if i could i would leave. if i had a choice. if i could ignore the weight of my conscience. if the specter of asian guilt did not loom over me. i’m so tired. when will this ever end?

i’m swamped with work that i do not want to have to do. floating without a base at the moment and camping indoors. but today marks one full month of working at the hospital. an occasion which deserves some mention no matter how cursory. happy one month to me.

today i learned that IV erythromycin can be used as a prokinetic. and metoclopramide 10mg od can be used to promote lactation. i also taught a perky makcik with ESRD how to use a MDI. still perky and happy despite her pasty complexion that spoke of ill health.

happy one month to me. to lessons learnt and unlearnt. to acceptance and humility and making the best of things and to a paycheck that has yet to arrive.

I’m now a punch card wielding, white coat wearing, drug dispensing, log book regulated government employee.

my work is challenging. the learning curve is steep. i’m keeping my footing. barely, but i’ll get there.

i hate it when people talk down to me. i also find the tone in which many of my colleagues address patients highly condescending and faintly insulting, please slap me if i start talking like that. it’s annoying. there’s a difference between teaching to show the superiority of your knowledge versus mine and genuinely guiding me because you should.

always remember that you once stood where i stand today. everyone has to start from somewhere, no matter how lowly and mean.

I’m so damn tired. I don’t even want to think about the fact that there’s much more to come. I took on a bit more than I can chew and this week I’ve been paying the price. Lack of sleep + stress of deadlines to meet and responsibilities to fulfill + work = a very sleepy and irritable PRP. Not that I’ve been showing it at work. Professionalism is a must. My family though, has hardly seen any of me this week.

I’ve been a provisionally-registered pharmacist (PRP) for all of two weeks and the excuse that “I don’t know, I’m new” is already starting to sound old.

My forensic law exam is on Monday, 8-5am, and at this rate, I will need divine intervention to pass.

*Sob* BodyCombat and the gym have had to be sacrificed this week.

Please please please I just want to finish this and see the end of you.

This is it. I start at SGH tomorrow, 8 sharp.

Months of nail-biting anxiety culminated in a mad rush to JKN on Monday morning in a bid to talk my way out of Sibu. Which I succeeded in doing.

Rusty brain. Unsure. Not completely clueless but near it.

But ready or not, this is it.

Bag’s packed, water bottle’s filled, notebooks and pen in pocket, outfit picked out, pep talk done, words of love and support and encouragement from various people have been received – I’m as ready as I ever will be.

What does it say about me that I’m stressing more about my current wadrobe crisis than my lack of clinical knowledge at this point in time? My work clothes don’t fit right anymore, the fact that I have put on weight is no longer deniable. I HAVE got to lose some weight and firm up. On the bright side, now that I’m settled in Kuching for at least 13 more months, I’m looking into taking up classes at Level Up Fitness, the new gym due to open 1st November. They have Body Combat! Woot!

Tis time to sleep. It’s a 615 am wake up call tomorrow. Good night!

]]> http://chaoticbliss2.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/this-is-it/feed/ 4 chaoticB http://chaoticbliss2.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/1819/ http://chaoticbliss2.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/1819/#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:10:39 +0000 chaoticB http://chaoticbliss2.wordpress.com/?p=1819 ]]>

It’s one of those strange nights when nothing seems to be right, but yet I’m not exactly depressed. I just…. am. Earlier tonight, I turned down a friend’s invite for drinks with his work friends, people I didn’t know. :s I just wasn’t in the mood the exchange insipid banalities with strangers who may become hi-bye acquaintances, who may become potentially useful allies. What did I do instead? Well, on the pretext of checking out some promising fashion boutiques, I drove out around 8 pm. I went to two – both of which yielded no impulse purchases. On principle I refuse to buy clothes which look cheap unless they ARE really really cheap but sometimes I fail. After which I drove around Kuching. And drove. And drove. And drove. With no particular destination in mind, I literally drove in circles, from the airport to Green Road to Padungan and back to the airport again. The airport road is made for speeding, I tell you. With so few cars out tonight, the road was mine to do as I please. Clears the mind I think. I used to do this a lot, when I didn’t have to pay for petrol. Driving aimlessly in the car with the radio turned on loud,Pushing the car to its limits when the condition of the road allowed it, driving slowly and mindlessly when it didn’t. The car used to be the only place I would find peace, away from my house, away from everything else that mattered. Just me in the car and nothing else. I can’t do long walks here, it’s far too dangerous, driving shall have to do. Despite the *ouch* factor in the rapidly depleting fuel gauge.

The sudden desire to crash the car into something was inexplicably strong in me tonight. The screeching sound of metal against metal, the smashing of glass, the impact of the crash …… I could almost imagine it. I won’t ever actually do it of course, violent fantasies are one thing, playing them out in real life is another thing altogether. Doesn’t everyone get the urge to smash things once in a while? To hurl some plates across a room and watch them smash to bits against the opposite wall, hear the shattering of the impact and relish in the satisfaction of venting that pent-up frustration and aggression inside you? It’s like that tonight. I want to smash something.

………

I’m itching to munch on something, no, itching isn’t the right word, my stomach is literally growling at me, begging me to eat something, but I can’t. A newly enforced no supper and no meals after 7pm rule forbids me from snacking. The sudden stop to the constant walking I did in Glasgow has had disastrous results on my waistline, giving me a belly that I can’t quite remember ever having before. I don’t need this. It’s taken me years to get to a place where I’m starting to be comfortable with the way I look, I can’t afford to slide now. My self esteem is fragile enough as it is.I will persevere.

……..

It’s sad I know. The house that I grew up in doesn’t feel like home anymore. It feels more like a…. a transit station. One of my suitcases is still half unpacked, just lying there as if waiting for the next port of call. Waiting to leave.

truth be told, i’m a little bit hurt.

Exhibit A: My non-existent thumbprints. (Left, right)

I have no thumbprints. No machine in existence is capable of reading them. Though the nice lady at CIMB bank did try her very best this morning. First she tried the right thumb, then the left, then the right again. Unfazed, she insisted on wiping down my thumbs with tissue ( I have sweaty palms you see) and repeating right, left, right yet again. When that failed, she still didn’t give up. I was quite embarrassed at this point because I had been standing at the counter for a looooongggg time. As she rummaged in her drawer, I was completely mystified as she came up with a bottle of *huh??* hand sanitizer???? Apparently she had tried it on a customer with equally stubborn thumbprints and it worked. Alas, this was not to be so in my case. Nevertheless, both of us still came up smiling as she told me to come back the next day with the completed forms and a copy of my birth certificate.

Sigh, my non-existent thumbprints are also why I can’t use the e-kiosks at EPF; the machine can’t read my thumbprints. On the bright side though, if I do commit a crime, the police won’t be able to identify me by my fingerprints.

Lately, I have become somewhat fixated on the idea of acquiring the perfect classic white shirt. A classic white silk/linen/cotton blend shirt that’s cut just right, loose enough to be unrestrictive and slightly androgynous, but fitted enough so as not to look sloppy.

My favourite has got to be the very last picture at the bottom. Some Bottega Venata runway picture the source of which I can’t remember now. Women in men’s wear are so hot; the trick is to not actually wear men’s clothes, the fit is very important. I’m not sure whether I could pull it off though, it seems to call for a long lean silhouette and legs that go on forever. But Rachel Bilson gives me hope, she’s about my height I think (157cm) (correct me if I’m wrong) but yet she always looks so good! The whole shirt tucked into jeans silhouette works well for her. I’m not sure about the pussy bow though, it’s always seemed too school-marmish and prim for my taste.

These are the white shirts that I currently own. The first (left) is a recent buy from Seed (70% off) It has big bat-wing sleeves, little pleats on the shoulders and is super comfy to wear. It’s my default outfit, would wear it everyday if I could but I hate the drudgery of having to iron it every time I want to wear it. Despite my aversion towards ironing, I refuse to wear creased and crumpled clothing. The second (right) is a formal white shirt from Dorothy Perkins (BOGOF from the Glasgow days). The little details make it stand out a bit, the slightly puffed sleeves, the pleats down the front. I figured the neckline was a bit too low for me to safely wear for work so I had to sew a little stud to make it more work-appropriate.

The search for the perfect white shirt continues.