Revisions again....

I'm back to the library to do my revision! Why the library? Well, for one, my house is very cold. I think the insulation of the house good enough and also there are factors that prevent us from switching on the heater for long periods at a time.

For another, I actually manage to get work done in the library, which I do not manage to do when I'm sitting at home in the cold. Other things seem to be more interesting than studying when you're at home.

Well, I started coming to the library yesterday and will continue to do so until exams are over. While walking to the library, experiencing very cold weather that nobody should ever have to go through, two things went through my mind.

One is that I feel like a little kid going to school again. Waking up early to prepare to go out and tackle the day. The weight of my bag just gets me thinking about how we used to carry our heavy bags to school and back. Instead of my bag being filled with heavy books, it's filled with relatively thin stack of notes and a laptop. How times change, yet the things we do still bear resemblance to what we used to do.

Another is that I pity my poor ears. They suffer the most when I go out. Without protection and very thin skin, they have to endure the iciness. Poor poor ears...

Ok.. back to studying. I do hope that my brain actually retains what I'm trying to feed it now, and not have any leakages.

Exam timetable:

14th Jan - Preparation for Practice

16th Jan - Biomolecular Therapeutics

20th Jan - Microbial Diseases and Pathogenicity

23rd Jan - Immunopharmacology and Treatment of Chronic Diseases

 

Oh what fun!

One down, three more to go

Finish law!! yay! Somehow it's going to be over very fast. Then it'll be freedom... Off to visit Manchester and also London!

Anyway, bout today's paper, it wasn't that bad. Since it's an open book test.. but the time seemed to go by very very fast though. 2 hours just went pass without any extra time.

Next.. Disease and goals of treatment.

The dreaded time has come....

The time of our lives has come again... exams.. We can never run away from them. They will haunt us forever and ever!!! LOL.. ok... they won't.. but it sure feels like it..

Anyway.. this time I have to tackle: Disease and the Goals of Treatment (DGT), Toxicology, Law relating to Pharmacy, Quality in Medicines Design and Usage... not forgetting Dispensing exams which I have my last session on Friday.

DGT is fine (to me anyway, others may disagree and we shall agree to disagree).. Most of the answers can be found in the BNF anyway and it's an interesting module where we learn how to apply our knowledge in a clinical setting. We get case studies and we get to solve them like puzzles.

Next there's tox.. can too much revision on toxicology be toxic to my brain? It's an ok subject, not as fun as DGT but still applicable in pharmacy like how to treat an overdose. But there is a lot of information to remember/memorize and I hate memorizing. I need a way to understand all of this.

Law is just annoying. It's an open book test, thankfully. But since there are no past papers on this, we have no idea how the questions are going to be given. why do we need to study law???? I'll just employ a lawyer...

Quality in Medicines Design and Usage is one of those modules that are not very useful unless you plan to go into the pharmaceutical industry. Teaches you all about the process of how a drug is formulated and brought into the market. And get this.... It's a one hour paper... and you need to choose one question out of three and that will give you the total of 100%!!! How and what are we supposed to write for that????? I don't see a good outcome for this for me as this is memory work. And I do not have the best memory!

Anyway.. timetable for exams:

12 May: Law relating to Pharmacy

14 May: DGT

16 May: Quality in Medicines Design and Usage

19 May: Toxicology

30 May: Home

Good luck to me! and ok ok, to all you others as well (but don't take all my luck, k? hehe... jk..)..

Food food foooood

I haven't been posting a lot of food photos up recently as I've been too lazy to create "masterpieces". To tantalise your palate again, it's time for food photos.

But first, the Trent Building.... and pink-flowered trees with white ones behind..

And an empty plate....

Lime-marinated baked salmon (took the recipe from here), onions, mushrooms, mashed potatoes with ham, and carrots and beans.

If you do decide to take a look at the recipe, I substituted the Cayenne peppers with Tabasco sauce.. You have to make do with what you have in the kitchen.. hehe..

Responding to symptoms

We had responding to symptoms today. And we had to role-play. Being asked to work with someone that we have not worked with before and someone that we do not know very well, it could have been difficult to do role-playing but I found it easier to work with someone I do not particularly know compared to someone that I know.

Anyway, there were different scenarios being given out to different pairs and I had the fortune (or misfortune) to getting the scenario of a woman wanting to request for emergency hormonal contraception. What makes it worse is that we had to plan our own scenarios (as the patient) and let the pharmacist (the other student) to guess and make their conclusion on whether or not to sell EHC.

This is one scenario that I had done before in dispensing class when the "patient" came in to request for EHC. A lot of research had to be done and also a lot of questions had to be asked to find out if it can be legally and ethically given to the patient. Another thing that we are told if a patient ever comes to request for the morning-after pill is that we should inform them about the cost of the medicine itself (which is very costly and some patients might be unwilling to pay for it).

Somehow I feel that it is very hard to talk about this kind of situation - be it as a pharmacist or a role-playing patient. I do hope that I might not get any of these cases when I am a pharmacist but I don't think that's very realistic as I have seen quite a lot of people come in for the EHC when I was doing my summer placement. So what are the odds that I not get a single case of this in my years to come as a pharmacist?

I figured I have depriving you all of my food... so here they are again:

Chickeny rice type with broccoli and Chinese sausages fried with onions and egg. The rice is so yummy! I am surprised at myself sometimes at the tasty food I make.

Dinner for tonight: Steak! Potatoes fried with onions, grilled tomatoes, brocolli, asparagus and baby corn! yum yum..

The Horror!!

I just don't know when to stop do I? I have no idea what came over me and made me run for publicity officer of Nottingham Malaysian Society. Why do I want to make myself suffer and run for the post in the first place? I'm not even good at being sociable.

I just spent the last 5 hours at the NMS AGM. It was intensed and heated. Members debating on why the outgoing committee couldn't have done a better job and previous committee members giving them a hard time about it. I do not understand how a society which is supposed to be fun, managed to turn out like a multi-national company which has to answer to all their shareholders. Stress.. Especially when there is a foreigner who is so passionate about the society till the point that he is willing to drop anything to be a committee member.

Anyway, back to my crazy moment. I gave my speech, while shaking and with a trembling voice, and tried unsuccessfully to answer questions that were directed to me. In the end, majority voted to reopen nominations for that particular post.

I would like to say that I am very very very relieved that I did not get the post. I do not know what I would do if i had actually got it. I, who am not good at socialising, being a publicity officer? You got to be kidding me..

I think I better stop looking for posts to run for as I think two rejections are enough to convince me that maybe being a committee member is not for me.

Malaysian Night

Yesterday was when the Malaysian society held their annual Malaysian Night event. For 11 pounds, you get to view the play (Tangisan Selendang or The Weeping Shawl) and several other performances, and also some refreshments (which consist of curry puff, 3 other kuih and teh tarik or rose syrup with milk). I didn't really like the rose syrup drink and the kuih wasn't very nice except the curry puff.

Well, you don't expect me to pay 11 pounds for this right? Well, in fact I didn't. I think I mentioned before in a previous post that I volunteered to help out in decorations and we get free food and entrance. I think we did a good job in decorating. Wish I could put up photos but my camera has been hijacked by Jojo! haha.. So you will have to wait until I get my camera back.

Anyway, we were told to wait near the post office at 9am so that someone can pick us up to bring us to the venue which is one of the uni's campus - King's Meadow Campus. So, being the punctual people we are, we waited there at around 8.55am and just stood there a bit like idiots being blown around by the wind for about half an hour. Nobody showed up. So we decided to walk to Rachel's house which was the nearest and wait there, out of the fury of the elements. The president of NMS only came at 10, and said we were supposed to wait at the post office, only apologising when I told him that we waited there for a long time before waiting in the house.

So, decorations. Nothing much to be said of it. We hung the wau that we made and also blew up balloons with helium gas (We tried breathing in helium to make our voice go squeaky but it didn't seem to work). The decorations in the studio was a bit redundant as they didn't turn on the lights in there so nobody can actually see anything.

Went back home around 3pm to rest a while before returning at 6 for food! And of course the performance. Well, disappointing thing is, the food wasn't waiting for us when we got there. In fact, nobody seems to know where the volunteers get their food. Imagine that.. helping out the whole day, and no food in return! We were told that volunteers were supposed to get Chinese Fried Rice (which didn't taste like Chinese fried rice at all), but we got the pack of kuihs instead. How do they expect growing people like us to be full on kuih?!

Main event: the play. It was intense. The actors were quite good but apparently someone said that they are the same actors every year. lol.. give others a chance, maybe?

Anyway... photos will be uploaded when I get them. Can't continue to update anymore as my back is killing me.

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Btw, my election thingee... ai~ I thought I could win as it was an uncontested post when I checked on Monday, and apparently it wasn't so. Oh well.. according to Val, the other girl brought a gang of people to vote for her..

Maybe I should run for music group manager?

Catholic Society Elections

For people who have been waiting anxiously regarding the results... I didn't get the post for International Rep..  (collection of awwws).. hehe..

Will update when I come back from sports on the Malaysian Night I went to last night.

My back is killing me by the way..

Freedom to blog?

We were recently sent a mail by the University asking us to be careful of what we post in our blogs, Facebook or anywhere else on the WWW, as to avoid any defamation or any legal action being taken on us. The mail also stated that we had to abide by the University's regulations on IT behaviour.

I think this is email has reminded us that even though we have the freedom of speech, we still need to be careful when using that freedom. As we progress into the world of technology, it is inevitable that someone somewhere who is or will be connected to you in some way (read: employer) will read anything that you have posted up in your webpage. If you are careless in the thoughts that you immortalise on your blog, people are going to read it and form their own opinions about you. It will not be a good day when you go for an interview, and the interviewers start asking you why you wrote such and such.

It may be frustrating and you may say that a blog is my own and I can write whatever I want, if you don't like it tough. But, remember, there are readers out there, and in this time and age, many people will eventually stumble upon what you have wrote.

I do not know if I have defamed anyone in my blog, but I hope I have not done so. When you are struck by the writer's bug, you do not think for an instant that maybe what you are writing might lead you to a law suit, but spare a thought for that. We are always governed by legal aspects, be it internet conduct or dispensing (as I am still worrying about that).

Boo for dispensing

Why is so hard to do dispensing??!! Why do we even need to do dispensing.. All those legal stuff.. arghh... why can't doctors be more knowledgeable on legal stuff so we don't need to check so many things??

I have no idea how I'm going to pass my dispensing.. sob.. I totally lost all my confidence in doing anything right during dispensing classes. How to gain it back? This is how ZEROES can cut away at someone's self-esteem and break a person...

Blood Donation!

Today was a good day to do some good. I went to donate blood! Dragging Puisan with me, we took the hopper bus and off we went to the sports center where the Blood Donation Drive Campaign was at.

So, when we got there, the turnout was huge! There were a lot of people waiting for their turn. I wasn't expecting so many people to be so generous but there you have it. We waited nearly 2 hours just to get screened and another 10-15 minutes to get called to donate our precious life fluid.

It was painful... Here, they don't use local anaesthetic prior to putting that huge needle into us, so you can feel every prick, push and pull. I donated 470mls of blood while Puisan only managed 4 test tubes (LoL). Must be the weather too cold so her blood froze.. hehe..

Anyway, the site of entry is still painful now. Wonder if it's because LA wasn't use thus the pain is magnified, as I don't remember this much pain when donating the last 3 times.

Btw, we got lots of biscuits. (yea yea.. I went just for the free food.) We were there from 1230... and we only left at 4.. -_- ..

Treasure Hunting!

I just found out that this is only the 99th post.. instead of the last last post that i added.

Anyway, Treasure Hunting! Joined the treasure hunt that Nottingham Malaysian Society organised. The best thing is.. we don't have to pay a cent. And we got a free Kangaroo pass (3 pounds) which allows us to travel on any bus, train or tram for us to get around the whole of Nottingham. We had to solve riddles to find out our destinations. Each team consisted of 4 people and there were 16 teams altogether.

The event was divided into 3 stages: stage 1 was within the University Park campus, stage 2 and stage 3 was in and around Nottingham City.

The stage 1 questions were a bit tough. We spent quite some time in the campus trying to figure out what the answers were to the riddles. Lots of time was spent running around the uni and this wasn't an easy task as the uni isn't exactly on flat ground. It was exhausting. By the time we completed stage 1, we seemed to be the last few teams to leave the campus for the next stage where we had to meet someone in the City centre for our next set of riddles.

Stage 2 was the fun part. We decided to stop by our trusty Nottingham Tourism Centre to ask for directions and to help us find the answers to the riddles. Seemed like everyone else had the same thought as we bumped into other teams who rushed towards the information counter. It was funny to watch the lady giving the same information several times.

Our first stop: The Arboretum. I posted photos of the Arboretum before here in a slide show and it was easy to recognise the place from the photo clues that were given to us in stage 1. Thus, we boarded the tram and went off to the arboretum. The clue we got at that place led us to the Forest Recreation grounds where we needed to find the acorn tree in the photo below, and find out who planted it. We got a few wrong directions from the people we asked but eventually got one helpful guy to tell us where the Forest Lodge is, as the tree was located near it.

Next was the Green's Windmill and Science Centre. It came as a surprise to us that Nottingham actually has a windmill! And a working windmill!

Inside the science centre.
Next was the Nottingham Forest Football Club at the Stadium. It was red. Their slogan: There.. Now.. Forever Forest!
We were then told to explore along the River Trent to find a match to the photo of emblem that we were given. We were also told to find out how high was the River Trent in Feb 1946. The latter answer we got from a wall at the river side.

The River Trent!
The emblem was found on the War Memorial. Which is a beautiful place inside. Should've spent a bit more time exploring inside.

On to the next stage. First was a stop at the City of Caves located at the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre. When we got there, we did not see anyone. The guy who was supposed to be there disappeared for a toilet break as he wasn't expecting us to be so early!

What's a Treasure Hunt without making a pit stop at the Nottingham Castle? This was where most of us got stumped at the riddle that was given. "Grab Low & Spare Fifty Clues" was the phrase that we had to unscramble and find the place. (The place was called Sparrow Bagley & Sutcliffe which was an estate agency)Then a trip to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem which is purported to be England's Oldest Pub where the answer to the riddle was the signpost.

Next: The Nottingham Playhouse where we visited the Sky Mirror. I have seen this mirror several times now and I still don't know why it is famous. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder i guess. Forgot to take a photo of it.

Last was the general Cemetery. Did not enter into cemetery as we got on the same bus as the guy who was meeting us there and we got our clue as soon as we got down the bus. I wanted to look at the interior but the rest of the group wanted to press on and return to the atrium of Portland Building back in Uni.

We were the first to reach back to uni but we stayed around the lake to figure out the answer to the riddle that was given to us in the first stage, therefore we were the 2nd team to arrive back at the atrium. We also were given 3 bonus riddles for us to bring back 3 items: a 20p coin, a shoelace and a Kangaroo pass. After a 3 hour wait at the atrium for the hunt to end and the results to be revealed, we got 2nd place (cuz we got the 20p coin wrong and put in a 50p instead)! Yay!!
It was altogether a very fun and fulfilling day, albeit a tiring one. We spent a lot of time running and rushing after buses. Looking back, i supposed we didn't really need to rush around and could actually spend a bit of time at each place appreciating the beauty of nature.

I actually got to know Nottingham better now, and all for free. If i didn't join this, I wouldn't have known about these places that are quite beautiful. I would definitely want to go to these places again and spend more time exploring. Nottingham's not so boring after all!

Want to end the post with a bit of a complaint. One of my teammates was a bit annoying. She was loud and a bit overbearing at times. She also took off with my camera without telling me. Imagine that: i only knew her for one day and she takes off with my camera! All the photos she took were blur also. Wanna delete them as soon as I pass it on to her!

Dilemma

In the 4th year 2nd semester we are required to do a research project. Either a 40 credit or 60 credit research module. If I choose to take a 60 credit one, there are many different topics for me to choose from. There are also research topics that can be done outside of this country. A couple in University of Sydney, a couple in Monash University, Melbourne, one in Auckland, NZ and quite a few that can be done in UNMC campus.

So many choices, so little time to decide as I need to return the form by 29th Feb. Help! Maybe I should choose one that can be done in Malaysia.. then can go home.. hmm... but not sure if we can actually do our research elsewhere other than UK.

RPSGB Local Branch Meeting

I just came back from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain Local Branch Meeting which discussed on the use of Antibiotics and Statins.

Something we learn during this lecture: antibiotics are not all that useful in simple infections. Most infections would resolve by themselves and the use of antibiotics only help resolve the symptoms by, at most, 1 day. Thus, simple infections like sore throat, eye infection, ear infection in children, do not really require a course of antibiotics.

One of the interesting things to note about is, that when you place lecturers in the seats where we would normally sit in, they become like little kids themselves. They chatter and giggle and act like how we would normally act in a lecture.

This is my simple (but incomplete) CPD for antibiotics and statins RPSGB local branch meeting.

Long day... and then food!

It has been a long long long long day. How can they be so cruel and subject us to two dispensing classes and not one.. not two... but FOUR disease and goal of treatment lectures.. At the end of the day, you just find your mind floating away to a happier place. It doesn't help when the last lecturer talks like a monotonous bullet train and you're too mentally too slow to catch up. Half of what he was saying was nonsense anyway.

We made sushi today! and it was easy to make. Just boil rice, mix in the sushi powder thingee.. then just do whatever you want to do with it.

Some with tuna.. some with celery (since we didn't have cucumbers)

'Ang Zhao' Turkey!

Waiting..

It's just annoying when you have to wait the whole day just to sit for an exam. Nerve-wracking really.. I wish today's paper was in the morning instead of in the evening at 4.30pm... Why can't we just get it over with first thing in the morning!

Update @ 3.30pm: I feel like vomiting..

Another update @ 7.00pm: Another paper down. This paper is just horrible...I think this is the worst chemistry paper i've sat for... and the time... urghh... got gastric because of this stupid paper!

Exam

You feel your heart beat faster... you feel nauseous... you feel that nothing is going to go right for you... you feel that your brain might explode any moment and you can't do anything about it. Urgh...

Exams are the teachers' torture method. Since most teachers/lecturers might feel tortured when they are teaching in class (since probably half the class isn't listening to him), this is the best way for them to get back at us. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.. a conspiracy..（ “上课时不听课，看你现在怎么样死！” muahahahhahah）<--that's what goes through the minds of our torturers..

Anyway.. you think you got everything down in your brain, but on the day itself, your mind comes up as a blank piece of paper. Nothing inside. You can probably hear the sound of your tiny brain rattling inside your skull as all your brain contents have been leaching out when you were sleeping at night. There might be some stuff left but once you get into that exam hall, there's this force that sucks everything that you know out of your mind and you turn into an empty zombie with no intelligence at all..

So, all the studying done in one semester, falls down to that critical moment in your life.. the point of no return.. the time that you do or die.. all for what?

All for the sake of your wonderful future that you are going to achieve...

Just wondering

Have been staying in the library for three days now and because it is warmer in the library, i managed to make my brain absorb some of the essential stuff that we need to know in order to pass the dreaded .... *gasp*... exams..

Here's something i was wondering while revising on molecular pharmacology this afternoon. First, some basics. Nitric Oxide (NO.) is a gaseous radical and is extremely reactive, which causes the smooth muscles in our body to relax. NO. also causes penile erection.

Nitric Oxide is also abundant during a lightning storm. So.... Does that mean that men are getting erections everytime there is a lightning storm? lol.. but after thinking about it.. i guess not. Since NO. is so reactive.. it'll probably not reach there in time...

I deduced another thing when i was revising but don't think there's any point in blogging that as it'll only take someone who has learnt molecular pharmacology to get that. The wonders of molecular pharmacology. I quite like this module..

Well, decided to write down what i was thinking about anyway.. so if you're not interested don't continue reading...

cGMP is broken down by phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) to 5'-GMP. If there is an increase in cGMP, that means that there would be excess fluid that is secreted into the gut lumen, causing diarrhoea. Based on those two facts, that means that by applying a PDE5 inhibitor, we would inhibit the break down of cGMP and there would be an increase in cGMP, thereby causing diarrhoea, right? Sildenafil or better known as Viagra is a PDE5 inhibitor... But BNF doesn't say anything about diarrhoea as side effect. I'm just speculating.. don't take me too seriously.. the dose is probably too low to cause diarrhoea anyway..

really.. things i can link together while studying molecular pharmacology

A walk by the lake

I went for walk around the lake yesterday morning and it felt very good to get out of the house. Fresh air.. and strong winds... and most importantly, sunshine!

The moon still could be seen in the morning and somehow make out the moon in the photo below. The building there is the trent building.

Ducks swimming against the current in the lake.

I like this photo. The sun shining down on the lake and the reflection from it.

Trent Building!

Met a couple of photographers who walk around the lake taking photos with really cool nice professional cameras. I want!


So that's it for my walk around the lake in the morning. Now all i need is a walk around the lake at sunset. :D
I'm going to start taking more walks.

Study break

It's the holidays!! It's a study break!! so.. is it a break from studies? or a break to study? Seeing as how the exams are right after the holidays, i should say it's a break to study. So, to try and scare myself, i should just post up my exam timetable:

08 Jan: Molecular Pharmacology
09 Jan: Nutrition in Health and Disease
14 Jan: Medicinal Chemistry
18 Jan: Advanced Drug Delivery I (or ADD)

and the first exam is..... just 20 days away! muahhahahhaa.... am i scared now? I have no idea.. I hope i am.. so i can have the "push' to study..

news of my "at home" haircut.. it doesn't look so bad i guess.. haha... feel that it's still a bit too long behind but yanleng and puisan don't dare to cut anymore. don't know why - i haven't worry yet and they are even more worried than me! anyway.. according to yanleng, i'm mad. Doing such crazy thing. She's not going to cut for me anymore.. =( guess i'll just let my hair grow til i get home. Not going to spend 20 pounds on a haircut.

Christmas is just 6 days away and my christmas party is just 5 days away! hopefully the turkey i'm going to make will turn out alrite.. hehe..

ps. the sun hasn't come out in a while. will we be lacking in Vit D? and increase our risk of getting lung cancer? news here.