The best day in my life (currently)..

24th March 2009. I'll remember this day and the 23rd for quite a long time. Let me tell my story.

I remember sharing with quite a number of people on Saturday the 21st of March 2009 that I had biochemistry colloq coming up on Monday the 23rd of March. And that I only knew 30% of what I was supposed to know.

And I remember not sharing with most people (only my groupmates know) that I had more than the colloq to prepare for on Monday. Due to being sick on the 2nd class and not attending it; and due to the numerous holidays on Mondays; as well as the One Life Event, I was waay behind my class mini colloq schedule and waay behind my groupmates in my studies. For those who don't know, my new biochemistry teacher gives mini colloq after every class. And those who do not pass those mini colloqs are deemed unknowledgeable and are unable to take colloquims. And so, Chapter 7, Lipid Metabolism, had 5 lessons. And I was only at lesson 3.

That meant, I had to take the mcq exam for lesson 3, lesson 4, lesson 5, colloq, and lipid pathways. Then, I had to take the written and oral exam for lesson 4 before I was legible to attempt the colloq written and oral. Any coursemate of mine would agree with me that it was impossible, considering also the fact that we had other colloqs to prepare for at the same time.

So, on Saturday, I drank 3 cups of coffee "kao", even though I knew my caffeine tolerance had dropped way below zero. I somehow, perhaps due to the stress that was building up in me, I just took the coffee, even though from recent experience, I knew I would become very very sick. And lo, I fell sick. Mind you, I wasn't biologically sick (bacteria, virus induced immune reaction and inflammation) but I became extremely sick physiologically (nervous system, digestive system and smooth muscle system affected). After studying physiology and biochemistry, I can tell you that for most body functions to be initiated, the cells must produce a substance called "cAMP'. This "cAMP" must then be destroyed by "phosphodiesterase" in the cell membrane so that the functions can cease, allowing the body to rest and regain energy. Caffeine, inhibits "phosphodiesterase", thus, disallowing the cells to rest. That's why, within an individual's tolerance level, caffeine keeps the body active, allowing the individual to keep working for an extended period of time. But above tolerance level stresses out the body and is accompanied by reactions such as discomfortness in the abdomen and heart areas; and huge headaches. And due to lack of sleep, the eyes become dry and painful to keep open. And at this period of time, the individual will find it very hard to sleep as the body is unable to relax.

There, a science student's blog.. Sorry to bore you readers. But I wanted you all to understand exactly what I felt and went through after MF on saturday night. And then I sat down and began to run through lessons 4 and 5. It was like an express bullet train. I didn't sleep for almost the whole night. And by 5.30am sunday morning, I had managed to finish my note and scheme taking for both lessons. ChiaZhen accompanied me for awhile around 2-3am since he accidentally drank some of that same coffee too. Well, at 5.30am, I went back to my room to rest awhile. At that time, my head was heavy, my eyes hurting, and I had a very big discomfort in my abdomen (without pain). My heart rate was increases and blood pressure throbbing against my temples. I had already gave Marcus the responsibility to drag me to church no matter what and so I decided to try to get as much sleep as I could.

Lying down was as uncomfortable as being awake. With a body that couldn't rest nor relax, I couldn't fall asleep at all even though I was super tired. I tossed and turned and finally piled my "family" around me and fell into a light unrested sleep. My family you ask? My 3 dolphins, 2 dogs, 1 killer whale, 1 cow and 1 zebra/giraffe mix. When my roommate Andrew got up to prepare for church, he woke me up unintentionally too. And that was it, gone, I couldn't sleep anymore. So I prepared for church, and at 9am, left my hostel. Met Amy in the metro and we went to church together.

In church, I was thinking of resting in the house of the Lord. I even told and agreed with Marcus about getting rest in God's presence. But He kept me awake. He kept me through the service and the sermon and gave me 2 tight slaps, reminding me about His presence and His promise that His kindness, peace and mercy will never depart from me. Remember my last post, the one asking for God to help me and remind me constantly of His love and mercy and blessing? Well, His answer came on sunday and He kept me awake to hear it. And I finally raised my hand during the time for prayer and had Marcus and Amy pray for me. It was so wonderful to have family and my "big boss" pray for me. And immediately after the prayer, my headache and stomach discomfort eased greatly. Praise God. That was really refreshing.

Then, after church, I collected my assigned One Life Event pledged money, attended a musician's meeting and rushed home alone. And my groupmates, bless them, especially WanSim, dragged me to attend their biochem variant discussion. When she first asked me to join them, I was skeptical. I knew I wouldn't understand anything from lesson 4 and 5 and I didn't want to hold them back. But they didn't take no for an answer and I was forcefully dragged to join with the group discussion. Bless their souls, that really helps lots in my preparation. As I listened to their discussions, all the pieces of information I took in on sunday morning started to make sense and I could remember them more easily. And they discussed special points that I never noticed from the textbook and drilled me till I could remember the points as well as them.

I collapsed into bed around 6pm while my roommates cooked dinner. And I was woken up for prayer meeting. Took my dinner after prayer meeting, "kepo" a bit with the first years, then went back to the study room to continue my revision. Then, around 2am, I went back to my room to revise my mcqs. I was given a program similar to the one used by the biochemistry department for mcq tests. So I decided to prepare the mcq for lesson 5. I worked at it and worked at it and found my eyes closing. 2 whole days is really close to my limit. I ran through the mcq for lesson 4 and because my roommate Andrew woke up to study for Pathology, I asked him to wake me up at 6.30am so I could continue my revision after an hour's sleep since I found it extremely hard to keep my eyes open anymore.

I was shocked awake by WanSim at 7.30am who was leaving and came to drag me along with her. I asked Andrew why he didn't wake me at 6.30am and he told me I was so deep asleep that I was oblivious to any outside stimulation. It was a wonder that WanSim could wake me up. So I rushed to pack and got ready in 5 mins but had to give up my mcq revision. WanSim gave me her hard copy of the mcqs for me to study in the metro and I bought a "shaurma" (burrito) for breakfast before rushing to class.

I knew I was dead. But I told God I handed everything into His Hands and unashamedly begged for His blessing and mercy. And my teacher came. As expected, she didn't allow me to do my colloq and so I asked her to allow me to attempt my lesson 4 written and oral. I rushed through the written part and during the oral, thanks to my groupmates' discussion, I could give her the answers she required and passed through the mini colloq. Then we were told to do our mcqs. So I attempted mcq for lesson 3 and failed! Shocked, I ran out to revise the variant WanSim gave me earlier then begged Anton to allow me to try again. Thank God he was kind to me that day and gave me a second chance.

I passed, gave my teacher the marks and asked if I could attempt mcq for lesson 4. Permission granted, I did the mcq.

I passed, gave my teacher the marks and asked if I could try the mcq for lesson 5. My teacher gave me that disbelieving look but allowed me to try.

I passed, gave my teacher the marks and this time, she asked me if I wanted to attempt the colloq mcq. I nodded and rushed back into the computer room. Thanking God all the way..

I passed, went to my teacher and she told me to do the lipid pathways mcq. The student taking oral exam with her had eyes opened wide as I went in and out of the computer room. She asked me later if I was a genius. I told her I thank God for giving me the knowledge to decipher the mcq questions based solely on what I could remember about that topic.

I passed the lipid pathways mcq, went to my teacher and asked if I could now attempt the colloq questions. She looked at me and smiled, and told me to wait while she went to find me a variant since she had run out of questions.

All my friends had 2 1/2 hours to prepare for the colloq. I only had less than an hour. So I wrote everything in short form and was preparing to explain everything to my teacher during the oral part. And lo, I didn't even have time to do the oral, I was chased out of the class and had to hand up my paper to my teacher. I knew she was free on Tuesday, so I begged to be allowed to go to her and do my oral on tuesday. Praise God, permission was granted.

And on tuesday, I went to the dean's office to meet her. Her response when she saw me was, "Aaron Group 8 right?" and I could only nod. Because everyone else who went to her had to state their names and group numbers. That meant she already knew me and could remember me. The guy who was so behind in his work and exams but trying to get rid of them. And she found my paper and started to discuss my questions orally with me. I was told my question 1(a) had a pretty good answer. But problems arised from questions 1(b,c,d,e), 2(a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h), 3(a,b,c,d) and 4(b,c,d). That meant almost the entire paper had problems or dissatisfaction.

I was so scared. But I put on that "confident-know-it-all" mask and did my best to answer her questions. She asked me why I didn't write formulas, I showed her the formulas she required that I did write for the previous question. She asked me why my pathways were incomplete at the beginnings, I showed her the connection of pathways from those in the previous questions. In short, I had answered perfectly, but with a lot of short forms and breakages which were meant to be filled up orally since I didn't have time to write them down.

She finally gave me a "4". And I jokingly asked for more. She told me it wasn't possible since I had so much of her scribbles on my test paper and I nodded. I didn't expect more anyway. Then while she was writing my marks in her record book, she put down "4.5" and said, "oih, maybe I give you "4.5", so you must do better next time". That really made my day. I was so happy I thanked her, ran over to the dean's office to take my passport and visa, then rushed home. Messaged my parents, and told dad that I wanted to treat myself to something nice to eat and that he would be paying. And I rushed home and fell asleep.

Finally, I wasn't behind in my biochemistry anymore. I was on par with my groupmates and I could study along with them and take the appropriate mini colloqs together with them.

I had deemed completing 70% in 2 days impossible as it had taken me 2 weeks to complete the first 30%. But now I know that with God's help, nothing is impossible. As long as you ask and allow Him to do His will and work in your life, you'll find that nothing is impossible nor improbably with God. He can work miracles. All we need to do is our best and He will do that rest.

Praise the Lord. He lives and still takes care of me.

PS. By the way, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to miss having a girlfriend. =p Again, thank You Lord for helping me in this aspect.

PPS. I'm starting to be able to open up again to C and treat her as a friend. I suppose it means I'm really starting to be successful in leaving the past behind me. Moving onward. Praising God.