Leap Year

I felt like I needed to post something to day. Simply because if I don’t then I won’t get another chance for the next 4 years.

There isn’t much to report but 2 days ago I went to Farley’s, which is a supermarket in the area behind the hospital. The main reason to go there is because the bakery has a bill payment counter for things like water and electricity. My power bill for this month was RM49.90. Not as much as I expected but certainly is more than I had hoped. This requires further thinking regarding choosing between a gas stove or an induction cooker.

Still waiting for landline internet...

Sarikei

This was how it happened. Some people were doing some construction work on the road leading to town. In order to avoid the (minor) congestion on my way to buy some food on Sunday, I decided to take a detour. The lane I took actually connected to a dual carriageway. In order to get to town, I was supposed to make a U turn upon reaching the first set of traffic lights. I missed it.

Suddenly I found myself driving towards the airport. “No worries. I’ll just double back once I reach the airport roundabout,” so I thought to myself. However, when I reached the roundabout, I decided that perhaps I should go forward instead of making the 180 degree turn back to town. After all, I’ve never seen ‘what’s out there’.

Before I know it, I was on the Batang Rajang bridge and as I headed further forward I found myself on my way to Sarikei.

Sarikei is a little town about 90+ km from Sibu. It took me a little over an hour to reach and by the time I arrived in Sarikei it was already slightly after three in the afternoon. The road initially consisted of a dual carriage way (I guess in Malaysia we can call it a ‘highway’). However, after the Julau roundabout, it became a normal two way road. I must say the quality of the paving of these roads leave a lot to be desired. On the way it appeared that the main population of these parts are Chinese. There were not many longhouses along the way, unlike the road to Mukah.

Since I was driving alone and there was hardly any radio signal along the way, I spent most of the drive talking to myself, debating the merits of eventually getting a Myvi vs a (intracranial bleed inducing) Yamaha XJ6, the merits of an induction cooker vs a gas stove, and other such intellectually stimulating discussions. Of course the extent of how ‘intellectually stimulating’ such discussions can be is itself debatable considering I only had myself to talk to.

When I arrived there the town was rather quiet. Maybe because it was a hot Sunday afternoon. My first impression was that it looked and felt like most other small towns in Malaysia. Which is perhaps a polite way of saying that it was a rather boring generic place...

Sarikei is a small town. About the same size as Mukah maybe. The Rajang River flows by this town and apparently the main things that they produce around these parts are pineapples and pepper. I went to the market which sits across the road from the main ferry terminal but there wasn’t any pineapple left.

When I asked the burger lady from whom I bought a ‘Special Manjan Burger’ (beef and chicken burgers plus a frankfurter sausage and egg) about where I can get some aunthentic Sarawak pepper, she replied that I can get those in Kuching (huh?).

So after having my ‘Special Manjan Burger’ by the river, I began my journey home. Interestingly, there were in fact two roads leading back to Sibu. While the initial route was via the airport, the other route followed the Hulu Lanang Bridge into Sibu. There was a toll (for which I had absolutely no idea) for using the Hulu Lanang bridge but it appeared that this route was shorter and more comfortable compared to the one I took earlier. It cost RM3 for the toll.

Sometimes just having someone to talk to makes all the difference

Overall, my ad hoc journey to Sarikei was not particularly fun especially since I couldn’t get my hands on neither pepper nor pineapple. Maybe I should just get them from Giant...

The Black Pepper Board’s office is situated just outside Sarikei. Heck, even the Traxx FM advert says that Sarikei was supposed to be famous for its pepper

Shopping Spree

 

Delta Mall was described as the Low Yat Plaza of Sibu. To be honest there’s hardly any more IT in it than any average mall in KL. I got my oven from Parkson’s though since they are having a bonus point promotion for American Express and also because I have Bonuslink.

My pay for February has already been deposited. It appears that there were a few changes to it. The most notable for me is that the payment centre was changed from Kajang to Sibu. While the basic pay remains the same it appears that my Bantuan Sara Hidup (which is paid to those working in areas deemed to have a high cost of living) has been changed to Elaun Wilayah which is RM162.36 more than the former. I’m still getting my Imbuhan Tetap Perumahan though. This is unchanged from the RM250 that it was when I was working in Kajang. I actually expexted this to have been either cancelled or replaced with an Elaun Perumahan Wilayah. Either way I’m not complaining because the way I see it, it seems that I’m still lodging for free here. I didn’t do any calls this month so my income will be limited to that for now.

Because of this I have decided that I should go ahead with buying that oven. I’m still deferring on that induction cooker though. I really need to see how much my electricity bill has been so far before I can decide on that. An oven however is not difficult to decide on – there is no way I’m buying one of those big gas ovens. They are cumbersome and can be rather dangerous to operate. I’m not planning to bake ALL my bread very often anyway, so a small electric one should suffice. I’m really happy that I got one actually. Right now I’m still grinning. You see, I’m an easy man to please. Though currently I do have a few things that I wish I could buy:

iPhone 4s

Evevryone seems to have one and they do look very useful. However, my past experience with my now defunct Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini (What a ridiculously long name) has taught me that such phones tend to be rather unsuitable for on call purposes due to their short battery lives. For now I’ll stick with my trusted Nokia. That guy has battery life of more than 48 hours! It’s a work horse.

iPad

Rumour has it that iPad 3 is coming out in the next 1 or 2 months. I’ve seen some of the guys here using it to read books and the pharmacists seem to love them due to their portability (it’s like a go anywhere spreadsheet that won’t strain your eyes). I’m still lugging around my Morgan while these iPad users seem to have a portable library with them wherever they go. Makes me jealous. Plus e-books seems more convenient. iPads also seem cheaper than the iPhone so I’ll probably get one of these before the smart phone.

Canon EF 70-300mm L IS USM

I want a telephoto lens for my camera. When I look at my photo collection it seems that a lot of the more interesting ones were taken while I am on a moving vehicle. My current lenses don’t seem to have the reach. From reading the reviews it seems that the non L version of this focal length is just as good and is also a lot cheaper, but this one is an L lens. An L lens! A guy needs to have a dream right?

Toyota Hilux

I’ve seen quite a lot of road traffic accidents here in Sarawak. Apparently quite a number of them involved a Hilux. Usually the driver is safe but the guy that gets hit by one will usually have it quite bad. A legitimate way to run over Mat Rempits then...

Yamaha XJ6

One day, when my midlife crisis gets the better of me, I might get one of these death machines and hope that I won’t get run over by a Toyota Hilux.

Mail order bride

A fixed landline internet

I’m still waiting for that call from Streamyx.

The interior of Wisma Sanyan – where the Sibu Parkson’s is

My new oven! It’s a Faber 24 litre FEO 24 turbofan oven. Uses electricity and comes with a grease pan and a bake pan handle so I won’t need an oven mitt. It’s got heating elements both at the top and bottom. I'm loving it!

Today was no plastic bag day in Sibu. I think it’s good to have no plastic bag days. Although in reality plastic bags make up only a very very small amount of our daily waste, take up an almost negligible quantity of our landfill areas, and contributes to only a fraction of the current environmental predicament that our planet is in. The effect of no plastic bag days is perhaps more on the awareness that it raises than the actual direct benefit on the environment

Shifting Interest

Although the turtle like speed of my internet is the main reason for the slow pace at which this blog was updated over the past few weeks, there is another factor to for this – there are fewer interesting stories to in anaesthesia. Whereas being in the emergency department meant that there were a lot of patients with various interesting presentations and even more colourful stories behind them, I hardly get to hear any interesting presentation after moving to anaesthesia (of course the fact that most of my patients now have plastic tubes stuffed down their throats also contribute greatly to the lack of patient centred communication nowadays).

Take for example the patient that presented with chest pain at 3 a.m during my shift in the emergency department:

“When did you get the chest pain?”

“About an hour ago,”

“What were you doing at the time?”

“I was sleeping, then I felt this heaviness in my chest...” oh shit “...then I felt numb in my left hand...” oh shit shit “... so I did some push ups,” huh? What? Why?

“So when you were doing these push ups, did the pain get worse?”

“Yes. Somehow it did, strange.” Of course it’ll get worse! OMG!

About 2 minutes later it was apparent on the ECG that he had had a STEMI.

These days the interesting stories come not from talking to and observing patients but rather other from observing my co workers.

Take for example the surgical medical officer in charge of all the urology cases. This guy has been at his job for about 8 years now. He can be shit scary when shit happens or when he gets stuck with his stenting, but he is proper grown man who still reads Gempak (I honestly thought they ceased publication long ago), watches Bleach while waiting for his OT, and plays Starcraft 2. I mean, I simply can’t help but find such a person interesting.

The other day Miss Yap asked me whether I was interested in surgery. Apparently they did ask the higher administrators about whether they can get more medical officers. She said that the admin people told her I was interested in anaesthesia. I was torn. On the one hand anaesthesia doesn’t interest me as much as it used to seeing as how I actually suck real bad at it. However my bosses are really nice. I mean today my head of department actually came into my OT to help me reverse one patient. Also, the deputy hospital director seemed to have gone through quite a lot of trouble to get me into anaesthesia and I didn’t want to annoy him. He’s a really nice guy.

The big BUT is that whenever I see people doing a surgery I can’t help but feel this itch to want to hold the needle holder and tie some sutures!

Some of the guys here do appendicectomies at their own leisurely sweet time. I mean, one hour and forty minutes?!?! The damn thing wasn’t even perforated and the patient was a boy. Yes, perhaps the bowel was slightly stuck but once you freed it out how long did you actually need to remove the damn thing??!?! This guy took ages to suture and ligate just the appendix (funny thing is, he was rather fast at ligating the mesoappendix though). And how long does it take to close the skin of a Lanz incision no longer than 3 inches, with non absorbable INTERRUPTED sutures!!!! I mean that wound was shorter than his dick FFS!! What was this guy looking for? A perfect cosmetic result? Dude, it’s an INTERRUPTED non-absorbable suture. How pretty do you think the scar will look like? Hell, even Rashid can do a prettier subcuticular suture in half that time...

Well, that was just me venting steam. For now I will continue to stay in anaesthesia and see if my skills improve.

Household Management

My internet is still slow. Despite it already being several days after paying my bill, the limit seems to still be enforced. The statistics on my computer showed that I have downloaded a total of over 650GB of data over this month, which I feel is totally bullshit. My hard drive is only 200GB and despite the large number of videos and songs on it there is still more than 50% empty space left. There is no way it could be 650GB.

The good news is Streamyx gave me a call and said that they can offer 1Mbps worth of internet speed in my area. This is good because at least there will be no download limit. I’m still waiting for the confirmation call from them.

I still have yet to get my electricity bill but my water bill for January was RM9.90. In Selangor I wouldn’t have had to pay any of it because it was still less than RM10. I suspect this month’s electricity bill will be high. Considering the fact that they haven’t actually sent me my January bills and I have been using more electricity lately. If it is still tolerable then I may go ahead with buying an induction cooker but if it is ridiculously high than I would have to get a tank of gas from one of those shops in Taman Permai.

Sliced bread is a rarity in Sibu. The only ones that I have seen are the in house supermarket bakery ones like in Giant and the one from Sibujaya Bakery. Maybe I should get an oven to bake my own bread...

I also hope that my credit card points are already enough for me to order that nifty looking Pensonic vacuum cleaner because sweeping the floor sucks.

Lock Out

My dad came over to Sibu for the weekend. Had some work apparently. So I went to meet him in town at the Tanahmas Hotel where he was staying. He wanted to come by my place and sleepover but I told him it was ridiculously messy (which it was) and told him I’ll take him to my place the following day.

The next day I took my dad to visit my abode (which have been somewhat cleaned by this point). After looking around we were meant to go get breakfast and he had some work to do in Julau. I wanted to come along of course, as it meant a free ride to Julau, which I’ve never been to. Upon exiting the house and locking the door behind us a sudden realisation gripped me – I had left the house keys inside the locked house!! Shit!

The last time something like this happened was when I was living in Burnside in Newcastle with Jacob whereby a strong wind slammed my room door shut and engaged it’s autolock mechanism. What followed was a daring stunt involving me tying a piece of rope around my waist and climbing out through the 1^st floor living room into my room. It was hoped that Jacob would have had a good hold on the other end of the string in case I slipped. I did get the door open but it turned out that instead of watching out for me, Jacob was busy watching tele. Bugger...

So the whole ‘going to Julau with my dad’ plan had to give way to ‘I need to figure out a way to get back inside my own house’ plan. The guard at the place contacted a certain Pn Rajmah for me who is apparently the custodian of spare keys for the quarters. This is what she had to say to me:

“Actually I don’t have a spare key to your flat. It was given to you when you first moved in,” OMG WTF??!?!?! How did I not notice??!!

“What we can do is I can contact one of the FMS technicians and see if they open it for you. If they can open the lock without damaging it then that’s that. However if the lock gets damaged you will have to replace it.” Of course I agreed to the plan, it was all I had.

So after about one hour of trying to pick the lock, we came to a consensus to just break the damned thing open. Utilising a hammer and very little mercy to my poor lock, the FMS guy finally managed to create a hole where the door knob used to be.

The new knob was RM30+ and I bought a padlock as well. I’ve decided from now on to avoid using the knob's lock but instead to use the padlock. It’s the type where you can’t operate it without it’s keys so the same kind of crap doesn’t happen again.

 

What’s left of my old knob (the one from the door, the other ‘knob’ is working just fine)

From now on, all my door is gonna get is this padlock

Catching Up

On the 7^th of February my old housemate (it was actually a chalet) Andrew took me out for dinner at a place near the Malay Kampong area. Because “Bandung” (which apparently is quite famous) was closed, we went to this place in front of the community hall. We had some form of nasi goreng and ikan bakar.

Catching up with Andrew and Ming Shiuan I learnt a few things about some old acquaintances:

Ah Hong is working in KL. Apparently still not married.

Li Yin is working in Singapore. Apparently already married.

Charles has family in Sibu.

Andrew’s kid is already one year and two months old.

Chin Lik is still in Cambridge, already a doctor but still has not finished his medical degree.

Aliff Nor is working with Tony Fernandez.

Ihab appeared on TV singing Siti Nurhaliza songs with Noraniza Idris.

 

“What’s his name?”

“Michelle”

“Oh, it’s a girl, ooops.”

Michelle definitely looks more like mommy than daddy