City Turtle in Ubin

I suddenly don't seem to have enough of Ubin and made another trip there last saturday (another one in just 3 weeks..) This time with some fellow divers.

I had thought all quarries were closed and so during all the trips i went, i could only catch glimpses of them through the thick forestations that surround them. Little did i know i was a real city turtle to miss these...




Really have to thank Jack for bringing us to this wonderful "still available for viewing" quarry. Crystal blue waters with silent surrounding trees and occasional glides from swallows and herons. A true paradise. (I probably sound "swaku" to seasoned Ubin goers.. but what to do.. i still find it amazing. i'm sure future trips to Ubin will be different from now..)

The rest of the trip was like all others.. cycling, cycling and more cycling.. i don't seem to be tired of it, but my butt is.. It is also more interesting this time cos i had to contend with... (sorry) i'm very contended to have Ryan as my "radio station" belting out songs and whistles throughout the journey.. too bad the many others of the group could not make it.. would have been more fun..



Just had lunch with long-time-no-see CG mates who went to Australia and Taiwan for electives. Could see that they really had enjoyed themselves and i'm sure they had learnt a lot with the kind tutors and kinder patients overseas. (It's somehow easier for a foreign student to clerk patients i suppose) All of them certainly looked slimmer.. must be all the scrimping and saving or as Jiawan put it, the lesser oil in Taiwanese food.. Well, now that they will be taking Singaporean food tds (at least).. maybe the theory will be proven if they put on weight...

Time and Passion

"Everyone has the same 24hrs in a day"

But why is it even when i'm off computer games, i still cannot achieve what many others can? We have the same number of write-ups, go home the same time but yet i only manage to settle write ups but cannot cover 1 topic in Kumar and Clarke or 1 chapter of Talley's while the other group mates can rattle stuff off the books like nothing...

It must be the efficiency or the decisiveness of mine during write ups that causes all the delay.. where to look up, what more to look up, what to put down in the write-up, what not to put down.. Think there should be less time spent on deciding all these or maybe more concentration needed so i will know which is really the more important quotes to quote.. than i can settle write ups faster..

Weiqiang had asked me during the week:"I wonder if i can get the same passion like Dr Melvin Leow.." Passion so great he presented cases to himself during MRT rides.. passion so great he reads studies after studies and remembers who wrote them and what their conclusions were, passion so great he would welcome any medical students who approach him with questions/request for tutorials. Passion so great i know if i have it, i would be looking forward to time in the wards or time of studying as if they were wushu/soccer sessions.. Had passion and enthusiasm in year 1... wonder where they've gone.. not for good i hope..
Time to reignite it.. somehow.. soon..

Saw a patient on friday who had NPC and later on developed some complications from radiotherapy, and even later on.. a stroke. Throughout the whole history taking, he reminded us that chinese med and acupuncture were not to be looked down upon. His belief in chinese med was strong, apparently because western med had somehow failed him.. He went on to lament that he didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't turn to vice.. Was kind to others but still this had to befall him.. One can sense his bitterness.. but he was still kind enough to talk to us, let us examine one by one and even wished us well at the end of the session..

i'm always very uncomfortable when patients ask why they get diseases.. easy to tell a alcoholic with alcoholic liver.. "because you drank.." to tell a smoker with COPD "because you smoked".. This patient? "sorry, cause you're from southern china and this led to one thing after another"?
i just couldn't find the perfect sentence to tell him and make him feel better.. i could only pat his hand and hope that he found it reassuring..

my mind wondered quickly at that moment to the word "karma". seems to explain all these easily. i remembered the scene in andy lau's show "running on karma" ceceilia cheung was asking the question everyone would be asking:"Is it because of what I did in MY last life that i have to pay in this life?" To which Andy Lau replied strangely:"No, it's because what someone did had to be repaid by another." i was baffled at first but understood it towards the end of the show.. the person in the last life wasn't the person in present.. definitely different characters.. but still the acts were done and had to be repaid..

Again i stress "karma" is an easy way to explain everything.. if an explanation is needed for everything... itseems cruel, unproven, but if it's true.. at least we know, the next life of the patient will be a good one.

柔, 刚 and Endorphins

Felt a little crazy after watching some wushu clips from wushucentral. So decided to train yesterday night, and discovered there were similar "crazy" people like me.. (Even better attendance than on a normal day.) I was real happy with training last night, managed to get back some form and also discover some new stuff about 旋风腿...

I'm still bewildered by 柔 and 刚, how does 1 move fast without appearing to be using too much force (too 刚?) Obviously i'm the 刚 type so i'm bewildered. I suppose the same amount of strength is required to achieve the same speed for the same weight (i.e. the hand or leg), so does the more 柔 people use just the optimum amount of strength to achieve the same speed as opposed to the more 刚 type who just 出 all the 牛力 we have to get the speed and in so doing appear to be more stiff?

Or is it the ability to just use the specific agonistic muscles to move the limb, while relaxing most of the antagonists and also the muscles that support the joints which gives the result of a smoother, more gentle flow of movement despite the same speed of movement?

If it's the latter then probably i lack lots of practice in selecting which muscles to relax and which to exert during a movement. Maybe just like learning the piano and when one is trying to reach a note far away for the first time, the whole arm will become a log or in worst scenarios, the whole body gets "spasmised".. Guess i have to work on this... hopefully one day can easily switch between styles just by the switch of mentality..

Got a taste of endorphins again. Got a bleeding blister on the foot unexpectedly last night and was happily carrying on with training with the help of a plaster... The "wonder-hormone" obviously cannot work forever and as usual chose to abandon me in the shower room.. nearly shot into the ceiling when i turned on the tap...

Many years ago, i used to laugh at a joke about movies. It was saying why the hero will be able to tahan a bullet wound while taking down hundreds of enemies but will flinch the moment his girlfriend/wife/lover-to-be-after-i-get-the-bullet-out-for-you touches the wound.

Hmm.. the age of ignorance?

Rusty, Heavy

Was so looking forward to going back to training again yesterday... As expected, it's hard to enjoy a training session when i've missed more than a month's worth of them.. No strength to kick, no sense of balance, significantly reduced airtime.. The list goes on... Nevertheless, it's great to meet friends i've not seen for some time. And on top of that to get burned by their fire and passion in Wushu, so that i look forward to training harder and more frequently in the subsequent weeks...

I had to turn to the less flight and flexibility intensive bajiquan taolu.. but ended up with shivering legs with all the stances. (Super weak sia..) Also tried out the nine-section whip under Falconz guidance.. Wow, real fun, now i know why it had hooked so many people to take it up.. (just like it had hooked itself around Falconz's mouth during one of his training...)

Long weekend coming up.. hopefully can finish up the writeups for the elective and ethics. Then can set my mind at ease for the days after the electives..

Hmm.. keeping diagnosis from patients.. sounds like a crime, but there's a humane part to it i guess, else no one would even think of doing it..

Tioman

A sight from Tioman

Just returned from Tioman on sunday, from the first overseas diving trip of my life. It might well have been one of the best 2 days of my life...

I finally manage to relish the dream of swimming with fishes, staring at them at pointblank distance, float around in the depths of the sea, looking at ship wrecks, a car wreck (ya a car!), coral reefs.. Most dives have lots to see, which transport me into another world where the 4th dimension of time can be easily ignored. However, i must admit not all dives are that enjoyable. 1 dive took us to some areas of colourless and fishless coral reefs, but it is during this dive that i get to try to practice buoyancy control.. trying as much as possible to get my nose close to a coral without touching it while hovering.. (haha, Ryan even suggested using sea urchins as practice targets when we were discussing this subject..) I've thoroughly enjoyed the trip, only setbacks were the long distance that had to be travelled and the fact that i had went in the middle of an elective posting... Man, my mind was still underwater on monday.

The Car Wreck

I realised how Tioman had "mesmerised" me. Have been there before 2 years ago with majority of my CG mates, just before we started working together and boy, it was the most successful (or is it the only successful?) outing of our group. This time, with a different group of friends, different activity but at the same resort (maybe even same room), I was still in awe of the scenery above sea level and on top of that, enjoying the company of the friends around me.

Don't leave home for a diving trip without them..... Dive Buddies

I always get struck by something after trips. This one's not an exception. I realised how different my thoughts are from others. It's not those common everyday stuff of where to eat, what to do, or the solution to knotty problems that's different. The thing that struck me was how something that seems to be the natural course of action to others is not taken as a viable action for me. Well, 3 persons volunteered the same suggestion (almost simultaneously) without me actually asking for one. And this leaves me wondering if i'm some wierdo who came from another world that doesn't think like 3 other human beings....

Hai.... but i thought i've decided what to do long ago... So How, how?