30 April, 2009

Apakah??

I was doing research for my pharmacodebate assignment and what I found was deadly SHOCKING!! I might exaggerate things a little but I just want to express my feelings right now. Do any of you know of the name Merck?? Well they are actually among the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world with many products currently on the market. In 1999 they release a drug name Vioxx on the market which was used to treat osteoarthritis. The drug was good as it reduce injury in the gut but was later on withdrawn from the market due to cardiovascular effect.


The topic for my assignment was ‘withdrawal of the coxib drugs demonstrates that the hurdles for new drug registration are too low’ and I’m on the against team. When I was looking for info on why they withdrawn the drugs, I found that it was because the patients who took the drugs have increase risk of cardiovascular effect. But the effect was not that significant if you use the drugs for less than 18 months. If you use the drug longer than that then the problems will arise.
Later on I found out that the people from Merck know that the drug was going to have a cardiovascular effect and they didn’t disclose it. They know it all along; they even manipulate the data from the clinical trials to hide the truth from the public and authorities. How bad is that? You are talking about people’s life here and they only care about the money?? The worst thing was that they even influence the doctors not to report the hazardous effect of the drug and intimidate scientists who go against them. Jahat giler..

vioxx pills


There was this one case in the US where a mother sued Merck for her daughter’s death. Her daughter died of heart attack after 2.5 years of using this drug. When she brought the case to court, the doctor that treat her daughter claimed that he never treated the patients before. This was one of the examples on how Merck influence the doctors.


Before this I always look up to the big pharmas and wish that one day I will work for them. If this is how they do their work, I don’t even mind if I don’t get to work for them in my lifetime. I know I’m a bit emotional but I can’t help it. I know that reality always hurt, but I wish there was something that I can do to avoid things like this from happening again.

Back to work. Till then~

26 April, 2009

Tired~

Today my holiday officially ends and tomorrow I have to go to classes again. It has been a hell of a week and I didn't get much rest. To be honest I've been waking up earlier than when my classes are on. Basically I've been stressing myself this week with many assignments and work.
My IMB experiment has started but things haven't been going well with it and colleagues are pressuring me for the biological result as they want to publish the findings. It is a pressure when people keep asking you for the results when you can't even get the desired amount of cell density correct and the cells don't look happy.
The other thing I'm stressing about is my chemistry structure determination assignment. I have waste a total of 4 hours this week in the chemistry lab doing that assignment. The problem is that everytime I refine my structure all the atoms are gone. How on earth am I going to solve my structure if I don't have atoms to assign to??Then I found out later on that I've got the chemical formula for my assignment wrong. Instead of Cl3 (chlorine) I read it as C13 (carbon). No wonder I have some funny atoms that I can't assign and my calculations for the first part of the experiment is all wrong already.

Coming up, I have this pharmaco debate presentation for my biot drug design & development coming up this Thursday and me and my group mates haven't come up with an argument for it yet. But we will get together tomorrow night to discuss it. I also have midsem for genomics next tuesday which contribute 50% to my final grade and I haven't even started studying yet and after that one by one the assignments due. I don't know how I will survive this 2nd part of the semester.
My weekend was also burnt due to the Queensland Sports Carnival (QSC). I played futsal, frisbee, netball and basketball and I was placed in the yellow team. It was a lot of fun as I can take my mind away from my workload and just play my heart out. The event just ended this evening and surprisingly yellow come out as the overall winner. I didn't expect that we could be the overall champion, I thought we were 2nd or 3rd. With QSC ended, now I have to find players the girls basketball team It's always hard with the girls as not many girls play basketball. The also say that it's a rough game and they don't want to play it. Well if anybody reading this and they know anybody who plays basketball, ask them to contact me..(mcm wat iklan plak..hehe).

my netball team

futsal (we got silver)

with the basketball guys at the BBQ & prize giving ceremony

the overall winner..YELLOW!!

Well it has been a tiring weekend and I want to get a good rest before class commence tomorrow.Nite everybody.
Till then~

17 April, 2009

Easter in Melbourne

I just got back from Melbourne 2 days ago. This is my first easter outside Brisbane and first time travelling alone (bunyi cam loner giler kan). Well it wasn't the best time in my life (as I enjoyed NZ more) but I did enjoyed every second of it. Though there are some hardship in the beginning but I overcome it.

I was on my way to the Gold Coast on Saturday morning when Jetstar texted me saying that my flight has been delayed to 6.45pm and I was supposed to fly at 3.25pm, 3 hours delay. I want to go back home but I was already half way there and I though that I will try my luck for an earlier flight. When I got at the airport, the flight before mine was fully booked which means that I can't get on an earlier flight and have 4 hours to kill before my flight was due. It was the longest 4 hours in my life, I called Hani and talked to her for an hour and played with my DS till the battery run out. Then I realised that I didn't bring the charger for my DS, damn.

The thing that I was so frustrated was that the flight after mine was at 6.40pm and that flight was $20 cheaper than my flight. At first I want to buy that tix but I didn't because I don't want to arrive late in Melbourne. In the end, that flight arrived earlier than my flight which made me loss $20, double damn.

Everything wasn't as bad as it seemed. The first day in Melb, I went to this art market. It's just Southbank market here in Brissy. Then later on in the morning me, Faiz and Linda (my junior from school) went to Monash Uni, Clayton. I called my friend who is there coz I thought of giving her a surprise. But then she gave me a surprise back as she was not in Clayton, she was in Melb city at UMNO cup.Tula nak buat surprise sangat kan dah terkena surprise sendiri. Back from Clayton met up with my friend, Alun. He was in Gold Coast before this but now he's doing this lawyer training in Melb. That night faiz cooked dinner for me, linda and his cousin who just arrived in Melb that morning. Day 1 done.

faiz, me, linda and alun

The next day we rented a car and drove to Sovereign Hill, Ballarat west of Melb city.Faiz's cousin, Aina and Abid (my junior from school as well) joined me, Faiz and Linda. Feels like a small SEMESTA reunion pun ada. It was already noon when we arrived there but we managed to cover every part of the gold mining town. Back from Ballarat we head to St Kilda and late dinner at Lazzat (a malaysian restaurant). Melb has lots of halal food stores and due to that I gained 3kg from my trip down there.

the 5 of us at sovereign Hill

On tuesday I don't really have plans just tour around city and dorklands. That night we went to Crown to watch the hell of fire as they call it. Then we went to play laser skirmish. This is my first time playing it, I didn't get the chance to play it on my last visit. It was tiring but I had loads of fun. But I'm not that good in it, always got hit by others and my shooting really sucks. We hang out at crown till midnight. Then we realised that there was no more trams to go back so we ended walking home. So tiring~


me and faiz at Melb museum

The last day in melb just went to Melbourne museum, Imax and REB. I want to go into the museum but the queue was soo long and time doesnt permit. I might miss my flight if I'm not careful. Luckily nothing went wrong on the way back. Landed in Brisbane I rushed to UQ as we have our weekly netball social sport. I only make it in time for the fourth quarter.

With the hols coming to an end, I still have loads of work to do. I know that I have the free teaching week next week but I still have my casual research to do and I do have biotech class on Thursday and Friday. I hope that I will use my time wisely as I'm still in holiday mood and not much progress have been going on since I got back from Melbourne. Overall my holiday was a blast, thanks to faiz for everything. Nanti datang Brissy aku jadi tour guide ko pulak ye.


Till then~

10 April, 2009

Off to Melbourne

Finally I can have a break from uni and work..today is the start of easter holiday for a week. I was suppose to be productive today but in the end I just laze around watching taiwanese drama. How productive was that??
Tomorrow I will be flying down to Melbourne till the 15th of April. So, no update till then but I will update as soon as I'm back from Melbourne. To yatie, I'll do your tag when I return ok?
After I'm back from Melbourne tons of assignments and studying need to be done plus lab work as well. So for the coming 5 days I just want to relax , distress and enjoy myself.
Good night. Till then~

08 April, 2009

Patience is rewarding

Just want to share with you guys that patience could be very rewarding.

I do some casual tutoring during the semester. Basically I teach 1st year students chemistry, its just introductory chemistry which is the same standard as high school chemistry. So really really basic stuff. The kids that took this course never done any chemistry before in their life. Think again when you were in high school learning chem for your 1st time. Everything seems so alien to you. I guess that's what those kids would feel.

My role is not to teach them but to assist them in their learning by giving them worksheets and practice questions related to their lectures. This week we went through lewis structure with them. It was soo hard explaining to them the simple stuff when you have a deeper knowledge in that area. Sometimes when we know too much its hard to go back to the basic.

So my partner was explaining to them the steps to get lewis structure for a compound and these kids just dont understand it. It's quite frustrating at first because we know that this thing is simple and yet they are struggling with it. They were asking questions like:

"why there are 2 electrons when you have a single bond?"
"why is there 10 electrons in phosphorus when they can only achieve and octet?"
" how can 5 chlorines attach to 1 phosphorus?" (while drawing all the chlorine and phosphorus in one line)

You may think that these are stupid questions but those were the questions that they asked. If you are the type of person that is quick tempered you may be annoyed when they asked you these questions. But if you go through the problems with them step by step and be patient with all their questions you will find it very rewarding. Once they have grasp the concept and they know what to do, you have this joy feeling deep inside. You will feel that it was all worth it. You should see their face when they had grasp the concept, it left you with this feeling of satisfaction. It really does feels good..hehe

Know I know how my mum feels when she teaches her students. It is frustrating when the people that you teach just dont seem to get what you are talking about. The only way out of it is to be patient and you will see that the outcome is really rewarding. That's all.

Good night. Till then~

01 April, 2009

1/4 of the year gone

Without realising it, we already stepping into the fourth month of the year 2009 indicating that a quarter of the year has already gone. How time flies..

Next week is my last week of class before the easter holiday. I really cant wait for the holiday, not only I can rest and take a deep breath from what I've been going through for the past month. It's also a time to catch up with my studies. Half of the time in the lecture halls I don't even know what am I learning.

Besides that, this year I got a long easter holiday as the week after the holiday is the third year free teaching week. Every semester third year student have this free teaching week as previous years students complaint that they do not have enough time to study and do their assignments as the workload is huge during third year. So,the uni has kindly gave third year this special no class week.

By the way this easter I'll be going to Melbourne. Faiz, get ready to be a good tourist guide ye..hehe. I've been to Melbourne before during my first year but my stay was so short that I didn't get to go to many places. Hopefully this time I will go to the places that I didn't get the chance to go to last time.

With 8 days more of uni before the holiday; I still have a presentation tomorrow, a quiz on Friday, practical questions due on Wednesday and chemistry assignment due next Thursday. And what the hell am i doing here updating my blog. Procrastinating, that's what I'm good at. Ok, need to continue with my assignments.

my messy study desk

Till then~