stolen colours

Today was the last day of our GP posting at the Novena area, so Penance and I took the chance to further our food conquest. Lunch was a cheap affair at this eatery selling prawn noodles, economy rice and curry rice. It’s at Goldhill Plaza, the row facing United Square. I liked the prawn noodles.

We had dessert at Al Forno Trattoria at Goldhill Plaza. Penance just wanted to try the tiramisu since he’d read good reviews of it in the papers. The restaurant is small and cosy, but it’s quite pricey. We sat by the window, told the waitress we were just ordering dessert, and she said, “Let me guess, the tiramisu?” Well, and coffee to go with it, too.

We were pleasantly surprised when served bruschetta even though we’d only ordered tiramisu and coffee. The tomatoes were cold, which Penance liked. Well, I don’t think it’s easy to go wrong with this appetiser.

The tiramisu was extremely creamy and has just a touch of liquer and coffee (I couldn’t taste either), and very little sponge. I didn’t like it only because it was so creamy, but maybe that’s the way tiramisu is meant to be. Price: $11. When we asked for the bill, the manager asked us how we liked it, and said that it’s one of the best in the Asia Pacific, and that it’s very different from the tiramisu you get elsewhere in Singapore. “Too much like cake,” he explained.

We got biscuits from Harrods for the GPs.

Right, enough of food talk.

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My GP posting somehow comprises chit-chat sessions and good lunches. We don’t get to see a lot of patients; few children and no elderly. It didn’t help that it rained today, so there were only 2.5 patients in the afternoon. The 0.5 patient comes from a guy who went to the counter to get a new tube of cream and told the receptionist to “ask the doctor to come outside, look at my skin and see if I need to continue with the cream.” Thus bypassing the consultation fee. Kiam siak, he was an expatriate to boot.

I like chatting with the lady locum a lot. She’s youngish, so we can relate to her, but she’s still old enough to teach and advise. I’m glad she’s there most of the time compared to our assigned GP. In the clinic we talk about medical stuff, career options, horror stories of the houseman years, and other unrelated things. Like where to find good Japanese food, haha. Penance and I had set lunch at Matsuo Sushi yesterday – luckily, because the set lunch was sashimi, eel and tamago on rice. We left just before she got there with her husband. Matsuo Matsuo Matsuo! I forgot that I brought my camera along.

The more I stick around, the more I think I’m really going to become a GP. I guess my life’s been smooth ever since I was born. Born into a middle class family, Father being a doctor and Mother being a homemaker, got into good schools all the way, wanted to be a doctor myself, got into medical school, having the option of taking over Father’s clinic. Several more years before I’ll be unleashed onto the community! Haha. I want to get out of the wards as soon as possible after graduation; only thing is, non-ward-based specialties are likely VERY sedentary, except for Emergency Medicine. Well, while my peers are looking for jobs now,

I don’t know what to do with my room. There’s a lot of junk that I don’t know how to organise. *goes off to play computer games*

I’m currently addicted to Nobuta wo Produce and am now at the 6th episode. I really like Akira. Shuji is okay. Nobuta is okay. I like Bando. And I like the Destiny twins, the vice principal and the owner of the bookstore. Don’t you think Shuji’s girlfriend looks like Jolin Tsai? But I think Bando’s the best-looking. It’s been quite a while since I watched dorama; didn’t realise how much I missed the understatement of the quieter moments, and the hilarious manga-inspired quirks.

I’m also addicted to Bejeweled 2. After I broke through to Level 12 of the Action phase, I gained access to the Hyper phase. I’m now trying to get through Level 11.

Mother’s maternal instincts have kicked in again. A little background: the neighbour’s dog – christened Tiger for some unfathomable reason – usually goes hungry because everyone at home is out and doesn’t bother to put out food for her. The dog’s main caregiver is now in Australia, and her brother is out all day, and her mother stays at her aunt’s and only comes home on weekends. Hence Mother has started feeding the Tiger. She’s discovered that Tiger likes wholemeal bread (that’s why my loaf keeps disappearing these days), so I can happily eat the crust – my favourite part – and give the rest to the dog. Mother’s also been to the chicken rice stall to get leftover bones and meat without a price for the poor canine. I think Mother likes her new pet, especially since she doesn’t have to clean up after it, unlike her biological offspring.

In the midst of clearing up my room, I found some old songs and started listening properly to Snow Patrol. I know rie recommended it a long, long time ago, so I downloaded it, but never did sit down to soak in the music. Lyrics to “Run” in the extended link. They’re simple, but they stick.

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I need to learn how to say no. Yesterday I went for my first facial. (I was ensnared one week ago and made to buy a cleanser and sign up for an introductory facial at gunpoint, I swear.) Well, it was an extremely painful affair that took much longer than I expected. For the past few months my skin has been dry half the time, to the extent that it peels. It just so happened that yesterday was a particularly bad face day for me, and all that rubbing that went on left my skin stinging. The beautician couldn’t help exclaiming 太干了！every two minutes while she was squeezing my blackheads. OUCH. That procedure probably puts Brazilian waxing to shame. (Why do I speak of Brazilian waxing? Because people are also shoving flyers into my hands, thankfully they don’t start kidnapping people.) After the whole thing they tried to sell me a package of 10 sessions for $500, but they couldn’t understand “no money no time”. I could almost buy an ipod with that amount. So I went home and surfed for homemade facial recipes, which look more like dessert to me.

[okay rie, you can stop laughing now.]

Hmpf.

Anyway, dinner was at Miss Clarity Cafe, which has been reviewed all over the place recently. They have dinner sets for $8.80, $12.80 and $15.80, which is really affordable considering the quality. They were very busy while we were there, so I’m glad that they get some rest by closing on Sundays.

I had the chicken ballotine, which is chicken thigh stuffed with mushrooms.

Penance’s main course was the mixed grill – cow, chicken, sheep and pig. “Excellent choice!” confided the waiter. Rather barbarian, but it tasted good. It’s a big helping as he couldn’t finish it.

One thing I didn’t quite like about the food was its saltiness, but Penance assured me that I just have faulty tastebuds since the sodium level of the stuff he eats at home is about the same.

The dessert in the set was bread and butter pudding. I haven’t tasted good bread and butter pudding before, but I quite liked this. It wasn’t too sweet, not too dry and not too soft.

Our total bill came up to $24.50.

After that we went to Mt Faber – yes, we were hoping to catch some of you guys there too. There’s this really cool compass rose thing with arrows labelled “Pulau Brani”, “Sentosa”, “Brunei” (huh?) and the like. I don’t know why, but they dumped a ghastly lit-up Merlion statue there as well. We saw more families there than couples, though. Didn’t stay there long because it was awfully humid. The bars there look pretty nice, though. Anyone wants to go? I think we need to spend a minimum amount to go in.

One of my sometimes-flaws is being indecisive. (Another of my sometimes-flaws is being impulsive.)

I have two options:
1. Go for overseas electives
2. Save the money for traveling (assuming that my parents will channel the funds into this if I do local electives. Of course I’ll deplete my savings and they’ll top up a little.)

Right now I’m 20% for the first choice and 80% for the second choice.

What am I going to do for this year’s June break? I have no idea. I have no traveling partners. I haven’t been to Europe or the States before, which is understandable considering how much flying there alone costs.

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It’s the start of the Family Medicine posting i.e. what I’ll most probably end up doing as a profession, unless I find a specialty I love so much that I don’t mind doing ward rounds and night calls for it.

Monday was a series of boring lectures and tutorials carried out by the COFM people. Even the hefty lecture notes are stapled at the sides with coloured cover pages, and full of prose with no grammatical errors. It’s a bit too much COFM for me, really; since January we’ve had COFM posting, COFM exams and now Family Medicine.

Tuesday was supposed to be an attachment at the GP clinic, but my GP tutor arranged for a tutorial in the morning as he wouldn’t be going to the clinic that day. (We later found out that he was post-call from the Emergency Department at TTSH! Oh dear.) So we just went through the various aims of the posting, listened to a monologue on bad government policies and so-called subsidies, and tried a few scenarios. “READ UP,” he commanded. We watched V for Vendetta in the afternoon.

Wednesday, i.e. today, was finally spent down at the GP clinic. The locum there was a youngish woman doctor whom I really liked. She made us clerk every case that came in – thankfully the clinic wasn’t crowded, and she took really thorough histories. I realised that I lost whatever clerking and physical examination skills I had because my last real clerking experience was in early December. Missed out so many things to ask in history; and I really wasn’t used to asking the extra stuff that GPs ask. And gosh… she asked me to take blood for this guy, who had von Willebrand factor deficiency to boot. I flubbed it up, got more air in the syringe than blood, bleh. I never thought it would be hard to emphathise with patients, especially since I’m female, but when I was frantically thinking of what questions to ask next and what questions I’d missed out, I actually found that I wasn’t devoting brainpower to picking up and processing body language cues.

There was time between patients, so we chatted a lot with the GP. Female GPs are in demand now, goody; maybe not so in my time since they’ve increased the intake of female students over the years. So far, I like the primary contact that GPs have with patients. They see people who happen to be sick, rather than bednumbers patients. No ward rounds, no night calls. The cases are simpler, but we didn’t see much today, though we got a good spectrum.

The GP’s husband (working in a nearby hospital) picked us up during the lunch break. They treated us to lunch at Book Cafe (their favourite cafe) at Robertson Quay. It was really nice of them. So I took photos of our food, as usual:

My lunch: mushroom and cheese focaccia. I like focaccias and I like mushrooms.

Penance’s meal at Book Cafe: Turkey with egg white and avocado on wholemeal bread.
If you order their sandwiches, you get a choice of salad or wedges as a side.

I think I spent the last day of my holiday rather fruitfully, though the middle of it was a beautiful example of how everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

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I had lunch at Waraku (East Coast) today with a few friends. Since we were waiting for one who was really late, we decided to order some sides. (Oh, the waiter was really adorable, he told us “this one popular, this one not so popular…” when we told him our initial choices) We ended up with fried salmon with cheese (ARGH my nemesis) and salmon on WHY LEAF NEVER BURN. We were all very tickled by “WHY LEAF NEVER BURN”, it has this tone of anguish that only Singlish can convey.

The last person arrived, and we ordered sets, which were really quite substantial. (Noodles! and rice in one set! How to finish!) Topped it off with dessert, which was way too sweet.

After that we attempted to finish a 1000piece jigsaw of a Monet painting. I looked at the grass and cried internally. “Impressionist,” we cursed continually.

Went home and watched Ergo Proxy ep 3.

Well, I’ve finished Traveling Light by Katrina Kittle. rie, go read it; you’ll love it.

Now on to Dreamfall, the sequal to Catspaw. To complete my immersion in Cat’s universe, I’ll be trying to get my hands on Psion today. Excuse me if I don’t seem to be online much these days. I haven’t done this much reading for a long while and I really miss it.

Cutting hair later.

Well, shmeen noticed that the entry title of the previous post doesn’t fit in with the alphabetical theme. I forgot about it that time.

What’ve I been doing 6 days into the holiday? I’ve read 2 books, The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult and Catspaw by Joan D. Vinge. Somehow I never did get down to finishing the latter even though I bought it 3 years ago. Now to track down the prequel and sequel in the libraries.

I’ve also watched all of Project Runway season 2, finished America’s Next Top Model season 5, Ergo Proxy, a few more episodes of House and a Muse live.

I’m now cleaning up my room. After which I’ll get started on earrings, hopefully. (You know your room is bad when even your boyfriend shakes his head, sighs deeply and maybe makes a mental note never to visit again.)

I’m now beating the heat with sorbet. How do I make sorbet? I put some grapes in the freezer. It doesn’t work with strawberries because they’re made up of too much water and end up rock hard. Grapes are just nice. Longans work too, but it’s a little difficult to peel off the shell. I haven’t tried oranges yet.

It’s nice to be all alone for a change and partaking in antisocial activities. Even my MSN chatting buddies have changed; I now chat regularly with friends who’ve just finished NS and are making plans to go abroad holidaying. It’s so hot that I’ve no intention to venture outside. Penance is in Brisbane enjoying the cooler weather there, grr.

Back to cleaning up.