An Old Story about AIMST University’s First Batch of Dental Graduates..er graduating!

Once upon a time, I had my graduation ceremony.

It’s so long ago that my graduation ceremony photo albums pops up on Facebook’s Photo Memories every now and then. But it is my graduation day, and no matter how long it has been, it will be up here. My europe trip too. Even though it happened in mid-2009, one day I shall post all if not some of my pictures taken in Amsterdam, Paris etc. 🙁

Some shots from the morning, Chee Kiang in his outfit that garnered many compliments from my friends. 😀

Old news but…CHEE KIANG GOT ME AN IPAD FOR MY GRADUATION!!!

With graduation bouquets that I ordered for myself on behalf of my loved ones T_T

Got Chee Kiang to go trigger happy with my DSLR while I was down at the basement getting ready with my classmates.

Came up to show them my attire! (and to make my parents sniffle..wahahah)

This was when I still did not know how to wear the robes properly. ;|

Getting my attire lovingly adjusted by mum and Chee Kiang.

At the basement with Brenda. This was our day!!

Dinner mates!! <3

With Poh Yee! Side note: We held each others’ hands when opening our letters regarding the places we were posted to.

l-r: Wuan Phing, Jaya, Fiza and Yan Rui! Wuan Phing is in Pahang now, Jaya is in Kota Tinggi, which is Johor as well, Fiza Selangor and Yan Rui is somewhere in Perak. 🙂

I’m definitely going to miss moments like this. :’)

Myself and Bala, one of the most capable and independent guys in my class.

Obligatory 5.3 group photo. I miss my group mates so much despite being the only girl there. Yes I am the only girl. *runs away from Cze-Yin’s evil glare*

With a very unfriendly Jimmy.

We were lining up, like in primary school, waiting to go up on stage!

Yup that’s how I looked like in my gown. Uh-huh.

Narjit won the Best Dental Student award! Since Year 1 we have already known that the award would go to her. Just wish that the school would have come up with a better name than that.

Terrible right this Jimmy. Take photo with Narjit so happy pulak. 🙁

Doing a favour for Group 5.4. Here’s your group photo if you haven’t already saved it from my facebook album from centuries ago.

Group 5.1!

Group 5.3.

Another one with group 5.3!

And lastly, group 5.5

With my darling Lie Yuen. I sometimes I forget that I am living alone and when there’s something I want to tell someone, anyone, I instantly look for Lie Yuen, then I remember, oh yeah. We are not living together anymore. 🙁

With Jamie who got posted back to her hometown in Sarawak!

If you can see, my family members are waving in the background of this picture. Heh. They somehow managed to find seats along my row in the graduates’ area.

More photos while we waited patiently for all the inspiring speeches to end.

After getting our certs! And yup, no nice photos of me on stage by my dad/Chee Kiang. There’s one professionally taken by the gown rental/photography people which I have collected but have yet to scan it… it’ll just get hung up somewhere at home. 😀 There’s gonna be a little shrine on one of the walls dedicated to my graduation. 😀

Not a scroll!

With Dr. Manikandan and Dr. Karthik. Dr. Karthik is like a super teacher. He was there with us from (almost) the beginning till the end of our studies. He thought us the super basic stuff like dental materials and cavity designs all the way to complex things like post and core, crowns and bridge, cast partial dentures.. we can’t thank him enough. He is extremely dedicated to the students and helped us in any way he could. We were initially afraid of him because he put on the bad cop persona but over the years, he became a dear friend and mentor to all of us.

Dr. Manikandan is one of the dental officers who sees patients before deciding if they are suitable for the students. He also played a major role during our Clinical Management Report and credits to him for the beautiful before and after photos taken with the clinic’s camera. He also earns many brownie points among the students here by being one of the hottest staff members around! That being said, Dr. George is still a favourite among most female students. HEHEHE. Sorry everybody, the secret is out.

Sneaking a solo photo in amidst the chaos.

Found Dr. Brindha and Dr. Niekla!!

These are the two most motherly lecturers I have here.

Dr. Brindha is Dr. Karthik’s wife and the both of them arrive at AIMST at the end of 2006, early in our second year. She was the good cop to Dr. Karthik’s initial bad cop. Dr. Brindha is usually the one to reassure us when we are faced with “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT” situations. She takes her time to clear our doubts for us and is super super super patient. 🙂

Dr. Niekla.. probably the most popular lecturer at the dental faculty. She has recently left AIMST so it’s quite unfortunate that the juniors will not get to know her . You people at IMU better appreciate her! She’s probably the most animated, adorable, caring and understanding lecturer ever! She has no qualms about letting her hair down when joking with students and swings back into professional mode when it comes to our paediatric sessions. Yes, she’s our paediatric dentistry lecturer. With her good PR skills, she’s excellent with the kids and she’s the one who taught us about the importance of a reassuring touch to improve our communication with the kids. 🙂

A bear, Jimmy and Magesh.

Praveena and me!!

With juniors Serene and Rachel.

With my patient, Mr. Phoon! Mr. Phoon is probably one of my most caring patients ever… I only met him during the final leg of my final year, a time when stress levels were sky high, tears were held back by fanning ourselves frantically. When my clinical management report (CMR) patient told me that she probably could not come for anymore treatment, I really didn’t know what to do. Mr. Phoon, whom I had a session with that day, saw my crumbling face and offered to become my CMR patient. He said he could come anytime I needed him to. I was so so so touched by his sincerity but I had to persevere to convince my first patient as I had already started with her case and there was not much time left. Thank you so much, Mr. Phoon. 🙂 My junior who took on your case is very lucky to have you as a patient.

Finding a good patient back in uni was seriously rare. I can only name like… a handful of patients who were nice to me. Most were nightmares. I had one infamous nightmare. Hahaha. No names please! 😛

With Lie Yuen and Brenda and our graduation presents!

A bouquet of Ferrero Roucher!! Who so lucky?!

Mum and I before I scrambled away to go on stage for a group photo. Sorry mum! 🙁

With Maxis’ famous Doraemon soft toy. The soft toy even made it into the papers! More on that further down.

Me, detecting a camera.

Can hardly make out our faces but yeah, that’s all 37 of us. The first batch of dental graduates from AIMST University! Our class photo is hung in the dental students’ common room to be remembered for ages to come.

With Prof. Smales, a man who loves us as much as we love him. 🙂 He still has his british humour about him which is not quite registered among my classmates most of the time but we do love him so much. He is the one who build up the entire aimst dental programme with the help of Datuk Dr. Rohani, Dr. Robinson and Prof. Comfort. But this AIMST BDS programme is his baby.

In the initial years, he would come in every other month to tell us about the developments of the programme. He would tell us about the construction of the simulation lab, the technology lab, what we were to expect in our new dental building at the new campus (which we only saw for the first time in our third year) and later on, the successful accreditation of our course. It was a long journey and he was with us all the way. I believe that this is a privilege that the first batch of dental students have managed to enjoy. People in the fourth batch and so on would probably never get to know Prof. Smales the way we did. I’m sorry that you guys did not get to see the school transform to become what it is today but please appreciate all the facilities that you have here at AIMST because it wasn’t always like that.

Cze-Yin, her aunt and her cousins.

When we came out from the great hall, THIS was awaiting us. We were stunned into silence. It didn’t quite register at first.. but we eventually calmed down and were overwhelmed with such gratefulness towards our dental juniors. 🙂 you guys are the best. Always always always so creative. 😉

With Batch 4’s famous dental probe (made from a roller brush) and mouth mirror (mirror made from a milo tin cover..lol).

Extremely supportive juniors. We felt like real celebritites…:) We felt so loved.

This is my politician smile. lol

They called themselves the mobile backdrop. ;D

Lie Yuen’s red carpet smile.

Poh Yee gets mobbed too. LOL

Some quiet time with my dear Brenda and Lie Yuen.

Was getting a little bit tired from all the activity.

With Yen Yen Cheh Cheh who came all the way from Singapore to see me get my certificate. Thank you YYCC!!

With Chee Kiang and all my presents. <3 🙂 Oh, the iPad was in the car. 😛

Paiseh to take the flowers.

Ok, a more loving photo. 🙂

Family photo!! yup, this is my entire entourage.

The girls!

One of my few solo pictures. 😀

MUST TAKE. Housemates photo. MUST.

As planned on Facebook, we gathered at the grassy patch next to do the administration building for our mortar board throwing picture.

Unbeknownst to us, there was a chinese newspaper journalist among the crowd of proud parents looking on. So yeah, there’s a photo of my classmates and I in one of the chinese newspapers a few days after that.

A few more jumps. Someone kicked Doraemon to the floor by accident. Haha.

Ready for the next round!

Whee!!

Don’t know who’s mortar board is whose.

To this day, I still don’t know how they managed to get the mortar boards to form a circle in mid-air.

We looked more like lawyers!

Group photo with as many as we could find.

With Batch 2 juniors, Melvin, Samuel, CY, Sook Mei and June. 🙂

With Ada (second from right) and her pharmacy coursemates.

<3 Sabrina and Aimee!! Batch 4 juniors.

Some quality time with the family. Koo Cheong and Koo Ma!!

With dad and mum.

Chee Kiang and the bear, taken against his will.

Like in a movie, but it would be better if my hair was not so haywire and maybe more make-up for me please.

One more round for Brenda who missed the mortar board throwing photo session. 😐

Whee!!

With Aik Munn, one of my favourite Batch 3 juniors. 🙂

I think this was when my dad teased Chin Kai about being the new owner of most of my furnitures.. haha. Take good care of my grandfather’s old cathode tv, Chin Kai!

With Yii Ping and Jen! Jen is the proud owner of one of my book shelves and my weighing scale. LOL

With Philip and Deniece!

Kaixuan!

Stephanie and Charis!

Felicia and Ei Leng!!

Us seniors feeling so loved with all the juniors coming to see us on this special day.

With Janice, Samantha, Sook Mei and Shing Yin

With Janice, Kimra, Agnes, Soo Huan and Wai Yan!

Awww my favourite sibling of a friend, Lie Peh! <3 <3 <3 <3 No prizes for guessing who’s sister. Hahha.

With Siva!

And GERVIENE!! Our current ADSA president, resident funny woman of AIMST Dentistry. 🙂 Thanks for always making the cutest jokes, Gerv!!

With Ananth and Dhanya. 🙂

With Jimmy from Pharmacy Batch 2! Poor guy got posted to Terengganu.

More solo hiaupor photos. Much thanks to Chee Kiang for layaning. <3

With Lily!

With Prof. Ferguson!! My oral biochemistry lecturer. He said if he didn’t make use of his camera (to take pictures with his students), his wife would question him. LOL.

He looks so cute here!

With Jickson, Cynthia and Sheena.

And Victor!

When you leave a boyfriend waiting in the car with your camera, this happens. 🙂

Oooh..ooh.. so right, after like 3-4 months of my convo ceremony, the family and I decided to go get proper shots done at a studio. Here’s the results:

*punches fist in air* YESSSSs… done with my convocation ceremony post.