End Of Induction

Induction has come to an end. Tomorrow, we will be leaving Sintok for Ulu Kenas, Kuala Kangsar for a 5 days, 4 nights BTN camp.

How many of you have actually heard of Ulu Kenas?
This place is SO Ulu, that it is said that even Maxis doesn't have line there.
I think I can safely take a bet that there will be no internet there.

It's like being cut off from the world for 5 days.
No internet, no phone calls, no smses.
It's like life back in the 80s or 90s.
We didn't have a problem back then. Why is it such a big deal now? How spoilt have we become?

I am not going to crap for too long today. It's 3am now and I have to be up by 7am tomorrow.
I am following Mel to the BTN car in his car instead of the bus.
I am hoping that we will stop somewhere (preferably KFC) to buy lunch.

I am going to miss the internet.
I am going to miss receiving phonecalls and smses.
But, I will survive, 'cos I have no choice.
It's going to be a tiring 5 days, I think (from what I've heard).
Hopefully, I will be able to go online soon.
Till the next post....have fun people!

Ipoh Hospital, Here I Come!

It's been confirmed. I am going to work in Ipoh General Hospital (Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun) for the next two years. KKM said that they cannot offer me a place in Seremban Hospital because all the places have already been filled, but gave me a choice between the Melaka and Ipoh Hospital. Although Melaka Hospital is nearer to home, I somehow prefer Ipoh Hostpital. Maybe it is because my mind was kind of set between Ipoh and Seremban and wasn't prepared for another new place. Or maybe it's because at least 4 of my friends are in Ipoh Hospital already and if I were to go there, I know I will have some familiar faces around me. I think my parents are rather disappointed that I didn't choose Melaka, but they are OK with Ipoh; after all, it's going to be me working there, so they let me make my own choice.

Well, anyway, the decision has been made. I'll be reporting for duty at the Ipoh Hospital on the 5th of December. That's next Friday!! Can you believe it? By this time next week, I'll be officially an employee of the Ipoh Hospital. I am a little excited, but very afraid. Afraid of what is to come. My extremely rusty brain needs to be oiled. I am praying that I get a good MO who is nice to me and teaches me stuff and doesn't shout at me too often and who doesn't give up on me (if I am slow).

It is going to be a really, really new experience for me. Not just working life. But living out of home life. Yes, I wasn't living at home when I was studying, but then, back then I was living in a hostel full of friends who go to class at about the same time and come back at about the same time. Or maybe it is not that different after all. Maybe the only difference will be the fact that now I am in Malaysia and not Russia. Oh, I just thought of 2 other differences - I won't do my laundry here and I am not going to cook for myself here. They have shops (with reasonable prices) for that!

I heard that I will be given government quarters and I can choose my roomate, but then I don't really know anyone who would like to be roomates with me for now. It's not that I am not a nice person, I am, but then my university friends already have roomates (they started working earlier) and am not that close with friends from other universities. I am not going to force anyone to be my roomate. Maybe I'll just leave it to the management to decide. Most of my time will probably be spent in the hospital itself, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

I got to go now. Have a meeting to attend (sounds quite professional, huh!).

A Visit To Asia Cafe

A day before I left for my induction course, I went to Asia Cafe. I have been there once before, but that was a long time ago, and I went there quite late at night and just had some drinks. This time, I was there for dinner.

The main reason we went there was because KR wanted to have watermelon juice. Sharveen and I were OK with anywhere, so we decided on Asia Cafe. When we got there, we only managed to get parking at the lane beside the main road (not the one beside the cafe), so we had to walk to the cafe through a dark lane. My fear at that time was rats and cockroaches. Thankfully, I saw none (I don't care about the ones I can't see).

When we got to the cafe, as expected, there were lots and lots of people everywhere. We thought of sitting in the roofed portion for fear of rain, but then there wasn't a free table in sight and we settled on a table outside.

KR told me and Sharveen to go order our food 1st.

Call me whatever you want, but then I was really, really shocked at what I saw! SO MANY SHOPS! So many varieties of food! So many choices! I looked all around me and saw shops and more shops. And menus of varying nationality, colours and content. How do I choose? I walked past a few shops and tried to comprehend what I was seeing. I felt like there were so many informations that are being inputed at the same time- I was so lost!

(I am a newcomer and didn't know it, but apparently we were supposed to remember our table number when ordering the food, so that 'delivery' would be easy. Good system, I think. Unfortunately, Sharveen had to walk back to our table to check the table number before we managed to order.)

Sharveen made up his mind quickly and ordered and went back to the table so that KR could go make his order. I was practically standing and looking around and wondering what to order. I wish someone would just order for me, tell me what to eat. I was like a 'rusa masuk kampung'! I couldn't take the choices anymore. I decided to stop looking at the shops after a while. I think I just walked about a quarter of the place, and finally decided to order from the first shop. I liked the picture I saw - pineapple chicken.

We had to wait a while for the food to be served, but it was faster than I thought it would take. Sharveen had lasagna while KR had roasted honey chicken. Sharveen and I had medium-sized drinks but KR (who decided he was extremely thirsty) ordered a big glass of watermelon juice. I think it is more worth it to buy the bigger glass, the price difference is not that much. But I don't think I could finish that much drink with dinner.

The food was quite tasty. I liked it. I wouldn't say that the price is cheap, but then when you come to a place like this, you expect it to be a bit more expensive than other places. All in all, I found it quite reasonable 'cos the food tasted OK and I was full by the time I finished eating. All of us were.

I wish I took some photos to be uploaded here. Unfortunately it didn't cross my mind at that time to do that. I tried looking for photos online, but couldn't find any that would do the place justice. Right now, after almost 2 weeks of Malay food (which is tasty at times and not so tasty at others) I am craving for something different. Writing about Asia Cafe is just making it worse!

Anyway, the whole dinner experience was quite a good one..except for the way it ended. We were walking back to the car and once again had to pass through the dark 'lorong'. I saw a guy sleeping at the side and was wondering why he was sleeping there. I was just about to pity him when I saw him do something that should only be done in the privacy of his own room or bathroom. Damn, the man! What an idiot!

I think they should put some lights up in that 'lorong'; am quite sure quite many people use it regularly and would prefer a well lit street to a dark one. One street light is all it needs.

I Have The Right To Sleep When I Am Sleepy!

Since my last post, I have been having quite a lot of free time because of cancelled lectures due to technical errors regarding lecturers and lecture halls. Most of us took the chance to catch up on lost sleep while some went to the nearest towns (Changlung or Jitra). Each of us have to do an assignment, and I have started doing it as well, but then it is such a boring topic, that I can't sit down and do it for a long stretch of time.

We did have a few lectures for the past two days though. Most of it have been extremely boring. So boring that you could fall asleep even after a good night's sleep, what more with the lack of sleep that we experience here.

Come to think of it, I think lecturers shouldn't be angry with us if we are sleepy. It's not like we can control our sleepiness. If someone tells you that you shouldn't feel sleepy, it's like they are telling you you shouldn't feel hungry or you shouldn't cough or sneeze. It's not like you can tell your body to feel sleepy at times and not sleepy at others. You just don't have a choice!

It is a generally known thing that people feel sleepy when they are bored, so why can't the lecturer try to make the lecture more interesting? I always thought that if the topic is boring, then the lecture will be boring. NOT TRUE! I have seen potential boring lectures turn into really interesting ones that kept the whole hall of people awake. In fact, there was at least one lecturer that was so good, I was disappointed that her time was over.

Back in Russia, most of the lectures and classes I had were boring. My Psychiatry class was the worst - it was an afternoon class (after 4 hours of Paediatrics), and for each and every class, I would doze off for at least a few minutes. I have no idea why that particular class always had that effect on me. However, the sleepiest I have been would probably be one of my Endocrinology lecture. It was in Russian, and at that time, I couldn't understand Russian that well. I was straining to try to catch whatever the lecturer said and then trying to translate it from Russian into English and then writing it down. It is really quite a tiring process.

After some time, my brain got too tired to function and I gave up writing and decided to just listen and understand what I can. Then, I started to feel sleepy and began to doze off. Somehow, with a lot of willpower, I managed to be awake enough to remember that I have Skittels in my pencilcase. I reached out for my pencilcase and took my packet of Skittels out. (For those who don't know, Skittels is quite a sour sweet. I bought it specifically for instances like this, believing that the sourness can wake me up). Trying my best to be as silent as possible, I teared open the packet. The whole process took so long, I dozed off for a few seconds/minutes while tearing the packet open. (At that time, I was really in a very very sleepy state)After quite some time, I finally managed to tear open the packet. Then, I put my fingers into the packet (slowly to minimize sound, once again) and tried to get one Skittel. During this process, I dozed off a few times (no, I am NOT lying). I was THAT sleepy!!

Finally, I managed to get the Skittel. I put it in my mouth and the sourness hit me, but only for a short while. I dozed off again, with the Skittel still in my mouth. Thankfully, the lecture ended in a while. From then on, I stopped bringing Skittels to lecture. It doesn't help anyway, so why bother.

The moral of the story : Lecturers, try to make your lecture more interesting. If you aren't able to do that, don't get offended when your students sleep. To the students who are subjected to boring lectures, sour sweets don't help, and neither does coffee.

Amazing!

Here in EDC, we have lectures whole day long. And I mean, whole day long. There are 4 sessions : 0830-1030, 1100-1300, 1430-1630 and 2030-2230.
Lectures are BORING (I am sure that everyone will agree with me on that point). But then, some of the lecturers that we have are SO good, that even though we average about 5 hours of sleep a day, we do not feel sleepy during the lecture (I'm talking about lectures on the government policies and stuff like that). However, we also have lecturers who seem to be talking more to themselves than anyone else.

Anyway, yesterday, we had an OK-OK lecturer, who was boring at times and fun at others. He was a counselor and his topic was about leadership. At one point, he told 4 people from our group to come out front. Then, he took two sheets of mahjong paper and put it on top of one another (on the floor), put a full glass of water on top of it, and told the 4 guys to carry the paper without touching the glass in any way and moving it all the way to the other side of the hall and put it on a table.

Hearing the task ,the first thing I thought was that it is impossible. I thought that if the paper was first held tightly (at each corner) enough and then the glass is placed on top of it, then it might be possible to do it. But then, to carry the paper off the floor and not spill a drop? Impossible.

I was, however, proven wrong. Our 4 heroes, cheered on by everyone else, carried the mahjong paper and glass and without spilling a single drop (not even one) brought the whole 'complex' to the desired 'destination'.
AMAZING!!

Confusing Toll Tickets

Recently, I have had a new fascination - the colour of toll ticket.

Have you ever noticed that there is a line of colour on the toll tickets? So far, I have seen lines that are yellow, orange, red, blue and purple. At first, I thought that maybe different toll booths give out different colours. NOT TRUE! The same toll booth can give tickets of different colours. Then I thought that maybe the colour varies according to the time of the day. This hypothesis was also proven NOT TRUE.

What other criteria can there be? To this question, I still have not found the answer. If there is no meaning to the colour, then why do they even bother producing tickets with different colours? Won't it be easier to just produce just one standard colour?

Another matter that Rajiv and I were arguing about is whether the toll ticket is recycled or not. According to Rajiv, the East-West Highway reuse their toll tickets - proven by the condition of the tickets which is 'lusuh' (can't think of the word for now).

But then, the North-South Highway ticket is always in a perfect condition. And they always print the time and date ON THE TICKET. So, I guess they can't reuse it. However, if the don't reuse it, why don't they just give the ticket back to us? Why do they collect it at the exit? And why is it that they don't reuse the tickets? Won't it safe them money? Why not put electronic chips in the tickets so that they can be reused? KR said that maybe the cost of doing that is too expensive and that it's cheaper to use new, normal tickets. But then what is the function of the black line on the ticket then? In the end, we could not come up with any answers, but, a conclusion was made that maybe they do recycle the tickets, but then they don't reuse the ticket (hope you manage to understand what I mean).

Then, one day, (after watching Madagascar2), Rajiv and I took the highway back. have a look at the picture of the ticket that we received (it was late night and it was dark and I used the phone camera, so the picture is a bit blur).


Anyway, if you notice, this ticket is orange in colour.
It has the usual printed information about the time and date that the ticket was produced, but then, the printed date is 01.11.2008. And at the right side, you see a stamp with the actual date - 13.11.2008. So, I guess they do reuse the tickets. I don't know whether this is a normal occurence or not..and unfortunately, it didn't help answer any of my above questions.
p/s the ticket still looked new.

So many unanswered questions about toll tickets. If anyone knows the answers, PLEASE tell me, because I would really, really like to know.

Togo and Tagar

I spent last weekend in my cousin's house. Once again, I got a chance to meet my 'nephew' and 'niece' Togo and Tagar. Here are some photos I took with them - mainly to prove to all my friends and families that I do in fact get along with them pretty well and also because I don't know when I'll be seeing them next.

trying to get Togo to pose

cousin Nila giving me a hand

finally, sleepy little Tagar laid on me (but only for a little while)

for some reason, Togo seemed very interested in smelling my face that day

another failed shot with both Togo and Tagar

this was the best photo I could get with Togo

my favourite picture of the day!

Want to see more pictures and read more about Togo and Tagar? Visit their blog - www.togothedog.blogspot.com