Ruddslide - Labor Day

Seen on a chalked signboard outside a pub called the Victorian:

Elections have got you in a Rudd? Howard you like a drink instead?

Oh how I love witty wordplay!

The Great Indoors

'Scared of a world outside you should go explore,
Pull all the shades and wander the great indoors...'

John Mayer, Great Indoors

One would think that with all the hard work put in at the Emergency Department that I would make use of the days off better. I mean, Melbourne is beautiful this time of the year, and the weather is picture perfect every day.

Which doesn't explain why it is that I spend most of it wandering the great indoors. I snuggle up in bed, draw the shades, and settle in with a good book instead.

I need someone to drag me out into the sun!

Thing No. 6: The Boy Goes to Skool (Darjah Dua)

People always think about school in terms of school time - your teachers, every period, recess, your friends, physical education sessions - but they often forget about the hours that matter, the hours spent milling about after school ended, especially on a Friday afternoon.

As a child, when school ended, only two things matter - what game will you be playing with your friends, and what you are going to be eating while you're playing those games.

I will save the games that we used to play for another entry, but today I want to remember the things we used to eat, or more importantly, the interesting people who sold them.

When school ended for the day, there was this huge compound outside our primary school where kids would invariably end up, and either start up a game of marbles, or play police and thief, or just mill about waiting for for their parents or schoolbus to pick them up.

And what better place than that grassy compound for the itinerant hawkers to come and sell their things to us:

1) There was Uncle Johnny, the perennially tanned, chubby, foul-mouthed, fortysomething ice cream and drinks seller who stayed with us into our high school years. I can remember his old motorcycle with the accompanying single wheeled sidecart where all the goodies were kept.

He would sell everything from the branded icecreams [Walls' Cornetto, Paddle Pop (Paddle Pop! Wow! Paddle Pop! Yeah! Superduperyummy!)] to the simple generic scoops which you could either have on a cone, or in between two wafers - an icecream sandwich, the best invention ever!

Somehow, Johnny had enough space in his metallic sidecart for bottles of soft drinks as well. Read that properly, we're talking Coke and Sprite and Fanta Orange and Sarsi in glass bottles. None of that recyclable aluminium cans, thank you very much. I loved those glass bottles - the bottle caps could be used for games, and there's just something authentic about drinking soft drinks from dirty glass bottles with the fading Coca-Cola or F&N trademark, you know.

2) His closest competitor was this old uncle, who was fat and was always in a singlet and gray shorts. He had none of Johnny's youth or enterprise, and he only had a bicycle.

On the back of this dilapidated bicycle was a metal box where he all he sold was aiskrim potong - red bean, corn, pandan - all for a measly five sen each. I had no idea how this man was making a living. Surely you cannot make an ice cream stick for less than five sen, right, uncle? Or are you a millionaire in disguise just bringing happiness to little kids?

What was interesting about this uncle was that on the metal box itself, was a rudimentary 'Wheel Of Fortune' like wheel made out of a circular wood and some rusty nails. You could spin the wheel for as many times as the ice cream that you bought. One time for one ice cream, two times for two ice creams, and so forth.

All along the wheel were slots reading 'Kosong' 'Satu' 'Dua' ('Zero' 'One' 'Two') which were the amount of sticks that you could potentially win. So, five sen for one stick, and a potential of winning two more ice cream sticks. Seriously uncle, this is your front for selling drugs right?

3) There was this Malay auntie who used to sell curry puffs, prawn fritters and popsicles who we absolutely adored. She was really mild mannered and had a very cute young daughter to boot

( I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no, she was too young, and which primary school kid thinks about those things... although, there would have been an endless supply of curry puffs and prawn fritters if I did marry her. Another one that got away.)

The lady would sit outside under the sprawling acacia tree, with her basket full of warm goodies, and we would rush to buy it from her. She would put your curry puffs and prawn fritters into these clear plastic bags, and you could always request for her to squirt in some homemade cili sos.

And the popsicles - oh the popsicles - all kinds of colours and flavours, from orange to lime and grape, but my favourite would have to be the one with the assam - it even had the assam seed at the bottom! She would cut off the top of the sausage like plastic bag which held the cold treat and we would greedily chew away at the plastic, sucking hard to eviscerate the icy innards.

Her husband was actually a gardener at our school, and they lived in a shed at the back of the school. During recess, we would venture to the back of the school, desperate for a curry puff or prawn fritter fix. Not even the fact that the shed lived right next to the dirtiest place in school - the primary school boy's toilet of unspeakable horrors - could deter us from eating there.

4) Finally, there was this ancient uncle, and by ancient, I mean that he was a mummy who somehow lost his tissue paper covering - this man was a skeleton with skin, and had none of his teeth left, so his mouth always looked like it caved in, and he probably had a cataract in one eye. He had the old man walk going on as well - shuffling slowly along, hunched in his grey trousers and dirty white collared short sleeve T-shirt so that he was always looking at the floor.

He would always carry around his white gunny sack of goodies with him (like a Tim Burton idea of a Santa), and, finding the spot under the tree away from the curry puff auntie, he would open the sack and lay down a mat where he would parade his wares.

He had everything a kid would want -

• those tiny playing cards with the random cartoons in front (I will explain the game later)
  
• the tiny boxes with the four small bubble gum balls in them (you remember them - bursts of strawberry or grape or blueberry, flavorful but useless for making bubbles)
  
• the sticks of fish satay - all glazed and sesame seeded for your eating pleasure!
  
• the bubble gums which I swear were made using the byproducts of heroin manufacturing - you know, the ones with the red or yellow wrappers with a bear blowing bubbles in the front, and the temporary tattoos on the inside? - the bubble gum itself had this eerie white powder around it, not that it stopped us from popping it into our mouths!
  
• marbles - from the milk ones to the cobras and the multicoloured glass ones
  
• the card games like Donkey, Old Maid, Happy Family (one happy family at home!) and Snap.

This uncle was like our own personal Willy Wonka, only deader.

Other hawkers came and went but these four were the perennials who I remember distinctly, unobtrusive witnesses to us, the children as we grew up in the sun of that grass courtyard in front of our school.

The Long Weekend

It was a very difficult yet fulfilling weekend for me - four straight days of work in the Emergency Department in the mornings from Friday to Monday. It is fun work in the ED, no doubt, but it can be physically draining as well, and that's why they've kept it to four days of work a week for all doctors.

Working the mornings always leave the evening open for potentially wonderful dinners, and it started on Friday when I managed to catch up with my K and PL at Kake di Hatti, which was the equivalent of the Indian Rose Garden, given the speed at which the food was served to us! It was fast Indian food which was pretty good, and we adjourned to their apartments which I have yet to see. It was a really nice little place, and against the Melbourne city night skyline as our backdrop, we chatted late into the night the way we used to.

I was really excited about Saturday night because I was going to see P who was coming down from Sydney for a dance conference. P is a good friend and my Christian mentor back in my IMU days, and seeing her was a rare annual treat.

It was pretty late in the evening when we finally went out that Saturday. We walked the streets of Toorak just catching up, and when it was time, we went to squire'sloft for some pretty darn good steaks. Having said that, however, whenever I meet up with P, the food becomes an aside, and it is always the conversations that takes centre stage. She becomes my sounding board, and well, let's just say that I continue to discover things about myself through her eyes which continue to surprise me.

We had such a good time and the few hours flew by too quickly, and so we met up again on Sunday night for dessert. This time she got to tell me her stories and I marveled at the journey that shaped her life and her marriage - I thought I knew all there was to know about her, but I was so wrong!

She shared this verse with me this visit, and unbeknownst to her, she actually shared this verse with me 4 years ago after Dad passed away.

Psalms 84:5-7

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

7 They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.

I feel that there she herself must have clung on to these words during her hardest times, and now she continues to reinforce it in my life, as I set my heart on the pilgrimage, into the journey of understanding who I am, and how I got to where I am today.

That's partially why I write this blog.

The Beginning of Wisdom

I spent last night catching up with an old friend, and we sat over salmon and steak - I listened intently as she regaled her stories over the past six months of where she's been and what she's done. She's just returned from a missions trip to Africa, in Worcester (how English sounding is this colonial name in an African country!) and Lesotho.

I just sat transfixed as she told me her stories, and this was an honest evaluation of the whole thing - it wasn't all easy and smooth sailing at all. Anyone who is going on a missions trip and not expecting to be broken needs to wake up from their ideals.

And I watched the heartbreak as she told the problems she had with the leaders of the centre, supposed Christian leaders who showed none of the grace of God to them. The six months of emotional stress began pouring out, because my friend in all her nobility had shouldered the burdens silently.

'Has there been nothing good from these six months?' I ask.

'I have changed,' she said, simply.

I burst out laughing. No you haven't.

'And I don't care if nobody sees it.'

'I now understand how much God really loves me. I understand the meaning of grace now, of how little I deserve, and of how much he truly loves me.'

Amidst all this turmoil, I watch as a silent hope stirs in my friend, afflicted by the fallings of human nature, and - having nothing else to cling on to but her God - she clung on to Him for dear life.

In that moment, under the soft yellow glow of the restaurant and the lingering chatter of the other patrons that night, I smile from her across the table.

I can't see it, you're right, but you have changed.

I think one of the greatest joys in my life is seeing someone come to realise the full extent of God's love and grace for them. Many Christians are still trying to earn their salvation, or earn the love of their heavenly Father, unfortunately, in the same way sometimes that we try to earn our flawed earthly father's love or approval.

I haven't been to church enough. I haven't converted enough souls to God. I didn't take the opportunity to speak up for Christ when I had the chance. I can't speak to God because He has disappointed me. Or I have disappointed Him. If only. I am going to be standing before His throne and have nothing to show for this life.

On and on we self flagellate. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm condoning sin and impassivity. But I wish for all of us the freedom from guilt and anger towards ourselves and towards a God who loved us so much He came down in the form of us, to identify with us, and ultimately to die for us.

God loves you. Unconditionally. Let that truth set you free.

My Younger Older Brother Part 2

It wasn't until his college years when my brother finally started to blossom. He was amongst young women now, and he was making fast friends in his class. He also started to do well in his class because he wanted to outdo the smartest girl in class, to impress her. (Why is there always a girl involved? If only you girls knew the way you have us wrapped around your fingers).

In fact, he excelled in college and his university days academically - in retrospect, maybe we should have started him in a coed school from when he was seven! Socially, he was much better as well, still being himself amongst the 'normal' crowd, but adapting better to their etiquettes.

Over the past few years, I have grown in my admiration and love for my older brother. We are similar in many ways but still retain the opposites of our childhood.

I care too much about what people think and that dictates the way I act, while he doesn't care at all about people's opinions. This can be detrimental, but it has also allowed him the freedom to do things his way. I remember when Dad was in a wheelchair, and we would often go out as a family on Sunday evenings. Some of the family members, myself included, would 'umm' and 'ahh' because going out in public always attracted unwanted attention because of Dad's condition.

My brother, on the other hand, would hurry us up, and shoo us into the car, and then we'd go out, and have a great time, which we otherwise wouldn't have done had he not been there.

Living with him here, I continue to see the other traits that make him wonderful - he is able to love unconditionally, and it is evident in the way he serves the members of his cell group at church. He continues to invest faith and love in people the 'normal' world would have turned their noses up at, 'outcasts' like himself once.

He also carries a level head on his shoulders. Yes, he can get emotional about things that he is passionate about, but he is often slow to anger, and I can attest to that, since I'm not the easiest person to live with sometimes.

Today, we decided to go for a drive to Williamstown, because he wanted to go somewhere outside - to study his CA stuff. Initially, we were supposed to go to the Great Ocean Road for a day trip to 'study' - try to work out his mind, 'cos I can't! - but I had to run some errands in the morning.

So, come lunchtime, he dragged me out of the house and into the car. I was quite tired and a little irritable, but he was patient, and we made the drive down there, and it was beautiful. Williamstown is a bayside town, and it was a gorgeous sight - with the silver waters in the foreground, and the boats and yachts rocking gently in the distance, and against this was the backdrop of the Melbourne city skyline.

It wasn't the warmest of days, to be fair. Fifteen minutes out in the bone-chilling wind on the benches surrounded by evil-looking seagulls was about as much as we could take, and we spent most of the time in my car. I was reading Alexander McCall Smith's latest 'The Good Husband of Zebra Drive' up the front while my brother was in the back, studiously going through his notes.

I fell asleep in the car, not once but twice! This is definitely a day off well spent! We stayed until it was sundown, and I was about to drive off to dinner because my brother had just finished his reading his notes. 'Wait!' he cried. 'I want to go for a run!'

'In your jeans and walking shoes?' my mind yelled out. 'You'll come back soon, it's freezing!' I said. He dashed out of the car and onto the nearby green grass with a small playground on it. I went back to my book, and it was only when I looked up, to my right five minutes later did I see him on the swings by himself, swinging up and down, enjoying himself uninhibitedly.

I couldn't have loved him anymore than I did at that very moment. Yes, my brother's in the real world, working, earning a living, going through life like the rest of us. But there was still a child in him that he would not suppress, who he would let run out once in awhile, laughing freely into the skies, without a care about the world.

It's because my brother is, shall we say, special.

My Younger Older Brother Part 1

'So which one is the older one?'

Because we are only two years apart, my brother and I got to share many experiences together, like primary school and high school, the school bus, Sunday school, church, and right now, living in Melbourne together.

We used to get that question a bit - when I was in high school, especially, people would mistake me for the older brother. It was because my brother was, shall we say, special.

I've always thought that being the eldest in a family is always the most difficult of all. No one is there to pave the way for you, no one is there for you to look up to, you need to be responsible and set the example. Being a kid, that's always a tough ask.

So my brother grew up the best way he knew how, and was always non-conformist in his behaviour. When all the teenage girls were drooling over boybands, my brother was extolling the beautiful music of James Galway, flautist. Kids around school would laugh at him because he would wear his pants a little higher up, and he basically never cared about what people thought of him.

I continued, on the other hand, to live for the approval of my fellow man (ie. friends and teachers), and so I did my best to fit in at school, making friends with everyone. I was (only slightly) mature beyond my prepubescent years, and I guess, people saw me as normal.

(Okay, you can stop laughing now.)

(Okay, now.)

It also didn't help that I was doing better in school than he was, gaining the approval of my teachers and friends.

And so, understandably, in high school, seniors would come up to me and ask 'Hey, that one your brother ah? He's the older one ah?' barely masking their surprise. I would always smile shyly, almost apologetically whenever people ask that question. He wasn't exactly cool/'in', and I was trying my best to be.

This subtle embarrassment started from an early age, as in this illustration:

We used to play in this playground near our house, and the times we spent there is another story in itself.

It was a playground that had all your usual trappings - imagine a playground like today - see-saws, swings, monkey bars, chin up bars - but instead of the colourful safe plastic material that all kids enjoy today, everything was made out of metal and wood.

We used to like this girl on the playground (why is there always a girl involved?) and we were both, among the other boys who played with us, vying for her attention. I can't remember the game that we were playing that evening - I think it was police and thief - and my brother was trying to impress with his speed.

Somehow he ended up cutting open his chin on the side of one of the wooden platforms. All the kids were standing over him, aghast. 'He slipped because he run too fast,' whispered one. Everyone watched this pitiful bleeding mass, groaning in pain.

Seeing her, he got up, slowly. He was groaning a bit in pain, but he did his best to be brave about it. I don't know why, I can't explain the way little kids think, but I was embarrassed to be there at that moment. I started walking home first, and he followed behind. The other kids dispersed, the evening abruptly ending.

He trailed behind me, calling out to me in pain, to please slow down, but all I did was walk away a little faster.

I don't understand what happened that evening, but all I know was that the same attitude defined our high school years. Of course, it wasn't a physical walking away, but emotionally, and in my mind, I have, regrettably, left him standing on his own countless times.

Bustin' Ours... To Save Yours...

The above theme sits on top of our Emergency Department webpage, and everyone knows the missing word is 'ass'. (not the donkey)

The child in me bursts out laughing whenever I see that statement. There is some truth in that, though. Working in the Emergency Department has always been, to me, medicine defined. I mean, that's why people become doctors, right? To save lives.

The Emergency Department is the first port-of-call to any patients in a hospital. Patients are brought in to the hospital via ED, at all levels of dying, from the very much alive with minimal complaints to the very much dead, who come in DOA (dead on arrival).

ED is fun for three reasons:

1) You get to think. Sometimes when you get stuck with a hospital ward job, you feel more like a glorified secretary, just mindlessly writing down whatever someone else has to say. Not much thinking on your part, usually, because the thinking's done for you.

In the Emergency department, however, every patient you pick up is a new case to be considered in the context of their past history and also the events leading them to your hospital doors. They say that the world renowned Sherlock Holmes was actually based on a friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's, who was a very observant doctor.

2) You get to do. I have done sutures, plasters, cannulas, lumbar punctures, ring blocks, reductions, arterial stabs and I'm getting to see so many more things as well. I'm still not doing anything near as much as the doctors on House M.D., though. (because they're not real doctors, you see. They're actors. Who are earning more in an episode than I will in a lifetime.)

3) You get to interact. Sometimes you are assigned to the fast track area, which is like a GP's office, almost, and it really is fun talking to the patients and sorting out the simple problems. No patient is more appreciative than the healthy ones who just need to be told that there is nothing wrong with them, it's a virus, just go home and get some rest.

Of course, it's can get quite busy and crazy in the ED, but there are times when I've been smiling at work and thinking 'You know, it's almost unfair that I'm enjoying work so much!'

That's us - bustin' ours, to save yours.


Thing No. 6: The Boy Goes To School (Darjah Dua)

Do you remember those yellow manila cards they gave out to you once a year? You had to paste your photo in the right hand corner, fill in your personal details, and then some random other things. One column I remember best comes with the heading:

Cita-cita (Ambition): 1. 2. 3.

For me it always read like this:

Cita-cita (Ambition): 1. Doktor (doctor) 2. Peguam (lawyer) 3.Jurutera (engineer) /Akauntan (accountant) depending on the career du jour.

[My friend LWK, upon realising that writing down your ambition in those columns weren't going to automatically transform you into having that career, once wrote down, for fun:

Cita-cita (Ambition): 1. Badut (clown)

Just for that moment, he got his wish. ]

If you are an Asian kid in a typical Asian family, your columns read the same too. Don't bluff, I know. All Asian parents have a degree in Brainwashing Your Child, B. Sc.

Now, truth be told, I didn't want to be any of those professions. I had very little idea about doctors, much less about lawyers and almost nothing at all about what an engineer did. (They dealt with engines, right?)

We had an English oral test once in Standard Two. The topic I had to discuss with the teacher was on 'My ambition'. Once again, I said I wanted to be a doctor. She said, 'Oh that's good. It's hard work being a doctor, though.'

At some point during the discussion, she asked 'And what about those poor people who cannot afford to see doctors?'

'I'll see them for free,' came my reply.

Let's Dance In Style, Let's Dance For Awhile

As young adults, especially far removed from home, we sometimes live a sub-sistence. We exist on a lesser level, we do not really live as such. Work is a drudgery that we all are eager to get out of, a necessary evil to get us the things we need and the things we want.

We live our lives spending the weekdays dreaming of the weekends, and when the weekends do come, they pass too quickly and soon we are faced with the dreaded rinse repeat cycle of the week ahead.

We try to numb ourselves during the weekdays when we get home from work - with You-tubes sticking out of us, keeping us artificially alive; we watch TV, we read each other's blogs and Facebooks, we escape to another world (of Warcraft). Anything to pull us through the weekdays in order to get to the weekends.

These were some of my thoughts back in Malaysia, as I was on the bus headed out to Singapore. Now, six weeks later, although there still is some truth to those thoughts, I realise that it is greatly exaggerated as well.

I've found the time during the week to have cherished catch-up dinner with my friends, and my brother. I've managed to squeeze in some good movies, and good books as well into the week. And working has made time off all the more meaningful and appreciated, with last weekend being an excellent example.

We had a barbeque lunch on Saturday to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend of mine, R, and it was a glorious day to do it in. We had our fill of sausages, lamb, chicken, salads and such in the sunshine. After that we adjourned to her house, where we spent the day just hanging out, playing music, Singstar-ing badly, watching missed series and cartoons, playing Mafia, catching up, laughing out loud.

In a time where everybody's in such a rush to grow up, we were lucky enough to have the chance to be young again, if only for a day.