these roads are lonely roads

I often pride myself on choosing to go down the roads less taken, but the inescapable reality of my choices is that I walk alone.

I miss you guys already ):

but this isn't a dream

Somehow the days over here seem to pass by very fast. It feels a little like I'm just floating along with no real purpose. Or at best, tiny goals for each day - buy groceries for dinner, do the laundry, reply people on fb, finish my noticeboard, exercise, meet up with a group of friends at least once. I guess it's a huge change from life back in Sg, having to juggle so many responsibilities all of a sudden is tough and I wonder how I'm gonna be able to slot mugging back into my schedule along with all these other things. And I wonder if I'm ever gonna be able to go back to maintaining that same level of discipline with my work once school starts. It's a struggle too, having to keep up a social life, making decisions on which activities to go for, figuring out who are the people i can be honest with, and having to bother about what people think of me. Starting over just isn't easy.

I'm really blessed with some great new friends though, who watch out for me and are really awesome to hang out with. And slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of cooking and washing and all that (: Now I just need to master the art of doing all that quicklyy so I have time to study :/ Heh. So mmm. Lots to be thankful for actually (:

post-dated (part 1)

It's been 2 days since we landed, but everything's still so surreal - I still feel as though I'm on holiday even though I've spent the past two days unpacking, buying household goods, shopping for groceries, and walking 40 min to town and back because transport is so expensive ): I guess I haven't really gotten used to the thought that this room, this kitchen, this student house - this is my new home. Perhaps having my mom around is contributing to this whole holiday feel. Hopefully I don't die from shock when she leaves :/ I'm quite excited to find out who my neighbours are though! I hope they're nice. It's quite lonely being the only person in the flat...thank goodness for my mom, if not the silence would be unbearable.

Though my back's aching from carrying all those groceries around in my backpack, and my legs are sore and my feet keep cramping, I'm really happy and satisfied for all we've accomplished in these 2 days. And thankful too! God has been really good to me. For one, I was really touched by the people who came to see me off. It meant a lot to me to be able to see them one last time before I left, to know that no matter what happens over here in London, no matter how lonely or marginalised or stressed out I might feel, I'd always have these people supporting me. Reading the cards and gifts made me realise how blessed I am to have all these amazing, thoughtful, loving people as friends. So to those of you reading this now, THANK YOU (: I LOVE YOU TO BITS AND I'M GONNA MISS YOU LOADS. Sorry for stealing your mugging/sleeping/slacking time and thank you for coming alllll the way down to send me off!!! And for all the thoughtfulness and effort that went into each gift, thank you again !!! I promise to pay you back with Percy Pigs. Heh (:

The flight was really good too, I managed to sleep and still had time for Chloe, The Joneses and Sex and the City 2. Food and drinks were quite sucky though haha. Customs was a breeze didn't have to open up my luggage (carried my stupid A3 X-Ray for nothing though -.-), no luggage lost, found the taxi man, and arrived at James Lighthill just in time for checking in. && because I took a night flight, I arrived in London in the morning so my sleep cycle didn't get screwed up! :D Plus because I'm moving in early, I got allocated the first room in my flat, which is the corner room. Which means it's super duper big in comparison to the other rooms (: Praise the Lord right!!!! (((: Hee. The rest of the day was really frustrating though - my mom and I are terrible with directions so we kept getting lost and having to walk all over the place, and it didn't help that we were carrying loads of household things and that my mom was having gastric pains and that she decided to leave me to navigate/ask random people for help/make all the decisions to prove that I could be independent. Pfft. But at least after all that walking I'm a bit more familiar with my extremely ulu area.

Today was much better, cos we only got lost once (which found us in Oxford Street, so not too bad a detour :P) and we managed to get a wholeee lot of useful stuff from Argos and Tesco Metro (which was a godsend, thank goodness I spotted it cos apparently it's the best Tesco in town and has everything!). And snacks from M&S. Hehe. (: So in just two days, my mom and I managed to get a shoe rack (self-assembled so proud of myself!!), desk light, water filter, hand-held vacuum, iron + mini ironing board, pillows and a duvet, laundry hamper, andd a lot of random stuff like over the door hooks and toilet paper (which are SUPER OVERPRICED BTW) (: && I collected a whole bunch of cooking stuff from my sis's friend which really saved us a lot of $$. Stuff in London is really freaking ex ): Like, 10 plastic hangers for S$11!?!!! I didn't buy those btw - kinda figured I could live with folded clothes. Cooked my first home-cooked dinner too! Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce and sesame oil and dried garlic can do wonders to your vegetables man. The Chinese way of cooking is really the best (:

So here I am at my laptop after two long, exhausting, but incredibly satisfying days. Things are going well, the weather here is great, and now I'm just looking forward to meeting my neighbours and enrolling and getting used to being a student again and INTERNET. Yay (:

KMN

Sometimes, life throws you a whole bunch of shit and you just have to deal with it. What makes it worse is knowing that you could have avoided all that shit, and that now that it's come and hit you, there's nothing you can do about it.

I guess the only thing left to do is wait for things go back to being right (I'm hoping they do eventually!?), and try to be happy.

Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts.

Thank God in all circumstances...so thank you God that things aren't any worse than they are now. Sigh.

Survival Guide to Studying Overseas

Here's a little bit of genius that came to me when I went running at night:

1. If you're lonely, study.
2. If you're bored, exercise.
3. If you're hungry, sleep.

There. Now I'm all set to win at life. (: Hahaha.
-----
I came to the conclusion that of late, my life has been revolving around waiting.

Waiting for the next lunch/dinner date, waiting for work to end, waiting for UCL to reply me regarding accommodation and health clearance, waiting for them to issue my visa letter so I can FINALLY apply for a visa and embrace more waiting, waiting for MPS to give me my lameass professional indemnity insurance, waiting for NUS med classes to start.

Waiting for daniel to book out.
Waiting for UCL med booklist. Waiting for uni to come and hit me in the face. Waiting to start the intense mugging and have some goal in life.
Waiting for me to stop slacking and create another to-do list.

God I love to-do lists.

forever God is faithful

Today was good, and so were the days that led up to it. I've never seen so clearly God's hand in charting my path, but today I did. And for that period of time after I made the call to my scholarship officer and got the news that my appeal had been successful, the knowledge of His goodness His sovereignty and his mercy just overwhelmed me and I sat there and cried. It wasn't joy that hit me first, neither was it the thought 'I did it!!'. It was a profound understanding of God's love for me, and thanksgiving and praise just bubbled up in my heart. It was such a warm feeling (:

It's so so amazing how God works. In retrospect it's so clear to see that He was there guiding me every step of the way. And I now know that He had to first drive me to the point of desperation, of begging him day after day to work a miracle in my life, before I could fully appreciate his hand in all of this. He taught me that I had to submit myself completely to his will, even if my will wasn't in tandem with his. And now I can testify that His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9), and his ways are perfect.

When I first went for the A*STAR MBBS interview I didn't really know what I wanted. I didn't have any conviction about why I wanted to be a clinician scientist; only ideas and pieces of information amassed from seniors. And without a doubt, if I'd gotten the MBBS scholarship after just one try, I wouldn't have treasured it as much. I'd have gone away taking God for granted, thinking that I had done it (mostly) on my own. Perhaps that's why I was barely affected when I found out I'd been offered the BSc scholarship and not the MBBS one. I thought then, that God was leading me to purely research, and that the ambivalence I was feeling was peace. A calmness that came from knowing that God was in control. And for a while I was content with the way things were (or rather, lazy to do anything else to change it, and had given up trying for the impossible).

If I wanted to do research, then studying biology in US was the obvious choice. And so I set my sights on U(C)SD. But nope God obviously thought otherwise, and just when I'd decided to sail off to San Diego come August, my sis found out that I'd enrolled myself in the wrong school. ): Another dead end, more panic and stress, and I questioned God. Why why why, just when I'd convinced myself, just when I was all set to go. But indeed it was more than a cruel joke or God having a lousy sense of humour.

I'd no choice but to reconsider UCL biomedical sciences, and for the longest time ever I was convinced that okay, this is it. This is where God must want me to go. But on hindsight it was actually just me being rebellious and wild at heart. I didn't mind being shortchanged (biomed < med) in exchange for the opportunity to study overseas and be freeee. I just wanted to see the world and I didn't care much about what I'd be leaving behind. I didn't want to deal with the burden of deciding all over again if I got accepted into NUS Med.

Meanwhile, God was at work not just in my uni apps, but also in helping me realise what I wanted to do as a career. When I was desperately applying for hospital attachments in an attempt to boost my CV, I was rejected by all three hospitals I wrote to and I thought, okay I'm so screwed. But God had prepared someone specifically for me, my dad's old friend, an orthopaedic surgeon specialising in osteosarcomas. I got quite a bad impression of hospital politics and was kinda deterred from doing medicine locally, plus I realised how limited the help a doctor can give is. But it wasn't a bad thing, because the experience helped me see what I liked/disliked about medicine. The next best thing that happened was A*STAR. I managed to get an attachment with a post-doc without even knowing much about her research area, and it was only when I started work with her that I realised how exciting translational research is. It so happened that she's working on bone regeneration, which is the one of the biggest problems faced in treating osteosarcomas. So it was like all the answers to the doctor's problems could be found in the lab! Which is so damn exciting. ((: And I believe God had it all planned this way, to have my attachments with these two people in this specific order, so that I could find my passion. He planned it all down to the smallest detail! Isn't it so amazing (: hehe.

Back to uni apps, when I got accepted into NUS med there was a whole new problem because I still wanted to go overseas at all costs, whereas my mom and sis felt I should stay. Being accepted by NUS med also gave me a second chance to appeal to A*STAR for the medicine scholarship. So all that amounted to another week of tension, useless tears and sleepless nights.

But thank God all that is over (: I wondered why God had to put me through that extra week of waiting and tension in my family if he was going to give me the medicine scholarship anyway. But as my dad said, it's not just the end result that matters. The family discussions, the meal time and in-the-car prayers, the late-night confessions and heart-to-heart talks..all that mattered. Because they were with people who loved and cared about me enough to talk to me about what they thought was best for me. And I've never felt so close to God before. All the alone time I had, I spent it having conversations with him. And for once, there wasn't a single moment I felt lonely, because he was (and still is) everything I needed.

For the people who actually bothered reading through all that, I hope it encourages you to know that our God is a God who knows us through and through - our deepest desires, our fears, our needs. And if we seek him earnestly and entrust our future into his hands, he will give us what he knows is best for us.

No more standing at the crossroads; all that is over for now. I know another long road lies ahead (and long is such an understatement :/), but I know I'll have Him beside me every step of the way, and the people I love in my heart. Yay (:

I thought I would be certain of at least one thing by now. This is getting unbearably frustrating.

I need answers. And I need to find myself again.

what

does it matter does it matter does it matter does it matter!!! sigh.

Nghhhh I really think a lack of thinking is causing my brain to degenerate. Most of the time my mind is blank. Either that, or phrases pop into my mind and repeat themselves over and over again and make me tear up for no good reason.

Lack of thinking = loss of reason = heightened emotions = ...very emotional female?

Haha ahhh well. Things to settle! Date the girls, get a new phone & a new phone plan, decide on my life plan, exercise, prepare for my grandma's birthday item, read watch tv read read...

Mug for university? That might work.

through emerald courts and sapphire skies

It's only hit me of late how amazing God's been to me, and how the last thing I should be doing is feeling upset with myself or life.

But because it's late, my legs hurt from all the walking (sorry not army-trained), and my eyes are closing, thisss is gonna be short!

Thank God for helping my friends through their medicine interviews especially clement&jlee good job you guys!! Hearing you two share really encouraged me (: even though my interviews of late haven't been that great, but yup I guess God has his sovereign plan for each and every one of us! Thank God also for opening AND closing doors, and guiding me to make my decision. Also for my scholarship which I must never never take for granted, and my SGH doctor who is actually getting nicer and slacker! & for you (: for being the amazing amazing irreplaceable person that you are.

<3

nomnomnom part II

It is 1.20 am and I'm up editing a TOK presentation. I think my brain hasn't felt so happy in a long time (:

Today's essay test was quite fun too! I realised how much I missed planning an essay and scribbling words furiously down to the last second. Exams are so exciting! I miss them (:

I guess I really am a mugger after all. Hee. (:

i wish it were all clearer.

too afraid to make a mistake...
and far too unwilling to leave.

more than ever

..<3 (:

the most annoying thing

about interviews, is that the parts that you answered well don't really impact the interviewers as much as the parts where you got owned by them. Get owned for not knowing about one issue, and the interviewer goes away thinking you're poorly read.

):

The second most annoying thing about interviews (actually this kindof on par with the first), is when you know you could have answered a simple question perfectly well but somehow, at that one point in time, THE ANSWER EVADES YOUR FEAR-STRICKEN BRAIN!!! The feeling when you walk out of the interview wondering why you failed to engage the interviewer in an intellectual discussion about something you had clearly spent time reading up about and formulating your stand on and actually had a chance at bringing up during the interview is terrible. You feel..low down and ornery ): Like a certain white boy on a raft.

The third most annoying thing is when you prepare for AMD HOTA PAS EUTHANASIA AVIAN INFLUENZA HFMD HIV DIABETES DENGUE H1N1 GENETIC TESTING 3MS BARACKOBAMA'SHEALTHCAREREFORMS NHS and none of it comes out during your interview but everyone else gets asked about it!!!!

Finally, the fouth most annoying thing is when interviewers ask you a question, then look down at their lap and subsequently proceed to frown at their laps while you're talking.


Apart from all that, I'm happy to say the NUS interviews went fine. (:

Thanks to all the people who smsed me!! Your smses were much appreciated(: Sorry if I didn't reply though! Promise I'll start replying people once my phone plan gets upgraded on 26 April. Hopefully with a new phone ^^

the good life

Now that I've cleared pretty much all of my duties for teaching, life is kindaa..good. In the self-indulgent insulated lots-of-me-time way. Have been running on most mornings (more to make up for the extra eating the past week than anything else), spending my free time reading, shopping around, daydreaming.. Well my brain is pretty much stagnating; merely absorbing information but not really processing. And I've become strangely addicted to chocolate..am halfway through three different boxes of chocolate. Yes I know I'm so disgusting ): The worst thing is that I keep eating them at night. Sigh kill me nowww.

thank you maaadam goodbye maaadam have a nice day maadam we'll miss you maadamm!

I swear I attract the weirdest of people to me..
danielyeeee come back quicklyy I have the bestest stories to tell you!!! Quickquick before I forget all of them!! (:

Today was great (: Despite the fact that now I have a HUGEE bag of things to mark and a whole lot of paperwork to clear up, 304 totally made my day with their surprise ((: They're such a wonderful bunch, those guys (: I think teaching that class has made my teaching experience so worthwhile and enjoyable yayy (: 308 was so cute too, refusing to leave the lab because it was their last lesson with me haha.

My present from 304! :D


Tissues in case I cry, domo speakers to match my domo pencilbox, percy pigs and a giant card (: and one of the naughtier boys got a pretty card for me thanking me for always being patient with him, and I was so encouraged!! ((: Making an impact on someone's life is really an awesome feeling. & despite all my complaining and ranting, I'm glad God put me here for a term (:

On another note, haha still deciding whether to accept their fb requests hmmm..


Well it would be lying to say I don't get a kick out of having guys shout 'DEBBIE GOH IS HOT!' and 'DEBBIE GOH IS SEXY!' down the corridors hahaha. The downside is just the annoying (and currently heartbroken) kids with crushes on you and who stalk you after class and email you incessantly. Any advice on how to deal with them without scarring them for life?

For now, back to counting down the hours till someone's back (:

skrooooo

shit mannnn. ); i hate thumbdrives that selfdestruct with your teaching powerpoints still in them )):
belle and sebastian you shall be my companion for tonight.

from mugging to marking. oh, they even sound alike! must be fate.

am going to turn diabetic at the rate i'm eating sweets to stay awake...:/

174 scripts and a couple of nights

you know you're falling asleep marking when you write 'axes reversed' as 'axes reserved' ):

what in the world

life sucks take drugs.
seriously overworked ): i feel like i'm sucked into the system or something; school is starting to rule my life. i realised most days i don't have time to check my gmail (for non-school matters), or eat, or do my QT. unbelievable.

on a slightly happier note..on to final round of A*STAR interviews. 1 minute of joy.

i'm scared, but

"Many are the plans in a man's heart,
but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
Proverbs 19:21