Still getting used to this nakey feeling of not having those extra metals in my oral cavity. Hihi. Oh and the retainers are bloody uncomfortable too! Haih sucha hassle to take em off for meals, y’know? -_-

Anyway, Ramadhan Mubarak everyone! Hope I won’t be too swamped with oncalls this year so that I can perform my Tarawikh!

“Every woman on the street constantly tells me that I have the perfect husband. Gaby says that she wishes Carlos was thoughtful like you. Susan wishes Mike has your sense of humour. Bree said she’s never seen a better dad.

How many people go up to you and tell you that you have the perfect wife?

For almost 20 years, all I’ve heard is how incredibly lucky I am to have a guy like you. So, if I don’t constantly brag about how great you are, it’s only because I don’t want to be reminded of how much I don’t deserve you.”

-Lynette Scavo, Desperate Housewives 709

Tom and Lynette FTW! Never fails to make me sob uncontrollably even after 7 seasons.

I wanna be 40, raising 5 children while juggling a career, and STILL be in love like these two are.

My Tom Scavo is at work, and I miss him.

So I survived my first 4 months of being an intern. Had my own set of challenges – being in a new city, managing my own finances, adapting to a life full of responsibilities and dealing with people plus all the drama that comes with em. Pfft. Working as a doctor is a TOTALLY different ball game from medical school and even with pre-planted ideas of what housemanship would be like, I had no idea it was gonna be this hard.

Eceh.

But yeah I survived my first posting which was Surgery. And here I am, entering my first month in Paediatrics, which is also a totally different ball game from Surgery which I tremendously enjoyed. Still learning my way around the subject, and hopefully by the end of 4 months I’ll be able to come out competent and safe. Bebehs and adik-adik, please be kind to your poor doctor here. Thank you.

Anyway, I haven’t been exploring Sarawak as much as I wanted to due to my limited holidays and my preference to spend my day-off in bed, doing absolutely NOTHING. Il bel far niente, gituu. Took me 4 months before I decided to get my butt to Damai the other day for a leisurely stroll at the beach. Apadaaaa. But what’s the rush, I have two years here so one beach/cave/national park/city at a time lah kan. Hehe.

So yeah, I’m living the life. As it is. Everyday is a new challenge so nak tak nak I just have to go through with it. I will usually burst into tears every single time before I go on-call, feeling depressed and all (kesian Fattah kena layan semua ni haha) but once it’s over and done with I’ll be glad that I actually did something for my patients.

And then I’ll pray hard that I won’t get screwed, eat something (fattening and) nice, and just sleep it off. Hehe.

Sekian saja. Esok lusa tulis lagi.

Will miss home.

Let’s worry about that later. Just wanna share with you the things I’ve been doing for the past one month.

Ohh yes, that’s me, lookin all chubby on the longest canopy walkway in the world, standing 40metres above the ground yaww! This was at Taman Negara Pahang, the largest national park in Malaysia which encompasses 3 states; Terengganu, Kelantan and mostly Pahang.

Abah had a business course there so Mama and I hopped in for the ride. Free holiday, siapa tak nak kan? We stayed in a nice chalet at Mutiara Taman Negara Resort, which is an unlikely option for me if I were to come as a backpacker. Might just settle for the hostel which is quite affordable at RM80. Heh.

Anyway, since we were there following a course, we didn’t have much time to explore the Taman Negara rainforest. We went for Rapids Shooting, which was quite a bore since we were on a boat instead of a raft. Tapi bolehlah, setakat nak rasa angin petang kat Sungai Tembeling. Managed to slip in a 45-minute session of jungle trekking towards the canopy walkway before our trip home too. Haih, tak puas. But mark my words cos I sure will come back for more!

Ahh, and the picture above was taken in Long Beach, Perhentian Island, Terengganu. I was there 2 weeks ago with my STF darlings Aliaa, Nuha, and Irda taking up our diving licenses with the highly-recommended Turtle Bay Divers. June 11th 2010 was the historic date when all four of us officially became certified PADI Open Water Divers!! Wheeeeee! Like, finally! After years and years of lusting over underwater photos taken by our diver friends, we finally got to experience it ourselves. And I gotta tell you this, being able to breathe underwater is just AMAZING.

Life underwater is just crazy beautiful..it was as if we were inside of a humungous aquarium filled with  so many colourful fishes and corals. We managed to see huge stingrays and a turtle too; amongst others, during our training dives. Ahhh, sumpah best gila ok! No underwater pics to share here since the rented camera went kaput right before we went in for our graduation dive. Dayum. And Perhentian is just way too pretty! Tengoklah tu, clear blue skies, crystal clear water, clean beaches..truly a shame that one has to leave such beauty for a cruel, concrete jungle like KL. Sigh.

Now that we’ve got our licenses, I just can’t wait for our next diving trip! But for that to happen, I gotta work and earn some moolah first lah, ye dak? For now I’m just gonna sit quietly at home, sharpening my domestic skills and glue myself in front of the idiot box watching World Cup because there’s already a HUGE hole burnt in my pockets. -_-

Sekian, another Cuti-Cuti Malaysia entry brought by ayumin’s incoherent ramblings. Hope this one’s gonna generate  continuous hits (cis, perasan) just like my Sarawak Elective entry. Hehe.

P/S : Just so you know, I might be going to Kuching, Sarawak for my housemanship soon. Insya-Allah.

• I’ve lost 2 kilograms. Yeay!
• But I gained back another 3kg. FML!
• I’ve fallen in love. Again and again.
• I’ve battled through the VERY LAST exam of my undergraduate studies.
• And after months of blood, sweat, tears and other bodily secretions imaginable, I’m officially a doctor now!

Alhamdulillah.

The late nights/early mornings, the many cuppas, the countless hours spent practising in the wards, the strenuous discussions, and the amount of time stressing over the exams (instead of studying LOL) was all worth it. Berkat doa family, lecturers, and friends, I managed to sail through the exam smoothly..Alhamdulillah.

Thank you God for hearing and answering my prayers, and for always being there whenever the journey gets too rough to handle. For that I am humbled, and I shall do my best to uphold the responsibility that has been laid down upon me. InsyaAllah.

Thank you to the family unit, for all the doa, love and support (and monetary funds too!) through out all these years. Tee hee. I won’t be where I am today if not for you guys! ♥

Thank you to the dedicated UPM lecturers for all the knowledge shared and the many words of encouragement. All of you are inspiring individuals in your own ways and I consider myself very, very lucky to have been taught by these superb educators. Not forgetting other faculty members who have helped us in terms of logistics and admin, kalau takde korang semua memang susah la hidup kami. UPM rocks!

Thank you to the patients in HKL, Serdang Hospital and Kajang Hospital – for being the best teachers. Doing medicine in a local uni sure has its perks!

Thank you to fellow classmates – UPM Medic Class of 2010 for the FIVE YEARS filled with nerdy medical jokes, dramas, gossips and kiasuness. LOL. You guys have been awesommeeeeeeeeeee! Definitely the best set of classmates one can ever have. I love you guys sangat2 lah. Congratulations fellow doctors, we made it!

Happy faces, post-results.

*picture courtesy of Liyana Zainal

Thank you to my friends from all over the world – for your doa and all those good luck wishes via texts/FB messages/Tweets. Sorry lah, interns tak boleh bagi MC.

And…last but not least, (ok lah fine letak jugak..:P) Thank you to the boyfriend – for keeping me alive and happy through out the final months of medical school, for believing in me (even more than I do meself) and for always seeing the best in me. I am proud of you too mister!

To those who didn’t make it, all the best in the resit exam and you guys will be doctors in no time! Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it’s because they sat there that they were able to do it (quoting Ryan Bingham, Up In The Air). My prayers are with you guys, always.

OK, now that I’m freeeeeeeeeeee (for at least the next 2 months), I should go bask in this warm glow of relief and eat/sleep as much as I can. Hehe. I also have beach holidays, scuba diving, and weddings to look forward to! Yeayyyyy. See you soon!

Ryan Bingham: I thought I was a part of your life.
Alex Goran: I thought we signed up for the same thing… I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You’re a break from our normal lives. You’re a parenthesis.
Ryan Bingham: I’m a parenthesis?

Up In The Air, 2009

Because I sure hope I’m not one, too.

I personally didn’t mind at all. I think what he did was wise as the use of good English is a crucial component in our professional development as competent future health professionals. (and the future ain’t that far either, we’re graduating in a month’s time kot!)

Now my English is obviously farrrrrr from perfect, but I sometimes do cringe in agony hearing people say things like “That’s mean” or “No any surgical scar..”.

Sigh.

This reminds me of a story when I presented an Orthopaedic long case the other day. Right after my history of presenting illness, this lecturer of mine asked,

“Hidayu, which secondary school were you from?”

I hesitated in saying STF, because people generally won’t know what STF stands for unless they have a boarding school background or they live in JB. So to be safe I responded,

“Err, Tun Fatimah?”

“Oh sebab the way you speak English macam you’re from TKC.“

-______-

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Ok so I took that as a compliment for me, but just not for my school. Heheh. It is a well-known fact that TKC girls are generally very fluent in English. This generalization also includes a pseudo-fact that majority of their students came from rich, upper-class, English-speaking Malay families so it was only natural for them to have better English as compared to their other boarding school counterparts.

During my time in STF we rarely spoke in English, perhaps maybe just in English classes and to friends whom we’re used to speak in English with. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t, but I guess you might come across as, ummmmh, a lil pretentious to speak English in an all-Malay environment? Very, very bad mentality especially in a kononnya prestigious school, but that was the vibe that I got back in the days.

I didn’t come from an English-speaking family, but I was thankful that I befriended 3/4 of the school’s English debaters which meant I always had to keep up with their vast vocabularies. Phew, thanks guys. It was only in uni that I started speaking a lot of English, thanks to having re-discovered multiracial friendships.

In view of the school’s recent High-Performance status BS and excellent exam results, I just hope that the kids have started to speak in English among themselves. It may be a tad too late if English is only spoken formally during tertiary education because “That’s mean” has become such a norm that it doesn’t feel like an error anymore.

Get out of that stupid sempit shell of ours, and start seing the world as it should be. You don’t know how much you’re missing out, kiddos. Make it a point to speak in English as much as you can, watch English movies (without subtitles, please) and read English news/books/blogs for a change. (using a Facebook English medium doesn’t count ok).

And of course, this reminder goes out to me too. I’m on a journey of self-improvement myself, so please correct me if you ever hear me make silly grammatical mistakes! Screw embarassment. It’s better to be corrected now than when you’re presenting at a world-class conference later and be laughed at because of the poor standard of your English.

Sekian incoherent ramblings of the day. Teacher Mimi must be proud of me. Kih kih.

P/S : I recently found out that this lecturer who made the TKC remark is actually a Koleq boy. Saw him donning that familiar maroon tie last Wednesday, which explains the remark because all Koleq guys I know are dating/have dated or at least friends with a TKCian. Again, a generalization. LOL.

Last time I was all head over heels for a guy was probably 4-5 years ago, back when I was young and stupid, out fresh from boarding school. I fell for a prick, no less, and God I fell hard. Geez, I would probably still be with him now if only he had put in a lil more effort and if I didn’t play hard-to-get one time too many.

He was the typical middle-class Malay boy with a residential-school education whose life’s ambition is to earn good money through an engineering career, drive a big car, and would go on to marry a soft-spoken Malay girl in tudung, waiting hand and foot at home for him. And I was the loud, foul-mouthed woman with sky-high ambitions and no signs of slowing down. That probably challenged/scared him a lil bit too much, but I guess we were both way too young to figure it all out anyway.

And he didn't speak Ingerlund so well, so that kinda turned me off too. Heh heh.

To say I was heartbroken back then is an overstatement, because when we parted ways I was actually beginning to hate the person that he was becoming. Sure, I was mildly wounded for a while but he was definitely a lesson learned, and I thank God for that one encounter as it made me wiser (really?) in considering potential suitors.

How’s that for closure? Heh.

So now that I’m emotionally more stable *ehem*, and all matured with crystal clear goals and guided ambitions, I might’ve just opened up to a man who could possibly make me fall head over heels again.

Now he is the complete opposite of a man I’ve always thought I would be dating. He may even be a breath of fresh air, because he’s just so different in a lot of ways. He’s no softie, but he’s not the things that traditionally defines a man, you know – sports and cars and cock-talk and all the other shit that comes with it.

But what defines a man, really? What if he’s all manly but he didn’t actually have the guts to ask you out because he’s afraid that you’ll outsmart him and makes him feel like the lesser person in the relationship? What if he looks all rough and plays rugby (or other contact sports, please insert here) but he doesn’t give a shit when his woman just wants to be held because she’s had a rough day?

What if this macho man tells you he loves you, but behind your back he has his own set of Teman Tapi Mesra and he tells girls that he’s actually single? What if this ambitious man who had made a promise that he would make an honest woman out of you chickened out halfway just because he feels like it? I’d say, suck your balls, pegi mampus lah wey buat perempuan macam tu.

Wah bitter siot. Ini semua kisah benar, tak tipu punya.

So my point is, this guy is more of a man than most guys I know will ever be. At least he’s got the courage to try and pursue me. I’ve gotten way too many remarks over the years that guys were too intimidated to date me, so it’s nice to know that someone’s  growing out of his insecurities and is working his way slowly to my heart. Haha. Ayat cam haram ok.

Anyway, we’ve been good friends for years and he just knows me too well. In recent months he has made me happy in ways that I sometimes could not comprehend. You know, butterflies and all that jazz? Sometimes it scares the shit outta me too because it just feels so right and I can’t help but wonder if this is IT? And help me God I know this is corny gile babs, but I haven’t felt this happy for a long, long time.

I just hope he knows how he makes me feel, because I simply suck at showing it despite kononnya being a self-professed hopeless romantic. It had been ingrained since my earlier years that if I was being too expressive I would look easy. And weak, which is the last thing a hard-headed, hardcore professional woman would wanna portray herself as.

But hey, life is too short to be playing hard-to-get (again), and trust me I’m not. Maybe I’ve mellowed, too. Which isn’t a bad thing, to say the least.

Now it’s a bit premature to tell if he is the real deal, so I’m just going to cherish what we have for now and see where it will take us. I heard that some people are giving him a hard time, but it only matters what I think of him and I can safely say that I am proud of the man he’s becoming.

OK I can’t believe I actually spent like the last half an hour writing this piece of shit. I applaud you if you’ve actually read up till here, kih kih. Well I don’t usually put up my emotions on display, not in this blog anyway, but today is just one those days, y’know. Screw it.

And I hope he doesn't read this. -____-

Baiklah I need to study Obstetrics prontoooo. Bye2.

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD FAIZAL TAHIR WAS SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDD.
LIKE, SUPERRRRRRR GOOD WEH.

Haha ok cerita dulu, screamfest sambung kejap lagi.

So basically I was at Istana Budaya last night watching Konsert Satu Suara which featured Faizal Tahir, Aizat, and Malaysia’s favourite gadis-ayu-pemalu, Siti Nurhaliza. I managed to secure myself very good seats through Faizal’s fan club Rockensteiners which I am unashamedly a member of. Kih kih.

Anyhoots, the show started with Aizat and Faizal singing Aku Anak Malaysia. After that it was Aizat all the way, and damn that boy’s good! I was familiar with most of his repertoire so I got to sing along to most of em. Being a Beatles junkie that I am, I loved his Beatles tribute, especially I Am The Walrus. Way to go Aizat!

And then it was the moment I’ve been waiting for.

FAIZAL TAHIR. THE MAN HIMSELF. IN FLESH.

Like holey moley guacomoley finallyyyyyy after 3 years of being a fangirl I now get to see him perform live, like ohmygoddddddddddddddddddd takkkkkkkk.

I’ve had doubts about Faizal’s ability to shine vocally because he always seem to overdo it whenever he performs live. But yesterday he sounded SO GOOD. Seriously sedap gila. Perfect low-high note transition, and his tone, Subhanallah, it was just delicious. His God-given talent was just too good beyond words!

Stage presence takyah cakap la kan. He was very eloquent (spoke perfect English, too. Sukaaaaaa!) and funny although at times he came across as POYO, but what the hell I still love him. Har har har.

He rocked the house with the usual combo of Sampai Syurga, Cuba (pronounced as Kju-ba LOL), Gemuruh, Bencinta, Mahakarya Cinta,  and Selamat Malam, as well as a new song that I’ve never heard of. Faizal also did a tribute to his musical idol Queen and his rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody was just madddddd awesomeeeeeeeeee. I was happily singing along to it but it seems that only 1/10 of the audience je yang pernah dengar lagu tu. Ape korang ni, tak penah tengok American Idol ke at the very least? Ceh.

And then came Siti. I’m obviously not a fan of hers, but I do know some a lot of her songs ok. Didn’t know what to expect but DAMN THAT WOMAN WAS AMAZING.  Seriously. I got goosebumps yo. She totally deserved to be where she’s at right now because she’s just THAT good. Please please everyone insert Siti in your 10-musical-act-that-I-must-see-before-I-die list. Faizal Tahir pun jangan lupa letak ok..hehe.

Anyway the 3 of them joined forces for a medley of Rock Kapak (or rather Rock Sopan in Siti’s words) songs – the likes of Hattan’s Sekuntum Mawar Merah, Def-Gab-C’s Ibu Kota Cinta, Awie’s Sejati & Ratuku, and my fav Spider’s Relaku Pujuk. Relaku Pujuk was injected with some serious reggae beat so it was fun fun fun! Aizat’s constant “come on everybody” so cracked me up!

Oh lupa plak. I also lovedddd Faizal and Aizat’s rendition of Bon Jovi’s Always. Farah and I were singing along siap dengan expression beriya2 as if we’re in Redbox Karaoke LOL. Always had always been one of our lagu wajib anyway..and isn’t it just the perfect song for another pathetic Valentines?

Ok letih dah screamfest. Kawan-kawan, please bear with me cos I’ll be raving about how good Faizal is for at least a coupla weeks. Heheh. Ok bye. Nak dengar Faizal’s Selamat Malam before kip lah.

“Kanku menjadi Arjuna dalam mimpi-mimpimu” – tell me siapa tak cair if a guy sings this to you weh? Angauuuuuu. ♥