Malaysia Airlines Flight MH2606 To Kota Kinabalu

This was written before I started my actual work. Wouldn’t want you to think I have time for myself. Snort.

So it’s finally happened; I’m employed and working in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kota Kinabalu. There’s no turning back now.

Not that I want to chicken out just when things are about to get interesting and meaningful, but I’d be lying if I said that my first thought when I got my placement letter was not, “Fucktits! Appeal for KUALA LUMPUR!” It’s only natural, seeing that I’d been home for 5 months. Comfy bed, transport, meals, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and of course, my insane family… what’s not to love, right?

Of course, appealing to work in another hospital when I just got a place in the hospital of my choice seemed counter-productive. And while I’m not the biggest fan of religion, I strongly believe that the things that happen in life are in our best interest (cue for everyone to start their arguments on how *insert tragedy/terminal illness* is proof that my opinion is rabid bat balls.) I prayed that I’d get something that would benefit me the most in the long run, and this is what I got.

So, how’s Kota Kinabalu, you ask? I can’t tell yet, but so far I’m pretty okay with it. The people are friendly and nice, which is something I was (somwehat) deprived of for seven years in Moscow.

One major obstacle for me at the moment is the lack of a driving licence. An aborted attempt to get one in 2004 has now returned to kick me in the shin repeatedly. I feel the pain every time I have to fork out RM20 just to get to work.

This inability to drive brings me to the challenge I’m about to face: my first rotation in a hospital famous for being tough and taking driving lessons at the same time. It’s probably going to turn out the way you predict: the shit of an elephant with dysentery will hit the fan and I will be screwed.

Three-month extension, here I come!

Jump Off The Misery Cruise!

It’s been a while, innit? In a bid to write proper, quality stuff, I’ve essentially proven to the masses that I’m not very good at it. So, it’s back to me typing random stuff that pops into mind.

1. I’m officially 27 and unemployed. I’m also pretty sure that since I’ve come home, I’ve not mentioned that I didn’t drop out of med school and have been avoiding talking about it. I simply graduated and never got around to writing the epic blog post that I had been wanting to write since I got into med school in 2005.

See how I managed to squeeze in the bit that I’m now Dr.Sasha Zuleika? That’s mad skillz for ya.

Back to the unemployment thing. I won’t be for long, if the Ministry of Health and the postal service don’t bail on me. I think my Christmas gift will be a 15-hour work day (if I’m lucky.)

2. I have not been doing anything remotely related to my chosen career, other than tell my uncle that he wasn’t dying from a cold. What I have been doing with most of my time is watch a colossal number of YouTube videos. Not just ANY YouTube videos, but videos of comedians. It’s been absolutely brilliant! Thanks to a @ShaneMcGonigle1 on Twitter, I now know the existence of amazing people like Dara O’Briain and Dylan Moran. I’m nice, so I’ll show what I mean by “amazing” with these two video clips.

Dara O’Briain

Dylan Moran

3. My latest addiction is a TV show called Mock The Week. Imagine a smarter version of “Whose Line Is It Anyway” and add British accents. Now go grab a cup of tea and a plate of crumpets. You back? Cool. Watch this video, which I think best shows the atmosphere of this program. It’s an old clip, but whatever, right?

4. Stemming from my love for the Mock The Week is my new love for Russell Howard. He’s young, cute (that ALWAYS helps) and is a very upbeat sort of funny. And my absolute favourite thing about him is he always looks like he’s high on sugar, which I find so refreshing. Here’s my new pick-me-up:

Isn’t it awful how I can’t rely on my own humour to entertain you, so I embed a whole bunch of videos by other people? You know what’s worse? I’m expecting a thank you.

Covet Thy Neighbour’s Sleep

Some people have it all; good looks, a great job, wonderful family, money to buy super cool gadgets that they vaguely know how to use… the works. I don’t envy those people. Unless they get to sleep in more than I do.

Out of all the wonderful things life has to offer, sleeping in is pretty high up there in my Orgasmic Things That Make Me Fear Death list. It’s so high up there that I envy people who are asleep when I have to be awake. In fact, it’s so high up there that animals are not spared when it comes to my envy.

Everyone knows I’m not a morning person, and if they don’t, they should know for their own safety. I think it’s mostly because I sleep late, but there’s definitely a part of me that looks pissed because I’m thinking about all the people who don’t have to be awake when I am. It’s a long, horrible thought, only stopped by my acknowledgement of time zones.

Two incidents made me realise that I need help and/or more sleep. One involved my dog as a puppy and the other had something to do with half the population of Malaysia.

In 2003, when I had just started college, I got myself a puppy. An adorable little bugger I decided to call Wishbone. He was the cutest thing ever, with his floppy ears and huge eyes. There was just one issue though, I had to wake up at 5.20 in the morning for his poo walk. Wishbone had a very small time frame when it came to his morning defecation. At 5.20, he’d be asleep, but come downstairs at 5.30 and he’d be asleep, 3 feet away from fresh poo. Snoozing was not an option.

Anyway, I’d put his leash on and drag him out at 5.20 and all that lazy cunt would do was take a few steps out the door and sleep on the street! If you lived nearby and were awake, you probably would’ve heard things like, ” I could be SLEEPING NOW, YOU INGRATE!” and ” fuck you, I’m buying doggy diapers.” The worst part was, I didn’t even feel bad that I was yelling at a 10-week old puppy. I would sort of loathe him when I had to leave for classes at 6.45 am and he would be curled up in a tight ball, fast asleep.

That was ten years ago, when I was young and selfish. Turns out, not much has changed. If anything at all, I’ve become more ridiculous with this sleeping business.

Last week, my family couldn’t attend Mass on Saturday evening because of a potent combination of rain, a Nike 10km run and a 3-hour traffic jam. This meant that we had to (i.e. THEY had to) attend Sunday morning Mass, which was at 6.45am. Insane, right? So, there I was, waking up at 5.30 in the miserable morning, trying my best not to snap at anyone because my mum HATES it when I bring others down with my bad mood and fantasising about throwing the motherfucker of all tantrums in the car. All the way to church, while staring out into the dark sky, all I could think  was, “28 million people, half might have woken up for dawn prayers, maybe a few thousand more are working right now and the rest are sound asleep. FUUUUUUCK!”

Envy is a crazy master.

What’s This? I’m Surrounded By Poo!

Warning: This is a bitchfit, so I’m guessing most of it won’t flow well and wil be borderline incomprehensible. If you stick around to the end, I applaud you.

On many occasions I have called girls crazy, but today I’m going to tackle the topic of how full of shit guys are.

From the time I hit puberty, I’ve heard countless guys talk about the girls they want, the sort of girls who annoy them and the girls they have. Here’s the gist of 14 years’ worth of stories:

Guys Want Girls:

1. who are confident with who they are

2. who can understand the necessity for guys to just hang out and do their guy things

3. who don’t nag them or keep picking on stuff they do

4. who can appreciate their silly jokes

5. who don’t play games with cryptic words and actions.

Guys Do Not Fancy:

1. clingy girls

2. bossy girls

3. girls who don’t know how to carry themselves in public

4. argumentative girls

5. girls who insist on watching Bridget Jones’s Diary for the 47th time while the (insert sport here) is on the telly.

Do you boys know who you ALWAYS end up dating? Every girl that fits the second fucking category.

I’m am perpetually baffled by this. Could someone please explain to me how the girls who make it into the first category end up being “one of the guys” and the girls in the second group are glefully stringing guys along by the balls?

I’m beginning to think that men just like sitting around with a round of beers (or teh tarik), bitching about how unreasonable their girlfriends/wives are. Sure, where’s the fun in saying, ” Oh, my girlfriend’s awesome; she bought me Skyrim Hearthfire AND Diablo III just for the heck of it”?

It’s either that, or all the girls who irritate guys are fucking amazing in the sack.

Less Pudding, More Pool

I don’t know where I got the love for swimming from, but I have it. As a kid, I didn’t really get many chances to swim but when I did, oh boy. There was just no stopping me and my colourful arm-floaties. I would be in the pool for hours. I’d come out of the water, eyes red, skin all wrinkly and about two shades darker than before because as a 5-year old, going to swim out in the midday sun when it’s 32 degrees Celsius is not ridiculous at all.

Fast forward to 21 years later. I’ve mentioned before that I now live in a place with not one, but TWO swimming pools. Not once did I swim last summer. It left many, including myself, surprised. What happened to that brown prune of a girl in her swimsuit and her hair plastered to her forehead?

She’s back this summer. I want to add, “with a vengeance” but after my first session in the pool, I’ve decided to not get ahead of myself.

After a lot of procrastinating and excuse-making, I got my ass to the swimming pool at 7a.m. You read that right. I was in my swimsuit, ready to bust out all my swimming skills (which is floating, dog paddling and the breaststroke) about 4 hours before the time I usually wake up.

Why so early in the morning, you ask? I wanted to be the only one in the pool. While I knew I could swim, I wasn’t delusional to the point that I thought I’d be all Little Mermaid as soon as I got in the water. I knew my limits.

Apparently, I didn’t. I thought I could swim laps. What really happened was, I took in a few gulps of water, trashed my arms and legs about like a drowning person and all that to move 3 feet. My so-called swimming was so pathetic that when I stopped swimming and turned to see how far I’d gone, the ripples from where I had started swimming were still there. At arm’s length. I probably would have moved faster if I had just walked in the pool.

This swimming/trashing about aimlessly went on for about 40 minutes before I decided that I’d had enough. I got out of the water, belly full of chlorinated water and arms aching.

You’d think that would be the end of my aquatic adventures, but no. I got back in there after a couple of days, and I’m happy to say that I’ve improved a tiny, teensy, wee bit. I’m determined to get my swimming mojo back, even if it means wearing a rubber ring around my waist and practising breathing exercises.

Dolphins, here I come!

When Boredom And Imagination Collide

There are times when boredom gets the best of me. Strange things happen when I get bored. For one thing, I begin convincing myself that I can draw, and when I try to draw stuff I imagine… that’s when things go wild.

These drawings were conjured up somewhere between preparing for my winter exams and my Endocrinology lectures. The following is my idea of what happens in the reproductive organs. These will not only prove that I don’t need hallucinogens to think funky, but also that I’m not an artist. Not. At. All.

BEFORE THE BIG NIGHT (MALE)

BEFORE THE BIG NIGHT (FEMALE)

THE BIG NIGHT

 

Judging from these pictures, I’m also a terrible photographer.

The Shallow End Of The Mind

You may not know this, but from September 2011, most of my blog posts have been written on sick days. I say “most” because today is an almost-sick day, meaning I’m not sick enough to justify missing class, but I’m definitely not healthy enough to want to go either.

So, in the newly discovered tradition of blogging when I’m not in my proper senses, here’s a few updates on what’s been going on in my life.

1. Lent is almost over. I’d say it’s going well, seeing that I’ve not had the urge to lick myself in a feeble attempt to taste meat. Very unlike last year.

On the downside, I’ve had so much soy to eat for the past 5 weeks that I’m breathing estrogen, but the… ahem.. soft, curvy bits remain unchanged.

2. Internal Diseases has been awesome. The bees’ knees, I dare say. I mean the rotation, not actual internal diseases. The actual diseases suck muddy porcupine balls. Of course, it has EVERYTHING to do with my young, cute, adorably sweet, English-speaking teacher. He makes me want to sit and read about electron transfer in mitochondria and the influence of the cyclooxygenase pathway in the clotting system. My uni should learn from this and hire teachers who didn’t have to take a break from their education to serve in World War II.

3. Moscow still has snow and subzero temperatures. You’d think that I’ll be used to it after 7 winters, but no. I still bitch and moan about it like a whiny kid. It doesn’t help that people are doing things like parading about in their underwear while I’m trying to convince myself that I can wear a thinner jacket without feeling like my arms are going to fall off.

That’s about it, really. I’m sorry this is so dull. Here’s a picture of a hairless guinea pig to make up for all the time you just wasted.

Hairless Guinea Pig @ Skinny Pig

Look! A Bright, Shiny Blog!

There was a time when I used to spend obscene amounts of money on books. Books are pretty gnarly things. Words on paper that take me to another world and make me miss train stations.

Unfortunately, I’m in a country that deems it perfectly reasonable to dub movies and translate everything into Russian because God forbid they fucking learn a different language (Sorry, that was just me being a bit tired of living here for almost a decade.) This means that if I want good books to read, I’ll have to haul them from Malaysia once a year and pray that I don’t have to pay for excess baggage (which also takes up obscene amounts of money.)

This also means that I have to trudge through the dumpster that is the World Wide Web for good things to read once I run out of books. I’m like that homeless guy with a trolley, except that he collects old tins and I score myself some sweet blogs.

Good blogs are not easy to find, and sometimes it’s not the first post you read that gets you hooked. This is what today’s post is all about: THE one that got me thinking, “I’ve got to start from the very beginning!”

1. Poor Stupid Cat – Books of Adam

This guy is precious. Not only does he write awesomely, he draws well too. Sure, illustrations may not matter to some of you, but if you’re anything like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, you’ll appreciate the pictures. Heck, if you have something resembling sight, you’ll appreciate the pictures.

Why did this post do it for me? If you can make something as dull as a cat drinking anti-freeze funny, there’s no way I’m not going to be loyal.

2. The Immaturist’s Guide to Birdwatching – The Sneeze

I found this blog when in a moment of desperation, I Googled “funny blogs.” What can I say? It was one of those days when I even read the hell out of the milk carton.

I’m not the most mature of people; I still find Uranus funny, and I still giggle when I listen to Blink-182’s live album. Needless to say, when I found a blog with pictures of swallows and tits that I didn’t have to close as soon as someone walked into the room, I was excited.

Sadly, the writer doesn’t blog anymore, but there’s a whole pile of posts that are wildly entertaining, especially the Steve, Don’t Eat It! series.

3. My Damaged Penis – Yossarian Lives

I came across this one when I was studying for my Public Health and Healthcare exams, which was basically a pointless paper on how to issue medical certificates for Russians (ADD moment: for a country that dishes out prescription drugs like candy, they sure are stingy with sick days.)

It all started out with a Mathorgasmics post, which featured an equation so well worked out that I only WISHED I had math questions like that for my A-Levels. I know I would’ve done so much better. While that post was all good and fun, it was the tale of a penile injury that sucked me in. I’m pretty sure it was the picture of the poor phallus, but I like to believe that I’m not shallow and will go with the “He’s been writing entertaining things consistently, why the hell wouldn’t I keep reading?” angle.

4. How to Lose Male Friends and Fatten Your Hooha – Aiming Low

I can’t be sure, but I’m almost certain that the discovery of this page was a result of some frenzied Stumbling (you know Stumble Upon, right?)

I like this page because I can relate to it. I’m not an overachiever, and on a good day I can push myself to be a regular achiever. You can see why a site called Aiming Low would appeal to me.

The reason this post got me hooked was simply the fact that I’d TOTALLY have that sort of rubbish conversation with a male friend. My first thought was, “holy crap! People like me exist!”

5. How to Use a Semicolon – The Oatmeal 

My friends sometimes refer to me as a grammar ho. Those friends are cunts ( I jest! I love them…maybe.)

When I was in school, English classes were a joke. I learned absolutely nothing there, except that a lot of people in literature died of STIs. Actually, I’m not even sure of that, I might have made that up to make class more interesting. In short, whatever grammar I know, I know because English is my first language and I read an insane amount of books as a kid. This also means I’ve been sorta kinda figuring stuff out as I go along.

The semicolon has always bothered me. Sure, they look cute in emoticons, but I’m pretty sure they serve a greater purpose. It was on my quest to find out why the hell semicolons exist that I found The Oatmeal. Complete with examples of usage and an image of a party gorilla, I knew I was in for a good time here.

And that’s that, folks. Are there any blog posts out there that got you hooked on to a blog?

 

How Lent And Me Roll

Lent begins in a week. You may think that this isn’t a big deal for me, but it kinda is. I actually make an attempt to observe it every year. And every year, I do it wrong.

Most of us know Lent as that time where we give up something we like ( usually food). In Sunday School, I vaguely recall someone saying something about self-reflection, prayer and sacrifice but I wouldn’t really bet money on it. I spent most of my time there being ticked off that my mom and uncle were having breakfast and I was stuck in a classroom.

So, this is roughly my (highly likely wrong) understanding of Lent: I physically give something up to help me gain spiritual strength. For this spiritual strength, I must be patient, have willpower and discipline and all that other good stuff. That way, not only do I get to know how hard it must have been for good ol’ JC to fast for 40 days and 40 nights, I get all this good stuff for my soul and I end up being a better person. (Unrelated: doesn’t ‘spiritual strength’ sound like something out of Slothmud?)

I usually do okay with the physical bit. I pick something to not eat, maintain low expectations of myself and somehow make it through the forty days. This usually results in me acquiring a taste for something that I ate to compensate for whatever I was abstaining from, something that I will like so much that I’ll probably have to abstain from for the following Lent. But that’s a different story.

It’s the spiritual part that’s a bummer to me. Even though I manage to stay away from meat and chocolates or whatever, I’m not quiet about it. By Day 30, I’m a rabid mess; I start dreaming about all the food I can’t have, then I tell my roommates about it. I make insane declarations like, “farm animals will fear Easter, for I shall slaughter and devour them all!”

I basically do everything the Bible says not to do when fasting or praying.

Don’t even get me started on the whole impure thoughts thing. I swear, every annoying person that has ever been in my life will choose to come in contact with me during Lent and show me precisely how painful it is to know them. I know that the right thing to do is consider it a temptation from the devil and take it all in stride. I even think this when these people are sticking metaphorical needles in my eye, but instead of taking a deep breath and asking God to grant me patience, I start making lists of diseases I want them to suffer and die from. My favourites are gonorrhea, gangrenous testicles and strokes. Some days, I don’t even TRY to be nice. You can see how this is a damper on the whole gaining spiritual strength thing.

However, I’m nothing if not optimistic. I’m counting on the physical abstinence to score me a few points at the Pearly Gates. It’s gotta count for something, right?

Which is why this year, I asked my friends to suggest something for me to abstain from. You know, maybe they’ve seen me obsess about something and I’m in denial so I’d never think to abstain from it. I need something epic this year, because I foresee myself being a spiritual ass and I need to counter that with some serious sacrificing. Yes, I also know that what a person does during Lent is supposed to be deep, meaningful and personal. Somehow I’ve managed to make such a big deal out of it publicly that I’m just waiting for someone to offer me a reality-TV show contract.Strike three, maybe?

Back to my story. One suggested I become vegetarian for this period of time and another suggested I give up Twitter for 40 days. While I seriously am considering the first friend’s idea, to the latter friend I immediately responded with, “fuck off and die.”

Something tells me this year’s Lent will be  completely wasted.

 

No Queen In Sight

I hate travelling. I hate looking for flights, I hate looking for accommodation I can afford. I especially hate trying to pack for a trip. I hate the way I try to take the bare essentials because I hate lugging a heavy bag around, and I hate myself more for realising that something I considered a luxury while packing is actually something necessary when I’m already at my destination.

I hate sitting in a plane for hours, I hate the fact that I might develop a blood clot in my leg that could kill me (this one’s a bit of drama; I’m so short that any economy class seat on any airline feels like I’ve got business class leg room) and most of all, I HATE the way I look rubbish in all my holiday photos because I lacked the essentials that I considered too luxurious to pack.

I love being in new places, though. I love sightseeing and taking pictures of stuff, captions all formed in my head. I love observing people do what they do best and I love gobbling down local cuisine.

This winter hols, I decided to get off my wobbly butt and leave Moscow for a week. My friends chose all sorts of exotic places where you’d need visas and a phrasebook. I’m a lazy git, so I chose London.

Well, that’s only half true. I chose to go to London during my final winter break because I wanted to be around people who speak a language I know well and I wanted to see people I’d been dying to meet, like my cousin who I’d not seen for almost 11 years and friends from Twitterland.

I could do the whole day-by-day thing and bore you to death, but I’m nice so I’ll write stuff worth mentioning. And you’ll be happy about it because if I write everything I remember, you might get fired for spending your entire work day reading a shitty blog post about a place so many people have been to before.

Best Place I Visited

Hands down, this was the ZSL London Zoo. Okay, I admit I have a great fondness for animals and to be perfectly honest, the zoo was the only place I really planned on visiting. You could throw me any map of London and I’d be able to spot it.

It was worth all that anticipation. I spent four hours gaping at all the animals and taking crappy pictures. The crappiest of the lot was a picture of a cockroach which cemented once and for all that not even a glass enclosure was going to calm my feeble katsaridaphobic heart. Look:

The Best Picture I Could Take With Shaky Hands

And this is a picture of a tarantula I took right after:

The Insect I Wouldn't Even Mind As A Pet

 

To top it all off, the weather was great and I managed to take a nice long walk through Regent’s Park and saw a squirrel making friends/ harassing a baby in a stroller.

Best Purchase

The closest to a souvenir from London that I bought is probably the fridge magnet and postcard from, yup, you guessed it, the zoo.

Of course, if you knew me well enough, you’d know that I’m in heaven when surrounded by books. I attacked bookstores with a passion and probably would’ve bought enough books to wipe out a rain forest if I didn’t have a tiny-ass bag. I may have bought a gorgeous evening dress, Jamaican cock flavoured soup mix and a hairbrush in London, but this book is the BEST thing I own at the moment:

Source Of Joy

I was so excited about this book that I started on it even before I was done with Cat’s Cradle. The only reason I stopped reading it was because people at the airport were looking at me funny when I kept laughing out loud.

Strangest Thing Heard In Public

“Shut up, you fucking Christian whore!”

This was on a bus, said by a guy who bumped into a woman with groceries. Why was this strange to me, you ask? Fine, you didn’t ask, but I’m going to tell you anyway.

I have no fucking idea.