Thursday, October 14, 2010
This is just so that my blog wouldn't die here, all alone and forgotten, like roadkill or something gruesomely similar. Heck, I shouldn't even be blogging anyway, but STUDYING.
Ah yes. Studying.
In my college, CODS (Which stands for College of Dental Sciences btw, and whoever who named the college sure isn't winning any creativity awards) the first batch of students are MY seniors, who apparently did so well (11 out of 14 got Distinctions), that all Malaysians are semi-worshipped as some sort of know-it-alls who.... know it all.
Heck, so not true.
Imagine going around on a tour of the campus (note I used the word "campus" with a very straight face) and being told by every department we visited how awesome our seniors are and how awesome we were expected to be, as well.
To anyone who might happen to be coming to India in the future to study, be prepared. Be very prepared.
Be prepared to wake up every morning with a feeling of pending doom and misery.
Be prepared to go to sleep every (mid)night feeling so grateful that you can finally get some rest.
Be prepared to be told "Oh by the way, we're having our exams in two weeks" at any point in time, even though the exams aren't expected for a whole more month.
Be prepared to spend lots of money on plane tickets back home because you're not going to know when the semester breaks are, until maybe a couple of weeks before the actual holiday by when tickets to and fro would cost you roughly the price of a mobile phone.
Let's just say that... There's no real, organised system here. And it's hectic, chaotic, yet fun.
You never know if one day you're going to walk right into the middle of a riot in the streets.
You never know when you're going to be hit with uncontrollable bowel movement that would cause random, barely-controlled, brown explosions every half hour.
I'm really starting to appreciate the feeling of holidays now. Even two days off from class is like a godsend, because our schedules are just so effing packed. YES IN INDIA, YOU DO NOT GET SATURDAYS OFF. Classes are six days a week, and considering the fact that a week has only 7 days, that's a pretty small amount of time off.
I don't even know what I'm trying to blog about. Byes.
random thoughts@6:40 AM
I had actually decided to write up a whole blog post on how I thought that India was a huge but rather realistic figment of someone's rather Tolkien imagination, and how the disturbances in the 5th dimension caused eddies in the space-time continuum, and how too much fried egg was bad for health, but decided to just be direct about it.
Let us just begin with an FAQ, or more rather FGA (Frequently Given Answers) for the vaguely curious people out there.
Yes I am in India.
No I do not speak Tamil or Hindi now.
No I do not have an Indian boyfriend, nor am I actively searching for one. So rest assured I will not bring back an Indian husband.
Yes I'm adapting very well, thank you very much.
Yes the classes are crazy.
No there is no beef here.
No the weather is not unbearably hot.
Yes I have a rather nice hostel, that would probably beat most private Malaysian hostels, even.
No I have not acquired a pet PG........ yet.
And no I am not pregnant (this bit particularly dedicated to a snatch of conversation I heard while eavesdropping on my roommate on the phone)
Yes my classmates are quite nice people.
Yes the food is quite good, and cheap.
No I do not eat roti canai's everyday.
Yes Davangere is pretty survivable. I
do like the place.
Yes my professors are extremely knowledgeable.
Yes I HAVE done dissection, ie. cut up a dead guy's scalp and face.
And in relation to the FGA above, NO we dental students do not get to cut up balls. Both female and male, upper and lower. If you get my drift.
Ok so now I would assume that most people who don't happen to be studying in India are more enlightened, let us move on.
And just for the sake of the people reading this who haven't stumbled across my photo album on India on Facebook, I'll post a few photos here, and follow up with my professional, cool opinion on India in general.
A typical view of a typical Indian street, in smaller towns.
My dissection kit, which is currently sitting unused in my drawer, because I always borrow someone else's.
A sight that is nearly always common in Davangere. Pigs.
And uh... My hostel.
And right outside the hostel.
Goats (I forgot what sound it was that goats make, so I'll just type "baa baa" here and hope nobody notices that.) BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP.
My prostho lab, where we spend two hours each week attempting to make dental impressions, or more rather, attempting to apply the mould to the mould tray correctly. Out of that 2 hours, it's safe to say that 80% of that time is spent waiting for water to boil so we can soften our moulds.
And I would obviously like to pretend that this is what we have everyday, but it would be too obvious a lie. We just have this once a week :p
Study now. Bye bye.
P/S: I would very much love some bak kut teh right now.
random thoughts@11:32 AM
There was once a species-confused penguin, and his name was Bozo.
random thoughts@8:11 AM
It was a dark, stormy night.
Yes, it really
was a dark stormy night. I know you might not believe me, due to the tendency of most stories to begin on dark stormy nights, but trust me on this one. This particular story really begun on a dark story night.
As I was saying...
It was a dark, stormy night. Everyone had gone to sleep. The big old clock ticked the seconds away, each
tick ominously counting down towards the time when...
BOOM!
The door crashed open.
And there, stood....
random thoughts@11:19 AM
I will be leaving Malaysia on the tentative date of the 25th of August.
That's a good three weeks later than what we were first told. I'm already beginning to rot at home doing absolutely nothing (Although I DO find this process of rotting quite enjoyable and relaxing, I don't think it's wise to maintain a prolonged state of rotting-ness).
How can this be?? I only planned to rot for two months, no more, no less! Now I'm supposed to rot for a further three weeks?
Maybe I'll do something PRODUCTIVE. For example, study Hindi/ study Anatomy/ learn to cook/ anything else that doesn't involve the use of computer.
random thoughts@10:12 AM
A typical view of a typical Indian street, in smaller towns.
My dissection kit, which is currently sitting unused in my drawer, because I always borrow someone else's.
A sight that is nearly always common in Davangere. Pigs.
And uh... My hostel.
And right outside the hostel.
Goats (I forgot what sound it was that goats make, so I'll just type "baa baa" here and hope nobody notices that.) BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP.
My prostho lab, where we spend two hours each week attempting to make dental impressions, or more rather, attempting to apply the mould to the mould tray correctly. Out of that 2 hours, it's safe to say that 80% of that time is spent waiting for water to boil so we can soften our moulds.
And I would obviously like to pretend that this is what we have everyday, but it would be too obvious a lie. We just have this once a week :p
There was once a species-confused penguin, and his name was Bozo.
