settling in

yeah.. i'm finally working..
and its tough...

well not so tough now that i've finished tagging
just so that i can feel a little bit proud of myself for making it through 2 weeks of what i feel where endless nights... literally night because i almost never saw the sun... haha...
6am in the nursery till 12am.. then its sleep and then back to work for 14days... except for weekends when i get to go back in the evening at about 7 or 8 after work is done...
so yeah.. no sun for about 14 days..
don't ask me how much weight i've lost... tekjee's mum commented that i looked really haggard, and i suspect that its only partially due to the fact that i shaved once every week on saturdays only...

but well.. i think i've managed to replenish my sleep debt already, now that i've been able to go home at 6pm on weekdays now and about 1 pm on weekends... so yeah... i'm getting used to working life like this... on calls are starting next week.. first call next week... so hope nothing really bad happens..

otherwise, since i've arrived in kuching... i've been really really missing home and all my friends in semenanjung... imu and church... i really wish we could have our own hospital where only imu ppl work.. hahaha

but i God has been really good to me since i arrived here... first of all.. there was tekjee and family who housed us in their house for the first week.. then tekjee and khungying brought us around before all our cars arrived, arranged for us to go to KWSP, immigration and all that work kinda stuff paperwork...
then we moved into his house.. and the girls moved into another house... and then the chin family let's see... washed our clothes for us... got the washing machine working.. got our streamyx for us... got our satellite tv working... not to mention we have a fully furnished house, which they continued to add kitchen stuff like an electric stove and various pots and pans.. air conditioned rooms.. heated showers.. and the water meter got stolen once too, tekjee's brother got it fixed in a day so that we had to go without water for only 1 night... just to put it shortly.. tekjee, his mum and his brother have really been a blessing to us.. without them, it would have been hard to imagine getting through tagging without all our basic amenities.. in hindsight... it was REALLY dumb to start work immediately before settling all those stuff... but well.. thanks to them, everything got sorted out...

its also worth mentioning that my perodua car dealer was a great guy who settled all my car paperwork for me, fetched me from the bank to settle my bank draft, and well... i'm just thankful i have a working car to use now... i'm also very thankful to dad who put in the money so that i wouldn't have to struggle with the loan.. yeah... so now... i've finally managed to pen down my gratefulness to all the people who've helped me settled down here in kuching...

well... its 2 years and more... so i'm going to have to fit in here and get used to life here... so, hopefully i don't just survive here.. but am able to LIVE here to the fullest... now i just need to find a church with a PM service... buy all those little things that'll make me comfortable with my room and car.. and everything will be ok...

i'm planning to come back some time in january... so if my leave is approved.. i'll be able to be back for maybe 4-5 days hopefully... might be too much to wish for to come back on CNY.. ahahha... so the next thing i need now is... my pay to come in.. hahahaha...

Work

yeah... i'm finally starting work..
just finished induction last week... will be packing and resting at home today before flying tmr at 3pm, then reporting for duty on tuesday...
today felt.. surreal... the combination of sleeplesness and sadness from saying bye to some of the closest friends i've ever known...
i know that i'll be missing most of all, sze siew, christina, hailiang, fengko, kimkwan, kexin, seowfan, yeangwee, sabrina.. (cpei i'll be seeing in kch.. hehe)
but i guess life won't be the same without this... "family" that i've come to know and really love...
there are others that i'll miss too that i did not mention because if i did, i would be naming the whole batch...
kuching will be a very different life without all these friends... it will be a new journey i suppose... one that i'm half looking forward and half reluctant to start on...
church too will be very missed... i suppose i will find a church there.. but it won't be anything like canaan i know... daniel, peter, brandon, joshua, leena, mok, joyce, yibing... many others that have filled my life with joy and meaning...

i hope i live up to my expectations as a doctor, my friends expectations, my expectations, my parents expectations, mostly.. God's expectations...

life and time changes many things, but hopefully these things don't change in my life.. God, my family and my friends...

Yeah.. i know this blog died..
i think i was in the midst of exams..
well.. since that time.. i've graduated from IMU as a doctor..
i suppose i've always felt torn between my friendships in church and in IMU

well.. in a way.. i suppose... now i don't have to be torn anymore...
now hopefully... it all starts anew..

died

oops....
i think i've left this blog to suffer and die for too long dy..
as you can see on the right... the chat box died also...
haha... don't know when my next update will be... but will be busy (as usual)
preparing for exams...
haaha.. maybe when i'm finally done... and (hopefully) graduated i'll be able
or rather.. i'll have the desire to start blogging again..
till then :)

it was fun..

hmm....

hmm.....
hm hm hm hm hm...

i think studying does this to me...
inable to make conversation...
hmm hmm hmmm hmmm...

holiday

yeah.. in case you don't know...
i'm on holiday :) one week break...

but this is some wierd kinda holiday...
going starbucks to study everyday... studying more than during study time...
hehe.. but i think i can get used to living like this...
study in day...
play at nite...
hahaha...

yeah.. hope everyone's having a fun break...

random pics

just some random pics i've accumulated but din have time or lazy to blog down...

feel free to bring them in.. just don't leave them behind... lol.. i think the pengarah has a soft heart and can't help picking up strays...

who says money doesn't grow on trees... if you know where this came from... then you'll know that money DOES grow on trees... hahahaha... this pic is so meaningful if you think about it...

hahaha.. i have simply no idea where this came from... but i still love it...

a coke for those occasions when u just feel trapped... and for 31st of August too...

yes indeed... therefore it will suck to your face... hahahahaha... can someone enlighten me on what this could vaguely mean...

depression

Derpession_by_cesaraugusto

*words mine own

firstly... i'm not depressed...

not now anyway...

but i have been before... and i suppose there are many who at some point in their lives have felt that way before... or maybe still are...

which is why as i was browsing through deviantart.. this prose struck me.. and i thought it would mean something for myself and for whoever reads it... 

if you've ever been depressed before i guess it helps to know that.. you're not alone

Depression by ~pixijane

I've heard so many people tell those who suffer depression to just 'cheer up.' I wonder if they can really believe that it’s that simple. 

Depression isn't just sadness. It is emptiness, it is misery. It is pain and nothingness at once. When you are truly depressed you lack the ability or will to cheer yourself up. No one just ‘has depression.’ You suffer from it. This is depression:

You will wake at 5, 6, maybe 7am, feeling as though you had only just fallen asleep. It’s likely you did. If you don't have to be somewhere, you could lie in bed for another 3 hours...too tired, too miserable and pathetic to crawl out of you bed. Or maybe you will sleep until 1pm, because it’s so much easier to sleep through most of the day than actually live it, and you’re so unbelievably tired anyway. You will push through the day, knowing that every hour will be a struggle and not knowing how you will feel tomorrow. People will ask what is wrong, and you will simply smile and say 'nothing, I'm just tired.' Yes you are tired. You are so tired of drifting through every day, with no will to actually live. But you simply smile, and they'll believe you. It’s so much easier to lie anyway, and most of the time you can push away the guilt.  Sometimes you might find a way out, temporary as it may be. You might write or draw or sing. Or you might cut, burn, binge, purge, drink, starve, scratch, pull, overdose...anything to take your mind away from the utter misery it seems to be so obsessed with. What you don't know is that soon these acts will take over your thoughts. You will spend your days not only lost in the haze of depression, but your mind will be so consumed with these thoughts of escaping and self destruction that you think you could explode. You will see a series of lines, and think of the lovely scars you could make, where you will make them. Your mind will be permanently spinning with thoughts of this pain, and different ways you might destroy yourself or, more precisely, this monster inside you. But of course none of this will work. You will still spend your night alone, sitting and staring at nothing, completing mindless tasks as if they have some importance, as if you are really there. Be careful where you let your mind wander. Night time is the darkest time in depression. That's when all the demons come out, when you become weaker. It is when you will hurt yourself simply to make the urges stop for 5 minutes. It is when you will spend hours crying or screaming for no reason other than the agony inside. You will shake and feel as though your whole body will cave in or explode. No one will understand. You do not have hospital beds, drips, bandages or needles to make people worry. To make them realize that this sad little girl is actually sick and needs help. Of course the depression will have destroyed any self esteem you might have had, so you'll be too scared to ask for the help you need. You just go on, hoping someone will notice your slow, meticulous self-destruction. Don’t worry, it won’t always be so bad. Some days you might even feel stable. You might walk tall for one day, feeling a glint of hope that maybe one day things will get better, that things are getting better and you have the strength to fight. Then one small thing will go wrong, and you’ll fall apart all over again. You feel stupid for even considering that things could get better. 

Have you ever felt as though your whole body could just crumble any minute? Just crumble and fall apart, like it’s lost anything it had holding it together. That’s what it feel like all the time to be depressed. That raw fragility. It feels as though the smallest disruption in our life, or in your head, or in the world, could send everything spiraling downwards. And it can. The tiniest mistake can cause you to hate yourself more than you could possibly imagine. The smallest crack in your world can make it all seem pointless.

Depression destroys any resources you have. Any strength or courage you kept stored away for emergencies. So if the tiniest little storm hits, you are left to trying to survive the ravages of a cyclone without a life boat. It wears you down and even the smallest crack can seem like an earthquake and every minute is spent waiting for the next shake. And then one day, you will find yourself curled up on your bedroom floor, sobbing, because you can’t find anything to wear. Every little thing is just more proof of how worthless you are.

Eventually, you begin to expect it. You anticipate the bad times, because you know the good times are just fooling you. And they are filled with fear and anxiety over when everything will come crashing down again. You are always waiting for the next breakdown. You’ve become so accustomed to feeling miserable, that happiness is a foreign feeling that you won’t even let yourself experience. You don’t deserve it. So you become numb, which at times, is worse than the full-blown screaming and crying depressive ‘episodes.’ You find yourself begging to hurt again, because any feeling is better than feeling nothing at all.

Depression is one of the cruelest of all illnesses. You see, it’s much easier to fight when you can see an end to it all. When you know that in the end you will either win or lose. But whatever the outcome, the war will be over. The thing about depression is it blurs your perception of the future and makes it near impossible to see that end. You start to think that there’s no such thing as ‘winning’ and why bother fighting if you already know the outcome. It gradually strips you of any hope you previously had. And without hope, it’s difficult to see a future or a reason to fight.

*edit: i just realized how hopeless this article may sound... 

but if you clicked the above picture, you would read what i believe is my answer to the hopelesness

heaven and earth

reaching for heaven, i cannot hold on to earth
holding on to earth, i cannot reach for heaven.

something to look forward to

in life... in order to be happy, one must have something to look forward to...

like for most of us... after the end of a long and tiring week... we look forward to friday and the weekend...

but i realized this morning, that just having the weekend itself isn't much... there must be something to be done to look forward to... an event... something to do... something to eat... someone to meet... 

haha.. i haven't thought about what i'm looking forward to this weekend... but being able to do nothing seems nice... lol... unless someone has more interesting stuff to suggest? (=

ugly

heh.. competition can bring out the worst in you..

i remember on the first day in batupahat, DK briefed us for a while on life here...

most of us would remember him mentioning to us not to fight for portfolio cases cos' the cases are plentiful... and that he had heard of even boyfriend and girlfriends breaking up over cases...

hehe.. i laughed and thought... why would anyone want to fight over a case...

haha...

competition really can bring out the worst in you...

its third week...

and in surgery... because of the many "exclusion criteria" and because of the small number of patients...

there is an overwhelming struggle for each and every case...

some of us have been nice and given away cases to those who don't have...

some... try to hog and stuff like that...

well...

yeah i suppose its easy to be a batch of unity when your actions only affect your ownself... 

heh, not so easy when u have to fight over limited resources...

i'm not worried...

i still believe the cases will come...

somehow... :)

2nd week

heh.. 2nd week in batu pahat.. and feels like my second month...

too many reports.. portfolios...

and i haven't even started studying =_=...

heh.. on the other hand... just found a church to go to...

and i guess.. after sometime...i can get used to going on call almost every day...

haha.. after this, once a week on call is a piece of cake.. lol

otherwise.. i've just recoverd from a super-acute bout of AGE/food poisoning... after KO-ing for almost 10 hours last night...

well, thank God i'm ok now before starting the week again...

heh.. new week... aih.. hope to finish all my reports in time...

Batu Pahat

in batu pahat...

don't know whether i'm happy that i passed sem 9...

or whether i'm dreading the long hours in sem 10...

previously in s'ban.. "free" was if we didn't have any classes or if we left before lunch... or something like that...

heh.. how different...

in batu pahat.. "free" is if we don't have on call...

in surgery...

on call is from 7-11pm... 3 days a week=every other day... and i'm on call this weekend =_=

hahaha... today i'm off call... thank God internet's come on...

heh.. i guess i don't mind surgery...

its just the loooonnngggg hours...

but i suppose that's housemanship...

heh... yay.. 2 more hours left of my off call day...

i'm SOOOOO looking forward to sunday...

*the worst is yet to come... O&G on call is until 5am... 

O_o|||

T_T

short break

having a short break now...
so... till monday i'm having HOLIDAY!!.. haha.. miss this feeling...
today is stay at home day...
had been in penang and moving to batu pahat the previous few days... and before i knew it.. its friday.. heh.. my holiday's over before i even realized it began...

so anyway... tmr i'll be around.. and then... i'm gonna be back to batu pahat on sunday, starting my FINAL SEMESTER...
TFTD is right... its like a dream...

beginnings and endings

almost there... just an hour more of exams...

its not the end...

its not even the beginning of the end...

but this is at least the end of the beginning...

pseudo quarantine

i'm stuck in the library...

waiting for the last group to finish their exam...

actually i'm not quarantined... supposedly can go home...

but i have to wait until ss finish cos' hl needs to fetch her back...

and he doesn't want to wait alone...

so i'm bored here...

heh... unable to go home and sleep after exam... sien...

looking beyond exams

exams suck... quite frankly... they do... 

for many professions they represent the ultimate obstacle to the goal that lies ahead...

that is... Graduation

somewhere along the way i realized with a start that exams aren't actually an end to themselves...

although all through out our undergraduate years we prepare, slog and torture ourselves to prepare ourselves to this end... we actually don't do this for our exams...

because the exams aren't actually the purpose of this whole journey...

they are merely the ends to a means... which is to make us... 

good doctors...

i AM going to graduate...

this exam is merely a means to make me qualified enough...

because ultimately these exams don't matter that much...

they're just an obstacle impeding our view of what lies ahead..

a life as a doctor..

i'm no longer afraid... because i know what lies ahead... 

and when i look back i won't even remember this obstacle...

operasi teh kundur

the weather has been rather unpleasantly warm the past few days...

i suspect both due to exams as well as being physically hot...

so... to cool down... in more ways than one...

i decided to buy TEH KUNDUR

also known as winter melon tea...

when big obstacles come your way.. it helps to turn your attention to "lesser problems"

so i bought a 24 packet pack of teh kundur...

which only after i bought i realized i have less than a week to finish...

haha.. no problem.. i'll just increase my fluid intake...

but teh kundur is nice...

sorry if this post seems irrelevant... but exams are stressful times... 

and teh kundur helps in more ways than one...

bottoms up (=

half way

ok.. half way through...

i think i still can make it...

don't lose confidence...

don't lose focus now...

the exam is only now starting...

start game

Starting game in 5

4..

3..

2..

NO leaver please..

1..

heh...

started game yesterday with MEQ...

this opponent is super pro... gyne took first blood while everyone was still busy farming on medicine... the paeds took a triple, TRIple, TRIPLE kill!!!....The Scourge is Owning!!!

so far.. its 50-50 i think with some pity from the examiners i hope i can pass MEQ... tomoro OSPE is about mid-game when all the ITEMS will start coming out... hopefully the opponents items are not too pro... then there will be about almost a week before the end-game...

in that time we HAVE to farm out OUR items for the last push so that the SENTINEL can be victorious and we don't have to be leavers...

all the best... 

glhf...

don't leave... in this game literally... 

leavers are noob...

hope we ALL can make it through...

remake

remake, remake...

its not too late to remake...

stop dreaming.. wake up and start preparing...

9 more days...

still can make it.. don't regret later

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed

lost

lost and sien

Happy Chinese New Year

HAppy ChinesE neW Year!!

don't think so much... play hard now, study hard after this :)

the hero

unexpectedly he came..

flying in through the window uninvited...

all in the house was quiet... busy studying (or trying to)

and then... he ATTACKED!!!

quick reflexes saved me... enabling me to utilise

the DAGON!!

and the BURIZA!!

to obtain victory!!!

here lies the body of another fallen hero...

heh... just bored from studying... or trying to... lol

quiet at home

its been a lonely quiet couple of days at home since monday...

i've been leaving before my housemates are awake...

and when i'm back hl's alredi hidden in his room... 

feng ko is sleeping already... he's quite gg'd past few days due to some overwhelming septicemia i think... saw him briefly in school today...

oh ya... and there's jac... yeah... don't normally see her anyway.. lol

aih... wonder if this is bcos' of the exam season...

trying to keep an upbeat mood...

think i'm failing miserably...

i can't think of something to look forward to tmr...

look out, look ahead

today datuk huat mentioned during lunch that normal ppl look forward to the months of december, january and february... haha.. not us... those 3 months have been nightmare months for all of us since we started med school... always the Exam Finals months...

i guess its hard to keep on going strong when ur failings loom large in your face, 

and hope seems like the clouds far above that are out of reach...

but i suppose if we keep looking at the problem, the problem seems to grow bigger (kinda like how you can see the bacteria thru the microscope by looking longer... lol)

to break the cycle of exams and stress, i suppose maybe the only way is to look away...

look ahead to the good things in store after that... 

look out of the troubles we have now to the good things that have and are happening to us...

it's the best of times, it's the worst of times...

ironically it is during the best of our time.. when we're on holiday or in sem8... that we drift away from each other because we're so busy having fun...

and ironically it is during the worst of times...

during our exams... that we cling closer to each other and find strength in our friendship with each other because we need each other so much more...

try again

had been suffering from an acute bout of loss of confidence these past few days due to a Dato' comment...

coupled with late nights and early mornings and no afternoon naps...

add on a friendly patient that i had been talking to, who was supposed to go home who ended up fainting and delirious last night...

its been a tough couple of days...

ahh... its wednesday going on thursday...

exam stress is setting in...

and confidence is dropping low...

but well, 

i suppose if you want strength, God'll put you in a position of weakness so He can support you

2009

first day of 2009!!

yay!! another year gone by...

a new year to look forward to...

in case you didn't know... I'm sure u didn't...

2009 has been desginated (according to wikipedia)

International Year of Astronomy

International Year of Natural Fibres

International Year of Reconciliation

the coming year is going to be full of beginnings and endings...

ending seremban... beginning batu pahat...

and later... ending batu pahat... beginning work as a DOCTOR!! (hopefully)

ahh... which brings me back to studies =_=