Live A Different Life

Suffering from post-exam syndrome at the moment. Symptoms include sleeping and waking up at random hours, staying up despite no need to study, drinking excessive amount of coffee, eating lots of snacks etc. Looking like this...

It's this time of the year again. Tears building up and pouring down in moments of separation. I dedicate this post to Janice Lee, my best friend who is leaving Dunedin in 2 hours.

For once, I woke up super duper early at 9am (hey you, don't laugh. It's rude). Decided that shower is a good wake up tool so got all my stuff ready and moved into the bathroom. Walking innocently, suddenly found myself...

My head hit the floor, my foot hit the shower door, my hands swinging around trying to grab hold of something --> so embarrassing. Results: head concussion (ok, maybe not that serious...possible seizure?), bleeding foot and a super red face. Instead of start studying early and be super motivated, I ended up...

Advice for myself: Do not wake up early to study, do not study too much to the point that my brain is filled with knowledge until body-to-brain weight becomes imbalance leading to fall. Should sleep more, study less and eat more (to balance the weight of the brain)!

Despite sustaining serious injury, I thank God that I managed to spend some time reading through the notes. Hours before the exam, trying to squeeze in some pharmacokinetics but it was too boring so decided to switch to Thomas Rades' lecture. Two 10 marks questions today: liver pharmacokinetics and Rades' stuff. I just finished studying liver pharmacokinetics before switching to Rades! Really thank God for His blessing and guidance :)

With my next exam in less than 2 hours, I should be feeling stressed. Shouldn't be blogging and should be studying/praying/eating breakfast/preparing stationery. I just realised that I have a bad habit of blogging before exams. Not sure if it is due to low stress level or excessive stress. Could be a result of 'head trauma' from the fall yesterday (more details after my exam). Favourite song of the day:

Officially 4 hours before my second and my scariest exam. Walking into a room with two very-experienced-and-obviously-smarter-than you lecturers is not fun at all. Answering the questions like you know everything when you have no idea what they are talking about is even worse. I think I need to sleep. I think I need to study. I think I need to pray. I think I need Hsiu Ping's secret recipe. I think I need to play Commando 2.

Exams=Stress=Random game

Not recommended for people who are not stressed :)

I just realised that today is officially mantha-sam's one month birthday! To mark my blog's birthday, I decided to make it a cake.


Coincidentally (or not), one of my favourite books at the moment is Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray.


Wanted to blog about it for quite a while, but didn't have the time or opportunity to, so here goes:

Ever been so stressed that you can't seem to breathe properly? Just imagine that you are in the special place, where you can breathe freely and fully relax, be it your childhood home, the beach, your bed. For Ruth, her special place is the warm, hollowed-out centre of a Bundt cake. With her teenage daughter acting like a teenager, her husband fired, her mum moving in with the family on her plate, she seems to visit her special place quite often. To add more joy to her life, Ruth's oft-estranged father and her mother's ex-husband, with two broken wrists joined the chaotic household. It seems like cake is the only thing that can get her out of this situation, literally. Using the sheer power of her mixer, Ruth turned her imagination into reality through baking cakes and saved the day.

Really love the story, how Ruth united her family on a mission to turn the situation around through doing what she truly loves. A really simple, yet thoughtful novel. Ever feel like you are in a overwhelming situation? Stop, think about what you really like to do, think again and act on the situation. Do not let your situation define who you are.

*the teddy bear cake image was taken from http://www.maisiefantasie.co.uk

Once upon a time, in a far away land, a beautiful fairy named Hsiu Ping came up with a secret recipe to getting 100% in exams. It was a very powerful recipe, a recipe that was kept secret for years and years, for fear of exams losing its control on people. After much consideration, the beautiful fairy decided that students do need a little help with their exams so she decided to break the silence and tell the whole world about the secret recipe.

Please be careful if you are unfamiliar with this recipe as it is really really powerful

You will need:
A pinch of knowledge
A bucketload of adrenaline (don't worry, your body will take care of that)
A heaped serving of divine intervention

Instructions:
To use this recipe, run around like a frenzied chicken (to facilitate blood flow to the brain) and pray before taking exams

Looking out the windows of Unicol at 6am in the morning. Love the sunshine, the beautiful weather and the exclusive view into St. Margaret's the scenery.

Coming close to the end of my time in Dunedin, there are things about Dunedin that I will definitely miss: the special student culture (and I am not referring to the drinking culture), the friends, and the adventures I had here.

Michelle T has a new blog! Looks like blogging is the new black. Interesting stories, cute characters and wonderful layout. By the way, Michelle had officially crowned me platypus :)


With three exams lining up next week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), I shouldn't be blogging but am looking for any reason to escape from...

Talking to May and Jocelyn, I am again reminded that we have not found a place to stay in Napier yet! Have been putting the job off due to exams, will be entering finding-a-place-to-stay mode after exams. Looking forward to next Friday: finish exam in the morning, lunch with Michelle, Janice (Jocelyn, May, Sharon and anyone interested?), hot chocolate and shopping therapy! If anyone is free or need a break from studying, give me a text (this is an order, not a request!)

People, all the best for exams! It can only get less, not more.

I always thought that I am cool. Not girly-cool but neutral gender-cool, Sharon-cool. My heart was shattered (jokes) when I was told "You are not cool. You are sweet." My heart was screaming "I wanna be cool, I wanna be cool. Sweet is not my thing!" Well, I guess now I can finally kiss goodbye with my illusion that I am a cool girl.

Listening to 'Beautiful in Your eyes or mine?' (Composed by *drumroll* Mrs Yeo!), I realised that at times in life, it's easy for us to say "I am too ....., I want to be ......" The comment that Jacqueline made was really true: "We will never stand before an artist and say aiyo why your art so ugly." Why should we then, do this in front of God, the mighty artist? We are beautiful in God's eyes. God created us and He obviously knew what He was doing and was good at His job.

Let this serves as an encouragement to everyone out there: God created us to be good, smart, talented, handsome, pretty, cool, sweet, awesome, able to pass exams with flying colours so do not ever believe that you are not good in any way.

Enough of the serious stuff, now on to the real topic of the day: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAZA!

You have really being a blessing in my life and I am glad that I had the honour of getting to know you better throughout our time together in Dunedin. Continue to be God's light, holding out the truth in the darkest place and shine like a shiner!

First time writing a blog, first time looking for a full time job (and found one), first time being to a camp where I did not spend a minute regretting the decision, first time being able to be myself and be appreciated, first time being in a cellgroup where I can really connect with God, first time worshipping with eyes closed. My time in Dunedin have marked a lot of first-times in my life and here is another first-time: my FIRST real sleepover!

Random text on Thursday: You guys keen to do a sleepover this Saturday? Food...fun...sleep :) I was so keen that I texted back asap (a rare thing for me as I often forget to reply mass texts) only to know that I was the only one who replied. NO.... With exams coming up, I think I might be the only one who still scream out "More fun, more fun, more fun; less study, less study, less study!"

A few quick texts later, we are all set up for sleepover~ Michelle, Janice, Sharon T, May, Jocelyn and I. Having exams in mind, we had a study-orientated sleepover. Had heaps of fun studying, playing choh dai di, eating best mi goreng ever, talking about things (including guys) and praying together. Waking up only a few hours later to Sleepover Part II: Shopping.

Waking up at 8.30ish on a Saturday morning, something that I have not done in a long long long long time. I always thought that I am really strong willed in the sense that it's really hard to wake me up but my 'dream' to become the hardest person to wake up in the world is shattered when I meet *drumroll* Mrs Grape aka Mama axolotl. I must say it was really fun cos I am always the last to wake up and now I can finally enjoy the fun of waking someone up *evil laughter*

Most productive Saturday ever: going to Otago Farmers Market, Countdown, study, playing with Izzie (cute poodle), lunch, study, choh dai di, study, dinner, choh dai di.

Thanks Michelle for inviting us over for sleepover. Thanks Raymond for lending us your wife, you living room, good food etc. Thanks Janice, Sharon T, May and Jocelyn for being the bestest sleepover mates. I must say this is the best sleepover I have ever been to!

Ever met a waiter who was rude to you? Ever left a restaurant due to bad service? Fear not, the solution to bad waiter/waitress is here!

Had my last QUM workshop ever, last presentation ever and last class ever (fingers crossed) today. So excited that we even took a group picture after class today. Having attended endless classes for the past four years, I am feeling excited, yet somehow lost in the rush of excitement. Nonetheless, NO MORE CLASSES ever!!!!!! (technically speaking, we still have to attend training sessions and submit assignments next year as part of our intern practice but that's doesn't count)

Spent quite a bit of my time reading through Sharon T's blog today. Read through all her posts from the past year at one go (instead of studying law exam for next week). Interesting reading and really helps me to get to know her even more. Really enjoying being a blogger and a blog-reader :)

Motivated to think more, read more and write more

Nice food, good fun and beautiful scenery are pretty much what Monday cellgroup was all about!

Having heard really good comments about Auntie Tong Siew's cooking (eg Raymond saying: Auntie Tong Siew's cooking is PROBABLY as good as mine), I really looked forward to the trip to Auntie's Tong Siew's house at Waverley, beautiful scenery, good food and awesome company :)

Considering the fact that I have spent a whole year working on the elective project, it definitely deserves a post. As part of my course at School of Pharmacy, University of Otago, I have to do a group research project with my classmates and present it to the class as part of our final year course requirement. For my group, our research topic is Solid State Stability of Drugs in Suspension - a literature review. Don't understand the topic? Worry not, for after a whole year of research, I still don't understand the topic myself.

Simplified abstract: Many drugs exist in different polymorphic forms with identical chemical structure, but different physical arrangements. Some of the polymorphic forms will be more favourable compared to others due to solubility, stability or better absorption profile etc. The main aim of our research is to investigate the stability of favoured polymorphic forms in suspension. Although it was a boring topic, it did not require much work and our supervisor was really nice as well, making the elective project really enjoyable.


As part of the elective report, some students decided to present their research in presentations and we had to listen to 18 presentations from 9am to 3.30pm. Sitting through the presentations which are very in depth and having difficulty understand the topics, I decided to focus on QuadraPop instead. 276660, my personal best! Since Alex set the record of 102810, I have never managed to come even close to that record. Finally after a year of hard work, I made it!

Sunny weather + Alex + Sam + Jocelyn = Botanical Garden

Alex and his camera + Jocelyn and new camera = beautiful photos