Saturday, February 17, 2007

happy Chinese New Year

This is my 4th year in Australia, out of this 4 years I have had 3 CNYs 'celebrated' here, including this one. Today is the CNY eve, and my celebration is very simple yet special. It is just like another day, I woke up in the summer heat in the afternoon, prepared myself to go to work. I actually wanted to just cook some instant noodle for dinner. And I talked to myself,' CNY without family is ok, it is just another day...'



Too bad CNY is not a pubilc holiday in Australia. I still have to work, still doing night shifts. I can't go home because I have to work, neither can I join any party/dinner with friends because of this night shift...As I woke up all my housemates were gone, just me alone...I began to imagine:



Far far away in Malaysia, my family is probably gathering around the dinner table now and having a big feast and good time together.


I m sure they miss me terribly and are talking about me.


I am certain that mom would say 'How good it is if B (my pet name hehe) is with us now.'
Then my brother would definitely laugh, 'Maybe she is having curry now.' ( Long time ago an Indian man wanted to court me and he often made me Indian curry, my siblings still joke about that until now...)
And Brownie (the dog) is probably occupying her seat under the dinner table (yes, my dog joins us for every dinner :) ) , wagging her tail , drooling crazily and staring at the food with excitement. Then she will most likely turn to my sister and look at her with innocence in her eyes, so that she will be offered some food.



Mom has probably made a 10-course dinner tonight. If I were home for CNY she would make sure 9 out of 10 courses to be my favourite dish...

----


And here I am alone in Australia. Chris has gone back as well. Everyone is in some sort of party/dinner .



So I woke up, as I was going to prepare a simple dinner for myself before work, a friend called me up to join her family for dinner, a quick one just before I had to go. I couldnt believe that she called, because she is those kind of hi-bye friend whom I would hardly remember if I don't see her.



So I went to her house. All her siblings were there, plus their bfs. Her mom came all the way from Malaysia to visit the children. So that was a big dinner with a big family and I was the ONLY outsider.



That is such a beautiful family with beautiful hearts.They do not know me but accepted me like part of them. I did not feel left out at all throughout the whole dinner and that made me miss my family even more. I think if I had a chance I would rush to the toilet and weep.



While I was driving to work I just kept weeping and weeping with a mixed feeling of joy and homesickness...



God is good. He knew I was lonely so He blessed me with a wonderful dinner with a foreign family. Thank You Lord, You brought me into Your own family, and You continue to give me families that love me.



.......Happy Chinese New Year to all Chinese. And may God bless you all.

guess what i was holding in my hands? eeww

Yesterday was the 2nd night of my 3rd week at work. I saw the most shocking self inflicted injury, I have never seen that and I bet I will never see that anymore...and the whole hospital was talking about it. Hold your breath here...


A man was sent to the emergency department with extensive bleeding. What happened to him? He heard some voices in his mind commanding him to CHOP OFF HIS TESTES, or 'they' would kill his family. Out of his love for the family, he took a knife and cut open his scrotums (the bag of skin that covers the testes), pulled out both of his testes, and chop them off from his body........


He was very tough, he did not even complain of any pain at all, even though the blood was gushing out like crazy, and his blood pressure dropped instantenously because of the big blood loss.


The whole emergency department was turned upside down because of this guy. We were all busy rescusitating him.


Guess what I was doing? I had to hold his 2 testes in my hands and rinse them with normal saline, because we attempted to preserve that, just in case there might be a chance of reconnecting them to the body. The testes were white coloured, soft, slimy and rolling like 2 hard boiled eggs in my hands. Hmm...I felt as if I was a clown juggling 2 balls in my hands,what an experience. I almost puked.


Then he was sent to the theatre for emergency operation. I went with him, holding the bucket of ice with his testes in it. We did not put the testes back because they were dead after such a long time. We stopped his bleeding and sewed up the scrotum, with no substance in it anymore.


Sigh, I felt really sad for this man. He has some mental illness, and I wonder how his children would take it, because they were the ones who found him, sent him and his testes in, and stayed till the operation was finished. :(

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

the Equal Opportunity Amendment Bill

This is a ridiculous law. Imagine what would happen to you if you said,'Hey siewwai, you have become very fat and ugly!' I would have a few options as to what I could do to u. I could either laugh at it and let it go, or bring this to the commission and charge you. Why is this a stupid and ridiculous law? Because this is unlike other laws. Under other laws, you are innocent until proven guilty, but this law says that you are guilty until proven innocent.


Therefore, if you said I was fat and ugly and I felt offended by this, I could bring this to the commission and you would automatically be guilty until proven innocent. you would have to spend lotsa lotsa lotsa money in the court to prove your innocence.


If you went to a church and heard the preacher said 'God is the only true living God', 'All men are sinful' etcetc and got offended by that, you could bring this the commission and charge the preacher for what he said. He had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend himself in the court to prove his innocence.


This has happened in Victoria. 2 preachers were charged because what they preached was NOT PLEASING in the ears of some unbelievers. Then they had to spend a lot a lot a lot of money to defend themselves. That money could have been used on the mission field.


I can't believe this has happened in Australia, in a culture that has been proud of her freedom of speech. You don't have the freedom to say/write/publish anything for fear that what you say/write/publish might offend a certain group of ppl in the community. If I don't like you or what you say; or if I am an oversensitive and easily offended person, then I can accuse you of discriminating me whenever I like.


We must stand up and stop this from coming to South Australia. How to do that? Go to
www.willyouvisitmeinprison.com


and hey, don't you dare to say I am fat and ugly, I have a weapon in my hand, i can sue u now haha

Thursday, February 08, 2007

yesterday, today and tomorrow

I have been asking God a lot of questions lately about my future. What is Your will God? In terms of relationship, career, ministry etc etc... I am very sure I have been called to be a full time missionary/church servant, but there are many important things in my life that are unsettled now and I can't see anything at all. In the past few months I have been using words like 'why, what, where, when, who and how' in my conversations with God.

I think finally God must have had enuf of me hehe (just joking, He is the perfect God, will not get impatient like men do) that He spoke to me about my attitude. It was like a bright light that shone in my heart, the energy in the beam was so high that it pierced my heart, it made loose all the entangled knots...Things that I thought mattered to me a lot didn't seem to be so big anymore.

He taught me something about 'yesterday', 'today' and 'tomorrow'.

He told me to trust in Him for my future. Don't ask why when who where when and how. The future is not for me to see, because what He wanna give me He has already done so. He has given me my 'yesterday' and my 'today'. My tomorrow is still in His hand and He will surely give it to me when 'today' has passed.

I have my 'yesterday' and that's been given to me so that I can learn, reflect, and ponder upon it. God has worked in all my 'yesterday'-s, He has revealed and done what He wanted to in my 'yesterday', and now that has become mine, it is for me to see, to believe and to remember (Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart- Luke 2).

And from what I have learned and seen and believed in my 'yesterday', I execute it on my 'today'. I live my 'today' based on the faith that I have built on from 'yesterday'. Therefore, 'today' is mine as well, it is a gift from God. Every 'today' is a gift, a new start, another opportunity. It is the place I practise what I have seen and learned yesterday.

In conclusion, God has already entrusted all the 'yesterday'-s and 'today' in my hands, and they are mine now, and that's enuf of work for me. Why shall I be greedy that I still want to hold my 'tomorrow' in my own hands? It is securely guarded by God, it is not mine yet. He will give it to me anyway whenever I've passed my 'today'.

Hahaha...it is like a parent handing a dollar cash note to his young school child every morning before school. The child cannot demand the next day's pocket money, but for the money that has been given in the past, she can keep it in her piggy bank. Her daddy has surely prepared the next day's money for her, only to be collected in the next morning.

Wow...I just feel it is so awesome to hear from God =)

Thursday, February 01, 2007

back to work

My 1st night of the 2nd week has gone half way now. Finally I had a bit of luxurious spare time to sit down and sip some coffee. Surprisingly I have been busy although the work load itself has not been that heavy. I think until now I have used up 50% of my energy trying to fit in again and get back the momentum to work at night..you know, 7 days of break is a long break.

The system here is that night shift doctors work 7 nights in a row , 12 hrs per shift, and get the next 7 days off. At this stage I love night shifts for a few reasons. Working on night shifts makes me feel that I am a 'real' doctor. Not that I wasn't one if I did not work at night, but because at night there are only a minimal number of staff on board, so I work alone and make independent decisions for the patients. And yet the best part is, it is not my responsibility as a night intern to follow up on any patient, therefore if anyone becomes unwell overnight the nurses will call me , I will treat them accordingly, and hand them back to the home team in the morning. It is like baby sitting, the parents go off and leave the baby with me, I play with the baby, and hand it back to them later. No hassles, no responsibility after that :)

And I like the 7 days off :) The only setback is that I probably need the first 2 out of 7 days to adjust my bioclock back to normal, my body picks up on the 4th day, and thereafter I have an absolutely normal lifestyle until the 7th day. Bed time is 12pm and get up at 8am. That's y it is hard to get back to work. Such as now, it has long passed my bedtime. I will probably need 2-3 nights to get used to this.

And this cycle will go on and on and on....

Maybe I should take a short nap now.......zzz.... later