Monday, November 15, 2004
Yet Another Longest Day
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.
*****
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.
*****
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.
*****
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? :)
*****
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.
*****
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.
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.
*****
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.
*****
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.
*****
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.
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? :)
*****
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.
*****
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.
