the last post was in august!!!!! the 18th. how freaking long ago was THAT???

(consider the fact that NANA consists of said amorphous blob of protoplasm without associated brains or memory capacity for even what she ate for breakfast this morning, and you get the idea.)

i've been leading quite a happening life... if u define happening as "having events, persons, and opportunities occur to oneself at a minimum frequency of 5 per second". hmm. not that there's anything inherently wrong with having a happening life. even if the things that happen, so to speak, aren't the most fantastic or joy-giving, they somehow give me the sense that, yeah, i've been through that. so bring it on. hahaha :D

right. so instead of ploughing through the great list of disgusting, delightful, debilitating, detonating things that i've experienced (at duress or free will), maybe i ought to post a list of my very hilarious, very amazingly ambitious, and very entertainment-ful (:D) new year resolutions.

but first, the mannikins are beckoning. i'm gonna go stick tubes in their airways, and then come back. haha.

see, my bro's blog is so much more happening. HAPPENING, people! so go read his first until i update mine. haha :D

p.s. i was just wondering. (you know, random thought.) if my bro marries a gal called C... their kids would be Csquared and Ccubed. at least it's not CJ7..... XD

Maybe it's intuition
but some things you just don't question
Like in your eyes, I see my future in an instant
And there it goes, I think I found my best friend
I know that it might sound more than a little crazy but I believe...

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life

There's just no rhyme or reason
Only the sense of completion
And in your eyes, I see the missing pieces I'm searching for
I think I've found my way home
I know that it might sound more than a little crazy but I believe...

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life

A thousand angels dance around you
I am complete now that I've found you

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life



fixing my heart on a single instant.
not daring to breathe, for fear of blowing the fragile wisps of hope away.
tell me you feel the same, tell me you think this way. tell me i'm not putting myself out for a lie, tell me i'll be safe in your arms.
tell me, tell me. i'm here, waiting.

so many things happened.

when i said so many things happened, i mean: so. (resigned exclamation) many things happened. haha. urgh. what am i blabbering on about? urgh.

haha so surgery eopts over, last friday. was a nerve wracking experience... well at least until the part when my incredibly unintelligent answers made the 2 examiners crack up and shake their heads in... incredulity. haha. so chances of clearing it - haha.

so right after eopts, it was batam time :D nice, nice. i like :D it was the first time i enjoyed living-eating-playing-being randoming-fellowshipping with so many bros and sisters from church! :D haha. and they're really very fun people. kudos to mel my bedmate, josiah and cindy and weiping and weichang and kunfu and NOT FORGETTING victor and ps ezekiel for all the hard work! yayness it was a great camp :D hee. i learnt how to play bridge!!!! and that mahjong is a very intense game that requires players to stay up all night and turn into zombies the morning after :D and that beef bulgolgi is nice! haha. and penne pasta with tomato sauce is a great starter at breakfast :D and i totally totally learnta lot at the sermons, which proves that yes, pastors are incredibly underpaid geniuses. haha :D i am seriously considering attending theological college sometime in my life! :D oh yes. and i am so NOT going to take a ferry to batam ever again. next time we go, i'm getting a 1 day headstart and i'm gonna swim there. haha :D builds muscles too.

and yesterday was cg outing!!!! i learnt that grace makes a great inpromptu baker. and chewy choc cookies are nicenice! and B&J's strawberry cheesecake ice cream is SERIOUSLY irresistible. and bowling is NOT a sport! hahaha. for the faint hearted! :) thanks kw for being a great host!

and yes. it's time for lunch, and tuition. lolx.

i love holidays.

more moons please!!! :P

have i said i love ice cream?
yup, i believe i have.

i love ice cream! *squeaks* i LOVE ice cream. it's not a proclamation, it's a compulsion to announce to the world, at the risk of sounding like a totally lifeless retard with nothing better to do with her life than consume cold confectionaries.

especially cookies and cream ice cream.

yum.

at this point in time, i believe it's customary and an obligation to bring out photos of my stuffing my oral orifice with chilled milk and cookies bits... but unfortunately i am usually, no, make that habitually and unimpeachably (new word in my vocab!!! excited.), preoccupied with the acutal ritual of consumption that i fail to notice that my bodily existence consists of anything more than 2 arms, an attached spoon, a tub of ice cream, and a mouth. yup. so i forget that cameras exist, too.

anyway, i think we're all supposed to be like this huge amorphous mass of boing!boing! protoplasm in heaven (without the body bits, the clothes bits -HARHARHAR! take that, u LV and gucci maniacs- and the other wordly bits) so doesn't matter if i practise dissociating from the physical me now, i guess :D

and ice cream makes me happy. very happy.

haha.

grrr dun understand why this download is taking so long. (i'm trying to print the church camp booklets.)

i am going to get myself some ice cream! so that i feel better about waiting while my ass coagulates into fatty blobs.

tata!

pink bubble gum and smudged grey dirt
anemic, tired, overworked treads, flying without heed
clack, slap, thud. clack thud, clack thud, thud. thud. thud.

she works the diseased ground over and over
relentlessly.
she jumps, she reaches, she stretches
beyond the deep azure sea mimicking
windchime calls from the houses of winged creatures
crying in the night.
she cannot tell if she (will, has, cannot)
ever get there
all she knows is to thud. thud. thud.

till the heartbeat of the little black bird
drains to a shrill halt
till her bubble gum sneakers
perish the fourskip tattoo
on the dirty tired ground.

still don't understand.

i'm not productive, not productive at all. sleeping 20 hour stretches, waking up with eyes around my tremulous heart hoping another day wouldn't happen but it always will, it always will. escapism's problem is that no matter how far u run, u end up chasing ur own tail and u trip up, kissing the dirt wondering what's gonna happen, is it gonna be the same old shit, and yes, u already know the answer in ur heart. ain't going nowhere is what i call it. but i just can't stop myself from sleeping so much even though it's abnormal to fall asleep on a friday afternoon and wake up on a saturday. and even worse when u sleep on a thursday and wake up on a saturday. sometimes i feel so disjointed it scares me, cos i feel likei don't even exist and i'm just a lump of amorphic protoplasm floating around trying to do things unsuccessfully.

strange lifestyle, strange person. fits like a puzzle.

getting nowhere with my writeup. not materializing miraculously either. sleepy again.

i might need a pituitary transplant. or very strong scotchtape on my upper eyelids.

i think the scotchtape works better. it's cheaper. and heck, if i need a repeat, it's easier to get.

i'm never letting anyone near me with a spinal anesthesia needle. i mean it! that thing is one of the scariest medical instruments i've ever seen being used so far... and the thought that i once had someone shove that repeatedly into me just scares me into slackjawed oblivion.

i'm busy.

too busy.

no time to blog. why am i blogging. shoo. stop blogging. girl u have NO TIME TO BLOG.

urgh. don't even have time to wipe shit.

angsty times like these, i really wished i didn't have an implorably hilarious allergy to coffee. then i could take a long swig of the black bitter brew, act cool, and pretend that my hair isn't falling apart in 3 places along each shaft from the immense stress of being a student amidst elite, overachieving, cutthroat competitive, GOSHdamned tactless people. yes.

not that i'm not one myself. but at least i PRETEND to be nice. hello. i sometimes even press the lift for those imbeciles.

my life is quite shit. haha. why the hell am i laughing mirthlessly so much nowadays???

anyway i retract the self confession (oxymoron or redundancy - confession involves self revelation. mental note to self to stop rambling.) about being an overachieving bastard. i'm so not overachieving. i'm underachieving. i am nowhere near the quotas of night calls, writeups, and case exposures. which brings me back to the my life is shit part, but ad nauseum etc etc so i shan't sit on this crap too long lest it goes back up my butt. those people who are 75% there already and still want to fight (selfishly, may i add) with those who haven't got enough cases to wipe their mouths with, can u please go and drink some malaena. i'm so sick and tired of standing there with my arms crossed, looking on at people trying to outdo the shit out of each other when everyone except me is already beyond beyond the requirements. i have no right to say, oh shit man, just meet the most basic requirements and chill. fine by me if u want to make urself cushingoid and constipated with all the cortisol-releasing stress... just don't infect me with the disgustingly dark, gelatinous, and downright contagious panic that enshrouds all of u. hah. i dunno what the hell is wrong with us locals. we have to dig the deepest bottom of the bowl and get the last morsel even if it's the world's least relevant, valuable morsel. it's the "if i don't have what u have i'm GOSHdamned shitted and condemned and a bloody failure so OUT OF MY WAY u bastard and let me have at the last bit of info/CD/notes/senior's tips even though it's bloody useless." mentality. hello. like, chill man. what the hell. knowing that the patient has like 1 more episode of diarrhea ahead of ur other peers is NOT going to determine if u pass or fail. and by that i'm referring to this module, not even the whole surgical thingy. so HELLO CHILL. which part of that trisyllabic advice do u not understand. sigh. i've already given up counting how many times people have been asking me for photocopy rights to some random piece of notes or something with extremely, no make that precariously and exceedingly hypocritically, thinly veiled interest. and on almost all the occasions, the notes end up unused. everyone eventually agrees that it's the world's most useless notes. SO WHY THE F*** DID U PANIC ABT PRINTING IT argh! stop printing blindly! it's so bloody irritating! and u're killing the bloody trees. (that's a sidepoint. but yeah i hear the environmentalists shake their biodegradable posters.) okay. i've finished ranting.

it's time to sleep man. i'm so bloody worn out, tired and exhausted and i am so sick and tired of the human facade. everyone's just trying to run each other into the ground. i don't understand. the sky's big enough to accomodate all of us what. what the hell is the point of sadistically killing off ur fellow pilot... when there's the option of mutual benefit? and yeah. like jess said, what on earth is the problem with 2 people doing the same thing? eventually we all come up with unique, individualized opinions and approaches to the same question so stop being anal and posessive about the cases larh.

i am so going to have to lock this post up.

or my butt will be sued and kicked bloody steaming from here to the other end of saturn.

shit.

okay. i don't mean to be incendiary or to offend anyone. (too late, but i'm sincere.) i'm just frustrated, okay? i hate working with competitive people. no competition = no improvement but but but i think there's such a thing called EXCESS. moderation is key man! too much of a good thing and everyone gets cancer and stroke and AMIs and GOSH knows what else. why the hell can't we all be NICE people. like, genuinely nice. not nice only when the other person has a bloody rare case or some more useless notes. shit man. if i had my way we'd all be FORCED to be nice, share ALL our cases, and STOP THE BLOODY FIGHTING. my hair wouldn't drop so much then. urgh.

time to sleep.

ma cherie, bring me out to watch a yangtze movie, and i'll challenge u to 3 jugs of beer.
pambam, the spam party is CONFIRMED ON. i can't think of anything more asinine and relaxing from this shit than eating spam in its various gloriously fatty versions and photowhoring. haha!
and korneh, PARTYTIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! congrats gal. see ya at cf next tues. tml i have night call :P

haven't blogged in ages.

supposed to be either 1. marking my student's bio paper or 2. typing out my patients' clerking data or 3. sleeping like a drugged pig but am doing neither... instead i've resorted to mindlessly trawling the net for blogposts on what people do when their friends pass away and the recipe for tutu kueh.

talk about leading a pointless, undriven existence :D i currently contribute nil to societal value and about 5 bucks per hour to my family's electricity bill haha :D

okay. resolution to start marking the paper in 11mins time and at least attempt the patient thingy til 12.30am. i'm guessing i probably won't even deign to regain consciousness tml til the sun shines full blast on my butt... 9am is my target :P gotta leave the house by 11 latest or else i'll be late for tuition :P

2 phrases/isues on my mind right now - synonyms for the word "resolution", cos i couldn't think of a good description for it during the game of taboo yesterday at denise's anatolian frou-frou (read -branded italian ice cream, pronounced FAINALI, FAINALI, 21" :D), and silent repose, cos the girl who played anne ma in the channel u show Perfect Cut was really pretty, very fair, and looks like the classical chiobu you'd meet on the streets. so that lent credibility to her acting, though i've never seen her before on the mini screen so i guess this must be her virgin ke-chuan (i.e. 50 cents actress, or mini role) or else i've been away from tv influences for too long:P the latter sounds like a real possibility cos i've been really, really, really busy.

so i agree with jack that i need to parcel out my time for some R&R occasionally :D but guess what! i've always been the lousy one who pangsehs him at the last min, but this week it's HIS turn to turn me down cos of a meeting :D muahaha. can poke fun at him the next time we meet. lolx.

oh yes. CONGRATULATIONS ma cherie. YOU CAN NOW BUY AS MANY YANGTZE TICKETS AND ZOUK ENTRANCES AS YOU WANT :D though i'd like to say, haha, no need to wait for me to watch the raunchy films with you... i see human genitalia in all their naked, hairy glory (or not) every single day... haha. i gotta comment on something though. (thank God only 0.228 humans read my blog... or else if i had a slightly higher readership i'd get blasted on STOMP and the tabloids tml for the comment to come) of the approximately 100 male, ahem, phalluses i've seen so far, in various colors, shapes and angulations... most are rather small. in fact a couple are really quite puny. for a guy their owner's age that is. heh. and i checked their files! they don't have chronic liver disease or any testicular problems. so why that disappointing size, i dunno. maybe singaporean men don't play with themselves enough. haha. practise is supposed to make it bigger, no? i'm thinking migratory phallic degeneration too, cos even the foreign talents have pretty small ones. but on average i'd say theirs are really a shade bigger than their local counterparts. tuttut. we have to work harder in bed! :P anyway the prize has to go to this anonymous guy who came into a&e in shock (i heard it was a case of accident) and apparently the peripheral vasoconstriction was so severe that his cock disppeared. haha. okay i didn't have the"honor" of seeing this disappearing dick - my guy classmates did. at resuscitation, when they wanted to catheterise him to measure urine output (cos we need to make sure he's not in kidney failure) they realised they couldn't find it cos it was so far retracted. lolx. i can't imagine what i'd do in that situation... and no, i dont think a blow job would help :P haha. i'd probably use suprapubic cath (the pragmatic me) or stand there stupidly and struggle to resuface it by massaging the damned thing (the idiotic and sadly, 98%-of-the-time me)

okay how did i end up talking about genitalia??? urgh. and yes, i've exceeded my time quota! so off i go to mark the stupid paper and type out the stupid details. need a new patient for a new writeup! urgh. thinking of a hepatobiliary case. yes. something infinitely more erudite sounding than an abscess would be nice. lolx :P

episode 2: downtown east with The Brother! (not the big one. the skinny, cool, smartass one.)

:D

suffice to say that tomorrow, after the 6 hour long screamingscreAMINGSCREAMING session, i think i'll have no more voice left. recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy here i come :D

anyway i think it's quite senseless to try to give a blowbyblow account of what we did, so here's the incredibly concentrated itinerary:
10am - wake up... VERY LATE. haha. made off for pasir ris via the long mrt route cos i thought there'd be seats. WRONG. even later. haha.

12pm - hit orange julius at escape theme park for a drink and rehydration before the adrenaline kicks in and symapthetic overdrive occurs, whereupon the ADH overload just kills any idea of thirst. haha. the triple berry was reported to be very satisfactory... the mango chiller was a tad too sweet. haha.

12.15pm - 1st ever theme park ride for nana, trial warmup for bro. looks bloody innocuous and tame, just a row of choochootrains on a teeny, teeny wireframe going at abt 30kmph. try it yourself... the accelerations, turns and swoops make things WAAAAAY different when one is trapped in the cart than when one is placidly criticising from the ground. gave brief thought about calling up the insurance agent and checking the last will and testament thing. haha :D

12.30pm - "Strike while things are HOT!!!!" proclaimed my brother. so we tried the inverter. i died like 3 times in 5mins. crap, just thinking about it now makes my head spin and gives me vertigo. haha. screamed my larynx out. and seriously, seriously thought about the insurance. haha.

12.30 to 6pm - went on the 360deg cup thing called flipper, the rainbow ride that swings this busload of people up 4 storeys high and tosses them down forcefully again, the haunted house, the lie-down-and-play-superman ride, THE PIRATE SHIP THE PIRATE SHIP THE PIRATE SHIP (i SERIOUSLY understood what it meant by people with heart problems please refrain from taking this ride), the daytona go-kart (lost to bro... shucks. but accelarating down the slope was uber fun in a concussion sort of way), the inverter again, the game stalls (won a totally totally adorable puffer fish... the rest were crap. haha.), more pirate ship, flipper, inverter... you get what i mean. in the end we lost count of the times we rode each ride, the amount of screaming chalked up, the winner of the no-hands-scream-OLE competition (i was an idiot for suggesting to have no hands for the inverter. WHO THE HECK WAS I KIDDING????) and eventually, our names and addresses. lolx. it was a blur. a very very scary, heart-stopping blur. haha. but every single ride was a hoot. after we managed to stop sweating and quaking from the vertigo and fear. haha :D

after all the excitement (understatement of the year) we indulged in subway!!!!! subway club rocks. and their cookies rock!!!! :D we luvluv subway. wanted the waffles but i was too stuffed to even talk coherently, so we're KIV-ing it til we come back for wild wild wet next week :D

then i got expensiveexpensive ben and jerry's S'MORES for church cell outing!!!! (cheaper at cheers lorh...) and we played heart attack :D where jackie had magical fingers and slapped kunfu 3 times!!!!!!! :D haha. too bad we didn't have a forfeit... haha. the chicken and pizza was nice! but i was seriously too full to eat anymore than a little of each :P faith gave us all a lift home - ANGELANGEL luvluv faith. haha :D if she didn't we'd all be cinderellas.

okay. so conclusion of today - my brother is the lamest human being on earth. and he's a recalcitrant liar about the "not scary la"-ness of theme park rides. and i scream less like a gal than some BOYS who sat behind us on the inverter! yes. they squeal like girls. really. and YESSSSS nana managed to stifle a scream for the entire duration of an inverter ride on the 3rd try!!!!! so did my bro... i vaguely remember yelling at him halfway through the infinite ride: "scream u bugger, SCREAM!!!!" so that i could scream without being a loser :D haha.

here's the pics! too tired to give commentary larh so just enjoy the pics!!!! :D

okay i can't resist.

mister fish has thyrotoxicosis, people! :D

note the gross exopthalmos, lid retraction, proptosis, chemosis and opthalmoplegia.

he also has saggy crumpled fins/spikes from being squashed in captivity with his fellow fishies in the rattan net!

bro says he wants to iron mister fish's spikes to make him look more fearsome with sharp pointy spikes. lolx.

you look a bit better if you were on a sashimi plate with some wasabi...

guess which one has smaller brains! :D

cool man.

cool, man.

another inmate to woodbridge.

hyukhyuk :D

hahaha!~

for once nana has peekchas!

PEEKCHAS!!!!!!!!!!!! speak a thousand words. not that their garrulous quibbling nature makes them any less likeable than plain ole lexicology.

so here we go..... wednesday! 4.6.08 :D out to see the cats and dogs with jerlyn... which became a cross-island marathon to vivocity to watch narnia!!!!!! and the canine residents of pet safari instead. no SPCA cos it's seriously a deathwish to attempt to lug a 7 yr old kid who has more energy than a brood of chickens on amphetamines from yishun to serangoon. yes.

so we trooped to vivo, where we were unabashedly accosted by a couple of overenthusiastic promoters for this aromatherapy inspired skincare range with some funny tri-numerical name (i really can't rmb... probably some spinoff cresting on the success of royston tan's numerical film delights). the funny thing was that the lady went bumbling right away to jerlyn and asking her where mummy's bringing her to and which hand of mummy's she'd like to see whitened on the spot. i was seriously trying SO HARD to contain the effervescence in me cos all the CO2 was threatening to bubble out from my bloodied alveoli from the funnyness of being called her mum and the sheer insult of it :D but it's really obvious that promoter schools nowadays teach them to hardsell by the children method - tackle the kid, and the incessant tantrums and MUMMYPLEASEMUMMYPLEASE works like a charm. but anyway i explained my relation to my poor sis, who was being charmed off her pants by the uncle with the amazing Singapore Pools 4D ball shaking machine. haha. it was a instant win lucky draw thing, and i guess they made my sis play so i could be distracted for a few minutes to listen to their rabid spiel on the benefits of smelling the crushed essence of dead flowers. too bad they didn't realise they were speaking to an incredibly dense woman who has never deigned to buy cosmetic products for her incredibly bad skin and besides, had absolutely no money. haha :P too bad then. i whisked jerlyn off once she shook the ball out of the noisy rattling cage and took her for the movie!

but before the beautiful world of narnia overtook our visual field, here's the pre-movie ben&jerry's icecream treat :D

so this is the legendary cow that provides ALL the milk needed to make the legendary ben&jerry's icecream. NOT.

:D

pretty cute to make the cow lure customers into the store, eh :D well me and jerlyn needed no extra encouragement... we fairly stalked into the shop like determined, commissioned commandoes trying to storm a brood of refugees.

this is what someone who anticipates consuming some ben&jerry's magical confection in the very near future generally looks like.

there we go!

strawberry cheesecake, chocolate fudge, and the free promotion jamaican pineapple.

p.s. we REALLY didn't like the pineapple. it was cloyingly sweet, unfortunately... and was like glorified shards of syruppy ice. so we endeavoured to eat our 2 chosen scoops buried underneath by digging trenches around, under and through the free scoop. which was quite funny :D

hesitate no more!

yumyumyum!

*burp*

the 2 dumbdumbs who have never seen, eaten or beheld ben&jerry's in all its frozen glory before.

grinning like... well. dumbdumbs.

heh :D

okay so after that we went to the super comfy, super spacious, super plush red velvety cinema hall that hosted the world of the narnians! it was incredibly cold though :P (reign of the ice queen is over??? hello???) and the impossibly intelligent miss jerlyn tan brought a cardigan that had many holes in a knitted pattern that totally offered ZILCH suffrage from the biting cold.

so we took turns sitting on our hands, which evoked giggles from her. haha.

OH YEAH. and jerlyn has this totally hilarious and malu-ating habit of shouting like a hard-of-hearing old woman when she's listening to music on earphones or when she's surrounded by DIGITAL DOLBY SOUND. (on the mrt - IF YOU NEED ANYTHING JUST CALL ME OKAY JIEJIE!!! *cue 10,000 people turning to look at the source of the booming voice* and at the movies - WHERE IS THE TRAIN GOING JIEJIE!!!!!! *cue jiejie stuffing popcorn into her mouth and glancing nervously backwards at other moviegoers*)

and after the movie we went to kick water at the rooftop pool! well she did anyway. i took a video of her not doing very much, just self-consciously dragging her feet through the liquid and giving up in 5mins. haha. so we went for lunch! after getting money from my depleted account :D and discovering a pair of doors that lead to nowhere! next to the posb in harbourfront centre. which totally amused our little girl as i queued for the cash :D haha. we partook of BK's gloriously fat-saturated food, and while i struggled to finish transferring the contents of the tray to my stomach, i let loose the little gal to play in the playground. haha. and then it was toys r us time! :D since i promised her we'd go either to the arcade or toys r us... guess it was literally a win by the one nearest the "moonlit waters" :D jin4 shui3 lou2 tai2 xian1 de2 yue1 :) got her a pretty cure tamagotchi thingy that cheered her up like she struck lottery twice over :D and then we took the train home, where she slept like a babe. apparently richard clayderman and his piano really knock out her neurones, or else she was just plain exhausted from all the shopping and excitement :)

another spastic picture :D courtesy of nana haha!

but kids just look adorable lah. oven when made to do incredibly embarrassing things.

poring sombrely over the japanese instructions of her new captivity target :D haha. a belated birthday present! doesn't make her any less excited to get it though. and i'm glad i bought it late with her, cos if i went shopping by myself i'd probably get her something like playdoh and she'd never touch it with a 20ft long bargepole in her entire lifetime. haha :D it's always good to get children exactly what they want, cos they've got notoriously picky preferences and mantis-like attention spans.

scrub, scrub
the wood fizzes and bubbles; pops with a fierce vehemence
choking and gurgling
lathering
no scent of sweet apples and spice
but coarse astringent rubber

determined to scrub, scrub
the callouses sing in a lusty chorus
with the convicted cry
of a blender twice broken

the lithe reedy emeralds wink
from within the confines
of their lucent jewelcase

i lift my hand (wearily)
to the dripping forehead

the symphony ceases - for the brief interval
i pause my labour

feel like popping at random into a few people's faces like a little energy-charged corn kernel.

split the skin! burst the orangey skeins of fibrous restraints! reveal and expose the whitey glarey pure unadulterated carbohydrate within! pop fizz whizz and TWOCK! out of the pan! into the hot melted butter and cheese! add salt! yumyumyum!

:)

i'm going insane. why am i so inexplicably, insatiably hungry all the time?

i'm pretty sure i'm neither pregnant nor full of lumbricoides.

okay, the pregnancy part, at least.

haha.

i'm making the words yellow orange for this post! to memorial-ize my popcorn craving! usually my salivary glands only respond to ribeye steak in mushroom sauce medium rare or rittersport galleta. haha.

haiz so long no time to blog already... this place accumulates cobwebs like it was created expressly for this sad purpose. haha.

been a very stressed little loktor! i guess i didn't really feel in my element in the past week... had a near breakdown (and in the process, threw a temper tantrum on my poor innocent wellmeaning cg mates) on tues. which was utterly horrible. what happened was, i felt that i absolutely, imperatively, diedie-must-ly stay for the sgh breast tut cos the tutor was unequivocally nice, dedicated and keen to share his ideas and experience. i thought it would be too good a learning opportunity to pass up with both hands surrendered, and yet at that most inopportune moment i had to return to nus for clinical skills training. not that it wasn't important or relevant (clinically relevant, practically hmmm maybe good to learn now as a student) but it really was a very bad time to make me consider which to attend - the mandatory one for EOP OSCE (coming in 29 days' time! and i'm still at abdo exam! eeeps!!) or the really useful one which could have taught me to slick-en up my exam and case presentation skills that'll come in handy for all my career span. it wasn't hard to see what i'd have chosen, but at that moment it really wasn't an open option for me, especially when my groupmates reminded me that the clinical skills, though mundane, was strictly the essence of testing at OSCE. they meant well, and really were trying very hard to help orientate a lost, confused and gao-bu-qing-chu-zhuang-kuang classmate to make the best decision, but at that very moment, my nasty stubborn nature decided to rear its rotten head and assert itself. so i made a face and snapped YES I'M GOING with the optional insinuation (ARE YOU GUYS HAPPY TO SEE ME GO, NOW?). it was a really ugly moment for me. so uncharacteristic, so out of control, so obstinately ignorant and yet trying to throw my weight around.



i did enjoy myself (not immensely, but relatively) at clinical skills. especially when i got to see jamesheidibimal and parasitically attached myself shamelessly to their cg throughout the sessions over the next 48hrs. so i apologised, roundly, sincerely and contritely. and my very gracious cg mates replied with reassurances that they understood where the outburst came from, and i was relieved. i guess things like these happen to everyone from time to time, and it was just my turn to experience a humbling moment. storm before the calm in this case is more appropriate than its mirror image adage.. and i really learnt from it. to take a step back, breathe in deeply, calm down, and re-analyse the situation objectively before jumping to opininiated decisions. even the fact that my alternate decision wasn't all bad (i still feel a twinge of regret at missing out on 2 good tutorials that would've been priceless in my learning journey) doesn't justify the loss of control over my emotions. i now comprehend what it means by obligation to duty. one can't have a cake and eat it all with glee, i realised. but it doesn't matter now, really. i thank God for grace and her ever-ready generosity in sharing her notes with me - andi'm determined to emulate her by sharing my cases with my cg mates. managed to clerk 2 additional patients, one from nuh and another from my voluntary late stay at sgh yesterday. both are pretty interesting and would probably be of some value to the 2 girls.

and another thing! i discovered, by serendipitous chance, that cheers sells sugarcane chestnut drinks at 10 cents dearer than nus coop (boos) which ain't good news to a perpetually thirsty, drive-myself-to-DM-with-sweet-drink-cravings person like me. on the other hand, i realised gleefully that they franchised rittersport at only 3.10 apiece! now THAT's good news to a chocolate addict (me again). but they didn't have galleta. sigh. BIG sigh. the whole hazelnuts one looks promising for extreme, irresistible cravings, though. worth considering :D

and yes, sgh is eeriely silent, deserted and DARK!!!!!! at 10.15pm at night.
VERY not good news for a chicken taptapping her way blindly homewards towards the mrt station.
kicks off palpitations, clammy hands, and insane muttering to oneself in the hope that it imparts more courage to cross the seemingly gulflike distance between block 4 and outram mrt.
in any case, even if it doesn't boost my courage, at least it buffers the time between the onset of a phantom BOO!-ing me from behind and my bald realization (gaping jaw, full-on heart attack etc) that i wasn't as alone as i thought. heh.
i couldn't resist glancing sideways at the decrepit block 8 and its annexes as i passed it on mon night. truly dark, creepy and hair raising. what is there to fear? EVERYTHING. especially when one's imagination has been divinely magnified and set into hyperdrive by dean koontz's very very vivid novels of gore and gristle. and the fact that block 8 houses many, many formaldehyde-immortalized pieces of humans. can't discount the fact that the morgue's just conveniently next door, either.

anyway. sgh is probably going to sue my hirsute buttocks off for "libel"ing and villifying its magnificent patho institution... so i'll leave it to your imagination to think about what it means to cross the building when no other living soul shares the stale breath with you as you hyperventilate and trot as fast as your stubby little legs can carry you past the wretched concrete monstrosity.

humans are really funny creatures. we group, we gather, we become civilised. we build buildings, dissect fellow humans, preserve them, and freak ourselves out of our little fibrosed guts when we're confronted wth the thought of being haunted by the people we've displayed proudly as a sign of civilisation and knowledge like war medals. tell me what de-evolution is if this isn't the classic example already.

i cannot....

look up into the face of God without contemplating the coexistence of His wrath and love
take the hand of my patients without feeling a jolt of what they feel
set a plug, take blood, or cut up any child's human part without feeling like a murderer

and yet, i can....

sin against God in thought and word and deed, being a failed child and yet, amazingly, buoyed and redeemed daily by His crimson flow
take the hand of my patients and give thanks for the chance to know them, to share their pain, and to share my immense blessing as a physician and listener
set a plug, take blood, or cut up diseased fleshgristlebone of a patient, knowing that ultimately, even as the twinges of pain hit me from the reverberation of their waves of suffering, i am being a healer and protector.

i will not relinquish my hold on this calling.
i will not rest in my grave unless i do all i possibly could in all the ways i possibly can.

so, oh merciful and wise Lord, guide me.

hahahaha. too viscidly, gelatinously, ruby-ly (aka bloody) lazy to type anything of worth tonight, plus there's 58 x 3 pages of clinical medicine, history taking, physical examination, systems review to read by tomorrow, considering that the first surgical tutorial commences in less than 36hrs, and possibly more medicine tutorials to follow. it's really mad, and i'm here pecking away diligently on my keyboard. i must be mad, out of my mind, insane, loony, crackers in a bin, fruitcake on a shelf. one shudders to remember that tutors require the rep to arrange the tutorial at least 24hrs beforehand (me for the med half group), and the students to read all the basic clinical med + exam techniques + history taking + relevant requested tutorial system review. meaning, if i'm going to ask our dearest, most conciliatory, accomodating, considerate tutors from rheum and derm to give us tutorials, i'd better have a damned good idea 1) what my half group intends the tutor to cover and 2) the date, time and venues when we're available. part 2 ain't too hard cos i've sorted the timetable out (was a really shamblycrappy mess of entangled nonsense yesterday!), so i really need to ask deborah, matin and grace if they want pushed-forward medicine tuts, and if so, what they've reviewed to sufficient confidence to ask for. i guess it's the 4 mains as usual first - cvs, respi, neuro, GIT. what then? and besides, i've a feeling the 2 tutors, wellmeaning as they may be inclined to be, will inevitably start shifting the tutorial focus to their respective specialties, albeit serendipitously (i hope). it boggles my limited mind capacity just to think of it. i'd never, i repeat, never, survive as a bureaucrat. never. over my dead, cold body. too much redundant, bluish vague stuff. i like clear cut stuff. yes? no? not: hmmm, maybe, give or take, let's say 49% and 51%. i'd really really like to see if surgery people really do behave as i do. if they really do, hallelujah. Hallelujah to God. i'd have found my brethren and calling :D if not... i guess i'll have to begin the not-admired task of bumbling around until i find a specialty that is willing to take in a miscreant like me. haha. things like E med or critical care. though both, i assure you, are already 1 or more foot/feet deep into the sludgy, disagreeable muck called "the grey zone".

anyway. that's not really the point of this post. i've never posted pictures on this blog before, neither have i loaded pictures from my new phone to the laptop before. o this groundbreaking ceremony spans 2 informational transfers! yay. let's hope you like the series of really no-point pictures (and the even more, ultimately, no-point video)...

that's jerlyn, my sis, and cliff, my freedom bro. they're both mightily a part of the family in their own right... there was a time when i asked if i could live with another sibling, so much younger than me. now, i ask myself: can i live without jerlyn? can i live without cliff?

.........

yeah.

i guessed as much.

and this is my dad and my sis. people holding ice lollies do look adorable. regardless of age. haha :D

yup, and this is my mum. and my omniscient sister, whose ice lolly hasn't melted a single iota since i started snapping the series of pictures of her with other family members. lolx.

and being the itchy butt-ed heretic tha i am, i MUST present this picture on its side. it happens to be on its right side. which DOES NOT elicit the tapping apex beat sign. which stands for some obscure cardiac anomaly that i honestly cannot remember, even if my underwear were of being put on instant auction. shucks.

oh, ad for korean drama afficionados, there's also the ever-present sheng-cai-bao-kao-rou, or Raw Vegetable to be Enshrouding the Cooked Boar. haha. i took a video of this, considering that it's a process to be savored visually, not by a series of dead, static pictures. let's hope this feature works...

okay.

so it doesn't work.

blah.

nevermind :D hahahaha. u can always rent a couple of korean dramas and watch the real stuff, while crying your lacrimal glands out of commission :D

going off to bed! gotta finish off the stupid readings at 5plus tml. i'm going absolutely fritters-ly bananas.

usually i'm amusing, but today i decided i'm going to take a break and start musing. for once. everyone around me muses once in a while, even once in a reaaaally long while, but not me. i tend to do before i think, to feel before i do, and to curse before i feel. i judge, i negate, i snub, i detest. i push away and haul off, i fling rapidly and shun squeamishly. all these, an many more, i am capable and well versed in. ah but the mystical, veiled art of musing, i have yet to elucidate. and of course, after all the intensity of the moment has all but passed away, i settle down to fluff my feathers in preparation for the next ruffling. without thinking about the meaning, purpose and repercussions of whatever i've just accomplished. sometimes i amaze myself. most times, i amaze those around me, and stun the rest of the world into utter silence.

had church cell today. it was a really small group, with kunfu, gabriel, weichang, weiping, victor and me. but the sharing was on a more voluminous scale compared to that of normal cgs, perhaps because the lack of too many people clamoring for their turn to share makes the outpouring of the spirit much more fluent. in this case, there was no barrier, no dam, no stopgate for the torrent that flooded calab room tonight. gabriel's astronomical success at the design competition and to come, weichang's deep woes feelingly rendered unto the room about his work stuation, weiping's korea trip, her gratefulness of a bonding holiday group, and the (not so blamable) desire to become a ludicrously rich banker, and victor's emerging challenge with his radical friend. i've always wondered if it's ever going to be legal to give mandatory antipsychotic medication and 72hrs lockdown observation to cult leaders. i guess ethics wise the committee'll crap their pants, but honestly, i'm starting to see the utilitarian side of me popping up obtrusively. perhaps i'm just stubborn and impatient. but of course, aren't all surgeons like that?

am itching to bake something.
shall i attempt a bread tomorrow?
cookies? cake?

cycling at 7am with bro and dad. must remember to wake up, so i can feel the breeze rolling temptuously on my tongue, and taste the vaporised asphalt. see the sunrays dissect the face of every woe, and feel the trail of shattered dreamscapes crumble silently beneath my carefree wheels.

i am a poet.

poised
tip of the iceberg
dripping snivelling snow
melted to nothingness.

inching
some days are slower
viscidgelatinousoozingsinewyslimelike
past time, past consciousness

the ladybug blinks.
somewhere,
a child falls to the ground
silent.

what would you do, mocked the parakeet, if you had all the power in the world?
what would you do, mocked the parakeet, if you could choose?

i would, i would -whispers the little skeleton-
hold back time.

i would, i would
kill the aching pining
wasting my world.
i would, i would
walk it over

pacing seventy seven steps
to the northern star

and put the melted teardrop
back in the broken heart
of the glacier.

to be edified is a beautiful thing.

sometime in the past 24hours, i've been through emotional turmoil roiling turbulently underneath a calm, veneer-like facade that belies the thinly veiled storm.

that's probably too exaggerated. to quote literature dons, a hyperbole. a soliloquized hyperbole. heh. my issues, my problems, my so called troubles are of such insgnificance in the world view of things that i can't help but allow myself a litte risus sardonicus as i think about it. that's the ghoulish tetanus grin in C. tetani infected people. haha.

i just need guts. since i've already walked, paced, shuffled and fairly trampled down the path of realization, and come face to face with the cold truth, i ought to be decisive. if i had courage to begin it, i ought to find in myself a measure of courage a little more than before to end it. to end it all, gracefully, and cleanly, and without mangled carnage. guts, guts. my insides taste bitter as gall and reviling as deepest sin. i have thr guts but i won't acknowledge them.

i need the blinds thrown open on my eyes. to glare me into awakening, to jolt me back to where i ought to be.

i can probably reminisce a little when i come to terms with the past tense of this situation that is fast crumbling into sand in my clammy hands. in the meantime, i just feel like i've finally comprehended what it means to want to sleep and not wake, to run to a hideaway and not emerge.

but that said, i also realise that perhaps, it's been too long. for me to understand that i am myself, only now. that no matter whether or not i'm imbued with the acceptance and acknowledgement of another, my inherent value to others will never change. man, woman or otherwise.

God judges me. He is the only one worthy to judge me. as i have often lapsed in judgment about others, i must and i will learn the lesson of the pathetic humility of my spirit compared to the enormity of the Holy Spirit's grace, wisdom and mercy.

oh Lord. you take me just as i am. i need no human affirmation, for they are mere masques and frivolous verbal parlay. take me now, juat as i am. broken as i am, and in need of restitution as i am. clothe me, shield me, comfort me. refresh me, rebuild me, bless me. i recommit myself to Your hands Lord. Your hands that moulded the world and made Man. Your hands that lifted David in edification and smite him down when he turned from You. be gentle unto me oh Lord, and guide me to discern propriety from what displeases You. give me the wisdom of Moses and the courage of Daniel. lead me from the wide path for it leads me to sure death.

thank you Lord, for planting brothers and sisters who love me and counsel me as gently as angels. thank you Lord, for kornehwoman, for weiyithetoot, for muamua, for dondon. thank you Lord for your sweet ministrations on my enbalmed heart. thank you Lord.

shaking.

how cold.

my poem came true.

but i'm embellished with infinitely more flesh than my poor little protagonist.

why isn't vcf starting???!!!!!

-fako ah choo-

cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

feet, cold as the thin sliver of a blade

swaddled in the harsh caresses of white, pure white
white so blinding
so tortuously, agonizingly white
that one bleeds rivulets of ebony and ruby upon the vast swath
of burial cloth

craddling her feet.
her feet are cold, so
cold.

her fingers,
broken upon the knuckles and ragged from the abrasive
weariless
merciless
grind of coarse chainmetal
upon rapidly chilling fleshmeatbonetendonblood
brushes across the stick
the lithe swaying stick
of leg
protruding quaveringly
above the snow.
they leave trails. of enameled smithereens, of disgraced red
of anguish bent twice in agony upon itself.

she is cold, feet up and fingers down. there is nothing besides these
to feel.
but oh, the keening of the imprisoned heart
emaciated soul
surely there is pain.
surely there is a remnant of regret
behind the empty sockets.

but as surely as the vultures and carrions have taken her
she is left naught
what was once felt never to return
to this wasted barrenland.

feet, cold as bitter truth spilt from dying lips
remain stoically planted in the punishing white tomb.
her fingers mourn in whispers
as they comfort the cold legs,
brushing them, touching them,
resting against them

for all eternity.

there is nothing but the scratchy wails of the consolant digits in this world.
there is nothing left of her
but the dead and the mourning.

one can almost hear
the eagerness of the vultures
when they return for more bones

come summer.

it's been fun.

freed from the cloyingly agonizing shackles of exams, my brain is breathing again. it is exuding little bubbles of joy. it is frothing in delight and relief. i may be exhibiting signs of fulminant septic meningitis.

haha.

let's test my csf for glucose and proteins. smear it into the blood agar with deliberate glee wearing a sardonic grin and nothing else, standing in the nudy before the ethereal caresses of the laminar flow air.

had a ton (and then some) of fun, fellowship and frivolous resource expenditure today with my wonderful, fantastic, lovely and absolutely quirky churchmates - grace, weiyi and yinghui. a trio of madcaps prancing around my kitchen doing magical stuff to flour, eggs and butter, whilst simultaneously bringing a flame of passion and warmth back into my tired soul and heart. it was totally what i needed. it hit the spot right on. (why does this sound like a cheesy Oxy10 ad?) i love these guys to bits. they make wonderful company and even better pastries! :D

i didn't take pictures cos my grubby paws were smeared with butter, oil (grace gasps) and sugar, but let me assure you that the products looked heavenly and tasted better. yinghui took some nice pics though! :D hee. will prob go sneak a peek at her blog or facebook when she loads them :D

anyway just for the record, we made walnut brownies wth marshmallows, cranberry and mixed oats muffins, and almond walut biscotti! :D sounds like something a gourmand would salivate over. and man, they really do titillate the tastebuds! especially the earthy, fruity, flavors-exploding muffins. have to give grace kudos for the excellent recipe and idea! :D

after that we half escorted tired grace home... the poor gal could barely keep her eyelids open! then the remaining 3 musketeers traipsed over to feast on japonicum - ahem, i meant japanese food! at sakae :D not schistosoma. hehheh :P

tiring day! but absolutely definitely indubitably goooooooooooooooood. let's do it again! :D