Update

We had a drug update presentation this morning and learned that there is actually yet another lifestyle medicinal product on the market. This product is called Latisse and it lengthens eyelashes. It's actually a side effect of the original drug which was originally developed to treat glaucoma and it turns out that this side effect is rather significant and thus marketable for an indication of its own. And the best part about this is that people will always buy lifestyle products, which means more profits and sales for the company.

今日はとても疲れた。昼のときお客さんがたくさん来た。つなみのように。本当に驚いた。忙しすぎてどうにもならなかった。

だから今は超疲れた。早く休みたい。明日もやればならないことがあるから、あんまり休まないよね。

First attempt

First attempt or rather, the first day of my new approach towards my project. All in all, I think it's quite a success this time, with the groundwork being a lot more focused and a lot less time consuming. The data and results are also more relevant than the haphazard mess previously. Still, I did not really manage to complete what I have in mind for the day today, due to a bit of a hiccup, but it's no big deal. It'll be settled in no time.

今日はいい日だ。すべてのことは問題なく終わった。ちょっと苦手なこともあったけど、大したことではない。

この調子だとすべては順調のままだ。これは最高の結果だろう。

New workplan

A couple of things to talk about today.

Firstly, my project has taken a complete change in the way I'm going to collect data, and the way it's going to be conducted has also changed majorly. For better too. The work is now a lot more focused, and a lot easier on my mind. Less stress for me, and also less nonsense.

Secondly, I've finally decided to let them move along, specifically the original, since I've been hanging on to her artificially for quite some time. Her significant other has already passed along, while she's still going strong due to my interventions. It just all seems so unnatural for such things to happen, so I've let go and allow nature to take it's course. It feels a lot better that way too.

プロジェクトのことがちょっと変わった。これからのは以前よりちょっとやさしくなると思う。これは当然、いいこと。

こうなったらストレスもちょっとよくなるかもしれない。明日からわかる。そのときまで。

People

There are people one like, and people one dislike. Some conversations are acceptable by friendly or neutral relationships, but unacceptable by awkward and disliked relationships. It's not too hard to understand all these, but some of them just don't get it. Perhaps they are just too self centered and full of themselves to get the idea. Who knows. One can never truly understand the minds of the narcissistic.

わけわからない。ある人の考えはさっぽりわからない。自分には考えないことなのにどうしていつでも私に迷惑をしているの？けんかをうってるの？

そんな人は大嫌い。誰もそう思うでしょう。もういい。

Little trip + Other stuff

Went for a little field trip to another hospital to check out how their antimicrobial stewardship program is conducted in hopes of getting some pointers for how we are going to do it back here. Quite an informative trip it was. At least now that's some idea of how an operational program looks like, versus the stuff you read in papers, practical experience is always better. It does feel a lot like one of those multidisciplinary meetings that I had attended before.

Oh ya, the other stuff as mentioned in the title is one of those online ethical research course that I have to take as part of the requirements for my project.

正直最近の生活は退屈だ。仕事で忙しすぎるので、あんまり自由時間がない。もっと時間がほしいけれども大人の世界は複雑だ。

大体の人は仕方なくそうしてる。

Homework and Assignments

Not much rest this weekend as I had to rush out several assignments, and also brood over other matters for the upcoming week. I guess that's part and parcel of working and studying at the same time. Lots of responsibilities and expectations, but little time to complete them.

Oh well. Some rest is still better than none after all.

いやだ～

週末はこんなに早く終わるとは・・・もっと休みたいのに。

やっぱり大変よね。働きながら勉強するのは。まぁ、休みがあるのはないよりましだけど。

でも、やっぱりもっと休みたいな。

Misses here and there

Been forgetting to write something here for the past 2 days. The work at my department together with the need to collect data for my project is starting to get to me. It just makes me so fatigued and stressed out that I escape to other lands and forget about this mortal world. Okay, that's a bit exaggerated but you get the idea.

調子はあんまりよくないけど、悪くないも。ちょっとストレスがあったけど、大したことではなさそう。このままではいい調子かもしれない。

がんばろう～

Progress

After wasting the last two days without getting actual project work done, I went down this afternoon and cleared up 1 and a half teams to get some solid data. Some of the cases are gone, but I've more than made up for that with what I've achieved today. And I've also changed the way I go about data collecting, and it's working a lot better now. Once I get all the old cases settled, things should get a lot easier.

やっと進んだ。いつも進まないともいけないから。まぁ、今ははじまったから、もうどうでもいい。

もうすぐ週末。どきどき。

Headache

Currently in a lose-lose dilemna. On one hand, I have to go collect data for my project, and on the other, I have to fulfill my responsibilities as a member of the current department I'm in. Letting either go won't do, and accomplishing both is impossible too. Thus far the decision had been to work in the department, but it means that my project will be taking a massive hit, and the data won't be used by myself alone either, since I need to share the information with someone else, and that's even worse.

I guess I have to speak with the head of my department to come up with a compromise so that I won't feel that guilty about skipping work in my department to go data collecting. Hopefully all will go well.

困った。今はやれなければならないことが二つある。でも一緒にやるのはできない、一つだけをやるのもできない。本当に困った。

できればなに一つを犠牲すれば解けることだけど、さすがにできないよね。自分だけのことでもないし。まぁ、がんばるしかないと。

Stressed!

Things have suddenly took a turn for the worse. Having to do assignments and also research and date collection for my project has really taken a toll on me. I'm just feeling the heat now. And things are only going to get more and more terrible from now on. I wonder how I'll be able to handle this...

ストレスがためていく。このままじゃ体が持たないよ。どうにかしないと・・・

Finished! At last!

Finally completed my building project and moved my people into their new home. It's a lot bigger than where they lived in previously and so it's a lot harder for them to get around and also a lot harder for me to follow them around. But it's all worth it. They've earned it after all.

Overall, I must say that I'm rather satisfied with this project of mine. It turned out quite well.

やっと終わった！全部で２４時間以上をかけた。本当に長かっただね。でもその時間は惜しくはない。よくできたと思う。私はやればできるよね！

えへへ、うれしい～♪

Fighting on

Spent almost the entire of today building, and I'm still not done yet. The last few finishing touches now, but it's still the bare skeleton even when completed. There's still the need to move them in and furnish the place. But at least I'm nearing the end. This had been a real challenging project, and I'm really happy that I started on this. It has been a fun and interesting process.

もうすぐで終わりだ。まぁ、これが終わってもまだやらなければならないことが残ってる。だけど、これは大事な一歩。はじめないといつでも終わらない。

少しずつがんばろう。

Building and Designing

Just started on my second construction project and I've once again ascertained that building and designing houses is just not my forte, or even something that I can do well. It's hard to put my ideas into reality, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've not even started with the colouring and colours yet and the basic design is already giving me lots of headaches.

But still, I have to persevere and get it done. My people simply have to get into a new house as the current one is a bit small for them, and I have the excess funds lying around anyways.

難しい。やっぱりうまくできない。

実は家を建ている。ゲーム中だな。でも難しい。どう建てるのかはわからない。基本のアイディアがあるけど、あんまり実践できない。

もうちょっとがんばろう。大事なんだから。

Project

It's the project season again. Yes, even though the FYP is far over and in the far fetches of memory, projects are not just about to leave me alone. There's this other pre-reg project, that's on a comparable scale as the FYP, but with a lot less time to complete. Wonderful.

Time to start panicking.

もう少しで週末。休みの時間。本当に長かった、今週は。それに疲れた。

やっぱり大変よね、今の働くところ。

Absent minded

I don't really know why, but I keep forgetting things when I'm going about doing my work. I just sort of blank out for a moment and I can't really recall what I'm doing at that point of time and lose track of the flow of events. This happens outside of work too, but it's most significant during work, as it affects my work.

Don't really know why, other than perhaps, I'm just really absent minded.

今日はとても忙しかった。朝は雨があったから、あんまり人がなかったけど、昼間から人が増えた。それからとまりなく働いて仕事が終わるまでとまらなかった。本当に信じられない。その忙しさは。

雨のせいなのかな？

Not that bad

Actually, work in the new department isn't really that bad. Terms with the fellow colleagues there are also rather good, so I guess everything is still fine and well. Yesterday was perhaps due to first day stress or whatever that is. Going along fine now.

今日は昨日よりよかった。あんまり疲れていないと思う。実はちょっと疲れたかもれれない。まぁ、どうでもいいこと。

重要なのはだんだん慣れてきたということ。この調子だと大したことはなさそうだ。このままへ行こう。

New environment

It's off to a new environment for me today as I start work at a different department as part of my rotation schedule. This new department is real hectic. Things are calm and peaceful in the early morning, but start to go crazy at between 10-11am. Then things go out of control and spiral into chaos all the way till around 4-5pm when it's almost time to knock off, both for us, and also for the clinics.

So far so good. Hopefully I won't burn out. Best wishes to me.

いまさらだけど、疲れた。新しいところへ言って、まだ慣れていないかな。ううん、きっとそうだ！うん。別に私が悪くはないだよね。

Photo shoot

Went for my convocation photo shooting this afternoon. We went for a studio package that included make-up for the ladies and grooming for the gentlemen, a 20x16in family photo, a 8R personal portrait, and 6 4R photos of your choice (including the previous 2 selected ones) for a total of $499. Wow. I knew studio photo shots were expensive, but I've never thought that they would be that expensive. It's almost unbelievable if you ask me.

But then again, it's sorta a once a lifetime event, so I guess it's still worth it. The photos should be ready for collection in 21 days, which is quite a long wait, but as the saying goes, good times come to those who wait.

卒業写真を撮った。とても高かった。八枚だけで５００ドルぐらい。信じられないでしょう？

一生一回しかないだけど、さすがに高すぎるじゃないのかな。まぁ、今はもう遅かった。出来上がりは悪くないから、別に悪くないだろう？

Late night again

Another late night post (or early morning post - whatever floats your boat) again. This time round, it's not due to some dinner or whatever, but rather due to a late movie that started at around 9pm. So which movie did I watch?

It's 20th Century Boys 2. Part 2 of a planned trilogy based on the manga of the same name. It's supposedly rather good and popular, hence the movie spinoff, but I've never read it before so I can't really comment about that.

We also celebrated my friend's birthday today, which was why my wallet bled a lot and is almost empty now. And to think that I've only just withdrawn money yesterday! Unbelievable...

今日はまた遅くなったよね、帰る時間。今回の原因は映画。友達と一緒に映画を見たから、帰るのは遅くなった。映画の名は「20世紀少年」。今回のは第二部。

えっと、面白かったけど、やっぱり第一部のほうはよかった。映画は第三部で終わりから、それを見ない限り話の全部はわからない。漫画は見る気がないから映画を待つしかできない。まぁ、どうでもいいことだけど。

Not feeling so good

Not feeling so good these couple of days. Been having a slight running nose with the occasional sneeze and cough, but today had been a bit more worse. I actually kinda felt a bit feverish, though I'm not really sure if it's just a perception since I didn't bother to have my temperature taken. I also feel kinda "light" and a bit dizzy and unstable at times.

Perhaps I've caught something, then again, it could all be just a fluke. Anyways, it's not serious enough to fry anything yet, but we'll never know. Just monitor and see.

調子はあんまり優れない。なんか病気の感じ。そうではないならいいけど。

明日は仕事後友達と出かける予定だから今夜までよくなるならいい。じゃないと・・・

Commencement 2009

Today is the Commencement ceremony for our pharmacy class of 2009. The official timing for the ceremony was from 10am to around 11:30am and we were expected to be seated by 9:40am, so me and my parents set off for the venue rather early in the morning.

I must say that the ceremony itself was quite fun, and it's also a milestone in our education, marking our transition from students into working adults in the society. Society can't really progress if everyone ends up being professional students, right?

It was a memorable event, and is indeed something that we will all remember for a long time in our lives. Thank you for the past four years, and congratulations to my fellow graduates. You've all worked hard and deserved this wonderful day.

卒業した。今日はその卒業式。今日からみんなは学生から社会の大人になる。ちゃんと心も成長しないといけない。私にはまだ早いかな？正直、まだ心の準備は・・・

子供や学生はいいな。悩みもあんまりないし・・・もう・・・

Screw up

I screwed up something badly, and now I can't fix it. I've tried various methods and ways, but all to no avail. It's kinda depressing to see things get screwed up so badly when I've been putting in so much effort up till now. Talk about the randomness of things in the world, eh?

大失敗。悲しい。戻りたいけど戻らない。もう・・・

どうして？もう・・・

Crazy Dog!

My dog is pretty insane. She will go about doing her business everywhere but where she should at times, and she also almost always fail to eat her food when she's fed - instead choosing to wait till she's almost near the hunger limit before eating. I guess she's just trying to leave space for any potential tastier (any food that is not what she normally eats) food that comes along.

I also realised that she eats cut nails. Both nails of her own, and nails of other people. Sure nails have keratin and are kind of hard and crunchy at times, but seriously? She sure has a rather crazy diet.

卒業式は後二日。長い学生生活の終わり。やっとといっても、なんだか惜しい。やっぱり成長したくないのかな？

今まで知らない人には実の年より若く見える。これは成長したくないからかな？

Orientation lectures

I had a surprise this morning when one of my friends suddenly SMSed me asking me where the venue for the orientation was. I was like, "Is there supposed to be an orientation today?", and he was like, "Yeah. It's at 8:30am. Come over now."

And that was at around 8:15-8:20am. Thank goodness I live very near to my workplace, or else I would have been effing late.

Anyways, this orientation is a two day event, so it means that I will have to attend the second session tomorrow. Which means less days of real work. Together with the commencement ceremony this coming Thur, that leaves only 2 days of actual work this week. Wow.

正直もう何を話すのはわけわからない。

といってもまた世代交代した。これは今回のメッセージ：

相変わらずわけわからない。そして何回見ても悲しくなる。仕方がないよね。

Sales

We went to the Robinson's sales that was held at the Expo this evening. The clothes sold there were supposedly dirt cheap, but I'm not sure about the quality. Even if it did suck, at least we didn't spend too much on it.

週末はもうすぐ終わった・・・また働けなければならない・・・もういやだ。

大人の世界は複雑だね。

Graduation Dinner

As mentioned yesterday, today was a very busy day. There was this lecture in the morning by a proud, haughty, and arrogant person, followed by a trip down to the computer store to get a new graphics card and power supply unit (for a grand total of $193 - and it's working great, as can be seen as I'm still able to use my computer), and ending with the graduation dinner of our class of 2009 in the evening - which was really the main star of the day.

Our graduation dinner was held at the ballroom at Hilton hotel and the theme for the night was Masquerade, where we were supposed to unleash our "inner self", whatever that means. I didn't really prepare anything special for the night though, unlike some who came with masks (who were told to bring them, preferably) and I don't have a blazer too, so I just went with the normal long-sleeved shirt + tie + pants combo.

The night started quite normally, with us registering our attendance by indicating next to our name on the sitting arrangement and nominating people for the beauty pageant. Some of the people were taking photos at that time too, and that reminded me that I've been so stupid as to have forgotten to bring my camera along. I had to content myself with my rather crappy phone camera and in the end, I only took 2 photos with it. Others were taken with others with their cameras. Hopefully they will upload the pictures so I can see and get my hands on them.

After the basic introduction speech by the organising person, and our head of department (who was the only representative from our professors), the dinner was started officially. There were a total of 10 courses, as per the norm for Chinese menus, and naturally, there was a course that was fish, that I didn't take. Not a big deal though, since I'm just missing out on one course out of 10.

We also had some games along the way with the two emcees trying their best to engage our attention. But I guess most of us were more interested in the food and socialising with our fellow classmates and friends than the games. We did participate though, and one of our classmates also had her birthday celebration, along with her boyfriend for company. Some video clips made by our classmates (both past and present) were also screened during the dinner, and they were really touching, especially when photos of us from the past - from the freshman orientation to the final exams in the final year - were shown. It really shows how fast time has gone by. Four years just went flying past in a blink of an eye.

The most interesting, and fun event of the night was the beauty pageant. The nominees were pretty much caught off guard - well, I guess you can say that some of them had seen it coming - and it was a lot of fun to see them get on stage, be paired up, catwalk up and down the ballroom, and also to do challenges and dance together.

There was also an unofficial photo taking session after the first half of the pageant as people started going round to take photos with each other. They were getting together, striking poses, and basically having a lot of fun. Which was really the main point of the event. This was, after all, one of the last chance for all, or almost all, of the class to get together.

Near the end, one of our classmates who was not practising, and instead went into the showbiz industry, sang two songs for all of us - one Mandarin, one English. She's a real beauty, and cute, and her vocals are good too, so I think she'll be able to do well. Let's all cheer her on^^ She's also the female winner of the beauty pageant for the night. Not a surprise, given her looks and her attire.

As per normal tradition, or at least that's what I think, there was a lucky draw at the very end of the dinner. A total of 10 prizes were given out, and I was lucky enough to be drawn for one of them. I won a 2GB thumbdrive courtesy of the HPB. Quite a nice little souvenior for the night.

We had a class photo taking session at the very end, which was quite chaotic as trying to fit 90 over people into one photo takes a lot of squeezing and planning. After everything was done and over, it was already around 11:40pm, and there were no more trains running in the direction that I need to take to get home so I had to take a night bus.

All in all, the dinner was wonderful, and my heartfelt thanks goes out to the organising committee for planning such a wonderful night, and also to all of the classmates who came and made the night possible. The next, and probably last, time where we will see all - almost - of us together will be our commencement ceremony next Thur. I will be missing them. Those four years were great times together.

疲れた。本当に疲れた。卒業したクラスメートと一緒に宴会を参加した。久しぶりの再開はやっぱりすごい。友達と一緒に話して、写真をとって、とても楽しい時間を過ぎた。

楽しいは楽しいけど、終わったときはもう１２時ぐらいだから、電車はもう止めた。仕方なくバスで帰った。うちへ帰ったときはもう１時ぐらい。酒を少し飲んだから、頭が痛い。しかも眠い。普通はあんまり酒を飲んでいないから。

楽しい時間の後は疲れ。当然なことでしょ。

Upgrading

I'm thinking of upgrading the graphics card of my computer, which means that I will have to change the power supply too, as the current one won't be able to support a better graphics card.

I already have some ideas in mind, and will likely be heading down to get them tomorrow after the lecture in the morning. And I still have to head over to the bank to get some matters settled too. Busy day ahead tomorrow.

週末だ！今回はうれしい。忙しい一週間のあと休みは重要だ。だから、週末は必要。

ちゃんと休んで、やれなければならないことをやって、楽しい週末を過ごそう。

Case review

Ack! Almost forgot to write today. Which is why this post is soooo late.

Anyways, we have to do case reviews for our training, so we went down to the wards this morning and looked through the cases that we have there to pick out interesting ones to review. It was a long and hard choice, but I finally picked a case which I found to be rather interesting, and I guess not that common either.

The entire morning was pretty much spent on finding the case and copying the necessary information and so the day was over in a blink of an eye since I usually have lunch at 2pm, and there's only 2.5 hours of work left after coming back.

しまった。今日は書くのを忘れた。えっと、まだ間に合う。忘れたではない。

毎日仕事仕事ばかりストレスは本当に溜まっていく。学生の時代はそんなことがなかったのに・・・

もうダメ・・・

Pharmacist Meeting

I attended a pharmacist meeting today and I must say that it's a lot better, and related to the profession, than what I had went through previously in my retail attachment. Issues like complaints from the patients, overseas conferences, work problems, and other things that concern the pharmacists in the hospital were brought up and discussed. That's how a true pharmacist meeting should had been like, not some session where people talk about sales and targets and compete to be the store with the best sales.

七月だ！つまり、もうすぐ七夕～

シンガポールにはどうでもいいイベントだけど、日本にはそうではなさそう。人々は短冊に願いことを書いて、竹にはる。

まぁ、その気持ちがあれば、こっちでも祝える。