The Disgusting Hypocrisy of Medical Students

"Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that you only meant well?
Well, of course you did.
Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that it's all for the best?
Ah, of course it is.
Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that it's just what we need?
And you decided this.
Mmm what you say?
What did she say?"

Hide and Seek (2005) by Imogen Head

So accusatory. I like.

I am aware of just how little I am updating my journal these days. A haze of complacency and listlessness seemed to have settled over these days. I feel unmotivated to do anything at all. The only thing I feel like doing is just lie around and read myself to oblivion, and on the occasions I managed to gather a bit of drive, I would simply spend it plotting. Plotting, as in thinking-up-a-storyline plotting. Yes, I have rebooted my on-and-off intention to write a novel and I'm pretty pleased with how far along I am now - though I'm pretty sure that I'll just bin the whole manuscript again in a month (like I did with all my previous efforts) because I always end up thinking that everything I write is crap. Which they are, by the way. Crap, the lot of 'em. I seriously need to get tonnes better at this whole writing business. Anyone else writing a novel too? Anyone who ever thought about it?

Alright, this was suppose to be last week's post (before I got sidelined completely) and it's about a very particular problem I have with a number of medical students in my college. If you actually bothered to read the title, it's about their hypocrisy; a subject with a terrifyingly wide scope on its own but here in this post, I'll stick to just one standalone issue.

Cue exhibit #A,

This picture does not require a caption.

That's just one of the parking lots belonging to the Malaccan General Hospital which is perpetually filled up with cars. I took this picture at a somewhat morning-ish time, so the double parkers and space vultures have yet to start clogging the place up. My point being; parking spaces are seriously scarce here, just like food in Ethiopia and penguins in the North Pole.

More of the same.

This one is a shot of one of the roads within the hospital grounds and playing Captain Obvious here; that's a whole bunch of parked cars taking up a full lane. The tiny blue signboard in this picture reads;

"Para Pelanggan Yang Dihormati,
Kurangnya tempat letak kereta kami fahami,
Tindakan diambil untuk mengatasi,
Segala kesulitan amatlah dikesali."

It's a pantun, or a traditional abab (or in this case, an aaaa) Malay poem which apologises for the lack of parking spaces on the premises and that actions are being taken to remedy that. I like to think that it does a good job defusing a lot of people's annoyance and frustration at the parking problem by making people wonder why on earth it was written as a poem in the first place. I also can't decide whether this bit of Malaysiana is fresh and clever, or is irredeemably lame - but moving along now.

Critical vehicular overload.

And these are the cars which spilled out from the inside, lining the streets outside the hospital premises. Depending on their luck, an MBMB officer drops by occasionally to dole out tickets for illegal parking. That seems sort of cruel to me actually, seeing that most of these cars belong to sick people, or to the people who brought their sick relatives or friends here - and they simply do not have a choice.

Alright, they do kinda have a choice. There's an empty dirt lot right across the road charging RM2 a pop, though it really used to be free.

"Okay, so there's not enough parking spaces - we get it already!" says you. Where am I going with this?

Well, at any given time, hundreds of medical students from my college are posted in the Malacca General for clinical training and a good fraction of that number drive their own cars there, shunning the college shuttle bus which departs from campus at 7:45 am every morning. These individuals, sitting in their solitary cars would appear in the hospital on their own and collectively take up a good number of the parking spaces there, occupying them for the entire duration of their posting hours which stretched from morning till noon.

To be fair, I too drive to the Malacca General Hospital on my lonesome but that's because the distance between my house to the campus is almost the same as the length of the route I take to the hospital - and not living in the hostel makes carpooling a tad too much trouble for its worth. The difference is, I have never once - read: NOT ONCE - parked in the parking spaces reserved for the general public within the hospital. I often arrive early enough to get a place in the corner lot of the hospital reserved for my college's students and lecturers and on the occasions I didn't, I joined the illegally parked horde in picture number 3, or leave my car in the housing estate neighbouring the hospital and foot the half kilometre to whichever department I was suppose to appear in that day. This is because I'm aligned with the forces of light and good, a fact which I cannot assert enough.

This contrast me with the dickwad medical students who insist on taking up patients' parking spaces on the inside - in spite having been cautioned from doing just that by my college's admins at the start of their semester in Malacca. You can recognise them by this identifying sticker,

Twat.

So, with this bit of info in mind, I urge everyone to do their civic duties - and scratch the shit out of cars sporting this sticker with your keys or coins if you see them parked anywhere in the hospital outside of the designated college student and lecturer parking. That's right, that's what I'm telling you to do. Forget that "turn the other cheek" jazz that Jesus spoke so highly of. Jesus never had to fucking circle the Malacca General Hospital's parking lot a million times in his Godmobile looking from a spot while suffering from a bad case of gastritis. Remember what he did to the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14 and 19-24)?

Remember. Stickers. In the hospital. Break out your keys.

These asshole medical students are hypocrites because they are medical students, i.e. potential doctors in the near future. These are people who are suppose to be committed to a life alleviating people's pain and suffering, and they cannot do something as simple as understanding that there are a lot of people who need those damn parking space a great deal more urgently than they do. And trust me, none of the students currently training at the Malacca General Hospital is doing anything to help any sick people at all. What they are doing - and will do till the day they graduate - is take advantage of sick people. That's putting it as bluntly as I can. They are disturbing patients' rest to ask questions, to examine and ultimately, to learn from them. Medical students often forget that the most significant part of our curriculum depends solely on the goodwill, generousity and sufferance of patients. Eat humble pie, bastards.

I have a cousin who suffers from Thalassaemia B Major and the short of it is that she requires regular blood transfusion, all her life to keep her alive (unless she receives a bone marrow transplant, but let's not go there). She goes to the Malacca General Hospital monthly for that and had, at times, forced to miss her appointment because she could not get a parking place. Maybe it's hard for the high and aloof, upper-class medical student types to know just how selfish their actions really are. Maybe, just maybe, they aren't really cut out for this job seeing that they have so much trouble connecting with the needs of patients on a human level. That's how some of my colleagues make me feel - they seem to view patients as simply objects, rather than real, living people.

But I like to give them more credit. I want to think that they don't need a sick cousin to learn that bit of humility and humanity. Maybe they just need a little more time to do that.

In the meantime, people, scratch the shit out of their cars.



Aligned with the Forces of Light and Good,
k0k s3n w4i

That Incident Last Thursday

"Now dance, fucker, dance!"

You're Gonna Go Far Kid (2008) by The Offspring

Okay, I've been away for more than a week and before I go on, there are some things I need to clarify first, seeing that I have received tons of question from a lot of people about it. Last Thursday, when I was sent out by the ENT lecturer for talking during lecture, I WASN'T talking. The catalyst was a slide he projected on screen which described the use of the chemical compound capsaicin as a treatment for some neuralgia or other and I was sort of surprised because I didn't know that particular use of that drug (the use of capsaicin I'm most familiar with is food flavouring - it's what make chilis hot). So, I did what I do when I am surprised; I mouthed the word capsaicin to myself.

He saw me did that, stopped his lecture midway and told me to get the fuck out of class - for talking. For a bit of background info on this lecturer bloke, he's so anal that his butthole can probably sever the finger of some guy giving him a digital rectal exam. There has to be zero conversation during his class - he's one of those paranoid crazies who thinks that anyone talking in his vicinity has to be making fun of him. We have a term for that in psychiatry; it's called the delusion of reference. Oh, and he told a student to stand up in class once and berated him for leaning a bit to the right while sitting. Yeah, that sort of crazy.

I actually argued because I was wrongly accused and that I was only mouthing a word, and he retorted by saying some shit about him being older, that he knew what he saw and that I disrupted the class and should not debate with him on it. I was teetering on the edge of a full blown explosion - it's one of those rare times in my life when I completely lost my mind (only happened 3 times ever). In all the previous instances I was caught sleeping or talking in class, I have accepted any punishment or scolding meekly and apologetically. Righteous anger tends to rise to the surface when I got framed.

What I wanted to say, and still hope that I have said, was;

"With all due respect, sir, you were lying. You could not have seen me talking because I didn't. I was mouthing a word projected on the slide to myself because I was surprised it's there, and I don't think you ever forbade us from soundlessly mouthing words to ourselves during lectures before. And you kept feeding us bullshit about how talking disrupts the class and whatnot, while every time you are the one disrupting the class the most with your childish outbursts. You think that by just exercising command, you will get the students to fear you - even respect you - but no, sir. No one is afraid or you. No one respects you. Everyone finds you pathetic and annoying and that's what everyone says about you after each lecture of yours. You abuse authority. You are just a bully."

Given his paranoia and severe neurosis, had I been allowed to shoot my mouth off, I'm quite confident that he would just walk right out of class. He always seem to be on the verge of tears and hysteria anyway. Thankfully, I had the wits about me to stop myself. I slammed my notebook shut with a satisfying smack - an act of futile rebellion - packed up my shit and stormed out. I wanted lodge a complaint against his royal anal-ness but I realised that I did not know his name (I still don't). So I drove home. I asked a lot of my colleagues for his name afterwards (ostensibly with the goal of reporting him still in mind) but as it turned out, no one bothered to remember or even learn his name. Now, that's a whole new level of pathetic altogether. And since I still received a mark of attendance for that lecture, I decided to drop it with my usual wad of phlegm (not that phlegm - words have many meanings, you know, so look it up).

I learnt that he was reiterating the case against me after I left, embellishing it by saying that he had had his eyes on me the entire lecture and that I have been conversing with the girl sitting beside me. All bullshit. If that was true, he would have sent the girl out as well. Besides, that girl was Jae Mie, and anyone who knows Jae Mie knows how hard it is to even try to talk to her in class considering how doggedly she writes her notes.

I received an SMS from Shaki afterwards, saying that a girl was sent out after me. Her story was that her friend sitting beside her did not manage to write down what's on the slide quickly enough before it changed, and had asked her to repeat the last two words of the previous slide. She obliged, and got kicked out for it.

Oh, and if anyone still has any doubt that I was not talking last Thursday when I got sent out, here's the my best defense;

I wasn't sitting beside Shaki. Case closed.



P.S. That ENT lecturer is currently learning how to swim. I saw him occasionally in the pool in the evenings trying to learn how to float and kick water while our college's gym instructor shout instructions to him from the poolside. I'll go one of these days to just stand there and watch. Knowing how neurotic and insecure he is, it'll probably irk him like heck.

P.P.S. This entire post was supposed to be just the preamble of the post I wanted to write today, but since it had autonomously grew to this length, I just changed the post's title and run it on its own.



Was not talking,
k0k s3n w4i

Silver Lined

"And everyday I wake,

I tell myself a little harmless lie,

The whole wide world is mine."

Rites of Spring (2008) by Angels And Airwaves

I can't sleep. I think I caught something sometime yesterday while watching Bolt with Shaki, Inn Shan and co and it kicked off with a sore throat - one which I attributed to the large cup of Coke I inadvisably downed during the movie but hey, it made sense at the time. Right after dinner, the sore throat turned into a raging classic spectrum of symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection; fever, headache, sinus tenderness, nasal congestion and an uncommon hatred of one's miserable self. By 11:00 pm, my head was trying to explode and I had to fly the white flag. I pride myself on being able to weather most simple illnesses, eschewing any kind of medical consultation or medication for the past 4 years - excepting one memorable occasion when I self-medicated using opium for a bad case of headache and sore throat (warning: opium is not FDA approved for treating the flu). I have always favoured outliving any damn virus using sheer grit and determination. You know it has to be pretty serious when I abandon my standard operating procedure.

I downed a cocktail of paracetamol (with a bit of codeine mixed in), loratadine and pseudoephedrine sulphate before I went to bed - the last of which, a decongestant, has the unfortunate side-effects of insomnia. It figures, since pseudoephedrine related to methamphetamine (or Speeeeed - say it this way, kids) and it had been used in the illicit drug trade to cook the latter. I was so wired that I've been tossing and turning the entire night before finally deciding to get my ass up at 5:00 am to blog. Anyway, one of the reason I started this journal was to deal with my insomnia back when I was in India. Maybe that's why I am posting so much less these days; I'm sleeping too well.

I've started walking to and from campus recently, after my car had a breakdown of sorts. It's just 5 minutes of footwork from where I live, and it's one of the prime reasons I chose MMMC over IMU, aside the whole get-to-go-India angle of it. I drive there most of the time though to avoid sweating up my shirt, but the weather is pretty genial these days (with the odd rain or two).

Last Thursday, on my usual route, I saw a cat in the distance heading my way and as I got closer to it, it didn't veer off or try to hide out of the usual instinctive cowardice of its kind. A housecat, I thought, or almost one. Quite unabashed, it trotted past me - looking up at me as it did in what I can only call that feline expression. Locke Lamora, the anti-hero of Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies said it best when he was shocked into awakening from sleep by a kitten sleeping on the back of his neck,

'Mew' the kitten retorted, locking gazes with him. It had the expression common to all kittens, that of a tyrant in the becoming. I was comfortable, and you dared to move, those jade eyes said. For that you must die.

As I looked back at it, the cat stopped walking. When I held a hand out, it turned right around and started homing in on me, eager for the prospect of a little petting,

"I feel joo, brotha."

I spent teatime with it, sitting outside a vacant house and playing with the cat for the next half an hour. It's very therapeutic, I think, to have a cat rubbing itself all around your legs and purring as you scratch behind its ears and neck. On some basic level, I believe people need to physically connect with someone else on a regular basis, if only to reaffirm that there's still some sort of bond existing between them and the living world at large. If you have kissed or hugged someone, or held someone's hand, or pet a dog or stroked a cat, you'd understand what I mean. It says to you, "I'm here. I'm alive. I feel."

I like that little myth about how animals can tell good people from bad. It makes me feel good about myself every time I win a stray's confidence - to make some creature trust me not to hurt or harm it. Have you experienced slowly lowering your hand onto a dog which is suspicious of you - which is shrinking reflexively in fear even as you reach out - but uncertain enough not to bolt and run away? It's like every doggy sense inside its little doggy mind is telling it to scamper - save one. It's that one doggy sense which tells it to stay put in hope of a friendly, loving touch from you. And then, there's that moment when you finally rest your hand on its head. Every fear and suspicion, every last shred of mistrust and uncertainty simply melts away. The tenseness of its every muscle evaporated right that very instance of contact, and its tail comes out from between its legs and starts to wag. All from a simple touch. Magic.

It feels kind of like when you kiss someone new, really.

That day, I went home feeling like my day turned around. It wasn't a bad day to begin with but it had been rather flat and grey - no real highs or lows. It would have been just "last thursday" for about a week before my mind finally consign it to utter oblivion, another lost day in immemorium. But something almost trivial happened, and it became different. I guess this is what people talking about when they say that something made their day. That cat was certainly something. I'm sure that all the other things that happened to me that day - going to class, attending my clinical posting, trying to get by in med school - are much more important than meeting and playing with a stray cat. I'm sure everyone will think the same.

And yet, I have this nagging feeling that we are all missing the point about Life somewhere.



P.S. Now, I don't want anyone to start abusing pseudoephedrine to study for exam or anything. Wait, I didn't just give you the idea, did I?



Had an awesome last Thursday,
k0k s3n w4i

Malaccans Drive Nice Unlike Everyone Else

"Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead."

Mac McCleary

Firstly, I have not abandoned my blog. There’s a whole syndrome of reasons why I have not written here lately and chief of them is that my broadband connection has been erratic. It’s been disengaging from the net unpredictably for the entire past week, delaying my downloads and hacking my MSN conversations short. Two days ago, I was completely cut off – the "Remote Computer" refuses to answer my calls at all – and I’m pretty sure it’s not my modem being an arse here. However, I can still surf on dial-up, which I am doing at the moment. Note to self: sic my Dad on the problem.

Secondly, my attention was held captive recently by China Miéville’s The Scar – a speculative fiction masterpiece (it is!) in the "New Weird" sub-genre – and I have been investing every spare moment in it. Miéville is one of those authors who write what folks in the reading circle like me refer to as "bricks" or "doorstoppers". I pride myself on being able to read pretty quickly but the book is so rich that I simply cannot gorge myself too much in every sitting (people who don’t like words a whole lot; stand back and stay away). Anyway, expect a review of Miéville’s Bas-Lag books from me soon, right after I finish the third book in the canon.

And thirdly, my psychiatry posting – in spite of its leisurely nature – is proving to be a big drain on me. I personally enjoy the subject (and I am seriously thinking of specialising in it) but I can’t deny that the posting’s hours are a bit trying.

So, hello people (whoever are still here anyway)! I’m back for today – and today, I want to talk about… driving. And drivers. Oh, and the sort of people who drives.

You know back in high school and driving school, they always talked about this vague human value called "courtesy on the road"? If you’re a non-Muslim Malaysian student, I bet you’ve had it repeated ad nauseam to you in the ridiculous compulsory subject of Moral Education (what? Non-muslims’ religions don’t teach morality?). Well, "courtesy on the road" is a vast code of unspoken ethics for drivers which basically and summarily says "don’t be an asshole while driving" – I’ll illustrate my point later – and before I truck on, let me first say that Malaccan drivers are amongst the most courteous motorists in the country. Yeah, it’s a shout-out; let’s hear some whoops here!

Not Malaccans.

Every time a car stops too closely behind me, jumps a queue or bullishly tries to insinuate itself into a line when it does not have the right of way, that car always carries an outstation number plate – usually starting with W (KL), B (Selangor), or J (Johor Bahru). INVARIABLY. In fact, it’s such a constant that in every single instance of such assholery, I’d say "That’s definitely a KL or Johor car," to whoever’s riding with me without even looking at the number plate. I was right EVERY TIME. My colleagues from other states agreed with me on this, by the way. And to any dissenters here – you can’t cause accidents by driving slowly (anyone who says otherwise fails logic forever). Accidents are generally caused by people getting impatient with people driving slowly. "Slow" is sometimes known as "careful", by the way.

I get it that some breaches of etiquette are simply survival tactics for driving in their own states, and I become pretty assertive myself in the times I drove in KL as well (though I have always stopped short of being a jerk). The prevailing attitude on that city’s roads is one of selfishness – it’s every man for himself there, all cars clawing for every inch they can steal. I’ve seen drivers switching lane in a deadlock jam, trying to score a few seconds of advantage. I’ve seen other drivers stopping less than a foot away from the car in front to prevent anyone from trying to wedge in into the place in front of them. Why can’t everyone just work the fuck together, and only make moves that are absolutely necessary? I’m convinced that traffic would run so much more smoothly there if everyone can be just a little bit more patient and accommodating - but nooooo, everyone has to be an asshole.

I think one of the reasons why people can be so rude when they are driving is because of the relative anonymity of hiding in a car. It’s just like on the internet. Just read any message boards, online fora or the comment boxes in popular blogs – you hardly see people talk or act that way at all in real life. Everyone thinks that being anonymous means that they are not culpable for their breach of societal politesse.

I was in a colleague’s car just the other day when another car tried to overtake us. My colleague, who came from KL, instantly accelerated and the other car, failing to overtake, drove back in line. I was completely flabbergasted. "Why the fuck did you do that for?" I blurted "We’re not in a rush to go anywhere – you could have maintained your speed and let the other car pass! You lose nothing!" My colleague seemed stunned for a moment, as if what I just said simply never occurred to him before.

"It was a kneejerk reaction. I did it without thinking," he replied sheepishly. I wanted to point out that the jerk part was right, but I thought better of it.

That was an instance of road rudeness which serves no practical purpose at all. It’s acts like these which makes me think that humans are inherently rotten inside.

A couple of days ago, I was returning from supper in my own car. From quite a distant away, I could see that the traffic light at a certain junction just turned red and I simply took my foot off the accelerator, to allow my momentum to run out on its own. I like easing to a standstill that way because I don’t see the point in racing to the line when I have to stop and wait anyhow (a senseless waste of petrol, in my opinion). I was nearly there when suddenly, a grey car overtook me from behind at the very last moment just so it can come to hard stop in front of me. What the fuck? Why the fuck?

Sure enough, it was a W plate. I would have been surprised if it wasn’t,

Not Malaccan (and I always stop this far behind any car, by the way).

The road was practically empty. In fact, the lane beside me was completely unoccupied. Also, if you remember, the damn light was RED. Is it because he can’t bear watching me go so slowly and wanted to show me how to drive like him – how to screech to halt in front of a red light?
If I am an asshole like him, I’d probably be incensed enough to try to overtake him when the light turns green, to beat him to the next intersection. But I wasn’t, so I let him zoomed away while I just continued driving at my own languid speed. The grey car soon sped out of sight, overtaking a few more cars as he did.

And as I eased to a halt at the next junction, I stopped right behind…

"Didn’t make such good time after all eh, asshole?"

So he did a completely pointless act of overtaking a few feet before a red light and pointlessly wasted a lot of petrol for absolutely nothing. Gosh, I’m sure glad that I have the foresight and temperance to avoid performing completely useless actions like that.

What I want to say is; we Malaccans have a stronger sense of propriety on the road than all you other idiots from elsewhere. I believe I’m speaking for all my hometownies when I say that we simply do not welcome your type of drivers flooding into our nice, peaceful city in the weekends and holidays, causing unnecessary jams and being jerks to us on our own turf (outstation cars seem to outnumber Malaccan ones these days, for some reason). If you want to drive in Malacca, be courteous and patient. If you’re on vacation here, there’s even less reason for you to be rushing about. Also, while I’m at it, doing things like taking advantage of an empty lane beside a long line of cars just to cut the queue always disgusts us. Do you do that when you’re queuing in person at a ticket counter or supermarket checkout? It’s just as awful. Stop doing that, fucktards. Get the fuck out of town if you can’t play by our rules.



P.S. The next (or the next next) post will be somewhat related to this one (car and driver related), about how selfish some medical students are in my college. I meant to write about it as a second-parter of this piece but I suddenly felt an urge to go out to a café to read and have a cup of coffee. So next time then.



Malaccan driver,
k0k s3n w4i

The Tranny at the Checkout and the Phone in the Pool

"Don’t do drugs because if you do drugs you’ll go to prison, and drugs are really expensive in prison."

John Hardwick

Last month, I realised that I'm sitting on a big pile of tea leaves I bought from India and I have yet to start drinking any of them. One reason was that I did not own a proper mug big enough for my appetite, and brewing teensy cuppas are not at all labour effective (and I consider any labour from my part to be too valuable to squander so unproductively). I needed one of those big ass bowl mugs that people sometimes eat instant noodles from. D-cups, at the very least.

So, to cut pointless story short, there I was at the checkout counter in the Parkson Grand in Mahkota paying for this nice bowl glazed-ceramic mug I chose and there was this short Malay girl behind the till (who is not the titular tranny, be patient). After handing me my change, she wrapped up my mug with some paper. And then, just as she was reaching for a plastic bag, I remembered just in time to stop her.

"Tak nak plastik," I said. No plastic, please. That's me; responsible citizen of Planet Earth who gives a fuck enough to say three words. Plus, I think I could definitely handle a bit of ceramic walking between the checkout and my car.

She instantly glazed over, and stared confusedly back at me. It's like she's on the verge of spouting some computerised error message; "Does not compute, critical system failure." Shit, I thought I was going to be the first guy ever to get a Microsoft Blue Screen of Death out of a human being.

"Huh," she finally managed.

"Tak nak beg plastik," I repeated and gestured for my paper-wrapped mug. Gimme. I want it to go. I'll eat it while I walk. Chop chop, lady. Ain't got all day.

"Tak boleh!" She was clearly horrified at the thought of me walking out of the store holding my mug in my hand. I don't know - was it one of the signs of Apocalypse? People walking out of stores taking their purchases without their plastic bags? "Store policy," she added triumphantly, as if she just threw a glassful of holy water in my face. She seemed almost disappointed that I did not turn into a screaming cloud of evil and brimstone.

With the air of someone who would not negotiate with terrorists, she dropped my mug into a plastic bag and thrust it at my nose. I gave in, of course. What can a mere customer like me do against the holy commandments of "store policy".

Oh wait, I can stop shopping at the Parkson Grand store - which I did. Suck on my policy, evil corporate entity.

Just yesterday, after realising that soggy tea leaves don't in fact taste very good, I dropped by the Carrefour hypermarket in Pahlawan Megamall for some sort of strainer thingy which I can use to brew tea I can drink without getting mouthfuls tasseographical portents with every sip. In spite being such a big fan of tea, I never have had much hands on experience making the stuff myself so I haven't the slightest idea what I was going to buy. A mini-sieve? A specialised tea funnel with some of those filter paper we use in Chem labs? Empty teabags? Gosh, everyday's an adventure to me!

What I found was this device called a teaball,

"A teaball, you say? Tell me more."

Cutting to the chase, I found myself at a different checkout counter this time which was manned either by two guys, one-and-a-half guys, or just one guy depending on your definition of the word 'guy'. Okay, there were two cashiers at the counter and one of them is a tranny. I wanted to say "tranny who wasn't in character" but I just remembered that the Carrefour crew uniform is unisex. He was, however, wearing more makeup than a Chinese opera trouper at the time. Surprisingly, I do not dislike trannies at all in spite of how much girly lala boys disgust me. Maybe I just don't like half-assed effort.

So as I was saying, the tranny person was doing the bagging while instructing the unambiguously-male cashier on the operation of the cash register. Before I cound even tell, er, her to skip the bagging bit, she actually asked me that on her own volition. Wow, full of surprises in so many ways.

"Nak plastik?" She looked straight at me, waiting for my answer. I admit I was a little taken back - that was the first time any cashier or bagger in Malaysia asked me that. Then again, maybe it was just the intensity of her "don't judge me" stare - or at least, what I imagined to be a "don't judge me stare." If I'm a tranny, that's probably how I'll look at everyone. With poisonous daggers of hurt from a lifetime of prosecution out of my eyeballs, yo.

"Tak nak," I answered, and she handed me my tea ball, my packet of Ricola and my receipt. I walked away feeling cheerful for some reason. I mean, I don't know whether she was really thinking for the environment or merely has a dislike of wastage (I'm not discounting the possibility of an enlightened store policy here), but it made me feel good thinking that there is at least one cashier out there who would regularly give customers a chance to reject the use of plastic bags. Our society is horribly backwards when it comes to environmental issues. I had a friend who was behind me at a checkout line once in the Jusco supermarket who praised me for my initiative in rejecting plastic usage, but accepted a plastic bag regardless when his turn came (he only bought like some candies, by the way). We need all the training wheels we can get.

Oh, and regarding the other half of the title of this post,

I went swimming with Sanjeev last week at my college's pool (yes, we got a pool - and a sauna too!) and I dove right into the water with my cellphone still in the pocket of my shorts. Also, I swam an entire lap before realising it. Who da man? I da man!

Right before I start my second lap, my gut instinct kicked in. Quite calmly, as if this has happened to me a million times before, I reached into my pocket and pulled my phone out of the water. The LCD screen light was flickering and a spluttering static noise was clearly audible. I deftly popped the back and snapped the battery out onto the poolside. Then, I disassembled the whole thing and left the pieces there to dry - but to be honest, my heart wasn't really in it. It wasn't like a dunk and pull, you know. I swam a fucking lap with it. RIP, phone. It's been swell and all.

I did bring the bits back with me though. Sanjeev told me to try airing it with a hairdryer but again, I didn't think it was worth the bother - false hopes, disappointments and whatnot. I left it on my dresser and went to bed.

And the next morning, my cellphone came back to life - with absolutely no loss of function or memory to boot!

"Noli me tangere."

How's that for a ringing endorsement for Nokia? They built these babies like rocks. I dropped this one nonchalantly like all the time and every single time I did, people around me gasped in horror. Then, I'd hear regretful mutterings from them like "Gone" or "Finish" from them. It's like a gavel rap of a confirmed death sentence or something. It's broken for good. Kaput. Kerplunk. But each time, I'd just pick up my phone and put it back in my pocket without even bothering to check if it's still working. I never felt the need to because it's always still working no matter how many times I dropped it.

Of course, this just shows how flimsy everyone else's phones really are.

Considering how confident I am about the sturdiness of Nokia phones, it's amazing that mine can still surprise me. I still remember when I bought it in India,

"Give me the cheapest, most durable Nokia you got," I said.

The dealer put this pathetic, toy-like phone on the counter.

"Okay, give me something slightly more expensive."

The dealer took out something less tacky.

"Now, a little bit more expensive..."

The dealer then took out this baby and I bought it on the spot, without even bothering to check what functions it has. What? Don't everyone buy phones this way?

I'm not crazy about those hybrid phones that has a high end digital camera, an MP3 player, GPS and a lightsaber beam emitter built into them. To me, hybrids are like these pampered quasi-adults who keep changing college, totally unsure of what they want to do in life - trying a bit of everything without being really good at any of them. What I need is a cellphone, and I need my cellphone to be really good at being one - none of that namby-pamby bullshit about malfunctioning after just one drop, especially when I really need to make a call.

And when I first saw the Apple iPhone, the first thing which came to my mind was "One-drop-insta-kill". Plus, I wouldn't know what to do with a touchscreen. I can see myself compulsively wiping it every second, and agonising over every hairline scratch. That's not for me - I don't want to be my phone's bitch. I want my phone to be my bitch, just like how God intends.

I shall henceforth call my phone 'Lazarus', y'know, to commemorate its ressurection. It's not my first pick, but I think people might just get a wee bit touchy if I call it 'Jesus'. Can you imagine me going, "Wait, Jesus is ringing!" or "Whoops, I dropped Jesus down the stairs!" No sirree, I'll stick to Lazarus.

"I put Lazarus on snooze, LOL."



P.S. Hey, hey, what's in a name, eh? Like half the blokes in Mexico are named Jesus anyway.



Owner of Lazarus,
k0k s3n w4i