Lao PDR: The Epilogue

Sabaidee (Hello, in Lao)

Just came back from an awesome awesome trip to Laos yesterday. Was away for 11 days, leaving Malaysia on the 16th of June, and returning on the 27th of June.

I have to say it was an amazing trip. Laos is a beautiful country, beautiful sights and sceneries and interesting things to do. It has beautiful people, really really nice people, most of whom don't take advantage of you (except probably those who sell stuff at the market. One of us got conned), but are very carefree and simple people.

They lead very simple and carefree life. One magazine jokes that Lao PDR (which abbreviates for Lao People's Democratic Republic) stands for Please Don't Rush. But seriously, Laotians take their time into doing what they wanna do and have little worries. It was so bad that we waited two hours to get all our Naan for breakfast.

The main objective of the trip was to raise funds for the building of two classrooms. We had to raise RM15,000 for the building. Well, we managed to raise RM11,000++. It wasn't totally enough.

The raising of money was a whole adventure of its own, we did things we never imagined doing. Like selling keropok in LRT stations (I didn't get the privilege to do that) and begging for money in restaurants and public places.

While we were there, we interacted with kids, teaching them English, and Arts and Crafts. The kids were really adorable bunch of people willing to learn. It was tough communicating because they don't speak English. Never had I experienced such communication breakdown. But we managed to learn each other's language from each other.

We also helped construct the classrooms by helping to carry things, lay bricks and stuff. The construction workers were really nice people. We actually talked to them, and grew close to them.

And other than that, we had our own share of sightseeing and playing.

I grew closer to people who I knew before but didn't really know. I saw the different sides of my teammates, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Basically, I learnt a lot, about working with people, the conflicts and frictions we go through, the fun and joy we shared together.

It was a perfect end to a holiday. I didn't think it would be this fun. Laos far exceeded my expectations. Basically, I didn't really expect anything.

Had the time of my life, and wouldn't exchange the experience for anything else.

Hopefully I'll blog out the things we did daily in the days to come especially after I got all my pictures. One kid deleted 1 and a half days worth of my pictures. I'm mad!

Signing off,

Lah Kohn (means Goodbye, in Lao)

Life's been on a pretty interesting front. I have been going through a valley season, or maybe it's a mountain season, I really don't know, neither can I tell. But I guess I've made decisions, pretty tough decisions, life-changing ones.

This is probably the biggest decision of my life, and I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing.

But I guess I really need this. I'm just letting go, and letting life take over.

Life's gonna be interesting from here forth.

Looking forward to fly to Laos =)

End of Semester 2 Examinations

My blog deserves a good update after not updating for almost a semester.

Semester 2 was an enjoyable semester, well to a certain extent.

The shortest semester in IMU, I spent three quarters of it not studying.

Only 12 weeks long,
I spent the first two weeks with my sister who came back from Australia;
the 3rd week trying to revise
the 4th and 5th week with orientation = not studying (I believe I blogged about it, and well, whatever I didn't say, let's keep it as history, I don't think I want to talk about it again, it almost screwed up my semester)
the 6th and 7th week enjoying myself with the post-orientation parties among other stuff to attend to,
and the last few weeks of my semesters frantically studying, almost killing myself in the process (almost literally, but no I didn't attempt suicide, although I really wanted to die at that point of time).

Orientation was good, but I think the studying process was even more interesting. I did a bunch of crazy things which I love to describe here.



Well, basically for 5 weeks, I slept on average of 4 hours.

I came to a point where I ask myself again, "Why am I doing medicine? Why was I so ambitious? Why in the world did I think that I was smart enough to sail through studying for it? Why was I so idealistic about not minding the long hours of working and on-calls, when even sleeping 4 hours a night is already killing me"

Honestly, it was bad times. Up to now, I still have no idea what my semester 2 work is about.

In that 5 weeks, my friends and I did a bunch of crazy things.

• We screamed a lot to release stress. I even screamed in the library, and people started thinking I was going crazy. I was.
• I ran at 11pm to release stress. Well basically I had a lot of energy in me, and I had to release it, so running was a good way to do that. And the area around IMU was really unsafe at that point of time, having just had 2 robberies happening in less than 24 hours and many other rumours of snatch-thefts and break-ins. But I really had to run.
• I broke pens, and highlighters.
• We camped out at McDonald's, which was quite a lot of fun. What we did was wake up at 8am, go to the library and study till 10pm (time the library closes), then head out to the nearest McD's to mug up till 2-3am. Then go home and sleep. Repeat the cycle.
• There was once where I stayed in McD's till 6am. I camped there, slept there, brushed my teeth there.
• And there were other times we studied at other McD's beside the nearest one (in Technology Park Malaysia). We studied at SS15, Subang Jaya; and Bangsar McD's.
• There were other times when I went to be at 12am to wake up at 3am to go to McD's to study.
• We also sneaked into the enemy's camp (Monash University) to study. Their library is awesome, because it opens on public holidays. And their Histopathology/Anatomy lab is so cool because it almost never closes. Its supposed to be open till 12am but the guards only come about 2-3am. Monash's facilities are really really really really good. But I still think IMU's curriculum is better. No regrets choosing IMU =))
• I climbed along the window sill of the CCTV-monitored Monash library. Apparently they said something like the CCTV is visible on the website or something. I don't care, I'm from IMU. Catch me if you want to.

Well basically, after all the mugging and cramming and studying and memorising and understanding and what not, I didn't finish studying. I didn't study half of my semester 2 work which is 25% down the drain, and almost half of my semester 1 work, which is another almost 25% down the drain; and even the stuff I studied I doubt I could remember.

Basically, the night before I was so so so so super tension. I realised that I am going to fail. 50% is pass. No way I am going to get through this exam, I told myself.

The night before my exam, I went to sleep early, and woke up early to study. I flip through the stuff I never studied, and then prayed really hard. I don't know, but I really thank God for the sense of peace in my heart. I just had this feeling and knowledge that I'll pass my exam. I simply claimed God's promises that I will pass, that I will get through this obstacle, that I will conquer and win the battle (because the battle is not mine)

I was almost excited to sit for my first paper (SAQ), my batchmates thought I went bonkers.

SAQ abbreviated for Short Answer Question or you might know well as Structured Questions.

So, I went in the exam hall with confidence. Sat down, look at the paper, read the questions, *don't know how to answer*, nevermind look at next question, *still doesn't know how to answer*, writes some crap, looks at next question.

I don't know why, but even through that, I still felt confident and positive, even though I couldn't answer. I finished the two hour paper in one hour. I flipped back, and to my horror, less than half is done. There were whole questions (with the subquestions) that were totally blank.

Then I started doing again from question 1, and yeah, couldn't answer much. Just wrote crap.

Two hours up, I handed in the paper. Paper almost half blank, I only realised this much later after pondering. Well, I had like 20 minutes waiting for the invigilators to pick up my paper. I could have picked up my pen and fill up the blanks, but I thought I'd be honest, so I didn't.

I left the exam hall not knowing how to feel. I was somewhat still feeling confident and happy, yet worried at the same time. It didn't really hit me till much later that I left half the paper blank, which means if I got only a few mistakes for the things I wrote, I'd've failed the paper.

Then I sat my second paper which was multiple-choice questions (MCQ) which they call One Best Answer (OBA) which is supposed to be harder than MCQs because more than one answer is supposed to be correct, but you have to pick the best answer.

I thought the paper was tricky, but I knew how to do it. So in my mind, I knew I'd secure an A for the paper, well, at least a B.

Then we had a few hours to study before the next paper (OSPE) the next day.

I had in mind many things I wanted to study. I listed them down. But didn't touch them, because I was talking half the time. I was too tired to continue studying at night, so I went to sleep.

OSPE stands for Objective-Structured Practical Examinations. There are 24 questions and 5 rest stations. Each question is 5 minutes. You will start at one station, where there could be a plastic model, or a diagram, a picture, or a chart. Based on that, you will have to answer questions. After 5 minutes, the buzzer will sound, and you have to go on to the next station. You can call it station games, or kan cheong game, whatever, but I can say it is quite fun.

The paper wasn't as tough as SAQ, so I prayed hard it will pull me up. And thank God the stuff I was planning to study didn't come out. Well-deserved rest :)

2 weeks fastforward, I got my results. I was so kan cheong okay. But I somewhat thought that I did well enough to at least scraped a pass.

Well I did! Haha. But seriously, I'd have to thank God. Indeed a miracle. I seriously deserved to fail based on how much I studied.

And yeah, as predicted, I failed my SAQ paper with a C-.
OSPE was so-so with a B.
And I got C+ for OBA, which was jaw-dropping. I thought I did quite well for it.

I got an overall B- which was far more than a pass, praise the Lord!

C is pass, C- is fail.

And if you think B- is not that far from a C, think again.

B- to a C is approximately 15 marks away (5 marks for each grade)

And 15 marks is frigging hard to get okay.

The OSPE or SAQ paper is 33.1% each.
Both the OSPE and SAQ papers have 24 questions each.
That means 15 marks is about 12 questions.
That is A LOT of questions okay.

But seriously, I couldn't have possibly done it by myself.

I passed my final papers, which I thought I'd've failed and hoped for my continuous assessment will pull me up.

And well 23 people in my batch failed.

If you think that is a lot, think again.
Approximately 40-50 people fails the EOS2 (End of Semester 2 examination) in each batch.
And only 23 people failed this time.
Some more this exam is among the toughest exams ever, according to the seniors.
And only 23 people failed this time.
That only proves to show how crazy smart and competitive my batch is.

I've still got one more hurdle to overcome ie EOS3.
I will study hard.

P/S: I will try to edit it and beautify this post with more pictures, so check back again =)

iLife '09, iPhoto, Medicine, Mathematics, and Rantings

iLife '09 is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen, thus far. I got it free! My friend has it, and passed the ORIGINAL CD to me. I installed it, and am in love with it.

I haven't really explored its full potential, but I only know one feature and I'm so amazed by it! It has a face recognition thingy on iPhoto.

iPhoto is an application which sorts out your pictures for you. With the iLife update, iPhoto recognises all the faces in each picture. Not only that, it matches the faces of the pictures with similar faces on other pictures. And if you tag the pictures, you get arrange the pictures in groups. So not only do I get to arrange my pictures according to events, it auto-sorts all my pictures according to the people in them.

How cool is that?

Moreover, it updated its Facebook uploading function. You can upload pictures right from iPhoto, that's right. And you can do all the tagging and stuff too. I think with the face recognition function now, tagging would be a breeze. I don't think I even need to tag. Haven't tried it yet, but sure it would be cool :)

All of you are gonna stone me now for talking about my Mac again. But I think it's really cool.

* * *

I am in that place again, when I feel like I am not suitable to do medicine. I don't entirely hate it, and I really love the prospects of the job, but the studying process can be a pain sometimes. I do kind of love learning about the human body and its functions, but not being able to understand a big chunk of it, and not being 'gifted' with memorising skills (is it even a gift, or sometimes you get by practice?), I once again feel like I might have picked the wrong path.

Yes, I really love Mathematics, and ever since my school days, Math is the only class I look forward to in the whole day. Maybe it's because I can grasp the subject well.

I'm just thinking what if I accepted the offer for MORSE. Maybe I then wouldn't be dreading classes everyday. Maybe I would be a high achiever, not needing to study (this hard now) and do well. Or maybe not.

I am almost struggling trying to keep up with my studies, and hoping to do well. And this is only hoping to do well in exams, it's not even hoping to equip myself with enough knowledge to make a good doctor.

I just found out today that IMU teaches the very bare minimum. The medical curriculum being an Integrated and Student-directed learning system, we learn much less compared to the spoon-fed traditional medical education system as practised in India.

And oh btw, I'm dropping my decision to apply to India because it is too much work, too much time. And I'll need to prepare for the entrance exam which is right after my EOS 2 (End Of Semester 2) exam, and they ask odd questions like botany, physics, chemistry, and mathematics.

And guess what, I forgot ALL my Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

Just two days ago, I was scribbling the PBL room's whiteboard. I tried to write out some formulas, and guess what? I forgot all the formulas! I can't even recall a single formula. Now, I am stuck with doing medicine. No way am I gonna excel doing Mathematics or Physics or whatever other related course now that I've forgotten everything.

That is a lot of ranting for one blog post.

But always look at the bright side of life: I updated my blog :)

It is 2.30am, and I'm still awake trying to figure out how to do my AIR Topic (AIR abbreviates for Assigned Independent Reading) which is a 300-500 word essay (I've yet to find out the word limit) about immunohistochemistry. Bombastic word? Yes I know, even I don't know what it meant until I've done reading up from the sources given.

I wanted to post some photos up. Here's the first ever run / race / marathon I've ever been to. It's not even a marathon, it's probably a quarter marathon. It was a 10km run around Bukit Jalil, organised by some Bukit Jalil running club for charity.

It was last Sunday. We were supposed to meet at IMU at 5.45am, the Race Coordinator of the Infinity Milers (a running and mountain climbing club in IMU) called me at 6am, and only then I woke up =P

I got 292nd place, haha, how awesome is that? That is super low. And I clocked in 1 hour and 17 minutes. I ran all the way without stopping, quite a huge achievement for me. I was talking to Jeremy three quarters of the way. Thanks Jeremy for being my pacesetter, hope I didn't slow you down too much! The qualifying time was 1 hour 45 minutes, so I completed the run half an hour before time.

The run was torturous, especially towards the end. We went up two steep slopes, and many smaller ones, and the last 2km was killing.

In the end, I survived and completed the run without stopping to walk!

After the run, I rushed home to shower and had another marathon at church. Not a running marathon, but was in church from 10.30am-8.30pm. I went home and crashed!

But after the run, I felt so healthy. I felt the rush of endorphins, which felt pretty darn good. I do kinda enjoy running, because when I run, I release stress. And when I run, I don't have anything to do, so I started thinking of life, faith, and God.

Anyway, what I wanted to show you all was these super awesome pictures.

This is the team from IMU / Infinity Milers holding up the Infinity Milers sign after the race

Some of my batchmates holding up a lala pose. Do you see what I see? Don't see it? Let's zoom it in


Yeah, it is a rainbow on the fountain. It appears to me that you can see it every morning at that position, looks really cool, eh?

I'll post up pictures and stories about orientation soon. It is so awesome, I have to write a little about it.

But till then, I'll go back to studying :(

Orientation is over. And I had an awesomely good time.

The past two weeks have been a study-less time, due to orientation. Been spending all my time after class with my orientation group. It was rather a huge sacrifice, especially to my studying plans.

Overall, it was a great experience. I got to get close to my juniors, and they're really great people. I will definitely miss those times sitting with them as they plan for their activities, and make props till past midnight, and being ragged together with them.

Orientation was tiring, definitely, having not enough time to sleep; and having have to squeeze out all my brain juice to help them think of a plot for the various dramas (which kind of failed because I am not a very creative drama person). Yeah, I kinda hated those brainstorming sessions, but I enjoyed spending time with them and going out for meals together, and watching movies, and being ragged together.

Yes, I actually enjoyed being ragged and having my shirt soaked in chicken intestine water, and commando crawling in a muddy field after rain, and breaking eggs over my shoulder (which went into my eye) on a hot sunny day capable of turning it into a yummy mata kerbau, and duck walking while singing Negaraku, and running around 'the globe' 11 times, and the list goes on. It was really fun.

I actually miss you guys, Group 12! I don't wanna go back to studying.

Now, it's back to reality. It's back to the fact that half my semester is gone and it is 7 weeks to my exams, of which I have not started revising at all. Microbiology is sufficient to kill me. The only bacteria I know is Traponema pallidum which causes syphilis. Okay, I do know others also. But... =((

Today IS a holiday, and I was supposed to complete my PBL and start on AIR topic, of which I failed to touch either.

I went to check on a university which I have been looking to apply to since A Levels, and found out that application is open.

Should I apply? Should I not?

I didn't apply last time because I missed the dateline, and besides the entrance exams and interview clashed with my A Level exams.

The university I am looking at is in India, and it is one of the top university in India; and is very well known across the medical world. The full cost of study fees and accommodation is less than RM15,000. (What?! You must be kidding me, only RM15,000 for the top university in India?? Yes, no kidding)

Only thing is competition to get a place is extremely stiff, there are only 7 places for the category I am applying and that includes all unsponsored Indians and foreigners.

Application is extremely tedious, I have to submit a lot of forms and apply for a lot of forms. Application to the university is primarily targetted to local Indians, so since I didn't go through their secondary education I have a lot of forms to clear. I have to run up and down the Indian embassy, and send out my documents to India.

Will it be worth the trouble for that 7 almost impossible places to get?

I've got one month to do all those, and I need to juggle that with studying and other responsibilities. God help me!

It has been some time since I've last updated my blog. My one month holiday has been quite eventful, did a lot of things, went to many places, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. (hence, it is a bad excuse for me to say that I have no inspiration to blog, I was just lazy)

Even more than that, the past month has been a very experiential one. I mean, I went through a lot, experienced both good and tough times, smooth and challenging times.

But even through the challenging times, I thank God for them, because I did first ask for them.

I have tried blogging a couple of times, which left me with four incomplete posts which I have no intentions to complete.

All I can say, life's good; and I have much more ups and downs to look forward to in the year and years. Indeed, look forward, even the down times.

* * *

And yes, to state the obvious, I changed my template, for no reason at all. I just felt that the blogger layout was a bit amateur, and wanted to move on to something more matured.

Was planning to move on to wordpress, but by the rate I'm updating my blog, it would look like some abandoned website even after 6 months down the road.

But I guess, all I need to do is revamp and renovate my blog a little bit. Gone are the days of PIE, say hello to markteen, for simplicity's sake.

Status update

Mark wished he could put up all these on Facebook because there are so many necessary updates, but sadly Facebook status update has a character limit. Hence, here it is!

Mark has finished his Summative (exam), and one semester in IMU!

Mark is grateful to God for bringing him through Summative 1 and helping him excel.
God truly never ever fails those who honours Him. I have no regrets giving God my best, even through the exam period, when everyone is busy cramming for exams. I thank God for He is faithful always!

Mark wishes everyone a Merry Christmas (this is so outdated) and a Happy New Year (this is outdated too)!!!

Mark had an awesome 2008 but is looking forward to an awesome-r 2009. Let it be another year of exponential growth in many many ways!

Mark hopes to have a fruitful one month holiday!

Mark hopes he'll have some time to type a longer post to update his blog next time, but at the moment, his holiday is packed up. So, we'll see how yeah?

Mark is going to an Orang Asli village this weekend, so he'll need to be preparing for that.

Mark is loving his Macbook (this is random)

God, help me to love what I'm doing even more.

i.e. to study!

Exam's drawing nearer and nearer. Only two more weeks of class, actually less.

God, help me to love study the bones and cartilage, and autonomic nervous system, and the stomach, and joints, and the blood, and...

It's gotta be interesting. You made them! :)

Have you seen anything like this??

Click Image to Enlarge

The internet in IMU is amazingly fast! I downloaded the whole 700MB movie in like 20-25 minutes!

The RM30,000 I am paying per semester is worth it! Haha