A level. DONE

  It was frightening, that day. 24th January 2014. I wasn't feeling anything the day before but nearing to 2.00pm, I was wrecked. My hands won't stop shaking and the time seems to past excruciatingly slow. Right on 2.00pm, I refreshed my page on the CIE Directs and voilà! MY RESULTS!!

  

  It wasn't perfect, the results, but I was so happy and glad that I didn't get B for my Maths. Alhamdulillah. Though my mood was spoiled due to some reasons, it was compensated by parents who brought me to Pizza Hut for a 'celebration'. Yeah, we go to these kinds of restaurants mostly for special occasions.

  Now that my results was out, I can concentrate on my upcoming IELTS exam. I need to get 7 and I have to aim for the band 8 (in case you didn't know, 9 is the highest). No harm in aiming higher right? I think I can manage the listening and reading well, I'm just a bit(a big fat lie!!) nervous for the speaking and writing mostly, the former especially. As my 2-weeks-IELTS-prep-class told me, most Asians are better at receptive language than the productive ones. Yep I'm definitely an Asian. 

  Putting aside IELTS for a while and I'll be talking about my future plans(heh). Now that Manchester has rejected me(WITHOUT AN INTERVIEW) I am in dire need of plan B or C or D. Though this is nothing new(change of plan) in my life, it's still disappointing. A new level of respect for those who did their MBBS or BDS at the UK.

  Now over with my whining session, I'll just continue my IELTS practices. What else.

Till then, Assalamualaikum.

  

Meeting a dentist and a dental specialist

       I am truly grateful to Allah for the chance that had been presented on me today. My dear aunt who knows I am still half hearted in my decision for my degree offered me to meet with a dental specialist (in oral and maxillofacial surgery to be specific) and he (while meeting him) offered me to meet the general dentist, who is very very kind next door who is an alumna of the Manchester University (my dream university)!!!! I really couldn't thank both of them enough for the time they spared for me and the invaluable advices they gave me.

       The specialist was kind enough to spend some time with me and shared his opinions of both fields and as commercial answer( I think ) he answered both field is almost the same in terms of studying and you need an excellent (perfect I say) results to enter these fields. But he did mentioned that there are too many medical doctors but less increase in market(if you understand what that mean) and what that is more important is that we should do our degrees in fields that we are truly interested (and have acceptable skills) in. He also did remind me to not be too caught up in thinking which profession suits myself most as sometimes things might not turn up as we expect them to be. (Absolutely right). Not to mention that he commented that our local universities have lower quality dental programme than overseas programme(UK).

      Now that we have heard a specialist opinion let's hear from a general dentist's views. The first question I asked, are you going to specialised in any of the dental specialities and she said with no doubt(seriously) No. Then the obvious question, why? She said that she is truly happy and satisfied with her profession now and she prefer to see a variety kind of patients rather than just one type of patients. She has been in the field for 16 years now (but she looked really young) and have her own clinic. Then another question popped up, how about her life as a dentistry student and she happily(again) said that she had a great life as a student and she had just realised how good her lecturers are because when she went to seminars lately they are bringing up the methods that she had been studying and practising for 16 years. 16 years!

      That is why both of them said that continuing my degree overseas (UK) in the recognised universities of course is much better because of the quality of the lecturers and the technologies. Nonetheless we shouldn't give up our field (even it seems almost impossible to get in) and we can still continue our degree locally. Last but not least, a food for thought, if it takes 16 years for the knowledge to come to Malaysia and known to dentists, what is exactly the students are learning??

Till then, Assalamualaikum

Hospital attachment, an eye opening experience

From the 25th of May until 31st of June my A-level friends aka my classmates and I (a total of 5 people ) went to KPJ SSH, Seremban for a hospital attachment as we call it.

We are lucky enough to be accepted by Prof Dr Wan Hazmy the medical director of KPJ SSH as most of other hospitals wouldn't accept A-level students. They prefer the actual medical students to reduce number of trainee especially in private hospitals. No surprise when the common asked questions are "which year are you?" or "doing your practical?".

There we are shadowing the doctors( 3 actually, a physician, a paediatrics, and an orthopaedics). Following their ward roundings, observing their ways in their clinics, (taking lunch when they are not, going back early than them) and got to see how a specialist spend their life. It really made me to reconsider my choice of pursuing in the dental area because I can see satisfaction in this job though I am constantly reminded how hard this job is especially for women.

In the end everything is still uncertain and I haven't finished my AS yet. Wish me luck (lol, talking to myself)!

Assalamualaikum. Till then.