Missing

It has been a while since I've dropped by. LOL. Sorry for the disappearance. I had to take the USMLE Step 1. Somehow with some miracle... managed to pass and was accepted into Thomas Jefferson University. So yeah.. Leaving malaysia behind for a few years and going to the states. :P

Of course i'll continue blogging.. :P Just hopefully get to do it all the time.

Checking In

It's been a really long time since I've posted anything.. Been busy with studying and feeling stressed. And got to apologize to hazelnut cause i didnt even know she was leaving to germany again until she texted me on the way to the airport. :'(



btw.. yeah thats the form IMU gave to me today.. Even before taking the USMLE step 1 or confirming that I'm going to TJU, i have to fill in accomodation forms and be on the waiting list. I really got to buck up and study and make sure i do well for both my end of semester exams and my step 1. :/ ( in short = study hard, do well in exams, be doctor) HAHA

Seth

Things I Like #6:

HowStuffWorks (howstuffworks.com)

During my Facebook fast the past few days I discovered this site, and I've been spending more time on it than even Facebook =.= but this site is awesome!! So many interesting topics divided into categories like adventure, culture, entertainment, science, tech...

The last article I read was "10 Scientific Laws and Theories You Really Should Know".

The list includes the Big Bang, law of gravitation, Newton's laws of motion, Archimedes' buoyancy thing, (yay, two out of ten we learned in school! haha) but what really caught my eye was Kepler's laws of planetary motion - super interesting, plus I finally know who Kepler was cos a friend used to attend a school named after him - and Einstein's general relativity! The idea that space and time can be manipulated by gravity is just... whoosh.

Again, really good articles and videos and quizzes here. Highly rated and recommended ;)

Things I Like #5:

Neutral colours. See:

No matter what the picture is of, the colours make it look pretty! Kind of like one art project in school where we had to paint a picture with different shades of just one colour. I'm sure if we were pro enough the picture would've turned out super nice just like these ones here but sadly we're not. When I was done, mine looked like a muddy blue puddle...

A little low on highs

Hola, it's september! One more month and I'll be back in Freiburg. So much more work to do but so little time... As usual I regret now that I didn't start working earlier - now it's gonna be like back to spm days, full-speed chugging ahead! Maybe coffee will become my best friend from today onwards.

Here's a pretty picture of Freiburg to liven up things a bit!

I must say that being back in Malaysia hasn't turned out to be what I expected. My family is fine, they've all been manja-ing me since I came back - dad always asking me to go out and eat, mom taking me shopping and unexpectedly paying for EVERYTHING I buy (they used to call me Pacman cos I "swallow" money and always worried that I would become broke one day) and my brother is so different now! He talks to me and everything. Once his friends came over and he introduced me and let me play his card games with them! And at home we kacau each other so endlessly my parents get annoyed and say stuff like "you think you're still 5 years old ah". But awwwww, I can feel the siblingy love growing already. Hahahahaha.

Hmm, I just realized our "haha"s have grown a little longer since we started typing them. Like in form 1, "haha" was funny and "hahaha" was really funny. Now? "Hahaha" is kind of a friendly filler laugh and the really funny stuff get rewarded with "hahahahahahahaha" or "HAHAHA". Why ah?

Anyway.

In the friends department though I find myself sadly lacking. When I just came back and wanted to meet up with some people, they said, stay at home first or else your parents won't be happy. So I stayed at home. And stayed at home some more. After a while it was like I never came back and my family started commenting on how I've been abandoned by my friends. Lol. I don't blame them though. It's no one's fault. I guess we just grew apart and the lack of common ground just makes for sparse conversation. When I finally did see some friends, there was an awkwardness that wasn't there before. Maybe it was due to my ridiculously unawesome conversational skills. I'm so sorry about that. I'm really more of a listener who just adds a few grunts and nods here and there. (Oh gosh so manly!) If anything more is expected of me I start feeling stressed =.= 

But! I really appreciate the kind souls who still drop some words once in a while. I always look forward to the few hours spent around a tiny table, drinks in hand, light conversation floating around... Only I don't ask you guys out cos I'm the only one on break and not being able to drive adds to the suckiness cos asking people out and THEN asking them to come fetch you is really just plain lousy.

I hope some of you see this and take it as a kind of explanation and don't think I'm unfriendly T_T because again, talking is not my strong point and talking about feelings is even harder. Writing makes things that much easier.

Oh! Just one last thing before I go study. Here's a postcard my students sent from Germany:

The two sisters are my students. Why they so cuuuuuute T_T
They sent this while on holiday at the Nordsee near Hamburg. I really like this family la! I'm so lucky to have found them cos they're my first students and I just saw an ad they put on the Studentenwerk Freiburg website that arranges accomodation and work opportunities etc. and I wrote to them and voila! now I know one of the sweetest families ever. They really trust me to do my job and have been asking when their youngest son can start even though he's only two and a half. :)))

I feel all warm inside. Hahahahaha!
Okay, off to work now.

Things I dislike #4

Ok.. I really hate it when a friend give you wrong directions... AND THINK NOTHING OF IT.

The other day my friend said we should go out. So me being a good friend, although i was already tired so alright.. lets.. He mentioned lets go venue A! and i happily drove there.. went through an hour jam.. and he called me saying he will be late cause he's with another friend now and that he wants to go some other place. I u-turned and waited half an hour plus for him to text me the new address of where he wants to go. =.=

When i gotten the address, it was a message in which there was no name, just a house number and street. I, being a good friend or an idiot, did my best to google the place and drove there. Upon arrival, (after another hour of jam), got a call from him, in which he passed the phone to the owner of the restaurant. Apparently it was the wrong address and it was opposite the town. I was driving in the wrong direction the whole time.

I didnt want to argue and just told i would go home and rest cause deep down im exhausted. It happened a few times and it seems like he's a friend who wants to do something and as long as he could do it, he's happy, whether im there or not, it doesnt matter.

Living in Laos for a week.

Hey! It's been a really loooooong time since i posted anything here.. Went for a trip to Laos for community work and then been busy with community medicine project and research work back in uni.

Well a little about my Laos trip! We called it the Laos Humanitarian Expedition, which is way too cool a name for what we did exactly.. :P We went over and helped paint the school children's library, bought materials for the village we were in (Muang Kham village) to build a community toilet and then i think they also used some of the funds we brought to rent a tractor and flatten the roads, trust me.. the roads there.. OMGosh. They really needed flattening.

Here we were climbing down the jetty with some medicine we brought for the village.

We had to take a boat to cross the river to the village, and this is after we took a 10 hour bus ride. @.@

First day in the village, we walked to their paddy fields and tried planting paddy. Really have to appreciate rice after this..

Ordered insects to eat when we were at the town, it was surprisingly tasty! and most of us ate it. Didnt expected so many of us to be so brave. haha

During our stay in the town, we ran around town with these half motorcycles, half vans? They call them tuktuk (its similar to rides in Cambodia and the countries in that region)

The 2nd home that opened up for us. This is the house i stayed in during the time we spent in Muang Kham 

Me and Ter! One of the boys who were really helpful!

Overall it was a really great trip, we went over and the villagers were very welcoming. Feeding us rice like crazy, fearing we would actually be able to lose weight there.. I really enjoyed playing with the kids, we didnt understand each other because I couldnt speak Lao, but we still managed to get along, tickling each other and them trying to climb on me. 

During our farewell, I'm not a crying type of person, but watching them cry when we leave, it really touched me. Even with such a short stay, they had grown attached to us and us to them. 

We might have or have not changed much for them but just by going there and showing that there are people who helps each other, I think thats the most important thing? Sometimes when we read about all the terrible things in this world, we need to know there are people who would care.

Hello blog,

... long time no see!

I just wanted to write about a small adventure I had with chilies yesterday.

See, I have three small students. Two sisters and their neighbour. Ella is 7, Frieda is 5 and the neighbour's daughter, Nola, is 5 too. So one day out of the blue Ella and Frieda's mom asked me, "Hazel, can you cook?" Me: Mumble mumble mumble... Mom: " Can you cook well?" Then she asked me to cook Malaysian food for all of them after the last lesson of the summer. I bravely agreed, then went home to panic and ask everyone for ideas.

One night, holy intervention! I dreamt about steamboat. When I woke I considered it, I thought it was a good idea, right? Just buy all the ingredients and I won't even have to cook! So last Saturday, I told them about it. There tragedy struck. The neighbours already knew about this "Chinese fondue"! Apparently they cook it sometimes during winter cos it keeps them warm. To me it was like a stab in the face.

So yesterday. I got a recipe off the internet and went to the kitchen to try cooking sambal for nasi lemak. One of the ingredients called for was 10 deseeded red chilies. I got to work. I had fun deseeding those chilies one by one: "Wah, look how many seeds there are! Lucky they're all being thrown away, otherwise the sambal would be really spicy..." When I was done I had a small handful of chili seeds and stood there admiring it for a while. Then I went on cooking. About 10 minutes later I noticed an old cut on my finger started hurting again. Half an hour later, the pain spread to all my fingers. An hour later, my hands were on fire!!! I had to keep washing them in ice-cold water to numb the pain. And I couldn't even feel the cold on my hands anymore. When I had to leave the kitchen I brought a pot of cold water with me. In two hours my hands were red and swollen. It became so unbearable I went online to search for remedies... I tried vegetable oil, vinegar, even milk, which worked the best cos it was like instant relief as long as I kept my hands soaking in it. The worst was the vinegar, which only added to the pain.

I watched movies till about 4 in the morning to distract myself, plus I remembered my friend's tips from her baby delivery class that breathing is the key to managing pain so I sat there and concentrated on my breathing like a pregnant woman. Around then I decided I should go to sleep even if it still hurt. Woke up today and flexed my fingers, phew, it doesn't hurt anymore!!! I only still have sensitive skin and really dry skin from being washed so much but that's really a small thing.

So yup, small torture story lor.

***

Update 04.08:
Lunch with the students' families went well!!! The food was goooood, though the kids didn't like it and left their plates half full, their parents loved it. I did too :D

People hate my face.

It's been described as blur, angry, unfriendly, skeptical... The most positive description I ever got was that I have an "intense stare".

Why?!?!?!

Of course those comments only ever came from people who don't really know me that well, but still, is my default face expression that bad?!

As if I walked around looking like this all the time.

(Can't Think Of A Creative Title), Things I Like #4

I never noticed how icky it can be to cycle in the rain. Today I cycled from home to the cathedral to meet a friend and then we cycled to a mutual friend's house together. (Just checked on Google Maps, it's a full 10km!! Dear body fat, please cry now.) So it was raining la. When I left I looked and felt like this:

Upon arrival:

I have no idea how she managed to look so happy.

Everything felt like it was stuck to something else. Hair plastered to face, clothing stuck on skin, butt stuck to the saddle, sandals stuck to feet. It was hard to tell if the stickiness was due to rain or sweat. And it wasn't even really raining that heavily okay! Cos rain in Germany is that lousy, cannot measure up to Malaysian rain. Kesian those motorcyclists in Malaysia!

The best thing is when we finally arrived our friend opened the door and asked: "Oh, is it raining outside?" Reallrrwwwyyyyy????!!!

Then we went in, dried off, and sat down to lunch. Which brings me to The Thing I Like #4: Rhabarber. Rhabarber looks like this.

Sort of like celery, but pink. Since I came to Germany I've eaten rhabarber only a few times but they were all so good! First encounter looked kinda like this: 

Rhabarber cake baked my our neighbour's grandmother.

The sour taste went really well with the sweetness of the cake and the meringue top! 

The dessert my friend made today was rhabarber plus strawberries with cream and sugar. Sooooogooooood. I'm totally going to try making that at least once before rhabarber and strawberry season is over. 

...

In my last post I wrote about going to a dermatologist to get my moles looked at and hoped she wouldn't ask me to strip. Well, guess what? She did. She made me strip down to my underwear :'( and then when she asked me if I had any moles under those and I didn't know, she asked me to show her anyway. AND THEN she went and found a mole between my ass cheeks! ^$&%@*#@! What a humiliating experience. 

Only good thing is it seems my moles are fine, there's only one big one she wants me to get removed so the operation is in October. 

...

Funny short video to end a post!