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After two weeks of lectures with the whole of the final year (minus a few), I’ve discovered there are different types of learners/students. One of them is this.
The selfish-learner perceives herself as the only one in class/lecture/small-teaching-session. There is a teacher, and her, the student. There is no one else. There is no consideration for other people present, therefore resulting in the answering of the question.
The manners in which questions are answered can be divided into in-turn and out-of-turn. In group teachings, we go around in turn. The selfish-learner unthinkingly answers the question as she hears it, taking no notice of others, out-of-turn. Another student may be processing a concept in their head, taking some time for it to actualise into something coherent. The selfish-learner gets impatient and shouts out the answer while waiting for this other student to find his bearings. This inconsiderate behavior really detracts from the other student’s learning. It’s GROUP teaching, everyone else is learning too. Not private-tutorial-session-with-tutor-all-by-yourself-and-no-one-else session.
It can also be classified as loudy, so the whole group can hear or quietly, under the breath but loud enough for the people sitting around them to hear. They can be further subdivided into correct and incorrect.
Loudly and correct. This can either be benign or malignant.
In a benign case, the student wants the session to move on quickly because the lecturer is waiting for someone in the audience to give the answer. Loudly and correct, if present alone without other signs, is entirely benign. It only becomes malignant if it is associated with any other signs/symptoms of a selfish-learner. This is undesirable. Other malignant examples would be a show-off, in which case, boo to you.
Loudy/quietly and incorrect however just pisses other people off, as other learners are pretty much there absorbing information, and so having wrong answers being put in their head is a big no-no. And also, when you get it wrong, other people just smile inside.
If you think I am bitching about you, I’m not reaaally. It’s just.. get some group learning etiquette. Others are trying to pay attention, learn etc. We have every right to be there and benefit from it, just as you do, but SOME CONSIDERATION PLEASE.
End of Rant.
PS. I really still love you. So please don’t get upset, don’t get angry, don’t like throw eggs at me. Maybe I’m NOT talking about you :D
Finite.
Just like how happiness can be.
Perfectly spherical was how I would describe my existence up to before a year ago. Happily, just rolling along the path of perfection :) Not that I was perfect, don’t get me wrong, I’m saying that the path it was going along was perfect. No, don’t say that it was perfect only in retrospect, I would seriously take offense in that. Okay, admittedly there were a few blips in my life where the ball hit some uneven ground and veered off for a moment, but at the end of the day, it righted itself. I wanted for nothing.
And then, after a year ago, I just want nothing. Nothing at all.
The little marble is still rolling along the path, it may still be the same path, but it’s no longer on level ground, it may be going down some hill for all I know, considering the amount of effort I’m doing to keep it rolling. Maybe it’s just the momentum from before a year ago, just helping it get a little further along its way. I wonder how long it’ll last. No, I’m not being a drama queen. I just want to say it outloud, people get all uncomfortable and awkward when I’m not all smiling and loud. I never get a chance to voice things. I really don’t want people to be awkward.
The people around me, who care the most about me, they are the ones who consciously, or unconsciously, pressure me into feeling normal. Sometimes, I wish this www.cheecheongfun.com was still as anonymous as it was. I thought it’d make a difference, that if I was more open about things to the people around me, it might make for a healthier mind. Honestly, it’s just taken away from me the freedom to bitch and moan.
Penang.
I remember a time when dirty clothes didn’t pile up, sheets changed themselves and beds didn’t have a grain of sand/dirt on them.
We (when I say we, it’s the royal we) used to just take off our clothes, drop them into a pile, kick them into a corner, grab a towel then walk to the shower. Or grab a towel, walk into the bathroom, take off our clothes, drop them on the floor, kick them into a corner, have the shower, grab the clothes and shove them into the laundry bin outside the bathroom. After finishing with the towel, it would join the pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the room, get tossed into the laundry bin or maybe left hanging on the towel rack in the room. Miraculously, they would reappear the next day (or at the very latest, if it was monsoon season, the day after that) clean, folded and smelling of the sun. After every shower, we’d wear a new change of clothes - everything from the underwear to the t-shirt only worn for three hours earlier.
The sheets were changed once every week or ten days. The quilt covers always fit as well. Because I went back to Penang to get great quality 400-500 thread count sheets, I forgot that a double bed isn’t quite a queen-sized bed. So the quilt covers I’m using here are now not unlike the loose skin hanging off a previously fat(ter) elderly lady’s arm.
Now for the crux of the post. Why I’m so rigid about the ‘no outside clothes on the bed’ rule. It’s because I’m so used to having a smooth clean bed at night to sleep on. That’s all really. There are two, sometimes three categories of clothes: one, inside clothes; two, outside clothes; and sometimes, three, hospital clothes. Inside clothes are allowed on the bed. Outside clothes are not allowed on the bed, they carry tiny small grains of dirt that can be felt at night. Hospital clothes are when you are on the respiratory firm where everyone is just coughing up their TB on your clothes. Outside clothes have MRSA too, so that’s why hospital clothes are a step up on the hazard ladder. I really miss the penyapu lidi.
This magical broom magics away all the itty gritty grains of stuff. So it didn’t matter if I rolled around the bed in my dirty school uniform. Again, miraculously, it’ll be clean and smooth when I get to bed that night. So the moral of this story is: everyone has to follow the ‘no-outside-clothes’ rule. *hint* You don’t have to sit on the bed when you come, I have prepared a chair. *hintconniehint*
And as for the laundry, I’m now just stuck with this
It’s as though the lime green laundry bin in the corner vomited.
Was in south London. Had dinner then went to the theatre. Watched six degrees of seperation. Was pleasantly surprised by the nudity. Didn’t expect it to be “wiggle-waggling” in front of us with the guy brandishing it like a gun shouting ” ‘Does he have a gun?!’ Of course I have a gun!!”
Returned to my car and saw woman standing in the middle of small one way lane. Started engine. Warmed all up. Started off. Saw woman on tarmac. Because it was south London and near the cut, forgive me for my snootiness, I left woman there and sat in my car with locked doors and lights off until some other people showed up to investigate fallen woman who at this point was sobbing hysterically, loudly enough for me to hear through locked doors.
So I got out too. Woman was lifted off road to pavement. And I tried to do the responsible medical student thing and tried to take a history. She spoke little English. I suggested we call the police plus minus ambulance, because by this point she was screaming in agony. No police no police then she started to crawl back to center of the road but we managed to haul her back to pavement. She ended up splayed across the bonnet of the beemer parked in front of my car. Twenty minutes in the subzero temperature. I was completely unprepared for it. Teeth started chattering, lips were blue and so left girl on bonnet and smiled and shrugged at owner of Beemer carrying his dry cleaning when he unlocked his car. Flash flash.
With the spontaneity of a pneumothorax (the spontaneous kind), I made a mad dash to the shop across from where I was seated, five minutes before it was due to shut, five minutes before I was due to board my plane.
And I bought something for a good friend of mine, something she would want, rather than something she NEEDED. I mean.. does one really NEED anything from the duty-free designer shops in the airport? The answer is No. (Or in the words of a high school teacher of whom I have very fond memories: answer soo bee no.)
Anyways, obviously, I was in a rush with the boarding and the gate closing etc. But because it was a gift, I thought, Yeah, let’s get it wrapped. Now you guys have watched Love Actually, right? Remember this scene:
Yes, it was like that. Only minus the cinnamon sticks. Everything else was the same. And let me assure you, the anxiety I felt, was not unlike the cheating husband’s. I was hopping from one foot to the other, and tapping my foot, clicking my nails against the glass table top. Almost like needing to pee. SO damn KANCHEONG! I mean, I needed to get to the plane before it
But at the end of the day, damn happy. I like going to the airport early. Because before all the buying things for people, you can buy things for yourself. :)
Life was never ever going to meet my expectations. I’ve set them too high. I’m going to learn now that if you expect something out of ANYTHING, you’re going to be disappointed. Never expect, never EXPECT anything. That shall be my motto for a while until something comes along and makes me believe again.
I’ve been clearing out my room, lots of clothes that I don’t wear anymore, I’ll be giving away/throwing away/bringing back to Penang to get altered - much bigger now, thanks for not noticing.
I can’t believe how beautiful this place was. I don’t think I had felt so free before. I really did want to roll down that hill, like I was a child again, but I didn’t, because well… I’d have to shower after that, right? And the campsite shower wasn’t the ideal place to have a nice shower.
There was a lot of traffic on the road that day. I don’t even know what the point of this post is really. I guess I’m just feeling a little down and needy and bored. When will Connie come home.. and all will be normal again? :(
Normal, is this. When I was happier. Along with this picture, was another picture, taken at the same time. Of a beautiful person. But I’m not putting it up.
That’s quite a strong word actually, evoking violent fiery images. And inside that church, it probably was. Violent and fiery.
As I’m quite remote from Malaysia and its happenings at the moment, being in my little bubble here, when I saw videos of the protests being held in the mosques on the malaysia kini website, I got kind of freaked out.
I was shouting on the phone to Marie that night (shouting as opposed to speaking, because I’m just generally quite loud) and we were discussing what happened. As it occurred at midnight on Friday in Malaysia, we were aware of it on Thursday evening here. There weren’t any tweets or facebook posts on it yet. It was extremely unsettling to wake up on Friday morning to this massive influx of outraged responses. It was like as if we knew the end of the world was coming, or rather had come, before everyone else did. Eeerie.
We’ve also been hearing about how lots of the non-Molotov-cocktail-making and non-protesting Muslims, ie the other people, have approached the non-Muslims (and organisations, churches, their friends, blah blah blah etc etc etc) to offer their support. I’m quite inspired to see that somewhere within this madness, there is banding together of the people. If not the whole nation, well then at least some of us.
it was so cold, and relatively early in the morning. Look! the top bit of the windshield is clear, like someone used a squeegee and cleared a bit of ice! ithink they did. must be the meter men. checking to see if i’ve got the right tax/parking permit. why they couldn’t do the whole car.. i don’t know :(
so took the spray out and used it! along with very useful scraper! woot.
However, something else…
door couldn’t open as it was frozen shut, so had to enter via
passenger door!!!
okay i’m damn sleepy
zzz
It seems like a recurring theme, my waking up early. Other than consuming obscene amount of food, I also attended every teaching session today. So from 9.45am until 6.15pm (minus snack time, lunch time, tea time, coffee break)… I participated in something involving cardiology. Yay.
In clinic this afternoon, I was asked to examine a patient and present my findings.
Ah yes, scary. But I did examine, and present I did.
On examination, the patient is comfortable at rest. Blah-blah-blah. He has a muffled first heart sound with no added sounds. He has a pansystolic murmur heard loudest at the apex in the left lateral position and in held expiration, radiating to the axilla.
The doctor looked at me and said okay. Then turned to the patient to say I have examined you, and don’t worry, you’ve got a perfectly normal heart. The student is wrong.
So, on this very white snowy day, I find out that I don’t know what a normal heart sounds like.
Everyone knows where I’m from. I go on and ON about how much I love the warmth (weather, and people too!) in Malaysia. So, a funny story. I come back on Sunday evening from Malaysia to a really really cold London. I kid you not. I fall asleep at 10pm, all bundled up like a Michelin woman. The heating in my house just does not cut it.
Monday morning, I’m up at 530am because of jetlag but I laze in bed until 7am. I have the hottest of showers. In 20 minutes, I’m all ready to go out and face the cold, cold (it’s so cold you have to say it twice). I reach my car and to my horror, there is a layer of white on my car, very thin, you can still see the glass windows in some parts. I unlock my car to see if I could use anything inside to scrape the ice/snow off. Using a key just would not do. My eyes spot an empty tic tac box. And a t-shirt. (WHO SAYS messy does not come in handy??!). I wrap the tic tac box with the t-shirt and use it as a make shift scraper. Ah it’s helping but not good enough! The white is still there.
I turn my engine on, and blast hot air on the windshield, hoping something would happen. Hot air it is not. Ice-cold air blasts on the ice-cold white windshield. Nevermind, it would take a while to heat up anyway. I should be glad the engine started to begin with. One thing less to worry about.
Three cars away, around the corner is a man with his car. He is using a scraper to move the white. He is also using some kind of spray. Hmmm.
I rummage through the boot and I spy a bottle of Evian in the corner. Ah. Water melts ice, doesn’t it? I pour the water on the windshield, the windows and the back window. Meaning all four window sides of my car. The aforementioned man rushes over as I smile at the white on my car fading into transparency.
What are you doing?! He demands. I blink, unsure of how to respond. Then I do a double take. TO MY HORROR, the ice had formed into a layer of sleet, hardening and now it is a thick, thick wall of ice - may as well have been bullet-proof for all I know.
I look at man, now good, nice, kind, generous man, and plead. Please help me. What do I do?
Good, nice, kind, generous man hands over a spray can and says Go crazy. And I do. I spray like there’s no tomorow, and in front of my eyes, I see the wall break. OMG Like so totally awesome man! I stand there with my t-shirt-wrapped-tic-tac-box-scraper and he with his normal scraper and we make my car okay again.
I can never thank good, nice, kind generous man enough for introducing me to the wonderful voodoo magic of the ‘DE-ICER’.
I did go to school, college then university. I did. And I DO have common sense, I do! In my panic, I just didn’t think. And in retrospect, perhaps I should have gone to get BOILING water. But really, my flat WAS a fair bit away and carrying boiling water around at that time would have been quite a bit of work, so I might not do anything differently if I were given a second chance. But now..NOW.. I have a can of de-icer in my car, with a brand spanking new scraper! Watch out world.
