The many chapters of 4eVeRRiVeR
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
How often do you find a person with the same birthday as you?
Using randomized clinical trial: Probability= 1/365= 0.00274
How often do you find a person with a twin?
Based on a study by "Twin births in Singapore: a population-based study using the National Birth Registry."Using data from the Singapore National Registry of Births and Deaths (SNRBD), this paper describes the number of twin and multiple births among different ethnic populations in Singapore. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All births recorded in the SNRBD from 1 January 1986 to 31 December 2001 were analysed. Outcomes measured were twin and triple birth rates (per 1000 maternities) of the 3 main ethnic groups in Singapore (Chinese, Malays and Asian Indians). Further outcomes were calculated using Weinberg's differential rule to estimate the number of monozygotic and dizygotic twins. RESULTS: Overall twin birth rates have steadily increased across all ethnic groups (7 to 9/1000). The largest increase in multiple births among the ethnic groups were twins born to Asian Indian fathers (6.9 to 9.9/1000) and Malay mothers (5.9 to 9.8/1000). A significant difference in birth rates between the ethnic groups was found during the years 1994 to 1997, where Chinese parents had the lowest multiple birth rates and Asian Indians the highest. Estimation and ratios of monozygotic and dizygotic twin births differed among the ethnic groups: Asian Indians had the highest ratios, followed by the Chinese and, lastly, the Malays. CONCLUSION: The SNRBD has provided an overview of multiple births in Singapore, although the establishment of a national twin register would enable more detailed analysis of genetic and environmental effects in multiple births.
Hence an acurate estimate would be 7/1000= 0.7% or 0.007.
How often is tat twin an elder twin?
1/2= 0.5
How often do you find a person with all of the above?
1/365 x 7/1000 x 1/2= 7/730000= 0.0000096
And so introducing Meina, dental yr 2, 1 yr my junior..
Cool huh?
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Sorry abt e delay in pictures, coz still waiting to consolidate all e pictures b4 choosing e best ones for u guys heh.. Toking abt pictures, I went back to school on fri to confront the IT pple abt my deleted profile and why all my pictures, ard 300+, including e consolidated HK pictures which are gone from the system, when Mr Tan had promised me everything will still be in e hard drive. Freaking promised!#@*#!! And en he tried for over 3 hr trying to recover e pictures, first searching for *.jpg and en *, which is like all e pictures in e c/d drive and when he can't find em, he tried to system restore to an earlier date, twice. When that doesn't work as well, he tried to install this files retreival programme, which again, u can guess the results.
And so here I am, reluctant to scan my developed 4R pictures least one day all my efforts will wasted again.
And yesterday afternoon we celebrated Linlin's 21st birthday party, e first girl in our class to have a 21st party and invited all of us down to her humble abode. Yet only so few turn up to her generous invite thou, and once again e guys dominate with a ratio of abt 10:2. Food was aplenty and conversation was interesting, with representatives from Sydney ( me, Dennis S and GengFeng ), North Carolina ( Kenneth ), Loma Linda ( Wanyi ) and UK ( Jon ) sharing their experience, jokes and even some with details of like for eg. stripping girls.. Heh..
And en in e evening me and e jc clique celebrated Qi's 23rd birthday, dawning e first half of e nite over at Kailing's humble abode. It amaze me they haff no intention to sleep, so after watching 2 rented CDs ( 1/2 CD of Nobody knows, 1 CD of The doll Maker and 1/2 CD of something Love something), we proceed to walk to Foong Seng ( from Clementi ) for some drinks. Enroute, we took alot of splastic pictures since Gekkoon had with him a tripod stand for e camera ( for his own project ) and we can take pictures anywhere, anytime together. And I do mean anywhere. Took pictures in the guys' toilet in NUS engineering block with us standing infront of e urinals (Kailing and Peiqi included), on the zebra crossing in the middle of e road outside central library, and the most outrageous photo would belong to us squatting on top of e row of vending machines in central forum, if not for e security guard who came down ( probably coz we were making way hell of a din and laffing like xiao ) and asked for our matriculation cards. He probably would be laffing and sharing e experience how he caught 5 susposedly highly educated pple ( 1 doctor-, 1 dentist-, 1 chem engineer-, 1 science graduate- to be and 1 teacher ) acting like idiots to top of e vending machines. Haha.. Haiz.. If only Qi, Gekkoon and Tim would listen to me and Kailing, en we'll definitely have taken e picture and scoot off b4 he came heh..
And by e time we reached Foong Seng, it was already 5.20am and we talked abit more b4 I bid farewell and took e earliest bus at 6.10am and concussed once home. And school's 2morrow and I still haffn't touched my 2 tests or DPH assignment.. Hiaks.. Guess sydney pictures will haff to wait even longer heh..
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
And so I'm back from e land of kangaroos and koala bears for a grand total of NOT 1, NOT 2 but 17 days!! How long is tat? And 12 days are apparently long enough for Charles, Zhi Xiang and Dennis who came and join us on day 6, friday, to grow a nice little goatee by e end of e trip. I'm more blessed with good looks so I dun really need to shave tat frequently. Anywae, 17 days is a freaking long time and since I'm still living off my parents, I had try to budget my trip as much as possible, spending a pretty decent amount under 2 k.. Flight and accomodation included. The Aussies generally have comfortable wages and a higher standard of living than Singapore so everything, and especially the food and public transportation is so much more expensive than Singapore. Each meal is about an average of A$8 and I'm sure u can do e maths if A$1= S$1.27. The Australian government is also more generous and forgiving than ours in comparison, where e Aussies r covered in free health and dental benefits ( the patients who were admitted into e dental hospital do not have to pay a single cent whether they are being seen by e dental students or dentists alike ) but allow some citizens or illegal immigrants to take advantage of e system. Dr Eugene Chan told us abt this law: if an illegal immigrant arrive at Australia in a boat, they will be sent back home immediately. But if they sink e boat before they were caught, they will be allowed to stay in Australia temporary due to e the human rights/ amnesty laws. But en again, e water is freezing cold and not to mention e increase no. of unprovoked attacks from the great white sharks off Australian coasts. In Singapore if u r an illegal immigrant, prepare to get jailed or caned.
Hiaks.. if I continue to babble on, I'll only finish this blog entry until e kangaroos come home.
So in point form some interesting notes on e Aussies:
-Aussies love to talk. Be it greetings ( You're e man!/ How are you doing? ) , crap ( babble babble babble ) or even vulgar language ( Mother-f*#king this/ Father-f*#king that ).
-Their favourite lines include, "No worries mate". ( which also eventually become our favourite line, esp when thing goes wrong.. heh..)
-They have a super duper laid back way of life, which is an euphemism for slackers.
-They close shop exactly at 5pm.
-They are definitely slackers.
-They love healthy food, like salad, sandwich, pies, and all non-oily food.
-They have a national pie week.
Interesting notes on e weather:
-It hardly rains. That explains e no. of convertibles on e roads.
-Sydney has mild summers and strong winters.
-Brisbane has strong summers and mild winters.
-Brisbane's moreton island is freezing at nite.
As said, e SEP pple departs on 4th sept aboard quantas. Inflight entertainment was shiok! Great movies and some nice games to keep u entertained for e whole flight so how could u waste any moment of it sleeping it away? We touched down at 6.30pm and there and en at e Sydney airport, begin calling abt half a dozen of backpacker hotels to ask for e rates and availability. A bit of haphazardity since we are only settling our accomodation en, but Sydney and most Australian cities are very backpackers-friendly so we had no trouble in getting a room with 4 single beds at The George, which is only 4 streets away from Sydney dental hospital and at an amazing weekly rate of A$115! Which works out to be A$16.50 a day! And unlike conventional hotels, it boast of a wonderful and fully equiped kitchen with 3 stoves, all sorts of utensils, pans, plates and bowls, a toaster, an oven, a microwave, a fridge, lots of shelves which are filled with all sorts of food belonging to other residents. Needless to say, we also purchased some groceries like vegi and fishballs ( to add to our magee mee ) and bread and hazelnut spread for breakfast. The only downside of backpacker hotel is that e room is much smaller, with no tv or its personal toilet ( althou even e 3 star YWCA hotel rooms dun haff its personal toilet). There is room service with e change of bedsheets and towels and clearing of rubbish everyday, and e best thing is ofcoz e kitchen, which also boast of a filtered water source so you do not need to boil water for drinking. The tv is in e kitchen as well, and sometimes during meal times e kitchen can get pretty crowded. To top it off, there's a phone available which allow free incoming calls from Singapore. Cool huh? And Fengyi sure make gd use of tat facility heh.. Seriously, I feel tat a backpacker room is no less inferior to tat of a conventional hotel room, and security is not a problem since we took e whole room already. My only disappointment is e absence of tv in e room, but en, u can actually rent a tv or heater heh.. But considering e little amt of time we spent in our rooms, we decided to forgo e tv rental.
The location of our hotel is fabulous. It is close to central and townhall train stations, and its only a ten minute walk away from school! So I can actually wake up at 9am, wash up for 10 minutes, have breakfast at e kitchen for another 10 min and reaching school at 9.30am sharp. Simply shiok..
And abt e SEP.. We definitely have much better dental chairs than Sydney dental hospital or Westmead dental hospital, which is also e case compared to those in UK with correspondant Jon. But e whole dental undergraduate course is so much more student-friendly for e students. The doctors and students are ma chiam like friends ah.. I didn't see any students kanna gan by e doctors in my 2 wks of SEP, or perhaps I'm just unlucky to witness these episodes. As said earlier, Aussies are much more vocal and there is a constant stream of conversation btw e student, e doctor and e patient. And after e procedure e doctors will be praising e students for e work well done and boast e morale of e student and confidence of e patient. In NUH? Gd luck if u kanna a staff like Horny Tomato.
And en there's no system of bringing your own patients for treatment ah.. The students there were totally shocked when they heard our system, coz they never haff to worry abt the patient pool which is always present or that they haff to call up each one of em to book an appointment. They do not haff a requirment of e minimum no. of procedures they need to perform before becoming eligible for e competency tests as well. And they haff much MUCH less lab work to do since every clinic got their own technicians and u just need to trouble urself a little more by walking over there and pass e work to them. Kaoz..
Met up with Dr Eugene Chan, an orthodontist who graduated with BDS in Singapore in 1990 and is so nice to host us for dinner and e nite entertainment. He tok abt e days when Horny Tomato was much younger, but even during their time, she wasn't very well liked. And not forgetting Prof Keson Tan, Prof Chew CL, Dr Betty Mok & Dr Ho KK ( yes its tat early), Miss Han, Mr Richard, nurse Ai Chin, who are all part of our dinner conversation. He gave us an insight into their system and how he felt singapore graduates will have much more discipline than e Aussie counterparts and hence generally perform better in procedures.. But in terms of patient management, e Aussies fare much much better than us. Dinner was fun and by e end of e nite entertainment after he dropped us off right at our doorsteps, e gals were infatuated with him liaoz.. As expected heh..
Food was expensive and so groceries was bought and magee mee was cooked. But our all-time favourite is e $5 steak!! Tat is like damn cheap ah.. A$5= S$6.40 for a thick juicy slice of pure steak!! Infact, chicken, fish or pork cost much more than beef. Needless to say, they haff more cows than chickens or fish or pigs in Australia. Heh~ The steak is pure delicious and I dare say I had more steaks in this trip than e total no. of steaks I've ate b4 e trip. But this special offers are only available for a couple of bars in Sydney city so I've marked em on e map and have been to The Slip twice and Gruffy Murphy twice as well. Dennis S and gang became steak eaters as well after arrival in Sydney.
And so that sums up e introduction! And I'll wait for my pictures to develop b4 describing our itinery, since each picture can save me a thousand words. Boy.. E road trip to port stephens was by far e most happening and Anna Bay is e most beautiful place I've seen in my life. Can't wait to show u guys e pictures to show u wat I mean.
Until en its back to Lost, kudos to Dennis S' collection once more..
Thursday, September 01, 2005
I'm so mad at e IT pple tat I want to strangle them. They freaking delete off my user profile account and create a new one so as to solve e problem of no internet connection, and hey! Miraculously all my personal files and folders are gone! And 2morrow I'll march into their office to demand an explaination. If there's no satisfactory answer, I'll just burn their office down.
On a lighter note, we have finished our 2 tests today and tomorrow is the last day of school and clinics for term 1.
And on a even lighter note, I'll be flying to University of Sydney on sunday for 2 wks on SEP! En we'll switch flight to Brisbane and visit Gold Coast Australia! Should be fun heh..
