angeleno's

every year when i'm back in sg, the doctorlawyers are kind to invite me to tea at their practice. far from being the only crazy, there's a close circle of similarly masochistic folk. it's not often that i meet such kindred spirits who are in a similar boat (though much further along on their journey) who encourage me with the incredible ways their putting their talents to good use. it's inspiring to watch them do the things they love, and they get the whole medicine vs law dilemma. what i find the most reassuring is how they've resolutely stuck to medical practice ;) while having a bit of law on the side.

after a full dinner at theirs, made the mistake of arranging to meet friends for a massive carb overdose at angeleno's. what was cute was how there were 8 of us but 11 heartbeats, and the boys went crazy over-ordering without taking into account their pregnant wives food aversions. although who's counting, really, because team preggers sort of closed one eye (or both!) and nibbled on the baddies and sipped the wine that made its way to their end of the table.

thoughts on finals

writing this on a rainy saturday morning at the end of easter break. exactly 2 months till my last exam. wanted to stop and take stock of medsch so far, of five years of my 20s that went by in the blink of an eye. thinking back to when i first romanced the idea of medicine as a second degree (while driving around tuscany with then manfriend / now mister on my grad trip) and realise how crazy it was to dive into another professional degree after finishing one. but really, the seed was maybe planted two years earlier when the mister was in belgium on exchange and i'd gone to visit him but got banished during his exams to dublin to stay with my cousin, who was then doing medicine as a graduate. meeting her and her engaging, articulate grad med friends who struck me as well-rounded and brimming with emotional depth make me think about the viability (and benefit!) of doing medicine in uni v2. so wanting something is really different from actually putting in the hard work to get it. and i'm constantly reminded of how good God is, from taking medsch entrance exams at the same time as my bar exam, to interviewing just before starting pupillage and to later find out mid-trial that i'd been accepted (and the defense soon capitulated, so it was mega wins all round!)

medsch itself has been a wonderful 'pause' button on life and its accompanying responsibilities in one's 20s. grateful for the time out, for what i joke is my 'five year sabbatical' before rejoining the workforce. have the horrible tendency to gloss over the bad (and why waste precious time and energy dwelling on the negative) but there were low points, like when the state of arrested development got to me (typically every birthday!) and my former colleagues were all climbing the legal practice ladder and becoming senior associates, junior partners and more laterly, partners!) and how my friends who'd gone straight into undergrad medicine were regs and soon-to-be consultants. or how many of the doctors who've been saddled with me in clinical years are younger than me but yay for azn looks and unless i'm wearing my wedding band, no one clocks that i'm maybe old enough to be their mother. 

feel the undergrad medical course could easily be telescoped into 3.5 years but is deliberately prolonged for extra tuition fees and to give the younglings time to grow up. after all, not many 21 year olds would be good doctors. i defo wouldn't trust my 21 year old self to be a doctor. wish i could've done the accelerator course but alas, non-EU = ineligible. in a way the 5 year course is relaxed, wayy too much time off and hm i got to do other stuff so no real complaints, apart from this desire to get on with it and maybe get going on a career. with the way things are looking in the UK (yuck) and their increasingly protectionist measures (latest: hiring scores of foreign doctors but not allowing UK trained foreign doctors like me to remain... uh, why???) i'm not sure where i'll end up. it depends on the mister, where the wind blows him for work, and ultimately what i want to do (still don't know! please don't ask me what i want to specialise in!) oscillate between wanting to be a hospital consultant and doing some uber niche medicolegal thing where the arena is less crowded and i won't waste 5 years of legal training. then another part of me wants to be an itinerant earth mother home-schooling my photogenic brood who moves home every few months (years?) oh my poor imaginary gypsy family! 

that's all far away, and for now the task at hand is plainly simple. revise, pass finals then re-assess. in a way the next two years are sorted (hellooo junior-doctor-dom in north*west*thames!) and if things go according to plan, i've accidentally got a break coming up pretty soon after starting work haha. at this point, i'm so near the finish line now it's time to stop being bored (attention span is way too short, can't sit still and study for more than half an hour, want to be on the internets or out and about!) give it one last push when i've never really pushed before. always felt we'd ample time and practice for exams then need to remind myself it's a course designed for undergraduates, for children unable to time-manage because i've a 6 year life headstart on most of them that comes with 6 more years of exam experience. then again, going from wonderful law exams (loved studying law, loved exams! such fun!) to re-training my brain to pick up all this science, and drug mechanisms and body systems etc. wish it were more a transferable skill but alas it's starting from scratch and creating a brand new schema. have gotten by on embarrassingly little so far, so much so i was a little too close to the wire but lived to tell the tale. only discovered textbooks this year (oh the shame, i blame over-reliance on excellent seniors' notes through lawsch) to which my father sniffed, "better late than never". he's great, constantly telling people in the lift "i'm amazed she's not failed yet". well, so am i! the whole intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation to study is a real struggle. should want to know more medicine so i'll be a good doctor and good for patients, but it's fear of failure that's driven me to work thus far!

my confidence took a beating earlier this year, a combination of meeting exacting consultants who didn't mince their words (and they were right!) and being overwhelmed by irrational finals fear. it all got too much and i ran away to NYC (trigger: anxiety / counter-productive coping mechanism: horriday) where i hung out with A who was a surgeon then realised it wasn't for her and went to oil&gas and is now a management consultant. and she's the loveliest creature ever and she talked sense into me, saying how she too was exhausted of having to explain why she's 'dr' (actually 'miss') to people because her life about-turn happened so many years ago, it's old news. she too faced the same confidence issue, where she used to be uber confident because she was a terrific surgeon but having to start at the bottom of a new industry, knowing nothing, really knocked her for six. and i realised that's how i felt too! which was encouraging because she promised that given time, i'd build confidence in this new arena and would be synergistic by the time i bridged newfound confidence with latent confidence. fingers crossed! still waiting for that to happen :)

whenever the finals anxiety hits, i try to remind myself it's a numbers game. that being older / more mature / responsible, fortunate not having to work part-time while studying already puts me at an advantage. so the game plan for now is head down and chip away at the mammoth mountain. to be systematic and efficient (because there's no time!) to study smart, to retain information, not to do conscience-assuaging revision where i re-read what i already know to massage my ego... part of me thinks there's plenty of time, having really only needed a couple of days before each preceding end-of-year exam. this will be a walk in the park, they want to pass me, right? cf membership exams where they want to fail me :/  

only two months to go, will be over in no time and then helloo grad trip #2! 

edit 16 june 2016: found out today that i passed finals. thank God.

national gallery

singers is beautes and constantly changing and in turn i'm constantly amazed by the new sights and sounds that seem to spring up in my absence. the national gallery is one such attraction, and one close to heart because it used to be the supreme court and i've had many school trips there, and more laterly as a law undergrad / baby lawyer. to be fair it'd already moved by the time i started pupillage but remember wandering through with out of town friends before it was converted. slow on the uptake and after seeing no end of instagram photos felt the FOMO and wanted to visit too. tell a lie, it was hot and i was grumpy and it's supposed to be the coldest aircon in town. oh the way to my heart is through climate control...

was too cheap to get a sticker and tried to saunter casually into the galleries but was stopped by sharp-eyed docents. it was only the third docent who discreetly said that singaporeans get free entry and just needed to show ID at the ticket counter in exchange for said sticker. oops ;) did just that and made it into half a gallery before getting bored and making for the rooftop bar instead. that's about enough culture for one day!

escapism

to risk being incredibly uncool by talking about it (because i'm easily impressed and was overwhelmed by the opportunity) i happened to spend the night in the country in a safe house. without going into too much detail, i've a friend with an unsafe job and she was in town for work. she knew i was around and invited me back to hers for dinner with people in the same industry. as she was staying a distance from city centre (and i'm spoilt and don't drive) she'd initially asked if i'd like to spend the night. was too paiseh to accept because for some reason i'd presumed work had put her up in a rural hotel and i didn't want to inconvenience anyone. so i got a ride out with her after work (straight from the drug and rehab centre i was at and into the fire!) and was gobsmacked by her accommodation. turns out it's a proper house with full-time staff and panic buttons! because there may or may not have been an attempt on her life the weekend before (thankfully she wasn't around). this obviously appealed terribly to my inner bond fantasist. sort of awkwardly retracted my initial answer and did spend the night.

hadn't seen her in a few years, the last time being outside bond*street fenwicks and she'd clued me in to their brow bar. so it was a lovely catch up over tea and cake before her guests arrived, then i was showed my room (!!!) before we re-grouped for pre-dinner bubbles. it felt like being on a movie set, or what it must feel like if cluedo, the whodunnit boardgame, came to life. 

"it was the disgruntled barrister with a candlelabra in the drawing room..."

it'd been weeks since i'd met a non-medic (sad but true) so i was in the throes of intellectual ecstasy for the next 12h. because her guests were incredibly clever and i sort of sat in rapt attention soaking it all in. there was a fair deal of medic bashing which i refrained from joining in but couldn't help secretly agree with, and a lengthy discussion about the n*hs. ironically, this bunch has never used the n*hs (no surprises) but their observations were astute enough for me to find the argument compelling. i suppose i find it hard to articulate what it is i miss about my previous life and it's that breadth of knowledge and collective wisdom. medics, bless them, often don't know much beyond medicine and the world is so big it's a waste to know top to tail bodily and no more.

best night in a long time, slept like a baby without nightmares of potential risk to life and limb (!). had a lovely breakfast with more brain tickling banter and rode back to work with her before going in search of a massage. gotta love a mid-week morning off.

yosemite

felt it was a little over-ambitious to head inland from the coast but was overruled. not a huge fan of the outdoors but wilderness medicine has changed me so yosemite did not prove as unattractive as it might've a few years ago. i also have wilderness medicine, well, medicine in general, to thank for quickly diagnosing lyme disease. what a walking cliche, right? when one spies an MCQ question that talks about yosemite, the answer is always lyme disease. in fact, when i told medic friends that i was going to / had just been to yosemite, the inevitable question was did you get lyme disease? and the unfortunate answer was yes. wish i was making it up but despite adequate cover and bite protection, a deer tick managed to make its way to me. 

and while i was initially laughing at the bite, a facetime consultation proved otherwise and was told in no uncertain terms to get the appropriate antibiotics stat. was in denial that night but come morning the tell-tale bulls eye pattern developed and i'd to eat my words (and pop those pills). thankful to travel with a pharmacy but do think, again, uhmurikan paranoia would've made it easy to obtain abx over the counter if necessary. dodged a bullet there and early identification and treatment is really the best management. funny story - marked the erythema (redness and swelling) with a pen and used it as an excuse to prance around in daisy dukes, only to have people say it was a  cool tat. thaaanks. was also mistaken for a minor on the plane ride home (LA to tokyo) but i blame the lack of clothing and general calafare attitude.

was yosemite worth the lyme disease? maybe. it was pretty but trees and more trees did get boring after a while.

cottage was pretty sweet though!

the last four weeks

so life slowed down a little recently when i swapped bedside for bench. there's lots of talk about bench to bedside but when i first told visiting friends about my (then) next placement, accidentally said "bench & bar", freudian slip referring to the competition between judges and lawyers. we all had a good laugh (friends used to be bench but are now bar) before i quickly corrected myself. old habits die hard! had the privilege of doing elective at a london lab and it's been an eye-opening experience. grateful to supervisor and poor phD student tasked with babysitting me because i've not been in a lab in ten years and had to be taught everything from scratch. tried to stay out of their way best as i could and be an extra pair of hands when allowed. felt a bit like stumbling onto the big bang theory (art imitates life!) and getting to know all these wonderful science-y types has been broadening. 

the change of pace was the first thing i noticed, because biology cannot be rushed. and if cells need x hours to grow, then they're going to take x hours to grow and no amount of TLC will make it any faster (yesyes, after adding the inducer there's really little more i can do!). was also struck by how the topdawgs were totes unassuming. was introduced to someone on my first day who looked like part of a band. was bantering in a group and having a laugh, all good. a few days later i learnt he was a super senior professor who made a ground-breaking discovery that's since changed the course of medicine. i mean, legend. and there i was talking about how geordie girls use so much fake tan they look like oompa loompas, or something inane to that effect. wanted to dig a hole and die? would've been totes starstruck fangirl had i known before and just thankful i didn't venture anything pseudo-scientific. there would have been nothing more 班门弄斧. not many instances where i can't express myself better in english, but this is one of them!

also lucked out and was allowed to go to the national sychrotron with the team for 12h of beamtime. AHMAGAHDD. which of course was license to release inner nerd. too cool for words and was besides myself with glee, being trusted to drive all this amazing kid. never mind it was an 18h day! sleep is for the weak... i mean the world is such an amazing place and i know so very little, am constantly reminded about how small and insignificant we are, humbled by the wealth of knowledge out there and inspired, really, to keep learning and doing and learning. it's inexhaustible and what we know is the tiniest drop in the ocean. love being in a position to take it all in, to be allowed wide-eyed wonder and coming home with stories and much to process each day. steep learning curve, semi-tempts me down the phD path (HAHA) and just wanting to make the most of it all. 

one of those mornings

when only a massive full english will help. in fact, it isn't really a full english (no tomatoes, no mushrooms, no (dare i say) haggis and the toast wasn't fried) but it's hospital food and how naughty can they get. oh fried toast, how i miss you. been ravenous of late, maybe it's the cold weather. sorry, don't mean to be one of those girls talking about food all the time. it's defo something on my mind alot, and most times i get to eat what i want. but gosh those humblebrags who talk about eating all day and don't look it? they just come across as smug and self-satisfied. it's unfair to womankind and i'm all for loving your fellow (wo)man. suppose haters are gonna hate and this little rant is triggered by a wag in the tabloids who said something like, "i really shouldn't be this thin because i eat soooo much! i must have a high metabolism but i'm sure it'll catch up when i hit thirty." vain attempt to normalise doesn't make it any better. and i don't believe her for a moment. agree some are genetically blessed and good for them, i don't begrudge them their cheeseburgers haha but i think women in general should be more aware / sensitive of what they say and how that can affect the vulnerable / less secure out there. in paeds, there are eating disorders aplenty and it's sad how girlies can be so easily triggered to self-harm. 

and maybe being smug / self-satisfied is something i'm slowly getting more uncomfortable with. guilty as charged and conscious not to rub my perceived happiness in other people's faces. made the mistake of looking at fb posts from about three years ago and ohmy i really don't like the girl who can't stop talking about her amazing husband. three years on, he's no less amazing but hm defo keen to tone the public adoration down a couple of notches. to each his own and it's nice when people are happy and proud of their +1s but i think the initial eagerness to remind the world we're newlywed has given way to a quiet contentment that isn't bolstered by fb / insta likes. in fact, i've become more zealous re: guarding our privacy and keeping more moments 'just us'. because, really, why would i want randoms to know where we go or what we get up to?

gosh, all that from a full english! but the wards have been a steep learning curve, as always. fascinated by the acute medicine as much as i am by the ethical minefield. child protection, organ donation, weekly morbidity&mortality meetings... my inner lawyer is elated to be in an environment that grapples with medicolegal law on an almost daily basis. it's such a geek moment to tease out legal issues and their ramifications. yes, it's always horrible when children die and you hope they're few and far between. but i'm of the view that the higher the toll the 'better' the unit's work because it reflects how they're taking the truly poorly kiddies who if they were to have a chance anywhere, it'd be here. and if even that's not enough, then nothing else humanly possible would've been. but easy for me to say. it's not my child and after spending sufficient time with the unit i have nothing but confidence in the team and their ability.

thoughts on jan 2015

typing this on the first day of feb. can't believe january's whizzed by and we're into the second month of 2015. things have been busy in the real world, hence the relative silence on this front. but it's not just that. part of me feels increasingly reticent and hermetic with time, as if there's a creeping aversion to social media and being "out there" about what i get up to. life's been pretty much the same, more social in some ways even, but i'm less inclined to shout it from the rooftops. 

lots has happened this month, most of it thought-provoking, and i'm trying to figure out what motivates me. uninteresting existential questions and the like. not quite searching but i think most of one's 20s (or life?) is spent refining ideas, cultivating new ones and generally working towards being a better version of oneself. in theory, anyway. 

been incredibly fortunate to be in clinics at a centre of excellence and relishing every moment. steep learning curve and everyone's a superstar so i leave work feeling 2cm tall most days. humbling and awe-inspiring at the same time and so very excited to be on the cutting edge of medicine, learning from some of the world's best. did take a while to find my feet and found the first week particularly tough but hey, comes with the territory and glad to be on the other side now. also, being a 15min stroll to work is literally the best thing ever. not counting on the stars aligning as such again so treasuring every extra minute of zzz. was a little overambitious and ended up squeezing what was meant to be a six week audit into a week and a half so there were a couple of 12+h days (oh the shame!) that are thankfully behind me, or so i hope! 12h should be nothing but i'm totes weaksauce after leaving gainful employment in 2011.

on the social front it's been a carousel of friends in town and been lucky to have time with dear friends i don't see as often as i'd like. what's fun has also been doing different things with guests so as not to bore myself with a tried-and-tested "jo's top 5 things to do in london". keeping things fresh and mixing them up just means sort of dragging my ever-obliging visitors into my life, doing what i normally do i.e. weekends in the country, brunch in the 'hood, coffee runs to the local bakery, sunday dimsum lunches, gastropub adventures with foodie friends, home-cooked dinners at home, exploring new korean restaurants in the city etc. so, really, nothing particularly special or touristy. there's something to be said about finding joy in the ordinary and i've been quite particular about not going out of my way to entertain people. selfish as it sounds, life goes on and they're welcome to come along. 

a friend commented that the company i keep is all hyper-ambitious, over-achieving types and i got a bit self-conscious. don't necessarily agree but admit it might seem like that? like to think i value capability and potential, not particularly current networth in fact, i'm a big believer in undervalued sorts. yet i'm privileged to know some truly interesting people with fascinating minds, the sort i can just sit and listen to and feel smarter for at the end of it. love an exchange of ideas and getting different perspectives. A was telling me about criminal defence she practices at the hague, J about clerking for a federal judge and their frequent trips to hold court in papua new guinea, M about her organic dog food business and breeding winning racehorses, Y about auctioning off a diplomat's art collection in amsterdam, S for booking the hand&flower a year in advance and letting me free-ride on his reso, X about the ebola vaccine trials she's working on, E about writing foreign worker policy in singers and R likening neurosurgery to plumbing. having left the legal industry, i'm more than happy to live vicariously through friends in practice whom i met in stockholm on exchange and who've gone on to do amazingly well as lawyers, and friends who've similarly left practice for more attractive ventures. i suppose everyone picks their path and their battle. 

there's also been a fair bit of event planning / hosting to be done for which i grudgingly drag my feet along. there's a 'do for 100 at a chinese resto i like but i forget how much i enjoy negotiating and doing deals. feel incredibly accomplished to have substituted better dishes at no extra cost, and locked in four bottles of wine per table at a steal, with fixed low prices for cocktails. maybe it's an azn thing but i get such a kick out of feeling i've created / added value. and it's a bit embarrassing but i also like cultivating relationships and reaping the benefit in VIP discount and queue-jumping privileges. 20min wait for table of seven when i've waited 90min for table of three previously... don't mind if i do! doing another dinner at hutong, this time for 30, and again it's game face on and charm offensive. may be getting the wheels rolling for a nus*lawsch reunion in london too! feel the point of garnering goodwill is to pass it on, and who better to benefit than dear alma mater.

what's been more restorative, however, is having friends over for dinner. gotten into a little groove and taken to cooking for one or two friends at a time. not a fan of big groups unless absolutely necessary and it's great to do a simple but quality meal over a bottle of wine. far from a confident cook but friends have been forgiving, which's always an attractive trait. what was super nice today was that friends who were in the neighbourhood stopped by for coffee, which turned into cheese and charcuterie with bubbly rose. it's wonderful to be known and to have friends comfortable enough to come over spontaneously. and after they left, my local thai decided to be snarky so got take out and had newly-pregnant friends home for dinner instead. not to be vindictive but it's more comfortable at home, with limitless wine and singha beer plus friends stayed past midnight which's usually the sign of a good night, especially with mama-to-be's new 8pm bedime.

then when i'm social-ed out, bid a hasty retreat into my little cave and stay there for a stretch before venturing out again. more ebb and flow of interest and energy than bipolar (i hope!) and truly enjoying this time of responsibility-free self-indulgence. work's contained to the week, weekends wide open for 12h sleeps or as action-packed as i'm wanting them to be. appreciate things won't always be like this and grateful to be in a good place now. can't ask for more!

frame of mind

so this has got to be my all time favourite part of the year. done with exams, thrilled with results, and at the very start of a nice long summer break. it's hard not to come across as smug and self-satisfied, apologies in advance. third year's the longest year of medsch and i'm just so relieved it's over. found out earlier this week and heaved a huge sigh of relief after my panic in NYC. grateful for a good mind, or a pseudo good mind at least, and that uni the second time round isn't too taxing. big believer in having my cake and eating it, and as a graduate, much as i love clinic and patients, i've other priorities. like a husband, and a marriage that i think being present for is very important. not that we have to travel as much as we do, but why not? also, always conscious that it's prudent to make the most of time together before any future babies come along. then again, the mister's insistent that we'll treat any future kiddos guai lo style and lug them everywhere with us. baby wearing and the like. but that's him, and his visions of the future. i'm a little less enamoured, a little less involved. it's no secret that i'm not fond of children, and pull a face every time some screaming kid disrupts my otherwise tranquil brunch experience. and pull a bigger face any time i think some entitled parent is, well, being entitled. biggest fear is becoming said entitled parent by virtue of popping out some mini-me. but we'll see how that goes. 

it's shaping up to be a good summer. off to aix tomorrow to visit one of my favourite girls. not seen her since our wedding two years ago, and last stayed at with her family four years ago on my grad trip. booked pretty last minute (while in the throes of revision last week and desperately needing some extrinsic motivation) and psyched to make it happen. we've lavender fields, vineyards and truffle farms to look forward to. plus a cellulite-busting walk one of the mornings.

briefly back to londontown then cruising quaint villages and small towns along the coast, followed by a couple of days in lisbon. a little riddicks to make two separate trips to france within the same week, albeit south then north. i hate the sentiment YOLO seems to encompass but can't describe it better? work hard, play harder? again, so gross and trader-esque. if nothing else, NYC taught me that finance types mess with my sense of perception. nothing against them flashing their cash, but my inner medic just cringes with self-loathing every time someone drops what's possibly my first year's salary on a night out. will be back in singers at some point then back to school! 

a little something i'm really happy about is not having to leave central london. fingers crossed i'll be able to connect the dots and it's not something i've spoken of much for fear of jinxing it but it's looking like i'm going to be at zone 1 hospitals for the next school year. can't begin to tell you how excited this makes me. being able to walk to clinics is the dream :) excited for the break, and excited to be back to work eventually. 

here's a photo of my celebratory fish&chips after the last paper. did have multiple celebrations, really. dimsum lunch, fish&chips tea, lebanese supper etc but it was all cautious celebration because results were only coming out the next day. and when those came out, pulled out the stops and celebrated proper with the grads over a blow out lunch where i broke out the wine i'd been saving. happiness is in the big and the small. thankful for a great group of friends who've gotten me through the year, and again, as always, grateful to be where i want to be, doing what i want to do :)

till then, the NYC series will continue and i might pop back with the odd holiday update. 

lago di como

by the grace of God, the mister was soon feeling better and decided to push on with our day in como. an option was to forfeit the rental car and lakefront hotel in favour of spending the night at the milan airport hotel before our afternoon flight. so glad we didn't because wonderful and ever-reliable singapore airlines delayed our flight by six hours. i'm increasingly disenchanted with SQ because, again, paying premium for substandard service just isn't cool. thankful the mister is organised and googles all our flights on the day because we wouldn't have been aware of the delay otherwise. 

this all made for an angsty letter, to which they alleged they'd records of sending text notifications. well let's just push the blame to european telcos and telephone towers, yeah? to be fair, there are probably worse places than lake como to wait out a six hour delay, and the hotel kindly gave us late check out so we made the most of the facilities that we wouldn't have been able to enjoy had we left just after breakfast as planned.

on to happier things - we'd a funny moment over breakfast when we realised once again just how different we were. the mister was reading the papers, eager to engage in discussion on crimea while i was preoccupied by the medical evac choppers winching up and down. despite sharing the same undergrad background, our current pursuits are on such divergent paths.

tea garden

one of london's best kept secrets are the little back gardens some cafes have. sure, in summer, every cafe worth its weight in coffee beans advertises its terrace. but in spring, oh spring, the sandwich boards have yet to come out and these gardens are deliciously underpopulated. we stumbled upon maison blanc's a few weekends ago and felt like we were transported off busy fulham road and into a tranquil bamboo grove. we sat half-half (the mister in the sun, me in the shade), each in our element  as we talked about our respective weeks. 

when we were both lawyers*, we didn't talk about work very much (after a whole week at work, it's the last thing on our minds!) but now, talking about work is back on the table. it'd been a particularly harrowing week with some of the more sobering aspects of women's health (infertility, intra-uterine death and fetal abnormalities) and i was glad for the mister to bounce ethical dilemmas off. he's the kindest, most articulate soul i know and hearing his measured, utilitarian take on things always leaves me feeling comforted.

*he insists i was merely a pupil and never a lawyer. i insist i've been called to the bar and am therefore a qualified lawyer.

a spanner in the plans

so i was having one of those stretches where i thought i knew what i wanted to do (HAHA) and life was trundling along at a nice pace. there i was - relatively confident that i was in medicine to do XYZ. and then we start women's health / obs&gynae this week and OHMYMAMA i realise that i actually really really enjoy the work. more so than i've been interested in anything else. i like working with / supporting women. i mean, i'm such a feminist. all about female empowerment and loving your fellow (wo)man in an entirely non-sapphic kind of way. and once you get over how it's all the business end of lady parts, it's really quite fascinating.

you've got to understand that what put me off medicine the very first time (after A levels) was O&G. i had a sub-optimal internship experience, met doctors who regretted doing medicine and saw three women doctors break down on the wards. one harried MO only saw her 6 month old son on weekends (he lived with her parents), another called her child 'it' and the third, a neonatologist on call, was in tears at the thought of caring for everyone's child except her own. i was an impressionable teenager, saw this, figured it didn't square with my life plans to eventually have house, spouse and children, and ran straight to law where i figured i could be a taitai (lady of leisure) after. unfortunately (or fortunately for the mister!), i like to work. and taitaidom is fast losing its lustre. being runner-up for "most likely to be a taitai" at both secondary school and lawsch (true story!) was ironically prescient. so close! 

now i really don't want to bore / disgust you with what went on in the delivery suite today but i thoroughly enjoyed schlepping around in blue scrubs and being with the midwives and mamas-to-be. the specialty trainees were awesome too! patient and nurturing, they took time to teach me and i got to scrub in to be an extra pair of hands during a c-section! there's a great energy to the place and i love being fueled by caffeine and adrenaline. reminds me of when i was a trainee lawyer! junkie-tendencies aside, i just had this massive epiphany that almost scares me because it's been awhile since i last felt so strongly about something. not since i applied to medsch, to be honest (oh ya, and getting married. sorry husband!) but this is proving to be a rather life-altering rotation. and of course O&G is the first thing i used to say i didn't want to do whenever i'm asked what i want to specialise in. because choosing your interest by the process of elimination works so well, not.

so i was being a little nostalgic

and re-visited this post.

it feels like life before medicine was a different life all together.

i've never been more fulfilled and it's crazy just how amazeballs clinicals have been. i spend most days overwhelmed with gratitude that 1) national experts take time out their schedules to teach us the basics 2) people with golden hearts come in on their own time to let us poke and prod them. just this morning we met a gent with acromegaly. he had taken leave to tell us about his condition and the long road to diagnosis, in hope that when faced with similar presentation in the future, we'd come to the diagnosis earlier and spare future-patient years of not knowing what's up. how public-spirited is that?!  

also, maybe i'm a little slow on the uptake but now i feel compelled to skim over the sylllabus in advance so come 9am start i'm all prepped and ready to see the conditions we're learning about live. the theory is slowly coming together and it excites me to see pathology in person (sorry patient!). but what makes it even better is when i go home and catch the mister youtube-ing things i've whatsapped him about in the day. we did gastro-intestinal last week and while i was decompressing, the mister was watching videos on ileostomy care and ascites drainage. i mean, how sweet and supportive is he! then we curl up on the sofa and guess the diagnosis while watch embarrassing bodies. so nerdy, and i'm moved beyond words by how the mister shows an interest in what i do. when we were both lawyers, we hardly talked about the files we were on. in a way it was nice how we could discuss them in shorthand and half-sentences, before soon moving on to more interesting things.

some one asked me recently why i got married "so young" and while i'm no child bride, it was hard to answer without sounding smug / vomit-inducing. but the honest answer is i've been so very fortunate to find the mister early. having spent five years trying to find something wrong with him, and failing, i realised i better marry him before someone else snapped him up. i'm no commodities trader, but i felt he was under-valued, and i was definitely over-performing by conning him into going out with me :) the immense benefit of being young and married is we've the luxury of time to enjoy this amazing season "just us" while pursuing our independent dreams. through it all, i've someone who has my back, who sees only the very best in me, and inspires me every day to be a better version of myself. he gives me plenty of space and ironically i feel more 'free' as a not-so-old married woman than i ever did when i was single many moons ago. 

in fact, the mister was instrumental in my applying to medical school and if i hadn't met him, i don't think i'd have had the courage to turn my back on a perfectly good legal career. but he signed me up for the medsch entrance exams despite my protestations (same time as the bar exam, hooboy!) and wouldn't let me settle for convenience. being a silly girl, i know that if i'd been single or with someone less encouraging at that point, there was no way i'd have about-turned into medicine at that stage. i wanted to eventually get married and have kids, and pursuing a graduate degree would have made it infinitely harder to do all that. plus the little problem of meeting a nice (preferably yellow) christian boy while at it... so it's all academic now, but every day i'm grateful for the mister, and this opportunity to being doing exactly what i want to do :)

exciting times ahead!

inside a snow globe

had paper 1 today and thank God for holding the snow till we were inside the exam hall. had horrible visions of me wading in knee deep snow to the venue but the flurry only fell midway through the exam. kept looking across the hall and out of the window - snow is still novel and fascinating - but thought i might seem suspicious and had to stop. but when i left, couldn't resist taking photo after photo of the fresh snowfall. it's not the first time this winter but it wasn't this thick or pristine the last time :) and now to get cracking on paper 2 before it's off to the lakes midweek. looking forward to holiday part deux after the exams are over and done with.

guinea pig

poor sister wondering what she did to deserve being "patient" to two medics. brother's more keen than i am and was determined to nail blood pressure taking. to find out if he was doing it right, we'd needed a control. have had the benefit to taking blood pressure at the GP before the break but was quick to join the fun. good to know we were reading right, and later tried teaching our sister how to measure pressure too. but she fail. and that's when we realised she's so much better suited to law.

while U and family were around

they were absolute sweeties, appreciating that our singers palates could always do with local food and inviting us to join them at every opportunity. while K and U go waaay back (to when they were teensy tiny little squirts at RI), i'm a relatively recent addition but U's family were so warm and inclusive that i soon forgot we'd only just met. in a way, when i grow up i want to be like his folks - picking up lonely kiddos far away from home and treating them as they do their flesh and blood. it's a graciousness we're very blessed to be recipients of :) so we'd pearl liang dimsum on sunday, hakkasan on thursday after a spot of bespoke tailoring, and lobster noodles at mandarin kitchen. all the while hanging with U and his dynamic siblings. i learn so much just by being with them, it's amazing.

pseudo-intellectuals oxford

londontown got a little claustrophobic over the weekend and we went to oxford on a whim. didn't hurt that T, the big friendly giant, was teaching there over the summer. however, unbeknown to us, the BFG was himself roadtripping that weekend. never fear, R and KH came to the rescue with their winner winner chicken dinner lists of where to go and what to eat. as luck would have it, i also bumped into a high school friend in the streets, and he pointed us to the cutest little burger joint for dinner. but more about that later!

the only problem with oxford is the absolute lack of parking. we laughed at the park & ride on the way in wondering who'd be so silly as to park outside the town centre. turned out the joke was on us when we tried to park on the main street where it'd cost GBP5 for a measly 2 hours. tails between our legs, we backtracked and thankfully because it was sunday, scored some sweet free parking just by the university parks. and we just had to stop for a celebratory breton crepe after.

right after crepes, we went to the grand cafe on R's recommendation. was also keen to try olives which had KH's vote but it was unforch closed for summer :(

passed this on the way to the redcliffe camera and i must say it's so much cuter than a sandwich board!

more on oxford to come!

one for the lawyers

it's been a few months since i last saw the white book. same with the black book... so you can imagine my surprise when i saw these huge adverts for the 2012 addition in the tube station. and then i remembered i was at chancery lane, home of the inns.

eponymous

"swapped my penguin suit for scrubs", well, not entirely.

count my blessings to be in a forward-thinking medical school with an integrated program and early patient contact. how many other first term freshmen can say they've taken patient histories and ran them by consultants?! and, i'm not-so-secretly thrilled to be able to break out that lovingly acquired corporate wardrobe again. well, what's left of it anyway, having gifted a good chunk to friends who were starting work as i was leaving, and my baby sister who's just gotten into lawsch.

on these fantastic ward days, i get to dress my age! no more hoodie and jeans. look ma, skirt and heels! speaking of which, i struggled to walk in a skirt after all these months. wow. some things there are simply no muscle memory for. 

on a less frivolous note, can i just say that i love hospital visits? being trusted with a patient, all of whom volunteer to share their history with us hapless first yearers, and listening to their presenting complaint, history of presenting complaint, past medical history etc is nothing short of humbling. despite being poorly (ooh! local slang!) they muster up sufficient energy to "give something back". their altruism amazes me and i appreciate their giving nature. if i were ill, i'd probably be sulking in a corner and binging on ice cream. trust me, talking to eager students would be very low on my list. 

and it was the same with the year long study we'd to do. a pregnant mum let us into her home and life to follow her journey to motherhood and beyond. hey, mine even welcomed us into the birthing room had the uni allowed us to share the experience. thinking about my pre-conceived notion of the stiff english upper lip, i'm stunned by how unreserved my "mum" was about it. 

back to the hospital visit, it's inevitably an eye opener and each session leaves me with much food for thought. case in point: i had to deal with my inherent apprehension when dealing with a patient who intimidated me. he was nothing but cooperative and happy to share his story, but when he started telling me how he was on long term medication for his depression, bipolar disorder and anger management issues, i literally started plotting my escape route should he suddenly go berserk. didn't help that he had the build of a professional wrestler and tattooed from wrists to ears... ran this little wobble by the consultant after and he assured me that it's only in casualty where i've to watch my back haha. good guidance, good teaching and good learning. 

can't believe i get to spend the rest of my life doing this :) oh wow.

barter books

 

as the name suggests, this fascinating second hand book store is one of the biggest in the country! it's in a disused train station and has fireplaces and comfy sofas to read in. there's even a cafe inside, and an electronic train running around the ceiling. more interestingly, it's the home of that poster. you know, the one that says "keep calm and carry on". rumour has it that the owner of this book shop discovered the poster in a box of old books someone had donated. while it had never been published as intended during WWII, he was quick to print it and the rest is, well, history.

also, everyone and their mother told us to come here! from the complete stranger in the post office who gave the manfriend a 10minute history lecture while i was furiously scribbling postcards, to the proprietress of the village tea room and even the bus driver! it's like the pride and joy of the town haha.