Temptations & Ambitions

I am not the wisest man on earth when it comes to choices. I knew the fact that I hesitated many times as I'd rather be non-committal. But again, time is a factor now as we need to decide. This time, to where I am posted for my housemanship training.


And the story goes again and again like this:


Primary six, post-UPSR:
I was offered a spot in a boarding school, SM Sains Selangor, Cheras. Yes, the one near UKMMC. I'd no idea why would my school applied for me without my consent for once. It must have been lucky to be among the 3 chosen ones from my school, but I had begged to differ. Boarding schools were never my culture, and never in my blood. It just meant strict discipline without the comfort of home. Some of you may boast of how disciplined you'd get, but that's your business (and your own consolation, not mine). So, boarding school means waking up at 5am even if you don't have to, because your dorm mates are already up for prayers. Boarding school means no television. Boarding school means going out of school twice a month, once for grocery shopping and once for spending the weekends with the family. It meant no life for someone like me who lives in an urban setting full of temptations and leisure. Why would I want to torture myself? It's not like my life depended on it. It's not like it's the only way for me to obtain education for the sake of social mobility. Mind you, I think I'd done better than I would have if I'm in a boarding school, if I did not suffer from depression, suicidal, or most likely homicidal given the nature of my temper when provoked. Oh, of course, not to mention that I cried, beg and pleaded not to be sent there. Oh well, that was the past.


Secondary 5, Post-SPM:
An offer for Singapore's A-level. Yes, the most unlikely offer, with no guarantees for anything. High chance that I'll be sent home post A-levels with nothing left for me. But then, it stood as an option, to experience something different from my local experience. Too many things and matters prevented me from going. National service, for once, had summoned upon me. And the poor response and inability of the Singapore officials in handling this matter, being always non-chalant and very irresponsible. I'd no idea why I'd always had bad experiences with Singapore until now with some sort of jinx, but that's another story altogether. If I'm there, I have to share a room for two, while at home, I'm having two rooms for my own. The comfort of home is just too tempting.


High school, Post- STPM:
Perhaps it was time to leave the nest. I was contemplating the universities at offer, with the possibilities wide enough for a choice of my own. Well, perhaps London was a loose choice, with LSE being my dream university I wonder why. At that moment, taking the path of an economist wasn't that bad an idea. But sooner than later, it was a graduated exposure, I know. It was slightly further than home, I'd to leave in a hostel, but I still had the freedom to travel to and fro home as I like. I know not many people could enjoy the luxury, which is why they would label "mommy's boy" or worse. But I know, given the opportunity, they would do the same too. It's just that I grabbed hold of what's mine and they couldn't.


Med-School: Pre-professionals exams:
There could be no turning back now it seems. Time to spread my wings and fly and breathe in the air from the higher skies. If I had not make a journey now, I would have to leave later without a promise of return. I'd taken my 1st leap. It is now up to fate if I would eventually glide and soar off in my maiden leap, or should I fall like how the great Humpty Dumpty did.

And suddenly, the poems came back to my mind:



TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I'd love to say I'd spend my Christmas well. I'd love to bring my dear to somewhere, to enjoy the scene and the atmosphere. But all I did was went to Kamal Bookstore, getting some books and a brand new stethoscope as a Christmas present for myself. My old one had some muffled sound and I couldn't differentiate between a splitting heart sound, a gallop or a murmur.


And I got some stationery after losing my pencil case somewhere. And I got some flu of some sort out of the blue. A severe headache, muscle ache, back pain and fever had just made my day. I was confined to the bed for most of the time of the day with the most severe headache since Year 2 med school. Back then, it was some Taiwan strain of flu that I got as a souvenir from EAMSC 2007 that had a convalescence period up to 1-2 months.


Thanks to my dear who had been taking care of me for the whole day, I'm slowly recovering. I know I don't make the best patient when I'm sick, being volatile especially when I'm hypersensitive to noises and my head's heavy for me to make any proper judgment. But now, everything seems to be in a daze. AGAIN. And it's 12.00am, end of Christmas. Screw you, this year's Christmas. I'd no fond memories of you this year.

I guess today I had not been in the usual melancholic tone. Why? I'm not really sure for myself. Out of the blue, there were ideas pouring out of the squirmy creature in my head. Poems, ideas, memories of the past, and of my ideals. It took quite some time to realize that I was in a daze of dreams. A snap back to reality left me with nothing much ado. After years, I had been easily contented by what I had. Gone were the dreams of the youth. The dreams of glory and the ever perplexing pouring fame on the waves of success. 


I dreamed of moving the hearts of thousands, touching the hearts of millions, and shaping the world of billions. I'd wished my name stood tall among the ranks of the elites: Socrates, Einstein, Beethoven, Da Vinci, Napoleon, Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi. Never mind my lack of ability in music or arts or tact of any sorts, but to leave an impression on the world so big that no one can refute my presence or contribution. But I would still be sane enough to avoid proclaiming my bedtime dreams were visions, to make myself a saint or have a book written for me and idolized by of millions of worshipers. 

I just want to make an impact. Just a lil' mark in this world. But I guess reality grabbed hold of us and we just stopped dreaming. *Sigh*  I just feel so old.

There's been a death in the opposite cubicle,
Or two, I've lost count today,
I knew it from the counting rhythm,
From such cubicles, silent but urgent.


The family looking, in hope,
Though they knew the probable outcome,
Doctors and nurses hustling in,
Medical students joining unto the fray.


Hands laid down by the heart,
Pumping vigorously, mechanically,
To return that one last breath of life,
Into a soul bound to afterlife.


The rhythm counting from thirty to two,
Or sometimes twenty and hundred,of fleeting moments,
Shifting from one, and on to the other,
As the flailing chest move in recoil.


The drugs exhausted, so were the people,
Even shock paddles had done their duty,
As the minutes count to five and forty, or sometimes less,
A pronouncement made o' the minister of death.


Members of the house gathered around,
Bidding one final act of tears and goodbye,
Thanking the people who helped,
And a solemn moment of prayers around.

The flicker of life, extinguished eternally,
But not forgotten, engraved on the heart,
Knowing that she had loved, and been loved,
And those who would inherit her will,
Would carry the will of life, and would pass it on,
In this cycle of life, where death is just an old friend.

Somehow, I seem to like to remind myself of the yesteryears. It seems as if it was just recently when I was fresh into clinical years. I guess certain experience gets stuck with life in medical school. I'm sure someday, out of the blue, you'll get thrown a question of "How was your med school's life is like?" I'm pretty jealous of those having answers like "party and booze" (provided they graduate, of course), or "It's just a stroll in the park". Yeah, mine was fun in some way too, with a trip to EAMSC Taiwan, inheriting the title of "Flirt King", the involvement in the Faculty of "Paktorlogy", the Tanjong kArang experience, the intimate moments, pretty much the ups and downs of life.


But wait, that was mostly the first half of the story. The first half of med school, most of 'em. I've somewhat not remember what I've really had after that. Long I stood staring out of the window, and the only thing I'm reminded of, is pancakes.


What's so special about the pancakes? It's because it was a story shared by one of my seniors some years back, I think 2 years ago. Back then, in Year 3, I could only imagine myself being in her shoes. And now, I guess I'm not imagining it anymore. I'm IN IT!!! The original metaphor came from this LINK. And my senior, Shin Yin had hers here.  



I have a lot to learn. By Friday, anyway. I have a Pharmacology exam followed by a Pathophysiology exam this coming Monday. Once again, I find myself behind. It’s the funny kind of behind where you look at the stack of notes on your desk (2″ of one, 3″ of the other) and sort of chuckle. “Ha. This is going to be funny.” Cue despair.


Looking at it now, I’m tempted to start the passive bragging of impossible odds. “You have no idea how hard it is,” I’d say. “Medical school is like trying to take a drink from a fire hose,” I’d brag.


And that’s total bullshit.


At the beginning of each course, we’re given a syllabus telling us how we’re going to be graded, the question break-down for each test, and the schedule of lectures each day for the next 4-5 months. Nothing is going to sneak up on you unless you can’t read the print on the page (in which case you’re blind and things sneak up on you all the time).


But it’s sunny outside or snowing outside or Tuesday. Whatever. You’re in medical school to become a doctor, not to be in a classroom (scheduling conflicts here) and you find yourself out on the weekends, maybe catching a movie on the weekday, and so on. You blow off the first week of any course because the material is supposed to be introductory and you certainly blow off the first week after any exam to recuperate. Maybe you take off two weeks if it was especially difficult and draining.


Eventually though, the next exam is closer than the last exam and you have to return to the desk and pretend to be a serious student. The first week back studying, you won’t be as efficient and as familiar with the material as you were leading up to the last test, so there’s some built-in catching up to do. You can’t understand the material taught TODAY because you blew off the introduction, so until you catch up, you keep falling behind. By the time you’re back in your stride the exam is so close you can feel it’s breath on your neck and you still have material to cover on a first pass. Let’s not forget: you haven’t reviewed or committed anything to memory at this point. It’s now that you understand the truth:


Medical school is like trying to eat five pancakes every morning for breakfast.


You know you can do it. A Premed advisory committee endorsed you saying, “He has the stomach for it. He’s committed.” And you prove them all right. Every day you show up with your first-year optimism and your annoying hunger for learning and you clean that plate (just kidding, it’s adorable). But you begin to notice that those pancakes are slowing you down a little each day and the sugar highs and lows are screwing with your sleep. Smart person that you are, you decide to pass on the flapjacks one day. You think to yourself, “Self, I’m going to eat ten pancakes tomorrow so that I don’t have to eat any today.”


But it never stops. Turns out that “self” isn’t the most responsible lender, and before you know it there are 40 pancakes in front of you and your plate needs to be clean by tomorrow. So yeah, at this point it looks impossible. But really, it’s your fault.


In the future, as I like to imagine it, I’ll be in charge of all medical school admissions. The process will be six weeks long and will consist of nothing more than showing up each morning to eat five pancakes, at which point you can then go about whatever you were going to do that day. At the end of the five weeks a few jaded, newly diabetic hopefuls will come to my office and, mixed with both pride and resignation say, “I did it. I finished those goddamn pancakes.”


“Wow,” I’ll say. “That’s very impressive. You must be very proud, and your parents must be very proud. Just one more thing.” 

They’ll reflexively clutch their stomachs, shifting their girth from one hip onto the next and groan, “What’s that?”


“Regurgitate it.”


I could laughed it off 2 years back. But now, I guess I could just turn blue. I think I'd quite diligently finished the pancakes most of the time. But I got even smarter at times. I tried finishing 20 at a go so that I could have a rest for 3 consecutive mornings. That must have been a brilliant plan, I thought. Perhaps a Nobel Prize for it. But our stomach can only take it 5, or 10 at most. And so it was churned out, in no time due. With lots of regrets. Because I'd to rest the stomach for a week due to pancakes intoxication. At the end of the week, I had 5 new pancakes for the day, and on top of that, 15 pancakes from the last week. Oh, and not forgetting those 20 churned out in splatter. By then, I knew I'm screwed.

But oh well, maybe it's just pre-exam blues. I can't believe that the 5 years time in med school is up. All I can do is to look forward, and finish my pancakes before it gets stacked up too high that I can't get a hold of what's in front of me anymore. *sigh*

I looked at myself in the mirror. My thick hair has always been a nuisance all these while. As I finger-combed my hairr back, I found a new discovery of the lifetime (at least for me). I had temporal balding! It would not have been noticeable if it happened gradually, but the edge of my hair follicles went back in an inch! Oh, I'd be panicky because I'm just 24, young, handsome and being the heartthrob of many females in the world!!! Seeing all these crumble right in front of my eyes would be a sad thing, especially when I'm not even married yet. How on earth did I get into such situation?

I'd googled mald pattern baldness, and yes, it's androgenetic alopecia for you medical people, and apparently, there are a few treatment available.

One of it would be castration. It was found to stop male pattern baldness just as simple as that. But that would mean I'll have to stop my male pattern manhood. And no more Father's Day for me. *shrugging off the idea*

I'd many things to blame at this point of time, as I have yet to settled on the stages of acceptance in grievance. Among them are:

• Hostel food. They are well known for the non-nutritious aspect of fried stuff and curry.
• Medical life. Medical student days are stressful enough for me, though I know it'll be worse in housemanship years. But screw them all for creating enough fat and bald male doctors.
• The Chinese economy rice stall in Sri Permaisuri. I started having food there for 1 month.
• The bad hair day for being stuck in a traffic jam everyday.
• For the professional exams which would be around the corner.
• For the lack of sleep I had everyday. Due to Facebook as well.
• For having some stressful course mates driving me up the wall.
• For the lack of exercise I had for a longg time.....
• For what I feared to be atypical depression. I found myself craving for food when I'm stressed, apart from the highly agitated irritability. The irritable source is external, what I exhibit was.. just an exxagerated response.
• For.. jerking off for the 15th to 20th time a day. Sigh..

And the list goes on and on. Sorry for being hysterical. And that's because I'm trying to get out of it. But maybe I should just embrace baldness. Bald men are sexy anyway. *sigh*



Lemme have a good dream tonight, and to destress....