Random Blog

Up Up and Away!

2010-10-06T16:49:00.003+03:00

Took the plunge. Dealing with the fall-out. About to secure my freedom from the evil tentacled monster. Takes 12 steps, but I hit a brick wall at 8.

Took time off to recuperate and recover my energy. Now back from paradise, rejuvenated and ready to take on the beast again. All eyes on the prize, one more trip to deliver the coup de grace to that other beast in the west. Once that's done, its just a matter of time and protocol until the next step is reached.

Its scary and new, but isn't that just what makes it all so deliciously exciting?

Do Nots

2009-12-14T12:10:00.000+03:00

Spurred on by my observations at work, I have come up with a list of things to avoid as a doctor in a hospital setting (especially for interns and medical students):

1. Don't wear jeans under your white coat. Its unprofessional, even though it may be more comfortable and convenient.

2. Don't roll up the sleeves of your white coat. You're not a butcher.

3. Don't wear a customised operating theatre cap. You only earn that once you're the boss.

4. Don't drape a stethoscope over your shoulders as a medical student when its clear that you have no idea what to do with it.

5. For the ladies - don't put on lots of makeup and perfume. Especially medical students. I don't worry about the interns, because after a few on-calls they spontaneously eliminate that aspect of their morning routine.

6. Interns - don't spend all day long socialising over cups of coffee. Yes, your existence here is trivial and your job mostly mindless and routine, but that doesn't mean you should be flaunting the fact that you have no work to do. That will just get you into trouble.

7. Do not write short, incomprehensible patient notes. You haven't earned that right just yet. Only the boss can write something he or she only understands and not be criticised for it. Because its HIS/HER patient, not yours you little scoundrel.

8. Don't show up later than your seniors. That may sound like common sense but surprisingly still occurs, requiring a prompt kick up the arse on morning rounds.

9. Do not forget to show the proper respect to anyone who is more senior than you, be it Doctor, Nurse or even orderly. They have been around for much longer than you have, and have seen many junior doctors come and go. You're nothing special.

10. Don't give up on medicine. Even though you may take a lot of abuse, the money and hours are not that great, and the perceived public worth of the physician is ever-diminishing; it can still be a very rewarding profession. Nothing is more fulfilling than helping another human being out when they need it the most. A lot of people go out of their way to do stuff like that for free out of their own time. You get paid to do it, so count yourself lucky.

Times they are a changin'

2009-05-10T12:39:00.001+03:00

Major changes have recently occured in my life, both personally and professionally. We're approaching five years since the inception of this blog, and going back to read the posts from May '04 is quite the experience. I suppose its what diaries and journals are for, the chance to go back and read out your thoughts and ideas from another time. Kind of like mental time travel.

One thing is for sure, I am not who I was then. In fact, I am not who I was last year or the year before that. I may have some (we shed and create a lot of cells frequently) of the bodily composition of that person but we are definitely on different wavelengths.

This whole blogging business started off as a documentation of odd and quirky ideas I might have. I had a lot of time on my hands back then, hence the frequency of the posts. With time, the posts have decreased in number but have also slightly sharpened in focus. They may still be random and don't generally adhere to one unified theme, but this thing was meant to be disjointed and arbitrary anyway.

I know blogging has pretty much gone out of style these days, but I never meant for this to be stylish. The more I read my old posts, the more I believe that continuing to write here if only to be able to re-read it later is worthwhile. These next few lines (in no particular order) are for future perusing:

- United are in the Champions league final against Barcelona for a shot at retaining the cup. I believe we are going to win. Did we? I hope it was a good game.

- You've just moved out of home and are currently adjusting to having your own family. Its terrifying and exciting all at once. Having more or less settled now, you have found that through all of this you've discovered that you have an affinity for furniture shopping. Who would've thunk it.

- You're starting studying for your MRCS part B soon. The plan is to pass it first time. I hope that reading this in the future, you remember how it felt to be looking ahead to that. I also hope that you passed.

- You have accumulated a bit of debt, but are confident of repaying it all very soon. I hope that when you re-read this, it will have been replaced by a good amount of savings.

- You are still basking in the glory of having had the best wedding of all time.

- One and a half years in your current job and counting. Still on track with the initial estimate of two to three years in Bahrain followed by training abroad. So, how did that work out then?

- 1st on call, sleepless nights at the hospital working a 1 in 4 rota. Not so bad, considering what you've been through. I hope that when you read this you have had a hell of a lot more experience in operating and are no longer at junior level.

A few more personal things I could've documented here, but I'd rather leave them out of the public arena. Have to run now, but I hope that list makes for interesting reading at some point down the line.

Brighter Days Ahead

2009-02-15T19:43:00.000+03:00

Tough times, these.

Resolution of conflicts on many fronts helps, but more is to come.

Once we've jetted off east things will really start looking up.

But until then: paint, parking, wood, tables, chairs, sardar, food, drink, lists, healthy doses of work and many more..

We're getting there.

Eureka!

2008-10-28T00:15:00.000+03:00

I've always had a thing against Landon Donovan. The tag of "best US soccer player of his generation" rang a bit hollow when you looked at what he's achieved on a global scale. His two aborted attempts at Bayer Leverkusen in Germany really frustrated me.

You see, the guy has undeniable skill. He might not be considered world class per se, but he definitely is the best player in the MLS pre-Beckham by a country mile. If he had stuck with it and tried to develop himself in Europe at an earlier age, I believe he would've achieved much more and became a far better player than he is today.

What I find really irritating wasn't that he had tried to play at a club and failed, it was the manner of his failure. It wasn't based on not being good enough to get into the first team. It wasn't about a bad atmosphere or a league that was too difficult for him. It was his inability or unwillingness to experience life outside of the US. His first stint in Germany was at a very young age (16, I think), and he struggled to adapt to life in Europe and so he was allowed to go back on loan to the MLS until he matured enough to be able to handle the situation. In San Jose he prospered, and was consistently the best performer on a mediocre team. He publicly spoke about his nightmare in Germany and not being able to cope with the move away from the US.

Then came the second stint at the age of 23. Bayer Leverkusen wanted a player of his calibre back to contribute, and he was forced to leave the US again. Once again, he failed to adjust to his surroundings and a move back to the MLS and the LA Galaxy followed suit. I was really disappointed to hear about it at the time, since I thought that surely Germany cannot be THAT bad? And even if its not exactly where he'd like to live, it is more than simply a positive career step and going back the mediocrity of the MLS was the least ambitious thing I have ever heard of.

My friends struggled to see why I was so upset. Surely he had a right to choose where he wanted to live? My grief was in the fact that he was living my dream and making a mess of it. He had the talent to be a world class player, he was a professional footballer with everything he ever wanted.. and he couldn't leave the comfort zone of "America, the Best Place on Earth".

Landon came out recently and said that he is now dreaming of a move to Spain or England. He recognises that his game would improve drastically over in Europe, but he's unsure now whether any club would sign him after his antics in Germany. He's finally matured enough to think with a professional mindset.. but he's almost 27 now, and a lot of time was lost where he could've further honed his craft in more competitive surroundings.

As a person, I don't know Mr. Donovan and have little regard to how his life turns out to be. Its the concept that bothers me, the fact that his reluctance to put some pressure on himself to further improve on his God given talent stems from his inability to leave the US cocoon. When I first went to university, my roommate who hails from New York asked me why anyone would want to live anywhere but the United States. His lack of geographical orientation astounded me, and I wondered sometimes how many Americans can locate any given country on a map of Europe if presented with the challenge. I'm sure there are many worldly and knowledgable yanks, but the majority seem resistant to the fact that the world holds much more than just the 50 states. My roommate went on to developing a fondness for Europe and a willingness to travel around the world, despite his initial reluctance. It took him 6 years, but he came 'round in the end.. as did all the other Americans who I'm proud to say took a piece of Europe back home with them. May it extend to affect all of the people surrounding them.

So, Landon, I'm glad that you've finally had your moment of enlightenment. There's more out there than simply the good ol' US of A and the MLS. Time to see if firsthand.

"Lightning" Bolt

2008-08-22T04:58:00.000+03:00

In spite of my love affair with most team and individual sports, I was never one to follow track and field with anything more than a passing interest in the latest world record. I must admit that the advent of the olympics didn't really strike much of a chord with me, especially after one of the best football tournaments ever in Euro 2008. How could you follow up all the drama of the beautiful game and hope to fill the void that exists after a major international tournament?

To me, the olympics has always been too many sports on at the same time, which is quite confusing and distracting. Things like swimming, sailing, shooting, gymnastics, tae kwon do, amateur boxing, fencing, track cycling, 20km walkathon, water polo, etc etc.. they just don't really resonate for some reason. Lack of globally identifiable athletes? Difficulty to "watch-in-passing" for people are not intimately familiar with the sport?

The first thing that captured my imagination was Micheal Phelps' 8 gold medals. I didn't really watch any of his events, aside from a replay of one of them, but to have lived in a time where such a record is broken was exciting stuff. The real kicker was the track and field, however. If you conjure up an image of the olympics, the first thing you'd think of besides the hoops logo and the flame would be an olympic stadium with a big track and large patch of grass (which would be awesome to play football on) in the middle. Athletics have always been the heart and soul of the games, and this year has been a special one.

Usain Bolt, fastest man in the world. His antics and showboating as infuriatingly endearing as anything you've ever seen. His run in the 100m was something else. To be so blase about it all and still manage to shred his own world record is something I will remember watching for the rest of my life. I've never set a reminder to watch a track and field event in the past, but after that race I had to see if he can do it in the 200m. The fact that he did was almost expected but just as exciting. The cool thing was that he busted a nut this time around. Micheal Johnson is known as Superman, and its for good reason that his record stood for 12 years. Bolt really pushed himself for that one, and its going to be interesting to see how much further he can take it, being so young and all. The theory goes that he'll try to incrimentally better his world record to keep the money and the interest rolling (a la Sergey Bubka), but I don't know if its humanly possible to do better with the 200m. Although there had been some headwind that night, so you never know.

I've now developed a routine of watching the olympics coverage at lunch and after work (government working hours, 7-2), and I must say that its really introduced me to something new. I can't say that I'll now start following all the other events like the world championships and the commonwealth games, because only the olympics can give you this feeling. I am, however, much more interested in London 2012 than I was two weeks ago!

Good Point

2008-06-01T19:30:00.000+03:00

Having a terrible morning all round today. Overworked and undervalued, I was sitting in the clinic and I locked myself in the room for half an hour to clear my thoughts before seeing any patients.

After taking some time to mull things over, the door was opened and the good doctor was ready to heal the world once again. A little scrub of a kid, around 12 years of age, was the first in along with his personal driver/bodyguard. The family name on his medical records explained the situation to me, and so I sat him down to see how I could be of assistance.

Turns out he had a soft tissue injury, nothing more, and was quite pleased to get the rest of the day off because of attending our clinic this morning. I asked him where he studied and, of course, it turns out to be at my old stomping grounds of days past. I told him as much and he retorted with quite an interesting comment:

"Really? You graduated from there?"
"Yup. Class of 2000."
"Cool. So.. why are you here?"
"Well, how do you mean?"
"You know. Why are you working here as a doctor? Why not somewhere else as a businessman or something?"

Screaming Eagles

2008-05-25T09:52:00.000+03:00

Happy birthday blog and whatnot. 4 years now since this all started, and this is my 101st post. Been a while since the last one but I guess work and life caught up with me and the interest in blogging had started to wane a bit.

Blogging.. so two years ago? I don't know, it's difficult to sustain a reasonable audience if you don't give them frequent reading material. And then you're back to square one, typing up stuff to post it where no one would read it. I'm sure there's a few of you still out there who log on here every once in a while. I just hope my recent hiatus hasn't scared the rest of you off.

Was going to rant on about a few things. Mainly about disrespect to red traffic lights as well as assorted misgivings about the current shape of Bahraini society. I'm stuck at work, however, and methinks that some sleep now in anticipation of a possibly busy night would aid me greatly in surviving the work week ahead.

Oh well, here's to passing the 100 mark. Will try to keep it up for as long as I can, I suppose.

Fun Times

2008-02-25T00:11:00.000+03:00

Me: So.. what happened?
Dude: We were playing.

Me: What game exactly?

Dude: I told my cousin he couldn't do it, he said he could.. then he did.

Me: I see. And where is he right now?

Dude: Outside in the waiting room.

Me: Right.

Idiots.

Gripe

2008-01-12T21:43:00.000+03:00

Been back in Bahrain for a while now, just started working. Feels good to be doktoring around after a long layoff, but the routine of having to wake up in the mornings again will need some getting used to. Adjusted to living here by now, so I guess Ireland is mostly out of my system at this point. There are some things you have to accept as they are around these parts, even though they could do with some (read: a lot of) improvement.

Was driving on the highway the other day and something peculiar happened to me. Not just once, but three times within the span of two weeks. I would be driving at a reasonable speed (about 110 km/hr) in the fast lane and a speed demon would show up behind me, all guns blazing. In most cases I would move over to the right and allow him/her (because women are just as bad these days) to pass. In all three cases there were cars in the middle lane and so I had to carry on until I got a chance to switch lanes. Instead of being polite enough to wait until I moved over, the drivers in this case would accelerate and overtake me on the hard shoulder, squeezing between my car and the barrier to the left at around 160km/hr. I could not believe what I was seeing. Speeding and high-risk driving are common enough, but this is just suicidial. Needless to say, it brought out a bit of road rage and I guess honking the horn and flashing my headlights were the most I could do in my frustration at those fucking idiots.

This ties into another phenomenon I have been witnessing. At times during the night, around 11pm and onwards, people would choose to ignore red lights located around the kingdom. They would slow down, see that the intersection was not busy, and would just drive off like nothing happened. It drives me insane seeing this, and even though they might justify it by saying that they've slowed down and saw no other cars coming.. there simply is no jusitfication.

All of these things, aside from demonstrating that a large proportion of bahrainis have completely lost any iota of driving etiquette left within them, is showing us the unfortunate mentality that most of them live with. This idea that they are in some way superior to those around them, that their time is worth more and that they can bend or break the law according to their wishes is simply laughable. No one is above the law, and I don't care how busy or in a rush you are, endangering other people's lives in such a flippant fashion is simply unacceptable. You almost wish you could say this to their faces, but something tells me that anyone who would do something like that without feeling any remorse is not worth talking to in the first place. Why have we turned into such a materialistic, consumerist society that is defined by the selfishness of the individual and not the love of the collective? Everyone is so concerned with how to progress themselves that they are openly willing to step (and shit) on eveyone else's heads. It a terribly sad state of affairs to find ourselves in, and I hope that something drastic happens in the near future so that we may shake off this frankly primitive way of living.

WoW

2007-11-22T13:11:00.000+03:00

World of Warcraft has officially taken over my life. The game was released in 2004 and I've fought buying it for so long because I knew this would happen. Some people think its geeky, but heck I don't care.. it still kicks ass. I'm at level 43 now, achieved in the span of 3 weeks which is quite intense. The fact that work don't come easy in this country means that I've got lots of spare time (yes, there is a shortage of doctors in Bahrain yet we still find it hard to get employed). All this spare time has been dedicated to leveling my character in pursuit of more power, better items and crazier adventures.

The missus is unfortunately away for a while, and I know that this will all end when she comes back. That doesn't make me sad. In fact, it might be a good thing for my general well being.

Short post, but I need to get back to questing. Level 44 awaits.

Medical Oddities: The Album

2007-10-21T01:44:00.000+03:00

This one goes out to Beau Davidson in memory of some good times:

1. Kick the Cookie Under the Crash Cart

2. Focus to Walk

3. Don't Scratch Your Balls With Your Keys

4. Knock on Glass

5. Splint My Handjob

6. If You Break Your Leg, I Got Your Back

7. Kicked In the Calf By a Cow

8. Good Consistency of Chewiness

Man Tears

2007-10-15T23:05:00.000+03:00

The rugby world cup concludes this coming saturday with a titanic clash between england and south africa. I say titanic because the 'boks have been looking solid all tournament, while the english have risen from the dead with a string of powerful performances that have taken them a game away from retaining their crown. Considering that south africa have already beaten england 36-0 a few weeks back in the group stages, it should be very interesting to see how much of the psychological effects of that game are still lingering in the minds of both sets of players.

This post was supposed to introduce a theory of mine that I have been honing for a few weeks but was unfortunately dented slightly with the argies' demise to the 'boks last night. The argentinians were hands down the most emotional bunch of players prior to every match. At least half the team was crying at the lineup for the national anthems, and some were even reduced to quivering wrecks. Throughout the tournament I noticed a trend in which the team that seemed to be more fired up during the national anthems in crunch matches seemed to be playing with a higher intensity, and ultimately either won the game or ran the score much closer than anticipated against heavily favored opposition. The argentines, fueled by what seemed to be some real pride in their country and a quite inspiring anthem, were undefeated until last night. The theory had been working so far, with the english really getting pumped up to God Save the Queen over the past two games which got them playing with real intensity from start to finish. The french have another great anthem in La Marseillais, and they really got into it against the kiwis in cardiff, resulting in one of the greatest and most memorable upsets of all time. Although the stade de france was booming two nights ago, the players seemed to be less emotional than the english before that game and the final result was a win for the red roses.

So far so good theory-wise, except for last night. The springboks have been cool and composed throughout the tournament, without really having any real worries (except maybe for Fiji, but that didn't last for too long) and they stood up for their anthem with looks of determination. The argies were typically fired up, with tears flowing so fast and far that it really moved you to see such big men in such a sorry state. End result was a bok win, but for a few mistakes I think that the argentines could well have won the game. Actually, now that I type this out I think my theory is still quite valid. The argies had the intensity at the beginning of the game and were looking much the better side until a few costly giveaways. The south africans then had the mental fortitude to use that points advantage as leverage to negate the intensity of their opponents and put in a very professional display of rugby. I think the argentines could have won this world cup with a little bit more control and discipline.

Key lessons here:
1. Have an inspiring national anthem full of crescendos.
2. Make sure a good few members of the team cry at the start. One player ala John Hayes for Ireland won't produce the required effect. You need at least 3 criers.
3. Convert the crying into anger.
4. Don't concede silly penalties and don't give away interception tries.

I think I'm gonna go apply for the (soon to be) vacant new zealand post now after that inspiring set of sentences.

Dream Eco-Disaster

2007-09-20T23:39:00.000+03:00

I overslept this morning. For some reason I didn't wake up at the usual time and ended up sleeping to a very late hour, an hour I was annoyed to have slept until. Two things came of it: a groggy head (which I have now), and a vivid memory of a dream which is the basis to this post.

We had gone to Al-Dar islands with the family, and in the dream it was exactly as I remembered it (except it looked nothing like the real-life version). One thing which was disturbingly different was that the tide had eaten up more than half of one of the three football pitches. My dream-self lamented the loss of this pitch that was the scene of many childhood footy heroics, and I kept going on about global warming and how this was the first time that I had really felt the effects. I even vowed to write a post about it and put it up on my blog. Subsequent recollection of this statement while awake is the driving force behind my current furious typing. Funny thing is, the football pitches I had seen somewhere or another, and it was just a case of cut and paste over the already existing image I had of the islands. If anything, where they were positioned in my dream meant that a big chunk of the beach and sea were buried by these pitches. Another eco-disaster, considering all the ongoing land reclamation work in Bahrain, so maybe the sea was fighting for its survival in the dream, refusing to have so much land imposed on it while I slept.

The dream later evolved into starting a 4-on-4 game and having Cristiano Ronaldo step in to make up the numbers on my team. The bastard never passed the ball to me before I woke up. Thanks for nothing, buster. Oh and Jose, we wouldn't have had it any other way. Cheers for all the brilliant soundbites, and don't stay away for too long!

Worrisome

2007-08-24T23:21:00.000+03:00

Is anybody else concerned about the precarious position that Lindsay Lohan is finding herself in these days? If it were someone I knew I would be sounding the alarm and calling for an intervention as soon as possible. It seems that the downwards spiral in which she is trapped in is gathering alarming momentum. For someone who has recently hit rock bottom she seems to be going to great lengths to prove that there is yet another level below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6961558.stm

I recently watched "The Parent Trap" on television in England, and the fresh-faced kid with the charming smile back then has taken a terribly incorrect turn on the path of her relatively short life. To have fallen so far in such a short period of time is quite sad, I must say. Lindsay, although I'm not really a fan and I follow your news sporadically, as a fellow human being I must say that I'm very worried at what might come next. Trust me, its much more satisfying to fade away after a long and fruitful life than to burn out before you hit 25. Get your shit together before its too late.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zIzciYwGHM

Slàn Leibh

2007-07-04T18:26:00.000+03:00

Here's a little snippit from MAD magazine that I found quite amusing:

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, AND...

...pirates wear TWO eye-patches.

...regular comic book superheroes include "Eye Man" and "The Sighted Guy".

...racial segregation is much harder to enforce.

...socks and sandals are still a fashion faux-pas at formal events.

...the national anthem features the phrase "detached cornea" four different times.

Goodbye Ireland, thanks for seven great years. See you when I see you!

Fully Registered

2007-06-29T07:28:00.001+03:00

Sure enough, its over just as fast as it all began. From the 1st of July I'm going to be a fully registered doctor and my internship days will be well in the past. I'm also going to be unemployed until further notice and I'm actually quite looking forward to it.

Its been an interesting year. It wasn't as hellish as people paint it to be, but it definitely did have many shitty moments embedded within its fabric. Being a bottom feeder is never fun (unless you're a hamour, you'd love that shit if you were.. lying on the bottom of the sea, scooping up whatever falls your way.. which is interesting, the colloquial Bahraini term hamour draws on the size of the fish to describe influential public figures, especially businessmen, while in actuality the hamour is a bottom feeder in the most literal sense of the word). Being the shit-filter, the person that is inundated with stupid requests and showered with mind-numbing clerical work.. it takes you a few weeks to get a hang of it and a few months to totally master it and then you're cruising.

My work experience so far has been that of knowing how to manipulate the system. Sure, I picked up some teaching here and there, but my job has been to facilitate the lives of those more senior than me. The best intern is not the one who knows the most, but the one who makes sure everything is set up for the big boys to come in and make a decision. A demeaning existence were it permanent, but that's why its confined to one year. By the end of this year you've become a bullshit connoisseur, being able to smell it miles away and sidestep it with plenty of time to spare. Now that you know how to play the game, you can start practicing medicine in earnest, with more responsibility gradually being placed on your inexperienced shoulders.

So what have I gotten out of it all? Mainly confidence.. the knowledge that I can deal with any situation no matter how fucked up it is. Sure, you're always learning in life and in medicine.. but it has to go without saying that this abrupt introduction into the real world of hospital medicine has to be the blow that strips the largest layer of innocence and naivety from most of us.

I leave on the 4th of July. After seven years of calling the republic my home, its time for me to move back to where my family reside. I'm anticipating a sizeable enough culture shock, but it doesn't worry me.. I'm more focused on the bliss of unemployment at the moment, even though the regular income will be missed. As I see the new interns come into the hospital to sign their contracts and start moving into our vacated lockers, you can't help but get a tingling down your spine as you remember the beginning.. the very nervy, anxiety-ridden beginning to a year that would go on to shake you to your core.. a year that I've just survived but will forever carry the memory of.

Sparkle and Shine

2007-05-30T08:41:00.000+03:00

Gems from one of the cleaning staff at the Ireland outbound section of Heathrow Terminal 1 at around 10pm:

Man (Indian origin, 65 years old): ...its good here, quiet today.
Woman (African origin, 40 years old): Yes, sometimes it can get very busy.
Man: But I like it. Everyday I find 50p or 1 pound while cleaning. People always drop change.
Woman: What do you do with it?
Man: I buy my drink. You know, Red Bull. Something to keep me awake.

*Walking Away*

*Coming Back*

Man: Every day I clean up at least 5 full cups of coffee.
Woman: So?
Man: This place here that sells the coffee.. if its so bad, why are they allowed to keep on selling it? No one finishes their coffee.
Woman: *laughing*

Quickfire 3: Elevator Politics

2007-04-25T02:15:00.000+03:00

Working in a hospital with 6 floors (especially as in intern) means having to use elevators at least 25-30 times a day. Its virtually a tool of the trade, having to be in so many places all the time means that getting around efficiently and comfortably has a major impact on your work day.

What annoys me the most is visitors (or even smoker patients) who share the elevators with you. Most people who work here tend to understand how the things work, and will know how to speedily get to where they're going. There are usually two call buttons, one for each direction, and common sense dictates that you press the one your require and wait patiently. Then you have those idiots who walk up after you and press the other direction too. Why? Is it because they might be going downstairs to where the staff canteen is, or where the hospital maintenance facilities are? I don't think so, they're visitors and are using the elevator to go up to the next floor (completely ignoring the stairs). They press the down button and stop a descending elevator, ask where its heading and are told its going down. And then they get on. As it goes down and comes back up again, the doors open and guess who's in there? The same idiot. What kills me is when you ask them why they do that, they answer "its faster". Faster for what exactly? Do you just enjoy being in elevators? Have you no understanding that you're delaying those going down and crowding them for no reason whatsoever?

Please, just stop coming to my workplace and annoying me. I don't come into your job and start fucking your shit up, so repay me that courtesy. Thank you.

Quickfire 2: Pride

2007-04-25T02:01:00.000+03:00

One of the few things that keep me going during the routine days is an upcoming meal. Since most hot hospital food is usually inedible, a custom made sandwich is always a tasty option to look forward to.. sometimes as early as 9am.

Whether its at the hospital or in a deli nearby on the weekend, one of the things that really gets to me is when my sandwich is made in a sloppy fashion. I believe that, no matter what you do, you should always have pride in you work. If its your job to make sandwiches all day, then its your duty to infuse a sufficient amount of love in each one you make. It really bothers me when someone makes me an asymmetrical sandwich, or one that is light (or top-heavy) on ingredients. Either the bread isn't cut properly, or the sandwich has so much cheese on it that the rest of fillings are completely drowned out.. things like that aggravate me to no end.

I understand that making sandwiches can be tedious. It may not be your profession of choice.. you may not have grown up envisioning this for yourself.. but its still your job, and you should have some pride in what you produce. This sandwich may mean nothing to you since its one of 50 you'll be making today, but to me.. this sandwich is what I've been looking forward to all morning and is going to set the tone of the rest of my afternoon. Please don't let me down.

Quickfire 1: PCD

2007-04-25T01:52:00.000+03:00

PCD is an acronym for two conditions that go hand in hand.

Pre-Call Depression: A feeling of loathing of life descends as you walk around the hospital all day knowing that you're not going home that night. Five o'clock comes around and people are smiling and cheerful as they walk out the door.. but all you can do is hope for a quiet night as you don your scrubs and prepare for a rough 24 hours. It usually presents with irritability and feelings of anger. Lashing out is a common symptom.

Post-Call Delirium: Lack of sleep coupled with an overworked mind lead to a delirious state. Someone once told me that being post-call is equivalent to having drank two pints of lager. Some people burst into spontaneous fits of giggles at inappropriate times while others say and do the most outlandish things. Everyone looks like absolute crap post-call. In extreme conditions when associated with a busy day, lack of food and a developing headache, it can actually escalate into a full blown migraine or a hypoglycemic attack.

?

2007-03-18T20:31:00.000+03:00

My Super Sweet Bullshit

2007-03-08T04:33:00.000+03:00

Sorry folks, but this is going to be one angry post about nothing.

Channel surfing today, stumbled across MTV.. I never watch MTV anymore and I realized why. Anybody seen that show "My Super Sweet 16"? Well, if you haven't, its basically a 20 minute thing following a girl who's turning 16 and documenting the build up to the lavish party celebrating this oh-so-important milestone. I've ranted in private about this show before and I've made my distaste for it quite obvious to those around me, but today I decided to go public with it. Why? Well, it just happened to be an episode where the girl was that bit extra spoilt and it completely got on my nerves.

It cost her mother $180,000 to throw the party, inclusive of a brand new Audi. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the most expensive party ever portrayed on this piece of trash masquerading around as entertainment. I don't know who watches this shit, but it certainly embodies everything that is wrong with American society in particular, and the human race in general. I'm not sure if its put out there for people to ridicule, or to provide insight into the lives of those who just don't deserve what they have.. but if its being aired for people to actually enjoy and wish it were their life then that's pretty fucking disgusting.

The kids on this show come across as the most shallow and ignorant people you could ever meet. I know montage can be a powerful tool for producers to portray their subject in a negative/positive light, but I can't help but believe that the people involved have some measure of control over how their image is broadcast. The concept of taking a rich little 15 year old and giving them license to spend that kind of money on a birthday party WITH THE CONSENT AND COOPERATION of their parents is absolutely appalling. The tantrums, the lack of respect for anyone around them (including the parents), the complete disregard for the worth of money and the abhorring lavishness of the whole thing.. is this actually being encouraged? Have we reached a stage where actions such as these are laudable, even enviable? The party itself is disgraceful, with kids dressed and acting like adults twice their age, which really begs the question.. where are their parents? There're spoilt bratty kids all around the world, but it seems to be a competition for who can be the most shocking at this point.

Its an inescapable fact of life that there will always be a minority of rich people who will control things and shit on the heads of the lesser endowed majority. For us to portray the ugly face of decadence on a show that kids watch with such intrigue is completely irresponsible. I know most adults would turn their eyes away and would get that what is being shown is ludicrous. What concerns me is that there are 15 year old girls out there who now expect that this kind of behaviour is the norm, and you just HAVE to make a spectacular entrance in to your $100,000 party or else you're just going to look the fool. MTV, you should understand that you do (unfortunately) set the bar for all things cool when it comes to your teenage audience, and portraying this kind of crap in anything but a negative light is infuriatingly counterproductive in the molding of an impressionable young adult into one who is a responsible, useful part of society.

For a light-hearted take on the same show, see South Park season 10, episode 11 entitled "Hell on Earth 2006", in which Satan plays the part of one of those terrible 15 year old brats and eventually gets what he deserves.

The Human Condition

2007-02-10T23:24:00.000+03:00

I was standing around at the general post office in dublin, waiting to get a postal order for my visa renewal application, when I overheard a conversation.

Person 1: A young-ish man, in his late 20s to mid 30s. Tall, well built and with multiple old scars on different areas of his face. His eyes look dull, a bit like he's seen more shit than a person should see in one lifetime (outside of major warfare). Kind of like the eyes of all the impoverished young adults living in Dublin's slums. Life heading towards one of three directions: prison, alcoholism or a violent death at a young age.

Person 2: A middle-aged woman of around mid 40s to early 50s. She stinks of stale smoke. Its the kind of smell you get in your clothes and your hair when you've been smoking heavily for around 20 years and are constantly surrounded by those who are just like you. Her voice is gravely, her laugh is akin to a cackle. Vocal chords have taken a severe pounding at this point. I hope she's not into karaoke.

P1: *inaudible mumbling*.. fuck's sake!
P2: *cackle, cackle*

P1: Why are all the people coming at this time, it makes it so much busier! *looking around menacingly at senior citizens in queue*
P2: *nervous cackle*

P2: You know, you should get your lotto tickets today. The jackpot is around 110 million euros.
P1: *inaudible mumbling*.. here, hold my welfare certs for a minute, will you?
P2: *cackle cackle*

P2: What would you do with 110 million?
P1: I'd lose it all in 2 days.
P2. *cackle* and how would you that? Its hard to drink that much in 2 days.
P1: *serious look* Las Vegas.
P2: *nodding in agreement, thinking of next cigarette*

I really hope he doesn't win the lotto.

Contrast

2007-01-14T13:14:00.000+03:00

Driving up the coast to work these days means that I cover around 50 kilometers every morning. In-car entertainment is extremely valuable, and so I've ended up with over a dozen CDs filled with the most eclectic, incongrous collection of songs imaginable. Totally disjointed. I've been told that there is an art to making CDs, and that I've yet to discover it. Apparentely I just end up perusing through my itunes library and shifting whatever song tickles my fancy into my "to burn" list. Unfortunately, random tastes are based on fickle-ness. What had tickled me the day past might grind on my nerves the next morning, and so the CD is chucked into the armrest storage facility along with the rest of the experiments gone bad, and so on and so forth.

So my Renault doesn't have a speeding indicator. You know that noisy beeping (or single, gentle beep.. whichever the make of your car) that reminds you that your right shoe has suddenly become full of lead? Well, my car doesn't have it. Now, I'm not sure if its a manufacturing fault, an issue that needs servicing, or just some sort of reflection on the laissez-faire attitude that the frogs apparently have towards excessive land speeds. When it comes to not wearing my seatbelt, the damn thing won't shut up. It does its job well, however, since I never forget to wear my seatbelt just to make sure the associated warning ding doesn't cause me to drive into a wall out of utter exasperation.

The new hospital is a bit ghetto, but hey.. that's life. This job involves a lot of moving around, working in different places. I suppose over the next few years here I'm going to have to get used to certain things. On the upside, its much smaller than my last place of employment, and so people are friendlier and the staff are much more familiar with each other. Quaint.

Here's a picture of where I usually am for around 70 hours a week (its not THAT bad, I just took a picture of the abandoned basement corridor for effect.. this hospital is still very safe to report to if you're ill), and a picture of where I'd ideally like to be for 70 hours a week. It was a beautiful day, and my beautiful companion decided to take a beautiful shot of me dragging my club set as I set off after that beautiful drive I had just bombed down the beautiful fairway. That is, before she had to retreat back to the car because the wet course had completely soaked her cute little shoes that were made of some kind of cloth. Hmm. Her feet apparently froze, and I ended up with a pair of socklets in my car that were hung out to dry. I discovered them three weeks later. Very amusing.

Delirium

2006-12-20T09:20:00.000+03:00

Neurosurgery call sucks. Didn't get much sleep last night, so I'm running on some next shit at the moment.. 36 hours with all the trimmings can be something special sometimes.. some some some..

A guy got shot outside of our house the other day. 4 pops we heard, 4 shots there were, 3 in the head and one in the throat. Gruesome stuff. Makes you wonder about the neighbourhood.. although the fact that this was a proper hit as opposed to a random shooting is slightly comforting. It ain't pretty when the underworld surfaces. Two of my friends happened to be passing by and tried to resuscitate the guy. No use, he had no airway and was drowning in his own blood. I was post-call and in no mood to run downstairs in my pyjamas. Wise choice in the end, since the place was swarming with cops and onlookers within minutes.

Its Christmas season which means that the consultants start taking their teams out for lunches and dinners. Free food, free booze.. the works. Everyone forgets about the hospital, and the patients can have some alone time without all us crazy doctors running around conducting tests on them.

I was King of a castle this weekend. Lording it up down south, it was quite special. Was the official celebration of the birthday that never was this year. The official rescheduling means that I was born on the 16th this year. The 16th was a wonderful day. Today, the 19th, the day which is usually my birthday on any other year, was spent wandering around like a zombie due to lack of sleep.. it was foggy too, so it was quite depressing. No matter, the sun was shining on the 16th! Awesome birthday weather.

I guess the moral of this short monlogue is that you should reschedule your birthday around your life. If you can't do something special on the actual day, do it some other day. Why be sad when you can be happy?

Drifiting into sleep now. No pager to wake me up tonight, nothing to disturb my sleep until my alarm goes off at 6am and I have to get up and get on with it. Post-call delirium can strike in many ways.. some people go loopy, others get irritable.. me, I just lose a lot of inhibitions. There's something about being so damn tired that you can't take shit anymore.. so you just smile, pick it up, and heave it back to where it came from. People understand. Most of the time.

Whatever Makes You Happy

2006-12-09T13:53:00.000+03:00

I AM the fucking MAN.

I like big screens

2006-12-01T10:43:00.000+03:00

..and I cannot lie.

Just hanging out, watching Hotel Rwanda on the big LCD on the wall. I suppose that makes it even that much sadder of a movie when everything is in high definition.

Nice weather in Bahrain these days, back for a quick two week vacation to see friends and family. It'll all be over soon enough and I'll be back to the cold of Dublin and the usual routine of work.

Getting kind of engrossed in the movie so I'm going to have to cut this post short, I'm afraid. November wasn't a good month for this blog, so let's hope December stokes the creative fires a bit more.

Adios, amigos.

Sympathy for the Devil

2006-10-23T09:23:00.000+03:00

Here's to a sporting legend. A man you either loved or hated (the latter, in my case). There's just no denying that the guy was inhuman at times, his ruthless efficiency transforming a sport that was dominated by cavaliers in the mold of Senna. The drivers have been trained to become well-oiled machines, even less error-prone than the cars themselves, just to match this guy.

It is a sad day, however, when a sporting great finally calls it a day. His mammoth drive today at Interlagos showed that he's not a spent force by any stretch of the imagination. I hope he enjoys his temporary retirement from the sport, because even though he may not come back to race.. this guy will definitely be a key figure in the paddock for a very long time.

Thanks for the memories, Michael.

The Fan

2006-10-18T01:33:00.000+03:00

Sports. I figured out why I'm such an addict to sports.

Its always been a known fact to those around me that if people are competing in doing something, I will watch. It doesn't matter what they're competing at, as long as someone is out to win. It reached a stage where I would watch Darts live on television. Phil "the Power" Taylor is undefeatable, despite the best efforts of Scholten and Co. Cricket, Rugby, Tennis, Ice Hockey, American Football, Football, Basketball, Formula 1.. those are sports that I not only watch, but have a decent knowledge base about and a pretty up-to-date awareness of results and standings.

There's one sport up there, a major sport, that I never had any interest in. America's favourite pasttime.. Baseball. The other day my flatmate, a big Oakland A's fan, tuned in to watch the 4th game of the ALCS between the Tigers and the A's. I sat there watching with him and was slowly getting more interested in the game. Its not my first time watching baseball, I've had many times where I've tried to force myself to watch but was completely disinterested. I understand the fundamentals, I've physically played the game before and I do hold some trivial knowledge of current as well as historic players and events. I just never managed to get INTO to.

Why so different this time? Sense of occasion. That's when I realized what draws me into watching all these weird and wonderful sports. Why I actually sat there and watched the Gold medal game of Curling during the last winter olympics. Why I would tune in and cheer when Phil Taylor got a crucial 180 in the last few legs of the Darts championship final. Why I would hold my breath while Rocket Ronnie O'Sullivan raced to a 100 break in the quarterfinal of the Snooker World Championship. Occasion.. the feeling that I was witnessing something historic. Something that will forever go down in the folklore of that sport. Even if it wasn't exactly Micheal Jordan's last 10 seconds shot to win the Championship in Game 6 over the Utah Jazz in 1998. It doesn't have to be that momentous as to almost define a sport. A quarter of that magic is enough to capture this big kid's imagination.

But that's not the whole story. That's only a gateway in. Once I'm sucked into a sport through a moment of brilliance, I'll keep on watching it and will have an active interest in it. It becomes hard, maintaining such a large portfolio of interest in so many sports.. but some ALWAYS take precedence. Cricket has been on the backburner since the Ashes ended, and will come back to the fore once the 2007 World Cup starts. Rugby was big on the agenda during the Tri-Nations.. but it'll have to wait until the 6 Nations is back to spark my interest again. The same goes for American football and Hockey, which I loosely follow (who's hot and who's not) up until playoff time where things really get interesting.

Football, however, is a different story. That's just one sport that will forever hold me captive, no matter who's playing and in what competition. I'm always up for watching a match, even U21 internationals or pre-season friendlies. No matter how big of a sports nut I may be, I'm still sane enough to recognize what the best sport out of them all actually is.

Sticks and Stones

2006-09-28T22:38:00.000+03:00

Last day of my first job tommorow. Starting monday I'm the intern with the orthopedic (bone) surgeons.. fondly reffered to as "the orthopods".

Its been a good three months. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm going to have to sacrifice quite a lot of my personal time due to my work hours. I enjoy the job, don't feel like I can't stand the hospital while I'm here, which is good because I'm usually here 80-100 hours per week.

Ramadan's begun, I'm told. Doesn't really feel like it, almost an afterthought in my mind. I'm realistic enough to know that fasting would reduce the quality of my work, and hence potentially (and I use that term quite generously) result in an increase in morbidity levels when it comes to my patients. A mentally switched-off doctor usually makes for a bad one.

Other than work, things have been coming along well. The new call schedules are out and I managed some elbow room for a visit back home. The flipside is that I am now working on the 23rd, 25th and 28th of December. On-call. Still, looking forward to going back and seeing the family and all. Its been a while, and things have just been crazy. It'll feel good going back to something I know so well.

I need to organize for a cleaning lady/person to come to my apartment on a regular basis. Two-weekly perhaps? Its starting to accumulate dirt and we just don't have time to clean. All I'm interested in doing when i get home is grabbing an ice-cold brew and relaxing in front of the television. If one comes home at 7 or 8 and has to be in bed by 11 for the next morning, one has got a very limited window of opportunity to release the tension and have some leisure time. That opportunity has to be grabbed (gribben? incorrect, yet so tempting) with both hands and I sure as hell won't let a bit of vaccuming get in the way.

I would look forward to this weekend but I'm on this Saturday. Saturday call is the worst, it just splits your weekend and you end up working two straight weeks with no break. Ahh well, I'm past the point of caring.. some things you just have to put up with. That's why I got some new PSP games to keep me company during the slow hours.

Alright, time to get back to work. Patients can only be left to their own devices for so long, and then the nurses start to get antsy and pull the trigger on that pager of yours. That beeping noise sends a shiver through the spine. I think it has caused permanent pyschological damage at this point. Give it a few more months and my pager will become an extension of me.. just like my pinkie, for example.

?

2006-08-25T07:58:00.000+03:00

Easy Days

2006-08-09T01:47:00.000+03:00

The boss is away on holiday so we got no new patients coming in, no proper theatre lists and no clinics. The number of patients on the wards is dwindling to almost none which makes for a lot of slow days.. like today, for example. This is how I actually got some time to type up a new post while at work. I'm getting paid to do this, which rocks.

My dashboard is starting to rattle. Dublin roads aren't exactly the smoothest but the console in front of my steering wheel is emitting a faint buzz. Its quite annoying, but its nothing I'm in a rush to sort out. It just interferes with my listening to the new Chilli Peppers album (impressive!) and my morning groove on the way to work. I don't drink coffee, never have, and I'm not much of a caffeine person.. so I get my morning buzzes in different ways, like listening to music. Need to buy milk, though.. had to have a stale cookie for breakfast which wasn't too stimulating. Need my crunchy nut burst at 6am or else I find myself spacing out too much at work.

Blew 3/4 of my paycheck in the span of a week. It felt fucking awesome. I'm entitled to that one month of madness but I'll have to start saving up from now on. Maybe I'll use the money to construct a giant metallic squid. It'll have a cockpit where I can sit and navigate and it will definitely be amphibious. If I wanted a vessel that was strictly aqua-bound then I would've bought a nuclear submarine. No, my squid will drive smoother than your average sedan and will even have the ability to leapfrog traffic. Hell, it can even fly.. why not? Reminds me of that cartoon back in the day, the one with the three guys, one who's water-based, one who can fly (I think his name was Ace.. his uniform was blue), and one who does crazy stuff on land (his uniform was green). I forgot the name of the cartoon, but I'm sure it'll come to me at some random moment.. assistance, anyone?

If I don't get the squid then I might choose to invest my money in a more level-headed fashion. I probably will.. which doesn't mean I'll never get my super metallic squid.. it just means that it'll have to wait.

My new laptop randomly picked up my new xbox 360 on the house's wireless network the other day. They sat down, had a brief chat and now I can watch all of my movies, listen to all of my music and look at all of my pictures on my xbox. I find that quite cool, if I might say so. It was a bank holiday monday so I spent the afternoon playing a downloaded version of Uno on the xbox online against strangers.

Payday

2006-07-29T22:47:00.000+03:00

Feels good. Quite good, actually.

Time to go and enjoy it now!

Post-call

2006-07-16T22:17:00.000+03:00

Exhausted, slightly disoriented and feeling woozy. We just cooked up a big breakfast and I think now that we're digesting we're slowly falling asleep.

It was cool, two of my friends were on call with me last night so we got to go through it together. It ruined our weekend, in fairness. Saturday call means 9am to 9am on Sunday. You have no vacation between the two work weeks and no day to sleep in and recharge your batteries. Its cool having a friend or two on call with you because when they're done their work or you're done yours, you wander over and help clear each other's boards by doing the menial (and annoying) little tasks of re-charting drugs and taking bloods. It lets the guy working the ward focus on the bigger issues such as working up a patient with chest pain or low blood pressure, or admitting and ordering pre-op tests for a patient coming in for an operation.

Being on call is a totally different experience to normal work. You cover a few wards on your own and depending on your luck it could be a good night or a bad one. I had a good night last night, managed to sleep 4 continuous hours (unheard of!). When I woke up at 6 I thought my pager was busted. I hurried up to take a few bloods meant for 6am and I found out that all the patients had slept quite comfortably through the night. Even that one guy who was de-sating (desaturating, in terms of blood oxygen saturation levels) had had a reasonably quiet night. Lucky me.. still makes me worry that the next one is going to be a bad one. Things tend to work out like that.

What's going on in Lebanon anyway? I've been so wrapped up trying to strike that balance between work and play that I've been cut-off from the world. Hope that shit resolves itself soon, its too complicated and depressing for me to even follow on the news.. that's why I'll just put my head down and keep on working I suppose.

Mon Dieu!

2006-07-10T09:03:00.000+03:00

Oh Zizou.. what were you thinking? I'm quite sad to see one of the best players I have ever had the privilege of watching end his wonderful career in such a shameful fashion.

Congratulations to Italy. The wait's been long, but it just makes it oh so sweeter. Too bad you'll all wake up with a hangover and question marks over your jobs, but hey.. might as well enjoy it now.

Zizou, Zizou.. pourquoi mon ami?

NCHD

2006-07-06T08:38:00.000+03:00

My job description in 4 letters.

Non-consultant hospital doctor.. alllriiiighhhttt..

Just watched the 2nd semifinal.. can't believe we only have two more games of this World Cup to go. I actually have to wait until 2010 for the next one?!

Today was my third day of work. The first two days were impossibly hectic, starting at 7 and ending at around 9 in the evening. Very exhausting, very confusing and certainly very terrifying. The senior doctors don't appear to be sensitive to the fact that the interns change in the beginning of July of each year (or they just blatantly ignore it) and keep on working and ordering things as if we've been there for years. Its hard enough getting lots of things done at once, its even more difficult when you have no idea how to - for example - take out a central line using standard aseptic protocol. "Mohamed, will you go on and do that for Ms. Murphy then? Alright, moving along." And it doesn't stop there, it keeps going until you have a list full of things you've never done before and just don't know how to do.

"But Sir, umm, how am I supposed to fill out a form, print out a sticker, get the form signed by a consultant radiologist, order the scan on the computer, go down and speak to the radiographers to get it done asap? I'll figure it out? Okay. One more question though, where exactly IS the X-Ray ward?"

I didn't eat lunch on the first day. I stayed alive on a bowl of cereal consumed at around 6.30am and a bottle of water at around 2pm. Within three days I've streamlined my work and become much more efficient. I got home at 5 today (light workload also being a factor), but I'm starting to enjoy it at least now that I know what the hell is going on.

At least I'm earning my paycheck. Actually, at least I'm getting a paycheck. Getting paid will definitely feel nice at the end of this month.

Alright, time to go sleep. Have work tommorow, more patients to admit and work up, more scans to chase and more bloods to draw. Take care everyone.

Delayed

2006-06-23T12:51:00.000+03:00

Hanging out in the Gulf Air lounge, Dublin flight's been delayed twice already.. it was supposed to take-off at 1am, but I'm told that 3am is the new official timing. Let's just see how this works out, because I have a feeling that I might be waiting here for a hell of a lot longer. I hope I'm mistaken, of course.

*10 minutes later*

Okay, now its been delayed until 4am and declared as "provisional". Wow, I wonder what that means?

My two and a half weeks in Bahrain flew by, as expected. The first five days were normal, but as soon as the World Cup kicked off I fell into a routine of watching three matches per day. Had a nice little set up downstairs, big screen and a dreambox (up yours ART, you soulless thieving sons of bitches) and the guys came over on a daily basis. We had our dinner hour between the second and third game, and we went somewhere different every day, battling the clock to get back in time for kick off. Some serious speed eating there (take that, Kobayashi!). Other than that, it took a while to get into the rhythm of things and, sure enough, I had to leave as soon as I started relaxing.

Something fundamentally changed in my constitution as a human being during my exam period. I didn't notice it at the time, but when I was done I fell into quite a funk. It felt strange, I felt angry and confused. My graduation was great, but it all flew by too fast. The realization that I won't be seeing a lot of my friends for a while is just starting to hit me now (was looking at the hockey scores and considering a discussion with one of my Canadian friends over Edmonton's almost comeback.. but then I realized he's not going to be there when I get back). I guess I'm excited about work, but I've been too busy to even have time to contemplate being nervous. Life's been moving at 200 mph for the past 2 months and I'm just starting to process all that has happened. I'm also starting to get back to the way I used to be, which is quite nice.

All I want to do is get back to Dublin. I've said my goodbyes here and I've had my closure, now I want to get back so I can start the next chapter in my life. I'll be back in Bahrain soon enough, I'm planning to come down for a bit of Ramadan and Eid. That's for later though, I have a sufficient amount on plate as it is without thinking about planning future vacations.

Hope I get to travel today, I have a long day of unpacking ahead of me tommorow. Moving into my new apartment so I need to take my life out of the boxes its stored in and re-arrange it somewhere new. A friend of mine and I moved into the apartment two of my really good friends lived in for four years. We used to hang out there a lot, have barbeques and all that. They're both gone now.. how fucking weird is that going to be, huh?

Oops..

2006-06-14T10:26:00.000+03:00

My blog turned 2 years old almost a month ago and I completely forgot to wish it happy birthday..

-----------------------------------------------------------

Dear blog,

Been busy with life and all that. You know how it is. Sorry about not celebrating the fact that you've turned two. Its been a wild ride, let's see how far we can take this.

Happy Birthday.

-Mo

Ground Control to Dr. Mo

2006-06-05T23:02:00.000+03:00

Took my protein pills and put my helmet on.

Feels like I'm floating around at the moment.. my mind's trapped somewhere between yesterday and today, its neither here nor there. Soaking up the moment is really hard to do when you're struggling to orientate yourself.

Got back to Bahrain last night, my aunts were very sweet showing up at the airport en masse to welcome me back. They even brought flowers and came over for dinner at our house. I then drove out to meet a few friends at a coffee shop (gahwa), and it felt like I had just walked through a time warp. Time really does stand still in this little country of ours.

The last 6 months have been one hell of a ride. Over the last two nights I bid farewell to my friends of six years. A bunch of them were going back home, and only God knows when we're going to meet up again. It felt very surreal, packing up their lives.. I had to move apartments as well, and it really made me realize that a person can accumulate quite a lot junk over the course of so many years. Two of them were like brothers to me, we grew up together and went through a lot of shit over the years. Saying goodbye to them was the hardest part of the past week, a week filled with joy, sadness and fear of the unknown.

For the next two and a half weeks I'm going to do absolute jack shit. Golf, the World Cup from 4 to 11 daily, Winning Eleven on PS2 and complete absolution from all sense of responsibility. I've been forced to grow up faster than I would've liked, but I suppose that has its benefits. Time to kick back for one last time before having to go back and face the real world on July 3rd, 2006.

Today I'm going to go frame my degrees. Once I hang them up on the wall in our house as a testament to the hard work of the past six years, my inner child will come bouncing back and we'll have the best 2 weeks EVER together.

One person is missing from all of this, but I'm thankful that my stay here won't be too prolonged. Even though we'd still be in seperate countries, being that much closer geographically still makes things a bit more bearable. You kick ass on those exams, sweetheart.

Chuck Norris Jokes

2006-05-21T00:00:00.000+03:00

Kept us sane and laughing during those dark days of studying. We'd exchange Chuck Norris facts outside the library during break time, and it made sure that everyone went back in with a smile on their face.

- Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
- Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
- Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice.
- There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
- Chuck Norris is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.
- The quickest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris' fist.
- Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse.. horses are hung like Chuck Norris.
- When Chuck Norris goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.
- Chuck Norris doesn't actually write books, the words assemble themselves out of fear.
- Chuck Norris CAN believe it's not butter.
- Chuck Norris doesn't shave; he kicks himself in the face. The only thing that can cut Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.
- On his birthday, Chuck Norris randomly selects one lucky child to be thrown into the sun.
- Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.
- Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
- Little known medical fact: Chuck Norris invented the Caesarean section when he roundhouse-kicked his way out of his mother's womb.
- Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
- Chuck Norris uses ribbed condoms inside out, so he gets the pleasure.
- Chuck Norris doesn't believe in God. God believes in Chuck Norris.
- Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.
- A Handicapped parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.

Dr. Mo

2006-05-13T13:32:00.000+03:00

Its over.
I did it.
We all did.
Its over.

Number 3: Avaritia

2006-05-10T22:53:00.000+03:00

Just thought I'd contribute to the cause. I've never liked the Bahrain Telecommunications Company. It has monopolized the entire communications sector since the start of its existence and caused me endless grief during my teenage years. Huge internet dialup bills made sure that my parents and I were at loggerheads for the majority of my adolescence.. although I now understand that it was Batelco's fault for charging so much while giving so damn little in return. Remember all the stolen passwords, kids? That was wrong.. but what could we do? The internet was a big new world back then, and all we wanted was to be connected.

Broadband in Bahrain is still slower than advertised, and more expensive than in other countries. Thankfully I haven't had to deal with Batelco for a good few years now, but I'm told that the service is snail-paced and unreliable. Eircom held a monopoly over the Irish communications sector for a very long time, but it had to fix up and look sharp recently with all the added competition. Cheaper prices (still not the cheapest) and faster connections.. working harder to value its customers because they can so easily move on to another service provider. That's still not the case in Bahrain, but I don't think it'll stay so for long.

Get with the program, Batelco.

Adios!

2006-04-11T21:32:00.000+03:00

Well, its officially here. Starting today I'm going to disappear off the face of the earth.

I might occasionally be spotted early in the morning or late in the evening in Dublin city center walking to or from the library.. but not anywhere else besides that.

I'm going to withdraw into an artifical shell made of books, notes and cue cards.. and I won't be back until the toughest five weeks of my life (so far) are over.

I hope that my next post here is a happy, celebratory one.

Take care, everyone.

Come Rain or Come Shine

2006-04-01T20:31:00.000+03:00

Mercer Library, 9.31am. A beautiful sunny morning, so it was quite a pleasant walk. I hope it doesn't start raining later on.

So here's the big question: Rain or Shine?

Let me explain.

You see, studying is an inevitability. Its one of those things that has got to be done, regardless of the weather. On any other occasion, under any other circumstances, a beautiful saturday morning such as this would've either been disregarded because the sun was burning my hungover retinas, or celeberated by making some calls and arranging for a nice round of golf out in Howth. Unfortunately, there are only two certainties in (my) life, death and studying (we don't have taxes in Bahrain.. yabadabadoo!). Anyway, back to my point..

There are two camps to this argument: Those who say that they prefer if it were raining outdoors while they were studying indoors because they won't feel like they're missing out on the good weather, and those who say that if their misery was compounded by rain then they might just be inclined to shove that barrell up into their hard palate and pull the trigger.

I still haven't figured out which camp I'm in, although I must say that I'm not a firearms kind of guy myself so I wouldn't pick that specific method.

I just realized its April Fool's day today. Hmm.

BST

2006-03-26T14:25:00.000+03:00

It stands for British Summer Time, but I can tell you that first impressions about the pronounciation of the abbreviation as "BLSHT" are spot on. No disrespect to the Irish equivalent, IST, but "ILSHT" just doesn't have the same punch to it.

I just lost an hour of my life. Its 3.25 now and there is no way in hell I intended to stay up this late. Come to think of it, I don't know why I'm still up.. I guess I'm just pissed off. Well, whatever the reason is I might as well be productive and post something up for you good folk out there to read when bored.

Yesterday was my last day of school as a medical student. It was pretty low key, we all got together for drinks and only realized it midway through the night. Not much of a celebration, everyone had work to do the next morning so the get-together was a sober affair. It was nice though, we actually started busting out funny stories from random moments over the last six years and it kind of dawned on us that we were reaching an end point to this particular stage in our lives. Daunting? You bet. Exciting? Fo' sho'!

Plans, plans and bigger plans. Plans to move here, plans to work there, plans to do this and that. Plans to get together in Vegas. Plans to rip shit apart at least once a year. Have a reunion in ten years. Make money to buy more expensive videogame consoles and games.. larger tv screens, faster computers, flashier cars. Make it big. Be happy with being comfortable. Hit the jackpot and retire at the age of 45. Work like a dog until you're 65. Own a yacht someday and sail around the world. Go back home at some point. Help out, give back to the community. Be greedy, sit on a pile of money. Invest. Blow a fortune. Start a business and quit medicine. Love your field of work and do it until you're forced to retire. Teach when you're done. Teach while you're still working. Give it all up and teach. Save a life. Save a few lives. Let grieving relatives know that you've done all you can. Give up your life to become a brain surgeon. Work as a GP in a small town with a nine to five. Get into research. Become an international playboy. Settle down and start a family. Sing when you're winning. Sing when you're losing. Look back on it all and know that you've enjoyed every minute of it. No regrets.

Tick Tock, Clarice..

2006-03-16T04:27:00.000+03:00

The countdown is well and truly on. Finals are approaching fast and we're all scrambling to get our shit together. Some of us have to scramble harder than most, but that's just the price you pay for achieving a semblance of (im)balance to your life during med school. You take a few years easy and the next thing you know you're wishing you had paid just a little bit more attention in that biochemistry class four years ago. And I so would've too had I not slept in that morning. Hmph.

Weather's been all grey and nasty for the last couple of days. I was walking home from the library yesterday and it started to piss.. just a fine drizzle that's actually more annoying than proper, big raindrops. As I walked down in front of the impressive main entrance to Trinity College just at the top of Dame Street, I started noticing a highly synchronized motion being carried out by all the Irish girls on the street. Each and every one seemed to be wearing a hooded jacket and underneath it a sweater with a hood. As the first signs of drizzle appeared, every lady on the street reached backwards to tuck her hair into the first hood and pull it over, followed by a second motion of pulling the second hood over the first one. Simultaneously. I was pretty damn impressed, I must say.. and not only by the atomic clock-like precision of the action, but by the inherent preparedness they all had for an eventuality such as rain occuring. Ahh, the beauty of human behavioural conditioning.

I've been mulling over my future as of late.. it seems that time is running out on my existence as a student, and I find myself wondering how much I'll really miss all of this. Sure, you want to graduate and start making some of your own money sooner or later, but something tells me that this kind of carefree life that I lead right now is probably my sole remaining link with childhood. In 3 months that link is going to be completely severed. The inner child will have finally given up the fight.. he will have dissolved and gotten promptly excreted in my faeces.

Well damnit, I won't stand for it. That kid has been bouncing around in there for more than two decades now and he'll get the send off that he rightly deserves. In true Hunter S. Thompson style I will actually fire my inner child from a cannon on top of a 153m tall tower to the tune of "Mr. Tambourine Man". Its going to be a great spectacle, and everyone's invited.

The Sopranos are back! Just watched the first episode of the new season and It made me realize how much I've missed that show. Racketeering.. now THERE'S a great career path!

And finally, in the words of an infamous doctor, "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye."

Mama Said Knock You Out!

2006-02-23T09:49:00.000+03:00

I'm doing anaesthesia at the moment. I had my biases and preconceptions before the week started but I've got to say that the experience has changed my views on the subspeciality. To us, the medical students, the anaesthetist is the guy sitting on a stool in the operating theater doing a crossword puzzle and occasionally writing down a few things. The surgeon would ask for more sedation, an infusion bag would need to be changed, an antibiotic would need to be pumped into a vein or necessary measures would be needed to control an escalating heart rate or a decrease in blood pressure.. and then its right back to 5 DOWN: "a river in egypt - 4 letters".

To the student, the surgeon is "the man/woman" (gotta be PC these days).. the anaesthetist is simply backup staff, much like the scrub nurses. Now I don't mean that to be derogatory in any way, because without the backup staff the surgeon would just be an idiot standing around in an empty theater holding a scalpel over an awake patient who's screaming and bleeding to death. Unfortunately, power and authority are seductive.. and since the surgeon practically runs the OR, us little ones (within the heirarchy) can't help but compare everyone else in that room to "THE MAN". And so the anaesthetist is just that quite chap in the corner whom we don't really think we can learn much from.

Big mistake. You'd be surprised by the amount of knowledge those doctors have. They drill you on your physiology and pharmacology, your drug interactions and side effects.. things that you thought no one could possible recall off-hand and at such a fast pace. Drug measurements and efficacys, the ability to tailor the choice of drug for each highly individual situation.. they really need to know everything about everything because what they do involves.. EVERYTHING. Not just one part of the body, but every single tissue, every single cell and every single chemical within those cells.

What I found truly intriguing was the prep room, a little room attached to the operating theater where the anaesthetist reigns supreme. They wheel the patient in as a fully conscious human being, chatting away.. either allaying their fears of the impending surgery or in good spirits with a positive outlook on the outcome of the next few hours. Next thing you know, little old lady O'Brien is counting backwards from 10 and she stops at around 7.. and then she's dead. Well, sort of. She has a machine breathing for her, you can cut her open and she wouldn't feel a thing. She gets picked up and placed onto the operating table, people are prodding and poking at her and she just becomes..... work. That's what really struck me the most, how the anaesthetists can be talking away to the patient, and then the next thing you know that person is pretty much gone for a few hours. I just found it all a bit disconcerting at first.

Anyway, still doesn't change my opinion about ruling out anaesthesia as a future career path, but it sure does change the level of respect which I have for the job. Still though, if I were in that field of medicine then I just would NOT be able to restrain myself from having that LL Cool J song blaring in the background before every patient is sedated. Bad practice? Maybe.

Don't call it a comeback, I been here for years.. I'm gonna knock you out!

A Medical Discovery

2006-02-14T09:49:00.001+03:00

This post here is dedicated to my better half.. thanks for the assistance with the research, sweetness.

I was thinking of actually publishing this in a medical journal, but I thought I'd run it by you guys first.

I believe that females have an undiscovered anatomical diversion. Yes, that's right. Undiscovered. What they swallow is not immediately destined to head into the stomach, instead there is an alternative route downwards.

You see, depending on the type of food ingested, tiny little female follicles in a woman's gullet automatically divert the food either towards the stomach (for sustenance), or towards the uterus (for comfort). Let me explain with an example:

Specimen A: a salad (i'm assuming that's what chicks eat)
Specimen B: chocolate

Now, specimen A gets ingested and the esophagus takes it directly down into the stomach where it is digested and then sent to the small bowel, where all those good nutrients are absorbed. It then moves to the large bowel and is eventually excreted a day or two down the line.

Specimen B, on the other hand, is swallowed but is then pushed into a special passage (which I've decided to call the mosophagus, just to make things easier) and makes its way down and into the uterus. From there it coats the inside lining of the uterus, resulting in the release of feel-good hormones that generate an overall feeling of pleasure, relief and contentedness.

I can see you squirming in your chairs, wondering how I made such an amazing discovery. Well, you see, it all came about the other day when we went to this place to have some hot chocolate. Apparently they served it in the form of melted chocolate in a mug.. like someone had taken a chocolate bar and liquified it. I found this all pretty interesting (in a very uninterested, "heh" sort of way) while she was just absolutely in love with it. Had a few spoonfuls and it tasted alright I guess, so that's when I started thinking about it.

You see, being that I've got a Y chromosome, I never developed a mosophagus (and subsequently, a uterus) therefore there's only one place that chocolate could go.. into my stomach. In there its all acid, waiting for a burger or meat of some sort.. and instead I deliver some melted chocolate. You can imagine how unimpressed my stomach is.

Her uterus, however, is actually physically HUGGED by the chocolate coming through the mosophagus, and the resultant hormone release delivers feelings of happiness that are much appreciated by her brain.

By the time you've finished reading this I will have finalized my flight and hotel bookings to Stockholm. Time to get working on that acceptance speech!

Polytix

2006-02-04T06:55:00.000+03:00

I'll break from the overall theme of this blog for just this once.. only because this whole situation has been making me chuckle every morning for the past week.

Its like one of those bush fires.. someone lit a campfire during dry season and the whole forest just went up in flames. Started out with a little bit of smoke, but there's nothing better than a little overzealousness coupled with some dry leaves to spread the fire of hatred at such velocity. Being far away from the situation is giving me a more detached view of the whole affair, but I don't doubt that if I was back home then my opinions would have been slightly skewed by the general bad vibes in the air.

I've never seen anything like it before. The Muslims of the world have united together. They've actually set aside their differences and banded together to face an issue. What's terribly disappointing is that its all happened over a bunch of... cartoons. Honestly now..

Let me make this clear from the outset: I don't condone the cartoons. I don't find them funny, I don't find them true, and I certainly don't agree with the messages that they convey. I also find them insulting and extremely ignorant. So please, don't question my faith and don't declare Jihad on my ass because I've already got enough things to worry about.

Looking at pictures of all those people in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq and a few other countries was just astounding. You can almost see the thirst for blood in their eyes, but I'm convinced that the photographers go around looking for the most crazed bunch to come out with the most sensational possible picture (hey, its their job.. can't blame 'em). Pictures of flag burnings, flags being placed as doormats to stores and homes. If it were my flag I'd be pretty damn pissed off about the whole thing, to tell you the truth.

And we have to remember, amid all the calls for apologies and demands for respect, that THE DANES as a nation didn't draw or publish the cartoons. It was the actions of a few cartoonists and a handful of newspaper staff. The Danish people as a collective might not agree with what was printed at all, yet they recognize the fact that their country gives them the right for freedom of expression. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Danish people are NOT on a mission to degrade Islam and humiliate Muslims, therefore we have no right whatsoever to show such little respect for an entire nation of people based on the actions of a few of its citizens.

Setting aside the question of who to blame and what to do to gain revenge for the tarnishing of our great prophet's image and reputation (which honestly cannot be touched by a bunch of silly little drawings anyway), I think it is our duty to sit down and figure out why some people out there interpret our religion in such a manner. It is my understanding that the cartoonists were initially asked to draw their understanding of Islam as they see it, and they came up with a few provocative (and inaccurate) drawings. But where does the inacurracy stem from? Isn't it from the unfortunate way that Islamic fundamentalism has made world news in such a fashion that it had sullied the image of the religion as a whole? And I'm not just talking about the terrorists with their distorted views on life and all things spiritual.. I'm talking about the rigid, inflexible and illogical way that a sizeable portion of the Islamic world interprets the Holy Quran and other religous teachings.

Instead of boycotting Danish products and trying to "hurt" them financially, we should call for greater communication between our countries and an exchange of culture and ideas that enrich both sets of people. Its with mutual understanding that we can get them to respect our culture and religion (not by beating them with sticks and calling them infidels), and that means that we should also make an effort to understand why exactly a few of them see our great prophet in the light that they do. Progress will only come with an honest effort to solve the issue in a civilized manner, and not by further antagonizing the Danes and the rest of the world by calling for boycotts, blood and martyrdom.

Besides, this whole deal is hurting the Bahraini Danish Dairy Company (100% Bahraini since 1993) and I really love their strawberry milk. It reminds me of my childhood.

Alright, that's that. No more of this now, let's just move on.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2006-01-15T13:14:00.000+03:00

Routine (noun):

A prescribed, detailed course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.
A set of customary and often mechanically performed procedures or activities.

I'm in a really structured phase of my life right now.. very totalitarian. There's a set rhythm to my existence and its not such a bad thing. I am, by nature, a man who likes his routine.. a comfortable and predictable lifestyle where I derive pleasure from the little things. I broke out of that for a while, lived a couple of years of spontaneity and it was quite a ride. I figure somewhere in the middle is about right, and I'm getting there.. slowly but surely, I am. For now I'll re-embrace the fuzzy warmth of predictability, because my entire life is getting an overhaul within 5 months.

We've been messing around with the new xbox that's been out, playing online with people and all that cool stuff.. its weird playing with someone who's not there, but it definitely fosters a team mentality between your friends when everyone's sitting around cheering you on to beat the person on the other end of the line.. I think we all like each other just that little bit more now.

I've recently discovered the true value of winter accessories. For a very long time I thought that any man wearing a scarf and gloves was a sissy-man who couldn't face the cold with the steely grit and determination required from a member of the XY club. With age and experience (and a hefty dose of estrogen), I learned that there is nothing wrong with protecting yourself from the cold. I even went out and bought me a pair of gloves and a nice warm scarf, and they've come in very handy on those frosty morning walks to the hospital. Masochism in the name of machoism gets you nowhere.

They're plain and black, by the way. Just the way they should be. *manly grunt*

Hi ho, Hi ho..

2006-01-04T03:27:00.000+03:00

I knew it wouldn't last for very long, this winter break of mine. As expected, its time for me to go back just as soon as I've started settling in. Its been a nice little break from everything, saw a whole lot of people I haven't seen in a while and spent some quality time with both friends and family. It feels good catching up on stuff with everyone, and you can almost sense the age creeping into our conversations as they start to revolve more frequently around adult issues such as jobs and whatnot.

Squeezed in a round and a half of golf with quite a few breakthroughs. I suppose golf is one game where, if left to simmer for a while, the results aren't completely disastrous. Sure, practice keeps you in shape.. but if you don't play for a few months then it won't exactly dismantle your game. In fact, if anything, I feel that a few months off gave me a new approach to the whole concept of the golf swing.

I was contemplating the other day how faultless Bahrain seems to me when I'm not here. The sense of longing for home and family overwhelms everything else, and I find myself wishing I was back on a more permanent basis. It only takes a few weeks here for reality to slap you square in the face and then you start remembering all the little things that you dislike about this country. Don't get me wrong, I still love every minute I spend here.. but there are lots of issues, be they political or societal, that really rile me up. Seeing that I won't be living here for a very long while yet (I WILL come back eventually, coming back too early is just career suicide) I find myself hoping that things will change to the better by then.

To end this post on an even more somber note, a piece of unfortunate news has just filtered through. We employ a cook/driver who lives in a room attached to the house.. great guy, a very hard worker whom we all like very much and consider a part of the family. As is custom in the subcontinent, he had just recently (three months ago, to be exact) returned back to his village to organize and pay for a lavish wedding for his 17 year old daughter. Earlier today he recieved word that his son in law who works in Dubai (its a village of women, that.. all the men seem to come to the Middle East for employment) has contracted pneumonia and was in critical condition in the ICU. An hour ago he got a call and the person on the other line delivered the terrible news that his young daughter had just been widowed. He's been audibly in distress ever since, and we've tried our best to make him feel better but there's really not much one can do in a situation like this.

Just makes you think, doesn't it? May that poor man's soul rest in peace, and I pray that God will grant him and his daughter the patience and fortitude needed to deal with such an unfortunate tragedy.

No Place Like Home

2005-12-18T12:25:00.000+03:00

My apologies for not posting anything up for a while. My last two weeks of term were spent in Drogheda, a hole in the ground masquerading around as a town. That place is really starting to become the bane of my very existence.

I did my two weeks of peripheral paediatrics there.. its coming along nicely, starting to understand what the whole deal is when it comes to treating children. Just got back to Bahrain last night for my winter break, and boy does it feel good to be back. This has been the longest period I've been away (5 months!), and I got an odd feeling in my chest as the plane was approaching the runway and I could see the construction of the Bahrain Financial Harbor towers from way up high. Definitely a patriotic moment, that.

Spending the next two and half weeks here.. the Dublin-Bahrain direct flight was fantastic! It made the whole travelling process much less strenuous and we even got here in 6 hours thanks to some amazingly strong winter tailwinds. It'll be nice seeing the family and everyone again, just resting up before I go back in January and start going apeshit studying for my finals in May. Its strange, everytime I come back home it feels like a lifetime had passed and that I've changed so much as a person since the last time I was here.

Apparently Gulf Air show thank you notices on screen for passengers during landing these days. Seeing that I've never seen these before, just as soon as we landed the screens started flashing "Shukran" and "Thank You" and I started clapping like a moron. It was a few seconds later that I noticed that no one was joining in. Apparently the pilot hadn't put those up himself as a request for recognition of the good job he'd done over the last six hours. That's what the person next to me told me when I asked, anyway.

Smart ass.

Sick Kids

2005-11-24T03:22:00.000+03:00

Paediatrics: The discipline of medicine concerned with the treatment of children and infants suffering from illness.

Walking to my new attachment at the Temple Street Children's University Hospital in -1 degree weather is not much fun. My ears turn all red and tingly and my hands start to sting. Winter has begun in earnest and the trees are mostly bare save for a few resistant leaves (good on ye!).

The walk to the hospital takes me up Gardiner Street and into a few of the more underprivileged neighbourhoods in Dublin. As I walk through the streets I'm astounded to find remnants of architecture with actual historical significance. Outside a building site I noticed an old tower that looks like the sole remainder of a fortress wall, and around it had been built a small community playground and park. As I walk towards the hospital I can see the tower of a cathedral from a distance, the "temple" after which Temple Street had been named. The funny thing with that is that it used to be a nightclub, believe it or not. Yes, the church was one large nightclub that we used to frequent during my first two years here. It had hosted its fair share of high profile events such as MTV parties that brought some of the biggest acts in the Hip Hop/R&B world at the time right here to Dublin. The place was shut down two years ago after constant complaints from nearby residents and the hospital across the street about the noise levels and drunken buffoonery over the weekends. Now that I stand next to it on a weekday morning wearing a shirt, tie and sobriety, I actually appreciate the scale and beauty of the edifice. It's a shame that its been allowed to erode away the way it has. I hope they clean it up and re-open the place as a historical tourist attraction at some point.

The actual hospital is akin to a mouse maze. As I turn the corners of its corridors I find myself constantly expecting to run into a dead end and a piece of cheese. The original building is quite old, so the expansions over the years had been visibly arbitrary. One thing that struck me about it was the cheeriness of the floors, walls and ceilings. The colors are bright and breathtaking and the cartoon drawings all over the place fill you with a fuzzy sense of warmth. The fact that the Accident and Emergency waiting room is filled with benches that were propped up by massive wooden shoes brought a smile to my face. Here's an area of the hospital most commonly associated with acute illness and death and the walls are colored differently with drawings of flowers and teddies all over them. I know it makes sense for the kids, but wouldn't adult hospitals benefit from such a burst of cheer?

Absolute Pain

2005-11-18T00:10:00.000+03:00

Just climbing out of the depths of despair at the moment, and what a plunge it has been. For the actions of 11 men in another continent to be able to inflict so much psychological damage on me is just unfair. You give it your all, you put your heart and soul into it. The team has always been a very important part of my life, but for the last two weeks it had become the center of my universe. I had dreams about it, I woke up sweating at night following a nightmare where we had conceded a goal.

The night before the game I actually had a dream where they scored first from a headed corner, but we equalized in bizzare fashion when our striker nicked the ball from the goalie on a goal kick (the one with the ball on the ground, where its not in play just yet) and I woke up before finding out whether it was disallowed or not. Sounds eerily familiar, doesn't it?

We deserved to lose that game because we didn't play well. Any beliefs that we may be able to complain and win a rematch for the disallowed goal are sadly misguided. We've had our (miraculously) large slice of luck against the Uzbeks, and we had to earn the result last night. We didn't.

Time to pick up the shattered pieces and move on with my life.

Handicapped

2005-11-12T13:15:00.000+03:00

So I went to this party tonight.. a celebration of this fine (questionable, that..) young man's 21st birthday at this bar across my apartment complex. It was an alright night, interspersed with a decent amount of C2H5OH and filled with people that I had no idea about. See, this fine young fella happens to be a good few years down the pecking order in medical school terms, so most of the "kids" there had a good number of semesters left until they reached their aspirations of becoming life saving physicians.

A friend of mine and I represented our class with a few others, and we had a good enough time except for the adulation you recieve on a night out on account of being a "final" Med. Now that's something I can do without. The only thing I've achieved is being a part of the graduating class of our medical school, and that is something that comes to many with time. When I'm a doctor and I've actually contributed to society, then come to me to gawk and gaze. Right now, just leave me alone. Even if you do happen to be a confused 17 year old in need of a person to look up to, trust me.. there are many better role models out there.

But I digress. The point of this post was to discuss the handicapped bathroom facilities. See, this is a nice bar that we went to, and (as a lot of venues do) it has its facilities positioned down a few flights of stairs in the basement. On the ground floor is the handicapped toilet- for obvious reasons- and it did indeed pose a tempting propostion for me tonight. What? not have to go downstairs to relieve my bladder? I'm in!

So I walked in and as many of you may have witnessed in many handicapped facilities, there was the usually array of handles and bars for those of us less fortunate to be able to hold on to when having to negotiate their way on to the toilet seat.

One thing that WAS missing, however, was adequate reflective surfaces. Sure, the toilet paper holder was chrome and so was the liquid soap dispenser, but there was no mirror. It made me think about whoever put this place together. Did they think that maybe the disabled among us had no need for one? Surely a long mirror could've been placed somewhere to accomodate those in a wheelchair and those who aren't?

Ramadhan and Eid?

2005-10-31T01:22:00.000+03:00

As the month of Ramadhan comes to a close - or so I'm told- preparations are underway for the great big celebration that is Eid il Fitr (the three day long shindig celebrating the end of the fast). Great time to be at home.. you get to see all sorts of family and friends, wear brand new clothes and have balalee6 oo baidh (sweet noodles and omelettes) for breakfast and goozi (a feast for the senses.. 'nuff said) for lunch on the first day. Yummy.

So how's my Ramadhan been? Don't ask. I haven't been back in Bahrain for Ramadhan or Eid for the last five years. I forgot the taste of that month's special food (thireed, harees and the rest of the gang).. I forgot what it felt like to have a big family gathering on the first day of Eid, such a joyful day, a day where I used to recieve money from the elders for the occasion. A dinar here and a dinar there and at the close of business, at around 7pm, a counting session to see who got the most money. My first year in university my mom assured me that she had saved my Eid money in the bank for me.. over the last four years the amount has shrunken considerably (God, isn't he old enough to start making his own money by now? Why do we still keep giving him Eidiya?) with only my parents, Allah ya7fidhum, still making sure I get my Eid money in my account for when I come back on vacations.

As children we used to get Eid gifts in a very special way. I remember getting my GameBoy on the first day of Eid. This kerrr-aazy new gizmo that I can carry around with me to play games with.. my parents would put the gift next to my bed after I went to sleep so that I'd wake up in the morning and find it on the bedside table. Naturally, I'd wake up at around 5am to play with whatever I had gotten that year.. nothing works better as an alarm clock than a burning sense of anticipation in an 11 year old boy.

I miss all of that. Ramadhan is so damn desolate when you've got no atmosphere around you. It takes some serious determination and strength of faith to be able to fast by yourself, eat by yourself, and continue with the same timetable of normal days without food or drink. And then if you actually manage to fast the whole month, what do you get? Eid! Guess what I'll be doing this Eid? Well, it could potentially fall on a Wedensday or Thursday so I'm going to go absolutely nuts.. I'm going to go to my tutorials and various educational activities at the hospital, and then I'm gonna come back home, do some reading, eat my dinner and go to sleep so I can wake up and do it all over again on - you guessed it - the SECOND day of Eid!

Last year's Eid I think I took the day off from the hospital and went to watch a movie with a friend.. I don't think I can afford to do so this year, my consultant certainly wouldn't appreciate it if I did. I went down to see my brother in England a week ago and I managed to fast two or three days. It was nice, there's a good Bahraini group of kids there and they cook if6ar and are living in (a slightly excessive) Ramadhan mode: they stay awake until 3 or 4 in the morning watching Arabic tv shows on satellite, then wake up at 3pm the next day. Having that whole atmosphere made it easier, even though I was waking up at 10 I could still get through the day with the promise of a nice, home cooked meal. What do I get if I decide to fast in Dublin? A headache lasting from 7am to 5pm and a rushed pizza in the oven, that's what.

I know, I know.. I'm just being weak. It can be done, and Muslims all over the world do it in foreign countries. The feeling of Ramadhan has always been the clincher for me, and when I don't get that its very hard to live the month. Maybe its my fault for not surrounding myself with Arabic or Muslim friends. The past 26 days have just been the 4th to the 30th of October for me, in truth. All those feelings of guilt I used to get for not fasting are becoming easier to sweep away each year. Maybe someday I'll get it all back, and I know its going to feel fantastic. And on that note I'm going to end this disjointed, disillusioned rant.

Hope you had a great Ramadhan, 9iyamin maqbool if you've fasted, and Eidkum Imbarak to all.

Guys' Rules

2005-10-30T07:28:00.000+03:00

You probably have read this in a forward somewhere.. I just got this in my mailbox today and I thought I'd share it with everyone out there who hasn't seen it already.

-----------------------------------------------------

We always hear "the rules" from the female point of view..
Now here are the rules from the male side.

These are our rules. Please note.. they are all numbered "1" ON PURPOSE!

1. Men ARE NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly Acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only If you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing.", we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

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Found a lot of it true, although I am blessed in that most of it doesn't apply to me personally. I must admit, I'm quite a lucky boy. Here's to hoping that all you guys out there are (or will be) just as fortunate as I am.

Loungin'

2005-10-20T23:01:00.000+03:00

So the new Fifa football game on the Xbox comes out, right? Aside from all the usual graphics, sound, gameplay and roster updates.. we have a very interesting new feature. The Fifa Lounge.

I'll avoid making this a long rant about a videogame, and will instead focus on the human element of it all. To give you a bit of background, the Lounge is a part of the game where you and a bunch of friends can enter an on-going league that tracks all the games you play against each other. Every person has to sign themselves in for a "session" (as its so appropriately called on the game menu) and the stats just keep on piling. As it stands, I'm on top of the rankings having played 60 games, won 43, drawn 7 and lost 10. Impressive(ish), eh? The rankings are decided by a "rating" number that fluctuates depending on wins and losses. As number 1, if I beat a team below me 1-0, I get +6 rating points. If I lose by the same scoreline, however, I'm down by around 25 rating points. It therefore rewards the lower teams far more than the teams higher up, which makes being on top a very difficult position to maintain, since you've got much more to lose than to gain.

All of this added competitiveness makes it all very interesting. If you've read my previous post entitled "Videogame Session Dynamics", you'll understand how testosterone-fuelled this can all get. Bragging rights used to be temporary, a 5-0 win will earn you a few hours of taunting, but then eveyone will forget and the next time we all got together to start a new session the slate would be clean. A 5-0 win now over your closest rival will equal a +50 rating swing in your favour that will probably drop him down a few places in the table. Not only is his pride injured by such a heavy defeat, he's now officially worse than some of the other guys. You can imagine how shitty he must feel.

Of course, the Lounge system has also added an interesting "fear" element, the fear of losing rating points. As I've detailed before, good players have a shallower learning curve than their fellow gamers. This means that I've raced to an early ratings lead that has widened the gap tremendously. A few others are now snapping at my heels after the initial period of acclimatization has passed, but as the bottom feeders start getting to grips with the game, they assist my position by challenging (and occasionally defeating) my rivals. So after I win a few games against small fry, I can sit back while they give the other contenders a run for their money. Being in a position where they stand to lose so much, they get aggravated during the game and lose their focus, which naturally leads to unfavourable results.

This teaches you a lot about your friends. Aside from the fact of determining once and for all who the best gamer is, it also shows you who can withstand the pressure and who cracks under it. Some games you get unlucky and lose a bunch of rating points, but its those who can dust themselves off and come back with the confidence of being the best who eventually top the table. This confidence is boosted by a solid record, and the way the game lets you view your statistics helps a lot.

A new word has been added to our dictionary. On the way back from a rough day at the hospital, all one person has to do is to suggest that we all "Lounge". Instantaneously, all plans are cancelled and we congregate in front of a square black box and a tv screen to spend the next few hours on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.

Seeing that we're all going to become doctors soon enough, this can be dismissed as childish behaviour that we'll leave behind when the time comes. That last statement couldn't be further from the truth. The videogame industry has reached gargantuan proportions over the last few years. The amount of money spent in that sector is starting to rival the kind of cash being poured into Hollywood's movie business. Videogames are starting to dominate popular culture and are no longer a domain for those who are in their teens. They're targeting us, the kids who transformed into grown men (physically more than mentally) and who happen to make their own money. We the generation who grew up with Mario and Sonic.. the Atari, Commodore 64, NES, SNES, GameBoy, GameGear, MegaDrive, N64, the original Playstation and now the Xbox. We're the ones who will soon be running your corporations and conglomerates, investing your money, treating your illnesses, fighting your legal battles, flying your airplanes, ruling your world..

So we play games. Its not so bad.. we can't spend all our time being serious now, can we?

Scalpel please, nurse.

2005-10-06T22:55:00.000+03:00

Its funny how things work inside an operating theatre.. people running around, getting on with their workday while patients are wheeled in and out of that big green room with all the fancy gadgets and gizmos. Nurses chatting away and socializing while they get ready for the next patient, doctors going off to get a cup of coffee before coming back to scrub in and get to work. Theatre lists that resemble indices of books in busy hospitals usually mean a less friendly work environment (example: SMC), while shorter lists lead to a more laid back, relaxed atmosphere in which everyone knows that they might just be able to sneak in lunch at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

Where does the medical student fit into all of this? I'm usually that inanimate (as far as everyone else is concerned) object in the far corner next to the medical supply cabinet. I must admit, it does get quite boring in there, and I tend to avoid going into theatre unless the consultant spots me wandering the wards and drags me with him. See, the novelty wore off around two years ago, and if you're not learning anything then its a pain in the ass to stand around for two hours staring at the back of the doctor's head while he points out things you have no idea about.

The other day things changed. Being in final year means you are expected to know more and actually help out when needed. The bitch-work involved in assisting in minor surgeries (things such as retracting the skin and clearing the way for the doctor to do his thing) is something that not even junior doctors enjoy doing unless they're hoping to become surgeons one day. So I'm standing around in my scrubs, trying to stay awake when the surgeon points at me and goes "You. Scrub in."..

This is where I almost lost all tone in my anal sphincter muscles. I'm not the proactive type that tries to scrub in and assist whenever I can. I know a lot of people in my class who have scrubbed in and assisted as far back as 3rd year, but I'm just not the volunteering type.

So I try to recall our little scrubbing tutorial and get to cleaning my hands and arms.. everyone's helpful.. the murse (male nurse) helps by unpacking the sterile kit and guiding me through the whole robing process.. and then just as I'm ready to go I scratch my nose with my germ-free glove and have to redo the whole thing again. It was one of those moments where your inner Homer is so close to manifesting itself with a resounding D'Oh! that would shake the hospital walls to their core. I managed to contain my anxiety and annoyance and made it safely to the operating table.

The next 45 minutes are spent retracting and pulling while the doctor removed a large lipoma out of our patient's back. It was benign and encapsulated, so the process was relatively simple. I got to do the honors by separating the final attachments with the cautery device and then I helped stitch and staple the wound and ended up doing the last bit by myself. Job done.

When asked later on by members of my family how it felt to cut open a real human being and stick my fingers inside the wound.. it made me think. It felt more like work, something to be done.. it never crossed my mind that this was an actual person.

All in all a good experience. I enjoyed it very much and I'd be happy to assist on any surgery from now on. It helped that the doctor guided me through the whole thing and was super nice. I also realized that even though I might enjoy the work and seem to be adequately skilled when it comes to tasks requiring manual dexterity (thanks to a life spent videogaming), I still wouldn't want to be a surgeon.

Its definitely a boys club, and I think I'd have a blast if I joined. Its cut 'em up and stitch 'em up without the requirement of patient empathy or sympathy. I enjoy the human element of it all and wouldn't want to give it up. Besides, ward rounds at 7am every morning for the rest of my life? On-call at all hours of the day, and a proper battle to get to the positions you aspire to get to? No thanks.. I might love medicine, but I certainly don't love it more than my own life.

Poem

2005-09-21T03:45:00.000+03:00

I lay on my bed with a smile on my face
I looked at her in awe of her shimmering grace
I held her in my hands, my fingers twitching
To play with her all night, I truly was itching

The day she came home with me I was in ecstasy
Holding her in my arms, I unwrapped her carefully
I promised to take care of her, to never let her go
I stared at her intently, her whole body was aglow

A few weeks passed and I still feel the same
Around her I'm myself, I feel no shame
She's been with me on my journeys to far away cities
Places like Waterford, and the train station in Kilkenny

I woke up this morning, a morning so pleasant
For my little baby, I had quite the present
I went to the post office, the place was no mansion
But there is where they had, my honey's memory expansion

My PSP is so dear to me, I'm so glad she's mine
With this new memory stick I beam while she shines
I can now use her to watch three, full length movies
With some long battery life she keeps it all groovy

My PSP, she's oh so dear to me
I wish we'd be together eternally

(Or at least until the next hot new toy comes out).

One Last Time

2005-09-06T20:53:00.000+03:00

Back in Dublin (not quite.. actually in Waterford for a month's rotation right now) for one last year as a student. The last time I ever come back from a "summer vacation" to resume studies at an academic institution. The last student card I ever get issued, as well as the last set of student discounts I'm ever going to recieve on all my purchases.

June 2006. The promised land for so many years now.. and its finally within sight. There was something so distant about my final year (or Final Med, as we affectionately refer to it). The fact that I was going to spend an age and a half in med school while all my high school friends went off to enjoy their brief spell as university students before starting to pull in the redback (bahraini dinars, of course), it was something that I used to get taunted about. Back in high school no one would even consider medicine because of the amount of time spent studying (5-6 years in the UK and Ireland, up to 8 years in the US) but I chose to take a step in that direction and try to survive through it.

My oh my has time flown by. I remember arriving here as a child, in both body and mind.. the shit that I've had to grow up through.. I mean, at 17 how much do you REALLY know about anything at all? After all is said and done, however, and looking at how everyone else's life has turned out.. I'm pretty glad I chose to stay a student for such a long period of time. I honestly needed it to mature enough, God knows it took me 4 years to just get my head on straight and focus on what I was here to do to begin with. Everyone who's back and working in Bahrain struggled to adapt.. at 20 and 21 you still want a few more years of the relatively worry-free life of a student. Your sole responsibility is towards your studies, you don't have to fret about real-world issues. Granted, I've been lucky enough to be blessed with parents who have given me all that they can, and have been so generous as to pay for all my expenses and my tuition.. and I hope to repay them by making them proud on my conferring date of June the 1st, 2006. This one's for you Mom and Dad, thanks for everything.

Its an unwritten rule here in RCSI that you're only allowed to drape your stethoscope around your neck when you make it to your final year.. its almost a rite of passage. As I type this I'm sitting here in Waterford with my stethoscope around my neck, freeing up one of my lab coat pockets for other items such as my phone and my wallet. It feels good.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

2005-08-23T05:30:00.000+03:00

I was hanging out at the library today just doing some work when I completely lost my way. I ended up reading all about Julius Caesar and how the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire. In retrospect the topics I read about on the way to my final destination were linked in quite a peculiar fashion. It all started like this:

I look up from my book to see Ainsley Harriott's pretty face staring back at me from this medical journal with the headline "Ainsley Harriott talks about cooking, life and arthritis".. or something of the sort. So my mind wanders to a comment a friend of mine made as we stumbled onto Ready, Steady, Cook! when channel surfing on a hangover sunday about how Mr. Harriott is a former member of the Harlem GlobeTrotters. Lo and behold, I'm onto google in a flash to confirm the truth behind the rumor, so I type in his name and a Wikipedia link comes up. Nope, nothing remotely having to do with basketball.. he's been in the cooking business his whole life, apparently.

Hmm, so who WERE the members of the GlobeTrotters? Using Wikipedia again, I searched for that and came up with an article listing their history and members over the years.. interesting. Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain was one, eh?

While searching for that, one of the results was about Harlem, New York.. so I decide to click on it and read about the history of the area. It's quite informative, teaching me about the physical borders of the area as well as the years in which the African American populations started moving there and how throughout the years it gained notoriety as a hotbed for criminal activity. The article mentioned Hell's Kitchen as another area of New York, so I click on that and read about it.

From there the idea pops into my head to look up The Hells Angels (without the apostrophe in Hells I learn) which brings up a mention of the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont in 1969 when the gang were used for security and ended up stabbing a fan to death. Always wanted to know what happened that night, so I decide to read more about it by reading up on the Rolling Stones. After a quick whiz through their history in which it highlights quite the rift between Jagger and Richards, I decide to read more about Keith Richards' drug problems.

While reading about that, the article comes across two pieces of jewellery that he wears, one being a handcuffs bracelet that reminds him of how much he doesn't want to go to jail again, and a ring that looks like a skull with no jaw which apparently is a Totenkopf ring. What's that now?

On we go as I click on Totenkopf to read that its a german word that means "Death's Head" and is a military insignia associated with the Nazi SS. Hmm, click on that then and as I read the introductory paragraph the SS is described as the Nazi party's "praetorian guard".

Praetorian.. hmm.. so I click on that, which leads me to read about the Praetorian guard and their role in the Roman Empire and how they've become synonymous with intrigue, conspiracy, disloyalty and assassination. From there it lists the Roman Emperors and how the guard had affected their reign (whether by assassinating, deposing or assisting them) and from there I read about a few of the famous ones such as Nero, Caligula, Commodus etc.. There was actually an emperor called Philip the Arab who ruled for 5 years before being killed. Alllllriiiighhhttt.

You can see where this is leading, I hope? I spent the next hour and a half reading about the life and death of Julius Caesar, followed by the first Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus (real name being Octavian) who old Julius had written down as his heir in his will and who was actually his nephew and not his son.

Wikipedia is fantastic. I literally had to pull myself away otherwise who knows what I'd be reading about right now.

Bahraini in London

2005-08-08T22:30:00.000+03:00

Well, I'm here.

Its strange when you see it on the news (and you know that you're going to go there and be there for a month), but it never actually sinks in until you get there and ride the tube and buses every single day. I'm quite the public transport fanatic, so I don't really care much about the threats of terrorism and what-not. If given the choice of free cab rides to wherever I wanted to go or a tube/bus travelcard for a month then I'm afraid the famous London Black Cab Company will have to do without my patron.

It was strange at first, normaly blank-faced commuters wore nervous expressions. Their eyes were shiftier than usual, and they scoped any suspicious passenger for signs of trouble. You could almost see the question arising in their minds as they examine the different pieces of luggage on the carriage.. "is that big enough to hold an explosive device?".. it was strange, to tell you the truth, and the more I thought about it myself the more I got worried. What would an explosion feel like? What were the odds? Should I stop using public transport? (BLASPHEMY! *slaps himself across the face* Get a hold of yourself man!).

Now that I've been here for a while I've gotten more used to seeing policemen and women scattered across the tube network's stations and platforms. I've realized that initial paranoia about how I would be percieved when bestrode those tunnel-travelling engines was unnecessary and excessive. Aside from a few wary glances I haven't felt labelled or singled out when travelling back and forth, which goes to show how well this metropolitan city has dealt with such dark times. "Goddamnit, we're going to continue with our lives whether you like it or not you dirtbags" is the general vibe you get from the city's residents.. and what better way to relay that specific point across than by carrying on like nothing's happened?

As for the rest of everything else, the hospital is nice and modern, the staff are very professional and I'm getting a good kickstart to my final year of studying by realizing that I have much work to do before I'm up to scratch. I'm just glad that the Picaddilly line is finally back in service.. I've missed riding that diagonal, navy blue bugger.

Reflection

2005-07-25T10:47:00.001+03:00

Since I'm leaving Bahrain in a few short days to start an elective at a hospital in London, I thought I'd write a post about 10 things I've learned, achieved and experienced over the last few weeks:

1. Bahrain to Dublin, direct, three times a week starting December 2nd.. the best bit of news I've ever heard from Gulf Air.
2. Golf can be a very entertaining game if you persist with it (and manage to bag a free membership to the club for a week).
3. The heat.. the godawful heat. Not to mention the sporadic waves of uber-humidity.
4. Meeting new people who you expect to figure prominently in your life from now on can be quite a gratifying and enjoyable experience. Its been a pleasure, gentlemen.
5. You can get very fat, very fast in this country if you don't stick to your gym plans. So much for all the weight I managed to lose during exam time.
6. I've become more emotionally volatile when it comes to things I'm passionate about. In an effort to maintain a more characteristic cool, I will now try to take criticism more calmly.
7. Bahrain is growing at an unbelievable rate. A few months abroad and you're dumbstruck at the amount of roads and buildings constructed in the short span of time you were away.
8. It takes me approximately 5 weeks of doing absolutely nothing to recharge my batteries. All the physical and mental effects of a gruelling cross country commute-filled academic year have slowly been washed away.
9. I've realized that within less than a year I will be entrusted with the lives of people, and that no matter how worried that makes me feel I'm reassured by the fact that internally I have the confidence to cope with whatever fate throws my way.
10. I never knew one person could make me so happy. I never thought I'd be so head over heels. I love you sweetness.

See you in five months, Bahrain. Don't go changing too much on me now.

The Elusive Idea

2005-07-14T22:17:00.000+03:00

The Million Dollar idea. That one project that can net me a load of cash to set me up for further investments and wealth. I've been dwelling on this for the last couple of days. I have no money to my name, I have no assets I can sell, I have no investors to back any plans and most importantly.. I have no idea.

The focus has been on a cheap and creative way to provide a service that the Bahraini people require. A friend of mine has launched FeedMe, an online food ordering service (check it out!) and is slowly but surely building up a solid customer base. It caters to Bahraini (and Arabic, in general) people's love of food by providing another way to get the good stuff delivered to your doorstep. Integrating the Internet was meant to speed up the process for office workers with no time to pick up a phone, but it has also proven to be a hit with the younger generation (particularly teenagers), since ordering off a website is infinitely cooler than doing it the old-fashioned way. If you're reading this Fady then I expect a decent amount of free food vouchers delivered to my mailbox in return for all of this free advertising.

So I've been trying to come up with something similar, even simpler. Something that requires little start-up cash and yields instantaneous returns. The problem is, the market is quite small which means that to get the profits I'm looking for I have two options:

1. Target a large demographic and have a cheap and affordable service.
2. Provide the service to a niche market and charge a lot of money.

I'm also not in Bahrain for a good 8 months of the year, so running and propagating the service is also an issue. This is why the idea has to be spectacular, something that only needs to be introduced for the customers to flock to it. I have no time to start small and utilize word of mouth publicity.. I need instant impact. Its a get-rich-quick scheme/dream. I want to do the least amount of work possible and get the most out of it.

We were given a talk once about how doctors are notorious for their poor money-management and investment skills. Most medical practitioners earn a decent wage and could be much wealthier and have more free time to dedicate to their families/pro-bono work/social lives if only they invested wisely. Maybe in the future when I've got some greenback to my name I'll actually sit down and think up a proper way to start a profitable business. Until then, I'm just going to keep dreaming about my Million Dollar Idea.

A Strange Dream

2005-07-07T12:06:00.000+03:00

You'll all be pleased to know that I passed my exams and am officially in my final year of study. Before the results were released I had frequent dreams about them, not particularly about failing.. just ABOUT the exams in general.

Anyway, ever since the results came out and all was confirmed, the dreams ceased.. except for last night. I had a very strange dream that I thought I'd share with everyone. Quite random, so I thought it would be fitting to post it onto my "Random Blog":

**Begin Dream**

I'm sitting at home and I check my college email to discover that the results for the multiple choice exam have just been released. Hello.. what's this? What exam? I thought the results were all published? Anyway, I got a mark of 0 out of 20. Disastrous, since it means that I'll have to resit Pharmacology (of course, pharmacology was a subject I did 3 years ago but nothing makes sense in this dream, so read on). But how could I have gotten none of the questions right, I could've sworn I did better.. even though I don't remember taking the fucking paper! So I'm enraged at this point, I pick up the phone (some crazy Washington-Kremlin Red Hotline looking thing) and call the exams officer. I inquire about the result, about how I could've failed so miserably and how if I had gotten 2 questions right then I would've made it through.. so the guy tells me this:

"You see, you answered two questions correctly.. except we had Mario (from the Nintendo videogame, Super Mario Bros.) take five penalties in a shootout. Mario had to make at least the same number of penalties as your correct questions for you to pass, but unfortunately he missed all of his kicks."

So this is where I completely lose it. What the hell does a fat, Italian plumber videogame character have to do with my grades? Why does he decide if I pass or fail, and since when has this system been standard practice?

**End Dream**

I was quite agitated, which I believe is the reason I woke up without finding out the answers to all of my questions. A possible explanation is my being completely hooked on the Zelda videogame (which I completed yesterday after a week of vigorous, life-interrupting videogaming.. a period of time in which my girlfriend learned many new things about the way my childish mind prioritizes tasks sometimes).. but what does Link (the hero in Zelda) have to do with Mario? And yes, I've had football on the brain.. which could explain the penalty shootout.. but don't I always have football on my mind?

So many unanswered questions that are destined to remain as such.

Nostalgia

2005-06-28T01:43:00.000+03:00

Spending time back home never fails to send me on trips down memory lane.

Its been five years since I've graduated from high school. That's half a decade. That equates to slightly less than 1/4 of my entire life (21.7% to be anally exact). A lot has happened since then, and it almost seems like living in Bahrain was an entire lifetime ago. I bet this is amusing the over 30s of you out there, that a relative youngin has the nerve to go on about how old he feels.. to that I say: isn't it time to empty out that colostomy bag?

Alright, I'm sorry. That was harsh. I'm actually quite excited about growing up, becoming more mature and knowledgeable is quite gratifying. It's funny looking back at the past five years and realizing how dumb I was.. and I'll probably look back on this five years from now and realize how stupid I am at the moment, its kind of a depressingly never-ending kind of thing.

Getting back on topic: Its things like fishing through my bookcase and taking a look at all the novels I used to read back in high school. Its opening a drawer still stuffed with old IB notes that haven't been touched in five years. Its catching up with old friends, running into people you haven't seen in such a long time and realizing that most of them have jobs and some even have children (yeah, one guy in my class is actually a father now). Its visiting your high school for the first time in five years only to realize that things are not quite as you left them. Its seeing all those kids graduating (June is graduation season, of course) and reading through this year's yearbook, all that stuff about how old they feel and how they've just accomplished something tremendous and thinking.. that used to be me. Its remembering the old days with your buddies, all the things we used to get up to and all the childishness of days past. Its hanging out with my parents and realizing how different our relationship has become, how its become a horizontal one of friendship, rather than a vertical heirarchy of authority. Its seeing my siblings growing older and wiser, becoming interesting people that make me want to spend time with them, changed from the kids who's silliness I tried to avoid. Its thinking about things like domestic and foreign politics, personal finances, career decisions, future aspirations, religious beliefs.. just.. serious stuff.. things that have replaced the peaceful, innocent, oblivious contents of my childhood cranium. Its things like having to renew my driving license and getting a new 5-year UK visa because the old 5-year one expires next month. Its looking at old photos of senior year and seeing the difference. Its starting to think about what happens after I'm done studying. Its looking at myself in the mirror and spotting a few stray grey hairs (for fuck's sake, that's just unnecessary.. I'm only 22 and a half).

I think I lost my way there, I set out to write about random nostalgic moments I've experienced since I got back but ended up ranting about growing older. I guess they're inextricably linked, the older you get the more nostalgic you become.

I just read an article about this Haitian man living in Cuba who's 120 years old. Apparently he doesn't remember the first 40 years of his life. Amazing.

Balls: Curve or Straight?

2005-06-21T23:02:00.000+03:00

Before your mind beings to wander, I'd like to state that the content of this post is quite innocuous.

I went bowling with a few friends yesterday and I discovered an interesting new fact.

Let me give you some background info: See, the thing is.. I've been bowling in Bahrain since I was 15. That's 7 years. I had a phase between 15 and 16 where I used to bowl every other day at Bushihri (old school bowling place which I believe has been unfortunately shut down recently). Obviously I'm out of shape these days since for the last 5 years I've been abroad and haven't bowled much on the occasions that I did come back. I would say I'm a decent player, averaging 135 per round on a good day.

Okay, so I've got some experience when it comes down to it, right? I even know how to calculate spare and strike scores! How come I've never heard about the curve and straight variations of the ball until yesterday?

Apparently, the curve ball is the one the professionals play with. You roll it down the lane and it looks like its going to take out 2 or 3 pins max, but then it takes a wicked curve and heads towards the middle, resulting in a strike most of the time. I've known that the method existed, but I never knew it had its own seperate ball. The balls provided for the masses placed on the racks are all straight balls, and I've been using those for the last 7 years.

No wonder all my finger-breaking attempts at generating that curve from a straight ball have proved so painfully unsuccessful.

Impromptu Paella

2005-06-15T22:18:00.000+03:00

Long grain rice
Diced chicken breast
Seafood mix (prawns, scallops, mussels, and calamari)
Diced onions
Mixed vegetables (courgettes, traffic light peppers, baby tomatoes, red onions)
Paprika
Cayenne Pepper
Piri-Piri, Lime and Tequila Marinade
Salt and Pepper

No exact amounts necessary, go wild. Mine was pretty damn spicy. Ring of fire.

Wash rice and drain. Boil for 10 minutes until half cooked.
Fry onions, mix spices and throw in chicken. Fry until cooked.
Throw in seafood mix.
Throw in mixed vegetables, quickly stir fry. Mix in marinade.
Toss in rice. Mix furiously.
Allow the mix to dry up a bit (not too dry).

Make sure you make a huge amount. Do not under any circumstances try to eat the whole lot by yourself. Invite some friends over, but not too many.. you gotta make sure you have some leftover to eat the next day. If it tastes shite, invite many people you don't like and get them to bring you some booze.

Heading back home in a few days. Summer's started!

Menace II Society

2005-06-05T08:22:00.000+03:00

Something interesting happened to me today. I realized that recent good results in my Obstetrics and Gynaecology exam have meant that I've actually earned a qualification. Yup, I couldn't believe it either. Me? With some sort of qualification other than a high school degree? Surely not..

Well, apparently its true. It forms one third of the long string of letters I get to add to the end of my name sometime next year. BAO.. Bachelor of Obstetrics. Alllriiiightttt.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am now officially qualified to deliver your babies. Scary thought, isn't it?

Videogame Session Dynamics

2005-06-02T09:28:00.000+03:00

It quite interesting observing a bunch of guys sitting around playing videogames in a competitive environment. The key here is that it has to be competitive, with two or more of the players at a relatively equal level of skill. If there's no competition, the whole process ceases to be fun as attention is diverted elsewhere. There MUST be a singlemindedness towards the task at hand, a sharp focus on doing nothing but defeating and humiliating your best friends.

Many games are played, covering all major genres. There are the first person shooter games (such as Halo) which can involve anywhere from 2 to 16 players. There are the sports games that can involve 2 to 4 players (such as Fifa, Winning Eleven, Topspin tennis) and those which should be played strictly on a one-on-one basis (NBA Live, Madden, Tiger Woods). There are also fun games such as Mario Party which take on a very lighthearted and childish nature of play, but still manage to preserve that all-important competitive edge.

The whole aim of playing videogames is to prove that you are the best player beyond any doubt. Your task is to take on all comers and destroy them, making your friends pass the controller from one person to another and suffering the frustation of never being able to play two games in a row. Trash talk is a necessity, but you must also be able to back it up. If you talk trash and you suck at the game then no one will take you seriously. You will not be considered a threat to the top dogs and will be treated as nothing but cannon fodder or target practice. You will become the easy kill in Halo, the amount of times you're hunted down and killed will seperate the best players since they're too good to kill each other most of the time. You will become the lucky draw in a sports tournament such as Fifa, since playing you usually means easy passage to the next round. You will become the last person to be challenged to a game, the last person allowed to touch the controller in a shotgun scramble for a turn at the beginning of each session. No one will want to be your partner in a 4 player game. You will lose the respect of your friends when it comes to videogames and the only way you can redeem yourself is by getting better.

No, don't go practicing against the computer by yourself at home. Even the most difficult CPUs are no match for the top human players. And no, don't go researching tips and tactics on the Internet.. that's not going to help you. Improvement takes time, effort and heart. You'll have to play your games and get beaten the hell out of.. but you must also learn from every defeat. Everytime you get a chance to play one of the better players, you swallow the bitter pill of losing and make sure you give it a right go. And then, when you're matched against one of the more average players, you use what you learned and aim to beat them. Slowly but surely you will move up the ranks to being a mediocre player, capable of giving a top player a good run for his money if he happens to be having a bad day.

But that's where it stops I'm afraid. If you start off shit, you're never going to become great. Not amongst a respectable group of gamers, that is.. you can't call beating your little sister making it to the top. Becoming a constant winner at videogames is partially genetic, partially early conditioning. If you were big into sports when you were a kid but never really played any videogames then don't expect to be much good at them when you grow older (except if you're really extremely naturally gifted). Good gamers can pick up any new game and beat any other person who's never played it before. They learn how to play the game much faster and after a couple of turns are better than most players. They leave mediocre and poor players eating their dust, frustrated with the steep learning curve they must encounter to become semi-competitive.

I consider myself a damn good gamer. I think I'd be a match for any gamer 20 years old or above. If I've played the game before, chances are I'll beat you. This only applies to those who are 20 years or older, as the younger generation are a different breed. Those kids will school my ass and make me feel useless. My 13 year old cousin once beat me three times in a row while playing Winning 11.. he had the controller in one hand and was eating his dinner with the other.

Noisy Neighbours

2005-05-25T09:43:00.000+03:00

If you've been reading through my past posts, you might've caught a mention or two of my neighbours. The current site of the Irish Financial Services Center happens to be right next to one of the historically poorest areas of Dublin. In actuality the residents of the area are being systematically relocated to government housing further away from the city center, but there are still quite a few who enjoy their ghetto's location too much to pack up and do as the Taoiseach says.

Next year will be the fourth year for me in this apartment, and as I've had a nice little run of two years in the bigger room, the time came for me to move back into the smaller room with no ensuite bathroom. Its only fair, and we did play a videogame tournament to decide the order. Can't break them rules now. Anyway, this room is at the back of the apartment and directly overlooks the Sheriff street (the name of the most dangerous street in Dublin) children's playground. Its sometimes fun to just stand on the balcony and observe the little community of neighbours that we have.. drunken fathers stumbling around, angry mothers beating kids up, teenage girls pushing prams and young men fully engaged in a life of delinquency.

My direct concern is that damn playground, however. I've been studying for my exams at home for the past few days and those kids are driving me mental. Its not the screaming kids on the jungle gym that annoy me as much as it is the strange activites some of the other kids are involved in. All day today I was plagued with the loud noise of a motorbike in various states of motion. It was either idling and sputtering every once in a while, or it was whizzing away to some unknown destination only to be back five minutes later. Now, when you're studying you don't exactly focus on these things.. but the frequency and the variability of the noise was just pissing me off. Everytime the sound got louder I found myself scampering on to the balcony to try and catch a glimpse of my tormentor. When I finally did, I saw that it was a 5 year old kid with an oversized helmet sitting on a tiny-ass motorbike toy thing. He then stopped next to the playground fence and a bunch of older kids walked over, smacked him on the head and rode off on his little bike. Thank fuck for that.

Around 8.30 the kids are called in for dinner, and I hear the same mothers calling the same children they used to call three years ago when I used to live in this room. This one lady calls out her son's name at the top of her lungs for a good half an hour. Goddamnit Paddy, go home and eat your potatos if only to shut your mother up.

Announcement

2005-05-25T03:30:00.000+03:00

Currently co-posting on a blog called "Qadam" (translation: foot).

Check it out if you have the time or interest.

http://qadam.blogspot.com

Spooky

2005-05-20T08:55:00.000+03:00

Today I decided to go all high tech. I went to this website called statcounter.com and I opted to add a little counter onto my blog (all part of my one year anniversary present to my dear, dear blog). Now, this counter is pretty nifty.. sure, it gives me a little number telling me how many people have accessed my blog.. but I was surprised to learn that it does other things as well.

You see, statcounter.com offer you a free "package" that you can use on as many websites as you want. Obviously there are certain limitations which do not make it viable for large commercial websites, but for my individual purposes it does just fine. The "package" contains not only the code for the counter, but a staggering array of tools. Now, you might think me a tad slow for not copping on to this facility beforehand.. but I've resigned my seat on the board of the cutting edge of technology a long time ago. Long gone are the days where I was among the more knowledgeable in terms of computers and stuff, but I guess that's part of growing older and doing other things. I'm still quite handy, though.

Anyway, enough lamenting my loss of competence and let's get back to "the package". It pretty much includes tools that allow me to track every visitor to my website, down to their country of origin. It shows me when you've entered, where you've gone, what you've been looking at and when you've left. Now if I can do this, imagine what other, much larger websites can do. I no longer see myself as a lone surfer on the information superhighway (remember that term? those were the days I used to be cutting edge.. ahh, what days). I'm actually being watched, people know what I'm up to and they know where I am. I almost feel violated.

So, dear reader.. now that I've got these tools at my disposal (and many frequent flyer miles to be redeemed), next time you leave a comment I might disagree with I might just travel across the world to come see you. Don't worry, I'll be civil. I'll even buy you dinner.. that's been laced with rat poison.

One Year Milestone

2005-05-16T03:29:00.000+03:00

Happy birthday dear blog. You have been a wonderful vessel for my ramblings over the past year. I thank you for your patience in containing all my thoughts and words, and I promise that you shall be lonely no more.

What am I talking about? You complain that all the other blogs are getting all the attention. You say to me, "Mo, let's do politics." and yet I say "Nay, young one.. we shall stick to our purpose." I know politics draws the interested masses in, it ignites debate through comments and makes a blog popular. But let me ask you this, dear blog.. how would you feel if you were weighed down by the grim world of politics and current events? What if your content became serious, your youthful and inane outlook on life tainted by the increasingly depressing occurences of this world? You wouldn't be the carefree, silly blog that you are now. You would lose what truely makes you unique in this electronic world of independent publishing.

And so, dear blog, I promise to be even funnier, even wittier, include more pictures and diagrams and be as random as a human being could ever be. I promise to make you the best-est non-serious blog in the whole wide world. I promise to draw in more readers, make them leave more comments to show you how special you really are. This I promise you dear blog and, so help me God, I shall not rest until you are lonely no more.

El estilo de vida del estudiante

2005-05-10T02:56:00.000+03:00

Being a college student for six years can be tough. Its sobering everytime I come back home and find out what everyone else is up to.. who's gotten married, who's gotten a job where, who's complaining about their jobs and routines (pretty much everyone). And I'm still where I am.. still studying, still hitting the books. It makes me wish that I was making money too so I wouldn't have to rely on my parents so much.

Enough negativity, let's move on to why its GREAT that I'm still a student!

Well, for starters there's the whole academic year business.. you get vacations, vacations and more vacations.. you don't have to ask your boss for one, you don't have to work X amount of months to earn a week or two off.. you just get them. Then there's the whole "your own life in your own hands" kind of thing. If I don't feel like waking up and going to class, what do I do? I stay in bed and I wake up at 1pm. If I feel like going out and getting wasted midweek, would I get in trouble for not waking up early the next morning? Hells no! You have one responsibility only and it is to pass your exams with decent grades (definition of the word "decent" may differ from person to person). Unfortunately with the rotations at the different hospitals this year there's a more personal element of teaching in that you're placed in small groups and the doctors notice when you're missing. That pretty much negates all the skills I've learned over the years in how to blend into the background and not get noticed by any lecturers. I'm very proud of the fact that none of my preclinical teachers recognize my being a student at the college, let alone know my name!

But that's besides the point. Being a student means I can have a highly impractical, idealistic view of the world and not have to worry about it being jeapordized by the demands of an employer, a mortgage or any other facet of life. Deplorable? Unfortunate? I will have to eventually stop being a student and face the harsh realities, no? Someday I'll realize that there's more to life than a bank account that magically fills up every month, that money is earned on the back of hard work, right? Surely that thought would be sufficient to wake me up from my dreamland existence?

Well, I'd rather not think about it. As a student, I have that choice.

Budapeshhht

2005-05-03T10:16:00.001+03:00

Great city, that. Its quite interesting, I don't know how many people know this (I certainly didn't until a few weeks before getting there) but the city is split into two parts.. the Buda and the Pest, with the Danube river in between. The Pest side is made up of mostly flat plains, while the Buda is all about the rolling hills. Cheap city to live in, food and drink were quite affordable.. and you could practically dine out in extremely nice surroundings every single night of your trip.
You see many bizzare things, however. Between Prague and Budapest, I've seen many strange objects, practices and local customs:

1. Fried Cheese (aka Fat-in-a-bun). Pretty much a deep-fried, breaded slab of cheese that can be served on a plate to be eaten with a knife and fork.. or in the much more lethal form of a sandwich in which it is covered in mayonnaise and placed in a bun. Don't try eating more than one of these things.

2. Milk in a bag. This I saw in Budapest. Pretty much milk in a small, clear plastic bag with a picture of a goofy looking blonde cow on it and the word TEJ written in bold print (see below). I had a hard time just holding the bag and posing for a picture, never mind considering consuming its contents.

3. HUGE chunks of bread. By huge I mean as big as a person's head. I'm sure that under the thick crust lies more soft, delicious bread than I would know what to do with before the fungus sets in.

4. Parking on the sidewalk. Yes, everyone does it. Even old ladies in old volvos. Even if you're walking on the aforementioned sidewalk.

5. Man selling porn at traffic lights. A man, decked out completely in porn magazines wandering around between cars that were stopped at a traffic light. In broad daylight.

The strange language and the natives' dearth of english speakers means that a lot of interesting (mostly humorous) situations cropped up throughout the trip. Definitely worth a visit, though.

Back in Bahrain at the moment for a two week "break" in which I'll be studying for exams before going back to Ireland for another two weeks of studying prior to my first exam. What a rendorseg situation. The year's been tough, but at least now its almost over.

Milk in a bag.

The Elevator

2005-04-15T05:20:00.000+03:00

I live on the very top floor of my building. Its nothing special, not like those real penthouse apartments with swimming pools and stuff. And you certainly don't need a key or a code to access my floor via the elevator. I just happen to live on the very top floor and it means I have a more prominent view of the Irish ghettos right behind my fancy apartment building (which itself is situated in the fancy Financial Services Area). How come businesses and banks are right next to government housing? Stellar planning on behalf of whoever has that job.

Anyway, back to my point. Because I'm on the top floor it means that the elevator plays a very important role in my life. Whoever thought of putting human beings in a box and suspending them in the air using a pulley and counterbalance system.. you're fucking crazy. But it worked you loon! So Otis and Co. have made my life much easier by not having to tackle stairwells everytime I decide to leave my house and establish contact with the outside world.

If you look at my previous post titled "Shady Construction" you'll get a general feel for my building. Its nice, but its not the most well built and thought out. Apparently its not the most well maintained either, since the elevator has been (as of today) busted for two weeks. We used to get elevator functional distubances on a regular basis last year, but nothing that wouldn't get fixed within one or two days.

Over the last two weeks my fitness has improved tremendously. While previously I would arrive at the apartment door in a state of hyperventilation after climbing all those stairs, these days my breathing rate increases slightly but that's about it.

I wonder if I should send out a letter of complaint for the inconvenience, or a letter of thanks for the imposition of much needed exercise?

A Glimpse into the Future?

2005-04-07T04:31:00.000+03:00

Over easter break I flew over to England to visit a friend. It wasn't much of an easter break to be honest, it included Good Friday and Easter monday as well as the weekend. None of that crazy two weeks stuff we used to get back in the day.

Anyway, checking in at the airport to fly back I was informed that due to some poor weather that morning the airline had diverted a flight to another airport and are therefore short on the planes they have flying to Ireland. This basically meant that I'll have to fly to Shannon first, land there and wait to refuel and unload some passengers, then fly back to Dublin. Inconvenience? You bet your damn ass it was. The whole journey took two and a half hours, rather than the normal one hour's time.

If you hadn't planned to fly for two and half hours (and are lacking in entertainment, because the book you brought along had just enough pages left in it to be finished in an hour.. exemplary planning if you ask me) then you could get pretty bored. My mind wandered and I started thinking about this whole ordeal. The whole thing reminded me of a flying bus.. and that's where the future got me excited.

No more traffic, no more waiting for red lights and no more damn pedestrians. With my amazing (but highly impractical) idea of PLUS (that's a combination plane+bus), I could now fly to wherever I wanted to go! Imagine the possibilities. I'd get to hospitals in no time, not having to wake up so much earlier just to make sure I catch whatever gravity-challenged mode of transport I intend to use. It would eliminate people's fear of flying too because it'd be so common! You wouldn't have to go to the airport two hours in advance and go through security checks and check your baggage in and all that nonsense. All you'd do is pay EUR1.50 to get to wherever you're going (cost based on average distance from my home to the hospital I'm currently attending.. maybe it'd be more expensive for you.. or cheaper.. who knows?) .. and you'd get there FAST!

And since I'm talking about the future, I thought I might technologically enhance this blog by including a diagram to explain my highly complex, yet breathtakingly simple, idea. Impressive, I know.. but then again I've always had an artistic touch.

Demonstration of diabolical idea.

St. Patrick's Day

2005-03-18T10:45:00.000+03:00

I actually spent Paddy's day (as the Irish affectionately refer to it..) in Ireland this year as I'm usually on easter vacation around this time. Didn't get one this year, which sucks. It was a crazy day, copious amounts of C2H5OH were consumed and the whole thing degenerated into a farce by 8.30pm.

But enough about that, there was an interesting point that I noticed today that I thought I'd write about in my blog. If you're at all squeamish or are uncomfortable with mentions of human anatomy, then you can stop reading right about now. You have been warned. Hope you had fun, see you again next time.

Now, I was heading to the toilets and I noticed a MASSIVE queue in front of the ladies' washroom. Girls were just hanging out in front of the toilet not just waiting for a stall, but waiting to GET INTO the damn place. The gents on the other hand was a model of efficiency. You're in and within 2 minutes you're out again. You don't wait for a stall, you head to the urinals. This made me kind of question the wisdom of the location of the female urethral orifice. Why down there where its so inconvenient? It only points in one direction and removal of clothing is required for usage! Factoring in that womens' bladders are infinitely smaller than those of their male counterparts, it just adds to the whole hassle. Not only do you have to go through the process of lining up to use the toilet, you have to do it OFTEN! A design flaw, perhaps? Maybe its payback for having the ability to give birth to new life? There must be some kind of medical explanation for it (positioning of internal organs during pregenancy or something..) but I'm just not that avid a student to try and work it out. I guess I understand now the female fascination with peeing while standing up.. it does come in quite handy.

Man on Fire

2005-03-07T09:39:00.000+03:00

If only I got paid as much as Denzel, then I might not be complaining..
Of course, this has nothing to do with any of that, what happened last night was probably THE most randomest thing I have ever experienced.

On the way back from this club, my friends and I stopped at McDonald's for a late night snack as we normally do.. the weather was nice, kind of cold but dry and cloudless.. we stood around outside for a bit while a friend of mine finished off his cigarette.. what happened next was very strange indeed..

As I walked into the place, I stared at the menu while trying to put together my caloric bomb of a meal.. a big mac, a mcchicken sandwich, some nuggets and fries? mmm.. maybe a eurosaver double cheese with fries, a bigmac and....

"Sir, you're on fire!"..

Excuse me? I turn around to look at the security guard of asian origin only to see him rushing over and grabbing me by the arm.. I resist at first as he tries to remove me from the premises.. I look at him and go "what the fuck man?".. so he hurriedly points to the back of my leather jacket and lo and behold, I AM on fucking fire..

There was a hole the size of a baseball burning through the back of my jacket.. there was smoke everywhere, I looked like a movie stunt gone horribly awry.. I rushed to the door and took my jacket off and started stamping on it to limit the damage.. next thing I know Mr. Security Man has a huge glass of water in his hand and he's pouring it all over my jacket AFTER I had already put the fire out.. what a dickhead..

Slightly stunned I walk back into the place, get my food and proceed on the long walk back home with my comrades. Halfway there it hits me.. why the HELL was my jacket on fire? Who would do such a thing? After a labored thought process we eventually decided that a cigarette couldn't possible have set a leather jacket on fire, and that someone must have used a lighter or some matches.. BUT WHY? How would you feel if you saw someone walk into a restaurant with his clothes on fire, smoke plumes everywhere, and he was completely oblivious to the fact? I'd be quite freaked out to be honest..

Whoever did this, I'm going to find you and burn your house down you asshole.

Crazy People

2005-03-04T10:23:00.000+03:00

Ever wonder why sometimes there's a thick plate of glass between you and whoever it is that's providing a service for you? You know, like in a bank.. or at train stations. Security is the most obvious answer, and you would be correct in assuming so.. but most of these thick plates have holes in them so you can communicate with the person on the other side instead of attempting to lip-read..

This morning, on my way to the Kilbarrack Health Center for a part of my psychiatry rotation, I had to take the train. When I got to my destination, I asked the man behind the thick plate of glass (who happened to also be selling tickets, not just hanging out..) about the whereabouts of said center. He said a few things, pointed in my general direction and said "fuck".. I got pretty freaked out by the weirdo, smiled and walked away hurriedly.. further down the road I reached a "fork" and realised, to my relief, what the man was going on about.. shame, he seemed like a nice guy.. what could've been the start of a great friendship was nipped in the bud by an unnecessary lack of holes in a thick plate of glass.

Female Beauty

2005-02-17T03:09:00.000+03:00

Finally got around to reading "The Da Vinci Code".. a bit late, but hey.. I was busy reading other books..
*if you're planning on reading it, then the rest of this post might be a slight spoiler*

Good book, interesting premise, annoying storyline.. the ideas in the book were new to me, to be honest.. I always percieved the "Holy Grail" to be a wooden cup of Jesus, like in Indy Jones.. you know, the one where it ends in the dumb Nazis going for the craziest chalice with the most bling and end up dying and shit..

Anyway, that's besides the point.. what I wanted to go on about today was more than just the concept of the "chalice" or the "grail" as stated in the book.. all that historical relic stuff was all interesting and fitted well in the framework of the story (which I found annoyingly stop/start, as though the author intended to make the job of the screenplay writer a lot easier when importing it onto the big screen).. what struck me most was the book's insight into the symbolism and ideas of "the sacred feminine"..

Makes you stop and think, don't it? Jesus had a wife and kids? The Da Vinci painting of "the last supper" showing his wife, Mary Magdalene, sitting next to him on the table along with all the other apostles? Now, I'm a muslim myself so I'm not taking this in any religious aspect, simply commenting on what I've read and seen as a human being. Might be simplistic, might be wrong or skewed.. but I don't want a shitload of comments delving into religious or moral issues.. this is a simple blog written by a simple man who's talking about a simple idea..

Men and women complementing each other.

The belief present in males that they can control the destiny of the human race unassisted is quite unfortunate. Males tend to be physically stronger, tend to be more aggressive in nature. Taking that as a whole and looking at the current political and cultural climate in the world, you can see a dangerous route of destruction and bloodshed ahead. Political ideologies at war, and who are the politicans in the highest echelons of power? Men. Religions at war, and who are the clerics, priests and rabbis with the most influence? Men.

It seems that without the counterbalance of the female, male ego and ambition for power can run unchecked and lead the whole race to self-destruction. If females dominated the world in the exact reverse situation, the world would be going to shit for reasons I can't even begin to fathom. The whole system is fucked if power and control lay in the hands of one sex.

Unfortunately, current cultural and religious beliefs tend to predominantely state that women are an inferior sex, and must be treated as such. Even in the so-called "civilized world", women are still struggling for their full rights. Granted, they might have their basic rights given back to them as opposed to places like Saudi Arabia where they are treated like glorified animals.. but that touches on my main point: Why is it that men are GIVING women those rights? Its less a case of giving than giving BACK. How come those rights were taken away to begin with; and why and when did this happen? When did the yang decide to dispose of the yin and run the show? Doesn't it know that without its other half it no longer represents a whole circle, instead it just looks like a stupid piece of turd?

My questions are simply a matter of observation, a matter of logic.

Alright, back to work for me. Maybe next time I'll write about the state of my freezer or something more docile. All this thinking makes my head hurt.

The Commute

2005-02-08T11:45:00.000+03:00

On an Obstetrics and Gynaecology rotation at the moment (would rather not talk about it to be honest) in a town called Drogheda, north of Dublin. Drogheda is about an hour's train ride away and, as my luck would have it, the train station is a five minute walk away from my house. I commute on a daily basis, usually leaving the house at around 7am and coming back at 6pm. The rotation is two months long.

There is much that could be said about my distaste for the subject matter of the rotation and my arduous daily trek to the hospital, but the topic of this post is "the commute" and so it shall remain faithful to its heading. Commuting is an interesting concept, having to leave your home on a (week)daily basis in order to reach your location of work, the place where you make money to feed your family, cloth your children and spend on other worldly joys (such as cars, and "bling"). When I first started "commuting", I was amazed by the whole thing. It filled me with a secret sense of pleasure that I'm doing a very "grown up" thing, travelling many miles to reach "my workplace" the hospital. Of course, at the hospital I'm just another useless, corridor-obstacle medical student.. but that doesn't sway my sense of pride in my commute. I travelled far to become a useless corridor-obstacle, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let Mr. Bigshot Consultant ruin it for me.

Now, the first few weeks or so I managed to wake up and attend purely for being able to ride the train back and forth. I would pack a book and read it on the way, and then look forward to catching the train back and reading some more. I must admit, I'm a sucker for trains. For some reason, I love taking trains. I make it my sacred duty to commit to memory any underground rail map that may exist in any city that I may visit. Weird, I know, but hey.. we all have our quirks, so back off buddy.

So, being that I've rarely used the railway system in place in Ireland, I found this opportunity very exciting. And I was going to do this on a daily basis too, so its gonna kick ass! Right?

Wrong. Five weeks, three books and countless commuting hours later and I've become completely jaded. No longer do I walk to the station with a big, youthful smile plastered across my face on those cold and rainy mornings. Now I just stare blankly ahead and look like all the other commuters. Just wanting to be somewhere else, doing something different.

message from an intoxicated beauty: "Don't forget the soldiers of The Great War".
Appropriate, especially since I'm in a knowledge-thirsty WWII phase right now.

Golf

2004-12-28T15:38:00.000+03:00

Golf is a great game.

I started playing golf about a year ago, and its been quite an interesting journey. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 on the Xbox got me initially interested in the sport (and gave me some basic knowledge as to what it entails) and then frequent visits to the driving range almost drove me away from the thing all together. It was horrible. I couldn't hit the ball at first, and then when I managed to do so it just rolled rather than soaring like a beautiful golf shot should. I refused lessons mainly because the golf club in Bahrain (yes.. THE golf club.. there's only one.) charges a king's ransom for a handful of 30 minute lessons. In retrospect, one or two lessons would've really sped the development of things.. but hey, no use crying over spilt beer eh?

Slowly but surely I pieced together what now resembles a golf swing, and with visits to courses both in Dublin and Bahrain, I really started loving the sport. I played a round of 18 holes the other day, shot 5 pars and ended up finishing under par (I'm a 36 handicap.. which is pretty bad). This was basically a culmination of practice and pyschology, where I learned to let go of the ingrained idea of hitting the ball as hard as possible and beating my opponent.. and learned to embrace the idea of just going out there and having fun. After all, golf is about bettering your own performance, and not out-driving your fellow golfers for distance.

Alright, enough sounding like some golf motivational manual..

*queue solo piano in the background*
The point I wanted to get across was that maybe for once in my life I've recognized that not everything is a competition.. that fun could be had without necessarily gloating about kicking some other dude's ass in a certain sport or videogame.

*piano music abruptly ends*
Hahaha! That was funny, I almost believed that one myself..!
Videogames and sports are all about kicking ass. There's no substitute to winning. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Shady Construction

2004-12-19T01:11:00.000+03:00

My apartment block is 8 years old. I've been living in my apartment for 3 years now.. nice little place, reasonable rent..

Given that the whole complex has only been up for 8 years, you'd expect the place to be well constructed (1996 might've been a while ago, but they still had the technology back then!).. but the emphasis was visibly placed on aesthetics instead of a properly planned building. Sure, it looks nice.. but how well built is it?

Don't get me wrong, we're not talking about negligence of Egyptian proportions here (buildings in Egypt have a frightning tendency to completely collapse a year or two after construction).. simply Irish short-sightedness we've all come to expect at this point. Example? The pipes are so poorly insulated that all the heat dissipates through the walls and upwards. Being that I live at the very top floor, this provides me with a cheap and non-ending source of heat. I haven't turned on the heating in THREE years.. I don't care how cold it is out there, as long as I'm in my house its completely perfect. This isn't much of a worry, since I'm getting free shit (and I love getting free shit).. but a recent problem has arisen that prompted me to write this post. Apparently the water pressure is too high in the building as well. What does this mean, I hear you (or not) ask? Well, this basically means that the high water pressure attacks my washing machine (for more about my washing machine, refer to my earlier post about the damn thing).

This results in leakage, intermittent function and general anxiety and frustration on my behalf.

Kazaa (or lack thereof..)

2004-12-13T10:05:00.000+03:00

I'm assuming everyone knows what Kazaa is? For the uninitiated, its a p2p (person to person) filesharing program. This gives you a plethora of music tracks, movies, computer software and images at your virtual fingertips. I haven't bought a CD in a very, very long time.. relying on kazaa as my main supplier of music (yes, i've got over 1000 illegal mp3 files! track down my IP address and come sue me, please!). Goddamn corporations, don't you have enough money as it is?!

Well, you've won. You officially got me to stop using kazaa.. for new music. Newly released tracks that appear on kazaa for sharing are lost amid a flood of dud mp3 files with the same name. Search for a new track and you get thousands of sources.. except each source provides you with a file made up of 3 to 4 minutes of silence. Its impossible to find a genuine source.. impossible.

But wait.. this only affects new music tracks! Old tracks, images, computer software and videos are still very available. Still though, it pretty much means that i'd have to leave the comfort of my own home to go buy any new music. I HATE leaving the comfort of my own home. I also hate spending money on stuff I used to steal so easily.

Its time to sharpen those shoplifting skills. Old methods for cramming those tapes in my pockets will have to be modified for bigger, more awkward CD cases.

Disclaimer: this blog does not, in any way, condone theft. not CDs, anyway. THINK BIG, THINK BANKS.

Duleek

2004-12-02T01:05:00.000+03:00

..is the name of an Irish village. As part of my general practice rotation (and as seems to be the case this year), I'm being shipped out to a remote part of the country to "pursue my education". Why do I have to pursue the damn thing? Don't my parents pay enough in tuition fees for the damn practice to come to MY house.. doctor, staff and patients?!

The Irish public transport system has demonstrated to me this morning how weak it really is. The buses run late, the train timings are erratic and totally haphazard, and connections can never be made. I was supposed to get my ass up to a town called Drogheda (droh-eda) and then get a connecting bus to Duleek. The mental stress involved in getting to where I wanted to go was ridiculous. Suffice to say, I made it to the practice quite late and got in what remained of the morning session.

And then there was the break. I'm usually a huge fan of lengthy, two hour breaks.. but not when I'm stuck in a place like Duleek. I decided to take a walk and explore the village, and was back in the Doctor's office roughly 10 minutes later. It took me 10 minutes to walk through the main street, the place where everything happens. It had one shop, two takeaways and a church.

Ended up playing solitaire on the doctor's computer until he showed up for the afternoon session and gave me a disapproving look.

Bills.

2004-11-23T22:02:00.000+03:00

No, not the kind that's attached to a duck's face. The ugly kind you get in the mail.

No one in the world likes being billed for something that they've enjoyed. Whether its in a restaurant at the end of a meal or at the end of the month for your credit card, bills just suck. They can ruin your night or the day in which you recieve them, and for people with low (or no) income they can be a threat to your livelihood and possessions.

I've just recieved a particularly nasty bill today. Seems like a little bit of free spending and mismanagement can land you in a pile of poo these days. It ruined my day, mainly because i lack the funds to make the payment in time, so i decided to postpone it for a month and hope they don't mind. Stupid conglomerates make so much money anyway.. although it is quite a large amount, they might send me a couple of notices. Oh well, can't do anything about it now. Maybe a little more self-control in the future? Although everything i've spent my money on has definitely been worth it. A small (or rather large..) price to pay for hours upon hours of pure, unadulterated pleasure.

I hope the repo men are in a good mood when they show up, i've grown quite attached to my television over the last 5 years.

Back from Sabbatical

2004-11-12T04:29:00.000+03:00

..and wishing that sabbatical was the name of some beautiful carribbean island. But it's not, i've actually been in some little irish town by the name of Cavan doing a rotation at their quaint little hospital. Finally back to the big city, i'm amazed by little things such as the intricate functioning of a pedestrian traffic light (they were not available in cavan, amongst many other of life's little luxuries). Overall a good experience though.

A lot has changed of late, just the general feeling of growing older, wiser and losing one too many a brain cell in the process. Its a very reflective time for me, especially with all the changes in my life (the recent inclusion of a beautiful lady being a main one) and i've been pretty sidetracked from posting anything up. I know nobody's reading this, but i still feel obliged to rant on about random things to absolutely no one at all. I also talk to walls during my spare time. Helps with the stress.

They don't argue back either. Stupid walls.

Family Vacations

2004-08-01T19:20:00.000+03:00

Haven't posted anything up for a while now, but for a good reason. I've been on vacation with the family for the last 16 days and internet access was hard to come by. I was also lazy.

Family vacations are like the proverbial double-edged sword. Actually, that's a bad comparison.. they don't hurt you or anyone else. Forget that one.

Family vacations are like cotton candy. They start off sweet but after a while you get sick of them. It was nice having the family together, going out and doing family stuff.. but I am a man who values my alone-time, and the constant togetherness and close quarters contact was starting to grit on my nerves. There's almost no breathing room, and every day is governed by the will of the group and not my own selfish whims. Kind of sucks, as I am a self-professed selfish bastard.

The good thing is, after a while you start adapting to one another. My family's quite close, but going on a two week plus vacation really teaches you new things about your loved ones. It's been an educational experience overall, so I won't complain. I also bought a lot of new stuff (typical arab vacation must include X amount of shopping).

Coming back in a couple of days, can't wait.

Humidity sucks.

2004-07-13T02:04:00.000+03:00

It's like a punch to the gut. You walk out of your house or your car, or any air conditioned place, and you're hit with an invisible wall of such magnitude that it almost knocks you over (usually completely ruining your mood). This of course has been the weather situation in Bahrain around this time of year for as far back as i can remember (or as far back as my dad remembers.. and his father before him).. not only does it become incredibly hot, but the humidity kicks in at around 85% and above, making breathing a chore.

Someone at the ministry of electricity and water is enjoying playing God this summer. Apparently, due to some shady grid components, Bahrain's electricity has been rationed for the last week or so. Daytime is death, it literally sucks the life out of you. It's so hot that you'd probably die if you stood in the sun for more than 15 minutes. Air conditioning is one invention that I believe has single-handedly increased the average lifespan of a person in this region by 20 years. And then some guy decides when and for how long to turn off an entire area's electricity.

What a fucking power trip.

Flourescent lighting

2004-06-27T01:11:00.000+03:00

It's driving me absolutely fucking nuts. One of the flourescent lights in the bathroom has reached the end of its life-span and is doing things that only those stupid lights do. Other lightbulbs just go off and stay off, these damn things keep on flickering as if they were a twitching corpse that has no chance of coming back to life but still keeps going at it. When it's day time I tend not to notice, as daylight coming through the window provides me with enough lighting to do whatever it is I went in to do. It's at night time that it kills me, as I go about my business expecting the struggling light to come on at any second. And then I remember that it never will. This causes me to have to complete what I'm trying to do using a manic, psychotic slow motion kind of strobe lighting.

The thing is, there are two switches, one that turns on the fucked up light and one that turns on a perfectly normal light. By sheer force of habit, I ALWAYS turn on the busted one. This is a habit that is rooted back into the days where I spent most of my time at home, probably all the way back when we moved into this house around 14 years ago. Every damn time, I always get frustrated and remind myself to switch on the other light, but it never ever works. I just stand there like an idiot in the darkness waiting for the momentary flash that allows me to kind of get my bearings straight.

Back home

2004-06-24T19:21:00.000+03:00

Just got back to Bahrain yesterday, weather being as hot as ever. I've learned to love it to be honest.. and just when i decided that i don't really mind the weather as much as i used to, i get a flat tire at 12 noon, the point at which the sun is almost vertical and temperatures reach 45 degrees celsius. I'm usually good with flats, not taking more than 15 minutes to change one, but this one was stuck somehow. I didn't want to run the risk of ruining the car's rims by driving on the recently pressure-less piece of shit that used to be my front left tire. So what happens then? i had to call the tow truck to haul the car to a tire shop so they could help me out. Whole process took around 2 hours, and by the time it was over i could smell the cooked flesh that i once called my brain. So now i hate the weather again.

Exam results were posted up today, and i made it through. Not as convincingly as i originally thought, but i'll take it. Nerve-wracking experience that, having to wait for the stupid web browser to load the page and then an ensuing eye scramble to locate my number on that blindingly small-fonted list. I was stunned by relief more than anything, although i had initially expected a euophoric reaction but was surpised to react so solemnly to the good news. Mom almost didn't believe me, she thought i was upset and was attempting (very poorly, i must say) to lie to her.

Now my summer can start for real.

Fungus attack

2004-06-15T15:29:00.000+03:00

Was just cleaning my apartment, and i ventured into the rarely attempted area that is my bathroom. This thing has been minimally maintained for the last 2 years, so there were a couple of things that I had to attend to. It was time.

There was a bit of fungus growing in a little corner (presumably due to steam coming from the shower) and it had begun to spread, so it was time for it to go. The mission was more or less successful, and i retired back to the living room in a content state of mind. Now i'm having trouble breathing, or so i believe. It could very well be psychosomatic (when there's nothing wrong with you except you think there is), since i was vaccuming too and the room became kind of stuffy because of all the dust i had let loose into the atmosphere. So now i've got a congested sensation and a feeling like i've suddenly developed very mild asthma. I could swear i read about fungus inhalation in my microbiology notes somewhere, i'm just too lazy to go look anything up. As they say "this too shall pass", i've been in many situations where i should've gotten hurt/poisoned/contaminated/killed but so far i've survived them all. I do have it coming though, to be honest, so i won't be surprised if this inhaled fungus gives me a lung infection of some sort. That would suck.

Finished the last part of my exams today, and i've got a good feeling about the whole thing. Maybe i managed to pull this one out of the fire after all? This has got to stop.

انا اعشق الرياضة

2004-06-13T03:43:00.000+03:00

I love sports. Yes i do.

Today was beautiful, two rugby games.. the two opening games of Euro 2004 (Portugal never fail to disappoint) and the formula 1 qualifying session. And to top it off, Miss Universe was on at night! Technically, i HAVE been staring at men all day long.. something to take the homosexual edge off, you know?

Well, now that the exam is over it's just a waiting period until i find out my results and whether or not i've got a borderline oral. So it's pretty much sit on my ass and do shit all for the next 10 days. I love it, although i do get a bit lonely since most of my friends have already left and the ones that are still here have exams to study for. The timing of Euro 2004 was perfect, now i can finally fill my time with something.. the other sports are just a bonus.

Now it's a struggle to fill the "downtime" between sporting events. Optimally, it'll be something that doesn't require me to vacate the little hole i've created in the couch using my ass. A new xbox game might be in order, and of course now that i've got wireless internet set up on my laptop, that's just an arm's length away. The main challenge now is to figure out how to feed myself without moving.

Quote me happy

2004-06-04T16:02:00.000+03:00

Crunch time. An exam that's literally worth $40,000 is in 6 days. Talk about pressure, eh?

The studying process has been slow, but it's picking up. I've got confidence in my ability to pull this one out of the fire.. as long as the questions are fair. By fair i mean that they have to be from the half of the material that i studied, and not the half that i had no time for because of procrastination.

Tried something new with the pasta last night. Poured in some peppers-in-oil-in-a-jar kind of thing and it made the whole thing taste infinitely better. I bet it's the extra grease that made it so appealing. I'm such a fat bastard.

Today i'm gonna study at home. Every time i've tried that before, it has failed spectacularly. My house is just full of distracting stuff, and (as if that wasn't enough) i've got this unbelievable ability to waste time by just sitting at the desk and staring at the wall for a good 45 minutes. Maybe i'll get a poster, write $40,000 on it and hang it on the wall just in case i find myself staring in that direction again.

Taking over the world

2004-05-26T03:58:00.000+03:00

There's something about sunny days that makes you forget all about your responsibilities and you feel like you just want to spend the day outdoors.

Today we played Risk. It's a funny game, a game where you have to shed any sense of moral decency and friendship in order to pursue the (very satisfying) goal of taking over the world and destroying everyone else in the process. This kind of board game really tests the fabric of friendships. Your boy (who's supposed to have your back) attacks your weak iceland from greenland and you lose control of europe. And your cool. Gets quite hectic at times, with a lot of backstabbing and broken promises, but once the board is put away things generally tend to go back to normal. Until the next time.

After a couple of big battles, i finally gained control of north america. Coupled with a few card sets, i was getting stronger by each passing turn. Pretty much set for world domination. But then the whole thing was interrupted by the beginning of the barbequing process.

Damn it.

Late night, rough day random

2004-05-25T03:33:00.000+03:00

The remote control for the digital box is fucked. Not only is it consuming batteries like no tommorow, but the power button is also messed. So i still have to manually get up off my derriere and walk over to the television. I thought the whole point was to eliminate this very tiring and annoying process? I should order a new one, but i know they'll charge me something crazy like 200 euros for it. Goddamn NTL.

Have to pay more money to the damn phone/internet/monopoly-on-everything company. Passed the allowed download limit, which is costing me 3c per megabyte. That's what happens when i rip off hollywood by downloading movies for free. I get ripped off by some corporation. It's a vicious cycle.

"siiiic, that's what i like to hear =)" ..

I'm in trouble. Deep trouble. Leave it up to me.. i wonder what that meant? I can't take another sint as a clay pigeon. Goddamn target practice. Very ironic that i'm saying this just as i reload my own rifle and line up the sights.

Very, very confused.