Wednesday, March 14, 2012

My Technological Week

"Forget your troubles
Come on get happy
You better chase all your cares away
Shout hallelujah
Come on get happy
Get ready for the judgment day"

Get Happy (1950) by Judy Garland

I heard The Puppini Sisters' version first so I kind of like that better.

You didn't hear from me for awhile now (unless you've been following me on Twitter) because of two reasons. One, I eliminated my laptop in a freak beverage accident. It transpired last Thursday night. I was smack in the middle of a paid leave from work, sipping from an after-dinner Dark and Stormy I made to accompany my movie night. For those who do not imbibe, a Dark and Stormy is highball cocktail made from one part dark rum and two parts ginger beer built on ice, with or without a wedge of lime squeezed in. My personal recipe uses Bacardi Black (because you can't get Gosling's in Kuching) and Fentimans Botanically Brewed Traditional Ginger Beer (because Bundaberg just isn't spicy enough) with half a lime dropped in, unsquished. Also, my Dark and Stormy is more of a Very Stormy Evening actually since I tend to err on the side of ginger beer in order to get the balance of tastes just so.

Anyway, I was tragically overcame by klutziness and knocked my glass over my laptop's keyboard, laying an effervescent waste to the circuitry underneath, which fizzled from the fizz and gave up the machine ghost. I dropped it off at a shelter for homeless computers an ASUS rescue centre, and impulsively bought myself a whole new custom setup with a 24-inch full high-definition LED monitor (they didn't have any 27 inchers in stock) and a 2.1 THX-certified speaker system. The computer itself runs on Intel's Core i5-2500 processor, a GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card, and a Xonar DG from sound card from ASUS including other bits and pieces of high-tech wizardry I will never find the commitment to fully understand. Liberal consultations with a tech-savvy colleague of mine really helped in the shopping process.

The second reason why you haven't been hearing from me is work-related. I just kissed the Surgical Department goodbye and had moved on to my third posting in Internal Medicine. The transition also meant that I am expected to go through a formal "tagging" period where I'm suppose to be at work from 6:00 AM till 10:00PM every day - for ten days - to learn the ropes. That, as you can probably deduce, does not leave me with very much time for leisure.

I was very nearly extended in the Surgical Department (not by my bosses there, but by the hospital admins) for handing in my performance logbook past the deadline. In fact, it was more than three weeks past the deadest line there is and it's not unheard of for house officers to face a month's extension for submitting the pernicious little booklet a couple of days late. I appealed against the penalty by writing a rather intensely-worded letter, and that apparently did the trick. Saved once again by the powers of creative writing!

In other me-related news, I bought myself a new phone - my first ever smartphone, in fact. I ordered it online and some courier bloke delivered it to me at my workplace yesterday. I'm incredibly resistant to new technology but I cannot logically ignore the progress of humanity anymore. Anyway, it's the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and I'm currently reprogramming my muscle memory around fingering a touchscreen, which is difficult after a lifetime of button-pushing with reliable tactile feedbacks. These days, a man's worth is not measured by what information he can retain in his head but rather by what information he can readily access anytime, anywhere. Welcome to a world of extelligence and the Google effect. I have long considered certain domains of the internet, like this blog for example, as an extension of my personality, memory and self. Getting a smartphone is simply the closest I can fuse these virtual appendages to myself before cybernetic neural implants hit the consumer market. Then, my apotheosis would be complete.



P.S. I have a new phone number, by the way.



More extelligent than ever,
k0k s3n w4i

3 comments:

Bianca said...

lol this post made me laugh. in the last many weeks i was tempted to post some comforting words after the past few posts but you're so eloquently using your blog as a therapeutic outlet, i'm sure you'll get well soon :) but this post made my morning. what DID you put in your letter? what would be the reason for your 3-weeks later than deadiest deadline excuse??

fevrier said...

email new number to me

k0k s3n w4i said...

Bianca: i'm quite well, really. but i've also taken up drinking, so... as for the letter, it's mostly shameless self-promotion. i merely explained to them how i'm a model house officer and subtly suggested that it would be a travesty to punish me. i also spun my tardiness into a positive thing by saying that the reason why i was late was because i wanted to complete the logbook honestly (indirectly suggesting that everyone else didn't). that and i managed to get a specialist i worked for to endorse my appeal, validating everything i wrote.

Beve: done.