God is good.
today i had to run the clinic of a prof.
i ran his clinic last week, and screwed up quite a bit. eg i left the tea bag in his cup for 15 mins. when in fact its supposed to be there for 1.5 mins. so today i actually counted all the way from 1to 90 to ensure that the tea bag is steeped for the correct amount of time.

there was this very demanding patient, mr peh.
who had this abdominal pain.
apparently its intestinal pain.
but anw, he was at home when he felt the pain, so he decided to call up NUH uro to speak with the prof. and somehow, the number he called reached the Head Nurse. and she tried to convince him to leave a msg for the prof with her cos the prof was busy. but he kept insisting that he wanted to speak with the prof personally, so she gave him the number to call the room the prof was in. which is the room i was in.
then she came in to tell me that there was an extremely unreasonable patient demanding to speak to the prof. who would call the clinic anytime.
...
and i'm supposed to answer the phone in the clinic.
and if the Head Nurse can't handle him, how can i?
panic.
after a few minutes, no phone call.
then the prof sent me to pass sth to a patient.
when i returned he was on the phone!
with mr peh!
so i didn't even have to speak with him!!
yay

and the prof even helped me to check out my grandfather's info on the computer. and gave his opinion too :)
so nice ~

looking forward to tmr.
salsa!!

went to watch lady salsa today.
we got first-row seats!!! :)
so the dancers were really close :)
so nice :)
the dancers all have fab bods and are quite good looking too.. sigh..
the female dancers can all shimmy and shake so so well... wow.
it was a fantastic cocktail of salsa, merengue, rhumba, reuda, salsa casino, jazz, chachacha, flamenco and some other dances i couldn't identify
so inspired to dance :)
being asked up on stage together with practically the whole front row does not count. especially since they didn't tell us wat to do on stage :s
so we went to xenbar in china town after stopping at the esplanade for dinner- thanks for the treat :)
was about to leave in disappointment after discovering that the door beneath the "xenbar" sign was padlocked... but jianyang spotted the other entrance in time to we went in.
met this guy there who went for merengue. in fact i danced with him once. he is a regular at xenbar so he helped us decide wat courses to take up and such- an orientation of sorts. really nice guy :)

so the plan now is to return to xenbar on tuesday before deciding wat to do next.
dunno if i should go to jitterbugs for jazz tmr.
hmm..

argh
i'm quite scared
of The Day
so so scared.
wat if hc bio dept decides not to hire me after they see my grades :(
wat if they do hire me but i can't face the students cos of my grades.
wat if i don't do well
i'm so scared
dreading The Day
i'll prob work in the morning to get my mind off it.
and go for dance lessons after that so that i don't need to talk to anyone.
just read Fish's blog.. the exerpt from audrey's blog.
how true it all is.
its easy to give thanks to God when everything is going well.
but wat if it isn't?
and its so hard to trust when i feel so uncertain of the future.
i'm trying.
to leave everything in God's hands.
but somehow i will take it all back again and start worrying.
i guess this is a life-long lesson that i'll have to keep learning.
to trust fully in the God i know will never disappoint.
help me Lord.

met up with old classmates today.

met thinesh at bpp macs in the morning for breakfast. then we decided to organise a class gathering cos we haven't had one in ages!! looking forward to meeting everyone again. pri 6 classmates :)

then i met jacinta at far east for lunch at subway. then we walked to borders where i listened to some salsa tracks and decided that they were not worth buying. then we went to isetan to check out the new estee lauder pure pops lip gloss. which the sales girl insisted i tried on. on my lips (!). its quite nice.. not too sticky, but not much colour. quite shiny. due to the promotion its $18 each if u buy 3. and that makes it cheaper than the body shop gloss! but i didn't get it cos i've got 2 new stila glosses which i haven't really used yet :s
then we went back to far east, walked around a bit, then we went separate ways.

i walked to wisma just to try out the new escada fragrance. the rio one. it smells a lot like the tommy hilfiger one that was all the rage in mg in sec 4. in fact after the initial fruity scent of the escada fragrance wears off, it smells exactly like the hilfiger one!
i've concluded that the nicest escada scent so far is the ibiza hippy one :) but my mum thinks its too sweet so she bought me Sentiment instead last last year. but its nice too :)

then i walked to OG to look at dancing shoes.
reasonably priced around $30.
but incredibly.. auntie. :(
so obviously i didn't buy any shoes. so sad.

i went home for dinner to save money.
after which i watched Supersize Me.
and i realised that i ate McDonald's for breakfast and Subway for lunch. :s portrayed as the most and least unhealthy fast food respectively.

something wonderful happened yesterday~

i had to run the clinic of Singapore's top renal surgeon.
(my previous experience ended in tears)
i panicked like crap when i found out.
then prayed v v hard for wisdom, and got everything ready.
and waited and waited for him to arrive.
when he did, he was, as usual, incredibly efficent.
so everything had to be done fast and well.
and, by God's grace, i could keep up with his pace.
my only gripe is the fact that he whispers when he speaks to me. whispers and mumbles.

dr: "callthepatientin"
me (wat was that?): (guessing) "should i call the patient in?"
dr: "yes" (immensely irritated)

that was the first day.
yesterday was different.

dr: callthepatientin
me (wat did he say?): no problem
cos i figured that thats the only thing he'll say when there are no patients in the room and the next pateint's case sheets are infront of him. though he could be asking me to look for an x ray or sth. but i just took the risk.
and it worked~
no more irritated "yes" from him!

in fact the whole clinic session went so well (ie, no hiccups), he even smiled at me at the end of the clinic and said "thank you"! (as opposed to walking out of the room wordlessly last time)
whoa i was so happy man~
no more stupidfumblinginefficient little girl- i passed the test!

and then in the afternoon yesterday, i ran 2 clinics simultaneously!!
whee~
for about half an hour.
4 patients for one clinic and 2 for the other!
and to brisk walk (no running) like mad btw the two rooms.
but the sense of accomplishment was fantastic~

twas a happy day~
really thank God for helping me through
:)

i'm living in a state of self-denial. or perhaps its just laziness.
i know that i have to do a lot of things such as meet up with frens, go for driving prac lessons, get mr loo to send out my reference again, apply for an atm card, catch a few good movies, lose some weight and attempt to shop online, but i haven't gotten around to doing them yet. it feels good to just go to work in the morning and go home at night, spend a bit of time with the computer, myself, God and bed ( in chronological order). the fact that its so routine makes it comforting. i don't need to plan my day's activities cos i know wat i'm gonna do everyday. and yet i also know that there are lotsa things i should do before i go into uni (hopefully nus). so i should stop being so lazy and start organising outings!! probably dinner dates with girlfrens i haven't met in ages. and more dance classes!!!! i need to dance more!!! but its so ex... so i need my paycheck soon man. argh. my brain is not working properly. ranting.

went for merengue lessons today.
$35 for 1.5 hours.
it was super difficult.
to me, that is.
cos the merengue way of tranfering weight and moving hips is totally different from the salsa style.
so it was really confusing for me... kept messing up. some of the more advanced salsa ppl i danced with there told me that "its abt the same". i'm sure loh.. its so different!
so i was lost for quite some time.. couldn't catch up though we didn't learn much :s

there were about 25 students or so in the class.
5 of whom were females :)
so unlike salsa lessons, i got to dance with a partner everytime~
and since there were so few females, i got to dance with the instructor too.
6 foot 3.. so he was towering over me :s
think i looked quite dumb.
but out of the 3 instructors (monday, thursday and today) i have had so far, i think he is far by the best. but he is the director so i think he doesn't teach any classes usually. sad... the other 2 aren't that good.

merengue is a close contact dance.
thats wat the instructor said.
and that is very very true.
when he demonstrated how to "play with the hips" with a female instructor, it looked like something out of Dirty Dancing 2. they looked v good dancing tgt, but the close contact involved seriously made me think twice. especially since i had to dance with total strangers. eeee.... so i moved as far away from my partners as possible when dancing. and that was about.. 20 cm away.. and the grip is abt the same as salsa. ie the guy can pull u as close to himself as he wants. haiz. have to get over the fear of having my personal space infringed on if i wanna continue dancing salsa or merengue. which i would really want to do. salsa, that is. not sure abt merengue.

i have a good nose.
the instructor was wearing this strange scent.
since he is from the Domacian Republic i thought thats the type of scent that they wear there.
its quite pleasant smelling, perhaps cos if its vanilla undertones. but it was like nothing i've smelt before.
after the lesson i went to suntec to get my phone repaired. and of course i had to stop by The Body Shop on the way. tested a few lip colours before moving on to the scents. the range of 6 different scents in different colourful bottles, to be exact. the ones that they claim you can "mix and match to create ur own unique scent". although this range has been around for quite some time (a few months before last Christmas, i believe) i didn't try any of the scents cos i have too many bottles at home to finish using. but on a whim today, i decided to test them out.
and the first scent i tested was exactly the same scent that the instructor was wearing!!
whoa i was so surprised~
hahaha

after that i went and tried on clothes at various different shops before deciding that Mango only has nice clothes when there is no sale. so sad :(

my lousy hp is spoilt.
so i'm using my dad's 8250 now.
hence i do not have any of the phone numbers stored in my handphone- only those stored in my sim card.
therefore i dunno who sends me smses.
and i feel bad asking them who they are.
and the buttons for nokia and LG are different... so i end up pressing "delete" instead of "reply"
sad~

reunion dinner

good food cooked by my grandma aided by my mum
tastes fantastic cos its cooked with lotsa love :)
i love my grandma

after dinner we all sat in front of the tv to watch some chinese movie involving andy lau, majong and a healthy dose of humour.
it was fun watching with so many ppl cos there were lots of sound effects- so it was more lively
but it turned out that some of my cousins had already watched it.. so there were lots of spoilers along the way :s
nonetheless it was enjoyable.. hope to see them again tmr.

chanced upon my fren's fren's blog today.
she is j1 this year, and her blog is peppered with pictures of school.
hc, to be exact.
i miss being a student in hc all over again.
regret not taking more photos then...

hectic day

went to NUH at 730 am for a talk.
when i stepped into the venue, the first person i saw was.... guo hao!!
ie the biomed trainer!
whoa was so surprised to see him. he was surprised to see me too haha
he looks exactly the same loh.
unfortunately i kind of forgot his name. so he said "ur agnes right?"
and i said "yes"
but i didn't confirm his name.. if wrong then v malu..
he had a fren with him, and they mentioned a person named "guo hao" as well. so maybe there is another person with the same name. or thats not his name. dunno~
the talk was interesting.
on lung cancer... by this zai brit surgeon.
can't remember anything haha... couldn't understand much either. can only remember the video clip of a biopsy. the speaker was like "and thats an artery, thats a lymph node.. they can be seen quite clearly... and there is a bit of lung tissue..."
and everything on the screen was
a) light pink
b) dark pink
c) bright red
d) dark red
a uro doc was beside me and he was laughing at my shocked expression
like wat the heck loh... everything looked the same~
he said "u'll learn lah..."
i was like "i hope so..."
i really do.

morning clinic was slack~
only 8 patients, so i had the chance to talk to dr chong a bit more. he was the doctor i seriously disliked at first, but he became much much nicer :) so we talked abt scholarships and med sch. and he even went to the A*star website to help me locate a suitable scholarship. then i informed him that i already looked through them, and we discussed the pros and cons of each.
then it turned out that he is an A*star scholar!!! ex rj too.
whoa fortunately i didn't slam A*star man.. *phew*.. was about to say how stressful it is as an A*star scholar.
i dunno wat he is doing also.. medicine and some phd somewhere, though he doesn't have a phd yet, and he studied uro onco at some uni in the US. sth lidat. and will be going back to study sth else. v confusing. felt quite stoopid.

had a surprise visitor just before lunch, so i rushed to end dr chong's clinic. didn't know i could work so fast haha. then we talked for abt 10 mins before my dear friend decided to visit someone else, and i went back to work.

i didn't have any particular clinic to run in the afternoon, so i just KLKK the whole time, helping in The Boss's clinic most of the time.
it started off ok.. he even smiled at me and said hi.. major improvement from the "why r u so dumb" look the first time we met.
but as the afternoon progressed he got more and more pissed cos he wanted other docs to help him out, but none of them were available. so he wasn't pleased with me and the other nurse. so he started calling them up himself. and of course they said they were busy, and were told off. so the receptionist was told off for not arranging the appointments properly. and since all the docs were told off by The Boss, they were pissed off, so the nurses weren't too happy either. so the afternoon clinic was one whole miserable affair due to the unhappiness of one man. i was only too glad to leave~

wah i already have a hot date for Valentines day..
at DSO (defence science org) for the dsta scholarhip.
wattheheck lah... i don't wanna miss work..
i like my job! (when The Boss isn't pissed)
and taking half the day off would make the head nurse unhappy
bleh
don't care lah
see how first
don't really wanna work in dso.. and they won't want me either~

i'm gg for a single merengue lesson on 12 feb, saturday, 2 pm at Attitude.
btw merengue is a dance, not a cake.
sth like salsa apparently, only easier.
so i really wanna go see
its $35 for 1.5 hours. a bit steep but i dun care.. i wanna dance!
whoever wants to come too can tell me... its a one-off thing~

emotional roller coaster

from running one doc's clinic alone, i graduated to running 2 doc's clinics simultaneously alone.
albeit for abt 3 mins.
haha
after that i realised that i really couldn't cope.
so gave up one clinic.
the doc wasn't too happy (duh) cos there wasn't anyone to assist him. he's the doc whose clinic was the first one i ran alone on my second day, who also scared the shit out of me. so i thoroughly disliked him. but then as the days went on he became much nicer. so now he's a nice doc :)

anw.
i deserted his clinic to run another doc's clinc.
this doc is the only one in spore who is able to transplant kidneys between a living donor and recipient.
ie. a Big Shot. and a Top Renal Surgeon. and a prof.
and since he is all of the above, he sees only the most complicated cases.
ie patients who require the strangest procedures. so i had to ask other nurses how to prepare the forms for them.
and he is super fast too.
so i really have to rush like crap.
and his handwriting is like... illegible.
actuallly its sort of legible lah.. only that he doesn't read the impt parts out like the other doctors do. and expect me to decipher his horrible writing, tend to the patients, prepare the forms, look for incoming patients all at the same time.
and when i really cannot read his writing and try to clarify, he speaks to me as if i'm some kind of idiot. and he stares at me. and speaks in this condescending slightly sarcastic and mocking tone.
then half way through it all another doc came in with lots of paper work and x rays and 2 patients. i was like wattheheckaretheydoinghere. turns out that that was a renal transplant case. which i obviously know nothing about.
fortunately the doc had a private nurse/secretary to take care of the details so i didn't have to do anything.
or so i thought.

when the clinic ended, the doc left without a word.
watever.
then i cleared out the stuff.
and discovered that the renal transplant doctor had left a clear folder behind.
so i brought it to the counter, and said that the doc left that behind.
the receptionist took a look at it, flipped through the contents and said
"oh this is for prof to sign.. they need it to claim insurance. u are in trouble.. why didn't u let him sign jsut now" (by then the patients and the prof had gone off.)
me:...
receptionist: there are 2 options loh. either call him back to sign or just leave it. obviously cannot call him back. so never mind loh."
(nevermind?!!)
me: then how?
receptionist: just leave it here loh.. hoh.. u are in trouble.
me:...

that was the last straw that broke the camel's back.
it wasn't my *&^%$ fault that the doc didn't tell me she wanted the prof to sign the blardy forms.
and the receptionist had to make it worse by trying to be farni.
i could feel tears welling up behind my eyes so i chionged to the toilet... only to find that it was occupied. so i went to some deserted waiting area to cry.
i was scared.. so scared.
then i prayed for a while
then located a toilet in an empty clinc to freshen up a bit.
by that time half of my lunch hour was gone, so i was forced to go to the staff lounge for lunch.
and God made it such that only my mentor and another elderly nurse were there- 2 of them have been v helpful so far. so they realised that i cried and comforted me. and said that the folder was no big deal. and that the prof likes to test pple. (so it was a test. i failed.)
then a few nurses came in and all of them started saying nice things to comfort me a bit.

soon lunch was over.
so i had to go prepare for the afternoon clinic.
by that time half of the nurses knew abt my crying incident.
and some brilliant person went to tell the head nurse.
so she came and spoke to me.
(btw it was her brilliant idea for me to run the prof's clinic instead of the nice doc's clinic)
and of course i didn't mention the folder. just siad that the prof was v demanding.
she was quite nice abt the whole thing.
so she isn't too bad after all.
left the vice head nurse that is bad :(

so in the afternoon i ran dr ong's clinic.
dr ong is so nice!!
(actually in comparision to the prof anyone is nice. even The Boss)
after seeing 9 patients he had to wait for the 10th one to pee into a machine.
and that patient really couldn't pee.
so we had to wait for abt 45 mins.
during which we talked abt med sch and other stuff lidat.
and he even explained an x ray to me!
so nice :)
now i can recognise a kidney and liver :)
and all the biomed training came in helpful cos i could understand all the lumbar/thoracic vertebrae and transverse process of the vertebrae etc.
and on my way to sending a patient for a PSA test, he asked me "do u know wat PSA stands for?"
fortunately i did a bit of reading up beforehand so i said "prostate specific antigen"
and he said "good!" (i pass!)

and then i received a call from the renal transplant doc asking whether she had left the clear folder behind.
so i said "yup i passed it to the front counter don't worry :) "
and i thought "yah i passed it to the front counter.. why on earth are u so careless!! leave the stoopid folder behind and create so much trouble for me. and u daoed me throughout the time u were in the clinic loh!!"
grr

and halfway during dr ong's clinic there was an impatient daughter of a patient who wanted the bill while her dad got his catheter changed. so i went into the procedure room to ask for the bill. and got told off.
i was so pissed.
so i almost shouted at the (indignant/pissed/impatient) daughter of the pateint. who happens to be some aunty. i was fuming mad cos i got told off by one of my fav nurse and doc. since i was rushing back to assist doc ong i didn't glare at the stoopid patient's daughter for making me get scolded. just informed her curtly.

ah well.
part of life.
getting the shit when its not my fault.

oh yes.
and early in the morning, my nurse mentor went to test the urine flow of this patient. since i had nothing to do i went along. and stood by while she handled the catheter and stuff.
she was drawing some urine from the cathether in the urethra when suddenly all the urine just spurted out... onto her uniform!
a few drops landed on mine too!!
whoa i was so grossed out.
but of course cannot show it infront of the patient and his wife (who thought it was hilarious)
so i cleaned my uniform with alcohol wipes.
and left the room to my poor mentor.. whose uniform was... quite wet :S

ah well.
hopefully tmr will be better.

so to those who think my job is fun... it isn't that fantastic man
lotsa ups and downs.
hopefully tmr will be an up day and i can run my fav doc's clinic.
haiz.