Seremban: Introduction

Greetings to all readers, its been 3 months since my last post on this blog of mine, always been wanting to update it for quite a while now, but never found the time, so I am sitting in my room now, on a lovely Sunday evening and creating this post for good time's sake! So here goes!

Since there was nothing special in august, lets skip straight to September. September began with a flurrish as before I knew it, I was getting packed up and leaving my house for a village called Seremban, located 45 minutes away from my house in KL. This lovely village would be the place I spend the next 2 years of my life as this is where i would be doing my clinical school portion of my IMU MBBS programme!

And trust me, for a KL boy like me, who spend 22 years of my life in KL, this was not an easy thing to do, all my friends and family are in KL, the good thing is so far I m staying with my uncle and cousin, which I hope would help me settle in Seremban for at least the next year or so till I venture out on my own to try to be independent.

Darkness surrounds when we leave places of comfort for a foreign place to pursue our dreams

Well, as a new student in Seremban Clinical School, we were given a tour during our orientation week, and had also been exposed to some senior-junior games in attempt to break the ice and make us freshies feel less foreing. :)
Right so after 1 week of briefings and getting to know the place, me and my batch mates(69 of us) were divided into 3 groups: A,B,C which will be assigned to three postings for our first semester: Surgery, Family Medicine and Internal Medicine respectively.

IMU CLINICAL SCHOOL SEREMBAN!

I was quite pleased to be around my close friends as we were grouped in the same subgroup. This i hope would further propel me to getting used to the quiet life of Seremban. My first posting was Family Medicine and for 7 weeks we were assigned to be posted at Klinik Kesihatan Seremban. Will elaborate more in my future posts about the respective postings. After the eye opening 7 weeks of Family Medicine, we had our first mini End-Of-Posting exam(EOP) to content with, and after going through it, I was satisfied with the results I achieved, Thank GOD and hope that it can continue on to my next posting.

Currently, I am 4 weeks into my 2nd posting which is surgery, things are very interesting in this posting as we get exposed to many different cases that force us to apply our theory on a clinical perspectives and also keeps us constantly on our toes as the professors there are relatively strict but excellent lecturers! Such joy to learn from them. Hope it continues for the next 3 weeks to come!

Me as a surgeon wannabe. LOL :)

Besides that, we were also exposed to new criterias of being a student doctor which includes writing case summaries and case reports for patients that we have clerked.. We were also exposed to research project and a CFCS project which I will elaborate more in the coming posts :) And for fun purposes, we medical students keep fit by playing futsal on a regular basis, for me, i play with my macha gang seniors and my batchmates! :)

Me(red united jersey) together with my batchmates after a game of futsal!

I hope you guys enjoy a brief summary of the past 3 months I have had and stay patient for more detailed versions of each event above!

Cheers!

Holidays

Its been 2 months since I completed my pre-clinical studies at IMU,Bukit Jalil, and its also been 2 months that I have been on holidays awaiting my next phase of my medical journey which begins on September 5th 2011. Sometimes I wonder, why do we get so much of holidays?But then again when I am studying, I m always complaining that I dont have much holidays, amazing isnt it how the human nature is, we are never satisfied with what we have, of course it is not always bad to be never satisfied in some areas where we can improve ourselves. Anyhow, here are the things I have been doing during my holidays.....

June 2011

Well,as usual holidays started off brightly with many prospects of road trips, chilling out with buddies, and whole lot of plans going on in my head...instead of those road trips, I got simple activities such as futsal, mamak sessions,more futsal and a mini trip to SEREMBAN... and during these times, I never thought that "hey, this will be he last time i would be seeing some of these people,as they would be flying off soon to their respective PARTNER MEDICAL SCHOOLS", now when they are really gone, I have this sense of regret thinking back of the things that i might have done wrong to them, however I try to forget those harsh moments and instead treasure the GOOD TIMES spent together....

M109 FUTSAL

Good Times During Samuel Birthday!

Some of the lovely people of M109

JULY 2011

July was a rather sombre month, nothing much to do, time was spent doing things such as being an alcoholic,playing DOTA and sleeping..very unhealthy lifestyle. Although on the other hand, I also started trying my hand out in the gym, although for a thin guy like me, people would wonder why the heck am I at a gym when i should be at KFC eating my heart out! HAHA! I also started eating more healthily increasing my intake of vegetables,fish, and cutting down on soft drinks and other junk.

July was also filled with many birthdays, many of my family members and relatives had their birthdays in this month,and they were in quick succession. I was also fortunate to be able to join this group of JULY birthdays as my birthday fell on the 17th of JULY! Wheeeeeeee... The more the merrier eh?

As my birthday fell on a Sunday, Saturday night was the pre-celebrations with friends where we drank the night away and spent time reminiscing of the good times we used to have together.However,Sunday was a different scenario altogether! It was a more rather quiet one beginning with a subtle lunch followed by a surprise dinner for me at EURO DELI! Brilliant food I say! To my surprise,when I got home, there stood the most fantastic sight for a chocolate lover like me, A HUGE BLACK FOREST CAKE sat on the table in the living room bought by my delightful family. All I can is that I m thankful for a blessed birthday surrounded by wishes from my family and friends...

August: 

It is now the 2nd week of August, man does time fly!! August started off with alot of FIFA 10 being played on the PS3 with my neighbourhood friends..We even created a league between ourselves, and let me tell u, it gets so INTENSE! BRILLIANT, gather your popcorn mates, and watch the league unfold..EXCITING :)

Thats all for now, I will try my best to bring you guys more updates soon, thanks for reading!!

Do We Ever Appreciate Ourself?

Yo guys! Been a long time since I updated my blog,and my mind is thinking what do I blog about? So just to spice the brain juices up, I thought, why not post something simple and random? So here goes!

Have u ever taken a look of yourself in the mirror really closely and deeply? What do you see? Are you satisfied at what you see in yourself both internally and physically?No doubt there will be some point of us that needs refining and improvement, as we are all learners in this short transition time, a time,called LIFE! But is there that sense of gratitude, of being given the chance to exist, despite our shortcomings?

Take me for example, I am extremely tall,extremely thin and dont look all that handsome, and yes I once looked in the mirror and thought " God, What Have I Done to Deserve This"?Happens. But then again, I think instead of looking at all the external features of me, I should appreciate that I m in good health, have a nice family,nice friends, m in medical school, etc. So why m I complaining?

Here is another example, take a guy, who is very handsome, decently tall and well built, but he is suffering from hypertension and diabetes, his family is broken and is working a part time job at a communications company. If comparing me to him, I think he has more reason to complain now, doesnt he?

So my point of view here is, as humans, we have this inferior complex or state of insecurity most of the times, but then again, before we start complaining, we should take a look around us and even take a look at ourselves and start appreciating what we got, as others have it worse. This is the challenges each and everyone of us face in our own special way. This is LIFE, enjoy it as it is a great student,and also,cause no one gets out of it ALIVE!

Cheers, till the next time!

Semester 5 of IMU

Hello guys! Sorry for the long absence as I had alot of things on my mind, really tested me mentally,emotionally and spritually in the pass 3 to 4 months, hopefully someday I can share it with you guys, when I am ready. Also, I have been very busy with semester 5, as it is currently not going to plan, let me tell you why.

After 5 Semesters: At IMU BALL 2011

                                      

Well, as we IMU students know, when we reach semester 5, everything should be cast aside and study all the way through so we could pass the deadliest exams in IMU. Well, I dont know whether it is contradictory as when I was in sem 1, people told me that EOS 2 was the toughest exam in IMU. Hmm. Food For thought? Anyhow, I m sorta gonna be sticking to my guns and lead a balanced lifestyle of sports and studies, also catching up on my YOGA(which I have skipped tremendously) and also prayers. This was what I planned to do in Semester 5.




Me Together With My 4x400 Gold Medal Team-mates

             
In the beginning, I was coping with life in semester 5, waking up early, studying till nightfall, keeping up with my notes, then, came track and field training ( one of the therapies to get my mind off things), I knew i needed this form of excercise as a tool to help me deal with my troubles mentioned in the first paragraph. However, it was very taxing indeed as i had to sacrifice not only study period( from 6.45 to 11 pm daily) but also vital energy and sleep that was to keep me going for the vital coming weeks. This carried on for around  8 weeks. At times, I would break down in my room, thinking, wondering if I am doing the right thing, going for training, and countless amounts of time did I want to quit as I was fearful for my studies. Then I realised that, my passion was for medicine and running too, there was this ever burning desire, to study and run at the same time, hence I took measures and initiatives to balance these two taxing events.

In the end of the last 9 weeks, I competed in a track and field meet, called MAPCU on April 16th 2011, I did not know how was I going to fare in the event,eventhough I had worked hard in training. This track and field event was organised HELP COLLEGE and around 9 private university and colleges participated in this meet. As for IMU track team, we were dedicated and worked tireless-ly in training sessions while not forgetting to have fun and build a strong team spirit! We also had a brilliant motivational talk by our Coach's friend, which further sparked the fighting spirit in us young athletes.

At The Mapcu 2011 Track and Field Event

                                        

At last, the day, 16th april arrived, armed with our enormous team spirit and belief in our respective abilities, we took to the track as a TEAM, supporting all our teammates in their events, spur-ring them on not to give up and finish strong. At the end of the meet, IMU emerged champions, emerged champions when we were rated as underdogs. Very fullfilling indeed, for me, as together with all the athletes, we ran a great race and made IMU proud.

IMU TRACK AND FIELD TEAM 2011

                                    
Many people, towards the pivotal EOS 5 examinations would be locked up in their rooms studying and reading so that they can pass their exams and realise their dreams of reaching their respective partner medical school. For me, as I am going to seremban(local) I thought that I would just need a pass and be happy. Then reality set in for me, do I have enough time? Will I be able to pass and make my parents proud? Well, that remains to be seen, for now, I can only continue to strive and work hard while not forgetting to keep faith in the LORD!

As my coach Keney once said, "RUN THROUGH and FINISH STRONG, AS BEFORE THE RACE IS OVER, YOU ARE NOT DEFEATED"

MEDT109: Forever will be in my heart!

                                              
Till the next time.Cheers.

Birthday Promise To A Good Friend

Hello all! Well, referring to the title above, I am dedicating a post to a good friend of mine, Eldwin Oui. Might look/sound gay now doesn't it? Well, not really la, I told him before that instead of giving him a card for his birthday, i would make a post for him, and this was about a month ago. Thus, without further delay, I shall first and foremost wish ELDWIN OUI, a happy 22nd birthday!

                                        The Man Himself- Eldwin Oui

Although I only met Eldwin aka Oui Ting Jie about close to 2 years ago, I think, we have been through quite abit through thick and thin, and he has been great enough to tolerate my attitude all these while. He has also taught me a few values that is worth following, although, I must admit i have not had the time to do so.I also hope we can work on together in our future studies in medical school and hell even when we may be working as doctors by profession may we keep in touch even if i m in Manchester and you in New York! LOL! And may you also continue to discover the wonders of DRINKING!!!

This guy is such a great guy that he would not judge people very easily, but instead give them a chance to voice out their point of view. He is also quite understanding to me given the fact i have FFK-ed him on NUMERAL occasions of road trips, which i hope can be resolved after EOS 5..LOL

Okay, I think I shall end this post, and I sincerely appreciate our friendship bro. Rock on. Cheers

Honesty& Two Faced

I know this is a very controversial topic to be blogged about, and I also know that I m not perfect in relations to the topic being written about, but I guess, this topic has to be brought to attention.

How often do we see people smile in front of us, and go around spreading bad stuff about us? Very common and very often, I cant blame them if the person that they are doing this to is a total jackass. But even then, every jackass deserves a break once in a while, as they are only humans. Humans do make mistakes.

What I cannot take is, people who do this sort of two faced dramas to an innocent person, who is trying his best to fit in to this cruel cruel world nowadays. The poor child may be thinking to himself, that, okay at least that went well, at least I am building some bridges out here. Little does he know, that the very bridge that he so called built, is actually biting him on his naive back. And this will carry on, until one day, the cruel,unacceptable truth resurfaces. How will this poor fellow feel?

In my opinion, he is entitled to feel disheartened or angry or disappointed in this person who carried out this cruel act, as in his eyes, he sincerely tried to be friends, and tried to be there for this monster. How sad, I myself have experienced this time and time again. Be it from close friends or aqquintances and even distant family members, and lets be honest, I'm not perfect either. But it would be nice if people could be honest and tell the person straight to his face, instead of jolly back stabbing him till the point of no return, till this image of the boy is so rotten that even people who dont know him personally have bad reservations bout him. Is this fair?

Thats it for my post today, I just want to also let know, that although I can take this in a not so violent way, there are others out there who would not hesitate to throw punches or hurt these kind of backstabbers. Just a heads up ya for those who carry out these acts..CHEERS!

IMU CUP: OLMYPICS FOR IMU STUDENTS

History
Before I begin yapping away on this somewhat exciting yet controversial topic of IMU CUP, here is a brief history for you guys, as an appetizer, no? Well, firstly, as we all know, all great INSTITUTIONS or NATIONS tend to have their very own major sporting events between between their citizens, we have seen a great example during the GREEK era, where a tremendous worldwide sporting event takes place every 4 years called the OLYMPICS!!!

Well, IMU students, being adventurous and ambitious as they can be, decided not to be left behind in organizing such major sporting events, HENCE, IMU CUP, was born. Firstly, this CUP is a sporting event which involves various sports, 26 to be up to date,including basketball,soccer,badminton, track and field etc. This so called OLYMPICS of IMU takes place in the latter part of the year around the month of september, anually. This OLYMPICS although it does not involve other states or universities, the unique thing about this EVENT is that it is being organised by STUDENTS FOR STUDENTS, which will provide ample opportunities for students not just from the MEDICAL batches but also from the HEALTH SCIENCES to forge friendships, teamwork, and unity, which for me is very awesome.

At first, this event was planned in such a way, that batches go against other batches as in just say A was from medical batch intake february 09, he would have to go up against all the other batches in the university, which mind you, is a little complicated process. And the eventual winners would most probably come from a more senior batch as they have more exposure to one another for a long period of time. However, this was about to change, IMU students, decided to be more creative, and in the SUMMER of 2009, they came up with a HOUSE system. This house system basically revolves around 6 houses,where by each house was given a colour, and a CAPTAIN from each house was to be elected. After this, students from various batches,irrespective of age,race or religion were placed randomly in each of the houses, providing more social contact between students.

Given below are the colours and names of the houses derived from these colours:
1. BLUE- DRACO
2. BLACK-TAURUS
3. GREEN-HYDRA
4. ORANGE-GRIFFIN
5. WHITE- PEGASUS
6. RED-PHOENIX

After all the 26 sports are evenly and fairly battled out, the accumulation of points won in each particular event would be summed up to determine the CHAMPION HOUSE.

                               The Prestigious IMU CUP TROPHY!

1st IMU CUP 2009- NEW EXPERIENCE

Okay, I think you guys must be bored reading a rather boring history of this cup. Now here, comes the fun part, IMU CUP through a student's point of view.

Well, when I was in semester 1, I was too caught up in the hype of making new friends,adjusting to campus life, when suddenly, I realised, I was in a room, MPH 2, full of people grouped together in a house, THE TAURUS HOUSE. Man, I tell you, I was so confused, people were so enthusiastic in there, filled with laughter and at the same time remain focused on the task presented to them that very day, the troublesome task of electing a CORE HOUSE COMMITTEE. Our beloved Captain that day, Mr AMOS, delegated the proceedings and together with a talented vice captain TAN JIA WEI, they elected a core committee.Amazingly, I somehow managed to become the BATCH REP for my BATCH. Stunned. Although till today, I still dont know what I was supposed to do..LOL..Next came the election for captains for a particular sport, and also a chance for new superstars to emerge just by writing down their names in the sport of their choice, who knows, we find a new USAIN BOLT asian style runner in store! After all these proceedings, speeches and thankfulness for all members showing up, the meeting ended at about 7 pm that day.

If you think this was hectic, man I tell u, juggling medical studies and sports is also very hectic man. Let me explain why, try studying your socks off to make your parents proud and at the same time muster up some adrenaline to sprint, kick a ball or smash a shuttlecock, terrible after effects after taking your shower! And this did not go on just for one day or one week, it went on for a monster styled 6 weeks!! And the most amazing part of it, the students of IMU really showed alot of enthusiasm,sportsmanship(to be discussed more later),talent and never say die attitude. It was fantastic to see so much passion and patriotism displayed by these students or athletes to contribute to their house overall IMU CUP standings. I too decided to do my part and participated in 5 sports, yielding 4 medals.

Eventually, after 6 weeks of slogging,adrenaline draining action, IMU CUP came to an end with HYDRA emerging as the very much deserving OVERALL CHAMPIONS! Taurus, however, finished a decent 4th place.

  

                                  
                     Some of the  Fond Memories of IMU cup 2009

IMU CUP 2010- VETERAN

Its amazing how one year passes on so fast that we do not even realize as we so often then not get caught up lost in our own world. Before I knew it, it was mid-year 2010, and elections for the new TAURUS committee were nearing, so, as it was my last IMU CUP before I leave to clinical school, I decided to do something special and ran for vice-captain of TAURUS. Although, before hand, I had to run against my good friend, ELDWIN OUI, he pulled out as he felt I would have done a better job. But truth be told, it would not have mattered as I felt both of us would have done fantastically as we both showed the enthusiasm and passion towards TAURUS! And, after asking a few friends, it would be evident that if ELDWIN ran for the post, he would have won, as he was the more popular one.HAHA. So hence, after all these hype of a drama, I was elected as vice captain, bearing in mind that I had a lot of responsibilities and pledges that I had to live up to. I also was excited by the passion and commitment of the TAURUS members be it old or new to turn up for the elections that day, and was equally delighted to be given this chance to serve under our beloved CAPTAIN TAN JIA WEI, aka,BOB!

As usual, things started to get really busy, but this time around, me and Jia Wei had to work double time to ensure things were running smoothly in terms of checking up on various sports recruitments, ensuring the new
house members received their shirts, and also displaying leadership and inspiration along the way. Apart from that, we also played our part in supporting and urging other houses to participate and get away from the hectic study life and be active! Besides training and supervising all the various training sessions, I also took time to have personal training sessions with DRACO captain SAM YE HAN, my good chinese friend. During these sessions, we would discuss about how the house is doing, how to remain humble, gossips etc. Good times indeed!

As the first weeks passed by,Taurus members displayed tremendous fighting spirit, sportsmanship and passion for all the sports they participated in despite being underdogs in some sports, and this turned out to be a key turning point as more often then not, they outdid themselves, which was amazing to see and talk about whenever me or Jia Wei turned up at every single event. Without fail, after that sport event ended, both of us would come to a conclusion that once again, we have tremendous sporting house members! Cheers to that. Apart from that, comes the huge dilemma of winning or losing. Nowadays, people mostly want to win all the things they participate in, but lets face the facts k mates, they can only be one winner or one loser at the end of the day, and for me, it does not matter what position you come in, what makes a winner is that he knows he has given his upmost best, has no regrets and remains humble even though he has won or lost. There are also this bunch of less fortunate people called "sore losers" who cannot accept the fact that others are better than them and will often than not blame other people but themselves, they also use various methods to influence referees by taunting them,raising their voice and such, when these so called referees are their fellow colleagues and friends. Sigh.Shocking. All these drama spices up the IMU cup. HAHA!

Anyhow, as the weeks passed by, Taurus, began collecting medals, and although we realistically not looking to win top spot in IMU cup, things were looking decent and by the end of the 5th week of sports, we managed to amass 19 medals from 26 sports with a total of 8 gold,8 silver and 3 bronze. It was evident that we, TAURUS would be crowned champions regardless of the final big event CHEERLEADING. However, things did not go down well with one of the house competing with us, as they figured they were better than us and they deserved to win. Here, they have forgotten the very fact IMU cup was held, is that was to HAVE FUN, KEEP FIT, and BUILD FRIENDSHIPS! Following this, they tried their very best to derail us from winning the IMU CUP using methods that I rather not say.

Hence, on monday, 11th OCTOBER 2010, following all the hardships, all the sweat and tears, all the time and effort put in, TAURUS were crowned champions of the 2nd edition of the IMU CUP! Cheers to that! As our captain Jia Wei puts it, the victory was a team effort and this victory belongs to all taurus members! Be proud!

 

From Top: Jia Wei(Captain) and Amanda!

followed by Sam Ye Han and Sandip Singh( Ex-Draco Captains)

VERDICT/REFLECTIONS

As a whole, I felt the IMU cup experience was beneficial to me, as I got to challenge my self in many different aspects, namely time management, pushing myself to the limits, leadership capabilities, test of commitment etc. It also gave me an opportunity to see how I would cope under pressure, and to be honest, I performed not too bad, although at times tensions did escalate a bit, namely during soccer, and hence I take this opportunity to apologise to Wei Rong again, Taurus Soccer Captain. Cheers buddy. :)

I also managed to witness a lot of new talent being shown during the course of both IMU cups, this was also followed by emergence of STAR MEN in various different sports, and this was simply brilliant, as it proved to me, that those so called people who appear as nerds or those smart people also have sporting capabilities. Most importantly though, I would like to see this tradition of IMU cup be carried on as long as IMU is there standing, and I also urge the new juniors to engage in sports too despite obligations to study, as a HEALTHY BODY promotes A FRESH MIND! Lastly, I also urge people to portray some sportsmanship during games and even after games, be a man and accept that there might be an athlete/player that is better than you. I am sure it is hard, it was hard for me, but trust me, u will be a much more happier person once u realize this..

                                Jia Wei Lifting The IMU CUP TROPHY!

CHEERS!

*DISCLAIMER* The post above was posted on a personal point of view, it is not meant to offend any parties involved. If it did offend anyone, I would like to apologize before hand. CHEERS!