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Ok, firstly please excuse the font change. I don't know how it's going to look on the post itself, but seeing as this post was made on the new computer, and consequently, the new OS (yes, it's Vista Business. Still getting used to not having full support for everything yet). It's incredibly late, and it actually slipped my mind completely (along with all the other practical things i'm supposed to take care of during the weekend, but never mind that). I'll be honest and say it right out, i'm just going to keep this one a recount. I originally debated putting a disclaimer that there wouldn't be anything interesting/worth reading this post, only to realise, in hindsight, that would probably be an extremely ironic statement. This week wasn't really an ordinary one, so don't dismiss it imo, even though it was written at the worst possible time, in the worst possible timeframe.

As you heard, I have my new computer! It's pretty average on specs, but at least it has a mid-rangeish dedicated graphics card, which is something I've desperately needed for a long time. Collected it on Monday (process took ages, ended up missing an hour of lecture just to get it sorted out)... Oh well =/ it's good though, enjoying the feel of a computer that isn't inferior for a while (until it does become inferior, shouldn't be long >.>). Stuff still isn't fully transferred over yet, either because it can't, or i've been lazy.

The first part of the week was generally normal, biochemistry lectures and stuff carried on as usual. Really. We were introduced to this Indian Professor who took us for the rest of the week, who was pretty bad. He can't standing talking. At all. If so much as a whisper escapes from us, he stops the lecture and starts bitching. Really lose respect fast for lecturers who enjoy having their bitching sessions. Still a lot of it was recap though, but recap in perhaps a little more detail. The irritating thing is, sometimes it'll just be a mild recap, absent of any real new concepts to grasp, and of course the pace would be reasonable. The stupid thing is that the lecturers, who probably don't have any concept of the level of high-school biology, just jump into a totally new concept at the exact same pace, expecting everyone to keep up. What really happens is everyone sort of gets stunned right there for a while, then upon realising he wasn't about to slow down, start to enter panic mode. And of course, with panic comes noise. Which he responds to with bitching. I got a lot of sleep.

Was about midweek though, did something pretty daring and went for a late-night kara run (WoW, for the unenlightened) with the guild, and ended up sleeping at about 2.30am. Normally nothing, that was my bedtime for about a year while I was in Year 11. Somehow (I blame the weather here), I don't think my body stretches that way much anymore... It wasn't long before I came down with first a cold, then cough, and eventually the malaise and feverish feelings began. In short, unpleasant feeling. Especially having to attend lectures in that state. Now on top of staying awake, there was the problem of staving off the headaches and urges to rage the lecture to go back and sleep. Although I must say the computer does a lot to help the former. Trying to integrate it into lectures now, eventually hoping to go paperless. It's really more effective I find for taking notes, due to the dynamic nature of a word document as compared to a piece of paper.

Anyway, had another (and the last) ethics tutorial on Thursday. It failed. Again. Cannot stand the tutor at all, and he's the second one now. Wanted to go into details in the post when I planned to mention this, but you know, time constraints and all. But really he pissed me off so much I wanted to make a post that night itself. But never mind that.

Thursday evening also was the day of my first clinical session, and in a sense, my first contact with a patient from a doctor's perspective! 28-8-08~ (Our doctor said to remember this day. Makes sense in an abstract sort of way.) Anyway, the first 1 and a half hours was sort of dry stuff, standard procedure so to speak. And then Dr. Zubair changed the formality. "Ok, now that the formal part's done, who wants to stay another 30 minutes, and we'll do something fun?". We stayed, for the most part. My clinical group only has about 10 people, but we did do cool stuff. Our doctor is in charge of a neonatal ward, and so we got to go in and take a look at the babies, most of them premature. I'm not one to call babies cute, but really it was quite amazing seeing babies even smaller than they come, almost to the point of cute. Their hands were so small, some of them hardly 3/4 the size of a normal newborns hand. We got to feel their pulses, listen to their heartbeat through his stethoscope etc. It was quite a unique experience. We even got to go take a look at one of the babies in isolation, due to her having congenital rubella. Note I said "her". What sort of hurt me (slightly), was that after we went in to see her, we stood outside her room discussing her case. And the whole time, the doctor (and the rest of us), kept calling the baby "him". I know it's small and stuff, but really, did none of them bother reading the card that was at the foot of the sealed crib from her parents and loved ones? "Dear Rachel". I guess not. I won't put the rest of the card here, but it was really touching. I don't know; I'm a noob, and maybe doctors aren't supposed to be the ones noticing stuff like this.

Anyway, she had a heart murmur, which we got to listen to as well, which made us all feel supre privileged. Apparently, listening and identifying a heart murmur is one of the challenges of medical students in their clinical years (Years 3 on), and he made sure every single one of us got it. I get the feeling I'll be thanking him for this one not too far down the road.

Friday was my first training session with the TeamNUS International Chess team, and sort of an unofficial welcome to the new members (myself and a few others, about 3-4). Went pretty well, but it's just a little difficult to deal with how they always never end their training until forced to by the timing of the last bus to the stop. Results in training sessions going much longer than they are projected to. We had a small competition with this bunch of abstract puzzles by our team captain (I won this consolation prize (chopsticks >.>) for being 5th out of about 12+ who participated... Even though I swear I got a score very close to 0.)

Saturday was quite packed really, I had to go out to settle a few administrative stuff (like shopping for things that aren't really sold in the university >.>)... And also preparing/going for the Medicine Dinner and Dance 2008 (which I actually forgot about, for a long time, and therefore was not mentioned in earlier posts T.T)! The theme was "Rope, knife or candlestick", so as you can guess, pretty dark/morbid general theme. Our OG's theme was the more specific "Villians and Criminals", which I conveniently chose not to adhere to. My idea was sort of more inclined towards general Dinner and Dance attire (as opposed to fancy dress), probably with a touch to fit in with the overall theme. While I was at the pharmacy, I happened to notice some eyeliner over at the cosmetics area. You can probably envision what happened after that... Honestly, respect for those people who put eyeliner on everyday. I spent what was probably hours getting LOLSTABBEDINTHEEYE, among other things. However, I must say I was rather pleased with the end result. Apparently I carry the goth look pretty well too... And I strangely didn't feel like taking the eyeliner off at the end of the night =P. Too bad it's not a practical look to carry around, in Singapore especially (even though really, it was more rock star than goth... I didn't even put the rest of the makeup on to make it goth enough). Still too conservative... I got some pretty eyebrow-raising auras/tones from other people I knew from outside of my OG.

The rest of them from the OG dressed really well though, we had Nikki in a really nice Cruella De Vil costume (complete with cigarette holder/cigarette), Xu Sheng as Dracula, Michelle as Ursula, among others. Lynnette came dressed really impressively as the grim reaper (complete with scythe!), complete with her own goth look with the hood off. Got some nice pictures =D. I think she really carried the look off well too~ she sure could do an emo/scary look lol.

Ok it's way too late. I'm so going to end it right now. I risk messing up my body's immunity all over again. Maybe I'll make up for this mediocre post.

Good night.