Garyological Garyisms

Last day of uni

2011-11-03T03:12:00.000-07:00

Today is the 3rd of November 2011
It is my last day of university, which started at my GP clinic and ended in the Final year Lecture Theatre with an OSCE prep talk

Now that the reality of it has dawned on me, it seems almost surreal
That 6 years ago, I could barely imagine this day and what it would be like
And today, in this exceedingly ordinary day, my medical course has finally been completed, with only 9 OSCEs to overcome, before I emerge a doctor

I'm in one of those rare states, where I feel so unsettled that I'm compelled to blog, to leave a memo in this journal to myself, for fear that I might forget this moment in my life

but I am excited,
a sunny beach holiday in Cairns awaits,
Graduation awaits,
our epic European adventure awaits,
freedom awaits!

also note, never in my life have I been so unmotivated in exam preparation (definitely a milestone)

I just realised I didn't even bother to blog on my birthday this year
(nor last year really)
but here's a photo just to mark my turning 23

one year on

2011-06-04T20:58:00.001-07:00

one year on
from a few entries below
and I again I just want to run away
damn semester 11
oh well, less than a month to go
back to nerding

2011-04-02T19:19:00.000-07:00

it is now 2011
final year med
the light is near

it's a lazy Sunday morning
and I'm waiting to get in the shower with nothing to do
well, I *could* start reading about ADHD but
procrastination always wins :)
hence another scanty entry on this scanty blog
which I hope won't be too embarrasing to read in yet a few years

youtube video of the moment:

everyday I'm shuffling

barbra streisand

2010-10-03T01:32:00.001-07:00

ooooo oo oo ooo oo ooo oo oo

barbra streisand

2 weeks to sem 9 exams

2010-06-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

Underwear by FM Belfast (Music Video) from Daniel Scheinert on Vimeo.

i just want to run away

sem 9 exams

2010-05-28T22:49:00.001-07:00

i am stressed
i am panicking
i hate exams
i've said this a million times
and everyone else feels the same
but it sucks so bad nonetheless

3 weeks to go

last week in warrnambool

2010-03-12T17:46:00.001-08:00

its the Saturday before my last week in Warrnambool
and honestly, time has really flown by
from all the hating and winge-ing, I've actually grown to somewhat love this place
well apart from the ulu-ness and my dingy unit, the hospital is fantastic and people too friendly
but now there's only 2 blocks before Sem 9 exams, ugh

we got to watch an autopsy a few days ago
organs being sliced apart, skull sawed open, blood dripping on the floor
full-on goriness to the max
and the most disturbing part was this weird fresh sweetish meaty smell that I couldn't get out of my nose for the rest of the day
raymond would've died on the spot
lol

am heading off to the island soon
sun, sand, sea!
yay!

feb 10

2010-02-17T00:49:00.000-08:00

its week 2 of this warrnambool rotation
and its the fourth day of CNY
and I'm still getting used to calling myself a 5th year medical student

holidays were awesome as usual
well spent seeing the same old face everyday
I know la siao po, you're sick of my face too
but you know you love me
lol

but anyhoos, onto more important matters:

awesome
i can't even upload a picture to show you my oh-so-lovely desperately-in-need-of-renovation home here
so much for getting internet

thing was this goddamn place is so far from civilization that only telstra and optus mobile broadband has coverage here (and i was previously with 3)
so after all the hassle of walking all over the ~~town~~ village centre looking for mobile broadband, getting yiimin to buy me an optus simcard, getting yiimin to post it, waiting one whole bloody week for it, calling up Australia Post a million times, checking with my neighbours in case mr postman left it in the wrong box, checking my mailbox a billion times and *finally* finding it in the hospital's student pigeonhole this afternoon entirely by chance...

i am faced with dial-up speed
and the inability to open more than one window/tab on the browser
b-e-a-utifulll

feist on sesame street

2009-11-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

made me feel 5 all over again :D

2009-10-26T02:08:00.000-07:00

21

2009-10-05T05:57:00.000-07:00

Today I turned 21.
Today I realised how blessed I am.
Today I realised that the greatest thing in life is indeed to love and be loved in return.

Life is one great party.
And I'm barely tipsy.
Here's to getting so goddamn wasted by the end of it all!
:D

2009-08-18T00:56:00.000-07:00

Every so often, I come across an article that moves me
making me want to force everyone i meet over the next 7 days to read it
and agree with me about how good it really is
:D

but instead of being a psychopathic article-pusher, here it is for your reading pleasure:

Race: Time for a new beginning

by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

Sunday, 9 August 2009 – Prince Phillip Lecture Theatre, Melbourne University

Seminar Pembangunan Insan
Kelab Umno Melbourne

Thank you for inviting me to speak at this event.

Distance, home and reflection

1) The opportunity to study abroad is a gift. I remember my days as a student in Belfast so long ago. Now as then, overseas study gives us the chance to be educated at some of the finest, best established institutions of higher learning anywhere, and to be exposed to the best that has been thought and done, and to measure ourselves against the highest standards. It is an opportunity to see the world.

2) Travel and living abroad takes us far away from home, but in doing so it also brings us closer to ourselves, and closer to home. Have you experienced this? Have you felt time and distance making you more conscious of how unique and precious the places, relationships, colours, smells and yes, tastes, of home are? Distance can help us see things more clearly. Home is such an immediate, dense and total experience that we often need to go away to see its contours. Home is such an emotional experience that we often understand it better in the coolness of distance. We sometimes need the elevation of distance to see the map of our own country.

3) I want to use this privileged distance that we now share, here in Melbourne, to speak frankly with you today about a matter that is usually so tightly wound up, so emotional, that at a national level we have not been able to have a rational discussion about it.

4) I want to invite you to look across this distance at the map of the life in common that we call our country. I want to look across the distance of fifty two years of independence, across changes over my own lifetime, to understand where we have come from as a nation and where we are going. My topic is race and racial consciousness in Malaysian life, and especially in our politics.

Race in the political life of Malaysia

5) Our social and political life is racialised to a degree seen in few other countries in the world. There are historical reasons for this. Malaysia was, at its birth, a country deeply divided along communal lines. We negotiated and attained independence with a power-sharing arrangement between the leaders of the three major racial communities as represented by the Alliance coalition. The agreement and cooperation of these leaders ensured peace and stability while we modernised our economy. The skill and integrity of these leaders, and their clear authority among their own communities was key to the success of this model, which is sometimes described by political scientists as consociational democracy.

6) This arrangement lasted only twelve years. After the traumatic riots of May 1969, we underwent a period of rule under the National Operations Council before Parliament was restored. The New Economic Policy was drafted and put into action. A new coalition, the Barisan Nasional, was put together to ensure that every community had a place at the table. Once more, the idea was to resolve conflict within a consociational power-sharing arrangement. Each community was to have a place at the table. Conflicts were to be solved between the leaders of these communities, behind closed doors. This arrangement was useful and effective for its time, but we have to wake up to the fact that it no longer works.

It is important to understand why:

7) It was never meant to be a permanent solution. Our method of racial power-sharing is primarily a system for resolving conflict in a deeply divided society. It was designed as an interim work-around, an early stage on the way to “a more perfect union” and not as the desired end-state. Over the years, however, we have put up barricades around our system as if it were a fore-ordained and permanent ideal. In doing so, we have turned a half-way house into our destination, as if we must forever remain a racially divided and racially governed society.

8.) Instead, our ideal must be to become a free and united society in which individuals can express their ethnic and religious identities without being imprisoned in them. We must aim for a society in which public reasoning and not backroom dealing determines our collective decisions.

9) The power-sharing model that we started life with is an elite style of government justified by the virtue and competence of natural leaders of their communities. It needs special conditions. It does not work when political parties are led by the ignorant and the corrupt who have no standing in the communities they claim to represent.

10) It needs genuine agreement and cooperation between leaders who command support in their own communities and are universally respected. It will not work if the power-sharing coalition is overly dominated by one person and the others are there as token representatives. Our founding fathers negotiated, cooperated and shared responsibility as equals and as friends within a power-sharing framework. The communal interests they represented were articulated within the overarching vision of a united Malaysia. In the intervening years, as power came to be concentrated in the Executive, we preserved only the outward appearance of power-sharing. In reality we have had top-down rule and power has become increasingly unaccountable. Each of our political parties has also become more top-down, ruled by eternal incumbents who protect their position with elaborate restrictions on contests. Umno itself has become beholden to the Executive.

11) Our decades under highly-centralised government undermined our power-sharing formula, just as it undermined key institutions such as the judiciary, the police and the rule of law. Our major institutions have survived in appearance while their substance has eroded. Seen in this light, the election results of March 8, which saw the Barisan Nasional handed its worst defeat since 1969, was just the beginning of the collapse of a structure which has long been hollowed out.

The end of the old, but not quite the new

12) The racial power-sharing model now practiced by Barisan is broken. It takes more honesty than we are used to in public life to observe that this is not a temporary but a terminal crisis. An old order is ending. Our problem is that while this past winds down, smoothly or otherwise, the future is not yet here. We are caught in between. Despite our having become a more economically advanced society, with many opportunities for our citizens to express richly plural identities, our races have become increasingly polarised. Large numbers of our electorate still vote along ethnic and religious lines. Much of our political ground is still racially demarcated. Although we have made some progress towards truly multiracial politics, both the Government and the Opposition are largely mobilised along racial lines. It is not yet time to herald a new dawn. Instead, we are in a transition full of perils and possibilities.

13) You are this generation caught between. You are the generation of transition. You will play a key role in determining its outcome. However well a certain kind of politics of racial identity may have served to reduce conflict in the past, it has come to the end of its useful life. We need a new beginning to racial relations in Malaysia, and you must pioneer that beginning. We need to re-design race relations in Malaysia, and you must be the architects and builders of that design.

14) In coming to that new design I hope you take advantage of the perspective of distance that your overseas education has given you to not take as your starting point the tired answers that are passed on as conventional wisdom. You must reformulate the questions and come up with your own answers. When it is clear that one generation may have run out of steam, it is time to generate your own. Where do you begin? May I suggest some perspectives and principles. Whatever the answers we come up with, I think the following elements are important:

a) Begin with our common humanity. Respect our common humanity must override all lesser affiliations, including race. One of Islam’s most powerful contributions to human civilisation has been its insistence on the equality of all human beings. Islam tolerates no notions of racial superiority or inferiority. All human beings are equal before God. That same principle of equality is absolutely fundamental to democracy, and democracy is a foundational principle of our Constitution. Democracy is part of what makes us who we are as a nation. Even if we might still gravitate towards racial groupings, our allegiance to these groups must never overshadow our allegiance to the Constitution, and to the claims of equal dignity that it establishes firmly and permanently. Political parties based on race or religion must never be allowed to do or say anything contrary to justice and equality.

b) We must anchor ourselves in the Constitution and restore its primacy. This founding document of our country establishes definitively the equality of citizenship that is the bedrock of democracy. It gives us the framework of law and order within which we become a nation. It establishes the primacy of the rule of law, the sovereignty of Parliament, the independence of the judiciary and civil service and of our law enforcement agencies. These are the institutions which guarantee the freedom and sovereignty of the people.

c) We should acknowledge that while race is a category that unites people in common feeling, it can also divide, and divide disastrously. While it unites people who possess a set of social markers it often divides the same people from other communities. We should appreciate not just the fact that we are diverse but diverse in different ways. What I mean by this is that we are not diverse in the sense of being merely Malay, a Chinese, an Indian, a Kadazan, Iban and so forth. Each of us inhabits these particular identities in different ways. Each of us is not just a member of a race. There are other classifications which matter to us, such as location, class, social status, occupation, language, politics and others.   We would be terribly impoverished as persons if our identity was given ahead of time and once and for all merely by our membership of a fixed racial category. I would be a very dull person if you could tell who I was simply by looking up my race. We would never have unity if that is primarily how we regard one another. If you reflect on yourselves, you might find that all kinds of identity matter to you: that you are a graduate of such and such a university, that you speak these languages, support this football team, enjoy certain food or music, love to travel, can write computer code, have read such and such books, and have so-and-so as friends. Just reflect on how you identify yourselves in your facebook profiles. Is race the only thing you regard as important about yourselves? Is it the most important thing?    To expect our politics to be given by our race is to make cardboard images of ourselves, it is to retard our growth as individuals and hence as a society. Similarly to see no more of others than their race is to turn them into stereotypes and maintain a view of the world bordering on racist. I want to urge you, as the makers of the new social landscape we need in Malaysia, to reject taking race to be a unique and fixed categorisation, to reject race as a central category of social and political life.

i) Race is a constructed category, in the sense that people shape what they count as a “race” according to time, place and purpose. There is no unique and rigid concept of it the way there is a rigid concept of buoyancy, double-entry book-keeping, equilateral triangles and photosynthesis. I would be offended if you tried to measure and determine my racial identity, and it would tell me that there was something deeply wrong with your worldview. I am not Malay in the sense in which water is H2O.

ii) Race is merely one among many identities we take up in life. We may not have much choice over how others categorise us, but we certainly have a choice about the relative importance to place on our own and therefore on the others’ racial identity. We have a choice in how much weight we put on it, and in how high in our scheme of values we put it. The contrast I want to draw is between the view that makes race out to be a unique and fundamental category, and a view that sees race as one out of many kinds of identification we could prioritise. If we see race as a watertight category, then you are either of race X or not, and everything else: your habits, thought-patterns, loyalties and politics must all follow from that. Then race becomes destiny. The politics of this kind of conception of race will always divide, and the ultimate solution to intra-racial problems it leads us to is, in the end, violence. It is easy to identify the practitioners of this kind of racial politics. They will rely on veiled threats of communal violence even as they take part in democratic politics.   However, if we understand that racial identity is just one of many identities we have to balance, then it becomes our duty as thinking persons to set relative priorities on all these identifications. We need to ask ourselves whether we want to draw our moral values and perspective from our common humanity or from our racial identity. As educated, reasoning people, we cannot but find our common humanity the more fundamental value. We cannot but find rationally chosen universal values more important than inherited tribal affiliations.

iii) The ability to root ourselves in our common humanity first and foremost is the prerequisite for the development of a democratic society in which policies are decided by public reasoning rather than determined by violence and manipulation. This is because open public reasoning can only be carried out where there is equal respect for the dignity and rights of all citizens, and such respect must be firmly rooted in an understanding that despite sometimes clashing interests and identities, we are united by a more fundamental common identity: that of a shared humanity created by God. Our common humanity gives us moral obligations to one another, regardless of our lesser affiliations in a way that racial identity does not. 

d) We need to arrive at new ways of mediating conflicting claims between the races, new ways of bringing people to the table, of including everyone in the decisionmaking process.

e) These new ways must be based on more open conceptions of who we are. Malaysia’s major races have lived together not just for decades but for centuries. Their cultures have interacted for millenia. In that time there has been mutual influence, admixture and cross-pollination at a depth and on a scale that our politics, popular culture and educational curriculum has largely pretended does not exist.   In my own parliamentary constituency, jungle covered, far inland and one of the most remote in the peninsula (it used to be known as Ulu Kelantan and covered half the state, and when I started there I had to travel to it by boat), is a six hundred year old Chinese community, perhaps the oldest in the peninsula, living in peace with their Malay and Orang Asli neighbours. Why pretend that we do not owe so much to each other that we would not be ourselves without each other? At the level at which people actually live we are already inextricably linked to each other.   It is time to embrace this real diversity in our political and personal lives. Our racial identities are not silos in a cornfield, forever separate, encased in steel, but trees in our rainforest: standing distinct but inexplicable without each other and constantly co-evolving.

16) While giving room to whoever wants to organise and advocate political interests according to our ethnic and religious affinities, we must now, very firmly, assert that such affinities must always recognise the priority and primacy of our common citizenship, our equal dignity, and above all, our common humanity before each other and before God. First we are human beings who are open to one another.

17) My young friends, I am not recommending anything novel. These are cardinal principle of our Constitution and the faiths we profess, most especially of Islam, and of reason itself. Let us have the sense of perspective to see our ethnic identities against these cornerstone principles of religion and ethics, and let us now educate our young, apprentice our youth, and conduct ourselves according to these principles. And then let us have a new beginning for Malaysia.

Source: http://razaleigh.com

2009-08-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

Clinicals Week 2

Am getting used to officewear
and to wearing Sean's oversized shoes
~~which make me look taller~~
note to self: buy fitting shoes

waking up early is still as painful
and they just killed our weekly 12pm start with long case presentations at 9am
gah

and today we learnt yet another ailment in the wonderful world of Medicine

Pilonidal Cysts
a painful disease of the ass-crack, more formerly known as the natal cleft
apparently caused by hair (from the head) falling down the back
and getting stuck in the natal cleft
and then as a consequence of buttock cheeks rubbing against one another
(the hair) burrows into the skin causing the formation of a pus-filled cyst

didn't know hair could do that
click for visualization

med school

2009-07-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

AMS ended, and I just found out that all that effort and money and putting up with a shitass supervisor was for nothing
oh well, such is life
at least i didn't waste my entire year working too hard
:D

Winter hols came and went
which were awesome as always
and here I am, 1 week into clinicals at St V's
orientation week was somewhat blehh, for lack of a better description
and I start at 7.30 on mondays
oh woe is me

but whatever, i'll still have fun
i'll make sure of that

(insert feeling: neutral with hints of melancholy and a generous amount of annoying positivity)

2009-03-21T07:10:00.001-07:00

this is for ivy-the-fishhead:

10 things about the person who tagged you:

1. She is a girl..duh again
2. She is a super sportswoman
3. Is one of my oldest closest best friends
4. Used to rule the band together, not even a certain drummer who tried to climb above us could defeat us. buahahahahha
5. Loves Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson a lot...and i mean, a lot
6. Is, much to my displeasure, taller than me
7. Has curtain hair
8. Speaks Hakka
9. Apparently used to cry when people called her a fishhead
10. Is someone I can hangout with forever. All we have to do is "eat, go bowling, go arcade", cut paste and repeat infinity times

10 things about me:
I decided to replace this with this one that's been going around facebook:

Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real...nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name : Gary

2. A four Letter Word : Good

3. A boy's Name : Greg

4. A girl's Name : Giselle

5. An occupation : Gardener

6. A color : Grey

7. Something you'll wear : Grey tee? (I know, lame, but all I could think of were things I would never wear eg. G-string, garland?!. wtf right?) oh wait, got it...Gloves! :)

9. A food : Grapes

10. Something found in the bathroom: Glass

11. A place : Guangzhou (go there for your next holiday! you won't regret!)

12. A reason for being late : Got onto a train, which knocked down a person, which caused the train to remain stationary for 3 hours before the mess was cleaned up (damn morbid but based on a true incident)

13. Something you'd shout : Goddammit

14. A movie title : Gattaca

15. Something you drink : Green tea

16. A musical group : Gorillaz

17. An animal : Great white shark

18. A street name : Gertrude St

19. A type of car : GMC

20. The title of a song : Great DJ- The Ting Tings

Finally done!!!
the G one was pretty hard
;D

and I tag...
nobody!
lazy to think of/tell ppl la
;p

2009-03-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

Her morning elegance by Oren Lavie

made me sigh and smile

and forget everything

as i watched the tiny glimmering carlights

floating down the highway

and my reflection staring right back at me

ps. ivy, I got your tag. will do it soonish ;)

2009-03-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

life has been beautiful for the past week

late nights and even later mornings (or rather afternoons)

living it up with the ladies of my life

and of course the rest of the newly-expanded 3908 family

topped with generous servings of chocolate and cakes and a dash of Japanese profanities
life is indeed beautiful

after yet another longgggg hiatus

2009-01-23T03:11:00.000-08:00

hello hello you

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

tis late but its the thought that counts no?

so much has happened in the past months

but i've been to lazy-arsed to blog

nyhoos, HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR and hopefully i'll be blogging more this year

possibly

no promises

*sheepish grin*

and the only renovation done thus far is that i removed older archives

bcos they're too personal/emo/embarassing/filled-with-coloured-words-and-camwhore-pics

more renovations shud be underway

til then stay sexy

;)

and one more thing

go to Molten Lava
my mum's cafe @ Lot LG312b, LG floor, Oval, New Wing, 1 Utama

We now have cupcakes!

and yes i made the blue one

womanizer

2008-10-14T05:33:00.001-07:00

so. damn. kao. nosebleed. hot.

the dawn of adulthood

2008-10-04T05:53:00.001-07:00

2 hours away from adulthood

a realm so intimidating

so filled with responsibility and burden

And looking back at what a great time you had as a teen

its hard not to leave with a heavy heart

but they say there's no difference

you don't just grow up overnight

this is one of those big points in your life

that I hope you look back on with a smile of content

so when you read this, say next year, or next decade or even after a few

know that you lived life to its fullest

and know that you will continue to do so

let fireworks light your every day

dear yiimin

2008-10-03T00:41:00.001-07:00

dear ms limyiimin who is far far away,

I was walking in Myer basement

all alone coz i cleverly left my keys stuck in my locker in the hospital toilet

and thus was locked out

with nothing to do while waiting for the other mr tan to finish his body attack

when I stumbled across this

melbourne loves and misses you woman

its a sign

from,

a 3908-ian who hopes he made your day

NS

2008-09-23T08:25:00.001-07:00

Was reading the Star online and stumbled across this article by one of my favourite journalists, Mary Schneider

I grew up reading her weekly column 'But Then Again' in the Star

And just fell in love with her witty style

She's a single mum, originally from Ireland if I'm not wrong, but currently lives in Penang

Monday September 22, 2008

Marching orders

But Then Again
By MARY SCHNEIDER

A teenager’s plan to prepare for college overseas is overtaken by call-up for National Service.

WHEN I first found out that my daughter would have to participate in the National Service programme next January, my brain went into overdrive.

“Oh my God! What about her asthma and her allergies?” I said to a friend. “They will force her to march until her poor lungs can’t take it any more, and then deprive her of her inhaler.

“And if that doesn’t kill her, she’ll be forced to eat fried rice or noodles containing prawns, causing her throat to swell up to such an extent that she won’t be able to breathe. I can just picture her gasping for air in the middle of some far-flung jungle as a bunch of people with no First Aid knowledge look on.

“And if by some fluke, she does survive all of that, some lecherous instructor will molest her in the girls’ bathroom while she’s brushing her teeth.”

“But surely, they’ve ironed out all those kinks from previous stints,” said my friend, sounding way too pragmatic for my liking.

“Kinks? Since when were death and rape classified as kinks?”

“I didn’t mean to suggest ...”

“And what about the National Service camp in Penang that is on the verge of collapse after a recent landslide? What does that tell you about the planning that goes into these places? Doesn’t that indicate that one set of ‘kinks’ is being replaced by yet another?”

“But isn’t the Government going to inspect all National Service camps to make sure they are safe?”

“Yes, but I’m sure something else will happen that the organisers didn’t have the foresight or experience to think about.”

“What else could happen?”

“Well, there’s always food poisoning, gangsterism and violence.”

“But these things have already happened.”

“Exactly!”

Fortunately, my daughter is not as paranoid as her mother. She is disappointed about being called up for National Service, but her grouch isn’t with the programme per se but with the timing of it.

For the past six months, my daughter has been making plans for that period between finishing her SPM exams at the beginning of December and going off to college at the beginning of April next year.

And no, those plans do not include daily activities like sleeping for 16 hours, sending text messages to her friends for two hours, updating her Facebook profile for one hour, hanging out at the shopping mall for four hours, watching TV for six hours, and learning that a day doesn’t have 29 hours.

Among other plans, there were the French lessons that would have given her a head start with her college course work; the driving lessons that would have led to more independence; and the temporary job she was hoping would partially pay for her air ticket for an overseas trip to attend a family wedding next year.

But enough of the whining. If participants succeed in fulfilling the objectives of the National Service programme, they will morph (in a mere three months) into people of character who take setbacks in their stride and try to look for the positive in every experience.

Such people will go to college during the day, take extra lessons in the evening, hold down a job on the weekend, help the less fortunate, and take public transport without complaint.

As a parent, I surely can’t complain about that.

But there’s more. According to the great resource that is Wikipedia, the National Service has the following objectives:

> Develop a young generation that is patriotic and loves its country.

> Enhance unity among the multi-racial communities in the country.

> Instill a spirit of caring and volunteerism among society.

> Produce an active, intelligent and confident generation.

> Develop positive characteristics among the younger generation through good values.

> Develop a generation that will always obey the current government.

So parents who wave goodbye to a bodoh child can look forward to welcoming home a new, improved, intelligent version after just 90 days of their teenager eating bad food, getting lost in the jungle and learning how to handle a rifle, among other character-building activities.

As a parent, I surely can’t complain about that.

Perhaps the people responsible for developing the programme ought to take part in the exercises themselves.

As a parent, I surely wouldn’t complain about that.

gnarls barkley

2008-09-08T01:18:00.001-07:00

cool video

Who's Gonna Save My Soul?

by Gnarls Barkley

of rabbits

2008-08-15T00:02:00.001-07:00

So in the past 2 plus weeks, I've been at the lab practicing my organ bath technique (which is something so boring you wouldn't want to read about it here) on rabbit arteries

I btw, am going to use human arteries in my project instead, which are leftovers from cardiac bypass surgeries

Nyhoos, using rabbit arteries obviously involves extracting them from rabbits, which obviously need to be killed

Many a friend has branded me inhuman

"How can you kill them?! they're so cuteeee!"

I then reply that it's for the betterment of mankind. I mean billions of chickens are killed each day and no one complains (other than anti-KFC PETA members and some vegetarians)

"But it's diferrent!"

Or is it?

I mean I do pity the rabbits. They were bred for the sole purpose of dying in the hands of science.

But then again, so were the chickens headed for the markets.

So beneath our humane exteriors, our jackets of morality,

Are we actually self-centered beings

Governed by the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest (or smartest in this context)

2008-08-11T02:46:00.001-07:00

Selena, a fellow meddie, posted a link to this article in a Singaporean newspaper on Facebook

Really got me thinking

So if you've some time to kill, read on ;)

Aug 10, 2008

I wish...

Feeling like the least favourite child

Three writers share their hopes for Singapore this National Day

Nur Dianah Suhaimi

As a Malay, I've always been told that I have to work twice as hard to prove my worth

When I was younger, I always thought of myself as the quintessential Singaporean.

Of my four late grandparents, two were Malay, one was Chinese and one was Indian. This, I concluded, makes me a mix of all the main races in the country. But I later realised that it was not what goes into my blood that matters, but what my identity card says under 'Race'.

Because my paternal grandfather was of Bugis origin, my IC says I'm Malay. I speak the language at home, learnt it in school, eat the food and practise the culture. And because of my being Malay, I've always felt like a lesser Singaporean than those from other racial groups.

I grew up clueless about the concept of national service because my father was never enlisted.

He is Singaporean all right, born and bred here like the rest of the boys born in 1955. He is not handicapped in any way. He did well in school and participated in sports.

Unlike the rest, however, he entered university immediately after his A levels. He often told me that his schoolmates said he was 'lucky' because he was not called up for national service.

'What lucky?' he would tell them. 'Would you feel lucky if your country doesn't trust you?'

So I learnt about the rigours of national service from my male cousins. They would describe in vivid detail their training regimes, the terrible food they were served and the torture inflicted upon them - most of which, I would later realise, were exaggerations.

But one thing these stories had in common was that they all revolved around the Police Academy in Thomson. As I got older, it puzzled me why my Chinese friends constantly referred to NS as 'army'. In my family and among my Malay friends, being enlisted in the army was like hitting the jackpot. The majority served in the police force because, as is known, the Government was not comfortable with Malay Muslims serving in the army. But there are more of them now.

Throughout my life, my father has always told me that as a Malay, I need to work twice as hard to prove my worth. He said people have the misconception that all Malays are inherently lazy.

I was later to get the exact same advice from a Malay minister in office who is a family friend.

When I started work, I realised that the advice rang true, especially because I wear my religion on my head. My professionalism suddenly became an issue. One question I was asked at a job interview was whether I would be willing to enter a nightclub to chase a story. I answered: 'If it's part of the job, why not? And you can rest assured I won't be tempted to have fun.'

When I attend media events, before I can introduce myself, people assume I write for the Malay daily Berita Harian. A male Malay colleague in The Straits Times has the same problem, too.

This makes me wonder if people also assume that all Chinese reporters are from Lianhe Zaobao and Indian reporters from Tamil Murasu.

People also question if I can do stories which require stake-outs in the sleazy lanes of Geylang. They say because of my tudung I will stick out like a sore thumb. So I changed into a baseball cap and a men's sports jacket - all borrowed from my husband - when I covered Geylang.

I do not want to be seen as different from the rest just because I dress differently. I want the same opportunities and the same job challenges.

Beneath the tudung, I, too, have hair and a functioning brain. And if anything, I feel that my tudung has actually helped me secure some difficult interviews.

Newsmakers - of all races - tend to trust me more because I look guai (Hokkien for well-behaved) and thus, they feel, less likely to write critical stuff about them.

Recently, I had a conversation with several colleagues about this essay. I told them I never thought of myself as being particularly patriotic. One Chinese colleague thought this was unfair. 'But you got to enjoy free education,' she said.

Sure, for the entire 365 days I spent in Primary 1 in 1989. But my parents paid for my school and university fees for the next 15 years I was studying.

It seems that many Singaporeans do not know that Malays have stopped getting free education since 1990. If I remember clearly, the news made front-page news at that time.

We went on to talk about the Singapore Government's belief that Malays here would never point a missile at their fellow Muslim neighbours in a war.

I said if not for family ties, I would have no qualms about leaving the country. Someone then remarked that this is why Malays like myself are not trusted. But I answered that this lack of patriotism on my part comes from not being trusted, and for being treated like a potential traitor.

It is not just the NS issue. It is the frustration of explaining to non-Malays that I don't get special privileges from the Government. It is having to deal with those who question my professionalism because of my religion. It is having people assume, day after day, that you are lowly educated, lazy and poor. It is like being the least favourite child in a family. This child will try to win his parents' love only for so long. After a while, he will just be engulfed by disappointment and bitterness.

I also believe that it is this 'least favourite child' mentality which makes most Malays defensive and protective of their own kind.

Why do you think Malay families spent hundreds of dollars voting for two Malay boys in the Singapore Idol singing contest? And do you know that Malays who voted for other competitors were frowned upon by the community?

The same happens to me at work. When I write stories which put Malays in a bad light, I am labelled a traitor. A Malay reader once wrote to me to say: 'I thought a Malay journalist would have more empathy for these unfortunate people than a non-Malay journalist.'

But such is the case when you are a Malay Singaporean. Your life is not just about you, as much as you want it to be. You are made to feel responsible for the rest of the pack and your actions affect them as well. If you trip, the entire community falls with you. But if you triumph, it is considered everyone's success.

When 12-year-old Natasha Nabila hit the headlines last year for her record PSLE aggregate of 294, I was among the thousands of Malays here who celebrated the news. I sent instant messages to my friends on Gmail and chatted excitedly with my Malay colleagues at work.

Suddenly a 12-year-old has become the symbol of hope for the community and a message to the rest that Malays can do it too - and not just in singing competitions.

And just like that, the 'least favourite child' in me feels a lot happier.

Each year, come Aug 9, my father, who never had the opportunity to do national service, dutifully hangs two flags at home - one on the front gate and the other by the side gate.

I wonder if putting up two flags is his way of making himself feel like a better-loved child of Singapore.

contengfied

2008-08-03T01:44:00.001-07:00

So we were in suat puoi's house the other day hanging out at her study table checking out enlarged photocopies of our faces on the wall abutting her table to find this...

Noticed how all of our faces are artistically conteng-ed

Except hers of course, which was tastefully spared of pink highlights

Something tells me she secretly hates us

Garyological Garyisms

Last day of uni

one year on

barbra streisand

2 weeks to sem 9 exams

sem 9 exams

last week in warrnambool

feb 10

feist on sesame street

21

Race: Time for a new beginning

med school

after yet another longgggg hiatus

womanizer

the dawn of adulthood

dear yiimin

NS

Was reading the Star online and stumbled across this article by one of my favourite journalists, Mary Schneider

Monday September 22, 2008

Marching orders

But Then AgainBy MARY SCHNEIDER

gnarls barkley

of rabbits

contengfied

But Then Again
By MARY SCHNEIDER