Last Minute Catching Up

its hard to believe that the remaining days left in UK are now numbered. i would be away on holiday, then my family would be arriving for graduation, then its off travelling around before i leave for good.

i will definitely miss having my good ol' cafe crawls or restaurant hopping or just exploring random places alone for hours on my poor 2 feet..

visiting eli for open house

yum-de-dum :)

dinner at the Lotus Chinese Floating Restaurant, Crossharbour

decided on a chinese restaurant for its big round table to accommodate 11 people

the star of the night, cheese lobster noodle! this portion was of 3 lobsters and it was HUGE.. thankfully the 11 scavengers managed to finished it all!

8-course meal dinner..

meeting up with fellow dental-groupmates/doctors with our tutors as well who treated us that night at Thai Square, Minories

had the Pad Thai.. which was not bad but could be improved..

dropped by kulu kulu sushi for my favourite avocado-salmon-prawn tempura handroll, had 2 of them in case i never return again!

huge cone of 4 flavours ice cream at Scoop, Berwick Street! they even wrote the amount of calories!

then its back to cafe-crawling again, this time at St Paul Cathedrals cafe.. my 1st scone (43) since the exams! and the maid of honour clotted cream egg tart was actually more savoury than sweet..

and to Starbucks (44) (mind u, not all branches have scones, and not all scones are the same!) with the sugar-topped scone with blueberries at the bottom. my previous pancake-scone had bigger fruits! and the strawberry cream frappuccino was refreshing

it was a really busy and food-filled post-exams weekend catching up with old friends and going about london eating and shopping non stop.. one thing i constantly wonder now is if this would be the last time i am visiting these tourist spots/shopping streets/cafes/ restaurants etc.. and if it's the last time i would see my friends..

that's what you get when your days in UK are numbered..

Leona Lewis Concert

last Friday night's event: Leona Lewis Concert at the 02!

few of us gals managed to grab some front seats for this concert as a treat for ourselves (actually our shopping, travelling, eating non-stop are all treats anyway)

leona lewis and her vocals. need i say more? i felt like tested my own vocals by screaming that night. sorry for the short blog posts, i am too drained to elaborate and rather throw in pictures instead. here's some scenes during the concert..

opening act

half way

swinging and singing

towards the end

then its off to TPT, Chinatown for dessert, as usual :)

great girl's night out! and many more to come~

Cafe crawl 13 - Central

spent the remaining days shopping and eating and shopping and being just random..

Ottolenghi in Islington, the biggest and only branch to dine in..

interesting mains with a variety of salads and desserts but i wished i could have the salmon and egg breakfast menu before 12noon (42)

back to Malaysian nasi campur food at the Malaysian Student Department, Queensway

and Buy 1 get 1 free frozen yoghurt at Frog, Queensway, for students!

dinner at Koba, a Korean restaurant near Soho

good old sushi and udon/soba zaru at Pham Sushi, Whitcross Street

strolling at Whitcross Street Market

the coffee addict having the best coffee at Whitcross by the World Champion Barista!

the seed planted years ago finally bears a fruit..

it has definitely been a hectic-roller-coaster-week for sure..

Wed 9.6.10 Once the final exam is officially over, we rushed to return ALL our library books.. (i must say, i am embarrassed to have only a quarter number of books compared to my friends..)

chilling out at Gallery Cafe, a vegetarian place at Bethnal Green.

then it's a mexican dinner with our flatmates before we all parted ways, thanks to our sweet fresher flatmate, tejal, for the dinner... honestly, can't imagine another 4 years here..

Thurs 10.6.10 Went for a Hair Theater which is.. 'interesting/traumatizing' as it was featuring young americans.. or maybe gypsies.. preaching Freedom, Make Love Not War, Yes to Pot/Weed etc.. that they even stripped naked.. yes the whole cast.. o...m.. g..

yes, i automatically added and ticked off 'Watch strip/nudity' in my To-Do-in-London list..

dinner at OSatsuma, a Japanese restaurant nearby

happy post-exam faces

a stop at hummingbird bakery for the favourite red velvet

Fri 11.6.10 D-Day, Results Time! was definitely a rush of adrenaline (especially when you see the Top Student of all time upset & crying.. that was scaryyyy)

thankfully all most of us passeddd (sorry to those who didn't, i can never imagine how it feels like..) there was a Dental dinner that night but due to £££ fear-of-failing, a few of us losers just wondered to a nearby Jungle Braai bbq for dinner..

Sat 12.6.10 Off for Retail Therapy, Bicester Village shopping! (yes it took us 2hours One Way and nearly £20 to get here)

u can't see me in the picture, buried in the shopping bags..

that night the dentist juniors had a party to celebrate for us, thanks for the great food and company!

unfortunately i wasn't that great in advising juniors so here's wishing you all the best of luck in the future years to come! i have seen seniors graduating year after year after year and i can't believe its finally my turn now, so it will be your turn soon! my concept is, if i can pass, so can everyone >_<

few generations of Malaysian dentists in QM

Sun 13.6.10 Now its off to watch Swan Lake at Royal Albert Hall, though due to a very unfortunate start where everything went wrong that we missed the first half (late late late, no ticket, library closed, printer not working, trains down, traffic jam, bus stuck, running in tight skirt and painful shoes nonstop and to get lost 3 times, hand phone no battery.. are you sure its suppose to be Friday 13th not Sunday 13th which is unlucky..?)

it was fun planning post-exams trip.. but after 5 days of Non-Stop going out after weeks (no not months, but should have) of hibernating in the room buried under piles of notes (i dare not say books since its obvious i don't read books), i realized my stamina was downnnnnnnn the drain that i didn't feel like going out or eating out even, spending the next 2 days watching series indoors instead.. i didn't even have the energy to blog for the past week!

today was my last clinical session as i attended to my finals and back-up-finals patients and discharged them, making me officially UNemployed. I hugged my patients and took pictures with them, and got pressies and even a veryyyy generous Ang pow! :) :)

thanks to my patients for all their patience

2/3 years Kindergarten
6 years Primary school
5 years Secondary school
2 years College
and now
5 years Dental School..
2+6+5+2+5 = 20 YEARS of studying!!!

don't know about those Masters/Phds/forever-studying people, but i am not the type who buys mountain-high of books or spends every spare minute in books or makes the library their 2nd home.. 20 years is (more than) Enough for not, don't ask me about specializing at the moment..

it was definitely a long and trying journey..

one which taught me a lot..
with invaluable lessons and experiences,
one which is filled with joy, with happiness,
with smiles and laughters,
one with its downs, with pain,
with tears and sorrow,
one filled with so many people along the way,
yet few remains to be called a friend,
one which made me who i am now,
which i never regret taking,
yet not a journey which i would ever take again...

i was talking to my mum, asking who else in the family or extended family who is a doctor.. her reply? "oh, my great grandma's cousin daughter family in China etc etc has a doctor.."

damn far connection! my bestie told me that my parents would be proud having the 1st doctor in the (immediate) family, which made me feel this 20+years journey is worth it in the end..

although, of course, its ONLY the beginning..

the transformation
from Ms Helen Ngu, Dental Student
to Dr Helen Ngu..
thanks to all my friends, was surprised to see my status in facebook that has 27-likes and 44-comments.. feels odd to read 'Congrats Doctor! Congratulations Dr Helen!'

now i just ponder.. when i fill in forms for applications etc, do i write Miss Helen or Dr Helen.. if i were to book an air ticket and put Dr, won't that place a responsibility of having a 'doctor' around? man, my shoulders aren't ready for such burden!

New Beginning

To my dearest blog readers

Thank you for the continuous support and congratulations to all my fellow comrades. We deserve this!
This is just the beginning of the next phase of life.

Look forward to more interesting blog posts & comments.

Yours,
Dr Helen Ngu BDS

:S

11 june. everyone must be anticipating for world cup at 3pm..

..but i am anxiously awaiting my results at 2pm.. :S

the final 100m

the final 24 hours before the my final viva examination is over..

good or bad, grilled or chilled, i want this over asap.. (although its the beginning of a 48-hours wait before the results are out..)

the 100m sprint.. yes, i love studying life and i know i will miss it, but definitely not enjoying it anymore at this moment~

lost momentum

wonder if i should have taken the half-time break post-written paper on Tuesday, now it takes a lottttt more effort to re-start my engine to study for the next 2 vivas/case presentations next week... (although i know there's still to readddd...)

must..open..the..book..

imagine, in exactly 7 days time i would know if i made it or not..

would this be my final week as a university student?

it better be.. it MUST!!

Half Time

did i go missing in the past week or so? frankly, i Should!

Monday 24th May: realized i haven't blog about food in a (long long long) while.. this is some random paninis and baguettes in a nearby cafe, Zaza which we had for lunch after submitting the So-Important-that-i-wasted-too-much-time-on-it Finals Report that was due then, and then headed on to Costa for study time..

some random schamdom food along the way which i took with my Blackberry hp (see, i even Left my Camera at home! shows that this food blogger is Really taking a break)
even had a scone in a nearby cafe (42) opposite Costa but it wasn't great, i even forgot the name!

Thursday 27th May: at least i did not forget that macky turned 25 just 4 days before Finals! as busy and stressed as we are, we still managed to witness little macky blow the candles off her chocolate and coffee (thoughtful indeed in this exam season) cakes..

and then, today, Monday 1st June 2010..

hmm..
so today was ONLY day 1..
so there are still a week+ left till the last day of exam..
so there is still a lot to read.. and a lot more to practise..
so the paper today were tough, tricky and caught me off guard..
so i wasn't too happy..
so What?

i Need a break ANYWAY..

back to Spitalfields again for tea time at Patisserie Valerie (43) which ended up as dinner in the end cause some crazy/stressed ppl kept ordering and ordering although its just Tea Time..

half time before its another week of burying-heads-into-books..

chomp chomp chomp... didn't realize all these were tooooo much food for a four-o'clock-snack, although i am surprised at how clean the dishes became Anyway..
4 clean plates down, Manyyyyyyyyy more to come..

even the waiters were looking at us oddly as if we were scavengers or prison convicts who escaped and haven't had a decent meal in ages..

self console: its ok, stressssssed laaa so its ok to bingeeee..
take a break, celebrate that One paper is Over..

imagine that Just One paper can result in this amount of overbinging.. what happens after 7 Days when exams are Officially over..

or once the Results are Out 2 days later?..

and then its Two Whole Months Holiday with Nonnnnnnnnnnstop cafe-crawling, travelling, trying out all the eating places and revisiting old favourites with friends everyday and Eating 24/7 with family as well.. the plans have all be laid down, waiting to be executed.. (and yes, alot of £££££ donated to the UK economy..)

*smack* wake up helen, there's still 7 days to go.. u can do it.. then the 97458734572983465982734987343 calories are waiting for you out there.. (wah, even i feel scared..)