Lost

We are all lost
Either we were once
Or we are still

We are all lost
Until we find Him

I'm constantly lost and later back on trail
In finding my way
Finding my purpose of life

Says who when you've found your way, you won't stray?
Immutable from the hitting storm of nihilism
Untouchable by the questing world lust

Because the journey is never straight
Divergence always awaits

It's Him who chose to let you get off track
And it's Him who chose to spare you back

I've once reminded what's my purpose of life
Sadly it has turned vague now
Keep it coming, keep it real
It's time for another dose of reminder

Lord. Guide. Me.

Bersama di syurga

Hati ini disapa kenangan-kenangan lalu. Kenangan-kenangan bersamamu. Memori tentangmu selalu sahaja singgah dibenak, tetapi entah mengapa kali ini datangnya itu terlalu deras, berpukal-pukal.

Aku merinduimu.

Seakan aku baru digigit realiti, untuk kita bertemu melepas rindu seperti dulu itu adalah sesuatu yang mustahil. Hanya berfikir tentangmu mampu membuat aku mengalirkan air mata. Hatiku sebak.

Aku terlalu merinduimu.

Hati tiba-tiba rindu pada yang sudah tiada.

Hidup ini hanya persinggahan. Tidak kekal. Aku tahu aku juga akan berkunjung ke sana. Tetapi aku terkesima. Apa mungkin untuk kita bertemu semula? Di alam yang lebih kekal. Malu untuk aku menyebutnya. Apa bisa kita ketemu semula di dalam syurga Allah?

Berbeza dengan sahabat-sahabat lain yang telah kehilangan saudara kandung, barangkali kerana aku belum pernah merasai kehilangan ahli keluarga yang terlalu dekat, jadi aku kurang merindui kematian. Ya. Merindui yang telah tiada itulah merindui kematian. Tidak begitu?

Engkau? Bukanlah sesiapa yang mempunyai pertalian darah denganku. Tetapi andai bisa ku gubahkan butir kata, siapalah engkau padaku, demi Allah aku mencintaimu.

Aku mencintaimu keranaNya.

Dari Anas bin Malik RA, “Ada seseorang yang bertanya kepada Nabi SAW tentang hari kiamat, “Kapankah kiamat datang?” Nabi SAW pun menjawab, “Apa yang telah engkau persiapkan untuk menghadapinya?” Orang itu menjawab, “Wahai Rasulullah, aku belum mempersiapkan shalat dan puasa yang banyak, hanya saja aku mencintai Allah dan Rasul-Nya SAW” Maka Rasulullah SAW pun bersabda, “Seseorang (di hari kiamat) akan bersama orang yang dicintainya, dan engkau akan bersama yang engkau cintai.” (HR. Imam Bukhari)

"....engkau akan bersama yang engkau cintai..."

Boleh jadi ini pertama kali aku bercita-cita sebegitu besar. Mampukah aku? Layakkah aku?

Astaghfirullah.

Tidak mengapa. Tiap-tiap Muslim memang perlu mengimpikan syurga Allah bukan? Untuk bersama-sama Rasulullah, ahli-ahli keluarga yang dikasihi, sahabat-sahabat sejihad. Dan engkau, engkau juga antara orang yang aku ingin bertemu kembali.

Akan terus ku titipkan doa buatmu.
Akan terus aku berusaha untuk pulangan yang terbaik di sana nanti.

Community Health posting and looking forward

9 weeks of Community Health posting. Now in week 7th. Week 8th is Raya Haji break aka mid semester break. Week 9th is end-of-posting exam.

Flashback 7 weeks ago, freshly walked out 2 months end-of-year 3 holiday. Freshly escaped from the smell of lemang and rendang during Eid, I was so glad I had CH posting first! Whilst another half of the class started to worry thinking about nightmares of meeting Mr. Ragu in HOSHAS and unexpected so-called high demanding patients in Ampang Hospital.

Tampin is a nice small town. Because dad is from Negeri Sembilan and I have relatives there anyway, maybe that was the reason why this heart didn't feel too heavy leaving Ampang to start a nomad life as a clinical student.

Community Health is considered a laid back posting, more relaxing compare to surgery or other disciplines. As I was unloading my luggages a few days ago at Sri Pandan, a senior saw me and we had a short chat.

'Banyaknya barang. Dari mana ni?'

'Baru balik dari Tampin sebenarnya'

'Oh baru balik dari bercuti la ni'

In Tampin, we live and do things like a boss.

CH posting has 2 main divisions;
1. Fulfilling all the attachments and visits
2. Conducting a research and organizing a health intervention day

And unofficially we added another; Jalan Time!

It's not always stress-free though, the atmosphere became tight and solemn when it comes to  meeting for almost every night discussing about research and 'decoding' statistical components using SPSS, worrying and thinking about back up plans when things went wrong with our surveys, dealing with a lot of people to raise funds and organize our health intervention day. Politicians, government agencies, public citizens. And that's about all. Other than that life is heaven!

Melaka Wonderland

True enough. Life in Tampin revolved around attachments at Pejabat Kesihatan Daerah, visits to all the clinics; Klinik Kanak-Kanak Keperluan Khas, Klinik Warga Emas, Klinik Desa, a week or so doing case study at Tampin Hospital, home visits. The rest of it we spent times going back and forth our research area.

If I were to enter data on our hours spent in Tampin into SPSS, computing output of variable with highest frequency would be

40% on the road
30% doing attachments
30% working on our research

The 40% on the road covers the to and fro journey from Tampin to our research area at FELDA Pasir Besar which is 45 minutes away, travelling from one small town to another to visit other Klinik Kesihatan or Klinik Desa, plus our Jalan Time to Melaka Wonderland, hunting for the best coconut shake in Melaka, lepaking at our friend's, and also wandering around Melaka to search for potential sponsorships.

Being in Tampin, reality struck me!

Malaysia is so hot! Gosh I missed Aussie! (only in winter heh)

Here, everyday is a free tanning session. Especially when things revolved around our fieldwork. Walking from houses to houses when the UV light is at its max! There was not a moment my transition glasses did not turn black when we were outside! My advice to dear surgery friends who'll start CH posting in another few weeks:

1) spare sunscreen in your bag
2) umbrella or a cap could be helpful
3) don't take for granted even though it's said that you'll only have questionnaire pretesting session, don't always expect it to be short and shady!

But don't worry guys, apart from your complexion would get a few tones darker, CH posting is fun!

Charcoal Mask

I missed my preclinical years. The eight to five schedule Monday to Friday. The same routine might bore me but the temperature makes me feel like I'd rather stay and sleep on campus not wanting to even step outside the building!

Our dean's office at level 13 holds the lowest temperature that's 16 degrees. And the rest of the floor stays at 22 degrees most. I missed my white fluffy sweater, something to cuddle underneath while taking a nap in the recreational room.

Comfy sofa in the recreational room

I missed my very own space in the lecture hall, my own locker to properly place all the textbooks.

In the clinical phase, the wards are generally where you should be in. Books? It's whatever you can fit into your white coat pocket.

Since we'll rarely be on campus, there's no usual lepaking place in the lecture hall like we used to have. Even stepping into the recreational room, the place is always filled with new faces I've never seen before. As if I'm a stranger. But somehow, some handsome looking juniors can brighten up my day.

I might have not yet experienced how bad it is being the low of the low in the ward (this reminds me how hard my surgery friends trying to cope), but imagine being a bimbo both at the hospital and campus. Ouch!

Nevertheless I believe clinical years will be awesome! And adventurous! And challenging! And maybe a little bit tiring! And torturing, a little bit mentally exhausting, and demoralizing. Erk.

I'm so anticipating to start my surgery posting! (Fingers crossed)

Ok. Maybe not so anticipating for now. But I'm pretty much sure I'll keep my fingers uncrossed in no time.

Sometimes I really need a smack in the head, a hard one! As a reminder that whatever I do, I do it for Him.

And they were not enjoined anything except that they should serve Allah, being sincere to Him in obedience, upright, and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, and that is the right religion {98:5}

I am too weak and small to survive the hereafter with my own effort. So I am hoping and begging that a little contribution I'd do as a Muslim doctor would be my best investment.

For those who're willing to read

Have you read all my entries for the trip? No? Well that's expected. I know people don't usually pay full attention on what I'm writing. You won't be reading line by line carefully unless you're in an attempt to stalk me or you actually admire me secretly. And very rarely you are undeniably a real fan of this blog. Other than that, I suppose 80% of readers just scrolled down this page only looking at the photos.

But anyway. Keep on scrolling down if that's the only thing you feel like doing and keep reading if that makes you happy. I might gonna write a long entry.

It has been more than a month since I last updated the blog. And there were a lot of things happening that I'm dying to write about. But surprisingly I didn't because certain things that happened really required me to pull myself together. So I guess distance, time, and space are the best way out. I found this formula helpful and applicable to a lot of things, even in blogging.

Writing has always been my passion. I started writing diaries when I was 9 and kept them going for years. When I read back all the pieces, it reminds me how big I've grown, how strong I've become, how far I've stepped.

Why did I choose to write and keep all the diaries? Well, what do you do if you have a lot to tell but no one to tell it to? You write. And I wrote them down carefully, each and every single things that happened without fail.

As time goes by, I noticed I am writing less than I usually do. Even though I do not write for a living but just a hobby, but not writing makes me feel like something's missing.

I know I don't write so great and blogger is the only place I have to pour all my thoughts and rattles. This blog is one of the best virtual hang out 'place' I love among other social networking sites.

Truth is there were times when I thought to myself that I should stop updating for a while. It's when writing doesn't serve up its purpose to me right. It hurts my pride when I'm not myself. When I need to hold back what I really wanted to write about just because I need to please what others expect me to write. It sucks writing but when I read it over again I feel fake! Because there are things that I need to be careful with so people won't judge me or bash me. It feels so plastic when I'm unable to write my way because I know a lot of people are watching and I'm afraid my flaws would show. Silly me.

It happened sometimes. And when it does I decided to be on hiatus. I don't wanna write to impress people. I don't wanna write to let people see how good I am preaching on these and that.

I write because it's what I grow up with; papers and a pen. Later they were all translated to words via keyboard. Whatever I write might not reflect me as a whole. But it does reflect me to a certain extent.

What do you do if you have a lot to tell but no one to tell it to? You write.

So I shall write for those who're willing to read.

Down Under Adventure #Epilogue - I am still here -

*wipe sweat*

At last am able to finish my entries. It has been 2 months since my trip to Australia. There are a lot of reasons why I can’t finish the posts very soon:

1.      Been busy with clinical posting

2.      The writing ‘spirit’ just won’t come

3.      Internet was slow

4.      Memories

 Now that I’ve passed my posting climax, I guess I’ve more free time to offer to my long-abandoned blog (despite the slow internet still).

In order to complete writing, I needed to go back clicking albums by albums. For 7 days trip to Aussie, let’s assume 200 pics were taken per day, and I collected at least photos from 6 cameras. Imagine how many photos there are.

I am never good with memories. I’d go tachycardic whenever I had flashback of things. Was it just me? Everytime I tried to, I can never scroll them down completely. I hate the longing feeling of something, somewhere or someone.

But I posted them all anyway. I wished I could post more pics, but sure I can’t. Too many of them! I wonder if people would still anticipate reading the posts or not. I kept telling myself that I can’t start blogging on other things unless I finished writing bout the trip. And since I’m over the busiest part of posting, why not.

For anyone out there who is still a fan of this blog, keep reading. Truth is I missed writing. I really do. Just that sometimes due to time constrain, well you know what I mean.

And I shall keep on writing.

Though I might not update often, but hey I am still here.

 

Down Under Adventure #7 – It’s time to leave –

 It was the day we’ll fly back to Malaysia. Nothing much happening. Luggages packed, went down for breakfast. Board our bus and off to the airport we went. Here’s the best part. Since they say we can’t convert Australian coins to Malaysian ringgit, so we collected all coins everybody have and spent them all for vending machine snacks and drinks!

bye bye Australia!

 Arrived in KL around 6pm and our USIM bus already waited for us.

Back to Glenview.

Unpacked.

The end.

Down Under Adventure #6 – Dolphin –

It was our second last day in Sydney. We were told to get ready and have breakfast earlier that usual because we’ll have a 3 hours journey next. Not a problem, never a problem to wake up and get ready early because I can always sleep on the bus.

Bald Hill. The scenery is spectacular. Though we did nothing but taking pictures, I guess that was enough to make everybody happy. His creation is amazing. Subhanallah.

Then off we went to Jervis Bay. Had lunch and take more pictures.

Pic of the day

Then we went for the dolphin cruise.

 The cruise was extremely exciting! That moment when the dolphins came swimming near our boat, it can’t be described with words. I can't stop smiling.

Down Under Adventure #5 – Sydney University Medical Faculty –

I shall say visiting Medical Faculty of Sydney University is one of the main aims why we came to Australia. But based on what I posted and all the places we went to, people could easily misunderstand we were on a vacation and not a study trip.

University of Sydney

 Had a briefing by one of the professors, sat down for a talk on bedside teaching manner, visited their clinical skill lab and then made our ways to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

 Our written itinerary ended by afternoon and we were free onwards on that day. My friends went to walk around the city again. And this time I did follow them, but funny how I can’t remember where I went and even funnier I can’t track down any photos of what happened later that afternoon.