I've passed! I've finally passed the dratted DrivETEST! Woohoo! Woot! And other celebratory cheers!

Right now, every illegal thing I do in my car is now officially legal! Yay! (Okay, so it isn't, but yay! anyway!)

It has been a long and winding journey, but I'm finally here tonight, picking up the pieces, walking back into the light, into the sunset of your glory, where th... (oops, that was me being the first ever Australian Idol for a moment).

It has been a long journey here since I passed the written last November. I tried to take the test on my own once - and failed in about 1 minute out of VicRoads. What's this silly rule about stopping at the STOP sign? In Malaysia, that's more like a HESITATE SLIGHTLY BEFORE CHARGING THROUGH sign.

And then the second test, where I spent close to $250 in lessons and the exams, and drove like a champion and, then, right at the last roundabout - I got distracted by the first car coming into the roundabout - Haha! Look! Fellow driver! - that I didn't notice the second car about to come into the roundabout. The invigilator sits at the back of your car, silent as an Easter Island statue, and the moment she talks, you know you've failed.

I spent a good half hour in the car cursing afterwards, just being extremely upset by the whole experience. It was quite devastating, as I had to go back to work and drive down to Bendigo later that night (see earlier entry).

The circumstances surrounding this one was worse. I had just come off night shift and rushed home for a quick shower, searched frantically for my Hazard Perception Test sheet (which I didn't need) and then waited outside in the cold for my instructor to arrive. He was late, and I was on the edge, because he was telling me off at every traffic light that I should have run it when it was amber!

Furthermore, the car was a Hybrid. An automatic Hybrid. I have never sat in one before, and when I voiced my dissent about the car, he said 'You should be learning about the future, okay?' WHAT!! I'm going to spend 150 dollars just to say that I've been in a Hybrid, it was great fun, and by the way, I failed my driving test! I didn't need an introduction to Beyond Tomorrow on the day of my test!  

And so it was with much trepidation that I faced this test. The invigilator seemed nice enough, but I was struggling to get my head around the car. On  the way to VicRoads, the windows were actually poorly adjusted, and we didn't stop to correct it. I had no idea where the front and back de-misters in the Toyota Transformers  and the gear box sat next to the steering wheel. When I first got into the car, I was like, so, where's the gearbox? Oh, okay, and, er, where's the handbrake? There's no handbrake. There was a foot brake (which functioned the way a handbrake did, and separate to the normal brake pedal).

I think what made me upset the most was that the instructor was telling me that I should have had driving lessons to familiarise myself with the car. I'm sorry, when I asked over the phone for an Auto, I didn't realise it was short for Autobot.

Anyway, I was determined to let all this go behind me, and then took off for the test in the car. It was a beautiful day, and a great day for driving. I had chosen the 10.15 so that I didn't need to worry about the 40 speed limit during school hours. I was extra careful during the roundabouts, making sure that the roundabouts were totally clear before I entered it.

If you're going to take the Driving Test, the secret is to go slow. Let sloths muddle past you. Let snails overtake you, leaving you in their wake of slime.

I executed the three point turn to perfection, having practised it in the past exam, and several times yesterday morning.  

I almost failed at the end, again! I was at a STOP sign, and had stopped before the line. The road looked clear except for this parked car, and I lifted my foot of the brake pedal - and sudddenly behind the parked car, a moving car appeared, as if by magic. I stepped on the brakes again, and fortunately, the car did not have a chance to roll (thank you God, this is all You).

And then for the home stretch, and feeling the world lift off my shoulders as I drove into the VicRoads. Okay, I have made it back into VicRoads for the very first time in any drive test. If I fail, at least I made it back here, and it's all the fault of the Back To The Future-mobile.

We stopped and the invigilator got out first. The driving instructor could not resist taking a swipe at me ('Don't put your hand under the steering wheel', 'You should have been more left to turn left', 'I just hope she's not a hard woman'). I must have made a darned good first impression, I could tell.

I walked the Green Mile into the VicRoads office, and the invigilator was standing behind the counter, nonchalantly. I couldn't read her face. 'You've passed' she said dispassionately.

It was all I could do to jump over the counter and kiss her and then buy lunch for everyone working there. Instead, I let out a civilised 'Yes' with a mini pump of the fists, and then waited for that glorious piece of plastic which I'll never ever have to worry about for my lifetime, hopefully.

I went back to the car of the instructor, and he was still smarting from this morning's first encounter with me. 'You passed? How much did you get?'

I didn't tell him it rhymed with ninety-plus.

But nothing could have ruined the day, and soon we chatted in the car like old friends instead of new-found enemies. He was burnt out, tired, I could see now through my rose-tinted glasses. He's not such a bad guy after all, just another man trying to make a living in what must be a relatively high stress job.

Sentiments aside, this is a big thank you to the Lord who watches over me, and the lessons learnt to bring me here. Which I will, unfortunately, soon forget. But for this moment, in this one glorious hour, I will bask in the joy of that green piece of plastic with my tired but smiling face plastered across it for posterity.

Hours of sleep before my shift on Friday night: 2

Hours of sleep before my shift on Saturday night: 3

My bed has become The Enemy. Nothing - not reading, not tossing and turning, not having a meal before it, not having a girl sleep in it prior (!) (I can explain, Mum, I promise!) has managed to bring me anywhere near sleep in my bed.

Sleep hygiene rule no. 1: Don't do anything that will keep your mind awake in bed. Keep you bed only for sleeping. Don't count sheep, don't so sudoku puzzles, don't count sheep doing sudoku puzzles.

Sleep hygiene rule no. 2: Don't eat in bed. The Ant Gods crawling around your bedroom floor do not want to make the four minute journey into your bed. Leave sacrificial virgin crumbs on the floor instead.

Sleep hygiene rule no. 3: Don't sleep at work. Your snores might wake your colleagues up, and that would be rude.

Simple Pleasures

Despite having very little sleep on the way to work, yesterday was a very good time of catching up over dinner with the lovely WO staff, as we were celebrating a nurses' retirement yesterday. Turkish food+great company+bad electrical keyboard and guitar blaring out Turkish music = the most fun you can have without drinking.

I stepped out into the bright golden sunshine today, and it was all a lie. It was freezing, and for the first time in my life, my car was literally covered in ice.  There was a whole layer about 1 cm thick of ice on my windshield and on my back window. So I sat in my car, making myself as small as possible and shivering while I waited for my front and back de-misters to thaw out the ice.

Two days later...

Okay, so I had to get out and pour some water onto the windows to try and dissolve some of the ice quicker. It didn't work spectacularly, but I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that the rays of the insipid sun were actually melting the ice!

And so I let the combination of the water, de-mister and solar rays work its magic on the back of the car before I made the U-turn so that the front of the car could have some joy.

And the little boy inside me came out again in a wide eyed smile as I watched the ice literally form little cracks and then break apart like tiny glaciers, drifting off to its eventual evaporative death. The backdrop of the ghostly tendrils of steam coming from the warmed up engine bonnet made for a spectacular background to the polar ice cap melt I was witnessing! 

Global warming 101. Right here on my windshield.

That'll teach the microscopic inhabitants of my windshield to cut their carbon emissions.

So here's an idea that should put me into early retirement:

Why don't we incorporate the 'Scratch-and-Win' cards into our tram tickets and parking tickets? Think about it - for the amount that you pay to park, especially in the city - we shouldn't just be getting a stupid little piece of paper to put on our dashboards.

Wouldn't it be more fun if on your tram tickets/parking tickets, along the other side, were the irresistible silver panels that you could put a five cent coin  to and scratch? You could have the chance to win yourself two hours' worth of free parking, or even a get-out-of-awkward-situation-with-tram-inspector-because-you-haven't-paid-for-your-fare pass if your three panels show the Metcard sign!

I guarantee you that this city council will no longer have problems with people paying for parking or tram tickets. In fact, you might even have people buying extra parking tickets and tram tickets just to satiate the bent little old gambler in all of us!

That's my trademark idea - let's put the fun back in council funding!

Soon to come: Discount dockets at the back of your parking tickets: Get 20% off your next tanning session! Receive three enchiladas for the price of two in your next TacoBell meal! Come to La Brasilians for your first waxing session and we will do your eyebrows for free!

Having four days' break in between nights is always good for the soul, but the body's clock is still an erratic machine, screaming you awake at 3:30 am and then singing your lullabies at 4:30 in the evening.

It's worse when your break starts in the weekdays, and no one else is around for you to go out with. There are different things that you find to fill your time, so let me count the ways:

1) Watch Miyazaki's My Neighbour Tortoro and Spirited Away. There are few films which leave you wrenched in the heart and sorry that it's over. These have been a real treat for my inner child!

2) Read! Jodi Picoult is starting to become a staple - I have finished My Sister's Keeper and The Pact. I have made a secret promise never to read syndicated novelists, but she's really quite a gripping read! Actually enjoying this other author as well, Alexander McCall Smith... cool fiction set in Botswana - man I love reading books set in other people's culture!

3) Waste time! The PS2 is evil, having completed Psychonauts. The computer is evil - er! Play Desktop Tower Defense (tm) and watch your life disappear before your very eyes! I am now officially a geek. Save my social soul!

One more cycle of nights, and then! There will be at least one high school's friend wedding to attend this time back - my best friend's wedding, if you will. Man, these holidays are going to rock!

And so here I am, counting down the days:hours:minutes:seconds before I get on that plane and then head home.

I quite like doing nights - not much follow up responsibilities, rather good support and really good learning. I had my very first honest-to-goodness Code Blue the other night, and I was on of the first to arrive at the scene. Some nurses were already bagging and masking, and it was quite chaotic before the ICU registrar came in and tubed the patient.

We continued the CPR-adrenaline-atropine cycle for about 15 minutes before the ICU registrar finally called the time of death as we did not know how long the patient was out before we found him. It was surreal as we all stood there in reverential silence, watching the patient's heart slowly wind down, the numbers on the cardiac monitor ticking down like a countdown watch.

A few things I have learned:

0) Secure the area. Clean up the environment, get a pair of gloves on, get someone to pull up the history.

1) In bagging and masking - ensure that the patient has a Guedel airways in place to improve effective oxygenation.

2) I CPR like an old lady (with all due respect to any old ladies reading my blog) - it needs to be an effective compression 1/3 of the way down.

3) Asystole = CPR and adrenaline.The only shockable rhythms of an emegency situation are a VF and an unconscious VT.  

It is always difficult at these Codes, because only something like 17% (that's hearsay) of patients who are resuscitated in a hospital ever make it back. And then the question at the back of everyone's minds is - 'So what happened to get him here?' 'Does he have family? - wife? kids?' 

'Who's going to call them?'

It is always said in jest especially here in this country - 'Don't die on me, okay? There's too much paperwork involved.' There is some semblance of truth in that - whenever a patient does not make it, we always ask if this case would end up with the coroner's - this one did - and the amount of paperwork it took was alarming, according to the resident who was covering the unit.

Death, especially unexpected ones, is always a difficult proposition for anyone to handle. Standing around this gentleman as he left us, most of the junior doctors could only stare in quiet disbelief, grappling with the reality hitting us that despite all that we did, we couldn't save him.   

And now, back to the AH for five weeks of nights... I must say that working at night is a different ballgame altogether... this is my very first night shift in my one and a half years as a doctor.

After my first, rather horrendous night, when I was driving back home, I was nodding off to sleep in the car! (Road... road... car ahead... zzzz.... traffic light.... zzzz.... HONK! Road... roazzz.... car ahead!... brake!... Roadroadroadzzz! Caraheazzz....)

It was only by pure instinct and the grace of God that I made it home in one piece, unscratched, unmarked, unhurt. And then as the rest of the world busies themselves in the light of day, I attempt to make my room as dark as possible and then walk into Dreamland, which is deserted since everyone else is hard at work or school.

The hospital is a funny creature at night - it almost takes on a life of its own. All the floors and corridors, and the electricity lifeforce surging through it pulsates as one. I bear witness to this - there will be nights when one patient will get really sick, and this triggers a reaction throughout the rest of the being of the hospital, and then someone else on another ward will crash.

It's almost like the hospital itself was feeling unwell. 

There are some nights, however, although rare, where the hospital is quiet - almost too quiet, as if a beast in repose after several nights of thrashing about in pain. I had one of those nights on my last night yesterday, where I was just looking at the pager - curiously silent - waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it never did.

It has been a really steep learning curve during these past four nights, and there's three more cycles to go, before I get to kiss the sweet sweet shores of home.

Home, where my thoughts escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

The Girl Who Wore Nice Skirts: Part 3

We lost her once before.

We were driving up to Cameron Highlands for a church retreat, and it was five of us in Pa's little Nissan Sunny, with baby G in tow. She must have only been two or three, so this would've been great excitement for her!

We climbed the hill in the car, and about lunchtime reached an area of shops where we decided to stop and have some lunch. We decided to leave her in the car, as the trip had obviously taken its toll on her, and we left sleeping quietly in the backseat and locked all the doors before heading off for lunch.

I can't remember what we had for lunch, but I remember that the car was in plain view. We were busy chatting with the other church members who had decided to stop for lunch as well, and our attentions must have focused away from the car.

Half an hour later, stomachs full and a little light in the head, we walked ourselves back to the white Sunny. It must have been me or my older brother who first noticed that she was missing. Strangely enough, all the car doors were locked - but no baby in the backseat!

To say we panicked would have been an understatement. Pa tried to remain calm while Mum was searching furiously around the car, but you could see the worry etched in both their faces. My brother and I tried all that we could do in our little bodies, looking around other cars parked nearby, under the cars, even.

This was turning really ugly really fast. The other church members helped in the search, but after five to ten minutes of frantic activity, she couldn't be found at all.

Someone then had the bright idea of going to the local police station and asking for help.

And there she was, all pretty in pink, bemused by all the fuss that was going on around her. My Mum was beside herself with joy!

Somehow, my little sister had managed to unlock the door, lock it back and then get out of the car and waddled her way into a little shop selling biscuits and sundry. The owner of the shop was kind enough to bring her to the police station, where we found her.

A whole sense of relief swept through our bodies. Our lifestories would have been so different had things ended badly.

She once was lost, but now am found.

In the Bible, there are parables about how God is ecstatic about rediscovering the souls of His children who are lost.

We are likened to that one lost sheep, who the shepherd will abandon the rest of his herd to find.

We are like the lost coin, which the widow cleans her whole house in search of.

We are like the prodigal sons and daughters, returning home after squandering our Father's wealth and basically slapping Him in the face, only to see Him running in the distance with a smile across His face; finding out beyond belief that He has been waiting everyday by the window, watching, waiting for our return; protesting now even as He slips on a ring on our dirty fingers, sandals for our wayward feet, a robe on our rebellious bodies, and a hug for a son who had wished Him dead.

And there is always celebration when the lost are found again.

It is with a heavy heart that I leave Ward One and move on. It has ultimately been a really good rotation, and I have really been blessed to have had such a wonderful team to work with, and (mostly) lovely patients to look after. As I have said, I am probably a closet geriatrician!

I have never been so emotionally involved in work, pouring out heart and soul into the patients' and the staffs' lives. All the more vigilance against blurring the line between work and personal life, but sometimes you do need to love the work that you do. To get you up in the mornings, and drag you out of bed.

They threw me a party at the end of my rotation - some cooked, others brought things they bought, and we just had a good time laughing and reminiscing. M was going around with his Polaroid and catching snapshots of the party, etched forever on the sepia tinged 3x5s. There were many sad hugs and goodbye kisses shared that day, with both staff and patients.

There were many nights of staying until late, sorting out paperwork and patients. Sometimes I stay that long by choice, if only to make the rotation last a little longer. But I guess Dr. S was right about the risk of burnout, and I hope that one day I will be mature enough to be able to leave work on time.

But thank you, God. You are more good to me than I can ever deserve.

The Girl Who Wore Nice Skirts: Part 2

Younger siblings undergo a metamorphosis quicker than the eye can follow. I can't tell you exactly how she grew up to be where she is today. I map her growth spurts not by the markings on the wall, but almost by random memory bites:

---- 83 cm

My brother and I would be roughousing in front of our house, on the pink and white tiled driveway, chasing each other and screaming unneccesarily. In the midst of the chaos, I remember her walking between us, oblivious to the both of us.

She seemed distracted, almost like she was muttering to herself under her breath. If you listened carefully, however, you would hear that she was actually singing. If you paid closer attention, you would suddenly realise that she was making up the tune and words as she went along. 

Her own little song.

---- 85cm

She came to Sunday School not very long after she could walk , she must have only been three of four years old.

Sunday School is basically like mini-church for the little kids, and we get to do fun stuff like sing action songs, hear Bible stories and meet other church members' kids.

They try to teach the act of offering from a very young age, and every Sunday the teacher would announce, "It's offering time!" and place the little round piggy bank in the shape of a full moon with a smiley face and outstretched hands at the front.

The kids who were well off would stream to the front, and drop off the coins their parents had given them earlier into the piggy bank. We came from a home that had few luxuries, and I would often sit in my seat uncomfortably, feeling left out.

But she didn't care. She got all excited when people were streaming to the front, and she would just follow the crowd, empty handed, and pretend to put money into the piggy bank. It was funny, in a sad kind of way.

----  97 cm

I must have been eleven, chubby as a fishball with eyes, and badly dressed. With a  haircut that Donald Trump would have been proud of. Mum and Dad, with his walker, my older brother and myself had all made the special trip down the road to watch her perform in her kindergarten performance.

She was six, but she was brave. In front of a crowd of parents, noisy siblings, sickly lighting and nervous teachers, she made the well rehearsed welcome speech to everyone without missing a beat.  

The part that cracked me up the most was her class' performance - a Hawaiian dance. She was dressed in the floral purple and green dress that her teacher had painstakingly altered for every girl in the class. There was a little orchid in her hair. A corny Hawaiian tune was blaring on the PA system, but even that couldn't mask the collective shouts of her classmates dancing-by-numbers:

'ONE, TWO, FREE, FOH, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, AAEEiGGHHTT.... ONE, TWO, FREE, FOH...'

their little voices belted out as they sashayed from side to side, their tiny hands twirling, their brows furrowed in intense concentration. The crowd couldn't help but laugh, not unkindly, but much to her teacher's dismay.  

Ah, she was born to perform, my little sister!

To an sms from my brother asking how she is going:

Reply: Uh G has been taken over by an alien... boop boop beep boop!

and    

The force is great in this one... Bought estee lauder perfume for mother she did. Everyday listening to iPod she does. Very happy with present she is. Mmmrrh....

Uh... that confirms that she is related to me. Hahaha! How can you not love her?

The Girl Who Wore Nice Skirts: Part 1

She came unannounced, almost. Maybe I was too young to remember. But Mum walked in one day with this new member of the household, and I don't remember her telling me 'you've got a sister now'.

There is a picture of her in her cot, flopped on her belly, her baby fat still forming little sausages for arms. Her boycut hair of soft brown. Her mouth is opened in the most perfect smile, and her eyes are bright with life. She was happy to be here in this world. It was written all over her face.

I remember buoying her in the rocking cot one day, which was basically a spring mechanism with an improvised sarong hanging from it. In there was a little bundle of joy, cuteness personified, sleeping and oblivious to the cares of the world. And I softly sang her the song I had just learned in my Standard Two class:

Dodoilah, dodoi,
Adik jangan menangis,
Dodoilah, dodoi,
Adik jangan menangis,
Pejamkanlah matamu sayang,
Tidurlah kau dalam buaian,
Pejamkanlah matamu sayang,
Tidurlah kau dalam buaian.

Pejamkanlah matamu, sayang. Tidurlah kau dalam buaian.

I have now officially two weeks left in my Aged Care rotation. I go to work grumpy in the mornings, not because I don't like it, but because I am imminently coming to the end of a rotation that I have enjoyed immensely!

It wasn't always like this. In the beginning, I was still finding my feet, and a combination of being new, managing 22 patients and having a crazy week where I was getting home at about seven or eight every night seemed strange to me for an Aged Care rotation. This was meant to be a relaxed rotation, but it looked like I had bitten off more than I could chew!

And then the God who looks after my life took over.

We had to move to another hospital as our ward was being renovated,  and the patient load had to be reduced to 16. This made it more manageable, and furthermore, patients who were more stable were coming our way, as befitting an Aged Care rehabilitation ward.

And the nurses. The wonderful nurses. They are ever ready to help, and laughter is always precariously hanging off the edge of their lips!

I became more familiar with the patients as well, and also (disturbingly) attracting the (erhemm) romantic attentions of some of the older women there! That's me - attractive to all women under the age of five and over the age of sixty five! One of them calls me Dr Twinkle Eyes (shudder shudder).

And to top it all off, I am working with a great registrar and consultant as well. I am whistling at work. I am tempted to burst into song. I laugh. I work. I am fulfilled.

Job satisfaction.

May this memory remain with me in the future when the going gets tough.

Feel it falling off like clothing
Taste it rolling on your tongue
See the lights above you glowing
Oh and breathe them deep into your lungs

                                                                     - Missy Higgins, Steer

It was a lousy week for me last week. I have decided that my life's fate is steered by that of my football club's, and Liverpool losing the Champion's League final rolled over into Friday's DrivETEST. 

Never mind. Inhale. Exhale. Stab. Repeat.

Haha! I am much better now, and Friday was just emotionallydraining - and to top it off I had to drive down to Bendigo to work on Saturday. I was kicking myself for agreeing, and grudgingly packed my oneday'ssupplies into the boot and then said a hasty goodbye before driving off into the black of 10pm.

But the road soon took me, the rhythmic hum of my wheels singing to me as I travelled along the city streets, which turned into the quieter suburb streets and which quickly changed into the sparsely populated night highway. And soon the burdens of the day just slipped off.

KL Interlude 

I have always loved driving long distances at night for as long as I can remember.

I cannot express enough how much I love the magical drive through Kuala Lumpur in the night time - especially as you cruise along the snaking Federal Highway, and the alternating darkness and soft glow of the amber street lights falls on you. 

With the radio's luminence set to your favourite channel. Your soft voice almost trance like singing the words.  

The rubyred of tail lights on your side being complemented by the goldenyellow of the headlights on the opposite side of the road turn the sea of black into a treasure chest.

Talking to Mum and Dad in the front with my brother and sister in the back interjecting, laughing.

//end KL interlude

The highway to Bendigo in the daytime is a beautiful drive through outer suburbia, countless acres of flatlands brown or green depending on God's providence, and there is this particular stretch where you drive through a guardofhonour of fir trees - silent majestic witnesses  to the thousands of passengers using their space.

A night time drive obliterates all sense and form, unless you have a beautiful moonlit night.

There was one I particularly remember - it was not full, but it was certainly a bright moon. Brilliant, almost, dousing out the glitter of the supporting cast of night stars. It was an eerie drive, and I was trying hard to focus on the road, but out of the corner of my eye, faraway in the hills I could see a lighthouse.

A lighthouse. In the middle of the mass of shadowed forests. A lighthouse on a hill. The beautiful moonlit nightsky played backdrop  to this solitary building in the forested distance, and it was breathtaking.

It looked like an inspired work of art, the painter generous with the inkblack night and the milky aura of the moon casting a faint fluorescent light on the forest below. And out of the darkness - that solitary white light, no bigger than diamond stud, bold and piercing, fighting away the fears and uncertainties sprawled beneath its feet.       

I pray when I can during those long drives to Bendigo. You might say that it is a way of keeping myself awake.

I say that the drive itself is a religious experience.