SECRET CORNER OF THANATOS

sensitization...

sensitization is a term used in medicine to describe the first encounter of a body with an antigen. sensitization is the first step of an allergic reaction. the result of the meeting of body with antigen causes the production of antibody, which, during the next encounter with the antigens, will combine with it, forming immune complex (antigen-antibody complex) ......this complex will react within susceptible person with high sensitivity, and thus causing  activation of cascade of immune reaction, manisfested by skin lesions, bronchial asthma....etc...

if the immune reaction is not suppressed, the "chemistry" will become more brightly manifested each time the body encounters with the antigens....

the same principle could be applied to the academical lectures here, which might seem redundant to most of the people here. i get it that it's boring to go to lecture for some. and i'm not here to insult those who does not go lecture.....so don take it personally...

attending lectures can be taken as a form of "sensitization". while u might come out of the lecture hall thinking that u have 0 input, try to think of it as it's the initial encounter with the "antigen" ie the materials which u have to put in your brains...and it's no wonder that no chemistry is seen......but trust me....the "antibody" is being produced inside your body......and the "immune memory" will remain in your body for sufficient amount of time....

all you need is 2nd, 3rd, 4th encounter with the lecture materials to have a sufficient manifestation of "allergic reaction". the more u expose yourself to the "antigens" the bright manifestation will be...well, if your immune response doesn't react well to that particular antigen....you just have to continue with 5th, 6th and 7th.....and so on....

nevertheless, "sensitization" is very important....(altho i believe many would beg to differ)

of course, many attempted to get "sensitization" for once or twice....but quickly gave up due to the lack of effect...they wanna see instant reaction, which is quite impossible ...coz as i've said just now, the first encounter doesn't produce much manifestation, but it's an important step to the following reaction....

if you get enough "sensitization", you will understand how easy it is to develope the chemistry during your exams later.....( well, not VERY easy, but relatively easier....) coz ur immune complex react faster with each "sensitization".....thus it's easier to build up the antibodies earlier in your body than to have to sensitize it many times in s short time, sometimes so short that your immune system can't handle it, and thus leading to severe "anaphylactic shock"....

and then there's this remark on why should we go lecture, when we can get the senior's notes without any effort....why waste our time attending lectures?

ok, let me tell you about the active and passive immunity. active immunity is when you are injected small amount of deactivated antigen into your body and it actively produces antibody to prepare for the subsequent meeting of the antigens....while passive immunity refers to the antibody which is produced by other animals which were injected certain antigens. those antibodies are named serum and are transferred into the human body. it is called "passive" because our body does not actively produce any antibody, and thus, do not have the "memory" on how the antigen works....

see, when a person with active immunity meets an antigen, he fights it with his own antibody....while a person injected with passive immnunity fights it with antibody produced by a horse! of course, u could expect that the effect of a person with an active  immunity would resist the antigen longer....while the passive ones will need to depend on another dose of serum antibody....

after the war with the antigen is over, the person with active immunity will have residual memory of the antigen, while there is no trace of memory in those will passive immunity...

now try to apply it with the lecture as an antigen and senior's note as a horse's serum.....(no disrespect to the seniors watsoever)....the math is simple....while it's easy not to give any effort to produce any "antibody", reading second hand materials tend to give less input and effect on the "immune memory"......compared to the impact given exposing yourself to the "real deal".....

to accept what is not understandable for me......for now...

russia was not heard of (for me) when i was first sent here. it was a disaster for me when i got the news that i got the scholarship, but was sent to russia. i felt like God was playing jokes with me. i had a dillemma, between to stay in msia doing what i dun like, and to persue my dreams in a place that wasn't the place i thought i would be for my uni life. and i chose the latter.

i went through a transition period, asking God what have i done wrong for him to send me to such a place, where i have to learn a new language, to adapt to a new system, and to meet ppl i never i thought exist in the medical world.....dun get me wrong...i dun mean anyone bad in specific.....just some ppl who can make you feel : "wa.....like that also can one ah"

everything was totally different from what my imagination of my medical school life would be....i have to worry about things medical students are not supposed to be worrying...

and i am well aware of the difference between the medical education here and the rest of the world....and i have extra things to prove when i graduate later....

all these made me wonder, is this another joke played by God to test me? will it be that on the last minute, suddenly they tell me that i can't continue my dreams anymore? and that all my hardwork so far is for nothing??

i dun understand why i was sent here, to persue a road not many is persuing. in fact, i dun understand alot of things. but i believe. i do believe somethings happen for a reason. all these wierd wierd things, all the ppl i meet, exist around me for a reason. and who knows, i might exist for other ppl's "reason".....

and i accept all that. i won't reject whatever challenge is thrown at me....i won't reject these wierd stuff which are not in their right course in my opinion. i won't judge those ppl who doesn't follow my ideal of how ppl should behave and do...i will try to accept things who are not understandable to me....coz i can't possibly understand everything....

things are easier for me that way....

u might call it denial.....but i call it acceptance....

yes.....for a moment there....i was touched..

有，那一刹那间，我有被感动到。。。

"what do we have to do to unite every malaysians here in nizhny novgorod? to put aside our difference, to fight hand in hand for the common goal, and to celebrate the joy and victory together, and to appriciate the success as if it was our own..."

as a committee member of malaysian student association here, this is the question we've always been wanting to answer....

"perhaps a NIzhny GAmes 2008 would do the trick ??"

it was a big project for us nizhnians which involved many people, and we couldn't possibly have done it without the teacher's support.

i am not going to talk about how far is it from our place, who is participating, how the food sucks, how the condition of the hall is, which economical and political problems we faced.hell, i'm not even going to talk about the athletes and how well they played....

but this post is indeed about nizhny games...

i remember back in march i said in my post "numbness" that i feel indifferent to my surroundings, and that i dun think anything can surprise me nor touch me anymore....

by touched, i mean 感动(terharu), a word no other language can describe better.... it's a feeling that makes you wanna cry, makes you shed the tear of joy, but at the same time, you are too happy to cry....so basically ur face will look ugly and distorted when u have that kind of feeling....

anyway, nizhny games gave that feeling back to me....

i am far from being able to stand on the court to play and fight for the glory of our uni...but as a nizhnians, i thought i would play a role as a supporter for those athletes who played....

i could never forget how everyone cheered and shouted for our teams...esp on the first day during the volleyball match. we waved flags, stamped our feet on the groud, waving pom-poms, making noise with empty bottles filled with coins....and shouting "go, nizhny go nizhny go go GO!!!"

i dunno why, but at that moment, i really felt like crying.....i was so touched by the high spirit shown by our nizhnians then....

everyone, from juniors, to seniors, some which you expect would be studying at home by that time, some which you didn't know that could be so "open", some which hardly ever talk to each other, and some even met for the first time, stood together, on the same row, opposide the opponent's supporters, shouting, and cheering for the players who are playing on the court....sometimes we even got too carried away till we forgot that the game is still going on.....

for a moment there, i actually had the "pseudomorph" that nizhnians are very united....coz i never expect to see everyone so semangat at that time.....

i believe not even me, but most of the people who were cheering at that time were surprised that they are doing something like that at that time too....dun deny it, coz i could see it in everyone's face that they are surprise themselves, coz this is not a scene that u can see everyday in nizhny...

it's like thinking that we are crazy and "uncool" by shouting and jumping around with excitement, but somehow it's soooo cool when everyone does it together with the same tone and frequency....and for once, we are happy for being so crazy......

for a moment there, all the supporters' heart is all towards the player, beating at the same frequency, hoping that they could really score well, cheered when they managed to give a good shot, and felt the pain when the opponent scores...praying to their respective God that the players would win the match....

there's a feeling like we wish we could channel some form of "energy" to the players, so that they could play better...that if we could, play for you when you are exhausted....we hope that the players could feel the energy and keep the spirit high to finish the games...

i am going to say this as least sissy as possible, but for a moment, i actually find those athletes, be it males or females, more handsome and pretty like never before..... 

speaking as the no1 skema guy here in nizhny novgorod, i can tell you that the satisfaction of being able to be part of the event, even as a supporter, to be able to experience the spirit of togetherness, is magnificant beyond comprehension. it's a satisfaction different from the 5s u score in your exams....it's something you won't understand if u dun experience it yourself, and i pity you for missing it....and i am even sorry you don't realise it....

of course, all that was for "a moment"....

soon, there was comparison on who shouted louder, and those who did not shout as loud was claimed to be not as supportive. and then there was complain about ho the food sucked, the money crisis, the suspicion on where the money went, the complains on who's doing what wrongly, the fingers pointing at each other to avoid responsibilities, the fight for credit on who played the biggest role....

all of that gave me a rude wake-up-call from the pseudomorph i was having.........       

it's not about the money....

niznhny games is just around the corner and yet the committees are facing serious financial crisis in order to make this event real...

as far as reality is concerned, money IS indeed an important factor in determining the success of these events.

all the preparation we've done (i mean "they" have done)  including the project setia, the cheerleading, the singing, dancing, the food we've bought, the effort the sportsmen haven put in, will go down the drain if this amount is not gathered in less than 3 days time.

backing out is not an option now.

after account and budget was revealed last week about the shortage of so much amount of money, there were of course hoo-hahs about the committee trying to cheat the money, that there were some suspicion of the money "missing" somewhere, more probably into the committee's pocket. (this is not a subjective opinion, have a look at the account prepared by them and you will think the same too). the the Q&A session that day was basically a war revolving only the budgets and the accounts....

and well, 2 person was appointed to audit the account....myself being one of them. at first i tot our job was to check again the account and confirm everything with proper proof and approve it. but their 2nd account was just as unbarable as the first one. so we basically have to clean up their mess from ground zero...

after 3 days of mingling around the accounts, we finally managed to solve the mystery of the "missing" money....

i'm sure this is quite dissapointing to some of the ppl (actually i believe most), but if any of the nizny student is reading this, i'm sorry to announce to you that your anticipation to seeing a good show of how we reveal the "missing money" has to be let down. the money is not missing. we failed to find any evidence of the committee cheating (as many would want to see)........there were just technical accounting, and mathematical mistakes....(i tried not to include the word "stupid" here coz i made a vow to myself to use that word less often)

and so this means that everyone is required to pay extra ( a total of 300rub for non-players, and 700 in the players)....

this post does not end here....

as the title indicates, it's not about the money.........

c'mmon, i'm sure 100 roubles is not an issue for most of the students here. you can't even but a set of mc donalds with 100 roubles nowadays. even an extra 500 roubles, in my opinion, is affordable to most ppl.

handling 500 roubles is not a problem. but handling 500 roubles of 300 students is a large responsibilities.

i'm sure nobody would wanna cheat 100 roubles. but if having 100 roubles of 300 person gives you alot of space and opportunity to telan the money for yourself and not having anyone to know it.....

so it's not about the money at all, it's about the trust....

the mentality of most of the people here is that: it's such a huge sum of money, how would i know if you won't use the money in anyway for your own benifit?? why should you be trusted with such huge responsibilities?

you see, for one, many ppl are afraid to see ppl benifit, whether or not they loose anything at all. as an example, one of the sportsteam gets money to buy equipment, and the rest of the teams want money too.....even if they can do without it....

the second issue is trust. ppl don trust each other anymore these days. hearts are filled with suspicion, disbelieve and ignorance. this is rather ironic, as it contradicts with motto and aim of the nizhny games itself. what happened to the sportsmanship?? how do we expect to win if our hearts are not united??

regarding of whether the current committee is qualified and up to standard or not, well, i believe there are many others that could have done it better, avoiding the clumsy mistakes and not-so-wise decisions.....i'm sure many are complaining about the current committees...and go around bragging that they can do much better...

but one thing is for sure, for many are capable of doing the job, only those who are brave enough to take up that huge responsibilites are fit for the job. brag all you want, but if u do not have the guts to take the responsibilities, it doesn't mean anything at all....

with huge power comes huge responsibilities. as many long for power to control such huge event with such big amount of money, not many can bare the huge responsibilities that comes together with it. i know of some ppl who dream and brag of how they would spend the large amount of money better than the current committees now, that they would plan the budget better, distribute it wiser............but then again, these ppl could only dream.....

chinese has a good idiom on this : before critisizing on other's fault, think first, of whether yourself is flawless.

thus, i give the current committee a thumbs up for having the guts, and willingness to take the initiative to take this huge responsibilities. at least that's one thing that i couldn't do.  of course, they are to answer to everything that is going to happen, good, or bad.

you can find thousands of mistakes of the work they've done. but where does this bring us? more condamning and damaging is not gonna solve the current problem. instead, you could help by pointing out how things could be done better.

if how much benifit they've gained was your concern, then our auditing proved that your concern was for nothing. so, it means that they have done the job without any profit, and they were doing it because they were responsible enough to take the job....and there is no reason to be blamed for that...

one of the member of the committee told me : i have maids in my house all my life, and never before have i talked to them like how those ppl talked to me in the meeting the other day.....

you may have excuse not cooperate because u had questions on the money-whereabouts. if prove is what you need to give full cooperation for this event, well, our auditing can provide you all the evidence of the money in/outflow....

so basically, if the problem is not with the accounting.....there should be no problem collecting the money. and if the problem still exist, i suspect these ppl do not have intention to cooperate at all in the first place, and the accounting mistakes and all was an excuse to delay things....and thus having 2 audits working their ass off to prove the account was a mere waste of time....

now if this happens, who is to blame then???

流浪记

曲名:流浪记歌手:纪晓君

我就这样告别山下的家
我实在不愿轻易让眼泪流下
我以为我并不差不会害怕
我就这样自己照顾自己长大

我不想因为现实把头低下
我以为我并不差能学会虚假
怎样才能够看穿面具里的谎话
别让我的真心散的像沙
如果有一天我变得更复杂
还能不能唱出歌声里的puy uma
我就这样告别山下的家
我实在不愿轻易让眼泪流下
我以为我并不差不会害怕
我就这样自己照顾自己长大

我不想因为现实把头低下
我以为我并不差能学会虚假
怎样才能够看穿面具里的谎话
别让我的真心散的像沙
如果有一天我变得更复杂
还能不能唱出歌声里的那幅画

a rude encounter in the sportshall....

it was a fine saturday afternoon when i went to the sportshall to play badminton after almost a month of absence due to exams...

as i entered the hall i noticed fewer ppl than usual....at least 1/2 of the amount of ppl they had a month ago. the atmosphere was kinda wierd....felt like an alien there.....as apparently the rest of them are part of the so called "badminton team" formed not long ago for the coming nizhny games. but what the heck, i played like i usually do....

after awhile due to my self-diagnosed congestive heart failure stage 1, i decided to sit on the bench beside the hall...watching the rest of the players play for the coming games.

when the time was almost over, they had a sort of like a small "badminton team" meeting.....which involved almost everyone in the hall except me. thing is, they decided to do it right in front of where i was sitting. as i was waiting for another friend, i just sat there and wanted to wait for the meeting to finish so that i could go back with him.

probably they needed confidentiality, or probably they were planning for some top secret assassination of the president or something, a few minutes after they started talking and realised my presence, few of them turned over to me and ask " why are u still here?" , " can you go away ah?"

maybe to some extend i should respect their so called "privacy" and confidentiality. but they could have made that meeting somewhere else. or if they are talking something official and righteous, what do they have to fear, right??? but of course, i soon began to realise why my presence as an outsider were not welcomed there....for they too, in their subconscious, realise what they are discussing are not suitable to be known by the public....

of course, i couldn't be bothered more about the content of their conversation. being the egoistic person that i am, i would feel humiliated if i just stand up and walked away....esp when asked by a junior 2 years younger than me....i am no saint ok...

then the most outrageous thing happened...as their conversation proceed, God knows what they were talking about, suddenly that 2nd year junior turned around and asked me with a rude tone:

"hey, are you part of the nizhny games committee???"

"no........"

" fuh, luckily you are not, man"

" oh yea? so what will you do if i were??"

" if you are part of the committee i would belasah you man,seriously....."

"..............."

mind you, i was just a passerby sitting beside the bench when a wierd bunch of ppl came around me and talked about something unmelodious to my ear when suddenly one of them(a junior lagi) wanted to belasah me.... i tell you, even the samseng in my school never spoke like that to me...

if u were in my shoes, how would you react???

p/s: his tone of voice (yea, still talking about that same junior) was absolutely different 7 months ago when he asked for physiology notes from me.....how realistic human being can be.....haha...

of resolution.....

there are alot of difference between the camera of your phone of 1.3megapixels and the real olympus camera with 7 megapixels(with the now high-tech phone being exception )...which u can actually recognize the person i took when reviewing them.....probably up to the size of their pimples...

some of my friends can differentiate good and poor quality headphones.....from the quality of sound they make....which i fail to do so up till now....

well, as much as resolution is important for the satisfaction of our sensory organs, it is as important that we improve our "resolutions" on the things we do....

being the well known nerd that i am, i'll take studying as an example. 2 students attend the same lecture, hearing the same voice of the lecturer, giving the same content of information....but if u borrow their lecture notes, u can see the difference in their "resolution"....the same rough, general ideas, but one with very detailed describtion of the examples, while the other one is merely a shell without any content....there's a difference when the notes are read.

it's easier to memorize or to understand when you have "life" in your notes, when u give ppl the feeling of reading a story with a smooth storyline, rather than just points with no connection from one to another....

and the "life" come from your resolution, on far u are willing to go to pay attention to every single detail the lecturer is giving u...to jot down things which is important, even tho it seems unnessasary to you. that would make a difference. you gotta demand for more than just the shell with no life in it, you gotta ask for more...

that is why ppl do not understand why the same 2 students, making no mistake when answering in the exams, recieve different results....it's this resolution problem. while there's no mistake in the answer, there's probably too few of the content to have any mistake at all.....but that doesn't make your answer excellent either....

if u have an eye of 7megapixels, you will see alot of mistakes and problem of pictures of 1.3megapixels. but if ur resolution is low enough, of course you won't be able to see it.

it's about self discipline, on how far u are willing to go, and if u have high enough expectation for yourself. always finding shortcuts and hope that luck fall from the sky isn't gonna improve your resolution.

you demand the best lecturer, you get the best notes, you ask for the most comfortable environment to study....but if you do not have the capacity to fit in everything u see, the picture u see will only be 1.3 megapixels. it's such a waste of good resources.. so while u are feeling lucky that you got all that is mentioned above, start to buck up and upgrade yourself to be more compatible with the high standards....

like what somebody said, even if u eat slimming pills, you need to have good absorption to see good effect....

~~~ask for more~~~