Spontaneity

"You think too much. No one ponders about life and its meaning as much as you do. You are too rational. You insist on reasoning everything out before doing anything. Most people just live, you know - hang out, have fun, be successful, those kind of things. Don't you ever act on impulse, on a whim, or on your feelings? You aren't spontaneous. You aren't spontaneous at all."

"I'm spontaneous," I protested. "Remember our first kiss?"

I was smiling on my end of the line when I said that - not that she could see it. I guess it's one of those gestures that just matters even when they don't.

"That," she said, "Was a long time ago."

P.S. That rather poignant snippet was taken way out of context from a hilarious phone conversation we had yesterday. And we were actually talking about cockroaches.

EAT DA POO POO

"Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law."

The Consolation of Philosophy (524)
by Boethius, Christian philosopher

The following video is the heart and subject of this article and if you choose not to watch it, all of the following text you read here will not be terribly meaningful to you. Be warned because the video will disgust you; and depending on what you are disgusted by precisely, I shall know what sort of human being you are,

"As Africans, we want to ask Barack Obama to explain to us: is this what he wants
to bring to Africa as a human right to EAT DA POO POO OF OUAH CHILDREN!?" LOL.

It's okay to laugh. I laughed my shit out the first time I saw it.

The excitable firebrand talking in the video calls himself Pastor "Dr" Martin Ssempa, which I must stress is not a medical doctor. I feel the need to do so because this foul breed of alleged Christians love to use their stupid, worthless biblical doctorates to lend themselves an air of legitimacy and authority. He is an odious, odious little man who is at the forefront of the anti-homosexual detractivism in Uganda, a country quite infamous for its harsh criminalisation of same-sex relationships. I'm talking of up to 14 years of imprisonment here; a crazy long time to be put away. The atmosphere of civil and human rights on the African continent is a suffocating breathe - this is a place where despicable Christian and Muslim men would inflict "corrective rape" on lesbians in attempts to cure them of their homosexuality. You might remember the chilling murder of Eudy Simelane who was gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in her face, chest and legs two years ago; all for being a lesbian and an equal rights campaigner.

She's certainly cured of homosexuality now alright.

In March last year, a trio of widely discredited American evangelical Christian kooks landed on Ugandan soil and preached to thousands of Ugandans about the "hidden and dark [gay] agenda", and that "the gay movement is an evil institution" which aims "to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity." And the three rabble-rousing gits made these fantastic claims without having a single shred of evidence to back them up, of course.

Their misleading, hateful and bigoted talks - in which one guy even asserted that homosexuality is akin to child molestation and bestiality - led directly to the genesis of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill in April 2009 which will introduce the DEATH PENALTY to homosexuals arrested by the state. Allow me to reiterate: they are ready to FUCKING MURDER people for being what they are, for committing a victimless crime and for falling in love with someone who just happens to be a member of their own gender. I ask, at which point in time did unusual pairings become more deplorable than taking another person's life?

This is the brand of Christianity that Martin Ssempa engenders. He is one of the bill's staunchest advocates. By his own admission, he also enjoys "researching" scat porn in his leisure time. I have this creepy feeling that the "gay" porn he showed to his audience (and also thrust into the bishop's face, haha) in the video above actually came from his own private collection.

The pastor doth protest too much, methinks.

He's wearing that intense expression on his face because he is POO POO'ing in some other bloke's mouth.

What more, he's a liar. Surprise, surprise!

The practices of FEESTING, ANAL LEACKING and EATING DA POO POO are NOT exclusively homosexual behaviour; I've personally seen anilingus and vaginal fisting in heterosexual porn. Neither are these acts as commonly practiced between homosexual couples as Martin Ssempa wants you and his brain-dead flock of sheeples to believe. Scatophilia and coprophagy in particular, are particularly rare paraphilias in themselves and a 1999 Finnish study published in the Journal of Sex Research found no statistically significant difference between homosexual (17%) and heterosexual (18%) sadomasochist males when it comes to dabbling in the brown arts.

So yeah, it's scientifically documented that straight dudes also EAT DA POO POO ALL OBAH DA PLASE.

Quickly, someone must inform Martin Ssempa about this so he can help draft a legislation against heterosexuals too - and kill the fuck out of everyone.

And so what if two consenting adults of the same sex make love or eat each others poop? They are not hurting anyone, aren't they? Also, I think you must really, really love someone to be willing to eat that person's poop (girls, faster go ask your boyfriends if they love you enough to eat your poop). Still, in my capacity as a medical student, I feel that it is my duty to inform everyone that chowing down on another person's shit, whether you are straight or gay, is generally considered to be a Bad Idea.

As a message to my Christian friends and readers: pastors, preachers and priests often tell filthy lies to further their agendas of discrimination and intolerance, so I urge caution when listening to the messages they try to pass on to you. I have personally seen it in action. Right now, Martin Ssempa is spreading falsehoods with the authority of God behind him and sanctioning murder in Jesus' name in Uganda. What are all you enlightened, loving, moderate Christians going to do about it?

Nothing, I bet.



Now, to end this post on a lighter note, watch this Auto-Tune remix of the above video. This is why I love, love, love the internet,

"Like ice-cream! Like ice-cream!" So freaking... catchy! Must... dance!

Read also: Why We Should Accept Gay People, an older post of mine which defended homosexuality.



He who pooh-poohs religious nuts,
k0k s3n w4i

This Blog Received International Recognition

"And it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing — writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology."

Simon Dumenco

If you only read the first two sentences of this quote, it sounds kinda Zen.

Sort of.

I just took a peek into my Gmail account a few minutes ago (which I am known to do twice or thrice a year) and saw an interesting e-mail in my inbox, nestled awkwardly amongst all the garbage I receive on a daily basis from every website I have ever registered in.

It was from a Todd L who may or may not be the same Todd L who has been sending me Viagra, penile enlargement drugs/devices and underage pornography spam all these long, weird years in which I've apparently been battling erectile dysfunction, struggling with small penis syndrome and wrestling with my inner paedophiliac demons - all at the same time. This time, Todd L appears to have abandoned his sinister cabal of internet spammers and came to me with a message from the Medical Insurance blog. Here is the aforementioned e-mail,

I just wanted to let you know that we featured your web site in our latest article entitled: "42 Medical Blogs Written Entirely by Med Students".

You can see it here: http://www.medicalinsurance.org/42-medical-blogs-written-entirely-by-med-students/

Feel free to let your readers know about the mention, we'd greatly appreciate a link back!

Also, we'll be promoting the article on twitter today as well as a number of other social media sites in order to drive traffic to it. Any support is appreciated.

Thanks!
Todd L

The link he provided whisked me off to this post,

I dig how I'm associated with Harvard in this (however tenuous that association might be).

It took me a few good moments for me to spot my own blog on the list because they have prudishly prudently decided to not mention it by name, not that I blame them. Anyway, I'm number 38 and my entry reads;

Malaysian Med Student: This blog is maintained by a med student from Malaysia.

Haha, "maintained". It's like I'm a janitor who occasionally sweeps the place and takes out the trash or something.

On a much more serious note, I don't think I should be on that list at all. k0k bL0k is in no way, in any stretch of the imagination, in this life or the next, a medical blog. I am a blogger and an aspiring writer who just happens to be a medical student; an unfortunate circumstance which I feel is far too late in the game to rectify, what with me a final year prentice physician now. More pertinently, I also actively avoid writing about my grueling, purgatorial medical school experiences as much as possible because I "maintain" this blog as an escape from it - and because writing about med school is what pretty much every blogging medical student out there on the interblag does. I refuse to allow medical academia to consume whatever precious little free time it left me with.

I am a man of many passions. I am a wannabe author, a geek, a bibliobibulus, a cinephile, a foodie, a travel junkie, an animal lover, an environmentalist, a science advocate, a human rights and free speech activist, an outspoken atheist, and an armchair philosopher - in no particular order. I am an epicurean hedonist, a person in a deep, drunken love affair with Life and her Pleasures. I am all of the above first and a med school student last.

Still, I can't say I did not get a kick out of the mention in that Medical Insurance post. Never have I imagined that anyone who's building a multinational list of half a hundred examples of a blogging niche would consider my crummy little online journal to be worth an include. And it sounds like I'm representing the entire population of Malaysian medical students in it.

So get down on your knees and worship me, medicos. 'Tis I, your king in repose.



Executive editor of this blog,
k0k s3n w4i

An Exercise in Screwing The Man

"He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one."

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell

This has been a proper busy week so far and the weekends would be upon us before I can devote some time to penning another opinion piece. So in the meantime, here's the report I was forced to write for my college's academic office detailing my experiences in the elective program I followed during my recent 5 weeks vacation; which just happens to be a thoroughly honest account of events, by the way, or I would not deign to publish it in my blog.

I typed the whole thing in just one hour to meet the deadline while having to meet the stipulated 1000 to 1500 word count. If you know me, you'd know that I generally don't react well to coercion, particularly when it comes to writing. My Ex-Grrrfriend™ can tell you just how difficult it was to persuade me to participate in my college's annual creative writing contest in my 1st Year, just so I can prove to everyone that I'm not a complete good-for-nothing (she likes a boyfriend she can boast about, you see). After we split in the following year, my class rep assumed her mantle and went through the quite troublesome process of getting me to cooperate and win the contest for my batch again - which I did, awesome, handsome and winsome creature that I am. I was also told to contribute articles to my college's newsletter and magazine, but I don't think the editorial body of these publications can stomach my fondness for profanities, my propensity to be brutally honest and my controversial scope of interests anyway so I didn't even bother. I write what I want, when I want, however I want to. An editor, in my humble (haha) opinion, should serve only to streamline my penwork and correct my grammar - not dictate my content.

So yeah, you can read for yourself how gosh darn seriously I took the academic office's instructions. Sic semper tyrannis, biatch,

The following is the report of my four weeks long elective posting in the Orthopaedic Department of the Seberang Jaya Hospital in Seberang Jaya, Seberang Perai (also known as Province Wellesley, which, along with the far more famous and tastier Penang Island, forms the state of Pulau Pinang). This report was written on the order of my college's academic office, the non-compliance of which voids my entire elective posting like it never happened; voids it like how the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s haunting political fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four, operates in censoring the existence of any event which throws the totalitarian governing Party in a bad light. Remember, Big Brother is Always Watching.

The posting spanned a not insubstantial period between the 19th of April and the 14th of May – though arguably, many other medical college prescribe far longer tenures in order to allow their students achieve a much firmer grounding in the inner workings of the hospitals they choose to be posted in. Four weeks only permit a thorough elective experience in a single department – or two at most. I respectfully suggest that our college's administration review this policy and make attempts to extend the allotted elective time-frame for future batches of our student body. On second thought, I think I’ll retract my criticism above. The college’s administrative prerogatives are never wrong. Please remember my constant and unwavering support for the ruling regime if my exam results and academic record ever come under scrutiny.

I reported on a Monday on the 19th, a week later than I hoped to due in part to the incompetence of the clerical staff of the state’s Health Department in handling my application. I left Malacca for Pulau Pinang on the 14th of the same month, and even at that point in time, I have yet to receive the confirmation and approval letter the desk jockey coordinating the state's elective program promised me in one of the numerous phone calls I’ve made to him to hasten the process. A representative of my interests (which is a fancy way of saying 'my dad') had to mail said letter back to Penang to me when it arrived days after my departure. I was quite prepared to march into the Health Department’s office in KOMTAR to retrieve the letter in person and offer the clerk a piece of my mind.

To get back to the fabric of my report; I was given a yellow name tag which identified me as a 'pemerhati' (the Malay word for 'observer') and I despaired because I thought it meant that I would not be allowed to perform or assist in any medical procedures and as a result, accumulate no practical experience from my time in the department - so I pragmatically dropped the tag in my pocket where it did not see daylight till my last day at the hospital. I was also told by the Seberang Jaya Hospital’s administration to report to a medical assistant rather than to a supervising physician – not that I’m implying anything here, no sirree. Medical assistants are as indispensable as doctors in the smooth running of the healthcare machine. And so are nurses. Great people, the lot of them. I positively love them to smithereens. These are my official, on-the-record opinions of these wonderful, wonderful professionals. Anyone who claims otherwise is a dirty liar.

Fortunately, my worst fears came to bear no fruits as I was quickly took under the wings of one of the specialists of the department, an orthopaedic surgeon by the name of Mr Ruban (he hopes to super-specialise in hand surgeries, by the way). He orientated me on the department's schedule and advised me not to come for electives everyday as I might 'burn out', to borrow his vernacular. Naturally, I put his counsel under serious consideration. The many house officers manning the department – spent, dried out husks of former human beings they are – echoed the sentiment and told me that I should spend my one last lengthy holiday in medical academia outside of a hospital. In that first day, I remained unfazed in my flaming and radiant determination to attend almost daily. In that first day.

The department’s timetable – and henceforth, mine – ruled Mondays and Thursdays as clinic days when they attend to outpatients and follow up on previously admitted cases. On Wednesdays and Fridays, the department performs orthopaedic surgeries in one of the hospital’s operating theatres. I said 'one' because it was not a very big hospital and does not have the overwhelming workload of a larger centre. Tuesdays belong to the Bukit Mertajam outpatient clinic and operating theatre, and as my permission letter from the Health Department only covered Seberang Jaya Hospital, I thought it was sensible to sit that day out.

On one of my first days in the outpatient clinic, the Head of Department, Mr Abdul Aziz B. Yahaya M.D. (USM), M.Med. Ortho (USM) sat me in his chair and room, handed me his official rubber stamp, a book of medical certificates for sick leaves, and a prescription book; and told me to see patients in his stead while he make his rounds through all the rooms in the outpatient clinic to better supervise his house and medical officers. Needless to say, it was a prospect both daunting and exciting at the same time. A house officer was assigned to make sure I do not bungle up the case sheet write-ups, the referral forms to physiotherapy, the prescriptions and the radiological orders – but I was pretty much left to sink or swim on my own when it comes to taking a patient’s history and performing physical examinations. Luckily, I was fresh out of passing my Phase 2 Stage 1 Examination and much of my theoretical and practical knowledge in the discipline of Orthopaedics was still retained in my memory – and any case which was too complicated or advanced for me to handle, I consulted Mr Aziz, who was more than happy to guide me.

I was told by the house officers that the Head of Department spoke favourably of me in one of their meetings, saying that I was an exemplary medical student. I doubt I deserve such a high praise but nevertheless, it encouraged me to help staff the outpatient clinics on most subsequent clinic days - particularly on the days the Head of Department is present to maintain his excellent impression of me. I strongly believe that our college's curriculum can benefit greatly from adopting a similar strategy in our training program. It is a very expedient method in forcing medical students to quickly learn their subjects while cultivating an enthusiastic attitude towards performing the duties expected of a house officer, which they will all assume in due time - lest they drop out of med school and become pharmacological company representatives instead, of course.

I was also taught the correct way to write a certificate of medical leave by a staff nurse – a truly essential skill to learn, to be sure.

On the so called 'OT' days, I was given free rein to walk in and out of the operation theatre and observe any surgery which takes my fancy. I was even furnished with the security password to the operating theatres, a secret I will never betray to anyone; not even under the threat and pain of death. The pristine, aseptic environment of the OT in Seberang Jaya Hospital must be zealously and jealously defended.

On one of my lasts days, my batchmate (Ms Ooi Min Ming, who was also in the same program) and I decided to thank the entire department for their guidance and patience with us by buying them a huge cake. It was a Mille Crêpe; a French cake made up of many layers of crêpe interposed with luxuriant French vanilla cream. Unfortunately, there was only enough cake for the specialists, medical officers and housemen so we ate it secretly in one of the meeting rooms in case the nurses and medical assistants go "Hey, where’s our cake?!" It certainly didn’t help that a lot of the hungry, deprived house officers devoured more than one slice each.

The cake, I am happy to report, was delicious.

I completed my elective program on the 14th of May with enviable commendations from the Head of Department who gave me the maximum score of 5 ('excellent') on every parameter in the evaluation report's checklist, except knowledge and skills for which he awarded me 4 ('good'). His rationale was that a medical student shouldn't get any higher than that, and only a MO or a specialist should score 5's for those. He also wrote in the comment/suggestion section: 'Hardworking and [a] good student. Wishing him [a] good future.' I have attached said evaluation form to this report, so no one can say I am talking through my hat. This report is 1490 (1000-1500) words long, as mandated by the academic office.

Muchas gracias.

And I nearly included this picture of a slice of Mille Crêpe in my report too.

P.S. If you're interested in getting in on some Mille Crêpe action yourself, here's how to get some. The talented confectioner behind it, Amos Chong, used to operate out of Malacca's Nadeje Patisserie but have since left the establishment and went on to spread the gospel of his fucktastic french cake to Penang (island and mainland), Johor Bahru, KL and PJ. As for me, I've instituted a boycott of Nadeje 2 years ago (which I'm currently still sticking to) after they started this breathtakingly stupid policy of not allowing customers to dine-in if they refuse to also order any of their ridiculously expensive beverages along with their slice of Mille Crêpe - which Nadeje still serve, but theirs is generally considered to be inferior to Amos'.



Unshackled,
k0k s3n w4i

Book Shopping Friday

"There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book; books are well written or badly written."

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) by Oscar Wilde

On Wesak Day last Friday, I made my way up to KL to cross out a few titles of my 2010 book list at my favourite bookstore, KLCC's Kinokuniya. Ms Kino and I have a tempestuous relationship, but we've alway kissed and made up after every fight.

Anyway, these were my purchases,

Stacks of things always make me happy; books, pancakes, bacon...

This was pretty much the only time I managed to get so many of the books I've wanted (with my preferred covers to boot) right off the shelves. Usually, I have to resort to placing a special order and returning a month or two later to retrieve the goods, and everyone knows how much I detest driving up to our crime-ridden, semi-perpetually jammed capital city with its labyrinthine road system and its absurd parking charges

For the sake of documentation, I bought,

1. Anathem by Neal Stephenson.
2. Od Magic by Patricia A. McKillip
3. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
4. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
   
5. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
6. Kraken by China Miéville

Except the last two, I've written briefly on why I wanted these books in my book list. Kraken was a later addition to the lot because I only found out about it literally hours after I wrote the post - and the only reason I need for me to buy a new China Miéville book without checking its reviews out first is... Hello? it's China fucking Miéville!

The new Philip Pullman book, however, flew completely under my radar. While I enjoyed the heck out of the first two books of his His Dark Materials trilogy, I fear that this new offering from him would be bogged down by more of the same problems that The Amber Spyglass had (it was overburdened by his godless polemics, if you must know). He's a bit of a provocateur, I think, and as big a flaming atheist I may be, I don't think I would enjoy reading specialty atheist books - partly because I do not want other people's philosophies and opinions to blend with mine too much. Believe it or not, I have never touched the works of Dawkins, Hitchens or any of the other celebrity "new atheism" authors to date.

But get this; the book was shiny!

"Like whoaaa..."

"This is a story," it insisted on the back in the same gilded letters emblazoned across the front. It's a "what if" tale, in the grand tradition of fantasy novels and I must admit that the premise intrigued me very much; what if Jesus had an evil twin brother named Christ? It is, as I was led to understand, a retelling of the gospels from that simple seed of a blasphemous idea. I might review it if it grew into anything good.

Besides, it came with a not insubstantial discount,

There's that fine print, of course.

Tender Morsels, Kraken and Pullman's book all carried the 20% discount sticker and what more, the latter two were trade paperbacks! I got them for almost the standard price of mass paperbacks (which are still quite prohibitively pricey according to most folks' standards). Fuck the petrol, flour and rice subsidies. What we need to do is subvent more of our government funds into books, books, books. Do you know how poorly read and unlettered the average Malaysian is? There were people who asked me if Tolkien's novelisation of The Lord of the Rings movies is any good. Face meets palm.

By the way, the only other overtly Christian fantasy novels I've read were C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters and that famous absurdist biographical tale of the Nazarene's life, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore (a baptised Methodist, by the way) which attempted hilariously to account for the Joshua's "lost" years which spanned from his childhood to the establishment of his ministry. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a well-developed sense of humour, which is a much rarer faculty of cognition than most people expect.

In other news, I got also bought half a dozen cupcakes from the new bisou outlet at KLCC for Phoebs (who happened to have been around for the weekend) and family,

I really wanted to try the black sesame one but, oh well.

Afterwards, Phoebs and I met up with Jen and her boyfriend, David, for lunch at The Pink Sage Diner in Solaris Dutamas which I've been dying to check out after reading her review of the place. And thanks for the Glee folder, Jen! I'd put a picture of it here but Phoebs have already absconded back to Penang with it, lips sucking Puck's face like an octopus all the way.

Oh look, it's 5:43 am. Maybe I can catch an hour's sleep before drifting into the surgical ward like the morning time zombie I usually am, but I doubt it; it takes far too freaking long for me to lull myself to sleep. Good morning and good bye, y'all.



Booked for the next couple of months,
k0k s3n w4i