Wednesday, December 14, 2005
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
First, the Good
*****
No Time
I've been taking it easy these past few days. I'm on MC after my little misadventure with an acute appendicitis. (self-diagnosed based primarily on history, and secondarily but perhaps more importantly on pain - read excruciating agony - ... then confirmed on histology)
This is the first time I've ever taken medical leave since starting work as a doctor, barring an afternoon many moons ago when I was but a fledgeling medical house officer, after a particularly severe attack of what looked suspiciously like rice-water stool. On that occasion, the boss - a large, blustery, crotchety old Scotsman who was actually quite the softie behind the facade - took one look at me clutching the walls for support and proclaimed that it weren't right that my skin tone be fairer than his and sent me packing.
Several years later I'm sitting in a surgeon's office - not mine - across from a golden oldie (and a gifted one at that) watching in bemusement as he fills in that little white piece of paper I'm now so well acquainted with... but have never had the pleasure of actually receiving.
Day One was spent lying around at home for a bit before the fortunate realisation struck that lying in a park somewhere sunny would be infinitely more pleasurable.
So I find myself sitting propped-up against a lamp-post (lying down proves too painful) near Orchard MRT station (you know? that park nobody ever goes to?) watching a father teach his seven year-old daughter how to fly a remote-controlled polystyrene glider. I've never actually seen one before, but its basically a many-generationed descendant of those two-piece polystyrene rubberband wind-em-ups with the plastic propellar-counterweight on the tip that doubled as weapons of mass destruction - does anyone remember those? God, I feel old.
The gliders of today are hand-propelled floor-kissers, but with enough luck, skill and finesse one might theoretically be able to catch an updraft and float one's plane high in the sky almost indefinitely.
I watch the father and daughter duo beaming wide-eyed and open-mouthed with pleasure as their little polystyrene sliver of freedom finally floats lazily up into the sky, and can't help but smile to myself.
It's wonderfully liberating and exhilarating to behold their unfettered, conjoined happiness. Rays of golden sunlight slant down through the skyscrapers and treetops to explode at all angles off their auburn hair...
Simply being here with my back to the lamp-post watching them is inspiring - a magical movie-moment unfolding deep within the heart of urban mundanity. How precious.
I make a metal note to blog about this later, then message Xena about the scene and muse that it seems strange to me Singaporeans don't do this more often.
The answer is typically Xena-esque - terse, to the point, and absolutely correct : "No Time."
We - no, I say now You Singaporeans never have the time. (That's right, I'm forsaking my Singaporean-ness : I was born and bred here, but in truth I was born behind the walls of my parental stronghold, and raised in a rather eccentric manner. I still run into little Singaporeanisms which befuddle me on a daily basis. And then into typical Singaporean incredulity - har, you don't know, but you black hair and black eyes, born here right...?? I shan't go into detail - but I guess the truth is at heart, I can't lay claim to being much more than myself - and much less a nationality. So much for patriotism. sigh.)
But as I savour this father and daughter enjoying each other - watching them create mutual, happy memories that will linger with them for years to come, I realise that nothing is further from the truth. We do have time, if only we make it - and one day - should I ever marry, and should I ever have a daughter.. or a son... I shall rush home from work, scoop up my daughter from in front of the TV, retrieve that paper glider and remote control off the couch, and hurtle out to the park to play in the sun, just the two of us dancing to a tune of laughter and joy.
Thirty minutes later, the 'plane, under dad's expert hands, glides smoothly to berth on top of the tallest tree.
There's a pause. before daughter starts moaning. "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!"
Dad grins, sheepishly, and scratches at his head for a while, circling the tree.
The dynamic duo gradually becomes dejected, before departing.
Dad smiles at me as they slump by. "That's the fourth plane now..."
Daughter : "You always do that!!"
*****
Alohomora
I'm pleased to discover that picking locks is very much like riding a bicycle.
You can forget how to do it. But after several tries, starting with a few false "successful" test runs and several initially unjustified moments of absolute certainty that it's all come back and I'm the master later... followed by many fruitless attempts - the fingers finally remember how to - consistently - pick that lock, and within an hour i've whittled my time on a 5 pin "china" lock down to 9 seconds.
The trick, for me at least, is in the shaping of the pick, and of what I call the turning tool, or torque instrument. I can't really put it into words, and everytime I go back to picking locks after a prolonged period away it takes quite a while for the latent memories to reawaken and guide my hands into slowly shaping the tools into their appropriate forms.
It's a little odd to me that everytime I begin it feels like a new experience, yet by the end of it I've created exactly the same shaped tools - the torque instrument becomes a strange, spiralling corkscrew, and the pick a disappointingly simple hockey-stick with a slight slant on the end. If my digital camera wasn't locked up in the parents stronghold-bedroom I'd take a picture and post it here for posterity, to remind myself next time what shape to employ and save myself two hours of frustrating trial-and-error.
(Notes to self : ) the pick has to be inserted before the turning tool, and the "scrubbing" motion is up, and out.
Followers of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will recall a character named Min, a bright-eyed short-haired thief with a penchant for daggers and lockpicks.
I learnt how to pick locks in my teenagehood from a girl named Min. She was indeed bright eyed, and short-haired, although she much appeared to prefer the scalpel and skateboard, and in later years the foil to the dagger. She could also bake a mean chocolate brownie, and my parents loved her to death. Those were good days, and I still have the handcuffs left over with which to remember her by. Ah, wait.. that didn't quite come out the way I intended...
*****
Then, the Bad
*****
Ate mum's cooking for dinner again today. Ugh.
*****
Still walking like John Wayne after taking a bullet to the right flank. Pain...
What about painkillers?
Pah. I don't believe in taking medications...
*****
Still haven't written my piece about Tomorrow's gift of Blog-book to the late La-Idler's parents, the hoo-ha that surrounds it, and what strikes me as odd about the whole issue. Perhaps I never will...
*****
Wondering at the warped humour of the Higher Powers.
If you were the omniscient, omnipotent, Celestial Gamer and Writer of Scripts - would you fashion a pawn with a nearly nonexistent Attraction-ratio (here we're talking attraction with a capital A, and nearly nonexistent with a capital Nearly), then engineer sparse but intense encounters with Irresistable objects of Attraction - then reveal, invariably an unbreakable bond to other pawns somewhere out there, and an inconvenient normal location on the other side of the gaming board, ie unattainable in every imaginable way? What next, guarded by elemental defenders with flaming swords??
You would? Because it'd give you a laugh? Fiery swords and lightning staves and all?
Cruel. Very cruel.
*****
Lastly, the Ugly
*****
Anonymous Judge
... drafted my eye. Sputter. I wouldn't know a draft if I drank one....
*****
No Time
I've been taking it easy these past few days. I'm on MC after my little misadventure with an acute appendicitis. (self-diagnosed based primarily on history, and secondarily but perhaps more importantly on pain - read excruciating agony - ... then confirmed on histology)
This is the first time I've ever taken medical leave since starting work as a doctor, barring an afternoon many moons ago when I was but a fledgeling medical house officer, after a particularly severe attack of what looked suspiciously like rice-water stool. On that occasion, the boss - a large, blustery, crotchety old Scotsman who was actually quite the softie behind the facade - took one look at me clutching the walls for support and proclaimed that it weren't right that my skin tone be fairer than his and sent me packing.
Several years later I'm sitting in a surgeon's office - not mine - across from a golden oldie (and a gifted one at that) watching in bemusement as he fills in that little white piece of paper I'm now so well acquainted with... but have never had the pleasure of actually receiving.
Day One was spent lying around at home for a bit before the fortunate realisation struck that lying in a park somewhere sunny would be infinitely more pleasurable.
So I find myself sitting propped-up against a lamp-post (lying down proves too painful) near Orchard MRT station (you know? that park nobody ever goes to?) watching a father teach his seven year-old daughter how to fly a remote-controlled polystyrene glider. I've never actually seen one before, but its basically a many-generationed descendant of those two-piece polystyrene rubberband wind-em-ups with the plastic propellar-counterweight on the tip that doubled as weapons of mass destruction - does anyone remember those? God, I feel old.
The gliders of today are hand-propelled floor-kissers, but with enough luck, skill and finesse one might theoretically be able to catch an updraft and float one's plane high in the sky almost indefinitely.
I watch the father and daughter duo beaming wide-eyed and open-mouthed with pleasure as their little polystyrene sliver of freedom finally floats lazily up into the sky, and can't help but smile to myself.
It's wonderfully liberating and exhilarating to behold their unfettered, conjoined happiness. Rays of golden sunlight slant down through the skyscrapers and treetops to explode at all angles off their auburn hair...
Simply being here with my back to the lamp-post watching them is inspiring - a magical movie-moment unfolding deep within the heart of urban mundanity. How precious.
I make a metal note to blog about this later, then message Xena about the scene and muse that it seems strange to me Singaporeans don't do this more often.
The answer is typically Xena-esque - terse, to the point, and absolutely correct : "No Time."
We - no, I say now You Singaporeans never have the time. (That's right, I'm forsaking my Singaporean-ness : I was born and bred here, but in truth I was born behind the walls of my parental stronghold, and raised in a rather eccentric manner. I still run into little Singaporeanisms which befuddle me on a daily basis. And then into typical Singaporean incredulity - har, you don't know, but you black hair and black eyes, born here right...?? I shan't go into detail - but I guess the truth is at heart, I can't lay claim to being much more than myself - and much less a nationality. So much for patriotism. sigh.)
But as I savour this father and daughter enjoying each other - watching them create mutual, happy memories that will linger with them for years to come, I realise that nothing is further from the truth. We do have time, if only we make it - and one day - should I ever marry, and should I ever have a daughter.. or a son... I shall rush home from work, scoop up my daughter from in front of the TV, retrieve that paper glider and remote control off the couch, and hurtle out to the park to play in the sun, just the two of us dancing to a tune of laughter and joy.
Thirty minutes later, the 'plane, under dad's expert hands, glides smoothly to berth on top of the tallest tree.
There's a pause. before daughter starts moaning. "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!"
Dad grins, sheepishly, and scratches at his head for a while, circling the tree.
The dynamic duo gradually becomes dejected, before departing.
Dad smiles at me as they slump by. "That's the fourth plane now..."
Daughter : "You always do that!!"
*****
Alohomora
I'm pleased to discover that picking locks is very much like riding a bicycle.
You can forget how to do it. But after several tries, starting with a few false "successful" test runs and several initially unjustified moments of absolute certainty that it's all come back and I'm the master later... followed by many fruitless attempts - the fingers finally remember how to - consistently - pick that lock, and within an hour i've whittled my time on a 5 pin "china" lock down to 9 seconds.
The trick, for me at least, is in the shaping of the pick, and of what I call the turning tool, or torque instrument. I can't really put it into words, and everytime I go back to picking locks after a prolonged period away it takes quite a while for the latent memories to reawaken and guide my hands into slowly shaping the tools into their appropriate forms.
It's a little odd to me that everytime I begin it feels like a new experience, yet by the end of it I've created exactly the same shaped tools - the torque instrument becomes a strange, spiralling corkscrew, and the pick a disappointingly simple hockey-stick with a slight slant on the end. If my digital camera wasn't locked up in the parents stronghold-bedroom I'd take a picture and post it here for posterity, to remind myself next time what shape to employ and save myself two hours of frustrating trial-and-error.
(Notes to self : ) the pick has to be inserted before the turning tool, and the "scrubbing" motion is up, and out.
Followers of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will recall a character named Min, a bright-eyed short-haired thief with a penchant for daggers and lockpicks.
I learnt how to pick locks in my teenagehood from a girl named Min. She was indeed bright eyed, and short-haired, although she much appeared to prefer the scalpel and skateboard, and in later years the foil to the dagger. She could also bake a mean chocolate brownie, and my parents loved her to death. Those were good days, and I still have the handcuffs left over with which to remember her by. Ah, wait.. that didn't quite come out the way I intended...
*****
Then, the Bad
*****
Ate mum's cooking for dinner again today. Ugh.
*****
Still walking like John Wayne after taking a bullet to the right flank. Pain...
What about painkillers?
Pah. I don't believe in taking medications...
*****
Still haven't written my piece about Tomorrow's gift of Blog-book to the late La-Idler's parents, the hoo-ha that surrounds it, and what strikes me as odd about the whole issue. Perhaps I never will...
*****
Wondering at the warped humour of the Higher Powers.
If you were the omniscient, omnipotent, Celestial Gamer and Writer of Scripts - would you fashion a pawn with a nearly nonexistent Attraction-ratio (here we're talking attraction with a capital A, and nearly nonexistent with a capital Nearly), then engineer sparse but intense encounters with Irresistable objects of Attraction - then reveal, invariably an unbreakable bond to other pawns somewhere out there, and an inconvenient normal location on the other side of the gaming board, ie unattainable in every imaginable way? What next, guarded by elemental defenders with flaming swords??
You would? Because it'd give you a laugh? Fiery swords and lightning staves and all?
Cruel. Very cruel.
*****
Lastly, the Ugly
*****
Anonymous Judge
... drafted my eye. Sputter. I wouldn't know a draft if I drank one....
