It Begins With You

Last Saturday, I had to force myself to wake up in the early morning because I signed up for an event somewhere in KL city centre. I wrote down my name in the registration list because most of my friends were enthusiastically persuading me to join few weeks ago. However after the remarkable Diwali Night on Friday night, all of my friends chose to rest at home on the next day instead of attending the event.

Since I already registered myself and felt bad to pull out, I have no choice but to drag myself to attend that event. We gathered in front of school at 9am, and the bus pulled off 15 minutes later. It brought us to a very descent place inside KL city centre, called Saloma. It is situated next to the famous club, Zouk and Renaissance Hotel. Saloma is a theatre as well as a restaurant, the whole compound is surrounded by trees and small gardens. Beside its main hall, there is another building functioned as Tourist Centre, which provides information and sells souvenirs.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the friendly organizing committees. After registration, we were given a document folder and served with light breakfast like bread, croissants, kuih-muih and plain water. Few minutes later, other school representatives (UPM and UM) also came in. To my astonishment, all of them wore proper formal attire and looked smart. On the other hand, we as IMU representatives wore casual clothes with jeans and khakis. After checking with Mei Ann, actually there wasn’t any dress code for this event. Phew….

Around 10am, the event officially started. This event was organized by MSD, Malaysia AIDS Society, MaSHM and participated by medical students from IMU, UPM and UM. It Begins With You, was the title of this event, emceed by Phat Fabes and Ben from FLY FM. As expected, the event began with unavoidable boring speech from the VIPs, followed by a video presentation compiled by a medical officer from Infectious Unit in Hospital Sungai Buloh. The highlight of the video was about discrimination of HIV patients, not solely from the public, but mainly from the medical staffs. That was something really hit on my head when the doctor talked about his experience in handling HIV patient. He said if you see a medical staff wearing a full, aerospace-like costume in the middle of hospital, as if preparing for a biological warfare, don’t worry, it just shows that there is a HIV patient nearby. This is not an exaggeration, it did happened and hurt a lot of patients’ brittle heart. All of the medical staffs know how HIV can be transmitted, yet they are reacting in such an ignorant attitude. Maybe we can blame the public for not understanding the mechanism of HIV spreading, but for medical staffs, there shouldn’t be any excuse. After the doctor’s presentation, 2 HIV+ patients came up to the stage and shared their stories. You wouldn’t believe how hard for them to cope with this illness, accusation and maintenance of normal life, when you hear the stories. People around them abandoned them, unable to get desired job, struggling hard just to find a purpose to stay alive. But thank god, they are living happily now and currently helping other HIV+ patients to set up a support network. Before the stories ended, they gave us a take home message: how come HIV+ people can be so positive while HIV- people can be so negative? Think….

The climax of the event came when the screen started showing entries of Photography Competition. I really need to brush up my photographing skill after watching so many nice shot. Besides, all contestants are like poet, giving impressive caption for each photo. Lucky Aaron Yeoh, who got third place in the competition, grabbed away RM500 on the day. But he was not as lucky as the UPM dude, who got first place as well as Most Thought Provoking Award, grabbed away RM2500 on the spot. What I could do was just envy him… Sigh!

For me, the best part of this event was the lunch, it was a buffet and very delicious. The Ball Committee even considering to have our last ball there. After the lunch, I entered the bus happily with a full stomach and back to Bukit Jalil.

However it was a sad day for Ching Li because she lost her camera on that day, if anyone find it please inform her as soon as possible because she really sayang the camera.

The stage in Saloma Hall

Contestants are taking their token of appreciation

Aaron Yeoh won third place in Photography Competition

IMU representatives

The One

I try to resist myself from entering cinema recently, because my mind keeps on reminding me that there are approximately 10Gbs of movie in my laptop are waiting for me to watch. I know I should watch them as soon as possible so that I can have more free memory space, but I don’t know why I just don’t have the heart to finish all of them. Thus, I end up watching series and continue keeping them.

Most of the movies that I downloaded are old movies, which I didn’t get the chance to watch when it was first released, or some weird movies that posted on the China website that I found it interesting just by its title. For instance, a French movie called ‘La Vie Rose’, it is a half musical half drama movie, very unique and inspiring. And another award winning China movie entitled ‘Fury of Glory’ 光荣的愤怒，sounds very interesting but after watching it, I still don’t really get what the whole movie is all about. Maybe it’s just not my thing.

Then here it comes, my favorite movie that I will not hesitate to keep it inside my external hard disc, which is the trilogy of Matrix. Yes, the old movies that released at 1999(Matrix), early 2002 (Reloaded) and end of 2002 (Revolution) respectively. It is so embarrassed to tell people that I never watch Matrix before, as they were considered as pioneer of action movie with ridiculous special effects. I still remember I watch the first one right after Repro exam, and I was so amazed and overwhelmed by the movie. I like the concept, the effects, the actors, script… and almost everything. Speaking of the script, it was so philosophical that I have to pause the movie for awhile so that I can understand what are they trying to imply. I wish I could be as creative as the movie directors…

When we talk about Matrix(of course the movie, not mathematic), our attention will automatically focus around the main character, which is Neo aka Mr. Anderson aka ‘The One’. He is the super hero who saves the world and wins the beauty’s heart, even though when he is not in the scene, we would wander when will he appear again. In another word, we can say that The One is somebody that people look up to, centre of attention, or people that we care of. Back to the reality, we also recognized somebody as The One in our lives, maybe politician, community leader, celebrity, big shot or even your lover. They are the one who grab your attention unintentionally, make you to follow their order when they request, and people that you are looking for when you attend any function in the society.

What I am trying to say is, while you are gazing widely onto The One of yours, do you notice that actually there are so many insignificant people around you that you never lay your eyes on them? Do you know how they feel? What do you feel if you never get any attention from anyone? How’s their life? What do they feel when they meet The One? What do they do to balance up this psychological torment? What would they do if they desperately hunger for attention?

I don’t have the answer for all the questions above, but Aaron and I are trying to grasp the essence of this concept so that we can film our next video. I don’t know how it will turn out, but hopefully we can figure it out soon, like next week, oh gosh….

By the way, feel free to share with me who is The One in your life.

Confusing Time

I have been confused by time recently

What is time, who is time, who has time?

One week ago, I was longing for a brand new week

Calculating time, indulging time, expecting time

But,

One week has gone, and I only notice it by the end of Saturday

This feeling, bother me a lot of times

Why is it so?

I need time to think for that question

By the time I have the answer, it is already Sunday

So what did I do in the middle of that time?

Nothing, practically nothing

Therefore, STOP WASTING TIME, DUDE!

Not birthday party but…. end-of-PBL party

Last year when I first entered this school, the lecturers introduced a learning system so called self-directed-non-dependant PBL session for all of us. I was thrilled at the beginning, but after attended several sessions, I found it’s just so-so. However my perception towards PBL changed when I come to this semester, when Dr. Ling becomes our facilitator.

Dr. Ling is a very special facilitator, he likes to emphasize on group interaction. Therefore on the first day, he had a very short ice-breaker with us before we started PBL. He asked us to write down 3 statements (1 false and 2 true) about ourselves on a paper. After everyone finished writing, we read them out and our colleagues needed to guess which one was the wrong statement. Of course there were lots of jokes and embarrassing moments in that ice-breaker, though it merely took 15 minutes to finish it. He also liked to give free stuff, the first session he gave ‘virus’ pen and the second sessions he gave notepad. On the third session, we didn’t play any games but Dr. Ling taught us universal love language, which apparently not useful for me now. Ask my PBL-mates if you wanna know, hehe!

On 4th session, all of us purposely went to PBL room 15 minutes earlier just in case Dr. Ling would have some fun activities for us. Guess what, this time he brought 10 different colors of balloons when he entered the room. After picking our favorite color, he taught us how to shape it into a rabbit. So we bent, stretched and squeezed the balloon till we satisfied with our production. It was really fun!

Rabbits of PBL

Thus on the last session, we planned to have a simple party to show our appreciation to Dr. Ling. We bought a cake from Berry’s, a card and 10 magic candles. Because of this party, all of us skipped the BS lecture without hesitation. During the party, Dr. Ling talked about morals and conscience that every doctor should have. He also shared his experience in teaching school and hospitals. In conclusion, we had fun as well as memorable take home message.

Thank you, Dr. Ling!