stolen colours

A level results will be out tomorrow, and Brother’s fate will be sealed. *cackles* Has it really been three years since I got my results? JC life seems like a lifetime away; heck, M1 seems like a lifetime away. I thus conclude that a lifetime is three years.

For the first time ever, I stayed in school from 9am to 10pm. *dead* I was utterly, utterly bored.

Two articles below; thanks mosquitogal for helping me get them off Straits Times Interactive.

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More Neil Hymphreys goodness XD

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I met my senior in school today as some of the M4s were having their clinical test for O&G (obstetrics and gynaecology). One of the M4s at his table opposite me was in tears. My senior himself was understandably distraught because he felt he’d failed this test – meaning that he fails the whole posting overall and must do a supplementary course, regardless of the fact that he did very well for the other tests. His patient was a mother-to-be with hypothyroidism, which is really rather uncommon in the population compared to hyperthyroidism. My senior is a very passionate and hardworking student, but he was stunned as he didn’t know how to answer “How does this affect her pregnancy?” He ranted about this to me, and I was stumped as well. I’ve done my medicine posting, so I technically -should- know what hypothyroidism does to you.

I went home, read Shape magazine, and came to an article on 8 difficult-to-diagnose ailments afflicting women. Right in the centre of the page in bold type was “Hypothyroidism can cause low birth weight and low IQ.” There you have it. I guess in hypothyroidism, less of everything good gets to the fetus and less of everything bad gets to the mother.

Moral of the story: read magazines. Don’t mug so much.

Shape magazine is sometimes rather distressing. Dr Ben Tan said in one article that for effective weight loss to occur, one should have a daily deficit of 500-1000kcal. I eat about 1000-1100 kcal a day, so cutting that down as required would mean a net of 100-600 kcal a day? Is that even compatible with life?

The past few days, I’ve only heard the voices of my family and Liam Gallagher. Ah, bliss. The only bummer is that I’ll probably associate Oasis with M3 exams since I’m listening to them and only them during this period.

I’m not alone in watching a lot of television, it seems. *points to avaris’ latest blogpost on jdrama* Neither am I the only one spending more time at the gym than studying. *waves arm at parma* Figure skating finals soon XD I love the Japanese skaters, they’re so light they’re also snowflakes on the ice.

I checked out the AMI results because I don’t believe in wasting one hour watching Seacrest painfully banter with the contestants and cue commercial breaks every 3 minutes. And oh! NONONONONO! One of the guys I like is out, because he chose a rather unsuitable song yesterday and isn’t handsome. WHY! With so many other HORRIBLE, yes, HORRIBLE male contestants! Please tell me there’s going to be a wildcard round?

Now, if only I could remember the side effects of all the drugs. *gnashes teeth* When Father is not in the country, I become the main source of medical advice at home, which is a rather distressing thing. Today, fortunately, I was able to diagnose urticaria. (HAHAHAHA!) Brother had a paper cut and a characteristic weal swelled up around it. Of course, I already knew from his history that he’s allergic to paper. (And he’s going to be a clerk in NS…heaven help him.) So Brother just went ahead and popped antihistamines before I could get the word “cream” out of my mouth. Oh well, maybe from past experience more weals appear in time, or tablets are the only thing that work for him.

The Today article on Oasis, by Neil Humphreys. I usually cut out newspaper articles on the concerts I attend just so I can hold on to the experience a little longer; but I always end up losing the articles, so I’ll just put them onto my blog.

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I’m back from the Oasis concert. It was fantastic! Oasis is really good live. My block was standing right from the start, but I so wish I’d gotten the free standing tickets instead. Oasis’ songs are exhilarating, and the sense of rhythm is very, very strong.

Liam, as Penance says, is very ’seh’. It’s also amazing how each member practically just stands in one spot (I think they mark X on the stage), yet there’s still so much energy. During interludes Liam will walk anticlockwise in a perfect semi-circle (again, I bet they mark it), pick up his waterbottle in front of the drums, gulp, then continue walking in a semi-circle till he’s in front of the mic again, just in time to start singing again. I think he probably suffers from occupational back pain because of sustained awkward posture.

And oh, the drummer is amazing. Zak Starkey, I believe.

The atmosphere only got better as the night progressed. My favourite song of the night was Rock’n'Roll Star, though I loved everything. They came out for an encore and ended with Don’t Look Back In Anger – or so we thought. Then Liam said “This is REALLy the last song” or something like that, and they started playing again, during which the house lights came on. Woah. Was that a real song? Or just something that ended with “have to get some sleep”? (I must apologise for any errors in reporting, Liam spoke really fast and sometimes it was muffled.)

I’m just rather disappointed they didn’t play Let There Be Love. Anyway, that was played over the PA system as the audience trickled out.

More songs on the radioblog.

I’m getting an overdose of reality TV these days. First, there’s America’s Next Top Model – they kicked Lisa out and kept Jayla in! Grr. Second, there’s American Idol,where the 16-year-olds are fantastic and Katharine McPhee is heavenly. (She needs to learn how to move, though. And Deepblue says she looks like Kirsten Dunst.) Third is Project Runway 2, in which the designers are all much bitchier compared to those from the first season. Somehow I always like the contestants from the first season more, just like for ANTM. Heidi Klum is pregnant at the time of filming and models pretty maternity frocks.

The catch: it’s exam period now.

Looking at my recent blog posts, it seems that the quality of my posts has declined dramatically. Ugh. There’s only so much brain that’s available, and most of it now goes into flashcards (all the rage now in the med library!) and trying to outwit the senior med students to get the better table outside the library (in vain, so far).

Now listening to Cat Power. (That’s a singer, not a song title.) I’m going to the Oasis concert tonight! It’s rather sad that it’s only going to be 90 minutes long. Yes, music feeds the soul.

On the Breakfast Club on 93.8FM yesterday morning, the guest described various studying tips. The most useful ones were having a conducive environment, and planning study spurts of 45 minutes interspersed with 10-minute breaks for drinking water and visiting the toilet. I’ve found another person who believes in Mrs Kwan’s philosophy of “hydrating your brain”. Excuse me while I fill my water bottle and proceed to gulp down more dissolved plastics.