Randomness of the early morning.

1.23 am, good time to blog. Especially when i'm trying to finish my Immuno presentation preparation (which is on monday...shit.) Theres at least 10 windows open devoted to my stupid topic, X-Linked Agammaglobulinemia. Its okay, I couldnt pronounce it the first time either. Thank god my new laptop has enough juice to open so many stuffs at one go. My previous laptop would hav had a heart attack if i tried running Itunes,words 03 and messenger live at the same time . 256mb RAM only mah wad to do.

So here i am, with a whole pile of stuff to complete, blogging. What to write about leh? Just random stuff lar. Whatever thats on my mind. Hrmm. Im seriously thinking of shaving my head, i dunno why. Ive had tht thought for months now. Almost everyone reacted negatively, well 99% of girls did. So i guess its a no no.

Then i had a sudden urge to puff cigarettes..wtf. Must be because tht damn china dude keeps smoking in the hostel toilet, and im getting hooked to the smell =.= But before u say anything, Im NOT gonna start smoking no thank you. What ive learned would be enough to scare the shit out of potential smokers.

Gym has been lousy recently. Inconsistent training has weakened me, and now i can just dream about ever squatting 175lbs which i did during the sem break. heck i was struggling just to finish 10 minutes on the threadmill.

Monday night is going to be a rather sad night for me. It will be my last kickboxing session in INTI. And Im supposed to fight one on one with the instructor, full competition rules, 3 rounds,3minute/round.Ive sparred with him dozens of times, but this time its special. Im gonna give it my all because its the last time im gonna touch gloves with him in a long long time. maybe even the last time, period.

So to do justice to 4 semesters of learning the not-so subtle art of kickboxing from him, I have to put on a good show. No doubt all the other members will be watching as well. No giving up due to fatigue, or pain, or whatever. I have to last that 3 rounds. Im gonna have to remember all those hours of practising my jab and hooks. Low cuts, counter kicks, throws. Im not going to give him any chance, and i hope he wont show me mercy either :).

recently ive been watching plenty of sappy love movies..Half way through a bootleg copy of P.S. I love you after having watched Slumdog Millionaire 5 times. Im turning into a girl haiz..at least thats what my lab partner Yanie calls me anyway. To which i would reply "Yanie, do you want me to prove to you that im a guy? I can do that you know..its quite easy.."- add a lewd smile and some eyebrow movement- and she'll give you a look of pure disgust and say something like you deserve a tight slap HAHAHA! Yanie will always be Yanie. We made a pact that if we ended up in the same Uni, we'll continue to be labbies :D

21 days to the end, 21 days to finish INTI. Im not kidding when i say it felt like it was only yesterday when i entered this college. Well ive done my time, and its time for me to fly off to kangaroo land..provided i pass with 65 average tht is haha. The closer i get to the end, the more i think about how life over there is..I anticipate walking alot, shops closing early, plenty of chinese/vietnam/malaysian people, expensive chicken, cheap beef :) .....and Milk! Im also prepared for discrimination but i dont think its very severe in Adelaide.

One thing i wont miss abt INTI is the subtle discrimination face by non chinese speaking people. No, not by the admin but by the student population. The system is to be blamed la, when ure brought up learning in a particular language just like in UEC schools, you tend to be less comfortable around people who dont speak the same way.So you choose not to hang out with them, or socialize with them, or talk cock with them, or go dinner/yamcha/whatever with them.
getting treated with mild neglect, thats how i would put it. Thats why me need more ppl like former law minister Zaid Ibrahim who thinks the current 'national intergration' system is all cock.Thank god its only 3 weeks left. i would die if i had to stay here for another year.

Trust me ive got nothing against chinese people, Im part chinese, and an affiliate of the INTI Chinese Cultural Society.I practise Sanda, the combative arm of Wushu.Id say 80% of my friends are chinese.My best buddies are chinese.Im slowly learning how to converse in mandarin and can swear in Cantonese(i wan to learn hokkien!). I check out chinese chicks too haha.Cute mah.Come to think about it, all the girls ive been interested in the past are chinese!or part chinese....WTF IBAN OUTSIDE CHINESE INSIDE kanena kanchibek niamahh. Sorry mum im going to marry a chinese girl and have many hybrid children all names starting with 'J'.

Heres a maths question for you.

I calculated that im 1/8 chinese 5/8 iban, 2/8 lain lain(kadazan etc etc.). If i marry a pure blooded chinese(1/1) and have children, how chinese would my children be?
.
..
....
........
...........

-____-"

If u give me a plausible answer, ill give u chocolate. u wan?

-____-" again..

Before i go blabbing on i better stop here. I still have a lot to do for my presentation and i have to e-mail a draft to Ms Yap tomorrow morning. So till my next update, Cya.

-signing out-

Update

In the midst of the tempest around me, i finally have some time to myself. My last few days in INTI is definitely going to be extremely challenging. For more than 2 weeks I have been in a continual high tension mode, being bombarded with tests, assignments, journal compilations, full length reports ,u name it i got it. My night has turned to day, and days, well they remain as days.Just more miserable. Slogging through lectures with 4 hours of sleep, and then dragging myself to the library to complete that last miserable journal/report/assignment. Only coming back at 8pm, rest, start again at 10pm right till 4am in the next morning.

It really has sapped my strength, and my temper has frayed at times.And the bags underneath my eyes seem to become a permanent feature of my face. To make things worst, my laptop had just been fried by a lightning strike..with all my immunology presentation data inside. By some miracle the hard disk was intact and i managed to extract the critical files.

The upside is that i got a brand new baby :D. A real monster, 4GB ram, 250GB HD, ATI Radeon HD3470, dual core processor 2.o GHz. I shall take my sweet time examining every inch of my darling after my finals are done.

I still have an Immuno presentation on monday, Immuno journals and report on tuesday, Microbio assignment due on wednesday, and a Genetics quiz on thursday. Then theres a one week grace period before the finals. The cycle is gonna start all over again. God bless.

if theres one thing i pledge to do once 3rd year begins in aussie, its definitely gotta be that im NOT going to do last minute work .ever.

-signing out-

....

You're just so much more beautiful when you smile.

Tired.

It's as if all my facial muscles have gone kaput, and now my face is forever stuck in a glum look. For now anyways. Today we just had our second Immunology test, and immunology for me is a very very very VERY stressful subject. Its like eating vomit.
I studied very hard for this test, i really did. My previous test only scored 50+ and i didnt want to make my life in the finals any harder so i didnt have a choice, i had to score in test 2. Well APPARENTLY there was a misunderstanding in the topics covered for the test.
I was told that test 2 covered The Compliment System, MHC, Tcell development, B cell development maturation and differentiation as well as Cell Mediated Cytotoxicity. I made sure i knew those 5 topics like the back of my hand.

I can still recite off hand how the classical pathway in the compliment system works.

C1q recognizes Antigen-antigen bound antibody, autocatalytically activates C1r which in turn activates another C1r. Both C1r act to activate C1s which cleaves C4 to C4b and C4a, as well as C2 to C2a and C2b. C4b will bind near the Antigen bound antibody, and C2a will bind to C4b to form the C4b2a complex which has C3 convertase activity. C4b2a cleaves C3 to C3a and C3b. C3b binds with C4b2a to form C4b2a3b which has C5 convertase activity. C5 convertase cleaves C5 to C5b and C5a. C5b will form complexes with C6, C7, C8 and poly-C9 to form the membrane attack complex.

I swear its like reading a mantra...Sit cross legged, palms together with eyes closed whilst chanting this and many other mechanisms in a monotonous droning voice. This is what i did in my room for a few nights straight.All wasted.

The thing which pisses me off, is the fact that something which wasnt supposed to be in the test, came out for the test.

All of a sudden i see questions asking about the type of cytokines which T cells secrete, asking how to explain the mechanism..highlighting which cytokine acts a regulator for the other cytokine..how they interact with one another..WTF!and also questions asking which molecule is responsible for stalling T cell maturation etc etc..SO MANY T CELLS QUESTIONS!

I couldnt answer any of em. Trying to make a wild guess is like winning the lottery. So many different kinds of cytokines, hormones etc ..you have the interleukins (IL1,2,3,.....) then the Interferons(IFN), and the other shits . Probably hundreds of them. I counted at least 23 marks out of 100 lost for sure(blank).

I was so stressed out in the test that my eyelids started twitching and kept ruffling my hair till they started falling out.

pissed, angry FUCK! Stupid son of a bitch. Whats the fucking use eh? And now Inti starting to increase the weightage of internal marks for the final grade oh-fucking JOY! I swear i could kill someone right now..The main door of the toilet near the library was my first victim. It was half jammed. I yanked it...abit too roughly. something cracked.and now the door wont close cause it nearly came off its hinges.

Really not in the mood to do anything else. I got a major headache from the lack of sleep for the past few days and feeling like shit coz i havnt been exercising and eating like crap. Those damn africans on 3rd floor better not be making noise today coz im not in the tolerating mood for their shit. That goes for the 3rd floor chinese guys as well if i hear a single Dota,Kanchibek, kanena, Niamah etc etc being shouted. 3rd floor ppl better watch out.

Ahh Fuck.

The Battle of Stalingrad

WARNING: This a blog post on a historical topic, and most readers would probably find it boring. I have taken the initative to simplify it as best as i can without doing injustice to history and hopefully readers can take something away by reading this post :)

A few days ago, i started re-reading a book which i had bought when i was still completing my A-levels. The best rm38.50 i had ever spent on a book, ive read this baby at least 4 times already.The title of this book is "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor and it tells the story of the battle of stalingrad (duh!) which took place from July of 1942 right till February of 1943, in Stalingrad(duh again!) which is now known as Volvograd.

The book starts with the events way before the actual battle itself. The narration begins with the description of Operation Barbarossa- the Invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. For those of you that are not familiar with World War 2 history, Germany and Russia were allies until Hitler decided that the resources in Russia was too great of an attraction to pass.So Hitler carried out one of the biggest backstabs (more like a back hack/slash/massacre)in history.

22 June 1941, roughly 4.5 million Axis soldiers along the Germany-Russia border,covering an area of roughly 2900km(thats like going from miri to kuching 4 times) began their assault on the Soviet Union.

German troops pouring into Russia from nazi Germany in 3 groups. Army group north, Army group center and Army group south.

The attack was brutal and swift, russian soldiers were ill prepared, outgunned and technologically inferior to the German army(In the begining lah..later on the russians created the T-36 , which was one of the most advanced and feared tank on the battlefield.). German tank formations, known as Panzer regiments,along with the German airforce(Luftwaffe) and the German ground forces( Wermacht, Waffen SS etc etc) carried out their infamous Blitzkrieg maneuvers, ripping the Soviet Union at an incredible rate, overunning vast amounts of area.

Scenes like these were pretty common throughout the front, summary executions of ideological enemies and ethinic cleansing.

The battle of stalingrad was one of the scenes of bloodiest fighting in the whole campaign. Stalingrad, an industrial city along the river volga was an important for a few reasons, namely due to its strategic importance as a supply route, as well as a critical area if Hitler were to continue his conquest of russia (The capture of stalingrad would allow for the strategic defense of the oil-rich caucasus region.)

The main Units involved:

Nazi Germany = 6th Army, Commanded by General Freidrich Paulus.

General Friedrich Paulus( Promoted to Field Marshall prior to the defeat of the 6th Army)

U.S.S.R= 62nd Guards Army, Commanded by General Vasily Chuikov

Vasily Chuikov(centre)in his command centre, east bank of the Volga, Stalingrad.

the total amount of men, tanks, aircraft used were mind boggling. At the peak of the battle, both sides had in excess of 1million soldiers and thousands of tanks,aircraft and artillery pieces.

I can summarize the battle in one word. Savage.

Both sides had blatant disregard for human life, the Germans killed, the Soviets killed harder.All the while, civillians were still living inside the city. Daily bombing raids by stuka dive bombers, massive artillery bombardments, infantry advances, Panzer attacks. Repelled by waves of ill equiped russian soldiers, who were shot to death by their own officers if they retreated. The battle of stalingrad also saw some of the fiercest urban fighting in the history of warfare.

Mamayev Kurgan, also known as 'Height 103.0', is a mound overlooking the city of Stalingrad. Due to strategic importance, it was vicously fought for. Almost 90% The Soviet 13th Guards rifle division numbering 10,000 men were lost. 10,000 men. The hill itself changed hands regularly, up to 6 times within 12 hours.

Heavy weapon detachment from Rodminstev's 13th Guards fighting on Mamayev Kurgan

The russian defence of stalingrad was tenacious, and the advance of the German 6th Army came to a halt, with neither sides being victorious. The germans occupied the west side of the river volga, the russians were on the east.

This was the only way russians could reinforce the units on the western side of the Volga, by boat. The slow moving wooden flotillas were easy targets for the German air force, the Luftwaffe.

The deadlock in Stalingrad was the begining of the end for the 6th Army.Russian Army units soon launched a 2 pronged assault (Operation Uranus) from the North, and South of Stalingrad to aid the ailing 62nd Army. The end result: Total encirclement of Stalingrad and the German 6th army in it. They were totally cut off from the outside world, no supplies except through air drops.The 6th Army was going to starve to death.


This map basically shows the 2 pronged russian attack(grey arrows), meeting at a town called Kalach, effectively forming a 500mile diameter encirclement around Stalingrad, Trapping the German 6th army in it.

Both sides suffered untold horrors. Soldiers survived eating stale bread, wheat soup, some extremely thirsty even resorted to drinking sewage water, knowing very well the lethal effects of eating ice(which was in abundance during the cold russian winter). Germans which were desperate enough to collect air flown supply drops in broad daylight were easily shot by Russian snipers. Wounded men, some with no limbs, were left to die in the open. Most were shot mercifully.

With the encirclement of the 6th army, the soviets proceded by crushing the circle. They pushed all the way into the city of Stalingrad where the 6th army was holed up, and decimated the place. Field Marshall(was promoted to this rank just before the surrender) Friedrich Paulus, who was found in his headquaters in the basement of a grocery store, surrendered. The germans lost.

After almost one year of brutal fighting, the soldiers of Stalingrad embrace each other with joy.

Field Marshall Paulus, along with General Schmidt, being escorted to their holding area after being captured in stalingrad.

The result:Decisive German defeat. A few million men, women and children on both sides killed wounded or missing.

The end of the battle marked the begining of the decline of Germany's attempt to attack east. By 1944, the German army was in great decline. 1945, Berlin fell,Japan was bombed, World war II ended.

This battle played a vital role in history, like many other key events in world war II. If Stalingrad had fallen, the Germans most likely would have conquered the whole of Russia by the end of 1942 or early 1943. Having unlimited natural resources at their disposal, Hitler's Germany would have been unstoppable. His dream of creating a Nazi Empire, The Third Reich of a thousand years would undoubtledly have come true.

In other words, If Chuikov and his 62nd Army along with the other detachments had not held Stalingrad long enough to ensure that Operation Uranus was a success, im pretty confident that we would all be speaking German and Japanese right now.

Only 6000 german soldiers from the battle of Stalingrad made it back to Germany after being released by Russia in the 1950's. 90% of the POW's died in Russian captivity.

The Motherland Calls! memorial on top of Mamayev Kurgan ,where the 13th guards rifle division was wiped out. Nearby is also the tomb of Marshall Chuikov, Hero Of The Soviet Union for his leadership during the battle.

-signing out-

Im just.so.tired.

This weekend, im gonna drag my ass to sunway, buy myself a HUGE double western burger from Carl's junior, with a side order of onion rings, and maybe even chilli cheese fries.And some Mcflurry from McDs. I dont care. Ill burn it off by walking around pyramid looking for hot Petaling Jaya/Sunway/Subang Jaya chicks.

Diet? what diet. What u talking about..what, u want a slap?

:D

-signing out-

Another Lab ends

The end is near. Its that time of the semester when you can actually smell the wretched stench of the finals coming..lurking around the corner like an ugly beast waiting to jump and devour slackers like me. Oh im so dramatic .... =.="

The signs of the end are clear though, a whole batch of 2nd internal tests are coming ahead, begining with microbiology starting this thursday. The wet portion of Genetics202 lab has also come to an end.As usual, we take photos to document this momentous ocassion.

I was doing the Iban wind walk..and i never realised how tall how aik is haha.

The confusion of having more than one cameraman( try to spot Mr Wong our lecturer)

New generation of scientists..Myself, Sid, Phey Chyi, Kar Yan and Chong Hou with his 'watson and crick' pose haha!

I must say that the genetics lab was the most dull lab this sem..too many reasons, which i shall not name here.

Thats all for today, back to studying for microbio.

-signing out-

work work and more work

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight im going to attempt the unattemptable( I dont think theres such a word.....*checks kamus dewan*)

I am going to try and complete

1 immuno journal and 1 immuno report

2 microbio journals

and,

3 genetics journals

Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures. In order to survive next week, im going to have to carry out the above mentioned points.

Extraordinary not because of the workload, but extraordinary because im actually doing work on a friday.NIGHT. what has the world come to?

Wish me luck*salutes*

lessons from the past.

I was just browsing through my old pictures,and i found one which made my hair stand.



Me and the lovely Ms Juwita Suwito, 2004


Should be enough to keep me motivated in the gym for at least the next few months :)


-signing off-

:s

Ever wondered what it was like to get into a fight right after waking up? Well i found out today

I was so hyped up about going for the hard sparring..i even rested for 4 full days to limber up my muscles as well as giving my injured ankle a well deserved rest. Beyond my wildest expectations, it made full recovery in just 4 days time!
So with such gusto, i was going to rip my opponent apart, whoever that unfortunate soul was.I took a nap at 5pm. Woke up at 8.30. Shit. Im late by half an hour. Almost thought of skipping when the instructor called and asked me to come.

Me: Hello?
AH LIM: EH WHERE ARE U?
Me: Urmm..i had meeting.. meeting..kickboxing issit??
AH LIM: YALAH!FASTER LAH!!
Me: OKKkKKkkkkkkkk

I tried to come out with smart excuses, but 'meeting' was the only word that came out in my foggy post-nap mind.

I rushed to the training area at SAO concourse only to find everyone was waiting. The juniors were giggling coz i obviously had just woken up..=.='' there goes my macho status. Ah lim was giving a briefing to the seniors on competition rules when i jumped in.
He didnt even bother asking..took one look at me and repeated everything he had just said.

"Kick to the head- 2 points, Throws 2 points, getting pushed out of the ring-3 points..if that happens 3 times the match is forfeited. No points for kick bellow the knee cap but is allowed. 1 point of kicks to the thigh region. All punches 1 point. Go warm up, use the headguard and shin pads."

wtf..i didnt know it was that serious...use headguard sumore. We never used headguard and shin pads because power was always controlled. So i guess today all hell is unleashed.

The fact that Bryan got KO'd in the first 20 seconds didnt help(Body slam to the ground by Ah lim)

My turn came up pretty fast and it was me vs Ah lim.2 rounds, 3 minutes each round, 1 min rest in between. I was actually depending on Bryan to wear him down for at least one round..mana tau his fight was over in a flash.

My perspective:
I fought relatively well, got him on counter jabs and hooks. Landed a kick to his upper left arm which made him cringe. He got me in the head with a fast left kick but i recovered to catch his leg mid air, and took him down.

His Comments:
Too slow, stamina was totally out by round 2. Last 30 seconds was survival-dont-die mode. Hooks were to wide, hands dropped too much(second round). Your stamina is bad..

must say it was one of my better sparring sessions with Ah Lim..previously i would just be trashed right out with no punches or kicks landed.

It actually feels kinda good to fight after wakingg up :). The fear of a fight is not there coz youre still so blur from the sleep so it helps with the nerves haha. It was only after the 2 rounds ended did i realize, damn,i got out in one piece..no blood, no cuts, no bruises,no ulcers hooray!I would normally think about these stuffs before the sparring session...resulting in a not confident fight..resulting in getting your ass kicked to the ground.

I should sleep and come late for every kickboxing session..id be a champion in no time :)

BTW blood drive is currently on till friday..to all healthy individuals, please donate.( regardless of blood type..AB also can....Pusat Darah Negara is constantly short of blood.)
Besides, ur red blood cells would be destroyed in the spleen every 3 months neways. When you donate blood, the hematopoeitic stem cells in your bone marrow would undergo hematopoiesis to form new RBC..you should get back your original number of RBC sooner or later :) .Ok enough immuno.

-signing out-

rhymes

Sick of the tension, sick of the pain
All this shit is making me insane
miserable laughter, half hearted smile
I aint gonna make it past this last mile..