~JcZw

~JcZw~ at 10:43 pm

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Am installed in my new room in KE hall with a slowly increasing amount of stuff... It was fun to check in knowing exactly what to do without being nervous at all the KEWOCs milling around like last year =D Knowing how to get to the room as well as how to unlock the door using the transponder which was such an enigmatic piece of equipment at first sight.

F206 is a great improvement over its cousin F106. For one thing, the view is better. I can actually see PGP and the trees behind G block! And everything which didn't work in 106 works here. The door locks smoothly (instead of me having to pull the door against the frame so that the lock could fit into its slot), the towel rack, clothes rack and clothes hooks are all firmly attached to the walls and door respectively. Cool.

Oh and did I mention the wireless internet connection's equally good here as downstairs! I can finally use firefox on my laptop again!

So have shifted in my recreational books, some clothes and toiletries plus bed linen, enough to sustain life for a few days heh.

Its day 2 in a series of 3 days of games with the OG. Badminton yesterday and tomorrow, plus basketball today. Tiring but fun!

When I see the M1s and as I get them to know them better, I'm reminded so much of my own development as a officer cadet out from the army into a medical student / KEVIIan, looking at friendships initiated in medicamp grow to the degree it is now. As all of us share how our interviews went while pouring starchy sawdust over paper mache mannequins, it just reminds me how fortunate and blessed I am to be where I am now, how a shot in the dark (for that's what applying for medicine seemed to me to be like) materialized to be real in that magical night after patrol field camp.

Also, how everything fell into place in medicine. Think I am one of the blessed few who have 3 unique circles of friends in my batch: OG, Hall and Anat Group which get along well in their own right, making for pleasant times whether in lecture, at meals or in lessons.

One moment we were M1, struggling to finish our pros, next moment we are M2, having experienced the lectures, anat lessons, even overseas holidays, and are bursting with stuff to pass down to our year 1s ("Chope seats early! Get a Co-op card! Be OGLs next year! Don't buy papa Moore!"). Such a miraculous year

Yea just some thoughts which were running through my head at the very moment I was leading the OG down from the Arts canteen before going home for my driving lesson, and they to their matric fair: Yet another step for them to developing their own stories about life as a medical student which they will pass down in turn to their M1s.

I'm especially reminded of this when people ask me after me n my sister and they say "both of you are from VJ and you BOTH got into medicine!?" No, it didn't matter where we came from. We just trusted that God would bring us to where he wanted us to go and so now I trust I will graduate as good a doctor that I am intended to be (of course, with a lot of hard work put in too on my part).

~JcZw~ at 11:47 pm

Sunday, July 27, 2008

So the fever's abated and I'm almost back to normal, except that I couldn't sing at church today cos I had a lot of stuff in my throat..

On Friday night at 2 am, apparently I sleep-crawled to my sister's room, opened her door (she was still awake tidying her room), stuck my head in and quite deliberately, in a normal-volumed speaking voice, said something to extent of asking my younger brother to tell her to read "The Tale of Two Cities" before closing the door and going back to bed, shortly before she heard me going to the toilet.

She said it was "Like a zombie movie" because the door appeared to open on its own, and only my head was visible on the floor. She also said "Good thing you did not think my room WAS the toilet". She also said she was scared of going over and waking me up in case I wasn't in my right mind =D

One room away, my father said that he heard us talking in normal voices late at night and he thought that my fever had escalated and I was asking her for help, cos at night we usually keep our voices down heh...

I don't know, but I find that very amusing haha...

At 6.30, my phone alarm rang properly, followed by the single buzz of a received SMS. And thank God, it was Jason offering a lift to Buangkok via Christine, his counsellee. The headache and generalized weakness of the day before had gone thankfully so one way or another, I managed to get to CIP! =)

This CIP was pretty fun compared with some of the others... Played checkers, majong, and got owned at table tennis by this really good resident. I mean, he could return all but one of my notoriously curling serves. Meanwhile he was hitting the ball all over with wicked spinning shots. With the target's aspect changing all the time I just couldn't muster an effective defence tskk...

Still, he probably plays more often than me...

THEN along came the Great Mass Dance Massacre of Buangkok. I have no idea who's incredible idea it was. I mean, it was probably all in good fun, but then the announcement was made by two MCs from another OG saying "Our seniors will [present a mass dance]" but what I thought was a whole OGL thing came down to two pairs of OGLs and two pairs of OGlets ALL from our OG diaoz.

Well no problem, once I heard the music again, the moves came back automatically. Only that we weren't attired for dancing. Jiayi, who was oh-so-enth much to my gratitude was wearing jeans. I was wearing the long pants in which I did a star jump in Fukuoka but that didn't mean they were comfortable to exercise in.

The other minor hitch was that the people in question were not as fortunate as myself to have parents who warned me that putting electronic devices together could cause interference, but apparently, the impromptu nature of the performance was sealed by using a microphone put to a handphone to supply the music. The resulting music was broken, full of static and darn hard to follow cos I don't even dance too well in good music, let along staticky ones. Kinda like throwing good money in after bad. Kinda like Napoleon at Waterloo

So there I was, freezing up everytime the music broke up, and there were my 7 faithful followers all trying to copy my motions, and the end result was rather chaotic. Kinda like Napoleon at Waterloo after the Old Guard was repulsed.

I mean, every VJ student knows that the main effect of mass dance is that A LOT of people are doing it, so no matter how many people do it wrong, it still looks right! But here there were only 8 people, going in 8 different directions at certain points of the dance.

Don't get me wrong, I shall be eternally grateful to Julia, Jiayi and Charlene, Mayank and Mas, Junyang and Elaine for accompanying me on that day. Just that orientation mass dances are usually for the finale night of orientation then discarded, not for an event 3 or so weeks after the latter, and everyone was very rusty, me included. So there we were, 8 of us valiantly, idealistically, trying to put on a good show.

I never recovered from the last "boom" in the song faster than friday cos as soon as the music stopped the red mist (red from agitation, not anger) evaporated, leaving us feeling as though we had committed some HORRENDOUS crime and we all scurried off the stage in an attitude of "Ohmygoodness, WHAT HAVE WE DONE!"

In retropect it was quite funny, but man, was it necessary? Was it even good??

I think it was there, at that very moment, that I sweated out the remainder of my fever hoho...

Well, CIP ended happily, with the residents shaking our hands, the social workers looking happy, and the Lakota component of our OG going to Tampines for a drink / icecream at Macs. A thoroughly memorable day

Now my next goal is to pass my driving test in 3 weeks!

~JcZw~ at 4:32 pm

Friday, July 25, 2008

This is possibly one of the most wrong times to fall sick =(

Was supposed to play soccer against my sister's year today, but the sore throat and cough from yesterday degenerated into a fever and general weakness today. While it was quite nice to know my body was fighting off the reaction (presumably by creating the pyrogenic reaction), it certainly didn't feel good. The fact that the weather was miserable to play soccer in (even if I were well) led me to messaging my team captain to tell him I couldn't make it

=(((

which warranted a "oh sh1+" from him. Its so annoying that I've been falling sick at all the games during the hols, leaving WeiLun and Marcus to get in the practise but not myself. Its not worth much if I can only perform well during training sessions.

The thought of waking up at 6.30 tomorrow in order to reach Buangkok in time for CIP also doesn't appeal to me if I feel tomorrow what I'm feeling today. Maybe I'll have to join my OG later sigh.

On a happier note, the enthusiasm showed by my OG, I must say, is pretty much unparalleled haha... Soooo many of them are there every day and for the most part, everyone is happy, willing and self-disciplined as to when to work and when to break. Been quite pleasant doing it with them, though yesterday the sore throat plus glue made me want to strangle myself or something.

Also, with Thursday past, my siblings and I have all finished celebrating our 3 weeks of 1-birthday-per-week, though this year we took the healthier option of sharing one cake instead of having 3 separate cakes hahaha... We are all getting very old (though my sister, for one, doesn't look her age)

Anyway my brain feels all dried out after sneezing out so much fluid (maybe I shouldn't have joked so much about nasal expulsions yesterday during rag)... shall stop here

~JcZw~ at 8:38 pm

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Pictures from the past few weeks which I've been taking with my phone but have been too lazy to extract out (mainly due to the tedious process of having to disassemble everything then put them back together again...)

Precamp tea. Took this picture in between running up and down the foyer guiding M1s to the hall. Cedric said "We don't need ushers! The signs are idiot-proof!" Well, I guess if they followed the summation of the vectors shown they'd still be in the correct direction

An inside look at fright night. The brightly-lit cupboard room looks nowhere as scary as when the lights are on and the creepy music is not driving us insane. Here KeYi adds tape to the cupboards to add to the creepy feel. Unfortunately, the dim light meant many of our decorations could not be seen =(

10 minutes to H-hour. Fright Night IC Paul gives the final briefing (with the mirror-room ghosts looking on in the background)...

... as the ghosts apply their facepaint and just hang around in eager anticipation. While we were all raring to go then, 8 hours later we were all dead on our feet. It was a memorable start to a birthday though heh

The last day. Supper at Changi Village and evidently the physical exertions of the past few days had taken their toll on these Medicine Sophomores, with 3 out for the count and 1 simply looking deranged. I guess she wouldn't have looked out of place at fright night either =D

The sports hall at the University-at-the-end-of-the-world, aka NTU. The raised fencing piste was something we experienced for the first time. Unfortunately it would also make fleching very hard...

Yup that's all for now

~JcZw~ at 1:58 pm

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

This is the first night I've got to sit down and relax for some time. Ever since Medicamp I've been rushing across the island to God-forsaken NTU, church, rag and whatnot. So tonight I can print photos and add people to MSN at last heh

Today started out badly. I was in a pretty bad mood, augmented by the fact that I woke up at 6.15, reached NTU at 8.15 and discovered my poule was fencing at 11.

I shall not talk about FSI here. Will probably get permanently banned from all competitions if I write everything I feel here. But I experienced a lot of NEW things. So NEW in fact that in almost 4 years of epee and foil, I've never seen these regulations or laws. But I'm nobody right? The last I checked my national ranking was close to 50.

So such was the day that the major irritating things got me annoyed, then every minor irritating thing which I usually can tolerate became outstandingly irritating as well. I must have been short of sleep and short of temper for once.

The good points of the day is that soccer training in the afternoon was pretty good. I think things have improved tremendously since IHG and I was less scared of the ball and the flying feet (maybe because I had so much pent up negative energy). And also my OG is pretty enthu in rag. Looks like Julia and I managed to pass on the spirit ok.

Speaking of which, when I look back on the pictures of medicamp, I really think at least 4 of them look like people whom I know (including SJ juniors, a fencers, and old platoon mates from OCS). I remember how during precamp tea I kept doing double takes at those individuals cos I kept thinking my friends had suddenly miraculously appeared in my vicinity hoho.

Right, shall put my head down and continue printing pics. Til then, cheerio

~JcZw~ at 9:26 pm

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Got talked into staying back and fencing with a japanese fencer yesterday in FM, despite the fact that I'd only gone down to test my blades, buy an electric jacket, and was wearing formal pants (hardly appropriate fencing attire) while my opponent emerged wearing a shirt which said "Kansai Universities Championships".

The match was pretty fun but maybe I wasn't fencing as hard as I could cos I was trying to conserve the tip. Lost 5-3 (one close quarter, one stop hit, one disengage). My opponent was kinda interesting. He can flick against the natural bend of the blade! The first point was scored when he was advancing, I reached out to parry, then clickclickclick zzzzziiing two counterparries later my new lame was blooded for the first time. Didn't help that he was tall and left handed.

Still, it should be interesting for both of us to fence all out if we meet each other on Tuesday.

Being 20's not much different from being 19 heh. Just had a combined celebration with my sister and brother yesterday...

~JcZw~ at 6:05 pm

Friday, July 11, 2008

Where do I begin? Its been a long week (I can feel it in my eyelids) but there's so much to write about.

Precamp tea was slow. Medicamp first day was slightly faster.

But Bombini, the fantastic 12th OG of Medicamp 08, never looked back. Everyone picked up momentum and grew closer as the days went by. By the last day, people were taking photos, laughing at each other's EZlink card pictures, suanning each other and generally gradually acting more as an energetic family than 30 plus people flung together for one orientation. Where do I start with the memories?

On the first day, we OGLs all turned up in the same jersey, the only OG to do so wahaha... We had gone to Queensway and cleared the shops of their stocks of this design. Took quite a lot of effort and my legs seriously wanted to buckle after that, but it was worth it =D If anything, it served as a reminder of the importance of Medicamp; the phenomenon of a bunch of strangers coming together, interacting, and one year later coming together as as bonded a bunch of OGLs as there ever were.

Bombini started out slowly, with people talking politely albeit with the slight awkwardness which comes with meeting people for the same time. There were a few small groups at first, but the OG gradually grew onto each other into a collective whole, like little lumps in the batter which have to be smoothened out before the cake can turn out nicely. I kinda regret slightly volunteering for so many things that I didn't get to spend so much time with them, never got to learn their cheers or watch them in action in games (besides mine), but still, managed to interact a fair bit with them, teaching them mass dance and stuff...

Events on the last day at the finale made me so proud of them also, how they weathered a rather awkward moment with dignity and grace. If they needed a final nail to hammer the OG together, I think that was it =)

On the side, can I say also that my 20th birthday was one of the most memorable ever! It was the first time in a very long time that I did not spend it at SJ N-comp. I was kinda expecting to get a birthday song, and knew that sooner or later I would be slung into the sea (as it is, it turned out to be sooner). But I really did not expect the others, even though today I discovered I was actually waltzing through the preparations happily taking photos and didn't notice heh. It was very kind of them =)

I think of all the things which touched me that day, it was that the other M2s tried to keep awake til I came back from fright night to celebrate. Though it didn't happen as planned (I wouldn't blame them. It was 5.30 am already after a very long and tiring day for everyone, M1 or M2), I kinda knew when I came into the room and saw the lights still on and spectacles still on faces.

In short, Medicamp was a great experience and I thank God for putting me in this OG because, like last year, I wouldn't have wanted to be in any other. The freshmen, and of course, my very own classmates from Lakota made it an experience which I would do well not to forget! Hope I can continue to get to know the M1s more, both as a senior to all and a (hopefully responsible) counsellor to some.

Well, Medicamp's now over, and Rag is starting. Am praying that the OG will be enthu and not give Junyang/Mastura any headache. I personally don't care too much about the float, but I always care about fulfilling duty and more importantly, of the bonding process which comes with it. It's been proven that the groups most enthu in rag stay together the longest and I hope they can continue with the trend!

Meanwhile, am very tired, so shall go off and sleep first... Hope that wasn't too incoherent,

~JcZw~ at 11:17 pm

Friday, July 04, 2008

My sleep cycle has been all messed up ever since I watched the Euro finals (and haha Spain won!). It still wasn't settled and I'd slept for all of two hours when I dragged myself (with my father and his car's help) to school for OGL precamp. Needless to say, Amazing Race nearly knocked me out already.

In fact, the first game already felt supremely tiring even though I've definitely run more in handball training (even as a goalkeeper). Between Shawn Lim, Cheryl, Charlene and I we must have scored the fastest goal ever heheh.

But managed to try out everything I had to try out. Alfred n I are out of war games (which I guess is a good thing) for fright night, which has the potential to go pretty far if all the logistics pan out ok. Heh its kinda evil to say, but it was most gratifying when people came in to scream =P Jiayan's hiding place, I must say, is a stroke of genius. But 20 couples and 3 hours later, I think all of us were pretty tired / asphyxiated for those who had to hide in claustrophobic places. Its a good thing though, that no one's enthusiasm for scaring our fellow classmates didn't wane =) With the right atmosphere, fright night's gonna be memorable.

Of course, the most fun part of precamp was during free time when the OG was left alone to its own devices, playing cards, eating snacks and so on. Was a little too busy to join in some of their independant operations, but oh well, guess I called it upon myself also. Conked out on the second night like a dead log even while everyone was playing cards, hide and seek and a lot of other noisy games around me heheh.

Precamp tea's tomorrow! Then the Medicamp proper on monday. I have two juniors whom I know directly coming in, and four more people whom I can look out for who are two degrees of separation away from me! Just hope that the people from my own OG are nice and enthusiastic =)

~JcZw~ at 3:47 pm