Intermission #23

Note to self: When people say 'global' as in 'global warming', it really means "There's no escape for you, only despair!"

And here I was hoping to avoid the infernal heat back on campus, only to be greeted by the exact replica back in my own hometown. What on Earth!? So now I'm sick with a bad case of upper respiratory tract infection, and I'm aching all over. For some reason my sinusitis is worse in hot weather...

...This little fact should be some sort of a motivation for me. As in, study hard -> good results -> do Masters overseas -> cooler weather.

Ah, I dream nonetheless.

...study, woman, STUDY!!!11 How's about channeling all the thinking energy to issues that really matter for a   change?

Intermission #18

1. Dear God, words cannot describe how I hate the hot weather so. It's crazy - just before the CNY break I was shivering from the cold weather, as it was the rainy season. And now...the brightness of the sun causes my head to throb, and I get irritable quite easily.

Perhaps one day I should get my thyroid status checked...

But yeah. Too hot, that I almost can't sleep at night, which then causes me to sleep in the daytime. Pfft. What a way to wreck my sleeping schedule.

2. There are things that I get afraid of somewhat too easily. People may say it's displaced - could this baseless fears be paranoia?

3. Psychiatry is starting to give me some emotional strain. It's tiring - it's like one can hardly get a straight conversation with a patient, and almost each session with the lecturer played out like a game; I had no idea if I was being analysed, and was somewhat thrown offtrack when a lecturer asked me if I was depressed when I couldn't give an answer satisfactorily.

But I wonder, how it would be like to see people through their eyes. To be able to delve into people's personalities just by observing their facial expressions and listening to their words...

Part of me thinks it'll be a burden. Sometimes ignorance could be bliss, and sometimes knowledge can be deadly.

...And thus, I realise that Psychiatry is not really for me...as a serious profession.

Current Music: 「夢」 ～ムゲンノカナタ～ (TV Ver.) - ViViD

Intermission #16

1. "The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain" ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thanks to the rainy season, it feels like the it has been ages since I last looked up to sky, blinking to filter out the occasionally blinding sun rays. Somatic hallucinations aside, my lungs feel as if they are lined by ice; each breath I take pricks me in the chest, while my headaches are of different nature altogether - in all honestly, more bearable than the ones I usually get following photophobia or extreme heat.

Perhaps everyone is familiar with this quote by Dolly Parton: "if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain". On the other hand, I implore you to reconsider - the rain inevitable leaves behind puddles of water (and mud?) that you can't avoid, eventually soaking your shoes and freezing your bones, leaving your entire body shivering and your teeth clattering like there's no tomorrow. Is it worth putting up with all that just for a sight of a transcient rainbow, which is still out of your reach anyway?

...And here I congratulate myself on screwing a positive quote just to suit my pessimistic outlook in life. Pfft.

2. Can't wait to go home and meet my car, which is already back home! God, I miss him so. It has been close to three months! And I'm so sick of this dependence on other people. I need to steer my own car fate with my own hands!

3. Oh dear God, it's already February. Why so soon!?

4. Some things can wait. Others won't and will just leave you stranded behind, in regret and in stupor.

Current Music: King of Anything - Sara Bareilles

Hopefully Not Just Hot Air...

Dear God, I apologise for being such an ingrate, but my headache, myalgia and lethargy are conspiring against me, that I soon find myself thinking about everything and then nothing then everything again, all in rapid succession, and I cannot keep up.
Perhaps the issue of global warming is one to reckon with. Here is a list as to how global warming is evil. Really evil. Seriously evil.

1. The heat enrages people.
2. Following the point above, people are more aggressive on the road, behind the wheels. Passengers are not exempt from this influence.
3. As a consequence of Point (2), accidents might happen. God Forbid! (Excuse me while I dedicate a moment of silence to Miyavi...)
4. The sun is too glaring, it blinds people - with rage, or while driving.
5. Point (3) also applies to Point (4).
6. My thermoregulatory centre cannot adjust to the extreme temperatures. One moment I'm in the library/OT shivering like whoa, and the next I'm right under the hot, unforgiving ball of fire we call the sun, struggling with a throbbing headache that signifies an imminent migraine, and perspiring to the extent that I fear getting dehydrated. My water bottle tries to help, but at times it fails too...
7. Sleep. Then again, we sleep in whatever weather - be it hot or cold. Human nature? Inherent laziness? The need to dream? Hmph.
8. The craving for something cold - which is oftentimes sweet as well. Specifically, ice cream. More specifically, Cornetto (I blame Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright for this...). Needless to say, my pancreas is not happy.
9. In relation to (8), I'm annoyed for having no fridge. Guhh.
10. Too hot, too uncomfortable, cannot study. *headdesk*

Current Music: That Don't Impress Me Much - Shania Twain

Compilations #7

Uncreative title is uncreative. My mind's a cluttered library, that the best entry I could come up with is no more than numbered paragraphs on different matters.

1. One branch of knowledge that never fails to fascinate me has always been language and etymology. So I was trying to concoct a proper title for my e-logbook when I decided to see what possible words could replace "student"...and I found that the word "student" traces back to Latin's studere, which is related to studium, which means "painstaking application" (Source: Oxford American Dictionary).
What does this mean? That the road a student must tread upon is littered with pain (or sources of them).
Aye. Whoever said life would be easy?

2. The weather has been a bit kinder of late. Thank God. I'm still praying for rain, though...

3. It's true that people can change. But whether it's for the better or for the worse...well, I'd like to know the variables to do the formula.

4. Why do we lament over the things that we do not possess? Is it too difficult to churn out those that we already have the luxury of owning to their fullest potential, putting our utmost faith in God that He Knows when the time is right to bestow us with some of the things that we presently lack?

5. Oh dear. We're already in our tenth week!? So that means we'll just a few months away from fifth year!

6. Do not cross the line. The line is there - whether or not one can see it, it is still there. It may not be humongous in size or brightly fluorescent for one to see with the naked eye, but at least have enough sense - or common courtesy - to not go overboard.
We all have our limits. We try to stretch out the threshold, so for the love of God let's not make each others' tasks more difficult than they already are.

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Now playing: Savage Garden - To The Moon And Back
via FoxyTunes

P/s: Clinic again tomorrow. Oh my God. *headdesk* Still, it's worth noting that perhaps Ophthalmology won't descend to become my least favourite Specialised posting. Or my _least_ favourite posting, for that matter...

Compilations #5

1. Coming down with an excruciating headache secondary to eye strain doesn't seem to bode well, considering that this is _Opthalmology_ that we're talking about, and today was just the first day! I foresee two weeks of hectic classes and rushing around and...2 days of RP-ing next week.
And is this e-logbook that they refer to something akin to blogging? Because I sure wouldn't want an academic journal-diary thing to be dripping with emo-angst, filled with pseudo-philosophy, marred by discontentment, and seasoned with Shakespearian or Victorian influence...

2. There are some things that do not matter in the long run, and as such, should carry little to no urgency. It won't really go anywhere, in spite of the fact that it's kind of far from one's reach for the time being.
...But maybe that's not the main issue. My priority list is not the same as others', and mine may be weak in all the wrong places.
...Getting it back on the right track will take some time and a whole lot of painstaking effort and a lifetime's worth of angst.
Good things come to those who wait. How far does it ring true?

3. It's extremely odd and tiresome. The campus's Wifi connection slows down to a turtle's sloth's tai-chi when it comes to my urgent, academic needs that is desperate to make full use of the university's database of journals and stuff. What form of evil, cheap conspiracy is this!? *facepalm*

4. Dear God. Please, please end this heat wave as soon as possible. Everyday I miss the rainy season like the desert miss the rain.

Current Music: Always Running Out of Time - Motion City Soundtrack

Vacant Thoughts

1. "A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor" ~ Victor Hugo

"Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything" ~ Floyd Dell

Idleness, akin to drugs,
Crawls discreetly, permeating,
In one's veins and nerves,
Filling out.

It weighs us down,
Blunts the mind,
And dims the soul.

~ (c) ad. Lucidus, 2010

2. That is not to say that the current block - Specialised posting, more specifically, Radiology - is like a walk in a park.
In fact, putting Radiology in perspective; It's seeing the world in black and white, and in between. But you still get more, from "a stack of coins", "bird's beak" or "bat's wings"...
Bored of the monochromes? Just add colour - in this case, dyes.

3. Anaesthesiology. Nice.
...Yet my case reports are still pending.

4. The weather's killing me. It's too hot to do anything, and I don't have to get a proper workout to deceive myself regarding my physical activities!

5. It seems that I have taken a backseat in my hobby, i.e. instead of writing, of late I've been compelled to take on the role of a reader...But who am I to complain, when I have high-quality reading materials at my disposal?

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Now playing: Matsushita Yuuya - Trust Me
via FoxyTunes

I have erred.

I was never renowned for my decision-making skills. That's what I get for being too emotionally instinctively driven. So much for "not wanting my brains to rust before the start of what would potentially be the ultimate horror of my third year in medical school". Pooh-pooh.

Why, oh why, did the reason in me made me choose to go back to campus today instead of tomorrow? I was suffering in this massive heat, drenched in what could be buckets of perspiration, even when I wasn't doing anything that could remotely constitute as an exercise!

Global warming is evil.

Is it okay if I laze off tonight and just start getting serious tomorrow...or the day after?

Yes, one of the codes (they called it "Rules of Thumb") that I was made to memorise in Form 3 (in verbatim, "Procrastination is the thief of time") is back to haunt me, but what good is it when one is not at one's optimal potential to function, to work?

My centre of decision-making then came up with a verdict of its own: Fine, do whatever you feel like doing.

So I'll wait. But for how long? How much time do I have until Impatience and Reality start to reel me in to knock some sense into me to get the idea that I need to move on into my thick head and stubborn cardium?

Should I still wait for a feeble ember of hope of it ever returning, after what I aimed for had deserted me?

Current Music: Before the Worst - The Script

paeds over for now. probably.

So...my end-block exam for paediatric posting was last Tuesday...three days ago. It could have been worse, I suppose, but at this point in time, when it's all said and done, we can only leave everything up to Him.

But I seriously would rather not repeating the block. So let's hope it's not going to happen.

Perhaps I should start setting aims on what to achieve during each break. Sure, it's a short one, but it'd make one's life more meaningful than to just let time slip pass you like a visiting breath of wind...

Curbing my desire to shop is one thing. Now is seriously not a good time to spend, what with the economic recession and all...

...Could you tell that my mood is a bit off? I suspect it has something to do with the new PM's entering the office today.

Couple that to my inability to tolerate the infernal weather, would they justify my intention of hopefully migrating outside the country?

Considering the term "global warning" itself, obviously there's no definite escape from the intolerable heat.

...Maybe I should start changing the blog's layout.

Current Music: Donten - Does