Wheeeee... really looking forward to the bash. :D

More info here.

Salads and Soups

chicken caesar salad 14.00
caesar salad served with grilled herbed chicken and garlic croutons

caesar salad 10.00
freshly chopped garden lettuce served with caesar and anchovies dressing topped with beef bacon, parmesan cheese and herbed croutons

charlie's garden salad 8.00
a combination of fresh garden lettuce and tomatoes drizzled with your favourite choice of dressing – balsamic, 1000 island, yogurt dressing, vinaigrettes, thai dressing or lemon dressing

cream of mushroom soup 9.00
home-made fresh mixed wild mushroom soup topped with crème fraiche and herbed croutons

cream of tomato soup 9.00
home-made fresh tomato soup topped with pesto and sunflower seed

Mains

chef's special grilled steak
new zealand beef grilled to perfection, served with assorted grilled vegetables, potato wedges and with your choice of sauces

tenderloin 41.00
sirloin 28.00
new zealand lamb rack 36.00

Choice of sauces: fresh creamy mushroom sauce, black pepper sauce, red wine sauce, blue cheese sauce, pommery mustard sauce, rosemary balsamic sauce

grilled salmon 32.00
served with rosti potato, mixed salad and cream sauce

spare rib 32.00
slow braised with your choice of barbeque sauce, roasted or own juice served with mixed salad and whole meal soft roll

lamb shank 30.00
slow braised lamb shank flavored with thyme and rosemary served with mixed garden salad, balsamic dressing and garlic mashed potato

charlie's chicken chop 17.00
grilled or deep fried chicken chop served with grilled eggplants, zucchini, tomato, bellpepper, carrot and asparagus

fish and chips 15.00
deep-fried fish served with fresh garden salad tartar sauce, lemon wedges and french fries

Pasta

choice of your favorite pasta –
spaghetti, fettuccine or penne

al frutti di mare 21.50
mixed seafood with tomato and white wine sauce topped with parmesan cheese

alla carbonara 18.50
beef bacon in a traditional onion and parmesan cheese sauce

alla bolognese 18.50
traditional bolognese meat sauce with mixed vegetables and fresh herbs

al pesto 17.50
traditional italian pesto sauce with basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and topped with parmesan cheese

al arabiatta 15.50
with spicy tomato sauce, garlic, dried chili and topped with parmesan cheese

aglio-olio e pepperocini 13.50
prepared with garlic, olive oil, red chili and topped with parmesan cheese

napoletana 10.50
traditional italian tomato sauce with basil and fresh herbs topped with parmesan

Pizza

aloha 18.00
turkey ham, pineapple, onion, pepper and mozzarella cheese

pepperoni 18.00
beef pepperoni, onion, pepper andmozzarella cheese

Met up with CHiQ and Jeyadev after my 2 fruits selling friends finished work. Right now, we're sitting in Coffee Hut, enjoying the ambience, the drinks and chit-chatting. Absolute bliss.

If you like good coffee or good tea, come look for me when I'm in the mood for a drive, and I'll bring you to this nice little place for a drink.

I got my 2nd choice, BS, where we'll be spending a month on Behavioural Modification and I'm a happy kid. Why? Well, we've got a comfortable timetable, nice bunch of lecturers and I've got a good group and my tutor is one of the coolest ones around. (The IMU-ians should know which BS lecturer I'm talking about.)

We've got 2 assignments, an individual one where we're supposed to modify one particular behaviour of our own (and I haven't thought of anything yet), and another group assignment where we're supposed to go out and talk to someone undergoing behavioural modification. So.. heh heh.. if you're doing anything like trying to quit smoking, quit drinking, changing lifestyle, changing eating habits... I may be kacau-ing you really soon. :P

I don't ask you why...
You're different
A little aloof
Maybe a little ignoring

I'm happy for you,
Truly happy.
I'm glad
You've got someone there.

I understand
The way things work
Circumstances has it this way
And that's how life is.

You told me
Not to let it affect us
I tried to accomodate
But it just isn't working out.

Maybe one day
You'll see it from this side
And understand
Why I feel the way I do.

My dear friend, I still love you the way I've always done so.

"The MMC does not want many Malaysian Indians to become doctors. Today they will close CSMU. Tomorrow, they will close a university in Russia and another in Indonesia."

Yupz, you're right, Mr Minister, Sir. The MMC wants to prevent Malaysian Indians from becoming doctors. But HEY!!! The MMC is made up of scheming people who decided to create a facade. That's the one and only reason they will continue to recognise students enrolled in the university before the end of this year (ie. all the current students). Ssshhh.. it's all a facade.

"I don’t believe the MMC’s excuse, that CSMU was admitting poor quality students, is the actual reason for de-registering CSMU."

Mmmhmm! The MMC went all over the place, counting the number of M'sian students in all the foreign unis. And you know what, they took note of the percentage of Indian students and since CSMU has quite a big percentage, they are de-registering the uni. See? That's the real reason. Admitting poor quality students? Bad lecturer to student quota? All these are just stupid excuses, these factors don't affect the quality of the grads anyway!

Oh ya, by the way... It so doesn't matter that a uni's recognition is reviewed every few years, it's all a.... (yeah, you're right!) a FACADE!!! The only factor they consider is the percentage of M'sian Indian students. REALLY. It's all a ploy... heh heh.

Please excuse me while I sit in a corner and rest my eyes. I rolled my eyes so much they hurt. In the mean time, if anyone's interested, this is the OMG-so-ridiculous article. Oh ya, and no matter what religion you believe in, please say a little prayer for our dear Minister, that he will only get to meet good doctors.

---
UPDATES
Since there are so many new articles popping up about the CSMU de-recognition issue, I'll have the links here... until I get sick and tired of this issue, at least.

Unfair to punish all -- Someone in that article mentioned that MMC is going out of it's jurisdiction to register and deregister unis. I think he meant recognise and de-recognise. But mm.. I thought with Med degrees, it IS up to MMC? No meh?

Doctoring the doctors -- I kinda like this article. It feels like someone took a step back and really looked at the big picture. Definitly not some silly whining...

From MMR:

Feedback: Crimea University Derecognised?

Crimea Medical University Derecognised Part II

Crimea Medical University Derecognised Part III

Crimea Medical University Derecognised Part IV

Recognition Issues

For The Students

Concerns about Russian/Ukrainian medical schools not new

I know this post is about a week late but hey, I was away in Ulu-ulu land kz.. :P

12th June 2005, somehow or rather, enough bloggers found this an important enough day to wake up early (ON A SUNDAY, mind you) and get down to MidValley for a wonderful meet. I guess the credit goes to PeterTan, THANKS!!!

I was the third to get there, I think. Got out of the lift, saw Desmo in the distant (about 2 minutes ahead of me) and tailed him all the way to where he met up with Peter. For a while, I thought no one else will be coming (since it was past 10am when I got there) but as time passed by, more and more bloggers appeared. Even the local blog celebrity, Jeffooi was there! It was kinda funny when everyone paused in their speech and went "EH! Jeff!" Yeah, talk about famous eh? ;)

I don't think I'll go into detail about who I met and what happened that Sunday morning, 'cos I'm not good with names and many others have already blogged about the meet.

It was nice, however, to meet up with people who used to be names and words on the computer screen.

After almost 2 years in KL, my room in Vista has become more and more comfortable, more and more like a home away from home. I've gotten used to the new bed and mattress Ma got for me in Aug '03, almost everything I regularly use is there. But as the saying goes, there is no place like home.

Home in this case, is in JB. Where I've been staying for most of my 20+ years, where Ma is, where my room's always the way I left it, where I can roam around even when it's drowned in pitch black darkness and know that I'm safe and won't knock into anything, where Harry, Gaby, Rainbow, Brownie and Caesar (our 5 doggies) are and of course... where most of my childhood memories stay.

Why are you blogging about home, especially when when you go home every few weeks, you ask. Mmm... home's an important enough place to me such that I don't mind blogging about it every few days, if only I've got good enough language not to bored everyone to death with similar postings. On top of that, this weekend is different. Kor's home from US after more than a year, Kor's GF came over for a day, Ma's in a very good mood 'cos Kor's home. More importantly, it's Fathers' day... and this is where all my memories of him lives. Happy Fathers' Day, Pa. :)

I'm home for less than 24hrs this time 'round, and to be really truthful, I don't know what possessed me to come back this weekend, maybe it's all these different factors pushing at my subconsious mind.

Hmm...

The country has been ranked number one in the world when it comes to diabetes as the cause of kidney failure by the US Renal Data Registry.

...Nephrologists believe that the number of registered patients may not reflect the actual situation in the country as there could be many suffering in silence due to lack of facilities. Some could also have resorted to traditional or alternative treatment.

As people become more affluent, lifestyle changes and these changes, are not necessarily good ones. We see people today leading much more unhealthy lives than our forefathers did.

... "Exercise regularly, control blood sugar and stop smoking. Carbohydrates and food with refined sugar content should be eaten in moderation," he said, adding that Malaysians should cut down on nasi lemak and noodles and eat more of vegetables, legumes, wheat germ and other healthy food...

It's strange actually... We're talking about DM leading to Kidney Failure, which means we're most probably people who know that they are ill. So well, there can be 2 scenarios.

1. There's a lack of patient education.
ie. The doctor/healthcare personnel didn't educated the patient about the complications of his illness and how to prevent these complications from setting in.

2. The patient couldn't care less.
ie. The patient assumes that he's superman and has the "it won't happen to me" attitude OR the patient has the "die ma die lor" attitude.

Either scenario's as bad as the other. *roll eyes*

I just got back from KKB, my third and most probably, last trip to the little town 50+ KM away from KL. Having been there for 3 consecutive semesters, I guess this is a good time to be asking myself "What do I think of KKB?"

ERRR...

It's a quiet place, VERY quiet (ok, that means it's boring), the pace is much slower and the air seems cleaner also. From the amount of money we spend on food there, cost of living seems to be lower in the little place as well. But OMG, it's a boring place to be living in. No sources of entertainment like in the bigger cities and it's as if the most happening thing in the place is its pasar malam (which sorts of covers the entire town)

As with all school-related trips, what truly matters is the company. This time 'round, all the debaters were there at almost the same time (with all of us in groups E and F for rotations) and there were other very cool people around too! Yupz, I had great great great company this time. :) We spent most of our free time playing risk, mafia, taboo, monopoly... and of course, gossiping. Pretty good stuff, I think. We had so much fun that some people actually had their neighbours coming over and telling them to keep their volumes down. *blush* oops. Oh ya! CK, R, E, Gongster, S and I went to the nearby hotspring too! Cool eh? (er... warm?)

All the same, I'm glad rotation's over. The KKB trip has left me pretty drained. Next up, selectives.

Off I go to ulu land... all for school!!!

During the earlier part of today's blogmeet, a group of us were happily sitting at Midvalley's so-very-empty Food Junction and because the group was growing larger, we decided to join the tiny tables together to form a more square-ish large table rather than the long ones they had, because of the plain simple reason that it will be easier to talk in a group.

All was going well until someone came along and told us that we weren't allowed to do that... from what he said, it's as if we were not customers. Nevermind that several of us at the table got drinks and some were eating, it seemed to me as if the mere reason that we were a huge group and were going to chit-chat for some time, we effectively became non-customers.

When I turned around and asked, "But aren't we customers?" The reply was that they didn't allow joining of tables... hardly a reply, don't you think? I took it that his answer to that was that we weren't customers. Hmm...

Well, this morning's trip MV marked my last meal at Food Junction.

GP Posting, Clinical Skills Unit (CSU), Behavioural Science (BS), Pathology Lab, Community Medicine, Kuala Kubu Baru Hospital, Klinik Kesihatan (aka Community Clinics) Postings... did I miss out anything?

It's something we have at the end of Sem 2, 3 and 4 (and I hope not at the end of sem 5 too). The change from "lectures, PBL, CSU, lectures, PBL, CSU" timetable is wonderful but some of the stuff we have to do is pretty boring. :( I shan't continue whining about it because whining makes me even more upset. So there.

The highlight of the rotations has always been KKB posting. I'll be going next week, staying in the same house as Adeline, Elena and Sheena. Wonder how everything will be like... Hmm... Oh ya, we'll be there for 5 days, and KKB is a horribly boring place. Whoever wanna come visit is super-duperly welcome.

Complains coming in from the overseas PMS regarding IMU students and our apparent lack of communication skills have sparked the birth of "communication skills" as part of behavioural science (BS). I know our M204 juniors have had to go through such lessons since sem 1 (or 2) but this is the first time we have had to sit through it.

I agree that communication is extremely important, especially in the medical profession. Come on, if you want to take history like a robot, you'll have to pray that your patient's a computer! It's simple actually, good eye contact, appropriate personal contact/support/empathy, pay enough attention/listen properly, use a little observational skills... basically, talk to the patient like he/she is a person not a answer-spouting machine.

Having said that, can communication skills be taught? Yes and no. While lecturers can tell us about the basics, it's up to each and everyone of us to start conversing. Come on... we all know the to-dos etc. It's about applying it all now... in which I don't see how communication workshop will actually help. *roll eyes*

Note: I'm not saying the workshops are bad, I'm just saying that a lot depends on a person's iniative

But the yummy-ness and happiness only stayed long enough for me to get home and to bed, 'cos somewhere along the way, I started making frequent trips to the toilet. :( Diarrhoea. I thought I was OK when the sun rose this morning but well... let's just say that my tummy doesn't take the combinition of soup, ice-cream and nasi lemak (all in the same 3 hours span) very well. All these insults to my tummy, combined with the stress of mock OSCE just isn't good for me.

Well, the diarrhoea is pretty timely though. 'Cos now I've got a good reason to skip mock OSCE. :P If only my stomach will stop being so uncomfy and I can stop running to the toilet!!!

Now, the tournament...

It was a pretty good experience. :) Debating with Vasan and Richard was really cool and I think we learnt a lot from the tournament and from each other. *hugs the guys* I guess all 3 of us were pretty disappointed with the round 6 results and that subsequently affected us in round 7 but the take home msg will be this "if ever we are adjudicators, we now understand how sucky debaters will feel if the adjudication was bad" and of course "don't let one round pour over into the next"

Staying together with the others for a whole week was quite an experience too. We've gotten pretty close after training together for such a long time ... but maybe it's this closeness that made things even more difficult. Learnt quite a bit about people around me, both good and bad and more importantly, learnt to see pass the bad, and concentrate on the good.

On a more interesting note, we've now got 8 (Elena being the exception) bimbos, a GB and a lot of pinoi-accent-faking people. ;)

To my fellow IMU debaters...
AUDC is over now, it's time to look forward. The Monash IV? NHSD? Or maybe even next year's Worlds or All-Asians or AUDC? Well, for many of us, this year will mark the end of our debating career but stuff we picked up from debates will definitly prove useful to us in time to come. Oh, and I forgot... I love you guys. *hugs*