A Kochi A Day, Keeps You Away

Winter travel 2010 - The Balkans (briefing)

2010-02-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

For a student like me, the best time for travelling or just lazing around is the semester breaks. I've been travelling around the central and eastern part of europe since 2006, visited about 15 countries in 4 years.

It's the ugly truth that travelling needs a lot of money and time, but it's the experience which is crucial in this case because once you started to work, it's hard to get even a day-off for anything. Undeniably true that going back home to family is better for some of them, but I beg to differ. I just don't think that I should restrict my mind from reaching out the world.

OK, enough with the junk.

So it's my last winter break and I'm most probably not gonna have another winter anymore. I planned my trip, and this time it's the Balkan countries.

The Balkans aka southern-eastern Europe consists of countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Romania, Romania, and Turkey.

So the plan of travel this time is so :

- We started off with Istanbul, Turkey. Not a place that amazed me, but it's a great city with alot of astonishing stuff and cunning people, but less cunning than the egyptians.

- Then we took a turkish train to Plovdiv, Bulgaria. I loved this place because it's peaceful and alot more like a European country. It's a small city that consists of 5 hills which made up the old town (previously was 7, 2 were flattened to be developed). Beautiful houses on the old town and very medieval kinda style. Loved it!

- The next day we rode on a train to Veliko Turnovo(VT),Bulgaria, which we luckily met Desi who helped us alot in our trip from VT to Bucharest. VT's a medieval town which is on 3 hills with big valleys. There's a big medieval fortress called Tsarevets which was really old but beautiful and well-preserved. We spent a day-trip there in VT. VT is still one of our favourite town amongst.

- We spent the night on train to Bucharest, Romania. Bucharest had left nothing but great memories with our hosts - Claudia and Stefan, and the shopping spree in AFI Palace. It's not that Bucharest itself offered nothing but it wasn't as impressive as the other capitals in the southeast Europe. The parliment was gigantic though :-)

- Next destination was Brasov, Romania. This city was impressive, in terms of landscape, natural surrounding and architecture. Then we took a bus ride to Bran to see the infamous Dracula's castle (the Bran's castle).

- Then we caught a train running to Sighisoara, Romania. It's a lovely peaceful town with the most medieval style of building I've ever seen after Tallinn, Estonia.

- We took a 10 hours train from Bucharest to Sofia, Bulgaria. It wasn't a good ride, the train was dreadful as we had to sit for 10 hours in the train, and my toilettries and medical kit got stolen by a gypsy. Luckily there was this good couple who helped out. If it wasn't because of them, my backpack, laptop, all important documents would have been stolen. Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria, wasn't as modern as you could imagine. But the national theatre was beautiful!

- The last stop of our trip was Thessaloniki, Greece. Indeed a nice place for a good rest and I wanna be a greek guy too. They're so goodlooking!!! Wild life, freedom, and open-minded place. Plus, the sea was clean. Too bad it was raining when we went there.\

The Balkans is certainly a good place to travel. Accomodation wise we did couchsurfing. So it really saved up alot of accomodation fee + met alot of nice people along way.

What's couchsurfing? Check it out here!

Kochi~

Group outing : Picnic in the park

2009-06-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

Efenem in his ngeh-hek-hek time

I forgot when was the last time we had a group outing. But it seemed to be a long time ago. Basically because everyone was busy with their own "private" lives.

-Uncle is a family guy, keeps refreshing his blogstats every minute to see how many viewers visit his blog.
-Nantha is an indian head, and is restricted to mix with us.
-Ieja has too much shopping to do, too many people to visit.
-Rose has too many guys to flirt with, too much shopping to do as well.
-Faiz has to run his blogs, his MSA-stuff, running to-and-fro the Deans office.
-Fadzli is simply just carefree.....very very carefree.
-I am, however, don't know what am I busy with, just feel very very busy.

So finally, after our gynaecology cycle we suggested to have an outing since we would be having a few days of holidays after that.

The weather had been a JERK. One day it's hot as hell, another day was cold, the next day rainy...just unpredictable. We'd to use weather forecast to plan which day to go.

We prepared some food for our lovely picnic.
-curry chicken
-rendang chicken
-fried noodles
-egg and tuna sandwiches
-Sprite-pineapple juice mix for drinks

Just to name a few (or that's all?)

So we rode on bus to get to the other side of the park, spreaded open the straw mat, and started to eat. Food was delicious!!! Too bad no time for taking pics of food though. We got forgetful when we all saw the food.

Rose being hostile to Nantha
Rose : I'll spit on you if you kept talking.
Nantha : Hmmh! Like I care~

Weather was chilly. But that didn't stop us from having great fun. Fadzli brought volleyball. So after eating we played volleyball, dodgeball, football, monkey etc.

There was also some canine-camp going on. We could see beautiful (and some ugly ones) running around with their owners. Luckily none of us stepped on dog poo.

Efenem : Nge-nge-nge the ball is mine

We then shifted our site to a place nearer to a football field where we all played football. Then I came up with the idea of playing "3-2-1 Red light!" after we were tired with balls. Since none of them played before during their childhood, I had to teach them LOL.

We called that "AEIOU" though. So the rule is one has to read AEIOU in a distant and the others have to move to touch him when he's chanting. When he's done chanting, and turns around, no one is allowed to move at all. If one moved, he's outta the game.

Ok, so what happens if one touched the guy? He had to run as far as possible away from him until he's finished with the AEIOU. The AEIOU guy has to try his best to catch the naughty boy in 3 steps, large or small he decides for himself in order to catch. If caught, the naughty boy would be outta the game. If not, he escaped, and the guy has to catch another one.

Just very childish game...but fun!

A-E-I-O-U

A-E-I-O-U!

Wah! Still so far~

Ieja : Ergh~
Uncle : I can see you~
Fadzli : Teeeheee~

Uncle in action!

Efenem : My turn now, nyah nyah nyah, Ah-Eh-Ih-Oh-Uh!

I of course took some photos for edits.

And lastly, before heading back home, we saw the cutest thing ever on Earth.

A HUSKY named Andiosha? Adriana? ....I forgot >o<

Adorable right?

Shut up if you've seen a better one!!!!

Kochi~

Expedition : Shatki

2009-06-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

*Photos at the end of the entry*

Wow it's been a while since my last entry. So I'm gonna blog about many things (if there's any) from now on.

Exams were difficult. But now I'm free, perhaps too free. That's why I blog.

So I'm gonna tell about my expedition to a small city called "Shatki", which is one of cities of Nizhegorodskiy region. It's situated next to Arzamas, another great city with numerous amazing cathedrals.

Sergey invited me to join this expedition. He asked his friend, Galina to allow me to go because he knew that I could take good pictures for an exhibition. He told me that usually people who wanna join must pay 2000 roubles. I, till now, don't get why people would join this kinda activity.

The journey to Shatki was far, I forgot how long it took to get there. But it was ass-painful far. But it's actually called "near" to the russians because, pfff RUSSIA IS SO BIGGG!!! I thought it was far because I was from the little Malaysia.

The expedition was meant for an exhibition about the heritage places around the Nizhegorodskiy region that have been forgotten by the generation X and generation Y.

My expedition was about a Municipal hospital that existed from 1895-1995. It's more like a combination of hospital and rehabilitation centre. The hospital was surrounded by a huge park with abundance of floras, ranging from food to medicine.

But now it's just a piece of wasteland like jungle. It was kinda creepy when we reached there. The weather changed. Gloomy and rainy. You know, like the House on Haunted Hill. There's even a graveyard of the owner of the park!!!! Which really creeped me out~

However the air was fresh after the shower stopped. In the park, there were 5 lakes interconnected by pipes to prevent them from overflowing that might just flood all the sick patients away. But nowadays, the pipes were stuck, I guess. So one lake had a higher water level than the other one which was almost dried up. It's like, you look to your left, you're hydrophobic; look to your right, you're acrophobic.

They even had their own sauna there. But it's closed now.

But it's a great natural park where people could rest their minds.

Below are pictures that I took during the expedition. Some of the pictures will be shown during the exhibition and will be published on the website, which I've forgotten the website (will keep you guys updated anyway).

Really, really old glass

Kochi~

Just for Laughs

2009-06-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

I received this forwarded email from my little sister. It's just hilarious. LOL.

P.S : DO NOT FOLLOW!!!

FW: I DON'T KNOW WHICH DOCTOR WROTE THIS BUT I REALLY LIKE HIS ANSWERS‏

HEALTH :QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION

Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?

A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a MIXED GRILL can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?

A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!!... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?

A : Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger.. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy? HELLO. Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

...................... And remember:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride"

RGDS

LONG LIVE TO EVERY MAIL READER

Kochi~

Happy Wesak Day

2009-05-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Wesak Day was yesterday and I, for the first time, decided to attend the weekly Buddhist gathering at the 1st hostel.

It's been such a long time since I chanted. Yunci, the cute freshlady who's the leader of the group invited to attend since the last semester. But somehow I couldn't manage to attend, reasons were wake up late and early outing.

So back to the story, I attended together with Willy, Murphy, Shuyu, Justin Tan, Su Wei just to name a few. We were supposed to prepare food to share, but I didn't know about this until the night before going.

Willy and I planned to cook something but after a while, Willy told me we just go for it without food.

On that day, we chanted for god knows how long, but I was sure that it was long.....LOL Perhaps I haven't been chanting for a long time, but I always lose patience while chanting is going on. HAHAHA and my stomach started to growl like thunder clap inside.

After the chants, we watched a BBC's documentary about Siddharta Gautama's life story and teachings. Then it was time for makan-makan~ Yay!

Oh yes, also it's a tradition for us to bathe the Buddha with flower water. Back in our place, we have fragrant water with little flower petals in the water. After bathing the Buddha, we must take a packet of the water to bathe at home.

But here we didn't have the particular perfume for the water, and the flower petals here were hard. The petals stuck on the Buddha's head.

The purpose of bathing the Buddha was to cleanse away our sins, 3 times.

The place was nicely decorated by Kheng Huat, Yunci and company. Kudos to them though because it's hard to get resources from here.

I was happy to be religious and be a vegetarian for at least one day. I would attend for the next few meetings if I could make it at 9am.

Plus the food they prepared was delicious!!!

Kochi~

Day Two - Hot and cold

2009-05-05T01:15:00.000-07:00

On the second day, I decided to bring my friends to the Tsarkoe Selo (coz not everyone knows well about St. Petes other than Denis and I).

The initial plan was to go to Peterhof . But unfortunately Peterhof will start to operate only in May. So the plan B (cheh~) was to visit Tsarkoe Selo.

Tsarkoe Selo (Царское Село) was one of the beautiful suburb of St. Petersburg. It used to be the summer residence for the nobility but now it's a museum for peasants (I meant us).

I've been wanting to visit this place so much because I didn't have enough time to spend in this palace during my first visit to SPB.

Zhenya, who came from Moscow joined us to go to the Tsarskoe Selo, though he told me that nothing's much there to see before. Heeeeheee......Zhenya is my skype friend for almost 4 years and this was the first time we met up.

We took an intracity train aka Elektrichka by the russians. The trip to the destination wasn't long.

In the Elektrichka with Zhenya and Rose.

After arriving, instead of taking a bus or a minibus, Denis suggested to WALK again and saying that "it's not so far, about 1.5km". It was about freaking 4km away from the railway station!!!

We didn't go into the palace as soon as we reached there, but instead we took a long walk around the lake till the Catherine Park.

Denis and Zhenya resting while I was making some photos and doing something as below........

Catherine Park panarama

After a looooooong walk around the freaking huge lake, we reached the palace and there was a huge number of people queuing up to enter the palace.

Most of us were kinda reluctant to go in because of the long queue. Plus we could see a better one in The Hermitage. But Denis managed to persuade us to go in. He especially outlined the "Amber Room" inside which were kinda pretty.

Funny to me to think about, why were there so many halls in the palace and where did the Tsars and Tsarinas slept at? And all halls were connected by only one path. Sucks to be in the Royal family. I wonder if there's a secret passage like shown in the Disney cartoon "Anastasia", where she escaped the mayhem.

The day was so FUCKING HOT!!! That's how we got our perfect sun tan. Even Rose got her legs rested while waiting for the long queue to move an inch. The authorities allowed only certain numbers of visitors to enter at a time.

Long queue which took us about an hour (or maybe more) to get in

Guest room - Efenem called this as "show off"

Another show off, irregular dining table with custom-made tablecloth

The Amber room - Amber was one of the precious jewellery back then

Denis' shadow in the Amber room, shot secretly by me because it was not allowed to take pictures in that room.

Apparently, Catherine the Great had GREAT boobs too.

After getting out from the palace, we were again WALKING back to the railway station. Rose were starting to feel pain in her legs after lots of walking in the boots with high heels. The 2 russians didn't get the hint at first. So we had to explain about who and why and how and when and what happened. We asked Rose to take off the boots and we carried her on our backs. Then we found a footwear shop and went in to let her buy a pair of sandals. Everything got back to normal after that, she resumed her walking. Then Zhenya hailed a minibus and we got in and rode till the railway station. Good thing that he hailed one though, if not.....urgh~

In the train, there were many people sitting. Only a few seats were available, so we all were standing in front of the carriage. Then slowly number of people got lesser as the train stopped at different places.

At night, we decided to go out to see one of the drawbridges to open. Plus, Nantha had the urge to go out at night to walk since the first day.

We walked along the Admiralty Street till the center of the city, where the Winter Palace and The Hermitage were situated. We found lots of restaurants along the way, but unfortunately financial restricted us from going in.

When we reached the center, I brought my fellow friends to the Shaurma shop that I found during the last visit. It was cheap and affordable, tasty and tummy-filling.

Then we walked to the Palace Square to snap some nightshots, of us and of the palace.

To see the drawbridge to open, we had to wait until 1.30am. So we lingered around the palace square, then sat on the bench beside the palace and wait.

It was FREAKING COLD and windy, and IT WAS NO JOKE!

We all curled up to stay warm. Rose sat on Nantha's lap *tssk tssk*, then on Faiz's. Ieja was sitting with me because we had brought scarves and I brought gloves. But those didn't prevent the cold wind from blowing down the spine.

Then I felt the cold and apparently they felt worse. So I laid myself on their laps though not getting laid myself. They got the warmth from me and I felt like a proud daddy.

Travel buses arrived near the bridge one after another. We knew that it was almost time for the bridge to open. So we went there.

Yay!~ (What's the big deal anyway?)

After that, we walked back to our hostel along the famous Nevsky Prospekt. Eventhough it was as late as 2am, the street was still busy with cars, motorbikes, cyclists and pedestrians. We felt no threat walking at night.

That's when Efenem formulated his famous quote "This is not Russia!"

FUCKING HOT and FREAKING COLD were written in capital letters to coincide my title of the blog.

-End of Day Two-

Kochi~

Day 1 - Departure and arrival

2009-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

It was a fine Thursday evening when we packed up the bags and headed to the train station. We could have reached there and stopped at McDonalds for a late lunch earlier if the 2 interracial couple didn't come late! )))))
Anyways we still stopped at the McDonalds to get dinner for the long travel on the railway for 15 hours.

Staying overnight on train was no fun, confined, but it's somehow comfortable to sleep. We chatted so much in the train and laughed until one lady came over to ask us to keep the noise down. Luckily Nantha brought cards as planned for some rounds of Blackjack and "Bluff".

I'm no good and have no luck in cards. For the Bluff game (who knows what and how does it call), the one with most cards at the end of the game loses. The aim is to trick the opponents with the cards which are wrong. If one didn't believe, he could flip over the cards to reveal whether the player was lying or not. If the player's not lying, the one who flipped over the cards take them all. If the player's lying, he should take all the cards.

So my aim was to bluff as many times as possible, and not flipping over. I still ended up losing many times. So what? I was trying to stay in the game!

After everyone was tired except Efenem, we all went to sleep leaving him alone sleeping with much disappointment.

So within some 15 hours of railway ride, we finally arrived. Met up with Denis who offered to be our tour guide for the trip.

Then he brought us "WALKING" from the railway station till our "I-wish-you-good-luck-to-find" hostel called "Fireplace". So why did I wrote in inverted commas?

"WALKING" - We hate walking under the hot sun, and Denis' 5 minutes of walk was actually our 15 minutes of walk.

"I-wish-you-good-luck-to-find" - Because there's no sign about this hostel and the apartment has as many as 10 entrances.

"Fireplace" - I don't know why, that's why it's in inverted commas.

After checking in the hostel, we went for a hungry brunch. Below was Efenem's serving.

After that, Denis brought us for a boat trip. He said "Boat TRIPPING", I thought it was "Boating trip", then I asked Ieja and she said "just 'GET A BOAT TRIP' la!"

Anyway the boat trip was on Fontanka River. We passed through a few of the 15 bridges along the Fontanka River, then to another canal. By the way, in the whole St. Petersburg, there are 342 bridges known. Don't believe me? Click on this link.

Boat TRIPPING was fun but cold as the boat moved along the canal, luckily I brought gloves and scarf like a bitch. And lucky for those who didn't bring, there were blankets over the benches on the boat, so they could snug into the blankets.

The one in white was wacky but friendly enough to say hi, they're hot!

Under the widest bridge, the Blue Bridge on Moyka river

Trying to reach the top of the lowest bridge amongst, but unfortunately my height was :(

Funny enough to see such a name for a Cafe - it serves CUM? LOL it's actually pronounced as "Sim-Sim" in Russian.

After an hour of TRIPPING, we headed towards the Kazan Cathedral. It's so big that I had to stitch them up with 3 fragments. It's peaceful inside like any other cathedrals. And I was trying to impress Efenem that I like the dome of the Cathedral because I was there for the second time. He wasn't impressed and he claimed to prefer the one of Hagia Sofia better :(. I'm not gonna tell how does it look like inside, you gotta see it for yourself, teeeheee~

"Tell me fast, or I'll shove this up into ur ass!"

"Oh right you bitch, bring it on!!"

Okay la, a spoiler for you guys. Inside was as dark as Nantha's complexion, teehee~

After that we crossed over the main street in St. Petersburg, Nevskiy Prospekt, to the famous "Храм Спаса на Крови" (Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood).

It sounds spooky, but it was named after the Tsar Alexander II, who was mortally wounded (I called that assasination). Then the son, Tsar Alexander III built this as a memorial upon the death of his father. It resembles the St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow just that it's smaller but I say much more beautiful.

My postcard kinda shot

Bear cub, Masha who's only 4 months old but wildly tamed.

We're all hyped up.....Weeeeeee~~~~~

My solo jump....Weeeeee~~~

The last one.....Weeee~~~

Hummers were infested in St. Petersburg, and the limos.

Lots of weddings going on.

Then we walked along the Griboedov Canal till the Hermitage and the Winter Palace. We didn't go in because it was 5.30pm.

We went to the Neva River bank to shoot some pictures. So we shot some "modelling" pictures on the river bank. Me, Rose and Denis shot with my shades on.

These were pretty much what we saw during the first day in St. Petersburg. I didn't find it boring seeing the same thing though it was my second time there, probably because I got no opportunity to see such things as the "Europeanized" part of Russia after my graduation.

St. Petersburg is the Europe of Russia, even Moscow wasn't that impressive. The people were friendly. I just love this place.

Like what I've summed up :
Kaliningrad is the Russia in Europe,
while St. Petersburg is the Europe in Russia.

Efenem said : This is not Russia!

What more, St. Petersburg was labelled as the "Venice Of the North".

You gotta see it to believe it!!!

☆ Highly recommended place to travel ☆

Rating : ★★★★★

Kochi~

Najib's big present : Malaysia Blacklisted!

2009-04-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

Today, I was too bored so I switched on the TV to watch Russian News. To my surprise, I saw Malaysia was blacklisted by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

As my russian wasn't super good, I googled and I found the news written on Johnny Ong's blog.

Malaysia was blacklisted by the organization together with Phillipines, Uruguay and Costa Rica, which sounded kinda degraded and disgusted.

In Johnny Ong's blog, he wrote as an introduction for his blog "The first big news to greet him on his office table is that Malaysia has been blacklisted by a world body, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development." which sounded kinda hilarious to me.

Imagine you being Najib Razak, you stepped into your office and your secretary came telling you about this story, how would you react? I'd be shocked!

Maybe Malaysian government has a piece of good mind of making a new local tax standard. I hope it will be a good one, if not, I'd laugh at you so bad. But being blacklisted by the World wasn't a good thing after all.

Perhaps this is a good way to make the word "Malaysia" more famous worldwide.

-Hi, where are you from?
-I'm from Malaysia.
-Ooooo...the one of the blacklisted country?
-...........ermmm......yeah
-How do you think about that?
-.........
-How's the taxing system now in Malaysia?
-........ask my dad!

-Dad : *deep inhale* - *long sigh* - *shake head* - *deep inhale* - *long sigh*

If Malaysia do not comply with OECD strict requirements, the following sanctions will be imposed on Malaysia:-
• Increased disclosure requirements by companies and individuals using tax havens
• Withholding taxes on transactions with tax havens
• A ban on the use of interest paid in a blacklisted country to offset tax
• Reviewing tax treaty policy
• Putting political pressure on global companies to withhold investment to a haven
• A reduction in aid
• Scrapping of tax treaty arrangements
• Imposing additional taxes on companies that operate in non-compliant countries
• Tougher disclosure requirements for individuals and businesses that use shelters
• Withdrawal of financing by the World Bank or International Monetary Fund

Switzerland, Singapore, the Cayman Islands, Monaco, Luxembourg and Hong Kong are among 45 territories blacklisted on Thursday by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and now threatened with punitive financial retaliation for their banking secrecy. Of the offending jurisdictions, 40 "have committed to the internationally agreed tax standard" but have yet to implement it. Only Costa Rica, Malaysia, Philippines and Uruguay have refused to sign up altogether. Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are fully compliant already.

Let's hold hands and wait........see what will Malaysia say about this.

Will it be published in the local newspaper or to cover up the smelly ass?

I love to travel but don't wanna apply for visa. Should I migrate then?

Kochi~

Paediatric Surgery

2009-03-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

Our Paediatric Surgery Professor Parshikov Vyacheslav Vladimirovich (long intro, phew~) always tells us that "Paediatric Surgery is so easy, you can even put a diagnosis over the phone"

He's a nice man, he never scolded us when we're late to class like other teachers did. Instead, he showed us his gunshooting photos with different guns when we're late to class. KK had received his credit last time so he need not to attend. But he didn't tell us beforehand so Fadzli wrote his name into the list. LOL professor told us that KK would get a photo with bazooka.

He loves to show us photos. He's very good in teaching eventhough he speaks in russian most of the time, but we understood him well. He accepts any questions.

His principles in putting diagnosis are:
1. Have a cup of tea
2. Break the brain and think

He didn't say it but we can figure out that he hates the doctors who say "Maybe this.....maybe that.....(pointing to the roof)" LOL

Paediatric surgery is always surprising, because life is always surprising in a way you wouldn't know what's gonna happen.

Look at these pictures :

(click on them to redirect to the precise description, or click here)

And we are nurtured by our lovely professor. Look how lovely he is.....hekekekeke~

Kochi~

Game night Friday night

2009-03-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Simple night with simple food.
- Fried beehun singapore style
- Tuna sandwiches
- Cinnabon (failure but I loved)
- Potato chips
- Payasam (indian sweet soup with Sagu)
- Different kinda tea

After gluttonizing, we played cards. First we played BlackJack in marking system since out fellow muslim friends can't gamble. Then we played poker but marking system in poker was too boring.

So Uncle Lim figured out a way to gamble without getting money. We used coins, each one getting 10 coins. Whoever got the most coins at last wins.

So we all took part in playing poker.

Nantha was the winner of the first round when he psychologically attacked Rose in the final 2. Rose withdrew from the game, while Nantha had the littlest cards in hands. Rose could have won but she was deceived by Nantha's all-in.

The first person who gone bankrupt was either Rose or Faiz.

Then it nailed down to the final 2, who were Nantha and KK (the 2 gambling ghosts, kaki judi, ngehehehehe...)
After a series of psychological strategizing, KK won the most coins that night. What a kaki judi......ngehehehehe~

Then we wrapped up the night by fortunetelling using cards. It was about love. Ngehehehe childish but fun.

Faiz thought that the cards weren't telling the truth, or maybe he was denial?
However it's just a game, LOOOOOOOL!!!

Kochi~

Snowboarding experience

2009-03-28T08:28:00.001-07:00

Last __day (forgot which day and when already, hehe), Yuriy brought me to the Sports Club in Habarskoe (~1 hour away from Nizhny Novgorod) to snowboarding with his girl friend as he promised me since January ))))

This was the first time me snowboarding. I didn't have to rent for snowboard because Yuriy borrowed a snowboard from his friend. I just had to pay for the snowboard lift.

Snowboard/ Ski lift

It's hard to control the board and speed at first since the snow was melting and what left below was ice. After a few attempts I could snowboard as free willy (Not you, Willy)

My ass was frozen and hurt, but the ecstasy kept my spirit burning
.

This is the scheme of the skiing tracks in Habarskoe. I snowboarded in the long track beside the yellow track.

While I tried to go down to the end of the track, Yuriy told me to walk up to the top and practise again until I mastered everything. I figured why because we've paid for the lift. So I tried to be a good student and walk back up again and glide down and up and down and up and down and...........

Since it was tiring to go up and down the hill, finally I decided to go till the very end so that I could take a break climbing up hill by taking the snowboard lift. I waited for Yuriy to come and tell me how to lift myself up to the top. He prep me up to lift. And then I went up and up and suddenly I tripped down. I was pulled by the lift while laying down on snow while trying to recover.

The lift stopped (I guess someone must have seen be being dragged up, hahaha). I stood up again. Then the lift started again to lift people up. Not long after the first drop down, I tripped again. This time the lift didn't stop. I struggled to recover but failed. I could see that the lift cable became so long because I was still pulling it.

I struggled and failed and decided to get dragged up while laying on the ground. It was kinda embarassing but fun because no one had ever dragged themselves up so far like me. While I was almost to the top, I let go of the lift and walked up the final slope. The 2 men behind me shouted "Уважаю!! Respect!!".

When I reached the top, Yuriy was laughing so hard. He helped me to sweep the snow on my jacket, and both of them told me ---- To come up by using lift is the hardest thing to do here.

What the hell?? LOL I was like -_-"

Now I know why Yuriy asked me to climb up the

Phew.....felt so great to be the clown of the night. Ngahahahaha!!!

Yuriy and Tanya

This is Tanya, Yuriy's gf.

And this is Yuriy, the master of snowboard. LOL

Kochi~

How to steal this car?

2009-03-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon a scene where a car was really hard to be stolen away. You can't even break into the car with wire.

What's the trick?

Hehehehehe.....maybe im not a professional thief. LOL

Kochi~

Not going back home, again.

2009-03-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

I've not been back home for a year and 7 months. And I'm not planning to go back home again this summer break.

So people always ask :-

"Harrr, you won't go back again ah?"

"You don't miss your family mehhh?"

"Mak kau tak sayang engkau ke?"

"Your family didn't miss you mehh?"

"You don't wanna eat "hao liao" meh?

These are the questions that I've encountered.

My answers :
- Yes I won't go back again. (heeeheee)
- Of course I miss my family la. I have a niece to cuddle one ler.
- My mom sayang me very much and I love her very much too. *smooches
- My family does miss me alot. We webcam chat via Skype. *sweet*
- I wanna..........but I don't wanna.......... *giggles*

Well I flew back home during summer breaks of 2005, 2006, and during winter and summer breaks of 2007. And what did I do while I was in Malaysia?
- Eat
- Laze
- Sleep
- Shopping
- Sometimes exercise (crucial point)
- Go mamak stall and eat with friends
- Drive to places to eat
- Sing with friends in Red Box
- Give free treats to friends

Alot of money was spent for jolly. That's not good. I've got nothing but whole bunch of atherosclerotic plaque sticking on my blood vessel's wall. When there's nothing to do I just sat at home and watched Astro for the whole day. Ask me the tv schedule, I'd know.

So the reason why I don't wanna go home isn't to save money, but to gain experience and be independent (lifestyle-wise, not money-wise *giggles*).

I've been travelling during my first summer not going back home. I've been travelling to some exotic places that not many people have yet travelled to. Being a "pioneer" going to such places feels great!!! However the bottomline was that I've seen things that I couldn't see in Malaysia, experienced a different culture of another country, learnt new languages, and made a bunch of cool new friends from all over the world.

Back then, return tickets Malaysia-Russia was around RM3400. Shopping for food, clothes etc costs about RM 1000. Shipping food by ship costs around RM300 (for 3 parcels). Shopping and singing karaoke with friends cost for a total of RM1000 (for the whole holidays). Gas and toll fees cost around RM300 (for the whole holidays). Eating at mamak stalls, treating people food etc tralalala for RM200.

Sum up = RM6200 per once return to Malaysia.

That was then. Now I prefer to stay back here, plan a budget trip around Europe and travel. I'd better off use the money for a good backpacking travel. I've met different friends from different places with different characteristics. Some even offered for a free stay. A jumbo money save!

I'm a grown up, I don't cry over missing family because we're linked by the latest web technologies which make all things almost possible (except body contact).

However this is my way of thinking.

I've heard some students boiled and cried over summer practicals which will be carried out here, in Russia! Being entrusted to provide the "same" methods and teachings as what they (well, we..) can learn back in Malaysia.

I don't wanna......

I wasn't so affected as much, since I've decided to stay back here.

For this I laugh at them - ~HAHAHAHAHA~ *cough cough*

I am so bad....ngehehehehe.

The practicals here are not bad actually. At least you can tell what we did in hospitals when we're doctors in the future. I'm sure someone will ask :-

"Doctor, last time what did u do in hospital?"
-"Errr....I don't know ler, I only go to hospital when there is class. And we ask ask him, touch touch him, play play him *oops* and then write a report lo"

"Then what you do when u are free ah?"
-"I go home and sleep and study lo. Sometimes I go out eat eat in restaurant when got money. If no money ma go back cook and sleep and study lo. When nothing to cook liao, I ma go shopping for groceries lo. Sometimes play masak-masak with friends in hostel lo. Sometimes play play games lo"

"Yerrr doctor, your student life so sien one."
-"What to do ler? I lived in Russia maaa......~"

Yeah yeah.....blame Russia all the way. You will always live in despair.

Kochi~

Speaking English with the Russians.

2009-03-01T04:55:00.000-08:00

On Friday, I received an SMS from Victor. He invited me to attend a meeting of his English lesson on Saturday and asked me to bring someone there. I've no one but Ieja to ask for accompaniment.

The place's situated not that far from the hostel so walking was great as the weather was so awesome. Victor and Kate were waiting for us at the entrance of Orbita. It's been such a long time since I last met him. I gave him a fridge magnet that I promised to buy him while I was in Warsaw.

We went up to the class and got acquainted with Katya (the boss of the club) and 6 more russians. 2 girls 4 guys, and this one guy who could speak a great English looked like Kid Rock!!! His name was Sevlovlad or Sevdovlad something close enough in between. The moniker was Seva. The other 5 I couldn't remember the name as they're sitting far away from me.

There were some topic to discuss in the lesson and we're guests of the day. We wrote greeting words on a card on behalf of St Valentine's Day. Ieja's greeting card was selected as one of the best (there were 2 best cards). I wrote "Because LOVE always prevails, two hearts should be joined together" with an arrow joining 2 hearts. I'm such a cupid! Victor drew out my card and he thought it's the best. Thanks Victor!

It was fun to know that there're still some russians who have passion for English. It's a great Saturday.

Kid Rock's on the first from the left, beside Ieja. Victor and Kate were on the right.

Kochi~

Winter trip : Poznan

2009-02-26T03:25:00.000-08:00

Ostrow Tumski - Cathedral (yep, it's called that simply)

Ostrow Tumski - Church of Our Lady

Poznan Town Hall

The Town Hall with inscription on its wall. A great sight.

Poznan is a city in west-central Poland with over 567,882 inhabitants (2006). Located on the Warta River, it is one of the oldest cities in Poland, making it an important historical centre and a vibrant centre of trade, industry, and education. Poznań is Poland's fifth largest city and fourth biggest industrial centre. It is also the administrative capital of the Greater Poland Voivodeship.

-Wikipedia-

We stopped by Poznan for 6 hours before our trip to Gdansk.

Why Poznan? It's not famous at all?

Answer : Because my friend, Rafal was from there and Candice wanted to go there so bad because the Renaissance architecture is just stunningly beautiful. Just look at the Old Town. It's quiet because it's winter, people always find shelter for warmth.

So we didn't end up with meeting Rafal because he had an exam in Berlin to be attended. We also didn't have enough time to explore the whole city of Poznan. We only made it to the Old Town and the Ostrow Tumski. The Ostrow Tumski was huge and time wasn't sufficient to walk around. It was almost time to board the train so we rushed back to the Railway Station. On the way back to the Railway Station, we saw some really cool palace-like buildings and beautiful monuments but unfortunately, time was running out.

On train we met with Wojtek, who's a medical student in Gdansk. He was back to Poznan for study week. The next day was his exam on Chemistry. But we chatted the whole night with pauses in between for him to study and smoke. LOL. A nice guy and a cheeky one.

Next destination : Gdansk

Kochi~

Winter trip : Wroclaw

2009-02-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

That's where I bought gloves and cap.

Leprechaun performing pole dance

Even Bata was there (It's an Italian brand though~)

My favourite store : H&M

The road to the old town(ul. Swidnicka), that's where all the stores were situated~

Tatuum

Pierre Cardin

Diesel

Terranova

KFC - almost 2 days we've been eating because we're living just above it LOL.

Restaurant Jadka, the only world class we've been to.

...and we ordered this "Pierogi" with duck meat, *slurp~*

Ostrov Tumski - Island of Churches

Another kind of Pierogi but it's with cottage cheese, urgh~

Old Town

Town Hall - rear view

Town Hall - anterior view

in KFC, hihi~~~

Wroclaw was built on 12 islands, surrounded by rivers and canals. There are 127 bridges within the city and only Venice, Amsterdam and St Petersburg can beat. Wroclaw is certainly not in the list of many people while visiting Poland, but it's worthwhile to explore around, especially the Ostrov Tumski (Island of Churches).

The weather was moderately windy and cold, but it didn't stop us from going around the beautiful city. We arrived the city at 1 am and there's no one to ask for direction. Luckily we hailed a taxi which refused to give us a ride because the place we're staying was just of walking distance. A kind man he was.

We stayed in Nathan's Villa which was on top of KFC. It's amongst one of the best hostel I've slept in.

It's the first city that we splurged because things were sooooooooooooo cheap!!! That's where I started my shopping spree~

Some say that if Krakow would be the 2nd Prague, then Wroclaw would be the 2nd Krakow. But personally, I count them backwards. Wroclaw-Krakow-Prague :):):):):)

Kochi~

Winter trip : Kutna Hora

2009-02-16T04:25:00.001-08:00

Second stop : Kutna Hora, Czech Republic.

Kutna Hora is also a Bohemian city. It's a town full of "Kut" (bone in Hokkien, hahahaha.....my lame joke)

It's actually a small town, really small. It's famous for its Kostnice/ Ossuary aka The Bone Church.

We took a train from Prague to Kutna Hora. It's around 30 minutes to reach the destination. One way cost 73 crowns for student price.

Why is it called "The Bone Church"?

The church itself wasn't made to worship the devils.

The church originally was just an ordinary small church. After the attack of the plague causing numerous Black Deaths. So mortality rate increased and there's no place for burial eventhough the church was expanded once.

So there's a blind guy who dug up all the bones and an architect was asked to make something out of these bones of millions of humans.

And tadaaaa........these are the masterpieces~

After that we took the tourist bus which cost 35 crowns to the Gothic Cathedral on top of the hill. It's almost the same structure like the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague because the architect was the same. We didn't enter the cathedral because it cost money.

So I snapped the scenic photos of the town centre from the hill. And then we had lunch in a chinese restaurant (again).

Everything was going very fine until the time when we wanna get back to the railway station. There's fucking no bus. The lady in the restaurant warned us that there's no bus because it's Sunday. So we hurried outselves back to the town centre. There's also no tourist bus, even worse, the information centre was closed. We were 5 minutes away from asking questions. ARghhhhhh!!!!

So we met 2 gorgeous young Czech lads whom Candice fell in love with so fast that she stuttered while asking them for aid. Undeniably they're really goodlooking. Czech Republic really has good genes!!

They helped us to hire a taxi and asked us to wait with their bad English and good sign language. 5 minutes later the taxi came and cost us to pay 100 crowns to get to the railway station.

Reached the railway station and directly went to the counter for ticket.

This was when the TERROR happened.

We didn't have any money left in our pockets. I asked if the counter accepted cards. The answer was NO!!

So I asked for direction to go to the nearest ATM machine. I made haste of myself to the nearest machine, which was 5 km away from the railway station according to the locals. I was like "WTF!!!" So I ran there without wasting time.....panted.....and suddenly found an ATM machine which was approxly 4km away. Withdrew the money and ran back again to the railway station. Lady luck was with us that we're 5 minutes close before the train arrived.

We reached Prague and went back to the hostel to claim our stuff before we walked to the bus station to depart to our next stop, Wroclaw. While we were on the way to the bus station, we met the Hongkee couple again. Surprisedly they recognised us. We chatted, exchanged emails and took photos for memory before we waved goodbye to Prague.

The trip to Czech Republic wasn't so relaxing but rather thrilling, terrifying also exciting and interesting. It's sure also a memorable one because I snapped a picture of this beautiful girl while eating in the chinese restaurant.

Next stop : Wroclaw (pronounced as Vroshlav), Poland.

Kochi~

Winter trip : Prague, again~

2009-02-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

Exams were finally over and I'm travelling again!!!!!

First stop : Prague, Czech Republic.

This is not the first I've been to Prague in Czech Republic. The last time I was here was dated 4 years ago while I was a young and stupid 2nd year student.

So why am I in Prague once again????

1. We all have a short holiday after the escape from ordeal of Epidemiology.
2. KD Avia offered a reasonable price to fly from Nizhny Novgorod to Prague.
3. I touched that stupid statue on Charles Bridge 4 years ago, saying that I would come back again.

Prague is one of the Bohemian city with lots of stunning buildings. It’s as though situated on hills. That explained why it’s so fucking cold!!

And so here I am, again. But living in another hostel.

Oh yeah, we went through a long delay in Kaliningrad. The flight was supposed to start boarding at 12.55pm but it ended up boarding at 13.40pm. The airport went from empty to congested. That's when the one and only cafe there had great business.

On the plane, I was terribly exhausted because I couldn't sleep well the night before departure. Nevertheless I managed to jolt myself up to take the beautiful pictures of the clouds~ (I think I've captured the Curonian Spit of Kaliningrad)

We checked in the hostel after arrival and hustled ourselves to the Old Prague Town. The hostel looked wacky. The doors were sprayed and the walls were yellowish, so cute to live in~

It was dark by then. So we took night views of the Old Town and dined in a chinese restaurant.

We became panicked when we couldn't find the metro station, practically none, it's hidden somewhere that we couldn't find desperately. So we walked from the Old Town, to a bridge, then took a bus, reached a totally new place..........That's when we found this specially lit human figure mosaic.
Then we walked again with the hopes to find the nearest metro station. We ended up reaching the Old Town again, realising we're walking in a circle. So we kinda gave up and decided to take any coming trams alongway. We hopped on to one and after a few stops we found a metro station. Credits to Candice though~

Reached hostel fucking late because we were absolutely lost in the mysterious old Prague. We met a couple of Hongkees who're pretty funny especially his wife but I couldn't speak Cantonese that well, so Candice was the ice breaker and the MC of the night. I was just listening until I fell asleep.

Next stop : Kutna Hora

Happy Chinese Bovine New Year..best wishes for -

2009-01-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

Gong Xi Fai Chai (恭喜发财)

"To get more income" NOT "income tax"

- to papa

Qing Chun Mei Li (青春美丽)

"Stay young and pretty outside-in" NOT "ugly inside-out"

- to mama, dajie, erjie, zhili

Xue Ye Meng Jin (学业猛进)

"To improve in studies" NOT "gaming"

- to koknen

Wan Shi Ru Yi (万事如意)

"Million wishes granted as hoped" ONLY "good ones"

Shen Xin Jian Kang (身心健康)

"Healthy body and mind" NOT "dirty"

He Jia Ping An (合家平安)

"Prosperity in family" NOT "preposterous"

- to all my friends and relatives

Nian Nian De Wu (年年得五)

"Get 5 every year in exams" NOT "repeat year"

- to all fellow friends and juniors

There are so many people I wanna send these wishes to, but sending in greeting cards will take forever to reach your doorstep.

If you felt that the wishes above weren't enough, private text me and I'd give more and more and more, 2 dollars per wish. *wink wink*

Hereby, from the bottom of the bottom of my heart, I wish you guys a Happy Bovine Year 2009. Just don't be as stubborn and furious like an ox, rather be hardworking and relax as the buffaloes working in the paddy field.

Kochi~

Supernova

2009-01-22T06:20:00.001-08:00

Fireworks
Originally uploaded by kkkochi

Broken hopes?
No......it's just the expansion of hopes, sharing with the others in a colorful way~

A tree, isn't it obvious?

2009-01-22T06:18:00.001-08:00

DSCF4979
Originally uploaded by kkkochi

Nothing special....Shot this tree during Traumatology Cycle. Plus some tinting on the sky and some warming effect.

Flickr

2009-01-22T06:15:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Flickr

2009-01-16T07:25:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

It's time for a change.......

2009-01-08T14:19:00.000-08:00

.......in the wardrobe!!!!!!

It was a fine Thursday morning when me and Ah Sa went to Fantastika for a grand shopping.

As everyone was saying about the fantastic Fantastikish sales there, so I decided to go to shop for myself......

First we went to.....................................................

...............cut long story short, I spent almost ~2500 roubles there.

Items that I've bought :

- a cardigan from C & A

- a pair of gloves from C & A

- a jeep cap also from C & A

(cuz some say that C & A stands for "cheap and affordable")

- a scarf from Reserved

- 2 pairs of boxers from Reserved

- 2 pairs of boxers from New Yorkers(Smog)

I know you might question yourself : -

"What do the boxers have to do with me?"

"Duh~ It's none of my business."

But this is my blog~

Bite me........HaHaHaHa *evil grin*

Kochi~

A day to the Frozen Gorky Sea

2009-01-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

The dream to go to Gorky Sea has finally come true. Sergey brought me, Alexey, Max and his precious Thai friend tum tum tum Tum there in the fine afternoon.

After picking up Alexey from his place, we began our journey to some place I call far, but they call it close (coz Nizhny is a freakin' big city)

Here we go, down the hill and river....

The weather was perfect, not too snowy. Just perfect to shoot pictures. And that's my native motive for being there in the trip.

As usual, they had to stop for a cigarette break. I saw a ray of a "snow-bow" (not to be confused with "rainbow") in the sky above the vast wasteland. So I told Sergey about it and he decided to pull over for me to snap the picture of that snowbow (also a chance for him to get himself pumped up with some nicotine in the lungs).

Do you note the snowbow on the left upper corner and Max on the right lower corner?

So after freezing myself taking a few shots of the scene together with them finishing their boost, we continued heading to our destination.

Here we go again~

So after a long journey, maybe x hours, we reached the city Городец (Gorodets). It's a friendly place, not too large as it seems to be and not as happening as in Nizhny Novgorod. Anyways, it owns the biggest attraction amongst Nizhnians - the Gorky Sea.

Sounds salty?

No not really. It's just a part of the Volga River but was cutted off by a dam to make as a water reservoir and also to prevent flood (so smart of me to have think like this without researching, hehehe).

It's so enormous and it did look like a sea to me. Just that it's all frozen up and the fishermen were drilling holes into the icey frozen water to fish.

You may see 2 fishermen fishing.

So I shot some photos, which I think were nice ones. See for yourself.....

So Tum got to try fishing with the short fishing rod, in the center of the Sea. How I'm jealous...haha!

So after faking out to be fishing, we went back to the shore. And took some pictures for memory.

I also took a picture of myself, STANDING ON THE FROZEN RIVER. It's worth a shot because after watching how Naruto standing on water, I'd like to try just that I'm no ninja.

See??? Cool aye???

After a short while on the river, we vroomed to the center of the city to a cafe to grab something to eat. We also visited a souvenir shop which sold almost all kinds of Russian souvenirs and their very own Пряний (Pryaniy). It's a cookie with all kinds of shapes and I got myself a teddy bear one. Ngehehehe.

And then we departed to a higher place - The Dam.

By the time we were there, the sun was setting and all things looked lovely, even this shot. We drove uphill along the river and guess what happend next?

Sergey, Alexey and Max went smoking again. But it was all good. I've taken a few nice shots while they were smoking. But something fishy though~ While I was trying to capture this photo -------

-----the policeman came and asked why did I try to make picture and banned me from shooting it. I wondered why. I tried to capture it behind Sergey and Alexey but I was again restricted from taking it. Sergey told me that it was some strategy thing to the police and he didn't want to have any problems with them. Instead he asked me to go into the car, scrape down the iced fog on the window to capture from the window.

Did what he told though. But when we're leaving, I managed to capture it.

That marked our journey to the Gorky Sea. We waved goodbye (in our fantasy) to Gorodets and went back to Nizhny Novgorod.

Bye bye.....

Even the sun left without a trace.

It's a long tiring day in the car after travelling 220km away from Nizhny Novgorod, but it's all worth it. It's also a great time to spend with Sergey before his departure to Thailand together with Tum. I'll sure miss him.

More photos at my picasa web album.

Kochi~

The song of the day

2009-01-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a long way since we've started
I still remember how we upgraded
From friendship to love and
I would never forget the times we had

Is it ending?
Is it still there?
Something is missing
Broken pieces here and there

Puzzled and thinking...
Why is this happening?
Why is it fading away?
Coz we've came a long way

It's broken anyway
It wouldn't be perfect in any ways
But I will keep the most important fragments
Deep down in my heart

It can be glued
It can be sown
It can be blown but doesn't fall
But I find no reason
For the perfection that it used to be

Grief and sadness are transitory
For this vague little story
For all the good times we had
Happiness marked the glory

Here in my heart
There's a picture of us
Blossoms bloom and so does friendship
Beauty fades and so does friendship

That's why my dearest friend
I wish our friendship will keep on burning

Kochi~

The last days of 2008 - Pictures (bytes-consuming-post)

2008-12-30T14:03:00.000-08:00

Sunshine

In the woods

Walking towards the new year

Nothing special

Nothing so special

Focal B&W of the sun

Footsteps

Winter canine

Hunter

Focal Red Tint

Same

Nothing new

Trees

Rising sun but I made it looked like it's setting

Old and Modern cars

Factory in distance

Fully saturated

Sun rays shining my hostel

...........

..............

...............

Sergey's cookery

Me removing sutures

Don't know what is this......

Taken in Fantastika, the meeting place

..............

This is the exact one that I don't know what it is.

Nganganganga

Zhi

Nantha

Zhi and Nantha

Snowflakes

Kochi~

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

2008-12-25T08:29:00.000-08:00

Hohoho........Did Santa Claus came to town?

Or he just came in his hand? ("I'm arriving.....hohoho")

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Anyway......Merry Christmas to everyone and have a Happy New Year.

Everyone here was worried about not getting a White Christmas before this. It was a Nightmare Before Christmas, not done by Jack, but by the global warming.

So 2 days before christmas, the sky finally sprinkled down some snow on mother Earth's surface, covering her naked ugly dirty upper body with a white coat.

What did you wish for this Christmas?

Have you been a good boy/girl throughout the year?

Did you finish your homework?

Did you clean your dishes?

Did you clean up your closet like Eminem?

Well, I only wish for the converting my antisocial personality into a sociable one, like I used to be.

I have been behaving well throughout the year. So Santa, please bring me loads of money. It's time for some New Year shopping!!!!!!!!!

And about homework, I did finish them but only not on time. The most prominent example was the Russian Language homework, making our teacher's blood boiled over 100 degrees Celcius, but I wouldn't care less. Fuck it!

Oh yes I like to clean my dishes. ))))

I didn't clean up my closet because there's no blood in it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Here are some pictures taken alongway to Tuberculosis cycle. (I don't have TB)

So enjoy~

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hereby Kochi wishes you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

May you bless in lots of success, love, money and good immunity (health).

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays - *NSYNC

Kochi~

Psychology : Antisocial

2008-12-20T03:43:00.000-08:00

I've received 2 christmas invitations this year.

The first one was from Rose, inviting me to the Sumphero Christmas Party which will be held in the hall where she and her fellow protestants worshipped their Lord. The party's on 20th of December.

The second one was from PiiVen, inviting me to her little christmas celebration in the 1st hostel. The party is organized by her, Phoebe, Grace and Maalini on 21st of December (my birthday yay!)

divider.divider.divider.divider.divider.divider.divider.

Despite 2 "merry" christmases' invitations, I don't feel like going to either one. Sadly but true.

My dad used to ask me "Will you get any bad habits if you lived alone?". I used to think that the question was absurd coz I didn't think I will. However after getting a single room and living completely in my own world, I started to believe what my dad said was true. I became more or less like an antisocial fellow.

I used to go around to each room almost everyday. But now I don't feel like it.

I used to accept any invitations. But now I start to reject them.

I used to attend every class. But now I begin to skipping it (only once, hahaha)

I used to cook for my meal. But now I don't even like to go out to the kitchen.

Do I sound like a freak? *evil grin*

I don't feel like studying and I feel so tired everyday after class. I blame everything on the weather, hahahahaha!!!!!

Birthday is coming and the wishes b4 I blew off the candle is "God please help me and make me study, motivate me to do all things!!!"

I wish everything will be fine after the new year.

"Evil spirit, I won't bring you over the new year if you didn't behave well now"

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Kochi~

Unusual winter => Unusual biorhythm

2008-12-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

The winter was supposed to be here by this month, usually in the end of November or in the beginning of December. The snow should have precipitated a meter high. The trees were supposed to be white and dry. The ground should be slippery that everyone should get at least a big bruised resulting from the "deep impact". It should be freezing that sometimes we can see the Russians hopping to generate heat in the bus stop.

It's so unusual that our teacher told us that this is the first time in her life of seeing such an unusual winter. The same situation happened in last year's winter. Weather forecast prognosed that it would be snowing only during the mid-January or the beginning of February. Nonetheless, I wish it could be earlier.

Sadly but true, the winter isn't quite here yet. We're sorta like either having a loooooong autumn, or a skip of winter which directly bypassed into spring.

It's rainy, it's filthy, it's wet, it's damp, it's just perfect for one to acquire different kinds of infectious diseases, namely common cold and flu. Our shoes are dirty and wet and the jackets are never dry. The smarter one (like me, nyehehehe) brings umbrella everyday, but still can't protect the backpack from getting wet. The unlucky one got splashed with the puddle of filthy water when a car or a bus sped by while approaching the bus stop.

The most powerful impact on our bodies(Russians' and some senior students') is that our organisms can't adapt well to such that we have headaches, feeling of tiredness and laziness, which is better to be called as "dystony".

I have not got the headache yet, but the latter 2 have attacked me by far. An evening nap which was supposed to be about 1 or 2 hours could be extended to 4 or 5 hours. And then we scare ourselves figuring our that we weren't late to school. See my previous blog about scaring yourself.

Our biorhythms are so screwed up because we can't adapt to the season which has an early sunset and a gloomy rainy day. So we ended up being lazy and tired all day though nothing much was done during the day.

But the upside is that we don't need to freeze ourselves to death while waiting for buses.

Kochi~

A visit to the Russian Radiostation

2008-11-26T04:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Sergey I had the opportunity to visit a Russian Radiostation. This was the first time I've ever stepped into a Radiostation in my life, I guess. It was so overwhelming. It was weekend so the radiostation was switched into the automated system which all programs were recorded earlier and were broadcasted by the computer itself. Everything was controlled by a timer.

And this was Sergey's studio where the programmes, commercials and sound effects were recorded. Pretty cold aye? I even had the chance to have my first record done. It was so awesome!!!

Kochi~

A beautiful mind

2008-11-26T03:53:00.000-08:00

Come to think about it......I don't think I should laugh at Purple Lady and the other psycho people that much. If they were saner, they would be great artists. Just look at the drawings that they produced ------------>>>

Look at the pictures above, they could even paint the drawing in 3D!!!

Who knows one of these drawings was drawn by Purple Lady???

Perhaps they could draw better because they're living in their own imaginary world. They think abstractly more than concretely.

Maybe I should think more abstractly because now, with my current concrete thinking, my drawing would turn out like this :-

In the psychiatry hospital, even the toilet bowls were special than of any others -

The first time I went into this toilet, I didn't know where to stand to pee.

On the blue tiles or inside the toilet bowl?

Eventually my stereotype was to stand on the blue tiles. Who the hell would dare to step inside the toilet bowl, right?

So I stood with my legs widely spreaded apart to pee.

Amazing right???

Another thing was the lecture hall.

I don't know whether the psycho patients painted the backdrop or the hospital hired some artists back to draw like a kid. Freaky but I loved it.

Perhaps I've blended into their imaginary community???

Perhaps I just love paintings?

Perhaps they are normal people?

I've fallen into the uncertainty, perplexity, bewilderment which psychiatrically they called this as "ambivalence".

Kochi~

Too free......Translation of previous blog

2008-11-18T13:18:00.000-08:00

Here's the translation of my previous blog "Kemalangan yang paling ngeri"

The best UPSR essay 2007
Essay of a 4th grade student

That morning was morning week. Weather was so cold that it reached the freezing point. That's why I did not take bath because the water in the tank became ice and the water did not wanna come out from the pipe because it froze inside the pipe tube. That morning I had breakfast with my family in a bonfire because couldn't bear the coldness.

After that, my mom asked me to accompany her to the market. But I didn't wanna. After my mom stabbed my abdomen repeatedly with a fork I agreed to follow her. We walked as far as 120 kilometers because the market was situated 128 kilometers away from my house. 8 kilometers before reaching the market I saw a container truck sped from behind. It hit my mom.

My mom fell from the cliff. She shouted "Adoi!". After that my mom came up again and ran after the truck. I also ran behind my mom because I scared that my mom hit the truck in return. The driver saw us running after him. He sped even faster which was equivalent to the speed of light. We had to chase faster than him which was double the speed of light. My mom managed to block the front wheel of the truck. The truck went out of control and hit the road divider and then ran into a ferry. The ferry was halved.

The 100 passengers of the ferry all died. The captain of the ferry was very mad. He turned into Ultraman and fired at the truck driver. The driver pressed on a special button in his truck..the truck turned into Transformer robot. They fought in the air. My mom was very unhappy. She then rented a helicopter from Genting Highlands and flew to the scene. She hit the captain who had turned into Ultraman.

The captain was frightened and turned back into human form again and fell down to the road. The captain broke into pieces. The truck driver was frigtened after seeing that. So he apologized to my mom. He wanted a handshake. But my mom was still mad. She lowered the helicopter and cut the driver's hands with the helicopter's fan. The driver shouted "Adoi!" and fell down on earth. My mom sent the helicopter back to Genting Highlands. When she got back to the scene, she whacked the driver with her handbag scolding the driver in English.

The driver couldn't answer because my mom spoke in white people's language. So the driver died. After a while, the police car arrived. She reported the tragic incident to the police station. All the police officers in the police station was shocked and died. The crowd was around the scene to know what had happened. The officer in charge shouted with a sound amplifier. The crowd was shocked and they all died.

After that my mom asked me to go to the market to avoid death of more innocent. In the market, my mom told the butcher about the accident. The butcher and the businessmen around heard the story and shocked and then died. Me and my mom ran back home. Because too exhausted once arrived at home we died too. That's the scariest/nastiest accident I've ever seen before I died.

*Sorry for the bad Malay, but I think i scored 95%*

Enjoy reading~~~~~~

Kochi~

Kemalangan yang paling ngeri

2008-11-17T12:48:00.000-08:00

Karangan Terbaik UPSR 2007
Karangan budak darjah 4

Pagi itu pagi minggu. Cuaca cukup sejuk sehingga mencapai takat suhu beku. Sebab itu saya tidak mandi pagi sebab air kolah jadi air batu dan air paip tidak mahu keluar sebab beku di dalam batang paip. Pagi itu saya bersarapan dengan keluarga di dalam unggun api kerana tidak tahan sejuk.

Selepas itu emak saya mengajak saya menemaninya ke pasar. Tetapi saya tidak mahu. Selepas emak menikam perut saya berkali-kali dengan garfu barulah saya bersetuju untuk mengikutnya. Kami berjalan sejauh 120 kilometer kerana pasar itu letaknya 128 kilometer dari rumah. Lagi 8 kilometer nak sampai pasar saya ternampak sebuah lori kontena meluru dengan laju dari arah belakang. Dia melanggar emak saya.

Emak saya tercampak ke dalam gaung. Dia menjerit “Adoi!”. Lepas itu emak saya naik semula dan mengejar lori tersebut. Saya pun turut berlari di belakang emak saya kerana takut emak saya melanggar lori itu pula. Pemandu lori itu nampak kami mengejarnya. Dia pun memecut lebih laju iaitu sama dengan kelajuan cahaya. Kami pula terpaksa mengejar dengan lebih laju iaitu sama dengan dua kali ganda kelajuan cahaya. Emak saya dapat menerajang tayar depan lori itu. Lori itu terbabas dan melanggar pembahagi jalan lalu bertembung dengan sebuah feri. Feri itu terbelah dua.

Penumpang feri itu yang seramai 100 orang semuanya mati. Pemandu feri itu sangat marah. Dia pun bertukar menjadi Ultraman dan memfire pemandu lori. Pemandu lori menekan butang khas di dalam lori dia..lori itu bertukar menjadi robot Transformer. Mereka bergaduh di udara. Emak saya tidak puas hati. Dia pun terus menyewa sebuah helikopter di Genting Highlands dan terus ke tempat kemalangan. Dia melanggar pemandu feri yang telah bertukar menjadi Ultraman itu.

Pemandu feri itu terkejut dan terus bertukar menjadi pemandu feri semula lalu terhempas ke jalanraya. Pemandu feri itu pecah. Pemandu lori sangat takut melihat kejadian itu. Dia meminta maaf dari emak saya. Dia menghulurkan tangan ingin bersalam. Tetapi emak saya masih marah. Dia menyendengkan helikopternya dan mengerat tangan pemandu lori itu dengan kipas helikopter. Pemandu lori itu menjerit “Adoi..!” dan jatuh ke bumi. Emak saya menghantar helikopter itu ke Genting Highlands. Bila dia balik ke tempat kejadian, dia terus memukul pemandu lori itu dengan beg tangannya sambil memarahi pemandu lori itu di dalam bahasa Inggeris.

Pemandu lori itu tidak dapat menjawab sebab emak saya cakap orang putih. Lalu pemandu lori itu mati. Tidak lama kemudian kereta polis pun sampai. Dia membuat lapuran ke ibu pejabatnya tentang kemalangan ngeri itu. Semua anggota polis di pejabat polis itu terperanjat lalu mati. Orang ramai mengerumuni tempat kejadian kerana ingin mengetahui apa yang telah terjadi. Polis yang bertugas cuba menyuraikan orang ramai lalu dia menjerit menggunakan pembesar suara. Orang ramai terperanjat dan semuanya mati.

Selepas itu emak saya mengajak saya ke pasar untuk mengelak lebih ramai lagi yang akan mati. Di pasar, emak saya menceritakan kejadian itu kepada penjual daging. Penjual daging dan peniaga-peniaga berhampiran yang mendengar cerita itu semuanya terkejut dan mati. Saya dan emak saya terus berlari balik ke rumah. Kerana terlalu penat sebaik saja sampai di rumah kami pun mati. Itulah kemalangan yang paling ngeri yang pernah saya lihat sebelum saya mati.

Well done to the media!!!!!

Kochi~

Scary Freaky Funny Psychiatry

2008-11-13T03:24:00.001-08:00

Today was our first day to go to the Psychiatry Ward. Ivan Borisovich brought us there for excursion and to laugh, probably.

This wasn't my first time in a psych ward, but it still creeped me out like hell. They have doors without knobs (the knobs were supposed to be there, but they removed the knobs to create the lockdown ones). Many doors indeed at the entrance. We even saw a cracked glass door at the innermost door. So that's never a good thing.

The doors were accessible only with special keys.

So while we were visiting the patients' wards, suddenly this psycho girl in purple robe bumped into Shou Zhi and Rose, mumbling something about "Po ruski.....po ruski??"

Both of them were freakin' out and the purple girl got closer and closer in front of Rose and repeated the same phrase again.

This psycho girl has droopy eyes, messy Brunette hair, some white particles around her mouth angle and obviously psycho problem.

So we left the ward and headed to the nurse's room. Ivan Borisovich introduced us some antipsychotic drugs like neuroleptics, antidepressants, tranquilizers bla bla bla...

Then suddenly this purple girl came to the door and holding a packet of Dobriy juice and mumbled something again. Rose was freaked out, again.

LOL. Then purple girl walked away and we laughed a little. It's bad but we couldn't help it but to laugh at Ms Purple.

We even talked about the white particles at her mouth angle.

Shouzhi said - "That the food she ate laa..."

I asked him then - "How you know? You leh~(licked) her is it?"

*Laughs....*

Then after the excursion, while we're walking back to our class, Faiz told us something really hilarious that he himself couldn't bear with that joke.

He told Rose while Ms Purple was approaching her "The girl in purple robe is coming to KILL you!!!"

Then Rose demonstrated a freaked out look and hid behind Faiz.

It's scary but it's funny to be in the psych ward.

Looking forward for more funny patient (not meant to be funny, but again, we can't help it)

Kochi~

Don't scare yourself!

2008-11-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I shocked myself to death, waking up from my deep sleep figuring that I was late to school.

Perhaps the alarm didn't work, or I just snoozed it off unconsciously or my groupmates didn't wake me up (they usually do~).

Feeling guilty and confused.

Looking at the clock pointing at 8 and shouted "Shit! I'm so fucking late!"

Hustle to get things done. Rushed into the bathroom to wash up my sleepy face, not to forget to mention brushing my teeth and smelly mouth filled with green smog due to long standing of shutting up.

I could hear sound coming from outside, people cooking in the kitchen.

Then I sat down and think deeply.

"Am I really late?"

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

NO I'M NOT!!

I WAS JUST TAKING A LONG NAP TILL 8PM ON THE SAME DAY!!

hehehe.......and this happens during winter season only.

WHY?

Because the lights go off as the sun sets as early as 4pm.

Did you ever have the same experience like mine before????

Kochi~

Traumatological games

2008-11-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

Traumatology is a very traumatic subject as the name implies. We should learn orthopedics too but not this semester.

However the cycle itself isn't that traumatic at all. Apart from watching video about traumatic amputations during the Soviet-Afghan war, some interesting actually happened during our first day there. The teacher left us on the first day for a surgery. Since most of us didn't bring surgical scrubs, so we were left in the class watching the freakin' video.

The video alone was 2 hours long, so we decided to watch it later. We were so boring and one of us suggested to play a game to kill the boredom.

There's no more game except for BINGO which was actually easy to play and no instrument was required. The only thing we needed was pieces of papers.

So what's BINGO?

Most of us knew what it is. But for those who had not played it before, here's how it works.

1) Take out a piece of paper with boxes.

2) Make a 5 x 5 box for 25 numbers (1-25).

3) Randomly write the 25 numbers to any small boxes in the 5 x 5 box.

4) Players take turns to call a number and then all players should cancel the number out from the box.

5) Players who have 5 numbers cancelled out in a row (vertically or diagonally) get a "B", the next cancellation of 5 numbers in a row - an "I" is obtained, and so on and so forth until you have all B.I.N.G.O.

6) The first player to have all 5 rows of numbers cancelled out, call BINGO immediately!
* There may be some other players who have BINGO! at the same time, so you need to shout it out loud as soon as you have BINGO the game.*

So now you know how BINGO works.

After a few rounds of BINGO, we decided to change to another game called "Warship". Intrigued????

Here's how it works :

1) Labelled vertical row and horizontal row with coordinates (depends on how big your battlefield is). For example, vertical row with A-J, horizontal row with 1-10.

2) Now you must have 1 aircraft carrier, 2 cruisers and 4 crusaders (or more as you wish).

3)Designate how many boxes do you want for aircraft (large), cruisers (medium), crusaders (small). Say 10 boxes for aircraft, 7 boxes for cruisers and so on.
*you can draw your forces in rectangle/square/pyramid/L/7 etc as you wish*

4) Now 2 teams have to attack the opponent's forces by calling the coordinates like A-10, J-4, C-2 etc.
*you can attack your own coordinates where your ships lay.*

5) If one ship had been destroyed, teams should say "aircraft/cruiser/crusader down!"

6) The team whose ships have not ALL been destroyed, wins the game.

The games would have gone on and on if the MMC delegates didn't come. They were the world biggest super mega ultra buzzkillers to our class. It was intense and we didn't enjoy much of our first day in Traumatological department, despite playing games for the whole day.

Kochi~

Interested in Neurology??? Here's the buzz!!!

2008-10-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

Dreaming of becoming a neurologist or a neurosurgeon but still vaguely understood about the soft slimy brain and long winding nerves?

Well here's a BUZZ for all future NNSMA neurologists!!!

We have proudly invited Professor Erle Lim Vice Dean of Medical School Faculty, National University of Singapore (NUS) to give a 2 day lecture in NNSMA.

Professor Erle Lim is a world renowned noted Senior Consultant in Neurology. He had won an enormous number of awards, not only in Singapore but also Internationally.

Professor Erle Lim is also sub-specialised in Botox and movement disorders.

Below is the timetable and the topics of the 2 day lectures :

Day 1 :

14th of November (Friday)

5:00pm - 6:30pm

БФК lecture hall

1. Introduction of NUH, Singapore hospitals and healthcare system.

2. Neurology Made Easy.

Day 2 :

15th of November (Saturday)

9:00am - 10:00am

БФК lecture hall

Physical examination to localize accurately

(catered for 4th-6th year students)

10:30am - 11:30am

БФК lecture hall

Video quiz on movement disorders

(catered for 4th-6th year students)

1:30pm - 4.30pm

How to approach a clinical short case

(catered for 6th year students)

* Time and location are subjected to changes. Should there be any changes, further announcement will be made.

Read more about Professor Erle Lim HERE.

So what are you waiting for???

Wanna know how Botox is performed and what are the consequences after the shot?

Quickly submit your names to the student in-charge because we need to estimate the number of students for accomodation in the lecture hall.

All is welcome as long as you are a student of NNSMA.

For more information, please kindly contact:

1. Ng Su Wei +7920-022-66-79

2. Jasmine Yew Sze Yin +7920-252-02-69

Kochi~

An "ophthalmic and optometric" experience

2008-10-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

[Warning : this is a potentially medically boring blog....]

Now we know what the optometrists were doing all this while....LOL

They deceived the eye with an "eye candy", not realistically but physically to make it a better navigator.

Today the class was devoted to "Methods of optical examination". We were dying to touch the apparatuses since the first day (not all yet).

We were brought into a very dark room with black-painted walls to be shot into the head by light rays emitted by lamps, metaphorically exaggerated.

In short, there were shiny lamps in a very dark room.

First thing first was the examination of the visual acuity. In English, it's an examination of the eye sharpness "and" see how sharp you can penetrate through one's body (ignore the latter phrase after "and").

Ka Keat was the first to test his eyesight by looking at the Snellen Chart which looked something like this :

This is very familiar to those who have glasses.

Then he put on the phoropter (optical refractor) with corrective lenses to find out his degree of visual acuity. No lens was suitable for him, so teacher suggested "astigmatism/散光" on him.

Ka Keat with his signature look with little eyes.

This teacher speaks very perfect English *love love*

A set of corrective lenses.

The yellowishy "plus" lenses for hyperopia (longsightedness).

An optically very old optical refractor(phoropter) for correction.

Then we proceeded to measuring the length of eye projection out of the eyesocket called exophthalmetry by means of an exophthalmeter.

exo- : go out

opthalo- : eye

-metry : measurement

I looked like a freakin' 5 year-old kid, ngengengenge....

He was violating my eyes and for crying out loud I was in pain, xD.

Rose performing ophthalmetry on Nantha.

Me examining the protrusion of his eyes excitedly, ngehehehe.

After that, Nantha's left eye was dropped with mydriatic cycloeplegic instillation to paralyse the ciliary muscles of the eye, resulting in a very widely dilated pupil.
The purpose of the dilation was to perform the fundoscopy on his eye. Situation wasn't really favorable as the teacher said that he has chronic conjunctivitis with photophobia. Plus, in a mydriatic eye, it's very painful when light is shone into the eye.

But in spite of the unfavorable condition, Nantha was very noble to let everyone of us to perform the fundoscopy on him. Fundoscopy isn't an easy task to perform and it requires experience. I wasn't very pro in performing fundoscopy and I was panicked because it was very uncomfortable to my best friend. But all in all, I saw what was supposed to be seen but I was ambivalent and skeptical.

Look closely and you'll see the left eye pupil (your right) is wider than

the right one (your left).

The right eye in close-up. Normal, undilated and reacted to light.

The left eye in close-up. Dilated and nonreactive to light.

It was a very fun class and we learnt alot in fact. Tomorrow's my turn for pupil dilation like what you've seen above. Hopefully this will help my classmates to understand better about ophthalmology. Just under one condition that Faiz won't violate my eyes coz that hurted much during exophthalmetry.....heeeeheeeeeheeeeee~~~

~Kochi~

Sitting in the bus comes with a price

2008-10-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

There's always this funny rule in my group on a bus (if not, perhaps self-acclaimed rule?)

If you get to sit on the bus, you'd have to hold bags for others.

So today we were sardine-canned on a bus and Uncle Lim got to sit in a place where the conductor was supposed to collect the fares. Since the conductor wasn't working, so he got to sit after the previous passenger had left.

We were backpacking on the bus and (I don't know if he offered) we gave him our bags. One after another, not feeling ashamed *tssk tssk*.

It's so hard to describe but the picture says it all.......

Kochi~

As stubborn as an ass

2008-10-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

Before this I thought Russians (not all) are the most stubborn people of all mankind.

But something changed my mind today.

As I was looking for a place to get changed into my labcoat, it seemed that everywhere was full of people. So me and my friends managed to find an empty bench to get ourselves changed.

There was a cat, laying there, lazing on the fine Thursday morning. I was running out of time and I tried to scare it away.

I tried to shoo it away but that didn't work.

Then I tried to push it away and surprisedly that didn't work as well.

I had to come to the crude way. I put my bag on its back with the hope that it jumps off the bench and let me change.

The 4kg-ish bag is on its back and look below......

Nothing worked!!!!!!!!!

I didn't care anymore. I just put that on its back and took my things out without 2nd thought.

There's no way to chase it away. So I called Joe who happened to be around that time. She came and I told her about this cat. I pounded the cat a few times with my bag and suddenly it ran away in an abrupt mode scaring Joe's soul out of her medium.

A loud shout was heard and everyone was looking at us.

But one new thing I've learnt today :

Russian Cat can be as stubborn as the Russians (not all).

Kochi~

Just a piece of crap

2008-10-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

The president's classic shaking bootiliciously while walking. That's his signiture walk!!!!!

And the long arm ape style walking of Nantha. Not really evident enough in this video but I bet you'll see everyday (if only you saw him).

Kochi~

Real or Fake?

2008-10-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

Cardiosurgical cycle is going on now. Not a heavy cycle but rather a time wasting somehow. We have to wait for unknown reasons, however it's good in a way that we can talk and gossip, and laugh like nobody's business.

The 1st few days were okay because English speaking teachers delivered the classes smoothly. The first one was a happy lady, 2nd one was a fast speaking young lad, and the 3rd one was a cute, very young good-looking doctor. Today's the 4th day, the Bear man (Medvedev, a bloke) was the teacher, and the class was kinda boring and russian-ish.

He knows some english equivalent terms but not all, which we found difficult in understanding. Hence he taught us with drawing......drawing......and more drawing. And we answered with our mediocre russian level and more drawing too. We managed to understand, if not all, the things he tried to explain pretty well.

But one thing's for sure, he smokes and he has a bad mouth odour. Ergh I couldn't stand sitting right beside him while he was explaining to us. It was like either a bad meat or a good cheese, you call it. Due to long standing babbles of his in Russian, we were kinda blew away by him.....as in to the slumberland.

"So tell me what happened if.............." (in Russian)
"zZzZzZzZz.................."
"Understand? Any questions?" (in Russian)
"Aaaaa........ha........Mmmmm......hm"

He played 3 video clips about valvular replacements. It was interesting but the volume of the video was so muffled. It was like a lullaby, sending us to sleep. We all managed to go anti-sleep but Nantha surrendered and dozed off in front of the Bear on a soft comfy couch.

So the class was devoted to Valvular Heart Diseases. He showed us some dried, well perserved heart valves with calcifications. It's somewhat astonishing and amazing because we would never (or have yet) seen calcified valves in real.

So what would you choose?

A real flower or a fake one?
A real Bush or a fake one?
A real dick or a fake dildo?
A real valve or a prosthesis?

Of course both have their own benefits. When you're out of choice, a fake one would come in handy. But there's nothing more satisfying than having an original one.

A real flower may dry up, but a fake one stays forever.
A real Bush can be seen on tv, but a fake one can be found only in Wax Museum.
A real dick.........well you know~don't need to go further than that.

Of course, a real valve is yours, a prosthesis is a replacement. Nothing is better than an original but when there's no choice but to replace it, a prosthesis is the answer.

So reasons causing the calcification of the heart valves and stenosis(narrowing) are amongst the following: -
a) Rheumatism - tonsillitis, joint pain etc
b) Infection - infective endocarditis
c) Trauma of the valve
d) Atherosclerosis - especially in aorta, the plague restricts opening of aortic valve.
e) Degeneration of valvular cusps
f) etc...........

Read ShouZhi's blog in both chinese and english. He wrote it interesting.

Ooooookay.....getting boring here, take a look at the pictures. I'm not gonna tell here more for your understanding. Any questions, feel free to PM me.

Now you see..the yellowish is the valvular structure, the whitish is calcification.

The prostheses of valves.

The forefather of all prosthetic valves.

The newer prosthetic valve, the aortic prosthesis, and calcified valves.

The size of a valve in comparison with ShouZhi's dry cracked palm.

The latest modern prosthetic valve and its old friends.

Up close

Now, altogether, say cheese!

Patients with prosthetic valves have little cute ticking sounds coming out from the chest. Kinda freaky though.

Kochi~

More about perfect niece~

2008-10-13T11:50:00.001-07:00

She's too adorable......I can't help but to edit her pictures~~
And add a few monologues. Hehe~

Here are some monologues with attitude: -

She was saying "I say you put me down, damn you!!!"

And here's the classic one...........

Kochi~

My pic was used as a header in my sis' blog!!

2008-10-12T06:28:00.001-07:00

Days ago my younger sister asked for my permission to let her put the picture that I shot as her blog's header.

Since I like editing, I asked her if she needed help in putting words into the picture.

She wanted the header related to food, but I told her that's mediocre.

Since the picture was taken with a staircase in it, so I figured it should be named like "................................."

It's classic and beautiful (not to brag, but it is beautiful to me)

Ngehehehehe......I'm the next America's Next Top Model's noted photographer. Hopefully better than Gil Bensimone ))))))))

Kochi~

My first swimming session in Russia

2008-10-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

I've been dreaming to go swimming since I was a first year student. But circumstances applied like :
- doubt about the location
- doubt about the price
- doubt about swimming condition
- troublesome procedures prior to swimming
- medical tests to testify health condition
- and more....

Some seniors went to some swimming pools but they told me that the price was crazily ridiculously expensive. So I have to ask the Russians regarding some other swimming pools in the city.

Since I have done the medical check-up for doing the elective in Obstretical department, I have the chance to go swimming without deliberately troubling myself for a check-up just for swimming. The medical check-up was pricey, so I have to make something out of it, or I'll be wasting money just for a crappy practical.

So I asked Victor about the swimming pools around the city. He first introduced me to go to Olimp which is 180p per session. It's expensive, so I asked him for some other places. Then he recommended me to go to somewhere quite far, 3 stops after Moskovskiy Vokzal. He went swimming there. He told me once he was swimming alone in the pool in the afternoon. But it is way much cheaper than Olimp definitely (I'm not gonna tell the price hiiihiiihiiiiii). It's worth for 4 trainings in a month for a low price.

Han Sing and I went there today. But we have to wait until the indicated time before we can swim. Before that, a medical personnel checked our bodies for any signs of fungal infections and others. Then we proceeded into the changing room. Of course, I went into the gents and she went into the ladies.

When I was in there, an old lady who's supposed to look after the lockers sat there and told me to put all the things I need into a bag and bring it along. Luckily I had an extra plastic bag brought with me. So she was sitting there while every guy in there got changed. I bet she's seen all different sizes of dicks. But Russian kids have long dicks. I couldn't close my eyes but to see and feel intimidated hahaha.....

Then we had to bathe ourselves before swimming. After bathing we had to wait for those who were swimming in the pool until the alarm went off. Then we swam like free willy after that for 40 minutes.

It's a brand new excitement to me in this city. I feel replenished, like waking up from a deep sleep with excellent mood (sometimes I woke up after nightmares with sucky mood).

Looking forward for my next session of the month.

Kochi~

My very own 1st niece in the family

2008-10-10T12:17:00.001-07:00

There's nothing happier than having a baby in the family. It brings joy and laughter to the family. It's like an angel sent from above. A gift from the God after all the good things we've done.

About 4pm afternoon of 10 of October 2008, my eldest sister delivered a lovely baby. Though my sister had complication that she decided to deliver her baby by C-section, the baby came out perfectly fine. Everyone in the family was happy, including the bad ass who's living in Russia now (guess who?)

So, how should the baby call me then?

Uncle King?

Fat uncle?

1st uncle?

Big uncle?

or just "Uncle"?

I prefer the first one......

Oh yeah, in terms of naming, my sis has came out with a beautiful name for her very first born child.

陈巧灵 Cheryl Tan Chiau Ling

(How does it sound?)

However my dad has a problem with middle name. He said that the name should be covered by a "roof" not left empty. Words with "roof" eg. 宝，嘉，国，庆，霖。。。。 something like this. So the baby has not been named yet. My dad is probably thinking hard for the perfect name for his perfect 1st grandchild.

My lil' sis told me that the baby bears resemblence of the mother. I personally think so too.

Too bad I'm so far and could only see from the pics. Oh well, I just have to wait for my turn......hahahaha

Here are the pics taken.

Kochi~

Clarification - Russian classes

2008-10-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I studied Russian very hard for the fucking "Avtomat" in order to be exempted from the dreadful Russian exams.

I remember during 2nd year's Russian classes, all we did was memorizing endless articles and re-telling about what we'd photocopied into our minds without knowing what's right and wrong. It was a whole year long of ordeal to me because again, to get the fucking "Avtomat", we had to memorize the fucking texts and articles, smile, and then get a 5 for the stupid story-telling test. Hence we omitted alot of useful words that might be integrated into normal daily conversations. Those words, if not all, were forgotten after the story telling contests which everyone was aiming for the "5".

Those who did not converse with Russians didn't even know the exact meaning of the words that they had memorized or the usage of the words. Some really made the effort out of themselves for self-improvement. They talked to people around, made friends with the locals and learned with it. Some just wanna get the 5 in order to be exempted from the exams with any ways like copying from the others, with their superb memorizing skills, kissing teachers' asses and a mile of loo--------oooong smile on the face.

I was one of the kiasu one who just wanted to be exempted from exams. I challenged my bad memory for getting an image of the text which was supposed to be remembered by heart. But nevertheless I tried to make friends and talk to them eventhough my Russian Language sucks ass. However I've improved through the conversations after the 5 long years.

Entered the 5th year. The same thing happened again. We have to memorize the articles or better, memorize the articles that were simplified by ownself. But indeniably that it is also a way of memorization. For mentally retarded me, it's so fucking hard to just to get the image of the articles. If during "reproduction" of the texts, if startled (due to panic attacks or just simply forgetting), you might get a 4 or worse, a 3 which is "satisfactory" but not bad. But to me that's a very bad mark for a very bad ass.

Enough is enough. I won't care about the fucking marks that I'm gonna get in the future. I just wanna study for my own good but not memorising about the fucking systems of the Russian hospitals, the follow up etc etc etc bla bla bla bla. What important to me now are the medical studies and to converse in a better Russian vocabulary in the right way. If the teacher decided to let me pass the exam without going through the whole process, i'd be thankful 100% to her. If not, I'll be doing what I think I should do best, ignoring all the others that aren't interesting to me....To those who did not think so, please leave a comment, hehehe. I'd be very glad if you could enlighten me.

Kochi~

Rectification

2008-10-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

Is this any better compared with the previous one in B&W?
Still, showing 2 man whores laying on the ground, trying to seduce without success.

Kochi~

Autumn Dream...秋之梦

2008-10-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

When the leaves turn from green to yellow,

our friendship remains the same.

当树叶从绿去黄，

我们的友谊依然不变。

When the leaves fall off from the yellow trees,

our friendship never shred.

当落叶纷飞凋谢，

我们的友谊永不分离。

When the leaves lay on the ground,

our friendship bud is blooming.

当落叶铺盖大地，

我们的友谊花蕊正绽放。

When the weather turns colder,

our friendship strengthens.

当气候变得更冻，

我们的友谊更稳固。

When the chirping birds are busy migrating,

our friendship has never evaporated.

当叽咋的候鸟忙往南迁移，

我们的友谊从不蒸发。

8 of us are just like a small family, clinging on to each other, and share our laughters together.

我们8人就像小小的家，互相依靠，分享搞笑的情结。

8 of us are one and nothing could come between us.

我们8人合为一。谁也阻挡不到我们之间的友情。

I love you, Group A!!

A组，我爱你！！

- Maizatul Farah binti Mahmood（马载猪花垃麻木）

- Faiz Najmi bin Mansur （罚一字拿着米慢输）

- Rose Ngui Miao Yee （螺丝魏妙如）

- Mohd Fadzli bin Zahari （末法治理炸哈李）

- Tan Ka Keat （陈嘉杰）

- Lim Shou Zhi （林首志）

- Chia Kok King （谢国庆）

- Nanthakumar Nadarajah （难他姑妈拿他拉着）

Kochi~

高知~

Salam Aidilfitri!!!

2008-10-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank the PPIM for organizing the annual Raya Feast. The food, though wasn't as delicious as last year's (hehe but seriously), but it's still tasty and the feast was quite enjoyable. This was one of the days that we get to gather together and take valueble memorable pictures with friends, seniors and juniors. And it's also a day which amnesty is granted to all who sinned. Meaningful right?

"SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI. MAAF, ZAHIR & BATIN" (EID MUBARAK) to all my muslim friends.

As usual, the 3rd hostel was the venue of the event. All had to go to the 4th floor to get the scrumptious food, go down to the 3rd floor to eat, and the 2nd floor was made as a place for "sembang-sembang".

Lots of flash lights bursted along the corridor. And the phrases "Ready, 1 2 3 cheese!", "Eh eh, help me take a picture", "Please go away, we wanna take pictures" etc could be heard from proximal to distal places.

Here are my pictures :

Dearie grouppie 531-A

Zhi, Me, Rose, Ieja

Lope, Me, Timmy

Joyoki, Jatdin, Efenem, Me, NikKok Khai, Me, SaSa, KaKeat (top), Shyuan (bottom)

Random photos.
Me and baby.

Hui Ming and I.

Me and Shyuan.

So many valuable pictures were taken.
And nothing is more valuable than taking a picture of our MSA President doing this

Classic but whacky!

PS. : Anyone cirit-birit after eating Ayam Masak Merah? hehe....

Kochi~

It happened in one room

2008-10-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

My first practical day started on 30th of October (this post is delayed because I had to grab pics from Zhi). We were a group of 3 - Me, Farah, Zhi.

Due to lack of transportation efficiency, we had to walk from the 5th corpus down the Pokrovka to the lecture, and then along Pokrovka again to go to 5th hospital.

Upon arrival to the 5th hospital, we were told to look for Professor Fadeev since Panova E.I. wasn't responsible for the practicals (she didn't know and wasn't informed anything about the practicals). So we ran up level by level to look for Prof. Fadeev until the 5th floor, where a young doctor was waiting for us.

He brought us to the staffroom to put our bags and get changed.

The surprising thing was he asked us "What would you wanna do?". I replied "Anything" because we didn't know about the syllabus and plan for the practical. Then some noisy potentially aggresive horny nurses were asking for his help and he had to do the shit for 30 minutes. So we actually had enough time to have a photoshooting session.

Sitting for a long time

Waiting for the teacher

Ngehehehe

So after 30 minutes, the teacher brought us to see 2 patients. Both patients were admitted with heart disease. The first one even has a breast lump!

We ausculatated both patients and then asked them to proceed for echocardiography scan.

Echocardiogram is the ultrasound scanning of the heart, to see heart chambers, heart valves, heart wall thickness, blood ejection fraction etc. It's like scanning a baby with ultrasound but there's no baby inside. It's simple as it seems, but not until you work it yourself.

First the teacher demonstrated the anomalies revealed in echo. Some explanations were given but too bad they're all in russian. If they're in english, that'd be best. I had to translate to Zhi because I'm better in russian, but I found it hard to understand some medical terms. The patients were really cooperative with us. So it's beneficial to us coz we get to train how to perform an echocardiography.

Then we requested if we could do it on ourselves. The teacher allowed us to do it. So me and Zhi stripped off the shirts and started the scanning.

It was a brokeback mountain moment for 20 minutes but it's really enjoyable, in a straight way. It's really fun to see own's heart beating normally. It's exciting at the same time coz this was a lifetime experience.

And it all happened in this room..........

Kochi~

Overpriced pancakes

2008-10-03T04:48:00.000-07:00

Remember the post where I introduced about Blinkom, the pancake place? View it here.

It used to be one place where every student likes to go for a pancake treat. But to my surprise, the price shot up extremely crazy after 5 months. When we went in there, we saw just a few people eating inside. 5 months back then, the place used to be full of people. It was so hard to look for a place to sit and we had to pre-book a place.

5 months later, the crowded place was so quiet and the pancakes sucked ass. One treat of pancakes used to be not more than 80 roubles. But now a piece of Snickers pie, a piece of pancake filled with bacon and tomatoes with sauce costing for 159 roubles.

Like Ka Keat always says "Nizhny likes to take away those we loved". It is indeed really true. Took away my budget price and my favourite place for cheap eating out. *sob sob*

Nothing else better to do....

2008-10-03T04:26:00.000-07:00

It was a normal day of epidemiologic cycle. The fuck face (teacher) came in real late today. So in the meantime, 8 of us were having fun learning Hindi at first, then Arabic letters. So 3 of our muslim friends (Farah, Faiz, Fadzli) were our tutor. They wrote 34 arabic alphabets with english equivalents in order to teach us. The alphabets were so cute that they resembles something hilarious. So with our full imagination, these cute creatures came out of the letters......

Below were my 2 proud creations :

Top : A dog

Bottom : Figure it out...

Oh...........they're so cute!

As usual, the fuck face left us after throwing some of her ENGLISH notes to copy. Today she even said that she must leave at 1pm and perhaps would come back if she could make it in time. And then Faiz asked her again before she left the room if she's coming back at 2pm. She said "No". After she left, some of us partially copied the notes, some played Worms, some watched Family Guy on Ipod, some shot photos with Ka Keat's SLR, and I was doing almost all the aforementioned + sleeping on the table.

I wonder I should call her a teacher or just a librarian?

Anyways, yesterday we had a long break, as in 3 hours long.

So we managed to fool around like so :

For more details about our 3 hours of idle, please visit Efenem's Web Blog.

Kochi~

Done with Surgery

2008-10-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

I'm so over with Surgery now. Haunting me for 2 months and it's finally over now!~

Avdonin S.N. didn't trouble me as much as I heard from the others because when I was doing the exam, there's only me and Shirun doing the exam. He asked me really simple questions like "In children, which hernia is more common?", "What is Hashimoto's and Riedel's thyroidites?", "What's the diagnosis you can give if the patient had mobile, painless breast lump?", and a piece of X-ray with hydrothorax.

Thanks to my perfect breakfast in McD, a piece of McMuffin with egg and pork, a hashbrown and a cup of глясе that kept me awake hahaha....

Kochi~

Untitled title

2008-10-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

So suey la getting this kinda teacher. She's the whiniest Russian i've ever seen. Acting stern but bo liao one.....so fucking pissed!

She's the 2nd teacher to let me think that im so suey siao. The 1st one was Elena Sergeevna's replacement, conducting the Russian Language class while Elena Sergeevna's having some business in St. Petersburg. I thought she'd be okay but she's so fucking SKEMA! Want to force me to do things, does she...

Okay forget about her. Now this teacher who teaches my class Epidemiology for 8 days. She's a puffy'ol blondie who not only speaks Russian, she reads from her fucking notes instead of teaching. I'll go through one by one now :

1. She could not even speak or read English properly, and then she'd teach in Russian.

2. She thought that we could memorise all the fucking definitions about epidemiology. NB "MEMORISE" not understanding. One word goes wrong, she'd fucking put a bad mark in the list.

3. She's the only Russian that, I met so far, possessed the largest lung capacity. She babbles and babbles and babbles and.........we're all rolling eyes.

4. She's so darn lazy, not only she didn't teach, she gave us papers to copy and she went out of the class for a long time. We could even go up the 3rd floor to get something to eat, chatter for a few minutes, go back down the class and continue copying the papers, chatter again for minutes, then she came back after all the sequels.

5. She reads while we shouldn't read while answering the questions. She had to look up for the words that we're supposed to memorise, while she didn't memorise well herself!

But I find myself a little bit aggresive now. I fight back teachers' words (only to those that I feel sucky, in this case, the 2 aforementioned teachers).

In the Russian class, there was once we didn't prepare at all for the class which we should've prepared. So in the class, we told the teacher that we didn't prepare. If we told Elena Sergeevna, she'd tell us to be prepared next week. But this replacement was so sarcastic. When we told her we didn't prepare, she asked us "what is in your brain?" Wah lao, we're so tired at that rate and she asked us to think our butt out to counter the questions. I was so bold(haha) that I answered her "There's only air in our brains". And she likes to use "molodets" sarcastically, so at one point she actually did something wrong and I sarcastically told her back this. On another day, she obviously has an issue with me. She wanted us to memorise a text that we wrote. She said I was reading, not re-telling. I told her "Oh it's like this, I've got a bad memory, it's been like this since a long time ago" But the fact was that Shouzhi was reading as well. Then she told me "Your text is good but you are reading, so your mark is 5 with minus" Duh~ like I gave a damn shit about that. And today, I didn't go to her class. Rather sleep than attending her boring class.

In the class of epidemiology, the puffy'ol bitch asked me to answer her question which I wasn't supposed to look at the notes. So I didn't look at the notes and I remembered no shit about every word in the definitions. I answered her questions with my own words. The funniest thing was when she asked me about the host factors in susceptible populations. She asked me to give examples of "social traits". So I gave her the examples " marital status, diet, lifestyle, residency, travel". She freakin' penalised me without mentioning "migration" which she didn't even mention in the previous class. Next funny thing was that she asked me something that she didn't tell in class. I was really dissatisfied and told her that she didn't say anything about it. Then she said "your mark is 3". So I asked her back "Why did you give me a 3? Where did I do wrong?". She replied "Ah it's because you stuttered and I had to add the words for you". Hello? I'm sorry but how would I know if you preferred "migration" over "travel".

Teacher's right?

I don't fucking think so........

Kochi~

A waste of time, a lot more to learn

2008-09-28T03:22:00.000-07:00

An AGM of Malaysian Students' Association was held in Biochemical-Physiological Department's lecture hall.

The meeting was held on Sunday morning, 10.45pm when I was still dwelling in my slumberland, playing chess with its citizen. Then suddenly ShouZhi called and asked me if I wanted to go. I told him I was still sleeping and might not be going.

Then slowly, I woke up when my sympathetic nervous system dominated the parasympathetic. After washing up, I texted ShouZhi and asked if the meeting was still on. It was still on after 1.5 hours. But he told me that it's gonna end, and I shouldn't went. So I figured to stop by for a while and go buy some chocolates for exam mental preparation.

When I arrived there, the hall was almost full of students. I peeked into the hall, there's no back path to go up to the place where Shouzhi, Rose, Shuyu and Mianxin sat. So I had to go in front of the huge crowd to go up. For no reason, they applaud. Was kind of happy but embarassed at the same time. Luckily I have a huge wall stuck on my face.

I asked Shouzhi what happened so far and he told me some aggresive individuals blasting at the newly elected President (Mr. FNM) and questioning about his capability. One said that FNM has no experience in dealing with the deans office which, on the contrary, he had alot of experience like some yesteryears presidents. Another was telling that the extra practical which the majority opposed, was useful and fun. He gave the example of 10 signs and symptoms of appendicitis that he learnt in the extra practical while the other who didn't have it, learnt only 3 in the usual classes.
(Come on, I did my practicals here too in the summer and all they let me do were just usual patient clerking, some physical examinations and more observations, it's not like they will allow you to do any procedures, and the nurses are really assholes)

And there was a little girl who suggested that the MSA shouldn't deal for example, Malaysian Night alone. They should INVITE the representatives from other organisations like UMNO, MISA (Malaysian Indian Students Associations, PPIM (don't know what does it stand for but it's for muslims). But Malaysians are Malaysians. There's no racial predilection here in handling the Malaysian Night. If it's called the Malaysian Night for all Malaysians, let the MSA committees do their job. We, on the other hand, perform the tasks, together as a whole we make this event happen. No need to invite this and that people from what club and organisation. We have batch representatives for 1st, ....6th course.

So luckily we have defenders like Ms JD and Mr AM. JD said that she learnt the 10 signs in the usual class too instead of being in the extra practical(which is way wasting time). AM said that there was one day while doing the extra practical, in the 3 hours, the teacher ONLY taught them about bleeding, again, for 3 hours instead of doing the others. AM also emphasized on the matter which once he had to wait for an hour for the teacher to be free, so 1 hour wasted, a few USD notes flew away.

The abovementioned were those that I heard from the 3rd party because I was really late. News travel and alter really fast. Never know who's right and who's wrong.

What I hope is the highest authority will symphatize us and :
1. Decrease the 500USD to a lower price like 200USD.
2. Integrate the extra practical classes into the normal classes.
3. Assign us to an english-speaking qualified teachers.

Majority of the Malaysian students, particularly the private students and the JPA students went against the idea of having extra practicals here. It's not like what we learnt in Russia could be accepted in Malaysia. They might have their own way in terms of practical skills. Also for those who have Russian Language classes on the same day, come to a "2 diverged roads in the white woods(winter ma)" situation. Give up the pracs, a part of the 500USD fly without wings. Give up the Russian class, money would also fly without wings.

So in the end, nothing was really done regarding the extra-pracs, which disappointed most of the students. It's a waste of time for those who were rooting for the MSA to come out with something somewhat useful like "The extra practical is abolished!!" or "They agreed to decrease the price!!".

But one thing kudos to Mr FNM, our president, he said that "We're all Malaysians, so don't say that you're malay or chinese or indian, coz after all, we're Malaysians"
*applause*

Sigh, we have alot more to learn in dealing with the deans office. Yes, we do not possess the right to question about the highest authority's decision. BUT we demand the justice regarding the insane mega-ultra-super
ridiculous pricey extra practical mumbo-jumbo.

Kochi~

Upon Jatdin's request

2008-09-21T07:00:00.001-07:00

You're pretty much the only one who's looking in a different direction. Here is your photo that you asked for. The size of the picture might have been scrolled down if you could not open the picture while clicking on it. Feel free to ask me to send through YM or enthusiastic, if not lazy, come and take from me.

Ngehehehehe.....watch TV, you might appeared in the screen *wink wink*

Kochi~

Cross country (Warning : Bytes glutton)

2008-09-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

A cross country event was held all over the Russia on the 21st of September at the 12pm.

In Nizhny Novgorod the cross country event was held in the Switzerland Park (Парк Швейцария) which was along the Gagarin Avenue. This park was no longer a stranger to us coz most NNSMA's students went there for jogging, at least for a couple times. I don't know why did they call it Switzerland park but I figured, probably, the park looked like Switzerland in the winter. (Just that it's suckier than Switzerland.)

The aim for organizing this huge event was for World Peace. Perhaps after running the world would be peaceful a little bit.

Anyway, it was 8 degrees Celcius cold in the morning and yet everyone was gathering in the park to :-

1) Get free T-shirts (which according to some people, it's comfortable to wear in bed).

2) Get to be famous on TV.

3) Hit on girls.

But, personally I think that it was good coz anyone who live here may participate in such a huge event. And what more, it's time to work the muscles and joints after all this while hybernating in the room.

So everyone gathered in front of the 5th hostel (when the time I came down) at 11am (I came down at 11.30am coz I overslept). Then we walked altogether to the park which is a few steps away from the our hostels. Once we reached there, there was already a lot people, wearing different colors of T-shirts with numbers on. My number was 686. Some of us were interviewed by correspondants from telecasts. And one channel's correspondant wanted us to yell "Будни отменяются!" in front of the cam. It means "Weekday cancellation!". Didn't know why actually we have to yell that phrase, maybe just wanted us to look stupid. But it was really fun where everyone, if looked stupid, did it together. After all, we're of one great team, ngahahahaha!

I could not help myself from commenting the way they printed the T-shirts on red fabrics while having red printed words. So the words were blended together with the T-shirts. Just compare the orange T-shirts with the red ones. I bet you could not spot the red writings.

Moving on.........

So, the international students (particularly, girls of our academy's foreign students and followed by guys) started the cross country event.

Some were really excited about the event as you can see from the pic below.

Some wanted their images to be captured in cameras.

Some were thinking about getting to the finish line.

Some just wanted to overtake the happy feet.

Some posed pretty while panting hard.

Some protected themselves from molesters.

Some couldn't get a hold of themselves.

So many interesting actions were observed and captured. Oh how I like to join in such an event!

We were supposed to run for a mere 4km, but it felt like just 2.5km of running. I think I could captured more interesting actions if the journey was really long. Therefore everyone managed to cross the finish line without serious injuries or hypoxia.

Our academy's students won the 1st place.

Shaheer was the winner for international male category.

Rahimah was the winner for international female category.
(which one way or another was just limited for our academy's students only)
* didn't take their pictures, though.

After crossing the finish line, everyone was panting hard and some beautiful russian chicks in yellow attire handed over energy drinks and towels for each one of us upon crossing the line and said "That's all, you may stop"

There, everyone with flaring nose, except for the Russian in front who came for shopping.

Then after running, personal photo sessions was going on to capture such an event where everyone would take part in (which is rare).

Me with Hansin, Wanying, Joe and Wei Shyuan.

Good morning, angels.

Good morning, charlieeeeeeeeeeee!~

Good morning, charlie!

Go to hell, devils!!!!

We're from group 531-A!!!

We didn't stay there for the prize giving session. So everyone went back to the hostels and continue the stereotypes lives.

How very fun to have participated in such event like this.

Below are short video clips of Shaheer, Rahimah and a loser who lost with pride.

Winner Rahimah.

Winner Shaheer.

Whiiner. (The name is kept secret)

Kochi~

Real mooncake festival

2008-09-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

I was called to go to Jack's room at first to eat mooncakes together. Most juniors were there and the mooncakes Jack brought were very delightful. We took a few photos, some acted like camwhore (me and Piiven in this case). However I managed only to try a couple of mooncakes until SuWei came up and called me down from the 7th floor to the 3rd floor. Another mooncakes festival was celebrated at HanSin's. Mooncakes and teas were served for 8 of us. While cutting and dividing the mooncakes, ShuYu, Christie and SuWei were betting for the biggest cutted piece containing the biggest yolk inside. As luck is always by ShuYu's side, she was right with her bet for the biggest piece of yolk in the piece that she picked. Since most of us had not talked in a while, we stayed there for quite a long time and had a pretty chatterable night.
I've got guts coz I was supposed to prepare for the upcoming credit test for pediatrics and should be preparing for "vaccination" for tomorrow's class. But this kinda gathering does not happen often so I chose to linger around in HanSin's room until I felt guilty of not studying and left.
Also since this is HanSin's, SuWei's, WanYing's, Chiou Perng's and Christie's last autumn with us, I'd spend more time with them, coz I don't wanna miss them, so I don't wanna miss a thing.

She won her bet!

Kochi~

A Pre-mooncake Festival Dinner

2008-09-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

Why called it a pre-mooncake festival dinner?

Because it was supposed to be celebrated on the 14th of September(Sunday) but we celebrated it 2 days before the actual date.

Some may wonder "What the heck is a mooncake festival?"

Frankly speaking, I do not know exactly why this day was and still is celebrated nowadays. But dated back to the history of ancient China, mooncakes were actually secret instrument for spreading news for a strike or an attack from one to another. They put a little piece of paper, rolled thin and stuffed into mooncakes. Smart people read the news, the dumb ones were either killed by the government or choke to death by the piece of junk inside the cakes.

Another reason is, according to the legend, once upon a time the God of sun had 10 sons who were also suns which were really sons of a bitch with hot pussy. One sun was allowed to visit the Earth once in a day, and the 10 suns took rotations to visit the Earth everyday. One day, these suns of a bitch decided to go play on the Earth together. So when they came down to the Earth, everything was burnt down. The men couldn't stand them any longer, so they called an archer called HouYi (not a gangster though) to shoot down all of them. He took out his bow and arrows and started shooting, until the last one he spared the sun's life coz he didn't want the world to turn dark. And so bla bla bla, the King awarded him an immortalisation pill and told him "Swallow the pill bit by bit". WuGang had a beautiful wife called ChangEr, he didn't want her to get old and die, so he gave her the pill. She took it and suddenly her body weight got lighter and lighter that she floated up in the air....she flew flew flew until the moon. In order for them both to meet each other, they must wait until the moon is the fullest and the biggest, which is the mid-autumn in lunar calendar (15th day of the autumn). I don't know why we celebrate just because they can see each other on this particular day, coz I don't see her, even so it's none of my business. Some people who're full of imagination saw a tree on the moon. Some spotted a rabbit. I've never seen those kind of crap before.

To see more of the different versions of crap, please click here.

Okay I think some of you may have skipped the story -telling part through, but yeah, I gotta celebrate it coz I wanna eat mooncakes. Since I didn't go back home this year, so I didn't have any mooncakes to eat. So I threw a dinner night for groupmates and friends on the Friday. Dinner was simple, with fried rice, fried noodles, curry chicken, fried calamari aka squids and fried crabsticks (very high risk of getting heart attack). Those who had mooncakes, they brought over to share with the others. Junice, Rose and Shou Zhi, each took one mooncake over for all.

We were 10 including Karin(Italian) and Flo(Austrian) who came from Austria for an exchange-programme. They were cool people, future doctors too! Karin loved spicy food and Flo loved the fried calamari. They both loved the greentea+slimmy jelly thingy mooncake. Infact we all liked the mooncake really much.

Tada! Flo on the left, Karin on the right (innit obvious?)

Flo has huge arms and I had not thought one bit about offending him.

They actually met Wei Shyuan during her surgery cycle. They were quite depressed living here, so they asked Wei Shyuan to include them in whatever activities of hers. So WS gave me a call and asked if I could include them in the party as well. There was nothing to lose from getting acquainted with them, so they were counted in.

Flo told me that we have many things in common, but they were many things we've in common that did not reach the same degree.
For example:
a) we like lifting weights, but he has huge ripped arms, I have huge flabby arms (don't snigger okay?)

b) we like guitar, but he must have played far better than me.

c) we like "Du Hast Den Schönsten Arsch Der Welt", but he knows the language better than me.

But we do have something in common.

We both like this poster very much!!!

Party ended up with taking lanterns and bringing them back to their hotel which was situated not far from our hostel. Wind was strong that night, it's like the ghosts were swirling around us. My lantern, the seal one, went out the earliest. The paper lanterns were the heroes. Fortunately, no lantern was burnt, coz each year, there must be at least 1 lantern turns into dark ashes.

Is it just me or do I look gay in this pic?

The pic which I was rejected out for taking together with them,

the so-called "Menopause team" *tssk tssk*

Teeheee.....wide mouths

Kochi~

The next dawn 下一个天亮

2008-09-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

郭靜 - 下一個天亮.mp3 -

# 用起伏的背影挡住哭泣的心　　
有些故事不必说给每个人听　　
许多眼睛看的太浅太近　　
错过我没被看见那个自己　　　　

@ 用简单的言语解开超载的心　　
有些情绪是该说给懂的人听　　
你的热泪比我激动怜惜　　
我发誓要更努力更有勇气　　　　

* 等下一个天亮　　
去上次牵手赏花那裏散步好吗　　
有些积雪会自己融化　　
你的肩膀是我豁达的天堂　　
等（~）下一个天亮　　
把偷拍我看海的照片送我好吗　　
我喜欢我飞舞的头发　　
和飘著雨还是眺望的眼光

& 时间可以磨去我的棱角　　
有些坚持却永远磨不掉　　
请容许我小小的骄傲　　
因为有你这样的依靠

Using the undulating shadow to hide the crying heart
Some stories aren't necessary to tell everyone
So many eyes looking too close too near
I missed the chance of seeing my own self.

Using simple words to relieve the overloaded heart
Some emotions are necessary to tell to those who understand
Your passionate tears are even pitiful than my stormy emotions
I swear I'd try harder, to be bolder

Waiting for the next dawn
Let's go to the place where we held hands and looked at flowers, okay?
The accumulated snow will melt away by itself
Your shoulder is my open-minded heaven

Waiting for the next dawn
Gift me the picture that you secretly snapped while I was looking at the sea, okay?
I like the way my hair was blown by the wind
And also the way I looked far away in the rain

Time can grind down my past
But sometimes the determination can never be ground away
Please let me to be proud about
The fact that I have a shelter like you

Translated by kkkochi.
_____________________________________________________________

Gosh!
I should've learnt chinese better!!!!!!!
I don't even know whether the translation makes any sense.
Anyway, this is a lovely song.
It's a hit song in Red Box, according to my friend.
So enjoy the song!!!

Kochi~

Runny nose

2008-09-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Run my nose......Run!!!!

Yep it's definitely running.......
It's not the nose itself running, but it's the nasal secretion that keeps running like running tap water.

Well, this autumn is unusually hot and cold.
In Russia, they have an autumnal summer for a few days. They called it "Babe Leto", which literally means lady summer and in English it's called "Indian Summer". What kind of lady or indian lady is she, I don't know. But if I found out who is she, I'd rape her, coz it's kinda hot.
It continued for a couple days then it started raining again...the next thing I knew after waking up, the temperature dropped to 6 degrees!!! Since I like cold weather so much, it's not a problem for me. Moreover I could show off my new scarf bought from Berlin. How sweet, I looked like a hot jock!!!Except that I've got the fat and the unsual height -_-

Moving on, about running nose, yes I have it now and I've never liked it. This is the only reason I don't like in autumn. Viral infection starts to spread around. Diseases like flu and pertussis usually manifest in season like this. Usually it spread around among people if one from the group acquired the disease. As for me, I don't know who spreaded it to me but it's certainly from one of my groupmates or the teacher. Such thick mucuos stuck inside my nostrils that I could use it for sticking notes against my wall.

So I bought Antigrippin from the pharmacy and it has quite an effect. It sedated me mildly but it's enough to let me sleep for a century. It contains :
1) Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) as anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, pain-killer and thrombolytics.
2) Ascorbic acid (vit C) as antioxidants for cell regeneration and immunity booster.
3) Rutozid (rutin) as angioprotectant (protect the blood vessel one...) by strengthening the vessel's wall.
4) Metamizol sodium (analgin) as anti-inflammatory and suppression of prostaglandin synthesis.
5) Diphenhydramine (dimedrol) as antihistamine, anti-inflammatory, local anaesthetic; remedy against swelling of the nasal mucosa, sorethroat and bla bla bla.....
6) Calcium gluconate as regulator of calcium and phosphate ratio and antiallergic.

Dimedrol is a drug of the 1st generation of antihistamine. No wonder it sedated me so nicely.

Don't know why the manufacturer separated the drug into 2 different colored capsules.
The white one containing analgin, calcium gluconate and dimedrol.
The green one containing ascorbic acid, aspirin and rutin.

Maybe if combined altogether it'd be as big as a choc of Ferrero Roche.

Also I bought a nasal decongestant to melt away my sticky mucuos. It's no more a stranger to me coz I always have nasal congestion on lying position. It's the one who shares bed with me these days......

Shou Zhi also suffers from the same signs and symptoms, but he chose to rely on his traditional chinese medications (though he's a modern medical student. I wonder if he knew what did the trad. med. contain).

"You try the modern meds, I try my traditional meds"

LOL later at night he told me that he's sick as hell while I was getting better through time. Ngahahahahahaha.........

Nantha's braces with invisible wire..............
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I lied, there's indeed no wire.
Looking forward to see his new colorful wire.

Kochi~

Just a shout out...you can ignore this however.

2008-09-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

Holidays ended, class started.
Homework accumulates, workload increases.
Mood decreases as usual, weather's getting colder.
New semester, old life.
People come back, money goes away.
Forgot Russian language, remember nothing.
Eat shit, drink urine.
Tension rises, luck falls.
Good hostel, bad commandant.
Big expensive room, small cheap facilities.
2 years left but feel like 2 centuries to go.
Now must study, but don't wanna.
But if didn't wanna study, I die.
You don't study, you die.
You studied, also will die.
You die, I die.
Tomorrow, bye bye.
Today, must watch Family Guy.

Kochi~

5th course timetable and a bad hair day

2008-08-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

This is the timetable for 5th course's students. Summer break is coming to an end, everyone is getting ready to send their asses back here again......to dance in hell~!

After all these years, I thought Russia is getting better in the sense that the living condition is better, the people are changing their manners from Soviet times to a modern one. Yes, they have prettier buildings and better infrastructures, but the manners of Russians are still the same.

Today Wei Shyuan and I went to collect our results of HIV test. There's this quite senile security guard, which was supposed to keep the place in secure, on the other hand collecting the receipt of payment to get the results. Oh he's like such a boss, calling people's names and asked them to leave after taking the results..........right!

That's Russia.

Another mind sickening stuff is while Wei Shyuan and I were on the bus, we were talking. Of course we were talking in our OWN language instead of their language. We're talking and talking and talking and then this sick fuck Russian who's sitting in front of me turned and shouted at us.

"Can you shut up? You're not the only one who's on this bus!!"

In my face.....in my face.....shouting in my face. I didn't see anyone shouting like so to us while we're travelling across the european countries. None, I tell you....None!!!

After arriving at the stop, while waiting for the door to open, I glared at him for a while before getting down. He didn't look up. Maybe he just didn't wanna see us around. So I think the glare was wasted or maybe I was described in Dima Bilan's song "Never, never let you go" which he sang "Ardent look but no heat......."

I so wanna scold him back but my Russian sucks by the way.

I was kinda supporting the Russian contingent in the Olympics but now, this one sick fuck person made me hate the fact that I'm studying in Russia, again.

Вперед, Россия......meaning "Go forward, Russia"

Yeah right....I think GO FORWARD TOWARDS THE BARBARIAN TIME!!!

This is from Bush!!!!

!!!!!!!!AND THIS IS FROM ME!!!!!!!!

p.s : To my Russian friends who like foreigners, you're different. At least you made the effort to getting acquainted with us. Don't feel offended if you didn't do so.

BUT IF YOU DID.......................then burn in hell~ HAHAHAHA

Kochi~

The Fountains of the Gold

2008-08-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

There's nothing else more attractive than the Summer Palace of Peter the Great in Peterhof. Peterhof is situated on the shore of the Gulf of Finland but it smells just like Gurney Drive in Penang. The shore has nothing else more significant than the rubbish floating like boats in the sea. But yet some Russians didn't care and bathed themselves there. I bet they smell like hobos.

Anyways back to the description. Peterhof has a series of palaces and gardens, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great, and it's sometimes called the "Russian Versailles". It's a UNESCO World Heritage site too. It must be coz it's magnificent!!!

There are 2 main gardens in Peterhof, The Upper and The Lower.

The Upper one has a few fountains with different figures. It was originally a place where people grew plants and the ponds were for fish.

The fountains in the Lower Garden were not installed during Peter's time and the sea channel was for ships to enter to the complex.

The Grand Palace wasn't so big as it is nowadays. The additions of wings of the Palace were under the order of Elizabeth of Russia, Peter's daughter.

Forget about the history, just look at the place. It blew me away at the time I stood in front of the entrance. Though it was hot, but the water droplets cooled us down.

There were only 3 restaurants at the Lower Garden. The cheapest restaurant wasn't so cheap. I hope you get what I mean.

Intrigue for the golden fountains?

Check out in http://picasaweb.google.com/kochi.kochi/PeterhofStPetersburg

Kochi~

What a HUGE thing!!!

2008-08-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

The day started pretty well, I woke up at 4pm (Oops...hehe!!) and Wei Shyuan asked me if I wanted to go to MEGA or not. And since it's been a long time since I last met with Han Sin (she just arrived the night before), I decided to go and to update myself about the conditions over there.

We took off at 5pm. The first thing we did was to fill up our hungry tummies. So as our stereotypical lives go, we chose to eat the Swedish meatballs at IKEA. The price - not good. Instead of 79p for 10 freaking balls, it went up until 119p for 10. How very pleasant!! And I, being the neediest person in the group got stunned. However I still went for it (because that's the cheapest stuff we can get) and I also took a piece of apple pie (hehehe....)

We're so testy about it! Han Sin even told us "This is my last time eating here!"

After eating we went to Auchan for some groceries shopping. Queue was long and normal as always.

I went to the toilet for some tiny business and I was astonished by 2 "giants of the little things". They're disgusting I know but just hold yourself and take a look at them.

Warning : You have to finish your food before looking coz I don't want u to waste your food. Like my mom always says "Do you know how poor the african people are that they can't afford food?"

This guy sure has a really big anus. He must be sodomized by one of our politician.

I tried to flush the thing down for 3 times and it just didn't work.

And after seeing this, I lost interest in eating at the place where Shou Zhi brought Xiang Yun to. Here's the blog about the little place that he hoo-hah-ed about in his blog. HAHAHAHA.

http://limshouzhi.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/t-bowl/

BON APPETIT!!!!

Kochi~