Thursday, July 10, 2003

taking risks

the entire nation was thrown into grief two nights ago upon receiving the news of the death of the iranian siamese twins ladan and laleh, who were joined at the head. they passed away from severe loss of blood not long after being separated, after a long and risky operation.

the death of the twins caused me complex feelings. on one hand, i was shocked. on the other, i felt as if i knew it was coming. shocked, maybe because the team of surgeons behind the operation were world-class experts, and singaporean dr keith goh was part of the team that successfully separated the nepalese twins one or two years ago ( i can't exactly recall). but then, i guess i also kind of felt it coming because it was a 50-50 chance. they shared a major vein. we were dealing with the human brain here.

anyway, i was also prompted to think about how brave those two women were to even consider taking the risk. i wondered if i would ever be able to take such risks myself.

of course, i'm not talking literally. i do not share a main vein in the brain with my twin. i don't even have a twin, for that matter. i was thinking about whether i was, am, will be willing to take risks in life. whether i would be able to close my eyes and take the leap of faith. whether i would be able to put all my trust in God and "just do it".

unfortunately, the answer came back as "no". i've always told myself that, should i actually make it to med school, make it through med school, and survive my initial years as a brand-new medical graduate, i will never, ever specialise in neurology, whether it be neurosurgery or whatever. why? far too risky. i'm not prepared to put either the life of my patients, or my own reputation at stake.

i've also told myself that i would never skydive. not even when i hit my midlife crisis and my husband is off chasing his hot secretary who's half his age and my best friend has splurged on a fiery-red ferrari. i would also never go on the sky flyer at sunway lagoon. nuh-uh. no way.

taking risks is just not my thing i guess. sure, it'll make my life more interesting, but who needs change? i certainly do not like change, although the ability to adapt is one of my strongest points.

i don't think i'll miss out on much either, but not taking risks. maybe i would have missed out on the chance to double my money if i had put 50 bucks on the red 8 at roulette, or maybe some handsome young stranger would be around to catch me when i land from my skydive, but do i really care?

i know that this is not the correct attitude, that sometimes there are fabulous rewards waiting for me on the other side of the crevice, but right now, i'm content to be in a rut. a rut is a good place to be.

and a rut is where i'll stay...for now.

lishun at 7:23 PM

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Wednesday, July 09, 2003

As and Bs and stupidity

i've just recovered from a great extended weekend and am now back to reality.

yes, the return of exam scripts. it's unavoidable, no matter how much fun i had over the weekend, no matter how much my feet hurt from all that walking, and no matter how much i overspent in just one week.

i'm talking about those dreaded exam papers, with your grades written on them in red. it's even worse for me because this is the first exam i'm taking in singapore, and already the prospects don't look good. and am i actually expecting to get a B average at the end of the year?

i've just got back my very first complete exam script. math. math should have been a breeze, considering the paper was peanuts compared to its predecessors. and when i say peanuts, i mean peanuts. but i'm weak in math, always have been really, don't gimmie that nonsense about me doing well in spm yada yada...secondary school math is absolutely nothing. people cry because they get 99% for math in form 5 for goodness sake.

anyway, as i was saying, the math paper was easy. and although i was aiming for a B before and even still after the paper, i was quietly praying that some miracle will happen and i'll get an A.

who was i kidding anyway? no one knows me better than myself. and true enough, that little voice spoke the truth and i've just gotten a big fat B for math. to make things worse, almost everyone else got an A, whether it was a scraped through A or a fantastic A, like li li's. choon han was telling me to stop going, "sigh. i'm so stupid." and to not become, quote, "a second li li", end quote. only in my case, there's proof of that stupidness while for li li, her claims are totally unfounded.

i really am starting to believe i'm stupid. i was secretly (well, not anymore anyway) hoping to get a final result of 2As 1B and an O, plus perhaps B4 for GP and A2 for malay. but now i'm looking more like 3Bs and an O.

i know i shouldn't be complaining, that there are less fortunate people than me, that there are people who are failing everything eventhough they study till 3 in the morning while slacker me can even hope to expect 3Bs, that there are people who can't afford school, people who are starving and kids with bloated bellies and skinny legs...blah blah. i know all that.

but i'm complaining. so shoot me.

sigh. those who know me would know that this is VERY much like me. i always get what i know i deserve to get, and i always know what i'm gonna get, but i whine before and after every exam anyway. and nothing's gonna change the way i am. all i can do now is study much harder, although i think if i do i'll positively burst...this is as hardworking as this slacker can get. all i can do now is analyse my mistakes and try not to do the same mistakes again. all i can do now i pray that God will somehow understand that a slacker like me can only study so much and that i did try...i really did.

and also, all i can do now is resist the temptation to whine even more about my progressively prominent stupidity and get back to work.

lishun at 7:42 PM

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