Navan revival

It's good to be having the Navan peeps under one roof again, this time we're doing G.P together. The fact that all 5 of us are Muslims made everyday tasks much easier back then. I remember at times during the long journey from Navan to Dublin on Fridays we used to argue a lot when the discussions led us to our cultural dissimilarities, you know when you're stuck in the bad Friday evening traffic and got nothing to do. One time Z from Mauritius commented on the Santa Claus people put in front of their house approaching Christmas time, "Hey look what's that Santa doing on that giant banana?" and it was obviously not a banana, why would Santa want to sit on a banana? (FYI it was a crescent moon). So Y replied, "Don't bother him, he's from Mauritius, it's always tropical there." And another time A from Kuwait said, "Do you think I speak like other Arabs speak? U know that many of us can't pronounce P and say B. I'll try not to do that." And Y from UAE would give a huge yer-rite face. And later it's Y's turn to break the silence by talking about this and that seriously and suddenly ruined everything by ending it with "Boor you," instead of, you know what it is. It was mutually funny experiences albeit the many discrepancies we have.

Nonetheless, at most of the times we talked about the world, the Muslim world in particular. It amazes me how much I used to be judgemental about people without even having any efforts to know the facts before-hand. I learnt my lesson not to believe any hear-says anymore, and go for the details myself instead. It opens my eyes about the reality of the Muslim countries nowadays; of how much damage has been done and how little have we amend. Most importantly, how much would you do to look after your own kind? At the end of the day, it's Islam that links us together, at times when we need to snick out for prayer when the tutorial was about to start and we need someone to cover our backs, or at times when we're unsure about the food or the prayers time. And when I thanked my friends for everything; from the free car-rides to the free dinner treats, my heart flourished with gratitudes when they said, "No it's fine, it's our responsibilities to look after our Sisters.."

once upon a time in Navan

Here's something from Navan, that always made me smile broadly at times reminiscing about.

One day in the week before the exam we were busy finding patients with good clinical signs to be examined at. After lunch Yanie and I went to do chest examinations on this lady, and came to conclude that she had a previous heart valve replacement based on our humble clinical findings. One thing was missing, we couldn't appreciate the 'click' from the valve on chest auscultations. Something fishy must been going on we thought, or was it just two unskilled medical students making assumptions. So we bumped into our Arab mate, Y who had previously seen that patient.

"Do you know that she had an AVR (aortic valve replacement) before?"

"Yes she did."

"But why was there no 'click' or anything like that? I thought you'll hear 'click' with prosthetic valve won't you?"

"Yes you will, but she had no brosthetic valve, she had big valve."

"No no, but she had a valve put in!" Typical big-headed me, it's always going to be my rule.

"Yes I know that. OK let's go and see her chart (patient's medical notes) if you want," typical Y, smooth and readily adapted to my stubbornness.

So we went to the chart's trolley.

"See I told you she had a valve, ah ha got'cha! I was right, she had a tissue valve put in!" Face glowed with winning streaks.

"Yes that's what I said, she had big valve."

"Oh no you didn't, you said she had no prosthetic valve. You said she only had big valve!"

"Yes I said that, it was not brosthetic valve, it was a big valve. A valve from big!" This time he smiled once, turned away and left us dubiously.

"Weh aku rasa dia nak cakap makcik tu ada PIG valve la bukan prosthetic valve," kata Yanie sambil menyiku-nyiku perutku.

Alamak.


post-scriptum:

• tissue valve = pig valve; it's either prosthetic (artificial) valve or tissue valve they take from PIG, the closest being to human form (in terms of heart valves)
  

• due to language discrepancy, some Arabs usually can't pronounce the letter P correctly, coz not like our Jawi letters they don't have 'pa' in Arabic. So most adapt and use B instead of P when speaking.

• I wasn't screwed up, he knew it was a 'healthy' arguement. Ha ha.

I have pinguecula in my eyes..

U know lately I've been spiritually and emotionally dampened, macam bara api yang baru kena siram dengan air. Nasib baik ada lagi serpihan bara kat bawah tu yg selamat dari simbahan sebab air yang dia guna utk simbah tak byk, jadi selamat la bara-bara yang kat bawah. Tinggallah mereka, ditiup semula oleh angin yang hanya sepoi. Atau boleh la nak kata ditiup semula oleh kawan-kawan sefikrah yang sempoi. Haha. Sekarang dah pandai guna jargon yang baik punya.

I tried to be ordinary and started my entry with "What I did today" or "Hari ini saya bangun pukul bla bla..kemudian saya makan toast dengan bla blu ble.." but failed. U know it's kinda my bloggy dream to be able to do that, coz all these while I always tell myself to be different and now I've fallen myself into indifference.

I called my parents late one night, and it was early morning at home. And oh Naqib was with my parents, apparently Along was sick. He was pretending to sleep while my parents tried hard to get him to school. After a good persuasion, he was put on the phone. I said, Naqib kene pergi sekolah sebab nanti akhir tahun ada hadiah kedatangan penuh. Acu dulu tiap tahun dapat hadiah dari darjah satu sampai darjah enam.

So I don't know now should I tell myself, Acu kene pergi sekolah sebab nanti minggu depan ada periksa akhir Ophthalmology..

anhedonia

Irish weather's getting more depressing. Most days I saw sunlights only through the hospital's windows coz it's dark when I left home in the morning and remained dark when I reached home later in the evening.

Irish youths are a bunch of depressed chaps who lead their lives being superficial, individualism and hedonism.

Am I losing hope on Ireland? (or was I just not getting my cup of black coffee yet?)

2006

Alhambra, Granada, originally uploaded by Shu Hada.

I miss writing here, though whenever I started typing the feeling fades away and I'm left with few unpublished drafts. Nonetheless, I don't think I'm ready to hang my keyboards now, not yet.

And it's 2006 already, felt like yesterday I was still the newbie with my crumpled tudung and sloppy orange shirt on my registration day, oh well I still wear crumpled tudung nowadays anyway..