Male blood vs. Female blood

This just in... so men's blood is better than women's blood?! After a close read of this health report, this is somewhat correct but not entirely true. The statement only applies to "plasma transfusion." So some of you may wonder what's the difference between plasma and blood? Let me give you a brief lesson here (coz i don't know a lot about it either, hence, brief): once blood is donated/collected, it is divided into red blood cells, plasma, and platelet (helps u stop bleeding, the clotting factor). Appearantly, women who have been pregnant develop this antibody to their babies' foreign father cells, and if this blood is given to some people who happen to react to this antibody, they will develop horrible reaction to it and develop serious complications to their lungs, which they may die from it.
What a ground breaking discovery!
Even though plasma is not often used in transfusions, it is still important. So men, go give blood.
This may make people think that women's blood is not wanted anymore, in fact, the opposite is true. Because plasma is seldom used in whole for transfusions, most of the supply is used to produce other important life-saving blood products, like the immunoglobulins (we give this on my ward all the time). Therefore, while men's plasma is being saved for people who needs whole plasma transfusion, more is needed from women to make up for this loss. Was this clear?
There's a new learned lesson everyday.

So i've finally uploaded the photos that i took during my taiwan trip. Go take a look at them at my other website bah~
http://jacklynsu.spaces.live.com/

Taiwan is a 好地方

我很懶... too lazy to type in Chinese, even though everything that i wanted to write in this blog was thought out in Chinese. I am just gonna do a translating job here.

Just came back from Taiwan. Very sleepy and tired. I'm old, a 24-hour flight really took a lot out of me. It's been two days and i'm still tired from it. Maybe today's school has something to do with it as well. I walked a lot today from subway to classrooms and then back and forth between the bookstore and 2 different copy centres. I don't understand why the prof would put her readings at a copy centre all the way up on Bloor street when her office and the majority of our classes are on College street?! So dumb... it was cold walking that far distance carrying over 5kg of books.

So I'm back..........................
Back to T.O., back to reality. 10 days in Taipei flew by in a blink. I'm singing the post Taiwan blues now~
I've always wondered why i get so unfamiliar with my own home back in taipei. I forgot how different bathrooms are back there, it perplexed me why the house needs sweeping every single day, i didn't know where anything was placed at, i didn't even know how to dispose garbage. Then it hit me. I've only lived in that house for 4 years! For heaven's sake i've lived in the house i'm living in for over 3 years, lived at 362A Johnson for 3 years, and the house in surrey for 5 years! Looking back, i've been all over the place in my life and the time i've spent in the taipei home was really minimal compared to the others! That really surprised me, coz i've always considered taipei my "home home," not surrey, not kingston, not toronto.
I still love taiwan very much. It took me a few days to get used to it, but i quickly blend in and lived like a local. The food and the shopping definitely helped. ;) But i loved the efficiency of taiwan, ie. #1 i was sick for over a week before i went back, and the symptoms did not seem to improve with time, but as soon as i took my dad's medicine, 3 days was all it took and everything was fine. No more coughing, no more phlegm or sniffles, amazing. ie. #2 there are lines for ppl to line up at subways, i love that, and ppl directing the crowd. there's also policemen directing traffics at major intersections. Taipei ppl know their traffic is bad therefore they have these police helping (unlike Toronto). ie. #3 there is even ppl directing customers lining up to buy 雕魚燒! Another thing i love about Taiwan is that Taiwanese ppl try to do their job very politely, even if their job demand assertiveness; unlike Canadians or Americans especially, the two concepts will never go together. You either be mean/rude to get your way, or you be soft/push over and lose your voice. This really annoys me. Like the lady who worked at the airport at the baggage conveyer belt yelled at me for standing there, wanting to see that my luggages actually get sent into the little hole.
Anyhow, taiwan is a beautiful nation, the culture is unique and the ppl are friendly. Even in a busy city like Taipei, you can still find caring and compassion, i imagine that there will be more in smaller cities throughout the country.
I can't wait to go back again, i miss it already (but i don't miss the 蹲式馬桶, it's just gross) and i miss my family a lot. You can probably guess that this is pms talking again...