The reader accepts, on reading of this disclaimer, that the Internet is a vast wasteland of crap that spews out of human minds. This blog is no different. Any assumptions or conclusions that the reader draws from this blog are not the responsibility of the author, along with any physical or psychological harm that might result from the reading of this blog.
Author
The author is a paranoid, deranged and cynical misanthrope who records snippets of her life so that she will remember them when she grows old and withered. The identities of any names or initials on this blog are based on the assumptions of the reader unless otherwise specified, and the author claims no responsibility for them.
Reality
The author somehow got into medical school. Yes, you of the general public, shudder and fear the wrath of an inept doctor.
Loves
Reading, Maisy (my dog), tea, writing (albeit badly), piano, music, junk food.
Hates
Almost everything else besides the things mentioned above.
Friends
Bao Cheng' Bernice' Chien Young' Chun Hing' Claire' Faustina' Felicia' Ferly' Gloria' Irene' Irene & Jiaying' Jac' Jiamin' Jiasin' Jiaying' Lutheng' Karene' Marissa' Melesa' Mingyi' My fictionpress' Pamelia' Pei Rong' Qiu Ting' Rachel' Satires Site' Stasia' Sylvia' The Clique' Vinette' Wenjia' Xin Rong' Xue Ying' Yanne & I' Yanne & Jamie' Zeena' 203'
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Chat area
I'm sure there're a lot of people out there who empathise with me with regards to idiotic siblings. Unfortunately, 50% of the time, these sibilings are older. And thus think they are so much smarter, more intelligent, brilliant, intellectual, astute, perceptive, street-wise and mature than you are. So much so that the mountains must shake with their impeccable logic and knowledge.
Haha. Kiss my arse.
(not literally, of course. That would be defiling my rear end)
Currently, the financial situation at home (and well, everywhere) is in dire straits. Both my parents are unemployed (my dad only works very part time), and have been since they sold off their newsagency 3 months ago. I think I've mentioned this in the past posts, but yes, it has impacted significantly on our lives. Very significantly.
I now have to work about 10hrs a week (tutoring) on top of studying. Which isn't the nicest thing a student has to do with a workload such as the medical course. However, what must be done must be done. I do feel very tired and my brain feels like imploding (I'm surprised it hasn't) from the long days I have 4 days a week (I leave home as early as 7, and get home around 7 every day). Yet, I attempt not to complain as I know my parents are feeling rather useless that I have to work so hard on top of studying.
My dear brother, on the other hand, only works about 5 hrs a week. Yes, he is in 3rd yr and it's supposed to be tougher etc etc, but honestly, he spends half his time on computer games anyway. While I am tutoring after uni, he comes home and takes a nap, or hooks up onto the Internet or World of Warcraft or whatever game he fancies. And on the days he has a nap, he inconsiderately stays up till around 1am playing his game, when I am trying to sleep in the room (still sleeping in the study room since my room hasn't been cleared after my gran left).
This same dear brother who claims to have the above qualities I mentioned in paragraph 1 has been harping on about how shitarse our financial situation is. True, it is. But what fking gd would it do to mention it?
He mentioned it this afternoon to my mum, who was complaining about how she has to pay for dinner when friends visit from singapore. He cleverly said that it should be right that friends pay for each other, and that all my mum's life, she hasn't had friends because she refuses to do so. Wtf?! Yeah, like he has so many friends. Other than poking fun at his close to non-existent social life, how hurtful would it be to my mum?
My parents have spent close to $100000 on his school fees in the past 3 years alone. Think about how much they have had to stinge and save to get that money. Unfortunately, he's so mature that he doesn't even understand that. Instead, when I rebutt him about what's wrong about dividing out the cost of the food when going out with friends, he labels me, with a superiorly smug voice, as being too immature and implies that my friends are too immature as well.
Fyi, apart from you guys in singapore (who are far from being immature and are really, more mature than his friends), my friends here are actually biologically and generally more mature than him in all aspects. Such as being able to go into the army at the age of 18, rather than wasting $100000 just because he's too wimpy to do so.
I don't see what's wrong with splitting the cost of food. Why, does that make you seem financially inadequate? IMMATURE, as my dear brother thinks so? Or just plain wasting your parents' money? Seeing that he takes (or used to, since he claims he's been paying his own expenses since they were unemployed. I really don't agree, but obviously have no camcorders over my mum's handbag or something to prove it) close to $100 per week for his expenses, I'm not surprised. Fine, that includes petrol, which is necessary and which I use too. But, it's not as if I, the immature one, haven't been paying for my own expenses either. So really, your holier-than-thou logic is a huge failure and ultimately reflects on you as a highly immature person.
Lol, so much for being superior. He earns less than half of what I earn in a week. Well, he monthly earns what I earn in a WEEK. And he thinks he is so much cleverer than I am. If he is, why doesn't he get more jobs? Why isn't he getting a HD in every unit like I am (admittedly, it's only 1st sem of 1st yr and 1st sem isn't even over, but I am learning close to everything [excluding chinese] from SCRATCH because I didn't do bio/human bio in high school)? Why didn't he get a general exhibition, 99.90 or above, a scholarship to even a single uni and work in the first yr of uni?
I guess you could say academic results aren't the best gauge of intelligence, but speech and subject of speech could count, don't you think so? I still like the fact that my lowest mark was 0.3 marks off his highest mark in the TEE though. Not that he likes it at all, obviously. He goes into another 1 of his holier-than-thou talks about TEE mattering close to nothing (my arse), and that he just came from singapore (um, isn't that ironic? It's because he JUST CAME from his oh-so-prestigious school RI that he should have done better).
Disclaimer: I don't really have anything against RI, but just against my bro's view that it is like mount everest of all the singaporean schools.
At the end of the day, his holier-than-thou speeches don't do anything except inspire others. Yeah, inspire others to want to whack him in the face, stick a thermometer in his mouth to check if he's running a brain-burning fever, send him for a CT scan of his head to check if he actually has a brain. I suppose more importantly, it just sparks more unhappiness and, in the case of my parents, more feelings of incompetence. Just because he got into medicine and *might* graduate and become a doctor doesn't mean he is better than everyone else. I really hate this attitude in med students (how ironic, you must be thinking). Big fat deal. There're so many better people who just didn't choose to do med. And one of those reasons is because of those arseholes like my brother, who think they have godly intelligence due to the fact that they jumped over some measley university hurdles like some circus animal leaping through fire rings. At least I see some appeal in those animals.
On another note, exams are coming up in 1.5 weeks. I am screwed, SCREWED, to say the least. Thus, I'll probably be disappearing off the face of blogger until the end of exams (18th june!!!), unless something alike the ways of my moronic brother inspire another post.
10:11 PM
Monday, May 18, 2009
I've got a tottering pile of work and revision to get back to, but I badly need to get this off my chest.
It's the eve to my grandma's departure for Singapore after her 6 month visit. These 6 months have been very different to say the least.
Admittedly, she gets quite annoying at times. After my parents sold their newsagency, they've been unemployed (due to the fking economic climate) and it's been pretty hard on us. I've had to look for a job, and so has my brother.
She has this really bad gambling habit that gets on all of our nerves. Seriously, lotteries never work in the favour of the buyer. Fine, 1 in a few million do strike the first prize, but it's so bloody rare that it's like donating money to the lottery commission. Despite my mum explaining our economic situation and the improbability of striking the lottery, she still insists on spending about $100 (both here and in singapore) on it.
Understandably, she's trying to get her own HDB flat to live in. My aunt nearly had a breakdown due to my gran, and has stopped talking to her. It is very depressing at the last stage of your life to be denied such freedoms like smoking (a major bane in both my mum and my aunt's houses) or even dialogue.
I suppose the main problem is the lack of understanding on both parts. My aunt has to be one of the nicest, most patient people I know in my life. And yet, she has been pushed to the verge of her tolerance. My gran, on the other hand, adheres to the traditional chinese rules that the elders have to be given first priority.
Unfortunately, in our modern world, that is close to impossible. Due to the cost and our busy lives, a person's tolerance can only be stretched thus far. It doesn't help that my aunt's family isn't the most well-off. My uncle works as a construction site driver. He works long hours just for a wee little salary. My 2 elder cousins are working, but they've only just joined the workforce and have a measly salary. My youngest cousin, on the other hand, is only 13.
According to the chinese traditions, my elder cousins have to give her a monthly allowance as well. Although my gran says that she can't bear to spend the money and has saved it up for them, it is still rather painful to watch hard-earned money spent on the lottery. I personally feel that too. A small sum for recreation is fine, but I think she buys way too much.
Another issue was her use of chinese medication/ointments. They smell absolutely disgusting, and stink up the entire house. It sounds like a really petty and trivial thing, but if you were to live in a house that stank like that, it's pretty intolerable. My clothes have been smelling of chinese ointment (some of you might have noticed when I was in sg), and undoubtedly, my cousins' clothes would too. She also regularly consults doctors, both western and chinese, and that too, is really costly. Not to mention the medication and ointments. My cousin was complaining that he has to spend his Saturdays accompanying her to the doctor, and paying for the cab fare and medication, which comes up to a princely sum of about $50 per TRIP. And it's weekly.
However, she is getting old. She's 77 already and sometimes, I look back on these things (and there're other issues too, but it'll be daylight by the time I've finished) and find them very petty and trivial. She did do a lot for us while we were young, the delicious chinese dishes cooked up every dinner. My mum argues that we did give her an allowance, but ultimately, she also agrees that my gran was a great help.
I don't know... My mum also said she cried this afternoon, and it's quite a huge thing for my non touchy-feely family. As expected, my mum immediately switched subjects but it has just been tugging at my heart strings ever since I knew. I know she'll miss us. I think I will too. After all, since we're living so far away and it's so expensive to shuttle up and down, the next time we see her might be when she is already gone.
Wth. I hate these things. I'm rather glad that I can't see her off at the airport tomorrow, because I might just break down into tears and that would really affect all of us. I really really hate farewells.
10:04 PM
Friday, May 08, 2009
I just got home from dinner (well, just is quite an understatement. It was about 2 hours ago) with the family. It's my gran's birthday tomorrow.
She's going back to sg at the end of the month after a 6 month stay with us. Which she probably thoroughly hated. LOL. The food sucks, she doesn't understand English, TV is thus boring, there's nothing to do. Oh well.
Anyway, while we were at the restaurant (my mum knows the lady boss quite well), there was this fucktard of an old man who started yelling really loudly at the lady boss. My mum later told me it was because his table was asked to move to a smaller table to allow for a bigger group of people to have dinner. Evidently, he wasn't happy with it and he started shouting. The typically noisy chinese restaurant went absolutely silent.
The fucktard started threatening the lady boss, apparently shouting things like 'shut up' and 'I don't want to ever see your face again', yes, just because they were asked (and AGREED) to move to a smaller table. He then declared that they wanted to leave, and his entire family was so embarrassed. When 1 of the waiters shooed him out of the restaurant saying something along the lines of good riddance, he got rather violent and nearly punched the guy in the face (fortunately, the fucktard's son managed to hold him back).
What an asshole.
It prompted me to think about what might happen if I had a patient like that in future. Oh crap...
Speaking of that, we got most of our results back for our mid sem exams/tests, including the essay we did about 2 million light years ago. I suppose I did quite well in all of them, though I'd have liked a higher mark :P.
I got 81% for chinese (yes, disappointing. :P My friend who moved from china when she was 12 got 96 frigging %), 82% for molecules, genes and cells (essentially biochem. I screwed up mcq. Lost 7 marks for that, and 1 for SAQ -.-'), and 87% for the essay. So yeah, haven't fallen below 80% for anything YET which is great. Hopefully this will carry on...
Because I got a job and will be spending about 2-3 hours nearly every day after school tutoring at StH. The pay is fantastic: $25/hr. I currently have 5 students, and number of hours for each of them varies from 1-4 per wk. Yr 12 physics is a bit of an exception as she's my friend, so despite it being the bitchiest of all the subjects, I only charge her $20/hr. Not really worth exhausting my brain cells for, but I feel bad since she's my friend.
So starting this week (started with 2 students last wk. Supposed to be 3, but 1 didn't turn up), I will be at StH every day mon-thurs, for a total of 9 hours. Shit.
On the bright side, 9 hours a week gives... $220. Woohoo! Considering that most of the time I don't even use those few hours constructively, it's really good that I can make money out of it now.
But yeah, I'm worried that I've bitten off more than I can chew and swallow. Med isn't that easy after all... Unlike most of the other international students who have done A lvls/are just crazily hardworking (*stares at Young*), I need to study. The saving grace is that I have 1 less unit to study than all of them (*coughCHINESEcough*), though I still have assignments for it. LOL.
Anyway, it's late and I should go shower. I'm not feeling terribly well at all and I hope my flu-like symptoms will go away, but I doubt they will. They never do. It would be shit-arse to be sick at this time, given the amount of tutoring I've commited myself to, and assignments due. Sigh.
10:36 PM