The way of learning

A way that's not so conventional. But I believe it works.

I was doing some random browsing yesterday, and a Get-Rich-Slowly blog caught my attention. So I read more of its posts. One that stood out was Six Steps to Learning Difficult Subjects Quickly.

Here's the first one:

Bombard yourself with information — Don’t try to slowly digest the material you’re trying to learn; immerse yourself in it. Read it quickly, so that you’re drowned by it. Yeah, you can do that kid's face too if that helps.

Now a quiz. Do you absorb more information going slowly through a Lego instruction manual or by attempting it hands-on first, then looking up the guide when you're stuck? Do you learn better by reading a textbook/reader word-by-word, or by looking up a new artist's info on Wikipedia?

I realize that for me, learning is much more effective when I rush it than when I slug it. That's why sometimes learning informally happens much quicker compared to formal methods.

This would be one of the weapons in my arsenal as I start school again in mid-February. Yeah!

You can read the rest of the article here.

Picture credit: chromasia.com

My 23rd job application

With one month of summer vacation to go...

I think I spent too much time thinking whether to make the application or not. Just like the house applications that I'm doing. But you know what I've realized? I learned it from my phone, so I'll call it the lesson of the phone.

When my phone rings, the caller is normally predictable. Or the SMS-er. Because most often, it's someone I have just called or messaged moments earlier. Sometimes it's a day earlier. But calls don't just come suddenly without any reason.

Now you know what has struck me about this whole applying-and-waiting deal? You do not have because you do not ask. Pretty elegant, eh? Now I'm suddenly reminded of a Malay proverb: yang pipih tak datang melayang, yang bulat tak datang bergolek. But my memory might have failed me and I might be misquoting it.
That striking quotation doesn't end there. It continues: You ask and you do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Oh, how I hope that I do not ask amiss!

The Occasional Reminder

That I guess every student needs to bring along as they study and learn their field (particularly those still having a few weeks before semester starts again, like me).

I Googled how to learn medicine and found several interesting search results. Two of them were particularly representative of what I felt in 2nd semester:

I signed up to be a doctor. I wanted to wear the white coat, to treat patients, to haunt hospitals, to prescribe medicine. But a medical course is not so easy. Before they teach you what you need to go out into the world and treat, you have to jump over a few hurdles first. You have to learn biochemistry. You have to learn physiology. You have to learn pharmacology. Many aspects of these subjects will not be necessary for your career. Entire chapters will be more appropriate for pure scientists than for medics. But for various reasons, you have to learn everything. It's good for you.

But it makes you forget. It makes you look at medicine as one long tortuous road with no end in sight. It turns you into a fact-memorising, exam-taking machine.

By The Angry Medic.

I did a traditional style course, something the Angry Medic is battling through at the moment and wondering if one of the shiny new style integrated PBL based fashionable courses would have been a better choice. I can’t really say because I haven’t done one, but before the traditional style course gets chucked out like those Dallas style shoulderpads at the end of the 80s, I’d like to remember the good aspects of the course.

Most of the time there was only one textbook to consult. When I was learning anatomy I looked in the anatomy book. Simple. None of this trying to learn the anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pathology and treatment of a heart attack all at once.

By Dr K.

That bit in red there really describes what I face in the integrated, systems-based PBL-driven medical course. Sometimes I just wonder, what exactly does integrated supposed to mean? I find it hard to learn and understand a particular part of the body when I'm given only 5 days to study it all. Well, we do of course get more than 1 week to study each of the gut, the liver and the kidneys (and then there are weekends to recap), but in the middle of the week, what normally happens is that I'm lost in all the details of the anatomy, physiology, etc. of the particular organ.

And then there's the terror of solving it - the House moment: an attempt to explain every symptom the patient is having based on one single diagnosis. It's where Pathology - a really sick subject in my opinion - kicks in. It's cool, it's very "medical", elegant, etc., no doubt. But it also brings dread as you open the two-inch thick, hardcover Pathology text. The book I use organises stuff based on systems - digestive system, hepatobiliary system, renal system, haematology, etc. - and on the introduction page of each system, it lists almost all the possible ways of the system to get a disease (i.e. to get sick, which Pathology really is). Acute tubular necrosis, acute glomerulonephritis, interstitial nephritis, post-streptococcal what-not... a friend of mine once remarked, "it's a whole new language - you could be speaking about it with another med student and no-one else will understand what you're talking about."

Sheesh. Exam-taking machines. Exactly.

And the occasional reminder is what The Angry Medic ended with:

And there comes a point when you forget what you're doing this for. What it was that drove you, idealistic and bright-eyed, to medical school in the first place. What you believed the medical profession could do.

But every once in a while, along comes something to remind you. Along comes something that tells you that there is a world out there, with real living breathing patients to treat. This, for me, came in the form of this snippet from Grey's Anatomy a few weeks ago...

(You can go check out the website if you're interested)

A meaningful movie

After many days of not viewing any movies...


Of course the movie is packed with humour and all the laughable stuff, even right from the start, when Alex the little lion trapped a butterfly in his mouth - I thought that's cute and funny.

And here are some of the lines that I feel are really meaningful - yes, meaningful in real life.

1. "This is where we belong"
That's when the four animals saw the reserve and realized how much more attractive it was than the zoo in New York. Don't we all dream that one day, we'd be in a place where we would say everyday, without fail, "Home sweet home."?

2. "My son is back!"
When Alex's dad announced the return of his child/cub (now a grown-up cub). What joy can match that which we experience when a long lost loved one returns?

3. "I am gonna bring the house down"
Said by Alex, just one day before the rite of passage. The message: superb performance makes the audience awestruck.

4. "As your new leader..."
Said by Makunga, who wanted to take the role of alpha lion from Zuba. Doesn't this reflect the reality of this world? In every corner of the earth, there seems to be a conflict of power. Someone is warring against someone else. Someone with power being challenged by another who wants to take it away. Could it be a reflection of the clash between good and evil?

5. "Maybe you can wear a bell, or something?"
When Alex couldn't tell Marty apart from the other thousands of zebras. It sparks questions about individuality and identity, including why each of us has a sense of making our own mark in this world.

6. "Now who wants to go in the volcano to be eaten by the gods?"

That's when the water supply has dried up and a sacrifice is proposed. Melman the giraffe offered himself. I wonder, why do we humans value sacrificial love so much?

Why do you believe in----?

Fill in the blanks. And find out that blanks are not necessarily blanks in this age of colour-contrast.

Do I have a religion? A faith? Why do I believe in it?
What else have I grown up with? Often, we believe most dearly what our parents taught and emphasized during our formative years.
What if it's wrong all this while?
How much wrong? Surely I've done something right...well, if not, even the world knows that stealing is a crime.
What if every bit was inaccurate?
Then what should I do, sit and stink? Inaction is worse than good action, I believe.
How do you tell that it's true?
And how do you tell it's not true? Actually this isn't the best response. I'm thinking of a better one.
Come on, how do you tell it's true?
In whose name did I ace my exam? Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.
Should I believe that you yourself did not study?
Would I know what my result would be by just studying? I really did know how many A's I would get, 4 months prior to the result day.
Can't you tell me something other than school?
Fever; did I not recover from it upon praying? Was on a Saturday, 2 days before my last exam paper - I recovered on the same day, no medication, but plenty of rest.
Right, can you give me time to think of more questions?
Should I then say, to be continued? Yes, this is the ending for now.