It was absolutely repulsive.

The university has 10 India-imported bodies floating in two tanks(5 bodies in each tank) filled with formalin for the past four years in a store room behind the anatomy dissection hall. The bodies are in pieces and limbs are detached and floating in the murky brown formalin liquid. The colour of the liquid is no different from those of the dirtiest drain water.

You know, I thought I was brave. I tried to tell myself: This is science. It's only science.

When the door to the storeroom opened, the strong foul smell of formalin rushed up my nostrils and I immediately reached for an extra facial mask. I stepped into the room with a few of my course mates. A few of us were grasping each other's hands
tightly.

The tank was about the size of the common water tank they have in the national service bathrooms. I mean it fits FIVE (dead)grown men! I peered into the tank and the immediate thought that came into my head was, "Ei, like pak cham kai(steamed
 chicken) like that." Some of the skin on the face was still intact but it was peeling, revealing grey coloured muscles beneath. Some parts of the abdomen was exposed so that the intestines can be seen. Another body had its thoraxic cavity revealed. I could make out the now grey lungs. The top most cadaver still had the skin(you can still make out the native of the person who once owned that piece of skin) which covered his genitals and the dick was you know, still there. It was peeking out from the darkness of that yucky formalin liquid. Jimmy said, "Eh, don't keep looking lah, later stand how?". He peered closer and then he said, "Eh, quite big also ar!"

The scariest bit is seeing the skin tattered and peeled, hanging of whatever that's left of the muscles. It was a sickly white. No different from the skin of the drumsticks that you fine in the supermarkets.

I couldn't take it anymore because I knew if I looked at it any longer and continued inhaling the pungent formalin plus the imaginary stench of the cadavers, I'd probably puke my guts out. Pardon the pun.

Lydia was making gagging and retching noises the moment she ran out of the store room. She was not trying to be funny! I was on the verge of throwing up myself.

Then the caretaker opened a container and revealed chopped body parts. We saw an entire head amidst the other body parts and it was split right down the middle and it opens like a, well, a book. The caretaker lifted up the head and the cadaver's disembodied head had its eyes closed as if deep in meditation and the caretaker said, "You'll be learning a lot about the head. Especially the head." Gulp.

He showed us one halve and we could see what was once a brain, now half of it and it consists of soft mass. We could even see half the tongue, the nasal cavity, eye sockets and other unidentifiable regions. The colour ranged from pale white, cream,
grey, brown and dark grey. When you put the two halves together and peer at its face, you'll be damn freaked out because the skin is still intact. Even the ears were still there! The caretaker said we could even touch the parts if we wanted to! Oh my
god!!

We then lined up and put on some surgical gloves. Some of them wanted to touch it with their bare hands and yes, you can do that. Ughhh!! The first part which I prodded was the brains and it was soft and squishy. But not as disgusting as I thought.

Then another course mate, Andy, said, "You know the tongue can be extended to quite a great length?" and with that he pulled at the tongue and tried to extend it. I touched the tongue and it was still limp and soft. Ughh. Someone else flicked the
ears and it was almost as if the ears were made of rubber because it even gave a slight oscillation!! It's still got bits of hair left on the ears and on the scalp. We flipped the head around so that the face was facing up. Harveen tried to pry open the cadaver's eyes and HOW DO YOU KNOW?? IT STILL HAS EYEBALLS. ARGHHHHH!!! It was a sickly shade of translucent gray. Almost like the ones you see on those stale fishes in the marketplace.

Harveen checked out the rest of the body parts in the container. She found a hand and lifted it up, wanting to give it a shake, but got such a rude shock when the loose mass from inside the hand spilled out. UGHHH..UGHHH. I think I am going to
be sick again.

She did take some pictures of the parts with her handphone but I remember reading somewhere that taking pictures of cadavers is illegal and so, I'm sorry, there won't be photos to be shared online.

To tell you the truth, I was afraid to be left alone downstairs back in the hostel because I kept seeing the loose skin hanging off from the cadaver's body.

Maybe in time to come I'll be able to maintain a more professional attitude towards cadavers.

But for now..UGHHHHHH!!! What an experience though!

Some pics of me fooling around in the dissection hall. None of the cadavers though!!


Me posing with our residential skeleton.

Lishen wants to too.


l-r: Cze-Yin, Ah Skeleton(English name is Skelly, must be said in a Hongkee slang), Me trying to have a quick one with Ah Skeleton.


Narjit literally rubbing shoulders with Ah Skeleton.


Ah Skeleton did not try to resist my attempts to make out with him.

Editted at 1.48pm: Would you believe it? I'm in the dissection hall now blogging from the computer there. I just touched the four year old cadaver mass with my barehands and damn the mouse feels sticky now. HAHAHA. EUGHHHHH!

First saw it on Kenny's and then my brother and his friend Xiaoo decided to take it on and so did another friend of my brother's Ian. Has it become a meme?!

I hope you don't mind Kenny, but it's damn sweet and fun! Here's mine!

I think I'll call it Ayam The Meme.

I am that girl who pretended that a slipper in the middle of the road was very interesting because I was shy to hold your hand.

I am that girl who flashed her friends to make them laugh.

I am that girl who swore to her mother at the age of 8 in a raging fit saying, "If being a dentist is the last job on the face of the earth, I WON'T EVEN TAKE IT!!!" after getting one of her final milk teeth pulled out at a dental clinic in SS2.

I am that girl who nearly got kidnapped in Subang Parade at the age of 3 on the fateful day that she decided to ponteng kindergarten but nobody seems to take me seriously for it.

I am that girl who wrote a love letter to a boy in standard 2 but he rejected me by throwing my scissors on the floor. Don't know why.

I am that girl who called her mother a Silly Pucker at age 8 for not playing monopoly and got whacked by her dad who mistook it for Silly Fucker.

I am that girl who did not want to tell her dad where she learnt that word from because she was afraid to be deprived of her Archie Comics so she quickly racked her 8 year old head to find a comic that she could do without - and so she put the blame on her Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck comics instead.

I am that girl who learnt where babies came from at the tender age of 5, courtesy of her Phillipina maid.

I am that girl who actually got sexually harassed at the age of 8 by a chindian guy who wanted to take piano lessons from her mother borrowed her home toilet and claimed that he wet himself and asked her to wipe his dick for him with a towel.

I am that girl who actually wiped his dick with a towel.

I am that girl who remembers it being big and black.

I am that same girl who used loads of handwash to scrub at her hands after he left.(symptoms of a sexually harassed victim)

I am that girl who is NOT emotionally scarred from it and found it very funny albeit dangerous 10 years later.

I am that girl who knows I can report him to the police.

I am also that girl who knows how the fuck can she remember that fucking fuckers face and hence it is impossible to lodge a report.

I am that girl who is now thinking, "my poor virginal 8 year old hands..".

I am that girl who enjoys telling people that story, partly because it IS the truth and partly because other people's reaction to it is very interesting.

I am that girl who felt like the ugliest thing in the world when a boy once told her that she was "Fucking ugly, want to vomit," when she was a mere 12 year old.

I am that girl who has bad period pains and wriggles on the floor.

I am that girl whom you nearly kissed during prom.

I am that girl whose shoulder you cried on whenever he makes you feel emotionally wretched.

I am that girl who gave you a Purple Streetwear Nailpolish in exchange for that cute senior's ICQ number.

I am that girl who frightened you when she said, "You know, nipple stickers are the bomb."

I am that girl who is an incurable blog addict.

I am that girl who dies without the internet.

I am that girl who will endure 6 hours to and fro from Kedah to KL just to see you.

I am that girl who wonders if her family will still go to Vietnam for a holiday after paying a bomb for her education.

I am that girl who doesn't want her friends to go away to study.

I am that girl who will never stand in the way of anyone's education.

I am that girl who cannot speak mandarin.

I am that girl who believes that she can be more of a hopeless romantic if only she was of a different sex.

I am that girl who loves glitter too much.

I am the same girl whose father told her that if her lungs were to be dissected, they'd find glittery residue in her lungs.

I am that girl who knew you were looking at me so closely when you thought I was asleep; 3 years ago.

I am that girl who once thought it was the end of the world when she had dandruff.

I am that girl who obsesses easily.

I am that girl who is secretly proud to be a year younger than her peers because she will graduate younger.

I am that girl who feels most guilty for the things she has done when she's shitting in the toilet.

I am that girl who has stopped liking Douglas Lim because of his long hair.

I am that girl who folded you origami hearts with a special note in each and everyone of them and stuffed them all into a cookie jar and sent it to you for this year's Valentine's Day.

I am that girl who was overwhelmed when you showed how happy you were to receive the hearts and the cookie jar by saying, 'I love you!!'.

I am that girl who's just a wee bit disappointed that you forgot to open this month's origami heart.

I am that girl who wants to spend new year's eve watching fireworks with you.

I am that girl who hates her hair.

I am that girl who is out of touch with the Klang Valley for nearly three months.

I am that girl who hasn't been to the cinema in nearly three months.

I am that girl who actually misses national service.

I am that girl who is such a hypocrite.

I am that girl who made you her diary since the raw beginnings back in 1999.

I am that same girl who can never thank you enough for being the big brother that she has never had.

I am that girl who played rollercoaster with a mattress down the staircase with you as a child.

I am that girl who was your 30th birthday present.

I am that girl who put bubble gum in your hair because you pissed me off.

I am that girl who farted in your face when you were climbing the stairs behind me because I hated the fact that you had a crush on the same guy as me.

I am that girl who hates changes.

I am that girl who is lying down now wondering if the ache in her tummy is a period pain, the impending signs of a good shit or a raging fart.

Damn! This is so friggin' therapeutic!! This is a voluntary meme, no obligations to listing down a few selected names. It's good for the brain.