Puppies

This is my pet: the puppies' biological mother

She gave birth to 5 puppies: 2 died and 3 remained. This is one of the puppies

About 3 weeks old

The other two puppies, which are black colors.

They always lying together to get some warms from each other

Can see how big is the white puppy compared to the its sibling.
Both were 3 weeks old.

Sematan. Bako Trips

We do celebrate Hari Gawai/Dayak in Sarawak and Sabah. Thus, we fortunate to have a 4 days break during that festival (weekend + 2 days public holidays).

We went to Sematan beach (Again!) and Bako National Park for day trips.


This is Sematan town, a very small fish village located 100km from Kuching. Just in recent years, it starts turn into a new tourist spot because of its blue sea and white sand. So far it is the best beach i've ever seen in Sarawak.

Can see how blue is the sea

Handcraft made from shells


Cows resting and having fun under the palm trees


Palm Beach Resort


The beach view from the Palm Beach Resort

Then our second day trip was the Bako National Park. This is one of the several national parks in Kuching, and my second time visit this place. Last time was with my SBC colleagues, Connie and Adrienne. We followed the same trail as the first time i went, which was Pantai Kecial trail that took us 1 1/2 hr of jungle trekking from the beach. This was the first thing came into our sight when we reached Pantai Kecial by speedboat:

The famous rock: A look-alike Crocodile Head

This is the Pantai Kecil (Kecil Beach) view from the hill

We got to climb up from the beach as this is the only way route back to the HQ from the beach


Sightseeing from the top

A closer look on the competely dehydrated rock
(due to overexposal to the sun)

When this view came into sight, means we've reached the HQ finally!
(After an hour of trekking that totally exposed ourselves under the hot sun)

The map at the HQ park

We've seen the same map whenever we reached the junctions during jungle trekking. But never as detailed as this in HQ park which showed us the actual distance from each spot to the HQ.
Our trail is about 3.0 Km from HQ but >50% of it was open area (no trees can hide us from the hot Sun). If you can withstand the super hot weather, this maybe a good place to explore. Luckily i didn't get sunburnt this time because of the sun protection cream. If i don't apply any sun cream, i am sure my skin will be peeled off the next few days after that trip. Can see how damageable of your skin if you expose yourself longer under this condition.

Both places were worth to be visited again. So i think i will come back again, especially for the seafood and blue sea at Sematan beach, and the sun spa but easy trails at Bako national park. Hope you guys enjoy the photos... all were mainly taken by Iphone which were not so clear actually. =)

To Buy or Not To Buy

I think i will be very sorry to my dad and my current car as i am thinking to get a new car for myself. Not to say i am rich enought to get my own car, is just that i feel the car i am using now is getting old, getting noisy everytime i start the engine and while driving and i also getting worry one day it will stop moving all at a sudden. I will say this car has a full of adventurous life. It was stolen once, when my dad went to play mahjong and found the car was gone when he finished his game. We thought we never can find this car anymore, so my dad went to police station and found that the car was just sent back from somewhere else by the police. Amazing huh.. actually the true story was the thieves had drove the car away, and when on their way back to their home, they found the police car was behind them. They were so scare that they tend to run away from being suspicious by the police, so they ran and eventually crashed into the tree along the road. So the police came and catch them immediately. Then my car was survived but got bad injury.

After few months of that incident, and few months of repairing and resting at the mechanic house. My car has back but one day, the thieves so interested on it and tend to stole it again. Because of the new car alarm system, the alarm rang so loud till nearly whole neighbour alerted, my car was safe this time. Maybe this is the fate that this car belong to us, until it was stolen and nearly stolen, the car still with us today.

I've test drive the Viva this afternoon and found i should get a new car, instead driving this Proton Saga. Actually i personally think that this car is too old and i found we just spend too much money on its petrol and monthly car servicing.

But i think the car got the soul spirit wants to follow our family in its whole life, as above true stories, i just scare if i scrap and trade it with a new car, it will come back for revenge. LOL. Ok, i know i think too much.

GCP exam

Two weeks ago, i attended a workshop namely Good Clinical Practice at Hilton's Hotel, Kuching for 3 days. At the end of the 3 days lectures, all participants including me have to sit for an one hour test which the passing grade is about 80-90%. Only when we pass then we are eligible to get the certificate.

What is so important about this certificate that all clinicians, nurses, medical technicians, pharmacists and researchers are encouraged to have one. Especially in recent years, the trend of doing research has begun in ministry of health in Malaysia, so people show interest of doing clinical trials and research. This 3 days workshop probably can tell why, what and how clinical research is conducted under global and Malaysia ethic regulation.

Compared to basic science research which doesn't deal with human property, clinical research will be more complex when dealing with the regulatory requirements. Some countries like China will take about 3-6 years just to convince the ethic committee to approve for their clinical study. As you can see, any party in a clinical research, regardless of the investigator himself, sponsors (usually those pharmaceutical companies who seek for the clinical site to conduct clinical trials) and regulatory board all have their own roles, they must always remember and to make sure the patient's right is protected.

It sounds pathetic if we want to swallow the whole bucks of regulatory requirement before to conduct the clinical research. Through this GCP workshop, we're given brief ideas of the regulation requirement for the clinical research, as well as some exercises. It was quite fun when doing the exercises with the rest of group members (we were assigned to different group since day 1), and can know who had been concentrate during lecture and who hasn't.

I think some people didn't realize that will be an exam after the workshop, so some looked panic. The exam took 1 hour and got 40 questions. I personally thought the questions were ok, except for some pharases that quite confusing. Luckily i done an online GCP mini test last year, so i found some questions were quite similar.

Last night i was informed by my boss that.... Yea, i pass. LOL, so i got another certificate in my closet again (the last certificate i got was the hall of frame to reach the Mt. Kinabalu peak).

=)

Why midnight

I wonder why all the heart attack patients admitted to hospital during midnight?

Why not during day time?

Why? Why? Why?

Patients ar, can you come on day time so that i can take your blood???

Our dinners

Since i start my working life, and since i met a guy who loved cooking, we start to make our own dinners at home sometimes, usually during weekend.

This was our yesterday's dinner

[Clockwise from top left] Corn syrups, red wine a.k.a Ribena, Organic potato crackers from Sydney (Inside the container), main course (consists of Italian creamy pasta with hams, potato salads, mini steak, cheesy mussels and own made wedges）

Tonight's dinner:
Our last night's can't-finish pasta (microwaved again still can eat - Don't waste food mah) and own made thin pancakes with honey.

Just a sharing, and is good to cook at home, coz this really can save alot for us. Shall share more with you all in next post.

=)

Worry

My project is already very lag behind. Suppose should have some data comes out by this July or august and submit abstract for one important presentation next year, as in my planner. Now it is end of May, and i still in the process of enrolling patients into my study. To get a minimal data for an abstract seem nearly impossible. I should be more patient, claiming this unfavourable things will happen especially it is just beginning of my project. Somehow, i don't feel ok when i see others (my collegues/friends) who do researches have some progress in their project already (yet they started later than me), while i still struggling to count how many more patients i need over the time, to have enough samples for me to run a test. The worst it is and the most i worry is, i maybe won't get new funding for this project if no promising data comes out. And now, i left no single cent for this project. One of my ELISA kits is going to expire on this September, sienz, how i able to get all my patients within these short periods?

I am very not ok now.