The Pensieve

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don’t actively fight them. You’re just you. You don’t try to be what people expect you to be.

AHHHH!!! Wenky, you were right after all!

*kowtows*

In order to recover from an illness, the responsibility lies on both parties. On the doctor to prescribe the correct medication and advice and on the patient, to follow the advice.

Yet many patients, blame their doctors when they don’t get better. They say
‘the medicine not good wan’
and when probed, they admit that…
’sometimes i forget to take medicine lah… so busy… got to go market lah, go shopping, then my friends come for mahjong’
‘the medicine so bitter! how to take?’
‘the medicine so smelly! (cream) must i take it?’
’sometimes lazy lah… ‘

Here’s a real-life encounter with a friend who has an acne problem.
Friend: Hey, I went to XYZ for my problem… I put the medicine on but got biting sensation.
Me: What medicine?
Friend: ….. (medicine name)
Me: I think that’s quite normal, as long as you don’t break out in rashes or the condition worsens.
Friend: ok…
Me: By the way, you know how to use your medication?
Friend: Er, not really.
Me: (proceeds to explain the cause, the concept andthe application of medication appropriately)
Friend: Oh, what is medicine2 for?
Me: It’s supposed to help you for your condition too.
Friend: Can don’t put that?
Me: … Why wouldn’t you want to put something that is helpful for your condition???
Friend: Er, it smells gross…
Me: 良药苦口利于病。。。

***

friend: they give me a total of four items .. total $20 bux, don’t think those are very gd ones
Me: y do you think so?
acne-struck: coz only $20, so cheap.
Me: so you think cheap medicine aren’t good?
Me: do you think febs is good for flu?
acne-struck: yah…
Me: is febs expensive?
Me: and i think your medicine doesn’t help you because you never follow yr instructions properly and you’re ‘too lazy’ to take yr meds.

***

(*disclaimer: i know i sound very mean up in those too anecdotes. that’s cuz i’m more frank with a friend. if that was a patient… my tone would be much more different)
sometimes, i think, what’s the point of talking to this kind of people when all efforts taken to help them understand and assume responsibility for their own illness falls on death ears and brick walls?

Drats, CNY is around the corner! It’s time to flee from…
1. truckloads of complementary medicines and health supplements for me to ‘validate’
2. relatives who ask me what i want to specialise in (this year i’ll tell them psychiatry, then no one will come ask me for advice for fear that they’d be mistaken as psychos! heheh)
3. asking to interpret and explain the effects of ‘my small yellow tablet, red and white capsule and little white tablet that i take every morning’
4. the particular auntie who’ll say: girl ah, you are looking more and more like a nurse! how come u study so long still haven’t started working ah?
At least i’m lucky i don’t have relatives who’ll ask me whether i’m attached. phew! Probably they think should wait till i graduate? or maybe they think i’m too hopeless to get a boyfriend. (yeah, probably the latter…)

Insight no. 1:
Know why i struggle so hard to do well in studies? And why i’m so driven to achieve thru it?
Cuz i know of no other way for me to gain the approval of others. And definitely, not through my looks (or personality).
I’m working on it… i’m working on it… Need to repair my trampled self-esteem.

I give it er… 2.5 out of 5 gobstones… for entertainment… and 5/5 for their success in SCARING all the little kids out there by creating such a SPOOKY, CREEPY, PSYCHO Willy Wonka! He’s really psycho! OMG, all that childhood trauma… the horrible orthodontic treatment’s bound to cause some sort of social stigma amongst his peers… and all that control his father exerts over him…

His fear for his father and for all control has been repressed, to the extent that he could not even say the word ‘parents’. Clearly, he has a psychological problem. And I hardly think Roald Dahl meant to portray Willy Wonka in such a twisted light.

Anyway, I like Charlie Buckets lots, he’s so adorable! His grandpa too! Btw, I think that the way his grandpa described Willy Wonka made me feel like he was describing Voldemort! Eeeeeeeee!!!

The magical world of Willy Wonka!

‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ is very similar to the Harry Potter series, in that the author aims to create an entirely magical, new world. Unfortunately, I don’t think the antics of the oompah loompahs and all the cinematography really appealed. In fact, I really wouldn’t like to be in such a place like that. Yes, it sure is magical and different, but it’s just too eccentric, too garish. hehe… garish reminds me of social disinhibition. lolz… psychiatry is taking over my life! woohoo!

I only liked this scene:

and I never never want to see or hear anymore oompah loompahs (unless it’s the one with over exuberant hair growth, hehe so cute!)

This is what I would want to own. Heh heh.

Synopsis
This is a heart-warming story about a 30+ yo man, Charlie Gordon, who has an IQ of 70. (normal IQ is 100). He is affectionate, and smiles (he remembers that his mom told him to smile so that pple would like him and he would have friends). His thinking is very simple and he works as a sweeper at the bakery, and attends school for the mentally subnormal some nights. One day, he participates in a surgery, sort of like a psychosurgery where some glial cells are implanted into his brain (he has a form of PKU affecting the neurones… or glial cells) and as a result of the operation, becomes very very SMART! algernon is the name of the white mouse who underwent the same operation before charlie gordon, and had become very smart as well… but as Charlie’s IQ shoots up to 185… he works out a BIG problem in the experiment and discovered that he was going to lose all this intelligence in half the time required for him to procure it…

The book is written in the form of a progress report, in the words of Charlie Gordon. It is interesting to note as well as follow his intellectual development, which begins ever so subtly as changes in his thought process. There’s more insight, there’s questioning of authority, reasoning and expression of mature thought.

Insight
Some mental curd to chew upon…
At one part in the book, Charlie mentions how insufferable Prof Nemur was (that’s the guy who did the experiment), how he feared and despised Charlie for surpassing his intelligence and proving his hypothesis wrong. Then, a person had urged Charlie not to pass judgment on the Prof that soon, and definitely not without meeting his wife first. The person had said, ‘If you want to understand why he’s under so much tension, even when things are going well in his lab and in his lectures, you’ve got to know Bertha Nemur. Did you know she’s got him his professorship? Did you know she used her father’s influence to get him the Welberg Foundation grant?… Until you’ve had a woman like her riding you, don’t think you can understand the man who has.’
Really, I shouldn’t be too fast in passing judgment (or forming an impression) on others, without REALLY understanding their circumstances.

***

Later in the book, we see how Charlie’s intellect increases exponentially, yet his emotional maturity remains like that of a 5 yo kid. He soon realises that intellect cannot be used to undo emotional entanglements and
that a person who is smart, but lacks all forms of EQ could never be anything worthwhile…

***

The tragic story of Charlie Gordon, in this book, despite it being merely fiction, serves as a very potent reminder to the scientific world of the danger and harm an experiment (that has not been properly validated) or has been rushed into, could bring, if it were administered on a human subject. (or animal subject, just in case we’ve got some animal-lovers here).

***

And this quote is just something to let u all have a taste of some of the language of the book. (it varies from part to part… but this excerpt is from the last few pages of the book, which shows the rapid deterioration of Charlie’s intellect:

“Evrybody looked at me when I came downstairs and started working in the toilet sweeping it out like I use to do. I said to myself. Charlie if they make fun of you dont get sore because you remember their not so smart like you once thot they were. And besides they were once your frends and if they laffed at you that dont mean anything because they liked you to”

Flowers for Algernon…

“Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I’ve discovered for myself very recently. I [resent it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.”

— Charlie Gordon, ‘Flowers for Algernon’

A beautiful lesson taught in beautiful language…

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.

Interpretation:
(My own… so it might not be the currently ‘accepted’ interpretation by those wow-wow literary pple. Heheh. But I guess that’s what literature should be, half the excitement is gone if you read other people’s interpretations, right? And this isn’t for exams anyway.)

sorry for the digression, here’s my interpretation.
In this excerpt, Plato makes use of a common occurence in daily life, to explain something of much deeper significance.
Remember how our eyesight gets all blurred when we step from a dark room, into the bright sunshine outside? And how we can’t see properly when we step from outside into a dark cinema? He says this is the same for the mind’s eye, which I believe is symbolic of the path we are taking. An example of coming out from the dark and into the light is like a drug addict who’s successfully cured himself of his addiction. An example of coming from the light into the dark, is akin to falling into the darkness, as if we’ve chosen to do something bad, may it be morally or physically.
If a person were to laugh, the meaning of his mirth would be different for both situations. It should be one of pity, or of bitterness, at the one who’s going into the dark; and it would be of happiness and gaiety, for the one who has entered the light.
Within this excerpt, Plato also urges us not to be superficial. Not to laugh just at the perplexity/weakness of vision (ie. not to laugh at those who are confused, or who are not as intelligent as ourselves), but to ponder over the reason why the person is experiencing it.

(I so cannot stand teachers/professors/tutors who cannot keep an open mind to really listen, consider and treat some of my opinions with respect. Few are really able to accept novel views, I think it stems from everyone’s hidden, repressed fear: I’m afraid of being stupid. And that drives them to want to appear intelligent, thus their outward rejection of opinions from pple deemed to be ‘less intelligent’ than them.

The worse personality however, is the one who has that repressed fear, but still attempts to ‘humour’ me, just bear in mind that I too, have learnt the importance of respecting pple from cofm and all that psychomed stuff, but you’ve got to do it with sincerity and really, truly respect the person. Otherwise, you’d better wish you’re as good as an Oscar winner! )

Although i’m not particularly a fan of PINK! u dunno how true this thing is! For once, i’ve got to say pink really suits me! heh. ok, with the exception of… i dunno what i bring to a relationship, but i sure as hell dun bring romance. can u see me bringing romance to a r/s? more likely insanity.

Your Heart Is Pink

In relationships, you like to play innocent - even though you aren’t. Each time you fall in love, it’s like falling for the first time. Your flirting style: Coy Your lucky first date: Picnic in the park Your dream lover: Is both caring and dominant What you bring to relationships: Romance

This is the story of an autistic 15 year old boy, written from his point of view. sincerely speaking, I really liked the way he thought… it was all so logical. But I’m aware that in this world, logic isn’t everything. Logic can’t help us figure out emotions or feelings, it can’t help us to understand the subtle nuances… like the tone of sarcasm in a person’s voice, or perhaps, what a single lifted eyebrow might mean. People who function based on logic are often perceived as cold, emotionless, maybe even cruel.

Despite chris’ lack of ability to feel the normal range of emotions we all do, he did make a really interesting observation:

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think primer numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

I also liked this mathematical question a lot! a whole lot!!! It’s called The Monty Hall Problem.

You are on a game show on television. On this game show the idea is to win a car as a prize. The game show host shows you three doors. He says that there is a car behind one of the doors and there are goats behind the other two doors. He asks you to pick a door. You pick a door but the door is not opened. Then the game show host opens one of the doors you didn’t pick to show a goat (because he knows what is behind the doors). Then he says that you have one final chance to change your mind before the doors are opened and you get a car or a goat. So he asks you if you want to change your mind and pick the other unopened door instead. What should you do?

According to our intuition, there is a 50-50 chance, but according to Marilyhn vos Savant (with the highest IQ in the world in the Guinness Book of World Records), you should always change and pick the final door because the chances are 2 in 3 that there will be a car behind that door.

Here’s the reason why:

It’s a good book to read, especially for those who are in contact with autistic children. Such as the parents, teachers, friends… and so on…

Many copies of this book are available in libraries islandwide (gosh, now I sound like I’m advertising for the National Library Board…)

Scare factor: 2/5
Cinematography: 3.5/5

‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ is a film chronicling the haunting trial of a priest accused for negligence of a 19 year old college student whom he believed to be possessed by demons. An exorcism was attempted but failed, subsequently, Emily died a horrible death. In an extremely rare decision, the Catholic Church officially recognised the possession. Interestingly, although the jury found Father Moore to be guilty of ‘negligence leading to the death of Emily’, they did not require him to serve time in jail. So in a way, he walked away from the trial as a ‘free’ man.

I like her hair! The gradations of colours and the curls!!!

The lawyer in-charge of the case, a woman who’s virtually an atheist, actually found her faith through this experience. By faith, I don’t mean faith in religion, rather, it’s the desire to ‘walk the right path’.

Can’t believe she was actually possessed by SIX demons! 2 of which I hadn’t come across much despite the voracious reading of horror stories and related trivial…
Here’s the info abt Belial and Legion

My favourite horror scene:
Jason, Emily’s boyfriend, wakes up in bed only to find that Emily has gone missing… and then… the camera pans to show the contorted body of Emily on the floor, with her looking catatonic and spastic, limbs awry and pupils dilated. oooh… great shock effect!
Unfortunately I can’t find a picture of it.

Most comic scene:
During the ghastly exorcism scene, the priest told the doctor:
Dr… please take her vital signs!
Dr: her pulse is 180 beats per minute, it’s going too fast!
-_-

Most ‘illogical’ fact:
If the demons/evil influences could prevent the Dr from becoming a witness at the trial (he was a very credible witness as well as eye witness) so easily by running him down by a truck (and ya, I was expecting that scene, but I can’t say that I wasn’t wowed by its swiftness and abruptness!) then why don’t they just kill off the lawyer or the priest?
Then again, if that was done, I suppose there wouldn’t be any more story and I wouldn’t be writing this review now. Heh.

The best soliloquy:
The closing statement done by the lawyer… It’s all about fact and possibilities… Can’t remember it in totality now, but it was really good and probably effective in helping to secure a favourable ruling eventually.

The aftermath of the film:
oooo close to 12midnight… walking home, and guess what were the scariest things I saw?
- a burning smell (heh heh… but I think was due to the haze, it’s not uncommon anywayz…)
- a Malay guy (at least I thought he was Malay, from his speech and appearance) drinking 8.4% ALOCHOL!
- a Malay woman who whipped out her mobile and started yakking loudly in perfect Mandarin and Hokkien!

it’s finally the end of family medicine posting (in short, fammed)!

so… um… well…. as usual, time for feedback. haha… or in my case, some self-reflection.

lesson no. 1

i remember that at the beginning of the posting, i wasn’t very happy with the family medicine timetable and the way things were done in the polyclinic. not that i’m totally happy with everything now, but fammed has taught me to view things from a different perspective. i could tell that all the docs were very happy to take us for consultation sessions, because for once, they could spend as long as they liked with their patients. and they really did seem to enjoy the patient contact. but reality hits hard… and it’s really of no one’s fault (but the healthcare system) and ya.. 6 min per patient…

remember how when we were all kids, adults/teachers/parents would ask you:

irritating adult: girl ah, what you want to be when you grow up?
me: i want to be an astronaut…

now it’s…

chonghei doc: so, what do you want to specialise in?
me: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…

at the end of the posting…
me: i should want to do policy work in MOH to improve primary healthcare…

woohoo!

lesson no. 2

i still think role plays are useless, but up till now, i can’t think of a better replacement for it, so i guess we’ll have to make do. urgh.
it’s taught me this: don’t just complain, find a solution or an alternative to the problem you’re complaining about. if got no solution, then shut up.

lesson no. 3

the polyclinic is actually a darn good place for management of chronic problems. take for example, a diabetic… at the polyclinic, in just one visit, you can complete the following:
- see the doctor
- see the health counsellor: that’s the nurse practitioner who’ll give you advice on diet, exercise, footcare, medication, injection technique, teach you about diabetes, how to manage hypoglycaemic attacks…
- get yr foot screening done
- get yr diabetic retinal photography taken
- get your blood tests, urine tests done
- you pay: 8 bux for consultation, 1.40 per wk per type of medication, cheaper insulin, subsidised syringes, and your blood/urine investigations are capped at a max of er i can’t rem how much… but yr consultation ($8 and your tests cost do not exceed 15/25 dollars… cool rite?
you can either go one wk before your scheduled appt with the doc to get yr tests done (so that results will be available on the day of your clinic visit) or you can choose to review your results at your next follow-up appointment.
this is compared to the management at the hospital.
1. you have a separate appointment with the health counsellor
2. you have a separate day appointment for your retinal photography (usu 1 wk before your clinic visit)
3. you have to go one wk earlier to do your blood tests
4. you pay so much more! (abt 60bux for f/u with the doc, 10bux or so for medicine, and more if u’re on insulin… 12bux for retinal photography and 70 over to 100bux for your lipid/blood tests…

yeah and i would also like to express my appreciation towards all the docs of Bt. Merah Polyclinic for their enthusiasm in teaching us, their creative approaches (they tried to make their 5-hr long tutorials as interesting and interactive as possible) as well as their understanding. :D