Something very absurd happened this morning. The toothbrush flew out of my hands as I was brushing my teeth. I was stunned for 2 minutes cos it caused a spray of toothpaste all over my jacket and my toothbrush was nowhere on the floor. In the end I had to dig it out from under the sink cupboard (the tiles there are completely black because they are never cleaned) and I didn't have to think twice about the fate of my relatively-new toothbrush. Into the bin it went. Lol. So retarded. And it wasn't as if I was dozing off over the sink. Can't believe myself man.


Saw 55 patients this morning. Damn tired now.

I take it as a personal insult when patients' parents call me "护士". Can't they freaking tell that I'm not wearing the nurse's hat and long white pants! That aside, I'm pleased that we managed to see 54 patients smoothly this morning despite me having little time for lunch as I had kid's physio duty in the afternoon. Highlight of the day was a little girl called "金喜善", her name made us all laugh. Plus she was cute and smart, coming up to ask me when her turn was. Less crying/screaming kids today, mostly respectful parents and less mistakes made. Think I'm getting the hang of the job :)


I'm actually amused when kids start crying over nothing and their parents start hushing and sayang-ing them. It actually makes me laugh the harder they cry. Am I sadistic or what. But it beats getting irritated huh?

I don't want to rest my bike yet. Shall push through till we're bordering on Winter then I shall let it go into hibernation. But for the first time today I was riding and shivering a little and wished for a scarf. Haha. Won't get facial paralysis yet la huh? Think I need gloves and scarf though.

My life now officially revolves around sleeping, eating and working. Came home after lunch and napped till it was time to go for my night shift at 4.30pm. Yay I think I have tmr off :)

Who says only caucasian kids are cute? I saw so many cute kids today (mostly little boys - either they're more prone to falling sick or the population of boys exceeds that of girls by a large ratio) who made me smile. Just can't stand those who scream and cry. I don't remember myself ever being afraid of the 压舌板 which is the wooden stick used to press the tongue down for the doc to see the throat, nor the stethoscope, not even injections! Ok I was a guai kiddo who rarely saw the doc :D

Happy Midautumn Festival everybody :)

I'm depressed. I have night shift tmr and Sat night. Wth has night shift on weekends?! :( Can't go for the juniors' MAF celebration tmr night as a result. Boo. Was looking forward to free food. Oh wells.

The moment of the day was when a kid was asked to open his/her (I can't rmb) mouth so that my tcher could peer at his/her throat. The amusing thing was that the 3 accompanying adults opened their mouths too, whether subconsciously or consciously I don't care, but it was just frigging funny. A private joke to myself as an onlooker. Lol.

I hope paediatrics will be more rewarding in the days to come. Don't wanna waste 5 weeks of my life.

I woke up feeling cold and decided to get my fleece blanket out of hibernation. But the rain continued all day and I had cold feet despite staying at home the whole day so I just took my quilt out. It’s 14 degrees outside now and this weather is likely to persist for the next few days so I guess long pants and socks won’t do the trick anymore. It’s time for a warm bed nest haha. Please don’t tell me this signals the start of winter cos I’m so not looking forward! Don’t like feeling cold at home.

According to my forecast it's gonna rain for at least the next 5 days. Damn. I've had enough of rain for today! Went to school in a drizzle, went to gym in rain and came home from Brandon's house in not rain but strong wind and for the first time, temperatures that made me shiver in my shorts and jacket. Give me back my sunny days!!! I just realised my spare bike lock went missing. No wonder my basket felt unnaturally empty for the past few days. Lol. Stupid cheapo shits. Maybe they'll go custom-make some keys so they can use my lock -.- Oh wells. That just means I'll have an emptier and lighter basket but no double protection when I park in ulu places. And useless keys now boo.


Anyway I had a great day cos for the first time in years I finally played table tennis! I can't remember when's the last time I played any ball game for that matter. Woots I don't have work tmr yayness :) But I've got duty on Sun morning. Boo. And that's the day before I report at paediatrics.

of Appendectomy...

My wish really came true and I got to witness an Appendectomy today. The woman presented with right lower abdominal pain at 门诊 and we got to feel her stomach, could feel a hard lump at her 麦氏点 and both 压痛 and反跳痛 were positive. Sent her to do an ultrasound and it supported the diagnosis so we had her hospitalized. After lunch break we went for the op. Had to change into scrubs but didn’t have to scrub hands cos we weren’t gonna touch anything :) Anyway I was pretty disturbed because the patient wasn’t under GA so she was still kinda conscious and halfway through the op she started moaning in pain. Worse thing was nobody paid heed to her as the nurse in charge of anesthesia was talking to another nurse at the doorway of the operating room. It went on for quite awhile but neither the doctor nor the assistants said anything and it made me uneasy. Until one of the nurses sitting in the room called the other nurse to take a look did she come and ask the patient whether she felt the pain. Then she started injecting stuff into the IV but the patient still did not stop so she gave her an injection above the collarbone. There came a point in time the patient’s breathing became abnormal and her oxygen saturation dropped to 70% and there happened to be only 1 nurse around so she had to call another to come help her pump oxygen into the machine by pushing the button repeatedly. It just felt pretty disorganized and unprofessional. I know docs make small talk during ops but to have the nurses talking among themselves just felt weird. This is my first major op here so I didn’t know what to expect. The operating theatre was made up of a row of operating rooms with all the doors wide open and different operations going on. Super open concept. And you have nurses walking in and out of different doors all the time. Is it like that in Singapore? An Appendectomy here costs 3500rmb, which is probably half the price of that in SG, and I wonder whether standards in China are just lax (our hospital is already in the highest rank, “三甲医院”) or it’s like that elsewhere too, just that I don’t watch ops in SG and for the only one I’ve been through, I was put under GA so I didn’t know a shit that was going on. Today the doc digged into her abdomen to find her caecum and appendix. It was difficult cos many parts had adhered together and he stuck his finger into her abdomen a few times -.- It was kinda sick, made me think of organ stealing, happy tree friends and whatnot. It was a pity it was too crowded so I couldn’t stand directly over her and stare into her insides but I did my best. Never occurred to me that he had to sew up all 5 layers of the stomach individually. After all the stretching and cutting she only required 3 stitches! I feel so cheated. Suspect a noob did my op last time -.- Anyway the entire op lasted about an hour. It could have been shorter but this one wasn’t so typical. And I never imagined the appendix would be so long. Hers was around 6cm and it looked kinda weird, maybe it was inflammed at certain parts.

slide away

My bike finally ran out of mileage. I guess weekly long road trips took their toll on my tyres. I crossed the usual humps as I left school today and suddenly my bike kept vibrating and making noise as I paddled. It's as if a rock got stuck to my tyre. Lucky bike uncle was near. There was a puncture in my inner tyre. He said patching it couldn't guarantee it'll last any more than a month so I told him to just change the entire thing. So now I've got a new inner tyre for my back wheel :) It better last! I feel like I'm constantly znging my bike, so much so that I might as well have gotten a new bike. Lol. Just changed my basket on Sat. Hope nothing else breaks down! Be good till I give you a long rest during winter!

Saw 2 mini ops today. The removal of a kyloid and a cyst. The kyloid one was damn bloody, the guy's blood kept flowing out of the crater after the kyloid was cut out. The cyst was even more disgusting cos during the removal it broke and white cauliflower-like stuff started oozing out from the puncture in the tissue. It was like a monstrous growth rearing its ugly head ewwww. *shudders* I don't think I can be a surgeon cos firstly my hands will probably tremble and secondly I can deal with blood but too much of it still makes me feel a little uneasy. Haha. At least I don't faint at the sight of blood. But cutting craters and tugging at skin and tissue isn't exactly my cup of tea. Heh. I really hope we have a chance to see an Appendicitis op this week cos this is our only week at 外科 and I'd like to see what happened to me 5 years ago. Lol.

另一个天堂

I've been having weird cravings.

First it was yuan yang at can A.
Guilin mifen.
Then Starbucks' Java Chip.
Iced horlicks chocolate at DHS canteen.
Guan Bing outside the hospital.
Ramen at WFJ.
Sambal convovulus at Swensens.
Honey toast with ice cream at Charme.
Dark chocolate Mcflurry.
Cafe 85 coffee.
Macs breakfast.
HK cafe food.
DQ!

And the list goes on...



It's ironic how I sleep earlier and earlier on weekdays yet later and later on weekends. Grr.

Inception was good. Christopher Nolan rocks :) I won't ever forget how The Prestige left such a good impression and of course The Dark Knight which was phenomenal. In more ways than one, with Heath Ledger being the main reason. It saddens me everytime I think of him dying so young.

The weather now is so good I wish it'd last longer :) Biked to Xi dan today. Great stuff, especially with freshly pumped tyres and a new basket :D I could chiong and feel the wind all around on a cool night. It's a different feeling walking past Tian An Men and biking past it. The bike lane is wider than 2 car lanes put together. Such privilege for those waving hi to Mr Mao on 2 wheels lol. Kannak and I felt like stars biking past a row of cameras aimed at shooting Tian An Men square across the road from Mr Mao's portrait.

Bike Uncle said Beijing is like 天堂. Bet he's a devout communist. It amuses me to think that I'm in "天堂", but maybe this is as close as it gets.



On a random note, there was a crowd staring and taking photos with the BMW M3 Tiger at Wang Fu Jing today. It was parked in a black container with half sticking out, and nothing was happening ie. it wasn't moving or anything but there was a crowd around it. I was amused.

Quite nice, but still not my idea of a sports car I'd stop to admire.

Had a chicken pox patient today. I was trying not to breathe too much (but ended up holding my breath then having to take deep breaths -.-) and to lean far away from him because believe it or not I haven't had chicken pox before so I'm susceptible. And it's contagious :( Thank god I had the jab but it's not 100% foolproof, hope China strains didn't mutate and get resistant. Must pray hard hard I don't kena chicken pox too cos a student said her colleague caught it from a patient while working. Yikes. I'm gonna drown myself in 板蓝根 and sleep earlier for the next few days. Lol. Really don't wanna be out of action for 2 weeks! Super worrying. But I still can't bring myself to wear a mask for hours on end...


According to Roger autumn will be ending in 2 weeks' time. Boo. :((

Pretty right? Not the newest but definitely one of the nicest :))

I lost track of the number of worms I encountered this season. Last night there was 1 grey and 1 dark brown. The grey one waved Hi to me from it's mini tunnel in the super juicy and tasty peach meat. It stole half the peach from me. Still strikes fear in me when I cut and split the peach into halves and dig the seed out because that's the moment of truth, especially when it seems like the coast is clear but after careful scrutiny somebody's actually squirming around. Ok nothing beats the marathon bluish-grey worm. That was the ultimate man. It had legs and it ran all over the chopping board and fell off the kitchen counter. I refuse to consider the possibility of it being a maggot. Worms are bad enough man. The peach season is almost coming to an end. Bye worms. Till next year.