The season of giving indeed

With the holiday season round the corner you would think people will try to stay away from the hospital as much as possible. Wrong. In fact for some reason more people are being admitted, so much so that my hospital had to go on "beds overflow" status for 2 days and urge all teams to discharge as many patients as possible. Perhaps it's the over-eating causing more gall bladders and appendix to flare up. Or the holiday parties causing more drunk uninhibited individuals to do silly things to injure themselves. Or the homeless who wants a sense of belonging this holiday season.

Well I'll be working both Christmas Eve and christmas night, which isn't that big a deal to me since I'm not Christian I don't routinely celebrate christmas. But it is the first christmas in 25 years of my life that I am away from family. And the first christmas that we don't have a family Xmas tree picture together (my sister did photoshop one with my hands on her boobs and posted it on FB).

Nonetheless, I had an enjoyable Xmas gift exchanging celebrations with my residency program, and got a lil hamster as a Xmas gift.

Fatigue

I often wonder many times during the day or nights throughout this 4 mths of residency if it is even possible to be so exhausted and survive for 5 years like this. I guess I'll just have to try it out and see the end point for myself.

On a brighter note, a timely start to a week of vacation.

Do I miss home? . . . . . . Every single day.

In Med school I count down to the days I will be graduating, or going home. Vacays are still a possibility.

Now I count down to . . . . God knows when my next trip home will be. It is really a sad reality. But I do miss home very much. Very very much.

The Da Vinci

Managed to lay my hand on one of these a couple days ago and played with it for a bit. Pretty impressive feel and visualization. It definitely my first time seeing a lobectomy done by this spider-looking machine.

Throughout the case, I had to be next to the Da Vinci arms adjusting ports and stuff, and was whack by the arms several times. Painful I have to say. The scrub nurses kept laughing at me. According to the attending, I have many of such experiences to come. Definitely need to culture a dodging habit.

Nonetheless, an amazing experience!

A start

Residency is like . . . . .

I can't really think of anything sophisticated to describe it, and my brain is also too fried to think of anything. But I have to say it is awesome. Much better than being a medical student. It was nerve wrecking and terrifying at the start, and at times it still is, but there is a tiny satisfaction that comes with each discharged patient, or when the pager doesn't ring for 5 hours straight, or when you sneaked a 3 hr nap on call. I really don't think any other job in the world can reproduce such feelings. For me at least.

The best part of residency is, knowing that I've made the right choice. When I drag my feet to work every morning at 5am I always questions myself on the choices I've made, and when I reach home only when the sky turns dark that question mark grows bigger. But when I see my name being assigned to an OR case, I literally feel like jumping through the roof. I knew I made the right pick then.

And so I graduated

I don't really know how I got here, but somehow I did. It is a miracle. Made my parents proud, made my sister motivated. Yay I did it!!

I have to say, match day was more nerve wrecking and exciting. But it is a nice touch to finishing.

Pictures or it didn't happened right? I know. Get ready to be bombarded!

At Kimmel Center

We're a proud power couple. (Still can't believe we did it!)

 BFF and parents!

The big Malaysian family.

<3 these Jeffersonians.

Lim Family!

(With the great Samuel D. Gross blessing me behind lolz!)

<3 Vizanne!

What a memorable day.

As for how am I doing now? I am settling in okay. Quite delighted to find out the drive to Boston (to see the BF) isn't as far as I thought it to be. Trying to adjust coming home to a empty house though. Apart from that, my new program is great, been going through orientation so far. I only officially start July 1st. Will tell you how it goes only then.

=)

Travelling (2)

What happened to pictures of the famous Paris-ish landmarks? Well, I thought them too overrated and un-interesting to be posted, simply because everyone who visits Paris should and must take pictures of them. But nonetheless, I will combine a obligatory picture.

Notre Dame Cathedral, The Louvre Museum, Eiffel Tower.

Now lets divert our attention to a little french town near the German border - Strasbourg.

Amazing Architecture. (I love Gothic era architecture the best)

 La Petit France. A small settlement in Strasbourg that mirrors Colmar in Southern part of France.

Evening view of the city.

Definitely worth a visit for those doing the France-Germany route. The small town is peaceful and less-touristy-commercialized.

Travelling

I have been a lazy blogger despite the abundance of time in my hand. Better upload these pictures here as memoir's sake before spare time becomes a luxury once intern year starts.

I love vacations. I mean, who doesn't. I like looking forward to a nice holiday seeing a foreign land and absorbing the culture. And trying new food. Although my Asian taste buds do occasionally betray the will to try new delicacies overseas. 

My dream of stepping into Europe materialized this February/March, when I booked a 2 week long vacay to France/Germany/London. Long awaited dream indeed, considering I initially wanted to study in London. 

France was a lovely place, but its people were a little tourist-unfriendly. The subways/metro were amazing and easy to comprehend, the attractions were easy to get to, but the French people are amazingly reluctant to speak English. Nontheless, I had a great time.

Arc De Triomphe

St Micheal's Place

Artist selling their products on walkways.

View from a heavily padlocked bridge. (Lovers believed in locking their love away forever)

Inside Notre Dame Cathedral

Quasimodo's BFF!

My future living room. Haha. (Versailles)

Queen's Bedroom

More to come. . . .

Haunted

It suddenly dawned upon me today that I am stepping into a working adults life pretty soon. Felt pretty emotional to me. Perhaps it was the sms Hotlink sent me to remind me to renew my blackberry BIS 3G plan that pointed out to me that I only have 3 weeks left in my comfortable home, or the gentle reminder by my BF to book my flight to Boston that made me realise I am moving to a whole new town, or the fact that my Seremban batch mates are getting inducted on Monday made me relate their situation in my shoes.

It is quite scary. Moving to a whole new place, no friends, no family, alone.

And I still haven't found myself a place to live, and don't have a clue of how to get myself a car with all the insurance and vehicle registration settled out.

Oh dear what am I going to do? How am I going to survive?

Thing you don't want to hear during Surgery

Came across this on jokediary.com

- Better save that. We’ll need it for the autopsy.

- Someone call the janitor – we’re going to need a mop.

- Accept this sacrifice, O Great Lord of Darkness!

- Spot! Spot! Come back with that! Bad Dog!

- Wait a minute, if this is his spleen, then what’s that?

- Hand me that…uh…that…uh…..thingie.

- Oh no! I just lost my Rolex.

- Oops! Hey, has anyone ever survived 500ml of this stuff before?

- Darn, there go the lights again…

- You know, there’s big money in kidneys. Heck, the guy’s got two of them.

- Everybody stand back! I lost my contact lens!

- Could you stop that thing from beating; it’s throwing my concentration off.

- What do you mean he wasn’t in for a sex change…!

- Anyone see where I left that scalpel?

- This patient has already had some kids, am I correct?

- Nurse, did this patient sign the organ donor card?

- Don’t worry; I think it’s sharp enough.

- What do you mean “You want a divorce”!

- She’s gonna blow! Everyone take cover!!!

- FIRE! FIRE! Everyone get out of here!

May as well.

Had a couple of "first"s in the past month, and both were pretty awesome experience.

This is very corny, but Wicked was WICKED. I was officially addicted to their songs for about a week till the people around me got sick of the songs and vow not to watch the show even before they saw how awesome the play was. 

Picture taking was not allowed during the play. I had pretty sweet orchestra seats that were decently priced thank to the siblings Sarah and Sophia for helping me purchase them in advance.

In the same weekend in NYC, Zhi Ven's dreams came true as well. 

This game was caught during the pre-Jeremy-Lin era, sorry to disappoint. But it was an experience. The Knicks fans take their games seriously. Full house in the stadium, and cheers and boo's everywhere.

Us pretending to be Knicks fans.

It was indeed a game very worthwhile to watch. Both teams kept tying at the end of each quarter and the game went into extra time twice (much to our delights). It was a close fight, and adrenaline of the fans were pumping, and much to my dismay, everyone was standing up by the end of the game (and Caucasians are tall blocking half my view).

The past, the present, the future.

What a whirlwind of a week this week has been!

Just last Sunday morning I was in London having brunch and walking around in Harrods with 2 old high school friends, reminiscing the good old days of the past, bringing back childhood jokes, silly moments and old sayings. Owh how time flies and how some things never change.

Monday came all too soon and I was already in New York stuck in an overnight hotel because my flight arrived too late Sunday night for any shuttle to send me to Philadelphia. By noon, I was sitting in front of my computer in my room in Philly frantically refreshing my email while forcing my parents over Skype to stay up till 1am in the morning to accompany me through the eventual email that arrived in my inbox containing information pertaining to the fate of my future. How silly I felt jumping up and down screaming "I matched I matched" making a weird ritual dance when the good news arrived. It simply means that all those tiring years of slaving through med school had paid off. All those money spent interviewing, all the anxiety brewing throughout the interview process was made worth it. I was going to be a surgeon. I have a job, and a training spot. But that leaves the most nerve wrecking question afterwards, where?

I have interviewed at places I cannot imagine myself being at. Small towns with farms, dangerous cities with gun shots on a weekly basis, hospitals that are so tiny and small you only have one friend. Worse question of all was, how far am I going to be from my bf?

But then Friday came and the answer to all my question was lying in the hands of my dear dean who was a great advocate for us Malaysian IMu trained students. The ceremony was horrible. They incubated over 200 nerve wrecking, anxious, almost mentally insane students in one hall, and made us wait through speeches and photographing for an hour! And then the golden hour came when I was finally handed the letter which contained the fate and sanity of the next 5-7 years of my life.

It was there, sitting in my hands. Do I want to open it? Yes. Will I be able to face the results? Probably not. So many questions were running through my head. What is I match to a small program? What if I am 10 hours away from my bf? What if I match to a small ulu kampung town? What if I feel lonely and miserable at where I am training?

I felt my hands slowly tearing open the envelope. As I was doing that, I can sense my brain praying for my top 2 choices. Halfway through the envelope, I prayed for my top 5 instead. When I was almost done, I told myself as long as it is not the bottom 5 I will be happy. But alas, all my prayers were answered! God was kind. God listened. He was there! Everything that I was so worried about fell into place. I am the luckiest girl on earth!

I matched not only to my no 2 choice, it was a much greater blessing! I was only 40 mins away from my bf's program, and even have a fellow friend from my school to accompany me through intern year! Although not a big city, it still was a vibrant town! With my lousy credentials, I was amazed I could get such an amazing program to accept me! I am truly blessed! My future is secured!

And 32 hours later, as I am typing his, I am headed home to my family to celebrate this victory of mine. Every success story comes with a price to pay. All those years of hard work finally paid off. From the uncertainty of stepping into the US medical training system, to spending loads of money applying for training spots. It will be a rough 5-7 years ahead for me, but hopefully the future me can be like today, gleaming with joy when I finally become a certified surgeon.

Matched!

I am overwhelmed with happiness. I matched! And not only that, I matched to a good program, and not only that, I matched to a good program near to my bf's program.

Life could not have treated me any better. I guess I am going to be a surgeon!

Hooray!!!

My trip so far!

Been away for almost close to 12 days now. I have to say I am definitely starting to feel the fatigue of always being on the go now. But this experience of seeing the world is simply amazing, and all the learning I gained about different culture and history is one I will not trade anything for.

I've been trying to take pictures using my iPad once in a while so that my family can not only be informed about my whereabouts and my safety, but also allow my friends to see things I saw and share those amazing moments. iPad pictures are the most convenient way of posting pictures into Facebook, although I have to say the quality pales in comparison to my actual camera. But nonetheless, the nicer pictures will appear once I land in USA again.

I am currently in Berlin, my last stop in Europe before I head to London to catch up with old friends. Beautiful and a HUGE city! I am liking Germany more than France, simply because the people are so much nicer, and Germany has a much darker story to tell in terms of history, which is much more refreshing than stories of flamboyant kings, or womanizer princes.

Some pictures from my iPad in which I have already posted on Facebook.

#1 The famous Neuschwanstein castle that Walt disney's logo is modeled after! Also had a long history of king ludwig 2 behind it. It was simply amazing and beautiful. Definitely worth the 4 hour train ride to and fro just to glimpse at this castle. Made me wish I was born a flamboyant king as well.

#2 A very "Yeng" looking Mercedes in one of the showrooms. We did not intend to visit any car showrooms but this yellow beauty was screaming at us (more so at my bf) when we walked by it.

#3 Yummy cakes at Cafe Konig (supposedly an over 200 years old cafe) in BadenBaden, the city at edge of the black forest. And also the birth place ( or so websites claim ) of the black forest cake. So this is how the original black forest cake taste like. With a hint of alcohol and lovely burst of maraschino cherries. Lovely. It's heaven and earth difference from the black forest cakes I grew up eating.

#4 Macaroons from day 1 in Paris. Oh yea I waste no time looking for my favorite expensive desserts.

#5 Dinner with oignon soup ( onion soup ) in Paris and some pasta.

#6 The amazing city hall in the heart of Munich. I decided that my favorite architecture design are those from the gothic era. Simply amazingly beautiful.

#7 The Eiffel tower. As I am not a fan of overrated tourist attractions, with crazy long queues and overly excited china/Japanese tourists, I was simply obliged to make a trip to this metal structure. But I have to say, the architecture is ingenious.

#8 Meat, sausages and ham in Munich, Germany. Made our meals simply delicious for many dinners.

Our biggest hurdle in this travel trip is establishing a good and free-of-charge wifi connection, because it is not only essential for communication with our families, my bf also has a bunch of work, in which he clearly ignored my request to leave work behind for this trip, to finish, and I needed the Internet to figure the location of our hotels, train stations, how to take a German train (which by the way is the easiest thing to do, because German train system is simply efficient and amazing!). One thing I need to thank for is that Starbucks offers free wifi to everyone, so many a times we both stand awkwardly outside Starbucks trying to steal a little wifi connection. And of course, gave them a whole lot of business too.

Tell you much more when I'm back. Till then!

And off I go

It is a relieve to finally have my blog unlocked. No longer afraid of whatever I may accidentally post online might affect me in any sort of way. Not that there is anything anyways.

But today marks an exciting journey ahead.

To the land of stereotype romance.

To the land of the former Nazi's

To the land of red buses and red phone booths.

A much awaited trip indeed! The planning took so many many many many weeks simply because I was already broke from interviewing and wanted to spend the least amount of money possible for the trip. Worked out well.

See you all in 2 weeks!

Liberated

Oh blog liberation. =)

Random thoughts

1. Why isn't there a "T" in the UK language?


The British, or rather the Bri-ish never seem to pronouce their "T"s in alphabets.


2. Is it just me, or does Germany sounds like douche land in German?


Deutschland, when pronounced in American english, sounds just like douche land.

Couch Potato

Alas, my laziness takes over me. Been slacking away too much I decided I should at least give this old blog a little dusting, and keep it up to date. But where do I start? So much has happened and so many months passed. The little couch potato in me had me watching drama series after series, reading fiction books after books.

Lets start with a few pictures of my loved ones.

Still missing the times when they were here. Even Mommy who hates rodents fell in love with my cute little ham hams!


And also more backdated pictures on CNY 2012.

Was taught how to make dumplings for the first time. Taste super YUMMY. And of course, dinner with the Msians!

Own did I mention I won the surgery olympics about 3 months ago?

Okay. Too much time spent on the computer. Time for some HK drama again!