Happy Father's Day to this wonderful man!

Just seeing his endless time & effort, sacrifice & love that has poured out on me... I really thank God every day for such a wonderful family, for the things that He has done to keep this family one! Pray that this family will experience more of His love!

Dad, I love you!

Blessed 40th!!!

The discipleship (L to R):- Me, Aaron, Ian, Pa, Bern, Jeremy, Victor
Aaron's touch on behalf of us!
The leaders (L to R):- Mark, Kelvin, Ps Shawn, Pa, Si Peng, Ps Tim
Hope he likes the cake :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

It's over!

It’s finally over. The end of my surgical rotation has marked its date. I left Bendigo, with mixed feelings. A part of me rejoice and celebrate because I no longer need to travel back & forth during the weekends, no longer need to be away from my friends here in Melbourne. The other part of me feels bad because I really really really enjoy this rotation in Bendigo. I love the hospital there, and being under Surgical Team 1 is the best thing to learn and experience my surgical rotations. I have wonderful registrars and surgeons teaching me and guiding me along my rotations. My top 10 moments in no order is:-

1. Being able to scrub in 5 laparotomy & open bowel surgeries; thyroidectomy; appendicectomy; lung resection; witnessing a femoral-popliteal artery bypass, lower knee amputation, skin cancer resection, & some others that I can’t remember their names.

2. Waking up at 6a.m. to walk in the icy cold weather of Bendigo for ward rounds.

3. Enjoying the historical & unique Bendigo architectures across the city.

4. Listening & laughing together with my registrar at how some funny & weird patients complaining about their surgical conditions to us.
5. Being able to cannulate & take blood from real patients.
6. Singing “Irreplacable” & “Do-Re-Mi” with my group members.
7. Cooking & Barbeque dinners with my group members.
8. Obsess with a British registrar who has absolutely pure & typical British accent.
9. Still love surgical team 1 a lot a lot a lot.
10. Build relationship & encourage certain patients that I’ve seen. Really taught me a lot of things on people’s reactions and emotions in response to their medical conditions.

Just hope someday, I’ll be able to work under my registrars during my intern year. It is a pleasure to work with them & hope I’ll be as capable as them in future. Hopefully neuroscience in Austin will be as exciting as surgery in Bendigo. Being in surgical rotation really affirms my desire to specialize as a general surgeon in future. This is truly a memorable 6 weeks experience. Will post photos soon. Cheers!

A blessed holidays!

I think it’s about time I drop a post before the blog master starts emailing me and ask if I wanna continue on with my blog. 5 weeks seemed like a dream. It ended so fast and felt like it had never happened. I’m back in Melbourne and started my clinical school in Austin Hospital this week. The taste and joy of holiday has faded away, consumed by the tiredness of my daily schedule in Austin Hospital.

Nevertheless, I really praise God for such a blessed 5 weeks. I remember the 3 weeks back in KL was totally amazing. Praise Him for an opportunity of time and blessing me with cheap tickets back home. The joy of seeing my family and spending time with them like usual, hanging out in the living room and having meals together like good old times. Seeing friends that soon going to UK, my high school buddies, and spending time with the leaders in church just made my holidays back in KL more fulfilling. Driving in KL, hanging out in KLCC, eating my favourite food and spending ringgit completed everything!

I remembered the time in KLIA when I was leaving for Sydney, Jessica asked me “Are you the only child in your family?” & of course I answered “No. & why do you say so?” She said, “Coz you look like one.” I began to realize why she had that impression. I’m so loved and blessed by my family & I know they were sad to see me leave so early. Some of my friends might think I’m a “brat”, well in a way, I’m glad I was treated as one. This magnifies my parents’ love for me, and I truly thank God for blessing me with such an awesome family.

I flew to Sydney & spent 2 days touring the city with my church members. It was great fun. I enjoyed Fish Market the most since the food is so cheap, and it was top-class fresh seafood! But the highlight was Hillsong Conference! About 30, 000 people from different nations gathered under one roof, united as His body, worshiped Him and encountered Him for a week! Was so blessed to be part of it! I remember a statement was made which really ministered to me:

“The church is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church!”

Amazing eh? Will blog more about the things God spoke to me in Hillsong.

After that week, I spent another week in Adelaide with my friends. I must somehow say that Adelaide looks better than Sydney, I sorta like the place more than Sydney. Anyhow, Melbourne is still better. But the best part is not about the city, but it’s about spending time with my friends. Se Yin, Lay In & Chun Peng were there too. Sneaking into Village, visiting Handoff together, feed kangaroos, preparing steamboat and cooking together, play boggle & boggal (Malay version of boggle), catching up with each others’ lives... it’s such a good time spent together. Was really sad on my last night in Chris’ place. The thought of having to return to Melbourne didn’t excite me. Chris & Chuen kept saying, “You’ll enjoy clinical much more. It’s so relevant and makes so much more sense” but in me, I longed to remain in holidays. I know that once I get back here, I’ll miss home & friends & church more and more, I’ll be so exhausted by the clinical school schedule & rotation, I’ll be loaded by the amount of studies I needed to do & I’ve to go for my country rotation for 6 weeks.

In 5 weeks, I mourned 3 times for 3 departures. But during my stay in Adelaide, Wai Meng’s brother had an accident. What amazed me was, when we heard how serious his brother’s condition was, we sat down and prayed for his brother… and after we prayed for him, the very next day when CP contacted Wai Meng, he told CP that the brother responded and was conscious!!! Really praise God for His healing power. Really awesome to see the power of prayer as we come together as one accord!

This week is ending soon. PC, Kelvin & Sharon just left few days ago. Good to have them here in Melbourne. Gonna miss my IH Shakers & my UL members! Will miss the time we go to the park at midnight and hang out there. Well, just pray that God will prepare me greatly for clinical, not just in studies, but in influence, in being the salt & the light!

Adelaide sweet moments

Down Memory Lane

The front view of my school

It was a good Wednesday night outing with my high school friends. I’ve been spending lots of time with them these holidays. We decided to meet at our high school (St. John’s Institution) and start off our night from there.
We had dinner at Pizza Hut, went to Luna Bar for a drink, then mamak and finally went back to our school to collect my friend’s car. It was that moment Ken suggested “Let’s go in for a walk!” As we were walking towards the entrance, Ken was like saying, “Everywhere you go, there’s a Johannian. In my office there’s one.” Sern Liang added, “Yah, my first interviewer, he is a Johannian.” In my mind, I was thinking, that’s kinda true. I was checking out who’re the notable people these days that were brought up from the same background as I am.

-Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Al- Haj, Sultan of Selangor
-Raja Dr Nazrin Shah, Raja Muda (Crown Prince) of Perak
-Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia
-Datuk Hishammuddin Tun Hussein Onn, Education Minister of Malaysia
-Harith Iskandar, Actor, Comedian
-Hans Isaac, Actor

A year ago, the local newspaper has the habit of publishing successful Malaysians throughout the world, and when I was reading their education background, significant amount came from St. John. I feel proud to be brought up by a school so rich in its heritage. Most Johannians are all rounder. We are not known for our academic excellence, not these days at least, but one thing for sure, we are equipped in all areas, from studies to leadership, sports to societies; we are all rounder students!

As we were walking through the famous portico, I saw this sign:

We come with hope, we return with glory!

This statement is so true. Whenever someone asked me which school I am from, I’ll say it with pride “St. John’s Institution” I had such an amazing experience during my high school days, with a bunch of friends that still in touch, who I know still stand with me if I ever need help, and joyfully enjoy and love our school, I guess mainly for its heritage!

Menara KL from my school

Being back in KL this time made me appreciate my school days even more, especially my friends. I must admit that sometimes, I am too caught up with my schedule that I hardly keep in touch with them, or keep canceling appointments. But this time, God really reminded me of my friends, and how much I have to be there for them, and how much they need me. I’ll try my best to stay in touch with them, and to meet them whenever possible. Really thank them for their unfailing friendship all these years.

4 of us left-From R-L:-Ken, Iqram, SL & I

The end of the field where i used to play "Kejar-kejar"