Sometimes I do wonder whether we have grown up or not. It seems and still feels like we are all still children.

These few days, I lost all sorts of feelings inside me, the only thing remaining is stoicism. The defiant feeling that stares at the monster called Pain in the face and shouts “You can’t hurt me you lil’ $*U)@!*($”

Human relationship. Fickle? Fragile, as my friend puts it. Or even meaningless. I am referring to friendship. Not that I do not care, but maybe I care too much, it is starting to lose its flavour and meaning.

Oh I am not talking about myself by the way.

Sometimes it is so sad to see how a friendship can be shattered or threatened if there is a lack of trust, communication or love. And I strongly believe love is still the main essence. Friendships without love – the selfless sacrifice, the willingness to just be there to listen – will just wither.

They are not called friendships, by the way. Maybe just defined as “Oh she’s someone I just happen to know”.

It is easy to start a friendship, but takes a whole lot of effort to keep one from decaying and ultimately end.

And it is really hurtful to see that a seed of distrust or of the inadequacy of attention can bring so much pain too.

Why? I do not understand still.

Why.

My good friend Adeline asked me to help spread word about this site.. So to my fellow loyal readers, whoever you are, either young or old, sick or healthy, wise or unwise, crazy or sane, please help me and help her out by going to this site and signing up.

Help Africa with onemilliontee.com

Basically one million T-shirts will be printed with 1 million numbers.. so each will be unique. Proceeds will go towards creating job opportunities in Africa.

Suddenly a random thought enters my mind.. “All the Chinese towkays will surely snap up numbers which have 8 in them..”

Anyway, do me a favour and go sign up no? Thank you very much.

And happy 2010!

As usual I am really lazy to update stuff.. Lots of photos (I think almost 1000 so far, you can check out all of that in my Flickr account).

Recently we went to Vienna and Rome. Beautiful places, but I like Prague better. Somehow it feels more like home here, and my friends agree. Rome is not so friendly, and Vienna, well, is just Vienna. No comments.

Colloseum was quite impressive, but it lacked the charm it had in photographs we usually see on postcards or posters (Photoshop, cheh). I went to the Vatican City too. St. Peter’s Basilica was really awesome. The place smelled of incense, and we managed to catch a glimpse of one of the cardinals (I think) because it was Sunday and there was a Mass. Everything was in Latin though. Oh, and we saw the Pope too, but he addressed the crowd from way high up in a room from so far away and we could only see a tiny figure from afar.

Vienna was quite impressive. We went to the Museum of Military History and the Museum of Fine Arts. Walked around and went on sightseeing trips. Tired legs, tired minds, empty wallets. Did I mention how expensive it was to eat in Rome and Vienna? I think that is why we prefer Prague. Food here is so much cheaper.

And of course, I like the Czech grumpiness. There is a certain air of weird attraction around them and once you get used to their weird ways, you grow fond of Czech people.

Anyway, enough crap. Let pictures say the words, and let your imaginations run wild, for I am lazy to put captions in each and every one of the photos.

Rome

Vienna

I just had a major test on Wednesday. Dissections are really tough. I think it might be the toughest aspect of Anatomy in medicine. We had a week of dissections, everyday from 2.30 p.m.until 6.00 p.m., poring over cadavers, dissecting fascias, cutting up muscles, cleaning away subcutaneous fat, discussing about origins and insertions of muscles, topography of the human body, various triangles like auscultation triangles, lumbar triangles etc.

2 months of medicine, and my vocabulary is changed. Medical jargons fill my head to the brim. Not only medicine, but also histology, Latin, Czech (which is like the hardest language in the universe) and Biophysics. It is like medicine chips away part of me and fills it with a permanent, irreplaceable cast, where suddenly the lexicon in my head is filled with weird medical lingo like foramen lacerum and bicipital aponeurosis and groove for the tendon of the flexor hallucis longus. Oh and this is only anatomy.

Histology is where we learn about cells. Where we have to pore over slides under the microscope and distinguish between the different structures of the human body. Connective tissues, muscle tissues, blood, everything. And it is TOUGH.

Oh and did I mention about Czech language? Phew. Hardest language on Earth, period. English suddenly feels tame and childish compared to it.

Latin is where we learn the structure and declensions of the language anatomists and doctors use hundreds of years ago and it remains in use in European countries until today. 3 months ago I do not even know what declensions mean. o.O wth..

Yeap. Life is different now. Dude, like, totally.

I cannot explain much about Biophysics. Never went to the lectures. Basically its Physics plus some applications related to medicine. So you have X-rays and acoustics and thermal physics and quantum physics.

Dude. @.@

It is starting to snow now in Prague. It is my first time experiencing snow and obviously like some noob sakai we pranced around and played with it, throwing snow at each other. Feels powdery. And on closer inspection the flakes have really amazing shapes, like, well, erm, snowflakes.

..

I really look forward to taking a break. Tomorrow I am having histology test again and here I am, typing crap again. Who reads these stuff anyway??

Lazy to upload photos. Just know that I now look fatter. With a short haircut.

OK, so this post is a little bit overdue. I know. Issues pending, problems to be solved. Now that I have settled down, and everything is alright now, I guess it is time to do the boring stuff. Updates. The usual deal. Like, bla bla bla, hey guys I’m in Prague now it’s beautiful bla bla holy crap bla bla.

So, FAQs:

Q: How are you? Long time no see!

A: I am still alive.

Q: What is Prague like?

A: It is beautiful, really nice scenery, with cobblestone streets and really amazing buildings that date back to a few hundred years ago.

Q: Are you happy there?

A; Yeah, thank God for sending me here. Excited initially when we just arrived, but the feeling will go away over time.

Q: How is medicine like? Is it hard?

A: Hmmm.. as long as you study everyday, I guess it is manageable. Imagine trying to memorise every muscle in the body, trying to recognise slides of human tissues under the microscope and dealing with exams every other week. Not to mention the freakin’ weather.

Q: It really is cold there?

A: You think? Now it is ONLY 3 degrees celcius. Imagine winter time, yay.

So yeah, this is my life. Study, lectures, online-ing. I miss Malaysian food, seriously. Cannot complain though – really grateful to be here. I will try to upload pictures that I have taken since coming here, but it will be really hard because for some reason the upload speed is real slow. See my Facebook photos instead, I will upload there I guess.

Oh and by the way, the living cost here is astronomical. We are talking about basic needs like shelter and food and clothes. More expensive than Kuala Lumpur. o.O

People here are kinda.. weird, compared to Malaysians. It is really true when they say Malaysians are hospitable. We smile at foreigners and worship them like gods. Here, Czech people tend to think we do not exist. I think they tend to look down on Asians, and since they do not like Vietnamese, they will treat use coldly since they think we are from Vietnam. o.O wtf

Czech people are not afraid to speak their mind. If they do not like you, they will say it. They will not put up a nice fake smile or mask. If they are annoyed, they will show it.

One major problem when we came here was the language barrier. Contrary to what many people think, not all people in European countries speak English. Here, English is not widely spoken. Especially the older generation. When you say you do not know Czech (nerozumim Cesky) they will keep going on and on in Czech, as if they did not hear you. They will not even try to use gestures or hand signals. When you do not get what they say, they tend to get annoyed. Yeap. Happens in shops, canteen, metro, everywhere.

Sometimes when we are lucky, we get people who speak English. But most of the time we just pretend we know Czech and nod and say “ano, ano” (yes) when they say something. Usually in Tesco.

Prague has a lot of pretty ladies. Heh. You could stand on some busy street, pick up a stone,blindfold yourself, turn 3 times and throw randomly and chances are you will hit a pretty girl. Literally. Hey, no kidding.

Anyway, I am running out of ideas. Will post update soon if I can.