Sloth

OMG..

Why am I so lazy??
I really should be updating this blog more often.
Anyway hrmm...let me think what's new..
Well I'm currently in Forres doing my GP attachment for 7 weeks.

As you guess from the name Forres, the town seems to be in the middle of a forest. It's got trees everywhere, and most people work in the forestry industry.
By the way, it's autumn and the place is gorgeous, cause the trees are all changing colours, and it's all just multi-coloured. To be frank though, it's probably not as nice now, cause all the trees have gone bald, and most of the leaves have been shed, but about 1-2 weeks ago, the place was just gorgeous, with trees filled with beautiful yellow, brown gold leaves.

If you were wondering where the heck is Forres, well it's approximately 1 hour and 43 minutes train ride away from Aberdeen. Twice, I took the freaking bus, and it took more than 3 hours. Bleurghhhh..I hate taking the bus. I only take it sometimes cause it's much cheaper than the train. shit, need to be less kiam siap.

I am really enjoying GP here.
I used to absolutely hate GP work, especially as I didn't have a good experience with my previous GP attachments, and I thought it absolutely horrid and boring, but this attachment has absolutely changed my outlook on GP work.
Everybody here is absolutely lovely and nice.
My Gp- Dr Thomson is absolutely brilliant. I'm so sooo glad that I put him as my first choice in the GP choice form, and thank God they gave me my first choice too =)

And the other GP Dr Sneddon absolutely cracks me up. He tells the best best stories ever. I was listening to him tell me stories about this doctor who was supposed to be working, but escaped away to play golf, and was struck by lightning and ended having quite severe burns. Absolutely hilarious! Oh did I mention that he goes hunting and fishing for salmon. He hunts deers, pheasants etc. Wow, I find it so absolutely fascinating, hunting seems so medieval and I didn't even know that people still did that, I used to think only English aristocracy practiced such sports. It's like as if he stepped out of a story book or something.

By the way, I was also fascinated by how the surgeon in Wick-Mr Fisher is able to fly a plane, sail a boat and chops wood for his house. Oh oh, did I tell you that Mr Fisher is tall and charming to boot. His wife is very beautiful, tall and slim with the most gorgeous green eyes, and whom I had to perform venepuncture on, in more lay man terms- take a blood sample from her. But anyway I digress.

I'm so spell-bound and impressed by everybody. Seriously I only read about people who do such things in story books. Haha, I guess life here is really different compared to my old life living in a big city with all its infrastructure and buildings and fast-paced life and pollutions.

Oh yeah, I would also like to add how I feel like such an idiot!!
Dr Sneddon was telling me about how he won so many prizes as a medical student, and that he and Dr Thomson were both distinction students in medical school. And the rest of the doctors in the practice have passed various other post graduate exams. And and Dr Thomson has like two degrees, I can't remember what degree he did before doing medicine. And Dr Sneddon was showing me his books and the stuff he had to memorise as a medical student, and he was telling me about how hard he studied as a medical student. Oh by the way, I also want to add that Sueyi got 99 again for her USMLE Step 2 exam, so damn geng!! Congrats again!!!
Why am I surrounded by so many smart smart people!??
To be fair, all these people worked really hard, so I think they totally deserve all their successes.
As the title of this post suggest, yes I do have to admit that I have been lazy of late, especially since 5th year begun because we don't have major exams this year. Our major exam was in 4th year. And basically 5th year is just about shadowing the houseman in hospital, and helping them do their work which is quite no-brainer. Cause it's just taking history, doing examination, taking bloods. In other words, almost like a glorified clerk :P
So in comparison I am definitely enjoying GP work more as I get to see more diverse cases and use my brains to figure out things cause I get asked a lot more questions. Although I do feel that I was being a bit sneaky during my surgical attachment, as I used to run away from the surgical ward to attend all the different clinics going on downstairs. But to be fair to me, there wasn't a lot going on in the surgical ward in Wick and it was extremely quiet at times, and I was bored witless sitting around doing nothing!!

Ok, that's enough for today, shall continue again later on as I have to go off for a shower now.

Roast Lamb

One day, bought a leg of lamb on offer and decided to make roast lamb.

This is so extremely simple to make and oh soo delicious.

Heat oven at up 200 degrees Celsius.

Firstly wash the leg of lamb, then shake it dry.

Then, marinate with salt and pepper.

Then then, make wee slits all over the lamb and chop up some garlic and stuff garlic, pepper and rosemary into the wee slits.

Chop up some red onions and put under the lamb. In the picture I used shallots instead cause no onions lying around.

Then put some slices of butter on the lamb.

Then throw it into the oven and let it roast.

Every 15 mins or so you can take it out and baste the lamb. Which means take the juice from the bottom of the baking dish and pour it over the lamb.

If you want you can also roast potatoes or parsnips and carrots to go with the dish.

I roasted the lamb for about 2 hours and a bit. I'm not sure about the timing but just do a rough estimate by looking at the lamb.

Then you can also make gravy with the rest of the sauce left in the baking dish after you're done roasting the lamb, by combining it with wine/sherry, and some cornflour. But I'm very lazy to make gravy. I think the lamb was nice by itself.


And....

TA-DAAAA!

Thorntons Chocolate Cake

Once upon a time during the summer holidays in London,went to Waitrose and guess what!

We found Thorntons Chocolate cake being sold at only 2.99 pounds because it was going to expire soon. The normal price for the cake is about 15 pounds I reckon.



Absolute INDULGENCE......





Oh man, this chocolate cake is just sooo DIVINE!!!

In addition it's got truffles on top of the cake too. Delicious :)

Oops forgot to add, absolutely fattening too.

I have no idea how me and my brother managed to finish up the whole cake.

Yucky Chinese Food

Seriously,

NEVER EVER EVER EVER eat Chinese food in a small place like Wick.

Crap.


The food was seriously bad bad bad bad.

What a waste of money!!

Gah!!

Below is a picture of green curry ordered at a Chinese restaurant in Wick.



Actually this dish was among the better tasting dish out of the lot.

I couldn't be bothered to take pictures of the rest of the food, cause the food was just seriously crap.

Yucks.

I just wanna use dettol to rinse my mouth out.

Although we ordered a variety of dishes, all the dishes seem to use the same ingredients i.e. bamboo shoots, onions, peppers.

What the heck.

I wonder if they have shortage of Chinese ingredients here.

I hate the way some of the Chinese restaurants here like to westernised their Chinese food. Not only do they westernised it, they make it taste so horrible.


What's the point of eating Chinese food then if it's not authentic and GOOD?

Sachin's Birthday!

It was Sachin's 29th birthday last Friday (19th Sept).

By the way, Sachin is the surgical registrar.


Me and Sx bought him a cake from Marks and Spencer in Inverness and brought it all the way back to Wick.

By the time we brought it back......


Guess what happened!??


The CAKE MELTED!!

(*&(*$$^%*^&&$&#**#(%(^(^(^



But anyhow, cake was extremely delicious even though it was melted!

We each had spoons and proceeded to dig into the cake!!

*DIG* *DIG* *DIG*


*scoops into mouth*

=Repeats process all over again=



He was so delighted that we bought him a cake that he took us out for dinner!!!
Wheeeee........


Indian Food!!

Yums!!



Interior of the restaurant





THE STARTERS




Indian food galore!!
Lovin' curries!




Surgical people!

Me and the castle

During my second weekend here,

Took a super long walk.

Ended up at the Castle of Old Wick :)

Gorgeous views of rocky cliffs overlooking the deep blue sea.






Castle overlooking cliff







Me attempting my best not to slip off the cliff, while crawling to the edge to snap more photos.

It's a long long long drop down.

It's probably quite difficult to tell from the pictures how high the cliffs are.

Away to Inverness tomorrow

By the way,

I'm away to Inverness tomorrow to attend the Intermediate Life Support course on Thursday. They're so nice and they even provided accommodation for us, because it takes about 3 hours to get down from Wick to Inverness and there's no way we can make it down for the course which starts at 9am till 5pm.

I'm quite excited! I'm looking forward to visiting some of my patients who have been transferred over to Raigmore Hospital to see if they are getting better. Fingers cross!

Me and Shi Xian are planning on eating Jimmy Chung Buffet for lunch.
Seriously, we went out for Chinese food the other night at one of the Chinese restaurants in Wick, and the food was so horrible!! Therefore even though Jimmy Chung food is not great, but it is definitely better than crap Wick Chinese food, and also it's cheap! Hahah!

Hopefully I am not going to end up shopping in Inverness. Let's hope that Inverness doesn't have anymore sales! Please please NO MORE!!

Also I'm quite looking forward to seeing some of my friends in Inverness, which includes my ex-housemate Sidd who is a FY1 doctor! Hehe.

Coming back late on Thursday night means we are going to miss Curry Night!! What a shame!!! *sighs*. Yes I know I'm a sad case, whereby the highlight of my week is Curry night with the other medical students and doctors, as if I don't see them enough in hospital. Hahaahaha.

Oh man, I realized that I sound more like I'm going for a holiday compared to going to attend a course.

Wick

I have been in Wick for nearly 3 weeks! - Hahah note the alliterations Week & Wick :P

3 weeks ago, I took the train from Aberdeen to Wick on a Saturday with a stopover at Inverness on the way. As I had missed the bus to the train station, I literally dragged my big red luggage bag from my house to the train station, huffing and puffing all the way! I think it was perhaps nearly a half an hour walk. Thank goodness the roads were relatively empty in the early hours of the morning.

The train ride was 2.5 hours to Inverness, and then there was a stopover for about 45 minutes, and in the meantime I decided to walk around Eastgate Shopping Center to do some shopping :) It certainly is not easy lugging a big luggage bag to do shopping but I managed to buy myself a gorgeous pair of sparkly, black diamante embellished flip-flops from Accessorize. It was so cheap, only 3 pounds!

My slippers look nicer in real life!!

This was followed by a 4 hour journey to Wick.
So freaking long!
The train stopped at every single small town in Highlands, most of the places I have never even heard of!
Total travel time: More than 7 hours.
This didn't even include my train journey from London to Aberdeen which was another 7 hours.
I think my bum is gonna get pressure sores just from sitting for that long.
Thankfully I managed to sleep most of the way there, and when I got bored, I switched on my laptop to watch a movie. Speaking of that, the train is evil! They only provide electricity plug points to the customers in first class! I I guess you get what you pay for.
Oh by the way, on my train ride from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, I met this ginger haired man who is a dancing teacher in Edinburgh and he used to perform in musicals e.g. phantom of the opera etc.

More complaints I want to make, the university did not inform us anything at all regarding Wick. I have never been to Wick in my entire life, and I had no idea about the place at all, or where I was going to stay, and where everything was located etc.
I just realized how "adventurous" I am, venturing off to a place far far away which I was totally clueless about.

I met this nice lady on the train and she told me that the hospital was just behind the train station, and she walked me to the hospital. I turned up at the reception and they gave me keys to the accommodation which they said was located a mile away. I was thinking of walking there and was asking for directions, but the receptionist was on her way home, and her husband drove me there in the car. Haha it was very nice of them :)

On arrival at the accommodation, I had trouble finding where our flat was and I was walking around in circles but finally managed to locate it. You have to go through two doors to enter it. The layout of the accommodation is a bit strange, if I must say so myself.

When I first unlocked my room door, oh my goodness I was so disappointed! The room was so small!! I had no place to walk even!
But anyway I managed to do some rearranging of the furniture and my room looks quite big now :)

This was how the room looked like when I first arrived.

Look at the terrible arrangement of the furniture.

I was getting quite lonely and bored during the first two days when I arrived, as the place seems to be totally empty. But then Shi Xian arrived on Sunday night, and I welcomed her with open arms :P

After I arrived, I went walking around town which consists of the high street. There are a few pubs and shops littered around. There is also a Wetherspoon pub in town! Wetherspoon pub is where I get my very very cheap fish & chips from. The pub has an afternoon deal 2-5pm for fish & chips with tea/coffee for only 3.10 pounds if I am not mistaken.

The hospital is just located next to the town center. There are no modern shops around in town, in fact the most modern shops which is the retail center is located just near our accommodation and there is Lidl, Argos, New Look, Superdrug etc. By the way, I was so bored I went to New Look to look around and ended up buying clothes which were quite nice and cheap :) I seem to think the clothes in UK are nicer and cheaper during sales compared to in Malaysia. I think this is probably because every season there is a new fashion, and therefore they need to restock quite often as well as get rid of old stock which has gone out of fashion. I think it is also probably quite ridiculous to wear/sell summer clothes during autumn. Oh by the way, the latest trend for the Autumn season seem to be tartan/plaid/check, seriously all the shops are stocking it.

Then I walked to Tesco which is about 20 minutes from town to get some groceries and stuff.
This is quite a small town, so it's quite easy to find your way around, every place is reached by walking down a straight road until you reach the place.

Back online!!

Hello everyone!!

I am back!!!!

I am currently in Wick doing my surgical attachment in Bignold ward in Caithness General Hospital.

Wick is considered to be a rural area, a nicer term would be "remote area".

The medical students are staying in the nurses accommodation in Town and County Hospital which is about a mile from Caithness General Hospital.

Me and Shi Xian are staying next to each other and we have the whole flat to ourselves.

We also managed to get internet in our accommodation!!! That's why I can come online now!! Very happy!!

Shall update more in the next post.
Stay tuned :)

Thoughts...

Past couple of days have been spent watching this documentary on Charles Darwin's work.
I must said it's pretty interesting and this has stimulated me into giving much thought on the creationism versus evolution theory.

I don't support either side and in fact I have worked up some arguments supporting or rebutting both theories. Most of the time I throw my ideas at my brother to see if he would have anything to add or to refute my ideas, because I can be quite unsure if some of my thoughts on it are right, or perhaps there could be some fallacy to the logic which I have applied for the arguments.

Well I think perhaps I'm a bit too inquisitive especially during holidays when I'm bored and have nothing better to do then think of such things to occupy my mind. I don't know if I am wasting my time thinking of such things, but isn't that why God gave us brains, or perhaps we have been evolved into having a brain to think for ourselves and to think and question things happening around us? Somebody told me not to waste my time thinking about things which I cannot change, or perhaps would not even affect me and instead spend my time studying. Which is also probably true. Oh well, when term starts I shall go back to my studying.

For one, we certainly can't deny that evolution does exist, as it's been proven by science, but sometimes cannot come out of nothing. There must be somebody which created it.
Which might probably bring us back to the age old argument of did the chicken or egg come first?
or perhaps;
If God created the earth and everything in it, then who created God, as something cannot come out of nothing?
I am kinda freaked out by the idea of evolution, as humans aka homo sapiens might one day evolve into some other species, and I wonder what sort of weird species would it be which would be far superior to us. It just completely scares me.

By the way, I have discovered the book The origin of the species by Charles Darwin online. I wonder if I should download it and read it?
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/

Oh yeah, there's this other argument about truth, but I'm not going to elaborate very much on it either. There's too many ways of looking at it, and you could argue it from a philosophical point of view or perhaps from a logical sense, etc.
Firstly, we need to ask ourself what is truth?
Well I've checked the dictionary and it's come up with this:

1.	the true or actual state of a matter.

2.	conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.

3.	a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.

4.	the state or character of being true.

5.	actuality or actual existence.

I would like to know if truth is relative?
For example, there was a car accident, and there are 2 witnesses A and B.
A saw that the red car knocked into the blue car.
Whereas B saw the blue car knocked into the red car.
So which one of the above is the truth then?
Is the truth just relative from each person's point of view of what they believe in or what they saw happened?
I might be giving a poor example, but I hope you would be able to see my point.
But to argue that what a person believes to be the truth should be the truth, this argument cannot withstand because if a person believes the world is flat.
Is the world flat then?
Of course it isn't!
What else? I think I'm going to stop here.

The Aristotelian definition of truth states:

"To say of something which is that it is not, or to say of something which is not that it is, is false. However, to say of something which is that it is, or of something which is not that it is not, is true."

Confusing enough?

The problem with questions is that it just leads to more questions. So should I then stop questioning so much, as it's all pointless arguments anyway?

Inverness 4th year attachment

Omg, I'm damn bored.
It's nearly 3am in the morning and I can't sleep.

So I'll write some nonsense on Inverness to entertain whoever who bothers to read my blog.

Well basically as a 4th year medical student in University of Aberdeen, you're required to go to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness for at least one block (5 weeks) for placements.

Anyway most people are given 2 blocks there.

If I'm not mistaken, Inverness was about 2.5 hours away from Aberdeen by the school bus. I think if you take the train it's probably about 2 hours. I seriously can't remember.
The WORST mode of transport you can take there is the public bus.
OMG, I swear I nearly died. It's like freaking 4 hours. Anyway that was the only time I took it cause I exchanged with my friend to do another block there, so I had to find my own transport there, and I thought the school wasn't going to reimburse me for travelling so I choose the cheapest mode of transport. wtf. I'm so stupid. Actually I could get it reimbursed. Haih. If I knew that earlier, I so would have taken the train.

When I first heard that I was supposed to go Inverness to do placements, I was like wtf!
I thought it was some sua-ku kampung hospital, where the teaching won't be as good as in Aberdeen.
and I thought I was going to stay in some crappy accommodation.
and I thought I was going to die of loneliness, because only the 3 of us IMU people were sent there for the 2 blocks in July/Aug/Sept 2007, while the rest of the lucky people were all going together in Jan/Feb/March 2008, and I don't know the rest of my ang moh classmates!!
hahaha
Anyway, I was proven WRONG.

Haha, I like it when things surpass my expectations :)


So Aberdeen University is very GOOD!!
Haha, that's the university I'm studying in, of course I have to praise it!
But then I swear it's really good and well organized.
One thing is during the placements, we don't have to pay for rental or any bills to stay in Raigmore Hospital student accommodation. How good is that??
And when I went there, they just finished renovating the student accommodation and it was all new furniture and fresh coats of paint, so it was super nice :)
The university also provided transport free in the form of a bus to ferry us students there for our placements.
Yeah yeah, I know the very expensive school fees which I am paying all went in for that.

Anyway, my point is, I know there are a lot of other schools where you pay expensive fees but you don't get treated as well.


Yeah, that's my room. I stayed in Juniper Court the first time I was there in summer.
I think it's soo damn nice!! They even provided towels, sheets, toilet paper, everything.
Plus, we even have cleaners to clean the toilets, shower, kitchen almost everyday.
They even clean our sheets for us, we just have to throw them outside our door every Tuesday.
Like staying in a freaking hotel.
Yes I also know that I'm damn weird and I actually prefer staying in student accommodation more than a proper house.

Anita/Amy/Fraser/Chris

My most fantastic house mates ever!!
I couldn't ask for better house mates :)

Dementia

I swear I am having freaking premature DEMENTIA.

It's like simple things which I can normally remember I keep forgetting.

Like my bloody user ID.

WTH.

This summer, it's like the freaking dunno how many time which I have forgotten my user ID, and then I have to torture myself trying to remember to again. Haih!

I think my summer holidays is too long until I never use my brain cells, then my brain cells have all atrophied.

By the way, I'm reading this book called The Mahathir Legacy.
It's a really good book :)

I tried making creme patisserie/pastry cream again.
OMG, I dunno why always tak jadi.
I think this time around I put in too much flour. wtf.
I think I'm gonna give up soon. *sighs*

wahhaha by the way, I changed my blog template.
Duh.
Kinda obvious right?
Took me so long to find a template.
All these HTML configuring is so confusing.

Haih, I realized that I write like a bimbo,
and not like an intellectual future doc I should be.
Whatever.

OMG, Back to school soon!

Argh!!

Seriously

I hate the thought of having to return to school soon..


*sighs* a million times and over.

Buckie Part 2

I just realized how much I like to make everything into a series of parts.
I guess I'm just too damn lazy to type everything out into one post.
I've been checking my site meter and realized that there are people who come to my blog looking for how to get from Aberdeen to Buckie.

So since I'm bored and I can't sleep and also due to the fact that I'm such a nice person, I'm going to provide people with the various alternatives of getting to Buckie.

Buckie is located at:
Check the map below yourself.


This is a map of part of Scotland in case you're wondering, and still can't get your head around where I'm trying to show you. Anyway, I've circled Buckie and Aberdeen in RED, so you would be able to identify the places.

Next, the following options for public transport would be:

1) You could take the bus there. There are stagecoach buses which go to Buckie from Aberdeen bus station. I have provided the link here. It's bus number 305 stagecoach, which takes you to Buckie. But I do have to warn you that it's a really long journey, it takes about 3 hours to reach there, as the bus stops at every small, tiny, little, freaking town along the way. I guess it's nice if you enjoy looking at the scenery and checking out all the small towns along the way.

2) Alternatively, you could take the train from Aberdeen to Keith, and from Keith, you could take a bus to Buckie. You can check the train times and the price at this link.

In my opinion, the train is a much more comfortable way to travel although you have to change twice. The train is also more expensive compared to taking the bus, but the total travelling time is 1.5 hours versus 3 hours by bus.

Random crap I've been thinking about

Crap, do you know that my hair is super messy again.
Just one month after getting my hair cut in a stylo manner, it has started growing out and it's looking quite shaggy. I could be mistaken for a dog I swear! Worse bit is, I always crawl out of bed with my messy hair, throw on my smelly blue hoodie and go around walking outside, and I always end up bumping into people. So embarrassing! See I never learn from my mistakes. *sighs*
I think I need to get my hair cut and dyed again. I'm not quite sure when I should do it though.
Yes I did tell my brother that these type of hair styles are quite high maintenance.
High maintenance in the sense that it needs to be trimmed every few weeks, and use of styling products to keep it in some shape.

There's this pepper in the kitchen called Aji-shio, which is a mixture of Pepper and Ajinomoto.
I've been getting addicted to it, I shake it indiscriminately into all my food.
Seriously it makes your food taste sooo much better!!
It's like some sort of magic pepper where you sprinkle it into your porridge, soup and *voila* your food suddenly becomes so much more tasty!
I know that it's terribly unhealthy, but haih, I can't help it.
What a terrible future doctor I'm going to be.
"Do as I say, not as I do!"
Don't eat so much Ajinomoto!!


I've been fretting about starting school soon too.
About how to ship all the stuff from London to Aberdeen, how many boxes I need, when to ship etc etc.
So many things to contemplate.
In addition I still need to book train tickets to from Aberdeen to Wick where I will be starting my first block.


I still need to figure out where I want to apply to work next year too!
I'm quite sure that I would still prefer to stay in Scotland.
And I would also like very much to work in the smaller, friendlier hospitals e.g. Elgin and Inverness, but this will be at the cost of having less friends/meeting less people/less chances of meeting future partner (ignore the last one please).
By the way, I'm not even sure I might get my choices in the first place.
Also I did think about other places for working like Glasgow, but I think the place is quite dodgy.
I guess I'm not a very adventurous person and I don't like getting out of my comfort zone much.
I'd probably have to figure out all this sooner or later because I have to start applying for jobs soon.


I've also has nothing else better to do, and I've been surfing and reading blogs, news all day which has resulted in me discovering certain scandals which has been entertaining me for the past couple of days. I think I've reached the point where I'm getting way too addicted. I need to stop and get a grip of myself and start reading some serious articles/books again instead of rubbish scandals. Argh!!


Oh by the way, all these frequent feasting every day and night and now I have taken ill!
Stupid phlegm in my throat and I have to keep swallowing it down, and constant coughing, in-between my occasional sneezing. So annoyed. I think the weather has also contributed to my illness.
It's been raining/drizzling EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!
The weather here is so rubbish, it's supposed to be summer, and it's really gloomy and cold outside most of the time. I guess I prefer it to the strangulating heat.

Alright, that's all of my rants for today.

Another thing I want to add is Gu chocolate souffle.
Well we're very disappointed with it.
Such nice packaging and such good marketing, but unfortunately taste-wise, it seems to be a bit lacking,
We suspect that they have been using cheap chocolate in the souffle.
Seriously for the price you pay for it, and you get cheap chocolate in it!
What a rip-off!!