On the Outpatient Visit

It was a sunny morning. Our class were to be held outside of the campus. While waiting for the other colleagues to arrive, I sat by the bench in front of the outpatient clinic, watching the people coming into the hospital.

Suddenly, I heard a lady's shouting.

"Aiyooo!!! I don't have money lah! I didn't bring my phone! If you wanna go, then go lah; if you don't want to go then go home! Why wanna bother so many people?"

She was shouting at an elderly gentleman, who was walking with a walking stick. I saw the gentleman mumbled something, couldn't make out what he said from where I sat.

"Aiyoo. Go back la go back la! Take bus and go back lah. How much money you have? Aiya, that's enough la."

And her shouting continued while she was asking for the price of a taxi to Mid Valley.

Then, there was another scene. A middle age lady, smiling, and pointed to the direction of the tunnel leading to the wards or the specialist clinic. She was trying to hold another elder lady's hand, assuming that's her mother. But her mother just pulled her hands away, insistent that she could walk alone. But middle age lady was still smiling, and said, "Come la, what's there to be shy of? Come come." And they walked slowly towards the tunnel.

As they walked away, there was an old man walking to where I was sitting. My gaze followed. He has trembling hands, like that of a Parkinson's, but didn't quite have most of the other observable features. He stopped in front of another elder lady, asking if the seat beside her is taken. Assuming that's his wife. But just one second after he sat down, another middle aged lady approached them, smiling.

"You can walk or not? Just a flight of stairs only, then we reach the elevator already."

She was pointing towards the trauma and emergency building, whereby the carparks were located on top of the building.

The two elderly couple agreed and the three of them walked slowly towards the staircase.

Then I noticed one thing. And I realized another. All over the hospital, I realize there's no staircase along the main walkway. When access to another floor is concerned, there would be elevator or some ramps. Life for the wheelchair-bound patients are easier that way.

On the Coat Hanger

It's funny how we try to follow the interior decoration from the West, despite the fact that we don't wear long-jackets all that much. Heck even jackets, Mum'd say I'm crazy to wear one in such a hot weather.

So when we came across a standing coat hanger in the hotel room that we were staying in not long ago, this is what we did with it.

Now who says standing coat hanger isn't useful at all?

When the parents wanted to get in a new set of couch for our home last month, the furniture shop assistant was very persuasive, and decided to give us one as a gift. Mum was totally blank what we could do with that. Mind you, it's not exactly that small a thing, it could be taking up a quite a space, since we don't wear any overalls whenever we go out, not like what we see in Grey's Anatomy!

But Dad was brilliant, "We'll take the couch then, with that whatever ugly hanger you're giving."

And he turned to me saying, "Next time you can use it to hang your white coat!"

My eyes widened. "Uh... riiiiight... the white coat is full of germs... I don't ever think I wanna wear it home..."

"Still, you can use it to hang your coat right? Imagine you come back late at night, and then you open the door, and you just hook your coat around the hanger."

Erm, yeah... If I'm working in Seattle. LOL.

On the Tote Bag

Somehow it seems like shopping for a man's bag is harder than a girl picking a dress. Or so I thought.

I've always wanted to get a tote bag for myself. I thought it looks nice. Plus, it's BIG! So I can always have everything put inside without having to burden my poor shoulder like what I'm experiencing now, which, maybe some other days I'll blog about it. LOL.

Having said that, it's not exactly that easy to shop for a suitable tote. The last I saw one that I like, it costed a bomb. CK isn't exactly a cheap brand. So when I was in Taipei last year, I didn't let go the chance to shop, despite having our time scheduled for the conference and sightseeing. Too bad though, I didn't find anything that suit my taste, until I saw one of my colleague, who coincidentally was doing his elective project there, got himself one.

I waaaaaaaantttt one!!!!

Like seriously, I want one. To the extend that, I dreamt of it! I mean, I didn't dream about me getting my own tote. But somehow it revolves around it. But at the end of that dream, I remembered I bought the Nike sling bag instead. T.T Like, so anticlimax can!

If that's not bad enough a sign, when the parents were over in KL to shop for Dad's work shirt in Robinsons at Gardens, I saw one I quite like and I voiced out the desire to Mum, which was shot down instantly. "Aiyah, don't be a girl lah!" T.T I'm not! It's a TOTE!

And when I asked some friends whether they have the same thought as Mum, they said it's not suitable for me. T.T

So yeah. Fine. I gave up. Tote bag is not for me.

But I still adore it.

On the New Phone Subsidy

Finally the cheque arrived! Woots!

Though with much frustration and everything, because apparently one of our us who submitted the sponsorship application said the office did not have any cheque for us! I was literally fuming, I received the letter and none of them did. Although she was the one who filled in the sponsorship application form, I thought at least all of us should be receiving our cheques because there were 3 names mentioned in the letter. But she was pretty convinced that the dean's office didn't have any leftovers for us as we didn't even receive any calls and what nots.

So about a week later when I was finally able to make it out from class 2 hours earlier before the office close for the lunch break, I stormed into the office asking to see the person to contact as mentioned in the letter.

"Hmm, did you fill in the form?"

"Yes. My friend submitted it for me."

He looked at me suspiciously. Then he read the letter again. And his pointy hands were following the lines as he read them.

"So you were Medie?"

"Yeah."

He picked up the phone and called up the dean's office and enquire about any cheques for the medical students mentioned.

"So got lah? Okay, I'll send this poor boy to get his cheque then."

And so I scooted upstairs to get that long-awaited piece of cheque. Woots!~


But if you ask me what am I going to do with it, it shall be for the new phone. My old faithful partner has been acting up since the last 2 weeks, burning 3 chargers in 3 days. Maybe it's time I get a Nokia. Birthday pressie for myself! XD

On the Regularity of TGiF

When I chose TGiF in the Curve as the venue for a friend's surprise birthday party, it was because I guessed most of those who came to the surprise party, or dinner more like it, were not actually crazy party kinda people. And I know that the restaurant got their staffs to shout and sing crazily for the birthday boy too. But who'd have known, the group members held a lunch gathering in the same restaurant franchise in The Gardens last Friday.

Rest assured, it wasn't exactly a good feeling up there in the spotlight.

I really don't know how to sing! And I don't dance in front of so many people! And even if I do sing along the radio while I'm driving, I definitely go out of sync when it was without music. Even that, my tune were all haywire when I sang at the karaoke.

So I just stood there and smile sheepishly, repeatingly said, I don't sing!

And at one point, if I really ran out of patience, I thought I'd actually just told them off, "Give me that damn piece of cake already!"

Really. LOL. Maybe because I am pretty self conscious.

Like...

What would they think of me?

I'm really ugly on video alright!

What would the other customer talk about after I sang?

Would whatever happened in the restaurant be heard off by other people, especially when I danced like crazy, IF I every comply to their games?

But then again, I really need to thank the group members for wanting to go outing that day despite we had a minor examination paper practice in the afternoon, not forgetting we had the most fun moment in the psychiatric ward that morning.

So yeah... my groupmates complained I wasn't sporting at all. LOL.

And yeah, they were already laughing looking at the video of me smiling sheepishly standing there like an idiot. Blergh.

On Being Souled Out

So TZ tried to cheat me saying none of the other bloggers were going to make it to the dinner, and kept on repeating, tapping on his mantle wondering how come +Anton+ wasn't free this weekend to make it for my birthday dinner celebration. But I put on a poker face, it's fine, if the other people have business to do, it's not like I could force them to come either. So everything was fine until I was brought to this place in Mont Kiara called Souled Out.

First look from the outside was, pretty impressive.

But upon walking into the premises, it gave me a feeling of those big scaled mamak restaurant, only with a covered roof decorated with LEDs and cloths. Mainly because, I guessed I was expecting it to be something more classy. It was, after all, an establised restaurant, no?

It was only when I followed him up the stairs and walked through those tables on the first floor that I noticed, that the restaurant do have some ambience. So I took back my bad first impression. And that was only in addition to me seeing the familiar faces seated.

I'm not a drama student, I can't act all dramatic and all, but boy, I was very happy that it wasn't that all a quiet celebration.

I mean, fine, I still do wish to have some close friends around despite my previous blog entry about not that all keen in party and all. But still, it's nice to have good friends around, no?



Food in Souled Out was pretty nice, I had Sirloin steak, very nicely done. Some of the others complimented the salmon dish as well. The only thing I wanted to touch on, was probably that the dishes were a bit shy on the quantity. LOLs. Blame on me for having this big gastric bag.

But one thing for sure, I think the alcohol drink that I shall never drink again would be wine. I ordered their recommended "Sangria", thinking it's another form of cocktail with a mix of wine and some other alcohol, only to find myself a shock when I was served a glass of red wine with cubes of fruits or cucumber in it. Definitely not palatable to me. But I stuck at that, sip a few, and managed to drink about half before giving up and get the others on the table to finish it for me. LOL.

After a while, TZ must've informed the waiter that there was a birthday boy on the table and was asking if they do any special celebrations. True enough, they brought forth a slice of cake, and made me wear a spiked-like cap. They took a photo of us, I was wondering what for.

About 10 minutes later, they brought me a piece of instant photo framed in a DIY Souled Out frame. Cute!

Despite there were quite a few glitches here and there after we left the restaurant, regarding the quality of service mainly, it was still a nice gathering after all.

Thank you everyone who made it. And thank you everyone who remembered about my birthday as well. ;)


Regarding the review of the restaurant...
Ambience: 3 stars
Food: 4 stars
Quality of service: 2.5 stars

LOL.

On the Birthday by the Beach

LOL.

I'm now 23 years and 19 hours old. Plus minus. I think. LOL. Not quite sure exactly what time on the 23rd of 1987 when I was born, but I think it was in the evening, assuming it was at 4pm.

Yay. Happy birthday to me.

On Walking at the Turn of 23

About a month ago, while we were at the radiology department, there was this beautiful young man. He was pretty much clad in just a singlet, very muscular arms, very well built. But, he was sitting in a wheelchair. I couldn't help but to steal a second look at him, trying not to stare at him too long in case he got annoyed. I mean, well, he is very good looking, but he saw me looking at him the first time.

I was guessing that he probably just had some sprained ankle or something like that. Having a defined body like his, and at his tender age of mid to late 20s, it's quite unlikely that he's got some life-threatening diseases. Unless he has some autoimmune diseases like dermatomyositis that affects the muscles, but his upper body was really well-defined.

Besides, we were after all at the X-Ray department, whereby old frail gentleman came for chest X-ray to rule out infections inside the lungs or mainly people who have fractures in the arms or the legs. So, my biggest bet was that he probably had some fracture, probably due to trauma, that's the most serious that I could think of happening to him.

But really, I just can't help but to look at his muscular arms. Even my colleagues, also a guy, said his arms were to die for. And he's really good looking. Like, really!

His mother pushed him into the X-ray room, and we saw him pushed himself out from the wheelchair onto the bed. The radioprapher put the film beneath his shoulder, probably injury of the humerus, I thought. And the second film was of him lying on his left. Spine.

That's new.

We walked over to his mother who was waiting outside the X-ray room.

We greeted her.

She smiled at us. She must've seen us before they came in.

And finally we asked, in much empathy.

"What happened?"

"Accident, 5 years ago."

"I'm so sorry."

"Resection at his spine, at T1 level. Now Prof K asked us to come for this x-ray, just to see how he's doing. We've been following up here for the past 5 years."

"It was a head collision?"

"Not exactly. It was raining that evening. The road was very slippery. His car skidded at a cornering and hit the tree."

"So there's no turning better ever since?"

"It's a complete resection. Total paralysis of the lower body."

"I'm so sorry to hear that."

"It's okay. We've come through it."

Complete paralysis of the lower body. Can't stand. Can't walk. Can't control bowel opening. Can't control when to pee. His mother is a very mighty woman. Only God knows how many tears she must've shed every night thinking about the state of his son. At such a tender age, yet paralyzed due to accident.

I salute this fine young man. For all we know, many of us must've gone into deep depression and rather die than to live as a physically challenged man. But he came out of it. His arms were spared, giving him hopes in doing some basic activities. And they've been alive for the past five years.

Indeed, they've come from the tougher situation.

Turning 23 today, I ponder; what if I'm paralyzed lower down? Would I still have the will to continue living?

I doubt.

As they walked passed me towards the exit, the young man looked up and gave me the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. The smile of hope and survival.

So deep from my heart, here's a very sincere wish, by any chance you read this, you're indeed an inspiration. Birthdays to most of us are pretty much a commemoration that we are one year older. But any day you woke up and decide to continue living for the past 5 years, were enough to shame us from all those lavish parties we always wanted since young, because life has been so much more meaningful to you every single day than to us in a year.

On the Home-made Cake

Okay... This happened like, 2 weekends back while the parents came over for the weekend. Mum baked a cake for my birthday, a marble cheese cake. The next time they'll be in KL would prolly be in June, but till then, I'm not going back home as well. So Mum thought it'll be great to celebrate my birthday as well.

The cake wasn't really as presentable you see. But it was baked whole-heartedly with love and care. Ahem. Cheeky as it sound, but yeah, I'm not exactly a writer, and my vocabularies closet isn't that vast either.

When everyone had finally settled down at the dining table, Dad started to sing.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to me,

Happy birthday Medie,

Happy birthday to Me.

Very cute. I was just taking photos. I didn't sang Dad his birthday song.

But Mum and Sis joined in later:

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to Medie and Daddy,
Happy birthday to you...

Yaaaay... And we cut our cake...

Anyhoos, we couldn't finish our cake. It was too much to take on an empty stomach, what more nothing hot to go together with the cake. So Mum cut the rest of the cakes for Sis and me. I don't have any fridge in my hostel, so we thought it'd be okay to wrap them pieces in the aluminium foil and put it in air-tight container, hopefully it helped to slow down the fungal growing.

But as I said, this happened 2 weeks back, and I wrote this 2 weeks back before the cake is finished. So... Sorry. Hahahaha.

On the Garden Dinner Turned Wet

We headed to an out door podium for a dinner one night, it's located far far away from the metropolitan city of Kuala Lumpur which allowed us to see a pitched black sky with lots of stars. It was a BBQ-themed dinner apparently, with the chef BBQ-ing some meats on a big pit. The fire was fierce, but the out come looked splendid.

In fact, we totally loved the place. Ambience was 5 star. We were seated at a corner next to a walkway, but isolated enough that it's not a big walkway where people will walk up and down. There was a candle lighted up on the middle of the table, with some fresh flowers placed around the small candle holder.

The dessert bar was just located right next to us in fact. Lots of cakes and fruits. But having said that, I'm usually not the type of person to attack the dessert in a buffet. However, the cakes and other assortments served that night looked pretty inviting. Either I'm really hungry or the ambience of the whole outdoor restaurant enhanced the whole view of the dessert podium.

But things turned ugly when we felt a few drops of rain. Some started panicking and lifted their plate of food to head towards the covered restaurant a stone's throw away. I too, stood up and headed to the covered desert podium.

Rest assured, it was a brief warning. Somehow it stopped raining just 10 seconds after that. And we headed to our seats.

But just as I was to poke into my food, all of us felt more rain. I stood up again and walked over to the dessert bar. Some were confident that it was just another small shower before it stopped. And they were right when it stopped after 10 seconds.

As I was to sit down again, I felt another drop of rain. What the? I went over to the dessert podium again. But this time round, it didn't seem like it was going to stop raining. Indeed, my conscience was right as a heavier downpour came down. It certainly didn't look like it was goind to stop raining after we stood there for about 30 seconds or so.

So we decided to ran over towards the restaurant. Food were left on top of our nicely decorated table, much to our regret really, because at least we would have something to munch should we carry our food together with us.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, we were finally ushered to another restaurant next to the hotel lobby to continue our dinner.

Food was somewhat still acceptable. Although it was not quite a nice dinner as how we had expected, we still had a pretty good time bitching amongst ourselves about the old caucasian man with a young chubby lady and her 4 years old son; is she a hooker mama? LOLs.

On Getting Drunk with Red Label

The birthday gift last year finally saw the light when a friend of mine brought it up. We shall have some shots on the weekend, and so we did!

Looked around the non-halal section for something we thought would taste nice but I just had no idea what to drink. I mean, they're all alcohol to me, and I didn't know how to really differentiate them from one another, except for Vodka probably, medicinal indeed.

But finally, we picked Johnny Walker's Red Label. Black Label looked inviting for sure, so did Jack Daniel's. Galliano was on the shelf too! Not forgetting the 12 year whiskey. But alas, Red Label it was.

It was all excitement when we first roll the dice. 4. Didn't hit anything. 3, neither. 6. Take a shot!

One shot, keep it in the mouth. Mmmm heaty. And gulped it down. Aarghh.... and the throat was burrrrning... But it felt nice as the heat subsided.

And the game rolled on. Pick a friend! But since there were just 2 of us on Johnny Walker's, there's no other choice but to pick the other one. LOL.

But I guess the most exciting box on the whole glass plane was the dreaded triple shots. It's definitely something after 3 gulps of on the rocks. Friend finally felt high after the triple shots which came just right after the previous shot.

After the 2nd game, we finally gave up drinking them Johnny's in shots and decided to have some ice cubes mixed in.

That night, I think I must've had the best sleep for so long... :P

On Painting With Lights

Came to know about light painting from somewhere not long ago and was very keen in trying, just that all these while workloads were bugging me down and what not, until last weekend when I finally felt like doing it! It was post exam, and life seemed so much more relaxed.

First try was with the pen torch I had as I couldn't get hold of a proper torch. Besides, I thought the beam from a torch light would be finer and the effect wouldn't too thick.

But who'd have known, light painting isn't that easy after all.

First shot was to try out and break the virginity of light-painting. Only after drawing many random stuffs later that I got hold of this new interesting idea. At least for me.

Tried drawing some stars and the outcome was cool!

After a few jumping up and down, I finally thought of doing some writings. But boy, writing words and letters could be tougher than drawing!

More so when you don't even know where was the starting point of the "o" that the end point wasn't anywhere even near to the starting dot!

Finally when I've grasped the fact that I was actually playing with shutter speed, it was only then that I decided to draw on a mirror image plane. With some wrong attempt of the Chinese character of course, which didn't seemed quite right to me after I looked at the word for a few seconds. Shite! Extra line! LOLs.

But alas, with some editing, I finally managed to get the golden phrase of what people would use to present to a healer in the past.

Before calling it a night, I did a last drawing and would dearly dedicate it to all my readers out there.

Signing off from Terengganu. 2010. :-)

ps: Hopefully there wasn't any wrong words in that phrase. LOL

On the Trip to Vietnam...

... Kitchen. LOL.

It was quite a rushy one hour lunch in OneUtama as Mum and Dad needed to go to KL Central and catch a bus and reach LCCT by 3pm, and it was already 12noon. So the next thing that came into mind in such a huge shopping mall, was what lied in front of us - Vietnam Kitchen.

Upon being seated, we were given their menu, which was really nice I thought. It was like this journal kinda thing, which gave it a fresh feeling. There was a brief introduction on Vietnam and all before we open it up to the menu.

We ordered quite a feast despite it was just the 4 of us. The neighbouring table must've been looking at our table, and the only thing we could guess running in their minds were, "No wonder they're so fat!" LOL.

I personally thought some of their dishes were just so so, but some others were really nice. We ordered 5 dishes in total.

Fried lotus roots with some other stuff was fine.

Stir fried long beans was kinda spicy, not exactly suited my taste.

The fish fillet was quite nice despite being quite sour. Great dish to go with the rice indeed.

Fried chicken was grrreeat! The chicken meat was so juicy and so tender I actually thought it was the fish!

But what I love most would probably be their beef soup. It came in a mini cooker. The soup tasted pretty much like any other beef soup, especially the ones that I had in Pho Hoa before. Same goes to the beef.

But what made it special was, the beef was cut parallel to the muscle fibres, which made the chewing of the beef much easier as it's more tender. I didn't realized it until I took a second look at the beef.

No wonder it tasted superb.

Therefore, if you're to visit Vietnam Kitchen, I highly recommend you to try out the beef soup. Not exactly sure what's the full name of the dishes are, but there's just 2 type of soup in the menu. Otherwise, if you're not eating beef, like my sis, you could go for the chicken, something with sesame seed. It's very nice.

I suppose there would be some other branches in Klang Valley as well, I'm not sure about the other branches, so I couldn't actually guarantee that the other Vietnam Kitchen in other malls would be as nice.

Bills wise, it came out to be 115 for the five dishes above. Quite filling, so I've got no complains. :P You know, I'm not the type who go for nice food of little quantity. I need my meals to be filling to be satisfied. LOL.

Anyhoo, go pay Vietnam a visit! I mean the Kitchen. :P