End of first posting, more to come

Completed ortho and entering IMed soon. Several take aways from the last posting:
1. work as a team
2. work with humility
3. treat all aspects
4. (always try to) stay positive in all circumstances

Without a doubt, I've enjoyed the last 4 months in ortho. thank you great bosses, colleagues, staff! :)

had a very friendly n approachable mentor :P

cny 2014 in kuching

my first cny in sibu, visiting my paternal relatives, catching up with local friends who came back n bringing the feast outside the hospital :)

Walter mitty wha.. what? There's more to it.

Two things inspired the start of my 2014. 1) The secret life of walter mitty. 2) Wong fu profuction's short clip ONE ft Wang Lee Hom

Live life how you want it to be.

Don't hesitate, just do it, take chances.

Take all that comes in your way with a stride of positivity.

Also inspired me to save more $ for travel. 

Iceland

I love Ben Stiller. fan girl scream. :P

uhmazing blue eyes and cool rollerblading

Uhmazing landscape plus ben stiller rollerblading plus inspirational words on a sunburst photo #stating the obvious but can't help it

Entertaining hilarious parts of the movie: fighting over Stretching hercules, the dolphin shark confusion, and yes mountain blessing xD totally made my day. go watch it ! :P

Cheers

It's really pretty awesome how God gently took my hand and led me through that brief period of downturn i was facing. From what you can guess was a pretty sad post a few days back, I'm back to my old self again. :D assuming my old self = a cheerful xu vin. hehe.

was feeling pretty distressed, demotivated and tot the future looked bleak when the clock struck 12 into 2014 that day. was thinking of all the challenges i'm bound to face in the journey of advancing further into my career (that has barely js begun). partly or mostly due to the fact that I'm in an enjoyable posting now and bound to switch department in a month plus or so, (keeping fingers crossed), into a new department that has a history (past, present, future lol) of being mind bogglingly challenging with stressed up bosses. plus a good friend is leaving soon. sad face.

today however God reminded and reassured me of His presence. that though i fear much, He is always there to guide me through hard times, that He will give me the strength and perseverance. and things that I cannot predict or foresee are all in His control. that reassurance was comforting. x10000 it wasn't a coincidence that I walked into Bread of Life this morning and was greatly encouraged by the pastor's sermon about Living God's word daily and by faith bcz His words are not just strong, they are sharp, beautiful, precious and powerful. I was reminded to speak words that build ppl up, to love others, to have grace for others, to offer help to the needy. Another thing, to look positively into every situation, be thankful and live a life of joy.

It might not sound much in words. But I was uplifted this morning. Thank you Lord. :))) Hallelujah! 

Hello 2014 and future. Cheers to more running, tracing lab results, searching for missing xrays, getting urgent scans, venepuncture, line setting, interesting cases, interesting patients, offdays that deserve celebration, awesome movies, discovering more good food, shopping sales, vacations, precious time in kuching, perks in the workplace, growing more in my journey with the Lord, rare but lovely sunsets!

i just thought it would be nice to put this up at the end js cz it's cute. grins.

2014 onwards

Reminiscence. That's looking into the past. Pondering and relieving memories good and bad, some vivid some less. That only lasts for the moment. up to the last page of that diary, or the last picture in the photo album, or the first post u ever wrote on ur blog. and it's back to reality. Hello 2014. i do sound a tad sombre. hmm.
Don't feel like going through the year album. Great year filled with graduation, trips, a great break back home and then bidding my comfort zone goodbye to start work in Sibu. can't complain though. the road has been pretty smooth so far. but when I look ahead, it doesn't seem so.
Lots of contemplations. Admire how motivated, goal oriented and determined some ppl can be. they're driven by ambition and passion. It's really admirable. It separates them from those who choose to sit back and live lax and wait for opportunities to come knocking on their door. Doesnt happen in today's world unless you've got the extra cable to pull u up. then again, any form of success still requires hard work and perseverance. Having quite some time on my hands now has driven me into deep contemplation. simple and complex ones. as simple as to study or not to. as complex as how far and where do i want to go in this field. ok la it's actually not complex. lol. lack of motivation makes me wonder how i can inject some passion and inspiration into myself to get that drive to easily answer that simple question i throw at myself.
ooookkayy... before this gets toooo emo and down sodden, i think i shud just live in the moment for the day, cut myself some slack, and start tmr. (easier said than done heheh).

the Bomoh still wins

Looks like university memories never leave u. cz those were one of the best times u went through in the short 25 years lived so far. was looking through some old photos, brought a huge smile plastered onto my face.

on and off I'm being reminded that trust takes the lead in any decision ppl make. in the past 2 months of work in sibu, i've seen several, not just one, cases where patients decide to default treatment or refuse surgery bcz they opted for traditional medical treatment. Not the traditional medicine degree holder, but bomohs, massage men, kung fu master of sorts who practise in most often, the outskirts or rural areas. they live in vicinity of the folks, know them, interacted with them and have a strong relationship with them, prolly since the old great grandmother days where the practice was passed down through generations. (apologies if my sentences are incoherent/filled with grammatical error. rushing for time but kiasu wana post this up).and these cases aren't petty muscle aches that relief with analgesia / traditional meds that are pumped filled with steroids that give instantaneous and temporary relief, thus being dubbed 'magical' and making these medicine masters infamous for healing. these are cases of bone fractures with complete displacement / un-united fractures that need osteoclasis (breaking the bone, realignment to straighten it, and holding it together again in the correct alignment with plate n screws). there's a risk of bone deformity, limb shortening, malunion of bone. the patients are young (teens) who cannot make proper judgement (okla maybe they can). but they're influenced by ppl who're close to them. aunties n uncles n neighbours who have had 'similar' experiences with the medicine man in the kampung whose bone have healed nicely. obviously those were close fractures with minimal displacement that can unite on their own without much intervention other than splints.

the first few times I felt really frustrated. i was going on n on counselling the family, relatives, the patient. not to refuse surgery.

long story short, efforts were in vain. they requested to leave the hospital.

oh the frustration.

it was later on I realised it's a common practice. for folks to seek traditional healing rather than 'western' medicine. it's the element of trust we still cannot beat bcz i don't know, we lack the common touch, don't speak their lingo, don't fully understand their culture, have different skin colour (we cannot deny that there is an inherent unspoken bond that unite ppl of the same race together) etc.

all i could do was tell the patient that in the event the traditional medicine doesnt work, do not hesitate to come back.

Patient's autonomy after all. Sigh. hvg said that i don't deny that physical treatment doesn't constitute 100% of a healing process. there's still the human mental emotional factor.

Pre call

It's my first day oncall today.

I mean, pre-call. hehe.

*prays hard that nothing too serious happens tonight in the hospital.

Finally off tag and life can slow down a little aka I have time to do my laundry. xP my friend was right. no time to iron ur clothes. just gotta start getting more clothes that do not require ironing. gosh do i sound like a mad woman alrdy? oh no no. i'm making it clear. i dont run to the hospital everyday with wrinkled clothes and tangled hair and upside down glasses. things still run pretty decent. hehe.

Ortho was/is a good posting for me to adapt to HO life. I'm deeply thankful to colleagues and bosses who have helped me a lot x1000 a long the way to pick up and learn new things. one thing i've learnt thus far would be that working together in a team is really really important to be effective. you can never work alone. you watch each other's backs and help one another. really grateful whenever my colleagues remind me on things i forgot to do etc.

As I'm on night shift today, 9pm to 12pm the next day, I got the day free (yay!). went for breakfast with my dear aunties. had kongpia :D the ones fried with meat. yums.

kongpia :D

and went to the mall to grab some stuffs. gosh. the more i saw, the more i bought. now the fridge is filled up. grins. there's this bakery called Bread Sense in sibu that sells awesome breads, pastries n cakes. I just tasted their hazelnut roll. yums. :P

creamy hazelnut

tried to sleep in the afternoon as prophylaxis to be able to stay up all night. end results included a really weird dream about going on a boat ride in a temple with ppl pouring honey on me (err..) and eating grilled fish that cost rm85 that was paid for by a random stranger. simply.... weird. @@

keeping fingers crossed for tonight!

Escaped to KL for 2 days for convo. interesting exchange of stories from work with the buddies. hehe. unfortunately, we didnt partay into the morning cz everyone was exhausted from tagging and travelling to KL so we all slept like pigs at our own places on saturday night. aww man... hope to be able to travel with them again one day when we take some days off together n head off somewhr :D

Argh I cant rotate this photo.

Behind the gong with dear dad, mum and sister xD

my line of buddies (a few imported ahaha) we had to take multiple shots cz everyone came at diff times.

Add caption

with Yim Fong, a very dear sister, shepherd, leader and friend

Pui Ling, Sin Jie, Laine, Wei Wei, Sze Ying, Li Chin

First Steps in Sibu

So I set foot on Sibu soil 2 days ago, accompanied with hopes and fears.
Something that struck me the most in just 2 days of being here is the warmth of ppl who offered much help to the me, the lost girl from Kuching.

Sibu is a pretty widespread town, 7 hours drive from Kuching, 40mins if by flight. it reminds me a lot of Teluk Intan, even its hospital. but it differs from kuching in the sense that the area is large, and places to go are sparsely distributed. no traffic problem tho, so although the places may not be that near to one another, it doesn't take too much time to travel between places.

Huge huge thanks to Alex for offering n providing much help to me in moving to Sibu. thanks to him, i found a place to stay within a day of knowing my posting. that really helps settle a lot.
Also, to my uncle and his family for ferrying me around to buy furniture, groceries for the entire day to make sure I was all settled in. To be honest I didn't know them very well, but the amount of help they gave me was amazing. seriously touched. as a friend told me, going to sibu would get me in touch with my foochow roots. quite true. haha. i visited 3 relatives in a day, had lunch with them and listened to lots n lots of foochow the entire day. time for me to embrace my inner foochow being. lol xP my aunty said she would teach me some foochow, but haha i doubt i'd be able to catch much. we'll see how much i can rmb in a few mths time. ahah.

currently in orientation phase n will be starting tag in Ortho at the end of the week. wish me lots of luck n keep me in prayers. :) thanks!

meeting up before parting ways for induction

stealing dinner time for western food along Kpg Baru.

my induction group, the Umbrellas, or rather Umbrellites :P

Lunch with elaine and wei wei after induction before we head home and to our respective places of work

Touching down at Sibu airport on Sunday morning

my first plate of Sibu kampua at Rasa Sayang with my uncle and family

Lunch with the relatives. :)

Credits to alex for taking me to the Noodle House in sibu, famous for its layered crepe.

This seafood restaurant has delish prawns and steamed fish (in some baked salt thingy).

Off to some mad crash course studying (so I wont embarrass myself n ukm - the pressure!)