tragicomedy

today was tragic. truly.

in two months' time, in another two years' time.. i'll be laughing about this. hell, this might even make it as a wedding story as an example of the story of my life, but at the present moment, i'm only laughing because it's so tragic i don't know whether i should laugh or cry.

so here goes the saga of amy trying to get her aussie driver's license. i have to convert from my international one i've been driving on for the past eight years ever since i got permanent residency this year.

part one: the knowledge test
strike one - i book one friday, take time off work and miss my appointment because i took a ticket instead of just approaching the counter. by the time i got there, i was half an hour past my appointed time and they told me they turned off all computers by 4pm. i'm thinking in my head - can't you just boot it up? it's just an imac after all. but... i don't contest it and rebook for the next week.
strike two - managed to get another block of time off and then comes the debacle regarding my name. it turned the flavor of "your name on your taiwanese driver's licence despite the sanctioned translation doesn't match your name on your photo ID we issued even though both names are in our system.. but how can we prove that you are the same person if you have different names?" it took another half hour and the involvement of the branch manager to explain that the taiwanese license has no english characters to input my english name and therefore, the translation service cannot add my english name to their translation. i showed them my healthcare card, my credit card, atm card and my international driver's licence all showing both chinese and english names and they still were asking how they could prove i was me. "look at the frickin' photo, does that not help?" no.. they wanted my passport. i asked them how (the f@#$) that would help, given that it shows the same name as my credit card and has a picture of me, just like my license has!
no strike three - i pass my test, third appointment lucky and book in for an on-road driving test. they were surprised and looked at me like an idiot when i refused my learner's license after they tell me i wouldn't be able to drive without a fully-licensed passenger with me. i asked them how i would get home from the test then - they repeated the above. i thought it was kind of warped and asked if there was an alternative. so they issued me a new photo id with a crazy bad photo instead of returning the one i just handed in half an hour ago because that one was "void" ... wtf. can't you just give me the card sitting there on your desk!? so i drove home on my international licence.

part two: the driving test
so i arrive after leaving my team on a busy afternoon with two concurrent theaters running. i get everyone's blessings, including my head of department's even though i had just bailed on his elective surgery list this afternoon. i turn up to the driving test center and realize i forgot my wallet at the hospital. there goes my photo id, my credit cards... so i have other documents plus passport to lodge my application. i approach the window instead of taking a number (i'm learning!!) and get greeted by a surly asian dude with a true blue aussie accent. his name was phil. i'll remember that for a while, after what happened today. i have half a mind to lodge a complaint about phil. phil who was rude - when i asked if i could just explain to my friend that we just started the test and could he please wait for us, phil deadpanned "there is no need, proceed ahead" while completely ignoring my friend who was by the passenger's window next to phil's head by this time. i drove off leaving my friend a tad bewildered but he was a smartie and figured it out eventually. phil, the phil whom i resent for marking me wrongly. do you not think i would know if i had been driving in the middle of the road? do you not think other cars would have honked at me then? do you not think that my stopping the car with a soft jerk at the stop signs would erase all doubt of a rolling stop but i ended up getting marked down for a rolling stop? phil who was unprofessional - tapping impatiently while i was crawling through the 40k/h school zones as required. oh, this phil picked on other things during my test but what really gets my blood boiling is that i see him as a hypocrite. if you dare to fail me by nitpicking and not being able to back up your marks with the evidence, like tell me which stop sign i failed to stop completely at.. then i dare you to drive up to your own "exacting standards" and i'd like to see you pass your driving test. asshole.

so now, i have to resit my driving test next week.
in the meantime, they stuck me with a learner's license meaning i can't really drive to work alone anymore and will need to carpool. sux0rs. =(

schticks and scatterbrains

a scatterbrain i am
and a scatterbrain i'll be
i'm sorry for all the troubles
that seem to follow me!

it sometimes feels like rainclouds
strive to do their best
to drench and soak and make me shiver
to put me to the test

but then i see that silver lining
the one that makes them rainbows
there're always lessons to be learnt
to keep me on my tippy toes

like just this past week
i've been such a dope
i've locked myself out again
should've learnt but.. nope =(

and then came the RTA
they're the Aussie DMV
they refused to see that i was me
despite my guarantee!

my driver's licence was apparently bad
for it didn't match my cards
i showed them bills and more and more
but they viewed them with disregard

i had to come back with my passport
which showed yet another name
couldn't they just look at my pic
and see that they're all the same?!

we eventually worked it through
and i passed my theory test
it starts again with part two
won't they ever just let it rest?!

in excelling, you get penalized
in failing, you get away
what kind of place am i stuck in,
i shake my head in dismay

i've been driving for the past eight years
and because i've passed my test
they treat me like a newbie driver
no more solo drives.. i protest!!

and then last week i was cornered
to get my fluvax shot
'twas my first and i kicked up a fuss
but the wiley needle lady, she heeded me not =(

there's more to whine but i shall stop
for by now, i'm sure you're all sick
i'm glad of how things are as of now
i hope there'll be no more shcticks!

metal-mouth

what irony! it just hit me after watching episodes 16 and 17 of ugly betty. i was so happy for her! (spoiler alert, stop reading if it bugs you)





so yah, i was all happy that she finally got her braces off until i realized that i would be a metal-mouth in less than 24 hours and i'd stay that metal-mouth for a minimum of 6 months. it means meeting new people with braces. it means sitting for job interviews with braces. it kinda takes some getting used to, especially with all the negative vibes and jibes about braces in general.

i'm kinda nervous about it all, now that i'm actually going through with it. first, i get a haircut that came with bangs. BANGS! i haven't had bangs since i was a kid. hG wasn't too happy with the haircut... and then i told him about the braces. man, you should've seen his face. gobsmacked. when he finally found a voice, he asked me what i was trying to do, turn into ugly betty?!

terrible, terrible.

so long, last day of being able to eat nougats and all things sticky! so long, last day of being able to run my tongue over my teeth without lacerating it. hellooo to dorkdom and many more misadventures with food stuck in braces to come!

counting down to good riddance

dear hypocrite,

thank you for constantly placing me in situations where i have no choice but to be like you. sometimes when i'm lucky, i get away with just keeping quiet. i already constantly evaluate and re-evaluate myself and my performance but because of you, i have stepped it up. i am constantly checking and rechecking my behavior and try to keep it real instead of living in my own little bubble. i really am trying hard to not become like you, so thank you for helping me keep my guard up all this while. i sincerely mean that.

now that we have the mushy part out of the way..

i especially loved it when you bristled with indignation when other people have made a mistake but refused to acknowledge their mistake as you saw it. that's fair enough. generous of you to accept that it's human to make mistakes and you're willing to accept that, but draw the line at not having the balls to own up to one's mistakes. funny that. what about the time when one of your mistakes was pointed out in black and white, and the knee-jerk reaction you had was to screech back asking if it was all your fault now for being in the situation you were faced with.

in the exact words of he-who-must-not-be-named, your notes are exquisite, i might add. bravo! they are so perfect that it takes me twice the time to read your words than it would take me to write my own set of notes. sometimes, i even have to stop and ask for someone more intelligent, or with better eyesight, to decipher your perfect handwriting. the precision of those notes, man! so precise that all you need is the date on your entries - we automagically figure out the time of events somehow, usually by guessing the time based on the entries before and after your notes.

and where do i start with that attitude of yours? i have resigned myself to the fact that you will continue to do what you want, regardless of whether it may be the best for you or not. I admire how you have so quickly adopted and adapted, claiming credit whenever you can. I'm glad you think that will get you places. Maybe it will, but i hope you enjoy your time just as much when you crash and burn. not if, but when.

i really don't mean to wish you harm but you are making it really hard for me to continue harboring any sort of good will towards you. i have lied to myself and made up excuses for you so i could keep giving you second chances but my supply is fast running short. frankly, i'm glad our time will come to an end soon. i don't ever want to see you again. if you keep this up, you will eventually sink and at this point, i would happily sit there next to the pile of lifesavers and watch you thrash about.

so i hope you have a good rest of the year and learn to grow up a little. i know that i definitely have during our short meet, and that the rest of my year will continue to be a huge learning opportunity in the lesson called life.

with blatant disregard,
amy

usual humdrum

not much happening
sun and moon rise like clockwork
usual humdrum

mandatory vacations suck

this sucks. i have the rare opportunity to go aaaaaaanywhere in the world for about two weeks. anywhere i want (granted, it still depends on how deep my wallet is but still!). eh-nee-where! and i don't know where to go.

i have to get out of the country so they can give me my permanent residency visa on my "new" arrival back to australia. seriously, how messed up is that to begin with but i won't even go there. the issue at hand is to pick out a place i can bum at for at least 8 working days while they process the piece of paper called my visa and i'm quite stuck. i have to leave within 5 days to fit it all in my work schedule. urgh, the gggnargh-ness!

so let's see.

taiwan? most sensible. parents, free accommodation. angst foreseeable due to friction from too much time with the family. can take the time to study because there'd be nothing else to do though. but i just went back! =(

singapore? hot, humid, no free accommodation, was just there. can catch up with people i've missed but that's about it

new zealand? pretty, always wanted to go, nearby.. but the boy can't come and we had wanted to go explore the place together =(

japan? haven't been in a while and would be nice to go but again, the boy can't come =(

korea, greece, south america? would be fun, haven't been but again, the boy can't come =(

los angeles? nobody's left, everyone's moved on with families and careers so there's nobody to catch up with

too bad tasmania isn't officially its own country.

so there you go. a rare chance to go anywhere i want because i've got no other choice and i think i'm settling for taiwan. urrgh, how utterly sad.

happy holidays!

what a week it's been since returning to australian soil! managed to come back in one piece. for those of you curious about the airbus 380... let them iron out the kinks first before you let yourself be game enough to try new technology. our flight was delayed two and half hours from sydney to singapore. we started to accelerate at the top of the runway before decelerating not 2 seconds afterwards. looked out the window onto the wing to see lovely streams of smoke trailing behind. the captain put me out of my misery with his announcement a few minutes later by saying we had to return to the terminal to change the plane's tires.. and that there was a minor techinical fault with one of the engines. i turned back to the window to spy four fire engines trailing our plane back to the terminal. when the plane finally took off, everyone clapped and cheered.. it's been a while since i've been in a cabin full of cheering strangers. our luck couldn't have been any better. our flight was delayed again on the return trip, what were the odds! this time, the tire pressure light apparently sounded prior to take-off and the pilot wasn't sure if the light was faulty or if the tire pressures were truly low. back to the terminal before we finally lift off.

in the spirit of the holiday season.. c'mon everyone, feel free to sing along with me now.


on the twelfth day of r'turning
my karma gave to me
twelve crazy patients
eleven more as nutty
ten bagels weekly
nine dental fillings
eight missing cards
seven hours of working
six new hairbands
five working days!
four plants dying
three dental bills
two wonky handphones
and a dead car battery!

happy holidays from the newest fluff, bah'wahn and the rest of the fluffmily!

who DOES this?

seriously, who does this? it baffles me to no end to stumble upon such unique specimens of the human race every so often...

what kind of person comes up to the main desk area of a hospital ward to borrow a pen to scribble down a phone number and never returns with an uncapped pen? worse still, the person didn't even have a relative on the ward! now, all i have left of my purdy pen is its cap you see above. hmph. seriously, what're they gonna do with a half used un-capped pen. i spent the rest of the day providing great entertainment to the nurses everytime i decided to whine out a "gimme back my pehhhhhn" when i saw my pen cap hanging forlornly from my ID tag lanyard.

what kind of person goes to the laundry room in the dorms to take all your wet clothes out from the washer and plonk them on the dirty bench so they can use your machine? worse still, what kind of person opens the dryer door for whatever reason while your clothes are in there tumbling towards dryness and then leaves the door open so the timer runs out and your clothes are still wet an hour afterwards when you go down to collect them? (yes A, like i told you, i don't think i'll ever get over that one)

what kind of person blocks up a whole lane of cars in a one-lane street for the next few minutes waiting for a good time to make an u-turn? drive around the block dammit! selfish prat!

what kind of person catches your eye from the back of the car in front of you and then proceeds to pick his nose AND eat his booger.. all the while watching you?!

any more you'd like to add? the more the merrier!
here's to the start of a wonderful holiday season..
may we all survive it.

Say what?! Keep wishing, it's not quite Christmas yet

OHHhhh hohoho. Christmas didn't come early, nope. Though I might be in the southern hemisphere where things are supposedly the opposite of normal and where the toilet flushes counterclockwise, it doesn't mean that Christmas gets to come early for chiropractors. It's weird enough to spend Christmas at the beach with the sun searing nice burns into your skin.

Sydney Morning Herald's "Emergency Department Turf War" was an eye-opener. I've depended on a chiropractor for a couple of years in the past, even following her to her new practice but stopped when I realized that I could crack my own back to achieve the same results with less frightening and sudden twists of my spine and neck. Suddenly, the $60 a pop (and that was a discount for being a long-time customer with weekly appointments that later degenerated to monthly appointments) seemed a tad too much and I stopped going.

"If chiropractic was [an] emergency treatment option, we could avoid thousands of patients being admitted" the chief of the NSW arm of the Chiropractors' Association of Australia was quoted as saying by the SMH. Goodness, where do I start?! I know the media is infamous for taking things out of context so I'm taking everything with large helpings of salt, but geez they did a good job this time around. Chiropractic practices has no place in the emergency department - I completely agree with several of the doctors quoted later on in the article.

First of all, how the hell is back pain amenable to chiropractic therapy life-threatening? Isn't that the whole point of the emergency department? For people with life-threatening conditions, ie an ee-mer-jen-see? Don't get me started. I'm the one that's always going on about implementing a public education campaign to educate people as to what an emergency is. That guy that collapsed on the street is an emergency. So's that woman with a river of blood pouring out from her netherbits. The graze you got while snorkling yesterday that's still painful is not an emergency. You broke skin. IT WILL HURT. Insomnia is not an emergency. It's an unfortunate inconvinience that you can see your GP about. The ED is not a 24h pharmacy, and the will not dispense drugs as you demand. Your cucumber up your ass is just plain hilarious and if you're able to walk in, it's not an emergency but we'll help you get it out eventually.

Also, tell me - if chiropractors were so beneficial, shouldn't all those people whom they're targeting at the ED... shouldn't they all have been seen in the community by a chiropractor as more of a preventative measure in nipping the pain before it got too debilitating? That being said, I would really like someone to explain to me how back pain warrants a trip to the ED when it's been grumbling along. Sure, when one's immobilized by the pain and requires analgesia only obtainable in a hospital setting.. sure, come on through. For the rest of you who refuse to take your pain medications and show up to ED a week later with back pain so bad you can't get out of bed.. TAKE YOUR FREAKING PAINKILLERS and then we'll talk.

Forget the oodles of studies disproving the efficacy of chiropractic therapy. Forget the fact that chiropractors as poo-pooed by the medical community as a whole. Really, forget all of that. Just concentrate on what they're currently proposing. Imagine your local emergency department.. yes, the one that looks (and sometimes smells like) an asian wet local market at times with the hours of waiting you need to do just to get seen by a nurse, let alone a doctor. Now imagine a section of that ED cordoned off with curtains drawn and massage oil in place next to the Aquim gel with patients being wheeled in, bed by bed, for their chiropractic treatment and seeing them walk out one by one. Seriously, if you were the patient in the next bed who had come in for acute abdominal pain because of gallstones, would you want your nurse pre-occupied with wheeling the next patients in and out of the chiropractic booth while you writhe in pain because she was too busy to give you that morphine the doctor charted up 3 hours ago? And also, why would the chiropractors need to take up already precious and scarce resources from the ED budget when they could very well run their own "emergency department" for people with back pain on a walk-in basis. Really. Christmas isn't coming early for you this year, go try to mooch off another system. hmph.