I'm on a one week break. Since Monday, although Monday was spent mostly orchestrating the one week break and various handing overs and cram-briefing a PRP regarding ICU before I embark upon my one week break. And then just hanging around trying to find something to do... the one week break was like a black hole giving me the evil eye and I was looking at anywhere but it. Finally the U48 Y/M tasked me to draw up two paintings, one each for the paeds ward. And so she sent me packing.

Tuesday I was still lost. Actually I was starting to enjoy the break but felt guilty for doing so... bought a couple of music mags which came with free cds so essentially I was buying cds for 11 bucks each :D

Wednesday I already gave into the morphia of the one week break. Gosh, must it ever end... did my hair into the figurative up yours of hair colouring limits of the civil servant... got myself 2 murakamis... got the paints and the drawing block paper and the ideas fizzing in my head...

Thursday I drew up the snail on a magic carpet ride carrying the whole world on its back (yeah pratchettian) on a collision course with a salt shaker comet. Then went buffet dinner with the parents with 3 courses of diarrhoea, and then cocktails with Adeline at Marriot. And we steadfastly missed the countdown and the balloon-popping kids that came with the package. And then came home and surfed Gucci bags with the stepmom.

So tai-tai I know.

And I could get used to this... not the datin lifestyle per se, but the whole anything-but-work persona... I know this sympathy leave will not last forever... actually it shouldn't, and the sooner I get back to work the better... but oh gosh the sheer white blankness of mind as I slowly go about the day. I'm not exactly getting my sanity back but I sure am letting my nerve endings heal... I love this. I love the immensity of space to do or not do, whatever I want.

And I love my job... I know this is a squeaky thin argument versus my current state of mind... I'm slowly getting competent at what I do and the returns are immediate... yet it takes a lot of me. I'm giving up too much for this job, and I thought it would feed me... but oh well. No marathon without hundred plus.

I need to get myself back. Nutrition. Thing is, once I start working again I won't have time for music and books and imagination. I can't always use collapsing as a marker for breaks. How.

Community pharmacy rant

Community pharmacy is BORING!

BORING! BORING! BORING!

And when the patient comes with multiple prescriptions and there no technicians there and you are the only one, you just feel like crying. Because the filling station is separated from the dispensing counter, I would have to walk all the way to the back just to fill those prescriptions. Now imagine, five patients with multiple prescriptions come along, because their sons, daughters, aunties, uncles are all sick, and they decided to have a family day at the doctor's. Bloody hell.

Secondly, I hate patients who ran out of medications and they have no prescription slip, but they come to you with the appointment book and say " I don't have enough medication but the doctor told me that all I have to do is just show you the book and you will give me the medication".

Are you fucking kidding me? YOU LAZY DOCTOR. YOU COULD HAVE JUST WRITTEN A PRESCRIPTION FOR HIM. BUT NOOOOO...."Just show the pharmacy and they will know what to do". WTF. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY ANYWHERE IN THIS WORLD.

Wait not done yet. Wanna know what is the best part after that? The patient never blames the Doctor and instead just yells at you for not doing what the doctor told you to do. Then after that, he called me a cina! Nice, uncle, just nice, and I suppose you are not chinese also la, you stupid patient. If you don't have a prescription, that means we gave you enough medications to last you till your next appointment ok. I should know! because I dispensed it. I hate chinese patients. Just because you're chinese and I'm chinese, don't think we are gonna be all buddies and i am gonna give you a few tablets just like that.

Then you have the stupid old ladies, who after you given them their medication and they looked shocked when you tell them the medication is for one month only, and then they protest "BUT I WANT TO TAKE IT IN *insert random clinic name"? WELL, WHY DIDN'T YOU MENTION THAT WHEN YOU GAVE ME YOUR PRESCRIPTION EARLIER"? They act as if I was supposed to know about that. It doesn't work like that, Aaarrgghhhh. * Grumpy Jaybeep snatches prescription and does the transfer. And this happens like 5 times a day. It's a small clinic ok, I wouldn't complain that much if we had more people, but there's only me in front.

And people, this medications are free. So IF I WANT TO GIVE YOU ONE MONTH, STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW YOUR BUS RIDE COST TEN BUCKS. Because no.1 no bus ride costs ten bucks, and if it were ten bucks, I would say it's really cheap because your medications cost a few hundred. So be happy with one month. And its not like you have to wait very long for your medications. On a good day, at most its ten minutes, and on a bad day, with CK and I in front and the full force behind, it's twenty minutes, so quit your whining.

Three more years of this, I don't know what lesson God is trying to make me learn from this. Is it patience, Lord? IS IT?