2 upcoming IMPORTANT days for me

I went to campus today and waited 2 hours just to meet the Head of Department of Dental Radiology. I skipped Physiology class because I was told the Head of Department will be free at 11AM and yes, my class starts at the same time. So, I skipped it and I regretted since I did nothing but sat on the bench obediently observing the patients coming in and going out from the clinics in that one hour which I was supposed to be concentrating in the class. She was supposed to be free at 11AM because Cathrine’s team discussion will start at 10 but she was wearing the wrong attire there. We’re supposed to wear a black skirt with white shirt for a girl but she wore jeans so she was told to go home for a change. That delayed her team discussion. After her team discussion, the lecturers in the department had a short meeting.

The Head of Department looked as if she wasn’t in a mood. I was so scared to talk to her, just like the first time I talked to my lecturer. She asked why I am meeting her. I explained saying I wanted to ask for the date for my team discussion, also my thesis presentation (as my thesis examination). My thesis was corrected. Yes, the lecturer who went honeymoon is back! She’s nice and kind. She helped me a lot in correcting my bad Indonesian grammar. I’ll take the opportunity here to thank her again here, thank you, Drg. Lydia. Drg. Trelia (the Head of Department) then told me to ask the other lecturers in the department if they’re free on the 9^th and 17^th. Too bad, Drg. Lydia is not around on the 17^th. She’ll be going to her husband’s place. So now, the date for my team discussion will be on the 9^th of December and thesis presentation on the 24^th of Demember.

I’m glad I finally get the date already. I don’t feel happy at the same time. I miss home. My friends and I already planned a potluck dinner together in my house when I’m home. We’ll be calling many friends to join the potluck but now it is canceled. Not only that, my 22d birthday party is canceled too. I wonder when will be the next time we all shall gather again. I think this is the first year I am not celebrating my birthday with my best friends. They’ll be there by my side when I blew off the candles every year. I miss their cheers and laughter T.T

BAKSIS PERDANA 2010

I joined another odd job/community service last 14^th November. It is organized by our Dental Student Committee. There were all together 47 dental students who joined the event and a dentist from the Pediatric Dentistry who also followed us to guide us. Among the 47 dental students, 16 of them were co-assistant while the rest of them haven’t got their bachelor. I’m one of the juniors who were present there to learn more about dentistry. I shall say the event organizer didn’t arranged things well because not all 47 students were informed to attend the briefing before the event. I was one of them who didn’t know what will happen until the night before the event. I only received an SMS at around 11.20PM telling me “Gather in faculty before 7.30AM tomorrow morning. Bring your lab coat or co-ass coat if you have one. Bring along the basic equipment you need for a dental check-up.”

So the next morning I went there on time and as usual, these people don’t understand punctuality. Perhaps those irresponsible lecturers had taught them this bad habit. In fact, all my 16 seniors were there already. We waited for those late-comers until 8.30AM. We’ve made calls to wake them up. We took a van to the venue of giving free treatment together. It wasn’t very far from our faculty. We were then divided into groups. Jihan and I were in charged for group 7. It is an Islamic school, not sure if it is an all boys’ school since I only see boy patients.

when we arrived to Al-Fityan School

from left: Li Ting, Joanne, Salman, Liyana

discussing with friend

First, we gave education and taught the kids to brush their teeth correctly. Well, they’re not really kids already. Most of them are teenage. We gave them disclosing solution before letting them brush their teeth. I brought my mirror and let them check their teeth after brushing.

They're using the method we taught them XD

After that, we checked their teeth. Those who needed treatment were brought into the hall where the co-assistants and the dentist were waiting. Others who don’t need treatment went having games. Yes, we prepared games for them too but I didn’t know much about the game sessions because I was helping in the hall at most time. I remember I learned to use the scaler machine the last time I followed the Indonesian seniors to Bukit Lawang. This time, still the same, I didn’t get the chance to experience tooth extraction because the seniors need these patients as their minimum requirements. So in the end, I’ve been taught by Eddy the way to do manual scaling. It is tiring especially when their calculi were so hard. Special case in this trip? Hmm.. I see polyp but the dentist didn’t let us to take any action because we didn’t have the right equipment that time. It is another fun day and I experienced a lot. I better learn to communicate with kids from now on. I really think I couldn’t communicate with them. Do I look fierce or scary? They all look so shy. They just smiled but not uttering any words when I asked them questions.

Quick lesson from Brother Eddy

I wish to have another baksos/baksis or whatever they call it the odd job here =) Really gained a lot from every trip I joined.

spoilt cream caramel flan

I always wanted to prepare myself some dessert for stress relieving though I have not much stress these days. I’ve been enjoying my life a lot lately. I thought of making cream caramel flan since Josephine had done pudding previously. Yesterday was a great day as no one was using the kitchen. One of my housemates was dreaming on her bed, the rest of my housemates went out, so there left me and Josephine again who were free enough to make a mess in the kitchen XD We read the instructions on how to make a flan and there we went boiling sugars with a tablespoon of water until it caramelized. It took quite long and we boiled it longer. I thought the chocolate colour looked good =.= it went blackout again while we were boiling. This is Medan. But we continued with our cooking in the kitchen with an emergency light and torchlight.

Then, I poured the caramelized sugar into the mould. Josephine helped me of course. While pouring it into the mould, we finally understood why we shouldn’t stir while boiling the sugar because it would harden and stick together if we do that. Josephine was smart enough thinking of ways to clean the pot of unused caramel. Next, it’s time to mix the sachet of vanilla flavor powder into the fresh milk. Boil 250ml of fresh milk and then mix the sachet of powder into it. After that, mix the mixture with 750ml of fresh milk. Boil for 1 minute and then pour them into the mould above the caramelized sugar. Let it cool and keep in fridge. Serve later when it’s cold =) There, we’ve done our ‘messing up the kitchen’ last night. Of course, we cleaned the mess after that. Electricity was still off.

I had class till 12pm today, ate bak kut teh with a friend. It’s Friday and it is the day I shall clean my house. It’s arranged that way in my house. One person a day. Josephine checked out the fridge when I’m done with my cleaning. I guessed she wanted to get herself a little relaxed? She is busy with her thesis. Only then, we found out OUR CREAM CARAMEL FLANS ARE SPOILT! *cries* I’m not sure who in the house had rearranged everything in the fridge and placed my flans on top of each other, causing the sugar to drip all over. OMG! Why can’t they find ways to place them nicely? Josephine and I then rearranged everything in the fridge again so that our flans our nicely placed. A big huge sigh. They look so ugly now. Oh by the way, it tasted good! The only thing to complain, caramelized sugar was boiled too long =.= will be paying more attention on the timing the next time I do it XD

Look at how DIRTY my flans are now. Oh btw, how do we rotate photos here? I've got the photo rotated before I upload this but it still look like this T.T

10 DON'Ts

Remember not to do this when you break up

1. Don’t ask why he/she breaks you up because he/she can simply give you a reason.

2. Don’t ask if he/she still love you because it doesn’t matter already.

3. Don’t ask if he/she loved you before because it is past.

4. Don’t ask if he/she still remember his/her promises to you because promise is nothing now.

5. Don’t beg for him/her to come back to you because he/ she already decided to leave you.

6. Don’t hate him/her because hatred makes you suffer more.

7. Don’t throw guesses if he/she is loyal because it is not important anymore.

8. Don’t cry for him/her because he/she doesn’t worth it.

9. Don’t talk bad about him/her because if they’re that bad, why were you with him/her?

10. Don’t forget him/her for he/she had taught you a great lesson of life.

Deepavali 2010 in Medan

It is a day where Hindu family gathers and celebrates together. I remembered there was once where I was invited by an old friend of mine to her house for Deepavali. We had this Indian curry which was awesome. We played music and danced. Oh I missed the drink her dad prepared for us! Facebook is currently the hottest social network around and I see many of my Indian friends this year posted at their status whining how they missed the day gathering with their family. Perhaps it is because of the thesis and assignments or maybe they’re busy with their never ending classes, they couldn’t go home like they used to do.

I don’t have plan for Deepavali this year. There is this friend who asked me to join them for buffet tonight though but I’m still not sure if I’m joining because I’m not so close with the Indian friends and I couldn’t get to find a partner for myself =( It was said the buffet is under promotion. Its buy one gets one free. So I shall find one partner for myself but I still couldn’t get one. I guess tonight I’ll be home, continue with my Hong Kong series. I actually planned to shop this noon but too bad the girl who promised to go out with me wasn’t replying me or answering me. I’m not sure what is happening. I just felt that she’s isolating herself? Or perhaps I did something wrong, she didn’t want to talk to me? >.< Anyway, Happy Deepavali everyone! Without family around, friends can be your family =) enjoy your fullest with them! Have a great one tonight after class XD oh yea, for those who went home, I want murukku!!

proposal done, what's next?

Like one of my seniors once told me, “writing literature review as our thesis is BULLSHIT”. I strongly agree! I’m assigned to do literature review for my thesis. I personally think doing research is much more fun. At least you know what you’re doing, unlike me now, reading and getting loads of references blindly and write a review and summarized them. I’m not trying to show those who are doing research how free I am in this department with my thesis. I’m very grateful in getting the Department of Dental Radiology because in this department, they would want us to do only literature reviews without doing research and that would make us done with our thesis very fast and so, getting our bachelor fast before we continue with our clinical year.

I heard from seniors that we need to get a good partner in our clinical year. Don’t get the lazy ones. So that the hardworking ones can help us do things fast and graduate fast. Well, I believe everyone wants to graduate fast, didn’t want to stay longer in this place. So here I am, hoping my close friends who are currently busy with their proposals and researches to get their research done soon. Still remember the girl named Desi in my previous blogs? She is one of them who is doing research in the Department of Prosthodontics and yes, I was there to help her with her research =) She had her proposal done and what is happening next? Below are few photos on the day we’re working on it. She was doing this experiment to test the strength of the heat curing polymerized acrylic with glass fibers in it.

This is the machine used to test transverse strength

Photo of how the operator use the machine. He'll press some buttons and then all we need to do is to wait by the side till the acrylic broke while focusing at the numbers showing at the machine. From there, we will see how many Newtons it would need to break the acrylic.

This is the machine used to test impact strength.

Operator will place the acrylic on top. Slightly pressed the black button on top like what he did in the photo. Jot down the readings once the acrylic broke apart.

I helped checking on the broken acrylics and jotting down the data =)

Desi is analyzing data.

She was so stressed on the first day of experiment because the data collected on the first day wasn't like what she read form the journals she got.

Fortunately, everything turned out right on the second day! She is done collecting data and now she only got to do her discussion and then make a conclusion of her research. Good luck in your coming seminar, Desi !!