oohh.. and there goes the head.

scenario:a teenage boy was playing with his 2 yr-old cousin, and by playing, he meant throwing her high up in the air ("oh look, ur flying!). catch. up in the air again. catch. the girl squeals. up in the air again..higher now..
and... tang!..slosh!.. there goes her head!
ok.. i'm exaggerating.. her head didnt fly off.. but she did sustain a deep laceration wound to her head, after being hit by the blades of a whirring ceiling fan that was just inches from her head!
so with blood covering half her face and she screaming in pain, she was rushed to the hospital by the whole family.
examination showed that she also had a depressed skull fracture, and was bleeding into the layers covering her brain.

obviously this isnt the 1st case of a child sustaining head injury from the blades of a ceiling fan. we see quite a number of this preventable injury at the emergency dept. and they get them through different ways too.. from jumping up and down on the bed, from jumping down from an upper bunk of a bunk bed, from being thrown in the air by an adult... and then .. tang!..slosh.. there goes the head.

interestingly the other day when i was seeing the 2 yr-old girl, there were different comments made from the staff as they hover around:
staff 1: uih.. that's why-lah, cannot throw the kids in the house, gotta do it outside the house, out in the open area. no ceiling fans there!
staff 2: what was the speed of the fan.. laju sangat kot?!
staff 3: must be the ceiling of their house is too low.. that's why can hit the fan!
staff 4: no-lah..not safe to use ceiling fans.. we should all just use air-cond only!


so i had to tell them: umm..no.. the one important lesson to be learnt here is.. NOT to throw a kid up in the air..like anywhere, eVer (Yup, i even strained on my V there!)
we live in hot malaysia..and not everyone can afford air-conditioning, and so it's totally okay to have a ceiling fan running at top speed i think, as long as you dont throw a kid up to its rotating blades!
even if you were doing it outside, or you dont have a ceiling fan, and your ceiling's real high.. what if you throw a kid up in the air, and u slip and/or couldnt catch the kid back?
maybe..there goes the head, and/or neck, and/or arms, and/or legs .. you get the picture.

terkedu a moment

it was just 10 mins ago. i was browsing the net, not looking for anything in particular, was getting a bit bored actually..when i decided to google up my exes.
yup.. for some strange reason, i started typing up the names of guys i previously had r'ships with, one by one, on google. the 1st 2 names yield nothing interesting.. one i now know, has joined facebook and has gotten, err, 1 friend so far. another, whom i already knew from way before has already married, is now apparently still working at the same place he worked before.
then i typed the 3rd name. unlike the other 2, this guy i still keep in touch with from time to time- bday wishes, newyears, how're things...that sorta thing.. imagine my surprise when i found out from google that he's now married! there are photos and everything!
no, i'm not upset by the fact that he's married. i'm really upset that he didnt tell me! i mean, like i said, we were still in touch, even though mostly via sms. and we broke up years ago. why didnt he tell me?
hmph.
anyway, so i terkedu sekejap tadi. and terus tak jadi nak google nama2 yg seterusnye ;)

ah..you're still single? must be coz the men cant afford the maskawin!

Saturday December 12, 2009

MB: Higher mas kahwin will cause more ‘old maids’

KOTA BARU: Mentri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat is against raising the mas kahwin for Muslim women for fear that many of them may end up as old maids.

“We do not propose to raise the mas kahwin in Kelantan and will retain the existing regulation,” he told reporters when asked to comment on the Selangor govenment’s decision to raise the mas kahwin in the state from RM80 to RM300 effective Jan 1 next year.

Nik Abdul Aziz said he did not care much for mas kahwin, including for his children when they got married.

“I set not more than RM1,000 (including gifts) for the mas kahwin for each of my children,” he said after delivering the Friday sermon here yesterday, adding that demanding very high mas kahwin and gifts was just to show off. — Bernama

to be or not to be..........

i just realized that i only get about4-5 days off in a month now.
i leave for work at 7am, and most of the time reach back home at 7pm.
in between that i've to be oncall.

i've been told that i've lost a bit of weight.
i'm losing much more hair.
my skin's getting worse.

2 months ago i was really depressed and was real close to quitting masters. to my horror and surprise, i no longer had the passion to do paeds anymore...and that made me real sad.
but after much praying and soul searching (if i could call it that)and actually looking at other jobs/options in medicine, i decided to stay..for now. i've to admit that i still like paeds, but i'm not sure if i have the passion for it anymore.
i still have that feeling (of quitting) from time to time, but it's not as strong as it used to be. i can honestly say right now that if i was actually sitting for the exams right now and failed.. i would totally be okay with it..
so *sigh* we'll see.
i'm taking it a day at a time.

ah.. you're single, so you must not have a life.

scene 1:
me joining the department one month ago, and reporting to the boss on the 1st day.
boss: do you have a family?
me: umm.. yes.
boss: how many kids?
me: oh no.. not married. no kids. i mean i do have a family..like my parents and sibs and such.
boss: ha.. good, then you have a lot of time in your hands, can study. nothing to distract you.
me: err..ok.
boss: you must be smart, you're in the masters now, cannot just study from the books. must read journals, go on the internet, attend conferences. haa, and you're single, night time you dont have anything to do, go attend drug talks, sometime they have these talks that they can sponsor you for. you just go-lah, get educated, also get free dinner.
me: err..(nod my head)

scene 2:
a new junior boss joins the department. senior boss overheard talking to her PA about him.
senior boss: is he married?
PA: yes, he's got 2 kids i think.
senior boss: aiyah. susah la.

now, the senior boss has no intention to ngorat the junior boss, trust me, although it's easy to misunderstand the conversation. she just prefers people with no kids so they can commit 110% to their work. for some reason, they think that if you're married, and especially if you have kids, you get "distracted" more.

i was talking to a couple of colleagues about this. seems like the generation gap is quite huge in the department. the senior bosses are the type who goes to the hospital any time of day, even on the weekends, even though they dont have to. the junior bosses are around to look after the rest of us and the patients of course. apparently few of the seniors, even when they are away on vacation, will have people text or call them to inform about the patients!
the commitment is admirable of course, but i think it is more about trust than anything. they just couldnt trust the junior people.
they also dont get it that these people take leave to see their kids off on their 1st day of school.
they dont get it that they must oversee the kids doing their homework at night (let the teachers worry about that).
they dont get it that we need at least a couple of weekends off a month to be with the family and friends.
they say things like "my daughter is 13 years old now. i never actually get to see her grow up as a kid .. i cant believe she's a teenager now".
these people breathe, think, talk, eat, drink, live and die of hospital and medicine. it's their life.
it's admirable.
but not really desirable.
not for me anyway.
i'm single yes, but i still have a family, friends, and a life i want to enjoy and spend time on, other than just my career.
hmph.
i dont think they will get that.

mother's instinct

these are some of the (scary) true stories i've heard from people about their maids. this in lieu of the recent news on maids being abused and so on. real names been changed for obvious reasons and just cause ;)

1) rozy was having a bad feeling about her maid. she couldnt specifically say what it is, but she told her husband that she's worried about how her maid fares at home when they're both at work. her husband reassured her that she shouldnt worry, from what he could see, she seemed to be okay with the kids. rozy wasnt convinced and couldnt get rid of her uneasy feelings. her girls were too young to tell her anything in details if she asked them. one was about 2 yrs and the other 8 months old. her husband then suggested that they get a webcam on their computer to "keep an eye" on the maid. so they did. and got the shock of their life.
scene: maid brought the younger girl (8-months) in front of the tv (which is where the computer and webcam were also placed) to change her diapers. she was watching the tv at the same time. baby girl, as usual, was struggling to get away from her, preferring to crawl away bottom-less and free. maid roughly struggled back with her to make her stay flat on her back. baby girl cried. maid then grabbed the baby's shoulders and shook her repeatedly, shouting at her to stop crying.
rozy, knowing all there is to know about shaken baby, brought the baby for a medical checkup after that (after sendinng off the maid of course). true enough, there were signs of shaken baby in her girl's brain already. apparently that wasnt the first and only time the maid had done that.

2) suzy was suspicious of her maid when she asked her for some money. it wasnt much, about rm50, and when she asked her what it was for, the maid said she had borrowed money from the maid working for suzy's parents, and needed to pay her back. so suzy gave the money to her maid, and later at her parents', asked their maid if her maid had paid the money back. their maid denied getting any and claimed she never loaned her any money in the 1st place. suzy then asked her maid again why she needed the money, and her maid confessed that she actually borrowed money from another friend, but she refused to tell who the friend was. suzy wondered who it was and when was it that her maid got to socialize. she suspected that it was when her older kids are at school, and only the youngest one at home. she told her husband this, and that perhaps they should install a cctv at the house to see what goes on during the day when they're at work. husband refuses since they cost a lot of money, and that she's probably worried too much about nothing. he suggested however on installing security alarms, due to the increasing number of break-ins they heard around the area, and they did.
one night they got the shock of their life when suddenly the newly installed alarms went off. they both ran down and saw that the front door was opened. the maid was in her room, shivering with fear, because apparently she was the one who had opened the door, not realizing about the new alarms. she was actually all ready and made-up for a night in town with her new boyfriend, and apparently that wasnt the 1st time she had sneaked out of the house at night after the family has gone to bed.

3) rudy and his wife have a business together. they have 4 kids, 3 in school, and the youngest, denny, is 2 yrs old. they have had different maids over a period of about 12 years now, no real problems, all the maids were sent back according to the scheduled contracts and whatnot. their latest maid has been staying with them for about a year now.
although they've never had any problems with their maids, rudy and his wife were always cautious, and they have had cctvs around the house for a number of years now. mostly for security, but it helped them keep an eye on the kids as well, where they can still see them from their office.
one fine friday, after the friday prayers, rudy got a call from his maid telling him that denny had bumped into a piece of furniture at home and now had a bruise on his nose. rudy went home and saw the bruise, a huge one across denny's nose, and also a small bleed in his conjunctiva (white eye). his wife was suspicious that the bruise was due to something else rather than bumping into the furniture, and so rudy reviewed the recording on the cctv for the day just to be sure.
scene: maid was feeding denny his lunch, and being the active boy that he is, denny refused to sit still while waiting to be fed. the maid got tired of shouting at him, and proceeded to slap him in the face (same site as the eye bleed) and didnt stop there when the boy started to cry. she then bashed him on the face and head with her fist, and when he fell, she then kicked him, and finally spit on him!!!
rudy was obviously so shocked when he saw this, told his wife, who was also too shocked and just too upset to see the tape. they brought denny to the hospital to be examined (he's okay, the lucky guy), then brought the tape and the maid to the police.

4) hady has 2 kids, a 2-year old boy, and 3 months old girl, and his wife has just gone back to work after the confinement period. they had a new maid to care for the kids, who they have trained in the past 3-4 months while the wife was still on maternity leave. one day, after about 2 weeks going back to work, the wife had to go outstation for a meeting and had such an uneasy feeling about the kids, she called hady and told him about it. she asked him to go home and check on them. usually, she was the one who would go home during lunch break because her workplace is real near their house. hady tried to reassure her that everything should be okay, and that she was probably anxious because this is the 1st time she's away from the kids, but she didnt believe him, at least until he promised her he would go home and check on them. so hady asked for a bit of time off from work that afternoon, and drove home. to his surprise when he got home, the front gate was locked as usual, but the front door was widely opened, and he could hear his son crying from inside the house, calling for mommy. he rushed in called the maid's name, and saw that his baby girl was in her cot dowstairs, sleeping, (and breathing, thank God), and then found his crying son upstairs in his bedroom. he called for the maid again but there was no answer. he asked his son where the maid was, but his son said he didnt know. apparently he woke up and when he couldnt find the "kakak" around the house, he opened the front door to see if she was outside but when he saw that she wasnt, he got scared and just went inside and cried instead. hady then informed his wife who immediately drove home, and they informed the police. they concluded that she left the house herself since she took all of her belongings with her. nothing was taken or stolen from the house neither.


i dont have a maid, and my family never had one (my dad "hired" his own sisters last time to help look after us when we were growing up), and i know for a fact that there are good reliable maids out there, but just to remind everyone to always be careful .. and to trust a mother's instinct.

a new chapter begins..

yeah..so it's been awhile.
i sat for my exams (yet again!) in early may. i left it to God. if i pass, great. if i dont, then i'm still a doctor, and can just continue giving my services to the public... either be a service (chronic) medical officer in paeds, or join the peripheral health clinics. a friend suggested that i quit the ministry and open up my own clinic. kinda scary, but perhaps do-able.
my brother suggested that i adopt a child if i dont make it through the exam. he said maybe it's time i concentrate on something (or someone) else other than sitting for exams.
um, o-kay. that's even more scary!

so... thank God i passed!!*phew*

which means that i would have to leave melaka. this would have been my 8th year of staying there...so far the 2nd longest time i ever lived in a place. (i spent the 1st 12 years of my life in kl, then moved about 3 boarding schools in melaka, taiping & seremban for 7 years, then spent 6 years in canada). it was a mixture of emotions leavingmelaka.. there were a lot of memories built there, and i'll definitely miss it.

so here i am back in kl, transferred to a university hospital, and back staying with my parents. the last time i actually stayed with them fulltime was back when i was 12. then i went to boarding school for 7 years, while they went overseas to work, till my mom retired about 3 yrs ago and came back to msia.
intially, i had mixed feelings about staying with them, how ever much i love my parents, and happy to have them near me, the thought of living with them together in the same house fulltime was a bit.. i dunno.. ?invading.. ?kiddy-ish ..?scary.. ?less private..
so far, a week has passed, and working at the university hospital is just soooooooooo much more different than working at a ministry hospital. it's much more demanding, exhausting, depressing, confusing at times, and really degrading to me.. to see us doctors getting yelled at by the professors, snuffed at by the nurses, the horror stories of a few dcotors who got knocked on the head (literally).. i mean, even school kids are not being treated like that anymore!
so i know, that in order to get through it all, and survive the next 3 years there, is to actually swallow my pride, ditch any ego that i may have, bring down my self-esteem to a bare minimum, learn my lessons, pass the exams, and then get the hell-outa-there.
so having gone through a dreadful week so far at work, i'm gonna just bite my tongue and say that the fact that i actually get to come home after work, to the old house that i grew up in, with mommy dearest there to greet me (and home-cooked food ready for dinner :)) made me really glad and appreciate the fact that at least i'm home with my family, and thank God that i get that privelage.

best wishes, me!
gambate!

why am i not a teacher when i really look like one, and why am i still not married

my friend lote came down to melaka over the weekend and made me go with her to a career talk at our old school. i had to sacrifice my saturday morning sleep-in for that (lote, u owe me beb!;))
we did this last year, but we were really2 late then so we didnt get to participate much.
this year, well, we were late again.. but they changed the format a bit this year, so we managed to sneak in later and sorta "contribute" and shared our experiences with the kids.
i guess the whole objective of the program, organized by the school alumni, is to help the kids from the graduating class decide on their future career paths and motivate them towards reaching the goals by excelling in their exams (spm) first.

so lote and me joined the "medicine" room, where the ex-students who have now become doctors, talk about the hows, whats and whys of being a doctor. like i said, we were late, so it was already towards the end of the 1st session, and no one knew who we were, which was fine by me, but imagine our surprise when one of the speakers said something and then turned directly to us and asked "right, cikgu?".
lote and me just looked at each other, and turned back at the speaker, sheepishly said "err..bukan.." and just sank into our seats.
this aint the 1st time people mistook us as teachers.. people seem to think we are, no matter where we are or what we do (by we, i mean me, lote and few of my other female doctor friends).. be it buying groceries, buying cake, having a facial, having a haircut, trying on shoes, EVEN when we're actually IN the hospital, and this happened to another friend,mawar, when she was explaining to a patient about a certain procedure in order to get the consent, the patient still referred to her as "cikgu"!!
there were exceptions of course, like when people mistake us for college students instead, or in my case, "so when are you taking your spm?", but then i guess i should be flattered huh?
seems like we're never able to get that "doctor-look" right.
;)

back to the sessions,  we did get to introduce ourselves properly in the 2nd session, and talk to them about what the real hu-hah is about doctors (i was pretty sure we actually scared them off doing medicine than anything..heh).
a funny thing happened when i was introducing myself. as i was telling them i'm a medical officer, not yet a specialist, one of the girls asked "how old are you?".
so i answered "34" , and i could immediately hear one or two gasps from the audience.
then someone else asked "are you married?"
and when i answered "no", there was a much louder synchronous gasp from all of them!

i did all i could to compose myself (lote was taken aback by their reaction too, and almost fell out of her chair!) and then found myself actually explaining "err..it's got nuthin to do with becoming a doctor you know, it's just a matter of personal choice.."
and although i could see a few heads nodding, i'm not too sure they looked too convinced. o well..

later in the afternoon, they had a motivational talk, then a brief photo session, and lote and me left after that to watch a movie (fast & furious) where i fell heads over heels all over again for vin diesel.

"they will sumpah you in the kandang"

i had to give a statement in court the other day for an abuse case i handled years ago.
somebody gave me advice on what to expect when i'm in court, "they will bring you into the kandang, and then they will sumpah you.. after they sumpah you, then you sit, and they will start asking you questions.."
those are her exact words.
what she was trying to tell me is that they will bring me onto the witness chair and ask me to angkat sumpah ..
hehe.

anyway, so here's what happened. it was the first time i ever went to court for anything. i was kinda nervous. in the witness room, i saw the patient's mother, who gave me this advice, "doc, you better say your prayers.. these people sometimes play dirty, and they might voodoo you, you know. that's what happened to me last time, after the lawyer asked me the questions, i suddenly got stomach cramps, i had palpitations, and i just stuttered.. they had to postpone the trials last time! you be careful up there doc!"
umm.. right, the symptoms she described could easily be attributed to nerves, but i didnt tell her that and just nodded my head.

after a 2-hour wait, i was finally called in.
the "angkat sumpah" part went well.
then before i sat down, this lady sitting in front of the judge (the sign on her desk said she's the translator) asked me to say my name outloud.
so i did.
then they asked me to state my age outloud.
so i did.
and to my surprise, she actually repeated the number again, in a much louder voice.
umm..why is that? i had to prevent myself from smirking.
then, she asked me to state my current home address.
i was again, surprised, but did as told. the judge and lawyers copied evrything down in writing, and the judge even made me repeat the address.
umm.. ok.. i know the alleged perpetrator was in the courtroom, and although i was called in as an "expert witness", my statements would actually be working "against" him, and voodoo/black magic aside, isnt giving out my full residing address to the room "risky"? i wonder if they ask all witness in all cases to do this...
like i said..this is only my first experience in court. hopefully it's the last.

another interesting observation in there was that, there was no transcriber/stenographer available. therefore, whenever i said anything, the judge and lawyers all got busy jotting down my words.. there were no eye contacts at all at the time, and i was reminded to speak slowly cuz "we have to write down what you say". so i did, pausing once in awhile till one of them looked up to me to ask me to continue.
even the lawyer who was asking me the questions, would immediately look down again and feverishly wrote all my answers, while he/she was still standing!
it was so unlike on tv!
i felt like putting up my hand and ask "isnt there supposed to be a transcriber-person-with-the-tiny-typewriter that can help you take down everything?"

i felt soo "jakun" with everything that i was no longer nervous, and by the time we were halfway done, i was already, surprisingly, bored!
i caught myself looking at my watch and rolling my eyes once, and then realized "shoot..what if they have a cctv in here and saw me doing that?"

anyway, about 40 mins later i was released from the kandang.
hopefully that was the last time i ever have to enter such "kandangs" ;)
i dont know if my statements were actually of any help at all, or whether the case is finally closed or whether the victim (my patient) won. i also dont know for sure whether the alleged perpetrator in the case was really guilty, there is no way i can be 100% sure, unless i was actually at the scene of the crime when it happened. the only thing that was evident to me was that the girl was obviously emotionally affected, and at the time, there was medical evidence suggestive of a rape. i have no idea if the lawyers or police had any other evidence.
i can only pray for justice to be served.
and glad that i'm not a lawyer.

kids?no kids?-part deux

i got "fired" by my friends pretty bad when i told them about my decision to not have any human kids of my own. they wouldnt hear a word from me when i tried to explain. of course, i realized too late that making the announcement when we all met at a friend's house to see her 2 month old newborn is probably not the best idea. also not the best answer to give when people you havent seen for awhile asked "so, what's new with you?".
sigh.

i should clarify here that this is something i've decided on should i manage to stay single my whole life. if, however, God has other plans for me, ie. marriage, then having a child then would be a blessing.

TQ.

perak, rihanna: unrelated hops

yea..yea.. i'm aware of what's been going on with the politics in msia currently.
the party hops, the perak, the daulat, etc.
i was just back in perak (my ma's hometown-ulu kinta) pun actually.
but aiyoh..dont even feel like commenting anything about the whole huhah.
malas.

was planning to hop down to rihanna's concert this friday. but the gurl got herself in a fight or somethin' with her boyfriend, i'm not sure what.. so now the show's got postponed to an unspecified date.
dang.. now i cant party no-mo ;)
well at least the people who didnt want her to come here in the 1st place got their wish.
hmm..just had a thought..
this morning, fly fm was asking people to call in and share with them what they think was the "conspiracy theory" behind rihanna & chris brown's fiasco.
some people said rihanna was jealous la, that chris was getting too close to another girl la, that it was done on purpose, just to get more publicity for themselves (really?seriously?), etc etc.
my theory: sumpahan selangor.
longshot, i know.
gimme a break.

trip to temasek

a.k.a singapore.
for those who didnt know that the country used to be called that in the old days.

i didnt travel out of malaysia at all last year. i like to use the bloody exams as my excuse, and though i still have to sit for it again this year *yawn* i decided to up and leave anyway. even if it means just across the tebrau straits to nearby singapore.

last i set foot on the country was 14-15? years ago i think. a school trip. on a bus. slept at a mosque. that's all i remember (gosh).

anyway, this time i took the bus again, but from jb, into singapore. it was really convenient i tell ya. we went on a sunday, the 3 of us (east, lote, moi), after leaving my car at my aunt's place (whom i havent seen for more than a year already too!)... and there was a massive jam at the toll, but only for the cars. the buses go in a separate lane, no jams at all, and then we had to get down twice for customs check, but since we travelled light, it wasnt really a hassle.
the minute we got off the bus in singapore, we just started walking everywhere. we couldnt get a cab, so we looked at the map and decided that maybe the hotel is at a walkable distance.
and it was! and since then, we just spent our days (and nights!) in singapore walking.
the hotel we stayed at-broadway hotel-in little india, was cheap, at sgd280 for 3 nights, had a clean bathroom, and is close to almost everything. halal indian food, mrt, 24-hr shopping place (mustafa center), etc.
we'd take the mrt, which was also really convenient, and then just mostly walked and walked and walked everywhere... little india, kampung glam, arab street, marina bay, orchard street.

it reminded me of the days in canada. why am i not walking as much here in melaka/kl/malaysia?
hmm..

there was a lot of shopping malls there, i mean, for a small country like singapore, the shopping malls i thought were just, well, relatively huge!
i didnt have a lot of cash on me (or in the bank for that matter) so actual shopping was down to a minimum. one interesting find was that some of the crocs shoes cost cheaper than here in malaysia, even after conversion. brought a pair of alices for mawar (as requested).

went to sentosa for half a day. biasa je i thought. but i loved the luge ride-real fun- and we enjoyed the show "songs of the sea".
plus there was the "fun" experience of actually having to run back and forth, thanks to my forgetful friend (ehem-lote!) who kept leaving her things behind.

last, but definitely not least, was the interesting experience of meeting lote's old friend-a friendly singaporean chap who navigates ships into singapore for a living, with a "colorful" past he doesnt mind sharing, loyal follower of malaysian politics (and malay tv dramas-ehem), and extremely proud father of his 3 kids.
i also realize that it's been awhile since i last made a NEW friend, especially someone outside the "medical society", that i felt like i just got out of my tempurung ;)

ahh..all in all it was a real good fun HEALTHY trip ;)...
here's to more travels this year, and to great friends, old and new.

kids? no kids?

i had this friendly debate with a friend at work a few weeks ago. she's expecting her first child, is in her early pregnancy, and i'm...well, obviously not pregnant, but the topic was about me not wanting to be pregnant.
like, ever.
and no, it has nothing to do with not wanting to become fat and hormonal, cuz i go through that at least once a month anyway.
it's about the product of the pregnancy itself.

i remember when i used to attend to women in labor during my med school days, or later during my houseman days in obstetrics...seeing the women in intense pain, squeezing the little life out of her was already enough to scare me off vaginal delivery...and i vowed for caeserian section for the delivery of my own babies.

then after a string of unsuccessful relationships, i gave up on finding THE man, so i planned to adopt a baby someday, so that i can still be a momma, even if there's no poppa in the picture.

then, after 34 years of life, and 7 years in paediatrics, seeing the sick babies and kids, and also the troubled youths, the juvenile delinquents, the mat rempits and bohsias, i decided to never become a momma. being a doctor to these kids can be risky and is a lot of work, but becoming a parent, to me, is taking major risk, and requires super major hard work. and i just dont think i wanna take that risk. plus i'm not that hardworking either.

of course, my optimistic friend totally disagrees with my thinking, and presented a whole list of reasons for me to reconsider.
so far i'm sticking to my guns, but then i have been known to change my mind about things so i guess we'll see ;)

jalan-jalan januari - genting & bukit tinggi

wonderpets

that's jack, the turtle that's been with me for 5 years now (wow), and little bit, the hamster i'm sitting for while his owner's out of town for the week. i realize that all i need is a duck, and i'll have my own version of wonderpets at home.

the mutt

there was this dog that suddenly claimed our front porch as his home, and for some reason thought that my housemates and i are his owners. (i think it's a he... didnt actually check to confirm)
for 3 days, the dog greeted us when we opened the front door in the morning, and chased our cars as we drove off to work, then greeted us when we arrived home in the evenings, wagging his tail happily. he bowed his head down when i told him ''no", turned his belly up expecting us to rub it, chewed up all the junk mail and made our porch even messier than it usually is!
we're quite sure he belonged to someone because he seemed really 'manja'. we're not sure how long he has been lost, but he was really really dirty.
cute. but dirty.

we couldnt make him leave our porch and stop acting & thinking like we're his owners. so a colleague at the hospital took him from our hands and helped us find him a home. i couldnt bear to see him off even though i know that's the best thing for him and us, so i didnt stick around when our friend came to pick him.
later that night, my housemates and i talked about him, and all quietly admitted we miss the mutt.
hopefully he's happy wherever he ends up to be.

rela do RELA

a circular came out recently stating that government employees who are involved in doing >4hrs night rounds as part of their kampung or taman's RELA or neighbourhood watch, are allowed to have the next morning off from work so they can rest.
makes sense.. i mean, lacking a few hours of sleep from walking round the neighbourhood making sure everyone else sleeps safe, then having to go to work the next day, face those computers, sit through an important meeting, that's just unacceptable.. how can you make important decisions, or crunch up numbers, after a lack of sleep the night before right?

RIGHT??

fyi, as doctors, we also lack sleep when we handle human lives during our 24hour calls at the hospital.. but we DONT get off the next day, so no matter what, we still have to continue making the right decisions, the correct calculations and right drug dosages, make sure the correct leg gets chopped off when need to, yadayadayada, you get what i mean, doctors' business, handling human lives, make sure they dont die, that sorta thing. all that without enough (or even any) sleep for 24hours before that.
ok ok.. you can argue that we get paid an extra rm150 per call, while RELA i'm told, is voluntary.
do the math carefully.
your life, my life. for rm150.
who wins?

RIGHT???

burning questions

how is the chief minister burning the sprayed-on-white-cloth-resembling-the-israel-flag gonna help gaza?
couldnt he with whatever power/influence that he has, do something else that is more worthwhile that can perhaps give a better impact at the efforts towards gaza?
where are his advisors?
what were they thinking?

seriously!

parties, reunions & celebrations

lemme see if i can remember all the events that occured in december

1st there was the daycare party.. the one my dept throw every year mainly for our chronic patients receiving treatments at our daycare. last year we started with the theme thing (space adventure)..this year it's "animal kingdom". it went well.. the kids (and i think the adults too) had fun, and that's the most important thing.

then there was the reunion ..a real small one, 6 of us, 2 of whom i havent seen for 10 years, met up for dinner at midvalley. there was a great deal of catching up done! got to know them when we were all studying in nova scotia, canada . we agreed that it'd be great if we could all go back to canada again, just for a visit.
*sigh*

there was another reunion later, on xmas day in fact.. me, lote & june, old friends from my mrsm terendak days. lote and me will see june once a year when she comes back to melaka (from sarawak) during the long school hols (june's a teacher). this year she made mee bandung for us.. (well her mom did of course!) and "sold" us some brooches and a few other "expensive" stuff ..hehe (inside joke).

jody, my good friend, got engaged to her man.
mawar, my housemate, got married to hers.
congrats peeps!!

and then it was "happy new year- 2009!!"
which means i turn 34..
but then who's celebrating that ;)