edmundwee

Film: Fujifilm Velvia 50
Camera: Holga 120N

Here are the shots. Developed this roll at Peninsula Plaza. This time round, I request to scan the film to a CD instead of printing them out, cause its cheaper. But disappointing shots in the end. Very blue, dark and underexposed. Is the problem with the scanner, my camera or the ISO of the film?

And by the way, today the facebook vanity url created such a big wave, so many usernames were registered within the first few minutes it launched. And I just changed mine to “/edmundweeyuxin”. Of course I would prefer ending with “/edmundwee” but no choice, it’s already taken. But I am intriqued by this phenomenon, this rush for online identity.

Something interesting to share : 15 Silliest Facebook Vanity URLs

Back from Pulau Ubin with a painful butt, caused by long hours of cycling. Nice island, nice seafood, nice cycling terrain suitable for adventure seekers. Nice trip organised by Jason and Sihui, and the participants includes mindy, becca, leongwei and his gf-geraldine.Photos will be developed soon(should be next week if i give the shop tml)

Glad to have finished my roll of film today. Hope it turns out well eventually.

And also my camp is having block leave tml and Tuesday-finally a rest, after the busy past few weeks, outfield and AHM training.

Today in camp, quite a number of hard-core Manchester United fans took either leave or off to book out, I was no exception. I had applied for a day’s leave so that I could at least sleep in the morning before booking in at night. Currently waiting for the match to start at 2.45am, so I shall make a match prediction.

Although dubbed as the “Ronaldo and Messi show”, I don’t think Ronaldo or Messi will live up to expectations for this match. Maybe Park would be the key factor, cause he can be quite unpredictable. Or Tevez may come off the bench to score his last goal for United. And United will win at the end of the “show.”

I guess “Man Utd 2-0 Barca.”

Full Time

I was in camp reading a copy of The Straits Times, when I came across an article about this Japanese bicycle traveller who cycled across 124 countries. It took him 11 years and he is still on the go.

I went over to his site to have a look at his travel stories and it made me inspired to write about my own trip to 成都 2 years ago. I will write based on my memory, photos and videos, and I hope it also serve as an informative guide as well. First post is already up in the “Chengdu” category.

By the way, here’s the Japanese traveller’s site, if interested to read:
www.daisukebike.be

Turned 21 years old on the 10th, after which 11th april was the departure to Chengdu 2 years ago. I still miss the place as always. The spicy food, the slower-paced society, the beautiful scenery and the interesting streets. Lots of things to explore and learn. A nice city to stay in. If opportunity arises, I hope to return one day.

21 years old…I think it’s about time I start working towards my dream.

Yesterday was 清明节 (which means tomb-sweeping day). On this day, thousands of Chinese will flocked to either temples or cemeteries to pay respect to their love ones. They would bring along food, fruits, incense paper, paper money and other traditional offerings like paper houses, cars and clothes. These items will be offered through fire.

On this day, I accompanied my parents to 光明山 temple to pay respect to my late grandfather and uncle.

While waiting for our relatives to arrive, I saw a young family of 4 which consist of the father, the mother, a daughter and a son. An ordinary family, nothing to create a hoo-ha about.

But in the arms of this young boy was a black paper car( it’s a 6-8 seater sports utility vehicle! ). Immediately it reminds me of an interesting news article and I discussed with my father.

This news article is saying that, nowadays the traditional offerings are getting more creative. In the past, the usual offerings are paper money, houses, cars and clothes. But nowadays, some offerings are really out of the box! Imagine having paper PS3, paper ipods, paper Wii and even paper machine guns! And I mean paper replica of real machine guns not toy guns!

I really wondered why “they” need machine guns! I thought it’s already all peaceful up there!

My father added: “Why not they create a paper Visa card then it will replace all the huge stacks of incense money?”. Since Visa’s slogan is “All it takes.” I laughed, of course.

Now back to the young boy with the paper car. With no disrespect to the boy, my mind asked internally: ” Did he bring along a piece of paper car license as well?”

Just some interesting thoughts to share with friends, with no due disrespect to the traditional festival, as I believed traditional customs also evolves through times, likewise is the same for art.

Currently, I am nearing the end of my course and my parade will be on next friday. Then after which, I will be posted to somewhere as a medic. So far so good, medical training had been fun and I really learnt alot. IVs had ended, and the needle marks on my arms had also started to fade. I had overcome the pain barrier as well. It is strange because I use my spare arms for my friends to practise. They reasoned that my vein is thick and juicy, thus easier to hit. Fair enough…

On my life in army - I say life in army is routine and orderly. It is also simple. One thing I like is listening to how the old army officers talks. The way they speaks exert a certain charisma, I think it comes with mellowness like wine. They spoke words beautiful enough for a poetry. Simple words with strong motivation like this one : “Fitness is individual.” I think this is powerful.

It goes like this, in the morning run, we could choose to run in different pace groups - A, B and C.(fast, medium, normal)

But common sense explained most of the soldiers joining C.

At the end of the run, this officer was telling us that fitness is important and that we choose how we want ourselves to be, just like fitness - it depends on the individual.

I realized any adjective with “…ness” can be substituted into his quotation.Whatever words you can think of - Happiness, hungriness, funniness, loudness, sweetness, healthiness or shamefulness…edisonchen? His name just came to my mind because he arrived yesterday, sorry to edison’s fans.

Interesting moments this week:

初一 : We were visiting my paternal side relatives, when i overheard my relative saying to my father : ” Yuxin looks like Obama.” Haha i was like, “Te kong 一大堆咯!” Same hairstyle, thats why.

初二 : We were visiting my maternal grandma. She gave me a red packet again. I was surprised because she already gave me one on 除夕. I thought she forgotten, but she explained in hokkien : ” This red packet is for today, the previous one was for that day.” I think she is finding excuses to give me money. So I gladly accepted her token. She is someone whom i will always be grateful to, for being a large part of my childhood. I could go on and on about her, but i will stop here for now, perhaps maybe a post about her another day. After dinner that day, i had to report back to camp at night.

初三 : In camp, i heard we will be having I V tml.

初四: Big needle and got poked 3 times. Lost some blood. Someone said : ” This is not a blood donation exercise, OK! “

初五: Book out day!

Quite a hectic week, been through 2 IVs, blood test and unluckily got guardduty till sat.

So far I am undergoing the medical course to become a combatmedicc, you know the type of soldiers with a red-cross on their arm who goes around treating the injured. So far it has been an eye opener - as in totally different from what i do, but i thought it is useful knowledge to have.

As you all know, I studied design but now i am learning medical-related stuff so i can say i am currently in a different world. Try to visualize a designer working in a hospital.

We learn about anatomy, physiology, diseases, wounds, CPR and Intravenous Infusion. We had to read about the human body, the different organs and system, the heart, blood and so on. Got to memorize bones and muscles, which made me recall some of the bones learn during drawing lesson. Then there were also lectures about wounds and treating various injuries. Basically it’s a bit like nursing.

The most interesting part is Intravenous Infusion which means 打点滴.

We had to practice with our buddy. These are the scary steps.

Tighten the tourniquet around the arm so as to make the vein more obvious , wear those white medical gloves, find the vein, swap the vein with alcohol swab a few times, aim the vein, then insert the needle at 30 degrees into the vein about 2mm, tilt the needle to 15 degree and push it in, then dislodge the needle. Remove the back part of the needle, then screw in the tube of the Hartman Solution, which is the bag of liquid. Then tape the tubes to the arms and bandage.

I just completed 2 practical this week. So currently i had 4 holes in my arm.

Why 4 holes? Cause my friend miss my vein once each lesson. If you miss the vein, your buddy would suffer. Cause the needle would be inside his skin, then you would have to readjust that needle.

The sergeant would be saying: ” A bit to the left, a bit to the right, or pull back a bit, tilt the needle then push back in.” All these while the needle is still in your skin. You feel your nerves being hit, as though there were electric jolts.

For obese people, their vein is less obvious and that makes it harder to locate. For me, my arm in thin so my vein is quite obvious but there were cases of the needle hitting the bone haha so just pray hard.

You really had to believe in your buddy. I thought this lesson really strengthen the bond. When you see your friend suffering in pain due to your error, you feel guilty and wants to improve your skills to reduce his suffering. You see his blood flowing out and dripping all over the floor and the needle still in his skin, you realized you have to remain calm and act fast. You would be nervous but you try to act calm. Then when you finally found the vein, you would feel a sense of joy and relief. Then after which you and your buddy switch over. And if your buddy make mistake, the needle will be in your skin, then the sergeant would repeat what i typed in bold haha. But the weird thing is you don’t blame your buddy, although he cause you pain.

We were once told the reason for this training. If you feel the pain, then you could really understand the person you are treating. Sometimes you really have to be willing to sacrifice yourself for your friend, cause pain is part of the learning process i think.

There will be a total of 10 practicals. I think i could really fully understand pain by then haha.

Just to share something funny i noticed when watching Red Cliff 2 or 赤壁 2 yesterday.

I am not sure if i saw correctly, but i remembered there was one scene, when 二哥(Guan Yu) was shot by arrows. Then he proceed to pluck out the arrows from his chest. According to what i learnt, if a sharp object like a knife is impaled into your body, do not pluck it out. If the knife is removed, the blood will flow like a fountain. The victim will die faster. But in the movie, Guan Yu plucked them out, or maybe he is wearing an armour, or did i see wrongly hahaha.

Going back to camp soon.