Dreamscape Ascension

You know, I've never felt older.

Now that I am in Year 4, it seems like a dream sometimes. The paper for Forensics lands on my table and I'm scrambling to fill in the student details on the answer sheet (you know, those that you have to fill in with 2B pencil before it goes into the machine) and on the "Year" slot, I had to fill up #4. And then GAH, a reminder that I'm going to graduate soon. A reminder that I am no longer as young and naive as I used to be.

Anyway, enough about my rant of being older, let's get down to what's been happening, shall we?

Forensics posting was...how should I put it...short and mildly interesting. The first week was like hell because after 3 weeks of doing nothing but play Dynasty Warriors 6 to unlock every single warrior in Musou Mode, I was suddenly bombarded with a whole week's worth of lecture, non-stop (except lunch) from 8 to 5, Monday to Friday. This is understandable since the lecutrers are guest lecturers i.e. Forensics specialists from Semenanjung. Not so fun part: information overload, and gross pictures. Fun part: I actually got to see some pictures of past/ongoing cases that made headlines in Malaysia (like the Altantuya case, the Susilawati case...). And before you even ask for it, no, I don't have those pictures.

The exam this time was after the 2 week posting instead of at the end of the 4th year like our seniors had it. Although it felt like my brain was about to explode, I guess it is better than having it at the end of the year where everyone's too darn lazy to open up what we've learned months ago. All in all, I quite enjoyed the posting.

And now, to more current issues, I am now in Sibu (again...never though I'd say this but I miss Sibu Hospital) for the Community and Public Health posting. The nice part about this posting is that we're doing more learning about the community-based healthcare.

We have to do a research while we're here, too. It's about KAP (knowledge, attitude and practice) regarding diabetes mellitus among the peeps in Nanga Sekuau (an area with some 24 longhouses in Selangau). The people there are real nice, yet the language barrier does restrict sometimes.

I'm neutral about the research thing...I was never big on SPSS, statistics and all that. But the not-so-nice part about this posting is the frequent squabbles. And I'm talking about internal squabbles. I think not a day goes by that someone in my group doesn't talk trash about another. We have a lot of issues, namely leadership and gender bias. There's also the issue of lazy members and selfish members too, but I guess we can't really help it.

So, to curb this problem, they decided to have a beach trip to Belawai to..."put aside differences and establish better comrade-ship" (mengeratkan silaturrahim la konon...). It was a fun day at the beach, and we played games and ate barbeque and stuff...despite some members not attending. I don't know if this really did help make our group members closer, but a fun day is a fun day, problems aside.

Also, it was in this posting that I tried to donate blood for the first time. Why I say tried? It's because after all the registration, testing, etc., my veins (both arms) refuse to cooperate with the needle/blood bag and the staff at the blood bank said that they dilated after insertion of the needle. And I was so excited to give blood to save lives, too (not to mention the amount of fear I had to overcome, yeesh!). Well, better luck next time.

Until next post, ciao!

Labels: 4th year, UNIMAS