Mari La Rajin, Dilarang Update Belog

"Mama, doakan la Hana rajin." 

"Kenapa tak rajinnya?"  

"Erm-" 

"Cuba tengok Melle, dia balik kelas je terus bukak buku. Dalam kereta lagi dia dah bukak buku. Dia balik sekolah pukul 5 petang, pastu pukul 8 sampai 10 kena sambung lagi."  

"Sambung ape ni ma?" 

"Sambung tuition."

Melle budak UPSR. Sekolah dia start pukul 7 pagi. Berapa kali entah kena compare dengan budak tu. Kalau kakaknya tak insaf sekarang jugak tak tahu la..

PDA From Hell

We were walking out of the outpatient clinic when there was a man throwing something solid at his nine years old kid. The kid was already bending over spitting his saliva out and the man reached over to smack that kid across his back.

Smacked real hard.

I was on hell by the public display of abuse and walked towards a pole near them to give it a good kick, but I realized I was in public and there were classmates behind me and... It killed me not to start a scene there.

I hate it when Egyptians hit their kids. Because they hit their kids really hard and at places you're not supposed to hit a person. Like slapping a crying kid hard across his face. Smacking a bent over kid across his back. Kicking a standing kid's legs like a football player kicking the ball off.

To make it even worse, it is a normal occurrence here in Egypt. Even the Malays are turning a blind eye at it.

We were at Hadiqah Dauliyah weeks back for our First Aid Outing and near our station was a child running loose near his family. His mother ran up to him and kicked the standing kid's legs like an NFL player's kickoff.

So the kid was naughty. That did not justify physical abuse!

I was aghast, shocked, horrified. I was clenching my fists in anger. A friend saw me hellish and told me to relax. "This is normal."

I cursed back. This could never be normal. The fact that anyone could claim it was normal made the whole situation worse.

---

When shit becomes normal, you know how ruined the society is. It is never okay to hit a kid regardless the race and country. A kid is a kid is just a kid.

I wish one day I will work out the courage and the language to interfere with some kid's upbringing. 

Pride

Dr. Ehab Abo Zeid when discussing a case of chronic secretory otitis media with us, told that most patients in Upper Egypt refuse to wear a hearing aid when their hearing gets worse.

"They will say, 'You can kill me, but I will not wear a hearing aid.' I don't know why."

I know why. It is a matter of pride. It's always a matter of pride when one refuses to do one thing. It is never up to us to judge whether the pride was misplaced or not since different people value things differently.

Because people can be a mule and will bark at will. 

The Bakso Tragedy

Something terrible happened the other day.

I went to a restaurant to meet some important people for an important matter. I picked the place because I ate their bakso before and it was awesome and I wanted to eat the same awesome bakso again.

All through the journey when I wasn't nodding off or preparing what to say, I was thinking of said bakso.

I reached the place. Important people arrived and we greeted each other and sat at the table. I placed our order.

The waiter came back and I knew it meant trouble. He proceeded to announce innocently, "We're out of bakso."

At that moment, my world stopped. I realized I did everything wrong and this was divine intervention to slap me hard.

You see, there were three things I wanted to achieve that day, in order of importance:
1- meet important people
2- discuss important matter
3- eat awesome bakso

Problem was that the primary thing in my head, even before I headed out of my house, was "eat awesome bakso". Maybe I was that famished or severely bakso deprived, but the point was my intention was impure in the first place.

Now God was condemning me.

The important people kept asking me if I was alright. Well of course I was not alright, I just messed the very first step (intention) and could potentially mess the rest of everything up.

They thought I was not alright because I didn't get my bakso. That made me feel even worse to think that important people will think that shallow of me, that I was affected by unavailability of food (or any worldly matter at all).

What have I done to make them think that?

After serious contemplation (I wanted anything soup-based because I don't like solid that much nowadays but why would I order a simple chicken soup when I can cook them myself?), I placed an order of fried rice with beef paprik. The waiter came back and I knew God hated me that much right then when he announced that "We're out of beef paprik."

I gave up. Thank You God. "What do you have?"

"Fried rice with chicken."

"Fine."

By then there was no point in ordering, I had lost my appetite. But it's easier to let things slide when you just go with the flow.

---

Meeting important people went well, but I only managed half of the important matter I wanted to discuss with them, making my daily achievement that day a measly 50%.

God I am a failure!

At the end before I went back home, I apologized to one of the important people and told her, "I felt like I wasn't sincere enough back then."

She gasped. "You mean you weren't sincere?"

"I meant I wasn't sincere enough."

"How could it be you weren't sincere enough? It's either you were sincere lillah or you're not."

TT-TT That really was a direct hit to my solar plexus. How could I forgot that sincerity obeys the All Or None Law?

Say Thank You And Take It At Face Value

Among the things I'm subscribed to on FF.net are updates from some of the renowned authors of KakaSaku. I endorse this shipping for several reasons and strongly believe it should be canonized. Basically this relationship has several characters:

1. age-gap
2. matching wit, maturity and intelligence level
3. opposite yet endearingly complementary personality

This three is what I observed from my parents. Maybe that is why I endorse this shipping so much.

Regrettably, my life is taking that familiar turn towards said fictitious course. Maybe I have been reading too much for my own good.

The complications, the what-ifs, the silence and not risking another step of pursuit to preserve whatever it is you currently have. The dread at falling hard for something beyond your grasp. This friendship that will stay as it is.

I just got the epiphany to link this mess-up. At this rate, I know how everything will play out. I know all the risks involved. I know the emotional turmoils that will come along. And I am not at all ready.

This is only phase one. The title is the status quo.

Firefighter

Today we had our PERUBATAN Team Medical first aid training at Hadiqah Dauliyyah. There were four stations in all; there was Kak Shae teaching us first aid management of bleeding and the art of bandaging, Kak Nadiah taught us how to manage burn, sling and splint and Ijud taught us how to manage seizure, choking and CPR.

Baem was the facilitator in-charge at the station teaching us how to mobilize a patient. There were several techniques that could be applied and one of them was the common fireman's lift.


Theoretically it is simple. While standing with the patient's front toward your side, grab the patient's farthest arm and sling it over your shoulder. By this you should be squatting on one foot and the other be kneeling on the ground to ease your own standing up and prevent any back injury. Wound your arm between the patient's leg and lock behind his farthest knee.

Secure and lift.

Pushing

The technique itself reminded me of Asahina Daigo, the ambitious firefighter in Kisah Ahli Bomba serialized years ago in Kreko. (I grew up watching Ultraman with a brother so I know and enjoy this kinds of stuff.) If my memory serves me correctly, they were in their preliminary test to qualify as a firefighter that included a series of physical exercise. One of them was monkey-bar pulls-up.

Every one of them lifted themselves up above the bar. The trainer counted and as the number climbed up, so were the number of trainee who fall down from exhaustion and couldn't continue the test. Daigo was the only one remaining, pulling himself up like his life depended on it. What was on his mind at that time was himself during a fire some time ago, where he was between a helpless old lady and the hanging bar railing. He had been hanging on for a long time, waiting for help to come.

ATP depleting but if he let go of his hand, the lady and himself will fall into the fire below.

Gravitating

We are future doctors. Every day at school we learn the ropes of this life-saving, injury-preventing, recovery-promoting trade and when we get back, we study as well as juggle other commitments that make us a human. It is a mundane, repetitive chore that could easily loses its value if we are not grateful or thoughtful enough.

And today, the fact that God granted me yet another sweet day to be alive and the birds sung brightly and we had a family outing in a park could have fooled me into thinking learning first aid management is just another skill to be added into your bragging rights list.

It is not. The gravity of the situation is that LIFE depended on your ability to stay calm, know what to do and do so properly. We are servants of Allah in this world to do good and be a benefit to each others either from your pledge as a Muslim or through your professions.

You are not Suzumiya Haruhi; the world does not revolve around you!

Word of The Day

First speaker for the Government was up so we were all focused to see how Paan will steer his ship. "This is panacea-" he said and I jotted down, frowning. Syaimaa' nudged me on my left, asking what he just said. I shook my head. What is this word?


Again in his reply speech he used the word again. I was using my iPod to record his speech for analysis (haha yeah I have OCD) so we borrowed Captain's iPhone and searched through the dictionary.

I typed in p-e-n-e-c-i-a. Nothing came up. Syaimaa' suggested p-e-r-n-i-c-i-a and the closest relevant to it was 'pernicious', which would have been too far off of what he meant when he was describing early marriage as.

We gave up and decided to ask him personally. The judges adjourned and I walked to the Government side with an empty note.

"Eh Paan." I started and then remembered my manners. "Assalamualaikum, apa khabar? Hehe." I was sheepish at the absurdity of the situation. I asked him about the word he used.

He smiled and took the note I passed him and wrote down 'panacea'. "It means 'solution'."

"Oh. Vocab baru. Terima kasih!" Smiled broadly and turned to leave.

"Nice to meet you too." He called out good-naturedly. I half-turned and laughed.

This, my fellow friends, is the bookworm's version of an autograph. I'm a big fan, lol.


---

Walk up randomly, offer no self-introduction and walk away after you got what you want. Very cat-like. Exactly how you make friends. Smooth Atiqah, smooth. Haha.

"Esok jangan korang cair pulak."
-Captain's warning the day before the match to which we giggled even more, lol.

This debating thing is fun! I should go back to my old school and persuade the headmistress to form a debate club.

Most People Are Missing Ophthalmology

After the dentist, I don't fancy ENT specialty. For two reasons.

1- The diseases of ENT are not self-visualizable nor self-examinable.

When I was studying Ophthalmology, I can wake up in the morning and stare at my own eyes in the mirror and assure myself I at least have a normal anterior segment of the eye and that those pathological pictures are not present in me.

But with ENT, I can examine my own tonsils but that's about it. How am I supposed to check my own ear drum??

2- I had bad history with the equipments, namely the flexible laryngoscope.

A hospital leaflet for patients actually described this thing as "black skinny spaghetti", urgh. Food analogies are the reason for anorexia.

It was during primary school (eight or nine years old, I think) and I had recurrent nose-bleed so one day dad took me to the hospital to get myself checked. The doctor sat in front of me and inserted a flexible laryngoscope into my nose.

It made through a bit and I believe I relayed my discomfort, but of course dad and the doctor assured me that it will be just fine.

But then I got really agitated and since I couldn't get him to stop by being vocal about it, I kicked the doctor. I wouldn't allow the doctor to come near me with a ten-foot pole so dad apologized to the doctor (he was dad's colleague), he wrote me an MC and dad took me home.

We did meet the doctor at the following Raya celebration, but I never went to see an ENT specialist ever in my life after that. The thoughts of them make me cringe.

Until a month ago, I accompanied a friend for an examination (otomycosis; treatment by removal of the fungal mass by ear wash and four days on anti-fungal ear drops) and there I was cringing on the chair as Dr. Mohammed gave her an ear wash. And then we have this ENT round of course, which is inevitable.

---

Our doctors are awesome lecturers and alhamdulillah I have no problem understanding the lectures.

When it comes to our clinical sessions, my group is blessed with a lot of patients. We had eight patients already in the two days of clinical session (including a rare case of active advanced rhinoscleroma which Dr. Mahmoud said was his first in forty years) but the examination process of running an endoscope through the patient's ear/nose/mouth gave me equal chill as it gave the patient. I curse my empathy.

It took every ounce of willpower not to bolt out of the class.

The Analyst

Let's say I'm supposed to be having a conversation with someone. I know who that person is and I know what we're supposed to be conversing about.

So what I do is I will imagine the whole conversation before I even talk to said person. It is predicting and presuming based on the character of the person, history of previous conversation and just because I know it will turn out like that, haha.

If the imaginary conversation end up sour, I'll weigh out whether I want to deal with such complication with patience or total ignorance.

If the imaginary conversation is just a confirmation of the things I already know, I wouldn't be wasting my time on it. Unless the purpose of the conversation was simply to have a conversation with said person, then it's a different story ;)

If the imaginary conversation is unimaginable and revolves around something factual, I will go for it. I like factual stuffs, they are more objective. But if we have a hearty matter at hand, something emotional that markedly affect the other person, I will NEVER even consider it. In this case I am akin to a pseudo-caring autistic kid who would rather take the brunt of self-conflicting emotional burden than hurt the other person. I will let sleeping dog lie.


Farah Nur said this is a very bad habit and that I shouldn't be impertinent. But I am sure I am not the only person on earth laying out best-worst case scenario. This is simply what an analyst do.

You Know It's Nearing Finals When..

I am not exactly into baking. I can count the number of cookies, cakes and pastries I've baked throughout my life and it's not much to be considered bragging rights.

But I really am into experimenting.


Izumi Curtis said alchemy started from the kitchen and backed by House's prowess in cooking due to him thinking of ingredients in terms of chemistry, I'd say I'm not that far off.

I made four of this with variations in each, hehe. Talk about being a non-prioritizing overachiever :P

---

It was Ira's belated birthday and since one Just A Cake was baked for her and her beloved housemates, meeting up with her also served as coaxing her into forming a team for the upcoming Medicophilic debate.

At Maghrib as I was walking back to my house, she sent me a message that reminded me why I was doing all this.

---

You know, usrah doesn't actually teach you to be the master in any particular field, but for me it serves to propel me to reach the beyond, because reaching the beyond is what a capable Muslim should do. It sort of guide me to do whatever I want as long as that whatever reminds me of Allah throughout the journey in achieving success in it.

Like, because of usrah, I reach out for other skills. Because of usrah, I was baking four cakes in two days. Haha.

This is just a simple example, I wouldn't go into details because personally I feel like I'm dirtying the terms if I say it, we all know I am not that thiqoh of a person. Anyways, I should go sleep now.

Two Years Ago

After he died, I never shed a single tear. I went silent all around the house, be my hyper self at school. Those who knew, knew. Those who didn't, I held back my tongue.

Answered some questions about his death ("Dehydration," I shrugged.) and nodded my thanks for the condolences I received. Choked on my tongue whenever everything seemed to remind me of him (Kak Syafaf suggested we go to a park soon and I was brimming with the idea of taking him along when I remembered he was no longer around). My eyes watered in front of some, but that was all.

People didn't love him like I did, and I understand they didn't see my sadness as something serious. That didn't mean I was comfortable.

They talked so casually of him, laughed and made jokes about him at my expense. I was silent. I knew the root of all evil is not talking, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them I was hurt. I couldn't deal with the aftermath of their stricken face, apologizing repetitively and gushing with sympathy. It was too awkward for me.

He was never my pet. I was never his mom. He was my roommate whom I talked to on occasion and regarded as a younger brother. He amused me sometimes and gave meaning to coming back to my room.

"Yuuno!" I greeted him elatedly as I slowly slammed open the door, in case he was behind it.

It was a relationship of shared smiles, secret glances, and simple moments. One-sided, of course.

We didn't talk much. But he was there. Whatever happened, be it bad or catastrophe, he was there. He was, literally, a stable presence in my life.

A week after he died, I cleaned his pen. Wet-tissued the whole pen floor and wiped his water and food tray. Arranged all the pebbles I brought home from Bahariya and emptied the sand onto his water tray.

Stared at his usual lying spot, hands on my hip. Then it dawned on me that he was gone. Gone.

Forever. Never coming back.

I'll never get to see him appreciating the gifts I brought back for him. I'll never get the chance to be kind to him, to feel his cold shell on my palm and to frown at him for peeing on the carpet. Never get the chance to fuss over him, to glare people for putting him on his back, to be amused at him sleep-walking.

Never get the chance to talk about him lovingly. To lose to him in our who-live-longer competition.

I cried.

---

P/S: This was written on this date two years ago, a week after Yuuno died. I still hold him in content.

Owed Nothing

In a twisted sense, I learn where most people simply don't.

For example, take this quote from Firefly's latest fiction.

"A shinobi is owed nothing for his duty," Itachi cut in, keeping his eyes on the footpath. "I did what I had to do for the village. I did it because I care for Konoha."

From this scene, what I can apply on my own life is that as a lowly servant to Almighty Allah, I do as He pleases despite the hardship that I may encounter. I do what I have to do for Allah. I do it because I love my God and this religion.

Birds of Same Feather

The amount of writing I do is inversely proportionate to the actual talking I do. I suppose I'm not the only one doing this.

Today, (I mean just now; the whole day I was pretending to study under Farah Nur's Fist of Tebigong) I went through this kid's blog and I find her very interesting. She wrote in classy English and her writings are something I can relate to, and that's what kept me reading through her past posts as well.

I wouldn't link to her, though. It's not that I'm keeping things to myself but if I do let on who she is, you'll probably think I have ulterior motives.

Like courting. Haha.

I have an exam tomorrow, aptly named Ophthalmology End Round Exam. I'm a little freaked out by my ability to still be slacking about despite haven't reach Farahain's state of "mengulang-ngulang".

We're going to have slides, clinical examination and technique on patient and two oral examiners. Please pray for me?

Love.

They Will Make Me Look 60 Before I Even Hit 30

While your mind are churning thinking of an alternative and you see someone you know walking the same road towards you, you should craft a smile, wave a hi and strike up whatever typical conversation as she passes.

Because you shouldn't let your craps affect other people's day. Problems are part of life and although I would gladly help you with yours, mine should not be yours.

Thus you will see a higher occurrence of massaging the bridge of the nose (that part between the two eyes) or silently face-palming.

Forehead pain is also commonly caused by tension headaches due to stress or muscle tightness in the neck, jaw or scalp. Other causes of forehead pain include eye strain and withdrawal from substances such as caffeine or alcohol

I have all three causes in my history. Great.

---

The other day my second cousin Imran shared a Female Phrases Dictionary picture on his Facebook and I agree with it and would like to make an addition.

When a female says "great", it usually comes with an underlying growl as well as actually means "God knows I love you (insert your name here) but you're driving me crazy."

You may say that females are complicated creatures, but I'd say the reason why they say one thing and mean another is because of what I rationalized in the first part of this post.

Just let her suffer silently, thrust her a few verses from the Quran, analyze your own self and mend your mistake if any and she'll be fine. A bar of Kinder Bueno wouldn't hurt.

---

A study I made based on colleagues of mine found that most females love chocolate, but the few who doesn't love Kinder Bueno.

So guys, to be safe, always give a girl Kinder Bueno unless you know her favourite chocolate. Plus Kinder Bueno is a product of Ferraro, an Italian confectioner and it isn't in the boycott list.

They also come in a two separate sticks per packaging and if she's nice, she'll share.