photophobia

end-of-year reflections 2011

2011-12-16T01:52:00.003+08:00

maybe i try to look for timelessness in the things that i write. the immediacy of the world around us can be a shock to the system - we're constantly taking pictures of what we eat and then posting it to facebook, for example, or twittering about what we are talking about on facebook (in what appears to be a digital infinite loop).

but truly, effective communication only takes place when one can stop the chaos that is taking place around us, and connect with another human being for more than the briefest few seconds necessary to acknowledge another being's existence. there's far too much going on in the cacophony around us, and far too little time spent in silent and elegant solitude.

**

another year has passed, this time spent merantau di negara asing. there were highs (i got married, passed my MRCP, re-connected with debating and NGO work, travelled a bit) and there were lows (grandma's passing, and others) - it was a routine year. i grew wiser AND smarter (they're not necessarily the same thing), and have a clearer idea of my strengths, weaknesses and desires.

where does The Road take me, i still don't know... what i do know is that i want to be re-connected with the people in my life, those i have not seen/heard from in years....

Status Update

2011-02-04T11:13:00.003+08:00

i love to write, but these days i prefer to reallocate my time elsewhere, such as:

1. Spend three months working as a doctor in Redang island, and have lunch with the wife every day, exercise after 5pm every day, swim in the ocean every day, sleep well every night. Life can and should be so simple.

2. Read.

3. Speak to people and catch up with friends and family, through email, texts, phone calls.

4. Move to Singapore and change industries to something i find very interesting.

This CNY has been a touching one for me. I'm still keeping my Malaysian mobile number, and i've got many texts and phone calls from patients that i've met over the four years as a doctor, all expressing gratitude. Changing phone numbers is a symbolic act - i will miss them.

Wimbledon and World Cups

2010-07-01T10:10:00.002+08:00

i'm rather enjoying myself this month - i'm on leave (although i'm still going to the hospital to work), and i'm preparing for an exam next thursday. watching selected world cup games (germany v england was amazing, and the final result over preening self-absorbed rich kids made me happy as hell) and waiting for the Wimbledon finals (although Federer did lose sigh).

they've got a poet now! check him out here, with what i think is his coolest poem so far:

http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/news/blogs/2010-06-21/201006211277119034156.html

Happy Fathers' Day

2010-06-20T10:52:00.003+08:00

this is the second world cup that i'm not watching with my dad. actually, i can't remember watching the 2002 world cup with him either - just bits and pieces of the 1998 one. i suppose it was university at the time, and i watched most of my games in KL with friends.

this is the second world cup he's missed. it hasn't been great so far, and the only bright spot is provided by his favourite player, Diego Armando Maradona.

i remember asking him once who he thought was the best player in the world - there was only one answer from him!

and now i have my own Maradona for my generation, sort of replacing his - Messi, just as good, if not better.

the strangest thing is, i almost wish for the old one again.

Happy Father's Day, dad.

Comeback Post

2010-06-03T22:56:00.002+08:00

a quick check shows i last posted in october 2009. that seems like two ages ago. lots have happened:

1. i got registered! 1 february 2010 if you must know. unfortunately the wife is still in penang, but boy do we have some plans!

2. i failed two exams! if you think failing an exam was bad (and i've never failed anything before), try failing twice in a row! and the money, the agony of it, ugh...

3. i went for IELTS and scored 8.5 total. sorry if i'm a snob, but i felt a little miffed i didn't score 9. bad luck i guess, and if bad luck comes in threes...

4. i'll pass the damned MRCP at the third time of asking!

***

it's a little strange to post again after such a hiatus, but after typing some words it's becoming more natural now. :-)

***

why do people write blogs anyway? there is a deluge of data in this world and we will never be able to fully process all of it. what makes me think that my personal interest blog will draw any visitors at all?

***

the truth is, doctoring is tiring. after four years i am emotionally exhausted in a way sleep cannot cure. this is a recurring theme, but maybe now i've actually for the guts and the wherewithal to go ahead and do something about it.

***

a friend of mine is heading to PNG for 9 months with MSF. hooray for her! let's hope there're no flying spears, but lots of proper doctor work. i haven't told anyone about my possessing an authentic PNG penis shield for a long time though.

***

i'm sun-kissed and my skin is ap-pealing again. this time it's langkawi for a wedding. the beach was great, and crazily enough i went running topless at 11pm on a rainy sunday night. i haven't felt so alive in a long time, although i WAS the highest point on a flat beach, and crazy thoughts of lightning flickered across my head. it was still a wonderful 20 minute run.

***

i'm supporting argentina this time. well, everytime. it's my dad - i blame him. he worshipped maradona, who i hope will have enough sense to build something around messi. i'm thinking of joining the betting again, but i think i'll search instead for the Ultimate Collectors' Item - the North Korea football jersey replica.

***

i've got these statuettes of Ganesha that i absolutely adore, and i need to add to. if you see any figurines made from curious materials (the coolest one i have is made of amber), get it and you'll get reimbursed!

***

on the other hand, collecting prints of japanese block paintings is tedious and expensive.

***

good night, and good luck!

I'm Internet-enabled!

2009-10-09T12:17:00.002+08:00

i'm flying off tomorrow, to take an exam in the UK. hopefully it'll be the last one for some time, and i can then study to upgrade myself for fun, rather than a structured examination. :-) wish me luck!

the last 69 hours or so, i've had my Streamyx connection shut down. i thought it was me, and i went out and replaced a modem, but it didn't work either.

so i called 100, to try to settle the problem. they kept saying that it'll take 48 hours. and 50 hours after i made the initial complaint, two technicians were despatched to my place.

within 10 minutes and with 2 phone calls, they diagnosed the problem.

it was a wrongly-issued work order on Tuesday, to terminate my account. to solve the problem, their hands are tied - they needed a new work order to re-connect my account. it's just a matter of a few jumper cables, no sweat.

so today morning, i went to TMpoint at 830am, and stayed there for 50 minutes, to settle this problem. initially the people there said that i'll be reconnected within 24 hours, but i said that it was not acceptable to me, and i wanted to be reconnected NOW.

and i didn't budge until i got a reassurance that i'll get it by 12pm.

my issues are as follows:

1. it was probably a clerical error that led to the termination of the service. i have no problems with mistakes that happen, and there shouldn't be a witch-hunt for the person who made this mistake. i forgive this.

2. why do you need 48 hours to settle this issue? it needs settling NOW. AT THIS INSTANT. i made a total of 12 calls to 100 over this period of 69 hours, just to settle this, because this is a matter of principle. i will not tolerate third world levels of service, not when they advertise themselves as some big international company.

the first 4 calls kept telling me that it's 48 hours to a solution. it's also not their fault - their hands are tied and the company is telling them to tell the customer that it's 48 hours to a solution.

so i waited patiently, and when Hour 48 came with no solution, i can use the company's policy against them. and i did - with a further 8 calls between Hour 48-52 trying to diagnose this problem.

i just refused to budge. i was not rude at all, i was very reasonable, said thank you and sorry, told them it's not their fault, tried to get them to agree that we need to get a solution for me, and finally at Hour 50, two technicians came, who made two calls and inside 10 minutes, got the diagnosis.

see how important it is to have men on the ground? not inside some air-conditioned call centre in KL.

3. it turned out to be such a simple problem - issue a new work order, re-connect me the next working day, and voila! no problems for all concerned.

but why couldn't the technical assistance folks in KL handle this from their computers? what kind of archaic 1960s system that Telekom Malaysia runs? can't you check this from any PC?? that technician even got the number of the work order, all through a telephone call! an analogue call in a digital world - that solved the issue.

4. in TMpoint today, they said that i needed to wait 24 hours to be reconnected. this wasn't acceptable to me, and i told them in very certain (but very polite) terms.

what sort of company terminates immediately on receiving a work order, but needs 24 hours to reconnect, even after receiving a new work order? it's just a damned jumper cable - detach, and attach.

5. all this boils down to one thing - Telekom Malaysia has a virtual monopoly on telecoms services in malaysia. a lack of competition has made them bloated and too comfortable, and therefore ignorant of an individual customer.

we don't have first world infrastructure at all, so don't lie to ourselves. we cannot even ensure 1Mbps, and South Korea is already at guaranteed 10Mbps speeds.

and we definitely don't have a first world mentality either - and the way i was given a runaround is testament to that.

there are a lot of structural flaws inside the system. and it needs to change.

the technicians are the best - Mr Sufian and Mr Suid - both very professional and very competent. i'm impressed by them, and wish there were more like-minded people in Telekom Malaysia.

okay, i've finished ranting. now to have lunch, and then leave for Penang to see the LOML, and then to fly off soon.

i'm ready for it. i'm ready for this. i have an exam to finish! yeah!

there's no time!!

2009-09-24T18:54:00.003+08:00

there's no time for anything these days, but i long for a day when i can make a trip like this:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/travel/20explorer.html

oooh i'm lazy!

2009-09-08T19:11:00.002+08:00

to blog, i mean. but i still read newspapers, and i surfed on to one of my favourite blogs today:

http://london-underground.blogspot.com/

and found this:

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/august1/mind-the-staff

nice!

2009-08-22T14:28:00.000+08:00

~ from The Madman, by Kahlil Gibran

How I Became A Madman

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen -- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives -- I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman." I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone...

2009-08-19T20:54:00.003+08:00

Bill Withers, God bless him, got it 100% right - there just ain't no sunshine when she's gone. it's not warm when she's away. and she's always gone too long, every time she goes away.

i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know, i know there ain't no sunshine when she's gone! haha! funky song, ain't it?

well, she's gone. to Boise, Idaho, 14 time zones and 13630km away. and i can't wait to have her back in my arms - come back soon! i miss you lots, and love you dearly. :-)

and another one about H1N1

2009-08-12T19:02:00.002+08:00

we've seen daily statements by the Minister of Health, the DG of Health, the DPM, the PM, and various Ministers (one discouraged public events, at an event in which he officiated - what hypocrisy).

why aren't there any announcements by our Infectious Diseases Physicians from Sungai Buloh, our Epidemiologists from university hospitals, and Public Health Physicians from the ministry? i think that THEY are the ones more qualified to make announcements, and not politicians, who should keep quiet in times of crises and leave it to the well-trained.

hahaha!

2009-08-12T18:59:00.001+08:00

how about a play in three acts? check this out:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/08/04/a_tale_told_by_an_idiot/

The Flu

2009-08-07T19:27:00.004+08:00

tuberculosis. cancers. motor vehicle accidents. heart attacks. surgeries. pneumonias. HIV/AIDS. diarrhoeas. malaria. neonatal infections. strokes. tobacco. alcohol. heroin. cocaine.

these are some of the diseases that kill more people than H1N1. as of today, there has been 1446 deaths among the 199,146 confirmed cases worldwide. that's 0.7%. and most of them have got co-morbidities anyway, making any infection more dangerous in them. any infection at all, including the common cold.

why are we being hypocrites and wearing masks? shouldn't we also stop smoking, stop drinking, stop driving recklessly? shouldn't we also be alarmed by the epidemic of obesity and of tobacco?

H1N1 is a dangerous disease admittedly, but only in those at extremes of age, pregnant, and with other co-morbidities like heart disease, obesity, asthma, diabetes or low immunity. don't overkill ourselves please.

please, let's all keep calm and don't panic. please.

a surreal night

2009-06-11T20:22:00.002+08:00

i was oncall on monday night. it was a busy call and i only managed to come home to have dinner (mom cooked) around 2am. it was the night where the racial riots took place in kamunting, and A+E was crazy mad with injured people.

i was a little woozy from fatigue, i was hungry and thirsty as hell, and as i sat down to dinner i figured i should watch some telly.

so that night, i had dinner at 2am, while watching The Simpsons, while being on call, while racial riots were erupting not far away from me. whoa. i think it was the most surreal night of my life.

costs and expenses

2009-06-04T20:42:00.003+08:00

i think i spent maybe RM4000 in the UK, not including my airfare. this included food, overland transportation, souvenirs, entrance tickets, newspapers, bric-a-bracs, books, assorted snacks, some change for buskers, some tips for waiters, some handouts to beggars.

i think it was well-spent! i am a very happy man. but here are what i think are the best experiences for me (and their costs):

FREE:

1. walks around London.

2. playing football in Regents Park (and scoring 8 goals).

3. falling asleep on a park bench alongside the Thames, opposite Westminster, in the spring sunshine.

4. going to Parliament to watch the debates - especially during the whole expenses-claims saga.

70p:

1. unquestionably, The Guardian. almost every day. including Sundays, when it takes a small forest to produce the weekend editions (GBP2 weekends).

GBP2.50:

1. a jacket potato with liberal smearings of mayo and spicy beans - somewhere in Covent Garden.

GBP4.79:

1. The Guardian, a sandwich and a hot chocolate from Subway, a park bench and the spring sunshine.

GBP5:

1. ticket to Star Trek in Leicester Square, down from GBP13.50. i wandered aimlessly into the cinema looking for ticket prices, around 45 minutes before the show. a guy sees my aimlessness, makes for me and asks if i wanted to buy a ticket to Star Trek, that he doesn't mind selling to me for GBP5. so i buy it - and i had a wonderful show!

GBP7.99:

1. a three course Italian meal - minestrone, carbonara, icecream. i never knew Italian could be so delicious.

GBP8:

1. i bought a map of Canada for this price - from 1882. it's a new hobby - cartography!

GBP9:

1. KUNIYOSHI! the grand Japanese master of block painting had an exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts - i struggled for 2 days to decide whether or not to pay to see his works, which i can see for free online. i'm glad something in me was spendthrift!

GBP16.50:

1. free travel on the Tube and buses for a whole week!!

**big gap here huh? some multiple-items receipts amount to somewhere between 16.50-35.00, but i have no single items in this range - i guess i'm either in the cheapskates section, or the upper crust**

GBP35:

1. Adam Duritz and the Counting Crows, with my sister. fantastic smashing concert - and i'm very glad for the company of someone i love very very very dearly.

GBP38:

1. tickets to the Guiness Premiership Rugby Finals between London Irish and Leicester Tigers, and sitting next to a Scot who supports the Irish, and told me the history of that team.

GBP65.50:

1. Seat 942, Row 12, Block 125, Upper Tier - Arsenal v Chelsea (sigh... why did they have to lose 1-4?)

GBP200 (or what may have been):

1. a guy stopped me while i was walking along Baker Street, and offered me a brand new Sony VAIO laptop worth GBP990 for GBP200. instantly i smelled a thief. stupidly (or bravely), i followed him to a side road where he showed me a brand new Sony VAIO laptop with Windows Vista. i made an excuse and said no - though i would have been severely tempted by a MacBook haha!

***

the last time i was in London, i was a (semi)impoverished student going for debate tournaments and sleeping in people's dorms.

this time, i'm a working professional with money enough to spend. ahh the wonders of purchasing power!

funny how i don't write anymore

2009-06-01T19:59:00.002+08:00

touching down on home shores brings chores rushing back to you - calls, patients, work, souvenirs, unpacking, laundry, sleep, re-synchronisation of body-mind-soul to pass another exam - phew.

it's back to sesquipedalian jargonistic speech - like encephalopathy, fronto-temporo-parietal haemorrhage and Addisonian crises. for two glorious weeks, i was living off a palette of beautifully sculpted monosyllabic words - lunch, walk, sun, newspapers (okay, fine, so that's three syllables), parks and sleep.

but hey i can look forward to another holiday at the end of this particular leg of my journey? perhaps three weeks in Indochina, riding elephants and motorcycles, eating beef noodles and fried crickets, witnessing cock-fighting and muay thai.

yes - i'd love that!

Over and Out

2009-05-20T05:20:00.002+08:00

this is my last post from London - that most wonderful and gorgeous of cities.

i've had a wonderful two weeks here and Edinburgh (another wonderful and gorgeous city), and i've come away very impressed with so many things. there was plenty to learn and to take away from my two weeks - and plentier (?) to aspire to.

i'm sorry that i have to leave, but we will not know what a good day is if we don't have normal days and bad days. so i'm happy to be able to go home where i will go back to work and do the things that i love.

i loved London's parks and wide open spaces, providing such respite from a busy city. i was in Regent, Hyde, Green and St James Park - i can't decide if i love them more than i loved the second bench from the Westminster Bridge facing west and Houses of Parliament? that same bench where for the first time i fell asleep in the sun, in public.

i loved London's energy, and how everyone seems to walk faster than me, and how i couldn't keep up even when i tried so hard. and every few minutes, there was always someone wearing iPods jogging past me.

i loved London's excellent transport system. they deliver you almost to the doorstep, and everything is highly integrated, and the London Underground is a world-class icon. i felt safe, there were plenty of directions, and the stations were all so personable and alive (they had Sherlock Holmes pictures all over the walls of the Baker Street station).

i loved the theatre and the myriad shows available all year long. they had Waiting for Godot as well! there is so many things to do - comedy clubs, pub quizzes, concerts and bands. and so much shopping - all the brands in the world are here - except Bata. and despite Jimmy Choo being malaysian, the best place to go Choo-shopping is still London!

i loved walking in London. i walked from Westminster to Trafalgar Square to Oxford Circus to Bond Street. i walked from Emirates Stadium to Kings Cross, Twickenham to Richmond, i walked from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge, park to park, tube station to tube station. it was sunny, it was rainy, it was cold and it was windy - i walked all over this city!

i loved the purchasing power in this city. if you don't multiply by 5, London is amazingly cheap. you go shopping in Tesco and fill a cart, you only spend £25. you buy a tee for £8, and books for £9 and a Sony laptop for £399 and a BMW for £11,000, things that cost RM35, RM42, RM2399 and RM300,000 in malaysia. but the amazing thing is, you earn the same amount over here!

i loved the amazing variety of food. i am haunted by my significant other telling me about rotten bananas she saw in Giant Penang, but here everything is large and colourful and abundant and cheap! i had African, Mediterranean, Vietnamese, Italian, English, Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, microwave - all in one city, for very reasonable prices.

i love London. i guess it's clear huh? :-) but i'm glad to be going home, and to the one i love.

and this is very impressive

2009-05-19T06:18:00.003+08:00

i watched the debate this afternoon in the House of Commons. i'm not sure if NST or The Star will report on the ongoing claims crisis in the UK, but it's a big thing over here and is the subject of many column inches, from highbrow magazines like The Economist down to the popular flicks like FHM and Cosmopolitan.

basically, it's a bunch of MPs who are claiming too much money from the government (and by extension, the taxpayers) for frivolous items - like diapers and fixing water pipes under their tennis courts. the worst offender claimed thousands of pounds to pay for interest on a loan he took to buy a second home. the trouble is, he had already finished paying for that home.

that was probably the only legally wrong claim. most other claims are legally right, but morally very questionable (you'd expect that from claims for a toilet brush holder). you can see a spreadsheet here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rvWgEEGK9xuUQBR1EFcxHWA

so the Speaker faced lots of pressure to quit today. he dealt with it poorly:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/18/gordon-brown-michael-martin-speaker

here are my impressions, compressed into soundbites:

1. every country has corruption. even Malaysia, and we must not hide from this fact. the wonder in this country is that the media is actively exposing corruption and the public is actively getting angry about it. this will never happen where i come from.

2. only in a First World country can an MP say this to the Speaker, and not go to jail, and rather become viewed as a hero:
"When will Members be allowed to choose a new speaker with the moral authority to clean up Westminster and the legitimacy to lift this House out of the mire?"
this is right after that MP proposed a motion of no-confidence in the Speaker, but it was postponed to tomorrow.

3. everybody from both Conservative and Labour agree that they have been wrong and have committed morally wrong and legally questionable claims - and are profoundly sorry and appear apologetic and ashamed. this is a bit much - praising those thieves who are caught with their hands in the cookie jar - but nevertheless, acts of contrition are the least anyone can do when caught. again, it'll take something special to incorporate this (or is it indoctrinate this) into malaysian mentality.

***

on the bus coming back tonight, i overheard two people talking behind me. this isn't a bus heading to a swanky part of town, it was a bus headed to a suburb, which means that these two are the average Joes of London. their English sounded a little foreign, like they've been here not too long. they don't look white collar at all.

what were they talking about? modernisation, industrialisation, Egyptian pharoahs and their pyramids and how they managed to build them without tools - finally agreeing that tools are the building blocks of modern society, without which we are lost.

this is the conversation between two 20-ish year olds, in the back of a bus, around 10pm, on a Monday night, heading home.

what are our Malaysian 20-ish year olds talking about as they head home?

London Irish

2009-05-18T06:30:00.002+08:00

imagine if you were displaced to another country, and that country wasn't very friendly to your own - declaring wars and whatnot on your country.

imagine that you wanted very much to express yourself but you really couldn't, because to do so would be to jeopardise your own safety.

in effect, you're an exile. and what do you do? form your own rugby club, that's what!!

so that's how London Irish was formed, more than 100 years ago. and they've never made the finals of the Guinness Premiership before, but here they are in Twickenham Stadium, facing the Leicester Tigers, who made the finals the previous 5 years in a row!

don't you just love the underdog? i love them - about as much as i love their history too. plus, i am fond of the Irish, having close associations with some of them who are fantastic La Sallian Brothers and taught me in and out of the classroom.

so there i was in Twickenham, the temple of rugby, seating 82000 people, and seeing 81000 people come to see London Irish narrowly lose 10-9 to Leicester. the result didn't matter - the atmosphere was fantastic!

i saw a grandmother, kids, families, gorgeous blondes, wheelchair bound folks - the crowd was a lot more diverse and interesting than Arsenal's. and 81ooo people - you have got to be there to believe the atmosphere! i have never seen so many people in one place before!

Adam Duritz was charismatic, and the concert was even better! tomorrow, i'm going to watch a day's worth of debates in Parliament - at the height of the MPs' claims crisis. live entertainment!

these are my encounters of the third kind

2009-05-15T23:00:00.000+08:00

1. i finish watching Star Trek last week, and i walk around Piccadilly looking for the tube (it was around 10.30pm), and i pass a club, that in retrospect, was probably gay. balding guy in late 40s (though their ages are difficult to guess - schoolgirls look like grownups there) sidles up to me and asks "hey, how're things?".

that wouldn't be so strange if it weren't for the fact that he walked across the road to do that.

my response: i'm doing alright.
my reaction: walk faster and ultimately he couldn't keep up. phew!

2. then i walk past this young couple in front of a shop in Edinburgh, and they were French kissing quite amorously. i smiled in their direction, which in retrospect, was a bad idea. he looked drunk, and suddenly he was screaming obscenities at me. again, my solution? walk faster!

3. this is the best yet! again i was walking (yes, but one day i will be chauffeur-driven in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo AND Milan), this time along Baker Street, on my way to the Sherlock Holmes Museum (yesyes, i'm a geek/nerd/dweeb).

guy comes up to me and says "my friend, d'ya wanna buy a laptop? it's a brand new one week old Sony VAIO. in the shops it's £980, but i'm selling it to you for £200".

my immediate thought when he got to the word 'laptop' was 'stolen property', and his next few lines merely confirm my suspicions.

the price fell to £150 to try to tempt me! and of course i was tempted. but also, of course i didn't buy it.

although i should have. i feel certain that i can track down the real owner, and i can return it to him/her and get paid £150 for my troubles, and better yet, earn an undying friend for life haha!

so in the last 10 days - i've been mistaken for a gay, the moral police, and a criminal. i think i need to repent.

***

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a famous Spielberg movie about alien abductions.

obviously there are close encounters of the First Kind as well as Second Kind. First Kind encounters are when there is a sighting of an UFO or alien.

Second Kind encounters are when you have some sort of effect from that exposure - radiation, amnesia, changes in the surroundings.

Third Kind encounters are when you have direct contact with aliens, up to and including abductions.

just thought i should clear the air there. Kirk out.

i have been very busy

2009-05-14T17:08:00.002+08:00

1. cramming a trip to Edinburgh, where i walked a grand total of 22km in 36 hours - until my inner thighs have chafed! i love it love it love it! the old buildings were gorgeous, the accent impenetrable (but charming), the weather was biting cold but fantastic! i shall return, to climb the Crag and watch the sunset.

2. i will be very busy tonight - sister and i will be watching the Counting Crows at Wembley!

I was there!

2009-05-11T06:32:00.002+08:00

i was there when Chelsea beat Arsenal 4-1, and i must say that the stadium was fantastic!! okay, it may not have had the character of Highbury (i did see it when i came over in 2004), and it may not have the character of Old Trafford or Camp Nou, but it was still quite a sight to behold. 60057 people made the trek to Emirates this afternoon, with gorgeous weather and sunshine. it was a perfect day for football, and i am glad i was there, although the result was a bit of a disappointment (plus i lost my £5 bet with Ladbrokes). i should have kept to my traditional annual Arsenal-Tottenham bet, sigh.

today i also pampered myself with the newspapers - read in the sunshine! it's so pleasant to be able to read in the sunshine, without sweating like pigs. the weather was cool and windy, and the sun just pleasantly so.

*****

and then it was time to go home, and when i did, i saw this man who fell down the stairs at the Tube station. he was conscious, but had a laceration over his head. he was a little tipsy, and his son was there (tipsy too). so i stopped and helped, and the paramedics arrived in no time at all.

and they were fantastic - took control of the situation, stabilised the spine, gave oxygen, inserted a 22G cannula (the largest there is - the orange one), log-rolled him onto the spinal board and carried him upstairs and onto the ambulance.

i am very impressed! they were obviously well-trained, with excellent bedside manners, and calmness under pressure. okay, one will argue that they deal with drunken falls 7 times every night shift, but this belies the fact that they handled the whole event very well.

the moral of the story? if you ever fall down the stairs in London, you can be reassured that bery competent help is on the way.

my only hope now is that no one will sue me for being a Good Samaritan.
(http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/editors_corner/article/9758/)

London Town

2009-05-07T21:16:00.003+08:00

i am blogging from London - !!

this may be my first foreign post (hopefully not my last), and there's so many things i want to say, but so little time, so a scattergun approach will be something like this:

1. the sun rises very early over here. at 5.14am when we landed, it was already as bright as 8.14am in malaysia. which is kinda nice - you can wake early and have some daylight to work with before you go to work.

2. everyone in the Tube reads. even the ones who look violent and angry - their noses are buried in various newspapers. the malaysian equivalent is sullen looks and text messaging, and no reading at all (but i can't blame them, because unlike malaysia...)

3. the newspapers here are really good! but of course i already know that. before lunch i had already polished off The Guardian (and one jacket potato), and i've got three more to go. i am in heaven, with broadsheets and berliners!

4. tomorrow, i shall go to the park benches opposite Westminster and sit there and read tomorrow's newspapers, while drinking coffee and enjoying the Thames breeze.

yay!

i never know what's good for me...

2009-05-03T09:03:00.002+08:00

i have mock exams tomorrow, and i should be studying and resting. something told me that i should wake up to watch the Madrid-Barcelona game this morning, but i didn't.

this is despite opening my eyes to switch off the alarm, and my mum waking me up as well - by shaking me violently (like you shake that banned Apple app).

but i was too lazy and therefore went back to sleep.

what an idiot!! Barcelona won 6-2!!! away from home!

okay, briefly here's why i love the team: fiercely Catalan, they embody a different language and cultural ethos from the rest of Spain. used to be in Franco's time, Spanish was spoken everywhere, and Catalan was banned (so was Basque and other dialects). but the only place Catalan was spoken was in the Nou Camp - where even Franco's soldiers dare not step foot into.

for the longest time they refused to put a sponsor's logo on their jerseys - even though you make millions of euros from this business deal. Madrid had Teka and Samsung, MUtd had AIG and Sharp, even Arsenal has Emirates. but not Barcelona - they played with empty jerseys.

until a few years ago when they had a "sponsor" - UNICEF. and they gave away their shirt space for free! which (money-making) football club have you seen give away advertising space for free?

i like independent teams with their own philosophy and ethos - Arsenal with their emphasis on youth, and Barcelona with their emphasis on their roots.

i'll wake up for the next Barcelona game. in the mean time, i'm going to hit the exams hard tomorrow!

Maira Kalman - she's at it again!!

2009-04-24T13:57:00.003+08:00

oh gosh! check this out:

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/may-it-please-the-court/

isn't she just wonderful?? the writing, the cursive font, the words, the brilliant illustrations...

cats are stupid

2009-04-23T22:37:00.003+08:00

i was buying dinner today, and i was walking back to my car. from a distance away, i saw a black cat humping a brown cat.

in the middle of the road, right on top of the divider line.

two cars passed, but the black cat was still busy having fun.

the third car honked and (by this time i was close enough to see and hear) the black cat cast an evil eye at the silver Vios and growled in the voice of The Devil Cat from Hell. and then the party broke up.

after you interrupted a black cat's fun, whoever the owner of the silver Vios is, you're probably not going to get any action for the rest of your miserable life.

what i wanted from the elections

2009-04-08T19:05:00.002+08:00

now that it's over - i can tell the truth.

i discharged a middle-aged gentleman on saturday morning so that he could go home and vote in the Bukit Gantang elections. he was admitted for high sugar levels in his blood, but he was very well when i saw him. he also had an amputation above his right knee 2 years ago for a very bad foot ulcer.

so i told him, okay, pakcik, you go home today and wait for the politicians to come to your house. when they come to your house, you show them your leg-less lower limb, and ask for RM1500 for a prosthetic leg. tell them the doctor at the GH asked you to ask them for a prosthetic leg. tell them that you will vote for them if they give you money for a prosthetic leg. tell it to Pakatan and Barisan, and tell them that you will vote for them both (but tell them separately, of course!).

plus, i told the pakcik to get down their names and their phone numbers, and to call whoever wins, so that he can claim his due. :-) best of all, i told him all this with a serious face, and i managed to convince him that it is right and appropriate for him to do so!

ahhh... Machiavelli. everyone's favourite Italian royalty!

5 to 6 - 3/4/09

2009-04-03T18:47:00.001+08:00

Oh No.

Freeman Dyson

2009-03-30T21:33:00.002+08:00

this is Mr Freeman Dyson. he is a genius who dealt in physics and mathematics. my favourite newspaper wrote an extensive story about him:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?

Maira Kalman

2009-03-28T16:06:00.002+08:00

i am in love with Maira Kalman! she's an illustrator for children's books, and her works are gorgeous! okay, Robert Sabuda, move over!

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/so-moved/?em

economic stimulus

2009-03-28T00:28:00.000+08:00

here's how i'm stimulating the economy, and i love it!

insomnia

2009-03-24T07:09:00.002+08:00

i can't sleep more than 8 hours at a stretch now without waking up for no reason. sigh... it's like going on call has programmed me to wake up at certain times to check my phone and make sure that no calls or texts have been missed.

will a new phone change things then, i wonder? haha!

ads on my car

2009-03-18T20:50:00.003+08:00

well, i work in a hospital, as a trained healthcare professional. that means i've devoted years of my life to science, and i think with reason and logic backing my decisions. i like to think that most (if not all) my colleagues are the same.

so it really is interesting to come back to my car after work most days and find ads on photocopied paper stuck to my windscreen. like this one:

i mean, does Dr Lucky think that anyone of us will really call him??

oh, for the love of God!

2009-03-12T20:45:00.002+08:00

i love newspapers. i remember reading the New Straits Times as a standard 2 boy, coming home from morning school, and having lunch with the newspapers. i was small, and the NST was big (it was the still traditional broadsheet then), and i would spread the newspapers on the cold cement floor, and place my plate in front of it, and eat away!

i'll always start with the sports page, and then move on to local then international news, and end with the comics. habits - i still do the same till today.

back in university i would read a few newspapers a day online. a bunch of us shared a wireless connection, and they would download Desperate Housewives and Futurama (and i'll leech from them), and i would give them the bandwidth by just downloading text. it's still a habit, but i'm reading more New England Journal of Medicine these days than the New York Times.

but the thing is, i still looooove the feel of a newspaper in my hands. the crisp pages, the way you can scan the entire page in a few seconds, the way the editors lay out columns and fonts and advertisements - plus you can sit down to breakfast with the real newspapers and not worry about getting the online newspaper wet!

that's how i stumbled upon a new hobby - collecting foreign newspapers! so far, i've held the Guardian, Times, Independent, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Sydney Morning Herald, Bangkok and Jakarta Posts, Straits Times and South China Morning Post in my hands... and boy, are they different from our local newspapers!

so much more depth, so much more content, so much more analysis, so much more courage and freedom - but the best thing of all is - a lot of them are broad sheets, instead of the newer tabloid-sized or Berliner editions.

broad sheets - ahhh! it may annoy the guy sitting next to you on the Tube, but boy does it bring back childhood memories. the online newspapers will never be able to compare with the real thing, and the tabloids will never compete with the broadsheets.

which is why i'm so depressed to read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/media/12papers.html?_r=2&hp

Rick Reilly

2009-03-11T19:43:00.001+08:00

goodness i've found a sports writer that i love! he may be American, and he'll write about American sports that i cannot understand, but a good writer is a good writer is a good writer - so there!

check this out! http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3789563

The Genius of Wilde

2009-02-25T22:40:00.002+08:00

some may say he's a homosexual, but who cares when you write as beautifully as Oscar Wilde??

"... he would bring her acorn-cups and dew-drenched anemones, and tiny glow-worms to be stars in the pale gold of her hair."

what would the modern-day Romeo bring his Juliet? Tristan, his Isolde? Charlie Brown, his little red-haired girl?

maybe geraniums and honey, kittens and brown paper bags, coffee and newspapers, Saturday morning cartoons, running shoes, iPods and iPhones.

gosh, where has romance gone?

a long birthday weekend

2009-02-09T19:33:00.003+08:00

my birthday was over the weekend, and it was a long weekend. as usual, i didn't celebrate my birthday with parties or gifts or special stuff.

it's in February, so it's fairly early in the year, when people are still fresh from celebrating New Year, Chinese New Year or Thaipusam. some years, my birthday falls smack in the first few days of CNY, and everyone's around, and i'll get a gathering of friends over for CNY and suddenly it'll turn into a birthday "party" with a cake and a song and stuff.

i don't hate it, but i won't say that i adore birthday parties either.

all i want for my birthday is to be quiet and alone, with maybe a more-special-than-usual dinner at the end of it, maybe with my parents and sister, or with some friends, or my significant other these past 2.

presents and greetings are of course welcome and pleasant, but i don't expect them from anyone, and therefore every present and greeting are wonderful surprises. plus there's no risk of disappointment.

anyway, this year's birthday was a good one. but the best part of it was a text message that i received from someone totally unexpected - a patient.

God only knows how my birthday was revealed, but there you go. thanks for that!

2009-02-06T20:09:00.001+08:00

they're cursing my Sultan Azlan now, those PKR folks. what's wrong with these f*****s? can't they behave a little gentlemanly? i agree, the BN acted unfairly, dirtily, maybe illegally, and they are a bunch of people who do not deserve love or respect - but why must the Opposition act like juveniles? why must they further tarnish their reputation?

Malaysian politics is screwed. there's nothing we can do about it, and it's not apathy. no amount of letter-writing or hand-wringing can save us.

***

i've just watched the TV3 news. riots, FRU, tear gas, demonstrations, arrests... what the hell are we? a Third World democracy?

***

it's easy to get caught up in anger now at what's going on. but let's look at this rationally:

1. BARISAN NASIONAL

can't they just leave Pakatan Rakyat alone for 4 years? they won in an election fair and square. if they suck at managing Perak, then WE will vote them out. remember - it's a democracy, so it's WE who decide, not you, Mr Najib from Nottingham University.

your action smacks of high-handedness and arbitrariness. do you think we are stupid? if the corruption charges against the PKR assemblymen are dropped (either quietly or publicly), do you think we won't notice? DO YOU THINK WE ARE STUPID? DO YOU????

you may have won Perak again, but every last little shred of infinitesimal respect that i have had for you is lost. so you have lost. and you may govern me, but you cannot, cannot, cannot rule over me. that's because we're NOT STUPID.

2. STATE ASSEMBLYMEN

those 3 should resign. i don't care why you choose to switch sides (i don't care even if it's corruption), but you must resign. that's the only honorable thing to do.

our politics are not personality-driven. it's party-driven. unfortunately, we are not voting for YOU, Mr Osman, Mr Jamaluddin and Ms Hee. we voted for your parties. i don't even know which university you went to, so why should i vote for you?

it's different with Barack Obama. if he campaigned exactly the way he did, but under the Republican banner, he'd still win. but over here in malaysia, we're voting according to party philosophies, not individual personalities.

so that means, the ONLY HONORABLE THING TO DO IS TO RESIGN.

if we want Barisan Nasional, then we'd vote you in. not any other way around. okay? do you get the message?

3. PAKATAN RAKYAT

that said, you are all a bunch of rude idiots. i'll repeat, because you're idiots. you're RUDE IDIOTS.

one, you do not demonstrate in front of the house of your Sultan. two, you do not threaten your Sultan with a lawsuit (Sultan Azlan, the most dignified and regal of the Sultans in Malaysia, was a judge, is an intellectual, and will be too classy for you fools). three, you do not lose your grace and head in such a scenario, because Barisan Nasional will only use it to portray you as irresponsible and unsafe.

can't you carry yourselves with a bit more dignity? losing hurts, but the whole world can see the unfairness of it all. the W.H.O.L.E. WORLD can see. but legally you've lost, so swallow it up, gut it out, and have a bit more class. know that the silent majority is on your side.

and please drop the lawsuit.

***

there is much anger now, in Perak and beyond. i can cure meningitis, but i cannot help those afflicted with this anger. it will fester and grow, and poison our society. we're going to hell, and there's nothing i can do about it.

God save Malaysia (from ourselves).

The Best of Barack Obama

2009-01-25T11:57:00.002+08:00

why should i write about Barack Obama when the world is doing it far more eloquently than i am?

India Knight decodes the body language: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5581091.ece

W's 20 Worst Gaffes (although they had to really choose - there were hundreds): http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5516649.ece

very private pictures: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/jan/25/barack-obama-white-house-pictures?picture=342286388

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/20/us/politics/20080120NATINAUG_index.html

The First Days: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/25/obama-white-house

Bob Herbert: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/opinion/24herbert.html

The Minutiae: http://januarythe20th.typepad.com/

how the movies made Obama: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/movies/18darg.html?em

his Inaugural address: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html?scp=7&sq=obama,%20inauguration&st=cse

Obama's People: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/magazine/2009-inauguration-gallery/index.html

a roundup:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-a-breathtaking-beginning-1515177.html

A Lazy January

2009-01-24T12:57:00.005+08:00

i had a brilliant start to the new year, spending three gorgeous days having good food and good company, watching Bolt in 3D and having a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y NO plans at all. afternoon naps, some reading, pleasant conversations and a nice evening stroll around KL.

that made me think that 2008 was an exceedingly busy year for me. i started my MO-ship in OPD February 1st, started A+E February 16th, started Medical June 2nd. it was a year spent preparing for 2 exams and emotionally preparing for lots of decision-making.

(i suppose when you're a House Officer you'll be busy doing stuff, and not so busy making treatment decisions. but now, you're a step up and you're supposed to be accountable for your actions, and sometimes decisions are difficult, and no amount of knowledge will help. a good common sense and a bit of creativity is useful though.)

i tremendously enjoyed 2008, and it brings to mind my other wonderful year, when i was in Form 5 in 1998. will my seminal years occur decades apart? the other 9 weren't bad at all, so i'll be happy with a 1-in-10 excellent year! i can't remember much of 1988, but i'm certainly looking forward to 2018!

***

and of course, we have our double-oathed President of the United States of America - Baraaaaack Obama! i'm glad that other fool is out of office. let's watch him work wonders, starting with Guantanamo!

***

and now we're at the cusp of the Chinese new year. a bit of spring cleaning, a lot of general festivities, but i'm on call on Day One. sigh. hopefully this will be the last year i'll have to this. yay!

***

i think i've already destroyed a relationship this year, though. someone high up in our hierarchical feudalistic Asian anachronism of a system couldn't take a comment, so there you go. i think i am almost certainly a banana - yellow on the outside, white on the inside. and it's not only the language that i speak in. :-)

***

this year will also be a good one. one more big examination to go, and hopefully this endless pursuit can stop, if not in spirit then at least in words.

Happy Chinese New Year!

2008 - in a flash!

2008-12-31T20:09:00.002+08:00

i'm fond of repeating this: when you're 5 years old, a year is a long time, because it's 20% of your entire life. but when you're 27 years old, one year is only 3.7% of your life. and 3.7% of my entire lifetime just whizzed by!

here are some highlights:

1. i witnessed a flogging in the Taiping Prison. guy had molested some little girl, and was getting his last two strokes of the rotan before he's to be released the same day. his butt is exposed, and he's tied spreadeagled about 45 degrees from the floor, and swish! swish! there's blood. punitive, but i'm not entirely sure he won't be another recidivist statistic.

2. some guy who got into another prison for embezzlement offered me money, because i was nice to him as a patient. lots of money. heh. i'm still driving ABB 3906, so don't be thinking anything.

3. i shocked someone back to life, with the defibrillator! just like Hollywood. turns out he's a friend's father, and he's the first of the two people i think i saved this year (no, really, we don't save that many lives).

4. Obama won!

5. we sent 4 debating teams from St George's and Convent to the IIUM high school debating championships. even small town hick schools make the semifinals and place in the Top Ten. how about that?

here's hoping that we all had a wonderful 2008, and an even better 2009!

A Long December

2008-12-28T12:08:00.002+08:00

the Counting Crows were right, every December seems to be long, with so many things to do before we end another year.

i had exams over two days (i passed!) on December 3-4, and then it was to Penang for a weekend for the jazz festival, and then it was 7 calls in 24 days with daily clinic shifts, and a trip to Penang and KL and Ipoh (twice), and my high school 10 Year Reunion last night (which was wonderful!).

plus, my sister is back home, and i didn't get to spend a lot of time with her this visit. and she's going back to the UK today, and mum's shouting at me to get showered now.

it's been a wonderful, wonderful month. i'm tired, but happily so.

i'm not angry

2008-12-23T18:20:00.003+08:00

how would you feel if you had a specialist who sees a patient gasping for breath, and doesn't do anything? he's a physician, and three independent eyewitnesses say he came within 2 metres of this particular patient, sees this man gasping for breath, and turns around and goes to his other ward, because "no MO around, i won't do rounds".

no seriously, something is wrong with this guy. he refuses to do ward rounds in the morning because the MO isn't around. forget the fact the MO is tied up in clinic or oncall somewhere else - he's not going to do rounds without the MO. and during his rounds, he generally ignores the MO and dictates to the House Officer what to write (and quite frequently gets it very very wrong).

so what happens to Gasping Man after the physician leaves the ward? Gasping Man gets intubated, and then dies 4 hours later.

what happened to the Hippocratic Oath? forget that, what happened to basic common sense or a sense of duty? even more than that, what happened to this particular physician's sense of what's right or wrong? he cannot care for a dying man, simply because his MO isn't there? really, what kind of a person is he painting himself out to be?

my physician left the side of a man who was gasping for breath. a man gasped for breath, and a doctor, a supposedly trained specialist, left his side and went somewhere else. my physician left, and the best reason he gave is that his MO wasn't there. that MO came when he was told, and he tried his best, but that man died.

what a fantastic physician. no amount of training or education will redeem all the blackness in your heart. you are without a doubt the most difficult person i know, because you have this astounding capability to just NOT CARE. how do you do that? how do you just not care?

i hope you are reading this: i hate you.

a quiet night in

2008-12-20T20:30:00.001+08:00

i just had a 4 hour afternoon nap. that's a reward for waking up at 6am to drive to ipoh just to dimsum-hop, all for my sister, who wanted it. the porridge was great! but i'm no food critic.

and now, reading, a DVD and lots of water, soya bean, milo and peelfresh orange.

yay!

i love bush-jokes!

2008-12-18T20:12:00.000+08:00

A man enters a bar and orders a drink. The bar has a robot bartender.

The robot serves him a perfectly prepared cocktail, and then asks him, “What’s your IQ?”

The man replies “150″ and the robot proceeds to make conversation about global warming factors, quantum physics and spirituallity, biomimicry, environmental interconnectedness, string theory, nano-technology, and sexual proclivities.

The customer is very impressed and thinks, “This is really cool.” He decides to test the robot. He walks out of the bar, turns around, and comes back in for another drink. Again, the robot serves him the perfectly prepared drink and asks him, “What’s your IQ?”

The man responds, “about a 100.”

Immediately the robot starts talking, but this time, about football, NASCAR, baseball, supermodels, favorite fast foods, guns, and women’s breasts.

Really impressed, the man leaves the bar and decides to give the robot one more test. He heads out and returns, the robot serves him and asks, “What’s your IQ?”

The man replies, “Er, 50, I think.”

And the robot says, real slowly,

“So…………… ya gonna vote for Bush again?”

lots of ideas, too little time

2008-12-17T19:36:00.002+08:00

there are a lot of things that i want to say and blog about, but there's just too little time. and time's so important these days, and there's just so little of it available.

i found this incredible website, whoppervirgins.com. i know it's a brazen ad for Burger King, but look beyond the advertising and see it for the anthropological experiment that it really is. not only advertisers will be interested in it - also sociologists, medical anthropologists, food scientists, geographists, cooks and the innocent bystander who gulps down hundreds of burgers a year. i love it!

i lost a 20 year old boy last week, but i think i managed to save a 54 year old woman yesterday night. you win some, you lose some - i'm still getting used to it.

going on 4 calls in 10 days is a bit much, but that's what you get for taking long leave. i was unwell too, and doing way too much travelling. from KL, to and from Penang and then KL again, plus 4 calls in the middle = grumpy and grouchy. i apologise to those i snapped at, i'll try to be less snappish.

i can't wait to reach the end of 2008. it's been a wonderful year, and hopefully it'll be capped off with some wonderful news at the end of this month. :-)

sweet release! (or maybe not)

2008-12-08T21:28:00.000+08:00

the thing about examinations is that, once you finish it, you seem a little lost and wayward.

after being consumed by preparations, now i'm back to my routine - going on call, doing rounds, the usual drill. and suddenly all those chores that i've put off are now staring back at me, voraciously demanding my attention.

and i've also been unwell. i've been unwell since before my exam, but somehow my body system has been suppressing it - kinda saying "hey, go be sick AFTER your damn exam!"

i've got people to see and thank, two books to read, a lot of paperwork and a few pieces of prose that i have to compose - i'd love to do these normally, but after an emotionally exhausting exam, all i wish for is some peace and quiet.

heh, i wish (just a little teensy weensy bit) that i was taking another exam. but then i'd be complaining, so you really can't win.

Sea Special Team

2008-11-30T10:19:00.005+08:00

that's what the English equivalent is, of our PASKAL, Pasukan Khas Laut. they're the best Malaysia has to offer in terms of special forces, in competition with the SAS, Green Berets, Spetznaz, Navy SEALS and Delta Force.

i was looking around the Internet for warfare medicine, and found myself surfed on to this website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Malaysian_Navy_PASKAL

they have their own Wikipedia page!

according to Wikipedia, what these guys can do include running 7.8km in less than 24 minutes, and swimming 6.4km in open waters with full mission load in less than 120 minutes, and (get this) "surviving in water with hands and feet fully tied-up (drown-proofing)". no mention of the duration of surviving in water though - i know they talk of amphibious special forces, but amphibian special forces??!??

part of their job description involves unconventional warfare, jungle warfare, guerrila warfare, reconnaisance, counter-terrorism, VIP protection and hostage rescue - the usual stuff. but "specific enemy assassination"??!?? someone's spreading vicious lies about our PASKAL. the truth is, Malaysians are expert in character assassination, not anything else.

they also have a list of famous members of PASKAL. apparently Commander Jason PASKAL is a famous member. haha! Commander Jason must be very loyal to his career!

but of course this is all from Wikipedia. i'm sure the truth is more complicated than that. please don't send anyone to kill me.

No Arms, Will Travel

2008-11-29T13:08:00.000+08:00

i don't believe this. policemen in China just arrested a guy for driving with no arms.

apparently he was driving along minding his own business, when he got pulled over for a routine traffic stop. lo and behold, the policemen found that he had no arms!

he was driving an automatic, and using his legs to control the steering wheel. he said he was even more careful these days, after losing his arms.

all he got was a public safety summons!! i can understand the cops - "is there a law banning driving with no arms?" "uh, i don't think so" "damn, we can only issue a summons for public safety!"

Levi's

2008-11-29T12:54:00.001+08:00

i'm 4 days from my exam, but yet i want to say that i just washed my pair of jeans, that quintessential American denim product that even suicide bombers who wish death to Americans wear.

amazing how pieces of blue cloth sewn and riveted together have become such fashion icons that you will see it in downtown New York during rush hour, garlanding the hips of that young child soldier in Somalia, to the Russian oligarch who wears it to Chelsea games.

my pair of Levi's haven't been washed for, i dunno, a year plus maybe? i've worn it to a lot of places, and not in any of them was i over- or under-dressed. to weddings, hospitals, KLCC, the local sundry shop - they looked great!

Levi Strauss was a genius!

Oh No! Not Sarah Again!?!?!

2008-11-27T15:09:00.006+08:00

that woman just can't stop. she just can't stop making gaffe after gaffe that make us laugh but at the same time worry about her running for president in 2012.

this time, she participated in an annual Presidential tradition of pardoning a turkey and preventing it from being slaughtered for Thanksgiving. only this time, she proceeded to give an interview while turkeys were being slaughtered in the background!

Daniel Kurtzman had this wonderful comic that came out a week before this interview:

watch this video - it's surreal!

and David Letterman had his Top Ten Sarah Palin Excuses for Turkey Slaughter:

10. I can see Russia, but I can't see what's going on 5 feet behind me
9. Not thinking straight after spending all night reading every newspaper and magazine
8. Damn "gotcha" media got me again!
7. My Remington shotgun says I don't need an excuse
6. Those were Al Qaeda turkeys

5. I thought they were just torturing the little guy
4. I mean, doggonit, you know, like we have to lower taxes, and like, it all falls under job security, and we need to drill, you know?
3. Uh, stomach flu?
2. I'll get right back to ya! I'm still adorable, America
1. Don't blame me! Blame Joe the Turkey Slaughterer

yoga bans

2008-11-27T09:18:00.000+08:00

I think I am taking a risk by writing this down, after having been warned by the National Fatwa Council yesterday that non-Muslims should not question the ban on yoga, as it involves “Muslims and their faith”, as expressed by Datuk Dr Abdul Shukor Husin.

Before proceeding, a quick word on where I stand. I remain neutral towards yoga, believing it just another form of low-impact exercise. It may not have the cardiovascular benefits of the usual exercise regimen I encourage, but if it will get a sedentary person into stretching and moving, it’s always a good thing.

However, I disagree that practising yoga will lead you to deviate from your religion, whatever it may be. Banning it for that reason just implies that you are not confident enough in your religion, and may have the paradoxical effect of “encouraging” people to seek what is so “wrong” about yoga.

Also, we may have trapped ourselves on a slippery slope here. What’s next? Taichi? Taekwondo? Banana leaf rice?

But that’s not what I want to talk about, of course. As per instructions, I won’t take issue with the ban. Instead, I would like know why Datuk Dr Abdul Shukor specifically pre-empted the possibility of a non-Muslim questioning the yoga ban (which I AM NOT)?

In America, millions of white Americans recently voted a black man to be their President. I say the same principle should apply in Malaysia: We should be driven by intelligent arguments, backed by facts. And when we make a decision, we should be unafraid to defend our position.

The better our facts, the better our decisions and the more courage we will have to defend it. Sounds reasonable, no?

So there’s my issue. I’m not questioning the yoga ban, as much as I am questioning why we CANNOT question the yoga ban. Perhaps the idea of interference into another religion is a good reply, but it doesn’t address the idea of muzzling free speech. Is it okay then if a Muslim yoga practitioner questions the ban, and vehemently so?

As far as statistics and anecdotal evidence goes, I am convinced that there are a great many of them here in Malaysia, previously a country known for its attempts at free speech and moderation.

i'm rewarding myself

2008-11-25T13:22:00.002+08:00

one day very soon, this exam shall pass. and if i do well in it, i feel like rewarding myself. i'm going to be the contrarian - splurging when everyone's tightening their belts. if no one's going to kick-start the economy, i may as well try, by:

1. buying a really really cool hot pink iPod nano, OR (http://store.apple.com/my/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/ipod_nano)

2. going on a diving holiday in Sulawesi, OR

3. spending the weekend in Langkawi, just lying on the beach doing a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y nothing.

what's your poison?

2008-11-21T12:18:00.000+08:00

any moment now, i half expect the FBI to barge into my house, by putting C4 at the door hinges and blowing them up, punching holes in my roof with their H&K submachineguns and flying in with their ziplines and combat boots, all ski-masked and gloved.

they'll pin my arms behind my back, put a hood over my head and fly me to Guantanamo where even Barack Obama can't touch me. i'll be waterboarded and because i'm Chinese, maybe they'll do the water torture thing on me.

this is because my last 10 or so searches on Google (and we all know how big Google is on privacy) has been on words like sarin, ricin, anthrax, cyanide, strychnine, phosgene and lewisite.

i think i better search for stuff like diabetes, erectile dysfunction and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis again, just to assure them i'm a doctor.

Midnight Magic

2008-11-20T19:08:00.001+08:00

i wrote this last night, just before i went to bed:

It’s half past midnight, and I’ve finished my quota for the day. I’m off the internet, and I’m tired of hunching over the computer, clicking endlessly on the mouse, endlessly in pursuit.

Better Than Ezra is singing At The Stars. I’m warm and fed and clothed and contented. Today, mom cooked dinner, I played football, life is good.

Tonight it’s raining. It hasn’t rained at night for a long time. It’s not so heavy that it scares you with thunder and lightning, but neither is it so light that you don’t feel the enveloping presence of God’s soft embrace.

It’s nights like this you realise how much progress we humans have made, and how lucky we really are. A cold wet night kept at bay with four walls and a roof, darkness disappearing before electric lamps, the elegant stillness punctuated by Nat King Cole.

And it’s still raining – falling to wash our world from our sins and our pollution. And I know when I wake up tomorrow morning and begin my pursuit anew, everything will be just perfect.

The Pirates of Somalia

2008-11-19T20:21:00.000+08:00

the collective wisdom of the world's navies says that the waters off Somalia is 2.5 million square miles, and that they "can't be everywhere all at once".

in the mean time, the Sirius Star is anchored within sight of Xarardheere, north of Mogadishu, in an area known as a "pirate's sanctuary". <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/world/africa/20pirate.html?hp>

come on, the solution is simple, isn't it? the whole world asks Mogadishu for permission (which they'll grant, because it's also in their interest to end the whole shenanigan), send some Delta Force and SAS and Spetnaz (and maybe our own Paskal) - first liberate the crude oil (more for environmental protection than the actual value of the oil), and then attack The Pirate Sanctuary.

how hard can it be? isn't it what these guys train for everyday, to protect the innocent blablabla.

buggers went to Iraq mighty quick, but can't do s*** about a real and proper threat, for once. stop pussyfooting and start behaving like real men.

you're on call...

2008-11-18T19:01:00.005+08:00

... and you receive a phone call from Montevideo from a patient who was bitten by a dog and wants to know if he is at risk of rabies and what should be done. You gather that the patient had accidentally walked across a car park that was being guarded but had not understood the sign ‘beware of the dog’. You gather that the dog is healthy and the patient was bitten through two layers of clothing.

What is the most appropriate advice?

A. Have the dog shot and biopsy the brain for rabies

B. Go immediately to a secondary care facility and ask for anti-rabies vaccine

C. The dog should be confined and observed for 10 days to determine if it dies of rabies before treatment is administered

D. The patient should be admitted for regular neurological observations as he might develop rabies

E. Start the patient on regular ribavirin and interferon.

ugh, not another MCQ

2008-11-14T23:56:00.003+08:00

i'm. so. super. saturated. i. can't. take. any. more. information.

plus, i think i have carpal tunnel syndrome.

i need a (healthy) distraction. the trouble is, i can't find any.

(i do apologise for this stream of consciousness. it's late, and i can't find anyone to talk to)

everyone has stories

2008-11-13T20:15:00.003+08:00

and i think i have a small talent - the ability to get their stories out of them, however reticent they are in the beginning. this isn't a boast, i think i'm just a patient listener when i want to be.

like this middle-aged lady who came with non-specific chest pains, without any risk factors for heart disease. in 30 seconds, i found out that she has one living child and one who passed at age 1year5months, just transferred to another branch of her latex glove factory, and is a bit depressed.

then in 2 more minutes, a diagnosis of occupational asthma for her, and mumps orchitis* for her husband. so THAT's why they only have one child!

*i asked why only one child, and she said her husband had unilateral facial swelling with fever, 3 years after her first-born (aged 15 now), complicated with swollen and painful testicles, and has been childless since then

I Love Google

2008-11-12T08:33:00.002+08:00

they are incredibly intelligent down at Google Labs, and i too wish that i had my playstations, swimming pools and gourmet chefs at work.

but this is something else: they have managed to predict flu outbreaks in America, using Google.

when a bunch of people get sick, they type "flu symptoms" on google, even before they see a doctor. so google tabulates the geographic location, analyses the data, and voila! they have a pattern, and their statistics show that they can predict outbreaks 7-10 days before the mighty CDC issues their flu alert.

this is thanks to Google.org, their foundation to "help make the world a better place". you can check it out at google.org/flutrends.

i think it's a wonderful policy of Google's, this non-profit endeavour (i'd prefer NOT to be cynical), and a lot of other companies would do well to help everyone else out.

Post Secret

2008-11-10T20:27:00.002+08:00

i love this website, where people send postcards of their secrets, and no one knows who they are.

i saw this one, and almost cried.

i still can't stop - but i'm laughing now

2008-11-07T19:21:00.005+08:00

1. when Bill Clinton's staff left office to make way for George W Bush, they hated the idea of passing over the baton to the Republicans (especially a dunce like him), they took the letter W out of some keyboards.

2. Sarah Palin thought that Africa was a country, not a continent. and South Africa is a region of Africa, not a country. she should star in Who's Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

3. W's dog bit a Reuters reporter during his congratulatory speech to Obama.

4. "Sarah Palin's been spending the last couple of days being briefed by advisers on what she needs to know to be John McCain's vice president. That's true. Yeah. Apparently, the first thing they taught her was CPR." --Conan O'Brien

5. "Barack Obama gave a speech in Germany and 200,000 people showed up. There were so many Germans shouting and screaming that France surrendered just in case." --Craig Ferguson

6. "And all this week, the McCain campaign is trying to prevent Sarah Palin from talking to reporters covering the news, you know? They said, 'you can take her picture, but you can't ask her any questions.' What is she running for, vice president or 'America's Next Top Model'?" --Jay Leno

7. "Everybody is trying to find out more about Sarah Palin. Someone was able to hack into Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email account because she hadn't taken the proper security measures. Yeah. So, folks, it's official. No one in the Palin family uses protection." --Conan O'Brien

8. "Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin today said she thinks the economy needs some shaking up and some fixin'. I'm pretty sure is also her recipe for oven-baked chicken." --Jimmy Kimmel

9. "Today John McCain campaigned in the Ohio town of Defiance. Next comes Anger, then finally Acceptance." —Jay Leno

10. "And the big guns are out. The Democrats have sent Hillary to Florida to go after Sarah Palin. So, that makes two Clintons trying to nail her now." --Jay Leno

11. "Sarah Palin made three campaign stops today: Saks, Nieman Marcus and Bloomingdales." —Jay Leno

12. "Here's the amazing part: back in 1984, Sarah Palin actually came second in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant. Now she could be vice president. You know what that means? For the first time in history, a beauty pageant contestant might actually bring about world peace. They've talked about it for years; here's one that could do it!" --Jay Leno

13. "Speaking of Sarah Palin, she said she's a life-long member of the National Rifle Association. Which may explain why she's in favor of shotgun weddings." --Conan O'Brien

14. "Five kids? Does anyone in that party understand the concept of pulling out?" �Bill Maher

15. "Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama is our new president. And I think I speak for most Americans when I say, anybody mind if he starts a little early?" --David Letterman

A President for The World

2008-11-07T13:29:00.003+08:00

no, i am not going to get tired writing about him, at least not right now.

nothing America (with a capital A, for far too long i have spelt it america) can say or advise or coerce us into doing, will be more powerful than the message that they sent the whole world, 2 days ago. the message of tolerance, of belief that they can be better than who they were yesterday, of the importance of being bigger than yourself, of hope and the audacity to want change, and the power of one reasonable voice telling us that he will be the President of even those who didn't vote for him, so please can we just help each other out?

countries are formed by quirks of religion (Bhutan or Saudi Arabia), race (Japan and France), language or their 'conquerors' (Brazil and South Africa), geography (Madagascar and Australia), or even tribal (Uganda and the Caribbean islands) - but no one country is formed entirely on an idea. an idea that was born in Greece many many years ago, but was brought to life in America. only in America.

only there can we see this beautiful story of the son of a Kenyan father and Kansan mother, born in Hawaii, brought up in Indonesia, study in Harvard, organise a community (take that, Sarah Palin), inspire a country, win an election, and renew the world's faith and admiration of America.

storybook stuff - like Abraham Lincoln and the apple tree and FDR and his polio.

of course his victory was aided and made starker because of W's unprecedented incompetence - but not for one moment should this detract from the fact that for the first time since perhaps JFK, does the world have a President that they look up to and want to follow in the footsteps of.

on November 5, 2008, America gave all the nations and all the peoples of the world A New Hope - an expression of strength and confidence in their collective courage to make the right decision. our faith in America has been renewed.

God bless America, and God bless America's 44th President.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Declaration of Independence, 1776

The Unlikeliest President

2008-11-05T19:28:00.004+08:00

"...in no other country on earth is my story even possible..."

and so we have, ladies and gentlemen, the 44th President of the United States of America - President Barack Hussein Obama.

call me unpatriotic, but the 2008 elections for the President of the USA has struck a chord with me, and perhaps millions of people all around the world. it's basically this: a country of white Christians, tens of millions of them, have voted for a man to be their leader - a man who has a white Christian mother and a Muslim black father, raised in Indonesia, studied in Harvard, listens to Jay-Z, quotes Abraham Lincoln, and has an Arabic middle name.

150 years ago, he would be a legal slave. 27 years ago, in 1981 when i was born, the last black man was lynched. and now, an African-American President. how far they have come.

for a long time, the world has lost faith with the US (and George congratulations-and-go-enjoy-yourself Bush). we've seen the arrogance, the waywardness and the foolishness with which they have misplaced all the world's affection to the American way of life. all the moral authority gained from WWII and the Marshall plan, and the sympathy from 9/11 disappeared in a smoke of broken English by the rancher from Texas.

the post of POTUS is, for all intents and purposes, the leader of the free world. he makes decisions that have a huge impact on people from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. the difference is, this time, we feel like we've elected him, instead of having the choice forced upon us.

and now... a leader we meet perhaps only once in a lifetime - someone who inspires and bridges divides and appeals to E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. Barack Obama has become more than the President of the USA, he's become the President of the World.

Barack Obama is my President too. his story gives me hope that all nations in the world, and not just America, may one day see beyond the colour of my skin. that's not hard to imagine - America has always been the driving force for change, from miniskirts and Coca-Cola to democracy and free trade. why should this be any different?

Barack Obama is my President too. his story renews my faith and love in the American Way, where anything you want is possible, if you work that little bit harder. for a long time, many of us were disillusioned with America. we hated it, but yet cannot help but be drawn to them, for travel or education or ideas. but now, no longer.

Barack Obama is our President. leaders of men should be that little bit more than who we are, not some guy-i'd-love-to-have-a-beer-with. he needs to make decisions, he needs to inspire us into becoming a little better than yesterday, he needs to fulfill Voltaire's idea of a philosopher-king. and he does, doesn't he? Barack Obama does.

imagine again, if you will, what just happened. the scars of racism is most alive in America, where the distinction between black-as-pitch and white-as-milk sometimes linger, sometimes fester. but yet, tens of millions of white men and women voted freely for a black man with a Muslim name.

Barack Hussein Obama is now President of the United States of America. now who dares tell me, that Hope and Change are false anymore?

"That's how this thing started," he said, "It shows you what one voice can do. One voice can change a room, and if a voice can change a room it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world."

A Few Words... on Buying a Car

2008-11-03T21:22:00.000+08:00

it's more than just a car, isn't it? it's a fashion statement, a sign that you've arrived, and that you're financially solvent.

it's a reminder of your independence, that you no longer have to rely on public transportation, your parents or remain at the mercy of the fickle Weather.

so really, it isn't just a piece of welded metal attached to four steer-able wheels driven by an engine - perhaps Henry Ford didn't expect his motorcar to become a symbol of our times.

A Few Words... on Loneliness

2008-11-02T10:48:00.003+08:00

i suppose there is a huge difference between being alone, and being lonely. we've all heard often enough about how "you can be in a room full of people, and still feel lonely".

but you know, i think i enjoy my own alone-ness. i have no doubts i can go to Langkawi for a weekend, and just be by myself and read a book. or maybe three books.

but you know what else? it's when you find a woman who you can be together with, not have to say a word, and do your own thing, and still come away thinking that you've just spent the best time together - the two of you aren't lonely, but you're alone - you've become so close that you've essentially become one entity.

now isn't that just fantastic?

...In no other country on earth is my story even possible.

2008-10-31T18:08:00.001+08:00

Roger Cohen writes beautifully.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/opinion/30Cohen.html?em

November 5 approaches

2008-10-29T19:15:00.003+08:00

i am fascinated by the American elections. it's this generational shift thing that's going on. on one hand we have a 70 year old white man who fought in Vietnam, and on the other a 40 year old black man with roots all around the world.

it's like America isn't voting for a President as much as they are voting for the future. you can choose more of the same, or a total break from the past. and with the world being totally globalised now, it seems that choosing Obama represents a symbolic switch to a more inclusive world.

how did one man transcend such barriers? he appeals to a broad range of people, with words like Change and Hope. not since Hitler has the mere use of words and images played so well, and that's paying Senator Barack Hussein Obama a huge compliment.

i hope the American people will not vote for "more of the same" - divisive politics by the village idiot cannot be allowed to perpetuate any longer. i wish i had a vote - i would vote for Obama.

pissing God off

2008-10-28T21:33:00.002+08:00

no one wants to do that, i'm sure. but oftentimes we commit blasphemy unintentionally - either our mouths are quicker than our brains, or intentionally - a blatant sin.

(ever get the feeling where you just wanna say something, anything at all, but it doesn't necessarily makes any sense at all? oh no, i think it's one of those times when i just feel like writing something, but i'm not sure exactly what to write, or why, or for what purpose)

i think i may have shot off my mouth in the past, and certainly tonight as well, so with all the humility i can muster - Lord God, i am so sorry if i p***ed you off at any time. i'll try harder - you'll like that, right?

good night, and good luck!

Kuala Lumpur!

2008-10-27T13:05:00.003+08:00

we have a fantastic and frequently under-appreciated Ibu Kota Malaysia. getting its name from a muddy estuary, borne from the confluence of Klang and Gombak, a former tin mining colony - hardly the inspiring story of the great cities of the world.

but then again, New York and London and Paris were also born on the banks of the Hudson, Thames and Seine respectively.

i spent 4 nights in KL for the Conference, and i had a grand time! lucky me i had a very good friend along, and was never lonely or bored. i forgot how much i loved KL - its energy and vibrancy, the enormous entertainment options and makan shops, there's always something going on - and how much i hated big cities too, with its traffic, heat and impersonal people (i saw a bitch fight between 4 scantily-clad ladies while waiting in queue to buy movie tickets!).

but now i'm back to Taiping, a town i fervently love. and i'm in trouble - slightly more than a month to an exam that i feel a little under-prepared for. back to work!

National Diabetes Institute Conference

2008-10-21T20:54:00.000+08:00

i haven't been to a proper conference for ages. used to be i'd have to go for debating tournaments up to 8 times a year, and maybe 2-4 of them would last 7-10 days. that's a whole lot of packing, and then a whole lot of unpacking (and the attendant laundry, i'm afraid). it almost felt like i went to medical school when i wasn't going to debating tournaments and medical student's conferences.

good times, those. i miss debating, and my partner and i were thinking of just participating in another tournament, just for old times' sake. but that's another story.

tomorrow it's the Malaysian diabetes conference in KL. my old professors will be there delivering lectures, and it's the first proper conference i'll be going to as a medical professional. yay!

time, time... we're running out of time

2008-10-19T10:19:00.003+08:00

i remember asking my mother and sister just recently, what they considered to be the most important thing in the world. is it Time? or Love? or Money? or Family? Health? Peace? Knowledge?

all three of us gave very different answers, and i answered Time.

it's not like Apocalypse is coming soon, and i do have tonnes of years before my natural life expectancy takes me away, but all the same we ARE running out of time.

all my life i've been doing something. different periods in my life defined who i was, from the experimentation in primary school, to Scouts in secondary school, to the Prefects in Form 6, to debating in university, and now chasing a diploma.

there was always a deadline, i've got to get to that target before my SPM, before STPM, before i finish 4th year of medical school. and those are the larger targets, God knows how many small projects i've set upon along the way and set aside once completed.

funny, when i think about it, i don't know what it's like to live without a target. heh.

(funnier still when i think of how little money figures in my targets. it should, right? after all, i want to marry and have kids, and that involves money, doesn't it?)

so i go from day to day, chasing stuff. but you know what, i'm not getting tired of The Chase, because i suspect that i realise that it's not The Target that's important, it's the Journey.

whoa! where's our plan?

2008-10-03T19:18:00.004+08:00

back in the 70s, in a world of Mutually Assured Destruction and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaties and Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties, there was a very real fear of a nuclear holocaust. even Einstein said, "I don't know how the Third World War will be fought, but I know that the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones".

so recent documents released from Whitehall (after 25 years of secrecy, their documents are released to the public under the Official Secrets Act - isn't that a nice idea for Malaysia?) show how prepared the British Government were, in the event of a nuclear calamity.

this is what would have been broadcast by the BBC, if Brezhnev had pushed any red buttons on his desk:

This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. The number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known. Stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes. Radioactive fallout is many times more dangerous if you are directly exposed to it in the open. Roofs and walls offer substantial protection. Make sure gas and other fuel supplies are turned off and all fires are extinguished. You should refill all your containers for drinking water after any fires have been put out, because the mains supply may not be available for long. Until you are told that lavatories may be used again, other toilet arrangements must be made. Water means life. Don't waste it. Ration your food supply, because it may have to last for 14 days or more. If you live in an area where a fallout warning has been given, stay in your fallout room. When the immediate danger has passed, sirens will sound a steady note. The "all clear" message will also be given on this wavelength. Do not go outside the house. Radioactive fallout can kill. We shall repeat this broadcast in two hours' time. Stay tuned to this wavelength, but switch your radios off now to save your batteries until we come on the air again.

***

chilling, isn't it? i can't imagine RTM broadcasting anything like this.

Vote Not Sarah Palin

2008-10-02T13:12:00.003+08:00

i'm getting incredibly distressed by Mrs Palin. she may look smart and sexy, but there's not much behind those librarian glasses.

1. when she was mayor of Wasilla, she signed a law saying that all rape victims must pay for their rape-detection-kits as well as swabs and other related paraphernalia, whenever they report their case to the police. apparently that saves USD15000 a year.

basically, if you get raped, you have to pay to collect the evidence to prosecute your rapist. wtf?

i'd love to accuse Sarah Palin of sexism and misogyny, but how can i? she's a woman, and she kills moose. for fun.

2. "Alaska has a narrow maritime border with Russia" makes her an expert on international affairs? shaking hands with one foreign dignitary at the UN makes her qualified to take that 3am phone call?

3. completely misunderstanding the financial crisis (together with her Presidential candidate John "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" McCain) makes them both the Deadly Duo, literally adding credence to the McPain nickname.

whatever these guys do to the economy will have a huge impact on our lives, even in faraway Taiping. the newly-opened cinema may close because they took a loan from Bank A in KL, who has stock in Unit Trust B in Shanghai, who in turn invests in Large Bank C in New York, that is slowly turning insolvent because AIG can't pay a dime. so it's A to B to C to Depression.

4. i love Tina Fey in 30 Rock, and i love her here:

Selamat Hari Raya!

2008-09-30T20:16:00.002+08:00

there are lots of things i want to write about, like whether or not a doctor should be forced to attend the funerals of those he failed to save, or how aggressive you want to be with an 85 year old lady, or what shall we do with that 48 year old ex-smoker who has horrible lungs but refuses to be intubated and sent to ICU?

all morbid stuff, but Syawal is here, and i feel festive actually, tonight!

may this be a safe Raya for everyone! Selamat Hari Raya!

amantadine poisoning

2008-09-20T11:19:00.002+08:00

there's this lady who was previously healthy, who came in with fever for 2 weeks, with only headache as another symptom. she had no special findings when we examined her, and her blood results were generally negative for anything.

there was, however, consumption of some traditional "tonic" for the last 3 weeks. aha!

i thought i was House, so i asked her to bring the tonic, and it was some Chinese remedy "to strenghen (sic) body, brain, kidney, liver, heart, lungs, blood, ovaries, intestins (sic)" and at least another paragraph of the usual nonsense.

i thought it was possibly amantadine poisoning (God knows what they put inside these tonics), so i googled up the ingredients like:

Fructus Corii
Fructus Lycii
Radix Polygoni Multifluri
Radix Angelicae Sinensis
Radix Astragali
Radix Corcumae Ginseng
Semen Cuscutae (don't ask)
Herba Cistaches
Herba Dendrobii
Cortex Acanthopanacis Radicis

and these were just the shorter names, there were at least another 5 ingredients that i didn't bother copying down because they were just too long. there was no mention of amantadine anywhere though.

well, there's no twist to the tale, i just felt like telling the world that i'm NOT House. aha!

Spanish China

2008-09-17T09:59:00.002+08:00

my mother just came back from a week in Beijing with her aunt. she brought back lots of stuff and pictures.

plus a story: she went to some shopping bazaar with lots of stalls selling all sorts of stuff (mostly fake, but hey, it's not as if we wouldn't shop there anyway).

10% of the Chinese traders there at that shopping bazaar spoke a non-Mandarin, non-Chinese dialect, and non-English, language. i kid you not - they spoke French, German, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Russian. and that's just the ones that she heard, when these traders were entertaining foreigners who were either visiting, or were from the ongoing Paralympics.

oh. my. God.

they are seriously taking over the world, and not only because they are the most business-minded people in the world. imagine a Malaysian from a middling-sized town, say Taiping or Muar or Sandakan, learning a non-Malay, non-English language, just so he can communicate with foreigners. oh screw that, imagine him learning a new totally foreign language, just so he can improve himself.

because that's, in essence, what these guys are doing - they're improving themselves so that they can compete in the real world.

we're all doomed. i'm going to buy Berlitz's Greek and learning it next year.

Ramadhan = Discipline

2008-09-15T19:28:00.000+08:00

no one's going to argue about that, but yet this year's Ramadhan is characterised by exactly the opposite - indiscipline.

from Bukit Bendera to Taipei via Kamunting, our nation is in upheaval.

why can't we learn to be the bigger person? this month, above all others, should have encouraged us.

***

i've been away for some time, because i've been a little busy with other things, and there was no way i was going let this blog get in the way of a life. wyny was back (second time this year) for a week, and i had a good time with her. mum left for Beijing with her aunt, and is returning tonight. i took the train to KL (it was a day trip) to see a few people and bought two books, a 60L Deuter for my cousin (son to fly to Volgograd for medicine) and had Mushroom Swiss in Burger King. bliss!

***

isn't Sarah Palin hot? but i'm slowly finding reasons why i'm not going to like her:

1. her anti-choice stance is a little different from my more liberal stance. not even allowing a choice for someone who's been raped?
2. an oil pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 states? a new 9/11 maybe.
3. kill polar bears and drill, baby, drill? not for energy-efficient me.
4. plus i don't think she's all that brainy, despite the librarian glasses. love the hair though, and her kids' names are pretty cool too.

***

things are going to get busy again, from now till December. so fewer posts, and more work. but maybe after that i'll go for a long weekend in Langkawi, do nothing but read, get a tan, eat chocolates and red meat, sleep till late.

Usain Bolt

2008-08-21T20:31:00.001+08:00

i can't write as well as the rest of the professional sports writers about Usain Bolt - but that guy is phenomenal! he's brought so much happiness to the Olympics!

Citius, Altius, Fortius

2008-08-09T00:25:00.002+08:00

the slogan of the international Olympic movement is Faster, Higher, Stronger - and every four years people come together to celebrate that slogan.

this time it's something special. Athens was the birthplace of the ancient Olympics, but the beijing Olympics marks the birth of something else, the final declaration of the arrival of China onto the world stage.

and the opening ceremony was simply staggering in its imagination and scope and the execution of such preciseness. from visual depictions of paper paintings and Admiral Cheng Ho, to the down-to-earth yet philosophically astute idea of athletes "leaving their footprints" - the Chinese left very little unplanned.

every formation was perfect, every wushu artist in place, every pretty girl in white boots with a bottle of water to get them through the hot night - nothing was left to chance.

and when the flame ignited, it really ignited. it didn't splutter to life, it roared into the night sky. China has never before felt so proud of itself!

(i must say i still prefer Antonio Rebollo's flaming arrow into the Barcelona cauldron in 1992)

Phelps, Liu Xiang, Federer, Bolt, Kluft, Sotherton, Messi, Pendleton, Hackett, Yao Ming - the stage is theirs now!

Random Act of Kindness

2008-07-26T14:28:00.001+08:00

in March and April this year, i worked with 16 young boys and girls from St George's and Convent Taiping, as they prepared for a national-level debate tournament. they did well, and i'm very happy, and i didn't expect to get this today:

today is St George's Awards Day, and they decided to have a new category to say thanks to the people whom they felt had helped the school in one way or another. so, for my Random Act of Kindness, i got a tie, a tiepin, a school mug and a certificate - none of which i wanted or needed, and certainly not in response to my coaching of the debate team.

and my Act of Kindness wasn't Random, it was PreMeditated and Planned. down to the last detail, even about what they were going to wear, and how they were going to walk from their seat to the podium. haha! quite a laugh. but it's always very nice to be appreciated, so thank you, St George's!

***

afterwards, i also had lunch with very pleasant people, all of whom between the ages of 45-65, and all with children or grandchildren. it's an interesting diversion from people close to my own age, but the topics weren't very different from ours, except that the way they think is markedly different.

case in point: once a few of us had this conversation: if you had to pick, will you choose USD10million, or a lifetime of small pieces of good luck, like always getting a parking spot and having a queue-less supermarket checkout counter?

we chose, and we gave reasons why we chose what we did. and it was a spirited and good conversation, with laughter and ribbing.

but these older folk? they refused to choose, saying that money isn't everything for them, but also saying that always having good luck makes you unable to appreciate it.

they chose neither - and isn't that a more mature way of looking at things? :-) i'm very impressed, and i can't wait to grow older and have grandchildren and see things in a very different way.

curiously though, between USD10million or a lifetime of small pieces of good luck, which will you choose? and if you chose the money, how little are you willing to settle for? USD2million in lieu of all the good luck in the world? how about USD50,000? how low will you go?

bad bosses

2008-07-15T18:47:00.002+08:00

i guess i've been lucky all this while - i've had good superiors to work under, and i've always been lucky enough to not get bullied or victimised.

but that's no good, when you get a new boss who's not only a difficult person to work with (and i'm not the only person thinking that way), but i suspect dislikes (or even possibly hates) me and (i suspect) goes out of his way to make life difficult for me.

i suppose i must have contributed something to such vexation, it DOES take two to tango - but sheesh, surely such anger and negavitity is best reserved for Hitler and Pol Pot?

what does one do, but grin and bear it, and hope that the whole experience will toughen me up, and keep doing my usual stuff and try not to get in his way.

no one's working environment is perfect, for sure, but with a generalised low-level rebellion simmering under the surface everywhere he goes, surely it's just a matter of time before a small spark lights a huge explosion?

gambling with lives

2008-07-12T19:50:00.002+08:00

as a doctor, we deal with so much philosophy on a day to day basis. for ill patients who are refractory to treatment, we have to counsel family members that there isn't much we can do. for poor patients, we refer to the Social Welfare and then stop ourselves from thinking about poverty, because we're finding it hard to cope with our workload itself. for patients who need long-term care, especially those needing dialysis - we tell them the cold hard truth in 2 minutes; you have kidney failure, you need dialysis, 4 hours 3 times a week, forever.

we take consent to invade privacy, bodily integrity and lives - on an hourly basis. we ask for permission to inspect, touch, listen and manipulate body parts all the time. we ask for permission to take blood, set lines, insert catheters and all manner of tubes. we ask for consent to perform surgery - essentially you're signing a piece of paper that allows total strangers you just met two hours ago, to gas you unconscious, and then cut you, literally cut you. with a sharp blade. in another setting, that's tantamount to murder.

there are many aspects of philosophy that i think impacts medicine in so many ways, that junior doctors often do not see. but there is one that today, i'm suddenly very aware of, that i want to tell.

doctors are actually gamblers. and the best ones are the best gamblers.

assume that a 37 year old man presents with cough for a week. there are a lot of possibilities: simple infection, potentially overwhelming infection, bronchiectasis, lung cancer, Wegener's, HHT, ACE-inhibition, even a brain tumour can cause cough (cerebral edema leads to uncoordinated swallowing and subsequently a hyperactive cough reflex).

the optimist will think of infection, the pessimist lung cancer. but the gambling doctor will depend on his experience, and a series of questions and a targeted physical examination to decide that this 37 year old man has a simple community-acquired pneumonia, amenable to 5 days of oral antibiotics.

or the gambling doctor may see the nicotine-stained nails and the thin anxious patient, and diagnose lung cancer. or the heavily pregnant lady who may actually have listeriosis. or the frail old lady just discharged from the Orthopaedics Ward after a hip replacement may actually have a particularly nasty Pseudomonas.

the optimist can (and frequently does) dismiss the cough as a simple one. but the pessimist will lie awake at night thinking he missed out that brain tumour in that young boy presenting with vomiting. both approaches will not benefit the patient - the optimist frequently misses the dangerous illnesses, and the pessimists overinvestigates the young boy with vomiting with a CT brain.

nope. medicine is for gamblers. and if you work at it, you can actually get pretty good at the gambling business. that's why we always go see a doctor who "cures" his patients - not because he's an optimist or a pessimist, but because he's a lucky gambler.

***

i'm reminded suddenly of something a paediatrician of mine once said. it's very profound, and has got so much karma and philosophy in a pithy line, that i was staggered for a full minute.

he said that he "believes that people will always get the doctor that they need". if they have a serious illness, they will get a good doctor. and if they have a trivial complaint, they'll get lucky even if they get an incompetent doctor, because no one can mismanage a trivial complaint bad enough to kill them.

i like the compelling logic of this belief - God always means well for us, and he always gives us what we need. why shouldn't the doctors we get be any different?

The Epic Match - Federer v Nadal

2008-07-08T20:40:00.002+08:00

i don't play tennis at all, but i know a sporting spectacle when i see one.

and i think i'm out of words to describe that match, the Wimbledon Men's Singles Final of 2008, between that elegant Swiss who was aiming for his 6th Wimbledon crown, and his bete noire, the indefatigable Spaniard who is unbeatable on clay, but still waiting for his breakthrough on grass.

oh what a game for the ages! sports is the essence of humanity - we take our bodies and train it, tweak it, hone it, and we stop believing that there are limits, and we give it all we have (and then some more), we demonstrate courage and spirit, we show the world that there is more than just flesh and bones that make us a human person.

and how magnificently has these two men shown us, that we are more than just the sum total of our flesh and bones.

other men more eloquent than me say it better -

James Lawton of The Independent
Splendour on the Grass

Federer v Nadal

2008-07-06T21:54:00.000+08:00

i guess i've always been a fan of the elegant, instead of the brute-force-ish. okay, maybe it's a little prejudicial - especially when you put it that way - i mean, who would choose animal force over elegance anyway?

but with Roger Federer v Rafael Nadal, the world finds it hard to choose. it's such a compelling match-up - the force of nature, with his all-action i'll-run-till-i-die-then-run-some-more game, the very height of athleticism VS the stream of elegant strokes and balletic movement (and that white trousers and monogrammed blazer) of the very history of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club.

it's the first modern rivalry where there is no disrespect or hate between the two protagonists, or their fans. Barcelona hates Real Madrid, Tiger doesn't speak to Els, basketballers trash-talk everyone, Alonso resents Hamilton and even Thorpe and Hackett had a thing going on, and they didn't even swim the same events!

such a great rivalry, one of the ages - such a clear distinction between styles and contrast between personalities. no one knows who will win, and no fan of one will resent it if the other won.

isn't this sports, at its best? a match to see who is the best, by two of the classiest practitioners of the art? The Match starts now, and i'm off!

accidental proverbs

2008-07-03T20:56:00.002+08:00

my first two Medical MO calls came and went without much fuss - only a total of 5 admissions during the two calls, combined. it's good i guess, i got to sleep 6 hours straight two calls in a row - and i'm not going to complain at all.

so i go to the clinic today, and i saw this gentleman with diabetes which was poorly controlled. he was injections of Actrapid (a fast-acting insulin) 3X daily, and Insulatard (a long-acting insulin) at night. they have to take a bit of insulin out from the bottle, so the manufacturers kindly made the Actrapid a clear fluid, and the Insulatard a "muddy" one.

i decided to change the Insulatard to Glargine (another type of insulin, this time administered via a pen syringe, not a traditional syringe), but had trouble explaining the change of medication...

...until i suddenly said "buang yang keruh, ambil yang jernih" (translated as "discard the muddy, embrace the clear"), a traditional Malay proverb.

and the nurse and he broke out in laughter, to my puzzlement for a few seconds.

buang yang keruh, ambil yang jernih - indeed!

*okay, these small things amuse and cheer me*

unrelated threads

2008-06-22T20:28:00.000+08:00

do you know how Penans hunt? i'm told this by Henry, a Penan friend i made recently.

they'll have these blowpipes that they can blow umm, very hard, i guess. hard enough to pierce a thin metal sheet, like a large tin of cooking oil. Henry swears on his life that he's seen something like that happening. and they are accurate from up to 30 metres!

the darts have some sort of poison there, but it takes 15 minutes to work.

so they crawl silently from different directions as near as they can to a group of monkeys, say, and shoot one (1) dart. the monkey rubs his rump and doesn't say a word. the humans lie still and doesn't make a sound.

in 15 minutes, the unfortunate monkey falls down to the ground, whereupon all the other monkeys climb down to investigate. then it's a free-for-all, for the hunters at least.

Napoleon & Colin Powell, you can weep!

***

i also saw in the newspaper the other day, an ad from the Qatar Government, offering scholarships for a Masters program in the Qatar State University (or equivalent). they were listing down the criteria to qualify for that scholarship.

in reverse order (but in not so many words):
5. must achieve a pass in Arabic.
4. must have a strong fundament in the Holy Quran.
3. must achieve a cGPA >3.8 in the undergraduate years.
2. noble standing and leadership qualities.

and the No 1 criteria to qualify for that prestigious scholarship is (in exact words)...
1. Must submit a completed application form.

sheesh! would post-graduate applicants really not think of that? maybe an alternative criteria is:
1. Must submit a completed application form.
2. Possesses a carotid pulse.
3. Capable of spontaneous respiration.

some things are so obvious.

***

i'm finished with my medical tagging, and i start calls next month. cardio emergencies still scare me, so much so that i've actually read the repair manual of the defibrillator, just in case that damn thing breaks down at 4am.

there's still so much more left to learn, and not all of them concerns Part 2a. there's a world of difference between an examination and real life, but i guess i'm looking forward to that challenge!

back to work!

Week 1 in Medicine

2008-06-06T21:28:00.000+08:00

i got a transfer to Medical, from Traumatology, and i started June 2nd. i'm happy! i love what i'm doing.

i still have to tag for around a month, 8am to 8pm, but the days pass quite quickly because i love what i'm doing.

i wake up around 7am plus, and get to work around quarter to. have a look around the ward, and then go for passover in the morning. come back for rounds and then go see some referrals and then go to clinic (even though i'm not scheduled there). but i guess it's okay, because i love what i'm doing.

i maybe work through lunch (i've skipped 4 out of 5 lunches this past week) or read something, but i don't get really hungry. i hydrate myself properly though.

i check on some of the more ill inpatients in the PM, then do some paperwork. and then if i get a referral in the PM, i go see them, and before i know it it's already past 7pm.

i did my first bone marrow aspiration, and 2 subclavian lines and 3 chest taps - too bad i didn't get the consent for a lumbar puncture!

i'm in Medical now, and life's busy and i have to constantly study and read and improve myself - but i sure as hell love what i'm doing!

shooting arrows at airplanes

2008-05-30T20:38:00.003+08:00

first of all, check this out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/may/30/brazil.photography?picture=334475062

then chew on this:

you're alone in the middle of the jungle, living with a small bunch of people, and you've never seen a battery, a fridge, Internet pornography, a car - wait, you've never seen proper clothes, or metal, or metallic objects, or paper.

you have little or no written language, little or no clothes, little or no defense if a modern tribe decides to attack you.

you have bows and arrows and loincloths and poison darts and bamboo baskets and three wives. you hunt monkeys and eat squirrels, gather berries and avoid poison ivy. you fish, and have no idea that the flooding of your fishing areas is caused by the huge Itaipu hydroelectric dam about 500 miles downriver.

you have absolutely no idea who George Bush or Paris Hilton is, or what's a terrorist. you've never taken antibiotics, and certainly have nothing more than the witchdoctor (most likely the one coloured in black).

wait, it gets worse. you're cold at night, and half your children die before their first birthdays. you break a small finger and it gets infected and your hand and then your arm gets gangrenous and then you die, 5 days short of your 35th birthday. that's IF you have a calendar that's worth something.

you'll never taste icecream or chocolate, and steaks are rudimentary for you (i hope you know what's a fire). you won't know the inside of Harrod's or Tesco's. actually, even our local grocery store will seem alien and frightening.

to be honest, even a mechanical pencil will seem alien and frightening. and let's not go to guns and tanks and armour-piercing bullets. heck, even darts and a dartboard will scare you.

***
but curiously enough, you also won't know poverty or crime or injustice or war. you won't know about the rat race and how we coop ourselves in cubicles to get a little taste of that Haagen Dazs and Cadbury. you won't know about the tedium of our lives, and how a lot of us live only to die, and not live at all.

or you will die. you will have never known what is AIDS or avian influenza or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. maybe not even the common cold. the bugs from our clothes will be enough to kill half your village folk.

we "found" millions of you on the Dark Continent, living in uncivilised ways. we religionised you, and converted youto the idea that a capitalist society is the ONLY way to run any society. and now we found one last unconverted tribe. and there will be a rush - tourists, anthropologists, bureaucrats - all would want to be part of this Lost World.

and what of you? would you want to be a part of this? you will be seduced by the airconditioning and hot water, frightened in equal measure by the million digital camera flashes in your face, awed by this world that you never, never, never knew existed. and you will succumb, you all succumb eventually.

if we approach you and try to "civilise" you, we're trying to tell you that our way of life is superior to yours - that ambition, scarce morals and conformity is a valid price to pay for health, convenience and luxury.

***
i think we should leave them alone. they definitely don't need our sort of civilisation.

A Nazi State

2008-05-22T13:09:00.002+08:00

maybe we've moved 60 years from Hitler, but we still have this policy of sweeping "undesirables" from society. so many stories fictional and non-fictional are told about this issue: The Emperor's New Clothes, India's caste system, China's Cultural Revolution.

Sultan Azlan Shah is visiting Taiping this Saturday. so what does the Social Welfare Department do? join forces with the Police and Taiping Town Council to go around town and round up the beggars and the homeless.

what next? no, not find them re-settlement, foster homes, trace their relatives, give them a hot meal and a bed, find out their IC numbers and identity. they didn't do all that.

instead, the idiots at Social Welfare filed police reports saying that these two homeless men are psychotic, and causing social unrest. and demanded hospital admission for treatment.

worse, they weren't even present during the consultation that i had with these two men, which were about as sane as i can find, only that they were homeless.

i wrote an angry letter back to Social Welfare and sent the police officers to the Social Welfare folks, listing down all their responsibilities vis-a-vis the two homeless men.

***

what have we become when we sweep up the homeless and brand them psychotic so someone else will have to care for them, whenever a dignitary comes to town? no more than little Nazis. their comeuppance will search for them, and when it finds them, they will deserve it.

Cyclone Nargis

2008-05-12T10:36:00.002+08:00

Nargis is the Urdu word for daffodils. how such a pretty dainty flower caused so much destruction is beyond me. maybe it's us humans, and our need to rationalise death and destruction through meaningless little pretty words. such as Katrina - a pretty name forever cursed to bring forth memories of New Orleans.

and now this. much more than the 23,000-100,000 who are dead (and beyond our help), are the potential millions who are at risk of dying (and within our help). they are the real catastrophe. and somehow, those f****** idiots in Myanmar won't loosen restrictions to let the whole world help these poor souls.

if a revolution or putsch doesn't happen now, it never will. God grant the Burmese strength and courage in this most trying of times.

***

since i was in 3rd year of medical school, i've gone to help out with an NGO that holds free clinics for refugees from Myanmar and Acheh. they escape political and social persecution sometimes, and they stay in the jungles because they don't have proper papers. UNHCR helps as much as possible, but the sometimes heavy-handed tactics of the Police and RELA give these people a hard time.

clinics are once monthly in the beginning, but now ACTS has more resources and even has a fixed clinic in KL for those refugees in the city. there's even a small school. now ACTS is recognised by UNHCR, MSF and the EU.

given the intimate nature of their work with Myanmarese refugees, there is now a compelling need to go to Myanmar to help with the victims. and looking at these pictures (CAUTION: may be graphic) at http://picasaweb.google.com/cbthang/Nargis?authkey=kJZckA4Vzq0, they may need as much help as they can get.

nothing is more dangerous than...

2008-04-27T09:28:00.001+08:00

... a doctor who is not in control of his facts.

i write this as i am frustrated about a Medical MO in my hospital, whom i believe has grossly underestimated the severity of a patient's disease.

this 70 year old lady has psoriasis (i'm sorry, but you just have to google all these weird terms) for 30 years. for the last 2 weeks, she has had fever with chills and rigors, and now the psoriasis skin lesions have worsened and spread to her palms, soles and mouth. she is dehydrated and unwell, but thankfully not to the point of severe exhaustion.

i thought she had Stevens Johnson Syndrome, or erythrodermic psoriasis, because she appears fairly ill. SJS is dangerous, and needs careful management of her fluids and nutrition.

instead, the Medical MO writes down in his notes "...denies worsening of skin lesions" - a blatant and stupid lie, and decides to treat her for pharyngitis.

pharyngitis. that's a disease for children and young adults. how many 70 year olds do you know who has pharyngitis with fever for TWO weeks and NO marked sore throat, and has an existing skin condition worsen appreciably, and have all her relatives say the same thing?

he says her throat is injected but not inflamed. of course! that should cause the fever for 2 weeks! why didn't i think of that? and then he orders a blood culture. great. for pharyngitis. and then he keeps her in the ward for three days already.

if he's so sure that it's pharyngitis, why not just discharge her home? huh? huh?

he's not in control of his facts, unfortunately. and that makes him dangerous.

sungguh menarik!

2008-04-20T17:07:00.002+08:00

that's Malay for "very interesting", i'm told. i got this off the Internet, and i loved it, i think it's so bodoh (that's Malay for "dumb"), but in an endearing way:

Excerpts from a Dog's Diary

* 8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
* 9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
* 9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
* 10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
* 12:00 pm - Lunch! My favorite thing!
* 1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
* 3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
* 5:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
* 7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
* 8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
* 11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat's Diary

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.

In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow --but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.

The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now . . .

***
for the record, i'm a dog person. i particularly love the daschund, the sausage dog!

The Desensitised Doctor

2008-04-18T23:04:00.002+08:00

it was a busy shift today. i had to go for a talk, which ended around half past four. when i walked into Casualty, it was chaotic - there were simply too many Yellow codes lying around in various stages of dying. i counted at least 8 of them, not including one Red code and at least another 5 Greens (Trauma Centres worldwide code their patients - Red for imminent death, Yellow for very-nearly-there, Green for not-so-urgent and White for the non-emergencies).

i saw someone i know, whose husband is completely unresponsive but with stable BP and pulse, coded Yellow. my colleague was already attending to him, so i turned my attention to the other 4 Yellows which were not attended to yet. and promptly forgot about Mr K, with a hypotensive VT, APO, dense lacunar stroke and polytrauma to keep me occupied.

and then there were three 80 year olds and one 90 year old who were brought in, countless accidents, two bad lacerations, two dog bites and a hornet sting, and i had to dissuade a father from taking his son who badly fractured his forearm bones, to a traditional masseuse.

suddenly a Green awaiting transport to the ward for hyperkalemia began vomiting blood - all 2-3 litres of the stuff, some of which splattered all over me because i was the first to move. more resuscitation, more work.

and when i got back and got into the shower, i realised something: Mr K is the husband of Auntie Victoria, the cook at the Centre for the Intellectually Disabled in Taiping (Sekolah Semangat Maju), whom i love and adore. he is the father of Gunaseelan (my classmate) and Venoo (my junior in high school), whom i know and respect. he used to be a grasscutter, but with tremendous dignity. he cycled everywhere, and always had a smile on his face. he had salt-and-pepper hair, but no wrinkles.

yes, i hugged Auntie Victoria when i saw her just now, and it was a long hug, but really, was it worth anything? Mr K had a parietal brain tumour not amenable to surgery, and i immediately saw him as "less worth saving" than someone with a more correctable condition - the other Yellows beckoning to me with their fluorescent glory.

yes, i can persuade myself that i did the best i could - i allocated scarce resources appropriately, i saved those whom i could, my colleague had already attended to Mr K, there were other people that needed attention, Mr K was stable and not in imminent danger of death, it was a busy shift - yes, i can always tell myself that i am absolved, that God will understand, that Auntie Victoria will understand, that i DID give her a hug.

but in reality, i realise that i am small. that i am already desensitised to death. and that i may have lost my humanity in treating people like colour codes, and not humans.

oh please Lord God - save me.

high school debating

2008-04-17T12:54:00.002+08:00

when i was in UKM, i did a spot of debating, and i guess i was reasonably successful. high school debating was always something to drive me nuts - it was always prepared speeches and showy language, and not enough matter or substance. nothing prepares you for the real university-level debating.

so i'm always very happy that IIU Malaysia has organised a university-style debating tournament for high schools in Malaysia, for the last 7 years. they are one of the best debating universities in Malaysia, and has considerable support and goodwill both inside and outside their university as well as Malaysia.

four years ago, we started sending the first St George's and Convent Taiping teams to the tournament. the best achievement was one team making Quarters in the second year. this year, it's the fourth squad Taiping has sent into battle in Gombak.

and it's the best squad so far, in terms of debating success! St George's One made it to the Semis and lost very narrowly to the eventual champions, Sekolah Tunku Abdul Rahman. Convent One made it to the Quarters, and lost narrowly to the same team. we placed 2 speakers in the Top Ten, and both St George's Two and Convent Two (made up entirely of Form3 students) finished at 4-3 after 7 preliminary rounds - amazing achievements for young kids with zero experience and minimal training!

Convent Two even had the audacity to finish the first 5 rounds with 4 victories - if the prelims had ended there, they'd be in the top 5 teams in the country! Form 3, i tell you - no one suspected otherwise.

there were 90 teams in the tournament, and together with MRSM Taiping, 3 of 8 Quarterfinalists were from Taiping, and 2 of 4 Semifinalists too. i was looking forward to an all-Taiping Grand Finals - but it's something to look forward to in the next 2-3 years. haha!

what do doctors blog about?

2008-04-13T16:55:00.000+08:00

i'm not exactly sure, but sometimes they have an irresistible urge to talk about their cases, as follows:

CASE ONE: 15 year old schoolboy with a lisp, sees a 50cm-long-1cm-diameter black snake on the road in his school, decides to kill it. steps on the snake 5 times, and decides the snake was dead, and picks up snake in right hand "sebab nak buang" (because i wanted to throw it away). and gets bitten. twice. drops snake, and "pijak ular lagi 8 kali" (steps on snake another 8 times). hahahahaha!
VERDICT: admitted for a night for a swollen right thumb.
MORAL: Once Bitten, Twice Shy (or Thirteen Steps to a Dead Snake)

CASE TWO: 37 year old man with an abscess on the back of his head for 3 weeks, avoids doctors for that entire duration. convinced by a friend (or was it an enemy...?) that his cure is a leech. puts giant leech on abscess "sebab nak hisap nanah" (because i wanted it to suck the pus). the leech drops after 30minutes, and he bleeds non-stop for 6 hours. hahahahahaha!
VERDICT: discharge, but unable to promise never to repeat stunt.
MORAL: Once Bitten, Twice Shy (or A Leech is Not a Pus-sy)

***

200. Boat Building

2008-04-10T10:28:00.002+08:00

this marks the 200th post - not the proudest moment of my life, really. instead of re-examining my intentions for continuing a blog in a blogsphere where a new one comes out every 37 seconds, i think i'm just going plough on (hopefully not in an agricultural way, haha!) and try to entertain as much as i can.

when i was in Pangkor, i rented a bike and went out on the first day, before anything official had started. the island was small enough to go around it in 30minutes by bike, over very challenging steep hills, difficult even for a motorcycle.

eventually we cycled the damn island, but that's another story.

on my way back, i saw that there was a ship being built. from wood! so i stopped and had a chat and took pictures.

this was what i saw first from the roadside:

already this boat looked like it will never capsize, only 1.5 months into its life.

i've always liked boats that were built from scratch - the hard wood, the traditional approach, the stability of the step-by-step - our ancestors used to cut down a large trees and hollow them out and voila! a dug-out canoe. and used those canoes to go all around the world - even out onto the open ocean where they couldn't see the other piece of land and didn't know where they were going.

i spoke to the guy who was sitting by the roadside, watching other people scurry around the boat. he looked like a boss-man. like many working men, his answers were succinct. exclamation marks are my own - he answered in a monotone. here's the FAQ:

Q: how much does that boat cost?

A: RM400,000!

Q: how long will it take you to build it?
A: 6 months.
Q: where do you get the wood?
A: Pahang.
Q: how many feet is this one?
A: 65-footer.

Q: what wood is it? A: cengal batu for the sides, and cengal for the mainframe.
Q: how much is it? A: RM7000/tonne for cengal batu, RM4000/tonne for cengal, and prices are increasing.

the mainframe - how they start with the skeleton. it's the third contract, and they'll start on it after finishing the other one.

this is what the fish-eye view of the boat is - i had to scramble underneath the boat to get this shot, all the whole worrying that it'll all collapse on me. i tried punching the wood as well, just to test its hardness - harder than steel! the electric saws that they use to cut them into shape, has to have their blades changed (not sharpened, but replaced) every 2 months!!

Q: are you the boss?
A: no, i'm the engine man.
Q: wow! how much is an engine?
A: RM200,000.
Q: wow! how many BHP?
A: (i'm vague about the answer, i think it was around 600bhp)
Q: what are the propellers made of?
A: bronze. bronze!!
Q: how big are they?
A: 80 inches! (that's longer than i am tall!)

Q: how many boats get built a year?
A: last year, only 2 contracts. this year this is the 2nd contract. so far 3 contracts this year.
Q: how long will they last?
A: 30 years maybe.

the boat is taking shape, especially from the sides. note the amount of nails (1cm diameter) that are hammered in. on average, around 20% of nails get bent if hammered in wrongly, because the wood is so hard.

Q: if fibreglass fishing boats are so much cheaper (i know they are around RM100,000 for a 30-footer), why build a wooden boat? A: it's usually sturdier in the water, and their fathers used to fish in a wooden boat too.

taking a break - i wonder if his father used to build boats too. it's such an art, and there are no textbooks, and they serve apprenticeships for 5-7 years before they become a full-fledged boat-builder. i hope this never dies out.

obituaries, and why i love them

2008-04-04T01:28:00.000+08:00

macabre huh? tonnes of people die every day, and some are very famous and have their own obituaries plastered across newspapers all over the world, most recently like Benazir Bhutto.

yet others aren't so famous in that way, but they were important people in Mathematics or Marine Biology perhaps, or they were a champion horse jockey, or a brilliant First Violinist in the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra, or a notorious prankster, or a war photographer, or the screenwriter for Gone With The Wind, or a noted Egyptologist, or the creator of the modern jet turbine, or a world-famous restorer of medieval Japanese swords, or a million other people who deserve as much attention as the Hitlers and Monroes of our time.

the Greek god of Death is Thanatos, and not surprisingly there is a branch of human knowledge that studies death, and it is called Thanatology. students will read about how cultures deal with death, the social anthropology of death, religious and medical implications of death, and so on.

obituaries fascinate me because death brings a distinct clarity to our souls, and the achievements of the dead (while they were alive) stand out very clearly. obituaries show us exactly what these "obscure" people have accomplished, and best of all, we will listen and appreciate for a change, because ALL cultures honour the dead, and the least we can do to honour them, is by listening, and remembering, and appreciating.

death is so final, and such a reminder of how temporary things are, that obituaries share its finer qualities - an encapsulation of a person's life from womb to tomb in less than 1000 words and a picture. we are reminded in one brief article how short our lives really are, but how much beauty and achievement we can cram in a few short years - obituaries serve as a reminder of the gallantry of human effort, as well as the inevitability of our passing.

***

i read obits from The Economist and The New York Times, and i came across this brilliant set of questions to the NYT's Obit Chief, and his equally succinct replies:

1. How do you go about approaching famous people while they're still alive to request an interview for their future obituaries?
2. Do you seek interviews only with those in good health, or also those known (or rumored) to be sick or in decline?
3. Do your reporters in such interviews delve into touchy subjects or disputed events and facts of a subject's life?
4. Do famous people tend to try to whitewash or aggrandize their pasts?
5. Does anyone ever spill the beans about their role in unsavory events, or candidly confess to unflattering actions on their part?
6. Does The Times ever promise to embargo juicy, newsworthy details until the subject has died?
7. Has any famous person ever succeeded in pulling the wool over your (The Times's) eyes?
8. Does The Times ever gloss over, or omit entirely, the sordid details of a famous person's death?
9. Obituaries usually get the last word about a person. Does that place any special burden on you?

1. Directly but also delicately.
2. All of the above.
3. They had better.
4. I think you know the answer to that one
5. Not to my knowledge, but it's what we live, hope and pray for.
6. Yes, always. That's the deal, and sometimes the carrot.
7. I'm guessing: Yes.
8. We may not be needlessly graphic, but we don't ignore them.
9. I think so. And many people think of a Times obit as the last last word. So it's a double weight.

***

it's hard not to put a sombre tone on this post, but any levity will only destroy the sanctity of Death. obits make me stop and feel for a while, but sometimes they also make me laugh! :-)

***

just before i click post, i realise that today is the Chinese All-Soul's Day, when we pray to those who have left us, and it's 4/4/08 as well. i'm not exactly superstitious... but shudder!

two weeks of not blogging

2008-04-01T18:39:00.002+08:00

when you come back from a holiday and you haven't blogged for some time, you have lots of stories to tell and you feel like telling them all, but it'll take time, and you prefer to do things verbally, because they're interesting stories, which can potentially go flat if they're read and not heard - and you love to see people's eyes light up when you tell them a story, something you cannot see when you're writing something down and won't ever know who reads them.

and the tremendous amount of blogs in the world these days is commensurate with the information explosion that is happening all over the world. everyone with a blog thinks their own opinions and stories are the most interesting thing in the world, when in actual fact, the readership is largely numbering in the double-digits. perhaps including this one, haha!

so with so many blogs coming up, who's going to read them? we have to read our friends' blogs (no matter how boring) because it's socially important. we catch up with a few we're interested in, and we follow a few religiously because we love reading them. this is in addition to updating our own blog - the sourcing of stories, the typing, the proofreading and the is-this-interesting-enough questions we ask ourselves... on top of our work commitments, or family, or sports, or reading, or pleasant conversations. how ever do we find the time??

***

i spent 2 weeks in pangkor with voonhoong, my best buddy for 5 years from UKM. we shared a room, and in general behaved at a constant low level of rebelliousness.

the second last day we were there, we decided to go kayaking to Pangkor Laut. we made it there and was swimming in Emerald Bay before we were chased away after 30minutes by the guard. on our way back, we decided to go in between two rocky outcrops, as it was the quickest way back.

nearing the two outcrops, we encountered turbulent water, and despite full strength rowing for 5 minutes, we remained absolutely at a standstill! so we put on our lifejackets (we had taken them off to get an even tan), and rowed full strength for another 5 minutes, and again got nowhere!

when the first doubts entered our heads, along comes a motorboat with a 19 year old at the helm. he asked if we were okay, and said that the water is a little turbulent. for a moment, we didn't want to ask for help (chauvinistic idiots), but after a second thought, agreed to let them pull us to safety. so we held on to their boat, and they pulled us out of the area of turbulence, and we kayaked the rest of the way back to shore.

phew! i'm alive! we are both agnostic/free-thinkers, but we were moved to spend a minute's silence in the hotel room afterward.

ind(octrination)uction

2008-03-14T09:08:00.002+08:00

malaysia is one of probably a few countries in the world that practises systematic propaganda. the others perhaps are DPRK, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe and the Congo.

i'm going for a 2 week program in Pangkor, where pharmacists, dentists and doctors come together starting today for a Kursus Induksi Am dan Khusus Untuk Gred UD41. it basically means that we'll spend the entire day listening to lectures such as:

1. how many days leave, and how to apply, and what's the structure of your pay scale, and what's a golden handshake.
2. the inner workings of Parliament and how laws are passed.
3. the political parties in Malaysia and "comments" about the process.

maybe since we now have a new State Government they'll be asking us to support the Government!

off to the beach for two weeks - some swimming, running, reading will be fun! gosh... i still do have that road race on March 29! no chance for total relaxation huh?