Doctor - a zigzag journey

Part 15 - The "NUS" Journey

Background: 1988 - 1992 (Age 21 - 25 years)

I felt that Singapore - a neat and clean country - welcomed me with open arms, from the moment I passed the Singapore immigration checkpoint to settling in my first dormitory - Raffles Hall - at the National University of Singapore (NUS). I was fortunate that most of my hall-mates and course-mates were supportive of each other in going through some ups and downs together in the "NUS journey". Most of the students were Singaporeans, and there were many Malaysians and other international students as well. My roommate was SL and he came from Malaysia too. We were supportive of each other. The support was really good especially when I felt homesick. I missed the smell of my wooden house, my family, my friends, the mud, the weeds, the birds, the roosters, and the "coconut-tree-bridge" in Sungai Siput, Malaysia. Here, I was surrounded by jungles of concrete high-rise buildings. It was a very metropolitan environment.

During the first week, the orientation in the dormitory was a bit tough like training in an army camp undergoing strenuous physical exercises. I was assigned to a group called Mighty Mamba. Early in the morning when the sky was still dark, we were woken up from our sleep and instructed to run long distances while chanting "Mighty Mighty Mamba, we are the best in NUS!" The chanting was in a style of an army training. A series of orientation programs took place from morning until night. And the finale included a "holy shower" with damn cold water poured by the senior undergraduates from a second floor while we juniors lined up on the ground floor! Oh, by the way, many of the orientation organizers (i.e. our seniors) were tough cookies who went through "Singapore National Service" (army training). No wonder - "no pain, no gain" was the slogan.

After the orientation, I attended lectures, tutorials, and workshops as scheduled. Nerdy. Yes. Adapting to the conversion from Malay language to English language as the medium of instruction was the first hurdle. Checking the conversion dictionary repeatedly rendered my fingers numbed and tired. The challenge was not just converting technical terms into English. I faced difficulty to converse and articulate my thoughts and questions in English in the first few months.

One day, I attended a tutorial class in which my lecturer taught the application of Boyle's law in the context of an engineering design. Boyle's law is an experimental gas law which describes how the pressure of a gas tends to decrease when the volume of the gas increases if the temperature and amount of gas remain unchanged within a closed system. The lecturer drew a schematic diagram showing a design with front-end and back-end where gas passed through. I got a question and I thought that it was quite a brilliant question. But...

"How do we manage if gas leaks out from the backside?" I asked enthusiastically with my eyes widely opened waiting for an answer. To my surprise, the whole class burst into laughter. Then, I realized that "backside" meant buttock.

Once I had overcome the language barrier, I enjoyed the study much more. My perception about engineering has become clearer. Queen Elizabeth II once said: "At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a noble profession."* I agree. The concept of applying principle(s) to solve a problem in an analytical way or designing something to serve a purpose had gradually etched into my brain. At this juncture, I also recalled the quote from Richard Dawkins (an English scientist) that says "Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose". To me, there seemed to be a common ground between the study of biology (or medicine) and engineering. But the common ground was not crystal clear to me at that time.

The "NUS journey" was not just studying and sitting for examinations. I got to look after my "bread and butter". My bank loan from the Singapore Bank was insufficient to cover all my university fees and living expenses. I looked for a part-time job, and I found a casual job as a private tuition teacher to secondary school students. My first three pairs of students were siblings i.e. Seline & Bernard, Su Lian & Qing Hui, and Rosie & Albert. They were intelligent and diligent students, and their parents were kind to me and made me felt at home. That was the type of support which I needed and appreciated. Thanks!

One night, I called home using a public phone. Having inserted many coins, which I saved up from my daily expenses, into the phone, I could hear Ah Ma's voice.

"We have sold our wooden house for seven thousand Ringgit. I will transmit some of the money to you. Oh, we are moving to live with your eldest brother at Kuala Lumpur in the next few days," Ah Ma hurriedly passed the messages to me as she knew the longer she talked on the phone the more money would be gobbled up by the public phone. She would like me to save up some of the coins for my meals. Apart from asking how everyone was, I could not afford a lengthy chat on the phone. She tireless reminded me to look after myself. Messages noted. Reluctantly, I hung up the phone.

Though I knew that the news would be coming soon, I still felt sad that our wooden house was then officially becoming someone else's property and my family was then "uprooted" to leave the rural town. That was mainly for me. The sacrifice and love were unconditional! They were the power that propelled me to keep moving forward for a brighter future.

My efforts were paid off. I passed my first year engineering examinations in one go. Then, I was transferred to another campus, which was now known as Nanyang Technological University, to complete my NUS engineering degree. In a farewell function, I received a booklet with a compilation of the names and addresses of the hall mates. PL, a well-to-do international student, noted my address and asked, "Are you sure your address is Back Lane, Sungai Siput?"

"Back Lane?" PL repeated with his eyebrows raised.

"Of course I'm sure my address is correct. What's wrong? " I replied and remained proud of my town where I grew up. I felt belittled. 

I was looking forward to an industrial placement to gain some practical experiences. More excitingly, the industrial placement was in an organization that made "artificial heart valves"! The flame of passion in studying medicine swept through me again!

*****

Reference: * brainy quote website

(The photo "Singapore- Malaysia Causeway" was extracted from the Wikipedia.)