Thank God for that mistake

I finally screwed up. I have been anticipating the day when I would have my first screw-up. Better to get it over with. And now I am actually relieved. I am nuts but that's just me. It's like the first time you step foot on a land mine. You know there will come a time when you will be blasted and so you wait in anticipation and the anxiety of waiting can be excruciating. But when you have actually stepped on one and the first explosion has gone off, immediately the stress and anxiety of waiting and anticipating disappear. It's not to say that I won't ever be afraid of making mistakes anymore. It's just that when I have committed one and have actually experienced the whole thing, it puts me more at ease because the next time it happens, I'll know what it feels like, I'll know how to cope with it. I'll know that it's not that difficult to get back up from the fall, not as difficult as I have imagined. And that I will survive because I have survived one before.

No, I didn't cost a life, in case you are wondering. Just some things which I could have done better . And it wasn't because, I was negligent or stupid or lazy but simply because I have no experience whatsover. It was my first time dealing with such a case although I have read multiple times about it in the textbook. But needless to say, theory and practical are worlds apart. And no matter how many times you have read and imagined the scenario, nothing is ever the same when you actually see one in real life. All information you think you know and you have so carefully memorized seem to have flown out of your mind.

Oh well, that mistake was a valuable mistake and I did learn from it as I have expected to. In fact, the next day, I got to apply what I have learned on another patient who came in with almost similar presentation.

Thank God for that screw up?

Know myself

The priest asked me today..."If I were to ask you to name 3 good qualities about yourself, what would they be?" It took me lots of "Err... Ah.... Eee" before I could muster up my first quality. And it turned out that it wasn't a quality, that what I have said did not count as a good quality. In a nutshell, I was unable to name, on the spot, even one good quality about myself. If it were to be a job interview, I would have failed MISERABLY.

The take-home message from Father to me was "Know myself. Don't let me be a stumbling block to myself.. Be thankful for what I AM." 

It seems I have plenty of self- reflection and soul- searching to do.


In the end, Father had to name one good quality OF ME. LOL..And he said "Intelligence". From his point of view, that is one good quality of me. He was surprised I didn't say that. When he mentioned that, I was surprised at myself for not thinking about that. I think that I have taken lots of things for granted. I have taken my own intelligence for granted, all my good qualities for granted when I should be thankful for them. So I thought long and hard (well, not that long and hard actually) and came up with these. The pathetic thing is that I couldn't think of anything else to add in.. :( Are these my only good qualities?

MY GOOD QUALITIES:-

INTELLIGENCE

DILIGENCE

DOWN-TO-EARTH

RECEPTIVE AND OPEN-MINDED

EAGERNESS AND WILLINGNESS TO LEARN

RATIONAL

TIDY AND SYSTEMATIC

LEADERSHIP SKILLS

ABILITY TO BE A TEAM PLAYER

LOYALTY

I was also advised to dwell on the positive emotions. One good and bad thing about me is that I am too aware of my negative feelings that I tend to dwell on them. For example, when I am jealous or envious or disrespectful, I am aware of those feelings when I am feeling it. I am aware that what I am feeling is a negative feeling. So, in the end, I end up dwelling on that, beating myself about the fact that I am such a terrible person for being jealous, envious, disrespectful etc etc. In a way, my OVER-AWARENESS of my own emotions, which is supposed to be a good thing, turns out making things worse. 

That is why I have to KNOW MYSELF. Know that I am not a terrible person. That I am a person with all the good qualities above and dwell on them instead. Focus on the positive emotions. And I still have time to do that because as a person gets older, it becomes harder to change. If you are always an angry person and continues to focus on that, you will of course, continue to be this angry person and even your face changes and takes on an angry expression. So that negative emotion will consume you. And then people don't like you, you sink into depression etc etc...

Father mentioned stuff like cortisol, hippocampus, memory loss, emotions....I was impressed by him, by what a priest actually knows. Within that few minutes, he has touched on anatomy, physiology and some aspects of psychology and psychiatry, not to mention spirituality. WOW! No wonder priests have to study for 7 years. 

Am I expecting too much?

The tap water is running and overflowing in the bathroom and somehow, he can't seem to hear it.
The stench from his pet permeates the living room and somehow, he can't seem to smell it.
The mother is groaning in pain due to backache from overwork and he can't seem to lift a finger to help out around the house.
The parents are worried sick of his future and yet he can't seem to push himself to study harder.
He has so much potential, so many talents, so much determination, so much discipline but yet they are not properly utilized.
He has a soft heart, a kind heart, loyalty, sensibility but are these enough for him to survive in the harsh and cruel world?

I love him so much. That is probably why I am so exasperated that he is not trying his best to live up to his potential. I thought maybe I expect too much from him. But how can you expect too much from someone who has not even put in 20% of their effort?

I don't look down on the garbage-collector, the trishaw-puller or the kueh tiaw-seller. I respect these people for their diligence, their down-to-earth self. These people earn an honest wage.

I don't expect him to be like me. I just want to see some form of effort, some hard work. I want him to have a goal in life towards which he can pursue and work hard to achieve. Most of all, I don't want to see history repeating itself and the victim being him. THAT is why I am so worried about him.

The most unappreciated job

The most under-appreciated occupation is, I think, a homemaker, whether a housewife or househusband. I will use the term 'housewife' because it is more common than a househusband. The day of a housewife begins at the crack of dawn. She wakes earlier than her family because she needs to wake her children up for school, prepare their breakfast and send them to school. Then comes the second round of waking up the husband for work and preparing breakfast. After the husband and children have left, the chores begin- sweeping, mopping, dusting, laundry- laundry is only ONE word, but laundry itself involves washing, hanging it up, collecting it back when it's dry, sorting, folding, ironing and putting them back into different cupboards in different rooms. So, 'laundry' contains ONE word but it involves at least 7 acts!

And then comes the meals- breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes, tea-time and supper. For those who have never stepped foot into the kitchen, it may perhaps be a very lucky thing for you. Why? To prepare a meal, the housewife has to start by THINKING of the dishes- what her family wants and likes to eat, what each of them dislikes or is allergic to, what is nutritious and good for them and cost-effectiveness. Depending on each family's practice/ habit, a housewife has to think of not ONE dish, but at least 2-3 dishes for not ONE meal but for at least 2 meals (lunch and dinner). Then, comes marketing- she has to drive to the market, supermarket or shops to get the various ingredients. For the not so fortunate housewives, whose husband never earns enough, then they have to wisely plan the budget for each meal as well. Again, for those who has never laid their hand on a spatula, contrary to what they think, to cook say, a curry chicken doesn't just require ONE ingredient, that is chicken. Besides chicken, you need potatoes, garlic, curry powder, coconut, the seasonings etc etc. So one dish is not equivalent to one ingredient! I will not elaborate the details and steps of preparing a curry chicken. My point is to cook ONE dish involves MANY processes. Don't forget the dirty dishes to be washed after each meal! So imagine a housewife who cooks EVERYDAY to have the children come home and say "Yuck, I don't like this vege!" and another child saying "I am on diet, I'm not eating that lemon chicken" and the husband coming home saying he has eaten outside. 

Yes, a housewife may be given money by the husband every month but the money is meant for household expenses. In other words, a housewife DOES NOT have a pay. Few would have enough money left to spend and indulge on themselves. I am talking about the average housewife, not the rich tai tai, of course.

Here comes the children. The housewife is expected to take care of the children, which includes their studies. Helping them with homework and projects, fetching them to and fro school and tuition and even to other places when they want to hang out with friends. When the children becomes naughty, it's the mother's fault for not taking the children in hand.

A housewife is also expected to perform their wifely duty and serve their husband well. Amid the hours of slogging on household chores and the financial limitation (as elaborated above), a housewife is expected to still look beautiful for the husband and to welcome home the working husband with a warm smile and a warm meal on the table. After all, to the husband, how tired could the wife be?! She is at home the whole day, while he is out the whole day.

Apart from being a housewife, some women also have to juggle a career and work in order to make ends meet. Imagine having to do everything I have described above AND having to WORK outside at the same time. If anyone thinks this is an easy feat, then you are a very prosaic person because you cannot IMAGINE how difficult it is.

Why do I say unappreciated? How many children and husband express their gratitude and appreciation to their wife or mother for each meal prepared, each time the floor is swept and mopped, each piece of clothing ironed and hung out nicely for them, each time the mother dropped the children off at school? Most often, the children would look up to the father for working so hard and bringing money home for the family. And the children would also be reminded many times by the mother to study hard because "Your dad works so hard for you." But most husband and children forget that the housewife works just as hard too. How often does the husband remind the children on how hard the mother is working at home, ensuring a cosy home for them all?

I am not sure if I could ever be noble and self-sacrificial enough to be a homemaker. Well, maybe yes. The last I heard, motherhood is quite a life-changing experience. So the cliche says "A mother will do anything for her child" but when the time comes, I sure would negotiate for a better deal- AT LEAST, there should be a maid or two, a pay with annual bonus, annual review of the pay and EPF.

One helluva woman

I found a 2-day part-time job for the weekend. I worked as a promoter for Nestle Omega milk. They were running a roadshow with promotional offer of free cholesterol check with a purchase of a pack of milk powder. I was provided with a T-shirt for the 2-day job. Being a bit of a cleanliness freak, just a little, I washed the T-shirt after the end of my work on Day 1.

I was washing it by hand when my grandmother, who came over to stay for a couple of days, asked why was I washing clothes at such a late hour. I told her the reason, that I have to wear it again the next day. The next morning came and it was raining cats and dogs. When I came back from church, I found my work T-shirt all dry and hung up ready to be worn. My grandmother, knowing that it wouldn't dry in time in such a weather, had ironed my shirt till it became dry. I was touched beyond words. She remembered what I said, when I only said it briefly. I myself didn't even remember or think of the fact that my shirt would not dry in the cool, rainy weather. I hadn't even thought of wanting to check if it was dry. But, my grandmother, this amazing woman, thought it all.

I have never yet met a woman like my grandmother. She is kind, generous (in time, money and effort), thoughtful and considerate, hardworking, open-minded for a woman in her 80's. Did I mention that she single-handedly raise 7 children on her own after her husband passed away when she was only in her late 20's? She never remarry. She, a widow, continued the tofu-making business left to her by her late husband and her children had always had enough to eat, wear and use. All her children always had at least 3 pieces of new clothes for Chinese New Year when they were young. When her daughters wanted to pursue a career in hairdressing and beauty all the way to UK, she supported them fully and not just 1 daughter, but 3 daughters. A few went on to get a degree. I have never heard her utter a word of complain or regret. I have never heard her grumble.

Over the years, she lost both her sons. The pain of a mother watching her child go before her is something which, unless you experience it for yourself, is completely unfathomable. In my popo's case, it was not 1, but the 3 most important men in her life- first, her husband, then her oldest son and subsequently, her youngest son. Apart from the permanent and painful scar it left on her, she is still this amazing, amazing, awesome lady that she is. She is so soft- spoken, so mild-tempered, so gentle and at the same time, she is an iron lady- the strongest and most resilient woman I have ever met.

She is one helluva woman!!!

The Win-Lose Situation

Sometimes you force yourselves to do the things that you don't want or don't like to do because you know it's good for you. A simple example would be forcing yourself to eat vegetables even though you don't like it because well, vege is supposed to be good for you. Or forcing yourself to get your lazy butt off the couch to go for a jog because you know exercise is good for you. Decisions like these are somewhat easy to make. Actions like that...the act of eating vege and jogging are simple tasks, which do not require your uttermost sincerity or enthusiasm.

What if an action, the consequence of which you know is going to be a good one, involves your utmost sincerity in doing it? Would you simply just do it halfheartedly merely for the sake of reaping that good/ beneficial outcome that comes with your action? For example, your wife wants you to say "I love you" to her and knowing full well that by simply complying and saying "I love you" would make your wife very happy and loved, would you say it, EVEN THOUGH at that moment in time, you do not yet love her or that you just had a bad fight and do not feel like saying "I love you" or you actually do not love her at all or that you have fallen out of love with her? My point is... would you say it (the action) for the sake of making your wife happy (the good outcome) even though you don't mean it at all? Now we know that you have to mean every single syllable of that "I love you" when you say it.

Situation like this is a win-lose/ lose-win situation. You win when you say it because...yay....your wife is happy, your marriage is saved and peace is restored.  You also lose because you force yourself to say something which you don't mean it at all, hence betraying and deceiving yourself.

Another scenario. Say... the Season of Lent is here, it's time to do good and forgive those who have sinned against you. Forgiveness is another act which requires your utmost sincerity. You know you should forgive the people who have done wrong against you (or so you thought). You know forgiveness means letting go of the grudge, the hatred, the bitterness and allowing peace to reign within you again. You even feel guilty if you don't forgive because well, begrudging and hating someone is in itself a sin. And so you let the guilt and your rational mind rule over you and you decide to forgive. BUT, you can't find it in your heart to forgive fully. What happens now? You want to but you can't. Your mind asks you to but your heart does not allow you to. What do you do? You can't force yourself to forgive or love someone like you force yourself to eat that vegetable, EVEN THOUGH you know loving and forgiving is good for you and the other party. Again you win and you lose.

If you forgive: Yay...You win because you've forgiven someone and the forgiven person is happy again BUT you also lose at the same time because you are just kidding and deceiving yourself into believing that you have forgiven when in fact, you haven't.

If you don't forgive: Dang...you lose because unforgiveness is bad for you, yo! It eats you from inside out. BUT you also win, because you remain true to yourself...you didn't let guilt and your too-rational mind trick you into forgiving.

Of course, everything will be simple if your heart and mind are in agreement. But when they are not, this is when you have the WIN-LOSE situation.

Whoever says that life is simple has not yet lived life. Life could only be simple if your mind thinks the same way as your heart feels AND  also if everyone thinks like you and acts like you. No issue then. But life's not like that.

God kept me safe

You never really know how close you are to death until after you have escaped it or until, you are well, dead. I never felt it while I was driving today, although I was chanting prayers throughout the journey to and fro Kudat today. I wasn't feeling very confident of subjecting my car to the 3-hour drive on the unexpected roads and traffic of the Sabah outskirts since the flood incident. My car is just never the same again and I have lost confidence and a sense of security in it. It has, after all, been through a helluva flood and damage.

But two of my best friends came and I really wanted to bring them around Kudat to experience the culture and lifestyle of the local people there. During the journey there, my car just went all weird (don't know the technical term for it). It started to jerk and lose power all of a sudden, as if the battery had suddenly gone dead. Initially, I thought it was because of the car battery as the batt light always came on during these episodes of car 'fits'. Not only that, the scary thing was, when that happened, my brake became all weird as well, it kinda lost its grip and I thought then and there that my time must be up. The steering wheel would became quite rigid as well. I had no idea when these fits would occur. Just when I thought all was well and started accelerating, it would occur again. To make matters worse, on my way back, I was still 2 hours away from KK when the sky turned dark. I was driving my fitful car in the dark on dangerous, uneven, landslide-prone roads.  

Thinking about it now gives me the chills. I was that close to death. I am exaggerating, you say. Maybe, maybe not. There were so many times when I could have met with an accident. But I didn’t. I arrived at Kudat and then back in KK safely. This may not be those hair-raising testimonies that you hear but it is for me. God kept us (my friends and I) safe. He kept us in that bubble of protection where no harm could come our way.

I am also incredibly regretful and sorry to have put my friends in danger-  2 of my oldest friends, Lynn and Bee and the 2 Caucasian backpackers, whom I gave a lift to, as well as my best buddies here, Chand and Nad. Chand and Nad purposely waited for me for 2 hours to accompany me on the drive back when they could have gone back in the SPU bus. If anything were to happen to anyone of them, it would be nobody's fault but mine. *shudder* Let's hope I won't get nightmares tonight.

After consulting a few people, they all thought that the problem was probably due to some fuse or circuit problem. Sigh... I love my car but I don't feel good driving it now...don't feel safe, secure and confident driving it...I don't speak cars but I know the flood must have damaged it badly. It's like when a person has epilepsy. You don't know when the fits are going to occur. There may be precipitating factors or some premonition before a fit in epilepsy but there may also be none. The fits can occur anytime, anywhere. I feel like that with my car. :(

The perfect resolutions

I have found the perfect resolutions for 2012 in Lectio Divina- Dec 2011 edition. It makes me somewhat ashamed of my somewhat shallow and materialistic wishes in my previous post.

So, for 2012, with God's help, I shall:

Give up complaining...focus on gratitude
Give up harsh judgements...think kind thoughts
Give up worry...trust divine providence
Give up discouragement...be full of hope
Give up bitterness...turn to forgiveness
Give up hatred...return good for evil
Give up anger... practise patience
Give up pettiness...put on maturity
Give up gloom...enjoy beauty that is around me
Give up gossiping...control my tongue

Have faith

New year! New beginning. New adventures. New experiences. New hopes and wishes.

Recap of 2011

Great year with not many ups and downs actually. A pretty static year. Finished Year 4 and started Year 5 with Elective posting in Sydney. Had a great learning experience and holiday in Sydney. All thanks to my brother. It was great seeing him and catching up after a year plus. First time observing cardiothoracic surgeries which was really really interesting. It makes me want to watch Paediatric cardiothoracic surgeries now, after having watched the adult ones. Released I don't like the cold weather overseas, I prefer the sunny, hot and even humid weather in the tropics where I get to wear thin, colorful, 1-layer clothes, instead of having to bundle myself in layers of dark-colored clothes overseas. Urggh... But Sydney was definitely the highlight of 2011.

I would like to think I have gained more knowledge, maturity and wisdom. Hihi... Year 5...let's see. I'm sure that I don't like OBGYN. I think Medicine is really really difficult and complex and that I may not be cut out for it BUT I won't rule out the possibility of being a physician, maybe just to take up the challenge. I know, I must be crazy. I really enjoyed Paeds. I have always liked surgery, but I have yet to complete surgical posting, so I won't comment further until then. I like E. Med too but I don't really have much exposure to it at the moment.

I find out the meaning of true friendship and save some of my time by deciding to stop putting effort in maintaining those that are not worth my time.

The only true down in 2011 was the flood incident, when my car was submerged. That was a true nightmare. And that expensive traffic fine that had burnt a hole in my pocket.

And that nobody has yet managed to steal my heart, other than these 2 angels.

Dear Lord, these are my prayers and wishes for 2012:

That my family and I be healthy, safe and happy. Bless us with some wealth too. Hehe..

That I be a doctor by April 2012- passed my Prof Exams at one go, get a great hospital for housemanship and a smooth beginning for my career.

To love more and forgive easily.

That the perfect match that you have made for me in heaven will appear soon.
Well, you see, God, my risk of breast cancer is increased if I remain nulliparous from age 25 onwards, not to mention that the rates of fertility problems and obstetrics complications increase as a woman's age progresses. Besides, I really love kids (though that doesn't equate to being a good mum). And I don't desire to be that weird, fierce, bitter and difficult person that are common qualities associated with spinsterhood. I know, this is an unfair stereotype. Oh well, when the time comes and spinsterhood is inevitable, I would get a dog. LOL. 

A chance to travel. You know which countries are on my mind... *with pleading, angelic eyes*


If I am being too greedy, I will compromise, God, with just the above 2. Thank you.


To be honest, I am a little afraid. The pessimism within reminds me that there can never be only ups in life. So I am already afraid for the downs.

BE NOT AFRAID, EUNICE.  TRUST IN THE LORD, HAVE FAITH...