Saturday Qualifiers

As I pen this, Lewis Hamilton is making his last preparations to the qualifiers tonight. Reviewing the advice given to him by the tech guys who had analysed the way he had handled the practice sessions.

It takes a huge amount of absolute cool to take the wheel calmly and throw the car around the turns at high speed. That's something that would normally come only with maturity.

And yet, he is only weeks older than me. And I have barely passed my driving test a few months ago.

Racing in a Formula 1 race? Add that to the growing list of things I'd never be able to do in my lifetime.

When we were little kids, we could be anything we wanted to be. There's no stopping to what we could choose. Want to be an F1 driver? Not likely. But possible. Even Hamilton was once a 7 year old with no automotive racing experience, no?

But no one ever starts racing at 23 years old and nets a F1 pole finish before he's too old to race. Never.

It's unnerving having our choices being whittled away by the passing of time. A top Olympic sprinter, I'd never be one no matter how i train. A rockstar - that's probably out too.

And in a few decades I'd be laughing at myself silly for whining about that while reminiscing how I used to be able to walk and be continent.

Of blood, shit and piss

There are very few professions on Earth where one can say that their work is bloody, shitty or pissy - and mean it literally.

My past week was spent at another internship, and again, it's 4 weeks of long hours and hard work. Argh.

On Friday, I stayed the night in hospital, shuttling between various wards doing various random errands, handling various patients who had bloody shit, bloody pee, bloody puke, obstructed shit, obstructed pee, uncontrollable shit, uncontrollable pee and various iterations of those few words (a few days back there was even a case of shitty pee but let's not go into there).

I think I know what specialities to avoid now. Namely, the shitty ones and the pissy ones. You know, I'd gladly have longer hours and a higher workload, than to endure shit and piss.

It's another 3 more weeks. Weeks seldom feel this long. And weekends this short.

More Drivel

I'd spare you the usual shit about schoolwork.

Hung out with a bunch of online buddies. Ikoi in Miramar Hotel. Ala carte buffet for $38.85 after service charge and the Government's cut of your hard-earned money. Pretty good stuff, except that their soba noodles are starchy and tasteless, and that the sushi rice isn't vinegared properly. Sashimi is fresh, tempura is excellent.











Mom's birthday's celebration was a couple days back, and we ate at Sakura restaurant. Another Japanese buffet, though of a much lesser price, and corresponding standard. It's just... price-appropriate fodder. Nothing to shout about.

And the cake, from Pine Garden's Cake, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10. Durian moose, with real durian mixed in. They make especially light and fluffy cakes.



Reminds you of a certain architectural embarrassment in southern Singapore eh?

Delicious food is not good. Especially when one is just days into embarking into a fat loss/fitness journey.

I'm going to lose all that lard. Eating sensibly and not gorging on food whenever and wherever.

Including interval training in cycling and running to break out of the rut that I was in.

Pushing myself to exhaustion at least twice in a week.

I hope it works!

Sunday Night

There's always something scary about Sunday nights.

Like the trail of blood that the horror movie protagonist follows, and like the economists' renewed enthusiasm in doomsaying, it heralds something worse.

Mondays.

My self esteem and motivation are rapidly getting whittled away in school. I'm in a group where everyone works unreasonably hard. At the expense of each other's happiness. No one talks about anything but work. Every now and then, the psychopath of the group will make some snide comment about me being academically inferior to her in front of the tutors. Just to make herself feel better.

I miss my old group, where there's an unwritten, unsaid mantra shared between us. Leave no men behind. We didn't do too well academically, but hey, we were happy.

And this comes at a time when I realise that not everyone is cut out for a life of achievement. I know I'm not one of them; I'd much rather sit back and enjoy a movie than to slog for fame and fortune. I don't even know what I'm getting myself into these days, but it certainly isn't a lifestyle I can imagine myself living in the long term.

Every day I slog in med school I feel like I'm missing out on the cognitive training that the rest of my peers in other fields experience - learning about various contrasting fields, honing in on their writing - both analytical and creative, and seeing the world from different, non-egocentric perspectives.

It's sad when much of my cognitive training in my university days comes from the Internet discussions and social conversations I participate in.

Oh well, at least I'll come out stronger and better from it. Or at least, I hope. Just as long as I can clearly define my needs and wants.

Needs: Get through life, and whatever it throws at me. Get through school, don't fuck up the career too badly.

Wants: Do pleasurable things. Go somewhere I'd be able to fit in better. Live comfortably and simply.

The needs aren't easy to achieve. Self motivation is bloody hard.

Wall-E

I'm sure all of you have already heard of Wall-e, Pixar's latest CGI animation effort.

While the graphics keep getting more and more impressive with every film, the storytelling itself is largely a hit-and-miss affair.

Pixar didn't do too well this time round. There might be creative environments, poignant cultural references littered all over and a coherent theme, but there simply wasn't any lovable character to emphatise with.

Wall-e, after all, is a machine with limited speech and ability to convey affect. In other words, it's a robot.

Overall, there's still alot of entertainment value it this film. But it doesn't match up with the high standards that Pixar had set for itself in the past decade. Oh well, let's wait for the next one.