25 Random Things About Moi

rule: once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. at the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

1. my ears turn really red if i wear lab goggles (the heavier ones) for too long; they feel hot too.. if you touch it.
   
2. for the record, i have big ears. (but please don't stare at them the next time you see me)
3. for reason #2, i rarely tie my hair back into a ponytail because that would only make it even more obvious.
4. but when i don't tie my hair up, i look sleepy (or at least that is the comment i get most of the time).
5. so there you go, my hairstyle choice every day: should i look sleepy or look like a monkey.
   
6. some years ago people often came up to me and asked, "are you feeling okay?" and when i asked why they asked so, they said i looked "sick". i wanted to tell them, "look, i am just a lil' pale, and i am yellow after all, so that gives me a yellowish green skin tone, you can't expect to see rosy cheeks on me all the time, can ya?!"
7. i don't mean to sound unappreciative, but i feel certain people need to know how i look on normal days (fyi, i look very much like a pale ghost with panda eyes when i'm really sick).
   
8. rainy days make me happy, i just wanna be a child again.
   
9. i don't have monday blues, but i have sunday blues. yes i don't quite like sundays.
10. i think there's a humungous hungry worm in my stomach.
11. there's no reason otherwise for me to feel hungry almost all the time. yep it has to be that worm.
    
12. sometimes i like to imagine myself as a 3rd person watching 'me' do stuff. kinda like watching a movie starring myself. :) my own movie about myself haha. how narcissistic.
    
13. it's getting harder to think of more random stuff about myself - because most of them are embarrassing stuff i shouldn't reveal, it will change your opinion about me forever. :P
14. i'm a quiet person with a lot of things to say. if it makes sense at all.
15. i love being chinese (nothing new :P).
    
16. when i was 7 (first grade), i had 6 classmates who shared the same last name with me.
17. once, when i was 12, i asked a waiter in a hotel where we lunched at where the restroom was. he took me to the gent's. -_-||
    
18. someone once said i have jackie chan's nose (if you don't already know, he has a huge nose!). i took it quite badly at that time.
    
19. i'd rather freeze to death than scorch to death.
20. i missed the times when i could walk down karl marx street in kursk, russia (the main street of the town) from one end to the other whenever i felt blue. even better on a cold winter day, with snowflakes falling lightly from the sky.
    
21. i still wonder from time to time if it was a mistake leaving russia.
22. but i don't like to dwell in the past, and i believe everything happens for a reason. that's why i'm here. :)
    
23. i sneeze quite loudly, it feels good.
    
24. i love to laugh; i have a very loud laugh (and not very ladylike too). only certain friends have heard it before. :)
    
25. never say never. i once wrote in this blog that i dislike being tagged, and will never do it. see what i'm doing now?!
    

Silent Dissonance

letters that form words which carry a certain meaning to send a certain message were mixed in containers of lotions sunblocks facial cleansers shampoos as the spindles twirl and twirl in anti-clockwise direction. i stare at them jumbled up together until they become mere alphabets lost of their purpose of existence.

every morning i wake up shutting away my concern about my job characteristics that inherently defy my beliefs of protecting the earth, be more environmental-friendly through minimizing the usage of plastics and paper. every day my actions are the complete negation of my beliefs. yet i am left no choice because, after all i am but a mere chess piece that can be kicked out of the picture any time, and i just can't afford that. so i wonder, is my contribution of polluting the earth any more justified than those who buy groceries and carry tons of plastic bags home every time or those who don't recycle?

it'd make me feel better to think my actions are more justified, yes. but one is still one, it still means the same value, whether it's written numerically or spelled as 'o', 'n', 'e'. so i guess whether i like it or not, i am still polluting the earth.

that's only the tip of the iceberg of the millions of thoughts running through my head each passing day, but i can only write so much after numbing my brains for 11 hours every day. physical tiredness wears one down, and all i want to do when i get home is drag my body to bed hide under the covers and shut the world out, before the dawn of the next day when it starts all over again.

but despite the sobering tone of this post, i am still quite cheerful and pumped up every day (when i don't think about my part of un-greening the earth, that is). and even if i do think about that, i don't show it at work. people will think i'm a nutcake. have a great weekend peeps! :)

Oh-What-A-Week!

thursday morning was chilly. the birds were still half asleep when i left the house. no chirping to greet me good morning. and due to working overtime the previous night, i got home at a quarter before midnight, reducing my sleep to about 4 hours since i need to wake up earlier than usual to get to the hospital for my 7am volunteering shift. but all of that was well worth it cuz i saw two surgeries while shadowing the veteran volunteer in the OR. i was enlivened just by being there, albeit only witnessing some minor surgeries. anyway. that's where i'll be posted for my next volunteering rotation. thank goodness i chose the OR, cuz i dont think i'll be quite as keen if i have to wake up to an empty ER for the next 3 months.

the first one was an arthroscopy, which is a knee procedure to remove extra fibrous tissues, torn meniscal cartilages or damaged joint tissues with the help of a small camera. was pretty cool, considering i'm not anywhere close to being a doc yet i got to stand next to the orthopaedic surgeon with him explaining to me as he operated on the patient's knee. :) the anesthesiologist was a pretty cool guy too.

the 2nd one was a femoral-popliteal bypass. the doc was originally gonna remove the clots in the femoral artery and insert a shunt in it; but because of some complications he couldn't do that, so they decided to do a bypass instead. this other anesthesiologist a burmese chinese doc (who speaks hokkien too!!) explained to me (and another volunteer) the procedures they were doing, and the big picture of general anesthesia, how it works etc. and then he went into this bioethical dilemma of whether the state should "waste" resources to help patients who don't help themselves. should patients who don't take care of their health deserve excellent health care only to be voiding all of the effort by smoking like a chimney and stuffing their faces with greasy high cholesterol food? wouldn't it make more sense to spend the limited budget (let's face it, there will never be enough resource to take care of everyone) on patients who deserve or really need it? then again, didn't all physicians took an oath of some sort that they should treat each and every patient regardless of their race, creed or religion - that said, personality and attitudes too? i'm just saying, i don't know much on this so i can't say for sure. but quite frankly, i do agree with the doc to a certain extent. i mean, if you wanna inhale beef burgers right after your surgery, then what's the point of the surgery?! so that's the interesting stuff in OR on thursday.

at work, its been terribly busy, so much so that i woke up from sleep thinking that i had to get back to work cuz there's just overflowing samples that i have to test. -.- that same morning i was told i need an evidence of continuous employment eligibility to work in the US to be offered this job that i've been praying for. after 2 interviews, 2 written tests, i got it, only to be taken away from me because i don't have the appropriate documents. damnit.

later that morning my hair got tangled in the hair dryer and i had to chop them off or else i'll have the hair dryer connected to my head forever. it was quite a comical sight, if you will. XD

saturday - gotta work. chean flew back to malaysia for cny. lucky her. i hope she brings me back some milo and cny cookies. :)))) ok back to studies. toodles~

The Mold Man and Toilet Girl

the stories of toilet girl and mold man were just plain bizarre.

a while back i read this news about a girl who sat on the toilet in her boyfriend's house for 2 years!!! two whole years! holy schmoly!! whoever can sit on the toilet for two years?? what do you do sitting there for THAT long!?! that's 730 days, or 17,520 hours! if the numbers don't mean anything to you, let's do this. suppose the average total amount of time one spends peeing and pooping in a day is about 30 minutes (or the max 1 hour for those who has constipation problems). that 17,520 hours of real toilet time would be equivalent to 17,520 days of real toilet time, which is 48 years of an average person's toilet time - and that's if you really use up an hour each day. and to put things into perspective, that's close to half a century of real toilet time; assuming each of us don't live up to a century, it's more than half of our lifetime's toilet time. it amuses me to the extent that it actually scares me. what is she thinking when she does that? was she afraid of facing the world for some reason? did she do it to avoid facing the abusive boyfriend, or did she just decide to become a recluse? wanna get into the guinness world record? seeking attention? merely wanted to challenge herself?! i don't understand. and the boyfriend!!! he said he sent her food every day and thought that maybe she just wanna be alone. was he a psycho or what?! after two years only did he sought for medical help for the girlfriend, whose skin has embedded on the toilet seat. well of course! two years!! whaddaya think?!!! i'm baffled.

here's another one. the staff in the hospital called him The Mold Man. doesn't need a rocket scientist to figure out he got that nickname because he's covered with mold. from what i gathered, the story of the mold man is this: he came from china and rented a room from someone. everything seemed okay for a while, then the people living with him started getting suspicious because he never came out of the room. they called for help eventually and when the paramedics got into the room they found him naked on the bed - covered with mold. they said - not a single inch of his skin wasn't. they thought he was dead and was about to proclaim his death when he started moving a little. and this is the omg part - when they opened his mouth, a fly flew out!!!! a fly! goodness. his body temperature was 82.5 degrees Farenheit (about 28 degrees Celcius)! our normal body temp is 98.6F or 37.5C. its amazing he's still alive. again, i wonder what's going on in his mind. according to the staff in the hospital, he's still in the intensive care unit. one of these days if i get a chance, i really really wanna go talk to him. maybe when i go in to volunteer the next time.

what kind of person would let themselves undergo this sort of torment. what have they gone through for them to want to live that way, or worse, not wanna live at all yet had no courage to take their own lives? in any case, i won't judge them or their behavior because that would make me a hypocrite for all that i pride myself in not passing judgement about others. but i'm really curious. if i had a chance, i'd really like to interview them. and who knows, maybe write a book about The Curious Case of The Mold Man and Toilet Girl. ;)

*aa-choo* excuseme blessyou

the lab i work in is extremely cold, every day the boss will come in and say the same thing ("its very cold in here") but never did anything about it. it's centralized i know, but he could talk to someone and turn up the air-con, couldn't he?! bahhh. its no fun when you freeze in-doors and out AND when you get home it's still cold!! it's no wonder i can't get out of bed in the morning these days.

food craving of the past few days: curly fries!!!

every day i drive past mcd's in front of my house, and carl's junior in front of my workplace and i sooooooo want to just drive-through and grab some fries. mmmm hot fries!! in cold weather, even better in exceptionally cold office. but no, due to new yr's resolutions i shan't give in to temptations. i did have some taco bell though. not too healthy with slabs of cheese and sour cream, but oh they tasted so good!! :)

back to topic of cold, not that i'm complaining - i'd prefer cold to hot, snow to sweat anytime. and i always tell people i'd love to live in Norway for 2 years. just for the heck of it. most of them think i'm crazy, others think i'm just being silly, neurotic, or worse - on crack. but i'm serious!!! i just wished it'd happen some time in the near future. see, they have this Ice Music Festival every first full moon of the new year, and all the instruments used to play music are made of ice. no kidding! trumpets drums everything. isn't it so cool?! and and and!! they have one of the largest ice hotel in Norway! though not in the same town, i don't think so. but still! with the carbon dioxide emission ramping the world temperature at an exponential rate, i wonder how long more can the weather sustain the ice music festival... because you know - the sound varies with the temperature.. and you obviously can't play the instruments when they melt in your hands!! :( think about it: music festival with all things ice, at the location none other than an igloo. if you remember, i have a thing for igloos.

sigh. anyway, i can't make it there this year - its starting this friday through sunday i think. at Kikuttoppen in Geilo, Norway. check it out if you have time: http://www.icefestival.no/ Hopefully i can make it for next year or 2011's festival. who wants to come with me?! we'll go ski, stay in ice hotel, and have hot cocoa in an igloo. yay. cant wait. :)))))

meanwhile - ongoing sneezes i shall have. and as of now, my curly fries craving is gone.

A Poem...

not by me.
i saw this chocolate bar that has a love poem in it, thought it cute and i bought it - just for the poem. :P here it is, just for fun.

Diaphenia

Diaphenia like the daffadowndilly,
White as the sun, fair as the lily,
Heigh ho, how I do love thee!
I do love thee as my lambs
Are beloved of their dams;
How blest were I if thou would'st prove me.

Diaphenia like the spreading roses,
That in thy sweets all sweets encloses,
Fair sweet, how I do love thee!
I do love thee as each flower
Loves the sun's life-giving power;
For dead, thy breath to life might move me.

Diaphenia like to all things blessed,
When all thy praises are expressed,
Dear joy, how I do love thee!
As the birds do love the spring,
Or the bees their careful king:
Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me!

Henry Constable

The List

uhh.. yep. i'm referring to the new year's resolution list. last year i made one too, and it turned out i got it down for the most part. well, not really. but here's to a new year, new goals.

this year, let's see. new year's resolutions:

1. be more honest with self. for some reasons, i tend to shun the dark side of me away from the other me. or telling myself i haven't put on weight when i did. stuff like that. in denial at times, and just pure deceitful towards self. how stupid is that, right. so that should change.
2. be healthy and fit. that would include losing some weight and tone up my body. and eat less junk or fast food and dine in more. oh and drink less coffee!! actions to be taken: get my ass to the gym or at least to the park and run!
   
3. stay focused. this is a tricky one. i have my more specific goals this year, but i find myself keep straying away because i see my friends having so much fun and i'm not. i need to keep reminding myself there's just no shortcut to what's worth having, so now i gottta do what i gotta do. no chickening out, no giving up halfway. whether i get there, is another matter.
4. be more involved in my family's lives. or at least, be in the know. in the past, i realized i didn't quite do my best to show them i cared. it's always been how i can be independent away from home and do my own thing, but just 'cuz i'm 10 thousand miles away doesn't mean i'm out of their lives - or cause them to think so. because, really, who am i without them?! this year there'll be more calls back home, to my grandmas and relatives, and lil bro who's also away from home and in his vital years of morphing into a fine gentleman. i wanna be a part of that.
   
5. better time management. there's so much to do and not enough time. so many friends i need to keep in touch with. but distractions will always be around and i gotta steer clear from them. sometimes i'm afraid if i dont keep in touch regularly with my friends, they'd forget me and i don't want that. but something's gotta give and i can't have it all. so for now, my priorities are crystal clear. and if i manage my time well enough, i might find myself doing more than expected. maybe?! :)
   

i guess that's it for now. don't wanna make too many resolutions else i might fail them all. good luck to all of you out there! if you don't already have a list, make one. you might not keep all of them, but having a set of goals is always better than having none, eh?