Disclaimer
The reader accepts, on reading of this disclaimer, that the Internet is a vast wasteland of crap that spews out of human minds. This blog is no different. Any assumptions or conclusions that the reader draws from this blog are not the responsibility of the author, along with any physical or psychological harm that might result from the reading of this blog.

Author
The author is a paranoid, deranged and cynical misanthrope who records snippets of her life so that she will remember them when she grows old and withered. The identities of any names or initials on this blog are based on the assumptions of the reader unless otherwise specified, and the author claims no responsibility for them.

Reality
The author somehow got into medical school. Yes, you of the general public, shudder and fear the wrath of an inept doctor.

Loves
Reading, Maisy (my dog), tea, writing (albeit badly), piano, music, junk food.

Hates
Almost everything else besides the things mentioned above.

Friends

 Bao Cheng' Bernice' Chien Young' Chun Hing' Claire' Faustina' Felicia' Ferly' Gloria' Irene' Irene & Jiaying' Jac' Jiamin' Jiasin' Jiaying' Lutheng' Karene' Marissa' Melesa' Mingyi' My fictionpress' Pamelia' Pei Rong' Qiu Ting' Rachel' Satires Site' Stasia' Sylvia' The Clique' Vinette' Wenjia' Xin Rong' Xue Ying' Yanne & I' Yanne & Jamie' Zeena' 203'

Archives

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Chat area


 Monday, November 26, 2012

Yesterday was my 21st birthday. Strangely enough, I didn't really care about it.

I find the significance of birthdays fading away into obscurity as the years go by. The only thing I'm grateful for is that I (usually) don't have to go to school/work/uni on my birthday, since it happens to fall in the later part of the year. But birthdays have never been a big thing in my family, especially since most of my friends are away at this time of the year and thus there's not much point in organising anything.

There are some things I am grateful for in my 21st year of living (ie: the year just gone by) though:

1. That I passed 4th year. Hearing that 43 people in my year failed the OSCE honestly scared the shit out of me and made me grateful I passed despite the very minimal study I did (less than 1.5 weeks thanks to Tasmania).
2. Maisy. She has honestly been the light of my life, especially when it has been hard finding anything to be happy about. She has provided me with more love and friendship than I need, and I am grateful and so thankful to have her in my life (she makes up for the other not-so-great relationships that I have. *cough*). She is 8.5yo though... Which worries me :(.
3. My friends in Nanyang (I would say you guys, except that I highly doubt anyone even reads this old piece of crap floating in cyberspace). Meeting Irene after 7 long years reminded me that I still have great friends in you guys, and nothing can take away the experiences we shared over the 2 short years we were together. And the same with Maisy, the many of you who willingly lend your ears to this grumpy cantankerous misanthrope have supported me in ways that you can never imagine. I am eternally grateful for fate/God/karma/weird cosmic forces that dumped the bunch of weirdos that we were together.

This 21st year has been one of the hardest years for me. I find myself utterly exhausted at the end of what felt like a very, very long year. Long story cut short, it has been fraught with crap. I've felt like I was juggling a few hundred fragile, expensive porcelain vases laden with lead. And at many points in time, I had found myself doubting that I could go on.

Uni this year took a huge toll on me, and I'm sure the few visitors to this blog (if any) would know that most of it can be attributed to research. The last straw was probably the shitty (imo) mark that I got, which I still feel is totally undeserved. I've thought about it over and over again, and honestly cannot understand what happened.

Everything kinda snowballed due to research. My clinical rotations took a hit thanks to the huge workload, although I know I only have myself to blame (ie: my stupidity, incapability and general slothfulness). My social life turned from rare (eg: as rare as asian parents who are accepting of failure) to virtually non-existent. And coupled with my doubts about how well I was doing, whether this course is right for me, and 'friendships' with people in my cohort, it was a very difficult year.

But at the end of the day/year, I've learnt some very valuable lessons too:

1. Avoid insulting people around their workplaces.
2. Avoid committing career-suicide by doing stuff like the above, and confronting people in situations of completely unbalanced authority/power. Sometimes shit happens (research; why I haven't launched an official appeal against unfair academic assessment).
3. Be more discerning with my help/'friendships'; why spend my time and effort helping assholes who are clearly just making use of me? Such assholes who haven't contacted me all holidays except to bitch about how they didn't deserve to fail OSCEs? And yet, I hear them bragging to others that they got a raw mark of >130/160 despite them telling me what they got for each station (which came to definitely less than 110). If they even have the cheek to contact me at the end of the hols to ask me for help, I'm tempted to mention that my 75% definitely pales in comparison to the 85% they claim they got, and I doubt I'd be able to help them. Urgh. Some people are such losers.
4. That I should give people more of a chance. I realised after the Tasmania trip that ML is actually a nice person, and I completely misunderstood her. She does appear slightly kooky, but the few conversations I've had with her (on non-medical topics) have been rather intellectually stimulating. And I've found that we have a lot more in common than I would ever have expected. And that I think I like her better than some other people whom I thought I liked more.

Maybe I should start my 22nd year with a bang by kicking the people I've found that I dislike/have doubts about out of my close-contact list. It sounds kinda bad, but after my mum/brother discovered how many of the people I studied with failed the osce (despite me saying a few of them didn't deserve it), they told me to find better people to study with for next year. My mum happened to meet with some of them who came to my house to study just before the osce. I think they over-estimate my 'value' though, as do many of my peers. I'm kinda glad that anyone actually bothers studying with me sometimes. Lol.

And tbh, I don't mind teaching people as long as I feel that they appreciate it instead of just making use of me. What really shits me is how I have serious doubts about having real friendships with so many of them. Then again, I think it's one of those things I need to accept in order to survive working life. Sigh, I never knew this is what 'growing pains' feel like... I thought I was cynical before this. My cynicism back then looks like a rose-tinted unicorn party compared to the wasteland it is now.

I don't even know where this entire rambling turd is going, but I'll just finish off by talking about my brother's dedication ceremony (a somewhat more casual graduation ceremony to mark the transition from medical students to junior doctors for the graduating med cohort) which was on Saturday. My brother didn't graduate with honours. This news brought out the true colours in my typical Asian parents, where they both expressed their 'surprise' (read disappointment) that he didn't get honours, while a family friend's son who's always fared more poorly than my bro in Singapore/high school here got honours.

As mean as it sounds, I'm glad my bro didn't get honours. It takes the pressure off me, although my parents expect me to get it since they asked me for my WAM -.-. I've been trying to convince them that clinical assessments are completely unpredictable, and that honours isn't that great anyway :P. I hope it worked. So much for my parents always saying that a pass is enough. Lol, glad I was never that stupid to believe such a thing.

On another note, I'll be away for 2 weeks starting Thurs on a family holiday in China-land as I mentioned in my previous post. I'm hoping to somehow fit in a meet-up with Yanne in Shanghai, although I've heard that the packaged tour is really rigid and doesn't allow us much freedom in choosing where to go etc. So as much as I really want to meet her and catch up, I'm not gonna be too optimistic about it. But it's times like these that I'm glad that so many of us are all around the globe! It's almost like I can meet up with at least 1 person when I travel to a new place. It's probably gonna be quite a deciding factor in where I decide to do my elective next year too.

Alrighty, gonna shower than head to bed! Gotta meet my mentor tomorrow (urgh, can't believe he wants to meet me even during the HOLIDAYS), and there's marking too. Might post once more before leaving for China, but otherwise, here marks a 2-3 week hiatus since China-land is infamous for its censorship rules!

10:59 PM