people

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Its the end with a new beginning

i can't believe its a day away from a new year. time flies so fast that you don't realize it. i am still pissed with my maxis-celcom transfer. its been 6 days and i havent been able to use my 012 at all. 6 days....that's a long time and i can imagine how many smses i have yet to answer. tomorrow i am ordering my brother to go to celcom to resolve the issue. i cant go out during lunch time,its too packed. i enjoyed my christmas eve dinner with my family, i hogged all the turkey bones as usual. I recieved a case of Benefit brushes, and a benefit eyecolor package from my mother. my brother gave me a self made calender. in it he put the ugliest pic of me that he could find, and the rest of the calender was full of pictures of himself looking his best. aisey....what to do,he made the calendar himself so i just have to accept. i went back to kpg the next day....and i recorded my nephew dancing like mad to 3 iban songs. He's a cute fella, he twists his body like a cacing when he dances, its entertaining to watch.
i had my first oncall on 26th.i had 6 cases, and i didn't sleep or eat dinner cos i was kinda slow, and too many blood investigations to do. i'm sure others would have had worse oncalls than me, and the next day after work i just crashed on the sofa sleeping like a dead log. its scary and exciting to be oncall. the only thing is to be kinda careful when to inform the mo about the cases. my mo for the night got kinda irritated by midnite, probably cos i was kinda slow in doing work and he was getting sleepy. i am dreading passive call in the nursery, that place is scary.
well, whatever it is, i am anticipating new years eve, and after that its just the monotonous everyday routine of waking up early and coming back from work. i have already sorta planned my dream vacation in two years time- christmas and new years in either US or Vancouver. i miss the cold and the snow and the real xmas feeling. so i told my bro that i would like to see snow again...and i am so going to work hard and save money for my snowy xmas.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Merry xmas- but i have to work



Merry xmas to everyone and i hope you all are in good holiday spirits!! I just completed my 10 day tagging on sunday. my first oncall will be on the 26th, and boy am i scared and excited. The tagging period was very tough for me. i had about 3-4 hours sleep at night. i came to work at 5.30 am and leave at 11pm. its so tiring, and there were lots of new things that i had to adjust to. I also have to be super careful in what i do. Because the culture here is that when something goes wrong, the houseman will be the first to get the blame, and no one will cover for you. i am still slow in taking blood and doing ward rounds. but i am improving. i had a period of depression last saturday after i came back from work. i was so tired, and i x even feel happy having dinner with my family. i felt like crying and quitting my job. Luckily my other friends who started the same time as me felt the same way too. i get to go back around 5.30 everyday, which is a good thing. i don't know how i am going to survive my oncall, i just know that i need lots of coffee with me to stay awake.
I do love my job. every morning i almost always have this fresh enthusiasm to start work. Alas throughout the end of the day my mood gets spoiled one way or another. its also kind of irritating sometimes when everyone asks you a question and you are expected to know the answer, from the nurses to the patients. Paeds in kuching is okay, initially i thought it would be very bad, but so far i have adjusted to it. The cases here are less varied than what i see in seremban, but that's ok. the good thing about the wards here are that they have air-con, something which a lot of the adult wards x have. I also sleep pretty early nowadays. i tend to crash on my bed by 10pm. i have to wake up about 4.30am just to get ready to reach the hospital by 6 am. Now i know why my seniors discourage us to take up medicine. it looks and sounds glamorous, but there is SO much hard work to be done. its fine with me that you want to study medicine for whatever reason, but be prepared to be xtremely overworked for the next two years.
For xmas, most of my relatives will be coming back to celebrate it. my dad is in charge of everything, as i usually am too tired in the evenings to do anything. This year, however i x feel the joyous spirit as i was too depressed from working nonstop. Perhaps next year would be a better year for me. Have a nice and happy holiday, god bless!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

starting work



I went to register myself as a government worker this tuesday. it was scary and exciting at the same time as there were about 20 of us in the room. Most were grads from russia and ukraine, a few were from uk, and 4 of us from imu. After those who were supposed to be working in sibu left to catch their plane, it was 10 of us housemans' who were going to work in kuching. We seemed to get along together, and the grads from russia and ukraine are friendly and nice. The first day was just filling up loads and loads of forms, and it took us the whole day. Then i had to rush to open up my EPF account and register myself as a new tax payee (boo!!!!). These past two days sees our group getting acquainted with the lab and the hospital. I have been posted to the paediatrics ward, and i've just gotten my HO logbook today. My god, the procedures that i MUST perform seem scary, cos i've never done them during my paeds posting. Lumbar puncture, suprapubic aspiration, umbilical vein catheterization.....i think i'll be ok in a few weeks more. Tomorrow i start tagging in the wards. Work time is from 7am til 11pm. so, i'll be housebound in the wards for the next two weeks. I went out this evening and had some fattening fast food and bought some chocs. Goodbye world. Hello sleepless nights.
I can't wait for christmas though, because its the only time of the year where i really feel like there's something worth celebrating. I have not celebrated gawai in over 5 years, so the feeling is not there. The Spring has some nice xmas trees, riverside is devoid of any. I love seeing the gifts that the body shop has to offer, it looks nice. I'm just glad i did my xmas shopping in kl, cos there are more gift packages and better offers. This will be my last post in the next two weeks. I expect myself to be like the poor guy above, starting from tomorrow nite :(

Saturday, December 06, 2008

A piece of my heart



I just came back from my induction and btn today. The picture above was taken at cherating beach where we had the induction. Most of my classmates were there.

1. Induction
the induction was held at a sortof apartment hotel next to the beach. i brought my swimsuit and goggles just in case i felt like swimming. Couldn't, cos it was the monsoon season, and the swimming pool was inappropriately located. Its a boring two weeks with a very tough (and unfair!) exam at the end. the good thing is, i got to see my classmates again with all the dramas that follow them. If someone were to say that IMU C1/06 students are crazy-happy, i couldn't agree more. I have to admit that i am also crazy (in a fun way) at times. i also have to conclude that each of my batchmates have a unique personality, which makes our batch one of the most liked by our lecturers. we also had a medical officer and a med grad from pakistan joining us
the lectures were nonstop from 9am till 11pm. and the lectures were so dry that most of us fell asleep after listening for 1 hour. the only interesting and important topics were about allowances, cuti and kenaikan gaji. So i threw the rest of the file away, and pray to god that i x have to go for induction for another time.
i also managed to see a bit of Kemaman, Terengganu as its just 15 mins drive away from cherating. The keropok lekor here is soooo nice compared to the dry hard ones in kl. i bought about rm5, and can actually finish it by myself. i also went to the most famous coffee shop there and had to agree that the coffee was indeed nice. I thought the spaghetti with asian fusion was weird though....they put sardines in it.
I hated going for senaman pagi for two weeks. i usually slept late about 1pm, and sometimes even 4 am cos i had a cold and was coughing nonstop all night. I had to wake up at 6 am in the morning to get ready. And if i x come, i'll get aXed by the timbalan penghulu. its as if i was back in tadika or something. i did jog at the beach once, and its so nice to feel the sea breeze when you're running. The waves here are fantastic, and it rains on most evenings. The breakfast prepared by the hotel sucks big time, but their tea breaks are fantastic. The government spends a lot of money fattening us up. They give us 6 meals per day, the last being supper at 11.15 pm. Another thing, the coffee at the hotel tastes like tea, and tea here tastes like condensed milk.
We also had to do public speaking for 3 mins during the second week. The most touching story i heard was jenson's, cos i x know how hard his life was. After that, most ppl including me had a newfound respect for him. To be honest, its not easy being him, cos he's bullied almost everyday and he takes it all instride. I remember him during the semester 3 imu cup when his shoe flew off while he was running and the other guys stripping him down. That was really funny. He has now turned out to be one of our most liked batchmates. The exams, like i said are tough. cos the items that we have to read is like 1 big file, in just a few nights. essays and mcq's. the final day we had a sukaneka, and it was the first time i had to build a sandcastle! Pathetic, but yes, that's me. To see the sandcastles, go to facebook and click on Joy's page cos he was the official photogarapher. I'm just proud to say my castle came complete with a defense tower and crocodiles in the moat!!! At night we had a farewall dinner, and each group had to do a dance or song. My group had to do a belly dance, which was embarassing. It was a fun night for all of us, and i coughed the whole night away cos i was so tired.

2. BTN
We had to go for this gov course on the same day we checked out of induction. The journey was 3 hours cos it was in kuala lipis, hometown of siti nurhaliza. This course was for 5 days and we had to wear black and white only. Thanks to a friend of mine who went a few years ago, i was able to borrow her baju kurung. The bathroom was like a communal bath, and because i x want the other girls to see my body fats, i opted to bathe in the toilets that have a pail. its not so torturous as induction, and its slightly more interesting, like relearning high school history. They continued to overfeed us here, and the way we eat was like in military, according to groups. it did make those in the group closer to each other. Otherwise, it still was boring. My personal achievement was completing the 2km run in 17 mins as i was still coughing like hell. ANd there were 4 hills to go through. I never thought i could run for most of the course, as in the gym i could only stand running on the treadmill for 10mins. However, the next day both my knees were in pain, presumably from not doing enough stretching exercises and also the shock my body experienced from running so far so suddenly. The food here is not as nice as the hotel, but the tea and coffee is. the organisers even did repelling for us, and it is really scary to be at the top of a 40 foot building with your butt hanging in the air. We slept in a dorm, and that was really fun, cos you could chat with everyone at the same time. Sleeping and waking times were the same as during induction. I was even given a new nickname- bobohizan, for my ability to cause rain during the last day of repelling (i x want to do it cos my knees hurt). So the name sticks with me...and its not bad a nickname as the other i got from other friends. There was also another girl with special powers, she was aptly nicknamed ' kuasa mistik' . i x join jungle trekking on the last day as the bus back to kl left early. I hugged a lot of friends, and nearly felt tears at one point. I dreaded the last day because after that it will be extremely hard to see each other again. so this is what i think of batch C1/06:

All of us have our own unique personalities. Sometimes it may be hard for us to get along with each other. But at the end of the day, our batch is very united, and we all support each other in whatever way we can. It seems nothing can break up our togetherness. For that, i am extremely grateful, and happy that i got to know each and every one of you during the last 2 and a half years we studied together. Memories of our batch occupies 10% of my heart.
A lecturer in UM once told me that we should love ourselves 60%, and other people 40%. 10% out of 40% is big a space in my heart for me.
Thank you C1/06 for all the fun times, the good and the bad we shared together. I will always remember all of you.