Hohoho..Two posts in one day?

Yes dearies, two posts. =) <– still can’t find that emoticon button

Lengthy post ahead, btw. I am proving myself to be quite long winded, aren’t I? Don’t worry, it’s only because I have so much time on my hands now. I promise to K.I.S.S. – Keep It Short and Simple next time. Or at least try to! Heheh.

Exam time for me is no doubt stressful, it’s also a time when silly and unusual things happen to me, to my fellow batchmates as well. Maybe because the brain is already taxed and loaded with everything concerning exams therefore compromising on its normal function. But I only speculate.

I thought it’d be pretty amusing to remember these times so that in the not-so-near future, I can look back and laugh. Here goes:

  • Last Tuesday, we had our last PBL - Problem Based Learning session for this semester. Now, I must admit that I do enjoy my PBL’s and carefully and painstakingly prepare for them, even if it means I get one hour less of sleep, or something equivalent to that. It’s like playing House, my all time favourite series. Just not as exciting. (Did I just liken PBL to House?!) We-a group of maybe 10-12, get what is called a “trigger” every session that describes a situation that a “patient” (Hahahaha, I HAVE to add, that a lot of times the patient happens to be named Mr. Antony. A teacher, Dr Joe once said, Mr. Antony is ALWAYS unwell) presents with, and we work around it, brainstorming together, coming up with theories. And then we all do our research and come back the next session and present what we discover. I don’t enjoy them at all when I have to handle them AND prepare for the upcoming exam simultaniously. THAT’S when I find them a bit annoying. But do I choose to study over preparing for PBL? Do I risk going for PBL empty handed? Noooooooo. I still do what I normally do, prepare for it despite the nagging thoughts about the exam that was in a few days. So I stayed up, let it eat into my study time and researched. I have to say I compromised though, didn’t prepare as thoroughly as I usually would. The next day I went for PBL, eager to finish everything off. As we settled down, I opened my file to look for my stack of research but couldn’t seem to find it. I thought I was just tired and probably flipped them right past it so I looked through it again. And again. And again and again and again and again…only to realise that I DIDN’T BRING THEM TO SCHOOL WITH ME!! I was SO furious, frustrated, and disappointed. I sat there, stoned for a while wondering what on earth am I going to contribute to this session. So yep, I was pretty silent the whole time, only speaking up to say the few things that I could remember reading about the night before. All the effort, the time taken to prepare, the sleep I could have gotten….sigh. I managed a meek apology to the facilitator who casually and jokingly told me I had to be more carefull, and as a doctor next time, I cannot bring the wrong notes for the wrong patient, etc etc..and didn’t bite my head off. phew.
  • I was in the library, plenty of people around, when a friend came up to me, stretching out one arm with palms closed. The first thing that came to my mind was she got a new perfume and wanted me to have a whiff of it. I put my nose to her wrist and sniffed but to my surprise, no smell. I looked up at her with a confused face and an equally confused face looked back at me, so I asked, “How come I don’t smell anything?”. She asked me back, “Smell what?”. “Did you get a new perfume?”, I said. She burst out laughing and said “I’m giving you back your hair-tie you lent me the last time we had volleyball practice! So funny la you!!” And there, on her wrist I saw the dark blue rubber band.
  • I was walking into the library last Wednesday and stopped at the entrance which had an automated glass door which senses you even from like, 3 feet away. You normally wouldn’t even have to stop in front of it to wait for it to slide open which was why I found it a tad weird that I had to actually stop. I shrugged and thought, oh well, maybe they decided to change the settings or something. I stood a little longer and then I knew something was off, so I tried to slide the door with my hands and just as I touched the glass, I saw a movement on my right and when I looked I saw someone walking into the library! It was then I realized that I wasn’t even in front of a door, but was all the time standing in front of a portion of a glass wall of my glass-walled library! I was actually standing way too much to the left of the door, not realizing that I was NOT anywhere near the door. Yes, I was embarrassed plenty, didn’t even look around to see who bore witness to that.
  • I had a dream. Don’t read on if you can’t stand gory things. I’m not adding any spice to it and sollemly say that this was really what I dreamt about. I dreamt that I was in some water park that recently had a new attraction. This new attraction was a roller-coaster that could fly off it’s tracks, into the air, across a swimming/fishing pond (yes, for both swimming AND fishing, don’t ask me how, I don’t remember the details. =p) and land on it’s tracks accurately on the other side of this pond. A few people were swimming with me in that pond, some were holding fishing rods, hoping for a catch and as the roller coaster was about to take off to fly, I said, “Hey, look, the roller coaster’s gonna fly over us now! Look look!”. And as our eyes followed that roller coaster, to my horror I saw the edge of the roller coasted catch on the fishing rod of a boy and because of the speed, the rod flew away with it, with the boy’s fingers on it as well! I got out of the pond and ran as fast as I could towards the boy, yelling “Call the ambulance, hurry! Anyone, call the ambulance quick!!” And when I got to him (he seemed to be about 10-12 years old) I asked, “Are you alright?! I saw what happened!” (Silly question, but I asked anyway it in my dream) The boy, in a state of calm smiled and said “Why, yes, I am.” I stared disbelievingly at the boy and said “Where are your fingers?! Oh, I see them over there, get them so that the surgeon can put it back on you!” (I don’t know why I didn’t help him get them since he was the one with missing fingers but insisted that HE had to pick it up) The boy looked towards his fingers and nonchalantly said “Oh, it’s okay”. I, in return said “No, no! We have to get them quickly in ice as soon as we can! If not there’ll be necrosis and then they’ll turn gangrenous because there’s no blood and oxygen supplied to them…. (and a whole lot of things that I cannot remember saying in the dream) I insist! I INSIST we get them!” And the boy says again with a smile “No, it’s alright, really” And I frantically go “I INSIST I INSIST I INSIST I INSIST!!!”. We ended up putting his fingers in a bag of ice and held them gingerly but carefully. I even gave him a sweet, I don’t know why. And as I held out my hand to help him up, I woke up. I can remember the blood and small sweet I gave him. I don’t know why I have odd dreams. Sometimes I wish I could dream of pleasant-er things. Wait till you hear about my dream about the visit to the doctor, no injuries involved this time, just plain weird. A bit on the cool side, if I may say so, BUT that shall be saved for another time.
  • After yesterday’s exam, my friends and I went to catch a movie, something small to mark our short-term freedom, our little way of letting loose. Tired as I was, I still went anyway. I didn’t get any sleep the night before. No, I wasn’t up cramming – i’m a firm believer of getting a good night’s rest the night before exams so I’m refreshed in the morning and am able to think clearly in the exam. I simply couldn’t sleep at all and didn’t catch one wink. Before I knew it, as I was tossing and turning, my alarm rang. I headed off to the exam like that, panda bear-eyed and only by the grace of God managed the exam, not sleepy at all nor did I doze off halfway through the paper. I was fully alert, panicky, yes, but alert. Probably the sympathetic nervous system kicking in (i can imagine Dr Achike telling us about his lion, but more about that next time). So what happens when I finally set foot in a cinema after months of not being in one? I fall asleep halfway during the movie. Long enough to miss a significant part of it. And this isn’t the first time I fell asleep in an after-exam-movie.

I think I shall stop here already, enough of story-telling for today. No doubt, these may not be as amusing to many of you whom I’m sure lead far more exciting lives than I do, but I like to get a kick out of things like that, whenever I can. *wink* So anyone else who has amusing stories, don’t hesitate to share!

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