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 ;)