went for the essay and psychometric test today at nus for medicine.

the topic went something like this:

students are so preoccupied with admittance into the faculty of medicine that they disregard the developement of their personal attributes that can help them in the sustanance of their career in this field. Disucss with relevant emaples from your own experiences and observations.

needless to say that this is one heck of a question and i was overwhelmed at first, but managed to push through after reading it another couple of times. wrote a fairly decent essay and i hope that it's up to scratch.

the psychometric test was easy. it was just some sort of personality test which i did when i was at the teaching scholarship thingy. it was almost exactly the same.

it was really kinda intimidating over there at nus. 630 plus shortlisted and only a third of us will actually get to study medicine. plus a majority of them are from colleges like raffles, victoria, hwa chong.... to say that its tough would be an understatement.

man oh man, the pressure is mounting.

got a letter from nus some time mid this week. i have been short-listed by the faculty of medicine to take the tests and to go for the interviews. needless to say i'm thrilled. the first step is done. now everything is riding on the tests, the two interviews and my portfolio, which i have to prepare asap.

the moe teaching scholarship people also contacted me yesterday and they want me to come down for an interview. so yea i have to put up with another interview, which means i have to be all prim and disgustigly proper. anyone who knows me well enough wuld know that i totally detest dressing up, especially in formal wear. its just not me.

also, i have been selected to be valedictorian for tpjc's 2003/2004 cohort. dont get me wrong, i'm genuinely pleased and honoured but i have to give a speech. i represent the whole cohort for goodness sakes. its a huge responsibility and well i dont wanna screw this up.

so yea, alot will be going on these upcoming weeks. hope that all of it goes well.

went to see the specialist today at cgh, and boy did i get news.

after furiously playing around with my knee area (i mean this guy was just reckless. i told him to take it down a notch cause it hurt but he just told me to relax. sheesh... that's as good as telling me to relax while a hyena's just chomping down on my flesh) and a more detailed x-ray, he came to this conclusion:

my left patella (knee bone) is slightly tilted due to irregular muscle formation around that area. and because of this displacement, the bone is resting on my tendons causing pain whenever i bend it or do anything that requires my knee to bend like running, sitting cross-legged, marching and sometimes walking.

and get this, if physiotherapy doesnt make this better i might have to go for corrective surgery or risk this problem getting worse and have difficulty doing lower limb stuff for a really long time.

when he told me this i couldnt believe it. here i was just thinking that it was some tendon sore or something and there he is telling me that i might have to be cut open. even thinking about it makes me sick.

and again when he saw my mouth hanging with shock he told me to (surprise surprise) relax, and that its not serious.
the hyena's gnawing again...

went to watch the eye 10 yesterday with sis and bro.
the show is, even though this is going to so against its genre, totally hilarious.

from the start, where monks, who are really bad actors by the way, got lapped up by a possessed girl's tongue to spirits engaging in a breakdancing showdown. if youre looking for a horror show that's not scary (for god knows what reason) you can catch this one.

went to kinonuniya today after dropping by beach road to get some army shit for the navigation course. needless to say, i took a cab. well you cant really blame me, i need all the comfort i can get man. anyways, i got this really intersting cab driver.

and i mean interesting.

at first he was just politely chatting with me, telling me that he was a recently retired enginner who's just taking up driving part time to pass the time. he told me about his children who are both scholars and one a pilot for the armed forces. but the conversation soon turned, quite suddenly, into the realm of the weird as we were driving up north bridge road.

he also mention, a little too freely than i would have liked, that he drove part time also to gander at women's legs and asses (affectionally calling them chicken legs and thighs). i just laughed, partly because i had no idea how to react to that or even why the hell he had to tell me.

if you think thats bad, just hold on to your chair cause its about to get a little bit freakier.

next he went on to tell me that he has just completed a 6-year project it myanmar where he was payed a fairly huge sum of US$12,000 monthly. he also proceeded to tell me that he had a rather attractive secretary and soon we were discussing, or rather, he was blatantly and shamelessly telling me about his active sex life.

apparently he invites his secretary to stay with him and they do lotsa stuff together; from the mundane (like cooking and cleaning) to the exciting (bathing and well just plain fornicating). also, i was told that he did it 3 to 4 times a week and that he 'couldnt catch up', that he was 'too tired' and that his second 'unofficial wife' (as he calls her) was very 'energetic and active'.

i was floored.

he plans to go back to visit her in 2 months time, and i'm guessing that he's not going away on business. plus if youre wondering where his real wife is in all of this, well she's alive and according to him if she found out it'll 'not be nice'.

well duh, you think?

we're talking about a 55 year old man who is having an affair with a 26 (yes i even know the age. this man was preety detailed) woman from myanmar. he calls her his second wife and has sex with her with no guilt. he can even reiterate everything over to a total stranger, aka yours truly in this totally unfortunate case, and smile and be happy about it as if he's gloating.

if he said, 'yea man! i so scored with this chick from myanmar. i bone her like 3-4 times a week man. i totally hit the big one dude!' it'll sound almost the same.

i was very disturbed, so disturbed that went i finally got out of the porno-ride of a cab, i just stood stunned by the sidewalk for like a good 30 seconds thinking, okay what the hell was that about?

he's a sick sick man. well not sick as in mental but just sick. how can he do this? throughout the whole painful journey, all i could do was laugh and just be polite. strange isnt it? i was polite to a guy that's telling me he did his secretary for 6 years, 3-4 times a week. but seriously what could i have said?

if all was without consequence, i would have questioned his actions and asked if he felt any guilt. but then again if all was without consequence, then there would be nothing wrong with what he did now would it?

still its just wrong. think about all the people you hurt in the process. its so not worth it. the more i think about it the more i get ticked with the guy and the more i feel depressed with humanity. we're really a sick sad bunch. we may look totally normal and have normal jobs, like a teacher, or a policeman, a simple housewife or even a taxi driver, but behind the scenes, who knows what we really are.

i guess humans are like that. we are always who people never expect us to be. always something different altogether. and we never really consider the fact that we may hurt others in the process. we're just really selfish at times. kinda sad for an intelligent species isnt it?

ah well, just a word of caution before i end. this sex manic drives a yellow and back taxi. i dont really remember the lisence plate number, but just stay away from cabbies like that, you hear?

unless of course you're interested in porno-on-wheels.