JPA Interview 2009

Arrived at the State Library today for the JPA interview. Unfortunately, I arrived at 6.30AM. A tad bit too early since the interview only started at 8.00AM. So I sat around in my car until 7.15AM then I went into the State Library. The shoes that I bought for the interview were a size too big because you see, after 10 hours of standing in the hospital, my feet probably swelled. So when I bought my new pair of working shoes, obviously I cannot fit into my usual Size 6. I ended up having to stuff tissues to prevent the whole shoe from coming off my foot. Annoying.

I met a couple of JPA applicants that I knew. Turns out I was the third last person to be interviewed. By the time I was done, it was around 12.00PM. Ate my lunch in the cafeteria with my dad. Oh, and tripped over by too-long baju kurung skirt on my way out of the cafeteria. That broke my record streak.

Now, I am free for the time being.

New defination for POOR

The Borneo Post...

2000 scholarships will be given out by JPA this year...
400 for those with excellent academics...
1200 for the non-bumiputeras and bumiputeras...
and the remaining for the physically disabled with excellent academics.
It was also stated that out of the 2000 scholarships given...
100 will be for Sarawakian bumiputeras...
And another 100 for Sabahan bumiputeras...

If only "excellent academics" was defined. Knowing the fact that Malaysia does not have 400 students with the title "Pelajar Cemerlang", I have no idea how to interpret that phrase.

For the time being, I am hoping to be lucky enough to be given a JPA scholarship to do medicine. Be it in India, Czech or in the UK, I am not too particular with that. And if I am not given one, Form 6 it is for me despite the number of warnings I received such as, "don't go to Form 6!".

Sometimes, hearing that just makes me feel like retorting, "you think I'm bleeding rich is it?"

Self-paying to do medicine will cost an average of probably RM500,000.00 (ignoring the fact whether it is in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Russia or etc) and RM500,000.00 is petty cash for the average family in Malaysia.

Me: Medicine course costs roughly RM500,000.00 and that is just too expensive.
XX: You don't have half a million meh? I didn't know you are that poor.

*FOUR LETTERED WORD*

Why do I want to pursue a career in medicine? Certainly not because of my sister.

Footer: I have not driven a car for a week.

Hospital: Day 5

Went down to the hospital as usual at 7.30AM. Then as usual, waited until 9.30AM for the hospital's deputy director to show up to give a talk. After that, went to the Accident & Emergency department. There was nothing much that happened that the A&E that morning. A nurse called Yasmin and I to come behind the curtains to watch them insert an IV cannula into this old lady's wrist. They took a blood sample using it. I've have not seen an IV cannula being inserted before and so the first time I saw it, I had that "omg man, imagine if I was the patient" feeling. I guess I got used to watching the long needle of the IV cannula go into other patients after that.

After that, I went off for lunch with Yasmin at 11.00AM. Was later joined by Yap, Jonas and Adrian. We sort of sat in the coffee shop for more than two hours. For the first time in ages, I finished one whole bowl of kolo mee. Was pretty hungry. The closing ceremony later in the afternoon was pretty brief. Very brief in fact. Dad being in Klang, I hitched a ride from Jonas again.

Got to sacrifice

Throughout this Program Pendedahan Kerjaya Seorang Doktor 2009, I watched a lot of needles being stuck into people and yeah, there was some pretty good experiences.

Hospital: Day 4

A small roadkill victim by an car I sat in

Went to the hospital at 7.30AM after sending my dad off at the airport and listened to a talk by a surgeon, Dr. Wong Chee Ming at 9.30AM. Then, went around the Oncology ward. The nurse showed us the room where they dilate the chemotheraphy drugs, the ward and the radiotheraphy room. Then since I didn't have any transport home, I had my driver (Jonas) send me home but then, we decided to go back to the hospital in the afternoon. Had lunch at Pandan Thai and headed back to the hospital. The food was not very Thai.

An ambulance leaving the hospital

Stayed at the Accident & Emergency and Orthopedic ward that afternoon with Felix, Lilian and Jonas. Left the hospital later in the evening. Hitched a ride from Jonas, again. No choice because, my dad is in Klang.

Taking the JPA Ujian Khas

Hospital: On Call & Day 3

24th March 2009:
Went to the hospital at 4.00PM and read the newspapers until it was 5.00PM then I went to the pediatric ward for on call. Yasmin, Tan C.Y and I were on call at the pediatric ward that night. Basically it was either Dr. Emmanuel, Dr. Fahfati, Dr. Hanizah, Dr. Marissa or all of them plus this medical officer, that we tagged after that night.

Dr. Emmaniel and Dr. Hanizah let us helped around with the minor stuff while they took the blood samples from the patients in the pediatric isolation ward. There was lots of screaming and crying. Dr. Hanizah showed us how to take blood samples from a newborn baby not older than 1 month old. She pricked the heel of the tiny baby boy and he started bawling his tiny lungs out. He was only four days old. She squeezed his feet, blood dripped out and she collected it. After she was done, he was still tantruming and he urinated. It was like a fountain.

Got to observe the doctors diagnose the pediatric oncology patients, HFM disease patients, ITP patients and so forth. They would explain briefly about the disease to us in lay man's terms to us. There was no dramatic cases that night. Several new cases like a little girl with HFM, a 1 year old girl suspected of blood cancer, a girl with ITP and so forth. At 1.00AM, I found out that I managed to get shortlisted for the JPA interview, luckily.

We ended our on call at 3.00AM on 25th March 2009. Jonas was kind enough to give me a lift back home. I slept at 4.00AM.

25th March 2009:
I woke up at 6.00AM, showered, ate my breakfast and headed back down to the hospital. Around 9.00AM, we listened to a talk by a pediatrics speciallist. Then at 10.00AM, we went around the Ear, Nose and Throat Ward. There was nothing much at the ENT Ward and so we were dismissed at 11.00AM.

Hospital: Day 2

7.20AM:
Arrived at Sarawak General Hospital. Hung around a bit with a few Kuching High participants for a short while. Chit chatted while waiting for the program to start.

9.00AM:
Listened to a talk by the hospital's deputy director.

9.30AM:
Listened to a talk by an obstetrics and gynecology specialist, Dr. Nicholas.

10.00AM:
Sister Beti brought my group and I to the female surgical ward. The female surgical ward was a temporary room, it was a little crammed but still pretty reasonable.

10.30AM:
Went off for a brief break.

11.00AM:
Went to the male surgical ward. Got the chance to see a couple of ICU patients. Some of them had lots of tubes. There was this old man admitted to the ICU and he had tubes for oxygen, blood, urine discharge, fluid removal and feeding. Then there was an IV drip next to him containing water and a few packets of drugs. Tough life.

12.00PM:
Went to check the on call list and I am on call later from 5.00PM to 3.00AM. Will be tagging after one of the house officer doctors in the pediatric ward.

12.15PM:
Had lunch, went home, showered, changed, nap for half an hour, got disturbed by a phone call, blogged for memory's sake and heading back down to the hospital again in forty five minutes' time.

Hospital: Day 1

7.30AM:
Arrived at Sarawak General Hospital and the place was already bustling. Ambulances leaving the hospital, patients and visitors going in and out. I hung around a bit until it was time.

9.00AM:
Listened to a brief talk by one of the hospital officers. There were quite a number of participants there that I knew.

9.30AM:
One of the ladies in charge of the program said, "come come! Makan!" and shoved me a plate of food. So, I ate.

10.00AM:
We were told that can go off for our break now and come back by 2.00PM. So, I spent my five hour break touring the hospital corridors with Yasmin and Lilian before heading off to eat at a nearby coffee shop.

2.00PM:
Listened to a talk by Dr. Wong which, basically can be summarized into do not become a doctor if you are doing it for the money, fame, your parents, god-play or glamor because it is a tough life. He told us too that it's a long road.

3.30PM:
Sister Maznah brought my group and I to the specialist clinics. Nothing much there. We were not allowed into the consultation rooms.

5.00PM:
I left Sarawak General Hospital.

Brief Update

1. Normah Hospital, the skin specialist diagnosed me with contact eczema.
   "You're going to lose your fingerprints one day!" (Dr. Pubalan)
2. Bella Italia, makes the yummiest pizzas in Kuching or at least, I believe so.
   Thumbs up
3. Bought, installed and played Sims 2. All that my Sims seem to demand for is "woohoo".
   BloodyVista sucks for gaming, cannot even install Sims 2. Used another comp with Windows XP.
   
4. Saw cuddling lovey-dovey lesbians in The Spring yesterday.
   So far I have not seen a Chinese pondan yet... but Rhema has seen them.
   
5. Sarawak General Hospital, attending that JPA Progam Pendedahan Kerjaya Seorang Doktor on the 23rd to the 28th of March.
   Another scary transition point of life and the ground isn't stable at all yet.
   

Road Rage

Oh shit. I almost got a heart attack. I had always heard stories about road rage but wow, for the first time, I experienced it myself.

I went out with one of my good friends, Franklin to takeaway pizza from Bella's and get my Sims 2 DVD. Then, my friend wanted to collect his trousers that he left behind at Damai two days ago at a trip. So okay, we had a short drive to Damai, collected his trousers and drove back home.

On our way back, when we were nearing Satok area, suddenly this silver Kembara drove pass the side of our car, one of the four passengers (natives) pointed the middle finger at us. I noticed that but Franklin was too busy driving. I was thinking, "what?? We didn't even overtake their car or do anything what."

Then, one of them pointed the middle finger at our car again, twice and one of them threw a wadded up piece of paper. That piece of paper hit Franklin's car windshield. I was like thinking, "what the heck are these people doing??" and Franklin honked at them. Then OMG...

The driver got out, slammed his fist at the window on the driver's side of Franklin's car and was yelling. Franklin screened down his window. Both of them were yelling. The man was yelling in Bahasa Melayu what is your problem and Franklin was yelling back. Cardiac arrest for me. The other three passengers remained in the Kembara. I was thinking, "shit. There better not be a fight."

Franklin threatened to call the police. The man gave this dirty look, walked away, got back into car and drove away.

Well, we got back home without any limbs missing or parts of the car missing. Alleluia.

The world should have more females so roads would be more subtle.

"Road Trip"

The driver, Jonas Gumis. B+ for his driving.

We went out today (Gavin, Jonas, Lilian and I), with plans to have laksa for breakfast at Chong Choon coffee shop at 10.00AM and with Jonas Gumis as our driver. Then at 9.50AM, with Gavin and I already in his car, he drove from my house at BDC to Lilian's house at Sunny Hill. It took him 40 minutes to get to Sunny Hill from BDC because well you see...Jonas got lost on the way to Sunny Hill and we ended up at Bintawa instead. By the time we got to Lilian's house, the laksa shop was probably close and so, we decided to have lunch at Secret Recipe in The Spring instead. But somehow, we ended up back in BDC because of the driver but eventually, we arrived at The Spring at 11.15AM. What a road trip.

Thank goodness we don't live in Kuala Lumpur, or else we might have ended up in Malacca.

Gavin and Jonas

Lilian

Update

Tartlets that I made on Sunday

@$$#%&^! For four whole days, my broadband connection was down and it was one hell of a torture to me. I had to go scouting around town for relatives with active Internet connection so that I could borrow to complete my scholarship applications (actively begging God to help me get a scholarship). After I finished all my scholarship applications, the bloody broadband connection at home suddenly became active. Warghhh! Is this some sort of perseverance test??

I finally watched...

Twilight (yea, I know I have a knack of watching movies 5 months later than everyone else) and Edward Cullen has creepy features,

and

Slumdog Millionaire. They picked little kids from the slums in India and these kids can act better than what we usually get on our local television channels, if you get what I mean,

and

Camp Rock because my dear old sister insists that it is nice but it turned out to be not my kind of movie.

SPM 2008 Results

After I came back from Pizza Hut last night at 9.00PM, I went online and I was online until 6.15AM watching six episodes of Boys Over Flowers (some Korean drama that Chun Hoe recommended me to try watching because the guys were cute) . I had a bowl of instant noodles at 6.30AM while watching The Simpsons and I watched more television until 8.00AM. Then, I went back to watching BOF on the Internet until 9.30AM...

Jonas: GUESS WHO GOT STRAIGHT A1's??? (shouting on top of his voice)
Me: SHIT YOU. I haven't get my results okay.
Jonas: ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! I got two parking tickets today.
Me: *screams hysterically*
Jonas: Eh I just drove my car off the road by accident! Into the grass!
Me: *continues screaming*

At 9.40AM, my phone rings and it was my mum....

Mum: Your school's senior assistant just messaged me. You got straight A1's!
Me: WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

At 10.15AM, I arrive in school and I was being paranoid, thinking...

Oh shit, maybe my school's senior assistant saw wrongly. Who knows when I get to school I will get told. "oh oops Gabrielle, sorry I saw wrongly just now. You did not get straight A1's." Thank goodness that did not happen.

Just so you know, I have not slept since 8.00AM on Wednesday morning and it is now 3.26PM in the afternoon, Thursday.

Out With Friends

Front (left to right): Irene, Bethany, Lilian, Rhema
Back (left to right): Cordelia, Cheryl, Gabrielle, Esther, Amy

Went out with some of my good friends to Pizza Hut. Look! I am the tallest in the picture above! Anyway, we ordered one large pizza, three regular pizzas, one basket of bread sticks, ten bowls of soup and two jugs of coke. We had a pretty big cake too as a belated birthday cake for Bethany. The cake just felt really big after all that pizza.

The blackforest cake

Ah... I will finally know my results tomorrow and that is just plain scary. I hope they turn out to be what I hope to get. I hope that happens for the others too. Fingers crossed.

"Good Friends"

Screenshot of my character dying

After being asked a few times to rejoin some really lame 2D online game, Maple Story, I finally reactivated my old account and started a new character, Hyuriki. After about a week, I achieved Level 25 and according to the "pros", that is VERY SLOW progress.

Then, two "good friends" of mine namely Stefan (Level 49) and Jon Chin (Level 127) started stalking me on Maple Story about two days ago.

Scene 1: I was trying to gain EXP by killing monsters
Both of them will stalk me in Maple and kill every monster around me before I even get the chance and they called it PROTECTION.

Scene 2: I decided to tag after both of them for "sight seeing" after being invited
My character died due to zero health points left after being attacked by monsters...
Stefan to Jon Chin: Take a pic of her dying!
Jon Chin to me: Hold still! *captures screen*
Stefan to me: NOOB
Me: *dies*

Gaved up on Maple Story since SPM results is coming out this Thursday. Gave away all my character's money to a greedy Stefan. Got a feeling about my results that I can't seem to find the right words to describe. I would like to hide or run or perhaps do both. Reality is a harsh thing to face and the impact is never cushioned. Two more days.

PS: Went to have ice kacang and prawn crackers this afternoon. While I was eating, I looked up and saw this man sitting with his back facing me. Half of his butt crack was showing and it looked as if he had ringworm or some skin condition on his backside. Arghhh!!! Appetite spoiler. I just shut my eyes and ate.

Downfall

10. Kuala Lumpur is experiencing flash floods.

9. Pilot whales beached at Sydney.

8. Wildfires seem to eat up Australia bit by bit each day.

7. A space rock (2009 DD45) had a close shave with Earth yesterday
.
6. Aquatic life were recently discovered to release greenhouse gasses although never shown before.

5. Land erosion frequently occurs in certain parts of Malaysia lately.

4. Pakistan attack on the Sri Lanka's Cricket team leading to seven of the team members hospitalised.

3. More hijacking of ships by Somali pirates outside the Gulf.

2. More than 50% of all chinese male doctors smoke.

1. Malaysia's political chaos is getting steamier each day.

No doubt this classifies as early signs to the apocalypse.

This Is Malaysian

Scene 1: The Disgusting Malaysian

Seriously, nobody wants to buy used toothbrushes, lotions, underwear and so forth. You get the idea.

I went to Watson yesterday night to buy a bottle of calamine lotion. Unfortunately, there was only one bottle of it left. This lady took it off the shelf and was examining it. She took a pretty long time examining it, reading the labels, shaking the bottle up and down and finally her boyfriend came over. Then both of them spent ages shaking the bottle. Obviously, they were debating over whether to buy that last bottle of calamine lotion or not.

So, I decided to linger around in hopes that she will not buy it. So, I spent some time staring at soaps. After a while, I went back to the calamine lotion section and there she was. I saw her. She twisted the cap of the bottle open, stuck her finger in it and swiped some calamine lotion onto her hand.

Okay, that would be fine if she bought that bottle of calamine lotion. But NO. SHE DID NOT BUY IT. She closed the bottle and placed it back on the shelf and went away. What the heck...

Come on lar lady, buy if you stuck your finger in. Sheesh...

Scene 2: My-Arse-Needs-Ventilation Malaysian

Random picture off Google

Maybe some males find butt cracks on display at food courts very attractive but aiyo, that is just desperate. Seen scenes like that at food courts plenty of time and it ruins my appetite. I just wonder, where is the underwear??

Scene 3: The Zhng-ed Guy a.k.a BengRandom Beng off Google

Eyesore. Enough said. I stress on Ah Bengs and Ah Liens too often already.