Link!

As fascinating as it is, I can’t seem to make myself watch it a second time. There’s supposed to be a monkey version too D:

From here

The Procrastinator Song
by ~doorfromheaven

I should be doing homework—but I’d rather watch T.V.
Though, there’s nothing on. I could always put in a movie.
Maybe it’s a sign that I should get some work done
But the more I think about it—it just doesn’t sound all that fun.

The pile of dishes is slowly growing, but I don’t really care
No matter where I go—they’ll always just be there.
I guess I could wash them, but then they’ll just get dirty again
Oh when, oh when, does this work ever end?

I have a test to study for—a book I still need to read
But I’d rather just sit here, and ponder all I actually need.
Actually, I am just staring at the ceiling—counting every dot
I just need to learn when to stop.

This is the life of a procrastinator—life is good until the end
When everything starts piling up and your in need of a good friend.
I guess there’s nothing to it—we just do nothing at all
Just call me super procrastinator…I’ll come to your call!

Later.

Me: Salam/hello/selamat pagi, saya Hannah pelajar perubatan kat sini, blablablablabla…
Victimhariini: Oh, student ke? Tahun berapa?
Me: Tahun emm..paat..?

Truly, it’s a bit scary to admit that you’re a fourth year. Which means that you’ll probably be graduating in a year and a half, if all goes well. A year and a half to turn into professional doctor material, which I am not.

Med school for me is just another school. I don’t have delusions of becoming The World-Renowned Clinician, unlike some. Truthfully, I never wanted to be one. I like medicine, but only the science part of it. I’m still making up my mind whether I should finish my housemanship when I graduate or just default and go where my interests lead me. Which are research, lab work, and NO PATIENT CONTACT WHATSOEVER. Oh, and also to start my own karaoke booth so I can sing to my heart’s content. “Boss mana? Bilik 3246, rock hari ni.” Haha.

Med school is also figured in my mind as ‘the last chance to milk Papa’s bank account dry’.

Anyway, my first week in Gynae in UMMC. Got introduced to Group 11 & 12. Still have mixed feelings about the group. I like the individuals in it, but I don’t feel the awesome group dynamics we had in Group 4. Right now it sorta feels like I’m a member of four different groups, which I really really don’t like. At all.

I may not be a very vocal person, but I don’t like it when you pen me somewhere just because of who I am, like kambing.

Makes me feel like jumping up during tutorial and sing this song:

Ass-smacking and en-pointe twirling included.

Hope next week will be better

There was a young man of Back Bay
Who thought syphilis just went away.
And thought that a chancre
Was merely a canker
Acquired in lascivious play.

Now first he got acne vulgaris,
The kind that is rampant in Paris
It covered his skin
From forehead to shin
And now people ask where his hair is.

With symptoms increasing in number,
His aorta’s in need of a plumber
His hear is cavorting
His wife is aborting
And now he’s acquired a gumma.

Consider his terrible plight -
His eyes won’t react to the light
His hands are apraxic.
His gait is ataxic.
He’s developing gun-barrel sight.

His passions are strong as before
But his penis is flaccid, and sore.
His wife now has tabes
And sabre-shinned babies
She’s really worse off than a whore.

There are pains in his belly and knees.
His sphincters have gone by degrees.
Paroxysmal incontinence,
With all its concomitants,
Brings on quite unpredictable pees.

Though treated in every known way,
His spirochetes grow day by day.
He’s developed paresis,
Converses with Jesus,
And thinks he’s the Queen of the May.

H: lol, fun!

My first clinical year was interesting, sometimes fun, boring at times, scary, nerve-wrecking, repetitive etc. etc. Highlights? Uh, um, let me think. I think I covered most of it in my previous posts, but I didn’t write one for peadiatrics or medicine#2 right? So here goes:

Peads: The patients were a lot of fun, but the lecturers were scaarryyy… I thought I would be consistently sad and morbid in the kids ward, but no. The sick kids? They’re not really that sick anyways. So we ended up playing and talking with them most of the time. With the parents’ permission of course. I ended up being a babysitter quite a few times. Ha. But there were still the really sick ones, the syndromic ones, the ones who had tubes inside every hole of the body… those were the sad ones. But overall, I like kids. They’re fun.

Med: I never really liked general medicine. Dr BK Lim was nice. The end.

Haha. Bias much, Hannah?

Anyway, I think finals made the whole batch turn crazy. And we (me, Azira, Ika & Kalai) concluded it with a very satisfying round of karaoke, even though I have no love for Red Box.

And now a special dedication for my friends in Group 4 who went through thick and thin together with me the whole year. You guys were the best!

I love you guys!

Group 4 is the awesome!

Photo credits to Ya Hwee & Tika Boo.

Bye bye 3rd year! Bye bye Klang! Bye bye gagaks! So long! Farewell! Good riddance! I hope I’ll never see you again!

And so I’m back in UM. 2 months of electives cum holiday in Kubu Gajah, and then back to clinical life

EDIT: My post-exam holiday has been cut short. Or postponed. To December. Back to school on Monday

THE COPYRIGHT THING
by Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother (free here!)

The Creative Commons license at the top of this file probably tipped you off to the fact that I’ve got some pretty unorthodox views about copyright. Here’s what I think of it, in a nutshell: a little goes a long way, and more than that is too much.

I like the fact that copyright lets me sell rights to my publishers and film studios and so on. It’s nice that they can’t just take my stuff without permission and get rich on it without cutting me in for a piece of the action. I’m in a pretty good position when it comes to negotiating with these companies: I’ve got a great agent and a decade’s experience with copyright law and licensing (including a stint as a delegate at WIPO, the UN agency that makes the world’s copyright treaties). What’s more, there’s just not that many of these negotiations even if I sell fifty or a hundred different editions of Little Brother (which would put it in top millionth of a percentile for fiction), that’s still only a hundred negotiations, which I could just about manage.

I hate the fact that fans who want to do what readers have always done are expected to play in the same system as all these hotshot agents and lawyers. It’s just stupid to say that an elementary school classroom should have to talk to a lawyer at a giant global publisher before they put on a play based on one of my books. It’s ridiculous to say that people who want to “loan” their electronic copy of my book to a friend need to get a license to do so. Loaning books has been around longer than any publisher on Earth, and it’s a fine thing.

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, “Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash.” Overwhelmingly, the audience said that they’d discovered their favorite writers for free, on a loan or as a gift. When it comes to my favorite writers, there’s no boundaries: I’ll buy every book they publish, just to own it (sometimes I buy two or three, to give away to friends who must read those books). I pay to see them live. I buy tshirts with their bookcovers on them. I’m a customer for life.

Neil went on to say that he was part of the tribe of readers, the tiny minority of people in the world who read for pleasure, buying books because they love them. One thing he knows about everyone who downloads his books on the Internet without permission is that they’re readers, they’re people who love books.

People who study the habits of musicbuyers have discovered something curious: the biggest pirates are also the biggest spenders. If you pirate music all night long, chances are you’re one of the few people left who also goes to the record store (remember those?) during the day. You probably go to concerts on the weekend, and you probably check music out of the library too. If you’re a member of the redhot musicfan tribe, you do lots of everything that has to do with music, from singing in the shower to paying for blackmarket vinyl bootlegs of rare Eastern European covers of your favorite deathmetal band.

Same with books. I’ve worked in new bookstores, used bookstores and libraries. I’ve hung out in pirate ebook (“bookwarez”) places online. I’m a stone used bookstore junkie, and I go to book fairs for fun. And you know what? It’s the same people at all those places: book fans who do lots of everything that has to do with books. I buy weird, fugly pirate editions of my favorite books in China because they’re weird and fugly and look great next to the eight or nine other editions that I paid fullfreight for of the same books. I check books out of the library, google them when I need a quote, carry dozens around on my phone and hundreds on my laptop, and have (at this writing) more than 10,000 of them in storage lockers in London, Los Angeles and Toronto.

If I could loan out my physical books without giving up possession of them, I would. The fact that I can do so with  digital files is not a bug, it’s a feature, and a damned fine one. It’s embarrassing to see all these writers and musicians and artists bemoaning the fact that art just got this wicked new feature: the ability to be shared without losing access to it in the first place. It’s like watching restaurant owners crying down their shirts about the new free lunch machine that’s feeding the world’s starving people because it’ll force them to reconsider their businessmodels. Yes, that’s gonna be tricky, but let’s not lose sight of the main attraction: free lunches!

Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.

In case that’s not enough for you, here’s my pitch on why giving away ebooks makes sense at this time and place:

Giving away ebooks gives me artistic, moral and commercial satisfaction. The commercial question is the one that comes up most often: how can you give away free ebooks and still make money?

For me for pretty much every writer the big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity (thanks to Tim O’Reilly for this great aphorism). Of all the people who failed to buy this book today, the majority did so because they never heard of it, not because someone gave them a free copy. Megahit bestsellers in science fiction sell half a million copies in a world where 175,000 attend the San Diego Comic Con alone, you’ve got to figure that most of the people who “like science fiction” (and related geeky stuff like comics, games, Linux, and so on) just don’t really buy books. I’m more interested in getting more of that wider audience into the tent than making sure that everyone who’s in the tent bought a ticket to be there.

Ebooks are verbs, not nouns. You copy them, it’s in their nature. And many of those copies have a destination, a person they’re intended for, a handwrought transfer from one person to another, embodying a personal recommendation between two people who trust each other enough to share bits. That’s the kind of thing that authors (should) dream of, the proverbial sealing of the deal. By making my books available for free passalong, I make it easy for people who love them to help other people love them.

What’s more, I don’t see ebooks as a substitute for paper books for most people. It’s not that the screens aren’t good enough, either: if you’re anything like me, you already spend every hour you can get in front of the screen, reading text. But the more computerliterate you are, the less likely you are to be reading longform works on those screens that’s because computerliterate people do more things with their computers. We run IM and email and we use the browser in a million diverse ways. We have games running in the background, and endless opportunities to tinker with our music libraries. The more you do with your computer, the more likely it is that you’ll be interrupted after five to seven minutes to do something else. That makes the computer extremely poorly suited to reading longform works off of, unless you have the iron selfdiscipline of a monk.

The good news (for writers) is that this means that ebooks on computers are more likely to be an enticement to buy the printed book (which is, after all, cheap, easily had, and easy to use) than a substitute for it. You can probably read just enough of the book off the screen to realize you want to be reading it on paper.

So ebooks sell print books. Every writer I’ve heard of who’s tried giving away ebooks to promote paper books has come back to do it again. That’s the commercial case for doing free ebooks.

Now, onto the artistic case. It’s the twentyfirst century. Copying stuff is never, ever going to get any harder than it is today (or if it does, it’ll be because civilization has collapsed, at which point we’ll have other problems). Hard drives aren’t going to get bulkier, more expensive, or less capacious. Networks won’t get slower or harder to access. If you’re not making art with the intention of having it copied, you’re not really making art for the twentyfirst century. There’s something charming about making work you don’t want to be copied, in the same way that it’s nice to go to a Pioneer Village and see the oldetimey blacksmith shoeing a horse at his traditional forge. But it’s hardly, you know, contemporary. I’m a science fiction writer. It’s my job to write about the future (on a good day) or at least the present. Art that’s not supposed to be copied is from the past.

Finally, let’s look at the moral case. Copying stuff is natural. It’s how we learn (copying our parents and the people around us). My first story, written when I was six, was an excited retelling of Star Wars, which I’d just seen in the theater. Now that the Internet the world’s most efficient copying machine is pretty much everywhere, our copying instinct is just going to play out more and more. There’s no way I can stop my readers, and if I tried, I’d be a hypocrite: when I was 17, I was making mixtapes, photocopying stories, and generally copying in every way I could imagine. If the Internet had been around then, I’d have been using it to copy as much as I possibly could. There’s no way to stop it, and the people who try end up doing more harm than piracy ever did. The record industry’s ridiculous holy war against filesharers (more than 20,000 music fans sued and counting!) exemplifies the absurdity of trying to get the foodcoloring out of the swimming pool. If the choice is between allowing copying or being a frothing bully lashing out at anything he can reach, I choose the former.

——–

Hannah here. People who have been near my laptop would probably know of my not-so-secret stash of ebooks. And those who have been in my house or bedroom would probably see most of my story books lying around somewhere – on top of tables, in the closet, under the bed…etc. I love stories. I learn a whole bunch of stuff from them. One of the reasons I know all sorts of useless trivia are probably because of my story books. Just recently I learned a whole lot about forensics and Asperger’s from House Rules by Jodi Picoult *hintrecommendhint* And every time I go to a bookstore I scan the fiction section first for something I’ve already downloaded and loved. And squeal in glee whenever I find one. And count my money and take it off the rack and buy it.

So there’s a whole lot of truth in what this Doctorow guy is trying to say. Don’t hate them pirates.

And Neil Gaiman, I love you toooo.

I smirk at the stereotypical kampung girl. Batik? Tocang? Please~ XD
And I thought coconut bras were a myth o_O

Video #2:

At first I was like, “not another pseudo-documentary movie….” but 5 minutes in, I was loving it.

So to those who snub certain movies just because they have aliens and conspiracies and whatnot, boo to you. You don’t know what you’re missing. I enjoyed every minute of District 9.

Seems to me I’m going to have to start going to the cinemas alone again

9:55am–

You wake up after about a 5-hour sleep, thinking for several minutes about the dream you just had. You look over to the other side of the room and you are happy to see that your roommate is gone, but the welcomed lonely feeling is ruined by some jack-ass outside who deems it necessary to “rev up” his oversized motor and rattle your windows.

10:45am–

After lying in bed for almost an hour kicking off the day’s daydreaming, you finally decide to get up and go to class. It is your favorite class of the day, although the subject is irrelevant to your interests.

11:00am

You arrive in your first class, and grab a seat in the back where you can see everything. There are only six other students present, and silence fills the room. You feel very much at ease. The teacher begins to lecture, but you quickly lose interest and sink deep into thought. Time moves by like a slug travelling a mile and you learn nothing, but it is still your favorite class.

12:00pm–

With your first class finished, you head for the cafeteria dying for something to eat. You arrive and notice that the cafeteria is almost full and is very noisy, not to mention the line is too long. You decide it is better to starve than to enter such a hellish place. Outside, people are everywhere and there is constant commotion. You decide to seek refuge in the library.

12:09pm–

With almost two hours to kill, you arrive at the library. You climb to the very top floor, and notice it is almost deserted. “Yes!” you think to yourself. You find a remote table in front of a large window, and decide to try and study before your mind drags you into another world.

12:21pm–

Someone arrives and, despite fifty other tables on the floor, decides to sit at the table adjacent to yours. “Why does he do this me? Why!” you think to yourself. “MAN, IT SURE IS COLD OUT THERE!” he says exubertantly. “Yeah.” you mumble in reply. But, your beautiful and powerful mind is quick to conjure up an escape plan. “What time is it?” you ask. “AHHH . . . IT IS ABOUT 12:30″ he answers. “Damn! I am late!” you exclaim as you quickly pack up and leave.

12:25pm–

You find a remote cubicle on the floor below. You actually study over a proudly organized notebook. You spend a few minutes mulling over its vastly thought-out and unique structure, giving you a feeling of accomplishment. Afterwards, your mind drifts away once again. An hour-and-half later, a passer-by breaks your thought, although you act like you didn’t notice her to avoid having to say something. Then you get up and head for your next class.

2:06pm–

The dreaded 2pm class. There are thirty other students in the class, and every desk is full. Luckily, you got there early enough to grab a seat in the back. The instructor is obviously late, and some degenerates front of you are running their mouths without end. One of them suddenly laughs loudly and hysterically, driving you closer and closer towards insanity. You imagine many ways to torment and mutilate them. The thought alone is satisfying. “YOU ARE SO QUIET, YOU KNOW THAT?” the girl sitting next to you suddenly says to you with a smile. You wish you could find the words to explain to her that you actually enjoy thinking more than talking, but you know she will not understand. You nod and return the smile.

2:11pm–

The instructor finally arrives, and the room becomes silent. Then, the instructor delivers some crushing words: “TODAY, WE ARE GOING TO GET INTO GROUPS AND DISCUSS OUR EMOTIONS TOWARDS OTHERS, AS WELL AS HOW WE FEEL ABOUT OURSELVES– WHAT MAKES YOU LOVE, WHAT MAKES YOU SYMPATHIZE, WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL PITY? THEN, WE WILL EACH STAND UP IN FRONT OF THE CLASS AND LET EVERYONE KNOW WHAT WE DISCOVERED.” You begin to tremble. Your mind fights for every possible way out, and, suddenly, you have hope. The instructor is reading the roll and not looking, so you make a quick dash for the door, making it out safely and unnoticed. A zero for the day was never worth so much.

2:20pm–

Your next class not being until 6pm, you head for the computer lab with a feeling of victory– as you had just dodged a pyroclastic cloud from an erupting volcano. Then, some perky blond girl approaches you with a handful of flyers. You consider running, but decide that would be rude, so you decide to hear her out. “HI! MY NAME IS AMY, AND I AM WITH THE STUDENTS FOR A MORE CHRISTIAN SOCIETY! WE ARE HAVING A COOKOUT TONIGHT, AND WE WILL BE SINGING, DANCING, PLAYING GAMES, AND JUST GETTING TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER! IT WILL LOTS AND LOTS OF FUN! EVERYONE IS INVITED, SO I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!” she says, full of excitement. “Thanks!” you say, taking a flyer, although you had quickly decided that there is no way in hell you are going. You wonder if Hell would be much worse. Your mind quickly switches to this pretty blond named Amy, and how enticing it would be to strangle her– to hear her scream! To watch her short, meek, slender body writhe in pain! You mentally tag her for later thoughts.

2:28pm–

You arrive at the computer lab, happy to see it nearly empty. You grab a terminal in the back, and quickly log on. You just love computers. They do the manual labor of your thinking. You look with pride at your huge cache of files, all in order by which ones you edit the most. You dive onto the Internet remembering an interesting topic. You lust endlessly for pages and more pages of information on this topic.

4:49pm–

After running through five search engines worth of pages on your recent topic of interest, the information begins to repeat itself, and you give up. You log on to a chess server, feeling the need to compete. You batter a few novices before a master finally accepts your challenge. The world around you disappears exept the chessboard on the screen, but you end up making a terrible blunder. “WHAT KIND OF MOVE WAS THAT? YOU WENT WAY OUT OF TEXT.” he says, “IF YOU HAD FOLLOWED THE RULES OF THE RETI OPENING, YOU MIGHT HAVE HAD A CHANCE.” the master player says in a message. The eminent defeat and the master player’s words enrage you. You throw your hat off, kick the chair beside you, and pound on the keyboard. You think of many ways to torment and mutilate him before you disconnect without resigning. You know this angers him, which brings a smile from you as you head to your next class.

6:00pm–

You make it just in time, angry you were almost late. Only about ten students are present, and you grab a seat in the back, hoping the teacher doesn’t annoy you by making you move to the front “so you can hear better.” The class is almost three hours long, and you spend the time organizing and writing in a notebook you keep on your subject of interest. About an hour into the class, you hear the professor mention something about communal housing, and what it was like. She says the words “share”, “love”, and “family”(referring to non-relatives) so many times it causes you a mild case of nausea. Share, share share! What a disgusting word!

8:45pm–

You arrive back in your dorm room, glad the day is done. Your roommate is at some party, so you decide to stick around and read. You read a few chapters before your mind starts to drift. You become mentally stimulated, and you stand up and begin to pace back and forth. You are truly in another world– your body is useless, your mind is all that matters now . . .

11:07pm–

Your roommate enters the room with three friends, bringing you back to reality. “WHAT’S UP, MAAAAAAAN!” he says in a most annoying manner. “Not much” you mumble in reply. “HUH?” one of them says. “Not MUCH!” you repeat. “Ummm…I have to go…see ya.” you say as you head out the door. The hallway is booming with stereos at full blast. You make your way outside toward refuge. On the way out, you cannot resist pulling the fire alarm, and you walk solemnly out the door like nothing happened, trying to hold off that evil, sardonic laughter brewing inside of you. Your hallmates come running outside swearing and cursing. Oh, the satisfaction!

12:03am–

You arrive at the only computer lab still open. There is nothing to do, so you looking up random topics of interest and play online trivia. Thoughts of the many ways to torment and mutilate your hallmates are still with you. You invent a new torture.

2:00am–

You head for some remote railroad tracks, and walk along them for hours. You just love this “other side of midnight.” The world is so calm and quiet. You spot the star Vega in the sky, amazed at its distance. However, your mind is now much farther away, somewhere in the next universe. Your feet finally tire, and you get back on the road.

4:45am–

As you are heading back, a girl you vaguely know pulls up alongside you in a small car. “ARE YOU STRANDED OUT HERE?” she asks. “DO YOU WANT A RIDE?” “No…I’m fine” you answer. “HUH?” she asks. “I’m FINE” you answer, slightly louder, trying not to offend. “ARE YOU SURE? IT’S A PRETTY LONG WALK BACK.” she says. “Well, o.k.” you finally answer giving up.

4:58am–

After arriving back, you feel very fatigued. Not from the long walk, but from the nearly ten minutes of a hideous torture known as “small talk.” Your roommate is passed out drunk on his bed. You lay down, you mind finally at equilibrium, with nothing left to ponder except the day’s opposite sex encounters. The sweet, calming thoughts(although violent by most standards) take you into subconsciousness….

Everyone is different, but you are very, very, very different. And you cannot help but love it.

H: Bwahahaha. Exactly.