an excellent history

what an eventful day!

went to watch the medicine play this afternoon and i'm truly impressed. Everyday after school, i feel like a walking zombie already. Don't have enough energy to do anything except sleep or watch tv but yet, these people still have the energy to rehearse and prepare for the play. It's truly amazing! How do they do it? The play was very enjoyable. even though like wendy said, there were some unanswered questions like why did angeline break up with bernard?...i still think it's a job well done.

the story was about the medicine class of 1995 going for a reunion in 2005. i wonder what my cg mates will be doing in 10 years time. here are some of my predictions..

kok pin and yvonne: married and living in their own home with 2 children. kok pin and von will be doing medicine, probably still in public service (even though kp always say he wants to be a gp).

nathan: married to vanni and have 1 child. Vanni will probably be a housewife looking after nathan and their children. while nathan will be bringing in the dough. nathan will prob be doing surgery, still in public service.

pinakin: married to an indian bride. 2 children. A gp with some outside business.

wendy: probably still looks the same as now. married with 1 child. Doing medicine in public service. on her way to becoming a dermatologist.

shirlynn: doing medicine. might be out of the country.

kelvin: doing medicine. still the same as before.

me: doing surgery in public service. still looking for mr right.

went to shop around after the play and while walking along beach road, we saw the soldiers marching towards padang and saw the parachuters (are they called parachuters?) parachuting towards padang. wish i have tickets to catch ndp live! but sadly, i'll have to watch it on tv just like every other year.

today we were shown some videos on caregivers for the chronically ill. It's very touching to see old couples still living together and caring for each other. In sickness and in health... how many of us will be lucky enough to find someone we care enough to marry? how many of us will be happily married? will we be lucky enough to find someone to care for us even when we are sick? suffering from dementia, unable to care for ourselves, unable to recognise the people around us, will our partner still care for us?

And how about our children? you see so many elderly being abandoned in the nursing homes and hospitals because they are too caught up in their lives. i'm guilty of it myself actually. My grandmother is living with me now. I hardly talk to her even though we live under the same roof. Although i try to talk to her like telling her i'm leaving the house, call her to eat when i'm having dinner, i don't have long conversations with her...

my dad, the inventor

throughout my life, my dad has always been inventing strange things. Weird smells and sounds in the middle of the night are common occurrences at my house. I remember once, he used to boil lots and lots of water, trying to find a way to boil water faster than normal until strange smells started emitting from the kettle. It got so bad I had to stuff cloth at the door to prevent myself from suffocating.

my dad has a new invention. everytime he tells me of his brilliant invention, i get very nervous because it usually is very strange and extremely expensive. This time however, is quite different. It actually sounds ok. I'm quite excited to see the outcome of it. If it succeeds, good for him. At least he'll have something new and exciting in his life. If it fails, hmm...at least I still have a roof over my head. And i'm starting work next year.

ilizarov

Remember the British girl who wanted to be taller so that she can fulfill her dream of becoming an air stewardess? For anyone who wants to add some height after all your bones have fused i.e. stopped growing, other than wearing really high heels, the only other way is to saw your bones, keep the ends apart with a fixator, lengthen the gap by 1mm everyday, endure lots and lots of pain, spend tones of money, and wait for your bone to lengthen in 9 to 12 months.

According to my tutor (I'm currently doing orthopedics), he said that growth hormones won't make you taller once your bones have fused. It only makes your nose bigger, forehead protrusion, gives you pituitary tumour, diabetes and all sorts of other things. The only way to grow taller is using the ilizarov technique of bone lengthening.

A little bit of trivia. The method of such lengthening was discovered by Dr. Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov in 1951. Not everybody who goes for such operations is for cosmesis sake. People who have non-union fractures, bones deformed by polio can go for ilizarov. Also people who are born with shorter stature like achondroplasia and Turner's, can lengthen their bones too.

And short people like me. My tutor actually told me (three times!) during his clinic that i should consider going for the operation. Yes, i know i'm not exactly the tallest person, but don't need to remind me right? I don't want to suffer the pain of the operation, that's why i'm investing my money in pretty heels and torturing my feet. I think that's why I have plantar fasciitis.

Do you believe in the supernatural?

Some of my family members went to a chinese medium sometime this week to "call" on the spirits of my grandmother and grandfather. Quite an eye-opening experience. But of course, being the busy-bee me, I was unable to make it because of SCHOOL.

My aunts heard from their relatives that this particular medium from china was able to call on the spirit of one of their relative who passed away not so long ago. They claimed that they were able to communicate with him through the medium. My sister also has a friend whose friend went to call on the spirit of his father. And the medium was able to tell them that the pendant that the father was wearing was given to him by someone and the pendant had an evil spirit on it. Thus, he had a premature death because of it. Hmm...how much of that is belivable i don't know.

So, that bright and sunny morning, my sis and cousin and aunts went to look for the medium. In the fully lit room, with the windows widely open (so unlike the dark and dingy room that we all expect) they managed to summon a spirit.

First up, my beloved grandmother. Although it probably wasn’t her because she said that she has 9 children. So unless she had an illegitimate child that none of us knew, wrong spirit!

Next up, my grandfather. All was well until “my grandfather” said that he needed a watch as we didn’t burn him one when we cremated him. Sounds quite true and logical right? I don’t think so. While we were preparing his clothing for him, the caretaker asked us to remove his watch otherwise the battery in the watch will cause an explosion when we cremate him. (Remember Gerald Tan from urology telling us about the pacemaker causing an explosion?) So, unless the watch my grandpa was wearing was extra special, my guess is everyone who was cremated went without a watch. I don’t know how many people in Singapore are cremated compared to buried, but I think there’s at least a 50-50 chance of the medium getting it right.

Should people go for such stuff? Is it real? What if it's real? What if the spirit tells you that he is suffering in the netherworld, what can the living do? What if the spirit that you summoned is an evil spirit and follows you home?

I'm a skeptic on such stuff. Don't really believe it, but don't dare to don't believe it. That's why I hate scary movies and stories, what I don't know won't hurt me, I think...