Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Baskin' in the Sun with the Robins!

You know what I'm talking about don't you? It's finally the long awaited moment... time to indulge in some nice ice-cream mmm. Okay perhaps it's not the best thing since wheels or sliced bread but you can't say no to an ice-cream every now and then. Baskin Robbins. Not my favourite ice-cream brand, but it's actually quite decent. And yeah it would be more decent if they actually have all 31 flavours for you to choose from at all times. But whatever. Ice-cream is ice-cream. It's pricey though. I try to justify my crazy spending habits by saying I do this particular one thing once in a blue moon, but then I'm only trying to comfort myself, since I spend on others. But food especially. I spend way way too much on food and for what? I'm not 1 pound heavier than when I first came here. In fact, I may have lost some. I do envy people who can gain weight more easily, it's awful being scrawny and thin.

I tried the new tomyam yee mee today in the cafeteria. Although it's not as good as I would expect it to be (I like my tomyam to be more watery and sour), it's actually quite decent. But due to the burning hot soup, my tongue is slightly burnt now, and I was 'not early' for Mr David Chong's lecture. Plus he said "No lateness folks!". Geez was I embarrassed. I'll live though. He mostly said things which weren't too interesting... something about professionalism and the duties of a pharmacist and yadda yadda.

Came back after lecture to sleep, but here I am typing. Gosh, I really should get the intimate sessions with my bed starting soon. My eyelids are heavy...

Update: The flavours I chose were Jamoca and Olympecan. Sweet, yummy and loads of nuts... just the way I like it. I bought a quart for good measure, though it costs like RM 32 or something.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Elab 1, lab reports and the frustration over printers!

Last night, in order to complete the bioscience lab report I stayed up till 4 am. Mind you, it's not exactly routine, but I do occassionally do the night owl thing. It's nice to sit by yourself at night, with all the peace and quiet from the hectic sounds of the day and it's also cooler. In short, I much prefer the night over the day. I get more energetic when it's night time ^^. I suppose it didn't help that I procrastinated as usual, by going for supper instead of completing my lab report earlier. But still.

Today classes were rather laidback. Apart from one lecture from Tan Eng Lai about some genetic disorder and stuff which I wasn't really tuning in to (yes yes, I should be more attentive etc etc), there really wasn't anything else. But we're going to end really late tonight, around 6.15 pm due to Malay (this is what I think about Malay in general t(-_-t)). But there was a scare when I wanted to print the lab report today. The printers were all like... out or order! IMU, whose coffers are practically overflowing with huge chunks of greenbacks are actually too poor to fix the printers (or was it laziness?). In fact, one of the printers was out of order for some time. Typical Malaysian behaviour to be honest. Lots of paperwork for something so menial, and then it takes forever to get someone to get round to actually doing it. Oh well. I did finally get my lab report printed in the library. But someone has better do something about the printers in elab 1 or heads will roll. Literally.

31st is coming soon. I hope I get to go out for a rare Baskin Robbins treat hehe. But we'll have to see about the cash left. I'm not exactly loaded and I'm actually quite deep in debt.

And now for the weekly news in Bash WoW! with Gabe. Gabe?

Thanks Ecch, Mages seem to get the end of the shaft so far for Wotlk. Not only do they have a super lousy 51 pt fire talent called Living Bomb (yes, I know you'd expect something bombastic from this awesome name, but in fact it hits weaker than my 6 month old toddler tyring to punch a pillow), their 51 pt frost talent also Blows. Anchovies. Out of the drain the size of a pipe. 5 seconds stun might seem decent, but not when it requires the person to be frozen (defeats the purpose) and the AWESOME 1.5 seconds cast time. It doesn't help that Burnout is bad bad bad either (25% extra crit damage at the cost of 1% extra mana bar cost per crit? Hell, warlocks get a better skill at 100% crit damage with no penalties. Oh and it's 5/5 points versus 1/1. Sweet). Granted the arcane tree seems decent, and the gimmicky Frostfire bolt for the elementalist build seems fun in a way if you like spamming one bolt over and over, but at the cost of both the fire and frost tree I don't think it's worth it. At all.

And now for the priesty. Priests aren't too far behind in terms of uselessness in terms of healing. Holy is now practically pointless. Guardian spirit doesn't do justice at all, considering its cooldown. Penance is a JOKE (who in their right minds would want to channel a 5 second holy spell which everyone is going to CS/spell lock/shocked/kicked and make you unable to heal for that period of time?) Plus it's in the Discipline tree, which is supposedly the PvP tree. All the better. Dispersion seems okay-ish... until you get cycloned that is and don't get the full 36% health/mana back. Plus, being able to do nothing except run around like a headless chicken for 6 seconds isn't exactly helping either. In short, holy priests will still not be wanted in raids over say, shamans for raid healing, paladins for single target healing and druids for insane hots and the ability to ress during combat.

And don't get me started on druids. This is their moment. Not only do they have a new 1.5 second cast fast heal which heals MORE than the priest's (considering they're not supposed to be this flexible since they have awesome hots), it also costs LESS mana than the priest's Flash Heal. Oh and it gains MORE benefits from talents, whee! And they finally get an out of combat ress. They are also able to give mana back to the group, and a group heal not on a cooldown (albeit a hot, but an extremely potent one). Looks like I'm going to get a druid up and running for healing come Wotlk folks! And you should too, judging by the direction in which Blizzard is going with the druid class.

Oh look at the time! Back to you Ecch.

Thanks Gabe. Don't forget to tune in to the next episode in Bash WoW! where we are going to discuss the current OP class, the rogues as well as the warlock and the hunter. Until next time, cya folks!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Freshie Party!

Today was a bit hectic since there was going to be the freshie party we're setting up for the new batch people. Basically it was some sort of potluck so I decided to do salad (can't go wrong with salad) and did shopping for 2 days to get the ingredients. Apart from all the crazy panicking around Zh Xing's kitchen at 6.30 pm (people coming at approximately 7 pm) I rushed out with Kah Yee to get some ice for the drinks from the nearby 7-11. Insane stuff really, I was horribly stressed out and everything, perhaps I should have chilled... Anywho, it ended up really well actually. We didn't really expect SOOO many people to turn up... the house turned a bit small and stuffy but there was enough food to go round ^^ so it was all good. I like the mutton "fried" rice, yummy! Oh and naturally my salad was good, since it was made by ME. But I think I made a tad too much, there were leftovers. Good cause, though.

Oh before all that. I volunteered to be part of the group of MQ students to have lunch and be interviewed by a panel of people from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Basically our BOSS. They just wanted to know how we were coping with the course and everything else related with it. It was quite intimidating, but wasn't too bad afterwards, after a few questions that is. I didn't feel too bad, except as usual I stammered a bit when I talked, but talk I did hehe.

After that long day, it was the usual mamak in Sri Petaling with Choon Wee, Wai Hou, JS, Eugene and Kelvin. And a good bath... mmm I like a nice warm shower. And bed of course. Screw stats CAL. That can wait.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Rest day

Today is what I would officially call a rest day after a crazy fortnight. It's actually wonderful when you have nothing to do except stay in your room and maybe go online. It's not to say I'm not procrastinating, but ignorance truly is bliss sometimes. Screw foundation pharm, or english, or heck even tomorrow's lab. It's resting day and it's NOW.

Nothing out of the ordinary today, except that JC, Melissa, Syafiq and I went to Sri Petaling to find a couple of pharmacies to ask about the English assignment. The first pharmacy wasn't very accomodating but that's fine since he's not free or anything. On the other hand, the other pharmacy was really nice, they entertained all our stupid questions and were attentive and everything. That's how pharmacists should be like, really.

Alright, I said all those things about trying to rest and all right? Fact is, I have to do the outline tonight or I'm screwed so it's gonna be another sleepless vigil yay! Can't be that hard to do some one page thingie right? Just say a few random bits and pieces about peptic ulcer. Maybe something to do with PPIs and H2 receptor antagonists. Damn...

I still believe there'll be a silver lining somewhere eventually. Cross fingers and hope to die.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Tables and chairs

I went out to 1 utama with Yun Peng and Khong Hern today :D I'm really grateful to Yun Peng for willing to come all the way to vista and fetching us, and then later sending us back home. Thanks a lot, really :)

Anyhow, it's fun. That was the first time I went to The Curve. We went to Uncle Lim's (is that right?) for 'lunch'. It was not bad, but wasn't really filling. I had Uncle Lim's Laksa. Basically it's a combination of curry mee and asam laksa. Strangely salty, but pretty decent. The price is quite steep for something so mundane though, RM 8.30. What mattered was we ate I guess :P

Walked around a bit and looked at Levi's and Nike shoes, but too poor to actually buy anything ^^. Tempting though, I might consider buying a pair of shoes next time. For the moment the more important thing is getting a desk and a chair, so off to IKEA we went. Gosh, IKEA is pretty big and their furniture and stuff looks nice, but were they pricey! The cheapest desk I could find cost 50+ and it's only like a slab of wood on some four legs. And not to mention how tiny it was! That's when I decided not to bother buying in IKEA. What's the next best place? 1 Utama of course!

The parking in 1 Utama is literally a nightmare! We spent at least 20+ mins just going in circles hoping for someone to leave so we could get the space. Even when we got down to the lower basement floors there were like no space. There was a close one when we saw some car coming out of the parking space but out of nowhere another car came flying round and went into the lot before we could even utter 'what the...' So anyway, another car came out just after that so we were kind of lucky. But that ordeal was tiring.

Not much time before SNL to I had to shop fast. We didn't do much in 1 Utama except hunting for desks and chairs in Jusco. Freaking long walk, but I managed to get a RM 93 desk with inbuilt shelf after much consideration. There was no way I was getting the chair though. Not only were there very few choices for chairs, the cheapest plastic chair cost RM 29! So it's gonna be dining chair while I get a decent chair, maybe in Carrefour tomorrow.

Sleepy now so I'm off to bed... cross fingers for a chair tomorrow :)

Thursday, July 17, 2008

The week of torment is finally over!

The has got to be the single worst week in this course so far. Not only are there loads of assignments to hand in (stats, english, lab reports), we somehow foolishly agreed to volunteer for the BPharm new batch's orientation. And that was a disappointment to say the least. If the majority of them showed even a smidgen of interest in the activities, then it's all fine and dandy and I might find it interesting to play with them. But the moment you complain and shy away from the 'rewards', cursing, swearing... then that's that.

But enough of that, boring batches do not an interesting post make. More importantly, it's the end of the week and that means going out! Finally! I'm going to go to Midvalley (again!) with Khong Hern and Chris afterwards :D Cross fingers for the resistance to temptation of buying stuff whenever I go out. But I do need a new pair of sneakers, a nice pair of pants, some body wash... GAH, got to stop! XD

I also had a very nice chat with David yesterday. Haven't spoken to him in absolutely ages. Missed him terribly to be honest. All those Subway's and tea sessions while doing the hospital rotations, I'll never forget those. Yum, Italian BMT is the best, of course you need loads of BBQ sauce and everything fresh on top! Anywho, he's doing his final week of his electives in Hong Kong. They let him dissect stuff in HK, that's much better than Liverpool... all we get to do is pick parts of the body which were preserved and have a look, no dissection. How do they expect for us to learn without dissecting? Heck, even my brother has dissected. Yeah, he finally tasted proper Laksa in a restaurant in HK, not those Laksa sauce which comes from jars. He said it's not spicy enough though O.O Perhaps he didn't have it properly in Malaysia, considering how HK people generally don't like spicy food as much as sweet stuff. Well he said we can go to HK one day and he'll get me cheap accomodation, so I'm hoping to go there one day :D At least, I can dream right?

p.s. I got the pictures of the kitties, finally! Anyway, will upload them here.













Friday, July 11, 2008

New batch of people incoming!

That's right folks! Apparently there are new students coming in for July/August intake. It's not our Mpharm batch, but it's still fun in a way. JS and I went to bring a couple of students to their rooms in the hostels, and answered questions and everything. Meh, could have spent my time more productively, but it's an interesting way to learn how to be a tour guide of sorts hehe :P

I haven't updated the blog in a while, so I guess I should make a report about the more recent events apart from the new batch. It was Zh Xing's birthday yesterday :D Kah Yee bought her a VERY nice chocolate cake. Seriously, the cake was yummy, and take it from me, if I say something is yummy it means it's good, since I don't dole out praises easily. We also went to Chilli's for dinner after LG. It's kinda pricey tbqh, but it's good and the portions are quite large too. I had fish and chips and the tartar sauce was surprisingly good. I don't usually like tartar sauce because they have a funny smell of preserved stuff, like pickled vegetables and well... let's not talk more about the subject ^^. Oh yeah, Chilli's will give a free brownie if it's your birthday, and a few of their staff actually come out singing Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs haha. I like their brownie, it's piping hot, but the ice cream on top is cold, which makes it a nice combination.

Two days ago, my bro came back bringing two Persian kittens. They're really cute, and I'll update with their pics as soon as the lazy bum sends pics of them. But the trouble, time and money I had to go through to pass the kitty carrier to him drove me nuts. In the end, I was late and had to forgo the LRT for taxi since it was about 1 am when I reached Tasik Selatan station. Gah XD! They're really cute and I like cats so it's a win-win situation.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Tired

It's been a while since I've done an all-nighter. Wait, I haven't really done one. Hence the zombified expression I guess. The thing is, once you decide to do it, you have to go all the way or you'll feel dead during the day. Which is what I'm feeling right now. Never mind, it's all for a good cause. Mmm, trying to justify not sleeping by being online isn't exactly well... a justification now is it?

But I've seriously been a bit exhausted these days. I thought it's chronic fatigue syndrome but Pris thinks it's sleep apnoea. Who knows? Perhaps I'm just bushed coz I didn't get enough sleep at night. I can be a real night owl sometimes. But I like night time. It's when everything gets real quiet and nice and you get a relaxed atmosphere.

I'm gonna go buy a cage for the kitties later. So much money spent on those dumb cats. Plus it's not like I'm gonna be keeping them anyway. My short trip to KLIA will cost me dearly. It's for a good cause right? (I really have to snap out of it, I'm justifying myself for everything). But Chris will come along so it won't be that boring I guess =)

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Food Galore!

Today it's food day. Oddly enough I only had instant noodles for dinner last night. It was a complete disaster preparing it. I have since learnt my lesson of not putting eggs in a microwave. Here's a breakdown of ZE BIG MISTAKES:

Mistake 1: Putting a pyrex bowl in a microwave with water, noodle cake and a cracked egg.

Mistake 2: Transferring everything after the "wonderful" event to a stove and refilling water level only to fill it a mite full.

Basically what happened was that while waiting I heard a huge BANG! Ran to the microwave half expecting that it blew up. Well I wasn't completely wrong though. The bowl was overturned, noodles were everywhere and lots of water of course.

Must salvage the situation right? And that's what I did, or rather what I thought I was doing. Only it went horribly wrong. I transferred what I could gather to the stove and refilled the water. Only problem was that I filled it quite full and forgot about the egg still in the bowl. Note: If there's egg, DO NOT put too much water when boiling. Mini natural disaster and the stove went out. But the noodles WERE DONE! Worst effort put in a noodle cooking session ever.

Oops, I forgot to explain why it's food day today! Well, I went out with Wai Hou, Choon Wee and Kelvin for lunch at OUG. It's Nando's, yum! I like Nando's, but pricing-wise well... let's just say I can't do this all the time. After that we looked around a bit in Parkson's. We ended up going to Sweet Bean's for MOAR food! I had noodles and some sort of mango ice kacang. Man, was I full!

That's not the end of it though! We're going for dinner-cum-supper later. Yay for mamak food!

REMEMBER FOLKS! WE LIVE TO EAT, NOT EAT TO LIVE.

p.s. Oh yeah, I'm also looking forward to this supper thing coz someone is going to "chia", yay!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Non Non Non!

Technically my 2nd blog, the 1st one disappeared without me knowing, but that was my own fault I suppose for not accessing it for ages. There's no lecturer in IT class today, typical. I'm still trying to cope with my odd hairstyle. It's not everyday that I dye my hair and wax it, but then again I've never done anything quite so rash.



Got my Internet connection finally set up yesterday, and I must say that it's a far cry from the wonderful one I've envisioned. Oh well, sucky means sucky, and that means that my home connection is better (the horror! \o/). Worst part is it cost me more than 550 bucks. Nice. Real nice. Now I'm poorer than mice living in churches. Literally. Must... resist... temptation... to... go... out... this... Saturday!



We're going to meet Im Chim Lady later in the day. I wonder what new concerns she'll have for our project. It can't be good, anyhow. Still, brave it and do what she wants. Be a good student and... and... oh what the hell, screw it if you ask me.

Oh and IT'S THE WEEKENDS! Or rather, it's coming real soon. So it's time for um, salsa, going out and wild ****. Oh crap, I forgot I'm penniless. Oh well.