Recipe for Guantanamo-like treatment in Russia : -

1. Ensure that you are a citizen of some less known Asian country among Russian- Malaysia is a fine example.

2. An immigration officer who apparently know nothing about the concept of British Commonwealth and the EU visa-lifting for most Commonwealth Country

3. Crossing the Russian Border...

4. By land route....

5. To European country in the west...

6. In the middle of the night

A perfect recipe !!!!!!

After being treated like a suicide bomber in the Russian part of the border for almost half an hour, and being sneered by the Russian aboard our bus ( I guess they dont think that we can understand when they called us a "black-unlawful-monkey"). we actually past the Russian border into the land of midnight sun, Finland.

And what awaits us in Helsinki worth all the trouble.
A smiling, charming, good-looking, nonetheless alarmed Finland Immigration officer greet us. That smile really melt all the uneasiness I got from the previous border experience.


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Helsinki- the pearl of the Baltic Sea - is literally a pearl. With its dispersed small island, rich culture, and a border extending to the Arctic Circle, it really can offer much to its visitors.
Yet what I'm amazed of is mostly - the people.

Contrary to popular belief about Scandinavian, Finnish are actually friendly. I cant get enough help from bystanders who offering me way guides whenever I seem lost. I dont even have to ask. Just stand beside a bus stop with a map in hand - and they knew u need help :)

On a totally different point - I met a Canadian guy in St Petersburg earlier who happen to live in a same hostel with me. In a beautiful serendipity, we accidentally bumped onto each other in the centre of Helsinki. He kinda believed in lucks and charms, and insist that we exchange email so that we can keep in touch. I gave him mine, but I didnt keep his. So till now I;m still waiting for his first mail.

We tried the Finnish Sauna - and its totally, totally cool (or hot)...I cant stand there for more than 20 minutes, but its totally rejuvenating. I felt like a chicken being simmered.

And a lot2 of fish. Being in Scandinavia, it means our staple diet is varities of fish. Smoked Salmon, fried small fish, and whats not. Another bites of fish, and I think I can already breath underwater like they do.

This evening, we'll be leaving to Stockholm aboard the semi-luxurious Cruiser Ship, Viking Lines. More pics about it later. Until then...see you :)

Warm regards

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St Petersburg is soaring hot by the time I arrived there. Well, its summer after all.

Its really like what people said. St Petersburg is more European than Russian. Thats explained why most of international conference held by Russia is held in St Petersburg. U know, when u'r guest come, make sure u hoisted them into the best room u got, and banned them from entering ur cockroach-infested kitchen?? (The "kitchen" here is analagous to other Russian cities, esp volgograd : )

I would really love to talk about the places I visit, ..National Hermitage, Peterhoff, bla bla bla...but i think that will be too boring...so lets talk about other aspects that Russian backpackers rarely touch on - the people.

Like in other part of Russia, the Peterburgian love their city. To some extend they want to be known as Peterburgian, rather than Russian. They called their city "Peter", instead of its full name. They really messed up their biological clock when the "White night" arrived, the northern soltice - a phenomena when the sun never really sets ..and the whole night the sun is still shining..- thus the name. They had a fierce sense of culture and arts, but like their other compatriot, they lack the sense of humor.

and they really good at faking their Russian accent from emerging when they speak English. So u got a really messy mixed up of English with English-like accent but with accentuated "R" and the lack of proper stress point. They tend to say "cool" rather than "OK" (like my hostel manager used to say). I guess they find it cooler to say cool than the classic OK, or at least its their way of showing that US influence is now seeping slowly under the old blanket of USSR.

All in all, I'm impressed with St Petersburg - and with what the Russians can do when they really want to do it. The city is inspired by Peter 1 idea of building a city with European standard in Russia. Unfortunately, he's dead before he could forward that idea to Volgograd. Thus, St Petersburg remain the only Russian city with European like atmosphere.

Next destination- HELSINKI. Im going to cross the Russian border tonight by land route (bus). Its gonna be a nightmare trying to pass Russian immigration border, but I dont know yet how worse it could be. So lets just keep our fingers crossed :)

warm regards.

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At last, I found the mean and time to connect in my hectic schedule of summer travel

This summer, I've planned up my trip with a "S" theme...

that is..

Sochi delay

i'm now in the middle of Russian spa at Sochi, and ready to return to Volgograd to take my next flight to St Pete

only to find that we actually missed our train

had to take later train, i dont know for sure whether i will manage the schedule

until then, wish me lots2 of luck!!!

p.s : rindu rumah

I soooo hate psych, I have to tear off the question list..


So I guess since the 1st feminist's Petersburg revolution, women really had made it forward..all around the world..and they had been conquering all area of mankind, and thats including our holy grail, medicine...

anyway, I know this is the 2nd time I rant about "sexist"/"feminist" in 2 months consecutively, but really, what happen today really ticked me off..

well, in case u're wondering, the most sexist subject (Infectious Disease) happened to be pretty un"Sexist" during the exam session, because Mrs Alpha Women dont make it to the exam session, so I guess it went along pretty fine. Though u can obviously see girls past it much easier than guys.But I guess all the male lecturers are too desperate for a one night stand since all the women they see happened to be infected with syphillis and what not..


BUT WHAT HAPPENED TODAY REALLY2 SERIOUSLY, FATALLY, INJURED US THE MALE part of mankind..

Today we had our exam on Psyciatry (read: mad people disease..and their treatment, if its remotely possible), and u cannot believe how fuckingtard the Professor is!!!

I mean for God sake I know u are a guy (or are you?), so maybe he have this little inclination or irrational imagination since his world obviously evolved around his penis..but what he did was sooo unfair, unreliable, unprofessional, and I fucking believe it is even irrational...

u see...when a girl sat in front of him, he'll gleefully pretending to hear what she said while writing on the paper an "excellent" mark for the girl. While when a guy sat in front of him, with the lack of boobs I believe, he is too damn bored, that before even the guy had the chance to say anything, Sexist Prof decided and said "I will give you an average mark because I dont think u are a systematic person..will u agree?" WHAT FUCKING QUESTION IS THAT?? Its like asking and insulting and prejudicing all at one time...and when the guy dare to challenge his decision, he'll ask question like the guy had just passed his national board exam on psychiatry..

u see..I really have no hatred against women..that would be pretty much impossible...since I love them (in a way that I love whole mankind)..but I cant live with this "Mr Sexist" who think that just because I have a protruding organ somewhere below my navel, it makes me stupider than those who have an invaginating structure (pardon me the graphical statement)

I am sorry but I dont believe the generalization that all men are fucking idiot, and all girls who made it to medschool are fucking brilliant...no!!! The way girls answered just now, is the same like we guys did...they "goreng" here and there...they made mistakes, and some apparently couldnt even differ or define some terms...but it doesnt matter to Mr Sexist Prof, because he have this "obsessions" or even "delusions" that brain tissue can also grow within the mammary gland..so that makes girls have three brains and we guys got only one...

(sorry but I came from a psychoanalyst bloodline, so I am analyzing him)..

and who even give him the permission to insult student like that.."non-systematized"??? OMG go see you're own fucking lecture and define please "systematic"??? he cut and paste everything from e-medicine and pretending it is his own, while all the time have no idea what he is mumbling about...

seriously if u need a shrink, u dont see this one...because if u happen to have a dick, he'll declare u Schizophrenic and send u to some Gulag in Siberia (like they always did during the Stalin USSR)

so, with every hours passing during the exam session, my hatred towards him grow to the point that I actually prayed that I wont have to answer to him (I rarely done this because I think God knows what best for me), and thank God, He really helped me this time..because Zamir and I were the last two person that should have answered with him, but with the help from "above", he suddenly got an emergency call and had to leave the session....

I think male members now need a movement called "masculinist", so we can fight this type fucktard...I mean, feminist had won...they even have Female priest nowadays (do they called her "mother" instead of "father"??, nvm that)...this is a new era where we male need to fight for our equal right...

huh...isnt that sad??? that today we have to fight for our equal rights???

where are all the "masculinist" when we need one???

Disclaimer : by writing this post, author is not, in any way, consciously or not, express his anger towards women. He believed that women is equal to men, (like they always said), and will hold his belief firmly that we have the same amount of brain tissue, and while some are good at one field, others are better in other field. This is a post directly to criticize the practice of "sexism" in the isolated field of Volgo medical school.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~ !!! No surgery today (or at least, none that "huge pupil" have to attend to)..so I kinda lost my chance of a lifetime to do the intradermal stitches as medstudents.

Shit!!! i've been training whole night till dawn...and there's like 5 bananas wasted in the dustbin (mind you, banana is not cheap here)

Today is kinda lame. huge pupil have to attend the clinics and admissions dept, so he didnt really show up in class today. After he gave us some test, he went out, and only enter back 4 hours later with a smirk on his face. Thank God he gave us "zachot" without a hassle.

Anyway...I showed him my "intra-bananal stitch", and he actually smile (not smirk this time) and told me it "almost" correct. I got it wrong on the beginning of the stitches. So he showed us how to do it the correct way, and told me to get an even thinner stitching needle.

The picture above (clockwise)
1. my stitches
2. and 3. huge pupil correcting my stitches
4. not an intradermal stitches, rather a common technique used by most surgeon. It will leave an ugly, bad scar.

Before he left the classroom, I took a peak at the sole of his foot, and my......that is one big, hard, painful-looking calluses...it must be from the constant standing in the OT. I wonder if I manage to be a surgeon, with an undefinable-moderately-excessive BMI, maybe I will even get a flat foot.

Do you think I should offer him Huda's luxurious Avon foot care that I'm immersing into now? :P
(Read: partly metrosexual)

Anyway, he left me startled today in front all of his colleagues when I returned the keys to the office and one of his colleague (a surgeon with full-arms tatoo) said to me "You have closed the room, dont you, POTATO?)

shit........I've been the official POTATO of the Orthopedic Dept.

Ok, so this whole week I've been drooling my saliva on bad-ass surgeries, drills, hammer, chainsaw, piles of blood, excruciating trauma, new surgical and stitches technique and even the traumatologists ( u cant blame me...he got this huge , dilated pupils N DEEP BLUE EYES)

anyway....

"Huge pupil" (as what I and haneem consider to call him) really onehellofa surgeon.

Within this week, I've been amazed by his skill preparing prosthetic ligaments, drilling and penetrate knee joints with metal, stabbing ankle with what look likes a huuge nail, performing arthroscopy, and last but not least, did the cosmetically-proven meticulously-difficult intradermal stitches.

and unlike other surgeon who think that all medstudents are nerd bookworms, he actually care enough to show us up close about what he is actually doing ...(most surgeon-or even nurse- will keep us at a distance just so that we can be amazed by their ass wiggling now and then during the operation)

and unlike other surgical specialist too, this operation theatre seems fun...and...lively...You see most of the surgeon is young, so they are energetic, adrenaline-pumping, all alpha male and things, and make jokes, and even at a time flirts with the nurses. And i think they enjoy spilling the blood...muahahahahha...

not "huge pupil" though, he got a very soft voice (unmatch to that huge arms, and height), that we usually have to bend over just to lean our ear closer....or usually, we just pretend to hear what he said (and then ask my colleagues "Eh, apa dia cakap ha??")

Anyway...

"Huge pupil" is nice enough to show me up close how to do his legendary intradermal stitch. I read on the net it is rarely done , though very cosmetic..because its hard, and needs like..level 10 skills or whatever...He knew I am interested in that, that during the 2nd surgery and 3rd surgery, he offered me to do the stitches..its a great honor, but I'm not sterile you dumbass....I think he did it on purpose just for a hitch..

but then, he told me to get myself a stitching set and practice on banana...(or "potato", and then the wicked laugh), and said that I should master the skill and make him proud...(or maybe something else along that line...soft voice..hard to hear) :P

Tomorrow will be our last lesson, and if there's surgery, I might get my chance to do the stitches on real patient, not banana.....

until then..i still got 3 more bananas to be stitched..