Truths of Old

I am rather upset today.

Checking my online bank balance reveals that I haven't been paid. I am fifty dollars away from being officially bankrupt.(discounting my swissbank accounts, and the private jet, and the... just kidding)
Spare change, anyone?

To add injury to insult, my HSBC bank card is next to worthless. It doesn't have NETs, which is apparently the Singaporean equivalent of Switch / Delta - the ONLY equivalent. Everything is off limits to me, from topping up my car parking cashcard to paying bills at SAMs. (Self Automated Machines.)

I know I've already done this one before, but I just have to rant some more. Sue me, I haven't had dinner yet and am hungry, and spent most of this morning asleep day 3 post-call because I'm STILL knackered from the experience. And I went to SITEC (an annual comp fair where tons of vendors display products at a discounted rate, and hordes of tall leggy models parade around in very little clothing shoving flyers into your hands. Power 98 couldn't stop ranting about the beautiful women. I thought they were... okay. Not quite as wonderful as the hype made out, and the discounts of $10-$20 for $400 products weren't quite as awesome as I'd expected. To make things worse, I couldn't afford to buy anything (see above) making me feel even grumpier than usual. Sort of like being in the garden of eden. See no touch. :(

Anyway, the bloke who fell down from a height of 1.3 m came back in again after "falling down backwards from standing" and hitting the back of his head. His (new onset) symptoms, funnily enough, were the same as the first time around, giddiness, nausea - and his first question to the house officer was "how much MC you give me?"

He got another CT head. That's two CTs in the span of less than three weeks. Everytime I see him (sitting up in bed looking perfectly well) I get this strange desire to start going "tick tick tick tick DING!!!" but I don't think anyone on the team, or the patient for that matter, will get it.

The AGVs still amuse me (they're the robotic cockroach-looking things that deliver dinner trolleys to all the wards). Apparently their counterparts in America don't have TLA (three lettered abbreviation) names, and they wander around saying "Excuse me, please!"

Ours wander around the hospital intoning "AGV approaching! AGV approaching!" and when they reach the wards, a large sign lights up that says "AGV APPROACHING". It's great, if I ever get run over by one of these things I can say "It was an AGV wot done it!!"

I can't help but wonder what it is about Singaporeans and this compulsion to give everything a name.

Our national libraries have slots in the wall for you to return books - sort of like glorified postboxes. I think it's a great idea, except for the big letters above them proudly declaring "BOOKDROP POINT".

It's like the first thing the Planners did was sit down and ask "But what shall we call them??"

Same as the guys who built the AGVs.

I mean, who the **** cares what the slot is called, and why do we have to invent some stupid snazzy new word for it. Like who the !%!* cares what an AGV is anyhow? If something wanders up behind me and says AGV APPROACHING! I'll probably pause for a second while it runs me down and chews me up wondering... what did it say... oh. and what's an AGV?"

Whereas if it drove up behind me and said "GEDDAHELLOUTTAMYWAY" I'd move. Or, if you're in civil society, then "Excuse me, please."

I reckon the "bookdrop points" should be labelled "Return your books here". It'd serve the same function, and it wouldn't sound quite as ridiculously... ... ... I can't find a term for it. Anal comes to mind.

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Inappropriate

Heh heh heh. Gotta love this one... it's so shameless it's pretty dang funny.

Okay this is a mini-meme rantoid. Be warned.

Once upon a time I used to hear about the hours doctors in Singapore worked from afar (in the UK), and feel a little sorry about them, and a little angry at the morons who wrote in reply, in various forums or even the newspaper that doctors "asked for it" when they became doctors, and that they knew the hours were bad and that they were being paid to provide a service, and they jolly well either do it and stop complaining, or else quit. It was always a little surreal to me, but I knew which side of the fence I was on - I suppose it was more a professional courtesy than anything else, but we worked long hours in the UK too, going on call once in every four or five days - if we were lucky.

As a medical house officer I often stayed back every day till 8 pm checking and rechecking my patient's blood results; I think I was probably pretty inefficient as well, and I tend to prefer to do things at a measured pace than blundering through them at triple quick time and missing things / fouling up. I suppose I just have a slow brain.

Anyway, now that I am here working 24 hour on-calls that effectively translate into 36 hour shifts since we have to go straight back to work the next day as well, with no post-call day-off, and getting 3 hours of sleep each time (the other MOs are always surprised when I reply that yes, I got sleep, I got three hours sleep and instead of sympathy, express surprise that I look so exhausted with : "wah. that's pretty good what.") and hearing about the previous MOs who have crashed their cars into lamp posts driving home from an on-call, all I can say to the unsympathetic public is that you are all f***ing idiots to expect your doctors to work these hours, and still be "safe". In the long run, my team is a good one and we have so many redundant MOs and senior staff that even if one or even three of them are exhausted, it doesn't make that much of a difference. But for smaller teams, I can only wonder what happens to all those mistakes rooted in fatigue that we don't hear about.

Having said that, the other super-doctors in the team don't seem to feel fatigue as much as I do. I suspect it's all an act to impress the consultants. 3 hours sleep in 36 hours is simply unphysiological.

After this initial month of "teaching" (feels more like a masochistic induction ritual) the MOs are entitled to their post-call day off. I'm betting the other two super-MOs will waive this right and work doubly hard. They are very nice people, so I don't reckon they're brown-nosing, but just being ultra-responsible... but I have a feeling I'm going to turn into the black sheep who goes home and dies in bed after every on-call. Or perhaps I'll just get used to the routine, since as my reg put it yesterday, "it's quite ok what."

They play elevator music over the PA system in hospital.
Of late it's been music-box covers of Elton John and other popular tunes.

It's probably just me, but music-box tunes freak me out. For some reason I get these mental images of killer clowns and grinning dolls wielding nasty daggers...

I wish they'd stop playing the same tunes over, and over, and over again...

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The Thing about...

...racism in Singapore isn't so much that it exists, or even that individual bigoted freaks really do prowl our ostensibly multicultural, orchid-scented, au naturel (with some degree of official planning) soils, but that it is a more subtle, covert form of racist-trap that even the nicest people occasionally fall into; that even people who are pretty moderate sometimes open their mouths and blurt out a discriminatory statement without even realising they've just potentially hurt someone; it's the fact that we've been conditioned to think a certain way, and it becomes a given for us. Things are like this because they have always been like this; it is only natural. It is so natural it must be necessary. The other thing that bugs me as well, of course, is stereotyping to the degree that it becomes almost damning.

I know where I stand with overt racists who spew nazi-esque filth - they're pretty much beneath contempt, and not really worth anyones while engaging in debate.

It's when nice people say things which make you pause and open your eyes again and wonder about an institutionalised system of "natural indoctrination" that gets to me. You can't fight your friends. You can't fight the system. All you can do is close your eyes for a while, and breathe deeply. Then smile and pretend that you think the same, and yes, it is only natural that foreign PRs get different coloured ICs, and that rich PRs get different coded IC numbers to poor PRs.

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Babe Alert

Whilst patrolling the hospital with my team yesterday an absolutely heart-stoppingly gorgeous babe stepped out of a side corridor and vanished into the depths of somewhere else in the hospital.

I'd forgotten about the whole thing within five minutes. In fact, I almost forgot to even write about it here.

Guess it just goes to show that on-calls interfere with normal physiology.

Heh heh heh.

Sometimes I'm almost ashamed to wear the brand-name of "Singaporean".

Sometimes I remember all the things I hated about Singapore, that I only began to appreciate drifting alone out there in the "big bad world" of the united kingdom.

Sometimes I really miss London, and sitting by the Thames. I never did visit the London zoo, and I never did go to the beach near Colchester. I didn't ride the London eye, and I didn't blade through Hyde Park.

Oftimes I find myself at a loss to answer the questions everybody keeps throwing my way :

"Why did you come back?"

and

"Why didn't you get PR-ship?"

Sigh.

Perhaps it takes going away to really appreciate how many racist cunts there are in Singapore, and also how pervasive the mindset is. It's ingrained into the minds of the nicest people, who simply don't see it as racism, but as part and parcel of life. I'm a realist and I acknowledge that racism exists everywhere. But racism is part and parcel of ordinary life for us Singaporeans, and we don't even realise it sometimes.

This is but a weak illustration, and I'm sure most of you won't agree that it's a form of racism :

Everybody in Singapore carries an IC (Identity Card) with a unique alphanumeric IC number.

"Foreigners" (ie Permanent residents) (Question, do Eurasians qualify as "foreigners" or was the eurasian I saw in clinic today just born abroad?) carry a different coloured IC with different prefixes to their identifiers. This is of course only natural, they are, after all foreigners, and we need some way to distinguish them from us locals, nevermind that they talk different and have different skin and hair colours a lot of the time; and those that have the same skin and hair colours are really just second-class second-rate trash stealing away our jobs and raping / stealing our women. (that last phrase was satire of the national mindset by the way, I don't believe that at all. But this is to pre-empt all the angry comments I'm going to get by people who want to string me up as a KKK man for daring to be un-nationalistic.)

I just learnt to my disgust the other day that Foreign PRs who are considered skilled professionals get one letter as a prefix, whilst unskilled labour get another. (Is this true, anyone? Or do the different letters stand for something else entirely?)

It's all very nice and categorised. Very organised. Very neat.

Very wrong, to my mind. It's not just racism, it's preferential racism. Groan.

It also used to perturb me that (foreign) maids are obliged to have pregnancy and HIV tests done whether they agree to or not. Apparently there is a nationally sanctioned assumption that their employers will sleep with them, therefore they must be "clean" before they start work, and they must be un-pregnanant or else they will not be cost-effective.

The bite was dulled a little when a Canadian friend of mine told me she had to have the same tests. She's a teacher. Apparently teachers are vectors for disease as well; clearly they will shag all the impressionable young children. Laugh. Oh no, she said - it was probably just implemented to standardise things across the board.

Mmm. You can't call it discrimination if you discriminate against all foreigners equally, can you? Good one, that.

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Fishy Story

I came back from my on-call to discover that my brother has started an aquarium. It currently holds four rather scared-looking fish - that can at best be described as "longkang fish" - in a total volume of approximately five litres of water.
The tank is pristine and the only decorations in the tank are a fine white sand that my brother has swept into a crater in the middle, ostensibly to give the fish a water-feature of some sort to appreciate.

I can't help but think that if I was a fish living in that tank, I'd pine away and die of sheer boredom.

Oh wait, in a very real sense, I am.

Sigh.

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On the flip side, I've just realised how much I really missed having hot meals for lunch. The rest of the world simply doesn't get it. A salad or a baguette is NOT lunch. It is not. Not.

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Sometimes I can't help but wonder what exactly it is in my head that makes me see a woman as attractive.

It doesn't happen very often, but if I only knew how to pin it down I might be able to find that elusive Mrs Right a lot quicker. Heh.

Personal ad :
Twentysomething year old male, GSOH otherwise grumpy git, looking for tallish, stunning, humourous female to strike with sword on regular basis, preferably good in kitchen and laundry-room. Cooking and washing abilities optional...

Bugger. Think I'll just go join up with some monastic order.

(THIS POST IS A JOKE. PLEASE DO NOT SEND TELEPHONE NUMBERS AND PRANK MAILS. Unless you are tallish, stunning, humourous, female, and enjoy being hit on regular basis with sword.)

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One of my bosses gave me my orientation talk today.

Ohh, so that's how the team is laid out. It's a two consultant team! Ohhh, so that's why we visit so many wards, it's team based rather than ward based!!! Oooooh. now I get it.

Grr.

I shoulda asked him "so are you a consultant?" like one of my colleagues suggested. heh heh heh.

One of the more useful things he did mention (wish he'd said earlier) was this : Do not drive home after on-call, there have been several accidents already amongst our MOs.

Hmm, on 3 hours sleep in 48 hours? Small wonder I almost drowsed off driving home last night, and had to keep pinching myself to stay awake. I pity those poor MOs who crashed their cars.

The system here is very nice, very efficient, very pretty, and very patient orientated. They sure as hell hate us doctors (and nurses) though.

Shrug. Dunno why I chose that title either.

Currently extremely sleep deprived. I've mentioned that to atone for my sins of being registered late by the SingaMediCouncil people, I'm doing a one in four rota of on calls.

I wasn't really fazed by that when I saw the rota - I was expecting to work hard, and often.

What's hitting me hard now is the fact that there is no post-call rest period in this !!$*ing system - not for the first month anyhow, because apparently we have to learn how to be good MOs. Sleep, apparently, gets in the way of this.

So chugging along (and I mean crawling, rather than chugging) on 3 hours of sleep in 48 hours was rather unexpected, and 9 hours of sleep in 72 doesn't quite make up for the deficit either.

I can barely contain my enthusiasm - thursday, I go on call again.

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You are what you wear

It's amazing how spinelessly adaptible I am. Working in clinic today, I hit a speed bump when I saw a gentleman with an extensive and complicated history who'd had almost every scan, scope and blood test in the book thrown at him for a vague history of intermittent epigastric abdominal pain. The year's prescription of omeprazole (written up as... some fancy brand name. Apparently Singaporean doctors are simply incapable of generics making ward rounds a real frustration for me) and magnesium trisilicate hadn't done much for him either. Floundering around within the depths of his (! clinic!) notes to try to get a handle on his condition, and what had been done, and the results of all his tests, the man whipped out a results sheet for a urine screening he'd had done at the National Krookid Foundation (a charity fund for die-lysis patients that occasionally secrets money into improving their administrative staff's working conditions) which he'd gone to "for fun", and his urine protein was slightly elevated on dipstick.

I stared blankly at him for a moment before slowly and carefully explaining (which is the way I start boiling over silently) that this was a surgical clinic, and that perhaps it would be a good idea for him to see his GP for further investigations, and if need be a referral to a medical clinic, since, you see, we are different types of doctors...

Oh nono, apparently I have to investigate, because attending the out patient department will keep him waiting.

Uh. huh.

Well, before I really did boil over, I stopped to reflect how amazingly paranoid we are of litigation here, and how little there is in the way of "cover" from complaints, and then I intrepidly opened my mouth and caved in. Of course we can investigate it for you, but why don't we concentrate on your bowels right this instance, get up on the couch and let me stick this proctoscope up your bum.

Sigh. Somewhere in me, my sense of ethics is stirring, but it's far too exhausted to actually wake up.

I'm beginning to wonder about my sanity. It turns out I really am an A&E junkie at heart, and I kind of miss it. Sitting here on call (second in three days) pretending to read my surgical textbook thanks to a shocking lack of foresight (oh my laptop. and my story book. still at home. noooo) I am actually becoming rapidly bored. I shouldn't be complaining because this means nobody is being admitted, but somehow not being on the shop floor inflicting pain on patients saving lives is... just not the same. It doesn't actually feel like "work" to me. Even standing in OT assisting feels more like being a med student, probably because I am not operating yet. Minor ops are also very much a houseman thing, since we used to do some minor ops back in my prereg house officer days... and while mindlessly fun, are also kinda boring in a way.

mm. I wonder if I'll get in trouble if I go hang around A&E. quite possibly.

why didn't I bring my laptop (with DVD player) and my donny darko DVD... bleah.

With my luck, I am probably going to pay dearly for daring to post this online...

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Defensive Medicine

After several days on the job I'm getting this feeling that medicine here in Singaland is very much defensive medicine. Gone are the gung-ho discharges of yesteryear from my little hovel A&E... here everybody gets admitted for any form of nonspecific abdominal pain, or even for head injuries from the dizzying height of 1.3 m (which, to be honest, was just a little bit less than the height of the patient)

Better still, almost everyone with a head injury appears to be getting CT heads; the reason for this is because the "criteria" here for CT are a lot less stringent, and any form of loss of consciousness (even for a second or two - naturally meaning that all patients who have fallen down have lost consciousness, because the stock answer is always "maybe, maybe 1 second lah" or any claims of memory loss get shunted straight into the Doughnut of Death within a nanosecond, regardless of time of the day. Interestingly, even potentially unstable patients get encased in their metal caskets - the caveat is that they have to be accompanied by a house officer. Apparently house officers over here have that magic life-saving touch which we simply didn't have back in the UK.

Having said all that, people here seem to have much thinner skulls, and suffer extradural haemorrhages from the simple act of falling out of bed. And not a double bed either. (temporal # through MMA)

I have this horrible suspician that I've discharged a lot of major brain injuries in my time now... sans CT, or even SXR.

meep.

On the other hand, a lot of people are glowing in the dark over in Sunny Singapore when they needn't be. I guess that's probably a good thing, saves on lighting bills.

The antibiotic of choice here for surgical prophylaxis and postop patients appears to be rocephin (ceftriaxone).

And augmentin appears to be the first-line antibiotic for every and anything.

We sure ain't in kansas no more, toto.

Me, I'm just wondering where all the multi-resistant killer bugs are hiding out.

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Random illustration of complete and utter ignorance today :

Consultant : Where is all the blood coming from? We've already ligated the IMA (inferior mesenteric artery. People here are incapable of speaking in full. Abbvn is cmplsry.)

Re-mi : zzzzzzoofugawksnark? Err. The rectal arteries?

Consultant : Where do the rectal arteries come from.

Re-mi : oh. The IMA. (realisation dawns along with return to full consciousness. Hmm. The last time I read any anatomy was... about five years ago... hmm, it has to be something from the internal iliacs. or mebbe the pudendal? vesical... i dunno) Err. I don't know.

Correct answer - the haemorrhoidal arteries, which derive from the internal iliac arteries. oops.

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This friday I am not going to a posh wine and dinner affair. That's right, I'm not going. Quite possibly the first time in my entire life I'm turning down a free meal. The prospect of trying to squeeze a dinner in between 24 hours on-call, and starting at seven the next morning is actually, for once, too daunting to even contemplate.

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What the heck is ATAS? The senior team keeps giggling about ATAS and I simply haven't got a clue.

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China nurses speak with American accents. How bizarre.

Filipino sisters however are just as bossy over here as they are back in England. :D

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I've been meaning to write this for the longest time :

While I was on holiday in San Francisco (aka paradise city. ahh, the memories just will not go. sigh.) I stayed at a quaint old-world "English" hotel (meaning the furniture was a little run-down but victorian-looking) called the Essex Hotel.

It always amused me no end every evening that the fluorescent signposting was a little buggered up and read

SEX HOT

instead.

Kinda apt because the hotel was a stone's throw from the exotic entertainment street, featuring nude female boxing (eh? I don't get the appeal...) and a stage show by Tera Patrick, hard core "artiste".

But the hotel was very tame and civilised, and had free coffee and tea for residents stepping in from the brutal cold of san francisco in fall. (only about as cold as london in summer)

...doesn't feel like work. I keep feeling like I should be on the shop floor doing something.

Being a surgeon seems to be about eating constantly. After the morning round, we eat breakfast (sponsored twice a week by the department, in which case either KFC or burger king, and the rest of the week by the consultants), after breakfast comes lunch. (sponsored by the consultants) Sometimes there's a trifling little clinic in between.

Yesterday, drowsing off post-prandially in clinic whilst pretending to see patients I wondered if maybe I've just gotten attuned to the A&E routine; but that seemed so much more fun, sticking things into people, summarily dishing out meds and trying to patch them up in a hurry so that someone else could sort them out. Now I'm the chap supposed to sort em out, it's bewildering and amazing how insignificant all my previous medical experience has become in the grand scheme of "further management".

Several patients have had particularly amusing histories including someone who abused himself with sharp objects, but for fear of breaching confidentiality I shan't go into detail. shame.

Oh and a general reminder to self - next time I walk into a shop feeling an acute urge to buy something... what exactly it was I can't remember (I always get this. I always need to buy something till I actually get to the shop when it mysteriously evaporates from memory)

...it's a permanent marker.

I dunno if I remembered to mention this, but everyone in the states seems to be counting - not calories, but carbohydrates. It was mind-boggling to me how they managed to make everything carbohydrate free, from french fries to milkshakes. Makes you wonder whether there's any role for naturally grown food anymore. I guess food-shaped-and-scented synthetic gunk with 100% preservatives snd 0% natural goodnes is the way of the future.

Back to my acute surgical management textbook..

Tomorrow is D Day.

Maybe I'm just being melodramatic, but I start work for real tomorrow; full ten hour days for the rest of my life, mind numbing afternoons drowsing off in clinic, hours of fun in operating theatre (ha but this time I'll be the one with the knife muahahah. well, soon i hope) and a daily drive across the country to look forward to, which I actually find rather therapeutic IF I'VE HAD ENOUGH SLEEP.

Anyhow.

The important bit is : at least I'll be getting paid at last.

For those of you who persist in reading me literally, please bear in mind the phrase "tongue in cheek" (preferably somebody else's) and the word "Hyperbole" (which is just a very big load of balls. Oh wait, that is hyperbola. Or was that Hyperbollocks. Shrug.)

On the flip side, I'm going to be doing a one in four on-call to atone for the heinous sin of not getting myself registered in time to start work on the first of the month (thank you, Unnamed Employer) - apparently the rota-ing MO was most upset with me so he squished all my on calls for the month into the last two weeks.

This is surprising to me, because I was expecting to work a one in four rota anyhow, which is pretty much how we did it in the UK. Working four takes a month doesn't seem right to me somehow, even if two of them are "weekend" (ie 1 day of the weekend) on calls.

Harrrrr? Is this surgery or what? Shrug.

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I neglected to mention that I finally got myself fully registered with the Council on friday. This was an exercise in stupidity.

I discovered for one that there were tons of papers to fill up, both on the employers side, and the council's side; nevermind that I'd already filled up heaps of forms with exactly the same info and posted them in, these were different forms (with the same questions) so they had to be filled in all over again.

Also, part of the delay in my registration was caused by a letter being sent in the post from the Council to the Employers and temporarily going missing in between.

I was most peeved to discover that the two institutes are practically across the street from each other, and the street isn't really a real street anyhow but a little internal road on the site of one of our major hospitals here - both institutes are essentially on the same premises. That letter could have been walked over within five minutes but was instead sent by post - and not internal post either, since neither institute formally "belongs" to the hospital --- so that letter had to be sent out of the hospital to the nearest sorting centre, to be sent back to the hospital across the road.

roll eyeballs.

to add insult to stupidity, part of my mandatory registration process was conveying (by hand) several documents from the Employer over to the Council - apparently it had to be done by me. I just don't get it. What do they pay their staff for anyhow. Oh yes, getting employees to fill in forms, and carry things around. I wonder if I can get their job, it sounds loads more fun than mine.

Anyway, after all that I am now the proud bearer of a small plastic membership card, which is apparently actually called a "practising certificate" although it is hard, plastic, and fits in my wallet without needing to be folded up. My mother thought I should celebrate the occasion with a toast of fruit juice or something; she simply couldn't understand why I was so grumpy and nonplussed about the whole affair, what with having been registered with the General Medical Council UK for over two years without a tenth the hassel.

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The girl at the Council pushed the paper over the countertop at me without so much as making eye contact.

"Please check that the information is correct"

I checked. She began to look impatient.

Through some freak of circumstance, the two digits in the month column of my DOB were incorrect.

I paused.

"You got my birthdate wrong."

She looked down.

"Oh, sorry, I must have keyed in wrongly" and she corrected it according to what I'd written down on the paper.

Two digits, and six months were all that stood between our birthdays.

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I ordered "teh" the other day from some upmarket kaya-toast place, and the nice little chinese hawker dude went

"HAR?"

so I said "teh" again, in that slightly knackered monotone I reserve for occasions when I am grieviously ill with one foot in death's door, which is the time one really, really needs the rejuvenative powers of teh to simply stay alive. (I love teh, next to borders chai it is the best drink in the world. Ooops. So sorry T, asti comes a distant third, except after enough asti when I will swear it is the best drink in the entire world hic)

"HAR??!??! OH YOU MEAN TE-EH!" (with accent, and angry glare) the man shouts, and stumps off angrily.

What the...

... so half the country feels entitled to mangle English in the name of an ostensibly "Good English" (bowel?) movement (only in Singaland do the powers that be come up with the brilliant idea of improving the national standard of a language by lowering the bar... It's like "improving" rugby by putting the crossbar at knee level. Or widening the distance between posts in soccer - oops they do that already...) yet even a chinese hawker is anal retentive about a word that doesn't even have chinese roots.

That does it. Next time I order te-eh, I'm going to do it complete with the little head-waggle and look for a coconut tree to dance around. (cf Nov 13 2004)

Speaking of which, I desperately want to watch Bride and Prejudice. Any takers? :)

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In other news, the apparently permanent demise of xena's server and blog (sniff, wail) has no doubt resulted in withdrawal symptoms from her many rabid readers.

More immediately, the stars and moon printer friendly document (which word on the street has it was the reason her blog was assassinated in the first place...) has ceased to exist.

Or so you'd like to think. Ha.
It's here now, you don't get away so easy. And if anyone really wants to download it, right-click and save-as instead of clicking on it and getting it all loaded into your browser.

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In still other news, re-minisce has lost faith that the National Nutplane's national moblog will ever be resurrected, and therefore inters the link for posterity. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, it was good while it lasted, now it's bust. Oh wait, I think she has another blog... bugger.

... do police stop child hurting himself... by... hurting him.

har? :| what happened to good old stepping in and wrestling the offending object away from the kid. 50,000 volts. That's gotta hurt.

Observation of the day - Strangely, there is no wine at communion at St Ignatius' church... I wonder why?

Random recalled facts :

- a taxi driver turned a corner at a T junction the other day and stopped abruptly for someone to get in. I mean how stupid is that? If I hadn't had the presence of mind to check left (again) whilst turning I would have run full tilt point-blank into him whilst accelerating around the corner. I think I had a total of 0.5 seconds to react.

- taxi driver pulled past me on the expressway today at what must have been 120 km/h after tailgating a slightly-speeding me for what must have been 5 minutes. Naturally, since I was 3 car lengths from the next car, he wound up stuck back in traffic. :|

- it takes me 27 minutes to drive from bukit timah to changi airport.

- some parts of upper bukit timah are actually quite pretty at sunset, with the mist rising from the trees catching the last gold-tinted breaths of the fading sun.

- pesky colds take forever to go away.

Reason # 20014917 why re-minisce thinks living alone is better than living at home :

- sleeping in late

Sleeping in late is a luxury afforded to most people on weekends. Unfortunately, the nature of re-minisce's job means that even these are no longer sacrosanct. However, once in a blue moon when he's lucky he'll get public holidays off. These are moments when re-minisce is free to go out late the night before guilt-free, and then wake up the next morning in bed at an hour of his body's choosing.

Or so you'd think.

Having managed to finally tune out either one of his parents'

1) blundering about at 0630 hours, tripping the burglar alarm which is apparently a daily ritual of "forgetting" to turn it off before opening all the doors of the house

2) opening the door to re-minisce's room - dunno why they do it, but they always do it. One is beginning to suspect it's all part of a conspiracy.

3) breakfasting at 0730 hours which involves clanking plates and pans together. Naturally since the kitchen abutts re-minisce's bedroom this can be rather disruptive.

This morning I slept through all of that, since I'm still ill, and I had a late-ish night last night.

The phone rang at 0830 hours. It was one of the parent's early-bird friends.

$%!@$*!@($!@#()!@

*****
My upper respiratory tract infection has spread downwards now and turned into a pesky cough instead, ensuring its survival for another four days. I positively loathe viruses which are devious little things, first infecting the nasal mucosa (route of infection) and then ensuring that as you slowly swallow your mucus you spread it downwards towards your lungs. Nasty little buggers.

*****
There was a pretty funny mix-up on class 95 yesterday evening; I wonder if anyone else caught it?

Radio deejay - ? was it vernetta lopez? was narrating a piece on the 'O' level biology paper controversy (apparently an eleven mark question had an erroneous graph, shock horror, gasp, salacious gossip, stop press, hold breath, scream, etcetc. with feeling.) and here is one victim, Mr (name), a schoolboy. cue audio clip :

(grave voice)

"Here at the ministry, we believe in abstinence, rather than condom..."

(cut)

"Oh, haha, we err apologise for that little mix up.. errr um"

(cue music)

Heh heh heh.

*****
The Incredibles was simply hilarious. Two thumbs up. :)

It seems Johnicology has finally made the transition from medical student to cockroach pre-registration house officer.

Welcome to the fold, Johnicology. Now it gets really fun. Heh heh heh heh. Heh. (Evil laughter.)

In other news, re-minisce is sick as a dog. I've always wondered why we say that, since my doggies were always pretty well.

Speaking of doggies, doggy-fanatic xena's website has been dead for well over a week now. What gives?

In response to the question if high-impact exercise like fencing is dangerous while the nut patient is sick : there is a very, very, infinitesimally small chance of viral myocarditis leading to fulminant heart failure and death. Re-minisce suspects some of the NS boys who died after route marches due to "heart problems" may well have had something along these lines, although congenital heart malformations / arrythmias also come to mind. The ex vice-principal of SCGS, I believe, died of this condition.

However, there is also the "doctor clause" - re-minisce suspects it's probably a recessive gene present only in people dumb enough to become clinicians. We're always "immune" to complications of illnesses you see. Much like the time my dad went on his daily ten click run with moderate-severe right lower quadrant pain and wound up septicaemic from a ruptured appendix. (It's like HIV : These are things which happen to other people.)

At the end of the day, re-minisce is compelled to say on behalf of all doctordom the world over - Do as we say - not as we do.

The Morning After, I can't help but feel awful.

Get your minds outta the gutter.

Morning after fencing with the onset of flu bug and everything is out of kilter. The body was screaming its protests this morning, and I quite literally felt like the walking dead. A 2 hour nap did little to alleviate the situation, and resulted in low grade pyrexia instead.

Whinge, whinge, complain. Anyhow the worst has come and gone, and thanks to two paracetamol I now feel human again. Paracetamol has this strange effect on me - it's not just antipyretic, but makes me perspire heavily. Maybe this is a normal effect; I've never actually asked anybody how it works on them - but surely the antipyretic pathway just... lowers fevers? Mmm.

*****
MrBrown's post on my little HDB rant resulted in an interesting (albeit flippant) comment from someone writing that perhaps it's all part of a conspiracy theory to force people out of flats.

I don't agree. If anything, it's all part of a conspiracy theory to setup people for the next great round of (voting for) HDB upgrading!

Drumroll...

Repainting flats sensible colours!

Okay, that was lame.

*****
In still other news, it seems Moldyvort now "scans normal text" for direct or oblique references to herself.

Bugger.

Re-minisce watches large sphere and cube-shaped objects flying towards his head.

Resistance is futile. You shall be assimilated...

Okay this post is long in the making, owing to general fatigue, being woken up at ungodly hours by the parents on weekends, and waking up at unholy hours for work in the morning. (what kind of people start work at 0730 hrs?!?! oh yeah. surgeons. bugger.)

Before the main feature, we bring you these messages :

1) Do not fence while coming down with flu bug. Is very bad for body. Feels like dying only no relief from actually dying, and coach generally unsympathetic to Y chromosomes. bugger.

2) Singapore is very hot. Yes, I'm still coming to grips with the concept. I sweat when it's sunny, and I sweat when it rains. I have a feeling the only time I will stop sweating in this lovely garden city is when I'm dead.

******
Everytime I catch a cab, oops I mean taxi. Or is that teksi? In this country with V, we have a mini-misadventure. (sort of like the VW golf advertisements in the UK which were so silly you had to love them)

Our latest escapade involved another friend, a (long) walk down the estuary near the esplanade and several why did the chickens cross the major expressway moments, which fortunately we did not succumb to.

The second we stepped into the taxi the driver got into full swing (no mean feat considering the ride proper only lasted 3 min thanks to the roads not doing what the banks of the waterfront do at all. doh!) and warned us of the dangers of monsters, ghosts, indian people, and lonely walks down the waterfront. (He threw in the term Pak-tor for good measure. From the sounds of it, he also said what must mean menage-a-trois in mandarin, but the two angellic girls I was with didn't recognise the term, and he was loth to explain it. ha.)

By the end of the journey he was treating us to a pretty good taxi-idol rendition (if not for the ah-beng accent it'd have been really good!) of Because I love you by Shakin' Stevens.

Geesh. This sort of stuff happens to V on a regular basis. I think she should start a Taxi-Driver Diaries blog, before she begins to take it all for granted.

*****
Some time later, V, reading some of the comments on my previous entry commented that she brings out the weirdest in cab drivers, but I bring out the worst in blog-readers.

Shrug. It's strange, really, "writing for a mass audience" - my own quirky little attempts at sarcastic humour are only appreciated by a small audience who know me in real life (various members of the blogging community don't pick up on the "trigger words" in my head, through no fault of their own) and (this is but an observation) some people are unable to debate the salient issues - and not the person. I suppose this is a universal trait the world over, but never in the UK have people persisted in hammering home the same points once I've pointed out that they're irrelevant to the debate at hand. Perhaps it's my years of debate experience, and my professional life in my career - we keep things impersonal, and discuss the issues rather than make character assessments and attack the individual.

Anyway, either way I'm glad and grateful for the responses (all of them, including the mini-arguments) generated, since it means my words are generating thoughts in readers, which I guess is a good thing. (regardless of how hostile they are. laughs)

Thing is, I'm not actually writing for a mass-audience. Else I'd tone myself down, and censor my thoughts (to avoid those pesky little flames/hot coals at my feet). I'm just writing down - my thoughts. Mine. For me.

*****
ps - AAARRRRRRRrrrrgh! MrBrown does it again! not once, but TWICE! Talk about adding injury to injury. Mutter. Must meet ipod contract killer ASAP...

Okay re-minisce is going to touch on several touchy topics tonight since he's a touchy feely sorta guy. (preferably touchy feely nice girlie. just kidding.)

Re-minisce's grouses for the week
1) HDB flats. I'm probably going to put a lot of people's backs up, and it doesn't help that I don't live in one. But, I hasten to add that this doesn't reflect poorly on the residents in any way, and it's not their fault at all that they live in them.

HDB flats are, quite frankly, eyesores. I cannot imagine what went through the minds of the architects when they designed 'em.

Okay, so they did the job for the PAP - cheap and cheerful (and identical) housing for everyone in a hurry. But sometimes, walking amidst the garguntuan monstrosities that clutter our skyline, I just wish they could have hired someone with an eye for the teeniest bit of aesthetics. Granted most Singaporeans can't see what I'm seeing, because they've lived in them most of their lives. Their pigeon coops is home to 'em. But honestly, outside of the "city" area of our little city, the rest of the island is a bit of a letdown.

Cue "upgrading". (ba da bum) That magic term the boys in white always use as political leverage to coerce encourage the public to vote for them. (no vote PAP? slower upgrading - if at all, ever.)

Upgrading takes drabness in completely the other direction. From robot architects the boys in white have moved on to insane dali-wannabe artists. Suddenly all the HDB flats have come alive with colour! Colour-schemes like orange and green; Orange and purple; Green and purple abound and offend the sensibilities of anyone with an ounce of colour co-ordination in their souls.

So what if they boys in white appointed a frenchman to do the job? He must have been drunk at the time, or else he was clearly colour-blind.

And those added "facades" they've superglued onto the fronts of the blocks, if anything, make it all look worse. Now, instead of being surrounded by cities of grey (or beige, come to think of it) obelisks, we're living in legoland.

2) Void decks
Howbout these? Included as a feature to encourage residents to bond communally, these void decks are more often than not... empty. (except for the occasional kitty-cat) Strangely apt, somehow.

3) Queenstown
I remember visiting Queenstown fairly often with my mum when I was little. I found it fairly pleasant, and the colour schemes there at least were fairly palateable (my favourite colour is blue, see.)

Visiting it yesterday I couldn't help but notice that it's beginning to look post apocalyptic. Paint's flaking off the walls, and that which remains has become sunbleached in spots, and grimy in others. Vendor shops remain closed and unoccupied. Even the roadside telephone switchbox thingummies are starting to bleed streaks of rust down their flanks. The place definitely looks as if it's seen better days. If I didn't know any better I might be tempted to conclude that we're still ploughing through the depths of an economic crisis...

*****
Now I have to ask, after all that ranting that none of you becomes defensive, and that you somehow try to remain objective. Don't indulge, tempting as it may be, in a bout of self-centred defensiveness, or a pre-emptive attack (eg calling re-minisce a snob). I have no inclinations towards class-discrimination, and many of my friends and colleagues live in HDB flats. I'm currently looking to rent one nearer to the hospital as well, to escape the clutches of the evil parents. Personally, I don't believe in the whole concept of clas-stratification s in a society that essentially exists of varying degrees of "middle-class"ness. We haven't any gentry or nobility to speak of, and, ostensibly, there are no "poor" people in Singaland (just low-income groups)

This isn't an attack on any of you in any way, and to feel somehow threatened or upset by it would be a waste of effort and emotion on your parts, since the writer isn't feeling particularly snobby or self-righteous as he puts these thoughts to e-media.

I'm just calling it as I see it - the HDB flats and estates that have grown around us as we have grown up, to the "outside" eye (ie one that has been away, and back -- probably more so to those born and bred overseas) aren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. They've clearly been built to be functional and pratical, those eternal buzzwords that dominate our engineering-orientated society. And the upgrading works that were conducted by and large served to convert drab pigeon coops into haphazardly coloured architectural monstrosities (much akin to the new RGS and the new RI...)

What puzzles me is - couldn't it have been done another way? Perhaps repaint all the blocks in relatively sane, muted colours, and install reflective grills along the public corridors to give the blocks more.. "blockiness" - so that they look a little more like buildings rather than pigeon coops? And surely some of that money used in pinning large and bizarre frontages to the blocks could have been more wisely spent replacing - rivets - which reflected the initial less-than-masterful workmanship that went into the construction of these purpose-built people-pens?

I dunno, I'm certainly not an administrator; I'm just a pair of eyes connected to a mouth (or, in this case, a pair of hands). I'm calling a spade a spade - the blocks are hardly aesthetically pleasing. Should any of you become angry with me, consider that what you probably want in demanding a retraction from me is for me to lie, or to learn to see what my heart does not feel - that these blocks are actually pretty and pleasant; that someday when the land is chocablock with hdbblocks it'll make a pretty postcard, taken from the waterfront, to tout to the world. The other alternative is to try to empathise with the writer, and look at the land again with newly-opened eyes. Perhaps there is a better way to dress-up and upgrade our HDB blocks, and transform them from the skeletons of civilisation that they are, into something more than superficial.

!!Warning - meme rant!!

Okay this is a piece about a hair cut.

I had my hair cut yesterday. Just in case you haven't figured it out yet. For the first time in my entire Singaporean existence, I decided to have a "proper" hair cut, instead of the usual tug/obliterate/lacerate sheep-shearing routine you get at the $7 indian barbers (with their aging fake haircutting diplomas mounted proudly on the wall) who are more concerned with turnaround time than customer satisfaction.

I decided to try Palace D'Esthetique since it was recommended by a friend. The name would have put me off instantly, but said friend hasn't been wrong so far so what the hey. She even recommended a particular barber, Jimmy.

It was an interesting experience stepping up to the tiny little terrier manning the reception desk and receiving the usual look of disdain (must be something about the way I look or something).

"Yes? What u want?" (sniff)

"Oh hello, I'd like a haircut"

There was that instant's confusion in her eyes as she picked up something... slightly different about the way I spoke (unintentional), to the usual ahbeng customer. I guess it's fading fast as I re-acclimatise to our heat, but there's a little bit of England left somewhere in the bowels of my vowels.

And then suddenly she was all nice. It was like I'd waved a magic wand or something.

"Ah, sit here, you want drink? You want magazine? Sit here instead! Jimmy cutting, will be finished very soon."

O-kay.

I then endured a 10-minute shampoo, during which time I marvelled to myself how thorough they are over here in the orient. Over at hair by fairy you get a thirty second jobbie. I guess it's got to do with all that extra... perspiration... we engage in over here.

I couldn't help liking Jimmy when I met him. He looks forty-something but has poofy dyed-brown hair and is VERY SERIOUS about his work. I was tempted to ask if he came out of a hong kong movie.

It was obvious from the outset that Jimmy and my hair weren't getting along. My hair was created by a Fairy from Hair by Fairy in Neal's Yard, London, and to be honest I think the guy was probably tripping (?on fairy dust?) as he cut my hair, so it's got this strange asymmetry to the fringe which I've grown into liking.

After several disapproving glares (from various angles. I must say the man is quite the diva. You'd think he was directing a movie rather than cropping my un-locks) he finally huffed

"You want to keep like this is it?"

(...)

"Yes please."

So he valiantly gets his chin down and his shears out, and metal flashes all over the place. Amazingly, no (this was a first for me) pain at all. No small nicks, no tugs. And gradually the slightly bedraggled-me began to assume a neater, sharper look. (Sue me, I've spent the last three months wandering around London and the United States...) Finally, he could take it no longer and ripped a hairclip out of his... god knows where (he didn't seem to have any pockets on him, which made me realise immediately that he must be gay) and viciously pegged my stray forelock to my scalp.

The end result wasn't bad at all (pretty dang good to be honest, although I now look like a boy scout with a crooked fringe) but it was obvious after several more mutely-microscopic examinations from various camera angles that he didn't have a clue what to do with it.

So he whips out the gel, and I think aha! he's finally onto it, he's gonna do the Fairy thing and make my hair stick out all odd angles like those weirdos on pop idol (UK and Singapore. They have the same hair.) but no... he... coiffs my hair. I actually found it kinda amusing looking at myself going puffy-headed in the mirror. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. I looked like something out of that 60s show.

meme out.

*****

In other news, it appears that SheWhoShallNotMustNotAndNeverShallBeNamed has cottoned on to re-minisce's dodge tactics and altered her web searches to include the term SheWhoSh***NotBeN***D. Bugger. Brings to mind the Borg. Time to change tack, from now on we'll use the term MoldyVort.

Captain, there're thousands of elliptical latex tubes approaching our ship and adhering to our hull!

Oh my God. Scotty, status!

She'll nae hold cap'n, they're Cling Ons!

All out of love?

now available, by popular request.
200k download (only!)

have I ever mentioned how wonderful, kind, generous, beautiful, funny and amazing xena is? Cough. I wonder why not? Well she's helping me host the file, so she's all that and more! And extremely graceful on ice too!

whimper, grovel, grovel.

Sometimes when I'm playing the piano and I'm in the "right" frame of mind (usually upset / agitated) it feels like my brain disengages and lets my fingers take over, and I wander into some of the most beautiful melodies imaginable.

Unfortunately, precisely because my brain is disengaged, I can never remember what it was I played when the moment has passed some thirty minutes later. It's rather aggravating. Also rather irritating is the way it only happens when I'm absolutely alone - mum and dad have to be out of the house as well.

*****
Roadkill

I've been meaning to write this for the longest time.

Whilst driving around in my mum's car - because, alas re-minisce doesn't have the $$$ to purchase a new car - I can't help but notice :

1) Singaporeans drive real slow.

With a top speed on our "highways" of 90 km/h it ought to feel like I'm barely moving at all (55 mph) - and looking out the window at the trees gliding smoothly by it does feel like the car's crawling. And yet at times I'm caught hurrying to react to someone else cutting into my path. This is because

2) Singaporeans are crap drivers?

Quite conceivably. People here seem to feel obliged to

3) Change lane without indicating

Which can be scary when they do it quickly, but is even worse when they sort of drift across the road lines dreamily, because these people often drift back again, then out, then back, making you wonder if they're drunk, falling asleep, or just plain incompetent.

3.5) Singaporeans speed up when you try to change lanes

This really happens. (especially taxis) It doesn't matter if they're driving a rolls royce or a proton saga. As long as you fire off that indicator light their feet slam down on their gas pedals, taking them from a stately 50 to 100 km/h in under two seconds. Sometimes I'm tempted to let them commit suicide on the corner of my rear bumper. I guess that's why people here change lanes without indicating...

4) Singaporeans don't stick to the middle of their lane!!

This really pisses me off. Sometimes as someone's drifting slowly towards my car, reducing that 30cm gap to a mere 15 cm I'm tempted to pull left and nudge their car back into the middle of their lane. Ha, that'd teach em. It's not such a hard thing to do - it's not as if our roads are narrow or anything. But no, you always get some twit driving on the line, and then... drifting slowly across it into your lane (see 3)

5) Singaporeans follow too close

This only happens occasionally, and often the culprit is a taxi or a cheap porsche lookalike. I'm cruising down the highway (or rather, crawling) at 90 kmh when someone looms in my rear mirror. Sometimes they even start flashing their lights aggressively.

Okay, so I up it to 100 km/h cos chances are the police will go after him first. (ha) Lo and behold, they loom again.

110 km/h and they're still looming, and eventually they cut aggresively out of their lane (without indicating), hurtle by at 120 - 130 km/h, then get stuck behind some lorry or honda civic doing 70 km/h.

Several traffic lights later, you pull past them and they start the whole thing again. I mean what is the POINT of tailgating someone already driving at the maximum legal speed? Does getting to your destination all of 30 seconds earlier really make such a big difference??

Worse still - driving too close to someone turns that leisurely 90 km/h crawl into a deadly 90 --> 0 km/h impact in the event of an accident. There simply isn't enough reaction time : whereas if they drive at a sensible 4 car-length distance there's more than enough time to have a panic attack, then slam on the brakes and avoid an accident altogether.

Sometimes I wish I had a Bond car, complete with a button that extends spikes out my rear bumper. And out the side of the car too specially for the dozy drifters. Or maybe snowplough blades on the sides. yeah.

*****
Piper Headsick

Hehehohohahah. This one's a fine vintage all right. I give talkingcock another 3 months before they get closed down... :)

I've been having spats with the parents recently, to the extent that I'm beginning to feel that coming back may well have been a mistake.

And I haven't even started work proper yet. roll eyes.

I'm not really into washing my dirty linen in public (and in truth i'm rather averse to the whole concept of laundry...) suffice to say that I had a strange upbringing; very sheltered, very cloistered, a strange mix of traditional chinese values (by the neo-oriental mum) but a daily spoken tongue of 100% english (courtesy to the mother's obsession with El-O-Kew-Shun). I spent 24/7 at home thanks to geography (the house is located on an islet of green far insland from civilisation in the middle of a forest of other houses, and trees. it takes 45 min to walk out to the road, at a good pace.) and the iron hand of the parent-patricians.

I remember not being allowed to go out. "It's a waste of time". Nor being allowed to have ECAs, except chess (vote of approval from the father who was a chess player) and badminton (sometimes. when the mother wasn't in the It's Too Dangerous mode.)

Not Wasting Time entailed studying at home. Television and computer were prized commodities only afforded to me when I could discover the latest hiding place of the Key (courtesy of the Mother.).

It was a strange upbringing, devoid of much in the way of human warmth and love, and rather academic. Sometimes we were caned, but considering how few opportunities there were to be bad under the Iron Rule of the Patricians, these times were few and far between.

It's funny how my life under my parents mirrored the Singalanders' relationships to their government, innit.

The first time I rebelled against Dynastic Law was over a girl. Isn't that always the way?

It wasn't such a big deal, it's not like I'd done anything horrific, or even vaguely adult.

Said girl was leaving the country and having a farewell bash. She lived on the other side of the island to me.

Mother : "Don't be silly. Of course you won't go to your friend's farewell. It's a waste of time."

Oh, if only she knew...

Anyhow, I went.

I had to.

Well the first day at "work" was mind-numbingly boring, with the usual cascade of fire-safety lectures and work-improvement lectures washing by a heavy-lidded re-minisce nodding gently off to sleep.

One thing that struck me was that they may have fancier names over here, but everything's the same.

"Hospital improvement" hinges about a "PDCA" cycle (plan, do, check, act) whilst in the UK it hinges about an audit cycle. They're exactly the same thing, except one is a four letter abbreviation and the other is an actual word.

It strikes me that Singaporean healthcare professionals, and singaporeans in general are unhealthily fixated on TLAs (three lettered abbreviations). Maybe it give us a sense of uniqueness - we must be special, since nobody else can understand us. The justification is "time pressure", but how much time does one save with a four-syllabled abbreviation, when much of the time each of the individual words can be truncated into its first component syllable?

So I sat through the lectures yesterday with a growing sense of frustration, asking the hapless doctor next to me (an ex-classmate) What's this? What's that?! and getting gradually pissed off as I heard about how we had to use the HDI to invoke EMRS and get the PRD up to date.

Durrrr.

If we think we're making ourselves sound more professional then we're sadly wrong. It just makes us sound soul-less and mechanical.