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Saturday 25 April 2009

of carousels and candy floss

Having a blog is pretty interesting. For myself, at least.

Once in a while, when I get bored I read back on what I wrote months, years ago. It's like looking through a time machine at my own self in the past. Reading the thoughts my past self was thinking. It kind of felt surreal, like I wasn't that me who wrote that post.

It's like I'm reading another person narrating his my past thoughts.

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Long overdue update, I know. There has been so many things I wanna write down here, but no time to write. Yet when I have time to write, nothing seems to come out of my head.

Just to narrate my life here, I'm halfway through my Dermatology block now. Really love this block so far.. mainly because we're being spoonfed again yay! :P. Just sit for tutorials everyday, be a fly on the wall in clinics, no presentation expected, most of all, no ward work to do. I would have been enjoying myself, if not for the fact that it's 10 weeks before our finals and i haven't started my revision. Gah!

On another note, handed in my fourth year project report yesterday. Which has been plaguing me for months, just lying there half-baked. I admit i must have taken my time to do it slowly, but the last week has been the worst and longest week i had. The fatigue and lack of sleep were fighting with my sanity. I wasn't even aiming for a published paper, because my project was apparently 'unpublishable'. Seems like i wasn't the only one guilty of procrastination though, and it's amusing actually seeing a bunch of zombified 4th years in the morning yawning away during tutorials.

Good thing it's over. Now i can lose sleep from studying last minute for the finals instead. Oh, joy.

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First day post-project-submission, i decided to finally get those dozens of milk bottles to the recycling centre. Most people can't be bothered and just chuck them into the bin, yes, but i can't help myself but to feel the guilt if i could have done more for the environment, but chose not to. So off i go on the half-hour walk to the recycling centre, before walking on towards the city.

Along the way, i saw a part of my childhood flashed across my mind.

swiped from baliomegatron's flickr without permission

A funfair was set up by the river side, just opposite the local airport. It brought a smile to my face, as i recall the times i've been to these fun fairs. I guess i must have been quite young then, as i can't remember the last time i was there. Back in JB, there occasionally will be some funfair being set up in town. Sometimes we went in just because we happened to see it while on the way somewhere else, other times we joined in the fun because we knew it was held.

Today as I walked past the half-ready funfair, i saw it through different eyes than my wee eyes saw in the past. I saw the trucks that towed those rides, the men that worked hard fixing them up, the same people who travel from place to place bringing the fun to the little kids. Little kids like who i used to be.

I can just imagine the amazement and thrills my blog will be all about, if i had a blog then. Of joy that the funfair has come to town, of delight in taking a bite out of candy floss. It'll all have a magic quality to it, a sort of fantasy land with bright lights at night. Lots of smiley faces probably, haha but they never existed then. Do anyone even remember when did these smiley faces first appear? They were called some quirky 'chat lingo' then. There was even an article listing them, from bucktoothed vampire :-F to the moustached smiley :{). Not long after that, the computers around the world started churning out cutesy voice of 'Uh-oh's, and how we used to laugh at a chatbox full of people trying to talk at the same time, with blinding colours and font sizes increasing out of control.

Ah, memories. But i digress.

Looking at the empty funfair, waiting to admit children with smiles on their faces and amazement in their eyes, i can't seem to relate to the same excitement anymore. The games seem childish and the rides boring. Carousels, slides, candy floss, games of luck. Somehow, it felt like they all have lost their meanings to me. All i see in front of me are machinery and workers who ply their trade from place to place. The magic of funfairs has gone, along with everything else in the past.

As the funfair disappear out of sight behind me and my childhood memories fade, i'm left with just the old and jaded me.

Me who wants the magic of his childhood back.

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Now i imagine myself in 10 years time and wondering what the hell am i doing reminiscing my childhood when i'm still so 'young'. Aha just for this, this blog shall survive till then!

That said, happy belated birthday to me! (had a 'surprise' birthday complete with fried tofu thanks to so-p (: damn i'm craving for tofu again.. )

Sunday 5 April 2009

what holiday?

So.

Our 'Easter' break is almost over now. Come Tuesday, we'll be thrust back into the wards to fend for ourselves again. We will be going through the process of being lost sheep on the first day to being good at pretending we learned something at the end of the 4 weeks, before the whole cycle restarts. Wash, rinse, repeat.

No, you can see I'm not looking forward to it. I don't hate learning, no. I like knowing more things. One can never have enough knowledge after all. What I hate was the expectations that I am learning. That by the end of the block, I should know this and that. Should have watched this and that. Should have done this and that.

Because more often than not, I find myself trying to know this, watch that, do this and that the whole block, instead of really learning.

Especially the dreaded logbooks. Those evil logbooks.

Sigh. But it's a necessary evil and it's here to stay anyway.

Onto something else.

Next block I'll be treading unfamiliar territories. Geriatrics. Or in non-medical-jargon-talk, medicine of the elderly. Commonly known as the most unpopular specialty, next to Oncology.

But I find my little brother's blog post very relevant and inspiring. Do go read.

And tell me if you don't see the most important people in your life in a different light. I know a few psychiatrists.

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Till next, ta.