Show your teeth! Smile~

Picture of heavy snow in Glasgow, February 2009

There's one saying: "If you worry, you'll die; if you're happy, you will also die; then why worry?"

"The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people." - Mark Twain

Manchester & Liverpool, January 2009

Let your day shine! Live your day with laughter and get rid of all the sadness.

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." - Mark Twain


Birmingham & Cardiff, December 2008

Do something you feel that makes you happy each day, even if it's just eating a cube of chocolate! Being happy not only you'll look younger but also emotionally.

"Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient" - Aristotle

Don't forget to capture your happy moments! Look back and you will definitely like it!
Have a nice day!

Earth Hour

Can u believe this? I am typing this blog with my lights off, in conjunction with the Earth Hour programme. This is to increase awareness of climate change, and many country participate that their authorities switch off their lights for an hour on 28th March at 8.30pm to 9.30pm local time.

Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sydney Opera House, Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Edinburgh Castle and many other landmarks will switch off their lights. Also, London Eye will dim their lights for an hour as well.

Kuala Lumpur skyline, before and after lights off for an hour.

My uni is participating in this activity though it's not known among every student about this.

Although lights off in many places, we still have moonlight and you can have a picnic out there of having candlelight dinner. Ain't that good?

Anyway, HAPPY EARTH DAY!

It was a disaster..

... but will learn from it.

Today, 25th March 2008, I, being an optometry student, get my first real patient for refractive assessment.

I had an older patient, in his sixties, works together with me as my guinea pig (well, not like i'm going to dissect him or do anything unpleasant). I never had an OAP before but i appreciate the fact that our uni paid 11pounds for each patient to come in as our volunteer. That's very kind of them, right?

There's some part of the eye test, took me quite a while to get it done, which has never happen before. Why? Why? Why? I manage to get it done at the end but not on time. :(

I promise i'll do it better next time with more practise.

At least...

... no assessment, class test and lab report due date for the coming 2 weeks!

shadow of sunshine on me

Does weather affects your feeling of the day? Many will say 'YES'
Winter is finally over and I am welcoming SPRING.

On a morning of St Patrick's Day, I am off and took a break to get out of my room, breathing the fresh air with taste of warm sunshine.

George Square

For a long time, I've not felt the heat. Today, I get to go out there, not wearing as thick as a polar bear, just a coat. The feeling of strolling, enjoying sunshine alone, is just so relaxing. If I manage to get a seat at Starbucks of Buchanan Street, sipping a cup of ice blended Strawberries & Cream Frappucino, at a seat near the window, watching people walking up and down the street, it would be perfect!!

I manage to control my temptation of buying new Spring/Summer collection of apparel. I am empty-handed. This feels marvel. Window shopping is my new hobby, a way to relax.

Tenderness of sunshine here makes me feel warm, just like the people in this city. Not like the burning and roasting sun we get in Malaysia. I enjoy walking straight up to Buchanan Street with sun shining from my back, feels the heat from behind, and a smell of dryness and heat vaporises from my coat. I love this feeling.

Observing the fashion that brings out in every different people on the street is just as great as getting a front seat row at London Fashion Week. The same applies to nice window display of high street fashion store. Keep in mind that the Brits fashion is now back in fashion, especially those with the union jack is the new 'in'.

This is a great day.

Shopping-addict??

As I said in my previous blog, I made Tuesday my reading day. I manage to prolong it for at least a month! Very impressive, huh? I read it every night before I went to bed.
The first book I finished this year is 'The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic' by Sophie Kinsella. It's a book for the girls to read, knowing how pathetic and able to spend all her money, lined up with lots of debts and overdrafts.

Not long ago, there was a new film on air called 'The Confession of a Shopaholic', based on the book above, which I had read.

I read the book first before I watch the movie. Just to see what's the difference between the book and the movie. Surprisingly, the movie is only about 40% similiar to the book!! I'm a bit dissapointed. 15% out of 30% is for the character they put in the movie is similiar to the book, whereas the 15% is for part of the story. Main character of the book is Rebecca Bloomwood, a.k.a Becky, a.k.a Becks, a.k.a Shopaholic!

Here's a few difference to mention:

• Story takes place in London in the book; it takes place in New York in the movie
  
• Becky is a Finance Journalist from Successful Saving from the beginning in the book; she is also a Finance Journalist but began as a jobless girl.
• Becky popular column is 'Couple Cheated by Fat Cats at Flagstaff Life' in the book which made her appears on telly; in movie, it was 'The Girl with the Green Scarf'
• Becky's editor is Philip in the book; whereas it's Luke Brandon in the movie! She never works together with Luke Brandon in the book until the end of it when Luke had a crush on her.
• Becky's flatmate, Suze has a cousin in the book, named Tarquin whom had a serious crush on Becky; In the movie, Suze's getting married with Tarquin!! What?!! Unbelievable!
• And the list goes on and on and on about the differences.

Also, there's a bit of the stuff which is important on how Becky tried to save some money to pay her debts.She tried to cook her own home-made curry, bring a flask of coffee instead of buying them on the way to work and not to go shopping every single time she has. However, she failed at last. I think there's a bit of drama about this in the book which they should put it in the movie.

I should not comment much as the movie said it's based on a book. But 30% of similarities are not enough! There's even some new character which never mention in the book apears in the movie! Watch this movie and let you kow how crazy a girl can be when obsessed with shopping being a Shopaholic! Luckily, I'm a chocoholic, not shopaholic~ :P

pure white cloud + bright blue sky

It's almost mid-march. Means my favourite season of all time is about to come. SPRING!!

did not bring my camera out today so just capture the view of blue sky of from my window

I love blue sky with white clouds, and a little breeze of wind, that runs through my face. The sunshine has put spotlight on my face and brightens up my day! Spring is about 10 days to go and British Summer Time is about to begin. Flowers start to flourish in their most magnificent form.

Even though it's going to be spring, I will not be surprised to woke up in the morning seeing:

Weather in UK is unpredictable as a child. You might get a four-season weather in a day and it's perfectly common.

Knowing that I've been through autumn, and almost done with winter, and it means, i dont have a lot more time to my semester exams. It's scary and it's going to be stressful for a lazy bum like me! I will have to work hard and shine on my results.

No more pain.

When you see the picture below, do u feel 'ouch!'? Its tip is touching the cornea of your eye. Normally, you will blink, blink and blink if something get really close to your eyes. It's a natural automated reflex.

picture adapted from Kaytabas.com

On the early morning of 6th of March, I have my clinic for Diagnostic Techniques to learn to use Goldmann Tonometry which is the gold standard for measuring intra-ocular-pressure of the eye.

To be able to do it, we will first need to check the structure of the cornea and see if it's healthy. Mine is just as healthy as it looks, apart from some dry eyes.

There was another group who did their lab ahead of us, and some classmate has scaring and scratch as a result from the invasive technique.

It was my turn to do my friend's eye, I carefully put anaesthetic on her eye (to cut off the pain receptor, otherwise I would not be able to perform the test). Then I put some fluorescein (some colouring) on her eye after the eye is anaesthesised.

Under the guidance of my supervisor, Dr Kennedy, he carefully help me to see how I do and the tip Goldmann Tonometry head just touches and flatten the cornea. I can see a nice picture of it and measure the IOP. I was calm when performing it and everything went well. Satisfied.

Then it's my turn of being a patient, to let my fellow classmate to do it on me. I put my trust on her. Everything is done as said. Due to my dry eyes, she only get to see a wee bit of line from my eyes and have to do it on second attempt after I blink a couple of times.

As usual, supervisor will check our eyes before we left to make sure our eyes does not has any unwanted effect. Mine turn out to be:

The circle is exactly the same as the area of the tip of the tonometer. Looks like I got a stamp on my eye. Looks cool right? My partner was afraid if she has done anything bad to my eyes and might have scar my cornea forever (which can hardly be cure). Supervisor asked me to go back to the clinic few hours later, turn out everything is gone. Phew! I am not worried at all because I know it has something to do with my dry eyes. Conclusion is, my dry eyes has quick tear break-up time so it makes the fluorescein stain difficult to go away. I dont feel anything, just normal.

No worries.

Having anaesthetic putting on my eyes is just a special feeling. Patient is always warned not to rub their eyes after having anaesthetic on, as it has risk of rubbing of the top layer of your cornea (because you dont feel any pain at all), result in your eye will be blurr for the rest for your life.

Do you like anaesthetic? Putting time all over your body just not to feel pain. No. I dont like them of being numb and lack of feeling.

What's your vision?

This is called, SNELLEN CHART, in which optometrist uses it to check your vision, whether you need glasses or not.

Here's a small test on how to identify your vision, JUST ROUGHLY, click on that image (and it should open in a new page), then sit about 50~60cm in front of the picture with your naked eyes, means without glasses if any. We do monocularly, one eye at each time, so you shut one eye and try to use the fellow eye to see. Find which is the smallest line you can read clearly and tell me how you get on. If you can see the line no.8 very clearly, means you might not need glasses. Line no.8 is the vision that normally optometrist would aim a patient to be able to see after correction.

You can also check your vision with your glasses on, to see if you need any further correction or new glasses.

Line number 8 or 20/20 or 6/6 is the standard vision of a person. If your profession requires you to see something really small at a distance, then optometrist will also know what to do. You need good vision to read, to drive and to work. Remember to consult an optometrist if you have any eye problem. Tell them what's your problem, either you see floaters or blackout.

Dont worry if you think your eye is poor or has problem. There are optometrists and ophthalmologists, helping you to see better. I too, have problematic eyes, with long-sighted and short-sighted on the other eye. See?

Stay tuned for my another update to see if you have astigmatism (散光）.

Hope you all have good vision or has corrected with glasses, for a better quality of life. Let me know what's your vision! :)