i am 25 years old and this is a day i feel particularly tired, exhausted jaded and cynical.

it's strange how when u were a kid u just want to grow up really fast and be out there in the real world experiencing the exicitng life of a grownup, only to realise that perhaps it was all just a imaginary picture-perfect life that doesn't exist.

i am sooooooooo tired. of everything.

of going to work.

of not having weekends off.

of meeting nasty ppl in my life.

of being expected to know when i wasn't taught.

of ppl who likes to point fingers.

of ppl who think they are sm smart.

of ppl who mismanage thgs.

of lazy ppl.

of politics.

of not having time to do the thgs i would really love to do.

of not having time to see my friends.

of not having the energy to meet up with my friends when i finally have time to m,eet up with them.

of not being able to have a lie-in on weekend mornings when the whole world is still slumbering.

of not having enough time to bring my parents out.

of not having enough myself time.

of caring for thankless patients.

of ungrateful demanding patients and family who think they have a right to treat us like dirt just cos they think we are earning oodles of money and doing no work.

of feeling unappreciated at work.

of the unequal distribution of work.

of the amount of bitching that goes on and on at the workplace.

of the fact that i am sacrificing my time and health for... remind me what again?

of the fact that we are expected to work inhumane hours if necessary.

of the fact that i don't get enough sleep.

of the people who shout at me for no reason when i make referrals to them.

of losing my love for my work.

*yawn*
*stretches*

Lazy Sunday afternoon!! wah. i can hardly peel my eyelids apart. *snores*

Can't imagine i haven't felt the need/urge to blog in so many donkey yrs. to think i am now in the LAST mth of housemanship! *gasp* that's such a scary thought!!!!

looking back, the past yr has been full of ups and downs, many experiences i have had would be probably the very ones that would accompany me for the rest of my life.

Housemanship.

You covert it when you are a struggling medical student, panicking in the wee hours of the night trying frantically to get hold of your best friend at the end of the other line, practically begging for words of reassurance as you sweat over The Exams that begin the next day. You slog your guts away, look in awe and envy at your seniors The Houseman who have Passed MBBS *oh how god-like they were!) and wonder if your turn will ever come.

Next come The Results Day, when happiness mingled with a sense of relief and a teeny weeny sense of loss/regret that you are now officially an working adult. Student no more! and of course many of us would look forward to our very first pay-cheque! Hoooray! Just ten more years before we can finish repaying our debts!!! :p

The first day of housemanship will forever remain a blissfully blurry fuzzy kind of picture for me; haha i can't really remember how my working life started. er with some briefings i guess?! maybe some sort of welcome? but truthfully you don't really have the luxury to think; too much pent-up adrenaline and sense of impending doom mixed with a desperately trying-not-to-panick feeling is all that i remembered about my first day of work. Some of us have it good, what with superbly nice baby MOs guiding us along whereas some of us have to make do with the NTS MOs who, to be honest were not the best people to show us the ropes. At the end of the day, after many "scuffles" and secret "i-totally-can't-stand-working-with-you" kind of recurring thoughts, many of us eventually got rid of the demons and surprisingly got along rather well with the NTSes. hehe.

I guess for many of us, the first place we started our HO-ship will always feel like home. :D

I remember the trauma of having to change postings at the end of 4 months. The familiar sense of anxiety, self-doubt! Wondering if you will ever get used to the new system, new people, new kind of patients, newly down-sized paediatric veins that you will have to set plugs in! and of course, dealing with obsessing neurotic and overanxious +++++ parents is never a piece of cake. (many a times you will be called to see patients' PARENTS stat, only to be posed a question: Doctor doctor! my child is crying! HOW!?!?! U learn not to jaw-drop too obviously after awhile. haha) and of course at the back of your mind you always have this niggling feeling you will turn out to be the champion of all neurotic parents when you become a parent yourself.

The third posting is in a way, potentially the most enjoyable of them all. We would all have reached a stage where we are comfortabel doing changes, whining about our lack of rest but yet seasoned enough to clock 40 hours straight at work without a wink a sleep and yet do a decent day's work. Competency comes with time. And i personally feel that it is when you know that you aren't embarassingly inadequate as a HO that you begin to chat more and share more with your MOs and regs... No need to paper-bagged your head that often anymore! ahah.


The impending end of HO-ship is the mark of another chapter, another challenge, another new wave of paper-bagging for us all. And i can't help but feel very sad that i will be turning into a MO, and from then onwards my class of '2008 would be scattered all over Singapore, each pursuing our own desitinies. It is kind of sad to come to realise that no longer will you be seeing familiar faces among your fellow peers, more often than not your fellow MOs will be people you have never seen before, and who may be so caught up in their exam prep that they may not even take a second look at you. HOship has been fun, despite all the horribly long hours of work. You find joy in helping your peers who have so often offered a helping hand when you were drowning in oodles of work. You find joy bitching together about the system, about the infamously horrid bosses, about the low pay, the bitchy secretaries, the horrible food, the nasty patients. haha.



i somehow have this feeling that the houseman yrs would be sorely missed, even though we are phytoplankton turning amoebae. And perhaps being a plankton is more carefree then being an amoebae bah. At least there's always plenty of sympathetic phytoplankton willing to lend their ears for your grouses.

Didn't actually realise it has been that long since i last blogged.... =)

Just came back from Korea, my first self-funded tour! =D am happy that i am no longer leeching off my parents... and I had the most wonderful time of my life there. Precious memories that I would guard closely forever.

There were many "firsts" for my winter trip to Korea (11-18th December '2008)
- my first traditional korean meal
- my first visits to locations used for the filming of many Korean dramas: Han Na Shan, Coffee Prince, Teddy Bear Museum
- first traditional Korean barbecue - absolutely yummy!
- first contact made with a real live octopus
- had my first snowball fight and the first snowball thrown at me by a Korean
- first real snowman (albeit a minute one carefully crafted by my fellow tourmate)
- first experience on skis (can't brake, had to rely on my "instructors" to catch me as i fly by)
- first time I made kimchi ( i am a-zu-ma!)
- my first time donning a hanbok and acting demure
- my first christmas parade in an amusement park
- the first time i am gutsy enough to initiate a scary ride in the amusement park (poor sister almost had a heart attack hee)


it was also during this trip that I realised with surprising clarity, that I am but young only once. The pragmatist and realist in me has always kept me in check, and I have always remained a cautious and somewhat guarded person where certain aspects are concerned. But now, I am thinking, there's nothing to lose and perhaps everything to gain. It's a gamble, and it's terrifying how vulnerable one feels. But perhaps it's time to follow my heart instead of my mind.

A Bridemaid's Tale

i have finally gotten a taste of bridesmaid-ing!!!!

haah it's really gd fun! and not to mention it can pay extremely well (a few hrs of work which is FUN earns u abt one wkend call's pay at least woohoo!)

married my cousin off yesterday on saturday... *sniffles* we are all so grown-up now! felt v nostalgic as the photo montage of her life was played out on the big screen during the wedding; it's kind of surreal, seeing urself onscreen as a 2 or 3 yr old and knowing how far you have come since then! and realising how little u remember urself as a little fat thg toddling ard on ur squeaky shoes and looking absolutely hideous except for ur nicely curly hair (which by Sod's law disappears once it becomes hip to have nice wavy hair as a grownup).

was initially worried i couldn't wake up in time to take on my jie mei duties, considering i was post-post call and usually needs 16 hrs of solid slp before i begin to stir. hah but seems like the excitement of being jie mei for the first time in my life is more than the sandman's temptations! but waking up at 4am was no joke. i can't imagine how much earlier i have to wake up when my sister's big day come!!! and in absolutely no mood to prettify myself either at that ungodly and post-post call day. ahah! (i have this wish to destroy the wedding videos so tt i don't have to see myself as this white lump haggling with the brothers)

it was pretty gd fun, ganging up with 4 other jie meis (my sis, my lame cousin, and the bride's two other friends) to guard the door to the bride's hse! though i must say this gang of brothers were really.... ill-prpepared. ha! no coordination, v slow is packing the red pkts smmore! and the poor groom looked so stressed up! he win's the Most Stressed Groom award hands-down man! and i just couldn't bring myself to be too hard on him; u can't be so heartless as to tip the groom over to stress disorder on his big day lah.

my cousin on the other hand was really chill; such a cool bride! have never seen smone as cool and calm as her before; can really tell she is enjoying herself and just being her usual "garang" self! hehe wearing boots with her gown included. whoa! un conventional bride sia! a joy to watch really, since usually brides are all really demure blushing ladies on their big days! and of cos, the bride was really beautiful and radiant!

and i realised how tiring it is being a chinese bride in s'pore; run here run there, need timekeeper, need two thousand changing of gowns, have to wear the "kua"? which weighs a million tonnes (believe me, it really feels tt heavy; i had to carry it), have to have dozens of jewellery pieces hanging on u... tough life man.

it really feels like a girlfriends party, esp when we were being chaffeured around by one of the brothers, interestingly called Ah Long! haha! spent a gd long time teasing him abt his name, and i think he was really intimidated by our constant jabber. but his wife trained him well; smart enough to know not to interject when ladies are talking up a storm!

the wedding had a military march-in; now thats stylish! i think every girl secretly wish to have these well-dressed soldiers (?) crossing their swords as they walked into the banquet hall; looks really nice anyway! and makes the wedding all the more special!

a few impt thgs i learnt this wedding:
1. It's gd to discuss with pranksters how to "torture" the groom; esp if you have plenty of time to "play"!
2. ALWAYS think of what the bride may need --> fan, straw to drink water with wo smudging her lippy, umbrella in case of rain. wet wipes after gown changes when she would feel really sweaty, plasters in case of blisters, panadol, puke-bags and medicated oil for excessive alcoholic loading
3. Bring red packets! Many guests will forget to bring red packets...
4. Jie-meis should consist of really gd and loud hagglers who can bring the mood up! same goes for brothers
5. Always have time-keepers!
6. Befriend more ppl who drives; u need many chaffeurs for jiemeis and brothers tt day
7. At the end of the day, be flexible and change plans accordingly. I the groom is already so stressed up, cut him some slack! You don't want him to remember his wedding day as the most horrible day of his life!

i am addicted to being a jie-mei! Wonder if it's true its unlucky to do it more than thrice!?

i miss scotland.

if only there's some nice lovely cold weather here with a nice homey fireplace to warm yourself with.

boo.

i am sick

oh misery

must be the first HO to keel over and take MC

*sigh*

wondered who passed the superbug to me, my mo and my reg. all down w sorethroats!

and then i had the fever chills and rigors

superb

=(

my last wk in my ward! feeling kind of sad already. Just getting used to it and everythg... will miss the ppl and the ward.

seriously don't like myself much these days; too grumpy and perpetually have this wrinkled-up prune-like puckered dont-u-dare-come-and-bother-me-look. like a hedgehog who swallowed a lemon.

ha. sheesh! i think i am developing a bad working attitude. must learn from ganesh and "chill". no matter how much work or s**t that comes flying, i am sure i can finish it! stop being such a worrier and easily stressed up person. i wonder how come i seemed to cope better in my first wk. Becoming sick of crappy thgs that happen i guess!

nooooooo. i must get my usual self back. can't stand living with sour old prune. BAH.

and i got my first pay! and i suddenly feel myself morphing into an extra stingy person. Earning is really not an easy job man. But it does give me alot of satisfaction giving ang pows to my parents! =D heehee. although i must admit there's quite alot of heartache involved too when half your pay is gone. i shall go back to eating grass. or maybe popping D50.

oh nitecall this fri... let's hope i would be well on my way to recovery by then! urgh.

Wkend is here! YAY. finally... sure took its own sweet time in coming!

been 12 days since i had a day off... lalalallala i really enjoy this free as a bird feeling!

and yes. it has been confirmed. sunday calls are really BAD. my phone didn't stop ringing till 2 am!!!! actually had lunch at 11pm. almost died from hypoglycemia and i think i was scaring all the nurses by being terribly fierce and grouchy. haah but i can't help it! hunger + stress + incessant calls + super many ECGs to review = one grumpy grouch. actually i really feel quite ashamed of my terrible bhvr but really, i was so swamped and sinking rapidly into the quicksand of depression!!! better start doing yoga or taichi of smthg to temper my mood. blah.

and i am really thankful for the ppl who fed me on call. you know, it's like when you are in this deep abyss and smone unexpectedly shows u kindness, u just want to weep (too gan dong).
1. Irene fr 57
- offered hot chocolate and pong bia at 2 plus pm after learning i didnt have lunch!
2. Yee Leng
- my half call MO from my first call who wasn't even my MO tt day! bought sandwiches and shared her green tea w us -> finally i had "lunch" at 11!
3. Nice staff nurse fr 55
- passed me kaya toast along the corridor! must go find out his name

these ppl are really too kind for words. haah and to think i was such a walking terror that day, snapping away at everyone! i really morph into medusa on calls man.

covering a certain wing that deals with certain pts and their relatives really stretched me thin. i was called over urgently as they wanted updates. i was like .......... anyway i went over under duress and was promptly treated to an impromptu shouting match btw two well-meaning siblings right in front of the elderly pt. and that was when i decided even a HO can speak up and tell them straight to pls show respect for their sick mum. *roll eyes* ah well. my poor MO. luckily an urgent call came and we were extricated from tt tricky situation. sigh

but then, it was also the first call that i got to slp! was trying to help yu chin but cldnt take it anymore and tumbled into bed. to my horror i actually had insomnia the first half hr (too much fearful anticipation of when the next call will come!)

it turned out to be a rather gd wk despite such a bad post-call slpy monday.

made peace with a certain smone who was causing me much distress, and now i feel much better. in fact, i am seeing a new side and yes i shld stop my mutinous attitude. maybe i can learn to respect this person after all. hee.

made some new friends this wk! and actually bumped into my old KE pal whom i havent seen for 5 yrs!!!! no wonder i always thought the pharmacist looks familiar! we used to play badminton together in our hall days! wow! and she actually recognises me! haha those were the fun days. i was so lousy but keen on badminton, i think these were the only ppl who can tolerate my crappy badminton skills. muahah =P

i think i will miss my ward when i leave next wk. although i am happy to be able to go back to my beloved SIP ward! and i feel so bad that my mistake caused much trouble and inconvenience to a nurse lor. hai. forgot to add mixtard to the prescription, so pharmacist called and very nicely didnt ask me to reprint for them just to amend it on cpss. which i did but it nv cross my mind to inform my SN. in the end she didn't know the insulin was in the fridge and we sent the pt to nursing home wo insulin! only got to know in the evening! and she had to bring the insulin down to the NH! felt terrible. and she won't accept cab fares! hai. i feel super guilty lah. i must really be more careful next time. =( and she didn't blame or scold me! feel even more guilty.

i hope my gd mood keeps up! doing HO1 calls next! heard it's VERY scary. shucks. haha. alamak. better start practising ABGs on my soft toys. gulp.