Winter Sonata (2009)

I'm talking about the anime, people, not the 2002 original Korean drama which greatly influenced the popularity of K-dramas Asia-wide.

Surprisingly, the anime is in full Korean language with Japanese subtitles. Even the OP and ED were in Korean although the opening "Cheoeumbuteo Jigeumkkaji" has a Japanese version titled, "Saisho kara Ima made". There is also a Chinese version called "Cong Kai Shi Dao Xian Zai". All of which are equally beautiful, although I'd say the Chinese one is the best, and the Japanese one is the worst (!).

Anyway, the first episode doesn't tell you much about the story. I'm not even sure if this is the beginning or the middle of the story (you know how some stories start from the middle or the end then flashbacks to the beginning). There was also very little conversation save for some monologues that indicates lots of back story. But I do have to say this, despite the lack of explanations, you can kind of feel a good story coming along. At least I did. Even though this is a romance anime, I might stick around for it.

I just got the OST of the original drama. But heck, this anime may open a path for me to loving Korean dramas!

Day 58 - Musculoskeletal Biology = MURDER

Damn it. I've been cramming all weekend up to the last minute but I still couldn't remember a single thing. So, I just went in there and let the spotter test screw me like a... uh... screw. It was definitely nowhere near Biochem's easiness. I was actually tempted to black unanswered for pretty much every question.

Agh! Screw this! I'm gonna go play with my sword now!

*Swing* *Crash!* *Swing* *Bonk!* *Swing* *Kaboom!*

*Cough cough*

Well, hopefully I can get tickets to tomorrow night's Halloween Ball. Now, how am I gonna go into town without looking like a madman?

Day 54 - UCD-RCSI Sports Day

Ah yes, it's that time of the year where we get to kick RCSI butt! Uhh... I mean, face off against our esteemed rivals, RCSI in a friendly non-competitive sports event.

To tell you the truth, I forgot it was today (25th October) until Nabila contacted me. I immediately rushed to the Sports Centre, but unfortunately, the men's basketball which I wanted to watch the most was already over. According to the audience, it was a pretty one-sided match though, with the UCD team completely overpowering the RCSI team.

The other sports I missed were badminton, table tennis and futsal. We had 4 losses and 1 victory in badminton, and the reverse for table tennis. We won 2 futsal matches and lost the other. We also lost netball. I heard RCSI imported their entire team from Galway. That ain't fair! But we still beat them twice!

When I arrived, the women's basketball had just begun. It was a surprisingly gripping match, with the RCSI team beating us at first until our sports pro Germaine entered the court. Then it was a pretty even match, with Germaine's speed against the RCSI captain's height. It was pretty obvious that these two were the main powerhouses. Sadly, Germaine can't really shoot, but she did an insanely good job stealing passes and catching loose balls as well as dodging defenders.

It ended with our victory with a 10-point lead after the RCSI team panicked in the last quarter of the game.

After that were two volleyball matches. The men's competition was really tense, especially in the 2nd round when both teams had 24 scores. RCSI won in the end. Our women's team was just a rag-tag group we pulled together at the last minute so we got OWNED hard. 5-15. Unbelievable!

As you can see, both universities won an equal amount of games, BUT each competition had a different weightage. Badminton and table tennis canceled each other out. Futsal and netball also canceled each other out, so it was basketball and volleyball that made all the difference. Basketball was worth 100 points per victory, but volleyball was only worth 80. So, in the end, UCD won overall! AGAIN!!

YEAH!! CONGRATS UCD!!!

Ah, the next day is Bank Holiday, so the athletes can get a good rest before class starts on Tuesday. Well, some actually. We UCDents have another test coming up soon, so Bank Holiday probably wasn't relieving for them either.

Right, goofed off yesterday and spent today watching sports. I'll have to study for Bank Holiday!

Day 53 - Lazy Day 2

I have a 3 day weekend this week. Saturday to Monday. Monday is Ireland's Bank Holiday. I have little idea why our lectures have to be canceled just because all the banks are closed but ah well, more time to study.

That being said, I woke up pretty late today. Nearly 12pm. Gah! Blame the guy who woke me up at 3am. Just because I forgot to turn off my laptop and hence left my MSN on, doesn't mean you can come and send me a noisy message! Joking. But I don't even know who sent me the message or what it was. I only wanted to sleep and just shut my computer down.

Anyway, back on track, I spent the whole day goofing off today. I did some parts of my patient report, but no studying. I just spent the whole day in my room playing my DS until I finished Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Excellent piece of work, though I would say that they should have just used the Chain of Memories system for this since it kinda hurts your hands during intense battles.

I'm not gonna turn this into a game review post, so I'll just say that Tetsuya Nomura is a GENIUS for having planned every part of the story since Kingdom Hearts 1 in year 2002. 7 years later, he still has so many places where he can dish out plot twists from intentional loopholes. Seriously, I am amazed how KH: 358/2 Days linked so well with the Deep Dive movie from KH1 and the beginning of KH2. Lots of questions behind Organisation XIII have been explained, Deep Dive explained, etc etc

Okay. Full stop on the gaming.

I still have 2 more holidays to go. I definitely have to start studying tomorrow or risk failing my next test. It's still True False MCQ but luck only gets me so far.

Got it memorised?

Day 52 - Results Are Out

I was really tempted to skip lectures in the morning. They were boring lectures, and I just spent last night checking through my Biochem notes to spot possible mistakes. And considering how BORING the Friday morning classes were, I swore I would have skipped it if I wasn't so guilty-conscious. But it's a good thing I didn't. Dr. Philips Newsholme announced that our results were out already! But we would only receive them in the evening. Way to give us pressure.

Then, we had another round of First Aid Practicals from 2 to 6pm. Today we practiced CPR, and covered some facts about hypoxia and stroke. Whoever used the mannequin before me used too much soap to clean the mouth and now I have this minor disgusting taste in the back of my throat!

Oh, and we were introduced to the FAST song. Search for it on Youtube. Depending on your character, you may find the video annoying or funny. I found it somewhere between those two. But it's pretty informative. And after listening to that, you'll never forget how to check for strokes.

F ace
A rms
S peech
T ime to call the ambulance

Got it memorised?

And when I got home, it was the moment I'd been waiting/dreading. Time to check my results. But before that, Bleach and Conan were updated so let's read those first.

...
...
...

NOW I check my results. The class mean was 56.8%. That doesn't sound very good. In fact, that sounds TERRIBLE!! It's way too close to the failing mark!

Oh, I found out from Nabila that Xinyi got 70 and Nabila got 77. Okay... even the studious ones didn't get 80... Aww man! Pressure building. Throat choking. BUT, I MUST KNOW!!!

87.500

Eh? *Rubs eyes*

09108416 87.500

*Rubs harder with glass cleaner*

09108416 ---------------------------------87.500

OH YES!!!!!!!!! I got highest in class!!!!! Along with 2 other people!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!

...But I still got 5 questions wrong. Gotta go find out what I got wrong now. *Checks textbook*

Day 50 and 51 - Double Update

Yeah, I haven't updated in 2 days. Been busy.

Day 50 saw me fighting for my life to grab the 20% of my Molecular Basis of Life module. Sure, 20 is isn't much, but since our passing mark is 40%, at the very least, I want to secure a pass.

My group members were supposed to discuss our group project in the morning, but apparently, everybody skipped class to study. ARGH! We only have until November 12, people! And the project consists of 20% of our CSI module!

In the afternoon, I left campus at about 4pm, around 3 hours before the exam. Why? Because the exam hall is held outside in the Blackrock campus and not the Belfield campus. Thanks to that. I was able to be lazy and catch an infrequent straight to the campus, unlike most of my peers who had to walk 30 minutes down the main road with their heavy textbooks XD.

I arrived at about 5.30pm. Since the exam hall wasn't open, I headed to their library to study more.

At 7pm, the exam commenced. I got my game on and rushed through every question. We only had 60 minutes to answer 60 true/false questions that sounded something like "Black ink is blacker than fresh tar. True or false?"

My god, it was difficult! I could actually count the answers I was sure of with two hands. The rest were either guesses or intuitions. It's not a good idea considering the negative marking system, but it was better than nothing. Correct answers award you 1 mark. Wrong answers are penalised 0.5 marks. Or you can surrender by blackening "Unanswered", where you are neither awarded nor penalised.

Being the egoistical bastard who wasn't going to let hours of studying go to waste by surrendering, I put either True or False for every question, knowing full well that I would probably suffer more than those who were humble enough to admit defeat.

After the test, I went with Yan Shun and Jin Yit to the Student Bar for a post-exam drink. A pint of Guinness and a can of apple cider was what I had that night.

Woo! I finally had a good night's sleep last night. Although my bed still sucks.

----

Day 51

Jargon-spamming classes in the morning. Dr S. Giles is apparently taking over some of our Basic Tissue and Embryology lectures.

In the afternoon, I did some studying for next week's Musculoskeletal Biology. ARGH! There's so much I don't remember!

In the evening, I headed out with Daniel for Yan Shun's birthday party! The party Jean and Rachel had been planning through Facebook. I believe it's the first time we had fine dining since coming to Ireland.

Lots of chattinng and photosnapping went on, especially between the Singaporeans who were the majority of the attendees. Valerie, Xinyi, Nabila and Daniel were the only non-Singaporeans that night.

After that, I went for a pub session with Daniel. Yes, I went again. Yes, I know I will be killed when I get home or you come over, mom. Anyway, he wanted a drink tonight, but he didn't want to go alone, so I offered to accompany him.

Had a pint and returned home for another good night's sleep. Yay for alcohol! Boo for bad taste of beer. Seriously, if only the beers weren't the cheapest liquor there, I'd be buying something else!

Day 49 - History of Anime and Manga

Ugh. The whole morning has been study study study. We had a trial test for our Musculoskeletal Biology today in preperation for next week's test. Since I'd been swamped by this week's Biochem test, I was totally unprepared for this. I got 6 out of 10 questions right. Before you start saying "That's not too bad", remember negative marking. That means I only got 40% which is a fail.

But I didn't care much. After all, I had Biochem to worry about tomorrow. But then, the test made me realise that there were so many things in Musculoskeletal Biology. That means no partying after Biochem! Gotta get home and study AT ONCE!! Which is pretty much what I did today and have been doing for the past week.

Well, 5pm struck and I rushed to my Japanese class, not wanting to miss the week-long anticipated lesson on the history of anime and manga. I won't bore the non-otakus with them and the otakus should already know the history anyway, SO... moving on...

We had 3 exchange students from Japan visiting us today. But it's pretty strange 2 of them spoke fluent English and somewhat mediocre Japanese. Hmm... nervous maybe?

Then we had a quiz about Japan. Damn, I knew nothing, but the only thing I've ever cared about Japan was anime, manga, video games, cosplay etc. Y'know, otaku stuff. So, ah well, not my fault I didn't know that roadside vending machines in Japan sold alcohol.

Finally, I came back and turned on my computer. MSN flicked on and out came 3 messages. WHAT!!!!??? My account has been spamming my contacts!? Aww man! Way to ruin a good day, man! Just when I was in a mood to study harder! Damn all you virus programmers out there!

Day 46 - Bray

The night before, I received a message from Nabila informing me that the trip to Bray was not canceled and we would be leaving by the 9.30am bus and have lunch atop the hill.

So, I got up hell early to make lunch. Egg sandwich and some lemon chicken for extra, just in case someone did not bring food. Then I ran all the way to the bus stop when I thought I was late. I turned out to be wrong. They were later. Today, our own PMCSA Vice President II joined us for the hike. So, we had a professional cameraman with us!

Before we began the hike, we took a stroll along the beach near the hill. The hill lined the sea and was only separated by DART (a type of train) tracks. Apparently, white sandy beaches aren't popular in that area. Although the higher parts of the beach were composed of fine brown sand, the parts closer to the sea were filled with pebbles, like the ones you put in your fish tank.

Our cameraman, I mean, vice president took lots of photos of us. One of which included a photo of me floating slightly above the ground. Strange... I don't remember myself hopping on the beach. My psychic powers must be developing!

The hike was a little bit difficult but nothing really hard. And it wasn't tiring either. The only reason I was breathing hard was because some really steep or slippery parts required lots of caution. A group of senior citizens were hiking the area too. They said something about wanting to cover 15 kilometres today. So... that would be climbing from one side of the hill to another and then rounding back to where they started?

Yeah, Bray Head is a pretty small hill. If it weren't for all the long paths we had to take since some paths were just too risky to take without a hiking stick, I'd say it was only about as high as Strawberry Hill in Penang. It took us an hour to walk up but only 10 minutes to head down. But then we lost our way since we took a different route down and it was filled with forks. I recited the poem "The Road Not Taken" a total of 6 times.

On top of the hill, there was a cross that was supposed to be some landmark. But it was covered with graffiti at the bottom. What kinda landmark is that!? Still, we got a good view of Southern Dublin City. We then hiked up a stony cliff and had our little picnic there. They liked my lemon chicken! Yay! But it was already cold and there was not enough sauce... Ah well...

Finally we headed back to town after 3 hours of walking. Screw the misleading forks in the road. Can you believe that the roads that seemed to lead you down the hill actually makes you walk a big round. We were initially on one side of a HUGE fenced field, and by the time we got down the hill, we were on the other side.

Bought groceries, came home, study, sleep. Settled.

Day 43 - Patient Visit

Man, the morning sucked. I woke up with a completely paralysed right elbow that HURT when I tried to move it. I spent a whole 15 minutes gathering enough strength to lift that arm and myself up from bed. Good thing today was CAL, which means I can be late with little to no consequences.

Immediately after CAL, Sinead met up with me and we both headed off to our assigned patient's home (Refer to Day 36). I felt REALLY REALLY bad today when I had to rely on her completely to find our way to the patient's house.

Due to confidentiality issues, I can only say that the patient and his wife were very nice people. He was a good man whom anyone could spend a long time chatting with. He directed more of his topics at Sinead than me since they were both Irish and could click more. He did show some interest in Malaysia, commenting that his friends had told him it was a nice place and how he would love to visit the place once his condition improves.

Okay, no more info about it! We followed the routine. Active history, past history, medications, allergies, social history, family history. Sinead did most of the talking. I just sat there and let them awe at my ability to write without looking. I don't know why they find it so amazing. Of course, I did throw some of my own questions which Sinead missed.

And then I went shopping for groceries. Little did I know that Nattanael was also in town buying more or less the same groceries. We now have 4 loafs of bread and 16 eggs. Great XD!

I'll have to skip today's archery club (again) since I still can't use much of my right elbow. I hope I didn't damage a nerve or anything. Hah! I see Musculoskeletal Biology is starting to scare me!

Day 42 - Japanese Class Test

Yep, that marks the start of my weekly exam schedule. Good thing the easiest was the first, but it doesn't really help when every week after this will "feature" an ungodly difficult subject.

Oh, have I not said it here?

I have exams/tests every week starting this week until Christmas break. No kidding. The exams/tests comprise of 10-30% of our final grade depending on the subject.

Today's was a mere 10% and was my best subject. Japanese. I pity the poor souls who seemed to be dying during that test.

I did hate the first question of the exam. Who is your favourite celebrity? Do you know how difficult/annoying it is to write those English/Chinese names in katakana!? Searching for Japanese names in my head, I found it was nearly blank. Panic perhaps? But anyway, I don't really follow Japanese celebrities either! So I just whacked the first name I could think of.　倖田来未。 Koda Kumi. Why was that the first? Don't know. Might be because I was listening to 1000 no Kotoba before the test.

Anyway, they also announced some coffee session with Japanese students. We were to meet up with Japanese students and converse with them for 20 minutes. 10 minutes in English and 10 minutes in Japanese. I took up the offer immediately of course. I need the practice before the oral exam on Week 11.

Oh, and next week they'll be having a presentation on...
wait for it......
wait for it.............
wait for it...........................
.
..
...
....
.....
......
.....
....
...
..
.

THE HISTORY OF ANIME AND MANGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And they're gonna have some games. Better do my research on traditional Japanese games. I hope it's not Shiritori or Dajare. That would KILL US ALL!!!

Sigh... Whatever... Gotta prepare for next week's exams... Ugh.......

Day 38 - PMCSA-UCD Election Day

The Penang Medical College Student Association held its Election Day tonight for the new committee members. Since the 3rd years are going back (and totally dying from weekly exams), fresh new talents were needed to fill in their shoes.

Our elections are held by means of majority voting. One person will nominated a contestant and another person will second that same contestant. The contestant has the right to withdraw from the election though. Lots of whom did, which made the old committee really irritated. Everyone will then vote for their man/woman. Should a tie occur, the old committee president will cast his vote to break the tie. Basically, he will be the only one whom the loser can hate.

First off was the President post. According to AJ, the president has the final say in anything regardless of the opinions of the rest of the committee. Isn't that tyranny? The post can only be held by a 2nd year Med student who will be going back to Malaysia. Only 2 people contested this year. Our former Vice-President II and another 2nd year. The Vice President II won, but I voted for the other guy because he had more experience overall, having been the president and organiser of many more societies and events before.

That same guy won the Vice-President I vote by default though. Every other contestant pulled out. Boo!

For Vice President II, I nominated Daniel Ha to take up the post. Sadly, he lost it to Timothy Caesar thanks to Tim's One Malaysia speech. I have to admit he owned there.

Then, it came to the Secretary and Vice Secretary votings. I actually wanted to contest for Vice-Sec, but they decided to contest both at the same time at the last minute. Highest vote becomes Secretary, 2nd highest is Vice. So... too bad for me. Priya is now Secretary and Nabila is Vice-Sec. I'll contest next year then.

After that were the IT Coordinator, Events Coordinator, Male and Female Sports Rep, and finally 1st and 2nd Med Class Rep. I nominated/seconded Daniel a couple of times, but he lost all of them. I don't understand why. He has good ties with the seniors... Oh well, there's always next year for him.

Oh, more than 10 people pulled out when they were nominated. AJ hates the phrase "pulling out" and "withdraw" with a passion now. I find it annoying too. And the fact that less than 20 out of the 60 1st meds attended was annoying too. I hope my juniors next year won't be such chickens.

Day 37 - Dimmer Than Usual

Hmm... Lots of people were absent today. Ah, right. They're all outside doing some MedDay charity thing. I didn't sign up because I was lazy and I didn't want to miss lectures. Ironic? But I'd rather work my brain than my body.

Sigh............................. They gave us more slides to draw today. Ah well, we have 22 to do in all. We now have 11. Ugh... I haven't even done 1. At least the ones today are a lot easier than before. I can probably finish those over the weekends. I'll still hate the colouring though. Oh, we have to draw skin this week. Now, the PMR leavers should all know that the skin is divided into epidermis, dermis and adipose layers. Here's something new. The epidermis is split into 5 more layers and the dermis has 2. If I listed the names, you'd all die.

I found some 1 month old beans in my fridge today! I thought my housemates already used them up, but turns out they shoved it deep behind all the other stuff. It hasn't been opened yet and it was stored in the fridge, so I guess it's still edible. If it isn't, well, too late anyway. I ate them all. No sense wasting a euro. Which is RM5 by the way. That ain't cheap!

Oh, and if you're wondering about the post title. It's about my light bulb. It seems dimmer than last night. I'd better buy a spare just in case it blows out in the middle of the night like Xinyi's did. Poor girl must have been so scared. Bet she bribed her housemates so they wouldn't leak out that she screamed. I am a bad friend.

Day 36 - CSI Seminar

Ho boy! This is it, folks! Today's the day I finally receive the patient I will be assigned to visit and practice taking history. Due to confidentiality issues, I am not to divulge further information about the patient.

Basically, I have to visit the patient anytime within the next 3 weeks, talk to the patient and write a report based on what I learned from the patient. Very simple, but this is what I will be doing for the next 50 years from now on. Oh, and since we're all novices, we were assigned in pairs. My partner is an Irish girl with a strong Irish accent. I kinda feel bad that I shove the job of calling up the patient to her. But firstly, she's a local. The patient might feel more secure talking to a local. Secondly, my credit's out. And I want to change service providers so I'm not gonna top up until this weekend. Still, best apologise the next time I see her.

Well, that concludes my day. Sigh... anime night cancelled tomorrow.

Oh and related to that, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles has finally ended. With its 233rd chapter out after 6 years, the Journey of the Wings has finally come to an end. When they said the 232nd chapter was the finale, I was almost disappointed because if that was the ending, it was really hanging. What the heck are they gonna do now? And what was the price Shaoran and Watanuki paid? Etc etc.

But then I heard that there was gonna be 1 more chapter and I heaved a sigh of relief. Now, this was satisfying. And they finally let us know what their (Shaoran and Sakura) true names were. Tsubasa Chronicles... haha... nice last twist. To escape from that dimension of nothingness, the main characters of both stories (Tsubasa Chronicles and xxxHolic) paid a price each. And I'd say this last price was truly magnificent. One paid "Remain in a dimension" and the other paid "Continue moving through dimensions". Guess who paid each price?

Ah... Great job, CLAMP. Great job.

Day 35 - R4 Trouble

My first message is to tell any potential DS buyers or R4 (the card that allows you to download games into) buyers to NEVER buy R4 Deluxe. In fact, don't buy R4 at all. Go for M3. It's better. I am speaking from personal experience of course.

I turned on my DS today to find an error message. I immediately plugged the MicroSD card into my computer to check for problems. To my absolute horror, everything inside had been corrupted. How the hell did that happen!? Which means ALL my save files are GONE!! The World Ends With You, Taiko, Advance Wars, Meteos, everything that I or anyone have played and saved! CRAP!!!

To add to my problems, I also learned that Deluxe is not some new R4 brand, but a clone R4. I also learned that no original R4s are being produced anymore. All they do now is provide firmware updates. And with that, I spent hours searching for the correct firmware. I first tried R4 III because I remembered something like that in my R4 before it broke. But it was wrong. I tried for hours various ways of reinstalling the firmware but nothing worked.

Finally, at 8pm last night, I discovered that R4 Deluxe has its own firmware. Another hour flew by when I discovered that the stupid chinese version firmware isn't downloadable and the english version is not compatible. SHIT!! So I spent ANOTHER hour looking for chinese firmware online.

Considering how everyone HATES R4 Deluxe and I didn't know how sucky it was until recently, it took me one hell of a long time before I finally found a working firmware. The good thing was, this version is newer than my previous one and many bugs were fixed. So, yay! Suddenly, lots of games that were unplayable for god knows why on my R4 before it broke became playable.

I guess things worked out okay then? NOT!!! If the firmware requires constant updates and the stupid official site does not update, how the damn am I supposed to play newer games!? Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days just came out. Good thing it works, but I had to spend some time patching due to ROM problems. Sigh..... I hope you don't have these problems, Hime-sama.

Day 33 - I Miss Home

I've been really lax this past month. I just pass each day attending class, sightseeing, attending club activities, reading online comics, watching anime, playing my DS, visiting online forums, chatting through MSN and maybe do some chores when I feel like it. See a pattern? Maybe the kid doing psychology can easily read them, if he even still reads this blog.

So here's my deduction and explanation of my recent self. I'm homesick. Every action I've taken so far except attending lectures is a reenactment of my life from December 2008 to August 2009. The following is a comparison between my life now and then.

Sightseeing in Dublin <=> Sightseeing in Penang
Attending club activities <=> Working at Coral/Hanging out with friends
Online comics, anime, DS <=> Online comics, anime, DS, PS2
Online forums and chatting <=> Online forums and chatting
Chores in apartment in Dublin <=> Chores back home in Penang

See? Everything I've done up to now is loosely based on what I do back home in Penang. Furthermore, my desperate search for otakus in Dublin is so they can be the "Kazuki group" in Dublin. In other words, I'm trying to recreate my Penang life here. Whenever someone asked me how life was in Dublin, I could always reply "Same as Malaysia. Just colder." It's because I've done so many things to keep them the same. And it was all done subconsciously. I was never aware of the motives behind my daily activities until just moments ago.

Having resolved to not look back after leaving, my subconscious sought another way to express my homesickness. I thought it was strange I did not even feel like saying "I miss home" like a lot of my friends did. I thought it was because my resolve was still strong, but I learned that there are only three reasons you don't feel homesick:

1. Your home sucked
2. You're a heartless person who easily forgets your roots
3. You never left home

And mine is a variation of 3. What's to miss if nothing's different? My parents are online often enough to make sure that I see them almost everyday. And I have N5S forums for Pikaby. And I unconsciously erase anything that is different.

But now that I am consciously aware, the homesickness is taking over very fast.

Why am I suddenly aware? Because my mind just discovered a difference that it cannot erase. Studying. I have not touched a teaching material in 9 months. This change is significant and impossible to wipe away from my awareness unless I don't study, but I can't do that now, can I?

Studying has also made me realise something else. The time till the end of this term feels both very short and very long. Looking at my daily life, I feel that summer will come very fast. But when I look at my syllabus, I feel like just this semester will go on for years. So right now, my sense of time is completely messed up. Every time I look at my watch, I get a almost no reaction to the passing of time. Fast? Slow? I don't know anymore.

One last thing about my studies. I'm in trouble. And it's not because I haven't studied. Just by looking at what I have to study, I can already feel that it's impossible for me to repeat the feats I performed for all my previous exams. Even at my best, scoring an 'A' for any of the subjects sounds terribly difficult. In fact, I feel immensely pressured even thinking about it. Frankly, I really regret picking this subject.

But I'm not backing out yet. I should be able to complete this course, just not with flying colours. If you know me well enough, you should know that I'm a perfectionist in exams. I'm happy if I see 'A's, but even when I get an 'A', I still pick on myself for having wrong answers. The only reason I hate this subject now is because I see no chance for me to get an 'A' in anything. That's all.

Don't worry. I will graduate as a doctor. But be prepared to see results only slightly better than my AS exams.

Oh, I haven't said a thing about what I did today. Actually, thinking was all I did today. I was too panicked to do anything until a few minutes before this post. And thinking things out helped me calm down.

Day 32 - Cough!

Hard to say whether the coughing got better or not. It sometimes stops altogether, and then starts acting up again. But I am SO not visiting the campus nurse and pay 10 euros just to listen to her tell me "Drink more water."

Really, I think it's just because of the cold, dry weather here. That's why my throat is irritated but I feel fine. I doubt medicine is necessary.

I spent the afternoon with the GameSoc. I don't know why I keep going. I'm the only Asian guy there and the members don't talk to me a lot because half the time, I don't understand them. Their slang and their unusually deep voices. But at least I get to play some board games, card games etc there.

Returning home, I remembered an assignment that I had to complete by mid-November. DO NOT LAUGH!! What we have to do is observe 22 slides of body tissue given to us online, use textbooks to label them and their components. And then we have to write a short essay on the functional histology of each tissue. The problem is, this isn't your SPM or A-level microscopy sessions, where your teachers guide your every move. This is an entirely self-learning procedure. So we're going in blind, praying that what we've learned is enough.

And for me, it is not. I am dying here. I don't know how to start. I don't know what to draw. I've seen the examples, but they're so good, it just gives you pressure that you need THAT kind of standard. And there are no essays for us to refer to in those examples.

Oh, and the past examples were all done by Malaysian students. Screw you, Irish peeps! We Malaysians are better... in general.

Sigh.......... After this semester, I hope I NEVER have to draw again!

Day 31 - Cough! Cough! Cough!

The title pretty much sums up my whole morning.

We had a dissection practical this week. This time, we were to observe the pectoral region and the axilla, and find the pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, serratimus dorsi, and several other muscles. We were to also differentiate the various branches of the brachial plexus from a prospected specimen. If the words don't make any sense to you, that's fine. I only understand it a little more than y'all do anyway.

At night, I attended the anime movie night since I was better and didn't need anymore extra sleep. They showed Fullmetal Alchemist, Gurren Lagann, S-Cry-ed, Blood+, Death Note and Elfen Lied. They also ordered pizza for each of us. Only 3 euros for a personal 4-slice cheese pizza. They got all the pizza 1/2 priced.

After the show, I went back and got some more rest.

P.S. The coughing never stopped.

Day 30 - SLEEEEEEEEP!!

Scratch Day 29, THIS was the most unfair morning. I woke up every 2 hours or so finding myself in uncomfortable, almost bone-dislocatable positions. Not only that, I keep hurting putting pressure on the swollen finger I hurt yesterday. So, when I woke up, boy was I hell drowsy.

But I had Hospital Visit today. One of the few classes I cannot miss because this lets us view up close what real doctors do. Sure, a lot of them we've seen before when we visited the doctors ourselves (except those healthy freaks who've never seen a doctor), but they don't provide explanations of why they take each procedure.

Yes, I was almost dozing off throughout the entire 2 hours. I swear my consciousness was floating above my head. And I also discovered that my consciousness comprises of 70% of my body mass.

We were lectured on history-taking today. Pretty simple and straightforward. But we probably can't make any use of it until we at least complete our 1st term.

Finally, they let us off. I rushed back to campus, bought lunch, ate half of it and went to sleep. I had intended to wake up at 6pm so I could go get groceries, but I woke at 8. Crap... So, I went jogging around campus for some fresh air. And I forgot my chain of keys. Damn... Good thing Yuan Shi was in.

Then I went back in, ate the remainder of my lunch for dinner (it was a baguette so no worries about it getting cold), took some medication and then slept again. Oh, I turned on the heater tonight too. Hopefully, that'll make me feel better. I am SO not liking the weather here anymore!