Think about the love inside the strength of heart
Think about the heroes saving life in the dark
Climbing higher through the fire
Time was running out
Never knowing you weren't going to be coming down alive
But you still came back for me
You were strong and you believed
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Be strong believe
Think about the heroes saving life in the dark
Climbing higher through the fire
Time was running out
Never knowing you weren't going to be coming down alive
But you still came back for me
You were strong and you believed
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Be strong believe
--------------------
Hello all, to this week's issue (starting to feel like it isn't it >.<)... I need to break out of this habit of rushing late Sunday night posts in order not to run afoul of the invisible yet binding barrier. Suggestions anyone? It's just that there isn't much in the way of motivation to keep this up at all, much less post more frequently =/.
A few firsts in this week I suppose, in terms of school and stuff: we had our first exposure to human cadavers (corpses (Yes.)) this week. We had to swear an oath to respect their bodies as we used them to further our knowledge etc... Won't type the whole thing out, but it was pretty formal I suppose, us dressed in our standard regalia (white coats >.>), and each with a (gloved) hand on a cadaver as we recited the lines. The following day we actually had a practical in the Anatomy Hall (where all such sessions will be conducted) for two hours with cadavers as well as extra sets of upper limbs to work with (the topic we're currently on).
You're not the first to wonder about my initial and consequent reactions to the whole deal, worry not. From the outside, I would imagine it all sounds pretty eerie and disgusting and scary. Believe me, after having taken the oath and all that, let me assure you... It is. There's just nothing to even try to romanticise when you're dealing with cadavers. Oh they try, but at the end of the day, here is a person dead quite a while, and probably had no wish whatsoever for his body to be where it is now (Sad story here: While a select few cadavers are actually donated willingly by their former inhabitants, a large majority actually come from deceased members of the public, whom no one eventually claimed, as relatives or otherwise, for funeral or burial). He's pretty much been cut open for you, and you're digging around his insides.
I guess the feelings (mine at least), were rapidly suppressed by a sort of coldness and detachment (see: the Void). I don't know how the progression is supposed to work, but apparently eventually you open back up again with a mixture of respect and a few other emotions... The time will come I suppose, and it'll probably be gradual (Hint, little chance you'll see it featured again). Oh well, they say your cadaver is your first real teacher. And in a sense that would be correct.
Thursday also saw my group's first actual meeting with a patient. Technically he wasn't a patient himself, but the father of a premature baby who spent some time in the neonatal ward (where my doctor works, and it seems I've become attached to during this period). He was actually a professor himself, and an engaging intellectual that aside, a fresh change from the generalised idea of patients we've been given this far in (actually I personally think we just got lucky). Anyway, he was the father of a premature baby girl who was just discharged that day itself. It was a really intriguing session, and in the process revealed many issues as well as insights into the inner workings of the hospital system at large. Sadly, I realised shortly after that these problems are probably here to stay: there's simply not much you can do about inter-ward information relay insufficiencies etc. The remedy has to begin at the roots: the only currently viable solution being personal resolve. The professor was cool though, the fact that he knew we were students and acknowledged us so made everything so smooth, and the time flew faster than it has for me in a long time. Which is quite a statement to make personally...
Went for another concert with Man Ying~! She got another cover for The Ridge (NUS student publication), and her article's getting published in the next issue =P. Free concert tickets = win. Best seats in the house = win++. It was actually a hip-hop dance concert, something I... Didn't think I would be that into. Don't think Man Ying is either lol. But actually as a whole I sort of liked. There were a few items that were actually really professionally done in my opinion. I loved the music (despite it being hip-hop, not my pet genre), and some of the dances just blew the concert away: I'm a sucker for perfect blends of music and dance, which pretty much never happens. Maybe something close was achieved at some point during House Dance back in Wesley, but nowhere near the standard today. I actually found the whole concert very emotive though, in an "out-loud" sort of way, siginificant of hip-hop I suppose. But they really did address a lot of highly relevant themes in the world today, expressed in music and dance: I really thought it captured the core and soul of the messages they were getting across. Picturesque. Interesting note, the guest group from NTU (National Technological University) actually outperformed the NUS group, in our opinion, and many others I'm sure. They just arranged everything more thematically, had a better mix of music (more pop/less rap inclined (lol some bias here)), and then just took it away with their skills. Hats off to the choreographers of hip-hop though, imo one of the hardest genres of dance to choreograph for. But yeah, all in all quite an enjoyable time.
Just on the way back on the bus from my uncle's place this evening for mooncakes and dinner, I just noticed the number of disasters plaguing the news on TV (which I haven't been keeping up with). Landslides in China, Typhoons in Taiwan, hurricanes and train collision in the US, terrorist blasts in India, all this on top of the major earthquakes and the other disasters that have been happening recently. Really makes you wonder... I'm this sure that when I was half my age, there wasn't so much in the way of ill tidings on the news. It's come to the point where it's not even one big cover story at a time anymore. They're so frequent now that they're even starting to stack up, so you have multiple disasters happening in different parts of the world, for different reasons. No correlations implied, but would you not concede that it's at least just slightly disturbing?
On that note, it just happens that Thursday was the 11th of September. Seem to ring a bell? Think back 7 years ago. I find it rather disappointing that the significance of this date has, in such a short time, been lost already. I don't know if it's the culture change (perhaps they place greater significance on memorials and dates back in Australia), but there was nothing at all that seemed to be happening on this rock (Note: I don't know much, and I hear even less, but honestly, how difficult is it to hear a minute of silence, or even about any such thing taking place). There was plenty of mid-autumn celebration going around though (mooncake anyone?). Oh, I'm sure it lingered somewhere at the back of everyone's mind that it's 9/11 today. Followed by: Wonder why I remembered that. And then it's replaced by the next thought in less than a millisecond. I may just be my biased old blog-self again, but do you not agree that the single event which has probably steered the course of history, and human society in a completely new direction aught to receive some form remembrance, especially for the victims of one of the greatest tragedies measured by the magnitude of sheer consequences and cascades that resulted? Sometimes I just wonder where humanity is heading. And how far we may already have fallen.
Lest we forget.
A few firsts in this week I suppose, in terms of school and stuff: we had our first exposure to human cadavers (corpses (Yes.)) this week. We had to swear an oath to respect their bodies as we used them to further our knowledge etc... Won't type the whole thing out, but it was pretty formal I suppose, us dressed in our standard regalia (white coats >.>), and each with a (gloved) hand on a cadaver as we recited the lines. The following day we actually had a practical in the Anatomy Hall (where all such sessions will be conducted) for two hours with cadavers as well as extra sets of upper limbs to work with (the topic we're currently on).
You're not the first to wonder about my initial and consequent reactions to the whole deal, worry not. From the outside, I would imagine it all sounds pretty eerie and disgusting and scary. Believe me, after having taken the oath and all that, let me assure you... It is. There's just nothing to even try to romanticise when you're dealing with cadavers. Oh they try, but at the end of the day, here is a person dead quite a while, and probably had no wish whatsoever for his body to be where it is now (Sad story here: While a select few cadavers are actually donated willingly by their former inhabitants, a large majority actually come from deceased members of the public, whom no one eventually claimed, as relatives or otherwise, for funeral or burial). He's pretty much been cut open for you, and you're digging around his insides.
I guess the feelings (mine at least), were rapidly suppressed by a sort of coldness and detachment (see: the Void). I don't know how the progression is supposed to work, but apparently eventually you open back up again with a mixture of respect and a few other emotions... The time will come I suppose, and it'll probably be gradual (Hint, little chance you'll see it featured again). Oh well, they say your cadaver is your first real teacher. And in a sense that would be correct.
Thursday also saw my group's first actual meeting with a patient. Technically he wasn't a patient himself, but the father of a premature baby who spent some time in the neonatal ward (where my doctor works, and it seems I've become attached to during this period). He was actually a professor himself, and an engaging intellectual that aside, a fresh change from the generalised idea of patients we've been given this far in (actually I personally think we just got lucky). Anyway, he was the father of a premature baby girl who was just discharged that day itself. It was a really intriguing session, and in the process revealed many issues as well as insights into the inner workings of the hospital system at large. Sadly, I realised shortly after that these problems are probably here to stay: there's simply not much you can do about inter-ward information relay insufficiencies etc. The remedy has to begin at the roots: the only currently viable solution being personal resolve. The professor was cool though, the fact that he knew we were students and acknowledged us so made everything so smooth, and the time flew faster than it has for me in a long time. Which is quite a statement to make personally...
Went for another concert with Man Ying~! She got another cover for The Ridge (NUS student publication), and her article's getting published in the next issue =P. Free concert tickets = win. Best seats in the house = win++. It was actually a hip-hop dance concert, something I... Didn't think I would be that into. Don't think Man Ying is either lol. But actually as a whole I sort of liked. There were a few items that were actually really professionally done in my opinion. I loved the music (despite it being hip-hop, not my pet genre), and some of the dances just blew the concert away: I'm a sucker for perfect blends of music and dance, which pretty much never happens. Maybe something close was achieved at some point during House Dance back in Wesley, but nowhere near the standard today. I actually found the whole concert very emotive though, in an "out-loud" sort of way, siginificant of hip-hop I suppose. But they really did address a lot of highly relevant themes in the world today, expressed in music and dance: I really thought it captured the core and soul of the messages they were getting across. Picturesque. Interesting note, the guest group from NTU (National Technological University) actually outperformed the NUS group, in our opinion, and many others I'm sure. They just arranged everything more thematically, had a better mix of music (more pop/less rap inclined (lol some bias here)), and then just took it away with their skills. Hats off to the choreographers of hip-hop though, imo one of the hardest genres of dance to choreograph for. But yeah, all in all quite an enjoyable time.
Just on the way back on the bus from my uncle's place this evening for mooncakes and dinner, I just noticed the number of disasters plaguing the news on TV (which I haven't been keeping up with). Landslides in China, Typhoons in Taiwan, hurricanes and train collision in the US, terrorist blasts in India, all this on top of the major earthquakes and the other disasters that have been happening recently. Really makes you wonder... I'm this sure that when I was half my age, there wasn't so much in the way of ill tidings on the news. It's come to the point where it's not even one big cover story at a time anymore. They're so frequent now that they're even starting to stack up, so you have multiple disasters happening in different parts of the world, for different reasons. No correlations implied, but would you not concede that it's at least just slightly disturbing?
On that note, it just happens that Thursday was the 11th of September. Seem to ring a bell? Think back 7 years ago. I find it rather disappointing that the significance of this date has, in such a short time, been lost already. I don't know if it's the culture change (perhaps they place greater significance on memorials and dates back in Australia), but there was nothing at all that seemed to be happening on this rock (Note: I don't know much, and I hear even less, but honestly, how difficult is it to hear a minute of silence, or even about any such thing taking place). There was plenty of mid-autumn celebration going around though (mooncake anyone?). Oh, I'm sure it lingered somewhere at the back of everyone's mind that it's 9/11 today. Followed by: Wonder why I remembered that. And then it's replaced by the next thought in less than a millisecond. I may just be my biased old blog-self again, but do you not agree that the single event which has probably steered the course of history, and human society in a completely new direction aught to receive some form remembrance, especially for the victims of one of the greatest tragedies measured by the magnitude of sheer consequences and cascades that resulted? Sometimes I just wonder where humanity is heading. And how far we may already have fallen.
Lest we forget.
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