merry new year!

so the clock struck twelve

and the fireworks went off

we were already perched

quiet, with nary a cough

through the window

from across the hall

we saw the bridge light up

we saw sparks and all!

the camera snipped

and the camera snapped

we caught some sharp shots

and were duly rapt

so with these snaps

(so amatuer)

we wish you all

a happy new year!!

May twenty eleven be bigger, brighter and all things better than twenty ten!

a belated happy halloween!

no pumpkin carving this year..
here's a sneak peek at what happened for halloween *grin*

Lists!

It's been a while since I've done one of these compilations but well, I've been in an organizing mode lately. I get into these moods where I feel like I have to re-organize my life and re-organizing was definitely a huge thing lately. Been trying for the past month to consolidate our things, get rid of doubles and trying to sort things into our 25 IKEA expedit boxes. Wedding things are still floating around, we still haven't seen our professional shots from the big day itself, let alone the video compilation... and that's just the life part of it all.  Work is a whole new can of worms, don't get me started.

Anyway, so when I get these moods, I sit down, literally chuck everything out from all their usual nook and crannies onto the floor, make a huge glorious mess that eventually end up in multiple piles that hG likes to term as "amy droppings".. and start putting things back. Of course, these moods are accompanied by loads of list-making. Oodles and oodles of lists, to-dos, to-files and so on. Not that I manage to complete any of my lists. I used to be quite good about it but have lost a lot of steam in the past few years. Now, I'm lucky to even get through a quarter of my lists, but nevertheless, the process of making them tends to be therapeutic.

So here's a few of the sites I've found myself on lately...

Pearltrees  - a one-click bookmarking system online that saves each page as a "pearl" that you can consolidate into "trees." best part is that you can "pluck" pearls from other users to link up with and search or browse for either users or pearls that run along the same vein as your own, or whatever else strikes your fancy

Flickr - most people should know what this is without needing much prompting. recently rediscovered =)

Tabbles - tag your files!! cross tag your files!! Now, I don't need to remember where I've buried or what I've named a file =) All I've gotta do is type in what the file is in my mind .. or what I wanna look for (like typing in "ortho" and "xrays" and "left" to bring up all jpegs of xrays taken of left wrists, hips, femurs etc). awesome for work, awesome in general!

Ninite - haven't tried this one myself.. not quite game enough to but keeping it at the back of the mind for when I become very desperate. It's a one-stop shop for installing commonly used applications in a few clicks.. useful for when you've just reformatted or gotten a new computer to start filling up again!

Hmmm.. and now, some online window shopping! if only i could print my own moolah. oh, the technolust never ends =(

iwantoneofthose.com - 'nuff said.

thinkgeek.com - also 'nuff said.

 

Notion Ink Adam  - /drool. 

 

nabaztag 

wall scratch world map

a few "hmmmmm.. i..in..interesting..." ones to throw in while we're at it:

wooly wall planter

glow-in-the-dark toilet paper

re-inventing fast food into fancy food 

 happy clicking!

i just need to get this out of my system

i had all these great plans for today
to finally clean up and all
to pack and stuff

so i cleared out three huge bags of garbage and lugged them down to the garbage room
was surprised by this dude coming out from somewhere in the distance - hadn't heard a car door close or anything during my trek from elevator to garbage room. that's usually a good indicator that someone's just gotten out of their car, right? i mean, most people close their car doors as a last step after getting all their stuff out the car, right? so yah, i got startled a bit.

shrugged it off, went into the garbage room. the place was full of bins, i forgot what colored tops were what.. why can't they just make garbage bins for normal garbage with the same awful army green lids, and the special recycling ones with different colored lids? why do they make both "special" by giving them different colored lids from their bases? i always get them bloody confused, especially with the colors having nothing to do with the contents. you'd think that the recycling bins' lids would be like bright green, blue or brown or something that screamed "ECO!" or "SAVE THE EARTH!" but no.. it's yellow. wtf am i supposed to link with yellow? a banana?

so yah, i get mixed up and dump my largest bag of garbage in the yellow-topped bins and then get distracted by the door opening. i didn't even get a chance to work out i needed to dump my trash in the red-topped bins. i eventually would've on my way out when i saw the red-topped ones but all i saw when i walked in was a sea of yellow, so i had assumed that it was for normal trash. anyway, the door opened. it was the same guy that startled me earlier. i was even more distracted. no, he wasn't hunky. he wasn't even hot. i was really confused as to why he came in to latch the garbage room door open, empty-handed. thought most people came in the garbage room to dump trash. so what did he want? i was stumped for only a millisecond before he started telling me how to recycle and pointing out what could and couldn't be dumped in the recycling bin. i was like, "yah and your point would be?" not realizing that the bloody yellow ones were for recycling yet. so he comes over and starts dumping my bags IN the trash bin and pretty much takes over. i was so flabbergasted at the gall of the guy, especially after he grabbed my empty, folded IKEA reusable bag from under my arm to dump in the recycling bin, that i just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. to get as far away from the guy as possible. now. instinct took over, i clammed up and dumped my trash to get out of there asap.

not only until the guy was out of eyesight (which took a while because he managed to catch the same same elevator as i did, and then walked for a block out towards the shopping center in the same direction as me) was i able to slow down and think. and then fume. and FUME. and fume so much that retail therapy, an sms and a phone call couldn't cull it. so here i am. fuming. i so need to let go. =(

but seriously, this is one of those.. wtf, who DOES that?!?!? moments. i should start an anthology of these one of these days..

a bit of this and a bit of that

i've had a couple of gripes up my sleeve but i missed the boat and now, i've forgotten what they were. i vaguely remember the gist of it but like most things seen through hindsight, my gripe doesn't seem so gripe-worthy now. the sun will still rise, with or without Sydney's posse of idiot drivers, crazy patients.. oo!! speaking of which, something got revived. gripe-from-the-dead, here we go!

every so often, i come across a situation that makes me think long and hard, making me reflect on why i decided to become a doctor. this was one of them. it brought out the fighting spirit in me. i haven't felt it this strong in a very long while. i was angry, frustrated and wanted to do the best for the patient but wasn't allowed to do so by idiot family members. i find it very hard to believe and even harder to accept allowing a demented patient's family to take her home with a broken hip because they've refused to let her undergo surgery. they believed that the body is a miraculous thing and will heal itself, even if it's a broken neck of femur that will render the patient immobile and in constant pain if left unfixed surgically. they spat on the information provided, refusing to believe anything but their own warped ideas. it took myself, two registrars and the consultant a total of 2 hours or so to make them agree to the surgery. to make them understand that yes, the patient may die during or from surgery, but may also die without surgery. lying in bed all day for about 6 weeks or more is not exactly healthy for an 80-something year old who used to hobble minimally around the house. people like this tend to develop infections like pneumonia, blood clots and pressure sores from being in bed and immobile all day, not to mention the amount of pain stemming from the broken bone. for 6 weeks or more! would you subject your family member to that kind of torture? i can't believe those family members scoffed at the above, saying they knew better than their treating doctors and all of that was hogwash and they would like to take their mother home thank you.

anyway.. onto other things. happy things. like looking forward to halloween 2010. instead of my annual pumpkin carvings.. or whatever substitute i can find to carve, i'll be dressing up this year. yay! pictures may follow soon, depending on how they turn out.

dumdumdedum.. ;)

you're on

you're on.

as simple as that.
one phone call. two and a half words. the best words ever.
and with that, next year's career and financial stability sorted.
now comes the hard part..

moving again.
this time, i'll be a missus.
hmm.

wouldn't have ever imagined to have the need to quote my alma mater's motto but this is as good a time as any... "i look ahead"
goes to show, yet again as it usually happens in the life of amy.. never say never.

running out of time

so many things to do
so many things to see
i wish i had more time
for everyone and me

daily work and politics
daily rants and raves
fighting for my brain cells
none of it, it saves

there're studies to be conducted
and studying to be done
wedding plans yet to be made
oh, where is all the fun

i need more time
and not more rhymes
yet rhymes are all i do
i'll take ideas to help me
from you and you and you!

i think i may want to be a vampire

i'm tired.

i can see this turning into a long tirade, a whingefest with a splash of self pity and doused with attention-whoring so hence, i warn you.

i'm tired.

i really want to have a break. you know it's bad when watching Eclipse unlocks the shackles of daily life and you find yourself wishing you too could become a vampire. or a werewolf. honestly, i'd rather a vampire.. the wolf women ain't as purdy as the vampire women, though the wolf men.. hm. moving on.

so yah, i'm tired. have i mentioned that yet?
i managed to work four out of five days this week. thursday was spent at home trying to overcome chills, aches, fevers and dysuria. i swear i might've come down with pyelonephritis but i've got some antibiotics to give a shot so we'll see how well that goes. antibiotic effectiveness usually is rate-limited by my compliance. i've been good so far - managed 3 doses in a row, yay!

so the other four days of work at the new hospital have been hell. not the fire and brimstone kind. the ant looking in from the wrong side of the clingwrap at a tower of cupcakes kind of hell.
monday was spent re-orientating myself to a hospital that was supposed to be my mothership, but where i haven't worked at for about a year now. that, and sorting out operation lists for the next two weeks that A so kindly did to facilitate change-over, but which promptly went missing as expected. funny how lists only disappear when they belong to whatever team a certain senior of mine is working on. ant-clingwrap-argghhh.

tuesday and wednesday were spent trying hard to keep the bosses happy, especially with double theaters running simultaneously.. and then having to deal with the shit from tweedledee and tweedledum. lying to me to keep me out of the operation, only to be insanely sweet and feign innocence later and then pretend to make up for it by trying to be best buddies watching out for me and getting me to scrub into a later case. AS IF I WAS DONE A FAVOR!! in terms of job description, the resident's main job is to tend to the wards and make sure all's calm before coming into theaters. i know. i did that job last year. A and i both did and therefore, i think we're both justified in feeling frustrated at having OUR resident go behind our backs to ask unsuspecting seniors for permission to scrub in when the senior resident should ALWAYS have priority. after all, my job as the senior resident is to essentially be the third hand - i go wherever the registrars or bosses need me to go, be it clinics or scrubbed into an operation. i'm also supposed to supervise my residents and interns, and make sure the operating lists run smoothly by being the secretary and sorting out paperwork.. and making things happen. my job isn't about wasting time over politics and insecure colleagues who feel they always need to suck up to whoever has the most influence over their life at that particular moment, nor is it to "fight for theater time". honestly!! as someone who supposedly wants to do orthopedics really really badly, my resident sure doesn't get the big picture. at my resident's level, it would be nice to get some operating time but being in the operating theaters 24/7 is not going to make one an orthopedic surgeon. there are other things to learn and see; other things like outpatient fracture and bosses' clinics to review post-op patients and their recovery, managing patients on the ward and learning how to prioritize and organize one's day so that one actually HAS the time to come into theaters without being paged every 15 minutes.

honestly, i've had it up to here. (try to imagine amy standing on her tippy toes with her arm stretched above her head). the worst part is.. it's only my first week. 3 more months with double trouble. three. ant-clingwrap-argggghhhh!!

that being said, hell if i'm taking this lying down.
mind you, i'm a more timid type.. or maybe just being taurean. slow to anger, but once you tip me past boiling point.. watch out!! right now, i'm still just boiling. slowly. so for now, everything's simmering and a few bubbles pop here and there. like when i pulled rank to scrub into a trauma case despite my resident being there all bright and shiny in those ridiculous looking lead gowns we all have to wear. the thing was, he wasn't even CLOSE to the level of being able to do the case, yet none of the registrars had put on their gowns yet. talk about pre-empting. so yah, i pulled rank. i scrubbed in, he didn't. he got the shits and left before the boss did. it didn't help that the boss remembered my name after working with him for only one term last year. do you know how HARD it is to recognize someone when they're all covered in theater caps with a huge mask over their face?? man, i was impressed. the boss not only recognized me, he REMEMBERED me. gobsmacked.

or when i got sidelined again today - it happens on a daily basis. i had to pull my senior registrar aside and explain the situation. he was nice enough, he understood. it's not hard to understand when one of the tweedles argues with you in theater, refuses to help you when you don't do things his way and lies to you about your boss insisting that he does the operation - what an insult to have that come from someone your junior. for goodness sakes, my senior registrar was already a consultant in his home country. he came here and to qualify as a boss, they made him do his last 2 years of training again. the guy's going to be a boss two times over and tweedledum has the gall to steal the surgery from him, let alone take shortcuts and then scoff when questioned?

but.. the clincher will ALWAYS be this. i know it's not nice to gloat over someone else's misery. i hardly ever do.. hardly. look, i felt bad enough pulling rank and was steeling myself up to have a chat with my resident to clear the air but before i had the chance, he was doing it again.. going behind my back and scrubbing into a surgery i was supposed to be assisting in. if the guy has no remorse over being an asshole, hell if i'm going to waste my time over an asshole. SO, with a clear conscience, i happily gloat over the greatest clincher of all: the insightless, dangerous, and unstable senior of mine.. the same one that made me fear for my personal safety on his last day as i left the hospital.. this senior of mine got an interview to get onto the orthopedics training program last year and he didn't this year! it's almost unheard of for that to happen. once you start getting interviews, it's a matter of time before you get on the program. he's like.. backtracked. oh ho, but that's not all. all his OTHER colleagues within the two hospitals he's working at, one with one year less experience than he has.. not only did THEY get interviews this year, but they got onto the training program for next year!! man, did that make my day. and P's, my other senior registrar. and A's. and i bet, a hell lot of other people i don't know about that this horrible registrar has scarred in some shape or form. my favorite people from work got on the program like they deserved and restored my faith in the system. it was awesome to be able to scroll through the names and come across so many familiar ones! and at the back of my mind, the devil in me loudly reminding me that tweedledum wasn't listed. that was the icing on the cake.

like P said.. just carry that thought with me for the next three months. it'll see me through, he said. i hope he's right. or else i just might go find me some vampires.

just a few short letters

dear hypocrite,

you surface once again, except this time, you've outdone yourself.

who are you to approach my resident to ask him where I am, and then comment on "oh, she's doing that again to you is she?" when he tells you it's my day off. it's my day off because i was bloody sick with fevers and chills but hey, you never asked and he never said so I'll accept that it's not your fault to jump to conclusions. it's never your fault, is it? it was none of your business to begin with but hey, that's not your fault either.

who are you to proceed and warn my resident to not let me abuse him with my days off? i'm glad my resident SRMO shut you up when he replied that I was sick, and that he felt I deserved my day off and he was gladly covering. who's doing the abusing here, when you were the one leaving him with more than a week's worth of discharge summaries to do when he took over from you? the ward clerks chased you and paged you to do them, you assured us ALL you spent your last week doing nothing but discharge summaries to make the next person's life easier.. and the first thing he complains about is having to do discharge summaries from two weeks ago.

seriously though, the kicker was when you called out to my SRMO as he was leaving ED and told him to please not mention your conversation to me. newsflash hypocrite-person: we've left high school ten years ago, keep up with the times.

worst wishes,
amy


......


dear desperado,

you are demanding, rude and think you're entitled to everything just because you see yourself as short, cute, helpless and female. you kind of act like those private patients who come to public hospitals thinking they own the hospital and demanding the world and the universe.

that's ok though. i don't have to see you much. i just need to put up with you because you're The Boy's colleague. it's not ok though, to assume that i will drive you and the rest of the lab folks back home after a late games night. i'm happy driving you all home, don't get me wrong. it's on the way, it's late and it's cold. what i'm not happy about was when you got out of my car and thank The Boy by name, but nobody else. I don't expect thanks, but if you are bothering to give thanks, shouldn't you be thanking the driver of the car and not the passenger?

or what about the time the other lab people and i drove you shopping for housewares to help you settle into your new apartment? you bought things that you couldn't carry and didn't fit into your shopping basket. fair enough. it's not fair though, when you bulge your eyes out and leave your mouth agape before making some sort of throat-clearing noise when we all agree that we were done shopping and headed for the cashier. it's not fair that you stared at the back of The Boy as he took my items from my hand and marched off to the cashier and then had the gall to call him back to demand that he carries your purchases for you with a petulant glare and pout.

you have no right expecting someone's fiance to be taking care of your inadequacies. no right at all. so if you feel so short, female and helpless.. go do something about it to make yourself feel better but leave my Boy alone.

flabbergasted,
amy