Cool, I just saboed myself rite in front of my student with this physics question I gave to him on the spot. I ended up not knowing the answer and had to go back home to ask around. *Malu!!* Here comes the fun part...no one knows the answer either!! Well done vickz for coming up with a top notch question for an 'O' level student...

*so, does anyone knows the effective total resistance of this circuit? the vales of resistors are as given in the pic*

NUS-Clementi SCS-SMP

SMP stands for student mentorship programme, a so-called CIP work that I do for NUS out of school in Tanglin Secondary School. My job is actually to mentor a Sec 1 student, who faces some financial and family problems, through to next Jul with regards to his family, school, work and play. Yeah, kinda like playing a big brother to a stranger in his adolescence. Well, it's a little culture shock at 1st to find out there are such weak yet playful students around who sometimes have a little psychiatric problem. Luckily, my mentee, Alif, is a nice quiet Malay boy who does not give that much trouble. He loves the saxaphone, plays for school band and enjoys his soccer. Nice chap huh? Some people said I'm crazy to be in Medicine and yet wasting my time to do unnecessary CIP when it could have been used for books. But hey, Medicine is not all about studying rite, a fact that I've been inculcating in myself since year 1? There must be something more worthwhile to doing medicine than to study and I feel this is part of the compassionate and more psychological and emotional aspects to medicine. Who on earth can teach you how to deal with teens? Medicine? Nah, it's a life skill that has to be nurtured through real-life and practical situations like this. No wonder bookworm doctors nowadays are unable to cope with patients' demands, because patients are unlike what texbooks write of them!! Good doctors are not praised for their knowledge that much, but more for their ability to interact with their patients, to make their patients feel at ease yet being able to treat them effectively. Just like Patch Adams, my idol doc! Am I right or wrong? It's all up to you to decide. But for now, these kids give me joy whenever I see a smile on their faces, knowing that I had make a difference to their lives.

SMP mentors + mentees 

thinking hard for pictionary 

a soccer game to loosen up the atmosphere 

Shacked... 

sherwyn, the sloth, so happy after falling down from a bicycle kick 

my mentee, Alif, turning his back against me 

the speedy gonzalez 

So, I lost my wisdom yesterday, yet again. Y? Coz I just had another wisdom tooth op on my right lower mouth and it's beginning to swell like a big balloon. 'Are you eating something?', 'Are you having mumps?', 'What happened to your cheeks?' were questions I had to face whole day long. And it's pretty irritating and painful to repeat the whole story with a stitchin the mouth, holding the split gums together. Kinda makes me wanna talk less and less, and eventually speechless. To most of my friends, it must have been good news getting a quiet ear from me for a few days. Righto? Anyway, this was how the story of the broken wisdom tooth went.

One day, I noticed a pain in my right lower mouth. There was an impacted wisdom tooth, which was there for at least a year, that laid next to its molar friend. As I 'digged out treasures' from the cavity, I noticed a piece of 'thing' that refused to barge no matter what toothpicks I used. Eventually, I realised it was a decaying + a little calcified gum that got stuck in that little hole for a pretty long period of time. Petrified, I turned to a dentist the next day in YIH for help. She told me the impacted tooth had to go and it's a matter of when, otherwise, the situation will never be resolved. On the spot, I told her to remove the tooth, which initially took her by surprised too. In her mind, she must be thinking 'Y is this little boy so 'garang' to take it out without any hesitation?' Well, according to a chinese saying 'a short term pain is a long term gain' rite? And there Dr Doreen Chua went, happily anaesthesizing my inferior alveolar + lingual nerves, den drilling all the way to the root to remove my tooth.

Just hopes everything goes right from here... I miss eating food, any type of food will do, and I miss chatting and laughing hard with a big smile... Things which I had taken for granted which are robbed away from me now...

erm... dinner anyone? 

my cute little wisdom tooth to spoil your appetite... 

I'm a tired but happy man today... Din copy much for lecture today and had a fun time looking at the SCID paediatric patients. Not that I'm a bloody sadist in anyway, but pictures do make the lecture less boring and always captures my attention and reminds me that I'm in this medicine course for a more altruistic purpose: that is to save these lives one day. Noble huh?

Next up is my favourite hangout in Central Library to study. It's nice, quiet and colourful there and makes the studying less stressful. It's quite unlike in the Medical Library when everyone's busy studying away, absorbing all the possible knowledge available. Makes a slacker like me feel so jittery all the time. :( After a little studying, I was off with Yee Lin to Aloha Loyang for NUSSU Exco retreat. 1/2way thru the trip, she had to buy her slippersfrom BATA cos she broke hers on the train ride. Dun ask me how, maybe she's that strong. Haha... The retreat was ok lah. More importantly, I made new friends outside of medicine, which I'm pretty pleased. And oh yah, my 1st job for NUSSU was to help cook dinner. Gosh! Never did that at home before but was forced to cut veggies, cook noodles and some other little cooking. Man, I'm glad I did not spoil the dinner and it went fine without anyone being poisoned!

Thanks to a law fac friend that I just made, I managed to hitch a ride back to Junction 8 in time to meet Kwok Ming, my best friend, for a night movie. *Shit, just got scolded by him for spelling his name wrongly...again* Yeah, we watched 'The Longest Yard' and had a great time laughing at Adam Sandler's new flick! Not forgetting the Ben & Jerry's and Nachos that completed the wonderful evening. How I envy that lucky guy who got to travel around the world while studying in Carnegie Mellon Uni on a PSC scholarship. Now he's gonna be off to Stanford Uni to do his Masters and has mentioned about travelling to South America and Europe over his next holidays! ~Envious sia~ I always wonder how life would have been if I was not doing medicine but on some scholarship to somewhere around the world too... Darn, I'll never get to find out the answer becoz medicine has firmly placed me here in this little red dot on the world map, never to step out to find out about the world. Hey dude, take great care and enjoy this last yr out of Singapore before you come back to suffer with SAF... Haha!

Time to study again... but not before this pertetual qn that keeps disturbing all M2 and above students...

'When's your next holidays?' - Other faculty students
'No more liao' - My reply... Sad huh?

3-2 and so the final score reads! And yes, the ghost of losing to science fac has been put to rest with this final victory! Yeah, there's a great sense of elation and relief with this 3rd-4th placing match between Medicine & Science for the 2005/2006 Inter-Faculty Games for badminton. It's a source of happiness because this is the 1st time ever in 5 years that a medal has been brought back by IFG badminton, even if it's a bronze. I'm also glad that we did it in the year when I'm the captain for the team... Haha... Not that I did anything much, in fact I lost all my matches... *boo* ;< I'm relieved, on the other hand, because the 2 weeks of mental torture of trying to think of tricky line-ups and physical torture of playing sweaty long games with my lousy skills is finally over and I can study in peace and sleep with a peace of mind!

There are 2 lessons I learnt from the IFG:

1. nothing is certain until it is over. eg, the stupid 2-3 loss to Science during preliminaries which I had thought would be a breeze and I had sent the strong players home to rest... BIG mistake! We ended up 2nd in the group and had to play engine fac (which was the strongest team in IFG) in the semis, a tie in which we got walloped 1-3! *stupid & cocky*

2. EVERY FACULTY HATES MEDICINE!! That can't be more true as displayed during the IFG. I came up with that conclusion with Kerly with very strong evidence!! (i) every faculty sent their strongest players for all their line-ups against us. Kaoz, very strong players they recruited quietly whom I've never seen before and catches me by surprise for every single game (ii) every faculty den rested their best players when playing any other faculty!! wat's the meaning of this?! Even engine decided to take a day off and gave their no.1 female n male singles players holiday break for their finals against biz ad! *bastards* No wonder they deserve to lose 2-3 against biz ad in a game which they could easily win 4-1 or 5-o... Alright, we decided in the end to come up with a better conclusion, that everyone loves us and think we are the strongest opponent they can ever find in the tournament... Haha... everyone put us in very high regard and fielded their strongest line-up as a show of respect... My ass...

Weekend's coming... But my schedule is empty... Is that good or is that bad? I've no idea man cos I've not have an empty weekend before. Looks like I shall show my face at the Singapore Opens for Ultimate Frisbee @ West Coast Park to find out about the latest frisbee buzz. Played like a mad monk for the MuddyGrass team last year but decided to give this year a miss to focus more on studies... I miss playing the game competitively!!

the winning team 

the 1st ever IFG badminton medal for Med Fac in 5 years! 

the 4 musketeers from M2 who finished the gruelling AHM! 

found 2 M1s during the run! 

my finisher's medal...21.1km of sweat! 

It's crazy weekend once again... With so much play and so little studies, wait, make that none to studies...

09/09/2005 (Friday)
Went to Sentosa today to play frisbee, soccer and volleyball with meddy kakis! Sentosa has changed quite a bit since I last went there and the whole monorail is gone! Kao, nonetheless, 7-11 was still there to save our thirst and stomachs. Had great fun playing n spiking volleyball and taught the guys how to play frisbee! Everyone's throws r getting better n better... So happy! Got myself fried in a deep n dark tan...Luckily Darren's sun block was there to save me from carcinoma... Phew! Went for Tri-Fac bash later at night @ ChinaBlack. It was my 1st time there and I pretty much like the settings. Anyway, I had a terrible Q for the $16 door tix and was pissed off for a while with the admin. But it was soothened out later when I was totally awed by Qingyuan's dance performance with Wee Soon, Jirong, Liana, Siying & Amanda! Wow! It was totally cool n u guys totally deserved to win! Danced a bit and soaked in the great environment brought about by our med batch before we left for supper @ kopitiam near Meridian Hotel...

10/09/2005 (Saturday)
Woke up in the morning only to rush down to NUS for the Faculty of Medicine Shield (FMS) games. After days of training the guys to play frisbee, today was the day to showcast their skills. The M2s played M4/5s and we won it narrowly 6-4. Was so afraid we would lose the game cos I hate losing in any frisbee games... Phew! Yeah, tks to all who played... U guys played wonderfully and we showed the rest how frisbee is played and in the most exciting of manners! So proud of you guyz! Rushed down to West Coast Park immediately after the for my NUS Student Mentorship Programme mass outing with the mentees from Tanglin Sec. Was initially sad that my mentee did not turn up for the event after a promise to show up. But the disappointment was doused later when we played games after games, esp Captain's Ball, whole afternoon long. Got to know some of the kids better and the smiles on their faces showed that it was totally worth the effort to render our help to these needy kids. Rushed off again later to Hwa Chong for MAF. I finally managed to watch the light-up for the 1st time after 5 years and I thought it was just ok, compared to other years. The atmosphere was still great and the mass song-singing with mass dances look equally great year after year. Somehow, I always feel like a hwa chongian when it comes to such stuff... Maybe because 1 missed my chance of getting into the school before and am trying to make up for it now... Mmm...

11/09/2005 (Sunday)
Rushed again from MAF to home before bunking over @ Jian Bang's house to sleep over for Army Half Marathon (AHM). Gosh, I only had 4.5 hrs of sleep and I woke up @ 4.30am to find Jian Bang missing from his bed. Phew, he merely disappeared into toilet to brush his teeth. Kao, made me thought I was late for the event! We cabbed over to Esplanade with Han Boon from Khatib and the cab fare was $21! We wiped out all out $$ just for the trip and had none for after the AHM! It was a shitty start I must say because while we were depositing our bags, we heard the speakers going 'Are you ready for the race? And here we go, 3, 2 ,1!' Damn, I just missed the start for Men's Opens @ 5.45am! I joined Han Boon & Jian Bang for their Men's Closed event, which started at 6am. It was such a terrible squeeze and we took about 15 min to get away from the main crowd to start our 21.1km journey proper. Man! We were running quite hard at the start and we had to use 2 gals wearing Victoria and NJC jerseys as our pacers for the 1st 6km. The city skyline was not that beautiful cos we were still in the dark. Later through the run, we managed to see and overtake Hon Lyn and Mark Sim, who happened to be in the front, even though he was late for the event too. The route was quite a beauty but I never got to appreciate the scenary becuase all I could think of was 'where in the world is the finishing line?' or 'I must take over that old man/woman warrant officer and cannot be behind them'. In the end, Jian Bang finished in front of me by abt 1 min and he clocked in at 1hr 57min. Yeah, we broke the sub 2 hr mark and were pretty happy abt it. It was a super cool experience to drink Gatorade at every 1km mark and to douse myself in ice-cold water while running in a singlet and shorts! Never done that before! After grabbing my bag, which took 1/2 hr, Han Boon, Mark & I went to breakfast @ BK in Orchard Emerald Point with super wobbly legs! Yum yum! Breakfast never tasted this good! Later @ night, I had my Karate grading with super shaky legs thanks to the AHM. My kata wasn't done well and my kata boon kai was totally off! I heard that my chief coach was in a good mood that night so I hope I managed to pass so that I can move on to my black belt very soon!

12/09/2005 (Monday)
I got a heart attack with IFG badminton today. With our last game against SDE today, we needed to win to become 2nd in our group and to move on to semi-finals on Wednesday. However, my line-up was cocky again and SDE fielded, once again, like all other faculties, their strongest line-up with unknown but very good players against us! Man! They even had this black Mauritius player (which I later found to be a IVP handball player!) which they recruited from nowhere to play against us! He was good and stretched to the max our best singles player, Winston Chin (who's also one of Singapore's best), to 3 sets before giving up! Luckily Winston, Ker Liang (singles) & William & Huiyu (mixed doubles) won for us to win 3-2. Phew... Sorry to Zhi Han cos I played badly so we screwed our game to them... Eleanor & Lynette, hope you 2 had fun playing cos your cheers and laughter brought us smiles to the otherwise tense games! Yeah, we play Engine next for semis and we have nothing to lose already becuase they are a tough nut to crack, favourites to win the title... Hopefully, we can pull an upset because this captain here wants the gold if possible... haha... Y not dream big yeah?! :) Shuckz! Still got a run with Ren Jun in 6 hrs time!! *argh*

Awful can only be the word to sum up today. In fact, it was a chain of events with a stroke of bad luck that makes today one of the worse days ever since school started.

First up, I got off home 10 mins earlier than usual today to catch Jian Hong's car ride to school, as usual. However, I was so pretty darn amazed that the 1st available bus took 15min to arrive and it was packed!! Thinking I have time to spare, which I had a little in fact, I decided to wait for the next. To my horror, the next bus, or rather 2 buses, came only 10 mins later. Not only was it1/2 packed, I could not squeeze into the buses either. Too late, I had already missed Jian Hong's car to school. And to top it off, 2 empty double deckers arrived 5 mins after when I was about to take a cab to school. Damn SBS! Made me take 3 buses and 1 mrt ride just to catch my morning lecture... Luckily I still managed to be slightly earlier than the lecturer, who clamied to be jet-lagged and forgot his time... I wonder Y...

Next up, I did not take my lunch before running with Jian Bang to Sentosa from NUS, thinking it was unnecessary and would give stiches instead. Yes, call me crazy for running to Sentosa, which I thought was pretty easy. But it was absolutely suicidal to run on an empty stomach! *ReGrEtZ* Both Jian Bang and I gave up running after crossing the Sentosa Bridge because we felt super hypoglycemic and I nearly fainted through the run. Matters was made worse because we did not bring $ nor phone. If u think running to Sentosa is madness, think again! Walking from Sentosa to NUS is totally insane, especially when hunger pangs in the stomach were screaming for food! 1st time I got stranded while running... *Kaoz*

Last of all, my badminton line-up against Science Faculty proved futile cos we lost to them 2-3! *Argh* I hate it when we lose, esp to teams whom we should be easily! Grr, to all the faculty players, it was not your fault! U guyz played great but stupid Vickz was so cocky about winning this tie that he totally did not field a strong line-up at all because he looked down and was complacent about his opponent! My bad! Darn, my 1st loss as the in-charge and it's not fun @ all! I also have another complaint - how come all the faculties put their strongest line-up against Medicine and yet place a super weak line-up against other faculties? Are we that strong an opponent or are we detestable? Hmm... I would like to think neither... So give me a reason?!?!

Dying Inside To Hold You - Timmy Thomas

It's turning out just another day
I took a shower and I went on my way
I stopped there as usual
Had a coffee and pie
When I turned to leave
I couldn't believe my eyes

Standing there I didn't know what to say
Without one touch
We stood there face to face

And I was dying inside to hold you
I couldn't believe what i felt for you
Dying inside, I was dying inside
But I couldn't bring myself to touch you

You said hello then you asked my name
I didn't know if I should go all the way
Inside i felt my life have really been changed
I knew that it would never be the same
Standing there I didn't know what to say
First time looked away when I whispered your name

And I was dying inside to hold you
I couldn't believe what I felt for you
Dying inside, I was dying inside
But I couldn't bring myself to touch you

I was dying inside to hold you
I couldn't believe what I felt for you
Dying inside, I was dying inside
But I couldn't bring myself to touch you

One hello changed my life
I didn't believe in love at first sight
But you've shown me what is life
And I now I know my love (I know it's coming right)

And I was dying inside to hold you
I couldn't believe what I felt for you
Dying inside, I was dying inside
But I couldn't bring myself to touch you

Today is clearing sleep-debt day! Wat a lazy pig I was sleeping the whole day long... Never felt so tired in a week before...

Went to Safra @ Mount Faber when I woke up to collect my 'goodie-pack' for AHM when I woke up. Well done, I got lost at Telok Blangah for a while on bus 273 and was taken around on a neighbourhood tour ride. In the end, the bus managed to stop outside my destination and to my surprise, my 'goodie-pack' consists of only a T-shirt and a coupon... Well done X2! Luckily, the T-shirt (below) looked pretty nice (very much nicer than the 2003 shirt I had in fact) or else I would have complained even more!

It was shopping later @ queensway for my pair of running shoes. Realised I have not shopped for shoes for a damn long time and the adrenaline rush was very welcoming. My traumatic struggle between Asics, Mizuno and Addidas shoes ended with an uncle who was willing to give me a big discount off the Mizuno shoes. Price mattered more in the end of picky little vic! ~bleah~ Got a pretty shoebag later on to fit my beloved shoes and also a nice High Sierra water bottle to quench my thirst for running... Haha... Shopping, when not for clothes, is always this fun... I love it!

Rushed down later after shopping for MC's concert in Botanical Gardens. I was very late and did not make it in time. All I saw at the end was MC packing up, ready to leave Botanical Gardens for NUS. Shuckz! Wasted my trip down!! Phew, Amanda, Ian & Cheok were there and we chatted for a while before we met up with Lynn & Charles for dinner @ Thai Noodle House near Coronation Plaza... Woah! The Tom Yum noodle soup was excellent and had my glands flowing non-stop. Spicy and sour in one of the most authentic ways... Yummy! I shall leave now with the quote of the day I found from the Thai Noodle House - "All Chilli food and food with Lime are moderately cooked. More/less chilli or lime please inform the staff" WAT?!

ready to fly on my new Mizuno shoes 

finally, a chio dry-fit AHM shirt 

Yeah, I'm happy today! :) With Jian Bang and Renjun running with me today twice around NUS campus, we managed to clock a new time and distance in our preparations to the Army Half Marathon. We did 200m/min X 93mins = 18.6km! Wow! I got a shock too when I saw the numbers... Hmm... Looks like a champion marathon runner is in the making... Haha! But oh damn, my legs and body are cramming like mad... Ouch!

Another happy thing would be that I managed to teach frisbee to 2 groups of people this week, 1 to Medicine people and the other to VCF people. It was pretty fun watching both groups throw their frisbees so happily. Reminded me of the time when I first started out in Jan 04, when my throws were so innocent & lousy too yet I was having so much fun. It's not that my throws are very pro now, no no! In fact, it's way off standard... but you guys can do it too, if you practice more often too... So come down to NUS fields on weds @ 5.30pm when the real pros can teach you too!

But like all stories, good things don't come to a good end. I lost my pair of running shoes to bus 852 when I fell alseep on the bus and hurriedly got off the bus when I overshot my bus-stop... Argh! How can I run next week?!?! Whoever got my shoes, u r a lucky fellow! U won my stinky socks and smelly shoebag as well... Boo Hoo Hoo!

And yes, dammit, I missed my golden chance to talk to her 1 to 1... What a stupid tak! U have absolutely no guts!