Thursday, July 20, 2006

gunny baby

MALACCA: A newly-born baby girl was abandoned in a sundry shop lavatory for 10 hours on Wednesday by a widow who thought the infant had died at birth.It was only after Malacca Hospital authorities treating the widow for bleeding realised that she had just delivered, did the story emerge.Gynaecologists suspected something was amiss when the woman denied having given birth despite the obvious signs of delivery.They called in a cousin of the 35-year-old who got to the bottom of things after speaking privately to her.The cousin rushed to the shop, where the widow worked, and found the baby in a gunny sack about 10pm.The infant was rushed to the hospital and placed under observation in the children’s ward.It is understood that the 2.4kg infant will be handed over to a relative’s family as the widow had given permission to hospital authorities to do so.The episode began about noon when the widow gave birth.Thinking that the baby had died, the mother of two placed the infant in the sack and left her in the lavatory.She then sought treatment at a nearby clinic but was referred to the hospital where she coughed up the truth that she had abandoned the baby in the shop.State Human Resources, Health and Consumer Affairs Committee deputy chairman Datuk Abu Pit, who visited the baby yesterday, said she was healthy despite not having been fed for 10 hours.

this was in the news a few days ago. i'm usually skeptical when it comes to reading or watching news in the paper, tv, or worse..the internet.. but i can assure you that the above really happened.
the baby's amazing.. except for some minor abrasions on her little knees, she's doing quite well currently. a great fighter-survivor. other babies would throw a fit -literally- if not fed for just 2-3 hours after delivery, she survived for 10!
in the news, they made the mother sound slightly more humane that i think she is though. she initially refused to tell everyone where exactly she left the baby, adamantly saying that the baby's already dead anyway.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

pee please..

did u know?
if you're working for the msian govt, you have to get a "confirmation" from the govt, and only then would you be able to claim the so-called benefits that come with being a govt employee. like choosing your pay scheme,EPF vs pension, or applying for a housing loan, or continuing your education into a masters program, etc.
in order to get this confirmation, you have to go through the induction course or kursus induksi, which i know for doctors, you're only elegible to attend after working more than a year in any of the govt hospitals in msia. then you have to pass the actual course (which means attending a 2-3 week course at a supposedly remote resort somewhere away from your workplace), then pass the written exams they have for you at the end of that course. then you wait for the results, which take many months later.. and if you pass, you'll get a letter of confirmation (which, if you're lucky,also takes many2 months later to appear, by then you've probably forgotten all about it anyway....unless you're really desperate for that housing loan, or masters program-which you're only eligible to apply after 4 yrs of working anyway!i digress......and if you're not so lucky, then the letter will never even appear!)
now, say you're one of the lucky ones who have been waiting forever for the precious confirmation letter so that you can go ahead and make that housing loan your parents really want you to make.. dont get excited yet. no, it's not over yet. oh no. and this is a true story, happened to my friend just recently:
you get your precious confirmation letter, you go to the admin office to see whomever it is in charge, only to be told this : sorry doc, it seems that earlier before you even started working (which was 3 years ago) and we asked for a medical checkup.. your check-up, xray and urine tests were done at a PRIVATE medical center, which is not acceptable, even if it was done by a doctor registered to the govt (cuz you cant practice in msia if you're not registered right). so, until you go get another medical check up in a GOVT hospital and get your xray done, and you pee for us again, and make sure the pee goes to a legit govt hospital lab, i'm afraid this confirmation letter ain't gonna mean much shit!
of course that wasnt exactly how the conversation went, my friend said the lady was really quite polite, but you see what i'm getting at? my friend has to go get the whole thing done again. and she is a registered doctor herself, working IN a govt hospital for more than 3 years now. obviously it's not difficult to get any of her doctor friends to sign her medical check up form for her. they dont even have to lie about anything, she's damn healthy.. unless you count being overwork and underpaid a disease, but let's not get into that now shall we?.. but she'd still have to get that damn xray done, and send off that damn urine again. i mean, it's not even a urine test for drugs or anything like that u know.. just a microscopic look at the cells in the urine. so what if my friend has a urinary tract infection, she's not "fit" to work for the govt? cant ask for that housing loan? tsk..tsk..
and even if she gets them all done again anyway, who knows how many moons later would she be able to proceed to next step to getting that damn loan.
sheeeesshhh...

Monday, July 17, 2006

latest love(s)














movie: pirates of the carribean-dead man's chest
movie(s) (on dvd): 1)i not stupid too
2)transamerica

3)jarhead
book(s): 1)stardust - neil gaiman ..cant wait for the movie!
2)anansi boys - neil gaiman
(photo)
food:cheezels
drink:green apple juice @amigos melaka
song(s):1)celebrate the day (world cup) .. yeah i know it's over. still cant get over the song tho.
2)cobalah utk setia-kris dayanti.... i was told that this song aint really new, but i just discovered it and am impressed by kris' vocals.
3)marching bands of manhattan-deathcab by cutie
4) tom's diner-suzanne vega - rediscovered this song. used to love it and still do cuz it makes a non-singer like me seem able to sing ;)
tv show: err.. none lately.
dreamdate(s): 1)jake gyllenhal (photo)
2)wentworth miller
eyecandy: 25 yr-ol cutie i just met recently. not so much his looks,but his voice..so husky!hehe..

Sunday, July 16, 2006

nostalgic visit


i went to my old school today. to talk to the kids about what i do. my friend lo made me go.. woke me up real early in the morning...before 9am.. on a sunday too!.. to go join the alumni give a career talk to a bunch of 17 yr olds.
so i dragged my butt there and well....i'm actually glad i did!

it was really a great walk down memory lane. lo and me were both late (some things never change ;)) , they've already started anyway so we both just went and took a walk around the campus first. boy.. every nook and corner brought back memories!
the main hall ..where we had our assemblies, major exams, and badminton matches.
the classrooms.. where we obviously had our classes, meetings and the so-called dates..
the toilets..where my close girlfriends and me would meet at the same exact time every night during prep class to catch up on the latest gossips and re-do our hairs (those humangous front upsweeps of the late 80's required frequent maintenance u know).
the music class..where i went to learn the drums, and practised dance steps to sheila majid's warna (twas an assignment for music class ok..)

the field..where we played softball with the boys, and i cheered my sweetheart during his 100m sprint on sports day...sigh.. (hearts in eyes now)
the netball court..
the dining hall..
the dorm..
ahh... the dorm.. memories there were the best and most vivid in my memory. girls just wanna have fun u know? course, i cant jot down evrything on here.. this IS a public blog yeah? there were certain things that were kept hidden from the authorities, namely the wardens, and u know.. they might come across this..and o well, i'm just tired now actually.. it's already past midnite, and i did get up before 9 today..on a sunday!

i treasure all the memories.. i do, but for now, i'll just keep them to myself... and go to bed.

oh..and yeah, we did get ourselves back to the actual career talk. managed to tell the kids to rethink about their future carefully. gave them the real picture about what's waiting for them out there.. no matter what they decide to do in the end.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

favourite footballers

so the world cup's finally over. means my circadian rhythm can get back to normal again. felt like i've been jetlagged the whole month, what with sleeping after midnite, and waking up again at 3am, then brief sleep for an hour or 2, before waking up again for work. then in between those disrupted nights, a doc's gotta be oncall too... so yeah well, sorta glad it's over. obviously no one's gonna take pity on me if i complain about not having enuff sleep cuz of football right? ;)

just thought i'd list down my favourite players for this year (they're in no particular order.. and the letters S, for skills, and L, for looks, simply explains why each one of them are on my list, and whether it's the skill or the looks that attracts more ;)):
-joe cole (S=L)
-michael ballack (S=L)
-luca toni (L>S)
-simao sambrosa (S>L)
-zidane (S>L)
-klose (S)
-beckham (L>S)
-fabio cannavaro (S=L)
-owen hargreaves (S>>L)
-freddie ljungberg (L>>>S)
-luis figo (S>>L)
-nesta (usually it's S=L, but since he's mostly on the bench this time, it's just L for now :))
-rio ferdinand (S)
-del pierro (S>L)
-lehmann (S)
-o'donkor (S)
-andriy schevchenko (L>S, seemed he didnt play his usually great self)
-arne friedrich (S=L)
-bastian schweinsteiger (S)
-sebastian kehl (S>L)
-cristiano ronaldo (S=L, but too bad he likes to play dirty!such an actor..)
-hidetoshi nakata (usually S=L too, but not too impressive this time around, so just L for him too)
-john terry (S>>L)

as for teams, germany was my most favourite for this year, followed by italy, france and england. for me, the best time was when brazil went out of the tournament. nothing against them but there was too much hu-hah about the team and how people were so confident that they would win again that got me un-interested. yes, i thought they were a pretty impressive team going into the tournament, but i was hoping for different teams to be in the finals this year, just for the sake of getting an unexpected ending, and it did, and that was great! (just like in the movies-lah.. for me,the predictable storylines suck the most).
and o-boy..zizou's exit? how unexpected was that? it was great and yet not-great at the same time!

and it was great to find out too, that at work, i wasn't the only one always groggy by mid afternoon from staying up for world cup.apparently quite a number of my colleagues (female ones!) actually follow the matches (and obviously players) too. there were also a few of them who actually woke up at 3am, (cuz they were supposed to wake their boyfriends/hubbies up)and ended up watching the games by themselves.. (cuz let's face it.. it ain't easy to disrupt a man's bedtime right?)
and btw, notice how ads/campaigns/cartoons in the media mostly depicted how "absorbed" the men were with the world cup that they leave the women "sleepless and lonely in bed", or "free to go shopping" (come on-lah, if you're in msia, where would you go at 3 am? sheesh..). i really think they should come up with different scenarios for the next world cup ads ;)

and yeah, to quote the men out there.."even tho the world cup's ended, there's always the EPL, the Spanish league, etc.." will be looking fwd to those, so i can get a glimpse of my favourite players in action again. ole!