Buffetting : I'm Free

For very complex reasons that I took up the torch as the president of the Equestrian Club on 13th May 2014, and today I'm finally stepping down.

Progressing from preclinical years to clinical years, I can feel the toll of clubs on my studies and responsibilities and a vet student significantly this semester.

One of the main reasons I took up the club was to steer myself away from the pain when T broke up with me on 13th of May, leading to my impulse acceptance of the position. I can't believe I was able to smile like the picture above on that day T decided to break up with me. Pretty tough I guess.

Another reason was, me being me trying to have another stage or spotlight I guess.

Stubby said I was just being me. I just don't reject people. I will just burn myself out and still do what people ask me to do, in this case the president of the club. I have yet to know the concrete reason I did this, because I simply don't get anything except more wrinkles and HR management experience from managing this club.

At any rate, I stepped down tonight, and time for me to focus more on my body and studies. Body before the studies, for sure this time round.

Buffetting : No breather

I was hoping I could post on Day 2 of Kyoto but no avail even during the mid semester break. So much is going on right now and I literally have to slash of all these before the long post comes:

1- Annual General Meeting for Equestrian Club 2015
2- Radiology Test 2
3- Surgery Test 2
4- Clinical Pathology Test 2
5- Clinical Skill Test 2
6- Pathology Test 2
7- WSAVA Conference in Bangkok

Gosh there is REALLY a lot going on!

On the side note, surgery went well with my great team mates! I couldn't have done better without anyone of them; or other coursemates for that matter! They were literally MY angels in the OT!

On another note, housing loans and legalities are now finally done! Time to plan for a new house renovation soon to move in next semester, in my own house.

Buffetting : Ending 2014

I'd figure I should do this now and get back to my finals cramming before the 4.0 just fly out of my lap.

2014, has been a long year. I think I grew up emotionally a lot this year, because of so many things happening with so many parties getting involved in my life. I would say I grew at some point, managing things is now a little different while I have made several bold moves along the way.

January 2014:

The semester ended with another wedding in-line which my cousin brother had with me being the driver cum bridegroom brigade*or is there another term for this?* Nothing much except for the fact that a lot of our cousins in our generation is slowly heading towards the next stage of their lives in building a family and being parents themselves. Responsibility much?

February 2014:

3 weeks stuck in the breeder chicken farm in the middle of Karak was crazy. Daily morning shower with water as cold as ice and being completely naked in front of the foreign labor was, just something I probably will avoid forever. However, the nights spending to watch The Little Nyonya, trying the fill the gaps in between egg collection during work and the moments killing each other in the dorm with the girls were just fun.

March 2014:

Getting back to the faculty in this time of the year means Vetsports and Vet Dinner. After all the heavy work last year its time for my batch to chill out this year. Our batch is pretty famous for our lack of skills in sports, but we still do very great in tug-o-war, cheer leading as well as indoor games. Vet Dinner was pretty quaint this year, but only a few of us attended simply because we had to as directors and presidents of various interest clubs in the faculty.

April 2014:

This was a very special month no doubt. Apart from Majlis Silaturahim which my batch definitely have done a splendid job as the organizer with me being the crazy Chinese vampire, I took a bold step to fly and meet T in Chiang Mai; with my interest of wildlife practical as well. 

Spending time, cuddling for the first time, had my first kiss taken away all in the same week fueled the happy hormones in my body. I was actually living the dream relationship I thought I never could have. At the same time, I was also glad I was able to be part of T's life.

May 2014:

It become the worst month of the year. I had plenty of unnecessary commitments in clubs which I never begin to imagine I would join. The last call was for T to drop in a bombshell of all days Wesak day to break up with me. This is probably the worst Wesak I had with immense anger and fear clogged up in the whole afternoon. I was alone because I had no one to talk to, and thank goodness Biolexus was there to hear out before I implode. On the same night, I took the bold move and became the president of the club I never imagined I would.

On the contrary, my sister too moved into the next stage of her life and got married as well. Talk about double blow. But it was a good thing because it became the very tool that changed my relationship with my family as well.

June 2014:

Ending yet another semester means to step into another practical. 3 weeks of practical in the goat farm was pretty fun, as they are really cute yet annoying. Although I know less from the other girls because of my academic year, I proved myself to be an asset in restraining the animals while learning plenty about the debridement, artificial insemination and general management for a typical meat goat farm. The relationship between the girls and I definitely flourished even more, as we had the same problem with the drama source of our practical.

July 2014:

The month seemingly spent a lot on relaxing and enjoying life. The practical by the east coast with the Turtle Sanctuary was just soothing and mentally relaxing. Although the strolls at night can be a pain in the ass because of the long hours and cold weather, not to mention sand flies killing our feet, it was a great place to take our minds off hectic life of the urban areas with a decent amount of jobs to be done like getting rotten eggs out of the hatchery. A good time to relax, but definitely can't be my whole life.

PS: I forgot the most important thing happened this month. I became an uncle!

August 2014:

August is probably the crazies month with a lot of flights in and out of the airport! Again, spending my birthday out of the country, this time it was Sri Lanka! Its the Vetsoul annual trip again and it was definitely worth every sen and second spending our quality time there. Stubby was a great hose, while her dad probably forked out thousands of USD to make sure we are actually enjoying our trip. 

A week back from Sri Lanka, 8 of us headed to Chagar Hutang for yet another turtle sanctuary. A different group with a different managerial system, its pretty exciting to see how 2 different entities manage a same species of ecosystem. It is obvious UMT had better management and funding, but Cherating is probably very much restricted by the federal government policies.

September 2014:

A new academic year begin where I stepped into my official 3rd year. Thinking that it would be much of a less burdening semester I was wrong, because being a president of a new club is not easy, AT ALL. We had to go all out to establish contacts, get into the good side of all equestrian entities out there, trying to work with the resources we have to develop our members; things are just not easy at all. But with perseverance and support from the high committee, the club managed to pull over with our first work with Selangor Turf club in the International Horse Show 2014. 

October 2014:

Wrapping up several commitments this month, I am pretty surprised I'm still on track with the lectures and information in class. I spend a hefty 3 days in Bangkok earlier on for the APVC 2014 in the quest to get more knowledge and exposure on the veterinary side in our region; which turned out to be splendid. 

On the other note, Dogathon 2014 managed to break the Malaysia Book of Record in achieving 1200 dogs as the largest dog gathering in Malaysia! Great work to be direct mentor of the co-directors, and I'm sure they have churned a lot of effort in succeeding this achievement!

November 2014:

Mundane month with a lot studies and birthday celebrations; making me to have more posts this month anyway. Did a lot of thinking and planning for the practicals in 2015, making me having access to Japan and Thailand, hopefully with a lot of knowledge gained back home. A crazy little thing happened in the mundane month is probably the theft of my wallet. That probably sucked up the whole month

December 2014:

Contrary to November, although the month was filled with tests and assignment deadlines, plenty of events and outings were thrown around my life. Christmas season fun was everywhere, though I actually celebrated Christmas not on the day itself. 

These celebrations too make me realize, I have managed to get the best of both worlds. Vet souls, and Kaki Jalan. It is a blessing truly, because I never imagined I would be able to attain friendship crossing both academic years so strong.

PS: Another wedding this year, I guess my friendship with Queen probably will go on until life ends in both our sides; only if my parents would stop assuming I'm actually seeing her romantically.

2014 definitely was good, and crazy. 

I was lucky to have spent time with T.

I was lucky to have people being there when T broke up with me.

I was lucky to have people aiding me with academics and clubs.

I was lucky to have my niece coming into my family, patching up those holes I have with my family.

I was lucky to not stay in the limbo of losing T, now back up and moving again.

I was lucky to just be safe, well and happy always; even though there were multiple occasions when my blood pressure could have killed me.

Now, to get back to finals.

Buffetting : Speculating

With the amount of meetings and activities from the current presidency I'm holding, I can barely stay longer than 3 days at home without having the need to get back to the university.

If I were to be a sucker president, probably I can stay more than 3 days; but I am not.

Mom finally acknowledged my role as a veterinary student, no longer pressuring me with "you should have studied medicine" issue.

More news on the issues with the Malaysian health system in the coming years will probably enlighten her more.

And the fact that veterinary medicine actually based out from human medicine; for which I know almost all the physiology and anatomy of human similarly in prescribing drugs and dealing with signs and symptoms probably even balance out the odds of her biased opinion.

Saying this, I'm now much more determined to change the views of the public opinion in Malaysia on veterinarian's roles in the society in the future.

And mom asked and speculated if I'm actually seeing someone(or some girl) in the university grounds because of my frequency in going back to the university.

I denied it of course; only to have a good thought about it.

I'm not the best looking guy;
I'm not the smartest guy;
I'm not the richest guy;
I'm not the most charming guy;
I'm not the most patient guy;
In fact I have so many flaws I can barely count them with my fingers alone;

Which girl in the right mind would want to be with me?

As of now I'm probably having an extremely LSE(low self esteem) issue, I wouldn't be able to actually go and get into a relationship or even flirt; let alone be with another person.

I guess mom didn't see that in me.

That aside, an episode of drama popped out in the club again.

Apparently a person who volunteered to make print outs for the workshop tomorrow didn't do it; she couldn't hear what the instruction was because she was out whole day in a very busy and noisy dance event.

I was pissed off because all she had to do was to say she can't do it, I could have take up matters my own and settle in hours before the meeting. I was dumbfounded when I saw her coming towards the table without any printouts.

It's just hard to get a reliable workforce these days.

I don't even mind if she'd asked me to do it instead if she were to be busy. It sure hell is less much of a problem that her making us staying up all night cleaning up after her mess for she didn't manage to do her part.

Its a good thing these girls are really good to work with in practicals.

Or maybe I'm just expecting too much?

I believe in a good workforce means to give solution, not to create problem.

She just became a huge source of problem.

If you can't work, don't even bother.

I just hope I wouldn't be meeting people like this when I own a business or a working team in the future.

Buffettting : Damping

All the hassle of tests finally came to slow motion after the hectic 11 weeks.

Odd that I'd actually find the semester gone by faster than I thought it would.

Thinking that letting go as the co-director position for Dogathon would put me on halt for student activities but hell no it doesn't stop there.

I wonder if it were the impulse I had because T broke up with me, so I decided blatantly 7 months ago to just take up the position.

But it's fine; the club smothers me while I can barely see what I actually get out of it yet knowing that the club is better than it was before because I worked with a good team to build it is still satisfying.

It makes me know that I'm still the management and organizational type of person; resourceful to send people into right direction.

I think.

December means Christmas is around the corner; but this year its probably going to be a family gathering dinner again in the study week. Let's hope I don't screw up my finals again.

One more practical test, one more theory test 3; and finals all the way.

Did I mention there is also another equine workshop along the way?

Time to charge up for finals!

Buffetting : STC Volunteering

The new equestrian club position took its toll on me when I had to at least participate in most events taken in by the club.

The latest one is on the International Horse Show 2014 organized by Selangor Turf Club.

It's a toll, but it's not exactly a problem or anything close to that.

I would love to volunteer in the show, but being the president some how makes it an extra burden.

Even more when you need to live up to the name as the president.

I'm not the best horseman out there, trust me. I barely know the anatomy of the horse except of its limbs and its gut inside. Maybe its reproductive anatomy.

But its temperament, the signs of its lips, its ears, its eyes, its body gesture is still a puzzle for me to be placed into pieces.

The worst is tacking up the horse.

The session began with me doing multiple mistakes.

I don't even remember which side the cloth needs to be. The position of the saddle itself. Heck, which saddle is for dressage, which is for jumping was mind boggling.

Dressage saddles have longer knee roll and deeper seat with lesser cushion and usually is more squarish of the backseat;

while Jumping saddles have shorter knee roll and shallower seat with more cushion, and usually is more circular of the backseat.

There's a multi-purposed seat which is the combination of both: long knee roll as well as a rounded seat.

So yea, I was pretty much screwed.

I wasn't calm enough the horse; constantly making huge movements while the lady who was giving us the training constantly had to remind me.

I really didn't know which part of the girth goes to which nor which holes to fit; or whether the saddle is right size for the horse.

I felt like an idiot in the whole session because I really didn't know about a single shit, while everyone else was hoping that the Mr President would know his stuffs.

And I didn't.

It's a shame.

The other parts of the training went well, but the whole session definitely scarred me a little on, am I capable enough in leading this club?

I'm doing something which I barely know anything about it. Literally. It's something that I've never done before.

And I still have virology and pathology to worry about tomorrow. Great.

Buffetting : Course Taken on Sem 6

So in this cycle of the semester I took up 7 subjects in the university, summing up to about 23 credit hours including an extra 2 credit hours of mural farm practice.

6th Semester, gosh I have another 6 more to go before I get declared as a Dr.

Imagine your name announced across events or even the airport with the title Dr! Not going to end there, I will probably end up with a doctorate too.

Semester 6 has been, well, steady. I finally had more time for myself'; although the first half of it was literally more skewed towards someone else, but later on it skewed back to myself. It was an over-noon skew so I would call it a wham instead.

1- Veterinary Anatomy 3
The last part of the veterinary anatomy trilogy. This semester wasn't the hardest, but the whackiest semester of all anatomy. Learning reproduction with a table of ladies wasn't easy; I had to keep my subtle use of terms and intonations over the 3 hours to keep things fun and heated at the same time. We covered pretty much all the sense; but reproduction was definitely the best one in the bunch

2- Veterinary Physiology 3

Running parallel to the course above as another trilogy; the semester ended with literally STRESS. Taught by my idol lecturer, and a few more others along the way, physiology definitely made anatomy some sense. Or is it the other way round? Nevertheless, I would still have to argue I enjoyed the topics on hormones the most; although I'm more fascinated by the physiology of cows in particular. 

3- Veterinary Pathology 3

Another trilogy begins with learning on what goes WRONG in the system now. New terms on lesions- meaning to describe wounds has been taught while we learn to make intelligent diagnosis on causes of deaths in animals or even human. Being the course representative it somehow made me felt obligated to score in this subject; although I kinda just brushed my way through hoping just for an A over higher grades.

4- Bacteriology and Mycology

4 credit hour-ed course spanning over important disease causing bacteria and fungi in animals; not to mention a numerous numbers which are zoonotic and important in public health- meaning it can spread to human. Apparently we don't just serve animals; we do serve humans too. After all, we veterinarians are the closest reservoir to these zoonotic diseases. I do enjoy learning the course especially labs because we get to see different things and know different methods in discovering new bacteria. When you manage to see the whole picture, all the lines connect and it just startle you on how far human have traveled to get to this point in science. The reason to hate this subject: never-ending memorizing of bacteria.

5- Feed and Feeding

A very similar course to the veterinary nutrition  we had back in 1st year. Yet, this one is much more extensive of the types of feed we have in Malaysia; where do they come from; processing relevance; ensilaging requirements; alternative feed; and animals' feeding regime. It is extremely helpful because we would know what kind of diet to put the animal in during different periods of their life. And example would be a well formulated diet for a cow throughout her period of milking, getting pregnant, stopping of milking, and days before parturition(she gets into labor). This diet will prevent problems like emaciation, weakness, lethargy or death to the cow and the calf. The course was bland, but I could relate to it well

6- Business English

Just to fulfill my two courses of English requirement by the university, the first one being Public Speaking and now the 2nd and last one. Well I didn't learn as much as I thought I would from this course, but its really something to make all of us to get an easy A. I did learn some skills on business writing; not to mention being the director for the Networking Day(pretty much a party) again. Mingling with people outside Vet Fac still awes me on, everyone seemed to pick on me a lot in doing tasks like leading or what not. I'm pretty sure my body size and height totally put me on the lime light to some extent, but really, I wonder what people see in me. BUT, meeting people outside of the faculty once in a while is still fun.

7- Extra Mural Farm Practice

Last, but definitely not the least. I've been through 3 weeks of poultry practical; now to look forward to another 3 weeks of ruminants and 2 weeks of wildlife! The girls I'm going to be with are so fun, I don't think I would want to go home! Wait, maybe I do. Just for the air-conditioner!

So that pretty much sums up the academic courses I've been through for the past 17 weeks; including the semester break and examination weeks. I'm now going into 3rd, paraclinical year.

New subjects.

New timetable.

New club.

New visions.

New expectations.

New set of lecturers.

I should make some changes. Not holding phone during lectures would be a good way to start. Since I'm no longer attached nor responsible for anything else(maybe the equestrian club); I could use some time off to focus.

PS: Naively thinking that I would have let myself off the bandwagon of student activities,my senior was totally right on me being really ambitious and nuts for taking up the job as the President of the Equestrian Club. It wasn't the knowledge or skill to begin with; it was the time to coordinate and present more and more paperwork. 

Yay me. The person who can never keep himself free for himself.

Buffetting : ODEC 2014

The newly formed Equestrian Club in UPM managed to pull the strings within 4 weeks to host the very 1st Open Day Equestrian Club 2014 today.

Although being just the invitation exco, I'd pretty much did so much more for the club and the whole event.

1- Painting the stable
2- Publicizing
3- Preparing Biodata
4- Being a laborer one way or another

I swear I've been into the Equine unit more frequently than I enter a lab this whole week.

A little drama on my jobscope, but everything went well.

The expectation of the crowd was pretty minimal, yet it turned out to be quite bustling throughout the day from 9am up till 12pm. It was, really unexpected because of the time span we had to prepare and publicize.

Nevertheless, it has been a great day. It was really fun educating the public, and even our own faculty's students on how to handle a trained horse.

The horse-back riding was really popular among the visitors, while the feed we prepared was also sold out.

I guess the whole event was fun for me because I get to do the education part to the public. People tend be extremely wary around animals, but the truth is domesticated, trained animals are much easier to deal with, as long as we know how to pull the ropes.

I somehow feel that equestrian is another undermined calling which resurfaced after my Chiang Mai trip.

"Elephants and horses are the same. It's all about the footwork. No foot, no horse, no elephant"; said Dr Erica Ward.

True enough, this is obviously a sign for me to stay more in the equestrian part of the play.

I want to learn skills to know how to deal with horses; as well as application for elephants.

Who knows, I might be the next Dr Erica Wards.

I guess I never really did consider equestrian before, but I should just put in a little more effort now since its something which I will need in the future.

and a great friend is made; or 2. meet Pandora, the horse; and my partner in crime for the event.

All in all, ODEC 2014 was pretty successful and fun. Did fix my interest on the equine field for now.

Readers who wish to have a visit to the equine unit, you can always drop me an email~

On the side note, watching the recent Spiderman movie totally jolted the relationship with me and T.

"Wherever you go, I will follow you. It is my choice"- Peter Parker to Gwen Stacy.

I was thinking about T all the time in the movie.

The kissing scene, the ground-rules scene, the Oxford scene.

It was just about the same thing I will be facing in the near future with T.

When we separate our paths, will we be still doing LDR?

Or will we opt to end it?

Will T be the Gwen or will I be? It was a headwrecker during the whole movie, really.

I miss the kisses, I miss it when T touches my cheek while driving, I miss T staring in my eyes.

I miss T.

But I'm sure I'm doing a bang up job distracting myself for the whole week.

Now that all the work and drama has ended, the next post will be on the stage drama I was involved.