Dragon Eyes and Love Fists

Since I find myself running ragged this weekend, lemme give you some updates...

1. Exams suck.

Especially mock ones. Has anyone ever told you guys that?

2. Love hurts.

Unfortunately. No, it doesn't have anything to do with me but someone dear to me has suffered a minor fist in the gut - and I doubt it's gonna be the first. Love hurts, people.


Heartbroken. Sigh.
But it certainly doesn't mean giving up, does it? Easier to bandage up the wound and start afresh after all.

3. Management rules.

Seriously. Let me explain. One of the restaurants that Charming Calvin - aka the ever-lovin Pork Eater - and I love to frequent is a particular chain of Chinese restaurants that feature mini Chinese dumplings in the menu. And a succulent dish that obviously Calvin adores. Me, I prefer crispy carrot pastry and Huang Xiaoming.

There's always been a number listed in their comment card that mentions a person to send a message to improve the services. Since the service on that day was more than excellent - albeit a little juvenile - I wrote immediately to congratulate the management.

To my astonishment there was an almost immediate response from the extremely efficient 'Top Management'! Almost fell into the la mian bowl in surprise but managed to read the extremely enthused reply from an obviously desperately bored and extremely jobless manager locked up someplace in an anonymous cubicle. So terribly thankful that it wouldn't surprise me if they hired Huang Xiaoming to serve me several slices of pork ribs slathered on his naked chest - and a privilege card tucked suggestively into his seductively lowered drawstring pants.

4. Jack's mine!

Placed an order for Dr Jack Shepard. Soon to be MINE!

Till Pork Do Us Part

Warning : A thousand apologies to all those whose delicate sensibilities might be offended by the matter ahead.

Since I had taken off from work - and Charming Calvin had pleaded desperate illness to get the day off ( poor boy was coughing away ) , we managed to share an early breakfast. Calvin's usually the quiet, unobtrusive sort who refrains from making sudden inflammatory comments but today during our impromptu breakfast, he blurted out a surprising pearl of wisdom.

Share pork with someone you love.

Stared at him in consternation for at least ten seconds before I was able to digest what he said. Assumed he was joking since there was that glint of quiet humour in his eyes but it could just be the light refracting from the shiny teacups.

Seriously. I have no idea what came over his mind while he was saying that. Perhaps it's an old ancient Chinese idiom that cropped up during the Period of Six Squabbling Nations and Dirty Autumn when the King of Wei made nefarious plans to infiltrate the lair of the Hui, the hunky butcher. Or perhaps it was the amount of cholesterol-laden pig lard ( aka dim sum ) that was percolating around in Calvin's veins that clogged up the functions of his poor brain :)

Still it got me thinking about certain relationships that had fizzled out due to certain warring ideologies or differing cultures - and believe it or not, even pork-eating habits. Don't get me wrong. I love my delicious pork ribs but I'm certainly not gonna dump Brandon Routh if he told me he's strict vegetarian. Come on, we're not talking about total opposites such as a hyperactive, gun-toting redneck with a penchant for Metallica and burning the tails of dead cats and a peace-loving, plant-loving Brahmin who worships Enya - and even then I'm sure they can work out some sort of truce.

It's just food, people.


You'd dump me because I don't take pork?
Food taboos certainly don't faze me. After all, I've gone through my own particularly idiotic potato / yam phase so I do understand that all of us have our own idiosyncrasies ( and for some of us, strict religious don'ts that forbid certain foods ). Although I adore crabs, shells and prawns ( despite a patent disability when it comes to dismantling the parts ), Charming Calvin has a serious, inexplicable aversion to seafood but that certainly doesn't mean I'm gonna dump him by the wayside just because he can't get it on with a crab claw. After all, I certainly didn't run screaming when Big Bicep Barry produced his sickly green alfalfa-cucumber-rawegg protein crap ( although I did feel a mite nauseous ) and that had to be the worst ever.

Although I'm certain there are certain habits that I'd find damnably irritating and near impossible to live with ( such as a tittering crystal-breaking cackle for a laugh ), I hope that I'm tolerant enough to accept certain sociocultural habits and practices that have been ingrained into my future partner.

Or at least grit my teeth and hold my tongue :P

The Mockingbirds

My deep, sincere loathing ( and deep-seated fear ) of exams should be quite apparent by now from my previous posts. Quite obvious also that the wily ancient Chinese must have invented this as a subtle form of mental punishment centuries ago - possibly in a bid to drive all the poor deluded barbarian infidels insane.

Ever since we took our first tentative steps into primary school, we have been practically snowed in with neverending tests, evaluations and exams. Barely a month went by without a stern teacher shoving a stack of blank sheets in our astonished faces demanding answers. With the sheer volume of exams questions thrown at us, is it any wonder that we're heartily sick of the system by the time we're in our late teens?

On the last day of medical school, I finally heaved a sigh of relief - and after the ritual burning of all my horrific lecture notes, I naively assumed that I'd never see the door of the examination hall ever again.

Obviously I was a little premature in that hope.

And now they have to introduce mock exams for us poor buggers over here. Why the hell do we need mock exams? Seriously. Isn't the killing stress at work enough to drive us to drink?


Exams. Sigh.Hyperactive, obsessive doctors would surely enjoy the challenge ( and the hidden threat of young hypertension ) but for me, I never could see the point of mock exams. If there's an excellent pass with flying colours, it certainly doesn't mean a definite pass in the real exams - while a fail would only make us all dispirited prior to the real event ( and prompt aspiring physicians to attempt possibly fatal bungee jumps without the safety cords ).

Maybe they just enjoy mocking us. :)

Don't Leave a Light On

One of the things I'm always reminded of by my well-meaning ( though occasionally naggy about my sad lack of partners of the feminine persuasion ) mother is to marry someone who can understand the eccentric vagaries of my job. After all, it does take quite a guy to tolerate the odd unsociable hours, the frequently missed appointments and the ever-changing mood swings.

Hear that, Calvin? :) Consider that a blanket apology early on in the relationship though I have to admit I'm thankfully not all that prone to the mood swings.


Mood swings? Me?!
I'm the freaking soul of contentment.
It's not easy being married to a harassed doctor - or to anyone else whose lives ( what fucking lives! ) are invariably tied to their work. Certainly an ongoing problem that features prominently on many of the medical dramas that I'm such an avid fan of ( just so addictive watching someone else sweat and stumble at work for a change ). Think House. Think Grey's Anatomy. Think ER. Think about it, do these insane workaholics ever seem to leave the hospital?

Still, I do try my best to sympathize with their loved ones for putting up with such unfortunate circumstances. There are a rare few though that I find impossible to understand - such as the infamous Adele Webber, the long-suffering virago / wife of the Surgical Chief of Seattle Grace. Making her tempestuous way into the corridors of the imaginary hospital, the lady rants and rages over the unreasonable hours he spends there.

I never get it. Seriously. You marry the guy knowing his job sucks, his hours suck and then you complain incessantly that he doesn't pay enough attention? Sorry, darlin, you made your choice, you bought the entire package knowing what's in store for you so you get no pity points from me.

All I wanna do is smack Adele around. No doubt she's entitled to give the man lots of grief over his torrid little affair ( you all know how me and my sharp little scalpel feel about infidelity, right? ) but to rile at him over his job? Why marry him then? You want a guy who has all the time in the world to pay attention? Get yourself hitched to a struggling, penniless poet. Makes me wonder exactly what the shrew was thinking when she married him. Did she seriously think the man would change? A hyper Type A personality who's meticulous, obsessive and ambitious simply isn't going to walk away from the job while he's cruising at the top.

Let's face it. Never could understand what exactly makes them tick but some maniacal guys ( with me as the exception ) are just plain married to their work - they live work, they eat work, they breathe work - and if you didn't see it from the beginning, you were just awfully blinded by love.

So please don't leave a light on for the insane lil buggers - the bulb's jes gonna burn out that way.

Raise the Red Lantern

Rigid traditionalists around the world love to mope and moan over the gradual erosion of cultural traditions and ancient festivals under the relentless tsunami waves of globalization. Takes a lot to withstand the brainwashing powers of MTV and McDonald's after all - and obscure traditional practices are being slowly swept away by the more prevalent media-friendly Western culture.

Surprisingly there is one cultural festival over here that actually seems to be getting larger and more prominent with time. Not sure exactly what's been driving this peculiar phenomenon but I suspect it's a diabetic conspiracy hatched by the nefarious sugar manufacturers.

Years back, I could just recall a handful of red lanterns and several half-eaten mooncakes commemorating the occasion - but nowadays everyone seems to be getting on the loony mooncake bandwagon when the autumn equinox approaches. Lanterns and mooncakes flood the streets as prominent restaurants and confectionaries go all out during the ( no doubt lucrative ) Mooncake Festival, touting their various delicacies in the most creative manner.


Little lanterns everywhere!
Oddly enough while almost everyone celebrates the spirit of the season, no one's really all that sure of the actual date of the event. There's a vague sense of the festival approaching with the ubiquitous mooncakes making their presence felt but by then, everyone's already too busy rhyming verses by moonlit rivers to care about the actual date. No doubt the combination of the free-flowing wine and the sugar-rich mooncakes helps in the creative writing process.

Of course not all of us are aspiring poets who pen sentimental stanzas after the inevitable alcohol / sugar rush and there are some who invariably insist on putting their own unconventional spin on the festivities.

Paul : What are you gonna be doing this Mooncake festival?
ISO : Clubbing.
Paul : What? What does that have to do with the festival?
ISO : Everything. Trust me. I'll be busy sampling savoury mooncakes and tasting their sweet, delicious filling.
Paul : Seriously. How can you make everything sound filthy and degrading?
ISO : It's a talent we both share.
Unfortunately I can't argue with that.

Still, not everyone's busy gorging themselves on the local fare this auspicious season. Doing his sedate bit to garner business for his ample products, Big Bicep Barry's usually busy mooncake shopping this time of the year.

Paul : Busy distributing mooncakes again?
Barry : Yeah. Gotta placate the loyal clients.
Paul : Sweeten their lips? Do I get some sugar?
Barry : If you are a good boy.
Paul : So are you giving any sugar to Bad-Ass Brenda?
Barry : You've gotta be kidding. Brenda is not getting any mooncake of mine!
Paul : Glad you don't hand your mooncakes around indiscriminately then.
Barry : Are we still talking about the same thing?
Not sure what I'm gonna be doing on that day but the alcohol bit is starting to
sound good. Wonder what Charming Calvin is up to on that night.