Back in town; special discount ! (Balik kampung)
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
I almost forgot to announce: I'm gonna be back in town for 2 weeks... I'll be arriving 06:30 @ Schiphol on saturday April 1st. No big banners necessary or welcoming committe, but breakfast with Dutch apple pie (the daily fresh made one that Jarinde once introduced me to) would be lovely... Oh, but any volunteer can bring me a warm coat hehehehe, so that I won't freeze my toe nails off...

Just realised that there is a whole lot of blog material missing since I moved to this new site... Have been trying to copy & paste everything this mornin, but still much left... But @ least now one can see how the silly blog started in the first place. Still have the 2nd half of 2005 to paste, so keep hanging on. Can't wait ?? just see @ the old page; https://www.angelfire.com/indie/ronron/lapor/

Screaming @ walls...
Mood:  hug me
Topic: Night life & other action
Bangsar @ midnight. Me and my friend having a drink and a chat, she looking at the boys, me looking at the girls, and we both know we’re not gonna do anything anyway. On the way back she suddenly takes a funny road. Not a coincidence we end up at her former lovers’ place… Just checking to see whether he’s home or not… ah so cunning… Men, better be warned; this is what women do hahaha…. Yeah, well, we still don’t know for sure whether he’s out or not, but to comfort her broken heart I start singing my false and loud version of “Last Christmas” by WHAM! Yeah, see, laughing again. I instruct her to go home, scream and moan at the wall, to make her neighbours think she still has a sex life. Remember, I tell her, your bed sheets won’t get soiled and the wall will never complain about being dissatisfied…

Marathon in OT
Mood:  lazy
Topic: (scary) hospital stories
I actually planned to write something down about my Sabah trip, but every time when I come home I’m so darn tired… I just told my senior I’m not putting up anymore with always taking up 1 more call per month than all the others; trying to get some income while @ the same time you’re covering for colleagues who are to lazy to do their share of night shifts, how does that work ?? Anyway, today we operated on a 6-year old with an ovarian tumour…. Everything sooo small….. only logical that all the instruments used are of baby-size as well. Only finished @ 23:15, so since studying wouldn’t happen anyway I happily joined Prof for a beer… we discussed crooked Prof E.’s professional attitude, had to evade the bar-girl hungry for kisses and having discussed one of the stalking staff nurses we concluded that sometimes “just being nice” here means something totally different than in The Netherlands, even after having evidently pointed out that you’re only being nice….

About running out of virgins
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: House & Garden Philosophy
Ok, it's time to get involved in the discussion now. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not running a political blog here, although I'm not afraid to take a stand and ventilate my opinion, even though that is nowadays something to be careful about... But what now about these infamous cartoons ? There seem to be not so many good ways to react, but a friend of mine send me the only reasonable and sensible form of reaction; the scientific analysis of the cartoons. Being supposed to be an academic trained person I happily visited the following link to a fellow blogger; Reclusive Leftist, politics, feminism & random pedantry from the reclusive Dr. Violet Socks to find a randomised controlled comparison of cartoons of the big J. versus the big M.

The ultimate conclusion I’ll take over for now;
1.Denmark needs funnier cartoonists (although the virgin one is hilarious)
2.The best — i.e., the most deliciously blasphemous — cartoons about Jesus on the internets either have giant copyright marks on them or come with flaming warnings that your head will explode if you reproduce them without buying them.

We tried to discuss the pics with some well educated friends, but unfortunately even then emotions tend to get in the way of reason. Now I know why the world gets into war; lack of reason.

Mood:  hug me
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
S. calls me in the evening and complains to me; "I don't have a life".... "MMhhh, you must be a doctor then", is my first reaction. This calls for a beer and even though I just had a whole working day in the operating theatre after a hectic night shift we agree to meet up in some bar. In the end of the evening we end up in a whole troop of - how predictable - doctors. What is it that makes such people clot together like a bunch of over-enthusiastic blood platelets ??
Anyway, talking about doctor?s stress, it is even something known to professors as well. The other day when I was helping out my prof in OT, the anaesthesiology prof totally freaked out during a difficult intubation procedure. He got so agitated over the radio blasting some Italian tenors aria's in the OT, that he walked to the radio and jerked the cable out of the wall, almost detaching the electrical outlet in the process. My prof later very adequately described it as one of the Tom & Jerry scenes, where Tom gets all worked up....

Calvin & Hobbes say:
Topic: House & Garden Philosophy
I’m not in denial, I’m just very selective about the reality I accept.

Mango chutney & Dal curry
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
Surely it must be something about the way I eat my “Masala Thosai” that causes these Indian chaps quite some distress. The reason I moved to “The new Sri Paandi’s” place was because I got fed up of the other place, where every dinner meant I had to entertain some of the staff in rewarding their innocent, though unlimited curiosity, or listening politely to stories of medical problems of theirs or their family members or their auntie’s neighbour for that matter. I chose The new Sri Paandi’s because the food is 2 dollars less (here they insist on calling the Ringgit “ Malaysian dollar”, I guess to make them not feel bad about the higher rated Singapore dollar). Also they serve it here with a nice mango chutney. So nice that I refrain from getting a curry additionally. However, they frantically keep on trying to make me eat the thing with curry rather than the chutney. Their newest trick now is, rather than customary serving it with a small bucket of sauces and stuff, to give me rather limited portions of it all and instead supplying me with a generous portion of curry. This latter one is then placed a bit closer to my plate, to make it more convincing. Then 1 or 2 of them will keep watching me, to see if I will use the curry with my food.
They will be discussing it; “Mmhhh, I don’t think he likes the Dal curry”, one chap will say…. The other will respond; “yeah, I think you’re right; at least last time, with the fish curry he took a couple of spoons”. You’re damn right fellows, I think, cause I feel the Dal curry is too blend, even though they serve a better than average one. Hey, being an everything-eating pseudo-Malaysian gives me the right to opiniate food right ?

At least they won’t interview me, for both their English and Malay is too poor. Talking about interviewing; I think I can say I’ve reached a steady baseline, in which the patients are trying to compensate the information they are giving me by extracting information from me in return. Nowadays when patients ask where I come from, I simply tell them I’m from Java. That withholds most of them from asking further, busy as they are processing that strange, contrasting piece of information.
Still, this other day when I tried to some information from this Chinese aunty about her gynae problem – by means of someone translating my Malay into Chinese – the cards turn and within 3 minutes every single question of mine elicits 3 contra-questions. I can only but surrender after 10 minutes, leaving the room with them knowing much more about me than I know about her health problem. Ah well, maybe part of my task in life is entertainment ???

Sticky babies
Topic: (scary) hospital stories
Currently I'm in antenatal clinic...
“Doctor, I just swallowed my chewing gum”, the pregnant lady tells me when she enters the room. I smile at her and tell her; “I’m really sorry, but unfortunately I cannot replace your chewing gum. But I can assure you that the chances the gum will end up with your unborn baby are quite small… Of course, if by the time you’re about to deliver and the baby won’t come out readily, then… well then we would have to ask ourselves the question whether the baby didn’t get stuck to the piece of gum you just swallowed and for that reason alone doesn’t want to come out.”

Blues or Jazz ??
Mood:  silly
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
Well.. just when I thought the new year 2006 started of a bit tame…. HAPPY NEW YEAR !! By the way everybody…. Anyway, supposed to meet up someone for lunch today, just got to know the person, is rounding up her jazz conservatorium training.. she shows up fashionably late…. Actually, come to think of it… this year actually started out with me showing up consistently in time and the other party being late…. I wonder if it’s gonna be like that for the rest of the year, time will tell I guess…
So we order some mee and have a nice chat… then the afternoon takes a wicked turn and while she turns all green, before we actually realise what’s happening all the mee comes out again… Happy New Year….
Why is is that I always seem to be the epicentre of weird things happening ?? Like… let’s say… 10 on Richter’s scale…