today was a pretty cool day (since when have i degraded to inane posts of my daily activities? never mind). the highlight was volunteering to be part of the magic show put up by my senior pastor and making a fool out of myself in front of a few thousand people in the suntec convention hall. but it was good fun and he even gave me a bent metal spoon as a souvenir (the spoon was part of a magic trick). really thrilling cos it's like johnny depp giving me his coffee cup or something. i felt like a starry-eyed groupie.

and oh, got a new bag. shopping whore i am. hoho

after watching the last episode of the jap ER drama, i realise that my previous post was totally idiotic. what happened to my brains when i was typing it? you see, the last episode was about two-thirds of the ER staff falling sick with gastroenteritis, leaving a few doctors and nurses to man the place, which was packed with victims of a devastating earthquake in tokyo. each of them had to work 22 hour shifts and yet they pushed on relentlessly without giving up hope... blah blah you know the works. as cliche as it sounds, it didn't fail to inspire me yet again to be more dedicated towards my future career. like, be more self-sacrificing and treasure this opportunity to serve others in need.

o wells, shopping isn't everything right. as long as i shop once a year in bangkok is enough. the rest of the year i'll just work my ass off eh. work so much can lose weight also.

they should show more of such dramas on sunday nights. then people can watch and be inspired, and be ready to face the new week ahead. now they're gonna show i've got a date with a vampire and i've no idea how that can possibly inspire anyone. bah

i stare at my gigantic surgery textbook and somehow it just doesn't do it for me. no come-hither beckoning, no crazy urge to pore thru the words, no nothing.

surgery's no fun for me. don't like it much, and it's hella boring standing in the OT for 3 hours without knowing what's going on! and not much of a view anyway. a glimpse of the liver, if i'm lucky. mostly it's just the smell of burning flesh that's really nauseating, and chunks of excised bloody mesenteric fat being dumped into kidney dishes. the former is especially intolerable, worse than the nostril-eroding formaldehyde during cadaver exploring days back in year 1.

seems like i won't be a surgeon in training anytime soon. been having sweet dreams of opening my own clinic with the girlies, serving a tai tai clientele and working 4-hour shifts everyday.

yay. i'm an ambitionless airhead doctor-to-be. o the shame. such a disgrace is me.

but after 5 years of obligated duties in the hospital in the very near future, i believe any great ambition of serving the public in a major hospital would be tossed out of the window in no time. give me my sleep time, holiday time, family time. most importantly, my shopping time. i see how the resident MO in AH slogs day and night, not being able to go home even to have a change of clothes is enough to convince me that a highflying career is really not everything.

sad, i know. but leave the nation-defending tasks to the men, while we ladies cover the homeground. we're more popular as GPs anyway.

tomorrow's granny visiting day! can't wait to chow on her fried noodles, pan fried cod fish, and fried glutinous rice sausage thingies. all things fried are good for you.

twas a mistake to attempt running today. 15 mins into the run, the horrendous cramps began. not the pms-ey type, but something i've never experienced before. it was as if the whole length of my intestines (stretching from changi to jurong) decided to expand and contract in a synchronised and exaggerated fashion. i tried to negotiate with my gut to allow me to finish at least 30 mins so that i can burn off some fats put on by the pms binges. but nay, my gut has a mind of its own and responded rather spitefully by increasing the frequency of the attacks.

so i hurriedly slammed the STOP button and ran to the toilet. 8 hours has passed since then and i've gone to the loo for about 10 times already.

now my knees feel like jello and my tummy like a rock. sometimes i really don't understand my colon at all.

**

mandy u were born in alexandra too??!! oh my u're the only friend that i know with the same pedigree as me.

i know i am going to enjoy my surgery posting at Alexandra Hospital, cos God has so graciously blessed us with a wonderful tutor (the head of the department, no less) . also, the hospital compounds are charming, complete with resort-style buildings, beautiful gardens, cheerily-painted walls and open-concept toilets which are so very night safari.

to think 21 years ago, i was born there. i must be a rare breed indeed.

things are looking up, finally. may peace reign from now on.

it's one thing to be occupied with your new life, new friends, new responsibilities.

but it's another to take what you had for granted.

i'm standing here, feeling very hurt. not only because you don't bother to acknowledge me and my life anymore, but also that you are not even civil to me.

i don't mind just listening to you rant about the happenings in your life, cos at least u're talking to me.

the thing is, that doesn't even happen much these days.

i know to you i'm just a mean sister, who is excruciatingly demanding and unreasonable, someone u'd dispense your generosity to. but when i come into your room and sit quietly on your bed my intention was just to find out how you are. and you don't even give it a chance for conversation to flow. instead you cut it all short with a ridiculous outburst that led me to cuss and that probably just proved your point once again - that i'm just a uncouth bitch who can't express herself as eloquently except to cuss.

you have all of my blessings to go, move on and experience all that life has to offer you now. however, i am dying down here plagued by all my troubles and deepest anxieties that i can't seem to tell anyone but you.

but you'd probably think i'm making a mountain out of a molehill anyway. drama queen.

sick of it all. shall take my leave now and let you lead your life. goodbye

been running so much these days i wonder why haven't i lost like 20 kg already. but the scales only show a miserable 2 kg decrement. after reading ruien's (ridiculous) slimming success on Urban, my eyes turned emerald green with envy and i foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog.

she doesn't exercise one bit and lost 7 bloody kg?! and how the hell does she survive on liquid replacement meals for weeks?! wouldn't that cause chronic hypoglycemia. maybe that's why she looks demented these days. impaired cognitive function.

such a bimbotic mere mortal i am. 4 months of rigorous exercise 4 times a week have left me with nothing but slightly trimmer legs (which weren't very flabby to begin with) and slightly visible deltoid contours. and my boobies are gone while the tummy's still sticking all the way out to johore bahru. at least i have a low chance of breast cancer now.

but who cares! i wanna be a skinny bitch like nicole ritchie!

bah it's so unfair. i'm surrounded by frens who chow on bread & butter / ben&jerry's / chicken rice everyday and are still slimmer than me.

maybe i should get my stomach stapled to the size of a raisin.

anyway my migraine's killing me. practising 200 over mcqs in 2 days is sheer madness. at least it's suppressing my appetite a little.

there are times when i dwell all day upon thoughts that are seemingly foolish in the eyes of my God, but i do nothing to get out of them anyway. wasting my time, or rather my life, on these 'unproductive' and 'rebellious' moods despite knowing that recovery is just a bible verse away is like an addiction. you know it's bad for you, yet it feels so good.

not that it literally feels good to be chronically shunning myself away from people and numbing my senses, emotions, the lot. i just need to be like this for now. cannot bring myself to live out higher pedestals of theologies or philosophies, like thou shalt not harden your heart in rebellion when thou hear God's voice this day.

a mere mortal with a humanly forgetful and ungrateful nature, is what i prefer to be right now.

my sisters in christ have warned me, that if i prolong my unwillingness to get back on track with my faith, something devastating will probably happen. not as a punishment from God of course, but as a consequence of my own actions. then it'll be my wakeup call. or a turning point in my life. or watever.

somehow i anticipate that. like a "show me what You've got then! i'm here so give it to me!" kind of moronic imbecile attitude towards authority. typical teenage behavior.

am i crying out for attention towards the heavens? maybe. in the meantime, i'll label it as pre-menstrual blues.

such a horrigible person, i am.

ouch.

so the test came and went, and it was the grandmother of all disasters.

sgh wards are unbearably stuffy and so i perspired like a hog, while trying to pick up signs which were non-existent and organize my findings into a proper summary at the end of it all. it proved to be too much for my puny peabrain and out spewed from my mouth gibberish garble which really didn't make much sense at all. (e.g. left lower lung consolidation with a trachea deviated to the right - %$#@!)

no wonder at the end of the 2 short cases, this is wat the (mean) doctor said to me.

"you didn't do too well, better get a hold of urself and clerk ur long case properly."

uhh okay. i sorta accepted my pre-eminent failure already. so the only bright spark of the day was getting a diabetic patient for my long case and i did mug on diabetes, hence it wasn't that bad. but guess what the (poker-faced) doctor retorted after my presentation?

"you know wat, you failed your first case. coming from tan tock seng, it's a disgrace that you forgot so many steps for respiratory exam. you did terribly. i'm going to give you a second chance and let you do another short case."

i wonder if i was lucky in that sense, but i certainly did not appreciate having to do yet another short case (which i suck bigtime in). fortunately, the case went along okay and there weren't many hiccups. then at the end of it all, the (freaky) doctor banished me with a simple "okay you can leave now" and a nonchalant wave of his hand.

have no idea if i passed in the end or not.

very disturbing and traumatizing test.

extremely guai lan tester.

but i'm hella glad it's all over and i'll probably get to repeat General Medicine posting again, which i don't really mind. and i got a super horrible tester at my first test! now nothing can faze me i tell you.

so tired. my brain will be dead for the next 48 hours. goodbye

my cell leader asked me what's my greatest Fear.

"People," i said.

my end-of-posting test is next monday and all i can think of are the million things i wanna buy. well, if i'm going to flunk the test, i might as well flunk it in style. and there is absolutely no reason for anyone to look dowdy even if exams are in full swing. or rather, there is no reason to look dowdy at all, for that matter.

since year 2 of medicine, a strange sense of deepseated calm befalls upon me during every exam/test period. doesn't matter how much i've (or rather, have not) studied, this inexplicable excitement just fills me up from me toes to me head and propels me to go thru the exams with great joy. cos afterwhich i can finally taste freedom and go completely bonkeroos with hedonistic pleasures.

perhaps the trick is Confidence. blind confidence, in that sense, when u don't give no hoot about ur actual ability and just believe that you can do it. and then the battle's half-won. and sometimes, tests are quite fun actually. especially when u don't skim thru the paper and realise that u can't answer like 90% of the questions, then u can kick back and relac one korner. u knoe, just take ur time and enjoy analysing & guessing each question.

hella tired time to sleep.

the NDP parade was, no doubt, excruciatingly lousy in my opinion.

doctors wear polo tees to hospital during a national holiday.

the associate dean will prob see me very soon again.

corn soup and brown rice make me fart alot.

goodnite!

after a week of pure sloth, self-pity and useless wallowing in useless emotions, it is time to face the world again.

i swear it must be the inspiring ER jap drama (catch it every sun nite 11 pm ch 8 - love this series). i actually look forward to going back to the hospital tomorrow and talk to the patients. even tho i am going back alone, the time is much to be treasured.

perhaps the best cure for the 'depression' one experiences as if the whole world is caving in is just to give more of yourself away to people who need the extra attention. then the very self-important problems will seem to be really negligible in the end.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
(2 Corinthians 4:16-17)

boy am i glad to be finally out of this shithole i've been floundering in for way too long. a stroke of inspiration was all it took.

i am falling into oblivion.

and nobody is there to catch me.

velvet skies

these days, i don't even know myself very well anymore. one moment i'm deliriously happy ladida, the other i'm a ballistic stark-raving mad psycho, while most of the time i'm just stuck in emotional grey-zone. like the Living Dead.

and i'm kinda tired of myself.

well, since they say ur playlist reveals a lot more of who you are (sometimes more than you would like). so wat do my recent song choices say about my state of mind now?

Los Lonely Boys
Scissor Sisters
David Tao
Lisa Ono
J-Lo
(and i'm tired of listing already, as if i'm trying to prove anything. bah)

Scissor Sisters, by the way, is a gorgeous band. and they're relatively new, so u can jump onto the bandwagon now. Los LonelyBoys is so heart-wrenchingly sunshiney feelgood i can only dream of being the senorita they're serenading to.

and also on a completely different note, please try to catch Mysterious Skin if you're already 21 years old cos we need a mind-jolting, nerve-numbing, conscience-strickening (is there such a word?) film once in a while. to remind us of how completely beastly humans can be. and the fact that we can easily sink into such depths of inhumanity if we're not careful.

finally i have to say this : i cannot stand the recent bumper crop of sensitive male souls crooning sensitive lovelorn songs. insipid lyrics like "you're beautiful it's true.. " (repeat 10000 times) are driving me crazy. where's your manhood! grow up and be more macho already.

which is the exact reason why i detested John Mayer. Your Body is a Wonderland??!! EEWW. good grief, even Boy George and Elton John combined have more testosterone than these boys.

no offense to those who adore them tho. it's just me, being absolutely disappointed with the lack of masculinity in the other gender.

sometimes i fantasize bout a caveman who wields a huge club in one hand and drags me by the locks in the other. someone who grunts more than he speaks, and takes care of me in a silent, behind-the-scenes kind of way rather than asking me if i am okay how i am doing ALL the time. a real man who spends more time out there doing his own thing than trotting about in the house kay-pohing and nagging.

guys just talk way too much these days.

willy wonka was unsurprisingly wonderful, but that wasn't wat i wanted to talk about.

before the movie, i had a bad tiff with my sister.

it had something to do with unfulfilled expectations, wrong timings, and a bad case of maladjustments.

so after a fierce exchange of harsh words peppered with a generous dose of spite later, it ended with a brief silence and just like every other quarrel we had in the past, the air cleared almost instantaneously, as if nothing had happened before that.

but i know it wasn't really the same as before.

i still have much left unsaid, that i am unable to express. but the glaring fact is now more obvious than ever - i have to wean off my emotional dependence on my sister.

like veruca salt, i am a bad nut. and my sister was probably right in saying that i am just mean to every single human being. so this time, i will try to be nice, for once, and stop demanding so much from her. stop expecting her to do the right thing at the right time. lest i break her skinny bones with my incessant lamenting and cursing about how Life is screwing me up the past few weeks.

not feeling the most dandiest, but at least for now i have a resolution.

charlie and the chocolate factory sneaks tonight and i am going!

can u imagine, i've been ranting about this movie since last year and now i'm finally going to catch it. jolly jolly johnny johnny depppp

yesterday's associate dean fiasco turned out to be quite pleasant. the associate dean was a genuinely nice old man who offered us soya bean drinks to "revitalise ourselves", as put in his words. how cute. and he promised to "take care of everything for us, just a small thing not to worry". awwww

i like grandfatherly old men. they inspire me to become a grandfatherly person next time too.

so blessed is me. but still, i've yet another tutorial by that a**hole (according to my friends) of a professor later. it's okay, i'm ready for some tekaning and insults. nothing can mess up my mood today, unless i break my heel or something.

last night i dreamt that i owned a huge sloppy smelly german shepherd and i was strangely exhilarated with the creature. how abominable. how barbaric.

my past few entries must have made you believe that i'm an angry little kid, hurling bricks at the heaven and spitting on the ground or something. well, it's not that far from the truth, but still keeping things in perspective.

everything must have happened in preparation for this morning's Mother of all Disasters - i am scheduled to go down to associate dean's office to meet some bigshot honcho cos i skipped all of ONE tutorial last week, due to my distressing menstrual cramps. haha and u wonder what else could go wrong eh.

a mini panic attack coupled with dark chocolates and a (giant) Cornetto ensues, then compulsive smsing xuannie, inky and auntie ilynn (and hence receiving much-appreciated encouragements), and a pep talk with myself, i am feelin much much better.

afterall, i am well-trained in enduring such interrogation since secondary school. try 6 hours with the DM.

i just hope that it wouldn't rain on me later. o well, then all the shit that has been happening will morph into One Big Joke and then... MADNESS! haha.

"Fear thou not, for I am with thee
be not dismayed, for I am thy God
I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee
yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness"

indeed, the Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall i be afraid?

even if Life is fond of screwing me up, it can't kill me innit.