In loving memory ...

I found out today that my dear, beloved uncle Roslan bin Jili or 'Wa Lan' as he was fondly known to his nieces and nephews died suddenly on Friday 26th July 2009. He was my dad's first cousin and the elder of only two siblings. He is survived by his wife and his 16 year old son, my second-cousin Azim.

I am still reeling in absolute shock at his sudden demise. The last time I met him was when I took Yameen to Kuching for the first time in March 2008. He was there at the airport, with my dad and his younger brother Usu Babu to welcome my fiance to our hometown.

In 2007, he had a work-related trip to Amsterdam. He made sure he took the chance to come over to the UK to visit my brother and I in Scotland. He had plans to come back for another visit with his wife and son. I think he would have wanted to come across with my parents last year when they came for my brother's graduation. But his son was having his PMR ( Form3 ) exams then, and Wa Lan wanted his son to focus on his exams. I know fully well he was there 24-7 for his son, supporting his son during the exam period. He was elated and was ever so proud when Azim achieved straight A's in his exams.

Wa Lan was not only a caring and responsible father, he was a wonderful uncle and a good friend. I know just how excited he was for my wedding, and how involved he was with the planning.

I still cannot believe that he has now gone to meet our Creator. But life and death are in the hands of Allah. As humans , we can only plan but our fate lies in His hands.

To Wa Lan, you will be dearly missed and remembered. Your enthusiasm and optimism will always be in our memory.

Al-Fatihah ...

Writer's block ?

Been meaning to update this blog recently, but keep finding myself at a loss of what to write. I know many of my friends read this blog to keep up-to-date on the latest happenings in the boring life of moi' ( as I read their blogs if they have one to keep me informed of who's voting who on AI, who's eagerly waiting for the birth of their second baby, who's toddler who can actually name letter's of the alphabet before she can even talk properly ) but to be honest, my life is as probably as exciting as the obituaries in the BMJ. I also know Im notoriously bad at keeping directly in touch via mail or phone, and I think the best thing about blogs is that my friends can take their time to read about me at their own leisure time, and vice-versa.

A lot of the things in my life that may be worthy of interest at the moment is either related to work, or my wedding. I always try as much as possible not to talk about work ( unless i need to rant about the rota or crazy hours) , and as for the wedding .. most of the preparation is done by my family in Malaysia. Too far away to act like a bridzilla, yet. I do feel a bit sad that I am not actively involved in most of the wedding preparations, but I think if i was .. i'd probably be more stressed than I already am. Again, don't want to talk too much about the wedding here 'cos don't want to spoil the surprise for those who will be there. All I can say is it will be a two day event in Kuching. Matrimonial ceremony on 25th July, and reception on 26th July. The invitation cards are still in the making, i think as soon as its ready will need to start emailing/posting to friends in the UK/Peninsular.

So much to do in so little time. When i fly to Malaysia for the wedding in 3 months time, I would have had NO annual leave/ holiday since the Christmas and New Year holiday. Dear God, I hope I won't look too tired a bride.

So much for my writers' block. Have to go sleep now. Am working a 7 day week, fortunately managed to ask for May Day Monday off.

what i did over the weekend ..

It was a sunny easter Sunday, and we had a brand new camera ( my birthday present from Yameen) to test. So we drove out 40 miles to yet another beautiful part of West Scotland, called Lochgoilhead. I've never been good with long car rides, so felt sick most of the way. Nevertheless, not wanting to disappoint my cameraman .. managed to smile and pose for these photos.

Yuna

Will try and write a proper review on this amazing singer song writer next time. First time I heard her, I was so impressed and proud of the fact that she is actually Malaysian. I guess if you passed her by on the streets, you'd probably would not think that she would sound like this. She looks like your average Malay girl , who wears a tudung. But this girl's talent is anything but average. I do hope she gets a real break soon .. cos she is really good! Both the guitar and voice ..

post-night shift 2

Finished the second half of my night shift. weekend seems more quiet than week nights. i suppose its because there's less referrals from GPs.

have received so far two birthday wishes.. already! :-) and tonight yameen wants to take me out for an early birthday dinner. not really looking forward to going back to my base ward tomorrow. all that dictation to do, plus will be only SHO on the day everyone but the GP trainees changes over. speaking of dictation, there's one i am taking my time to do.. for someone who has spent 6 months in hospital and has spent time in God-knows-how-many wards. have only met him twice, but because the day he was discharged I was covering that particular team, I have been honoured with the job of doing his discharge letter.

Been thinking I should probably start warning everyone ( particularly friends in the UK and peninsular Malaysia) re: date of my wedding soon so people can think about booking leave and flights etc. :-) One good friend of mine whose organisational skills have always amazed me has booked her flight even before I confirmed the wedding date with her. hehehe .. eza, nasib baik la wedding date tu confirmed. Think will start emailing people via FB or friendster soon re: dates. Just got the estimated number of guests ( i.e. maximum capacity of my wedding venue) . I guess I can now invite more people than I thought!

Okies. Am gonna get some shut eye - have got a hot date tonight!

My faith in the rota-makers has been renewed ..

Well, almost.

Just finished my first set of nights in one of Glasgow's busiest hospital, which in itself was hard. But imagine doing nights, and worrying about the fact that the person who made the on-call rota " never received information" of your annual leave request, so has put you on for being oncall on the day you are supposed to be getting married. This of course, has happened when you have made contact with them way before you even arrived at this busy Glasgow hospital to inform them of your nuptial plans. And of course, you had also been granted permission from your base ward consultant for this leave. But somehow, they "never received the information" so the rota's now made, please be happy to swap your oncalls with your colleagues. Which will of course, upset the rest of the rota, and by swapping , you'd end up working 3 weeks non-stop.

Fortunately, I had evidence. I had proof that I had asked for this leave, and been granted permission by my consultant. So when today, I received an email from the rota person that they shall ask for a locum cover, I felt that life was not so bad afterall. I still have to clarify about two more on-call days which I have also asked for leave, but at least a huge chunk of this mess has been cleared. I appreciate that making the rota can be a difficult job, but at the end of the day, it is a paid job. The grief I've been through the last week, worrying about whether or not I'd be able to get away for my own wedding, God only knows. At least, I did get an apology from the rota co-ordinator. Much nicer than previous rota co-ordinators Ive known in the past - one of which we ( me and probably all the medical doctors in that entire hospital) agreed could single-handedly make your life miserable.

So yeah, Ive just finished one set of nights, and have another set of 3 nights this weekend ( when the clock goes forward!!!!! i.e. I will be working an hour extra argh!). Nights can be really busy, but it helps when the senior person working with you is nice and approachable. The person who was on for the Reg last week was not only nice, she was also very good at her job.

As I was so stressed out with the whole rota ordeal and being post-nights, plus the weather was the sunniest it had ever been this year, Yameen and I decided to drive to St Andrew's on the weekend. We also went to visit my old friends from Uni in Dundee, which was really good 'cos I hadn't seen them in ages. Dundee has not really changed much since I left it almost 2 years ago. Most of the people I used to know from there have left. I told Yameen that no matter how desperate we are for jobs, we are never going to move back and settle there. There have been both good and bad personal memories of the place, but I seem to remember the bad ones more.

:-) Huda, in case you are reading this .. anoop can sing, but for some odd reason each time I see him, I think, this guy should really go and do medschool. I keep thinking he looks like a urologist rather than an American idol!

Homesick.

Or rather, yearning for the asian comforts of home. And Im not referring entirely to food. I miss having family to come home to, going to kampong to catch up on the latest news about my extended family and savouring the kuih from my auntie's stall, going shopping with my mom, and speaking Malay.

Today I reflected on reasons why I am still here, and whether or not I would still be here if I hadn't met Y. *sigh*

God only knows what lies ahead, and what I truly want. Its funny sometimes when I think some of the things that I want is not always what I am happy with ( when I eventually get it). Some of the things that I have always not want (but inevitably get blessed with in the end!) are the very things that make me happiest. Hence, Im often confused to what I actually want in life.

Tired

Have been on the receiving backshift for the last 6 days, one more day to go then back to 9-5.
Backshift is 1300-2230. Better than the 1000-2230 shift ( which is from Mon-Thurs only) but still c**p cos you have to work the weekend. And then you go back to work at 9 am the next day, so your body clock will be totally screwed. And I had only just worked 12 days straight before last weekend, and this will be my second set of straight 12 days in the same month.

No one will understand this stupid rota that Im ranting about above anyways, but I shall rant as I wish.

But now I shall write about less depressing things before i go and try to get some sleep. Im so tired but like I said, stupid rota has totally screwed up my body clock and my brain thinks Im still at work.

Last weekend after my first set of 12 days straight , I said to Yameen I needed a good break, needed to get out of glasgow. So we went to Manchester with the intention of looking at wedding rings, although that didnt quite happen cos his best friend was getting engaged so we went to give our opinion on engagement rings instead. Also, since my fiance and his best friend had not seen each other since July , we went out for dinner with him instead of having a romantic Valentine dinner. I didnt mind, cos I was just glad to be NOT working.

Unfortunately the dinner for three which was ordered at about 1030pm ( it was a deliberate late dinner) on 14th February only arrived at about 1230am on 15th February. It was a new restaurant in Manchester's famous Curry Mile, and the place was buzzing with couples. We thought we would not get a table but then somehow the waiter managed to find us a table. We ordered our starters and main dishes, and waited. And waited. And waited. There was a group of men in the table next to us, and they had probably waited longer than we did. Their starters arrived first, which they kindly offered us .. hahah .. we didnt even know these guys but they said if you are hungry, help yourself to some of our starters! It was less crowded closer towards midnight but our food still didnt arrive. The waitress kept coming back to the table and asked ' have you had your starters yet?' I think she mustve done that like 3 times, and each time we said no, she rolled her eyes as if to justify that yes the service was slow but as long as she kept checking, it would make it less annoying. Then some stupid waiter from the kitchen kept coming with dishes we didnt order and asked if we had ordered it. Im telling you, these people prolly dont talk to each other!

Each table seemed to have a complaint, even the ones that were eating. Behind us was a couple whom i thought were at least immune to the atrocious service because they were so into each other. So i thought cos both seemed so lost in conversation. We were all shocked when the girl got up and said loudly to the waitress, " Let him pay! He is in love with somebody else.. men will never change!" Mind you, this was Valentines night.

Now you must be thinking, WHY did we stay? Yameen and I were itching to leave, but his best friend insisted that the food was good, plus the owner was a friend. Plus he said it was too late we might as well wait. By the time our food arrived, we were given all lamb dishes, with no sight of the chicken dish that I wanted. Oh, ' we have run out of chicken', says the waiter,' but the extra lamb dish is complementary'. Food was not amazing and my appetite was ruined. And when the bill arrived, the 'complementary dish' which costed GBP 9 was still included. We managed to get it off the bill eventually, as well as an apology from the owner.

Quite a surreal experience, I might say. Suffice to say, that is one place I shall never want to step foot in again. Not even if they served" the best, most authentic Asian cuisine in Manchester".

Heh so much for my 'less depressing' topic.
good night :-)