`mesmeric

2011-12-02T02:29:00.001+08:00

G is sitting next to me and wants to read my blog! again! to future G: don't forget to read this once a year. to remember the good old days.

2008-11-02T05:03:00.001+08:00

Monologue for an Onion
by Suji Kwock Kim

I don't mean to make you cry.
I mean nothing, but this has not kept you
From peeling away my body, layer by layer,

The tears clouding your eyes as the table fills
With husks, cut flesh, all the debris of pursuit.
Poor deluded human: you seek my heart.

Hunt all you want. Beneath each skin of mine
Lies another skin: I am pure onion--pure union
Of outside and in, surface and secret core.

Look at you, chopping and weeping. Idiot.
Is this the way you go through life, your mind
A stopless knife, driven by your fantasy of truth,

Of lasting union--slashing away skin after skin
From things, ruin and tears your only signs
Of progress? Enough is enough.

You must not grieve that the world is glimpsed
Through veils. How else can it be seen?
How will you rip away the veil of the eye, the veil

That you are, you who want to grasp the heart
Of things, hungry to know where meaning
Lies. Taste what you hold in your hands: onion-juice,

Yellow peels, my stinging shreds. You are the one
In pieces. Whatever you meant to love, in meaning to
You changed yourself: you are not who you are,

Your soul cut moment to moment by a blade
Of fresh desire, the ground sown with abandoned skins.
And at your inmost circle, what? A core that is

Not one. Poor fool, you are divided at the heart,
Lost in its maze of chambers, blood, and love,
A heart that will one day beat you to death.

2008-10-31T01:04:00.002+08:00

Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him. Maybe I'll just sing about it.

Anna Nalick "2am"

2008-10-08T01:15:00.001+08:00

lizzie and scott sound like a lifetime of happiness :)

2008-10-04T18:41:00.001+08:00

This Was Once a Love Poem
by Jane Hirshfield

This was once a love poem, before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short, before it found itself sitting, perplexed and a little embarrassed, on the fender of a parked car, while many people passed by without turning their heads. It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement. It remembers choosing these shoes, this scarf or tie. Once, it drank beer for breakfast, drifted its feet in a river side by side with the feet of another. Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy, dropping its head so the hair would fall forward, so the eyes would not be seen. IT spoke with passion of history, of art. It was lovely then, this poem. Under its chin, no fold of skin softened. Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat. What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall. An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks. The longing has not diminished. Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat, the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus. Yes, it decides: Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots. When it finds itself disquieted by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life, it will touch them—one, then another— with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame.

mit welchen bücher lernst du denn?

2008-09-05T20:54:00.004+08:00

I say goodbye to Vorklinik. come 22nd September it will be my 2 year anniversary in Germany. tomorrow i turn 21. time is elusive. i cant believe 3/4 of 2008 is already over. somehow i feel very defeated when i think about that.

2008-08-30T00:14:00.001+08:00

oh no no, running away isnt the problem- it is the solution.

my summer

2008-08-20T19:42:00.003+08:00

after falling into a nasty cycle of not being able to fall asleep at nights, an entire summer spent mugging. solid months, weeks hours sitting on my butt working working working. eating cereal for breakfast and dinner. dear god. i havent been out for weeks! by out i mean out of my hostel compound. my life has been measured out in bitter chapters. being reduced to a state where laundry day gets me excited is very bitter indeed. so after 320 questions, 8 hours of exam; of breakfasts consisting my tea my paracetamol and me- now it all comes down to... what, exactly? i dont feel anything. i hope for once, reality sinks in sooner. i anticipate the euphoria that will catch up on me. i await dreamless sleeps and a happier stomach. fresher air, the outdoors. re-learning the art of breathing. a relief, a happiness that cannot be put into words.

2008-08-16T20:44:00.000+08:00

disappointment tastes like an unripe banana.

2008-07-23T03:27:00.003+08:00

while cycling home today i realised something:

everything boils down to this: desperation. the line between success and failure is drawn by the weight of your desperation. if you want it enough, you will make the necessary sacrifices. pride be damned. anything be damned, really. some people might even choose to break the law.
there's no stopping you. so how badly do you want this?

2008-07-19T06:01:00.000+08:00

Only the moon and the stars in the sky
Did know to cry for me as I sailed on

2008-07-17T15:05:00.002+08:00

i fell asleep to the rain last night and awoke to the rain this morning. its cold out, my window is open. i am bundled up. its 9:06 am on a thursday morning. i am listening to jazz and doing TYS questions. i am at peace with the world.

anguish

2008-07-11T21:16:00.000+08:00

why does bad hair happen to good people? whyyyyyyy??

2008-07-09T04:14:00.001+08:00

why do i have to hold my head higher than my heart?

EURO 2008

2008-07-03T15:49:00.002+08:00

Congratulations to Germany, 1st runner up in the Euro cup! its been a very exciting 2 weeks, and a mega source of distraction. but its worth it! i finally learnt the off-side rule and now know so much random trivia about football that i can even impress xizzles. its a shame that Germany didnt win the cup, but there's still the 2010 world cup to come!

Alcatraz Party 08

2008-06-08T19:24:00.003+08:00

other than the half-full bottles of wine/barcadi/bartida/tequlia/champagne/baileys and the empty bottles of beer/vodka/champagne that are lined up along my kitchentop, there is no evidence that the party-of-the-year went down at my place 2 nights ago. my floors that were sticky with beer have been vacuumed, swept, mopped. the stale chips have been thrown, the garbage taken out, my bedsheets stripped and laundried, the glasses washed... post-party is just as much work as pre-party. ( though the alcohol shopping bit was terrifying)
the night itself was a night to remember. i had to throw out people from my WG whom I didnt know, who just decided to stroll in and help themselves to the food, i had to throw out people who switched off the lights in my room and decided to get comfortable on my bed. my hair was conditioned with smoke and alcoholic breathe. and there was beer-spilling down my top and guys peeing in public and couples making out in dark corners and the police! but anyway. i staggered into bed just as the sun was coming up and got up again to get ear-plugs because the party was still going strong.
i wonder when will there next be a call for celebration, its unlikely that the contents of the half-full bottles will be finished anytime soon. i suppose they will sit in my kitchen for a long time to come, a reminder of the good times.

2008-06-02T16:53:00.002+08:00

Aghhh!! until a couple of hours ago i was under the impression that i had one presentation next week and one the week after next but NO, i have both of them next week, and i have not done ANYTHING! there's the powerpoint slides and the reherasing and the having to present in front of 40 people and 2 profs and IN GERMAN!!! fuckkk.
sigh. I was in the library yesterday (on a 30-degree sunday) and i bumped into thomas the pommes. i told him all abt my exam stress and how the next 3 months are going to be a pretty difficult. Instead of saying smth encouraging or soothing he said, (and i quote directly) "if it doesnt work out we can have many drinks at my place." WHAT THE-??!! does he think i cant do it? the nerve! the audacity!

2008-06-01T16:20:00.003+08:00

its so difficult and tiring to keep up with maintaining one's social circle. i have not made an appearance, like ANYWHERE this semester. i didnt even go to my own fac's party. it just gets so tiring and boring after all and i simply cant muster up enough enthusiasm to drag myself to one of these events- its so much nicer watching a dvd at home with a friend you're so familiar with you can be with her in crazy hair and sweatpants. and also cos german parties suck. no seriously. company is of course important but sometimes there's little to do when they play scheiss music.

well, there definitely are repercussions for being lazy. after a few times of saying you wont go, people stop asking. and this is WHY, when now there will be a party at my place, it awkward for me to invite certain people because i've had practically little or no contact to them since the last party (a year ago!) ahh. i mean, i could say that we're just all too busy (which we are) and that some of these people are just not interesting enough for me to make a proper effort (which is actually not too far from the truth. med students are just so urghhh sometimes.) but still. one has to try to integrate oneself again. its a tiring and mostly annoying process, all that small talk and endless conversation about medicine medicine medicine. i mean, come on!!!!

2008-05-27T23:36:00.001+08:00

And its 6 weeks ago, I’m in a café in Bratislava with you, drowning in hot chocolate whilst the rain pelts down outside, adding to the greyness of the empty city. (I've never been to a capital city that is this lifeless, this abandoned)

Gotan Project plays softly in the background, I shall henceforth forever associate “Queremos Paz” with sin in a cup. We had all but 15 Euros on us, and we spend it all in that little shop.

Fast forward the weeks, the days, the hours,

life in the twenties

2008-05-27T02:17:00.003+08:00

it started off innocently enough, i was trying to plan out my Famulatur (Clinical Electives) for the next 2 years....

it quickly became a downward swirl of uncontrolled imagination or rather, unsuppressed craziness. seriously. how does one not despair when confronted with such a plan-
sure, on one hand, whoever stops dreaming has already lost. though i say, keep dreaming then.

2008-05-26T15:09:00.002+08:00

today the answer finally became clear as to WHY med students have to study physics:
"Manchen Menschen ist unglücklicherweise nicht klar, dass auch Flüssigkeiten Strom leiten können- Urin als Elektrolyt zum Beispiel. Jedes Jahr gibt es weltweit eine Reihe von Todesfällen, weil meist männliche Mitmenschen nicht daran denken, dass man mit dem Urinstrahl möglichest nicht stromführende Metalle treffen sollte- wie zum Beispiel U-Bahn-Schienen."

Roughly translated as:
it is unfortunately unclear to some people that liquids can also conduct electricity, for example, urine. world-wide, every year, men die because they dont think about the fact that they shouldnt pee on electricity-carrying metals, like the train tracks.

textured

2008-05-26T00:28:00.002+08:00

does absence make the heart grow fonder? its been a while. here i am, procrastinating, pretending, sitting, waiting, watching the activities that go on outside of the window all the time munching on cheddar cheese crackers that i dont even like, that taste like last week. i will die if i have to work through the notes littered all over my room one more time. funny how stress murders all motivation, despite and in spite of. i am dissatisfied with the stash of songs i downloaded. it is too restless a day to enjoy anything vaguely of substance.the massive, crippling, consuming weight of inertia. i cant do. i cant deal. i cant write, not knowing what i feel but i cant stop. i am contemplating disappearing.

it has been a good weekend- so much so that the onset of sunday night brings inevitable dread, loneliness, desperation. random snippets of conversation float into mind- it is so much better to have a surname that starts with "m", for fairness's sake. we will marry good. topped with too much good food, and the inability to concentrate on anything that "truly matters". tucking you in both at night and in the mornings- now that i have never done to anyone.

1) your voice on the phone is much better than any summer day;
2) i'll give anything for those 10minutes with you again, under the sky laden with too many shades of grey, the only thing preventing its collapse into sheets of rain-
it is me, holding the sky up with my adoration, my optimism.
3) it is foolish, i know. but i cant help it.
4) i removed all pictures of myself, of us from your phone. you probably will lose that memory, with nothing to remind you.
5) you cant wink to save your life but you practice on me anyway;
6) i am your friend though
7) you are not committed to our friendship

2008-04-18T00:55:00.000+08:00

Seventeen was a first kiss stolen behind my house, every thirteen-year-old's fantasy, as unpractised, as sweet. I'd rather be seventeen but I'm forty and there's a mortgage, half a car, three kids and their dog and a bucket of broken words waiting for me back home.

If home is where you dream then I'm thirty-three in tee shirt and jeans and horn-rimmed glasses reading Merleau-Ponty in the dim light of the Hungarian Café on Amsterdam Avenue, mostly to show off, partly to enjoy the irony of Merleau-Ponty on Montaigne: is there anything as certain, resolute, disdainful, contemplative, solemn, and serious as an ass?

I don't want to be an ass; I'm six years old and back in Los Angeles delighting in the monstrosity of the bougainvillea; four in Istanbul just this summer eating Turkish ice-cream as if for the first time; twenty and smuggling bootleg Moroccan wine back to the wine-drowned city of Oxford. I'm eighty and there's Charles Baudelaire in a back pocket and bottles of Tokay hidden in the backpack still; I'm twenty-two and disillusioned with intoxication and pretending an intellectual austerity in the Rad Cam when a firework explodes through the upper window, showy, unexpected, and to be gloried in.

Koh Tsin Yen

dann wars vorbei

2008-04-16T23:55:00.002+08:00

apparently always does not last forever, and nothing is something.
if this is how it is.

Do trees mind if it is the same wind
that passes through their heads everyday?

theres a bud of sorrow
that has been growing within me
and
through the sheets of rain
winds that slice across my cheeks
the cold. the wet.
the tears-
are a relief.

2008-03-20T18:54:00.001+08:00

And if you begin to speak to me
of what desire is like on the opposing
plane, of what extreme punishments
or pleasures await even the least of us

I would dissuade you,
I would kiss your cheek and lead you here
to this room, to this chair, this desk
and this window's suddenly luminescent view.

we've had one week of perfection

2008-03-01T20:42:00.003+08:00

there is something surreal about standing alone on the pavement watching the taxi make a U-turn, gather speed, and eventually disappear around the bend. it was 4am. for the first time i noticed that the street lamps hung from a wire, the strong wind made the pools of light dance in circles, the leaves joined them in this display. i could feel the storm brewing. not one car drove past. i stood there, part of the wind and the rustling trees, for the longest time- waiting for what, i dont know. it seemed likely that an adventure might chance my way or maybe i was simply waiting for the storm to claim me.

will you send me flowers?

2008-02-11T15:18:00.001+08:00

"Can I have her address?
I will send her flowers. dozens.
real ones, and paper ones, and pictures of ones."

/postsecret

because in the end, we're all just a bunch of self-obsessed idiots

2008-02-02T18:52:00.000+08:00

its a habit born out of obsession. or perhaps the obsession breed my habit. i keep tugging at this thread, willing it to unravel the scarf of my anxiety.
maybe someday i'd have no reason to say no, because i'd be finally, finally sure.

words words words

2008-01-30T17:51:00.000+08:00

tell me, which girl would not be at least a bit enticed by a guy who declares that he would buy a castle, for her. go ahead, i say, i really wouldnt say no to one.
when one is going through silly memories such as these, its only natural that she has a grin on her face, and i suppose she cant really blame the guy sitting opposite her on the tram for thinking she was smiling at him, and therefore beaming back at her with obscene happiness (which she chose to not notice) and thereafter coming over and trying to chat her up. oh boy. 10am is wayy too early for flirting!
now if i had a castle. i will put crocodiles in my moat and dragons in my dungeons. muah ha ha. though i shall not sleep in the highest tower, think of all the stairs! and ooh yes i will throw a ball (does one throw a ball? like one throws a party?) and everyone will have a wonderful time, make no mistake about it.

time with its wicked illusions

2008-01-25T19:23:00.000+08:00

-of course i want my cake and eat it too!
but this is not the cake i ordered!

its been a topsy-turvy, upside-down back to front sort of week. a sort of week that absolutely crawls by, the finally arrival of friday has (almost) lost all of its meaning, i had stopped looking forward to it, it was as though it would never come. i am very stuck in this week. its the sort of week where Heath Ledger dies, where Société Générale makes a loss of 7 Billion, there's crisis, amidst absolutely joyful news of Meera coming to visit in april!yay yay yay. though there's annoyance & strife, there's 4 hour phone calls with surprising requests, oh boy. there is definite obsession and over-thinking. there's discovering the pope owns an ipod. the temperature decides to plunge, the markets are unstable, boyfriends are reluctant to kiss their girlfriends! a week where i dont know how i feel, and i am troubled by my lack of seemly righteous moral indignation. a week to draw parallels, and come to the realisation i am going down the same path, i am older yet none the wiser. so where does that make me? of too much chocolates, too much inertia, too much angst and fright, but way, way too many cake jokes but not enough cake! ha.
but it all ends well, there's hot chocolate with Franzi on this lovely sunshine filled cold day, there's Shepherd's Pie at Helen's , and there's the boy with the leather jacket wearing his gorgeous smile.

going home

2007-12-21T18:09:00.000+08:00

its my last day in germany, and the heavens do decide to snow. looks like it just might be a white christmas
after all. every leaf on very branch of every tree and every roof and every twig is covered in frost, with a fine dusting, a mere sprinkling, really, of snow upon it. its snowing, despite the sun shining behind the thick layers of fog. and because everything is white, you, dressed in splashes of colour, are a stark contrast, the most beautiful against the still backdrop. for some reason i think that its too cold, too quiet, too pretty for anyone to actually do anything, it surprises me to see people on the streets, going to class, going for work. time has slowed down, it seems. everything is softer. i am scared because i am leaving tomorrow, and i know that no other season will be as beautiful as this one. oh the satisfaction of entering a warm building from the negative winds that brittle your toes, the joy of a glühwein amidst the smells of spicy lebkuchen, sugary cotton candy, and the best of all: not feeling guilty for skipping classes because its -7 degrees outside. :) i hate to leave all this behind, christmas in germany is too gorgeous. i am jealous of my classmates who will be on the road today, back home with their family, sharing stories about the semester, enjoying their mom's cooking beside an actual fireplace, with presents under an actual tannenbaum, and actual snow falling outside. dont get me wrong, i am very happy to be going home but oh, i just want what i cant have.

"dont think"

2007-12-04T04:22:00.000+08:00

you know that funny tingling feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes you feel slightly queasy and your heart seems to constrict just a bit too much everytime? that, my friend, is desire.
its funny how certain scents, certain songs, certain words will bring back a rush of memories, a wave really. "don't think"

the first snow

2007-11-16T01:46:00.000+08:00

helen was right, it can snow when the sun is shining! anyhoo we are celebrating the first snow with hot pizza :)
when i was walking to class this morning i saw some specks of what i presumed was snow but it could easily have been my imagination. though when i looked around, there was a fine dusting of snow on the bench, a coating on the car, and a lot of snow on the hills!!! :D whee.

the world in shades of grey

2007-11-10T22:46:00.000+08:00

HOW did wikipedia-ing for a quick answer about anything, really, turn into 1.5 hours of facebooking back and forth and photos looking and uploading pictures and reading random articles and watching gilmore girls and god my eyes hurt. i am not impressed by myself.
every morning i wake up and look out of the window and my heart clenches in excitement because the roofs of the neighbouring houses are white and i think it has snowed in the night while i was asleep but then i remember that the houses simply HAVE white roofs and it in fact did NOT snow in the middle of the night. :/ the cold is SO not worth it! the 43 days to sunny singapore just seems so far away, looking at my classes schedule makes me rather depressed. though never been quite as excited for christmas before, have started playing carols on laptop plus drawing up xmas present shopping list. heehee.

i look at her look at him

2007-10-30T00:33:00.000+08:00

"darling just remember that forbidden fruit always LOOKS really damn tasty but almost always has dire consequences."

sonya is wise.

i'm unreachable-

2007-10-27T21:45:00.000+08:00

dont bother leaving a message

how much can you read from one look?

2007-10-24T05:26:00.000+08:00

apparently, enough for me write one about it.
so when you look at me, straight into my eyes-
i look, and i search, and i try to find what it is that you're trying to say, where are all these unspoken words? but you look, you look with an intent purpose, no confusion- you must be trying to say something. or you could be simply looking. i would never know. what they say is true though, i am indeed afraid to look at you with the same intensity, for fear of what i might find, its just rather unnerving. my curiosity overpowers my fear, always. yet i am the first one to look away. i remember the one time i was really frustrated and i asked you, "what?" and you replied, "nothing", which annoyed me even more and so i said "why are you looking at me like that?" and you still say, "nothing". so fine. you expect me read your mind. and fine, you win at being intriguing. though i did forget you, you know. until today- i saw you from the bus, you looked up, you didnt see me, the bus drove on. and that was that, but now i have immortalized you with these words i compose. next time, if there is to be a next time, i will not be the one to look away.

eigentlich will ich nur weinen

2007-10-24T02:15:00.000+08:00

i cannot believe you said that, i cannot believe you made me feel so bad about myself, i cannot believe that one sentence-
you are so hurtful. unknowingly. i cannot believe that you would doubt me in the one area that i was sure of myself. i cannot believe i just accepted it, and then went home and tormented myself for the entire night. i cannot believe i didnt confront you right then and there, make you take it back. i didnt want you to see how shaken i was. you are such a bastard. such an insensitive ASS. god. i am so angry at you and i just want to throw something at you and hurt you.

2007-10-21T06:52:00.001+08:00

it feels good. it feel good to delete you out of my life- first your smses, then your emails.. someday i will throw away your card, maybe. or maybe i will hold on to it to remind me that i made the right choice.

words that paint a thousand pictures

2007-10-17T00:08:00.001+08:00

second chance
I really should take more advantage of living in a gorgeous city like Heidelberg. Today, for the first time ever, i did what i've always wanted to do- alone time on the Neckarwiese. a whole year, and not once have i done that. its ridiculous, really. its mid-october, yet a sunny 25 degrees out- definitely a sign.

rash decisions determine the best moments of your life
I jump on my trusty bike with nothing but my ipod, pen&paper. 10 minutes later, i paint you my picture- the leaves overhead are a mesmerizing green, a delicious contrast to the sky that is an infinite blue. the cute boy sitting on the bench opposite is reading a book. the heavily pregnant lady calls to her 3 dogs, one of them busy sniffing me cautiously. the grass is soft and cool, and it smells surprisingly of promises. the sun on my left, slowly receding beyond the water. me, on my stomach, under my tree, at my spot, in my place, my town. the boy reads and reads, i wonder if he feels my gaze. the canoeists break the surface of the water with their powerful oars- the soothing sound of moving water spur the joggers on-they pass by lovers walking hand in hand- the moment stretches and fuses with other moments, it seems they might never end, & the boy reads and reads, it makes me wonder what he is reading.

england
was amazing. i miss it & all it meant- away from work, stress, responsibility. being with exciting people at exciting places. and if its even possible, my zufall, you make me doubly look forward to december (: its the 2nd day of the new semester, and already i am behind in my work schedule-how did that happen?! though my calender is looking lovely, filled with familiar names lined up for sushi, fondue nights. and party! on friday, Sonya, i will dance to all of my, our, your music (:

and suddenly,
the boy gets up and walks away. he walks, it seems, directly into the setting sun. the sun gets into my eyes, for a blinding moment- or maybe, just maybe, he did turn and smile.

PAR-TAY

2007-09-30T17:40:00.001+08:00

imagine you have been working 8 weeks, at a job that leaves much to be desired, with colleagues who totally drive you up the wall on certain days... you get your first weekend off after a non-stop 7 days stretch and you've just survived friday, your 2nd last day at this workplace. how would you celebrate?
would you decide to drag your best girlfriend to 2 new clubs which serve wonderful strawberry daiquiris and dance the night away till the club kicks you out and you catch the last bus home and collapse on your bed at 4:30am when you woke at 5:30am on that same day? would you get up the next day at 11am, have brunch in town, eat nutella crepes while grooving to an open air concert and then meet a friend whom you've known for one year but have never actually seen him? would you then proceed to hang out the entire night with him and his sister and his best friend and his sisters friends and actually having a good time because they're a lovely bunch of people? and when everyone decides to go home at midnight would you go club-hopping with your flatmate, not feeling the exhaustion because adrenaline is a powerful, powerful drug?
oh, i so would. (:

2007-09-24T21:15:00.000+08:00

its funny, how well you get along with certain people. take my housemate for instance, we've been living together for half a year but its like, we're not close. i mean, we are friends, we COULD hang out (we've nv actually done it before) but its like, we just drift along. then there are people with whom i hang out with- watch movies, have 2 hour conversations over wine and chocolate but still, its like, you can never get close enough, you know what i mean? its really strange. interestingly enough, someone whom i've known for 2 week is a friend. like a friend friend. you know, you do stupid things together and call each other names and make up the lamest jokes no one else understands and laugh over inane stuff. its like a very easy-going relationship even though we dont watch movies together nor talk about world politics. it just feel totally comfortable.

2007-09-21T04:10:00.000+08:00

when was the last time you were gripped by such an intense, unexplainable, feeling of jealousy that...

the sweetest thing

2007-09-10T01:05:00.000+08:00

"you will go on and meet someone else and i'll just be a chapter in your tale, but for me, you were, you are and you always will be, the whole story."

the other side of the story

2020202020202020

2007-09-08T04:15:00.000+08:00

the magical day is over,
and i am one year older.

ok couldnt resist that. rhymes rock. (:
so many people to thank, where do i start? whatever it is, be it

Helen, tying multi-coloured balloons to my door, first thing i saw when i got back from work, wishing me happy birth-minute (5:37pm, in case you were wondering ;) ) and the most amazing presents ever, amongst which is a ticket to a musical in LONDON.

Meera, surprise birthday parcel connoisseur, (your decoy almost worked on me ;) ) ice-kachang!!!!!!!!!!!!!, for offering me the shoes of the world, for offering to commit felony on my behalf, and for wanting to tie me up for 10 years. (promise me you'd do the breaking in when you're here, you wont be recognised anyway and god knows the party in question deserves it.)

Tante Anneli, kick-ass new haircut, ich hab ein Hinterkopf! flat-head days are vorbei, heehee.

Mama & Papa, the once-in-a-lifetime shopping spree where anything is possible.

Xizhen & Lester & Zool & Yun, jodi picoult's newest, earrings holder (how organized am i now, armed with that!), the funniest smses, the sweetest card :D

and 4am smses from Indonesia, and 11pm calls from US, and birthday cards from Australia, and overwhelming amounts of studivz + facebooks msges,,, fine. enough with the bragging, heehee. though 3 parcels in 3 days is enough to make anyone bowled over with adoration, and there's honestly no thing more touching than a mailbox (and email and phone inbox) filled with loving wishes from far away, all from people who want to celebrate you, unhindered by oceans and time zones and holidays in exotic lands and forgetfulness (:

anyhowwww, turning 20 was a blast, thanks for making the leap from teenagehood into (what exactly, i dont know) so much cooler. i mean, what can possibly go wrong when one is armed with new coat/shoes/bag/clothes/haircut and much love? :D

the days are getting shorter, and soon you'd be home

2007-09-03T04:02:00.000+08:00

south germany didnt have much of a summer, so i keep thinking that summer is yet to come, hoping, wishing. then all of a sudden i realise the days are getting shorter, i cant believe its dark at 7:30pm, just a couple of days ago it seems the sun set at 9:30pm. its also undeniably getting colder, rather depressing, despite my pulchritudinous princess coat! (hurrah! for generous 20th. birthday gifts, haha) it seems unbelievable that i've already had one entire month of holidays, august was in itself, never one of my favourite months but now that its september.... all in all, time has been kind. september brings promises of concerts and the richness of gold, coffee with new friends moving to town, the welcoming embrace of letting go, and with that, new sparkles that might lead to a lightness in the step.

2007-08-10T03:52:00.000+08:00

i cant believe you would cry.

i cant believe that despite everything, despite you lying Hope into the coffin and nailing it shut and throwing it into the ocean, and thinking you finally put an end to it. you cry.

you finally(?) cry.

you cry and it makes it worse, it makes the pain tangible, you feel the wetness on your cheeks and how the world resolves into a blur. a proof of your hurt.

and i cant believe that you, of all people.

i want to kill you for still looking back, still wishing.

you still hope.

I ♥ HD

2007-08-09T04:09:00.000+08:00

13 000 internationale Gutachter von Wissenschaftszeitschriften sehen die Universität Heidelberg als Nummer eins in Deutschland, als beste deutsche Universität in der Weltliste (Platz 73) und auf Rang zwölf in Europa.

Braun et al., Journal gatekeepers indicator-based top universities of the world, of Europe and of 29 countries – A pilot study, Scientometrics, 2007, vol. 71, no. 2, pp. 155-178.

Die UB wollte es auch in diesem Jahr wieder wissen: Zusammen mit 76 anderen Hochschulbüchereien hat sie sich dem gestellt, dem freiwilligen Leistungsvergleich des Deutschen Bibliotheksverbandes. Der Vergleich misst und bewertet bundesweit Bibliotheken hinsichtlich ihrer Angebote und Ressourcen, ihrer Nutzung, ihrer Wirtschaftlichkeit sowie ihres Entwicklungspotenzials. UB konnte sich dabei mit Platz fünf erneut in der Spitzengruppe der besten Universitätsbibliotheken im Bund behaupten. Glänzen konnte sie vor allem in den Kategorien Wirtschaftlichkeit und Entwicklungspotenzial – hier gehört sie sogar zu den Top 3 der großen Unibibliotheken. Hinsichtlich der Digitalisierung, wissenschaftlichen Erschließung und virtuellen Präsentation von mittelalterlichen Handschriften und historischen Quellen zählt die UB auch international zu den führenden Büchereien

2007-07-28T02:55:00.000+08:00

at the very beginning its worry,
then it becomes denial, you escape from it, you try to run
next comes panic, pure, sheer fright of vast magnitudes
but when push comes to shove, when you're face to face with the enemy,
you grit your teeth and think, bring it on, bitch.

2007-07-27T03:39:00.001+08:00

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

2007-07-26T01:18:00.000+08:00

Valentino on Rome: "It is about timelessness and continuity, it is about classicism and a sense of beauty that belongs to all periods of history and at the same time none in particular." (:

fever

2007-07-23T00:52:00.001+08:00

J.K.Rowling deserves every last penny of whatever millions of pounds she has earned from writing Harry Potter.
the last harry potter installment was delivered onto my doorstep at 10am yesterday. i started reading it properly at 9pm on till 4am that morning. the next day i got up at 8am to feverishly continue, i couldnt stop, i was mesmerized, gripped, hooked, cast a spell upon. whatever. it was a strange feeling. when i was reading, i wasnt hungry, tired nor ever sleepy. my dad came at 10,(not half as welcome an interlude as it rightfully should be, haha) i drove him to ladenburg, a gorgeous little town just off heidelberg where we strolled around, laid on the grass and had the most amazing lunch in this little restaurant that had a secret cosy little garden at the back where customers dined. (:
after we got back, i finally laid the book to rest at 4pm, whereupon i collapsed into bed, completely emotionally exhausted. i've lost track of the the number of times i cried when reading, i laughed, i panicked, i swore, i was frustrated, i was in pain, i was so scared my eyes flew across the pages, not taking anything in until i'd turned the page and released the breathe that i didnt even know was holding, once i've discovered that harry and his friends have escaped, unscathed. i missed my best friend while i was reading, i knew if she was with me, by my side, she would have understood every single feeling, a harry potter fan as great as i am. many a time i wanted to pick up the phone to call her, if not for the time difference.
a book, a mere book has the outrageous effects of a potent drug on me, and i loved it. i loved the fairy tale ending, i took it all in, the cheesiness, a beautiful gift after all that angst, suffering, pain. i will miss harry potter so much. i've been with harry on every step of the way, it feels like i'm parting with a friend....

running away really isnt easy, aka a bunch of randomness

2007-07-17T02:45:00.000+08:00

on a russian website about the benefits of drinking tea : "Drinking Canned Capitalism (Coke) contradicts the very principles of the open source movement, for it is a closed source product, manufactured by a huge, evil corporation."

"girls are so much more fun than boys"
"boys are good for dodgy stuff though"
"yeahhhhh"

i get stared at, a lot. little girls stare at me in utter amazement and wonder, which i suppose is all right, perhaps they've never seen an asian girl. fine. middle-aged men not only stare at me, but when i walk around them they actually turn just to continue staring at me. middle-aged men are... well, i suppose you know what i mean. so i just ignore it. old men stare at me but that i'm used to, old men are generally very friendly to me, not in a freaky way, so thats alright. but old ladies. my god, they are they worst. they stare at me unflinchingly, unabashedly, and refuse to look away even when i meet their stares head-on. honestly! have they never in their 70 years or so of life seen an asian girl on the bus, on a bike, on the road, wherever?!! and it isnt like i wear outrageous clothes or do stuff in public that they might disapprove of. grrrrrr!

2007-07-12T19:47:00.000+08:00

lately i've noticed that everyone knows more medicine than me. especially friends of mine doing chemistry or mechanical engineering or languages or philosophy, whatever. bleargh! haha

when you hang out with certain people all the time, after a while you forget how amazing these people are. and out of the blue, someday, something happens and what has always been in the back of your mind resurfaces: these people are exciting, interesting, extremely talented, extremely capable, intelligent amazing people. and you're glad you have friends like these (:

me? nerd? seriously.

2007-07-09T04:49:00.000+08:00

sometime ago i had a conversation with a dear friend which went like this:
me: u know the text i just read was seriously interesting, *launches into a lot of complicated terms and med-talk*
him: ....
me: sorry. i think i'm becoming such a nerd
him: who do you think you're trying to kid?!

that conversation was etched into my mind and makes me laugh whenever i think abt it. am i SO un-nerd like?!?! haha. well. i present to you the med-sch nerd scale.
(thanks to facebook, http://www.geocities.com/abhinith/medical_school_nerd_scale.htm, and too much damn inertia to get down to mugging on my part)

1 You have ever said "Netter is god".
(not Netter, but Trepel. and Prometheus. and... i remember saying once that i want to marry Trepel. god!)
2 You can discuss autopsy/ anatomy over a meal
3 You own a 4 color pen
4 -it just isn't enough colors for you
5 You use more than one color to take notes
6 You have use up more than 6 highlighters in the past 6 months
7 you have ever highlighted something YOU wrote
8 you retype handouts given in class
9 you haven't had a date in 3 months
10 you haven't had a date since entering med school
11 you have not been able to remember the normal term for something because you were thinking of the medical term (ie reflux for heartburn)
12 You get more sleep in lecture than at home (its utterly unbelivable how much i sleep in class :/)
13 You know the correct spelling for pruritus
14 - you also know what it means
15 You have ever asked a question in class
16 - The prof. didn't understand the question
17 - you didn't believe the answer the prof. gave
18 - you went to look it up to see if they were right
19 You can't hold a conversation on anything other than med
school
20 You skip class to study
21 You've said you didn't do well on a test on which you beat the mean
22 You spend more than 15 hrs a week on e-mail
23 You have a callous on you finger from writing
24 More than one professor knows you by name
(oh, i wish! i hv close to no personal contact w/ professors. urgh)
25 When you ask a question, a new professor has said "Oh, I've
heard of you"
26 You can name more amino acids than past presidents
(that is so true, its actually quite funny)
27 You use more than 5 acronyms an hour when talking
28 you actually know what PERRLA stands for
29 You know all the steps of the TCA cycle
30 You do not read PTA as parent teachers association
31 You can remember the muscles in the forearm
(i try. but its seriously a lot of muscles. :/)
32 You know the strucures in the urea cycle
33 You know the dermatome distribution
(28-33 did i not tell u that i have not learnt anything?!!)
34 You can't remember what you had for breakfast
(i can, cos i always have the same thing :"> )
35 You can't spell world, much less backwards
36 You've ever been sexually aroused by the breast shadow on an
X ray
(wtf?!?!)
37 You equate "morning stiffness" with Rhematoid Artheritis
38 You actually know normal values for plasma Na 39 -K
(duh!! thats the basics!!! :p)
40 Missing class causes you extreme stress
41 You have seriously asked someone "So how does that make you feel?"
42 You have asked will this be on the exam
43 -Just after the prof. said it wouldn't
44 You identify with Deb on E.R.
45 You have made a medical joke 46 -no one laughed
(nv try a med joke on non-meds. seriously)
47 -You figure they just weren't that far in their studying
48 You wear your stethescope around your neck on the bus
49 - you don't even know which way the thing goes in your ears
( :"> the day will come though. soon.)
50 "SOB" means short of breath to you
51 You have gone to student health with suspicion of a disease you have studied
52 -within 3 days of the lecture
53 You have answered a question in class
54 -asked by the professor
55 -it was a rhetorical question
56 You can quote lines from the movie "Malice"
57 -you believe them
58 You can flip your pen over your thumb
59 - with both hands
60 - you do so throughout class
61 You have corrected a professor in class
62 -the rest of the class didn't understand the lecture to
begin with
63 You know how to calculate specificity
64 -positive predictive value
65 - anion gap
66 -you can't balance your checkbook
67 You don't know what the weather was like for the past week
68 You don't know what the weather is like right now
69 You actually talk in open ended questions
70 DIC isn't a slang term for the penis in your book
71 You think B- is a bad grade
72 you have stressed about a pass/fail class
(DUH! well, considering all my classes are pass/fail classes :/)
73 You study during most of your meals
74 You saw nothing abnormal about the Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder
75 You draw all of the slides not already provided in the handouts
(hey! thats called the art of note-taking! :p)
76 -including the cartoons (humourous type)
77 Anatomy makes you hungry
78 You would even consider saying "Ease back on my finger at
your own pace"
79 You know the size of a RBC
(duh.)
80 - you don't know the size of a football field
(:">)
81 Your eyesight has worsened by 10 pts or more in the last year
82 You have the library hours memorized
(i do have them pasted directly over my table so i can refer to them anytime. most impt opening hours, ever!! celebrated all night the day they announced they'll extend the opening hours and also open on sundays :p)
83 You have your own seat in the library
84 You score more than 95 on the Epidemiology final
85 You own more than one white coat
86 You have debated between giving up sleep or eating in order to find more time to study
87 You started studying for boards more than 2 months in advance
(on and off, but definitely started panicking more than 2 months in advance. :/)
88 You have never received a personal invitation to discuss
your grades with the dean
89 A tie is the only addition necessary to what you normally
wear when you go to see patients
90 You wear scrubs to tests
91 You have made plans to study on a beach during vacation
92 - you actually did
93 You have a designated seat in lecture
94 - You have ever asked someone to move from "your seat"
95 You sleep less than 4 hrs a night
96 -you think that is plenty
97 -you have thought about cutting back
98 You study more than 35 hrs outside of class
(i probably really should start doing that, you know...)
99 -you think you are a slackard
(u seriously hv to see the rest of the faculty before you judge!)

You see neurons in soap suds in your shower.

You feel like vomiting and automatically lay in the rescue position
(who does that?!! seriously, unless theres no toilet/sink nearby, but still! haha)

When drinking, you and your friends think that the increase in your AST/ALT tomorrow is going to be hilarious!

You still do drugs, but at least you know what they do to you. And never fail to inform those you're doing them with.

You blame neurotransmitters for anything going wrong in your life

You can have a conversation about the abscess you drained today while eating cream of broccoli soup without any problem at all. Or for that matter, over any kind of meal.

You have named a dead person…and talked to them about your stresses while finding their lumbar plexus
(this is super-duper ultra true. though i gave up finding a suitable name for her, i did talk to her and rmb asking her to help me through the exam! )

You know that specialties are pre-defined by personality type.

The drama in your life now is worse than it ever was in high school.

When you go out with non-medical students, you're abnormally quiet, because you don't know what to talk about besides med school. (not entirely true, but i do realise that i talk about medicine a damn whole lot, among med students we usually dont talk much abt anything else :"> still can hold a decent conversation w/ non-meds though)

You can name the four people in your class who are the question-asker, the arguer, the bigshot doctor's son/daughter and the stoner/alkie/druggie who's never IN class.
(some people in my class make me wish they might choose to study something else because i seriously fear for their future patients.)

You know countless dirty mnemonics for parts of the body, but couldn't tell anyone what the front-page headline today is. (absolutely correct)

Your life consists of three parts: studying, drinking, and sleeping.
(oh the med students can drink, they can seriously drink amongst other talents of theirs which involve sleeping and studying. a lot a lot. do everything in excess, thats rule no. one)
You refer to the semesters you took organic chemistry as "The Good Old Days."
(when u graduate onto biochemistry, looking back, plain old organic chemistry was so great.)

You consistently tell people that they just don't understand how bad it really is.
(people must be SO sick of hearing me say that :p)

You know that, in theory, you have a family and friends, but you can't place the last time you saw them.
(friends who are not geographically immediately to me, i regret to say that i never!! hv time to go visit them :/) You don't bother dating because the divorce rate is 70% for physicians.
(now thats a good excuse for not getting a date. heehee. though i have turned down dates because of NO TIME- admittedly, the guys werent cute enough ;) each day i come more to terms with the fact that i wont get married and have kids, so its alright.)
You constantly find yourself saying things like "I just have to get to spring break" or "I just have to get through Step 1."
(constantly. constantly being the key word. current mantra: just survive 28th july. just survive 28th july. just survive 28th july.)

You understand the complexities of the USMLE as well as internships, residencies, and fellowships.

You question every day if you should drop out and open a coffee shop, then realize that as soon as you were two semesters into med school, you were too far in debt to be anything but a doctor. (i actually like what i'm studying, but as with everything i'm sure there'll come a day when i question my own sanity)

You're not really sure which professional organizations you're actually a member of, but you never joined the AMA.

People assume you know something when you tell them you're in med school, but you know that you haven't learned anything.
(people, I KNOW NOTHING! seriously. :/ )
You've dissected a penis and can explain the way Viagra works.
(i'll get to the second part. in due time, my friends. in due time. feel free to ask me for advice when that day comes :p)

People constantly ask what med school is like, and all you can think of to say is "It really sucks."

You've never had problems before, but 6 months into med school you're on birth control, an anti-depressant, an anxiolytic and sleep medication.

You can name 3 specialties you're interested in, then immediately rule two of them out because they don't pay well enough to pay off your debt.

Half your class is Asian of some sort. The other half is Jewish. All of us are completely nuts.

You can name at least three people whose parents pushed them into med school, when they really wanted to be a vet/beautician/teacher/etc

A "study group" is you, your syllabus, and your red bull.
(red bull isnt my drug of choice, but close enough)

You assess beverages for amount of caffeine before buying only those with more caffeine than coffee. Then you explain to the cashier how caffeine works for you.
You've done physical exams on your roommate, boyfriend, girlfriend, and any close friends.
(SO. TRUE. sorry, cant help it :/)

You think "AWESOME!" if someone keels over in front of you.
(not awesome like, awesome for that someone, but awesome cos you know... u know!)

You're still excited to see "real patients."
(YES. YES. YES)

You're pretty sure you used to be a normal social person, but now you can completely stop conversations by talking about the time that guy pissed and bled all over you during a code.

You speak only in acronyms and abbreviations; HIV, CMV, USMLE, Dx, Px.
(u will NEVER believe the amt of acronyms we use. its totally crazy)

You meet someone and have to put off a date for months because you're crazy busy.
(sad. but true! still, vastly depends on attractiveness of said person)
Advisors tell you that you have to balance your life with med school, and then are baffled when you ask them how to do it.
You've been told by at least 2 mentors that you really don't want to go into medicine.

You've thought something like "what's another $10,000 in loans?"

You're really frightened by the thought of some of your classmates becoming doctors.

You go a week without sleeping with no problem at all.
Grey's Anatomy, House, Scrubs, Dr. 90210, Nip/Tuck and ER are your favorite shows, but you point out all the wrong things in them all the time.
( if i had the time u can bet on it i'll get equally hooked to the rest of the shows. not advanced enough to point out mistakes yet. though do get hugely excited when they mention a disease i know/a procedure i've seen. :"> )
You have diagnosed yourself or others with at least 5 rare diseases (PML, Kaposi's sarcoma, Measles, Rheumatic Heart Disease, etc.)
(hey, favourite pastime. what can i say? *shrugs*)

People talking to you for longer than 10 minutes start to get a glazed-over look while you wax poetic about kidney function. And you don't even notice.
(the classic. people ask me politely what my presentation is going to be about. the minute i tell them they hastily try to change the topic)

You keep trying to "catch" the kidney on healthy patients, because Bates says you can. Nevermind that every doctor you know says you can't normally.
(bates is awesome. enough said)

nerd or not, the next 3 weeks are going to be hardcore.bring on the mugging!

the incredible lightness of being

2007-07-06T20:43:00.000+08:00

meet me, the proud owner of a FÜHRERSCHEIN!!!!!!! :D i would uncork one of the gazillion bottles of wine i have left over from last weeks party in celebration, if not for the annoying fact that my flu is still making me watery-eyed, stuffy-nosed and blocky-eared. gah.
it has been the bittersweetest journey to getting my license. how the times pass. as i walked down the street today i passed by the optic shop where i got my eyes checked in order to register for the driving school and now, its 4 months later, and its over. 4 months ago. a third of a year-i was still working at the hospital at that time and now my second semester is nearing to an end. i'm seriously going to miss driving lessons. i had the best, funniest, nicest, cutest driving instructor anyone could possibly ever wish for. there's so many stories i could tell about him, but i guess here's not the place. anyhow, heidelberg is such a small town, i'll bump into him again sooner or later. plus i'll see him again when i use my gutschein- a half an hour free drive with the school's porsche. PORSCHE! vrooom vroom! (:

2007-07-05T04:05:00.000+08:00

hey you,
ever since you left, it has been raining in heidelberg non-stop. i've had an extremely emotionally-draining, tumultuous and difficult past couple of weeks. but today, the sun is shining and your flowers are in full-bloom, and its the prettiest sight i've ever seen. thank you for the flowers. i'm pleased to tell you that they're doing very well indeed! (: i think, i hope, the storm may have finally passed. i am better. i am no longer sick and no longer sad, and thats something.

ache

2007-06-30T21:19:00.001+08:00

"Sometimes, even the best of us make rash decisions. bad decisions. Decisions we know we’re going to regret the moment, the minute especially the morning, after. Ok maybe not regret, regret but you know, we put ourselves out there. still, something inside of us decides to do a crazy thing, something we know, will probably turn around and bite us in the ass. Yet we do it anyway."

the only question that remains, is why. why. you desperately fear the answer to that question, yet your overwhelming desire to know will be what will haunt you, torture you, plague and manipulate you and ultimately ruin you.

different things trigger different memories. you run away from these things. you dont sit at that table anymore, you dont listen to that song, you let yourself under no circumstance visit that place again. somethings are harder to run from. what if its a colour that reminds you of him. what if its a time of the day, what if that place is a place that you have to walk past everyday....

the mind doesnt forget.

its remarkable, what the mind conjures up to deceive itself. the sweetest daydreams, cotton-candy spun fairy tales. the mind is unwilling to forget. the mind makes excuses, it consoles, it hides. the heart refuses to let go. it doesnt hurt. but something gnaws at it, nibbles at it, eats it away. you dont feel it, when you're working, sleeping, talking. the minute you are on the tram, in the shower, the instant your mind is not otherwise preoccupied, it comes back to you, it all comes back to you in a flood, in a wave so powerful, so destructive, you realise that it does hurt, much more than you let on.

no more

2007-06-28T22:22:00.000+08:00

Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

never gonna happen.

the line

2007-06-25T22:54:00.001+08:00

people say that there is a fine line. i didnt believe it, because to me, that line didnt exist.

in the light of day, everything, everything is different. without the haze of alcohol to take comfort under, you want to take it back, the line that you've crossed, the line that only became clear, that only made existent when one has actually crossed it. that same line which leads straight into the aybss of awkwardness, apprehension, angst, fear, dread yet undeniable excitement that pools in the pit of your stomach. you are now in the land of the "undefinable". not there, not here. in between, stuck. somewhere.

2007-06-24T23:52:00.000+08:00

~~never gonna happen~~ (:

2007-06-22T22:43:00.003+08:00

never gonna happen.

SPUNK

2007-06-20T06:16:00.000+08:00

2 things happened today that made my life just a little bit more surreal

1) one of my classmates was wearing her bra on the OUTSIDE , ala sophie in "love me if you dare"
2) in the middle of the lecture, some girl shouted "PENIS" loudly enough for 300+ people to be shocked into silence. luckily the lecturer didnt hear what word she said. its not like we were having anat and the lecturer asked "what do you call the male sexual organ?". it was a biochemistry lecture, for god's sake!

i think german girls are seriously up for anything. seriously.

infatuation

2007-06-17T17:30:00.000+08:00

you'd think that after helen locked me out of BOTH my studivz AND my facebook account AND took away my nutella so i wont hit an all-time low of eating it straight out of the jar, that i'd be able to concentrate and get my ass down to work. but no, instead i sit around and obsess over a certain someone/ arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. seriously!

talk about randomness

2007-06-16T04:13:00.000+08:00

-completely out of the blue my flatmate turns to me one evening and asks:
whens your birthday?
me: 6th september
she: oh! on that date when me and my ex-boyfriend first did it
me: *looks at her slightly alarmed, speechless*
she: you know, we did it, we had s--
me: *cuts in* yeah yeah, i know
-pause while i digest the information and think "omg, why is she telling me this"-
me: so whens your birthday?
she: 21st march
me: oh, guess what. i didnt do anything special on that day

during apoptose lecture, receive a note from friend (who was sitting one row and 6 pple away from me, right in front of the professor) with the following written on it:
"the biggest word you've ever heard and this is how it goes: ow.... SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPLIALIDOCIOUS"
me: *thinks: wtf?!!?!?!?!*
him: *grins at me*
me: *grimaces at him*
him: *whips out his cell phone and takes a photo of me* ( did i mention that he was sitting RIGHT in front of the prof, plus his camera had flash)
me: WTF?!?!?!!!?!!?

another lecture, another time, friend sitting next to me:
i love you
me: i hate you
she: i love you
-no words needed-
oh, did i mention that it was completely out of the blue?

and people tell me i'm random!

good friend on MSN:
what's at the joint between the leg and the pelvis
the front part? i fell down from my bike today and it hurts there.
me: thats your hip joint, darling
she: i think i might have injured my uterus
me: *expires from laughter*

OVERHEARD in Heidelberg
on the tram- 15 year old boy speaking to 12 year old boy:
dont call your ex-girlfriend. i mean, who calls their ex-girlfriend?!! thats just handicapped!
me (to self): maybe thats why she broke up with you
(his exact word was "behindert" which means "handicapped", though on hindsight i think he meant to convey "lame")

good friend on MSN:
my girlfriend wants to get sterilised
me: *jaw drops*
him: i want my kinder!!
me: *OMG I CANT BELIEVE I'M HAVING THIS CONVERSATION*

a time to feast

2007-06-16T01:05:00.000+08:00

its the time of the year, where eating 4 peaches in one day is in fact, the appropriate thing to do; where ones diet consists almost exclusively of the finest home-grown strawberries and cherries plucked straight off the trees growing on campus, a colour of wine red, the deepest, most seductive maroon.

i try.

2007-06-06T05:46:00.001+08:00

i be the best i can

2007-05-24T03:34:00.000+08:00

i had my clinic day today. its the 3rd time i've been to that doctor. i realised that he is in fact, as close to perfect as a person could possibly get. he's a great doctor. he doesnt judge his patients, he takes time for every single one of them, even those whom he tells me have a psychological problem and visit him all the time for no apparent reason. he does a heart & lung and pulse check for every single patient, no matter what they're there for. he is patient, he is friendly, he is kind. he takes time to tell me the patient's history, he explains his work, he answers my questions, he shows an interest in me and askes about me, he actually sits down and reads my report and corrects my grammar mistakes! (i'm telling you, NO doctor does that.) he is super fit- around 50 years old and jogs 10km under 40 mintues. tall man and handsome too. he has 3 hyper-efficient staff who helps him out. he has a nice big clinic with sonography apparatus. he has a lovely wife who cooks well who also studied medicine but is a housewife. he has 4 great kids, 2 boys and 2 girls, poliet, self-assured, sweet, intelligent, multi-talented children. the entire family are fit and healthy, they go on bike tours together. they sit down together at the dining table and pray and sing a song before eating together. everyone eats, everyone enjoys it, there is a steady flow of conversation, there is no raised voices. he sings with his wife in his church. his house is big and beautiful, 2 cars in the garage, pretty garden. he is perfect! his life is perfect! he scares the hell out of me. no one is allowed to be this perfect. his family is like the flenders family!!!

Plan B

2007-05-16T06:15:00.000+08:00

if it rains we'll just all squeeze into my WG, drink wine & play strip poker

2007-04-29T03:17:00.001+08:00

if this is how you choose to leave me, let me let you

of physics&physicists

2007-04-27T04:16:00.000+08:00

i find physics a really boring subject and therefore by relation have always thought that physicists are rather dull people. but ever since i started my physics course i must say that the physics professors are the BEST professors i've met since i started uni, the most friendly, the most approachable, the most humorous. seriously. they go out of their way to help us understand stuff and come up with the most amazingly interesting examples/experiments to make us like the subject. a physics worksheet is like no other-instead of bare facts and explanations, the prof writes cute little comments all over the place. and even the exam questions they come up with are funny. in comparision to chemistry (i only attended 2 lectures the entire semester), i'm proud to say that i attended almost all the physics ones. i still dislike physics, but physicists rock! (:

do you feel the heat?

2007-04-26T22:08:00.001+08:00

warning: the first part of this post is a load of random crap-

i want to talk about german boys. instead of paying attention to how phosphoglycerinaldehyddehydrogenase converts glyerinaldehyde3phosphate to godknowswhat in the lecture today, i was sterotyping german boys. more precisely, german boys in 2. semester med sch. so here i am, proud to present my findings ;) , these boys are 1) TALL 2) usually pretty good looking 3) annoyingly smart 4) make a hell lot of noise during the lectures (ie immature, but then again, refer to point 3, maybe they know everything already. grrrrrrrr.) 5) look extremely good in slacks and poloshirts
anyhow. to sum up, annoyingly good looking and annoyingly smart. damn!personally i feel like its a classic case of "water water everywhere but not a drop to drink". i finally realised that the reason why i'm in med sch is for the amazingly good looking guys who look incredible in scrubs, out of scrubs, in white coats, shirtless on the sonography examination table, shirtless on the neckarwiese, and just abt in anything, everywhere else and of course, out of these most trivial pieces of material we call "clothes". med sch's all abt the "it's not how smart you are that counts, it's how good you can fake how smart you are that counts." and more importantly, how good you look while being good at faking how smart you are. (;

forgive me, its the heat
(and of course the stress)

other than mugging my head off (ha!), my days and hours are neatly divided into dancing classes, driving classes, parties, pre-party parties, praktikums, sonography classes, first-aid classes, spring concerts, seminars, psychology courses, biochemie lectures, cellbiology praktikas, histology labs, lazing ard by the neckar and in between all of that, LOADS and LOADS of icecream ((((((:

i actually wanted to blog about my trip to Belgium. haha. during the easter holidays i went to brussels, brugge and liege. "Brussels – unlike Paris – doesn't set out to make you love it; rather, it sits back and allows you to do the wooing. The secret is to take time getting under its skin and slowly embracing its uniquely muddled character. After all, it's the capital of Flanders, Belgium and Europe, a francophone enclave in the Flemish north of the country."
Brussels. what can i say. Policemen in raybans&poloshirts, whizzing around on bikes, parks in the middle of business districts, cute train conductors in bell-boy caps, urinals against a church (yes, you can piss against the church and yes, people do that), gorgeous crispy melty waffles, sounds of melodious french, indiscernible dutch, jazz music at busstations, HQ of the european commission, stretchlimo parked next to a church, yummy shoes in vintage shops, beer beer beer all 450 types of them(made from sewer water, apparently), chocolate chocolate chocolate (the only food item i consumed throughout the trip, 3 days straight), Tintin!, sunday morning flea markets (where i got gorgeous earrings), writing postcards on benches in the Royal Park, sitting on the ground right smack in the middle of the Grote Markt watching the gazillion tourists and the few rare "Brusseleirs" slink by.

(customised lisence plates sold right out of a van parked beside the official building where lisence plates are made!!)
the strange,the weird, the exciting, the cosmopolitan, the charming, the beautiful, the cool, the colourful Brussels. never before have i been so pleasantly surprised by a city i once thought was dull. (:

too cute

2007-04-01T04:57:00.000+08:00

wait, what can be more important than the perfect man?
-duh, the perfect shoes of course

when you're happy you dont need to eat

2007-03-26T03:56:00.000+08:00

Emergency Medicine! Awesome!

spring

2007-03-04T23:26:00.000+08:00

bring out the skirts, my friends, spring has offically arrived in Heidelberg. i am having a hard time staying in my pants.
and so, after the storm, the temperature soars to an amazing 17degrees. absolutely incredible. all i want to do is forlick on the grass, take long walks along the river and sit under trees reading nick hornby's "how to be good" which is an awesome book, by the way.
we are now into march, i have officially "graduated" from anatomy, no more 3 hour long dissection classes, wheeee! have entered semi-holiday state, with lessons only 3 times per week. the parents have come and gone, leaving behind my summer clothes plus loads of goodies. spent the weekend in stuttgart, it did good.
have snagged cute alex as my chem lab partner, he does make those 4 long hours a bit more bearable. thankfully he doesnt notice that i've taken to staring at him when bored, which is basically most of the time.

welcome to the club

2007-02-17T05:45:00.000+08:00

Lin- ZNS...我对你绝望了
Cui- ich liebe ZNS
Theo- Scheiss ZNS!! 2 Wochen Neuroanatomie fuer das, was unser ganzes Leben steuert....!
Hadi- ZNS is my baby
Me- ZNS is such a bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

我晕啊！！！！！！！　我们都变态了。

even my bike is getting some

2007-01-17T01:31:00.000+08:00

what i did today:

today i saw my bike canoodling with a hot pink bike. i remember putting it against the other wall, i have no idea how it moved itself. hmmmmm. couldnt stop laughing for a good minute and a half.
today i finished watching all the seasons of sex&thecity. whee!
today lin and i discussed sucide. whats the easiest way, the quickest, the most painless. we also talked about making use of people. how you feel terribly guilty but still you do it because the feeling of control and power is well, you know.
today in dissection class we took the brain out. i've lost all appetite. i cannot even look at food anymore. 4 months into dissection class and now this. basket.

malditos deberes!

2007-01-14T00:18:00.000+08:00

Friday night: all dressed up and nowhere to go. in haze of disappointment and frustration of being cancelled on locked myself out of the apartment. roomie went home for the weekend, only be back on monday. hysteria ensures. thank god for internet+helpful neighbour. travel one hour to Mosbach to get key from roomie. travel another hour back. night concludes with cold nuggets from Mcdonalds and exhaustion.
Saturday night: spend entire day doing spanish. finally gave up due to overwhelming hatred for grammar. highly annoyed. decide to sew back button that dropped from coat since christmas. cant find button at first because kept it somewhere "safe". irritation increases. listen to party music and sew button, feeling hatred for the world.
chat on MSN, things look up, dinnering+drinking+dancing with lovely Helen. phonecall, invitation to chocolate fondue party. turned it down, need a night out in town more than a cosy night at home, even with chocolate.
POST-PARTY edit: 1 fantastic Thai restaurant, 1 pub, 1 cocktail bar, 1 funky salsa club and 1 lacklustre party later, i have come to the following conclusions: 1) i dont like MaiTais nor Amarettos. 2) germans really do not know good music. bahhhh. i have not danced enough!!!

my love, the years have ripened

2006-12-22T07:32:00.000+08:00

somehow, christmas wishes that arent fufilled turn into new year's resolutions.twisted, i know.dont ask me how.yet again, we are a week away from a new year, a new beginning.will 2007 be different?i tell myself, this is the year.the year that things are going to happen.big things.i feel the winds of change.haha.

looking back, this year has been absolutely kick-ass.heres to a fantabulous '07. (:

pictures!

2006-12-11T03:48:00.000+08:00

Aachen christmas market

sonya and me with reindeer hairbands! woohoo :D

christmas is coming!! (:(:

all i want for christmas

2006-12-01T06:27:00.000+08:00

i'm so annoyed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
but what to do, what to do? i miss NJ days. things were so much simpler, and everything was funnier. i need funnier days.
the christmas market has started in Heidelberg! the entire city is super gorgeous and smells so goood!!!! waffles and crepes and lebkuchen and gluehwein. and ice-skating in front of the church and carousels. i love carousels. its the lights, the fact that the world spins around you and how everything is blur. but i feel so happy going on carousels. haha.

`mesmeric

2006-11-25T19:20:00.000+08:00

so what ifs its a saturday, a bright and beautiful saturday and i am holed up at home with no appointments, no dates, no nothing? listening to chopin in pjs and munching on leibniz zoo keks is equally satisfying. haha. if no one calls within 2 hours i will heave my lazy butt off this chair and go exploring, myself. (:
it was a good week. passed another test! went for 2 concerts and one spanish movie. i want to make banana pancakes! but my flatmate has guests and they're all hanging out in the kitchen... oh well.

la dolce vita

2006-11-15T05:25:00.000+08:00

life is good when one raids the fridge for a snack and comes across glorious cake which belongs to very generous flatmate whose very talented friend can bake immensely well. Mmmmm. life is sweet, after all.

the things we learn in anatomy.....

2006-11-10T04:47:00.000+08:00

The cremasteric reflex is a reflex in human males.

This reflex is elicited by lightly stroking the superior and medial part of the thigh in a downward direction. The normal response is a contraction of the cremaster muscle that pulls up the scrotum and testis on the side stroked.

One of the favourite questions by my professor is to explain the cremasteric reflex. I am so gonna nail this question. haha. My next test is on the 20st Nov, an oral cum practical exam where i have to show stuff from the corpse and explain them. What fun, eh?

blog on, my friend, blog on.

2006-11-08T01:37:00.000+08:00

when i actually do sit down in front of the computer and open up an blog entry, all the words just fly out of my head. URGH. yeah well. i'm just going to blog abt random stuff happening in my life. will start with dissection lessons. take today for example. i was trying to find the nerve and artery pudendus. every session i'm given something to unearth, its like digging for treasure. anyhow. what im trying to say that there's a great sense of satisfaction when one finally, finally, finally finds what one is looking for, because it sure aint easy. there's so much fat everywhere plus we have to be careful not to cut off anything. on the very first day of dissection my groupmate cut off the saphena magus (a vein on your leg thats close to the skin) and our tutor wasnt pleased. haha. and yesterday we started "Anatomie am Lebenden" where we will learn how to diagnose patients, feel for pulse, draw blood, take blood pressure etc etc. fun! haha. yeah though med sch is really tough- the amount of stuff we have to know in a short span of time and plus everything is in german or latin or greek and half the time i have no idea what everyone else is talking about. but other than that, i really like it. i never thought that i would like it so much. there's so much to memorise and mug but. i cant really lay my finger on why i like it, but i just do. anyhow.
for christmas hols i'm going to Italy! ITALY! haha. Rome, Naples and Venice. am super excited. haha.
for my elective i'm taking spanish. spanish sounds so cool to listen to. when my teacher speaks super fast its like i'm just lost in the sounds and cant find my way out again, but in a good way. haha.
the weather is decreasing drastically. its really cold now. i can finally wear my long parkas!!! :D heehee.this morning there was SO much fog it was like i was trapped in a cloud. no kidding. i couldnt see beyond 10meters, i swear. but it was totally cool. :D
today i went to pick up the package from the post office which i sent to myself before i left singapore. everyone shld send themself packages. its totally fun haha. i actually forgot some of the things i sent cos it was so long ago. i packed "uniquely singapore" postcards in there and seeing them again made me miss Singapore so much. those sights on the postcards, the places, the food- they are home. i was once there, part of all that. -nostalgic-

alcohol is my friend

2006-11-06T01:41:00.000+08:00

no more moping. clear out your fridge, look at fear in the eye. kick depression. step over rejections. open the window. breathe.
german parties. love them or hate them. on the bad side you have all the smoke that makes your eyes tear, you feel suffocated, the bad and expensive drinks, the terrible trance/techno music. on the other hand, guys who walk past you and half smile and you smile back and he knows you're totally checking him out and you give him the hottest look you can muster and he winks and then he's gone, engulfed by the endless storm of bodies. eye contact flirtation rocks, haha. :D
anyhow. i passed my first german test! celebrated it up real german style, haha. drinking on an empty stomach is a bad, bad idea. but being half-drunk is totally fun. incredibly fun. not drunk when you cant walk straight or have to puke or wake up with a hangover but semidrunk when you wake up you can remember what happened the night before and you have a gigantic stupid grin plastered to your face. xizzy came to visit me over the weekend. we watched grey's anatomy endlessly. she taught me how to cook! we sat at the same cafe for 4 hours with augustine malcolm and defan just talking abt everything there is to talk about between hot chocolate and kaffee and milkshakes and (of course, its never too early,) beer! partying 2 nights in a row is tiring. slept at 5.30am last night. went to what seemed like an endless stream of parties and pubs and clubs, whatever.
the altstadt (old town) at night is magnificant. you own the cobbled streets, the still church, the river flowing silently beside you. you own the moon, the lights, you own the night. and you can laugh and dance and jump because all this is yours, for one night, for one moment and there's no one else but you and her and him and that is all you could possibly want.
today we went for a picnic along the neckar armed with champagne (!) and ipod connected to speakers and lemonade and candy and clementines and chips and gossip and getting to know each other better. :)

2006-10-29T04:13:00.000+08:00

i hate me. i hate being me. do i mean that? i dont know. i hate me for hating me. does everyone have such days? when it hurts just thinking, just breathing, just being. this inertia of not able to do anything. not thinking, not breathing, not even being. not existing. because no one knows anyway. no one's here. you're all alone all alone all alone so very alone and desperate and no one's here and no one will come and save you from this depth of misery you're still here, still cold, still lonely the minutes go by you hate time to its eternity it cant pass quickly enough and its passing too quickly. and youre still here waiting not being not thinking not feeling not trying not willing not saving yourself.

2006-10-20T03:10:00.001+08:00

as what nic wrote to me in a letter:" there's nothing we cant handle with faith and grit. What lies behind us and in front of us, is nothing compared to whats within us. "
i feel lonely and shattered and tired.

we ask ourselves, who are we to be talented, intelligent, popular, gorgeous?
but, who are we not to be?

here's to determination and will and strength and motivation and courage and happiness and 5 hours of mugging a day.

2006-10-18T23:58:00.000+08:00

i am stressed! STRESSED, i tell you and its only the 3rd day of school. bloody ass. med sch is going to be the toughest of the whole lot man.
- i hv to memorize all the bones in the body by tomorrow.
there are 206 bones in the body.
-everything is in LATIN. or GREEK.
- i cant follow during lectures. the bloody prof is bloody fast i hv no bloody idea what he is talking about. just in one lecture he finished all the bones, the joints and ALSO the muscles. can you believe that?
- i have a chem test on friday, which i havent learnt for.
-i cant get onto the bloody athena website (our fac's online learning platform).
- we hv to cut up corpses tomorrow and im not sure how i will handle it.
- angie and sonya are coming to visit me! :D i am SO happy though on the other hand i want their stay to be perfect but that means a lot of things to buy, to plan etcetc and i have no bloody time for that!!!!!! i hv no food inthe fridge, no bed for them, no nothing.

sigh.

beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder

2006-08-28T10:37:00.000+08:00

the weekend was marvellous. healthy dose of shopping including tons of Dior goodies and beach wraparound halter dress and bright yellow(!) undies- it was a crisis. (Stop laughing, ANGELA TRESE LEE)

then, WOMAD! barefoot dancing, yummy cheeseburger with grass stains (oops). my first half-smoked cigg. reggae, jazz, T-bone (: rock, swing. awfully cute band boys (Radio Mundial!) mixed with drunk guy boogeying up to us and wriggling his butt in our faces. and oh, lets not forget the moon! the moon!

all in all, it was a pretty fantastic night. :D

and then, i had to drag my weary ass to work today. urgh. feel totally drained. just called cynthia to wish her a safe flight and all the best. am gonna miss her, as with everybody else that i will be parting with.

oh well. on the bright side, its my last week at work, already! (:

on a random note: everybody go watch Episode 50 of Sex&theCity. listen out for cheryl lynn's "got to be real". its fantastic! woot!

2006-08-21T08:57:00.000+08:00

I've found the winning receipe for a great weekend:
start out with,
reaffirmation of friendship over hot soup
then go on to:
floorball with 3 friends
graduation from ice-skating lessons
black pepper crab!
new stash of clothes
end off with,
a large dose of John Corbett, topless
(:

Sehnsucht

2006-08-14T15:44:00.000+08:00

"In order to survey himself in all his finery, he lit a candle by the mirror and watched as he metaporphosed into a glorious bird, a magnificent insect. The mirror was mottled, slightly cloudy, speckled with age. He felt far away, lifted to another plane. Held within this frame, he could have been a photograph, or a painting, a character caught in a storybook. Distant, tinged with mystery, warm with the romance of it all, he felt a sudden sharp longing, a craving for an imagined world, for something he'd never known but felt deep within himself."
-Kiran Desai
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

this is it.

2006-08-08T10:12:00.000+08:00

Zulassungsbescheid für das Wintersemester 2006/2007
Studiengang:Medizin (Staatsexamen, Hauptfach), 1, Fachsemester

Sehr geehrte Frau Wang,
1. Sie werden hiermit zum Studiengang: Medizin (Staatsexamen, Hauptfach) 1. Fachsemester
ohne Ablegung einer Pruefung in Deutsch
als ordentlicher Student an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München zugelassen.

eat my shorts

2006-07-24T11:47:00.000+08:00

Robot: So what are you?
Bart: I'm human.
Robot: Ahhh. So you have feelings!
Bart: I said I'm human, not a girl!

:D

time warp

2006-07-14T16:01:00.000+08:00

stuck in the office on a friday afternoon with nothing to do (while still having to act busy) is like being stuck in a time warp.
its now 3:54pm
damn, its STILL 3:54pm
it has been 3:54pm for twenty years, for the love of god!
URGH.
cant believe i have to keep a bloody journal about my stint at the company. a journal, i tell you! considering now i do the same repetitive things every single day or otherwise spend my time surfing the net; yeah i can so totally see how my journal would be a fantastic read.

work

2006-07-13T15:57:00.000+08:00

my boss has this knack for turning up at my desk at most ill-conceived moments. while i'm updating my resume, while i'm on MSN, while i'm writing a personal email. never does she come when i'm slogging away on those blasted purchase orders. still, i have only myself to blame for the crick in my neck from turning ard suddenly at short intervals, hands poised upon alt+F4. the pulse at my neck jumps whenever i sense movement behind me. just my luck that i end up at a seat in a corner where everyone can see me but i cant see anyone. one day i'm going to get a heart attack from people sneaking up on me. damn those sound-absorbing carpets!!
but, there are peaks. lunch, is wie immer, a highlight. sneaking out for coffee breaks with cynthia. my nice big desk; to organise in any way i want. hot german interns. :D being in a generally german environment. learning new things. a sense of purpose, efficiency, accomplishment. all these i've missed for the past couple of months. oh well. 6.5 weeks more till i leave this "god-forsaken hell-hole" (that was on a particularly bad day).

2006-04-14T11:26:00.000+08:00

if only i were able to translate music that i hear, into words. how beautiful will that be?