IMU Cup Scrabble 2009

Coming to you this Saturday, the 3rd of October. 8.oo am til 3.oo pm, at Chancellor Hall, IMU BJ Campus. Rustle the dictionary and flex those fingers–the wordplay excitement is coming back into this lowly medical campus by manner of the annual IMU Cup competition.

Hella tired organizing and planning for it with Navin amidst all the other stuff on my to-do list. Hope it’ll run smooth–shouldn’t be too hard to get things going and keep them going. “Tournament Director” sounds like a fancy-schmancy title, but really, we run around and do the hard labour, haha.

:) May the most scrabbulous team win! 

My brain is soaking in alphabet soup right now. Gogogo three-letter wordlist.

MUTEMATH – ARMISTICE : Heck yeah!

I rarely do this whole new album launch news thing–so you understand HOW HYPED I AM! :DDD zOMG MUTEMATH!! NEW ALBUM! YESSSSSSSSSSsssssssss

Pity it’s after my birthday, though. Right… Still!

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MUTEMATH PREPARE TO LAUNCH “ARMISTICE” ON AUGUST 18, 2009

Burbank, CA-
June 8, 2009 – (Burbank CA) – New Orleans-based eclectic/innovative rock quartet MUTEMATH has just completed their second full-length album for Teleprompt/Warner Bros. Records entitled “ARMISTICE.” Recorded in New Orleans and Oxford, MS and produced by Dennis Herring (Elvis Costello, Modest Mouse, The Hives), the record is scheduled for release on Aug 18th.
Song titles are as follows:

1. The Nerve
2. Backfire
3. Clipping
4. Spotlight
5. No Response
6. Pins and Needles
7. Goodbye
8. Odds
9. Electrify
10. Armistice
11. The Lost Year
12. Burden

Nearly 50 minutes in total, MUTEMATH does not play it safe on their sophomore effort. With a stunning range of dynamics, “ARMISTICE” boasts the kind of masterful production and songwriting that ensure it to be one of the year’s standout albums.

Expect to hear this album very soon. More details to be revealed shortly. Keep en eye on: www.mutemath.com for future announcements, tour dates, merch, special offers and much more.

Taken from their Facebook page.

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To understand my love for the band, check out this video–one of their latest. I love their music. Love their videos. Love them live. They have this passionate desperation, screaming to be heard, pulsating with life and eccentricity, not caring who hears them and who sees them–they play their music as it is. Mutemath. <3

And yes, I’ve met them before. :D When they came down for the YouthQuake concert in Feb ‘06, way back in Briercrest/Caronport. They weren’t the headliners but I enjoyed them WAY MORE than the headliners. AND I HAVE A SIGNED ALBUM SQUEEE.

Me & 75% of the boys from MUTEMATH! One of them was signing albums. Or in the men's. I dunno.

MUTEMATH FTW!! I CAN’T WAIT FOR THEIR NEW ALBUM!!!

Enhancer Tidbits

Couldn’t resist print-screening this little ad that popped up during my daily facebooking time.

What’s next, 8-inch Mints for the boys?

The next time your boyfriend pops a mint before he kisses you, it ain’t for the breath, sista…

Mobile Clinic @ Kg. Pian, Temerluh, Pahang

This is a little different from the usual events I blog about… it’s about how I spent my Labor Day! :) It’s been the best spent day this year so far, in my opinion. And no, I didn’t kau chai, sing, dance, eat or go clubbing this time, haha.

My dad registered under my church, SIBKL, to participate in a mobile clinics program. So when he got the call to go from the organizer, Catherine Teong, he also asked me & the rest of the family (and friends) if we wanted to go. Me, mum, dad, Weiphin & Jonathan agreed to go for the day-trip to the Orang Asli settlement @ Kampung Pian, Temerluh, Pahang. :)

THUS at the glorious time of 6.45am, we assembled outside church, prayed, and set off to the deep-in-interior Kampung Pian to set up the mobile clinic for a day. The four doctors manning the clinic were my dad, Dr Liew Fah Onn (O&G), Dr Stephen Mak (GP), and this really cute couple: Dr Peter Paul Wong (orthopedic surgeon) & Dr Hon (pediatrician). Then there was a pharmacist, Daniel, and a nurse, Mei Sime. The only other people with a medical background in the group would then be myself, Jon & Weiphin–2nd year medstudents who had no idea what they were getting into. The other people went as support staff and handled food, second-hand clothing, crowd control, etc…

Dr Hon & Dr Peter Paul Wong. :) We sat in their car. Such a cute couple!

I can’t quite remember how long the journey took, but it was about 3 hours, and I kept napping on and off. Jon & Weiphin didn’t quite help because all three of us were squished in the backseat–they didn’t give me very much space in the center. I have stiff shoulders from sleeping in odd positions…

The government-built community hall that served as our clinic grounds. The door on the left is the main entrance where registration was positioned.

We arrived at Kampung Pian at around 11am and started to set-up. My duties for the day were to handle the registration counter along with two other non-medical people from my church, JJ & Helen. Therefore the task of taking history as well as measuring BP & temperature fell to us. Then, because I was the medical student amongst the three of us, I initially had the task of measuring the random blood sugar level. 

I was SUPER panicky!! I mean, yeah, we had digital BP machines & digital ear thermometers so I didn’t have to worry about using the sphygmomanometer correctly and cleaning the thermometer between patients, but I had to PRICK SOMEONE LA FOR THE BLOOD SUGAR. WHAT IF I PRICK WRONGLY?????? (later I was relieved of this duty because for me to take history, BP, temperature AND blood sugar made my station very slow, lol)

When we opened registration, there were SO MANY ORANG ASLI THAT CAME TO THE CLINIC!!!! I was overwhelmed and blown away. I felt so awkward at the beginning only having to use Malay to communicate (and my Malay is really not that great). Jon & Weiphin assisted the pharmacist, Daniel. They got a firsthand taste of doctors’ handwriting, haha. We only ran the clinic until 4pm, but the final count of patients seen by the doctors on duty came up to 157 persons! 

I saw… more things than I had ever seen in my life, ok. Textbook things that suddenly jumped out into life and grinned at me. Sarcoptes scabieii infections (tiny skin-colored bumps–I will never forget what they look like), impetigo (fungating, white, circular lesions), cellulitis, carbuncles (Dr Peter almost cut and drained it), fungal skin infections (large whitish patches), diarrhoea, respiratory symptoms (dyspnoea–literally susah nak jalan naik bukit), cardiovascular symptoms (palpitations! one lady described them as po-pom, po-pom dalam dada bila bernafas), and infected cavities…

And I also learned that in situations like the mobile clinic, all the history-taking methods learnt in IMU fly out the window. There’s just no time to ask all that deeply before I had to pass them on to the doctors. I had to multi-task: take BP & temperature while taking history and thinking about associated symptoms that I could ask about and translating them into Malay in my mind before asking & writing… and trying to calm crying kids when I tried to take their temperature. I don’t know how many patients I clerked, but I do remember the time whizzing by without my realizing it. 

The tired but enthusiastic volunteers debriefing at the end of the clinic session. LTR: Henry, Lee Peng, dad, mum, Mei Sime

IT WAS AWESOME LA. I felt like a semi-doctor, like I was doing something of significance. Way better than lectures/lab/PBL/MMS/CSU. Heee.

Right, so I lied about not eating… Cuz as all Malaysians do, we stopped at some obscure Chinese restaurant on our way back home around the Bukit Tinggi area for dinner. :)) It was sumptuous and cheap. I also liked this health drink made from dragonfruit that they were promoting and let us sample.

 

Dad, mum & Mei Sime tucking in.

What a fantastic day. It was really a pick-me-up and sort of like a nudge from God to remind me why I’m doing medicine and NOT music as my primary degree. :) Anyday, God. I’d do this again. Who knows? From one-day trips to long-term medical missions!

Squee. :)

Today was thorax day. And lymphatics day. And heart day. STERNAL ANGLE YO~ And don’t forget that lymphoid organs DON’T FILTER LYMPH, okay? :) Marieb is your friiiieeeeeend.

PQRST wave day tomorrow… <3333 There are no words to explain how HAPPPIIIEEEE I am for having discipline to studystudystudyy. IT FEELS GOOD BABEH~ Especially studying with friends. It’s relaxing, fun, and motivating. (and I don’t feel so bad going out or not studying later at home)

Mummy and daddy are coming home on Saturday! Also, there’s a birthday celebration on Saturday night that I’m attending… SO, present-shopping tomorrow with Rae-baby’s help!

Cell group was really, really good yesterday. The church I belong to has been doing a cat & dog theology series, (which is fascinating, by the way) and yesterday was a debriefing/Q&A session. I really enjoy Kevin & Adele’s teachings–they always make sense to me, and there’s just something about them that puts me at ease. They have a really strong sense of peace and “togetherness” that infiltrates the cell. If you want to talk about God-ordained or truly blessed, it’s Kev&Del! They really bless after they’ve been blessed. :D I luv Jars of Clay, my cell group~ (anyone interested in visiting can drop me a line; we meet in TTDI every Wednesday night, 8.30-10.30pm)

Had a good talk with Adele yesterday. About boys.

:) It was a really good talk, in the deep, meaningful sense.

I love med school wayyy too much. Even on the weekends, I miss the library. But there’re a lot of people that I miss, actually, that I haven’t gotten to see or talk to much since my semester started. :( You know who you are!!

On a random thought… I need to start doing my AIR topic. I will not have any time to do it later, what with my practices increasing and studying also probably increasing.

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I don’t see him anymore. He doesn’t have a reason to be around, and I don’t have a reason to be around either. It’s a good thing, though, because that lessens the *dundundun drumroll* temptation! Ha. Jo Ann, your hippo is good enough… And when he’s not around, Xiao Wen, your bear’s next. >D

Geek Moment #1

I like studying medicine, especially when it makes sense.

:DDDD Food poisoning explained! (briefly)

Bacteria from food (in food poisoning cases) irritates and causes your intestinal microvilli to shed. This causes absorption to decrease (surface area decreases, functionality decreases) and SO, no water or whatever is absorbed from the bacteria-containing food. The clump of food travels through your intestine with the bacteria continually making microvilli shed, sucking water out from your blood because it is hypertonic to your blood (I oooohed and aaaaahed with understanding here).

And that, folks, is how hypovolemia comes about. You lose water from your blood, so blood pressure goes down and your heart rate increases to compensate. This condition only arises once you have lost 10%-20% of your plasma water content.

So, please go to the hospital quickly if you have food poisoning. It could be fatal because of the water loss. Your body likes its water, yes?