Friday, July 03, 2009

simplicity back

"i don't think father flynn did anything wrong."
"you just want things to be resolved so you can have simplicity back"


i watched "doubt" today, after letting it rot for six months in my external hard drive. i thought the story was provoking and the acting was excellent (especially viola davis as mrs miller), but in the midst of all the pulitzer prize-winning lines was the above exchange between sister james and sister aloysius.

it struck me because alot of times, i would rather have things resolved than to search for the truth. fine, that's the answer to that question and that's that. i don't want to know the alternatives, the reasons, the facts, the arguments. let's move on.

again. where along the way did i exhaust myself?

lishun at 10:30 PM

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Monday, June 29, 2009

not myself

last week, i came home one day to find an old, stained envelope on my table. it was addressed to my parents and bore the logo of my primary school in hong kong. when i opened it up, i found out that it contained a progress report of my first term in that school. i was 7 years old at the time.

the main headings were on personal and social development, english, mathematics, science, topic work, the arts, p.e. and health education, and general comments. my class teacher, ms mounsey (i used to think of her as ms mouse-y), wrote the report and i smiled at what she wrote.

"shun is showing independence and initiative, and is a well-motivated and enthusiastic pupil. she is sometimes a little too attention-seeking and is encouraged to think carefully before she speaks. she has been motivated by choosing her own reading books and selects a wide range of interest and levels, including poetry. her story-writing is exciting and full of humour and sound effects, it lends itself to being read out by the teacher or shun herself. she likes to think of maths questions to ask the rest of the class. shun is a both knowledgeable and logical thinker. she is showing some leadership qualities but is always considerate of others' contributions. shun is a happy vivacious girl who has been a very welcome addition to our class. her standard of work is excellent and she really does show a positive attitude to all activities in school. she is a pleasure to teach."


when i finished reading, i couldn't help but wonder "what happened to that girl?" these days, i feel more discouraged than motivated to try or work harder. my standard of work has fallen, i would rather remain silent than offer suggestions because they're almost always wrong anyway (plus where in medicine is there space to guess?), and i am a pessimist regarding pretty much everything.

today, we had a basic trauma life support course. from the very moment i went into the room, i did everything that i would not have done perhaps 3 or 4 years ago. i went in completely unprepared, having not read the manual before the course. i didn't revise whatever i learnt during my stint in the a&e department at sungai buloh, i didn't go through in detail the slides my friend had sent to us a couple of days before. i didn't think before i answered the questions, i couldn't recall a single thing i learnt in my previous rotations.

i did everything that i deemed unacceptable for anyone in my position, at the place where i am right now, in the penultimate year of medical school, a mere 14 months away from graduation. heck, i deem it unacceptable for any student. i never did that in school, i was always prepared. i have always made it a point to excel...always, up until now.

knowledgable? logical? leadership qualities? where did they go? where did i lose those attributes i once had, because i would love to go back and retrieve them.

i don't think i'm going to be a safe doctor, but that's not the worst part. the worst thing is...i don't have to motivation to change that possibility. i don't want to put in the effort to change that fatalistic mentality. i just don't want to. because i don't see the point.

i don't see the point anymore. damnit i hate being whiny!

lishun at 5:26 PM

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

hard to swallow

i started signing up for runs for 3 reasons:

1. to have some form of motivation to get off my butt and exercise
2. that sense of accomplishment once i cross the finishing line
3. to exorcise the demons i have about running as a result of 2 years of napfa hell

i am far from the fittest person around. even after doing a couple of 10km runs, i still perform miserably. in fact, my timing has gotten worse with every run (how the heck is that possible?!) and it's starting to get rather demoralising.

anyway, i did my first 10km in 9 months today. i completed it in an obscene amount of time, 20 minutes off my target (i want to cry lor), and felt like crap after that. it was great knowing that i finished the race and i had another medal to add to the little collection i have going on, but the perfectionist in me couldn't accept that i not only failed to improve on my timing, but that i took a longer time this year than the last.

i guess it's time to fully acknowledge that the main reason i've been doing so horribly is that i haven't been exercising much, i've let my fear of embarrassing myself keep me from signing up for more runs, and as a result i've put on the pounds, hence giving me more weight to carry around as i run. the unhealthy clinical school student diet (maggi mee, fried eggs and lots of bread) hasn't helped much either. bleurgh.

the truth is hard to swallow, but it's the truth nonetheless.

okla i need to pack and go to sleep. i decided not to head back to seremban tonight simply because i am much too tired to make the drive back. it's not right for a mere 10km run to tire me out so much. further proof that i need to get my act back together.

gah. good night everyone.

lishun at 7:53 PM

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Friday, June 26, 2009

on the bandwagon

i'm gonna jump on the bandwagon and blog about farrah fawcett (yes, she died too, in case you forgot) and michael jackson.

i'm too young to know farrah fawcett. i've never even watched any of the original charlie's angels shows until star world decided to have minisodes of old television series. she was from my father's generation and i'm sure if there's anyone who'll miss her, it'd be him. but she was an icon with iconic hair who was part of an iconic tv show, so i'm sure it'd be hard for anyone to forget her.

as for michael jackson, he is the closest star known to my generation to reach the status of elvis and the beatles. a living legend, until his death this morning. my mother once said that michael jackson is the personification of music - when he performed, there was no doubt that music made up the very matter of his skin, flesh and bones. i agree. it is hard to escape his influence. even the youngest musicians today can credit him for being an inspiration in one way or another. perhaps that's the best thing about him...he'll forever live on in the music of present and future generations of artists.

both farrah fawcett and michael jackson died after a long, public decline. she, of a physical illness and he, of...well, eccentricity. i wish it happened differently because now most will remember them as the shadow of who they once were.

but i choose to remember fawcett as she was in that famous picture of her in a red bathing suit, blonde hair billowing in the wind; and jackson as that smooth dancer on the path of lit panels denying any involvement in the conception of a child.

celebrity does not equate invincibility. today, we had two reminders of that truth.

lishun at 4:02 PM

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

for the win

so ok fine the "revenge" part fell a little flat. since sam and michaela were already involved there wasn't much romantic anticipation. the comic relief from sam's room mate wasn't enough to make up for his annoying-ness. i missed some of the robots from the first movie. the unintentional tribute to indiana jones was rather amusing.

in the end the movie was, story-wise anyway, rather blah. and cliched. the script was lame. and i wanna strangle linkin park.

however...



mr. fergilicious and optimus prime (oh that blue and red!) saved the day! as did the other robots, because they were very cool. more mid-air transformations this time. alot more noise. metal crashing! bwargggggggh!

i would watch this movie again if it weren't for the fact that it's so...darn...long. alot of the parts, especially the communication going on via radio, could have definitely been shortened or edited out. anyway. i'll watch it just for the occasional glimpses of josh duhamel and that breath-taking, surprisingly puny, last remaining prime.

sigh. almost enough to make me forget that tomorrow, i'll have to ask airasia for a refund. =(

p/s: did anyone else spot the malaysian airlines logo? hahahaha.

lishun at 9:58 PM

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

nothing's changed

here's a gem from tun dr.m (paraphrased many times over):

"i never said that the teaching of science and math in english was to improve the standards of english language among malaysians. it is to enable us to understand scientific lingo, considering it's the lingua franca of science right now. in the past, the greeks were the forefront runners of science and technology. scholars in the arabic world were far behind because they could not understand greek. so what did they do? they studied greek. eventually, they could translate greek texts, understand science, and then conduct experiments of their own to add to the available knowledge. that gradually put them ahead of the greeks. the greeks then took that knowledge, translated it all back to greek and with the rise of the roman empire and the more widespread use of latin, scientific texts were written in latin."
- overheard at the international conference on thinking


i'm no language scholar, so i can't verify the whole history of language and whatnot (yes, i know a google search would yield sufficient information but i am lazy, can?), but it does make sense.

what doesn't make sense, however, is the fact that it took 6 years for the ministry of education to realise that the implementation of teaching of math and science in english has been a flop. the idea itself wasn't a bad one, but the execution certainly was.

when i told my father about a friend of mine who struggled through university because she couldn't understand the journal articles she had to read for her course, he pointed to himself and said that he went through the exact same thing when he was in university more than 30 years ago. he was from a chinese-medium school, which probably accounted for the difficulties he encountered. however, my friend was from a national school in an urban area, and she still found it hard to read scientific texts.

there is something seriously wrong when students in malaysia are facing the exact same problems our parents' generation did. if we're not moving forward, we'll be regressing pretty soon. or perhaps we're already in regression?

lishun at 9:44 AM

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

oh sadness

i had the itinerary all planned out.

i was supposed to arrive on saturday night, get some sleep at my cousin's place, wake up for sunday service at planetshakers church with some of my seniors, head over to the st kilda's beach sunday flea market, have lunch there, and then hang out with my cousin for whatever's left of the day.

for the rest of the week, i'll visit the salvador dali and jane austen exhibitions, go to all the museums in the city, get coffee and chocolate in between meals, check out the arts and music scene at fitzroy, take photographs of the gorgeous architecture there, finally enter the state library, rent a bike and take one of the bike trails featured online, join in the writers' festival, splurge on an italian meal at lygon st, try everything available at victoria market, explore the art-filled alleys, meet up with tonnes and tonnes of friends, buy old CDs at 10 dollars or less a pop, and maybe do a spot of shopping.

then i'll fly back home on a saturday night, arrive home early sunday morning, recuperate for 2 days, and be all refreshed and pumped up for a most certainly killer semester.

but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

i won't be doing all that.

because of that darned influenza A (h1n1) virus. that is mega infectious because that's what influenza viruses are - mega infectious. or they wouldn't have survived for so long! they infect people! they mutate! they become either more or less virulent than their predecessors! they marry with some other virus and wipe out the human race! i don't see what the big fuss is about! they're just doing their job!

=(

sigh.

i am going to mull over my decision for the rest of the week, but it looks like by friday, my parents will be rm900 poorer for no reason other than poor judgement and lots of bad luck.

oh melbourne melbourne. when will we meet again? =(

---

on a lighter note, a friend of mine told us a story about a patient she met during her general practice posting at a private clinic. after the consultation, the patient asked the doctor to tell her more about "the 'hini' virus that's in the news". hini. lol.

sigh.

i'm still upset about probably not going to melbourne. =(

lishun at 6:44 PM

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