lost stars - adam levine

i do wish we still talk. 

so,

about penguin pebbling,

-

it's a constant cycle of high and low moods, alternatively. it'll be so nice if this is just on a whim. academic workload has stunted my writing progresses and i no longer find joy in narrating - it taxes my time and energy both. lately too, life felt so heavy that i had to hold my tears while laughing in front of people. i don't know anymore. it's distasteful, but i am alive. i have to make do with this blessing of a life when it has so much to offer, but what do i have to do when my tomorrows seem so bleak in my eyes.

it scares me so much that no one can pull me out this abyss but myself. 

if

if good deeds are like tokens to fortune. what will one do if it ever runs out. 

turmoil

i haven't felt this sad for a while. i wish i knew how to care for a heart this brittle, and not let the fear paralyse my steps. 

october

schedule for this week is pretty tight.

it's bio imaging week and class starts from eight in the morning all way to the one in the afternoon, and then another two hours of orientation briefing. one of my lecturers had a coccyx fracture due to falling from slippery floor (radiology department's air conditioner was leaking), and she was embarrassed to have a proper ct / mri scan in her own department so she just settled by diagnosing herself with x-ray. idk but the dr said it would be equivalent to urologist getting stones... yeah people do say that doctors make the worst patients.

we also had super lengthy radiation discussion around x-ray fatal effect, never proven, but speculated to be one of two millions. and funnily enough this other dr just made us grasp the fact that radiation effect doesn't relate entirely with distance but mostly how the exposure happens (more things blocking it?) so you get higher radiation as you climb mountains because there are less things blocking you from the sunlight.

then we are having batch photoshoot after class today and i have to rush to the airport since my brother is having six month internship in doha. the last day of the week will also be filled with ward tour with a senior since i'll be starting my surgery posting next week. if it weren't for the overlap, i would've just gone with my roommate who is one year above me... but yeah maybe everything is for the better. till then.

rites

from the tears of a jester. assembling them like patchwork quilt;

(novel) sorrow is a well. a deep well that even the clown himself does not know the end of.

(manhwa chap 17) the fifth commandment is... offer your master loyalty, but not your heart. if you do not follow that rule, your tears will never run dry. and crying jesters can't make anyone laugh.

(manhwa chap 42) sweet, naive jester... now, at the last, you're tearing my heart to ribbons. // i never permitted you to cry, yet you rend my heart to the very end. // your highness, please do not despise me. please do not forsake me, for i am eternally yours.

(manhwa chap 43) but even though i am utterly yours, i would still mourn the death of a robin that had spent its entire life encaged, just as i would bury a butterfly that met its demise before the close of spring, or commemorate a young deer felled by a hunter's arrow.

(manhwa chap 48) the fate of the bat, constantly flitting about and changing sides, was ultimately to plunge to the ground.

(manhwa chap 56) why do they seek to snap the wings of a robin that has never once left its cage?

(manhwa chap 68) my sun has been shattered, and now i will be his endless night. 

(manhwa chap 79) i took so much from you. just what were you grateful for? if an afterlife might exist, may your hair there be eternally crimson.

(manhwa chap 85) can you not forgive me? // i am leaving precisely so that i may forgive you, your majesty. someday, when i have became something other than a jester, i shall return to you with forgiveness in my heart, your majesty. 

idle day

in the middle of studying session marsha opens a tiktok live where the host makes literal conches race and the loser of that race gets cooked in masak lemak dish... and some of the viewers gifted the host tiktok gifts worth about myr1000

ethel cain's strangers

if the song per chance really talks about cannibalism it feels so close to how the thoughts of you had been eating me away. you had been consuming parts and parcels of my soul and i hope they're poison. 

medical journey #4

had cervical cancer lecture this morning and to my surprise, dr said that currently hpv testing is the way to go instead of pap smear. pros: detect the virus strain right away, faster and more specific result. cons: pricey. and it's not even widely available in malaysia yet. dr told us to check out rose hpv programme online - and so i did. medicine really moves in a fast pace, the drugs, the tech.

since we're learning in a university hospital, granted there were extra access to techs that are not available in gov hospitals all over the country. even then, we're still outsourced as to keep up with the advancing machineries, a proper molecular lab is needed and to establish one is such a tedious, costly process. 

bloom

my heart is a lotus // it blooms in the small pond of your palms // my songs to you // the green-necked ducks // sow love // and you reap grievance

-

the realization that i know so little about my brothers and that they don't know much either about me

medical journey #3

joined sign language programme as media committee today! thanks to adlipa who dragged amirah, ezrin, sarah, balqis and i to take part, otherwise i really can't be bothered. they're in logistics and programme bureau, though, and programme members got really nice pink lanyard - media's just ribbon red. the banners, bunting and slides template were my design, so i felt a bit proud seeing them on bigger-scale display.  

it was more fun than expected. bearable workload, though there were some hiccups in the process. we didn't reach our target of 60 participants, but 49 people signed up and there are even high schoolers among them. though, we had to stand by since seven in the morning and listened to a forum from otorhinolaryngologists from ummc and htar. the session is rather short as they list some deafness causes in medical perspective, from intrauterine infection like toxoplasmosis, mumps and rubella and age-related, to the existence of doctors who use hearing aids themselves. they also mentioned about monash advancing an app from the collaboration of their medical and engineering student.

the participants later played a basic sign language relay game (we dry ran it during rehearsal yesterday, basically hi, nice to meet you, i just learned sign language) and then had volunteers from rcdm - rc deaf missions malaysia. the rcdm director, ms agnes also came and interpreted as the volunteers signed on the stage. the director also discussed about how limited is the job opportunities for interpreters in malaysia, and that our healthcare is yet to be inclusive and accomodative to the Deaf community, in which the d is spelled in capital as a sign of acknowledgement. she rose issues like difficulty in booking and confirming appointments online, consultation with doctors taking longer time and the lack of privacy of the Deaf as they often had to rely on family members when getting health consultation. 

they also brought an interpreter along (which i deemed was very cool) and apparently her girlfriend also came to support her - the girlfriend walked back and forth to give participants the microphone and moved even more than we committees. i think it's even more challenging that we're using bahasa isyarat malaysia / bim but the speech is in english, so basically the interpreters had to juggle between two language structures - three if you count the signing, in a very fast pace. as the volunteers finished signing, another rcdm volunteer signed clap as a gesture of support. it's very intriguing as i never knew that clapping also has a sign. 

during ms kimberly's session, she picked a participant randomly to answer a question, but she was so taken aback that she couldn't answer properly. after the fourth session was over adlipa and i helped took picture of the participant and her friend, and we learnt that she wasn't a um student, and she left halfway after she cried due to the overwhelming feeling. also, the interpreter's girlfriend helped calm her down. my roommate said that the girl must have felt anxious as the setting was unfamiliar to her and that she could relate. 

i forgot how to do you're welcome, though... so when i returned the fifth speaker's pendrive, ms kimberly, she signed thank you and i just signed thank you back to her ㅠㅠ but that just felt really malaysian, though, reciprocating terima kasih with terima kasih instead of sama-sama. 

for the last session, participants were divided into groups with one person in charge each. i joined the group where the Deaf volunteers is an indian couple. the husband once had a heart attack with pain scale of 7, so they role played the situation with simple dialogues like how can i help you today?, chest pain, difficulty of breathing, from scale 1-10, 1 is good, 10 is bad, what medication do you take, please sit, doctor will see you soon. this session was the most beneficial and fun overall. 

the event thankfully sailed smoothly after a thorough preparation despite the shortage of manpower and some technical issues with the microphones. we even had free breakfast and lunch provided, not to mention yesterday every committee member who attended rehearsal got free zus drinks. not sure if this is p&c but the budget was huge since the sponsor (yes24) paid us in usd... my roommate says it amounted to about 10k myr. for tax relief or just their allocated budget i'm guessing. with that much budget, the participants also got complementary tote bag and sign language book. 

afterward we had photography session and cleaned everything up, and i was basically knocked out until six in the afternoon. 

this is only the first part, though. we have another two upcoming one and the second one will most probably be more intensive. i'll write again by then. till next time!

snip snip

my love, i'd fold and cut you felts

you and me both

it'll pass - from fleabag. your name echoes for so long in my veins. which could mean nothing. 

hey june

a firsthand heartbreak is the best mother of an epistolary

update

had aidiladha breakfast at sarah's house yesterday w amirah, balqis and ezrin. saw a few cows for qurban otw. ate nasi lemak, nasi impit, steamed brownies and kek batik indulgence brought by amirah's fam. watched colonoscopy twice today. about to watch ogds / egd but dr didn't show up and we had another lecture so we had to leave, in the meanwhile finding out my clinicalmate had fibroid adenoma resection surgery march last year. scrolling stan twt and stumbling upon a tweet about the fanboy who beefed with me earlier this year currently in icu. feeling so lazy to take bath. having a brand new pimple as i ran out of acne patches and my menses duration is way shorter this cycle probably because i drank two cans of kacip fatimah last week. my friends having exams and my result being ready but dean's office when it comes to releasing exam results has the speed of sloths. 

medical journal #2

today we have the second clinical of gastro block. i felt so guilty as no one volunteered and the same people had to step up (including my clinical leader). gonna study endoscopy consent form earlier so that i can volunteer next...

since the dr in charge to teach us today is a psychiatrist, we had to take history from a psych patient who also happened to be a doctor. everyone was strangely quiet and our dr was mildly frustrated. sometimes the patient chipped in his tips during the physical exam and he got bored midway so he just fell asleep. throughout the inspection, so many patients were peeking from behind the curtain, and a few patients were hovering around the ward. we actually signed our cex forms earlier... and there is only one person who hasn't gotten their cex forms signed, it's really a wonder why he did not want to volunteer. 

at the end of exam, he left his spectacles on the bed, so i had to bring it to him and called him but he was in a daze and i ended up getting rebuked by my doctor.

we reviewed back the session and one of my groupmates reasoned the silence because of our stigma and biases. he said, we're scared of asking questions that might trigger the patient's aggressive episode. like... why are you representing us... our doctor was shocked and said, would you think this if it were your girlfriend? boyfriend? parents or family members? 

another said that it's because the patient was normal (no gastrointestinal pathological symptoms), but in reality, some patient might not have every textbook symptoms upon checkup... so this should be a practice as well. 

actually, our patient had bouts of vomiting, little sleep and hyperactivity that affects his overall mood, so he was admitted under the diagnosis of bpd. he also mentioned that he had history of hypothyroidism upon clerking. then my groupmate asked if the patient can still be a doctor (he's a general practitioner) after discharge, and our doctor was like, of course. do you know how many of you (medical students) that i'm seeing? maybe this is why they send to you to us (psych department when the current block we're learning is gastrointestinal). to correct your preconceptions in other domains. think about it, our doctor said, would you stop your study when you're diagnosed with depression, a very treatable condition? the same goes with mania. 

reminds me of my groupmate who said serve him right to a hiv (appropriately, we should use rvd - retro viral disease) patient in a case after reading his sexual history of homosexuality. 

stigma from the medical practitioner who treat people themselves is the worst. 

feline

but a cat licks its own wounds

friend-sectomy

today a friend of mine wished me happy birthday on every social media platform we have... and as my notifications were off for some apps, i only replied when i opened the app and found the wish texts. it felt a little like treasure hunt, haha. that made up my day a bit, my ex-housemates also bought me cinnamon rolls and tumbler, mom sang for me via a video, a paternal aunt bought me lots of food (still feel compensatory to me. and i feel guilty as well because i never bought her anything), and my second brother transferred me myr10 through tng (lol). 

i think friendships end when you stop wishing each other's birthday. it might not be as important to someone else, but a simple birthday wish would mean that you still care, you still have that tiny bit of interest of what's going on in someone's life. isn't the best parameter of friendship, i know, but what metric exactly does one standardise for things like friendship?

404

someone/thing i'd travel parallels for

as the cogs run

one notch of love.

no more than this. 

shoreline

belated realisation but it felt like God always puts me in situations i couldn't understand better before to let me experience the same emotion and self-deduce. 

hey

eid break passed in a blur.

so a couple of things happened. i was supposed to study for an upcoming anatomy test but i succumbed to the desire of resting and could only finish half of my target in the designated time. like last year, as well, i cut a worth of 5 kg meat along with my great granny and strained my trapezius.

this year, we celebrated first eid @ my paternal side of family, then i had to endure unsolicited advices from my paternal grandfather. nothing really changed, i am still awkward with my cousins... and again became the sore thumb sticking out. they're really nice and sweet, especially the daughters of my first paternal aunt but i personally think the timing is too late for me to blend with in the clique, and when you don't have common grounds it's even harder to strike decent conversations. we only got to visit one relative's house this time, and as we came back to my grandparents' house, the eldest brother of my dad whom i had not seen in ages were there with his three daughters. 

the next day, had to assist in the kitchen as my mom and maternal granny cooked a feast for the teeming guests (no exaggeration, it began eight in the morning and people did not stop coming until dusk fell). my hair and baju kurung literally smelled like salted fish because mom fried a bunchful of them. at times, my bored little brothers would run downstairs to the kitchen, and once a guest's son was calling his mom but my mom thought it was one of my brothers so she yelled what do you want completely unaware of the kid being a guest's son lol. one of the little boys that came brought a binder full of boboiboy cards and was so proud of it. as a fellow collector of seventeen photocards, i can relate.

that's how the 2nd eid went... it was really tiring for me bending down to the low sink and washing the dishes to the point that my feet numbed and one of my toes curled inert for a few minutes, but i know that my mom must had been more exhausted as she did laundry as well afterward. the kitchen was hella messy with seabass scale as the econsave worker refused to clean the fish due to the load of customers and my mom was descaling about eight to nine seabass total. meanwhile, my eldest younger brother was out and about with his friends to watch the movies. thankfully my second younger brother and aunt came to help. we ended up not going to our relative's house at all. 

we still had to prepare food for the guests on 3rd eid. honestly, the guests number weren't as crazy as when i was little. i remembered people coming until one to three in the morning, and how spent everyone would be as they left. my late maternal grandfather had a vast social networking of friends and relatives given his number of siblings, so a lot people even from different states used to come until my grandpa passed away, and the head of the families who came passed away as well. so now, my mom would lock the gates by 7 pm max. after all, my great granny and granny are getting older, and my uncles and aunts all have family and commitment, the household can't handle as much guests as it used to be. 

anyway, a younger brother of my late grandpa visited. he shared the most resemblance with my late grandpa, almost like the same man in a different font. actually, i thought the same about my dad's male siblings. they're really alike to each other, but the differences stand out as well. mom bursted out in tears as soon as she shook hands with that uncle of hers, as she was reminded of her late dad who truly doted on her. indeed, he was the best grandpa one could ever ask for. sometimes i miss him too. he passed in 2010, so it will soon be 14 years, and i only had little recollection of him intact. 

then at night, we had the annual salam raya session and family photoshoot... but it's a story too long i couldn't bring myself to write. only some things like. one petal of the polymer clay orchid pendant i baked broke before the photoshoot session. my dad telling me not to be too depressed about my study and hugging me. giving duit raya to my siblings and cousins as the first grandchild. my duit raya count made me happy and i got some really cute envelope designs... yeah. the sleepiness is talking. it's 1 am right now and i have pbl tomorrow :/ till then.

mishap

it's rotten.

it's like i live in a spiral. 

ramadan

yesterday was a great time. i went to classes the whole day with marsha, planned on making polymer clay orchids into bracelet charms and then went break fasting with 9/10 of my pblmates who tried fasting for the whole day, for the first time @ woodfire. they woke up early in the morning to have suhoor, and called everyone in the whatsapp group. i felt bad as i didn't even wake up, and i didn't even fast as i was having my menses. 

carpooled with other four people using one of my pblmate's car. it was raining the whole journey there, the traffic was almost hellish to say and we talked about our faculty dean who was fired one week after she renewed her posting (rumoured that she voiced out some doctors' requests and the vice councillor wasn't fond of that to the point that her appeal to decline the sudden dismissal was rejected). we arrived and apparently, the place is really close to the mrt station. it even has a prayer room at the end of the alley. 

woodfire burgers are massive as always, they're served early and the reservation was made really early too (around 12-1 pm). i managed to finish my burger, though, my meal capacity gets smaller by day. i'm still overweight by 1.5 margin from normal bmi, but yeah. it gets better. those ordering butter soda said it sucks, literally like melted butter in tasteless soda, and those who ordered madhen chicken platter went red because of the spiciness - they said it's equivalent to the red buldak samyang. 

i got to know some of them are subethnically cantonese, and some is hakka, and that not just hinduism forbids eating beef, some buddhists also do not consume beef like one of my pblmates. we waited for grab while catching sight of snails and listening to toads croaking at intervals, then parted ways in two cars. thanks to ainah misplacing her car keys and suspecting that she dropped it in the previous pblmate's car, people living in university tower decided to share the grab since the fee was low at that time. again, saved on transport, and dropped by kk1, kk2, and finally kk6. apparently besides one of my pblmates who is already married, three of them are in a relationship. 

going back to hometown next week. so far i just went to the mosque next to kwkk building once for taraweeh with amirah, sarah, ezrin and balqis, but then only amirah, ezrin and balqis could pass through the little aperture of a gate of the shortcut meanwhile sarah and i had to climb up a fence (so much deja vu, i routinely did so in high school lol). saw a few familiar faces and that's that. ended up we got lost in the diploma nurses' college because of ezrin and had to take a long route back to college - and i felt my back cramping somehow. that was how my 1st ramadan night went. life was quite productive, lately, being an eye patient for master's doctors' mock exam and getting paid myr50 for it, doing group tasks, decluttered my room, and just living. 

it's so laughable to think that i don't deserve some good people in my life, given how petty i could be at times. i am grateful if not for the regrets that does not let me go by a single day, is all. 

just

every day i wake up feeling so fucking tired i'll wonder how will i survive the workfield

vernon once said

about 🍊;

we are born // and we produce fruits // and with those fruits we make jam // and we share it. 

-

do you know how easy it is for admiration to morph into envy

huh

i couldn't take a hint slower than this.

only after six months of wearing my new glasses that i realize it actually filters my vision into somewhat, light sepia. my perception of the world's hue is indirectly distorted all this while. 

february 29

my february 29 ballad.

dreams of gutting you alive. 

🌸

today me and hannah discovered that there is mandi bunga kit available for sale on shopee

-

just saw someone's wife on twitter needing an urgent intestinal surgery after cesarean procedure. being a mom takes away so much, and even this, is an understatement. 

ugh

i hate long journeys. why does my brother have to apply to a course in penang.

my buttock is numb and i'm just carsick eighty percent of time. 

aaaahhhh

exam days finally over!

next exam is in april, then may, but yeah, that's for later. today was somewhere between nice and not. a lukewarm day?

yeah. so i had physical examination today. marsha is on morning session, while i'm @ 4th, and thankfully my ex-pblmates from 2022 is in the same session, so we revised a bit before entering the examination ward. 

while i think i did lymph node exam & history taking good, i didn't do really well on the other two stations. after assessing glasgow coma scale (which i was very sure will come out after discussing with marsha but still half-bombed it anyway - uh screw pupil size range), i went to rest station since i was the first in the group, so my last two stations would be rest station 6 & 7. each station is about 6 min so i had to wait doing basically nothing... and suddenly a boy who waited with me in the room started sniffling a couple of times. initially thought he had very bad acute rhinorrhea but suddenly he broke into wretched sobs for a full four minute. i was so shocked i couldn't say a thing and just flicked my pen torchlight around the room to kill my boredom... and that boy walked out to his last station (which thankfully is lymph node exam, not history taking) with beet red face beneath his mask.

if i have to take a rough guess, it must be the gcs station doctor... she was practically berating me with a smile plastered on her face. that's even scarier, no?! my bet is that guy went through the same. hope he's okay though. 

luckily, the other girl who came to the rest station afterward chatted with me since we both have done with our examination. she's going to have big dinner on friday for chinese new year with her maternal family... and that she can't wait for the angpao since her maternal side consists of many aunts and uncles! then she asked me where i'm from. upon hearing my answer, she said that's good, because i could possibly work @ this neighbouring country's hospital. i think it's interesting how jb is associated with working @ singapore, though i told her that i don't live in jb. we congratulatory hugged each other before we parted ways as the red light lit up and the last bell ding: end of examination! 

my roommate also had her paediatric end of posting exam today, and currently i'm alone in the room typing this as she already boarded the bus back home. i'll be going home tomorrow, and skipping two days of classes. that's today in a wrap. till then! 

-

do you think i have butterfingers?

you slipping off my grasp and all. 

truthfully

a grudge that distills is never mine.

forever uncertain if the very day i can displace the anger off my chest will ever come.

hey

just moved college.

these days i just attend all the classes and it hasn't been as taxing as it was. it helps me participate in pbl sessions better too. also... been alone for some nights, my roommate was visiting a relative and suddenly her grandfather passed away so she had to go to terengganu. thankfully my former roommates are just several footsteps away, so we have meals together often. for 2024, i've been keeping track of my expenses as well. and exam is less than one month from now, it gets me really anxious, actually.

idk, maybe i'll study tomorrow, today i really slept so long after being back from class it almost felt like a hibernation. my customer's parcel had an issue of overlapping tracking number so i had to go back and forth to posthub. she's so nice and she's been looking for the photocard for quite a long time, so i really hope things will smooth out.

anyway, i really want to complete writing my stories on ao3, but it has been really hard to write lately... let alone draw. somehow not being able to construct words / create art as beautifully as others does leave me feeling debilitated at heart.

wish i could continue writing after exam ends. i really miss writing. 

merry january

thought i left the stagnant station. apparently not yet.

being a memory hoarder sucks as much as it is blissful. you cull over every page trying to sunder the halves you want to erase but everything seems to hold the same important weight.