theforty4thsunset.

tumblr.com

Have spent the last hour or so attempting to find a good solution to leave blogger and transfer everything to tumblr. This had me scrolling through some 500 posts on the archive of this blog all the way back to 2005. Ah, made me cringe so =/ 

That being said, good solution is not foreseeable at all and I have many many things on my to-do list of how to survive in the wild very much not done.

“ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UP

Is fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life.” 

All I know about haematology;

I learnt on whatsapp.


From my true (and thankfully, smart) friend in need.

I AM SO DEAD FOR PATHO GGXXZZZ.

The day that they're gonna throw it back to you.

Been numbly feeling my way through the days. Feeling my way through impatience and pride, inferiority and envy, disgust and sadness, calmness and melancholy.

Curled up on the steps by the beach. Inspecting cuts and bruises and waiting for someone who can understand, accept and change a person without trying to.

Strabismus and silky black fur.

I want so many things in life but above all I think I want to have a decent sense of self worth.
I have no other words but that I have a heartache today for no particular good reason at all. 

I need to stop;

Having such an expensive things-to-do-before-I-die list.

Daydreaming about my things-to-do-before-I-die list and draggg my supratentorium back into 8 hour lectures on Visual Fields and Optic Tracts and Palsies. 

 Daydreaming.

Currently on my things-to-do-before-I-die list; Yellowstone Park and 3am milkyway stargazing.

WARNING

Prone to;

Dimples
Fatigue
Mischevious smiles
Lopsided smiles
Beautiful animations about star sweepers.
Bad feelings
Acoustic
Sad lyrics
Songwriters
Handwriting
Hoarse voices
Drink
Pyjamas
Scrubs
Eyebags
Stubborn opinions
Tearing suddenly and uncontrollably
Wild impulses
Quick exits.

I'd go on but it's late and the old old bones need rest/

p.s, it takes 5 minutes to soft boil an egg. I know because I googled. Ahh the decidedly useful things a girl can learn on sleepless nights.

or maybe a better word would be obscure, as in faint, unclear, distant;

Appetite has been... not normal of late. Not normal being whacky and just monstrous. In line with my moody broodings on when would be the best time to get my nose pierced (would it hurt very much?) or where would be the best place for a tattoo and what will I tattoo. That's when I'm not freaking out over how bad my basics are (patho? seriously?) or stressing out over electives/projects.

Went down to the blood donation drive a week ago by myself. Thought I would conquer my fear of needles and help save some lives. Sadly, travel history was a contraindication. But that shall be one of my goals for this year. To become a regular blood donor. Or as the blood bank puts in, a champion blood donor.

So I replaced the black and white pictures on my wall with  overexposed/oversaturated/overhighlighted tinted shots. Still left some monochrome about though. I do like my monochrome.

________________________________

2. WHAT I AM NOT

My brother and I used to play a game. I'd point to a chair. "THIS IS NOT A CHAIR," I'd say. Bird would point to the table. "THIS IS NOT A TABLE." "THIS IS NOT A WALL," I'd say. "THAT IS NOT A CEILING." We'd go on like that. "IT IS NOT RAINING OUT." "MY SHOE IS NOT UNTIED!" Bird would yell. I'd point to my elbow. "THIS IS NOT A SCRAPE." Bird would lift his knee. "THIS IS ALSO NOT A SCRAPE!" "THAT IS NOT A KETTLE!" "NOT A CUP!" "NOT A SPOON!" "NOT DIRTY DISHES!" We denied whole rooms, years, weathers. Once, at the peak of our shouting, Bird took a deep breath. At the top of his lungs, he shrieked: "I! HAVE NOT! BEEN! UNHAPPY! MY WHOLE! LIFE!" "But you're only seven," I said.” 

   The History of Love.              

And tides they turn and hearts disfigure,

But that’s no concern when we’re wounded together.

Music, Books, Coffee, Photography.

Am unreasonably tired again. Period has been coming in 2 week intervals, talk about menorrhagia. Think I need to get a Hb check soon :/

Been actively trying to not think about anything in particular but then the hormones come and bam whoop dee doo I'm close to becoming the same old same old mess again. 

That rush of emotions when I'm at the plane door 13000 feet up, or at the edge of a cliff. That moment when I have to breathe like never before because I don't know if I'll be able to again. Feel the rush of air into my lungs. And that's when I feel the most alive. Coffee and adrenaline, sustenance for the soul.

Went into the mortuary 2 days ago, met a doctor from Lokun 8. He glanced over in the middle of dicing up a brain and -yeah I remember, the girl who likes photography. That he called me a different name is not of significance. 

So I went to beautiful places, explored them through the lens, cared too much, then too little. And at the end of it all still the same socially intolerant girl but decided to maybe start liking myself abit more and to care more and less in better proportions. 

I do miss the pacific ocean. Very very much. And would like to learn how to surf sometime in the near future.

her heart was a secret garden, 

and the walls were very high.

$125. Fish eye add on to my kit lens.
Assuming it has not moulded away in my cupboard.
Soooooo tempting:(

Lanky socially awkward geeky nerd in sneakers who hangs off rooftops and plays with cameras. Complete with curly hair and that smile. Ahh, be still my heart.
Plus, he swings around his backpack while in full red and blue glory yo. That just makes him adorable. 

Advice, edited;

"Don't get a weird guy. Don't get the guy who sits at the corner with specs and laughs to himself.   

Get a normal guy. You know, guys who say " I like looking at cars" or " I like looking at women" or " I like beer". And something interesting. Maybe, " I like Beethoven".  

Ah, those kind of guys, you can get. " 

Courtesy of the mentor.

Sometimes you wake up;

Am filled with some sort of obsessive restlessness to keep my heart and hands busy and naturally all nothing to do with academia or medicine. Perhaps I've been overseas for too long. Been keeping busy with either editing photos or getting my health back in shape. Not without unwanted side effects.

Had a long jet lagged nap in the afternoon punctuated by images of straightening horizons to run parallel to grid lines. Also of enhancing colours and highlighting backgrounds. Woke up several times having to remind myself to breathe deep and that horizons aren't supposed to be nightmares.

Better to hyperventilate/obsess the colour content of pictures than some other potentially self devastating crap.

Patho today was interestingly mindnumbing. Even my stomach voiced protest.

Tired eyes, 270 miles, scorching heat, reese's peanut butter wafer crisps, cruise control, the first glimpse of Arizona's ledges and layers, songs, shifted tectonic plates, river worn walls.

Dry dry eyes, dry sand, vultures, sunblock, shutter sounds, barren beautiful alive land, perfect plateaus.

Brown, burnt, rubbing my eyes trying so so hard to see the whole picture. Making out sun rays and cloud shadows and lines. Lines in layered horizons. Whistling of wind through the valleys.

Biding time. Forming sentences.

A Beautiful Mess by Mraz.

I can't make up my mind.
Bastard little voice in my head that whispers I don't have a choice.

Fuck society's expectations of women that make revolutionaries seem like self delusional entertainment.

Saw otters frolicking today out on the pacific ocean. Cracking crabs on their abdomens.

Relient k; who I am hates who I've been//
//
//

I said something like this long ago. But I can't reconcile the person I would like to be to the person that I truly am.

Jumped into water that felt like ice today. Managed to gasp my way to some rocks off shore. Shivered there while I tried to feel some wonder of being-alive.
What if the remedy to change a heart is not as simple as beautiful places and adrenaline rushes.

Humility and patience have always been my worst virtues. And I'm slowly getting very tired.

Ducks, blue waters, June's playlist, car, 98 miles, brown tinted sunnies, dirtied feet, bottles, barbecues and beaches.
Please, self despairing thoughts, stay away won't you.

Paradise by the bus load.

Despite time, in months, I can't seem to shake this sense of inefficiency. Its like I've spent all this time in a haze of work and some kind of poor substitute of living.
Still trying to figure out what the antithesis to my null hypothesis is.

Body has not yet adjusted to Singapore timing. Might as well because it's only a week till I fly. Again. Supposed to be reading on the use of allografts in ACL repairs but Adele and Sara Bareilles are way way too good. Am also currently way too annoyed that the conference coincides with my anaesthesia posting (whywhywhyy?!) to pay it any attention. 

But if there's anything I learnt this past 1.5 years. Everything works out for the best. Well, mostly.

Had some melt in your mouth kind of Japanese food. Slowly learning to chew at a reasonable pace and garnish meals with conversation. 

On my way to becoming a better person. The better person.

Been missing India. Well, the company, more like. I even miss being conned. 

Been thinking rather sadly about how I would love but cannot afford a wide angle lens. And wondering what exactly am I going to do with a 55-300mm lens in sg. Find meself some wildlife? And damn, 130 bucks on an overrated, rather inadequate camera bag. All odds against it. Ergo, I think I'm pretty sold on that. 

Ergo; my new favourite word. 

No problem is so big or complicated that it can't be run away from.

Drinking chai tea at 2330 hours whilst on the way to meet the people I just spent the last 2 weeks with. India has surely gotten into my blood.

In more ways than one. My legs are graced with bites from India over bites from Cambodia. And henna. And I have no self control.

never said and never explained.

The New Girl in Town.

Homecoming with a whole new arsenal of clothes and a spanking new lens. Unfortunately change doesn't come as easily as new clothes. At the end of the day, still same old same old scars and heart.

Been thinking about this academic year and how I've never drank or worked so hard before. Still attempting to shake off the niggling feeling that I am wholesomely undeserving of any kind of recognition for work that was just a tiring distraction from inner demons. If I'm honest, I don't think I did it for the patients or for the grades. I just did it because I needed something to do. 

Am very worried about next week. 

About my new lens. It's huge and unbalanced on my tiny tiny D3000 body. Click click click.

when you're happy like a fool, let it take you over.

2 down and 48 to go.

Legs covered in the most monstrous bites ever. 

Project Lokun 11.

Beautiful people, beautiful places.
Sweat, mozzies, crickets, drugs, toilets, heat rash, big spoonfuls of food, leg shaking, cold beers, stars, stars, late late nights, laughs, mud, the history of love and damn, I'm still stuck on the stars. I'm half convinced that it was the stars that made me return. And I think, I'm somewhat there.

Am currently in not-so-incredible India. Perhaps because I have not yet had the time to view it through the lens. Am either trudging around in the hospital or clutching my bag in wearied suspicion of every single breathing human.
It was 46 degrees today. We made a unanimous decision to return and languish in the hotel room while the sun completed it's afternoon rounds. It is quite amazing how things function here. The chaos is just... organised. Medicine here is practiced on the basis of saving a life, not avoiding lawsuits.

Re reading the History of Love. Goosebumps tearful kind of good.

Have decided life is better through the lens. And with photoshop.

scratch scratch scratch.

wanderlust; the great desire to travel and rove about.

Hello Summer.

Hello to snapshots, sunsets, beaches, long walks, places, diaries, sunburns, wind, bare feet, sea, anime, books, good sweats, lazy mornings, flower dresses, sore throats and maybe I'll even have some time to breathe.

April showers bring May flowers.

Despite what people think. My namesake is not a month. My name takes to mean Favorable, or Lucky, Rose.

Been thinking much lately. About whether those who live are brave, or simply foolhardy.

This horrible horrible weather is doing funny things to my brain. Like respiratory depression.

Something wonderful.

Everyday I trudge to the library. So familiar am I with the place that I stop lost old uncles in the atrium and gently direct them to the floor they should be on. ("World War 2 books uncle? Take the lift over there to the history section on level 3").
I plant myself in the same seat by the window, where I will spend the rest of the day staring with half a mind at Esophageal and Thyroid diseases and the other half a mind on the rain outside and wouldn't it be nice if it were to rain the whole day long-
And said brain gives up halfway through Urology. I wish to violently chuck BPH and Prostate Cancer and confusing procedures such as uretoscopywithlaserlithotripsy and percutaneousnephrolithotomy against something that will give me a resounding, satisfying crack. Then I pick up a long lost novel and read and read and read till all thoughts of csytolitholapxyextracorporealshockwavelithotripsy is gone and flung out and decide it's a good time to leave.

Then I come home and spend the rest of the time re reading storybooks I've read tens of times before and possibly, be able to rattle off the words by heart. Late into the night.

I can only pray, very hard, for good luck and good wits and good sense about me for the practical exams and hope very very fervently that I have not imagined my somewhat decent ability to think on the spot and regurgitate fluffy, non specific sentences that would not reveal to examiners just how empty this one's brain is. Full of useless fantasy lands and warriors that fight impossible, unfavourable odds and emerge victorious.

don't you dare look out your window darling everything's on fire.

I drank coffee and read old books, and waited for the year to end.

So so stiflingly hot. I think even the mozzies have arrested activity. About time, I've been eaten alive for the past few days. Spent the night watching the lightning flash in the distance. I don't think I've ever seen so much lightning in my life before.

So we're done with M3. A slightly anti-climax end. In which I just came home and slept. As usual, bone deep sleep. All that's left is to get through the finals. Desperately hoping I would have studied enough to have some semblance of substance behind the whole show that we put up for the examiners. If all else fails, I will just smile and smile. Exams will be held in the new MD6 building. I've said this before but the juniors are ridiculously fortunate to have such facilities.

I need this to end. Then I can read some books and see some places that make me feel alive.

And ahh, such an exponential growth this year. Went for a run just now and met a friend, both of us lazily decided to abandon our run in favour of a long long walk home. Discussed how much we've learnt. And neither of us mentioned it but it hung somewhere in the air that we've changed so much from who we were to what we are. Within a year. Somewhere along this tumultuous, grey path there's been bouts of life that I suppose will nurture us into the people we will become. With luck, we'll end up as well balanced people with some ability to love.

I don't think I have any greater idea of what I want. I only know that it's much much harder to be a generalist that a specialist. And I think I will be taking the easy way out.

Run for your life, my love.

Days of Unleavened Bread.

As a result of coffee I was sleepless yesterday night and dead the whole of today.

In case you (whoever you be) are interested, it was a slow laborious day.

Plagued by some form of dysphasia. Silence seems to be a more comfortable alternative at any rate. Don't get me wrong, this isn't sadness. Being indifferent merely decreases the afterload significantly.

-dreams for an insomniac. 

Have become increasingly weary of late of unnecessary adornments and outward appearances. Am too tired to be vain. Also, of sudden contractions that seem to involve some non localizable viscera that spans both thorax and abdomen.

In other news, my uncle in the ward with bilateral dimples is heading home tomorrow.

Tonight was Passover.
And I thought that perhaps I could live my life for such beautiful solemnity.

Would it be lucky find or magic trick? Buried treasure or sleight of hand?

I will make better mistakes tomorrow.

Spent a considerable part of tonight reclining with the container of chocolate cake less than a spoons reach away. Brain to stomach filter is deregulated in times of need.
Watched how killer whales hunt and kill prey twice their size ie calfs of gray whales. Brutally fascinating really. They separate the mother and calf and then attempt to drown the calf. A 6 hour hunt in total. And now I'm learning about how hyenas look for signs of weakness in a herd of wildebeest.

Been scrubbing the ink off my arms every day. Scrub scrub scrub.

Feather-plucking in a Moluccan Cockatoo.

Is apparently a form of psychic crisis.

When you can't remember why.

felt you getting colder 

and we knew that we would come undone 

and it’s back to my town, back to your life 

gray skies are blowing a kiss goodbye to the lovers 

’cause summer is over 

the distant innocence we are leaving far behind.

I feel like I'm living week by week. Taking extra gulps of quick sustainable thin air.
I would really really like one.

a murder of crows.

330am and I'm up staring half blind and without my specs at the computer screen. In absolute darkness hunched over the keyboard. I am a ferocious 2 finger typer. Have spent the last 3 hours lolling about in bed, being unable to sleep anywhere and finally got up to have a very weird, but not unpleasant mix of toasted bread with some cottage cheese and jam. I walloped it down. Seriously. I am going to regret this tomorrow. In all bleary eyed gloriousness. Honestly, it's so insulting when I've had 7 hours of sleep and my MO tells me I look half dead in the morning. Might as well halve that amount. At least I won't look half dead for nothing.

Spent the weekend reading some very good fiction. And craving for more. Somewhere, dimly aware that this is not the right time. 2 weeks of gen med have been a blur. And all I remember learning is that if I die in a car accident, I can save/change the lives of up to 6 people. Provided my internal organs aren't mangled to the point of rejectable. And the most intense memory being that of stifling the most awful fit of laughter inside a patients cubicle. Along with 2 other very giggly girls. Between us, a cross Aunty and a cg mate who near strangled the aunty, I'd say we need more help.

Am starting to get the hang of stroke. Maybe because I am happily rearranging the anatomy of the central nervous system to suit my reasoning for what is otherwise an unexplainable unfathomable syndrome. And ohh, awful lot of those.

not all heroes names are down in stone.

About 2 billion songs written about it.

My intake of Bubble tea this week is 5x Gong Cha Milk Melon Tea.

By the end of Gen med i think i'd have consumed enough to develop at the very least impaired glucose tolerance. At the worst DM. Just feeling very fat and lazy-ish. The though of starting on neuro or rheum...

Ah, the amazing laziness of orthopaedics has seeped into my system. I miss it:( no really I do. I ended up enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Easy to understand principles and straightforward thinking.

EOPT was a fun race of verbal diarrhea. Was out early for most stations twiddling my thumbs except for hip examination where the examiner made each student sit in some serious awkward silence in the room after we were done. Him, me and the SP, twiddling thumbs and desperately wondering if I should burst out in apology for doing a lousy job of hand washing. Plus I thought I was being punished for giving a lousy hip x ray description.

Spent the first week drifting around in the wards, and the weekend crawling around in my garden playing with my camera. I could get used to such.Unfortunately, Gen Med is hardly the time to be doing still life toy photography.

I should also stop shooting off stupid answers from my mouth. One day I'm gonna make a tutor proptose his eyeballs out.

And Adam Levine is.. ahhhh.

 made to sail.

That you make up for all that you lack.

It's breathtaking how calm the sea is after the rain. Even the sun doesn't seem to want to break the homogenous pale blue grey of the sea and sky.

This week I learned something new again. Just how deep cuts have to be for them to leave scars. I tried some sweet madness.
Also, some important points in clinical years;
1. Sometimes, just suck thumb.
2. Or suck up.
3. Verbal diarrhea is a useful skill.
4. Train your brain to disconnect when regurgitating "this is the x-ray of blah blah blah". Really does save ass sometimes.

And no joke, I had really bad GE for one whole week. Attacks of colicky pain and mucoid stool. But I loved SGH too much to take leave. Either that or med sch has really damaged my brain.

Next year, we will be M5. I can't wait to graduate. And only 3 more months till I pack up and leave. I can do this. I know I can.

Itachi just melts my heart. His tear troughs are heartbreaking.

Heart/sick.

Namikaze Minato
Hatake Kakashi.
Himura Kenshin
<3
And beautiful titles.
I believe that I am slowly but surely going insane. Allow me some more time please. One week perhaps. Then I promise, I will become who I am meant to be again.
In my mind, we are all on the brink of something destructive. Only the strongest know better than to fall. And compromise by living on the edge.

Somehow, my heart feels sick.
I think, now would be the right time for something beautiful to happen.

the man who died twice.

What ants do on rainy days.

Spent the past few days intensely reading 2 stories. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to read hours on end.
And my stomach is violently protesting the early morning start up. Also, coffee steadies my tremors. I'm learning how to subsist on caffeine.

Somedays I feel so tired that I don't think my heart is going to make it through.
Then, it suddenly prickles and contracts. As if to prove it is still viable tissue.
Then I feel a deep heaving sadness, and I know I'm alive.

Lady with a Parasol.

I lay out in the green tonight, subconsciously wishing wishing to see a shooting star. But the moon has passed over, it's 1am and what's left of the sky is the moonlight (no more moon), and little twinkles that stud the sad sad wispy clouds that are illuminated in the wake of moonlight.

I
Must
Remember
At all times.
That I
Will get through this anyway.
So on the basis of a prospective
Short
Term
Envision.

I know
That I
Am
Strong.

Enough.

All it takes is one moment really.
And in that moment, you will know how much crap you have endured to become what you are and who you will be.

For your brokenhearted soul, an Oasis.

What I have enjoyed in the past 2 weeks:
1. Not having to feel the rubber of my crocs.
2. Long toe and finger nails.
3. Guangzhou street food and exotic pets market.
4. Long deep sleeps in the afternoon. Waking up drowsy and totally disorientated.
5. BEAST/B2ST. I guess deep down I'm still a k-pop junkie. Anybody wants to go for their concert?
6. Being anti social. Really, I did enjoy this.
7. Repeating senseless YouTube videos that make me happy. And I think that's more than enough for now.
8. Music.

Some, amongst many others that have been plagued by the overall cloud of 'STUDY YOUR DISGUSTINGLY DRY ORTHOPAEDICS NOTES'. Meh, I did a
pretty good job ignoring it.

I wrote out a list of what I have learnt in 2011. Topping the list would be the very essential 'shit happens'. The most reviewed and ingrained lesson that will probably crown the list for many years to come. I can feel it in my bones.

Every year there's this period of regret and finality. Sometimes more than once a year. And accompanied by wanderlust and dreams of a parallel, alternate path. Keeps my head above the water.

So now I know what 2011 brought, it's not been particularly satisfying but i learnt quite some stuff and thats what matters. Now, 2012. Ah, welcome. I am quite looking forward to you.

Happy new year loves!

There's something so familiarly strange about this place. This pink sunset and charred smell of rain on dry ground. I've been somewhere like here. Another place, another time. Somewhere, someone else is where I was, and who knows, maybe with a happy ending. Imagine if we all experienced the same things at different times but interpreted them differently. Same experiences that shaped us to be different people. Life is supposed to be a continuous straight line isn't it. But somehow, it feels more like a circle, coming back to the same point this year. Except it's a spiral, a parallel line to the first. Side by side but not the same point. I just can't tell whether it's going outwards or inwards.

And Piglet grinned to himself, thinking how lucky he was to have a best friend like Pooh.

All I want to do during the holidays is play with my new lens. Although I think that will hardly be the case. Planning trips to the botanic gardens, museums, parks and science centres, of course with plans to drag a friend along and bum off his expertise.

But ah, the lens is only as good as the soul of the picture. 

So sweet=) I miss him hahaha AWWW.
It makes me smile, remembering how happy I was. Miss the familiarity of KTPH surg. Of improving every day. Of morning coffee and cranky cute bosses.
Dislike Ortho, dislike NUH, dislike the hierarchal system, dislike the long corridors and aseptic smells.
But yes, lets move on. I'm sure I'll be back someday.

I think I am too strong willed, judgmental, patronizingly pitying of people who are perfectly happy without my opinion, and in general, too pissed off with nothing in particular and everything in general. It's not good to do things for me, it's not good to be my friend, it's not good trying to get close to me and find out who I am. I am not the person you think I am.
Above all, I suppose I am an insecure wreck trying to prove myself to ghosts of people who don't matter anymore and whose opinion I don't really care about.

Mugmugmug. Also, I am a foamy foamy fomite.

the museum of everything is open. 

2. WHAT I AM NOT

I hope I know by the end of this year.

My December playlist is rather short. Composed of songs that have shaped my entire year. Including one or two that I couldn't bear to play at some point or another.

Sadly, we didn't manage to take pictures with some tutors who really shaped our surg experience=( Mr Tan TJ and Jude Lee and Reyaz and etc etc. The last day was spent languishing away, finding tutors, waiting for tutors and ended with a rather solemnly sweet note.

 Happy underwear.

 It is a nice name.

 calls.

 Vic Vicky Victoria.

 Owe him a long teary speech after we pass MBBS. 

 I am friends with Prof Low. Heee.

 A cutely confused prof. (pun hahaha)

 Viv lupsup Prof.

 Free bread and drinks.

Poo nurses. 

I remember turning 21 and scrubbing in and he was banging his head against the wall going "arghh 21!". It's true, we're young, we have a long way ahead of us. 

And making TTJ laugh at our misconceptions of catheterisation. 

Being called "good good good... students" by Jude Lee.

Many others.

It's not been all sunshine. And medicine will never be. Seeing my patient come in to be diagnosed with gastric ca and then pass away within a month. 

Academically I don't think I achieve what I wanted but I suppose the gauge of a good doctor is not by grades alone.

I think we survive on the happy small things. I hope to work with all of them again in the future. And next time, to give more than I take. 

For the past few months I've been slowly picking me up, gathering pieces here and there that I left behind. It's time to tie up some loose ends and pull the rest of me together. 

the downtown trains are full with all those brooklyn girls.