Monday, 27-Jun-2005 9:01 PM

When will I ever learn.

I just electrocuted myself. TWICE. Stupid, stupid me. The second time around it was because I thought something sharp poked me the first time, so I put my hand back in the wires and held it there longer until I felt my finger being fried. STUPID!

Last week a whole bunch of strange things happened. While on our way out to lunch, this old lady on a bike in front of my car got nudged by another car and she fell right over and hit her head on the road. Her helmut rolled off and all the mangoes and vegetables in the basket on the back of her bicycle fell out. The lady in the car drove off but a whole bunch of hawker stall owners ran out to help. It was right on a corner so my car was blocking a lot of cars behind and they were so impatient - driving around me and almost rolling over the poor old woman's head when they rounded the corner. I had to park the car and when we went to check on her the second time, she said she was dizzy and wanted to know if we were the ones who hit her. Hmm..poor lady. Didn't want to get checked out - kept saying 'A little bit of pain is okay.' She didn't really want to be touched or helped and was trying to get back on her bike. Sometimes it amazes me how hard working and tough these people are and how they're so opposite to some of the patients, who cry at every little bump or bruise.

We had one woman come into the clinic and I overheard her saying to the girls 'I always see you girls playing Uno at lunchtime...yadda yadda..'. From my room I thought she was about to tell the girls off but then she said 'I play with my two kids and you know, I think they are cheating me!' and the next two minutes she started explaining about how she'd put the draw 2 card down and they'd put a draw 4 and make her pick up cards - was that correct play? Hahaha

'Aunty, your kids are cheating you!' the girls cried.

'I knew it.' she said and then told us to have a good day and left.

Fri through Sunday I swam, hit a bucket of balls at the driving range with my dad, swam more laps and went to the gym.

I'm suffering like a battered pinata after a kids birthday party.

Tuesday, 21-Jun-2005 11:29 PM

Driving interstate every week is starting to have its toll on me I think. I nearly fell asleep at the wheel today. It doesn't help that my assistant's head keeps bobbing left and right because she's catching some shut eye while I try hard to entertain myself so my own eyelids don't close.

I ended up pulling over and we took a short nap. Ten minutes later I was back on the road and when I got to the clinic, I fell asleep on one of the tables for another ten minutes before we headed out for some lunch. We had very little time to eat so I was rushing and I pierced the roof of my mouth with a sharp broken chicken bone :( It took forever to pay and when we got back to the clinic, there were already 4 people waiting outside the door. For the next hour, everyone got a nice bloody hello from me. I hate the taste of blood :(

The last patient today was hilarious. Broke both legs awhile ago. Had multiple surgeries. Bad knees. Told me he's worse after the weekend. I see cuts all over his ankles.

'What did you do uncle?? '

'I went jungle walking!'

'.......why?' (when you know your knees are bad!)

'I don't know. We went to get durians.'

'Oh...I hope they were good then.'

'No! We didn't get any! None of them fell off the tree!'

Sigh. Uncle.

It's been a busy day. I need sleep.

Monday, 20-Jun-2005 4:05 PM

4 inches of satisfaction.

Saturday night I found myself lying on a fold-out bed of an old five star Singapore hotel, sipping red wine and watching WWF on low volume. It was a last minute decision and a very rushed trip but worth it nonetheless. I thought there were plenty of sales going on as well but I didn't see much. I only had two hours to look around though before we had to check out of the hotel and head back. While speedwalking toward the taxi line, my eyes caught a glimmer of this beautiful pair of Kenneth Cole heels! I almost tripped over my own feet trying to stop and turn back to have a second a look. I've never been in one of these stores nor really seen their products but dangle a pair of drop dead gorgeous heels my way and I'm sold! They were on sale too. I rushed into the store, tried every colour on and 5 minutes later (5 whole minutes because there was a line of shoe-hungry women at the counter) those babies were mine! :D

Now I know I'll probably never have an occasion to wear them but I think I could sit them on my desk and I'd be happy just to stare at them day in, day out. They'd be my two very expensive paperweights.

Friday, 17-Jun-2005 1:47 PM

My daily fix.

I LOVE teh tarik. If this tea were water, I could drink 8 glasses of it a day and then some. It's come to a point where I walk into the shop downstairs and they already know what I'm going ask for. I love how it comes in a little bag with rafia string. It amuses me how fast they can pull this string around and have the bag dangling from it within two seconds. I am easily pleased =)

On a really hot day (when is it not a hot day here??) I'll squeeze the bag and listen to the icecubes rattle against each other and take myself to a beach with crystal clear, sparkling blue water and imagine I'm lying on a float, where time is not an issue and I've nothing better to do but dangle my toes in the cool water.

Friday, 17-Jun-2005 12:03 PM

Language difficulties.

Yesterday I ordered Cow Water instead of Sugar Cane. The waitress didn't find it amusing but my two assistants were in stitches. Sigh. This language barrier is killing me.

Saturday, 11-Jun-2005 5:51 PM

It's been three weeks already!

Here I sit with a nice cold beer beside me. Mm. It's been forever since I've updated and so much has happened.

I'd love to say that I'm sitting beside the pool and about to dive in for a refreshing dip but school holidays just ended and two weeks worth of kids' germs and pee have made the water really cloudy. I can barely even see the dolphins that are tiled at the bottom of the pool.

I am having a great time working here at the two clinics. They're very different in regards to the people that come for treatment but most are nice and many are amused that I'm chinese but can't speak chinese. I also found out that I've been telling them that 'I don't eat chinese' instead of 'I don't speak chinese' Sigh. I really am ashamed that I'm not bilingual.

My main assistant is one year older than me, the other is 18 - we all get along great and during lunch time, we play cards (one of the patients caught us one time and he insists we're gambling. Uncle, it's just UNO! ).

The car I've been given to use has had so many problems. It died on me about 10 times while I was driving. The battery was about two thousand years old - rusty and cruddy. Every week I drive two hours plus to the other clinic. I stay there two nights and drive back late on Thursday night. Friday morning I'm back at the main clinic and my assistant and I struggle to keep our eyes open while we talk to patients.

Ahh...patients. Where to start. We have nosey ones, friendly ones, bitchy ones, gossipy ones. Most of them say that they've seen no improvement since coming for treatment but I find it quite annoying that they fail to notice that the first time they came to the clinic, they could barely walk and now instead of me waiting one whole minute for them to get from the front door over to the adjusting room, I only wait about 5 seconds.

I treated one 70 year old lady on Tuesday. Wednesday I heard her at the reception area asking to speak to the Doctor. She didn't have an appointment but kept repeating that she didn't want treatment but wanted to talk to the doctor. Naturally, I panicked - shit, did I do something to this woman??

She walks into my room and I tell her to take a seat. She points to her right shoulder. Tells me it's sore. I tell her that that's because we did a lot on her the day before and that we already warned her she'd be sore. She says 'Oh.' and suddenly her face lights up and she cries out 'Look! I can turn my head all the way now!! I couldn't do that yesterday.' So that was nice...but man, did she have me almost crapping my pants.

My first week, during one patient's visit, I left the room so he could talk on his cellphone. When I came back, I found him kneeling on the ground, his arms up on the adjusting table. 'Mr X...are you alright??' - to which he responded 'Yes. Don't worry, I'm not praying to you or anything.'. Every so often he likes to randomly tell me about how his finger is sore from repeatedly flushing the toilet. Speaking of fingers... I had another patient who was about to leave after treatment but turned around and asked me to check out his little finger. He kept insisting it was crooked and sore. I took a look at it, started feeling the joints for movement and then asked him if he'd been doing anything to make the finger sore. He looked at me puzzled, then replied 'No? I just use it to pick my nose!'

He's from the other clinic. The patients are a little bit on the weird side over there.

Oh, and since I've been gone, look what my sister and her boyfriend did to my little boy!

Hi!

Boston watched Miss Universe from start to finish, so we thought that maybe he wanted to wear the crown!

~T

Oh! My poor baby!

Saturday, 04-Jun-2005 2:07 PM

Hooray for not having to work this Saturday!