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?

Today was my first day in ICU. I think it ruined my appetite.

By the way Jaybeep, your friend OPT is now the surgical clinical pharmacist. And then, the other day we were both looking at the updated carta organisasi and he asked me, eh sui shi Vanessa Ting.

Quite a character.

okay.

so jaybeep is now beachbabe, and everyone else is waiting.

so far i've said goodbye to 5 people and havent shed a tear. i'm worried about my own possibilities, really.

assuming, although assuming is a futile game, we each get what we want, what do you want?

jaybeep wanted clinical.

cherielai wants opd, or more specifically, to sit down for most of the day (dis best suits you, i tell you).

i would like clinical, but the self-doubt kicks in. now i get mtac. of course, this could prove temporary, but panic is settling, in the way desert sand settles. besides the knowledge side of it, i dont know whether i can do the management side of it, the education side of it, the rapport side of it, the paperwork side of it, the list goes on and on and on.

in other words, i dont know whether i can do the frp side of it.


but we all said this of sem4, sem6, sem8, pp3, various european trips, prp. and here we are now.

thing is... it's more like being buffeted along than arriving here of my own volition (or effort).


on to other matters: is it true that our critical allowance would be cut down to rm100? talk about incentive.

You know what really sucks?

That the fate of our postings is in the hands of a clerk. Who by the way epitomizes the spirit of Malaysian government.

And this would be a good quote for a never have I ever drinking game.

Never have I ever seen such a fucking lazy clerk who is not only rude but extremely lazy and incompetent. His only sole purpose in life, I believe is to come to office early in the morning, put down his briefcase (full of nothing by the way) and then go for morning break. And after morning break which is say about 1 hour, comes back to his desk, refuses to answer any calls by us, and then go for his lunch at precisely 12. Comes back from lunch after about an hour or maybe later. Then he avoids answering calls again. Goes out for evening tea because avoiding people is tiring, and then sharp at 5, leaves for home.

You know what else really sucks?

People who don't reply to your invitation for a coffee. You are not expecting them to say yes, but I don't know, is it me or is old-fashioned courtesy to give a reply whether you want to or not?

Well fuck you. FUCK YOU.

Oh ya, by the way, leaving for Pahang tomorrow. I'm nervous and I have the urge to just give someone a good kick up their ass.

I'm going crazy here. The agony of waiting for the stupid thing.

If I get some small clinic, it wouldn't be too bad right? RIGHT?

It just means I have to do like management stuff right? omfg! I hate management.

I'm going crazy here.

Revelation

so jaybeep isn't jaybeep anymore.

Truth be told, I was preparing myself for the worst which was Sabah.

So when the call came on that Thursday morning, that I got Pahang, I was pleasantly surprised.

And it didn't hit me how this was quite life changing, when Leeyin came to OPD to see me just now. Then she started tearing up, then I started tearing up, and then a bunch of other people started tearing up. And it just went on from there.

I'm leaving HSA. Can you believe it?

I couldn't. Not when I was dispensing my last basket at OPD. Not when I was walking out of the OPD one last time. Not when I was walking towards the car in that cramped parking lot which i hated so much. Not when I was driving home alone out of the hospital, making that the last time I would see that place.

I hate to admit it but I think that place sort of grew on me.

Whoa.

What a revelation.

happy last day jaybeep.

(in case you were wondering that's what i called for but noneed to call me back.)