my ear

In medicine, we learned embryology.

When there's something wrong with the cells division or when some parts of the body are not divided completely or for some other reasons...defects occur.

It can be due to genetics, environmental factors, mutation...

I would count myself lucky because I wasn't born with my intestines protuding out like this:

source

or born without limbs:

source

or have obvious defects like this:

source

But instead...





I have this:


For many years I have struggled with it. People have always wondered why I have never left long hair as I look better in long hair. Well, the reason is that if I leave long hair, I have to tie it no matter what (coz the weather is super hot in m'sia and high school rules which require us to tie our hair) and expose my ear.

'Aiyah, it's not obvious lar...why so scared to show ur ear?'

It's easy to say, but if u were put in my shoes, I think u'll understand. You can't help it but notice people staring at your ears when you are talking to them. Sometimes it's just too hard to ignore their stares.

Yeah, my case is not as serious as other people who have worse defects than me. At least I don't limp or I have some ugly big tumour on my face. Thank God for that. But, I really admire the courage of those people who dare to walk around with an obvious disfigurement.

What made me suddenly decide to leave long hair then?

Well, I dunno also. Haha. It was just suddenly an overnight decision to tie my hair or I would say an overnight change of mindset. I suddenly felt that I shouldn't think of what people will say about me anymore. Just be confident with myself.

I guess it's just part of life. Part of growing up.

That's why I started tying hair halfway through A levels ( if anyone realised that my hair was extremely short during the start of A levels, but towards the end of the course, my hair was long)

I still get comments from people who saw my ear.

'how come ur ear like that one?' -that's the most common question I usually get

One was rather amusing...haha

'oh my gosh Janice, what happened to ur ear?'...'I tot it was infection!!' (after I told the person)

-.-''



anyways, I dun get asked about my ear in the UK. I guess people somehow are more mature in that sense to keep their mouth shut. But I would prefer if people not stare at it.

People curious ma..what to do?

becoming a doctor - a big price to pay

There are a lot of sacrifices one hv to make to study medicine.

first of all is the financial part.

study medicine in the UK could easily cost 1 million ringgit!

jz imagine the stuff we could buy if it wasn't used on our education!

secondly,

medical students can't enjoy uni life as much as others. Their term starts earlier & ends later than any other courses.


Their exams also finish much later than other courses.

Not fair!


thirdly, the stuff they study is a lot times more than other courses (in general).



One thing I get really annoyed about is when people comment on medical students exam.
Although we only have 2 papers for our exam and people say 'cheh...only 2 papers nia..easy la, where got like us, got 5 papers'

'do you know that eventhough it's only 2 papers, it also consists of 1 whole year of coursework???'

it's equally just as mentally exhausting than any other exams!

and although it's just MCQ & EMQ and not short answer questions for the integrated exam, you think it's easy ah?? they purposely give you choices which are confusing. For eg,

what is responsible for the bone formation? (previous past yr qn, got from seniors)
(a) osteoblast
(b) osteoclast
(c) osteocytes

And mind u, all the osteo thingy exist so u hv to really read ur stuff properly, or else u will end up being confused by the different choices.


******

But of course, studying medicine is not that bad at all.

you get to understand ur body better. U will understand why certain disease happen on some & not on others. You also get respected when u tell people u r studying medicine & u will earn big bucks when u work etc.

But the greatest of all is that u get to save lives. Putting ur knowledge at good use to help people.

That's the greatest fuel to push me to persevere to finish this gruesome 5-year course.

Good website links for revision

Some useful sites for revision:

Anatomy:
1. UAMS gross anatomy: http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/toc.htm

Human cross-sectional anatomy:
1. netanatomy: http://www.netanatomy.com/CSA/csa_frame.htm (damn good..so much better than my uni one)

2. Leeds:
http://www.bmb.leeds.ac.uk/illingworth/visible/vismale.htm (my uni's one..not so good as it requires additional plug-ins & most of the cross-section slides are not labeled)

Histology:
1. Blue histology: http://www.lab.anhb.uwa.edu.au/mb140/ (good for revision)

2. University of Winsconsin: http://www.histology.wisc.edu/histo/uw/htm/ttoc.htm ( good for histo slides recognition)

3. Boston University: http://www.bu.edu/histology/m/i_main00.htm ( same as no. 2)


Embryology:
1. Indiana: http://www.indiana.edu/~anat550/embryo_main/ (very good animation!)

SSC 1.3 --> the last SSC of yr 1!

As usual I always blog about my SSC each term.

This term, I chose 'medical information on the WWW' as my first choice as I always hv an interest in computer related stuff.

I'm really blessed that I got all the SSC topics which I put as my first choice. Others got SSC topics which they din want and ended up doing badly in it.

In this SSC, we were required to write 4 essays altogether (that's why it's a groupwork task)- A report on quality standards for health related websites, a review on websites and another 2 reviews on the usage of DISCERN and QUICK tool with selected websites.

The essay parts were pretty boring and I had some difficulty writing it as the criteria for the essays were rather vague. But thanks to the many people around who have done the same SSC and were willing to let me have a look at their essays, I managed to complete it.

The rather interesting and exciting part of the SSC was where we were required to build our own website on any health topic.

Introducing to you my group's Type 1 diabetes website!

link I find it really cool to see a website named behind my uni username and having the contacts page with our pics...so cool! haha...

the website is 95% completed with some parts needing touch-up. It's not a very well built website with many webpages unsynchronized. In some pages, the left green column can appear super big but in some pages, it's small. Tried to change it but the stubborn software refuse to change so hv to leave it like that.

But fortunately the SSC tutor said that she doesn't really look at the layout of the website. Just make sure the website is fully functional and conform to the quality standards then it's ok =)

Next week Tues we will be handing in our SSC.

Our last SSC of yr 1.

and after that, it's time to go full-time into revision for the end-of-yr exams!

Happy Mother's Day!

Nothing speaks more than a handmade card to express my gratitude to my mum on Mother's day.

Happy Mother's day mummy!

PS: the orchid was taken from Keukenhof garden!

exams...sighhhhh

I've never seen the medical library so packed before.

I've never seen everyone so serious in studying before.

I've never felt so busy in my entire life.

I've never known that I've got so much to do and study. I see my tutorials and anatomy work sheets and self directed learning hwk piling up every day.

SSC deadline on the 21st.

Anatomy spot test on the 30th.

Integrated summative exams on the 7th June.

A total of 250+ lecture notes, tutorials, anatomy work sheets to study.

average 10+ notes per day??

Everyday I don't dare sleep extra for fear that I would lose those precious hours studying.

I'm so scared and stressed now.

Perhaps that's why I get annoyed and angry easily :S .Small trivial things and even some comments can infuriate me. Pimples starting to pop up from my face too.

Oh no...I'm back to my old grumpy self again =(

moving house

After weeks of uncertainty and delay,


after 9 hours of moving to and fro from one house to another...


After much sweat and blood...

Lynda's poor toe

after what seemed like an endless work...


we've finally moved house!


Gone are the days in 9 Blandford Grove!


We are now staying at 18 Blandford Grove...the corner house on the stretch of houses just opposite our old house.


Our new room look:

the two tables on the left are Stephanie's and the table on the right with the notice board and fish tank is mine

Lynda's table...now the whole place looks more organised

PS:

i'm indebted to my church friend - Fusheng who phoned me early in the morning asking me the time we were going to move so that he could come and help. He was the only one who was willing to help us for 5 hours despite his upcoming exam. Thanks a lot to him!

my housemate Melvin jz gave me a printer which he said he doesn't want coz the printer is a little faulty and he could print for free in uni. Thank him for that!

Epson!

Thank God for the many kind-hearted souls around..helping us at the time we need. whoa..I feel so blessed