Going Down

"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful" ~ Sigmund Freud

1. If you will pardon the words that will follow - the hospital is going to the dogs.

Maybe that's why my current MO & specialist are trying to seduce me into O&G. Not because I'm capable or knowledgeable or anything, but because the department is losing people and they're trying to maintain the number.

Stupid policies are stupid. They're treating us like kids.

It feels especially insulting when you know you've been doing your best all this while, and yet...and yet you can't change people's perception, opinion, biases for the better.

But one may argue: screw what people say. You're not supposed to let them bother you so much, especially when you know that they themselves sometimes don't know any better. Give them some benefit of the doubt, or something.

But you're supposed to be doing all this, working, struggling in God's Cause, yes?

Ideally speaking, yes.

2. Resentment is easy. Easier than trying to find the obscure, almost nonexistent positive aspects of things.

It's easier, but it's just not right.

3. So if anyone's still interested to know, yes, most likely I'll be applying to return to Selangor once I'm done with housemanship.

Am I even worthy of wondering if there will be one who will try to change my mind?

Current Music: La La - The Cab

Halfway There, Halfway Gone

"We often like to believe what we want to believe, often because the real facts challenge us too much. It is far easier to wallow in our prejudices than to seek out the truth in anything" ~ Marina Mahathir, The Star 30/08/2012.

1. Dear God, I can't believe that I'm already in Year Two of working.

I think of it as a mid-working life crisis. You know that you're long enough into the job that certain things are already second nature to you. You know enough people and are familiar with the procedures to get things done. You've worked long enough that you're already a familiar face to certain staffs.

And yet there are still things that still get to me.

How my stamina doesn't seem to have improved over the past year. How less tolerant I am to people - patients and relatives alike - who are bloody irritating. How pissed off I could get when my work is delayed no thanks to bureaucracy and the higher ups' ego and mood swings.

I like Medical because of the approach. But what I dislike about it is that it strikes me as a behavioural thing and thus, because of human fallacy and habits are just so hard to break, the process is endless.

Admissions are aplenty. Patients smell of cigarette smoke. Patients with psychiatric problems contributing to the chaos in the ward. And damn stupid elastoplasts that don't secure branulas properly should just rot in hell along with all the stupid, temperamental ECG machines.

This hospital is getting more and more idiotic.

2. The human factor in medicine is, as always, a great contributor to this love-hate (mostly hate, to be honest) I share with Medicine as a whole.

That is one reason why I shouldn't be allowed to practise clinical work.

But doing Pathology would mean abandoning the ward procedures, which previously actually took me some time to acquire.

Other specialties that I have considered include Anaesthesiology, Orthopaedics, Surgical and even ENT (I quote an MO of mine: "Easy no tension!").

Some people say I should worry about these options later. I say that I need something to look forward to, to work hard for.

All I know is, I need to get out of this damned hospital.

3. I feel old these few days. Maybe because a great number of fellow HOs in my current department are first posters, therefore are substantially younger (~2 years) than I am. Sometimes people mistook me for an MO - compounded by the fact that I prefer to roam around the ward without my white coat (I blame the global warming!).

A few people I already know are already MOs. I'm feeling some sort of delayed development here on my part.

4. Dang, esok keje lagi...

Current Music: Payphone - Maroon Five featuring Wiz Khalifa

Intermission #39

"O you who are patient! Bear a little more, just a little more remains" ~ Ibn Qayyim

Dear God, it feels like there's still some way to go for me to finish this journey - my current posting for one thing, my entire role as a lowly house officer is another.

Especially when people I know are already a step above me.

I won't lie - there's slight awkwardness involved.

Dear God, I feel too much it'll probably be the downfall of me.

Buck up, self! Jangan nak emo sangat, boleh tak? Pfft~!

Current Music: Science & Faith - The Script

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

A Matter of Opinion

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails” ~ William Arthur Ward

Perhaps it just won't do to listen to people's opinions, but some would be quick to deny that. After all, working with people means there is no escape from people, yes? Even if we can stop people from talking (no small feat, surely!), no way we can change their opinions so easily. And, as most books would tell you, more often than not we are dealing with people as they are emotional creatures, rather than logical -  despite what my field of work might say on the matter.

But then again - are opinions actually manifestations of people judging people? I'm starting to think that they are the same...

Specialists and MOs remarked that I seemed depressed lately, making me more even more flustered than usual. While I appreciate(?) the concern(?), I'd rather not have it pointed out. It's my natural state of things, although I'm trying to do something about it. As one kind patient told me - in the end, all the stress accumulated at work won't actually be worth it if other aspects in one's life - health, social links, etc - become compromised in the process.

Fellow HOs teased that I was (am?) optimistic, and expressed their mock horror that my optimism is slowly being eroded. My response? I've never been an optimist, because my heart has been broken so many times.

...I'll just have to work hard, yes? As long as I know I'm doing what's right, it should be okay even if the world is against me, because God Knows better anyway...and what is this world but a sojourn, a minefield of trials and tribulations?

...This entry probably reflects my idealistic musings, but whatever. Having any conviction is just too much work these days.

Current Music: Love Love - Take That

Unrest

My head is not a pretty place to live in right now, especially since I barely have time (Final Pro exams next month OMG!!!111) to even entertain the notions that keep on making waves in my thoughts, but then I realise that I've not written for some time and...well, I get cranky once I skip blogging. Yes, so that's why I need to get it all out now to focus on the things that really matter (OMGFinalProOMG!!!111).

A couple of weeks ago my group posted in Internal Medicine had a session with Dr. M. Before starting he asked us to form a circle, and start introducing ourselves on several points: name, where we came from, our secondary school, favourite food and book, and what we aspired to be when we were but kindergarten schoolkids.

For my favourite book, I answered it as Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, a book that basically talked about the role of little things in success. And, surprise, luck plays a pivotal point! Who was it who said that "Luck is when opportunity meets preparation"? That person could not have been more accurate. There was another quote that specifically said the percentage of luck and perspiration, but I can't recall that one right off the bat. Regardless, sufficient to say, the book made me depressed.

Yes, my favourite book happens to compound my depression. Masochistic much? Tsk!

Outliers happened to be the second book by Gladwell that I read. The first was Blink, but perhaps I read it when I was too young that I can't really say the book made much impression on me. But I do remember one point: the role of the subconscious self.

Then I came across a webpage that talked about Gladwell's most recent book, What the Dog Saw. According to him, there are two methods of learning, the implicit and the explicit. The explicit deals with details and is done consciously, while implicit is more subconscious, like figuring out a pattern and - to some extent - skills. Some actions such as playing an instrument or acting are better suited to be done using the implicit learning.

The problem happens when the explicit takes over, which can occur when the brain takes over while we are under stress. There was a study done by Sam Glucksberg in which two groups were given the task to complete in a given time, but only one was given a reward, a financial intensive. As it turned out, this group finished later than the other.

I suppose that's why I tend to zone out at times, paying no heed to other stimuli around and within me while I perform certain things, like during the exams or even when people cross-question me when it comes to academics. Some may even accuse me of recklessness. I don't know if it's a good thing, but it has got me this far and...I'd like to think that it's just how my brain works. Maybe it became this way after all the depressing things that I run into, or how the education system has moulded my thinking methods, or even my years of gaming (which probably is done more intuitive than anything else I do).

Perhaps it will be better with time and experience. Yet I pray that I can count on it to get me out of a fix.

God Help me. God Help us all.

Current Music: Time's Scar - Chrono Cross OST

Running the Gauntlet

"Don't wish it were easier, wish that you were better" - Jim Rohn

She was panting when she reached my side. I gave her a few minutes to catch her breath. It was fine - we were in no hurry after all.

"Tired?" I asked when her breathing pattern was restored, her rate normalising.

"Yes."

"...tired of what, specifically?"

She wrinkled her forehead, confused and perhaps, wary of me. "What, specifically, is your question?"

"Is your apparent tiredness stemming from exertion of running away, or are you tired of running away itself?"

"Ah. Good question." She paused to ponder. "You think?"

"I'd say it's both, although the former is more obvious than the latter. At least, by my standards."

"You're right. I am tired of all this running away - avoiding responsibilities, avoiding things just because they have a high probability to screw up. Running away from things when they don't agree with me, or when things are bound to become bad and ugly. Tired of all the panicking and hoping."

I nodded in agreement. "Life will screw you over."

"Quite true. Running won't exactly solve anything. The most it can provide you with is some temporary relief, before falling on your back, regardless if you've seen it coming from a mile away."

"And so...?"

"Well, I suppose to prevent life from screwing us over we'll just have to be well-prepared for it. I mean, sometimes we just have to give in to life, to what has been appointed to us. Stop asking 'why me?' when the world appears to go against you. Playing with 'what if' situations won't really help much to reduce your stress." She beamed at me.

"It's nice to see this paradigm shift in you."

"Yeah? I just hope it's not too late, and that it lasts properly...the heart can't take all the lashings coming its way, anyhow. Well, I'd better dash off..."

"What, where to?" I asked. "So soon? You're running again?"

"Yeah. There's no escape from the bad things in life, but I'd best start equipping myself with whatever is necessary for my survival. Besides, what option do I have but to run, when Time itself flies?" She winked, and was off again before I could say another word.

Indeed, tempus fugit. Regardless of where we stand, be it trapped in the past or anxiously anticipating the future, Time still moves forward.

Run on, until the curtain closes...and perhaps, one will be finally worthy of the applause that might follow.

-----

(c) ad. Lucidus, 2011.

Current Music: Need You - Travie McCoy

P/s: Crossposted here

P/p/s: "Running the gauntlet", according to the Oxford American dictionary, means to "go through an intimidating or dangerous crowd, place, or experience in order to reach a goal". Appropriate title is appropriate.
As a side note, this was supposed to be written in poetry form but...this fever is killing the words in my brain. Maybe some other day...

Intermission #21

It is part of the Mercy of Allah that thou dost deal gently with them Wert thou severe or harsh-hearted, they would have broken away from about thee: so pass over (Their faults), and ask for ((Allah)'s) forgiveness for them; and consult them in affairs (of moment). Then, when thou hast Taken a decision put thy trust in Allah. For Allah loves those who put their trust (in Him). (3:159)
If Allah helps you, none can overcome you: If He forsakes you, who is there, after that, that can help you? in Allah, then, Let believers put their trust. (3:160)

1. I like to think that one of my fortes is sarcasm (Not exactly something worth bragging about, I agree...). Maybe it's just my way of letting it out without employing a loud tone of voice, but while I have many opportunities to put this into practice, I rarely do, for fear of:

• sounding like an arrogant know-it-all (...)
• accused of being rude (...some people tend to accuse more easily than the general population...)
• the listener not understanding the sarcasm, which kind of defeats the purpose. Dang.

Or, maybe, it's just my style of humour - which people don't always get, which sort of results in my unwillingness to mix around much. That, and that catering to people exhausts me greatly.
(On a somewhat unrelated note - I'm starting to think that 'humour' as an ego defense mechanism should not be put as a mature defense mechanism. It belittles the gravity of the situation - isn't that akin to denial itself?! And some people push the jokes a bit too far...it starts to get irritating. And offensive.)
Perhaps I should start becoming more silent. That way people may not misunderstand me much, it reduces the risk of inadvertently offending anyone else - and it probably helps in that what I say rarely bears any impact anyhow.
...Thank God for blogs though.

2. "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves" ~ Carl Gustav Jung.

If I appear to be colder and more labile these days, I apologise. It dawned on me that with some people it gets more difficult to tolerate them and their antics...and so I might have accidentally 'displaced' any displeasure I have towards them on some other poor innocent souls.
Or...it could be the stress. Now with regards to the time, one can only say "OMG Final Pro is just next month, OMG!!".

3. Avicenna's keyboard is acting up. The cursor appears in odd places and starts to insert the text I'm typing into other words. What the flipping heck, Apple!
Yeah. Time for a new laptop. A MacBook, no less. Sigh.

4. The manga Meitantei Conan is finally back on track - somewhat. It's about time too! Besides, I need more Okiya!

5. "The world is a crazy place. And sometimes that craziness infects us. Sometimes it makes us a little crazy too" ~ Anonymous (snagged from Tumblr)

I'm the kind who is in tune with my psyche and aims to achieve harmony with my surroundings. But with the...turbulent state of things, I can safely say that it's nigh impossible to achieve this task.
The heart can only take so much before breaking. Maybe because it's never meant to take up too much burden. But with the Internet, with the information overload (useless and useful data notwithstanding), it seems that ignorance is bliss after all, when applied correctly...

Maybe I should move away to someplace else, where people can act more rationally instead of just resorting to the excuse of "other people hexing others using supernatural means"...and the delusion that just because one has Google or the Internet in your laptop/computer/iPhone/PDA/tablet, you're as good as a specialist in that area.

...I wonder if such a place actually exists, or is it just an idealist's unattainable Utopia?

Current Music: Redemption - Gackt Camui

Overload

"The only dream worth having, I told her, is to dream that you will live while you're alive and die only when you're dead. [Which means:] To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget." - Arundhati Roy

It's getting uglier. So ugly it's repulsive, it's blasphemy.

What on God's Earth is wrong with...every single thing!? Why are utter morons holding the strings, the baton to the orchestra? Why can't some people just act their age already?

Why is it that most people appear so selfish it's just so inhumane? (...Myself notwithstanding? Really? Oh dear...) I used to think that the only thing that is limitless in a person is his or her dreams - perhaps now I may add 'ego' to that list?

Why do people no longer respond to kindness with kindness too? Why is it that people's good will gets manipulated out of context only too easily? Why is it that lies always seem to prevail over truth? Why does it feel as if our lives are being controlled by capitalists and corruption?

Is everything a mere fabrication, a veil to blind?

Is this how humanity spirals down to destruction? Are we already in the final chapter, or are things just getting started?

One thing I'm quite certain of - I'm so sick of all this bull.

Current Music: What The Hell - Avril Lavigne

Intermission #17

"If you think things can't get any worse, you have no imagination" ~ Sean Keogh

Let's get this straight.

I've seen both ends of the spectrum - patients with major depressive disorder and those with bipolar disorder. And when they're unstable, the first group managed to, somehow, made me feel depressed secondary to their depression while the second group made me feel irritated with their irritability and/or grandiosity.

Let's not even go into how I feel about schizophrenic patients. Do I still feel paranoid about being in the vicinity? Not so.

...I'm pretty sure I'm not judging them, because everyone hates to be judged - but people do it all the same.

What I mean to say is this: I don't want to end up like any of those cases...but the future is hard to tell when even the present is murky.

What does one do, when one is too tired to dream, too tired to hope, too weakened to fight back?

Current Music: Raise Your Glass - Pink

P/s: Accidentally turned out sounding more pessimistic than intended. Whoops?
...Old habits die hard. Dear God.

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

Ideation

"It's an uncharted territory," she whispered.

The remark took me by surprise. We have been shrouded in silence since we came here, and I was truthfully relieved that she just opened a topic. The quietness was starting to bore and bug me. Keen to figure out her thread of thoughts this time, I probed on. "What is?"

She shot me an exasperated look. Her hand hovered just next to her head, finally tapping her temple with a finger.

As usual, I was eager to argue. "Well, not exactly. Anatomically speaking, that is. There're enough things in the brain that neither you nor I can possibly cover everything before the Final Pro."

She sighed heavily. Maybe I've struck the wrong note this time. Or maybe my statement hit a little too close to home.

"The brain is merely the hard-drive, the external machinery. No, I'm referring to the thinking process, the operating system," she said, her tone strained.

Of course you are, I felt like retorting bitterly. It was her fault for being so vague in the first place.

"Just like dreams, yes? In a way, it's a relief." She paused as she rearranged her words in the recesses of her own mind. "It's like the brain is telling you that it's still working even though your body starts to demand its time-out once your bedtime arrives."

"Err, yes." Truthfully I wanted to tell her that I rarely remember my dreams at all, so it didn't make much of a difference to me. I probably don't dream at all, so--

"I suppose once we cease to dream, we cease to live as well."

She did it again. With that simple aphorism she almost made me feel like sinking into the ground. Was she accusing me of being lifeless? Like a zombie, maybe!?

Even if she did notice my cringing at my internal monologue, she had nothing to say about it. Good for you! Go on, think some more while I try get rid of this growing uneasiness so that I'll be just in time to resume our little chit-chat.

She broke the silence with a grunt. "Just because you can't remember your dreams, it doesn't mean that you don't dream at all."

Did she just read my mind? Did I just experience the phenomenon of 'thought broadcast' that we learnt in Psychiatry?

Maybe it was time for me to say something - before she gives a reply without my actually saying it and then totally freaking me out. "...Usually my brain is too tired for little details like dreams. It's already cluttered as it is. Besides, I wouldn't want to remember any nightmares. It might turn me into a paranoid person."

"Right."

Wait, why aren't you contradicting me? Are you even listening to what I was saying, or are you still deep in your thoughts that I'm now reduced to an insignificant bystander? Will this short story continue with only my monologues, my complaints about the intricacies of the human mind and human interaction while you sit there and become washed away by your own brainwaves?

"Maybe they're not significant enough for you to remember afterward."

What on earth are you saying now, woman? Did I miss anything you said while I was busy thinking to myself? Make yourself clear, or I'm seriously going to ignore you for the rest of this scene! Still unable to grasp her logic, I could only response in the most intelligent manner possible at the time, "Huh?"

"Something is stopping you. I don't know what it is, though." She looked at me for a moment, taking in my confusion. For a moment there I felt that I was being analysed.

I swear, she must be enjoying this, to see me squirm helplessly while she talked about things that I'd rather not think about too much. Some things are just beyond us! Speaking of which, are we still on the subject of dreams that we experience in sleep, or has she progressed to the dreams one has for one's future?

I seriously couldn't tell where she was going. What have I done to deserve this situation?

"So...?" I prompted carefully. I wondered if her analysis on me came up with anything, and if she would mind sharing. More properly this time. It was only fair!

"Well," she shrugged and stood up from the bench. She turned her head sideways to glance at me, "you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." With that, she beamed mischievously and skipped off, leaving me staring at her disappearing form.

I hate it whenever she does that. It was bad enough that her ramblings were difficult to follow, now she has even abandoned me in the flesh!

And, seriously - did she just take a line straight out of the movie Inception? So much for originality.

---

Work of fiction (c) ad. Lucidus, 2011.

Current Music: Shining Star (TV Ver.) - 9nine 

P/s: "In this game, you always have to have hope. You always have to dream" ~ Robert Low

I'd like to think that this post has something to do with a seminar I have to present later, Sleep and Sleep Disorders.

...Alternatively, maybe it sprung from my alternating unexplained hypersomnia and untimely insomnia.

I Want to Believe

1. ...but there is an omnipresent black hole that sucks the living daylight from every sliver of light that flickers.

But the need to believe - this trust in God - wants to fight back. And so it struggles on, with whatever ounce of energy it has.

And, as always, my Ego self that is perpetually in the middle of a tug of war between the Superego and Id, will always swing to one side and then to the other. I'm getting dizzy from all the motion, sick of all the drama, and growing numb from all the uncertainty.

It's always the same darn thing over and over again, and really, when will this cycle end!? Haven't I learnt anything!?

2. ...It's pretty obvious that I'm trying to get in the mood for Psychiatry, is it not? Perhaps it's a means to drown the unpleasantness that I had to suffer through back then.

3. Bought a book that I've been searching for since roughly a week ago. The Sherlockian by Graham Moore. At this point in time I know I shouldn't be investing in more fictions, of all things, but lately it's getting hard to find joy in things that I used to have so much passion for. And so when the need to indulge comes, especially when it comes to those that rank high in my list of addictions, then there is simply no compromise.

Kind of like coffee too, come to think of it. There's the phase of need, then when it's not fulfilled the withdrawal symptoms come, and later on you'll find yourself drinking coffee just to maintain your physiological level at a basic functioning state. Otherwise the neurons get cranky, firing up in the areas that you least need activity in.

4. “The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live” ~ Joan Borysenko

...Lately I keep on getting killer questions, even _after_ the exams. Oh heck.

5. I was asked what my new year resolution would be. Then it struck me - with great horror! - how out of touch with time I've been lately, and that things are really coming at full speed, regardless whether I'm ready to play catch with it or am even prepared for a defense.
"What will be your 2011 resolution?"
'OMG it's really going to be next year soon! OMG!' "...to get skin hypertrophy." 'And it's not in the cancerous version, dear God...please, not that.'
"What?"
"...meaning to grow a thicker skin."

...Yeah. Maybe this numbness is a way of getting there. Perhaps it's not too impossible after all?

6. Why this? Because I can, and I need to lay off this blog for a bit. All the extra-lengthy posts gobbles up too much of my time, and it's probably easier opting for summaries and graphic representations instead.
Take note: Probably.
...Oh God.

Current Music: Fireworks - Katy Perry

Broken

“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meanings underlying them.” ~ Stanley Lindquist

I used to be naive. Too naive for my own good.

The world, through my eyes, is too cruel. My rose-tinted glasses had shattered in its wake, and the shards pierce deep and painfully into my soles. Each step becomes more painful than the one before.

The knowledge doesn't make the journey any less painful. Despite the preparation, there will always be something - a weak point that will be the downfall of everything else. Like cotton candy torn to bits by a machine-gun gone amok. Or a small hole that will eventually be ripped open, wider and wider, that soon an entire forest of elephants could go through the opening.

I don't like being the target. A punching bag for hits of all sorts. When you have no artillery at your disposal for your defense - or, heck, even a brick wall - then all you can do is stand still, as still as whatever left of your dignity allows you, and take it all in your stride.

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But this...this is poisoning slowly, that by the time the damage is beyond repair, I'd probably be in a vegetative state, or, simply put, have long snapped.


God Forbid though.

...That is all. For now.

----------------
Now playing: Lifehouse - Halfway Gone
via FoxyTunes

Intermission #13

Hope becomes dreams, but dreams turn into nightmares.

We move on, we age on,
We gain some, we leave some,
In the end, is it all worth it?
What we kept for what we have lost?

Life gets tougher
because it assumes you do too


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Now playing: Savage Garden - Affirmation
via FoxyTunes

P/s: Nobody describes my sentiment towards Nelson Essentials of Paediatrics better than Dorothy Parker: "This book is not to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force".

*headdesk*

(No) Boundaries

"Responsibility is the price of greatness" ~ Winston Churchill

Perhaps you'd agree with me if I say that childhood ends when life ceases to appear as straightforward. Teenage years commence when one tends to exaggerate the level of such entanglements - "Nobody understands me! Screw you, world!" or "Look at me, the rebel without a cause!" - oftentimes due to seeing oneself as more adult than one truly is; some sort of an identity crisis, being caught between two phases.

As for adulthood, that's when you surrender to the fact that no, the world wouldn't stop being so difficult just because you told her to...and so you resolve to make the most out of it - press on despite the raging currents, rise above even when everything seems to bring you down.

Because our survival instincts know that we essentially don't have any other choice.

But we sometimes stop and wonder - "What if everything I've done so far was a mistake?"

Am I just complicating things, by questioning the validity of the status quo?

Some things in life need to be changed by one’s own hands. Others need to be accepted and tolerated as they are, and the remaining deserves no attention whatsoever.

Some things need to be done, others are optional, and the rest…they don’t matter, whatever their outcome may be.

Sometimes the demarcation is easy, other times difficult. But perhaps, the only thing more difficult than the latter is the initiative to truly act as what is needed of you. Treating unimportant matters as important, and vice versa, is akin to putting things not in their proper place. Yes, it is injustice.

Easier said than done, I confess.

We will falter at times, when the situation is most dire, or when we are simply exhausted beyond imagination. It is then that we just have to remember – there are always prayers, and there will always be Him, Who would Listen in His Own Way…even when the rest of the world turns a deaf ear and walks out on you.

Source

Current Music: Signal (Acoustic Version) - Kelun

The Simple(r) Life

“Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get” - George Bernard Shaw

What if everything that you have ever known or thought that you believed in whole-heartedly - was in fact wrong? Would you say that you were tricked by those delusions? Or would you say that they spawned from ignorance, and now you are freed from those lies - only that you're already leaping across a huge chasm; falling into it means being swallowed alive with no hope raising above and seeing the light, while reaching the other side means facing the great unknown, the indomitable evil within and outside, brutes who are only too eager to bring you down?

Maybe my thinking is a bit too radical, too alien for this part of the world, this community I'm living in. How I came to the realisation that I feel more comfortable working alone compared to dealing with people of all sorts was a shock. I've never thought I'd have this kind of predicament before - whatever happened to the me of yore, who was able to freely achieve things that the current me is still finding the courage to?

And yet when my old friends remarked that I "haven't changed a bit", part of me just wanted to laugh bitterly. Oh, if only they knew...

I missed those days that I did not have to worry about trifles, and how Chance never appeared to me like a looming spectre, eager to grasp me in his claws and tear me apart, and how Uncertainty never laughed at my fumbling in a B-grade sitcom.

If I could go back in time to see the younger version of me, I would engage her in a long, long talk. One that probably would convert her to the current me a bit sooner, but probably would save her the trouble in the long run.

But no! There is no way to turn back the clock. Gone are those days when we could laugh easily and look forward to a brighter, more promising day ahead. In retrospect, those problems that we faced as children were tantamount to nothing - entirely insignificant - to those that we face now. Perhaps the same will ring true when our future self puts our current self in juxtaposition.

It's irreversible. Why is it that we can't seem to learn!?

We only have the Past as our teacher, the Present as our arsenals, and the Future as our spoils of war, a trophy that embodied the blood and tears that we had put into. And we put ourselves - perhaps so much more! - at stake in this great battle.

Ah, the power of belief...so influential, yet so incorrigible.

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Now playing: Lifehouse - Halfway Gone
via FoxyTunes

Intermission #10

"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress" ~ Bruce Barton

1. Good grief. How I miss the revision weeks we once enjoyed before we became fifth year students...without it, time is speeding beyond the speed of light and I am left scrambled for whatever pieces I could gather.

In O&G, it felt like most of my time was spent trying to look for procedures, waiting for deliveries and timing pregnant ladies' contractions (...). That, and the innumerable nights that I lost sleep, making my biological clock more chaotic than ever. And my brain - my poor brain is starting to rebel against me.

I don't know. That's just how things are. Who am I to say anything else?

2. Sometimes I do wish some people would mind others. We live in a community, don't we? Then, for the love of God, please treat public property like one and stop hogging it like it's personal property. *cringe*

3. No more. If I start rambling further...who knows what my caffeine-deprived, sleepy brain would say next? Perhaps those things I'll forever regret...

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Now playing: Maroon Five - Misery
via FoxyTunes

Comme Il Faut

Comme il faut (Fr.)
- lit. as is necessary
- correct in behavior or etiquette

Source: Oxford American Dictionary

“Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively” ~ Voltaire

In that case I am certifiably mad. As in, angered to a point of physical retaliation, or an acidic retort.

It is inevitable. It has happened to our seniors in the previous years, and will continue to happen in the future. It's impossible to built this sense of camaraderie when there are just too many people that your personal space gets invaded, and when an amiable offer is returned by what is in essence impudence.

I hardly think I am abusing my seniority. The fact that other people share my sentiments _must_ mean something.

It's amazing how emotions can cloud one's perception. Amazing and dangerous, definitely. Between two people sharing some similarities - be it blood ties, appearance or even behaviour - our prejudices can tell them apart and react to what we see as deserving to each party in question.

I swear, if I'm ever peeved again by that wench, I won't hold back.