Fail

Today I had my last class for my medical psychology cycle and that means I will be having a small conclusion quiz test to allow the teacher to squeeze out as much information as our puny brains could grasp on for this short days we had classes. One by one my fellow mates took the oral test and finally it was my turn. Topic by topic he asked and I managed to scrape and dodge through his bullets with little damage. The question he asked me were the tricky question where you had to analyze the question and think a bit before you can pull out the answer he wants from one of the text he gave us from classes. Alas, I was unable to get one of his question correct and was failed for that topic and that meant I had to come back to resit for that particular topic in order to get the credit I need. After that, he said he wanted to have a break and went out of the classroom though he still had 2 more topics he still hasn't question me about. We were all giggling in the class as most of us have already taken the exam leaving me with two more topics and one of my fellow classmate to endure the whole questioning process from the beginning. But, when he finally came back from the long rest, he skipped questioning me and proceed to question the last person. I kept calm and thought he might ask me after he has finished his rounds with my friend. Except, things doesn't always go the way we want it to be. He told us to resit for classes he failed us and that he wishes good luck. I immediately stood up and told him that he had skipped me and didn't even gave me a chance to answer before he failed me. His answer was " You fail one class you fail another, what difference will it make, go back and prepare all the topics, if you really knew the material, the time you need to resit the test will be less than a few minutes for all the topics." and with that he dismissed me. By that time I was raging and fuming. He failed me for 3 classes just because I was unable to answer correctly for one ? All I can blame is that I was not in favour at that particular moment and hope I will do better next time. Though I couldn't help feeling disappointed and angry for the treatment I was given in class. I tried to lash out at the gym to get rid of my anger and depression but I couldn't get all of it out of my system. So here I am, trying to fuse out the remaining sparks by writing my heart out.

Blizzard and Tests

It has been a bad bad day. Waking up this morning, I could feel the cold seeping in through the windows. Although I braced myself for the chilly weather, I didn't expect myself to walk into a snow storm. It had been pretty warm for the past week and most of the people were not prepared for the sudden return of winter. As a result, there was a massive jam this morning rendering me and my friends stuck in the bus stop waiting for the bus for over an hour, which after boarding took us another hour to reach our destination. By the time we got there, we were all shivering in cold and hugging our bodies as tightly as we could to preserve whatever warmth we had. When class finally started, the teacher came in and ask about the topic which was about thinking. After a short discussion, the teacher proceeded to show us how the test were done on patients. I became the patient while teacher became the physician. During the 1st test, I was given a bunch of picture cards and was told to sort them into groups according to whatever ways I see fit. With the whole class hawking my every actions, I started to grow nervous and aware of my sorting of the cards. I felt like I had some psychological problems because of the reactions of my teacher and fellow classmates. After class ended, I was so reluctant to go to the gym as it was miserably cold. Though, I forced myself to go ahead but I was a bit lazy so it was pretty unproductive.

Medical Psychology Cycle

This week, I'm having my medical psychology cycle. For this cycle, we have to take a special bus that will travel only to the psychiatrical hospital, which is where we will be having both our psychiatrical and medical psychological classes. I know some will be wondering what are the difference between these two subjects. The answer is, you should go find out yourself on the internet because reading what I wrote will not make you remember it as you had no hardship in getting the information. Back to the topic, so here I am this week, finding myself in a psychiatric hospital. Monday was pretty uneventful. On Tuesday, we were given a patient to talk to, the patient had schizophrenia (has delusions and hallucinations), which made him tell us a lot of bizarre stories like he has been to the moon and how he came back from the moon. Today, we saw 2 patients, 1st of which we think he has severe depression and low self esteem. His stories seems to be quite normal though he kept looking very sad and told us that no one wants to talk to him. The 2nd patient we had was one with paranoid schizophrenia. This subset of patient or at least this patient seems to be hurrying and doing everything very fast. His speech was very fast and were blurry at the end of the sentences. He also had some delusional and hallucination problems. After that, we were sent home but since the place is secluded and the buses only came once in a while. We had to wait for 30minutes in the cold before getting up one. By the time we reached back to the main station, it was 12.05 noon and we were having Russian classes at 1pm. I forgot about the Russian classes we had and packed for my gym session after my Psychology class. I had no choice but to go for an hour of gym being able to only do my cardio workout before going to the class and heading back for another gym session. With that, I ended my day around 4.45pm heading home for my hot dinner.

Spring's arrival

With the arrival of Sunday, which under usual circumstances means I get to play one of my favourite sport - Basketball, it should be a very nice day. I realized that I wasn't included into the university squad and will not be training with them this weekend when I didn't receive any message regarding the training schedule on Saturday. Surprisingly, I wasn't feeling to sad or bad about it. This might be due to the fact that I had a hinch that I wouldn't make it. Anyway, as I woke up this morning, I could feel the temperature markedly rised and that it was a very nice day. The weather was just right, with the sun shinning high up in the skies and the temperature being cooling and not cold. The only drawback is that the snow on the floor has melted and has turn the roads into a big slush with all the water and unmelted snow being mixed by the footsteps of us humans walking on top of it. I baked my first carrot cake this morning after I woke up but I forgot to take a picture so I have nothing to upload. The cake taste alright in my opinion and I would most probably be making more of it when I have the time. Later that evening, I went to my usual volleyball practice and exhausted myself by doing some physical training. After the training, I decided to walk back as the weather was just too nice to waste on going on a transport. The skies were covered in a dark blue color with a hint of sunlight making it just visible enough to scout the surroundings. While walking back, I saw loads of couples strolling hands in hands. I couldn't help but wonder, how would it have felt, if I could do the same thing, taking a stroll with my loved ones in this perfect scenery. It brought a smile to my face thinking about it. But, for now all I can do is imagine. Someday, someday...

King Of the Class

Today, we had classes as usual at 9am. Like every other day, our dear Kenyan groupmate - Philip was late, only this time he was not only late. He arrived in the classroom without a labcoat and with no bag. To top that off, he was a bit high and his eyes were glittering. He sounded a bit more hyper than usual and was talking to most of the girls in the group which was something he usually avoids. We later found out and deduced that he went out clubbing yesterday night as it was lady night and might have gotten drunk or taken drugs (or both). He then decided to come to class straight after and we guessed that’s because he most probably had went home with someone else doing stuff we shouldn’t know. Lucky for him, the teacher didn’t scold him for not coming to class wearing his labcoat and when he was caught sleeping and snoring in class, the teacher only chuckled and ignored him. After class, while walking down to get out of the hospital, I saw him tumbling around like a drunkard and his eyes were now dropping like he couldn’t keep them opened and was half awake. During class, after training our opthalmological skills, we had quite a bit of time to kill before teacher returned. So my friends started gossiping and talking about Philip and other stuff which I was uninterested. I left my mind to wander around and I found myself writing his name and saying that I miss him. One of my friends saw it and started to tease me about it. But I was in luck as she couldn’t read my writing and had no idea who I wrote about. She only could guess that I was missing someone. I didn't realize that I was actually writing the names of my best friends back in Malaysia while I was reliving the moments I had back in high school. Something that I have not and could never feel with my current friends. I guess its true that as we grow older and start stepping into the society, our innocence is lost and that we will start to act like adults having gossips, backstabbing one another and not being able to trust people. I guess that's why I miss my high school friends so much.

Rekindled passion

Yesterday, me and my volleyball mates went to have a friendly spar with a Russian volleyball team. We had to take a 40minute ride just to get to the venue though due to some miscommunication, we arrived at the wrong place and had to walk quite a bit of distance before getting up another bus to get to the arena. The opponent team consist of a university volleyball represantative and a Sri Lankan player while the rest of them were made up from kids aging from 10-15 years(my guess). The university rep was very tall and used that advantage against us. Despite having our first team playing against him and the fact that most of his teammates are just high schoolers, he played his game well and we lost quite a few matches to his team. During the match, I felt the fire and passion for volleyball return to me. Even though we lost most of the matches, I was really thrilled and enjoyed the game tremendously. I guess, the monotonous routine of having a training session all these while and no actual competition put out my fire on will to strive and do better. Today is White Valentine's Day and I would like to wish everyone out there a Happy White Valentines.

It's a Sunday, and it means that I get to play basketball. I’ve always shown an interest with the sport since a young age. Truth to be told, I wanted to join my current university’s Malaysian basketball team when I first came over, but back then, being a junior and more timid of the hulking seniors, I chickened out and went to volleyball. Oh, and by the way, the picture above is some of the cookies I baked today. It’s my second time making it and I think there will be more to come. Today, the basketball captain has voiced out that he has to further cut down the amount of players so he can concentrate on those that will be playing in the coming intervarsity games. I really hope I make the cut though I might now be able to help much as I have volleyball to attend to and the competition time clashes.

International Women's Day

Tomorrow is International Women's Day, and hence today we gave our teacher a little gift to " bribe " her into being nice to us in class. She promised us that we will be able to see an operation that she will be performing today and she held true to her word. The operation was called adenoidectomy and it was being performed on a small kid. The area of operation was endoscopically and through the mouth hence there was only so much that we could see going on. After a while, we got bored and our legs were starting to hurt from the rigid posture we acquired to get a better view of the operation. Before the operation, me and my male classmates helped out to keep the child in place as he was trashing around being afraid of the needle that was introducing the anaesthesia solution. I thought the kid was already partially sedated as his eyes were closed and a mask that I thought had cloroform(sedative) was being used. But to my astonishment, when the anaesthesiologist called out the kid's name, his eyes fluttered open and he was staring right back into the doctor, during which I was just situated just beside her. I got a fright with the intense of his stare and his eyes (they were a clear blue color). After our class, we had to go for our Russian class which all of us dreaded. We bought her a small bouquet of flowers on the road side (being the cheapskate Chinese we are) and presented her with it in hopes of being able to skip the class. And lo behold, our wishes came true and I headed to the get some groceries as I planned to bake some cookies later during the day. I went to gym for the 1st time after a 1 week plus of rest at home being lazy. I had a new personal best of running and exhausting myself of 500kCal and having the longest run on the treadmill I ever had. Though, the success was short lived as my plan to workout longer was turned into ashes went my fatigue kicked in. After reaching home, I started to prepare the ingredients for baking and started my attempt of creating a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Instead, I got fed up with the pastries as my dear beloved oven (a blowing oven which fans heat out from a fan above) wouldn't want to bake the cookies in its usual manner and only form a layer of crust on the above while leaving the lower part still uncooked no matter how much time I gave it. Anyway, shout out to all the girls and women out there!! Enjoy yourself on the auspicious 2012 International Women's Day!!!

It has been quite sometime since I last took a haircut and with the help of my friend, I finally got my hair shortened. So here is a look of me after the makeover.

1st Spike

Today, is a Saturday which means, that I have my weekly volleyball training. Week after week, I find myself loosing interest in this game that I have found myself enjoying only a few months ago, it feels like I’m only getting more and more impatient with my teammates and the juniors. I really have to start working with my temper so I do not lash them out at any innocent people. Back to the training, it was as usual, doing some basic skill training followed by some in court game module. And it was during this time, I had my first ever nicely carried out spike. I was in the setter position as usual, and had been standing near the net, and the ball from the opposite of the court came back to my side being high and near the net, I jumped up seeing it was a perfect height, I swung my hand and with that done, I managed to spike the ball down. At that moment, I felt so happy and excited. I received some “oohs” and “waaaas” from my friends. The spike in my opinion was equivalent to most of the spike that our main spiker - Ka Shing or Kii Han does (which in my opinion is not that bad either) I really regret not playing and training as a spiker but I had no choice as there were no other player willing to take the spot at that time. I regret my choice of not taking up basketball as my main sport when I just joined the university. Basketball has always been my main interest in sports rather than volleyball. But what that has been done is done, there is no use dwelling in a past that can’t be undone. Let’s us look forward and create a better day.