2 Months On...

Kinda hard to believe but 9 weeks have since passed since we 1st started our rotations here in Adelaide. Time really does fly when you're having fun and being busy. Contrary to what Jebbrine keeps complaining about (that the people in Perth are having so much fun), I believe we're having a pretty good time here as well. I foresee an interesting 3 years ahead of us.

The past 9 weeks were routine, to say the least. I'm the weird one in the entire group as I normally wake up at 0500, either to cook or train...sometimes both(if I happen to be making a really simple dish).

Unfortunately the admin split us into M104s in surgery and the M204s in medicine. So we were basically mostly interacting with the people we already knew. But of course there were many occasions where we all had fun together.
Over these 9 weeks I believe we've all grown closer as a group...of course nowhere near what some of us were part of but everything has to start somewhere no? Jebbrine is the best example, she has seemlessly integrated into the household of Christine, Steph, Chu-Chu and Shiau Cern and it's obscenely obvious they're influencing each other.
We (very) recently celebrated passing our 1st rotation! Man it was fun! The aforementioned household is full of wacky people, more wacky than the people I used to hang out with. GG. Imagine that. If you don't believe me go visit Steph and Chu-Chu.

So yeah, I passed my 1st rotation. We were assessed in many different areas. It's so annoying that we're the 'guinea pig' batch as they introduced all new ways of assessments this year. I think it's a curse of our year. As far as I can remember(all the way back to high school), my batch was always the ones either being the last year for a certain exam or the 1st one.

They introduced this weekly online assessment, which was basically a weekly 10 MCQs, in IMHO some questions were really unfair. But as they said, it's a test run thing so it didn't bear much weight. There was also an End of Rotation assessment, which was a 50 MCQ online which was last Friday. Most of the weight came from a Ward Assessment, which basically means your team confers and decides (many different criteria) if you pass or fail.
I got my latest assessment form back (my earlier unit was handed up long ago) and looked at the comment section of the form. There, my consultant had written something.
At first glance it was complete gibberish, I couldn't understand anything he had written. Further proof that most doctors have horrible writing ('bad' is reserved for my dad, whose writing I can usually read :D sorry about that :D). Finally after half a day I finally deciphered what comment the head of my unit wrote:
"Improved with time"
....
it was either that or "diagnosed with lice"
I'm definitely inclined to go with the former.

Mamak Nite

Today there was Mamak Nite. Basically it's like a dinner gathering of Malaysians and Singaporeans. It cost $8 per entry and we were served some roti canai, and there were coupons for a plate of nasi lemak, and 2 teh tariks.
Most of us went, guess it's the craving for some Malaysian cuisine (it was quite good btw). Sat at the table together with Christine, Steph, Su Chuen, Rahul, Bryan, Leng Hui and 2 of Christine's church friends. Chris was ber-security-ing and Sheng Kai and Jebbrine gave up their places to do something at home...presumably studying.

Anyway, each table was given a question sheet, kinda like trivia with loads of weird questions ranging from where the NATO HQ is located to how many brains a stegosaurus had. Each person was also given a piece of paper to write his/her name and email for a lucky draw, Grand prizes of a USB pendrive and an IPOD shuffle....I didn't win any :(
So we discussed the trivia cases of which I contributed to one correct answer:
George Lucas named his adventure hero Indiana Jones after what?
Correct answer: His dog *grins*

So after answering all the questions Rahul, ever confident, professed that our table would win and wrote on the question sheet:
WINNING ENTRY TABLE 9

After the organisers collected the sheets, "the core church band" came up and sang a couple of songs ending with a nice version of Innuendo's Belaian Jiwa. Post performance they announced the correct answers for the trivia.
Lo and behold, to our greatest surprise our table actually won a prize!!!
It was a surprise as we kept score and were sure we didn't get so many correct *shhhh don't tell anyone*
Heh, after a little discussion we attributed the win to the fact that Rahul had written "winning entry" on the paper and the committee took it at face value :D
The prize was a couple of packs of TimTams...so no big loss to the other tables :P

Bryan as usual was bermacho-ing wearing short sleeves when everyone else was in sweaters. Near the end I asked him how he tolerates the cold, to which he replied:
"My nipples are gonna fall off"
Well, the answer was intentioned for me, but unfortunately the whole table heard it and started laughing. Then Chu-Chu(Rahul has renamed Su Chuen...isn't this great? We had a Che Chu and now we have a Chu-Chu) laughingly repeated "My nipples are gonna fall off."
So then I asked her (pretending to be shocked) "Yours too?!"
...to which the whole table started laughing again.

Oh yeah, had a mock OSCE today, especially for the IMU students. I'm happy that they're taking good care of us here :)
In case anyone was wondering, it was 4 stations : 2 histories, 1 PE and 1 data interpretation. It went well except for the data interpretation, which had an ECG and a Spirometry test result which I have never seen before in my life.
Well, we should learn about that fairly soon, no worries :)

Quotes of the Day

Intend to update this entry frequently. Well, at least as frequently as I get these 'wonderful' quotes :)

1. "I'm going to print an empty sheet of paper" - Cheok Soon, May 2006
2. "Oh look! It's Mah Jee Ken!" - Vanessa, everytime she sees me
3. "Throw at dog, dog also die" - Eve, on my Nokia 3310
4. "A hen is male, right?" - Siddharth, eating breakfast at Food Avenue, 22 May 2006
5. "Your carapace keeps you warm." - Tony, after watching X3 in a freezing GSC, 27 May 2006
6. "You are enlightened." - Chu Kin told me after I put my bag down, May 2006
7. "Uncle is a relative word...my uncle is my relative." - Chu Kin, 1 June 2006
8. "We have a buy-back policy : If you buy it don't bring it back." - The Bard's Tale, InXile Entertainment
   
9. Sign seen on a hawker stall: PENANG LOBAK : Pork RM2, Crap RM2 etc. (wouldn't wanna eat there o_O)
10. "This glue is pretty good - it's quite sticky." - Henry of VK Bookstore. (courtesy of Cheok Soon)
11. 'We serve real food. Visually fat free. 100% Skin free.' - Advert for a pie shop
12. "...you know the toils of summatives, KKB, EoS3, and although it was fun I'm afraid our journey ends here, our last battle. So lets enjoy the moment, knowing that if we walked into IMU together, we shall leave together as well. Nobody gets left behind." - Cheok Soon, on the impending EoS5. A mirror of my own thoughts and emotions of the said day
13. "We've come this far together to forge a future that is our own. The last battle is here and now. Fear not! We shall not fall! I bid you fight! Destiny awaits!" - Kah Heng on EoS5
14. "Iced tea, no coffee" - customer. After I stared blankly and uttered a "Huh?" he corrected it to "Iced Coffee, no sugar". (how the heck do you mix those two up?)
15. "I slept with Mike before." - Peter, 25 October 2006. And no it's nothing naughty. He was bunking in Mike's place in Scotland. Lol, but it just sounds so wrong!
    
16. "Evelyn - The Ultimate Duracell Rabbit" - Eve's testimonial by her friend. I LMAO at that due to the fact that it is indeed entirely correct. She just goes on and on and on...
17. "My nipples are gonna fall off" - Bryan on how cold he was on Mamak Nite 24/3/07
18. "Actuarial science is actually science" - Jevanny, circa 2002/03
19. "E-business is business without paper" - Jevanny, crica 2002/03
    

Good Memories

The 'infamous' throw


Hehehe, listen carefully to what sifu has to say


OMG!!! I'm on Youtube!!! I never knew...

Hahndorf

So yesterday Leng Hui and I decided to pay Hahndorf a visit. Jebbrine was too busy berkecoh-ing with the Village people plus they went to church so they didn't tag along. How unlucky...for them that is.
Hahndorf is, supposedly, a German town somewhere about 40 mins from the city. So it's supposed to be famous for the food, or so I heard. I could have gotten my facts wrong. After all I'm just a student who likes to eat.
Ok ok fine. So Yin Yee's parents have a chinese restaurant there. That's another reason why we went :P

Anyway the problem here is that on weekends the buses run less than weekdays so we really had to time our schedule properly. On the way out I noticed the sky was really cloudy - the kind of cloudy that if it were in Malaysia, you would expect heavy rain within the hour. Plus the fact that it was supposed to be kinda chilly according to the weather forecast. And I didn't bring my jacket along...
Seems like I'm slowly getting used to the weather (hopefully, toes and fingers crossed) cuz altho it was cold, more so when the wind was blowing hard, I weathered it without my jacket.
Woohoo!! I have gained Cold Resistance +1!!!

On the bus heading towards Hahndorf, I took out my secret-hopefully-boredom-preventing-item-for-40-minutes-or-so (anyone wanna guess what it is?) and actually stayed awake throughout the trip. That in itself is actually an achievement since I'm so prone to sleeping in public transport. The trip itself was quite nice, kinda like heading from IMU to KKB in a bus. The scenery outside was calming, sorta like on the way to Cameron Highlands, and before long we were at Hahndorf.



















1st thing we saw there was this sign

The chalkboard at the bottom reads:
HOFBR'A'UHAUS
Traditional Bavarian Cuisine.

Heh. We were wondering how in the world
would you pronounce that.

My first impression of Hahndorf was that it was a really nice, quaint little hamlet. It's basically a one road hamlet and the shops on either side are mostly cafes/restaurants and goodie shops. It really reminded me of Cameron Highlands as it was on a hill and the scenery was very green.
As we walked more along the road we came across this shop.














As you can clearly see it's really easy
to tempt me :)

Chocolate Shop!!!
Filled with all things chocolate.
One word describes it : Heaven
The shop had all these funny quotes on
chocolate too.















See, I really wasn't kidding when I
said they sold all things chocolate.

"Death by CHESS"

Not too sure if the board is chocolate but the black and white pieces sure are.
Bad present for me cuz I'll end up eating it and well, what's a chessboard without pieces?




This was on sale too!
Hahaha, we bought one to share :)









Since it's quite impossible to make out from the pic, here's what it said on the box (word for word):

CONFECTIONER ONLY REMEDY
Keep out of reach of chocoholics

BOCHOX (R) 100g NET
--------------------------
active ingredient cocoa solids 70%
For relief from the symptoms of wrinkles and crow's feet
Warning - may cause weight gain if used incorrectly
Directions: Simply break off the desired dosage and consume. You should quickly be overcome by stress-relieveing endorphins and no longer concerned in the slightest about your wrinkles.

IMPORTANT: THIS PACKET IS PROTECTED BY A TAMPER-EVIDENT PAPER WRAP. IF SEAL HAS BEEN BROKEN SUSPECT EVERONE. BOCHOX CAN BE HABIT FORMING.

STORE BELOW 18c

NOT TO BE TAKEN seriously

70% COCOA DARK CHOCOLATE

Fantastic description. There was another 'Emergency Chocolate' too but this was by far the better one. Looked at all the available temptations and finally decided to get myself a Dark Choc Rocky Road (looks like a bunch of marshmallows covered in choc).

Post-temptation attraction, we decided to go pay Yin Yee a visit at the restaurant since I had not had my brekkie and was hungry (you might argue that I'm always hungry but that's debatable). It was really easy to notice her place as it was the only chinese restaurant in the area.
















The sign reads:

HAHNDORF CHINESE RESTAURANT
and some chinese characters which I can't read (but you already knew that)

We went in, saw Yin Yee and had a seat after which she came to ask us what we wanted to eat. We settled for something "without prawns" and "spicy". Then she invited us to go into the kitchen and meet her parents and so we did.
Turns out her parents are from Kampar but have been around, and still speak with an obvious Malaysian accent :) Plus they actually conversed among themselves in cantonese. We had an interesting chat starting off with the typical rapport building stuff. Then we moved on to stuff like landmarks they knew but aren't there anymore, eating places(they actually know where Raju's/Paandi's next to LSPJ is!)(they also know about Ng Tew Lee in Medan Selera *grins*) about places and 'politics' and finally her dad and uncle decided to cook beef wat tan hor and curry laksa for us.

I must say it was the best and most authentic Malaysian food I've ever had since coming here. At that point I told myself that I should go up every month or so for some really good food. It came with sambal and cut red chilli too! Hahaha, instant heaven.















Ahhh yes, the lovely delicious tender beef
wat tan hor.
Notice the placemats seem to be part of some scripture, the teapot and teacups.

The place even had red tanglungs. Really quite authentic.














I was a tad shocked when the curry
appeared. It was chock full with food.
I was actually concerned we might not be able to finish it, then Yin Yee said she told her dad that I "eat a lot". That's why there was so much food.
After that, I had to finish it la. I mean have to give her dad face right? It was delicious anyway.

After that really filling meal, she asked if we wanted dessert so we agreed. It seems that Hanz (one of the 4th years here - a great guy) had this theory that everyone has 2 stomachs. Yep. 1 is your normal stomach and the other is your dessert stomach. Hence everyone can always have dessert no matter how full s/he is. I so totally agreed with that. Oh, the best part is that no matter how much dessert you eat, as long as it ends up in your dessert stomach, the calories don't count! Fantastic!
Anyway, we just asked for a scoop of each of the 4 flavours - they were all heavenly.
Choc fudge, Kahlua, Baileys and Rum & raisin flavours. *drool*

That was the 1st time since coming over that I've eaten so much I couldn't move for a bit.
When we were done, the place had closed for the evening (it would re-open later) so we chatted with Yin Yee and then went for a walk to discover more about the place.














View of a park near the restaurant.
Calming no?
Note: the sky actually was much darker than it seems in the photo.

As we walked around talking, I was looking for a German bakery. Since it's supposed to be a German town/hamlet and I heard German bread was absolutely to die for, I wanted to give it a try. It wasn't to be though as the only bakery we came across only sold the usual stuff.

Went into this shop that sold some really unique stuff like wild hibiscus in syrup (for use with champagne), a whole assortment of Beerenberg items of which Leng Hui bought a Red Wine and Garlic Mustard, very fragrant cinammon sticks and loads more which I can't remember.

Then there was this candle store which sold scented candles which could last forever - the average would be around 100 hours. I believe the largest lasted 400 or so hours. The moment I walked into the store though I was immediately reminded of the departmental stores back home where the entire floor sold perfume.

We also visited this store that sold German sausages. I had a taste of some and bought back a $5 garlic mettwurst (whatever that means, as long as it tastes good). When Leng Hui asked how long it would last, the answer was "ages" and "it just gets harder the longer you keep it". Wow.
Leng Hui got herself a garlic mettwurst too and something called a 'Bum Burner'. That basically looks like a sausage made from cili padi and dried. I had a fingernail-sized piece earlier this evening and, well, suffice to say that if one eats enough of this at one go s/he will definitely end up having a burned bum.















Somewhere up along the road we
came across this store selling funny signs.
Gotta love the Aussie humour.















Yin Yee and Leng Hui posing in front
of a fake horse and carriage.
Yin Yee claims she isn't very photogenic. I see nothing wrong. Sigh...females :P















A quaint old market wagon in
front of a cottage with lotsa flowers in the background.














A nice view of the canopy covering (almost) the entire street.















A German Sign!!!

The only words I can make out are 'Welcome' and 'Hahndorf' though.

No there were no 'one-way road' signs in German unfortunately.

Returning on the other side of the road we came across another sweet shop. Got meself a huge fudge bar for $3. Yummy!
There was also this museum of sorts where they were displaying Aussie aboriginal art which was really nice.

It was towards the end of the trip when we finally decided to get that Bochox. As you can imagine, we already bought quite a lot of stuff (read:food) and for some reason I was carrying it all. So much so that when I went to pay for the Bochox, the owner noted that I had a good day. Hahaha, it was very fruitful that's for sure!

Had to wait for the bus to get back to the city, so instead of freezing our gluteals off in the cold we took shelter inside Yin Yee's restaurant, which had conveniently re-opened by then. Well, I won't bore you with details except to say we left the restaurant with 2 packs of fried rice(delish!!) and a rather huge pack of prawn crackers ala Malaysia. Lol, for some reason her dad reminds me of my own grandfather :)















The end result of our entire day
'shopping' at Hahndorf.
The 3 bags had my Rocky Road, Leng Hui's Rocky Road and the Bochox.
Notice the white packet? 'Chilli Chocolate' drink...Leng Hui is quite adventurous.

Notice the 2 fudge bars on the lower right.
Notice the 'Bum Burner' and mettwurst.
...I'd point with a laser pointer if I could but unfortunately I can't.

There you have it. Our trip to Hahndorf was really grool. We're so planning on rocking up again sometime soon!
Note: Visit Leng Hui's blog for her version of events....well actually it's more like her album of events :)

Epiphany

Well, it's as I expected - the depression was a one day event. As I said it has happened before albeit very rarely and I still dislike the feeling alot. Thankfully it's over for now. The annoying thing is that although I know what I can do to feel better when I succumb to it, I just can't do it - more like my mind won't let me do it.

Woke up the day following the depression to discover that I was feeling better. As I was getting out of the house to go for ward rounds I looked up to see the fiery clouds of dawn. It was beautiful, the kind that really pacifies and calms the soul. Then I saw what made me feel all better:

It was 2 streaks of clouds in a 'V' shape running almost parallel to each other before merging near the horizon. The moment I saw that I was stunned by its significance. 1 streak represented me, what I am, where I am at this moment in time. The other streak represented all the things I love - family, friends, food - which incidentally are mostly back home (some in UK and NZ).
The 2 streaks were separated at first, which would indicate my current situation where I'm apart from all that I love. But as I looked further, the streaks became closer and closer and finally merged. To me it meant that this journey of mine will be a path to something good as it will, sometime in the future, reinforce and reunite me with all the things that I care about.

The moment I saw that and had that realisation, all the bad feelings vanished to be replaced by a warm glow and I was not depressed anymore - ready to face the days' challenges with my heart and head held high.

Depression

1st March 2007 - the day that marks the first time I'm feeling down since arriving here in Adelaide. Call it whatever you want, being down, having the blues or simply depressed, I'm currently there. It's a mild case though, no suicidal tendencies or random acts of violence. In fact I function normally except that I don't feel like doing anything and can't focus. As to the burning question of exactly why I'm depressed I have absolutely no idea...if I did then I could actually do something about it. At this point I'm just moping about not doing much...heck I only finished half of my lunch, much to the surprise of Jebbrine earlier today.

The International Students Centre lady (who scared us off driving here) said that it is common for your emotions to go all roller-coaster on you as this is a whole new environment and one would need to adjust to everything. And it's not only one case but seems to go in cycles.

That being said, I never thought I'd be depressed here. Homesick sure but depression? Well, I've had it before but I really don't like this feeling. And it's so annoying when you want to do something about it but can't cuz you don't really know what's causing it.

Man I wish that I could have a nice piano and all my music scores. The alternative is exercising but I don't really feel like doing that. Or just playing around with my pets...
Why is everything I need back home?

Case

CASE (21/2/07)
22 year old male presents with bilateral pitting pedal edema for the last 4 days. There is no pain or discomfort. Medial malleolus, dorsalis pedis and posterior tibialis were all not palpable.
The swelling is limited to his ankle area, his toes are spared. The only pathology seen on inspection is generalised dryness of the area with signs of recent trauma from scratching, due to chronic eczema.
He has never had such problems before. He doesn't know of anyone in his family having heart problems, liver problems or kidney problems.
Heart rate is within normal limits, BP is normal, S1 and S2 heard with no additional heart sounds or murmurs.
The patient is on antihistamines and topical corticosteroids.
The patient is mainly allergic to dust and seafood.

What is your differential/provisional diagnosis?

(Hint:He is at an unlikely age to suffer from the common causes of such edema.)

PS : Adelaide people are hereby prohibited from providing answers or clues.

ANSWER :
Patient suffered from a combination of vasodilatation due to the excessive heat and increased vascular permeability, most likely from trauma to the skin from excessive scratching of the ankle area. It is possible that a low-grade infection was also present but this was not confirmed.
The doctor advised that the patient didn't need any blood tests but would be happy to do it if the patient wanted.
The patient did not want a blood test and was advised to let time take its course and return if pain develops or he swelling remains after a couple of weeks.

The swelling regressed and disappeared within 4 days of seeing the doctor.