In turmoil
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)

Haven’t been updating anymore these days. Life is in turmoil lately, a whirlwind with me in the middle of it. I don’t know yet whether going back for 4 months is a good idea… whether it will turn out in another disaster, both careerwise and personally. But, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do… And like always in life, anything you do will always have its backdrafts, it’s just a matter of how you’re gonna cope with it… But as for now, I guess it’s just go with the flow… See all you friends in December….

Grace Kelly's cliff...
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: (scary) hospital stories
Time conveniently passes by as week by week slip away. The ending of my onco-posting didn’t herald the long awaited enlightment. I gave the making of the night-duty roster out of my hands, being able to boast that none of my colleagues over the past year has done more or less than his or her fair share. But whiners will be whiners. Certain people who at one point in time had only 3 night shifts in 1 month, had to make noise… Well, whatever…My laptop crashed, with half my research inside. We managed to squeeze out the other remaining files from the hard disc though. Weeks full irritation pass by; mostly colleagues missing in action and me doing all the work, last week the 2^nd time in 10 days I had to go down all the way to gynae clinic, only to get simple material for PAP-smears, cause it seems to be impossible to have a proper stock keeping in the wards. “out of stock” seems to be the most common phrase in the centre of excellence.A few irritating sessions in the operating room with our Burmese S, who seems to have gone back to the 70’s (hearing phrases such as “hold this please, brother” makes me feel as if I’m in an Austin Powers movie, and some big black guy from the Bronx in the 70's is talking to me)… Then joining A. in surgery is a relieve, and even more so with R. Co-operation becomes co-surgery and it is a true pleasure. And all is relaxed, the chatter alternating with a wisecrack or joke. “Oops… I think there is a bit of uterus tissue left there…”… Well, I assured her, I don’t think it will grow a new uterus of its own; you don’t need to be worried.BK went to Monaco, looking for the cliff where Grace Kelly dropped off. In the meantime I looked after his pets in the private ward. Long days often are only ended with some cereal or Indomie @ most. Don’t know about my stomach lately… went to the Indian shop again the other day and had my favourite mouton curry. I always have some stomach discomfort after that dish, but now it seemed as if the sheep was trying to climb out of my stomach again…

RRRRrrrrrrrrrr.... I'm a piranha
Mood:  hug me
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)

Two weeks passed by very fast. Things I have found out are amongst others; a child that falls asleep in the car within 5 minutes of departure is a bliss, There is no limit to the number of cheap-bead-necklaces that a child is willing to buy (or ice-creams, for that matter), a loose tooth can become a sudden & sure obstacle to eat veggies, but krupuk is never a problem, Children don’t like to wake up early in the morning, even if they’re gonna see “Flipper”, Dolphins don’t like to “perform” for a crowd of 50+ boats, however damn early in the morning, and snorkeling is fun for a 6-year old only untill she takes in the first good gulp of seawater. But however nauseous the seawater made her, it didn’t temper her enthousiasm over the seastar I got her, and I’m sure in the future she will readily forget about her newly developed distaste for seawater. 

Now they’re gone, and I miss the cheecky little one… RRRRrrrrrrrrrrrr….. I’m a piranha…

Back to Bali... back in history...
Mood:  happy
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
My first days in Bali… I hadn’t set foot there in the last 6½ years, for reasons I felt no need for to share with most people. I don’t know what it is about Bali. To me, it’s like being covered with a veil, immersing me in a strange mix of feelings of coming home, belonging and faded memories that seem old, so very old, even though they don’t cover events from a past of more than 10 years. Arriving at the airport fills my heart with mingled feelings of expectation and anticipation; memories and thought of things to come compete. The customs officer is passed fast enough and I can see my backpack on the nearby conveyor belt, trying to make it’s way back to the wide opened mouth in the wall of the terminal building, that, by being small, looks rather cozy compared to its big brothers in S’pore and Kuala Lumpur. The next minute I’m almost outside already, only to suddenly change my mind and quickly make my way to the ATM’s that I had seen inside. I had anticipated to spend the first evening in Kuta, before heading north, and I needed some money for this. Only then I make my way out. 

It was truly a surprise… outside was the seemingly ever present crowd of people. Waiting for the arrival of family, friends, husbands, wives, lovers, business associates, and, of course, tourists, part of what kept this place going. A small girl broke away from the crowd and leaped forward into my arms. I was so surprised, it took me a second or 3 to see it was my little gem, welcoming me with a handfull of these exquisitely fragrant flowers that, to me, are almost synonymous to Bali, even thought the local Indonesian name is “Cambodja tree”. What better welcome can you have ?

Just a quicky
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)

I went to see another apartment together with our new oncology trainee. She is from Sabah, will stay around for 6 months and is desperate for a place to stay in KL. Her friends put her in a room in Milennium court, a place that I have renamed into "Alcatraz" and where I myself narrowly escaped from when I almost ended up there 3 years ago. Need I say more ?

Looking at the place, it was a definite yes-yes for the both of us. Better than this you won't get, we both knew. We walked around, saw all the rooms and I started thinking that I would not be too particular regarding master bedroom or other room. One of the smaller rooms had this particularly nice cupboard, and just when I was thinking I might just as well take up that one, Mary was already handling the sliding doors, humming approvingly and right after that expressing her appreciation of the piece of furniture. Haha, I realised, that room was not gonna be mine; don't come in between a women and the place where she needs to put her wardrobe.

We made the down payment and will move in this week. Now only remains waiting for the 3rd tenant....

The last 2 weeks
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)

The Blog crashed last week. Another proof of the validity of the golden rule; always make a back-up. So fortunately, I restored it readily and added a few funny pics. But the speed hasn't changed, so bear with me and don't delete your cookies to assure faster future loading of the page... Hey, it's a free webhost, ok !!

July has arrived and time seems to fly. A mere 2 more weeks will mark the ending of my oncology posting, the start of my well deserved and longed for leave and, who knows, perhaps even the end of my stay with Cipto. I'm looking forward to have a place of my own, even if it would only be for the last year. It's gonna be a year of hard working, prior to these exams...

A dear friend in trouble who asked me for advice last week, managed to get herself into even more trouble by doing exactly the opposite. I felt pity for her, but at the same time was so upset, since it didn't need to go that way. Sure, she is being bullied by her agent, who sucks the blood of her and all the other Indonesian co-workers. It's the same old story, really; naive Indonesian girl signs contract without properly reading and then lets the bad guys intimidate her. Still, I feel if she would have listened to me, she could have gone to the newspapers with a really good story on abuse of foreign workers (like myself hehehe) and she could even have gotten financial compensation, and in the process a possible improvement for other people finding themselves in the same situation. After all, it is a very hot topic at the moment. But now they will make her pay money to them, which I'll have to lend her. I don't know what to say anymore, just feel bad for not being able to help her after she eliminated all possibilities for a succesful way out...

Homeless ???? not yet...
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
Saw a few apartments last week. Some nice, others less nice. What they all had in common was the price, a bit too high... Had spoken to some people who were also looking for a housemate, but no definite conclusions... So now, I'm still looking for that housemate to take up an apartment...

No way out ?
Mood:  hug me
Topic: House & Garden Philosophy
I was on night shift for the first time with one of my new juniors, this guy from Iraque. He’s a nice guy really, but there’s so much anger in him when he starts talking about the war raging in his country. And of course I understand… But he wants to fight fire with fire, and to me, in the end, the circle of violence is round. I told him “Look, as far as I’m concerned, there has not been a single war in history that was not essentially based on politics and even more so, on money, regardless of what excuses were used. Now I don’t have a short term solution for your counttry, though I wished I had. But when it comes down to it, the solution is not to condemn every single person who belongs to the nation being the agressor. The only way out is education, so that we all can try to understand each other and look through the veils of culture, religion, politics and economics. So stop fingerpointing and start to improve the world starting with yourself, because the Iraqi people themselves are also not doing a fantastic job by bombing each other, using a different religion as an excuse. And don’t go and tell me this is an American conspiracy, because in the end the choice to follow someone is always still a choice and an individual responsibility that you can’t blame on someone else.”.
Later that evening I sat down and I thought, is there really no way out ? Then I thought about how India retrieved independence from its British oppressors. By means of strictly massive non-violence and people sticking together to reach the purpose. And regardless of the difficulties the different ethnicities experienced later on, at least they stood together to reach this goal. And I guess that’s why Mahatma Gandhi is to be regarded as one of the greatest persons in the world… Gandhi-Wiki

Vaderdag
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
The biggest surprises most often come quite unexpected and, of course, unannounced.... When the door bell rang this morning, I initially hesitated for something as long as up to 1 minute before opening the door. I was peeking through the hole in the door, trying to see who was there, expecting it to be "P-boy", Cipto's nowadays best friend. Eventually I decided to open the door after all, which turned out to be a good idea. The young chap from the Malaysian Postal Service was pretty much as surprised as I was, judging from the confused expression on his face. Me suddenly talking to him in Malay by no means improved things and only increased his confusion. After having signed the receipt slip, he quickly made his way out and I went back into what now is still my apartment.
Ik sloot de deur en maakte het pakje open. Groot was mijn verbazing over de inhoud van de envelop... Maar toen ik de bijbehorende kaart opende, klaarde mijn hele gezicht op en de glimlach op mijn gezicht zal de gehele volgende week kunnen kleuren. Dit is het beste vaderdags kado dat iemand kan wensen, de eerste voluit handgeschreven kaart van het prachtigste kind in de wereld; mijn dochter...

Ik voelde me uiterst dankbaar dat W. dit samen met Gita heeft gedaan. Door dingen zoals dit, weet ik dat er, diep in haar hart, werkelijk iets goeds schuilt, iets waarvan ik hoop dat we in de toekomst het goede in haar vaker aan de oppervlakte zien komen. Morgenvroeg is Gita bij Arjan. Ik hoop dat Gita voor hem een lekker ontbijtje maakt en dat W. ook voor hem samen met Gita iets soortgelijks heeft gemaakt. Dat zou het voor ons allen maken zoals het moet zijn; Gita die 2 echte pappa's heeft en van hen allebei kan houden zoals haar pappa's ook van haar houden...

6 more weeks & counting till Bali
Mood:  hug me
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
It’s been a hectic week for sure. Tons of problems coming at me that needed a swift solution. And in the meantime what nowadays seems to be a chronic lack of sleep due to frequent night shifts and working nightly hours. College fees for 2007/2008 are paid *ouch*. My appeal letter is now waiting in the office to be signed by prof. My trial had a head start this week, rather hectic and not in the way I usually like to have all details neatly taken care of. Official confirmation of my case report in JOG being accepted.
I came to wonder whether it is really all worth it, this hectic life style. How will it be afterwards, once specialised ? I want to be able to go out and have a drink for a friend’s B-day without having to feel bad about not being able to afford the dinner-outing and the worry about the workload that is still awaiting me. I want to be able to spend proper time with my gem. I want to be able to more often see my other small gem. I want to be finished with work at 5 in the afternoon. This week the pre-med kids from Taylors college were walking around in the hospital, to get a taste of doctor’s life. Prof BK and I gave them the best possible advise; don’t go to med school. By the time you find out how it is for real, it’s pretty much too late to bail out. And that’s how it is for me too. One happy-happy though this week; I got my hands on a 66 years old lady with a tummy as huge as 3 full term babies pregnancy.
With BK coming in later, I managed to get the whole thing out (including uterus) on my own. The result was a huge egg of at least 10 kilo’s, likely a dermoid cyst.