not who you think

 

definitely.

maybe.

150 minutes

half of my work before i am allowing myself to go to sleep tonight

was the amount of time i spent with mr x today, talking about love unrequited and the dire state of the human species.

there was a part of me that was secretly petrified because i no longer seemed to feel the burning passion i believe i once felt for neuro-oncology; but this was quelled when i forced myself to reread my elective report.

i find it comforting that i found the sonic hedgehog and wingless pathway intriguing and rather interesting.

i am also currently at peace with the universe from the inside of my little bubble of existence - how can one fail to be happy when one is fully equipped with lime green post its (!!!!), a stash of coloured pens, Träumerei on 8tracks, a cup of hot milo in a blue man group mug, and 'an unquenchable thirst for knowledge'?

how? :)

it's so gratifying when i look at my two post its and pretend that i am an aspiring molecular geneticist with a special interest in oncology. mwahahaha. maybe i should start considering that as a career.

i guess it's also good to know that i have found a person who has perceptions scarily similar to mine, even regarding things that i'd never thought possible (like how she disregards the needs of people around her when her life derails slightly).

i cannot believe my luck.

however - things have been slightly out of hand over the past week or so - the past few days have had me embroiled in a pseudo tug-of-war between the person who might just know me better than i know myself and the person i have come to know and grown close to over the past two years and i find myself treading a very fine line.

i have a very sneaky feeling that everything i do or say will have to be measured extremely meticulously because i am the ticking time bomb in this case, and anything i do and/or say will be used against me in the metaphorical court of law.

i should stop now and get back to my NOTCH and EGFR pathway. nothing like neuro-oncology to take the brain away from all this idle thought - the more i analyse things the more they tend to morph into shadow monsters snapping at my ankles from the abyss i balance myself on a tightrope above.

good night for now people, have a good day! :)

it's gonna be alright

chucks, autumn 2010

things are going to be alright.

talked to x for about 3 hours today. started off feeling pretty crap and angry at myself - ranted and whined for the first half of the conversation, we then moved on to our respective tragic (non-existent) love stories, and then on to movies we've watched repeatedly (love actually for me, the green mile, big fish and shawshank redemption for him). we wrapped things up with no one's gonna love you by band of horses.

many things were said, many of which made sense - these were mainly said by him. HAHAHAHA.

i actually felt better after speaking to him, there is certainly much more depth to this character than i initially thought, am very pleasantly surprised and intrigued, heheheh. :) i think that this might actually be the first time i've talked to a person who's ever come close to truly understanding me.

haha. i hope we end up becoming friends - i've literally actually talked to him for less than a week, after knowing him for more than five years. wow.

good night people, and thank you x. :)

tangent (off one)

tentsmuir beach

this photo is supposed to instill a sense of optimism and hope.

yeah. right.

spent almost the entire day at a barbecue at a forest clearing which was next to one of the most majestic beaches i have seen in a long time.

left the house feeling very frustrated and angsty but it all disappeared when i saw where we were going to have the barbecue. this led to me dreading the ending of this carefree feeling.

now i am back home i feel horribly trapped. trapped in this tangled web of relationships with people who are done with me, people i am done with.

i now subscribe to the philosophy of not blogging cryptically, because i think that it is pretentious, and i think that there is no point in doing so.

i cannot wait to graduate and move out of this hellhole. move away from this petri dish. i am done with people (mis)judging me and assuming the worst from me, done with people fucking lying to me (and the people around them), done with the blatant hypocrisy and how easily some people can bend their principles for convenience.

yes - i know i'm not perfect. but if everybody's already acting like they are the greatest thing to happen to planet earth then why the hell should anybody deprive me of the joy of  acting the same way?

i am done being the person who will always be there for you when you are in the mood to bitch and moan about other people (the very same people you will inevitably end up buttering up in the next 18 hours), i am done meekly apologising when you get annoyed when i whine about the same thing twice whereas i patiently listen and console you when you whine about the same fucking thing every fucking day, and i am fucking done with you dismissing me when your life is going great while having to cater to your every whim when your life is crumbling.

i am done.

i am so frustrated it is not even funny.

YES everybody knows how much of a bitch i am when i "suddenly" give you the cold shoulder or when i am being "passive aggressive". YES everybody knows how unreasonable and immature and childish i am. YES everybody knows that i am the evil one who's out to hurt you, the ever so patient and loving and accepting and altruistic and noble FRIEND.

i am always to blame, who would think otherwise? in fact, this has been so deeply ingrained in EVERYBODY's minds that i actually kinda believe it myself. i actually believe that i am a crappy friend and i don't deserve anybody's kindness because evil always loses in the face of good, innocence and purity.

never EVER would i have EVER thought that i would ever have to "contend" with a competitor so skilled in the art of manipulation.

heh. by the way -

oh yes. i hide things from people because i don't want people to know what i'm doing and how much i've done. oh yes. i am unwilling to share my books and knowledge and information with everybody because i'm afraid that people will overtake me in terms of progress and success. oh yes, yes. all these things are true.

*eyeroll*

i will end this entry abruptly with three words that sum pretty much everything up.

look

who's

(fucking)

talking.

by the river arno

view from piazzale michelangelo

this is where we did not have a picture taken.

this also marks the spot from which nothing counted for anything anymore, and where i wiped the slate clean and vowed never to continue being who i was

(stupid for you)

FR 2753

Battistero di San Giovanni, Pisa

the skies were unbelievably blue, clouds practically non-existent and weather pleasantly (although borderline excessively) warm and sunny.

i have just returned from a four day trip from pisa, lucca and florence. it has been an eventful trip, and although i took less pictures than i should have, the pictures that i have mean a lot to me. i think my photography has evolved, at least from this picture. there are hopefully more to come - because i am no longer on facebook, and i have to showcase them somewhere :P

the past four days have been tough, in more ways than one. it is very crippling to have to deal with the fact that some things will never change, even if you happen to somewhat dive in front of cars on a busy road to save a map. it's even sadder to realise that things will never change even if you dived in front of cars on a busy road to save the life of the owner of said map.

it is hard to deny the truth when it is being played out right in front of your eyes.

so did i enjoy the trip?

i saw the leaning tower and was somewhat overwhelmed by it (i never imagined that i would one day be standing in front of the bloody leaning tower of pisa!)

i visited the cathedral of pisa, and was blown away by the beautiful echoes of the voice of the guard in the baptistry of st john (not so impressive the second time round because there were stupid american teenagers on a field trip in the baptistery who did not know how to appreciate it and would not remain silent) - imagine a one man orchestra! seriously!! (watch this)

i had a bird's eye view of lucca and had the best mandarin ice lolly in my 22 years of existence

i had the opportunity to look at the birth of venus (after standing in line for about one and a half hours!) and michaelangelo's david (it doesn't matter that there is a replica standing in front of the palazzo vecchio - the original will just astound and amaze you with its fluidity - i am not exaggerating, he literally looks like he is ready to just step off his pedestal and stride off into the sunset; if that really happened i don't think anybody would be totally surprised, no other sculptures measure up to it)

i had gelato from eight different gelaterias

i had wild boar, roast rabbit and hare and bistecca alla fiorentina - oh bistecca alla fiorentina!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... so yes, i guess i enjoyed the trip. :)

in retrospect, maybe it was a way better experience than i thought it was.

notes on the things going on in my head however, deserve a separate entry. (but this also means more photos, so yay!)

goodbye tarland

vignette ftw!

i don't think there's going to be a very profound blog post here because i am partially distracted by south park on tv (tv is evil, by the way HAHA)...

it doesn't really matter because i have other photos i took in tarland :)

this photo shows what i am going to be giving my gp before i leave! i had free prints from photobox and i ordered a set of 16 prints but they came out all wonky and undeserving of being given away... so i then ordered another set of prints from kodak (also free!)

i was really pressed for time so i couldn't really edit all pics in photoshop, so i just sent them via bluetooth to my phone, opened them with vignette and applied the palatinotype effect and then bluetoothed them back to my computer to be uploaded

(i know, i know, i should have at least done more editing after that in photoshop, but it was already very late at night and i had to wake up the next day for work...)

the photos in the frame were pictures taken from random places in scotland (i was toying with the idea of compiling my favourite shots - from the rest of europe etc - for him but i guess this is more relevant...), with the middle 2x2 photos being photos taken while i was here :) the picture to the right of the picture of the statue was the one that pushed me to convert all my photos into palatinotype this time! i'm glad i decided to just go ahead and do it, and to use the palatinotype effect instead of sepia because palatinotype suits the frame so much better too! :))

HAHA in a fit of narcissism i decided to sign my name in pencil at the bottom of the photos, i have to practise creating a more artistic signature instead of just signing 'michelle' in cursive -_- i love the frame... i wish i could get one in malaysia :/

(i also hope that they don't remove my photos and just use the frame instead :( )

ok i should stop rambling...

i'm going to be sad to leave tarland, it's been such a good block, in more ways than one, but c'est la vie!

here's to a relatively quiet weekend (back in civilisation!!!!! i know i've been overusing that phrase a lot, lol) and then to pisa and florence!

ps. postcards! :)

when i grow up...

newcastle, the great north east trip of 2011

i was going on a home visit with my GP this afternoon and we visited this patient who lived on the most beautiful farm ever which was surrounded by hills and had a great view of Morven, one of the great mountains in Aberdeenshire.

i felt so strongly then about wanting to live on a farm, with chickens and cattle and sheep and rabbits and a giant pile of swedes and turnips... i have been telling my GP how nice it would be to live in tarland, and how all the houses were so pretty and how pretty much everybody has a great view of everything. i'd be so far removed from civilisation that there wouldn't be any drama from anybody! (besides from the people in the village, tarland is a 'crazy little place, innit?', to quote and unquote my GP...)

however am i going to be able to own a house/farm in extremely rural scotland when it is also my current life dream to be a high-flying neuro-oncologist working on the east coast of the united states?

HOW!?

i was gushing about how the scenery was so beautiful and all that and telling him that i thought being a rural GP was amazing and he said 'yeah, it's pretty nice, you get to see all sorts of things and patients, but you want to look at brain tumours! only brain tumours! all the time! every day! do you see secondary tumours (to which i shook my head)? do you see... meningiomas (to which i nodded)? oh okay, good then!"

haha, i do admit, however, that life can be quite surreal as a rural GP. he kept pointing houses out and telling me that this was the house in which he saw his first dead body, and oh, look, that's the house in which he saw his first suicide etc etc etc

and oh yeah this was where he got called to see a dead body who washed up from the river in the middle of the night, and they wouldn't remove the body from the river unless he pronounced it dead etc etc etc

i'm not sure i could handle stuff like that over many years...

haha maybe i'll change my mind about all of this when i get back to dundee and the rest of civilisation with 50 mbps internet woohoo!

toodles!

the bathtub chronicles

this reminds me slightly of the bates motel...

this picture was taken from the bottom of the bathtub, in which i was lying after having an outburst fueled by anger and frustration.

the things that happened over the past two days were fodder for the script of a soap opera.

while in the tub, i attempted to contemplate life and the behaviour of the people around me; what makes them do the things they do (or not do), hoping for a revelation that would change my life forever, but all i got was this noise in my head - i spent most of the time wallowing in self-pity and feeling this dull ache in my heart for not being able to follow my own thoughts.

if there is one thing i have learnt this weekend, it is that people will disappoint other people - i know i used to say this a lot but i didn't really believe it because i thought i was being dramatic - and when this happens, everybody is going to have to be okay with everybody else.

omg this is turning into such a whiny post. i am sorry i have nothing less cheesy to write, and for sounding like a thirteen year old. this is just temporary writer's block.

i hope.

haha.

in due time.

in due time.

ps. just gave both my blogs a total overhaul, am loving it! :D

the 23rd hour.

the watermark is back. :)

it has been a trying weekend so far, am still writing at the injustice of having a precious hour stolen from me! hahaha. at least it was on a saturday and not a sunday - for that i will thank the powers that be, haha.

this photo reminds me of a few things. it reminds me of one of the better periods of my life in quite a long time (since my electives, actually, up to the point of it being taken), it also reminds me of a certain sinking feeling in my heart that has been all too familiar over the past four and a half years.

i really can't say anything else without sounding whiny.

i loved you. i love you. i would do pretty much anything for you. would have done. will do.

i know you know all this. i know you love somebody else - i am now feeling like the husband who shares his wife with his neighbour. he must love her so much. so, so much. how could somebody continue sharing his life with the love of his life, who now has another love of her life? how could somebody take the pain of having his heart wrenched out of his chest everytime she leaves the house to create new memories with someone else other than him? how can he bear to be around her, around the both of them?

how?

i cannot bear the thought of being so completely vulnerable to somebody else. i was thinking about how nice it would be if i had a dog and if we ended up being best friends. i then thought about how i wouldn't be able to bear it if the dog then died - as it eventually would.

i then remember all the things you've said about me, and how heartless you sound when you say things like that. you don't exploit the feelings of somebody who loves you. you just don't. it's not right.

but it was okay because i still loved you anyway. you know i'd drop anything and everything. you know. merv says you know how to manipulate me. jing says you're only friends with me because you don't have any other choice. k says you're not worth it. chongbing says you're an asshole. you know what? they're all right. people have told me point blank that this isn't going to go anywhere - repeatedly - and they have been painfully blunt. and they're right. i cannot say that even though you're an asshole to pretty much anybody you're still nice to me because at least you think of me as a friend because you don't. you're still snarky and dismissive and you plain as day discard me when i am of no use.

you cannot spare some time and a bus fare to help me with a rather urgent job (which i am unable to complete because i am three hours away from dundee), you charged me for printing my elective report even though i didn't when i printed your fourth year project for you, you wouldn't help me with returning my books to the library when i have always obliged to do so for you

(among other things, let's not get round to telling the world what i've heard when they tell me the things you say about me)

(and i'm not incredibly difficult to pacify - as you can probably already tell by the magnitude of things i hoped you would have been willing to do)

so why am i still even a friend? i've had friendships called off for less than this.

i don't know how i am going to survive when this block ends and i get back to dundee. i've managed to fully detach myself emotionally from certain people, but i don't think i'll ever manage with you. the sight of you still makes my heart skip a beat, i still bloody annoyingly break out into a smile once you get into my field of vision, and you make me so irritatingly happy that i end up hating myself.

the worst thing is that i know i'm doing this to myself. i know the amount of shit i'm getting myself into, i know that none of this is worth it, i know that you are one of the biggest jackasses i have ever known (and believe me - i have had my fair share of interactions with jackasses), and i know that this is going nowhere. i just refuse to let things go.

i am truly sick of this. i am dreading the void that will come with losing my muse. i will be this uninspirational zombie grazing on the shit of the greater ones before her, and i will lose my identity and personality for some time. it's only natural.

but hopefully, with time, i will regain that spring in my step, that obnoxious laughter and that unincredibly stupid and lame sense of humour - and maybe one day i will finally be rid of the tumour that is

You.

ps. this photo was taken and edited with my phone; i only used photoshop to resize it and to add the border and watermark. am constantly being pleasantly surprised and impressed by my phone - finally a decent camera on a phone (with an equally awesome app to match)! heheh. :D

michelle@tarland.com

 

 i woke up to this one morning while walking to my GP practice. everything was covered in a mist so thick it felt like i was walking in an enchanted village in a different world. everything was unbelievably beautiful.

i have mixed feelings about where i am (figuratively) now. it's all good when i am three hours away and practically uncontactable. i only talk to less than 5 people frequently, and i am removed from the epicentre of all drama and unrest. the mountains and the brown dog that walks along the perimeter of the fence with me when i walk past his house replace the anxiety and frustration i feel when i am anywhere near civilisation.

i came back this weekend, and was reminded of certain things - and people. i was also reacquainted with certain feelings i wish i never had. and when c told me what c told me - that the feline was a good match with thunder - my universe imploded slightly (ever the drama queen, i know) - and there was a noticeable but barely audible hiss of released air.

but one gathers one's losses and tries to soldier on, as well as she can.

sometimes i feel so deeply for you that it hurts, but in a good way. 

two more weeks. driving around tarland and going to aboyne for house visits and visiting alstrean house fills me with a great love for scotland. i am terribly fond of tarland now, and shall be horribly sad to leave. 

on a more sombre (and pathetic) note, here's to the next three months, and to the next two years.

no loose change

today is a good day

not because these duckies mean anything

but precisely because they don't mean anything at all.

:)

i still think about you occasionally, and how great it would be if we were still friends - we would conquer the universe together many times over, and we wouldn't need to be afraid of being alone because we'd always have each other.

and then i think about what she's told me about what potentially almost happened between you and her (this is somebody else) and how everything happened when we were... us and how i suddenly realised with a cold gripping fear that you probably are not the same person anymore, and i realise that perhaps this is the best ending there is.

you are still you, and i'm still... me. without the interruption of reality and/or time.

it is very hard for me to fully let this go although time has already done its magic and i am free from all the guilt, desperation and regret. i am finding it harder and harder to idealise you and i am finding that i remember less each day. i, however, find comfort in the fact that once upon a time, life was perfect and i couldn't have wished for anything more. when i think about that, i somehow tell myself that i must be missing all that and i must be losing out on something, and then i mourn for it "obligatorily"...

... which is a very twisted thing to do -_-

(edit: i also realise that i have been stubbornly subscribing to certain idiosyncrasies as a sort of a 'tribute' to you, so much so that i don't really have an identity anymore. it is perhaps obscure knowledge that it is an unfortunate fact that my life is a patchwork quilt of similar 'tributes' to similarly undeserving individuals. i am intending to do something about this. seriously.)

SO. this is me - on the brink of a new phase of my life, with new people in it, and some people no longer in it. it is time to say goodbye (again) and hopefully this is the last time i will attempt it.

i don't owe you a lifetime of regret and remorse. i've done all i can (regretfully too, retrospectively) to fix things and i've tried to facilitate potentially one of the greatest friendships in our lives but to no avail.

oh well.

i'm getting real bored of saying this but here i go again - goodbye, and have a good life.

:)

ps. ugh does this mean i have to change my banner now...? asdklfjawepoijbpsofdnbkaljnerfuawiernaidfjbsnkb

inevitable

13th february, 2011.

i keep telling myself that there is no point anymore.

reset the counters, everybody.

actually, no - keep them going.

this is one of the greatest battles of my life, i'm going to try to put up a show i will never forget.

:)

leeds

leeds was a very pleasant surprise! :) i didn't expect it to be as nice as it turn out to be... also, i was kinda bothered about things that could potentially happen but did not really, so all was good!

this picture is actually quite different from the original - it has been photoshopped quite extensively. my intent was to bring out the texture of the red brick wall more than enhancing the mural itself. i then had to upload it to picasa through my phone because i have now overshot my bandwidth for mobile broadband and can no longer do anything besides browse -_- the point of me telling you this is because i transferred it to my phone and it looked significantly different on my phone monitor - which i think displays colour more accurately than my laptop monitor - i don't know why all the laptops i've had seem to have problems with displaying colour properly, maybe it's a dell thing -_-

but no really - i count this as one of my better photoshopping attempts! :)

why was leeds pleasantly surprising? i love all the (shopping) arcades that have a victorian twist to them! i also love how the high street is so compact and how it is so wide and there is so much space for walking! i also love how the city is so compact in general - walking from one end to the other would take only slightly more than 15 minutes. i also love the thackray medical museum (though i will admit that it is slightly overpriced at 6 pounds a pop - i think they should offer even lower entrance rates to medical students! hmph) and am still considerably disturbed by one of the exhibits :S i also realised how people can feel so strongly about visiting museums of certain specialties - like the air and space museum and random art museums and museums of natural history... this is probably the 2nd "proper" medical museum i've visited, and i can see how the general public might not be as passionate about it as i am, and i find that quite refreshing in a way (i don't really know if i'm sounding coherent, i woke up at 0645 hrs today and i desperately need sleep now...) i also love how leeds is so unassuming and how there is actually so much more to explore!

HOWEVER, i do not think i like leeds more than i liked york... hahahahaha. i think i am just very pleasantly surprised by leeds...

and mmmmmmm red chilli! the red chilli here is also very considerably better than the one in york!

most importantly - i now also know that certain things are at the same time more and less complicated that i've been taking them to be. and that shall be my cryptic statement that ends this entry.

good night! :)

york

york was beautiful in more ways than one - even in the sleet.

that is (not) all.

:)

leed's tomorrow!

fire

i was pretty fired up about writing this entry until i was involved in a conversation about grilled skate wings, chilled seafood platters and things to do in scarborough.

(which, i also just realised, is a pretty apt metaphor for this entry)

sometimes it's very easy to lose sight of what you really want in the midst of the chaos that tangles itself around our feet in the haste and excitement of everyday life. i almost lost sight of it until i saw a link on the cancerdundee site advertising an essay competition on a topic relating to clinical oncology or on my personal experiences in a clinical oncology unit...

i then went through my elective photo folder and located the pic at the beginning of this entry - i was looking for a picture that signified hope and passion - happy accident! i love the lens flare on the right side of the horizon, just the thing i was looking for :)

it's funny how sifting through thumbnails of pictures can stir up emotions so great, even after more than half a year! i miss baltimore and washington sorely (am actually quite impressed that i managed to visit the aquarium and random places and take the train and travel around washington all by myself HAHAH) - and hopkins even more (i will never forget the pure joy at discovering sushi in the canteen!!!!! and the kinda crappy wraps from the kiosk in the CRC!! and the clinics and tumour board meetings and the people! the marvelous marvelous wonderful beautiful amazing inspirational PEOPLE!)

anyway - i was also looking through person specifications for oncology specialty training posts and was suddenly all fired up to want to study for my MRCP and do a BMSc in clinical research and then a MRes in Cancer Biology... i also want to do my USMLE and then eventually work in the US and with hopkins!!!!!!!!!

sigh - one step at a time i guess.

i think it is also interesting that i am actually finding ITU rather interesting as well! hmm, let's see how this goes - i want to get the most out of the most remaining 3 weeks and see what i think about this specialty at the end of this block. i'm thinking of coming up with another audit topic rather than do it on something boring like handwashing wtf -_-

goals of the week!

(edited)

1. PLEASE finish up case report on histiocytic sarcoma
2. have a serious think about what i want to write about for the essay prize
3. email dr hkl to inform about case report and essay prize
4. PLEASE email patient consent form to NHS REC. urgh. can we just get this over and done with wtf -_-

woohoo! one more big (technically noncompulsory) thing to do! and only a day late! HAHA. -_-

going to sleep now, off to scarborough in the morning! :)