The Beginning

A start of a new era.
An end of another.

New challenges.
New problems.
New worries.
New responsibilities.
New smiles.

Everything that starts has an end.

I never thought I'd get here.
Even if this was what I was working towards in the end.

The future looks kinda dim.
May be a bit gloomy, may be a bit dull.
May be I am just scared in the end.


What I mean in the end:

Congratulations to Abang and Kak Muni.
On beginning your new journey as parents.

And congratulations to myself for making it through 2 years of housemanship training.
On beginning my new journey as a medical officer.

May we all succeed on our given paths.

Insya Allah.

I Was Bored

That seems to be a running concept on everything.

Hi, look what came out of the woodworks.

I had thought to make a new blog. But then again, no one reads my ramblings but me anyway. It's a good way to gauge how my mental development and emotional stability was at that point in time.

Right now, I'm mainly feeling bored. And maybe slightly left out? And maybe a little discontent.

My parents are doing the separate not separated thing.

It's tiring as hell. And also trying as hell.

But then again. It is what it is.

Somehow I don't think that I should be resentful. But I do feel a little bit of distance with my mother. It feels like she was the one who ditched us in the end.

We're the ones being punished. Because it's not enough to take it out on one person (or two, as the case maybe. Maybe three if you count the little guy).

There's a reason why I don't move to tumblr. Mostly because text posts are frowned upon. Everyone is more into the fast and easy exchange of information through graphics and gifs. Maybe we've gone full circle and went back to pictograms as ways of communication.

That's another interesting point to ponder.

I maybe having a sort of crisis. An existential crisis. A crisis of faith. A crisis of humanity.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm just bored in the end.

If there was ever a point to this entry. It was to test, how good am I at typing on my new keyboard. Since I bought a new laptop earlier this month. And I have not used it much for anything except listen to music and watch movies.

But then again, that was the reason I bought it in the first place.

I feel lonely.

I feel like I'm missing out sometimes. Like all I have is my job. And while I love it, I don't think it should be the thing that defines me.

Everyone's already moved to tumblr/twitter/what the other heck ever. And here I am, making a blog post. Mostly because I was bored.

And I wanted to use the keyboard to type. Other than to scroll over the timer of another movie.

it's is ironic that i cannot seem to be able to open this page in chrome

hah

eat my shorts

Because I was feeling lonely

• Zero - Who was your last text from? - An ad from my telco company
• One - What/who is your icon? - A picture of us playing with sparklers that one year we couldn't go home for Raya.
• Two- Your relationship status? - Single 
• Three - Have you ever lost a close friend? - No
• Four - What is your current mood? - Slightly melancholic
• Five - What’s your brother(s)/sister(s)names? - I have too many siblings to list them all down
• Six - Where do you wish you were right now? - In London, somehow
• Seven - Have a crazy side? - Sometimes she comes out and terrorizes people with her extreme manic ways, yes.
• Eight - Ever had a near death experience? - I was almost kidnapped once, so that counts.
• Nine- Something you do a lot? - Flip things off.
• Ten - Angry at anyone? - My current posting group.
• Eleven - What’s stopping you from going for the person you like ? - Him being married.
• Twelve - When was the last time you cried? - That one time, a colleague asked me a really stupid question that I honestly cried.
• Thirteen- What are you really good at ? - Fucking things up.
• Fourteen - What do you think about when you are falling asleep? - Unattainable things. Like falling in love with a rock star.
• Fifteen- What were you doing yesterday at 10pm? - Watching TV
• Sixteen - Do you prefer light or dark hair on the opposite sex ? - I live in Malaysia, everyone has black hair.
• Seventeen - Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? -  My dad.
• Eighteen - What is/are your favorite band(s)? . - My Chemical Romance, Panic.  At the Disco. Arashi.  Fall Out Boy
• Nineteen - What are you doing right now? - Filling this thing out because I was feeling lonely.
• Twenty - Who do you trust 100% right now? - Myself
• Twenty one - Where did you get the shirt you are wearing? - It's a hand -me-down of my mom's.
• Twenty two - Heavy metal music? - Not really.
• Twenty three- Who Was the last person you hugged.- Mum
• Twenty four- Is there anything you’re hiding from someone? - I have  a lot of secrets, okay?
• Twenty five - Who are you thinking of right now? - That one guy. 
• Twenty six - What should you be doing right now? - Getting ready to turn in. Because I have work tomorrow.
• Twenty seven - What are you listening to? -Young Volcanoes, by Fall Out Boy
• Twenty eight - You need new jeans. Quick where do you go? - The mall
• Twenty nine - Who was the last person who yelled at you? - My specialist. We get yelled at on a daily basis it gets old really fast. 
• Thirty - Do you act differently around the person you like? - I become more awkward than humanly possible.
• Thirty one - What is your eye colour? - Brown.
• Thirty two - Who was the last person to make you laugh? - My mum.
• Thirty three - Who was the last person to make you angry? - My "supposed" boss.
• Thirty four - Hello Kitty or dora? - Hello Kitty probably.
• Thirty five - Is your hair naturally curly or straight? - It's wavy.
• Thirty six - Hug anyone of opposite sex in past 24 hours? - Not really, no.
• Thirty seven - One thing you want right now? - 8 hours of sleep.
• Thirty eight - Will you fall in love in the next few months? - Probably not. The prospect doesn't really look good on the romance part. 
• Thirty nine - What does the 5th text in your inbox say? - Your purchase is successful. You can now enjoy your mobile data - I mainly communicate with telco companies apparently. 
• Forty - Are you worried about the future? - Yes
• Forty one - Are you happy with life right now? - A little more, a little less.
• Forty two - Are you currently jealous? - Of everyone 
• Forty three – Who's your best guy friend? - I don't really have any friends right now.
• Forty four -Do you forgive or forget? - A little bit of both but not enough of either.
• Forty five - What do you miss the most about elementary school? - Nothing. I hated elementary.
• Forty six - Favorite Disney Channel show ? - We don't get Disney on cable because my dad's cheap.
• Forty seven – Who’s 3 of your best girl friends? - Leika, Syamok, Syijo and Nisah.
• Forty Eight - What are you looking forward to? - Sleeping.
• Forty nine - Does anyone like you right now? - I hope so, but probably do one does. 
• Fifty- Lyrics to the song you’re listening to? -" These battle scars,  don't look like they're fading. Don't look like they're ever going away."

All the evidence point out to the opposite

A while back I bought a t-shirt that has "In Memory of When I Cared" written on it.

I've always been a fan of smart, sarcastic, sassy, or just mean sentences. I'm not particularly eloquent or anything and having something like that makes me feel cool.

As lame as it is anyway.

So. In memory of when I cared.

The whole family thing is not going all that well. It's all silences and accusations interspersed with family outings where we look like the perfect family of pretty successful people.
It's all very passive aggresive.

And also so unpredictable. Like you'd have a good morning  and a shouting fest 2 hours later.
I'm 26 this year and I should be mature enough that this shit should not affect me as much.
But then again, you are never too old to be a child.

That shit is depressing.

Anyway.

I can't take it anymore?

I can't take the accusations. The "subtle" insults. The fact that we are all a farce.

We've been in denial for 4 years. I think it should be enough.

The saying "elephant in the room" has never applied so much.

People used to be jealous of what we have.

And I can't take it anymore.

You said that I can make it better, but how can I make it better when I'm breaking too?

I used to be better because I was far away. So far away that it felt like being a spectator. But not now anyway. It hurts like hell.

My mum's always mad at me for being very profane. Somehow, while I was growing up, profanity always struck me as being strong. You're not afraid to curse. You're not afraid to say what's really on your mind. All the best female characters swore. Maybe I had the wrong role models. You wonder what I read as a child.

Every time this thing happens and we're stuck in the middle of all of it (I mean really, how do you expect us to choose?) I wished that I no longer cared.

I always say, "I do not give a shit" because I am a strong person and I am not afraid to say what I am thinking. " I do not give a shit. I do not care. This is not my problem."

And the fact that I need to repeat this to myself everyday is evidence of the complete and total opposite.

akunona 

I Find It All Relatively Humerus

That title is not misspelled.
To those who are able to figure it out, yes, I am in my orthopedics posting. To those who could not, well, I'm in my orthopedics posting.

It's by far the most relaxed posting that I have ever been in. Of course there are still the hours of ceaseless palpitations when we're preparing for the scary specialists, but after rounds we're all back to normal. And even the other medical officers and even specialists commiserate regarding the ReallyScarySpecialist (heretofore the RSS). Everyone's kinda scared of her. Or at least, really do not want to make her mad. Just for the sake of the human race, or really, just our hearing capabilities.

So what's new?

Nothing much on this end except work, work, and, you guessed it, work. Maybe I'm a little more settled? But that's neither here nor there.

It took 1 year for me to at least gain some confidence.

But, let me reassure all those housemen out there, during first posting, when you're thinking I cannot possibly memorize all my patients. One day, you'll be able to memorize all the patients in your wards.

It takes time.

I haven't really grown up any better. I still feel the same.

Though sometimes I'd like to think that I should make a change. Do my best. Not for myself, but for my patients.

InsyaAllah, boleh.

just listening to music

Life as a houseman pretty much sucks.

But that's expected. That's pretty much old news

I'm doing pediatrics now and I'm usually so stressed, I feel like crying every time I'm about to go to work.

I have a theory:

Baby's cries are geared at a frequency that is supposed to get your attention. I mean, babies can't communicate, right? So how else are they going to get attention? 

As a pediatric houseman working at the neonate ward, I am exposed, for long hours every day, to the incessant crying of various brats. And there's really nothing much that I can do about it. I mean, if I were to check on every crying baby, I wouldn't get any work done. And there isn't only one baby. There are literally dozens of babies in the SCN. And there is no single hour were there aren't at least two of them who are crying. 

So, what does this mean?

It means that I am exposed to long hours of crying that are especially geared to stimulate a response in my brain to find out and stop that source of crying. But because I can't do that, it continues to aggravate said stimulus until I am really, really, really fucking stressed.

And that is why, all peads housemen, working at neonate wards are unduly stressed. We're stressed. We just don't know why, really. I mean, work is stressful, yes. But it's really, really bad down here. 

And that's my theory.

I could probably do a study on this. If I was ever so diligent.

But I took that part of me to the back room and shot it in the head ages ago.

So yeah...

I hate peads. 

I really, really do.

Sometimes, I'm really jealous of the people who have the guts to get out of medicine. Just pack up and leave the entire industry.

I think I might want to. But then again, I really love what I'm doing. And I'm not even kidding. I would miss this. Somehow.

Even if I'm not doing that great of a job at it.

I think I'm going to be extended here. 

Do I care? A little bit. I don't want to have to do this longer than I should. But maybe, if I were to be extended. It would be my fault. And I can't really blame anyone for it.

It's been one month and I still haven't gotten the hang of all this shit. 

So that's why, every time I can get away with it, I usually have one earphone jammed into one ear. 

Because I still need the other one to hear orders. 

breaking a little bit

akunona

of sleeping in chairs

So, long time no update. Which is really to be expected. For the most part I spend hours a day typing into a computer. Mostly clerking notes. So when I get home, I ain't doing no more typing.
Though maybe not.

Currently already finished my surgical posting and well into my second posting, which is O&G. It's usually pretty nice. Minus the screaming ladies and babies. Which pretty much constitutes the whole job. But you get my drift.
I'm on  holiday right now. I was on the night shift on Wednesday, so I have half of Thursday and Friday off. Then I have my allotted weekend off. So that gives me a shit load of off days. Of which I am enjoying by accompanying my mum all the way to Perlis so that we can visit my brother/her son. It's all pretty fine and dandy but a bus trip to Perlis takes around 10 hours.

Which brings me to my title: of sleeping in chairs.

Because that was the second night in a row that I did not get to sleep in a real bed.

So. As I have mentioned earlier, I had the night shift on Wednesday. What this usually constitutes is I go to work at 9 pm, and finish work at 12 noon the next day. What ever people say about you being at work and are not supposed to be sleeping, ignore those bastards because they probably have never worked a night before in their lives. While working nights, if there is nothing going on, all your patient's are sleeping and no one's in any need of anything right now, get some rest. Take a nap. Even if it's only for 10 minutes, grab some shut eye. Because whatever people say, it's night. Your body has basically been programmed to shut down when it's dark outside.

But here lies the conundrum; where to sleep?

The hospital of course does have rooms where on call officers are allowed to sleep. There's even a complex which no one uses because it's too out of the way. There are rooms in each ward, but those are usually conquered by medical officers with a higher pay grade than you. And besides, those rooms are also usually out of the way.

In these cases, I for one, always opt to sleep in chairs. Whether it be in the chair in the office next to the nurses' counter, or at the nurses' counter itself.

Because I have a need to be on hand if anything happens.

And so, I spend a lot of time sleeping in chairs.

I've slept in office chairs, plastic chairs, plastic-all-in-one-row waiting room chairs and one time, a bench in front of the nurses's counter where I lay down to sleep, much to the hilarity of the working staff nurses that night.

And I believe that all this experience has made me a connoisseur of sleeping in chairs. So here are some tips I'd like to share with you.

1. Always stretch out your legs.
If you can, always grab at least two chairs. Use the less comfortable one to put your feet on. Lean back as far as you can go without your ass hanging in air, and sleep.
Why? Because I have piss poor circulation and when I sleep with my legs hanging/mildly compressed at main vein points, my legs fall asleep too fast and when I wake up, I can't feel them, or I immediately get cramps.
If you can get three, line them up in a row and lie down and sleep.

2. If you can find a surface for your head, use it.
Your neck will love you for it. Because there's only so much a hand under your chin can do.

3. Find a comfortable position.
Or whatever's relatively comfortable. Because face it, you're sleeping on chair, not a spring mattress.
I slept princess-style on an office chair once. I woke up and couldn't walk for 5 minutes because my legs fell asleep and cramps. I also curled up in an office chair and woke up to a colleague yelling because he thought there wasn't anyone on the chair. I screamed too.

4. And the best advice for last
- if you can find a comfortable flat surface, sleep there. Because, a hard floor is a by far more comfortable than a chair will ever be. Unless it's one of those reclining, sleeping chairs, because those are the bomb.

On another note, I had to write this down somewhere because I sort of have to.

On the bus to Perlis, while sleeping in a chair for my second night in a row (though by far more comfortable), I had a dream. I dreamed that this one guy, that I loved so long ago, said he loved me. And it felt so beautiful, that I woke up and smiled. Even if it was just a dream.

I know it's dumb, but I can't help it.

I hope he's doing great. And that, where ever he is, he's loved.

ain'tsayingthatI'mpiningoranything,okay?

akunona