Ramblings...musings...

Post-CNY, back to work in Newcastle. Feeling homesick la. Especially more when I only got to spend a full week at home, minus travelling days.

So what did I do back home? Well, lots of cooking and baking for one. Permed/curled my hair, of which the curls are only vaguely visible now (yes i know wasting money right but oh well). Met up with my bestest gal pals and other high school mates. Didn't really 'bai nin' a lot lah. Just went to my grandma's house on 1st day as per tradition, and went to a couple of other friends' houses. 'Gambled' a little bit, won a little too :)) Went out yum char a couple times. Watched Aussie Open (all throughout except to miss the majority of the men's final coz I was blardy at the airport b4 i could find a pub which was showing it in the airport just in time to catch Fed's downfall in the last set) with mom & dad - special precious moments with parents k. Heheh.



Since I got back to Newcastle, did my 2-week stint on ITU, and am now on my 2-week stint in Anaesthetics. Woohoo(-not!), 1 whole month as a glorified medical student, with better cannulation skills and a computer log-in, but not much more. Sigh. Can't believe that I actually looked/look forward to my on-call days where I get to actually BE a 'real' doctor.


Come March, I will be a whole month on the medical admissions unit. Am actually looking forward to it, surprisingly. Prolly coz I'll get more chances at doing Mini-Cexs and CBDs, fingers crossed. I super-super hate the £"$&*(!)*!"£$%^ e-portfolio, but have to do, wat to do. At least I finally got audit projects going now!! Woot!

Happy CNY...again!

Gosh, it's been a year since I last wrote something here. Poor blog...sorry I neglected you *hugz* Gawd time flies. And hell, have I been lazy or what. Lol. Shit loads happened since 06 Feb 08 though - completed final year medicine, graduated (praise the heavens above!), started working as an F1 trainee, lost abit of weight and dropped a cup size, went to Morocco with my darling, then put all of the blardy weight back on again post-Christmas/New Year/birthdays makan-makan. In a nutshell.

And now I'm back home to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family, 1st time in 6 years! 1st time in 6 years that my face will be in our annual family photograph. 1st time in 6 years that I'll get to be at my grandma's annual open house on 1st day of CNY. 1st time in 6 years to eat reunion dinner at home. Can you feel the excitement? Lol.

Have been doing nothing much productive since I came home. Still not very used to the change in time, hence why I'm still awake at 5am now, having baked 2 types of cookies in the middle of the morning just now. Well, couldn't sleep anyway, thinking about upsetting unhappy things, thinking of what's going to happen in the future. Would have just ended up tossing and turning about on the bed. Might as well bake, don't you agree? :D

Met up with Cyn earlier today for yumcha. Missed having my best friend around to girly-talk and do crazy things like we used to...it was so nice seeing you again chabo!! >.< Here's hoping that we get to meet up with the rest of the old school gang at some point during this CNY week!

Hope I get to update more soon...

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!!

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! It's the year of the rat this year (which means I'm officially >24 years old :P) but it's another year pass us by so quickly now. Anyway, should be thankful that I'm alive, healthy and well another year gone, and wish for everyone around me to be healthy and well physically and emotionally for the year to come :)

Called home earlier, was quite quiet back home. It's been a quiet CNY here too, not much of a festive mood. Or rather, none at all. LOL. But nothing too unsurprising lah actually, to be expected. We had a nice 'reunion' dinner at home tonight, everyone contributing at least a dish each:





Starting with 'yee sang' to 'loh hei', wishing for a prosperous new year to come







Followed by a yummy pretty realistic pseudo shark fin's soup minus the actual shark fin, by Su Ann





Then we had our own version of longevity noodles with a mixed seafood soup base courtesy of Dipak



THEN only came our main course dishes (which of course, at this point, we were all already saturated and full...but that's besides the point. It's CNY so you have to eat, regardless of how much your stomach capacity can hold normally lol)

My first-time trying to cook a crab dish [chilli crab] and it sorta turned out ^.^ Was quite pleased, and it was actually relatively easy to cook. I bought a whole crab + 1/2 dozen crab claws from the market for about £5.50, which wasn't too expensive actually. Had to whack the crab shells with the cleaver myself beforehand though coz the shells were a bit too tough for our teeth to crack. But it jadi-ed in the end anyway :D Yeay..can attempt to cook this back home next time eheheh. Got the recipe off kuali.com (as usual >.<)











The other dishes that we had were steamed ginger fish by Carolynn and chicken + rice ala chicken rice by Dipak :) All in all, we only managed to finish the yee sang and the shark fin's soup LOL. Wat to do, the amount we cooked was probably enough for 6-8 people, and we only had 4 of us ;p We've got enough for tomorrow's dinner, so all's well.

Will be going for a pot-luck CNY thingy at Edwin's place this Sat evening. Should be more people there :) What to cook?? Anyways, Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone, wishing you all a prosperous, healthy and happy year of the rat!! ^.^

A quiet weekend

What a quiet relaxing peaceful weekend it's been. Lol, not that having some excitement isn't nice, but once in a while it's nice to just chill out and not do anything useful except for things that you like and that destress yourself, body and mind :)

It's been just like that this weekend. My boy, KY & Luke's back in Msia (*tinge of jealousy* haha), Su Ann's down in London and Dr Wai's working long days the whole weekend. So it's just me & Dipak really. Woke up late both days, read manga, watch American Idol, watch movies, ate meals, watch more movies, read more mangas, ate more junk food & slept. Aaahhh that's the life lar ^.^ Only time I left the house was to watch 'Over her dead body' at the cinema, and to the chinese supermarket earlier today.

I'm wayyyy too lazy. Gotto start revising very very very soon :p

Will probably in the near future write about all the interesting mangas/animes/live action dramas that have come up my alley recently >.< Edited some photos from earlier:

Before leaving for Malmaison's on the weekend before my birthday

Dinner at Malmaison's ~ I had lobster and scallops sheperd pie...yummy!

The poser posing at a very nice sofa-like chair at
Malmaisons' lobby while we waited for our cab to arrive

The lovely presents I got for my 25th birthday from minna-san...Arigato gozaimasu ne!! ^.^

Revived?

5 months + since the last time i visited my decomposing blog. lol. Am I making a comeback? Hmmm maybe, maybe not. It's just that quite a lot has happened since last, erm, August (lol!), and it's my first proper quiet weekend since...since way back when...

Well, for starters, I'm more than halfway through my final year as a medical student now. (omg, reality just sank in...not much time left now). I've somehow managed to scrape through all my essential senior rotations (o&g, paeds, psych, gp, n not least, p4p!! lol) and literally yesterday was the end of my 4 weeks of medical rotation. I'll be starting my 4 weeks in acute/critical care next Monday, and am quite looking forward to it :)

I've also had my F1 job interview last Wednesday. Before that I had to apply for my deanery (Northern) via MTAS, for which I scored horribly on for the questions :P 25/50 (minus the 5 points for not having any previous degree or publications etc :P), which brought my total score to 70. Thank God I made it into the 1st quartile to start off with. Barely though. My score was just on the lowest borderline of the first quartile.

Nevertheless, I managed to get Northern, and then we proceeded to rank our trusts in the deanery. Thus the big dilemma on where to apply. Was I confident enough to try for Newcastle as my first choice, since it is quite popular and loads of really good (re: good at bullshitting talking and have loads of confidence) people were bound to apply there as their first choice? In the end, I thought, what the heck lah. Just give it a try, got nothing to lose, since I put South Tees (Middlesbrough) as my 2nd choice (i.e. backup) anyway. Don't try, don't know, right?? Plus, the experience would probably do me good anyway.

And look what happened?? Woohoo!! ^.^ Someone's really looking out for me and looking after me somewhere *^.^* I scored an F1 job in Newcastle (just found out yesterday after nervously clutching my mobile the whole morning..well, not literally lar, but you get the point), and I think the most unbelievable thing was that I was ranked 17! Unbelievably unreal!! Lol. And all this is thanks to all my fav ppl in F1 and F2 being my tips-giving angels and of course everyone else for their support!! You guys know who you are *lovely big hug for all of u*

So now I'm confirmed staying in Newcastle for the next year, with Dipak at least. Don't know if we might end up just the 2 of us in Newcastle and moving to an apartment like Edwin's (~drools~ got the professional feel to it eheheh) or just end up staying back in Kingsley if got more people :) We'll just have to wait and see!

What else has happened ah? Ooohh, I've finally turned 25!! Ripe old age of 25. Mid 20s. Yecch :P Sometimes I wish I were back in high school (but mostly when I'm reading shoujo mangas..should stop reading so much of them O.o) Had 2 lovely meals chia-ed by Dipak (crab..yummy) and my fav darling at Malmaisons! Poshy feeling hehehe. Then our house went out for dinner at Sagawa on the day itself, which was coincidentally the same day Dr Wai sat for her MRCP Part 1 exams. Results in 2 weeks time and she'll of course ace it!! ^.^


The weekend was perfect too.. Cyn came all the way over from Dublin for the wkend, and even though it was quite hectic and rushed for her, she came. Chabo, you rule lah, as the bestest friend!! >.<>

Eeps, this post is getting too long. Will continue writing more later lah. If i ever make it back here. Going to watch 'over her dead body' later...sounds like a good fun comedy!! signing out~

1 wk to go...

My poor blog. It has been abandoned for over 2 months now. So why have I returned to post an entry now?

Well, I've only got a week left to be in Malaysia, and am feeling downright moody right now. Having mixed feelings about wanting to return to Newcastle, you see. Half of me really wants to be back in UK already because I'm honestly missing my boy, my friends & housemates, the new house, and partially starting final year, believe it or not. Being in KL can be quite lonely at times, and I think it's starting to take a toll on me. On the other hand, the other half of me will be so totally depressed at leaving my parents and family in Malaysia, leaving my car behind, leaving the mostly gorgeous weather here to face the utterly un-summer-like British summer, and I also will be missing my bestest friend, who's going back to Ireland a week or so after me.

SIGH.

I've had a relatively good summer actually, with lots of nice photos and good new experiences, but in some ways, I do miss Newcastle and everyone there quite a bit. Ironically, once I get back to UK, I'm pretty sure I'll be missing Malaysia and everyone here quite a bit too. Why is it that one is never fully satisfied with what we have ar? Geram!!

I'm pontenging today lar. Feeling a bit depressed and sorry for myself, but with a teeny bit of guilt for skipping today. Going to makan with Such and her friend in Section 14 (if I don't get lost first). More updates later if I can manage it!

2nd week, day er..2? 9? or 11? do weekends count?

Do I look like my mom? Lolz...not really, rite?

I've got so many things I want to write about. So many things in my thoughts. But i'm just too lazy and a bit brain dead to post anything now. *groan* Not even like I went in the whole day also. But still feeling tired nevertheless. Maybe it's the slight loneliness I'm feeling. Missing home, missing friends, missing chilling out in Newcastle actually. Lol. And a certain someone's gone to Turkey for three bloody whole weeks, so no calls during this period of time as well. Sigh.

Will I be more receptive to writing a proper entry the next time round? I hope so.