Neurotism

Sometimes it’s a bit exhausting to talk to parents of patients ( who are under 18) about their treatment.

One has to be very, very patient. After a phone consult or an actual appointment, I come out feeling I needed a stiff drink.

In the future, I hope I don’t become as neurotic as some of these mothers.

Candid

I’m too tired to write serious topics today, so I’ll be candid.

Heck I’ll even write in point forms.

• The global economy is slightly worrying. It’s affected most, if not all, industries. Times like this, you wonder how long is this doom and gloom gonna be. You can only hope with all your might that it’ll pass.
• I’m getting this runaway feeling again. Though i know i won’t do it when the real thing comes. Probably because I’m just trying to run away from something. I was telling J the other day maybe we should run to America, and he said: “Whatever you wanna run away to there for?”
  I said I don’t know. I just felt like it. He added: ” If you wanna run, the better place would be Europe.”
  Ah, how true. Alas I can’t speak at least half the languages there. Which brings me to my next point.
• I really, really, want to go to Europe. Since I have a few friends there, I better make the trip sooner than later, before they move on to other places. You know how young people are, they can’t sit still in one place. Initially a gal pal of mine and I had this dream that we probably should do a few months stint in Ireland, but when we found out that we have to sit for registration exams there, that put us off.
  Even she too now has this slumbering feeling maybe we’ll just rot in NZ
• A couple of people in the past have asked me why didn’t I go to Australia to live and work. I confess that was my initial plan when I was in Uni, but after much careful consideration, I decided against it.
  Not because I’m some silly idiot who was “brainwashed” by some other people to stay here, as my family would assume and think so, but because I don’t feel that it would be a better lifestyle over there. Sure you probably make a little bit more money in the bush, but I don’t think I can cope with life in the bush. My coursemates who are working in the bushes are already running wild. They spent money on booze ( and maybe drugs) because they’re so damn bored. And this doesn’t run only in my social circle, but a couple of people that I’ve talked to have also lamented the same thing.
• I’m trying to get back into reading again. But it’s a painful slow process. I can’t even finish two books in 3 weeks. So I’m trying to finish one book in 3 weeks.
• I wish I had Lotto. Correction, I wish I had 10 million dollars just fell onto my lap. So that I can make do with that money in a lot of things. But then again, who doesn’t?

In the meantime, I’ll just go enjoy life’s little pleasures. Like my cup of coffee….

Thankful

Sometimes we are too caught up with our own sorrow and misgivings that we failed to be thankful of all the other little blessings we have around us.

Here’s something for you, and may you be inspired and enlightened by it.

Thanks, Josh Groban for the wonderful lyrics and music, and whoever it is that made this slideshow on Youtube.

Congrats NZ

I’ve never imagined myself to watch rowing with such excitement, but I tuned into it last night because NZ had 5 teams in there so I wanted to catch the action.

Boy must I say some of the races were very breathtaking! Thankfully I didn’t have oily, fried food for dinner if not I wouldn’t have been able to breathe.

Mahe Drysdale, who was in the single men’s double skull, I really should take my hats off to him.
He suffered from “Beijing Belly”, with vomitting and diarrhoea for the last week or so, and just before the race medics had to intravenously inject him with solutions to keep him hydrated, managed to push himself through to a bronze medal. We could see he was struggling during the last 250m, but he just gave himself the extra push. Immediately after he crossed the finishing line, he was in severe pain and started vommitting and the medic team had to help him for 20 mins, just to get him standing up for the victory ceremony.
Well done and what a brave effort!

And the twins, Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell in the women’s double skull, wow, what a race!

This was literally down to 1/100th of a second! The confirmation had to rely on the photo finish! Their boat tip just edged the finishing line by 0.01 of a second before the Germans.

I was jumping up and down and cheering on in the privacy of my own lounge. Thankfully I wasn’t there in person, if not it probably would have been an embarassing moment

Anyway, good effort for NZ team- 2 gold medals, 1 silver and 2 bronze at this stage.
For a population of 4 million, and for the athletes who did not have the “luxury” of more funding like those who’re from US, UK, they did well.

So congrats!

To be accepted

I have learned in one way or the other that human beings always want to be accepted. We want to have a sense of belonging to a certain group of people, be it your social circle, your church goers, your workmates, your family etc.

You travel along life, doing your own thing, and you wonder what you are doing has any effect on yourself or others.

I admit that sometimes I’m not the best in things, but I try my best to do my best.

And when you’ve done your personal best yet it’s still not enough, you get a little disappointed.

Many of you know of my struggle for acceptance with certain people, but I think in life, one can only do so much to try to maintain a balance. The balance of trying to be versatile and flexible with others, yet not losing your true self.

But it’s the little things that sometimes gives you the “pat in the back” to say that “Hey, you’re not so bad after all.”

For me, it’s something like, when new patients come in to see me because a family member or friend has recommended me to them.

At least I know I’m not so bad after all…..

The Big Mouth

I hardly browse some of the blogs back home these days, but sometimes I do out of curiousity and boredom.

So I was browsing through this famous blogger’s blog and he mentioned that he had a car crash and he had to spend Rm4000 to repair the car.

He managed to take some photos and he was smiling after the accident even though the crash looks bad.

Fortunately he was unhurt and pretty much escaped unscathe.

Many people then left comments and said how could he be smiling after such an accident, when he could have killed himself and others.

Then the next post that followed was he was depressed and he should have died in that car crash.

I was a bit infuriated at this point. I left a comment telling him off, saying it’s very irresponsible of him to say such things when there are thousands of people around the world who are suffering from illnesses like cancer, multiple sclerosis etc, who want to live another day and he had the audacity to say he wants to die.
I also mentioned that he should be a responsible driver and be thankful that he was given a chance to live.
There are other road users who count on responsible drivers to give them their lives.

In one of the comments he left in response to his readers’ comment was that he has been involved in so many car accidents that he has been numb by it.

I must say, I was furious.
It’s one thing to be blasé about life, but it’s another to be irresponsible in one’s driving where there are other road users around.

Once you kill somebody, you kill somebody. You can’t undo it. You can’t undo the death, or god forbid, the paralysis.

Not sure if that fella agrees with me or not, but at least I’ve cast my thought there.
Whether or not he likes it is up to him.

If he’s got half a brain left, he should think twice about this.

The Olympic Spirit

Well, the Olympic buzz sure has begun.

I watched a bit of the opening ceremony and I was quite impressed.

China can do anything with much greatness if they put their mind to it.

Many of the Western media are still making noise about the human rights issue that China has a notorious reputation of.

Well, the thing is, to the Chinese human rights is just not on their minds at all.
You speak to the common Chinese and all they want is prosperity and stability.

Though I do not condone the practises of China, but that’s just the way they do things.

They’re still trying to catch up from the lost times of Mao Ze Dong’s years.

Anyway, Olympics these days has become a political issue.
Even the selection of this venue– China was also hugely influenced by politics.

But, I happened to chance across this interesting piece by Readers Digest.

Back in those days, there is a true spirit of the Olympians.

Here are some examples: ( I copy from the NZ Readers Digest verbatim):

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Lucien Duquesne, Amsterdam 1928

Paavo Nurmi the legendary Finnish long distance runner carried a stop watch to pace himself. During a qualifying race in the 3000m steeplechase, Nurmi fell at a water jump and dropped his watch.

Lucien Duquesne of France stopped, lifted his rival to his feet and helped him retrieve his watch from the water. Rather than forge ahead, Nurmi ran the rest of the race alongside Duquesne and at a finish line offered to the Frenchman first place. Duquesne declined.

Shunzo Kido, Los Angeles 1932

Shunzo Kido, a member of the Japanese equestrian tream was leading the steeplechase event when he noticed his horse Kyu Gun, was fatigued and faltering. Kido decided to drop out of the race rather than risk injury to the animal.

Two years later, a California humane society erected a plaque in Riverside, California to honour the gesture. It reads that Kido, in choosing to save his horse “heard the low voice of mercy, not the loud acclaim of glory”.

****

If only athletes ( and non athletes) this day can have this true sportsmanship….

Election ‘08? South ‘08?

Short talk: Heavy reading ahead. Proceed only if you want to indulge in some US politics

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This year’s US Presidential Election sure has been much more exciting than all of the previous presidential elections that the US has held.

Probably because Barack Hussein Obama is such a phenomenon.
Well, worldwide anyway.

Back in his home country, he still is struggling to get the popularity in the mid West.

Many of you would be wondering, why on earth would I be interested in US politics now?

I never was, and still is lukewarm about US politics.
But I sure hope that the Americans are wise enough to make the right choice.

Like the old adage: When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.

It’s unfair that the whole world’s happenings revolves around the US. I don’t know when did we global citizens give US such power, but it has happened and nothing can be done to reverse that.

Unless another super power emerges in the near future, then looks like we have to settle with Big Brother.

I, of course, would be supporting Obama if I were allowed to vote in US. Unfortunately, I’m not a US citizen ( though I damn well came close to it) so my only hope is that their people can vote with their brains.

The issue at the moment is how is Obama going to win the hearts of the Southerners.

He’s a black man. He has a Muslim name as his middle name.
He’s young-er compared to John McCain.

He sure has a lot of hurdles to overcome.

Many political correspondents are unsure how the Southerners would see him as a potential President.
A few of them seem to think that they would stick to the Republicans, because 1) they don’t trust a black man to run this country 2) they want economic boom, because they’re poor at the moment. Voting in a Democrat would just mean more taxes.

For a while now, the Northern Americans have looked down on these Southerners, calling them Hillbillies with a Hicksville mentality.

I was intrigued by why the Southerners think the way they think now.

And I must say, this Newsweek article educated me a bit.

But this last paragraph out of the 5 page long article moved me:

Those who have lived long enough to experience the Old South, the New South and the deeply uncertain present-day South know just how long it takes to move the society here. But they know, too, that it does move. William Carter Jr., was born in 1927 in North Charleston, S.C. He lived through the worst days of Jim Crow in the South, and he served in the segregated U.S. armed forces in World War II, which was a moment of awakening for so many black men. You learned not to be afraid, he said. “When you come back home you have the same feeling: ‘I’m a man. I’m not a boy no more’.” Carter worked as a TV technician for Sears and devoted himself to his duties as a deacon of the church. Now 80, he is president of the National Baptist Deacons Convention. Perhaps because he had seen so much of the past, had seen so much that had changed, and so much that had not, he was sanguine about the future of a black presidential candidate. “Obama is going to win,” he said. And if he does not? “Then he is preparing the way for the next.”

There is a short video about this reporter’s journey into the south.

So if you’re interested, click on those links above.

One can only wait and see what will happen when the election arrives.

Rape? Or Not?

I came across this article in The Star (www.thestar.com.my) in the Lifestyle section which talked about rapists in Malaysia and why they rape.

While I truly applaud the journalist and researchers who were “daring” enough to talk about this openly, but there is much to be debated upon in that article itself.

For starters, there has NOT been a mention of the role of counselling at all in regards to the rapists and how we should rehabilitate them.
People only mention of harsher sentences for first time offenders, but none has even slightly offered the route of therapy sessions.
This is a very vital issue that shouldn’t be brushed under the carpet.

The rapists need help mentally. The way they view women and their perception about sex is very skewed and it should not be punishable only by the justice system.
There has to be efforts to try to rehabilitate them on the mental and emotional aspect of things.

“In more developed nations we find younger perpetrators and stranger rape cases. With rapid urbanisation in Malaysia, will the category of rape and the origins of rapists shift due to the ‘overcrowded rat syndrome’, with younger men coming from high density flats and condominiums?” queries Dr Rohana.

She adds, “We are breeding a culture of poverty. People grow up resenting others and they transfer that aggression to the easiest victim they find. I hope our structure of housing can be more humane and not resemble pigeon holes in the sky. We need sustainable family planning especially among the low income group. Seldom do we find a sociologist on planning boards during development.”

While it is food for thought, but to blame it on the building infrastructures is a little absurd.
There are plenty of cities that have sky scrapers everywhere but have low rape cases. ( I don’t know what cities to cite, but maybe you will have a better idea?)

“Rape is a worrying trend although Malaysia still has a low rate compared with other countries,” says criminologist and Universiti Sains Malaysia’s School of Social Science lecturer Dr P. Sundramoorthy, adding that for the first time, crime was an agenda for the March 8 elections.

Other countries? What countries? Indonesia? Phillipines? Heck, Iraq?
If you keep comparing with these low ended countries, then of course we are much better off.
Why aren’t you comparing the rate per capita with the OECD countries??

In June, Munirah Bahari, vice president of the National Islamic Students’ Association of Malaysia, caused a furore by stating that school girls’ white baju kurung was too sexy and lured rapists. Similarly, the Kelantan Government forbade women to wear coloured lipstick or high heels as these are deemed enticing to men.

This again is one of the absurdities of these so-called religious leaders.
Why are women subjected to these neanderthal ideas?? Why must women be “submissive” and “less equal to men”? Islam used to such a progressive religion and now why are these extremists bringing this religion a few steps backwards?

Read the whole article here.

Maybe you can offer something different.

“Young and Inexperience”

I am sometimes quite fed up with patients who whine to my staff that they don’t want to see me because I am “young” and they want someone who “has more experience”.

Well, what do you expect me to do?? Suddenly grow a few more years of wrinkles and white hair??

And some people ask me: “Oh, when are you going to open your own practice?”

I said not anytime soon, if ever, by the looks of things.
At the moment, when I have these complaints I have my administration staff or my boss/ lead dentist to deal with them.
He knows how to put them into their place.

And sometimes you hate it that these people have all these expectations from you, expect you to be the miracle worker to get them out of pain or whatever complaint that they have INSTANTLY.
Some of them can be done instantly, most can’t.
And when they aren’t/ can’t be resolved, they blame it on me or whoever the dentist.

Err, if you’re so smart, go do it yourself?
Your teeth is your responsibility. When it goes all shitey, it’s your fault, not mine.
I can only do the best within my capacity, but I obviously can’t resolve everything for you..

Anyway, it’s a Friday rant.
Thank god I don’t work on weekends