rain. blessing or curse?
depends who u ask. if u ask the peasants in china, yes a blessing.
if u ask me....wait no u do not want to ask me! dn't get me started.

marriage. blessing or curse?
ok i've mentioned b4 that my 2 best frens have this thing about marriage crap and yeah taoday we talked about it again man!!
so we were like who's gonna get married first? it's always da same person and why. like why 27 is the prime age for marriage.
if u ask me, marriage is a blessing, period, so if zahdan and myra's reading this...JUST GET MARRIED CAN? i'll bless you 2!!
cos i'm always stuck in the middle of their discussion..man!
and zahdan is outright desperado!

Amina Wadud. Crazy or lunatic?
does it matter? yes, why? i don't know... i'm still trying to find answers. i'm scared. i mean how did that happen? how does one justify that? how can people follow? is it some kind of post-modernist feminist overt expression of religious emancipation of women? does liberalisation of women's role in Islam really transcend that aspect of fiqh? man i don't have the answers and i'm scared of what the world is turning into. And they say diversity is good?

On minah tudungs and love. what's right and what's wrong?
I get personal when it comes to this. people can ask so many question. then they probe some more, then they judge ur way of thinking, what makes you the way u are and what kind of principles uphold. man...frustrating, sometimes the right answer isn't always what people expect to be coming out of ur intelligent head! then u get classified, this guy moderate, fundamental, extremist, kafir, munafik etc²?
so then how? don't give an opinion? then u'll get the these muslims don't know a thing look. then u'll just propagate misconceptions indirectly. how? how?

i shall not bother myself with thoughts unnecessary....i'll just let them pass my mind for now..

Book of the Moment: Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami

a cool week past. my hair bobbing up.
oh man!! yes that stoopid fella had to imitate like a parrot.
wht's wrong with people nowadays.
sons calling mommy bitch- where's the sense in that?
think the family medicine posting is slack.
fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, flu?
arrgghh... i wanna do internal med!!! give me back all the....
erthymatous nodosums, endocarditis, acromegalies, Hashimoto's dz
where where have u all gone??
i will decide to cut my hair over the weekend.
do you think it'll look messy during the comp.
i like the wavy wavy hair shit...wish i can do something with it my MALAYhair
man.... there my mom goes forever with her lame metaphors....as stubborn as the owner
mommies....
oh yes today we had discussion about singaporeans' health belief model and yeah i have to agree i'm too westernised to belief the cultural shit that people over here associate with their brand of science of healthcare.
anyway, pumping up energy for the upcoming dance competition..no more left already....still got read bout cough, fever, joint pain man....ok seeing stars already..
hmmm what name for a dance group...
white extremist?
jihadist?
hip hop crusaders?
street jazzers?
5 times funk?
funk-tastic five?
i dont know.......help...bleargh

refraction

saying life is difficult is an understatement.
saying love comes when it comes is an endless wait.
reasoning life is difficult fuels drive and survival.
reasoning love comes when it comes is being in denial.

on frustration, delight and being single

traffic jams are good ways for motorcyclists to practice their squeezing through traffic skills, and every morning if one happens to be having lectures at 9am, yes, the opportunity arises especially in urban state singapore. however your short practice sessions can be interrupted by other motorcyclists who, apparently, don't hold the same principe. You see in the real world, on expressways there's usually 3 lanes, the first (extreme right) middle (duh! middle) and the 3rd lane (extreme left) and in the motorcycle world there is the 1st motorcycle lane (in between 1st and 2nd lanes), and the 2nd motorcycle lane (between 2nd and 3rd lanes) and the very ILLEGAL shoulder (haha!). so you see these are the so called advance lanes for the motorcyclists or i would subtly put practice lanes.
there are 3 main things that can irritate a fellow motorcyclist using one of these lanes, the shoulder being the least affected are:
1. Cars or other vehicles (lorries, trucks and buses excluded) who do not keep within the confinements of their lanes and having their rear mirrors jutting out narrowing the lane(s).
2. Vehicles who disregard motorcyclists and change lanes without firstly signalling prior and secondly NOT checking their blindspots!
3. Other Motorcyclists who HOG the lane for their leisurely pleasure oblivious to the line of motorcycles behind them creating what i term the who's-the-F*&ker-in-front-hogging-this-lane jam.
the result would be early morning annoyance plus traffic induced recklessness and sheer inconsideration. then other motorcyclists will get pissed with other motorcycles and motorists alike and like you know we create the devils playground. ur hate for the rider beside you or infront of you gets to ur head and u feel like banging the car. then u start to think why u gave up the comforts of airconditioned MRTT rides but u snap out of it once u get flashbacks of sleepyheads and zombies and other not-so-morning-people crowding around you thinking that they deserve a seat more than ur non-osteoporotic figure warrants! and u reciprocate that mutual feeling towards innocent ah pos and thinking to urself that if they can stand on 2 feet and by the way walk to this train station without ambulatory devices at their clutches, then they must be fit. or that dilemma or a lady being pregnant or just brandishing that extra pad of insulation in ur face while u read today newspaper in hoping to rob u in the eastern rising sun, of ur seat.
so yes, private transport is better u think. until u get worried all the time that someone out there is trying to get you for something u possibly commited or not. or you wonder whether u've exceeded the speed limit; somehow u think u have and u 'felt' some flashes of cameras snapping shots of ur bike and wondering why is it u didn;t pose or what overcame u in that momentary ruch of adrenaline," should i or shouldn't i?" following that 'ordeal' ur're faced with the 2 week long wait for ' the letter' of summons from the TP and the consequence etc.
so at the same time all is not fun in the motorcycle world. now that the TPs are having their rounds more frequent, it's better that 'we' stay more at home and less on the road. in singapore at least. let's not start bout malaysia man! yeah..the plight of motorcyclists on the road, having to breathe in exhaust from multiple sources (thank god for unleaded!), having get pushed around by SUVs and BMWs and Mercedes', and letting them having their right of way and all.
but me i try not to get myself bothered too much bout all of these, i try at least, so i that for me, my rides are filled with more observations of habitual tendencies of other drivers and riders alike, and enjoying the sights(man! benjamin sheares...so pretty) and cursing other road users indiscriminately under my breath, more like having a monologue with ma bike!

oh yes i taught beginners hip hop at dance arts just now. so cool these kids! and so cute some more. ok some were not kids lah. they're good. got some groovy kids some more, and they all ok like 9/12 that were there spoke like American-tainted english, so like "totally" my kind of class! they got the steps, all smiling and laughing at my wannabe Nigger jokes and making a mockery out of myself in the mirror. but it was fun...haha.... asked me for Advance class i'm like no!!! who am i supposed to teach? pple like Shulin and Claire!? Hell NO!!

at night, no UG so went cruising on my bike with my biker friends not from Mars, but those in the East-side. So cold!! my frens are forever talking bout marriage and getting matchmaked, man.. get a grip. ok actually i also...arrgghh can u imagine being single? man, wake up no one in bed except maybe Toby ur pet cat or parrot?! damn.... but heh, in this world one's gotta be realistic i guess must be prepared for what comes ahead. what after like 15 yrs of studying i decide that hey no more, enough is enough..i should settle down now!! u look in the mirror and a 44 yr old man staring back at you wrinkled, hair receded and fat!
a bit to late eh....man....i'm gg to have nightmares tonight!

boredom and Virginia?? huh?

boredom inspired me to clean my room, read my books, newpapers, write poems and go or dance classes today. not bad! considering i don't usually hang out with him. the thing about mr. boredom is he bores me sometimes, he gets you into a habit. a habit of just walking around the house scavenging food in the abyss of the fridge, just staring at the repeated patterns on the tiles of ur wall and hoping he would respond.
boredom also got me to wash the toilet today and later go over to my grandma's place and give her a huge hug and wet kiss and help her clean her house, all for my favourite asam pedas gravy.
boredom was helpful sometime in my life. because of boredom, i got myself a bike license. because of boredom i got a car license too. and because of boredom i do a lot of other things as well. i guess now u can picture how boredom affects my life. u get the point right.
right now boredom's right next to me. putting thoughts in my mind. thought insertion. oOo...first rank sign. I read about Sigmund freud once and his ideas about kids having sexual thoughts or tensions psychosocially which he thinks explains the aetiology of certain behavioural traits and that they're a harbinger for future misdemeanours.
Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf would have been what he wanted as patients, so articulate, so full of expression and ideas and so full of insinuation(s). all their ideas on death and dying and ending their lives, tragically. Who in the right mind would stuff one's head in an oven or go drowning oneself in some river in england? whatever it was there was some speculation of a hint of their impending (self-generated) doom. i got a chance to read Virginia's works...my gratitude to boredom of course, and somewhere along the book Mrs. Dalloway came the inspiration..what am i talking bout? inspiration i meant the trigger! shitz...
how?
i don't know maybe cause all her other books like "Jacob's room", "the Voyage out", "to the lighthouse" were like conventional. For her time like i think 1925 like that, "mrs. Dalloway" was an advancement in the art of storytelling, i mean if u compared her with her contemporaries like Plath, Lewis and Eliot. it delved into the individual. their characteristics and their lives are dramatized into monologues of their past experiences and exudes some creepiness, the novel moves forward thru these condensed experience. it's like the style of writing used by Chinese-American author Amy Tan in her book, the Joy Luck Club where her characters describe experiences, takes her readers to a time warp, more contemporary for those who cannot appreciate English written in 1925. and yes that was in 1925 long b4 she drowned herself in 1941? or something.
so there are events in her life that occur that lead to the culmination of all things. having thought so much about things, Virginia went into depression.
i also had the pleasure to read her diary entries and letters and i have here the last letter b4 the end:
it's addressed to her husband Leonard Woolf dated 28.03.1941

dearest
i want to tell you that you have given me complete happiness. no one could have ever done more than you have done. please believe that.
but i know that i shall never get over this: i am wasting your life. it is this madness. nothing anyone says can persuade me. you can work, and you will be much better without me. you see i can't write this even, which shows i am right. all i want to say is that until this disease came on we were perfectly happy. it was all due to you. no one could have been so good as you have been, from the very first till now. everyone knows that.
V
You will find Roger's letters to the Maurons in the writing table drawer in the Lodge. will you destroy all my papers.

So you see Virginia was unlucky cause she was born in a time when psychiatry was merely psychotherapy..talk talk talk till u drop, in her case drown. so even if it's irrelevant i will just say it. use the word depress sparingly, there are other people more deserving of the title. and yes, depression is curable and suicide is never a means to an end, a nasty one i might add.

so i've come a long way from being bored to gibberishing bout virginia. it just shows digressing takes you a long way. ok what crap is that?
anyway, i think i broke my ribs yeah think it's broken alright, it's like damn painful my chest. its the 2nd right rib. it's cause i landed on ma chest when i rolled over in bed yesterday. ouch! i know....it still is. i'm thinking of personal therapy but i guess it might not work. besides i can sooooo predict what the doctors are going to say.

"i'll give you some painkillers and will review you in 3 months and 6 months time. in the mean time you have to adapt by breathing using ur stomach instead of ur chest. if it gets worse i'll give you an open appointment for 3 months and u can come back anytime."

i will look at the prescription which says diclofenac or tramadol.

looks like i'll have to be sippin* my cough syrups again.

* Swallow It Purposefully to Prevent Intense paiN (SIPPIN)


friends at the moment: Mr. Boredom and Miss Sleepyhead

THURSDAY EPISODES

the ride home

my eyes fixed onto
words, thought of and arranged forming
delicate stanzas that feeds
my sense of sight.
music fills my ears
in this nameless stranger-laden
crowd, all immersed in their own
perfunctory gazes; thinking, forming
and whispering conjuctures in
silent correspondence.

at the corner i see your back
against transparent glass
eyes tinted blue
looking beneath into details as
we move in this nameless stranger-laden
crowd.

cheers

red bull, jasmine tea and gatorade
i walked down the narrow
alley; unobstructed by usual
commuter rush for late night
supplementaries.

i squint through what separates me
from thirst and satisfaction of quenching
it, despite earning suspicious stares
spelling d-i-s-s-i-d-e-n-t along it's
trajectory and i pondered...
the enigma beneath such labyrinthine
mechanisms that generate
stereotypes and idiosyncracies, of
the frustration that looms
untamed awaiting resurrection.

through faux pretence of
delight, i helped myself into the
silent throat of the night...

woman waits seething blooming

she is a single woman who has no interest in men, except for his son who by the way hasn't called. it's already 255 and he hasn't phoned since 545 that evening where he mentioned something about dinner over at his friend's place. and now she is watching reruns of bwitched on cable sipping her cup of tea, milk tea and thinking of hitting him with a baseball bat, no there's no baseball bat, or maybe golf club.She is picturing slapping her hands hard on his face and imagining what sound it would make that can make up for her unduly worry, her inability to sleep, the many thousands of dire thoughts that has torched her mind these past hours? Where is he? She wouldn't where he would go? and with whom? he's a loner, bookworm and eccentric. he is, she thinks, is the sort that goes out with deviant internet surfers and gets involved with them; but somehow she knows that he is safe that he is fine; except for whatever reason he hasn't been able to call or HAS NOT GIVEN MUCH THOUGHT ABOUT IT! he is testing his boundaries,perhaps and she will remind him of the repercussions of such thoughtlessness! And when she thinks of what she would say to him, and loudly she will say it,she feels a strange kind of pleasure. The pleasure is like that enjoyed when a body is overwhelmed by irritation and is passionately scratched. Giving herself up to that scratching - everywhere and furious which she does all the time cause she has some diabetic infectious lesions- was the most profound pleasure she has ever known. and now waiting for her son and knowing how righteous will be her indignation, how richly justified will be anything she yells into his irresponsible face, she finds herself waiting his arrival like a nocturnal ravenous awaiting a meal. She is nodding her head, tapping her foot as she tries to order her thoughts, trying to decide where is it to start with him. How general should her critisms be? Should they be specific to only this night? or should this be the door through which they pass to talk about all his failings? oh the possibilities! She will have the license to go anywhere, to say anything. she pours more tea into her cup now. she looks up and it 305am and she hears him fiddling with keys outside the door. this would be good, she thinks. this will be good. splendid, florid glorious; she will just scratch and scratch. She runs to the door for she simply can't wait to begin......

antagonised

i celebrate exuberance with guilt
of insurmountable proportions;
haul holds me to my belief
presumably extricating my conscience
bit by bit
dragging along scathed pathways
of bitumen scoffing act after act
of broken misconceptions.

i torture myself with pleasure
of disproportionate commensuration;
lifting high except to descend more
than gravity can absorb into groundless
landing of
fanciful parchment of knitted
attributes negating impactful thoughts
of discrete personal concessions.

i make myself happy with aggression
of through-the-roof-ly exaggeration;
lips wide unseen unheard untouched of
the perils in mutual exclusion
preparing for
eluded freedom alluding
precepts of unfounded notions
of mainstream affections.

i cry with forced laughter....

lost in translation

i'm a pig. ok not quite. i'm born in the year of the pig. somehow that translates into laziness, for i remembered a story about how the animals of the zodiac had to race to determine their chronological order of appearance in the lunar calendar. maybe laziness is not the word i am looking for. how would u then describe a person destined into a life that is obstinate and frank to the point of being tactless? a horse so full of vitality, life and energy? or a tiger with issues? or just a cunning little rat who's there for the ride, belittling others' efforts albeit triumphant in the end? so at the end of it all i'm just confused, for i don't think chinese zodiacs makes sense to me in the first place and the reason why i thought of relating myself to these animals and their natural characteristics or animosity is because back in school, my chinese friends talked about it and told me stories about zodiacs and many others. so i told my mom about it since i thought she would know something and enlightened me. it would end up with;
"why u like to mix with chinese people so much this boy? you see lah bang(to my father) your little son here will end up marrying a chinese girl i tell you!" she would laugh. in primary school she like to torment me or something she made me go to school with Weiling, this pretty chinese girl i sat to next in class. She still says that when i'm in secondary school (she thought i liked weishan and i did but didn;t want to tell her), in JC(it was melanie but no!!! i didn't like MElanie at all!!). so now in uni i piss her off by saying i'm migrating to the states to get married to some ABC girl.and i'm like wondering why i said that? but the pertinent question is...why me? why not my brother? or my sister..who looks chinese and has some guy by the name of David Chua being nice to her and all in school (haha..i opened her journal..so stupid to leave it lying around..all ur secrets all over the place..ahaha)?
that's the thing about my mom you see. she has this empowering voice which you can't help but listen to. that voice amplifying her conservative views and old-charm vulnerabilities in post-modernist world. i still wonder how anyone can possibly stay put in time as the globe rotates, swirls and twirls; traversing new time space periodicity. but she's still my mommy.
i think she gets this idea from observing me throughout the years of my life. like she thinks im going to be a disappointment one day (like all the time). she says one time that i'm too smart for my own good! while she loves me being smart and all throughout, especially at the end of the year when taufik tops the standard again and again, its a disadvantage at home when i can't voice out my opinions like how i hated when she showed me off to her friends' and other relatives, about how i cant bring my book along everytime we had a family outing and we have to enjoy the company of one another and extended family, about how it irks me when she just throws my books around and never according it respect in my own terms and many more.
she thinks i read too much decadent "western" books." see lah this boy read all the ang moh books. i never seen him touch a single malay book in this house. he's going to 'outsmart' me one day hahaha," she tells one of my aunts when i know deep inside lies insecurities and fear of letting me into the hands of the education system. still at that point she doesn't know i wrote damn good malay compositions, essays and penned malay poems for the local newpaper or that everytime my compos appeared in the model essay booklet the school gives out annually. all along she thinks my malayness dissolved into a society i blended in so well in that it seemed so natural that my association with the significant other is the only way she sees the finalty in me.
my mother and i have a complex tension. i use the word tension because it's always tension. fro young i argue all the time, for my self perceived rightiousness. from reasoning why i had to buy files to obsolete pencils and crayons and through my adolescent years, where mothers' words fall into sentences sounding like "yack yack or bla bla²". mutually however at times we are like what i would describe it as ice cream, as i remembered why it was that eating something so good can make u feel terrible and that vomiting something so terrible can make me feel so good.
as for me all this while i thought of my mother as someone i had to take care of, without giving her the piece of mind of independent think she deserves, well not really all but sometimes she makes me decide things which i hated doing, which further affirms that my mom is a fickle person whose indecisive nature is like the death of me. so obviously i was wrong. beneath her disposition there's this intelligent woman trying to connect to me. but she finds it difficult and i find it difficult. as much as i try to deny the problem is me, i can't for i know the problem with this failing bridging attempts has been me. me me me. so i think she thinks its her and me, while i think its her and me. so end up thinking and not resolving. for we have so many unspoken translations of thoughts waiting to be stream out of our heads but cant even in the comforts of home. we tried once, i think, and she got a shock at american-style explosion, and that was that she kept quiet for days i recalled. so being me, i wanted to win all the time and i know my mom would be the one coming back to me and not vice versa. so i displayed my acts like doing my homework watching tv with my brother,playing video games which i never played not doing my homework, sure that i would get my way and attention i had the right to. i was wrong she didnt wake up for school anymore, not asking me whether i ate already or ironed my clothes or scolding me for not washing the dishes. she was just quiet. i almost cried. it went on for like 6 days. i was so wrong so stupid thinking i can outsmart her. somehow that effect i think lasted till today and sianfully it sucks, when i know it's me me me. i envy those who are otherwise normal and how i longed to be like Firdaus, khairul, Azman or Sobri who share more love than loathe. sometimes i feel like running away making plans and all but never materialise, for after that bout of anger vanquish, after the similarly vehement hatred for my mom abates, i would surrender myself to her innocence and demeanor and it;s a vicous cycle and i hate myself for that. still i'm still thinking such tendencies are commonplace for men like me. outright denial.
which reminds me of a conversation i had with my mom last time.
i just purchased this small table for my room and placed a glass plague i got on it and the base of the table was irregular and i loved it for it reflects fluidity in contrast to my room's edges and sharp corners and bends. so she placed her handbag one fine Sunday after attending a wedding function, i said," Careful the base is not stable, it might just fall and break the plague."
she was lamenting why i had to buy such a stupid looking table anyway. afterwards, i made my way to the kitchen to fix my favourite biscuits and milo in a bowl.
then, i heard clank!! and in my mind i knew it. i went back to the room and i saw my mother picking up my dirty clothes for laundry and not even apologising for breaking the plague.she just said," oh it dropped."
"it doesn;t matter,"i said," i knew this would happen one!!"
"then why don't you prevent it in the first place?" she responded.


And it was such a simple question.......

health message number 1

public health message is diverse relating many aspects of health, behavioural, promotional and more importantly those relating to lifestyles.
ok i'll be focusing on lifestyle.
note: we doctors need to go a step more than just treating diseases (dzs). for many dzs can be prevented.

i'll start general positive health promotion. what does it entail?
here are the proven aspects to leading a healthy lifestyle.

1. Healthy well balanced diet
2. At least 7 hours of sleep a day
3. Not Smoking
4. Exercising
5. Drinking alcohol in moderation (3 standard drinks for males/day and 2 for ladies)
6. Proper stress management

i will further elaborate on these different aspects individually and discuss also the evidence for their recommendation(s). in the mean time, yes please live healthily.

stories from the archipelago

the banyan tree

under the shades he would hide from his shadow, intrigued by it's blackness and sheer resemblance to his silhouette. he tried once to remove it from the mat outside his kampong house only to see it under. he ran and ran but the shadow followed close, so close.only to disappear under the comforts of the 100 yr old Banyan tree.

stilts of courage

rural legends abound. but little did he know for the one thing that ran across his mind that night was the resonating bellows from the hut next door. it's very impolite to be verbally abusing one another such wee hours. but he pondered. the neighbours were shouting and screaming and the belantara - with it's vastness- echoed with reluctance. what he hears are accusations of little consequence and of that of inapparent lost sense of finalty.
they have a life at least. love can be expressed diversely. what's that compared to this blinding silence that's buzzing in my ear. they must be laughing at us. he thinks they know! "what is he
to do about it.
every night this planned predictability comes to him. is it haunting him? this visitation of paralleled paradigm, never meeting in significance nor resolution.
he thought about how he used to bicker with his elders about building this kampong house over roots of unsettling disposition. and how he's always admonished. kita orang melayu tak boleh bodoh sombong. pipit makan berhujan! cakap orang tua mesti nak dengar, kan sudah dibicarakan baik buruknya dulu! he pressed on, diligent, determined.
every night, the soil bears the heavy weight of reveberating emptiness and unspoken solitude.

gasp!

i have a medical condition. it irritates me. its very disruptive. it's called asthma. and i get it everyday. yup it's EVERYDAY. ok not in the day in the night, so it's EVERYNIGHT. its unpredictable. it sucks. the thing is it makes u struggle for air everyday and then u have to find ventolin and breathe it in, and finding that thing sometimes makes u gasp some more. it's pain[pul], haahaa. i've been taking steroids for my lungs but it doesn't work, how!!?? it's chronically inflamed! shit....
never mind that my ventolin finished just now and i had to give my mom the fright of her life, haha so cute anyway, by waking her up from sleep and the first thing she sees is me gasping for air and not being able to complete my sentences, shucks! yup that's wat happens, u cant even finish a," mommmy, i'm having asthma" without 5 breaks in between. ok actually not funny lah. damn!
my mother always have to put up with my nonsense. anyway she claims that asthma is caused by what i eat. she's right in a sense, but the reaction to what i eat would be immediate not later at night. what i have is nocturnal asthma, that which occurs at night, and yes i have a hyper-responsive bronchus, it's sensitive to like anything one tiny dust speck can make me sneeze 80 times consecutively; my record so far=84 within 5 minutes, no prize for beating that!
so yeah, she took my ventolin and gave it to me and watch me get a relief and later scolded me for "eating" the wrong thing. i just said yah yah i won't eat it. i also don't know what food she is referring to.
so now i'm back to my steroids man! so mar fan. die die must take!!
and yeah carry plastic bags around just in case. blimey!

Deliberation

The day of liberation awaits!

hysterical confessions

indiscriminate obsession
indeterminable sleep
intolerable posession
and inconsolable weep.

unfounded expression
unblinding love and adoration?
unremitting depression
of unsettled devotion?

exploring hopelessness
expatiating emptiness
excessive dependence
on expected defence!

hickery "jittery" doc

ok am having a break from studying now and was thinking might as well i blog it in. right now. i'm feelin confident. everything seems to be gettin in my head. i don't know about tom. i don't even know where the exam venue is. better ask jega. what do i wear? shit. will it be cold cause i still remembered last year during my exams, my hands turned blue in MPSH and was struggling to write my essays shit! yep. i'm reduced to spotting questions and studying pattern. my fren called to ask me whether i'm spotting. "ya think?" of course lah, and being me i try to influence my frens that the questions i spot were going to come out! haha...as if for some consolation! anyway "there's no such thing as finish studying in medicine". i think it applies elsewhere too. next time, i don't know i can;t like guess what patient to treat when they come into my consultation room right? kinda gives me the jitters! a doc playing guessing games in the consutation room. what if i don't know what to do if someone in the room with herpes shoves his penis in my face and waiting for some kind of sympathy and medicine! shit!
anyway, that aside i was regurgitating some facts about paracetamol poisoning when i realised i didn't know 2 fucks about it treatment, and i've never knew what peritoneal dialysis was so i had to read which impedes progress, and the numerous criterias for disease causation is listless. don't get me started. along the way too i get lost i was trying to pour out the facts so fast and timed myself for the essays that i ended up writing funny things haha. like i wrote," lactic acidosis is used to treat sodium bicarbonate. haha!" wrong. totally. i hope it doesn't happen tomorrow. i don't have a habit of checking answers one, once i finish i'll just raise my hands and leave the exam hall, of course to avoid the long wait after exams and the irritating post-exam discussion! right. ok, i hear 'em calling those sweet little pieces of paper- Mache!! wait till i get the chance to incinerate 'em.

POLARised

it;'s getting worse by the day as i document my rotting self into cyberspace. health is defined by which one has equilibrium of physical mental and social health. by that definition, i'm not healthy and so are the rest of the people here in the library. physically- everyone looks fine. ok maybe not cause i've just seen people who physically, ok shit! there's no word to describe it. here's the thing everyone staring at one another as if they've taken overdose of anticholinesterase or high on thyroid hormones or something and their hair are like man! oklah actually my hair also. "eh wait, i have nice hair can!" nevermind that. physically, i'm out of shape all this studying has made me fatter, and if it's any consolation the rest of the medical faculty's getting fat with me, except that qingyuan, he seems to be looking the same, maybe it's the jacket he's wearing, "uh huh!! idea eh!!" so yep, the whole library is fat now which makes all the more apt, the damn place is cold and all of us fat wearing white jackets, doesn;t that remind you of national geographic? like polar bears in de-stress, the whole watchin em. i bet these creatures are divas man, everytime i see them on TV the look so good, so image concious! what the heck? anyway, that reminds me of the polar bear from comic strip Sherman's Lagoon who got adrift on an iceberg just to reach the Carribean to meet Sherman, on the iceberg! How ludicrous? The is that polar bear made frens, socialisin with the Carribean oceaners, not unlike us med students, we're so deprived of social life and like polar bears we're stuck in here in our tundraic comforts. which brings me to the next aspect of well-being. socially i'm gone for now arrgghh it's only been like what 2 days, get a grip! but yeah it gets to you sometimes when inside this big fridge, you see the whole world go as if u're in the amphitheatre watching and what separates you from the life outside is NOT the glass panes but your notes! damn it these things are getting worse to read nowadays. chore. and yes mentally, i'm getting unsound, i hope i won't demented some time in the future or some schizophrenia or something. it happened last night while i was putting myself to bed i heard a woman's voice and that of a kid IN MY HEAD. and they keep giggling, so i was like is it me or is it outside the house cause it's FREAKY. and having gone through my share of psychiatry, and having emphatised and all ultimately, i don't want to end up being one. really. so it was kinda surprise. the voices went away of course, eventually 2 hours later. and i slept late and woke up late and started studying late too.
enough bout that and me already. i'm still thinking though what HEalth Advice to dispense over cyberspace? where to start? anyone?

curse of the pink oleander

snobs are happy, so happy that they know the half life of digoxin, digitalis or digitoxin. as i sat there in gaping awe, with jaw dropping incomprehensibility as my mates go on discussing therapeutic options for patients with cardiac failure. truth is i never knew that u are expected to know the names of origin of drugs. say all this while i thought tubocurarine is a drug for neuromuscular paralysis, my counterparts KNOW that it was used by the American Indians who shoots the poison to make their enemies "sleep" or whatever and that they KNOW digoxin's other names include foxglove and pink oleander.
i'm doomed! sobz. the thing is they CAN ask such stupid questions when it comes to exams. so what to do don't answer lor. mcqs are already crazy like 200 in 1 hr! and 6 essays in 2 hrs...how to finish!!?? and they advise us to "plan"- Plan to ____. I don't know how these people do it! amazing lah. already i'm so random and tired, coupled with impending erraticism, compounded by subconcious gan-cheong-ism and overloaded by insurmountable what-i-have-to-know-but-don't-ism!
damn!
i hate it when this period comes. who am i kidding right? being forced to do what you don't wanna do. boh bian~ pity those ants who have to work for the lazy queen!
woah. getting manic here! train of thoughts like a runaway train. or maybe it's my vision, or something wrong with the screen. why is it that i'm squinting here? shit. bad habit! naughty boy you, told myself over and over not to read notes so close (average distance between my notes and my eye is approximately 10cm). worse thing is i'm doing a project on myopia with the SNEC and HPB and i'm supposed to recommend good eyecare habits and look at myself, myopic prone. i think i had myopic vision once u know and that i was referred to the optician once and that he told me to put on glasses and i refused, now...like the problem's gone. i told my mom i don't wanna be those asses with glasses! ok better not speak too soon.
the feeling's always here lah. exams. exams.exams. must have something bad to say b4 it and after it. but it's not as if it's not uncommon. like yah i know u're bitching bout me bitchin bout exams, know what, think aiyah never mind can? i tell people they sound Cina, like i more can? hahha. of course intentionally. better not let my sister read this, she is so going to re-type this into proper sentences! blearrghh.
expressive or what someone?
anyway, was with the M5's just now they're having their MBBS soon, like tuesday or some shit like that. and in that room where i was with them, i felt the pressure. to be updated, informed, knowledgable and "smart". they're stressing me up can? and i'm only in my third year and i don't even know half the things, of course, medically and surgically speaking. but that aside i was quite pissed off wit them cos they were yacking throughout the 5 hrs i was there with them, so much for sensitive, emphatising doctors wannabe. they bitch some more can. at least i don't sound like that. "yeah right! worse lor you!!", or so my friend proclaimed.
despite not being acknowleged (it wasn;t the matter for me), i don't know?! what does that show? must be something weird right. at least i talked to them, they're like bloody automatons man!! psycho and they're studying psychiatry, think some pple need help themselves! ok i can't help myself i gotta bitch. shit i;m so awake now! damn and yes, while i'm at it might as well go the whole 9 yards. so they were having dinner and all of them order healthy macs food like diet coke and fries with no salt and McChicken w/o mayo over the phone! and NO SUPERSIZE! ah ah no way. the most surprising thing was they didn't finish it and theworse part was here it comes, they're all men, bigger than me. in terms of size of course. i'm like damn, "my grandma eats more lor. shit you pple!" and the had the odacity to throw it away while the ants in the room walked halfway from their niche just to get it! so now, i was left with ants-who surprisingly like fast food, must be a metropolitan down there- and they're like strolling all over head banging and all. bummers!
another funny thing was i was at tampines mall just now and there the author "james Lee" of the series Mr.Midnight was there at Times. not that i'm interested. i was there to purchase Amy Tan's "the joy luck club". so there's te promoter who went about the loud hailer and promoting the Author's books and all! and i was like trying to find my book among all these little rascals running around the store- obviously there're new to words like "order", "quiet", "silence" and "queue". i decided to inquire over the counter and ended up asking for Amy LEE. thanks a lot!

fatamorgana

ilusi
kehodohan dibanding
kejelitaan bandingan
sesama keayuan
kemanisan kiriman
pusaka lama
tiruan asli.

fatamorgana ilusi
dipijak diendah
digelembu kancah
sejarah kian
pasrah keinginan
pemberi memberi
pemberian.

nyatanya fatamorgana ilusi
berterusan keliaran
dampingan hasrat
pekerti penuntutan
kosongan tetapak
tangan si dia yang
berdiam diri.

crickety encounter

crickets are smart creatures i found out. that they know how to keep quiet when they sense imminent danger within their vicinity. if not they just go bout their business cricketing the night away, so nonchalantly, without regards to where they are, which kinds of remind me of those mats i see under my block singing the night away strumming their guitars, stopping only when someone cmplains and the police arrive or when they get too tired. anyway, there's a cricket in my toilet. i don't know how it got there but it's pulling my last nerve. i was frantically searching for where it was just now, but being smart as it is, it kept quiet when i switched on the loo lights and carried on doing it's "thing" when i switched it off. blearrgh! so this went on for like 3 times as i try to locate the bugger's exact hiding place but to no avail. so i was irky like u know bitch-fittin already and decided to put my anger to good use. dance. so there i was trying to come up with some choreography with Alicia's and Lil Bow Wow, on the background there was that residual irritating "cricket" sound harmonising wit Alicia's vocal horribly. that was it. my next step was to practice philosophy. if u can't stop them join them. if u think doing the cricket thing ah ah nope, no way! so the toilet's at the end of the kitchen and in the kitchen there's a portable CD cum radio player etc², so i just took out Britney's Greatest Hits CD, played it and blast into the toilet, creating the "in-ur-face" effect right back at the cricket. poor cricket. i'm never cruel to animals, not even ants. really! this week alone my mom coerced me into killing mosquitoes, and sure did i killed like 4 of them through the snappy crocodile clap method!
"ah ah there there got one, opit opit, see there there!"
'where aiyah never mind lah!!'
"never mind never mnd later it'll bite me lah and ur sister also hurry up i think it;s a female look!! it's so fat quick quick"
'aiyah where....!!??'
CLAP!
initially the cricket went on and on until like the third track where she starts singing ,"i'm a....slave......for you!" think was a bit too much for little cricky to handle. so it shut up. as i type britney's still singing in my loo, just in case. hey i have to study mah!!

learning how to break bad news!

maybe this is a bad one to start with! but i observed the tutors doin it in the ER and also of course the TV show ER.

Learing to break bad news.

a.Put on a clean white coat (one with no blood, because it most likely will be interpreted as being from their loved one).

b.Clearly introduce yourself when entering the room.

c.Find out who is in the room and identify the next of kin.

d.Get down to eye level with that person.

e.Reach out and make some contract with that person, such as their hand or knee.

f.Make eye contact.

g.State, "Your (husband, daughter, brother) has died."

h.Allow up to 2 minutes of silence.

i.Ask if they have any questions about what happened.

j.Never leave the room before asking a personal question about the person who died or the life that person had with their family.

it's just a guideline. ODn't ask me to break any. i'm bad at these kinda things.
Cheers

beacon up!

i get into a frenzy sometimes, like dancing when u're not supposed to tire urself and do something like something instead. "yah, dude you're wasting ur time dude, what's up with the dancing prancing all that. and wassup wit the V.S. Naipaul shit, he's not even a mUslim and u're reading his 'report'.Eh c'mon be more productive can?", my friend laments for me. I see half the population of unfriendly medical students who go bout their business and walking around like little mobile islands of people oblivious to the civilisation surrounding. when it comes to cracking conversations medical student are the worse!

"eh hi, studying ah?"
Me: "sort of, still going through half my notes i.e. DUH"
"aiyah i also leh like never ending one hor. i cant seem to remember whatever i studied, how ar? eh how u study one ah. You think we must study the benzodiazepines and health promotion and behaviour or not? I scared later come out leh. How ah?"
Me: "not sure, but i think they want us to be comprehensive in our revision."
'aiyah, i not like u lah so smart, no time to revise everything leh. anyway, have u checked the results for the computed scores for all the family medicine CAs combined, it's out already. 40% you know... think i did quite bad leh. i got 72 that's like 28.8%. have u checked urs how much did u get?"
Me: 78.. not so bad lah considering i mug quite a lot....(haven't finish yet)
"wah 6 more than me. how come ah? i know i didn;t fail my tests leh and my community project group not so bad leh, aiyah don't know lah, they give scores also never break down one!"
Me (getting tired of this conversation): "yah too bad lah sometimes like THAT ONE LOR, maybe u screwed up your report."
"wah i feel like i cannot get A already leh for COFM (community, occupational and family medicine), i've been trying to get one A in med school and i was hoping that i could get it from COFM. but u score higher than me leh, and i saw only like 20% get 75 and above."
Me(already flabbergasted by the fact that he knows the proportion of people with the score range): "eh Aiyah i gotta go for dance now lah, i'll see you later lah hor. talk to you some time all the best."

so you see there's no "life" in conversations or maybe it's the exams period but then again when it's not the same thing happens, even in the hospitals. here's one sample conversation when i meet another no-life medical student during hospital postings:
"eh hi Taufik!"
Me (reluctant): hhhheeeeyy......yyyyy...
"where u going to so early in da morning? 7.30 only u know.
Me (is this guy kidding me, so WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING HERE?): "oh i've got ward rounds to attend over at 55"
"wah so onzzz one ah, i heard no one goes for these kinda things one lor, anyway the doctor over at 55, the consultant's a bitch one, she'll keep asking you questions that u can't answer"
Me (puzzled): well isn't that how u learn? so what are u doing here?
"oh i'm attending the mortality and morbidity rounds at surgery department 2nd floor, oh yah i forgot to ask u what posting u doing now?'
me: Endocrinology for the week
"wah, so specific one ah, anyway u should try to....bla bla bla (by the time i heard this)"
me (looking at my watch, thank god! i won one): eh i have to go i'll be late, she's gonna kill me
"she will one lor!!"

again no life. the thing about medical students is they have intrinsic propensity to ask someone, "what posting u doing now?" like that's our,"good morning or how are you?" somehow they can tell how u'll be by which posting u're doing, Amazing people weird brains.
talking about weirdos, nowadays, jokes are not normal anymore, "they" use medical terms to crack jokes. funny as they seem, i can't help but reflect that after these 3 years, despite not knowing half my classmates (we're a small batch) personally or worse! can't even recognise them, i have to one day stick with these people for the REST OF MY CAREER. then i started to panic. but making friends wasn't the answer. the answer has always been in the medical system, now and then and in the future. no point knowing people when knowing them means knowing some people who know some people who know some people who can help you get to the top.
Medicine is competitive. period. being competitive is not the objective says the dean. whatever that means. the reality it exist, in every strata of the medical society.striving for good grades, for better prospects, professorships and all that. and somehow, i feel it. while i can empatise i don't subscribe to such notion. true u have to cmpete to survive. so what's at stake? i don't know i'll find out sooner or later, definitely too late.
so making frens in medicine is a chore, for yes you can talk or discuss about the latest advancement in SARS therapeutics or surgical latest feats, but all the time? No way. there;s so many people and things out there to knwo about and talk to. of course there are medical students and doctors who are NOT the conformist; people like Oriana, Sharier, Matthew, Taufiq, Derek etc² but i never (really!) to actually get to know them as to delve into their interests and passions. so it's my lost somehow. either way, i'm still happy the state i am today.
on totally different thing altogether, i 've been studing all this medicine thing and that i regurgitate the principles of educating the public but have not done it as yet. maybe i should be more proactive promoting health here on the net instead. you reckon?
maybe, the beacon lights up the path ahead for everyone to tread, so who lights up the beacon?
Me, i guess. duh! no one's going to reply right? haaaahahhaaa.......

tangisan

i.
mentari tiba lagi
berbakti
pencurah sanubari
melestari
pucuk hati yang ingin
satu hari berdikari.

ii.
tanah ini
bak hasil satu kurniaan
kental mengharungi
derasan arus
metamorfosis
gigih walau dilanda
evolusi
akibat aliran
paradigma sendiri.

iii.
jangan dibuang
arang tersayang
setelah digenggam
ibarat menatang
minyak
keluhan benak
fikiran berterusan
dilema antara
akar dan lelayang.

iv.
tangisan jiwa
berleluasa
kelak kan ku jenguk
lagi hakikat
dakwaan
himpunan kauman
pengukuhan
landasan adat yang membuatku
memilih antara
selatan dan utara.

slow

Desperation is driving me mad.
Really.
Time is tailgating.
With certainty.
I'm hogging.
Lost.

reflections of a quack

i gets boring when u know u have to slough through paper after paper after paper. as though it's not enough u're killing them! maybe it's their way of getting back at you. if my recollections are true, the day when the bush fires happened over at Tampines and Punggol, i was having a hell of a time cursing the chlorine free virgin white notes that i was reading, when suddenly the next i heard in the news were pple having smog-induced asthma and overcrowding the local polyclinic by the numbers. call it coincidence. maybe my psychic somehow got into the natural cycle of events in tandem that culminates into a spark that ignited the conflagration. Disclaimer: If any Spore govnt agent is reading this, I wasn't there when it happened! Ask the peeps in Med Library. Weird science. However weird that may sound, i still somehow silly-ly think that hey "imagine the possibility" that that happened. So my next task, read up. About what happened actually. so there i go on a archive adventure in the straits times and berita harian, getting updates on Yahoo! as to the possible cause of the bush fires. many were cited and all sounded logical right up to the minute details about how they tried to curb the spread to the flames, and to the preventive measures that they plan to institute. resoundingly crazy as it might crazily or berserkily register to my mind, subconciously though i try not to give up on that thought, it still happens sometimes. Now it's not the ignition that mattered, it's the aftermath. To learn about the what-happenings-after-the-happening digs more into experiential predicament, that the plight of pple who were not so lucky stands at times on the interface between what can be controlled and that one might sense as epistemiologically divine intangible destiny. so this might come late as i reflect on the aftermath of the recent aftermath of the tsunamis that occured nearby. see, i'm a "lucky one"-of course, despite having to mug for exams. evidently, the fate of the residents of coastal populations are dependable on natural forces for their survivability, however paying attention more to the events that happened post-tsunamically, it's disheartening to neutrally observe that despite being capable of controlling controllable factors, somehow human capability displayed or transformed itself into proliferative perpetuating disaster. what can be said about singapore cannot be applied elsewhere, however idealistic our leaders are and however unequivocal the rest of the world is in reaching such objectives. pessimist. no. discriminating. nope. derogratory. not at all. see i belief in potentials, and potentials cannot emanate from within if other undesirable inherents within and without do not accommodate to that potential, which is so the case (i won't mention any names). still for the greater good and for diplomacy, we must 'strive'. so being 'obsessively' worried about the cause and the aftermath and all that crap, i decided to give the area a visit, since it's a plot of open land which i don't think has the "No-trespassing.State Land" sign coupled with the fact that i stay nearby. what i saw was a a plot of black-ridden piece of earth. no emotion despite whatever satirical analogies exudes from me. suffering to me is not doing something to prevent something preventable. if it happens, it happens nothing to be sorry about that, with caveats of course ;p
what a distorted sense of mercy is that? u might think. i think. whatever.still where i'm typing here, i'm getting a sense that somehow if i don't start getting back to my mugging soon, i might just "suffer". time always get around you making u dazed, fazed and forever tempting you to waste it. now, what the hell am i talking about? lemme go figure? please?

The difference between doctors and dead ducks is that we doctors "quack". Ha-ha. So freakin' lame. quack!