Wednesday, October 31, 2007

o levels over + halloween

chinese o levels finally over. yeah it was easier than what i usually see but i think i did badly. so what does that imply? = im lousy lousy.

fine so stop emphasising how easy the paper is. T.T

anw it's halloween! and i can't believe that kf actually wished us happy halloween instead of anything remotely close to o levels. why take the trouble to wish me something i don't even celebrate or bother to celebrate??? instead of something that's the biggest deal in possibly my whole sec sch life?

eurgh. happy halloween's btw. anw look at this bit from wiki's halloween article:

Candy apple

Because the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest, candy apples (also known as toffee, taffy or caramel apples) are a common Halloween treat made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, and sometimes rolling them in nuts. At one time, candy apples were commonly given to children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples.

While there is evidence of such incidents, they are quite rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant; at the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free x-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy, while there have been occasional reports of children putting needles in their own (and other children's) candy in a mere bid for attention.
can u believe that? putting needles and razor blades in your halloween apple candy???

imagine u bite.

-crunch-

OW! -blood flows and it hurts so much-

-blade of razor sticks out from the other side of your mouth-

the red of the apple candy matches the above description of the blood.

eew what a gross and disgusting prospect. im never accepting apple candy from random strangers! maybe not even parents o.o that's y i say u shouldn't eat apples whole. cut them up and dissect them like that frog and then u can find any sharp objects in it and the apples are bite size and nice and not so difficult to eat. 一箭双雕! i mean 三四雕!

k now i can officially relax and slide into slack mode. but wait. haven't i been in slack mode all the while? so now i have completely no difference in feelings. not really happy or anything. well. =P

Sunday, October 28, 2007

picture post!

i hardly ever get a chance to do a picture post, so here goes! interesting, or nice, or candid pictures i feel post-worthy from farewell/orionids'07!

btw im nice enough not to put up blaws' super duper uber muber kuperly embarrassing photo running across the camera at the wrong moment. after all, it might get koped off the blog and uhh put up somewhere horrid and blaws will die of humiliation. -patpat- haha...anw if u are going to use the pictures ask me for permission first! it's a bit private, some of them... (particularly embarrassing candid moments =P)

are our farewell speeches really that boring? T.T

well i guess for some reason they JUST won't look at the camera. or maybe it's just the camera capturing the wrong moment ^^"

seriously, qw has the most amusing pictures! she's full of food, literally. and sufen looks to be the culprit. interesting pose there, sufen! (like bleach's BWAHAHAHAHA!)^^

seriously, i hereby declare qw and sufen officially the MOST AMUSING PAIR! -applause- hilarious, no? sufen's looking really grumpy =P

what did i say? qw is funny! she's literally pulling her hair out! look at that! and stacey grins evilly.

and the winner is...QW! congratulations qw for winning the one and only monopoly around in rgs at the moment! and as an added prize, she gets a hit on the head by our wonderfully evil junior stacey using the amazing tupperware that was the container for our farewell cake! (baked by stacey of course)

ahh and now we know behind that innocent smile, evil lurks...and see how everyone's pose remains somewhat the same? marvelous.

i have no idea what's so amazing about the ruffles chip...(background should be duly ignored =P)

that's our perfect heart. <3
qw is still translating the lao shu ai da mi while being attacked by bouts of laughing gas.

scitaré <3 FOREVER!

now on to orionids..

on the way to east coast park...qw is guess what? reading a CHINESE ASTRO book! how in the world does she even understand all those cheem terms in chinese...T.T

3...2...where's the 1??

stacey acting dao and emo again T.T anw we were watching for meteors.

picture-perfect moment! actually this was posed in case we needed it for yearbook or something. =P u know, us at orionids star-gazing! we couldn't see much though...

cheers...with mcdonald's free water! (this must be one of the rare photos u actually see stacey smiling happily. o.O)

checking my tarot card readings...the tarot cards are stacey's btw. it's, as stacey says, NOT fortune-telling. and pretty much everyone is tired out/asleep -points to stacey and blaws-

white and black darth vaders. cool eh?

we're waiting for sunrise...(we played big 2 for a while, then it unfortunately drizzled. we ran for it >.<)

and finally the long-awaited sunrise...

wait where's the sun?!

all i see is the dustbin. T.T

aiya the whole night/day was cloudy and lightning-flashy and rainy-like and drizzly(for 5 minutes). so even the sun also got blocked by the clouds. but nvm it's still pretty. kindof.

btw, ever noticed someone's always missing from the pictures? poor gillian. -patpat- oh and also notice that all of us were somehow coincidentally wearing white shirts! it may seem like it's planned but seriously, it wasn't! the only ppl non-white were qw and sufen but they left early so yeah. only white-shirts left ^^"

Friday, October 26, 2007

recounts recounts

Weapons of Math Instruction

At New York's Kennedy Airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, and a calculator.

Attorney General John Ashcroft believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.

Al-Gebra is deeply feared by the intellectual giants of the Bush administration. Al-Gebra desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in search of absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like "X" and "Y", and, although they are frequently referred to as "unknowns," we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the great Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are three sides to every angle, and, if God wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes!

Therefore, we're extremely grateful that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these mathdogs who are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard! These statistic mathematicians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence. Under the circumferences, it's time we differentiated their root, made our point, and drew the line!

These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex. As our Great Leader would say, "Read My Ellipse. Though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten around their necks."
funny? hmm no idea. source: all over internet.

ytd we went take neoprints, me and yuling and eileen. nothing much to say, just that it's really tiring to take neoprints, and what's more, none of us have decorated neoprints b4! so it was a whole new experience in that sense. so in the end im the only one who didn't get to decorate, but nvm i didn't really want to either. i was just directing them T.T

it's really tiring bcos it's like b4 u know it you hear "3, 2, 1" then FLASH and the picture comes out with us looking surprised at totally wrong directions and half our faces cut off T.T super tiring lor, to coordinate just nice so that we all appear nicely in the photo. HAHA and the music was enya, so it's so "soothing and calm" which is totally ironic since we were all flustered and desperately finding out when it's going to flash. oh the climax was...

FLASH. onscreen it shows the last picture. it's a picture of our...LEGS!

the camera suddenly changed to the one at the BOTTOM! WE DIDN'T EVEN REALISE THERE'S ONE DOWN THERE AND IT'S LIKE eileen didn't get to translate what the jap words were saying and we didn't understand it and it just flashed. and we were all posing so nicely on top some more. we felt so stupid. T.T

uh there's the encounter with the weird woman on the bus who was really pissed with us. rgs girls in general perhaps. the stereotypes were really strongly present in her i could see. she even thought we couldn't speak chinese. and her tone was condescending and infuriating. she totally was looking down upon us or something. dun like rgs then dun like lor, no need to vent your displeasure at us right. and not like we were doing anything wrong. i didn't have the dare to ask her what was exactly wrong with us though T.T she was so pissed with us.

it's such a weird experience. but not that bad lah, she kindof perhaps felt repentent maybe she ran out of stuff to say and she started saying how we're the future of our generation and we should raise the singapore's flag higher next time and we will be sending astronauts up to space and space ships and stuff (must be influence from the malaysian astronaut recently).

i just felt amused at that, bcos it's kindof related to me. astro? u know astro? yah so i just couldn't help but smile and feel happier about the whole experience that was otherwise rather dreadful if you think about it. hmm...

ah well it was really a nice day anw. nothing like that can dampen my spirits. ^^

today nothing much happened, just the gathering at rjc with risc and rjelectronics. not too bad, managed to make some electronics stuff that didn't work no thanks to someone, but the frisbee was quite bad. not as bad as MPASTRO's dog and bone though haha...but still, i think there just wasn't the "bonding" needed in the frisbee game between rgscitaré and risc.

actually ultimate frisbee is quite fun when it's played 4 vs 4 or 5 vs 5. too many ppl just leaves ppl out, esp in such a small and limited space. i hope scitare exco'08 learn their lessons from these failures experiences.

on a sidenote, good luck and all the best to all of you taking RA selection test! just do your best, i believe u can do well! (:

Saturday, October 20, 2007

scitare farewell; orionids star party

the post title is alrd telling you what this post is going to be about so no need intro lah hor.

ok first, ytd morning we had scitare farewell! it was great fun and everything, though a bit disorganized in the front part but it wasn't too bad. jiayou juniors! all of u were really wonderful. hope my farewell speech wasn't too bad. i decided to write the points down on the way to the farewell bcos im afraid i would forget haha...yeah. and i hope u like my farewell cards. =P

not bad lah, we sang and goofed up and did all sorts of stupid things (like translating lao shu ai da mi into english for srishti to understand while singing it) and stuff. i guess i'll really miss this kindof bonding sessions once i leave rgs, bcos they have the most memorable memories for me. i wonder if guys actually like this kindof bonding thingies, bcos if they don't that means in rjc we won't be able to get this feeling back again.

esp from what i experienced from the orionids, i think guys really dun like those bonding games and stuff. their only bonding sessions vaguely close to ours were ghost-story telling which suck and were so obviously fabricated (wasn't this reclaimed land? how could it be possible for japanese to have masscred chinese here during occupation? HAHA as cx would say, GG!). and yeah "talk cock" sessions. but they were so obssessed with starting a bonfire and releasing CO2 and greenhouse gases and killing the grass and burning the whole place down. ecological footprint my dear! they were playing with those mushroom candles and starting fires on the grass. i wonder if anyone has pictures of that. gillian have?

yeah so to all scitaré juniors: you'll always be my great juniors, and i'll miss you all so don't ever forget me. ):


on to orionids. wah this orionids had many of my firsts. i had much much much more excitement than i ever had in a night. more than enough actually. T.T im surprised i didn't even have a heart attack.

just goes to show i've got a healthier heart than i thought.

ok, first, everyone except me was late getting to republic poly. i was practically panicking the moment i realised i was alone and no one was going to come in time. haiyan and sufen were of all places, at PENDING ROAD?? the old republic poly isn't even there! are u sure you were at bukit panjang??? they followed some outdated map going to the wrong place...

then blaws and the others were just late from eating dinner at causeway point, then siyi was somewhere on the other side of the campus. in the end mpastro group was going to leave for east coast park alrd, then it's like they couldn't find the E5 block and stuff. aiya in the end my heart attack for the night subsided bcos they managed to find their way to the buses and so were "earlier" than me.

gosh. never was i more relieved to see them. it's nv till u "lost" them that you really appreciate them for being there. gosh.

after that i realised jovina practically knows almost everyone around. and was alrd socialising the very moment we stepped on the bus. siyi asked for my help in solving a math qn, and surprisingly and fortunately!!!! i could solve the qn in the end! even her tuition teacher (from acjc) couldn't solve it! luckily i didn't malu myself in front of my pro junior >.<

anw we reached ecp and met up with haiyan and sufen who went straight there bcos they wouldn't have made it in time to the correct republic poly, then we set up some picnic mat and dumped our stuff there. jovina had nice cookies she baked! it was really good plus we were planning on staying up the whole night so we're sure to get hungry.

we walked around a bit, but it was cloudy and we couldn't see any stars. there were planes taking off and landing practically once every minute. NOW i realised how busy our airport really is T.T no wonder my fren who was at some camp near the changi airport complained about the noisy aeroplanes disrupting her sleep.

jovina proceeded to telling ghost stories. it was REALLY SCARYY. ok lah not that bad but the red and white swirls one... >.< and oso i decided not to let jovina tell me the one that made blaws cry. it must have really be so shocking and scary that she got so frightened. -patpat- i got afraid of ghost stories so i refused to let her tell me. apparently it involved jovina clutching your arm suddenly at the end. quote blaws: "please give me a moment to cry. -buries head and cries-" that's so blaws! -HUGHUGHUG- it's ok! cheer up! it's just a story to scare.

then briefing and bonding games. the organisers are totally lousy. lousy leadership skills, lousy organising skills and lousy everything. they couldn't even get ppl to play dog and bone properly! they just didn't start the game until half an hour later? and by then half the group has dispersed to go do their own stuff (including jovina!!!!!!) GAH. actually it was those poly guys who caused all the disruption and stuff. they were so noisy and not paying attention at all and not enthu in what's going on! such lousy attention span. eurgh

in the end we didn't play and we sat down for some talking session.
scitare juniors! make sure u all can do better than mpastro's organising ok! theirs is so lousy.

uh then we told some ghost stories, and we learnt that jinpeng has really atrocious english. it's really bad, like "there were two couple" when he meant "there was a couple" (two people) and worse stuff. he would make some grammatical or pronounciation error once every few minutes and stacey would pounce on it like a tiger pouncing on meat. hehe...well we have OCD with good english! and oso jinpeng can't tell ghost stories scarily. it's just not scary. at least the acsi guy's stories were a bit scary.

then me and blaws and stacey lay down on the mat and watched for meteors and listened to our mp3 players at the same time. it was really nice, looking in the skies, being at peace and solitary, yet not quite since you have your friends beside you. then the first shooting star of my life streaked past in the sky. it was the most beautiful experience ever.

haha it was big and fat and really close, and looked about 3 times the size of the stars! and it looked like a big white rocket head with a tail behind and it just streaked past in a second. it was right in front of us, right side of orion. it was so big and obviously not a hallucination. we were so excited screaming and squealing and laughing and giggling and all that we forgot to make a wish T.T after all, it WAS THE FIRST METEOR OF OUR LIVES! and it was so PRETTY! i think it looked even bigger than the planes. my inner camera went KER-CHAT and caught that moment forever.

then we started preparing ourselves for what wish we want to make for the next meteor, and we lay back and waited. and waited. and waited. it took at least over half an hour (more than that? dunno didn't keep track of time) b4 a second one streaked past. this one was much smaller, about slightly bigger than the size of rigel in the sky. it streaked right past rigel, the left knee of orion towards the other knee, and disappeared in a split of a second. it was much shorter and smaller than the first and if you blinked u could have missed it! plus it came out of the clouds bcos the night was rather cloudy and we could barely see orion, so it was difficult to spot.

after a long while waiting for another meteor to appear we decided to stretch our legs and walk around. as we talked to gillian we missed our 3rd meteor!!!!! sigh oh well. haha im sure there are many more meteors just to we couldn't see them. even during the peak times we could see very few. it was too bright there; there were lights behind us and across the sea, and singapore's too light polluted. what's more, it was so cloudy and the clouds would move over to cover the stars and then move away sporadically.

haha there was this band of light thingy that we saw since we arrived, and we were trying to decide whether it was the milky way. it was moving across the sky though, slowly but faster than the stars were moving. we called it the milky way, but in the end we decided it was probably a cloud. ): i wanna see the milky way!

all in all, i saw 7 meteors. i made wishes for all but the first one. for the 6th one me and blaws both wished fervently and aloud for "THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF METEORS TO APPEAR BEFORE US!" bcos when the 5th one appeared we lamented how isit we were seeing so few even though it's like 2+am alrd, the peak time. then i suggested how about we wish for many meteors to appear and at that very moment another appeared! it's like to amazing! to see 2 meteors within a minute of each other!!!!! another first.

yeah so immediately we started squeezing our eyes shut and said "THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF METEORS TO APPEAR BEFORE US!" and it was BOTH of us! should have been double potency right. in the end it didn't come true at all. maybe it did, just that we couldn't see them, or the clouds were blocking, or it was too bright T.T or maybe wishing aloud makes it void. sigh at least should appear mahh.

oh and we went cycling around 3+am (im surprised im still awake) actually i was really tired around 11pm to 12am, but once i got past that time then i was fine again, perfectly awake and no longer yawning. odd eh.

jinpeng the organiser suggested that we go to some jetty at the other end of ecp, where it is the darkest part of ecp and so we could star gaze better. so he asked us to take those bikes that bpgh rented, particularly since they were not using the bikes and they were lying around somewhere (in their tent?)

now that i think of it, why didn't i bother to ask who those bikes belonged to? i think we should really have asked them b4 we borrowed right, if not it was really mean bcos they wouldn't know what happened to their bikes. i guess it was the spur of the moment and he asked us to go so we just went lor, we didn't think that much. sigh. im feeling super guilty now.

yeah and we cycled a long way. and this is like what, the second time im cycling? and the first time i was learning how to uh, balance. so this time it was terrible. i stop-crashed at least 10 times and more, and i was practically slowing the group down bcos i kept veering off the path and stop crashing. ): but hey! i could turn and swerve somewhat now! and can control my speed better! im happy.

oh jinpeng and gillian were on the double bike bcos gillian couldn't cycle. jovina was elsewhere socialising (with bp i think). jinpeng could cycle quite well and so once gillian got the hang of it they zoomed off and disappeared. ack but luckily i got the feel and i could cycle somewhat. but i need loads of space when i start off bcos i take ages to get my other leg up and i will swerve all around with one leg on pedal and the other looking for the other pedal and stuff. u get the idea. more often than not i stop crash into something. but after a while i got better at starting off so yeah that's not too bad.

and everytime i was going close to someone else i would have to warn them to stay to one side or i'll risk crashing into them. TO THINK OF IT i crashed into the acsi guy the first time i was getting on the bike and i couldn't get the feel yet. poor guy. he was nice and he didn't make a big deal of it at all, even though i think i hurt his hand or something. what's his name again? T.T

so another first. first time night cycling (or morning? it was like 3+am to 5am). first time cycling SO FAR! like stacey said, we cycled 12 km? i totally can't believe it was that far. yet another first. i was feeling worse than my tennis lessons, and trust me. my tennis lessons are really bad. also, i nv felt better to be back on the ground again after all that cycling. good old feet. 做人应该脚踏实地

also YES my stamina is lousy bcos my arms are super weak, plus i was so scared of falling that i was practically gripping the handlebars too tightly. my hands were really cramped up sometime halfway through to the jetty. i was so afraid of getting lost, and i was so tired, all the muscles i nv use in ages were all forced into use during the cycling. that's why i was so tired, i had a lot of lactic acid and my muscles were really aching, plus it was more than an hour of cycling. 2.4km or cross country or whatever at most half an hour surely over. what's more i nv train now. and what's more those particular muscles were rather tired out bcos we were "training our muscles for FAM" haha during PE at the new gym!

yikes. but particularly my arms were tired lah. even now it's tiring to type. i don't really want to cycle that far again. it's scary to know that u can't possibly turn back just like that, and u have no choice but to go on forward. and there was still the return trip to think about. i was thinking how would i ever make it back?

yeah by the time we got to the jetty, there were clouds all over and we couldn't see a thing. we were late. jp and gillian arrived 10 minutes earlier and saw a really spectaculr view of the nightsky with all the stars, but then the clouds took over when we arrived ): i had no mood to look at the stars anw, i just wanted to flop over and die. BUT THEN it was going to rain bcos lighting was flashing and all and we had to rush back bcos we had to return bp their bikes and everything. so no rest at all and immediately we had to turn back and chiong ah. in the end blaws and i lost the rest and we kindof lost our way. we were trying to decide which road to take (it branched out) but we decided both ways would lead to the same place so yeah. still, afterwards we overshot and i didn't realise at all until i was totally alone and then i had to ask for directions from this weird couple smoking and making out on the beach. eurgh.

IMAGINE why would u want to wake up at 4am in the morning to go to EAST COAST PARK of all places and make out? ok lah the 4am thing maybe is bcos they were sneaking out of their houses, but ecp? it's so far away from anywhere and so ulu, and all there's to see is the sky. even if u want the sea and stuff oso a bit de weird to go in the middle of the night. it's not exactly very comfortable there and u can't see the sea properly. there were seriously loads of couples around there, like almost one every bench or so. making out, or hugging, or dunno what they doing. staring at the sea. if i wasn't so desperately lost i wouldn't even want to bother them.

yeah in the end i found the burger king and i rmbed that the camp was nearby, so i got off my bike and walked it, if not i might miss the campsite again totally and stuff. all the campsites just look the same lor. and i think there was another astro group somewhere further down, bcos i saw green laser pointers shining at the sky there, but it wasn't our camp. cool eh? maybe it was for the meteors too. just a pity it was so cloudy and ominous and going-to-rain and lightning.

er and in the end i got "picked up" by bp and the acsi guy i think? dunno lah the weird chauvinistic guys who seemed to decide that i was a damsel in distress in need of help and everything. they grabbed my bike and insisted they help me with the bike and i walk on back. we had a tug and pull war. of course u know who won, esp since i was so tired. yeah so i ran back to camp (to escape them and to prove i had strength left anw. oh good old ground. feet on the ground felt soooo good.) and uh left the bike in their hands.

while i might have wanted some help, i definitely did not want help there and then. they were a bit late hor. i wanted help like earlier on and where were they huh? haha aiya but i just feel pissed that they think im lousy and i need help and everything when i don't need it! i was making my way perfectly fine back. i feel super insulted.

hmph. im an independent young woman and a geog student, and of course i could find my way back lah! no matter how frightened i was, or how lost i was, or how alone i was, i overcame them all. im really proud of myself that night/morning. i survived all that fear and everything and i actually found reserves of strength i nv knew i had (both physical and mental). it's a really unforgettable experience of my life. the whole night, everything. i wouldn't say they were all good and wonderful, bcos im still feeling guilty over the bikes and over slowing the group down and crashing into the guy and stop-crashing so many times and interrupting the making out couple and spoiling their wonderful night.

and chauvinistic guys were actually trying to help me one poor little girl. while it's nice and all, i just can't mistake their meaning. im helpless and weak. AND I WOULD NOT STAND THATTTTT! GARHHH.

most importantly, first time i managed to stay up the WHOLE NIGHT! nv slept at all! not a single bit! and i watched the sunrise but too cloudy ah, nothing much to see oso. just some colours only =P

overall i hope everyone enjoyed the orionids. and now we know the difference between hallucinations of meteors and real meteors. haha and oso that jovina can tell scary ghost stories. and she can really socialise a lot. like 80% of the night she spent it socialising and not with US GREAT SENIORS AND CLUBMATES FROM SCITARE HUH HOW CAN YOU ABANDON US LIKE THAT i was supposed to go socialise with u too T.T haha but i feel the time was better spent with blaws and the others. there was this feeling of bondship and love in the air that night, as we watched the stars streak across the nightsky.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

frog dissection

it was the last lesson for Know Your Body options today. i felt a bit sad, mrs prama was quite a good teacher actually ): her lessons were rather fun and interesting.

oh well im still glad one options down and gone. two more to go by this week. and then hcl o levels on the 31st, then FAM on 12th nov, then zoom to 5th dec delf. yikes

yeah and orionids star party to look forward to. scitare farewell and bye bye to all the juniors and stuff. i'll MISS YOU PPL!

sniff.

anw back to the main point. i dissected a frog today. what's more, it was ALIVE! that was the freaky bit. we had to pull the skin up and slowly cut it out carefully without piercing any blood vessels, and then we pinned the skin to both sides. then we had to cut some slits and tie knots to cut off the blood flow so that we can minimise the blood. then we had to cut the cartilage through to the pelvic girdle and stuff, and then pin here, pin there, and then all the innards will spill out.

literally.

we had to add water too, so the gooey weirdy fat tissues and whatever crap started floating around. oh and we found out our frog was somewhat dead. its heart wasn't beating. we were rather relieved.

much to my amusement horror, the bench behind us had a frog that's super alive. btw the frogs were supposed to be cholorofoamed, so they are unconscious, but with the hearts still beating. guess what?

the super alive frog jerked every once in a while! it's like they were cutting its skin and then it would totally move its arms which were pinned down and the whole bench would scream. it was really, really freaky. who ever heard of moving frogs who were unconscious in the middle of dissection???

and it would move every once in a while too. imagine how scary it must be to be cutting something like that. lucky our frog was pretty much dead.

THEN chelsea was trying to resuscitate our frog by doing cpr on it. the heart pumping thingy u know, she being red cross and all. she was going one and two and three and four and five while pressing its heart -u think: "EEW GROSSS" but i was pretty much immune to it after a while-

and then the heart started pumping.

boom-boom. boom-boom.

once every 10 seconds or so, which was way too slow and abnormal. then the heart stopped beating altogether. so was this frog alive or dead? with all its innards splayed out across the tray and stuff we would rather it safely dead but...

i realised when u add water, the heart starts pumping again.

we brought the frog back to life. after torturing it so much, cutting it up and digging around its kidneys and ovaries (oh yeah it was a female. not pregnant at least. phew.) just can't imagine how much pain it endured.

yet somehow, some way, it just held on with its strong will to life. it lived on no matter what. no matter it was being poked at by our scapels and scissors, no matter it was being pinned down, no matter it was dying. the heart went on pumping.

we were then supposed to dispose of it in a dustbin. it's still ALIVE! we were sorely tempted to sew it together and set it free back into the wild, but i guess it's totally impossible. im quite sure we punctured its organs or something when cutting it open. also we didn't have needles, and im sure we'll make an even worse mess out of it. her i mean. ok i just can't think of it as a HER. >.<

and oddly, it wasn't breathing actually. how could the heart survive without oxygen? hmm. maybe it was breathing so shallowly we couldn't see. hmm. maybe we should have cut up its head and looked at its brains.

anw this was an experience of a lifetime. it's super disgusting and gross and freaky, not just that it's got clammy cold skin, blackish gall bladder and has loads of fat tissues (yes it was a fat frog! ^^), but more of bcos it was alive. it made ALL THE DIFFERENCE. seeing a heart pump was really more than enough experience to last me a lifetime.

im so not going to be a surgeon. i don't really want to be a doctor anw. eurgh. the poor frog doesn't even have anesthesia!

btw. female frogs are "fatter" bcos they have extra organs (ovaries and stuff for pregnancy). not fair. ):

Sunday, October 14, 2007

type 2 diabetes

i think i'm going to have type 2 diabetes. not now, not yet i hope, but later on in my life. perhaps when i get pregnant, or perhaps around my thirties to fourties.

i have a family history of diabetes.

i have a family member with Type 2 diabetes. let's call her Z.

Research has shown that people are more at risk if there is a history of diabetes in close family members. The closer the relative, the greater your risk of diabetes.
Z, she's got diabetes sometime when she got pregnant. That would be gestational diabetes. it occurs in some women who get pregnant, but it's usually temporary and disappears when pregnancy is over. however, they have greater risks of developing type 2 diabetes in their later life. that's what happened to her i suppose, not only that, she gave birth to a large baby (>4 kg), which also increases the risks of getting diabetes. she's got type 2 diabetes now and she's on medication and everything.

i nv realised what it really means until now. i had to research on diabetes for options and to think i nv even bothered to find out more about diabetes when someone so close to me has it. and others, too, who have it too. now i know so much more about it, everything just fits. whoa.

oh well it's not really a big deal having diabetes. it's just whether u can find out u have it early enough or not. if not...

you can have vision problems, kidney failure, high blood pressure, heart attack, circulation problems, nerve and blood vessel damage, infections and stuff. u can die.

but it's not really a big deal if you have diabetes, u just need to watch your diet and exercise and take medication on time. at least i would be getting type 2, not type 1. type 1 diabetes is more severe, and u need injections daily. no cure yet, kindof more serious than type 2.

still, look at these facts. they call diabetes an "epidemic". more and more ppl are developing diabetes, thanks to lifestyle changes.

Did You Know?

The epidemic nature of diabetes continues to affect ever-increasing numbers of people around the world while public awareness remains low.
- Diabetes currently affects 246 million people worldwide and is expected to affect 380 million by 2025.
- Each year a further 7 million people develop diabetes.
- Each year 3.8 million deaths are attributable to diabetes. An even greater number die from cardiovascular disease made worse by diabetes-related lipid disorders and hypertension.
- Every 10 seconds a person dies from diabetes-related causes. (LOOK AT THATT!!!!)
- Every 10 seconds two people develop diabetes.
- Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of global death by disease.
- At least 50% of all people with diabetes are unaware of their condition. In some countries this figure may reach 80%. (THAT'S THE PROBLEM ISN'T IT! >.<)
- Up to 80% of type 2 diabetes is preventable by adopting a healthy diet and increasing physical activity. (YES GOOD TO HEAR THAT)
- Diabetes is the largest cause of kidney failure in developed countries and is responsible for huge dialysis costs.
- Type 2 diabetes has become the most frequent condition in people with kidney failure in countries of the Western world. The reported incidence varies between 30% and 40% in countries such as Germany and the USA.
- 10% to 20% of people with diabetes die of renal failure.
- On average, people with type 2 diabetes will die 5-10 years before people without diabetes, mostly due to cardiovascular disease. (I DON'T WANT TO DIE EARLY)
- Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in diabetes, accounting for some 50% of all diabetes fatalities, and much disability.
- People with type 2 diabetes are over twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as people who do not have diabetes. Indeed, people with type 2 diabetes are as likely to suffer a heart attack as people without diabetes who have already had a heart attack.
Sigh but healthy diet, exercise and all won't work so well all the time. T.T

it's kindof weird to know you may be getting some chronic disease, but just not knowing when or whether you really will get it. life can just be so full of surprises.

i kindof feel sad for both boo and Z. especially boo. she's been living with it since 6, i think. sigh. -hugs for boo-

p.s. i still can't believe i've been so apathetic about it when so many i know have diabetes. to think i thought i knew a lot about it. at least i knew more than what some people did, so that's not too bad...still. no wonder they say there's low public awareness

p.s.s. i feel awful about it. i've been taking things for granted and being overconfident about myself.

p.s.s.s. to think i would nv have found out more about diabetes and nv would have bothered to without this options homework! gosh.

Friday, October 12, 2007

interesting excuses

Excuse Notes from Parents ...

These are actual excuse notes from parents (including original spelling) collected by Nisheeth Parekh, University Texas Medical Branch @ Galveston...

My son is under a doctor’s care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.

Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.

Dear School: Please ekscuse John being absent on Jan.
28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.

Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had diahre dyrea direathe the shits.

Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.

Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father’s fault.

Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday.
We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.

Sally won’t be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral.

My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired.
She spent a weekend with the Marines.

Please excuse Jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.

Gloria was absent yesterday as she was having a gangover.

Please excuse Burma, she has been sick and under the doctor.

Maryann was absent December 11-16, because she had a fever, sore throat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and sore throat, her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn’t the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.

^^"

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

apple pluto?

just watched gattaca, im really amused by the "don't eat that! it's pluto!" thing haha...it's just the boy, vincent, was so in love with astro that he was laying out the solar system using fruits and stuff. and the apple that was supposed to be pluto got grabbed and eaten by his bro. poor vincent -patpat-

it's super sad and touching, loads of memorable quotes, and the extent of vincent's passion for astro and space is indisputable. he's really made loads of sacrifices and he displayed amazing amounts of determination and stuff. he's a bit good looking at times yet looks childish due to his weird teeth. uma thurman looks interestingly prim and proper, and totally not like kill bill.

i think i prefer uma in kill bill. much more appealing and all. ^^"

and jerome! he's totally shuai4! i liked him the very moment he appeared, just that he's so stupid to believe that getting second is the worst thing to happen in the world. who goes and commits suicide just bcos you were SECOND best? i personally would be so happy that i would jump over the moon. he's way too selfish thinking all about himself lor...

"If at first you don't succeed... try, try again" maybe it wasn't so good he wanted so succeed that way -SOBS- it's super saddddd lahhhh

this is really funny:
Det. Hugo: Hello everyone, nice to see you. I am your detective for the evening. Please don't leave the premises.
[people start scattering]
Det. Hugo: I said please don't leave the premises. Am I speaking in some kind of strange foreign language?
haha.

most memorable last words ever:
Vincent: [voiceover] For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving... maybe I'm going home

it's really kindof sad that discrimination ends up all down to a science, to eugenics. will biotech really lead us there? if it ever does, i will kindly remind the ppl that ppl born out of chance can be smart too, like einstein and richard feynman and loads of wonderful artists and musicians. there are loads of geniuses born out of luck and destiny.

although it's really quite logical that you want to get the best ppl, get those who were genetically engineered in-vitro. sigh but it's so not fair to those who were normal! then again it's sad for the g.e ppl who expect that they should be chosen instead. T.T arrgh just don't do eugenics alrd lahh!

science and ethics are just so controversial.

kill bill is cool. though it's really gory and everything and i wonder if cutting off limbs and heads really results in spurting of fountains of blood like that. i believe it should be like M-18 if it's ever in singapore lor. haha...but the storyline is cool. the first of its kind i've ever seen, and it's really good.