Jason’s Blog

Friday, 13/04/2007

This Malaysian Studies project was a joint effort between B105 and P106 for (as the name implies) our Malaysian Studies module. Unlike other modules whereby we have to kill some brain cells to memorise some unnecessary facts, this module emphasises teamwork, cooperation, communication skills and most importantly, allowing us BPharmers to have a little uni life from our mundane timetable of mugging, mugging and more mugging.

This backdrop was done by Hui Ling and gang. The designs were very apt and detailed, showing the cultures of the main races of Malaysia; Malays, Chinese, Indians and the Natives.

Yeu Lou and gang who were in charge of booth design did an amazing job creating 6 interactive booths for us Workshop Facilitators; Tong Yuen, Henna painting, Calligraphy, Ketupat, Roti Canai, Saree Wearing, plus other interactive stations like Wishing Tree, Bamboo Dance and Gasing.

The six of us was at The Atrium by 9.30 a.m. to help put up the info for each station and to do any last minute preparation before the event started at 11 a.m., so we took the chance to snap some photographs

I tried the events in several interactive booths, starting with Wishing Tree. I wrote my wishes on red paper, held the lime that was attached to the paper and flung it upwards towards the "tree" across The Atrium. Failed the first throw. Picked up the lime, threw again, and missed just by an inch. I watched as several wish-hopefuls threw and learnt their technique and succeeded the third time. Although it may sound kinda childish, but I felt a sense of happiness as I watched my paper get caught among the twigs and leaves and stayed entangled there. After that, I tried my hands (or in this case, my feet) in Bamboo dancing.

Tired and sweaty, I opted for something a little milder: Gasing throwing at the other end of The Atrium. I joined a few guys from my batch and together we created a racket with the musical instruments left behind by the Lion Dance troupe from SMK Taman Connaught. The best thing was that our lecturer, Rajesh Sharma took the drumsticks and astounded us with his skills in drumming!!! After that, I went over to the Henna station to see how Meng Xian, Ee Ling and Suk Kuan were holding up. Business was pretty good, judging by the continuous stream of customers waiting patiently for their hands to be painted. I got these done yesterday and the colours got a little bit darker compared to yesterday:

The event started at 11 a.m. with an opening dance by MPharmers. It’s actually very special since the theme for today was "Fusion, Confusion, Truly Malaysian", they fused 4 different dances (Tarian Lilin, Ribbon Dance, Indian Dance and Bamboo Dance) all in one. Prof Peter was invited to give a speech after that and Adeline (president) gave hers a minute later. Both Prof Peter and Mrs Phoong (our Malaysian Studies lecturer) were later invited up to the stage to receive a garland of flowers and to hit the gong to grace the opening ceremony. Immediately after hitting the gong, we were greeted by thunderous drumming, and accompanying this were 2 lions, one golden, one white. They moved with such agility and strength that we all stayed on to watch although it was way past 1.20 p.m. and our stomachs were growling since we had nothing since breakfast. This lasted a good 20 minutes and the 2 lions presented a plate of Sang Choy and some Lo Kam to Prof Peter at the end of their stint. This was followed by Shava-Shava dance (if I’m not mistaken, this dance was taken from the famous Indian movie Khabe Kushi Khabe Gum 3KG). There was also a duet performance by MPharmers. While they were performing, we got into our places to be ready for our choir right after the duet. This choir is special since they merged Rasa Sayang with the immortal Yuet Liang Dai Biau Wo De Xing and created a melody sweet enough to lift someone to Seventh Heaven (Hehe…I might have exaggerated a little but that was how I felt during the show). The guys started out Rasa Sayang soft initially (I guess out of nervousness, so it was a little scattered) and when we got to the rapping part, they got pretty disorganised and their voices weren’t very clear.  Kudos to the girls though as they sang in sync when it was their part, and their voices were clear and sweet. However, the guys continued with their Rasa Sayang much stronger and it was just awesome till the end of the last line!!!

http://www.youtube.com/v/h0A5F2QkCto

http://www.youtube.com/v/bpkLRoysFyE

http://www.youtube.com/v/2Az2w03TnVw

After choir, there was a Roti Canai competition for which I had signed up for earlier. Alex and Shin Yee, who were in-charge of the event, had managed to persuade dear Mak Cik from the Malay canteen to demo how to flip the "canai(s)" correctly. The aim of this competition is to see how well you can flip a canai and to make it as large as possible without breaking the dough. After 2 minutes, Alex would measure their diameters and the winners of each round (there were 3) would receive a pack of Mars Bars nuggets, complimetary of B105/P106 students ^_^ Some students were just plain cheaters; instead of flipping it around, they merely spreaded the dough on the table as flat as they could. I personally felt that Laura was the best canai maker around, though she only lost to Carol by a few cm. Congrats to Carol (Round 1), Kong (Round 2) and Yeu Lou (Round 3) for being the best IMU Roti Canai makers!!!

It was a great day, but it would have been better if we didn’t have to head for class halfway through the event and abandon our MPharm friends like that. Still, all of us had put in all our effort to make this day a success and for this I would like to say a big THANK YOU to ALL BPharmers and MPharmers for all your time, effort, money etc… Like I’ve said before - IF only we had more Malaysian Studies Days, wouldn’t it be GREAT?!?! ^_^

Wednesday, 28th March 2007

Since we already knew roughly how long the journey to Hospital Seremban would take us, we’d decided to gather at 7.30 a.m. instead. Learning from yesterday’s mistake, I had a hearty breakfast before leaving for attachment. We reached at around 8.30 a.m. to find that our parking space had been taken. We circled round and round the area and finally found a space in the Nursing School Department.

Having being quite familiar with the area, we headed straight towards OPD to meet Pn Kamisah for our Day 2 assignments. To our surprised, we were greeted instead by a Mr Chew, who informed us that Pn Kamisah is on leave and that he would be overseeing us forn the day. From my first impression, he looks like someone who’d stand no nonsense whatsoever. The first thing he did when we were herded into his office was to interrogate Kong and Po Leen (who were in OPD yesterday) on what they had learnt the day before. After introducing ourselves to him, he took us for a second visit around the OPD, showing us what we had seen the day before. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, we just kept quiet and listened and he explained how the drugs are ordered, stored and shipped around to be dispensed.

Then, he took us to visit the In-Patient Pharmacy (which we missed yesterday). Along the way, we passed by a hospital attendant pushing a metal frame container which was empty. Mr Chew told us that it was used to transport corpses from the wards. They would put the body into it, take the elevator to an underground level and the body would be transported to the hospital’s morgue through a tunnel that runs under the hospital’s grounds. He took us to the In-Ward Pharmacy, to DIS (Drug Information System) Department, to TDM and TPN (again). When we were done, we headed back to his office where Mr. Chew told us he would be giving us each an assessment to fulfill our requirement in the Log Book. He only had time to let Laura "dispense" medication to him before he told us that he had a lunch date and told us to come back at 2 p.m.

My friend who was attached to Hospital Seremban before told me to try the Indian food in IMU’s Clinical School instead of the hospital’s cafetaria, so we headed towards the building situated just opposite the hospital.

The moment we walked in the area, we could feel how a REAL uni should feel like; full of trees, a garden, well-landscaped and cooling. I mean, it was really peaceful just to walk in there.

They even have a nice cooling walkway in between the Indian and Malay cafetaria unlike what we have in Bukit Jalil!!!

After lunch, we headed back to Mr. Chew’s office to be assessed. He gave us 3 presricptions to choose from. Even before we had finished dispensing, he had already graded us; all with the same comment and score…Haha. To our surprise, once we had all been assessed, he allowed us to go home (at 3.15 p.m.!!!)

Before we left the hospital, we found a nice spot in the hospital grounds with a water fountain and wanted to take some pictures as remembrance. I asked the lady guard who was nearby for help. She was very apprehensive as she had never used a digital camera before. anyway, these 4 pictures were the result of her "expertise":

Picture 1: It was slightly blurred. We had told her to click on the button for 5 seconds and this second picture came out:

Picture 2: That was me explaining to her to hold the button for 5 seconds but she must have clicked on the button unknowingly. ^_^

Picture 3: Po Leen was explaining to the lady how to click on the button and again, this candid shot was taken.

Picture 4: Somehow, this picture turned out to be the best of all, although I was the most unprepared among the group.