Today was a damn long day.
8am. Barely could wake up because was out late the previous night. First class was more like a show & tell. Some fella by the name of Simon came to give us a talk on Topical Fluoride and showed us a few market products.
9am. Dr. Hana's lecture. Slow as usual but this time her lecture only had 18 slides. Whew.
10am. Breakfast. 2 eggs + nasi lemak + teh-o-ais
10.30am. Assisted my clinical partner, Vethiah, in examining and diagnosing her patients. Made an appointment with Dr. Rozaidah to do my amalgam filling next week. Just in time for CNY. Won't want be chowing down biscuits and cakes with a temporary filling. =D
1pm. Lunch. Got an sms from Bruce Lee asking me for some zombie killing time. Too bad couldn't go as I had patients in the afternoon.
2pm. First patient came in for complete denture. Quite puzzled as to how to examine the intra-oral stuff because the patient had no teeth at all!!!
3pm. Second patient came in. We were the first group to have two patients for prostho on the same day. Had Joyce Ong as my assistant, since Vethiah had to deal with the other patient.
4.30pm. We took a total of 6 impressions at the end of the day. 3 for upper and lower each. Kept failing. And the impressions were so-so only. Need more practice. Shit. Luckily patient was cooperative enough. He seemed rather relaxed. The whole room was messy like hell though, even though we tried to keep everything organized.
5.30pm. Finished casting the impressions into stone models. Failed miserably. Only 2 jadi at the end of the day. FFFFFFFF!!!!!
6.15pm. Reached home. Good thing was that the internet is back on! Woohoo!
7.00pm. End of post. Reason: Time to head out! TGIF style!
Woohoo...today played paintball with the some juniors and friends! Damn syiok! Didn't kena blasted like mad though. In fact, only scars I got was from crawling in the bushes and slipping and falling down. =.= But perhaps the closest thing to close combat and tactical action imo. Expensive sport though. If only it was cheaper, then you'll probably see me playing regularly dy. Haha.
So Mahsa has did it again. Another timetable change. And this time:
"Next week's holidays are canceled"
#%*@&$! The reason: because the dean says that we are having too much holidays. WTF right? Isn't it abit to late to inform us? As in super late as some of us has already booked our flights & bus tickets back home. Why didn't they realized it earlier? Could have told us initially what? And they said that those who booked tickets are excluded and attendance won't be recorded. Bla bla bla...
Owh wait, forgot that it's Mahsa. Anything can happen. Mahsa boleh what?
And here we are all lost.
Snippet: A cowboy road into town on Friday. He stayed there for two nights and road out on Friday. How is that possible? Scroll to the bottom of the post to find out.
Anyway...it's FRIDAYYYY! End of week. As usual plans galore:
Plan #1: Paintball with super juniors. Somehow kurang sambutan from our class. And also I think the super juniors postponed it. Dunno lah. And I'm suppose to play with Mr. Lau's friends as well sometime soon. So...
Plan #2: Fishing/hiking tomorrow morning. Yes! Plan to be confirmed tonight with the fellas. It's either fishing somewhere at Kuala Selangor or Shah Alam, or a early morning hike up Broga Hill (again...yeah, for the 3rd time) to see the sunrise. Not to mention satay Kajang that comes after that! Woohoo!
Plan #3: Movie tomorrow night. Not sure if am going as well...depending on the morning's plan. This was Min's plan i think. Probably gonna watch Storm Warriors, etc. Somehow, Julian also invited me to watch, so...dilemma. Haha...owh, dunno why Zombieland is only released now in Malaysia. I watched it like many months ago. Emma Stone is just hot!
Plan #4: Tonights plan: shisha. Harvin suggested we try the new place at SS2. Asking Vin Ng and the few other regulars along. Bubblegum flavor sounds nice. lol.
Today was a super long day. Started with Dr. Hana's class. To avoid boredom since she was repeating the same thing she taught during year 2, I ended up YouTubing most of the time on my phone. (Wondering how? I have the password for the level 5 dental wifi! Hahaha!) Watched videos that include how they took impression during the 80s...without gloves somemore. LOL. Connie's class was funny. She laughs like a looney tune cartoon. But all that laughter somehow made Dr. Hana got mad at a few of us. Emo lagi.
Owh, and we had the mentor-menti selected already! And I have William as my mentee, making it easier since some of my notes are with him already and we hang out quite often. Saw the full list...kinda balanced though some partnerships might be a bit 'shocking'...haha.
In the afternoon we all saw a demo on Ruyuan's & Chiew Yee's patient. And we were all shocked at Dr. Hana's pretty rough method on the impression taking. The patient ended up bleeding...to the extend that the blood covered the impression tray and alginate. Yiks. Anyhow, I think we all kept our cool. =p
And we did our impression taking on our partners! And to my horror it does hurt alot if the tray doesn't fit well. So selection of tray...very very important! And the feeling of the alginate coming off your teeth is like having your teeth ripped out...lol. No wonder patients fuss alot.
Plenty of videos and pictures yet to be uploaded. Keep a watch on my FB!
Answer to the snippet: Friday was the name of his horse.
And before I know it, I'm already a more than a month into the 3rd year of my course. Some updates over the past one month:
#1 Things are starting to get very clinical. Which means less theory. Which equals a happier me. Haha...clinicals & practicals are so much cooler than sitting down on a 2 hour lecture. Just got over the practice sessions for anesthesia injections. Guess we're gonna inject on our partners starting next week. Excited? Definitely. Just presented my patient's (partner's) case today. And I found out I am a special case...due to my filling which fell out last weekend because of the crab I ate. And behold a super large & deep cavity now lies. Gonna get my root canal treatment done the coming weeks. After all...its free! =)
#2 Yeap...the dental clinic here provides free treatment to its staff & students. By the way...I need patients! Requirements: Anyone who needs a partial or complete denture! Best of all...its FREE! The university has left us the task of finding our own patient for our prothodontics clinics...so I need a patient who requires a partial or complete denture. So please contact me if you have any friends of relatives who needs a partial or complete denture done!
#3 So we have Super Juniors now. (aka. the 3rd batch students) Got to know a few of them. Pretty cool batch I guess. And our batch was constantly comparing them with the 2nd batch juniors, and how different they were. Sorta more outgoing according to some. Suppose to have an orientation/telematch for them tomorrow...but due to the numerous postponements and problems, we had to cancel it out and replace it with a BBQ party at Ms. Tan's house.
#4 Just some pictures from the activities away from class:
Went camping in the jungle. Rained whole day and night long. Had a cozy campfire. Our beer got swept away. Had shisha there as well. Bathe in the river. Pure fun. We lived like jungle people.
This was 2 weeks ago. Went to the lookout point at Ampang. Became some sort of tradition already, having to visit this place each year of our course with coursemates. Haha.
Last weekends trip to Pulau Ketam. 2nd time there but with a bigger group and bigger incidents. A bike which fell into the river, and 1 of us fell through the wooden planks and another through the unstable concrete. Yiks!
Besides that, there's plenty of those many makan, yamcha, movie and outings sessions which made our bonds closer...and kept the fun going on! Keep it up fellas!
#5 There seems to be some class politics going on...from the few sources I obtained. Haha. Well nothing major so far. We have the MNG earlier...but now I guess we have to add another letter. Won't type it here because it would be rather obvious. (you know I know cukupla).
#6. Things of the simplest of matter are bothering me lately. Don't know why. Getting emo. Maybe because everyone is emo. Or maybe I've been listening too much of emo songs. LOL.
#7 Moving in to a new place next month. Not really new as in new house. It's more like the next block, and a few floors down. Unfurnished however, so I'm guessing I'm gonna have to furnish it myself. But still I like the place I'm staying at. There's a pool & gym downstairs. A mamak nearby for supper, shisha & football nights. Plus 1u is just 5 minutes away by car. Due to this new place, I'm on quite a tight budget, besides having to buy the many mahal books. Not to mention I need a wardrobe change because of the lack of formal clothes. =p
#8 A classmate of mine was seen weeping over personal remarks made by a lecturer who didn't saw the severity of it coming. I guess shit like that happens; examples aplenty. We tend to over react with but not know it. "Even the fish wouldn't get into trouble if it kept it's mouth shut"
#9 The PTPTN story continues. I missed it again. What the heck! Next submission date as I was told: January next year. Uni ppl say they told us...but we didn't get any notice or whatsoever. And they told me to check with the PTPTN officer in charge...who in turn told me to wait till the uni inform...which I know that they never will. Had my mom 'shoot rockets' at them...and me as well. And I believed the super juniors missed it as well. Another boleh for the university.
#10 On a different note, I wonder how the university gets to hire all those geng but weird lecturers to teach us. Or maybe we just too jakun, amazed by the lecturers achievement and stuff. The general medicine lecturer is a Dato' who earns rm300 per hour. And he was once the private practitioner to Tun Hussein Onn! @@. His brother, another doctor teaching us general surgery, has a special job of screening the F1 drivers before they are deemed fit for the F1 race at Sepang. Also damn weird. And the new oral pathology lecturer, according to the dean: 'the person to look for if you wana learn oral pathology', keeps laughing hysterically and compares the oral pathology to American missionaries and guerrilla troops. Damn weird and amusing, but damn experienced. Heh.
#11 Suddenly active in sports back again. Played badminton for 2 days this week alone. Yesterday played 4 hour sessions somemore. Can die. lol. Waiting to plan the next hiking trip with Kien Yee.
#12 Random: I like the morning rain. Please rain more in the morning.
*Waoooooooooooooo...1st day at hospital suppose to be a nice leh...but...*
We (group C & D) had our first trip to the hospital (Hospital Umum Kuala Lumpur) for classes earlier today which ended up somewhat chaotic however, mainly due to the improper planning and arrangement by the university. Biasalah...
So we people were told to wake up early and wait for the transport to fetch us up from the Esso petrol station @ Jalan Kasah by 7.15am.
And so we dragged our lazy bums over there, and ended up waiting till 8am for the bus to come and fetch us. And our classes was suppose to start over at the hospital at 8am. Bo pien lo, call lecturer and tell him we were late.
The past 1 month break in short:
Snippet: Local film director, Yasmin Ahmad (of the Sepet fame) suffered a stroke earlier this evening and is placed under ICU at the moment. More here: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/7/23/nation/20090723163731&sec=nation)
Been awhile I've updated with some actual blogging. Random picture spams and micro-blogging through Twitter has somewhat taken over. Anyway...
1) The haze is back and getting worse. Since I got back here after my holiday break last Sunday, it has been hazy nearly every day. Heck, another reason to wear those flu masks? Owh, and Malaysia has recorded it's first H1N1 death, although the deceased died to due other complications arising from the deadly flu.
2) The dean of our faculty together with a few 'bigshots' of the university called for a meeting with the parents last Sunday. On such short notice, many could not make it. The purpose: To get our opinion and votes in changing our course degree. It was proposed (actually, this was planned long time ago according to some) that 5+0 Mahsa/Trisakti DDS programme is to be changed to Mahsa University College DDS programme. Meaning, the Trisakti & Indonesia part is striked out.
So I wasnt there, but from what I heard, the 'bigshots' were going pro Mahsa all the way, to the extend that they could offer it better here. And those present were required to summit the votes on that day itself, either to stick with the Mahsa/Trisakti DDS programme or the full Mahsa DDS programme. After some debate, with some parents requiring time to consider, they gave us a few days time. But in actual fact, nothing could be done as it was rumored that the contract with Trisakti had already been terminated and the parents opinion/voting thingy was just a showface gimmick.
3) The following day, Monday, another meeting was held for those not present on Sunday. And they passed us these forms for us to agree or disagree on the change.
However, one check at the form and you'll find that there is no 'Disagree' option to strike out. In a way, it was sort of indirectly forcing us to sign the agreement.
Attention all DDS mates:
1) From Harvin's blog:" Someone's thumb drive in our class is actually affected with a worm. To be exact,Its a W32/Forbot-J Spyware Worm which will allows others to access the computer, the worm itself steals information, reduces system security and it installs itself in the windows registry".
For more info and how to remove it, click HERE. (it'll link you to Harvin's blog). Thanks to Harvin for the notification!
2) I have a friend whose cousin brother is working with keywords from google to generate revenue and his latest project would be to start up a dental related informative website targeted at layman.
He is looking for dental students to write articles for this website and the students will be paid from RM20-Rm100 per article, depending on the length.
It is a freelance job. :)
Interested parties can contact me or jolenelai@gmail.com.
So...here's the so-called epic PTPTN loan story which had me waiting for nearly a year to try get the loan, and till today, has failed. =(
1 year + ago
The university, MAHSA, told us that PTPTN loan officers were coming and those who wanted to apply were told to get ready a few things before that, eg. parents pay slip, bank account at CIMB, SSPN account, etc.
The day the officers arrived, we were briefed and had to fill forms. Everything went smoothly. Nearly 2/3s of the class applied, with high hopes of getting it.
And that was the start of the never-ending problems...
Few weeks after summiting the application forms
The list of successful applicants were published. Horror was on our faces when we found out that only a handful of those whom applied got the loan. Mainly, those who did STPM, the government matriculation & A-Levels. The rest of us, including myself, who did other foundation programs like Aimst & CPU, failed to obtain the 100k loan. And we were left clueless.
An inquiry to the department was made and shockingly, we found out that other foundation programs weren't yet approved due to complications between our university and the PTPTN department. The very reasons of that still remains unclear until today. And to think that we were told earlier that our PTPTN loan will be settled by the university, was all bull-crap.
So, the 'rejected' bunch of us including Harvin, Joyce Ng, Vincent Gan, Vincent Ng and a few others who did the other foundations we made to wait till this issue is to be resolved.
We just had to wait for our university to inform us. And we waited...for months & months. We filled many inquiries and waited for notices to be pasted. The answer was usually: "Wait, we will inform you people" You people You people You people...
So, whenever the university called us demanding for our fees, we just shot back at them, saying our loan hasn't been settled.
October 2008
Our first year ended, and this was during our year end break. I found out that the PTPTN loan can be applied online. After much persuasion by my mom, I filled in my details online and had the application approved...virtually.
By then...the loan had dropped 10k. (100k for 10 semesters. With each semester gone by, the loan drops by 10k)
Finding out the loan was approved, I was initially happy that all we needed to do was just summit the printed forms to the PTPTN office, wait for the confirmation and that was the end of it.
But I was wrong.
When classes resumed, Harvin, Vinc G, Joyce Ng & myself went to summit the forms directly to the PTPTN office somewhere near our university.
And we were told that it has to go through the university.
And when we wanted to summit it through the university, we were again told by the department to wait for the PTPTN officers to drop by the uni.
Back to the waiting, and totally frustrated. not knowing that the issue was gonna get worse months later.
Early 2009
We were informed one day that the officers from PTPTN would be coming over in the next few days to verify and collect our documents.
It was on such short notice that we had to rush to get our certs and documents reverified because they had changed a few regulations. To get them certified, we had to go through the college. The biggest problem was waiting for our result slip which was delayed for months due to reasons again yet to be identified. We need the results slip as we were applying from the 2nd year onwards, thus requiring our year one results.
The many reasons were were told: our dean undergoing surgery, the Indonesia university had to recheck the exam slips, the Indonesian dean was away and couldn't sign the result slips - our course is sort of twinned with an Indon university.
Owh, there was this one lady working with the uni admission department who frustrated us so many times. She told us that we couldn't get different witnesses for our certs. Our certificates weren't complete lah. This lah, that lah. Damn tulan.
And when we did get the documents done in time, we were told that they had postponed the session.
Harvin made a few desperate phone calls directly to the management, even to the point where his dad had to come over a few times to resolve the issue. (Thanks for representing us btw Harv.)Yet, it was back to that four letter word: Wait. And, every time we were told that, we had our four letter word F**k coming out from our mouths.
March 2009
Eventually, the officers came. We went to summit...and got rejected the second time.
This time the issue was: "Mahsa has yet to obtain the verification that the university accepts students other than those from STPM & government matriculation to enter the dentistry course
Ridiculous? It's sort of telling us that we were immigrants...unofficial students of this course, and we were taken in without the proper papers.
It was rumored that the university lost the black & white documents and had to reapply them with PTPTN.
We were told to wait for Mahsa to obtain the verification papers and come again when they drop by next time.
...
A special briefing was held few weeks later regarding this issue. And a huge bomb was dropped on our heads:
"The university has gotten the verification. (we were shown the verification letter.) So you people can reapply when the officers come sometime in June this year. However, since most of you had applied during the 2nd year and not obtain the full loan, we can still help you obtain it. By printing a new offer letter for you people, we will change your date of admission into this course, making you starting the course this year. So who wants to change their offer letter please write down your name...etc."
WTF?! Wait there's more...
"But there is gonna a problem; by the time you people graduate later, the university only receive the payment from PTPTN for 4 years because of the change in the admission date. Therefore, you people certificate we cannot release until you have made the full 5 years payment. So kena tunggu 1 tahun untuk PTPTN bank in duit boleh dapat certificate." Which is to say wait another year for the cert or use your own money and pay the balance and get the cert.
Dilemma I tell you. F*** dilemma that time.
In the end Harvin, Vinc. G., Joyce & I decided not to change ours.
June 2009
2 days ago - The dean's secretary announced that PTPTN officers is having a session right this very moment. We were all stunned. Non of us brought along our documents because of such short notice that the PTPTN officers were here.However, our classmate, Mr. Mike, found out through the notice stuck at the admin block of the university. He only told his close friends, the rest of us only found out during the announcement.
He is slowly adding new enemies to his name.
The good news is PTPTN will be here the next day and the following day. The bad news, on both days, we are at different campuses and wont be meeting them except today.
1 day ago - We were suddenly told that those who didn't change their offer letter previously had to obtain a letter of notification from stating that we were students of the university.
Luckily Harvin was there to help us with the letter. He rushed to the other campus just to catch the briefing.
Today - 5 of us skipped the last class hoping to catch the PTPTN session. The surviving 4 of us plus Vinc. Ng who just got his documents ready yesterday and hadn't complete them.
We reached the other campus at 12.15 but was told to come back at 2.30pm, after the break.
Typical of them...
We finally caught up with the officers...but was delivered one final but deadly blow.
Vinc. Gan had his rejected because he required a letter from our foundation (Aimst) stating we completed our course there.
I encountered the same problem as well because we were from the same foundation course. (In the end, Vincent got approved because he had a copy of the statement at home and he had his dad fax it over. I called Aimst but was required to write in to obtain it. ****)
Harvin had his rejected because he had a C in a subject during his foundation. I feel bad for him after all this waiting and rushing.
Joyce had hers rejected as well because she did Biology for her 2nd semester only during her foundation, not throughout her whole course.
A few of our juniors had theirs rejected because of the lack of the foundation letter from other colleges.
Vinc. Ng however had his approved. I have to give in to him. Managed to complete, forge and check his documents all on the spot and send it in. He is a living proof of last minute work'.
None of us were told any of this before. Not by the college or PTPTN. Even the PTPTN officers pitied all of us. So much so for all the waiting.
So for the time being
I have to wait till the next session which is in September to reapply. My documents were complete but because of that one letter.
I bet you are already confused after reading this post. What say me? FML.
Day 3
After the previous night's alcohol session, we were all struggling to get up early for the sunrise. But we managed to pull our lazy butts and head down to the beach. It was rewarding as this time, the skies were very nice.
This blog officially represents the thoughts in my head. All rights reserved 2007-2008
