Bananas, DAP, Japanese Friends

10pm, outside wet after the rain. Love the smell u get after a rain.

Listenin to the John Williams' version of "Summon the Heroes", whush, they play the bass parts dem kann chiong. Just back from band practice, din play 'Heroes today, sniff.

Found a version of the actual 1996 Atlanta Olympics performance, conducted by John Williams' himself, dem cool, check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10SWNWzGq1U



Caught Macha eating while a cat was waiting patiently behind a pillar for him to leave, so that it could come and grub in. Managed to snap one pic b4 Macha saw me, got excited and ran to me. Cat ran in, grabbed a bone b4 Macha came tearin back after it and chased it away.

To Shiawase: Sigh, sumtimes proud to be a banana, sumtimes sad to be a banana. Speakin of blenders, mango shakes sellin very well at Chapati Corner, must suggest to Aunty to make banana shake...ewww...dat sounds bad (and obscene at the same time), on 2nd thoughts, nevermind. Do take us again thru paedz wards nxt week ya!

Havin second thoughts on emcee-ing for the wedding. Yikes, i'd be nervous as hell. Dun wan2 mess up sumone's wedding.


Haha, after many years of voting for the Opposition, PJ has finally come under the Rocket! We were mostly cheerin dat Samy Vellu lost the election, can hear the whole SS3 shouting in unison when his results were shown on RTM1.

Surgery goin smoothly. Not practicin enuf of my physical examination skills, very weak.
New juniorz finally came in to surgical wards, brought a few around, some presented cases to me, realised how much i've grown in knowledge and maturity, especially in history takin. Could not believe i once clerked history as a sem6 junior. Stayed back a few times just to bring juniors around, haha, its more fun when ur teaching, forced to read up beforehand so dun look stoopid in front of juniors.

One patient at bed C13 complained of abdominal pain and constipation. I showed the abdominal xray to a group of juniors, showed off my xray interpretation skills, i suspected intestinal obstruction, couldnt really see dilated bowels tho. Juniors questioned back, me as senior ego super big, junior not allowed to question senior, just accept wat we teach u, even tho xray looked quite funny. Suspicious bladder stone noted by one junior, i brushed it off as a phlebolith (calcified vein, incidental finding in old ppl, but pt was only 36 yrs old...). I gave my provisional diagnosis: TB of the ileum. Fuyoh...super-rare disease. Dun noe till dis day how i came up with that differential.

When everybody left, i checked the name on the xray. Wrong xray, supposed to be bed C13, i took for bed 13. Turns out patient in bed 13 was being investigated for blood in the urine, doctor's differential: bladder stone. Bed C13 just had an appendicitis. -_-"""

This week, IMU had 3 Japanese elective students. We had the honor of having one of em onboard in Surgery. His name is T. I was jealous dat Japanese medical students could keep long hair, dem cool. Could only speak halting English, lotsa medical terms he could not understand for they studied medicine in pure Japanese over in Japan, even his textbooks were in Japanese. He learnt the English terms himself with the aid of his translating device. I played unofficial host to him and his friend, R, a Japanese girl who likes anime (its pronounced a-nime in Japan, not ani-meh) and Queen rock music. T spends his time in the labs doin lung cancer research over the weekends. Wow, so hardworkin.

Showed T around the hospital, translated for him during case presentations. A lot of things he couldnt understand. He tended to nod ALOT. Haha, me too, mebe its built into all things Japanese. It was like, at 10Hz per sentence said to him. He nodded to alot of ppl in the hospital as well, everyone thought he was a Japanese specialist, since he had a very matured look. Everyone nodded back at the same frequency until they became giddy.

On Wed I went to endoscopy room with T. Everytime im the only Chinese in a room, i prayed hard dat no Chinese pt would come in, cuz then i wud be called to translate. My bad luck dat day.

I was tested to the limits of my chinese language when a Chinese pt with the whole family (picture this: pt in wheelchair, daughter, son-in-law, 2 children, grandma and brother) came to endoscopy room. All could not speak Malay or English, or refused to speak it, i tink.

Their CT forms and blood forms got mixed up, so i had to take em all the way to MOPD and ask for an appointment. Due to damned beuracracy (godz, how do u spell dat damned word), i was sent on a long walk back to the endoscopy room.

Naturally, all the family members asked me a lot of questions, even their little girl. They were worried about their grandpa having lung cancer. I saw the chest xray, a huge opaque lesion at the left upper lobe. Scope on TV showed an ugly lesion infiltrating the left upper bronchus, doc took a sample. Din dare to show the family members the chest xray.

Didnt know how to pharse it properly, just kept tellin them to wait for biopsy results to come back. Their questions became more complex, from what i usually expected. I switched rapidly from what little vocabulary i knew in Mandarin and Cantonese, and finally a desperate attempt to Hokkien, b4 i admitted defeat and told em i din know how to speak proper Chinese.

Even then, they kept asking. Shows how same races lean on each other in times of need, they refused to converse with the doctors and nurses, only turned to a fellow Chinese. Makes u feel proud to be a Chinese.

Friday nite I took T and R to our variety nite, orientation ended this week. Gave them a dose of IMU orientation nite group performances, yeah, obscenity and IMCCs' included. They could not believe me (they're Asian eyes became American eyes) when I told em, "That girl is a boy... yes, SHE is a HE... yes, its water balloons and a wig...". After dat, their cameras were flashin away.

They were impressed dat Malaysia was such a multi-cultural society. The plays, musicals and songs alternated between shouting bad words in Hokkien, singin the TV3 Ah Long of Bukit Beruntung song in Malay, to lotsa Bollywood music and dancing. An Indian junior was asked to translate one bangra music, the results: "Boy asks girl, 'U look like apple. What is ur name, apple?'" Tamil translation did not come well into English, T looked quite bemused. R and T also laughed alot, even though they couldnt understand the jokes. Most amused by every IMCC dat came on stage. Ah, what is an IMU orientation without our IMCCs? The IMU tradition to be most proud of.

Probably take em photos back to Japan, and showed it to the deans and the whole university during a cultural exchange presentation or sumthin.

"This is what Malaysian students usually do in medical universities."

(Hundreds of stunned Japanese faces)

"...soh des kah...".

Oh, well lotsa things to do b4 Sat nite ends. Nitez...