Monday, February 11, 2008

Back to SG, CNY damage...

Whoa... CNY is over... so fast...one week gone. Just arrived back from Ipoh this morning. Was stuck at the Causeway for 2 hrs this morning, before finally reaching home at 745am. Gave the SMTP a miss, probably won't arrive there in time to enjoy much of it. So changed, washed up and head on to work. hehe....back to the normal daily routine again.

Chinese New Year was all in all, great fun for me. Started with Boss's dinner on Tues nite - great cook, the boss... but really don't like it when conversations veered off towards work issues. Then, the rush back to KL on the next day. Bought a SVIP (so called - there was a fly buzzing around me in the bus) bus ticket for RM80, then waited 2 hrs before finally boarding the bus. Arrived at KL around 6pm, all energised to meet up with my cousin. KL was as usual- dirrty, chaotic, smog-filled - but I loved it. Cousin picked me up, and off we go to Bangsar (house) where we had Domino's Pizza for dinner. Nice......

At night, me being the energetic, unable to sit down quietly person, suggested we headed out, and we did - to MidValley Megamall. haha...as expected, the stores were closed, well except for the Coach shop - irritated Rebecca (cousin) by taking an hr++ to decide on a handbag to buy ... yup .. I actually bought a handbag. Was thinking that I needed one after going to all the neat dinners carrying my Crumpler/Timbuk2 everwhere. Yayy!! ?First feminine achievement of the year... ?? oh well....

The next day, parents and brother came to pick me up from KL. Had pancakes for breakfast and spaghetti for lunch before leaving for home. Funny though, there was a traffic jam along Tanjung Malim area, caused by ??slow moving cars?? ... when can people ever learn, drive fast fast on a highway larr... anyway, finally arrived home -gasp- 3hrs later.. phew... was a really hot day.. At night, was the usual yum cha with Ah Pooi, Fipink, and the Seri Putra guys... Ivy was not back this year... read about her CNY in her blog.. interesting what happened..really.. some of the guys I have not met in ages already..haha... all looked the same, except more run down by the working life.. sigh... it was better when we were students :)

The next few nights were spent gambling (lost quite a bit there) and having fun pai nian. Had a Seri Intan reunion on Saturday..and wow- some were already married... amazing how fast time flies, I couldn't even recognize some of my old classmates. Feeling thaaaaat old now.... sob sob..
hehe...well, the next time I'll be back in Ipoh for CNY will probably be in another 4 yrs time or sth... but I did learned something new.. if it's the first year of marriage, you give out 2 angpows, so I swore not to come back during the my first year of marriage.. haha...

Time flew past fast when I was back home, was happy to be in the company of some of my oldest friends (Callie- I've think we've known each other since Standard 2) and closest companions (Beat- can do a pic of me and Jonathan Rhys Meyer - he's the bad guy in Mission Impossible ??3...pls pls pls) but damn... the CNY damage was big too.. think I gained like 2-3 kg in the past one week alone.. that would really put a dent in my marathon training.. hahaha.. need to start retraining today and bought the truDtox thing that KennySia tried..maybe it'll work on me too. It was great to be back home again after a looooooong hiatus... and I've got to give thanks to all who made it a wonderful occasion to come back to. May we all be safe in our journey through life, and be prosperous in all our future dealings..

Trudge on...

PS the Rafting trip is still on... pending election dates.. will confirm the dates after this coming Wednesday..

Monday, February 4, 2008

Languages... and their barriers..

Currently having no patients in my clinic, so decided to blog maybe the last post before we moved into the year of the rat (Yes people... babies in 2008 are now known as rat-tat-tou-ies). Ok, before I start on rat jokes.. Here's the deal..I'm sure everyone have encountered language barriers before, be it at work, or out of work. To me, being bilingual, helped me in the sense that I can speak Malay to the Malay patients, but I can't communicate with the Chinese only speaking patients (including all the dialects). Simple Chinese, be it Hokkien, Cantonese, Foochow.... maybe a speck of Hainanese I can make out throughout the years of medical school.. but when the people start to go off-tangent to tell me about their life stories...hm... a simple smile and nod is what they'll get out of me.. and somehow, sometimes it doesn't work even if from the start that you tell them you don't understand Chinese. I don't blame them though, some of the patients I see are more interested in telling me about their sons, daughters.. etc etc etc rather than the problems they came to see me for (or even worse, tell me about their blood pressure, diabetes... when I'm only seeing them for their sport injuries). Sometimes I feel like I'm their outward venue for venting.. even if I don't understand a word they say. Weird, huh?.. how some professions automatically makes you the "it" man for everything. Do this kinda stuff happen to others as well? That I wanna know. Like when you tell someone you're an engineer, do people start telling you about the car problem they had, even though you're an electrical engineer... hmm...or better yet, they tell you they had a car problem in Bangladeshi when you clearly do not understand a word they say :). hahahah.. that reminds of the time I had to examine a Bangladeshi patient, and the only thing I undestood was "amama, amama..." - his clear expression that he had pain when I was pressing over the pained area. Then when nearing the painful area again, it changed to "apapa, apapa...." hehehe...

I think the only time someone really irritated me was at 4am in the morning, and I was on call. I was sleepy, toilet deprived, with sore legs from thigh to toe, and hungry. I told the patient that I do not understand Chinese... and proceeded to questioning him since he understood sufficient English to answer my questions to keep him alive for the rest of the morning. I got quite pissed of when he asked me incessantly why I don't speak Chinese... am I from a baba clan? how come I "never" learn Chinese? Am I from overseas?.. I was almost at my wits end already and raised my voice at him. I think he was quite dissatisfied with me, but at 4am in the morning, clocking almost 21 hrs with no sleep or rest, that was the last thing on my mind... so I just shrugged off the matter, and disappeared to do the next nurse's bidding.. Hmm... moral of the story: don't piss anybody off at 12 to 6 am in the morning... no one likes to work without enough rest or sleep.. oh, and another thing, pls learn sufficiently enough of the most used language to have a proper conversation in the country you are about to live in. Translators are everywhere at times, but not when you need them urgently. :)

So.. to all, a Very Happy Chinese New Year!! have a very ratty year ahead...

trudge on..

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Love....

Wow...fast....even before we celebrate CNY, here's a post on Valentine's day already..hehe.. its not cos I'm love hungry or anything, but just so happened I got invited to a friend's wedding that got me thinking... why do some marriages fail while some other do so well...

For me, getting married sounds like a chore, it's more like something you do to make your relatives happy (or jealous) and to put mum and dad at ease. But, then again, I've always harbored this little childhood wish to walk down the aisle in a flowing white gown and at the end of it, looking at my future husband to be, how handsome he'll be and how reassuring he'll make me feel in front of everyone. But, that's just the first part of marriage, isn't it? After the honeymoon is over, things start to get a bit touchy. This is where some say that marriage is the biggest sign of commitment that a couple can ever have. It's not easy to be with only one person for the rest of your entire life.. which is very very long indeed... Even I find it hard to imagine that for the next 50-60yrs, I'll only be commited to one person, and one person only. That person will have to be my emotional support, and I, his... I'll have to put up with his crankiness... eccentricity... mood swings...etc etc etc.. wow...that can be a really big pill to swallow.. but, that was before I factor in real love into the equation..

So far, in my short and sad existance, I'm actually glad that I had a chance to feel what real love is, and thankful for it though it ended in an abrupt manner. Only now do I understand how some really succesful and happy couple can stand each other for eons before and eons to come. If you trully love someone, you would change for that person, and never expect that person to change for you. Succesful marriages have all this in common. Both the husband and wife adapt to each other, take interests in each others life, while never forcing the other to change for them. Any arguments were solved in a sort of rational manner, with both giving in into each other (maybe not in the same fight). Okay, I may not be married, but I do realised that I did changed a lot when I was in love.. a hell lot. I pushed away a lot of what I wanted to do and accomplish to adapt to the other person, spent a lot of my time trying to figure out what he wanted in life, and then trying my best to support him in any way I can. It worked out in a way, in the sense that I could feel him doing the same... then, when it ended, and I was working my way back to being by myself again .. it hit me that I really changed almost my whole life schedule, just to be with him.. amazing what love can do to a person.. and I guess that's what a marriage is really about. It's not about commitment in the end, I guess. It's really about falling way too deep into love, and with it comes commitment, passion, trust,.... bla bla bla...everything that is muttered in a wedding vow. When you're that deep in love, your spouse can do no wrong (unless judged by the court of law) cos you'll change yourself for him/her, and you'll learn to live with it. :) So for now... to Rahizan and Adlin... Congrats on your marriage!!!... I'm sure you'll be happy together cos you both love each other sooo much... :) Will be there at your wedding, so book me a seat, ok? And to all those out there celebrating the upcoming V-day.. think about how much you've changed since coupling up, cos to me, that's the greatest gift you can give to the person you love and best of all, this gift can only grow and make the both of you feel closer...

Happy Valentine's day on Feb 14th !!!

PS... Will try to link other blogs up.... still learning to use blogspot...