Thoughts (July 24 2010)

1. It's back to reality pretty soon. But then again, the post exams was never a holiday for me. No honeymoon, no traveling, none of the stuff people do before starting work as a houseman. Every day, it was 4-7 hours of driving. If you think driving is not tiring by itself even though it burns no calories and chronically breaks people's backs, I'd love to have you as a personal driver.

I had to survive on pretty high doses of caffeine. There were several times when I had to just sleep in the car because of severe fatigue. Once my wife and I had dinner at 1.30 AM with work on the next day (I cooked of course, she was already fried from work and slept until food was ready). The day was spent helping my mother with errands/Abah's health issues. The only thing keeping me sane was the progress in the gym, which I could only go at night and ended up with coming home late, exacerbating my caffeine super-dependence. For references, to survive the induction I drank almost 6 cups/day of coffee/tea. That equaled 2 strong cups of coffee from Dunkin Donuts every day. I also kept my typically high levels of reading during the holidays, which at least kept my mind a little bit sharp. No studying though.

The recently ended induction program for housemen was supposed to be a holiday. But then I ended up as the participant leader. Luckily, other than an incident of a "lost" laptop and handling money-collecting duties, it wasn't too hard. But the chance for a mental break was lost. And housemanship starts next week.

I really envy the people who have been having fun during the holidays.

2. Next week I'll start work at HKL. Will it be that hard? I'm really not sure, after feeling exhausted already before starting work. Maybe it'll be the same level of tiring life as now, but in different ways. After all, I did say that the medical exams were harder and more stressful than the akad nikah (wedding vows).

What's really getting into me is the need to find a house. It's no longer feasible to go to KL every day from Bangi, especially if the aim is to reach there by 7 AM. The preferred places are Sentul/Ampang/Cheras as there are LRT stations there. A sleepy houseman is a dangerous houseman. But Sentul is super expensive, and the other two are jam centers on days that we drive. Other choices are Keramat & Gombak, but those options mean that driving is the only option to work. But as it stands, going to work from Bangi has been hell for both of us.

3. Will need to find another gym when I move. I'll make sure I get a lift, even during housemanship. But nothing will be as cheap as Kaki Gym/TLS/Try My Gym in KL. And it's utopian to get as many sessions as I could before, even during the peak of Abah's ills, when I did two a week, combing days into long sessions, sparing the weekends. Being strong has been quite useful and I don't want it to go away.

4. I'm a bit torn as regards to my future. My plan has been to go to a government clinic after housemanship, followed by pursuing studies in sports medicine. But there are several issues. With whom do I want to work? KKM, MSN, or MoHE? Do I want to be attached to a sport, or in a clinic setting? When the time comes, do I want to open what I have in mind: a comprehensive physical/sports rehab clinic, catering for sports and general public needs? I really would like answers.

But if all that fails, emergency medicine and internal medicine are fallbacks.

5. Lastly, Abah is back in the wards, this time for overwarfarinization, bleeding gums, INR of 8. Unsure of the cause though. Sigh.