JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

So our ‘Disease and Culture Prejudice’ finally started today (after 1 month U starts officially). The reason was understandable as our form teacher for the subject was our ex-headmaster and he went famous because of this lesson.
Common mentality of Taiwanese a few decades ago was to fight to go into Taiwan National University and thereafter pursue their further education in America.  About 80% of those who hold a master’s degree and above have been to the States, and maybe 40% of American  Asian population are Taiwanese. So our prof. Mr. Lai Qi-Wan pursued his neuro specialist in Minnesolta, and due to his exposure to countless caring doctors, he eventually have his own personalised idea of being more than a doctor.
Of the many stories he told us today, I find the one regarding Dr. David Landsborough III most touching. Dr. Landsborough was an Englihsman who single-handedly founded the Changhua Christian Hospital in (obviously) Changhua during 1928. In 1928, a thirteen-year-old boy named Chou Jin
Yao from a poor peasant family in Shengang had a non-healing, life-threatening
leg wound. Exemplifying Christian love, Dr. Landsborough operated on the boy
and engrafted four strips of skin, donated by Mrs. Landsborough, onto the boy’s
wound. Afterwards, he and Mrs. Landsborough also provided for the boy’s
education to become a pastor. Thus “love was sown into the heart as the skin
was grafted onto the body.” Indeed, this “Skin Slice of Love” story has deeply moved
and inspired the medical community within and out of the hospital.
Our Mr. Lai met Dr. L in America and they became good friends ever since. Once they were holding a gathering in God-Knows-Where and suddenly this thought sparked into Mr. Lai’s mind - Dr. L was from England, but he serviced the Taiwan community wholeheartedly. Taiwan owes him nothing at all yet he still stays as if it’s his duty to serve Taiwanese. Mr. Lai himself is a Taiwanese yet from his graduation day onwards he was servicing in the States and he never returned to Taiwan (due to political issues). Comparing himself to Dr. L he felt humbled and belittled. When he spoke of it to Dr. L, Dr. L replied in a most astonishing manner ‘ we serve other countries, only then can we make the world a better place to live in.’
In 1999 Dr. L returned to Taiwan (after 20 years at the States). He was walking along the streets of Changhua when one man was cycling by. This man spotted Dr. L and he instantly banged his bicycle to one side (according to Mr. Lai) and embraced Dr. L. Finally it was understood that this man’s Mum was deadly ill some 30 years ago and it was Dr. L’s hospital who housed, treated and safed his Mum’s life without a single penny’s charge. Mr. Lai finally commented that if a doctor can still be remembered by his patient (or patient’s family members) after 20 years, then he is truly a doctor to be honoured.
Attending Mr. Lai’s lesson for the first time I was well-prepared to fall asleep (especially comfortable in Still Thoughts Abode lecture hall). But instead I end up tearing all through his lesson. His one particular sentence triggered me - a good doctor should be able to cure some, to relieve often, and to comfort always. The Chinese word for patient, 病人 should have more emphasis on the ‘people’ than the ‘illness’. Doctors treat people, but not the illnesses (or maybe a little illness). Patients come to doctors because they can’t live on independently (such as not being able to bear the hearttrobbing pain or not being able to walk because one leg is practically numb). Generally patients seek treatment for their psychological losses (such as worrying whether they will live to see the next day or whether they will have their leg amputated) and less on their illness itself. Thus a good doctor should be able to comfort patients as well as providing suitable treatment. Giving out medicine and jabs alone is not enough.
Another story which left everyone tearing (instead of falling asleep, as with other lessons) - there’s this young American girl who have a tennis-ball-size tumour in her brain. Mr. Lai (himself a neurosurgeon then) can find no more methods of treating the girl (after radiotheraphy, chemo and 2 successive surgeries). He was preparing to tell the girl to stop seeing him that day in 1978. He told the girl he’ll refer her to her family doctor near her house (2.5 hours away from Mr. Lai’s hospital) and she can save the trouble of travelling every week. She replied ‘I don’t want you to tell me I can’t live. I want to keep seeing you until I die and that alone is enough for me.’
So Mr. Lai arranged to have her seen every Tuesday at 5.30pm (last patient). Once Mr. Lai was very tired after several small surgeries. By 5.30 the girl came and she sat in front of him. No words were exchanged, just smiles between a doctor and his patient. Finally she stood up and said ‘if you’re feeling tired I’ll see you next week.’ She never returned after that.
A few weeks later her boyfriend came to see Mr. L with her diary. In it she wrote how she found comfort and confidence everytime she went to see Mr. L and how each and every small and sincere gesture of the doctor assured her that she would someday recover. That was why she never gave up fighing her cancer (but she eventually passed).
Quoting another Mr. L’s quotes - we would be by your side comforting, we would try our best, we would let you die peacefully and we would be by your family’s side.
"名醫易得，良醫難求" Master Cheng Yan

Twice in the same week Speora and Benjamin approached me telling them they were accepted into Purdue and La Trobe respectively. Before I have the opportunity to say ‘congrads’ they followed eagerly telling me their U rankings.
First and foremost, allow me to wish all of those who got into glamorous universities around the world congratulations and may your 4 or 5 or 7 years in U be as meaningful as the 5 years you’ve spent in CLHS. (This comes from the first university scholar among you guys, so stop yawning and listen carefully) You might find university education a total evolution from what you’ve experienced in high school. There might be no textbooks at all, and some lecturers prefer giving homework than teaching, so in order to pass you will have no choice but to bear with it. And after the pile of reports (which weights only 30% of your finals), here comes endless tests and quizzes and exams and attendance taking and participation in class etc. Some good lecturers will schedule homework at the start-of-term, so to prevent yourself from crumbling to pieces finishing them the night before,  be sure you complete it on schedule and that your lifestyle doesn’t changes drastically just because it’s a 2-page report.
Anyway, back to the point, while aiming for universities with good rankings is something you should do while struggling through calculus, please do not see only the rankings. A university is not like high school where each and everybody studies the same thing and every student takes a final exam eventually and graduate with a BSc. If an U can be described as an organism, then the numerous faculties and departments inside it are the vital organs. Some departments in some universities are famous, thus glorifying the university. Comparitively, some other departments in the same university might not be that good, but because another department is good, thus people assume it’s good. For example, if A says he’s a Chinese Language graduate from Harvard (assuming Harvard has a Chinese Language Department), will you take more notice of the ‘chinese language department’ or ‘Harvard’?. If B is another Chinese Language major from Tsing Hua University, who would you have more confidence in?
Also, university rankings done by worldwide research institutes might not be accurate at times. For example, an Australian research institute will tend to list more Australian universities in front (by altering the judging characteristics or score-giving conditions). Times and CNN (both American), will of course clutter all the States’ U up front and advertise it through their 24-hour news channle (which our Higher Education Department believed and ultimately find excuses into denying UM has deteriorated). The main problem is - universities can’t be ranked. Every university has its own specialties and it’s impossible to award scores just because ‘majority of employees prefer graduates from X than Y’. What if X breeds graduates that are only good at taking orders and have no opinions of themselves (and thus loved by big bosses)? Or just because Y list ‘Workers’ Rights’ as one of their subjects and thus Y graduates demands more (because they know what they can ask for)?
So how do you find a U that, most importantly, you like, and second, which allows you to become what you are? Throw away the ranking chart for once, please. Your future employee won’t simply hire you because you’re from Cornell or depose me because I’m from TCU.
Being a CLHS alumni, it’s useful to use the links now or never, in my opinion. Seek information from worldwide alumni and bear the trouble sometimes, if there’s any. Choose the U which is best at the faculty which you’re going in (for example education in USM, that’s before the government scrapped all education departments from the U to be merged into Kolej Pendidikan). It’s never fun to hang around being discriminated by those medic and business students just because you’re majoring in European History in Harvard. The department you’re going into should provide sufficient advancement prospects (i.e. post-grad courses, established profs. working on famous researches etc).
Finally, choose the U which is located in a city or town you prefer. This is the scenario here - most students yearn the busy lifestyle in Taipei or Kaoshiung and they are like always sulking because there’s no Eslite Bookstore (24-hour mega bookstore) or MRT around. Then you would listen to seniors and find every opportunity to go biking around. Then, without enough safety precaution, and with Taiwan’s chaotic traffic, you would involve in an accident and your parents will have to fly in exclusively in a chartered flight just to see you lying in the hospital bed immobilised for the next 4 months.
If you like something like Penang, with good food, convenient traffic and (what else?), then go somewhere where the local population is about 1.5 mil (as in Penang). If you like Kuala Lumpur and it’s nightlife, snatch theives, smoggy air, massive traffic jams, frequent flash floods, bad food and irregular public transport, then go to Shanghai or Taipei.
It saddens me more when Speora tells me he’s a show-off guy and he want to make his parents proud by going to a good university (regardless of which department he’s in). Point is, your parents will definitely put more priority in your happiness and how much you’ve learnt than you going to Harvard and making then proud. This is your choice and your life, so don’t pick just to make another person happy.
I rest my case.

2nd week into lessons, come Wednesday. Straight after lunch, I was in my room struggling with Microsoft Office 2007 and my Analytical Chemistry data. Office 07 is certainly Apple-like with a lot of cool features, intelligent (or should I say, over-intelligent) autopilots and convenient click-once applications. However, being an Office 2003 user for over 3 years, I still need time to adjust to that Apple carbon copy. Moreover,  it trys to be over-intelligent at times and you have to try using other files to tame it. Major drawback of the new product.
Time ticked by as usual, Office 07 is still behaving like a stubborn kid refusing to change. 1.20 came and gone, and by 1.24 I forcefully tear myself from my chair, grabbed my lab coat (those white robes you see in Yakult ads) and ran (my bike was parked in the campus, I was at the dorm) like all hell broke loose.
1.27, I was between the canteen (called ‘restaurant’ by locals) and the campus building. My PE lecturer says walking burns more calories than running, so to slim down I walked, and that was a HUGE mistake. By 1.29 I was in the campus building running towards the elevator. I scrambled unceremoniously into one I found half-filled, ignoring rude stares from the queing crowds behind.
1.30…bell rings. I was swearing non-stop by then. Reason for failing Sim Jun Yi: cos he was late for his lessons. How late was he: 1 minute 3 seconds.
1.31, while running into the lab, I jostled and wore my lab robe. Lab conditions were chaotic as rows after rows of people queued up to get their microscopes (guarenteed fail if you drop it, or broke any of its mechanism). I dumped my bag on the floor and joined in the queue, only to be asked by prof. to return to my seat. By then I was wondering whether she noticed I was late. She didn’t make any comments, but she did stare at me (as she did with other people).
After her usual long introduction and endless listing of possibilities you might find in your specimen, we were liberated finally…to start experimenting. Using a light microscope, we observed some purple plant’s cell, potato cells and an ‘unknown’ sample. Everybody sketched their findings and completely forget about handing up a report the following week.
Saturday, I draggedly pursuaded myself to start the report, only to find that I don’t know the format. I scout my direct senior and asked for his copy, which was only 2 pages.
After some laborious (ok, maybe not that laborious) thinking and weighing what data to include in my reoprt, my 7-page report was finally completed. Thinking my senior’s was only 2, I was kinda glad and think it’s enough to get relatively good grades.
The following days see more and more of my classmates temporarily abandoning online games and dedicate their whole evening to the report (that’s only on Tuesday, 16 hours before due). Some reported up to 15 pages (but seniors told me quality is more important than quantity) and some had really cheating-like pictures (which I later learnt was copied from their senior’s copy).
Anyway, Wednesday came eventually and we passed up our reports in the morning. Seated beside the guy responsible for collecting, I had the privilege to scan through everyone’s copy. All except 3 (3 Malaysian students in my class) are in Chinese, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention into dechipering the words, but roughly I deduced their standards were about the same as mine (except the one with 15 pages).
One homework done.
Today our reports were returned and the score ranges from 84 to 77. I am so fortunate to become among one of the bottom line. Of course, the score 84 to 77 excludes ‘damage punishment’. Some are so fortunate to get flimsy microscope slides they broke theirs when wrestling with the plant during sampling (minus 10 marks), some broke their slide covers (3 marks lost).
Before this I repeatedly told myself this is my first assignment and I would somehow not perform as good as others. But thinking back, I finished mine on Sunday and they (80-84 people) finished theirs like 3 hours before due. I felt a little fed up eventually, and the only consolation I can get is those lower than me cos they so innocently broke their slides. I asked prof. what’s wrong with my report and she says it’s the insufficient content. She was right in a way because for ‘discussion’ mine was rather short (some wrote a whole page for one single question). My group’s (3 girls and 1 guy, that’s me) marks didn’t break 80 even, so we were like more inspired to do better the next time.
Anyway, what I learnt from this report is that a different education system means a change in your method of learning. Though I might be…ok back home, the method of doing these here is different and thus I have to try adapting theirs (which is writing crap in and try to find the faintest relation to your experiment findings) or revolutionalise their system (which is impossible). My classmates told me 77 is ok, considering those whose marks got deducted are even lower, but I don’t feel comfortable because I poured in a lot of effort and my work is done gradually (one good value according to our parents) and not some hustled jumble. But still, what to do?
Before dismissing our group made a vow to improve to at least 80 for our next report. Let’s hope it will.

Roommate no. 1 is playing computer games again, or probably watching anime or comics on the net. His life is composed of mainly 3 things - computer games, anime, and comics. Roommate no. 2 went out to God-Knows-Where. But he’ll definitely return before 11 and start rattling his BenQ notebook trying to finish his Bio Lab report. Roommate no. 3 is speaking to his handsfree again, such phone calls will last approximately 3 hours every night. Though he speaks very softly, but you don’t need an idiot to tell that it’s a more-than-friends relationship. However he strongly denies that it’s his whoever. Roommate no. 4 (me) is typing aimlessly into this 2-star keyboard. Sometimes the ‘enter’ key got stuck and a 2-page document will end up with 59-pages. The keyboard feel is no good but I bought it anyhow because it’s cheap - my primary concern.
Today I woke up at 9, brushed my teeth (or did I) and went out for breakfast. I saw this marshmellows in 7-11 and it reminded me of how i used to love marshmellows. I tapau my breakfast and went back to my room. Before eating, I noticed that my garbage bin is literally a compressed block composed of tissue paper, plastic wrappers, strips of paper not big enough for scribbling, co-curriculur clubs fliers and 7-11 magnets. I forced myself to set the sandwitch down and ’settle’ the bin issue.
At around 11 our class gathered in front of the girls’ dorm entrance. One of our classmate decided not to pursue her medical studies (for unknown reasons), so we wrote her a HUGE card with our signatures on it. This one particular classmate decided to start babbling with how’s life different in different parts of Taiwan which took up 1/4 of the page. Anyway, it is a touching card, though incomplete. I had lunch with my 3-other classmates in the restaurant I ate 3 lunches and 4 dinners last week.
After lunch I tried to nap for an hour, but…(drum rolls) a light earthquake happens. Nothing is different except that my roommate no. 3, who knows I’m from an earthquake-free country, says to me ‘that’s an earthquake’. So, how do I feel? The whole experience is just like going through light turbulent airwaves on China Airlines. Nothing fell down or broke, even my famed-unbalanced bicycle still stood erect.
After the unmemorable earthquake I went to the library in hope of resuming my long-lost biology. I see endless stars in citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation, wonder what’s that called in Chinese. Library is as quiet as usual, the silence is partly contributed by dozens of students sleeping on the comfortable couches. Our library couches are famed for their comfort, though I haven’t actually seated on one before. What I usually do in the library was - study, flip through 大藏經 not knowing what it is talking about, and squashing people between shelves (due to restricted space the library bookshelves are made in such that they can be shifted through rotating a mechanism similar to erecting the sail of a ship. If you found your long-lost book on a shelve and decides to stay there and indulge yourself in the literature spectrum you might be squashed when I spin the wheel just for fun).
After dinner with a Daddy-like senior I went back to the library. On the way I found my Malaysian senior who’s responsible for air tickets and she revealed to me (second drum roll) that MAS has flights from Penang to Taipei!! I observed and researched MAS’ flight routes for years and I never knew MAS has flights from Penang to Taipei. All right, it’s not direct, but with only a 30-minute stop in Kota Kinabalu, it’s definitely better than having to endure 4-shaky hours onboard China Airlines. I can’t believe it at first and she promised she’ll upgrade me to First if the flight is non-existant. I cheerfully accepted and joined in the ticket-purchase.
Back to the library I thought of wading in more stars for another 2 hours until the library closes and the manager politely taps my shoulder asking me to leave (he did that twice already). That gives me great satisfaction because being the last person to leave the library means I’m the most hardworking among all library users! (nerd).
However, reality deviates. I can’t stand seeing more stars at 8.45. nd I made the wrong decision to flip through my teacher’s notes. That produced even more stars and they are more than ready to assemble into a galaxy. By 9.01 I was drowned in a pacific ocean of stars.
Acting pathetically, I picked up my books and bid goodbye to my equally-hardworking Malaysian senior before dejectedly cycling back to my room. Rommate no. 3’s direct senior bought him a cup of something, which made me feel a little more sad, cos my direct senior is half-invisible (ok, he’ll help me register for my mobile this Thursday, I gotta appreciate that). Then, seeing my other classmates working hard on their biology lab report (which I’ve already completed), I was half-freaked out. Maybe I’ll sweet-talk some girls to send their reports over so that I can ‘refer’.
Never sleep later than 1, it kills.