Live A Different Life

Yes, yes, yes I am guilty of not updating my blog for ages. I sincerely apologise for the lack of update.

Imagine this: you work in a profession where confidentiality is the cornerstone of your work and you work 4o hours a week and often arrive home too tired to do anything adventurous. What do you blog about then? I'm sure you are not interested in finding out that it takes me 15 minutes to get home then I prepare dinner, watch Friends and Campbell Live, have dinner, shower, watch The Mentalist and go to bed at 10pm. Multiply these events by 5 times and you have my weekly diary in your hands.

On a different note, it was scary to know that I might accidentally kill someone one day, how's that for an interesting career path? We went to Wellington for our training days last week. It was awesome food, great company, beautiful scenery, and useful learning from experienced pharmacists. We were told all these horror stories about dispensing errors. It was scary to know that even if you are 99% accurate in your dispensing, you are likely to kill 16 people during your entire career. No!!!! I am not a murderer...

I have just realised that I haven't blogged in > 1 month. 10 updates since I last blogged:

1. Jocelyn, May and Michelle's trip to Napier was awesome. Legendary!
2. Graduation coming up! 23rd May @ Dunedin Town Hall. Be there :)
3. I am baking biscotti =P
4. I will be going back to Auckland this weekend. What's up?
5. I am going to carry out my first ever medicines use review. How cool is that?!
6. I love 'How I met your mother' Highly recommended
7. I haven't decided on my outfit for the graduation. Ugh!!!
8. I miss Dunedin and all my friends. Group hug
9. I want a dog!
10. All I can think about now is...YUM CHA!

Today at work, we have an interesting 'patient'. So this is how it happened:

I was minding my business, researching about the new omeprazole brand and its formulation (yes, it was very interesting) when I suddenly spotted an visitor in the dispensary.

He walked right into the dispensary like he owns the place. Well, considering the fact that he is super cute, no one kicked him out of the dispensary. After careful examination of his tag and a phone call, the official owner of the doggie has finally been located. Don't know how he managed to wander into the pharmacy but considering that he walks into the pharmacy instead of the KFC next door, I have determined that he is a dog of high IQ. Maybe a pharmacist within the dog population as well, hence the natural attraction. Too bad I can't bring it home.


Offically started work as an intern pharmacist for 1 month and a half. It has been an interesting learning process and I finally understand why my parents sleep so early at night. Now, I can proudly say that I am a working person who sleeps at 10pm and wakes up at 7.30am, super healthy! 1 month+ into the internship, I really start to appreciate all the things that I learnt in university, things that I thought I would never used.

Highest record: 6 compoundings a day!
Favourite item: Lorapaed (it smells like peach, i likey likey)
Favourite activity: Explain Losec and Dr. Reddy's funding issue to patient. I love PHARMAC. (Yeah right!)
First item I sold over-the-counter: Day & Night flu

1 and a half month down, 10 months to go! Gambate, everyone!

Have you ever wished that there is no one sitting next to you and be disappointed when someone says "Excuse me, can I get through please" Well, check out Air NZ's latest 'invention':

Passengers on partly full Air New Zealand flights to the United States can guarantee an empty seat next to them - if they're prepared to pay $75.

The airline's novel way of making money out of empty seats during the long-haul travel slump has proved popular during a month-long trial.

Air New Zealand group general manager international airlines Ed Sims said it took the lottery out of whether or not passengers get an empty seat next to them.

Like other carriers, Air New Zealand has been hit with a steep fall in passenger numbers as a result of the financial crisis. The airline has been forced to lay off up to 200 staff.

"Necessity is the mother of invention. While we've got some empty seats we'd rather be making something out of that seat than nothing at all," said Mr Sims.

The airline started the scheme just over a month ago on flights to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Up to 10 passengers a flight had opted for the extra seat which could be offered on more international routes, he said.

I feel like I'm getting older. Displaying signs of ageing.

Symptoms include:
1. Searching around the house for books which I put in my bag just 2 days ago
2. Look at old photos and make comments like "Ah, that's me when I was young" and "oh, I can't even remember I did that"
3. Telling young people "When I was young...."
4. Listening to songs from the 90s
5. Getting nostalgic and can't stand separation
6. Keep referring back to point 1 in case I'm repeating myself

Enjoying my last student holiday~ I spent my days sleeping, eating, surfing and watching occasional movies. Have always wanted to watch 27 Dresses and now that I have, I totally enjoyed the movie.

For those of you who have been living in a cave or simply don't enjoy watching chick flick, 27 Dresses is a movie about a girl who has been a bridesmaid for 27 times & who is waiting for the right guy to come along. A girl who doesn't know how to say no, who is willing to help out with anything and who is always there when you need a super bridesmaid. A wonderful movie!

I always say: I want to be slim! and my friends always answer me: Exercise. I finally found a perfect comeback line:

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 :)

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 :)

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.

It's Monday, It's first day of the week and it's Cellgroup Day!

Today's cellgroup was awesome. Loved the message shared by Alex about how our situations do not define us, but God gives us authority to define our situations. How simple yet powerful is this statement. Many times in our lives, we let our situations define our personality, our emotions, our responses, our relationships with people and with God. With God as our father, we can define our situations and how we respond to things happening in our lives. Instead of telling God how big our problems are, wouldn't it be easier to tell our problems how big our God is?

Agnes and Davina have come back from their Europe trip and brought back beautiful presents! Love the earrings from Venice. Is that cool or what? Agnes and Davina gave Alex a piece of Berlin Wall. I want to go to Europe!!! Any1 interested?

Got home last night and saw this next to the lift

Not :) at all, considering that I live on 8th floor. Took me a while to reach my room due to the fact that I was quite tired. Just when I was resting and trying to catch my breath, the fire alarm went off!!!

1ish in the morning, off I go again, down the stairs onto the field in front of Unicol. We waited in the cold for more than half an hour because some really "smart" students think that it's funny to smear margarine on the walls and put the remainder in the microwave and turn it on.

Well, it's NOT funny:
1. the whole place just smelt burnt
2. the false fire call out costed $1300
3. we all have to walk back up the stairs to get back to our rooms

Totally did not appreciate the humour behind the 'joke'. Turned out that I was not the only one that think it's not funny. The deputy master aka the boss aka the person running the place locked us outside and semi-screamed at us for 5 minutes.

This morning, Alabaster Box from Australia came to Nations Christian Church! Loved the instruments, leather jackets and cool hairstyle.