Intermission #48

Maybe I should just leave.

Caught in an uncivilised working place that really should have been shut down or upgraded ages ago.

Caught in a bond that is just as uncertain as ever, despite how people may say otherwise.

But they say never make any decision when all you see is red.

So what do you when you're seeing darkness in your future?

Ideally speaking, we should turn to Him. But I seem to have lost my speech to pray.

But that's okay, right? He, the Omniscient, will still Understand these tears.

Intermission #47

1. It's like everything is telling me to leave this damned hospital.

Never mind that I might not be adequately equipped in terms of knowledge, skills or clinical judgment. Never mind that I'm leaving friends behind. Never mind that I'm stepping into unfamiliar grounds.

I just feel in my heart - with great conviction! - that this is not a place for me. I can't, for the life of me, see myself developing properly if I remain in this backwater place.

It's like all departments are hostile towards each other. There is no respect, no trust.

Let's not even get me started on how ancient the infrastructure, the facilities are.

And the mindset. Oh, God, let's not even go there!

Dear God, save me, for I am powerless to save myself.

2. Now that the elections are over, can we just move on?

So BN retains the government seat. Did they really cheat? Only God Knows. But they can't afford to be complacent anymore.

All I know is, I'm sick of racial politics, regardless of which side incited it. I'm sick of opening my FB newsfeed and seeing hate and accusations, back to back.

Everybody needs "UBAH". And I mean it as change for the better, no matter what your political ideologies or worldview.

...I don't know what to believe in anymore. It's easier to give up than to constantly seek for the truth, in today's graying world, where authenticity is difficult to ascertain, despite the many sources of information available at our disposal. Such irony!

How do you seek the truth when there is slander all around, when people deal in lies, and people act more emotionally than rationally?

Is ignorance bliss? I'm starting to think so.

So please, let's just put all this conflict aside. Stop acting childish. Man up and stop being such a sore loser. Remember that the helm of governance is actually an amanah, and God will question you in the Afterlife.

...And for God's sake, clean up all the flags and banners. They're an eyesore already!

Current Music: Taking Over Me - Lawson

Madhouse

Despite our small number, the higher ups still make unreasonable demands.

It's as if they don't care. As if they're ignorant as to how we're also struggling to perform our most basic of duties, and yet they continue to pester us by making things more complicated, more convoluted than necessary.

It's bloody stupid.

Just leave us alone, damnit.

No matter how I try to push myself to go beyond my limits, there are always obstacles.

Is it fair that we the innocents must pay for the follies of the idiots in the management department, and the selfishness of those who only seek to save their own sorry a**es?

The answer came to me on a fellow friend's facebook entry on my newsfeed:

"Nasib baik ada Akhirat"

Because He is the Most Just of Judges.

...and at times I figured it's selfish to ask for life to be a breeze all the way. Because life's not a bed of roses. Especially when you realise that you have pricks in power.

Current Music: Love Story meets Viva la Vida - The Piano Guys

Intermission #45

Have you ever feel so small, so insignificant?

Have you ever felt so hurt that it feels like someone just tore your chest wide open and ripped your heart out of the praecordium, and then shred it to pieces?

Have you ever felt so betrayed by the ones you love and even by yourself?

Have you ever had so many back-to-back episodes of self-reprisals, like a barrage of machine guns taking shots at you?

And all these pain can't be drowned, can't be deleted, can't be ignored or denied.

Why do I do this to myself?

And so it goes on - this fear of attachment. Of getting hurt.

Intermission #44

I'm honestly getting too old for all this. Everything.

Too impatient with the wait. Too temperamental to tolerate the many quirks of people at work. Too lazy to just do it.

And way too attached to risk the loss.

Current Music: 50 Ways to Say Goodbye - Train

Intermission #43

1. Perhaps it is time to take the plunge into the uncertain.

Testing the waters too long may have been an act of cowardice, but who can handle the thought of one's dreams collapsing?

Perhaps, in a way, it's already too late to back down.

2. I notice that I enjoy working when I go the extra mile voluntarily, not when people start demanding as if we are their personal attendants or something.

3. Roughly around 7 more weeks until Medical ends, iA. Praying that all will go well.

Also, my paranoia needs to stop intruding my subconscious and translating my dreams into nightmares.

Current Music: Hello - Karmin

Intermission #41

I shouldn't let my work define my entire life. There's more to life than just work, after all.

I shouldn't let people get to me. People will be people anyway.

I shouldn't let my emotions get the best out of me, even when I probably have too much of them to begin with. Too much for this frail frame to handle.

I shouldn't get too involved in uncertain issues.

I should adhere to all the above mantra, because life is tough and what other option do we have other than to be tougher?

I still haven't grown up after all these years, have I?

Current Music: Safe and Sound - Taylor Swift featuring The Civil Wars

Upside Down

1. I'm astounded as to how ignorant I could be at times.

2. One reason why I chose this profession was because how I hated bureaucracy - the sense of being a "pak/mak turut" to your superiors because you're just a lowly kuli and so inexperienced and oh-so-styoopid.

Dear God, I didn't expect I could be more wrong. This is the epitome of bureaucracy.

Remember this rule?

(i) Your boss is always right.

(ii) If your boss is wrong, refer to rule number (i).

Yeah. My working environment is the perfect embodiment of this rule.

Which naturally brings us back to my point 1. Woe is me!

3. Perhaps rather than blowing your top and scolding us house officers (who are nothing but your cheap source of labour anyway), you MOs or specialists or whatnot's should just sit together and discuss among each other what each and everyone of you can request from each other, so that one department will not go and order bizarre and insane things from other departments.

It'd do a world of good rather than sitting together and complaining about us HOs. At least you'd probably understand each other better instead of condemning other departments for their so-called inefficiency or joblessness or whatever rubbish you can think of. Unless your egos are just too big to listen to other people.

What use is there in yakking at me when I'm only following orders?

And for the love of God don't bother asking me questions when you don't give me a chance to answer or give proper reasons.

And if you're just too high and mighty to entertain us HOs, then go yak at my superiors instead!

Honestly though. It feels as if all the higher ups do is complain about us rather than changing the hospital system or manner of management.

They're doing it wrong. But who are we to tell them that, hmm?

4. Don't think just because we're HOs, we have no idea what we're doing.

Oh wait, I forgot. We're your punching bag, your scapegoat, your black sheep. Getting scolded at for no good reason is apparently part of our job description.

...Pshaw! Is this what you call professionalism? Is there a need to make other people's lives more difficult than necessary?

5. I'm becoming less enthusiastic to join Pathology with each passing minute. Damn it.

6. God, when will this suffering end!?

I just hope I will not become like those that I now hate. Difficult, certainly, what with my own temper becoming more and more uncontrollable by the minute...

Current Music: Drive By - Train

Intermission #40

1. Getting real tired of all this crap, of this emotional roller coaster, and the unnecessary sources of stress.

I don't understand how some people can find even the smallest mistakes to point fingers at us lowly HOs.

How is it that people can find so much entertainment, so much sadistic joy in demeaning us the little people? Have they forgotten that they were once like us?

Or do they automatically judge us as incompetent just because we now subscribe to the shift system as opposed to their much demanding oncall system?

For all you know some of us lowly house officers are actually better than how they used to be back in those days in some aspects.

Of course there are those that are problematic, but what about the rest of us who work for real? Do all our hard work and energy go unnoticed?

Honestly, I don't enjoy my work anymore.

2. I can feel the distance growing between us, you who have risen above and I, still stuck in this gutter.

You who are having the time of your life, and I, struggling to find the small beacon of joy amidst all this despair.

You who have all the time on your hands, and I, always behind.

You who are in a crowd, while I, left deserted.

So forgive me for my inability to share your laughter, and - perhaps? - I shall forgive you for forsaking me.

Current Music: Hall of Fame - The Script featuring will.i.am

The Long and the Short of It

I'm making quite a name for myself as a no-nonsense, perpetually pissed off (senior) HO.

My scolding patients is not a new sight these days.

After 1 year in the system, I am already so severely disillusioned.

Is it that bad? Perhaps I exaggerate at times, but perhaps very few would argue with me if I say that the absurdities that this sorry excuse for a hospital dishes out to us house officers beats HTAA by a long, long shot.

Lab rules and protocols are moronic that I'm utterly embarrassed to adhere to their stupid system.

Patients boleh tahan jugak banyak cekadak diorang.

So called protocols and procedures retard our work.

Stupid CMEs are mostly a waste of time, when presenters obviously didn't put in much of an effort.

And for God's sake please stop calling me "Kak" already; I'm an effing doctor for crying out loud, stop telling me to change your IV drip!

And 2 years of HO-ship is too bloody long. Would I say that I'm learning? Hardly - most of my present knowledge I carried from my years as a medical student.

Four months of one posting is too long. What are we, cheap sources of labour!? Will all these insane levels of stress and overwhelming workload and lack of appreciation be worth it in the end?

I realise that the despair and disappointment in the general quality of HOs are not entirely fictional, but even so all this brouhaha is shedding light on an entirely wrong perspective. Even I occasionally facepalm at certain peers of mine, that at times I want nothing more than to fling my shoe in their direction.

I maintain that the higher ups should also share the blame, instead of making us the scapegoats just because we're the lowest in the hierarchy.

The working conditions could use a great deal of improvement. But what to do, the hospital is in poverty anyway.

The hospital is in near-shambles. The elevators are too damn slow, they give no meaning to "stat" anymore. As if the stupid procedures to enter the lab itself is not slowing things enough...

And don't even get me started on how stupid all this code asking business just to ask for blood.

I'm frankly surprised that the mortality rate of this hospital isn't any higher.

Screw everything, I'm outta here as soon as I can if I can help it.

Current Music: How to Go - School Food Punishment

Defeated

1. I want to give up.

It's like I can't say or do anything without being judged, and my intentions being misunderstood.

Am I speaking in some alien language, and are my thoughts so out of this world?

Am I so insignificant that I can be trampled to the ground just like that?

Why does everything seem foreign to me all of a sudden?

I condemn myself enough, there is no need for anyone to share that luxury anymore. Especially when they know nothing.

...If only I could give up without compromising anything.

2. It's all a matter of time, is it not?

They say good things come to those who wait.

Others say that time and tide wait for no man.

Which principle should I subscribe to, pray tell?

Only time will tell.

...This is going nowhere, honestly. Dear God.

Current Music: Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People

Temperamental

...I blame the hormones. And myself too, I guess. Because we have always been taught not to blame others, and nobody likes to be blamed for others' problems.

I know I'd feel that way. And I also know for a fact - here I sort of blame my ego, but whatever - that I absolutely hate it when people contradict me.

Maybe it's because I spend an insane amount of time cogitating, weighing options, coming up with conclusions, rewinding scenarios in my already messed up brain. And so when it struck me that people tend to jump to conclusions only after analysing a small slice of my life, my behaviours, I get irritated...and I snap.

The rebel within me awoke today...though not exactly in front of the right people.

Maybe I've been far too lenient all my life. In which I allowed people to make decisions despite the fact that I'm the one who will be suffering the consequences. I allowed people push me around. I allowed them to nag me even when all I want is for them to just drop the effing issue. I stayed around to get an earful of their lectures even when I know very well that they are just working on assumptions.

Perhaps my Surgical posting has made me extra impatient, in that I can tune out whatever I refuse to hear up until a certain point before I actually burst, instead of letting it go.

I don't even want to have opinions anymore. What good is there, when what I say, what I do, who I am don't matter in the least?

Current Music: Fix You - Coldplay

Breaking Point

I can feel it. Something breaking in me - whether it is the last bit of my patience, my humanity, or my sanity, I have no idea.

Dear God, I'm surrounded by laziness and incompetence and inefficiency and utter nonsense. Not to say that I'm the best and the most capable person in the ward (or the department, but whatever), but at least I take my job seriously and think of people!

I can't function like this.

So much hate. So much despair...so much regret.

The only thing heavier than my footsteps to work, is the despair burdening my bosom.

Fortunately enough, rare though as they may be, there are those occasions that I could share some laughter, a jovial chat and the promise of some gastronomic indulgence. Though I do wish, every so often, for this distance from home to just disappear, because there are times that one just need the friendly reassurance that it's not just one person - you - against this mad, mad world.

Not forgetting, a certain smile that could light up my dark and grievous world, an infectious laughter, and a bundle of memories that could bring this...pleasant sense of gastritis (that possibly no proton pump inhibitor could ever resolve).

And this prayer that I extend to Him the Almighty.

They are the small beacon of hope - possible the only factors that still enables me to go on...but how further and how long more?

Current Music: Domino - Jessie J.

P/s: Karniza, dude, you are right...It seems like lately all I am capable of putting down into words is depressing. Shall I refer myself to a psychiatrist?

Compilations #18

1. I'm just so tired of everything.

Being constantly thrown into different wards just after I'm well adapting to one is starting to take its toll. And while the female ward can be relatively more peaceful than the male ward, in terms of drama it is anything but peaceful.

If I could just throw throw my hands up in frustration and just walk off to leave all this madness behind, I would. Because I can't take all this stupidity anymore. The hierarchy is too much. Certain people are just not professional enough. People are becoming more and more selfish. Patients demand too much, way beyond what we can provide. Oh, heck, the hospital's in a damned poverty, and the ECG machines should just burn in hell. Haemato lab people - some of them - are lazy (Pick up the phone, morons!) and so darned annoyingly rude.

Even my best is not good enough, my patience has seen better days, and nowadays all I want to do is to just lock myself away and cry myself to sleep.

At one point it feels like everything else is hopeless, and I can only depend on myself. But it just exhausts me entirely.

Lamenting to people is no good, but even complaining to God doesn't seem to bring much relief.

What do I do then?

Years from now, would I be able to look back at this moment in time and say that "Yes, I survived this hellhole, and I'm a better person because of it"?

2. I may not have good understanding of people as I thought.

That would explain why I can be so socially awkward at times. Why my social life is nonexistent. Why I am just so bad in maintaining friendships. Why I have very few friends that I feel like I can share my problems with without feeling so bad for burdening them.

...And why I'll most likely be forever alone.

...Damn, I feel more tears coming.

I need a break from all this...desperately.

Current Music: Need You - Travie McCoy

Compilations #17

1. Spare me the drama at work, please.

It's amazingly scary what stress can do to you, and what you in turn do unto others. Even I find myself sniping at those I find deserving - especially after I made the initial effort of being extra-civilised and yet received a disappointing response.

Sometimes it's just not worth the extra effort.

I can't afford to play nice all the way - not when people don't seem to appreciate it. Yes, I know it's supposed to be for God and all...but I am just human, liable to emotional breakdowns.

I try not to impart judgment on people...because deep down I realise that I might(?) be doing the same mistake if I were in their shoes.

2. There is a change in how I spend my money these days...and I'm kind of worried.

3. How do you define me? How do you see me in your eyes?

Maybe you don't know me that well. Or maybe I'm just too multi-faceted that you don't get to see a certain side of me that prefers to hide in the darkness, behind a pleasant face.

Or maybe I'm the one that's in error, blind to my own shortcomings.

4. I'm starting to understand - and emulate - my mother's occasional indifference(?) to patients' complaints.

...Good God, I really need to be done with housemanship and just get out of clinical work for good.

Current Music: Payphone - Maroon Five featuring Wiz Khalifa

Compilations #16

1. I have just lost whatever ounce of respect I once had, however negligible it was to begin with.

This may prove to be problematic in the long run.

Is this just my larger-than-life ego speaking? Or does it stem from my disappointment in those I call my superiors?

2. How is it possible to maintain one's niyyah and selflessness - keikhlasan - at work, when it feels like everything is working against you?

Dear God, let not every effort of mine be in vain in Thy Eyes.

3. Which is worse - no system or bad system? I honestly can't tell anymore.

I can't take all the stupidity around me.

4. Dunia dah terbalik...

5. Sometimes I think we don't match. We, who come from two different worlds, with different temperaments and whims.

But every time I hear your voice, my heart makes a little leap like a young puppy, and against my will a smile breaks through the iron facade that I put up.

When our eyes meet, a small part of me can't help feeling that I may not be good enough for you, and wonder what is it that you see in me, a simple girl with a disjointed view of the world. And so I tear my eyes away - reluctantly! - because I don't wish for you to see the sadness that threaten to show itself with each passing time.

Somehow I have a feeling that you know what you've done to me.

...Stop making me fall harder, darn you!

Also...I kinda hate that I'm missing you more than I should.

...I'm so bad at this sort of things, am I not?

Current Music: Stereo Hearts - Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine

In Which I Talk About the Same Darn Things

"Change your thoughts and you change your world" - Norman Vincent Peale

1. Alas, I lament for my failure as a narrator!

Is my life so monotonous that all I ever talk about is work? And my neverending regret for my inherent weakness to change myself and the world around me? And forget not my penchant to dramatise everything - surely there has to be a limit to what nonsense I get off on!

(If I'm not making any sense, blame it on my lack of sleep last night - all in the name of work!)

In some aspects, surgical is not too bad. Sure, there are those things that still irk me every now and then - such as the impossibility of finding for things when you need them (e.g. X-ray films and case sheets and even the...gel thingy) and how we keep on running out of things (We have too many admissions! Stop getting yourselves sick, people!) and how people still keep on thinking I'm a nurse (Dangit, what the heck is wrong with the world!?) and specialists demanding things that are close to impossible.

There are a few nurses that are helpful. Certain PPKs don't mind sending down the blood samples that I asked for. Certain nursing students didn't mind helping us to do ECGs. So yeah, maybe it's not too bad.

But it still hurts being pressurised by those on top.

We're still understaffed.

The system is still as abominable as ever - if not worse.

I lament for the health state of the general public, and their awareness.

I weep for my own state of being human.

...And I pray that I will not later on become like those I despise.

2. Have you any idea what you've done to me?

I am now a stranger to myself. All these feelings that I can't contain...I can't even pour them into a sonnet, a hymn.

...Then all the feelings manifest as gastritis. And so - foolish that I am! - I can only go, "Wait, what!?"


Current Music: Drive By - Train

Anomaly

"The woman who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been" ~ Albert Einstein

It's difficult being the odd one out.

Positive people would label this as 'being unique', but how does that stand in a world where one might be punished for being different?

There is a Japanese proverb that describes exactly this: The nail that sticks out gets hammered...Or something that sounds like that.

Is there something that I missed? Am I so terribly uninformed that I have this naivety, this tendency to float about in a world of my own creation, made up of enchanting lies and blissful ignorance? Was my childhood so utterly traumatising(?) that it managed to put my entire perspective on life in jeopardy?

Perhaps I am guilty of assuming, of passing judgments too easily after all. Of being unable to appreciate those that may be obscure at first glance, or being blind to what are glaringly obvious to the rest of the world.

Funny how personal opinions and beliefs can taint our outlooks with prejudice - and vice versa.

But when I observe the world around me, with the myriad of people and all sorts of drama that they embroiled themselves in unwittingly, my mind automatically wonders - Is it just me, or has the world gone cuckoo?

Maybe, with regards to Mr. Einstein's quote above...this is one of the many ways that the term "Forever Alone" can be applied to yours truly.

Current Music: Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) - Kelly Clarkson

Intermission #37

1. In a way, despite the prospect of greater trials and trouble ahead, I can't wait to get out of Paeds.

Allah Willing, I just have to go through two more working shifts - both are resus, but screw it, it's not like I have much control over the matter. Things could be worse so...here's to praying that I shall survive those two days!

I hate dealing with parents, full stop. Maybe not all - I'm not that heartless that I can afford to leave them with their anxieties - but for God's sake could they at least take a damn hint and see that we are busy with rounds and stop nagging us with questions such as but not limited to, "Bila anak saya boleh keluar?" or "Macam mana baby saya?" or "Kenapa kena amik darah lagi?".

Today at one point I wondered if the hospital's policy of nursery admission is too bloody all-encompassing that maybe we are having unnecessary admissions, all in the name of observation.

...And whose fault is it when the hospital resorts to drastic and effing ridiculous measures just to cut costs? One of which is by delaying our allowance, which is a tyrannical move, I tell you!

2. A precarious state.

In which uncertainty is certain. Dubious, and up to anyone's interpretation.

It could go either way...and I fear I may not be prepared for a bad end.

Yet, it had not blinded me entirely. Far from perfect, but at the same time, sounds rather too good to be true that I need to double check myself to make sure that I was not dreaming.

But am I compromising too much here?

Would testing the waters sink the boat to the bottom? Or will it bring us to greater heights?

Or am I singing a solo melody here?

Fear precludes me from finding out for real.

Current Music: Number One for Me - Maher Zain

Fill in the Blanks

1. There is a popular saying on Tumblr: "Follow your heart, but take your brain with you".
So what do you do when reason says no, but both your heart and your instincts (at least, the less rational part of it) say go?
No matter what people may say, at the end of the day, it's only going to be me going down when everything falls apart.
Uncertain where else to look for the answer, I look heavenward and whisper a prayer.
Deep down - despite all my vehement denials - I know what I want. I wonder if it was ever in His Plans.

2. The other day I was accused of putting too much inhibition on myself.
My argument? Because I know it would not be me if it were otherwise.
Maybe it's because of this thing people call 'ego'. Or maybe because I just prefer to maintain my insouciant air, despite the contrary.
Or maybe I've just been hurt too often, too badly in the past, that I'd rather keep to myself than leave myself vulnerable.

3. I swear, some people have this inherent ability to just piss me off without even trying.
Even so I try hard to be calm and not judge too harshly, because we are but humans. Because I know that I'm far from perfect...
...but at least I'm trying, am I not?

4. Yes, I realise that my timing is, more often than not, off. Which is why I rarely initiate things, and just let things come as they may.
But please, trust me a little bit more when I say it's still too early to say anything for sure.

5. Dang, tomorrow I'm in charge of resus again. Shoot la weyy...

Current Music: Breathing - Jason Derulo