August

5 years later, if somebody asks you what is the most memorable event in August 2008, what would be your answer? Stupendous Olympic in Beijing, or massive weddings among the Chinese communities, or minor reduction of fuel's price, or chaotic election in Permatang Paut? Well, will there be anyone say the upcoming merdeka celebration?

A picture that i took in Pulau Sapi, Kota Kinabalu

This year, the feeling of anticipation isn't as intense as last year, or the years before that. I wonder why. As usual, parade is a must throughout the whole country, and the tv stations will be live-broadcasting it. "i can't remember when was the last time i purposely woke up early in the morning and sat in front of tv to watch the parade"

I am pretty confident to say that this year the citizens are not really enthusiastic for the merdeka celebration. Take a look at Puduraya, where i just came from, it was so crowded and.... "i suddenly feel like singing : how am i suppose to breath in no air, air air.." Anyway, when i was about to get a bus ticket back to ipoh, i saw this notice 'TIKET KE SEMUA DESTINASI PADA 29-8-08 TELAH HABIS DIJUAL' in front of all the major bus companies. Omg, what am i going to do? Lucky me, i managed to get one ticket which would be departing 1 hour later. Glad that my friends cancelled the lunch, if not i would not be able to get a ticket back in time.

See, people are rushing back to hometown, to celebrate Merdeka or to enjoy the holidays with the family? I really wonder which. This year, no minister accusing Chinese for not being patriotic. I really wonder why.

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

Weird Rules

We need rules to keep everything in order, but lots of people like to say ‘rules are meant to be broken’, seriously don’t understand why these people like to be so rebellious.

However if rules are too unreasonable, then we have to be smart and fight against it. The 7 rules below actually printed out nicely and pasted at the reception counter in a clinic, take a look at them and you definitely will be very shocked.

1, Provide a clear medical history

2, Maximum 2 people are allowed in the consultation room

3, Only 1 person can talk at one time

4, Patients can only ask questions after the doctor has finished writing

5, Normally there will be 2 groups of medicine being prescribed, and patients must finish one of them. The doctor doesn’t need to explain the prescribed medicine to the patients.

6, If you know what kind of illness you have, and you know how to diagnose and treat it, you don’t have to be here.

7, Please bring along your IC or birth certificate everytime you come here.

I almost can’t believe that this kind of doctor actually existed, and guess what, he/she has lots of clients everyday seeking for the consultation. This scenario happened in Singapore and all these rules written in Chinese, I hope i didn’t make any translational error.

This reminds me of behavioral sciences that I learnt in IMU. Well, it’s true that BS teach us how to be a good doctor, but even without BS, I believe normal people will find the rules above quite ridiculous.

Paternalism, the saddest tragedy that could happen in medicine…

esse est percipi

This is George Berkeley, an English philosopher who believed 'to be is to be perceived'. To further illustrate this motto of him, let's read the story below first.

"One day when Berkeley and his friend were strolling down a garden, the friend accidentally kicked a rock on the path. Then the friend asked: "does this rock ever exist?" Berkeley thought for a while and answered: "the rock only exists when you feel the pain."

.....so, was he trying to say that the rock never exist on the earth if his friend never kicked it? I know this is such a superficial question for a wise man to answer. To make it easier to understand, let's put it into a medical setting:

Let's say Mr. A has pancreatic cancer, no major changes on his body except change of bowel habits. Then he comes to a hospital, does x-ray, MRI, CAT, serum albumin, alkaline phosphatase...you name it. Cannot detect any sign of cancer at all.

Of course Mr. A would not know that he got cancer, as he couldn't perceive any symptoms from the cancer. For doctors, they would not know as well because they couldn't perceive anything from the tests results. Up to this point, Berkeley's quote still works. Let's change the story a bit, says the doctor suddenly feels like doing a biopsy and surprisingly finds out the cancer at its beginning stage. This time Mr. A knows he has cancer based on doctor's evaluation, not what he feels. So he will go back and tells his family that "i have cancer because my doctor told me so", not "i have cancer because i'm not feeling well".

Thus if i tell you a lie, and you perceive it as truth, then something will somehow exists, can i still say "to be is to be perceived"? Duno what am i writing, need some guidance please...

Happy Birthday, Dajie

Dysfunctional Family's Reunion

Last week kevin and caryn came to ipoh to visit me. The purpose of this visit was nothing but farewell, but before we jump to nostalgic moment, we did have a lot of great time in ipoh. Guess what's the first place they wanted to go right after they reached ipoh? Haha, it's big tree. I don't know why they just deeply in love with the food there, they can eat double of the portion that i can take in, terror betul... We didn't go anywhere that night because we wanted to watch the opening ceremony of olympic games. Really amazed with china's ability to launch such a grand opening, at the same time, three of us also tried to learn some geography when each country was parading.

Next day, we watched sex and the city movie at my house. OMG, i just couldn't agree with caryn that the show was nice. We also watched 21, quite dazzled with the movie, haha! At night, i brought them to Indulgence, they loved the place but not the price. The cake was fantastic till caryn asked me to shut up because my voice was interrupting her to enjoy the cake, ish... After the dinner, we spent the night in cyber cafe playing dota, nice nice...

they just love sleeping at my house

5 hours ago, finally i had to say goodbye to them, especially caryn. She is leaving to ireland next week and i really have no idea when will i be meeting her again. Tears were just rolling down before i could stepped down her car. The feeling was just unbearable...

Unforgettable moment, looking at it just make me feel more emo...when can we do this again?

caryn, take care ya!

I, I will remember you
And all of the things that we've gone through
There is so much I can say
But words get in the way so
We're not together
I will remember you
~I Will Remember You, Ryan Cabrera~

Going to cinema with family

The last movie that i watched with my family was Ratatouille, which happened last year. Basically we go to cinema together once a year. This year, i managed to drag my family to watch The Mummy 3. Trust me, it was not an easy job. After all those whining, begging, lying....yesterday we made it to TGV ipoh.

Actually i wanted to watch Red Cliff with my family, as somebody abandoned me and watched the movie without me, instead they asked me to watch X-files with them, which was a no-no movie of the year. Anyway, after all the good reviews that i heard from red cliff, the desire to watch it was getting overwhelming. Thus the next day after i came back from kl, i checked the showtime on net and surprisingly that there was only 1 session per day. And the timing was so off. No choice but have to get over with the fact that i can never ever watch the movie in cinema...sob sob...

So in compensation, we watched The Mummy. My siblings were fine with the movie, but my parents said the movie was too fake. Duh...the purpose of going to cinema is to enjoy all these fake graphical and audio stimulation. Never mind, as long as i watched the movie, i'm contented, haha!

What am i doing?

I am doing nothing, constructive or productive. Everyday i watch movie, play dota or sim city, read story book....and this routine going round and round till i'm feeling a sense of worthlessness. Oh no, that's dangerous coz most of the people who commit suicide will have this feeling prior to the tragedy.

Haha, don't worry, i'm still sane. Just need to search for a new purpose of life for this 6 months. Purpose of life, a very deep topic that i came through during my selective last year. No direct answer for this, but more or less it is a realization of ourselves. I have a book entitled "The Purpose Driven Life" written by Rick Warren. My aunt gave me this book 3 years ago when i went to the church with her. Apparently it is a very famous book, and the title caught my attention, so i started reading it. But before i could finish half of the book, i gave up. It is not that the book is bad, it's just the agnostic mindset of mine can't take in the content. For a true believer, i strongly recommend this book, but i guess most of the believers already read the book.

So, my purpose of life for this 6 months still very vague. Just hope that something(good) happens and gives me some enlightenment.

p/s: I was checking my mailbox justnow and found something interesting. It was about date of birth and trees' personalities. Surprisingly i'm an Elm tree with noble mind, so true, haha! Click the image for enlargement and better view.