homecoming

My sweet little sister is coming back from her endless trip around Europe. Hehe, can't wait to her stories!! I miss the moment we literally bergayut on the phone for hours, and I ended up forgetting most of the things we talked about. Opps, sorry Mi! You know I love you, regardless of my couldn't-care-less attitude.

Last but definitely not least, thanks a bunch for the postcards you send me this year. I particularly like the one from Dartmoor and Lisbon. I didn't know Portugal is so beautiful!

ps: Please pay me a visit, special for your kakak...

the BIG secret

my secret hide-out

ps: sarah, may the curiosity cheer you up!

oncology month

It's over. My third rotation.
A quick recap: September rotation was on gastroenterology (medicine) with Dr Nasir Mahmud in SJH, November rotation was urology (surgery) under Mr Robert Flynn in AMNCH and the latest was this January, I spent the month with AMNCH oncology team lead by Dr Janice Walshe.

Firstly, a big thank you for them all:
Dr Janice Walshe (consultant oncologist)
~Wish you the best of luck with your first baby. You rock Dr Walshe! Which 36-week pregnant lady tattering in her 3-inch high heels all day long and maintain her undivided passion towards her patients? No wonder they love you so much! Enjoy your maternity leave, doctor. You're a real inspiring being. Good luck!

Dr Miriam O'Connor (specialist registrar & locum consultant)
~Miriam, thanks a lot for all the teaching. Now I think I did do an oncology rotation, not mere wasting my time running around a hospital and torturing my feet.

Dr Janusz (say Yenesz) Mezynski (registrar)
~I seriously feel like picking up a fight with you! I hate you but I like you. And I really do appreciate your effort. I understand you want the best for me, but please don't be too hard... I hope I can get back to you sometime near my exam to get lectured again *wink*

Dr Nadira Hamid (senior house officer)
~I wonder if you can speak malay. Wish that I can learn more from you but I understand there's lots of thing to do for the patients. ps: don't forget to go back to Singapore when you're tired of the money here. Heh-he.

Nolaigh O'Sullivan (oncology liaison nurse)
~I like your name. Soo Irish!

Dr Raymond McDermott (another consultant oncologist, not actually my consultant, but invited me to his teaching session since his student didn't turned up)
~ The cutest consultant I ever met.

and everyone else especially Webb Ward & Transition Unit staffs.
~You all are very nice and helpful.

Ahh~ one opportunity taken. Could have done more, but I am happy enough to leave. May the afterglow lasts.

Ready for action?
Coming up next: Head and Neck Surgery in St James' Hospital.

my first dream

I know that I'm not so ambitious. I think I could settle down with something basic and simple. Yet, as I was taking each turn down my lifeline, I looked back. Which of my decision had been an easy one?

While I usually have had the choices, that equally promising in their own senses, I would reach to the oddest. Am I so in love with challenges? Am I actually adventurous? Ha-ha!

I always believe (or made to believe) that there's something about myself yet to be discovered. The unrevealed destiny. I believe it would be a unique, special and beautiful one... whatever it is. A sweetdream isn't it?

I do not know for sure. For the time being, I see living life is like eating an elephant. Take a bite at a time. And please, bite as much as you (i.e I) can chew. Only. I don't want to be choking and end up in A&E.

Though as lost as I am, I know I have a dream. The first (and only?) vivid dream I have at the moment. I know how I wanted to die. It was since I'd seen a beautiful death, and I wished to have the same one day. It wasn't perfect of course, but it was peaceful.

Al-Fatihah.

Hmm, what a wierdo. I can't see how I want to live my life yet I know how I want to end it. Aiyya amoi, do something la!

dozing off

I'm tired too~

There's a lot happened yesterday and today, particularly in the hospital. I really wanted to scribble some thoughts here. But, na-ah... the muscle ache demanded its right.

~zzzzz....

what have i done?

Azizah,
I am very sorry. I had disappoint you. I behave badly this weekend. I know I don't deserve to be forgiven, but will you make up with me? I feel real bad.

Yours sincerely,
I-who-wanted-to make-peace.


One thing leads to another. We can never satisfy our whims. One desire granted, more to come. And the chain never break.

Or, was it me? I need to learn to forgive and forget quickly. Otherwise I'll be ruining my dear life in no time. And too bad, I only have one.

However, sometimes I do feel like I'm the cat with nine lives. Unbelievably lucky I am... When things got REAL bad or at least VERY CHRONIC, I will just saved! The divine intervention, I have to say...(thank you!!!). Great wasn't it? The only not so great thing is I can't remember how many times I already woke up from deaths. Which means... I have no idea how many lives I left with? One? Two? Or,have I used them all? Urgh! I could be dead next time...

...This one that I'm living could be the last...

Hey, is there any chance that I can recharge my live?

ps: congratulation to suzila othman & mohd fadli (oh, please i got it right) on their marriage. i only got to know the news this afternoon. and thanks also to zila who invited me to the mini conference.

you don't wanna read this

This week was pretty hectic. Lots to do, many done, even more to get done.

Happy? I am. But I was so tired towards the end of the week that I can barely open my eyes after dinner. I only managed to sit around for maybe half an hour (with the help of my housemate and her telly) before I pray and fell asleep.

Saturday. I need to do my groceries as well as the house groceries. Done.

I wanted my Sunday off. But, hellooo~ students have no holiday!
*wink* I got around that one! Don't tell anyone, promise?

p/s: Sarah, sorry for the very early morning call. Still, I'm glad that I caught you before you set off on your busy schedule that day!

sarah dearie

happy birthday to my siti sarah fazalul rahiman

i wish Allah will continue shower your life with happiness, success, barakah and rahmah.
may you grow stronger each day.

no word can do justice to such a nice and inspiring being you are, sarah.
o Allah, grant sarah and the people she loves Your jannah, ameen...

fight on

"Undergraduate degree is where you embrace the true meaning of discipline. Doing and finishing things you don't like in order to achieve what you Like with that capital L. It's about character building, professionalism development and attitude alignment. Experience all the opportunities that you come across... InsyaAllah you will discover what Allah truly wants you to fulfill as His khalifah."

iron-coated gold

My life is full of irony (of course I only have the right to talk about my life). At least, it is true to my mind. I don't always like things that happened to me. Sometimes, I don't just don't like them, I hate them. Ironically, the more I hate them, the more I know deep down that they gonna stay with me... until I like, or to the very least accept them. Then only, I am free.

Why?
God knows. But, how much I suffer, I thanked Him for that. Life is full of things I don't like (to say it in a polite way for once) so I think He wants me to learn to be thankful from the very very bottom of my heart. It was a hard lesson. I took (do I have choice?) the subject for years but never completed to this day. I enjoy learning anyway.

Sometimes it can be funny though. Most of the time I end up liking the things I hated for so long. Haha. Good for me. I wish eventually I will enjoy the things I've been dreading all this while. Not a mere dream. I will.

However, I noticed a problem. Or, maybe my best friend noticed it first... I'm not sure, but it's not that important. Lets focus on the problem. The problem is I cannot make myself freely like something. More often than not, my desires are overcome by fear, all sorts of fear. For something I wish to have, I fear of disappointment. For the thing I wanted to achieve, I fear of failure. For a game I wish to play, I fear of being fooled. Urgh, I've got fear for everything!

By far, I think this is the worse... even for the things I already have, I fear of losing them.

Again, it's an irony~ I enjoy the game I supposed to lose.
Because if I lose, that's it.
But, if I win... I am above expectation.
~ a happy pathetic!

hospital is brilliant

Ah-ha! What should that means?
I am just being honest here. Even though I've never been so keen to be a doctor, I do enjoy being in the hospital (apart from being a patient of course!).

There's so much to learn here in hospital (ps: I'm in AMNCH computer lab now) both from the medical team and everybody else. I see how people get through medical adversities, making way in medical career, coping with endless workload, dealing with dying issues, working with others who equally as stress as we are and the list goes on...

Would I be a better person at the end of the day?
I bet.

But we are humans, don't we? I pray that I would be able to put up with life. And, I pray equally as hard that people would be able to put up with me. Hehe~ whatever that means.

Perfect!

subhanallah

Praise be to Allah. He had made my days warm with love and sunny with sustenance, despite the full blown winter these days. It was raining all day long, almost everyday. Sometimes, there's normal watery rain, sometimes it's snow, sometimes there's hailstones.

I could never thank Him enough. Today, 1st of Muharram 1429H. We celebrate our Hijrah new year. And I got a whole new experience to explore. What is it? Hehe, secret. I am nervous but excited. Can't wait!!

It's spring in my heart~

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it. - John Churton Collins

this does not help

I apology.
Still, I can't help but to feel frustated with the quality of most of lecture notes given by the lecturers.

While some of them are of excellent quality (I remembered Dr Paul Spiers pharmacology notes last year), some of them are just guiding the lecturers on what to say in the lectures, not in coherent flow, full of I-don't-know-what-for charts, too simple or completely 'messy'. And, is it not good to know that a good number of them are just don't exist?

Yes, I can't help but to feel frustated. Don't they know that medicine is tough? Or, they are very kind to prepare us for the ugly reality of life by doing this? I am sorry. That's not considered a justification.

Oh, and I am very envious of RCSI medic students. Particularly regarding this notes matter. And also for many other reasons. I know they work hard. A lot harder than us.

Okay.
I'm just too tired wasting so much time on rearranging and rewriting the GU notes.
My neck is starting to kill me.

Again, I am sorry. I promised not to whine too much this year, but I need to let out this disappointment.

Ouchh!

sometimes, sometimes

How many mistakes it takes to make things right?

Nobody has a definite answer. Definitely each of us would hope that the answer is none. Or, the most people want is one. But, the reality usually says that things may need more than one mistake. Depending on how complex the things are, a few mistakes normally won't be enough to teach you a good lesson. And, I have to say, it also depend on how fast or how slow of a learner you are. Heheh, *wink*

Sometimes, I have no problem making mistakes and learn from it.
Sometimes, I deliberately make mistake just to see whether something is right or wrong.
Sometimes, it's bitter for me to accept the truth.
Sometimes, I just lost my balance, let my emotion plummet just because of a simple mistake.

How was that?

That's perfectly normal, says a psychologist.
We have to do more investigations here, says a radiologist.
Let's see if there's anything need to be fixed, says a surgeon.

Er, how was that?

thank you

Subhanallah

Thank you Allah for sending me people to bring happiness into my day.
I was troubled for days and out of sudden He took up the sadness from my heart, thank you Allah.

For the people who bring light into my heart and put up smiles on my face, may Allah bless your day... ameen.

favourite poem

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood,
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two woods diverged in a wood,
and I- I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

wanna be with you

You know I want to be with you
go through this lesson of life
sharing with you what I've gone through
so that you don't have to make the same mistake
learning from you what you have learned
so that I can face the world more confidently
exploring the unknown together
so that we can become richer, wiser

Missing the time we are together,

I love you all...

gotcha!

It was the first phone call in two weeks. She was not on top of her world these days, neither do he.
"Sorry, I'm not in the mood to talk. I'm very tired" He said just after a few minutes of talking over the phone.
"It's okay. I understand. You take care there, have a good rest." She hung up.

How could a hesitancy to carry out this kind of conversation can lead to a relationship breakdown?

And why is it harder to be empathic and offer your understanding to the the most important person to you?

... Naah, it won't happen to me, the caring and selfless person I know. Heh, until it happen to you!

We are not somebody we think until we had been challenged. Are we caring enogh for others when we ourselves are tired, sad, depressed, disturbed? Are we able to push ourselves forward to help others when we are in pain, denied, discriminated, losing our ends?

And, how could you manage to do that with some people and you simply lose your ground with the others?

Ergh~

p/s: hey Mal, be tough my boy!

messy mind

I find it hard to write in this blog. I feel like I have no direction. Yes, nothing but personal here. Yet, what do I want to tell who? Hmm, who? Ehehe... my very own self and my lil sis (true until now)... I do have the plan to tell my best friend about this modest blog. Haha, she could be mad if she found out that I waited until almost two months to tell her. Sorry dear.

A question here, did I challenge myself too much? More than I can ever take?
The answer: logically, nothing big was put on my shoulder, nothing that I couldn't possibly bear.

But, can't you see? I am crippling. Every single day was like a punishment. While everything on the outside seemed unbelievably happy to be on my side, everything just very wrong within. I could not even come to term with myself. It was like a denied conflict, a creeping disease, eating me inside out. Whooaa, sooo scary!

This far that I have came, this much that I have achieved, I just cannot deny that I missed my old naive hadworking self. If only we can keep what we had and gain what we want at the same time! *sigh*

The tension of the opposites~ it is.

laugh out loud

I was surprised of myself. I didn't bother to write in this blog for 4 days? Hmm, I guess it was not because nothing interesting happened these days, but there are just too much!

I messed up with a relatively new friend just few minutes after we talk casually. Reason? Nothing very clear inflicted. But, I believe the 'nothing very clear' was the cause... Now, my mind cleared up a bit since we have resolved the problem, at least at the moment. I know, the time will come when I mess up once again, and again... because that's just me. I create conflict when things are unbelievably smooth. Urgh, how do I make friend this way?

p/s: I apology for the things I say. There's some truth in them, but I must have said them I in misleading ways which add on the mess to the whole thing.

Next, the hospital. Oh, it's my saviour. Saved me from damaging myself even further. Wake up, enough damage done, ding dong!!

Last night I read an entry in our batch website. Hmm, Licence to Wed? I looked up for the movie and watched it, fell asleep halfway through, and continue watching the last bit this morning. Not too bad... it left me few big questions on relationship, with nobody to answer. Well, I watched it all alone, no right to complaint =p

Yes, reality hurts. Reality make you stand on the unfirm ground, shake your stability, challenge your certainty, mock your sense of ability and these and those... Yet, only a coward refuse to live in reality. All others wanted it real. Just because... it's real. Do I need more reason?

Ah, why do I still feel guilty here? Something is not right, not right...

p/s: thank you for letting go

new year resolution

Alhamdulillah, I woke up this morning feeling better than I had expected. Even though I still cough quite a lot and my throat a bit sore, I feel much better today. Most importantly, I got my voice back... praise be to Allah.

So, since my voice is almost back to normal today, I called my sister for more than two hours (phew!), my family in Malaysia and I tried to call my brother. Hmm, he was still unreachable. An unresolved mystery...

Next, I laid down my target for the year 2008. I actually had a few copies of target and plan which I drew every now and then. But, I think a new year would make a good turning point for something... that's what I read in motivational book.

In the end, I make up three resolution for this year. Specific enough for me to act on (not the vague "I wanna be a better person") yet universal enough to be put on the wall (hehe, I wouldn't be poking at my own privacy, would I?).

And one more thing. Here they are, my AZAM 2008:
1) Jadi rajin - buang sikap malas
2) Hargai masa - kurangkan masa online
3) Gigih berusaha - jangan pernah putus asa

1) Be hardworking - get rid of laziness
2) Appreciate my time - reduce time spent online
3) Persevere - never ever give up!

Bismillahirrahmanirrahiiim...