Murky Clarity

I know you worry about me, and I love you for it.

 

I believe I have a new love. I have an old love. They are the same.

Since coming back to KL, I've been stopping by KLCC most mornings for my cup of caramel hot chocolate and an apple multigrain muffin. Some mornings I do more than that. I spend 5 minutes walking along the park, just...walking. I snap pictures and post them on Instagram because the mornings are so beautiful. Kuala Lumpur is beautiful.

Most of all, I love the quiet.

Early in the morning I can hear the rustle of leaves, the footsteps of joggers, the chirps of hidden birds. I can hear my own heartbeat. It's been so long, much too long, since I last listened to my heart.

Lately I've also been stopping by KLCC after work to find myself a quiet spot at the park where I can sit cross-legged on a bench and read a storybook. I always have my headphones on whenever I go to KLCC. Even at the park. When I read, the music is soft, in the background along with my conscious self as I lose myself in the book. When I'm not reading, I play my music full-blast. On both occasions, I get to enjoy what I love the most.

I love the quiet.

I don't mind crowded spaces. Not that much, anyway. But the noise of humanity fills me with anxiety. I do not appreciate a roomful of people talking at the same time. I certainly do not appreciate a large space filled with people, each making his or her own sets of sounds. All that noise. All that chatter. All that invasion.

When I read a storybook, I lose myself. I shut the world out. I'm good at it. I've been doing this since I was little. When I have my headphones on, with music filling up every milimeter of my brain, I am both part of the world and apart from the world. I build a wall around me and treat it like a shield.

When I was at the park, I saw people snapping pictures of one another, people in groups smoking, chatting, laughing. I saw couples sitting at quiet spots holding each other's hands, lying on their beloved's lap, enjoying the proximity. Then I realized, I enjoyed the quiet more. I enjoyed the solitude, the sense of losing myself in music, in a book.

Mama is worried about me. She always does. That's what mothers do. But recently we had this awkward conversation. She was worried about my lack of love life. I am almost 31, and what about my needs? I swear, she used those words exactly. "What about your needs?"

Awkward.

I am almost 31, and I've never been kissed.

What about my needs?

How can I miss something I've never had? How can I yearn for something I've never experienced? Don't get me wrong. I've tasted love before. On two occasions. Ironically, for someone who doesn't actually see women wearing hijab, I fell in love with one. A part of me will always love them. A part of me will always be thankful for the chance to experience that flutter in my heart. To be honest, whenever I think about them, my heart still flutters.

Still, I love the quiet more.

Maybe God whispered "Soledad" into my soul right before it entered my body in Mama's womb. Solitude. If there is one word that can be used to describe me, this is it.

I am almost 31, and even though I have loved, I have never been kissed. I do not drink alcohol, I do not drink coffee, I do not smoke, I do not gamble, I do not have affairs, I do not cuss lightly, I do not scold people unless my defenses are down, but I do love the quiet of being alone.

Do I get lonely? Loneliness is always at the fringes, like seawater lapping against the beach. Sometimes the tide comes in, and sometimes the sea engulfs me, threatening to drown me. Sometimes I want to drown. But I'm still here, aren't I?

But even happy couples get lonely sometimes. Even proud parents get lonely sometimes. And it's okay, because loneliness is a part of who we are. In my case, it is a large part of me.

Soledad.

Solitude.

It's been so long since I listened to my heart. But I'm listening now, and in the quiet, my heart is calm. I know you worry about me, but I think I will be all right. I may not enjoy being alone all the time, but I do love the quiet.

And I'm all right.

A little Guidance, Perhaps

I seldom talk about my medical life. With good reason, too, as people have twisted my words and accused me of malpractice and murder. Haters are gonna hate, I'll give you that. As usual, I have to write a disclaimer. To quote Baz Luhrmann, "the long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience." I do not represent Neurosurgery or Hospital Kuala Lumpur. I do not represent the doctors of Malaysia, or post-graduate residents. This is all me.

Savvy?

I often hear complaints about house officers--newly graduated doctors who have to undergo compulsory rotations for 2 years before they are eligible for a permanent practicing certificate. Though house officers are as varied as monkeys in the jungle, the complaints are almost invariably the same: they're useless. They're spoiled brats who cannot do anything right. These statements are more often than not followed by lamentations on the death of good freshly-graduated doctors, or how things were not like this when the complaining senior doctors were house officers.

Let me be honest with you guys. The first few days of starting my housemanship, a specialist humiliated me in front of medical students when I could not answer his question. One of the students answered right, and the specialist scoffed at me and commented that I should not have graduated in the first place. In front of the students, in front of a perfectly coherent patient. My first month at O&G? Hated the department. Hated everyone in the department. Nothing I did was correct. I had to juggle between 4 teams, and I got the heat for forgetting something.

When I left, however, the specialist in charge of house officers in each department I worked for, when finding out a new batch of house officers were from USM, would ask them whether they knew me, and that they had big shoes to fit in.

While not the best in terms of knowledge, I was a proficient house officer. But I did not start off an excellent specimen. I had good teachers: senior nurses, senior house officers, medical officers and specialists. They spent time to teach me. In the span of a year, I learned so much more than I did the five years I spent as an undergraduate. I gained valueable knowledge that made me a safe medical officer.

So. Enough about me. For the moment.

We do not have house officers in my department. The first time I had house officers was when I did a 6-month rotation in General Surgery at Hospital Selayang. Suddenly I had this group of doe-eyed youngsters who kept referring me as "Dr Fadz/Fadzli". Just like in any other groups, be them humans or animals, there were those who stood out, whether from excellence or from sheer incompetence. Most of them were of average qualities, but hey, that's normal distribution curve for you. Sure, the number of these house officers is mind-boggling. When I was one, we had a maximum of 30 house officers throughout the whole hospital. When I went to Selayang, there were almost 20 of them per ward.

So yeah. When I was a house officer, there were so few of us that we had to make up for the slackers lest we would face the wrath of medical officers and specialists. Nowadays there are so many of them that they assume someone else would and should get the job done, and nothing gets done instead. The large number also reduces the chance for them to learn essential skills.

Is this their fault? I don't know. The country needs more doctors, so the government is churning out new doctors to meet the need. When you mass-produce something, the quality is bound to decline. But come on, to have newly-appointed medical officers complain about house officers, when they themselves had just been raised not too long ago?

Something's not right somewhere.

Let me ask you this: for those who complain about how house officers are made of suck, have you spent time teaching them, guiding them?

When I worked at Selayang, the specialists and medical officers organize classes for house officers on a weekly basis. During rounds they asked house officers about patient management. These youngsters were treated with respect. They were nurtured. There were several hopeless cases, but they were closely monitored.

Sadly, when I worked in another hospital (which shall remain nameless, but I'm sure you can venture a guess), there were plenty of house officer-bashing but an alarmingly lack of guidance. House officers who had almost completed their surgical rotation had never been taught about short central lines, ABG interpretation, even fluid balance. Sure, there were compulsory CMEs, but that was for the whole hospital and lacked individual touch.

I took some of them under my wings and did my best to guide them to the best of my knowledge and experience. Those who were interested to learn, anyway. My colleagues were surprised that house officers were willing to help me with inserting IV lines and getting blood for investigations, when they had to do those things themselves. They teased me when they found out I was teaching these house officers.

But someone's got to do it.

It's easy to give up on people. It's easy to complain about others on Twitter and Facebook. It's easy to create a group just to bash house officers. Sometimes people are made of suck, be them house officers, medical officers, and even specialists. I'm not judging anyone.

When I was a house officer, I was raised with love and respect. I was given the freedom to grow, to learn, to prosper. As a medical officer, I afford house officers the same love and respect. Imagine, then, when new house officers are treated with scorn and derision, how they'll treat their house officers in a few years' time.

They end up complaining about house officers when they're posted at another hospital as medical officers.

Break the cycle. Spend the same amount of time complaining about house officers to teach them instead. Treat them as friends instead of merely subordinates. Show a little love.

And a little guidance, perhaps.

Sixth Sense

Whisper
I am list'ning
Your heart thrums against me
Your language is the language of
My soul

Listen
I am with you
My fingers on your skin
As I learn new things about you
My heart

Behold
Can you see me?
Even with your eyes closed
When I'm a thousand miles away
From you

Perceive
That's all I ask
My soul is tethered here
Even though not alive, I am
With you

 

_________________________________________________

 

I read about structured poetry--not a rhyming one. I don't know the first rule of poetry, to be honest. Strike that; I don't know any rule. At all.

I came across a form of poetry, the cinquain, while reading The Writer magazine. It consists of 5 lines (cinc is 'five' in French), and has several patterns:

1. 1 word, 2 words, 3 words, 4 words, 1 word.
2. 2 syllables, 4 syllables, 6 syllables, 8 syllables, 2 syllable.
3. 1 noun, 2 adjectives, 3 -ing words, 1 phrase, 1 word related to the noun in the first line.

I've been having fun with haiku on Twitter, even though mine do not have the depth of a proper haiku. I think, because I grew up reading Fantasy, my thought patterns are more literal. I do not have the finesse of abstract imagery that comes with literary books and poetry.

Oh well.

A prayer from above

I woke up early today, much too early for a weekend--though, where I was headed, Sunday's the first day of the week. It didn't help that outside, the pitter-patter of raindrops on roofs and roads beckoned me to pull the blanket over my head and forget about the 07:15 flight to Kota Bharu. I was not looking forward to spending a week back in USM, but strangely enough, I was excited to meet up with friends working there. It's a good motivation, having good friends.

I had pre-booked a window seat on Firefly that would give me the best view of sunrise--2F if you're wondering--but as usual, I was...ehem...fashionably late. Lucky for us, with the new DUKE highway, the drive to Subang only took 1/2 hour. Lucky for me, my brother-in-law Ayis was kind enough to ride shotgun. The rain had subsided to a drizzle when we reached the airport, and I checked in my luggage 5 minutes after the supposed boarding time, but it was all good. I even managed to buy a venti cup of caramel signature hot chocolate from Starbucks to drink during the flight.

With Sigur Ros filling the space between my ears and my headphones, I waited several minutes before the boarding call was aired. I have to admit, I was slightly worried that I would miss the sunrise as we seemed to be running late.

 

 

Caught your breath, right? As soon as the plane lifted off and the airport no longer dominated my view, I was rewared with a sprawling vista of civilization still crouched, asleep, blanketed by mists and cloud cover. For a few seconds I just sat there, paralyzed by awe.

Subhan'Allah. Glorious is God.

 

Of course, the photographer in me immediately kicked in. I was not supposed to activate anything electronic, but I just had to record the view. The writer in me started composing a blog post--this blog post. As for the doctor in me...let's just say I was not thinking about the statistics course at that moment--or the whole journey, for that matter. I don't know if you can make out the distant specks on the pictures immediately above and below, but KLCC and KL Tower stood like proud beacons proclaiming, "this is Kuala Lumpur. There is never a goodbye, but only welcome." Thus, even as the airplane sped farther and farther, I did not feel like I was bidding KL goodbye. Part of me will always be home.

 

 

Even though above us the clouds were thick and ominous, the sky gradually lit from burnished gold to pastel shades of orange and pink and blue. We passed (what I think was) the Klang Gate dam, where the hilltop waters reflected the sky, and the sky reflected the waters in return. Water to vapor, vapor to clouds, clouds to tears of rainwater--and endless cycle since before time existed.

 

As the plane ascended, I noticed we were headed right into the thick sky-blanket. Nearer. Nearer.

 

And we pierced the cloud with a gentle bump.

 

The still existence between layers of clouds steadily became brighter as we headed East, toward the sun, toward a life of endless possibilities.

 

 

Subhan'Allah. Glorious is God.

 

On starting a new read

It's been ages since I finished reading a novel--the past year, I've had a tendency to buy several books every month, and I either brought them to Kota Bharu, or I left them here at home. I have almost a Billy bookcase-worth of unread books, to be honest.

You may notice by now that I tend not to finish what I start. Not reading, however. I think I used to read at least 50 books a year, though plenty of them were re-reads. Nowadays I'm reading less Fantasy and more contemporary YA, partly because my novel-in-progress is contemporary YA.

It sounds pretentious, doesn't it? My novel-in-progress. As if telling the whole world about it will advance it further than the 32,000 words that I have.

Anyway. I just finished reading a British YA, Adorkable by Sarra Manning. It's refreshing to read something non-American, mainly because I get to appreciate how different the terms and the humors are. Unintentional research, as my story is set in KL. No Manglish, sorry. I may write a proper book review, but what I can say is that I love the book. I love the main characters, Jeane Smith and Michael Lee. I actually got a little depressed when I reached the end, because I reached the end of my journey with the characters.

It happens with all good books I've read, I suppose. That's why I love re-reading certain books. I picked up another book I haven't read, but I found it difficult to give the book a chance. So I picked up another. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Yeah. Did I mention I love watching teenage romantic comedies and romantic flicks as my perk-me-upper?

When you're still in love with the characters from the book you've just finished, it's difficult for you to give new characters in new books a chance. It feels like you're cheating on the characters you've already fallen in love with. At least that's what it feels for me. So I wasn't giving this new book much of a chance, but within these few hours, I've already passed the 1/3 mark. Maybe because there are plenty of excellent descriptions of Paris. And maybe the book is good. That too.

I took some time off reading just to say this. And to reflect that truth be told, I dread finishing a detailed sketch and my novel(s) because once I reach THE END, I have to say goodbye to the characters I've invested in. And I don't want the journey to end. Even though the destination may promise grand things, I've always been the one who loves the journey more.

And. I just need something to cheer me up. Got a rejection letter from ASIM for my story In Memoriam. With me, when people don't say anything, that means I'm doing things right. They call on my mistakes, and thing that I could have done better, and I appreciate it because it gives me a chance to better myself, but sometimes, sometimes I'd like to hear someone saying that I'm doing a good job.

Meh.

The Price of Conviction

 

 

Naysayers say you don't learn anything from the devil box aka television. Naysayers will say just about anything--they believe that if no one is around, a tree will still have to fall to make a sound.

Anyway, it's clear that I've been a Gleek since the very beginning. Even though the series is turning out to be another "Heroes" (awesome first season, but downhill from there), I STILL LOVE IT TO BITS!

Ehem. So. I've vaguely heard about "The Glee Project", but I only started watching it less than a week ago. I initially thought it was just a Glee spinoff to generate more fans. Well, it is a spinoff, sorta, but not like "Glee the 3D Movie", which was just an income generator. Here I learned that the new characters in season 3 were from a reality-TV competition, and not just random kids auditioning.

Let me tell you this: kids are nasty regardless where they're from. They pounce at one another, they stab one another's backs. All that drama! Anyway. 5 episodes in, and the show revealed something intriguing, something that prompted me to write this piece. One of the contestants, Cameron Mitchell, was, according to Ryan Murphy (the creator of Glee), a beautiful boy with a beautiful voice who would fit perfectly among the popular kids, ergo unsuited for Glee's New Directions, which consists of outcasts. Ryan wasn't interested in Cameron. At first.

Back to the 5th episode. One of the contestants, Lindsay, was paired up with Cameron in a steamy duet, which made him uncomfortable at first. Then, during the video shoot, Lindsay sprang a surprise on Cameron to heat up the video clip. She kissed him, and boy was he surprised.

But not in a good way.

No, not because he liked boys, but because Cameron's a Christian, and has a girlfriend of 2 years. His faith prevents him from extramarital sex and all the shannanigans pertaining to it, and his moral values instilled by his upbringing screamed at him. To him, the kiss was equivalent to cheating on his girlfriend. He actually broke down and cried and called his mother.

Those of you who just sneered, shame on you.

When Ryan Murphy found out, he became interested in Cameron for the first time. And I found the show interesting. In episode 7, Sexuality, the contestants were required to amp up the sex. Because we all know sex sells. THEY ARE YOUNG ADULTS, NOT EVEN PROPER ADULTS!

Ehem. Excuse me for the outburst. Anyway, teenagers nowadays are as nonchalant about lip-kissing as they are about handshaking. Sadly, we Easterners are headed that way too. So Cameron was asked by the video director to kiss another contestant, Hannah, which he refused. The tutors tried pushing him, but he stood his ground. The tutors and other contestants said he was being difficult, that in acting, people are expected to do things they're not comfortable with.

Not Ryan Murphy, though. He found Cameron's conviction intriguing, and he wanted Cameron to stay even more. He found the inspiration to write about a conservative Christian character, which is under-represented among teenagers. Unfortunately, Cameron revealed that after what he went through, maybe acting was not for him. He could not bring himself to go against his conviction, and people around him were pushing him to cross that line. One of the tutors even said, "You have to put your faith aside."

That was the one line that prompted me to write this come hail or high water. You have to put your faith aside. What has the world come to? Just because you do not share the same conviction, you scoff at people who has strong faith and moral values. You label them as "conservative". Instead of celebrating that rare strength of conviction, you want to break it, cast it aside. I'm sure, if they had truly respected Cameron's stand, they could have suggested that he leaned against Hannah with his back toward the camera, so that they would appear to be kissing. They could have worked their way around it instead of going either-or.

And for a young man to hold his ground despite the pressure, his mama raised him right. U-huh.

Then there's Alex Newell, the resident diva of the show.

 

Alex is openly gay, but he's not a drag. No, being gay doesn't equate to being a drag. Not all drags are gay, and not all gays are drags. Savvy? Anyway, in order to prevent himself from getting eliminated, Alex decided to impress Ryan Murphy by going onstage in a drag. Well, ultimately that decision helped him, because he was featured in 2 Glee episodes as Wade/Unique, a gay boy in drag (enunciate it a la Wesley Snipe in "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar").

There Cameron refused to break his faith, Alex apparently was willing to do anything to survive. I know a lot of you are going, "gays and drags should burn in hell!" Alex couldn't help being gay. That's what who his is. But he admitted to not being a drag, but he would do whatever necessary to get the job done.

So what if this is his conviction? What if he is raised to believe that he should do whatever it takes? Do we have the right to scoff at him for acting on his beliefs? I know the people on the show had no right to push Cameron to act against his beliefs. So why should we have double standards for Alex?

Is it because of our own morality, our own sets of beliefs, our own prejudices? To me, both these contestants showed integrity. They stood firm to their conviction.

So here's something to dwell upon: we are quick to judge others, especially when they do not share the same conviction as we do. Do we expect them to bend, do we bend, or both? If all parties are rigid, we'll never understand one another. But if we bend too much, we will break.

We have our sets of beliefs, our convictions. I sincerely hope we are able to maintain the integrity of our beliefs without demeaning others. I sincerely hope that instead of pushing our faith aside, we push our prejudices.

After all, who wouldn't want world peace? All those beauty peagent contestants sure do.

Fly Away From Home

Well, my supposedly the Novel (notice the italics and the capitalization) contains songs. Original ones, because, you know, my main character is a singer-songwriter. Taking into account that my main characters are an extension of my near-schizophrenic personas, this means I have to be a songwriter, if not a singer.

Let's put it this way: I don't know the first rules of poetry and songwriting. My vocabulary with the guitar is severely limited, so while I can entertain the delusion that my prose is good, I cannot honestly say that singing and songwriting are simply vanity projects.

Anyway, usually, when I pick up the guitar to play a song, I try chording and strumming variations, and lyrics will start appearing. Not all the time, but only occasionally.

I hope to have enough songs for the novel, maybe not a whole album's worth, but an EP. This is the second completed song for the novel (the first being "Too Late").

You don't have to press play. I'm not even a half-decent guitarist/singer.

 

 

step by step
you head into the sunlight
away from the darkness
you walk away from me

breath by breath
you find your way there
destination unknown
far away from home

should you fall apart
into a million pieces
I’ll make you whole again
I’ll mend you broken wings

but should you fly away
where the wind will carry
I’ll wait here by the sidelines
I’ll be your home

mile by aching mile
the distance come between us
will you ever look back
or will history be forgotten

should you fall apart
into a million pieces
I’ll make you whole again
I’ll mend you broken wings

but should you fly away
where the wind will carry
I’ll wait here by the sidelines
I’ll be your home