Of intubations, leopards and tigers.

I think its really strange to transition from intubating and doing CPR on a couple of collapsed patients, to making your way home the next moment to change before leaving for the Night Safari to do my part for the department in helping to entertain a distinguished foreign guest. Such is the nature of life in the emergency department. (And shift work!)

I haven't had much time to really get a feel of what its like to be working in the Emergency Department because I've only just started elective there on Monday, and so far the supervisor I'm supposed to be following is on leave and my replacement supervisor is on leave every other day, but yeah, I've learnt that in Emergency Medicine, you really can't predict what's going to happen next. There are quiet night calls, and there are extremely hellish ones. There are days were everything goes according to plan and there are nights that hell will rain blood and tears all over you. Take today for example: in the span of the 2 hours where I was on the shop floor, there were a total of 4 standbys one after another(2 of them were collapses, 1 STEMI and 1 AMS), another patient who suddenly deteriorated while making her way to the CT scan and a resuscitation bay that was jammed packed with people rushing to create a sense of order among the chaos. Today also marks the first time I had ever heard the anguish screams of relatives resonating through the air when they are first told the words that every family dreads to hear from the mouth of a doctor: 'I'm sorry, but we've done our best.' I had only thought that you'll hear or see such scenes in the movies, but today I realized that it happens in real life as well. And the message really hit home because the patient in question was one of two patients that I had intubated and performed CPR on. You realize that this is life. There's always going to be death. Such is the nature of Medicine.

And of course, the next moment, I was on my way home because I was "volunteered" by my replacement supervisor to accompany another registrar and a foreign dignitary to the Night Safari, and thus ended my shift 5 hours before I was due to go. (I highly suspect that its all his ploy to get rid of me!). It was a surreal experience, having to just drop all the drama and horror seen in the last 45 mins or so and just walk out of the department doors having to feel excited and happy about going to the Night Safari, but I was strangely up to it. It just felt surreal and a bit weird, but the sadness isn't there anymore. Either I've become too jaded and used to death, or I've just master the art of letting go.

But anyway, that's not my point. I was asking the registrar involved why she had to play tour guide as well and she gave me the 'Duh, just like you, I got arrowed lah' look. I guess being arrowed to do stuff totally unrelated to the practice of medicine, is probably something that all junior specialist doctors have to do. Being arrowed to do sai-gang: probably a constant here in Singapore really, regardless of where you actually work in. But yeah, it was interesting. Entertaining foreign guests can be amusing. Its all smiles and cordial speech. It gets quite tiring as well, but it was something different compared to I don't know, setting an IV line or Toilet and Suturing. But such is the wonder of the shift system - you have time to do something totally unrelated to medicine everyday, which can be a perfect break sometimes.

I wonder what other surprises lie in wait in the TTSH A&E department. I can hardly wait. =)

when dreaming is better than reality

"There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much." - Dr. Augustine Grace from 'Avatar'

James Cameron's 'Avatar' is probably going to be one of the best movies I've ever watched in my whole darn life. I had heard and read so much about this movie before going to watch it that I was initially worried that I would be disappointed by all the hype it had generated. Well, it certainly didn't disappoint! To quote Jake Sully, it was simply "Outstanding!"

There are so many reasons why 'Avatar' was such a fantastic movie. First of all the cast was fantastic, especially those acting as the Na'vi. I think Sam Worthington acted very well in this movie and there's no doubt that he is in for super stardom. This film would catapult him to the echelons of Hollywood and I think we have just witnessed the rise of a new action superstar. His portrayal of Jake Sully made the hero very likeable, and you feel for him when he faces so many life changing experiences in the movie. Zoe Saldana's portrayal of Neytiri, the Na'vi princess was also fantastic - her flashes of pure joy and anger, her snares, her posture was so convincing that she brought a potentially difficult character to life. Stephen Lang plays Miles Quaritch, the crazy warmongering Colonel with such a single minded determination that its hard not to want him dead, chewed and torn into a million fragments by a dozen Banshees and ultimately passed out into a sea of excrement. Other notable performances by Sigourney Weaver as scientist-mentor Dr Augustine Grace and Michelle Rodriguez as Helicopter pilot Truddy also add solid performances to the fantastic ensemble cast.

Apart from the cast, I was also simply awestruck at the amazing detail and depth James Cameron had invested within this movie to create a universe as realistic as Pandora. The technological achievement is just astounding, the level of creativity simply amazing. Watching the actors performances being fully translated onto the computer generated Na'vi was just an amazing feat of technology that was just awe-inspiring. Every motion was so fluid, every emotion so brilliantly captured that you really don't think that its computer generated at all. And the cinematography, the landscapes were just AWESOME. Seeing those scenes of Jake and Neytiri flying through the amazing backdrop of floating mountains and waterfalls was like poetry in motion. Fantastic!

But for all the technical breakthroughs that the film has managed to attain, I would think that the strongest draw for me is the epic tale that it so seamlessly puts together.

'Avatar' has a relatively simple plot. It is no 'Sherlock Holmes' (another film I managed to catch this week that's quite good, but not as fantastic as Avatar!) in terms of its plot twists and convolutions. It has a very predictable plot filled with characters that have stereotypical personalities and serve their typical functions in such a story. Some would even label it as 'Pocahontas in Space'. But despite its simple plot, I found the movie strangely touching and inspiring; in the hands of a lesser director, such a run of the mill, almost cliche story would appear ridiculous, but in the hands of a master like James Cameron, it became an epic tale with a heart.

The story has so many elements to it, so many layers of depth that it really is a masterpiece. On the surface, its the usual tale of Nature vs Machine: of the importance of respecting our natural world, of protecting the balance of nature and life, of the triumph of mother nature over the corrupted, polluted world of mankind - themes all too familiar to us, the generation that has to deal with the very serious notion of global warming and a dying planet. But dissect it further and you'll realize that its also a story of one man's own desire to free himself from the hopelessness and dredges of a life that no longer has any meaning to him.

Here you have Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-marine with nothing to look forward to with regards to a life on earth, who decides to embark on this project for a fresh start in another planet: and look what at what he gains! A whole new life, one ultimately so much more beautiful and exhilarating that the life back on earth, trapped in a wheel chair; a life that he truly comes to love. Its a story of rediscovering oneself and rebirth, and the scene where Jake Sully first uses his Avatar body and discovers he can walk again has to be one of the most touching scenes in the movie ever - you can almost feel his joy on being able to walk, run, jump, feel with his feet again! It was amazing.

I think everyone out there hopes to have a means of escaping from reality and one of the reasons why 'Avatar' is proving to be so popular is the fact that it provides some sort of escapism that we so dearly desire. Wouldn't it be perfect if we could just plug our consciousness into a mainframe and live our lives in an alternate body in another beautiful universe? Its a twist on the concept first introduced in the Matrix, but in that case, the universe we end up getting plugged in is a form of slavery. Pandora however, is the opposite - it represents a beautiful world of freedom and infinite possibilities, one in which you can fly atop great ferocious flying beasts, prance through beautiful bio luminescent forests or witness stunningly beautiful waterfalls and floating mountains. To be able to escape to such a world, even if its just for 160 mins, is just awesome. I would be willing to watch it another time just to recapture that magic all over again!

"Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream." - Jake Sully from 'Avatar'
I love this quote from the movie. Its true isn't it? Sometimes, you enjoy the world you are in while dreaming, so much so that its a pain to return to reality. And the boundary between reality and dream scape is blurred indefinitely. But ultimately, dreams are just dreams, and we can't live in them for eternity. We aren't as lucky as Jake Sully who was able to transfer his soul from a horrible dream into a Utopian reality. Perhaps one day, we will be able to relive our lives by plugging our consciousness into a new body, but before that day arrives, we have to make do with living in our current realities and re-watching Avatar and its sequels to come, because that's as close to utopia that we can get.

amazing tunes in black and white

My recent late night obsession has been to camp up til the wee hours of the night searching for black and white videos of The Beatles performing their MANY wonderful songs.

Honestly, I've never been that obsessed with The Beatles. I mean, I've obviously known about them, because HEY, they are the BEATLES! They're the greatest band ever to have walked on the surface of this planet, and their music, be it the incredibly catchy "mop-top" tunes of their early days or the amazingly eclectic bizarre psychedelic signatures that are to characterize their later works, is just phenomenally good. Everyone grew up listening to a few songs that would haven been composed by the Beatles. Even in the 21st century, their music is still incredibly addictive.

The start of my latest obsessive behavior occurred when I was shopping for CDs at HMV last week. I happened to notice that there was a whole shelf dedicated to the Beatles. Apparently their albums have just been re-mastered and re-released to a whole new generation of music lovers. I was sorely tempted to buy all their albums at one shot - but to do so meant that I would have to part with over 200 dollars just to have the whole damn collection. I wasn't willing to spend that much money at one go, so I left without even purchasing a single Beatles album.

But I wasn't ready to let it be! That very night, I went home and logged onto the internet, and found thousands of videos on Youtube concerning the Beatles. I randomly clicked on the link to what looked like the oldest, most antiquated video that I could find. It turned out to be a video of them performing 'Twist And Shout'. That was followed by another video of 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', and then one of 'Eleanor Rigby' and before I knew it, I was on the path to obsession. So for the past few nights, I've been watching videos of the Fab Four performing countless songs. Heck, I've even started watching the 9-episode Beatles Anthology documentary series on Youtube. So much for starting work on Pathology!

That said, I must say that its quite understandable why the Beatles became the legend that they were. I think it goes beyond their singing or their musical talents. Its because the four of them had charisma and character. The thing that struck me most while watching the videos of them perform (and some occasional videos of them doing absolutely nonsensical stuff) was that they were quite hilarious and amusing to watch! They had an infectious quality to them, especially when they were younger. Here's a video of them performing one of their greatest hits, "I Want to Hold Your Hand":



Paul McCartney especially, looked liked some hyperactive, highly enthusiastic schoolboy kid who can't wait to scream into his microphone! They looked so different when they were young! So fresh! So adorably exuberant! John Lennon looked so dapper before he started wearing those trademark spectacles and letting his hair grow long. Ringo Starr looked liked some hilariously dopey person who just can't wait to hit his drum. George Harrison's my favourite Beatle: he reminds me of a goody two shoes kind of boy who desperately wants to do something naughty! Haha

I wished I were around when they actually were starting out though! Its one thing to watch old black and white videos of them, but I think it would have been so much cooler to really see them in the flesh when they were truly at the zenith of their careers!

当我们同在一起

I think this drama is a hundred times better than "Little Nonya". Its a pity it doesn't seem to be getting as much of a hype as the former though.

I like the way it has given us a glimpse into the life of teenagers living through the 60s. Its like a really good representation of our parents' own lives, how they grew up and stuff. I asked my mum if she actually encountered some of the problems and stuff mentioned in the drama, and she was like "Oh my god, they really put that in? I used to do that/see that/play that all the time!" Its amazing really. Though we are a relatively young nation, Singapore does have an amazingly rich pool of culture and history that we can tap into, and I think we really should create more shows and stories on life then - all the other kind of contemporary dramas that Mediacorp produces are honestly quite ridiculous, far fetched and stupid (for example, the current drama airing at the 7 O'clock time slot).

Oh and unlike "The Little Nonya", "Together" is actually rather light-hearted! Its seriously damn funny! Its comedic, but at the same time, it never fails to have a heart. If there's one thing I hated about "The Little Nonya", its the way it progressed into such an over-the-top tragic melodrama. "Together" managed to steer away from being too tragic, and manages to have this right balance of light-hearted downright hilarious scenes that managed to capture the simplicity of life in the 1960s, with dramatic scenes that explore the emotional turmoils of life then. I never knew that all those young actors and actresses from Mediacorp actually could pull off comedy with such a comic timing! Quite impressive I must say.

In general, I think I'm drawn more towards period dramas. I like watching shows about people living in a different time. I think I've grown so tired of living in today's modern world that I kind of look forward to a form of escapism away from the hustle and bustle of modernity. Life in the 60s looks so inviting, I hope to throw away everything and just go back to the days of playing Goh-Li, Chap Jee Kee and Tikam. Haha

我沒有說謊 ;)

Its November, and I realised that the last entry here was dated 15th of October. Its been more than a month since I've left an entry here! Time really flies when you are preoccupied with work. Haha.

Its been five weeks since I last visited my blog. In these five weeks, I've started on my excruciating path down Obstetrics and Gynaecology, which really isn't a breeze to go through at all. In the past five weeks, I've delivered babies, I've seen (and examined) the nether regions of many women, I've touched countless pregnant bellies and I've come to reinforce my conclusion that O and G is definitely not my cup of tea. Its not as disgusting as I had envisioned it be to, and truth be told, its definitely easier than paediatrics, but honestly you have to really enjoy interacting and dealing with hormonal, angry and grumpy women to love O and G. Its definitely a job for women. Who better to deal with women than women themselves?

I haven't been doing much in the past few weeks except work work work. There was playhouse in which I was glad that I could at least help out a bit in the production. There were the occasional meetings with family and friends. And then there was the period of severe depression and exhaustion that lasted for 5 days or so. But I'm glad that the depression is over (the exhaustion, unfortunately, is never ever going to go away!) and I think I shouldn't have a problem surviving the last 3 weeks before the end of my most feared posting.

Anyway, I was studying when this random thought just floated into my brain: people lie all the time, whether or not they actually meant for these lies to hurt is another matter altogether. I think alot of people lie to people that they are close to: be it girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses, family, friends, mistresses/lover etc. Very often, we don't lie to those that we aren't close to at all. We couldn't care less if they heard the painful truth, so we just give them a dose of toxic reality and let them deal with the consequences. But when it comes to someone who you genuinely like, you can help but lie - whether its preferring to avoid letting them know the truth, whether its acting as if nothing bad ever happened and just letting them continue to live on with their lives, we prefer to avoid dumping the ugly truth on them. We do so because we supposedly care about their feelings and emotions, to 'protect' them, but sometimes, such actions would result in more harm than good.

The truth is an extremely fickle and dangerous thing. I don't really like to be faced with it, but I think we are unfortunately forced to deal with it everyday. I feel like I'm forced to cope with it be telling more lies which sends everything into a conundrum of repetitive causality and effect. I guess lying is a coping mechanism, to hide from the realities of the world - some people live in fantasies, some people live in lies.

It just so happens that Yoga 林宥嘉's new album has this fantastic new song called "說謊"!


"我沒有說謊 我何必說謊
愛一個人 沒愛到難道就會怎麼樣
別說我說謊 人生已經如此的艱難
有些事情就不要拆穿"
I think this stanza is appropriately apt. At the end of the day, I guess its better to live with the lies and avoid uncovering them - some things are better left uncovered. :)

The problem with being idle

This week's gonna be my last ever week of being idle in a very long time. Haha. With the end of my short postings just around the corner, I feel a slight tinge of sadness that my life's going to be replaced by the madness that is O&G. But truth be told, a part of me is actually happy that such idle days are almost over. I honestly feel that having absolutely nothing to study for is much much worse than having tonnes of work to do. The days of short postings were just like the former - very often, there just wasn't any impetus to read or to learn stuff. They were just days of endless waiting and loafing about - too much loafing in fact! I think my brain has officially undergone liquefactive necrosis and has turned into jello.

Not that I did not enjoy my days in the various short postings. I had fun in most, if not all of them. Still, I feel like I've come out of these short postings without truly accomplishing anything, like I've just woken up from an incredibly long coma and is currently struggling to shake off the remnants of stupor. I need some excitement to refresh my life man. These 2 months of slacking has really taken a toil on whatever edge I once had.

Then again, once O&G gets underway, I'll probably look back at this entry and wonder 'WHAT THE HELL WAS I COMPLAINING ABOUT?!?!' But yeah, that's another issue for me to face another day. As of now, I need to get out of this slump. TOO MUCH COMPUTER GAMES. ARGH.

500 days of Summer

This is NOT your average love story. Its a story that focuses on the deconstruction of a relationship.

I absolutely loved it, because its quirky, non-conventional and bittersweet. It has amazingly likeable leads who you can't help but root for. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting is the highlight of this film - his subtle portrayal of a sensitive man who is vulnerable both in and out of love was just excellent! I want to say more, but my mind's totally fried from long hours of sleep deprivation. Dude, this film just rocks!

After watching the film, I can't help but feel a sense of gratification. Love, is just a fantasy. A fantasy that forces us to have amazingly high expectations of what we hope Love will be, but then the brutality of reality will always make us realise how silly our thoughts were. As the titular character in the film, 'Summer' so coolly explains - 'Life happened. And Love was gone.'

This film is for all the self professed nerds out there who have problems finding or understanding that tricky little concept that we call 'Love'. I wanted to watch it because I felt that I might be able to identify with the film's lead. I came out of it feeling as if I've lived through all my failed attempts at contemplating 'Love' all over again. Such is the nature of it all - we males of the new-age-geeky-nerdy-emo-i'm-so-sensitive-and-sweet generation have such an amazingly stupid way of destroying our own relationships because we just read too much into the silliest of things. Its absurd really, but its true. The film captures nothing but the truth.

The truth is, as much as I would love to deny it - I'm still a geeky, nerdy, socially awkward guy living in today's ultra-fast paced modern society, and I totally dread dipping my toes in the ocean of modern day romances. God Save Me.