*almost* the most wonderful time of the year

i'm going home this friday! SO excited, but i still have an audit to complete and *GASP* my OSCE results to face the day before i fly back. sigh.

but christmas is near and nothing can stop my holiday cheer! :)

i love the manchester christmas markets. despite having to battle through crazy crowds, they make me feel so warm and fuzzy and certainly get me in the festive mood. AND the food is yummm-mehhh (although prices are ridiculous).

anyways. really lazy to actually type out something substantial, so i'll leave you with pictures!


mervin with spicy german hotdog (BEST!), trlau and meeee (with christmas punch!)


phua and albert. it started snowing heavily, all of a sudden. stupid weather.


giant santa which makes an appearance every year


in front of harvey nichols which had awesome window decorations, but obviously could not be captured by my pathetic phone camera. this was before it snowed.


christmas meet-up at chiquitos! pictures from van's trusty blackberry.


with kheng and voreak


the girls!: me, eleanor, van


mervin (who's here AGAIN :/ hahaha), and tr (who looks really weird here)


hamster ooi

chilling (literally)

back from venice!

but more on that another day, when i'm bothered.

i am done with paediatrics and o&g. thank. the. lord. i mean, i really enjoyed o&g while it lasted, and for awhile there i did consider going into the field in the future. but i have since changed my mind as i got tired of it towards the end. really, if you are sick of something after only 6 weeks, you shouldn't be doing it for life. :p (actually i realised that i only like the gynae part - i really wouldn't mind doing gynae oncology or something - but no obstetrics please)

so i guess it's back to internal medicine for me. :)

the OSCEs were... weird. they were do-able to be honest, but some of the questions just totally put me off. i was actually aiming high but now i think i have to settle for something average. oh wells, as long as i pass.

just started my 3rd SSC (student selected component) this week - doing an audit at the GP. just had to get it done and over with because we need to complete both a community SSC and an audit by the end of 4th year. i like it because i don't have a set schedule and i can go in whenever i want to. i don't like it because it's so dull and i have to travel quite a fair bit to the GP each day, and in this sort of weather, who wants to do anything, really. i'd very much prefer to lie under my duvet and snore away. besides, i really HATE walking (or rather, sliding) down that damn slope to catch the bus. i want to buy myself a sledge, but then it wouldn't be very useful to climb UP the slope, which is also a bloody chore.

sigh.

hurry up december 17th. i want to go home to sunny malaysia, provided the weather doesn't get too ridiculous and cause manchester airport to close like last year! i swear, i may just kill myself then.

scouseland

liverpool was way above my expectations. it was never a city i would bother visiting, mainly because of all the bad press surrounding it. dodgy, chavvy, dirty, polluted - these were the preconceptions i had of the city all this while. (wayne rooney is from liverpool - need i say more?)

to be honest i only went to liverpool over the weekend as an obligation to my dear childhood friend Sharmaine, who's currently in her final year of med school there. the only reason i looked forward to visiting was because i'd not seen her in a long time and wanted to catch up. i did not realise what liverpool actually had to offer.

upon getting off the train at liverpool lime street, i was surprised to see how big and nice the station was - reminded me a bit of manchester piccadilly. right outside the station itself i found that the place was refreshingly modern, streets were amazingly clean, and there were even some nice buildings around. as for the people, well, tracksuits and hoodies - guess you can't run away from them. hahaha. actually you hardly see them in the posh areas of the city, but once you go further away, you'll see more of them chavs and you'll find yourself in the dodgy, chavvy, dirty and polluted industrial liverpool that everyone talks about.

then again, it's not like i spent my time in the lousy areas of town. why would i?

here are some of my favourite pictures from the trip :)

albert dock.

sharmaine and i. known her since we were kids! we were neighbours before she moved to another neighbourhood (which isn't very far). spent most of our childhood together at the swimming club which was our 2nd home. lol.

the wheel of liverpool, which i honestly did not see moving. but this area looks nice no?

liverpool's mega shopping area - one liverpool. impressive! very impressive.

view of albert dock from one liverpool.

the cavern club where the beatles first performed all the way back in 1961. for those who have been living in a cave, yes the beatles were from liverpool.

sharms & i with a sculpture of john lennon.

the beatles museum at albert dock which i did not go in.

a quiet little alley off one of the streets.

specialty teas and a scone at brew on bold street. bold street has very nice cafes and novelty shops! i love that area.

latin food for dinner at las iguanas.

hehe us again.

jian min was there too! my imu batchmate.

(i hate how my hair kembang after a long day)

and avier from my a levels days, whom i've not seen since... well... a levels.

liverpool (plus a lone manchester) medics

dim sum at mei mei's in chinatown, with sharms and li shan.

liverpool! i will go back over and over again now that i've established the fact that i like it! hehe. they've only developed the city a few years ago after it was voted european city of culture one of the years. it was apparently really quite crappy before that. haha.

well i'm really glad i went. had loads of fun and met the nicest of people. as for now, it's time to start preparing for the osce. what a mood killer.