"Secret Santa" Christmas Party

We had a "Secret Santa" Christmas party at Boren's place last nite. Click on the image above for the description on what "Secret Santa" is all about.

The food was mediocre at best, nothing to shout about appropriate for the amount of money we paid, which was RM10 per person. All food was supposed to be halal to cater for our Muslim batch mates, but some non-halal stuff kicked in later due to inadequate food spiced up the tempo a little. LOL! I'm sure our Muslim friends wouldn't mind.

I did not join in the secret santa thingy, as I was lazy to go buy present for someone. Am too old for this, haha! It was nice to have batchmate gathering like this. Totally enjoyed the company. Despite the host protesting frustratingly, I think the short drizzle made everyone comfortable and relaxed.

The hosts bought a cake as a surprise for birthday boy Soon Han. It was amusing to see a lot of people fumbling when singing the birthday song, pausing after "... happy birthday to... ??". Yours truly included! Haha.

"The secretary" presenting Chocolate Indulgence to birthday boy

Group photo

Most people went back after 10.00pm, and missed out the fun. For those who stayed put, we had a helluva red wine binging session. Thanks to Kar Seng who like to gulp rather than sip.

We bought 11 bottles of red wine, and there were about 11 of us. I lost count of the bottles of red wine consumed after 6 bottles. Thanks to the card game devised by Kar Seng.

Very soon, many of us became disinhibited, rowdy, and some became precociously horny (hehehe). I'll let the photos do the talking...

I was drunk, no doubt about it. Siu Min drove us home. And I slept till 12pm today woke up at 6am to go to the ward and covered all my patients, then attended the CME in the afternoon before going to the gym in the evening. I did not vomit, I'm strong!

p/s: The second last sentence is bullshit, in case you have an olfactory disorder... LOL!

My Fitness Gym

This gym is like the best-kept secret in town... nested on the fourth floor of Endah Parade (Carrefour Sri Petaling) for more than a year now, My Fitness is indeed... unheard of! Who would venture anywhere above the second floor of Endah Parade???

So the rat goes to this new-found gym, of course for free with this 1-week free trial pass. Thanks to the long Haji plus Christmas holiday! Have been thrashing iron daily since last Thursday...

The lockers

My Fitness gym consists of two floors; lower floor is the gym itself with all the weights and machines, while second floor houses the food & juice bar, yoga room, spa, and changing rooms with shower and sauna.

The lockers are a bit on the anorexic side.

Do guys actually sit down and blow their hair? So gay!

Cardio machines.

The cardio machines are impressive in terms of quantity, quality and variety. Each machine comes with its own dedicated LCD screen that display up to 5 different Astro channels!

The resistant machines are equally good and complete too! The equipments are top-notch! Very well-maintained even after more than 1-year old (either that or they are lacking members working out).

Resistant machines.

Resistant machines.

And here comes the free-weight area. Again, equipments are of good quality and rather complete. Impressive for a Malaysian-owned gym! Totally comparable to other corporate mega-gyms like Fagness Fitness First and California Fitness.


This gym advocates Weider and Horleys product, which I think are crap. Membership fees is about RM105 per month. I was able to work out comfortably and hog the machines and weights to myself during my five days there, as the number of members is on the low side (I think!). Here's the location map, flicked from the gym's website. Modified it a little to include IMU Bukit Jalil campus:

Winter Solstice Festival

"Tang yuan"

December 22, according to the western calendar is the shortest day of the year. This winter day and others close to it are marked by many cultural observances around the world. Universally, the Winter Solstice was regarded as the beginning of the annual reawakening of nature. Days would grow longer and the nights shorter. For the Chinese, the Winter Solstice celebrated the beginning of the triumph of Yang over Yin (??!! LOL!). It was their holiday to celebrate near Christmas.

Having "tang yuan" (glutinous rice dumpling balls in broth) is one of the signature ritual for celebrating "Dong Zhi" (Winter Solstice Festival). Tang stands for reunion and yuan means round or complete. Am going over to my gramps for a reunion dinner of sort soon! Will post some photos if I'm not too lazy!

The scene at gramps - 2 tables with numerous dishes!

Community Project

Spent the past weekend at Kampung Parit Sulong, Batu Pahat as part of our final semester Community Project. We were to conquer a religious school and turn it into a health screening base for the village folks - for free! And yet only 100 odd people turned up. Well maybe next time we'll have to invade each and every kampung houses, just to be holistic.

Sekolah Agama Seri Maimon @ Parit Sulong

The project consisted of stations that measure blood sugar, blood cholesterol, blood pressure, body mass index, visual test, dental check-up, prostate and breast examination, and Pap smear. For the kids, there were de-worming pills too. There were also health talks on dengue, breast and cervical cancer, etc. I was in charge of the health exhibition on diabetes mellitus.

Clowning around, getting my blood pressure checked before the health screening starts

My job was rather simple, those who were found to have deranged blood sugar levels would be sent to the exhibition site so that I would repeat myself again and again on "banyakkan exercise tiga sampai lima kali seminggu, 20 hingga 30 minit setiap kali, dan kurangkan gula, garam, lemak, banyakkan makanan berserat tinggi seperti sayur-sayuran dan buah-buahan, supaya gula dalam darah terkawal dan tidak mendapat kesan-kesan buruk seperti angin ahmar, serangan sakit jantung, rosak buah pinggang, buta, kaki kena potong... ... ..."

This is how the station I'm in-charge with looks like...

After the screening program, there was this Projek Keluarga Angkat (Foster Family Project) whereby we were put into groups of threes and assigned to a house to spend the night with total strangers. IMU wants us to taste the kampung life...

My keluarga angkat

We were then brought to our rumah angkat (which is huge), dump our stuffs into our bedrooms and headed out to the school hall again for the Indoor Games with the villagers.

Three-legged race

After the games, we went back to our foster family. Had a nice cold shower, and clowned around the house, checking out every nook and corner while waiting for our bapak and emak angkat to finish their prayers.

My bed for the night... having it all by myself! Hahahaha...

Me and my ibu angkat

Us on the dining table with ikan masak asam pedas, prawns with curry and garlic, and veggies.

Me and the gossip queen, Missy Shahira.

Then there was the Malam Budaya after dinner. Will try to get some photos and post them up here soon. The next day was gotong-royong day. We were assigned to groups responsible to paint the balai raya, plant 100 banana trees, and cleaning up the school hall.

Tanam pokok pisang.

Cleaning up school hall.

Scraping and painting the balai raya.

Lastly, it was the closing ceremony. I was assigned to hand over a souvenir in the form of a framed photo of the three of us with our foster family on stage.


And here are some group photos...