Sichuan Earthquake

To the shock of the world, an earthquake measured 7.9 hit Sichuan province on 12th May 2008.

I myself have received quite a number of emails on the earthquake. Below shows one of them about the great love of a mother:



" When rescuers found her, she was already dead, crushed by the collapsed house. Through gaps in the rubbles, they could see her posture.

Kneeling on both knees, her entire upper body bent forward, held up by her two hands pressed against the ground, as if performing the ceremonial bow in an ancient ritual. Except, her body had been compressed out of shape and looked somewhat eerie.

A rescuer extended his hand through a gap and confirmed her death. He called out to her, and tapped on the bricks with his shaft, but received no response.

As the team walked toward next building, the squad leader suddenly turned back, yelling as he ran, 'Come quick!' He came to her remain, labored to maneuver his hand under her body, searching.

He called out following some rummaging, 'There's someone, a child, still alive.'

With some effort, rescuers carefully removed the debris burying her, found her child lying beneath her, bundled in a little red blanket decorated with yellow flower prints. He was about 3-4 months old.

Shielded by his mother's body , he was totally unharmed, sleeping peacefully as he was brought out. His soundly asleep face warmed the hearts of all rescuers on the scene.

As the rescue team's doctor unbundled the blanket to examine the baby, he discovered a mobile phone tucked into the blanket. He subconsciously looked at the display, found there was a SMS message.

My Dear Baby, If you were to stay alive, you must remember that I love you.' No stranger to the pain and sorrow brought by death, the doctor nonetheless wept at this moment. The cell phone was passed around, every person who read the message wept. "




The world is reaching out to the earthquake survivors. In Malaysia for example, there has been a lot of fund raising activities going on. From this disaster, we see the warmth and sympathy in the people. There is this chinese slogan in Malaysia: "di(4) zhen(4) wu(2) qing(2), da(4) ma(3) you(3) ai(4). Translated into English, it means "Earthquake shows no mercy, but Malaysia contains love."

I would like to dedicate what follows to the earthquake survivors:

Yes, earthquake had taken your loved ones. Seemingly, it devastated your life. But then, look at those who sacrificed their lives to save yours. The mother in the email above had sacrificed herself to shield her baby. And many teachers also did the same to their students. Their sacrifices were indeed great.

So, the survivors should all the more walk out of the darkness in lives. See hope in your future. The tragedy has already occurred. There's no use looking back and being haunted by the traumatic experience. Those killed by the earthquakes do not wish to see you spiritless. So, get up and go on with life.

The damage done to your heart and soul may not be understood by us, the third parties. But we do feel sad. We cried too. And please, bear in mind that we are here to support you not only financially, but also morally. We pray for you. We pray that you are blessed with the strength, courage and resilience to recover from the experience. Yes, this will be over soon. You will rebuild your life. You will see a bright future awaiting you ahead. This is going to come true as long as you do not give up. I have mentioned this in my previous posts: There is always rainbows after rains, and spring after every winter.

Again, the world is praying for you. You have survived through the toughest time during the earthquake. Whatever hardships that come in your way is not going to deter you. It takes some time to mend a broken heart. All the best!

Enjoy life!

Have you ever been on a roller-coaster? If you answered yes, how did you feel when the roller-coaster went up and down at a high speed? After all the yelling and nervousness, if there's any, did you enjoy yourself with this exciting outdoor activity?

It's good if you give a resounding "YES" to this question.

Yea, we enjoy ourselves going up and down the roller-coaster. We shout our hearts out, raise our hands high in the air and hope to ride on it again.





Now, here's my question, if we can enjoy going on the roller-coaster, why can't we enjoy going through the ups and downs in life? Living life is like going on a roller-coaster.

Life is difficult. We have to confront everyday challenges and problems. No matter how tough the going gets, we have to get going. It's us-no one else-who will decide and impact on our very own lives. This may be a harsh reality, but it's absolutely true.

With the world becoming more and more competent, life is now getting more difficult. Some people among us, may be under so great strain and pressure that their mind pop up with suicidal thought. This is undoubtedly true - suicidal thought flashes through people's minds as a strong overwhelming negative thought.

But then, the fact is, committing suicide is not the way out. It's just a means of escaping responsibility and an indicator that the suicide victim is a coward who has no guts to face his or her life.

In face of adversity, why not stay cool and relaxed and enjoy the process of overcoming obstacles? It is a process of turning every adversities into opportunities.

Just like when we are sailing, we may be challenged by mountainous waves. Instead of grieving over and blaming the destiny, we should by all means enjoy the process of sailing through the sea of waves. And let's not forget that a calm sea always await us after we got through the strong waves.


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We can never change the fact. But we can always change our perceptions and attitudes. If we can learn to enjoy overcoming life's stumbling blocks, we will be the eventual winner in our own life. Remember, problems will stay if left unsolved. But they will definitely pass if we work them out.

So, enjoy life!

Below shows an e-card about life.




Send this eCard !



Ps: To those on the verge of committing suicide, think rationally. We have yet to see and enjoy many beautiful things in this world.

Just some thoughts

To be able to grasp what I am trying to deliver in this blog post, you guys need to acquire some knowledge in biology. Precisely, knowledge about the mechanism of protein synthesis in our body.

Just a warning in advance - You may be bored by the following.

I am going from protein to amino acids in descending order. Protein is made up of one or more polypeptides. A polypeptide is in turn made up by many amino acids linked together by peptide bonds. And the information used to synthesis proteins is coded in the DNA molecules. One gene will code for one polypeptide, as stated by the 'one-gene-one-polypeptide' theory.

Different combinations of amino acids result in different polypeptides. Thus, the position of each amino acids in the polypeptide chain is of utmost importance to ensure that a protein molecule can carry out its function.

Then, we proceed to the DNA part. The codes for the polypeptide are organised in triplet code form in the DNA. Each triplet code will be copied into a messenger (with the role of a postman), mRNA to be translated into amino acids. Once the wrong amino acid is placed on the polypeptide chain, the protein is not functional. In other words, if the codes are copied wrongly into the mRNA, the resulting protein would not be functional because it is the codes in the mRNA that code for the amino acids.

Now, you know the triplet codes (called codons) in the mRNA code for one amino acid. For instance, the code AUG codes for amino acid methionine. AGU codes for serine. In total, we have 20 amino acids. And we also have four bases that form all those codes. Using permutation, there are (4*4*4=64) probabilities of triplet codes that can be formed. 64 triplet codes code for 20 amino acids. How come?

Here comes the moral of the story, God has deliberately allowed several triplet codes to code for the same amino acid. The same amino acid can be coded in a few different codes. This reduces the incidence of mistakes that the enzyme makes during the copying process from DNA to mRNA. For your information, it's enzymes that catalyse the copying process.

This is what my teacher said - even enzyme would make mistakes in spite of their high specificity. Would we never ever make mistakes in lives?

We are human. We are not God. God does not make mistakes. But we absolutely make mistakes at times, even enzymes are not exceptional.

Our mistake might cost us deep sorrow. Our mistake might cost us great change in our life. Our mistake might cost us tremendous problems.

We are definitely unable to turn back time to undo the mistakes we did. More often than not, when we have committed a mistake, we would say, "How I wish I have the ability to undo mistakes." We would regret the mistakes we did. We would keep throwing in hundreds and hundreds of words of apology to the person concerned.

But the harsh reality is, we can't undo the thing we did.

Instead of regretting and crying over our mistakes, why not we take a deep breath, reorganise our tangled thought and untie the knot in our heart to accept the reality and admit our mistakes? I have read a book. The author teaches the us to shoulder 100% responsibility for our lives and our mistakes.

It doesn't matter to have done a mistake. But it does matter not to admit our mistakes.

We learn from mistakes. This is parts of the growing process. Do not cry over spilt milks. Learn your lessons then and do something to mend the broken heart.

Keep going!

p/s: What matters is not being perfect and never committing mistakes. We can never reach perfectionism. Learn form mistakes. That's what counts.

I might just save lives

This is gonna be interesting.

What do you think about this blog post title?

You are rest assured, I did not do CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) on a girl. Even if I want to, I am just not in a position to do it. I am not a qualified first-aider. But if I have an opportunity to learn first-aid, I'll go for it. And I do feel a bit sorry for not joining St. John Ambulance during my secondary school years. And I would regret that in future when I see a girl passing out in front of me and I am not able to give her the immediate CPR she would want.

I would have just missed the great opportunity to meet my Miss Right. :P

And she would have just missed the opportunity to meet her Mr Right - that's me! :XD

What a GREAT LOSS!

Fine, I do not know how to carry out CPR. But then, I might still save lives. Guess what, I have just donated 450ml of my blood to Pusat Darah Negara in April.

The blood donation campaign was carried out in the school hall. The venue was great, but not the response this campaign received. But then, we have a rightful justification for the so-so response. Most of the students are not eligible to donate their blood. If I am not mistaken, only those aged 17 and above can donate their blood. I am sure that most of the sixth-formers, if not all of them do fulfill the age requirement. But then, the number of sixth-formers is not quite encouraging.

Anyhow, Leo Club had done their part to blossom success in the campaign. Announcement had been made, representatives had been sent to the classes to seek potential blood donors.

In fact, it's the Leos' who kept me company when I was lying on the bed, donating blood. A Leo member talked to me to distract my attention from the tube to be inserted into my vein. As luck would have it, it's a guy. In spite of the gender not of my preference, I do want to thank him for his great services. He fanned me throughout the entire process. Should some of you not know the process, the blood donors have to hold something, preferably of cylindrical shape in their hands. And they are asked to voluntarily contract and relax their biceps muscle while holding the cylinders in hand. This, I suppose is to increase the blood flow to the muscle and thus the blood vein so that more blood can into the blood pack at a higher rate.

Besides the Leo member, there was this auntie that lied on a bed next to mine. She talked to me and assure me that donating blood is a very meaningful and beneficial activity to us.

To be frank, I was initially quite nervous about the pain I would get. But then, probably the will and the strong desire to help people won over the fear in me. It has always been my dream to reach out to the sick. If then I am not even able to endure the small pain - in fact it's no pain at all - to help the sick, what position am I in to consider being a doctor saving lives? I am far away from being a doctor, but at least I could do my bit to help save lives.

In fact, the nearly negligible pain I got is absolutely incomparable to the pain an accident victim would experience.

How am I supposed to compare the pains and sufferings of a leukemic patient with the mere tingling pain I got?

If you insist on a comparison between the two different pains, I would draw an analogy between a mere human being with the expanding, mysterious cosmic universe.

I know very well that me alone can do very little contributions to save lives. But at least I have conquered my fear and taken the initiate to help save lives. And I really feel the satisfaction of giving.

Who knows, as you are reading through the lines, my blood is being transfused into a girl's bloodstream. She might just have escaped the fate of death in the nick of time. If this does transpire, I would be looking forward to meeting her in future. But only God knows whether or not we'll see each other.

Again, who knows, she might just be my Miss Right.

P/S: Donating blood not only benefits other people, but also the blood donors themselves. Blood donors are given priority for blood transfusion in case any serious blood loss happens to them. Do consider donating your blood when you have such opportunity.

Work and play

Form 6 has long started since April Fool.

From all accounts, studying Form 6 is a tough challenge. An ex-sixth former told us that he was virtually living in hell throughout the entire sixth form life. That was really discouraging. I believe that what he said would come to many of the lower-sixers as words of fright. But then, for me, I believe in myself. I have faith and confidence in myself. But I just lose my confidence in the Government. As compared to STPM, Matriculation is way much easier. But it is Matriculation students who can enroll into public universities more easily. What kind of injustice is this? Students devoting their attention, their time and effort in slogging with their homework and such wide syllabus in the end scored 4 flat, yet failed to get a place in public universities to study their desired course. It is in fact this problem that keeps bothering me. And I am not really confident that I could get a place in medicine in public university if I study Form 6. And probably that's why I appeal for reconsidering my application for admission into Matriculation. Hopefully, I can get a place in Matriculation and subsequently, a place to study medicine in public university.

I have been back to school for nearly a month. It's the all-too-familiar faces there. Mr Ketua Guru Disiplin never, and will never stop scolding the students for bad discipline. The teachers would never stop asking for better academic performance. This is especially true for our Mr Principal. It is admitted that our school is a magnet school. But, the question is, is it really so?


When we sack bad students out of the school for the sake of school reputation, we are just creating a potential criminal in the future society.

When we by all means force the students to comply with the rules and regulations on no condition, we are just creating more dissatisfied voices and reluctance to go by the rules.

When we insists on developing academically excellent students, we are just keeping the other talents of the students hidden and undiscovered. We are actually going against what is proposed in the "Falsafah Pendidikan".

True discipline has got to come from the students themselves. We educate students and solve the problems in the society at large, not add more problems to the society. We instill good discipline in students, not force discipline in them. We unearth talents, not hide them.

True discipline can stand the test of time and would not be gone once students are out into the society. What we need is not the rigid rules and regulations. What we need is the self-discipline and self-initiative that comes from the heart and soul of the students.

Thus, I seriously question this: is our school really good or is it merely perceived to be good?

I will leave that for you to think.

Back to topic, I found Form 6 syllabus really wide. And I really doubt the teachers could have ample time to cover all the topics and do revision with us before STPM, in spite of the fact that I am only taking four subjects in the exam. In fact, more precisely, I take five subjects, including MUET.

On the 16th until 18th April, we had our sixth form orientation. It was quite fun, I have to admit. Despite the games being not up to our level o maturity, I still have my say that I enjoyed the activities arranged to us. In fact, a person can't be serious all the time. In life, we do need the time and space to relax ourselves and break free from the strain and tension that accumulates as a result of our very serious treatment of our work. There is a saying that goes like this, "All work no play makes Jack a dull boy." Be childish sometimes. Try doing the little things to release the stress you face. Every little things may make our life more blissful.

Strike a balance between work and play. Allocate time for the two factors: work and play.

Something keeps you going

43 words

Speedtest

I have my record broken again.

In fact, it's not very interesting and meaningful to break such kind of records. But then, there's something that keeps me going. And that's this perseverance. Without it, you might have a blazing inferno at the beginning stage, but then the flame would grow smaller, smaller and smaller. And eventually, it goes off.

Things would be different if you have perseverance. I would draw an analogy between perseverance and feeding your car with petrol. You can impossibly keep your electric car (solar cars are out of topic) going if you do not add petrol into your car's petrol bank from time to time and consistently.

In short, show perseverance in whatever we do.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

Inspiration from Selayang Hospital.

During the period between 24th to 28th March, I have paid my first visit to a hospital, Selayang Hospital.

Should you not know why I was there for five days, here's the reason.

I have applied JPA scholarship for studying medicine. All applicants who have applied for medicine course and meet the minimum requirements would have to attend an exposure program, that's this "Program Pendedahan Kerjaya Seorang Doktor".

Since I do fulfill their requirements, there I was!

There're about 60 students also attending this program in Selayang Hospital. And we were divided into group A, B, C and D. Different groups would be visiting different departments.

I went there with two friends. And it turned out that we were all in different groups. I was in group B, Soon Yee and Jian Yeow in group A and C respectively. I did not grumble or dislike that arrangement, since fate brought us apart (did I sound overly serious? haha). In fact, I do believe in destiny and fate. In some cases, the result is all up to our destiny. But in another, it's us who should work out for our desired result. And we are not supposed to put the blame on "luck", "destiny" or "fate" if things turn out not as desired. That's just a lame way of escaping the responsibilities to be shouldered. That's my principle and I really hope I would never have it compromised.

Back to topic. My first department to visit was Orthopedics. There are more than 20 beds in the department. And the male and female patients are separated. Is this a practice in every hospitals? This practice is good in a way...haha.....

The staff nurse (That's what we call a normal nurse, because there're many different rankings among nurses. There are head nurses, staff nurses and trainee nurses. "Nurse" is just a general name) explained to us about the department and some gadgets used on patients. After that, we were left to communicate with the patients and their families, if there were any. Besides medical knowledge and experience, communicating skills is also none the less important. Doctors are simply doctors. They can't really know what happens to their patients without talking to them and digging the history of the patients in the first place. They are not God. God knows all but doctors don't.

What's more, some patients can be really emotional. You have to talk to them nicely. I had this experience there. A female patient bit a nurse there when the nurse talked to her. I was not on the spot and thus did not know what the nurse said or did to the patient. But then, we went there and tried to talk to the patient. Due to the fact that she's a Chinese and there's no Chinese nurses there, my group members asked us (the Chinese) to talk to her and find out her problems. I admitted I was being a bit busybody. I thought Chinese would be good to Chinese(ga gi lang). We asked "How are you" in Chinese but she stared at us, with blood on her hand, if not mistaken. In the end, we were proven to be useless-we could help nothing.

During this five-day visit, I had officially paid my visit to Obstetrics & Gynecology, Accident & Emergency, Surgical Department, Forensics, Orthopedics and Specialists' Clinics including urology and dermatology. These are my official visits because I also went the paediatrics without official permission with the other three new-found friends.

From this visit, I have seen the sufferings and ordeal of the patients. Some fall down from motorcycles and broke their limbs, some have their leg amputated and some are terminally ill with late stage cancer, days numbered and virtually waiting for death. I could see that death is certainly not their wish.

Right there and then, I thought, the people out there, who have ever thought of suicide upon being blown by a failure or distressed by countless bad happenings on them, never realize that the patients here are moaning and groaning with physical pain, yet praying and hoping hard to survive the ordeal and get on with life.

How could someone choose to end his life when someone else there is struggling to continue with his life?

How could we not treasure life when a tremendous number of newborns in this world die and do not have the slightest chance to see the world.

How could we not drive cautiously when many other motorists involved in accidents broke their legs, become paralyzed and regret what they did?

How could we still smoke and lead unhealthy lifestyles when the people with lung cancer and heart diseases regretted their action and swore to change their lifestyles?

We do not usually learn our lessons from other people's happenings. We tend to learn them the hard way. Do things need to be so? Ponder on that. The decision lies in your hand. After all, you are the one who decides on your life.

For me, I have decided to treasure my life and never take my life for granted. I am more determined than ever to become a dedicated doctor that can reach out to the sick.

I know that being a doctor is not merely about diagnosing and treating the patients. It's about trying his/her best and going all out to save precious lives.

Scientifically speaking, the fusion of sperm and ovum gives us our lives. But it's God who enables the fertilization process to take place. Supposedly, it's God who creates us. We are all very prized gift from Him to this world.

Should we not treasure our lives?