Carrots and incentives

Yesterday, after my second day of work in rural Australia, I found myself sneaking back in to the hospital doctors' common room to book my flight back home. I don't have internet at home, or a printer.

My friend was on call, lying on the couch and watching television.  I was a little embarrassed. Day 2 and already I'm booking my flight home for next weekend? The prices had risen, of course, but that didn't deter me either.

I cannot describe how glad I felt when I saw those tickets coming out of the printer. I had been moping all week thinking about the 11 weeks that I will have to spend here, and suddenly that milestone has been moved to 1 week. Just 1 week before I get to be home with my family and friends. And how much stuff I have to do in that week, surely it will go by quickly! It's funny hat psychological games we play with ourselves. Everything suddenly seemed so much more bearable.

It may just be psychological, but throughout school and university there has always been the light of holidays at the end of a tunnel of studying. And if it works, why shouldn't we set up some of our own lights? Working in the hospital, you can work continuously without weekends or holidays unless you take the time off for yourself.  That's what I was doing. Even if it had only been two days.

humidity and nostalgia

the weather has been quite warm and humid recently. a strong reminder that it's that time of year again. every thick morning brings back strong memories of long, endless days of dread. of muted panic and long, stretching days filled with repetition and study. during high school, I consoled myself with thoughts of a new, fresh, exciting future- university. during university swotvac, I looked forward to three months of summer holidays. during my intern year, I looked forward to my days off and a holiday to Japan at the end of it all.

this year, things are completely different. my long, endless period of dread is going to last 11 weeks, for one. that is NOT how it is supposed to be. And yet, it is entirely my fault because I decided 18 months ago that I would some more experience working in a rural town. that feeling persisted for 12 months, but recently I have really begun dreading the move. why couldn't I just stay in some nice, comfortable, familiar hospital job in the city? what's wrong with being surrounded by family, going to end of year parties with old friends, and seeing my boyfriend every week? or even every two weeks? what's wrong with having internet access? sometimes I am too adventurous for my own good. or perhaps I am just getting older now, and being out of my comfort zone is not as exciting as it used to be.

one of many valuable lessons that Medicine has taught me- you never really know what to expect. i have put in special requests for terms that i have ended up hating, and i have pleaded to be swapped out of rotations which ended up become pivotal points in my career. let's see what the next eleven weeks bring.

night doctor

When I was in my final year of university, one of my fears was being called to insert an intravenous cannula into a challenging patient.
Then when I was an intern, handing over unwell patients to the night doctors, I dreaded being the night resident on the receiving end of that spiel.

It's not to say that I've never worked nights. As an intern, emergency department night shifts are compulsory. During my intensive care term, I worked just as many nights as I worked days. My medical roster this year consisted of four weeks of night shifts at a peripheral hospital. All of the above is bearable compared to the thought of being one of a handful of doctors covering a tertiary institution with complex (and crumbly!) patients.

I guess just as all good things (on earth) come to pass, all bad things... come. Eventually. I've done two shifts now, and spent my three days off barely able to leave my bed due to a particularly nasty flu. The one thing that's made it bearable is having company- coincidentally, quite a few of my friends have been rostered on night shifts this fortnight (at a variety of different hospitals). We keep each other sane through the nights.

I have also discovered a new found love of sunrise. I could appreciate the splendour of sunrise before. Now I can also appreciate the relief that it brings.

Here's hoping I'll be well enough for my next two night shifts this weekend.

mid-year pause

I've just enjoyed a blissful week free from the busy-ness of life.

No interview prep, research, work, and study. Correction- only five hours of work on Saturday.

Yesterday, there was no more internet either. The household internet was shaped. Suddenly, my family was catapulted back to a time before the internet.

It's almost laughable, how lost we were. I was so devastated about a world without search engines. My mother could not read news on her iPad. We sat around the table, exchanging stories and jokes. And then we all went to bed at 9:30pm. 

This was a stark change from the events of the preceeding weeks. As in, I was so busy studying for a course that I barely took notice as my father and siblings built a computer for me. One day there were lots of boxes and the next it was a computer.

After my course had finished, I began to transfer some files onto the new computer, and in doing so I stumbled across some unfinished blog entries.

One was from 2010, after my trip to India. I reflected on what a deeply enriching experience it was. To be able to slow down and appreciate life entirely. At first I couldn't understand how it was that villagers would often mill around the few "stalls" in the morning, doctors were allowed home for a one hour lunch break, and people always had time to have evening tea with their neighbours. On top of that, the entire hospital began the day with prayers and a quick sermon. It was life from a completely different perspective.

I wrote "Somewhere along the line, somebody sold me this idea of busyness, whether it was a poster, or in a TV ad, etc., and I've bought into it. Well I've changed my mind, I think it's overrated. Therefore I shall practice being very, very still. Let everybody else do their stylish brisk walking!"

It's interesting, the way we schedule our lives. As a child, time crawled as slowly as I did.

During my teenage years, I would pencil the rare social event into my diary and look forward to it for weeks in advance.

In high school, I would split my evenings into portions of time that matched my allocated homework.

In university, I admired people who seemed to accomplish so much with their time. People who were presidents of multiple clubs, had thousands of social media friends/followers, worked two jobs, played in orchestras, and travelled so often for conferences that they had enough frequent flyer points for their annual volunteer missions trip to some impoverished country.

They were time efficient, I'd decided, and I had the impression that if I did the same thing (that is, throw myself into a multitude of different activities), I too could achieve more that I could fit into my diary.

Well, I was wrong. Apparently, the more I try to do, the less I achieve. If anything, the past few disastrous weeks have definitely shown me that.

It is so nice to be able to step out of the whirlwind of looming deadlines and the oppressive fear of failure.

And while I've stepped out, I may just linger here awhile. Smell the roses. Watch the tulips bloom in Araluen. Feel kaixing's silky fur. Listen to the sounds of stillness.

things I learnt about interview technique

So, I've been told that I'm due another blog post. I should really be working on my rotation case presentation for this coming monday, so today's post will be a little filler that I've been thinking about- the three most important things I've learnt about how to attend a job interview.

1. Pray

In keeping with my decision to submit to God, this includes praying for direction, for wisdom, for God's favour. Praying as Jesus did, in a way that seeks God's sovereignty "...yet not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22 v42, NIV).

2. Be prepared

Do your research- about the company, about the job, about what questions you will be asked. You may be a quick thinker, but I find it much easier to return a smooth answer to a question that's been anticipated. Know the questions that your interviewers love asking. If you can, find out who's interviewing you and read about their interests (I'm referring to professional profiles, not FB stalking).

3. Wear a suit

Sounds like a no-brainer, but I met a couple of people at my interviews who didn't wear suits. Of course, this is dependent on what job you're applying for. I would never wear a suit to work, but it doesn't hurt to over dress- it shows your interviewer that you're serious about wanting that job! And everyone else is probably going to be wearing a suit, so why disadvantage yourself?
P.S. I also borrowed some of my sister's spiral pins and put my hair into a bun.

a year of faith

So... this has been an interesting year of smothering my anxieties and putting my trust in God. Some observations:

1. It's nice to live life free from the worries of tomorrow. By the end of last year, the joys of working to my full capacity in a rewarding job were being increasingly replaced by a growing anxiety about my uncertain future. My holiday to Japan in early January was as much a break from my excessive stressing as it was a break from work itself. Putting my trust in God has been a constant endeavour of mine, and the journey has been simultaneously daunting and exhilarating.

2. God's plans are always better than yours. I don't mean that you'll necessarily be happier about them. Or that they'll be easy to figure out. Sometime early this year, I would have prayed to God that I simply want to be obedient to his plan for my life. The only problem is that I wasn't quite sure what that plan involved. So in order to facilitate this, I decided that I was going to be very open minded about my career and experience as many different rotations as I could.

Fast forward three months and I'm putting in an application for a job that I've previously vehemently opposed. Fast forward five months and I'm sitting in a boardroom making an idiot out of myself in front of five people who are taking turns to interview me. What's the link? Where did I go wrong? Why would there seemingly be a series of divine interventions only to culminate in a long plane flight home replaying various embarrassing scenes? I don't really know, but I'm just continuing to trust. Perhaps one day I may post more on these events and let you decide.

3.You don't have to do it alone. I'm always surprised by the way that people come into my life and play pivotal roles- whether in directing me or simply just playing a supportive role. And I wonder if I have ever let myself be used in a pivotal way in somebody else's life.

I have another interview on Monday. The human part of my brain is telling me that statistically, I didn't even deserve an interview, and that certainly there will be no job offer resulting from this. But the other part of me tells me to keep trusting in God, that somehow, in some way, this too is part of His plan. So... skirt suit, or pant suit?

work experience week

today a work experience student spent some time tagging me to see what my job is like. it felt a little nostalgic, and I can still recall my week of work experience with a urologist almost exactly ten years ago. it was exciting, everything seemed so new and so "cool", and nobody mentioned any of the potential obstacles in my path.

unfortunately (for the student and me both), I am nowhere close to being a urologist, and my job isn't nearly as exciting. I tried to explain my day-to-day jobs to her- preadmission clinic, writing scripts and discharge summaries, reviewing patients... but I guess it wasn't that interesting, because I lost her after a couple of hours. Seriously. I was writing a letter and when I turned around, she was gone.

which is a shame, because she missed seeing first hand many of the highs and lows of the job. things such as:
1) seeing how hard it is to try and co-ordinate your lunch break so that you can meet up with your friends as you wolf down your food in 15 minutes. (You do this anyway because your shifts may never align so that you can meet up outside of work).
2) seeing how repetitive and mundane some jobs can become.
3) coming close to tears when you find out that your last patient has a very bad type of cancer and that he can choose not to have kids with his young wife, or have kids but never see them into primary school. And then consenting him for a major operation that is not going to save his life, but may perhaps give him some hope and make him more comfortable towards the end.
4) trying not to be rude to a patient who came in making demands, sarcastic comments, and who had a million medical comorbidities but whose greatest ailments were her permanent scowl and inability to control her tongue. And for the Christian work experience student, being stunned to realise that you can never love as much as a God who sent his son to die so that this person might be cloaked in innocence and purity.
5) going home (yet again) an hour after your designated home time, despite your best planning and efforts.

and ten years ago, I never would have been able to imagine myself in this role. I'm quite sure I would have imagined something much more glamorous.

on belonging

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague the other day. In between seeing patients, he sat down next to me and said "so, where's home?". That's a question I used to struggle with. I spent a lot of time thinking about things like that in high school, which I attributed to me being particularly insightful and self-aware. I realise now that I was just trying to figure out my identity.

This particular conversation was different because the colleague who asked me the question was in a similar position to mine. He too was a "citizen of the world", belonging to several countries, or none of them. Although there are a lot of people in my situation (that is, being born in some part of Asia and then moving over to Australia), the weird thing was my family's timing. Most of my friends therefore are either born in Australia (therefore mainly identify as being Australian Born Chinese), or moved over to Australia in late high school/university, therefore identifying as Asian and living in Australia. What about those of us who are stuck in between??

Also, remember that saying "give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man"? So am I a product of my early upbringing? There's a subtle difference between the questions "where are you from?" and "where is home for you?". And I think my answers would be different.

Finally and most importantly, knowing that we belong to the kingdom of God makes such matters less relevant (Luke 18:16).

I don't really worry too much about figuring out where I belong anymore :)

in search of new hairstyles

Back when I was in school, we still had these things called magazines. Glossy pages filled with interesting typography and full page pictures. The quality of the content was arguably not as important. It usually involved selling products, celebrity gossip, and fashion reports. Being neither cool enough nor rich enough to afford a magazine, I would rely on some of my friends to update me on whatever the latest trend was. This event not being particularly frequent, I would simply cycle into my own trends and obsessions.

I remember being told once that we sleep eight hours a night as a learned pattern because of the rotation of the earth around the sun. But in some study of people who lived in caves, the natural sleep cycle was found to be six hours. People have their own internal rhythm but conform to the rhythm of the world they inhabit. Somewhat similar principle?

My main obsession last year was mineral makeup. Being told on my first day of work that I looked like I was 12 years old  kind of spurred me to attempt to look more mature. But in the end, three things deterred me:
1) I was too lazy to keep it up - it took a lot of time/effort because I'm not an artistic person
2) It seemed futile because nobody ever noticed anyway. I confess, I did the whole "hey! notice anything different? I'll give you a clue- it's on my face!"
3) I worry about using any skin products because I'm extremely acne prone. Even though most mineral makeup companies will tell you that their products contain zinc, which has a beneficial effect on acne.

This year, I have become convinced that one of the keys to looking more mature is in your hairstyle. There's a good historical background for this- in many cultures, women would wear their hair in a particular way to indicate that they were married or of an age suitable for marriage. The implication here being that I should not always wear my hair in a ponytail. Although I did wear my hair loose today, and during the examination of a patient's feet, I moved closer in order to get a better view. As I did so, the ends of my hair also moved in for a better view, and ended up brushing his feet. Ew!!!! I'll take the ponytail over that any day.

Looking at random youtube videos on "easy hair updo", I am astounded by the array of hair products that are available (and required). Is it seriously not possible to just fix your hair into position with a hairbrush and hair tie? Apparently I need something called a teasing comb, my hair brush is entirely the wrong sort, and there are things I'd never even known existed like bumpits, spiral pins, and bun sponges. I may attempt to see what I can siphon from my sister's huge supply of beauty/makeup/hair/nail products. Or I may just have to resort to the mineral makeup.

No. 4 Blake Street

When James and I go out to eat, I usually have some kind of craving and we just search urban spoon for somewhere suitable. If not, we either stay at home for dinner or have a standard Western meal (dinner) or dim sum (lunch).

We recently celebrated 18 months together at No. 4 Blake Street. It was my first time there and I was very impressed with the food. It was creative, fun, and delicious.

The service was impeccable, and I had a good laugh when the waiter said "you haven't eaten the [mussel] shells". When I finally set aside my disbelief and ate a shell, I was pleasantly surprised. Potato crisps coated in squid ink.

I've never had a full ten course degustation, but I impressed myself by making it halfway through the seventh (and last!) dish- this very yummy pannacotta featured in the photo.

P.S. The dress I'm wearing in the photo was made by one of my very talented high school friends! Link to her facebook page here.

the lipstick index

I kind of stopped blogging after my intern year. There was a multitude of reasons... I was overseas without internet connection, then I came back and did shift work in a job so cruisy that there was nothing much to mention. The job after that was in a distant peripheral hospital so I was always either working, or driving to work. Now I'm back iin my home hospital, on a busy surgical unit in a tertiary centre, and somehow I've decided it's time to start blogging again.

This week was a rude reminded of reality. I got the whole shebang- busy job, unpaid work, lazy colleagues, chaotic after hours, rude family members, weekend ward rounds, and insomnia. Thank goodness for my nurses and certain amazing registrars! I think I was so busy/stressed at work that when I got home, I couldn't calm down enough to fall asleep. So it was a pleasant surprise to find this at my desk when I reached home today:

 

Estee Lauder Pure Color Crystal Lip Jewels in Secret Kiss Shimmer

It stirred up a warm fuzzy feeling in me that I hadn't felt all week. And also reminded me of the theory behind the lipstick index. Whether the theory is true or not, a small luxurious gift definitely raises my spirits! Especially when coupled with a hand-written note :). Now I'm all re-energised and ready for tomorrow's ward round...

greeting to a friend

Hello old friend!

How much you've changed- we've been apart for so long that I can barely recognise you. I thought of you often, these past six months. So many times I wanted to pen some incomplete thought, as though in the process of writing it would complete itself.

You've been my constant companion, since I was nine. My avid listener. My comrade in arms- how we would play tricks against clowns like two schoolgirls.

Your peers have all evolved, for better or worse I don't know. And how many more of them there are! In all shapes and sizes and colours. But you're still you, ever faithful. You'll always be mine.

I've missed you.