Books for sale! Just quote me your price, if its reasonable, the book's yours. =)

Biology books for sale

Quote me a price. If its reasonable, the book is yours. Stupid college made us buy all these books but we used only 1-3 chapters of each book. What a waste!

on call in maternity ward

a 31 hour shift with 2 hours worth of sleep and one shower-that's my limit. my back feels like i have a slipped disc.

continuously, pregnant women came to give birth, one after another. by the 29th hour, my arm was aching, my legs were crumbling, but i still could smile and encourage the woman in labor to continue pushing, not to give up, she can do it, just a little bit more! i think after saying the same stuffs for so many times the encouragements just comes out without me even thinking. and the woman can still thank me and said i was very patient. she had no idea that my brain was crying out 'Hurry up!! I am hungry, my arm hurts, my eyes are blurry and my back is splitting in half!'

hahaha! seriously, now i know my limit. a string of labor and delivery in 30 hours. that's enough!

but i'm slowly having a change of heart. i thought i would never put myself through labor and delivery, but then, thinking of it-what's 24 hours of severe pain compared to a lifetime of joy (minus a few years for the rebellious teenager phase)?

faith gets me by

few weeks ago, i was in a place where i was forced to go to the mosque on fridays and attend pengajians and have religious forum 3 times a week (watch video on muslim prayer, mosques, etc then discuss it).

in the beginning, it was overwhelming. every little thing i did was wrong. when i stood with my hands behind my back, i got scolded because apparently the polite way to stand is with your hands in front. i felt swept off my feet. i was afraid all the time. i tiptoed around the place. i talked softly, without any confidence. when i was told that i must wear tudung even though i'm not a muslim, i refused, but heck, they were persistent.

then sunday came, and i went to a church. i just randomly took a beca and asked to be sent to a church. when i entered the church, i saw, right below the cross in the front of the church were the words 'be strong and courageous, joshua 1:6'. i started laughing to myself. i felt relieved, like the heavy hand around my heart had just loosen its grip. you know why? because 4 years ago, a pastor prophesied that i'm like Joshua, and he kept repeating the words 'be strong and courageous'. I've always wondered why were those words repeated so many times in my prophesy. Now, i finally understand.

To you, it is just a simple coincidence. But to me, that was a message from God telling me that i'm not alone. Immediately after that, i decided to stand up for myself and my believes. I decided to walk with confidence, to laugh without feeling fear of offending others, to push back confidently, without fear, when i'm pushed to wear tudung or go to the mosque. simply put, i decided to be myself. And you know what? God got me into the good graces of everybody there. i do not want to boast, so lets suffice to say if you mention me to everyone there, they'll smile and say, "oh yes, i remember her."

That was definitely a lesson of faith. God, thank you for reminding me that faith conquers all. No matter where i am, who i'm with, what i'm up against, YOU are the one that wins in the end. There's no doubt of winning when You're on my side.

wanna give birth? think again

do you have any idea what superhuman strength a woman needs when giving birth? the pain and agony they endure. the way they intentionally tear apart their body just to give birth to tiny little beings who later grow up to be ungrateful, useless brats?

in the labor and delivery ward, you can hear women screaming in pain everyday. as a woman who is not in labor i feel like smacking them and saying "well, you wanted this! if you didnt want the pain you should've used protection!" well, that is if it's 1am and i have 10 mothers lying there waiting for their turn to give birth. in other situations, i am usually more patient and will let them twist my right arm till its black and blue, while trying to adjust the infuse set with my left.

sigh. to the males of the world, you dont know how good u have it. you just need to say to your wife, "lets have a baby" and that's all you need to do. plus a bit of aiming. the females are the ones who have to endure 9 long months of crazy hormone rages, the ballooning of their once hot and shapely body, and finally, the labor itself.

obstetric makes me rethink the phrase 'females are the weaker sex'. its not easy to give birth. if it is that easy, guys would be able to do it. hmph.

freaking crazy

the joslyn i know a few years would not take this shit from anyone. but the grown up joslyn today let people step all over her. all in the name of acting matured and patient.

what do i mean by that? well, take last night's on call as an example. i sent blood samples to the lab, helped the nurse to move the patient to another ward, balance cairan, take vital signs, did ECG, followed the resident for her rounds, but this morning because i didnt vital sign ALL the patients in the ward, i got scolded. i vital sign and balance cairan for the CRITICAL patients only, because of some miscommunication between me and the resident. she said she told me to vital sign ALL the patients and balance cairan for CRITICAL patients. but still, straight away all the other stuffs i did the whole night dissipated into thin air. simply because of that one mistake (hey, when she called me i came back to the hospital from my house just to vital signs the other patients okay?!), everything that i helped with last night was forgotten. kerana setitik nila rosak susu sebelanga. or something like that.

and i feel so pissed with myself because i let her rant and make faces and noises at me without saying anything, all i did was smile and take it all, answering 'yes, okay. sorry, doc.' WTF is wrong with me?! what happened to the me i once was?! why am i such a freaking PUSSY!?

grateful

we pay 6000 USd per semester. the regular program students pay less than 100USd per semester.

imagine paying 6000USd per semester just to have midwives telling you, "here are the medical records, make sure the patient's name and medical record number are written on every single piece of paper, all the way from the payment form to the discharge form". then they go off and deliver babies.

seriously WTF.

anyway, despite the fact that i'm always doing menial job, or jobs that are less than menial, such as fetching xrays from the lab and sending urine samples to the lab, i guess there are still things to be thankful for.

like the many interesting cases we get. we get to SEE patients and we have INTERNET to search about how to diagnose and treat the patient. beats the purpose of having doctors who are supposed to teach us, but well, they are busy saving lifes and we have to be independent.

anyway, i'm grateful for the little moments in life. Like seeing a patient who has end stage cancer and maggots falling out from her tumor onto the floor. Like having patients who believe they shouldnt shower when they are sick, so for a week the whole ward stink like crazy. Like meeting incredible parents who could still crack jokes when their kid has cancer. Like a man who laughs and cheerfully tells u to enjoy life when he cant even get out of bed. Like seeing a patient who looked like she was pregnant but actually had hydronephrosis. Like seeing a patient with elephantiasis. Like having a patient who was under your care die due to kidney failure. The cases we get that can't be found anywhere else, from Henoch Schonlein Purpura, Steven Johnson syndrome, TENS, Cantrell syndrome, Weil's disease, dengue, typhoid, malaria, MRSA, leprosy, HIV to TB.

the moments with my groupmates who sometimes make me want to smack myself on the wall, the moments when we 'bolos' on call or normal duty, the times we curi go out just to eat, the signatures we forged, the complaining sessions, little things in life.

so yes, i may get annoyed and angry and disappointed, but underneath it all, i am grateful i have the chance to live through all this. =)