frugality, familiarity and formality

The disclarity of cornucopia has since sent its futile firings against a willpower fueled by the love of frugality. The allure of acquisition has long proven its futility on an experienced ex-shopaholic...

Yes, i think my discernment in buying things has sharpened over the years, having the corollary of keeping and using a lot of the things i purchase and not being able to do without them.. I thus stand before the continuously-presenting problem of having to bring them all with me wherever I go.. (note: things here refers especially to shoes, books and clothes)

I do admit, there is a certain obsessiveness about it.. Alas, the problem of being familiar and conditioned to old things presents the problem of not ever wanting anything different... (should the reader feel a lack of understanding in this aspect, feel free to refer to House's persistence on Cuddy returning his old carpet in House episode #3-04)
(picture taken from: http://www.housemd-guide.com/season3/graphics/304house.jpg)

take for example the problem i now face with having to transport 200 satchets of a certain brand of local coffee, half a dozen packets of my favourite local biscuits and foodstuff, 4 medical textbooks i required here on my attachment, my trusty speakers (+subwoofer), my well-worn favourite shoes, faded hospital clothes, etc etc...

anyhow, after the de rigeur packing and sorting and cleaning, i decided to share the highlight of such an organised exit with one and all...*drumroll*.....

the magical experience of cleaning and admiring
my SHOESSSSSSSS.... :)

these green ladies have appeared previously in more luxurious settings.....

my favourites!...

okay, so one may question my take on frugality being more than 8 pairs of shoes i travel with.. but DO NOT JUDGE MOI.. for i did have to pack for 2 seasons, 3 cities and all sorts of occassions this trip...

on that note, this leaving does seem to have a certain unprecedented resoluteness about it. but it's times like these i have to remember my Boss is still the one who has the final say....

Pleural effusiveness

So after a mere 3.5 weeks of being back in Singapore and 2 weeks into my medical attachment here in the motherland, carol has learned about malignancy and seen most of its sinister toils on the human body. It has been a rather sobering experience, partially attributed to being exposed to the wishy-washy, equivocate way of medicine after 15 weeks of glorious, clean-cut, well-defined Surgery. Perhaps also attributed to the fact that the heat is penetrating my thinking and my thoughts and my efficiency in answering consultants.. ack.. if in denial, always blame the weather, i say.

On that note, i am totally missing the gloomy architecture of the Victorian British hospitals, as well as the refined assortment of consultants who work within! Of note is a certain anaesthesiologist at the Vic and a certain rheumatologist at the Royal. (nae, these not be carol-crushes or clandestine relations.. these are just inspirational physicians who have left a memory, so don't be spreading no rumours now...) but yeah.. it's something about being back in an Asian, semi-didactic teaching system enforcing learning by the whip rather than the carrot that takes the joy out of medicine for me... or maybe i'm just a bit biased against singlish. Come on, what on earth is an "AB-DOE-men"?

Anyhooo, on a plus point, auscultating my father's chest for heart sounds was rather reassuring! Ha! S1 + S2. No added sounds, no murmurs. no AR and MS murmurs detected. No basal creps. Regular, sinus rhythm.... mmm.

thailand!

pardon the paucity of blogging of late, guys! but take heart, i'm baacckkk! my country-hopping adventures have finally ended and i'm now back in the motherland, in the hope of resting my jaded wings from all the flying of late.

well, so the 4 of us returned from bangkok not too long ago, and it was such a blast!! the trip in a sentence: full-on shopping, massages on a daily basis, late nights, sabotage, dangerous liasons and photo-whoring!!

shoppin at chatuchakk!!

this one's fo u, shen!the posers!

doggsss!!sleepyheads!

and... *drumroll* the legendary shots taken by yours truly!!! :

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running shots:

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junice and carol 's suspicious activities at changi airport...birthday celebrations at the bed supper club!
haha... so yes, thailand was great craic! thanks guys for making it such a blast!!

monochrome

a weekend of chats. such is life, which gets in the way, which leaves emotions unstirred and words unspoken. of late, i'm coming to realise it isn't so much what is said between individuals that unite us more than what is unsaid...

but i guess that notion leaves the risk entailed with the assumption of an unchecked sentiment: that of disappointment.
When will we ever be perfect? Not in this life, of incomplete rainbows, but in the next...



"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." - 1 Cor 13:12.

but in the meantime (nora), it will always be grey, never black and white...

C is CC.

"We need to recognise the inconsistency between how late-modernism capitalism defines human beings and how christian faith defines us. Because of the covertness of this formation, Christians are often not alert to what they are becoming... the disciplinary mechanisms of Disney, MTV, and the Gap are so insidious and covert, we don't recognize the way in which their message - and their vision of the human telos - is shaping our own identity...

"But the church must also do a third thing: enact countermeasures, counterdisciplines that will form us into the kinds of people that God calls us to be. Too often we imagine the goal of Christian discipleship is to train us to think the right way, to believe the right things. But the ultimate goal of sanctification and discipleship is to shape us into a certain kind of person: one who is like Jesus, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), loving God and neighbour, caring for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger (Jer 22:3, James 1:27).... According to Scriptures, knowing the truth is only instrumental to ultimately doing the truth (Jer 22:6)."

- James K.A.Smith. Who's afraid of Post-modernism? Baker Academic. Michigan. 2006

going for the jugular

so i'm back in glasgow and totally loving it! home feels so good... (viva la digital tv!) but no, carol is determined to get her life back!


meanwhile...
ENT part deux in the southern is amazing! amazing surgery witnessed by yours truly today was a total laryngectomy! it was a full-blown affair: max-fax went in first, whooped open the neck and dissected aside the great vessels, ENT peeps next for the windpipe (to the 'tune of take my breath away'.. well,actually, it was phil collins in the background, and i did giggle, yes...), and finally plastics went in for the pec major reconstruction of his neck..

surgery is soo freakkin cool. i reckon laryngectomies are the most invasive ENT surgery u could get ! what a friggin privilege, considering laryngeal cancer (smoking men and heavy alcoholics, be warned!) affects only 5 / 100,00 of the population!

this year's totally pushing me toward surgery!

anyhoow... laryngeal cancer and a post-operative permanent tracheostomy and losing your natural voice is NOT ideal...

image taken from http://www.healiohealth.com/Library/Images/Tracheostomy.jpg

NB: Dear Doug, do feel free to correct my vocabulary if appropriate. Fastidiousness is always appreciated in my world. ;)

halloween in the hospital

THE DUMFRIES DIARIES....

Dumfries, indolent city by day.the Infirmary. the doctors' residences - a bulwark of respectability, civility and excellence...??????

but come halloweeen......,

bats ears

update:
whilst having my nostrils examined for nasal septum deviation and having my cartilage ring and earshape carefully scrutinised today, i was made to feel like a little girl again!!

meanwhile:
i think my surgery attachment started to take a dip when i left general surgery. orthopaedics was the culprit. power tools on osteoporotic femurs just didn't do it for me. especially when the surgeon's drilling away into the medullary canal with bone marrow spilling out the head of the femur, out of the patient's proximal thigh... nope, orthopaedics is DEFINITELY not for me...

anyway, it be 3 more days til carol's back in glasgow..
these last 10 weeks of peripheral postings has totally gotten to me. missing glasgow and being forced into a position of incessant nerding does have its palpable effects on an already socially-challenged medical student in the gloomy british island... but i guess 'downtimes' like these does press one to realise more certainly that God does have His plan for all of us.. and that He does care more about our character than our comfort. Paradoxically (yet so very typical of Him), He is the source of all our comfort.

today's revelation:
human beings are created with the innermost desire to know truth. without knowing truth, our souls will not be still!

God's promises... God's promises...

meanwhile, i promise myself to have a refuelling of social life once i'm back in glasgow.. i must, i must, i must! dear friends, be warned.

lyrics

so carol sat up and erected in her mind, the barricades of defense against the world that isn't crosshouse hospital, kilmarnock.

the last crosshouse scone i'll eat in a while :(

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and she mourned the loss of a friend who didn't pull back her hair when she was throwing up, who didn't lament over period pains and first boyfriends, who didn't bake cakes together with her, who didn't get to meet and share in her future life, but who would have... if only time had not been robbed from us.

in a daze

great reads

to eat the humble pie of meeting someone whose achievements are beyond the grasps of your repertoire is rather tasty, especially when done over hot chinese food. however, i dare venture by saying that had i the time and energy not taken up by trivial trifles that seem to intrude at the opportune moments, those endeavours would be similar to what i would have chosen to pursue.
but well, it's been a year and with the benefits of retrospection, has it been fruitful? has carol been all that she was destined for (and more) or have i just been letting inefficiency run its course through the mundanities of the onslaught that is life?

i'm not too sure.. in this last year, a friend has gotten married (yesterday, to be fair to myself), some have started their jobs as junior doctors, some have climbed mountains, others have climbed more than 2, some have their names in journals, others have picked up and mastered an instrument, one has produced a cd and has formed a professional band, etc etc.. the list goes on.

are my efforts resulting in fruition or am i just drawing back too soon? hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

uterine didelphy

two uteresus! freaaakkkinnnng TWOO UTERRUSSESS.... two pap smears for one lady! two cervixes... oh my gooooooodddnesssssssss....

total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpino-oophorectomy

image taken from : http://www.cs.nsw.gov.au/cancer/sgog/assets/OvarianCyst.jpg

i saw... an ovarian cyst the size of a small balloon today and i thought that would be the biggest ovarian cyst i'd ever see. but then the next TAH +BSO showed up an even larger one that was the size of a honey melon... and i was like.. oh my goodness, this is sooo coool. and then i asked the lady if i could prod it.. and i prodded the melon-sized cyst (it was still warm! oh my gosh oh my gosh) and it was warm and taut and squiggly and it was threatening to rupture! and then i picked up the uterus next to it and held it in my hand! and it was tiny!! and both ovaries were gone and i was like.. oh my gosh! i'm holding a uterus! and then i went back to the operating table i felt the omentum! (how great the omentum is!) and it was warm tooo! and really really rubbery! and then i was prompted, "carol, look, peristalsis!" and i turned and saw... PERISTALSIS... LIVE! oh my gosh. surgery is so freakinnn coooooool.

we will not be trees

thisss news makes a girl like carol veryyyyy happppeeeeeeee!!!! :)))))))))

Arthritis drug gets NHS approval

well, so i leave for glasgow tonight. this whole trip back's been a bit of a madness.... there is a chinese belief that when a chinese family on a voyage eats fish, they aren't allowed to flip the fish for fear of ill luck on the voyage.... no one can choose what happens to them in life.. but it's how you deal with such circumstances that matters.

fall in the boat....

and everytime i come back, it's always another burst in the sky of fireworks, of love, of mirth, of the kinship of the friends who grew up in the same microenvironments, the same environments, the same singapore. and then we part...

and then it's the same you get everywhere - the same difference. the same souls looking for the same sense of belonging.

the mind's fruits

"There are always guys who hold on to the nostalgia of old devices that can't be bought with money." - Batou (SAC)

With the present state of things there is a certain push towards my recently-unvisited love with psychoanalysis and neurology. Memories and the effects they have with their related structures - the hippocampus : one of the oldest, also the most susceptible to ischaemic insult. Perhaps there is a reason why we are not meant to hold on to the past. Maybe its absence protects us? Maybe the past impedes our future, impedes our progress.

All of Christian life is an upward progression... Saying 'no' to the things of our old days, our old ways... for we are never born with the fruit of the Spirit. But we possess these things in increasing order.

The human brain is supplemented in areas in which are practised, pertinent and relevant to our daily living. So why dwell in and develop habits of the past when we are called forward?

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We already possess the power...

the soul of our civilisation

"There are three forms of visual art: Painting is art to look at, sculpture is art you can walk around, and architecture is art you can walk through."
- Philip Johnson

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