Well done C2/07!

Time really flies! It felt like just yesterday that I witnessed the C1/07 batch graduate as young doctors!

I just got back from the oath taking ceremony of the C2/07 Batch. In taking the traditional oath they have crossed over from being my students to being my ex-students and now, fellow colleagues.

You can watch the video of the ceremony below:

Well done C2/07! It has been a pleasure being your lecturer and friend.

And as per tradition, here are 2 parting songs for you guys: Find Your Wings and My Wish For You.

And to my dear students who suffered a setback, I feel your pain. Trust me, I know, I’ve been there. Take time off, cry, grieve, rant if you must; rest…then come back, stronger…bigger….BETTER. Here is a song for you: STAND!!

Thurs, 250210 @ 1300

The divide

My poor poor son.

Up to a week ago, he was obliviously happy.  To him, his year 1 classmates were simply that, his classmates.

But now, he is forced to learn new things. Terrible things.

He is now told that he is a Chinese and all Chinese have Chinese sounding names like Lim Ah Kow; and all Chinese are Buddhists.

All Indians are Hindus. All Indians have Indian sounding names like Samy Vellu and all Indians are darker.

All Malays are Muslims and they have Malay names like Abu, or Ali or Mohamad.

The trouble is, my son doesn’t get it. Ask him what race is a Lim Ah Kow and he tells you he is an Indian! He says his Indian friend at school is a Malay boy.

He is told that a Chinese prays in a tokong, a Malay prays in a mosque and Indians pray in a kuil.

He has been brought up to know that he can pray just about anywhere. God is not limited to a temple or a mosque or a church. He can pray at the dinner table. He can pray on his bed before sleeping. He can ask for an empty parking lot for his mummy in a shopping complex while in the car.

He simply doesn’t get it.

I think what he doesn’t get is why the need for this apparent division and stereotyping?

I am sad to see him struggling to recognize who is who in his class. Before long it would dawn on him that he is the only Chinese boy in the entire year one and apparently it matters, at least to all the grown ups around him, teaching him day in and day out that we are different.

Soon he will learn that in this land, people are not equal, do not enjoy equal status and he has less rights compared to others.

This is our education system and it’s tragic when the seeds of division are sown from the very beginning.

1Malaysia? Yeah, when hell freezes over.

Tues, 230210 @ 2100

The moth

Found this insect on my office door and it wouldn’t go away. Is it a sign? A sign of what?!!

The Mystery

The other day, I  inadvertently stumbled upon the answer to a household mystery that has mystified us for a long long time:

“WHERE ARE RYAN’S SOCKS?!!!”

Ryan started year 1 just a month ago and since then his school socks have been disappearing one by one but we didn’t know where!

We checked every possible nook and cranny of our 12 year old washing machine, thinking that the geriatric washer has somehow swallowed up the tiny socks but we didn’t find any evidence that it was so.

It was an unsolved mystery….

Until that day, when I decided to clean the interior of my wife’s car before Chinese New Year and found these:

I found the first sock under the floor mat of the back seat.

I found a pair of socks located right behind the centre panel of the car, where the gear stick is located.

I found the other half of the first sock, a few days later, stuck under the front passenger seat.

And thus, the mystery was solved! It turns out that Ryan has this bad habit of removing his socks while in the car and then forgetting all about them when alighting the car.

The 12-year-old washing machine has been exonerated.

Thurs, 180210 @ 0700

What I dislike about CNY

It’s the 3rd day of CNY, and much of the celebration is over and done with. Phew!

Today is a welcomed respite from the last 2 days of intense ‘celebration’. While there are many things that I do like about the Chinese New Year, there are several things that I dislike intensely every time this annual event comes round.

Don’t know what I am talking about? Let me list them:

1. The HEAT – I don’t know why CNY has to be so hot every time, year in year out! Getting in and out of an air-conditioned car into the blistering heat repeatedly while going from house to house can cause havoc to my system, making me irritable, snappy and potentially triggering a massive migraine headache.

2. The CASH – and by that, I mean the lack of it! Granted that dishing out ang pows is a tradition and so should be followed, but why the need to do it at all? And some relatives resolutely refuse to get married thus making them eligible for an ang pow every year, even when they are probably earning a lot more than me! Go get hitched fellas, you have less than 363 days till the next CNY!

3. The DRIVING - meaning I have to be the driver to take my parents to this or that relative’s or friend’s house. While driving around in KL can be quite good during the CNY as the roads are mostly empty, navigating the various turns without an inkling to where I am heading can be quite nightmarish. And most times,  I don’t even know these people. Bleh…

4. The DRINKING – why is it that every relative that we visit would insist on serving my dad a glass (or 2 or 3) of hard liquor as a sign of respect? Do they not realize that they are not being kind to his health by this show of apparent respect? And at the end of the day, I have to lug home a very less-than-sober-coupled-with-a-very-loose-cannon-unpleasant daddy home. Very very unpleasant indeed not to mention the smell of alcohol permeating into every nook and cranny of my car.

5. The FEUDS - I think every family has this. Auntie A isn’t talking to auntie C who is not in good terms with brother E who hates the guts of cousin B who detests the antics of grand uncle F and so on and so forth. So every reunion meal is marred by the pretense and icy cold war. Tell me you family is a heaven-made-one and I say you haven’t dug deep enough yet.

6. The MEALS - and there are just too many of them which would burst my one year of dieting plan and expand my waist line to beyond redemption. At the time of writing, we still have one lunch and one more dinner to attend. Oh dear…

7. The NOISE – and we do have plenty of it, especially from inconsiderate law breaking, uncouth neighbours who insist on setting off firecrackers every night until the wee hours of the morning thus rendering any sleep impossible and making fretful babies even more fretful. My neighbour has a chestful of firecrackers and if by chance one day it caught fire, I fear for my home as well. KABOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!! and my family and I will have to sleep on five foot ways.

8. The TV SHOWS – are always loud, cheesy and oh-so-yesterday. I don’t even want to talk about it.

9. The LEECHES - and by this I mean the many Chinese restaurants offering package deals for the CNY. We tried booking at a restaurant nearby for a family meal and was told that the cheapest package was RM 598 for a table of 10!!! And the Ah Lian manning the counter had the cheek to say, “RM598 is not expensive what?”, which invoked a terrible need in me to hit her so hard, the pain would still be felt 3 CNYs down the road. RM 598 can feed my family for at least 2 weeks, you female-leech! In the end we had Western food for 11 people at one-third the price of the Chinese restaurant.

10. The GIFTS - or rather the exchanging of gifts. My mum would insist on bringing along a box with many red plastic bags containing mandarin oranges and gifts to be given away at various homes that we visit, only to return home with that many plastic bags of goodies because the people we visit would ‘return’ in kind. What an exercise in vain. Why can’t we just agree on not giving anything or returning anything and be done with this exercise?

There! These are some of my pet peeves. Tell me I am not the only one feeling like this!

Tues, 160210 @ 1110

Another conversation with the noodles lady

There I was, enjoying a nice cup of coffee and reading the papers when the noodles lady brought me my order (kueh teow with bee hoon in dark soya sauce). She lingered a bit while I was trying to fish out RM 3.30 from my wallet to pay her.

“So, are you working during the Chinese New Year?”, she asked.

“No, I am celebrating CNY; I will only start work after a week’s break”, I replied.

“Eh…?!”, she responded with a puzzled look on her face.

“I thought you don’t celebrate CNY“, she said.

“Why not?”, I looked up while passing her the RM 3.30.

“Because you are a Christian and a Christian don’t celebrate CNY!”, she replied.

“But I am Chinese isn’t it? So, of course I celebrate CNY!”, I explained.

“Oh…I always thought Christians don’t celebrate CNY!”, she replied, took my money, muttered a “thank you” and walked away.

Sigh….after more than 50 years of independence, Malaysians cannot differentiate between race and religion. That’s really sad and it really doesn’t bode well because any perceived attack on a religious matter will automatically be perceived as an attack on the entire race practicing that religion!

We are so very far from the much-hyped-but-hollow 1Malaysia.

Anyway, to all my peace loving truly Malaysian friends (I really don’t care about your race and religion):

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!! MAY JOY, PEACE AND LOVE BE YOURS TO SAVOUR THIS YEAR!

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Murder He Wrote

A body has been found in the building!

The body has no head and limbs. Only the upper torso was found, stuffed in a box and left in a corner! Investigators believe the body belonged to a white female between 20-30 years old.

No blood trail was found at the crime scene which leads investigators to conclude that the murder was committed elsewhere and the body dumped here.

The murder bore all the trademarks of the Ice-Truck killer in Dexter Season 1!!

The problem is, the Ice-Truck killer is dead!

So whodunit? (Scroll down to see the body)
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Wed, 110210 @ 0700

PS: If you think I have a warped sense of humour, you are not far from the truth.

What examiners eat for lunch

What’s on the plate:

1. One very hard hard-boiled egg fried in curry

2. 1 piece of tofu, hard in consistency

3. Vegetarian curry containing one slice of brinjal

4. Pieces of what appear to be cabbage mixed with orange strips consistent with carrots

5. A scoop of dehydrated, de-chlorophyll-ed, de-vitaminized fried kang kung

6. Some rice

Oh, for a good plate of wan tan mee…..

FAIL!!!

I snapped these FAIL photos recently:

Sliding chairs: the longer you sit on these chairs, you will find yourself progressively sliding downwards because of the downward incline of the seats. At the end of a 3 hour meeting, if you are semi-comatose, you could possibly end up under the meeting table! Maybe these chairs are designed to give maximum discomfort as one has to constantly’ slide up’ – very abrasive for delicate family jewels. Whoever designed these deserves to be whipped in public.

A doctor’s plan for a patient with stroke. Assigning the patient to a CORD bed would not help but a COT bed might.

Wed, 100210 @ 0700