:: BïtS 'N' PiëCÉS ::

lunedì, maggio 30, 2005

Being wide awake in the darkness at a time when I’m supposed to be asleep is the time when my head’s the clearest. And yesterday night, I finally put my finger on something that had been bothering me for a long time… for three years already. I don’t have a purpose in life; I’m merely going through the motions, like a well-oiled cog wheel. Being happy when I’m supposed to, being sad when expected to, going by societal norms and being ruled by a brain so schooled by the disciplines of modern society that my heart’s desires are totally unknown to me. Having reached that conclusion, I felt a whiff of freedom not unlike a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, it was only for just that short while of relevation.

What followed was a wave of self-loathing. The things I worry about – hair, studies, clothes, friends, career, helping people… they seem so frivolous in comparison to this realisation that I lack a purpose that drives me through life. I’d imposed on myself aspirations that were termed ‘noble’ and ‘desirable’ in such times, yet by doing so, I was making myself one of the shallowest persons ever. I feel that I ought to have a purpose so strong and so drives me that I wouldn’t need anything else apart from the basic needs to go through life. I need to have something to call my own. Something that I stand by with such conviction that nothing, even the power of mass opinion would sway it. Really, there’s nothing that’s really mine to call my own. My name? That’s a creation by my parents. Models that I’ve made… designs that I’ve created? There’re just mirrors of what is admired, not what I admire. What do I admire? What do I want?

“There’s only one form of human depravity – the man without a purpose.” – Hank Rearden, ‘Atlas Shrugged’

There’s a reason for the glazed, expressionless face that I carry all day with me. There’s this emptiness hanging over me throughout the day, invading my thoughts at unexpected moments. In the midst of chatting with friends, just after waking up on the bus, in the middle of a joke I’m telling… It makes me feel that nothing I’m doing is worth anything. I’m truly afraid that this look would become a permanent fixture of jaded cynicism. All around me, I can see that countless people wear this look. Even the perfect lady with immaculately plucked eyebrows and perfect nails, the doctor who carries himself with such confidence, or the student who is learning. Their faces simple meld together, in a blend of shapeless lines. I miss the rare flicker of fire in the eyes, and even the flash of coldness in others. Do people these days have genuine emotions? Or are we all so tired with life that we play our roles with just the barest hint of feeling?

I want to be driven by a purpose in life, one that’s truly mine. I want to be unafraid of expressing myself, to not be bound by the rules, or the so-called moral scruples. I want to live by my own code of conduct. And of course, if I do this, I’ll lose all that is treasured by norms – friends, family, maybe even my career and a future that would be considered ‘successful’ by all others. I have contemplated, but I do not dare leap.

Heart vs brain

I think I want to help people, to bring comfort to people through healing. But now, I wonder… Do I truly want to do that for people? Or is it that I crave the feeling of people being indebted to me? To appear as selfless for others? To give myself something to be proud of? To assuage my guilt, whatever thing it might be for? I can’t think of any reasons strong enough to support this goal. It appears that I have merely ‘adopted’ it because it seemed desirable and noble.

“No. I don’t like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody’s confidence. If one’s actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not."– Francisco d’Antonio, ‘Atlas Shrugged’

Dopey @ 10:32 PM | 0 comments

domenica, maggio 29, 2005

:: movies galore! ::

i actually forgot that movies cost 9.50 on a weekend, and on the spur of the moment, decided to watch star wars: revenge of the sith. felt like i'd banged my head on the wall when the lady at the counter demanded an extra dollar. argh. brainless git, me!

so now i have to somehow convince myself that it was a fantastic movie, a non pareil.
start:
star wars is great
star wars is wonderful
star wars is the best movie made in history
star wars is the greatest epic ever
star wars is the best film i've watched in my entire life
star wars is a right choice
star wars is THE way to spend yr wkend
star wars is worth more than 9.50
star wars is like a dream come true
star wars is the most fulfilling theatre experience i've had
star wars is something to rave about
star wars...

haha... sigh. star wars is just not my type of movie.

as usual, the most entertaining entity in it was YODA. entertaining he always is. i'll soundly smack the next bugger who constructs his sentences a la yoda! hmmm, oh then perhaps i'll get requests from some people to spank them. oops. haha... wrong frequency. so yoda's this green thingy who looks like he'd gone for chemo (alopecia alert) and swings from remarkably frail looking to power jedi with the green light sabre. the change is astounding and rather comical. come to think about it, he reminds me of a gremlin too.

anakin is well... SAAAAAAAAD. who's the goondu acting his role? i think he did a brilliantly bad job. like the make up though, those awful shadows under his eyes and that angry kohl look when he starts turning evil... and btw, the darth vader outfit is ridiiiiculous!

padme is as usual, cold and expressionless. sad. i think r4 is more entertaining though he only makes those weird sounds.

overall the story was good though. better than the previous one... give me bloodshed over loveydovey couples by the river aaaaaany day!

i'm in a mean mood this wkend. come poke me and see what happens...

I WANNA WATCH MADAGASCARRRRR on a weekday. who wants to go with me?

Dopey @ 6:07 PM | 0 comments

sabato, maggio 28, 2005

i've embarked on the 1073-page, font size 7 (times new roman) paperback. here's one paragraph that i really like:

The great oak tree had stood on a hill over the Hudson, in a lonely spot on the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, aged seven, liked to come and look at that tree. It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would always stand there. Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole of the earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. he felt safe in the oak tree's presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.

One night, ligntning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside - just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape it left had not been able to stand without it.

Years later, he heard it said that children should be protected from shock, from their first knowledge of death, pain or fear. But these had never scarred him; his shock came when he stood very quietly, looking into the black hole of the trunk. It was an immense betrayal - the more terrible because he could not grasp what it was that had been betrayed. It was not himself, he knew, nor his trust; it was something else. He stood there for a while, making no sound, then he walked back to the house. He never spoke about it to anyone, then or since.

--- from 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand

Dopey @ 3:00 PM | 0 comments

:: of odd and dissociated things ::
When i mentioned wenky, B told me she felt he was best represented by a bear... she din specify whether it was a grizzly one or a furry soft toy type. but i'd like to imagine this scenario:The grizzly moody bear tramped into the students' lounge, and with one swipe of his powerful right paw, knocked down a file of year two's, lined up along like bowling pins... *beautiful* considering how many of them there are, and they never seem to do really anything but mill around in sociable grps there.

JUST JACK! hehe jack 2005 coming up soon?

Yesterday, i was yammering about dr toh to my mother... me: dr toh blah blah blah... blah blah toh blah... him blah blah blah...mother: ya ya ya.... HIM?!?!me: eh ya... u dunno meh? mother: i always thought he was a she leh!!! (eyebrows shoot up till it's hidden by fringe)me: you mean for TWO WHOLE WEEKS you thought he was a girl? and then it starts to sink in, all the things i'd said about toh... lolz... and now i know why some thing i felt was really hilarious did not receive an appropriate response from her. apparently she'd mixed up LLH and toh.
Oh talking abt LLH... that day we were in ward 45... ie haemato ward.as i walked in, i murmured to myself: 'oooh, the lee territory' and guess what, she popped up right in front of me. Whoa.

I LURVE WILL AND GRACE!!!KAREN'S SO KINKY! haha... kinky karen! apapup pupum pum pum pum pup pup pup apapup...

NEWSFLASH! i'm about done with all my W&G episodes! calling for some backups, standby episodes before i really finish my last few episodes and start the withdrawal symptoms.

Dopey @ 2:50 PM | 0 comments

mercoledì, maggio 25, 2005

:: the stereotyping of s'porean sec schs ::

"Chinese High (warning- strong comments ahead!):
THE original source of tight pants and shaved, monklike heads. if it can be said that ACS and RI maintain a fierce, albeit ultimately friendly, rivalry, the same cannot be said of any school and chinese high. almost universally hated outside the chinese schools, AC and RI boys loathe them in equal measure (statement of opinion).

Matching girls’ schools: err.. erm. i’ll leave this up to your imagination.

SCGS:
the bitchiest girls’ school in existence, rivalled only by WASPy east coast schools of america. the total income of the kids’ families in SCGS (and MGS) would easily surpass the GDP of most third world countries. yet they are smart, witty, charming, and possess a certain innominate flair about them (and if i didn’t say that i’d be dead tomorrow.. hi M. heh). they have a tendency to morph into tai tais post-marriage.

Matching boys’ schools: ACS (Indep)"

excerpted from aleej.com

PREGNANT pause, allowing dopey to linger over the words: ;tight pants, shaved and monklike heads'. hmmm. he forgot tight, SHORT pants + HAIRY legs.
hmmmm... closes eyes to savour the image of hypoC, wenky, jiangshi with monklike heads.
chokes at the thought of such a ridiculously pleasant image and coughs out enough furballs to make a mini-mink coat.

HA HA HA. never read any other description of schools that's more atrocius and funnier than from Life in Shades of Sepia Click to read about other schools...

Dopey @ 7:12 PM | 0 comments

martedì, maggio 24, 2005

:: anti-FUR/HIDE/SKIN advertisement ::

No background music, scene opens with camera focused on a doe-eyed furry minks/beavers/foxes (or whichever animal is the cutest)... scene pans out to show the massacre, bloodshed and keeling wails of all the animals being skinned, beaten, tramped upon...

blackout...

bold words come onto the screen, WHAT IF THIS CAME INTO FASHION?

flash on screen picture of a model wearing, instead of the typical mink coat, some kind of leathery material as a shawl or coat or perhaps hat...

scene pans in on digitally-created images of a human baby being skinned alive... and all the blood and gore splattering all over the place (imagine the anti-smoking advertisement level of grossness x 100).

black out.

at this pt i'm not too sure if another screen with words like 'take a stand against skins/furs' would be useful... i suppose, pictures tell a gadzillion words already right?

Dopey @ 8:43 PM | 0 comments

:: animal cruelty ::

warning: the following url contains one of the most cruel, grotesque and vomit-inducing video clip i've seen for a long time to come... it's ten times more gruesome than the video clip showing how pigs and horses and slaughtered for their meat, and definitely more cruel than the video on abortion.

http://my.so-net.net.tw/sirwang/fur.wmv

Hopefully, after watching this clip, all those pple who adore FUR of ANY kinds decide to boycott it.

i shall relive the nightmare by putting down the clip in words:
imagine cute furry little foxes bred in captivity, being hauled out of their cages... the foxes, seemingly knowing what was the fate lying ahead of them, or rather, having eyes to see what has happened to their 'friends', are desperately clinging onto the cages. in fact, for an animal tt's wild, they sure looked much happier within the cage then outside. that's cuz, once having firmly grasped the foxes tail in his hand, the faceless (literally) man, slams the animal onto the grown. SMACK SMACK! once and twice and the animal lies stunned, dazed, sometimes with limbs twitching.

next, after there's a whole roll of dazed cute furries on the ground, the men CHOP OFF all their feet. so imagine... the NOT DEAD yet fox lying on the ground, with tears glistening in its eyes, unable to flee, unable to move, knowing for certain that it was lying in wait for a gruesome type of death, surrounded by the keening cries of pain from its fellows...

the final step... is when the man hangs the fox up, uses a knife to make a slit incision somewhere ard the backside area (and boy, u can sure see the fox twitching!) and then uses just brute strength to rip the entire fur hide off the animal!!!

omg omg omg... and by now u should be thinking, the animal should be dead rite?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

still alive... can move it's head... finally, as they load off all the skinned animals into a lorry to god knows where... (to be eaten by the pple of that country?) the camera centres on one of the foxes, it rears its head up, turns to one side and finally keels over...

the rest of the video features the brutal skinning of many other kinds of animals... all in the name of a great demand for furs...

ok, gtg. bile's rising up my throat.


Dopey @ 12:07 PM | 0 comments

domenica, maggio 22, 2005

:: dopey vs bug ::

it is with considerable difficulty that i blog this entry... being still a bit groggy... i've never been that sick since i was 16. this is a super resistant bug manz... probably originated in the ears or throat. according to the doc, can't see nothin' in my ears cuz too full of earwax. haiz... why am i cursed with such tortuous ear canals that it's soooo hard to prevent earwax from accumulating??? anywayz, it took 8 panadols, 3 sponging sessions, 6 tepid showers, 1 amox-cla, 2 danzens finally managed to bring my fever down to 37.6! i'm soooo sleepy. :(

anywayz that doc was really quite nice, she din charge me consultation fee hehe... not like her partner. bleah.

and guess what, the chinese saying of 'huo4 bu4 dan1 xing2' is absolutely right! my specs broke (again).

Dopey @ 12:10 PM | 0 comments

venerdì, maggio 20, 2005

:: electives again ::

ATCHOOOOO!!! been sneezing non-stop since i got home, relieving all the pent-up sneezes from a whole day of clinics. toh and mo had really bad colds at the beginning of this week and ew went to catch it from them... today, i caught it from her... ARGH. note to self: must sneeze in toh's face to spread it back to him, things should go full circle. *cackles*

EW has a continuous tense... EW-ing. in future we could say, oh, EW is EWING ard in the wards...

those two dao-ers ignored me today again! walaoooo i was there rasping and gasping out their names 2m away from the clinic door and those two
BOZOS din hear me... would have attempted to call out hypoC and BAIKAR if not for the fact that toh was in his clinic then. hrmph.

heard the saddest sob story today. *sob sob* it made me want to cry too, and that was what triggered the nasal congestion and 'flu' for the rest of the day...

and yes, i've finally met someone who eats faster than EW! we should let those two compete one of these days... haha.. it'd be cool, i might get to do the Heimlich on either one of them. hia hia hia

tmr supposed to go shop and then sunday got eat and change phone or sth like that... but now sick. haiz. dunno can go out or not lei...

one WHOOOOLE day of lung cas and ct thoraxes and abdos... enlarged cervical LNs and a few NPCs, HnN cases... it's getting a bit too much, i was so zonked out, my feet forgot to hurt. :D :D :D met a couple of really difficult, angry, confused pts, well, haiz, quite sad... and boy, got to admire the doc's endless patience and sheepish smiles (i think they disarm the pt).

just popped two panadol 'cold relief' pills, and almost choked on one when i remembered that ahleong would have to CHEW on them instead. oh i'm so evil...

Dopey @ 9:12 PM | 0 comments

mercoledì, maggio 18, 2005

:: my first ERCP ::

ok, i know this is riDIculous, but i've just only seen my first ever ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography) ie. put a scope into your stomach, find the place where the bile and pancreatic ducts open into the duodenum and stick the nozzle of the catheter there, then shout 'fluoro!' while pressing on the syringe containing the dye with the X-ray on... and voila! u can see the ducts all nicely lit up, showing filling defects that represent possible stones or growths in the ducts... it's also possible to demonstrate strictures and other things.

it was quite exciting hehe... first that guy found the ampulla of vater, and then he put this guide wire in to guide the catheter thingy into the duct... he used fluroscopy and contrast to identify the bile duct. next up was to do a papillotomy (that is use the diathermy to cut the papilla so that the opening is now wider) the final step is actually to introduce the catheter, and a dormia basket, which is used to capture and retrieve the stone... unfortunately, that guy did not do a sufficient papillotomy and he lost the location of the opening. even 'dua tow' couldn't find it... at that point, with all the diathermy and needle prodding (he actually aptly named it 'thaipusam') and trying all the different types of stylets, the engorged papilla (from all the prodding and cutting) looked like a perfectly ulcerative, malignant tumour... lolz... dunno what 'apple coil lesion'. it took ages, and the poor man was given more valium and buscopan.

now, why did the dua tow say valium is better than dormicum?

so sad, i didn't get to see them use the dormia basket :(

next week, they're going to redo the ERCP, perhaps i'll go join them again!

i believe, as a person, we should see things thru and not give up halfway.

Dopey @ 11:25 AM | 0 comments

domenica, maggio 15, 2005

:: slacking hard ::

hmm, now let's see what i've done this weekend, i feel VERY tired. i've finished playing 'feeding frenzy' and started on the timed attacks... i've gone up to 9-8 on luxor and died there, so now i'm just stuck on 9-2... cannot advance any further. i've surfed www.malgusto.com and it's got loads of funny pics, videos and jokes among a lot of um... more unsavoury things. hmmm i've found bruno bozzetto's site! cool! the animation shots there are absolutely hilarious! chk it out:
1. Europe vs Italy
find out the differences between Italy and the rest of the EU in this hilarious 'cartoon'
2. The Olympics
this is my FAVOURITE! i suppose all evil pple will like it too...
3. Adam
Bozzetto's take on how the world was created... if u take a look at it in another way, it's more like how the typical Singaporean was created.
4. Yes & No
The yes and no's of driving, sent to me by nico the day before my driving test... such evil influence... tsk tsk tsk...
5. HORROR
hehe this one's cute... horror movie hahaha...

then i received 4 short clips from a friend and they were quite interesting... one is a clip with this extremely cute gal... u'll go KAWAII! another's a spoof newsreport on the happenings amongst the terrorists...

watched a couple of episodes of W&G... i think the earlier seasons were better... jack and karen are absolutely FUNNY and EVIL but grace is bordering on pathetic... reminds me of saffy (u know, 8days last page?) and will is just such a L-O-S-E-R... not funny.

hmmm then watched ch8 tv, the apprentice, gen Y cops (it's soooo stupid, i hate the fake american accent) and went for Jason's housewarming.. the rest of the time was spent being an irritant at home. heh.

:: Jason's housewarming ::

oh, his place is really nice, especially the poolside area, the bbq pits and all the other facilities. and i so lurve the location, it's just like 10m fr cck bus interchange/mrt!!! so convenient! and guess wat, val lives there too! hehe hope she lets me go swim there often. muahahaha... the pools are fantastic looking, got 3... one fun pool, a main one and one for swimming laps in. :D

Ree's quite good at cooking, lol, she reached earlier and helped J cook the fries lol... later on we decided to salt it but couldn't find the salt... eventually we found this almost empty bottle and just scrapped all the remaining crystals onto the fries... turned out it was SUGAR! argh. haha... seems like some of the guys felt that sugared fries wasn't too bad after all. -_-

Dopey @ 10:21 PM | 0 comments

sabato, maggio 14, 2005

:: just for laughs ::


Life is great... (a la tune of Great Eastern)


I don't wanna hear anyone trying to explain to me that it is theoretically/physically/ergonomically (wateva) impossible for a polar bear to slip.


Cat fight - - - literally


Camel belonging to a yuppie?


Now, i can't figure this out well enough, but hmmm... traumatised cat?

Dopey @ 11:26 PM | 0 comments

giovedì, maggio 12, 2005

:: 2 wonderful birthdays! ::

ok, i'm just assuming it was wonderful for them... or at least the present made them happie :)

hehe... this tues, the 'trio' drove down to the-hospital-with-a-garden. but alas, BK and hypoC were still fixing bones up in the OT, so we camped in car... with the engine running, and air-conditioning on... and ALL fell asleep...

anyway, eventually wenky and i woke up... but ahleong continued to sleep like a PRAWN in the back of the van. (it's really very comfy back there) so we decided to get out of the van and lock him in... guess what, he continued to sleep like a dead prawn!

think if he slept any longer, and if wenky din turn off the engine, there'd be on COOKED (red) prawn in no time! anyway, BK and hypoC came down just in time to see the 'skinny monkey' struggling to get out. heh heh... wenky got a interesting photo. (alas, it looked more like wenky's head superimposed on leong's body? it was rather gross)

anyway, eventually the 'skinny monkey' stopped hammering on the back windows (lolz) and sat in glum silence, determined to use as few of his facial muscles as poss so as not to age prematurely from the stress...

***


we got hypoC those super high power lights for his aquarium, that will allow him to keep corals w/o cooking them (which is what would happen if he used other forms of lighting) he was soooo thrilled! he had the 'just jack' look!!! i was quite happy, there's nothing like making a good pal of yrs happy, especially since it's birthday rite?

***

wenky's been drooling at this 'complete garden flower book' at the medical bkstore at SGH (now don't ask me why this book's being sold in a MEDICAL store) and he mentioned once to ahleong, so we decided to get him that book for his BIRTHDAY!!!

hehe, it was such a coincidence in the morning of that day that wenky was looking wistfully at that book again, with absoloutely NO idea that he'd soon have it in his clutches... we made our excuses and heartlessly dumped wenky in the student lounge.

wenky actually called while we were at the bookstore and i lied that i was at the toilet... lolz... later leong asked me, 'hey, yr toilet got music ah?' wonder if wenky noticed that? keke...

we stuffed the book in his bag in the locker and went back to acting like nothing had happened.

***


lunchtime... wenky opened the locker and his eyebrows absolutely went up when he realised his bag weighed like a ton of rocks. (the complete garden flower book is about the size of kumar & clarke)

:D yeah, i think he liked the present, though he didn't like turning 22! :D

***

Dopey @ 7:44 PM | 0 comments

mercoledì, maggio 11, 2005

:: surgical elective's almost ending ::

finally! so what have i learnt?
i've learnt
a) to not think about what i have learnt because it would give me GERD and turn my olive oil rancid...
b) how to manifest myself so as not to remain a ghostly spectre
c) NEVER to judge pple by their appearances ie. curry puff face might look super arrogant and 'military' (oh well, he IS actually) but that doesn't imply he's not a nice non-pineapply guy
d) just how SOME guys... or rather just one guy's life seems to revolve around porn or notions of porn. sigh.
e) how 'infantile' boys can get eh hem.... referring to those two... one newly 22 and one almost 24 already? haiz... la1 la1 che3 che3 in the toilet... according to the bday boy, then the older guy strangles the younger boy and then 'scuttles' into the cubicle... meanwhile, a doctor walks into the toilet, probably thinking that the world's gone crazy, or these MSes have been under too much stress, perhaps need referral to the psychologist for shock therapy. then bday boy decides to hide the older guy's clipboard in his coat... haiz...
f) ms so-and-so can really roll her eyes very well, must learn from her...
g) there's this doctor who looks A GOOD DEAL LIKE EW from the BACK! at the brightest ward in sgh.
h) rames and david CLAIM that there's this nurse who looks exactly like me, 'in more ways than one and hair colour also'... (now that sent a shiver down my spine)
i) nothing much about and from the citrus fruit, except for stuff about food
j) a good deal about surgical nutrition and how they compound the TPN solutions... courtesy of sis. chong the nurse clinician, BY the pharmacist and LB the dietician, really cool pple! FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL, two qualities sorely lacking in eh hem hem
coming up... how TPN solutions are made...

Dopey @ 6:33 PM | 0 comments

martedì, maggio 10, 2005

:: CUTEY FISHY ::

HEEHEE...

Should have blogged this earlier but i was too tired to do so.

On Saturday, that was the FIRST SATURDAY of my ENTIRE posting where i wasn't worried about tt @#%#@% review. *the word N-------- sends a shiver down my spine* and well, normally i wouldn't have said yes, but i decided to be a bit more adventurous and venture out of my fishless-coraless world to take a look at the things that have entranced our 'boys' and make them such fanatics of things covered in scales.

Went with D.W.R.T.E. (i swear this guy's name just gets longer AND longer) and hypoC to this erm shop tt sells marine fish and all the equipment n feeds to see FISH. (at least that was my plan, i think hypoC had additional reasons to be there heh ;) anyway, i was pleasantly surprised... though the guys thought that i was bored...

it's not boredom, it's just that permanently blank/tired/expressionless look on my face that just says 'dopey's been ard stan-the-smileless too much'. my eyes have begun to fail to twinkle when excited and the corners of my mouth are all stiff from keeping a straight-face instead of laughing when i see so-and-so's monstrously huge outdated mobile.

mmm... back to fish.

they're soooo colourful! all kinds all types... pple say that no two fingerprints are the same, i say that for fishies too! all are different, some have wider bands or an extra spot, some got nipped in the tail. some hermit crabs have a left larger pincer! how cool is that! then this poor hermit crab looked so poor thing, he/she was crippled. awwww... i liked those with the electric blue feet!

cowfish

oh this one is so adorable, after u get over the initial shock of it's weird shape. the cutest part is when it swims towards the surface, the two pointies are seen protruding over the surface first, and it looks uncannily like a martian invading earth thru the ocean bed. keke... the way it moves also reminds me of a submarine... sort of... it just kind of drifts, no tail to really propel it forwards. cool hor!

Goby
this one's also one of the more interesting ones...

of cuz those in the shop weren't as beautiful as these. those there looked like salamanders. they tend to shuffle along the sand bed, don't move a lot. and have really nice greenish-greyish-bluish concentric circular designs on their bodies. they remind me of desert lizards.

Feather duster

it's actually a sort of worm! i was frankly shocked. and then wenky did something rather barbaric, while fishing ard to get hold of one of them, (he n kenneth each bought one), he um... accidentally cause the feeding feely part to fall off! omg... toothless worm, how to eat?!?! anyway, it was odd.
the feather duster is made up of a long pipe shaped tube, with a fan-like protrusion from one end, when startled, the 'feathers' rapidly shrink back into the tube. quite cute, a bit like mimosa, only faster response. hehe...

Oyster-clam like thingy aka flame scallop

there was this really UGLY clam thing. usually clams are just clams right, nice shells and so on... this one has got FEELERS sticking out from the inside! gross! looks like some kind of underwater venus flytrap? EUW, this pic is grosser than the one i saw! wenky just said it swims! oooh... by opening and shutting it's shell, it can propel itself forwards... the coolest part about it is it kind of generates electric flashes! can see the electric flashes along the edge of the membrane at the shells...

HAIRY frogfish - and wenky claims it looks like him... hmmm hairy?

God, it looked damn gross when i first saw it!!! hmmm maybe the tank was a lil bit murky, and bits of food? or waste got stuck on its body. euw wenky, and u say it looks like u?
this one looks better, it's a GROOMED frogfish. though still hairy, ie. it din shave! it actually looks adorable. em... furry, like yellow elmo!

loved the coral too! wenky got a seafan, nice one, looks better if it doesn't bloom. ok this is a sea rods, that's cuz wenky's sea fan looks a bit 'naked' eh hem, he says it's all opened up now, so prob looks better...


and finally, hmmmm i'm too tired le. it's tiring looking for pics online too!

Dopey @ 8:34 PM | 0 comments

sabato, maggio 07, 2005

:: Hotel Rwanda ::

‘Hotel Rwanda’ is a film based on a true story that happened during the four months of civil unrest and blatant massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus. For more than ten years, Rwanda has been rift with fighting between the two tribes. The massacre was sparked off when the president (a Hutu) died in a plane crash. It was believed that the crash was due to the Tutsis, and thus, the Hutus started methodically killing the Tutsis.


uprising

Although the UN forces were in place in Rwanda, they were as useful as a bag of rocks in a fight… can’t use them as weapons, only can hide behind them… this might not be a really great metaphor, oh heck, it’s probably an odd AND lousy one. But anyway, it didn’t do anyone much good when they couldn’t fire at the rebels. Our hero is a Tutsi, placed in charge of a Belgian hotel during those 4 months. He opened up the hotel to take in close to 1,200 refugees, using all ways and means to forestall attacks from the Hutus. He bribed the Hutu leader to save a group of Tutsis (including his own family), bought booze and all the comforts that only a hotel could afford, using them as bargain chips to keep the pple in his hotel safe, just for another hour, another day.

Apart from revealing much about the lives of these people, this film also reveals much about the selfishness or rather, the practical nature of the 'big' countries... ie. those who call the shots in the UN. In fact, they refrained from calling the slaughter of the Tutsis as 'genocide' because such a situation would require the US and UN to intervene. Had there been any other value of Rwanda... if she held vast amounts of oil, if she were a potential market or had some other economic value, there wouldn't have been close to a million corpses left at the end of the four month reign of terror of the Hutus. It goes to show us just how much the 'people of Rwanda' meant to these so-called peacekeepers. Somehow, it also disgusts me, the way the ‘big and powerful’ nations are. It rather disgusts me. Reinforcements were only sent to rescue their own pple from the war torn areas. It’s finally up to our hero to help his own people.


"no one to help us but ourselves"

The film, with all its colour and richness, manages to portray the entire gamut of emotions, from relief, to absolute fear.

This is a very powerful, and moving film… yeap. The intensity of the film is further enhanced by the wonderfully beautiful music.

Check out the site for the cool trailer -> Hotel Rwanda

Dopey @ 6:04 PM | 0 comments

lunedì, maggio 02, 2005

:: exciting monotony ::

who'd have ever guessed that monotony could be exciting?

not me.

i'm currently doing the DULLEST posting ever since i started clinical years and the DULLEST project ever... the one we had to do for cofm this year, though absolutely 'painful', can't measure up to the absolute painful monotony of this one on surgical nutrition. *yawnz* i do learn stuff, but it's not really what i'm actually interested in. i'm just learning for the sake of learning, and cuz i know it'll be good for me in the future erm, if i decide to do surgery. (which is like, er.... in a 1 in a 1000000000000000000000000000000 chance?)

before the posting started, i thought they'd we some kind of bright spark in the posting, like a certain indian-surgeon-with-the-sculpted-nose and deep-grey eyes that i met while ventilating a patient in the ED... unfortunately, he doesn't look like what i'd expected him to look like without his cape and mask. :'(

back to square one.

haiz... poof was quite nice.... (n hehe) but he's going to be transferred to another department, and we'll be with the spanking-new-shiny HOs... one of whom looks like he just came out from the shanghai tan film. *deadpan*

oh right, back to the question, exciting monotony?

hmmm so i'm like excited about waking up at 5/530am every morning? i'm excited about er... what... pineapple?

i hope i don't see a pineapple during my onco posting!!!

these three days have really really SUCKED big time... pages and pages of minute writing by researchers who can NEVER speak in simple words, but go about on tortuous paths that lead u back to square one again. they've started to look 'homogeneous' to me... meaning, i'm having increasing problem trying to source out articles or remembering where i read something. sheesh.

and then those papers are bitching left right centre, it's clouding my judgment, i'd just like to condemn all those papers to burn in hell...

3 WHOLE DAYS... hardly leaving the computer, and almost resigning myself to type with close eyes because the monitor's so bright and the adjustments have gone kooky.

oh. ya. i remembered why i need to blog. back tmr!

Dopey @ 7:43 PM | 0 comments

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francesca chiu
2 eyebags & 5 wrinkles
on long-term dormicum drip
KIV IMH
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