Surfing

I have a dream. I wanted to walk on the water like St. Peter did and touch the vertical surface of water wall like Moses did with the divided Red Sea. That is merely a fantasy. The closest reality I can think of is like this:

Gliding on the water with a surf board and touching the inner surface of a closing wave.

YES you got it. One of my dreams is to be a surfer.

“Dare to dream big”, most motivators will say. But I was still worried due to my poor swimming skill. What if I got swallowed by the giant wave like above? What if I got stranded on a nearby island with Komodo dragon scavenging the coastline? Although I am a bit high in cholesterol but I think the lizard don’t mind at all.

When opportunity present itself, I just made up my mind that I will try it. Come on, I am a Penangnite. I live in such proximity to the ocean. How can I be afraid to conquer the sea? Whatmore the beautiful Kuta beach in Bali looks so inviting.

I got myself a surfing instructor. His name is Vez. Looks like a typical beach boy with severely tanned skin. I don’t quite believe that he is a local Balinese, especially when his hair is golden and curly. Facial features also mismatches. A friend of mine commented he doesn’t look real. What is he thinking at the moment of snapshot?

Learning process was not without pain. A few ups and a lot more downs. Most exhausting part is to go against the wave to reach the middle of the ocean to start surfing. Felt a bit regret that I didn’t master freestyle swimming during childhood. Paddling the water with my hands didn’t propel me forward much while other surfers can move forward with ease.

As the big wave approached, my instructed shouted, “Paddle, go!”.

From a lying position on the surf board, I pushed my body up and got my feet on the board. It felt superb to be sliding forward. I then realized my feet was on the wrong position, the feeling of instability hiked, and I knew it is just a matter of time…

How embarrassing… and once again the experience reconfirmed that sea water is salty. After a few trials, I was very pleased to surf smoothly to the shore.

Oh~ Heaven! I am going to do it again!

Weight Lost ~ Weight Gain

Since Block 3.6, I have learnt about the importance of maintaining an ideal weight to decrease risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus. Of course there is another hundred and one benefits of having healthy weight. I was so convinced by my lecturers that i set up a goal to achieve my ideal BMI. The healthy range of BMI for Asian is between 18.5 to 23. To be realistic, I chose 22 as the ideal BMI, and that means 64.3kg for my height. So, what happen to weight loss programme? The following is the report card.

 

 

I started with a weight of 70 kg (not shown in the chart). With regular jogging 3 times a week, each session minimum 45 minutes, with effort to reach the cardiac training zone (120 beats/minutes), I managed to throw away 3 kg after 3 weeks. More or less 1 kg for each week, sounds great, isn’t it?

After experiencing the joy of success, I decided to plot a graph for the weight for future reference and to determine the major factors that influence my weight. Most of the weigh loss below 67kg happened unintentionally.

The major weight loss happened during my Europe Trip. With no motorbike in my hands, I got to do quite a lot of walking. No other forms of exercise at all. This throw away another 3.1kg, despite high calorie food consumption.

Upon returning to Jogja and Malaysia, the weight went up again because I was not walking extensively as I used to. With some regular exercise, I managed to stabilize my weight around 64 kg. It will be a waste of effort if the weight bounces back to the original.

Then, I got stressed with a few issues. First is the problem with the Bandung T-shirt, followed by the Block 4.1 exam, and lastly by the Volcano Eruption. I believe that the stress hormone really has a catabolic effect on me to wash away 2kg.

The evacuation to Solo, then back to Malaysia, was quite an extraordinary experience. Home is the only feeling that put a rest in the body and mind. I was very happy indeed to enjoy time with family and savour the delicious Penang food. It was just a short 10 days, and OMG, the weighing scale records 2 kg increase!!!

It’s time for MORNING JOG again!

Merapi Eruption Evacuation

SOLO, Oct 6 — “It seemed like the end of the world had come,” was how a Malaysian medical student at Universiti Gadjah Mada (UGM), Jogyakarta, described Mount Merapi’s devastating eruption yesterday.

Yesterday’s massive eruption, said to be the worst in a century, raised the death toll since Merapi first erupted on Oct 26 to over 90 people and left scores of others injured.

The eruption yesterday was so powerful that it left Jogyakarta, the nearest big city located some 26km from the volcano, to be smothered in volcanic ash.

“It was so frightening, vehicles and buildings were blanketed in inches of white ash, as though they had not been washed in years.

“It seemed like only I and a friend were the survivors when we were walking in campus heading for our 6.45pm class (yesterday),” said Srijesh Sobha Kumar, 20, who is from Kepong, Selangor.

The first year student said a short while later he received a SMS on his handphone asking all Malaysian students at the university to get ready to be sent back home (to Malaysia) in the interest of their safety.

He said this made him more worried but with the help of a friend made his way back to his hostel on a motorcycle and only became relieved when the rest of the Malaysians were waiting for him to evacuate the campus.

“At midnight on Deepavali eve, we were cutting a cake when we heard non-stop thunderous sounds in the sky followed by what seemed to be the sound of stones dropping on the roof of our hostel.

“Local folklore said this would be followed by earthquakes, all of us were very frightened,” he said in relating their experience the past hours to Bernama here today.

He and the rest of the Malaysian students studying in Yogyakarta and neighbouring areas were evacuated to here to board a Royal Malaysian Navy aircraft to be brought home until the safety situation returned to normal.

Another Malaysian student Nur Taufiqah Idris, 22, from  Greenwood,  Gombak, Selangor, said she was glad to go home.

“We had been ready since Merapi first erupted on Oct 26 and showered volcanic ash all around. We became fearful as to our safety,” she said.

Meanwhile, William Chin Jian Wei, 22, a Malaysian student leader in Jogyakarta, said the Jogyakarta branch of the Malaysian Students Association, Indonesia had put in place an effective communication network to keep each other informed of developments and steps to take in any eventuality.

The fourth-year medical student at UGM said the SMS system had served them well in these trying circumstances.

Jogyakarta Umno Club president Mohd Hafiezulniezam Mohd Hasdin, 25, who was also present, said a total of 386 Malaysian students in the province would be returning home early tomorrow morning.

Chin said, however, 21 Malaysian medical students had elected to stay back in Solo until the situation returned to normal as they were tied down with clinical duties. — Bernama

Beautiful Song

The guitar lessons on Improvisation technique has served me very well. It allows me to transform the melody that has been running in my mind into a recorded music. I felt like all the years of musical training is to prepare me to compose this song.

 

Inspiration is invaluable. It comes at the most unexpected time. I was holding my guitar strumming a few random chords. Then I just simply sang along with nonsense lyrics, except the chorus part, which is exactly what I want to say. The melody went smooth, without much effort, as if the song has long ingrained in my mind. And the funny thing is, this composition went unnoticed until I hear it again the next night. “Did i just write this song yesterday? Sounds no bad!”, I thought. So I repeated listening to the song for the next few nights before I finally decided that this tune was the best among other compositions to further develop.

 

So I showed this work to Ray the next day and the rest just fell in perfectly. I revised the lyrics in a night and made a few changes according to feedback from my friends.

So here we have the first musical composition by me. Hope you guys will like it

IUD

I have long heard of IUD (Intrauterine device). This time I can finally learn how to insert this into uterus! Kind of excited to learn this skill. Last time I always wonder how to put this umbrella to the uterus.

 

The theory is very simple. Expose the vagina using a speculum, then use an inserter to poke through the cervical canal. Insider the inserter, there is a IUD. When the inserter is in the uterus, push the IUD into the uterus. That’s all! An umbrella that shelter the egg from the spermy rain ~~

 

How much does it cost? The IUD equipment cost 450k rupiah ( about 150 ringgit). Medical cost charged by docter is another 550k (about 200 ringgit).

I asked the docter why this small IUD cost so much? It is just plastic with coil of copper! I estimated the material cost to be about 20 ringgit only.

Dr said that the manufacturer overprice this product. The factory that manufacture this IUD really earn a lot!

In China, 60% of the sexually women use IUD as the contraceptive method. Quite an effective contraceptive method. Can last for 5 to 7 years.

Otherwise, another method is pill. A bit more troublesome coz need to take everyday…I saw one sample during pharmacy lab today. Quite cute packaging.

The yellow pill is the progesterone pill. The white one is merely sugar, which is meant to be taken to allow menstruation.

Contraception –Life transforming technology

Extraordinary snack

It has been a long time since I last updated my blog. Some interesting events that happen around me gave me the inspiration to blog about my unusual encounter. The first is the extraordinary snack that I ate last Sunday.

 

Initially Haziq asked me to eat this fried "Sea Beatle". I got a shock. "You want me to eat this bug?" I took a closer look to this creature of unknown origin.

Oh man…it has about 3 paris of leg…can’t really see its head…mainly covered by shell…"Are you sure this can be eaten? Show me by eating this bug?" I suspected that Haziq wanna tricked me to eat this bug…if I got deceived, that is national level joke of the year…

He took one into his mouth, crunched it, and swallow it. I stared in disbelief!

"Taste like crab meat! Yummy!" He said.

I took one of this bug, and put it close to my nose. Smell quite good! Then it entered my mouth…

I don’t bluff you…see this….

It tasted pretty good. I popped in another 5 or 6 of this "fried bug". No diarrhoea or stomachache felt after that. Yeah!

Request for this "fried bug" when you visit Indonesian beach next time. If you lucky, you can get it! Please note that this extraordinary snack may be unique to Yogyakarta beach only

My New Interest

Recently I am hooked on to my new interest- Photoshop CS 3. I was absolutely a noob in the area. So I bought a few books about CS 3 and play with it. The following is my first trial. Very simple graphic. Hopefully my next few trial will be better.