Sunday, September 18, 2005
I need a break (not Kit Kat)
Okay, another post, because the last one was far too charged with negativity. As I said, it's just Richard Gere. Don't like his smug pleased-with-himself face.
There's a Chinese proverb that goes, One dreams of at night what one thinks of in the day (quoting Chinese proverbs feels really weird, like I'm writing a GP essay or something *goosebumps*). It's really disturbing and also a little irritating, but I keep getting medicine- (or surgery-) related dreams when I sleep. I was just describing to some friends the other day how I had a dream where I was watching the laparoscopic cholecystectomy of this middle-aged woman with gallstones, and somehow I saw this humongous mixed stone - all round and dirty yellow studded with spots of dark faceted pigment components - stuck in her common bile duct. And it's ridiculous because everyone knows you don't see the interior of the ducts during a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. And the night before that I dreamt of a man with intestinal obstruction, but I forgot the details of that dream. Maybe I should keep a record of these weird dreams - they could fill up a logbook of sorts. Yesterday night I didn't have a medicine-related dream, but I was watching the last episode of Pride and crying so much I couldn't breathe. More weirdness.
I strongly suspect that the weird dreams are adversely affecting my sleep cycle somehow, because every morning I wake up feeling like I've hardly slept enough throughout the night. It isn't a physical exhaustion, but more mental and emotional, like my body rests while my mind gets locked in endless dream loops and doesn't get a chance to settle down. And it's horrible, because this exhaustion is wreaking havoc on my ability to function on a daily basis: I get tired more easily, I forget to do things, I forget things that patients tell me, I keep losing focus and end up staring into space, especially during surgeries (because you can't see anything half the time anyway, unless you're standing right there operating). For four weeks now I've been feeling really out of it, and it's not like I like having weird dreams. I just don't know how to stop myself from dreaming so much. I just hope things get better, or the next four weeks will be really long for me. Sigh.
I forsee that somewhere in the future I'm going to really start regretting reading so little during the medicine and surgery postings, because I'm really lazy. Already I'm regretting not having a firm grasp of the year two subjects, because all the things I knew so well for the end-of-year-2 CAs and exams seem to have disappeared totally from my memory. The only things I can depend on are my basic anatomy and physiology which thankfully seem rather intact. Every time a surgeon asks me about surgical procedures I stare blankly at him (hmm, as an aside, notice how few female surgeons there are?), but when they ask anatomy questions, like about arterial branches, I can answer those questions. Just the other day a registrar asked me to list the boundaries of the inguinal canal over a herniorhaphy (I was quite miffed because he asked me to scrub up and didn't let me do
anything) and I had to really dig up textbook images of the inguinal canal from my memory to answer him.
I sound very pleased with myself, huh. But yes, thank goodness for anat.
Am I alarmed that people have been caught for making racist comments online? Not really. It's really kind of stupid to think that one can really say what one wishes, to the point of making seditious remarks and encouraging violence and hatred against other races, and hope to get away with it, no matter how much anonymity the internet can provide. Some weeks ago I chanced upon a link to the blog of the third guy who was arrested, the private school student, and the stuff he was writing there was disgusting, so much so that I felt nauseated after reading it. I couldn't believe that there were people in Singapore who could hate malays so much that they could write such horrible things. I mean, me, I'm known to make some jokes once in a while that are racially-inclined, but I'd never go so far as to say I hate all members of a race. Like, hello, that's just illogical. If I dislike someone, I'd think his or her race isn't a significant factor.
All that said, I'm a little worried, not because of anything racist I've posted on my blog (I'm quite confident that I haven't), but because I've posted other objectionable things, namely criticism of the G. But I'd die if I try trawling through all my previous posts (all 217!) attempting to clean up.
I was reading a column in Sunday Times this morning, by Janadas Devan, and he was lamenting the prevalence of the habit of using "like" ubiquitously and inappropriately in speech by young people nowadays. Example: "I was, like, going to the toilet, when I, like, knocked my knee on a chair, and that was, like, so painful. Like, OUCH!" It's amazing how prevalent this habit has become, and how insidious it's progress, because who can say when it began, and yet now almost everyone uses it when they speak. It's almost become a natural component of speech, and I think if I actually tried to not use the word inappropriately, I wouldn't be able to get as far as three sentences. It's, like, a scary thought.
I finally finished reading Traitor's Knot (I think my reading speed is on a drastic decline, but I try to deceive myself by thinking that it's because I want to savour every word of the book), and it's just so so good. I read a review on Amazon that applauds Janny Wurts' talent, but says that while she's a fantastic writer, she's not a very good storyteller. That's true. She writes beautifully, and sometimes I'm just struck dumb by her prodigious talent at using language, but the plot is sometimes not very clearly defined, and only hinted at through subtle conversation and emotions. Thus, a lot of the time, you go through some parts reading characters' conversations about something they all seem to know by virtue of some inner conclusion they've come to, and yet you don't. It can get irritating, but the overall book is so good it makes up for the vague parts. I can't wait for the next instalment, but that's probably going to take a few more years. Sigh.
Haro^2Tori^2 haven't released a GSD fansub ever since Phase 44! I don't know if I should wait any longer or just get fansubs from another fansub group. I don't want to be sitting around still waiting when everyone's watched the last ep.
Avaris / 9/18/2005 07:04:00 PM
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