By Any Other Name

Yaay Musical Discovery!

2012-01-29T02:14:00.001-08:00

OneRepublic is actually a really, really good band. Their first album didn't really catch my interest so much. But I've been listening to the singles of the second album and I'm just like, "where the fuck have I been??"

Hating (with) Fervor

2012-01-28T18:58:00.001-08:00

You know, sometimes I hate my ability to contradict myself over and over. There was that one point where I was involuntarily recruited for the school's english debating team, not because I was a particularly talented and compelling public speaker, but because I am able to construct english sentences like I've been doing it on a daily basis for years. Which I was. But that's beside the point. I don't think you're supposed to put very many "like, totally"s in debating. Which I did. I was a teenager, I couldn't help it. It was like a tic. Which was why I never really led my school to any victories. I just provided some participation points.

But despite my half-assed efforts, my brain somehow molded itself and I've subconsciously developed the ability to create a defense for any argument. I'm quite an opinionated person. But I rarely find myself being truly adamant about anything because then I would see it from another angle and then I would contradict myself. It's kinda frustrating. It would be nice to choose a side about something. But it's so difficult for me to to make up my mind about it because my head would be arguing both sides. And boy, when one of those internal arguments start... Oh, crap, that doesn't make me schizophrenic right?

Anyway, the point is. There's this thing going on, right? Lately I haven't been listening to music. I thought, wow, has medschool gotten me so busy that I don't even listen to music anymore? Or maybe it's because I don't get MTV or my new car can't connect to my ipod? Not exactly. You see, there's a phenomenon giong on right now, which has been going on for a few years now, which I thought would have fizzled out by now, but is only gaining even more avid followers. It's music from a certain Asian country whose view on body image is scarily reminiscent of a Scott Westerfield dystopian novel. It is everywhere to the point that I can't even find music that I like anymore.

It's an epidemic. And there was one point where I was just, like, totally up to here about it and it was just beyond toleration. Because you know what, I didn't like it one bit. And I couldn't understand why it was so fucking contagious because I was exposed to it 24-fucking-7 and I seemed to be the only immune. And here the frustration begins because I had tried to come up with an argument about how this whole music industry was objectively crap and everyone who likes it are mindless idiots, and the fact that the majority of our community is into it means that it's the end of all humanity. But the boyfriend, the only person to whom I could convey this without getting a knife to the throat, is just as great a debater. And yes, he appealed to that always-contradicting-myself part of me and I broke my own argument.

The thing is, why did I actually hate it THAT much? It wasn't a simple dislike, like I'm not really into The Black Eyed Peas but I don't hate them at all. Basically, it was these two things, 1) lots of people like it and it's everywhere to the point that it stifled any other choice of music and I ended up ceasing to listen to music at all, and 2) people who are into it not only just 'like' it, they LOVE it, and are literally incapable of talking about anything else. The first issue is only a mild annoyance. I can still find music that I like though with a some extra effort. The second issue is the big one. People hate when other people fervently love things don't like.

So let's look at another phenomenon. One where I am actually on the pro side. You may have heard of a certain vampire love story called Twilight. A lot of haters for this one right? And I mean HATErs. About as much as I hate K-pop except it's all over the internet. I like Twilight. Sure, the movies ruined the whole thing but whatever, I still watch it cause I like the books. And I totally get the reasons why people wouldn't like it. It's weird, immoral, a horrible example for young girls. But so are a lot of other less famous books. That's a reason to dislike or dismiss, not a reason to hate and bash.

The hate is a response to the widespread global obsession. Look at Justin Bieber. There's a lot of other crappy young artists out there. But JB's the one packing all the hate because he has the most outspoken groupies. People hate that kind of fervor. People hate when other people love what they think is completely wrong. It's the basis of all kinds discrimination, race, religion, political view.

Maybe we just need to accept that some people just like what they like, and some people don't. I don't believe advocating plastic surgery is very good for young people's body image issues. I don't believe men who dance and touch their own faces while they sing are very attractive. And I don't believe in music witout understanding the lyrics. But that's just my religion. To each their own.

Happy (?) New Year

2012-01-01T06:44:00.000-08:00

Here we go again. Another new year's eve. Geez that was fast. Didn't we just have one of these last year? (*chuckle* you may laugh now)

Seriously though. It's always the same everytime. I approach the beginning of the new year with everyone making huge deals about it, and I expect some huge thing to happen, to change, to feel different in some way. It's a bit of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't sort of thing. Like if I make myself get all excited about the new year, I'll find myself disappointed because like, nothing is going to change. But if I pretend to be indifferent and try to shrug it off like it's nothing, I'd be lying because I actually do expect something to happen. What is it I expect, exactly? Hmm, I'm not sure. But something.

And resolutions? Forget about it. I'll forget about whatever it was I wanted to do before January is over. And besides, I've always found that using this date as an excuse to have an "identity makeover" is quite lame. I mean, why now? Why today? You've always felt that you needed to do whatever it was you're "resolving" to do now. Why wait until January 1st to begin?

January. Janus. The two-headed god of, like, doorways or something. One head looks forward and the other looks backward. So, like, if we're being all ritual-y about it, we could say that at the stroke of midnight, fireworks ablaze, we stand in the doorway between the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, we have one head looking back to the past and have a moment of reflection. Like, what have we achieved so far, how can we improve ourselves and become better members of society? And at the same time, we have another head looking ever so hopefully towards the future, full of determination to improve and to grow.

*stifles laughter*

Well aren't I just full of shit. This blog has seen five new years and I still don't know the meaning of a new years celebration. I think one of my friends got it close enough. She tweeted, "just another excuse to party". And yeah, I suppose to me it is. Screw self-reflection and self-improvement and crap. I'm constantly reflecting about all the mistakes I've made and forever peering into the future trying to avoid the potholes of further mistakes. I'm always criticising myself to the point that I feel like I'm covered in jagged holes from where I've been picking at my flaws.

On December 31st people are celebrating. Celebrating what? God only knows. Celebrating something. And I get to dress up and gorge myself on smoked salmon and indulge in an exotic cheese platter. So yes, this is a special occasion, but it's just an excuse. So sorry, I'm not about to spend tonight getting my insecurity on. I'm just going to join in on the festivities.

Bunaken Dive Trip

2011-12-30T02:13:00.001-08:00

Shh, I'm going to tell you a little secret. Some people choose which group they wanted to be in for the final year of medical school based on the kinds of people in it, or what kind of pace they want to set for themselves throughout the year. I chose my group based on whether I could play hooky during the 13th-17th of October. And unfortunately, that was surgery. Why did I have to play hooky you may ask? Oh, only a certain dive-trip to Bunaken. I can tell you now, the trip was a success. My absence went by unnoticed thanks in large part to my very understanding, small group of colleagues.

So how was the trip? In a word, indescribable. But of course, I'm going to try anyway. It was a 4 day trip, but I left Jakarta on Thursday night so the next day can begin bright and early. There were 3 productive dive days, with 3 dives each day, so in total I logged 9 dives. It was sensational.

Most of the dives were of the wall kind. We went down about 15-20 metres. The wall stretched way down below, disappearing into the dark blue abyss. We couldn't even see the ocean floor. We were just hovering and there was nothing below our feet. It was completely breathtaking. Some people might find the neverending depth of the wall disconcerting, but I love it. Sometimes I would just back up a little and take in the whole wall and look down at the nonexistent floor and it feels like I'm flying next to this skyscraper made of coral. It was glorious.

There was a nice current that just pulled us along like a conveyor belt. But sometimes the current would shift and we'd end up going against the current. That's when it got heavy to kick and my group would usually just stop and follow the current. It was nice just drifting along. It was relaxing, not exhausting at all. But my buoyancy kinda sucked. I kept skip-breathing to keep myself aloft and as a result, I was starting to get a massive headache from carbon dioxide toxicity. Still, I ignored it as best I could and focus on the sights.

The water was monstrously clear. There was this one time where there was a whole school of shiny fish migrating from the reef then past us along the wall. There were like hundreds all lined up neatly and hurrying along in a really long line. It was an awesome sight. There were a lot of lobsters clustered in little inlets, moray eels slithering in and out of their little tunnels, clown fish getting all funny and territorial, coming at us all agressive when we get close. And turtles! There were so many of them just melowing out on the coral or sleeping in a cave.

On the first day of diving, there was this GIANT turtle that almost ran me over. I was just minding my own business peering into the coral at the little fishies swimming around then suddenly I glance to my right and there was this HUGE-ass turtle just gliding along straight at me! It was like a UFO. I froze. And I might have cursed into my regulator. The turtle just swept past me like literally inches from my head, not even caring that there were these alien things in its way. It was the most exhilirating thing ever.

We also spotted some dolphins from the boat. We kept making huge amounts of noise when we get close to them. And I guess the dolphins get excited about it and they start swimming alongside our boat, jumping out of the water beside us, just like they do in the movies. My little cousins got a huge kick out of that.

Our crew was a pretty huge group. About 20 people in total, divided into dive-groups of 4 each. I'm always the one over-excited about every dive and I'm somehow always the first to enter the water when they tell us to gear up. As usual, I'm very economical when it comes to oxygen usage and I never seem to run out. I could probably stay under for 2 hours if anyone could keep up with me. Alas, there is a need for a buddy system, and my buddy can only go as far as slightly over an hour. (usually, people dive an average of 30 minutes). I mean, it wasn't like I was doing it on purpose. I actually felt like I was taking immense amounts of breath and being extremely wasteful.

Still, even if I could stay under for 2 hours, I probably wouldn't. I have very low tolerance for temperature changes. Maybe it's the lack of fatty insulation. Indonesia in general is a tropical country. The waters, relatively, aren't that cold. But after an hour in it, I would be convulsing with hypothermia. Also, I am incapable of peeing in the ocean. I just physically can't. And once I climb on the boat after each dive, I'd be heading straight towards the toilet. Thank God our boat had one.

It was such a wonderful thing, that short holiday. My hair was stringy and dry and was breaking off easily. My nose was burnt and I had tan lines. But there was the ocean and I was in it, playing with the fishies. I was lounging on the boat deck, shivering after a dive but soaking up the warm sun while the ocean roared under me. I was miles and miles away from morning rounds and night shifts and case presentations and all that crap. It was paradise.

Surgery

2011-12-29T02:12:00.000-08:00

When I was in 8th grade in Kenmore State High School we dissected a cow's heart. It was the most fun I have ever had in science in class and I considered cardiothoracic surgery as a possible career choice. During the 2nd year of medical school, I studied about cardiology and I'm like, "crap! This is some difficult shit right here!" and acquired a lowly B. Later that year I entered the musculoskeletal module, found myself easily memorizing the anatomy and actually had fun during anatomy class and ended up with a surprising A. Then I thought about orthopedic surgery and all the carpentry-like tools involved and I remembered that in 8th grade, my favorite class was woodwork.

Basically from the moment I set foot in medical school, if I had to specialize, I wanted to be surgeon. Most people who knew me agreed that this was most appropriate. I'm not the most talkative person so I prefer taking a straight-to-the-point history. I have an eye for anatomy and have little patience with guesswork physical examinations (just x-ray or cut 'em up and see what's going on already!). I'm more of a do-er than a thinker. And I like sewing and crafting.

The question is, what kind of surgeon should I be? So when the surgery module arrived, I looked at it like an orientation. So here are the the divisions offered:
1. Digestive surgery: Nope. I hate poop. I don't want to be dealing with the poo chute and staring at assholes all my life.
2. Orthopedic surgery: Strong maybe. But the field is much more vast than I anticipated. I'm mostly interested in traumatology. But there's also oncology, pediatrics, spine, hand, knee, none of which I'm particularly interested in. Maybe spine.
3. Pediatric surgery: Nope. I don't do kids. Even unconscious ones.
4. Urology: Yes. Maybe. It's a very interesting field, the surgical procedures are done laparoscopically so it's basically like videogames and the environment is super-relaxed and friendly. The only downside is the routine rectal examinations.
5. Plastic surgery: hmmm, maybe. There's a lot of finicky, OCD stuff going on though. Maybe if ortho and urology doesn't work out.
6. Cardiothoracic and vascular surgery: only spent 3 days here. Not so sure about it. I didn't get to see a lot of heart surgery, just a bunch of lung ones. And boy, there are a LOT of blood vessels in the human body. Way more than bones.
7. Oncology: nope. Depressing.
8. Neurosurgery: didn't get to see this one. Sad face. The feminist in me is tempted by the prestige and challenged by the male dominance of this field though.

When we were in Tangerang, our resident supervisor is dr. V. He is very nice, and is a giant, like Hagrid. He is very much the embodiment of orthopedic surgery: big, strong and male. Meanwhile, I am small, weak and female. One time, he allowed me to assist him in a traumatic amputation of a couple of fingers. I was offered to clip off some finger cartilage. Cartilage, as in the soft stuff between your bones. I didn't have the strength to do it. The nurse laughed at me.

Then I was offered to close up. I took the clamp and needleholder and began sewing up the finger stubs with barely any thread left because dr. V had used most of it all up. Regardless, he was impressed by my suturing skills and claimed that my hand movements were better than most residents. Though finding it hard to believe, I was very much ecstatic. I was actually good at something I was interested in! But to add to my embarrassment (but GREAT pleasure), dr. V went on to spread word of my skills to basically everyone in class. And since then, no one ever let me suture in the emergency room saying that I don't need the practice. Bummer.

dr. V asked which field of surgery in which I wanted to specialize. He disagreed with my choice of orthopedic surgery. I've actually been starting to question that choice myself. Most of the time, I needed help opening a bottle of water, let alone shoving a femur back in its socket. dr. V suggested plastic surgery. And yeah, there's a lot crafting involved in it. Seems like my thing. But urology is so seductive. It's not just me. Basically everyone who has gone through urology was seduced by it.

Maan, I can't decide right now! Stop pressuring me!

Aaaaand Four Months Later...

2011-12-28T21:38:00.001-08:00

Before I begin, let me just apologize for my abandonement these past months. Final year in medical school you know. Sometimes I forget that. My caste is so low on the hospital hierarchy that it's easy to forget that i'm actually in the most senior class. So basically, senior year means increasingly difficult levels of assignments and more comprehensive topics to master. In the end, I only have two modes of existence: busy as crap or exhausted like hell.

But guess what? It's a Wednesday and i'm actually on holiday for like 3 whole days!! How did this Christmas miracle happen you ask? How could such an impossibly absurd thing like three whole days off, including new years eve happen in this barbaric excuse of an educational institution called medical school?? Well, I'm actually one of the very, very few fortunate ones. This entire week was devoted to exams. I was fortunate enough to have mine on a Tuesday, so having gone through that already, I could have the rest of the week off. Not so fortunate for people who have their exams on Friday.

So anywaaaaays. Pediatric medicine.

Um, I don't particularly like kids too much. Babies and small children are cute and everything, but only if they're not making too much noise and is observed from a safe distance. And now I had to deal with kids of various ages for 9 weeks? And not just any kids. Sick kids. Which alternates from incredibly annoying to incredibly depressing. The annoying ones are the 3-4 year olds with only mild diarrhea or something and they still had the energy to scream bloody murder and thrash around violently whenever I attmpt to perform a physical examination. And then there's the depressing part when it's a quiet, shy little 8-year-old with relapsed leukemia, or a 2-day-old baby with gastroschisis, or a clever, friendly, cheerful 11-year-old with HIV.

Seriously, pediatrics is so not my thing. There's so much crap involved: growth and development, nutrition, immunization, insanely comprehensive family history, gestational and birth history, so it's not just the problem from the chief complaints. And not to mention the normal limits of things like blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, hemoglobin and such vary depending on the child's age. It's just too much of the mindless memorizing and I'm much more of a pathophysiology person. And unless you're incredibly excellent at math and can calculate semi-complex multiplications and divisions in your head (which no medical student can do), you need to bring a calculator everywhere because every dose, drugs or intravenous therapy, had to be based on weight. So yeah, basically, not in a million years would I ever want to be a pediatrician.

Having said that though, I still found the 9 weeks spent in this module a very valuable experience. As I said before, I don't really like kids very much, and I don't really know how to interact with them. But during these 9 weeks, I hope that I've become better at it. And it taught me empathy towards the family, which I guess was quite overlooked in all our empathy workshops. Those lessons usually put emphasis on empathy towards the patient, and I always took care to do that because, hey, the patients are the ones that are sick. And I usually lose patience with the family because they're all very demanding and pesterful. But when the kids are sick, it's hard to lose patience with the parents who are all worried to death about their child. I hope I can remember that and bring that to my future encounters with patient families, no matter what age the patient is.

Phonetism

2011-08-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, I swear I've written countless times about my view on words. And I mean literally "view". You know, how I wrote that you don't just read words and your brain translates it into meaning, but you also "see" a word, like the spelling and combination of letters that create a visual shape of the word, which your brain then translates into images and feelings. Am I making any sort of sense? I swear I've written about this before (although as of right now, I can't for the life of me find any evidence in my prior entries).

And yeah, I really suck at explaining, and the people I have tried to explain it to (ehem, yes, YOU) just looked at me like I was crazy. But ha-HAH, now I have proof that I'm not just a book-worm freak with weird hallucinations. Here I have an article from NewScientist that postulates that there's more to words than just knowing the meaning. It has auditory as well as visual aspects that contribute to what kind of image or emotion that pops up into our heads when we hear or see it.

And it doesn't just apply to english. There's a quiz at the end of this article which asks us to guess what all these foreign words mean. There's quite a few Indonesian words so for those who are fluent, you're kind of cheating. But it just proves my point even more. I think Indonesian words have even more evocative qualities than english ones.

Click here to read the article.

The Outside

2011-07-15T23:05:00.001-07:00

Greetings, my name is Akira. This is a live feed from The Bubble. Actually, that was just me being overdramatic with the capital letters. Nothing special with this particular bubble. Except for the fact that I don't hate mine as much as others hate theirs.

It's an incredible thing, this bubble. It's The Ultimate Protection (I love how a simple thing such as beginning a word with its uppercase form makes it seem important and dramatic. Hmm. Anyway). It's thin enough that it allows me to go about my day as normally as I desire. And yet, keeps me distant enough to avoid any ... unwanted circumstances.

I really don't understand what the fuss is about. Here and there I find people searching desperately for the holes in their bubbles. And when they do, they leave it entirely! I mean, I don't see the difference. The entire world is perfectly observable from INSIDE the bubble. Why do they feel the need to actually observe it from the outside?

Hmm, I suppose you're one of THOSE people too. I suppose soon you will shut off this feed and scoff at how ignorant I sound, dismissing an experience with which I seem completely unfamiliar. Well guess what, I HAVE been outside. And it SUCKS.

"Oh, but what of all the people who have returned from their outside forages with great boasting smiles and jealous-making stories?" I can tell you with extreme certainty that they haven't fully experienced the TRUE outside. They all left with full intentions of returning. And it was this intention that shielded them still from the true outside. It was as if an invisible bubble was formed simply by their intentions to return. So that they never truly left the bubble.

Are you riveted now? Has your hand frozen moments from turning the off-dial, stayed by your curiosity? Don't worry, I'll tell you my secret. Because we all know everyone loves secrets. Though I'm sure some of you already know, but are reluctant to admit it.

Many years ago, when I was still too young to develop that natural curiosity about what lies outside the bubble, there was a malfunction. The bubble expelled me from its bowels, and abandoned me naked and powerless outside. I was completely lacking in any form of protection and it was cold. Has anyone ever told you that? That it's very cold outside?

I don't know how long I was outside. For a few months I tried to enter my bubble again, but it wouldn't admit me. I grew hungry and soon I abandoned my attempts and just tried to survive. I couldn't hoist my former home around on my back, it was dead weight. The outside was my new home.

For those of you who still don't believe my depiction of the outside, try it for yourself. Leave your bubble completely. Don't make any promises of returning. You'll find that once the outside has realized you have come to make a permanent residence, it will turn against you. See, it was perfectly fine when you were all playing tourist, in fact, the outside welcomes you. But attempt to be a citizen and it will turn hostile.

Somehow I found my way back into the bubble. And once there I vowed never to go back out without carving my promise of returning so it knows outside that I have absolutely no intention to stay.

My feed time is almost over. I hope you all understand what I'm saying here. I admit, some of you are perfectly equipped to live outside. But I know most of you aren't. You look too much like me. All I'm saying is, think twice. We were born in this bubble for a reason.

My Signature Dish (If I Had One)

2011-07-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

I love breakfast food. It's my favorite meal of the day. Which is why I usually have it only twice a week, on weekends. Does that make sense? It's just that on school days, I barely have 5 minutes to have breakfast and that's nowhere near enough time to prepare a hearty breakfast. It's all or nothing. I'd rather have a glass of water for breakfast than something half-assed.

And my ultimate favorite breakfast food are EGGS. Eggs are an absolute miracle ingredient. It has two magical components, the whites and the yolk, which can transform into like a million different things, either together or separately. My dream is to have a chicken farm so I can have an infinite supply of lovely, organic, tasty eggs. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ehem. Anyway, today I'd like to share my greatest breakfast creation yet, my FRIED TOMATO SANDWICH. It takes like a half hour to make, which is the longest time I've ever taken to cook. And even though the main part of this dish is the bursting-with-flavor tomatoes, a sandwich without eggs is just stupid. I'm telling you, it's delicious.

Ingredients:
- 2 slices of bread
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tomato, sliced
- 1 cheese slice
- butter (I use Meadow Lea because Blue Band smells weird)
- seasonings: salt, black pepper, basil
- optional: 1 slice of turkey breast or smoked beef. We hardly ever have these in our fridge, and when we do, they're frozen rock-solid, so I usually leave these out. It makes no difference anyway because the fried tomatoes will provide enough flavor.

Steps:
1. Spread some butter on one side and stick the slices of bread in the toaster. Or, if your toaster is being a bitch like mine, use the frying pan.
2. Fry the egg sunny side up (or however you want, I like my yolk medium rare and gooey) with a nob of butter. Season with salt and black pepper. Or whatever you like.
3. Again with the butter and fry the tomatoes until it looks tasty. I fry everything with butter because it's tastier that way. Also, I don't know how to cook with oil. Season with salt, black pepper, and basil. I use dried basil because that's the only kind available in my kitchen.
4. If you're minimizing on the washing like I am and using one frying pan to cook everything, this would be the right order to do it: bread - egg - tomato. Just so they don't mess with each other.

So that's it. After that is just a matter of assembling all the components, then cutting it up into four tasty pieces.

Diving Certification

2011-07-12T03:45:00.001-07:00

Here it is! The big day! I've been looking forward to this practically all my life. The day when I'll be able to breathe underwater and swim with the fishies! This ain't no bandwagon-jumping activity. Although I have to admit, seeing people dive around me has put slightly more pressure on me to do this sooner rather than later. But still, this has been a dream of mine since I was about 13. And I've always had this fear about pursuing what I really want to do. Either because I'm afraid it'll be like a huge inconvenience for everyone else, or worried that it won't turn out to be as legendary as I always imagined.

But I digress. This whole experience is even better than the visions in my head. It was indescribable. And I only went to Pulau Pramuka which is apparently, like totally unimpressive dive-wise. Well, I guess my expectations in terms of undersea scenery at a location so close to the poisonously polluted Jakarta were pretty low to begin with. I figured it would just be a bunch of monochromatic corals with sparse and equally boring-colored fish here and there. But no, it was very diverse and lively. I was pleasantly surprised.

The accomodations also exceeded my low, and therefore quite easy to exceed, expectations. The lodge we stayed at was about like 50 metres from the ocean. The mattress was springy and comfortable and the bathroom was clean and of the non-communal kind. And we had TV and air-conditioning. What more could you want from a dive-resort? Well, maybe more places to hang your equipment. But we made do with the balcony railings.

We did two dives on the first day. We dove in pairs (buddy-system) accompanied with one senior leader. I was paired up with my cousin, K, and our leader was Mr. H. Our first dive was off the docks. It was more of an adaptation process for the students. There wasn't much to see but there was a shipwreck at one point so that was interesting. We circled about half the island and took the boat back.

Our second dive, we took the boat out to Pulau Air and dove from there. Now here's what I find trickiest about diving. NAVIGATION. I mean, even my sense of direction on land where everything is perfectly visible is quite poor. Underwater is a whole different ball game. For one thing, everything is like, upside down. Do you know what I mean? Like, the sky is the bottomless pit of water below you. And the coral reef "buildings" stretch out towards the surface like they're hanging. Mostly, during these dives, my navigational strategy basically involves a game of "follow the leader's helpfully fluorescent fins".

To make matters worse, as we were doing the descending procedure, we were swept by a current and once we arrived at the desired depth ... nothing. It was blank. I mean, can you imagine? It wasn't like we were out in the open water (well, we WERE out in the open water) but open water isn't like standing in the middle of an empty football field and you can see all around you. It was like standing in the middle of an empty football field and there was really heavy fog. It didn't feel like an open space. I mean, I knew I was out in the open, but it felt extremely claustrophobic.

Anyways, Mr. H tried to get us back on track using his compass for a while. But after like 5 minutes, we just decided to surface. We saw how far we had strayed and kicked back to where we were supposed to be while still on the surface. We were joined by Mr. D, who was the sweeper for our party and the four of us dove together.

It was much, much lovelier than the docks. We dove on a slope it was like corals above and corals below and little fishies everywhere! It was awesome. However, it being pretty close to twilight and there was a slight breeze above, the visibility was (apparently) quite poor. Again, since I have no prior diving experience at anywhere better, I found it perfectly fine. Still very beautiful, even. There were fish of all shapes, sizes and colors, sea urchins tucked between colorful corals, and Mr. D even pointed out a pufferfish. It was really, really special.

We were the last one finished. I was flushed with the wonders of it all. Well, maybe not really flushed. I was probably pale and chattering with the cold since my skin-and-bones frame doesn't really tolerate even the slightest temperature change well (like, it was only 29 degrees Celcius underwater). But yeah, on the INSIDE I was flushed with joy at the whole experience.

The next day we took the boat out again to a different part of Pulau Air. It was fairly early in the morning so the visibility was much better. I saw a lot more stuff this time, nemo-fish, whole forests of sea-urchins, and even a fat, disgusting blue starfish. Starfish usually freak me out. It's all weird and bumpy and star-shaped. And not to mention the billions of little sucker legs under it surrounding its disgusting little mouth. Ugh, yuck. But still, curiosity got the better of me, and I paused for a moment to inspect it a little closer. K and Mr. H kept leaving me behind because I kept wanting to pause and inspect everything.

Our little trio dove for a LONG time. K and I are tiny little females with tiny little lungs and very low tidal volume. After each dive, we're always left with more than half a tank left while everyone else practically burns through them. This time we were the longest underwater, about 45 minutes. It was the best dive of the trip, while the next one was the worst.

Even from before we went on the boat, I had this funny feeling. That third dive was incredible and I had a bad feeling about this next one. That feeling kept nagging me all through the boat ride, then after I geared up and plunged in the water, I was instantly stung by like a million tiny jellyfish. I peered underwater with my goggles and I couldn't see anything. But I could feel them sure enough, like little pinches on my exposed hands and ankles. It itched like crazy.

Then the three of us had trouble finding a place to descend. The current was also quite strong. We managed to find a spot and land on the sand next to one of the other trios. We were supposed to kneel down and get our bearings for a while but everyone was kicking up a storm and the water turned murky. In the end, Mr. H just led us out of there and start swimming.

I'm not really sure what happened next. Maybe it was the current or maybe we just simply took the wrong turn or something. But suddenly I found the surface like mere inches above my head while the coral was mere inches below my stomach. The water was extremely shallow. I tried my best to dodge all the hard corals and like, FORESTS of sea-urchin. And then it got WAY shallow and we all just stood up. Well, not exactly stood up, we were wearing long, clumsy fins and had a 20 kg oxygen tank on our backs. The ocean floor was hard coral and it was ankle deep. And also, did I mention there were waves? Even though I had extra weight on my back, I was still light enough to get tossed around.

Needless to say I got pretty badly scratched up. The waves had pushed me further onto the reef than the others and I had to kick myself against the corals with my fins to push against the waves so I can get back to deeper waters. In retrospect, it was quite a necessary, humbling experience. I pretty much kicked ass at every other aspect of diving and I was kind of taking it for granted. If I was going to be a serious diver, I had to learn how to navigate myself and not just rely on someone to lead the way. I need to invest in a compass or something.

The difference between diving and any other skill I have learned in my life, is that I actually WANT to do this. I WANT to be good at this. Boy, it's a weird feeling isn't it? Ambitious is not something I'm familiar with.

Me and my buddy

Big (Unimportant) Dreams

2011-06-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

My life has been so cluttered lately. It's mostly school stuff, but other stuff too. It's like these crusty layers forming on my skin and I don't look like myself anymore. My identity now is like made up of these layers formed by my environment and the definition of myself is based on other people's perceptions. My goals and dreams involve being something to someone else. Like I want to be a great doctor, daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend. It's all for someone else.

And it's not as though I don't like being those things and that it sucks to want to excel at being those things. It's just that I'm also something else. It's like what that German philosopher, Immanuel Kant said about a ding an sich, which means "thing-in-itself", or a noumenon, which is a "posited object or event that is known without the use of the senses". Do you understand what I'm saying? It's like a characteristic of a thing at its very core, but not through the perception of an outside party. Like yes, I'm a doctor to a patient, a daughter to my parents, a sister to my siblings, a friend to all my friends, and a girlfriend to my boyfriend. But what am I REALLY, if you take away everyone else?

Lately, those crusty outer layers on my skin are eroding away and I start to rediscover who I am at my core. It wasn't even an immediate, conscious thing. It was probably around my second week of diving class that I fully realised how much I absolutely ENJOYED diving. I very rarely ENJOY things. The things I do usually either fall under the category of "mandatory", like school, or just like an indifferent "meh". But every Saturday I would get up early in the morning with a huge smile about going to diving class, and the rest of the week I'd be really looking forward to it.

And then I remembered, I've been wanting to dive for a really long time. It was one of my dreams. And it's something I want to do FOR MYSELF. This is something that I wanted to do. ME. It's not for or about anyone else.

And aside from the diving thing, I also have these dreams about being a baker. I want to be able to make all these tasty cakes and sugary snacks. I have all these fruity cupcake ideas, or cheesecakes and tiramisu. I looked up these macaron recipes and was suddenly overcome with feelings of intense ambition (and I'm probably the least ambitious person in the world). Like, I was SO going to nail this! Nevermind that experienced pastry chefs had to make them 7 times to get it right. I, a person who couldn't even get cupcakes right, was going to make macarons. Yeah, right. But still, I really, really wanted to achieve this.

These dreams are quite unimportant. They don't benefit anyone else in any way possible. In fact, they don't even benefit me at all. They're time-consuming, cost a lot, and in no way affects my career in a positive way. You could say they're completely and totally pointless and a huge waste of time and energy. But I like it. And that makes it okay, right?

What I Did This Summer

2011-06-16T10:18:00.001-07:00

I really need to break this curse of not writing what I promised to write in previous entries. So here goes, these are the movies I watched during my incredibly productive (and even I don't know if I'm being sarcasting or not) five-week holiday:

Little Manhattan
This is an incredibly cute movie. It's a love story between two adorable little 11-year-olds set in Manhattan. The boy character narrates the story in a wonderfully endearing way. It's written really well and the two kids cast as the main characters give great, believable performances. I'm not sure whether this is a kid movie or not because no kid movie I've ever watched was this clever. But it's very PG-13 and can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
I hate 80's music. I hate 80's fashion. But what the 80's lack in those areas, they make up for in awesome movies. It's the genius of John Hughes. It's sooo much fun to watch. That Ferris Bueller is quite a character. He's deviously clever, confident albeit slightly cocky, and the young Matthew Broderick portraying him is crazy handsome. Great movie, loved it.

Breakfast at Tiffany's
This is like a 60's movie right? So that makes this like the oldest movie I've ever watched. I was never really a fan of really old movies. And what I've found about old movies is that they don't really follow the usual template of newer movies. I'm not sure how to explain this. Like you know how you can sort of get the feel of a movie's plot or dialogue? Well, I can't do that with old movies. It's a whole different experience. Anyway, I found Breakfast at Tiffany's to be a very pleasant movie. Audrey Hepburn is insanely gorgeous. I wasn't paying too much attention to the plot (I mean I got the gist of it, it's pretty simplistic), and instead I was enamored with all that was Audrey. The way she moved, talked, dressed, everything. It was grace, personifed. And I want those ray-bans.

Pretty Persuasion
You know how I'm a fan of Evan Rachel Wood. I would watch anything that had her in it. So this time she portrays like this evil girl who frames her english teacher for molesting her and her friends. Pretty murky stuff. This entire movie kind of sits on the line between darkly humorous and uncomfortably inappropriate. I can't seem to decide myself which of those two can best describe this movie. But Evan Rachel Wood is as usual, amazing.

(500) Days of Summer
I really, really like this movie. But that Summer girl is a total bitch. And she's like abnormally ultra-cool, ultra-hip, yet also manages to be supercute and adorable. A pretty typical Zooey Deschanel character. Weirdly enough, the boyfriend and I had a post-movie discussion about this and while I seem to think of Summer as a total bitch, he seems to think Tom is a total idiot for not anticipating all that trouble. Nevermind the plot and characters I guess, because what I liked the best about this movie is the storytelling structure. The way they jump back and forth in the timeline and still maintain this solid, uncomplicated storyline. It's genius.

Love and Other Drugs
I don't know, there seems to be this trend of romantic comedies where they have a girl and a boy, and the girl just wants to have casual sex and the guy is totally into it at first because, well, he's a guy, and then the guy starts to fall in love and the girl's all appalled at first but then realizes she's a girl and all she wants is like a really good guy who's totally in love with her. Aside from this, there's also that Ashton Kutcher-Natalie Portman movie, and soon after there will be that Justin Timberlake-Mila Kunis movie. But well, there's a lot of nudity for audiences of both genders so it's a fun movie for you AND your boy/girlfriend.

My Ocean Girl Obsession

2011-06-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a fish. I have overidentified with everything watery ever since I learned how to swim. Which is at a late age, I might add. I first had swimming lessons at around 7-8. But it was like a half-assed thing with an Indonesian teacher. And let's face it, people around here don't really take swimming seriously. Flopping around and not drowning qualified as successful swimming. I never REALLY learned how to swim until I was 10.

In 5th grade swimming class, the sports teacher exiled me to the shallow end of the pool because I didn't know how to swim properly. After a gruelling summer of endless laps in an Olympic-sized swimming pool at the University of Queensland, I came back to school and announced to the sports teacher that I was ready to join my classmates at the deep end and follow the curriculum. The guy gave me a thumbs up and hugely praised me. That was probably one of the proudest moments of my young life. Nothing like peer pressure, right?

Anyways, I found myself drawn into the whole water thing the way I was drawn to poetry-writing. It was just something that clicked. It was something I was immediately good at, like naturally. Now granted, I wasn't like the best swimmer ever. I never liked racing and I never won any swimming competitions. For me, swimming wasn't about cutting through the water as fast as you can. It was about the serenity of flowing with the water, the silence, the steady breathing.

So naturally, whenever I'm in the water I hardly ever do laps. I can't even do a freaking tumble-turn properly, or even a proper race-dive off a block. I mostly do tricks. Handstands, flips, underwater diving tricks, the signature duck dive from Ocean Girl, that lame Australian TV show that I embarrassingly love. I visualised myself as more of a twisty-turny sea lion rather than a fast, powerful dolphin. And man, did I wish I could breathe underwater. I wanted to be a freaking mermaid (which, wouldn't you know it, was my ultimate favorite Disney princess since before I can even remember). When I swim with other people, I try not to let it show how excited I am about being in the water. It makes me look like such a dork.

The first step of my fishifying plan was done on January 2009. I went swimming with the fishes (not in the mafia-sense). My friends and I went snorkelling in Bali and we made friends with the little fishies. The next step, scuba diving. Which I'm doing right now in the holidays. I'm taking lessons at the local pool with my cousins and sometime next month we'll be going to an island somewhere to dive. It's going to be LEGENDARY.

I had my first lesson today. There were a bunch of people in full scuba gear just hanging out by the pool or diving 5 metres down to bottom. And I was like, "these are my people!" Humans have this tendency of wanting to go where the environment doesn't suit them, like pilots in the air or astronauts in space or divers in the water. I don't get why people would want to imitate birds and fly. I have a thing about heights. But I TOTALLY get why people would want to imitate fish and dive. And looking around the pool today, it was a bunch of these like-minded people and suddenly it's like my dorkiness about water doesn't seem so dorky after all.

Sequels Galore

2011-06-07T02:25:00.001-07:00

It is now three weeks into the holidays and I've basically been saturated with all the stuff I've been wanting to do. I went through a pleasantly exhausting marathon of TV shows: three seasons of Dawson's creek, House season 7, How I Met Your Mother season 6, and Modern Family season 1. Then there was a bunch of movies, which I will hopefully discuss later in the month (hopefully I'll actually get to do it since there's this curse that renders me incapable of following through with my posted promises).

In this entry, I will focus on the books I've read during the holidays. I haven't been reading in a while. And by reading, I mean reading actual books that you can carry with one hand or stick inside a stylish purse, not those heavy medical textbooks that weigh as much as a small child. My absence in the book-world has rendered me cluless as to what's hip with lit-nerds these days, so I decided to play it safe and get the recent sequels to books I've already read.

Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Sequel to Freakonomics
This is basically done in the same format as its predecessor and the basic gist of it is the same. Each chapter deals with a particular quirky question about how the world works seen through a quirky economist's eyes. Equally clever and slightly wittier than the first one. And the interesting bit is, all the chapters come together in this mind-boggling way to deal with the final issue at the final chapter, which is global warming, so it's not quite as separate and random as Freakonomics. Moderately recommended, especially if you enjoyed the first book

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
Sequel to Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...
Holy shit these guys are funny. I can't believe those old geezers could write in such a hilarious way! While Plato and a Platypus deals with the whole basic concept of philosphy (if there is such a thing (refer to final chapter)), Heidegger and a Hippo deals with a slightly specialized topic, which is life and death and the beyond. Weirdly enough, the jokes they use to teach the philosophy aren't really that funny. It's the commentary between them that leave me stunned at their comic genius. Highly recommended.

Let's Play Doctor by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg
Sequel to Why Do Men Have Nipples? and Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?
Hmmm, not their best work. They should have stuck to the basic idea of the first two books, which is like coming up with random questions about the human body and answering them in a hilarious yet accurate way. I wouldn't mind reading more of that. They were good at it. Instead, they attempted to make something like an amusing layman's shortcut to medical know-how which ended up trying way too hard to be funny. I got bored before I was even halfway through. Although, it did have some useful tidbit about tonsilloliths, an affliction I often suffer from (wow, that was probably the most personal thing I've mentioned in a long time, and probably the most personal thing I will ever mention indefinitely).

Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer
Sequel to The First Six Artemis Fowl Books
Let's leave popular-science-ville and return to young-adult-hood. I didn't particularly enjoy the Artemis Fowl before this one, The Time Paradox. The plot wasn't believable and the main characters were grossly skewed. Which is why I didn't approach the Atlantis Complex with much enthusiasm. It wasn't until the boyfriend finally caved and bought it that I thought I might as well read it. It surprisingly didn't disappoint. The action, witty repartee, and familiarly lovable characters are all back. I suppose 7 is a come-back number for these young adult fiction authors. James Patterson also bounced back with the newest Maximum Ride novel, Angel.

New Obsession: Macarons

2011-06-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

I never thought I was much of a sweet-tooth. Snack-wise, if I had to choose between something sweet or savory, I would choose savory. Potato chips, crackers, fried stuff, basically anything with cheese. But lately I've been having a thing for desserts. Chocolates, berries, buttercream, fondant, all that sweet, sticky goodness. And of all desserts, there is nothing I am craving more right now than the egg-white-based cookie sandwich so pretentiously named, MACARONS.

It' a cookie sandwich, let's get right down to it. It's not like The Aphrodite Dessert they have at The Press Club (which is supremely pretty and tasty-looking by the way). It' a cookie. Sandwich. So why in heck have I only found two places in this town that sells the stuff, and why is it so goddamn expensive? The ingredients don't seem very expensive. Wait, how much does almond flour cost? It's basically egg whites and whatever flavor happens to be in season, right?. Is it because it's so difficult to make? Yeah, it's fiddly but it can't be harder to make than a chocolate souffle, which they sell everywhere by the way. I mean, like, McDonalds in Europe sells macarons for God's sake.

And yes, I'm probably a little late jumping on to the macaron band wagon and probably most people are off it at the moment because they're too busy jumping on the sushi or magnum ice cream or whatever band wagon is hip with the young people these days. To be honest, I just haven't gotten around to tasting the little buggers because I was never much of a sweet tooth. And now, gaaaah, I would sell my big toe for a macaron right this minute!

Note 1: if you're wondering which is the correct spelling for these tasty treats, like single or double o, then I suppose you could say that both are correct in the english language. However, since "macaroon" is also the name for a certain type of coconut cookie that resembles nothing at all to the French macaron, most bakeries prefer to use the single o spelling to name this egg-white cookie sandwich. As for the pronounciation, beats the hell out of me.

Note 2: Also, for those of you who didn't watch a certain Masterchef Australia episode, this is what an Aphrodite Dessert looks like. It's a white chocolate mousse with a liquid rose and raspberry centre sitting on baked chocolate biscuit surrounded by frozen berries, edible rose petals and various jellies. Delectable, no?

Back to my Animal Roots

2011-06-01T00:43:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure what to write. This particular entry will be a more of a visual kind. I know I have a tumblr which I use strictly for photos, but if I only put up animal pictures there, it makes me look like such an animal nerd. Having said that, I am a huge animal nerd. And since it's the holidays and all, I've been watching Animal Planet and National Geographic a lot. And there's this awesome tumblr which has all these great animal photos. A few of my favorites are reposted here:

Newlywed owls. This is all kinds of adorable

Hamster butt

Parrot with an identity crisis. Imma bee, imma bee, imma imma imma bee...

The cat that looks like Lord Voldemort. He had some type of skin cancer and had to have his ears and part of his nose amputated.

The cutest monkey in the world

Partying, Partying, Yeah!

2011-05-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

Waking up late. Breakfast cuisine experimentations. Marathons of House, Dawson's Creek and Modern Family. Ass permanently glued onto the bed. Yes, people. The medstudent is on holiday, for all of 5 weeks. Hells yeah. Sound the trumpets, release the pigeons, start the parade!

There's so much I want to accomplish in these 5 weeks. I'm absolutely combusting with excitement considering all the things I have been almost literally DYING to do during the endless school weeks. All those downloaded movies and tv episodes! All the pent-up poems and story ideas! All those books I haven't read! All that sleep I owe! My God, it's amazing I haven't exploded with excitement yet.

And you know what the scary thing is? I've ended up replacing that lengthy to-do list of deadlines from all those school weeks, with an equally lengthy to-do list of things to do in the holidays. I'm actually putting pressure on myself during these holidays to get those things done. How fucking scary is that? I can't even allow myself to just breathe and relax during the holidays. I have to make new deadlines, even though the activities involved are holiday stuff like watch this movie, or read this book.

Geez, has medical school totally broken me to the point that I can't even function without deadlines and to-do lists hanging over me?

Farewell to the Jaysters

2011-05-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

My group fucking rules. I'm sure every single fourth-year medstudent will say that about their group. Which, if you want to get all think-y about it, either means that everyone (or at least the majority) has found an social environment that suits them or that everyone is inevitably bound to have strong emotional attachments to whichever group that find themselves in. Regardless of which theory seems to fit best, I still stand by my initial statement, which is: my group fucking rules.

My group has a highly skewed boy-girl ratio. Out of the 26 people in a our group, 20 are boys. The resulting effect is a close-knit group of girls without the formation of sub-cliques, and also a highly relaxed environment filled with juvenile male humor. It also helps that not even a single person in our group can be branded as "back-stabbingly competitive". Or even ambitious. We are a bunch of like-minded lazy-asses though we still manage to be very reliable and have great follow-through.

And as much as I breathlessly yearn for the year to end, I am sad to have my time with this incredible group of people end. On the very last Friday of school we planned to watch a movie and have dinner, paid with the leftovers of our monthly collection. We watched a stupid Thai movie in which the main chick character was said by the boys to bear striking resemblance to me (I instinctively punched one of them in the gut for saying so). Then we had dinner at KL Village. It was lovely, full of fun, laughter, and cigarette smoke.

Geriatric Medicine: Mentally Aging Medstudents

2011-05-03T02:07:00.001-07:00

It is finally upon us, the dreaded one. The dark spot in the year in which every fourth-year medstudent sleeps very little and gets way too intimate with their laptops. GERIATRIC MEDICINE *cue thunder*. Why is this particular department such a nightmare, you may ask? Well, it can all be explained in three words: assignments, assignments, assignments. It's inhumane just how much shit they've got us doing.

But worry not, I have a plan. (In fact, I probably spent more time planning it than executing it). I have listed everything by priority in a day-per-day basis so that I will always have something to do. No slacking off permitted! Also, I'm going to be so fucking intimate with my laptop, my boyfriend is going to have issues. I'll be carrying it everywhere so that I will not have even a moment of idle time at school, including in class. This is where the 1 kg HP Mini contraption comes in handy. Suck on that, 3 kg Mac users. (To MacBook Air users, shut up, no one was talking to you!)

So, I should be diving right back into all this geriatric insanity now. But before I do, here's a cheesy quote from one of my classes for you to munch on:

"We do not add years to life, but we add life to years"

D'awwww. Now try this one on for size:

"An Internist is a master clinician, the diagnostician, the doctor trained in the basics of super-specialties of medicine, someone totally familiar with the heart, the lung, the bowel and the kidney, someone trained to decide if a skin problem is the result of joint disease, if the murmur might represent cancer, someone who understands the aged, knows when to welcome death and when to fight, knows both to hold a hand and pound the chest, someone able to step beyond the boundaries of organ systems, or a technique, into the realms of diagnosis... his or her gift for diagnosis flows from a sound knowledge of science of super-specialties and from the art of the medicine."

I found it taped on the glass door of the Geriatric Division of the Internal Medicine Department. Pretentious, no?

Maroon 5 Live in Jakarta

2011-04-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

For the first time in a many years, I woke up with a smile. I went about the dreary routines of the day with gladness and few grumblings. For I knew later that day, I would be attending a great event in which one of the "major bands" of my musical preference would be performing live. Maroon 5, ladies and gentlemen. Granted, one of my more mainstream musical preferences, but I will take that mainstreamy-ness in all gladness, for it is that trait that makes it all the more possible for them to have a concert all on their own, instead of some stupid closer for a barbaric music festival *cough-dashboardconfessional-cough*.

Anywhose. Let's skip past the boring-ness of my everyday life, namely school, and go straight into 5pm later that day. Can you believe it? The show started at 8pm and I showed up 3 hours early. I was sitting at the tribune section. I've had mixed feelings about this seating arrangement. Yeah, I chose this particular class for financial reasons. But then I started to think how I would miss out on the concerty sensation of being in the festival section. All doubts were cast aside however once I got there, cause no way in hell was I going to stand up the whole 3 hours of waiting just to maintain my position. I mean, some people were already starting to pass out and the show hasn't even started yet.

Boy, 3 hours was a long time. Then a few minutes past 8, the lights were out, the music started, and hey, ho, hello there! Adam Levine leaps out onto the stage, the crowd erupts in wild screaming ... and the sound short-circuited my digital camera and it fucking BROKE! Well, no way in hell was I going to try fixing it while Adam Levine is RIGHT THERE and singing his heart out for me. That would just be plain rude. I left it alone and just enjoyed the show, though I knew I would regret not taking pictures later, but I have other people who can do that for me.

The show opened with Misery, the standard pop version. Well, I was hoping they would do a nice, mellow acoustic version that I'm partial to, but this was good too. After that, they cranked out If I Never See Your Face Again, and Harder to Breathe, without so much as a break, and it made me wonder (haha, get it??) if they were one of those bands who just hid behind their songs and didn't interact with the audience. Well, they weren't exactly. After those three songs, they managed to find time to greet us. The usual stuff interspersed with a little Indonesian here and there to win the hearts (somewhat easily) of the audience. Standard stuff. You know how easily amused we are by foreigners speaking the local language.

So I'm not going to do a play-by-play of each performance, because if you were there, you don't need it, and if you weren't, well, I'm not going to take away the pleasure of regretting not being there, hehe. I was already familiar with the newest album, but they did play two of my less preferable songs, like Give a Little More and Stutter. But I swayed and sang along politely anyway.

Oh, it should also be mentioned that I was sporting the beginnings of laryngitis, which was not helped by the fact that I haven't drunk anything in the past 3 hours since beverages aren't allowed inside the venue. So to avoid another bout of post-concert voice loss - *cough-dashboardconfessional-cough* - I limited my sing-alongs to mouth-alongs, and my cheerings to low-frequency whoo-hoos, which unfortunately sounded more like booing. My apologies, Adam, you understand, right?

Anyways, back to the show. The more memorable performances were:
1. The Sun. Which is like THE SONG. Thank God this is like Mickey Madden's favorite song to play. I love this song. They mashed it up with Billie Jean which was interesting. And the best part is, not many people even knew the lyrics to this song so there wasn't a lot of interference noise-wise to the performance! Awesome!
2. She Will Be Loved. Performed acoustically of course. The best part of this song was the rousing sing-along that involved basically every single person in the building. It was quite an emotional thing, like all, what, eight thousand people in one place swaying and singing the same words. It was incredibly magical.
3. Hands All Over. The first encore song. This is my favorite song off the new record

Three things you should know about Adam Levine. The first, is that he is incredibly good looking. Not in that god-like absolute way like Chris Carrabba. But in that marketable, rugged, male-model way. This I've always known. And even though he moves around rather unmanly-like and does these little hip movements that are as fruity as his songs, obviously these things don't deter the female exuberance. The second, one I hadn't realised until the concert, was that Adam has a BEAUTIFUL voice. It's powerful, effortless, and stable throughout the entire performance. It's like, PERFECT. Lastly, also newly-realised post-concert, Adam plays guitar really well. Like geez, this guy could be a one-man band.

Another thumbs up for this concert: the lighting was amazing. Kudos to whoever was in charge of THAT.

Turtle Carapace

2011-04-24T08:28:00.001-07:00

I finally figured out why I have this sudden fascination for turtles of late. It wasn't because it was the first animals J and I bought together. And it also wasn't because turtles are immensely adorable little green creatures.

Turtles can do what I have been wishing I could do, more and more often lately. When the world gets all tough and annoying, turtles can just retract their head and sharp little feet into their sturdy shell and wait until it goes away. God, I wish I could do that.

Knock on my shell all you want, you lousy shit-bastards! You can't hurt me in here! I ain't coming out so you might as well go the fuck away!

Ninja Turtle

Neurology: Nervous About the Nervous System

2011-04-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

There's a reason why the koas dorm room (sort of like an on-call room for us students furnished with beds, air-conditioning and surprisingly clean bathrooms) is located directly in front of the neurology department.
1) If the night shifts had a theme song, they would be "No Sleep Tonight" by the Faders, or according to my friend, "I'm A Slave 4 U" by Britney Spears. They also have a bed in the classroom, supposedly for demonstrative purposes, but it has often been used to steal sleep. Every minute counts, so might as well spend it sleeping on a comfy bed
2) All the teachers are incredibly busy. Invoking medical students with neurological know-how is not very high on a neurologists' list of priorities. One of the two options usually happen: they're more than an hour late, or they don't show up at all. Rather than waste energy sitting around sleepy as shit on uncomfortable chairs in the classroom, might as well spend the hour getting some quality sleep on a spring bed at the dorm room. Leave a sentry in the classroom to call you immediately when the teacher shows up, and you suddenly appear in the classroom lickety split as though you had just taken an ill-timed bathroom break.

As a study, neurology is very anatomical. Which would make one think that I would be all over this and procure a surprising A like I did in first-year neuroscience. But no, I'm as stupid about this as I was with all the rest. It's the night shifts. They render me completely non-functional the next morning, even with a misusive dose of Panadol Extra (500 mg paracetamol, 65 mg caffeine). Had I been given more time to study (and had there not been some personal crisis happening right before the case exam), maybe I would have totally rocked this shit. But alas, my state of mind - both emotional and cognitive - was not in the right place.

And also, my case exam was moved from Thursday, to TUESDAY!!

There were some positives for this situation: a) I had some sort of excuse for not being a total genius about this compared to other people because I had two days less to prepare, and b) I could totally spend the next two days chillaxing while everyone massively freaks out about their respective exams. But to obtain those things, I had to be examined by the uber-genius of a doctor who drilled us (I had a partner) for FOUR consecutive HOURS about incredibly detailed things that I have not even thought of to study, let alone study at all!

And the whole myth about wearing purple to get a good grade with that guy was a total crock! (Or maybe my shirt wasn't purple enough)

Gotta Love the Local Products

2011-04-14T03:32:00.000-07:00

This is directed to a certain person who keeps messing it up whenever he tries to make it for me. Indomie really is the best thing in the whole entire world, thanks to, in large part, to that perfect amount of monosodium glutamate. And if done the Sindi way, even better!

What you need:
1 packet of Indomie Kari Ayam
1 pot filled with JUST enough water to slightly submerge the noodles. No more.
1 egg

Steps:
1. Put the water-filled pot on the stove, put on high heat. Meanwhile, take the packet of Indomie Kari Ayam and break into roughly 8 equal pieces.
2. Open the packet and retrieve the little seasoning sachets. Put the oil and dry seasoning into the boiling water and stir until even. DO NOT insert the chilli seasoning.
3. Now you may put the noodles into the pot so that it cooks in flavorful broth (and NOT plain water). Meanwhile, prepare the egg by putting it into a little bowl first so it doesn't just plop violently into the pot. Make sure the yolk doesn't break
4. Once the noodles are slightly plump, gently slide the egg into the pot. Stir around the egg whites so they separate and cook thoroughly. Don't let it stick to the bottom of the pot. And keep the yolk intact.
5. Once the noodles and egg whites are done, pierce the egg yolk with a fork to let in some heat. Let it cook for a few more seconds then turn the heat off.
6. Get a nice pink bowl and pour the noodles into it. Scatter the fried onion over it attractively.

DONE! Easy peasy.

Grrrr, I'm hungry now.

*edited on June 10: for extra yum, add cheese. Because cheese makes everything better. One cheese slice is the perfect amount. Tear off into little pieces and scatter over noodles while the egg is cooking. Delicious and nutritious!

Pulmonology: Mycobacterium, Soto Betawi and Altruism

2011-04-01T22:08:00.001-07:00

Pulmonology as a study is far from the interesting intricacies of Cardiology. And RS Persahabatan as a hospital is far from the super-hip ultra-coolness of RSPJN Harapan Kita. Nothing really stood out except for the palpable infectious-ness of the atmosphere and the conscious feeling that you're inhaling concetrated amounts of Mycobacterium tuberculosis at every breath. Hence the twice-daily chuggings of UC-1000, just to, like, ease my mind. And despite that, I still managed to get sick in the end (the usual pharyngitis stuff, not TB (I think)).

Oh and also, across the street from RS Persahabatan, there's this really amazing soto betawi which is like, the best tasting soto I have ever tasted in my life!! And I only got to eat it twice! Agh, the regret!

But never mind that. At the end of Pulmonology, during exam week, it was confirmed once more, the thing that I have known for a long time. The fact is, that strangers have a larger capacity for kindness (to me at least), than people who - let's just say would claim themselves as NOT being strangers to me.

A disaster struck less than an hour before my final exam, due to my own idiot stupidity - like, I'm so fucking embarrassed of this blunder that I'm not even gonna tell you about it -, and these strangers offer the kind of support, understanding, even solution options, that I doubt people who are not strangers would give. Why is that, do you think?

Anyway, all's well that ends well, even though I screwed over some people on the way, even though those people weren't even mad at me, which is baffling to say the least. Am i just like a horrible person to think that if anyone else had done to me what I had done to them, even if it was an honest mistake, I would treat them harshly? I felt like I deserved much, much worse than what those strangers gave me. And I felt like the non-strangers would give me those much, much worse things i deserved.

Self-loathing really is my forte, isn't it.

PS: stop smoking, bitches

Funny Shit

2011-03-30T02:38:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a funny twitter account called @Lord_Voldemort7. Yes, I suppose it's very outdated of me. But seriously, this shit is hilarious. The blog is also worth checking out.

I Write Sucky Shit

2011-03-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

Guess what! Guess what!

I wrote a poem! Yeah!

But ... it's kinda bad.

It's been like a million years since I wrote one. Thanks to the ever-time-consuming medical school nonsense I'm into these days. And with it, strips away all my poem-writing capabilities. I swear, I write like I'm freaking fifteen now! I'm not good at this anymore. You know what, forget it, don't visit my poetry blog. It's dead now.

Go on, tear me a new one. CLICK HERE!

Double Two's

2011-03-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

It seems that I have accepted my age. I am twenty two. Twenty two. I can say it again, TWENTY TWO!!! Mind you, this isn't a sign of great enthusiasm of being said age. Assuredly, I am NOT enthusiastic about aging. But I am also, in all gladness, not being a whiny bitch about it. I am ... indifferent.

Jaded, I guess is the right word. What used to bother me to the point of hysteria about aging was the fact that I didn't feel like I had the necessary capabilities in correspondence to my age. Like I wasn't functionally an adult, merely biologically.

But this past 9 months or so, I have been working, sort of. Not that I get paid. But I was doing actual labor. Not that my labor was necessary, really, to the well-being of the company I work for (hospitals). It's not like they would fall apart without me. Hence, the not-being-paid-ness of it all. But it was labor, nonetheless, and from that, experiences. There were responsibilites, and I was glad to find out that I'm a fairly responsible person. Not that I'm ambitious. But it's a huge step up from cutting 80% of my classes during the preclinical years.

So am I twenty two? Yes, I'm twenty two. I just wish I made money.

Never mind that. What about that crazy, raging party that I had to celebrate my birthday? Well, it involved me doing a crazy case presentation on exudative pleural effusion, then a raging night shift at the emergency ward, placing nebulizers on asthma attacks. Fun fun fun. Seems like I'm not too old for sarcasm.

Upside? An onyx turtle necklace from the boyfriend. Sweet.

Cardiology: Gonna Miss It

2011-03-11T06:51:00.000-08:00

Hello holiday weekend! That would be a normal 2 day weekend for most of you normal people. But for us 4th year medical students, it's 2 whole days free of studying, assignments and emergency shifts!! It's a holiday! Time for sleep! Time for hanging out with friends and boyfriends and family! Time for blogging!

Man, I'm gonna miss cardiology. This is definitely one of my favorites. Above Anesthesiology but still below Emergency Medicine (because laziness always wins), so this is placed as second. Yaay cardiology!

It's not even because I rocked at it, because I didn't. I'm probably more stupid about this than some of the other departments. Cardiology is just a very interesting discipline. I've always been interested in the physioanatomy and pathophysiology of cardiology since 8th grade where we dissected a cow's heart. And in all my naivete, I had ambitions of being a cardiothoracic surgeon.

Yeah, those dreams quickly poofed away when I reached the preclinical module of cardiology and I was just like, what the hell is this shit?? And that's when I became more interested in orthopedic surgery. But now, in the ultramodern, superhip, overly-ac-blasted National Heart Center Harapan Kita, my visions of cardiothoracic surgery were rekindled once more.

Today, I just finished the gruelling exam week, during which I was ailed with an irritating bout of fever and rhinopharyngitis, which was made worse by the inhumanely freezing working conditions. Last night I stayed up until 2.30 in the morning finishing up 3 patient statuses for a portfolio exam. It was worth 10% of the entire grade. I wasted precious sleep time for just 10%!!!

And then, I had the incredible misfortune of being graded by the infamous dr. Y, who apparently is one of the best cardiologists in the world (arrythmia expert, no less), who is also the father of someone in our grade, and was notorious for his incredibly detailed questioning, stingy grades, and had a habit of sending people out of the examination room if they don't know the answer, and giving assignments in order to pass his tests.

And I was up first.

And yet ... it wasn't so bad. I guess I was just expecting the worst and dr. Y's reputation precedes him. I didn't even get an assignment (while the other 3 out of 5 of us got assignments), even though I felt that I didn't answer the questions all that well. I have this thing where I get all tongue-tied in trying to explain my point. I have difficulty choosing the right words and like, arranging them in a coherent manner. But I guess dr. Y managed to understand my alien speak. I came out of the exam room all smiles much to the cheers of my friends, hehehe.

My friend, R (you remember her from the ENT post), had the incredible luck of scoring an exam with Professor B. He is like the cutest grandfather ever! He sees us like we're his grandchildren and whenever he talks to us, his eyes get all wide and light up and he starts smiling really widely. And getting an exam with him is like not getting an exam at all. All he did to R and the others in her group was ask if they found their cases interesting, and if they knew any good music. And then he starts singing Taylor Swift's Love Story.

Man, I'm gonna miss cardiology.

Imminence of the Ides

2011-03-01T06:37:00.000-08:00

Ah, the Ides of March approacheth. In Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar was warned to beware the Ides of March. And rightfully so, because he ended up dying on it. Thus should be the only significance of that date.

Don't get me wrong, I still kinda do get excited about my birthday. But it's for a strange reason. I try my best to keep my birthday top secret from people, and I get this odd thrill if people forget or don't know it's my birthday. In fact, I'm kind of looking forward to my birthday, just so I could see people ignore it, and go through the day like it's any other day, while I giggle to myself, knowing that it's not. Yeah, I'm just a little bit psychotic.

But of course, there will be people who will never forget it. Like for instance, the woman who went through intense amounts of pain on this day just to get me out here. And she's all like asking me to write up a wishlist on what I would like to receive on my birthday. I'm turning freaking twenty-two (I actually have no problem about my age now, I do feel quite old and I feel like my youth is slipping away from my fingers and my life is about to be over). It seems absurd to write up a wishlist of birthday presents at this day and age.

It's not that I don't want anything. It's just that there's nothing I want that can be bought with a reasonable amount of money. Here is my REAL wishlist:

1. More than anything, I would love to have more time to do the things I love, like reading, writing poems and short stories, play the guitar and write crappy songs, learn to cook, do arts and crafts like beading and sewing, listen to music, and of course hang out with the boyfriend!
2. A bigger brain capacity and to be completely without need of sleep
3. All the songs, diary journals, poems, short stories, photos, videos and chat logs that I lost along with the death my beloved Fujitsu laptop
4. The ability to teleport so I don't waste my life on the inhumanely congested roads of this wretched, overcrowded city
5. A deep, unwavering passion for the career I have chosen and great big ambitions to succeed at it.
6. A car

Baking and Cake-ing

2011-02-27T20:54:00.001-08:00

So for Valentine's Day, I thought it would be a good idea for the boyfriend and I to do something together. Valentine's Day, for some inexplicable reason, means chocolate. And J and I both love cheese. So I came up with the brilliant idea of making chocolate cream cheese truffles.

Ingredients:

3.5 cups powdered sugar

8 ounces softened cream cheese
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup cocoa powder, for rolling
Preparation:
1. Pour the cocoa powder into a shallow pie pan and set aside.
2. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and microwave it until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. Set the chocolate aside.
3. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the softened cream cheese and powdered sugar. Beat the mixture on medium speed for a minute or two, until well-combined.
4. Stop the mixer and add the melted chocolate. Beat until combined, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
5. Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover it with cling wrap, and refrigerate until the candy is firm enough to scoop, about 20-30 minutes.

6. Once the candy is firm but not hard, scoop it into small balls using a teaspoon or candy scoop. Roll the balls in the cocoa powder and place on a plate or into an airtight container. When stored properly in the refrigerator, these truffles will keep for up to a week. For best taste and texture, serve these truffles at room temperature.

It's just chocolate, right? Melt, mix, shape, done. Can't be too difficult. What could go wrong?

Answer: a lot!

Apparently, this isn't like baking from a tried and tested recipe from my mother's cookbook, where every minute detail has been adjusted so that everything turns out just right and perfect. Apparently new recipes need to be calibrated to suit the variations in different possible ingredients available. Like for instance, I think the cream cheese I got was more watery than the recipe intended, so that the truffles never set even after hours in the freezer.

The truffles were supposed to look like this:

Instead we were left with something like a chocolate cheese cake. It still tasted really good. But it just wasn't visually satisfactory.

Talk about visually satisfactory. Check out this cake! It's a heart cake so it's fitting for Valentine's Day right? Does it look gross? I'm kinda hungry right now so I am finding this quite mouth-watering. Especially after reading the description:

red velvet sponge cake with cream cheese frosting and blackcurrant and raspberry sauce

Mmmm, delicious!

Popular Science

2011-02-18T22:18:00.001-08:00

I'm happy to say that I have grown up (though not by much). It used to be that the books I enjoyed reading came from the young adult section with titles like Artemis Fowl and Maximum Ride and Animorphs and Twilight and such. And even though I still hold those books in high regard, I'm happy to say that I have found a new genre in books that I prefer.

POPULAR SCIENCE

What is that you may ask? It is an nonfictional, informative book, presenting studies of various topics in an entertaining manner. For example, the following books discuss economics, medicine, and philosophy, and make it sound really fun and hilarious.

Freakonomics. Economics is seriously not my strong point. But this book has nothing to do with the economic crap they teach at school. It's more like a an approach to analyzing events using the very, very basics of economy. Incentives, supply and demand, that sort of stuff. It's all very trivial and stuff. But very interesting.

Why Do Men Have Nipples. This also has very little to do with the medicine they teach at school. It's not as educative as Freakonomics, but it's far more hilarious. The psychologist-doctor duo who author this book write the most random phrases, and has these bits in the books where they banter and exchange quips and it's the most hilarious thing ever.

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar. This is basically like an Idiot's Guide to Philosophy. And even though after reading this book I have a better understanding about the subject, my understanding is that philosophy is the discipline where people think unnecessarily hard about unnecessary things. But thinking isn't a bad thing. And this is a very clever and funny book that will open your eyes a little wider on your way of thinking.

Psychiatry

2011-02-09T07:37:00.001-08:00

Psychiatry to most people in my grade is like the calm before the storm, a time to have that final rest before the three month marathon of the four major departments. The schedule is very easygoing and the teachers understand fully of the dangers of overstress, so they're very reasonably nice to all of us and have a strange ability to smile the whole time they're talking. And of course, many of us find the patients extremely entertaining in their craziness and make for excellent lunchbreak stories.

Many of us do not include me. Well yes, I do find them quite entertaining at times. Mostly if told by other people. I'm not a very good storyteller. But the dominating emotion I feel whenever I interact with mental patients is not of amusement, it is pure envy. They psychiatric ward is locked at all times, the doorknob detached and kept by the orderlies. There's a sense of captivity around the place. And yet, in that physical captivity, I sense a sort of mental freedom. The patients there can feel and act however they want, without social restraint. Of course there is a medical restraint, but at this point in my life, I can't imagine sedation to be anything but welcome.

I look at the whiteboard on which the weekly schedule for all the patients is written. It contains the slotted time for various activities such as reading, drawing, watching tv, morning and night medication, even a slotted time for conversations with the orderlies. It might sound ignorant and insensitive, but it sounds like a spa retreat. No wonder celebrities enjoy going to rehab. It must be a wonderful break.

I guess this is a pretty bleak outlook. At times, I cautiously toss out the idea to some of my colleagues of the seemingly preferable living conditions of crazy people. Sometimes I wish they would just declare me crazy already so I could act out and actually express what I'm feeling. But it seems like I'm the only one who feels this way. Whenever I'm interviewing a patient, I feel like such a hypocrite giving them counselling about whatever they're going through when I feel like I'm just as crazy as them. Just better at hiding it.

Sorry about the gloominess. Psychiatry is so not my cup of tea. I hate it. I can't wait to get out of here and get to the real medical stuff. Cardiology, wait for me!!

In a Fishpond Sense of Things

2011-01-25T05:06:00.000-08:00

You know that question right?

Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond, or a little fish in a big pond?

Before I reach my answer, I must consult a few highly reliable references. Paris Hilton stated something (sort of) similar. She was of the opinion that it is better to be a rose in a bed of roses, than rose in a bed of coals. Or something to that effect. Which is to say, big fish, big pond. Sure, I guess that would be ideal.

Another socialite (albeit a fictional one), Blair Waldorf was also quoted stating something along the same lines. She said, "I have to present myself as a crown jewel, surrounded by other smaller, slightly flawed gems, but quality stones nonetheless." So I guess to put it in a fishpond sense of things, she prefers being a blue whale in a pond made for humpback whales.

But let's just stop right there before this stops making sense completely (this whole analogy is falling apart what with fish turning into roses and gems and back to whales). What if there were only those two choices? Big fish in small pond, or little fish in big pond?

Looking back on my history, it seems that I tend to gravitate toward the big ponds, even though I'm perfectly aware of how small a fish I am. Junior high school was a pretty small pond. Then in high school, I moved into a bigger pond in which my rank in school dropped dramatically. After that, I made the strange choice of entering one of the most difficult faculties in the country (huge pond!). On a whim, no less! And now that I'm here, I'm eyeing the more difficult departments in which to specialise, like cardiology or surgery (GINORMOUS POND!!!)

And yet, I'm a pretty small fish. Maybe it would be easier and it would feel a lot better if I moved into a pond my own size. Or maybe a few sizes smaller. Who knows? It's my own fault for preferring big ponds. I just gotta stop complaining about how small I am in it. After all, it's not about the size, but how you use it right? (And now we're onto another analogy so I better stop right here).

Dermatology: Gossip is What Women Do

2011-01-24T06:38:00.000-08:00

Ugh, another department dominated by women. Is it because I'm a girl? Do guys find it fun being surrounded by beautiful, smart women doctors? And then there's also this slightly disturbing observation where men doctors tend to be nicer to girl students and women doctors are nicer to boy students. So maybe because I'm a girl, I find it difficult to be in a women-dominated department.

Men doctors are very good at yelling and getting mad and making huge amounts of noise. But they're rarely mean. Women doctors are MEAN. If men doctors are like those slapstick thingies that clowns use in the circus (like it makes a huge slapping noise but doesn't hurt at all), then women doctors are like little needles that find the soft spots in your armor and really stick it in there where it hurts.

Anyway. I'm really kind of bashing my own gender here. Because another thing that women do that I can't stand (even though sometimes I fall prey to doing the same thing), is GOSSIP.

There was huge drama in the Dermatology department. Far too long to relay in this entry, and that would be gossiping anyway. But seriously, it astounds me how middle-aged intelligent women doctors are still prone to the same bitchy habits as those snooty 15 year olds I met in junior high school. They talk about each other behind their backs, talk about other doctor's personal baggage to us students like they're trying to make us lose our respect for whoever they're badmouthing about. But in the end, it's our respect for the ones who are doing the badmouthing that disappears.

Of course, I also have to do some self-reflection. Sometimes my double x chromosome gets the better of me and I fall prey to gossiping. But I try to avoid it as much as I can.

Otorhinolaryingology: Say It Fast Ten Times

2011-01-04T23:56:00.000-08:00

In terms of theory, ENT isn’t that difficult (relative to other departments of course. Relative to plants vs zombies, it’s still hell on the brain). The anatomy is all tricky and small, but I’ve always been good at anatomy and I caught on fairly quickly. The daily schedules aren’t so stressful and are conducive for learning. The exams and examiners aren’t so frightening. All in all, this comes in third so far, out of my favorite modules (the first being Emergency Medicine, and second Anesthesiology).

However, a friend of mine, R, considers this one of her most hated. She dubs this a practice of “peering into small bodily holes containing viscous fluid”. Sure, everyday in this place we encounter snot, phlegm, earwax, and saliva in every color, consistency and odor imaginable. But somehow, I don’t find that so bad. During Forensics, R can stick her arm into a rotted corpse and be elbow deep in decaying guts but she’s openly gagging at a little snot?

New Year's Eve

2010-12-31T19:46:00.000-08:00

People who have no plans on new year’s eve are like single people on Valentine’s day. They will insist it’s just a normal, unimportant day that warrants no celebration or special treatment of any kind. I do have plans on this day. A whole day with the boyfriend and dinner with the family. But it doesn’t go on all the way until midnight. Am I disappointed? Probably. But sleeping is a nice thing to do too.

These days, I’m just glad I actually HAVE a day off. Not going to school, having no night shifts is a cause for celebration in itself. These days, a school-less, hospital-less weekend is like a little holiday. Very highly anticipated, like cake day at fat camp, and met with a huge, loud groan of relief. Being idle is a most beautiful thing.

Back to new year’s eve. Everytime I come across some sort of annual celebration of something, I wonder at the actual need of it to be celebrated. Like for example, birthdays. Why in the world do I have to celebrate my birthday? It comemmorates the day I was born. Therefore, is it like, congratulations you’re mother went into huge amounts of pain during labor delivering you into this world? It also marks every passing year I have lived, so is it like, congratulations you managed to stay alive for this long? I get presents, so whatever I guess.

So for new years, what are we celebrating? Congratulations, we haven’t managed to destroy the world just yet? Oh but wait, 2011 isn’t the age of the world, it’s … what is it? Somebody give me a history lesson to shed some light on this thing.

Okay, so maybe you romanticists will tell me it’s a “new beginning”, like a marker in your timeline of life to look back on the things you’ve done and attempt at doing or being something better in the future. Now tell me, how many of you have actually stuck with your new years resolutions?

I have never made any new years resolutions. Maybe I should start. But then again, I can’t think of anything at the moment. It’s not really me being narcissistic and I can’t think of any way to better myself. I just can’t think of any concrete way to do so. Of course I want the next year to be "better", that I would be a "better person" and do "greater" things. But anything more specific than that? Meh, I think I’ll just stick with sleeping. Sleeping is a gift. One shouldn’t waste it.

2010 Reflection

2010-12-30T14:55:00.000-08:00

The year 2010 is nearly coming to an end. Probably the most difficult year I have yet to face. Even the start of this year was tumultuous in ways only I and a certain other person can recall. And it didn't get any easier as the months went by. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing though, that we went through those stuff. It made us stronger and solidified our relationship. But of course, it's easier to look back on the bad stuff instead of having it all around.

And in other aspects of my life, namely school, 2010 was the year I've grown the fastest in the shortest amount of time. The first three years of medical school was a complete and total breeze compared to the last five months. I mean, what the hell have I been doing the past three years? Skipping class and sleeping in and stepping foot on campus only when we have exams. Ungrateful bitch was whining about nothing. Welcome to the real world doctor-to-be. Look around, IT SUCKS.

Here's the thing though. As much as I find this whole doctor thing to be real pain in the ass and I find myself wishing I wasn't on this path numerous times, I can't bring myself to regret my decision. Look at the person I have become! This is not who I would be if I had gotten into Economics Management or Architecture. The person I was in high school was immature and spoiled. And I probably would have continued being that way if I had chosen another path. In Medicine, I grew.

On the other hand, this whole thing is like the hazing week in freshman year. As unpleasant as it is to go through, it's a great character-building experience which I don't regret in the slightest. But the best part of hazing week is that it ends. And you come out of it stronger and more capable. This whole medicine thing will never end. This is what I will DO with my life. And it's a little bleak thinking about it that way.

Cutting a diamond will make it shine and sparkle. But keep cutting it and there will be no diamond at all.

Eating Ourselves to Death

2010-12-28T09:11:00.001-08:00

I follow Psychology Today on twitter. Is that pretentious?

Here's an interesting article I found:

"In order to understand how eating ages our brain, we must first ask why are our brains located in our heads? Wouldn't they be safer if they were deep in our chest, similar to the location of our hearts? Brains, regardless of how small or simple, have evolved at the best possible location to perform their principal function: survival of the individual and the species. With very few exceptions, brains are always located at the front end of an animal's feeding "tube" or mechanism, which in humans and many other organisms is the tubular system (the alimentary canal) that extends from the mouth to the anus. Your brain makes it possible for you to find food by sight, sound, and smell and then to organize your behavior so that the front end of your feeding tube can get close enough to taste the food and check it for beneficial or potentially harmful contents before you ingest it. Your entire feeding tube and associated organs, also known as the gastrointestinal system, use nearly 70% of the energy you consume just to make the remaining 30% available to the rest of your body. Your brain uses about 14% of the available consumed energy, and your other organs that allow you to reproduce and move around your environment (including your muscles and bones) utilize about 15%. As you can see, very little energy is left over for other tasks in the body.

The food we eat must be metabolized, a process that requires the oxygen in the air we breathe. Unfortunately, our most basic acts of survival, breathing and eating, are what age our bodies and our brains. If this sounds like the proverbial damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario, well, it sort of is, and yet somehow our species has managed to survive this challenge for several hundred millennia.

Like most other animals on this planet, we humans acquire energy for our biochemical machinery by breaking down the carbon bonds found in fats, sugars, and proteins and then gobbling as much energy from the process as possible. The fact that we do this so inefficiently means that much of the energy in our food is lost as heat. This process also leaves our cells with left-over carbon atoms. The problem is what to do with all of this carbon waste. More than 2 billion years ago, the solution for a small independently living single-celled organism, which might have closely resembled our own mitochondria (the furnace that handles almost all of our cells' energy production needs), was to combine these left-over carbons with a readily available gas, oxygen, and to expel the product as a gas called carbon dioxide. Thus, thanks to our current symbiotic relationship with the descendants of these ancient bacteria, our mitochondria, the way our bodies obtain energy to live is as follows: carbon bonds come into the front end of our feeding tubes in the form of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins; we then extract energy and excrete the residue as carbon dioxide and water vapor.

Because oxygen is also exceedingly toxic to cells, it must be utilized very carefully and conservatively. Indeed, scientists have recently discovered that the genes that control energy metabolism have been highly conserved across millions of years of evolution, from yeast to humans, and that these genes influence the rate of the aging process. Essentially, the better we negotiate our energy-oxygen exchange with our indwelling mitochondria, the longer and healthier we live as a single individual and as a species. Disrupt the balance in this exchange, and the impact can be harmful.

In general, the hemoglobin in our blood does a decent job of regulating the oxygen levels near the individuals cells of our bodies so that those cells have the oxygen they need for respiration but not too much to kill them outright. These cells have also evolved numerous anti-oxidant systems that would allow us live to be 115 years old, if we were lucky and ate very, very little food. But most of us are not that lucky, and most of us eat all of the time and just keep on breathing, making ourselves vulnerable to the consequences of oxygen. Thus our bodies and our brains age more rapidly.

With normal aging, because we insist on eating and breathing, tissue-damaging molecules called oxygen-free radicals are formed by our mitochondria. Free radicals are not always harmful; however, they become more prevalent with age and may slowly overwhelm our natural anti-oxidant systems, destroying our neurons and just about every other cell in our bodies. According to another recent discovery, the overproduction of these oxygen-free radicals may encourage cancer cells to metastasize and move around the body. Think about the unbelievable irony of this process: The mitochondrial power plant that resides in quite large numbers in every cell of our bodies is actively injuring those cells by the very process of trying to keep them alive. It turns out that each species' maximum lifespan may be determined by how many free radicals are produced by the hundreds of mitochondria that live in each of their cells. We are, indeed, always our own worst enemy."

Maroon5 Concert Ticket Acquiring

2010-12-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

The magic of twitter. I don't care what anybody says about it being another lame social network designed to feed on the narcissistic adolescent impulse of documenting every unnecessary thought that wanders idly through the mind or another murderer of that abstract concept of privacy. I very much enjoy it. I feel so plugged in and up to date on things that really matter to me.

Like for example, Maroon 5's plan of taking the stage in Jakarta in April 2011. I mean, if I didn't find out about it on twitter, how else was I supposed to know? By a redundant billboard announcing that it was already sold out? And it's not like I hang around people who are huge fans of it. So thanks to a nice retweet by someone who I later will find out to also be an avid fan, I was given sufficiently early warning. It gave me time to prepare my case to my mother.

Ticket sales opened on December 5th at the promotor's house at 9am sharp. I was like, it was probably safe to get there by 7am right? The house wasn't even that far from my house. So i set my alarm to 6.30 am and as soon as I woke up, I opened up twitter. And for the love of all things holy, the promotor had tweeted that he had just woken up an hour ago and the driveway of his house was PACKED. I read further down the timeline and it turned out that the girl who's retweet had informed me of this event in the first place, FA, had been lining up at the house since 3-FREAKING-AM and was first in line along with 3 of her friends.

I go back to the top and read that a girl had just asked FA if it was still possible to start lining up now. To which FA replied, "well, I doubt that you'll get the presale tickets, but I'm sure the normal priced ones are still available". Yeah, I was after the presale tickets too. It costed Rp 100.000 less than the normal ones and was only available at the promotor's house. Tickets could also be bought online at normal prices, but only begins at 9am. I've talked to a lot of people and they all decided to skip the riot that would probably be the promotor's house and just purchase it online. The prices weren't that much different anyway.

So those were my choices. I could wait until 9am and purchase it online along with all the other lazybums and risk the website crashing because of all the sudden traffic. Or I could go over to the promotor's house and take a number, but I had to do it NOW because with every minute that passes, who knows how many places in line I've lost. Not to mention I kept mulling this over and asking people, including FA if they could purchase 2 tickets for me (since the maximum is 4 for presale ones). But no, this won't be like the New Moon premiere. I can't rely on others to line up for me. I had to do it myself.

So I got out of bed and took the car to Pondok Indah. The instructions on twitter were easy enough. Not to mention there was also a crowd there and some security which were hard to miss. It wasn't PACKED though. It was just a normal crowd. I approached one of the committee guys and he gave me a number. 691. Yeah, that's convincing. After the first 500 non-presale tickets, you can buy as many as you want. Do the math.

Then I met my cousins. They also got numbers of in the late six-hundreds. The promotor guy who's house they were using was standing around in the driveway so my cousin and I asked him about our chances. He told us that with numbers like ours we might as well go home and come back at like 11-12, and not to worry because he will be tweeting the progress of the ticket sales. I asked, "but after the first 500 tickets, people can buy as many as they want right? What if we don't get tickets?" To which he answers with a laugh, "well I won't be selling like 20 to one person. But hopefully you'll all get it. We'll try to make it fair." But in all rationality, what does it matter who it gets sold to, as long as it's sold right?

So no, I was still skeptical. I got home with my number in hand, and decided to have a backup. I was going to sit around the laptop at 9 am and purchase it online. It was like a flashback to when I was choosing groups for the clinical year. Thankfully though, the website didn't crash. But I did have a moment of panic when the confirmation email went into my spam folder instead of my inbox. And the payment for it was a little fiddly since I didn't have a BCA bank account and had to ask my uncle for help. But two tickets was in hand, and I was happy.

I returned to twitter for a little gloating and found two things. 1) The promotor decided that the non-presale tickets will also fall under the maximum-4 rule, which meant that I could have obtained two tickets with my dubious 691 number. And 2) a friend of mine, FL, was in dire need of tickets since the website crashed like 2 minutes after my purchase was confirmed. So, being the really nice person that I am (or kind of a bad person that needed to stock up on karma points) I contacted her saying that I had a number she could use.

So there we go. Happy endings all around. I had my tickets. I managed to help out someone who was looking for tickets. And April awaits with a concert in the middle of a school week, right at the beginning of the Geriatric Medicine module, which was notorious for its sadistic assignments. Awesome!

Ophthalmology: Look Like a Flower, Sting Like a Bee

2010-12-15T06:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the minors. I wonder if doctors of minor departments would take offense at that. The eye is such a tiny organ though. And in its tininess ends up being incredibly complicated and fiddly. "Oh, it's so easy diagnosing diseases of the eye!" insist the people who have been doing this for decades. "All the signs are right there for you to see and you don't even have to guess at anything, unlike other organs!" Sure, but we have to peer through the patient's pupil, which is basically a really really tiny hole, with a crappy rental ophthalmoscope reserved for us lowly co-assistants.

In theory, ophthalmology is pretty straightforward. All eye diseases can be classified into five or six main categories and from there a diagnosis can be built up by asking the right questions. In theory. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at asking questions. I mean, the patient is like right there in front of you and I'm like blanking out and I end the round of questioning and move on to the physical examination and the questions I'm supposed to be asking suddenly pop up in my head and I'm not doing anything in order. I'm very not with the systematic.

Anyway, let's not get into the disaster that was my ophthalmology patient exam. I mean, despite the fact that I had the nicest consultant doctor grading me, the resident who was supposed to coach me was like the queen bitch from hell.

And you know why the consultant doctor was so nice? Because he's a guy. And you know why the resident was so evil? (haha, evil resident, resident evil, get it?) Because she's a girl.

The ophthalmology department boasts the most beautiful doctors in the hospital, including the dean of medicine, who even though is of a certain age, still "had it" according to a guy friend of mine *shudder* (to be honest, she scares me a little because she kinda looks like my boyfriend's mother). And not to mention the younger residents who are all with the flowy black hair and the stylish short skirts and the clickity clackity heels. But they're ALL EVIL I TELL YOU!

And yet, strangely enough, the most beautiful one of them all, is the also the nicest, kindest one of them all. It's a little bewildering. One time during class, she was in the middle of explaining something about diabetic retinopathy when her phone rang. She turned it off and continued talking. She TURNED OFF HER PHONE. Because she was in the middle of teaching us. US. Fourth year medical students. Somebody could have been dying! (well, maybe not. Ophthalmology, you know. But somebody could have been going blind)

"The eye is the window of the human body through which it feels its way and enjoys the beauty of the world. Owing to the eye, the soul is content to stay in its bodily prison, for without it such bodily prison is torture"

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Emergency Medicine: Good Doctor, Bad Doctor

2010-11-29T03:09:00.001-08:00

This module is composed of three departments, Pediatric Medicine, Surgery and Internal Medicine. As a co-assistant going on night shifts, this is a pretty interesting arrangement. Since each of those departments have their own specialized co-assistants (who are not us), we're merely like guests visiting for a few days. We have no boss, no supervisor, therefore we can come and go to the emergency room as we please. I liked this module

And this is where I met that strange, baffling person, dr. W. Is there anybody at my faculty who wouldn't know who this is? Or wouldn't go "ah" or "hmmm" with pity or fear or understanding at the mention of his name?

I had the immense luck of having dr. W oversee my morning report. I wasn't even the only one who had to do it. This other guy, AD did the night shift with me. But no, him and the other guys in my group hid behind me while I did the presentation. With dr. W like right in freaking front of me.

So why the fear and trepidation? Let's just say, dr. W has a certain way with words. He has this thing where he has like 7 synonyms for the word "idiot" and he spits it out all in a row in less than 2 seconds. It's his catch phrase so to speak. And he bestows this beautiful compliment to all of us every other minute. It's kind of hilarious.

After that encounter, I don't believe dr. W is evil or anything. He's just a little strange. Aside from that catchphrase, (which by the way, he delivers with immense hate, he's just looking at all of us spitting, like literally SPITting it out, like he literally hates us, it's baffling) he hands out all these cheap shots. Like for example, I'm so stupid because in high school all I did was choke on bakso Bulungan. Which didn't leave me hurt in the slightest, I just wanted to counter it with, "um sir, bakso Bulungan didn't open until I graduated from 70 so that doesn't even make sense, and also, I don't even like bakso at all." So really, it wasn't like we were trembling with fear. We were laughing the whole time. And not the nervous, fear-induced laugh. It was more like a "fuck, this guy is insane!" laugh.

The thing about dr. W is, it's all sticks and stones. I mean, underneath all that, you'll find that he actually teaches you something and you leave the room with more knowledge than before you entered. And that's not a bad thing. It's definitely better than mentors who are more soft-spoken but rather condescendingly tells you, "you've still got a long way to go, why don't you go read some more?" dr. W is more like, "YOU STUPID ****,****,****,****,****,****,****!!! THIS is what I meant!" *elaborates on something that makes us go "oh!" in enlightenment* "yeah, yeah, go "oh" yourself!! This is REALLY SIMPLE STUFF, YOU STUPID ****,****,****,****,****,****,****!!!"

The Third Thing

2010-10-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

I used to think that most things can be sorted into two categories: 1) Things You Want, and 2) Things You Need. But lately, I’ve found that there’s a third thing: Things You Should Have. How is it different than number two? Well, for starters, the things you should have aren’t necessarily things you need.

To “need” something implies that you require it for a certain purpose, and if you don’t have it then that purpose cannot be fulfilled. For example, you should have a watch to tell the time. But you won’t exactly be completely unaware about the time if you don’t have one. There’s such a thing as clocks hanging on walls, or mobile phones, or anything else really that’s capable of displaying the time. You can even use the sun’s position if you know how to do that stuff. Hell, you can even ask some random passerby what time it is. But it would probably be best if you had your own watch. It would be easier that way, wouldn’t it? To yourself, and society.

Society. That’s the rub. The third party that creates this third thing. They dictate what you “should have”. You don’t necessarily want it. You don’t necessarily need it. But in the end, the weight of society’s expectations gets too heavy on your shoulders and you end up wanting it, and needing it, just so you won’t have to feel that pressure anymore.

“Am I myself? If I’m myself then why am I not acting like myself? What is myself? When all I’ve ever done, all I’ve ever been was to please you. You must be myself, then. I am you. Myself ... I don’t know who that is.”

Anesthesiology: All About the Sleeping

2010-10-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

By now, I’m starting to feel slight envy for those who chose to get the difficult departments out of the way first (cardiology, pulmonology, neurology and geriatric medicine), because now they won't have to go through them again. Meanwhile, I have another year before I reach them and by then, I’ll probably be too jaded.

On the other hand, my entrance into clinical year is very slow and progressive, almost comfortably so. Like first, I start with dead people. There’s no need to worry about screwing up so much, they’re already dead. And now, I’m doing stuff to unconscious people, like intubating and setting up an IV line and stuff. But since I’m moving so slowly, my friends have already done things like a pleural puncture while the most advanced thing I’ve done is an arterial puncture. I console myself with the reminder that at this pace, my cranium should fill up nicely (which is more difficult and takes much longer to do) in conjunction with my clinical skills.

Anywhoo. About the anesthesiology. Everything about this department seems to about making people sleep, or at least heavily drowsy. In the lobby of the 6th floor Public Wing, there were these lovely plush couches with the fluffiest pillows and cushions imaginable. And I don’t mean those half-assed thinly-lined sofas whose frames would dig into your ass as soon as you sit on them. These are like major league couches. The couches at my house aren’t as nice as these. We spend a lot of time asleep on them during free time.

And how did I do on my first intubation of a real live (unconscious) human being? Well, the blade went in fine, but I was too afraid to pull on the laryngoscope any further for fear of like, dislocating the mandible and send it flying across the operating room. So I couldn’t see the vocal cords very well. But the epligottis was in plain view and I just slid the endotracheal tube right under it and it went in fine and into the right place. So, go me!

Forensic Medicine Part 2: I am More in Love with Alcohol than Ever

2010-10-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

I have voiced my interest more than once in becoming a surgeon. I even considered cardiothoracic surgery but I scrapped that notion about a week into the cardiovascular module during sophomore year. Hearts are all tricky and confusing. Now I’m setting my sights on orthopedic surgery. You get to work with saws and drills and stuff. Like a carpenter. But people have been saying I need to acquire some muscle and strength on this skinny frame to achieve this. Right now, I can barely open a bottle of water myself.

Anway, the point is, surgery seems to require a certain amount of knowledge in anatomy. And although anatomy has been my favorite pre-clinical class, I still can’t find my way around the insides of a human being. Therefore, the autopsy tutorials they offer in the forensic department is a great opportunity for me to poke around inside a human body. However, I am not too excited about the olfactory experience that inevitably comes with it. So far, I’ve only been dealing with preserved bodies that don’t smell rotten anymore. Another reason why alcohol solves many of life’s problems.

Do you know what death smells like? I can’t describe it well because I have never smelt anyhing like it before in my life. It smells kind of like garbage with a flatulence problem. It makes piss smell like fresh flowers and cigarette smoke like the most exquisite perfume on earth. And oddlyenough, death smells like ... yellow. You may think I’m having synesthesia and not making sense at all, since yellow seems like too cheery a color to describe death and everything. But really, why else would they have a YELLOW flag to symbolize death?

Fortunately, God in all his infinite wisdom has bestowed upon us the amazing power of desensitization. We are capable of getting used to a particular smell after being exposed to it for a certain amount of time. The worst part is the first few minutes within entering the autopsy room. The smell engulfs you like a blanket and the urge to throw up or hold your breath forever is overwhelming. DO NOT do either. The trick is to take shallow breaths at first and let your nose accept the odor little by little. Keep your mouth shut because the last thing you want is to TASTE the smell. Yes, you will gag numerous times, and you should let this normal response happen, but try not to ACTUALLY throw up. Soon, you will find yourself capable of taking longer, deeper breaths without gagging and after a while, it all becomes bearable.

Of course, as the autopsy goes on and the body cavity is opened up, new smells will hit you. The same principle applies to get over it. Wearing a mask is not advised because in poisoning cases, the characteristic smell is important to report. Unsurprisingly, the worst of the smell is contained within the bowels. Although, I have been told that the odor of a severely decayed brain is also quite horrendous. And another thing, try not to leave the autopsy room unless you don’t plan to return for the next few hours. You wouldn’t want to experience the desensitization process all over again.

After having done an autopsy, don’t think that you’re free from the smell. This is the kind of stench that follows you everywhere you go. And don’t think that one layer (or even three depending on the degree of decay) of gloves would protect your fingers. Soap and water won’t suffice. Instead, use those alcohol handwashes they have around the hospital (alcohol fixes everything). After that, change all your clothes. The head of department suggested we bring spare clothes everyday because we’re stinking up the classroom after returning from the half-rotten drowning victim autopsy.

Another interesting feature of this particular smell, is how deeply it’s imprinted in my brain. I don’t know if this applies to anyone else, but I know at least one of other person who feels the same way. Even when I’ve literally scrubbed my entire body clean (including the insides of my nose because one resident mentioned how the stench can cling to nose hairs), and I am far, far away from things that have seen the inside of an autopsy room, I can still imagine the smell vividly from time to time. It haunts.

But fear not, we’ve found that none of this diminishes our appetite for food. In fact, I’ve found myself eating more than usual because standing around an autopsy table for hours on end is hungry work. Clinical year is going to make me fat.

Forensic Medicine Part 1: Welcome to Clinical Life

2010-10-01T02:08:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, I should probably explain that med students in my university are allowed to choose which department to enter first for their clinical year. Afterwards, they must follow the order of departments according to the curriculum. Naturally, all the difficult ones are clustered together and we can’t just spread them out evenly throughout the year.

Forensic medicine was not the first choice for most kids in my grade, including the ones that ended up beginning their clinical year in forensics. I was one of the rare specimens who voluntarily chose this as their first. The crowd favorites were cardiology, dermatovenereology, psychiatry and so on because they didn’t want to save the difficult ones for last. Forensics was considered cake and deserved to be put last or somewhere down the middle as a time to wind down. I did not follow this public opinion for two reasons. 1) There was no way I could start off with something as challenging as freaking cardiology and I needed to build up to it gradually. And 2) Though probably resembling cake the most, forensics definitely was NOT cake.

Our day classes, though unpredictable and unorganized, kept us busy and sometimes ravenously hungry on days with classes dragging on well past lunch time. Our night shifts went well into the morning since criminal cases usually prefer to appear after midnight. And then there’s the weekend day and night shifts, so there won’t be even one minute of these three weeks where there isn’t at least four of us hanging around. The forensics department sure love having us around. But it’s not like it’s a toxic environment. The staff are quite friendly, the residents are more than happy to share wisdom with us juniors, and the consultant doctors are all quirky, hilarious weirdos who each have their own unique strangeness about them.

I suppose the major feature of this department is the whole dealing with dead people thing. As medical students, in anatomy lessons we’ve been exposed to human bodies formaldehyded to a crisp, beyond recognition. Admittedly, those preserved bodies aren’t very frightening since they barely resemble actual human beings. They were just stiff figures in various shades of brown, and depending on what day of the week it was, had a certain degree of sharp, formaldehyde-y odor (Mondays and Thursdays were the worst).

Old corpses were very easy to get used to. During those innocent pre-clinical years, I always thought that unpreserved deceased bodies in the morgue would be incredibly terrifying compared to those harmless, preserved ones we’ve been dealing with. I got one word for you: PUTREFACTION. Personally, the visual aspect is not too much of a bother to me. I have an ambiguity where I will squeal and literally cry like a little girl if I happen to see the process of violence occuring. Any kind of violence, even a mild stabbing in a nonvital area. But when it’s all done, and everyone involved is dead, I couldn’t care less how disfigured a human body could end up being, how much blood and guts are all over the place. As long as it’s not moving or making irksome crunchy, squelchy sounds, I am perfectly fine.

So I can deal with LOOKING at a bloated, rotting body of a drowning victim, or LOOKING at the remaining pieces of someone who got hit by a train or blown up in a bombing incident or mutilated in the most brutal way. What I CANNOT imagine dealing with is the SMELL. A body in decay has been described as the worst smell anyone can ever experience, a smell that sticks into every pore of your body and refuses to let go and follows you everywhere. And yeah, it frightened me. That was my biggest fear upon entering the forensic department: performing an autopsy on a rotten corpse amidst all that fetid stench. And an autopsy takes 3-4 hours.

As of now, I have participated in 5 autopsies, of which two were half-rotten drowning victims. How was it, you ask? Meh.

Shoe-laces and Suspicious Faces

2010-08-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

Gas stations in the morning reminds me of the sneaky road trips we used to take, but now I've outgrown my old, quiet sneakers and started wearing school-appropriate good-girl shoes that click and clack across the floor for everyone to hear, even though sometimes I find myself missing the silence and freedom of running in comfortable, sneaky sneakers.

Artemis Fowl For the 7th Time

2010-08-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am 21 years old and you bet your ass I'm still into this stuff. And it's not even the might-as-well-see-it-through-the-end thing like Maximum Ride. I still really, genuinely enjoy reading this juvenile crap. This is the 7th Artemis Fowl adventure. (Presented to you in my 7th post this month, which is like the highest amount of posts I've published in one month. It's like a new record. Not that it matters.)

I still remember back in freshman year of high school when I first discovered the awesomeness that is Artemis Fowl. And I would sit in the corner of my classroom, all quiet and antisocial, spending the whole day reading and ignoring everyone. And in the end, I managed to infect a bunch of people into reading it.

I'm not as fan-girly now as I was back then. I'm not ripping apart the whole city in search of this book as soon as I heard of its release, like I was before. I actually already found it, but unfortunately it was of the hard cover variety and I didn't want to ruin the display of my paperback collection. Also, I'm broke.

Also, Eoin Colfer kinda looks like an elf.

Friday Nights of Stark Difference

2010-08-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Last week’s Friday was one of the greatest nights of my life. While this week, it was a slow painful death that just kept on going. And it was all because of the radio silence that began at 5 am and ended at 9:30 pm. That’s like 16,5 hours. And we all know how much I HATE radio silence. Or at least, we all SHOULD know. But we all decided to disregard it anyway. Who cares that I spent the entire day in a complete state of worry? Who cares that I had an incredibly exhausting week and had to continue plowing on through the Friday night in a state of weariness and uncertainty? Who cares that I waited at that place for more than 4 freaking hours, hauling around an incredibly heavy bag, barely eating and drinking anything, before I even received any news?

But I digress.

I passed the time watching Salt. It wasn’t as bad as some people were making it sound. Maybe because I was watching it by myself and I could really concentrate on it. The story was compelling enough, it didn’t have to make that much perfect, rational sense. The action, though highly ludicrous, was quite entertaining. I hated the ending though. You know how in movies, you kinda get the flow of the plot and you can feel the imminent ending? Well, not for this movie, not for me. I was literally stunned to see the credits roll up after the movie ended and I literally stared blankly at the screen going, “That’s it???” There was no resolution to the story. At. All. It literally felt like someone had stopped the screening in the middle of the movie.

The movie took about an hour and a half. I spent the next two hours or so finishing up a novel by Jay Asher called Thirteen Reasons Why. It’s an incredible book. Teen literature, but not of the vampire or gossipgirl kind. This was more in the league of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, dealing with real life teen issues. This time it was suicide. So Thirteen Reasons Why is a about this girl who kills herself and had prepared a set of tapes that she sent to thirteen people on whom she blames her death, explaining to them how they affected her. It’s very well written and incredibly suspenseful. This book is highly, highly recommended.

But those two things could only distract me for so long. Soon, the world became clear and sharp again, and a certain absence and radio silence was digging holes into my chest. I started watching people as I passed by them at the mall and I was astonished at how many guys there were. Guys in groups, guys with families, guys on dates, guys wandering alone. So many guys.

And I wondered what they were all like. Were they the kind of person that made habits out of making girls feel the way I felt right then? I watched them closely and they all seemed so ... innocent. They all seemed like Clay Jensen, the main character from Thirteen Reasons Why. The nice guy. The good guy that insists that he is different from all the jerks out there. The sweet guy convinced that he would be a much better boyfriend than that jerk the beautiful girl’s currently going out with, and would definitely treat her better. Nice, good, sweet guys, with their frayed jeans and low-slung backpacks.

I know most of the guys out there consider themselves as nice guys. I’m sure that in their minds, they’re absolutely certain that they are incapable of hurting a girl in any way. They’re such nice guys after all. Wrong. In every guy – no matter how nice he is (or believes himself to be) – there is that potential to cause pain. Even when they don’t realize it. And sometimes, they can’t even control it. It’s just ingrained in their creation.

Haha, at times like these, it’s difficult to believe that girls and guys are even compatible to be with each other. I’m not saying they can’t be together. I’m just saying, it’s a constant struggle. Girls and guys are just too different. Maybe that’s where homosexuality comes from. I don’t know. All I know, is that I’m a girl, and I am this way, and I expect certain things. And in dealing with guys, I guess patience is the greatest weapon a girl can have.

A Whole New World

2010-08-19T03:16:00.001-07:00

It’s August right now. Am I a butterfly yet? Or am I just still a butt? A butterfly butt sticking out of its cocoon, not yet emerged, but getting there. I suppose this whole life journey is one huge transformation. But at times, the changes are stagnant and slow, and sometimes it picks up speed and you’re going through such huge changes during a short amount of time. And thrown into situations like those, it’s sink or swim. Adapt or die. Jungle law. Survival of the fittest.

Some changes seem tiny. Like upgrading my flippy Miami Ink limited edition gray Motorola Razor with a dragon tattoo on it, to a Blackberry Gemini. It eases the long distance relationship anxiety. Also, the car with which I learned to drive, the cute-as-a-button blood red Suzuki Swift was abruptly sold and traded in for a more family-friendly black Livina. That was totally hearbreaking for me. But even more devastating was the death of my dearly beloved 3-year-old baby, the black-on-black 10-inch 1kg Fujitsu laptop. And now, I am typing up this post on a new silver-black HP contraption whose monitor can’t open up all the way to 180°, whose abysmally short-lived battery couldn’t even be ejected while the monitor was open, whose desktop background couldn’t even be changed! Oh Fujitsu, baby, how I miss you.

And other changes were quite big. Like the end of my pre-clinical years, and the subsequent plunging into the real world of patient-handling in an actual hospital. Shudder. I haven’t actually done the plunging yet, but I’m up there on the diving board, getting last-minute instructions. And I am trying as hard as I can to pay close, unrelenting attention to the final coachings, hoping to God that I remember them and actually manage to pull them off when it’s time for me to take the leap. But it’s just too much. Maybe I just need to plunge already. Again, shudder.

But this last change was quite bizarre, quite random, quite unexpected, and I really don’t know what to make of it. It was the zombie-return of the corpse I buried a long time ago. A grave I sat on day and night to make sure it didn’t rise again, until a certain someone took my hand and helped me leave it. But I never forgot about it. I always remembered what I buried, where I buried it, and why I had to do it. And for a long time, I thought it was dead. I thought I never, ever had to see it again. It was almost like it never existed, not in the real world anyway, only in my mind as a distant memory of my past. But it came back. And it didn’t attack me and eat my brains, even though I totally deserved it. It just passed by me, acknowledging my presence with a slight nod, then left and went on its zombie business.

And it’s driving me nuts. Now I see that zombie everywhere. And I want to know what it’s doing at every moment of the day. Is it after me? Does it remember what I did to it? Does it still think of me now and then? My observations so far have come up negatory. The zombie simply integrated itself into the world, MY world, and acted like a normal human being. And everyone was treating it just like a person who came home from a long vacation. But no, I killed it! And it came back to life! And I wanted to know why it was walking around like everything was okay.

It’s driving me nuts.

Brown

2010-08-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

What a plain word. Like an adjective for such dreadfully boring, bland things like dirt and wood and cardboard boxes. I’m a writer. I should be able to come up with a better word to describe that particular shade of colour. Coffee. Mocha. Caramel. Chocolate. Hazelnut. Chestnut. I’m sitting at a Starbucks right now and everything around me is a shade of brown. But none of them is right. Tan. Copper. Amber. Russet. Auburn. God, that all sounds so gay.

But you know, I look into those eyes and the only word I can come up with is: brown. Your eyes are brown. Not dark brown, not light brown. Just brown. But it’s not enough. They’re not just brown. Blech, such an unremarkable word. They’re BROWN! An impossible colour to describe. It’s darker around the rim, but clear as glass, with flecks of black. I could drown in them.

E-Book Reviews Part Two

2010-08-06T00:21:00.000-07:00

Fang by James Patterson

The sixth and final(?) installment of the Maximum Ride Series. I’m just continuing this because I already got too invested in it and I might as well see it through to the end. The first and second book, The Angel Experiment and School’s Out Forever respectively, were incredible. Well written and suspenseful and everything. But then the third started to get a little strange. The fourth and fifth got even stranger and made even little sense. And by the time this one came out, I didn’t know what to make of it anymore. Either the series took a seriously bad turn, or maybe I just grew up. It's just really lame now.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Don't bother buying it. Just download the thing. It’s an interesting read. But nowhere near like a must-have. It centres around the character of Bree Tanner (duh), you know, the vampire girl newborn that got killed by the Volturi at the end of Eclipse (oops, spoiler (not so much)). The beginning was booo-ring. Yeah okay, it’s supposed to be part of the book’s purpose to describe the conditions of Riley’s vamp camp. But I was never really curious about it to begin with. I guess when I was reading Eclipse I was more enamored with the whole Bella-Edward-Jacob drama and not so much with the living conditions of insignificant vampire newborns. It gets interesting in the last few pages though, when the scene gets familiar and we see it from a non-Bella perspective.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

I can see how Dan Brown’s book can be received in two general ways. 1) Total snooze-fest with all the lectures on history and conspiracy theories and the blahblahblah every few pages. Like get on with the action already! Or 2) a greatly interesting read with real-life factoids interspersed with engaging suspensful action. I am of the numero dos kind, because I am a huge nerd. I like reading about history (the fun kind, not the full-of-dates-to-memorize-for-school kind) and this book also discusses theological issues which for the most part align my own views. So. Awesome read and all, but I still can’t ignore the one giant flaw in this book which is like, how the hell does Robert Langdon find the time to elaborate on history and symbolism and stuff when he’s all wrapped up in time-sensitive situations??

The Supernaturalists by Eoin Colfer

From the creator of Artemis Fowl. It’s about this kid, Cosmo, who runs away from an orphanage which uses its kids for product-testing, and joins a gang of Supernaturalists, people who fight these invisible creatures which suck the life force out of people. It’s set in a really glum, depressing future where all the problems of today are magnified, like poverty, corruption, overpopulation and environmental damage. It’s a good story with lots of twists and turns. There’s a lot of action, but it's the actual fighting and violence kind, not the Artemis-Fowl-esque cleverly sneaky heist stuff.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Kristen Stewart did the movie based on this book and that’s how I found it. It’s about a girl who went through a huge trauma during the summer party before high school and is now alienated from her peers. It’s a great read. Written in a very simplistic inner-dialogue kind of way. It's very brain-friendly in its easily-digestible-ness. But it's not at all dumbed down. The simplicity of it makes the impact of the story that much deeper.

I am a Whedon Nerd

2010-08-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Can somebody please be Whedon-nerd buddies with me? Anybody? I have torrents for the entire Buffy TV series, Season 8 graphic novels from volume 1 to 35, and I even have three out of the four soundtracks, including the Radio Sunnydale Music album and The Musical, Once More With Feeling. I have the first season of Angel on DVD and the torrents for the 5th season. I also have the first half of the Angel Season 6 graphic novel, and I’m thinking of downloading the rest, but it’s a little off, don’t you think? Nowhere near as good as the Buffy one.

And where do you stand on the whole Spike-Angel thing? I’m more of a Team Spike. He scores major cool points what with the voluntary acquirement of a soul and all. Angel’s soul had to be forced onto him kicking and screaming. Not to mention Spike can have sex – I’m sorry, “perfect happiness”, all he wants without risk of losing it. Plus, cheekbones, yum.

Whedon taught me the meaning of tragedy. I mean like, his tragedies are nowhere near as devastating as say, Shakespeare (to this day, I still refuse to accept the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet). But like, the whole shit-happens policy is just so stark in the series. Buffy sending Angel to a hell dimension like two seconds after he regained his soul. Tara murdered right after she got back together with Willow. Anya getting hacked by a Turok-Han when things started to get better with Xander. Spike getting all immolated right when Buffy was starting to really love him. Cordelia transforming into a higher power right when Angel was about to profess his love. Connor getting snatched away just when Angel was beginning to have happiness as a father. Oh and Fred! How could I forget Fred destroyed by Illyria just when she and Wesley were starting their relationship. Aaaargggh, the disgusting tragedy of it all!

It’s just like, does anything ever go right, like ever??

Anniversary

2010-08-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

J and I have been together for a year(ish). Is that cool or what? We sort of celebrated our anniversary on July 18. Unlike most people here, we don’t really have an official date and time marking the very moment we got together. It was a lovely, blurry process that took weeks sometime in July-August. I love that about us. J never did the whole asking-officially-like-with-an-actual-direct-question crap, and I never had to provide an actual yes or no answer. Our relationship didn’t begin with something akin to an inquiry of whether someone would like their eggs scrambled or sunny-side-up. It was a coming together of hearts: unspoken, only felt.

But yeah, it does pose some difficulty when it comes to when to celebrate stuff like this when you don’t have a definite date. On the flip side, we can get all flexible about it and celebrate it whenever it suits us!

Hmmm, I miss the guy so much right now.

E-Book Reviews Part One

2010-07-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

In my destitution of late, I have cut back on certain luxuries. Some were harder to bear, such as the bi-monthly purchases of new clothes or like, daily sustenance. Others were a little easier, like books. Apparently there’s such a thing as e-books and if they’re well-known enough, you can just look them up on 4-shared or something and voila!

Sure, some would argue that reading on-screen is such a pain in the head and it’s a whole other experience reading bound pieces of paper. And yeah, I agree for the most part. Especially for poetry. I’ve written before that words have an evocative nature that lies beyond its linguistic meaning. Like the physical form of the word itself carries a mental imagery that is unique to that particular word. For example, two synonymous words can conjure different images and feelings simply because they are spelled differently.

Anyway, for poetry the reading-on-a-laptop-ness of it all interferes with the reading experience and I would choose paper over pdf everytime. Maximum Ride on the other hand, not so much. Here are some of the titles I’ve been reading on-screen (plus tiny reviews?).

The Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan

Do NOT watch the movie, no matter how dreamy Logan Lerman is. The books rule in epic ways the movie knows not. If you watched the movie without reading the books, don’t be hasty in your judgement of Mr. Riordan. I assure you, the total crappiness which engulfs the movie does not pertain to the books on which it was based. I already mentioned most of the blasphemy in my short review of the movie.

The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Hm, another book made into a movie. Rarely enough, though the book is unavoidably longer and has more detail, the movie still manages to capture the basic gist of it so watch or read, it doesn’t matter which. Or do both, like me. This is a pretty good read. The time travel is discussed from a biological point of view instead of a physical one which is a nice change. Hardly anyone ever talks about that. And it’s also very romantic. It’s very interesting the idea that these two people are almost literally bound by time. They meet for the first time twice, the girl’s first time and the guy’s first time. And both times, they met because they were already in love. It’s just such a mindblowing notion. It’s literally impossible for them to not be together because they’ve always been in love with each other.

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Whoa, and yet ANOTHER book made into a movie! I must say though, in this case the movie wins. The book and movie had two completely different endings and I much preferred the movie’s. The book ending was pure crap. And the writing was ... strange. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not used to reading grown-up books. Or maybe I’m just not into Picoult’s style of writing. She gets all House about everything and comes up with loose metaphors every other sentence. I mean, it’s so unnecessary. Although, you have to give her props for knowing her way around the legal system. Her lawyer characters are portrayed well.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

It’s funny. In a crude, caveman, masculine kind of way. Amusing, but not riveting. Not the kind of book that requires a commitment in reading. It’s just a bunch of short stories so I just like to read it little by little when I’m bored. I still haven’t finished it. Oh and also, they actually made a movie based on this. How unfathomable.

Time Travel Plans

2010-07-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

Just last night I was in an animated conversation with the boyfriend about time travel. Good thing we both believe in the same determinism theory. I SO do not want to get all quantum mechanics about it and debate endlessly about the whole Schrodinger’s cat-in-a-bag thing. Although I do to a certain extent believe in the timeline corruption hypothesis thanks to the Back to the Future movies, for the most part, especially if you remove the human intention factor (and its relative predictability), I’m pretty certain (cause I’m a total expert in quantum physics and all, note the sarcasm) that entanglement is just a conceptual thing. Decoherence is inevitable because hello, this is the real world and all, and just like a zipper, as it goes on, time becomes a unified, linear thing. Unless the zipper’s broken.

Anyway. Back to time travel.

I’ve always thought that if I suddenly developed the ability to travel back in time, the first thing I would do is see what my parents were like at my age. I would seek out all the embarrassing stuff that they did and rub it in their faces! Mwahahahahaha! Nah, just kidding (sort of). It’s just that I only know my parents as the kind of people they are now. I’m sure that my arrival in their lives have hugely changed them and I just want to see what kind of people they were before. Also, it would be really, really funny.

But now, after some thought, there are two other people I would visit before my parents.

One would be a 15 year old girl on the first day of 10th grade, trudging up the school driveway reminding herself firmly to accept being alone, that she wasn’t there to make friends and instead focus on studying and getting into a good university. I want to pull her aside before she gets into class and tell her that this will be like 8th grade again. There will be that group of people for her that would make life exponentially better. I want to tell her to let go without a fight, that this will be the day that she meets the one person who is capable of loving her for everything that she is. I want to tell her to open her eyes and see him.

The other would be a short, chubby, bespectacled boy, probably wandering around aimlessly. Actually, I wouldn’t know what to say to him. I’d probably just give him a huge hug. Tell him everything is going to be okay. And maybe tell him that when he meets that interesting girl someday, consider the possibility that said girl is too stupid and too insecure to pick up on his vague hints of interest. And that she isn’t as far away as he’ll think she is.

Meh, why am I even entertaining this thought? I don’t even believe time travel would change anything.

DC in JKT

2010-07-08T12:02:00.001-07:00

Now this is incredibly strange. I wrote this piece like mere HOURS after the event of which I was writing. And for some unfathomable reason, I didn’t post it. I don’t even recall WHY I didn’t post it right away. And the incredibly ironic aspect of it all is that I actually made a POINT in the entry saying that I’m NOT writing belatedly. But apparently the blog gods have firmly decreed that in no way should I share anything immediately after it happened. Oh well, better luck next time.

This is unusual because I don’t normally write things so immediately after the events about which I am writing. I’m being unusually diligent, aren’t I? (Nah, it’s because I’m too lazy to study at 2.30 in the morning. Why in the world would I need to study at 2.30 in the morning? Because I spent the better part of this long weekend obsessing about a certain Dashboard Confessional who has finally decided to grace us Jakartans with their holy presence).

Strangely enough, at first I decided to pass on this miraculous occasion. The whole event was like a festival thing for which Dashboard was simply a guest appearance and the whole thing was cheap and easily accessible and it just seemed really dodgy and almost implied that DC would only be playing a few songs at the end to wrap up the whole thing. I was almost okay with missing out on them, even though my heart twinged a little whenever I passed that stupid Pond’s Teen Concert billboard that had teeny tiny little pictures of the DC members at the bottom.

But then May 29th neared and this guy from school, M, had managed to stalk Chris at his hotel and took a freaking photo with him and John and Scott and suddenly I’m like OH MY FUCKING GOD, CHRIS FREAKING CARRABBA IS ACTUALLY HERE IN THIS CITY WHERE I LIVE AND I COULD HAVE SEEN HIM WITH MY OWN FREAKING EYES AND I DECIDED TO PASS??? WHAT KIND OF A BRAINLESS IDIOT AM I???

So on D-day, I harrassed a bunch of people who were going for some extra tickets (finally, the stupid blackberry (gasp later, story first) made itself immensely useful) and finally managed to snag two from M. What a great guy. I almost forgive him for touching Chris.

And that’s it. Met up with the boyfriend at Plaza Senayan for some coffee then off we went to Lapangan D Senayan to retrieve tickets from M. It was just after dusk and it was already pretty packed but not as bad as I thought. My sister actually sneered at the whole Dashboard thing, saying, “puh-lease, I bet nobody even shows up. I doubt anybody likes them.” Um, HELLOOO??

It was 7 pm and some chick is performing on stage. I’m familiar with her songs because it’s on the radio a lot, but her name (or her band’s name) escapes me. Good voice, though. J and I walked up kinda close to the stage and the chick wraps up and was replaced with The Sigit. I only know their name because according to M, they’re one of the three bands that precede DC on the lineup. Also, the 4 MC people announced who they were. I don’t recognize any of the songs they performed so I spent the time studying which settings on my digital camera would work best with this kind of lighting. You know, so I’ll be prepared in time for DC.

Next up came The Changcuters (did I spell that right?) and a bunch of unstable guys (plus one overexcited girl) swarmed in front of us and started having seizures. I’m sorry, I’ve never been to a concert before in my life. This is all kind of new to me. Which is why I found those epileptic people in front of me extraordinarily amusing. I kinda missed out on the whole Changcuters performance because I was watching their fantards spasm and convulse with extreme fascination. And then I liked them even more because they took off as soon as their idol left the stage, leaving a vaccuum for J and I to fill and get even closer to the stage.

After that came Nidji. I recognize almost all their songs, of which I was tremendously proud. They performed for kind of a long time though, and everybody was getting antsy about when Dashboard was going to show up. Some yelled at them to just get it over with, which was kinda mean. I felt bad for them. And of course to prolong all our agony, the MC people jabbered on for like a half freaking hour and hence, were not received kindly by the increasingly exhausted audience. Some of us (me) have been on our feet for hours on end without sustenance (I’m actually kinda surprised I didn’t pass out like I almost did during the New Moon queue). I felt kinda bad for the MC people because it’s not like they’re doing it just to spite us. Chris wasn’t ready to come out yet. What, you think hair that awesome just coiffes itself?

Anyway. Dashboard Confessional FINALLY takes the stage and Chris Carrabba is right there. RIGHT THERE in front of me, close enough for me to see the nonexistent flaws in his perfectly chiseled face and the beautiful tattoos on his wonderful guitar-wielding arms. Okay, so I might have gone slightly fantard a little for like, the first two songs. It’s actually kind of amazing J still wants to be with me after witnessing my temporary insanity.

Seriously, though. Chris Carrabba is just ... breathtaking. I mean like, okay, first of all, he is incredibly INCREDIBLY handsome. Like, crazy beautiful. Like it’s not even a subjective attractive-ness. He is like, objectively, undeniably, ABSOLUTELY handsome. He is a GOD. And he was right there!! It was unreal. Second of all, that VOICE. Even just talking, he’s like, really, like... He has this quality, like this underlying wit laced in the intonation of his words. Like his accent? I don’t know, do Floridians have accents? Just hear it for yourself.

Damn, even his VOICE is handsome. And then when he sings? Forget about it.

Letter to My Beloved

2010-06-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Love,

I’m sorry it grieves you that I only write during dark times. But sorrow is a muse to me like no other. And the only reason why I’ve stopped writing so many pieces after I’ve met you is because you’ve eliminated my sorrow, and therefore, my inspiration for writing. Grieve not of how you’ve changed me for you’ve changed me for the better.

If you assume that I’m writing to you right now is because my sorrow has returned, then you would be right. Sorrow has taken its place once more in my heart tonight, as it has during all nights stained with your absence. Oh, how I abhor your absence. I would go to great lengths, cross great distances just to see you. You know of this well. This room grows immense, heavy and garish in my loneliness. I hate it.

Love, I know this is hard. Living gets more exhausting everyday. Every morning I think of you, I focus my mind on you and only you, just to get myself out of bed. Nothing else will. Believe me, love, that life is unforgivingly hard on me as well. But we’ll go through it together, because there is no other way to live it. Living has already proved itself unbearably painful without you.

Sorrow hangs low over our heads tonight, like a hideous adornment that weighs down the sky. But it’s somewhat bearable for we both have our distractions. I’m unsure for whom it is luckier. I don’t usually find myself successfully distracted from you. When life tears me a new one, you are my one distraction. You are a distraction so potent, so dazzling and brilliant that everything ugly in my life burns into cinders and there’s nothing left but the radiant glory of just you and me. When it is you I must be distracted from, I am helpless. Nothing can compete with you, nothing can camouflage you from my mind (usually).

I wish I could distract you just as well as you distract me. When life gets hard, you find comfort in other things and you push me away. You consider me an aggravation, something that would only add to your distress. If only I could readily yield to your wishes, but leaving you alone only adds to my distress. I’m sorry for that. Even as I am reaching out to you desperately, I am aware that I am only exacerbating your suffering, and yet I can never stop. My intense need for you triumphs over rationality every time.

I am grateful then, that this time I was capable of saying good night to you in a civil manner. It’s strangely difficult for me to give you space for I need you with me at all times. But, love, I am trying my best. I hope tonight wasn’t merely a fluke and that I have the strength to live the next few nights without you.

Once more, good night my love. I’m here for you and I always will be. I’m yours, forever.

For Better For Worse, In Good Times and In Bad

2010-05-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

The world has gone to shit, you know that? At least MY world has. I won’t bore you with the details but just know that everything seems so difficult and painful and unbearable and it’s so fucking tempting to just give up. Right now, I’m kind of in a – well, not really a good place, just in a slightly more stable and determined place. I’m afraid of sliding back to that dark place again. I wish there was some wise, lovely quote I can write here to remind myself to snap the fuck out of it whenever I feel lost. Something eloquent and clever and beautiful and inspiring and all that.

But you know, maybe a blunt statement would do just fine. Because the ugly truth is, none of this will end. We can all dream about killing the hydra once and for all but the truth is, the heads will never stop growing. Maybe at a given time there will only be one head, maybe two. And at that time, it wouldn’t be so bad. But there will be times when a thousand heads will sprout all at once and it will be so fucking exhausting trying to lop them all off and it will feel like there’s no point in even trying because even after all of that, the heads will keep growing anyway and it will never, ever, ever end. None of this will end.

But I’m not alone anymore. It’s both wonderful and horrible. On the one hand, my life now has purpose, has meaning. There’s indescribable joy and beauty in a simple look, a little smile and a soft touch. On the other hand, I’m accountable for more than myself, and my choices of whether I endure or surrender will have implications bigger than myself. I need to take care of both of us. And God, it will be the most difficult, most challenging, most painful and closest to unbearable thing I will ever do in my life. But it’s the ONLY thing I will do with my life. That’s the point of it, I guess.

Too Well of Blood and Death

2010-05-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

This fire, it burns, I can’t look away, I can’t walk away. I can’t help but step in it, bathe in the heat of it, devours my skin and eats away at my heart within

They say hate is incredibly unhealthy. And yeah, i get that. It’s a horrible feeling, just like any disease. Hate is like a an autoimmune process. It’s that combination of being born with a predisposition and being exposed to an environmental trigger. I am the kind of person that could hate with extreme fervor to the point that I could murder said person, slowly and painfully just to hear them beg and scream before cutting them into pieces and hanging their entrails over the city for everyone to see. And then to have the incredible misfortune to meet someone like that under circumstances like these, well, I never had a chance.

My chest collapses, I can’t breathe. Those words aren’t directed at me and I can’t see. These ribs constrict my lungs, I can’t breathe. The hurt my heart feels is insanely clear.

Few people could trigger this feeling in me. Only 3 to date. The former two have disappeared from my life. No, I did not murder them, even though I was perfectly capable of doing so. They just no longer have any effect on my life right now. Irrelevant. But there is this one person left. And she won’t go away. And strangely enough, the only person who could placate my intense hatred for her is the one person who won’t let her go. Is that irony?

How it repulses me the way she lives. Her mere existence is a breach that I can’t forgive.

He tells me to forgive her for whatever it is she’s done. But she hasn’t done anything, other than existing. Her existence is what I can’t forgive. There’s nothing anyone can do to change this funny feeling of hatred. It has become absolute, like a part of my being, a part of my own existence, and no words of reassurance can remove that from me. It’s almost like, “it’s really nothing personal. I just hate you.”

And it’s not her fault, she’s just that way. But I would kill her in a flash if I had my way.

They say hate is an exhausting thing to feel. And that it would feel so much better to just let go of it. I never understood that. Hatred is just as natural as breathing. Letting go of hate is just as difficult and painful as ceasing to breathe. Of course, one could argue that the hardest part is getting through that act of letting go. Once you’re past that, you’re free. Well, yeah, once you’re past that trying to stop breathing part, you’re dead. Free.

And it seems like the only way I could be free of this hate, is that either she dies. Or I die.

The Worst and Best of My Life

2010-05-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

The last six days were pretty much the longest, most difficult time of my life. And if I were alone in that situation, I would’ve offed myself before the first day even ended. Thank God and all that is holy that 18 years ago on December 4th, the best person that ever lived was brought into this world. I’m not even exaggerating. It should never be doubted just how good a person he is. He should get, like, a medal or something.

As of today, this has all ended (hopefully). And it’s kind of a bittersweet return to the mundane crap of everyday life because he doesn’t need to be with me 24/7 anymore (even though I still want him to) and I have to start worrying about what normal kids worry about these days. Exams, reports, preparation for clinic years. I’ve been putting that stuff on hold for the last six days. Priorities, you know.

As horrible as this past week was, as much as I DO NOT want a repeat of it, I quite liked having the excuse of not having to worry about school. School is like this long drawn out, stretch of painful stress and dread and it’s quite horrible in its own tormenting way. And to go back to that after a different kind of torment is a strange mixture of relief and trepidation.

Is this what Buffy felt like during the end of each season? There’s that superiority complex like, “I have to deal with the fucking apocalypse on top of the same inane shit as the rest of you. You can’t even BEGIN to imagine what I have to go through while you’re all living normal lives.” And superimposed on that is an inferiority complex that laments over the fact that because out of all the people to whom this could happen, I am the one with the immense bad luck to be torn away from normal reality into this awful world where I have to do awful things.

The detachment. Man, I look at people at it’s like, what do I look like to you? Someone normal? Can you look at me and say that I’m capable of such things? That such things could actually happen to someone like me? Nobody knows about the horrible things I've done. And that’s where he comes in. He knows everything. He’s the only thing in this world I’m attached to. He’s my tether to the ground, to my sanity. I wasn’t alone in this. He took care of me so well. And I’ll never be alone.

Bad Days are my Muse

2010-04-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel blessed. I look at certain people – let’s call her X – and it’s like there needs to be this constant awareness of one’s own image and how it’s perceived by other people. There can never be a moment of vulnerability where you just want to unleash everything human about yourself, like the messy ugliness of gritty emotion and the utter disgrace of human compulsion. One has to be on guard at all times, maintaining a robotic persona of composure and calm. She’s perfect. She’s boring. She’s fake.

It’s easy to presume this figure to be fake, though proving this precisely would be difficult. And though most of those accusations are bred from the all-too-human envy, they aren’t groundless. There IS an effort to preserve a certain image. Her very survival depends on it. There IS a form of censorship. And I can’t possibly imagine that trapped feeling and frustration because you’re continuously needing to censor yourself.

I have this blog. And sometimes I find it difficult to create a balance between revealing enough of myself to be hilarious and interesting, and disguising the parts that would be hurtful or offensive or alarming to the small audience I have here. Because although I have more freedom than X, I still have certain people who visit here whose opinions are integral to my life’s well being. I am free to write all sorts of snarky opinionated crap and get all cryptically emotional without any severe implications because unlike X, I have a small audience. But that small audience hold the strings on which my life hangs.

So in the end, I am still bound to a certain amount of censorship, though admittedly, not as much as X. But then I find certain other people – let’s call her Z – and it seems like there is no need for her to withhold herself at all from any writing material, be they sex, booze or tobacco. I’m just a little confused, if not envious, of how Z manages to be selective in her audience (which is larger than mine, I might add) while advertising with the same methods as me. I advertise my writings in the hopes of catching the interest of those who might appreciate my words. And yet in doing so, involves exposing them to those who might want to repress me. It’s kind of annoying.

I understand that in writing there needs to be a certain amount of restraint. But I’ve always thought that restraint must stem from the writers theselves and not those who read them. All I want is the freedom to write.

I Was Obsessed with Greek Myths First!

2010-04-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, I got something to write about. Which would you rather read? This horribly unlucky Monday where I left the house without the one book I needed for the one class I had today, during which I broke a glass microscope slide and my entire group had to pay a fine (I offered to cover it all myself, but everyone was being very gracious. Thank you group 8, you guys are the best!), after which was a meeting with my research supervisor where our proposal was butchered into pieces (well, I have to admit, it really WAS crap) and I revealed myself to be an embarrassingly stupid moron for openly uncomprehending a single word she was saying? Or the two movies I’ve watched recently – “Clash of the Titans” and “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief” – which share similarities in their misleading Greek mythology theme and utter lameness?

Well, that’s basically it for the former so I guess you’re stuck with the latter. You know I hate to complain (ha!).

Oh, and did I mention that my cell phone bill tripled this month? TRIPLED. That’s multiplied by THREE. An INCREASE in 200%. TRIPLEDDDDDD. Guess that means I won’t be getting any new clothes this month. Grrr.

Aaanyway. Clash of Titans and Percy Jackson. I guess their similarities are inevitable since they’re derived from basically the same sort of story. I’m not begrudging them of THAT. It’s just that their blasphemous deviations from their originals are just unforgivable to me.

Well, in Percy Jackson they’re unforgivable. Have you read the book? Rick Riordan did this Eoin-Colfer-ish twist on the whole ancient-Greek-myth thing which is pretty darn awesome and hilarious and I am just SEETHING with indignance that they stripped that element from the movie entirely. An element which practically ELEVATED the book off mediocrity. Without the modern twist, it’s just another ancient story where they still wear freaking togas for God’s sake (Riordan made Zeus wear a business suit, Athena wear jeans, Ares ride a motorbike and Apollo drive a Ferrari).

Also, irreparable deviations are made in the story line which makes me see no hope at all in the production of a sequel. I mean, how could they? They didn’t even introduce all the major characters integral to the main story’s development. Though the theme was similar to Artemis Fowl, the book was more like Harry Potter in its complex plot and intricacies which spanned the entire series.

And why do they always make Hades the bad guy? He’s so misunderstood just because he works with dead people. The Percy Jackson movie actually MADE him the bad guy where in the book he’s just falsely accused. And I know certain people who sympathize with poor Medusa who frequently gets beheaded with pieces of her corpse desecrated as a weapon.

Clash of the Titans was more bearable for me because I walked in without expectations higher than it to be a dumb action movie with lame dialogue. Which it was. The action kinda sucked so that was a bummer. Bad effects, bad choreography. But it didn’t disappoint in the lame factor and I enjoyed laughing AT it. I’m still very much amused and maybe slightly repulsed that at the end, Zeus gave his son one of his exgirlfriends. Also, Sam Worthington is in it if you're into that kinda stuff. He wears a very short skirt there, you know.

So basically, what I’m saying is, read Percy Jackson instead of watching the movie. Unless, of course, you’re a 10-year-old boy who will be easily amused by the lame, kiddie humor. Or a 10-year-old girl who will find Logan Lerman swooningly, Zac-Efron-ly handsome. I stopped hating the movie so righteously after seeing how much little kids seem to enjoy it. How could I begrudge something that can elicit the laughter of children? As for Clash of the Titans, it really is THAT BAD. I’m not sure why I had so much fun watching it.

The Sun Sets on a Sunday

2010-04-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

The lack of ideas for writing material right now (and for the past month or so) is absolutely revolting in its abhorrent massivity. I could puke. And not because I’m still slightly suffering from food poisoning of unfathomable origins. It’s just that I had returned from my usual curiosity-torments-the-cat thing where I go somewhere with no other plausible reason than pure curiosity, knowing that it will benefit me in no way and in fact will actually HURT me and bruise my peach-like self-esteem. But I do it anyway. It’s like a compulsion. And now I thought I would just humour myself by practicing the ONE THING I know I’m good at.

And I have NO IDEA WHAT TO WRITE.

You know whose fault this is right? You. That’s right. You know who you are.

*sigh* Whatever. Maybe I'm just upset because once again, it is a Sunday.

His Photogenicity Annoys Me

2010-04-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

An Inconvenient Time, But Whatever

2010-03-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

It’s pretty much common knowledge that March 15 is a date whose significance I would very much like to ignore. The reasons for which are mostly due to the inevitable fact that I am aging. Relentlessly and much too quickly. It’s not so much a mortality issue. I am pretty much as unaware of it as most people my age. It’s more a matter of my emotional maturity not quite keeping up with my physical maturity. I still feel like such an unstable teenager. As my mother would vehemently agree.

This year, March 15 was a day loathed by many people in general. For starters, it fell on a Monday. And not only did it fall on a Monday, it fell on a Monday which was followed by a national holiday. As in, it was stuck between two holidays like a horrible booger. Everybody hated this year’s March 15. No need to ruin their fun by announcing it was actually my birthday. But of course, my close friend A had to blab it onto twitter and THAT was followed with way too many retweets. It’s a little more difficult to keep stuff secret on twitter than it is on facebook. (As you all know, I don’t display my birthday on facebook to save myself from the rain of birthday wishes from people who wouldn’t even speak to me face-to-face)

Also, it somewhat surprised me that this year I didn’t get the traditional Santoso treatment of presents-in-bed. I woke up to an empty house because everybody had left for school/work while I had a late class. Once I got to campus though, a few people wished me a happy birthday (mostly people from twitter). But all in all, it was the “other Marsha” that got more birthday wishes. It was kinda funny though at one point, a guy (who wasn’t really a stranger and actually WOULD speak to me) called out from afar, “Marsha! Happy birthday!”. So I looked up and smiled, but then he walked past me and starts shaking hands with the “other Marsha”. I just stifled a giggle and walked away.

Anyway. Class went by quite boringly. But I was really looking forward to the end of the day, when J would show up to campus and my REAL birthday could start. But things didn’t go as smoothly as expected. There was this whole thing with me being a complete and utter idiot and leaving my plane ticket to Bangkok in the campus library and only realizing it when I was already in my friend’s car. I was leaving for Bangkok the very next freaking day! It all worked out though because fortunately, I left it in a safe, locked room and I managed to contact someone to retrieve it and bring it for me the next day. But for a couple of hours, I was freaking out way too much to really enjoy the short time I had with J.

Still. Despite the stress, the worry, and the exhaustion, it was all worth it because J was there and really, that was all that mattered. I would go through it all over again, even for a few minutes with him. There really was no gift I can think of that was better than just him sitting across from me and looking at me the way he was looking at me right then. It was perfect.

TV Review: Glee

2010-02-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

Okay so this is Step One of my Getting-Over-Shit Rehabilitation Program. For certain people reading my attempt at mental health, please don’t be too offended and don’t take any of my next few postings personally. This is just the healthiest way I know of coping. Just bear with me.

I just watched the third episode of Glee tonight. I’ve watched the first two without any painful incidents. Back when I was unbiased and unaffected, I found the show kind of overrated. I didn’t have any strong opinions about it. I was indifferent. I didn’t care. But now, it’s slowly grating on my nerves for special reasons only special people know about. Not to mention that the channel that carries it is advertising for it every chance it gets. There’s only so much a girl can take.

First of all, it’s not that I don’t like musicals. I just don’t like that shapeless music they have in Broadway-ish crap like Dream Girls. It’s like, okay, impressive vocals Jennifer Hudson, bravo and all that. But you know, if you’ve reached the climactic high note in an empowering song, fucking end it already! I mean, the song had a half-hour climax. You’d think that’d be a good thing. But it’s not. It’s just fucking exhausting.

But I digress. Glee isn’t like that. The songs are mercifully brief, they retain their form and the cast perform them well (even with the few obvious touches of Auto-Tune here and there). It took me a while to realize why I wasn’t impressed. At first I thought it was my difficulty with staying objective and unbiased. But I found that it was because the song numbers in Glee just wasn’t interesting enough. They lacked freshness and originality. At least to me. The point of doing covers is to bring something new to the table in terms of arrangement. Couldn’t they have at least twisted it into a different genre? I would totally eat that shit up.

Easy example: Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. The movie whose paperwork in musical licensing alone I would applaud, like seriously. In Glee, the musical numbers are just loud decorations pasted onto a rather bland background of a weak-plotted TV show. And the direction stays true to the phrase “bursting into song”. In comparison, Moulin Rouge moulds the songs they use to blend nicely into the overall theme of the movie. Not to mention it’s a hell of a lot more interesting to see a familiar song get turned upside down in unexpected ways. And they certainly do not “burst into song”. They flow into it. Like music.

So you know, when it comes to music, I’m not ALL about the lyrics, exactly. I can enjoy a good musical if they’re done well. Joss Whedon wrote a musical episode for Buffy once in season 6. I loved it, of course. All that wry humor and inside jokes. Oh the vocals were so horrible that even Auto-Tune can’t fix it. But the entire episode was written with full awareness of how lame it’s being. It’s pure genius.

I Can't Wait For School Tomorrow

2010-01-31T04:58:00.001-08:00

There’s a reason why PIM can never be the sanctuary the way Plaza Senayan can be for me. It’s just that Plaza Senayan has yet to see numerous kickings of my ass and severe breakings of my heart. PIM is just brutal that way. It’s not a good place to be when I’m in this kind of condition.

For starters, there was lunch at GM. And of course I’m reminded how baffled he was at my obsession with the pangsit goreng they have and how I absolutely INSISTED to pay that one time we ate there. I even remembered where we were seated and how much our meal costed. And while we waited for our table there was a young married couple sitting on the same couch as us. The handsome young father was pushing the stroller around and had this protective stance over it the whole time. The beautiful young mother sat in front of their baby and kept making him smile and laugh and kissing his forehead. Their little baby boy was all so cute and squishy. I couldn’t stop looking at them. I wanted to cry.

And then there was hanging out at Metro. My sister and I walked around aimlessly, making fun of greeting cards and a couple of salesmen who were hilariously messing around with some toy binoculars or something. We were looking for a birthday card for the parentals but I ended up reading out loud a card about “someone special” and how “special” it is to have that “someone special”. Ugh, I could puke. My sister had to forcefully take it out of my hands before I had to pay for damages. Oh and also, being almost February and all, VALENTINE’S day is coming. And of course there was a whole row of pink cards just blinking their torment at me.

And for some reason, all the items they had in Metro was severely pissing me off. In the toy section there was that Nightmare Before Christmas pencil case of (who else) J. Skellington. And in the men’s section I ended up in the middle of the Crocodile clothing line (the brand of his jacket). And when we were about to leave, I had to pass a whole row of colourful, butt-fucking-ugly foot coverings that don’t even DESERVE to be called shoes and I suddenly yelled out in the middle of the store in plain hearing range of everybody, “I HATE CROCS!”

Then my sister wanted some gelato which meant we had to walk all the way across the bridge. And right in front of Pizza Hut. The place where he left me on one side of the table to get closer to HER. I couldn’t breathe. I clutched my necklace, walked right up to the railing and gazed four storeys down to the ground floor. The floor I was standing on was shaking. I wonder if I would even fight it if it suddenly collapsed. The sign on the railing forbade people to lean on it. I put all my weight on it.

When I got home, I went straight to sleep and I still couldn’t escape. He haunts my dreams like he’s doing it just to piss me off. There’s nowhere I can go to get away. There’s nothing I can do to make me stop thinking. It’s a good thing my sister has the key to my phone or else I’d be all over it like white on rice. This is just too hard. This hurts too much. This is too hard. I can’t do this.

"See my days are cold without you but I'm hurting while I'm with you. And though my heart can take no more, I keep on running back to you."
Ashanti - Foolish

I Didn’t Mean To, I Swear!

2010-01-13T10:58:00.000-08:00

Boredom (and missing certain people) is a powerful force. It can make you do things you never thought you’d do. Things you SWORE you’d never to do, even though everyone else was doing it and it seemed like a lot of fun, but boy, is it the lamest thing in the world so never would you be caught dead doing such things. Such horribly lame, awful things. *breaks down in shame*

I’ve been cooped up at home for 3 days. Doing nothing. Just lying around in bed watching seasons three, four, and five of Angel (more on that later). Only getting up to pee or eat. It’s very relaxing and non-pressure for sure. A wonderful break from all that tears-of-blood studying. But all this inactivity is slowly grinding my brain into a non-functional state. And on top of that, the absence of certain people is constantly hovering over me like a shadowy spectre, always there in the back of my mind no matter how distracted I get. Always there.

At times like these, I really need to shop. My inner shopaholic arises from its dormant state and craves for material things. Books, clothes, jewellery, beauty products, food. I want everything, it’s nuts. Granted, I still have some margin of self-control, but the need to buy all sorts of useless shit still freaks me out. Like God, what’s the psychological basis behind consumerism? Emphasis on consume. Like it totally CONSUMES you how much you want to ... consume.

Anyway, it’s insane how much clothes I’ve bought over the past few weeks. Okay, so it’s probably still normal when compared to some people I know. But hello, this is ME we’re talking about! I don’t have a thing for clothes! I don’t “get” fashion. So why the hell am I doing this?? Oh God, forgive me.

Where's That Off Switch in My Brain? Part 2

2010-01-06T22:15:00.001-08:00

So I got two out of three correct. I really didn’t get any sleep last night. I really did abusively speed-dial a certain number until my phone wore out. But surprisingly enough, I wasn’t such an asshole at school. I was literally too exhausted to even BE an asshole. I just slept on my friend A’s lap while I waited to be called in for the practical exam. Which didn’t go so badly, I reckon. It was no more difficult than usual. I just hope I didn’t fill in all the wrong bubbles in all my detached stupor. That would really suck.

Anyways. Right now, I am sitting at a Starbucks, drinking a hazelnut latte that has too much milk, hijacking the wifi from a nearby donut shop, and freezing my ass off. I think I’ll just go sit outside now. Yes, that’s much better. I am inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke and carbon monoxide from passing cars but whatever, at least I’m warm.

Just so you know, I am fucking bored. My intentions for coming here was to force myself to read Duus’ Topical Diagnosis in Neurology. Just like the basic outline so I’m not totally stupid for tomorrow’s exam. I still have a couple pages to go on the segment I’m focusing on, but I’ve kind of given up. I’ll continue after this maybe. Or after I get home. I kinda just want to sleep. I took a red panadol this morning in an attempt to keep myself awake during the exam and now I’ve consumed a grande cup of caffeine so I’m not sure if I would actually be able to sleep at all.

But at the same time, I don’t want to go home. For one thing, I’m pretty much physically incapable of studying in the confines of my room. Too many distractions with the bed and the tv and the guitar, etc. But mostly, I don’t want to go home because I intentionally left my cellphone in the drawer of my wardrobe all day and I’m kind of scared to go near it. If I could just stay in this mall all freaking night, I would. I need to be kept from doing anything stupid.

Where's That Off Switch in My Brain?

2010-01-06T09:51:00.001-08:00

It is 72 minutes past midnight and I am still awake. I had very real intentions of going to bed at 8:30 pm because, you know, I have a stupid practical exam early tomorrow morning and I would really like to actually be in an alert state of mind for once. And by 9 pm, I was asleep. Only to wake up again at 9:49 pm fully fucking refreshed. I thought I had slept through the whole night.

This happens on occasion. I'm not unfamiliar with it. But usually, when this happens, it's like, "score! I had a pretty damn good sleep and I still have plenty of time to sleep some more!" Usually, it's a good thing. Even if I can't sleep, I can just lie around idly in bed which is usually like the best feeling in the world.

But not tonight. Because tonight, it hurts to be awake. Thoughts are buzzing around my head like stupid hurtful bees and I really, really wish they would just shut. the fuck. up.

I've switched off my laptop like 3 times already. Actually shutting it down instead of putting it on hibernate because each time I did it, I fully intended to not switching it on again until the sun came up. But nope, my insomnia is such that I am putting my stupid, irritable laptop through all this indecisive crap.

And then there's the phone. The one that I can't help but dial despite everything. Despite locking it in a drawer which is locked inside a wardrobe (only to have me take it out after like 15 minutes because I was worried a call might have come in and I couldn't hear it). Despite the person's reluctance-bordering-on-plain-fucking-refusal to even talk to me.

So the prognosis of tonight: it is very possible that I won't sleep at all until morning and I will be this totally cranky asshole at school. It is also very possible that I will dial the phone again after I'm done writing this.

I Feel Like the Bitch in a Taylor Swift Song

2009-12-28T08:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, random thought. Ever hear a song and kind of relate to it? Well, yeah, this happens to everybody, especially if the song is one-dimensional and has idiot-proof words and is catchy as shit. Taylor Swift, You Belong With Me. Who the hell doesn’t understand what this song means? It even has helpful visuals as a video clip. But whatever, the point is, the point of this song is to sympathize with blonde-Taylor and her goofy-innocent-endearing-band-geeky ways and see yourself in her and totally root for her victory in getting the guy. But then why do I kind of find myself siding with brunette-Taylor?

“You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset. She's going off about something that you said 'cause she doesn't get your humor like I do. I'm in the room, it's a typical Tuesday night. I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like and she'll never know your story like I do”

It’s like, is it the girl’s fault she doesn’t have as much in common with the guy as like, his best friend?? I mean, the guy’s DATING her, isn’t he? There must have been SOMEthing he liked about her, as UNFATHOMABLE as that may seem to the best friend. I mean like, she’s probably upset because she’s TRYING to understand all that crap they have in common but yeah, it’s not the same to the guy because the best friend actually LIKES the same stuff, and not forcing herself to even be like, remotely interested in them.

“But she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts. She's Cheer Captain and I'm on the bleachers, dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time.”

At this point, blonde-Taylor dances round the room and the guy looks over and smiles at her antics. Yeah, like that wasn’t totally done on purpose. I mean, their houses are like next door and they make a habit of looking into each other’s windows. And blonde-Taylor’s blinds are wide fucking open. Please, she WANTED him to look. ‘Cause guys totally eat that shit up. It’s all like, “aww isn’t she clumsy and cute and endearing when she’s dancing all uncoordinatedly with that oversized band shirt which does nothing but emphasize how skinny she is and those oversized glasses which are supposed to be like totally unhip but ends up being like a fashion statement? Hmm, that’s kinda hot.”

“Walking the streets with you and your worn-out jeans. I can't help thinking this is how it ought to be. Laughing on a park bench, thinking to myself, ‘Hey, isn't this easy?’. And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town. I haven't seen it in a while since she brought you down. You say you're fine, I know you better than that. Hey, what ya doing with a girl like that?”

Yes, we get it. They’re best friends. They talk about their interests and have awesome laughter and it’s real easy while all the girlfriend does is create drama. Fine, nothing wrong with having friends. But come on, what gives blonde-Taylor the right to roll her eyes so righteously when the girlfriend pulls up in her car and kisses the guy? Okay, first of all, she can drive and has her own car. She’s a strong, independent woman. What the hell are you doing on that park bench blonde-Taylor? Waiting for the bus? And second of all, which part of THEY’RE DATING doesn’t she understand? She’s ALLOWED to kiss the guy. And since that jerk of a guy isn’t really doing much of anything to make it perfectly clear who his girlfriend is, brunette-Taylor has every right to make sure the best friend doesn’t get any ideas. Also, it’s just a freaking kiss for God’s sake.

“She wears high heels, I wear sneakers. She's Cheer Captain and I'm on the bleachers, dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time. If you could see that I'm the one who understands you. Been here all along, so why can't you see? You belong with me”

Yeah okay, she’s a cheerleader. Is it her fault that she’s into cheerleading and none of that geek stuff? What’s wrong with cheerleading anyway? And by this point the guy sees his girlfriend with one of the other guys and he’s all going off on her about her infidelity. And she’s like, “I’m just TALKING to the guy. I’m not allowed to have any guy friends? What, you’re allowed to get all mad about this and I’m supposed to be totally okay about you and that band chick? How is that fair? I’m not even good friends with the dude like you are with that band chick so YOU have nothing to be worried about. Meanwhile, I can’t be worried about something that could potentially threaten our relationship??” But the guy’s a jerk so he’s all like, “we’re done, bitch.” And walks off. Meanwhile blonde-Taylor is looking all fake-upset that her lover is upset but we all know she’s internally tapping her fingers together all Mr. Burns-like and going, “eexcellent.” Bitch.

“Oh, I remember you driving to my house in the middle of the night. I'm the one who makes you laugh when you know you're 'bout to cry. And I know your favorite songs and you tell me 'bout your dreams. Think I know where you belong, think I know it's with me. Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you? Been here all along, so why can't you see? You belong with me. Standing by and waiting at your back door. All this time, how could you not know? Baby, you belong with me, you belong with me”

Ah the dance. The girlfriend has forgiven the guy’s overreaction at the football game and decides their relationship is more important than those little fights so she gets all dressed up for him and tries to talk the guy. But nooo, suddenly the crowd parts and there’s blonde-Taylor looking all hot and the guy totally ditches his girlfriend and goes over to her and kisses her in front of the entire school. How are they not the biggest jerks in the universe? I mean, they JUST broke up. And the guy hooks up with another girl and humiliates brunette-Taylor in front of EVERYBODY. You know, in other boyfriend-stealing songs, like Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend, Avril’s character actually admits to being a total bitch and stealing someone’s boyfriend. Taylor Swift is just being self-righteous with that innocent act. You’re stealing someone’s boyfriend, bitch. Tell it like it is. Goddamn.

“Have you ever thought just maybe you belong with me?”

Yeah, okay, just shut up.

Excuses, excuses

2009-12-28T06:34:00.000-08:00

Pardon my brief abandonement. December has been really rough on me. From the beginning, it was just this one giant mental disorder. It didn’t help that most of this month was comprised of the neuropsychiatry module and of course according to The Law of Medical Student Hypochondria: a medical student will suspect him/herself to be afflicted with at least 5 symptoms related to whichever module he/she is currently in.

But whatever, I’ll save you the gory, disturbing details. The point is, I cannot wait for this month, and subsequently, this year, to be over. Of course, that’s not to say that I am welcoming this upcoming year with warm, open arms and a new-found optimism and (God forbid) a cheerful outlook on life. Make no mistake, my last pre-clinic semester will no doubt be rife with nervous-breakdown-inducing obstacles and at least 15 different occasions where I will seriously wonder WHY THE HELL did I decide to get into medical school. But it’s okay. That’s next-year-me’s problem.

It is now 21:21 pm on day 362 of the year 2009. I just finished the very last report I have for this semester. I’ve squandered away the last weekend of the year with a mild but debilitating case of cystitis. I have kind of dubious new year’s eve plans. I’m picking fights with my boyfriend for no good reason (that’s not to say there’s no BAD reason). My idiot laptop still has about 35% of charging left to go. I’m bored. Sue me.

Movie Review: Paranormal Activity

2009-11-28T22:59:00.000-08:00

I hate horror movies. No amount of pleading from my friends can persuade me to walk into a cinema that was about to screen a horror movie. I don’t care if the movie is pure crap and unbearably comedic in its cheesiness and most would insist, “it’s not scary at all! It’s actually really lame and funny!” I. Will. Not. Watch. It.

It’s not even about principle and that I always have to stick to my guns. I am just very comfortable with my ignorance. I am very rarely scared in real life. I am like one of those idiotic girls in those cheesy horror movies who goes to investigate a weird noise in the dark and you’re just sitting there yelling, “oh come on! Don’t go outside! You’re gonna get killed! How stupid can you get??” My previously mentioned friends think it’s illogical for me to chicken out most embarassingly in a lame horror movie but never get scared in real life. Well, have you ever thought that the reason I never get scared in real life is BECAUSE I never watch horror movies?

Well anyway. So what made me decide to watch Paranormal Activity? A lot of people were saying it was tremendously scary. As in, real, gripping fear scary.

I was drawn in by the Blair-Witch-iness of it. Like you know, it was just a bunch of creepy things happening and you don’t actually see a ghost or a spirit or any physical manifestation of the supernatural being. I could handle that stuff. I can’t handle horror movies because I don’t have fun when I’m watching it. It’s a really stressful situation for me and I just want to get it over with and get out of there. But creepy movies, I like. The suspense and fear is the fun kind and really kind of enjoyable.

I found the first hour of Paranormal Activty kind of boring. The teasing was this slow build-up (which was a little too slow in my opinion) and I was just really waiting for the next scenes to up its excitement level. The audience was groaning with heavy dread whenever the night shots were about to begin. But when those scenes came up, I sat up in my seat in anticipation. Now here’s the good stuff. It started to get good after Day 20. Real fun stuff was happening. Unfortunately, that was only in like the last 10 minutes of the movie.

Verdict: I slept well that night. The ending was excellent and scary, but the fun kind of scary. People who say this movie is not scary at all have been incurably jaded from all the mainstream whack-you-in-the-face-with-ghosts horror movies and can’t appreciate some good old raw fear anymore. If you are one of them, then you would find this movie torturously boring. I only find it mildly boring.

Excellent Video, Catchy Song

2009-11-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

"It don't matter what you see
I know I could never be someone that'll look like you.
It don't matter what you say
I know I could never fake someone that could sound like you."

My Encounter With The Twilight Phenomenon

2009-11-24T00:37:00.001-08:00

Okay, this WAS my plan. Since last year my sister and I watched Twilight at midnight at a cinema nearby, we figured we’d make a tradition out of it and do the same. But noo, who the hell came up with the idea that NEW-freaking-MOON would only be released at ONE theater in the entire freaking COUNTRY for only FOUR DAYS. Seriously, pure fucking genius, that was.

I, of course, managed to snag tickets on the first day. But so did a few hundred other people. And I wasn’t even one of those cheaters who pre-ordered online. I actually went down to there and battled the twihards in person, all by me onesy. Which was of course, a gigantic mistake. Who the hell goes to battle by themselves? I needed at least three more people to hold places in other lines and scout for info.

So I got there at 11 am. Which I thought was a pretty decent time to arrive. Cinemas usually open at like 11.30 with the first show at 12 o’clock. I foolishly thought this was just going to be in and out, quick and easy, with time left over to get a breakfast pastry and some coffee while I wait for my driver. Not so much, no. Apparently people have been arriving since 7am and by the time I got there, the place was filled, literally filled with people, with the lines overflowing outside to snake around the mall. I wish I had thought of taking a picture to show just how fucking insane it was.

I followed the lines and found myself in front of Starbucks which was like 80 people away from SETTING FOOT in the cinemas. Inside, it was even crazier. There was not even a square foot of empty space. Last year, I felt glad that Indonesia was not filled with fantards like the US so that tickets weren’t difficult to obtain. Because seriously, it doesn’t seem worth putting up with this kind of crap for a movie that I’m aware will be rife with flaws but will insist on watching anyway because it is a visual adaptation of a book I really, really like. But people were counting on me for these tickets and being the people-pleaser that I am, I stuck with it.

More than a half hour after I lined up, I STILL HAVEN’T SET FOOT INSIDE THE CINEMAS, and have only progressed about 20 metres since my first position. In that time, I started talking to this woman behind me. She seemed pretty normal unlike the tweens directly in front of me who were all like, “I don’t care what happens, we are SO watching it today. I would DIE if I don’t get to see Edward. Omigod, he’s SO HOT.” This woman was just as bewildered about this as I was. Her husband was walking around inside the cinemas, trying to find out what the hell was going on. He kept going back and forth and he was like my intel since I have nobody else to do it for me. He gathered info about the prognosis on ticket availability and things.

Turns out, the line that I was occupying was headed towards the premiere studio which was costed twice as much but had a much shorter line (I could only imagine what kind of line the regular studio had). I was already resigned to a premiere ticket, and my clients (re: the people who asked me to buy tickets for them but didn’t have the decency to actually accompany me into battle) have already agreed to it as well, when the husband came back and announced that the premiere tickets are booked all the way til Tuesday. And I’m like, fuck.

Then it happened. I started to feel hypoglycemic: nausea, tremors, light-headedness, cold sweat, twitchy eyes. I was about to pass out soon, I knew it. It seemed so stupid and embarassing to pass out in the middle of something like this. So I sat down on the floor and acted all cool by fiddling with my phone. It made me feel a little better but I knew I couldn’t hope to keep doing this if I didn’t take care of the hypoglycemia first.

So I asked the woman’s husband behind me (he was taking turns lining up while his wife sits down somewhere talking to some salespeople) if he had some candy or something. Nope he didn’t. Neither did his wife. She asked me what’s wrong and I was just like, “nah, just a little dizzy” and she insisted I sit down with her while her husband holds my place in line. Ugh, I felt stupid. Total strangers are actually babying me now. And sitting down isn’t going to make things any better.

So I asked the woman if she would hold my place in line while I get something to drink. And I went to Starbucks and ordered an iced tea with lots of sugar. The barista lady might have cracked a joke or something but I wasn’t paying attention. I just laughed in that desperate, I’m-about-to-pass-out-give-me-my-goddamn-sugar-already way. I took a sip and it was nowhere near sweet enough so I went to the counter and ripped open two sachets of sugar and dumped it into the drink. Now the barista lady was looking at me like I was a freak but I couldn’t care less. I mean, my hands were shaking really badly and I could barely aim the sugar sachet into the cup.

I was much better after that. I jumped back in line in front of the really nice couple and was ready to keep going despite the woman’s insistence I keep resting for a while. And that’s when a bored, haughty-looking security guard came over and announced, “seriously, you guys are NOT going to get tickets in the premiere studio. It’s over. There are still tickets available in the regular one so move to that line please.” I asked him, “there are still regular tickets for today?” The security guard answers me exasperatedly without even looking at me, “yeah sure, there are.” And so me and the couple behind me shoved and pushed our way inside and ended up lining up from THE VERY BACK OF THE CINEMAS near the motherfucking toilets. Ah yes, much better.

This is when we were about to give up. Being inside the cinemas and actually seeing with my own eyes just how MANY PEOPLE were inside that place, all lining up in front of me. There was NO WAY I was getting tickets. Standing around there was just a waste of time and energy. The nice couple gave up way before I did. Meanwhile I was rationalizing my intention of giving up. Like, seriously I’m not even an actual twihard. Unlike them, I wasn't walking around in public toting New Moon movie posters and wearing their merchandise from head to toe (lame!). I don’t have to put up with this crap. I’m not in love with “Edward” or “Jacob” or the cast who portray them. I don’t need to be the first ones to watch it ‘cause it’s not like there are a bunch of spoilers I’m going to have to avoid. Watching it in *gasp* December is no different than watching it now.

It was 12.30 already and it was beginning to look like a hopeless case. That’s it. I give up. I left my place in line and did the walk of shame outside. But before I did, curiosity took hold of me and I pushed and shoved my way to the counter just to see which seats were still available. And HOLY FUCK, there are still LOTS of seats available FOR TODAY. Granted, I never would have been able to get one from where I was lining up, but if I had only arrived here since 7 am like everyone else, then maybe ...

And then as I finally fully resigned myself to admit defeat to all these twihards, I heard someone calling my name. She’s not even a close friend from school, but when she called out my name, I went to her and embraced her like a lost sister. She was here with Y and S (she was smart enough to bring reinforcements) who were lining up in another line and was buying tickets for like 5 other people from school. And I was like, “you totally have to let me line up with you.” So I slipped in line behind her (which was like 5 PEOPLE AWAY from the counter!!) and started talking animatedly with all of them about all this craziness.

Yeah, bitches, I got them tickets! Apparently each customer was only allowed to purchase a maximum of 6 tickets, which was the exact amount that I needed: two for my friend, and four for me, my sister and our respective boyfriends (we were doing the double-date thing). None of this would have happened if I didn’t meet those girls from school. Man, I owe them my LIFE.

And that was the first part of my really, really exhausting day. Review coming up.

Stephenie Meyer on Oprah

2009-11-23T23:14:00.000-08:00

Figures Oprah would get into this from that feminist stay-at-home-mom turned super-successfull-millionaire-author view.

I like Stephenie Meyer. She seems nice and funny and totally unpretentious. And completely unapologetic what with the whole “I’m gonna continue writing Midnight Sun when I feel like it, bitches. So quit you’re whining and suck it up.” Well maybe not in those exact words but that’s basically the gist of it. And yeah, admittedly, she’s not a very good writer. Waay below the leagues of Rowling or Tolkien or Rice or other writers in the fantasy genre. She has no prior writing experience for God’s sake.

But man, her books are the filthiest, guiltiest pleasure in the world. They’re like fried twinkies or something. Pure crap, yet pure awesomeness. The girl in Oprah’s school in Africa summed it up perfectly, “It’s delicious reading.” It’s unfortunate that the whole Twilight thing has become this annoying girly-fandom nuisance that some people who didn’t discover it before it exploded would rather chew off their own arm than be associated with it.

Soundtracks As A Good Playlist Reference

2009-11-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

HOLY SHIT THE SOUNDTRACK TO JENNIFER'S BODY IS INSANELY GOOD!

It might even be better than the soundtrack to Underworld (no, not really). They're just different. Underworld gives off a vibe and sets up a perfectly appropriate ambience. Whereas, Jennifer's Body is just this compilation of really, surprisingly awesome songs.

Looking at the track list, you see names like Panic at the Disco, Cobra Starship, Hayley Williams and All Time Low and I'm thinking, "hm, this is so my sister's kind of music". Before downloading the whole album, I've heard the PATD track, "New Perspective" on TV and yeah, I guess it's pretty catchy. Some friends of mine believe it to be extremely awesome and yeah, it probably was. But I'm programmed to never fervently like anything by PATD because it's my sister's band. Just like she is programmed to never fervently like anything by Dashboard Confessional or Breaking Benjamin. They're MY bands.

Anyways. The DC track, "Finishing School" is INSANELY AMAZING! Okay, so it's not necessarily their usual sound. But I think that's part of what makes it so amazing. It's even better than the PATD track. It's so insanely awesome that I'm not even going to post a sample video here. Previews are an unnecessary waste of time. Trust me and go download it RIGHT FREAKING NOW.

Or just get the whole thing. Seriously. I don't do this very often, like actually recommend music, because, you know, of the questionable-ness of my musical tastes. But the Jennifer's Body Soundtrack seems pretty mainstream and I'm really into it, and this time, I'm pretty sure lots of other people would too. Including you!

*I should get paid for promoting this album

Being a Patient: An Observation on Empathy

2009-11-11T04:46:00.000-08:00

My parents left the office of Indonesian doctors grumbling to the max (to the point of completely annoying me, because hello, I was about to BECOME an Indonesian doctor and bitching about them is like bitching about me) about how totally unprofessional they were and how unsatisfied they were with the services they received. But then, my parents left the office of an Australian doctor with pockets significantly lighter (and not being too upset about it) and feeling the complete opposite.

This is usually the case when it comes to health care. Everytime we have that (stupid) empathy class at school, the lecturers always, always mention how often patients have no confidence in the local doctors and instead take their complaints (and their money) overseas. Also frequently mentioned is how this has nothing to do with skill and intelligence because those of our own doctors could rival those of the doctors abroad (so they say). The problem therefore, lies in the social aspect of doctoring. We’re not friendly enough, we’re not nice enough, we’re not attentive enough, we don’t see patients as people. This is me seeing things through the patient’s eyes and making observations as a soon-to-be doctor.

Over and over again, we (medical students) are taught how to build a rapport. Introduce yourself, ask how they’re doing, make inane small talk. I agree with most of the stuff, except for the small talk bit. I’ve always felt that when I go to the doctors, I don’t need to be bombarded with unimportant questions. Let’s just get down to business and figure out what’s wrong with me. But maybe other people are different.

Nowadays, when I go to the doctor, I tend to watch closely on how they act and listen closely to how they talk. And I noticed that the Australian doctor is just as brusque with his words as the Indonesian doctor. He’s just as unabashed an uncensored with presenting his diagnosis, just as harsh with his intonations, and had the same amount of eye-contact. The amount of small talk (which was not even that much, at least not as much the ones they make us do when we practice in class) was pretty much the same. They both also have their poorly concealed businessman side to them with the overconfidence in their skills and the gentle prods for us to give them more money. In these ways they are the same, so these factors are not the problem.

I realized what made the Australian doctor different (and better, I guess) when it occured to me that I had no idea what he would be like outside of the doctor’s office. It seemed like his entire life was confined within his little clinic. Usually with the local doctors, I always think about his other patients and how he’s treating them, what time he gets home and how his family is doing, what kinds of stuff he does on the weekends. I can’t tell you exactly what he does to make me think about these things, it’s just a vibe I’m getting that his focus is not entirely on me and my problems. He’s just there because of his job and he can’t wait to clock out and get the hell out of there.

The Australian doctor seems to make it look like his entire life’s purpose was to make me better. It never occured to me that he would have other patients. And it wasn’t until he mentioned his daughter when we were making small talk that probably, yeah, he would have a family being middle-aged and all. We were his last patients of the day but he was in no hurry to leave.

It’s like, who would you rather have as your doctor if you have a difficult-to-treat disease? A really kind, friendly doctor who talks gently and uses soothing words and makes all the appropriate small talk, but focuses more on making nice than actually treating you? Or dr. Gregory House, who is kind of obsessive about finding the answers about your sickness? I guess an important thing to consider for people in the field of medicine is this: patients don’t necessarily demand politeness to the extreme, but they will always demand FOCUS and EFFORT.