Yes I did.
Assisted that is.
But i was there nevertheless. Throughout the whole process. The 2nd person (after midwife) to touch the baby's head.
And I had my hand on it the whole time as poor mom pushed and pushed while daddy stood by her the whole time, encouraging, pushing with her.
Every time mummy drew a deep breath in and pushed, so did I subconsciously. I drummed my fingers on the bed, cheering her on inside, excited, very excited, hopping on one foot then the next. It was a few minutes to the finishing line. COME ON!
Then baby slid out all bloody, wet, blue and wrinkly.
She moved her tiny hands, gave a cry and immediately turned pink. Her first musical note ever in this world.
The midwife wiped her down and lifted her to mummy. She immediately cradled on mummy's chest and stopped crying.
Daddy was laughing. Laughter of pure delight at the miraculous form of new life in the arms of mummy. He was shell shocked and still laughing.
Baby Skye opened her round eyes and cowered on mummy's chest. She looked around, experiencing, taking in her surroundings; anxious, worried and frightened.
She was beautiful.
I blinked away tears as I stood fascinated by the sight. By the wonder of it all. By the 23 hours of pain labour had put mummy through - but it was worth it.
Baby Skye was worth it.
I Delivered My 1st Baby Today
Working for the NHS
Stuck on the wall of the Obstetrics Triage Room:
I dreamt I met St Peter before the Pearly Gates,
He said, 'I'll check your records, please stand here and wait,'
And then he said 'I'm sorry there must be some mistake,
You should be in the other place, you're not the sort we take.
It seemed that you drank alcohol, smoked and used language blue,
In fact you did everything good folks ain't meant to do.'
He frowned, he sighed, he shook his head as he pondered on my sins,
And then he read some more and smiled, looked up and said 'Come in.'
'You've lived a wicked, wicked life but Heaven's where you'll dwell,
For you've worked in the NHS, so you've served your time in Hell.'
Looks like my entrance into Heaven is guranteed 100%.
*NHS = National Health Service aka Ministry of Health
Canon In D
Ah, my all time favourite song has got so many new looks!
These guys performed at the Edinburgh Fringe show
Wonder when He'll come.
Do Looks Matter?
I was at another Fringe show - a live performance by Amateur Transplants, the 2 doctors from London who became famous due to a few self composed songs and other ripped-their-melody-but-changed-their-lyrics songs. Just for the uninformed, they are the singers n composers of the famous "London Underground" song. It was dead funny and it's sometimes quite amazing to think about how these people come up with lyrics and also have the time to practice and perform when they are both full -time doctors.
Paul PottsAnd also like Paul Potts who won the talent show with his incredible opera singing, he definitely has the X factor although he lacked in the looks department. *Paul Potts even came out in the Star newspaper.
So with his mellow voice and different renditions of all time popular songs like You're Beautiful (that became You're a Pedophile), Bad Day, Titanic, including a few songs of their own - The Menstrual Rag , Paracetomoxyfrusebendroneomycin, and also other songs that are full of vulgarities but hell funny, Dr Kay had girls, in fact almost all the females present at his show rush up to him with their super short skirts and tight tops. Yeah, I tried too but decided with my ripped jeans and polo shirt, I just didn't make the cut.
I mean, a DOCTOR who can SING, have PIANO TALENT, STAGE CHARISMA and on top of that is raking s*#$ loads of money when everyone else of his age is working their ass off to earn quarter of what he is earning?? Give me I also want la. Can close one eye to looks. When everyone grows old, they'll all become ugly ANYWAY.
I'm going to put my investment in something more concrete.
The Edinburgh Festival
Top 10 things to do in the UK:
No. 1 on the list: The Edinburgh Festival
Here for 4 years and I have yet to attend our famous Edinburgh Festival that compromises of:
1. Fringe Festival - stand up comedians, carbaret shows, circuses, musicals, just comedy galore!
2. International Festival - theatre and orchestras for the more serious minded
3. Film Festival - international/local/etc films shown
4. Books Festival - self explanatory, no?
5. Jazz and Blues Festival - ditto
100s of venues, over 1800 shows, the Edinburgh Festival attracts ALL performers alike who come and show off their skills.
So many choices, so little time (and money).
Free shows on Royal Mile for the uninterested and loads of on the spot sketches/magicians/jugglers/drummers etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc... U can stand for hours watching:
Jugglers like him, or
plain weird human statues such as:
Dracula, yes? or
Korean culture? What on earth does this mean?!I'm not one to miss out.
Without further ado, I will now introduce you the the first show that I went for:
The Ancient Australian Art of Genital Origami
Just like it's name. NO. No puppetty DOLLS involved - the puppets are the penises themselves.Now, u would think, who on earth will want to bare their family jewels for the scrutiny of the public?
AUSSIES!! (u lucky aussie students you, bet they drop their pants every second in Australia)
Yes, 2 well endowed males from Down Under, a stage, 300 people in the audience, 6.50 pounds per ticket, that makes a clean sweep of 1,950 pounds per night. Stretch it over 30 days, that's 58,500 pounds. Bet you are thinking of loosening your belt for a wee peekaboo now?
And then, u will ask, who on earth will pay 6.50quid to go and see another man's genitals? Well, YOU WOULD! STOP LYING, toot, U DEFINITELY WOULD!! Where else would u get full fledge, up front willing nudity in all it's glory for the feasting of your eyes????
Not to mention they twist and turn their down there into different shapes and sizes - anything - a boomerang, a baby kangaroo and heck, they can stretch it ALL the way back so that from the front,a he looks like a she. Use your imagination. Also, they left instructions on how to form the hamburger using ur penis and since I am such a nice person, I'll share it with you. But before that, guys, give ur lil' bros a nice warm up and girls, Please Ask Permission before diving in.
Steps to creating genital hamburger origami:
1.Pull penis down between testicles.
2.Twist testicles 90 degrees to the left (with penis still in the middle)
3. Squeeze both testicles together onto the penis and ta-da!! U've got yourself a hamburger! Guys, look into the mirror la.
Congratulations!! Ahem, if you didn't manage to do it, you obviously don't know the penis from the testicles. Or your genital anatomy is just wrong.
Still, we've gotta take our hats off to them for over stretching their crown jewels WAY past its limit. Of course, one wonders whether all that sperm can take the stress... Someone should research this topic!
Next up:
(from the directors of Jump!)
Koreans doing hip-hop, break dancing and beat boxing? Why not?!
4 fugitives escapes from prison and are hunted down. But they are affected by the power of the Hip-hop Book and can all suddenly break into dance and song... woohoo...
Who wouldn't want to watch a 6-pec Korean guy strut his stuff??
Slurp, slurp, yum
*Further explanation of this show has been deleted to prevent any unnecessary rivalry for the attention of Korean males*
NEWSREVUE
Yes you are right if you can spot Beckham, George Bush, Gordon Brown, The Queen, Kate Moss and Tony Blair in it.Basically, mini sketches and singing by 4 incredibly talented individuals who took a piss out of all current news - you get the idea, d failed bombing of Glasgow airport, the stepdown of Tony Blair, the shifting of the Beckhams to the States, Paris Hilton getting molested by lesbians in jail...
They also had a few live news commentaries, some being:
A rise in childhood obesity in the UK has been followed by a fall in pedophilia. Duh, who wants to f*** fat kids?
A primary school teacher was sacked because of of wearing a head dress. Her pupils claimed that they could not understand what she was saying. She defended herself by saying, 'MmMmMmmmmmmMmmmmmm'
It's a circus with NO ANIMALS! - why does everyone automatically associate animals with circuses?? - just humans showcasing their abilities.
Before I go on, shall I say that during the whole course of the show, no safety nets or safety harnesses were used at any one time.
Sotherewasthistwopeoplethatwasabsolutelycrazycostheygotintothis
hamsterroundthingthatwasamillionmetresintotheairandthentheyran
aboutitlikehamstersandjumpedandflewandsomersaultedanditwasjust
mentalcostheyhadnosafetyharnessifeltthatheirlifewasinjeopardy..
Basically.To sum it all up:-
What I saw was:
This two fellas.. CRAZY IDIOTS.... got into this HUGE ASS thing that had two round circly thingy-s at the end. Not unlike the running wheel used for hamsters.
So, they hopped in and started walking, once again, like how hamsters run on their wheel..and the huge thing started spinning... and spinning, getting faster and faster... and the 2 crazy men started doing flips in the circly thingy...
like this.They came out of the circly thingy and starts moonwalking on the top of the rim. WHILE The BLOODY THING IS SPINNING at 1000 revolutions per second. On top of that, one of them blind folds himself while STILL walking on the outside.
One minute later, the same i-am-blindfolded-but-still-can-cheat-death thinkhesosmartandtryto FLY.
What he did was leap into the air and do a somersault as the thing was spinning, aiming to land at....Do you think he survived?
Oh, yes, with an almighty crash as he landed spot on WHILE IT WAS STILL SPINNING NOW AT 2000 revolutions per second.
With that big fat smile on his face.Meanwhile, the other guy does gravity-defying tumbles and turns in his own circly thingy.
So.
What do medical students do at situations like these that is practically knocking on death's door?
We do the sensible thing.
Run through the ABC's of our emergency resuscitation skills, discuss and map out plans of management to assess and treat all likely injuries, whip our hand phones out, thumb hovering over the 9 digit, basically all geared up to BE an-all-professional-medical student should Mr. I-am-God fall.
That's D thought though.
In actual face, we were more like:
HOLY CRAP,GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.
The Edinburgh Military Tattoo
Yum. Men in Uniform.
But before we reach there, we had to battle this:
crazy amount of people. The Q wound ALL the way down half Royal Mile and that is literally 1/2 a mile.
Now, men in uniform. What is it?
Featuring military bands from across the world - UK, Nepal, New Zealand, Taiwan, Trinidad & Tobago, America and Russia, the 2007 Edinburgh Military Tattoo was well worth my 9 quid and 4 hours of waiting from 6 am to 10 am under the blazing hot sun (when purchasing tickets).
2. The Band of the Moscow Military Conservatoire. Whoopie! This band, this band... THIS BAND! Awesome dance moves and their music - played to celebrated Russian composer- Tchaikovsky and a whole lot more of others - which I don't know the name of, I only know Tchaikovsky alright, (but according to the booklet, there were Rachmaninoff, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov). Coupled with some really kinky dance moves, they had the crowd going wild. I mean, it is not everyday that you see straight and upright military men booty to music in their uniforms. But wahay! these Russians shows the mass how it is done. Tabik betul.
There was also a gazillion girls dancing the traditional highland dance to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Anniversary which is of course, nothing to do at all with us people. But sure, we had to celebrate it and so we had:
em'.
so typical wan...
Bit blur, but the best I could do. See those lovely checkered skirts?This strategically placed mic that was right bang smack in the middle of my viewing frame.. and the amount of reporters that were allowed onto the marching grounds. They blocked my view! They run up and down, in between the performers, just EVERYWHERE to take photos and what not and are jeez, plain irritating.
GO AWAY U TOOTS!
What better backdrop to have than Edinburgh's Castle itself?
The grand finale with all the performersThe Correct Position for Opening Your Bowels
I was at my friend's flat today and was in the toilet answering nature's call when this poster jumped out at me from the back of the door.
A bit of background information, my friend has currently just graduated from medical school and is about to launch herself into the 13 hour shifts per day work of a 'doctor'. NHS employed. She had just moved into her new flat, also NHS supplied as a Foundation Year 1 doctor here in Edinburgh.
Being the nice understanding senior that we naturally have in this university, I was invited over to her place to have lunch. "Have lunch" meaning she provides the venue, while I get my own chow. We are a very sweet natured symbiotic species.
But anyway, her toilet.
I am surprised. Surprised at the fact that the NHS (National Health System - of UK) takes care of their new doctors so well, up to the point of sticking a poster in the bathroom regarding how to open your bowels.
Step 1 :Your knee has gotta be higher than your hips.
Step 2: Lean forwards and put your elbows on your knees
Step 3: Bulge out your abdomen and straighten your spine
Step 4: I am now a certified doctor of the United States.
Fabulous. It's incredible how our health system takes care of us. Up to the point of ensuring we have no residual faeces stored in our body. I actually look forward to graduating now.
Perhaps if the NHS could include a poster on the correct way to pee? Or the correct way to fart?
Donate Blood
I can't donate blood in the UK.
Cos Malaysia is listed as a malaria endemic (or epidemic? whtever) country.
There goes my ambition to save the world.
Slitting Ur Wrists...
Does not kill u apparently.
Why is it that all movies show the girl who slits her wrist and lie bleeding in the bath tub, only to be found by her knight in shining armour who whips her up and flies to the hospital on his broomstick, where all the Healers do their Magic and seal her wounds(sorry, Harry Potter fever), gives her a blood transfusion and ta-da she wakes up, weeps like a i-tried-to-kill-myself-but-obviously-failed-i'm-a-stupid-twit, and so mentioned bloke declares his undying stupidity, oops love and swears never to leave her side until the sun sets in the east and zebras sprout spots?
Damn, I was taken in too. All this tooting Hollywood and HK movies made to cheat and bluff young, innocent, carefree kids like myself. And make other not-so-smart-kids unlike myself think that they can commit suicide by slitting their wrists. And then these toots get sent to the Psychiatry ward where the doctors have to endure the sheer stupidity of their actions- 'I kill myself cos the guy I like does not like me.... life is not worth living.. boo hoo hoo hoo...'
Bah.
Think you so smart can cut your wrist and bleed to death isit?? Think you so strong can cut thru to your arteries and veins isit. Think then you will bleed bleed all 5 litres of blood out and die isit??
Truth is.. you can la.
But want to die. So easy meh.
Ok, so u can reach ur arteries and slit them I suppose. But then you have to cut through quite a lot of tendons, ligaments and muscles to get there. And you also severe your median nerve. That's the nerve that provides the messages to move your hand from your brain.
And when you get sent to A&E in a bleeding mess, get your wounds stitched up, and get your 5 litres of blood back to your body - You should be left with a rather useless hand that should not function. Cos you severed the nerves and muscles and whatever that is in the wrist.
And live a life with a rubbish hand. Cos you think you so smart to go cut ur wrist.
If you want to die, tell your flatmates that you are going to bed, lock your door and just overdose on sleeping pills and go to sleep. But more importantly, act normally please. No point losing your edge as your flatmates will call your knight in shining armour to barge in and save you.
Slitting your wrist is just a call for attention. Might has well hang a card over your body and say that 'I WANT ATTENTION!!'
And then again, maybe slitting your wrists is a better way. You get ur attention and on top of that, a free rubbish hand.
Harry Potter Mania
Release: 12 am, 21st Oct 2007.
People braving the cold (well not TOO cold, but cold nonetheless) from 8 pm to Q for the book outside Waterstone's.
In London, people started Q-ing 3 days before.
Extreme? Hell yeah.
PRE ORDER IT LA!
JEEZ!!!
Go to sleep on Saturday night, wake up the next day and ta-da ur book is there. Then u are refreshed to read it thru the whole next 3 days (or few hours for the maniacs).
What's the point of lining up?? U get it, go home and are too tired to read it hence u go to bed and wake up tomorrow morning.
Unless of course u are so SO SOOOOOO enthusiastic and want to dress up like the ghoulies and wizards to impress every passer by.. Like a pair of Beauxbaton girls I saw. Very pretty. But you've got Halloween for dressing up. Keep ur costume for then!! U might get the best dressed prize even.
I got my book this morning at 10 am. On top of that, a good night's sleep. And for the same price like everyone else : 8.99 pounds.
The campers outside Waterstone's on Princes St.Organ Donation
I went for a very illuminating tutorial today regarding organ donation.
For someone who hardly reads the newspapers (occasionally I still do - that is the free metro paper from the bus) and never ever watches tv news over here in the UK (in Malaysia I get daily Star Newspapers ok, so I am not all that Uninformed), I guess my knowledge on organ donation is pretty limited.
So when the tutor asked us to comment on the above mentioned topic, I naturally did what I did best - sit there and look pretty. Pretty dumb. Works all the time.
But of course, being in medical school there ARE smart and very knowledgeable people who would answer questions. Not everyone plans to faff their way thru medical school like me. So, rest assured, there are some good, sorry, smart, doctors out there yet. (I aim to be a Good Doctor, alright)
Apparently, Spain has the highest amount of organ donors, coming to 34 donors per 1 million of the population. That's 3 times of UK's which only comes at 13 donors per 1 mil. Yeah, I know boring, boring stats and all that, but then when your loved one or you urself is in dire need for an organ, these stats become important. Immediately. Same goes for government funding where it takes 20,000 pounds to haemodialyse a patient per year when it only costs 10,000 pounds for a transplant per patient per year. That's loads of money AND the patient gets a new lease in life!! Don't know much about haemodialysis? Basically when your kidney fails, and u'll need to attend the hospital 3 times a week for the rest of your life for 4 hours of fluid exchange. In other words, no life.
But the million dollar question is why does Spain have such a huge number of donors?
That is because in Spain, the people that pursue prospective organ donors are the doctors themselves. In the UK, specialist donor nurses do it. They are informed of a prospective donor and they follow it from there, approaching the family and getting all the relevant bits of information. But in Spain, the almighty doctor does it. And like it or not, doctors are much, much, much more influential over people compared to nurses. They do the ward rounds everyday, monitor the patient's progress and know when it is when the patient is going to die, hence being able to get all the information and consent from the patient before doomsday and their family members. They are also on deck when someone comes into A&E brain dead and can start reperfusion almost immediately to maintain tissue and organ viability before it becomes oxygen depleted, hence making it suitable once again, for donation. If you wait for the nurses to come, bla bla... the organ/tissue dies.
Just for information sake, heart and lungs are only viable up to 4 hours without oxygen. Kidneys can last 20 hours and livers, 12 hours. To gain optimum organ function once transplanted, organs have got to have a continuous blood supply before they are removed from the donor. So a window of 5 mins without oxygen can already damage tissues, rendering the organ less viable. That's why you need decision makers (aka doctors) in the acute setting to decide to reperfuse. Fast.
Phew.
And apparently in America, doctors are given extra cash when they bring in new donors. Like how GPs are paid more in the UK per patient of theirs that successfully quits smoking.
I wonder what Malaysia's donor register is like.
Donate your organs, you could save lives.
Patients..
I was in a nephrology aka kidney clinic today.
A thin woman came in.
She is suffering from back pain, which is not kidney pain.
Doctor tells her that she has to go back to her GP to be referred to a orthopaedic clinic.
Patient asks for stronger painkillers.
Doctor tells her that this clinic does not prescribe painkillers, she needs to get it from her GP.
Patient sweeps up her bag in Doctor's mid sentence and storms out.
WTF.
Malaysian Escapade
Well, as misleading as the title might sound... I've just returned to Edinburgh from a lovely month in Malaysia that was literally filled with activities back to back.
Other than the uncountable yum cha sessions with all my friends (I've been to Murni at least 2o times I think) there are a few things that were exceptional. Among them were:
1. Hong Kong
2. Bali
Part of the hotel - on the outside.
The beach at Nusa Dua
Wax drawings on our clothes!3. Chemang Waterfall
What can I say about this few crazy friends of mine? We dedicated a whole day of driving 2 hours to Bentong in Pahang in search for tranquility and the cool waters of Chemang Waterfall. We found it - and almost immediately plunged into the icy cold waters. The undercurrent was strong though, and I realised that I am not such a good swimmer after all, as I needed to be constantly pulled to calmer waters despite trying my best to swim against the current. (I was told that I was not moving..=(( ) If only I had more summer hols, I believe my bunch of friends would have taken me white water rafting - something I've been wanting to do for a long, long time.
Upon arrival - Chemang waterfall!!
With Lex Kor in the middle of it all
With Liwan atop a rock in the waters...
The crazy bunch...Mary, our BBC friend flew all 12 hours to Singapore to visit Barbara. They then took a bus up to KL to visit us, and it was fun while it lasted. Hmm, if you ever had a friend come all the way from some foreign place and had to bring them sightseeing, do let me know how it went. It really isn't that easy. But, luckily the girls weren't fussy and was perfectly contented to spend a whole afternoon doing a manicure, which considerably made their tour guide feel a whole lot more relieved.
Shisha-ing at Lecka Lecka outside Star Hill. They have fantastic Shisha! I did not even cough Once.
Korean BBQ at Hartamas. Slurps. Why aren't there any Korean restaurants in Edinburgh??Well, it was Nigel's last weekend in Malaysia before he jet set-ted off to NZ to finish his course. Like how it's all done, he had this huge BBQ (with fantastic marinated lamb) for all his close friends. Luckily for me, his friends were my friends and it was coincidently held on the night before I flew back to Edinburgh. So as a whole, it was a farewell for me too as I got to see all my friends in one setting that night.
Not the whole group - but all me lovelies..
The original group taken 3 years agoWednesday night, Mambo Jumbo at Zouk!! I was badgering my friends to go and go we did! It was great! I can safely say I knew almost 100% of the songs played and met loads of new people. Men in KL are really quite gentlemanly. They take care of all transportation to and fro (and I mean on all occasions, not only clubbing) and ensures that the girls are safely sent back. I even met an old OBS friend, Jon, whom I have not seen for almost 5 years!! It was definitely a night to remember.
7. Seremban
Seremban equals IMU. A drive to the capital of Negeri Sembilan to see my A Level classmates. Four of us in a car from KL. Another from Malacca. We were lacking the familiar faces of Vicky, Aaron, Hui Lee and Rei Ka but 8 of us met up for a seafood dinner. It was an amazing night, and my friends have not changed one bit, all the same beautiful people from 3 years before. Wei Chong still as funny and nonsensical, Hau Chun still as smart(the guy got Gold Medalist in IMU OK - I mean he did get 100% for Bio in A Levels, what do u expect??), Phong Teck, the driver who still dreads driving in jams but feels its a man job to drive (yes it is!), William with his SLR, representing the calm and quiet of the group, and the girls all as lovely as before.
And then there was Shin Yow who drove all the way back from Putrajaya at night to come yum cha (eventhough the thing was called off in the end - my bad, my bad).
All the planning my friends did for me and all the effort everyone put in to just meet up.
I can't say how much I love them.. I really do.
Die Hard 4.0
It's 2 am in the morning and I've just returned from watching Die Hard 4. My head is throbbing as I am suffering from severe lack of sleep but having to wait for hot water to shower, I shall rant and rave about Die Hard 4.
Bruce Willis just does not grow old. Scratch that.
Cosmetics nowadays have reached a whole new era of erasing years off your face and reinstating your once youthful look. Brucie is the perfect example. Demi Moore, eat your hat! He looks great! Way better than silly childish Ashton Kutcher.
But yeah, Die Hard 4.0. Action-packed, fast paced, adrenaline pumping scenes of metal tearing against metal (or human flesh), kungfu fighting... ah, watch it yourself.
I have to say I was or am amazed. Sheer amazement.
Bruce is indestructible. He defies all medical aspects of the human anatomy and proves that we are able to jump off a 200mph car and stand up after, sustain 5 shots into the arm and make it look it was a mere nick in the arm. He also reinvents the laws of physics by showing that you can drive a car up a ram and smash into a helicopter that's like er.. 10 m above the ground? The sky's the limit.
State of the art computer graphics are used (impressive!) and I never knew that the human fingers can move so swiftly across a keyboard. I bet they aren't even hitting the keys they are supposed to hit. Try to bluff the viewers. Lucky I'm smart. On top of that, when u get rammed into by a car traveling at 200 mph (again) u expect yourself to have at least ONE torn ligament or chipped off bone somewhere. But no, no, superwoman Maggie Q can climb up a car and cords and kicks Brucie's nuts. U go girl.
I especially like the way Jason Long's knee is shot, for I can emphatise with him. Being emphatic is way important in medical school. You have to feel sorry and go weepy like for patients, when what you really are thinking is 'Come on, get it!?!?! I haven't got all day!' and at the same time ensuring you are not giving all the details. You must maintain a dark empty question mark over them so they don't go cuckoo and think that their disease (eventho minor stuff like adhesions) will mutate into a monster and eat them up when they're asleep.
But back to Jason and my empathy. So bad guy puts a bullet thru his knee. OUCH, $%&DAMMIT! I tear a blardy ligament and go for a minor op but still am not healed 100% til NOW. You put a bullet thru the poor guy's knee, probably taking off bits of bone and flesh, disrupting his entire blood supply while shooting off his meniscus and ligaments.... he'll need a total knee replacement, dude. And at such a tender age too. Not to mention, his metal knee will need to be replaced once every 10 years, and all the physiotherapy he'll have to go thru...awww... I feel for him.
Lucky it's just a movie.
But the guy who brings the game home is baddie Timothy Olyphant. So yau yeng. So cool. So calm and collected. Especially the way he tells the fighter jet pilot he is authorized to shoot John McClane. And of course John McClane jumps off a truck onto a jet plane and onto a huge slide while the jet explodes behind him as he slides to safety...
Why am I not in movies? I want to do death defying scenes too and prove medical school is just so wrong about the limit of our lives, sorry, bones.
Since I came back...
Alright, so they had the jeep going bonkers in Glasgow and the 2 men setting themselves on fire the night I flew back to Edinburgh.
Good thing out of it is - it's in Glasgow and not Edinburgh. Glasgow's airport closed down for about 24 hours and all flights there were cancelled. Terrorism level was raised to red alert. I arrived in Edinburgh and was met with a whole refugee camp. Yup, a refugee camp. People dragging their luggage as they walked down the road to the airport, police refusing to let anyone into the building, and FBI like gun bearers who demanded to check all passports and baggage of every single person and car that was entering the airport compound. Taxi and bus stands were all diverted away from the main foyer of the airport and we were handed pieces of paper telling us to turn left to the next Olympic size swimming pool and continue walking towards the road of eternity to hail a cab home. Or we could always take Bus 11 like so many of them were doing.
So my friends and I walked about with our 30 kg bags looking for the taxi stand /bus stand, any transport that we could take. And no one knows where what is. Frustration sinks in. But I guess luck was still on our side as a taxi materialized out of the blue stopped for us, practically shoved and bundled 4 girls baggage and all into the cab and drove off double quick. (I suppose it was illegal for him to pick us up from where he did as we could ALL be potential bombers but hey! who doesn't want to earn that bombs, er I mean cash?)
Reaching home to a room in total disarray and spent the next 2 days unpacking and rearranging and cleaning... phew!
And then heard that 2 of my friends missed their connection flight from London to Edinburgh as the immigration Q was mental. And a friend lost her luggage too. Argh, the mess.
The newspapers reported the next day that the Glasgow bombers were Asian and possible doctors. Riiight. Probably the best course to be in now I suppose. Following on, few of my seniors who had just graduated were refused working visas to start work as a Foundation Year doctor here.
And then a friend's flat got broken into. Poor guy lost his passport, his IC, his driving license and cash. A lot of cash. I just hope he gets his passport back and is not mistaken as Rambo the 19th come to life as the devil and suspected of terrorism in Edinburgh. Please. Poor kid has another 2 years of medical school to go and then he will come out and save all the lifes that are affected by the bombs and anthrax and planes and what not.
But highlight of the day is - I watched a video of a woman giving birth. Ergh, Ew, why wasn't I born a man??
Germany: A photo journal
Travel date : June 2 years ago (2005)
Travel sequence : Can't remember due to short term memory loss
Ooops, sorry, that was my room (I'm NOT messy, I was moving out!)Well, the journey started here.
BERLIN
Berliner Dome, a white and gold church.What did I say about churches and European countries
Short hair.. due to some anal hairdresser in Ming's Salon in Megah that cut my hair too short, forcing me to go to Essex in SS2 again to restyle it into a bob cut. That was in Dec. 6 months down the road and my hair barely sweeps my shoulder. I should sue for manslaughter.But, anyway, the tower behind..
And the tower on the inside: you know what they say about Malaysians being patriotic and all that crap. So be it.The Marvelous Berlin Wall (or so people believe)
I promise you, the wall outside the Potterow tunnel near my Uni is part of the Berlin wall. And so are some walls in certain parts of KL. Heck, even your house can be made into the Berlin wall. All you need is some spray paint. On top of that, you can sell bits of the wall for as souvenirs and roll in a neat amount of money. Just for spray painted rubble.
Woohoo!Dachau
Dachau Concentration Camp... where the Nazis tortured the Jews
What it is like behind bars,
and how you'll lie as your body is placed on the stretchers to be cremated.
On a lighter note, all together now... AWWwwwwwwwwwwRothenburg
A small village that is oh-so-perfect. Like the village in Hot Fuzz (coming soon to Malaysia). So sweet, so perfect..
Munich
Neuschwanstein Castle
The castle Disney based their cartoons on. And it is Such a fairytale. I wish I was born a princess and lived in this castle. Not only is in on the hills,
It has it's own watch castle that is just at the foot of the hill (actually for the parents of the King or something like that) alright, alright, my history sux k...still, Neuschwanstein Castle is absolutely...It's a dream.
100% guranteed taken from my now stolen Konica Minolta camera. Anyone who goes to Germany/Munich, PLEASE PLEASE visit this place.
All in all, we went to Hamburg(boring), Berlin, Nuremburg, Rothenburg, Munich(double boring) and finally to Frankfurt. Along the way we meet a few strange characters:
Mr. Man
Mr Lion
Mr. Bearall found in Germany. Since it is very unfair to my fellow Edinburghans, I will introduce ...
Mr. Cow
*picture comes when i return to edinburgh with my trusty laptop*
