GARGANTUAN steps

Saturday, March 20, 2010

rushing to the end

Fourth year in Imperial College has been a refreshing year away from all the medical stuff of the past three years, though it isn't totally unrelated! I think I've chosen the right course in Infection and Immunology to have done my Bachelor of Science in, and being in the top university with it's expertise based in Immunology, I think I have no regrets. In fact, it has further nurtured my interest in doing research, and I am now most sure that I will do a PhD in the future, perhaps when I've become a registrar, and will do a PhD in the realms of my speciality. In fact, I am at a point in my life where I have to decide on my future, whether to work in the UK for an additional year so as to get GMC registration (in case I might ever want to come back to work in the UK), as well as the fact that there are better clinical research opportunities here in the UK as compared back home. The fact that they don't treat their doctors too well back in Singapore is another major negative point, but the fact is true that home is where the heart is. I've also got to start planning for my electives, which are at the end of 2011, and I'm hoping that I can do half of it in Singapore and half of it in Africa, maybe Kenya or Tanzania so that I can visit my good friend Ben there too!

Meanwhile, the weeks are flying by and the year is just rushing to an end! It seemed barely yesterday that I was roaming the streets of Jerusalem and now I'm just two months away from going back to Singapore. Looking forward to that, but I'm also deep in within my research project. It's been an amazing and fantastic opportunity to be able to work in Prof Christoph Tang's lab and it is so much different to be working in a lab that produces results and does top-notch research. I think the environment is extremely conducive as well, and I'm inspired to work hard and produce results! Currently, optimization of my protocol hasn't gone well at all, and there hasn't been any results thus far, which is extremely disappointing. And I'm already halfway through my project, which is extremely frustrating. Hopefully next week will be a better week! I've also got much to thank for, with a good supervisor, Lionel, who happens to have ties with my family! His parents used to be neighbours with my uncle back when he was a toddler, and so he knows my cousins, and my dad even knows him from his time in London. Just such a small world.

The next few weeks are just going to fly by with tonnes of activities ahead! Coming up will be my floorball tournament for the South-West League, and we have two more weekends of matches to come, and if we win them all, we'll top the league! I'm crossing my fingers that we will be able to do so, even though we will be severely short of players on 28th March, because it is the start of our school holidays and many of our players are going away on holiday. Such a shame, that our good results earlier in the season might be wrecked by our poor second half showing. I'm really hoping that we will be able to pull it off and it'll be an amazing achievement. Such a shame really that Ben has fractured part of his orbit and will be out for the rest of the season, worse still that it was a training accident. Really hope we can pull it off! This is also one of the very few holidays that I'm not flying out of London to globe-trot, and it is a pity indeed, but I think it's more important that I put my efforts into my project and enjoy later. As it is, I might be going to Hokkaido with my family when I'm back over the Summer! Looking forward to that! I will, however, going to Bournemouth to visit my cousin and cousin-in-law there over the Easter weekend, so it'll still be a break.

Meanwhile, it's back to work! Spring is finally here, and I was glad to have my aunt Teresa and uncle Francis over for a short while just two weeks back. My graduation is on 20th October this year, and my parents will be flying up, so I better not embarrass myself at Royal Albert Hall, and my brother and Lynette are getting married at the end of the year as well, and that's a major event for me to look forward to! It's an exciting year ahead.