven't a complaint. :)

I would have loved to spend the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong since I've never done so before but hopefully later on...sometime.

I hope you're all doing well in 2012 so far.

Welcome To 2012!

2012-01-02T12:38:00.000-04:00

Bye-bye 2011, I had an amazing year with you. Hello 2012, I hope to have more amazing experiences with you.

Twenty-twelve has arrived and people are getting hyped up! The big end-of-the-world doom is supposedly pending to occur on December 21 of this year. But who knows really? I don't know about Armageddon but I do know that, like all the preceding years, many impactful things are going to happen in the world.

I have some hopes for the year ahead but since I'll be entering my fifth and final year of medical school, I know things are really going to bear down on me and life's going to get a little tough. That said, I'm hoping for some positive reinforcements to jam their way into my life throughout the year so that it'll be just a little more bearable, a couple of which include:

Music Factory - May 27 - After last year's event, how could I not look forward to more? The date is wonderful too because I should be on one of my lighter rotations, allowing me to attend...all my clerkships following will be like working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Phew.
Final year elective at Yale University - This is yet to be confirmed...I'm currently playing the waiting game with Yale University. Hopefully I'll be getting me a grand acceptance letter sometime this month! =) Since my 4th year elective at the Chinese University of Hong Kong didn't work out, this one has to! I'm looking forward to looking forward to 4 weeks in New Haven, Connecticut.

2011: A year in review - my personal experiences
Like I said, I had some amazing experiences in 2011 that made it one of the most eventful years of my 21 years of life. Since I'm an introvert who likes home and preferred to stay away from people, it doesn't take a whole lot of events to make a year eventful. Haha.

The start of my clinical year - January 2011 - Thrown into the abyss of clinical duties, I had a little rough, but meaningful start to my year. I've learnt many things and I've developed an even stronger resolve for my desire to study Naturopathic Medicine and enter an Integrative practice. In the span of a year, I've been exposed to so many experiences and, whether good or bad, I can certainly say that I treasure them all. One experience and one patient I believe I will forever remember was my last baby delivery of my Obstetrics & Gynaecology clerkship last month. Clinical experiences certainly encompass the majority of my year.
I turned 21 - April 2011 - I'm an adult! I had a huge celebration for my 21st birthday. It was like a party that lasted an entire weekend. My friends and I rented a beach house for a weekend and we all had an amazingly amazing time. The beach, a pool, good food, video games and a little alcohol made for an excellent weekend. A great way to unwind the weekend before I started my penultimate year of medical school. A weekend full of memories that I never want to forget. Interestingly, I never once mentioned this on my blog all year. =o
AnimeKon - July 2011 - After the first ever pop culture convention was held in Barbados in June 2010 with disappointment on my part, I have to say the second one held a lot of excitement for me. It could've gone either way but I had good faith in the organisers, Melissa & Omar who were both so kind to listen to the complaints and worked hard improve and impress...which, I must say, they did flawlessly. With, not only one, but two days of convention greatness they pulled off an epic unforgettable event! And, for the first time I cosplayed...Osaki Nana! A practical, but well put-together outfit that earned me some praise (humble much?) and introductions to tons of people those two days.
I travelled to New York on my own for the first time - September 2011 - It wasn't much of a trip. Just a quick little thing to grab some stuff I ordered like my awesome new Canon Powershot S95 (which I'm absolutely in love with).
My blog celebrated its 3rd birthday - October 2011 - Not a huge event but, you know, I feel great pride in being able to maintain something for such a long time since I typically don't have the discipline to keep up with things for long periods of time. Take my health blog, for example. Don't get me wrong, I haven't dropped it like a bomb yet but I just haven't been able to keep up with it the way I would have liked. My last post was in July but there was a 4 month lull between that and the preceding posts which were weekly. With 5th year coming up, I'm even less likely to get back into it, as much as I'd like to...it's already a little difficult trying to keep up-to-date on this one. Ha. I haven't forgotten my YouTube channel either but, gee, video editing is time consuming...time has become such a precious resource for me...I think I'd like to just sit and talk to my webcam...but I never know what to talk about. Ideas anyone? =)
Music Factory - November 2011 - I never thought I'd be so into an event like this. To be honest, I almost chose not to go and the only reason I chose to go was because I was extremely stressed out (leading to an almost breakdown) from my Pathology clerkship and wanted to just get out and get some relief, plus all my friends were going. I definitely made the right decision to go. And now I'm looking forward to May 27!

It's been a long year, quick in passing but one that has introduced me into 2012 as a more matured person. I'm still young so there's still some maturation to be developed but it'll come as the experiences come. I look forward to facing them head on and standing strong in the face of defiance, after all, character is built when we survive our hardest experiences.

And, while much of my year was enjoyable, I know there are tens of thousands of people in the world who have suffered many losses. Whether the disaster that struck was within your personal life or environmental (like the earthquake in Haiti as well as other major earthquakes around the world and the tsunami of Japan), I hope you were able to overcome those obstacles successfully. Hold fast in your faith and know that things will get better.

Here's hoping we survive 2012!

I give you my warmest wishes for a year of blessings, especially within tragedies.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

Photo taken at Limegrove Luxury Mall, Barbados.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

To those who celebrate Christmas...I wish you and your loved ones all the wonderful joys and blessings that come with the day. Always remember what this day is truly about!

"He came as a little baby, but He represented all authority in heaven and earth..." ~ Joel & Victoria Osteen

I hope that whatever you're doing today, you have yourselves a super great day. Enjoy the season!

Patients Make This Profession Worthwhile

2011-12-11T02:09:00.000-04:00

I'm exhausted beyond my mind, starving because I haven't eaten anything solid since 9:30 Saturday (yesterday) morning, aching everywhere from standing and running around the labour ward all day, cold from the air conditioning temperatures of labour ward and, at the moment, happier than words could imply. Why? Because I just got a reminder of why all the incredibly hard work and sacrifices make this profession absolutely worth it: the patients.

Patients are of all types: mean, upset, frustrating, aggravating, kind, funny, moody. On my current clerkship, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, I have a set quota of deliveries to perform. Tonight (technically yesterday night since it's about 1:30 AM Sunday) I delivered my final baby and it was, by far, the most memorable in more ways than one.

This morning I arrived on labour ward and saw this surprisingly sweet and cheerful young lady and I thought to myself, "I'd like to see her through to her delivery." And so, I did. She became an entirely different person, as most women do, with the progression of labour...more intense and frequent contractions. I have to say though, she was still exceptionally wonderful during labour (I've seen many women screaming down the place!) and her husband (quite a young couple) was so very kind and supportive.

As evening approached, she slowly progressed to full dilation and we wheeled her off to the delivery room. Here, I spent exactly 2 hours delivering a beautiful baby boy. Due to the baby's head position, it was difficult for the mummy to push, resulting in a two-hour wait before we saw anything more than the top of the baby's head. In case you weren't sure, any delivery should take no longer than an hour...and even then, an hour is quite a long time. Here's a little play by play of the experience:

30 minutes in...mummy was exhausted from all the pushing...and we realised why it was so difficult to push...but daddy was there to give her much love and support.

45 minutes in...daddy had to leave as nursing shifts changed and would return later on. I was left alone with mummy who was told to push only when she felt the urge to do so...and not with every contraction as usual.

1 hour in...I started to feel this urge to cry. I felt discouraged and felt like I wanted to just give up and leave the delivery room and go home. My back ached. My stomach rumbled. I was beginning to grow impatient.

1 hour 45 minutes in...a midwife finally returns to aid me and the poor exhausted mummy who I was trying to keep encouraging so that she could keep going. Honestly, I was surprised she still had any energy to push.

2 hours in...a wonderful baby boy was born, gorgeous as can be. And me? I stayed with her to the end...not because it was my final delivery but because I knew she needed support.

I came to realise that my urge to cry, discouragement, feeling to give up and impatience weren't my feelings...but hers. Quite often one person's strong feelings mingle with my own and, if I'm not careful, I would mistake them for my own. Whenever I felt those negative things, I would pray to God for guidance and continue to encourage young mummy and they would eventually pass.

Once the baby, named Amari, was all cleaned up and returned to his parents, mummy told me the most uplifting words a person in my position could've possibly heard. She thanked me and continued with "I could not have done this without you. Every time I felt like I was ready to give up, you were there telling me that I'm doing well and the baby is almost here and that I can do this. Every time I felt like I was too tired to press on, you were there reminding me to breathe deeply and regain my energy between pushes. You were so patient with me the whole time and I could not have asked for more. You were so amazing with me." And she ended her sentiments with "You are the sweetest person. I believe you're in the right profession because you have a perfect personality for it. You're so sweet and caring and patient. Thank you so much for everything!" Her sentiments touched me deeply and all of a sudden my exhaustion, aches and pains were gone, replaced by a renewed vigour...a reminder of why I chose to be a doctor: to help people through their greatest trials. I, personally, felt as if I was of little use to anyone in that room except for human company. Knowing that I was able to help her get through such an extraordinarily difficult time period, made me realise that even when I can't help very much physically (I'm not exactly an experienced midwife, after all), I can help in other ways...provide a strong support...and that's what I want to do for people...give them the support they need.

I could not have taken in all her praise without uttering my own praises for her. She was an amazing girl who pulled through the most painful experience of her life...an experience many women only know less than 30 minutes of. She endured 2 hours of pushing and contractions. If it were me, I would've been too tired to push after 10 minutes. She was strong...she handled herself well, handled the pain well and had a wonderful husband backing her up. I continue to marvel at her endurance and admire her strength because...labour? It's not exactly a walk in the park. I will remember her for many years to come.

By the way, I believe that if you're concerned about a teenage girl getting pregnant, be sure to let her volunteer on the labour ward for a little while. I think it would serve decently as a relatively good contraception method. Jus' sayin'. :)

Welcome To December

2011-12-07T14:56:00.001-04:00

Another year is soon coming to a close...I can't believe how quickly 2011 has whizzed by me...how quickly 2012 approaches, bringing many things, wonderful and not, expected and unexpected, that lay just on the brink of the horizon.

To this day, my mind relives the night of The Music Factory. It truly was too awesome for words.

It's been only a week since I last posted...and I have to admit, my post about The Music Factory was quite brief...but many things have occurred and it has felt like at least 2 weeks have just passed me by. That previous post was hurriedly typed up whilst still under sleepy-mode from the awesomeness of The Music Factory. I like when I create well-written posts that show that even the slightest bit of thought was properly placed into it...which doesn't happen quite often. I'd like to keep it up and keep it thorough and super interesting but it really doesn't always happen. In fact, it's kind of a miracle that I'm finding the time to do this one now...I've been wanting to make a new blog post for the past 3 days.

My 2-week Christmas break is coming up in just a week and half and it doesn't at all feel that way...not with all the stress and annoyances and work occurring on this rotation. I'm currently in my second week of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (commonly known as OBGYN). This rotation in the penultimate year of medical school has high focus on obstetrics, labour and deliveries. I'll be doing it again in my final year which has the broad focus on both obstetrics and gynaecology. As such, my time is often spent on the labour ward of the hospital...taking care of the pregnant ladies who come in labour and seeing them through to their deliveries. After observing a set quota, we, the students, must actually perform a set quota of deliveries in order to pass the clerkship.

Just as travelling has it's peak seasons, so do births. December is within the "baby-boom" season which brought me to my first performed delivery merely 6 days after commencing the clerkship. Wow. It was crazy. Observing and performing a delivery, like many other actions, are two different things. My first was a baby girl...my second, the following day, was a beautiful baby boy. Here in Barbados (I'm not sure how it is overseas) the midwives and nurses run the labour ward so deliveries are performed by a midwife and not a doctor, except in the event of a private patient (since it is a public hospital). I have three more deliveries to see and once I've completed my quota, I don't intend to do these things again. Ever.

Many (not all) of the midwives are the most miserable and moody people one could ever meet in the same room. Too much oestrogen in one room is never a good thing, I've always believed that. The labour ward displays this well. As such, I've come very much to dislike this rotation...a lot...and cannot wait till it comes to an end...next January. Once I have all of my deliveries though, I won't even have to wait so long. :)

Irrespective of the menopausal midwives, I love seeing the joy and relief on a mother's (and father's) face when she sees her baby. If there's anything beautiful about a birth, that is it. Otherwise, it's pretty dirty and anything but gorgeous. Hahaha.

I've been hoping for awhile to make a new vlog...it's been quite a few months since my last but I didn't realise just how time consuming this clerkship would prove to be. I'm full of nothing but exhaustion and impatience, not to mention frustrations, thanks to this rotation.

So, in reality, the majority of the 'many things' that have happened in the past week have been related to Obstetrics & Gynaecology and how I feel my life being sucked away. Apart from that, Christmas is soon here! My little fibre-optic trees are back up for the occasion.

And for those bracing and enduring the examination period...I wish you all the best of luck! Study hard!

Music Factory

2011-11-30T14:32:00.001-04:00

One of the best, if not the best, nights of my life!

The Music Factory...Barbados' first pop, dance and house festival went down with absolute success last night.

I'm so glad I decided to go to this. So glad. I had such an AWEsome time. There are no words to describe just how epic an event it was.

I really wanted to stay till the very end but I had to be home by a certain time (I stayed out longer than I should've anyway though!) so I missed out on the last two hours. Things just got better and better as the night went on and I just found myself never wanting to leave until the music stopped playing! Even now, I can hear the music still playing in my head.

It rained...a lot...but that didn't dampen the mood at all! I went home sweaty and covered in rain water and muddy feet but it all made for an excellent night, regardless.

After an absolutely stress-filled rotation in Pathology which came to an end last Friday, I really really really was in need of some fun and I got what I needed and more last night.

I want another one! Again! Again! Again! *fist pumps*

Photo by moi ;)

On another note, Happy Independence Day Barbados! :)

Breakdowns

2011-11-18T23:10:00.000-04:00

I'm not one to get stressed out very often...especially as someone in medical school. I've had very few meltdowns and, to this day, I've never considered any other career options (apparently, I'm the only one who hasn't thought about it this far into the degree!).

Meltdown = rant, rave and cry.

I've done this probably once over the past 3 years. I almost had another one this morning. I think, if I had been at home and not at the hospital, I would've actually had a full on meltdown but it didn't quite happen. I don't often show people that I'm suffering when I am, I guess.

Sometimes, the frustrations just build up. People and their negative energies don't help either. I'm surrounded by it and it feeds my own frustrations. Medical school was never meant to be easy. To this moment, I still have no regrets about my decision to do medicine. I like it and I don't see that ever changing...not if it hasn't changed now that I'm half way through my fourth year of medical school.

To be a pathologist...

2011-11-01T20:31:00.000-04:00

It takes a certain type of person to be a pathologist. Cutting organs, exploring dead bodies...it's all fun and exciting...to a pathologist.

Autopsy Room

Today, I witnessed my first autopsy. It was the first time I've ever been to the mortuary. When you think about a place like the morgue, people generally have an idea of a dark, cold, dingy room deep below the hospital with bad lighting and drawers filled with dead bodies. It's actually nothing like that...well, it was a bit dingy and smelt pretty bad but there was quite a bit of lighting and it wasn't very cold at all. Yes, there were those drawers but if you never knew what they held in them, it wasn't so bad.

The autopsy itself was pretty...I dunno. I've heard stories about how terrible it can be and then there's what you see on television but I thought it wasn't too bad...maybe because I built myself up to expect the worst of the worst.

Regardless, pathology is a career I could never ever ever possibly in life ever consider as an option. I'm not the kind of person who could live with body explorations in that sense. I like interacting in patients.

After seeing a spider in her office, one of the pathologists once said "I don't like the idea of anything being alive in my office...except me and guests to my office."

Upon asking another pathologist why she chose this specialty in medicine, she said "It's exciting, don't you think?"

Yeah, no, it's not exciting. Not one bit. Can't wait for this rotation to come to an end!

Contradictions

2011-10-25T19:51:00.001-04:00

I write about how time flies so quickly so often that people must get tired of reading it. "Okay! I get it already! You think time is just flying right on by!" is probably what you're thinking, right? Right.

Now that I've said that for the hundredth time, I'm quite happy to see the time passing me so quickly. The bad days of medical school just sail on without a glance back at me. And that's wonderful. But at the same time, that means that the harder study days are coming up. The days which will be tougher and more torturous are coming at me faster than I can prepare for and the prospect scares me.

I feel more than ready to graduate but I'm most certainly not equipped to handle my final and toughest year of medical school! I'm more than ready to complete my internship and go overseas to study what my heart feels truly connected to but I'm far from equipped to tackle those 12-months. It's a contradiction. I want the time to continue zooming forward but at the same time, I feel like I need more time to prepare myself for the difficult times I know I have coming up.

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." ~ Alan Kay

I'm the kind of person who plans their future in advance. I like to know what I should prepare myself for and the future I dream of, I can't wait to obtain. Allopathic medicine is by far the last thing I want to be practicing and I'm frequently frustrated by the thinking of many (but not all) conventional doctors. I think it contributes to my wanting to finish medical school quickly. I'm just so frustrated with it all. I chose to do allopathic medicine because I wanted insight into what these practitioners think like...I wanted to understand why they think the way they think...why so many of them can be so closed minded to alternative or complementary therapies. And I've slowly come to understand it in my time in medical school. Doctors teach students and pass on their beliefs and knowledge about their practices. The same goes for their beliefs about alternative practices. And it's something that can't be helped. But that stubborn sort of thinking cannot work for much longer, not when populations of people are becoming more aware of the advantages offered elsewhere. It is good to have knowledge of both sides of the table because you need to be able to advise a patient about interactions that could be fatal. And that's where integrative medicine comes in. An adequate mixture of allopathic and naturopathic medicine.

Today, one of my lecturers who is a general practitioner in one of our public polyclinics told us a number of stories of patients he has seen in practice recently. Patients who have had live microscopy where they're told that the practitioner says there's all sorts of bacteria and fungi. In allopathic medicine, this is a sign of serious blood infection. This is a story of concepts not understand by doctors. There was a story of a patient who went to an iridologist and was told she had fibroids after he looked at her iris so she went to this GP and he sent her for an ultrasound which showed a perfectly normal uterus. No matter the story, the opinion left on conventional doctors is that of disbelief. It's no wonder these negative opinions are made when patients present to them with problems and stories from alternative medicine practitioners. But, naturally, persons with successful stories don't normally end up in a GP's office. And so, such terrible reputations are built against alternative medicine, reinforcing the lack of belief.

All that to say, integrative medicine is what I truly want to do. I truly want to go into natural medicine. I want to study and understand it more. I want to practice integrative medicine. It's the ideal practice of medicine, in my opinion, as it offers the best options for patients. It's the middle ground between the two extremes with good understanding either way. Most certainly, not a contradiction.

Graduating Photography

2011-10-23T16:19:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a big day for all the U.W.I. Cave Hill graduates. They're all officially released from the confines of school work and assignments and have been thrown into the real world. Two of my closest friends graduated yesterday. I'm so proud and happy for them. One of them, I've known for 10 years now. It's like he's all grown up now.

My graduation is still a ways away. I'm only halfway through my fourth year with my fifth year yet to come. Time flies so quickly, I'll probably be graduating before I even realise. But until then, I'll be watching each of my friends obtain their bachelor degrees before I can grasp mine.

One of my graduating friends asked me to take some pics for his graduation. Me! I'm pretty surprised since I'm not actually a photographer or anything. I got to make use of his Nikon Coolpix L110...a very nice camera. I'm not a photographer but I certainly do have an interest in photography. So, place a good camera in my hands and I'll go crazy on the shutter button. Which, of course, is what happened.

I have to say, though, I was surprised to be asked of such a favour: to be entrusted with a camera to take good photos for memories of a graduation. And I was asked because, among my circle of friends, I'm always the one just snapping away with my little camera. Haha. I certainly felt quite honoured.

My friend is a difficult subject to work with when it comes to giving off a natural smile or general facial expression but I did the best I could with my extremely amateur skills. I think I got some nice photos though. I also captured a photo that I'm very much in love with at the moment. I'm not familiar with plant names and species but this little potted plant had beautiful flowers which certainly caught my attention. This was the result of my admiration:

I like photography because it captures moments that can be shared with everyone. It can capture an object from a different perspective so that its beauty can be shared with others who would not otherwise see it. And I really like taking photos of nature. Something about it is just amazingly beautiful. The world needs to be seen for the beauty it holds.

Congratulations to all the 2011 graduates around the world, regardless of when you graduated. I pray you all have the successes you deserve and that you thrive in the hardships of employment!

Parents are people, too

2011-10-22T11:53:00.000-04:00

As we grow older, we see our parents differently with each stage we pass through until we eventually reach a point where we realise that our parents...they're people too. It's something that I've been thinking about for awhile now. With every passing year, I learnt something more about my Mom and with every step closer to adulthood, I feel more and more like I'm coming onto more equal ground with her.

She tells me stories about her youth...what things were like in her day living in Hong Kong and even little bits of what my grandparents (her parents) were like. My grandfather died long before I was even born and my grandmother doesn't speak any English, and since I don't speak any Cantonese, I can't learn anything about her from her directly. It's kind of sad and it's one of my biggest reasons for wanting to learn the language, if only I had the time and resources. Over time I've come to realise that she, like any other person, has had dreams and goals which she once aspired to. I've learnt about the numerous hardships she's had to endure, particularly after her move to an English-speaking country when she knew no English at all. Today, she has become a very successful woman and, for a lesser educated Chinese person, she has extremely well-spoken English.

Trailing back to my childhood...

I don't remember very much but what I do recall from my childhood was all very memorable. My Mom was the scariest person alive to me. Her punishments were mean and cruel and I was afraid to do anything drastic for fear of possible repercussions. But she was also very nice sometimes. She may not have known the answers to everything but she'd help me with my homework and let me sleep with her when I was afraid of something. She'd let me play with my friends and gave me toys and dress me up to look pretty. She let me go away with her and let me see all sorts of wonderful sights and sounds. She took me to Disneyland and Universal Studios. She threw me birthday parties. At the end of the day she was a wonderful, albeit scary, Mom.

Re-thinking my teenage years...
I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend. I wasn't allowed to go out at night. I wasn't allowed to do very much at all. She dictated my life and didn't let me have any fun at all! Or, at least, that's what I used to think. In retrospect, I can now say that I'm quite happy with the way I was raised as a teenager. Had I been allowed to party at night, I would be an entirely different person today. And I absolutely love the person I am now. I can understand her reasoning for not allowing the things she did not want me to have or do. But, as teenagers, we're so caught up with what we want and what's going on with our peers that we think, "My parents don't understand me at all! It's like they forgot what it was like to be young!". In reality, they understand the teenage years better than we did, after all, they lived through those years themselves. It's not that they forgot, they just have a habit of not wanting us to make the same mistakes as they did. They're trying to enforce what they believe to be the better way of growing up during those hormonally-driven years. It's not that they don't understand us, it's US who don't understand THEM. And many of us don't even try to understand them. I always used to say, "When I grow up, I'll never be like my mother!"

Discovering the truth...
As the years flew by and life became less dramatic, I came out of my self-obsessed hormonally-driven state. I never knew how difficult a time she had, moving to Barbados, living in Barbados, learning English, raising a child. Many stories delivered to me over a number of years have opened my eyes as I finally took a good look at the amazing woman who raised me. She's a person. Just another person, like everyone else. Like everyone else who has had a dream career for which there was no opportunity to pursue...because life had different plans in store. Like everyone else who has had interests and love and true hardships.

Dreaming their dreams...
We live in a time that's laden with blessings and we don't even realise. We've grown up in what one could call a spoilt generation. Many of people know the pains of war and hardship but many of us don't. We haven't lived through terrors. We wake up each morning without a second thought about how grateful we should be to be alive. I've been told many stories about the wars of China and the things my Mom's family have had to live through. It's no wonder why Chinese people are as formidable as they are and it makes me proud to have family who survived those times. They are strong people. But they never got to live their dreams.

It wasn't easy surviving those days. It wasn't easy giving up on dreams which were out of reach. It wasn't easy raising us. The least we could do is dream for them as we dream our dreams. They want only for us to have what they could not: the joys of seeing our dreams come to fruition. They deserve that much, don't they?

I've come to realise recently, that I'm very much like my Mom. A decade ago, I didn't want to be anything like my Mom. Today, I love the person who I was raised into. And I look up to, respect and love the person who raised me like no other.

I recently saw a video that portrays what I've said really well, actually. Something nice that I thought I'd share. "The Six Ways You'll See Your Dad" by CollegeHumor.

Three Years & Still Posting

2011-10-18T09:51:00.002-04:00

Today marks the three-year anniversary of Symplicity Me, the first blog I've managed to keep going.

Happy bloggerversary Symplicity Me!

I had completely forgotten about it last year...and the year before, I remembered the day after. To be honest, I nearly forgot this year too. It's only by an urge of feeling the need for change that I realised. So, to celebrate the big day, I decided that a slight makeover was in order. (Well, I was really going to do one anyway but realised it was the bloggerversary. So let's just say it's for that. Haha.)

The Old Look

The New Look

I decided to a go for a simpler, lighter look this time around. Nothing fancy and colourful yet not something too plain. In the end, I came around to what you see now. There are still some similarities to what I had before but something about this one feels a little neater. I didn't bother to change the header photo because it's still as meaningful to me today as it was the day I made it and just as applicable to my life, if not more so. I think it blends in nicer with the new background anyway. :)

What do you think of the new look?

This blog has become pretty special to me over the past three years. I've said in posts before that I have a problem with keeping up with things and, even though I don't post as often as I'd like (I'll blame that on medical school), I'm still going at it.

May we still have more years of posting to come, yeah? :)

Getting To Know NY A Little

2011-09-17T19:00:00.001-04:00

I often tell people that I'm not a big fan of New York. I know many people whoa re just in love with the city and all it has to offer but I can't say I stand on the same ground. Maybe it's that I've never really experience the city in its entirety. Usually my trips are very short and I never see much apart from the places I specifically go to, to do what needs to be done and I'm normally driven to these places.

This trip was slightly different. Actually, it was different in many ways. I had no car to move about in so I utilised the yellow cab, subway and my feet, discovering a part of New York that I never got a chance to learn about. For once, I got the chance to see and experience New York beyond the windows of the car. This time I travelled alone and, for the first time, flew on jetBlue Airways. This trip has had quite a few firsts for me, making it drastically different from all the rest.

I had the luxury of walking through the streets and properly experiencing the sights and scents of the city. I had the opportunity to walk through a little street fair on my way to the hairdresser. I walked among the large masses that crowd the sidewalks trying to remain aware of myself. It's not the first time that I've had to walk along the sidewalk with so many people but I was never particularly bothered by it in Hong Kong like I was here in New York. Somehow, crowds seem more organised in Hong Kong, or maybe it's just my imagination. I think, though, the crazy crowds along with all the strange scents and dirt of the city was what bothered me. In comparison, Hong Kong is a lot cleaner and not filled with so many different scents to tickle my nostrils so walking among the crowd never was much of a bother. Not to mention, that sense of belonging I have when I'm in Hong Kong, no matter how many people surround me, makes me comfortable.

If there's anything I like doing, it's people-watching. No matter where I am, it will always be remotely entertaining to watch people go about their business. I got a good chance for that while on the subway to and from the house. I saw a couple who were each on their phones while still remaining in a cuddled position; a man wearing a white T-shirt, bright yellow shorts, sneakers and a backpack (it was about 14°C outside); a woman reading a magazine and her neighbour taking a peek at the pages; a man in a pink shirt holding only his phone and a notebook and pen...fiddling with the pages of his notebook; a guy listening to music while falling asleep; a man playing the accordion while his wife and young daughter walked about the train car for tips (it was the last thing I expected but at least it sounded nice). The list goes on and on.

I saw so many different people with so many distinct personalities and I thought to myself, I could neither stand out nor blend in with a city like this. This city filled with so many cultures and personalities somehow manages to give me this feeling of suppression. As such, all I've said before about how I don't really like New York still stands. I'm rather uncomfortable here and, honestly, without even a small sense of belonging (which this city is completely void of, even after years of visiting), I could never feel any satisfaction about living here if I had to. In fact, I'd be sure to avoid it at all costs.

My Greatest Flaw

2011-08-31T22:57:00.001-04:00

By law of nature, nobody is perfect. We all have flaws and there's nothing wrong with aiming for perfection as long as we remember that perfection can never be attained. It makes sense to have the desire to learn and improve your flaw, whatever they may be. I think that makes up part of the fun of life...learning about ourselves. I've been doing it for years now, focussing on myself and trying to be a better me in any way I can. But my greatest flaw is my biggest weakness.

I completely lack self-discipline. Honestly, I can't keep up with something for more than a few weeks...a few months if I'm really determined. My determination to keep up a routine or regimen or anything that requires some amount of discipline is always short-lived and I don't understand why. Take this blog, for example. My posts are very irregular and I do wish to post more often than I do. In fact, oftentimes I have stuff to share but just, for some reason, never get to it. This post too! I've been meaning to type this since yesterday and I'm finally doing it because the thought came back to me again and again, "you didn't do it last time so at least make this post." Or something like that.

There are many, more major, things that require self-discipline in my life. From maintaining an exercise routine to stay fit to maintaining the organisation of certain things to studying. All of those things are equally important in my life but, at the moment, I would say that my lack of studying is my most daunting problem, especially in my fourth year of medical school. Sometimes I wonder how I even made it this far. I feel unknowledgeable and that needs to change, desperately.

One would think, start small and work your way up. But if I can't even take my daily supplements as I should twice a day and not once or even make regular blog posts as I want to, then how do I tackle the bigger fishies? For some reason, if I think I want to do something, I can never find the motivation or determination to actually get up and do it. Instead I let myself get caught up in a world where time just passes me and by the end of the unproductive day, I can't say that I know what I've done. It's ridiculous really.

Regardless, I'll continue working on improving myself. I hope you do too!

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Transformers 3 in 3D!

2011-07-08T22:50:00.000-04:00

If you haven't come to realised that 3D is the new in-thing with the movie industry, you've clearly been living under the ocean. Just about a week ago, our more popular movie theatre finally invested in 3D. The first official movie to show in that theatre: Transformers 3.

Firstly, what happened to Megan Fox? Secondly, even if she's gone, what need does this boy, Sam, have with having a pretty face by his side running through the dangers with him? Thirdly, I get excited when I hear Leonard Nimoy's voiceover in a sci-fi film, I have no idea why...he's just...groovy. Ha.

The movie itself was pretty decent but it's not something that I'll turn around and watch again anytime soon. I guess I liked the first two better but it's difficult to say when I can't really recall them in much detail. At 155 minutes, it's a fairly long movie but enjoyable enough to not feel the length. I have to admit, I got a little emotional in one scene >.<

Oh yes, most importantly, this is the first time I've ever watched a full movie in 3D. My only other exposures were 4D at Disneyland and Universal Studios. It wasn't too bad really. All I hear from half the people I know is that 3D is overrated. And that's fine and dandy but I think the quality of the dimensions is dependent on a number of factors, particularly the directing and special effects editing for the movie. It hardly matters to me though.

It's highly upsetting how selfish Barbadians are with the startup of the 3D phenomena here. People are arriving at 10 AM (box office opens at 10:30) to purchase tickets for their friends at 10 PM that night. This morning, I went to see the 11 AM showing and, arriving there at 10:20, I had to join a lengthy queue. Not to mention, by the time I reached the counter, the 10 PM show had already been sold out. Crazy much? People don't have a chance at all! But the fact that people are actually allowed to buy 20 or more tickets is unfathomable. How is that something that's so easily looked over? Like, really? No, seriously? There should be a limit to how many tickets an individual can purchase. People need to have a chance! Geez.

I know this frenzy is going to be a couple notches worse when Harry Potter starts showing here on July 20th. All hell will break loose as people can't get tickets and I hear all sorts of madness like people purchasing 20 tickets for the movie the day before instead. If the Olympus Theatres continues to allow persons to purchase >5 tickets at once, I'll be sorely disappointed in the way they handle their service. SO many people have been complaining about this problem.

Well, regardless, since people work and sleep at 11 AM, I smartly chose to watch the movie at that time (despite having to wait in such a ridiculous line) and enjoyed myself.

Watching My Own Videos...

2011-07-07T14:36:00.001-04:00

You know how actors may be asked in an interview what they thought of their movie? And then they respond with "Oh, I haven't seen it. I hate watching myself." Yeah, I'm like that too.

Sure, I may not have a big movie to be shown on the big screen, but I actually really really really really don't like watching my own videos on YouTube. I can record, edit and then watch it in full before I upload to YouTube and feel okay about it, yet, it irks me to watch the video on YouTube! I have no idea what it is that's so different...maybe because I know that other people are watching it and judging it and judging me and I don't want to add to that...somehow. I'm really not sure. It's just one of those mind-boggling things that no one will be able to give me an answer for.

I just don't like watching myself.

But on that note, I'll leave you with my latest upload...the first in 6 months! I got henna (for the first time) so I thought I'd share it with you guys. It was quite beautifully done by Faheema Patel at Junoon Designs.

The Waiting Game

2011-07-06T18:11:00.000-04:00

Monday morning I opened up my email and saw what I was waiting 4-5 days to see: Package Delivered & Signed for by ___. Score!

Do you know what this means?? It means my package was delivered, of course. What package, you ask? Oh, well, it's just my application to do my fourth year elective in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care at The Chinese University of Hong Kong next January...no big deal. =)

Now, I'm just sitting around waiting for them to process my application and give me a response: accept | decline. I vote they tell me the former. But I'm so excited about my application arriving there quickly and safely because I made it just in time for my deadline! It could've been there much much sooner if the ridiculously slow-working university I attend didn't take 3 months to release my grades to update my transcripts which, by some miracle, I obtained in a week (apparently, the norm is about 4 weeks for a few sheets of paper).

Regardless, everything so far has worked out in my favour. All I need is an acceptance and I'll be booking a ticket for 4 weeks in Hong Kong. That's right. Four weeks. Four. 4. Four weeks. A whole month. In Hong Kong. My favourite place in the whole wide world. Doing something that I know I'll enjoy: Anaesthesia & Intensive Care. I'm actually still relatively surprised that I like it so much.

Ohhhhhhh...I hope they get in touch soon!

The Kon - Day Two

2011-07-05T11:34:00.001-04:00

Described in one word: epic. I'm posting this a bit late because I've been so exhausted from the epicness of the weekend that it took time to recover.

The events held on Sunday were certainly more interesting than those of Saturday! I noticed that a few people complained about this on Saturday when they saw the events list for Sunday. I thought it was a strategic move to get people to come out on Sunday. For some reason, the culture here in Barbados is to stay home, kick back and relax on Sundays. And, while that's all nice and well, it shouldn't be the thing that keeps you home from a really cool event. Regardless, due to this fact of Barbadian life, Sunday's numbers, good as they were, didn't seem to be as large as Saturday's. Regardless, Sunday was indeed an excellent day!

There were fewer movies shown and more panel discussions/workshops held with featured speakers like Marshall Candland, a technical director at Industrial Light & Magic who worked on movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, Iron Man and Aliens and Cowboys, as well as some guys from DC Comics! Marshall showed a short presentation of how they created the effects in movies like Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean. I missed out on the panel discussions/workshops with DC unfortunately but I heard they showed some previews of upcoming works. Very cool stuff.

The Kosplay Kompetition was a hit this year! Last year it didn't come off for whatever reason and I was sorely disappointed but this year it happened! I kinda wish I had entered the competition now...but anyway! The winner was a guy cosplaying Cloud, second place went to Lara Croft and third went to Tifa. The only big problem I had with AnimeKon this year was the judging for the cosplay competition! There was a girl who portrayed L from Death Note extremely well and did not get into the top three. As they were using crowd cheers to judge the top 3 and then again for the placement of the top 3, L received louder cheers than Tifa did...by far! Maybe if the competition is to be judged by crowd reaction and cheers, a decibel reader should be used...it's the most fair and accurate way to judge, don't you think?

Then the night ended with a BANG! with an outstanding performance by Standing Penance, a local band who blew the roof off that night! It was a massively high-energy performance that completely blew me away. Loved it. It was what AnimeKon needed to end the entire event...with an EPIC performance.

Huge Thank You's to Melissa and Omar at AnimeKon! You guys really outdid yourselves this year with an impressive comeback from last year's disappointments. All the hard work throughout the past year was certainly not in vain. Of course, there's always room for improvement and so I look forward to next year being bigger and better than this! (No pressure!) But don't worry, after this year, there'll be lots of buzz and hype when next year rolls around.

I've had some amazing times this year but this was, by far, the best weekend of 2011!

The Kon - Day One

2011-07-03T08:06:00.001-04:00

Described in one word: impressive. And I use the word impressive because I'm impressed with the degree of improvements I saw this year!

larger floor space with adequate room between booths. Last year, all the booths were packed into one room. This year, they've expanded the area and nice placed people apart, with artists in one section and gamers and anime lovers in another section.
more anime and even some manga!

AnimeSpot was there showcasing some manga,
The theatre showed all anime films like Spirited Away, Appleseed and Akira
Anime music video displays by local editors like the amazing soulvws and JMRE09
I even got to watch a random episode of Bleach. Lovely! I'm not sure if other random episodes from other series showed since I moved around a lot.

more events spanning 2 days. Yay! I've seen a lot more fun stuff this year compared to last year.
amazing green screen room to live out your wildest anime fantasies. Except, it didn't seem like a lot of people utilized it unfortunately. It looks like such an amazing concept...I haven't done it myself lol but I might on Day Two!

I cosplayed as Osaki Nana from NANA this year...my first real attempt at cosplay. Turns out that I did pretty well...it seemed to have been a hit with people. I got a lot of stares and lots of requests for pictures either of or with me. I was feeling quite like a celebrity! I even had a little photoshoot and all (compliments soulvws). Apparently I looked epic. Many people suggested I do it again for day two...I wasn't planning to but I started reconsidering and after telling my mom about my outfit's success, she insisted in a repeat for day 2. And so it will be (because now I have no choice haha).

I met a lot of people (thanks to my eye-catching look) and I got to be very social and friendly. Not something I'm used to...like the mass attention I got. But it was nice being different. I'm not used to getting anyone's attention but it's grown on me and, admittedly, I started to like it. I saw a few others dressed up, though not as impressively if I do say so myself. I was also told that I'm one of the few who looks awesome (talk about ego booster). Ah, my self esteem shot up like a rocket. Oh! I saw a girl cosplay Chun Li. It was nice and it made me decide that I should probably l go for that if I cosplay again. :) We'll see how that goes because I'm not so sure I'll be able to make it to AnimeKon next year and definitely not the year after...or maybe. Medical school is gonna get tougher and I'll be working 7-days a week but who knows!

AK 2011 Excitement!

2011-06-28T22:59:00.000-04:00

The AnimeKon 2011 weekend is just four days away! I'm excited! Last year, I tried not to go with high expectations and I guess it was a good thing because I wasn't entirely pleased. The organisers managed to score some hit points with me after responding to my critical blog post about my disappointments and, as this is the second year coming, I've raised the bars of my expectations.

The organisers of AnimeKon have been so kind to seriously take on my few opinions over the past year as they vigorously planned for this year's 2-day events. I know they've done their best to improve things a whole lot so I'll be looking forward to those.

I have all intentions of getting my Canon VIXIA back out of its bag and kick up the old vlogging. It must've been building up some dust over the past 6 months! I've been meaning to do one or two over the past months but never really get to it, for some reason. I've actually somehow reached 101 subscribers! I know it's not much compared to other popular YouTube folks, but it's a big deal to me. =] I'm quite happy to have your subscription and will certainly make greater efforts to create new videos for those who are interested.

So, who's going to AnimeKon 2011 this year? Are you as excited as I am? I'll be there both days this weekend so if you stop by, do say hi!

Olympic Day 2011

2011-06-26T22:27:00.000-04:00

Today was Olympic Day 2011 with the theme "Move. Learn. Discover." It's an event in which the sports clubs/federations in Barbados come together and showcase themselves to the general public and encourage participation in the sports of their choosing.

As a past member of the World Taekwondo Federation and the Barbados Fencing Club, I get the lovely choice of who I want to join...not that it really matters. For some reason, the fencing club doesn't have as many members as it deserves because fencing is a pretty great sport...I guess it's just not popular enough here so we tend to represent them at Olympic Day to help build their numbers.

Once upon a time, I used to be involved in various sporting activities like swimming, badminton, taekwondo and fencing. At one point, I was even doing the former three at the same time! That was a time when I was lovely and young and, as you can imagine, fit. I've certainly lost all my fitness and the youthful finesse that comes with it. Of course, being 21, I'm as youthful as an adult can be ;). But this loss came along with my starting of medical school...I gave up each sport one by one...first badminton (because I played for the secondary school I went to moreso than with a club), then taekwondo, swimming and, lastly, fencing. I love all those sports though! As I lack the aggression, fencing and taekwondo weren't exactly my forte but I had good form and got great workouts from them both. I was perfectly average in all these sports...not particularly amazing at any...probably because I lack speed. Hmm...I wonder how much more awesome I could've been if I had the speed to go with my form?

Well, regardless, today I got pretty active. I joined the fencing team for an Orienteering race of some sort. Apparently, that's a sport. Did you know that? It's something like a treasure hunt. It involved a whole lot of walking and running around that tired me out! Sports enough for me. Haha. I also got to play a little badminton again! Oh, how I missed it. It's been 5 years since I last played...I think.

All in all, I had a pretty great day with my friends. Honestly, I meant to get my phone out and film for a vlog but...you know...for some reason...that didn't quite happen. Sigh. I need to make a far greater effort at making a vlog this coming weekend because...it's a full weekend of AnimeKon 2011!

Phlebotomist in the making

2011-06-24T19:09:00.001-04:00

Well...I'm not really a phlebotomist (person who takes blood) in the making. Today in Barbados, we had HIV Regional Testing Day at various locations around the island to encourage the population to know their HIV status as it is a disease that has relatively high prevalence in our country.

This is something that happens every year and the organisers at the Ministry of Health usually request the help of the medical students for blood taking. This is what I spent my entire day doing.

I probably took blood from about 50 people or so...maybe a little more. At the location I was stationed, we had about 165 people participate. I very willingly volunteered to be phlebotomist because I really wanted the practice of taking blood...it's something that will be required of me in the years to come and I wanna be able to be agile about it...quick and smooth...in and out...and hopefully with as little pain and as few sticks as possible. I certainly haven't mastered it yet but I'm definitely a whole lot better and somewhat more confident about doing it. Yay!

On another note, I watched the Life In A Day documentary that I was talking about before. To someone without much interest in it, I guess it would be pretty boring because I watched it with my Mom and she fell asleep 20 minutes in. I thought it was a pretty interesting film. It was definitely a really nice thing to see how people spend their days around the world...a very culturally diverse film, for sure. It astounded me that a Korean man was determined to travel around the world by bicycle and has not even been the slightest bit deterred from it because of the 5 accidents and 4 surgeries he's had. All he said was "there are a lot of careless drivers"...he visited 190 countries! He's gotta be fit. Haha. If you're interested in that kind of thing, you should give it a watch...it's an hour and 34 minutes, I believe.

And now...my weekend!

Life In A Day

2011-06-20T20:39:00.001-04:00

Almost a year ago, I created a video to participate in the Life In A Day YouTube collaboration movie, a documentary of what July 24 2010 was like all around the world, directed by Kevin Macdonald.

I received an email later in the year to inform me that my video was in the top 100 videos chosen for the movie. Unfortunately, my Mom wasn't too keen on me being a part of it and so I never signed the release forms =( I wasn't too pleased about it but I've moved on. But, to think, there could've been a little piece of me in this movie! Aw well.

I think this'll be a fun watch. I haven't seen it yet but when I do (hopefully sometime this week if I find the time), I'll let you guys know what I think of it. I hope you'll watch it too and let me know what you think as well!

Anaesthesia & Intensive Care

2011-05-18T21:11:00.000-04:00

I started my Anaesthesia & Intensive Care clerkship on Monday. So far it's been a pretty intense compared to the clerkship I was doing before. I spend virtually all my hours of the day in the operating theatre learning about this, that and the other. Too much information than I could possibly digest (which I later attempt to read up on) + topics I'm to go home to read up on to talk about the next day. It usually doesn't work out since I fall asleep as soon as I get home. The days have been long and they've been exhausting on my mind, my back and my feet. I get home late, eat, shower, struggle to read something, fall asleep on the book I'm attempting to read and sleep till the A.M. I really need to readjust to the long days once more...just like when I did my Junior Surgery Clerkship.

The doctor in charge of this clerkship was telling us that we should do at least 2 emergency calls. That means 2 full over night calls. That means 2 calls that will last up to 36 hours. Oh boy...fun!

So, as I have very little free time on my hands, I think it's safe to say that I won't be able to fulfill that month-long challenge that I wanted to do. Maybe on my next clerkship next month?

Farewell, Smallville

2011-05-13T22:44:00.000-04:00

Ah boy, it's been a long run.

10 seasons. 10 years. 2001-2011. Until I Googled it, I hadn't realised that I started watching Smallville when I was just 11 years old. I could've sworn it's only been 5 years. Haha. Smallville was a series I used to absolutely love! It was so appealing because, at the time, I loved watching "The New Adventures of Lois & Clark' and the idea of a story of the background life of Clark Kent was interesting. I don't remember seasons (and clearly not even years) but when things started changing up more than I expected, I felt a bit iffy about the show...I came to accept things and the direction of the plot but then things started changing a bit too much. As a result, I stopped watching it.

Years later, Smallville came to its series finale, tonight. I started the show, of course, I had to see it to its finish. And so I did. The 2 hour finale felt a bit slow and drawn out to me, I have to admit. After 10 years, it's great to see that the flight and suit came in just 10-15 minutes before the conclusion of the show. Like they just, ya know, slipped it in there at the end.

I haven't been watching Smallville for a couple of years. If it happened to cross my mind or if I had time or if I was utterly bored, I would turn to the CW on a Friday night and watch a random episode of Smallville...not sure about what's happening or why it's happening but just to see what's going on. It's a good thing I did that because the finale left me feeling very confused when it came to a lot of things...nothing at all would've made sense to me had I not seen those random episodes. So, here are a few things that confused me: (Spoiler alert!)

I thought Lionel Luthor died a good few seasons ago. Why was he there and why was he known for his thirst for genetic research?
What in the world was that white mist from which a dark hideous creature spurred forth and, not only ripped the man's heart from his chest to give to Lex, but said "I'll do it in exchange for your soul." ??
And what was that about how Lionel had all the perfect parts from all of Lex's clones? Wasn't that lab burnt or set on fire or blown up or something with all those clones to die except for the little boy?
I thought Jimmy died! Good ole Jimmy! So, how come he was there at the end in all the hustle and bustle being the Jimmy we knew him to be?

I have to say, I always did love the character that was Alexander Luthor...up until he became super corrupted, made Lana walking kryptonite and died anyway. Speaking of which, I was hoping to see Lana make an appearance in tonight's episode. Practically everyone else did. But back to Lex. I'm sorry Tess had to die (though I never had a chance to watch and get to know her) but at least she did a good deed. I'm so glad Lex forgot everything, became the good man he was deep down inside and was able to have his dream fulfilled. Mr. President in his nice all-white suit.

Regardless of it all, I'm happy with the ending of the series and I'm so glad that it's finally concluded! I'm pretty satisfied, though I don't understand why it took 7 years for Lois and Clark to finally have a proper wedding ceremony.

But, let's be honest now. Tom Welling ain't got nothing on Dean Cain when it came to ripping off his shirt to expose his suit underneath. ;)

A Challenge To Myself

2011-05-13T20:00:00.000-04:00

I'm sure I've been saying this too often lately but I don't blog as much as I'd like to. It's not because I don't have anything to say. My days are often eventful (they've been particularly so over the past 4 weeks) and there are things to say and, even though I have the time, I don't sit down to write a post.

I've just completed my first 4th year clerkship: social and preventative medicine. I really played around with that one...procrastinating on quite a lot till the end and wasn't even able to find time to study with all the rushing I had to do to finish my two presentations and evidence-based medicine project.

On completion of this clerkship, I move on to my next one starting on Monday: Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. It's bound to be a pretty interesting one. I'm back in the operating theatres again...but this time, not for the surgeries. As soon as I discover what my scheduling is like for this next clerkship, I'll decide for sure on challenging myself: posting on my blog at least 3 times a week for 1 month!

That's my self-challenge. You think I can do it?

The Slaughter House

2011-05-05T17:19:00.001-04:00

Today, as part of my rotation, I had to make site visits to an abattoir and poultry processing plant. As such, I had the glorious opportunity to watch a number of pigs, chickens and a cow be slaughtered for food consumption.

It was, by far, the most disturbing and terrifying thing I've ever had the honour to witness.

And now I know how inhumanely animals are killed for the benefit of the stomachs of men.

First, I saw a cow get shot in a head (apparently it just stuns it), listened to the health inspector talk about what they do when they kill cows, and saw and heard blood gush from the neck of a hanging (upside-down) cow like a waterfall. The most interesting thing I saw was how huge its stomach is with its internally divided 4 stomachs. I don't eat beef and steak and I didn't see most of the process so I wasn't as bothered as with the pigs.

Then, I saw them stun pigs with thousands of volts to the head, slit their throats and hang them upside down before scalding off their hairs and sawing it apart. I found this to be the most disturbing thing because just before they stunned one of the pigs it looked me in the eye with so much fear. I nearly cried when it got killed. It all happened so quickly. ='( Safe to say, I turned my back to that after that but it's incredibly difficult to drown out their screams. I don't ever want to eat ham again. Not that I ate it often anyway.

Chickens don't really see to be that aware of what's coming for them. Though, hanging them upside down and passing them through machines is as bad as it gets.

This clerkship is driving me crazy! I'm tired of all the smelly, dirty, disturbing places!

Trouble Keeping Up

2011-04-28T13:28:00.000-04:00

I haven't been up-keeping this blog as much as I'd like to and every time I look at it, I have all good intentions of changing that but it doesn't quite seem to happen. Just gotta keep the hope burning that, at some point, I'll pick up this blog and post as often as I mean to!

I've started my glorious 4th year, I'm officially a clinical medicine student! Basic medical sciences have been a breeze compared to what I have ahead of me. The challenges are of a different scope and I've got my fingers and toes crossed that I'll continue forward successfully. Currently, I'm on my Social & Preventative Medicine clerkship something that I find to be impeccably boring. There are a lot of published studies and journal articles that I'm supposed to be reading and, if you've ever had to read one then you know, it puts you to sleep. I'm two weeks into it now and so far it hasn't been terrible but it's not good. It's a very slow way to start my clinical years but I think I'd prefer this than to be thrown into the deep end and be expected to know everything just like that! The greatest thing about this rotation is that the hospital doesn't exist in this clerkship...it's all about public health so I'm in polyclinics and, for the most part, visiting sites for health inspection and the such.

As a fourth year student, I no longer have the privilege of saying "I'm not sure. I'm only a third year." As such, at this level, I'm expected to know quite a bit. Honestly, I don't know very much at all. It's horrible but it's something that will eventually be remedied, I'm sure.

There isn't a whole lot to be updated on except...I recently turned 21! Oh, look at that. The big two-one. As everyone likes to put it: I'm legal everywhere around the world. Joy!

Hello, Vacation!

2011-04-08T14:07:00.000-04:00

My third year has come to a close with the biggest, hardest exam I've had to do so far in life. An Incremental Clinical Exam (I.C.E.) which is like a miniature OSCE-type exam in which my clinical, hands-on, patient interaction skills are tested. That came along with 2 written exams in Surgery and Child Health all in the same week. That was one crazy week.

But I've come away with successful results in my I.C.E. I wish I knew what my exact mark was but seeing the word 'PASS' was relief enough! I've passed all my exams for my courses but I'm still not sure what everything adds up to for my course work because I've had procedure cards, case books and reports to hand in for each specialty clerkship I did over the past three months and they account for quite a handful of my grade. I'll find out on Monday how everything goes but I'm sure I've passed all three 9-credit courses and will successfully move onto my fourth year of medical school.

Fourth year marks the beginning of a new phase of medical school: Phase II of my M.B.B.S. programme. From here, everything I do is clinically based...no more time on the university campus anymore. It's almost depressing since I hadn't particularly liked all the time I've had to spend in the hospital over the past 3 months...it's a little saddening that I have another 3 years to bear with but I'm sure I'll come away with all my successes in hand. I'll miss the days when I had time to do nothing...to a certain extent but I'll enjoy the busy buzz of hospital life...to a certain extent. I try to comfort myself by believing that the hospital life is an...acquired taste. But only time will tell. Fourth year starts in just over a week's time so I sure hope I'll know what our group allocations are and what rotations I'll have over the next year by next week!

Phase I was an experience of it's own. I'm quite happy with the people I met and the lecturers I've had...they've all taught me something different...good or bad. I'm pretty sure Phase II will be faced with hardships that cannot be compared to those of Phase I and I'll make it through as I always do. It's funny, I can look back on the past 3 years and think that all the stuff we went through before was really not as hard as they seemed at the time. I'm sure 4th and 5th year will be the same. Honestly, I can't even believe 3 years have come and gone so quickly. I can still recall my orientation into medical school. Oh, how time flies.

Gotta Keep Up To Date

2011-03-21T20:16:00.000-04:00

I'm hardly aware of what's going on in the anime/manga community these days. I feel like I'm just drifting further and further away from my place of rest and relaxation. For the past few years, I've been a proofreader for a few different scanlation groups...this was my attempt to remain grounded in the manga community as I began medical school and realised that it sort of took over my social life. I tend to spend a lot of time on my computer and I have no other skills to offer so I figured...I'll help proofread and give back to the wonderful manga community! As for anime...I could live without it and if I wanted, I'll do what I can to make provisions to watch the great series people will constantly badger me about.

I'm still a proofreader for manga/manhwa/manhua translations...I almost retired from it but decided I'd stick with it despite the drastic decrease in free time. I'm really continuing for one particular series which I managed to grow particularly fond of and, for some reason, just don't really want to detach myself from. =) I help out with random chapters of other series but, for now, that's what's keeping me rooted to the community. Since I'm doing a poorer job of keeping up to date, I was checking out Wordpress for some cool anime bloggers and found these great reads so far:

Sure, I could always stay up-to-date with AnimeNewsNetwork but I like to read blogs and see what people think of things...see what's popular these days.

For super quick anime/manga news, there's Twitter! I get a lot of good stuff in my Twitter stream since I started following @BreakingAnime.

What about you? Any recommended blogs or websites?

Manga Artists Cheer Japan On!

2011-03-16T21:40:00.005-04:00

A few days ago, Takehiko Inoue (creator of Vagabond and Slam Dunk) showed his support for the rescue efforts of the recent magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan. These were inspirational sketches to cheer up the people who suffered great losses and cheer on the efforts made for each prefecture to recover. These images were drawn for inspiration and encouragement with an iPad/iPhone app called Zen Brush.

These are some of the prefectures that have been hit the hardest by the earthquake and tsunami (the shirt names are the prefecture names).

A semi-annual art exhibition held in Japan was postponed due to the recent disasters but the chairman of the exhibition suggested that artists post some art in support of the hardships Japan is now facing. If you search for the hashtag #newday_GEISAI, you'll these submissions on Twitter.

Japan In My Prayers

2011-03-15T20:40:00.005-04:00

"But when you hear of wars and commotions, do not be terrified; for these things must come to pass first but the end will not come immediately.” Then He said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famine and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven." ~ Luke 21:9-11 NKJV ~

Many things are happening in the world these days. More and more chaos breaks out among the people of various countries and the earth itself is becoming a bit chaotic. Things within the atmosphere and beneath the surface have been going a bit crazy since last year...snow in Miami...increasing heat globally...earthquakes over magnitude 9...earthquakes creating monstrous tsunamis...

Everything that's happening in Japan is heartbreaking. I've been watching the footage online and on the news and it's all so incredibly devastating! People are doing their part in donating and helping out in whatever way they can for those suffering the most.
Here are some places you can donate to:

AMERICAN RED CROSS

GLOBALGIVING

SAVE THE CHILDREN

SALVATION ARMY

CONVOY OF HOPE

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS

SHELTER BOX

People are so great to show their support in whatever way they can, whether it be by music...

Or by honking a car horn...

Those are some of my favourite videos from people I'm subscribed to. If you have any great heartwarming ones to share, please do so in the comments! =]

Japan and its people are in my heart and prayers. I wish the country a speedy recovery and hopefully no radiation exposure.

I'm In Control

2011-03-01T11:28:00.000-04:00

I'm sick! I think I caught one of those little viruses floating around the hospital. No big deal though. It'll be gone by tomorrow because I'm just healthy like that. I'm not one to get sick very often...it's a bit of a rare event to occur. I'd like to think that I should congratulate myself on taking such great care of the health of my body...or at least the immune system. I've got a butt-kicking immune system. No denying that. =]

People often say that you can't help getting sick sometimes but that's such fobey. I take all the supplements I need and I'm as healthy as a pickle. I'm totally in control of my health. And you are too. Always remember that! You're in control of your health and your life. Never think differently =) I must be using strange words and phrases because I'm sick. My head feels funny. Well, I'll have a lovely cup of herbal tea today with my lunch which I'll be eating at Novel Teas!

Speaking of which, I took a visit to Novel Teas for the first time yesterday. I've been curious to know what it's like in there and it turns out...I love it! It's a new addition to my short list of places I love in Barbados. It's got a great atmosphere that I find relaxing. I felt like I wasn't really in Barbados anymore...it's got that sort of environment...that's the kind of environment that I like...places at home that don't really feel like home. Strange, I know.

The people there are so friendly and nice and the owner was quite talkative. He was pleasant. =) It's a great place to go to when you want a change of environment and a choice of what seems like almost a hundred different types of teas...herbal and normal from all over the world. Today, I think I'll have an herbal tea from China. Yum. I'm so happy to have found a healthier place to have some lunch now.

AnimeKon: What are you looking forward to seeing?

2011-02-27T11:50:00.000-04:00

If you were there last year, you may have been a tad disappointed with how AnimeKon turned out. I'm sure some people were happy and satisfied but it just wasn't good enough for me. It's easy to have high standards for big events that you aren't planning yourself. If there's anything I've learnt from being on the Medical Students' Association over the past year, it's that.

So, here's what we've got to look forward to:

~ TWO days of anime, comics, games goodness ~

~ TWO days of movie goodness in the larger, all-anime theatre ~

~ TWO days of competition goodness ~

~ TWO days of cosplay goodness ~

~ TWO days ~

Did I mention that things are happening over a period of two days? This sort of information is very important for busy folks like myself who felt cheated because they arrived in the evening and missed out on all of the day's events last year. It's two days this year. Two days = A whole weekend.

July 2 + 3 Mark those calendars! I've marked all of mine.

I said in my previous post that I'm pretty much volunteering myself to help out however I can in the success of AnimeKon this year. Omar and Melissa are the great people that I've been chatting with over the past months and they highly value the wants and needs of the anime community. They'd love to hear your thoughts about:

What movies would you like to see in the bigger all-anime theatre? Last year there were 5 movies...this year, there'll be more!
What are some really good series that you'd suggest be shown on the AnimeKon screens? The really good stuff that you've been watching recently and want people to see...popular or not.
Who would you like to see be cosplayed? Whether it be a character from Marvel or anime, who would you like to see? And are you going to cosplay too?
What is it that you would like to see most at AnimeKon? It might not be too late to get in a suggestion! If it is though, I'm sure it'll be saved for the planning of the 3rd AnimeKon Expo!

Comment on this post with your thoughts and opinions about what's in store for AnimeKon 2011! There's a lot of other super awesome, super top secret stuff happening this year that you'll just have to find out about when July comes! ;)

You can also contact the organisers personally here.

Remembering The Anime Fangirl In Me

2011-02-26T17:49:00.002-04:00

A few things have been running through my mind lately.

I haven't made a video in 2 months! That needs to be remedied.
I'm months behind on my favourite ongoing manga series. *cry*
AnimeKon is gonna be here in a matter of months...it's practically right around the corner!

I will indeed try to fix this problem with my lack of vlogging...2 months gone already? Wow. It was just Christmas! As a matter of fact, I need to fix this problem with fun. Period. I don't have very much pleasures in life anymore. No more anime, no more manga, no more video editing. Sigh. I think the last thing I watched was...Kanon (2006). That was good.

My last frustrated-about-life-and-school post in which I said little tidbits about my recent lifestyle changes didn't include my fun life. My fun life is almost virtually nil. The hospital is a fun-sucker. Fun. Sucker. Psh. I want back my fun.

Remember this video from June last year?

Oh, yeah. Those were the days. The days of fun. I'm such a critic when I want to be (though I'm usually not).

This year, I'm very very very much looking forward to what the organisers at AnimeKon have in store! Thanks to that very honestly opinionated video I made almost a year ago, those lovely folks contacted me. That's not sarcasm...they're actually very awesome people. And I chose to help them out in whatever way I can...blogging and vlogging (maybe).

So, somewhere around 7 months ago, I made this video...

...to which I got very poor response. =[ Only two people really cared enough to answer one of my questions and they both wanted the same thing: amv contests. What would your answers be? (P.S. Important people at the high end of the AnimeKon hierarchy might just read up on your comments! Your opinions are everything =])

It's now a new year with a great new AnimeKon coming up beyond the horizon. Are you as excited as I am? If you aren't yet, you will be!

The Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-23T11:50:00.000-04:00

Okay...I know this is 2 weeks late but...

Happy Lunar New Year!

It's time to say good bye to the fierce trouble-causing year of the Tiger and welcome the more peaceful year of the Rabbit.

Wishing you all the best for this year!

Halfway Point

2011-02-23T11:46:00.002-04:00

Two weeks ago, my Surgery Clerkship came to an end. Finally. To be honest, 4 weeks of that was quite enough for me. Now I'm on Internal Medicine and I'll admittedly say that 4 weeks isn't possibly enough.

In surgery, we stayed with one firm throughout the clerkship. Medicine isn't the same. We change firms weekly along with having a number of tutorial and clinical skills sessions to attend. Frankly, you don't really get to know people on your team (except maybe the interns, maybe) and you certainly don't get to know the patients on each firm. Medicine has quite a lot of patients with so many different problems and, as we move from one firm to the next, I find it difficult to clerk patients and follow up on them as we're expected for our case books to be handed in at the end of the rotation.

I have my qualms about each of the two clerkships so far. Surgery was wonderful in that it was structured and you knew what would be happening every day but it wasn't so great in the hours and amount of work involved. Medicine is wonderful in that it has shorter hours and much more free time, the atmosphere is more relaxed but it somehow feels to have much less structure to it because I feel like I'm being rushed to learn things in my clinical skills sessions. In fact, I quite hate the clinical skills sessions because the person in charge of them (who's also in charge of the entire clerkship) is so iffy and strange. You'd think he's just being particular but he's so obsessive-compulsive over the things only he knows and ends up focussing on only those things. Hypertensive drugs aren't all there is to life and medicine!

Too often I feel frustrated about the knowledge (more specifically, the lack of it) that I'm receiving. That's not to say that nobody's teaching me things but so many things are being taught that it's not possible to remember it all, so you write them down to go home and read up but when you read, you don't remember. That's how I am. For some reason, the things I manage to study, I cannot manage to recall when I need to. It causes me to become anxious about a lot of things. Sometimes I feel like I can't really be bothered to keep up with the environment I'm now forced to work in due to my anxiety. It's difficult to shave off my fears when I can't answer a question because I can't recall what I read the night before. So now, I have difficulty even getting myself psyched to study at all. This further adds to my frustration and the fact that I don't like my team much doesn't help either.

I've reached the great halfway point of this semester. Another 6 weeks and I'll be facing my first clinical OSCE-type examination. At this point, I've been feeling a lot of negative emotions...lots of upsetting things have happened and many things continue to frustrate me but I'm going to do what I always do: continue working through my difficulties until I come out on top. I'm sure soon enough I can bid these fears good riddance. My lifestyle has changed so much and it's become so unhealthy. Working at the hospital has changed my eating habits entirely. Breakfast is at 6:30 AM (6:10 AM on surgery) and it's only cereal. On call nights (twice a week) leave me eating dinner when I get home after 10:30 PM. On surgery, lunch was any time between 12 and 5 PM but now on medicine its usually around 12 PM. Dinner is whenever I get home so that I can eat home-cooked food at least once a day. Lunch is food I purchase from the hospital cafeteria (which is terrible food that I ate for 4 weeks straight on surgery) or from any of the food places near the hospital (which I can only do now because I have the time on medicine and is better than that hospital cafeteria any day). I don't even get to drink as much water as I need anymore and I've become dehydrated.

All in all, there are a lot of intense adjustments that I need to work myself around. I don't like the hospital life or the hospital environment (though I'm not sure if that's a general feeling or just how I feel about this one). Add all that to my never-ending feeling of wanting to leave Barbados and I'd be a tortured soul. The only thing that saves me from the despair is daydreaming about learning more interesting things at Bastyr University and thinking about where I'd like to go for my electives during my next couple of years of medical school.

Escape to the Future

2011-01-31T22:48:00.000-04:00

If you've read my blog enough and you know me personally, you'll realise that I like to do a lot of daydreaming about the future. To be honest, I really do it to escape the unpleasant reality of the present.

Today, I went to one of the university on-campus housing facilities to pick up some stuff. I had to wait for about an hour for a friend of mine to be free so that I could pick up some other stuff from her place when she got home. So, I didn't bother leaving. I remained parked in front of the halls of residence and tried to do a bit of reading up for surgery. Fun as that was, I couldn't help looking up and watching people go about their business in their buildings. Almost instantly I was warped into a daydream once more...wishing, dreaming, wondering what it must be like to be living away from home...independently, for the most part. I know the day will come when I will undoubtedly have these experiences myself and I tend to look forward to it a lot.

That's not to say that I'm extremely miserable and unhappy here. Surely, I'm not at the brim of the happiness jar...I'd say it's about a 1/3 full. There are the goods and the bads and the happys and the sads, the advantages and the disadvantages to each way of life. I know I'll have the experience of both but I'm a little tired of the repetitiveness of my university.

I don't really think about how I'll escape my labyrinth. I think about having escaped it already. The how isn't an issue, so much so than the when. Regardless, since starting clinical rotations, I've been so busy that these thoughts come to me less and less but the desire to leave will never go away.

Chronically Fatigued

2011-01-29T18:26:00.001-04:00

Medical school. Clinical years = chronic fatigue. Or so it feels so far. I've only been doing this for three weeks and I'm tired of it. I'm not sure if it's the environment or the people I work with, but I'm just not finding much joy in what I've had to do so far. I'm relatively sure it's not the patients though! Like I said before, a lot of it has been ultimately frustrating and infuriating. There are hardly any highlights to my extremely long days at the hospital.

This is the pivotal mid-way point of my 5-year degree. I'm halfway through to getting my Bachelor in Medicine & Surgery. In part, I feel like the past 2.5 years has flown by faster than the Enterprise at warp speed but at the same time i can't help feeling that time isn't moving quickly enough. Over the past 48 hours, I've been feeling very much like I can't wait for the end of medical school to come. I can't wait to graduate, obtain my degree and complete my 12-month internship. I look forward so much to a future in naturopathic medicine. All my hopes and dreams and prayers are in leaving Barbados to get that degree at Bastyr University.

Of course, I could just be feeling this way because I'm not enjoying my Surgery clerkship very much. Maybe it's because I feel discouraged as much as I feel encouraged. Or maybe it's my hormones and I'm getting emotional for nothing. I'll probably be able to tell you in a week or two when surgery is over and I start a new clerkship in Internal Medicine. Although, to be honest, I'm not satisfied with the service I've been assigned to for surgery. I don't feel like I'm being taught very much when I hear about the teaching that happens in other services. Of course, I should try learning the information on my own, but these things tend to stay with me better under pressure. From what I hear, that pressure's going to be pounding me from all sides from day 1 of my medicine clerkship.

I'm chronically fatigued. In a 4-week clerkship, I only got 2 days off and took a sick day. That's 24 days of being at the hospital for a 4-week clerkship from 7 am until...anytime. I generally spend about 8-11 hours at the hospital most days and approximately 15-16 hours there for on-call days (which are every 4 days). I've gone from sleeping up to 8 hours to sleeping up to 6; from sitting in a lecture theatre all day to standing and walking all over the wards and hospital. Such a drastic lifestyle change, how could I not be constantly tired? I pray it gets better.

Ignorance Is Damaging!

2011-01-25T15:46:00.000-04:00

"You don't know that you don't know."

This is one of my surgery consultant's favourite lines.

To be honest, he doesn't know that he doesn't know anything about natural medicine. That coconut water has some very healthy properties. That cod liver oil doesn't make gallstones but prevents them. He teaches his patients and students wrongly when they ask about simple natural products and supplements. Too bad for him. I know better.

That's all I'll say here. You can read more about this and a bit more about cod liver oil on my natural health blog: here.

On The Feet

2011-01-12T20:16:00.000-04:00

My poor feet. They hurt. My heels hurt. The balls of my feet hurt. It hurts. So much walking. So much. I've been walking up and down between 3-4 floors for at least 6 hours a day...on a light day. My tibialis anterior aches...there's a first (of many firsts since starting this surgery clerkship). Oh well, it's excellent exercise so I can't complain. Honestly, there really shouldn't be any doctors of size in surgery due to all the walking we do. Our consultant still has a bit of a belly though and he walks the wards like nothing. But then, he's got years of practice on his feet. Gotta learn how to stand and walk properly.

I haven't really done much since Monday. Yesterday I sat in on out-patient appointments so, thankfully, I got to sit...albeit I sat for 5 hours and went right through the lunch hour (resulting in me growing hungry around midday, to remain that way until I had the luxury of time for food...which was when I returned home after 5). Today, for the first time this week, I was able to have some time to myself and ate lunch at 1:30! I must be learning some degree of control over my hunger reflexes since I really wasn't hungry until I got to the hospital cafeteria to see and smell the food...then I was hungry. I could be wrong, but only time will tell. I didn't get only 1 hour for food, I got 3 hours of free time! Naturally, I sat in the cafeteria and studied up on hernias.

I learn a lot on the wards when I listen to people present cases and answer the consultant's questions...so much so that some of it's lost along the way. This is why I make note of stuff I need to read up on (most urgently) as the day goes by. That, by the way, would encompass a lot of reading and a whole lot of brushing up on the anatomy I learnt 2 years ago.

On Sunday, if I get a chance, I'd like to sit and simmer in a nice little bubble bath. That sounds just spiffy!

Back to the books!

Day One

2011-01-10T23:04:00.000-04:00

It's all fun and games until it's real-life.

My feet hurt. My back hurts. I'm sleepy. I have case notes to write up and present tomorrow, so I'm told. I have stuff to read up on. I'm sleepy.

To summarise my first day in real-life medicine (surgery clerkship):
I attended an occupational health workshop in which I learnt to properly wash my hands.
Due to the workshop ending at 12:30 pm, I had to rush to the hospital to meet with my surgery clerkship coordinator at 1:00 pm. No lunch. No snacks. Nothing since breakfast at 8:00 am.
I met a couple of persons on the surgical team to which I was assigned. I discovered my team is on call.
I removed sutures and observed a urinary catheterisation and IV set up.
I missed the usual dinner time and still had no snacks. No solid food since breakfast at 8:00 am.
I watched and recorded an intern clerk a patient.
I stared at two patient X-ray films and tried to decipher them.
I left the hospital at 9:30 pm, arrived home and ate at 9:50 pm, finally.

Honestly, I'm surprised I even made it through the day with nothing but breakfast and some occasional sips of water. See how important they must be? And I was walking up and down between 3 floors all afternoon too. Between the wards and A & E. Maybe tomorrow, if I find time, I can be more detailed with my thoughts. Anyways, that's the day in a nutshell. I may have said this before: I'm sleepy.

Now, I have to go write up some case from today and head to bed. I'll have to save the fun reads till tomorrow, you know, before post-call ward rounds at 7:30 am.

Ah boy, did I mention that I'm sleepy?

SocialVibe: Support A Charity!

2011-01-10T08:00:00.001-04:00

If you've visited my blog before, you may have noticed something new (apart from the new post of course). I've added a widget in the sidebar from a website called SocialVibe which I recently joined.

SocialVibe is a website that allows you to support your favourite charities without having to actually spend money. By completing and sharing activities by sponsors with friends you can help support a cause. The sponsors will donate to your charity of choice and you'll have done a good deed!

Please, help support my choice charity! It's Hunger & Poverty which gives its donations to a number of organisations like Charity: Water and The UN World Food Programme.

Did you know that every six seconds a child dies from hunger, malnutrition and other hunger-related causes! So, give the widget in my sidebar a click to help support this cause so that the children who need it most can be fed.

Thank you!

EDIT: I decided to remove the widget but you can still help out here!

SocialVibe: Support A Charity!

2011-01-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

If you've visited my blog before, you may have noticed something new (apart from the new post of course). I've added a widget in the sidebar from a website called SocialVibe which I recently joined.

Please, help support my choice charity! It's Hunger & Poverty which gives its donations to a number of organisations like Charity: Water and The UN World Food Programme.

Thank you!

Out of the classrooms and into the clinics

2011-01-09T17:43:00.001-04:00

The time has come for me to step out of the comfort shoes I've worn for years into newer, less comfortable ones...from the comforts of classroom teaching to the mesh of real-life learning. This semester marks the transition into a new book of my life: real-life medicine. It's not all about grades and textbooks anymore. It's about what you know and your work ethic.

I'm terrified of what's to come. I know what to expect but at the same time, I don't. I'm slightly overwhelmed at the prospect of what's to come and slightly excited. There's so much to learn. The old study habits now have to go away, for good this time. If I intend to be the doctor I want to be, there's no room for bad study habits. I've walked this far now, there's no turning back.

Naturally, this calls for quite a bit of prioritising and sacrificing. I've done this already so I'm not so far behind. It's time to put these goals into practice. Once successful, Facebook should become obsolete and Twitter should be rarely visited. I'll still be around, just not quite like before. Computer time should generally be reduced and I've virtually already cut off instant messaging unless the need arises for its use. Things are gonna be a bit different with the way I'm schooled now as move into the clinical years of medical school and my lifestyle needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Of course, I'd never give up my complementary & alternative health blog for as long as I can help it! I'm going to try posting every 4 days, if possible. So, be sure to keep up there. Natural medicine is my passion, I couldn't possibly give up on the source that keeps me searching for new information in the field as I prepare myself for a degree in naturopathic medicine (most preferably at Bastyr University!). Blogging is a fun temporary escape from the throws of life so I'll still be posting here as well! =)

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. ~ Samuel Johnson

Bidding Farewell to 2010

2010-12-30T11:50:00.001-04:00

Happy holidays! I'm wishing you all a great and prosperous new year!

Hello. It's been awhile. I must admit: I've been neglecting this blog somewhat. There have been things that I've been wanting to post about throughout the month but just don't. I'm sorry =(

The good news is that I haven't been neglecting this blog for nothing. I started a much less personal, more informative blog about complementary and alternative medicine. One of the few things I'm ultimately passionate about. I started it on Tumblr and it's been doing relatively well. Then I decided that I'd take it onto a different interface, Wordpress. This was for the convenience of persons unfamiliar Tumblr accounts so that they could leave comments, questions and suggestions while viewing posts and quotes on a much neater website.

Please, take a look at either (according to your preference) and share the knowledge of good health with others!

That's what I've been up to lately. I, personally, think there's nothing better that I can offer you right now than the knowledge of health and healing, naturally.

After a few weeks of looking around and comparing natural health schools, I've come to a decision about the ones I'm looking to apply to in 2013. I've mentioned the Canadian College of Natural Medicine before - this is now my second choice. My first choice is Bastyr University, a natural medicine school that stands at the top of all others. This is where I have high hopes of obtaining my much anticipated Naturopathic Doctor degree.

This month has been very natural medicine oriented for me. I'm determined more than ever to complete my current degree in allopathic medicine and move forward to my naturopathic degree. And, more than that, I want to share the knowledge of natural health to the world...it's nothing short of my largest goal in life: To educate the public about what true healthcare is.

If you know me, you'll know that this is nothing new. Although, if you know me, you probably didn't even know what it was that I'm ultimately working towards. Only after educating myself can I educate others, and so it is my "short" term goals that you may know me to have. I use the term "short" loosely as I'm planning for my naturopathic degree which I apply for in 3 years...for some, this is pretty far off. Should all go well, I could very well have an N.D. added onto my M.B.B.S. in 8 years. I can only plan...after all, many things can happen in that span of time and I will, of course, adapt accordingly.

All this to say one thing: my new year's resolution for 2011 is to continue to share what little knowledge I carry about complementary and alternative medicine with others and to learn what little I can as I continue my studies in medical school.

What's your resolution for 2011?

mmm Cheesecake!

2010-12-12T22:10:00.000-04:00

The main ingredients!

This is no secret: I love cheesecake.

This is also no secret: I don't cook. I don't bake. I basically don't like the heat that's exuded from every cooking surface.

I would very much like to learn how to bake a cheesecake though! So, my Mom and I embarked on a mission: to make the best cheesecake we can!

Attempt #1: crustless cheesecake. Total failure.

We left it in too long and it ended up like a gelatin sorta dessert. It may have had something to do with the addition of flour...but I don't know. It would've been nice...if it had more sugar. We ate a bit of it and then just threw it out. It had no flavour to it really.

Attempt #2: cheesecake with crust. Semi success.

This one turned out pretty well! We left out some ingredients this time: vanilla extract and flour. We also didn't bother to leave it in the oven like one recipe had suggested. It turned out more like cheesecake and tasted more like cheesecake but it was too sweet! My Mom thought to put in a bit more sugar this time but we forgot that the crust would have sugar in it as well...so it was too sweet! x3

I worked with my Mom on this so I can't really just take the credit for it. Hopefully attempt #3 will be a total hit! We've had to experiment with the temperature and timing of the baking process because we aren't using a regular oven. We're using a convection oven so the baking occurs at a much faster pace and would be needed at a lower temperature. The recommended 90 minutes of oven time at 325 degrees followed by 250 degrees obviously wouldn't work for us. We had to assume about half the 90 minutes would be okay timing (we went with about 50 minutes). We didn't really play with the temperature so that may be why it ended up so golden brown at the edges - the middle was a little too soft too. So, next time we'll be lowering the temperature some.

It just takes a few simple ingredients to make a simple cheesecake but a LOT of money is spent for it. I'm not sure what it's like overseas, but in Barbados the ingredients are expensive to buy (especially now that VAT is now 17.5%). The little tin of sour cream alone could cost about $5; the crust about $10; the cheese...similar to the sour cream; then there's sugar and eggs; and I couldn't believe the dressing for it sells for almost $30 in the supermarket! (We so did not buy that!) Don't forget, there's also the expense in electricity.

So, here's a lesson to learn: when you see a whole cheesecake selling for $45 BDS, that's CHEAP (though, it may be more like $50-something now). Especially when it comes with the tasty lovely $30 topping. And don't forget, people are paid for manual labour as well!

Christmas Break Ahead

2010-12-11T14:32:00.000-04:00

In precisely 5 days, I will be freed from the stress presented by final examinations. Then, Christmas break begins.

It's only too often that I speak about what I want to do with my future. If you ask me what I plan to be doing in 5 years, I'd say "I'll be in a naturopathic school." In 10? I'll be a graduated naturopathic doctor working hard to fulfill my goals.

But what of the near future? Say...Christmas break? Don't worry, I've got that all planned out as well. I don't focus only on the distant future. The unfortunate thing is that I don't tend to keep to the plans of the near future quite as well. I wonder why. Regardless, I've got a ton of things to do this upcoming break and less time to do it in. As I progress through medical school, not only is my summer vacation disintegrating, so is my Christmas. This year, I've got a solid 3 weeks or so. Here's what I've got planned in no particular order of importance:

Read! With 3 weeks before I start clinical rotations, I'll need to catch up on whatever information I possibly can! I'll probably sit and read Macleod's Clinical Examination...maybe 30 minutes a day? If possible, I'd quite like to include some more relaxing titles. I have yet to complete my read of the Left Behind series so I'd like to get a little further!
Create DVDs! You're probably wondering 'why' and 'what for?'. I have still to complete the editing for the incredibly fun karaoke night the M.S.A. had planned during freshers week for an M.S.A. events DVD! I also have to look through and edit the 100+ videos I took while in Shanghai for DVD placement. A slideshow with my hundreds of photos as well. All of that, for my family (and friends too if they care to watch).
Shanghai scrapbook! I have a ton of little tidbits that I picked up here and there during my trip to Shanghai and brought it all home with me. I figure it would be nice to put together a little scrapbook of it all rather than throw it all out.
ND schools scrapbook! Or something like it. I've chosen my favourite 4 N.D. schools that I plan to apply to in just less than 3 years' time. But first, I want to find out as much information as I possibly can for each!
Get caught up on TV series! There are a few series that I've been neglecting over the past few weeks so I'll be catching up on those. In addition to that, I started watching The Big Bang Theory and so I'll continue watching until I'm all caught up.
Watch anime! Psh. As if I could not include anime in my vacation plans! It's always there, it's just a matter of having the time for it.
Learn to bake cheesecake! I'll actually be making the first attempt with my Mom this weekend. Or...she may just make the attempt on her own since I have to study. I'll probably help though! But I'll learn to make it myself, for sure!

It's a fairly long list filled with a number of time consuming activities. How much of it will I be able to complete in 3 weeks? Only time will tell. We'll see how it goes. As long as I don't waste my days away playing The Sims 3.

Days Come & Go

2010-12-06T15:17:00.001-04:00

The days are passing by quickly and slowly. Quickly, because I haven't been studying much for the exams I have which start in 2 days. Slowly, because there's so much I'd like to do but can't since exams are coming up and I need to be studying. You know how it is, when you want something after a particular date, it just seems to come too slowly.

It's December. The final month of the year. The month honoured to usher in the new year...on the Gregorian calendar, at least. The month with the festive holiday celebrated in most places around the year. The month that children look forward to presents and cookies and cakes and all sorts of holiday foods. The month I have final examinations.

Time has passed so much faster than I could anticipate. It seems like just yesterday I returned from my Shanghai trip. To me, those memories are still fresh as ever in my mind: the scents, the emotions, the environment, the food, the language, the people. This is why I like to travel - for the new and rejuvenating feeling, the fun and adventures that I'll never have at home. It saddens me to know that I won't be travelling this Christmas holiday.

The next week and half will come and go, faster than I'll anticipate yet slower than I'd like. These days will be filled with the strains of examinations and studying and will hold no more than 5% fun (because I refuse to miss out on watching The Vampire Diaries - otherwise there'd be 0).

See you in a few days.

Tomas Comes & Goes

2010-10-30T21:17:00.004-04:00

See my related YouTube video!: Clicky

Today, Barbados was the first target of the tropical wave turned tropical storm turned hurricane, Tomas, a fiesty storm with a lot of spunk to share. Without warning, we were hit with brutal winds and rain. Tomas was reported as a strong tropical wave on Friday evening and by 11pm the same night, Barbados was under hurricane warning. How did that happen?

I went to bed one night to some overcast skies and a little rain and I was woken up by a text from my cousin celebrating that she didn't have to do her music exam today because the island's on lockdown. Wait. What? On lockdown? What happened overnight?! I'm a pretty heavy sleeper so I really didn't hear the gusts of winds and heavy showers that went on while I was living happily in dreamland. Oh, and then I realised that electricity had left us.

Photo by: Kreigg Yearwood

We don't have a battery operated radio at home but I was lucky to have charged up my battery last night! So that was my radio for the day. Listening in on 94.7 FM, I heard of all the damages and atrocities happening around the island by, at the time, tropical storm Tomas. Things were pretty light in my area but it sounded to me that St. John had the biggest burden. Roofs went flying, pailings went flying, trees started falling and taking some power lines down with them. One lady even reported that a power line in front her home was on fire. And a few people lost their homes to the strong gusts that wound up to hurricane force winds in some parts of the island. Poor souls. Lucky for them, there are people around who are willing to lend some homeless families shelter.

Photo by: Stefon Griffith

Tropical storm Tomas was upgraded to a category 1 hurricane by 11 a.m. this morning. Err? Yeah, that's right. A tropical wave became a hurricane in much less than 24 hours (I'd say about 15 hours). And Barbados was in the centre of it all. Slightly unusual, no?

Waking up at 5:40 a.m. and being without electricity for the following 11 hours, I've had a rather uneventful day and some difficulty studying for my upcoming exam on Thursday. At the moment, it's still a bit windy and rainfall has been heavily on and off all afternoon. With the reinstatement of my electricity, came the re-establisment of my internet and so, here I am! Unfortunately, many parts of the island won't be so lucky as they'll be without electricity over the next few days as the Barbados Light & Power works hard to fix the fallen poles and broken lines.

Who'll be in line for Tomas' terror next?

Feel free to comment and share your Tomas experience here. =)

Indications of Change

2010-10-25T22:52:00.003-04:00

Everyone goes through various stages of life trying to find who they are and what they like. People are constantly changing as they grow.

When I was a little girl, I used to love the colour pink, Barbie, long nails, nail polish, long hair, dresses and wearing my Mom's oversized shoes. A was truly an adorable little girl.

When I was a youthful teenager, I developed a nasty hate for the colour pink, discarded any prior attachments to Barbies, left behind my positive feelings about heels and pretty much became a tomboy who liked dark nail polish, long hair and nails. When I started taekwondo, the nail polish and long nails went "bye bye!" and I happily left them behind. By then, I developed this interest in awesome baggy pants and had couldn't give a care in the world about things like make up or fashion. In fact, those things were virtually non-existent to me.

Ever since I've entered medical school, I've evolved further into another person altogether. I still have quite the distaste for the colour pink, grew to like heels (but only thick ones that aren't any taller than 3"! Those pointy stick heels are absolutely absurd), grew out of the baggy pants but still prefer pants over skirts. I'm starting to grow to like skirts too! I still like my nails short, but that's because it's easier to handle my touchscreen accessories with short nails...or, no nails. I'm not a big fan of nail polish because it's like poison to your nails. Bad stuff. My hair? I'm absolutely loving it short these days and that's because I have problems with keeping it long. Recently, I've gained an interest in make up.
It's interesting to think back on my interests in previous stages of my development and I often wonder how I will further develop in the future...at some point, I'll reach a level that's just right for me. I've developed reasons for the things I do as life moves along...like my reasons for keeping my hair and nails short, and why I don't use nail polish.

In much the same way as a single cell develops into a talented human being, I'm developing. I'm changing. I'm learning. I'm growing.

What about you? Have you ever sat down to think about how you've evolved over the years?

This was my reflection on my physical appearance and interests over the past 20 years. As for my personality and internal development, I guess I can save that for later. =)

I'll tell you one thing that hasn't ever wavered: my love for cute things and stuffed animals!

Looking Towards The Future

2010-10-22T23:12:00.001-04:00

This past week, I've been absolutely obsessed with one thing in the whole entire world: Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine!

I've looked at a couple of naturopathic schools, gracefully skipping over the ones in the U.S. If you're wondering why, it's just because, for some reason, I'm not very fond of having to reside in America for any length of time. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just New York that I'm uncomfortable with, but the country just doesn't sit with me very well. Granted, I haven't visited many other states...I've been to Florida but my memories there are too vague. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to visit and I'd very much like to visit other states in the U.S.

So, I've looked towards Canada and England. I haven't found any places in England that's really caught my eye the way CCNM has managed to. In fact, I'm starting to wonder how it so firmly managed to gain my priority attention. Maybe, just maybe, it was meant to be. Things just happen like that, you know?

CCNM is a very well accredited naturopathic school that would allow me to practice as a naturopathic doctor (N.D.) in Canada and U.S. states that allow such practices. It's got a rivetingly rigorous programme that would seriously challenge one's mind and skills. Clinic work is even incorporated from semester 1! I think that's pretty amazing. And the degree encompasses a wide range of natural medicine techniques from acupuncture, botanical medicine, hydrotherapy and Asian diagnosis techniques (such as pulse and tongue diagnosis)! It's amazing! It's just so exciting!

I've been looking at the website every day since the day I discovered it and I manage to find new information floating about. I've even found a Survival Manual from last year on the Naturopathic Students' Association (N.S.A.) website. It's an excellent guide for people (like myself) who are unfamiliar with Toronto and the general area, as well as a basic guide for surviving first year. I've discovered a list of clubs at the college, the nearest food places, shopping places, health food stores, subway exits and more. It's just been all fun for me.

Now, if you've managed to read this far into my slightly obsessive post, you may (or may not) be thinking that I'm a little crazy for finding all this information for a school that I cannot attend for, at least, another 4 years. Yeah, that's right, I've mapped out my future for, probably, the next 4-8 years. So, I know exactly what I want in life, big deal. You may be thinking "Geez, why don't you just focus on the studies at hand so that you could get good grades to make it into the school!" Well, you should read my previous post.

I've lost any motivation I once had to properly study for medical school. It's been one boring day after the other and I feel like I'm being taught little in my classes. No motivation = No studying. Discovering CCNM has lit a fire in me that no other school or programme I've seen has managed to do. I'm motivated to do well once more because I have something to work towards...somewhere to work towards. An escape. A dream, almost forgotten.

Of course, there's also the fact that I don't know what kind of procedures would be necessary for me to apply to CCNM. Now that I know, I know it's not exactly the simplest procedure and I know that my university is far from efficient. So, it's best to learn these things early so that I'm properly prepared and don't waste any time in life.

That almost-forgotten dream? I remember when I made the resolution like it was this morning.

More complaints...

2010-10-17T22:42:00.006-04:00

Dear all,

I've not forgotten you. I could never so easily forsake my blog without any forewarning (though I'm sure I've gone much longer without making an entry). Life has just been...a bore.

This is more or less the set up of the class I'm in. Every day. Minus the American flag. It often feels like I'm in secondary school again. The only upgrade is that I'm in a building with solid walls, roof and floor. I basically spent my final year of secondary school in a broken down shack. Not that I'm complaining.

Often, I wish we could make use of our own lecture theatre on campus but that's a dream that will have no chance for realisation. I'm moving over to the clinical setting next year. That lovely lecture theatre I'd like to have my lectures in? No more of that. But day by day, I drive to campus, sign a sheet of paper with each hour of class I'm in to indicate that I was indeed present because attendance is oh-so-important, you know, just like when we were in primary school.

A daily routine of sleeping, eating, going to class, eating, going to more classes, eating, studying and sleeping once more (with some showers here and there to keep clean) has taken it's toll. I've been doing this for 16 years of my life without a break in between and, you know what? I'm tired of it. Tired of living the same days over and over again. Tired to the point where I've no motivation to pick up a book and study anymore. No motivation. Every opportunity for a break from this cycle is welcome. That's partly why I'm glad I joined the M.S.A...it brings the only difference in my current academic life. Starting January, there'll be more hands-on experience and not-as-much classroom experience and I'm looking forward to that, immensely.

It's no secret that I've been dying to leave the island too. The life I live here is, as stated above, quite routine. A cycle of daily events. There's little else to do in the country and I can't do anything about it. Today, I gave myself a little excitement: I searched for naturopathic schools in Canada. I searched for naturopathic schools in England awhile ago too. I know these two territories are great places for me to obtain the degree I strive for. Search and search and I found the one I'd absolutely love to go to for my ND: Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine.

So, watch out Toronto, I'm making my way over in 4 years' time. Wait for it. My great escape.

Proper Supplementation?

2010-10-05T20:20:00.001-04:00

I'll admit that I'm not really a big listener when it comes to class these days. For some reason, they bore me and don't keep my interest for more than 30 minutes, if so much. Those that I can listen to for an hour or more are certainly the interesting ones. That said, this semester we're doing a course in human nutrition. In my most honest opinion, all doctors desperately need to know about human nutrition...desperately. So, I'm glad that it's a part of the degree here.

Who better to teach a course about nutrition than a dietitian? Well, I can actually think of more qualified persons for that role. Regardless, this is one of the persons we have teaching the course...the others, know little of nutrition. As previously stated, I'm not a big listener in class and the dietitian is impeccably boring to listen to but, from the little I have attempted to hear, dietitians (or maybe just this one?) are only knowledgeable in diets and food nutrition. You must be wondering, what more do they need to know? Well, I'm certainly being taught about supplementation where needed but the knowledge in this aspect of nutrition is so mightily limited that a biochemist could teach this same information.

What a bore. And a disappointment.

This is why doctors who do happen to know something about supplementation and natural products don't actually know how to properly use/suggest them. Because they're not properly taught. Not even basic general things about supplements like the fact that not all brands are good for everyone. The cheaper 'brands' are incredibly low quality compared to the more costly ones and so they do very little to supplement the body's need. And then there's the fact that one brand that may do well for one person may not do so well for another.

But such is life. This is how doctors and medical students are taught. If they want to learn about all aspects of nutrition in its proper form, they'll probably have to go to a natural medicine school...or make good friends with alternative or complimentary medicine practitioners, though that sort of relationship isn't very common. Why? Because, for some reason, consultants in natural medicine and conventional medicine manage to clash instead of mesh. And I must add, it would actually be rather beneficial for the medical and wider community if everyone got along instead of bashed each other's treatment/management options. That's all I have to say.

Mini-Series? =o

2010-09-23T18:39:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm not promising anything here. Don't get your hopes up!

Have you met Tim? Well, here he is. A man who's 1 cm tall and has a curiosity for the (giant) human body. I did this one up a little while ago but it took me awhile before I got all psyched up for the voiceover. It's finally out though!

I had a friend suggest to me that Tim should have a little series of his own. His little adventures into the human body. An internal explorer. An internal biology teacher. Of course, for that to happen, I'll have to bend the realm of reality a little...oh wait...I already did, 1 cm tall stick men named Tim don't exist. =)

The only thing about this suggestion, as lovely as it is, is that creating Tim and scripting his adventures takes time! As a medical student, time is incredibly valuable and I'd like to know beforehand: Do you think Tim should have his own series?

I'm Tired

2010-09-17T20:43:00.000-04:00

You know that saying that goes "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach"? I'm like that...but with life in general. I tend to take on just a little more than I can apparently handle and have this habit of falling just a little bit behind.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I take on as many tasks as I know I can handle. My only problem is that I'm incredibly good at wasting my time. Now, I like to keep really busy so that's why I've been doing all that I've been doing lately and that's perfectly fine. I can easily have very sufficiently efficient days. But if I get tired, the way the stress of last weekend left me, I tend to get rather lazy and fall behind. As a result, I'm behind on work at school despite the fact that I'd really like to read up the necessary information.

I typically spend a grand portion of my days on computers and I've become accustomed to that...to staring at a big 17" screen all day long. But I'm tired of it. A lot of my reading material happens to be online and that's fine...it's printable. But I'm even given chapters on Google Books to read and that's just not very efficient to me but at the same time...I don't want to read them on the computer. So it's like, hmmm, what to do? Somehow, I end up catching up on Naruto or sleeping.

The joys of stress; of being tired; of university.

Boooooring!

2010-09-10T09:27:00.001-04:00

Medical students are work-oriented individuals; studying is impeccably important. Nobody's dumb in medical school, one has to be smart to get in and then be smart enough to stay. For typical medical students, the importance of work relative to play is pretty much like this:

work > play

I'm perfectly fine with that as long as no one works all the time and cuts out all elements of fun and enjoyment in life. Anyone would go crazy, literally. Work hard, play hard...that way, all the stress from work feels worth it when you take a little break. It's like studying: try studying non-stop for 8 hours. How many people can actually accomplish that? Few. The little breaks help us to sit back and see how much work we've accomplished, to let it settle in a little before we continue.

So, a little fun before the work bares it's ugly fangs is perfectly fine. It's a pity our freshmen can't see that yet. Maybe in a year's time. How boring that they don't understand the importance of play and interaction with fellow medical students.

This week has been so upsetting, frustrating and disappointing for a lot of reasons. I'm already falling behind...the worst thing anyone should have to do is play catch up in med school. I can't wait for the week to conclude. I'll pick up a book and enter 'boring mode'...forgetting the week ever happened.

To think...this week was the only reason for wanting to start the new semester. Bah.

Jetlag

2010-09-04T21:56:00.000-04:00

My last (and only) cup of coffee in Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

Jetlag.

I've returned to this place I currently call home. I had an amazing time in China. I miss Hong Kong already.

Classes commence first thing Monday morning. The joys of class and sitting in lectures, of seeing good friends and not paying attention to the lecture; the joys of my typical university life. Returning to the daily rituals and study sessions. Missing friends, old and new, experiencing great things overseas. Looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends at the start of this fresh academic year.

Details of my trip to come once my circadian rhythm has lined up with my current time zone...

Departing For Awesome Experiences

2010-08-24T17:08:00.003-04:00

The time is soon here. I'll be flying away from Barbados. After three flights (one lasting up to 16 hours), I'll arrive at wonderful Shanghai! I'm so incredibly excited!!! I've been waiting for the day to come for 2 months and, in two blinks, it's here. Before I know I'll be returning to Barbados after another three flights. But it's okay because I would've had an immense amount of fun and travel.

I know China to be an extremely hot place. I complain about the heat here but I can't wait to see just how much hotter it is there. Last I knew, temperatures go up to 40 degrees Celsius there. I wonder what the humidity is like there, though. Hopefully it's not very humid because I get more than enough of that here...

Anyways, just a quick post to say "Bye!" =) I won't have direct access to this blog, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube while I'm there (courtesy of The Great Firewall). I'll try making posts from my email if I have decent internet access and time. Hopefully, it can work out well that way so that I can sort of keep you all with me as I go day by day. =)

P.S. This post was done through my email account...kind of like a test to see how things go. If I manage to make posts as I'd like to from China and images seem to be aligned anywhere but center or have funny sizes, then...that's just how Gmail attaches images. =)

Letting Go of The Unnecessities

2010-08-22T18:33:00.000-04:00

A lot of people are caught up in their lives doing the most trivial things. These are the things that keep them busy all day long but what purpose does it serve, apart from consuming our precious time? What does it really benefit?

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." - Carl Sandburg

There are so many small distractions that make perfect time wasters, wasting time by the hour. Facebook applications, reading up on the lives of celebrities, website after website, what purpose do these really serve? Will these benefit us or the people around us?

This year, I've become more involved in a lot of things. Now a certified biofeedback technician and treasurer of the Medical Students' Association has given me more responsibilities to aid, not only for my own life, but the lives of so many individuals. As a result, I've started giving up much of these trivial time-wasting things.

I've deleted a number of Facebook applications, leaving one which I know I'll be deleting soon enough. I no longer care about what happens in the lives of celebrities. They live their lives however they please and there's no need for me to waste my time reading up and watching videos about them on fan-based websites. What's the point? If someone tells me about it, then so be it but I will no longer give my time to these things.

There are still many things to let go of...I'm slowly letting go one by one. The fan-based celebrity websites were the first to go, followed by my recent deletion spree of applications on Facebook. Needless to say, I've had a few friends say something to me about the deleting.

This is Earth and it's moon seen from Mercury. Image from Discovery.

When you see things like this, you realise that Earth, in itself, is such a minuscule blob in an expansive galaxy which, among galaxies, is small. Why do we dwell on the unimportant? Why not dwell on the beneficial? Why do we search for ways to waste time when we can spend it wisely instead? How about you pick up that hobby you've been dying to do again? How about you learn a new language? Why not prune those abilities and give them a polish? If you don't feel you're particularly good at anything then maybe you'll want to look to discover that thing you're good at. We're all good at one thing, whether you know what it is or not.

It may be a small world we live in but I'd like to be able to make a difference in it. After all, I only have one life and a short one at that.

Did you know that Earth and it's moon appear as a double planet from Mercury?

Pop It

2010-08-20T11:43:00.000-04:00

I like my popcorn one of three ways: hot and buttery, hot and salty or hot and cheesy. Either way, I like it hot but why does it have to cool down so quickly? As a result, I've rarely purchased hot popcorn from our theatre in Barbados and so, I rarely purchase popcorn at all.

Thanks to my little kernel incident last November, I've become pretty cautious of popcorn. I take my time chewing ~~one by one~~ little by little. Chew chew chew...there's no need to rush down popcorn. When it gets cold, it gets cold...I prefer it hot but I'll eat it anyways. Food is food...who's to complain? =)

I say all this now to make absolutely no valid point. Just a random post about popcorn. Yum.

10 Days before my disappearance

2010-08-15T16:14:00.000-04:00

It's been an indecent 14 days since I last made a blog entry! I figured it was about time I remedied that.

I've been incredibly busy the past 2 weeks...doing a course, practicing what I've learnt and trying to learn more! Meanwhile, I still have a research project report to type up and hand in by next week. I'm no good at biostatistics and 1.5 weeks of cram teaching taught me next to nothing about it so it's relatively safe to say that I'm feeling very lost with this research business.

Whenever I get frustrated with school, I have a tendency to look for a distraction. This time my distraction is Roswell. I never really got to watch it when I was younger and I had the link to all 3 seasons sitting there in my bookmarks. I started watching and now I'm at episode 12. My oh my. If the only available links weren't megavideo, I would have a difficult time stopping myself from watching episode after episode like a marathon. The 54 minute break lets me work on my report but I get frustrated with it fairly often. Roswell is as good as I always hear it to be! =)

In exactly 10 days' time...I'll be disappearing from the face of the internet! Everyone must know by now where I'll be going...China! I'm so incredibly excited! The Shanghai World Expo is gonna be a blast. Not to mention, I get to see a friend again! The one I mentioned a few times before who's studying there. He's working at the Barbados booth at the expo and he's having such a great time...I'm so envious! Or at least I was. Now that I get to go to the expo myself, I'm pretty satisfied with life. =)

That Feeling You Get

2010-08-01T22:29:00.000-04:00

Many persons were not aware of this: I'm currently in Trinidad. I'll be here until Wednesday and then I'll be returning home. My trip wasn't entirely planned from awhile ago like my trips usually are...it was done just the week before. So, what am I in Trinidad for?

I'm currently taking a certificate course in Biofeedback Basic Training. Basically, I'm trained to use a machine. But, there's more than that. Maybe someday I'll explain this in greater detail.

"Energy is all there is." - Albert Einstein

This is the concept with which this training revolves. One must be open in mind, spirit and body to accept the weight and possibilities and challenges involved with what we're currently learning about. Open the mind to the energies around you.

Doesn't it sound interesting? Someday I'll talk about it.

My class consists of 8 people: from The Wellness Center in Barbados and the Center for Disease Prevention in Trinidad...my parents' companies. These people are being trained to use this system. Our ages vary but most people are in their 30s and 40s. I'm the youngest person being trained. Some people are very open and acceptable and don't undermine me. But, you know what? There's one person who is not. No words need to be said. I just know that this individual doesn't seem to believe in my capability...or merely refuses to accept it. You know that feeling you get when someone doesn't listen to what you're saying (even though you're right) because they think you're inferior? Surely, you do.

It's a bit of a rant from here on. Feel free to read...or not read.

Because this blog is read by so many people close to me that I'm unaware of, I won't even be specific about the gender of this individual. When this person does something and I question the reliability of what is being done, the response I receive is one that has the undertone of "who do you think you are to be asking that?". When this person turns out to be wrong and I interject with what is actually correct, the defensive position is suddenly taken and I start to feel attacked. It's like "you're not the tutor, you really think you know so much more than me?" -_-

The question is not that I know more or less. We are in the same class. We are learning the same thing from the same person. But, you know what? You may not be absorbing as much information as I am. You may not remember every single word that was said. I'm not saying that I remember every word but I do remember most. Once I pay attention and I'm engaged in what's being taught, I tend to soak in and retain information like a Bounty paper towel. Once this individual starts getting defensive, I instinctively do the same and then I will quote precisely what this person said and when they said it. Of course, no one's gonna just let go. This person? Refuses to admit to being wrong. How prideful.

Remember what I said about being open to the idea of energy and this course? Energy is a flowing life force and we have to learn to understand it. That is what this is about. How can you be open to the ideas that are being placed on the plates before us if you can't even be open to the idea that someone twice younger than you can correct you when you're wrong? How ironic.

How pathetic.

M@D!

2010-07-29T13:18:00.000-04:00

So, I'm one of those people who'll gladly waste their time watching anime music videos. Wow. I follow a couple of really good amv creators on YouTube and my favourite so far happens to be Soulvws who, might I add, is Barbadian. So much talent!

So, anyways, his latest upload was a M@D. Of course, I'm like, what's that?? I'm still looking into it as I don't really have the clearest idea quite yet. I just know that classic M@D videos are created by Japanese people and, so, originates from Japan. They're kind of like anime music videos, except you won't always find that the sources used are anime.

Soulvws' M@D video - using still images from various anime series

I searched around a bit and found this really amazing one:

Bad Apple - This M@D was created using original animation!

I wanted to embed it but was getting a lot of trouble. You can watch it in the link above. The people on the website describes it as a masterpiece and I have to say that I totally agree. It's really great and quite an original work. Loved it!

So, I'll probably try to look into it some more. It looks like really interesting stuff. Like amvs but not quite? Something like that, I guess.

Shanghai In One Month's Time!

2010-07-24T13:20:00.000-04:00

It's been over a week since my last post and I feel like I haven't been posting as much as I should lately! For that, I apologise.

In precisely 1 month, I'll find myself on the other side of the world. It's so exciting to think about! I've said it before but, in case you don't know, I'll be making my way over to wonderful Shanghai to head out to the Shanghai World Expo that I've mentioned before and visit some other lovely sites in the city. I'll also be making a one-day stop in Hong Kong so that I get to see my family and breathe in the city air I love so much. One day in Hong Kong, surely it will satisfy me until my next visit, right?

Sometimes, I miss it there so much it hurts.

The research course that I've been doing the past 5 weeks is driving me crazy. I have a test on Monday that I can only pray for the best for. So, until next time!

*scurries off to cram*

Durability

2010-07-16T15:52:00.000-04:00

What's more durable than a Nokia? I have no idea. If you can tell me what mobile phone company produces more durable products than Nokia, do let me know.

During the past week my dearest Nokia N97 mini has been through so much! It's the most unbelievable thing. I'm starting to think technology is rebelling against me despite all the love I have for it. No worries, though! I'm in ownership of a Nokia!

This little piece of tech must be one of the smartest decisions I've ever made (the other being the switch from PC to Mac). My Nokia has taken numerous falls onto hard tiled floors. Numerous.

Last Saturday, it slipped out of my pants' pocket as I was lifting my pair of jeans off of the bed (my bed's about 3 ft high) and fell to the floor with the most unpleasant sound ever. The result: the back cover came off and landed on one side of the phone, and my battery popped right out and landed on the other side. The keyboard shot open and the phone lay open (like the photo above) screen down on the floor. It looked like a disaster had struck. But like with any Nokia that has suffered through such a fall, I just popped everything into place and everything was good as new.

On Wednesday, it slipped off my seat in the lecture theatre at school and landed on the step below. Not a simple slip, fall and land. It went a lot more like: slip, fall, land, bounce off step, fall, land on the step below. Yikes. Two falls. I was devastated. After Saturday's fall, I was afraid it wouldn't work this time. It hadn't fallen apart but it did land on it's screen once more. I picked it up and all was fine. Phew!

As my phone has a touchscreen interface, I was so afraid of what would happen. With hard falls like those, something could crack below and then the touch sensitivity may just go kaput! That was my fear anyway. But no such thing has happened and I'm hoping it never will. This thing was expensive, you know!

Had such things happened to any other touchscreen phone, I'm not so sure I would be happily typing up this post. So, thank you, Nokia, for not making your touchscreen phones that much less durable than all your others.

Nokia, I ♥ you. Please, don't ever fail me.

Flipped Out!

2010-07-10T13:35:00.004-04:00

Some of you may or may not be aware that I'm in current ownership of a popular Cisco product: the Flip Mino HD (2nd gen).

Two nights ago, it totally flipped out on me and went bonkers (pun intended). Now, it refuses to turn on and I'm upset! The thing that upsets me the most is the fact that this is the second Flip that I've had. The first one I purchased had a very faulty screen and so I had to send it back and got it replaced with this one. It was working quite fine and well until the night before. In fact, I had used it during the day and had transferred all my videos and left it plugged into my laptop to charge before it started going crazy on me.

I think my relationship with Cisco's Flip pocket camcorders is just not meant to be. I've begun the search for a totally new camcorder. A proper one, rather than this conveniently portable pocket camcorder. And so, I look to Canon. I've been desiring Canon equipment lately and, as I can't afford to own a lovely DSLR camera, I do believe a camcorder will suffice very well. I've been researching...looking at lists, reviews and videos, I think I've pretty much decided on the VIXIA HF M31 which looks like this:

Doesn't it look yummy? I think it does. It's a very well equipped HD camcorder with a 2.7" touchscreen panel. Delish~. The only complaint I've seen from all the reviews that I've read is the battery life of the battery that comes in the box. So, many people purchase a larger battery pack and a separate charger. Which I believe I'll do...because approximately 1 hour of recording time just isn't cutting it. Otherwise, everything seems well up to par and I'm considering the purchase.

I'm feeling kind of excited about it! Just to note, I really wasn't this excited when I decided on buying the Flip. I guess I really shouldn't have bought it but it's too late now. I'm excited about this, so I'm sure this will work out well for a change. =)

If anyone happens to have any better suggestions for a camcorder, do let me know and I'll look into it!

Life In A Day

2010-07-07T17:49:00.002-04:00

Today on YouTube Spotlight: Life In A Day.

Kevin Macdonald and Ridley Scott will work with the entire YouTube community to create a feature film that will be used in the Sundance Film Festival January 2011! What do you do? All that's required is that you pick up your camera and film your day (or someone else's) on July 24 2010! Anything you want, however you want. From the mundane to the extreme, they want it all. Then these guys will check out the (probably) millions of submissions and choose what they'd like to use to best express what's happening around the world in one day. Isn't that amazing?

You don't have to have a fancy camera (just one that shoots with good quality) and you don't have to be an expert with videos. Just hit record and upload. Videos are submitted to their YouTube channel and can be done any time between July 24 -31.

It sounds like fun! I'll definitely give it a go. Check the lifeinaday channel for loads more information! If you're interested, you should give it a shot too! It's kind of exciting! =D

The Sands of Time

2010-07-04T13:01:00.000-04:00

On Old Year's Night 2006, I sat in my friend's house and watched all my guy friends have a go at one game until 3 a.m. New Year's Day 2007: Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time.

Not once did I pick up a controller and attempt to play it myself but, surely, it was interesting to watch. I distinctly remember watching as my friend, Mark, was about to die he would do something that turned back time and engulfed the character in sand. I found it an interesting thing to do...mainly because he did it so often. It was an entertaining morning.

A memory hidden away in the back of my mind, this came back to me last night after I watched the movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. A movie I found to be rather enjoyable but not so enjoyable that I would purchase the DVD to watch time and time again. It was a one-time-watch sort of movie for me and I wouldn't mind watching it again but paying to do so once is enough.

Admittedly, I haven't seen very many of Jake Gyllanhaal's movies but the few that I have, I've enjoyed and Prince of Persia is no exception. After all, how many girls could deny the stunningly hot bod that Jake built and toned in this movie? It was a relatively good movie, regardless.

As one who knows little of the game itself, I wonder how this movie turned out for the big fans of the game. I'll have to ask my friends after they've given it a watch. Hm. In fact, they may be very well upset that I watched it without them.

On this day 13 years ago...

2010-07-01T08:27:00.000-04:00

...Hong Kong was no longer under sovereignty from the United Kingdom and was handed over to the People's Republic of China.

Today is Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day. Quite a mouthful, isn't it? Basically, on July 1st 1997, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (or HKSAR) was established as it was returned to the People's Republic of China.

People often say to me "I thought Hong Kong was China." I usually reply with, "It isn't." It is a country on its own. You're probably wondering, "But how? You just said it was given back to China." In the same way, colonialism worked with the British and the Caribbean, and even the British and Hong Kong, a country remains a country on it's own. Or, at least, that's how I see it.

To be clear, when people think of China, they think of the People's Republic of China (PRC) because that is what China is portrayed to be...and that is exactly what China is. It's a country and a region on its own. Hong Kong is not a part of the PRC. And, hence, it isn't the same thing as China. The PRC has two special administrative regions: Macau and Hong Kong. They are a part of, yet separate from China. Get it? =)

At the Shanghai World Expo, you would find that Hong Kong and Macau have pavilions of their own as they are countries with cultures and practices of their own. But you would find that they also stand right beside the China pavilion as they are China's special administrative regions.

Get it now? =)

And on the night of AnimeKon...

2010-06-27T12:16:00.005-04:00

...I enjoyed myself...somewhat.

All I can say is that it was nice being out of the house and that I wasn't disappointed. In my recent post about AnimeKon 2010, I mentioned that I wasn't going with much expectation so that I wouldn't be disappointed. Such a smart thing to do. I was excited because I got to dress up but that doesn't mean I expected it to go down great.

In all honesty, if it had been called GamingKon or something, I wouldn't have gone and all the guys and girls who would go to "GamingKon" would have gotten all that they could ever hope for. They could never have been disappointed. Why? Because AnimeKon was really one big video game convention. The only anime-like things that went down (to my knowledge) include: cosplay and the showing of Final Fantasy: Advent Children...oh yes and I guess the fashion show was supposed to be related?

I had the great misfortune of being stuck in a meeting for most of the afternoon. During this meeting, people who cosplayed were around at AnimeKon and I missed a few other, more entertaining events. By the time I had arrived, few people were dressed accordingly and I was told about all the cool characters that were around in my absence. The only goodness I got to see was a pair of girls walking around in their costumes as: Kakashi and an Anbu. I had to sorta figure out the Kakashi character. This was my experience, having gone after 6 PM.

There was a fashion show that I got to see. It was short. It wasn't bad. But then again, I personally am not really one for fashion shows because I don't really get the fashion behind it. Yeah, fashion isn't my thing.

There was some good artwork and graphic designs around so I was pleased with the amount of that floating about.

What made it all worthwhile for me was seeing a bunch of friends that I don't get to see too often. So I was pretty pleased about that at least. Oh and I also got to dress up! I like being able to dress differently from usual.

So, if any of the guys at AnimeKon read this, here are my suggestions for AnimeKon 2011:

More anime! Otherwise, it's not AnimeKon. I expected to see a whole lot more anime-related things around.
Anime movies in the "Anime Theatre". Marvel stuff doesn't count because it's American.
Play some anime-related music: japanese music, theme songs, series soundtracks.

I think that was my biggest problem with AnimeKon. The fact that it had so little to do with anime and so much to do with video games. Anime conventions usually exist to promote anime, promote series that deserve more recognition. I didn't feel like the anime community was properly catered to. But it's something to work on for 2011.

Understandably, this could be difficult to tackle as there aren't really any anime/manga outlets in Barbados, to my knowledge. But using AnimeKon to promote this awareness would be ideal. There are loads of anime fans in Barbados but our source of it is only via the internet and a change from this would be nice, I'm sure. Video games are good, graphic arts are good, Marvel stuff is good but anime is great too! So, you have an entire year to try making AnimeKon 2011 a much more appealing event for anime fans such as myself (because I'm not a big fan of video games).

All in all, I think it turned out to be pretty successful.

On a night like any other...

2010-06-23T21:51:00.005-04:00

...I sit and ponder.

You know how there are those nights when all you do is think? Think about anything: yourself, your future, your goals, your current situations, upcoming events, your friends, colleagues, acquaintances. Tonight was one of those nights. I sit and I see a future that hasn't yet happened and can only hope they will. Tough times are ahead as time will pass by but I know that I have grown enough to handle them and that they will help me grow more so that I can face the tougher.

Tonight is one of those nights...

...I feel inspired to do something great. It's one of those nights that I remember what I truly desire; one of those nights that I feel the fire of my passions kindle inside.

I had an interview Monday. Just a short, simple, relaxed interview with the Director of the Montreal Neurological Institute. I do believe it went well. This interview stirred up the emotions I feel tonight. Voicing the things I strongly desire have rooted them even deeper within me. Then, as I returned home, my Mom asked me what any mother would ask: How did the interview go? A question that merely reinforced my drive.

You probably wonder what it is that I'm so interested in, so passionate about. The things I enjoy studying, learning about, applying: holistic/natural medicine, genetics, the mind. I hope that one day, these three things will attain a perfect mixture in my career.

This summer we're doing a research course. A 9 week course that started this week. I've applied for an externship to do research at an external site in the hopes of seeing what true research is about. Rather than these silly "research projects" in Barbados that include survey. Surveys are boring and I hate statistics. Why did I say this? Because I've been somewhat interested in research before but, being unsure of what the field is like, I can't say I'm really interested or not. I do hope that I'll be placed at the site I'd like to go to and get first hand exposure to it.

When I was a little girl with a single-digit age, I used to like playing teacher. Of course, I also liked playing doctor. We already know which path I'm on. But I still haven't completely excluded the teaching aspect. I have a desire to spread good knowledge that people should know. Information that can change peoples' lives. Maybe someday, later in life, I may take up this role again. I have a friend who tells me that I explain things in a very simple way and I've come around a good few cases where I've helped clear up misunderstandings about many things for people. I apparently give decent explanations, even though I personally don't quite feel that way sometimes. Ha.

So, tonight was one of those nights that you sit and contemplate life.

Father's Day Comes Again

2010-06-20T11:44:00.000-04:00

"Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a Dad." -- Anne Geddes

There are many men in the world who truly live the role of a "Dad" and so many others who are truly undeserving of any such title. Just because half of your DNA helped make a new person in the world doesn't make you a Dad, it makes you a biological father. A man may have no biological connection to a child but still has a right to be a Dad.

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." -- George Herbert

A Dad is a man who's there for you, cherishes you, takes the time to nurture, teach and protect you and becomes a good role model for his children.

"My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." -- Clarence Budington Kelland

Any man who takes no time for his children and only works is merely using it as an excuse for his lack of experience. A man becomes greater when he becomes a good father...a father any child would be proud to call "Dad". A good father knows where his priorities lie.

"A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty." -- Unknown

"A man's children and his garden both reflect the amount of weeding done during the growing season". -- Unknown

I know I used a lot of quotes in this post. They pretty much say the same thing. If you have a father to proudly call "Dad", then cherish him and appreciate him. Treat him well this Father's Day.

To all the deserving Dads in the world, I wish you all a very happy Father's Day!

AnimeKon 2010!

2010-06-19T17:05:00.002-04:00

Barbados' first anime convention! To be held next Saturday, June 26th 2010 from 10 AM - 10 PM. No doubt. I'm going.

I don't have any costumes or anything so there'll be no cosplay for me (I sort of wish I could though) but I'll see what I can muster up from my closet. =) Even if I did want to cosplay, I wouldn't even know who to go as. But I do know I'd wanna be someone with a simple outfit. Complex, exotic articles of clothing do not make me happy...especially if they'll make me hot. I have a friend who may go as Afro Samurai. I think he couldn't have chosen a better character! If you knew him like I do, you'd think so too. =) I wonder how many people will cosplay for the event...

It's Barbados and it's the first. I'm not expecting much really but I'm hoping I'll get a pleasant surprise. Too much hope though, will leave me disappointed. So, I can't say I have a lot of hope or expectations but we won't know how this comes off until the day arrives! I've never been to an anime convention before, so I won't have anything to compare it to, at least.

A Little Bit of Canada

2010-06-13T20:30:00.002-04:00

A few days ago (4, to be exact), I returned from a trip to New York. I meant to make this post days ago but I've been busy. It was a relatively short trip, just 6 days long, but I had such a great time! Why? I spent the weekend on a tour bus to Toronto. Well, that's not the awesome part. The awesome part was getting to be on the road and see all sorts of great things. It was my first trip up to Canada!

The tour was a 3-day bus tour. We drove from New York through New Jersey then Pennsylvania and again through New York (upstate) before arriving in Ontario where we saw Niagara Falls at night. Niagara at night: beautiful. No picture could ever do it justice.

Before arriving to Ontario, we didn't spend a full day on a bus. Well, we did a little. We made a few stops: food, bathroom, museum. Oh? Museum! We went to the Corning Museum of Glass where just about everything was made of glass. People have made suck incredibly interesting things over the centuries. Did you know that glass wasn't always transparent?

Left: a number of pretty little glass bowls.

Right: the painting in the background: Not a painting. It is, in fact, made of glass. Many small shards of glass put together to make something that looks like that. No paint involved in the making of this at all.

The museum is such a large place that I couldn't even spend much time looking at all the different things that were made in the varying centuries. There's a lot of history behind glass and the makings of it. And I got to see a 15-minute live show of a guy making glass (the modern way). It was pretty cool.

On our first morning in the beautiful city of Niagara Falls, we went, of course, to Niagara Falls. We took a walk along the road (probably about a mile-long) and I got so many nice shots of the falls. We also went on the Maid of the Mist and were drenched under the water of the falls. There truly is no better way to experience the magnificence of the falls than to be right there in front of them. No words could describe the majestic presence of this beauty of nature.

We then got to eat lunch in Skylon Tower where we also got to see the falls and a great deal of Canada from above. After all this, we headed for Toronto. It was about a 3-4 hour drive with one bathroom break.

One can't go to Toronto and not visit the ever grand CN Tower. I got to see more amazing views from Canada from an incredible height and stood, walked and took pictures on the glass floor. That was pretty cool. Following that, we went on a boat ride over Lake Ontario where I got to see a great view of the city's skyline. Dinner was consumed in Chinatown and we got to sleep in a rather fancy 4-star hotel that night: Delta.

The 3rd (and final) day of the tour: 1000 Island boat tour. Unfortunately, it was a rainy and chilly morning and I wasn't able to get any nice photos of the different islands we passed by. There are over 1000 islands that sit in Saint Lawrence River. Had the windows not been covered in raindrops, I would've enjoyed the view. But nature can't be helped and I had a lovely time, regardless.

The ride to New York was about 7 hours with a couple of short breaks. I was sort of sad that the tour was coming to an end for 2 reasons: Canada is such an amazing place and I would've loved to see more of it (one day, I will); and I had an amazing tour guide, King Kong. He was definitely one of the nicest, funniest, most engaging tour guide I've ever met.

Subscribe if you find my talking at all interesting =)

I won this vase (above) at the Corning Museum of Glass. We were given tickets when we entered to watch the live show. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring it home because our suitcases were already filled. =( So, I left it with my Uncle in New York. I don't win anything! So this was a big deal. And I also had to sing a song on the bus because I was Ms. Lucky. I was caught off guard with it so I had forgotten to let my Mom record it in my shock. How unfortunate!

Symplicity Me

2010-06-09T12:20:00.002-04:00

With a total of 13 votes, the results of the polls have come in. You can view them on the left. Thanks to everyone who voted!

I'm fairly indecisive about a lot of things and doing vlogs on YouTube was one of those things. For an entire night I thought "Should I? Should I not?". Then it occurred to me: Why not see if others would be interested in it first? People may like to read what I type on my blog but maybe they may not be all so keen to hear me talk.

Either way, writing and talking are two different things. Not a single person has told me that they don't think I should give vlogging a try. This surprised me a little bit. I'm not really the most vocal, outgoing person around, not to mention, I'm the kind of person who lives happily behind a camera and is rarely in front of it...so, why did everyone think I could do well to be in front of a camera and make videos for YouTube? I still wonder.

Blogging and vlogging are like two different worlds. I love blogging. I remember when I first started off this blog I wasn't at all sure what I would write about but I decided to make one anyway. One and a half years later, here I am, still blogging and absolutely loving it. There's no real direction for the blog in the things I write about. It's all random stuff but it's helped me to become somewhat more expressive and I like that.

I don't know how vlogging will go...and I don't even know what I'll vlog about. I have a couple ideas so far. I'll do my best to make it not-so-boring. I've already uploaded a video from January. Something I did with a couple of friends in all boredom. I hope this vlogging thing goes well!

So, if you're interested, check out my channel and subscribe! I'll love you forever for it. =D

http://www.youtube.com/user/symplicityme

Video Logs?

2010-06-01T08:24:00.003-04:00

Commonly known as 'vlogs', video logging has stormed through YouTube (somewhat) for years! I've watched a few...here and there. A lot of them tend to be pretty interesting. A lot of them also aren't. But what can you do eh?

I was talking with a friend of mine last night and our conversation about penpals went from there to me doing vlogs. What? Me doing vlogs? Hmm...I'm not so sure about that. At first I just took it as a joke and laughed about it but then, for some reason, I started thinking about giving it a try.

I'm actually still thinking about it. I haven't yet decided yet. I'm having a hard time trying to decide. But if you vote on the poll on your left, you can help me make my decision! Would you watch me if I did vlogs on YouTube? If I did them, you'd probably get to see a bit more of Barbados. =)

<-------- Vote! =)
(voting closes June 9th at 12PM)

I Bowl.

2010-05-28T23:59:00.004-04:00

Recently, Casa Grande, a hotel in Barbados, opened up a bowling alley. Last night, I went with a bunch of friends and had my first try at bowling. And it was awesome!

This place just makes me like Barbados a little bit more. This is a hotel that typically doesn't do well in business so I think this was the wisest thing the owners did. For years, we've been wanting a place that had something fun like bowling! Now, it's here and it's become my favourite place on the island. There's good food, good setup and a good atmosphere. The atmosphere in this place is such that I don't even feel like I'm in Barbados anymore. And, sadly, that's one of the biggest reasons for my liking this place so much.

There's also bumper cars and a little arcade section so you don't have to play just bowling.

I mentioned good food. When I looked at the menu, I was most pleased to see that they don't have a meat-filled one. I got myself a nice Vegetarian Club which came with fries which was well presented to me. It was a lot to eat but it was all so delicious!

No doubt I'll be heading back here time and time again. It makes for a really great liming spot.

I Want That!

2010-05-27T15:52:00.006-04:00

How rare it is for me to make two blog entries in the same day! And just hours apart too! I browse the internet all the time and I find stuff I find interesting all the time but sometimes, I find something so eye-catching that I just want to tell someone. That's why I blog. =)

Have you ever watched a movie and saw something you liked and said "I want that!"? It happens to us all the time...or, at least, it does to me.

Did you guys watch Iron Man 2? If you haven't, shame on you! It's great if you like movies about Marvel characters and awesome tech. Iron Man 2, just like Iron Man, had amazing eye-popping technologies here, there and everywhere that just made me go "I want that!!" The same goes for the props in the movie. It's all classy and modern. But one particular object stood out to me the most...the most realistic thing in the movie that made me go "I WANT!!!" And, if you saw the movie too, you just might have thought the same thing.

Throughout this scene, I was just wishing they could focus on the double pendulum continuously swinging on Pepper Potts' desk!

Remember that? It's called a Double Pendulum. ThinkGeek calls it a Swinging Stick Kinetic Energy Sculpture and sells it for a whopping $239.99. Wow. Sometime in the future, I'll get one. Hopefully. It's so magnificently hypnotising.

One day, when I have my own office or desk or home somewhere in the world, I'll own one of these. I hope.

There's just one more thing I would love to have on my desk, near a windowsill: the Classic Radiometer.

When I first saw it, I thought it was interesting. It certainly caught my attention. The little blades inside spin when exposed to light in a process called thermal transpiration. Science is so awesome. I stopped with the physics two years ago so I'll not go into that.

Where did I see it? I first saw it in Wong Fu Productions' short "When Five Fell" and in some of their previous shorts as well.

Little things like these make me happy. Once it's interestingly unique, I can't help but like it.

There She Is!

2010-05-27T14:02:00.003-04:00

I came across this amazing animated series today and I just thought that I had to share it. The series has 5 short episodes more or less about a forbidden love between cat and rabbit. It sounds odd, I know, I thought so too. Initially, it was a sweet, light-hearted, funny story that eventually turned into something more.

You can watch them below or watch them in perfectly quality here: There She Is and use the sidebar to navigate to the next steps. I'm sure you'll enjoy them.

"There She Is" by SamBakZa

Step 1: There She Is

Step 2: Cake Dance

Step 3: Doki & Nabi

Step 4: Paradise

Final Step: Imagine

What do you think of the series?

Artsy

2010-05-26T20:06:00.008-04:00

Salamander tsuba. Sword guard. Forged by Brian Chan. He makes swords too!

Crafts. Music. Drawing. Painting. Writing. Poetry. Film.

≈Creativity≈

When I listen or see the things people create and it's great, I feel inspired. The desire to create something great just bubbles up inside. I think it's the inner child creativity in me.

When I was smaller I used to love making stuff. I was always making stuff...a hand-crafty sort of person. And I used to love it. But it's been years. Ever since I got my first laptop, it all went down hill. I slowly stopped making stuff and spent a whole lot more time on the computer. I still do. And I don't make stuff at all anymore. It's so sad. When I made my Mom an origami flower for Mother's Day, I felt that little child in me try to tickle her way out. Making something with my hands again...it felt amazing. I'm going to try to get the creativity flowing once more and hopefully keep it going. It's a gift I don't think people should so carelessly let go of.

Done with a single piece of paper. No cuts or anything.

For instance, this guy: Brian Chan. He does origami, graphic designs, metalwork (above).

I love Wall-E! So, of course, I absolutely loved this work of art. Brian is a genius!

See more of Brian's genius at work here. I saw this and thought it was quite nice:

Artists of all kinds. I'm finding more and more of them on YouTube. But, that's a story for another time. Musicians, graphic artists, photographers, film makers...they grab my attention and inspire and motivate me to do more for myself. (It explains my recent interest in photography!) Remind me that I have it in me to make something great too. I still try to keep up with my poetry. =)

We should all try to explore the gifts we have. Whether you're aware of it or not, you have a wonderful gift unique to you and only you. What's your gift?

Hong Kong. Why?

2010-05-24T13:59:00.006-04:00

So, I've been asked this question a couple of times and I thought I'd share my response with everyone else: Why do you want to move all the way to Hong Kong? Why Hong Kong?

The shortest possible answer I could give you: My family is there and I'm comfortable.

Yeah, so what? You were born in Barbados...it's your home...aren't you comfortable here? Honestly. I'd have to say no.

Sure, I do feel a sense of comfort here. It's the place I've grown up for more than half my life. It's safe. I have my friends here. I have that comfort. But living my life here, I'm not truly happy; I'm not comfy...I'm just living it and dying to leave it all. This place...I don't like it.

I don't like standing out like a huge zit on someone's nose. I hate that strangers walk past me while cat-calling all sorts of things like "Ching Chong! Ni hao! Konnichiwa! Chiney!" in complete ignorance. I hate that when I walk through any place, I feel people (adults and children alike) staring at me and when I look them in the eye they suddenly turn the other way and shuffle along their business. Would you feel comfortable living like that? Just because I'm a Chinese person living in a predominantly Black country.

When I was about 12, I hated that I was Chinese; that I was different and attracted all this attention; that I just stood out in the population. I didn't want to be different. I wanted to fit in. But I can't change what I am and what I look like. Eventually, I came to embrace my culture and my differences and, now, I couldn't be any more proud to be Chinese.

Of course, I've visited countries where I didn't stand out. So, why not live in one of those? Why go to Hong Kong when I don't even speak Cantonese? Because the environment doesn't feel right. England is lovely but something about it keeps me feeling unsettled. New York is cool but the city looms over my back and I wouldn't go anywhere there on my own. Miami is nice but something about the air keeps me on my toes. Hong Kong is amazing and my only "but" is that I don't speak the language.

Moving around Hong Kong is easy. Heck, I even led the way when I was told where we were going sometimes. I didn't have to tag along behind, unsure of where to go. The city is as gorgeous as any other with towering buildings and architecture. Yet it doesn't have the incredibly scary and dominating feel to it. There, I'm just like anyone else. No one gets nosey and fixes their eyes at me. I'm not afraid or uncomfortable.

On my trip to Hong Kong last December, we had a family dinner to attend but I was feeling unwell and I everyone to go on without me. I wasn't feeling well and I wanted to stay home and rest. So, I did. My Mom brought it up with me the other night asking "Weren't you afraid to be home alone that night? And we were out so late too." I hadn't realised it until she asked: I wasn't afraid at all. In fact, I felt right at home. I answered the phone when it rang and walked around a bit. I didn't once feel afraid or worried even though I was in a country that I visited only two times prior to this trip. I was practically in a country I was unfamiliar with but it really didn't feel that way.

Since my return in January, I've been saying that I want to live in Hong Kong..for a number of reasons. But it wasn't until two nights ago that I realised just how happy and comfortable I am there. It's a comfort that I haven't felt anywhere else. A sense of belonging.

In short:

I'm comfortable and happy in Hong Kong.
I want to get to know my family there better. Because even though we don't speak the same language, I'm closer to them as family than I am with my family here in Barbados. Language is a barrier that is simple to overcome.
And, of course, I can't possibly forget the weather. The summers are really hot like Barbados can be...or maybe even a little hotter...but there is a winter. The half-a-year or so of perfectly cool temperatures makes me happy. It's good to know that I won't have to feel like I'm about to suddenly burst into flames 365 days a year.

There are also a number of trivial reasons for my wanting to live in Hong Kong. When I move away from Barbados, I believe there are two things that I would truly miss:

Fresh coconut water
The beaches (even though I rarely go, it's nice to look at.)

Sorry about the somewhat long post. I felt like sharing a piece of myself with the world.

This is who I am. This is how I feel. This is me.

I'm going!

2010-05-23T10:21:00.007-04:00

I'm going! I'm going! It's all confirmed and there's nothing stopping me! Oh yeah.

Where am I going? Here:

I said in a previous post that I wish I had the luxury to go to the Shanghai World Expo 2010. Well, I've been blessed with so much fortune. I'll be going to the Expo after all! I'm so super excited about it. I'll be going with my Mom and it'll be so much fun. So much. There's just so much to see there and we'll have 3 days to see all we can.

As my Mandarin is mighty poor (so poor, in fact, that I cannot even greet anyone with anything more than "Nǐ hǎo"), I'll do my best to learn even more of the language over the next few months before the trip.

"Integrated City" - This makes me so nostalgic of my winter trip to Hong Kong. It just warms my heart and makes me miss Hong Kong even more every time I watch it.

No doubt I'll be stopping in and checking out the wonderful Hong Kong pavilion at the Expo.

As the flight we'll be taking makes a connecting stop in Hong Kong as we go and come from Shanghai, we'll be spending an entire day with my family (just one) before we return home. I can't wait to see Hong Kong again. It overwhelms my heart to know that I'll have the opportunity to visit again in just less than a year.

My question to you: Are you going (or already went) to the Shanghai Expo?

That Girl

2010-05-20T18:13:00.006-04:00

I've been so very busy of late! Like I said before, who said summer was for relaxing? I'm running around doing errands, getting things fixed, cleaning our apartment.

Apparently the tenant who just moved out (she's a law student at U.W.I.) didn't know the meaning of the word "cleaning". She lived in a sea of dust, grease, grime, stickiness, cobwebs and spiders. And she lived comfortably. I've never seen a place do disgusting in my life. My nose kept running from all the dust I was surrounded with. It was awful. And gross. I killed a lot of spiders and destroyed many of their homes. Oh well. She was only there for 9 months but I'm so glad she's gone. If she stayed her full 2 years, I don't know what the apartment would've looked like. If anyone follows me on Twitter, you would've seen me raving about it all evening (plus how I ached all over). Anyways...onto happier things in life...

Despite being so busy, I still have time to relax. My evenings are relatively good so I get to stay home and do whatever I want. I had been one of the many people waiting for Wong Fu Productions and David Choi to release David's new music video for "That Girl", his song from his recently released album By My Side. As I don't work on PST, I didn't get to see the video till the next morning. But it was completely worth the wait. Completely.

I had heard of David Choi before. Seen some of his covers on YouTube and thought he was so talented but I never really kept up with him. Now I do. And I'm glad I do. Like I said, he has talent. And Wong Fu Productions? They have so much talent as well. As with "When Five Fell", they did an exception job with this music video.

Behind the scenes --> Here

I would love to meet the three guys behind Wong Fu Productions someday. I think they're just brimming with talent. Always looking forward to what they'll produce next.

Super Hectic Week!

2010-05-16T14:55:00.007-04:00

So, I haven't had a chance to blog or do anything much computer or internet related in the past week. So many things have been happening, there just wasn't much time for anything!

From preparing a budget for the Medical Students' Association for three long consecutive nights to a full day of work after 4.5 hours of sleep to a day out on a catamaran and a night out at dinner and concluding with another full day of work after about 5.5 hours of sleep. It's been one mad busy week but I had a great time for the most part!

I got to see this old piece of equipment, unused in the corner of one of the Guild rooms.

The catamaran cruise was on Friday and it turned out to be great despite being seasick for the first time in my life. I've been on boats and catamarans before...without any problems so I really don't know what it was about this one. But it was a great day with friends and classmates. Tiami Cruises is quite a cool choice so if any of you decide to give Barbados a visit go on a day-long Tiami cruise!

I also celebrated Tammy's birthday dinner Friday night and it was great. Turns out, I'm great at playing pool! But maybe it was just a lucky night for me? I made some amazing shots I wish were caught on camera. Either way, I had a great night and I couldn't help practicing the art of photography.

I may only have a Sony Cybershot DSC T200 but it does the job well enough.

Who said summer was for relaxing? =)

Summer

2010-05-10T13:09:00.005-04:00

That's how I usually spend my summer...minus the beach.

This summer will be different. Sure, I want to watch anime. I plan to. And I'll read manga too if I get the chance. And, of course, I'll indulge myself in some Pokemon.

I also plan to read some books. I haven't yet completed the Left Behind series that I started over a year ago. I haven't even read Wuthering Heights yet. I gave Wuthering Heights a start so now I'm at chapter 3. I've got a long way more to go, though. I've set it as the book I'll read at night when I'm ready for bed. Considering the language, I understand it best when I'm relaxed at the end of the day. My treat before I sleep.

But I intend to get into doing more useful things in life. I've mentioned before that I'm starting to learn Mandarin. I haven't learnt as much as I would've liked to over the semester but I have learnt just a little bit. As I may have the opportunity to go to Shanghai for the expo (not confirmed yet), I'll do my best to study the language more rigorously as I have the time.

I'm not sure of what other productive stuff I'll end up doing but it'll be interesting, I'm sure.

As yesterday was Mother's day, I figured I'd show off a little of what I did for my Mum. I made her a card and some origami flowers. I think this one big flower turned out quite lovely. My present was well loved. ^_^.

Momma's Day

2010-05-09T11:53:00.003-04:00

Mother's Day has arrived this year!

Happy Mother's Day!

母親節快樂!

(pronounced like: Mo chun ji fai lok)

母亲节快乐!

(pinyin: Mǔqīnjié kuàilè)

For those of you with Moms, be good to them. You'll only get one in your lifetime. For those with mother figures in your lives, treasure them. They love you as if you were their own.

Alive By Time

2010-05-07T08:41:00.005-04:00

"Time waits for no one."

I did so much in the time that I should have been studying. I forgot to mention yesterday that I also watched an anime movie: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo). But I don't mind dedicating an entire post to this one alone anyway.

What's it about? Basically, a girl gains the ability to leap through time and does it to change small little things that'll make her life easier, like getting to school early and getting better grades. She learns however, that even changing small things can have huge consequences.

Over the years, as a big anime fan, I had heard about this movie called The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Many people said it was a good movie so, for years, that had been on my list of things to watch. But I'd forgotten about it until I saw this anime music video on Youtube which, not only reminded me about it, made me really want to watch it. As a result, I watched the movie just a few hours after seeing this video.

It's done by Soul VWS, one of my few subscriptions, who's done (and continues to make) excellent anime music videos. A rather talented with video editor in my opinion! If you're into anime as I am, you'll want to take a look at those videos.

Hello Summer!

2010-05-06T13:51:00.006-04:00

It's so nice to meet up with you this year! This will be our first meeting of two. The second being at the end of August. =)

My exam has finally flown by me and I can sit back, relax and enjoy the 6 weeks of vacation I have ahead of me! Turns out, my Neuroscience II course wasn't so bad. I wasn't able to study everything at all! What I didn't study had few questions asked about them so I was so happy! All in all, it turned out so much better than I thought. I hope my grade will reflect this feeling.

It's been about a week since I made an entry, though, it's not like it's the longest my blog has missed my presence. During the past week, I've been trying to set myself on studying and studying alone. But it was quite difficult. Studying the same course for so long became quite monotonous. The closer the exam came, the more I didn't want to study. In the time I didn't study, I discovered and subscribed to three youtube channels, followed two people on Twitter and edited a couple photos of some flowers I took at school.

My favourite edit turned out to be this one:

The quality of images I take with my Nokia N97 mini astounds me every time.

I've decided that I'm starting to like photography a whole lot. It's really quite a fun hobby. Snap a photo of this. Snap a photo of that. I think I'm getting better at this photo-taking stuff. =)

As for the Youtube channels, I randomly discovered JumbaFund when I opened up the homepage which led me to KevJumba's channel. One of his videos further led me to WongFuProductions. And before I knew it, I was following @kevjumba and @wongfupro on Twitter. I watched a couple of Wong Fu Productions' videos and ended up following @thewesleychan. All actions were conducted over a period of two days.

I said all of that to say this: Wong Fu Productions uploaded a new video two days ago. "When Five Fell" directed by Wesley Chan, produced by Ted Fu & Philip Wang. I completely fell in love with it! It's so poetic. A phenomenal short film. A masterpiece. So, I just had to share it:

Wong Fu Productions has a number of other short films that have been so entertaining and soothing to my information-packed mind. Thank you, Ted, Phil and Wes.

I've also been trying to plan out a Shanghai trip that I convinced my Mom that we just had to go to. We'll be going to the Shanghai Expo, of course. Nothing's set in stone yet. We've come pretty far in our plans so it might as well be set in stone. Once I see all the reservations, I'll be one of the happiest people in the world! I'm so blessed. I really am.

Shanghai World Expo 2010

2010-04-30T10:35:00.010-04:00

I quite wish I had the luxury to visit the Shanghai world expo. It would be the most amazing thing ever. But, most unfortunately, I can't.

My CCTV9 channel has been missing recently, replaced by CaribVision, a pointless channel with stuff I care nothing about. It must've returned late last night or this morning because it still wasn't there yesterday. And, I missed the expo's opening ceremony.

I hope I can get another chance to see it. From what I see on the news, it looks like it was superb! Many of my favourite artists and musicians performed and I'm sure everything else was simply wonderful. The Chinese know how to put on excellent shows. Few things capture my attention the way Chinese performances do.

An opportunity to visit the Shanghai expo (and I must say, it certainly won't be for Barbados) would be one of the most amazing things I could ask for. Travel into Shanghai is difficult at this point. I can only imagine what it would be like to visit. My friend in Wuhan will be going this summer...I'm a little envious!

Here comes another Nokia

2010-04-28T12:51:00.006-04:00

The Nokia N97, the N97 mini, the N900 and, now, the N8.

Nokia introduces a new touchscreen baby in the N-series, the Nokia N8. This one, unlike my N97 mini, has a capacitive touchscreen and no slide out keyboard. It's about the size of the Nokia N97. I could deal with the width but it's a little thick for my liking. It comes in different colours (which would vary by region, of course).

If I were to get one of these, I'd take it in blue.

Sneak peak at the N8. The question: What will you do with it?

My answer: certainly not freestyle with it.

To be honest, I just thought this video was adorable.

This phone has gone high-def with an HDMI-output, HD videos, a 12 MP camera and 16 GB internal memory and up to a 32 GB MicroSD to hold it all in. A 12 MP camera phone? My oh my. I'm quite happy with my 5 MP. It takes such exceptional photos that no one would believe was taken with a cellphone. The size doesn't matter so much to me as the quality, and 5 MP is enough size for me.

Maemo 5 and Symbian S60 5th generation run on the N900 and N97/N97 mini respectively. What runs on the N8? Symbian 3 - Nokia's first Symbian 3-based phone to come out.

It's aesthetically pleasing, to my eyes at least. If I didn't have my N97 mini, would I buy this phone instead? I probably wouldn't. I like having a physical keyboard separate from the screen. Given the choice, I would have chosen the N97 mini anyways.

When is this little one releasing? I have no idea, but would you get it?

Understand?

2010-04-27T09:36:00.003-04:00

Some parents just don't get it. Studying isn't as simple as just...studying. It takes a lot of mental effort to be able to repeatedly read and retain vast amounts of information.

The more active the brain is, the more energy it uses. We become mentally exhausted, take breaks, eat and nap in order to replenish our energy reserves. Then to psych ourselves up to repeat the cycle over and over until exams are over.

It can be so hard to readjust your thinking processes from relaxed to memory and recall. Reading is more than just looking at a page and seeing the words. It's analysis of the words we look at and the sentences they create to come to an understanding of what is being said in the sentence, paragraph or chapter.

Once I get started with studying, I can seriously go on for awhile, take some bathroom breaks and some naps and get right back to it. But once the flow is disrupted by, say, a phone call from a parent telling me to do this, that and the other, I'm completely knocked off my axis and cannot possibly continue. Having to perform other actions that I have to psych my mind up to then to go back to studying right after? Difficult. I'm busy, let me concentrate. When I bother my Mom when she's busy, she bites my head off. I express a little frustration because I'm busy, she gives me a lecture about how I should just do what she asks and stop complaining (I don't actually complain, I merely grunt).

It's not fair to be busted like that just because I'm not the one who pays the bills and makes the money. I can't do it yet, duh. I just wish parents could be so much more understanding of how not-s0-simple studying is. It's more than merely reading a few books and making a few notes. So many mental processes are conducted that we can't even imagine.

Study Sleep Study

2010-04-26T15:15:00.003-04:00

In just about 9.5 days I'll be setting my Neuroscience II examination. Until then, it's study study study! With some sleep thrown in there somewhere.

Everyday I'll study something different and, if all goes well, I'll have finished all the major topics by Monday so that I can spend the last few days before my exam reviewing. Lots to study though, so I'm hoping for such a result.

So, I'll be spending my days on campus (except for the two public holidays we'll be having this week + Sunday) studying my brain away. I've been allowed to study in the lecture theatre since it's no longer in use and couldn't possibly be used as an examination room. It's perfect and cold and comfortable. I love being able to use my own building. =)

Everyone's out and out with their books. Everyone looks like a nerd. People are studying wherever they can on campus. If I didn't have the Medical Sciences building, I'd be in the Law Library because it's the quieter of the two on campus. The main library is a noisy little buzz of a place because they actually tolerate moderate noise. I can only imagine how full it must be.

In the gazebo behind the Medical Sciences building, these three have found a peaceful haven to study in. =)