Masak - masak Melayu ~ Stir - fry tofu and bean sprout in soy sauce @ Taugeh masak kicap

Simple vege for lazy people like me who rarely cook nowadays...

So here we go.

The hell of needlestick injury

Sometimes you can feel that bad things are gonna happen. The small clues are there, you feel the déjà vu feelings but you choose to ignore it.


My car was chased by some stupid dogs that morning, I was unable to eat my breakfast due to overflowing workloads and patients who keep pulling out their branulas (God bless them), and while taking blood from a new patient I had a flashback of a close call from almost getting a needle prick injury.

And then it happened.

I pricked my thumb while pulling away the blood bottle from the vacutainer’s end; did not notice that the needle was already protruding from the rubber tubing.

Then everything else was a blur.

I remembered washing and squeezing everything out from my thumb under running water for ten minutes, informing the nurse, notifying my specialist, going to ED to register my name and had my blood taken, clerked my own history into the file as ED was freaking busy then went home.

The specialist started me on HAART straight-away because the patient was HIV positive with hepatitis C.

So now I am on HAART and have been shitting my guts out thanks to the side effect.

I got a free leave, my viva was postponed.

Housemen, welcome to the hell of needlestick injury.

Western food woes.

A Western foreigner was admitted recently and requested for Western hospital menu, to which the staffs provided and no further event ensued.

A Malaysian just recently returned from Indonesia for a holiday and brought home with him H1N1 threw his food tray to the floor, screaming at the nurses that he wants Western menu and not the usual Malaysian menu served.

Hell-o?

Highway talk.

Until now and forever, I will and can never get used to people driving 70 km/hr on highways.


Seriously, if I do not consider the cost to repair my car, I would have rammed the car in front me to wake whoever the fellow in front me up and hopefully s/he will drive faster.

Plate number, may I say, make little difference in speed. Same lah, KL or non-KL , all perasan laju drive in middle lane at 70 – 80 km despite the highway sign saying “had laju 110km bermula” (The start of 110km/hr route) in the national language.

News from Sabah HO.

1. Second month into working, still no salary.

2. Working hours start at 6 PM and stretches into infinity.

3. Over – working.

4. Come October, maybe salary too will come in.

5. UMS convocation, or to be more specific, the medical school convo day, will be on the 10th October.


Good luck to you guys...

Induction and BTN

This is a fully – paid holiday from the government before they squeeze everything out of you when you start working as a doctor.


Everyday, 7 AM down to breakfast after a night of partying in your room with friends, air – cond and soft bed. Go into the hall for lectures on life as a doctor where non – doctor people make it sounds so wonderful to become a doctor with all the incentives, holidays and salary talks. All that is applicable only when you are an MO. What a joke.

Then come BTN, we have this old grandma who stares down her nose at us, made belittling remarks to reduce these freshly grad doctors to nothing but school children that need reprimanding form time to time. Some political talks dressed up as inspiring and eye – opening lectures then commenced.

Eat. 6 times a day, condensed milk drink a must. A heavy tea time of Malaysian cuisine (noodles, rice) before a heavier dinner at 7 PM.

8 PM more lectures while your full stomach digested everything and pulled all the blood from brain to gut, making you dream while sitting awake of the bed waiting in the room. Supper at 10 after lectures. Go back to room. Short party, small talks and gossips.

Sleep.

Life is good pre – doctor days.

HO talk, talk.

After 2 months of abandonment, I’m finally back.

God, life can be horrible sometimes.

I’m now a working, independent lass trying to survive on my own cash.

And a lass who has lost 3 kg in my months stint of working life.

Goodbye life as medical student, now everyone calls me doctor, that heavy – duty title. Heavy – duty as in long – lasting on your feet as long as you are in the ward taking care of other people but yourself.

The day starts at 5.45 AM. 6.15 AM out of house to drive the 20 minutes drive minus jam to Hospital Sungai Buloh. Arrive and punch in, scan and compare previous time and smile if I managed to surpass previous time or curse if I made it slightly later. Hey, it’s one of those minor things that add glimmer in working life for me.

By 7 starts the HO round tracing all bloody results, making frustrating phone calls for untraceable results then updating daily progress. 8.00 AM MO appears for MO rounds while me the HO pushes the laptop cart along to type down whatever dictated for the day. Then Specialists drop by for the Word of the Day. Until 12 PM you settle whatever tasks set for the day, more blood-taking, type referrals, call up lab for more results, push everything to be urgent, get yelled by those frustrated by your pushing, deals with shooting up/dropping BP and blood glucose and desaturated O2, do some smooth talking to get consents for CT scans/MRI/procedures, and pray that you will somehow manage to have lunch.

Unfortunately, when you are about to leave for lunch, the relatives approach you because it’s also visiting hours when it is the only time they can meet up doctors for a chat. You smile and try to explain in the easiest plain Malay/English you could think up while your eyes dart to the clock from time to time.

Then afternoon rounds commence. Repeat morning doings. Pray that you can go home at 5 PM. Pray that the road won’t be congested with other people going home at 5 PM too.

5 PM. That stable patient suddenly collapsed; BP drops, consciousness going down the drain, heart rate shooting. You poke her everywhere trying to get one bloody line to get in resuscitation fluid. MO come, commence full blast resuscitation. By the time you sign the death cert, it’s 8 PM. You are post – call. Punch out, blast the music in your car and drive home, praying for a longer night to sleep and rest.

Morning comes, another repeat.

This is, my noble profession life for now.

My favourite Blogger widgets and add-on

These widgets and add-on are just the normal everyday stuffs you see on blogs but some are tweaked for better effects. Me, I like the fun in experimenting and luckily they turned out well.

I got all my hacks and tweaks from here:

- Tag cloud: Label Cloud / Tag Cloud for Blogger (Blogger Widgets). The author also included links to look up for html codes to modify the font colours, which is why my tag cloud becomes pink =)
- Subscription & Bookmark buttons: AddThis.com
- Thumbnails of related blog post: LinkWithin. Very useful to show older posts just below your newer ones.
- Read more" hack: How To Add The Blogger "Read More" Expandable Posts Link (eBlog Templates) That's how I got all my posts to be shortened on the main page and expanded into full post in the individual pages.


The rest are normal stuffs that comes with the template and Blogger.

Happy trying! =)

A new lay - out, again...

Well, I couldn't help it. I just came back from my dreary induction course, and was suddenly irritated by the mess in my room. So I switched on the laptop and logged into my Blogger account, going through all my blogs.

I dunno why, but suddenly I felt that this particular blog looked messed up too. So just like that, I Googled "blogger theme" and surf for new templates, especially a 3 - column one. And so my search landed me here at Blogger Templates where there are just so many templates for you too choose. But I like this one, Black Brown Art; it loads pretty fast, the color reminds me of chocolate, it's neat and simple, just my thing.

But the thing with lay - out changing is that you will lose all or most of your widgets, so I had to save my original templates first and the copy - paste of my widgets html / text. Then there was the tweaking of the codes to suit the appearance (especially fonts) to my liking and to insert the meta tags and the Blogger hack for that "Read more...". By the time I finished, I was wondering why on earth was I crazy enough to change my lay - out...

But still, I might change my lay - out again =)

A chick's day (02)

And the day continues...

Hey mommy, I found something on the floor. Is it edible?

I think it is, baby. It's good, in fact.

Really? Oh yeah it is!

Hmm, there's something here... Ooh, my favourite bug!

Oh hey it flies off! Darn...

It flies there...

Then there...

And now gone.
That's too bad, mommy.

Well, mommy's leaving first for other places.
Wha... Ok, last pose, then I'm coming too!

And as for this, was the reason the photoshoot went on smoothly after that. Their all - time favourite snack and my bribe-and-trapping-device.

It's packed dried worms coated with egg and honey.

A chick's day (01)

No hot chick here, just a cute Bantam chick (ayam serama).

This is my chick, the only one that made it out of seven eggs. Too bad, but my hen is a first-time mother who is restless by nature thus ould never sit down very long to brood.

Peek - a - boo!

And like mother, like chick (I don't know how to check for a chick's gender =p). A typical day would be like...

Hey mommy, I'm bored of staying in... (This, after scampering around and making a lot of noise and mess in the cage.)

9 am: after the lazy mistress wakes up, they go for a run and end up within the flower patch.

There's no worm here, how boring...

Then they notice this paparazzi snooping around...

Hey! Hey! No photo allowed! (Yeah, she actually came pecking at my camera.)

Masak - masak Melayu ~ Stir-fry kailan in oyster sauce @ Kailan sos tiram

This is an easy vegetable recipe using oyster sauce, and using a cheap vegetable to boot. I omitted the use of salted fish here since my dad has high blood pressure. Some people like to add chopped beef and dried anchovy.

Masak - masak Melayu ~ Sambal kupang (Mussels in Chili)

I’m a big fan of mussels cooked with chili paste (sambal) but I’m not too fond of spicy things. So if you want the dish to be more spicy, just add more chili to it than the amount described below.

The Holy Journey (09): Dead Sea, Jordan

The interesting story of this place is that the Dead Sea was once a city where Prophet Lot SAW was sent to guide the people known for their perverse sexual preference. It is said that the word “sodomy” comes from the name of the city, Sodom (in Bible). By divine intervention, the whole city was rained with fire and sulphur and turned upside down.

Note, reference:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy

Dead Sea indeed... It was freaking hot and humid there... as expected when you visit a salt - water area on a freaking hot day.

It's not exactly a sea, more like a lake with too high salt content.

It was so hot that there were very few visitors. Some men from our group still jumped in though.


Later we were ushered into the souvenir shops where every price when multiplied by 5 deterred me from buying.

Pictures are free, so here goes, some of my favourite items.

Daggers, made of silver and special hard wood. Super expensive.

Pendants. Aren't they just lovely?

That ends my Jordan tour.

And our journey home was - thank God - peaceful and without any flight delay.

My only grudge is that we have to pay for other people's overload charges since they put it as "we travel as a group, so we will share all luggage cost." Bull, mine did not go over the limit, but minority lose. No more Andalusia for me, next time it's Tabung Haji (for the record, such thing has never occurred with Tabung Haji. Everyone pays their own overload charges).

The Holy Journey (08): Jordan re-route; Cave of 7-Sleepers (Al-Kahf)

One of the popular attractions in Amman, Jordan is the Cave of 7-Sleepers, a religious site uniquely mentioned in both Quran (18. Surah Al - Kahfi) and Christianity ('The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus').

Note reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepers

While our blundering tour guide told it off as something like fairy tale (he’s a Jordanian, for God sake), I wandered around snapping pics. No point re – telling, might as well you all read the reference I put up there.

When discovered and excavated later, it was found that a church has been built over the area, along with burial sites. Some artifacts are preserved and displayed at the site itself; such an authentic and rustic touch, much to my delight.


A view from within...

A mosque erected nearby the site.

Gorgeous roses found within the garden surrounding the area.

Too bad I did not take too many good shots.

The Holy Journey (07): Mecca

Mecca has not changed much since my last visit in 2002. It’s the same city where construction works are forever going on; the dry, hot wind full of dust; the Habsyi selling on the streets; beggars; pilgrims; great bargain; great Pakistani food at Pakistani Gulistan Hotel on the way to the mosque where you can get this juicy roast chicken, amazing beryani and crispy naan fresh from the tandoor. (Sorry no pics on this; by the time I got hold of the camera, most of the poor fowl was already eaten up).

The Holy Journey (06): Jabal Uhud, Medina

One of the important historical sites in Medina is Jabal Uhud @ Bukit Uhud (Jabal = hill). This is the site of the second war in Muslim history, where the Muslim warriors lost due to disobeying the orders from the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and many of the Prophet's valued right hand men and his beloved uncle were lost.


The Mosque of Saidina Hamzah ra, in remembrance of the great warrior and the Prophet's (PBUH) own uncle. Behind is the Jabal Uhud.


The war memorial site, built to remember the lost of many brave warriors, most of them the Prophet’s (PBUH) closest companions. Here visitors stand outside while reciting prayers for the dead.


Within the area is a bazaar selling the usual stuffs; dates, long robes (jubbah), tasbih (prayer beads), custom jewelry, toys, dried food, drinks and others.


It was too freaking hot so after reciting my prayers and snapping photo I made a go for the bus straightaway. I wonder how those Arab women can stand wearing black jubbah with layers of garments underneath.

The Holy Journey (05): Dates

Still about Medina, but this time a little bit on shopping.

Whenever you go to Mecca and Medina, one of the souvenirs that people will enquire to you is date. Dates are also the easiest form of souvenir to be distributed; just pack up a bunch in Tupperware per person and voila! There are many kinds; most of the kinds are pretty cheap (SR 15 per kg) be it the normal unpreserved or unprocessed ones or the candied ones. The only quirk is that they can weigh you down and easily end up as the extra kg that you have to fork out SR 60 per kg.

Anyway, these are from my tour to a date plantation in Medina, situated just next to the Quba mosque. The small shop at the plantation sold at least 30 kinds of dates, dried and fresh, and candied dates. Pricing, after comparing to Mecca dates bazaar, do not differ much so might as well get your dates in Mecca dates bazaar if Mecca is your last stop. You can still haggle; language is not a problem as most Arabs can speak Malay / Indonesian (thanks to the fact that they received thousands of pilgrims from these two countries). The trick is to reduce 1/3 of the price and to stare them down, two things that I left to my mom to do since she did most of the shopping. My job most of the time was to watch out for beggars as they really pestered you to your wits end.

Too many dates, can’t remember most of their names. According to our tour guide, there is a kind of date that can be eaten by men alone and vice versa. Something to do with virility =p There are other Middle East food products too like olive oil, dried fruits and nuts sold here.

Candied dates and chocolate dates.



Take a break with Arab tea. Sweet!!!


How the plantation looks like. To me, the date palms resemble oil palm.


A bunch of dates up on the tree.



A little note on beggars: in Medina you won’t see too many beggars on the street, but in Mecca they have conquered the roads to the mosque. They even deploy their children – many with limbs disfigurements – to beg. Some children are bold enough to come up to you singing and hugging, or cling to you as you walk around.

My advice, ironically, is to not give in. Once you give in to one, the others will clamor around you and mark you as a target. They go around absurdly saying "fisabilillah" while holding out their palms. At the end of the day, you can see a long line of them at any food outlet, with at least 5 children hanging around.

They are wary of policemen though; I suspect the policemen hit on them pretty rough because I once saw a beggar kid simply tore off at the sight of a policeman few yards away.

The Holy Journey (04): The mosques of Medina

The main mosque that we attended for daily prayers throughout the stay in Medina was of course, the mosque of our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi. There were some upgrading works during my visit at that time.


The mosque female entrances are guarded by female mosque guards clad in burqa; they search your bags and also do body search for cameras as cameras are prohibited in the mosque. Most mosques in Medina and Mecca have these guards, and male guards guard the men entrance of course.

The view from entrance Door 29 (Women entrance)

The other side, entrance to the Prophet's (PBUH) grave. But the mosque authority has prohibited the entrance since few years ago, thanks to some visitors creating such a scene crying, screaming and hugging the pillars there.

My most memorable experience was when visiting Raudah, an area within the mosque where it is said that all prayers there would be granted by God. The area opens at certain hour for women, I attended the one at night arranged by the tour, led by Indonesian ustazah. Upon entering the mosque, you will follow the make - shift path made by canvas to walk through the male areas. Then you will wait for your country turn to enter, lucky us Malaysia, Indonesia and SIngapore enter together as the 3rd group. They segregated us under the plaque "Penerangan Agama" which I found to be absurd since the female guard just sat there saying nothing.

Then they further devided our large South East group to two, the first half made such a mad dash into the area that I was left speechless, especially when I watched a few people from the second half disobeyed the order to wait and made a run for the place whenever the guards turned their backs.

When the second half's turn arrived, I was jostled in by the group. Managing to pray a 2 rakaat prayer was a miracle; you couldn't do the sujud without someone walking over your head or worst, kicking and tripping over it. It's that freaking crowded in that small space. The guards screams too made things even worse since they were forever screaming "Cepat ibu (they call everybody ibu)! Cepat ibu! Iran mau masuk! Bahaya! Bahaya!" (Hurry up maam! The Iranians are coming! Danger! Danger!). It sounded to me like the Iranians are coming to bomb us or something LOL. And once you raised up your hands for prayer, they would start pushing you out to make space for other people so it's better to have a long last sujud to cry and say all your long- winded prayers.

Note: The Iranian women are triple or more to our size (if we're talking about an Asian woman with BMI of 18 - 24), if you're wondering why the guards are saying those lines. Their BMI is way beyond 35. Them coming in on us would be like the mass stampede in Lion King and Australia (the movie) and we'll be crushed. Mark my words.


2 other famous mosques in every travel agent itenary: the Quba mosque and the Qiblatain mosque.

Quba mosque, the first mosque to be built upon the Prophet's arrival in Medina. I couldn't get a good shot of it since I was in a hurry and so scared at this Arab guy yelling "Haram! Haram!" behind me. I thought he was admonishing me for taking a picture of the mosque, turned out he was promoting some trinkets of Masjidil Haram. Oh well...

Outside the Quba mosque was a small bazaar selling souvenirs.

The Qiblatain mosque, where the Prophet (PBUH) recieved God words on the change of the Muslim's qiblat from Masjidil Aqsa to Kaaba'.

A small mosque in the city of Medina. Just snapped the photo because I thought it looked cute.

The Holy Journey (03): Jordan trinkets

Golden Tulip got its own travel agent offices and souvenir shops. My advice is, get your souvenirs here as they sold them in Saudi Riyal (SR 1 = 90 something cents Malaysia ) currency instead of Jordan Dinar (JD 1 = RM5).










Fridge magnets.

I wonder why the ladies are not looking too happy. Where are the gents? Maybe that's why...

Camels for your fridge.

Pictures of Petra.

But they don't necessarily sell stuffs made in Jordan. This long robe is Egyptian-made; the hand - stitched pattern made the price very expensive.