Why so serious?

You thought this is gonna be an entry on The Dark Knight didn't you? Well no, I'm not going to write anything about that movie that is perhaps the best movie I have ever saw. In fact, what I intend to do is promote the Islamic Awareness Week that is coming near you all over NZ in the week of 4th - 10th August. Christchurch's activities are as follow:

Weekday daily information booth at University of Canterbury.
Daily lecture/video showing at C1 Lecture theatre 1930 - 2030 weekdays.
Mosque Open Day on the 9th August at Masjid An-Nur 101 Deans Avenue form 1100 - 1600.
BBQ at white pavillion, Ilam Field on the 10th August from 1100 - 1600.

Lets put a smile on that face by learning more about Islam. Pencil in your calendar the dates and time to ensure you'll be there. Invite as many non-Muslims as you can. Remember ,the main idea is for them to get to know Islam, not making them convert as hidayah is only the realm of God.

Just couldn't resist...

..posting these:

Don't waste time

Don't waste your time reading my blog, instead read this: Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah. This article from wikipedia is surprisingly true to what I have heard/read from a reliable source. Abu Ubaidah's will:

"Let me give you some advice which will cause you to be on the path of goodness always. Establish Prayer, Fast the month of Ramadan, Give charity, Perform the Hajj and Umrah, Remain united and support one another, Be sincere to your commanders and do not conceal anything from them. Don't let the world destroy you for even if man were to live a thousand years he would still end up with this state that you see me in. Peace be upon you and the mercy of God."

Gaming

So far, my plan to stop gaming is going smoothly. It is now 3 weeks since I last played any computer games. My record was 6 months, so I'm still far away from breaking that record. Just after 3 weeks, I'm starting to see the fruition of my abstinence, I get more schoolwork and clubwork done, and also able to slip in some other activities as well. Gaming doesn't just take your time out, it can also induce violence (see newspaper article below) and death:
"A South Korean man has died after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks. The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Starcraft at an Internet cafe in the city of Taegu, according to South Korean authorities. "(more from BBC).

Mt Cook

Nothing much going on here, me with my school work and NZ is pretty much mundane at the moment. But my dear Malaysia, what is happening there? Sodomy allegation on a certain person (again...), road blocks, motion-of-no confidence, retirement plan. Since the recent election result that ended the years of homogeneous power of a certain political party in the Malaysian government, unprecedented events have took place. Given my lack of knowledge on these kind of stuff, I'm just gonna sit on the fence and see how it pans out. I do think the roadblock was an outrageous move and totally upper handed. Some people will point out avoidance of the 13 Mei 1969 tragedy and they might have a point there..Anyway, continuing my winter holiday story: So, after Queenstown, we head on to Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ. We didn't actually hike/drove all the way to the peak, but only stayed overnight at Mt Cook Village that is situated at the foot of the mountain (I guess). YHA hostel was the cheapest accommodation available at the village but it was also the most expensive among the accommodations we stayed throughout our holiday trip (rated at NZD29/night). The village was threadbare as it only had couple of houses there, a resort, a school and no shops whatsoever. At the time of visit, winter hasn't really set in and so, no snow and no skiing and less tourist. It wasn't warm enough to permit tramping as well, so the village was pretty much empty. We only did some walking and enjoy some spectacular scenery, such as the one I captured at the start of this entry. They are glaciers here too but they are mainly for viewing and not as beautiful as Fox or Franz Josef. The road to Mt Village has specatular view as well as evident by the photo below. This is Lake Pukaki.

Queenstown Revisited

Whazzup peeps? I'm here chillin in front of the comp here after that sweet as Teppanyaki dinner. First time tried it and though the food is a tad oily, the cook showmanship and the whole experience was quite good. I've been kept busy this week with exam as I might have alluded before but don't worry, I'm back writing this blog to quench those appetite for another of my entertaining yet meaningless blog entry. :D If you have not scrolled down yet, you should, as I have made some nifty addition to the blog - a FeedJit javascript to keep track of the traffic of this blog. I'm just curious. Anyway, back to my holiday stories and me and my flatmates went to Queenstown after having enough of Wanaka. We took the Crown Range route, a scenic route passing the mountains in between Wanaka and Queenstown:


This road provide access to Cardrona, a ski resort, which I have never been actually. At Queenstown, we stayed two nights to enjoy 'luging', bungiing and jet-boating. There's heaps of things to do here but you sure have to have a bank balance to match. This is not an exhaustive list but other stuffs to do here are paragliding, ski/snowboarding, lake cruise, and skydiving. Here are some panoramic view of Queenstown taken from Queenstown Gondola and Luge Ride:

The lake shown in the photo above is Lake Wakatipu and this is where Lingam went on holiday.

Wanaka Revisited

In a couple of hours, I'm going to try to go to bed and hope I could actually sleep and then wake up for an 8-o'clock start tomorrow. It's a daunting task given I've spent the later part of my holidays being a nocturnal, only sleepin after fajr and waking up just before Asr. This is in contrast to how I spent the early part of the holiday, where I would dose off before 11pm out of sheer tiredness and would then wake up refreshed next morning and not dose off after Fajr. Just digressing here, I've read somewhere that the hadith saying it's makhruh to sleep after Fajr is dhaif. Can anybody verify that fact? However, that early part of holiday was spent traveling, and after conquering the glacier, I went down for a quick visit of Wanaka. Just 4 hours drive from Franz Josef and passing the scenic Lake Hawea, Wanaka is one of the top tourist destination in NZ, mainly for it's winter activity attraction. We went there for sight seeing and only went walking on Mt Iron, a 2-hour walk just on the outskirt of Wanaka. It's more of a pit-stop for us before heading to Queenstown. Winter hasn't really kicked in yet when we enter and so no snow-capped mountains yet. There were lots of fog though. Here are some panoramic photo I've come up with from that walk on Mt Iron:

I haven't really develop my panoramic photo skill yet, hence the narrow slit appearance of these photos. Anyway, on a totally unrelated note, I've spent the last few hours of my holiday reading this hilarious website: . As far as I can remember (not that far) I did promote this website a few years ago in my blog. It now certainly has upgraded and contain some new hilarious articles. Should be good comic relief for those who was or is involved in MSA (Muslim Student Association) or anybody for that matter.

West Coast Revisited

A month plus a week on and I am back writing a nonsense entry for this totally random blog of mine. A quick update of what has happen: school --> assignment --> test --> more test --> holiday (yeay) --> NOW: holiday almost ending. Despite the glamour of Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy, I'm not going to delve much into my medical student experience but I just wanted to recount the holiday I've spent. First up, was 'West Coast Revisited'. Perhaps, some of my loyal reader out there remembered my brief mention of my trip to the West Coast last year, so this year I returned. Why? To conquer the glaciers, the Franz Josef Glaciers to be exact. Franz Josef glacier are just one of the several glaciers situated at NZ West Coast (other notable glaciers - Fox Glacier, and Haast Glacier). A glacier is a large, slow-moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity.[1] What unique about this glacier is that it is situated between rain-forest! It just happen that the Southern Alps, a mountainous range running longitudinally in the middle of NZ South Island, hold up rain cloud from the Tasman Sea and cause the area to experience heavy rainfall and subsequent fall in temperature (esp at the valleys) help maintained the glaciers from melting away. Conquering is a bit hyperbolic I must say, as I only took a half day guided tour. Though rated as medium fitness intensity, it certainly was a light workout as during the tour, we stop a lot to allow our guides pike away ice to make steps. The tour took us through the rain-forest surrounding the glacier before proceeding to hike up the glacier itself. Special footwear (Spikes) was provided. Once there, the glacier is certainly magnificent. The ice are bluish in colour as ice absorbs all light except blue colour. The ice cubes you see in your fridges are white because it contain lots of air while these glaciers are compacted ice. Other activities on the glacier that could be done are heli ride and ice climbing. Wiki article on Franz Josef glacier is here. Anyway, here are some of my personal pics for sharing. Up top is me at the glacier it self, in between some icy valley there. Bottom photo: Top - the guide. The temperature is pretty warm, but the ice are cold. The guide was piking all day, thats why he's just in his short-sleeve shirt compared to us who are all in blue jackets. Bottom - More photo of the glacier and the group we were in.

Obesity Cured!

Obesity is up there among the most problematic public health problems that plagued most parts of the world now. Complications related to obesity is plenty - sleep apnoea, increased risk diabetes, IHD, osteoarthritis, almost virtually every disease there is. OK, a bit hyperbolic there, but the point is it is a HUGE problem. (see what I did there). The prevalence of obesity and overweight is as follow:
US: (2004) = 116 million people or 64.5% of population
China: (2004) = 27.3% of population ("reference")
MYS: (2008) = 50% of population (from my memory of a result from a recent public health survey. I can't be bothered to find a 'proper' reference)

But there is a cure. And it's all natural so it must be good for you:

weirdo part 2

---continued from part 1: It shocked me a bit and caused me to paused for a while. My mate, who had started solah (formal prayer) earlier, just finished his solah and was then approached by the fella. They started discussing and even though I was supposed to concentrate on my solah, I just couldn't contain myself from peeping in. In a nutshell, that guy said that we should seek Jesus as our saviour, Jesus would save us from hell and that he was a prophet. wtf. Not the first two, but the last part, he's a prophet? lmao. When I finished my prayer, I totally ignored him and left my mate there. hahaha. Don't worry, nothing happened to my mate as he also quickly end the conversation and excused himself. That night, we stayed away from the room and only return to sleep at the dorm. That guy was kinda huge, a Maori, I guess (think of Jonah Lomu of the All Blacks..) We checked out the next day and never had anymore conversation with that guy. I never regretted not talking to him anyway. It would just be pointless to get your point across to someone who clearly thinks himself as a prophet. This guy was staying at a backpacker, and by the looks of his stuffs and setup, he's there for long term. In addition, aside from us, he didn't talk much to anyone else even though clearly most people in that backpacker are not Christians. So, how can this guy be a prophet?
On a totally unrelated note, I got the colds again...sigh. This should be my last post for the week, as I need to get cracking for a test on Friday. I will also be on-call on Thursday and trying to get a patient for a case report. Cheerios. Here are some funny photo with bad English (worse than mine).

minah rempit

Stolen from pixdaus.com

weirdo

Ironman was good but not great. At least it wasn't a waste of money. On a totally unrelated note, in my North Island travels that I chronicled couple of months ago in this blog, I came across this weirdo at Whakatane. Me and my travelling companion checked in at backpackers once arrived at Whakatane and as what normal Muslim would do, we stop by and pray our daytime prayers before continuing travelling. So we prayed at our dorm room and there was this guy who was sitting on his bed and as soon as I started praying that guy went on to say out aloud "O Jesus, please give guidance to this man, blablabla..." --- to be continued. I'm knackered today. Before I dose off, these are some of Bizarro comics that for Malaysians out there might be familiar with if you read The Star comic section. (Mai - it's Bizarro not 'gonzo' as I have mentioned before but I did get the last syllable right, sort of...).

aargh

Here I am, staring at the computer, struggling to get my ethics essay done. Damn those ethic essays! I always struggle to go through them. Medical ethics essay assignments are supposed to be easy as they only revolve around those 5 principles - beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, dignity and autonomy - but to fabricate an ethical issue based on these principles out of thin air or superficial knowledge of a patient, that's a different story. So, I admit, I didn't do enough background work to get the essay going and so I have to struggle a bit harder by fabricating stuffs. Oh yeah, and I also have this disease called the yips. Definition of the yips according to HIMYM: overthink stuffs. (Real definition: nervous at putting in golf that lead to a mishit.) Anyway, tomorrow is the last of the test for this run I am currently on and so I will reward myself by going to watch ironman. I hope the story is legen..wait for it..dary.

Freezing

Winter has set in NZ and OMG it's freezing. My current flat doesn't seem to have any insulation at all! No wonder it's cheap. I think I have bitched about this before but there you go, it's cold. It reminded me of those flats in Dunedin that looked a century old and possibly has no insulation as well. Even when using winter duvet, I remembered needing to wear jerseys and sometime thermal to go to sleep back in those days. History repeats itself again as I have to resort to the same thing again. Anyway, in 3 days time I will be sitting 2 psych tests and 1 pathology test so wish me luck. Psych is never my cup of tea with all those weird disease classifications that make it look quite artificial. I don't have much insight into the subject though but as patients can have psychological problems intermingling with 'real' medical problems then it is an essential knowledge a doctor must acquire.
While chilling in between my studies, I have made progress on reading that book by Michael Legat on writing. So far, the advice I can remember at the moment is read your workout loud to appraise your writing - suitability of style, proper use of words, character of composition, flow of story. So far, the content of the book focuses on writing fictional works, such as novel, but what I am interested in writing is an intriguing informational composition.
No witty/funny photo for the entry today as my Internet connection has clock down again. I was going to share a particular blog to you but I refrained as it has some joke with sexual theme that I think would be sinful for me to promote. I just leave you here bewildered by that unnecessary comment.

Moscow!

I was going to write the other day, cursing Michael Carrick for handling the ball needlessly in the dying minutes of the Chelsea game, but now since we're through to Moscow for the Champions League final and him doing an OK job in this morning Champions League game, I forgive him :D Anyway the next 3 games will define Man Utd season - champion or the first of the losers. My prediction: Champion. I'm so totally not biased.
I've been busy lately trying to catch-up on my schoolwork and guess what, my ward is still closed down because of that virus and I had to scavenge the other ward for my cases for two weeks now. I haven't finished those schoolwork yet but I thought I take a breather and write something. Today, I'm going to share a recipe called 'ayam masak hitam' or chicken cooked-black which I attempted to cook yesterday. Odd name but it was spicy and the taste was OK too, I guess, as I didn't get to taste the food that much since I was the last too eat that night and my flatmates had scraped most of the sauce leaving me with just the chicken. The dish was served with long-grain white rice, and prawn and cabbage tom-yam soup. The recipe is modified from Resepi RR Resepi:
Serving size: 4 male
Ingredient: 8 chicken drumstick, turmeric powder, cooking oil, 2 large onion, 1.5 tbsp chili powder, 4 tbsp oyster sauce, soy sauce (sweet and salty), water.
Method:
1. Roll chicken drumstick in tumeric powder. Fry until golden brown. Lift and set aside.
2. With new cooking oil, simmer diced onion until soft.
3. Add chilli powder and simmer until aromatic (='wangi' - I have no idea of the word in English to translate this Malay word when used in describing cooking method.)
4. Add the fried chicken, water (1/8 cup), oyster sauce and soy sauce. Soy sauce is added until the gravy turns black. Fry until gravy is thick.

Strike ended

The argument against the strike was that such action would:
1. harm patients
2. degrade trust between docs and patient
3. destroy the image of medics as an altruistic profession
4. placing patient as 'ransom'
5. docs are already overpaid
One of of my teachers here proposed that the strike action should be considered in an utilitarian light, which means if the long-term benefit far outweigh the short-term damages then the action can be justified. I totally agree with him (I'm sure he's not reading this blog - I'm not looking for favours here :D) and I felt halting brain drain is better in the long-term than the inconvenience of a 48-hour strike. Malaysia too is suffering from brain-drain, in fact it is far worse than NZ. 4 years ago, a Malaysian public health officer told me that the turnover of doctor from public health service to private sector or oversea is 1 doctor per day! I'm pretty sure the trends remain more or less the same. The problem is further exacerbated by the stop-gap measures taken to fill the void created. One of them is restricting specialist training in Malaysia in order to ensure there are enough junior doctors around. This only result in more turnovers as junior doctors are drove out due to poor prospect. NB: My knowledge on Malaysian health system were mostly anecdotes from people who used to work/studied there and is dated to at least 1-2 years ago. Recently, a pay rise were given to civil servant in Malaysia including doctors, which saw them gaining a quite significant increase in wage. However, the housemanship (internship) years were extended to 2 years as there were quite a number of high profile cases of medical misadventure during election year.
Some idea taken from:
Frizelle, F. Is it ethicals for doctors to strike? NZ med J 2006; 119(1236):1-2

Photo taken from http://www.engrish.com/ and is copyrighted to them.

RMO strike continued

I felt the repercussion of the strike today as one of my class was canceled because there wasn't enough workforce. Continuing from the last entry, with the mounting debt and low wages, most NZ graduates ends up leaving the country, mostly to Australia due to the fact that NZ graduate could work straight away there without requiring to undergo any examination, or doing locum. In the end result, the health service ends up with shortages of medical personnel while those on locum used to fill these gaps were generally more expensive (3x normal wage) and recruitment drive targeting foreign doctors also drains money. To stop this trend, RDA felt that wage increase is needed to help retain doctors. In my opinion, NZ may not be able to match the wage that Australia or other richer countries are offering to their doctors but with the modest increase, it should help to ease the burden of student loan debt and facilitate retaining those who do wish to stay but were forced to because of financial restrain. There is nothing that could be done to those who do wish to go oversea for the money. It is also good to note that not many medics are in it for the money, in fact, I think it is foolish to do so as the money isn't here and with the intellectual prowess most medics have, other professions are better suited for that.

Some of public opinion on the RMO strike on NZHerald: Here

--- to be continued.

Yeah, I prefer Camel too:

Not. Some docs do smoke though and my colleagues and classmates do - in fact one of the surgeon i know who-amputate-legs-of-smokers smoke (not for fun but because their legs are stuffed - smoking cause your blood vessel to block off esp at the legs), so it's not surprising with all those anti-smoking adverts and campaign out there, smoking remain prevalent in the society.

busy

I don't think it is feasible for me to post daily - something worthwile that is - as I do actually need to study...Anyway, today about 2000 junior doctors all over NZ went on strike and a further 24 hours will be taken tomorrow. Despite this, there has been plan on another strike sometime in May as discussion between RDA (Residential Doctor Association = Junior Doctor union) and DHB (District Health Board = semi-autonomous organizations formed by the NZ government to distribute the funding and provision of health services in their respective district) broke down. Reactions of the public here has been divisive where some has supported it while others seemed disgusted. The RDA justification of striking is stop the retention problem of NZ doctors in NZ. Compared with the wages in other developed countries (NZ considered themselve developed), NZ docs is grossly underpaid. As tertiary education is usually funded by taking loan, most NZ medical student graduate with atleast NZ100,000 of debt.

--to be continued. getting late...

Norovirus

The hospital ward I'm attached to is currently suffering from norovirus outbreak and thus students are forbidden to enter there. Even though norovirus infection isn't normally fatal, especially for a young and healthy guy like me, it can be fatal to those frail elderly at the ward I'm working in. With the strike by the junior doctors tomorrow, I don't know if it will be worthwile turning up tomorrow.

Not in the zone

Nothing new today I'm afraid. But I did come across this quite intriguing youtube video (embedded below) and had a look at the original version and I learnt that the music used in those Urban Ninja video I posted in several entries before this were music soundtrack of the movie the Last of the Mohicans. The music is called Gael according to the comments on YouTube.
I no longer use torrent or P2P to get my music as they are all freely available on YouTube. If a YouTube video finish streaming, the flv file (format of the video) is automatically saved in "temporary internet file" which can be copied, renamed to have .flv extension added on and by using a software, rip the soundtrack off the video and recorded into a new mp3 file.