of New Room and New Books

I've just checked in to my KTSN room. Same old location, but the room is not very same this time! :D

I was grumbling when all residents in my block, Block H (Yes, ONLY Block H) had to move out from their room during the last term break, unlike previously when we still can sort of rent a room and put our stuff in there so that we didn't have to bring all the stuff all the way back home. The reason being - the colloge wanted to renovate my block. We all knew that Pengetua wants to change all triple rooms into double rooms for juniors, and hence (logically thinking) some seniors room may be affected. Anyway, so there goes the renovation.

And TaDa~ my room remains a single room and I'll still be staying in the same spot, for 3 years in a roll! That is a good news, but a better one is - my room is also renovated! Well, at first I thought only the juniors rooms are affected.

They:
(1) upgraded my semented floor to tiles-covered floor;
(2) cleaned the spider webs from the ceiling and the dusts from the ceiling fan;
(3) and re-painted my room from pink to cream colour!

I am really thrilled by all these! Pink colour is fine with me. It is soothing and warm. But cream colour isn't bad either, as long as it's a bright colour. Besides, the wireless is back! Hopefully I still able to search for information starting next week when all the students are back.

New Books Targeted:
1. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
2. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
3. maybe the biography of Nelson Mandela
4. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
5. The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (Yes, I still can't locate the book despite the search system in Borders tells me that the book is in the store).

And since I found a lot of discount coupons for certain books in Kinokuniya and MPH, I'd also consider the following:
6. Evening Is The Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan
7. Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella (my favourite chick lit author)
8. Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger (who is also the author of The Devil Wears Prada)
9. Sex And The City by Candace Bushnell
10. A Friend Like Henry - Nuala Gardner

Maybe it's a bit obsessive but that's what happened after a long break from the book stores!

An Ending Is The Beginning Of A New Chapter

The final trip on RapidPenang bus to go back home marks the end of my industrial training (Latihan Industri, or LI in short) for 6 weeks as required in my course. I couldn’t help but to feel relieve that everything went well after days of waking up early, traveling, running tests and finally to return home for report typing.

The part which is the most exhausting is the report writing part. After nights (especially this week, in a roll) of reading, report-typing, flow chart-constructing, re-reading and editing, finally the completed report was printed and bound. This process wouldn’t be so exhausting if the printer in my house AND in Seberang Jaya Hospital didn’t break down at the same time.

I went to submit my report at Seberang Jaya Hospital and Bukit Mertajam Hospital this morning. Thanks to RapidPengang bus, I managed to finish all these in 3 hours time. Well, I always hear a lot of Penangite passengers still aren’t satisfied with the public transport here, which includes RapidPenang. Not that I want to defend RapidPenang because those bad experiences the former faced might be true. It’s just that I have never encountered them myself, not that I can remember. OK, except the time I went to Queensbay Mall in Penang Island. Maybe due to lack of demand, there is very limited number of bus going there directly.

OK, let’s go back to the industrial training experience. Honestly, I think HBM has a friendlier working environment than HSJ. Maybe because the latter has more work loads, that’s why they don’t have the time to sit around and do some team-bonding stuff. However, all the personnels working in both labs are nice and pleasant people. I have definitely learnt a lot in Microbiology Lab in HSJ, but not much in Histopathology Lab because we only receive specimens and directly refer all out to Penang General Hospital. Nonetheless, I think it’s good for me because I need time to complete my report and hand in to HSJ, HBM and UKM as requested. Heck, some of my friends don’t have to hand in report to so many parties, and definitely not immediately on the last day of LI.

I’ve re-learnt a lot of principles and tests, manned a number of machines (I’m a technophobe, by the way), and have my share of record-keeping experience. Oh, I’ve been suspecting that HSJ purposely leave a lot of records for 2 months to be keyed in by the attachment students there. Not that I don’t like to do this record typing work. I just don’t like to do the work which is supposed to be done ages ago. If it’s things we do when the time is here, like preparing culture media and stains when it’s running low, photostating request forms, dispatching results, or even keeping records for that very day, I don’t mind to do all these. Dealing with other people’s mess isn’t what I happy to do. Well, maybe this might happen in future, too, eh?

I’ve also seen some work place politics and hope that I can live with it when I’m working in the future. I’ve met people who are annoying though with good intention, people who love to compare work loads, people who have nothing better to do than to gossip about other people behind, people who’d leave their job behind and go for activities that interest them, people (actually it’s the USM Microbiology female attachment students) who knows nothing about basic laboratory rules, not even the tie-up-your-hair-and-no-open-toe-sandals-are allowed-in-lab rules. Sometimes Tay even wears open-toe high heels in lab! Puh-lease! *eyes rolling* You know what, this bunch of people expect to be C41 Pegawai Science (something like a manager in lab, hold a higher post than the normal lab personnels – the MLTs, who run the tests) whose job scope includes quality control, ordering stocks and validating the tests results.

Oh, not to mention for up to two years of microbiology study, the USM student who were also attached in Pathology Department (the labs) have never seen blood agar, TSI (Triple Sugar Iron, one of the media to identify bacterial species via their biochemical reaction), or maybe every test in the lab. Although it’s their own field and they should know it better than I do, I can’t blame the students because it’s not them who decide on the subjects to study. But please, as you’ve come for LI in hospital lab and known that there are still many things to learn, please be more humble and don’t have too high an expectation. Even if you are lucky to get the post (albeit immediately) after you graduated, that doesn’t mean you are sure ready for the job. You will only be respected because of the real knowledge you have, not the piece of paper you call Degree certificate.

This LI as a whole keeps reminding me of UKM. The things thought by our lecturers, especially. I don’t feel so nervous when I know I’ve learnt about something on the tests. Hence I only need to read further to know them better, that’s all. I’ve also remember how the lecturers in UKM want us to be humble, especially when working at the same bench with the MLTs. Because we actually learnt the same thing, and no doubt that they may know something a lot more in-depth than we do. With years of experience reading and interpreting the tests results, the MLTs definitely deserve our respect. It’s us who should work hard to earn ours from them.

I think that’s all I wanted to say. I’m going back KL tomorrow because I need to meet my thesis supervisor on Monday. I think I better read something before I meet her up. I was too busy (too tired after every day in the lab, actually) with the LI for the past 6 weeks. This LI has strengthened me somehow, to meet with more challenging tasks in future. Hope this experience can help me through my thesis year =)

Sometimes you had have too many things to share because of the long duration you haven't been blogging, you don't know how to talk about them all anymore!

I am very busy with me industrial training lately, and every evening as I drag my tired body back home, all I wanted to do is bath, dinner and Friends (Scrubs, if I got the chance), check mails then sleep. And I do just that. Reports will be done when I'm not THAT tired, like, during weekends.

Industrial training in Seberang Jaya Hospital is alright, in fact, quite fun, because I've got to know a couple of other attachment students from PTPL. Thanks for the good memories, friends (Yes, I'm talking to Leen, Ain, Suraya, and last but not least, dear Non!). Not to be forgotten is Sharon who's kind enough to give me a ride to and fro hospital =) You're the angel God sends to save me, you know ;-)

All right, till here this time. I'm really exhausted, but contented at the same time :-)

Urine Pregnancy Test – POSITIVE!

*Gasp*

Gosh! If this happened to me currently, I’ll get myself killed by my mum in no time. But it’s equally complicated when this happened to a 40-year-old woman.

The Indian woman read the result word by word, then stared at it blankly for a moment, then walked out without an outrageous facial expression.

I observed her response behind the window in the lab I’m now posted – Biochemistry lab. I don’t know what’s going on inside her mind, but it is definitely nothing to be happy about for whatever reason, for she didn’t show any positive response.

With oil prices hiking and everything which hence follows, I guess I can understand how life can be more difficult when one has another child to raise.

***

“How is it? Is the level normalized now? Has it decreased?”

An anxious father asked without reading the result for serum bilirubin level of his newborn. Well, the digits on the thin sheet of paper don’t make any sense to him anyway. Yet I can feel his anxiety for his jaundiced, one-week-old baby.

The serum bilirubin level had been fluctuating since few days ago. Some of the time I even run the test twice to double check the result I obtained. I’m not suppose to explain to the patients of the condition or give any form of consultation. Patients should refer back to their respective doctors for these.

However, every time when I see the fathers’ faces receiving the report from me and anxiously reading it like reading their academic result slips, I felt empathy for them. They could be a first-time father, or maybe a husband to a 40-year-old woman who has just given birth to an underweight baby. From them, I can feel the whole family’s emotion for the baby’s health condition – concern.

As a father, they wish their baby to be healthy. They wish what doctor say about newborn-having-jaundice-for-the-first-few-days-of-life-is-normal is true, and that very day should be the last day of the “few days”. Some of them saw the level was dropping and mumbled “Ah, it’s getting better…”. I could only smile politely at them, because I know very well that having a 205 μmol/L of serum bilirubin is way too much from the normal level which is 17 μmol/L.

It reminds me of how our parents love us so much that they always wish we have the best things – the best education, the best piano teacher, the best baseball bat, and most importantly, the pinkest stage of health. When parents get older, we should always still wish them the same – the best doctors, the best nurses, the best medication and treatment (if we can afford it), and most importantly, the best attitude and greatest love from us as their children.

My Greatest Weakness?

I did a several psychological tests on Facebook for fun but I found this particular one is quite shockingly true. My greatest weakness shall be:

Your Heart:

You're an overall strong person who has very few fears. People may even see you as very fierce, but your weakness is your heart. Unfortunately, this shows up at inopportune times, such as in a crowded movie theater during a touching scene or at your child's graduation ceremony. You cry at weddings, funerals, baptisms, birthdays, and yes, even at telephone company commercials. If you're a woman, this is overlooked. If you're a man, other men don't understand, but who cares? Women love it!

Maybe I'll post up other results later. You guys are the one to decide if it's truely reflecting me =)