no one talks

no one talks in my family

there are no goodbyes, no hellos

no empty small talk

definitely no i love yous

just the occasional yell at each other when there’s a miscommunication

or lack thereof

no amount of divine inspiration can save us

i’ve tried and it’s failed

because no one talks in my family

and there sure as hell isn’t anyone who listens

 

occupied

it’s been a long time since i’ve felt the need to unload my thoughts and feelings here on this blog in the hopes to garner sympathy and interaction with the 5 people who still check on me once in awhile.

this is because months of putting myself out there, making an effort to meet new people, try new things, get out of my comfort zone of surfing the net and watching movies with “gang” during my free time has paid off – after 28 years of overcoming self-esteem issues and coming to grips with my deficiencies and acknowledging that only God can give me the capacity to love and accept people without expecting anything in return, after facing the very real possibility that i will go through life without a partner, God decides to bless me with someone who loves me and is there to listen to me say the things i used to put into writing.

it’s a strange experience, mostly because i reached a point where i was content with being single and willing to “rent” that extra space i saved for someone special to anyone else who needs it, in addition to whatever room i’ve already set aside for them. it’s a learning process because i now have another major priority in my life, one that i’ve never had to make a priority before. it was a point of contention between us and i had to work hard to remember that he’s more important than certain things and people i’ve included in my life to fill up that space i mentioned earlier before i met him.

i’m grateful that he understands there are certain things i do not compromise and he respects my beliefs even if he doesn’t share them. i do my best to do the same.

perhaps the greatest lesson i’ve learned from these 2 months is that i’ve been more selfish than i’d like to believe and that it’s stemmed from the acceptance that i’m destined to live my life for myself; that the service i provide is, in the end, a means to validate my choices in career and friendships and nothing more. it’s made me repent again for thinking i’m doing it to glorify God while in reality my intentions have been corrupted to be self-serving instead.

and when there’s someone else in my life, someone who considers me an important part of his world, the motivations that shape my actions need to change and i should question the motivations that have driven me before as well.

it’s ironic that falling in love with someone without a so-called socially acceptable belief system has made me believe and rely on God even more. it goes beyond the hope that he will one day know Christ the way i do or the need for guidance on how to bring the relationship forward .

it’s shaken me out of a rut and challenged me more than i’ve ever been challenged before – to stick to something i believe in, to encourage and love someone i believe in, to understand that i don’t live for myself anymore…and it all requires a strength and courage that comes from a God who has overcome death.

impersonal

technology has made relationships far too easy and impersonal.

you go someplace, you meet someone. you add them on facebook and exchange bloody instant messages over the bad excuse for a chat service called messenger for a couple of days before you finally give up your cellphone number. then, you proceed to send even more text messages with smileys that do very little to convey your actual emotions until someone decides it’s time to meet. and when you do meet, you realise the other person is insufferable without an electronic device to hide behind and the time required to compose a witty sms is crucial in portraying a character that does not really reflect who you are.

you comb the person’s profile, blog, tumblr, instead of utilising actual face time (not of the apple variety) to get to know what he/she is like. you think whatever you’ve put on yours is sufficient to give them an idea of who you are. you assume they’ve looked through your profile. you hope they have.

it’s so convenient isn’t it? to just go by whatever’s virtual and already “out there” and think that it’s enough. it’s such an integral part of relationships in this decade that we have forgotten there is a human aspect to things. what we “like” on social media isn’t representative of what we would spend time on or really love. your views on life and religion and politics and the future are so much more important than the pages you like or the personalities you follow or the photos you take.

technology just makes things so much more superficial. meaningless. an absolute waste of time and effort.

i think i need to stop for awhile, unplug and be a hermit. 2 months without a proper break has taken its toll on me. once the post-elections euphoria and training has died down, once the flattery wears off, once i go back to saying “no” – even at the risk of losing potential new friends and pulling the brakes on the resolution to put myself out there. there’s a momentum that needs to be kept up but seriously, i’m starting to feel it.

—

on a lighter note, my 3 favourite american boys put together a series called “technology ruins romance” a couple of years ago. here‘s one that’s relevant to this post. enjoy!

never been cheaper

it’s been a couple of disorientating weeks.

after a lifetime of feeling like i’m not good enough, i’m showered with the kind of flattery a fat nerd like me could ever dream of when i was 16. it’s a shame i’m now alot older and possess some insight. if i were 16, i’d have drawn confidence from those words, texts, from the body language. i’d have naively expected the world. instead, i believe maybe half of what’s been said was actually sincere. everything else had motive. everything else was meant to throw me off.

everything else meant nothing.

in a world where inflation is a rule and there’s never enough cash, we can find comfort in the fact that one thing will continually and reliably deflate in value – words. they’ve never been cheaper.

being sociable

it’s rather tempting to say a couple of things about the upcoming elections. everyone has an opinion, even if it’s not originally theirs. being a self-centered blogger myself, it’s only right that i live up to expectations and get my thoughts out.

but i’m not going to, because i have nothing new to contribute. i’ve already decided which candidate party i want to vote for. the forums and ceramahs are purely fyi. the only thing about 5th may i’m not sure of is where i wanna watch the results.

so this is not an omaigawdicannotwaittovote post.

no, instead i’m going to reflect on the last month, or the first installment of “lishun does some socialising”.

it started with an eye-gazing party where i met some people whom i may or may not hang out with again. i know i’ve blogged about it in detail already but i’d just like to add a little more to my account of the experience.

although i expressed my reservations about going for another round, i did go for the third edition last week. it was a different venue with alot more alcohol and better food. there were some returnees and i had gotten a few friends on board so at least i wasn’t all alone.

here’s where it got strange though. i realised that it was far easier for me to talk and be witty with people i don’t know than with those whom i’m already acquainted with. looking into a stranger’s eyes is less intimidating than gazing at someone i’m familiar with.

perhaps it’s a fresh slate thing, i don’t know. it was an interesting revelation.

then there’s all the other stuff in between – music fests and politiko sessons and facilitator training. it was weekend after weekend of meeting people and making small talk and being funny at all the right things and hoping i appear intelligent enough to be a credible “activist” when all i really wanna do is make people care about things outside their still small worlds.

this is new to me. i am usually very comfortable with my circle of bffs and suddenly i’m going to things with friends of friends and i feel like i’ve missed out on 2 years of enlarging my environment because housemanship in ipoh happened. every monday i feel spent because the weekend’s been so overwhelming and i’m 2 years older and more tired than i was before.

but then i remember that the reason i fought hard to be back in the klang valley is to do exactly this – be involved in non-medical stuff, listen to great music, be open to new relationships, be challenged always – and i savour the few hours i have to myself each day before i set off and be sociable once more.

there is so much to be grateful for.

let’s just hope a burnout isn’t on the agenda.

not as simple

two of my long-term patients died this week. one was a young woman who had a stroke and eventually succumbed to complications from her chronically recumbent state. the other was a teenage girl with advanced cancer. i watched them slowly deteriorate despite our very best efforts. they both died malnourished, emaciated and wholly dependent on others for nursing care.

it’s not my place to decide who deserves aggressive resuscitation and who gets to go peacefully. my opinions have nothing to do with the care of the patient. my job is to give them my everything. but i wanted to cry as i gave orders to the resuscitation team to pump one of the patients with drugs and continue chest compressions. i felt like she didn’t deserve to die in pain. i wanted to stop and let her leave us in peace…but it wasn’t my place to do so.

not for the first time in my career, i wanted to ask for a vial of morphine and help her slip away.

so which patient was it? the answer’s not as simple as you think. doctors sometimes do emotionally-driven things. once, a team of neurosurgeons operated on a man with severe brain injury and possibly brain death just because he was young and they felt he deserved a chance. it’s not easy at all.

i don’t think anyone ever gets desensitised to death. every patient means something to me, and if i feel that way i’m sure all my colleagues do too.

raw

there’s this thing i do whenever i’m nervous. the corner of my mouth trembles and i pick the skin on my fingers until they’re raw and bleeding. the stinging pain of compression as i halt the gentle haemorrhage soothes my nerves a little. my manicurist gives me hell about it.

i saw someone else do the same yesterday. he is a young patient of mine, who’s been diagnosed with cancer. i stood by as the surgeon explained his treatment options – different forms of surgery depending on intraoperative findings, possible outcomes and complications, what to expect once the operation ends. diagrams were drawn, figures were thrown at him. he learned that he could have up to 5 scars on his neck, chest and abdomen as well as a tube going into his lungs when he wakes up from surgery. he was also told there was a chance the tumour may be unresectable.

it wasn’t anything new to me. i’ve assisted one of those surgeries and seen quite a number of patients go home without a stomach or part of their oesophagus and small bowel. i’ve watched the lung collapse on command during the operation and touched a still-beating heart. i’ve smiled at the end of the surgery when the collapsed lung expanded, its pink sponginess returning to its former glory.

i watched my patient lock and unlock his fingers, picking at his nails until they bled. he took in the jargon – anastomosis, stapler, thoracoscopy – without much question. he only interrupted the surgeon to ask if there were any restrictions to what he could eat.

in the routine of explaining complex procedures to our patients, it is usually the ill man himself that reminds us of what matters most: quality of life. he wasn’t interested in the surgery itself or the effort we are making in preparation for the operation. i’m sure he only understood 60% (at most) of what we told him about his condition and the options of treatment.

he just wanted to know if he’d ever taste his mother’s meals again.

i thought of the stressors that have compelled me to abuse my fingernails involuntarily. all of them raised my cortisol levels enough for me to lose sleep, look to the skies, head over to my favourite pub and avoid human contact. they were nowhere near the stress of receiving a diagnosis of cancer, yet those mechanisms of coping are a luxury for my patient, a young man who has less than a week to mull over the choices presented to him in that short 20-minute family conference.

if i ever had the illusion that this job will get easier with time, i definitely do not have it anymore.

snippets…because i’m too busy saving lives

in the past whenever i heard of the death of a child, i thought, “oh he/she lived such a short life.” now that i have a 4-year-old niece who brings me both joy and annoyance daily, i realise so much is invested in a life that eventhough 4 years can be seen as nothing compared to seven decades, it’s still 4 years of milk formula and sleepless nights and anxiety over delayed speech and overreaction to small milestones and stationery and pink dresses. it’s 4 years of love and losing a part of yourself to someone else. that’s not a short life.

perhaps the build up to this realisation is part of the reason i have abandoned ambitions of becoming a paediatrician. at least an adult would have spent some of his/her life independently. but a child…a child cannot stand alone, and to lose someone who is made up almost entirely of the people around him/her is too much to bear.

—

i’m may draw some flack for saying this, but i am now wholly convinced that anyone with any illness requiring any kind of surgery should head straight to a government hospital and be patient about the timing of intervention.

—

the laws of my department dictate that every referral must be attended to as promptly as possible. this differs from my previous workplace where referrals can be dealt with over the phone and instructions to admit a patient can be made via verbal order. this makes work rather difficult at times and i’m thankful the patient load at my current hospital is pretty bearable in comparison to other centers.

it does test my patience when i receive a referral for an illness that doesn’t warrant one but i’ve found that it pays off to disguise my displeasure with jokey sarcasm and a smile and do my best for the patient before resuming my precious sleep. i’ll be at this hospital for a couple of years and it’s best to maintain as good a relationship as possible with everyone there.

plus it all becomes worth it when i get an apology for a crap referral or support when i am obviously bullied into managing a case that isn’t even within my, erm, “jurisdiction”. hehe.

—

part of me wants to publish my monthly on call schedule and tell everyone with abdominal pain to abstain from seeking treatment at my hospital on those dates so i’d get some sleep during my calls. also, if you wanna get into an accident and break some ribs please stay away from the sungai buloh area. our stock of spirometers is depleting at an alarming rate.

and don’t drink and drive or fail your suicide attempts if you wanna avoid getting an unnecessary amount of large bore (read: very painful) venous cannulas inserted on your limbs. you’ve been warned.

—

i love being back in the klang valley. makes being a part-time fangirl very easy. it’s a pity that job costs more than it pays (it pays zero) and lands me a sore throat every time.

wait, that did not come out right.

—

wokay back to saving lives. *dons cape*

optical tango

i looked into the windows of 17 souls last night.

they belonged to strangers with whom i had no prior contact other than the handshake and nervous exchange of names seconds before we sat down and looked into each others’ eyes. the clanging of a cocktail shaker indicated the end of 60 seconds of quiet gazing and, after a burst of inevitable laughter, the line moved right onto an encounter with another pair of unfamiliar eyes.

it was an exercise tyra banks would certainly approve of. 17 attempts to get smizing down pat and perhaps mesmerize someone enough to come back and strike up a conversation outside the awkward non-staring and irresistible face-making. that’s the premise of eye-gazing, a silent speed-dating concept that first emerged a couple of years ago in – where else? – new york.

i had the privilege of attending the very first one in kl last night, organised by a couple of guys who seem to enjoy putting together unconventional parties at hip joints in the city. it wasn’t something i would normally go for, especially since i don’t already know any of the participants or even the hosts for that matter, but i’m in the midst of renovating a couple aspects of my life and what could be more un-lishun-like than an evening of optical tango?

optical tango. good lord. i’ve run out of alternative ways to describe eye-gazing. gonna stop consulting the thesaurus before things become any more cheesy.

so. eye-gazing. it was harder and alot more exhausting than i imagined it would be. first of all, we’re generally not a culture that embraces eye-contact or any form of body language, much less in a setting that’s supposed to be aimed at encouraging attraction.

secondly, and most disturbingly, i had trouble deciding what to do with everything from the eyes downwards. do i smile? how can i smile for a minute without it turning into a snarl (which, unfortunately, my smiles tend to go)? do i keep my lips pursed? should i show teeth? if i swallow will it be mistaken for…something else? what if i yawn? do i sit forward? relax towards the back? put my hands out? cross my legs? uncross my legs? what?

the gazing did eventually become easier. while the initial minutes felt like an eternity, the last ones went by rather pleasantly and i guess everyone was surprised by how much more relaxed we became after a few. gazes. after a few gazes and a few of everything else too, i’m sure!

it became pretty obvious by the end of the night that most of the participants were, like me, there out of curiosity and not in the pursuit of love. at the end of the second round of gazing, i felt as though i was participating in a team-building activity at the company retreat. perhaps one or two guys were actively out to pull, but everyone else seemed content with just making it through the whole experience and gaining a few new contacts in the process.

so would i do it again? yes, but to be completely honest the next time it would be on the context of actually hoping to meet someone special there. it’s much too tiring an exercise for casual socialising. there’s no way to look right into a person’s eyes without investing a little into the gaze and to come away with merely an experience feels like being shortchanged.

there’s almost certainly going to be an episode two to this eye-gazing party thing. the post-event questionnaire sounds like there’s another one in the planning and already a colleague of mine has indicated his interest in taking part.

looks like optical tango is here to stay!

names

gary, howard, jason, robbie, mark.

ginger, baby, scary, sporty, posh.

justin, jc, chris, joey, lance.

brian, kevin, AJ, howie, nick.

you knew their names by heart. you had their faces on your bedroom walls. you copied lyrics into a pretty notebook. you waited patiently by the radio to record their songs onto a tape. you bought magazines with them on the cover. you hoped your parents would bring you to their showcase here. you went to your friend’s house after school to watch their videos because she was the only one who had satellite tv. you wished you lived in manchester or florida.

your taste in music changed as your grew older. when they eventually stopped performing together, you mourned but not for very long. your priorities changed to include financial independence. you valued knowledge, relationships, life purpose more than being in the presence of mortal idols. you found yourself burdened with a couple of debts in the pursuit of the above.

now, you finally feel like an adult responsible for things other than yourself…

…and the damned backstreet boys decide to grace the stage at an accessible venue with an affordable entrance fee and you forget you’re 28 and save lives for a living. for that one hour in the middle of a late-twenties-early-thirties crowd, you are a 12-year-old girl who knows all the words to all the songs and has perfected the dance moves a million times in her dreams and is convinced howie d will marry her one day (no, he won’t).

you think you’re too old, but some things never get old.

—

20 years on, i’m still a downright fool for the backstreet boys. hearing them sing the a capella break down bit in “all i have to give” was the most surreal moment of the night, even more than watching them do the iconic 90s “get down” choreography that is best performed in loose metallic sweatsuits. oh, and i finally told – okay, screamed – howie d that i loved him, which was a pretty cathartic experience!

okay, i exaggerate.

alot of childhood dreams came true that night. if 12-year-old me knew that this would be possible one day, she would have been less upset about missing that one showcase the boys did back then. she would have also spent less money on magazines and posters and put more of it into the “send lishun to england to watch take that in concert” fund. haha.

oh messrs littrell, richardson, mclean, dorough and carter…thanks for helping this little big girl check off another item on her bucket list and giving her a royally sore oropharynx just in time for her call tomorrow. it was a pleasure!