When the hours didn't matter and all we had (and/or needed) was each other

And I consider myself a 'home person'

You have no idea how much I wish I can be one of those people who are everywhere all the time. To wake up in different cities of different time zones, surrounded by different languages and cultures. Different kinds of breakfasts, different ways of ordering coffee, walking to everywhere, taking roofless buses, crowded subways and different kinds of winters and autumns.

I want my passport full of stamps, extra thick with all the Visa's attached, my luggage bag stuck with stickers, used too often to collect dusts. I want my computer's memory to be taken up by thousands and thousands of pictures, pictures of sunsets, streets, monuments and cozy cafes/diners.

It's not the place or the people that I'm bored of. It's the routine. It feels like I'm just going through day by day, until I come to the next huge change.

cowardice

i don't know if i'm more afraid of the answer or the question itself

but is a question even considered a valid one if you already know the solution

In 16 hours...

Good morning, my name is Loo Yi Jia and I'm a first-year medical student. Can I confirm that you're Mr/Ms so-and-so? I'm sent here today to do a brief examination of your chest. This can help us to obtain a better understanding of your condition. This process will involve me inspecting your chest and touching your chest area. You will need to remove your upper garment to expose your chest. A chaperon is provided and all my findings will be kept confidential between me, you, and the medical team in charge. With that being said, do I have your consent to proceed?

Thank you. Now please remove your upper garment as I wash my hands.

Are you in any pain?

Mr/Ms so-and-so, age, is lying propped up 45 degrees on the couch. He appears to be conscious, alert and communicative. He does not seem to be in obvious pain or any respiratory distress. He is well-built and well-nourished and has no visible medical gadgets attached to him. 

Now can you take a deep breath in? And breath out. Thank you.

The patient's chest does not seem to have any gross deformities, no surgical scars, no distended veins and visible pulsations. There are no injuries, no redness or any other lesions. The chest rises and falls symmetrically with respiration. The anterior-posterior diameter is about half of the lateral diameter. 

blah blah blah

I'm done with my examination and all the information I've gathered will be passed to my consultant. Do you have any questions for me? 

You may put on your clothing now. Thank you for your time.

Study break is a misnomer

There is no 'break' in study break. Call it study week, or an-opportunity-for-students-to-catch-up-so-that-they-don't-screw-up. Not study BREAK.

Waking up at 7.30am just so that I can have breakfast before heading over to uni, half groggy, at 8.30am to avoid the line of people queueing up to prick two fake, over-pricked, plastic arm covered with a layer of skin-coloured latex. Asking questions that no medical practitioner bothers to ask, before pumping the sphygnomanometre. Creating cases and medical histories that even I myself is unsure of the diagnosis just so that I can be bombarded by questions (following solid sequences) by my friends, and me asking them about a non-existent chest pain that radiates to their arm and jaw. Touching my friends' chests, percussing on their clavicles till they turn red, listening to their heartbeat (not as romantic as you expect it to be) and caressing their hands once in a while, or maybe look into their ears, telling them that they need to clean them.

Camping in Chatime after lunch, trying to drill 3 major systems into my brain, learning how to differentiate all four leukemias through PBS's, although nobody does this anymore. I can now tell you, in details, the ways you can die via faults in your heart, vessels, lungs and blood, but I have no idea how to help you if you choke on a peanut.

What break?


Though it's not all bad. I don't think I've learnt as much as I did these few weeks throughout the entire year. Knowing that I'm so close to completing my first year, out of five and a half, one step closer to wherever I will end up. It's quite satisfying, now that I can at least understand half (plus-minus) of the things my parents are talking about over dinner, and actually ask constructive questions, throwing in a medical term or two.

One more week to (the start of) the final straw for year-one.

I can't wait for 2/5.5.

cotton candy floating in the sky