"Dah dekat midnight dah ni. Vampire semua dah keluar."

Is-kun was taking the only patient's blood pressure. The other four of us stood doing nothing.

"Is paling berguna sekali." I said.

Umair looked at Pait. "Pait pandai buat cookies. Aku pandai buat chicken pie." She looked at Syaimaa and said, "Syaimaa pandai buat cheesecake."

She turned to me sceptically. "Kau pandai buat ape?"

LE200 richer

The doctor gave me LE200 for summarizing today’s neonatal jaundice lecture. Even the Egyptian girl Marwa got LE100. I was surprised when the doctor handed me that amount. Allah bless her heart. She said it was because I am “a Malaysian and extremely brave.” She said if she was in my place (a foreigner asked to speak up in a foreign country), she will mum up.

It wasn’t not so much bravery as it was obligation to the doctor’s order, who picked me because the rest of Malaysians pointed at me. And I was in my default seat in class; in the middle part of the mid front row and directly facing the lecturer without any other student in between. My gain, hehe.

I didn’t volunteer myself because I was sitting in the middle and it was so much hassle to go out to the front of the class. Plus money never motivates me.

So maybe I will buy stuffs with the LE200, cook something and share it with the whole class? But I am too lazy to cook.. Ooooh I want banana pie!

Laid-back

I never get the hang on long-haul public transport. It either makes me nauseous or sleepy. For the sake of everyone, I sleep.

It was only ten minutes into the journey and already I lost consciousness. The bumpy ride jolted me awake and the Egyptian aunty on my right gushed for me to continue sleeping, patting her shoulder.

Apparently I had spent the last half hour using her shoulder as a makeshift pillow. I sheepishly apologized to her but the uncle on my left and passengers in front of me gushed me to have my sleep. I didn't know why they were so concerned (either I looked toxic or they took in my small frame and considered me a pathetic lonesome girl) and at loss of word, I obliged and continued sleeping on her shoulder. It lasted another fifteen minutes, before the bumpy road was too much and I had to change my head position to lean onto the seat in front of me.

I woke up in time for my stop. My voice was still hoarse from the sleep so the uncle shouted out my stop to the driver. I bid him farewell and continued my journey.

I am one freaking laid-back traveller. Some will say my dependency on Allah is so high I forget everything else, haha.

Welcoming Them Cuties

A young nurse came to put on the baby girl's clothes. She put on the diaper after wiping up the meconium but the stain remained, so I asked her about it. She said the mother will do the proper clean-up.

I sweat-dropped.

She continued putting on the baby's beige undershirt. It was on inside-out. And the blue and white striped outershirt was also inside-out. She picked the baby up, bundled her in her-mother-provided blanket and carried her away.

I turned to Umairah. "When you go into labour, I'll make sure your kid's clothes are right-side out."

Iskandar laughed. "Why are you doing that? Isn't that her husband's job?"

He was right. I think I had become too independent that I forgot there is supposed to be role for a male.. somewhere.

Standard picture of a hyperexcited medical student. Mock me, haha.
He was the first baby we saw from a CS delivery. Handsome baby boy of 20112012. 

We went to the Department 10's labour room because we just took Neonatal Resuscitation on Monday and wanted to see how they really do it on a fresh baby. Though according to our esteemed leader, "We have to see the before process; the delivery!" with so much enthusiasm it was ticklish. Even declared a smug "My first delivery" after seeing his first vaginal delivery, hahaha.

We haven't taken Obstetric yet but Dr. Hend Mahmoud was very helpful and went through the normal delivery process with us in English and Syazwani tutored us through the Cesarean section. Paediatrically speaking, we saw what we came to see, revised the management of a baby of diabetic mother, grunting baby and some more.

Alhamdulillah. May God be forever kind to the cute babies and the heroes who worked for the safety of both mother and child.

Hari Mengucapkan Tahniah Kepada Budak2 Pendek

Post ini adalah untuk keluarga, maka kenalan-kenalan sahabat handai mungkin rasa budak ni mangkuk sungguh.

Harini papa ambilkan slip result UPSR Melle. Budak tu sekarang di rumah Chik di Selangor dengan Maru dan meninggalkan papa, mama dan James di rumah untuk menjaga arnab. Khabarnya Melle makin hitam sebab main panas di kolam renang, nasib la.

Kembali kepada ayat pertama, harini papa ambilkan slip result UPSR Melle. Seperti disangka, Melle dapat 5A dan 9A untuk SPPIM (Sijil Pentaksiran Pelajar Islam Musleh? Eh apekah dah lupa. Ni untuk budak-budak sekolah Musleh la.). Tahniah la kepada budak kecil baru lepas UPSR tapi perangai mengalahkan nenek. Semoga makin bersyukur dengan nikmat Ilahi dan terus berjaya dunia dan akhirat dan menjadi aset kepada agama, keluarga dan negara.

Tapi ketahuilah, kakakmu ini 10 tahun lebih hebat. You can never beat that, but you can come close enough. Ngehehe.

Maru pula dapat Tokoh Penampilan ke apentah bagi budak2 darjah dua di sekolah dia. Okey ni nak kata penampilan Maru smart ke? Mungkin juga. Ye kot.

Ye la tu. Anak papa. Mama dan Melle susah payah pastikan budak ni smart setiap pagi, nampaknya usaha kalian berbekas. Tahniah la semua.

Pencapaian ini, mengikut mama, menjadikan Maru calon sebagai pengawas bagi sesi akan datang. Tahniah budak tinggi. Semoga berusaha memudahkan urusan guru-guru dan kawan-kawan, jangan kena buli lagi ya Maru.

Sekian. Angah lapar dan harus mencari makanan.

Panic & The Peas

Once upon a time, I had Pyramid's fried rice and tweeted how it took me three times fed for that one meal to be finished. Kak Elle got confused whether Pyramid was an Egyptian restaurant or a Malay restaurant and why would they serve fried rice.

I told her it was an Egyptian restaurant and probably served fried rice there after years of having Malay customers over. I described to her that the fried rice was made with egg, chicken, beef, prawn, carrot and "paling tak best peas."

For the record, I eat all my vegetables except green peas. They taste funny. I only eat them on the occasion I am too hungry or too lazy to bother sorting them out.

Kak Elle on the other hand loves green peas, so her next reply of "Peas la paling best!" was expected.

At that time, she went with Miss P for Panic as her Twitter name so I replied her with "Miss P for Peas" as a homage to her love for peas. She replied back "Panic and The Peas?" and I decided that it sounded like a great band name.

She said, "Come join my band, you can be the lead guitarist."

The Veronicas. I stole this off the net ngehehe.

And that was how the Panic & The Peas joke came to be.

Smokers Are Stupid

Egyptians smoking in hospital is a very low level of humanity. A standard of stupidity and ignorance in itself.

But smoking in a children's hospital? Kids are already susceptible to respiratory infection, coming in crying for air and the air reeks of smoke. What kind of brainless stupidity is this?

Paediatric makes me seethe at stupid adults and one of these days I might just go homicidal. I can see myself at the end of the round coming down with bipolar depression; happily cooing at cute kids and turns amok at the adults. 

Bitter

I hate Spectrim. It's not smooth-coated and I have to bite into it to break it into small pieces before I can swallow it down. The darn antibiotic is way bitterer than paracetamol.

Plus antibiotics make me absent-minded hence generation of witty comebacks are now down to 60%.

But it does the trick and it's what I need. Regardless the mountainous complaints, I will still take it. With mumbles of "tak guna gile pahit."

I should close this post with some kind of lessons from this tale but my brain is not in prime function so please excuse this whining post.

You want to live a life of no pain or no pleasure?

I have always hoped I die young. I won't live a long life to commit too many sins. I won't face the hassle of old age and degenerative medical conditions. I won't have to plan much for the future, except the occasional dream of having an apartment of my own with a cat and an espresso machine in my huge kitchen. I can do whatever I want with what little I have and not let the future hinders me.

I won't have to worry about who's going to take care of me when I am no longer able to take care of myself and thus, I see no need for getting married.

So my reasons are plain selfish. Being selfish is my defense when people are being so damn stupid and I have to do something to avoid committing homicide.

But only very good people die young. In a morbid sense, maybe all I want is to be a very good person.

Maturity

You can ask Melle anything. She is good at Bahasa Malaysia (she corrected our usage of 'dari' and 'daripada'), brilliant at fiqah (she knows the barrier between a father and his daughter-in-law) and she is quick with her math (she answered my 8 times 3 in a jiffy). She is only twelve years old and a head shorter than me.

There should be other areas of her expertise. I should test next her proficiency in rocket science.

Recently she has shown interest in some witty-people-only-territory vocabularies such as asking me the meaning of sarcastic and irony.

Melle is so clever. That or I am so dumb. Haha.

Today Maru injured himself at the school. So he and probably all the boys in his class went to find Melle (those eight-year-old brats called Melle no prefix!) for help. Always ready for anything, Melle whipped out a band aid and tended to Maru's injury. She SMS-ed mom with her friend's handphone to inform her of the situation. Mom was at work so she called Along to pick Maru up early.

I was so proud my innards swelled and my abdomen got distended! That band-aid-whipping is so me! Melle also admitted to carrying safety pins around and I boomed out laughing because I do that too! She is so my sister! Sobs.

Anyway, back to the topic. Realize how the kids handled the situation themselves and bypassed the teachers? Kids nowadays grow up so fast.