Once in a Lifetime

∞

I used to think home and everyone I loved was just beyond the horizon.

Forever young

In my mind, I always belonged to the class 10B.

Never 11B or 12B. Always 10B.

Just as anyone born in '92 will always be 18.

"When I meet you, in that moment, I'm no longer a part of your future. I start quickly becoming part of your past. But in that instant, I get to share your present. And you, you get to share mine. And that is the greatest present of all."

-- Sarah Kay, Hiroshima

Good morning, love.

Is there anything better than being woken with breakfast in bed?

Wherever you will go

This is the year of 21st celebrations.

The only constant is change itself.

Evangeline

The evening star.

Spring-not-spring

Where art thou?

That December

7 Years of Love

1 Didn't realise how large my collection had grown. For the first time in my life, I've wanted to write and sent out Christmas cards & letters. I might just.

2 Sister made a smurf gingerbread house

3 "How big is your business?" is the question my dad asks in Taiwanese every time he walked in to the study room this swotvac. Granted, it's been mayhem. Paper, pens, books, notes - everywhere. Around 8 full days to study 3 subjects, 2 of which I've barely touched during semester. I always say this, but I really will study consistently starting from next year.

After the last biomed exam and a series of happy spontaneous coincidences and decisions, we ended up at Han Guuk Guan - the place I've always called the Parliament place, but isn't really near Parliament, I realised. I found a restaurant I've been to twice from my memory. Heh. 

4 The Lab, Bourke Street. They had limited time, Black sesame and match topping, which of course, I got.

5 The new mc cute pastel polka dot escalators

Don't you worry

1 J's 21st KBBQ. So good.

2 On the first day of swotvac, woke up at 6.30am, caught the 7am train for 8am breakfast at Seven Seeds. Swotvac dedication. I hope it all pays off.

3 Melbourne skyline on the wall of the second floor of Towoo

Towoo
603 Whitehorse Road
Surrey Hills 3217

Snap and chat

L's adorable creation. Hehe

October

Thank you

1 I wonder who first started the custom of giving flowers.

2 Little brother is the cutest.

Superstitions

"Make a wish if a train passes over you."

I can't remember who first told that to me, or where I heard it from, but it stuck.
It may seem childish, but for years and years, I've done just that.

Made a wish every time a train passed overhead.

It was always the same one.

Please please please, let me get into med school. 

Or the occasional, please let this be resolved. To whatever problem I was faced with at that time.

Yeaterday, I drove my sister to school.

Just as we were under the underpass, a train passed overhead. My mind prayed for what I'd always asked for, then a moment later, a second voice.

You have.

And that was when it struck.

Do you believe?

You know what? I'd say one of the most unapproachable topics to discuss vocally would be love.

I really really do now see why people opt to speak to therapists. Just someone who is objective. Who doesn't know the person. Who will just listen to you speak. Who you can pose rhetorical and hypothetical questions to. Someone you can pour your heart out to and not worry about the mess you've created. Speaking to friends and family serve only to increase their worries and leads to more questions you can't answer.

How do you say those things without sounding cheesy? How can you actually say aloud what you truly believe in?

Closest by far are letters. In them, I find so much of what otherwise cannot be expressed and said, can be.

Do you really believe?

That one day you really will find that person. That one who will stick by you no matter what. Who can accept you for the person you are, and the person you will become. Who will really patiently put up with you. Who really will want to spend the rest of their life with you. I don't need fireworks and gifts, flowers and diamonds. Just a steady hand. To know that no matter what, they will stay. You make the biggest promise you'll ever make in your life the day you join hands - don't break it. 

Some days, I wholeheartedly believe. I am filled with conviction, confidence and unwavering certainty that really someone does exist. I look at all the happy couples I know, I know of, I see. The elderly grandma and grandpa walking down streets with their hands clutched tightly. That one man who followed slowly behind his huffing wife on his walking stick, saying in passing, "oh boy she's angry now. I'll just let her be. Heh heh."

But other days, the doubts creep in. All the things I've seen and felt. All the times I've overthought everything, ruined everything, cocooned myself in a web of cynicism.

How I ricochet between certainties and doubts.

Design your own atom

So soothing...

Weavesilk
weavesilk.com

Lost in Time

In the Venetian, it is always twilight.

There, time is halted.

And you - unknowingly, suddenly - find yourself lost in time. 

Enter in the early afternoon, and exit so many hours, disorientated.

Where did time go?

It reminded me so much of the scene in The Cat Returns.
Eternal twilight.

All I could ask myself was, where did the inspiration for either come?

The Last Time

I was in an Eslite store, I stumbled across a travel photojournal of a man who visited all the forgotten towns by traditional train (台鐵). I will probably never find it again, but lately, this memory is constantly on my mind.

It's such a raggedly romantic way of travelling.

Picture this: Sunlight spilling into and over the seats. Traditional Taiwanese boxed lunch with the pork cutlet, braised egg and greens. Familiar accents. Gentle rocking to and fro. Amazing scenery. My camera. Books I love. Books to lose myself in. Places to see, conversations to be heard, and people to meet.

VSCO

There had to be a reason why many were hashtagging #vscocam on Instagram.

I went ahead, clicked, and lo and behold:

But a few.

Visual Supply CO
vsco.co

Wishlist - Hobes

Dilemma.

Which pair of these adorable hobes should I get?

I've been coveting them ever since I first saw them 3 months ago in The Age Good Weekend.

Anticlockwise from top right: Boat Hobes - Sparkler, Boat Hobes - Emily Green, Boat Hobes - Cool Grey, Original Hobes - Beach

Source: www.hobes.com.au

For sure, the Original Hobes in beach will one day sit in my closet, and with summer just around the corner, Boat Hobes have never looked better.

Emily Green, Sparkler or Cool Grey?!?

I must admit the Emily Green ones are tugging at my heartstrings.

Hobes

www.hobes.com.au

Instagram: thehobe

Twitter: thehobe

In a flurry

Another bout of 21sts -

K's 21st celebration was held at The Pumphouse Hotel, opposite Carlton Gardens.

The private function room was so well decorated. Loved the playlist. As the night progressed, the glowy purple and pinks from outside made the place look so pretty.

I realised as I looked through the room that I knew many people, but couldn't remember how I'd met them. Then I thought again and realised how wide my world had grown, how small it was - all at once. What with recent events, it seems as though my world and all its people were intertwined.

The world looks better at 1am.

Whether it's the absence of traffic, or the general slumber of the city. I prefer it then.

As we stood outside waiting, the usual age statement was made.

Damn, I feel so old.

In us, are elements of all that we've been. An ever-shifting kaleidoscope of the metamorphoses we've undergone. 

I still feel young, but some days, I feel a hundred years old.

Errands to run

Purples, burgundies and deep reds are growing on me. As is the colour, gold. So either I'm getting much older, or I've been influenced to become more girly. Suffice to say - I've outgrown my 'black, grey and white only' years.

Rainy October days

There's something so utterly etching about hearing rain drops on your umbrella and watching the city transform in the rain.

General Post Office

Corner of Bourke Street and Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

Retail Therapy? Check.

If shopping malls needed to make profits, the easiest way would be to make shoppers deliriously happy.
Then wallets will open and cash will flow.

Light hearts make happy people.

End of October will tell all.
Please, please, please.

Impulse purchases - but laden with so many complimentary gifts!

Crabtree & Evelyn has the prettiest packaging <3

In a mess

Lens isn't autofocussing again :(

The reason why

In less than two days' time, I will have less than five minutes to tell a complete stranger why I want to be a doctor. Why do I want to study medicine?

How do I encapsulate the past ten years in a <5 minute speech?

Sifting through all my past thoughts to somehow put this in order.

Why do you want to study medicine?

Medicine sans Frontiers. Doctors without Borders.

I keep forgetting, but that is how it all started.

This is when everything started.

Isn't it strange that a third of the world's population could live in comfort, while the rest of the world suffers from poverty, dies from starvation and diseases that are curable in the first world? 

To be able to travel to places in the world and provide aid where I can, with what the knowledge and training I've accumulated, to deliver the best possible care I can.

We always say Australia is the lucky country. But how many of us truly appreciate it? I recognise it, but I don't think I really truly, from the bottom of my heart appreciate it, because I've always only lived in places similar. But in other parts of the world, people cower, they hide and they live in constant fear of losing their lives.

The more I learn about the human body, the more fascinated and humbled I am by it's intricacies and extreme delicacy. So many things can go wrong. An egg needs to be fertilised at exactly the right time, then it needs to embed itself into the wall of the uterus and grow and grow and grow to become an embryo, fetus then baby. For a life to simply be, so much needs to align and so many processes in the body carried out to perfection.

Life is so precious.

Being a doctor, it's not just a job. It's a part of your life. Doctors interact with people at the most profound and intimate level. When a person comes to a doctor asking for help, they are placing all their trust in the doctor. Trusting that the doctor will listen to them, help them, support them and ease their pain and suffering. And that is such a honour and privilege, something to be so thankful and grateful of. 

Of the mentors and teachers you've had. Of the people who have given their bodies to science so we students can have access to the most invaluable teaching. Of the lives that have been extinguished in our pursuit of new drugs, in the medical experiments we've carried out to improve our understanding and knowledge. Of the people who have supported you through this journey. Of the patients who have generously allowed you to learn from their bodies.

In Dr. Abraham Verghese's words, "I will always, always, always be there. I will see you through this. I will never abandon you. I will be with you to the end."

Weddings & Tears

Wedding videos never fail to make me cry.

This is so beautiful.

Congratulations to Fleur and Mike. 

May your love deepen with each passing year.

Biomed Ball 2013

My iPhone 3S actually takes quite decent photos - when I look it on the computer.

The Peninsula was beaaautifully decorated.

Pre and post-biomed ball

Biomed ball accommodation.
Wanted to take photos at 2am, but I was so tired after I fell asleep within minutes.

I was half-starved when I woke up, so W and I headed to Degraves Street for breakfast.
This place was so well-lit, warm and cozy.

Degraves Espresso Bar
23 Degraves Street, 
Melbourne 3000

Experiments

I wanted to make it flash at the same time so the petals came out transparent.
But it didn't work.