Classic All-Star Songs

I was listening to Chinese songs in 1ting.com (which I strongly recommend for online streaming Chinese songs) when I stumbled upon an old classic, 明天会更好. I am sure every single Chinese must have heard of this song before, but I reckon that like myself, a lot of people in my generation do not know much about the charity song recorded in 1985. Produced around the same time as my birth date, the song featured the greatest singing talents of the era including 蔡琴、苏芮、潘越云、甄妮、黄莺莺、陈淑桦、齐豫、张艾嘉、张清芳、蓝心湄 、余天、费玉清、齐秦、巫启贤、李宗盛、童安格 among others. It was said to be inspired by the US all-star charity song "we are the world", another classic which raised hundreds of million dollars for the 84-85 Ethiopian famine.

Round about 2003, at the peak of the SARS global epidemic, dozens of singers again came together in Taiwan and produced "手牵手", a touching song which called for courage and resolution in the combat of the deadly disease.

Listening to those songs, I can't help but to be amazed by the veteran artists' voices and the power of music in conveying public messages. Sometimes I wonder why our artists don't put up more of such efforts - if I were a singer, being involved with such communal efforts would be one of the most proudest thing I could ever do in my life. Being involved in such charity efforts would mean much more than almost everything else an artist does, combined.

Here, I shall just end this brief post by sharing the three aforementioned songs:

明天会更好: Lyrics

手牵手: Lyrics

We are the world: Lyrics

Of Doctors and Their Shadows

As the most junior member in the depressive, towering hierarchy of medicine, a medical student spends quite a lot of time following a doctor in the hospital. That's what I do quite often for the past few weeks while waiting for my research to kick start some time in the near future.

Some people feel that the term "following a doctor" doesn't sound quite professional. In fact it sounds rather oppressed, some would say. You know, it paints the stark picture of a docile junior obeying the seniors' command, being prepared to stomach any potential bad treatments, feeling stupid etc. So to cheer things up a bit, we don't say we "follow a doctor" anymore; "shadowing a doctor" is the jargon we use to glorify the routine.

It's funny how fancy words are enjoyed by the medical people. In the dictionary, the closest meaning of shadow to this word usage is:

verb - follow, usually without the person's knowledge; "The police are shadowing her"

Not quite close in meaning, isn't it?

For me though, "shadowing a doctor" conjures an image of a ghost. You know how there are stories about how one's shadow could leave the owner's feet and wander about, and how some unknown creatures only present as a shadow on the floor? Yeah that was it.

How in the world "shadowing a doctor" sounds more professional than "following a doctor", I have no idea. But since everyone uses this term, I would just follow anyway.


Image credit: MSNBC - Viewers feel Dr. House's Pain

Confidentiality Sucks

I hate confidentiality.

No, I don't mean I disrespect or disregard the value of confidentiality. What I mean is, I hate having to keep a secret.

Some people are good at keeping secrets. Some people even enjoy keeping secrets - they are proud that they are being great confidants, and that they hold the key to the secret corner of many a heart. Derived from this is a sense of importance which confers immense emotional gratification in many people.

Despite all that, I hate to keep a secret.

It's not like I am not a nosey person (I am); but after knowing some secrets, it's really hard to pretend that I don't know about it. You see, the love of sharing flows in my vein - I love to share things like stories, knowledge, tips etc - but keeping a secret is the very opposite of what I love to do. Keeping things to myself is painful. I still keep secrets though, but it is excruciating.

Today, I am starting to feel the challenge I face as I am more exposed to the clinical environment. All patients' identities are to be kept strictly confidential. I can't tell you about the identity of any single patient, regardless of how interesting they are.

For example, today I saw an interesting guy who used to work for an international bigwig; but heck, I can't tell you more lest you find out that this particular guy has done a colonoscopy today. The only things I can tell you are:

A 70-year-old man came in for a colonoscopy procedure, and the investigation showed that he had a normal bowel.

That sucks (for me).


Image Credit: Lonsdale Print Solutions

My Little WTF Moment

Update 09/08/07: Here.

Today is quite like other AMS working days, but unlike other peaceful times, today was marked by a little dose of WTF moment.

The story goes like this: Our supervisor wanted us to shadow (= tag along) an anaesthetist, and after some arrangement he decided to take me to an anaesthetist (call him Z) who's doing anaesthesia for endoscopy procedure. While the supervisor was bringing me to the procedure room, we met Z who's leaving the endoscopy area. My supervisor asked Z whether it's alright if I shadow him, and he said fine, and he would be back soon. The supervisor told me to wait at the procedure area, as Z will be back in a second.

So I waited there. Standing has become a routine for me for the past few weeks. I stand most of the time when I am in hospital watching surgeries and other stuff. At times I feel stupid as I can't do much in the hospital. We do so much waiting all the time, most of the time waiting for someone to come back while we are left hanging around, not being told what to do or expect, simply being useless. While I am waiting, I could just stare at a blank space, or sometimes I take out my PDA to do some brief reading.

After 5 to 10 minutes of waiting, he's not back and I had a call from nature (which happens quite often to my for some reasons). So I went to the washroom, quickly finished my business, and went back to wait. After some 5 to 10 minutes again, I decided that it was too long a wait, and I did what everyone would do - I asked a doctor at the receptionist area. The doctor told me that Z is already in the procedure room, and I can just go in there.

Me: Dr. Z?

Z: Oh hi! *walk towards him, who's prepping up the patient for the endoscopy*

Me: Is there anything I could help?

Z: You are late.

Me: I waited for you outside but you weren't back. Then I went to the toilet and waited again. You might have come back when I was in the toilet. (Can't really remember whether I said sorry at this point, but I did say sorry once at one point in this conversation)

Z: No I do not accept this excuse. This is a really bad excuse.

Me: Really I was outside... (I might have said sorry at this point. Again I am not sure)

Z: You could have come in and looked for me. Really if you don't want to be here you don't have to.

Me: I want to be here.

(Can't really remember what we said after that. The conversation stopped around that point.)

And he almost ignored me throughout the whole 2-hour session. He just talked to me twice.

I realize that I was partly at fault for being late, as when I came out from the toilet I should have just gone to the reception and asked about Z's whereabout, instead of assuming that he wouldn't have gone in within the 2 minutes I spent in the toilet. It's my judgmental error and I should really have done better than that.

However, I couldn't stomach the judgmental attitude he cast upon me. The way he looked at me ludicrously and almost sneered at me when he replied to my excuse, showed that he thought I was telling a very bad lie, or some sort of bad jokes. The remark "you don't have to come if you don't want to" was put in an extremely bad taste too. Just imagine, having stood and waited patiently for someone for almost half an hour, and all you get in return was a mean remark of "you don't have to come if you don't want to". Let's talk about intention and outcome, eh? We need more communication, doc.

Sigh. It's lucky that the majority of the doctors I deal with aren't that grumpy. Many of them are willing to share their knowledge enthusiastically and patiently. I won't keep this in mind for long, but I just hope that there will be less judgemental people in the world. Getting worked up for an innocent misdoing, and being judgemental towards people, is bad for oneself and for other people.

Update: After some considerations and some inputs from friends, I do think that I might have been responsible for the whole episode. Despite being innocuous, what I should have done was to say sorry when he first said "You are late" (which I didn't say until the second or third verbal exchange). I didn't say sorry at first because I didn't assess it as something requiring apology when he worded it, and also because of my recently acquired defiance of not apologizing when I reckoned something was not done intentionally. And that defiance has misfired badly, despite my apologizing later when he was already frowning upon me. For Z, I could have seemed like a delinquent student who's not apologetic despite being late, and hence deserved a good reprimand. And it's my fault for not showing my sincere, innocent, lovely facade. :P I shoulder the responsibility, admit my error, and would learn to say sorry in the future.

Image credit: 2point Portfolio

Brain Teasers

I like brain teasers. I discovered a site with a few fun questions yesterday, and here are some of the questions:

A train leaves New York for Boston. Five minutes later another train leaves Boston for New York, at double the speed. Which train will be closer to New York when they encounter?

If I go halfway to the town (which is 60 km away) at the speed of 30 km/hour, how fast do I have to go for the rest of the way to have the average speed of the entire way 60 km/hour?

These are the conditions in a town:

1. No two inhabitants have the same number of hairs on their head.
2. No inhabitant has exactly 518 hairs.
3. There are more inhabitants than any inhabitant's hair in the town.

What is the highest possible number of inhabitants?

An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advice. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city.

What does the wise man say?

Three masters of logic wanted to find out who was the wisest one. So they invited the grand master, who took them into a dark room and said: "I will paint each one of you a red or a blue dot on your forehead. When you walk out and you see at least one red point, raise your hands. The one who says what colour is the dot on his own forehead first, wins." Then he painted only red dots on every one. When they went out everybody had their hands up and after a while one of them said: "I have a red dot on my head."

How could he be so sure?

Imagine you are in a room with 3 switches. In an adjacent room there are 3 bulbs (all are off at the moment), each switch belongs to one bulb. It is impossible to see from one room to another. How can you find out which switch belongs to which bulb, if you may enter the room with the bulbs only once?

Check out the solutions in the puzzle page! :) Sharpening our mind sometimes helps it works better.

Travel Notes - Photo Slideshow

27/07/07 - Slideshow Status: 50% done.

Note: This post will be placed above other posts as I continue to update my travel notes. My other posts will be found below.

This is the slideshow of the photos taken during the winter trip to Great Ocean Road and South Australia. I am continually processing the pictures and uploading them, so stay tuned as more pictures become available here.

You can also view all the pictures in their original flickr set page here. Full screen slideshow is available as well. To make a comment on an individual picture, visit the "photo link" in the slideshow.

Hope you enjoy the pics!

Some Interesting Harry Potter Endings

J.K. Rowling once said that the last word in the last HP book would be "scar" (which was no longer true in the end). Based on this assumption, some HP fans wrote their own versions of HP ending...

Neville gazed down upon the lifeless form of Harry and saw that the scar that once had stood so vividly on his forehead, had disappeared. He turned away and was unaware that on his forehead, was his own scar.

His thoughts were distracted by the distant voices of Hermione and Ron. They were running towards him with mixed looks of shock and relief. Hugging Harry they began to question him thoroughly. "Are you alright? Are you okay Harry?" Hermione yelled. "Blimely Harry you've done it, Voldemorts dead." Ron added. As if it went by in flashes, suddenly Hermione and Ron were on the ground, both pale and motionless, dead. Harry stood over them, laughing coldly with content. All it took was a twinge in his scar.

Harry had done it... Voldemort was dead it seemed... but there were only five horcruxes that had been destroyed. Ron raised his head from the ground and said, "Good work, Harry, I knew we could do it..." Harry smiled to Neville while scratching his itching scar.

More endings here.

I am wondering how different the story would be if it ended like above... :)