I want my l-

"I want my lung. Dr Altman, I'm big. Too big. I don't fit in airplane seats and as Jeff is always telling me, my feelings don't always fit the situation. If my food is overcooked at a restaurant, I get enraged. I want to kill the waiter. But I don't. ...I spend my days making myself smaller, more acceptable. And that's okay, because at night, when I go onstage, I get to experience the world the way I feel it. Indescribable rage, and unbearable sadness, and huge passion. At night, on stage, I get to kill the waiter and dance on his grave . And if I can’t do that, if all I have is left is a life of making myself smaller, then I don’t want to live. I don’t."

- Singer with lung mesothelioma, Grey's Anatomy Season 6, Ep 12

Is it wrong that I can identify with that sentiment? A little too much.

A little bit of bliss, a little bit of pain

From the movie Whip It, which, along with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Juno and 500 Days of Summer, represents a growing genre of Indie-type movie which I am just beginning to get acquainted with, and just beginning to love.

Tea(escapes

Will you take my hand and step in

to the past with me through

an open door

an open window

into sepia-ed tones (warm, worn hardwood

of faded stars gone by

into another land

into another time where

the whole world seems to fade away...

except you and me and yesterday -

Lets sip on cups of tea and swirl

the cinnamon crème-d foam

and watch it luxuriate

into perfect globs of effervescent

conversational catalysts

and let the warmth slide into us (undiminished.

although it's chilly out, we are

in oblivion) Music interjects

in scratchy tones

in soothing, dulcet croons -

the familiarity of it all permeating,

reminiscing, pondering,

communicating.

Will you sit and while away

the time with me As Time Goes

By, relieving

moments that tide you over, refreshing

you for another time (which we forget for now, and

put aside for then) -

in a fold in time's fabric), we

shall share a laugh again

while the Monroes and Hepburns and Presleys

look on benevolently, while you

warm the cockles of my heart. : )

Pet peeve

I'm often stuck for an answer when asked about my pet peeves, but I think I've recently got one: I hate reading medical journals that are filled with platitudes, non-specific guidelines and cliches. Things like ''everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison. (Paracelsus)", or "the only certainty is that there is uncertainty", should be reserved for public addresses, philosophical musings or random bloggings where the only responsibility to the audience is to guarantee a wasted time.

If you have to use one, please use sparingly. Just as too much salt causes high blood pressure, too many platitudes aren't doing any wonders for my amygdala.

As a scientist, researcher or medical practitioner, we read journal articles to glean specific information that is applicable to our research or case study. We don't need to know your personal beliefs when we are reviewing pages and pages of literature. Generalisations and conceptual abstracts can be thought-provoking and paradigm-shifting and what-have-you, but in the right context, please.

Don't even get me started on disease aetiology. If I have to reading something along the lines of 'complex interaction of multiple factors', or 'genetic and environmental interplay' one more time...It's either that or it's idiopathic. Yes, we are a load of idiots who don't know what's really going on.

The worst part of it is, as much as we students (or at least, I) complain, I realise that us students do it too. Because we see teachers doing it, we assume it is what they are looking out for (an assumption which is not totally erroneous), and model after it.

I think the one thing I have retained from this semester is that Bob Marley died of acral melanoma. A useful fact for any medical exam - it's why I always ace them. (For the Sheldons (Big Bang Theory) who read this blog, I am now holding a 'This is sarcasm' sign)

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.”

- allegedly by Bob Marley

\Pineapple skies and passionfruit/

I still have those stacks of polaroids in

that old shoebox under the stairs -
                                                   rom back then with nothing to do but

\aughing in sundresses
 running around barefoot
  while the smell of lush grass
   ascends and intermingles with
  sun-dried laundry,
 creating a world where
  everything could be involved
   in great games of make-believe
       and hide and seek could be played
   in the castles we built transcending
 the stratosphere and
glistening with promise, refreshing
mouths melting ice cream
    as tongues meet softness and
   in softness,
  warmth and coolness combine
 unique and sweet
passionfruit tang

                          -ented now,
dusty and faded, dimming gradually sur-
                                                                passed by everything to do but

/-hrow them out

Things I have learnt this holidays

1. A blow dryer is the most awesome invention ever. Seriously. I know this is not the most godly thing to learn at a church camp, but my hair came out manageable and glossy for the first. Time. Ever.
2. Whisterpoop is a swift sharp blow to the side of the head.
3. Fluther is more than two jellyfish.
4. Balderdash is hilarious(!)
5. Baking is therapeutic (perhaps there's hope for me yet as a domestic. Hm. Good joke).
6. Cooking is best done by the recipe.
7. Last, but not least...Your love is amazing. =)

The little pickle jar, it

The little pickle jar, it stood

quite far back on the shelf,

receding from your line of view.

The stock on top is slow to clear,

when middle shelves are not as dear

and easier to get at

from the aisle-way here.

So by the time a hand reached up

and swiped it off the shelf,

the pickles were a little past

the sell-by date,

and not worth the price per weight -

the consumer put it back instead.

The little pickle jar, it had hoped

that that would be the journey home.

It never knew it had gone past

the time when you could use it last.

Instead it was left on its own,

uncertainty its only company.

Where will it go? Will it be thrown?

You may not care, you'll never know -

if it poisons someone else

that's their loss to make:

we only learn from past mistakes.

The little pickle jar is after all

nothing more than condiment

gone uselessly awry.

Life's sine qua non

Not infrequently, I come across a spark of something almost magical. Call it a flash of numinosity, or a sparkle of illumination, or even perhaps sheer aesthetic - it comes in the hearing of a pure voice, or sighting of a beautiful metatarsal arch. It comes in gaining insight into the mind of a genius, or observing the fluid grace with which certain people seem to prepossess.

All this sounds like a very sensorial experience, but I do know that when it happens to me, I cannot pinpoint exactly what senses or cognition I am using to apprehend the situation. What I do know though, is that it speaks to my soul in some inexpressible way. It makes me feel that there must be such a thing as beauty and truth in the world to be able to experience something like this. To feel so relaxed by the stimulation, to feel so excited by the sense of coherence and harmony that these experiences illicit. A thrill, I suppose, that is something akin to love.

Today I experienced such a moment listening to a lecture. The lecturer, a retired professor of anatomy and histology, left me feeling as though I didn't want him to stop. I just wanted to keep listening to him impart knowledge in his perfectly-formed, andante sentences. I was left with the desire to see more of the elegant way he saw biology, for he possessed the very clarity and alacrity I first felt when I started to fall in love with the amazing interconnectedness (and so simplicity) of Nature's way.

I've felt so strongly this way a few times before - famous people like Audrey Hepburn, Sylvie Guillem, Uliana Lopatkina, Beethoven, Richard Feynman, Anthony Grayling come to mind. But even day-to-day people have their sparkle, their je ne sais quoi that I find gives me hope of heaven.

Oh to be...

...listening to good friends playing good music, live

...a dancer in class with a good teacher and pianist

...performing on stage

...able to run

...with someone I can be absolutely comfortable with

...singing and playing the piano

These little comforts I used to take, I can't seem to find.